David applied a dab of varnish to the nose of a mule deer and stepped back to ponder it. When dried, the sheen would give a moist, life-like appearance to the head mount. He did the same to the eyes. The varnish was a custom-mix, that caught the light just as the natural juices of the body would.
“You can’t just put in a glass eye and expect it to look right,” he said to Neil, his apprentice taxidermist. “It will look like a doll’s eye, and give it an uncanny valley effect. People will be creeped out, but won’t know why.”
“So you want a disembodied head to look as lifelike as possible?” Neil asked.
“Precisely. You want people to forget the deer is dead, to forget that it ever had a body. Maybe it’s calmly peeking it’s head through a window to see what’s happening inside.”
Because of his talent for making dead animals look like they were merely standing still, David had a long backlog of carcasses in his workshop freezers. He charged customers a rental fee for the freezer space and they were happy to pay it. Eventually David would work his magic on the animal they left for him. He had worked on birds, dogs, reptiles, rodents, lions, elephants, even mice and crickets—all of them restored to still-life perfection. Neil had been working with him for over two years, and David kept promising he would make him a partner in the shop. As Neil’s talents grew, David worked less and less. His day drinking became morning drinking, and he spent much of his day asleep in a chair.
Several black SUVs pulled up to the shop, and pulled up close to all the exits. The windows were blacked out, and they kept the engines running. From the one near the front door a small man with a shaved head struggled from the passenger seat and was followed by two much larger men wearing heavy leather coats despite the mid-summer heat. The bell over the door jangled as the men entered. Neil was pulling a skin tightly over a head mold, about to secure it with a staple. If done correctly it would be smooth and taught, with the kudu turning its head in a noble manner. But if stretched improperly the skin would sag, looking like a misshapen glove on a deformed hand. The men at the counter waited a few minutes, then rang the bell aggressively. The ringing roused David from his drunken slumber.
“Assholes,” David said, as he appeared from behind the curtain that separated the shop from the counter asking, “What do you want?”
“Are you the owner?” the bald man asked.
“The one and only. I’ve got a six month waiting list, so bring in whatever you’ve got in dry ice but make sure you wrap it in plastic to prevent freezer burn. I’ll get you’re info when you come back.”
“I need the job done much sooner than that,” the man said.
“Just like everybody else. If you want the best, then you have to wait. Lots of other places to go if you need it quick.” David started to head back to the shop when the bald man grabbed him by the arm.
“What’s your problem, pal?” David asked.
The man reached into his coat and pulled out a stack of cash and a gun. He set them both on the counter.
“Fifty thousand dollars, or the gun. You choose.” The bald man stood calmly, waiting for David to respond. The larger men straightened, shifting as they stood, readying themselves for action.
David eyed the money and the men. And the gun.
“What’s the big rush?” David asked. He was calm partly because he was still half-drunk, and because everybody who came to his shop wanted things done quickly. They were all rich, they all had guns, and most were used to getting their way. But they weren’t criminals, at least not in the traditional sense. David sensed that these men were different.
“We need something ready for a meeting in a week. We can’t do it without him.”
“Him? What is it? A tiger or something?”
“Rattlesnake,” the bald man said.
“A rattlesnake? Sure, I can turn that around in a week for fifty grand. No problem.” David was confused but happy to discover the job was the easiest animal a taxidermist could hope for. Hell, Neil could probably take care of it.
“Not a rattlesnake. Rattlesnake,” the bald man said.
“You’re going to have to run that by me again, Chief.”
“Rattlesnake is a man. More accurately, he was a man.”
“You want me to taxidermy a dead man?”
“Exactly.”
“I think you might have missed your exit, pal. You want the funeral home over on Grover Street.”
“He needs to look alive. By next week.”
David paused, reflecting on the man and his leather-coated minions. He looked at the pile of cash on the counter. “Look friend, I’m flattered. Really. And I’m not sure what you’re up to but I don’t think I can get involved. Nobody cares if I fill my shop to the rafters with dead animals, but just one man can spoil the whole lot.”
“There is a meeting next week,” the man said. “Rattlesnake will be seated at a table and will wear his sunglasses as he always does. He never speaks, and he won’t this time either. But he must have the sheen of life to him, which is where you come in. Just do to him what you do to the animals. We will pick him up in a week and never return.”
“How do I know you won’t just kill me once you’ve got him?” David asked.
