The Mammoth Book of the Mummy

by Paula Guran

  Of course, we didn’t know the reason for that then. We had no idea that it was Charlie Steiner beneath those bandages. We didn’t know he was casting a spell to that dark water and that bright moon and whatever gods or demons worked their magic in it, tossing the contents of his jackal-hide mojo bag into Butcher’s Lake. We didn’t know he was waiting for a sign that would tell him it was time to conduct the most difficult and dangerous part of his spell. We didn’t know he was trying to raise a dream woman from the depths of Butcher’s Lake. All we knew was that his pendulum wrecking-ball fist was swinging in a way that told us he was coming up empty, and he wasn’t happy about it, and that there was going to be hell to pay.

  From some god we hadn’t heard of. Or some devil. Or the universe itself.

  Or maybe us.

  Then Charlie Steiner started screaming, and it got worse.

  I’ll never forget the sound of that tongueless scream. Even though we were hidden from view in the treeline twenty feet away, I’ll never forget the sight of it, either. The mummy turned toward us, and his cobweb lips opened into a black hole that even a full bucket of moonlight couldn’t illuminate, and more black spilled out of it, dripping blood that ran in rivulets through the irrigation-ditch wrinkles that covered his chin. And then came the sound—a buzz-saw screech that descended into a roar so heavy with anguish it could have made a deaf man jump up and take notice.

  “Oh, God,” the preacher’s kid said, and just that fast he was gone.

  We didn’t even hear him running back to the road. The mummy was coming toward us now, still screaming, taking one sloughing step after another. At first I thought he’d spotted us for sure, but then he suddenly reversed course and headed toward the deep shadows near a thick stand of cattails.

  At that moment, we had no idea what he was up to. But it came clear later. With his three-fingered hand, Charlie Steiner was ready to grasp for the final straw that might seal the deal he’d tried to cut with the powers of darkness.

  That meant he’d gotten down to the portion of night that was really bad business.

  The worst.

  The mummy stopped at the rear of a station wagon. Swaying just a bit, as if it were fighting gravity itself. Then his fist swung down, and the tailgate dropped, and a light came on in the rear of the vehicle.

  We couldn’t see much by that light, but we could see the mummy bending low. He reached inside, grabbing for something. There was a muffled scream as he took hold of it, and something tumbled to the sand.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Roger said. “It’s a little girl.”

  The mummy bent low, staring down at the prone figure before him.

  He wasn’t chanting any more.

  Three words crossed his ruined tongue and bubbled over his bloody lips, and they were the only words he said that night that we truly understood:

  “Dream . . . wish . . . sacrifice!”

  The girl was nine, maybe ten. In the moonlight, I could see that her ankles and wrists were bound with ropes. And she wore a princess mask—the cheap plastic kind you found at a drugstore. Expressionless, with black hair cut straight across in bangs, and lips as red as red could be. That mask was taped to her head, thick swatches of sticky plastic stuck to her own black hair as if she’d been mummified herself.

  If she hadn’t screamed, I would have thought she was dead. She lay there on the ground, gasping now, the breath knocked out of her. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. I stared at her, still unable to move myself. Roger was staring at her, too.

  “We’ve got to stop him!” Roger said.

  He wasn’t whispering, and he was moving forward, flicking on his flashlight as he advanced.

  “Hey!” Roger shouted. “Stop!”

  The mummy whirled, holding up a hand against the bright beam. For the first time we saw that he truly was as gray as a grave, except for the places he was black-red. One hand was missing a couple fingers and dripped blood. More gore spilled from the thing’s mouth—it looked like he’d been chewing razor blades.

  Given all that, it was amazing how fast he moved when he saw Roger coming. One big arm swung down, and he snatched up the girl, and his bandaged feet kicked up gouts of sand that hissed against the October wind as he walked toward the edge of the lake.

  His back was to us now, and he raised the girl over his head. “He’s going to toss her in!” Roger said. “He’s going to drown her!” I started across the beach, following Roger. He’d already covered ground. He’d dropped the flashlight and was closing on the mummy’s back with his Louisville Slugger in his hands.

  Someone else was coming, too. At least I hoped there was, because I heard police sirens rising in the distance. But I couldn’t be sure they were headed in our direction, and there was no time to waste. The mummy already had that girl over his head, and before we knew it she was sailing through the dark night.

