Chapter Eight: Welcome to the Horror
The next day, it was business as usual. Jill, Chris, and Leon--looking incredibly hungover--were back at the
sarcophagus that they had 'found' the day before. Now the sarcophagus is now standing on one end
"I can't believe I allowed the two of you to get me drunk," Jill muttered as she fumbled with the key-box.
"Don't blame me, I don't even remember being there," Leon retorted.
"Well neither do I, thank you," Jill replied curtly. She then remembered her lines. "I've dreamed about this
moment ever since I was a child."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "You dream about dead guys?"
Jill ignored him for the moment. "The sacred spells have been carved off," she said, pointing to a spot on the
lid. "The hieratics and hieroglyphs that protect the deceased on his journey into the afterlife, they've been
removed. This man was cursed."
Chris blew out a whistle. "Tough break."
"I'm all tears," Leon said as he took the key-box from his 'sister' and placed it on the lock. "Let's see who's
inside."
Leon proceeds to turns it. A series of strange, mechanical-like sounds are heard, and then the sarcophagus
unlocks. He and Chris then started to push the lid open, while Jill stood by and watched with growing
anticipation.
Then the lid popped open and the most hideous, maggot-infested, rotten corpse imaginable jumps up.
All three heroes jumped back and screamed at the sight. They don't realize that this is the gruesome remains
of Imhotep. He is now the 'Elephant Man' of corpses; twisted and deformed. The years have not been kind. He
slumps back into his coffin.
"It's...it's a mummy," Jill breathed.
"Is he supposed to look like that?" Chris asked.
Jill shook her head. "No. I've never seen a mummy look like this. He's...he's still..."
"Juicy," Chris and Leon surmised.
Jill took a guess on the mummy's age. "Yes. He's more than four thousand years old and still decomposing."
Chris points to the inside of the lid. "Hey. Look at this."
Jill looked inside and gasped softly. There were fingernail scratches on the inside. "My God. This man was
buried alive." She leaned in closer. "And he left a message..." She ran her fingers across some carved
hieratics. "'Death is the only beginning.'"
Chris looked around for a moment. "Where's my grenade launcher?"
"What are you going to do? Shoot him?" Leon asked dryly.
"If he decides to wakes up, then yeah!"
***
The Umbrella Expedition are back at the Anubis statue. The diggers are now pulling a ornate box from the secret
compartment. As soon as they set it on the floor, Alexia was busy translating the writing on the lid. "There is
a curse upon this chest," she said.
Wesker scoffed. "Curse, schmurse."
Nicholai laughed. "Who really cares?"
Alexia give the both of them the evil eye. "In these hallowed grounds, that which was set forth in ancient
times, is as strong today, as it was then." She turned back to the box and read the inscription. "'Death will
come on swift wings to whoever opens this chest.'"
A gust of wind blew throughout the chamber. That's all the diggers could stand and they take off running. Vinny
looked around nervously. "We shouldn't be here," he whispered.
Alexia continued to decipher the hieratics. "It says here that there is one, the undead, who is bound by sacred
law to consumate this curse, if brought back to life."
"Yeah, well, let's just make sure we don't bring anybody back from the dead then, huh?" Wesker quipped.
Alexia decided to punch Wesker's lights out later. Right now, she was in the middle of her translation. "He
will kill all who open this chest, and assimilate their organs and fluids. And in so doing he will regenerate.
And no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth."
Again the wind whistles, and the torches flicker. Alfred and Alexia share a worried look. Nicholai shrugs his
shoulders. "Let's just open the damn thing."
Wesker, Nichloai, and Alfred began to pry open the chest, while Vinny and Alexia watch. Then Vinny slowly backs
away. Then he breaks into a run, screaming, "Beware of the curse!"
Wesker watches him run away. "Stupid superstitious bastard," he muttered.
And that's when the seal breaks. A black vapor blasts out of the chest. Everybody vanishes into the strange
cloud.
