Small-Town Face-Off

by Tyler Anne Snell

  “Why is that?”

  Harley didn’t answer. The flap opened again and Jensen Morrow, another of the students, poked his head in to answer.

  He’d obviously heard the question.

  “Ooh! ’Cause you shouldn’t be alone with scary old stuff when you have cool kids like us to hang out with!” Jensen said.

  They all laughed. Jensen was a good-looking, dark-haired young man who loved the study he was involved in, and Dr. Henry Tomlinson liked him very much, as well. Jensen played hard, but he worked harder. He came from money; his father was an inventor who’d come up with a special cleaning product. And yet Jensen never acted like money, never acted pretentious or entitled the way some rich kids did.

  “Tempting, tempting, tempting,” Henry said again. “But I’m going to stay.”

  Jensen raised his eyebrows at Harley. “Hey, girl, then it’s you and me heading out. The old man here isn’t coming. That’s okay. We’re bringing back the goods. Just the two of us, since Belinda Gray is waiting for a video chat with her fiancé—military, as we know!—in Iraq. Roger Eastman agreed to help one of the tech guys investigate some computer info they’re picking up. I hate to say it, but we’re getting chatter about an insurgent group starting up. And Joe Rosello said he wants to learn more about the excavation equipment. He’s working with that pretty Egyptian girl, our translator, and learning about hoists.”

  “Hoists? Yeah, right!” Harley said. “Satima. She is pretty, and thank goodness we have her. I’m just grateful she filled in at the last minute when the older gentleman we’d hired wound up ill. If I know our friend Joe at all, I know he’s very happy!” she said to Henry. “We won’t go far, since we seem to be feeling a wee bit nervous! And we won’t be late. We’ll bring you something to eat and see if you want to be social when we get back, okay? If, and only if, you’re absolutely positive you don’t want to take a ride with this handsome, if ridiculous, guy and me?”

  Henry laughed. “Oh, Harley, you’re a sweetheart, but give it up. You know I’m not coming.”

  She grimaced, a delightful movement of her face. “Yes, I do,” she admitted. “But we—your devoted students—have to try. I’ll bring you a special treat for dinner.”

  “Don’t worry about me, guys. I’ll be fine.”

  “Sorry, we will worry about you. At least we can make sure you eat. I’m willing to bet you’re going to be up all night—and you won’t even notice that you haven’t slept,” Harley said.

  He smiled and made a shooing motion with his hands. “Go! Get on out with you. Be young and have fun and don’t become an obsessive old curmudgeon like me. Jensen, get her out of here!”

  “Yes, sir!” Jensen said.

  Harley still hung back. “You’re neither obsessive nor old,” she insisted. “Okay, wait. Maybe you are obsessive. Anyway, we’ll be back by nine or so, and like I said, I’ll bring you something delicious.”

  “Sounds lovely! See you soon.”

  And at last, Harley and Jensen left.

  Dr. Henry Tomlinson turned his attention back to Unknown Mummy #1 for several long moments. Many pharaohs and royalty and even esteemed but lesser men, like Amenmose, ended up with unknowns in their tombs—servants needed in the next life.

  Almost the entire lid of the coffin had been torn open. That afternoon, two of the students had painstakingly cleared out the rubble around the mummy. But Henry felt as if he was indeed looking at remnants featured in a B horror flick; the thing really did appear to be a man who’d been wrapped up with his mouth open in horror, left to silently scream into eternity.

  Mummies weren’t wrapped like this alive. Unless, of course...

  He’d never been intended to be a mummy?

  He’d been a murder victim.

  Could this unidentified mummy be Amenmose himself? he wondered excitedly. They hadn’t identified the man’s tomb.

  Great question, but it wasn’t scientific to jump to conclusions. X-rays would give them an image of the insides—and that would probably tell them if the facial contortions had happened because of some accident in the drying process or if he had somehow been wrapped alive!

  No, it couldn’t be Amenmose, Henry decided. According to the ancient texts and all the information at his disposal, Amenmose had died before burial. Besides, they’d discovered one coffin in an inner tomb, deep in a hidden recess—again, just as the ancient texts had said. Amenmose’s enemies might have defiled his tomb if those who loved him hadn’t concealed his remains. The mummy here, found in the outer chamber, couldn’t be Amenmose—not unless there was a great deal they were missing! “Sorry, old boy. Lord only knows what happened to you,” Henry told the mummy.

  “Hey!”

  The inner flap to the preparation tent opened again. Henry looked over to see that it was Alchemy’s director at large, Ned Richter.

  He was smiling. As he should have been. Their day had been fantastic.

  “Hey,” Henry said. He liked Richter okay. Although not an Egyptologist himself, the man was studious and yet always ready help out with manual labor when needed.

  Henry didn’t like Richter’s wife, Vivian, so much. She was an Egyptologist, too—at least in her own mind, he thought with a snort. Okay, so she did have her master’s degree from Brown; she was just annoying as hell and she didn’t think clearly or reason anything out. She was an attractive enough woman with short dark hair and dark eyes, and she claimed the maternal side of her father’s family had been Egyptian.

  She liked to pretend that she knew what she was talking about.

  She seldom did.

  “Just checking on you!” Richter said.

  Henry heard Vivian speaking behind her husband. “Tell him to come with us. We’ll get some food and drinks.”

  “Hey, Viv!” Henry called out. “I’m good tonight. Going to work. And a couple of the students are picking me up something to eat. Listen,” he added in a more affable voice, “can’t wait till you and I have a chance to talk tomorrow. We can compare notes then!”

  “Can’t you make him come?” Henry heard Vivian whisper.

