Lillian woke up with a pounding headache as the bright Egyptian sun made it impossible for her to sleep any longer. She blinked rapidly as she tried to grow accustomed to her awakening, and then she sat up, almost banging heads with O'Connell as he moved to wake her, but he managed to move back just in time.
"How's your head?" Rick asked her, placing one hand on the side of her face so he could look into her bleary eyes.
"Fantastic, thank you for asking." She said, sarcastically, grabbing her head on the other side and wincing as she heard the ruckus the Americans were making as they prepared for the day's work. Rick just chuckled at her, before he stood up and held a hand out to her. She glared at it for a second, before slipping her dainty hand into it, and allowing him to heave her to her feet.
She muttered a thank you, afraid that anything louder would hurt her head. Lillian then decided to reload the ammo in her guns as she hadn't last night, before she very gently - and by gently, we're talking kicking slightly harder than she really should have - woke her brother up, who in turn brought Evy back to the world of the conscious. Rick just watched the family interact with each other, hiding his sniggering under weak coughs. Lillian raised an eyebrow at the American, but he just smiled at her in return. She shook her head, and replaced her guns into their holsters on her shoulders, before checking the sharpness of her knife. It was still sharp so she didn't have to sharpen it again.
After grabbing the 'borrowed' tool kit Rick had given her, she stood up again, and glanced around at her three companions.
"Shall we get to work?" She questioned, with a smile, before walking off in the direction of their dig site without waiting for a reply.
Rick looked at the frowning Carnahan siblings as they watched Lillian walk away.
"How is she all peppy and ready to go?" Jonathon questioned.
"It's called acting. She's suffering just as much as you are," Rick replied, as he helped Evelyn to her feet. He noticed that the younger Carnahan sister looked still half-asleep, so he reached into his pack and gave her his canteen. "Here, drink some of this. It's fresh so it should wake you up a bit."
She thanked him and took a large gulp of the water, before handing it back to him. She realised that Lillian had taken the tool kit, so hurried after her sister, with O'Connell and Jonathon on her heels.
Evy watched gleefully as Lillian, Jonathon and O'Connell lifted the sarcophagus and pushed it up against a wall, so it was standing.
"I've dreamt of this since I was a little girl." Evy said, as she moved closer.
"You dream about dead guys?" Rick questioned, giving the younger Carnahan a weird look, until Lillian elbowed him lightly in the ribs. He pretended to wince and she held in a giggle, and then she noticed something strange about the sarcophagus.
"Look, the sacred spells have been chiselled off. This man must've been condemned in this life and the next. He must've been very naughty." Lillian explained, as her fingers hovered over the damaged area of the sarcophagus.
"Tough break." Rick said.
"Yes, I'm all tears," Jonathon said, sarcastically as he opened the key and put it in the lock and started to twist it. "Now, let's see who's inside. Shall we?"
Lillian and Evy stepped back, and waited while the men struggled to pull the lid off. Lillian noticed Evy fidgeting in excitement and smiled, before turning her attention back to the sarcophagus at exactly the wrong moment. The lid clattered to the ground and the mummy almost jumped forward, an ancient scream still stuck in its throat. All four screamed in surprise, before they managed to calm themselves down. Lillian held a hand against her heart, making sure her heart rate slowed down to its normal tempo.
"I hate it when these things do that." Evy hissed, slightly angry that she had been scared again by another mummy popping out at her. At least, this time Jonathon had been scared too.
"Is he supposed to look like that?" Rick questioned, as he stared at the dead guy in front of him. Lillian inspected it as well, noting that it was far more…gooey than it should have been after all these years.
"I've never seen a mummy look like this before. He's still…well…" Evy trailed off trying to find the right word, so the men supplied her with one that worked well in Lillian's opinion.
"Juicy." Rick and Jon said in unison.
"Well, yes." Evy agreed.
"He must be more than 3,000 years old and it looks as if he's still decomposing. Which should be impossible. He should be nothing more than a slightly dusty skeleton." Lillian summarised, as she gazed at the mummy, wondering why he was still, as the boys put it, juicy. Something was wrong here.
"Look at that," Rick said, pointing at the lid of the sarcophagus, moving towards it and kneeling down next to it. There were scratches all over the lid. Clearly the man had wanted out. "What do you think of this?"
Evy and Lillian dropped down on either side of the lid, Lillian next to Rick, and ran their fingers over the ridges of the indentations.
"God, these marks were made with fingernails," Evy said, as she dragged her own fingers along a set of the scratches. "This man was buried alive. And he left a message."
Lillian ran her fingers across the ancient Egyptian text as she read it aloud in English.
