Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If officer Johnson knew he’d be stuck working as overnight security for a museum, he would’ve listened to his parents. But a job was a job, and as long as he was being paid, he didn’t really have room to complain. Even so, he didn’t spend four years at the academy to go prancing around a museum guarding old dead stuff. Oh, well. At least he could finally go to bed soon.

After he finished the dinosaur exhibit, he trudged over to the new Egyptian exhibit to wrap up his rounds for the night. The place was still being finished and was partially blocked off by sheets of plastic covering the entrance. He pushed past the plastic and shone his flashlight around to look for anything out of place.

The very first thing he saw was a dead, decaying face with glowing eye sockets!

Officer Johnson jumped back and nearly dropped the flashlight. When he regained his composure, he saw that it was a mummy. Probably the mummy the new archeology professor brought in recently. It’s skin was dried out and papery, almost to the point where Johnson could see bones. The glow he saw was from a pair of gems that had been placed in its eyes.

It was just sitting in its sarcophagus that had been placed perfectly upright. Someone must have forgotten to close it.

“Damn corpse…”

He put a hand over his chest to calm himself, then chastised himself for being so foolish. It wasn’t like the mummy was gonna come to life and chase him or anything. He didn’t even believe in that sort of thing.

He shone the light around the exhibit some more. The light reflected off some of the glass cases as he examined the treasures and tablets the professor in charge of the exhibit recently found. The gems gleamed, cutting through the darkness when the light met them. Ancient hieroglyphs carried out a message that Officer Johnson couldn’t make out. The sarcophagus was empty, just as it was supposed to-

Wait, what?

Officer Johnson did a double take. The mummy was gone. It was nowhere near the sarcophagus, so it couldn’t have fallen out. In fact, it seemed that the mummy was nowhere in the exhibit at all.

The officer gripped his tie nervously. He was certain he’d seen a body in there! He had seen a body in there, right?

Right?!

“You’re losing it, Johnson…” he muttered.

Maybe it was just nerves or something. He must have been seeing things with all the old stuff he’d run into tonight. Yeah, that had to be it.

But… just in case…

Johnson approached the sarcophagus cautiously and inspected it. There was no trace that the mummy had been there. No footprints, no specks of dirt left behind… nothing. Just as he thought. He was probably just seeing things. He took a step back and-

What did he just bump into..?

Something was standing behind him, and it was alarmingly similar to a person. Johnson slowly turned around...

And came face to face with a pair of glowing red eyes as the missing Mummy roared at him.

“HHHNNNGGRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

Officer Johnson screamed! He dropped the flashlight and sprinted through the exhibits and right out the door! Paycheck be damned!

He could hear the Mummy from the entrance, shrieking at him as if warning him to never come back…

Chapter Text

Manny’s big orange van rode down the interstate on the way out of the bigger part of the city. As usual, Joey was in the passenger seat next to him. Nikita was sitting right behind them, along with Colleen and Roi. Jc and Teala sat in the row behind the three of them. Matt, Safiya and Rosanna were taking the very back. One of the only times they were all in the van together like this would’ve been on their way to solve a mystery. Not today, though.

Manny scolded Joey and Nikita for the umpteenth time. “I told you two we shouldn’t have skipped! The term, ‘make up assignment’ isn’t synonymous with ‘Hey! No need to do the work! Just go to the mall instead!’”

Joey knew he’d be annoyed, but honestly, Manny was lecturing him and Nikita more than their parents had!

“Yes, Mom, you were right,” Joey said, rolling his eyes.

Nikita scooted between the two of them from the seat behind them. “Hey, if we hadn’t skipped, you two would’ve had to deal with that physics test along with the project we didn’t do.”

Joey couldn’t really argue with her there. He’d completely forgotten about that test! He certainly didn’t forget about the history project that was due on that same day. In fact, when they were told they could do a make up assignment if they didn’t turn it in or got a bad grade, he and his two friends didn’t think much of it. But it turned out that make up assignment would take place at the Lancaster Museum of Natural History. Apparently some new professor brought back some goods from an archeological dig in Egypt, and now he and all his friends were gonna be helping set up the new exhibit.

Matt smirked from the back. “Well, that’ll teach you guys not to skip out on projects!”

“Easy for you to say, boy scout,” Joey teased. “You’re just going for the extra credit.”

Roi exclaimed, “Well the rest of us are only here because my dog ate our homework!”

“Did he now?”

“He did!” Rosanna exclaimed. “I saw the whole thing!”

“And you didn’t think to stop him?” Jc asked.

Rosanna’s eyes darted around. “He looked so happy…”

Teala sighed. “I swear, this is the one time that excuse will actually work.”

The rest of the gang was doing the make up assignment for different reasons. Colleen, Roi, Rosanna and Teala were all in a group, and they didn’t turn in their project either. It might have had to do with their project basically being an attempt at making food from the city of Pompeii. Well, at least Roi’s dog would’ve given them an A. As for Matt, Jc and Safiya, their group had in fact turned their project in. And they’d excelled at it like the friggin’ trio of brainiacs they were. The three of them were just tagging along for extra credit.

It wasn’t much longer until the gang pulled into the museum parking lot. It looked more like a building from the future, with a combination of white concrete and glass. A big window gave them a view of a pterodactyl skeleton hanging from the ceiling inside. A little pond next to the museum was decorated with all kinds of fake animals, and a river that contained a tiny pirate ship stretched off. A giant statue of a T-rex that Joey had taken to calling Tyrone as a kid stood next to the entrance.

The gang piled out of the van and made their way towards the entrance.

Joey took everything in. “Wow, I forgot how long it’s been since I’ve been here.”

Safiya chimed in. “Apparently the Egyptian exhibit isn’t gonna be the only new thing here. I think they’ve modified some of the older ones, too.”

Well, in all honesty, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. It had been a while since he’d set foot in a museum in general, and he was getting a bit of a nostalgic feeling. Besides, working on this with the gang would probably help the weekend go by a lot faster.

“Alright, guys,” Joey said. “One make up/extra credit assignment, coming right up!”

Honestly, in Colleen’s opinion, there were worse ways to spend a Friday afternoon. She used to love this museum as a kid, and the food court was to die for! She was eager to see how the place changed.

A pair of museum employees came walking out to the entrance to meet everyone. One was a bespeckled woman with a dark pants suit and red hair tied up neatly in a bun. The other was a stuffy looking guy with white hair and a particularly tacky looking sweater vest.

“Good afternoon, all,” sweater vest guy greeted the gang. “You all must be the ones who are gonna be helping us this weekend.”

“That’s us!” Colleen replied. “I’m Colleen, this is Joey, and… everyone else is also here.”

It usually took a while to introduce the entire gang at once. If they started introducing each other now, they’d probably be standing there all day.

Sweater vest guy laughed. “Don’t worry, we were informed of all of your names. My name is Dr. Rosen, and I’m one of the curators here.” He gestured to the bespeckled woman. “And this is Professor Lingard.”

“It’s nice to meet you all!” Professor Lingard said with a grin. “I’m working with the new exhibit on ancient Egypt and contributing some of my findings.”

“So you’re totally in charge of the exhibit?” Colleen wanted to know.

“That’s right. My assistant Walter Boggs and I have dedicated the past five years to searching for the ancient treasures you’ll be seeing today.”

“Hell yeah! We love a scientific queen!”

Professor Lingard chuckled. “Indeed.”

If there was one thing Colleen loved more than food, theatre and solving mysteries, it was seeing women making a name for themselves in a field like this!

“Come on inside,” Dr. Rosen said. “We’ll show you what we need you all to do.”

The moment the gang entered the museum, they were greeted by all kinds of historical figures, from the cavemen of the stone age to the knights of the renaissance. Matt wasn’t sure what the big deal about working on their assignment here was - he loved museums! All that science and history wrapped up in one place? Who wouldn’t have the time of their life visiting these puppies? Not to mention the new exhibit they’d be helping set up!

Speaking of exhibits, the place really grew since Matt was here all those years ago. He and Rosanna would always visit the place every year back in Beaver Scouts, and there was so much more now. The dinosaur exhibit had a stegosaurus where there used to be a couple of garbage areas. The Greek exhibit had a section about mythology, including a scarily realistic model of a gorgon. A model of the king of birds, Garuda, stood among a pile of fake gold and jewels.

Matt excitedly put a hand on Safiya’s shoulder. “This is incredible!”

“I know, right?” she gushed. “It’s like a treasure trove of history in here!”

“Just through here, everyone,” Professor Lingard said as they approached the exhibit.

