Indiana Jones The Temple of Doom by James Kahn

Author:James Kahn [Kahn, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0100-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

SIX

The Temple of Doom

“WHAT’S DOWN THERE?” quaked Willie.

“That’s what I’m going to find out. You wait here. If we’re not back in an hour, I want you to wake Captain Blumburtt and come after us.”

She nodded. Short Round returned with Indy’s bag, whip, and hat, and the two of them started down the secret passage.

Shorty led the way around the first corner, to make sure it was safe for Indy. The shadows looked pretty ominous, though. “Dr. Jones, I don’t think we supposed to be here.”

Indy grabbed him by the collar, planted him to the rear. “Stay behind me, Short Round. Step where I step. And don’t touch anything.”

As Indy moved forward, however, Short Round noticed a door off to the side, a door Indy had missed. Short Round put his hand on the knob and pulled: the door collapsed: two skeletons fell forward on top of him.

Shorty yelled, sitting down hard. He’d seen these guys before—in The Mummy. He thought he’d made it quite clear then, to Whoever was in charge, that he never wanted to run into anyone in this condition, especially not in a dark tunnel. Someone must be trying to teach him a lesson.

Indy pulled him erect, half-carried him around the next turn. A hollow wind sprang up here, blowing flayed skins in their faces—human skins, they looked like.

Short Round drew his knife. “I step where you step. I touch nothing.”

More skins flapped in their faces. Shorty broke into a voluble string of Chinese prayers, epithets, and warnings about ghosts. More like The Invisible Man, here: tattered coverings falling away from an empty presence. Shorty was glad he’d seen such creatures before, so he wouldn’t be undone now.

“Relax, kid.” Indy smiled grimly. “They’re just trying to scare us.”

They kept walking. The tunnel was stone—cool, moist, solid. The farther they went, the more it seemed to twist downwards into the earth, and the darker it got.

Soon it became too black to see.

“All right, it all gets dark now,” said Indy. “Stick close.”

A few more paces, and Shorty felt something crunchy underfoot. “I step on something,” he whispered.

“Yeah, there’s something on the ground.”

“Feel like I step on fortune cookies.”

“Not fortune cookies.” Indy shook his head. It was moving, whatever it was. He struck a match; they looked around. Before them was a wall with two holes in it. Out of one of the holes exuded an effluent of gooey mung, and millions of squirming, wriggling bugs. The bugs poured out onto the floor, covering it completely: a living carpet of shiny beetles, scurrying roaches, wriggling larvae.

Short Round looked down to see a few of them start to crawl up his leg. “That no cookie.” He winced.

Indy brushed the bugs off. At the same moment, the match he was holding burned down to his fingertip and went out. “Ow! Go!” he shouted, pushing his small friend ahead of him. They ran quickly, dashing directly into the next chamber.

Just past the threshold, Shorty stepped on a small button in the floor.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.