The Mummy

by Max Allan Collins

Looking upward, Ardeth Bay said, “His powers are growing.”

  Evelyn, and everyone else, looked at the ceiling, toward the skylights that until moments ago had been slanting rays of sun down into the gallery.

  And they saw the sun as it moved into full eclipse, afternoon becoming midnight.

  Driving through the streets of a confused Cairo, Jonathan, behind the wheel of his Dusenberg, said, “ ‘And he stretched forth his hands toward the heavens, and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt.’ ”

  “You must have learned more in Sunday school than you thought,” O’Connell said, sitting at the rider’s front-seat window, Evelyn squeezed between him and her brother, Henderson and an increasingly agitated Daniels in the backseat.

  “There must be a way to stop him from regenerating,” Evelyn said.

  O’Connell sighed. “You heard what your old boss said. Once Imhotep’s fully back in his prime, there’s no stopping him.”

  As they drew up to the fort, they could see British soldiers marching along the parapets under a black sun.

  “Days are getting shorter,” Jonathan observed.

  Soon they were assembled in the foyer of Evelyn’s two-room guest quarters. Henderson and Daniels were slumped in chairs. She and her brother were pacing. O’Connell had gone out to do “a little snooping,” he’d said. The door opened and the adventurer from Chicago stepped back inside.

  Shutting the door behind him, O’Connell said, “My ol’ buddy Beni was seen here today, with a tall stranger in Arab robes. According to Burns’s servant, Beni and this stranger—who wore some kind of mask . . . went in there to talk ‘business’ with Burns.”

  “Beni was with the mummy?” Jonathan asked. “What would that little scoundrel be doing with—”

  “Who exactly opened that chest?” Evelyn asked suddenly. “I want a precise list.”

  Henderson shrugged wearily. “Me and Daniels here—and poor Burns, of course, and, uh . . . Dr. Chamberlin. That’s it.”

  “But not Beni?” O’Connell asked.

  “Naw,” Daniels said. “He ran out of there like a scared rabbit, ’fore we even opened the goddamned thing.”

  “A smart scared rabbit,” Henderson said bitterly.

  Evelyn planted her feet and faced the men. “We should include Dr. Chamberlin in our group. We need to all stay together . . . we’re safer that way.”

  “I checked,” O’Connell said. “He’s not in his room. Servant said our resident Egyptologist didn’t sleep in his bed last night.”

  “Dr. Chamberlin had The Book of the Dead!” Evelyn said. “We need it, desperately!”

  O’Connell shook his head “no.” “I looked everywhere in his quarters. All of his things—cleared out.”

  “We have to find him,” Evelyn said, “and bring him here, to the safety of this fort . . .”

  “It was real safe for Burns, wasn’t it?” Daniels snorted.

  “If the mummy finds him,” Evelyn said, “and . . . does to him what he did to your friend, Mr. Burns . . . Imhotep will be that much closer to full regeneration.”

  “Chamberlin has an office in Cairo,” Henderson said. “In the alleys of the bazaar section. Maybe he went back there.”

  “Okay,” O’Connell said. He nodded toward the Americans. “You two come with me. Jonathan, you stay here with Evelyn, protect your sister.”

  “The hell with that!” Henderson said. “I’ll give you the address—you go, if you want to! I’m not going anywhere.”

  Daniels said, “I’m not leaving this fort.”

  Evelyn charged right up to O’Connell, who it appeared did have an unhealthy dose of masculine pride after all, and said to him, “I am leading this expedition, thank you! I’m not some child whose well-being you consign to the nearest male adult!”

  O’Connell shook his head, sighing, as if he were a poor, put-upon soul just trying to help.

  Then he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the open doorway to her bedroom, tossed her in, and slammed the door.

  “You can’t manhandle me like that!” she shouted, pulling on the doorknob. “You brute!”

  On the other side of the door, she could hear O’Connell saying, “Jonathan—you have a key?”

  “I believe so, old boy.”

  She yelled, “Jonathan, you traitor! Don’t you dare help this—”

  But then she heard the click of the lock.

  And on the other side of the door, O’Connell was saying, “This door is never to be opened—understood? Nobody in, nobody out.”

