Eventually, they reached their first destination, the Temple of Screaming Awful Death (according to the tour book). The ring of massive columns and cross pieces rose into sight like some kind of ancient Egyptian Stonehenge. Here, with any luck, they would find the location of the Temple of the Golden Waters, where Jack was convinced they would find “gold and stuff.”
In the shadow of the massive columns, pitted and scoured by millennia of blowing sand, they made camp. Eager to get started, Jack Tracker pulled the diggers aside and got them working, then disappeared with the voluptuous Jane and a handful of other beautiful archeology students. Dewey’s mind dripped with the possibilities.
Dewey got camp up and running, doing the best he could to conceal the massive Top Secret crate that Jack entrusted to him. When he was finished, he went to check on the diggers’ progress. Dewey stood on the edge of the dig site. “Well...shit,” he said and went to find Jack.
***
Dewey found Jack, surprisingly alone, standing in the middle of a sandy flat yanking on a rope that disappeared into the sand some thirty feet away. The muscles in Jack’s arms bulged with the herculean effort. “What’s new, Dew?”
“I’m concerned about the diggers.”
“Why? They seem like a trustworthy lot.” Jack had used that same description for any number of thieves, cutthroats, and lunatics over the years.
“It isn’t that.”
“Then what?”
“Do you...speak Egyptian?”
Jack stopped pulling on the rope. He stood twisting it around his finger. He shrugged.
“Jack, do you actually speak the language?”
“No, okay, no I don’t actually speak the Egyptian language...as such.” His shoulders drooped. “All right, we’ll go talk to them. Help me with this rope, okay?”
Dewey stepped in, grabbed the rope, and pulled. After a few minutes of struggle, Jane Harrison popped out of the sand tied to the end of the rope. She took a massive gasp of air. “I got it, Jack!”
“What the hell was that about?” Dewey said.
As they reeled Jane in, Jack nodded toward the sand. “Saw something out there in the quicksand. Something with writing on it. I figured it was a clue.”
“So...you sent Jane out, tied to a rope, into quicksand?”
“Yup.”
“Did it not occur to you to try and lasso it? You’re pretty handy with a rope.”
Jack was wrapping the rope around his arm with a practiced hand. He had been a cowboy. “Well, no. The rope was actually the third girl’s idea.”
Dewey stared at the quicksand. Its surface was smooth as glass. “Third girl?”
“Yeah, but she couldn’t hold on worth a damn. That’s when I got the idea to actually tie it around Jane.”
“Good plan,” Dewey said, stunned.
“Here ya go,” Jane said, proudly handing Jack what looked like a piece of wood with writing on it.
“Now we’ll see if those sacrifices were in vein and...huh, how about that?” He tossed the piece of wood back into the quicksand. “Let’s go talk to those diggers.”
Dewey glanced at the piece of wood. It was a sign that read DANGER QUICKSAND.
***
“I really don’t know how there could be any confusion. I told the diggers that I was looking for a massive temple in the sand and—” Jack, Jane, and Dewey reached the dig site. “Well, shit.”
The diggers had built a sandcastle.
***
It took some doing on Dewey’s part, but he managed to bridge the language gap and get the men working on a proper archaeological dig. It was only a few hours later when the diggers appeared with a stone box the size of a steamer trunk. A scorpion had been carved into the top of the stone.
Jack and Dewey crouched on the sand next to it. The diggers, the remaining archeology students, and one or two hired guns crowded around. “Jackpot,” Jack said.
“Scorpion,” Dewey said.
“Yeah,” Jack said, looking the box over, “some kind of warning. Maybe they put scorpions in the box. Stupid. They’d all be dead now.”
“No,” Dewey said. “Scorpion!”
A giant scorpion rose from the sand and towered over them. Pincers as big as trucks. The venom dripped from the spear-like point of its tail.
Before anyone could move, it reared back to attack, hit one of the columns, knocked it over. The cross piece tumbled forward onto the creature’s tail, driving the venomous spear down into its own back. Poisoned, it flopped dead to the sand. The ground shook with the weight of it.
