by Tom Pawlik
“Research?”
“Yes, for some time now Dr. Henderson has been working to find a way to synthesize perilium,” Vale said. “Our goal is that someday we’ll be able to manufacture enough for anyone who needs it.”
“Very noble. I’d be curious to see his research.”
“That could be arranged,” Vale said.
“And what about you?” George said. “What’s your role in the ‘community’?”
“Balance,” Vale said with a half smile. “I maintain the balance between secrecy and progress. If word of perilium got out prematurely, we would be overrun by hordes of scientists and businessmen. Well-meaning though they may be, they would ruin the delicate balance I maintain with the N’watu. I’m trying to respect their culture while attempting to—”
“Exploit their knowledge?” George raised an eyebrow.
Vale’s expression darkened momentarily, but then a thin smile curled on his lips. “Think about it, George. A day is coming when we can potentially wipe out all disease. When cancer and diabetes and even Alzheimer’s become things of the past.” He leaned close, and his tone grew serious. “Imagine what kind of world that would be.”
George looked across the room, his thoughts coiling around Vale’s words. What kind of world indeed. Free from sickness and disease and the stigma that accompanied them. He’d always thought such dreams were the realm of wishful thinkers or religious hopefuls.
He felt Vale’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m offering you the chance to be a part of it, George.”
George watched Miriam laughing as she chatted with Loraine and Malcolm Browne and the Huxleys. Just a few days earlier she’d been all but a stranger to him. But now it was as if he’d gotten her back from the dead. This perilium was perhaps the most significant discovery in the history of the world. Its impact would be enormous. How could he not be involved?
Amanda came up to Vale and said softly, “We’re ready to eat.”
Vale called for attention. The lights dimmed, and everyone took their places around the main candlelit table with Vale at the head and George and Miriam sitting to his right. Numerous covered platters had been set out along with several bottles of wine. But before anyone began eating, Vale stood and raised his glass.
“My friends, it gives me great pleasure to welcome George and Miriam Wilcox into our circle of fellowship. As most of you know, Miriam was suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s when she arrived the day before yesterday. Just two short days ago she could barely recognize her husband of fifty years, and yet now she sits among us completely restored. Their marriage has been made whole again, and she becomes a privileged recipient of nature’s greatest miracle.” He turned to George and Miriam. “May you be blessed to enjoy a long and healthy life together.”
“Hear, hear,” Max Dunham said to a chorus of clinking glass.
Amanda circled the table, lifting the covers off the platters to reveal steaming vegetables, fresh-baked dinner rolls, and a large salver of meat. Fillets and tenderloins were stacked high on the plate.
All of them quite raw.
George suppressed a gasp. Was something wrong? Was this some kind of sick joke? Miriam seemed repulsed as well and clutched his arm. George looked around the table, but no one else appeared to be disturbed by the sight. Everyone was serving themselves and shoving forkfuls of the red, bloody meat into their mouths. Vale was enjoying a particularly thick fillet, mopping the blood up with a dinner roll. He seemed to notice George’s look of disgust and smiled. “I see our custom doesn’t sit well with you.”
George grabbed a roll. “I guess I just prefer my steak grilled.”
Vale clucked his tongue and slipped another forkful of meat into his mouth. “Did you know that the Inuit in the Far North eat raw meat almost exclusively? So do the Masai of Africa. Both of these cultures are known for their extraordinary health and freedom from disease.”
“Still . . . if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with cooked meat.”
“Suit yourself. I can have Amanda put something on the grill.”
“Actually,” George said, “it’s all right. I’ll be content with vegetables and some rolls.”
Malcolm Browne was seated across from George. He wiped a few drops of blood from his chin. “You know, I was the same way when I first arrived. But I discovered it’s an acquired taste.”
“So I’ve heard.”
George was no longer hungry. The Inuit notwithstanding, this was one custom he was definitely not going to adopt. Miriam, however, was staring at the platter. George watched her expression slowly turn from horror to curiosity as she studied the others dining on the raw flesh.
He leaned over and whispered, “Tell me you’re not thinking about trying that.”
Miriam’s lips tightened. “I’m starving.”
“So have some vegetables.”
“Haven’t you ever felt a craving for something? A certain kind of food? And no matter what you try, nothing else seems to satisfy it?”
George was mortified. “You’re not serious. It’s raw.”
Miriam looked away. “Just a little taste.”
She reached out and plucked a small fillet off the platter with her fork, then sliced off a thin piece while George looked on, dumbfounded. She doused it with table salt, raised it to her lips, paused a moment . . . then put it in her mouth. George watched her chew on the morsel. Her eyes closed and George’s widened. She looked like she was actually enjoying it! She carved off a second slice. Her expression looked like a person dying of thirst getting her first sips of cold water.
Vale took a drink of his wine. “The human body craves protein, George. It needs it to survive. We’re built from it, after all. There may be other sources—nuts and legumes and such.” He grinned. “But nothing provides the raw material our bodies need like real, fresh meat.”
