Seed of Evil

  SEED OF EVIL

  GREIG BECK

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright: Greig Beck 2021

  “Destroy the seed of evil,

  or it will grow up to your ruin.”

  – Aesop

  “The tree of life was always there.”

  – Simon Conway Morris, British scientist

  PROLOGUE

  Circa 12,000 BC – what will one day become Missouri

  In the cool, silver light of the full moon, the tribe watched silently as the captives were led up the stony hill to the cave entrance.

  The men and women were taken during a raiding party on a distant tribe, and the chief stared blankly as the procession moved by him—men, women, and youths, all roped together with hands lashed behind their backs.

  Every time the lake was swallowed by the cave after the ground shook, they needed their human stocks refilled, and they scouted out the other tribes for this precious resource.

  Many wept, some still looked in shock, and a few glared back defiantly. The chief might have felt some twinge of guilt, but he knew that their god needed to be sated, and if it wasn’t these souls, then it would be his people.

  At the cave mouth, one lashed man dragged the group to a stop and yelled back about angering his tribe’s god and ancestors and vowed to curse them to eternity.

  The chief grunted and turned away when the last of them was jerked into the impenetrable darkness of the cave. It didn’t matter to the chief about curses and offending other deities. Because the difference between other gods and his god was that his god was real.

  And their lands were already cursed.

  PART 1 – A NEW BEGINNING

  CHAPTER 01

  Syria, Idlib Province – Kurdish evacuation – 8 years ago

  Captain Mitch Taylor and his team crouched as heavy machinegun fire tore up the ground just out to their left flank.

  Another day in paradise, he thought.

  Mitch had spent three years in med school before heeding the call and enlisting. His medical work was put on hold while he had thrown himself into his military training. He exceled and eventually tried out for Special Forces selection, where he succeeded first try. Mitch was a trained killer of evil, but if called upon, he could also heal.

  A mortar exploded 100 feet from them, and he turned his head away from the falling debris. He and a few dozen Special Forces were on the ground in Idlib to assist in creating a safe corridor for the trapped Kurdish and Syrian refugees. But it was turning out to be a near-impossible task.

  He lifted his head; in front of him, a few of the Kurdish YPG hunkered down, and one of them, Aiisha, turned to smile broadly back at him.

  She was like a lot of the Kurdish women who fought alongside their men; they were as fearless as they were ferocious, and after he’d saved her brother’s life, she seemed to have decided she either owed him something or he was now future husband material.

  “Fuck.”

  Another mortar exploded, closer. He knew the Syrian army was finding their range and they were running out of time.

  “They’re on us; we need to pull back,” his buddy, Henson, yelled to him.

  He waved him down. “Not yet; we can do it.”

  Mitch should have pulled them back, but he knew that nothing was achieved without risk. And what he needed to do would save hundreds. Mitch shook his head.

  “We push through, get under it.”

  Where they were was described as a blood and bone salad—there were Syrian forces, Russian Special Forces, Kurdish YPG, ISIS, Hezbollah, Al Qaida, and too many other small factions to name, all of them armed to the teeth, and all killing, screaming, and dying in equal measures.

  It was no place to be a refugee, and that was why he and his unit, the Asgardian Shields, were on the ground. It was a near hopeless task, and he knew that the reward for doing impossible tasks, and succeeding, was just being handed more impossible tasks.

  They had one more sniper nest to take down, and then they could begin bringing the people through. Mitch and two of his Special Forces buddies moved up to join the small group of YPG.

  It was agreed Mitch and his guys would draw enemy attention and lay down supressing fire while Aiisha and her team would advance, and then more than likely throw themselves head-first into an enemy foxhole with gun in one hand and blade in the other. This place was a mad world.

  Their plans were set, and she turned to smile at him again and put a finger to her lips, and then turned the finger to face him for a moment before making a fist. He nodded and smiled in return—it meant: this kiss for you, I keep it ‘til we meet again.

  His buddies weren’t watching so he did the same back. Okay, he admitted it—he liked her too.

  He allowed their groups to split and Aiisha’s team advanced 50 feet, all the time staying low. But it was then that the back of Mitch’s neck prickled. Around him, the air became still and everything dropped away to silence. Whether it was a soldier’s intuition, or a premonition, he knew something was coming. And it was something bad.

  Suddenly, he also knew for sure—he shoulda pulled them back. It was as if the very air became thick like honey and time slowed down. Specks of dirt seemed to float, burning cinders hung like tiny lights in the smoke-filled air, and open mouths roared things that weren’t words anymore.

  Mitch could only stare as the Russian-heavy mortar, probably an M240 that fired a 286-pound shell, landed in the center of Aiisha and her group. The percussive blast blew a crater 40 feet around, and he was lifted and thrown backward to roll like a broken doll until he struck a rocky outcrop.

  He remembered his face feeling hot and wet, and the flesh sizzling like steak on the grill while even as his eyes burned and his eardrums screamed, he could still hear the moans of the obliterated and dying around him.

  “Don’t leave them, don’t leave them.” There was the salty taste of blood in his mouth as he yelled when hands grabbed his torn and battered body and dragged him away.

