The Last Priest

by Amy Cross

  Before she could answer, she heard footsteps nearby and turned, shining her torch at the hole in the wall just in time to see Duncan scrambling through.

  “Guys!” he called out. “You have to see this!”

  “Not now,” Chris told him. “We still have to look for the stone tablets.”

  “Hurry!” Duncan shouted, before heading back to the next chamber.

  “What's wrong now?” Chris asked with a sigh, as he and Charley made their way through the darkness and then climbed into the huge hall where the stone warriors stood. Seeing Duncan ahead, already heading into the large round chamber, they hurried past the warriors and finally reached the next room. They both stopped as soon as they saw the stone table down at the bottom of the pit.

  “What the hell?” Chris whispered.

  “Why did you put them there?” Charley asked, staring at the bodies of Martha and Henrik, which had been wrapped in fresh bandages and placed on the table. She turned to Duncan. “Why the hell did you move them?”

  With all the color draining from his face, he turned to her. “I didn't.”

  Chapter Nine

  “This is a joke,” Chris said as he pulled the bandages away from one of the bodies, revealing Henrik's battered face, complete with a bloody hole in his nose. “Duncan, what -”

  “I didn't do this,” Duncan said firmly, his eyes filled with fear. “What the hell kind of maniac do you think I am? I mean, sure, I pulled a few pranks on the way out here, but this? This is not me!”

  “They've been disfigured,” Charley said, staring at Henrik for a moment before turning to Duncan. “Why did you cut their faces up?”

  “I didn't!” he said again, and it was clear that he was close to breaking point. “We put them both behind the wall, remember? And then when I came through here just now, they were on this table, but I swear I'm not the one who moved them!”

  “No way,” Chris replied, shaking his head. “Duncan, I'm sorry, but whatever you're trying to pull here, it won't work. Charley and I were with each other the whole time, so there's no doubt about it, you -”

  “I didn't do this!” Duncan shouted. “I didn't move those bones outside and I sure as hell didn't do... this, whatever it is, to Henrik and Martha!”

  “It looks like someone's begun to mummify them,” Chris replied, pulling some more bandages away to reveal that Henrik's chest had been carved open. “The first stage is the removal of internal organs. It looks like someone's taken everything out, including the brain via the nasal cavity.”

  “No,” Charley said, turning her back to the bodies, “this can't be happening.”

  “Duncan,” Chris continued, “I don't know why you did this, but -”

  “I didn't do anything,” Duncan replied. “Charley, you believe me, don't you?”

  She turned to him, while taking care not to look at the two partially-mummified bodies. “I don't know what to believe,” she said finally. “I mean... I hate to say it, but you're the only one it could have been...”

  “No, it was one of you two,” he continued, taking a step back. “That's the only thing that makes sense. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, maybe you're in it together, but this is sick!” With tears in his eyes, he stared at the bodies for a moment. “Those were living people! They were people we knew, people we worked with, and you just... You cut them up, and for what? Some kind of sick joke?”

  “I don't see anyone laughing,” Chris said firmly. “I'm struggling to understand why you'd do something like this, Duncan, but it's the only possible explanation. Maybe you don't remember, maybe you're cracking up -”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “It's the only possibility,” Chris continued. “Charley and I both know that we were in the burial chamber for the past few hours. Think about it, you're the only person who could possibly have done this.”

  “I didn't touch them,” Duncan replied, his voice trembling with fear. “I swear on my life, I swear on anything you want, but this is nothing to do with me! I just found them this way!”

  Charley and Chris exchanged a glance for a moment, and it was clear that neither of them believed what Duncan was saying.

  “We should get out of here,” Chris said finally. “I don't know exactly what's happening, but we've been inside this place for too long. We all need to take a short break. Even if it's still raining out there, we need a little fresh air. We're starting to develop some kind of cabin fever.”

  “I didn't do this!” Duncan shouted, sounding increasingly desperate. “What do you think I am, a complete goddamn idiot?”

  “I think everyone's dealing with the intensity of the situation in a different way,” Chris told him, “and the best step is to alleviate that tension. We need to go outside.”

  “Fuck this,” Duncan replied, turning and hurrying up the steps that led to the doorway.

  “We'll work it all out,” Chris continued as he and Charley followed. “Whatever happened here, we'll piece it all together and everyone will be okay. No-one's losing their mind.” As they hurried to catch up to Duncan, they reached the long stone corridor that led out of the pyramid. “The most important thing is that we stick together, we're out here alone and -”

  He stopped suddenly as the entire corridor seemed to shake. In the distance, a grinding sound could be heard, along with chains rattling.

  “What's that?” Charley asked.

  Up ahead, Duncan had stopped and was shining his torch back at them.

  “Don't panic,” Chris said firmly, “we just -”

  Before he could finish, the corridor lurched again and the stone floor gave way, dropping into the darkness below until finally they fell freely for a few seconds. Eventually they crashed onto a hard stone floor, their torches rolling away into the darkness all around.

