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

details from Wainright’s notes. Many of the angel kids were rounded up and taken away, but some were said to have escaped into the countryside and never found. One theory was they entered the mine and went down deep, never to be found again.

“Could he have gone home?” Mitch asked.

“Yes, maybe, but why would he leave us?” She shook her head. “Why would he?”

“James,” Mitch replied.

“Yes.” She spun to him. “He wanted to help find James. Maybe he went looking for him.”

“Or maybe he saw him.” Mitch exhaled through pressed lips. “Look, there’s a chance, uh, that he might have gone to the mine.”

Karen slowly turned, her eyes wide. “To the mine—in the mine? Why would he?”

“I don’t know why, but it’s a hunch. It’s also where Wainright thought a lot of the missing kids went all those years ago.”

She opened the car’s front passenger door. “Then that’s where we’re damn well going. Now.”

“No, we check your home first to make…”

“No, the mine.” She bared her teeth in panic.

“And what if he’s waiting at home? What if we get trapped somehow and he’s left alone?” Mitch reached across to lay a hand on her arm. “It’ll take us 10 minutes to swing by your home.”

She looked like she was going to explode with impatience before she exhaled in a whoosh. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

Mitch sped so it took them no time to return to Karen’s house, and just a single minute more for her to go careening through her place, screaming her son’s name.

“Grab another light,” Mitch yelled while he stood on the front porch, yelling Benji’s name. Karen came barreling out.

“The mine, go,” was all she said.

“Okay, but call the sheriff. I want someone to know what’s going on and where we are.” Mitch climbed in as Karen dragged out her phone.

It took them just fifteen minutes to reach the Angel Mine turnoff, and after a few minutes climbing the rutted track, Mitch pulled over and they climbed out.

He reached into his map compartment and retrieved his Glock. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but as the old saying went: better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. He also grabbed his flashlight he had remembered to replace.

Karen saw the gun and just nodded. Mitch tucked it into his belt at the small of his back and together they headed up.

At the top of the hill, they stopped.

“It’s totally dry,” Karen observed.

“Yeah, that’s right, all drained away again. Thought it’d be the end of our problems.”

Just like what happened back in the 70s, Mitch remembered. It seemed this stuff bubbles to the surface, infects people, and then goes back to where it came from.

Mitch stood staring into the impenetrable blackness of the mine mouth where the tainted water had drained away—back to where exactly? And what was in it that caused the infection and alterations in people? He and Greg never really got to the bottom of it.

He’d been a coward to let Mayor Melnick steamroll him against his better judgment, and it made him feel sick to acknowledge it. Well, Melnick be damned, he was sending everything he had off to the CDC, WHO, or anyone else who would listen as soon as he got back.

It was moving to late afternoon now and the shadows were lengthening—and along with them the temperature was dropping. It was still dry, but there was something else different about the site that Mitch couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“All those petrified trees are gone,” Karen said, frowning. “Someone took them?”

That was it, Mitch thought.

“Maybe,” he said, feeling a twist of anxiety begin in his gut.

Mitch wasn’t sure when the water had drained, but already the outside ground was dry again, and in the dusty earth were numerous tracks.

“People went into the mine, lots of them,” he observed.

Once again, he peered into the charnel darkness of the mine mouth. He didn’t want to go in but knew there was no way he wouldn’t if there was a chance that Benji was down there somewhere.

Karen cupped her mouth. “Benji!” she yelled and walked a few paces closer to the mine entrance. She sucked in a deep breath. “Benji-iii!” This time, it was so loud she went a little hoarse and his name bounced back at her several times before fading into nothingness.

But there was still no reply.

She held her hand out to Mitch. “Give me the flashlight.”

“Where’s yours?” he asked.

She took the flashlight. “I haven’t got one. Only candles.” She fished in her pocket. “All I could find was this.” She pulled out an old silver cigarette lighter. “Was my ex-husband’s.”

Mitch groaned. “Okay, give it to me.” He took it and tested it, producing a small orange flame.

“He’s in there, I can feel it.” Her voice trembled.

He nodded to her. “Don’t worry. If he is, we’ll find him.”

Mitch said a silent prayer. And then together they went in.

CHAPTER 34

“Slow down,” Mitch demanded.

She ignored him and continued to jog along the tunnel.

In little more than 30 paces, the light from the mouth of the mine suddenly seemed a long way back, and up ahead was nothing but impenetrable darkness. Their only flashlight beam was quickly reduced to a pipe of light that only illuminated a few dozen feet, and Karen had to keep sweeping it from side to side to light their way forward.

The mine was quite large at around seven feet of height, but Mitch still had the urge to crouch.

“Wait up,” he said softly, not knowing why he felt the need to whisper. “Point the light at the ground here.”

She did as asked, and they saw the footprints—lots of them—coming and going.

“Plenty of traffic,” he observed.

“Shush.” She paused, concentrating, and then slowly shook her head as she faced him. “I can’t…there’s nothing, not a sound. Maybe they all left.” She turned back to the darkness of the seemingly endless tunnel and sucked in a deep breath. “Benji-iii!” she yelled.

It made Mitch cringe, and he