The Mummy Read online

  Anguished, Imhotep, straining as the Med-jai held him captive, looked down upon the face of his beloved, sought her eyes; her eyes sought his . . .

  . . . and closed.

  And again, the high priest of Osiris screamed, a scream of agony that shook the stony chamber: He had lost her again! He had lost her again . . .

  All that remained now was for the Med-jai to take their retribution.

  “You have condemned yourself, Imhotep,” the Med-jai leader said, the eyes a peculiar mixture of melancholy and ferocity. “But you have also condemned your faithful priests. Before you receive your punishment, you must witness theirs, to carry that guilt with you into the judgment of the underworld.”

  So it was that in another chamber of the City of the Dead, in flickering torchlight, restrained by embalmers masked, like Anubis, in jackal heads, Imhotep was made to watch as his loyal followers were embalmed and mummified alive.

  The embalmers were as calm as if the men they were using their knives and needles and thread upon were corpses, not screaming, squirming, living men. The final step in the process was to wedge the head of each priest—screams sealed inside sewn-shut mouths—within two strongboards so that a red hot sharp poker could be shoved up the nose, to cut their brains into small pieces before removal through their nostrils.

  Insanity preceded death in every case.

  Imhotep tried to look away, but his jackal-headed captors would turn his face toward the torture, and hold open his eyelids when necessary. This went on for hours, until all twenty-one of his loyal priests were before him on the chamber floor, squirming within their wrappings, wriggling like caterpillars trying to escape from their cocoons; their brains extracted, this was presumably reflex action—or were they still, somehow, experiencing pain? Yet as unimaginable as the pain his priests had suffered might have been, Imhotep could not fathom any pain worse than the emotional suffering that wracked his body, his spirit, as he was made to view this dreadful sight.

  That was when the embalmers pried open his mouth and cut out his tongue, changing his opinion.

  It was possible, though difficult, Imhotep discovered, to scream without a tongue, and the pain blinded him, sparing him the sight of the rats scurrying from their crannies to gather up his discarded tongue, scuffle over it and then eat their fair share of it.

  When he could scream no more, held forward by his captors so that he would not drown in his own blood, Imhotep heard the voice of the Med-jai leader, informing him, “You are to enjoy a rare honor, Imhotep. You will be the first upon whom the curse of hom-dai has ever been bestowed.”

  That worst, most horrible of curses, an ancient curse no one who had walked the earth had yet sinned severely enough to earn. A rare honor, indeed.

  Like his priests, Imhotep was wrapped alive, holes cut for his eyes, nostrils and mouth. His bandages were slimy with muck from a boiling cauldron whose contents had been scooped from one of the ponds of human black detritus. As he squirmed within his bindings on the cavern floor, Imhotep’s bandages were patted down with the fetid slime by the embalmers, who made sure his bandages were drenched with the foul liquid.

  Then the jackal-headed embalmers lifted him like the object he’d become and dropped him into a simple wooden coffin; that coffin was then placed within a granite sarcophagus. Numb from pain, barely conscious, Imhotep stared up at the high rocky ceiling and waited for the lid to be placed over him; the darkness, and the death it would bring, would be almost a relief.

  But there were more pleasures awaiting him first.

  A jackal mask looked down on him. A large jar was in the embalmer’s hands; one last indignity to be rained down upon him—more muck, maybe?

  The jackal-headed embalmer began to pour the contents of the jar down upon the living mummy, and it was not muck.

  Beetles.

  Living, wriggling scarabs, rancid dung beetles that scampered upon him, like a living vest, scurrying across his chest and up across his throat and onto his face to cover it like a black writhing mask, many of them vanishing into his tongueless mouth and up his nostrils.

  Imhotep would have laughed if there hadn’t been beetles crawling in his throat: He was eating them, and they were eating him; by so doing, Imhotep would be cursed to live forever . . . and the bugs were cursed the same. They would go together, through eternity, companions forever.

  And now the coffin lid was slammed shut. Imhotep, in the darkness, invaded by beetles, of course did not see the Med-jai leader step from the darkness to lock the coffin lid tight, with eight gold keys connected as one. The embalmers lilted the heavy sarcophagus lid and set it into place, sealing it airtight with a whoosh; the Med-jai leader again used the strange eight-sided key, locking the sarcophagus lid.