A few minutes later, after the coughing fits were over, the vapor begins to settle. Alexia slowly steps up,
reaches inside, and lifts out a heavy burlap bag. Everyone's eyes widen in excitement as she sticks his hand
into the bag and slowly pulls out a black book made of what appeared to be stone.
Alexia was giddy with delight. "I have heard tales of this book, but I never truly believed it existed."
Wesker fumed. "Where's the treasure?"
"This, gentlemen," Alexia replied, "IS treasure."
Wesker kicks the chest. "I wouldn't trade ya for a brass spoon!" The chest breaks open, unfolding to reveal
a lower compartment. Inside, are five jewel-encrusted canopic jars, one is shattered and is without jewels.
Alexia points to the canopic jars. "THERE'S your treasure, gentlemen."
***
Once again, the two camps have joined together. Vinny, Chris, and Leon are sitting in front of a campfire.
Wesker, Nicholai, and Alfred show up and take a seat around the campfire. Each man is holding one of the
canopic jars.
"Say Redfield, what do you think these babies will fetch back home?" Wesker asked.
"We heard you gentlemen found yerselves a nice gooey mummy. Congratulations," Alfred said.
Nicholai couldn't stop laughing. "You know if you dry him out, you can sell him for firewood."
Chris was about to but a bullet in Nicholai's head when Jill showed up, carrying something in her hands. Chris
nudged Vinny. "You're in her seat."
Vinny scoffed...then he stood up for Jill when he saw Chris go for his Bowie knife.
Jill sat in Vinny's place. "Look what I found. Scarabs, flesh eaters, I found them inside our friend's coffin.
They can stay alive for years living off the flesh of a corpse."
Chris and Leon looked at the scrab remains, obviously disgusted. "You saying somebody threw these things in
with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?"
"Very slowly."
Leon tossed another log into the fire. "He certainly was not a popular guy when they planted him."
Chris grinned. "Maybe he had gotten a little frisky with the Pharoah's daughter."
Laughter echoes throughout the group. Jill waited for it to stop before continuing. "According to my readings,
our friend suffered the HOM-DAI, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved for only the most evil
blasphemers. In all of my research, I've never read of this curse actually having been performed on someone."
"That bad, huh?" Chris asked.
Jill nodded. "Yes, they never used it because they feared it so. it's written, that if a victim of the HOM-DAI
should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt."
"Like what that Moses guy did to that Pharaoh?" Vinny asked.
Again, Jill nodded. All the men share nervous looks, really spooked.
***
Later on that night, almost fast asleep. Nicholai was in his tent, looking at a Russian Playboy magazine,
Wesker was cleaning his gun, and Alfred was sleeping like a baby. Having just freshened up for bed, Jill exits
the temple and steps past the sleeping Diggers. She spots the sleeping Alexia, her jeweled canopic jar snug
under one arm, the Book Of The Dead laying loose under the other. Evelyn stares at the Book, nervously biting
her lip, then she sneaks over, carefully steals it, and quickly tip-toes away.
"That's called stealing, you know," Chris said once she had came back to her side of their camp. Apparently, he
had saw the whole thing.
Jill pulls out the key-box and turns it. "According to you and Leon, it's called 'borrowing.'"
Chris regards the book in surprise. "I thought the Book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold."
"It is," Jill replied. "But this is not the Book of Amun-Ra. This may be the Book of the Dead."
"You sure you ought to be playing around with that?"
Jill shrugged and unlocked the book using the key. "It's just a book, no harm ever came from a book, right?"
Jill opens the cover, and the campfire flickers. She and Chris share a nervous look, then she shrugs and starts
reading. "Ahm kum Ra. Ahm kum Dei..." She continues to read the text in Ancient Egyptian.
***
Inside Imhotep's coffin...
Somehow, the decomposed mummy of Imhotep heard Jill's chanting. Then the corpse came to life and unleashed the
most horriying and imhuman scream ever heard.
***
Alexia's eyes shot open. In an instant she saw that the book was gone and that Jill was reading the book out
loud. She gets up and runs for her. "NO! YOU MUSTN'T READ FROM THE BOOK!"