  “No,” Richter said flatly. “He’s head of the examination and prep all the way through the removal to Cairo—by Alchemy and the Egyptian government. As you know,” he muttered.

  “See you in the morning!” Henry called pleasantly. Yes!

  But he’d barely turned around before he heard the inner tent flap opening again.

  This time, it was Arlo Hampton, the Egyptologist who’d been employed specifically by Alchemy to watch over their investment.

  Arlo was young—tall, straight and a little skinny. He preferred his thick glasses to contact lenses. Good thing for Arlo that nerds were in; he was, beyond a doubt, a nerd. But a friendly and outgoing nerd. He loved Egyptology, and yet, unlike certain other people, he wasn’t full of himself or convinced that he knew everything.

  “Hey, I knew you’d be alone with the treasures, snug as a bug in a rug!” Arlo told him cheerfully. There was something slightly guilty in his voice. “I wanted to make sure you were okay, though.”

  “I’m great. And, of course, if you want to join me...”

  “I’m beat, Henry. I’m what? Thirty years younger than you? I don’t know how you do it. I’m going to have a sandwich with the grad students when Harley and Jensen get back, and then hit my bunk until tomorrow. If that’s okay. I mean, I should be like you, hard at work... Oh, I did just meet Belinda’s boyfriend on Skype. Seems like a decent guy. So Belinda, Roger and Joe are taking care of their personal business, and then we’re all going to meet and after that—”

  “I saw Harley and Jensen. They’ll bring me food. You’re fine, Arlo. Have a nice night.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Strange, though. Something doesn’t feel right his evening. Am I just being paranoid?”

  �
�Yes. And shoo. Go on, Arlo. You worked hard today. And I’m an obsessive old bastard. Get out of here!”

  Arlo grinned. He lifted his hands. “I’m gone!”

  And, at last, he was.

  Henry was thrilled. He even began singing Ariel’s song from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid.

  He walked back over to Unknown Mummy #1. “Strange,” he said, shaking his head with perplexity as he studied the mummy. “Just who was he? And what brought him here in this state?”

  But then he shrugged. He’d found “natural” mummies at other sites—servants who’d stood guard after burial rites and died where they collapsed after the tombs were sealed and they slowly asphyxiated.

  Henry walked back over to his desk to dictate notes into a recorder for the exhibit, which would one day be based on this project. “The earliest Egyptians buried their dead in small pits in the desert sand. The sand and the heat naturally ‘mummified’ the dead. Later, to prevent animals from digging up the bodies, they resorted to creating coffins. Coffins kept out animals, but they didn’t allow for the natural mummification that had been occurring when the bodies had gone straight into the sand. So the Egyptians began to learn the art of embalming. They quickly discovered that the ‘wet’ parts of the body needed to be removed. That included the heart and lungs, brain and liver and other organs. These were stored in canopic jars, where they were guarded, just as the body was guarded, so the dead were protected and ready as they entered into the afterlife. The process became forty days of drying with natron, a form of salt. Of course, a body was never simply dried. It was adorned with oils at various stages and also treated with religious rites.”

  Henry stopped speaking; he thought he’d heard something moving in the preparation tent. That was odd. The local guards and the staff who worked for Alchemy were weary and bored with the findings. Egyptians had been unearthing mummies forever and ever, and even the security force of Americans and Brits was more bored by the ancient than intrigued. Most of them had worked around the world. They were, in a word, jaded—and far more interested in the pay scale than the work itself.

  He looked around the tent. Nothing. Everything as it had been. Crates and boxes and mummies and treasures!

  He shook his head, impatient with himself. He was incredibly lucky to have this time alone in the preparation tent. He’d been the one to do the research and the calculations; he’d been the one who’d garnered the sponsorship that had provided the money for this expedition. His papers had raised significant interest. It was—yes, indeed—his baby.

  But eventually Dr. Arlo Hampton would want his time here, his chance to study these mummies, these treasures. So would Yolanda Akeem, their liaison with the Department of Antiquities. Then, of course, there was Ned Richter...and his wife. He’d bet that Richter couldn’t care less if he got any time with the mummies and ancient treasures or not. Richter was there to guard Alchemy’s interests and, Henry suspected, to ensure that they looked as if they were being incredibly magnanimous to the Egyptian government. After all, Alchemy financed these expeditions, he was almost certain, for tax breaks—and the media attention and promotion they provided.

  Fine. The excavation was a great success. And this was his time. His time alone with all his treasures!

  He started to go back to his work, but he could’ve sworn he’d seen movement from the corner of his eye.

  He stood up and walked around.

  Nothing.

  Henry sat back down and continued his recording.

  “Ancient Egypt—”

  There was something behind him!

  He tried to spin about.

  And he saw nothing but binding, the linen binding that had been used on the ancient dead, saw it wrapped around fingers and a hand, saw the fingers and the hand circle his neck and—

  Fingers, like wire, clutching his throat, so powerful, so strong...

  He fought their hold. Wriggled and squirmed. He tried to rise; he couldn’t. The pain was terrible. The world began to blacken before him; little dots of light exploded in the darkness. And all he could think was that—

  The mummy!

  The mummy had risen to kill him!

  It was impossible. Impossible. Impossible...

  He was a scientist. Rational. He didn’t believe.

  He was a scientist...

  And as the last electrons exploded against the stygian pit of his dying mind, he couldn’t help but think...

  He was a scientist.

  Being killed by an ancient Egyptian mummy.

  It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right.

  Copyright © 2017 by Heather Graham Pozzessere

  ISBN-13: 9781488013188

  Small-Town Face-Off

  Copyright © 2017 by Tyler Anne Snell

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