George was feeling slightly faint. “Fine, so why not cook it? At least sear it a little.”
“The body assimilates the protein more readily when it’s ingested raw,” Vale said. “Understand that as perilium accelerates the rate at which the body repairs itself, it naturally requires a ready store of raw material with which to work. The best source of this is through the regular consumption of protein. Copious amounts of protein.”
George wrinkled his forehead. “Copious amounts . . .”
Miriam had polished off her fillet and reached for another. As George watched her eat, he couldn’t help feeling as if she was somehow drifting away from him again.
George barely made it through the meal. The conversation around him ranged from art to politics to philosophy, with Vale behaving as though he were holding court in the dining hall, encouraging debate and discussion among the other attendees.
Dwight Henderson and Malcolm Browne diverged on the specific points of obscure economic philosophies, while Max Dunham and Frank Carson got into a rather heated tangential debate over whether or not the reparations in the Treaty of Versailles had led to hyperinflation in Germany and ultimately to the Second World War.
George alternated between fascination and disgust. The level of intellectualism in the room was staggering, yet all the while they were chewing on raw meat like cavemen.
Afterward, Loraine continued to monopolize Miriam’s attention, so George, wearied as he was by Vale’s cohorts, went out to the patio for some fresh air.
He leaned on the railing of the narrow parapet and gazed down the sheer side of the cliff into the jagged rocks and twisted pine trees more than a hundred feet below. Above him, the sky looked like a diamond-studded, black velvet blanket. It seemed like he could see into eternity. He was lost in thought when the door opened behind him and Amanda stepped outside.
She didn’t seem to notice George standing in the shadows as she walked to the rail, placed her hands on it, and leaned over as far as she could. The woman, George noted, did not seem happy. He had not seen her smile at all during the meal nor talk much to anyone. And yet she was actually quite beautifu
l, though she wore no makeup, pulled her hair back in a simple fashion, and was dressed far more plainly than George would have expected a woman of her looks to be.
He was intrigued. “It’s not that bad here, is it?”
She straightened up quickly and spotted him. “What?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” George smiled and nodded over the edge of the rail. “For a second there it looked like you were going to jump.”
Amanda wiped the errant strands of hair from her face. “It’s just been a long day.” She didn’t smile, though George noted that she didn’t appear rude. Simply tired.
“Do you cater all of Vale’s parties?”
Amanda offered a mild shrug of her shoulders. “Everyone in town has a job.” Her eyes flicked back toward the mansion. “Mine is managing the food services . . . among other duties. I make sure there’s enough for everybody to eat.”
“And how long have you been here?”
Amanda let out a sad sort of chuckle and gazed over the cliff as a breeze brushed her hair back. “Too long. Most of my life.”
George moved closer. “So . . . are you happy here?”
“Happy?” She frowned. “I don’t remember actually being happy in a long time.”
“Why not?”
“Because sometimes this place feels like a prison,” she said.
“How did you end up here?”
“When I was young, I had cancer. I was dying. My father was an investment banker in Philadelphia and was very wealthy. My parents tried everything, but all their money couldn’t save my life. The doctors couldn’t do anything for me. Then one day Mr. Vale contacted them and told them about this miracle drug. He said it would cure me. He guaranteed it.”
George nodded. He’d been right—Vale had built his little empire by offering his perilium only to the very wealthy. “He is a shrewd businessman.”
“It cost my father his entire fortune,” Amanda said. “Vale had asked him what he would pay to save his only daughter’s life. What it was worth to him.”
The question hung in the air for a moment, and then George sighed. “Everything.”
“The only condition was that I had to come live here in Beckon. Become a part of his community, as he called it.”
“And what about your parents?”
“They stayed in Philadelphia at first so my father could keep working. They came to visit as much as they could. But they were struggling financially. My father died a few years after I came out here. And my mother died not long after.”
“So now you’re . . . what? You’re stuck here? Working for Vale?”
Amanda sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to be alive, I guess. And Beckon’s a beautiful place; I . . . I love the mountains . . .”
She looked out into the night.
“But I can never leave.”
Chapter 26
George awoke the next morning to find that Miriam was up already. The light in the bathroom was on, but the door was closed and he could hear water running inside. George got up and opened the curtains. The morning sun wrapped the rolling countryside below in a warm amber hue.
It had been nearly midnight by the time they got back to their room last night. George had been contemplating how to explain their circumstances to Miriam, but he wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Perilium was truly a miraculous substance, even if the effect was only temporary. But still, there were a thousand unanswered questions. George’s background was engineering, not biomedical research, but he knew enough to know that you couldn’t just bypass the system like Vale was attempting to do. Maybe what Vale wanted was for George to help facilitate the process of herding this project through the proper government channels.
Or maybe he had other ideas.
Over the sound of the water in the bathroom George heard a gentle sobbing.