He skids to a stop as a strange, piercing whine is heard, coming from out in the desert. Chris and the others
all leap to their feet. The three Umbrella henchmen run out of their tents.
The whine turned out to be cawing, and once the noise gotten closer. And then right of the darkness, came a
huge wall of crows. Chris grabs Jill, and with Leon at their side, the trio run for the crevice.
"I thought the plague was supposed to be locusts!" Leon shouted.
"Somebody blew the props for this!" Chris shouted back.
The murder--and I do mean MURDER--of crows swarm into the camp and pecks and and all diggers that are not fast
enough to avoid the onslaught. Vinny and the three henchmen make a break for the temple.
***
Alexia is now covered in crows. She holds the Book of the Dead tightly to her chest.
"What have we done?" she whispered.
***
Chris, Jill, and Leon race down the corridor, Chris and Leon blasting crows along the way.
***
In another corridor, Vinny and the Umbrella henchmen run into a corridor. Nicholai is knocked down, and his
eyeglasses is crushed in the stampede. He staggers to his feet squinting. Blurry figures vanish into the
darkness. He staggers down a passageway, squinting, his hands out in front of him, groping, trying not to bump
into anything.
Then he felt something behind him. Slowly he turned around. Eventhough he couldn't see that well, he could see
well enough that is was a DECOMPOSING MUMMY. Nicholai could only scream before the mummy overtook him.
***
The ground underneath Chris, Jill, and Leon began to shake. A short distance in front of them, the ground
begins to rise in a mini-sand dune. Then hundreds of chittering scrabs come pouring out, and starts to scurry
towards them. Chris, Jill, and Leon scream, turned the other was and haul ass out of there, Chris blasting at
them with his grenade launcher and Leon using the Remmington.
They race up the ramp, just ahead of the mass of scrabs.
Chris and Leon leaps out onto a pedestal. Jill jumps up into a grotto on the other side of the narrow stairway.
The horrible herd of vicious scarabs scurries between them, their ear-piercing chittering send shivers up Jill's
spine. She leans back. The wall moves and Jill falls backwards through an opening. Chris and Leon watch the
scarabs vanish up the staircase. Then they look across the way. Jill is gone.
"Jill?" Chris called out. "Jill?!"
***
Jill sits up, shakes the sand out of her hair, fearfully looks around. It's almost dark. A shaft of moonlight
filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Someone is standing in the middle of the room. Jill walks towards
him. She immediately recognises him as Nicholai.
Just as she reaches him, Nicholai turns around...and Jill finds herself staring into two empty eye sockets.
Both of his eyes are missing. When he tried to say something, he could only gurgle and moan, because his tongue
was also missing. The only thing Jill could make out was, "My eyes....my eyes..."
When she tries to back away, Imhotep appears, scaring Jill beyond belief. Imhotep now looks like a bad-looking
zombie in need of skin.
The cursed mummy looks at her...with Nicholai's eyes in his eye sockets. "Anck-su-namun?"
***
Chris and Leon are banging the wall that Jill had fell through earlier. Chris huffed in frustration. "Dammit!
Must be a trap door around here or something."
Then they heard someone scream from top. Then Wesker, Alfred, and a digger appeared running down the ramp.
"RUN YOU SONS A BITCHES! RUUUUN!" Wesker screamed.
Chris heard the scrabs again. "Go."
Both men join them as the herd of scarabs come their way. The digger suddenly trips and falls. Chris slows down,
about to go back and help him. But it's too late. The digger screams in horror as the herd of scarabs run over
him, eating straight through him, leaving behind the digger's half eaten skeleton. Wesker, Alfred and Leon
react in horror. Chris's already running, races right past them. The others turn and haul-ass.
***
Jill's back is against the wall, leaving her at the mercy of Imhotep. She looked at Nichoali, who had fallen to
the ground at some time, gurgling out, "He took my tongue."
