The Mummy (35 page)

As they scurried through the tunnels, ducking down as the ceiling lowered, sand began pouring in, sliding down the walls in a dry torrent, turning the air dusty.

“Cover your mouth!” O’Connell cried, then took his own advice.

Evelyn was right behind him, her brother bringing up the rear. Ceiling dropping inch by inexorable inch, they were bent in half now, like old people with terrible backaches, and it was harder than hell to run that way; but they did. They did.

Soon they had tumbled through half a doorway into the treasure chamber, that first one where O’Connell, Jonathan and the Med-jai warrior had fought the mummies.

Evelyn skidded to a stop, her eyes wide with wonder, taking in the piles of glittering jeweled artifacts, the ebony furnishings, the golden idols.

But O’Connell was taking in the sinking walls, and the sand piling in, sliding relentlessly down the walls. The sound of the lowering stone was thunderous, deafening; the world was collapsing around them and they had to find a way out, a path to some other world . . .

He grabbed her hand and yanked her along, dragging her through mounds of treasure, striding through the precious stuff toward a sinking doorway . . .

“Rick!” a familiar voice called—too familiar.

As they waded through riches, O’Connell glanced back to see Beni entering the chamber, on his hands and knees.

“Come on!” O’Connell called to him.

Then Beni joined their escape party, just behind Jonathan when the four darted through the descending doorway, finding themselves at the bottom of a stairway, walls lowering, ceiling coming down. At the top of the stairs was an archway that had already lost half its height. It was perhaps at four feet now.

O’Connell bolted up the stairs, two and three at a time, Jonathan and Evelyn kept close pace behind him, that doorway sliding down, lowering like a slow-motion guillotine.

O’Connell dove through, spun around, Jonathan diving past his sister through the narrow gap. Evelyn crawled through, but got pinned by the lowering arch, catching her above the feminine flare of her hips. She cried out, eyes wide with terror, but O’Connell grabbed both her arms and pulled with everything he had, and yanked her through.

Then Beni’s frightened face could be seen through the tiny gap remaining.

“Rick! My friend!”

Beni stuck his hand through and O’Connell grabbed on, pulling; but it was evident there wasn’t enough room, and as the archway dropped down farther, Beni snatched his arm back before it got cut off.

The archway thudded to the floor, sealing Beni in.

Evelyn and Jonathan stared at the vanished doorway, aghast.

“No saving him now,” O’Connell said, shaking his head. “Keep going!”

Crouching now, crawling, they made their way down a tunnel, sand racing down the walls. O’Connell had found his compass and, holding it and the torch in one hand as he crept along, did his best to guide his little group toward the preparation chamber where awaited, presumably, their ropes dangling from pillars. He only hoped that when they got there, the pillars would still be above ground!

When they entered the preparation chamber, on hands and knees, they discovered, to their relief and surprise, that the floor had risen, or anyway the sands had sunk, to where they were within a few feet of the surface. O’Connell used his locked hands as a step-up for both Evelyn and Jonathan, and then Jonathan reached a hand down for O’Connell, helping him out.

Then they were racing through the ruins, the shrine walls, pillars, pylons, all sinking into the sands, the ground disappearing behind them, Hamanaptra crumbling, collapsing around them in a rumbling underground earthquake. Up ahead a trio of camels were racing frantically as well, charging through the gate, as the pylons slipped under the sand. When the camels slowed on the stone ramp outside the gate, O’Connell, Evelyn, and Jonathan caught up with the beasts, O’Connell and Jonathan claiming two of them, climbing aboard, O’Connell pulling Evelyn up with him, onto the back of the animal. The camels, who apparently were glad to have their masters back,
any
masters—were easily handled.

And as they raced toward the desert, the remaining ruins crashed down behind them in a great cloud of sand and dust, billowing like the smoke of some immense explosion.

Several minutes later, they slowed, and paused, and looked back, but nothing could be seen yet—the cloud of sand was too broad, too concealing.

“Afraid your friend got left behind,” Jonathan said to O’Connell.

“Beni wasn’t anybody’s friend,” O’Connell said, feeling a twinge, nonetheless.

