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

He paid, tipping big, and earned another wide smile from the waitress. “I’ll see you again soon.”

“I hope so,” she said and toasted him with the coffee pot.

Greg headed back to his car, feeling good. He checked he had everything: flashlight, card keys, and codes. And finally, a flat K-bar knife. He didn’t expect to need it for self-defense and if he was challenged, he’d certainly comply with any law enforcement. But the military knives had a stout blade, tanto edge, and were immensely strong. If he needed a knife, a chisel, or a jemmy, the K-bar would do wonders.

He drove up the unnamed road to the facility and then slowed as he approached the wire fence. He had the key to the padlock and got out to unlock and push it back.

He noticed that the padlock was a little hard to turn, which for him was a good sign—no one had entered here for a while.

Greg shut the gate and hung the lock back in place without closing it, and then drove the few hundred yards to the large, flat building. He had no doubt that it extended below-ground—for covert work, best to leave a small footprint above but make use of the below-ground real estate.

Greg eased the car door open and then turned slowly. The sun was now just an orange blush on the horizon. From what he could see, inside the building were no lights, no sound, and the smell was more of the surrounding forest than of any sort of industry or human habitation.

If it wasn’t for the well-kept state of the building, he’d have thought the facility was abandoned. Maybe that was the idea, he thought.

He ignored the large front doors, as he had been told there was a service entrance around the side, and he quickly found the smaller steel door. The code pad took his numbers, a small red light flicked to green, there was a sturdy clunk, and the door popped open. He took one last look around and then entered quickly, shutting the door behind him to stand with his back to it, then just listened.

Inside was darker than Hades itself, and he had no chance of his eyes adapting, so in another few seconds, he switched on his flashlight and panned it around.

He found himself in a storage room with what looked like medical supplies, toilet paper, stationery, and other odds and ends in boxes and crates. There were two doors on the far wall, and his contact had described the layout and suggested the northern door was the one he should take.

Greg went in and quickly crossed through several rooms, down corridors, and ignored an elevator to instead use the fire stairs to drop down two floors to the lower storage and containment areas.

Once again, he needed a code to enter the more fortified area of the facility and eased in to shine his light down a long and wide corridor—it was bigger than he expected and also had more technical equipment.

The final piece of information he was given was a sign-on code for the computer system. He knew that logging in was a risk, because his computer skills were good but not good enough for him to know how to totally erase his visit into the system. But he had no choice—the facility was too big for him to start opening every door and box he found. The online inventory system should tell him what and where immediately.

He started up the computer and typed in the username and passcode. It went blank for several seconds as he held his breath, but then he was presented with a simple and succinct menu. He ran his eyes down the list.

“Bingo,” he whispered. There it was: Eldon specimens – 1977 – 1–22.

He clicked on the link and was given further lists and codes that he knew would match rooms and areas. He clicked on one of the menu options.

“What the hell?” His brows came together as he read.

Billy Allison, aged 12 – full transformation

Adelle Johnson, age 38 – partial transformation

Max Johnson, age 41 – partial transformation

Cindy Carol, age 8 – full transformation

There were 22 names overall—most were children, and the adults were either their parents or close relatives.

There was also another list of suspected transformation candidates that numbered in the dozens but a simple tag of whereabouts unknown accompanied each.

The first group of eight, oddly called guests, were four children and four adults and were housed in Section-F, Room-3. He looked up and saw helpful arrows on walls that indicated which direction that was.

He headed down the black corridor and felt his heart racing as fast as it had done when he was on night-time incursions many years ago. The place was tomb silent and just as dark, and something about it unnerved the hell out of him.

In another few minutes, he found Room-3 and slid the card key down the slot. There was a buzz and a click, and the door popped open. Greg sucked in a deep breath and pushed the door inward.

He stepped inside and the first thing he noticed was that his breath fogged from the cold. The entire room was refrigerated, and from somewhere in the darkness he heard the hum of machines.

Looking around, he couldn’t locate a light but moving his flashlight beam, he saw the room was quite large, save for some operating equipment and also a long steel surgical or autopsy table on one side. One wall also had large upright capsules about seven-and-a-half feet tall, with a line of lights on a pad, and what might have been a glass porthole on the upper front.

He crossed to one and shone his light inside but the glass had either stained or become encrusted in grime and he couldn’t make out anything inside.

He shone his light down to the hanging clipboard and lifted it to read: Ainsworth, Martin, male, age 36 – determination: full transmogrification.

“Transmogrification?” That word