The Mummy (33 page)

Army of Darkness

T
he ten soldiers of death came to a stop just beyond the double doors, standing at attention, like any good military unit, awaiting their orders. In front of them burbled the black bog over which one of those narrow stone slabs served as a bridge, just across from which, at the base of the altar, stood O’Connell, his arm still tucked protectively around Evelyn’s waist.

“And here I thought your brother couldn’t read ancient Egyptian,” O’Connell said to her.

Imhotep was striding down that stairway, pointing at O’Connell and Evelyn, bellowing a command in his native tongue.

Evelyn said, “He’s ordering them to—”

“I think I got that,” O’Connell said, letting go of her, moving in front of her, holding the thick heavy hilt of the sword in both hands.

In perfect unison, the soldier mummies marched toward the fetid moat, as if they going to wade right in . . . then leaped across it—fully fifteen feet!—landing perfectly, as a unit, and began to march toward the two young lovers.

“Do something, Jonathan!” O’Connell called to his friend, on the other side of the vast chamber. “You’re the one with the book!”

“Bloody hell!” Jonathan cried, pacing along an edge of the moat. “I don’t know what to do!”

“Finish the inscription!” Evelyn yelled to her brother. “If you complete it, you should gain control over them!”

“Really?” Jonathan said, gazing at the golden cover. “Well, then, I’ll give it a go.”

“Yeah,” O’Connell said tightly, “why don’t you?” He was backing up as the ten mummies moved toward him, their shields and swords and other weapons poised for battle.

Evelyn, just behind him, was backing up also, as the mummy soldiers fanned out in front of them, readying for attack.

Not expecting an assault from the rear, she let out a startled cry as a hand clutched her shoulder, and spun the startled Evelyn around, where she could see that sacrificial dagger raised high above her once again.

Not by Imhotep—he stood at the bottom of the stairway now, a general guiding his troops.

No, this knife was clutched in a skeletal hand, the hand of the rotted, revived corpse of Anck-su-namun herself!

They had not seen the hideous mummy in the filmy, feminine garb slip from the altar, steady herself on ancient bony legs, and pick up that sacrificial blade. Now, it would seem, Anck-su-namun had taken her regeneration into her own hands, and—though no eyes could be seen in those sunken sockets in that gray skull face—the pharaoh’s concubine was having no trouble “seeing” Evelyn, at whose heart she swung the dagger.

Evelyn leaped back, bumping into O’Connell, the mistress mummy’s blade missing by a fraction of an inch. O’Connell’s already amazed expression managed to be even more astounded by this new player in the deadly game.

“You gotta stop her, baby,” O’Connell said, squaring off with the advancing soldiers. “She may have the knife, but you got the weight advantage.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear,” Evelyn said, moving away from the advancing Anck-su-namun.

And O’Connell turned back, sword at the ready, to face the ten dead soldiers, who lifted their shields and screeched at him in a hideous battle cry.

O’Connell screeched back at them, and waved his sword, even as Evelyn bolted toward various statues and idols, where she could lead the lady mummy on a merry chase.

Imhotep called out a command, and five of the dead soldiers, again acting as one, leaped over O’Connell’s head and landed nimbly on the altar. Now O’Connell had mummy soldiers in front of him, and behind him; there was only one thing to do—run like hell! Run like hell toward the sidelines . . .

Across the chamber, Jonathan, moving along the edge of the moat, kicking skulls and skeletal fragments from his path into the black stew, was staring into the face of the gold book, trying his best to interpret the hieroglyphs, muttering,
“Hootash im . . . Hootash immmmm . . .
something or other, goddamnit!”

“Hurry up, Jonathan!” Evelyn called, as she played a deadly game of ring-around-the-rosie with the knife-wielding mummy of Anck-su-namun, circling a statue of Anubis.

Jonathan was unaware that Imhotep—content that his soldiers were in pursuit of O’Connell—was moving leisurely, but inexorably across the ampitheater toward him.

“I can’t make out this last bloody symbol,” Jonathan said.

“Hurry!” Evelyn said, ducking a jab from Anck-su-namun’s blade, and scurrying toward another idol. “He’s coming! Imhotep’s . . .”