"'Death is only the beginning'." She exchanged a worried glance with Rick, who, though he didn't quite understand why he was worried, looked just as nervous as she was. All four of the company lifted their heads and stared at the gooey, nameless mummy who clearly had done something terrible in order to deserve being buried alive at the base of Anubis.
Lillian didn't quite understand why, but while she stared at him, a feeling of familiarity washed over her. She couldn't explain it, but she felt as if she knew the mummy, which was impossible, of course. Lillian shook her head and stood up, gaining the attention of the other three in her party. She walked over to the tool kit and grabbed the sketch pad and pencils she had purchased from a vendor back at the village a few days ago.
Rick watched the eldest Carnahan sister as she sat back beside him and began to sketch everything she saw; the scratches on the lid, the creepy message, and then the juicy mummy. She was very detailed, and very talented.
"I did have a camera to capture evidence of all this, but it was lost on the boat, so sketches will have to do for now." Lillian said, as she passed her drawings to Evy, who gratefully took them and inspected her sister's accuracy.
"Is there anything you can't do?" Rick questioned, not realising he had asked the question aloud. Lillian smirked at him, before answering his question.
"I can't touch the tip of my tongue to the bottom of my nose. I saw a man do it once, but I think he had an abnormally long tongue." She joked, grinning at the American, as he shook his head at her jesting.
Evy and Jonathon exchanged a look, both noticing how open and comfortable Lillian was around their guide. Lillian never behaved this way with men she had only just met, which led her siblings to believe that there was something between her and O'Connell. Maybe there was.
They'd stopped working for the night, but Lillian had gone back inside to inspect the area where the warden had died. She didn't understand why he had died, and that frustrated her. There was nothing around that gave any indication as to what had happened to the pig of a man, so she decided to have another look at the sarcophagus instead. And she found something interesting. She carried her find back through the tunnels, and to their camp, but passed the Egyptologist on her way. He had a familiar looking book in his hands. It wasn't the Book of Amun-Ra, the book of the living, but a black book that was similar to what she had pictured the gold book to be like. He was struggling to open it, and then she spied a familiar looking lock. That's when the man caught her staring.
"I think you need a key to open that book." Lillian said simply, before she carried on her way back to the camp.
She approached the camp and saw the Americans had joined her group, and Beni had seated himself in her spot between Rick and her sister.
"Look what I found!" She said, announcing her presence.
"You're in her seat," Rick said to Beni, though the weedy, smelly man initially thought his old friend was kidding, until he caught O'Connell's glare. "Now!"
"Scarab skeletons, flesh-eaters," Lillian said, holding them out slightly in her hands so the Americans had a good view as well, as she sat in her spot. Evy took a couple so Jonathon could see better, and Rick nudged one on Lillian's hand to make sure it was really dead. "I 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 would have been still alive when they started eating him." Evy explained, as Jonathon played with one in his hand.
"So somebody threw these in with our guy, and then they slowly ate him alive?" Rick questioned, holding one aloft, as he looked at Lillian for answers.
"Very slowly. It would have been a very violent, very painful death." She answered, handing the rest of them to Evy, who gleefully inspected them. Then Lillian poked the fire to keep it going.
"He sure wasn't a popular guy when they planted him." Jonathon summarised, in a way that only Jonathon could.
"He probably got a little too frisky with the Pharaoh's daughter." Rick said, with a smirk.
"Or his mistress." Lillian added, as she chuckled at the American's words. Evy also laughed at O'Connell, before she went on to inform them of some of the information she had acquired.
"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. In all of my research, I've never heard of this curse having actually been performed." Evy said, though Lillian's attention had been lost to the three Americans opposite her, holding the three ornate canopic entopic jars. She rose from her seat as Evy continued to explain to Rick all about the Hom-Dai curse, and sat next to Henderson. He gave her a look, and she pointed at his jar.
"Did your Egyptologist explain what that is?" She questioned.
"Yeah, he said that it was one of those embalming jars. Has the guts of some dead guy in it." Henderson said, nodding at the same time.
"Did you get it from a box?" Lillian questioned, though she wasn't sure how she knew that there was a box to begin with. She just had a feeling.
"Yeah. A black one with some fake curse on it."
Lillian blinked at him, before she smiled.
"Well just hope that no one wakes up our guy. Otherwise, you, my friends, are toast. Maybe literally." She said, standing up and moving back to her original seat.
Evy had just finished explaining that should a victim of the Hom-Dai ever arise, he would bring the ten plagues of Egypt. Lillian gave her a look before she remembered the Egyptologist and his new possession.
