Chapter Six: The Search for Hamunaptra
Bedouin Trading Post
Chris was more useful when they arrived at a trading post. After talkng to the traders for a moment, Leon
forked over some cash for transportation across the desert. Jill was somewhere in the camp, changing clothes
and Irons was being ran off by numerous Bedouin women.
"I can't belive the price of these fleabags," Leon muttered as he took the reins of four camels. He handed one
to Chris.
"We could have gotten them for free," Chris said. "All we had to do was give them Jill."
Leon gave Chris a wry smile. "Awfully tempting, wasn't it?"
Jill stepped out of a trading tent. She's changed into a gorgeous, tightly fitted, Bedouin dress.
Chris gawked at her. "Awfully," he murmured.
Jill blushed from underneath her veil.
***
The four are now slowly making their was across the sunbaked Sahara. Leon is complaining about his camel.
"Never did like camels. They smell, they bite, they spit. Disgusting."
Chris watches as Irons savagely attacks a chicken wing. He shuddered at the sight, which reminded him of a
zombie. Irons sucks at his gums, then spits out some chicken fat.
Chris make a face. "Yeah, disgusting."
Jill was enjoying herself on her camel. "Well I think they're cute."
***
They continued to ride into the night. Jill was fast asleep on her camel. Chris reaches over and steadies her
just as she starts to fall off. Meanwhile, Leon and Irons were also asleep, the burly warden snoring. For a
long moment, Chris watches Jill sleep, then he looks up at a nearby ridge...
...where Carlos Oliveira and a group of Magi was looking down on them.
"This one has heart," he said of Chris.
***
Morning. Chris knows that he and the others are close to Hamunaptra, since there are several hundred skeletons
littering the hard desert ground.
"What the hell is that?" Leon asked, pointing to the bones.
"Those are the other seekers of Hamunaptra," Chris deadpanned.
"Those which had failed," Jill whispered.
Chris nodded. The Umbrella Expedition rides out from behind the far end of the dune. They are accompanied by
almost two dozen native diggers. Vinny rides lead on a camel, while the others ride horses.
The two parties come to a stop. Only Vinny and Chris reach each other. "Good morning, my friend!"
Chris acknoledges Vinny with a nod. The two ex-Legionnaires stare out into the horizon.
"Well, what the bloody hell we doing?" Alfred asked, his sniper rifle slung over his back.
"Patience, Mr. Ashford," Vinny replied.
Nicholai looks over to Chris. "Remember our bet, Redfield. First one to the city gets five hundred bucks."
Chris and Vinny just stare out at the flat nothingness. Jill and Leon share a look. And then, the sun starts
to rise in the distance, breaking the flat horizon.
Chris looked at Jill and Leon. "Get ready."
"For what?" Jill inquired.
"We're about to be show the way."
The sun rose over the majestic horizon. The both sides saw it. It was like a mirage, fluttering out in the
distance. Then the morning mist cleared and the ruins stand before them.
Hamunaptra.
Wesker let out a whistle. "Will you look at that."
Nicholai said something in Russian.
"Hamunaptra," Alfred breathed.
Chris sighed. "Here we go again."
Both Chris and Vinny race off, with Jill, Leon and the other behind them, with the two men in the lead. The
race is even, until Vinny pulls out his riding crop and began to beat Chris over the head with it. When he
tried to hit Chris for the third time, Chris grabbed the whip and tossed Vinny from his mount.
"Serves you right!" Jill said as she and Leon passed him on their camels.
Vinny stumbles to his feet, spits out a mouthful of sand and ran out of the wat inorder to avoid the incoming
stampede of horse and camel. Jill manages to beat Chris to the stone ramp.
"Jill! Slow Down!" Chris yelled.
Jill ignores him as she races up the ramp towards the gate.
"Slow down, Jill!" Chris yelled. "There's a really big--"
The camel that Jill was riding on came to an abrupt stop and Jill is sent flying through the air, right before
landing on her rear in a sand dune. Chris slows his camel to a stop next to her camel.
"Never mind," Chris said, laughing.
Leon, and the Umbrella guys enter the city ruins. Chris approaches them and held out his hand. "You owe me
five hundred bucks."
