Seed of Evil by Greig Beck (smart books to read TXT) 📗

slowly. On the walls were ancient images drawn all around him in a mosaic that was laid down by the first people. They were those beyond the ancestors of his own tribe—stories going back over 14,000 years.

The old Native American knelt, held his hands in front of him palm up, and then began to chant loudly, his voice sing-song and echoing in the darkness. He let his eyes run across the images painted on the walls that told of a story that had begun so long ago, it was old even as the first people recorded it.

There were the bound warriors who were being led into the cave and then a descent into the deep darkness, to a fate worse than death. There were horrors that waited deep-down and all held dominion over by the ancient one—the Adotte Sakima.

He didn’t want to go back there but knew he would soon be called. He let his chant fall away and shut his eyes.

Johnson Nightbird was aware his physical strength was ebbing with age but in here, he felt the spirits of the ancestors draw close to him, whisper to him, and fill him with light and strength.

He lifted his head. “One more time,” he muttered and rose to his feet.

CHAPTER 10

Eldon Sparkling Mineral Water Company, Eldon

“Boss, Well 24 has just gone dry. And 25, 26, and 27 are running dirty so we shut ‘em all down.” The engineer looked up from his clipboard. “The quake, most like.”

The tiny Shih Tzu under the desk was going bananas, barking like a mad thing at the intrusion.

“Shit-damn. Knew it.” Harry Reith was owner and president of the company, and there was one thing he hated about working in an area riddled with limestone—it damn moved, and when it did, it sometimes swallowed their water.

He turned to the dog. “Shut up, Pompom.” The other thing he hated was when he had to look after his wife’s damn fart-puff of a dog while she went into town.

He sighed. The quakes opened seams or vents and their water sources could drain away, be cut off, or silted up for years and rendered unusable as it clogged the pumping machines. Though they did significant testing to ensure no contaminants got into the water, like heavy metals, silicates, or composite toxins, the upside of their wells being so deep and so old was there was little chance of water-borne bugs in it.

“What about the new well? Site 30?” Reith asked.

The engineer scoffed quietly. “Funny thing that. When the geologists first identified site 30, it looked to only have a few hundred megaliters of water. But after that little shimmy we just had, they tell me that it now stands at several gigaliters—it’s now more like a damn underground sea.”

“Looks like that’s where all our water went.” Reith shrugged. “So, tap it.”

The engineer tilted his head. “Might be a little dirty.”

“You already tested it, right?” Reith asked.

“Yeah, when we first found it, but…”

“You know what we sell other than water?” Reith half-smiled and didn’t wait for his engineer to respond. “That’s right, nothing. So, pump it up, scrub it, filter it, and let’s go. We got orders to fill.”

The engineers snapped the note board shut. “On it, Chief.”

CHAPTER 11

Benji Powell’s pushbike was raising dust as he only just kept pace with his pals. The day was hot, and the four boys and two girls pedaled like demons.

Out front were James and Kenny, followed by Isabella, then him, and at his shoulder was Gemma, and finally lagging behind was big Alf, puffing hard as his stomach bounced as he navigated the small bumps and pits in the old roadway.

It was a brutally hot day, and the small group headed out to the old limestone mine, as there had been stories that had intrigued them following the quake. If true, their summers were about to get a whole lot more fun.

“Here.” James swerved off the road and onto the disused track. The kids all skidded, pedaled on, and stood in their seats to pick up their pace again.

It took another 20 minutes to get to the first fence whose lock had long since corroded away. They headed in, carefully threading their way around old machinery, disused railings, and rusting jerry carts.

They’d all been out here many times in the past, but back then it was dry as chalk dust and just as uninteresting. There had been a few gnarled stumps of weird-looking rock trees and dust covering everything. They’d tried to venture into the mine once, but after only a few dozen feet they gave up, as the darkness had creeped the shit out of them.

Back then, they’d settled for throwing rocks into the old mine mouth and listening as they bounced away into the impenetrable darkness. But this time, when the small group arrived at their destination and stopped in a line, their mouths dropped open. And then slowly curved up into grins.

“It’s like one of those places in the desert…you know,” Alf wheezed.

“Yeah, an oasis.” Benji let his eyes move slowly over the landscape.

The once dry and scrabbly ground out front of the mouth of the mine was set in a shallow depression a few hundred feet across and just two to three deep. It had been dry, cough-inducing, and boring. But not anymore.

Now the depression in the ground was filled with a huge pool of sparkling water. It had a slight greenish tinge, but in the hot sunshine it was so inviting, it screamed at you to come on in.

The quake had only happened a few days ago, but amazingly, the surrounding plants had already improved. The twisted trees didn’t have leaves, but their bark was ribbed, glossy and fuller, and more, muscular looking. There were also patches of thick grass that had sprung up and even small fern fronds touched on the edge of the water.

Benji smiled and softly repeated the word: “Oasis.” And that’s exactly what it was.

James got off his bike and