The Mummy (27 page)

“The living dead,” O’Connell said.

Daniels drew his revolver.

“West African voodoo cults,” the curator put in.

“Look at their flesh,” Ardeth Bay said.

Many of them were closer now, staggering like sleepwalkers, eyes wide and empty, their skin covered with hideous lesions.

“Boils and sores!” Jonathan said. “It’s another plague!”

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“And they don’t look happy about it,” O’Connell said.

“It has begun,” Ardeth Bay said. “The end begins.”

“You can give up if you want to,” Evelyn said to the Med-jai warrior, then added sarcastically, “After all, you have been at this for three thousand years—perhaps it’s time you took a break. But
we’re
going to get to work—right, Dr. Bey?”

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“Yes,” the curator said. “As soon as I go down and lock the doors . . .”

While the curator did that, Evelyn began sorting through the broken pieces of tablets, tossing precious relics aside like empty paper cups when they didn’t give her what she sought.

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“According to the Bembridge scholars,” Evelyn said, entirely focused and seemingly unconcerned about the crazed crowd beyond these walls, “the golden
Book of Amun Ra
was hidden inside the statue of Anubis.”

Daniels said, “But that’s where we found the other book, that goddamn black book.”

“Precisely,” Evelyn said.

“Those Bembridge boys were mistaken when they spurned my sister,” Jonathan said. “Maybe they were wrong about that, as well.”

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

Daniels, pacing about with revolver in hand, said, “No offense, but your British reserve is giving me a royal pain. Can’t you work a little faster?”

Evelyn’s fingers were moving quickly across a large stone tablet. “My theory is that the Bembridge scholars confused the books, reversed where the two volumes were hidden. So if the black book was inside Anubis, then the gold book should be . . .”

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“Evy,” Jonathan said, “our American friend Mr. Daniels has a point—faster, dear, faster!”

“Patience is a virtue,” she reminded her brother.

“So is breathing,” O’Connell pointed out. He had a revolver in hand, too.

“Why don’t I save us some time,” Jonathan said, “and go get the car. Dr. Bey, is there a side door I can take?”

The curator gave Jonathan rapid instructions, pointing him toward a back stairway deeper inside the museum.

As Jonathan was about to scurry off, O’Connell said, “You think you can wade through those zombies?

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

The sound of the mob throwing themselves against front doors resounded through the atrium; the little group on the balcony could easily see those doors from where they stood, the heavy wooden panels shuddering and swelling and giving . . .

Jonathan patted O’Connell on the shoulder. “I don’t see that I have much choice, chum! Meet you at the side door!”

And Evelyn’s brother scurried off.

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“Here it is!” Evelyn cried. “So much for the Bembridge scholars—the golden
Book of Amun Ra
is in the statue of Horus!”

“The statue of Horus,” the curator said, frowning in thought, “should be located fifty kadams west of the Anubis statue.”

“Oh Christ,” O’Connell said, making a face. “You don’t mean we have go back to the City of Dead?”

Ardeth Bay said, “Only if you want to destroy He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

The front doors of the museum gave way, falling and echoing like giant timber, the front line of turbaned zombies pitching and tumbling in on top of the fallen doors, getting trampled by their bonkers brethren as the vocal mob, caught up in their frenzied trance, began streaming in, pouring into the gallery below, and reverberating up through the atrium came their crazed chanters’ cry:
“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“Trip back to Hamanaptra sounds swell right now,” O’Connell said. “Let’s go!”

And they ran in the direction Jonathan had gone.

 
18
 

Imhotep’s Triumph

I
n his own view, Jonathan Carnahan was neither brave nor a coward; what he prided himself on was his resourcefulness, a certain quick-thinking adaptability, no matter how dire the situation.

But as Jonathan exited the museum into the parking lot, where the Dusenberg awaited, he found himself facing a situation so dire it challenged even his deep reserve of self-serving sufficiency: a splinter group of the crazed, drooling throng, which had otherwise swarmed the front of the museum, was staggering toward him, eyes wide and glazed, flesh blistered with sores and boils, arms outstretched like insane somnambulists.

A dozen of more of these zombies were bearing down upon him, chanting at the top of their lungs:
“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

Whereupon Jonathan, skidding to a stop, bugged out his eyes, thrust his arms forward, turned, summoned some drool and intoned:
“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

As the deranged chanters lurched on, heading toward the front of the museum, Jonathan pretended to join in, while actually marching in place.

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

And when the lunatic cluster had moved on, Jonathan, wiping spittle from his face, shaking with fear, but giddy with his own ingenuity, sprinted to the Dusenberg, the only car in the lot, relieved to find it had not been overturned by the berserk horde. He fired up the convertible, hit the gas, and pulled a manic U-turn, drawing up alongside some bushes near the side door of the museum.

Interminable seconds slid by as Jonathan sat, the car’s motor purring; he could hear that rabble within the museum, wreaking havoc, turning treasures to trash; windows on the second floor were shattering as precious artifacts were hurled heedlessly out. Heart racing, hands clammy on the steering wheel, Jonathan wondered how long he could stand to wait, how much time he could give his sister and the others to join him, knowing they might already lie twisted and bleeding and dead at the hands of that lesion-ravaged legion . . .

