Beckon

by Tom Pawlik

  At that moment George heard voices in the hallway. Vale was coming back. George slipped inside the closet, leaving the door cracked open. The room was dark and smelled of paper.

  In a few seconds Vale entered the refrigerator room and flipped on the lights. He was followed by Frank Carson. George nearly gasped at the sight of the man. He looked pale—almost ashen in appearance—with beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. He was clutching his chest and panting like he’d just run a marathon.

  Vale went to one of the refrigeration units and punched in a code on the security keypad. The door beeped once, then clicked and opened with a soft hiss. George could see several glass vials of the perilium in a rack on the shelf.

  Vale took one of the vials and held it out to Carson. But as Carson reached for it, Vale drew it back again just out of his grasp. “You know, I’m seriously debating whether or not to dock your pay by one dose. Just for sheer incompetence.”

  Carson’s hand hung in midair. His eyes went wide and he stammered between gasps of air, “I’m telling you . . . I didn’t . . . didn’t see her.”

  Vale scowled at him and then finally relented. Carson grabbed the vial and unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers. He swallowed its contents in one gulp and collapsed into the chair at the computer console.

  “You didn’t see her?” Vale stood over him, shaking his head. “She followed you all the way from California, you idiot. You didn’t see her?”

  But Carson seemed too weak to respond.

  Regardless, Vale was not done ranting. He paced the room. “And then you couldn’t even apprehend her without getting shot!”

  After a minute Carson sat up again. His breathing had slowed slightly and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “I’m telling you . . . she won’t be a problem. You don’t have to worry about her.”

  “And what if she did tell someone else?” Vale said. “We’ll have even more guests.”

  “She was . . . ,” Carson wheezed. “She was just bluffing.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I trust your judgment anymore, Frank. I don’t need this distraction. Especially now.” He leaned into Carson’s face. “You find out what she knows and who she talked to. Do whatever you need to—just get her to talk!”

  Vale stormed out of the room and Carson followed a few seconds later, muttering curses under his breath. From the closet George could see out into the main office, where Vale was moving around. After a short time it appeared he had left the room. George waited several more minutes before gathering enough courage to emerge from the closet. He peeked through the door into the office, saw it was in fact empty, and breathed a sigh.

  He returned to his suite, where he found Miriam still asleep, and sat down in the other room to collect his thoughts. And formulate a plan.

  Everything had just taken a serious turn for the worse. What he’d seen in Vale’s office convinced him he could no longer trust the man. He could no longer trust anyone in this town.

  They were holding a woman prisoner either in the lodge or somewhere in town. And it obviously had something to do with the van he’d seen the other day. This woman had followed Carson from California. But what had Carson been doing in California?

  And Carson’s appearance had been more than a little disconcerting. His symptoms were similar to Miriam’s, only more severe. An unsettling thought grew in the pit of his stomach as he wondered again what the other side effects of this substance were.

  Right now everyone he had met in Beckon seemed to be in the same predicament as Miriam. Frank Carson and Amanda, the Brownes, the Huxleys, and the Dunhams. Probably even Henderson.

  George felt sick inside as he wondered what he’d gotten Miriam into. She had been right about Vale. Judging by the way he had just treated Carson, he seemed to have no trouble exercising his complete authority over everyone in town. They all needed the perilium, and he controlled the supply, which meant he made the rules. Quite the monopoly he had going.

  But George was at a point of no return. All moral squeamishness aside, right now his top priority was to make sure Miriam had unfettered access to the perilium. At all costs. Unfortunately that meant he would need to cooperate until he could find a way to change the rules of the game in his favor.

  Fortunately Vale was a prisoner too. Miriam had determined that much herself. He was beholden to Nun’dahbi—whoever she was—to keep him supplied. Vale had indicated that she was the only one who actually knew how to make perilium, which meant she was the one with the real power.

  Which also meant Vale had a point of vulnerability.

  Chapter 28

  Later that afternoon, George found Thomas Vale in the great room standing at the windows, gazing out across the mist-covered landscape. Vale turned from the window, and George could see he was holding a drink.

  “I trust Miriam is resting comfortably,” Vale said. “Amanda told me what happened this morning.”

  “It gave me a pretty good scare. You didn’t tell me perilium would have that kind of side effect.”

  “A minor consequence,” Vale said and sipped his drink. “But they can be avoided easily enough. Fatigue is one of the early warning signs that she’s ready for another dose. I suppose we should have given her one last night before going to bed. But I wouldn’t worry about it. It won’t happen again.”

  George was taken aback at how casually Vale seemed to dismiss the incident. But he knew he needed to refrain from being overly confrontational at the moment. “How can you be sure?”

  “Trust me, George, I don’t like it any more than you do. But we must deal with it and move on. I’ve survived for more than a hundred and thirty years without serious incident. I’m living proof it can be done.”

  George shook his head. It was odd to think he was talking to a man who had lived through the Civil War, not to mention the entire twentieth century and now well into the twenty-first. Vale had seen so much history and yet he’d seen it only from this small corner of the world. No wonder the man could be so callous. He’d been the center of his own universe for too long.

