The Doom Stone by Paul Zindel

Author:Paul Zindel [Zindel, Paul]
Format: epub
Tags: Demonoid Upload 5
ISBN: 9780786811571
Publisher: Lisa's E-Book Collection
Published: 1996-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Jackson looked at the nurse's ticked-off face. "What's going on?"

The nurse clicked her ballpoint. "Does your aunt have any history of mental illness? Is she on an anti-depressant?"

Jackson spun on his heels, broke into a jog down the hall.

"It's not my fault," the nurse called after him. "She asked us for blank paper. I told her she'd have to wait for the gift-shop cart like everybody else."

The door to his aunt's room was closed. Jackson

knocked on the door hard, opened it, and went in.

Dr. Cawley stood in her bathrobe in front of the long high-gloss white wall across from her bed. Her back was to Jackson as her right hand lashed out with bold strokes of a felt-tipped pen-the final details of a turbulent mural. It was a sketch of Stonehenge as it must have looked when its stones were all complete and upright.

Jackson closed the door behind him. "Aunt Sarah, are you okay?"

"Right this minute, yes," Dr. Cawley said without turning around. "In another minute maybe not."

She threw the pen to the floor and grabbed a large black Magic Marker. Her last strokes on the mural were to the largest of the sarsen stones in the middle of the circle.

"Aunt Sarah ..."

Finally she turned to him. "Jackson, I think I'm losing my mind-but in a very thrilling way," she said oddly, brushing her fingers repeatedly through her hair. She smiled, went to him, and gave him a big hug.

"Sit," she told him, indicating a brown plastic-covered armchair.

"I know I'm frightening you," she said, "but I've got to talk while I can. Something's happening to me." She sat on her bed.

"What, Aunt Sarah?"

"It's from the monster's bite. Not rabies. It's like what you get in Europe from the bite of a street animal. A delirium. It's like that. As if Ramid-that's what I've decided to call the creature - has passed some crawling thing into my blood."

"Aunt Sarah, should I get the doctor?"

"No. I've got to tell you this quickly, because sometimes my mind quits on me," Dr. Cawley said. "The problem is that I feel too good, and no doctor around here is going to treat me for that. When my mind's functioning, it's razor sharp. It's like Ramid's blood or saliva was composed of computer chips. Smart blood. I get to glimpse things I didn't know on my own.

"When I came back from my tests, I was lying in bed. I could feel the spirit of Ramid hovering over me like a spirit that had control over my brain. I know this sounds quite mad, but I began to wonder if maybe this new species has evolved its own intelligence. A biomechanical brilliance that allows the monster to control its cells and fluids over great distances. I don't know."

Jackson looked past his aunt to the huge drawing on the wall behind her.

"Aunt Sarah, why did you draw Stonehenge?"

"I drew it because ..."

Jackson watched as the manic brightness of her eyes faded. She opened her mouth as an agony twisted and stole its way into her body.

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