13 – Hall of Memories

The Hall of Memories remained cool and dry despite the weather outside. Every bit of moisture in the air got sucked away, leaving the humidity so low that Erika felt like she was drying out. It had to be the salt. Between every corpse, dried out and mummified, sat a large pillar of salt carved in intricate shapes and designs. Erika passed a reared-up horse, a miniature pine tree with individual needles, a cornucopia overflowing with fruits and vegetables, and more besides, all made from salt.

Erika’s eyes wandered between the morbid displays and the sculptures as she slowly meandered through the gallery. None of it really processed, her thoughts too focused on how their plan had to change.

Theoretically, things were easier: they no longer had an old man to beat up, just a corpse to loot.

Erika pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering what circle of hell grave robbers got sent to, and whether it was better or worse than stealing from an old guy. Mummy cult or not, weird burial practices or lack thereof, the embalmer seemed like a friendly guy at the very least. They had done as much research as was possible in about a day and had found no sign that this cult actively harmed others; there were no missing persons reports of travelers disappearing in the area, no mysterious murder cases, no zombie mummies shambling around.

Just people with abnormal religious practices minding their own business.

“Right,” Erika spoke aloud, stopping in the middle of one of the long halls right in front of Edgar K. Pike—Village Blacksmith. “Thoughts?”

Leslie, The Fixer, Sofia, Carter, and Bethany had all been meandering as well, scattered through the hall. Bradford had to get back to his work, leaving them alone to wander about.

“This place is creepy,” Sofia said, voice a whisper that barely carried far enough to reach Erika. “I feel it in my bones. Something is in the air here.”

“Salt?”

“No. Maybe.” Sofia glanced around, glaring at the nearest tweed-dressed corpse. “It triggers my senses, but not like a normal ghost? Hard to describe. It’s just unsettling.”

“It’s hardcore,” Bethany countered like she was personally offended, though she didn’t look entirely comfortable, averting her eyes anytime she accidentally looked at one of the bodies. In fact, Erika didn’t think she had heard her or Carter speak since entering the mausoleum.

Silence was more-or-less in character for Carter in new situations, but not so much for Bethany.

But Erika wasn’t interested in their opinions on the vibes of this place. She turned to The Fixer, a hand on her hip, wanting their thoughts.

“I recognize The Mummy’s influence here, but it is more subtle than I am used to.”

Erika suspected they were trying to cover for why they missed this place’s existence, but didn’t bother pointing it out. “What kind of influence? Like how dangerous to us right now?”

“Most cults I’ve seen are like this one, serving unknowingly, enacting a long-term plot through rituals disguised as ordinary activities.” The Fixer paused, hands behind their back, in front of a salt sculpture of a snake with detailed scales. “All, without a doubt, head towards the goal of freeing The Mummy. Normally, I would say the danger is exceedingly low—the people aren’t going to randomly attack and the plot is long-term, nothing to worry about this very second.”

“Normally,” Leslie repeated. “I take it the death of the mayor has you concerned?”

“It is nothing strange for a human of his purported age to die,” The Fixer allowed, still staring at the snake. They reached out, tapping it on its nose. Nothing happened, but The Fixer’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “In past plots similar to this one, The Mummy managed to impart some level of prescience through its influence—how to till a land for both crop production and ritual circle construction, where to build stone pillars for channeling magic, how to handle corpses… I’ve never seen one react to my presence before, but I have to wonder what the odds are that the mayor naturally died the very night before we arrived?”

“Great. Walked into another trap,” Sofia grumbled. “I should go grab my grenade launcher before it mysteriously vanishes along with our cars, leaving us stranded in weirdo-cult-town.”

“They better not,” Erika growled, cracking her knuckles. “I just got my truck back from almost literal hell.”

“It might not be a trap,” The Fixer corrected, finally turning from the snake. “It could simply be that their plot is nearing its conclusion and they are trying to hasten the last few steps because of our presence.”

“Then we’ve got a different problem,” Erika said as she looked around. This time, she ignored the bodies and the sculptures, looking at the building itself. The entire thing was stone, slate-gray granite or something similar. No windows. Low ceilings. Hardy, but her power wouldn’t care. “I can collapse this whole place.”

“If there are spirits in the area,” Leslie said with a nod to Sofia, “damaging the corpses may… not be the wisest idea. A hundred vengeful spirits are far, far more than we brought equipment to handle.”

“I will investigate the town a little more and see if I can discern the true nature of what is going on,” The Fixer said, turning back to the front doors of the Hall of Memories. “You focus on removing the ring. Without its influence, the ritual may well collapse on its own.”

“Do you need backup?” Leslie asked, earning a shake of The Fixer’s head.

“I’ve been doing things like this for decades upon decades, I’ll move faster on my own. Stick together, in pairs at the very least. Carter—”

“I remember what you said.”

The Fixer smiled, then turned and blurred, leaving behind a trail of afterimages that themselves vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.

“Wow…” Bethany breathed. “Can I learn that?”

“Doubtful,” Erika said. “The plan hasn’t changed for us. I suppose one of us should try to get a peek at the body, see if it has the ring on it?”

