The Mummy (32 page)

Even the mummy of Anck-su-namun, in the process of returning to life beside her, turned to gaze with empty eye sockets at Evelyn, who straggled wildly at her bonds, trying to will herself off that sacrificial slab, as Imhotep held the wide-hilted, swordlike sacrificial knife high above her, directly over her heart.

“With your death,” Imhotep said, in his ancient language, which Evelyn understood painfully well, “Anck-su-namun shall live . . . And together we will be an invincible plague upon this sorry world!”

And above her, the serpent’s tooth sharpness of the knife’s point, poised to strike, caught the flickering light of torches and winked at her, as if this were all some awful joke.

Minutes before, in the small chamber where the statue of Horas reigned, O’Connell and Ardeth Bay—both hunkered down, digging away at the seams of the secret compartment at the statue’s base—had managed to pry the panel loose. It seemed just ready to give . . .

“Okay,” O’Connell said, breathing hard, resting for just a moment, “at the count of three, let’s both put our backs into it, and the son of a buck should pop right off . . .”

Ardeth Bay, also catching his breath, nodded.

“One,” O’Connell said. “Two . . .”

“Company’s coming!” Jonathan yelled.

O’Connell and the Med-jai warrior joined Jonathan at the mouth of the passageway, down which could be seen a contingent of rotting mummies, lumbering toward them in that too familiar, shambling but resolute way . . .

Ardeth Bay grabbed the elephant gun, scooping up a handful of shells from the gunnysack, saying, “Keep digging! Get the book!”

O’Connell, working with Jonathan now, returned to the statue’s base; crowbars inserted, they again pried at the seams, as from the passageway echoed the thunderous reports of the elephant gun. Jonathan, white with fear, paused to look toward the mouth of the tunnel, down which Ardeth Bay was making a stand against the oncoming horde of undead.

“Keep at it!” O’Connell said. “We’ve almost got it, now! Let’s pull together, Johnny boy, on the count of three . . . One . . . two . . .
shit!”

O’Connell gazed down in terror at the skeletal hand clutching his ankle, a mummy’s hand that had burst up out of the sandy floor.

Jonathan, backing away, holding the crowbar like a weapon now, shouted, “Oh my God—they’re everywhere!”

And indeed, like terrible flowers blossoming, hands were shoving up through the dirt-and-sand floor, and then a garden of corpses was crawling up out of the ground, their bandaged bodies filthy, their bony fingers grasping.

O’Connell swung the crowbar like a bat and cut through the rib cage of the oncoming mummy, but didn’t stop the creature, who shoved O’Connell violently away from where he’d been working at the statue’s base. As O’Connell got to his feet, the mummy blocked the way, as if wanting to keep him from the base of the statue, where another of the bandaged bastards seemed intent to go, as if on a mission, bending at the base of Horus . . . and suddenly O’Connell knew:
Imhotep had sent these creatures not just to kill the intruders, but to bring back
The Book of Amun Ra!

Another of the dingy devils had Jonathan by the throat, lifting him up off the ground, strangling him, keeping him away from the secret compartment.

And that third mummy grasped the seam of the compartment and, with incredible force, yanked back on the panel, pulling it free, and shooting a stream of acid, spraying out, drenching him and his buddy, who had been blocking O’Connell’s path, both mummies sizzling and smoking like sausages on a grill. Even the monster choking Jonathan got spritzed by the scalding stuff, all across the back of him, and he—and the other two—went stumbling about in a steaming stupor, the withered, dried flesh melting off their bones, until their skeletons collapsed like pickup-sticks and began to liquefy into an unspeakable ooze.

The one who’d been strangling Jonathan, however, who hadn’t been as doused to death as thoroughly as his brethren, crawled across the floor and slid into one of the holes they’d emerged from . . . but the damn thing latched a bony hand on to O’Connell’s gunnysack and dragged it down with him!

A single stick of dynamite had spilled out—otherwise, their arsenal was gone.

“Damn!” O’Connell spat.

