by A. Giacomi
There was a sarcophagus inside. Bingo! We both thought we had hit the jackpot.
Dr. Engel was quick to try and open the sarcophagus. He slid the top of the beautiful golden box open. Inside lay a rotten body, not very well preserved at all. We both found it very strange that the ancient Egyptians would place a poorly mummified body in such an extravagant casing.
I studied the hieroglyphics on the tomb walls, looking for any explanation as to the identity of the corpse in the casket. While I did this, Dr. Engel continued to prod the rotten corpse. He looked closely at the body, searching for any jewelry or clues to who this might have been.
The walls were covered in murals of hawks with pharaohs. While I searched the murals keenly with my flashlight, I heard a scream over my shoulder.
Before I turned to look in Dr. Engel’s direction, I sensed another being in the room. When I spun around to find Dr. Engel, I could see that a monster had risen from its sarcophagus. Dr. Engel was trying to hold it down; he was trying to seal the casket with the monster inside.
I couldn’t move. I stood there in disbelief. The corpse had risen. This couldn’t be possible, I told myself repeatedly.
Dr. Engel was screaming at me. I couldn’t make out what he was saying at first. I just couldn’t hear properly or see straight. My body was rejecting reality.
When I started to snap out of it, I saw the monster’s mouth wide and ready to take a bite out of Vincent, who was struggling to hold the monster back.
He screamed, “Help me, Walther!” and I ran to his side to try to hold the being down in his bed. His eyes, if you could call them that, burned red, and his mouth was a gaping black hole that opened and closed with a furious hunger.
We held it down and somehow managed to slam the top back on and lock it down in place with its latch.
I looked at Vincent and asked, “What the hell just happened?”
He looked at me, panting, and opened his hand to show me a brilliant red stone.
“I grabbed this out of its hand, and then it rose and began to attack me. It was trying to chomp at me if you can believe it.”
At this point, I could believe anything; ghosts, witches, psychics, Santa, all of them seemed quite plausible after what I had just witnessed.
The being in the sarcophagus didn’t move or make a sound now that the lid was closed again. It seemed like a good time to run.
“Let’s get out of here. I don’t know what we’ve done, but we have awakened something evil, and that rock you took must be evil as well. Leave it here, and let’s get the hell out of here!”
He looked down at the rock, and I saw in his eyes that he could not leave such a finding behind, especially after tackling a corpse to get it. Vincent did, however, agree to get out of there immediately. He began racing towards the exit without me. I remember my voice echoing after him, pleading with him to leave it.
Greedy men always leave stained paths behind them.
***
Soon after the strange incident, we resumed our work and convinced ourselves that what we saw had all been an illusion, a figment of our very indulgent imaginations. It couldn’t have been real, and who would have believed it anyway?
The days following were quiet, almost normal again. We didn’t speak about our experience again, and we didn’t head to the tombs alone again either.
***
I remember the last fateful morning on the dig site like it was yesterday. I relive it every day. I replay each and every moment leading up to that point in time and often wonder how I could have prevented it. I regret so much and have very little time to make amends if my maker would even grant forgiveness.
Dr. Engel and I were about to begin our work one morning, and we were discussing a possible vacation in our future, possibly Hawaii.
After our chat, we set out for separate dig sites. I could see him from my site, and we waved to each other in the distance. I remember seeing small shadows circling the ground; it took me awhile to realize they were hawks. I looked up and noticed quite a few of them in the sky. They headed towards Dr. Engel’s site and circled him.
I watched the strange phenomenon inquisitively and could not have ever anticipated what happened next.
The birds swooped down and attacked him. I could see their beaks tearing at his flesh in a synchronized dance of feasting.
Without thinking, I dropped my tools and began racing towards him. I was not close enough; some damage would be inflicted by the time I got there. I knew it.
When I eventually reached him, the birds had dispersed, leaving my friend breathless and bleeding in the sand.
His face was barely recognizable with all the missing flesh. I could see one of his eyes had been pecked out, and I almost lost my composure and sobbed over him.
I tried to pull myself together, and I screamed for help as I put pressure on the deeper wounds of his body.
He was shaking under my hands, trembling from the shock. It took them ten minutes to reach us, but it felt like hours. All the while, I kept trying to tell him he would be okay, but I didn’t really believe he’d ever be the same if he lived.
They took him off to the medical tent in a small jeep, acquired for such purposes. There was no room for me. I told them I would go by foot and meet them there.
After watching the jeep as it sped off, I looked at the blood-soaked ground around me, and there amidst the carnage was the radiant red rock. The red rock that the horrid being had been holding, protecting.
At that moment, I believed the rock to be cursed, and Vincent Engel was its victim.
I pocketed the rock and headed towards the medical tent at the quickest pace my shaking legs would travel. I would think of a way to dispose of the rock later.