“Easy,” Bethany said with a grin. “You all distract that guy and I sneak in the back and steal the ring. He’s just one guy, tell him you want a tour.”

“You will do no such thing,” Leslie said with a stern tone that Erika had only heard him use at the shooting range when someone was being less than careful with their firearm handling.

“I’m the smallest one here, I can—”

“No.”

Bethany clamped her mouth shut, but not without a huff at her failed attempt to elbow into the action.

“Not a bad idea though,” Erika said, looking around the small group. Carter and Bethany were right out, obviously, and Leslie would want to keep them in sight. So, turning to Sofia, she raised an eyebrow and flashed a grin. “You sneak in or me?”

---

Erika stepped around the corner as Bradford wandered off with the group. Allegedly, she and The Fixer had stepped out to the cars to see if they could get a phone signal. The others were going on a tour.

That left her to step lightly across the hall, down the corridor Bradford had come from, and to an unassuming door labeled Preparation Room.

The handle jiggled, failing to turn. Figuring it would be locked, she already had a small pick from her armory in hand. With a jab and a twist, the door popped open.

Since her adventures had begun, Erika smelled her fair share of rot. Corpses, maggots, digestive systems, and plenty other unpleasant odors had given her a general expectation for what might be through the door. Yet, oddly enough, she didn’t smell much of anything. Maybe a faint scent of sweat, but nothing wholly revolting.

The hot air within prickled at her nose and eyes, stinging a little, and her skin tingled. A few beads of nervous sweat evaporated away like the air had negative humidity, ready to absorb even the smallest bit of moisture. When even her mouth went dry, she started to think there was something more unnatural about all the salt in the air than was apparent in the gallery.

Erika hesitated at the threshold as a mental image of her own husk of a body joining the ranks of the Hall of Memories flickered through her head. Bradford hadn’t stepped out with a mask or protective gear beyond his gloves, but he could have some weird cult-magic protecting him.

Staying outside increased the risk of being caught. Overhearing the start of the tour made Erika think Bradford would yap for a few minutes about each and every corpse, but there was no guarantee they would be busy for more than about five minutes.

She stepped inside, closing the door behind her, knowing she could break it down in an instant if she started feeling faint.

The room itself looked almost homely. Warm lighting filled the entryway, complete with a small couch, a dried out old flower, boxes of tissues, and wood paneling on the walls. Erika hadn’t been inside many funeral homes, but she imagined it wasn’t too different. Except for the arrangement. The couch and adjacent seating were arranged facing the back half of the room.

A thin curtain partitioned off the space, but with a bright light behind casting a shadow, it was obvious what was on the other side.

Erika stepped around the curtain to find the corpse sitting on top of a small platform. It was nothing like medical beds of a proper hospital or the archaic operating slabs of The Castle’s theaters. It was an angled metal tray, creased to drain liquids down toward one end. Dark, almost black blood dribbled from the corpse of the wizened old man toward a large carboy. A rumbling machine behind the man’s head, connected to his neck with needle-like tubes, helped keep the trickle flowing.

A few steps away, a trough of salt had been prepared. Grooves carved into it formed the rough vacancy where the man’s body was clearly intended to sit. He would be drained, salted, then presumably posed and set out on display.

The man, though thinner and far more sunken than in The Warrior’s photograph, was obviously the mayor. He had the same gray hair and wrinkled-yet-relatively-youthful face. Erika remained still for a moment, half expecting him to open his eyes and sit up. He didn’t.

He didn’t have a ring either. Nor anything else. He sat on that table completely nude, just draining away. Of all the medical horror Erika had seen, including Anna being in pieces under The Doctor’s knife, watching the mayor’s corpse slowly exsanguinate made her squirm more than anything else.

Breaking herself out of her stare, Erika hurried around the room. She pulled out drawers, opened cabinets, and searched high and low for any sign of the mayor’s things. A ring, small and difficult to notice, might be hard to locate on its own, but she figured it would be kept with his clothes. She found needles, forceps, jaw wire, strange tools she couldn’t name, and even a shriveled tongue.

No ring, no clothes.

Erika looked around, starting to get irritated and nervous as the time passed. Bradford could show up at any moment.

“Ghost?” Erika whispered. “You can point out Mummy stuff, right? Show me the ring.”

Erika slowly looked around, staring up at the ceiling and down at the floor just to give the ghost an opportunity to pop up in the corner of her vision.

Nothing showed up. Not even a little flicker of a white dress fluttering in some nonexistent wind.

Erika glanced at her watch, ticking slightly slower than normal thanks to her breaking into this room. Her five minutes were up. They would have to figure out something else; maybe his clothes were being laundered for display in one of the other buildings, maybe some other villager stole the ring. With one last look around, making sure she put everything back where she got it, Erika started to leave.

“Why are you here?”

Jolting, Erika spun around to face the mortuary room.

Nothing had changed in the short moment she turned her back. The cabinets were in place, the corpse was on the table, and the low rumble of the exsanguination machine continued unimpeded.