“Well,” Jack said. “Let’s get this box open.”
Inside the box was a scroll covered with hieroglyphics.
“I can read that,” Jane said.
“Now we’re cooking,” Jack said. “Speaking of cooking, can you eat scorpion? To keep the expedition light and quick, I didn’t really pack any food.”
Dewey shrugged.
“Grill it up, boys,” Jack told the diggers.
***
Jane took the scroll, laid it out on top of a crate. She removed her glasses from her pocket, cleaned them, put them on, and stared at the scroll. “Ready?”
The assembled crowd tensed with anticipation.
“Okay,” she said. “The hieroglyphics say: bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider.” Jane grinned proudly.
Dewey’s stomach growled and he left the tent to see how the barbecue was going.
***
Dewey stood over the bodies of the diggers. Apparently, he thought, you can’t eat poisoned scorpion. It was a shame, though; it smelled fantastic.
Dewey ran his fingers through his sparse hair and stared at the ruined columns. He had a bad feeling about this adventure. He looked at the hieroglyphics on the column nearest him. Bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider.
He laughed, thinking about Jane’s translation. The answer could be staring them in the face and they wouldn’t know what it meant.
He looked at another column. Bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider.
Dewey laughed again. That was the same hieroglyphic that...
It was the same. They didn’t know what it meant, but it matched. It wouldn’t have been put it in a box, buried in the sand, and protected by a giant scorpion if it meant nothing. Dewey looked at the columns. The crosspieces were actually tapered, like a wedge, like an arrowhead pointing North.
Dewey had found the temple. He ran back to the tent to get Jack.
***
They marched until dark and found the temple just as the moon was shining in the sky. They lit torches, but didn’t bother to make camp. There were, Dewey noted, a lot fewer members of the expedition to have to house.
Dewey joined Jack standing on a dune, staring at the Temple of the Golden Waters.
The three story doorway was buried in sand and only the very top of the keystone was visible.
“No diggers, huh?”
Dewey shook his head. “Nope.”
The two men raced across the dunes and fell on the burning sand that blocked the doorway, digging at it with their hands, uncovering more.
A ghost appeared, startling them.
The ghost, transparent with a bluish tint, stood in front of them in full, proper-English gentleman explorer regalia: khaki uniform and pith hat. He wore a mustache that looked like part of a broom and a cracked monocle. He stood with his arms behind his back like a high-ranking military official addressing his troops.
Jack and Dewey were suitably impressed by their brush with the supernatural.
“My name is Sir Reginald Endsley, the third. I have come to warn you that not all of your expedition will survive...”
Jack shrugged, “And?”
“And...” the ghost added, visibly miffed. “By coming here you have awakened the wrath of the horrible Mummy, who will, most likely, smash your bones, devour your flesh, and generally frolic in your intest-tynes.”
“There’s gold here, though, right?” Jack squinted at the spect
er.
“Indeed,” the ghost said, smirking. “There is only one way to save yourselves from the wrath of the Mummy.”
Dewey leaned forward. “Well, what is it?”
Sir Reginald Endsley, the third, laughed until his head literally fell off his body. “I’m not going to tell you!”
Perplexed, Dewey shook his head. “Wait, I thought you said you were going to warn us.”
“I am warning you. I am warning you that I am not going to reveal the secret to saving yourselves.”
“Why not?” Jack held his empty hands up.
Sir Reginald sighed. “I’m lonely. You will be damned to haunt these ruins after the Mummy, well, you know, and then we’ll have enough for cricket. And you’ve brought women. Good show, chaps!”
Jane had come to stand next to Jack.
It was Dewey’s turn to sigh. “Will you at least tell us when the Mummy is coming?”
“He could come at any time. Days, weeks, months...oh wait, there he is!” Sir Reginald disappeared into the ether.
Jack, Jane, and Dewey spun around. The Mummy was right behind them. Jack pulled his pistol. Dewey pulled his, slightly smaller but just as good, pistol. Jane’s breasts heaved. “We don’t need his help,” Jack said and gritted his teeth.
