Seed of Evil by Greig Beck (great reads .txt) 📕

If anyone could tell him what the hell he was dealing with, it was Greg Samson.

It was late, 9 pm, and Mitch was still in his office and hunched over his desk. In front of him were Wainright’s files about the syndrome that affected Eldon back in the late seventies, and this time he pored over each page with a forensic intensity.

The contamination had come out of nowhere; one minute everything was normal and the next, the kids were getting sick.

He read more about the symptoms and became more and more convinced that the thing that had been hiding in Hank Ball’s attic that attacked him and ate their cat was more than likely his ten-year-old son, Alfie.

He made summary notes as he read the documents, listing anything that he thought might be relevant or worth following up. When he finished, he sat back, used a hand to rake his hair back from his forehead, and read down his list of bullet points:

Kids infected

Angel Syndrome

Symptoms—rash, hardening of epidermal skin layer, loss of appetite, psychotic behavior

Johnson Nightbird

And finally:

Adotte Sakima—the tree god

He sat staring at the old Native American’s name and thought of the weird statue-like petrified structures in the museum that he had assisted in setting up. Was there a connection? he wondered.

“Jesus!” The phone suddenly ringing in the tomb-silent room made him jump inches from his seat. “Calm down, will you?” he ordered himself and grabbed up the phone.

“That you, Stitch?”

Mitch grinned from ear to ear upon hearing his friend’s voice. Stitch—shortened from Stitches—was the nickname he was given when he was in the hospital and Greg had caught sight of him just after he regained consciousness—he was covered in bandages, tape, and more stitches than he could count, hence the name.

“Sure enough, Greg, good to hear from you, buddy.” He sat back.

“Glad I caught you, what time is it there?” Greg asked.

Mitch checked his watch. “Now? Nine-thirty, not late.”

“How’s Eldon treating you? Is it as good as the town images I’m looking at on my screen right now?” Greg asked.

“It’s better.” Mitch then gave him a thumbnail overview of what the town was like, the people, and then what was going on. He finished with the retrieval of the claw, or tooth, or whatever it was, recovered from Hank Bell that he had sent him.

“Yeah, that’s the weirdest damn thing ever,” Greg replied.

“Was it human or animal?” Mitch asked.

Greg exhaled. “You know, Mitch, I’m not really sure. For a start, the sample you sent seemed to have all the hallmarks of very ancient, petrified wood, and therefore should have been devoid of DNA. But it wasn’t. When I extracted out the DNA fragments, I found that it was like a mish-mash of different kinds of things—a chimera.”

“Chimera,” Mitch repeated the word. He knew the term; in Greek mythology, a chimera was a monstrous, fire-breathing hybrid creature with the parts of more than one animal, such as lion, goat, and snake. But in modern medical terms, a chimera was a single organism made up of cells from two or more individuals. That meant it contained two sets of DNA with the entire code to make two separate organisms.

“You mean it was a mix of two people’s DNA, like a father and son, right?” Mitch asked.

“No, and normally about this time I’d be checking to make sure this wasn’t an elaborate prank, but now I don’t think the sample you gave me could be faked. The thing about DNA is it’s the building blocks for everything organic and every cell contains the good old familiar double helix twisted ladder. Both animal DNA and plant DNA molecules are made from the same four chemical building blocks called nucleotides.”

“Yeah, got that.” Mitch sat forward and meshed his fingers.

Greg went on. “But, the difference between mammalian or any animal DNA and plant DNA is how the four nucleotides in the DNA are arranged. It’s their sequence that determines which proteins will be made. The way the nucleotides are arranged, and the information they encode, decides whether the organism will produce scales or leaves, legs or stalk, skin or bark.”

“Oka-aaay.” Mitch waited.

“Mitch, this damn thing is a chimera of totally separate species’ DNA. It has in its scrambled code elements in the helix that are nucleotide signatures for both mammalian and plant DNA.” He scoffed. “I’m looking right at it, and I still don’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Greg sounded like he sat forward. “Listen, Mitch, don’t quote me on this, but it looks like it’s halfway on a transition. One seems to be turning into the other—plant to animal, or animal to plant. I can’t tell which.”

Mitch felt his stomach flip when he remembered Wainright’s notes about the Billy Allison kid he described and his metamorphosis.

He gripped the phone harder. “Greg, this is important—the mammalian DNA, was it once human?”

The military scientist paused for a moment. “It might have been, yeah, once.”

Mitch sat back and shut his eyes. He bet his last dollar that thing came from the kid, Alfie. That somehow, he had been transformed or was transforming…into something else. But into what?

Mitch felt like his brain was fried and couldn’t think straight. “Thanks, Greg, I gotta go. But as always, you’re a big help to me.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Greg shot back. “Where did it come from? This thing is a medical anomaly of outstanding importance. I need to know more.”

Mitch nodded. “I know, I know. But not right now. I’ve got to sort this out in my head first.” He took a deep breath. “One more thing—please keep this to yourself for now, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, okay. Just let me know if you need anything else. I’m always here for you, bud,” Greg said. “Just don’t forget us here in Nebraska. Got a cold beer waiting with your name on it.”

“Okay, and thanks, Greg…” A sudden thought came to him. “…Wait, there is something that might fill in some of the missing pieces to this puzzle. Do you still have