Eternal Unrest: A Novel of Mummy Terror

by Dixon, Lorne; Cato, Nick

  “Safekeeping?” he screamed. “Honey, there ain’t nothing safe about it, and we ain’t keeping anything, not even our skins unless you know some way to stop them.”

  Mason stood up. “What’s he talking about, them?”

  “He looks drunk,” Eli said, rising beside Mason.

  “I ain’t drunk, cook,” Felix sputtered, wrapping his hands around the bars and rattling the gate. “And I think she knows what I’m talking about. I saw how you looked at those crates. You know.”

  Priscilla muttered, “I don’t know how to stop them.”

  “Stop WHO?” Mason said as he stepped up behind Priscilla. His hand slid into hers and squeezed. “If you know what he’s going on about, I need you to tell me.”

  Priscilla turned. “Mason, I told you about the voice and the crate—”

  Felix screamed.

  Brigham had pounced from the floor, reached through the bars, and closed his fists around handfuls of the mechanic’s hair. Twisting, the Englishman jerked Felix’s head forward, smashing his forehead against the steel, wrenching back, slamming forward. The screaming stopped as the sound of Felix’s head striking the bars turned from cracking timber into a wet slap. A leaf of flesh tore away above his right eye, opening a jagged diagonal flap that extended down to his crushed, broken nose.

  Pulling his head through the bars, Brigham brought his face close, stared into Felix’s eyes, and spat into the open wound. Releasing him with a dismissive shove, the mechanic slumped, head locked between the bars, knees turning inward, hands swaying at the hips.

  No one spoke. The violence had come too quickly for any of them to process what had happened in real time; it was as if the events happened twice, once in a blur, and a second time, in sharp focused memory. Priscilla willed herself to move, to say something, to do anything at all, but numbness owned her.

  Eli was the first to break out of the daze, signing the cross on his chest before kissing his fingertips and whispering the final line of Psalm 4, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”

  Brigham, wobbling on his feet, turned his head. Even in profile Priscilla saw a sea change in him, the English pub boy gone, murdered by Horst, replaced by the more basic man underneath: the primitive neanderthal resurrected, the hunter-gatherer, the human animal. She was shocked to hear him speak, as if savage grunts were now more appropriate than his growling London accent. “Don’t pray. Don’t draw God’s attention. Maybe He’s too busy with the war to see what we’re going to have to do now.”

  Dropping to his knees, he searched Felix’s pants pockets, turning them inside out, until one hand came away with a key between the fingers. Pulling himself up, he worked the lock, hands shaking, metal clanging, until the bolt turned. With a heavy push, he swung the gate open. Felix’s body toppled free and collapsed to the floor.

  Mason, breaking out of his own shock, ran past Priscilla and snagged Brigham by the shoulder. Shrugging him off, he said, “Get your hands off me. No one touches me. Never again.”

  Hands up, Mason retreated a step. “Listen, man, didn’t mean anything by it, and I’m thankful for what you’ve done here, getting us free. But before we go out there half-cocked and fully shell-shocked, I think we need to have some idea of what we plan to do.”

  “I don’t need a plan,” Brigham said, walking through the gate. “I’m going to get Dara and then we’re getting off this ship. However that happens, that’s just fine, no sand in my gears, but I will not wait inside this cage a moment more, not with her out there.”

  Priscilla stepped forward. “Brigham, I know that—”

  “You shut your mouth.” Spinning around, Brigham wagged an accusing finger into her face. “You sent her out there. You did that. I might’ve been able to protect her in here, I would have—”

  “You weren’t in any condition to protect anyone,” Mason countered as he swatted Brigham’s finger out of the air. “None of us want anything to happen to the girl, but getting ourselves killed won’t save her.”

  Leaning down, Brigham swiped the revolver out from Felix’s waistband, then heaved the body over and reclaimed his paperback from the back pocket. Cocking back the gun’s hammer, he stood and headed out into the hallway. “Well, I’m better now, see that? And if I have to die, I’ll die, but those Krauts won’t harm a hair on her head.”

  As he vanished into the hallway’s shadows, Priscilla called his name, loud enough to echo, and hoped that no one but the Englishman heard.

