Casually jogging outside after not hearing any of the locusts, I joined up with everyone else that was already present.
Except that they were all being held at gunpoint which I was also not excluded from.
The Medjai had already been waiting for us outside.
In between us, I was surprised to see that Allen was still alive. I had thought that he died during the initial start of when everything goes kablooey, but turns out I was wrong.
"I told you to leave or die." Ardeth said as he took off his face mask and walked in between both groups.
"You refused. Now, you may have killed us all, for you have unleashed a creature we have feared for more than 3,000 years." Ardeth continued.
"Relax, Deimos got him." said Rick.
"That's right we all saw it!" said Evelyn.
"No mortal or weapon can kill this creature. He's not of this world!" Ardeth refuted.
Ardeth turned and pointed at someone that his companions had dragged to in front of us.
It was Burns.
Still groaning out in pain and anguish because of the loss of his eyes and tongue.
They dragged him and gently gave him away to Henderson and Dave.
"You bastards." Dave said while glaring at Ardeth's men.
"What did you do to him?" Henderson said, trying to comfort Burns.
"We saved him. Saved him before the creature could finish his work." Ardeth said.
"Leave, all of you quickly, before he finishes you all." Ardeth said before turning around to his men.
"Yallah! Imshi!" he told them.
All the guns that were previously targeted on us were holstered and the men carrying them walked into the tomb behind us.
"I must now go on the hunt, and try and find a way to kill him, before he consumes the Earth. Allah be with us." Ardeth said before he walked past us.
"I already told you, Deimos punched his heart out. He got him." Rick tried to ease him up.
Ardeth stopped walking and paused a little.
He turned to Rick and said to him loudly, "Know this, this creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop."
-MEANWHILE WITH BENI-
Beni had been running for a very long time in the many crypts of the tomb.
Though he had gotten separated with the main group due to the sudden appearance of a colossal amount of flesh-eating scarabs.
We can see him now, running around with only a revolver in one hand and a torch in the other, looking completely lost and completely frightened.
A variety of noises of wailing and animal-like groaning could be heard faintly around Beni as he kept pointing to whatever the sources of the sounds were with his gun in hand.
He looked utterly and completely disheveled but still had the fez fixed on his head.
Slowly, he started to walk backwards as one of the noises was heard in front of him and had his gun affixed towards it.
Though the source never appeared, he had backed up slowly into the mummified corpse of Imhotep that had patiently stood behind him.
A quiet but audible grunt could be heard from Imhotep that startled Beni as he turned around quickly and had dropped his torch in the process.
At a loss of words due to the sheer terrifying encounter he had with Imhotep, Beni just stood there, quivering and shaking about, eyes fixed on the eyes of Imhotep.
Slowly, Imhotep took a few short steps towards Beni.
As the distance between them got closer, Beni had opted to take more steps backwards to try and save himself.
Imhotep could be seen trying to hold in the mummy guts that threatened from oozing out from where Deimos had originally punched him.
Beni at this point had dropped the gun in his hand and opted to grab at the various chains that were around his neck.
Religious symbols and icons dangle from each chain as Beni holds the first one in his hand.
A Christian crucifix.
He quickly makes the sign of the cross and blesses himself in English: May the Lord protect and watch over me as a shepherd watches over his flock. And may Satan, in all his forms be vanquished forever.
Though this had no effect on Imhotep, who continued to slowly take steps forward while Beni slowly matched his pace but in walking backwards.
Beni quickly grabs onto another religious symbol: an Islamic crescent moon with a sword and says a prayer/dua in Arabic to bless himself.
Not working either, he quickly grabs at the other symbols and held them out to Imhotep in an effort to slow him down: A Hindu Brahma medallion; a small Buddhist Bodhisattva statue; a Toaismic/Daoistic Yin-Yang. All while blessing himself in Hindi, Chinese and Latin.
Nothing was working.
As Imhotep got closer and closer to Beni, as Beni had gotten cornered, his skeletal-like hand reached out for his throat.
Tears ran down Beni's cheeks, he's so afraid.
But at that moment, he took out, as a last ditch effort, the Star of David and blessed himself in Hebrew.
Imhotep stops in his tracks and lowers his hand. His grotesque eyes fixed on Beni.
He speaks in Ancient Egyptian, "The language of the slaves."
He took a few steps back away from Beni and continued again, but this time in Hebrew, "I may have use for you. And the rewards will be great."
Imhotep reached into the remains of his tattered robe and held out in front of Beni in his fetid hand, a tiny pile of little jewels and gold.
Beni's eyes widened at the sight of this.
"My prince." Beni said as his eyes were fixed on the valuables in Imhotep's hand.
Imhotep then raises his other hand and holds out a broken canopic jar, the same ones that had been in the chest that Dave had kicked open.
"Where are the other sacred jars?"
-BACK TO DEIMOS-
Our American friends and our group started to make preparations to leave Hamunaptra.
I saw Rick and Jonathan helping Evelyn up to her camel. Dave and Henderson threw Burns up on to his own and also helped Allen on to his own while he clutched onto the book of the dead.
After situating all the weaker people on to their mounts, everyone else climbed on their own animals and headed off into the dark, windblown desert.
I opted to travel way behind them and so was still trying to prepare my own camel.
Suddenly, a skeletal hand punched out of the sand near the entrance/exit of Hamunaptra.
