Excavation

The radiologist tapped a button and the constant clacking from the machine died away. But a sharper noise, hidden behind the knock of the scanner’s rotating magnets, became apparent. It flowed from the speakers: a high-pitched keening, like air escaping from the stretched neck of a balloon.

All eyes were drawn to the speakers.

“What the hell is that noise?” the radiologist asked. He tapped at a few keys. “The scanner’s completely shut down.”

The Herald reporter sat closest to the window looking into the CT room. She sprang to her feet, knocking her chair over. “My God!”

“What is it?” Joan stood up and joined the reporter at the window.

Henry pushed forward, fearing for his fragile mummy. “What -?” Then he saw it, too. The mummy still lay on the scanning table in full view of the group. Its head and neck convulsed upon the table, rattling against the metal surface. Its mouth stretched wide open, the keening wail issuing from its desiccated throat. Henry’s knees weakened.

“My God, it’s alive!” the reporter moaned in horror.

“Impossible,” Henry sputtered.

The convulsing corpse grew violent. Its lanky black hair whipped furiously around its thrashing head like a thousand snakes. Henry expected at any moment that the head would rip off its neck, but what actually happened was worse. Much worse.

Like a rotten melon, the top of the mummy’s skull blew away explosively. Yellow filth splattered out from the cranium, spraying the wall, the CT scanner, and the window.

The reporter stumbled away from the fouled glass, her legs giving way beneath her. Her mouth chanted uncontrollably, “Oh my God oh my God oh my God…”

Joan remained calm, professional. She spoke to the stunned radiologist. “Bob, we need a Level Two quarantine of that room. Stat!”

The radiologist just stared, unblinking, as the mummy quieted its convulsions and lay still. “Damn,” he finally whispered to the fouled window. “What happened?”

Joan shook her head, still calm. She replaced her glasses and studied the room. “Perhaps a soft eruption of pocketed gas,” she mumbled. “Since the mummy was frozen at a high altitude, methane from decomposition could have released abruptly from the sudden thawing.” She shrugged.

The reporter finally seemed to have composed herself and tried to take a picture, but Joan blocked her with a palm. Joan shook her head. There would be no further pictures.

Henry had not moved since the eruption. He still stood with one palm pressed to the glass. He stared at the ruins of his mummy and the brilliant splatters sprayed on walls and machine. The debris shone brightly, glowing a deep ruddy yellow under the halogens.

The reporter, her voice still shaky, waved a hand at the fouled lead window. “What the hell is that stuff?”

Clutching the Dominican crucifix in his right fist, Henry answered, his voice dull with shock: “Gold.”

5:14 P.M.

Andean Mountains, Peru

“Listen… and you could almost hear the dead speak.”

The words drew Sam Conklin’s nose from the dirt. He eyed the young freelance journalist from the National Geographic.

An open laptop computer resting on his knees, Norman Fields sat beside Sam and stared out across the jungle-shrouded ruins. A smear of mud ran from the man’s cheek to his neck. Though he wore an Australian bushwacker and matching leather hat, Norman failed to look the part of the rugged adventure photojournalist. He wore thick glasses with lenses that slightly magnified his eyes, making him look perpetually surprised, and though he stood a little over six feet, he was as thin as a pole, all bones and lanky limbs.

Sam rolled up to one elbow on his mat of woven reed. “Sorry, what was that, Norm?” he asked.

“The afternoon is so quiet,” his companion whispered, his Boston accent flavoring his words. Norman closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “You can practically hear the ancient voices echoing off the mountains.”

Sam carefully laid the tiny paintbrush beside the small stone relic he had been cleaning and sat up. He tapped his muddied cowboy hat back farther on his head and wiped his hands on his Wranglers. Again, like so many times before, after working for hours upon a single stone of the ruins, the overall beauty of the ancient Incan city struck him like a draught of cold beer on a hot Texas afternoon. It was so easy to get lost in the fine ministrations of brush on stone and lose sight of the enormity and breadth of the whole. Sam pushed into a seated position to better appreciate the somber majesty.

He suddenly missed his cutting horse, a painted Appaloosa still back on his uncle’s dusty ranch outside Muleshoe, Texas. He itched to ride among the ruins and follow its twisted paths to the mystery of the thick jungle beyond the city. He sat there with the ghost of a smile on his face, soaking up the sight.