Eternal Unrest: A Novel of Mummy Terror

by Dixon, Lorne; Cato, Nick

  The second truck exploded into flame, black smoke, and twisted metal. The crashing Spitfire’s body burst through its center, crushing Owney and the dock workers, and collapsed onto the dock ramp, spinning. The cockpit crushed inward like an accordion, flattening the trapped pilot. The propeller slammed against the concrete floor, breaking into pieces and sending its remnants into the fleeing crowd. The shards of propeller cut through the running men and liberated arms, legs, and heads.

  A large chunk of concrete floor flew into the third truck’s windshield, cracking it diagonally and lodging half inside and half out. Mason forced the gearshift into first and floored the gas pedal. The truck rocketed forward, bounding over debris, straight toward the remains of the Spitfire. It struck the plane with a deafening metal shriek and forced the fallen aircraft out of its way. Barreling through the smoldering wreckage of the second truck, Mason’s hands shook wildly over the wildly convulsing steering wheel.

  They burst out onto the destroyed street, the truck skidding on loose blacktop and concrete, turning, screaming down Great Russell Street.

  The Stuka, smoking from bullet hits, skimmed over the rooftops across the block, fighting to maintain its altitude.

  Mason slammed on the brakes. The passenger side door flew open and Priscilla was pushed to the center, her view of the Stuka now blocked by the concrete hanging in the windshield. She fell against Mason, solid as a marble statue, and stared across the truck’s cab as Brigham climbed inside. He bled from a series of deep lacerations across his forehead, the triangle of flesh between them missing. He yelled to Mason, “DRIVE-GET US OUT’F HERE-”

  Mason straightened up the wheel, kicked down the gas pedal, and sped down the battered street toward Southampton Row. Beyond the concrete obstructing her main line of sight, Priscilla saw a city on fire, black plumes of smoke twirling up from broken rooftops, warplanes swarming over the city like angry insects.

  Just before she passed out, Brigham did. Watching him slouch down in the seat, head bouncing on its stalk with every bump in the road, she wondered if they would make it out of London alive. Then, less than a second after the thought completed, shadows flooded her vision and the city faded into darkness.

  Even unconscious, she heard every explosion as the bombs continued to drop, every roof demolished, every building crumble. The sounds were too loud and they pushed into her dreams. She dreamed, but imagined the same world she would have seen had her eyes remained open.

  She dreamed of Hell.

  Chapter 2

  The truck’s engine clanked and knocked as they headed east into Whitechapel’s narrow streets. Here the bombing had been heavier and many of the buildings alongside High Street had been reduced to leaning columns of stone and masonry, blackened out husks of dwellings now open to the sky. A few survivors darted between the buildings, clutching their few remaining possessions, but mostly, the city district was barren.

  Priscilla craned her head upward, wiped her eyes, and scanned for planes. She saw none but knew they could have been hidden in the low-hanging black clouds drifting overhead. She wondered how much of London had been blasted into ash and swept up into the dark sky, if maybe a small granule of Owney’s body was trapped up there, floating on the winds. She thought of his blushing face a moment before the first bomb hit, and shivered.

  Brigham woke and straightened in his seat. Rather than open his eyes, though, he pressed them closed even tighter, brought his hands up to his face, a tugged down on the makeshift bandage Priscilla had fashioned out of his handkerchief. Hiding his eyes behind the cloth, he wept.

  Mason pointed to the truck’s hood. “Something’s wrong with her, she’s kicking like a baby mule overdue for birth.”

  “Will it make it to Southend?” she asked.

  “Do you believe in prayers?”

  She hesitated—remembering her mother at her childhood bedside, leading her through their nighttime ritual recitation of the Lord’s Prayer—then said, “Sometimes.”

  “Well, make this one of those times,” he said and winced as the engine let out a shuddering metallic drum roll. “I can swap out a couple quarts of oil, but I ain’t any stripe of mechanic. If she stops, our little roadtrip to the shore is likely to come to an early end.”