They had to pass through a few big sheets of plastic to get inside the Egyptian exhibit, and Matt could see a few empty display cases and several boxes that had been taped shut. It was in need of some serious attention, that was for sure. But the museum really went all out for the new addition. It looked more like the inside of a temple than an exhibit.

A few of the glass cases held a number of jewels, gold coins and clay tablets. The walls were designed to look like the walls of a pyramid, from the gold paint right down to the hieroglyphs carved into the surface. A sarcophagus stood upright on a display - the centerpiece of the exhibit.

“Wow…” Matt gasped. “That sarcophagus almost looks genuine!”

“That’s because it is,” Dr. Rosen confirmed.

It was probably safe to say that Matt was straight up fangirling at this point! He was actually in a room with a real life mummy! He never would have expected this from a museum he spent his childhood in! It was a dream come true!

He almost didn’t notice as an older man stepped into the exhibit from the other side of the room. He was wearing glasses as well, but they were a bit smaller and more rectangular than Professor Lingard’s. He was carrying a clipboard with him, and he seemed to be ticking some stuff on it.

Professor Lingard walked over to him. “Everyone, this is my assistant I mentioned, Professor Walter Boggs. He’s accompanied me on many of my searches over the years.”

“Nice to meet you, Professor Boggs,” Joey said, holding out his hand.

Boggs took his hand and shook it. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Matt bounced up and down. “Can you guys believe it?! All this great Egyptian history in this room! So many stories these old relics could tell..!”

Roi laughed. “You’d get married in a museum, wouldn’t you?”

Well… now that he suggested it…

“So…” Manny pointed to the sarcophagus. “There’s a real person in there?”

Professor Lingard nodded. “That’s right. You’re looking at the resting place of the great Pharaoh Tarik.”

Manny took a giant step to the left after she said that, bumping into Rosanna in the process. She reached up and gripped his arm. The little nugget must not have been too crazy about being in the same room as a corpse either.

Jc looked the coffin up and down. “I don’t think I’ve heard of this guy.”

“That’s probably because he ruled during a relatively quiet time,” Professor Lingard explained. “Tarik may not have ruled for very long before he died, but he was able to maintain peace between kingdoms during his life.”

“That may be true,” Professor Boggs added, “but old Tarik here was a greedy one. If there was one thing he loved more than his kingdom, it was his treasure.”

“That’s correct. To the point that when he died, his servants had his eyes replaced with two of his prized carnelian stones rather than the traditional shells or painted onions.”

Nikita made a face. “His… eyes? ”

Teala squirmed. “You’re not gonna show us, are you?”

“Oh, no!” Professor Lingard assured them. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Well…” Joey said, the everloving crystal freak that he was.

Colleen put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re good. Thanks.”

Manny rolled his eyes at Joey, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little morbidly curious. What did his head even look like now that his eyes were replaced with a couple of shiny rocks? Did his eyelids get used to them? Did he even still have eyelids?!

Ugh… he was gonna make himself sick if he kept thinking about that...

Dr. Rosen said, “And his new eyes were only a few of his valuables our esteemed professor brought back. As you can see, he had many more.” He gestured to the display cases surrounding the exhibit.

“The bitch sure did love his shiny rocks,” Manny muttered.

Joey nodded. “Looks like we got something in common!”

“Quite,” Professor Boggs confirmed. “He was so invested in his treasures, he vowed he’d return from the grave to destroy anybody who took them away from him.”

“Nevermind.”

Ah, yes. Of course they had to bring a cursed mummy back! And of course the gang would be inches away from it all weekend!

Manny pointed at the sarcophagus again. “Did the curse not occur to you when you were relocating Beef Jerky Ben over there?”

Professor Lingard laughed. “Oh, Walter, don’t scare them.” She turned to the gang. “Don’t worry, kids. Boggs and I have worked with mummies for a long time, and I can guarantee we’ve had no curses of any kind. Not unless you count the occasional misplacing of your keys as a curse.”

Okay, that made Manny feel a little better. Still, given the gang’s past experience with stuff like this, he’d probably have to keep and eye on Mr. Beef Jerky over there.

“Now then!” Dr. Rosen said, clapping his hands together. “We’d like your help to set up the exhibit over the weekend. You’ll all be earning credits for your hard work, and we’ll make sure to update your teacher on your progress.”

That sounded easy enough. As long as their new mummy friend cooperated and didn’t come to life or anything, the weekend would go along just fine!

Rosanna smiled. “Don’t worry, Dr.! We’ll all be happy to help out!”

“Absolutely,” Joey agreed. “What do we do first?”

“Well,” Professor Lingard said, “First we just need your help to unpack some of the Pharoah's treasures. But be careful with them - they're very delicate and we need to be careful not to lose sight of them.” She gestured to the sarcophagus. “We wouldn't wanna make old Tarik mad, now would we?”

Manny was just gonna pretend he didn't hear that last part.

Chapter Text

It had been almost two hours since the gang started out with the exhibit, and Teala was pretty sure they were all getting a workout for the next month. This Tarik character sure liked his treasures. A good chunk of the boxes were too large for one person to hold up and move around on their own. Especially when she and Jc were both carrying the same box of emeralds toward a display case. Those things felt more like dumbbells than jewels!

“Keep going!” Jc told Teala. “Back it up! You’re good! You’re good! You’re good! Aaaaaaand , stop here!”

They plopped the box down and Teala stretched her arms out. Yeesh, these things were heavy! Well, given that some of these boxes had gold and jewels in them, that was probably to be expected. At least all the emeralds were going in the same case so they wouldn’t have to move them too much.

“I get this guy was a king and all,” Teala pointed out, “but he could’ve at least made his luggage easier to carry.”

Matt was near the case, shoving another box into place. “Actually!” he strained, coming to a stop and leaning on the box. “ Whew… Pharaohs were more thought of as gods than kings.”

“He’s right, y’know,” Jc added. “The people of Egypt thought Pharaohs were sent as a link between man and the gods to maintain order.”

“I didn’t know that, actually,” Teala commented.

Safiya looked up from straightening a tablet. “It’s true - they held titles like, ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ and ‘High Priest of Every Temple.’”

Teala chuckled. Leave it to those three to spout out facts about anything you were talking about.

Nikita sat down on an empty crate. “Personally, I’m more interested in their makeup. I aspire to have an eye game like Cleopatra.”

“I know, right?” Manny chirped. “Like, tell me your shadow routine, girl!”

Professor Lingard turned her attention to them. “Oh, trust me. The ancient Egyptians have been using makeup, including lipstick, long before it was cool. They had pigments they would make from carmine.”

“Ooh, what’s carmine?” Joey asked. “It sounds pretty!”

Safiya perked up. “Oh! I know what that is! It’s this powdery stuff they use for red lipstick. It was made from the cochineal beetle, right?”

“That’s right!” Professor Lingard replied.

Teala cringed. “Wait, beetles? ”

Colleen turned. “Soooo… red lipstick as basically-”

“Crushed bugs, yes,” Safiya answered matter-of-factly.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” Teala noted, and promptly got back to work because, as far as she was concerned, nobody said anything about beetles.

She jabbed a pair of scissors into the tape covering the box’s flaps, and opened it up to find a few handfuls of emeralds wrapped tightly in tissue paper to keep them all safe. She picked one up and gently unwrapped it, keeping in mind that the owner was in the room with them and probably wouldn’t want her mishandling his stuff. When she let the tissue paper fall to the ground, she realized she’d just unwrapped a rock. Not a gem or a chunk of gold, just a plain old stone covered in sand and dust.

“Hey, Professor?” Teala asked. “I thought we were just unloading, like, treasure and stuff.”

“We are,” Lingard replied. “Why? What are you looking at?”

“Um… a rock?”

Lingard cocked her head. “Let me see that…”

She walked over to Teala so she could hand it over. Lingard turned it over in her hands, and rubbed her thumb against the surface, as if she were trying to confirm it was actually a rock and not just a really dirty gem.

She turned to Jc and Teala and asked, “What’s in that box you two have there?”

Jc pointed at it. “It’s supposed to be a bunch of emeralds.”

Rosanna poked her head out from behind a pile of boxes. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

“I hope not…” Professor Lingard muttered. “Let’s see here…”

She reached into the box and took out another lump wrapped up in paper. Teala peered over to see her unwrapping another rock, and another. They sure didn’t seem like something a great pharaoh would just have around his tomb. What was going on here?

“Tarik wouldn’t have kept those around, right?” Roi asked.

Lingard shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Hmm…” Colleen muttered. “Pharaohs were buried with their treasure, weren’t they? Maybe they’re in the sarcophagus.”