***
The excavation of Hamunaptra went underway. Under Egyptologist Ashford's guidance, the workers began to haul
rock and dirt out of the Temple doorway. Nicholai looked out into the distance, where Chris and the others
were excavating near a statue of Anubis.
"They know something we don't know?" the Russian asked.
Wesker shrugged his shoulders. "They are lead by a woman. What do they know?"
Suddenly, Nicholai, Vinny, and Alfred edge away from Wesker. Wesker felt someone tapping on his shoulder and
he turned around, finding himself face-to-face with Alexia Ashford.
"Oh, shit," he muttered.
Alexia then proceeded to casually backhand Wesker with her armored hand, sending the superman flying across the
ruins. Nicholai, Alfred, and Vinny stared in awe at the omnipotent superwoman.
"Remind me never to piss off your sister," Nicholai whispered to Alfred.
***
Meanwhile, Chris, Leon, Jill, and Irons (who had seen Wesker flying across the ruins after Alexia backhanded
him) are working next to a narrow crevice, which weaves it's way through the ruins. Chris ties a rope
around a pillar, smacking Irons with the rope as he did so, and tosses the rest of the coils into the crevice.
Chris notices Jill trying to wipe the tarnish away from a mirror. "What are those mirrors for?"
Jill looked up. "Ancient Egyptian trick. You'll see."
Chris went to his gunnysack and pulled out a small leather satchel and walked over to Jill. "Here. This is for
you," he said. "I got this from our Umbrella friends. I think you might find it useful when you're down there,
when, you know."
He turned away fom her and saw that Irons was looking at him and Jill the entire time. "What are you looking
at?"
Irons made it look like he was doing something. Jill opened the satchel, revealing a small archaelogy kit. Jill
smiled at the gift that Chris had given her. She turned to Chris, who was starting to rappel down into the
crevice.
***
Inside the darkened chamber, Chris waves a torch as Jill, Leon, and Irons drop down next to him. Jill peers
into the spooky darkness. "Do you realize we are standing inside a room that no one has entered in over four
thousand years?"
Irons snorted. "Big deal. Where's the treasure?"
Jill ignores him and moves over to a metal disk on the wall. She brushes the cobwebs away from it, then
repositions it on it's pedestal, aiming it at a ray of light shining in from the outer mirrors. The ray of
light strikes the disk and shoots from one disk to another, until the chambers is lit up.
Jill beamed. "And then there was light."
"That is a neat trick," Chris complimented.
Jill looked around for a moment. "Oh my God, It's a preparation room."
"Preparation for what?" Chris asked.
"For entering the afterlife."
"This is where they made the mummies," Leon added.
Chris rolled his eyes. "Great."
***
Jill, Chris, Leon, and Irons enter into a large room and up to the feet of an enormous half-buried statue.
The feet is the lower half of Anubis. Then they hear the sound again, coming closer now, from the other side of
the statue. And closer. Chris pulls Jill behind him. And closer. Chris pulls out his guns and raises them in
the ready position.
The sound is getting closer.
Chris leaps out. Three sweaty faces lunged back at him. Chris reacts, but he doesn't pull the trigger because
it's just the Umbrella Team, their guns are up, cocked and aimed, Vinny with his .45 revolver, Alfred with his
sniper rifle, Nicholai with his M-16 assault rifle, and Wesker, looking the worse for the wear after his run-in
with Alexia, had his Colt Python out. Alexia had her aromred hand raised, ready to fling out some of her bloody
ichor.
When everyone saw that it wasn't some kind of monster, or a Tyrant, everyone lowered their weapons. "You scared
us, Redfield," Alfred said.
"Likewise," Chris replied.
Nicholai eyed the tool kit that Jill was holding. "That's my tool kit!"
Jill held the took kit close to her.
Again everyone raised their weapons. This time, Irons pulled out his Desert Eagle and Leon whipped out his
trusty VP70 handgun.
"Okay, I might be mistaken," Nicholai admitted.
Again, everyone lowered their weapons. "This is our dig site," Alexia said. "Back off."
Jill met Alexia's gaze with her own. "We got here first."