  “Here you will remain,” the Med-jai leader said softly, (and yet Imhotep, within the sealed coffin heard these words, echoing within his small world). “Sealed within, undead for all of eternity.”

  The deed complete, the Med-jai leader folded the many-sided key into a small, octagonal, golden puzzle box.

  As his followers gathered about him, the Med-jai leader said quietly, “We must take all precautions that He Who Shall Not Be Named never be released from his imprisonment, for he would be a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy eater of flesh with the strength of ages, power over even the sands themselves, with the glory of invincibility.”

  Around him, the Med-jai priests nodded gravely; they knew—even as Imhotep himself, trapped with his beetle friends within the slime-sealed sarcophagus knew—that such was the price of that most horrible of curses, the hom-dai. That was why, never before, no matter how severe the infamy, had any villain ever been so punished.

  Using many ropes, into a pit where the black slime boiled and roiled, the embalmers lowered the heavy sarcophagus, the muck splashing up over it, then streaming down its sides like melting candle wax, only to be sucked into the seams of the granite casement, until—as when the black liquid had vanished into Anck-su-namun’s mummy—the sarcophagus had drunk the pit dry of the viscous fluid, its sides clean, all of it clean and dry, not a bead of dampness remaining.

  The embalmers, pulling upon the many ropes, withdrew the sarcophagus from the now parched pit and, at the Med-jai leader’s bidding, carted the granite casement to its chosen burial site.

  Within his cold hell, the skittering beetles upon him and within him, Imhotep knew the ramifications of the portentous curse his burial carried with it, the hom-dai. If he were to raise himself, and his beloved Anck-su-namun, from their respective places in the underworld, they would together be unconquerable; they would unleash upon the world an infection so vile, so indomitable, that a cataclysmic ending would come to all living things . . . all but Imhotep and Anck-su-namun.

  Perhaps, like his priests before him, Imhotep had been driven insane by the torture of living mummification.

  And yet the muffled, tongueless screams that emerged from the living mummy in the coffin within the granite sarcophagus, onto which sand and dirt were rudely being shoveled, seemed to threaten revenge and were tinged with a chilling promise of inevitable triumph.

  They buried him in the temple courtyard, near the base of the looming statue of Anubis (The Book of the Dead returned to its hiding place), where the jackal-headed death god could look sternly down on He Who Shall Not Be Named. For many hundreds of years Anubis, and armed generations of Med-jai, watched the grave of Imhotep, until the sands of time and the Sahara had all but hidden the ruins of Hamanaptra, the decayed head of Anubis barely visible above the shifting desert’s dry tides.

  And yet, as civilizations lived and died, came and went, sealed within his coffin, with his scarab companions . . .

  . . . Imhotep lived!

  PART TWO

  The Mummy’s Return

  The Sahara—1925

  3

  Legion of Lost Men

  Uncovered by the unintentional excavation efforts of a recent sandstorm, the ruins of the temple com
plex at Hamanaptra poked from the sand like the sun-bleached bones of some unfortunate desert wanderer who had died of thirst. Once grand, now partly crumbled pylons proudly bore the hieroglyphic record of gods and kings; a scattering of wind-worn stone columns and partial walls remained upright, while others had been toppled by time. Stone statues with the heads of lions or rams, exquisitely carved, carelessly chipped, stood tall here, rested there, and within his open shrine, the massive jackal-headed Anubis, swimming in sand, seemed lonely for supplicants. The ruins were themselves the skeleton of a once mighty people, whose deeply held religious beliefs in modern times might seem strange and even barbaric.

  And yet in a day when a telephone wire stretched from Cairo to the pyramids, and European tourists could play lawn tennis in the court of a hotel built near the base of old Cheops himself, the strange and the barbaric remained a potent presence upon these timeless sands. Just as the screams of the tortured Imhotep had echoed across Hamanaptra in that bloodstained golden age, so now did the shrill battle cries of Tuareg warriors.

