The Mummy by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 042517381X
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 1999-05-14T07:00:00+00:00

Just as the raid last night had only fed the American contingent’s lust for bounty, Evelyn Carnahan’s thirst for knowledge, for discovery, for scholarship, had only surged.

Her thirst the evening before, however, was causing certain problems this morning, as work got under way at the granite sarcophagus that had fallen at their feet yesterday, like a gift from the gods. Evelyn—and, judging by their dark-circled eyes and sluggish demeanor, Jonathan and O’Connell, as well—was suffering from that most ignoble of maladies: a hangover.

At the moment, she was unfolding the puzzle box with a little difficulty, though she’d opened it before, numerous times, easy as pie. “I can’t believe I let my defenses drop to such a sorry state that you two reprobates could get me tipsy.”

“Don’t blame me, Sis,” Jonathan said. “I’d already passed out, like a true and proper drunkard.”

“ ‘Tipsy’ doesn’t quite cover it,” O’Connell said. His eyes were bloodshot and his flesh a sickly gray. “You were drunk as a lord.”

“Well!” Evelyn huffed, and glared at her brother.

Jonathan raised his hands in surrender; he looked even worse than O’Connell. “Don’t ask me for vindication. I don’t even remember being there.”

“Neither do I,” she said, “thank you very much.”

“That’s a shame,” O’Connell said, with a hurt look that was obviously feigned. “Last night you said you’d remember it forever.”

“I never!”

“Until last night.” And he grinned at her.

Horrified, flushed with embarrassment, she fumbled with the box, and O’Connell reached out, took the box, and opened up its metal petals.

“Nothing happened,” he said softly. “Except that you agreed to start calling me Rick.”

Relieved, she smiled; then she was irritated by his teasing and said, “This couldn’t be more serious. Now I want you two schoolboys to behave yourselves.”

“Stand back,” O’Connell said, and he inserted the box-turned-into-key into the large lock, which mirrored the box’s unfolded shape, ducking down, keeping his back to the sarcophagus.

“Mr. O’Connell,” Evelyn said, “I appreciate your concern, but there’s no record of any sarcophagus itself being booby-trapped.”

And Evelyn strode up and turned the key to the right, initiating a series of strange grinding noises, as the mechanism responded; and then a loud hiss indicated the breaking of an airtight seal.

All three of them backed away, glancing at each other with excitement and perhaps some anxiety—finding themselves facing no splashing acid bath, no thrusting steel spikes, no nasty surprises at all.

Soon, they were exercising their aching, morning-after muscles by doing their best to slide the heavy granite lid off the sarcophagus, pushing, shoving, groaning; at first, they seemed not to be getting anywhere at all. But finally, the lid began to budge, only grudgingly, inch by inch.

“It’ll be too heavy for us to lift off,” she said, as they took a break, panting, passing a canteen around. “I’m afraid we’ll have to shove it to the floor, and risk breaking it.”

“It’s that or our backs,” Jonathan pointed out.

And their backs were what they put into their next joint effort, and suddenly the lid slid off its perch

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