There was a temptation to call out, asking who spoke or where the speaker was. Maybe Erika was simply accustomed to strangeness, because she didn’t bother. “I’m here for the mayor’s ring,” she answered instead.

“Do you fear change?”

Erika narrowed her eyes, honing in on the voice. She leaned closer to the mayor’s corpse, staring at his dry, withered lips. “No.”

“You must, or you would not seek the ring.” His lips didn’t so much as twitch, but the sound came from the mayor.

“Maybe I just think it’s a pretty color.” Erika waited, but whoever was speaking from the mayor’s mouth must not have found her quip amusing. “Okay, let’s say I do fear change. What then?”

“What would you give up to remain as you are, forever?”

Erika’s gaze flattened; this was starting to sound more like The Fixer’s deal with that murderess than anything she had seen thus far from The Mummy. “Look buddy, unless you picked up that ring in your late eighties, you didn’t remain the same. And you’re about to go sit on a shelf like some dried out curio, just sitting, forever. Can’t do anything, can’t move, can’t fuck. They don’t even put up televisions for you guys to binge shows.” She snorted, shaking her head. “I got a better deal for you: tell me where that ring is and I’ll break your corpse, hopefully sending your spirit off to wherever spirits normally go.”

“I am preserved.”

“Not yet you aren’t,” Erika said with a glance to the empty trough of salt. “Even if you were, you know it isn’t going to last forever, right? Like, the sun is going to explode someday and that’ll take your little Hall of Memories with it.”

“Physical forms matter little when seated at the Bench of the Final Judge.”

Erika raised an eyebrow. Now it sounded like she was getting some good information. “Final Judge, huh? Is that the aspect in charge of this whole cult?” She paused, then asked, “I don’t suppose you have a portal to their realm, do you? Just so I can see this bench for myself. Maybe I want to see it before being preserved forever.”

“You seek the ring,” the corpse said without movement. It wasn’t a question this time around.

“I told you that at the start.”

“You seek the Final Judge’s destruction.”

Erika scoffed, mockingly cupping her ear. “What’s that I hear? A lack of faith in your god? Careful, or this thing might judge you as unworthy of preservation.”

“I am preserved.”

Erika chewed her lip, eyes tracking the second hand as it ticked around her watch. She didn’t want to get stuck in some circular argument with this thing. “Since I can’t stand up to a god, no reason to withhold it from me.” Erika waited a moment, guessing her little argument wasn’t going to carry any weight.

The corpse groaned, visibly moving as its jaw strained against the wire holding its mouth closed. It peeled apart, ripping bits of gums and thin, weak teeth out from their resting place. Finally, the corpse stilled with its mouth as wide open as possible, head angled forward like it was waiting for the dental hygienist to come and give a rinse.

A rough golden ring sat atop its tongue, capped with a teal-colored stone.

Erika felt zero temptation to reach in and grab it herself. The Warrior had been very specific about her instructions to not touch it. Reaching into her armory, Erika pulled out a pair of rubber tongs and a ring box The Warrior gave her. Both had a faint film around them that would hopefully protect her from any ill effects the ring might have.

Still, Erika prodded the ring with the tongs before trying to pick it up, just testing. Finding nothing alarming, she pinched the gold band between the rubber ends and pulled it from the corpse’s mouth like she was playing Operation. Only when she cleared the thin teeth did she move with any haste, pressing it into the padded box and snapping the lid closed.

“Thanks,” Erika said, shoving both into her coat pockets. “Enjoy eternity or whatever.”

The corpse said nothing. Neither did it move. She wished it would close its mouth again to help cover her tracks, but it probably didn’t matter anymore.

She had the ring. All they had to do was hightail it out of here, spend a night at a hotel, and be back in Chicago in the morning.

Hurrying around the curtain, Erika opened the door and stepped out into a long, officious hallway. Black marble swirled with thin wisps of white adorned the floors and heavy columns held up a ceiling of stained glass. Green sconces flickered between the columns, lighting the otherworldly corridor.

Erika glanced back to the room she had come from only to find no room at all, just a blank marble wall. She prodded it, feeling for that seam between worlds that signified a portal. Her hands came away empty. No film, no seam.

“Fuck,” she muttered, checking her phone, knowing what she would find.

No signal.

“Yep. Knew it. Fine,” she hissed through ground teeth. “You want me to meet this Final Judge so bad?” She didn’t have a black bullet, but a bench sounded eminently breakable regardless. “I’ll just have to…”

Erika trailed off, finding her ghost hanging in the air at the end of the corridor. Unlike every other time, the ghost did not vanish into the ether the moment Erika saw her, nor did she point off in a direction. She just stood, floating above the ground.

“Sticking around this time?”

The woman in white looked surprised, momentarily glancing down at herself before turning dark, sunken eyes back to Erika. She only maintained that pose for a split second before averting her vacant eyes.

But she did not disappear.

“Alright.” Erika cracked her neck. Although somewhat surprised to find her armory still within reach, she did not hesitate to grab hold of a baseball bat. “You and me this time.”