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

But Jonathan waited, summoning the courage and willpower from somewhere, and suddenly they came bursting out of that side door, O’Connell and his sister hand in hand, the curator and the Med-jai warrior with scimitars in their hands, with Daniels bringing up the rear, revolver at the ready. They jumped and piled into the convertible and Jonathan floored it, yanking the wheel around, tires squealing as they headed for the only way out, the front drive of the museum.

The squealing tires caught the attention of a rare member of the mob, one whose mind was clouded only by greed, not by Imhotep’s spell: Beni.

Jonathan noticed the little scoundrel stepping out of the portal where the museum’s front doors had been, Beni’s face alive with recognition, as—seeing them as they fled in the Dusenberg—he called out,
“Imhotep! Imhotep!”

Beni was not joining the chanters, either, but alerting his master.

And as the convertible peeled out of the drive, its passengers looked back with alarm at the sight of Imhotep, appearing in a shattered second-floor window of the museum, reaching out an arm as if from this distance he could pluck them from the vehicle.

O’Connell, in the front seat of the car, Evelyn between him and Jonathan, looked back sharply at Beni, pointing an accusing finger, yelling, “You’ll get yours, you little bastard!”

Beni grinned nastily and waved good-bye. “See you soon, Rick! See you very soon!”

And in that second-floor window, Imhotep—his regeneration more nearly complete, most of the mummy wrappings having dropped away, revealing smooth brown flesh—again opened his mouth wide, jaw unhinging, emitting a horrific, primordial shriek that cut through Cairo like a demented siren.

“Jesus!” Daniels, in the backseat, where he sat between Ardeth Bay and the curator, was slinging a pouch containing the precious jeweled canopic jar on a strap over his shoulder. “What’s the son of a bitch doing?”

“I think,” O’Connell said, looking back toward the receding museum, where the mummy’s disease-ridden disciples were suddenly streaming out of the front doors, in apparent pursuit of the Dusenberg, “he’s giving his army new orders.”

The plague had spread across the city, its inhabitants in the thrall of Imhotep, humans turned inhuman, sores and boils inflaming their bodies and their minds. Frantically, Jonathan sought streets free of the roaming crazies, with mixed success, losing any sense of direction, though O’Connell served as pilot, steering him toward the fort. This route took them down a narrow street in the bazaar section, a deserted artery that had the passengers in the Dusenberg trading tentative, relieved smiles. The worst was behind them, apparently.

But the worst was in fact right ahead of them, a gaggle of lunatics swarming out of alleyways and into the narrow tunnel of the street, blocking the way.

Jonathan slammed on his brakes, and the human roadblock began to press forward, charging at them, eyes wide, teeth bared in every pustule-pocked puss.

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

“Back up, goddamnit!” Daniels screamed. “Back up!”

O’Connell—glancing back at a mass of madmen coming up behind them, wielding weapons now, knives, axes, picks, clubs—clutched Jonathan’s arm. “No! Plow through the bastards!”

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

Jonathan hesitated, and O’Connell reached his foot over and punched the pedal, the convertible leaping forward, ramming into the herd, tossing them aside like roadkill, blood splashing the hood of the Dusenberg. Evelyn gasped and cried out in horror, but the murderous mass of deranged disciples gave not a thought to a few deaths among their numbers, and their corpses slowed the car’s progress. Others of the crazed crowd clung onto the car, half a dozen turbaned madmen trying to clamber into the automobile as the group fought them back—O’Connell and Daniels firing their revolvers, then frantically reloading, the Med-jai warrior and the curator hacking away with scimitars, Evelyn just pushing them off, throwing them overboard. Even Jonathan was driving one-handed, shoving, elbowing the lunatics as best he could.

“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

But it was an impossible task, and Jonathan finally swerved, knocking into a row of stalls lining the street, baskets and bottles flying, the vehicle slowing as Imhotep’s zombies clawed at the passengers, a pair of them latching on to Daniels and yanking him, screaming, out of the back.

“They’ve got Daniels!” O’Connell yelled.

Ardeth Bay was halfway over the back of the convertible, reaching out for him.

But there was no going back; the Dusenberg was swarmed with puss-oozing crazies and the remaining five passengers had their own waking nightmare to deal with. They did not witness what happened to Daniels . . .

. . . who managed to throw off the pair of zombies who’d torn him from the car, and tumbling across the pavement, came up shooting, blasting into the hideous teeming riffraff pressing in upon him, emptying his revolver into them, every bullet finding a target, curing insanity with death. But there was always another zombie to take the last one’s place, and then his revolver’s hammer was falling on one empty chamber after another,
click!, click!, click! . . .

And yet the vacant-eyed, festering-faced crowd, surrounding him where he’d backed himself up against a wall, did not advance. They stood staring at him, like circling vultures, waiting for nature to take its course and provide them with supper . . .

And then the mob parted like the Red Sea and the mummy, regal in his black robe, walked through them as they very softly spoke the name of He Who Shall Not Be Named:
“Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!”

Daniels, who—in a soldier of fortune’s life of risk taking and adventuring—had prided himself on his unflinching strength, his stoic courage, threw himself to his knees, whimpering in pitiful, prayerful submission to the towering high priest who stood reborn before him.