Free Curse of the Mummy's Uncle by J. Scott Savage Page A

had drifted behind a little and was fiddling with his serape.
    â€œDid you say something?” Nick asked Angelo.
    Angelo barely glanced up from his work. “Nope. Why?”
    Nick shrugged. “No reason, I guess I thought Iheard something.” Maybe it was the strange carvings on the walls, or maybe it was the fact that they were going deeper and deeper down a pathway that supposedly led to the underworld, but he was starting to feel a little freaked out.
    The deeper they went into the pyramid, the cooler the air got and the narrower the passage grew. Soon, Angelo had to duck to keep from hitting his head. Nick tried to imagine what it would be like to be shut up in this cold, small tunnel, and he shivered.
    At the top of a staircase, Nick noticed a carving of a man in a small boat floating down a river. The man was wearing a feathered crown and a fur that might have been the pelt of a jaguar. “What’s that all about?” he whispered, running his finger along the curving lines of the river.
    â€œThe river of the dead,” a voice whispered back.
    This time both Carter and Angelo were too far away to have said what he’d just heard. “That’s it,” he said, backing away from the wall. “I’m getting out of here.”
    Angelo, who had been kneeling a little farther up the tunnel, put away his swab and walked over. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œI thought I heard something,” Nick said, the skin on his arms breaking out in goose bumps. “A kind of whispering.”
    Carter joined them and tilted his head. “I hear something too.”
    â€œYou do?” Nick asked. Maybe he wasn’t going crazy after all.
    Angelo nodded. “It’s coming from down there. A kind of shhhhh sound.”
    The three of them looked down the staircase.
    â€œI’m officially freaked out,” Carter said.
    Angelo started down the stairs, but both Nick and Carter grabbed him.
    â€œAre you crazy?” Nick asked. “There could be anything down there.”
    â€œWhich is why we have to find out,” Angelo said. “I want to find the room those men were bringing the boxes from. That might be our best chance to find alien traces.”
    Nick rubbed his lips. The voices had totally freaked him out, and all he wanted to do was go back into the tent.
    â€œYou can wait here,” Angelo said. “I’ll take a quick look and come right back.”
    â€œNo,” Carter said at once. “As soon as we split up, the mummies will come and rip out our eyeballs.”
    Nick crossed his arms in front of his chest, hands cupping his elbows. “Thanks for those encouragingwords.” But Angelo was right. They had to find out what was going on now, or they might never get another chance. “Okay, we go down. But only to the bottom of the stairs. Then we’re out of here.”
    Carter and Angelo nodded.
    Walking single file, they started down the staircase. The steps were treacherous, worn smooth and slippery by who knew how many footsteps. Angelo led the way—flashlight probing the darkness ahead of him. Carter came next, and Nick was in the back, constantly checking over his shoulder.
    The farther down the staircase they went, the louder the whispering became. Nick began to imagine what awaited them at the bottom of the steps. Poisonous snakes, giant scorpions, three-headed aliens, mummies with bandages trailing behind them. Each image was worse than the last.
    Carter must have been having the same thoughts, because he held his serape out to Nick. “If I don’t make it, I want you to have this.”
    â€œWe’re all going to make it,” Angelo said. “Look, we’ve reached the bottom of the—”
    Before he could complete his sentence, something reached out of the darkness and grabbed him.

Angelo yelped and dropped his bag of swabs. Carter wheeled around and ran straight into Nick, covering him in loose yarn