It was useless to ask him for help.
Imhotep extended his hand out to her. "Kadeesh pharos Anck-su-namun!"
Jill was petrified. Then Chris barreled down around the corner. "There you are! Would you quit playing, around?
Let's get outta here already!" He sees the look in her eyes and turns in her direction. He jumped back at the
sight of Imhotep. "WHOA!"
Wesker, Leon, and Alfred came upon them a moment later. All three men were horrified at the sight of Imhotep.
Imhotep looks at the three men, then turns back to Chris, unhinges his skeletal jaw, his skinless mouth stretches
to an inhuman size, and lets lets out a horrific, primordial roar.
Jill screams. Chris shudders, then, embarrassed by his fear, he opens his own mouth and roars right back at
him. Then he incinerates Imhotep with a flame round from the grenade launcher, sending him to the floor. Chris
then grabs Jill and they run, with Leon, Wesker, and Alfred behind them.
"Did you see that thing?!" Wesker yelled.
***
Sand and wind whip through the ruins as Chris, Jill, Leon, Wesker, and Alfred stumble up out of the crevice,
and come face-to-face with ten armed Magi--now dressed in the uniforms of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure
Service. The Magi quickly raise their guns. Alexia is on her knees, still holding the Book of the Dead. Carlos,
also dressed in his UBCS uniform, steps forward.
He regards them with cold eyes. "I told you to leave or die. You refused, and now you may have killed us all.
For you have unleashed the creature that we have feared for more than four thousand years."
"Relax, I got him," Chris said.
Carlos shook his head. "No mortal weapons can kill this creature. He is not of this world."
Several Magi drag Nicholai up, he stares out with vacant sockets. Wesker and Alfred are especially horrified.
"What did you do to him?" Alfred demamded.
"We saved him," Carlos replied flatly. "Saved him before the creature could finish his work. Now leave, all of
you, quickly, before he finishes you all. We must now hunt him down, and try and find a way to kill him,
before he consumes the earth."
As Carlos and the other Magi pile down the crevice, Chris yelled out to them. "I told you I already got him!"
Carlos stopped and turned around. "Know this, the creature will be coming for you. He must consummate the curse.
And until he does, he will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop." He then turns and jumps
down the crevice.
***
Vinny sloway backs up around Anubis, eyes wide, gun up. He turns around...
...and finds himself face-to-face with Imhotep. The look on Vinny's face says it all. He screams and begins to
back away. Imhotep advances forward. Vinny reaches into his shirt and pulls out a Christian cross hanging from
a cord around his neck.
"May the good Lord protect and watch over me as a shepherd watches over his flock," Vinny whimpered. That
didn't work. He dropped the cross and his hands went to the assortment of religoius symbols and icons dangling
around his neck. Vinny quickly grabs at the other symbols and icons, holding them out towards Imhotep, one
after the other, trying to slow his progress: an Islamic Star and Crescent Moon necklace; a Hindu Brahma
medallion; a small Buddhist Bodhisattva statue. All while blessing himself in Arabic, Hindi, Chinese and
Latin. Nothing works. Imhotep's skeletal hand reaches for Vinny's throat.
Then Vinny pulls out a Star of David and began chanting in Hebrew. That stops Imhotep in his tracks. He pulls
his hand away from Vinny's neck.
"The language of the slaves," Imhotep whispered in Hebrew. "I may have use for you." He holds out his hand,
revealing several golden trinkets. "And the rewards...will be great."
Vinny's eyes widen at the sight of the jewelry. "My prince."
Imhotep raises his other hand, which holds Anck-su-namun's broken canopic jar. "WHERE ARE THE OTHER SACRED
JARS?!"
***
Chris and Leon boost Jill up onto a camel. Wesker and Alfred throw Nicholai up onto another. Alexia, still
clutching The Book Of The Dead, gets up on yet another. They all head off into the dark, windblown desert.
And then..a skeletal hand suddenly punches through the sand accompanied by the most horrific, promordial shriek
shriek imaginable.