But Evelyn had no time for conversation, even when it might save her brother, because Anck-su-namun was bearing down on her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was destroying a precious relic of antiquity, as she pushed a vase on a pedestal into the mummy’s path, where it shattered, creating an obstacle that bought Evelyn a few precious seconds.

With the soldier mummies on his heels, O’Connell raced across the chamber toward a rope secured to a post, just to the left of the yawning stairway; the rope stretched high above, to a pulley that held a big metal cage that had no doubt once been an instrument of torture. Right now it promised escape, temporary escape, at least . . .

O’Connell swung the sword, severing the rope, and—with mummy soldiers nipping at his heels—grabbed hold and was yanked up and away so quickly that even though one of the mummies managed a supernatural fifteen-foot leap in pursuit of him, the bony bastard missed him and plastered himself against the wall like a bug on a windscreen. Simultaneously, the huge weighted cage on the other end of the rope came slamming down from the ceiling and, in an echoing crash, smashed another of the soldiers to dust.

Swinging like Tarzan, O’Connell nimbly leaped from the rope to the landing at the top of the tall stairway. He was not about to abandon Evelyn, but with the soldiers down there, at the bottom of the stairs, they might in their automaton-minded way follow him up that long distance, buying him time while he ducked around through the passageway and came in the back door, to save Evelyn . . .

This plan in mind, he bolted into the passageway, and was about halfway to his destination when he almost ran headlong into the damn things, those goddamned soldier mummies! Imhotep had apparently seen through O’Connell’s strategy, and sent his undead troops charging up this rear route, to get him.

Turning on his heels, O’Connell ran back the way he’d come, flew through the archway, and took the stairs two and three at a time, figuring the dead soldiers were right behind him—never dreaming that they’d race out of the archway and, defying gravity, walk down the walls, like spiders, and up on the ceiling above him.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, O’Connell whirled, sword in hand, ready to do battle—but the soldiers weren’t there! Hearing something clank in back of him, he turned quickly to see the undead bastards dropping from the ceiling and lining up behind him, shields up, weapons raised, ready to attack.

So, what the hell—he attacked
them,
wading into the bandaged brigade, sword flashing and slashing, thrusting the blade into the trunk of the closest mummy and hurling him into the nearby bog, which splashed blackly, hungrily receiving this offering.

Dueling with another of the mummies, maneuvering the creature toward the slime pit, O’Connell brought his sword back to deliver what he hoped would be a telling blow, and unknowingly jammed it into and through the skull of another of the devils, who’d been coming up behind him with a battle axe. As he followed through with his swing, O’Connell was startled to find a detached head on the blade, but he hit his opponent just the same, with both the sword and the skull, shoving the soldier mummy into the voracious bog, even as the now-headless attacker, still lugging his battle axe, tottered into the muck on his own disoriented accord.

Two more soldiers rushed up to take the place of their fallen compatriots and O’Connell plucked a torch from a wall mount and jammed it into the face of the nearest mummy; apparently those ancient bandages were highly flammable, because the soldier of death burst into flame, a head-to-toe human torch, or anyway inhuman torch. O’Connell kicked the blazing bastard in the stomach, shoving him into his comrade, who similarly ignited, both of them doing a frantic flaming ballet before tumbling into the slime pit, which put out their fire but sucked them under, the bog burping bubbles.

Four of the mummy military remained. Parrying the blows of their blades, ducking the thrusts of spears, O’Connell held his own, until he again found himself at the foot of the stone staircase, and soon was slashing away with the big sword as he climbed, backward, the four skull-faced soldiers skulking up after him.

He kicked the shield of one, which sent the mummy toppling into two more mummies, all three taking a tumble from either side of the open stairway, onto the stone floor. But they sprang back onto their feet, as if that fall were nothing, while O’Connell fought their remaining comrade, sword to sword. With a vicious sideways swipe, O’Connell took the bastard’s legs literally out from under him, dropping him to his bony knees. This success was undermined by the other three mummies making another of those supernatural leaps for a sprightly landing on the steps just above and behind O’Connell.

Swinging around with the sword ready to cleave, O’Connell felt a shield slap his body and send him tumbling back over the shortened torso of the mummy behind him, pitching down the stairs, toppling, losing his sword on the way to the hard stone floor.

And now, unarmed, he looked up at the grinning skull faces of three military mummies, advancing upon him down those stairs with their shields up and their swords high.

