Snitch (28 page)

Snitch

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kat Kirst has been a classroom teacher for over twenty-seven years. She wrote
Snitch to warn kids about being careful with choices they make in their lives.

Kat lives in Dickinson, Texas with her husband, Tom, who keeps her focused on her dreams, and her dog, Chance, who keeps the yard free from any and all squirrel invasions.

Her other book,
Surviving My Family
,
is available on

                                                                               Amazon
.com or through

                                                                 
             www.katkirstbooks.c
om

COMING SOON:

                    The Cost of Living Forever

Samuel was going to commit murder.

Dressed in pants that were too small and glasses that were too big, he was a short, round man who had worked at the lab so long, people expected to see him every day, but looked right through him when they did. Anyone who did notice him considered him so easy going, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but this morning, that was exactly what he was planning to do.

It was a fly that was torturing him—a fat, black one with a red head and loud
buzz
. All morning it had been teasing him: landing on his hands, dive bombing him the second he became engrossed in his work, or buzzing
suddenly in
his ear. Unable to endure it any more, Samuel decided he had no choice but to kill the monster. Forgetting about his experiment, he began the work of hunting his enemy.

Samuel surveyed the room and grabbed his scarf to flick at the fly. He knew the flicking technique well because he had fallen victim to it many times in his high school locker room. But since most of his experience had taken place at the other end of the weapon, his aim was off, causing one bubbling beaker to fly into another which broke a third.

And that’s how it began.

It was nothing more than a
simple
mistake. In Samuel’s forgotten corner of the organ generation and transplant lab, a droplet of something not meant to be used, fell, accidentally, into another, most-promising compound. But once done, the mistake changed everything.

While beakers on nearby tables bubbled and foamed, and other workers silently recorded notes and results on sterile tablets, Samuel quietly checked things again and again. There was no variation, no change. He was on to something.

Samuel forgot all about the fly.

For the next two years he secretly tested his compound on mu
ltiple life forms, first on one-
celled amoebas, then on fruit flies. Finally, he located a chimpanzee the rest of the lab
was no longer using
. “You’re a lot like me, Toby,” he told the chimp.
“Old and forgotten.”
He injected Toby and waited.

Samuel had become a bit of a legend at the lab by then—someone who preferred to work nights and weekends, but still, no one anyone paid any real attention to. After all, scientists were always known
to be a bit odd, and a short, bald man with no family or outside interests fit that bill perfectly.

Years passed. More tests were run; Samuel anxiously monitored the Toby. When the time came to stop administering the drug, it was hard to withhold
as Toby had become an old friend
, but science was science and Toby quickly grew gray and frail and in the end
,
gave his life to prove the drug worked.

Now, it Samuel’s turn.
He swallowed the little brown pill as a gift to himself on his forty-fifth birthday and waited for what was left of his hair to grey or fall out, but it didn’t. While scientists around him aged, Samuel stopped at forty-five.

Finally he could no longer doubt himself. In test after test, the result was always the same: Youth.
Sustained, Uninterrupted Youth.
Hundreds of years ago, Ponce De Leon had searched the world always knowing he would find the secret in a glorious, mysterious fountain; instead Samuel had found it in an unassuming, little brown pill.

A find like this was worth untold millions, but Samuel knew Stanton Pharmaceuticals would reap most of its benefits. That was okay. Samuel had something better: a substantial stash of eternal life and the recipe to make more.

He had never been one to spend his money on women or family, but had invested it. At this point he had quite a comfortable retirement, but if he let that money grow for say, fifty more years...well, women always
did
notice rich men, no matter how short and bald they were. Maybe after this was over, he would move to Texas. Secretly, he had always dreamed of being a cowboy. And he had lots of time.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Samuel rushed to tell the owners of the pharmaceutical company who in turn, rushed to tell the stockholders. Soon, the world would know.

             
   
It seemed the Earth was going to get very crowded.

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