The next day, it was business as usual. Jill, Chris, and Leon--looking incredibly hungover--were back at the
sarcophagus that they had 'found' the day before. Now the sarcophagus is now standing on one end
"I can't believe I allowed the two of you to get me drunk," Jill muttered as she fumbled with the key-box.
"Don't blame me, I don't even remember being there," Leon retorted.
"Well neither do I, thank you," Jill replied curtly. She then remembered her lines. "I've dreamed about this
moment ever since I was a child."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "You dream about dead guys?"
Jill ignored him for the moment. "The sacred spells have been carved off," she said, pointing to a spot on the
lid. "The hieratics and hieroglyphs that protect the deceased on his journey into the afterlife, they've been
removed. This man was cursed."
Chris blew out a whistle. "Tough break."
"I'm all tears," Leon said as he took the key-box from his 'sister' and placed it on the lock. "Let's see who's
inside."
Leon proceeds to turns it. A series of strange, mechanical-like sounds are heard, and then the sarcophagus
unlocks. He and Chris then started to push the lid open, while Jill stood by and watched with growing
anticipation.
Then the lid popped open and the most hideous, maggot-infested, rotten corpse imaginable jumps up.
All three heroes jumped back and screamed at the sight. They don't realize that this is the gruesome remains
of Imhotep. He is now the 'Elephant Man' of corpses; twisted and deformed. The years have not been kind. He
slumps back into his coffin.
"It's...it's a mummy," Jill breathed.
"Is he supposed to look like that?" Chris asked.
Jill shook her head. "No. I've never seen a mummy look like this. He's...he's still..."
"Juicy," Chris and Leon surmised.
Jill took a guess on the mummy's age. "Yes. He's more than four thousand years old and still decomposing."
Chris points to the inside of the lid. "Hey. Look at this."
Jill looked inside and gasped softly. There were fingernail scratches on the inside. "My God. This man was
buried alive." She leaned in closer. "And he left a message..." She ran her fingers across some carved
hieratics. "'Death is the only beginning.'"
Chris looked around for a moment. "Where's my grenade launcher?"
"What are you going to do? Shoot him?" Leon asked dryly.
"If he decides to wakes up, then yeah!"
***
The Umbrella Expedition are back at the Anubis statue. The diggers are now pulling a ornate box from the secret
compartment. As soon as they set it on the floor, Alexia was busy translating the writing on the lid. "There is
a curse upon this chest," she said.
Wesker scoffed. "Curse, schmurse."
Nicholai laughed. "Who really cares?"
Alexia give the both of them the evil eye. "In these hallowed grounds, that which was set forth in ancient
times, is as strong today, as it was then." She turned back to the box and read the inscription. "'Death will
come on swift wings to whoever opens this chest.'"
A gust of wind blew throughout the chamber. That's all the diggers could stand and they take off running. Vinny
looked around nervously. "We shouldn't be here," he whispered.
Alexia continued to decipher the hieratics. "It says here that there is one, the undead, who is bound by sacred
law to consumate this curse, if brought back to life."
"Yeah, well, let's just make sure we don't bring anybody back from the dead then, huh?" Wesker quipped.
Alexia decided to punch Wesker's lights out later. Right now, she was in the middle of her translation. "He
will kill all who open this chest, and assimilate their organs and fluids. And in so doing he will regenerate.
And no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth."
Again the wind whistles, and the torches flicker. Alfred and Alexia share a worried look. Nicholai shrugs his
shoulders. "Let's just open the damn thing."
Wesker, Nichloai, and Alfred began to pry open the chest, while Vinny and Alexia watch. Then Vinny slowly backs
away. Then he breaks into a run, screaming, "Beware of the curse!"
Wesker watches him run away. "Stupid superstitious bastard," he muttered.
And that's when the seal breaks. A black vapor blasts out of the chest. Everybody vanishes into the strange
cloud.
