Rakitaki: A Jonas Quartermain Adventure

by Lee Alexander

  “Are you ready, kid?”

  Jonas nodded, excitement in his eyes. He took the clipboard and walked to the cluster of men standing near an open tent. Calhoun and Jodie followed expectantly. He would succeed, he would show them. This was going to be his career.

  16

  Jonas collapsed onto the cot in his tent. It was a quick-deploy, military style metal frame with thin mattress. He had it all to himself, unlike the other students or the workers. Where other cots or bunkbeds would be set up, he had a desk. He thought about how quickly he fell into a daily routine. At sunset, he would bundle up and join the site foreman in the market square. There they would discuss the day’s work, if any had been done during the daylight hours. They would get reports from the digging teams as they excavated the base of the pyramid by hand. The crew had made the determination in the first week that large tools and vehicles would cause more damage to the structure.

  After the first hour of catch-up, they would lay out a plan for the coming day, including team assignments and scope of work for the day. Then he would spend the next four to six hours catching up on the paperwork generated overnight. Three days passed like that with Calhoun stopping by twice a day to ensure everything was moving along smoothly.

  Jodie worked closely with the team leads. She had a more granular view of the dig which allowed for more informed decisions. Then she would work with Jonas to update the map they kept of the site as they expanded what was uncovered. After the first weeklong shift, they piled into the van stinking of body odor and sand. They were exhausted.

  “The best is yet to come,” Calhoun said from the passenger seat. Jonas groaned loudly, echoed by Simon, Dylan, and Jodie. Sidney remained quiet. She spoke so infrequently it was beginning to freak Jonas out. When the two-hour drive was over, they spilled out of the van and walked like dirt-encrusted zombies to their rooms. Jonas even held his arms out and moaned as he shambled through the lobby. His antics only achieved a cold reception. He supposed zombie movies hadn’t made it to Egypt yet.

  He stripped down in his bathroom and started a shower. It felt like the sand and dirt was caked into every pore of his being. He scrubbed for an hour before he started feeling human again. After he was done with the shower, he collapsed into the bed and slept the day away. When he woke, he called the front desk to do his laundry. An employee took the bag of clothes away with a face like he had sucked on a lemon.

  Jonas grabbed food in the restaurant, still too tired to engage in conversation. Simon was there, shoveling food in like it was a contest.

  “Easy there, dude. I don’t think the food is going anywhere,” Jonas said.

  Simon shook his head as he swallowed. “It’s the food out there. This tastes like it was prepared by the world’s greatest chef on a stove made from pure gold by comparison.”

  Jonas had to admit the truth of the statement. The food was barely edible at the site. He ate with less fervor than Simon. He enjoyed it nonetheless. He wandered into the city, still half awake. The day passed in a blur. He was shocked how tired he was from the work he had been doing at the site. Before he knew it, he was asleep in his room. The next day, he accepted his freshly laundered clothing from the hotel and packed up. He would be back at the site the next evening.

  With nothing better to do, he sat at his desk and used a pen and pad of paper provided there to write letters. First went to his parents and siblings, informing them how successful the dig was and how rewarding the work was. He scrapped the first three drafts before he found a balance between the truth and a good image that he liked. With that, his brain felt fried and he took a nap.

  That night, he ate his last meal at the hotel and left for the dig site again. Calhoun kept him in charge of the pyramid site, this time pairing up with Simon. The ride out was as miserable as he had remembered, worsened by the fact he knew he would be at the site for another three or four days. The cycle repeated another two times, with Dylan at his side on the third trip and Sidney for the fourth.

  “This is so bogus,” Jonas sighed. They were on their fifth trip to the sites. “Why don’t we get more time to rest?”

  “Welcome to the life of an archaeologist. I warned you from the start,” Calhoun said from the front of the van.

  “Two days off while working twelve to sixteen hours a day just isn’t enough.”

  “Shut up, geek,” Simon rumbled.

  “Hey,” Dylan said sharply.

