Uncle

“We’ve got to tell him.” Cleo said quietly.

She turned over on the rocky surface to face Paul. They were lying on the ground behind some rocks, yet the presence of the coffin loomed over the pair. Thunder shook the cave ceiling making pebbles clatter to the ground as the storm continued to rage outside. The monster nearby was beginning to move, it’s wrappings crinkled like the candy wrappers that rich kids left around camp.

“We can’t tell him,” Paul whispered. He caught Cleo by the shoulders and pushed her to the ground. “We’ll just lie here, and act like we’re supposed to be here. Because we’re dead and that’s what dead things do!” He was hissing now, his eyes wide. The blue and green bruise around his left eye was still healing from Uncle’s most recent punishment.

Cleo understood Paul’s fear of their uncle. He had whooped her younger brother a few times for breaking things. At age fourteen, he had grown too big, too soon, and wasn’t graceful about it. Even as he hid, his gangly arms and legs folded over like an ostrich.

“But it’s uncomfortable.” She muttered, rolling her lower lip between her teeth and pulling at the chapped skin. She was only nine months older and adopted from a different family. But Cleo sucked on her lip as a baby would their binky, making her seem the younger.

“I told you to move the rocks from beneath you.” Paul said.

“No, it’s not that,” Cleo said. “It’s uncomfortable to lie to Uncle Harding. He’ll find out sooner or later.”

“Not unless the mummy gets him first.” Paul clenched his jaw and dropped to the ground. A high whistling breath like wind through a crack in stone made them shiver. The hair on Paul’s arms did handstands as the mummy inhaled.

Cleo bit her lower lip to bleeding as she listened. “I’m going to tell him.” Cleo stood to dust herself off.

“No, you don’t.” Paul scrambled after her, keeping low to the ground.

Cleo was already standing over the shining gold and elaborate painting of the coffin. She peered inside. She expected a gleaming white eyeball with a shocking blue iris like in her storybooks. Instead, a dismal void existed where the eyes should be. The bandaged hands painted in red clay scraped at the moldy bandages.

“I imagine it’s terribly itchy after all this time.” Cleo sniffed. She turned to go but found herself back on the ground with a grunt. Gravel tore into her elbows as she landed.

“I won’t let you tell him!” Paul growled, pinning her arms to the ground.

“You will.” Cleo huffed with her best come-back. She twisted her arm forward, reclaiming her wrist, then jabbed her elbow back. Paul’s head shot back as she hit the side of his face. But his weight was still on her as she tried to wriggle free.

“Jesus, Paul, what have you got to lose?”

“He’ll kill us.” Paul grabbed at Cleo’s thick mass of curly hair. “I heard him talking about it. He’s going to work us to death in this ‘gold mine’ or another. Trust me, Cleo. Let’s run the other way – get out of here.”

That moment, the mummy slammed a fist into the coffin lid, splitting the crack where the seal had been broken.

They paused in panicked silence. The storm rattled through the cave interrupting the stillness. Cleo took a breath and jerked her head back toward Paul’s.

“You hit my nose!” He yelled, cupping a hand to catch the blood.

“Good.” Cleo popped up again. She raced to the mouth of the cave, check her back in case the bloodied Paul made to follow.

He sat alone, leaning forward over the dirt as blood dribbled down his chin.

“You deserve that, you know.”

“He’s going to kill you.” Paul glared up at her.

“That thing will kill you first.”

She ran through the brush in the dim light of a dying flashlight. The storming clouds ignited the mountainside by hot flashes of lightning, blinding Cleo, and slowing her progress.

There had been guards at the cave entrance. But Paul had given them liquor and stolen money from their Uncle’s chest. They were cheaply bought to begin with, and just as easily lost, not likely to return until the morning.

Cleo arrived at her Uncle’s house, sopping wet, with bloody knees and elbows. Rainwater dripped from her hair and down her chin in the entryway. The home was temporary with thin wooden walls since the scavengers planned to remain for a few months in order to hunt for more relics.

Cleo explained what had happened between sniffles. She tried not to wipe her nose on her wrist as he stared at her, grim-faced and stolid.

At the end of her story, he grabbed a thick coat, flashlights, and a heavy walking stick. He did this in silence, as Cleo pulled at the scab building up on her lip. He did not offer her food as it had already been put away for the night. And he did not share a wool coat, though she remained in the entrance, only wearing a blouse, and beginning to shiver.

Cleo led the way back up the mountain, stopping only to ensure her uncle could see her ahead.  

Lungs burning, she came to the tunnel’s entrance. The empty coffin stood inside, drawing the eye toward it. The piece that had been splintered was now severed in half. Cleo turned back to her Uncle as he came closer.

“Sir, we’ve got to find where they went.” Cleo said. Then added, “Please?”

Her uncle was staring furiously at the broken coffin. Intact, it would have doubled his fortune. His hand shook as Cleo imagined him tallying the losses. In the back of her mind, the dread weight dropped into her stomach.

Cleo turned away from his fierce gaze, noticing a pair of green trousers on the ground. Cleo plucked them up by pinching with two fingers. They were balled up and matted like owl’s droppings. They slowly came apart, confirming that they were taken in at the waist, with grey cotton to cover exposed ankles.

Her Uncle coughed and she turned to attention with tears in her eyes.

His white mustache twitched before he spoke, “You’re going to tell me what you saw and what happened.” His walking stick clunked on the ground in punctuation. “Then, you’re going to find this damn thing.”

Tears stung Cleo’s frozen cheeks as she nodded.

“No sense in crying now, girl.” Her Uncle said, “You’ll be able to pay for this mistake in due time. Don’t you worry about that.”

He turned on his heel toward the entrance of the cave. He swung his lantern and hollered for men at the camp to come up. Cleo could hear feet pounding on the gravel path that had lead Paul and her to the cave that afternoon.

She hugged the trousers. As the men of the camp came to help, Cleo stood alone in the cave. A slow, high whistle sang its lonely song from the darkness deep inside the cave. The lonesome, alien sound followed her as she walked out of the cave to her uncle.