Following the hand a loud and primordial sounding shriek was accompanied by it that was very painful to my own ears.
"SHUT UP!!!" I yelled as I stomped onto the hand which silenced the deafening scream.
The hand retracted back into the sand and did not come out again.
"Rest up more bud. You're gonna need it." I said towards the small hole on the ground that was quickly being filled back up with sand.
I got onto my own camel after that and rode into the desert in the dead of night.
-MORNING TIME-
I caught up with the main group towards the end of our journey as we neared a British fort.
Being British in the fact that we saw the flag of Great Britain flying high over a squadron of soldiers donning their uniforms.
Honestly it didn't really look like a fort at all considering there were many bustling markets that I saw that were similar to the ones back where I had first teleported to.
There were quite a few notable buildings as well that didn't really match up to a fort in my opinion but I guess forts don't all look the same.
As everyone, who looked completely exhausted and disheveled due to them riding the entire night without rest, we came up near the front gates.
We were stopped at the main gates and were checked over by the soldiers.
After looking through our papers, which I opted to give them a hundred dollar bill since I lacked the necessary papers, we were let in.
As we all walked in, everyone except me noticed the large storm cloud closing in on the city/fort that we were entering and it gave me a foreboding sense.
Oh yeah, forgot he can control the weather.
-A LITTLE LATER-
We all found refuge in a hotel that we rented a room in.
Though I did rent a room out, I didn't stay in there for too long.
I did see Jonathan standing in the hallway, peeking into the doorway that led to Evelyn's room where I heard loud arguments that went back and forth between Rick and Evelyn.
I sneaked up behind him and whispered to him, "What's going in there?"
He jumped up in surprise and suppressed a scream.
"Shhhh! Evelyn and Rick are arguing if we should stop the monster." Jonathan said quietly, not wanting to alert them.
"Oh. So no lover's quarrel or anything like that?" I said with a smirk.
"So you've given up on Evy?" Jonathan said disappointed.
"Yeah. Guess she just likes Rick more than me, no? So I'll just stop chasing." I said, still holding my smirk.
"If I were you, Deimos, I'd be in that room with her." said Jonathan.
"No biggie. Still plenty of fish in the sea. Wanna see the rest of the hotel?" I asked him.
Not waiting for an answer, I basically manhandled and dragged him away and headed towards the main foyer.
It's pretty easy dragging Jonathan along since I was like a half a foot taller than him and with my current level of strength.
-MAIN FOYER-
As me and Jonathan, who was dragged along unwillingly, got into the foyer, we saw a welcome sight.
The proverbial den of iniquity. Hard men, hard women and hard liquor. Lots of dealings going down.
An older man with a walrus type mustache was drunk and talking to a fairly large woman who held him steady.
He donned a WWI fighter pilot's uniform from what I can recognize and remembered his name: Winston.
"I'm the last of the Royal Air Corps still stationed out there, you know…all the other laddies died in the air and were buried in the sand. Good chaps, every one of them, too."
While Jonathan signaled for me to follow him into a bar stool, Rick entered the foyer.
He walked towards us and was about to start talking when Winston staggered over.
"Ever since the end of the Great War, there hasn't been a single challenge worthy of a man like me.
"Hey Winston." Rick said before shoving him away from us.
"You know, O'Connell, ever since the end of the Great War, there hasn't been a single challenge worthy of a great man like me." Winston continued rambling on.
"Yeah, well we got our own little problems today, Winston." Rick said as he sat with us and poured himself, Jonathan and me a drink.
I, of course, declined and got a disappointed look from Rick.
"I just wish I could've chucked it with the other laddies, gone down in flame of glory, instead of sitting around here, rotting from boredom and booze!" Winston exclaimed as he took the glass from Jonathan's hand and drank it in one go.
I chuckled as Jonathan looked unsurprised as he poured himself another drink.
"Oh, well, back to the airfield, haha!" Winston said, taking his leave.
"Tell me, has your sister always been-" Rick started to ask Jonathan to which he answered before he could ask: "Oh, yes, always."
"Shouldn't stop you from winning her affection." I said as I downed a glass of orange juice that I asked the bartender for.
Rick scoffed at me but never denied it.
As we kept sharing our thoughts, Henderson and Dave came from behind and rested alongside us.
"We're packed up, but the damn boat doesn't leave till tomorrow morning." Henderson said.
"Tail set firmly between your legs, I see." Jonathan said, mocking them.
"Yeah, well you can talk. You don't have some sacred walking corpse after you." Henderson continued before turning to me and saying, "Oh yeah, speaking of which thanks for the save. We might as well be dead in the ground if you hadn't punched the daylights outta him."
"No sweat." I said with a smile and finished my juice.
"So how's your friend?" I asked Dave, who looked to be down in spirits.
"He had his eyes and tongue ripped out. How would you be?" Dave said before leaving after finishing a shot of whiskey.
. . .
After conversing with each other a bit more, we all decided to clink shot glasses, excluding my tall glass of another refill of orange juice, to which, upon tasting the whiskey, they spat out immediately.
Noticing around the bar that many others had also done the same with the drinks in their hands.
"Sweet Jesus!" Henderson yelled out. "Tasted…just like-"
"Blood." said Rick as we all noticed the fountain in the middle of the room being dyed in a red color.
"And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red and were as blood." Jonathan said, signifying another plague.
Realization took over Rick's face to which I clarified to everyone, "He's already here."
END CHAPTER 12