“I can’t be too sure,” Lingard replied, “but it’s worth a look.”

Teala sheepishly raised her hand. “Just so we know, what’s the, um… state… of the mummy in there?”

“Well,” Lingard explained, “the idea of mummification was to preserve the person’s body, but Tarik has definitely been in there a while.” She moved to the sarcophagus, and turned to the gang before opening it. “I’ll understand if you guys don’t want to see our guest here.”

Teala was almost grateful she didn’t go into too much more detail. She took Lingard’s advice and turned her attention back to the rocks, pretending to inspect them so she wouldn’t accidentally get a look at the body.

All of a sudden, a gasp from the professor caused Teala to drop her rock.

“It’s gone! ” Lingard exclaimed.

Hold up… did she hear that right?

“Wait, what’s gone?” Teala asked.

Lingard’s eyes grew wide. “The mummy! The Pharaoh Tarik - he’s not in here!”

Adrenaline immediately took over, and she and the rest of the gang rushed to the sarcophagus to see. Lingard pushed the lid away, and they saw nothing but an empty coffin!

Nikita could understand a few missing jewels, but a mummy? An entire freaking mummy?! Who in their right mind would steal a whole-ass corpse!?

Lingard’s hands went to her hair and she started muttering, “Oh, no… Oh, no, no, no…”

When the gang first met Lingard, she’d come off as pretty cool and collected for a professor. By now, she was more stressed than Nikita whenever she realized too late she was about to run out of setting powder. She was inspecting all up and down around the sarcophagus, as if the mummy somehow jumped out of their box and onto the floor.

Now, Nikita didn’t really care that much about history or archeology, but she felt bad seeing the professor like this. The girl clearly put her life’s work into this place.

“Professor Lingard?” Nikita said before she could stop herself. “Maybe we can help you look for them.”

Lingard stood up slowly. “I’m not sure it’ll be that simple…”

“Don’t worry, professor,” Joey assured her. “We have a pretty good record of tracking stuff down. Not only are we splendid unpackers, you’re also in the presence of a bunch of top notch investigators!”

Nikita figured it would probably be better if they didn’t mention their field of expertise was more ghosts and goblins than missing artifacts, although the two usually seemed to tie together in these cases. Besides, she’d been ready for something interesting to happen today. Going on a treasure hunt sounded a lot more fun than unpacking a dead guy’s luggage. How hard could it be to find a bunch of shiny rocks and a wrapped up human among all the old, dusty relics in this place?

Joey clapped his hands together, taking on his leader role as usual. “Okay, gang, you know the drill! Ro and Roi - why don’t you guys come with me to find Dr. Rosen so we can tell him about this?”

Roi threw a thumbs up at him. “Aye-aye, captain!”

Rosanna nodded. “Sounds like a plan!”

Colleen tapped Manny’s shoulder. “Why don’t we call the police? If there’s really missing artifacts, we might need to get the law involved.”

Nikita suggested, “Some of us should look around the exhibit just to make sure they didn’t fall out somewhere.”

Safiya nodded. “We’ll see if we can find any clues while we’re at it. Maybe the thief left something behind that we can trace.”

“Good idea, all,” Lingard said. “I’m gonna go to the security office and see what I can find. Thank you all so much for helping.”

“Of course,” Matt replied. “We do this kind of thing all the time!”

Nikita added eagerly, “We eat this stuff for breakfast!”

Jc suggested, “Let’s all meet back here later if we find anything.”

Nikita sneered excitedly. It was time to get down to business!

With that, everyone split off into their designated areas. Professor Lingard left to find the security cameras. Joey, Roi and Rosanna went to look for Dr. Rosen’s office. Manny and Colleen went outside the exhibit to call the cops. That left Jc to explore the exhibit with MatPat, Safiya, Teala and Nikita.

How about that? Even when they weren’t in one of their usual cases, they still had to split up. Well, a mystery was a mystery, and Jc was all about mysteries! It was probably a good thing he made a habit of bringing his notepad he used to keep doodles and notes with him everywhere he went. 

He opened up his pad to a blank page and clicked his pen. He jotted down a couple of quick sketches of the rocks they found, and the empty sarcophagus. He tried to write down the word “sarcophagus” just to have a label, but quickly discovered that he had no idea how to spell it.

He and Teala went back to the box of rocks to look it over. “So, what are we thinking, guys?” he asked them.

“I might have a theory...” Matt mused, and pointed at the box. “Were the lids on that box messed up when you guys found it? Or the tape?”

“Not that we noticed,” Teala replied. “They were sealed shut up until we opened them.”

“Hmm…” Matt muttered. “I’m just thinking out loud here, but what if it was an inside job?”

Safiya knitted her eyebrows. “It might not be out of the question. But what motive would one of the employees have for putting this new exhibit into the ground?”

“And wouldn’t a new exhibit bring new visitors?” Teala asked. “Why would someone on the inside wanna risk passing that up?”

“I don’t know about anyone else,” Nikita commented, “but if I were gonna steal from an exhibit, I’d definitely go for the jewels.”

Jc tapped his pen against the side of his head. “Maybe there’s a reason other than the jewels to steal from it? Like maybe to keep the exhibit from opening at all?”

“Could be,” Matt replied thoughtfully. “Y’know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was one of our regular cases.”

Jc snickered. “The only thing missing is a ghost.”

He thought back to Boggs’ mention of Tarik’s curse, and hoped he didn’t just jinx them.

It didn’t take too long for Manny and Colleen to find somewhere quiet. The museum was basically empty by now, and they probably wouldn’t have anyone listening in. They stood alone in the dinosaur exhibit, with nothing but a giant T-rex looming over them to keep them company.

“So, what exactly do we tell the cops?” Manny wanted to know.

“That some emeralds have been stolen and there’s a missing mummy.” She was surprisingly straightforward, all things considered.

“Do you think they’ll believe us? I mean, that sounds a lot like the creepy stuff we usually deal with.”

“Well, it’s not like we can just stand here and wait for all that stolen stuff to come back.”

That might have been true, but Manny wasn't sure how much he trusted the police to think they were all innocent. They’d barely seen anyone else entering and leaving the exhibit while they were working. Then again, they were all probably too busy with unpacking everything to notice if anyone stole anything. Not to mention Professor Lingard. She seemed cool, and she was clearly dedicated to her work, but there certainly were a lot of treasures among all that stuff. What would stop the officers from thinking she would sabotage her own exhibit?

And more importantly, what the heck happened to Tarik’s body? Manny didn’t know much about traditional mummies, but he was very familiar with a simple formula: Coffin - Dead Body = Not Good

Colleen pulled out her phone and started to dial 911, when Manny noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He could’ve sworn someone had just passed the entrance to the exhibit, and his hunch was correct after he saw the person’s shadow.

“Colleen!” he whispered. “Someone’s over there!”

She quickly turned around, and Manny reflexively put a hand on her shoulder. She was just in time to see the shadow retreating.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see them-”

He was cut off when Colleen cupped her hands to her mouth and called out, “Hey! Is someone over there?!”

He bristled. “ Dammit, Colleen! Don’t just-!”

But the shadow must’ve heard her. Whoever was out there started running down the hall.

Colleen motioned forward and whispered, “Let’s follow them!”

Or we could just not, Manny thought.

But she’d already started off. Not wanting her to get herself into trouble, Manny followed. It was times like this when he wished his friends would listen to horror movie logic. Just once?

The upper level of the museum was where most of the administrative stuff was. At least, that’s what Roi, Joey and Rosanna figured when they saw all the offices with their doors wide open. Virtually none of the lights were on except for a lamp in the security guard’s office. Roi thought for a moment that maybe he was off on his rounds, but then he noticed how bare the desk was when they walked past.

“Did the security guard start his rounds already?” Roi wondered.

“If he did, I haven’t seen him,” Joey replied, then he called out, “Dr. Rosen! We need your help!”

They waited for an answer, but no one called back to them.

“Dr. Rosen?” Rosanna called. “Are you up here?”

Nothing.

“Where is he?” Roi asked.

“He didn’t leave us here, did he?” Rosanna wondered.

“I doubt it,” Joey assured them. “But keep an eye out for, like… anyone.”

The three friends crept further down the hall, and the lights were getting darker. The museum was eerily quiet, and the fact that there were barely any lights didn’t help that fact at all.

Not that Roi was getting scared! He wasn’t afraid of anything! No way!

Rosanna shuddered. “Why are museums always so creepy at night?”

“I mean,” Joey pointed out, “it’s a giant building full of old dead things.”

