Seed

by Ania Ahlborn

  He stood there for what felt like an eternity, an overwhelming sense of anger unraveling inside his stomach. He was a father, a husband, the protector of his family and his home, and here he was, afraid to stick his head back inside his daughters’ room, allowing this thing, this shadow, to consume his children rather than facing his fear.

  He took a breath. Shoved the door open. Looked inside.

  Nothing.

  Closing the door behind him, he was both relieved and sure he was wrong. He’d seen something crouched in the corner next to Charlie’s bed. He knew he had. And while anyone else would have blamed it on too many horror movies, Jack couldn’t blame it on anything but his own memory.

  He had seen that very figure perched at the foot of his bed when he was a kid; black skin, scaly like a lizard’s, small black horns poking out of its head. Its face, so eerily human, but yet so unearthly that it had certainly come from the very pits of Hell itself. When it smiled, its crooked mouth curled all the way up to its eyes, displaying a maw full of long, jagged cannibal teeth. And those eyes: they were nothing but vacant hollows.

  Jack stood outside the girls’ door, chewing on his thumbnail. He needed a plan, a way to keep their lives from disintegrating into impossible chaos. It was what had happened with his own family, his own mother convinced that he’d gone completely insane. In the end, Gilda couldn’t look at him. Stephen tried to be strong, but during those last few days his eyes had betrayed him, radiating the fear he was so desperate to hide.

  Jack and Aimee were headed down the same path. Aimee would eventually be too terrified to stay in the house. She’d lose her mind or run away, unable to take anymore, and Jack would be left alone. But never really alone, that voice reassured him. I’ve always been here, and I’ll never leave.

  The morning after Gilda’s bout of hysteria, she dug through the bedroom closet like a dog trying to sniff out a bone, and eventually surfaced with an old Folgers Coffee tin. She shoved the tin into her purse before grabbing Jack by the arm and tossing him into the back of their old yellow hatchback.

  The car came to a stop in front of a three-story building. By most standards it was relatively small, but in their neck of the woods it was tall enough to be considered a skyscraper. Gilda gathered up her purse, her coffee can, and her kid, and marched into the office building with the confidence of a commandant. Stopped by a woman working the front desk, she trudged up to the secretary, grabbed the coffee can out of her purse, and dumped it onto the receptionist’s counter. Jack had never seen so much money in his entire life. There were twenties and fifties, and he even saw a hundred dollar bill crumpled up with the rest. It was his momma’s life savings, and here she was, ready to give it all up.

  “This is all the money I’ve got,” she told the now stunned receptionist. “It’s all my money and I ain’t rich, you understand me?”

  The secretary, who was blonde and well dressed and had the reddest mouth Jack had ever seen on a woman, said nothing. She simply sat behind her protective barrier and tried to find the right words.

  “There’s something wrong with my boy,” Gilda told her, her voice cracking, threatening another emotional collapse. “I need to see a doctor.”

  “I can schedule an appointment,” the receptionist assured, but Gilda wasn’t having it. She shook her head and swallowed her tears and looked that woman straight in the eyes, unrelenting.

  “I don’t think you understand me,” she said, her tone deadly serious. “I’m not here to make an appointment. I’m here to see a doctor.”

  “Ma’am, you can’t just come in here and see—“

  Gilda slammed her palm flat against the counter, loud as a gunshot. The red-lipped woman jumped, her manicured hands flying up to her heart as if to protect herself from the crazy woman with a can full of cash.

  “I just did come in here,” Gilda told her. “So why don’t you scurry your pretty little self up to your boss’ office and tell him he’s got an emergency appointment with a boy who needs his help?”

  The receptionist opened her mouth to protest.

  “Just do your job, sweetheart,” Gilda said under her breath, “and don’t piss me off.”

  The blonde woman snapped her mouth shut. She looked at Jack, then shuffled off in a hurry. Jack watched her disappear around a corner, then took a seat in the waiting area, sure the cops would come.

