Eternal Unrest: A Novel of Mummy Terror

by Dixon, Lorne; Cato, Nick

  She hit the warm body and rebounded off it, slamming against the wall and landing under a failing light bulb. It cast a grim yellow cone of light down into the hallway. As her eyes focused, three men stepped into the sickly glow. Big men. They wore sleeveless undershirts, each liberally dirty, peppered with holes and stained, and equally filthy work pants. Unshaven, with random scars, tattoos, and skin blemishes, they appeared to hedge on the brink of humanity, almost too monstrous to accept as part of the race.

  “Prettier close up,” one, a tall white man with receding hair and a lazy eye, said with the lack of verbal articulation she associated with the mentally disabled.

  The squat, wide black man next to him added, “I like her red hair.”

  The third man made only a grunting sound, a noise that might have escaped from a hog’s den on the day of a slaughter. He had a shriveled face and eyes that were obscured by heavy, bulbous lids.

  Back flat to the wall, Priscilla studied them, looking for the telltale facial movements and body language that she’d relied upon her entire life to avoid danger. She wanted to see if they meant any harm, but was chilled to find nothing in their eyes, faces, or posture that she could read. They were like wild animals, unpredictable and running on instinct alone, completely lacking any hint of civilized behavior.

  “Who are you?” she repeated, trying to keep the panic out and project a strong, willful voice. They responded with hackneyed, snorting laughter. She looked the tall white man in his eyes—he was closest—and said, “Move aside.”

  The black man wailed, “Move aside, move aside.”

  The third man danced in place, feigning to make room for her to pass but then jumping back in her path, his smile growing each time he completed a cycle. He continued to whistle out his strange, swine-grunt. As his dance brought him under the overhead light, she saw the reason for his bizarre vocalization: a severe cleft opened a wide channel from the peak of his lip into his right nostril. Mucus ran freely down his face and pooled on the underside of his bottom lip, feeding an expanding bubble.

  The white man reached out and took her by the collar, bundling her blouse up in a tight fist. “Don’cha wonder if she’s even prettier nag-ged?”

  “Nag-ged.” The black man rubbed his hands together.

  Through clenched teeth, Priscilla yelled, “LET ME GO.”

  “We scarin’ you, lady?” the white man asked, curling his fist tighter. The top button of her blouse popped free. “We wouldn’t want to scare a pretty—”

  “Pretty lady,” the black man said.

  Priscilla drew her writing hand palm up and slammed it into the brute’s nose. Screaming, he released her and stumbled back, legs crossing, right foot tripping over the left, shoulder bouncing off the door frame as he rocketed back. He managed to keep his balance only after steadying himself against hallway’s far wall.

  Pinching his nose, he cursed at her and said, “You’re gonna regret that, bi—”

  The black man seized her with both arms, dragging her across the wall, his grip like a pair of vices, unbending fingers pressed hard into the muscle of her forearm. He thrust her against a doorway. Wood cracked and the door gave way. She toppled inside, head striking and overturning a run of shelves. Cleaning sponges and rags spilled out as she fell to the floor of the supply closet. The wooden shelves clattered to the floor around her.

  As she pulled herself onto her knees, the three miscreants filled the doorway. Blood flowed from between the fingers of the hand on the white man as he cupped them over his nose. His eyes had gone completely feral and now he truly looked like a madman.

  “GONNA TEACH YOU,” he screamed.

  The black man chanted, “TEACH TEACH TEACH.”

  The tall man rushed inside the closet and latched his hands around her throat, lifting her off the floor and slamming her against the wall. Her face flushed with heat as her throat constricted under his tightening fingers. He pressed the length of his body against her, his knees pinning her legs, her chest flattening against his. He nuzzled his mouth into the crook where her jawbone met her ear. His mouth opened and his tongue darted out, pecking against her skin. She smelled his breath—rotten meat and souring blood—and craned her head away, screaming.

  “Mine,” he whispered before biting her earlobe.

  Muscles straining and arms flailing, she tried to break away from his grip, twisting under his weight, but he leaned into her harder, knees and elbows digging in. Drunken wooziness spread through her, his hands cutting off her oxygen. Her fists lost their strength and opened, hands drooping at the wrists before her arms fell to the side. Consciousness began to fade and the single bare bulb dangling outside the closet door dimmed.