Once again, the guns go up. "This is OUR statue, Redfield," Wesker said.
Chris reguarded his former superior with cold eyes. "Don't see your name on it."
Vinny cocked the hammer on his revolver. "Ten to one, Redfield. your odds are not so good."
Chris trains one of his guns on Vinny. "I've had worse."
Leon clenched his VP70. "Yeah, me too."
Chris gives him a sideways glance. It is a Mexican standoff. Then Jill gently takes Chris's gun hand and pulls
it down. "Let's be nice, children, if we're going to play together, we must learn to share." She looked at
Chris. "There are other places to dig."
That did it. Chris and the other two men lowered their weapons and the Umbrella did the same. With a cool
smile, Chris and the others wandered off into the ruins.
***
Later, Jill and the other two men found a place to dig. Irons went off by himself in the ruins, obviously
wanting some time to himself. The two men were punding away at the ceiling with sledgehammers, while Jill is
chipping at the ceiling with a small hammer.
"According to my calculations, we should be right under the statue. We'll come up right between his legs," Jill
explained.
"And when those idiots from Umbrella fall asleep, we'll take the book from them," Leon finished.
"You're sure you can find the secret compartment?" Chris asked.
Jill nodded. "Yes, if Egyptologist Ashford hasn't already found it."
Leon looked around for a moment. "Where's Irons?"
***
Warden Irons crawls into a dark chamber and lights a torch. A mural wall comes alive. Embedded into it are
dozens of black amethyst acrabs; glittering images of the sacred beetles. Awestruck, the Irons pulls out a
pocket knife and starts prying away at one of the precious bugs.
"This will get me a nice price at the bazzar," he said.
***
The Umbrella Team finally found the secret compartment in the Anubis statue. Finally glad that the expedition
was getting somewhere, Alfred grabbed a crowbar and started to pry at the seam.
Then Alexia pulled him back. "Careful, brother. Seti was no fool."
Alfred saw the intensity in his twin's eyes. Alexia then pointed to a couple of diggers. "We'll let them open
it, hmm?"
Alfred shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."
Alexia nods, then shouts in Arabic at the Diggers. They hesitate, filled with fear, before they move forward
with crowbars and stick them into the seams. The other Diggers back away, scared. Vinny and the other three
men exchange looks, and then they back away as well.
***
After digging for about an hour, Chris, Jill, and Leon decide to take a break. Jill was explaining to Chris
about the rituals of mummification, while Leon was looking around.
Chris winced at Jill explanation. "Let me get this straight. They stuck a sharp, red hot poker up your nose,
scramble your brain into small pieces, then ripped it all out through your nostrils? That's gotta hurt."
"It's called mummification. You're dead when they do this," Jill noted.
"I really think that we shouldn't be talking about this," Leon said, tossing rocks up against the wall.
"For the record, don't put me down for mummification if I don't make it," Chris replied.
Leon chuckled and he chucked a huge rock at the ceiling. "Same here."
There was a loud cracking sound, then a huge sachophagus fell DIRECTLY in front of Chris and Jill. Had if they
stood directly underneath it, then the results would not be great for the both of them.
Jill coughed from the dust. "It's a sarcophagus." She looked up. "And it was buried at the base of Anubis."
She looked at the heavy coffin. "He must've been someone of great importance...or he had done something very
naughty."
***
Back at the feet of the Anubis statue, the three diggers were prying at the secret compartment with their
crowbars. Alexia yealls something in Arabic. The diggers pulled harder at the seams, which started to give.
Alexia yells again. The compartments start to loosen. Alexia yells yet again. The compartment finally gives
way--
--and an intense burst of liquid sprays out of the seams. The spray hits the three diggers head-on...and they
scream as the liquid proceeds to melt their skin off. By the time they hit the ground, they are nothing but
skeletons.
***
Cut back to Warden Irons drops an amethyst-scarab into his pouch, then greedily-starts prying away at another.
It rips off, he drops it into his pouch, only he misses, and this scarab quietly falls to the sandy floor
without Irons noticing.