  “I’m curious . . .” George went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink. It had been a while since he’d had a formal business meeting, but now he found himself slipping easily into negotiation mode. It was just like riding a bike. “Everyone in Beckon seems to have a very specific function. You’ve given me some idea of what my role here would entail, but what exactly will you need me to do?”

  They sat down on the leather couches, and Vale drummed his fingers on the wide armrest. “Our lives here are about balance. We have to maintain a very delicate balance in order to succeed—for all of us to succeed. And what I need is your help to maintain the status quo.”

  “What status quo?”

  “With the N’watu,” Vale said. “We have a very old treaty with them. We give them what they want, and in turn they give us what we need.”

  George smiled inwardly. This was an interesting bit of information. Vale had obligations himself. Some sort of symbiotic relationship with the N’watu.

  “So obviously you need a steady supply of perilium from them, but what exactly do they want in return?”

  Vale took another sip of his drink. “Isolation.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The N’watu are a very ancient culture and fiercely xenophobic,” Vale said. “I first arrived in Wyoming back in 1878 looking for gold. And when I stumbled across the cave entrance, they captured me. I had to think pretty quick in order to save my life.”

  George’s eyebrows went up. “They were going to kill you?”

  Vale nodded. “If I hadn’t had one of the local Indians as a guide, I’d be dead. But fortunately he spoke their language, and I was able to negotiate with them.”

  “But what did you have to bargain with?”

  “The most powerful commodity on the market.”

  George furrowed his brow. This should be good. “What’s that?”

  Vale’s icy ye
llow-green eyes narrowed. “Fear.”

  “Fear? Of what?”

  “Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it?” Vale said. “The key to any negotiation—as I’m sure you well know—is finding out what the other party is most afraid of and exploiting that to your advantage. Fear of losing their business or losing market share. Or losing their life.”

  “So what do the N’watu fear?”

  “Losing their home,” Vale said. “They have a deep spiritual connection with this mountain. I think they see themselves as guardians in a way. Priests. I got the sense that they were protecting something. Something deep inside the cave. So I explained to them how the white man was moving ever westward and even if they killed me, it would only be a matter of time before others would come. And come with more guns. I convinced them that soon their way of life, their whole existence, would be threatened.”

  “Very clever,” George said. He hadn’t realized it before, but to one degree or another he’d been employing those tactics in the business world his whole life. A thought that, after meeting Thomas Vale, was a little unsettling. “What did you offer to alleviate those fears?”

  “I assured them that I could keep them safe. I could conceal the entrance to their cave and keep their home hidden away from prying eyes, as it were. I staked claim to the surrounding land and built this lodge to conceal the entrance, and eventually the town to conceal the lodge.”

  “Hidden in plain sight,” George said. “Brilliant.”

  Vale chuckled and sipped his drink. “You know, I used to think I stumbled across that cave by accident. Pure dumb luck. But now I know it was fate. It was my destiny to discover the N’watu. We found each other, really. We each supplied what the other was looking for.”

  “Kismet.” George nodded. “And now your whole life is focused on keeping this place a secret.”

  Vale gestured out the window. “I’m still trying to keep the white man away and keep the N’watu hidden from the modern world. But as I said, it’s a balancing act. And that’s why I chose you. Politicians are tireless busybodies, and I need you to help keep them out of my business.”

  “So this cave . . .” George rubbed his jaw. “Where exactly is it?”

  Vale gestured to the floor. “Right beneath us. As I said, I built this lodge over the entrance. I’ve provided the N’watu with complete privacy for the last 130 years in exchange for their sacred elixir of youth. Not such a bad trade-off, I’d say.”

  “They’re still living inside the caves?” George could hardly believe an entire tribe of human beings could be living under such horrid conditions. Why would they want to? He couldn’t conceive of any benefit or reason for it. “But how can they possibly survive? It’s inhumane.”

  “Ah yes, they’d be much better off with cell phones and mortgages.” Vale snorted.

  “No, I mean, how do they live? What do they eat?”

  “I’ve only been down there once in my life. But from what I saw, a part of that cave system has been isolated from the outside world since the dawn of time. There’s a whole self-contained ecosystem thriving down there, and the N’watu are an integral part of it. They adapted to it long ago. It’s all the world that most of them have ever known. For them, coming up to the surface, into the sun, would be as alien and unsettling as it would be for you to live underground. And they are keenly single-minded in their religion. They have no real material needs, and all they want is to be left alone.”

  It all seemed so bizarre to George. The N’watu should have died out from a lack of vitamin D, for one thing. Sunlight was such a necessity for human life in numerous ways. Unless they were able to compensate for it in some way. And that was probably where the perilium came in. George wondered how old they were. And how many were left. He’d only ever seen the one woman. Nun’dahbi. And she had been so covered in black veils that he wasn’t even sure what she looked like.

  But George also recalled the power Nun’dahbi seemed to have over Vale when she came into the room that first night. Vale had acted like a frightened child in the presence of his domineering mother.

  “I assume the N’watu need perilium to survive as well,” George said.

  “Correct.”

  “And by moving here—by joining your community—I can basically get my youth back?”