  He didn’t know who it was that pulled him out of there. But his military days were over, and Aiisha, and everyone else he knew, were gone forever.

  CHAPTER 02

  Eldon, Oakland County, Missouri – Today

  Michael ‘Mitch’ Taylor pulled to the side of the road and checked his map. Somewhere around here was his turnoff, but he found country roads were like his mother’s pet parakeets—they were beautiful, but they all looked the same to him. For all Mitch knew, he had been going in circles for hours.

  He wound down the window and inhaled the smell of drying grass and wild flowers, and listened to the zumm of cicadas and crickets. He smiled. A new start, he thought.

  He was still only 35 years old but felt like he had already lived two lifetimes—the first was a military life. There, he’d seen more blood and horror to last forever.

  He fucked up, made a bad call, and when he had finally woken up in a hospital all those years ago with his face covered in bandages and his body feeling like it was beaten to a pulp, he felt lucky. He would heal, but Aiisha and most everyone else there that day had either ceased to exist in one loud and pulverizing flash or lay there broken and dying as he was extracted.

  He knew they must have all been obliterated, but deep in his soul were the scars of guilt because he might just have left them behind.

  Mitch was honorably discharged and then embarked on his next life, the civilian one. He had gone back to college to finish his medical degree and there he met Cindy, and suddenly his life became full of color, light, laughter, and love again.

  In eight months, they were married and living in a big city; he working as a general medical practitioner, and she in a downtown law firm. Their lives were stable, quiet, and looking like it’d make for a pretty
damn good future for them. They even talked about kids—one each, a boy and a girl.

  But shit luck seemed to follow him like a dark cloud. Because then Cindy got the lump. He had told her not to worry as she went in for further tests. But secretly he had been scared to death, and when she got the results back, she handed him all the lab reports and looked up at him with glistening eyes that held a plea that his medical knowledge would somehow translate the horrible truth on the pages into something it wasn’t.

  Instead, one glimpse at the dense mass-network in the images and the accompanying medical notes and he had felt his world begin to crumble under his feet—it was stage 4 breast cancer, metastasized, and inoperable, and that little lump had probably been working its way backward into and right throughout her body for years.

  He cried. She grew worse and the treatments just made her last months on Earth unbearable. He cried longer and harder when she finally left him. Left him. He scoffed softly at the expression, as he still couldn’t bear to say: she died.

  Even now, years later, sitting in that car by himself, he felt his vision swim once more with tears. Everyone I love dies, he thought morosely.

  He had wanted to kill himself, had nightmares, drank hard and hit rock bottom, and as he still had his Glock 19, many times he’d pulled it out and just held it as he stared off into the distance, seeing nothing but an endless blankness.

  His shrink had recommended a new start as depression was winning the tug-of-war for his mind. And that was where life number three came in—Eldon.

  Over breakfast one day, he saw the ad: a small town in Oakland County named Eldon was looking for a family practice doctor. He applied and after several online interviews, more grueling than he expected, and then a FaceTime chat over the internet where he met Keith Melnick, the mayor; Karen Powell, vice mayor, who was young but sharp as a razor; Ralph Gillespie, the town attorney and oversized loudmouth; plus several of the other council members, he had gotten the job.

  And now here he was on his way.

  Or soon would be. Mitch took a hand from the wheel and wiped his eyes with his forearm.

  “A new start.” He nodded. “Yep.”

  He cleared his throat and then pulled out onto the road to set off again.

  *****

  The ancient Native American lowered his hands as his chant died away. He stood stone-still for several moments and seemed to be listening for something. After a while, he grunted softly and began to pack away his charms, small drum and beater, and herbs into a large cloth bag.

  He straightened; his task was done, and the drawing spell was working as he sensed the warrior approaching. He then walked slowly down the dry, scrabbly path from the mine mouth and arrived at the road, looking toward the east.

  He had a long way to go before he was home. But he knew that what was coming, would mean he’d soon be back.

  CHAPTER 03

  In another fifteen minutes of sunny, tree-lined roads, and fields of long grass dotted with stands of silver maple, ash, and oak trees, he saw the sign—Eldon, Oakland County, population: 1024—and a turnoff.

  Then in another few minutes more, he started to see houses, then more houses, and then he entered Eldon town central. He smiled as he slowed down, delighted it looked exactly like its pictures.

  He felt as if he just traveled back to a time and place where people smiled and waved at each other, the streets were wide, and the sun shone on every corner of the world.

  He noticed someone behind a window watching him, and gave a small wave, but the curtains were quickly tugged closed. Well, maybe not everyone smiled and waved.

  He chuckled. “Damn outta towners.”

  Mitch pulled in close to the council chambers just across from the local museum. He had been given a few contact names—Karen, the vice mayor; Shelly, his soon-to-be assistant nurse; and Doctor Ben Wainright, 79 years old, looking to retire, and why he was here.

  There were no parking meters and no street signs, which made his grin even broader; this was definitely an advantage over big cities where cars were seen as the enemy and parking them was a luxury for the rich or the lucky.

