The Anubis Plague полностью

Four times? Khaliq thought, estimating the number of times they went around. It was hard to tell how deep they were going.

The path ended at an opening as big and as wide as the stairwell itself. Khaliq showed his light through it and found flat ground on the other side. He stepped through and played the beam across the walls. Feroz entered the space and added his own light. The circular chamber was forty feet squared and sported a low, eight-foot-high ceiling.

“Incredible…” Khaliq was entranced by what he saw. It was the first sign of anything noteworthy since the seal.

Classic Egyptian artwork greeted the two men. There were hundreds of humans depicted sideways, kneeling, and pointing in the same direction — toward a doorway cut into the opposite wall.

“Worshippers,” Khaliq said.

Feroz aimed his light into the next corridor. “Anubis?”

Khaliq didn’t reply. He crossed the chamber with purpose. Halfway there, he stopped, hearing a click under his foot. It was followed shortly by a low, reverberating clunk.

“Move!” Khaliq shouted, sprinting for the chamber exit.

Feroz made it to the hallway first.

The two men practically dove through it just as a dozen slots opened in the ceiling.

Khaliq was immediately mesmerized by the sight, but the slots didn’t stay empty for long. A second later, things began dropping from them.

And the things were alive.

Black, wriggling creatures poured out of the open holes. Khaliq backed away, pulled along by Feroz before either man could study the living payload enough to identify it.

A trap, Khaliq thought, amazed. And it’s still working.

This place had been constructed centuries ago, and had been lying in wait after all this time. Not only was Khaliq astonished — he felt a well of fear rise up in him, as well.

He shuddered. These creatures — bugs, or beetles, he couldn’t be sure — must be cannibalistic, eating each other to stay alive. The hidden compartments were their home, and they had, most likely, never ventured out of the darkness of the cavern.

“Slowly,” he ordered. “Watch your step.”

Feroz nodded and did as he was instructed and eased up on his pace. Both men directed their lights exclusively to the steps. If there was one trap, there was bound to be another.

As soon as Khaliq made contact with the top step, the impact sank the step an inch, setting off another clunk back in the chamber. He lifted his foot, and the step rose back into place. He attempted to sink the step again, but it didn’t move.

The trap had been reset. He’d need to remember that…

They continued down and around in circles again. Khaliq estimated they had traveled the same depth as before. A second opening swallowed Feroz’s light. He slowed to a crawl and edged out into the void. This space was infinitely larger than the last one. A sound like running water greeted them, but Khaliq didn’t see anything in the illumination that hinted there was water nearby. The walls of the cavern were sixty feet from one another.

“It sounds like radio static,” Feroz said.

Khaliq agreed. The noise unnerved him.

The ground beneath them narrowed to three feet in width and extended through the nothingness. Khaliq followed it with his light, realizing what it was.

“It’s a landbridge.” He stepped onto it. “We cross here.”

He turned in time to see Feroz swallow down his fear and warily shuffle forward. The bridge was cracked and crumbling in places. If it broke underfoot, they’d fall into…what?

Khaliq needed to know.

He faced the abyss and directed his light into it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as far of a drop as he was expecting. But what it lacked in depth, it made up for in nastiness. The pit was some twenty feet down…and it moved.

“What is it?” Feroz asked.

But Khaliq already knew. His hands trembled. He had never seen so many in one place.

He removed his light from the godawful pit and faced his cohort, looking through the man and not at him.

“What are they, Khaliq?”

Feroz’s question focused Khaliq’s attention, and he met the man’s fear-filled eyes.

“Man-killers… Tens of thousands of them.”

Translating from the Greek Androctomus, ‘man-killers’ venom produced one of the deadliest neurotoxins in the world. The black, fattail scorpion was feared by everyone in the desert communities of North Africa and the Middle East. They sported a long, agonizing history of killing healthy, grown men quite easily.

“Man-killers?” Feroz asked, leaning over the edge. His light found the sea of creatures. His face went white, and he stammered backward. Khaliq caught his arm before he could walk himself off the landbridge and into the throng below.

But Khaliq’s efforts weren’t enough.

A section of the pathway broke away beneath Feroz’s foot, and he dropped, ripping out of Khaliq’s flat-footed grasp. In a last-ditch effort to save his subordinate, Khaliq latched onto the man’s backpack, but only came away with the pack itself. Feroz slipped free and fell for over two stories before landing flat on his back.