SCP-195: A “Medicinal Whiskey”

SCP-195: A “Medicinal Whiskey” SCP-195 was sold to slavecatchers in the American South before the Civil War. The men selling it claimed it could sharpen the drinker's mind. It really did improve their senses, which helps explain why they chose people who made their living tracking down other human beings. The effects that followed were much less useful to the customer. At first, drinking it feels like drinking a comparable amount of very rough whiskey or moonshine. After a period that varies from person to person, the drinker becomes more aware of their surroundings. Taste, touch, smell and the other senses become more sensitive. Along with that heightened awareness comes reduced impulse control and an exaggerated fight-or-flight response. Foundation tests found a substantial increase in violent behavior. The person has more sensory information coming in and less restraint over how they react to it. Several of the most violent test results are expunged. The surviving material says affected subjects were capable of extreme violence and appeared to enjoy it. The report also names a research assistant, Renfield, who received a posthumous citation for going beyond the requirements of duty. Whatever happened during that research was serious enough for further testing of those capabilities to be judged unnecessary. The initial effects eventually wear off, and subjects generally appear to return to normal. There is a redacted exception to that statement, so the file doesn't give us every outcome. But even the apparent recovery doesn't last. Within a month, everyone who has consumed it develops fatigue and a general feeling of listlessness. Scans show ulcer-like wounds forming in the stomach and lungs. Those wounds keep spreading until the person dies. Their skin and muscles also begin to break down, particularly around areas subjected to movement or stress. That deterioration continues as well. The published entry doesn't offer a cure or describe a subject who recovered from the later stage. So there are two periods of danger. First, the drink can make somebody more violent while giving them sharper senses. Then, after those effects seem to have passed, the physical damage becomes apparent. The article says consuming any quantity triggers the process. It doesn't identify a harmless dose. The Foundation found out about it through a case in Alabama. A historian's son had been helping catalog items in an antebellum house, where he discovered the whiskey. He was later arrested and sentenced for a murder, but the details and his age are redacted. His case initially attracted only minor local coverage. The Foundation became interested when he was admitted to a hospital and informants noticed the unusual deterioration of his skin and organs. Investigators traced it back to the house and recovered an opened case of the bottles. Seventeen bottles are now in Foundation custody at Site-1279. The item is classified Euclid, even though the locker happens to be in the site's Safe-class storage section. Access requires written authorization from at least two Level Four personnel and a security escort. Staff also have to wear protective equipment and respirators. That precaution is based on an untested possibility that evaporated whiskey could expose somebody through inhalation. Whether breathing its vapor actually causes the same effects is still unknown. More bottles may still exist. Recovery personnel are told to watch for matching bottles and labels and to use protective equipment if they find any. The two salesmen are where the history gets stranger. Accounts describe one as unusually tall and blond, and the other as dark-haired with a stoop. Both had strikingly bright eyes and wore matching clothing, although the relevant detail about that clothing is redacted. Historical sources say they were often driven out of town once people discovered the side effects. Those same sources record the pair being hanged on at least two occasions. The report never explains how the same salesmen apparently survived long enough for that to happen more than once. The final addendum links their descriptions to information the Foundation has now, but too much is removed to identify them confidently. The surviving text indicates that they remain uncaptured and that capturing them is a high priority. The rest of that connection is hidden from the reader. There's an obvious temptation to read the whiskey as some kind of punishment for the people it was sold to. The article never confirms that motive. The product also made those buyers more dangerous to the people they were pursuing before it began destroying their bodies. Whatever the salesmen intended, the harm wasn't limited to the people who took a drink. And the Alabama case shows that an old bottle could keep doing damage long after its original customers were gone. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-195