Death is Only the Beginning

I barely slept that night, my insides were churning with confusion. I'd had an itty bitty crush on Rick since I first met him but we had worked out so well as friends I didn't want to screw it up. I'm glad that he had made that move, though I still wasn't sure what we exactly were, it was such a teenage thing to ask.. I'd question it later, it was just one kiss, doesn't mean we were anything... yet. Too soon it was morning and I was tired as shit but nonetheless I got up anyway. Evy shook my shoulder in the morning as if I wasn't already awake.

"Come on Joe. Get ready so we can go excavate this mummy." I smiled up at her.

"Good morning Eves... Alright lets go." I mumbled and got up along with Rick and Jonathan. The struggle was real for me; I was wishing I had coffee right about now. We trudged down to the city with our supplies in hand, ready to go to work.

"Oh, l've dreamt about this since l was a little girl." Evy exclaimed visibly excited once we had got the coffin upright and ready to open.

"You dream about dead guys?" Rick questioned her, I gave him a look that said shut-your-face.

"Look, his sacred spells have been chiseled off." I said to Evy, pointing at the front of the sarcophagus. Her face displayed shock and confusion.

"This man must have been condemned not only in this life but in the next." Evy said.

"Tough break." Rick and I said at the same time, I stifled a smile and looked at him with amusement to find he was already looking at me. I blushed, looking away.

"Yeah, l'm all tears. Now, let's see who's inside, shall we?" Jon said trying to get on with the show. Jon and Rick gripped the sides and popped it open. A skeletal figure popped out at us scaring the living bejeezus out of me, though I just froze and didn't display the shock that I felt whereas Evy yelled.

"Oh, my God, l hate it when these things do that." Evy said after she composed herself. We took a closer look at him.

"ls he supposed to look like that?" Rick asked with question in his voice looking at me for an answer.

"No, l've never seen a mummy look like this before." I said.

"He's still-- still—" Evy said trying to come up with the word for our guy.

"Juicy..." Rick and Jon said together in a grossed out voice.

"Yes. He must be more than 3,000 years old... and, well, it looks as if he's still... decomposing." Evy said looking at the mummy with concern.

"Hey, look at that." Rick said grabbing my arm and crouching down with me. "What do you make of this?" He asked pointing to the marks on the inside of the coffin.

"These marks were made with... fingernails." I said tracing them with my fingers looking back at the mummy. I felt a shiver run through my veins. I needed to get away, I quickly got up and backed away from the corpse, feeling as if I was being suffocated.

"This man was buried alive. And he left a message. 'Death is only the beginning.'" Evy said looking at me with wide concerned eyes, I knew we would be talking about this later. After hearing that, I quickly walked out of the city and back to Hidalgo knowing he could calm my nerves.

Later that Night

The rest of the group and the Americans rejoined me later near the fire that I had started earlier this evening.

"Say, O'Connell, what do you think these babies'll fetch back home?" One of the American's said as he held up an ornate looking canopic jar. I pulled my blanket around me tighter getting another weird feeling about these jars.

"We hear you boys found yourselves a nice, gooey mummy. Congratulations. lf you dry that fella out, you might be able to sell him for firewood." Henderson, one of the Americans, said walking up behind us with one of his buddies.

"Look what l found." Evy said coming to sit next to me. She had stayed down in the city with the mummy a little longer than everyone else in order to investigate our friends death. Rick had come up with Jonathan to make sure I was alright and to eat dinner before Evy. "Scarab skeletons, flesh eaters. l found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years feasting on the flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him." I cringed a little, Rick noticed and grabbed my hand intertwining our fingers just like he had last night. I looked into his eyes there was a warmth there that I hadn't noticed before. He looked away from me and back to Evy.

"So somebody threw these in with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?" He asked her curious about what really happened to this man.

"Very slowly." Evy confirmed.

"He certainly wasn't a popular fellow when they planted him." Jon said poking the fire with a stick. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well, he probably got a little too frisky with the pharaoh's daughter." Rick said looking at the fire growing a little bigger.

"Well, according to my readings... Our friend suffered the Hom-Dai, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses... One reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers. ln my research, l've never heard of this curse having actually been performed." Evy said, I nodded in agreement, I'd never heard of it being performed either. Except in mums stories..

"That bad, huh?" Rick asked us.

"Yes, well, they-- They never used it because they feared it so. lt's written that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise... He would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt." I butted into the conversation giving my opinion. After a couple hours we had decided sleep had sounded good. I had fallen asleep with Rick at my side, his arm had wrapped itself around my waist during the night. I was peacefully cuddling into his form and away into the blackness of my mind when I heard some footsteps next to my head.

"That's called stealing, you know." Rick mumbled loudly enough to wake me up, but I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep.

"According to you and my family... It's called borrowing." I heard Evy whisper back to Rick.

"l thought the Book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold." Rick whispered carefully trying to get up from behind me, which in turn woke me up for the day. I cleared my throat and raised my head to look at them. Rick stopped moving looking down at me with those mesmerizing eyes of his. We stared at each other for a couple moments until Evy broke the silence.

"lt is made out of gold. This isn't the Book of Amun-Ra. This is something else... l think this may be the Book of the Dead." Evy said to us smiling. Rick helped me up and we walked over near Evy crouching beside her and the book.