It begins to transform. The amethyst starts to glow. Something inside starts to wiggle; as if the amethyst
were some sort of strange cocoon. Then it splits open and a real live hideous scrab scurries out. It races over
to the Irons' shoe, quickly burrows into the leather and vanishes inside.
The Warden's eyes shot open. He starts to scream, drops his knife and frantically starts clawing away at his
pant leg, higher and higher until he rips open his shirt revealing a large, hideous lump, burrowing in his
skin. It burrows its was up his fat belly and across his hairy chest. Warden claws and scratches at it, trying
to stop it. The lump moves up his neck. And then the scarab-lump vanishes into his head.
***
Jill, Leon, and Chris clear the dirt off the top of the sarcophagus, revealing a single, ominous hieroglyph.
Jill stares at it, while Leon impatiently strums his fingers across the lid.
"Well? Who is it?" Leon asked.
Jill stared at the hieroglyph, confused and concerned. "'He that shall not be named.'"
Chris looked at the strange lock. "There's some sort of lock here."
"Whoever's in here, sure wasn't getting out," Leon quipped.
"No kidding," Chris replied. "It'll take us a month to crack this thing without a key."
Jill's face was alight. "A key! That's it! That's what he was talking about!"
"Who?" Leon and Chris said in unisom.
Jill started to search Leon's knapsack. "The man on the barge. The one with the hook, he was looking
for a key." She finds the key-box.
"Hey! That's mine!" Leon yelled.
Jill unfolds the box, --it's now shaped exactly like the lock's keyhole. Jill smiles and starts to place it
into the lock. And that's when they hear the Irons' screams echoing through the labyrinth. All three of them
turn and take-off running.
***
Warden Irons is screaming and dancing insanely around the labyrinth, totally freaked from the extreme pain in
his head. Chris, Jill and Leon run up just as Irons starts yanking his own hair out of his head by the
handful. Chris and Leon grab at Irons' hands, but he's far too crazed, he shoves them aside, then runs full
bore down the length of the labyrinth and slams his head straight into a rock wall. Warden Irons drops to the
ground. Dead as lead, his eyes wide open. Chris, Jill and Leon just stand there staring, breathing hard,
wide-eyed themselves.
Bedouin Trading Post
Chris was more useful when they arrived at a trading post. After talkng to the traders for a moment, Leon
forked over some cash for transportation across the desert. Jill was somewhere in the camp, changing clothes
and Irons was being ran off by numerous Bedouin women.
"I can't belive the price of these fleabags," Leon muttered as he took the reins of four camels. He handed one
to Chris.
"We could have gotten them for free," Chris said. "All we had to do was give them Jill."
Leon gave Chris a wry smile. "Awfully tempting, wasn't it?"
Jill stepped out of a trading tent. She's changed into a gorgeous, tightly fitted, Bedouin dress.
Chris gawked at her. "Awfully," he murmured.
Jill blushed from underneath her veil.
***
The four are now slowly making their was across the sunbaked Sahara. Leon is complaining about his camel.
"Never did like camels. They smell, they bite, they spit. Disgusting."
Chris watches as Irons savagely attacks a chicken wing. He shuddered at the sight, which reminded him of a
zombie. Irons sucks at his gums, then spits out some chicken fat.
Chris make a face. "Yeah, disgusting."
Jill was enjoying herself on her camel. "Well I think they're cute."
***
They continued to ride into the night. Jill was fast asleep on her camel. Chris reaches over and steadies her
just as she starts to fall off. Meanwhile, Leon and Irons were also asleep, the burly warden snoring. For a
long moment, Chris watches Jill sleep, then he looks up at a nearby ridge...
...where Carlos Oliveira and a group of Magi was looking down on them.
"This one has heart," he said of Chris.
***
Morning. Chris knows that he and the others are close to Hamunaptra, since there are several hundred skeletons
littering the hard desert ground.
"What the hell is that?" Leon asked, pointing to the bones.
"Those are the other seekers of Hamunaptra," Chris deadpanned.
"Those which had failed," Jill whispered.
Chris nodded. The Umbrella Expedition rides out from behind the far end of the dune. They are accompanied by
almost two dozen native diggers. Vinny rides lead on a camel, while the others ride horses.
