Diary of the Last Seed (3 page)

The banging noise echoed through her room again. Who in the world is making so much noise this early? she thought. Looking out her window to the backyard, she saw her dad. He was building another of his weekend projects. “Why is he up so early building all that crap, it’s not like he is ever going too finished it”. She thought. She was right, her dad had the tendency of starting a project every other weekend, but never finishing it. Like the wooden rocking chair he started last month. After not being able to bend the bottom legs of the chair to make it rock back and forth, he quit. Another piece for his “hoarding collection.” A few times she thought about calling that TV show where they do interventions on hoarders, she always thought her dad fit the profile.

“Well I'm already up”, she thought. She headed down the stairs and into the kitchen to see what her mom had made for breakfast. Emma noticed the missing smell of pancakes, and remembered that her mom was going out. For a moment, she thought her dad may have made breakfast, but then again, he usually didn’t worry about anybody else in the house. “He should have at least made some scramble eggs and toast, but instead he went straight outside. If he was going to spend all day in the backyard, at least some food would have been nice.” She thought.

“Unbelievable, seems like nobody cares about me in this family, the only one that really gets me is Jason. I wish he could spend the night”. She knew better, though. If her mom ever found a guy in her room - she was a dead girl, and Jason would probably be cut in little pieces and fed to the fishes. She had a vivid imagination about possible murder scenarios ever since her mom made her watch a few serial killer movies. She remembered her Dad always kidding around about her mom looking for a way to get rid of him and collecting the life insurance.

He always joked about how she was getting the right tips on how to murder someone. Emma still remembered her mom saying that if anyone ever hurt her children, she will kill them in a slow painful way. That used to creep her out and make her think that she was adopted. But she didn’t have any proof. It didn’t help that the three of them were so different, with a somewhat psychotic mom and a lazy father.  She wanted to leave the house, run away, but she was only sixteen years old. She knew better than trying to run away. And besides that, where would she go? To her teenage boyfriend, who still lived with his parents? A friend? Nope, she had seen too many movies where the girls got kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Well she was kind of forced to watch those types of movies, but not according to her mother. Though, it was really convenient for her mom to start watching the movies right after Emma got home from school. It also didn’t help that her mom was always blaming the victims of all the movies. “If they would have listened to their parents, nothing would have ever happened,” her mom used to say. Even as a rebel, the movies had done their job and prevented her from leaving the house. She always compared it to an invisible force field.  “Two more years until I turn 18, and I can leave this house, find me an apartment somewhere, and not have to worry about all the nagging of my family”.

Emma felt the vibration in her pocket. She had forgot about the cellphone Jason had gave her, in case of an emergency. Well more like “If you get grounded you can use the phone to call me.” After a few seconds, she realized what it was. She took a look around ensuring her Dad was still in the backyard, quickly ran upstairs to her room and lock the door.

“About time, so when are you stopping by? I haven’t seen you for about a week,” Jason said over the phone. “Well, it is your own fault. I told you not to show up at my house and you did anyway,” Emma replied. “Well, if it wouldn’t have been for your Dad, I would have scored with you,” Jason said. All he could think was how hot Emma looked in her bikini the last time they ditched school and went to the lake. Too bad they had some friends with them and he couldn’t make a move on her. They had been dating for a few months now, but Emma hadn’t even let him grab her butt. He always thought she was such a tease, and since he had a one hundred dollar bet with his friends, he needed to get her in bed. All he could do now was smile, and think about how to get her there.

“Wipe that smirk off your face,” Emma said. Even though she was on the other side of the phone, she knew him well enough to know he always had that smirk on his face when he talked about anything related to sex.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Jason replied, letting out a quick laugh. “Well you should know,” she said. Emma knew he would try anything to get her to sleep with him. She came really close a couple of weeks back, but her dad came home early. He had told her he was going fishing.

Since he retired a year ago - more like medical discharge from the army - all he had been doing is milking the Veteran Affairs for a stupid injury he incurred in one of his unit training exercises. Emma’s dad spent most of his time fishing or playing golf with his buddies. But for some reason that day he returned early and caught Jason in Emma’s room. Emma was glad Jason was able to jump out of the window and escape the rage of her dad. Even if his back had an injury, he was still a good runner. But he was too old to be jumping out of the window to chase after Jason. He sure let her have it afterward. He yelled at her for almost two hours.

Afterward, she was grounded, and Jason didn’t even apologize for getting her into trouble. It had been his idea to go back to Emma’s house. She had no plans on letting Jason anywhere near her anymore. Since she’d been grounded every time she talked with Jason on the phone, she liked to mess around with him. Emma didn’t care anymore if Jason thought of her as a tease, it was fine by her, she wasn’t putting out anyway.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jason said.“You should not think of my body as Temple, you should think of it more like an amusement park,” Emma said.

Jason stayed quiet for a second, not knowing if to laugh or be concerned about Emma’s comments. He always thought that she was a virgin or that she had never been with anybody else, but he could be wrong. “Did a cat bite your tongue off, don’t be so shy now,” Emma said. “Whatever, so are you coming or what?” “You know, I'll have to pass on your invitation, they already took my driving privileges for two weeks because of you. I don't want my driving gone for a whole month,” Emma said.

“Whatever,” Jason replied and then hung up.“Well screw you too,” Emma said,

turning off the phone and put it back in her pocket. Emma was trying to persuade her dad to lift her punishment.

Emma been doing the same thing for the past couple of days. She’d been waking up,

getting dressed, and trying to stalk her dad to see if he would let her go out.

But for the past few days, she had failed miserably and instead of letting her off the hook,

her dad had gotten madder and sent her back to her room. Emma walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.

She opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the last apple in sight. She headed out the backdoor into the backyard. All the hammering had stopped, and her dad was nowhere in sight. Emma walked inside her dad’s tool shack. It was the only project her dad had ever finished. The tool shack was a decent twelve by twelve wooden shack. She stepped inside and looked around but couldn’t see her dad. Emma knew he had to be out there because he would never leave his tools outside.

“Dad, hello!” Emma yelled. She didn’t get any response, so she continued to walk around the backyard. She was about to go back inside the house when she heard a noise coming from the back of the tool shack. Emma slowly walked toward the back of the shack. When she turned the corner, she saw her dad’s boots on the floor. “Dad!” Emma yelled. Her dad’s body was twitching as if he was having a seizure, but Emma knew that couldn’t be because he had never had such a condition.

She left him there and ran inside the house to call 911. After a couple of rings, a woman’s voice answered, she sounded in her late 30’s early 40s, and asked what the emergency was. Emma explained the reason for the call and the woman told Emma to turn her dad on his side and let him rest to help prevent shock. However, she would not be able to send any emergency vehicles to her house because all the emergency services were busy.

“What do you mean they’re busy? I am not a freaking doctor; you guys need to send one over here!” Emma yelled on the phone. The female voice on the phone started crying, which confused Emma. “What is wrong, why the heck are you crying?” Emma said. The voice remained quiet for a second or two.

“You have not watched the news? Your dad is not the only one. Hope God gives you strength,” the female voice said and suddenly the dial tone filled Emma’s ear. The woman had hung up. She wanted to turn on the TV, but she needed to go check on

her dad. She didn’t know what the lady was talking about. Why would she say such a thing to a complete stranger, and more importantly, why did she hang up the phone on an emergency? Emma tried to call 911 again, but this time all she got was the busy tone. She dropped the phone and ran outside to check on her dad. To her surprise, he was no longer where she left him.

“Dad!” Emma yelled. After not getting a response, and not seeing her father anywhere around the backyard, she ran inside the house and up the stairs. Emma got to her room and pulled the cell phone from under her mattress. She turned on the phone and tried calling

Jason, but after a few unanswered rings she hung up and tried calling her mom. The phone continued to ring for a few more seconds, until she heard her mom’s voice.

“Hello?” Her mom said.

“It’s Emma, something happened to Dad. He was lying on the floor twitching, and I tried to call 911, but they are not coming, and now dad disappeared,” Emma said.

“You need to get out of the house, NOW!!” Emma’s mom yelled. “Is not safe inside the house, I need you to get in your car, and come to Grams!” Emma didn’t know what was wrong with her mom, and wondered why she didn’t even ask for her Dad. It seemed like she already knew what happened, but that was impossible since her mom was at her grams house. Could her mom be responsible for what happened to her dad? Emma thought, then shook her head. “Naaa,” Emma murmured.

Emma forgot to ask her mom where she had hid the car keys. Since Emma had been grounded for the past two weeks,

her parents had hid the keys in case Emma tried to go out. But she didn’t have time call again, her mom sounded frantic on the phone. Emma went into her parents’ bedroom looking for the keys. She always loved how her mom had set up the room with every single piece of furniture on black and white, even the pictures above their parent’s bed displayed abstract paintings in black and white. Emma opened her mom’s dresser drawers but couldn’t find anything, then she remembered the small black leather box where her dad kept all his watches. He used to collect watches. Emma remembered her dad showing her the very first watch he bought with his own money. Emma used to laugh because it was missing the bands, the battery was dead, and because her dad was so

cheap and lazy, he’d rather by a new watch than replace the battery on the old one.

Emma opened the box, and to her surprise, the keys were there. She didn’t waste any time. She grabbed the keys and headed outside the room. She ran down the hallway and to the top of the stairs. She was about to go down, but she noticed a shadow coming from the dining room. “Hello?” Emma said, though wishing she hadn’t asked, but it was too late now. Whoever was downstairs had already heard her and was coming. She remained still, waiting to see

who it was. “Dad? “Emma said.

She was strong girl but this was too much for her to handle, her eyes got watery and she screamed toward the thing downstairs. It was not her dad anymore, and she knew it. Emma’s dad approached the bottom of the stairs, drooling blood from his mouth, eyes, and

ears. He crawled up the first couple of steps and let out scream that echoed through the house. Emma screamed again, and turned to her right noticing the large flowerpot her mom bough a few weeks ago. She grabbed it, picked it up as high as she could, and sent it flying down the stairs. Emma didn’t wait to see if the pot hit her target or not. She sprinted as fast as she could to her room. Emma closed the door and jumped on her bed. She opened the window and started to crawl out of it to freedom when she heard a hard banging on her door. Emma had seen too many movies to stay there like a fool, waiting to be killed. She spent no time in getting all the way down to the backyard. She had been practicing escaping every other night to be with Jason, so this time was no different except that if she had been keeping record of how fast she climbed down, today she would have beat every other time.

Emma ran toward the driveway, unlocked the car, and got in. For a moment, she felt dumb because she couldn’t find the ignition. She took a deep breath, started the car, and headed toward her grandma’s house. She could hear ambulances and police sirens in the distance, but nothing was in sight. Emma didn’t pay attention to anything on the road. She was glad when she hit I44. Emma knew she had about an hours drive to her grandma’s house. She was surprised to see

the empty highway in front of her. She pushed the gas a little harder, wanting to reach her grandma’s house as soon as she could. “Why the hell am I rushing to Mom, if she is not even worried enough to call me again?” Emma thought.