The Nightmare Beneath the Sand

Nightmare Beneath the Sand 3

Total words so far: 4,319

Setting up his laptop in the rent by the hour room, Kran settled onto a chair and frowned as he stared at the computer as it loaded. He wasn't looking forward to the call that he was about to make to the people who backed his trips. He hadn't liked it before, chaffing under their restrictions in some areas, and more so since he had taken Leon onto his team when he had taken the class himself.

Leon was smart and was a good worker even outside of his abilities, but sometimes the backers were just a little to interested in the young man. And there was one of the backers who was nearly obsessed with Leon. But still, Kran would suck it up until they did something, just to keep the program going for as long as possible. They tended to weed out those who weren't good for field work sooner rather than later with it and could adjust the courses for them as needed.

Shaking his head and shoving those thoughts aside, he pressed the call button on his IM service, watching as the circle glowed light and dark as it connected. He sighed as he sat back, frowning heavily to himself. "I hate this," he muttered softly. He sat up when the group appeared in his screen, putting it full screen to be able to see them better. "Hello, sirs and ma'ams."

"Professor Kran," greeted the man in the middle of the square table. "I take it that you have discovered something at the site?" he asked. Black eyes watched as Kran frowned.

"Not yet. In fact, we haven't even started to dig. Leon...let me say that I have never seen him so unsettled with a site in the entire time that I have worked with him," Kran said, shifting in his seat and lacing his fingers together. "He cautions us when it is best to air the tomb out before opening the main door. He tells us when we must use suits to open a room. But never before has he flat out said that we should not dig there."

The group looked back and forth, silently communicating with each other. "What do you mean by 'not dig'?" the man finally asked.

Kran sighed. "I mean it just like it sounds. He wishes to do more research about the site. It seems that the people tamp down the sand every ten years for ten years, always adding fresh sand to just make sure that whatever is buried, stays buried. He felt uneasy. And to be truthful so do I. I felt like we were being watched and judged. It was an odd feeling and one that I haven't gotten in a long time."

The man frowned at him before they all pushed away from the table, coming together in a circle to discuss what they had just heard. As they talked, Kran picked up his water bottle and drank from it, sighing at the coolness that soothed his throat. Driving in so much dust with the wind kicking up was never a fun time for him. More so when they had to take an open-sided Jeep.

The group moved their chairs back into place, wheels on wood loud and clear even over the twitchy internet connection that he was on. Kran sat up straight again, watching them warily.

"We have decided that you will continue on with your work. Carefully, yes, but we believe that this archeological site is of great importance," he said. Kran's lips thinned out. "If you will not do it, we will find someone else who will be willing to do the dig and rethink our support of your class."

Kran twitched at the threat, taking a moment to calm himself. "Very well," he said, checking his watch. "If you will forgive me, I am going to have to cut this conversation short if I wish to have enough time to find Leon and Alaric to tell them what is going on and to also refill my water containers."

"Of course," the man said, nodding his head. Kran cut the call off and snarled once the computer was shut down fully.

"Fucking hell. Leon is not going to be happy," he said, shoving the computer into his bag before leaving the room, dropping off the key with a nod, a maid going to make sure the room was ready for the next customer. He walked down the street to where he knew the local library and historical office was, finding that the place was rather large. He checked in at the front, finding that it was also a local historical museum for the small home, bringing in some money.

He watched as a tour bus pulled into the side parking lot through one window, shaking his head. He headed to the rooms where he had been told Leon and Alaric were making copies of articles and books. The man who had helped him narrowed his eyes at Kran's back as he disappeared around a bookshelf before reaching for a phone.

Leon looked up when Kran slipped in, eyes taking in the scowl. "They're pushing for us to dig, aren't they?" he asked, Kran sighing.

"Yeah, they are." Kran put his bag down and looked over where Leon had found so far. "They don't know you know several languages, do they?" he asked.

"Considering that I took on my grandmother's maiden name to hide from those who know my mother?" Leon asked, raising an eyebrow as Alaric continued to scan pages and mark them with little sticky notes to copy. "No, they do not." He frowned as he looked back to the book that he was reading through. "Their language is much like the rest of this part of Africa but with their own slang and terms. It's not hard to guess their contextual. We're finding a lot in the 'local myths and legends' part of the selections that they have."

"They talk about it in their myths?" Kran asked. He frowned as Leon handed him his notes and started to flip through them, easily reading the shorthand that his former student used. "They just called it the Nile?" he asked.

"Yep. It came from the Nile therefore it must be the Nile, or a child of the Nile," Alaric said, absently putting the last book onto a pile. "We just need to finish making these copies and then we can leave here. While you fill the water bottles, we'll go ahead and ask about any mythos that people are wanting to talk about."

"So, like normal?" Kran asked, taking some of the money that they had and going to get his own charge card to use the copy machines. Between the three of them, they had two binders full of copied off pages of the mythology of the Nile. They handed in their guest badges after cleaning up after themselves and piling the books onto the various carts that were marked for each section.

The man watched them with a frown and wondered why Leon looked so familiar yet so strange to his eyes. He once more reached for his phone to make a phone call.

Outside of the building, they found their jeep and headed for the water station, paying for the filtered option. Alaric and Leon wandered down to the small food store to pick up a few things that they had to wait for to arrive but needed for their dinner. While there, Alaric charmed an older woman into telling him all that she knew and heard of the myths of her home, including the Nile myth and what she thought about it.

He smiled when he caught up with Leon and Kran, promising to tell them what she had told him once they were at the camp again. The three missed when she pulled out a phone and called someone, telling them that she had given them the information that they needed to find the right path with.

She just hoped that it was enough to keep those poor people being used as pawns safe.