The two parties come to a stop. Only Vinny and Chris reach each other. "Good morning, my friend!"
Chris acknoledges Vinny with a nod. The two ex-Legionnaires stare out into the horizon.
"Well, what the bloody hell we doing?" Alfred asked, his sniper rifle slung over his back.
"Patience, Mr. Ashford," Vinny replied.
Nicholai looks over to Chris. "Remember our bet, Redfield. First one to the city gets five hundred bucks."
Chris and Vinny just stare out at the flat nothingness. Jill and Leon share a look. And then, the sun starts
to rise in the distance, breaking the flat horizon.
Chris looked at Jill and Leon. "Get ready."
"For what?" Jill inquired.
"We're about to be show the way."
The sun rose over the majestic horizon. The both sides saw it. It was like a mirage, fluttering out in the
distance. Then the morning mist cleared and the ruins stand before them.
Hamunaptra.
Wesker let out a whistle. "Will you look at that."
Nicholai said something in Russian.
"Hamunaptra," Alfred breathed.
Chris sighed. "Here we go again."
Both Chris and Vinny race off, with Jill, Leon and the other behind them, with the two men in the lead. The
race is even, until Vinny pulls out his riding crop and began to beat Chris over the head with it. When he
tried to hit Chris for the third time, Chris grabbed the whip and tossed Vinny from his mount.
"Serves you right!" Jill said as she and Leon passed him on their camels.
Vinny stumbles to his feet, spits out a mouthful of sand and ran out of the wat inorder to avoid the incoming
stampede of horse and camel. Jill manages to beat Chris to the stone ramp.
"Jill! Slow Down!" Chris yelled.
Jill ignores him as she races up the ramp towards the gate.
"Slow down, Jill!" Chris yelled. "There's a really big--"
The camel that Jill was riding on came to an abrupt stop and Jill is sent flying through the air, right before
landing on her rear in a sand dune. Chris slows his camel to a stop next to her camel.
"Never mind," Chris said, laughing.
Leon, and the Umbrella guys enter the city ruins. Chris approaches them and held out his hand. "You owe me
five hundred bucks."
***
The excavation of Hamunaptra went underway. Under Egyptologist Ashford's guidance, the workers began to haul
rock and dirt out of the Temple doorway. Nicholai looked out into the distance, where Chris and the others
were excavating near a statue of Anubis.
"They know something we don't know?" the Russian asked.
Wesker shrugged his shoulders. "They are lead by a woman. What do they know?"
Suddenly, Nicholai, Vinny, and Alfred edge away from Wesker. Wesker felt someone tapping on his shoulder and
he turned around, finding himself face-to-face with Alexia Ashford.
"Oh, shit," he muttered.
Alexia then proceeded to casually backhand Wesker with her armored hand, sending the superman flying across the
ruins. Nicholai, Alfred, and Vinny stared in awe at the omnipotent superwoman.
"Remind me never to piss off your sister," Nicholai whispered to Alfred.
***
Meanwhile, Chris, Leon, Jill, and Irons (who had seen Wesker flying across the ruins after Alexia backhanded
him) are working next to a narrow crevice, which weaves it's way through the ruins. Chris ties a rope
around a pillar, smacking Irons with the rope as he did so, and tosses the rest of the coils into the crevice.
Chris notices Jill trying to wipe the tarnish away from a mirror. "What are those mirrors for?"
Jill looked up. "Ancient Egyptian trick. You'll see."
Chris went to his gunnysack and pulled out a small leather satchel and walked over to Jill. "Here. This is for
you," he said. "I got this from our Umbrella friends. I think you might find it useful when you're down there,
when, you know."
He turned away fom her and saw that Irons was looking at him and Jill the entire time. "What are you looking
at?"
Irons made it look like he was doing something. Jill opened the satchel, revealing a small archaelogy kit. Jill
smiled at the gift that Chris had given her. She turned to Chris, who was starting to rappel down into the
crevice.
***
Inside the darkened chamber, Chris waves a torch as Jill, Leon, and Irons drop down next to him. Jill peers
into the spooky darkness. "Do you realize we are standing inside a room that no one has entered in over four
thousand years?"