  “Mine,” he repeated, then added, “Daddy’s girl.”

  A shadow cut off the remaining light, dousing her sight in complete darkness. A series of loud crashes echoed into the closet from the hallway. The tall man’s face, blurry and indistinct, swiveled toward the commotion. He released her throat and turned toward the doorway, bringing up his hands into fists.

  Priscilla slid down the wall, clutching her neck.

  The shadow from the hallway lunged into the closet and wrapped itself around the tall man, wrestling him out into the hall. The two figures struggled, fists pounding into flesh, as her eyes focused and unfocused, the scene sharpening into a clear view of two men fighting before twisting and contorting into a dark, blotchy Rorschach test in motion. Limbs still numb, she gulped for air and watched the battle.

  The tall man stumbled, hit twice more, and fell.

  As her eyesight strengthened, Buddy Martin came into view, his face already bruising, his shirt torn. He came into the closet, knelt down, and lifted her off the floor and into his arms. Careful to guide her prone body through the narrow doorway, he angled sideways and stepped over the tall man. Three unconscious men lay in the hallway, none as monstrous as they had seemed, just ugly, brutish men.

  “Who are they?” Tears budded in her eyes.

  “Engine room,” Buddy said, stepping around the black man. “I met them only once, when we first left dock in Philadelphia. They keep to themselves down there, feeding the engines. I was told they posed no threat.”

  “Thank you,” she said, gripping his neck.

  Down the hallway, he pushed open a door and carried her inside. Setting her down on a small wall-mounted cot, he ran his hands over her neck, inspecting the growing blemishes. “It’s why I’m here. Not for the antiques. For you. It’s why I’ve always been here, you know that. I never really enjoyed working for your father at all. I stayed on the job for you.”

  She wiped away the moisture ready to fall from her eyes, hiding behind her fingers for a moment, before dropping her stare down to the tips of her shoes. “Buddy, I—”

  Bowing, he slid his arms around her and held her. She trembled in his embrace, reeling from the encounter in the hallway, her body slowly relaxing in the comfort of his body heat, his steady, strong heartbeat lulling her nerves. The ship’s constant vibrations fled away as she closed her eyes. It felt so good to be lost in his arms again, so safe. A flurry of nostalgic memories surfaced: meeting in her father’s office, full of flirtation glances and nervous energy; the expedition in Caracas where they shared their first kiss during a flash of a Venezuelan summer’s storm; the days and nights sneaking into each other’s bedrooms in cheap Bangkok hotels. Years of memories, on and off, kisses in the hallways of the Smithsonian and hasty lovemaking under the angry Mexican moon.

  The ship’s vibrations returned, snaking up her legs from the floor; the memories faded away. By the time her eyes opened, his embrace felt anachronistic, like a memory made too sweet by passing time, a lie she was desperate to believe was still true.

  Although she could still feel his heartbeat against her breast, it no longer resonated with her, now nothing more than the pump and inflation of an internal organ. Just flesh, nothing more. Her moment of nostalgia had passed, and when it left, it had taken her need fo
r this man with it.

  He leaned in to kiss her. She squirmed away.

  “Buddy, we have to talk about this.”

  He straightened up and crossed his arms. “Why talk? It’s the same as every other time, isn’t it? You’ll make up your mind and I’m supposed to accept it.”

  “That’s not fair,” she said.

  “Fair for who?” he asked. “I’ve never tried to pin you down or control you. I’ve never tried to take away your freedom. But I need to know that—”

  Her face hardened. She stood.

  Changing places, he lowered himself onto the bed. “It’s the Irishman.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, he’s … he’s not the reason. I don’t know why, Buddy, really I don’t. You’ve been good to me. But there’s something wrong with me. I love you, but I can’t love you back. Does that make sense to you?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Sliding her hand off his shoulder, she said, “To me, either. But that’s how it is.”

