The Mummy (18 page)

Half a bottle was left, and O’Connell shared the liquor with Evelyn, while Jonathan slept it off in his tent.

O’Connell had built the fire up, but the desert night was its usual bitterly cold self, and they sat close together, sharing warmth. She told him she wasn’t a “drinking girl” and then proceeded to damn near drink him under the table, or anyway would have if they’d had a table. At one point, concerned—in the aftermath of the Med-jai raid—that she couldn’t defend herself, she inveigled him into giving her impromptu boxing lessons.

She swung on him, landed in his arms, and they dropped to the sand together, cuddling rather drunkenly in the firelight. He offered her another drink from the chipped spout of the bottle.

“Unlike my brother, sir,” she said rather grandly, “I know when to say no.”

That was something a man in love didn’t like to hear.

“I should be angry with you,” he said, taking a swig.

“Why?”

“Risking your life like that. I told you to stay put.”

She raised her eyebrows and slitted her eyes. “Who’s in charge of this expedition, anyway?”

“Look, I understand why your brother’s here—he’s after riches. Anybody can make sense out of that. But why . . . ?”

“What’s a rotten place like this doing in a nice girl like me?”

“Precisely.”

A faint smile tickled her full lips; her voice became dreamy. “Egypt’s in my blood. Don’t you know who my father was?”

“Who?”

“Show you.” She pulled on the chain around her neck, withdrawing from under the Bedouin gown a locket; she opened it to display the small photos of her handsome father and lovely mother, an Egyptian woman with her daughter’s eyes and mouth. “Howard Carnahan. That is who my father was.”

“I’m sorry . . . don’t know the name. I’m just an ignorant American.”

“But you’re a soldier of fortune in Arabia, aren’t you? Surely you’ve heard of the man who found King Tut’s tomb . . .
one
of the men, anyway.”

“Good lord . . . are your parents . . . ?”

“Dead,” she said, with a forceful bob of her head. “Plane crash. And I don’t believe it’s a curse. Such tommyrot, such poppycock. Thirteen people have died, yes, but people die every day. Not because of a curse. Not because of fate . . .”

O’Connell was a tad blotto himself, but he wasn’t fooled by the offhand, glib nature of her remarks.

“So you’re continuing your father’s work,” he said. “Spitting in the eye of the King Tut curse.”

“Put it that way if you like. I may not be an explorer, like my father, or adventurer like you, Mr. O’Connell . . . but I’m exceedingly proud of what I am.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?”

She slapped her chest, lifted her chin. “Why, I . . . am . . . a . . .
librarian!”

He snorted a laugh. “You mean a drunk librarian.”

She snuggled next to him. “How dare you say such a thing?” she cooed. “When are you going to kiss me again, anyway, Mr. O’Connell?”

“I’m not going to kiss you at all, unless you stop calling me ‘Mr. O’Connell.’ I told you—call me Rick.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it’s my name.”

“Rick. Rick . . . kiss me, Rick.”

And then she kissed him, and passed out in his arms with that same goofy expression her brother had worn. O’Connell looked at her with great fondness, holding her very close, and fell sound asleep wearing a smile almost as silly as hers.

 
12
 

Discoveries

W
ith the dawn of a new day, the two expeditions returned to their respective sites underground, in the caverns and chambers of the City of the Dead. Four men, Hassan and three diggers, had died as a result of yesterday’s attempts, not counting the five natives who’d been killed in the attack by Med-jai warriors; but that raid had only convinced the American group that abundant riches awaited them.

Accompanied by a mere trio of diggers now, the Americans returned to the base of the statue of Anubis. Over a breakfast of canned beans, they had decided that the booby trap that had reduced three men to steaming skeletons had (in Henderson’s evocative phrase) “shot its wad”; that its supply of acid was exhausted.

Nonetheless, certain precautions were taken, specifically, the enforcing of the three turbaned natives, at gunpoint, to pry open the lid of the secret compartment.

No spray of death emerged, though when the heavy stone lid thunked to the floor, everybody jumped—except the seemingly unflappable Daniels, his wounded arm in a sling. Beni, who had protested returning to this site, suggesting they seek the pharaoh’s treasure elsewhere in the underground maze, was huddling against a wall, praying in several languages.

Dr. Chamberlin stepped forward and, in their native language, bid the diggers to reach inside the secret compartment. This they did not want to do, but Chamberlin repeated his threat to invoke a withering curse of death upon them and their families, which was underscored by the three fortune hunters cocking their weapons, and the frightened diggers, faces beaded with sweat, reached within the dark, yawning chamber at the feet of the god.

They removed a wooden chest of exquisitely ornate workmanship, alive with lovely, colorful hieroglyphs, gold and black and blue and red. As the diggers carefully, fearfully, deposited the chest on the sandy floor, Chamberlin’s eyes greedily drank in the vivid symbols: winged sun disks, griffins, squatting gods, falcon-headed Horus, jackal-headed Anubis . . .

. . . but as he knelt beside the chest, interpreting the symbols, reading the deadly story they told, the Egyptologist could feel the back of his neck tingling with dread, his heart racing, his throat, his mouth, turning dust dry.

“What is it?” Daniels demanded, punctuating his words with gestures of gun-in-hand. “Spill!”

His voice soft, somber, even ominous, Chamberlin spoke as his eyes stayed affixed to the hieroglyphs. “There appears to be a curse on this chest . . . a most monstrous curse.”

“Curse my hairy ass,” Daniels growled dismissively. “Does it say anything about the pharaoh’s treasure?”

