Evelyn slipped the key into the sarcophagus, lock and turned it. A series of strange mechanical-like sounds could be heard, and then the sarcophagus unlocked with a giant hiss. We started to slide the heavy lid off the sarcophagus, pushing, shoving and groaning making the lid budge inch by inch.
"I can't believe I allowed the two of you to get me drunk." Evelyn told the boys.
"Don't blame me, I don't even remember being there." Jonathon told her.
"Well neither do I, thank you." Evelyn said and I caught the hurt look my brother threw at her.
"You don't?" he asked her. She looked up at him nervously.
"No... Why?... Should I?" she asked him.
"Gee, yeah, you told me it was the best time you ever had." Rick told her, giving her one of his cheesy smiles. Evelyn's face dropped both appalled and embarrassed. That was the moment the lid fell and loudly crashed to the ground making the three of them grab their sore heads and moan, making me laugh. The boys picked up a wooden coffin and dropped to the ground next to the stone sarcophagus, making Evelyn very excited next to me.
"Oh my god, I've dreamed about this ever since I was a little girl." she told us and I gave her a confused look.
"You dream about dead guys?" Rick and I both asked her, but she just threw us a look before she started brushing dirt and cobwebs off the top of the coffin before freezing.
"Look, all the sacred spells have been chiseled off. The hieratics and hieroglyphs that protect the deceased on his journey into the afterlife, they've been removed. This man was cursed,... doomed." she told us and I froze. I knew who this was but the boys were too excited to care.
"Tough break." Rick told her.
"Yes, I'm all tears, now let's see who's inside, shall we?" Jonathan asked.
"How about not? It can wait until tomorrow morning." I told them and they all threw me a look before Jonathan inserted the key into the coffin's lock and turned it. The lid cracked open with a hiss and a foul stench made us all react badly. Rick grabbed the lid and tried to remove it, but it was stuck. He pulled with all his might with Jonathan's help and it finally started to give way very slowly. Then it suddenly popped open and the most hideous, maggot infested, rotten corpse imaginable jumped out making us all scream. We all jumped back, scared to death. The corpse was twisted and deformed showing the years had not been kind to him as he slumped back into his coffin. The others slowly crept forward and carefully looked inside his coffin.
"Is he supposed to look like that?" Rick asked.
"No. I've never seen a mummy look like this. He's, he's still..." Evelyn said, trying to come up with the word.
"Juicy?" Jonathan offered.
"Yes. He's more than four thousand years old and still decomposing." Evelyn said, amazed.
"And look at this." Rick said pointing at the inside of the coffin lid, where there were scratches and what looked like dried blood all over the inside.
"Oh my god, he was buried alive." Evelyn said as I leaned in closer to the lid.
"He left a message. 'Death is only the beginning.'" I read. Jonathan shivered and Rick started to look around.
"Where's my gun?" Rick asked.
"What are you going to do? Shoot him?" Jonathan asked him.
"If he decides to wake up, hell yes!" Rick told him, still looking for his gun.
"Your gun won't help you then." I said looking up at the mummy.
That night the two camps joined together and I sat with my brother and his friend who were roasting chunks of hairy meat over a fire. Jonathan wrinkled his nose, disgusted by the smell. After smelling the mummy today I don't think I could be disgusted by anything else.
"What is this stuff? It smells like our late friend, the Warden." Jonathan said and both boys grinned at him. Jonathan looked horrified at them and I stifled my laughter. "You did not!?... We're not!?"
"Rat gizzards. They smell bad and taste worse, but that's the best the desert has to offer." I told him, laughing. Four gloating Americans sat down, fondling jeweled jars. Canopic jars.
"Say O'Connell, whadaya think these honey's'll fetch back home?" Henderson asked him.
"We hear you found yourselves a nice gooey mummy. Congratulations." Burns laughed.
"Ya know if ya dry him out, you can sell him for firewood." Daniels joked and they all laughed loudly. Evelyn walked up and sat between me and Rick dropping a pile of big dusty bug skeletons onto the ground.
"Scarabs, flesh eaters, I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years living off the flesh of a corpse, or in this case..." Evelyn said, shrugging before looking at the roasting meat. "Famished." Rick and Jonathan stared at the bug skeletons, disgusted.
"Are you saying somebody threw these things in with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?" Rick asked her.
"Very slowly." she said with a smile. She was like a kid at Christmas.
"He certainly was not a popular fellow when they planted him." Jonathan said.
"Must of got a little too frisky with the Pharaoh's daughter." Rick laughed.
"Or worse." I said and they all looked at me confused.
"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." Evelyn told us.
"That bad huh?" Rick asked her.
"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." she told him.
"The ten plagues?... You mean all ten plagues." he asked her.
"Like what that Moses guy did to that Pharaoh guy?" Beni asked and I gave him a look.
"That's one way of putting it." I said.
"Let's see, there was frogs, flies, locusts..." Jonathan listed off.
"Hail and fire." Burns continued.
"The sun turning black." Henderson said.
"Water turning to blood." Daniels said.
"And let's not forget boils and sores." I said. We all shared a nervous look, spooked by what could happen and Evelyn just laughed at us before pulling a meat stick out of the fire.
"Fried gizzard anyone?"