  “Let him go,” Eli said as he brushed against her. “Man’s got to do what he thinks is right. What he’s been through, I say he’s earned the right to go out fighting, if that’s how it’s to be.”

  “Eli,” she said, “the gun in his hand won’t fire.”

  “He won’t have a chance.”

  Priscilla stepped out into the hallway. “No, he probably won’t, not without our help.”

  Following her, Mason muttered, “If my mother could see me today: risking my last layer of skin to save an Englishman …”

  Chapter 24

  Bennie closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and thought of his childhood, of decorating Christmas trees, swimming in the shallows off Coney Island and his grandmother’s apple turnovers. Opening his eyes, he forced all those pleasant thoughts out of his mind. They were his most precious memories, glorious moments from too long ago, and he wanted to protect them, to box them away and keep them pure and unshaded by the next few moments. Once his mind was blank, he rushed onto the bridge, gun hand outstretched, and prepared himself to murder the skinny German sitting at the controls.

  He didn’t allow himself to hear the patter of Dara’s feet trailing behind him, didn’t want to think about what she might see; instead, he focused on the blur of light and motion that met him inside, the German leaping off his chair and reaching for the rifle leaning against the console, blood streaks on the floor, the captain’s body under a sheet, light trails streaking across observation windows. Waving Buddy’s Luger, he closed in on the German, kicking the rifle away and ramming the handgun’s short barrel into the side of the soldier’s throat.

  One finger at his lips, he shushed the Nazi and glared down at him with eyes he hoped suggested that killing him would be as pleasurable as sharing silk sheets with Jean Harlow. The soldier froze, his body trapped in an unnatural pose against the control console, and stared up at him with the look of a terminal patient.

  “You’re name is Erich?” Bennie grumbled, letting the words crunch in his mouth as if he was chewing on rocks. “I’ve been listening for a while. Erich, right?”

  After a slow nod, he said, “Yes. Erich Frauenheim, Oberstleutnant, infanterie Truppen.”

  “But not anymore, is it?” Bennie said, jamming the gun harder against Erich’s throat. “Now you’re just a criminal trying to escape from your own people. You got no home to go back to, you got nothing. So now here we are. End of the line. I can make it easy for you, or I can make it hurt. Understand?”

  Erich nodded.

  “So, you tell me, where’s the key to the cell where you’ve got the others? Which one of you has it?”

  The soldier slumped, sliding slowly down the console, until he was kneeling. “Please, I went to university in America, Princeton University, I like America very much. I don’t want to—”

  “The key.” Bennie slid the gun barrel up, propping it behind his right ear. “Tell me now, no more delays, no second chances. Where is the key?”

  “Your man, Felix,” Erich said, “he has it.”

  “Thank you.” Bennie flicked his eyes to the door. Dara stood there, eyes wide, her good arm holding the fractured one. “Honey, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes now—”

  “No, please …” Erich pleaded.

  “—and cover your ears.”

  Dara did as she was told.

  There was no choice, he told himself. Leaving this German alive was too great a risk, one he felt certain he would regre
t. America might not have been at war—not yet, anyway—but the remaining crew and passengers of the Limpkin were, and wars were not won by compassion and mercy. There would be time enough to forgive himself later, he hoped, but for now, he had to pull the trigger.

  He had to.

  There was no choice.

  The gun felt heavy and clumsy in his shaking hand.

  “—please, I just want to live—”

  Grinding his teeth, Bennie growled, cursing him for speaking and making it more difficult. “That’s all Captain Melfast wanted, too, just to sail around the world a few more times, nothing more than that. But he was robbed of that dream. He’s dead because of you—”

  “—No, not me. Him—Doctor Oelrich, he—”

  “Just following orders, are ya?” Bennie steadied his index finger on the trigger, tightening, pulling the metal back. It seemed like such an easy thing to do, no more difficult than flicking a light switch, but the trigger felt unmovable. “Just doing what you were told? Well, there’s a voice in my head right now telling me what I have to do, too. Does that make this okay? Does it?”

  “—please—”

  No choice.