  Scampering about the ruins of Hamanaptra like children playing in the sand, a “flying column” of legionnaires sought position, a Battalion de Marche of the French Foreign Legion, two hundred men strong. Or they would have been “strong,” had they not been outnumbered ten to one by the fierce tribesmen, who—using time-honored tribal tactics—had at a safe distance followed the legionnaires, on the march, until they were too far from a fort or a supply dump to receive help.

  As wily as they were ruthless, the Tuaregs had waited until the legion’s highly trained soldiers grew careless and tired from too many days under the hot Sahara sun; then the warriors emerged from behind a sand dune like a nightmarish mirage, swords and rifles waving, their long, loose robes flapping like flags as they advanced at full gallop.

  The legionnaires were clumsy in their infantry-style uniforms, burdened with backpacks of spare clothing, ammo, and rations; in this climate, only the black-leather marching boots made sense. The sun-shielding swatch that hung from each man’s kepi—round cloth caps with short leather bills—were waving like white flags of surrender from the head of each scurrying soldier.

  It was times like this that made a man like Richard O’Connell, formerly of Chicago, Illinois, question his career choice.

  His collegiate handsomeness made rugged by intense sky-blue eyes, a leathery tan, and an unruly mop of brown hair, O’Connell—“Rick” to his friends, “Corporal” to his men—wore his kepi at a jaunty angle. Alone among the two hundred soldiers—largely riffraff from every corner of the Western world—O’Connell, in his tan coat, shoulder-holstered revolvers crisscrossing his trimly muscular frame, cut a dashing figure worthy of a recruiting poster. Engagez-vous a la Legion Étrangère!

  Right now, however, desertion might seem more in order, if self-preservation hadn’t edged it out.

  The muffled thunder of hoofbeats on sand merged with the chilling war whoops of the advancing Tuareg horde as O’Connell stood atop what had once been the protective outer wall of the Hamanaptra temple complex. He had been using binoculars, but he tossed them aside.

  No need for them now.

  “I’ve had better days,” he said to no one, hefting his rifle—a sad example of the outdated Lebel bayonets he and his men were encumbered with.

  Perhaps this would be a fitting end, not so much ironic as just. Greed had brought them here—not honor. Their colonel had found a map showing the way to the fabled Hamanaptra, and the promise of ancient riches had seized the imaginations of a garrison composed, after all, of thieves, murderers, mercenaries, and adventurers.

  And now, with the dreaded Tuaregs upon them, this legendary entryway to untold treasures would serve only as a makeshift fort.

  “A tactical suggestion, Corporal,” a thin, weasely voice intoned beside him.

  O’Connell glanced at the voice’s thin, weasely source: Private Second Class Beni Gabor, formerly of Budapest, proof positive that not all of the legion’s rabble came from Italy, England, Norway, Russia, or Spain. Narrow of shoulder, sunken of chest, with dark, close-set eyes and a pencil-line mustache in his pasty, almond-shaped face, the resourceful little scoundrel was the closest thing to a friend O’Connell had in the legion—perhaps because there was such a limited supply of worthwhile friends from which to choose.

  “About the only tactic available,” O’Connell said, eyeing the Arab warrior-flung horizon, “is hold your fire until they’re within range.”

  “That’s one option,” Beni said, nodding, “yes it is. But personally, I would prefer to surrender.”

  “Give me your bandoleer.”

  Beni, climbing out of his cartridge belt, handed it to the corporal, saying, “Or why not just run away? There’s another option. I’ll bet these ruins are teeming with hiding places, and what do we owe the legion? Loyalty for cold biscuits and brutality?”

  “These ruins are going to be teeming, all right.” O’Connell had slung on the bandoleer, which joined his own to make an “X” on his chest.

  Working his voice above the swelling shouts of Tuaregs promising slaughter, and the pounding of their ponies’ hoof-beats, O’Connell said to Beni, “I’ll take your revolver, too, since it doesn’t sound like you’re going to need it.”

  “Here,” Beni said, handing the weapon to the corporal, then following him close as a dog’s tail as O’Connell moved quickly along the wall. “You know what nobody tries anymore, Rick? And I bet it would work on these dumb savages: playing dead!”