  “Tell you what, a compromise: I’ll cross my fingers,” she said and smiled at him. She raised two fingers and slid one over the other. “My head’s pounding and my neck hurts. I think this is about as mystical as I can get right now.”

  The smile he flashed back at her was somewhere between a smirk and a quizzical little frown. She could see he did believe in prayer, deeply. “Catholic?”

  “Miss Stuyvesant, this is Britain. Only Anglicans live under the Crown, haven’t you heard?” His eyes fell on his hands and hers followed. They were covered in a fine latticework of old scar tissue, a web of lighter skin stretched over a muddled patch of pink. “If I were a Catholic—an Irish Catholic—I would do best not to mention it. Harm finds its way to redheads from Cork who pray in the name of St. Abban of Kill-Abban.”

  The shattered brick remains of a hotel had spilled into Old Street, forcing Mason to turn right onto Great Eastern. The truck kicked like an impatient baby in the womb and an unhealthy rumble came from its engine. The chassis shook and metal clanged. Teeth chattering, Priscilla dug her fingers into the dashboard.

  The engine died. The truck rolled to a stop.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  Raising his bandaged head, Brigham wiped the moisture off his face, turned to her, and said, “I guess that prayer came back to the box marked return to sender.”

  A finger of white steam snaked out from under the hood and drifted up to the dark sky. She asked Brigham, “Do you know anything about fixing engines?”

  Adjusting the bandage over his brow, he shook his head. “I used to live in a pine box loft over a mechanic’s shop and used to peek my head under the hoods sometimes, but no, I’ve had no training that would help us.”

  Nodding, she asked them both, “Would you take a look anyway?”

  They agreed and rushed out of the truck. Alone on the bench seat, she put both palms against the concrete stone in the windshield and pushed. It fell, bounced off the hood, and toppled to the street. Through the hole in the glass she watched Mason and Brigham fidget with the hood’s side locks. Mason unlatched his first and shouted instructions over to Brigham. Both latches undone, they hoisted up the hood and blocked off her view.

  The men had left both the driver’s and passenger’s side doors open. Priscilla chose to scoot past the steering wheel and out Mason’s exit. One hand on the seat, she felt his body heat lingering there and remembered how safe she felt in his arms, even as the British Museum’s loading dock seemed to explode around her. Now, don’t start thinking like that, she scolded herself, or else you’ll get yourself into trouble—again.

  Leaving the truck—and Mason’s body heat—behind, she felt a tiny smile trickle across her face. Her father would have hated Mason, hated everything about him—his Irish blood, his religion, his natural muscle tone. He would surely have a lecture prepared for her about the right kind of man for her, one with a background and lifestyle that ran parallel to his own—a model of the perfect Anglo-Saxon Protestant bookworm. He would deliver the sermon, she imagined, with a glass of turn-of-the-century Genevieve Chardonnay dangling from one hand. She tried to envision Mason holding a wine glass, but could not. A thick beer stein full of dark ale? That she could see.

  No, really, it’s time to stop, she told herself. You’re behaving like a daisy-petal plucking schoolgirl.

  Spinning, she caught a quick glance of Mason and Brigham leaning over the engine, white vapor gushing out around them. They’d rolled up their sleeves to their elbows and loosened the top few shirt buttons.

  The air raid sirens continued to wail, but at a distance, no louder than the echo of a baby’s cry. Watching the dark clouds overhead, she wondered how many bombs had already fallen on the city. H
ow many lives had been lost in those violent, blinding moments when gravity failed and solid walls and floors and streets crumbled away? And how many bombs were yet to be released? How many more were destined to die?

  Creeping up behind the men, she tugged on Mason’s arm. He turned, waved a hand through the smoke, and said, “We don’t know. We’ve been looking for anything that looks to be broke.”

  “See anything?” she asked.

  Brigham answered, “To me, it all looks broken.”

  Broken. The word spun through her mind. “Do what you can. We may need to find a way to get some help out here. I want to take a look at our cargo, make sure that everything made it through the attack. I don’t know if they packed everything with the idea of us having to ram through another truck.”