  Feeling an intense pain in her ankle, Charley tried to get up but immediately realized she'd at least suffered a sprain, if not broken the ankle entirely. She let out a faint cry as the pain burst up her leg, and after a moment she forced herself to take a series of slow, steady breaths in an attempt to calm down.

  “Charley!” Chris called out. “Duncan! Are you okay?”

  “I'm over here!” she shouted, still struggling against the pain. Spotting light nearby, she saw that Chris had picked up one of the torches and was heading over to her. “It's my ankle,” she explained, “I think it's broken.”

  “You'll be okay,” he replied, kneeling next to her and taking a look. “You're lucky that's the only damage.”

  “Where's Duncan?” she asked.

  He turned and shone his torch into the darkness. “Duncan!” he shouted. “Say something!”

  “He must be hurt,” Charley replied, trying to fight the pain as she struggled to her feet. She couldn't put any weight at all on her right foot, so she hopped forward for a moment before Chris reached out to support her. “Duncan!” she called out. “Can you hear us?”

  All around them in the darkness, there was nothing but silence.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, taking Chris's torch and shining it straight up to reveal the broken ceiling far above them. Aiming the torch around, she saw pieces of broken stone all around, which she figured was all that remained of the collapsed floor. “Where are we?” she asked, turning to Chris. “It's too far to climb back up, so where the hell did we end up?”

  “We must have triggered another trap somehow,” he replied, taking the torch back from her. “God knows how this place is rigged.”

  “So now what do we do?” she asked, limping through the darkness and picking up the only other torch that still worked. Turning, she shone the light around, revealing stone walls. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”

  “We'll find a way,” he replied, “don't worry, we'll definitely get out of here.”

  “Where the hell is Duncan?” Charley asked, shining the torch around until finally she spotted a crumpled figure on the floor nearby. Hurrying over as fast as she could manage on her dam
aged ankle, she knelt next to him and saw that he'd hit his head during the fall, leaving a patch of blood glistening on the stone floor. “Duncan!” she shouted, shaking his shoulders. “I think he's hurt!”

  “We're lucky we didn't all break our necks when we fell,” Chris replied, kneeling on the other side of Duncan and gently rolling him over. He checked his pulse with two fingers on the side of his neck. “He's alive.”

  “It looks bad,” Charley said after a moment. “Oh God, I think it's really bad!”

  “Duncan,” Chris continued, tapping the side of the other man's face before forcing one of his eyes open. “His pupils are distended,” he said after a moment, as he checked the other eye. “He must have taken a hell of a knock to the head. At the very least, he's concussed.”

  “There's a doorway over there,” Charley pointed out, shining her torch toward the far wall, where an open doorway led through to darkness beyond. “Do you think that could be a way out?”

  “There's only one way to know for sure,” Chris replied, getting to his feet. “Come on.”

  “We can't leave him here!”

  “He'll be okay. We're better off finding an exit, then we can come back for him. He'll just slow us down otherwise.”

  “We're not abandoning you,” Charley said, looking down at Duncan. “You know that, right? If you can hear me at all, we're going to come back for you! We'd never, ever leave yo behind.”

  Getting up, she hurried after Chris, following him through into what turned out to be a long, wide corridor with a low ceiling.

  “This is the wrong way,” she said as soon as she caught up to him. “Aren't we going deeper into the pyramid?”

  “I don't see any other routes,” he replied. “Don't worry, we'll -”

  “Stop telling me not to worry,” she hissed. “This seems like a really bloody good time to be worrying! Maybe we should just go back and find a way to climb up?”

  “Let's just see where this leads first,” he told her. “It quite possibly -”

  They both stopped suddenly as they heard a distant rumbling sound. The floor shuddered for a moment, before the sound stopped.

  “Remind me,” Charley said after a few seconds, “exactly how many tons of stone are over our heads right now?”

  “Enough that I don't want to think about it,” he replied, leading her further along the corridor. “Don't worry, this pyramid has stood for a thousand years, it's not about to collapse on top of us.”

  “Unless it was designed to do that when the burial chamber was breached.”

  “They didn't have that level of engineering skill.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked, struggling to stay calm. “Half the things you tell us turn out to be wrong! If they didn't have the level of engineering skill to pull this off, then how the hell did it just happen?”

  “Trust me, Charley, we're going to find a way out.”

  Reaching the end of the corridor, they found another doorway. Chris took a moment to check it for traps before stepping through, with Charley right behind. They found themselves in a long, low-ceilinged room, with a stone altar in the center and, over by the far wall, two human shapes wrapped in dirty, rotting bandages.

  “What the hell are those?” Charley asked.

  “I think they're probably what they look like,” Chris replied, “but... That's impossible. Only Ah-Shalla would have been mummified, it would have been considered sacrilege to afford anyone else the same privilege.”

  Making her way across the room, Charley shone her torch at the two figures and saw to her horror that blood seemed to have leaked through and stained the bandages. Nearby, a small pile of old clothes had seemingly been discarded, and when she reached down to pick up one of the items, she discovered that it was an old-fashioned hunting jacket.