  “Understood,” Daniels said.

  “Stand watch over her, or I’ll come back and suck out your spleens myself, got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Henderson said. “Here’s that address . . .”

  “Come on, Jonathan,” O’Connell said.

  She was trying the knob; it was locked, firmly locked, all right.

  Jonathan’s voice beyond the door was saying, “You know, I liked your first plan much better, old sod. Where I stayed here at the fort? I could, uh . . . reconnoiter . . . that is, should anyone be able to explain to me what that is, exactly.”

  “Come on,” O’Connell said, and then their voices were gone as, so, presumably, were they.

  She pounded and banged on the door for a while, yelling, but it did no good whatsoever, and she stomped over to the bed, threw herself onto it, folding her arms, cursing Rick O’Connell, fighting the fondness for him flowing through her.

  The bazaars of Cairo consisted of winding narrow streets crowded with stores, every store a factory for the goods offered therein. O’Connell and Jonathan navigated the turbaned vendors, veiled women in black bombazine, naked children, donkey boys, and even the occasional tourist, and found their way to the glassmaker’s shop above which Dr. Chamberlin kept his tiny office.

  The door was unlocked; in fact, it was ajar. The Egyptologist wasn’t in, but someone else was: Beni, in the process of ransacking the place, desk drawers emptied, bookcases asunder, piles of photos and files everywhere.

  The skinny little knave had just slipped a silver watch into a black pajama pocket when O’Connell, followed by Jonathan, stepped inside the office to say, “Let me guess, Beni—misplace your principles?”

  Beni bolted for an open window facing onto the street: It was only a one-story drop. O’Connell almost casually picked up the Egyptologist’s desk chair, which had been flung over near the door, and pitched it into Beni’s path.

  Beni tripped and slammed into a wall, knocking off several framed pictures of Chamberlin at various desert digs.

  “I’ll be glad to help you look,” O’Connell said cheerfully, walking over, picking up Beni by the back of the neck and lifting him, pushing him up against the wall.

  Feet dangling, Beni smiled sickly and said, “Rick! I didn’t notice it was you—my old friend!”

  “Oh, but you have a new friend, don’t you, Beni? You came back from the desert with him, right?”

  Blinking, smiling desperately, Beni asked, “What friend? You’re my only friend, Rick. You know I’ve always been picky about my associations.”

  O’Connell allowed Beni to slide down the wall to his feet; the little man sighed in relief, smoothing out his black shirt, then his eyes widened as a knife blade suddenly appeared in the hand of his “only friend.”

  Holding the sharp edge of the blade against Beni’s neck, O’Connell said, softly, menacingly, “Why, Beni? What’s in it for you? Why are you helping this monster?”

  “I . . . I serve him only to save myself. Better to stand at the devil’s right hand than to be in his path.”

  O’Connell sighed; that sounded like Beni, all right. “What are you doing in this office? What are you looking for?”

  Even with a blade at his throat, Beni managed a single, harsh laugh. “Do you really think your small threats compare to what Imhotep could do?”

  “Imhotep isn’t here right now. Do you really think I won’t slit your lying throat? What are you look
ing for, Beni?”

  O’Connell pressed the blade harder, flesh whitening.

  “The book, the book! That black book they found at the City of the Dead . . . Chamberlin had it. Imhotep wants it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know! All I know is, he said it was worth its weight in gold!”

  “Gold?” Jonathan said, interested in the sound of that.

  “Spill, Beni,” O’Connell said, applying more pressure to the blade. “What does he want with the thing?”

  “I don’t know, I tell you! Rick—come on. Don’t do this . . .”

  “Spill what you know, or I’ll spill your blood. Choose.”

  “It’s . . . it’s something about bringing ‘her’ back from the dead . . . whoever ‘her’ is.”

  “And he needs the book to do that.”

  “The book, yes, the book, and, uh . . .”

  “ ‘And, uh’ what, Beni?”

  “The girl. He needs your girl.” Beni looked toward Jonathan. “His sister.”

  Jonathan frowned. “I say—he’ll have to kill me first.”

  Beni shrugged. “He won’t mind.”