  Mason nodded. A bead of sweat dropped from his nose. “It’s a good idea. Maybe once this steam clears up we’ll be able to spot the trouble.”

  She spun and walked to the truck’s tail. She turned and saw Mason’s eyes flicker to his feet—a small, guilty gesture that told her he’d watched her walk away. As she unlocked the back doors, she felt the persistent little smile returning.

  As she swung open the doors, the sharp bark of a distant explosion sounded and a vibration pass through the truck’s metal. Even knowing the greater London area had largely been evacuated, she couldn’t help but imagine screams and cries for help. Any traces of schoolgirl thoughts were flushed from her mind and lips. She frowned and stepped up onto the truck’s metal bumper.

  It was dark inside, the entire compartment no more than a single cube-shaped shadow, but she could make out the shapes of tightly-packed boxes that filled it. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, but there was no way of really knowing until the boxes were all unpacked and stored in the transport ship’s hold. She planned to spend the first few days of the journey back to America inventorying and assessing any damage. Two truckloads of irreplaceable artifacts had already been lost. She hoped that no more would have to be lost.

  And then, trampling these thoughts:

  A sudden grogginess washed over her, an intense wave of exhaustion and weariness that forced her to slap both hands on the doors and hold tight, otherwise she surely would have stumbled and fallen out of the truck. A stab of worry followed: how hard had she been thrown when the first truck overturned? Was more damage done than she initially thought? Was she—

  She heard a voice. It droned out from inside the dark truck bed, raspy and odd, a horrible melody built out of broken syllables and guttural cackles. It wasn’t a language she’d ever heard, but she understood that it was more than just noise. There was a tone of intent in the sounds and it struck a shiver through her body.

  An unmistakable voice, yes, but also something else.

  It sounded like her father’s pained, erratic snoring in his last days as his alcoholism dragged him to his grave. She saw herself, ten years younger, sitting by his bedside, listening to the awful pattern of inhalation and exhalation, wiping mucus from his face as he coughed the buildup out of his throat, never waking, asleep even in those strange moments when his eyelids would crack open and a sliver of his bloodshot eyes would peer out at her. She remembered wishing it would end and the great archeologist and teacher would just die. Die. Like her mother and older brother, James.

  The voice was gone, leaving her breathless and drained. She pushed out of the truck and let herself sink to the roadway, settling down on hands and knees. Realizing she hadn’t breathed for minutes, she bobbled her head and gasped for air.

  One of the truck’s doors slid farther open and the shadows shifted. Dim sunlight reflected off the metal and briefly illuminated a set of stenciled letters painted on a long, coffin-shaped crate buried deep in the shadows. It read: egypt exhibit.

  As she caught her breath, Priscilla tried not to hear herself wheeze. The sound was too familiar, the soundtrack to far too many memories. And nightmares.

  “HEY THERE,” Mason yelled.

  Struggling to her feet, she forced all of her weight onto one foot and then the other until she found enough equilibrium to run without wobbling. She rushed to the truck’s front. She found Mason and Brigham facing an alley between two crumbling buildings. Brigham, armed with a curved section of pipe he’d swiped off the piles of debris littering the street, pointed with the blunt weapon and shouted, “IN THERE, CROUCHING DOWN LOW—I SAW SOMEONE LURKING IN THERE.”

  “Who?” she asked, every bit as loud but lacking the crackling fear of his voice. “I don’t see anyone.”

  In a strong, levelheaded voice, Mason said, “I saw something, too.”

  Squinting, she took a step toward the alley.

  “Careful,” Mason said.

  Glass and fragments of wood fiber crackled under her feet as she stepped closer. A maze of shadows hid much of the alley from her view, allowing only a few thin rails of light to filter in. Long wooden rubbish bins lined its sides, splintered open in places by fallen masonry. A flurry of motion caught her attention and drove her eyes to the far end. The trash bins bowed out there, blocking access and dropping the space behind into complete darkness.

  “Hello?” she called, stepping into the alley. Mason followed her, his eyes wide, both hands balled into fists. “Who’s in there? You can come out. We won’t hurt you.”

