Original Son

Chapter 10
Epilogue

---

Chapter Description: One more miracle.

---

“As a man believes, so he will act.”

- Sam Harris, The End of Faith

“I’m open!” Brad yelled from the other end of the Highland Park.

“Run it!” Sam echoed his teammate. “We haven’t got all day...“

A year since the unfortunate events at New Life Church, the town’s parks and playgrounds teemed with life. Swingsets creaked, youth basketball leagues occupied the courts nearly non-stop, and a din of high-pitched voices arose from the soccer fields and public swimming pools.

Brad, Jimmy, and Sam had spent the entire summer in each other’s company, whether at home mastering the latest Guitar Hero or tossing footballs in the backyard.

“Jimmy, baby, it’s time to take your pill,” Lesley hollered from their house across the street.

“Right now? We’re in the middle of a game.”

“It’s seven o’clock. You know the drill,” the twenty-year-old blonde reminded him as she tied her hair into a ponytail. “We all have to grow up sometime.”

“All right, just one sec.”

“Guess we should call it a night,” Sam suggested, gathering his gear. “I’m dragging anyway. See you tomorrow maybe?”

“Sure,” Jimmy said. “Maybe you’ll suck less after a good night’s sleep, huh?”

“Right,” Sam shot back. “Coming from Highland’s king of fumbles. Remember I’ve got two years on you.”

“Always rubbing your pubes in my face,” Jimmy responded, smirking.

“Catch you guys later,” Brad added.

“Yeah, have fun with short stuff over here.”

Jimmy flipped a jovial bird at the sarcastic sophomore before trudging across the park with Brad.

“Later.”

“Later.”

The past twelve months had marked a surreal and radical restructuring of the town’s government services, school system, and overall hierarchy. Detective Harris’ discovery of Radner’s final blueprint for the community unleashed an initial wave of panic, followed by a near standstill, as residents grappled with denial, depression, and overall confusion about their situation.

The first reports began to trickle in the evening after Radner’s arrest - just a few isolated incidents from the town’s more paranoid citizens. But then came the flood. A citywide curfew was enacted and hospitals found themselves on alert as hundreds of residents began reporting signs of physical, and in some cases mental, regression. Phase II, Vincent Radner’s last dirty trick, played out like one of the terrorist attacks he claimed to be working to prevent.

National and international response to the event was swift and overwhelming, with camera crews descending on the town like insects. The government, meanwhile, remained admirably tightlipped about what exactly had occurred - leaving ample room for rampant speculation and intrigue.

FBI analysts confirmed the serum had first been administered via the communion ritual, allowing Radner to vary the doses, experiment with different strength levels, and observe the effects case by case. Many adults, though not all, ingested a different set of drugs designed to blunt the critical capacities of regions in the brain, rendering them more susceptible to the pastor’s claims of divine intervention. Others, the control group, were given no drugs whatsoever. Like Stanley Milgram’s famous electric shock trials, Radner’s experiment showed those parents not subjected to any formulas easily responded to peer pressure, with 100% of test subjects adopting the “miracle” explanation over more rational hypotheses.

Phase II upped the ante by distributing concentrated amounts of the serum into the town’s water supply. This produced a random outbreak of regressions, with those unlucky enough to have drunk tap water or bathed regularly in the proceeding days discovering themselves downgraded to grade-schoolers (or, in some cases, Pampers). About a third of the town received relatively minor doses, shaving five to ten years off their ages, leaving mostly young, college-age adults in charge and almost no senior citizens.

The catastrophe plunged the town into a top-down rebuilding process as jobs were reassigned and familial commitments changed radically.

Under pressure to respond the government reluctantly admitted to possessing a substance known as Compound 11. Accidentally discovered during the youth serum trials, Compound 11 came close to providing an antidote. Falling far short of expectations, however, the white powder merely accelerated the aging process threefold. Taking a 50mg dose over the course of a year, the subject could expect to age the equivalent of three years. As compensation, Radner’s victims were supplied with small capsules of Compound 11 for use until all affected parties reestablished their correct ages. But this would take time...

Veteran members of the police force, long retired, found themselves back on duty as many top officers now preferred Nintendo Wii and squirt guns. Former Police Chief Russ Yeoman could hardly bark out assignments with the vocal chords of a fourth-grader. Janet Whitman, a local high school principal, wound up back in middle school - as a student. City council members mostly stayed on board, though doubts lingered about the effectiveness of a mayor only partway through puberty.

Mr. Radner’s whereabouts became the focus of several urban legends.

In truth, no one outside of the FBI knew exactly what the government did to prevent proliferation of its mysterious youth serum. Because Radner had memorized the lengthy formula rumors circulated around the police department about hi-tech brainwashing methods - or even what would surely be a fitting coup de grace, forced ingestion of his own serum. Rather than pay for lifelong detainment, why not reduce the security threat to an infant with no memory of his past?

As for Sam, the contamination reduced the once-lead detective to an intelligent but scrawny thirteen-year-old. A year on Harris regained his license - drivers, anyway - but even the accelerated growth pills did little to ease his awkward reintroduction to adolescence. The longer the treatment went on, many, including Sam, started to remember events from their past. Needless to say, as children slowly became aware of what had happened, tensions threatened to unglue affected families. How could their parents allowed this to happen?