“It’s funny how often people ask me that question. It really doesn’t make any sense. The thing is, if you do this job for me, and do it well, you may get paid and go on living your life, unlike the animals in your freezers. If you don’t do it, you will certainly be dead. The choice to me seems obvious. Your question doesn’t really mean anything. There are no guarantees in life, there is just living. Do this thing and maybe you collect, maybe you die. It’s really the same as any other day.”
David paused, considering the man’s statement. “Let me take a look at him.”
The large men went the SUV and retrieved an oversized Coleman cooler and wheeled it into the shop. Inside was Rattlesnake buried in dry ice, folded over like he was mid-air while doing a cannonball.
“Impossible! I can’t get him defrosted and have him ready in a week. It’s physically impossible.” The bald man reached for the gun. “Wait, listen to me. I’m telling you, it will take at least two days to unfreeze and get him pliable enough to pose him like he’s sitting. Then there’s the work to be done on his skin, especially the hands and fingernails. When we’re dead the skin retracts from the nail, and the dry ice makes it worse. We’ll have to skin him, then build a frame, put the skin back on so it looks natural. It cannot be done it a week!”
“What if we just did the head and the hands,” Neil said. He had stepped from behind the curtain and was watching the negotiations.
“What?” David asked.
“Like with the deer. We could cut off the head and the hands, put them in the microwave to defrost them faster, then attach them to a stuffed frame. All they need to see are his head and has hands, right?” Neil asked the bald man.
“That is correct. Rattlesnake simply has to sit as he normally would, motionless and silent. His head and hands would be enough.”
“I think we can do this David,” Neil said.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” David said.
“We’ll pick up Rattlesnake in a week. See you then,” the bald man said and walked out with his bodyguards.
David and Neil rolled the cooler to the back and dumped Rattlesnake on the floor near a drain. He rolled out, surrounded by a dry ice fog. He landed on his side like he fell over while doing a deep knee bend.
“This was your idea,” David said to Neil, “How do you think we should begin?”
“Let’s get him up on the bandsaw, cut off the head and neck, and then the hands just above the wrists. That should give us enough bone to attach to the frame.”
“What about preserving his meat? He’s going to mold and rot and start dripping out all over the place.”
“Once he’s defrosted, we can inject him with that pink polymer we use to get color into the mouths. He should look pretty natural with that and it will help to preserve him. Then we dip his head and hands in acrylic, which will seal him up and prevent any decay.”
“Kid, you may just get us out of this mess alive,” David said.
David and Neil worked ceaselessly on the Rattlesnake puppet, and it seemed to be working, until David noticed some brown fluid collecting just below his right eye.
“Dammit! He’s decaying too fast! He’s going to liquify before we can finish,” David lamented.
“Ugh, that doesn’t look good. Could we drain it off and seal the hole?” Neil asked.
“He’s probably full of juice by now. It will just keep leaking out of him,” David replied.
“Could we make casts of his head and hands and then make molds of them? The only trick is painting them to look real, but you’re an expert at that,” Neil said.
“Damn kid, it looks like I taught you well. Let’s get to it.”
When the bald man and his bodyguards returned David had the Rattlesnake dummy standing at the counter, with one hand raised.
“See, he’s waving hello,” David said. “He’s fully posable, so if you need him for anything besides the meeting, you can prop him up like a doll and you’re good to go.”
“Sitting will be fine.” The man leaned in to get a good look, he sniffed at the hand on the counter. “Amazing. No smell and he looks perfectly alive.” He reached into his coat and set the cash on the counter. “And here’s an extra twenty thousand for doing such excellent work. We may need your services again someday.”
“Come back anytime,” David said, as he scooped up the money and stepped back into the shop. “What a payday! I can get an upgrade on the sewing machine and maybe some bigger curing tanks.”
“Any chance of some bonus pay for all the overtime I put in?” Neil asked.
“Kid, you know how it is, I have so much overhead. It takes money to make money. But I promise, soon, we’ll work out a partnership deal. You’ve learned a lot but you’re still green.”
“Then how about a toast?” Neil asked, as he presented David with his favorite drink, vodka and Cranberry Crystal Light. Neil cracked open a beer for himself. “To the future.”
“To the future!” David said as he chugged his drink.
David fell asleep in his chair and after a few hours Neil held a mirror under his nose to make sure his breathing had stopped. Neil had sprinkled half an ounce of fentanyl into David’s drink, which caused an overdose. Neil went to work on David as he had on Rattlesnake and soon had life-like dummy that appeared to be sound asleep in his chair. Neil took over the business, and the bald man never returned.