  A voice whispered, but was cut off by a quick shush.

  Still standing at the truck with his makeshift cudgel, Brigham yelled over their heads, “COME ON OUT HERE IF Y’KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.”

  Mason glared back at him.

  Stepping over a crushed milk crate, Priscilla crossed into the shadows. The smell of decaying meat and animal feces drifted up from the garbage. Her eyes adjusted to the low light and the alley slowly came into focus. If the streets of Whitechapel seemed to have been painted a dreary shade of chalk gray, the walkways between its buildings were damp, brown clay. A dead rat—face twisted in a painful sneer, teeth bared—rested on its back inches from the top of her shoe. Something had eaten half of it.

  “Hello?” she called again. Approaching the trash bin’s bend, she moved slower, letting caution override her curiosity. Mason reached out and snagged her elbow.

  “What are we doing?” he whispered.

  She took his hand, squeezed it, and then pushed it off her. “Look around you. This city’s been evacuated. Anyone still here could be hurt.”

  “Hurt,” he said, “or insane.”

  She turned her attention back to the alley beyond the broken bin and saw a figure standing there, black on brown, no more than a silhouette. Mason’s warning still echoing in her ears, she jumped back against him and felt her heartbeat race.

  “WHO’S THERE?” Mason screamed, wagging a fist.

  The figure didn’t move.

  Steadying herself, Priscilla pushed herself against the alley wall. The lighting shifted from this angle and the figure came into view—a bland, smooth, inhuman face on a bald head, perfectly erect over a naked, water-stained gray body.

  Exhaling, she let out a quick laugh, and told Mason, “It’s a mannequin. A department store display mannequin.”

  Dropping his fists, he said, “Let’s be going, then.”

  She studied the relief on his face and decided he had been as frightened as she, maybe even more so. Even so, he had followed her and attempted to protect her. Taking his arm, she led them back to the street, careful to avoid the dead rat.

  As they stepped out onto Great Eastern, the guilty, flirting smiles on their faces dropped. Brigham knelt on the street, facing them, eyes glistening with fear. The section of pipe he’d brandished as a weapon now rested out of his reach by the truck’s front right tire. A couple stood over him, the man pressing a metal crutch against the small of his back while the woman pressed a thin fish scaling knife under his neck. They were dressed in layers of rags—torn winter coats, dirty dungarees, threadbare scarves wrapped over their heads. The man had only one leg.

  “Stay there,” the crippled ma
n said in a straining voice as he balanced on one crutch. English was clearly not his first language. “We just need truck. Give key.”

  Mason dug into his pants pocket, slid out the key, and tossed it onto the ground halfway between Priscilla and the couple. “Won’t do you much good. Engine’s broke. That truck isn’t going anywhere.”

  A little girl—bundled up like the adults—peaked out from behind the tress of the woman’s long coat, a porcelain white doll’s face with large brown eyes and a dark knit cap.

  The woman’s English was more distinct and natural. “We don’t want trouble. This man” —she pointed to Brigham— “he threatened us. Only then we protect ourselves.”

  She inched the knife away from Brigham’s neck, but kept it within striking range.

  “I didn’t,” Brigham said.

  The knife returned to his skin.

  The woman hissed, “You lie.”

  Priscilla looked into the woman’s eyes. She’d had plenty of practice detecting lies in her father’s stare. This woman was telling the truth. “Okay. If you let him get up, I can promise you that he will behave. Won’t you, Brigham?”

  Ashamed, Brigham nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay?” Priscilla asked.

  The woman withdrew the knife and backed away. “Okay.”

  Brigham leaped to his feet and scurried behind the truck’s open passenger side door. Facing Priscilla, he said, “The little girl, it was her we saw in the alley. She hid in the shadows and you two pranced right by her. But I saw her when she came out. That’s how they got the jump on me from behind. They used the little girl.”

  “Get in the truck,” she told him.

  Caught off-guard by the sharp tone and the suddenness of her words, Brigham’s face flushed with shame. Running a hand across his throat, he climbed into the truck, tossed himself against the seat, and huffed.