***
The medics would not allow me to see him right away. They worked on stitching up his wounds and making sure he didn’t lose any more blood. I understood that I would only be in the way.
Once I was allowed in, what I saw made my stomach turn. He looked more like a creature and nothing like my friend.
I immediately thought of his children’s faces if they could see him this way. They would scream at the sight of him, and this would break his heart, just as the thought was breaking mine.
Without a word, I approached his bedside. I wanted to rub his hand or his shoulder in comfort but soon realized, as I searched his body, that there would be no comfortable area for me to do this.
I settled for whispering to him. “How do you feel?”
He didn’t reply, but what he did next was strange.
He growled like a mutt and exposed his teeth. I tried to calm him down, but that only made the growling grow louder. This alerted the medics, and they came running over to us.
It was good timing because he pounced on me like he was about to chew off my face. The medics held him down, but he wouldn’t calm down. He fought against their restraining arms until his heart gave out. I watched the monitor flat line, and a scream escaped my lips.
A doctor ran in with a defibrillator seconds later.
For me, this was all happening in slow motion. My friend was dying right before my eyes, and all I could do was watch. I felt a pang of guilt for ever inviting him here.
They shocked him once, nothing. They waited for the next charge and shocked him again, still nothing. They tried a few more times before giving up.
The room was silent as I watched one of the medics start to detach all the monitors from his body. Another medic covered him with a sheet. All I could do was watch in horror.
***
I made the call to his family later that evening. The doctor said he would do it, but I felt it should come from someone they knew. It took everything I had to dial the number and give that news. It was as if I was the angel of death, taking their loved one away. It was my fault, and I would pay for it the rest of
my life in guilty penance.
I didn’t know how heavy that payment would be just yet.
The phone rang, and Lita picked up. “Hello? Who is it?” she said in a pleasant voice.
I couldn’t find my words at first. “Ah…hi, Lita. I have terrible news, I’m afraid. Please sit down for this.”
She began crying immediately, which made the telling of this news all the more miserable.
“Lita, there was a horrible accident today. Some birds attacked Vincent. He lost a lot of blood…and I’m so sorry. He’s gone, Lita.”
She cried harder as my words made her world crumble.
When the call was over, I felt a darkness wash over me. This dig was supposed to bring us glory and fame. Was it worth it?
I should have stayed away, or I should have made this journey alone. I was selfish to bring Vincent into this. I had lost a good friend, as well as my appetite for discovery.
I would go home tomorrow. I never wanted to visit The City of the Hawk again.
***
I went back to the medical tent to pay my final respects to Vincent before they boxed him up and sent him on his way home for burial.
I entered the tent with my gaze miserably set on the floor.
When I reached the bed, I slowly pulled down the sheet that had been covering Vincent, but he was gone.
I quickly surveyed the tent. There was no sign of his body.
I called in the medics. “Did you send Vincent elsewhere already?”
They all shook their heads and had to see for themselves. They all looked horrified when they noticed that the body was gone.
“Who would take a body?” was all one of them could say.
I left the tent furious with their incompetence. Why hadn’t they been watching his body? What if a body snatcher had taken him for parts? There were people terrible enough in this world to do it!
As I stood in the warm night air, I saw a figure stumbling out into the distance towards the tombs. I started running towards it. I suppose I had a manic moment of hope that Vincent was still alive.
When I reached the man and swung him around, I realized that it was Vincent, but something, besides his disfigurement, was abnormal.
His eyes shone red like the corpse we had seen in the sarcophagus. His head eerily twitched sideways as he examined me.
He dragged his body awkwardly towards me and growled. I had a moment to react as he dove at me, baring his teeth. I placed my arms up to hold him back, but he was strong and took me down to the ground. In seconds he was on top of me, trying to gnaw at any flesh he could reach. I used all the strength in my body to hold him off. I was screaming and fighting for my life.
I was able to get one of my knees under him and forcefully push him off of me, launching him onto his back in the dirt.
I rose and so did he. “Vincent, stop! This isn’t you. Stop. Let’s get you some help.”
None of what I said registered with him; he just continued to twitch and head towards me again with a snarl.
I didn’t want to hurt him, and I tried to think of a way to prevent his approach. Then it dawned on me. I still had the red rock. I didn’t know what possessed me to use it, but I knew there might be something powerful about it. I pulled it out of my pocket and held it in front of me. It shone such a vivid red that it blurred my vision as I tried to observe Vincent.
The glow coming off the rock seemed to stun Vincent. He stood motionless for a moment, staring at the glow, almost trance-like. Then he began to retreat towards the tombs.
I didn’t want him to go. “Vincent, come back, please. What about Lita and your children?”
He turned back for a moment when he heard her name. He looked at me with those dead burning eyes, and he seemed to have a trace of sadness in them.
He gave a scream that was both inhuman and melancholic. Something in that final scream said that he understood he couldn’t go back to his ordinary life.