Irons snorted. "Big deal. Where's the treasure?"
Jill ignores him and moves over to a metal disk on the wall. She brushes the cobwebs away from it, then
repositions it on it's pedestal, aiming it at a ray of light shining in from the outer mirrors. The ray of
light strikes the disk and shoots from one disk to another, until the chambers is lit up.
Jill beamed. "And then there was light."
"That is a neat trick," Chris complimented.
Jill looked around for a moment. "Oh my God, It's a preparation room."
"Preparation for what?" Chris asked.
"For entering the afterlife."
"This is where they made the mummies," Leon added.
Chris rolled his eyes. "Great."
***
Jill, Chris, Leon, and Irons enter into a large room and up to the feet of an enormous half-buried statue.
The feet is the lower half of Anubis. Then they hear the sound again, coming closer now, from the other side of
the statue. And closer. Chris pulls Jill behind him. And closer. Chris pulls out his guns and raises them in
the ready position.
The sound is getting closer.
Chris leaps out. Three sweaty faces lunged back at him. Chris reacts, but he doesn't pull the trigger because
it's just the Umbrella Team, their guns are up, cocked and aimed, Vinny with his .45 revolver, Alfred with his
sniper rifle, Nicholai with his M-16 assault rifle, and Wesker, looking the worse for the wear after his run-in
with Alexia, had his Colt Python out. Alexia had her aromred hand raised, ready to fling out some of her bloody
ichor.
When everyone saw that it wasn't some kind of monster, or a Tyrant, everyone lowered their weapons. "You scared
us, Redfield," Alfred said.
"Likewise," Chris replied.
Nicholai eyed the tool kit that Jill was holding. "That's my tool kit!"
Jill held the took kit close to her.
Again everyone raised their weapons. This time, Irons pulled out his Desert Eagle and Leon whipped out his
trusty VP70 handgun.
"Okay, I might be mistaken," Nicholai admitted.
Again, everyone lowered their weapons. "This is our dig site," Alexia said. "Back off."
Jill met Alexia's gaze with her own. "We got here first."
Once again, the guns go up. "This is OUR statue, Redfield," Wesker said.
Chris reguarded his former superior with cold eyes. "Don't see your name on it."
Vinny cocked the hammer on his revolver. "Ten to one, Redfield. your odds are not so good."
Chris trains one of his guns on Vinny. "I've had worse."
Leon clenched his VP70. "Yeah, me too."
Chris gives him a sideways glance. It is a Mexican standoff. Then Jill gently takes Chris's gun hand and pulls
it down. "Let's be nice, children, if we're going to play together, we must learn to share." She looked at
Chris. "There are other places to dig."
That did it. Chris and the other two men lowered their weapons and the Umbrella did the same. With a cool
smile, Chris and the others wandered off into the ruins.
***
Later, Jill and the other two men found a place to dig. Irons went off by himself in the ruins, obviously
wanting some time to himself. The two men were punding away at the ceiling with sledgehammers, while Jill is
chipping at the ceiling with a small hammer.
"According to my calculations, we should be right under the statue. We'll come up right between his legs," Jill
explained.
"And when those idiots from Umbrella fall asleep, we'll take the book from them," Leon finished.
"You're sure you can find the secret compartment?" Chris asked.
Jill nodded. "Yes, if Egyptologist Ashford hasn't already found it."
Leon looked around for a moment. "Where's Irons?"
***
Warden Irons crawls into a dark chamber and lights a torch. A mural wall comes alive. Embedded into it are
dozens of black amethyst acrabs; glittering images of the sacred beetles. Awestruck, the Irons pulls out a
pocket knife and starts prying away at one of the precious bugs.
"This will get me a nice price at the bazzar," he said.
***
The Umbrella Team finally found the secret compartment in the Anubis statue. Finally glad that the expedition
was getting somewhere, Alfred grabbed a crowbar and started to pry at the seam.
Then Alexia pulled him back. "Careful, brother. Seti was no fool."
Alfred saw the intensity in his twin's eyes. Alexia then pointed to a couple of diggers. "We'll let them open
it, hmm?"
Alfred shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."