  Jack woke to the sound of dishes clanging against the side of the sink. He blinked against the rectangle of sunlight that shone into his eyes, moving an arm to shield himself from the glare. The muscles in his neck had petrified during his night in the wingback chair.

  Charlie ran into the living room in her bare feet, twirling in a bright white sundress he hadn’t seen before. In the morning light she looked like an angel, the light casting a halo around her hair. Smiling wide, she jumped into her father’s lap, and pain shot up his neck. He exhaled a groan.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?” she asked, surprised by the pained expression that seized his face.

  “Just a stiff neck, sweetie.” He tried to rub the frozen muscles loose, but the more he rubbed the more it hurt.

  Charlie suddenly looked serious. “Daddy, did you sleep in the living room?”

  “Just for a few hours,” he answered through gnashed teeth.

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know, baby. I came out here to read and fell asleep in my chair.”

  Charlie’s eyes drifted across the room before returning to her father.

  “What book?”

  “A boring one.”

  “But you just woke up, and there’s no book…”

  “I put it back.”

  “But you said you fell asleep.”

  “I put it back before I fell asleep.”

  “Then how come you didn’t go back to bed with Momma?”

  There were cons to raising a smart kid.

  Jack’s patience was short. His nerves were frayed. He didn’t respond to Charlie’s question, kneading his neck instead.

  “Daddy, did you put the table upside down?”

  He blinked at the oversight. The table was still in its place, legs stabbing up into the air, unmoved. They hadn’t bothered trying to flip it over, knowing their efforts would be useless. Jack would have to call Reagan for help.

  “Yes,” Jack said after a moment. “Yes I did.”

  “How come?”

  “Because one of the legs was loose. I didn’t want it to fall on top of you or your sister. What’s your mother doing?” An attempt to change the subject.

  “She’s making breakfast. How come the leg got loose?”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t know, Charlie. Why don’t you go help your mom in the kitchen?”

  “Help her do what?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Just go ask her if she needs some help, would you?”

  Charlie didn’t move for a few seconds, sizing him up, before abruptly dashing down the hall to the kitchen. A second later she ran back into the living room with a message from Aimee.

  “Momma says you better get ready.”

  “Get ready for what?”

  “She says you gotta take a shower and get dressed because we’re going to church.”

  Jack was completely caught off-guard. Of the years Jack and Aimee had been married, they had gone to church all of three times. Two of those times were in the first year of their marriage—Christmas and Easter. Patricia, who liked to think herself a God-fearing Catholic, insisted that if he wanted to marry her daughter, he’d be attending church the way Aimee had her entire life. The third time was for Abigail’s baptism two months after she was born—another one of Patricia’s demands. Charlie hadn’t been baptized.

  “You’re inviting the devil into that girl,” Patricia had warned. Six years ago, Jack called it bullshit. Today he wondered how he could have been so stupid.

  Jack reluctantly pushed himself out of his chair and shuffled into the kitchen. Aimee stood over the stove in a blue polka dot dress,
an apron tied around her waist. She had curled her hair in 1950s style—June Cleaver poised over the stove in high heels and full makeup. Sensing his presence, she glanced over her shoulder at him, the crackle of bacon completing the morning’s soundtrack.

  “We’re leaving in half an hour,” she said.

  “I heard.” Jack still couldn’t believe it. Aimee had been the one who had given up on the idea of religion in the first place for no reason other than to declare war on her parents. For her to turn to God for answers—something she knew would overjoy her mother—was unlike her. She was stubborn, and she’d do just about anything it took to make sure she had a foothold over Patricia’s head.

  Aimee gave Jack a look—Don’t question it—and turned back to the stove. Jack turned to make his way to the bedroom, stopped when he saw Charlie sitting dead center in the middle of the overturned table.

  “Daddy,” she said. “None of these legs are wobbly.”

  “Oh good,” Jack murmured to himself. “I must have fixed it in my sleep.”