Chamberlin, still kneeling, looked up sharply at the three rough-hewn adventurers gathered around him, torches in one hand, guns in the other (but for the wounded Daniels, who settled for a gun). “Gentlemen . . . please. We must proceed with caution.”

“Look, Doc,” Henderson said, “I understand these ancient savages were pretty savvy joes—with their fancy booby traps and all. So we’ll be careful. But spare us the mumbo jumbo.”

“These were not savages,” the Egyptologist said, touching the lid of the chest as if protecting it. “This was a civilization of great glory and accomplishment, existing thousands of years before Christ.”

“Write a book about it,” Daniels said. “What’s it say about the loot?”

“These are hallowed grounds, gentlemen . . . Who are we to say that the beliefs of these people were any less valid than our own?”

Burns laughed. “I believe in gold and silver, Doc.”

“That which was set forth in ancient times,” the Egyptologist said, “could well be as strong today, as then.”

Beni stepped forward, a tiny step, bowed his head, and folded his hands as he addressed Henderson. “Listen to him,
barat’m.
Beni is all for plunder, but we must be swift, cautious, clever . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” Henderson said. “We’re all shakin’ in our shoes, and genuflectin’ before this dog-headed god, all right? Now—what’s the box
say?”

Chamberlin did not have to look at the chest to remember the exact phrase, which he now repeated for his impulsive partners: “ ‘Death will come on swift wings to whomever defiles this chest.’ ”

A ghostly gust of wind came howling through the chamber, and the torches in the hands of Henderson and Burns nearly flickered out. The three diggers had finally had enough, guns or no guns: They threw their hands in the air, screamed bloody murder, and went scurrying away, disappearing into the labyrinth, babbling in their native tongues.

“Superstitious riffraff,” Burns said.

“Really?” the Egyptologist asked. “You don’t find it unusual, a gust of wind, underground?”

The three fortune hunters did seem shaken, even Daniels, which relieved Chamberlin; perhaps they’d come to their senses.

“I would advise we move on,” Chamberlin said. “There is no reason to borrow trouble. As our guide indicates, we should investigate this underground city more thoroughly. We could round a corner, gentlemen, and enter a chamber littered with gold and jewels and precious objects.”

“Open the box,” Daniels snarled.

“The inscription on that ‘box’ goes on to say that there is a mummy here . . .”

“We oughta find a lot of mummies, here, Doc,” Henderson said.

“But this is an unusual mummy, my friends. He is described as ‘the undead,’ who—should he be brought to life—would be bound by sacred law to consummate the most appalling of all curses.”

“Yeah, well,” Henderson said, “we’ll just be real careful not to bring any mummies back to life.”

“Open the box, Doc,” Daniels repeated.

“The undead mummy would kill all of those who participated in the opening of this chest,” Chamberlin warned them. “He would assimilate our organs and fluids.”

“You mean eat us?” Daniels asked, almost smiling, but not quite.

“Jeez,” Henderson said, “sounds like he’s worked up a real appetite, this mummy, bein’ undead a couple thousand years.”

“By eating the flesh of the ‘defilers,’ ” Chamberlin continued, desperation coloring his voice now, “he will regenerate. And no longer will he be the undead, rather a plague upon this earth.”

Wind rustled down the tunnels, whistling an eerie tune, torches again flickering.

Henderson said, “We didn’t come all this way for nothin’ . . . Beni! Get your skinny ass up here.”

Beni, who’d been doing his best to climb inside the chamber wall, smiled nervously, bowing, and saying, “The view is fine from this vantage point, thank you,
barat’m.”

“Get over here!”

Beni obeyed.

Henderson nodded toward the crowbars on the floor, dropped by the diggers. “Pick one up, and pry that baby open.”

“No,
barat’m!”

Henderson touched the nose of the revolver to Beni’s. “Fine—I’m getting sick of canned food, anyway. It’d be a nice change to have some Hungarian goulash for lunch.”

And then Beni was prying at the lid of the wooden chest, the Americans looking on—guns and torches in hand, keeping a safe distance, the Egyptologist cowering behind them.

The seal seemed about to break when Beni cried, “No . . . the curse . . . the curse!”

And Beni shoved Henderson into Daniels, who bowling-pinned into Burns, and the skinny little guide bolted away, disappearing from the chamber into the tunnels, his voice, echoing,
“The curse! The curse!”

“Stupid superstitious little bastard,” Daniels said, picking himself up.

Henderson, on his feet again, said to Chamberlin, “Is that chest likely to be booby-trapped? The truth!”

Chamberlin shook his head. “That would be a defilement of the object’s sacredness. The ‘booby trap,’ as you put it,
is
the curse! My advice is not to . . .”

But Henderson had already jammed the crowbar’s tip in the seam and began prying the chest open, the seal snapping, the lid popping open—
and an explosion of dust was discharged into the air!

An impossible filthy cloud of it, a nasty vapor that enveloped the room and the men, left them coughing and disoriented and frightened, bumping into each other . . .

But within a few terrifying minutes, the dust had settled, the foul ancient vapor dissipating, and Chamberlin was almost amused at the sight of the three Americans training their weapons on the opened chest—as if their brute force and firepower could have an effect on antiquity.

Still, they had survived, and Chamberlin’s thirst for knowledge, and (truth be told) his own greed, overwhelmed his better instincts, and he had to see what was within that chest.

Slowly, even reverently, Chamberlin approached the beautiful box, and reached inside to lift out a large burlap bag, within which—obviously—was some big square object. Trembling with anticipation, slipping the protective burlap covering away, the Egyptologist withdrew a heavy brass-hinged book, exquisitely decorated with hieroglyphs carved by some ancient artisan from pure obsidian.