A few minutes later, after the coughing fits were over, the vapor begins to settle. Alexia slowly steps up,
reaches inside, and lifts out a heavy burlap bag. Everyone's eyes widen in excitement as she sticks his hand
into the bag and slowly pulls out a black book made of what appeared to be stone.
Alexia was giddy with delight. "I have heard tales of this book, but I never truly believed it existed."
Wesker fumed. "Where's the treasure?"
"This, gentlemen," Alexia replied, "IS treasure."
Wesker kicks the chest. "I wouldn't trade ya for a brass spoon!" The chest breaks open, unfolding to reveal
a lower compartment. Inside, are five jewel-encrusted canopic jars, one is shattered and is without jewels.
Alexia points to the canopic jars. "THERE'S your treasure, gentlemen."
***
Once again, the two camps have joined together. Vinny, Chris, and Leon are sitting in front of a campfire.
Wesker, Nicholai, and Alfred show up and take a seat around the campfire. Each man is holding one of the
canopic jars.
"Say Redfield, what do you think these babies will fetch back home?" Wesker asked.
"We heard you gentlemen found yerselves a nice gooey mummy. Congratulations," Alfred said.
Nicholai couldn't stop laughing. "You know if you dry him out, you can sell him for firewood."
Chris was about to but a bullet in Nicholai's head when Jill showed up, carrying something in her hands. Chris
nudged Vinny. "You're in her seat."
Vinny scoffed...then he stood up for Jill when he saw Chris go for his Bowie knife.
Jill sat in Vinny's place. "Look what I found. Scarabs, flesh eaters, I found them inside our friend's coffin.
They can stay alive for years living off the flesh of a corpse."
Chris and Leon looked at the scrab remains, obviously disgusted. "You saying somebody threw these things in
with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?"
"Very slowly."
Leon tossed another log into the fire. "He certainly was not a popular guy when they planted him."
Chris grinned. "Maybe he had gotten a little frisky with the Pharoah's daughter."
Laughter echoes throughout the group. Jill waited for it to stop before continuing. "According to my readings,
our friend suffered the HOM-DAI, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved for only the most evil
blasphemers. In all of my research, I've never read of this curse actually having been performed on someone."
"That bad, huh?" Chris asked.
Jill nodded. "Yes, they never used it because they feared it so. it's written, that if a victim of the HOM-DAI
should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt."
"Like what that Moses guy did to that Pharaoh?" Vinny asked.
Again, Jill nodded. All the men share nervous looks, really spooked.
***
Later on that night, almost fast asleep. Nicholai was in his tent, looking at a Russian Playboy magazine,
Wesker was cleaning his gun, and Alfred was sleeping like a baby. Having just freshened up for bed, Jill exits
the temple and steps past the sleeping Diggers. She spots the sleeping Alexia, her jeweled canopic jar snug
under one arm, the Book Of The Dead laying loose under the other. Evelyn stares at the Book, nervously biting
her lip, then she sneaks over, carefully steals it, and quickly tip-toes away.
"That's called stealing, you know," Chris said once she had came back to her side of their camp. Apparently, he
had saw the whole thing.
Jill pulls out the key-box and turns it. "According to you and Leon, it's called 'borrowing.'"
Chris regards the book in surprise. "I thought the Book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold."
"It is," Jill replied. "But this is not the Book of Amun-Ra. This may be the Book of the Dead."
"You sure you ought to be playing around with that?"
Jill shrugged and unlocked the book using the key. "It's just a book, no harm ever came from a book, right?"
Jill opens the cover, and the campfire flickers. She and Chris share a nervous look, then she shrugs and starts
reading. "Ahm kum Ra. Ahm kum Dei..." She continues to read the text in Ancient Egyptian.
***
Inside Imhotep's coffin...
Somehow, the decomposed mummy of Imhotep heard Jill's chanting. Then the corpse came to life and unleashed the
most horriying and imhuman scream ever heard.
***
Alexia's eyes shot open. In an instant she saw that the book was gone and that Jill was reading the book out
loud. She gets up and runs for her. "NO! YOU MUSTN'T READ FROM THE BOOK!"