  In towns as small as Live Oak, folks were tightly knit. They knew who attended church and who didn’t; and those who didn’t were in desperate need of saving. It was no surprise when all eyes went to Jack and Aimee as they stepped out of Arnold’s Oldsmobile.

  “This is a bad idea,” Jack muttered under his breath. Aimee, on the other hand, had decided to play it cool, to just walk in like they owned the place. Jack didn’t think that was exactly the best plan. Strutting into the wrong church with your nose in the air could get you crucified.

  Jack pulled Charlotte out of her car seat and met Aimee and Abigail on the other side of the Olds.

  “What’s the point of this again?” he asked in a whisper.

  “We need guidance,” Aimee said, her voice low.

  “Can’t we get that somewhere else? You know, like therapy or something?”

  “Therapy?” She raised an eyebrow at his suggestion. “What’re you saying?”

  “What? Nothing. I’m not saying anything,” he backpedaled. “What I’m saying is… it’s a little weird ask God for help because our dog ate some popcorn. That’s what I’m saying.”

  Aimee slowed her steps, her children’s hands firmly held in her own. She leveled her gaze on her husband and narrowed her eyes.

  “What are you saying, Jack?” she asked again. “It was Nubs? Nubs scattered the popcorn all over the living room floor when I wasn’t looking? I know what I saw. Next you’ll blame the table on Nubs, too.”

  “Nubs made the leg wobbly?” Charlie asked.

  “He probably ran into one of them with his face,” Abigail chimed in. “You know how he runs and can’t stop on the floor.”

  “Like ice skates,” Charlie said with a bounce.

  “I just think this is weird,” Jack said. “What are we going to do here, tell the priest that weird shit is—”

  Aimee cut him off with a glare. Jack glanced at the girls – they had heard, of course they’d heard – then rerouted.

  “—stuff is going on?”

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do here,” Aimee admitted, releasing the girls from her grasp as soon as she spotted Patricia close to the front doors. The girls ran to their grandmother and Aimee turned her full attention to Jack. “I don’t know why I suddenly needed to come to church. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know what to think or what to expect. So what do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said after a moment.

  “Well then you know as much as I do.”

  “Aimee.” Patricia’s voice cut through their conversation. She bridged the distance between them and Aimee gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “And Jack?” Pat raised an eyebrow, making it clear that Jack’s presence was truly unexpected. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “The girls wanted to see you,” Aimee lied. “We figured it was a good time.”

  Sitting in a pew toward the front of the church, Patricia kept her arms around both girls’ shoulders, Aimee kept her eyes on her hands, and Jack couldn’t help but imagine the worst. When it came to dark forces, Hollywood had its typical formula—a cliché that had him searching for the signs he’d seen on the silver screen. Everyone knew demons didn’t like the house of God. They couldn’t stand the sight of holy relics, couldn’t stomach being in the presence of a priest or a crucifix.

  Jack sat beside his wife, listening to the dull hum of the sermon that eventually became little more than background noise to his thoughts. He half expected to hear Patricia’s scream cut through the church as Charlie fell victim to a fit of convulsions, all before the priest uttered the word Amen. He imagined his youngest daughter running down the center aisle toward the pulpit, her eyes black and her hair whipping behind her like Medusa’s snakes; the priest splashing holy water in front of him, protecting himself, creating a barrier blessed by God and His Angels; pictured him tearing the crucifix from around his neck and pressing it to Charlotte’s forehead only to have her exhale a hiss of pain.

  None of it happened.

  An entire hour of sitting in a pew, waiting for the floor to burst open like an infected wound so the Devil himself could crawl out and steal Charlie away, and nothing. The monotonous droning went on without incident.

  By the time mass was over, Jack was exhausted and Aimee was somehow assured that from then on everything would be okay, that sitting in church for sixty minutes would somehow cleanse them of any mysterious goings-on; that life would go back to business as usual. She felt so confident that she happily socialized on the church’s front steps, laughing it up with old family friends she hadn’t seen in years.