  Outside, in the night that was afternoon, a shrill scream rose above the chatter of the bazaar like the howl of a wounded animal. O’Connell’s eyes went to the window and he took just enough pressure off the blade at Beni’s throat for the little bastard to knee him in the groin.

  O’Connell doubled over as Beni scrambled past him, leaping out the window, sliding down an awning to freedom.

  Jonathan helped O’Connell to his feet.

  “Anybody ever tell you you’re bad luck?” O’Connell asked Jonathan through gritted teeth.

  “Almost everyone, old man . . . Shall we see what the commotion is about?”

  Down in the bazaar, the scream had been followed by shouts and cries and murmurs of horror and concern.

  At the window, O’Connell and Jonathan could see down the narrow street, not far, where the crowd had parted and a body lay sprawled. Though barely recognizable, and mostly so only by the pith helmet and khaki clothing, the shriveled corpse was clearly Dr. Chamberlin, on its side, another human husk.

  And over the body hovered the robed figure of Imhotep, the black Book of the Dead already tucked under an arm like a big heavy schoolbook. He Who Shall Not Be Named was plucking the jewel-encrusted canopic jar from the withered fingers of the dead Egyptologist.

  Somehow the mummy sensed the eyes that were upon him, and the creature looked suddenly, sharply up at O’Connell and Jonathan poised in the window. Imhotep had regenerated further, and the infectionlike wounds O’Connell had inflicted earlier had healed perfectly.

  And the mummy stood, jaw seeming to unhinge, mouth opening to an impossible, inhuman size, and from within him, as if disgorging himself of them, a swarm of flies emerged, more like angry hornets, a black buzzing mass racing right at the window where O’Connell and Jonathan watched, stupefied spectators.

  O’Connell slammed shut the shutter, Jonathan closing the one on his side of the window, too, and the flies flew into it, pummeling the wood. The two men could not see the flies, deflected at the window, turn as a group like precision fighter pilots and swoop down on the confused, frightened crowd in the bazaar below, sending them running, screaming, pawing and clawing at their hair.

  Breathing hard, O’Connell asked, “That’s another one of the plagues, right?”

  “Right. But there’s a few left.”

  “Oh that’s nice to know.”

  “He has the book, old chum.”

  “Yes. Now all he needs is . . .”

  “Evy!”

  And they ran from the office.

  17

  Beauty and the Beast

  Night had come unannounced, blending into the day of the black sun, with only the stars and moon to mark the difference. At Fort Stack, the guard had been tripled, soldiers walking the parapets, outlined against every turret; but their presence was little comfort to the two Americans holed up in the foyer of the Englishwoman’s quarters.

  “What’s taking O’Connell so damn long to get back?” Daniels asked. Arm still in a sling, the dark, brooding Daniels sucked on a cigarette as he paced, occasionally looking out the window, which had a view of the road out in front of the fort, and the mud-brick tavern across the way, whose lights and music beckoned.

  “Streets are probably clogged,” Henderson said. “Probably spooked the local savages, havin’ the sun turn black.”

  “Oh, and it didn’t spook a Great White Hunter like you.”

  “I’ve witnessed stranger things, lately.” The tow-headed expedition leader was seated in a chair near the door to the Carnahan girl’s bedroom, holding his share of the Hamanaptra booty; a jeweled canopic jar. He turned it in his hands, admiring it, studying it, hoping the artifact would bring a price remotely worthy of what they’d been through.

  “Hell with this,” Daniels said, grinding his cigarette out in an ashtray on a table by the window. “I’m goin’ over and have a drink.”

  “Why don’t you bring me back a bottle, when you’re done?”

  “Bourbon?”

  “Bourbon with a bourbon chaser.”

  Daniels nodded and headed out.

  Henderson lit up a cigarette, letting it pull on his lungs, relaxing him. Smoke streaming out his nostrils, dragon-style, he fondled the jeweled jar, and for the first time he reflected on its antiquity, its beauty, not just its value.

  A breeze drifted in the open window along with the sounds of flute and tambourine music from the tavern across the way, creating pleasant images of veiled belly dancers in Henderson’s mind, filmy curtains fluttering, like the arms of a native girl gesturing seductively to him. Then the breeze blew colder—nights were so goddamn chilly here—and Henderson, the precious jar in his hands, rose to shut the window.