“Dreadful little man,” Evelyn said, from behind O’Connell, arms hugging his waist. “But I wouldn’t wish that on even a scoundrel like him.”

“He always found someone to take advantage of,” O’Connell said.

“Well,” Jonathan said, “he’s on his own now.”

• • •

Not quite.

As the ceiling lowered, Beni had scrambled on his hands and knees down the stairs, and into the treasure chamber, torch still burning, albeit weakly. The walls had stopped lowering; though sand still streamed in, and the chamber was a mere four feet high, the ceiling was not coming down to squash him like a damned bug. No.

On his knees, Beni fanned the torch about and surveyed his domain, his glittering, golden, jeweled domain . . . but every doorway was below ground. He was trapped.

But he would find a way, Beni would find a way: He always did. The immediate problem was the air—it was bad, weak, and his torch was diminishing, fading. He sat on a pile of jewels and rested, brain buzzing, trying to think, scheming . . .

Then he heard something: a scratching—no, not a scratching, more a—chittering.

In one corner, a scarab beetle seemed to stare at him, talking to him in its noisy, chitter-chatter fashion. Beni knew all too well what even a single one of these vicious dung beetles could do to a man, to his flesh.

Then the beetle scurried toward him, and Beni backed away. “Shoo! Shoo!” he said, waving his flickering torch at the thing.

That was when the torch went out, which was just as well, because seeing the dozens, perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of scarab beetles boil up out from under the piles of treasure might have driven Beni completely mad, perhaps two or three seconds sooner.

In the darkness, the screams of the little thief rose above the chittering of the hungry bugs as Beni, not exactly on his own, met the other inhabitants of his domain.

From a high dune, dismounted from their waiting camels, O’Connell, Evelyn, and Jonathan watched as the dust cloud finally cleared, allowing them to witness the aftermath of the imploding sands, one final bizarre view to add to their large collection: the volcano itself sinking, rumbling as if some eruption underground might have caused the disappearance of the City of the Dead, the valley itself gone, nothing remaining but the timeless shifting sands of the Sahara.

A hand slammed down upon Jonathan’s shoulder, and he yelped in surprise, O’Connell and Evelyn turned, startled, too, as if someone had said, “Boo.”

Ardeth Bay, battered but alive, the classic image of an Arab warrior wrapped in dark robes, rode high on a camel of his own appropriation.

“I’d be pleased to see you alive,” Jonathan said, breathing hard, “if you hadn’t scared the bloody hell out of me.”

“That was not my intention,” Ardeth Bay said, with a little bow.

“How did you fight all those mummies?” O’Connell asked.

“How did you?” Ardeth Bay asked with a smile, one hand resting on his golden scimitar. “Perhaps one day we can share our stories . . . but now we must part—after I offer my humble thanks and the eternal respect of my people, and myself.”

“Any time.” O’Connell grinned.

“That’s all well and good,” Jonathan said, “but the priceless treasures we sought seem to have slipped under the bloody Sahara.”

“Why don’t you come back to Cairo with us?” Evelyn said.

“The city is not my place,” the warrior said. “I have work to do.”

“What work?” O’Connell asked.

“I must return to my people. The Med-jai again must guard these sands—so that He Who Shall Not Be Named remains under them.”

“I don’t think he’ll be comin’ back,” O’Connell said, cocky.

But Evelyn didn’t seem so sure. “Imhotep’s last words were, ‘Death is only the beginning.’ I don’t think keeping an eye on this area is such a bad idea.”

Ardeth Bay bowed again, said, “May Allah always smile down upon you,” and he galloped off.

“Allah smiles.” Jonathan smirked. “I thought he believed in those ancient gods.” He was kicking at the sands, irritated.

O’Connell put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “What’s bothering you, buddy? We rescued the damsel, defeated the villain, didn’t we?”

“Yes, but what about the bloody treasure? Allah can smile on my aching backside. I’d take a handful of gold over a smile, any day.”

“Not me,” O’Connell said, as he gazed into the beaming face of Jonathan’s beautiful sister, the desert breeze ruffling her black gown, mussing her long brown tresses.

