For ten minutes he hammered at the wall where the entrance once was. After loosing a small chunk he began clawing at it with his fingers. Progress came slow and he noticed each dust-filled breath doing less and less to satiate his body's craving for oxygen. His physical exertion used more oxygen than his body at rest… or unconscious. He stopped digging and rested his hand against the wall. After a few breaths, which he attempted to slow, a dull ache in his fingertips caught his attention. He looked at his hand and found it covered in blood. He pulled his hand away from the wall and saw bloody finger marks matching the ancient, dry stains left by the men first buried here.
He had become one of them.
King looked at his fingertips, rubbed raw and bleeding. He couldn't escape. And though someone would come looking for him long before the moisture-wicking air transformed him into a mummy, he'd still be just as dead.
Accepting his fate as each breath he took sucked more oxygen out of the stale air and replaced it with more carbon dioxide, King sat down between two of the mummified men. He looked at each and grinned, finding humor in the fact that he was dying slowly at an archaeological dig rather than being blown to bits or riddled with bullets during combat. "This is gonna suck, right?"
The heat of the chamber pounded on his body, clinging to his black Elvis T-shirt and pulling the water in his body to the surface and away. He longed to remove his clothing, but found himself unable to move. His eyes lulled as his mind and body began shutting down. The only consolation he felt about dying was that he wouldn't be awake to experience it.
As his head slowly tilted toward his shoulder, his thoughts turned to Pierce. He'd failed his friend. He'd never failed so grossly at a mission, but even that would have been forgivable — war was hell and even the good guys sometimes lost. But Pierce was his friend. This never should have happened and he'd never forgive himself for it, not that he had long left to self-deprecate.
In his waning moments, King resolved that if he returned as a ghost, he'd haunt the bastards that did this for the rest of their lives. And if he somehow survived, he'd make them wish he were a ghost. His vision failed and his head thumped heavily against the skull of his neighbor. He'd become one more sacrifice for the sands to absorb.
ELEVEN
The darkness consumed.
Reality twisted, then fled, and the surreal invaded.
King floated past lines of bodies, brutally disassembled and strewn across the desert. A battle had taken place. No. He'd seen battles. This was a slaughter. The stars above glistened like beads of water, thick and wet, stuck to the black blanket of the sky. The view spun away as his ethereal form drifted higher, sliding away from the grisly scene and up toward the heavens.
King had never pictured death. In his line of work a fear of death often quickened its arrival. Fear of pain did wonders, but fear of death could immobilize even the most well trained soldier. But this — floating out from his tomb, drifting over the dead, and rising up — defied even stereotypical near-death experience. Where was the white tunnel? The relative to guide him on? Shouldn't his sister be here? Where was Julie?
"Julie," he said. "Show me the way, Jules."
There was no reply, only the sensation of rising through a thick ooze. His thoughts turned to Hell. The bodies. Clearly tortured. The cold. He felt cold. Was Hell cold? Maybe Hell really did freeze over. Ha. He wanted to laugh, but could not feel his body. He no longer had a body.
He tried to will his spirit, or whatever this was, in a new direction, but he continued up and away, steadily forward to an unknown destination. The stars beckoned to him, then faded from view. He slipped back into the abyss thinking of his sister again.
"Sir," a voice said. "Drink."
Liquid filled King's mouth. He took a breath. Gagged. Sat up quick and felt a blow to his head like a spike being driven through. The pain pulsed there like a flashing streetlight.
"Stay still," the voice said, barely a whisper. "She will hear you."
"Julie?"
"No. The old one." "Who are you?" "Atahualpa."
King's eyes shot open as his mind fell back into his body. The vision. He wasn't floating. He'd been carried. But that meant— King squeezed his eyes, erasing the nightmare. With fresh eyes he took in his surroundings.
Atahualpa knelt next to him. The man looked pale. Perhaps from the moonlight. Perhaps something more. The stars above, no longer bulbous, twinkled in the crisp, clear night sky. They sat in the dirt between two parked trucks. Atahualpa handed him a bottled water. "Drink."
King took it and downed all twelve ounces. The liquid, cooled by the desert night air, chilled his stomach and quenched the fire in his mouth and throat. He felt life returning. He took a second bottle offered by Atahualpa and pulled from it more slowly, allowing the liquid time to be absorbed by his body and offered as a feast to his dehydrated cells. He met the doe-eyed driver turned traitor's eyes.
"You saved me. Dug me out."
The man nodded.
"Why?"
"They said no one would be hurt."
King didn't like the sound of that. His mind replayed the field of dead from his vision. He prayed it was a vision. "Who was hurt?"
"I could hear them screaming. I hid in a truck. For hours I hid. Then the screaming stopped. I looked from the window and saw her."
"Who?"
"The old one. The gray-haired woman."
"Molly?" King sat up straight, fighting the throbbing pain in his head. "She's alive?" "She is the devil's."
King sighed. Information steeped in religious paranoia would do him no good. "Skip what you learned in church and give me the facts."
Atahualpa squinted. "I have never been to church. But I know a devil when I see one. Blood covered her body. Red. Pieces" — he sniffed, fighting back tears—"there were pieces of bodies… their insides… clung to her body. To her lips. Her belly…" He arched his hands out and around his own belly. "Like a pregnant woman. Filled with their bodies."
King tensed. "Whose bodies?"
With a shaking finger, Atahualpa pointed the way. "The workers."
King realized he was pointing toward the dig site, toward Pierce's dragon. He launched to his feet and stumbled, catching himself on the side of the red pickup's flatbed.
"You must be quiet," Atahualpa said. "She fled into the desert, but who is to say she will not return."
"I'll take my chances," King said, draining the remainder of his second water bottle, then staggering toward the dig site. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Take this."
King turned and found his handgun offered. It was a peace offering. He could have let him dry out in his tomb. Judas wanted to team up. His pleading eyes begged. Forgive and forget.
King took the gun, checked the magazine, and slammed it back home. He turned to Atahualpa. The man had been duped and used. King had done the same to men just like him. Desperate for money or food. Willing to trade trust for survival. King nodded at the man. Forgiveness granted.
They fell in together, walking low, slow, and quiet. If there was danger lurking in the dark desert the only warning they'd get was the sound of feet crunching stone. King fought against waves of dizziness, and kept his gun aimed at the dark, willing his eyes to dilate just a little bit more, suck in the moonlight. They reached the hill's crest and looked down.