***
“Everybody’s dead,” Jack Tracker shrieked, sheer terror in his eyes. “Run for your life!” He shoved Dewey and Jane aside. Dewey managed to catch her by the arm before she fell into the path of the rampaging Mummy.
Behind them, it lumbered down the dark, stone hallway, dragging one bandaged foot behind. Beneath the wrappings, its skin was black with age and evil. One red eye glared out from beneath its death mask facade, one arm clawed hatefully at them.
Dragging Jane behind him, Dewey ran after Jack. “What do we do?”
“Jack will know,” Jane said.
“I don’t know,” Jack said, ducking and weaving down the hallway as if trying to keep the other two between him and the Mummy’s wrath.
The hall came to an abrupt and disappointing end.
A basin of clear water dominated the wall at the end of the hallway. Flanked by smoldering torches, it seemed so out of place that Jack, Jane, and Dewey could only stare at it. The foot falls of the accursed Mummy behind them broke them out of their spell.
“It’s a puzzle,” Jack said, rubbing his hands together. “That’s why its here. I figure this out and the Mummy can go back to its, uh, Mummy box...”
“Sarcophagus,” Dewey said.
Jack reached his hand out and gently brushed a lock of hair out of Jane’s eyes. “He can go back to his mummy box and sleep for another three thousand years.”
Jane’s chest heaved.
Dewey covered his eyes and waited for death.
“Okay,” Jack said. “We’re in Egypt. What’s in Egypt? Pyramids. Sand. Mummies...duh, water, water...”
“The Nile,” Dewey said, keeping his hands over his eyes as the Mummy got closer.
“That’s a river, right, what else? Jews...aren’t you Jewish, Dew?”
“I’m actually Presbyterian, but...Mummies smell very spicy, did you notice that?”
“I have the answer,” Jack said, grinning.
Dewey and Jane smiled. “And?”
“I’m...Moses!” Jack bent over the pool of water and began splashing in it with his hands in two different directions like an idiot child trying to swim.
The Mummy appeared in front of them.
“I figured it out! I’m parting the Red Sea you undead son-of-a—”
The Mummy snapped Jack Tracker’s neck with one hand.
“I don’t think it is a puzzle,” Dewey said, pushing Jane out of the way of the Mummy. He fell to the ground on the other side of the pool.
The Mummy glared at the two of them and then stepped up to the pool.
“It’s a toilet.”
The Mummy glared at the two of them again.
“I don’t think he can go with us watching,” Dewey said, leading Jane away from the basin.
A three thousand year wait was fulfilled. It sounded like the whole Nile emptying into a coffee can.
Dewey led Jane out of the tomb. After a moment, she took his hand in hers. He smiled at her.
Jane glanced over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t we wait for Jack?”
Dewey sighed.
Passing of the Scythe
by Gary McKenzie
Charlie Chaos dipped his gloved hand into the fresh pool of blood and carefully smeared it across the living room wall, completing the smile on the happy face. He stood back and admired his handiwork.
“That oughtta mess with the cops,” he laughed to himself.
For years, Charlie has crossed the country committing countless murders, never once repeating his brutal methods. He’d always been extremely careful and never left a common connection. The police have never linked any of the bizarre murders to each other.
Charlie wandered from room to room, looking for some creative touch to add to his method of devastation. He considered these random acts as a way to keep anyone off of his trail—and also gives him something fun to do. Sometimes he will take a family heirloom and drop it off in a neighbor’s garbage, while other times he’ll drive miles out of the way and leave the stolen object in a bad neighborhood. It amused him knowing that the police would waste countless man-hours and tax dollars trying to figure out what the significance a baseball card shoved into the mouth of a victim meant, or why a family portrait was hung upside down. While they desperately searched for clues and connections, he would calmly make his way across the country until the urge to creatively kill inspired him once again.
