Rick's Kryptonite

Death is Only the Beginning

I barely slept that night, my insides were churning with confusion. I'd had an itty bitty crush on Rick since I first met him but we had worked out so well as friends I didn't want to screw it up. I'm glad that he had made that move, though I still wasn't sure what we exactly were, it was such a teenage thing to ask.. I'd question it later, it was just one kiss, doesn't mean we were anything... yet. Too soon it was morning and I was tired as shit but nonetheless I got up anyway. Evy shook my shoulder in the morning as if I wasn't already awake.
"Come on Joe. Get ready so we can go excavate this mummy." I smiled up at her.
"Good morning Eves... Alright lets go." I mumbled and got up along with Rick and Jonathan. The struggle was real for me; I was wishing I had coffee right about now. We trudged down to the city with our supplies in hand, ready to go to work.
"Oh, l've dreamt about this since l was a little girl." Evy exclaimed visibly excited once we had got the coffin upright and ready to open.
"You dream about dead guys?" Rick questioned her, I gave him a look that said shut-your-face.
"Look, his sacred spells have been chiseled off." I said to Evy, pointing at the front of the sarcophagus. Her face displayed shock and confusion.
"This man must have been condemned not only in this life but in the next." Evy said.
"Tough break." Rick and I said at the same time, I stifled a smile and looked at him with amusement to find he was already looking at me. I blushed, looking away.
"Yeah, l'm all tears. Now, let's see who's inside, shall we?" Jon said trying to get on with the show. Jon and Rick gripped the sides and popped it open. A skeletal figure popped out at us scaring the living bejeezus out of me, though I just froze and didn't display the shock that I felt whereas Evy yelled.
"Oh, my God, l hate it when these things do that." Evy said after she composed herself. We took a closer look at him.
"ls he supposed to look like that?" Rick asked with question in his voice looking at me for an answer.
"No, l've never seen a mummy look like this before." I said.
"He's still-- still—" Evy said trying to come up with the word for our guy.
"Juicy..." Rick and Jon said together in a grossed out voice.
"Yes. He must be more than 3,000 years old... and, well, it looks as if he's still... decomposing." Evy said looking at the mummy with concern.
"Hey, look at that." Rick said grabbing my arm and crouching down with me. "What do you make of this?" He asked pointing to the marks on the inside of the coffin.
"These marks were made with... fingernails." I said tracing them with my fingers looking back at the mummy. I felt a shiver run through my veins. I needed to get away, I quickly got up and backed away from the corpse, feeling as if I was being suffocated.
"This man was buried alive. And he left a message. 'Death is only the beginning.'" Evy said looking at me with wide concerned eyes, I knew we would be talking about this later. After hearing that, I quickly walked out of the city and back to Hidalgo knowing he could calm my nerves.

Later that Night

The rest of the group and the Americans rejoined me later near the fire that I had started earlier this evening. 

"Say, O'Connell, what do you think these babies'll fetch back home?" One of the American's said as he held up an ornate looking canopic jar. I pulled my blanket around me tighter getting another weird feeling about these jars.

"We hear you boys found yourselves a nice, gooey mummy. Congratulations. lf you dry that fella out, you might be able to sell him for firewood." Henderson, one of the Americans, said walking up behind us with one of his buddies.

"Look what l found." Evy said coming to sit next to me. She had stayed down in the city with the mummy a little longer than everyone else in order to investigate our friends death. Rick had come up with Jonathan to make sure I was alright and to eat dinner before Evy. "Scarab skeletons, flesh eaters. l 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 was still alive when they started eating him." I cringed a little, Rick noticed and grabbed my hand intertwining our fingers just like he had last night. I looked into his eyes there was a warmth there that I hadn't noticed before. He looked away from me and back to Evy.