  Face pale, Buddy pushed off the bed and stood next to her. The punches he’d taken in the hallway hadn’t affected his surefooted stance, but her words had pummeled him worse, and he wobbled on his feet. “You know what I learned over all those years traveling with your father and you through Cairo and Mexico and Africa? You always hated him. But even after you were out of school and could have walked away, you didn’t. You followed him around the globe. Why would you do that? For a long time I didn’t understand. Maybe I even thought that you were just looking for an excuse to travel with me. But that wasn’t it. I know that now. You had to be near him, like the pull of a hate-charged magnet, you had to stay at his side.”

  “You can go now.”

  “I wonder if it works the other way, too. Maybe you can’t stand to be around the things you love.” He made no movement toward the door.

  “You can leave now,” she said, her voice tittering with anger. “Go.”

  “It’s happening right now. I lean in to kiss you, you tell me to go away.” He reached for her hand. She jerked it away. “Don’t do this. You were just attacked. You’re vulnerable right now. Let me stay with you and we’ll—”

  Trudging to the door, Priscilla rattled off her parting words like a machine gun coughing out bullets. “Then I’ll go. I have an inventory to start.”

  As she entered the hallway, he called to her, “He’s just like the others, y’know. You’ll get tired of him, too.

  And I’ll still be here.”

  Chapter 11

  Felix Lane trusted destiny, not fate.

  Fate was too cruel, an involuntary pathway leading to a predetermined destination, a finish line decided by God or nature or whatever else might have guided the stars. No, fate would never do, not for him.

  Destiny, on the other hand, allowed him a role in the proceedings. He could choose to walk the path that had been laid out for him—so far, a mother and father more familiar with the business side of a hair brush than birthday candles, a dishonorable discharge, gambling debt, and a decade lost behind bars for manslaughter—or he could abandon the pavement and head off into the wilds to find his own way. Everyone had a fate. It was the brave few who found their destiny.

  As he pushed open the door to the bridge, Felix took a sharp left turn off fate’s narrow hiking trail and wandered into destiny’s wilderness.

  Captain Melfast Hilliard sat at the controls, head propped up on the palm of his hand, elbows on the console runner, his heavy frame overhanging the stool. Felix studied the fat man’s bearded face: a time-worn tapestry of wrinkled flesh and wiry gray hair. Beneath a pair of crooked bifocals, Hilliard’s eyes were two pink slits, barely open at all, eyelashes twitching with each almost unperceivable blink. At a glance, it appeared that he was lost in deep thought, perhaps working the math necessary to plot the ship’s course, but closer, Felix saw that he was asleep.

  “Eh, Captain?” Felix asked as he set down the meal tray. He suspected it wasn’t his voice but instead the rattle of aluminum against the console tabletop that startled him awake. “Brought up your dinner.”

  Eyes cracking open, Hilliard asked, “Where’s Mr. Leland?”

  “He has other duties to attend to,” Felix said, trying to keep his voice steady and polite. He knew the captain distrusted the southern twang of his tongue. “Besides,” he added, “I thought you might need help uncorking a bottle.”

  Shaking off sleep, Hilliard adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his wild gray hair. Smacking his lips, he said, “I guess that’s true enough, Mr. Lane.”

  The captain rummaged through his long coat’s inner pocket for a pregnant moment, his brow furrowing with impatience for his old fingers, until he fished out a brass key ring. Fanning out the keys, he selected one and, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, handed it to Felix. Taking it, Felix crossed the bridge and unlocked the liquor cabinet.

  “Just which bottle was it that I was having trouble opening?” Hilliard asked, a subtle smile etched across his lips, as faint as a tiny crack in a glass pane and only visible to a squinting eye in the most direct sunlight. “There are quite a few corks in that box that have given me the business in the past.”

  Felix ran his hand over the vintage wines and spirits on the shelves. The captain was not a rich man, but his tastes ran expensive and his selection of bottles suited his passion. He doubted the man spent money on anything else. “I was thinking that this Port has a tight seal.”

  “The Vinho Verde? Yes, I would say that’s one that’s given me trouble for quite a while. It would be a relief to have some help cracking her open.” The captain didn’t move from his bench, but swiveled his body toward his meal tray. “Can’t say it goes well with stew, but these days, the taste of any sweet grape on my tongue is never be a bad thing.”

