After Rick woke me, we made our way back into the underground of the how I call it: ancient graveyard. When we're finally back down, Evelyn slips the key into the keyhole on the sarcophagus and turns it. A series of strange mechanical - like sounds are heard before the sarcophagus unlocks itself with a loud hiss. Rick, Evelyn and Jonathan all look like they still have a very, very big hungover. We start to slide the heavy lid off the sarcophagus.
PUSHING,
SHOVING
and GROANING, the lid budging, inch by inch.
EVELYN I can't believe I allowed the two of you to get me drunk.
JONATHAN Don't blame me, I don't even remember being there.
Do you ever, while you're talking to somebody feel like 'What the heck? ', well this is how I feel right now.
EVELYN well neither do I, thank you.
Rick gives her a hurt look. It looks like they had another MOMENT, probably kissing.
O'CONNELL You don't?
Evelyn gives Rick a nervous look.
EVELYN No . .... Why? .... Should I?
O'CONNELL Gee, yeah, you told me it was the best time you ever had.
Yes, one hundred percent kissing. O'Connell gives her a big cheesy smile. Evelyn's face drops, appalled and embarrassed. And that's when the lid FALLS OFF and LOUDLY CRASHES to the ground. I jump back and instantly grab my fingers, I squished them because of that horrid thing!
As the stone sarcophagus leans on the wall Evy is very excited.
EVELYN Oh my god, love dreamed about this ever since I was a little girl.
O'CONNELL You dream about dead guys?
Evelyn just gives him a look, then starts brushing dirt and cobwebs off the top of the coffin. Then she freezes.
EVELYN Look, all the sacred spells have been chiseled off. The hieratics and hieroglyphs that protect the deceased on his journey into the afterlife, they've been removed. This man was cursed, ....doomed.
O'Connell and Jonathan are too excited to care, while I just stand next to her examining the hieroglyphics.
O'CONNELL Tough break.
JONATHAN Yes, I'm all tears, now let's see who's inside, shall we?
Evelyn can't believe these guys. Jonathan inserts the key/box into the coffin's lock. Turns it. The lid cracks open with a HISS. We all react to the FOUL STENCH. Then Rick grabs the lid. It's stuck. He pulls with all his might. Jonathan and I help him. It starts to give way. Slowly. Slowly. Slooooowly. And then it suddenly POPS OPEN and THE MOST HIDEOUS, MAGGOT-INFESTED, ROTTEN CORPSE IMAGINABLE JUMPS UP!
O'CONNELL/EVELYN/JONATHAN/I AHHHHH!!!
We all jump back. Scared to death. As I stare at him, a name crosses my memories... Imhotep. He must be the'Elephant Man' of corpses right before my eyes; twisted and deformed. The years have not been kind. He slumps back into his coffin
We slowly creep forward and carefully look back inside Imhotep's coffin, creeped-out
O'CONNELL is he supposed to look like that?
JULIETTE No, that is not even a real mummy, he isn't even wrapped in bandages. He looks like he is still decomposing, he is still
EVELYN/JONATHAN Juicy?
JULIETTE Yes. He must be more than four thousand years old and even though he is still decomposing. It must be cursed.
O'CONNELL And look at this.
O'Connell points to the inside of the COFFIN LID and there are, you guessed fingernail scratches and dried blood all over the inside.
EVELYN Oh my god, Juli your right, he wasn't even mummified, he was buried alive.
This sends a chill through everyone. Evelyn leans in closer,
EVELYN And he left a message.
WE PUSH IN on a grouping of hieratics WRITTEN IN BLOOD.
EVELYN It says: 'Death is only the beginning*
Jonathan shivers. O'Connell looks around.
O'CONNELL Where's my gun?
JONATHAN What are you going to do? Shoot him?
O'CONNELL If he decides to wake up, hell yes!
EXT. BASE CAMP - NIGHT
The two camps have now joined together. O'Connell and Beni are roasting chunks of hairy meat over a fire. Jonathan wrinkles his nose, disgusted by the smell. JONATHAN What is this stuff? It smells like our late friend, the warden.
O'Connell and Beni both grin. Jonathan looks horrified while I burst out laughing.
JONATHAN You did not!? .... We're not!?
O'CONNELL Rat gizzards. They smell bad and taste worse, but that's the best the desert has to offer.
The gloating Americans sit down, fondling their jeweled jars.
HENDERSON Say, O'Connell, whaddya think these honeys fetch back home?
BURNS we hear you gentlemen found yerselves a nice gooey mummy. Congratulations.
DANIELS Ya know if ya dry him out, you can sell him for firewood.The Americans laugh. I stop laughing and say with all seriousness
JULIETTE Do you have no respect for the dead? You heard that we found a mummy but have you heard that..
Evelyn walks up, sits down and drops a pile of big dusty BUG SKELETONS onto the ground.
EVELYN Scarabs, flesh eaters, I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years living off the flesh of a corpse, or in this case ........
She shrugs, then looks at the roasting meat EVELYN famished.O'Connell and Jonathan stare at the bug skeletons, disgusted.
O'CONNELL Are you saying somebody threw these things in with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?
EVELYN Very slowly.
JONATHAN He certainly was not a popular fellow when they planted him.
O'CONNELL Must of got a little too frisky with the Pharaoh's daughter.
EVELYN According to my readings, our friend suffered a curse.
JULIETTE The HOM-DAI, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved for only the evilest blasphemers. In all of my research, I've never read of this curse actually having been performed. It is said, that the scarabs were cursed with him. To forever roam the earth
O'CONNELL That bad huh?
EVELYN Yes, they never used it because they feared it so. it's written, that if a victim of the HOM-DAI should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt.
O'CONNELL The ten plagues? ... You mean all ten plagues.
BENI Like what that Moses guy did to that Pharaoh guy?
EVELYN That's one way of putting it.
JONATHAN Let's see, there was frogs, flies, locusts....
BURNS Hail and fire.
HENDERSON The sun turning black.
DANIELS Water turning to blood.
JONATHAN And my personal favorite: people covered in boils and sores.
All the men share nervous looks, really spooked.
YOU ARE READING
The Princess of the Medji?!
FanfictionJuliette is the twin sister of Jonathan and the big sister of Evy. In a cave in Hamunaptra, she discovers a statue that looks exactly like her and why does everyone keep calling her by her second name. How do they know her second name? Who is the ha...