From the passageway came the continuing thunder of Ardeth Bay’s elephant gun; but the warrior would be out of ammo soon, O’Connell knew. He scurried to the base of the statue, the compartment now open, and called over to Jonathan, who was massaging his throat, breath heaving like a runner after the big race.

They knelt and withdrew from the compartment an ornate wooden chest, its craftsmanship exquisite, colorfully adorned with hieroglyphs.

“Could this bloody thing be booby-trapped as well?” Jonathan asked, wide-eyed.

The boom of the elephant gun echoed down the passageway.

“Yes,” O’Connell said, “but we don’t have time to care.”

And he stuck his crowbar’s tip into the seam and pried the lid off, snapping the airtight seal, popping the box open.

Within was a heavy burlap bag that obviously concealed a large object. O’Connell and Jonathan exchanged anxious looks, then the elephant gun boomed again and O’Connell snatched the bagged object from the box, and slipped the burlap covering off, exposing the brass-hinged volume, the golden twin of
The Book of the Dead.

“The Book of Amun Ra,”
Jonathan breathed.

“Hell, it’s bigger than the Chicago phone book,” O’Connell said, hefting the volume.

“Save the woman!”
came Ardeth Bay’s voice, from the passageway.
“Kill the creature!”

O’Connell and Jonathan scrambled to the tunnel’s mouth and, not very far down at all, Ardeth Bay—out of cartridges—was swinging the empty elephant gun at the mass of mummies like Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

Then the moldy monsters had overrun him, trampling the brave warrior, and were swarming toward the small chamber of Horus.

O’Connell lit his final precious ingot of dynamite, looked about him, found the farthest wall, and flung the sizzling stick.

“That’s the last one!” he said, pulling Jonathan down with him, hitting the deck. “We need some luck!”

The wall blew, debris collapsing, and, as the smoke cleared, a tunnel beyond beckoned. Just as mummies began to pile into the chamber, O’Connell and Jonathan scrambled through the opening and into the passageway, running for dear life, knowing that the one thing these lumbering undead monstrosities lacked was speed.

They cut down a passageway, then another, and another, just guessing, and almost ran through an archway. But O’Connell—having heard a bizarre, indecipherable sound, a sort of muffled, mumbled chanting emanating from beyond that portal—braced himself against the wall and stopped both of them from going on through.

Gingerly, O’Connell peered around the archway and took in a sight so stunning in its appalling scope and splendor that his mind could barely grasp what his eyes reported to him . . .

At the bottom of an enormous stairway carved into the face of the rock, in the cavernous ampitheater below, dyed by the blue-orange patina of torches, surrounded by idols and icons of an ancient religion, Evelyn lay bound upon an altar as a clumsily swaying chorus of rotting mummies undulated in a circle around her; and next to her, on one side, were arranged the glittering jeweled canopic jars, while on her other side lay a rotted mummy—Anck-su-namun, O’Connell would wager!

And approaching her, sacrificial dagger in one hand, was He Who Shall Not Be Named—the regenerated mummy himself, Imhotep.

Jonathan was also peeking at this terrible tableau.

“My poor dear sister,” he uttered, as if about to cry.

“Stiff upper lip, Johnny,” O’Connell said, eyeing an adjoining passageway, which took a steep downward path. “Announce yourself. Attract some attention . . . I’m gonna find a back door in!”

• • •

And as Evelyn struggled, unwilling to close her eyes and admit defeat, rather staring defiantly up at the dagger raised over her heart, Imhotep used his free hand to touch her cheek, almost affectionately, not unlike the gesture he’d made to the corpse of his beloved.

“You receive a rare honor,” the reborn mummy told her. “You will not die—you will live within Anck-su-namun. And she will be reborn, your heart beating within her breast.”

“Good news, Evy!” a familiar voice called out, from high above—higher than the knife blade. “I’ve found it!”

And she turned and looked and there, way at the top of those stairs, was her wonderful, foolish brother, brandishing the golden
Book of Amun Ra.

The spell broken, at least momentarily, Imhotep stepped away from the altar, robes swirling, to look up at the intruder.

“Open the book, Jonathan!” she yelled. “That’s the only way to stop him!”

Imhotep returned to the altar just long enough to gently place the sacrificial knife near the canopic jars, then quickly moved toward the staircase, and Jonathan.

