Seed of Evil Greig Beck (top young adult novels txt) 📖

things over his skull and dropping his hand, he saw his fingers come away covered in hair. He didn’t know what it meant, but it scared him a little.

“Mom!” he yelled.

Shouting made his head throb even more. He raked his hand over his head again and drew an even bigger clump of hair.

“Mo-oooooom….!”

The door opened and his mother came straight in and flicked on the bedside lamp. The sudden burst of light was like a dagger into both eyes that penetrated his brain.

He screwed his eyes shut tight, expecting them to water, but there seemed no fluid in them at all. Keeping his eyes closed, he just held up his hand.

“What happened to your hair?” Andrea reached forward to grab his head and run her hands over it. “Does it hurt?”

“Just my eyes. Turn the lamp off, please,” he asked.

She did and then hugged him. “Get dressed and I’ll take you down to see the new doctor.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Just tired now.”

She seemed to think for a moment. “Well then, we’ll see him first thing, okay?”

“’Kay.” He nodded, distracted. “Goodnight.”

She kissed him and went out but left the door to his room ajar. Kenny lay in bed facing his window. He could hear something, he was sure of it—a calling or singing, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard in his life. It took away the pain in his head and replaced it with…magic.

He drifted off and smiled at the things it whispered to him, that it told him to do, and what it said he could become.

He knew then that everything was going to be fine.

CHAPTER 14

“Creepy kid,” Shelly said out of the side of her mouth.

Mitch glanced at her. “Don’t talk about our patients like that. Especially when they’re feeling unwell.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Gloves, hoodie up over his head, and dark sunglasses at ten years old? And screaming when the light got in his eyes. Yeah, unwell is an understatement. What was up with him?”

“Shelly,” he warned.

“Oh, come on.” She smiled. “I have to type up his records anyway, so you might as well tell me now.”

He sighed, knowing she was right. “Young Kenny Hatfield, nothing serious, just some sort of flu-like virus, I presume. Rash, dry mouth, sensitivity to light. Bed rest for a few days, plus I’ve given him a shot of B12, and some general antibiotics for now.”

She nodded. “Don’t forget the holy water.”

He glared at her and she held up her hands. “Okay, okay, last time I crossed the line I had to do about 50 years’ worth of photocopying in a month.”

He chuckled. “That’s what happens when you set fire to a doctor’s surgery. We have 100 ways to make you suffer.”

She scoffed and grinned back at him.

Mitch suddenly had a thought and turned to her. “Hey, what copying?”

She waved an arm around. “Everything, all of it. All of Doctor Wainwright’s files. He didn’t trust them being all at the surgery anymore.”

“All of them?” He stood.

“Yeah.” She frowned. “He must have told you.” She winced. “Oh…sorry.”

“Did you happen to copy the contents of the old cabinet? The antique wooden one in his office?” His eyes gleamed.

She nodded. “I think so.”

He crossed to her. “Where are they all now? Are they cataloged?”

“The library storage facilities. And yes, I’m very good at filing,” she replied.

“Then I have a job for you. Right now,” he said quickly.

She groaned.

“I want you to go to the library storage facility and retrieve the box or boxes of copied material just from the old antique filing cabinet. Can you do that, please?” he beseeched.

She shrugged. “Sure, no problem.”

*****

Mitch sat staring at the pile of brown, nondescript folders on his desk. None of them were labeled with names or places, but instead there were simply dates and sometimes numbers.

But inside were notes, and pages and pages of the small, tight writing style of Doctor Ben Wainwright. Some had Polaroid photographs, and all mostly dated from early 1977.

Many were headed: Angel Mine Syndrome with a case number, and Mitch tried to get his head around the story they told, especially considering the man had told him to his face that there were only a few minor instances of infection and skin irritation.

But the reality was, back in 1977 there was some sort of horrifying outbreak that primarily afflicted the children. Over 20 boys and girls fell ill to a condition that drove gross deformities in the skin, muscle, and skeletal structures and also seemed to affect their thinking, making them exhibit psychotic behavior. At first, he thought the children were incongruously labeled: angel children, or just, angels.

Until later.

The first case was of Billy Allison who didn’t live that far from where Mitch lived now. His mother Mary had brought him in with a rash on his lower back. In a few days, it had progressed to significant crusty extrusions that coated most of his body and much of his face.

There was a shadowed and grainy color Polaroid that showed a small figure in bed. Mitch squinted and was sure the eyes were yellow—not like jaundice yellow, but almost a glowing, nocturnal stare.

“Jee-zuz,” he whispered.

Some of the other pictures of different children were impossible to comprehend maybe because of the poor camera equipment used. But as far as Mitch could make out, many didn’t look like children anymore at all, but instead some sort of creatures assembled from bony plates and tree bark. He grimaced at the next images—and some were worse.

Now he understood where the “angel” term had come from. A few of the kids had things growing from their backs that resembled branch-like structures but spread wide like wings. Mitch blew air between his pressed lips.

“Holy Hell,” he whispered.

There was nothing Mitch knew of anytime or anywhere that could do that to people. Even severe mutagens that scrambled DNA and cell structure acted slowly, and usually ended with the body simply corrupting with cancerous cells, not looking like it was trying to remake