The Mummy

by Max Allan Collins

  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.
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  “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.

  22

  Army of Darkness

  The 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 Anc
k-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.