  Simon shoulder bumped the smaller man. “Chill dude, I'm not talking to you.”

  Jonas found the budding friendship between the undeniably nerdy Dylan and the athletic Simon strange. Dylan was not popular at school, not like Jonas, yet Simon had become fast friends with the diminutive ginger. Likewise, Sidney and Jodie had been spending all their free time together. They explored the city together, volunteered to work together at the city site, and even shared a tent. Jonas felt like he was on the outside looking in. The teams changed every trip out to ensure fresh rotations, but Jonas had overseen the pyramid site every time. Dylan and Simon listened when he laid out plans, and even followed them most of the time, but they wouldn't joke with him.

  His days passed slowly, his nights slower still. He was having trouble sleeping on the rough cot in his tent. He also felt watched all the time. Four days at a time working twelve to sixteen hours capped with two days of rest made everything feel painfully slow. He had yet to take advantage of a day off to wander the city or see the sights. One thought stuck in his head as they bumped down the road. He wanted to visit the University, and maybe stumble across a certain student. She had moved out of the hotel during their first trip to the dig.

  He sighed heavily, slumped against the van doors. As he moved, they creaked ominously. He sat up and shot a worried look at them, then the other students. They hadn't noticed anything. Jodie and Sidney were leaning with their heads together, a single metal band stretched to cover an ear for each. The band had bright yellow muffs on the end, and one side had a wire that ran down to a box in Jodie's hand. The device had a word stenciled on the side- ‘Walkman’. Jonas had seen the kids selling the devices on the street, asking for a gut-wrenching hundred dollars. He didn't have that kind of money, but it seemed she did.

  She also had a bag full of cassette tapes, as well as a few extra batteries. He knew they would likely burn through the lot before they were back in town. Simon and Dylan were huddled over a map, trying to point out various parts of the dig despite the juddering of the ride. Their light was terrible, and Dylan held a small flashlight.

  “I hear the drums echoing tonight,” muttered Jodie and Sidney in sync. The lyric hit an ear-worm deep inside Jonas' mind. He was immediately in a sour mood thanks to the song that had dominated everywhere for weeks.

  Even without hearing the familiar refrain, the song began to play in his head.

  ‘But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation.’

  The boredom was killing him. He bumped his head against the doors in frustration. He wanted to hit a party with Elliott, to drink himself under a table, to let loose and do something interesting. Instead, he was going to stare at sand and sandstone. When not staring at that, he would be straining his eyes, hand, and back on paperwork.

  The van stopped at the village. The ladies offloaded with Calhoun. Jonas took the passenger seat at the front. He guessed the professor would show up at the Pyramid site the next day. They rumbled back onto the dirt road and drove to the pyramid. Jonas thought about the distance. Two miles across open desert unprepared was a recipe for death. Yet the ancient Egyptians would have demanded the distance to stay away from the necropolis. The use of yet another Greek word in an Egyptian setting amused him.

  Finally, the tents appeared on the horizon. The van sputtered to a stop and Jonas offloaded with Simon and Dylan. The van turned around and puttered away. They trudged through the sand to the large tents that had become their base of operations. Wind flapped the heavy canvas. Jonas could feel the sand digging into his eyes, nos
e, and ears. He had grown to hate sand with a passion.

  After his backpack was in his tent that doubled as his office, he went to the lowest point of the dig. A staircase had been found descending into what remained of the pyramid just days before the students had joined the dig. More curiously, the staircase had been hard to locate and harder to excavate because it had been filled loosely with stone. They had no idea of how far the construction had progressed due to materials being stolen over the millennia. All that was left was a sunken base that descended into the ever-shifting sands.

  At the bottom of the staircase, Jonas grabbed an oil lantern and drew the shutter to his side to preserve his night-vision. He longed for a flashlight, but they never seemed to work well when he used one inside the pyramid. He walked down the tunnel that led into deeper darkness. Significant progress had been made over the two weeks he had been in charge. Jonas extinguished his lantern as he entered a cleared room. Two kerosene lanterns were on stands in the middle of the room, providing weak light to work by. The diggers were taking the last of the dirt out, a remarkable job considering the conditions above. Off to the right, Jonas saw one man frozen in place, staring at a blank wall.