  “And then some,” Vale said. “It’s quite literally the chance of a lifetime.”

  George shrugged. “Where do I sign?”

  A smile curled onto Vale’s lips. “You’re on board, then?”

  George spread his hands and smiled. “At this point, I already have a vested interest in your community.”

  George knew he was most definitely not “on board” with Vale. Not the way he ran things in Beckon. The fact was, George was going to make it his sole mission to undermine Thomas Vale’s little empire and usurp his position of authority altogether. If George was going to live here, he wasn’t about to put himself in submission to Vale. If he and Miriam were going to have a second chance at life, then he was going to be the one in charge. Then he could get perilium into the hands of real scientists and find a way to replicate it or even improve it and eliminate the side effects.

  He would drag this whole town into the twenty-first century. And hopefully live to see the twenty-second.

  “Glad to hear it.” Vale slapped George on the shoulder. “Very glad to hear it.”

  Satisfied that he’d waylaid any doubts Vale might’ve had about his commitment, George went back to the room to check on Miriam once more. It was getting late in the afternoon and she’d been in bed since her episode that morning.

  But the bed was empty, and there was no sign of his wife in the suite. George recalled Miriam’s voracious appetite after her last dose of perilium and returned downstairs to see if she was in the kitchen.

  He found her there, wearing her robe, sitting at the table across from Amanda with her back toward him. Amanda looked up at George and winced. An odd expression, George thought.

  “I figured you’d be down here,” he said to Miriam. “How are you feel—?”

  He choked his words off as Miriam turned to face him. He blinked and took a step backward. “Miriam?”

  Her complexion held no trace of line or wrinkle whatsoever. Her skin was like unblemished alabaster. Her hair fell in pure dark waves to her shoulders. A glossy black sheen, just like when they had first met.

  She stood, her expression somewhere between joy and terror, traces of blood around her lips. On the plate in front of her was a half-eaten slab of raw meat. “George . . .”

  George was stunned. His mouth hung open and he shook his head. “You . . . you look . . .”

  Miriam ran to his arms and George held her close, wondering why he was shocked when he should have expected this. She looked as young and vibrant as a woman in her twenties.

  Chapter 29

  “George . . . I don’t want to stay here anymore,” Miriam whispered.

  “Look at you! You look like you’re eighteen again.”

  “But what this stuff is doing to me—it’s not natural. None of this is. Please, can’t we just go home?”

  “No. You’re going to need another dose in a day or two.”

  “I don’t care,” Miriam said. “I can’t live here. I don’t care what this drug does to me. I don’t care how young it makes me. I just don’t want to stay here anymore.”

  “Listen to me.” George clutched her shoulders. “Just give me some time to figure a way out of this.”

  “I don’t trust him.” Miriam’s eyes glistened. “I don’t want to be a prisoner in this place, and I don’t trust Vale.”

  George held her close in a long embrace. Clearly the stress of regaining her sanity and her youth had become too intense a strain on her mind. She needed time to adjust, he told himself. She just needed to get used to the idea that she was young again.

  “You need to get some rest,” he whispered. “Clear your mind. Why don’t you go back to the room and lie down?”<
br />
  “I don’t want to lie down!” She pulled away and her tone grew sharp. “I’ve been doing nothing but resting all week. Stop treating me like I’m still an invalid.”

  “Fine,” George said. His voice softened. “You’re right; let’s find something else to do.” He looked at Amanda. “What do you do for entertainment around this place?”

  Amanda showed them the fitness room in the south wing and the entertainment center stocked with all manner of games, movies, and other crafts and activities to pass the time. Miriam found an old game she used to play as a child, and her spirits seemed to lift slightly. And with a little effort, George persuaded her to go back to the room and get dressed. The two of them would get in a light workout together and perhaps sit in the hot tub for a bit. Her mood brightened further at that suggestion.

  Miriam left, and once George had Amanda alone, he cornered her in the game room. “Okay, tell me what’s going on here. Who was the woman they brought in?”

  “Woman?” Amanda stammered. “What . . . woman?”

  “Stop with the act. I saw her. I saw Carson leading her away in handcuffs a couple hours ago. Who was she? And who did they bring up in the white van?”

  “No.” Amanda shook her head. “I can’t say anything. He’ll find out. And it’s not your concern.”

  “Where are they?” George persisted. “Are they down in the caves? Does it have something to do with the N’watu?”

  “Stop it.” Amanda’s eyes darted away. “I have to go. I have work to do.”

  George grabbed her arm. “Answer me! Whatever you people are doing up here, you won’t get away with it.”

  “You have no idea what we’re doing.” She yanked her arm from his grasp. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t even think about crossing him. Not if you want her to live.”

  George glared at her but he could see only fear in her eyes. She wasn’t his enemy. She was just a fellow prisoner living in fear. She had been shipped out here by her desperate parents, however well-intentioned they might have been. They were trying to save her life but had unwittingly relegated her to a living nightmare. An unending one. What would it be like, George wondered, to work for a man like Vale for ninety years? He could only imagine what other sorts of jobs Vale would have found for her, and he wondered if such longevity as perilium offered could become more of a curse than a blessing.