  He pulled the trigger. The sound was louder than he could have imagined. Not the gunshot—that quick blast sounded as blunt and terrifying as he would have guessed, but it was fleeting and forgettable. The sound that forced his jaw to clench was the ferocious crack of the soldier’s skull bursting apart, the nine-millimeter bullet rocketing through and shattering the bone into loose shards and broken plates. The bulk of the shot—and his brain—exited out of his mouth.

  Oberstleutnant Erich Frauenheim, that was the name of the man he’d just killed. The name swirled in his head even before the sound of the gunshot faded. Erich Frauenheim, who had gone to America, to Princeton University, and liked America. Erich Frauenheim, a name he knew he would never be able to forget, now as part of him like the phantom limbs that amputees sometimes claimed they still sometimes felt.

  Bennie hated himself. For a moment he even considered turning the Luger and punishing himself for his sin. He could not have foreseen the depth of the disgust he felt, powerful enough to turn his stomach and cloud his thoughts. Unable to control himself, he lunged over the console and vomited. Wiping his mouth, he glanced down at the dead soldier at his feet. “I’m sorry, Erich. I really am.”

  The gun in his hand, the gun he had wanted so badly, suddenly felt like a loathsome thing. His hand wanted to drop it, abandon it here at the scene of his crime, and resisting the urge was as difficult as ignoring a persistent itch. But he held onto the Luger.

  He turned and felt his empty stomach lurch.

  Dara was gone.

  Chapter 25

  Dara ran, blinded by her tears, the sound of Mr. Leland’s gun ringing in her ears and deeper inside her as well, down where the memory of her father’s murder clung to her every thought like a ghost unwilling to be exorcised. Jostled by her sprint, flares of pain shot up from her fractured arm, acute and powerful, like seizures. Fighting the pain, she rushed down the stairs, swaying, her good hand on the metal bannister, two rungs passing below her with every leap.

  Landing hard, her foot twisted and she fell, spinning, down the stairwell, each metal stair bringing a fresh spasm of pain. She screamed, not out of pain but fear, unable to slow her decent as she rolled. Her arm cracked as it made contact with the lip of a rung, her shoulder hit the next, the back of her head on a third.

  Her fall ended at the landing. Curling out of a fetal ball, she sobbed and lifted herself off the floor, hand and feet slipping, twisted ankle limp and unresponsive. Her tiny body was rocked by powerful muscle spasms as she gained her footing, forcing her to brace herself with the wall and paddle along, limping, never able to fully plant her right foot.

  She didn’t recognize the hallway. Although all of the Limpkin’s halls looked similar, this one gave her no familiar landmarks at all, no open doors or dirty footprints or water stains. She moved as quickly as she could, gaining enough speed to shuffle, leading with her good foot, tapping down only for a moment with the other.

  “Dara,” a voice called from beyond the turn. The sound of it froze her advance. She clutched at the wall, propping herself up and squinting into the light and dark patches of hallway. The familiar voice called her again, not in Briggy’s nasal English or Priscilla’s American accent, but in a feminine Polish tongue. “Dara.”

  A thin, petite silhouette turned the corner, breasts and hips and flowing hair, a shape she knew. She held her breath as Aunt Keena stepped into the circle of light under a swaying bulb. The harsh light made her pale skin glow with the eerie luminescence of moonlight on a heavy fog. “Come to me, girl. Quick, they come now.”

  Dara’s feet did not move. Shivering, she pressed closer to the wall. There was something wrong with Aunt Keena’s eyes, something she couldn’t define at a distance or under such a strong, direct light. “You die. I see it.”

  “No, no, not die.” Aunt Keena came down the hall, disappearing in the darkness between orbs of light, re-emerging closer. “Fool them. I play dead. A game. Hide-seek, like in wagons. You remember wagons?”

  Trembling, Dara nodded.

  Aunt Keena’s face smiled before disappearing into the dark again, lips curling up at an unusual angle, rotten teeth flashing before her features merged with the shadows.

  Dara retreated a step, but moving backward brought a powerful bolt of pain from her twisted ankle. She let out a yelp.

  Aunt Keena emerged from the darkness, now inside the halo of the light over Dara’s head, and asked, “Do you want to play again, Dara? Play dead with me?”

