“Many times.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
“That’s disgusting,” Shanna said, setting her glass down.
Mortimer shook his head.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing, it’s just that this is a fifty-five year Macallan. I paid $17,000 for that bottle many years ago, knowing I wouldn’t crack it until a night like this came along.”
“You paid too much,” she said.
“Some things are worth the price. Shall we?”
They returned to the couch, and Mortimer sat down and dug the Swiss Army knife out of the patch pocket of his linen shirt. It shook in his hands as he opened one of the smaller blades.
“Let me,” Shanna said, reaching for the knife.
He recoiled. “No!”
Mortimer inserted the blade and gently tugged it through the tape. He put the knife away and opened the box, pulling out wads of crumpled, foreign newsprint until he felt the smaller box within the larger. He lifted it out, set it on the glass.
It was some kind of black composite, sealed with a steel hasp on each side. He’d had the box specially made, then sent it to the farmer to ensure safe delivery of the item. Its key hung around his neck on a gold chain.
He unlocked the hasps and flipped them open, gingerly lifting off the top half of the box, bringing it onto his lap as Shanna leaned in. They could only see the back of the skull, the bone deep brown, heavily calcified, full of hairline fractures and several larger cracks, one square-inch piece missing entirely. He worked his fingers down into the hard black foam that had protected the skull on its journey across the ocean, and carefully lifted it out.
Shanna said, “Oh my God.”
Mortimer stared into the hollowed eye sockets, and then the teeth, which more resembled the dental architecture of a shark than a human being.
Not at all what he’d been expecting, and it didn’t match the artist’ conceptions in any of the scandal rags. This wasn’t a skull from an old Christopher Lee Hammer film. This was an affront against nature. Mortimer found it difficult to breathe. But he also registered something else, something he hadn’t felt since his diagnosis.
Excitement.
“May I?” Shanna asked.
Reluctantly, Mortimer handed Shanna the skull. He didn’t like it leaving his grasp, had to remind himself that this was what he’d been paying her so handsomely for.
Shanna examined one of the yellowed teeth.
“Coffee-drinker,” she quipped, and then her eyes narrowed and Mortimer watched as her inner-scientist took over. “They’re at least an inch and a half long, every one of them, even the molars. Huh, weird.”
“What?”
“These canines are hollowed.”
“What’s the significance?”
“I don’t know. It’s not dissimilar to venomous snakes.” She opened the mandible. “Look at the articulation. That range of motion is unbelievable. The jaw structure is…reptilian. There are literally too many teeth to fit in this mouth. See how they overlap? They would’ve shredded the lips off, most of the cheek, exploded the gums, ripped apart the ligaments in the mandible.”
“What are you saying? It’s fake?”
“It looks real. No doubt. But it’s just anatomically impossible.”
Mortimer leaned closer. “Is it human?”
“Does this look human to you?”
Shanna’s words hung in the air like a crooked painting.
“So…what is it?” Mortimer whispered.
“It’s certainly hominoid. But unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Nothing like this exists in the fossil record. This shouldn’t exist.”
“But it does exist. It must be real.”
“Look, we’ll have it tested. It’s possible the skull is authentic, but the teeth have to have been implanted.”
“Do you know what I paid for this?”
“No, what?”
“Just give it back.”
Shanna handed Mortimer the skull and stood up, smoothing out her slacks.
“Mort, I’m really excited for you. Really. And I can’t wait to get started studying this.”
Mortimer’s eyes went wide with surprise. “You’re…going? Now?”
“I want to stay. But I promised Clay. He wants to take me—wait for it—to the Tanner Gun Show in Denver. We’re supposed to hit the road tonight.”
“Jesus Christ. He must have elephantine genitalia.”
“Mortimer!” She gave him a playful bump on the shoulder.
“What? There’s no other explanation. I mean, really? Another gun show?”
“Maybe not.”
Something in her eyes…trouble in paradise? He hoped so.
He held up the skull, cradling it in both palms. “This is the reason you’re here, Shanna. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
The mandible was still open. The old man grazed one of his liver-spotted fingers across the points of the teeth—razor sharp. He was sure he was only imagining it, but they seemed to send an electrical current through his body.
“Mort? You gonna be all right?”
He looked up at Shanna. Beautiful, youthful, Shanna.
To be young enough again to satisfy a woman like that.
Mortimer smiled. “I hope so.”
Then he pulled the skull into his neck, clamped shut the ancient jaw, and the last thing he felt before losing consciousness were those razor teeth sinking through the paper-thin flesh of his throat.
Shanna
JENNY, the hospice nurse, had acted quickly and professionally. Within two minutes, she had bandaged the wound and controlled the bleeding, but that was the least of Mort’s problems. Seconds after stabbing himself with those horrid fangs, he’d dropped to the floor in a violent seizure. Shanna had been ordered to stick something between his chattering teeth to prevent him from biting off his own tongue. She’d tried to use a ball point pen, but her benefactor had snapped it in half, blue ink mixing with the white foam that churned between his lips.
“Get something under his head,” Jenny told her, her voice up an octave. Shanna removed her jean jacket—a gift from Clayton—and balled it up for Mort to use as a pillow. Mortimer’s hand shot out, grabbing Shanna’s shirt. She yelped in surprise, pawing at his wrist, trying to free herself, but Mort had a grip like stone.
The warm, acrid smell of urine wafted up as he wet his pants, and the convulsions intensified, his limbs banging against the hardwood floor with enough force to split his skin.
When the seizure refused to abate after two minutes, the nurse scurried off to call an ambulance.
When it passed the five-minute mark, Jenny shot Mort full of sedatives and anticonvulsants. At ten minutes, Jenny was practically crying in despair, Shanna right there with her. They each had their full body weight on Mort, trying to pin his bloody hands and feet, but they could barely keep him down, Mort choking and gagging on his own blood, coughing out bits of his lips and tongue that he’d chewed off.
Twenty-three minutes later, when the ambulance finally arrived, the nurse and Shanna had to assist two burly paramedics to get Mort strapped to a gurney, where they finally jammed a rubber bit between his snapping jaws.
The ride to the hospital was a blur, Shanna physically and emotionally drained. She managed to call Clay, but got his voicemail and had to listen to his outgoing message of Clint Eastwood saying, “Go ahead…make my day. BEEEEP!”
She left a monotone message that Mort had had an accident. She was on her way to Blessed Crucifixion Hospital, and he’d have to pick her up there.
Then she wept.
Arriving in Durango two months ago, Shanna had thought she’d landed her dream job. Being paid—and extremely well—for pure research. While many of her contemporaries loved field work, Shanna got off on studying what others had found. She was an expert on the evolution of primates, and when the so-called “Dracula skull” had been discovered four months ago, she’d regarded it with the same blanket skepticism as the rest of her colleagues.