Roi spoke. “And one of those old dead things is a mummy.”

...That conveniently went missing...

Okay, Roi wasn’t too afraid of anything.

Rosanna pointed. “I think I see his office!”

Sure enough, they could see his nameplate on a door just about at the end of the hallway. It was the only office door that was closed.

Joey went over and knocked. “Dr. Rosen! Are you in there? We have an emergency in the Egyptian exhibit!”

No answer.

“Maybe we should just go in,” Roi suggested.

“What if it’s locked?” Rosanna asked, and tried the doorknob. “Oh… it is not locked...”

She pushed the door open, but they couldn’t see a thing inside.They took a few steps inside, and Roi noticed that the office had a strange bittersweet smell, like stale candy of some kind. His thoughts travelled to those weird hard candy things that old people liked, and he realized how hungry he was. The gang was taking so long to set everything up, he missed his late-afternoon-pre-dinner snack! Maybe Dr. Rosen had a bowl of candy somewhere?

“Soooo…” Roi said.

“Find a light switch?” Joey suggested.

“Yes, please,” Rosanna replied.

Roi was very much okay with that. After all, how would they be able to see anything in this darkness? Yeah, that was it!

He and the others felt around the walls for a light switch. Either this was a really big office, or they’d accidentally fallen into a void. Just as Roi was starting to worry he’d fall into the darkness never to be seen again, his hand brushed against a lightswitch.

“Found it!” he alerted his friends.

There was a little click! as the overhead light flooded the office. If the place could be described with one word, it would be: fossils. Lots and lots of fossils. A few graphs with detailed drawings of dinosaur skeletons lined the walls. A lifesize model of a raptor skull (or maybe it was real?) was nestled on a table to the side of the room. A dodo fossil rested on the desk next to Dr. Rosen’s name tag.

“Wow...” Roi marveled, “Dr. Rosen sure likes his bones.”

“Yeah, but he’s not here,” Rosanna added.

Joey put his hands on his hips and glanced around. “So where the heck is he?”

Meanwhile, Colleen and Manny were still following the stranger through the museum. They couldn’t get close enough to see them other than their shadow at the risk of being noticed, but Colleen made sure she and Manny didn’t lose them.

Manny soon pulled her to a stop and whispered, “Colleen, I’m starting to think this is a bad idea...”

She rolled her eyes and swayed a bit dramatically. “You always say that whenever we do something like this!”

“No, ma’am - I say that when people decide to follow strangers through abandoned places!”

Well… okay, when he put it like that, he probably had a point. Still, they needed some sort of clue, and following a stranger in an abandoned museum sounded as good of a way to get a clue as any right now. Besides, what was the fun of an investigation if they just stood there and missed all the excitement?

Speaking of…

“We’re gonna lose them at this rate!” she insisted, grabbing hold of his wrist. “If we want a lead, we need to find out what their deal is!”

He shook his head. “Alright… but if we get got, I’m haunting your ass.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Colleen turned on her heel and started walking again, pulling Manny along. She might have been itching to get this going, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t getting nervous. She shared the sentiment that they usually ended up running from ghosts in situations like this. They were about to round a corner the stranger just rounded, and she and Manny jumped back when Joey, Rosanna and Roi almost ran right into them.

“Guys!” she gasped. “You scared us - what are you doing here?”

“We thought you were looking for Dr. Rosen,” Manny told them.

“We were,” Joey replied. “But we couldn’t find him.”

“You guys haven’t seen him, have you?” Roi asked.

“No,” Manny answered. “But we did see someone out in the hallway just now.”

“Who were you following?” Rosanna asked. “There was no one out there when we walked by.”

Colleen blinked. “Wait, you guys didn’t see anyone?”

“No?” Joey answered/asked.

Okay… this was getting weird. Maybe the person turned a corner somewhere?

All of a sudden, a loud scream rang out from somewhere down the hall. The five of them jumped and cling to each other. A pit formed in Colleen’s stomach, and she didn’t have to think too hard about who the scream could have belonged to...

“What was that?! ” Rosanna exclaimed.

“That sounded like Dr. Rosen!” Colleen exclaimed.

“Dr. Rosen!” Joey called out. “Dr. Rosen! Are you down there?!”

No answer.

Manny tried. “Dr. Rosen?! Where are you?!”

“He must be in trouble!” Roi fretted.

“Then why the hell are we just standing here?!” Colleen screamed, finally getting a damn move on! “Let’s go!”

The five of them dashed through the halls as fast as their legs could carry them! Joey could practically feel the adrenaline coursing through him as he sped through the corridors with everyone. He couldn’t tell if it was from fear or exhilaration, and he had absolutely no idea what they were running towards, but he didn’t have time to worry about it now!

The gang staggered to a halt when they neared a corner, and they could hear someone shuffling around. They couldn’t hear if it was Dr. Rosen or not, but something about it sounded off. Joey motioned for them to move forward, and they peaked around the corner. He couldn’t believe they could stop themselves from screaming when they saw who (or what ) it was.

It’s back was turned when they saw it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t Dr. Rosen… It barely had enough on its bones to be a human. Bandages that looked older than Joey’s grandparents hung from the thing’s skinny limbs and withered, papery flesh. From where the gang was hiding, Joey could see crooked teeth and a squished nose. It was wearing a golden headpiece and wrapped up in a similarly colored kilt. He could see a pair of eye sockets that housed glowing red carnelians instead of eyes.

It was Tarik. The very same Mummy that had supposedly been stolen. And he was stumbling around like he was looking for something.

Everyone ducked further behind the corner, staying huddled together.

“What the hell is that thing?!” Colleen whispered.

“Is that Tarik?!” Roi guessed.

“I think so,” Joey replied. “Did you see his eyes?!”

“They’re freaking jewels, bitch!” Manny hissed.

Rosanna was shaking. “What are we gonna do?!”

Everyone tensed up when they heard a grunt, followed by shuffling noises that were getting louder and louder. He knew they were there!

“Run!” Joey barked as quietly as he could.

The five of them scurried away, with Joey making sure his friends were all ahead of him. He had just enough time to catch a glance behind them and see the Mummy. It was only a split second, but it must have been long enough for Tarik to see them. A shiver shot up his back as he heard a loud, gravelly growl.

“Run faster!” Joey yelled, and they all picked up speed. No use being quiet anymore - the gang had a damn corpse after them!

The shuffling sounded like it was speeding up along with the gang as they flew back through the halls. If Rosanna had known the make up assignment would lead to this, she would’ve just taken the zero! She didn’t remember anything about getting chased by an undead pharaoh in the syllabus!

They came to a stop when they put a good amount of distance between them and the Mummy, but Rosanna didn’t even know where they were anymore. She had a feeling Tarik wouldn’t give up on the chase so easily. They needed to hide!

“Where now?!” Colleen babbled. “ Where now where now?! He’s still coming! We need somewhere to hide, like, right now!”

“Um, um, um - in there!” Joey pointed at a broom closet at the other side of the hall.

Everyone ducked into the cramped closet, thankful it wasn’t locked. They couldn’t do anything else but stand perfectly still, and listen as the Mummy went by. Rosanna tried to wrack her brain for any explanation as to what was going on. Her mind was starting to travel back to what Professor Boggs had said about the pharaoh's curse.

She shuddered, and she sincerely hoped her hunch wasn’t correct.

One thing at a time, she reminded herself. One at a time..!

They still had the Mummy to worry about. Maybe if they were really quiet, he’d think he lost them and give up.

I am a broom… Rosanna thought with every ounce of her mind. I am a mere broom. I keep the floors clean, the mop is my best friend, and I somehow get lost in the Upsidedown before reappearing in a random place when you don’t need me. I am- Wait… what’s that smell?

She turned up her nose and sniffed the air. Along with the scent of cleaning supplies and dust, she could swear she smelled the same almost-sweet smell from back in Dr. Rosen’s office.

“Do you guys smell that?” she asked them as quietly as she could.

“I didn’t do it,” Roi whispered almost immediately.

Rosanna rolled her eyes and clarified, “No, it smells like Dr. Rosen’s office in here.”

“Hey, she’s right,” Joey confirmed, and turned to Manny and Colleen. “This was basically what we smelled when we were looking for him.”

“Oh, yeah…” Manny said. “I think I smell it…”

There was no doubt about that, but Rosanna noticed something else. There were a lot of different smells in here, but she thought she noticed a scent that probably shouldn’t have been in the closet with them. It was almost meety, but it must have been old, and it reminded her of mildew.

Colleen whispered, “But where is it coming- ah! ” and let out a gasp.