  He gazed out at the lights of the tavern, the foreign music with its compelling rhythm calling to him. Maybe he’d go over and join Daniels; maybe he’d see if some wench was dancing to that exotic music. He glanced at the Carnahan girl’s door, wondering if he dared leave her here alone for a few minutes. He was dying to get out of this prison . . .

  Then he turned to the window just as the breeze gained intensity. Even as he was reaching to shut the shutters, a tidal wave of sand blasted through the window, knocking him back, the jar tumbling from his fingers, unharmed, to the floor, as a swirling, whirling dervish of desert dust engulfed him, lifting him, sucking him into its cyclonelike funnel.

  There in the foyer of Evelyn Carnahan’s living quarters, while furniture looked mutely on, untouched by the storm in its midst, Henderson twirled within the sandstorm, spinning in a deadly pirouette, his screams quickly dying, choked off, as the life was sucked out of him. Then the sand drew away from what had been Henderson, and gathered in upon itself, taking a human shape, transforming into a further regenerated, dark-robed Imhotep, looming above the withered shell of the American.

  As the mummy retrieved the jeweled jar, a scarab scurried from a cavity in his chest and scampered up into a hole in Imhotep’s cheek; almost absentmindedly, the mummy chewed the scarab, swallowed, and then—hearing the moan of a woman—looked toward the closed bedroom door.

  Imhotep stepped over the husk of Henderson and strode to that door, trying the knob, rattling it. He examined the door, as if considering whether to knock the thing down or not; perhaps he did not want to disturb her, unduly, for he decided to enter in a less tumultuous manner.

  Within the bedroom, Evelyn slept restfully atop the covers; she did not wear bedclothes, rather a black, arm-baring dress with a heart-shaped, white-lace-trimmed bodice, comfortable enough to sleep in, but something she could leap from bed wearing for whatever the next dreadful stage of this ordeal might be. That mind-set explained the dreams she was caught up in, nearly delirious images of herself and O’Connell fleeing from the mummy across the ruins of the City of the Dead, only at times she was fleeing from Rick and holding on
to the mummy’s hand . . . it was all very troubling, which was why she was moaning, even crying out in her fitful sleep.

  She was unaware of an image, just across the bedroom from her, far more troubling and bizarre than those she was currently conjuring from her subconscious . . .

  Sand was streaming in through her keyhole and down onto the floor, pouring like water from a spigot, making a small pile, then a larger one, like an hourglass got out of hand, until a mound, a dune, had formed, and when the sand had stopped streaming in, that dune, that mound, began to form itself, as if some invisible sculptor were fashioning a sand statue of a god, or a man, or in this case, something that was both and neither: He Who Shall Not Be Named—Imhotep.

  Almost floating, in his dark robes, Imhotep went to the beautiful young sleeping woman, and like the Prince waking Snow White, he knelt over her, whispering, “Anck-su-namun,” and kissed her.

  He paid no heed to sounds behind him—the bedroom door, its knob rattling, then the crashing, the pounding, as some mortal fool on the other side tried to bash it down.

  Nor did Imhotep pay any heed to the result of his kissing the sleeping beauty, that her very flesh corrupted his, causing his lips and the skin around his mouth to decay, putrefy almost instantly, down to the bare, white bone, creating a ghastly skull-like grin as he looked down adoringly at the tossing and turning young woman.

  The door burst open in an explosion of splintering wood, O’Connell shouldering through, stumbling to a frozen stop as he faced the remarkable, appalling tableau of the black-robed mummy bending over Evelyn, on her bed.

  And, while the mummy’s kiss had not woken her, the sound of O’Connell breaking her bedroom door down had served as an abrupt alarm clock going off, and she now looked up at the fetid face of the adoring mummy, leaning in to bestow her another kiss, and her lips parted, her lovely mouth widening as if to accept the tongue that had once belonged to the late Mr. Burns, and then a scream emerged from her so bloodchilling that even the mummy reared back.

  And then Evelyn was sitting up, shoving him away, one hand slipping past the robe to the ancient bandaged flesh and sinking in, creating instant infection, immediate atrophy.