  A hollow splash, and the lake took her. All I could think of as the water closed over her head was the black and bloody pit of that mummy’s mouth snapping closed. And then the mummy whirled. Perhaps it was the sound of the sirens that brought him around, or maybe he heard Roger racing toward him. But that wrecking-ball fist of his swung out, and it banged my brother to the side.

  For a moment, Roger was airborne. He hit the sand rolling. Then he came up, but he’d lost the baseball bat in the fall. By that time I was already halfway across the beach, splitting the distance against the mummy to come at him from the other side.

  “No!” Roger yelled. “Get the girl! She’ll drown!”

  I was close to the mummy now. Close enough to see the crazy gleam in his eye. People have asked if I realized that he was a man in a costume, or if I thought he was real. To tell the truth, I can’t remember any of that. I only knew that he was dangerous, and that if he had a chance he’d kill both my brother and me.

  And that’s what he tried to do. His fist flashed out again. I ducked and dodged the blow, trying to give Roger a moment to recover the bat. The mummy lurched forward, gaining ground for another strike, but I’d given my brother the moment he needed. Roger was up again, charging the mummy with his Louisville Slugger. As I turned toward the lake I heard it land once, and the mummy grunted. Another blow struck home and the mummy groaned, but I couldn’t afford to look behind me. I already had my eye on the water and the dull moonlight washing those little bands of wave.

  I searched the surface for a ripple . . . any sign of the girl as I tried to remember where she had gone under.

  I should have had my eyes on the shadows.

  Because the mummy was still coming for me, even as Roger struck him again with the bat.

  He was coming with one fist raised like a wrecking ball.

  And the sirens were louder now. Definitely coming our way. I was skirting the shore, moving quickly, when I realized that I had almost run into the rear of the station wagon. I got my hands up before I slammed into it, and then the mummy’s fist cut a path through the shadows.

  I never saw it. I never heard it. I can’t even remember the first blow striking me. I know it caught me from behind, and low on the base of my neck, because I still get a little click in my top vertebrae anytime I turn my head to the left. Anyway, I staggered and spun on my heel like a drunk.

  Roger bashed him again, but it didn’t do any good. The next blow crashed against my forehead, just above my left eyebrow. It opened a two-inch gash. Not that I knew I was bleeding . . . or falling. I don’t even remember falling into the lake. But the next thing I knew, I was underwater. I came up coughing a mouthful of sludge that tasted like something a frog had vomited up. For a moment I thought the mummy’s fist was coming at me again, but I realized it was only a clutch of cattails waving in the wind.

  The moonlight shone down, riding black ripples. My stomach roiled, and I retched. The sound of prowl car sirens still rode the night, but I saw no light cutting through the eucalyptus grove, and no light on the beach.

  I didn’t see Roger or the mummy. Apart from
the sirens, there was no sign of activity behind me. It was as if they’d disappeared. And then I heard a splash out there in the darkness, somewhere near a large stand of cattails that cut in from the shore, and I thought maybe it was Roger.

  Sure. It had to be. Maybe Roger had dropped the mummy with his bat. He’d dived in to join the search, and now he was out there in the lake, looking for the girl.

  “Roger!” I shouted. “She went in over here . . . over by the road!” I didn’t get a reply. Maybe the splash I’d heard was Roger going under, looking for the girl. One thing was for sure, if I was right and he’d found her, he would have called out. But I hadn’t heard anything.

  And I didn’t hear anything now, except for the sirens drawing near.

  Quickly, I pulled myself on to the muddy bank and kicked off my shoes. Then I shucked my father’s jacket and sucked a deep breath, and dove back into that cold water.

  The girl was still out there.

  Maybe my brother was, too.

  Hitting that water the second time was like swallowing an iceberg. My chest froze up, but my thoughts cleared as that icy black water shocked my brain alive. I didn’t know how much time had passed between the mummy tossing the little girl into the lake and the time I went in after her. All I knew was that enough seconds—or maybe minutes—had been burned off the clock that the little girl couldn’t have too many left.