He knocked on the door. “Sweetheart? Are you okay?”
“I . . . I don’t know. . . .”
Miriam opened the door, and George gasped. “Miriam?”
He grabbed her shoulders and moved her into the light. She looked like a different woman altogether. Her skin was smooth and the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes had practically disappeared. The creases around her mouth were nearly gone as well. And her hair . . .
Most of her glistening black hair color had returned, leaving only vague traces of gray. She looked twenty years younger—or more. George turned her toward the mirror and stared at the two of them side by side.
“You . . . you look like you could be my daughter.”
Miriam touched her cheeks and laughed as tears continued to stream down. “I don’t believe this is happening.” She looked up at George. “How do I know I’m not still senile and just imagining all of this?”
George shook his head in disbelief. “Then I must be too.” He held up her hand in his and inspected them both. All the telltale signs of her arthritis had vanished, most of her liver spots had faded, and the skin around her knuckles and wrists was smooth. His hands were gnarled and leathery, creased and mottled with years of work and stress.
“How can this be happening?” Miriam said.
George was almost too stunned to think. “I’m guessing there’s more to this perilium than they told us about.”
They dressed and went downstairs, where they found Thomas Vale sitting alone at the table in the dining room, eating breakfast. He stood when he saw them come in and smiled at Miriam as they sat down.
“I see the full effects of the perilium have begun to manifest themselves.”
“The full effects?” George frowned. “So it’s true, then . . . this stuff reverses aging, too?”
Vale shrugged. “Of course. Aging is merely caused by the body’s inability to keep up with overall cellular deterioration. Perilium increases this ability.”
“So why didn’t you mention this before?”
Vale chuckled and sipped his juice. “There are some things people need to see for themselves. We felt that claiming a cure for Alzheimer’s had already stretched your credulity far enough. You never would have agreed to participate in the treatment if we explained all the benefits.”
George leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. I would’ve thought you were crazy.”
“What exactly is this perilium doing to me?” Miriam said. “I look . . . I feel like I’m twenty years younger.”
Vale lifted the corner of his mouth in a smile. “You’ve met Sam and Eleanor Huxley?”
“Yes.”
“Eleanor was dying of cancer when they first arrived. She was seventy-nine and Sam had just turned eighty.”
“What?” George and Miriam gasped in unison.
George’s head was spinning. “But . . . they don’t look a day over thirty. Neither one of them.”
“No, they don’t. Not since they began taking perilium.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Oh . . . I think it was 1972. Thereabouts.”
Miriam gasped. “That would make them around 120 years old.”
George couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The whole thing was just too bizarre to be true. These people had stumbled on an actual fountain of youth? No wonder Vale went to such lengths to keep it a secret.
He found himself stammering, “Well . . . I mean, that . . . that’s amazing. You’ve actually discovered a legitimate antiaging compound. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“Now do you understand the impact of what I’m offering you?” Vale said, looking at George. “Both of you?”
George blinked. “Both of us?”
“You didn’t think we would give your wife this gift and not make it available to you as well.”
George was momentarily stunned as he considered the opportunity Vale offered him. This perilium not only gave people a second chance at life, but a whole new life altogether. It was almost too incredible to wrap his mind around. He was seventy-three years old, and by drin
king this substance once every few days he could turn the clock back . . . forty years? Fifty?
Miriam leaned forward. “So then . . . excuse me for asking, but how old are you?”
“I was born in Richmond, Virginia, on October 16 . . . 1847.”
“Eighteen . . . ,” Miriam breathed. “But . . . that’s impossible.”
“Impossible?” Vale raised his eyebrows. “You’ve looked in the mirror. Is that impossible? Is that too good to be true?”
George was shaking his head. “So you’re more than 160 years old?”
Vale’s smile faded slightly and his yellow-green eyes were solemn. “Now you understand why I must keep perilium a secret. And why I have to go to such lengths to protect this place.”
George could barely think clearly enough to consider the ramifications of what Vale was saying. This was the most significant medical discovery in history. It screamed to be shared with all of humanity, yet George understood what chaos would ensue if this ever became known. Vale’s little retreat would be overrun by the masses. Everyone in the world would come to Wyoming seeking a slice of immortality.
But now—to make the matter more intriguing—Vale was offering this miracle to him. George looked again at his own aging hands. What would he give for the chance to reverse the effect that time had had on him? The chance to be young again with Miriam? The chance to live . . . forever?
Then Miriam’s voice drew him from his thoughts.
“This isn’t natural.” She put her hand on George’s arm. “You can’t just cheat death like this. Not without suffering some consequences.”
“Consequences?” Vale said. “Do you mean consequences like having three lifetimes’ worth of acquired knowledge and experience? Perfect health? Resistance to illness and injury?”
“Injury?” George repeated.
Vale nodded. “The body’s natural healing processes are hyperstimulated. We’re not certain precisely how it works, but we’re getting close.”