Then O’Connell, who was the hero after all, swept the damsel into his arms and kissed her, deeply, passionately; and she kissed him back the very same way, wrapping her arms around him, not seeming at all like a librarian, even if the coming days would find her appointed the first female curator in the history of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.

“Posh,” Jonathan said, quite disgusted with both of them, climbing onto his camel.

The kiss lasted forever, and then another of similar duration followed; but finally O’Connell slung himself onto one of the camels, pulling Evelyn up behind him, where she clutched his waist, cuddling, cooing, making her brother sick to his stomach.

O’Connell, from his camel, looked over at Jonathan on his and grinned, and suddenly Jonathan grinned back at his American friend.

“I guess it was quite an adventure, at that,” Jonathan said.

“Beats getting hanged at the Cairo prison,” O’Connell said.

Eyes locked, sharing identical grins, the two men slapped the reins of their camels and, together, shouted,
“Tuk-tuk-tuk!”

And as they rode off into a beautiful red-and-purple sunset, toward the nearest Bedouin oasis, the three adventurers were unaware that beneath the closed flaps of the saddlebags slung over the backs of their camels awaited the gold and jewels of a pharaoh’s treasure, bequeathed to them unwittingly by the latest resident of the City of the Dead.

A Tip of the Pith Helmet

A
s a fan since childhood of the Universal monster movies, I was delighted to have the opportunity to write the novel version of Stephen Sommers’s lively update of this classic tale.

I would like to cite several reference works, in particular two accounts that were contemporary with the modern sections of this novel:
Cairo to Kisumu
(1925) by Frank G. Carpenter, and
Illustrated Africa—North, Tropical, South
(1925) by William D. Boyce.

Other books consulted, in an effort to provide color and accurate background, include
Ancient Egypt: Discovering Its Splendors
(1978), National Geographic Society;
Ancient Lives: Daily Life in the Egypt of the Pharaohs
(1984), John Romer;
The Curse of the Pharaohs
(1975), Philipp Vandenberg (translated by Thomas Weyr);
Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs
(1992), Editors of Time-Life Books;
Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt
(1994), Nathaniel Harris;
The French Foreign Legion
(1973), Nigel Thomas;
The Egyptians
(1997), John and Louise James;
Howard Carter Before Tutankhamun
(1992), Nicholas Reeves and John H. Taylor;
The Mystery of the Pyramids
(1979), Humphrey Evans;
Mummies and Magic: The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt
(1988), Sue D’Auria, Peter Lacovara and Catharine H. Roehrig;
People of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt
(1982), John Romer;
The Pharaohs
(1981), Lionel Casson;
The Time Traveller Book of Pharaohs and Pyramids
(1977), Tony Allan, assisted by Vivienne Henry; and
Wonderful Things: The Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb
(1976), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (photographs by Harry Burton).

Cindy Chang of Universal Studios provided excellent, timely support for this project and I am grateful to her. Thanks also to my agent, Dominick Abel; and of course to my wife, writer Barbara Collins, who helped me survive this perilous expedition.

About the Author

Max Allan Collins
has earned an unprecedented eight Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his “Nathan Heller” historical thrillers, winning twice (
True Detective,
1983, and
Stolen Away,
1991).

A Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, Collins has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” His credits include four suspense-novel series, film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/ TV tie-in novels, including such international bestsellers as
In the Line of Fire, Air Force One,
and
Saving Private Ryan.

He scripted the internationally syndicated comic strip
Dick Tracy
from 1977 to 1993, is co-creator of the comicbook features
Ms. Tree
and
Mike Danger,
and has written the
Batman
comic book and newspaper strip.

Working as an independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote, directed, and executive-produced the 1996 suspense film
Mommy,
starring Patty McCormack; he performed the same duties for a sequel,
Mommy’s Day,
released in 1997. The recipient of a record three Iowa Motion Picture Awards for screenwriting, he also wrote
The Expert,
a 1995 HBO World Premiere film. He recently wrote and directed a documentary,
Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane.

Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins, and their teenage son, Nathan.