He stumbled away as I watched on.
In a few seconds, he was gone, and that was the last I ever saw of Dr. Engel.
***
Most people packed up and left that very night. The staff was horrified when they began to hear the story of the man cursed by hawks.
I could scarcely blame them.
They heard he had died and then rose from the dead. I even overheard some medics saying he must have been “infected” by the birds.
This gave me an idea.
I approached one of the doctors in the medical tent and asked if they had any samples of Dr. Engel’s blood. The doctor gave me a paranoid look and then took the vials out of his pocket and handed them to me. He told me that he was going to dispose of them, and as he placed the vials in my hand, he advised that I should do the same.
Something in Vincent’s blood was rotten, something I couldn’t explain. The doctor refused to give me any answers about the vials of blood and exclaimed that he was getting out the place since it was giving him the creeps. He walked off, probably to pack his things; I wouldn’t judge him for his lack of bravery. I wasn’t sure mine was intact either.
I was going to take the blood back with me and study it. It probably wasn’t the smartest choice, but I couldn’t leave Vincent behind. So I took part of him with me.
***
The next morning, I was woken up by the sound of many vehicles approaching the site. I quickly put on some shoes and stood outside of my tent to see what all the commotion was about.
Some men climbed out of a big SUV and began approaching me.
Once they were close enough, I could see from the pin on their suits that they were some men from CSIS. Someone must have informed them about what happened here last night.
The only question I had was why Canadian Intelligence would come all the way out here. Why hadn’t they sent a local team?
“Are you Dr. Augustus?” one of the men asked, and I nodded.
“We have been asked to return you home safely and brief you on a case we are working on. We require your help.”
“And what if I refuse to go with you?” I retorted, which was an error on my part.
You don’t want to offend an agent.
One of the men took off his sunglasses and came very close to me and whispered, “I suggest you cooperate. It will keep you comfortable.”
I understood that it was a threat and that I had no other options. The warning was loud and clear: “comfortable” meant alive.
They were here as requested by our government to seek me out. They didn’t seem the type to fail. They would do what they needed to do at any cost.
The same man spoke again. “Dr. Augustus, let me make something clear. Anything you saw here, well…it never happened. We will be sending Dr. Engel’s ashes to his wife.”
I gave them a confused look. “But Dr. Engel went missing. How can you…”
And then I understood their meaning. They were going to send some counterfeit ashes home, and I didn’t want to know who was going to play the substitute.
I kept my mouth shut and complied after that and ever since. These were powerful men; they could do anything they wanted. I feared what they might do to my family if I didn’t cooperate.
I followed them home on the first flight out of Cairo.
***
When we arrived back in Canada, there was a black limo waiting for us. Inside, I realized that the windows were tinted so dark that I couldn’t see the outside at all. They didn’t want me to know where we were going, clearly.
After about an hour’s drive in silence, one of the suits decided to speak. “We are headed to a high-security zone. Don’t try anything funny. I assure you that you won’t get away with it.”
I was growing tired of threats and just rolled my eyes and remained silent.
I could feel the limo dipping down on an angle.
It felt like we were driving down a hill for a good ten minutes and then stopped very abruptly. I had a sense that we were somewhere underground.
One of the men said, “We’re here. Follow me please, Dr. Augustus.”
It was so unnecessarily polite. He knew very well that I had to follow him.
When I came out of the car, my surroundings looked something like the Bat Cave. Was Batman lurking within? Or some other superheroes? I chuckled out loud at the thought and then asked, “May I use the Bat Phone please?”
My two new CSIS friends scowled at me. I guess they didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and I guess I expected that too.
Finally, I was led into a room and asked to sit in front of a man at a big desk.
The man observed me closely before speaking. Was he simply looking to confirm that I was Dr. Augustus? Or was he worried that I might have contracted something similar to what Dr. Engel had been infected with?
After all the staring, he introduced himself as Agent Williams. He was fairly young to be in such a high position, and I’m sure he’d done some terrible things in a short amount of time to get there. Quite frankly, Agent Williams frightened me, even though his smile seemed so welcoming.
“These men have brought you to our underground research facility. I am in charge of this facility and have requested your visit,” he said with an air of superiority.
I squirmed uncomfortably at the thought that no one would ever find me down here.
“Why do you need me here?”
He gave a cheerful grin. “Well, you have experienced some strange and dangerous phenomena first hand, have you not?”
I nodded. He could definitely say that.
“Well then, we need your help to find its source and stop it from contaminating others. Let me fill you in quickly. Hierakonpolis has fallen victim to a strange virus that was first found in local hawks. These birds carry the virus and attack humans, thus contaminating them, just like your friend Dr. Engel. We have been studying the site for a few years now, and we have been trying to keep incidents quiet while we conduct our research.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why would you simply wait for more incidents to happen? Why not just eliminate the threat? Shoot all those hawks out of the sky and save people?”