"I think the Egyptologist found the book, but it's not the gold book. I think he found the Book of the Dead. Fitting as we're in the City of the Dead." Lillian said, informing her sister that her dream of finding the Book of Amun-Ra wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. Evy looked slightly annoyed at the fact the pretentious snob of a man had beaten her to the real find, but then a mischievous look crossed her face and Lillian didn't need a mind reader to know she was planning something.
And Lillian didn't have to wait too long before her suspicions were confirmed. She was lying on the other side of O'Connell, attempting to sleep, when she heard movement. She didn't need to open her eyes to know it was her sister. The footsteps moved away from camp, before they stopped for a moment and came back again.
"That's called stealing, you know." O'Connell said to her sister, his eyes still closed, and his shotgun still in hand. Lillian pushed herself upright, and looked at him first. He had known she wasn't asleep, but knew she needed to rest so didn't bother trying to make conversation. But now she was wide awake, and watching him with dark eyes that captured his attention all the time, until they were gone and had moved to her sister.
"According to you and my brother, it's called borrowing." Evy replied, as she burrowed through Jonathon's jacket to get the key.
Both Lillian and Rick moved towards Evy as she began fiddling with the key, getting it to open.
"I thought the Book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold." Rick said, as he eyed the book that the youngest Carnahan had stolen. Lillian sat on Evy's left, looking over her shoulder, while Rick gazed over Evy's right side.
"It is made out of gold." Lillian said.
"This isn't the Book of Amun-Ra. This is something else. I think this may be the Book of the Dead." Evy explained to him, but it didn't make him any less confused. Lillian saw this but waited until he had actually asked the question before helping him.
"The Book of the Dead? Should you be playing around with it?" He questioned, and Lillian found herself agreeing with him. Was it really wise to play about with a book that almost beckoned not to be read by anyone. Ever.
Evy placed the key over the lock and start to twist it around.
"It's just a book. No harm ever came from…" She paused slightly as the book snapped open. Lillian fought against the urge to snap it closed just as quickly as it had opened. "…reading a book."
As Evy lifted the heavy cover, a gust of wind rushed through the camp, and Lillian and Rick exchanged nervous glances.
"That happens a lot around here," Rick said, though Lillian knew he was using humour to hide his discomfort. "So what's it say?"
"'Amun-Ra. Amun-Dai'. It speaks of the night and of the day." Evy said, before she continued reading it in ancient Egyptian, her fingers tracing her progress. Lillian was filled with dread and unease as Evy neared the end. As Evy finished, a loud animal-like screech filled the air and woke up everyone in camp.
"No! You must not read from the book!" The Egyptologist shouted at Evy, though it was too late.
Lillian felt the shift in the wind, and heard something travelling towards them. It even woke Jonathon, which was a testament to how loud it must have been, because Jonathon could sleep through a thunderstorm.
Everyone was now standing, waiting and watching for whatever was heading towards them. Rick had his shotgun in hand, and Lillian had drawn one of her handguns, but they were frozen as they watched a dark cloud move fast towards them.
That was, they were frozen until it became clear that they had to run. Rick grabbed Lillian's free hand, and Jonathon grabbed hold of Evy as they turned and ran away from the dark, large, deadly locust swarm.
Rick led them into the tunnels that led underground, away from the swarm, and grabbed a lit torch so they could move through the darkness. Evy and Lillian were in the middle with Jonathon at the back of the group with another torch.
Though as they moved down one of the tunnels, it suddenly jolted, and part of the floor rose up. Lillian and the others stared at it in horror, when suddenly hundreds of deadly scarab beetles spilled from the mound of sand, noisy and beautiful though Lillian and Evy quickly pulled the men backwards.
"Scarabs!" Evy yelled, as they turned again and ran in the opposite direction.
"Run, Evy! Lillian!" Jonathon pushed his sisters in front of him, and urged them forward as they tore down the passageway with O'Connell just seconds behind them.
"Go, go! Run!" He yelled at them, as the scarabs followed them. Rick threw his torch at them, making a hole in their advancement that was quickly reformed, and began to blow some of them to pieces with his shotgun.
The scarabs forced them to run up a bridge, which Jonathon, Rick and Evy quickly jumped off to the left and onto a safe pillar that was separate, meaning the scarabs couldn't get them. Lillian, however, jumped right and leaned against a wall as she watched the bloodthirsty beetles scuttle onwards, looking for the next available target to devour. Until, suddenly, the wall was no longer behind her, and she fell backwards with a yelp into more darkness.
And soon the scarabs had all disappeared, and Rick looked around and noticed that Lillian was no longer with them.
"Lillian?" He called.
"Lily?" Jonathon questioned, listening for a reply from somewhere.