  I knew some other things, too. As big as he was, the mummy couldn’t have thrown the little girl far. I had a rough idea where she had to be, because I’d made my dive from the spot where I thought the mummy had been standing when he heaved her in. But the water was deeper there than I’d expected. The sand didn’t slope down from the water’s edge the way a beach does. It was a sheer drop-off from sandy shore into murky lake—maybe a foot or a foot-and-a-half drop in some places—and the water was deep enough that I barely skimmed the sludgy bottom when I dove in.

  I couldn’t see a thing, of course. Even on a sunny day, that water was nothing but thick murk. I swam forward, my hands sweeping before me, but all my fingers found was slick bottom and broken cattail shafts.

  I covered ten feet that way—maybe fifteen. Then I came up for air, turned, and immediately dove again.

  This time I reversed course, swimming back toward the shore, covering the area to my left. My hands sweeping out, sure I’d hit something solid any second. I didn’t find anything—not even a junked spare tire. Just that sludgy bottom and rotting slime a catfish wouldn’t want in its belly.

  Again I came up for air, breathing harder now. I was closer to the shore, and I could stand. A case of shivers rattled up my spine, and I was shaking now. The cold . . . the blows to the head . . . whatever the reason, I nearly lost it and passed out.

  But I caught myself. I wasn’t going to let that happen. “Roger!” I called. “Are you out there? Did you find her?” No answer.

  I sucked another deep breath, but it came up in a wet cough that seemed like a slap against the quiet night. I cleared my throat and got another breath down and held it. It was only then that I realized the sound of sirens was gone.

  Just that fast another sound replaced it.

  The sound of a shotgun blasting away in the night. I didn’t have time to listen.

  That little girl was down there somewhere. I had to find her.

  She’s alive, I told myself, and even in that moment I knew it was a wish as much as a prayer.

  She’s alive.

  Apart from that wish, I can’t say what I thought about as I searched for the girl. Diving, coming up for air, diving again. It happened a long time ago, though I still dream about it sometimes. Over the years, those dreams have come and gone, but they always seem to come around . . . the same way that night has never left me.

  Sometimes I dream about that mummy, too. And sometimes I think about him in the light of day. The mummy . . . Charlie Steiner . . . in my head, they’re a pair. I don’t know what emotions were squirming in Charlie’s guts by the time he found his way through the eucalyptus grove. He certainly wasn’t walking out of there with a black-magic dreamgirl on his arm, the way he’d imagined. I’m sure anger and betrayal boiled in his crazy brain . . . maybe even fear. But all that’s speculation. The only thing I know for sure is that by the time Charlie turned his back on Butcher’s Lake his fate was sealed, and in more ways than he could ever imagine.

  Because the preacher’s kid hadn’t chickened out. He had more stones than Roger or I had imagined. He’d run to the nearest house, banged on the door, and told the owner to call the cops because there was a crazy man loose in the woods.

  God knows how the sheriff and his deputy reacted when they rolled in and caught their first glimpse of that bloody mountain of cobwebs coming out of the trees. Of course, I’ve heard the stories over and over. And, like I said, I’ve had dreams, too. And it’s the dreams I see when I picture the scene in my mind’s eye: The mummy staggering backward when the patrol car lights hit him, then realizing he had nowhere to retreat because the cops were already out of the car. Sheriff Cross and Deputy Myers barking orders, drawing down. The mummy’s black pit of a mouth opening like a sinkhole, and words and blood spilling out that no one ever remembered because his wrecking-ball fist was rising in the air as he lumbered forward, charging the cops. Then the sharp bark of gunfire, and the thunder of shotgun blasts, and a rain of blood and bone and flesh slapping against a straight and tall eucalyptus trunk as that bloody mountain of meat avalanched to the ground, leaving a wake of shotgunned Egyptian cotton fibers floating on the October wind like its very own ghost.

  You kill something that dead, you don’t worry about it getting up again no matter what it looks like. At least, that’s the way Sheriff Cross and Deputy Myers saw it. They weren’t going to worry about a dead kid in a Halloween costume. And that’s what they saw when they looked at Charlie Steiner’s corpse. That’s all they saw. A dead kid in a Halloween costume.

  But that didn’t mean they were done for the night. Cross and Myers worked their way through the eucalyptus grove, guns raised, not sure what they’d find when they reached Butcher’s Lake. And the first thing they found was me, still diving in that black water, still looking for the girl in the princess mask. Sheriff Cross jumped into the water and grabbed me, and he always tells me I put up one hell of a fight, even though I was just a kid. I didn’t want to give up the search. I told him the whole story. Practically screamed it in his face. The mummy . . . the little girl with the princess mask . . . Roger and I fighting the mummy. All of it.