  Still moving, O’Connell sighed and broke open the revolver to check its ammunition. “These ‘dumb savages’ maneuvered us into this position. But go ahead, Beni, try it—of course you’ll be tortured and probably staked out in the desert to die of sunstroke.”

  “It was just a suggestion.”

  “How the hell d’you end up in the legion, anyway?”

  Such a question was a breach of etiquette: Many legionnaires had embraced that famous motto—“Legio Patria Nostra (The Legion is our homeland)”— because they were wanted by the police of their former homelands. But at this moment, with the whooping Tuaregs bearing down upon them, this lapse seemed permissible.

  Beni shrugged. “They’re after me in Hungary for robbing a synagogue—that’s my specialty, synagogues: Hebrew’s one of my seven languages.”

  “Robbing churches.” O’Connell, sticking Beni’s revolver in his belt, shook his head. “That’s even lower than I’d expected.”

  “Prime swag to be found in holy places,” Beni said in the singsong manner of a grade school teacher. “Temples, mosques, cathedrals—and who’ve they got standing guard?”

  “Altar boys?”

  “Exactly! How about you, Rick?” Beni continued tagging along as the corporal strode the wall to where he could examine their front line of defense, legionnaires kneeling at the ready, watching the approaching horde; Colonel Guizot pacing behind them, apparently contemplating his battle plan. “What did you do, anyway, to wind up in the legion of lost men, Rick?”

  O’Connell turned to answer, but Beni was trailing along so close, they bumped into each other; the little Hungarian lost his balance, clutched at O’Connell in an attempt to regain it, and failed. Locked in Beni’s reflexive embrace, they toppled from the wall and hit the ground in a pile and a puff of sand.

  “So,” Beni continued, picking himself up, offering no apology, “what’d you do, Rick? Murder somebody?”

  “Not yet,” O’Connell said, narrow eyed, on his feet, brushing himself off, checking his Lebel.

  “What, then? Robbery? Extortion? I know! I hear it’s the latest thing in America—kidnapping!”

  “Shut up already,” O’Connell said. He strode down a sand dune within the walls of the ruins and walked out between the front pylons onto the stone ramp where, in another time, the chariots of the high priest of Osiris had rolled up to make a fateful call.

  Beni frowned. “Listen, I told you my damn story! You tell me your damn story!�
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  The warrior horde was half a mile out, now; the roar of charging horses and screaming men would soon be deafening. O’Connell reflected, as if time were no factor, his voice soft, musical. “It was Paris, it was spring, and I was looking for a way to impress a young lady . . . and maybe I was looking for a little adventure.”

  He left out the part about being drunk.

  “I think you found it,” Beni said, nodding toward the front line, where Colonel Guizot had panicked.

  With an eerie detachment, O’Connell and Beni watched their commanding officer cut and run.

  “Congratulations,” Beni said with a smile. “You’re promoted.”

  There was no horizon, now: just a blur of Tuareg warriors, shrieking, waving their long, curved swords, brandishing Lebel rifles pilfered from the bodies of slain legionnaires.

  This must have been how Custer felt.

  “Damn it,” O’Connell said softly, to no one but himself. Then, with as commanding a tone as he could muster, he yelled, “Steady, men! Wait till you see the whites of their eyes!”

  “I can’t believe you said that,” Beni said, standing behind the corporal.

  Hooves pounded the sand; screams pierced the air. The Tuaregs knew about getting into firing range, too: They were raising their rifles, taking aim . . .

  “You are with me, right, pal?” O’Connell said, with a glance at his friend, still standing directly behind him.

  “Your strength gives me strength,” Beni said, clutching his Lebel with both hands.

  The Tuareg war cry now shifted into a birdlike whoop: “Ooo-loo-loo-loo, ooo-loo-loo-loo!”

  “That’s all, brother,” Beni said, backing away, and ran away so fast, his boots barely touched the sand.

  O’Connell allowed himself a wry smirk, drew a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and yelled, “Steady, men! . . . Steady . . .”

  Steeling himself, rifle in his hands, but not poised to shoot, O’Connell waited, ears filled with the ghastly cries, the pounding hoofbeats, waited one more moment, then yelled, “Fire!”