“Shh!” Manny hissed. “Not so loud!”

“Something just dripped on me!” she whispered.

Rosanna cocked her head. “Dripped?”

“Yeah.” Colleen wiped something off her shoulder with his finger and inspected it. “It feels sticky…”

Roi leaned forward and observed, “I think that’s what we were smelling back in Dr. Rosen’s office…”

Oh, no… Rosanna thought. Mummies, strange smells, sticky stuff...

“Does anyone have a flashlight?” she asked.

Joey flicked on his phone’s flashlight, and everyone slowly turned their heads up. Suspended up in the corner of the ceiling was some kind of golden crystalized mass. It almost looked like amber. And nestled inside were the dried out remains of a human that looked a lot like the Mummy… only it was wearing Dr. Rosen’s clothes! It wasn’t just his clothes either - Rosanna could see the grey hair, his glasses, even his name tag!

Screw their hiding spot! Rosanna and the others let out a scream as they burst out of the closet and sprinted back down the hall. Unfortunately, Tarik was right there! They all turned and ran through the halls, trying to lose him and screaming all the way.

Meanwhile, the other half of the gang was still inspecting the Egyptian exhibit.

This was getting a little frustrating. Safiya was used to tough mysteries every once in a while. In fact, they were some of her favorites, but they couldn’t find any clues. Not one shred of evidence pointing to who could’ve taken from the exhibit.

“Any luck, you guys?” Nikita called.

Safiya sighed. “Nope. Whoever this thief is, they sure are thorough.”

She turned her attention back to the sarcophagus. Maybe there was something they’d missed? Tarik’s body couldn’t have just gotten up and walked away, after all. Though, knowing the gang’s history with stuff like this, that might have been up for debate.

She knelt down to the floor and examined the surface around the coffin. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary at first glance, but upon closer inspection, she noticed tiny golden particles spread out around the surface. It had a sort of crystalized appearance, but she couldn’t quite tell what it was.

“Hey, guys!” she called to the others. “Come look at this.”

The four of them gathered around her to get a look.

“What is that stuff?” Jc asked. “Some sort of gem shards?”

Safiya leaned forward a bit to get a better look. “I can’t really tell. I get the feeling Joey might know, but I don’t remember seeing anything like this among Tarik’s treasures.”

Nikita made a face, but then said, “You guys think this could be a clue?”

“Could be,” Matt replied. “Saf, go ahead and get a sample of that stuff.”

Safiya’s backpack wasn’t too far from the sarcophagus, so she could reach over and pull out a little plastic bag. She turned it inside out, stuck her hand inside, and picked up the specks to avoid getting any trace of herself on them. She turned the bag outright again and zipped it closed, sticking it back in her bag. Hopefully the gang could find a microscope or something to examine it with.

“So whoever took Tarik and the jewels could be leaving this stuff behind?” Teala guessed.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Safiya replied. “If we find more of this stuff, we might find our culprit.”

She was just about to set her bag back down when a bunch of very familiar sounding screams made their way back toward the exhibit. The five of them jumped and instantly straightened up.

Oh, boy, she thought, mentally preparing to run. Here we go!

Matt nearly stumbled into the sarcophagus as the rest of the gang came thundering back into the exhibit. Manny practically crashed into Nikita as he wrapped his arms around her. Joey came to a shuffle and looked around at everyone frantically. Colleen was yelling words at a mile a minute that even a fellow speed-talker like Matt couldn’t understand. Roi had been running so fast that he slipped on a loose sheet of plastic and fell to the floor. Rosanna flew right over to Matt and Safiya and grabbed their arms, nearly causing them all to fall over.

Whatever happened while they were all out, it definitely spooked them!

“Woah! Woah!” Matt exclaimed, holding his free hand up for calm. “Where’s the fire, guys?!”

Roi scrambled to get up and screamed, “We gotta get out of here!”

Colleen was still babbling, and all Matt could make out was “dinosaur,” “closet,” and something about a “beef-jerky-looking-A-word-B-word?”

“This is why you don’t mess with old things!” Manny exclaimed, still keeping hold of a squirming Nikita.

Jc tried to calm everyone. “Okay, okay! Chill for a second! What the heck’s going on?!”

Joey took a breath and tried to say as calmly as he could, “So… we might have just found the Mummy.”

Matt straightened up. “Really? That’s awesome! Where is it?”

Unfortunately, the answer to that question burst into the exhibit, tearing through the sheets of plastic and throwing them down in one fell swoop.

The gang scrambled away from the entrance and grouped up so that everyone was holding onto someone for dear life. The form stood tall to reveal the terrifying face of King Tarik, glowing red carnelian eyes and all. And he was not happy to see a bunch of kids messing with his treasures.

“HHNNGGGRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

Tarik let out a shriek and lunged for the gang, sending everybody into a frenzy. For a moment, the gang couldn’t do anything but run around in circles as Tarik lunged at them while remaining close to their only exit. He grabbed hold of Teala for a split second before she whacked him in the shoulder, causing him to let go of her and disorienting him.

Now’s our chance! Matt thought as he was dashing around.

He grabbed one of the smaller boxes and slammed it right onto old Tarik’s head! Joey followed his lead and shoved him out of the way of the entrance, causing the Mummy to fall onto it’s back and giving everyone room to escape.

The gang made a mad dash through the exhibits. Dinosaur models, fake animals, and mannequins in clothes from different eras seemed to blur together as they all ran by. That box must not have held for very long, because it sounded like the Mummy was following them.

Matt could hear Nikita demanding, “What the hell is that?! ”

“It’s the curse!” was Roi’s answer to that. 

“The what?! ” Matt yelled.

Joey started to say, “It’s Tarik! He must have realized he and his treasures weren’t in their original resting place!”

Colleen launched into her own explanation. “Tarik came back from the dead looking for his treasure and he trapped Dr. Rosen in an amber cocoon thing and now he’s dried out and dead and we’re probably next!”

“The curse is real!” Rosanna fretted. “He knows we messed with his treasure and he’s coming for us!”

This was crazy! It made no sense! There were no such things as curses! But the Mummy was back there, it was following them, and the others definitely saw something! Matt tried to wrack his brain for some kind of logical explanation, but he couldn’t think of one. Right now, all he could focus on was: I NEED TO RUN AS FAST AS I CAN AWAY FROM THE DECAYING BODY COMING AFTER ME AND MY FRIENDS! LEGS DON’T FAIL ME NOW!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

The gang made their way to the main lobby, only to be greeted by a figure standing in the middle of a blinding light. Everyone skidded to a halt, and Matt thought for an instant that something else had come along with the Mummy to finish them off. But then he noticed the police uniform and the sirens outside.

“What on earth is going on here?!” the officer demanded.

“Officer!” Joey exclaimed and turned behind them. “There’s a Mummy back there chasing after us and - huh?”

Matt looked back to see what Joey was seeing, and… nothing. The Mummy was gone. There was nothing back there but the emptiness of the now-closed museum. He couldn’t think. They were just being chased by that thing! What in the H-E-Double-Toothpicks was going on in this place?!

The officer spoke. “We got a call from a Professor Boggs about missing artifacts.”

“That would be me, officer.” Walter Boggs emerged from one of the side entrances and approached the officer. “Come with me - you too, kids. Let’s see if we can find a few of my coworkers to help sort this out.”

Speaking of, Professor Lingard came running out of an entrance opposite to Boggs. “What happened?!” she immediately asked the gang. “I saw you all running from something that looked like the Mummy on the security cameras!”

Joey sucked in some air through his teeth. “We kinda were...”

Matt was getting the feeling this was gonna be a weird weekend...

Chapter Text

The next few hours were a bit of a blur. The entire Egyptian exhibit was closed off and wrapped in police tape, turning it into a crime scene. Nobody found the Mummy again while the police searched the museum, but Rosanna agreed to go with Joey and show the officers where they’d found Dr. Rosen’s body. To make matters worse, the cocoon his body was inside of went missing, too! Everyone was getting asked for statements, and the police didn’t believe them at first. But after viewing the security tapes and seeing that the gang had, in fact, been chased by an undead pharaoh, they were able to come to a very simple explanation.

“Yep, you got a curse,” was the conclusion of the lead officer on the scene.

“But what about Dr. Rosen?” Rosanna asked. “What happened to his body?”

“We searched all up and down where you kids told us you saw him, but we couldn’t find any trace.”

Professor Boggs shook his head and said to Lingard, “I told you we should’ve heeded the tomb’s warning. Now anyone in this room could be next!”