He skids to a stop as a strange, piercing whine is heard, coming from out in the desert. Chris and the others
all leap to their feet. The three Umbrella henchmen run out of their tents.
The whine turned out to be cawing, and once the noise gotten closer. And then right of the darkness, came a
huge wall of crows. Chris grabs Jill, and with Leon at their side, the trio run for the crevice.
"I thought the plague was supposed to be locusts!" Leon shouted.
"Somebody blew the props for this!" Chris shouted back.
The murder--and I do mean MURDER--of crows swarm into the camp and pecks and and all diggers that are not fast
enough to avoid the onslaught. Vinny and the three henchmen make a break for the temple.
***
Alexia is now covered in crows. She holds the Book of the Dead tightly to her chest.
"What have we done?" she whispered.
***
Chris, Jill, and Leon race down the corridor, Chris and Leon blasting crows along the way.
***
In another corridor, Vinny and the Umbrella henchmen run into a corridor. Nicholai is knocked down, and his
eyeglasses is crushed in the stampede. He staggers to his feet squinting. Blurry figures vanish into the
darkness. He staggers down a passageway, squinting, his hands out in front of him, groping, trying not to bump
into anything.
Then he felt something behind him. Slowly he turned around. Eventhough he couldn't see that well, he could see
well enough that is was a DECOMPOSING MUMMY. Nicholai could only scream before the mummy overtook him.
***
The ground underneath Chris, Jill, and Leon began to shake. A short distance in front of them, the ground
begins to rise in a mini-sand dune. Then hundreds of chittering scrabs come pouring out, and starts to scurry
towards them. Chris, Jill, and Leon scream, turned the other was and haul ass out of there, Chris blasting at
them with his grenade launcher and Leon using the Remmington.
They race up the ramp, just ahead of the mass of scrabs.
Chris and Leon leaps out onto a pedestal. Jill jumps up into a grotto on the other side of the narrow stairway.
The horrible herd of vicious scarabs scurries between them, their ear-piercing chittering send shivers up Jill's
spine. She leans back. The wall moves and Jill falls backwards through an opening. Chris and Leon watch the
scarabs vanish up the staircase. Then they look across the way. Jill is gone.
"Jill?" Chris called out. "Jill?!"
***
Jill sits up, shakes the sand out of her hair, fearfully looks around. It's almost dark. A shaft of moonlight
filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Someone is standing in the middle of the room. Jill walks towards
him. She immediately recognises him as Nicholai.
Just as she reaches him, Nicholai turns around...and Jill finds herself staring into two empty eye sockets.
Both of his eyes are missing. When he tried to say something, he could only gurgle and moan, because his tongue
was also missing. The only thing Jill could make out was, "My eyes....my eyes..."
When she tries to back away, Imhotep appears, scaring Jill beyond belief. Imhotep now looks like a bad-looking
zombie in need of skin.
The cursed mummy looks at her...with Nicholai's eyes in his eye sockets. "Anck-su-namun?"
***
Chris and Leon are banging the wall that Jill had fell through earlier. Chris huffed in frustration. "Dammit!
Must be a trap door around here or something."
Then they heard someone scream from top. Then Wesker, Alfred, and a digger appeared running down the ramp.
"RUN YOU SONS A BITCHES! RUUUUN!" Wesker screamed.
Chris heard the scrabs again. "Go."
Both men join them as the herd of scarabs come their way. The digger suddenly trips and falls. Chris slows down,
about to go back and help him. But it's too late. The digger screams in horror as the herd of scarabs run over
him, eating straight through him, leaving behind the digger's half eaten skeleton. Wesker, Alfred and Leon
react in horror. Chris's already running, races right past them. The others turn and haul-ass.
***
Jill's back is against the wall, leaving her at the mercy of Imhotep. She looked at Nichoali, who had fallen to
the ground at some time, gurgling out, "He took my tongue."
It was useless to ask him for help.