  He looked across the street. “Vice Mayor Karen first it is then.” He shouldered open his door and crossed the near-empty street to the chambers. It was a square 1960-ish building that was one of the few that was totally painted white.

  Mitch headed directly to the woman at the front desk beside an oak staircase that could have come straight from the set of Gone with the Wind.

  “Hiya.” He gave the receptionist his most charming smile.

  She returned his smile, crinkle-winked with both eyes, and held up a finger as she finished her phone call.

  She disconnected and looked up. “Doctor Taylor.” It wasn’t a question and her eyebrows traveled halfway up her forehead.

  “Guilty.” Mitch held his hands up but was still a little surprised that she recognized him.

  “I’m Gladys, and we’ve been expecting you.” She beamed like a schoolgirl. “You’re as nice as in your pictures. Like a young Ben Affleck.”

  “Thank you—just don’t tell Ben Affleck.” Mitch chuckled. “Ah, is the vice mayor in?”

  “Yes, but she might still be in a meeting. I’ll check if she’s free.” Gladys pressed a button on her phone system, spoke softly for a second or two, and then turned to nod to him. “You’re in luck, she’s coming down.”

  An upstairs door opened and closed, and then came the click of heels on linoleum. For some reason, Mitch automatically sucked in his stomach.

  Karen Powell came down the steps, her dark eyes on him, and she didn’t smile until she stepped down to be right in front of him. First thing he noticed was that in person she was tiny, standing no more than around five feet four inches, give-or-take. The next thing he noticed was she almost seemed luminous, at least to him.

  Take it easy, big guy, he thought as he felt his cheeks redden.

  She held out her hand. “Doctor Taylor, pleased to meet you in person. Online meetings are so impersonal.”

  “Thank you, and likewise.” He shook her hand and found that though her hand was small, her grip was firm. Also, rather than the soft skin he expected, the palms seemed a little calloused. Gym junky, or maybe works a large property, he wondered.

  She tilted her head. “So, you found our little oasis without problem?”

  He grinned. “Yes, and Eldon is as beautiful as I expected, and it’s my pleasure to be here, Vice Mayor. Oh, and please call me Mitch.”

  “Only if you call me Karen.” She watched him. “Just popping in to say hello, or is there something I can do for you?”

  “Just on my way to meet with Doc Wainright and let him know I’ve arrived. As I was passing by, I wondered if you were in.”

  “Good,” she said. “You’ll like Ben, he’s been my family doctor for years. As he’s retiring soon, I guess I’ll be seeing you in the future.”

  “You and the family?” he asked.

  She bobbed her head. “Yes, but it’s just me and Benji—Benjamin, my twelve-year-old son.”

  He waited for a few seconds for her to elaborate but she didn’t, so he just assumed it was too early for him to know those sorts of private details. “Okay, great.” Mitch waited a moment more and then jerked a thumb toward the door. “So, I better, ah, get going then.”

  She continued to watch him with that small smile of hers before suddenly having a thought. “Hey, this weekend the mayor is having a send-off for Ben, so you’re here at the perfect time. Be worthwhile you coming along, meet all your prospective customers.”

  “Okay, yeah, sounds real good.” He gave her a small bow and quickly glanced at Gladys who was on the phone but still watching him. “See you, Gladys.”

  She crinkled her eyes again and this time her nose as well, while carrying on with her cheery phone conversation.

  Back in his car, he read the street sign of the closest cross street to get his bearings. It was Friday and he had planned on che
cking out his practice on the weekend but found that Wainright’s clinic wasn’t that far away. He could drop in on the old boy first, and then if he needed any supplies—food and medicines—before opening mid-week, he still had the afternoon to get everything sorted.

  He pulled out and headed down the street to the first turnoff at Dugdale Street. Then he motored on past antique shops, general stores, and a few empty coffee shops. Finally, he came to a neat little house with a brass plate out front: Ben B. Wainright— Medical Practitioner.

  *****

  The ground shook.

  Just a little.

  And anyone out walking might have just thought it was a truck going by. Or their imagination. But the local pigeon flocks took to the sky, and kept on going.

  *****

  “This must be the place,” Mitch said as he pulled over. He sat in the car for a moment admiring the small cottage that was painted in deep blue, with gloss white for the fencing and balustrades. It looked well maintained and it was obvious that Wainright took pride in its upkeep.

  Always a good sign, he thought.

  He stepped out of his car and smiled. “Mitch, my boy, one day all of this will be yours.”

  He strode up to the gate and pushed it open. The spring-hinge groaned a little, but then eased itself closed behind him as he walked to the open doorway. He stepped inside the reception area and smelled lavender and alcohol.

  Behind the desk, a young woman had her head down with earphones in. Mitch assumed she was transcribing medical notes for Doctor Wainright, but as he neared her desk, he heard the pop music leaking out from the ear plugs and saw she had a magazine open.

  He leaned on the counter. “Shelly Horton, I presume?”

  She looked up, and her eyes suddenly went from bored to alert. She flapped the magazine shut and flashed him a brilliant smile as she pulled the plugs from her ears.