Rosanna wrung her hands nervously, and her brain started to race. If the Mummy came after the museum curator, what was to stop him from doing that very same thing to Lingard and Boggs? Or what about the officers? The museum guests? The gang? Would they all end up dried out in a hive of cocoons?

“This is starting to feel like a horror version of Night at the Museum… ” Manny muttered. 

“I know,” Teala said. “I have half the mind to check the cameras again to make sure we’re not being used as the cast for one of those ‘mummy’s curse’ movies.”

“Those aren’t just movie plots,” Safiya explained. “One of the first instances of pharaoh’s curses came around after the discovery of King Tut. They’re allegedly cast on anyone who disturbs a pharaoh's final place of rest. E.I….” She motioned towards the exhibit.

“But it makes no sense,” Lingard said. “I’ve worked with mummies my entire adult life and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“Never?” Rosanna asked. “Like, nothing has ever happened involving mummies that you couldn’t explain? Not once before?”

“Not once.”

Hold up… Spooky stuff was going down. Said spooky stuff has never happened before. There was only one thing that could mean. Rosanna met Matt’s gaze, and they both gave each other an “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” look. They both then turned their eyes to Joey, who must have been thinking the same thing. And the rest of the gang must have been thinking what they were thinking, too.

She turned to Lingard, Boggs and the police and announced, “Maybe we can help you guys with whatever’s going on here!”

Hell yeah! Jc thought excitedly. Mystery time!

If he was being honest, he was almost hoping things would start getting spooky. Well, he wasn’t so much ready to get chased a few minutes ago. But a good old fashioned mystery sounded like a lot more fun than what they’d originally come here for!

“Are you sure?” Boggs asked them. “This probably won’t be an easy task.”

“Of course!” Joey replied. “We’re actually a lot better at catching monsters and ghosts than the treasure-hunting stuff we were dealing with a little while ago.”

Colleen bounced up and down on her toes. “Monsters and ghosts are our jam! We can totally help you guys!”

Jc nodded assuringly. “If there’s a logical explanation for this, we’ll find it!”

One of the officers pointed to the gang and said to the professors, “They did solve a mystery involving their school once before.”

“Hmm…” Boggs mumbled thoughtfully. “I suppose an extra set of eyes and ears wouldn’t hurt.”

“Alright then,” Lingard decided. “We’d be grateful for your help, everyone.”

Matt suddenly raised his hand like he was in class. “I feel like this might not be the best time to ask, but what about our make-up assignment?”

Oh, right. Jc had almost forgotten about that with all the excitement. They were supposed to be getting credit for setting up the exhibit, but that might not have been possible anymore now that it was basically closed off. Well… he was there for extra credit, and so were Matt and Safiya. But everyone else was there because they weren’t able to get their original assignments done. They still had their own grades to worry about, too.

“How about this?” Lingard suggested. “If you can solve the mystery of why King Tarik’s is terrorizing the museum, we’ll request that you get extra credit in addition to your original assignment.”

“A bit ambitious, don’t you think?” Boggs asked quietly, but Jc heard him.

“Well, I think they can do it. What say you, gang?”

Joey grinned and turned to the gang. “I think that sounds perfect! What do you think, guys?”

“Getting graded for mystery solving?” Nikita pondered. “Eh, why not? Sounds more fun than lugging around a bunch of boxes!”

“Solving a mystery and getting a grade for it?” Matt exclaimed. “I’m so down!”

“There are two kinds of people…” Jc observed. “But yeah, I’m up for a little detective work.”

Manny slammed his fist into his palm. “That beef-jerky looking ass bitch won’t know what hit him!”

Roi drooped. “Did you really have to compare him to food?” But his normal excitable self returned. “Yeah! We’ll get ‘em!”

“Then it’s settled!” Joey announced. “We start investigating right away!”

“Actually,” Boggs said, “the museum closed about ten minutes ago. We probably shouldn’t be on the premises much longer.”

“Then we start investigating first thing in the morning!”

Lingard spoke. “The museum doesn’t open until noon on Saturdays.”

“We… start investigating at noon tomorrow!” Joey waited for a moment. “No objections? Wonderful!”

With everything decided, everyone (other than the police) left the museum for the night. Starting at noon the next day, the gang would have another mystery on their hands!

The gang rolled up in the van at twelve o’clock on the dot the following afternoon, ready and raring to go! Nikita normally woke up much later than this on weekends, but she was willing to make an exception this time around. She didn’t care so much about the grade as much as she was excited to get this started! The grade was just a nice little side to all of it in her mind.

Manny had just pulled the van into the parking lot, when everyone was trying to get a look out the windows. To their surprise, the lot just about had a full house. Dozens of cars were taking up spaces, a lot more than there had been yesterday.

“Woah…” Joey gasped. “What are all these people doing here?”

“No idea,” Teala replied as she stared outside. “Everyone and they’re grandma must be here today.”

Nikita would have figured people would have more interesting things to do on a Saturday than go to the museum. Not to mention it was probably just opening by now, but the lot was almost totally full.

She scanned the dozens of cars sitting in their spaces. “Is every school in the county offering make-up assignments here or something?”

Colleen peeked over Nikita’s shoulder from next to her. “Maybe there’s an event going on or something?” Once she got an eyeful, Colleen reached over and took a piece of jerky from Roi’s already-opened bag.

“Hey!” Roi barked. “That’s mine!” The guy had really brought a bag of beef jerky to their investigation.

Colleen just snickered and said, “You should know to bring extra by now!”

Rosanna waved at them from the very back. “Can you toss me some, too?”

“Gladly!” Roi replied jokingly. “Since you actually asked nicely! ”

He scooped out a handful of strips and tossed them all the way back to Rosanna. Nikita turned and gave her benchmates a look, flashing one in Rosanna’s direction as well. She was pretty much accustomed to their stomachs at this point, but… seriously? Beef jerky?! Now?!

“What?” Roi asked her.

Nikita sighed. “Do you guys seriously have to eat jerky, like, right now? ”

“We’re hungry!” was Rosanna’s reply to that. “Besides, it’s lunchtime!”

“So why don’t you just eat actual lunch food?”

Colleen just shrugged and said, “Don’t judge. Beef jerky’s good,” before stealing more from Roi.

Nikita rolled her eyes. She loved those idiots, but they astonished her sometimes.

Matt pointed and exclaimed, “Over there! I see a spot!”

“Oh, thank God!” Manny sighed.

It took a hot minute to get their spot, and an even hotter minute to actually park the damn thing. There was a lot of backing in and out, trying not to hit the cars between them, and everyone spouted out, “Careful!” “Watch it!” “No-Manny-back up!” “To the left!”  But the gang eventually (finally!) made their way into the museum.

Thankfully, nothing was out of place from the night before. The only thing that was different was the long line of people in front of the admissions desk. When they finally got to the front, they saw a woman sitting at the front desk and filling out a booklet. Her salt-and-pepper hair clued Nikita in that she was about the same age as Dr. Rosen, and Nikita could see a nametag pinned to her cardigan that read “Delilah Gramm” when the gang got closer.

Ms. Gramm looked up from her book and smiled at the gang. “Welcome to the Lancaster Museum of Natural History. Are you all here for a visit?”

“Oh, we’re not, actually,” Joey explained. “We’re here to help you all with the stuff that’s been going down at the Egyptian exhibit. We saw a lot of weird stuff last night and we wanna look into it.”

“We’re gonna be doing some snoopin’,” Nikita added. “Look for clues, move some stuff around, maybe lift some of the exhibits and take ‘em for tests, that kinda thing.”

“Well, we all appreciate your help,” Ms. Gramm said with a smile. “King Tarik seems to be going through a lot of trouble to scare our employees away and get the exhibit shut down. But, um… please don’t touch any of the exhibits.”

“No promises.”

Manny nudged her and told Ms. Gramm, “It’s not gonna be that kind of investigation. We’re sorta just getting it started for now.”

Safiya got back to the topic at hand. “So, you’re saying this has been going on for a while?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Ms. Gramm replied. “The Mummy has been scaring the staff away ever since Professor Lingard and Professor Boggs returned from their expedition. It certainly seems to be interesting to the public, though. People really seem to want to get a glimpse of the pharaoh, and business has been booming because of it.”

Nikita pointed to the direction of the lot. “We saw a ton of cars parked outside. Do you think they’re all there to try and find the Mummy?”

“Possibly. They aren’t here on official business, but I have my doubts that will stop some of them.”

Well, that’s just great, Nikita griped.