Imhotep extended his hand out to her. "Kadeesh pharos Anck-su-namun!"
Jill was petrified. Then Chris barreled down around the corner. "There you are! Would you quit playing, around?
Let's get outta here already!" He sees the look in her eyes and turns in her direction. He jumped back at the
sight of Imhotep. "WHOA!"
Wesker, Leon, and Alfred came upon them a moment later. All three men were horrified at the sight of Imhotep.
Imhotep looks at the three men, then turns back to Chris, unhinges his skeletal jaw, his skinless mouth stretches
to an inhuman size, and lets lets out a horrific, primordial roar.
Jill screams. Chris shudders, then, embarrassed by his fear, he opens his own mouth and roars right back at
him. Then he incinerates Imhotep with a flame round from the grenade launcher, sending him to the floor. Chris
then grabs Jill and they run, with Leon, Wesker, and Alfred behind them.
"Did you see that thing?!" Wesker yelled.
***
Sand and wind whip through the ruins as Chris, Jill, Leon, Wesker, and Alfred stumble up out of the crevice,
and come face-to-face with ten armed Magi--now dressed in the uniforms of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure
Service. The Magi quickly raise their guns. Alexia is on her knees, still holding the Book of the Dead. Carlos,
also dressed in his UBCS uniform, steps forward.
He regards them with cold eyes. "I told you to leave or die. You refused, and now you may have killed us all.
For you have unleashed the creature that we have feared for more than four thousand years."
"Relax, I got him," Chris said.
Carlos shook his head. "No mortal weapons can kill this creature. He is not of this world."
Several Magi drag Nicholai up, he stares out with vacant sockets. Wesker and Alfred are especially horrified.
"What did you do to him?" Alfred demamded.
"We saved him," Carlos replied flatly. "Saved him before the creature could finish his work. Now leave, all of
you, quickly, before he finishes you all. We must now hunt him down, and try and find a way to kill him,
before he consumes the earth."
As Carlos and the other Magi pile down the crevice, Chris yelled out to them. "I told you I already got him!"
Carlos stopped and turned around. "Know this, the creature will be coming for you. He must consummate the curse.
And until he does, he will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop." He then turns and jumps
down the crevice.
***
Vinny sloway backs up around Anubis, eyes wide, gun up. He turns around...
...and finds himself face-to-face with Imhotep. The look on Vinny's face says it all. He screams and begins to
back away. Imhotep advances forward. Vinny reaches into his shirt and pulls out a Christian cross hanging from
a cord around his neck.
"May the good Lord protect and watch over me as a shepherd watches over his flock," Vinny whimpered. That
didn't work. He dropped the cross and his hands went to the assortment of religoius symbols and icons dangling
around his neck. Vinny quickly grabs at the other symbols and icons, holding them out towards Imhotep, one
after the other, trying to slow his progress: an Islamic Star and Crescent Moon necklace; a Hindu Brahma
medallion; a small Buddhist Bodhisattva statue. All while blessing himself in Arabic, Hindi, Chinese and
Latin. Nothing works. Imhotep's skeletal hand reaches for Vinny's throat.
Then Vinny pulls out a Star of David and began chanting in Hebrew. That stops Imhotep in his tracks. He pulls
his hand away from Vinny's neck.
"The language of the slaves," Imhotep whispered in Hebrew. "I may have use for you." He holds out his hand,
revealing several golden trinkets. "And the rewards...will be great."
Vinny's eyes widen at the sight of the jewelry. "My prince."
Imhotep raises his other hand, which holds Anck-su-namun's broken canopic jar. "WHERE ARE THE OTHER SACRED
JARS?!"
***
Chris and Leon boost Jill up onto a camel. Wesker and Alfred throw Nicholai up onto another. Alexia, still
clutching The Book Of The Dead, gets up on yet another. They all head off into the dark, windblown desert.
And then..a skeletal hand suddenly punches through the sand accompanied by the most horrific, promordial shriek
shriek imaginable.