Death Message

Chapter Four

After opening the parcel, Brad walked over and placed it at the center of the coffee table which fronted their living room couch. Over the course of the next several days, the Montanas tried everything they could think of to open the strange-looking vessel. Maggie had even drawn sketches of the symbols on the cone and asked Martin Bankman, Professor of Linguistics at MC, to see if he recognized the odd script. She told Martin that she'd found the strange symbols while in Fiji and was curious about their origin and meaning. Initially, Professor Bankman was unable to identify the markings and promised Maggie he'd make some inquiries and get back to her. While they waited for Bankman's research, they poked, twisted, shook, prodded, and pressed the strange-looking symbols on the object of their ever-growing frustration.

Three days after Maggie had approached Bankman, he called to say that he had no success in pinpointing the source of the codes. He suggested sending a copy of the sketches to Robert Glick at Stanford. Bankman told Maggie that Professor Glick was a world-renowned expert on obscure and ancient languages and suggested that if anyone could uncover the source of the codes, it was Glick. Maggie agreed to forward the sketches to Glick and thanked him for his efforts.

Following dinner Monday evening, Maggie and Brad were relaxing on their living room couch watching a rerun of Seinfeld. It had been a long day for both of them. The cone, perched on the coffee table directly in front of them, was fast becoming an aggravating reminder of their failures to breach its content. At the first commercial break, Brad got up and went into the bedroom. He extracted a hammer from a small toolbox in the closet and returned to the living room.

"What's that for?" Maggie asked.

"I'm going to open this thing if it's the last thing I do."

"Brad, no," Maggie said with considerable alarm in her voice. "Don't, you'll ruin it!"

"Frankly, I don't care. What good is it if we can't get it open?" Brad said in rather a disgusted tone.

"It would make a good conversation piece. Don't you think?"

Brad shrugged off Maggie's redirecting comment. "I'm going to open this thing."

"Maybe, it doesn't open," Maggie indirectly supplicated, hoping that Brad would reconsider his impulsive and potentially destructive idea.

"I'm not going to hit it hard."

"Brad, please." Maggie appealed, looking up at Brad who was now standing in front of the table inspecting the cone.

"Look, Maggie, we're both pretty sure this thing opens. It's not going to hurt to tap it a few times."

"You're going to scratch the finish."

"Look at my lips. I don't care." Brad chided as he walked around the coffee table and sat down next to his wife.

Maggie sat there fuming at Brad's sarcastic comments. "Do what you want!"

Brad placed the hammer on the cushion, reached forward, lifted the cone, and placed it on his lap. With his right hand, he grabbed the hammer and gave the object a gentle tap on the right side, nothing happened. He hit it again, only this time harder, and nothing. Before Maggie could protest, Brad raised his arm and slammed the hammer into the same side of the cone and at the same time grimaced as the bottom of the object drove into his left thigh. The hammer bounced off the surface as if he'd hit an iron anvil. Brad looked down at the spot he'd just smashed. There was no mark, no scratch, no indentation. It was as if he had never hit it. Even a solid steel object would show some sort of imprint, Brad thought.