  “Hello? Uh, oh damn, what was the word again...” Jonas racked his brain for the Egyptian Arabic word he had been taught that meant ‘hello’. “Marhabaan?”

  The man turned, his skin flushed and pale in the flickering light. No dig lights had been brought in yet, and the flames gave his face a sinister shadow. The man mumbled something.

  “Sorry? I didn't hear that,” Jonas said.

  “Khartusha,” the man said, this time barely audible.

  He leaned in to hear better. “Har-what? Wait, did you just say—”

  “Khartusha!” The man shouted in terror as he fled past Jonas. He repeated the word multiple times as he ran down the entry tunnel. The other diggers turned and fled when they heard him shout the word. Jonas wiggled a finger in his ear to relieve the ringing. He recalled, too late, that Egyptians will not enter the burial grounds of a Pharaoh. They believed in the Pharaoh’s curse, a deadly effect of entering the holy tombs. Surely the men had to have known it would have a Pharaoh buried there, but he knew there had been hundreds of pyramids found over the centuries, and not all had contained Pharaohs. He turned back to the wall the man had been staring at.

  An oval was inscribed in the wall, several symbols contained inside. At the bottom rested a single horizontal line. The symbols took a long time to translate in the shifting light. It was a royal cartouche, a signifier that a pharaoh had been buried in the pyramid.

  “Ah. Let's see... Ah-takh... what's this one,” Jonas mumbled to himself as he tried to read the shallow inscription.

  “Jonas? What's going on dude?” Simon's voice carried down the tunnel.

  “Simon?” Jonas shouted back. He didn’t look away from the hieroglyph. “All the diggers fled.”

  Simon’s hand emerged from the tunnel first, carrying a large flashlight. “Yeah, I saw that,” he said. “Why did they run away?”

  “Probably had something to do with this.” Jonas waved at the carved symbols as Simon walked up. Dylan was trailing behind his friend, taking notes.

  Simon shined his flashlight on the hieroglyph. “And that is?” Just then, the flashlight died. Simon smacked it against his palm. “Damn thing’s always going on the fritz.”

  “Yeah, flashlights don’t work down here. That’s why we use the lanterns. This is a cartouche. Don’t you remember studying them in class? Anyway, see the line at the bottom?” Jonas ran a finger down the wall to point at the line in question. “That's an indicator that the name is royal. I was just translating it.”

  “Well, what's it say?” Simon asked.

  “Hang on. Ah-takh-hera...” Jonas sounded out. “Got it. Atakheramen. Looks like he ruled around here. I have no idea how long ago. We'd have to get this stuff dated to have even a general idea.”

  “Holy cow, man,” Simon said in reaction. Dylan was busy scribbling in his notepad.

  Dylan spoke up for the first time that day. “That means this is a burial pyramid, which means there's more chambers. Let's check the walls.” He pounded with his fist against the sandstone, resulting in a quiet thump.

  Simon joined him in hitting the wall before asking “Why?”

  Dylan looked at the larger man, confused. “Don't you remember the classes? There's likely a fake wall to deter thieves.”

  “Oh, right.” Simon walked to a different wall and pounded with his giant fist. No echo came back to them. Jonas rounded the corner to the wall opposite the entrance. He started pounding with his fist as well, listening for anything other than the meaty smack of hand on sandstone. Simon worked on the wall to the left of the entrance. Dylan pounded on the cartouche wall. When Jonas approached the center, he heard a faint echo when he pounded.

  “Over here,” Jonas said. He thumped a few more times to be sure. Then Simon's fist pounded against the wall and the echo was audible to all of them. “This is definitely it. I'm going to go get a sledge hammer.”

  “A pick would work better,” Dylan said.

  “What?” Jonas stopped short, turning back.

