The Immortalists Read online

  THE IMMORTALISTS

  THE IMMORTALISTS

  KYLE MILLS

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright ©2011 Kyle Mills

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-61218-150-9

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Cleveland, Ohio

  April 2

  Annette Chevalier slammed on her brakes and winced as the car lurched forward, nearly hitting the rising garage door. Her husband had threatened to duct tape a mattress to her front bumper if she ever did it again, and there was no reason to believe he was bluffing.

  She drummed the steering wheel impatiently, glancing at the broken clock in the dashboard and then at her wrist, which hadn’t held a watch in years. They were such insidious little machines— always there to pressure you, to make you fixate on what was next instead of taking pleasure in what was now. To remind you that your time was slowly, inevitably running out.

  She gunned the car inside and jumped out, rushing for the door. Her son’s recital was tonight, and not only had she promised to be there, she’d gotten testy when he’d given her the skeptical eye roll he’d learned from his father.

  The light from the exterior floods bled through the windows in the living room, providing just enough illumination to keep her from bouncing off the furniture as she dashed toward the stairs. When she passed the kitchen, though, the digital numbers glowing from the oven caused her to falter and finally stop.

  It was almost over. By the time she changed out of her lab clothes and drove to the school, they would be on their way home.

  She stood there in the semidarkness, trying to recall how many times she’d allowed this to happen. Jonny’s disappointment was turning to cynicism as he reached the age for such attitudes to take hold.

  But this would be the last time. She was going to buy a watch tomorrow. One with an alarm. A loud, obnoxious one. Maybe even flashing lights.

  She padded quietly to the refrigerator, scowling at the plastic-covered plate of leftovers that her husband had arranged for her. His not-so-subtle way of reminding her that he’d always known she’d miss the recital.

  Tomorrow wasn’t soon enough, she decided, snatching a chicken wing from the plate and making her way toward the office she kept at the back of the house. She’d order a watch from Amazon tonight and have it FedExed directly to the lab.

  The darkness deepened the farther she got from the living room, and she navigated hesitantly, reluctant to use her greasy fingers to flip a switch. Pausing in the doorway, she squinted up at something she couldn’t quite make out hanging from the rafters. A moment later, the desk lamp snapped on, causing her to drop the chicken and raise a hand reflexively to protect her eyes.

  “I want you to be very quiet, Annette.”

  The unfamiliar voice was completely calm but carried a weight that choked off the startled scream building in her throat. Her eyes began to adjust to the glare, slowly adding detail to the outline of the man sitting in her chair.

  “Who…who are you?”

  He didn’t react, remaining motionless enough that the ceiling and the thing dangling from it again attracted her eye.

  A noose.

  “Take what you want,” she heard herself say.

  “I’m afraid that’s you, Annette.”

  She’d been labeled a genius since the first day of grade school, but her mind still couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Based on his accent, dark skin, and European features, the man in front of her was most likely Indian. His suit was impeccably tailored, and his tie looked like it cost more than her entire wardrobe. Not a thief. A rapist?

  The thought almost made her laugh. A man obsessed with overweight, middle-aged women who hadn’t attracted many glances even in their twenties?

  “I don’t understand.”

  He pointed to the noose.

  “Are you some kind of psychopath?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you doing here? You have the wrong person. I’m a biologist. A medical researcher—”

  “You have a PhD from Harvard,” he said, continuing for her. “You’ve been married for nineteen years. You have a fourteen-year-old son named Jonathan whose piano recital you’re missing as we speak.”

  Her initial shock faded into nausea-induced terror. The room began to lose focus, and she put a still-greasy hand on the doorjamb to steady herself. “Why would you want to hurt me? I don’t do anything. I work during the week. On weekends, I stay around the house.”

  “Everyone has enemies, Annette. And, unfortunately, yours are wealthy and powerful enough to afford me.”

  He stood, and her body tensed. Moving only her eyes, she followed him as he dragged her chair around the desk and placed it beneath the rope.

  “If you would be so kind?” he said, motioning for her to climb up onto the chair.

  “No.”

  He nodded, unsurprised by her reluctance. “I’m going to explain something to you, and I need you to listen very carefully. I’m being paid extremely well to make your death look like a suicide—”

  “This is insane!” she blurted. “You’re insane. No one—”

  He put his finger to his lips, and her voice faded back into the silence.

  “If I’m not mistaken, your son’s performance has already ended. If I’m still here when he and your husband come home, my pla
n changes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that instead of just committing suicide, you’ll have a complete mental breakdown. You’ll kill them both before turning the gun on yourself.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he ignored her and continued.

  “Based on your background, no one will be particularly surprised, will they, Annette? No one will ask questions.”

  She thought about running but knew she wouldn’t make it ten feet before he chased her down. And screaming wouldn’t help either. The house was well insulated and separated from their nearest neighbor by more than a hundred yards of hedge-bordered grass that she’d insisted on for Jonny. He’d inherited her sedentary ways, and she’d hoped a yard would encourage him to go outside.

  The man pulled a gun from his waistband that she recognized as the one her husband had bought years ago against her wishes. For protection, he’d said.

  Still, she didn’t move. This couldn’t be happening. “Tell me why.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m just a man who does unpleasant work for people too cowardly to do it themselves. What I can tell you is this: The people I visit always protest, but deep down they know. They know why I’m here.”