  The sheriff went into the lake himself that night, and he found nothing. Later a diver went in, and the next morning they dragged the bottom. But they didn’t find any trace of a little girl, dead or alive.

  They did find a body, just after dawn, but it wasn’t underwater. It was a boy’s body, and it was hidden in a stand of cattails.

  The kid was wearing a New York Yankees uniform. It was my brother Roger, and he’d been beaten to death. Blunt object trauma was the phrase they used.

  That could have meant a wrecking-ball fist had taken him down. Or it could have meant the mummy had used Roger’s own Louisville Slugger to finish the job.

  They found the Slugger just a few feet from my brother’s dead body.

  It’s the one thing of Roger’s that I still have.

  Once people learned what Charlie Steiner had been up to in the weeks and months before that fateful Halloween night, they discovered he sure enough fit the m.o. for a kid who’d gone nuts enough to dress up like a Halloween boogeyman and charge a pair of fully armed cops.

  Behind Charlie’s house—which was just this side of the boondocks, and not too far from the dirt road that skirted the lake—Sheriff Cross discovered a path chopped through heavy brush. It was a little wider than a deer run, and it snaked up a hill. At the top of that hill was Charlie’s own private temple. Google the name of this town and the word “mummy,” and you’ll find pictures of it. Some people say Charlie built it, that it wa
s some kind of plywood pyramid, but I’ve seen it inside and out and I can tell you that’s an exaggeration. It was (and still is) a simple A-frame design—that’s how the pyramid stories got started—but it had four sides. And, sure, Charlie did paint Egyptian-style pictures and hieroglyphs on it back in the day, but all that stuff faded away a long time ago.

  To tell the truth, there wasn’t much inside to the place at all, then or now. One large room with a narrower loft cubby up above, the kind of place that used to sit in a far-off corner of a large property so the owner would have a hideout with just enough space to get into some trouble out of sight of the main house.

  And maybe that’s what the place was in the old days, when the A-frame had been in better repair. The whole property had made the slide to rack and ruin by the time Charlie’s folks bought it. But in the old days—who knows? I’ve heard the old road along the swamp was once used by bootleggers who wanted to skirt the two-lane county highway on delivery runs. Hey, anything’s possible. Histories get lost—for houses, for places . . . even for people.

  But the little slice of history made by Charlie Steiner in his A-frame hideaway wasn’t lost at all. No, after the incident at Butcher’s Lake, the contents of Charlie’s own private temple were photographed, catalogued, and filed, using the best police science of the day. Examine that stuff today and it looks like it belonged in a clubhouse for an obsessed monsterkid. The walls were papered with one-sheets from the old Universal creepers, and there were lobby cards and eight-by-tens of Lon Chaney, Jr doing his thing as Kharis. Comic books featuring an army of Kharis wannabes, too. Paperback novels, plus a couple magazines tipping monsterkids to Hollywood make-up secrets. There was even a stack of 8mm monster movies and a cheap projector. Remember, this was 1963—a long time before VHS, let alone DVD.

  There was other stuff, too. Charlie had taken Woodshop 1, 2, and 3 in high school, and he’d learned enough to build himself his very own Egyptian sarcophagus. A couple professors from the State U came out and looked at it, and they said Charlie might have made something of himself as an archaeology student if he’d taken another path. They analyzed some other Egypt-ware he had in his little hideaway, too. There was a brazier that looked like a real-deal museum piece, a collection of little jars with odd-smelling oils, and a box with a bunch of leaves the guys at the local nursery couldn’t identify. The profs from State U fingered the brazier as a knockoff piece of bric-a-brac from the days of the King Tut craze in the 1920s, and the carved box came from the same era, but they didn’t have any more luck identifying those leaves than the nurserymen did. A rumor spread that Charlie had himself a stash of marijuana, but surely the profs would have known what that was. Even though Mickey Spillane always bumped Jack Kerouac out of the paperback racks around here, we weren’t that far off the map. There’s no doubt a couple of college guys would have known reefer when they saw it.