In the meantime, Jonathan, finally noticing Imhotep stalking him, continued skirting the edges of the black moat, doing his best to translate the remaining symbols of the inscription. On the move, he called out to his sister, who was fleeing Anck-su-namun’s mummy, that sacrificial knife jabbing and hacking away as Evelyn weaved in and around any barrier she could find. Right now they were back at the altar, circling the thing, playing a lethal round of tag.

Jonathan, now engaged in a similar lethal game with Imhotep, called to his sister, “What’s the Anck symbol that has two squiggly lines above it, a bird and a stork?”

“Ahmenophus!”
Evelyn called, and stumbled.

This allowed the mummified Anck-su-namun, who was growing surer-footed by the second, to close the gap, reaching out a withered hand and grasping Evelyn by her throat; the skeletal fingers had incredible force, even as desiccated flesh peeled from the hand. The mummy turned Evelyn’s face toward her own, and Evelyn, already growing faint, air cut off by the viselike grip, found herself staring into the grinning skull mask of a once beautiful woman, whose other hand held high the sacrificial blade.

As the same time, O’Connell was on his back, scrambling awkwardly on his hands and heels, like a crab, looking up at the three mummy soldiers whose swords swung back, then swung down . . .

. . . just as Jonathan was saying,
“Hootash im Ahmenophus!”

And the dead soldiers froze, their blades halting an inch from the stunned O’Connell’s face.

Then the mummified trio, in unison, stood upright, turning to face Jonathan at the outskirts of the chamber, where he’d been hopping around, playing keepaway, Imhotep slowly closing in.

Jonathan recoiled at this attention, and said to the dead soldiers, “Don’t look at
me!”

But Evelyn, choking under the fingers of Anck-su-namun, called out, “Ca . . . ca . . .
command
them!”

Jonathan, eyes wide at the scrape Evelyn was in, looked at his soldiers, pointed at his sister, and yelled,
“Fa-hooshka Anck-su-namun!”

The soldier mummies turned, and marched toward Anck-su-namun. Imhotep, seeing this, quickened his stride, and closed in on Jonathan.

Help was on the way, the mummies marching, but Evelyn saw the wrinkled corpse bracing to deliver the death blow with the blade, and the Englishwoman summoned whatever strength she had left to throw a right cross into the gray, shrunken face, taking teeth and knocking off rotten flesh, Anck-su-namun stumbling back.

Then the soldier mummies were upon Anck-su-namun, carving and cleaving, the would-be bride of Imhotep hissing her rage and hacking back at them with the sacrificial knife, but quickly falling to the floor, cut to ribbons by the three flailing blades.

“Anck-su-namun!”
Imhotep shrieked, as if he were the one suffering the pain, and as Jonathan frantically scrambled away, the High Priest of Osiris was after him.

Still reeling, Evelyn, picking herself up from the floor near the base of the altar, gasping for breath, watched in horror as Imhotep grabbed her brother by the throat, just as the mummy of Anck-su-namun had done to her.

“Rick!” she cried, moving toward her brother. “Help him! Help Jonathan!”

O’Connell, getting to his feet, had witnessed Imhotep’s assault on Jonathan, too, and he ran to recover his sword, watching as the high priest lifted Evelyn’s brother up and off the ground as if Jonathan were weightless, pinning him against a wall. Sword in hand now, O’Connell raced across a stone-slab bridge over the bog, dashing toward where Jonathan struggled pitifully, Imhotep’s robes flapping like black wings, as the regenerated mummy choked his prey with one hand while, with the other, snatched the gold
Book of Amun Ra
from Jonathan’s grasp, as if removing a dangerous toy from a child’s fingers.

And then O’Connell was there, swinging the big blade like a scythe, chopping off Imhotep’s right arm like a tree branch, the limb thudding to the floor with
The Book of Amun Ra
still clutched in its dead hand.

Imhotep dropped Jonathan, who slid down the wall, clutching at his throat, making a gurgling sound; but He Who Shall Not Be Named—who whirled to cast a ferocious stare upon O’Connell—registered no fear, no pain, or for that matter blood: Where the dismembered limb had been sliced away, the rot of a decayed mummy showed within.

Imhotep might look human on the outside, but within he was still a desiccated corpse.