  “I develop medicines that help people,” she protested. “I’m in the PTA, but I miss most of the meetings. I…” She fell silent. There was nothing more to say. That was her whole life.

  He pointed to the noose with her husband’s gun. “Time’s running out.”

  His eyes were dark, almost black, but not angry or even particularly menacing. All she saw there was certainty. He would do what he said he would. He’d make her watch while he murdered the son she’d spent nowhere near enough time with and the husband who had stood by her even when he shouldn’t have. And the world would think she did it.

  Annette took a shaky step forward, and the man held out a hand, helping to steady her as she climbed up onto the chair.

  The noose was now directly in front of her face, and she found herself paralyzed. “I’m afraid.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” he said serenely.

  “How do I know you won’t hurt them?”

  “Why would I? It would be noisy and messy. It would attract the press. My only concerns are that I am paid and that no one knows I was ever here. But the longer we wait…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

  She put the noose around her neck, and he reached up, tightening it until the sensation of the rope against her skin overpowered the warm trickle of tears running down her cheeks.

  She stared straight forward as he took hold of the chair beneath her feet. It was suddenly all so clear—the unheeded coincidences, the odd questions thoughtlessly answered, the inexplicably emphatic demands of her superiors.

  He was right. She knew exactly why he was here.

  1

  New York, New York

  April 7

  Richard Draman pressed a button on the remote, creating a deep green glow in the room.

  “This is a normal cell nucleus,” he said, pointing to the well-defined circle projected on the screen behind him. Another click of the button plunged the room into darkness for a moment before the next slide came up. Instead of being round, the cell it depicted was twisted and deformed—a shape that, despite his years as a scientist, he’d come to associate with evil. A demon’s wing. The tattered cape of a vampire.

  “This is from a child suffering from Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome—more commonly known as progeria.”

  The four faces staring out from behind the table in front of him reflected little but the light of the diseased cell, as impassive now as they had been when he arrived.

  Maybe he’d pushed too hard for the meeting. Hell, he was almost certain of it. But he didn’t have the luxury of being subtle. He hadn’t for a long time.

  “The disease is caused by a genetic defect that essentially causes its victim to age at a wildly accelerated rate.” He clicked to a photo of what at first glance seemed to be a frail old man standing amid a group of towering grade school children. Most of his bald head was hidden by a baseball cap, but his bony arms, patterned with bulging veins, were clearly visible where they emerged from the sleeves of a Green Day T-shirt. His nose was hawklike, protruding from a round, wrinkled face, made even starker by the wide smile full of uneven teeth.

  “Jack here lives just outside of Atlanta. He’s a great kid with a real aptitude for math and a love for camping and fishing. He’s only seven years old.”

  His audience’s expressions shifted subtly, a little less dispassionate as they examined the sick child, trying to imagine what it would be like to be born with such a cruel disease. What wouldn’t Jack give to have the things they took for granted—a life that stretched out ahead of them for decades and an imperceptibly slow physical decline that came balanced by wisdom, family, and friendship.

  “Children like Jack only show some aspects of aging. They don’t suffer from senility, for instance. They also have no predisposition to cancer, like most people do as they get older. The first thing that strikes people is that they’re just kids. They get scared and excited and curious about things, just like we all did at that age. What’s different, though, is that they have an extremely high risk of hardening of the arteries—which can lead to heart attack and stroke.”

  “How long can they survive with current medical technology?” one of the people behind the table asked.

  Richard took in a slow breath that seemed to get more difficult every time he had to say the number aloud. “Most don’t live longer than thirteen years.”

  Their grave nods made shadows play across their faces in a way that was strangely unnerving, and he chased away the darkness by clicking to a picture of his lab. It was modest by most standards and becoming more so every day. Many of the people bustling around in the photo were gone now, working for government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and universities on three continents.

  “I like to think I run the most cost-effective research facility in the country. We get a lot of volunteer help from the parents of the kids as well as other people who understand the seriousness of the disease. Every dollar we bring in goes directly to finding a cure.”

  Another press of the button, and a slide of a group of kids suffering from progeria appeared on the screen. Despite their appearance, it was actually easy to forget their illness for a moment. They were holding balloons, clowning around, grinning broadly—doing the things kids should be doing.

  “In many ways, we’re like a family. We try to get together every few years, and people from all over the world come. The kids have an opportunity to spend time with other children like them, and parents get to talk to each other about things that no one else could possibly understand. A lot of the kids form friendships that go on…” his voice faltered for a moment, “for their entire lives.”

  Richard stepped partially into the projector’s beam, putting himself center stage. It was a position he’d never been comfortable with, despite the fact that he’d been told he cut an imposing figure. His broad shoulders were a holdover from growing up on a farm, and his height and shaggy blond hair were what remained of his mother’s Scandinavian ancestors. The beard covering his jaw was more the product of admitting he couldn’t remember to shave than a fashion statement. He’d carefully trimmed it before leaving the house, aware that when it got long he tended to look like he was applying for a job as the Minnesota Vikings’ mascot.

  “I’ve dedicated my life to eradicating this disease, and as I’m sure you read in the information I sent you, my team has made more progress in the last five years than all the researchers before us combined. So here I am, hoping that your foundation will grant me the twenty-five thousand dollars I need to continue pursuing a cure.”

  He moved out of the light, allowing his audience to take in the screen full of smiling kids who refused to have their childhood stolen from them without a fight. A fight that two in the photo had alread
y lost.