Amazing Stories, August 1927 — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ULTRA-ELIXIR OF YOUTH others, who had all leaped backwards for from ten to fifteen years. I explained my fears and the necessity of finding some means to check or con- trol the action of our discovery. “For a few days the effects of the treatment ap- peared to cease of their own accord, and no marked physical changes took place. Then, as if by magic, the rejuvenation process took hold once more, and in a few days Burke and Redfield had become scarcely more than youths. Johnson was a mere lad, while E. and myself, who had been the last to take the treatment and who had taken far less than the others, felt and looked like a youth and girl of eighteen.. Burke and Redfield were beside themselves. They had important business to at- tend to, and already their absence from their offices was causing uneasiness. All seemed to look to me for a way out of their difficulties, and, with- out effect, I tried to make them see that they were the ones who had insisted when I had cautioned and that, moreover, I had shown my faith in sub- mitting to the treatment. “Realizing that no one would recognize the banker or the merchant, I suggested that they go to their offices, put their business in order, and then re- tire to their apartments until I had had an oppor- tunity to carry on further tests of formule Mon- tross and myself had worked out. “We are all lost. Nothing we can do will check the effect of the Juvenum. E. and myself are so changed that when, yesterday, we went to her office to secure some things she wanted, her house- keeper did not recognize us. We have all been obliged to purchase the garments of young people. And Burke and Redfield are worse off than any of the rest. Whether they received larger amounts of Juvenum than the others; whether, as I sus- pect, they surreptitiously treated themselves a second time, or whether the Juvenum acts more rapidly upon old persons, I do not know. But yesterday when, after repeated calls by phone, I got no reply and went to their apartments, I felt that I must be going mad. Burke had become a gawky boy of twelve and Redfield was unrecogniz- able as a lad of fifteen. Both were frenzied, both begged me to secure proper garments for them, and both were indescribably pitiful objects to be- hold—mere children with the brains, the intelli- gence, the knowledge, the thoughts of grown, ex- perienced men. “The only redeeming feature of the day was my marriage to HE. We both felt that if we waited longer no minister would marry us, fearing we were under age, but our happiness we fear will be short lived. We all know now what is to follow. We all know that we are past human help unless a miracle occurs. Ours is an agony almost beyond endurance. The poor rejuvenated dog which Mon- tross, poor fellow, offered in the cause of science, has proven an object lesson to us, has brought home to us the terrible consequence of attempting to interfere with the plan of the Creator. The creature is now a toothless, purblind puppy, while the parrot is a fledgling, raucous-voiced and almost naked. Did ever human beings face a like fate? If we are to believe the evidences of our senses Rn ey at Wes Aas . “ its 483 we are slowly, but all too rapidly, growing con- stantly younger. In a short time,—God knows when,—we will be squalling, helpless babies! Already Burke and Redfield are toddling about, supporting themselves by chairs and burbling unin- telligible words. Surreptitiously and at night E. and I managed to kidnap them from their rooms and bring them here. They were then boys of eight. And by dint of threats, by argument and through their own agony of suspense, I have man- aged to gather all the others together here in my laboratory. All I say, but Montross, Johnson and two others are missing. What has become of them we do not know. Perhaps they have committed suicide, perhaps they have gone mad, perhaps they have rushed madly away seeking to escape the inexorable fate before them. “Such horror! I feel that I must go mad, Were it not for E. I would make away with myself. I know now what has become of Montross, Johnson and the others. I have found a note from Mon- tross stating. that he and Johnson had agreed to make a supreme test, to make a brave effort to avert the horrible fate to which we were doomed, to strive to check the accursed Juvenum by taking a stronger dose, in a hope, a mere chance that, like some poisons, one treatment would offset the other. What happened I know only too well. It is in- credible! The thing is unthinkable, but true! The dog, two days ago, was a feeble puppy; yesterday it was a blind, newly-born, tiny thing; today it has vanished! The parrot became a fledgling, yester- day a round white egg appeared in its cage. Today the cage is empty. Nature is being reversed! With incredible speed we and all life subjected to the damnable treatment of Juvenum, are progress- ing backward. Beyond doubt Montross and the others have already vanished, have already passed back to the embryonic state, even to the unknown, unsolved mysterious source whence comes all life. My wife and I, of all the ten, remain ag rational human beings. Burke and Redfield are gurgling, cooing, helpless babies whose wants occupy all of our time. And my heart is wrenched each time I look at my darling wife. No Jonger is she a woman, no longer a budding girl. She is a slim wisp of femininity perhaps twelve years of age, but still possessing all her womanly instincts, all her knowl- edge of medicine, all the thoughts, the longings, the ambitions that were hers when, seemingly ages ago, we first discussed the question of perpetual youth. “But bravely, uncomplainingly, she has borne the ordeal which we are passing through. She has never blamed me; she is as patient, as smiling as cheerful as ever, though she knows that only a few days remain before she, too, will be a helpless infant. “And the utter horror of it all, the most terrible part of the whole affair, is that even to the last minute, even though they crow and cry and drool like normal infants, Burke, Redfield and the others possess the intellects, the brains, the sensations of their mature years. I can see-it, and I shiver with terror at the sight, for the agony of mind which is theirs is stampca HG OOO S46OLN ob