That’s exactly what the gang needed - a bunch of immature detective-wannabes trying to butt into their totally legit investigation. The gang was way more experienced with this kind of thing than some lady and her screaming kids who came to look at dinosaur bones. And besides, the gang called dibs!

On the other hand, Nikita’s brain stuck to what she said about more people showing up to get a look at the King of Beef Jerky. She didn’t know much about working an information desk, but she figured she’d get a pretty decent commission with all those people paying to visit the museum. She wondered if it was too early to start adding people to the suspect list…

After they got their info and guest passes from Ms. Gramm, the gang split off into two groups. Joey took Colleen, Teala, Jc and Nikita to question some of the visitors and employees. Meanwhile, Roi went with Manny,  MatPat, Rosanna and Safiya to find someone to help them examine the clue they’d already found.

“So, what’s the plan?” Rosanna asked.

“You guys still have that stuff you got yesterday, right?” Manny asked Matt and Safiya.

“Right here,” Safiya replied, holding up her sandwich baggie and shoving it back into her pocket. “I’m thinking we should find an expert to help us look it over. Preferably, an expert with a microscope.”

“Maybe the professors are still here,” Matt offered. “If we can get a hold of them, they can probably take a look at it and help us figure out what it is.”

“I don’t really know what that stuff holding Dr. Rosen was,” Roi said, “but from where we were, it kinda looked like some sort of amber.”

Rosanna furrowed her eyebrows. “But amber doesn’t, like… dry stuff out like that, does it?”

Roi thought of those weird pieces of jewelry made of amber and bug fossils that people liked for some reason. He might not have known much about amber, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to dry stuff out the way it did with… well…

He looked down at his bag of beef jerky, but it might as well have been a bag of cockroaches at that point. He couldn't believe it, but he suddenly wasn’t hungry for it anymore…

He held it out to Rosanna. “Here, Ro, you can have the rest.”

“Huh?” She grimaced at the bag. “Um… no, thanks. You can keep it.”

“No, I insist. Please, take it!”

“No, no, it’s yours! I don’t wanna rob you of your snack!”

Before the insisting could continue, Manny groaned and said, “If you two aren’t gonna eat it, just throw it away!”

Both Rosanna and Roi stared at Manny, their mouths wide open. The audacity! The blasphemy! Didn’t Manny’s parents ever teach him not to let food go to waste?!

“Alright, you three!” Matt chastised them. “We have a mystery to solve! If you’re gonna argue about food, save it for when we’re done!”

Rosanna stomped her foot, clearly just as unhappy as Roi was with Manny’s crime against snacks. “ Safiya! ” she whined. “Help us out here!”

All that got from Safiya in return was a monotone, “Listen to your father, kids,” as she paid especially close attention to her baggie.

The five of them were all so busy arguing that they hadn’t noticed the person in front of them until they walked right into him.

“Hey!” a nasaly voice exclaimed. “Watch where you’re going!”

Roi shook himself off and apologized. “Sorry about that! We were kinda caught up in an important discussion.”

When everyone straightened up, they saw they’d run into a young man who probably wasn’t that much older than Roi and his friends. The two of them even looked a little alike, at least in terms of their skin and hair colors. But this guy was taller and a little more lanky, not to mention he was wearing glasses. He was holding a camera around his neck, but it was the Mothman shirt he was wearing that told Roi why this guy was here.

The stranger huffed and straightened his camera. “Well, please be more careful. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in the middle of a very important investigation.”

Rosanna brightened up. “Oh! So are we! We’re trying to figure out what’s going on with the Egyptian exhibit!”

She seemed excited to meet a fellow supernatural detective, but this guy just rolled his eyes. “Do any of you know who I am?”

Manny looked him up and down and guessed, “A… guy with a camera?”

“I am Michael Goodman. Soon-to-be professional paranormal investigator. I’ve been running a blog on all things strange for over three years now. Perhaps you’ve heard of it…” He did a marquee thing with his hand. “The Other Side of the Other Side…”

“Nope,” Roi replied.

“Mm-mm,” Rosanna murmured.

“Nada,” Matt added.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Safiya told him.

“Not once, ever,” Manny denied.

Roi shrugged. “Sorry, man. Maybe we can check it out after we finish up here?” As an aspiring filmmaker, he knew how hard it was to get projects out there when you were just starting out. The least they could probably do was check it out.

Michael narrowed his eyes at the five of them. “Well, this walking Mummy could be what helps my career take off, and I won’t have a bunch of Scooby-Doo impersonators ruining it.”

And suddenly, Roi’s sympathy was gone.

Matt folded his arms. “Well, that’s a shame, cause we were here first!”

“Yeah!” Roi backed him up. “We’re totally on this investigation, right guys?”

“That’s right,” Safiya said. “Now if you don’t mind, we have an important lead to follow.”

Michael grimaced and held his camera close to his chest. “Well, we’ll just see how that turns out for you.” He turned up his nose and walked off.

“What a jerk,” Rosanna whispered.

“I know,” Roi agreed. “Did he skip breakfast or something?”

“Forget the extra credit,” Manny said. “I’m about ready to solve this just to rub it in his face.”

If Roi was being honest, he couldn’t disagree.

“Maybe we should get back to this,” Matt suggested. “Ro, Roi, you guys didn’t happen to see Lingard and Boggs’ office in the administrative area, did you? Or a science lab?”

“I think so,” Roi told them. “I’m pretty sure we passed a sciency looking place.”

Rosanna nodded. “Maybe their offices are up there, too. Come on, guys, - we’ll show you where it is.”

It turned out Roi’s and Rosanna’s memories were dead on. They came up to an area in the administrative section lined with all kinds of models and charts. It didn’t take too long for the gang to arrive at an office door with the labels “Professor Lingard” and “Professor Boggs.” Safiya was the one to knock, but she was worried for a moment that they might not even be there. Her concerns were put to bed as they heard a “Come in!” from Lingard on the other side of the door.

The office looked like one of the science labs in school, but with a lot less tables. A metal desk sat in the center of the room covered with books, notes and sketches, with a microscope resting near the edge. Various test tubes and cylinders sat on a counter in one corner, and in another sat a glass cabinet full of artifacts, probably uncovered on one of the pair’s digs. Safiya could see a group of jars that the Egyptians used to hold the pharaoh’s organs on the top two shelves. On the other two shelves held some more gems and pieces of jewelry that hadn’t been put on display in the exhibit.

This was easily a scientist’s paradise, and Safiya didn’t have to look at Matt to know they were both in agreement that this was one of the coolest places they’d ever set foot in.

“Good afternoon, all,” Lingard greeted them.

“What can we do for you?” Boggs asked.

Safiya pulled the sandwich baggie of golden somethings they’d found last night out of her pocket. “We found these particles next to the sarcophagus last night, and we need some help figuring out what they are and where they came from.”

“Particles, huh?” Lingard inquired. “What kind of particles?”

“We aren’t really sure what they are,” Matt added. “We think it could be some kind of crystal, or maybe amber. Could you guys tell us what it is?”

“We can certainly try,” Boggs replied. “Let’s have a look.”

With that, Safiya handed the baggie over to Professor Boggs. He carefully opened up the baggie, slid the particles into a little glass slide, and stuck it under the microscope’s lens. Everyone gathered around him and watched as he observed whatever was going on under the slide. Safiya was picturing the little organisms moving around together, occasionally bumping into one another. She wondered what kind of single-celled stuff was going on in there.

After a bit of silence, she heard Manny ask, “What do you think?”

Boggs muttered thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “Dr. Rosen’s body last night... this seems to have put him in some sort of dehydrated stasis, is that right?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Rosanna confirmed. “Why?”

“I’m trying to figure out how this stuff placed him into the state you all inferred to. I’m not exactly sure what this is just yet, but it appears to be organic.”

“Organic?” Roi repeated. “What does that mean?”

“May I take a look?” Lingard asked, and Boggs stepped out of the way to let her peak through. “Hmm… I think you’re right. Crystals can sometimes form organic compounds, but amber is an amorphous mixture of organic compounds.

“I see, I see…” Roi mused thoughtfully. “Now… what did you just say?”

“It means it’s not crystalline,” Matt explained, “meaning it’s more likely that we found amber.”

“It certainly looks like amber,” Lingard agreed. “Whatever you kids found last night, this appears to be derived straight from some kind of living thing.”

That didn’t sound good. On the one hand, there were still plenty of possibilities of this stuff being harmless. On the other hand, they still didn’t know what it was, and this could really be the result of some kind of pharaoh's curse. From what Safiya understood about this kind of thing, mummies usually came back when their resting places were disturbed, or if their treasure was stolen. If this stuff really did turn out to be some sort of amber-like substance, did they have a real life curse on their hands?

