‚The Seventh Child‘ is a To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) inspired horror tale. I wanted to catch a (post) apocalyptic vibe that meets devil worship. It‘s told through the eyes of a child. Or is it?

You can only order it directly at @thegallowstree. I got my copy and love it! I started reading right away. The collection is a great mix of prose, poetry and photography. Perfect for Halloween! 🎃

Here are the first 500 words of the story to get a feel for it:

The Seventh Child

„My world is a circle. The neighborhood of eight houses is arranged around a circular driveway, that leads along a little, round park. The asphalt running past all front doors is cracked and riddled with holes. No one uses cars anymore. That’s what Mr Davis says; That there used to be loads of cars back in the day, then the engines became generators, then the gas became gold, then the metal became rust. I’ve never seen anyone drive, just old carcasses scattered about.

The little round park is green and lush. The lawn is crossed by two walk ways that meet at a well in the middle, a perfect cross. There are a few trees scattered about, but other than that anyone looking out their front windows can see all the houses, the whole neighborhood right there on display. Nothing happens within that circle, without somebody else noticing. That used to bother some. Mrs Wilson called it an invasion of privacy, but nobody has started planting new trees to do something about it. The grown ups have not been talking about it for a while now. I figure, everyone’s just got used to it. I wouldn’t mind more trees to climb on, but the ones we already have are fun.

Me and the other children prefer playing in the more cramped back gardens so the parents cannot watch us all the time. We don’t go outside the neighborhood. The eight houses make up everything that is green. For miles and miles, anything that lays beyond the tree line of the back gardens has withered and died. Mrs Hill says, maybe it’s even more than that, maybe everything else is dead by now. The well is what keeps this little spot of land green and healthy. Pater Hollinghurst promises this regularly in his Sunday sermons. He holds mass in the only house that nobody is living in, the chapel. We all gather here on Sundays. That’s why me and the other children like playing behind the chapel best; because the parent’s aren’t watching.

There’s one other house that had been empty for a while. A few month back, the Moores  up and left. They stripped naked and walked into the unforgiving waste land beyond their back garden tree line. We didn’t see them leave, but my friend Baal, their son who stayed behind, told us afterwards. When Baal asked about it, Pater Hollinghurst explained with patience, that they left to wash away their sins and look for God’s forgiveness.

Three days later the pair had come back as something else.“