That was the question that escaped Matthew Kessler’s lips the morning of his sixth “birthday.” As he sucked the crisp summer air into his lungs and blew out the half-dozen candles before him, the revelation dawned on him. In a moment of clarity, his first in more than a year, the truth came splashing back into his memory like a tidal wave.

“I’m... I’m not a little kid!” he stuttered helplessly as he examined the clown-shaped icing in front of him, surrounded by a shocking dearth of candles. Checking his hands, then patting down his body, Matt’s eyes welled with tears and he ran from the picnic table, red with embarrassment.

The bathroom mirror didn’t lie. Though unsure about his true age, Matt knew he shouldn’t be staring at a buck-toothed first-grader. No, it was all wrong. He peeled away his pants and confirmed the damage down below. His heart pounded as the reality sunk in.

“Matt,” his dad called, tapping gently on the bathroom door. “Matt, are you all right?”

No answer.

“Trust me, it’s ok. You’re in perfect health, son. We just...things have happened and...would you come out for a second?”

“No,” Matt intoned. “No, no, no.”

“You’re not the only one, Matthew. It’s... it’s affected most everyone in town. Please just come out and let me explain.”

The door cracked. What followed was a fatherly albeit garbled attempt at an apology. Matthew listened quietly as Richard relayed the story, which grew stranger and stranger with each episode, culminating in an explanation of his appearance - and the age progressing drugs.

“So I’m stuck like this?” he whined, cringing at the sound of his treble voice.

“Just until the drugs work, son.”

“But that’ll be years!” Matt cried. The world looked so distant and inflated from his new perspective.

“I know, Matt. We’re all... just having to deal with it. One day at a time.”

Silently returning to his birthday party, Matt begrudgingly climbed back onto the seat of honor and blew out the remaining candle.

“Sure you’re ok, Matt?” his twenty-two-year-old father said.

“How could you let this happen?” he asked, pinching the fabric of his Power Rangers t-shirt. “...Mom?”

But Patricia was oblivious, and like most seven-year-olds, only eager for her slice of double chocolate cake.

Matt stared across the table at Candace, fresh out of preschool, and Nathan, a squat five-year-old immersed in his Gameboy, and realized just how truly young everyone had become. But the one face he wanted to see the most was absent, away on a camping trip. He sighed. “Can I just open my presents now?”

***

A week later Matt heard the doorbell ring. Richard unlocked the door and in she walked.

“Danielle!” Matt bellowed, leaping from the couch. Maybe today would be the day she remembered too.

“Hey Matt.”

Danielle’s mother stepped inside behind her daughter, looking a little anxious. “I guess we should let them... you know.”

“I suppose so,” Richard agreed. “It was going to happen sooner or later.”

The little pair made off for Matt’s room down the hallway, but Danielle held her arm out, stopping him just short of the door.

“Thanks for trying to tell me,” she said, grabbing his hand.

“You remember too?”

“Not everything. It’s still blurry, but I remember you - well, as a twelve-year-old,” Danielle explained in the shy voice of a little girl. “Now look at us.”

“I know,” Matt replied, shifting his feet and looking bashfully at the floor.

“Candace?”

Matt shook his head. “Still in kiddie land I think.”

“What about the rest of your class? That Lexi girl?”

“I heard her mother is actually withholding the pills, keeping her little,” Matt repeated a rumor making the rounds at school.

“Can she do that?” Danielle inquired, surprised, “I mean, don’t they have to...?”

“Not all. Mr. Winters down the street opted out of the treatment. I guess any forty-year-old would love to experience his twenties over again.”

“Guess so... Wanna go outside?” Danielle asked, hinting at a more private location.

“Sure.”

In the backyard they encountered Patricia, wearing only the bottom half of a watermelon-colored swimsuit, lining cups up on the porch railing. Matt struggled for a moment to process the sight of his slightly-sunburned young mother standing topless in public.

“You guys wanna play church?” the befreckled youngster asked, twisting her head around to flash a nearly toothless grin. The serum had erased several decades from Patricia but left her old obsessions intact.

“Church is stupid,” Matt answered bluntly.

“Yeah, church is silly,” Danielle sniped.

“Is not!”

“Yah huh,” Danielle shot back, almost seeming to enjoy the childish exchange.

“Is not!” Patricia repeated, turning to face her taunters. The full view of his mother’s flat, dot-like nipples only heightened the bizarreness of the whole exchange

“You are!”

Still oddly entertained by the situation, Matt turned to face Danielle. “I... love you.” He didn’t know where the words came from. They just popped out before he could stop them.

The juvenile back-and-forth halted.

“Thanks again, Matthew... or should I say Matt,” she replied, planting a brief but heavenly kiss on his lips. “You’re sweet.”

“Ohhhh, you two kissed! I’m telling!” Patricia screeched, darting back into the house like a rabbit.

“You know, you really are too young for me,” Danielle remarked, her snarkiness slowly returning. “But since we’re both kindergarteners, I guess I’m willing to make an exception.”

A glow fell over Matt’s adorable six-year-old face.

“It’s gonna be a long four years,” she warned.

“What?”

“Until we’re eighteen,” she clarified.

“Oh.”

Matt wished they could grow up right there on the spot, shedding their ridiculous little bodies. He fought the urge to make a move. French kissing each other at their current ages seemed at best problematic and at worst criminal. No, they would have to wait. They had another childhood to relive first.

Matt resigned himself to holding hands.

“And seriously,” Danielle added, arching an eyebrow, “who plays church?”

 

---