“He’s coming after you, Jonathan!” she screamed. “Open the book—kill him!”

At the top of the stairs, Jonathan was very well aware of the dark-eyed, bald-headed reborn high priest moving up toward him; but he wasn’t having any luck at all getting the damned book open.

And he suddenly knew why: The volume had that same indentation on its face indicating the need for a very specific key.

“I need the bloody puzzle box to open this!” he yelled.

Imhotep was halfway up those stairs now.

“It’s tucked away in his robes!” she called, straining helplessly at her shackles.

“What do I do, Evy?” he called back. The handsome creature climbing the steps was grinning up at him, dark eyes hypnotic, coming closer, closer. “What in hell do I do?”

And, as Jonathan panicked, ducking back through the doorway into the passageway, she called, “Don’t read the inscription! It’s a curse against defilement!”

But all Jonathan heard, frantically stumbling down the tunnel path O’Connell had taken earlier, were three of her words: “. . . read the inscription!”

And, thinking he was obeying his sister’s orders, Jonathan—with his meager command of ancient Egyptian—did his best to translate the legend on the cover.

“Keetash
-something,” Jonathan mumbled, as he ran, heavy book in his hands,
“naraba
-something or other . . .”

Evelyn, unaware that her brother was misguidedly, fumblingly trying to unleash a curse upon them, felt a surge of relief as she saw Rick O’Connell come charging at the circle of high-priest mummies surrounding her, with a huge sword in his hand, procured apparently from one of the many statues on the fringes of the huge chamber.

Swinging the sword, he cut one of the mummies in two, and then swung it around and sank the flat edge of its blade into the chain that shackled her right wrist, making a satisfying
clang
as it snapped the ancient metal.

The mummy priests didn’t seem to notice that one of their group had been cleaved in two, and made no attempt to interrupt O’Connell’s efforts as he skirted the altar and flung the big sword’s blade into the chain at the shackle at her left wrist, with another resounding
clang.

Evelyn sat up, exhilarated by the taste of freedom.

Imhotep, nearing the top of the stairway, heard this commotion, and, as he turned to take in the sight of O’Connell rescuing Evelyn, froze in fury.

Imhotep bellowed a command in ancient Egyptian, which Evelyn knew all too well translated into: “Kill the intruder!”

And just as O’Connell slung the blade into the chain shackling her left foot, the mummies began attacking him with their rotting, clawing hands. The bastards were all over him, trying to rip him apart with their bony fingers, shredding his shirt, carving bloody trails in his flesh. He swung his sword, taking off heads, arms, legs, chopping them to mummy kindling, but also elbowing and kicking at them, and with a final hacking blow of the blade he severed the chain at her right ankle.

He pulled her off the altar, arm around her waist, both of them breathing hard, nostrils flaring like racehorses crossing a finish line, and his eyes locked with Evelyn’s. They grinned at each other in fierce animal pride and even lust and, in that moment, without a word promised each other everything.

It was at that instant of triumph that Jonathan stumbled through a passageway into the ampitheater, crossing a slab of stone bridging the black bog, and Evelyn heard her brother utter the last deadly words of an ancient curse.

“Rasheem . . . ooloo . . . Kashka!”
Jonathan read from the gold book’s cover, ever so proud of himself.

“Jonathan!” Evelyn cried, aghast. “What have you done?”

“What
has
he done?” O’Connell asked, arm still around her waist, massacred mummies scattered at his feet.

And a pair of huge doors threw themselves open from the adjacent mausoleum, the echo booming through the vast chamber like cannon fire. The sound of marching feet, the metallic clanking, seemed to announce . . . soldiers?

Midway on the staircase, Imhotep stood with arms folded, and again called to Evelyn’s mind a self-satisfied genie, as he threw his bald head back, laughing a resounding laugh.

Ten soldiers, ten of Pharaoh Seti’s best, bravest men, marched through that double doorway into the ampitheater, in shields and skirts and headdresses, spears and swords at the ready.

Soldiers of death.

Mummies.

“Oops,” Jonathan said.

 
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