Tombquest: Book of the Dead

The Stung Man

The canopic jars lined up in front of the sarcophagus began to shake.

Alex watched the black gap grow as the lid continued to grind backward. He thought he could see something stirring inside.

With his body suspended between paralysis and flight, Alex's mind was working overtime. It was clear to him now. His suspicion had become a certainty. This wasn't about camera angles or death's door hallucinations. He'd been avoiding the word this whole time, but he needed to accept it. "It's magic, Ren. It is."

Ren shook her head slowly, her eyes fixed on the exit. They'd have to go right by the sarcophagus if they wanted to get out of here.

As they watched, the ancient jars rattled like maracas and the five-hundred-pound lid yawned open to the ragged soundtrack of rock grinding on rock.

And then Alex saw the hand.

The heavy stone lid of the sarcophagus fell to the floor with a loud Kronk! In the weak light, Alex saw two smaller lids inside, both pushed up and away. How much strength did that take? The hand rose up from the deep shadows within. Ragged wrappings frayed and fell aside as the fingers curled for the first time in millennia. Alex watched in frozen horror as the entire arm emerged, hooking itself over the edge of the carved stone and pulling the rest of the body into the light. The canopic jars on the floor below were shaking so violently that they seemed like they might explode.

It was the Stung Man. His skin was visible in the places where his wrappings had given way, but it looked nothing like the skin of the other mummies Alex had seen. It wasn't stretched and dried and stained by time. It was livid and covered with swollen welts. The Stung Man turned and stared into the room, not with empty sockets but with wet, sinister eyes.

"Run!" screamed Ren. "We have to run!"

The path out of the room would take them within just a few feet of the creature, but they couldn't go back. The other mummy was back there — and who knew what else.

Alex took one more horrified look: The Stung Man was staggering to his feet. Soon, he'd be free.

Ren took off, and Alex followed a split second later, his feet reacting faster than his brain.

The Stung Man took a slow, clumsy swipe at them as they passed, and Alex ducked to avoid the blow.

Almost to the door now.

It slammed shut just before they reached it. Ren was running so fast she couldn't stop in time, and she bounced against the thick safety glass. Alex skidded to a halt and grabbed Ren's shoulders to steady her.

"No!" she gasped. He could hear the fear in her voice.

She began to tug wildly at the handle in front of her.

Alex wrapped his hands alongside hers on the handle and pulled with all his strength, but it wasn't giving.

"Stay awhile," a man's voice called behind them. "You're just in time."

A figure in a guard's uniform stepped from the shadows in the far corner of the room, and for a second, Alex felt a wash of relief. But then panic surged again. The guard's body was that of a man. But the head ... the head ...

Alex felt his knees begin to give. The man had the desiccated head of a hyena. Ren whimpered beside him, and fear took over Alex's body. Spots swam in his vision and his head began to loll back, as if his neck had turned to rubber.

Then he felt a sudden impact.

Ren had collapsed backward into him.

You can't pass out, he thought. I was going to do that!