  The more he watched her the more he remembered his own mother trying this same tactic. Stephen had protested, insisting that it was a ridiculous idea, that organized religion was nothing but a sham. But Gilda knew her son’s problems weren’t of this world: they were the work of the Devil, and only God could rid him of such a curse. Here, the tables were turned. Jack knew what was plaguing Charlie. He knew his mother was right in turning to prayer. But he also knew she was wrong about one thing: God hadn’t been able to help Jack—He hadn’t even tried—and He wasn’t going to help Charlie either.

  On the way home, they stopped at an ice cream shop. It was Charlie’s and Abigail’s favorite place—a charming 50s themed store that specialized in sundaes, shakes, and floats. They played Elvis Presley and Fats Domino on a loop and the girls that worked the counter wore their hair in high ponytails and tied pink kerchiefs around their necks.

  Climbing onto red vinyl-covered stools at the soda bar, Charlie ordered a strawberry shake and Abby got a scoop of vanilla with hot fudge, sprinkles and a cherry. Aimee and Jack shared a banana split, and amid all of that sugar and syrup they were, for a moment, the perfect family fresh from Sunday mass.

  The moment didn’t last long.

  “Can I have your cherry?” Charlie asked her sister, muffling her words around the bright red Maraschino in her mouth.

  “No way,” Abby said, pulling her ice cream dish closer to her chest.

  “You don’t even like it.”

  “Do too. You already had yours.”

  “I want another one,” Charlie said and shot her arm out, making a pass at Abigail’s cherry stem. But Abby was quick. She jerked the dish away just in time, leaving her sister empty-handed, with a sour look on her face.

  “Give it to me,” Charlie said flatly, her voice low.

  Abby hesitated, looking over her shoulder at their parents.

  “What’re you going to do?” Charlie asked quietly, her eyes narrowing into a squint. “Tell on me?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Abby asked.

  “Because,” Charlie murmured. “I’m your sister. So give me that cherry or I’ll tell on you.”

  Abigail wrinkled her nose, not understanding the threat.

  “Fine,” Charlie smirked, abruptly sliding her arm across
the counter, knocking her strawberry shake to the floor. The heavy glass shattered with a wet thump, spraying the black and white floor tiles with bright pink while Elvis growled You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.

  Aimee jumped from her seat, nearly knocking her and Jack’s own sundae to the floor. “Oh my god.” The words reflexively tumbled from her throat. “Charlie, look what you did!”

  Abigail sat frozen on her stool, staring at the broken glass on the floor, unsure of what just happened.

  Charlie’s mouth hung open, feigning shock. Her bottom lip began to quiver. Her eyes went glassy with tears. A second later she let out a wail so pitifully wounded, anyone who hadn’t seen exactly what had happened would have been convinced of the six-year-old’s innocence.

  “Abby did it,” Charlie sobbed. “She wanted my cherry and I said no and I put it in my mouth and ate it, and she got mad and pushed my shake down.”

  Abigail stared at her sister, too stunned to react.

  “Abby!” Aimee grabbed her by the arm and yanked her off the stool. “You’re going to clean this up, you understand?”

  “Ma’am, it’s okay.” The girl behind the counter forced a smile, having seen plenty of accidents like this before.

  “No, it’s not okay,” Aimee said, her eyes never leaving Abby’s face. “What’s wrong with you?” She shook Abby by her arm. “You’re grounded, young lady. And you better believe your sister’s shake is coming out of your allowance.”

  It was Abby’s turn to burst into tears. She wrung her arm out of Aimee’s grasp and ran out of the shop, humiliated and betrayed. She ran to the car, sunk to the ground, and sobbed into her knees.

  Aimee pulled Charlie off of her stool and pressed her youngest daughter’s tear-stained face into her neck.

  “Calm down,” Aimee told her. “It’s alright. Here.” She plucked Abigail’s abandoned sundae off the counter, holding it out for Charlie to see. Charlie wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand and sniffed, staring mournfully at the cherry atop her sister’s ice cream.