  “Chris,” she said slowly, as a growing sense of horror began to rise through her chest, “I think we might have found the other two members of the Harold Cathcart expedition.”

  “Impossible,” Chris replied, hurrying over to her. “There's no indication that they managed to get inside, and anyway, how the hell -”

  Stopping, he took the jacket from her and examined it for a moment, before looking back down at the two bandaged bodies.

  “How did they get in?” he continued, his voice filled with fear. “More importantly, why is there no sign of them having broken through? Unless someone blocked it up again, there'd have to be some damage somewhere!”

  “And who did this to them?” Charley asked, turning and shining her torch back over toward the stone altar. “It's almost as if...” Her voice trailed off for a moment.

  “Almost as if what?” Chris asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied, glancing back along the empty corridor as she told herself to stay calm. “Forget it.”

  “I still don't understand how they got inside,” Chris continued, making his way over to the stone altar and examining the surface for a moment. “I've read all the reports about their expedition. When Harold Cathcart returned to London, he spoke to no-one apart from his wife, and even then he barely said anything. Later that night, just as Charles Ravenscroft arrived to see him, Cathcart shot himself and -”

  Before he could finish, there was another rumbling sound nearby.

  “What do you think's through here?” Charley asked, heading over to an archway at the far end of the room. She shone her torch through, but she saw only another stone corridor.

  “There was that other door, remember?” he replied. “Back up at the top, when we first came in? The gateway to the land of the dead, according to Duncan. I guess we must either be in that part of the pyramid now, or close to it.” He paused for a moment. “Land of the dead. Maybe that means we're in the part where other mummification processes took place. I always assumed that mummification would be reserved for Ah-Shalla alone, but obviously I was wrong. It's really like a whole city down here. I guess Ah-Shalla wanted everything done perfectly and -”

  Hearing another rumbling sound, he looked up just in time to see a fine sprinkling of dust falling from the ceiling.

  “Okay,” he said finally, “I think maybe it's time to hurry up. We need to get out of this place before -”

  Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound from the direction they'd just come. Turning, they both felt the room shaking for a moment, and it was clear that there had been some kind of rockfall elsewhere in the pyramid.

  “Don't worry,” Chris said, leading her back through the doorway and along the corridor, “I'm sure it's nothing. There's no way the entire pyramid would just randomly start to collapse after we -” Stopping, he shone his torch straight ahead, revealing the sight of rubble and broken stones that had collapsed from the ceiling, blocking their way entirely.

  Hurrying forward, Charley began to pull some of the stones away, but it was soon clear that a substantial part of the ceiling had come down.

  “We're trapped,” she stammered, still trying to find a way through. “What the hell is going on in this place?”

  “We're not trapped,” Chris said firmly, although there was fear in his eyes. “We just need to find another way out.”

  “What about Duncan?”

  Chris opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out.

  “We can't leave him!” she shouted, pulling another stone free before turning to Chris. “This whole place is going to come crashing down, isn't it?” she continued, starting to feel short of breath. “We're trapped, we're never going to find a way out! We don't even have any way to call for help, I...” Taking a series of deep breaths, she tried to stay calm. “I can't breathe properly,” she said finally, taking a step back. “I feel like I'm suffocating.”

  “You're having a panic attack,” he said, making his way over to her. “Just focus on breathing normally, we've got plenty of air while we find our way out.”

  “We're trapped down here,” she continued breathlessly, with tears in her eyes. “Either the rest of the pyramid comes crashing dow
n onto us, or we'll be left to wander around until we starve!”

  “None of that is going to happen,” he told her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Charley, listen to me. We're going to keep going, and we're going to find another way out of this place. Think about it, there were two doorways at the top, and we only went down one of them, the gateway to hell or whatever it was called. There's still the other gateway, so we just have to find a way back up there. That makes sense, doesn't it?”

  “But how are we -”

  “By following the corridor,” he continued, “and by not panicking. There's plenty of air, so the only danger is that we end up freaking out, and that's not going to happen.” He waited for her to catch her breath. “It's not going to happen, Charley. Is it?”

  She took several deep breaths, before finally starting to feel a little calmer.

  “No,” she said finally, “it's not.”

  “That's good. So now we're going to follow this corridor and just calmly find the right route.”

  She nodded.

  “And we'll get Duncan out too,” he continued. “We really will, I promise.”

  “But what if -” She looked up at the ceiling, and for a moment she was convinced she could hear a faint shuffling sound in the distance. Telling herself not to say anything stupid, she realized she had to stay strong. “Sure,” she said finally. “We're going to get out of here. We are.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I heard it again,” Charley said, stopping and looking back. She shone her torch along the corridor, but the beam of light picked out nothing more than the same bare stone walls they'd passed a moment ago.

  “It's in your head,” Chris said, not even bothering to turn to her. “Let's keep going.”

  “Didn't you hear it?”

  “The only thing I'm hearing at the moment is your voice every two minutes, asking if I heard something. Believe me, that's more than enough.”

  She paused, still watching for some sign of company.

  “Charley!” Chris called out, having finally stopped a little way ahead. “For God's sake, can you just hurry up?”