I looked closer, and saw that the museum director was right. The mummy did resemble a beagle, with its pronounced set of choppers and its equally pronounced grin.
“He looks like he’s smiling,” I said.
Julian now displayed a smile himself. “He does, doesn’t he? In life, he was a minor pharaoh. In death, he’s the pride of our modest little collection.” His smile faded. “Or at least he was, until he started behaving badly.”
“What does he do, exactly?”
“Well, he seems to get a kick out of scaring the living daylights out of everyone who comes near, though his favorite thing seems to be scaring kids into a decline.”
“Perhaps he was bullied and this is his chance to get back at his bullies?” Jarrett suggested.
“Whatever’s going on, it’s a damn nuisance. We’ve had to close down the entire exhibit, one of our most popular ones, I might add, and visitors have been staying away. This joke is costing us heaps of money.”
“I would think a museum could exploit this as a genuine selling point,” I said. “Mummies come alive? An actual Egyptian mummy haunting the Ancient Egypt wing?”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you? But you would be wrong. People love ghosts in theory, not when they’re actually confronted with them.”
“What—what does he do, exactly?” asked Jarrett. He’d moved back a few steps from Snoopy, eyeing the mummy anxiously.
“What doesn’t he do? He makes faces at people, chases them around the room, and—worst of all—he spews some kind of pea-green slime at them. It’s disgusting. In fact he got me just this morning. I had to put on a fresh suit before you arrived.”
I assured the museum director that all was fine, and that we had the situation well in hand. He excused himself, and then hurried away, being careful to close the door behind him when he left. And then it was just me and Jarrett. And Snoopy.
Chapter Two
“So how do we do this?” asked Jarrett, licking his lips nervously.
“Why don’t we just call him and see what happens?” I suggested.
“Right,” said Jarrett, hopping from one foot to the other. “You know, Harry? I would feel a lot more comfortable if Buckley was here.”
“We can do this,” I assured him. Though if I was honest, I’d have preferred our third associate to be here with us, too. Sir Geoffrey Buckley had been my employer until his untimely demise, and was now our ghostly consultant, the person with his feet firmly in the world of the wraiths. Lately he’d made himself more and more scarce, however, and I was starting to think he was tired of spending time in both worlds.
I took up position in front of the mummy, which was leering at me. It was one of those juicy mummies, with quite a bit of flesh on its bones. “Um, Snoopy?” I asked, then figured this might not be the best way to address the irate ghost of a pharaoh. I glanced at the name card that identified him as Rhamenas, the sixteenth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, who’d reigned from 1292 to 1292 BC.
“Very short reign,” Jarrett whispered.
“Only a couple of months,” I whispered back.
“Probably murdered. Which would explain the foul attitude.”
“Mr. Rhamenas, sir?” I asked. “Are you there?”
No response. The dead pharaoh’s eyes remained as dead as before.
“Maybe he barfed up so much this morning he needs a break?” Jarrett suggested.
“Or maybe he knows we’re here to get rid of him.”
“About that, Harry,” Jarrett said. “Don’t you think it’s time we start suiting up for these assignments? I mean, look at the Ghostbusters. They’ve got all this cool gear. Proton blasters and whatnot, and what have we got? Nothing! I mean, it’s just ridiculous.”
“Ghostbusters don’t exist, Jarrett,” I reminded him. “It’s just a movie. Proton blasters or whatever don’t exist in the real world. They’re props.”
“It could exist. Just say the word and I’m sure I could find us some stuff.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing, which is simply pointing out to these lost souls that they need to move on.”
“One of these days that’s not going to work anymore. We’re going to come up against a spirit who doesn’t want to move on. A spirit so evil diplomacy isn’t going to do diddly—”
Just then, the mummy moved! Or at least his lips moved. Slowly, those leathery, blackened lips opened, and before I could duck, a stream of green gunk shot out from the mummy, and hit me straight in the face!
“Duck!” said Jarrett. Royally late, of course.
I ducked, and Jarrett, instead of following his own advice, just stood there, and was now in the line of fire, taking a big hit of slime. “Yuck!” he yelled, when he’d finally sank down to his knees. “It’s in my mouth! Harry, it’s in my mouth!”
“It’s in my eyes,” I said. “Just keep calm, Jarrett. It’s just ectoplasm. We know the drill.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it!”
I got up, this time making sure I kept a safe distance from the mummy, and planted my hand on my hip. “Mr. Rhamenas, what is your problem? Huh?”
“You assume he speaks English,” said Jarrett, spitting out green goo.
“I’m bored,” suddenly a voice sounded. “Bored to tears. Wouldn’t you be bored to tears if you just had to stand there, stiff as a board, for years and years and years?”
I looked up, and saw that the mummy’s lips had moved. “You speak English?”
“Of course I do. I’ve been in this country for so long I speak the natives’ lingo perfectly.”
“So you’re bored, huh?” asked Jarrett. “Then why don’t you just, you know, move on or something?”
“I can’t,” said the mummy sadly. “Trust me, I’ve tried, but I just seem to be stuck here for some reason.” He shrugged. “So I have a little fun at the expense of those damn tourists who stare at me all day long.”
“Why do you pick on the kids so much?” I asked.
“Oh, God, don’t get me started on the kids,” he said. “They are the absolute worst. They like to stick needles in me when they think the guard isn’t watching, or even light matches to my wrappings, or cut them with a knife hoping to find amulets hidden inside. It’s maddening, I tell you.”
Jarrett nodded. He wasn’t too keen on kids himself, and could see where Rhamenas was coming from. “So maybe you’ve been separated from a loved one?” he suggested. “A girl you were keen on marrying—or a guy?”
“Nope. Too busy with affairs of the state to think about dating. Hell, I’m only twenty-one, buddy.”
“Oh, you’re a handsome young devil, aren’t you?”
“Yep. I was a big hit with the ladies,” Rhamenas confirmed with a horrible grin.
“Why did you die so young?” I asked. “It says here you only reigned a year?”
“A year?” he scoffed. “I wish! I reigned for all of five months and two weeks!”
“What happened?”
“No idea. I was going to invade the Levant again—that’s what we did in the olden days when we got bored—when I suddenly got sick and died.”
“Poison?” Jarrett suggested.
“Could be,” the Pharaoh admitted.
“Look, whatever it was,” I said, “you have got to stop harassing the visitors.”
“Oh? And why would I do that? Like I said, it’s the only entertainment I have.”
“Hey! Why don’t you listen to the lady and buzz off!” suddenly another voice piped up. It seemed to come from across the room. Another mummy was moving in its open sarcophagus, and he did not seem happy.
“You buzz off, Uncle Albinium!” Rhamenas cried.
“If I have to listen to your whining one more day I’m gonna expire!”
“For your information, you’re dead already.”
“Oh, and I don’t know that? Who do you think made me this way?”
“You’re blaming me?”
“We’re all blaming you, young Rhamenas,” another voice spoke. It belonged to the mummy of a female.