  “A pick.” Dylan mimed using a pick like a miner. “Because you're going to want to pull pieces of that wall out, and hitting with a sledgehammer could take days with how thick that sounds.”

  “I guess you’re right. I must be tired,” Jonas said.

  Dylan spoke offhandedly. “My dad owns the biggest construction company in Northern Ohio.”

  “I think my old man works for your dad,” interjected Simon.

  “That's cool and all, but can we focus guys?” Jonas asked his team. They nodded. “Alright, a pick, and a sledge hammer. Anything else?”

  “Well, the diggers aren't likely to come back in here now. So, we'll need shovels at the least. Work lights will help too,” replied Dylan.

  “I don’t know how well the work lights will, uh, work down here. Flashlights are a crapshoot and even the lanterns gutter sometimes. Like there’s a breeze, but I’ve never felt one. We’ll try work lights, but keep the lanterns nearby in case of failure. Simon, can you use the pick on the wall?” Simon nodded, setting out for the tunnel. “I'll work on getting the lights set up. I think the genny is still full of diesel. Dylan, can you help Simon out? I’m going to get a rubbing of this cartouche.”

  Dylan replied in the affirmative and jogged after Simon. Jonas pulled a piece of paper and charcoal out of the fanny pack he kept for just that reason. He felt a thrill run down his spine as Dylan's light disappeared around the corner, then faded away. A breeze came from the tunnel, creating a wailing noise and snuffing his lantern and the two on the plinths. Jonas was plunged into utter darkness.

  17

  Jonas blinked uselessly. “Crap. Hey guys?” Nothing responded. He shook the lantern, hearing kerosene slosh inside. “What good are lanterns if any random breeze can snuff them out?”

  He stuck his free hand out and felt for the wall. He shuffled a step forward, then another. He found nothing. He took several more steps, feeling a growing confusion. The nearest wall should have been no more two or three feet away from him, yet he couldn’t feel anything.

  “Hey!” He shouted again. Panic began to bloom in his stomach. He felt blindly for the wall, shuffling around to get a better understanding of what had happened. He spun in place, searching for the telltale lights outside of the tunnel. Confusion joined the burgeoning panic. He had walked far longer than he should have been able to in the small room. It was only fifteen feet on each side.

  “Jonas!” The voice seemed to echo from every direction. The stone walls gave it reverb and stripped inflection. He couldn't tell who it was that had shouted for him.

  “I'm stuck down here, need some light,” he shouted back.

  Jonas felt something brush his legs and he jumped. He twisted his ankle as he landed, falling on his rear. A faint grinding sound echoed through the room. It was so low an
d quiet, he felt it more than heard it.

  “What the hell was that?” He asked aloud.

  Jonas patted his pockets, looking for matches. He couldn't remember if he had any on him for the lantern. His shirt had a lump on the right side. He unbuttoned the pocket and pulled a metallic rectangle out. He felt it for a long moment, trying to figure out what it was. He’d had the lighter in his pocket for so long without using it, he’d forgotten it was there.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Holcomb under his breath, then flipped the lid open and spun the flint wheel. Sparks threw lights across the room and Jonas screamed in horror. Mummies were all around him, staring with linen wrapped faces. Some had their hands out as if they were trying to grab him. He even saw a cat poised for attack.

  In the brief glance, he saw more than a dozen bodies around him. He stood shakily, thinking of which way he could step to get away from them. He fumbled with the lighter again, striking sparks onto the wick. He stepped away from where he had seen the mummy reaching toward him while shakily flicking his lighter. His hand shook so furiously it took him four attempts to get the wick to catch fire.

  Staying focused on the lantern for fear of what he might see, Jonas opened the glass cover and lit the wick inside. Once it blazed to life, he looked around. There were no mummies. No sarcophagi. No cats. He was in the center of the antechamber he'd been in all along. Somehow, he had been walking in circles; lost in the small room. He turned and found the tunnel. Sweat poured down the back of his neck, and his pulse was racing. He felt light headed. Jonas limped back up the tunnel and stairs.