"The Book of the Dead? Are you sure you want to be playing around with this thing?" Rick said question in his voice tangled with a little bit of worry.

"lt's just a book. No harm ever came from... Reading a book." Evy said, she looked as if she was in a trance, I had a weird feeling about this. I had been having a lot of weird feelings lately. She quickly crawled over to Jon's sleeping form and grabbed the key out of his pocket. When she moved back to the book the wind startled the fire again. Rick looked around like something was upon us.

"That happens a lot around here." Rick said holding his shotgun close to him, almost closer than he held me the night before.

"So, what's it say?" I asked her reading it silently to myself as well.

"Amun Ra. Amun Dei. lt speaks of the night and of the day..." Evy translated for Rick. She went on reading in the beautiful ancient language. Before we heard a yell.

"NO!! You must not read from the book!" The man in the fez said. We looked around and the wind started up a bit more. Jon woke up holding his bottle of booze. It would have been a comical scene had there not been bugs flying towards us at an insane speed. I quickly got to my feet and ran towards the city with my siblings and Rick right behind me. 'Shit!! I forgot about Hidalgo.' I quickly did an about face and started to run back the other way.

"Where're you going??" Rick said as he grabbed my arm.

"Hidalgo's up there, I have to get him into shade so..." I was interrupted by Evy yelling,

"Scarabs!"... SHIT I thought and grabbed Rick's forearm and ran the other way.

"Run, Evy!"Jon yelled right after us. We were out of the city and running on this walkway when we all got separated, both Evy and I were on the same block of stone. Rick was across from us and Jon to the left side. We watched as some of the diggers were eaten alive by the carnivorous scarabs. I gasped as I fell backwards fairly quickly. Unaware of what was going on, I only knew my surroundings were changing. I landed on the ground with a thunk.

"Fuck." I exclaimed confused and a tad worried about where we were.

"JOSEPHINE!" Evy yelled slapping me on the arm. I looked around quickly getting to my feet and trying to determine our location. "Oh. Oh, Mr. Burns..." Evy started to say, "Thank goodness. l was just starting to get scared." She mumbled to me. Then turned back to Mr. Burns. "We've lost everyone. l—" Evy began but didn't finish. Mr. Burns turned around clutching at his eyes or lack there of.

"My eyes. My eyes." He yelled in a clear amount of pain. "Please help me." I noticed he sounded really weird, not just scared and upset but the vernacular of his voice sounded... Off. "My tongue... He took my tongue." He choked out. Suddenly a creature, which happened to be our mummy came out from the shadows. I backed up against the wall Evy following my lead. Suddenly I flashed back, where the mummy was an actual flesh human being and the walls of Hamunaptra were restored, it was only for a second but it confused the hell out of me.

"Please don't leave me." Evy whispered snapping me back to reality.

"Sekhmet? Anck-su-namun?" The mummy asked looking from me to Evy, back and forth he seemed confused but started to walk forward to us. Evy covered her face with her hands, I stepped in front of her so she wouldn't have to deal with this weird ass creature. I closed my eyes waiting for whatever was going to happen.

"There you are!!!!" A wave of relief washed threw me. Rick... "Will you guys quit playing hide-and-seek?!!!" He yelled at us. Dashing in front of the creature unaware of what was unfolding before us. "Come on. Let's get out of here." Rick noticed neither Evy or I moved. "Whoa!!!!!" He yelled getting a look at our brand new friend. The mummy screamed in his face, Rick took this in for a second then decided the best plan of attack was to yell back at him and shoot him with the shotgun as he did it.

"Evy!" Jon yelled to us, he dropped his torch as he noticed the mummy.

"Move!" Rick said as he pushed both Evy and I to the right and started to run away. Just as we were about to dash out the exit we were stopped by the same men we had been attacked by a couple nights ago. The man I had fought with had his facial scarf removed for the first time. He was actually very handsome, not as handsome as Rick but relatively attractive. I noted Evy took notice of his features as well. She had that small smile on her face that told me she found him attractive as well and that she may have a tiny crush.

"lt was walking. lt was walking!!!" One of the Americans yelled as he ran up, interrupting my thoughts.

"l told you to leave or die. You refused. Now you may have killed us all... For you have unleashed a creature we have feared for more than 3,000 years." The man scolded us. Glaring at every one of us individually, his gaze relaxed when he looked at Evy and I, suspicious I thought.

"Relax. l got him." Rick said.

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He's not of this world." The man said trying to reason with Rick.

"You bastards. What did you do to him?" One of the Americans questioned seeing Burns there in the tribe's arms.

"We saved him, saved him before the creature could finish his work.." The leader tried to explain. "Now leave, all of you, quickly, before he finishes you all. Yallah. Nimishi. Now we must now go on the hunt and try and find a way to kill him." The man replied to us getting upset and annoyed at all of us. I didn't blame him, I'd be annoyed at us too.

"l already told you l got him." Rick just wasn't getting it, that ego of his.... I elbowed him in the gut promptly fixing the problem.

"Know this. This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep... and he will never stop..." the man said looking Rick directly in the eyes and immediately leaving on that dramatic note.