  Aunt Keena’s eyes had two pupils each.

  Dara screamed. The thing that came at her was not her aunt, but some horrible thing’s idea of her, and the second set of pupils, dark and hallow, were its eyes. Pushing off the wall, she tumbled to the floor as the creature hovered over her, turned, its pale skin rippling as the illusion faded, becoming a mass of twisted rotten wrappings and calcified flesh moving like a colony of ants. It’s long, arthritic fingers, as rigid as the prongs of a garden tool, reached down for her.

  Clawing at the floor, she dragged herself away from the monster, kicking at its groping hands with her good foot. The effort was futile. One strong hand latched onto her ankle, its surface as abrasive as sandpaper against her skin, and jerked her back. A second hand joined the first at her knee and the creature slid her across the floor. Hitting the opposite wall, she clawed for purchase but found nothing to hold. It dragged her down the hallway. She screamed.

  She passed under the buzzing bright light bulbs, into the dark, and back, faster now, until her eyes stopped constricting and dilating and the creature bloomed into a gray smear with barely any discernible shape or detail.

  Pulled around the corner, she slid and collided with the far wall, head rattling, a new shock of pain with every pump of her heart. The creature stopped, turned back toward the stretch of hallway they had come down, and released her ankles. It straightened, her unreliable vision streaking its shape up to the ceiling, and turned its attention to the end of the hall.

  The hallway shimmered and came into focus, still shaky, but no longer a fog of abstract shapes and shadows. The creature towered overhead, facing away, and at the stairwell landing another figure stood under the first dangling bulb, smaller, with one outstretched arm. And a gun in that hand.

  Mr. Leland.

  Taking aim, he fired off two shots. Both shots hit the creature’s chest and tore through, releasing a sound like rustling leaves and a cloud of black debris. It didn’t stir, didn’t acknowledge the damage to its decayed body, but instead raised one of its own hands in a strange pantomime of Mr. Leland’s pose. It’s hand shot open, five fingers extended, and there was a sound like a third gunshot.

  Mr. Leland’s hand opened and the handgun dropped to the floor. His eyes shot from the creature to Dara. Drawing in a deep breath, he reached out and wrapped his hand aro
und his outstretched fingers. They crumbled into dust. His palm followed, then the heel of his hand, and finally, his wrist. Blood gushed from the stump, washing away the granulated remains of his hand.

  He screamed, “RUN, GIRL, RUN—”

  Dara scrambled across the floor, knees following her one good arm, glancing back only once. The creature moved away, approaching Mr. Leland, and for a moment between shafts of light, turned its rotten head and cast a famished stare at her. Even from the distance, she recognized Uncle Tamir’s eyes.

  Chapter 26

  The searing pain drove Bennie to the floor, clutching at his stumped arm, wailing as the fiery pain consumed more of his flesh, curling skin and blackening bone. Pressing his arm underneath his chest, he sought to extinguish the invisible flame, to deny it access to oxygen and snuff it out while he still had an arm. But the fire was inside him, blazing on a molecular level, and he knew there was no stopping it from blazing its way down his arm to the elbow, then to the shoulder, and onward, reaching across his chest until it blackened his heart.

  The mummy came to him, reached down, gripped his neck with one strong hand, lifted him up, and brought him face-to-face with its monstrous visage. Tilting its head, it studied him with a strange curiosity, as if it had discovered a curious new species of insect. No, he realized, it was something else that had captured the creature’s interest—his pain and fear. He felt like a fly with its wings ripped off, dying in the palm of a hand while the murderous child watched with intent eyes.

  The ancient face, shriveled and emaciated, that stared at him had no eyes, only deep sockets, blackened and deformed by centuries of decay, and yet it could not be called blind. Bennie felt its impossible gaze as it considered him, scanning him far beyond the boundaries of flesh, and it felt as if every hidden piece of himself was exposed—his broken childhood, his lifelong mistakes, the nightmares that kept him from sleeping, the cowardice and selfishness. The creature knew everything he’d ever attempted to lock away behind a wall of silence and, when necessary, endless lies.