"She had just been standing right across from us!" Evy exclaimed, scared for her missing sister.
"Where is she now?" Rick asked, though it was more to himself. No one had any answers.
It was dark in the tunnel Lillian was now lying in. She glanced around, breathing hard mostly because she was winded from falling backwards and because she was slightly afraid. She heard a groan, and peaked around the wall she had braced herself against. Mr. Burns was stood there, so she stood up and walked to him.
"Burns. Thank God. I thought I was alone down here. I got separated from everyone. I-" Lillian rambled, as she approached him, seeming to not hear the pained groans that emitted from his chest, until he turned around. She gasped, and stepped back, as Mr Burns stood before her, with his eyes missing from their sockets.
"My eyes. My eyes." He said, though it came out less clearer.
She turned around and screamed as the mummy stood behind her and growled at her. She walked backwards, as it stalked towards her. In her fear of it, she had completely forgotten the two pistols holstered on her shoulders and the knife strapped to her thigh. She just kept stumbling backwards until it had her backed against a wall with no way of escaping.
She didn't bother asking Mr. Burns for help, he was already crawling away, crying about the loss of his tongue. Mr Burns did draw the mummy's attention for a brief moment, but it soon turned back round to face her, gazing at her with Mr. Burns' stolen eyes.
"Anck-su-namun?" He questioned, and Lillian just stared at him in confusion, before she decided that trying to escape would be better than trying to work out the mind of a 3000 year old mummy who was calling her names.
She kept her eyes on it as she moved along the wall, and he followed her, moving closer as he did so.
"Come with me my Princess Anck-su-namun." He said to her, in ancient Egyptian, and she shook her head at the hand he held out to her. She had understood what he had said, but she had no intentions of following him.
Thankfully, she soon heard heavy footsteps and the familiar American drawl of her newest favourite person in the world. O'Connell bounded towards her, scolding her for getting separated from the group, not noticing the mummy yet.
"There you are! Stop playing hide-and-seek. Come on, let's get out of here." He said, grabbing her hand, ready to drag her away, but he soon realised that she wasn't looking at him and hadn't even acknowledged his words. He followed her gaze and shouted out in surprise.
"Lily?" Jonathon called, distracting the mummy as he bounded into the room and then stopped suddenly, noticing their once inanimate friend, almost causing Evy, Henderson and Daniels to run into him. The mummy regarded them for a brief moment, and decided they weren't worth his efforts, before he turned back to Rick and Lillian and screamed in their direction.
O'Connell yelled back at it, before blowing a chunk of it off with his shotgun. Once it hit the ground, he grabbed Lillian's hand and urged her forward.
"Move!" Rick yelled, and the other four ran after them, with Jonathon rambling, asking them if they had seen the mummy, which, of course, they had.
"It was walking. It was walking!" He shouted, as they rushed away from the creature.
They raced through the tunnels until they reached the surface again, but just when they had gotten away from the creature, they had run back into the men in black. All of whom pointed rifles at them. Lillian sighed, but noticed Evy's gaze was fixed on the leader, who had just uncovered his face. Lillian couldn't believe that Evy had just formed a crush on one of the men who was threatening her. She even had her hands raised in surrender, mirroring their brother, but she still had this mystified look on her face.
"I told you to leave or die. You refused. Now you may have killed us all. You have unleashed a creature we have feared for more than 3,000 years." He said, and Lillian's usually long fuse was coming to it's end, and it was attached to a big, big stick of dynamite.
"Relax. I got him." Rick said, and Lillian almost wanted to hit him. Bullets weren't going to kill it.
"No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He's not of this world." The leader said, and Lillian couldn't help herself or bite her tongue any longer.
"Then maybe your ancestors shouldn't have placed a curse upon it in the first place," She said, and the leader's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't expected this woman to identify his tribe for what they are. "You're the Mejai. Descendant's of the bodyguards of the Pharaoh. Your ancestors would have been the ones to place the curse upon him. So, if we're talking technicalities, my sister may have brought him back to life, but in actuality it's your fault."
"Is this also our fault?" He questioned, and two of his men brought forward a groaning Mr. Burns, and gently placed him on the floor in front of Henderson and Daniels.
"You bastards." Daniels seethed, as he stared at the men in black or Mejai as the gun-toting woman called them.
"What did you do to him?" Henderson demanded.
"We saved him before the creature could finish his work. Leave, all of you, quickly, before he finishes you all," He said, before he ordered his men to leave in Arabic. "We must now go on a hunt and try to find a way to kill him."
"I already told you I got him."
The man turned around and stared at O'Connell for a moment before he spoke in an even more serious manner than before.
"Know this. This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep…and he will never stop."