  Flipping the bottle over, he gripped it by the neck and stepped up behind the captain. The old man, hunched over his dinner, was fumbling with his spoon, biting his bottom lip with effort. His arthritic fingers shook, his heavy eyelids drooped, as if sleep might take him at any moment.

  Felix swung the bottle, striking out with it as a cudgel. The captain’s head shot flat to his shoulder as the bottle connected with his temple, skull cracking under thin skin. Hilliard’s body weight shifted and he toppled off the stool, falling against the console, overturning the stew bowl, before flipping back and collapsing to the floor. His hands rushed up to the impact point but his head remained tilted at an awkward angle. Felix leaped on top, straddling the whimpering old man, raised the bottle again and landed a second blow, this one flat to the captain’s face, crushing the nose and dislodging the jaw. The third blow, a horizontal strike right to left, sent Hilliard’s head to the opposite shoulder. His neck cracked.

  Smashing the bottle against the floor, Felix tightened his grasp on its neck as wine drained out of the broken vessel. Steadying himself, he took careful aim, stabbing downward, piercing the fallen man’s throat. The bottle dug deep, its jagged end breaking off when it struck vertebra.

  Captain Hilliard’s body, now far past the point of survival, began to spasm underneath him. Felix released the bottle, leaving it to jut out of the captain’s destroyed neck, and held on to the captain’s shoulders as his body convulsed and rattled against the floor.

  Arms and legs flailed in a mixed pool of wine and blood. It went on forever, far longer than he would have expected. He kept his eyes on the door, fearful that another crewmember might overhear the commotion and rush in. But the body’s shaking subsided before the thrashing could draw anyone to the bridge. Captain Melfast Hilliard’s last breath escaped through the gaping hole in his throat.

  Destiny.

  Looking down at the body, the blood now draining rather than spurting, Felix felt both powerful elation and a deep, gut-wrenching terror grow inside him. He felt powerful and primal, but also alone and exposed. If he was caught, he wouldn’t face a judge or jury. On the high seas, a different sort of justice prevailed;
Bennie Leland would assume the title of Captain, and with it, the responsibility to condemn the captain’s murderer to a quick death and burial at sea.

  Exposure and solitude were the two fears that stood between him and his destiny.

  Exposure: jumping to his feet, he stumbled across the cabin, fumbled until he found the small bronze key on Hilliard’s ring, and unlocked the small cabinet against the wall. Reaching inside, he removed the captain’s service revolver and a half-full box of bullets. Swinging the cylinder open, he smiled as the fear of being caught in the act drifted away. Captain Hilliard, rest his soul, kept his gun loaded.

  Solitude: plucking a large, canister flashlight off the console, he squinted out a port side window. His smile widened. Bringing the flashlight up to the glass, he flashed the beam three times.

  He knew he wouldn’t be alone for long.

  Chapter 12

  Every step down the hallway brought Priscilla closer to the ship’s hold and the three long boxes labeled egypt exhibit. The vibrations under her feet gained strength with every footfall. Bennie had explained the engine room was directly below the hold, but that explanation felt false. No, it was the boxes themselves, she had no doubt.

  Re-buttoning her blouse, she walked on, careful to stay in the line of dangling bulb’s best light, and checking over her shoulder, listening for footsteps. She knew Buddy might have followed her and that she’d never be able to detect him in the shadows behind her. Especially tonight, after the attack in the hallway, it reassured her to think he was aboard the Limpkin to protect her. At the same time, his presence was a complication she didn’t need. After their traumatic journey from the British Museum, the last thing she needed was Buddy Martin clinging to her shirt-tails.

  He loved her, she knew. She supposed that she loved him as well, though nowhere near as profoundly or hopelessly as his feelings for her. It’d started as a fling—not her first—a teenage distraction from the doldrums of traveling with her father from one barren dig-site to the next. She saw Buddy only when abroad on one of her father’s excavations or speaking tours, allowing herself to fall into his arms each time, but at home there were always boys her own age to pursue. He’d told her he loved her many times before she realized how deeply he meant it. The first time she said the same to him it was a lie.