Stepping into the bathroom, Charlie started to wash the congealing blood from his gloves. He stopped and ran back to the pool of blood. He bent over, swiped two leather-covered fingers through the crimson puddle, which strangely reminded him of cooling pudding, and drew two angry eyebrows over the eyes of his finger-painted masterpiece.
Suddenly, from behind the demented artist, an unnaturally cool breeze filled the room, followed by a sound like thin, hollow twigs banging together.
A cold chill passed over Charlie’s sweat-covered body. His bowels almost released. Had he finally been caught? Reaching for his back pocket, he grabbed the hilt of his knife and spun around, ready to pounce on the intruder. What he saw knocked the air from his lungs.
Across the room, hovering over the lifeless body of Charlie’s latest victim, was a clapping skeleton clad in an all black robe with a black hood over its head. Against the wall leaned the long, shiny blade of a scythe as it balanced on its blackened, wooden shaft. Screaming faces could be seen in the rotted knotholes of the ancient stick.
Charlie’s legs failed him and he slumped to the ground, still holding the knife out in front of him, but now for protection.
“Stay away!” he tried to yell, although it came out as merely a whimper.
“Relax, relax,” the grinning skeleton laughed. His voice was more of a whisper in Charlie’s head than an actual “physical voice.” “I’m not here to hurt you, Charlie Chaos. In fact, I’m a big fan.”
Charlie shook his head in disbelief. Could this really be happening? Was he actually having a conversation with Death himself? Even better, was Death really a fan?
“What do you want from me?” the humbled murderer asked, trying to hold back the quiver in his voice.
“Charlie, my friend, I’ve been watching you for a long, long time,” the Grim Reaper said as he floated over to a blood-soaked reclining chair. His ancient bones cracked a musical tune as he sat down. Not concerned about getting his cloak dirty, the specter leaned back in the chair and exhaled a sigh of relief. Reaching out toward his scythe, he opened his skeletal hand and the ancient artifact floated across the room into his vice-like grip.
“For years, I have watched you slaughter hundreds of innocent victims,” Death began. “At first, I thought that you were just another of those run-of-the-mill, mindless
maniacs with Mommy-issues that pollute our world, especially since you killed your own mother. But, when you started showing your creative side, that’s when I thought to myself, ‘This one’s special.’
“It was a few years ago, I believe it was in Cincinnati, when you slaughtered the Olson Family. At first there was nothing really memorable about it, but when you decided to cook and eat their goldfish, even taking the time to properly season it, that’s when I knew that you were the one.”
Charlie managed to regain working ability in his legs and stood tall. He smiled as he fondly remembered the ‘Filet O’ Fish’ incident.
“You know,” Charlie said as he made his way over to the couch and flopped down onto the cushions, “I didn’t even know I was going to do it. Something in my head just told me to do something that would totally fuck with the police. Sure, I could have nailed the goldfish to the wall like I did to that hamster back in Portland, but I’d already done it. What better way to show confidence in a murder than to take the time to scale, season, cook, and eat something so fucking unimportant? It was then that I knew that murder should be fun.”
“Well said,” grinned the Taker of Lives. “I couldn’t have put it better myself, which brings me to why I am here. Since the dawn of time, I have been the ‘Bringer of Death’ and quite frankly, I’m getting a bit bored with it. In fact, you might even say that I have become nothing more than a joke that appears on heavy metal album covers and bad tattoos.
“You’ve kept me busy, and might I add, quite entertained over the years. That time you decorated the Christmas tree with the entrails of that stockbroker had me dying, so to speak. But the icing on the cake was when you gift wrapped his head, complete with a little bow in his hair, and addressed it to the Chief of Police. That’s the attention to detail that sets you apart from the rest.”
“Speaking of details,” Charlie interrupted, “how’d you like the time I strung up the bodies of all those campers in Yosemite Park? It took me forever to climb those trees, pull up the bodies, secure them so that they wouldn’t fall, and then tie a red ribbon from one body to another to form the circle, and then do it all again to form a star. As soon as the cops saw the pentagram, every Satanist within a hundred miles was rounded up.”
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night... Page 21