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

The next room had a disheveled bed pushed into a corner so it seemed old Harlen was sleeping in the back of his shop. The room was filthy, with the sheets yellow and rumpled, and dog food tins and empty meat packets scattered about.

“He was eating dog food?” Greg asked.

“Protein,” Mitch replied, suddenly remembering the state of Hank Bell after Alfie had finished with him. “We might have a problem here.”

The pair moved at near glacial speed and with a silence only learned from Special Forces duty. Mitch felt himself moving into a hyper-alert state just like when on-mission.

They paused at the doorway to the large area at the front of the shop. Light from the glass windows gave them some illumination but with the lights out there were still far too many shadows.

Mitch held up a hand to his friend and stepped just inside the doorway. “Mr. Bimford? It’s Doctor Taylor, are you there?”

They waited for a response, but the only sound was the soft hum of a refrigerator against a far wall.

Greg looked to Mitch and nodded, and both men went into the room, Mitch to the left and Greg to the right. The pair searched the aisles of the shop until Greg called out.

“Got him. Over here.”

Mitch followed the flashlight beam and rounded a line of shelves. It was Harlen, probably. The man was slumped in a chair, empty soda bottles surrounding him, and a shotgun between his knees. The top of his head was missing.

“Ah, shit.” Mitch grimaced. “Poor guy.”

“Guess the old fella’s dog dying was too much to bear.” Greg held the light closer. “Hey, come here and look at this.”

Mitch leaned closer. The top of the skull from the nose upward was missing, and the ceiling above was spattered with a dry, brown crusting. But there was little blood. Or at least little liquid blood or glutinous cranial matter.

Greg held the light into the cavity. “It’s dry. Like he was a year-old corpse.” He moved the flashlight.

Mitch carefully reached out to pull Harlen’s shirt aside and saw the rash. He immediately let it go and looked around, found a wooden spoon on the shelf, and used it to hold the shirt aside.

“That’s no ordinary rash,” he observed. “A little like one of the town kids had on his lower back, but much more advanced.”

Greg lifted his sleeve and saw the rash became more like dark scaling. He looked up. “Like his dog?”

“I want to examine him. If this skin condition was transmitted from the dog to Harlen through a bite, then just staying away from the mine might not be enough.” Mitch let the man’s collar drop. “Might be the evidence I need to convince Mayor Melnick to call in the cavalry.”

“Okay, so what now? Putting my biomedical hat on, I’m going to suggest it’s not a good idea to stick this guy in your car. Or us even to be handling him without at least gloves and masks.” Greg straightened.

“Yeah, I’ll give Sheriff Kehoe a call and then arrange for Harlen to be brought into my rooms for analysis.” Mitch turned about. “Let’s get out of here and get some fresh air.”

CHAPTER 27

Back at Mitch’s practice rooms, Harlen Bimford’s naked body was stretched out on the steel operating table. Greg had acted as the forensic technician and had undressed the man and cleaned his body.

Sheriff Kehoe stood back against the wall with a mask over his mouth and nose and a drained-looking complexion.

Mitch walked once around the body, his training as a physician taking over now. He had been involved in autopsies before and he had two options for approaching his task: the first, the forensic autopsy, was used to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death. But given the top half of the man’s head was blown off by his own hand, that immediately became redundant.

However, the second option, a clinical autopsy, that also involved a human dissection of the abdominal and thoracic regions, delivered more insight into pathological processes and determined what factors contributed to a patient’s death. For example, biological material for infectious disease testing can be collected during an autopsy, and this would be critical for understanding and preparing for any future cases of this thing he had come to know as Angel Syndrome.

“Let’s begin.” His first step was the external examination, and Mitch spoke in a methodical and emotionless tone as he looked over Harlen’s body.

“Obvious manifestation of significant skin trauma caused by immune system response to some sort of allergen, toxin, or microbial intrusion to the system.”

He ran a hand over the arm and then lifted it by the wrist. There was a pebbly rash starting from the hand, but as it worked its way up the arm, the lumps got bigger, and then sharper, until they became like thorns at the upper bicep.

“Thickening of the derma by what seems like keratin, but isn’t.”

He then noted the chest that had developed a hard, scaled texture that ran from the neck down to the pubis. Mitch knocked on it, making a hard shell-like noise. “Epidermal layers are crusted to the point of creating a bark-like…growth.”

“Scleroderma?” Greg asked.

“Sclero-what?” Kehoe asked.

“Scleroderma.” Mitch nodded. “Or possibly some sort of variation.” He looked up at the sheriff. “It’s a rare skin disease that involves the hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues. But it usually affects women more often than men and is also site-specific, not over the entire body—it usually targets the joints, knuckles, and looks more like angry callouses. But old Harlen here is beginning to look more like a spiked tortoise.”

“Never seen or heard of anything like this before,” Kehoe muttered.

Mitch looked up at the sheriff. “I have, in Ben Wainright’s notes.”

“Or on Harlen’s dog,” Greg added.

Mitch nodded. “That reminds me.” He checked the man’s arm and quickly found the bite. It seemed to have been healing nicely and there was no sign of infection surrounding the wound.

“From looking at this,