Alexia nods, then shouts in Arabic at the Diggers. They hesitate, filled with fear, before they move forward
with crowbars and stick them into the seams. The other Diggers back away, scared. Vinny and the other three
men exchange looks, and then they back away as well.
***
After digging for about an hour, Chris, Jill, and Leon decide to take a break. Jill was explaining to Chris
about the rituals of mummification, while Leon was looking around.
Chris winced at Jill explanation. "Let me get this straight. They stuck a sharp, red hot poker up your nose,
scramble your brain into small pieces, then ripped it all out through your nostrils? That's gotta hurt."
"It's called mummification. You're dead when they do this," Jill noted.
"I really think that we shouldn't be talking about this," Leon said, tossing rocks up against the wall.
"For the record, don't put me down for mummification if I don't make it," Chris replied.
Leon chuckled and he chucked a huge rock at the ceiling. "Same here."
There was a loud cracking sound, then a huge sachophagus fell DIRECTLY in front of Chris and Jill. Had if they
stood directly underneath it, then the results would not be great for the both of them.
Jill coughed from the dust. "It's a sarcophagus." She looked up. "And it was buried at the base of Anubis."
She looked at the heavy coffin. "He must've been someone of great importance...or he had done something very
naughty."
***
Back at the feet of the Anubis statue, the three diggers were prying at the secret compartment with their
crowbars. Alexia yealls something in Arabic. The diggers pulled harder at the seams, which started to give.
Alexia yells again. The compartments start to loosen. Alexia yells yet again. The compartment finally gives
way--
--and an intense burst of liquid sprays out of the seams. The spray hits the three diggers head-on...and they
scream as the liquid proceeds to melt their skin off. By the time they hit the ground, they are nothing but
skeletons.
***
Cut back to Warden Irons drops an amethyst-scarab into his pouch, then greedily-starts prying away at another.
It rips off, he drops it into his pouch, only he misses, and this scarab quietly falls to the sandy floor
without Irons noticing.
It begins to transform. The amethyst starts to glow. Something inside starts to wiggle; as if the amethyst
were some sort of strange cocoon. Then it splits open and a real live hideous scrab scurries out. It races over
to the Irons' shoe, quickly burrows into the leather and vanishes inside.
The Warden's eyes shot open. He starts to scream, drops his knife and frantically starts clawing away at his
pant leg, higher and higher until he rips open his shirt revealing a large, hideous lump, burrowing in his
skin. It burrows its was up his fat belly and across his hairy chest. Warden claws and scratches at it, trying
to stop it. The lump moves up his neck. And then the scarab-lump vanishes into his head.
***
Jill, Leon, and Chris clear the dirt off the top of the sarcophagus, revealing a single, ominous hieroglyph.
Jill stares at it, while Leon impatiently strums his fingers across the lid.
"Well? Who is it?" Leon asked.
Jill stared at the hieroglyph, confused and concerned. "'He that shall not be named.'"
Chris looked at the strange lock. "There's some sort of lock here."
"Whoever's in here, sure wasn't getting out," Leon quipped.
"No kidding," Chris replied. "It'll take us a month to crack this thing without a key."
Jill's face was alight. "A key! That's it! That's what he was talking about!"
"Who?" Leon and Chris said in unisom.
Jill started to search Leon's knapsack. "The man on the barge. The one with the hook, he was looking
for a key." She finds the key-box.
"Hey! That's mine!" Leon yelled.
Jill unfolds the box, --it's now shaped exactly like the lock's keyhole. Jill smiles and starts to place it
into the lock. And that's when they hear the Irons' screams echoing through the labyrinth. All three of them
turn and take-off running.
***
Warden Irons is screaming and dancing insanely around the labyrinth, totally freaked from the extreme pain in
his head. Chris, Jill and Leon run up just as Irons starts yanking his own hair out of his head by the
handful. Chris and Leon grab at Irons' hands, but he's far too crazed, he shoves them aside, then runs full
bore down the length of the labyrinth and slams his head straight into a rock wall. Warden Irons drops to the
ground. Dead as lead, his eyes wide open. Chris, Jill and Leon just stand there staring, breathing hard,
wide-eyed themselves.