Lingard straightened up. “Mr. Boggs, I have to talk to the police again. Why don’t you have a closer look and tell me what you find?”

“Will do,” Boggs nodded, but he turned to the gang. “Are you all sure you want to go through with this investigation? It’s starting to seem dangerous.”

“We appreciate your concern, sir,” Safiya told him sternly. “But if there’s really an undead pharaoh roaming around and haunting the museum, we won’t stop until it’s gone. That’s why we’re here helping you today.”

Well, that, and the extra credit. And the fact that Safiya didn’t like the undead on principle, and she almost wanted to spite the pharaoh. Stay dead, please, thank you very much.

“And besides,” Matt added, “we haven’t even seen King Tarik today. Maybe he’s hiding now that it’s light out.”

“Yeah!” Rosanna cheered. “I bet that thing is more scared of us than we are of him!”

“That’s debatable,” Manny countered, but he straightened up. “Then again, I haven’t seen any running and/or screaming crowds yet.”

Roi nodded. “That might be a good sign then! I’m sure we’ll be okay for now. And I bet the rest of our friends are having just as much luck as we are right now!”

Boggs chuckled. “I admire your enthusiasm, you all. Okay then! We’ll get back to you as soon as we know what this stuff is.”

“In the meantime,” Lingard added, “keep an eye out for any more suspicious activity. When we all meet up again, the five of you should gather the rest of your friends. That way, we can all go over our findings together”

“Absolutely,” Safiya agreed. “We’ll let you know if we get a hold of anything else!”

The gang left the lab with a little extra spring in their step, and Safiya was feeling a little better. Maybe her friends were right. If the Mummy were anywhere in the museum right now, they surely would have seen him by now. Maybe all the people trying to look for him drove him to hide from everyone. At the same time, though, it would be a bit more difficult to look for clues.

It might not have been impossible, though. As long as they stayed sharp and kept their eyes open, they were bound to find something. What was the worst that could happen?

Chapter Text

A few hours later, the rest of the group was downstairs in one of the prehistoric exhibits. They’d been asking folks around about whether or not they’d seen anything during their visit, but they weren’t having much luck at the moment. Jc would’ve thought that an undead pharaoh walking around would be pretty easy to spot, but apparently not. Not a single person they’d questioned so far had any info for them.

They’d split up to cover more ground, with Nikita and Jc ending up together. From where Jc was standing, the others weren’t doing so well talking with one of the employees supervising the exhibit.

“So…” Joey said. “You haven’t noticed anything unusual lately? Any weirdos running around?”

Colleen added, “Particularly dried out, decaying weirdos with exquisite headpieces?”

“No?” the attendant replied. He seemed pretty nonchalant.

Teala tried. “Not even skinny weirdos with glowing red gem-eyes?”

“No. May I get back to work now?”

Jc shook his head and sighed. It would probably be a while before they found anything at all.

Nikita scanned the exhibit and pointed. “There’s a janitor over there. I bet he knows something.”

Jc followed her hand to see a scruffy-looking guy in a dark blue jumpsuit mopping the floor in a corner. It was a long shot, but maybe he could answer some questions.

“How about a little old fashioned Good Cop - Bad Cop?” he suggested. “I’ll start off easy, just to let him know we’re on his side, then I’ll ask him if he noticed anything suspicious. If he starts acting iffy, that'll be your cue to take over. Got it?”

“So, what you’re saying is… I get to be Bad Cop?”

“Yes, you get to be Bad Cop.”

Nikita pumped her fists. “Yes!”

“Just don’t go too overboard, okay?”

“When have I ever gone overboard?” she asked, but Jc cocked his head skeptically. “...lately?” she added.

He snickered at that. Nikita was great, but she had more than her fair share of… incidents. Still, it might be best to give her the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it wasn’t like it was an interrogation. They’d just ask the guy a few basic things, then go on about their day.

“‘Scuse me, sir,” Jc called out. “Do you have a second?”

The janitor looked up from his mopping, and they saw by his nametag that his name was Philip. “Can I help you two?”

“Yeah, actually. We’re looking into the weird stuff that’s been going on with the new Egyptian exhibit. Is it alright if we ask you some questions about what you might have seen?”

“Eh, I got nothing better to do right now,” Philip replied with a shrug. “Ask away.”

“Awesome. So, if you don’t mind-”

Before Jc could even get the first question out, Nikita charged at Philip at full speed. She knocked him back against the wall and got right up in his face, screaming at the top of her lungs, “WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH AT APPROXIMATELY EIGHT-TWENTY-TWO PM?!”

The volume of her voice was loud enough to startle both Jc and Philip. So much for that plan...

“U-uh-!” Philip stuttered, “I w - I was… clocking out?”

“LIAR!” she accused. “Only LIARS clock out of work at eight-twenty-two PM!”

“But my shift ends at-”

“ I’M ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE, BITCH!”

“Woah! Nikita!” Jc rushed forward, grabbed Nikita’s arm and pulled her away from Philip. “Chill out for a sec! He said he’d help us!”

But Philip wasn't in the mood for conversation anymore. He straightened up and stared at Nikita as if she were an irate cat holding a knife in its mouth.

“Good grief…” he muttered. “I don’t get paid enough for this!” And he stormed off.

Jc turned and fixed Nikita with a look. “Dude,” he chastised her. “Really?”

He knew Nikita would probably do something extra when he gave her the “Bad Cop” role, but this?! Seriously? He wished she’d just think before she did stuff like this every once in a while.

The look seemed to work too - Nikita blinked and straightened up.

“Uh… I’m sorry?” was all she could say about what just happened.

All the commotion seemed to be enough to draw the rest of the visitors’ eyes to the two of them. It certainly got the rest of their group’s attention. The three of them rushed over to see what just went down.

“What happened?!” Colleen almost demanded.

“We heard a bunch of noise and that guy just stormed out!” Teala added.

Joey asked, “Did you guys find something?”

“No, we didn’t,” Jc said. “In fact, we couldn't get anything out of that janitor thanks to a certain someone. ” He motioned toward Nikita.

“What do you mean?” Joey wanted to know.

“I might have scared off one of our interviewees…” Nikita admitted.

Colleen heaved a heavy sigh. “Are you kidding me? Seriously, Nikita?”

“It's not like he was our only shot!”

Their friends seemed pretty annoyed, but before anyone else could say anything, some screams came from the exhibit’s exit. Then a few screams turned into more, and a group of people came running through. A couple of parents were dragging their kids with them in the hurry, and a few other people were practically tripping over each other trying to get through. This was apparently enough to sound off warning bells with the rest of the visitors in the prehistoric exhibit, and even the employees. They instantly lost interest in whatever they were doing, and joined the frightened crowd with the sudden understanding that something was really, really wrong.

Before the gang realized it, they were the only people left. No one else was around. Just the five of them.

“Well… that seemed promising,” Jc observed, staring in the direction of where all those people had come running from.

And what do you do when you see a bunch of people running away from an unseen danger? You go towards the unseen danger, of course! 

There wasn’t a single person in sight as the group crept up the hall and towards the food court. It was a very sudden contrast to just a few minutes ago. Whatever was back there must have really scared everyone. But by the time the gang got to the other end of the hall, it was totally empty. Not a single patron, or Mummy for that matter, in sight. Teala knew she should probably have been relieved at that, but the uncertainty of where Tarik could be at that moment outweighed anything else she was feeling.

A wall of wide windows gave them a view of the museum’s food court. It wasn’t very big when they went inside - maybe about as big as a coffee shop. Groups of rectangular tables were spread out in rows. They might have mistaken it for a school cafeteria if it weren’t for the very limited chain fast food restaurants inside. Directly across the food court was the museum’s gift shop, with a pretty remarkable lack of tourists. From where the gang was standing, they could see racks of T-shirts and baseball caps, as well as shelves full of little knickknacks.

Colleen took in the food court, looking a bit disappointed. “Huh. I remember this place being a lot… bigger when I was younger.”

“This whole museum was a lot bigger when we were younger,” Nikita noted.

Jc glanced behind them. “Well, whatever freaked those people out, it’s long gone now.”

“They sure left in a hurry,” Joey added, pointing at discarded sandwiches and salads. “Some of them left their lunch behind.”

“Are you guys sure the threat is gone?” Teala asked. “Tarik must have been the one who scared those people off, right? What if he’s still here somewhere?”

“Okay, how about this?” Jc suggested. “Does anyone wanna split up?”

Silence from everyone.

Colleen’s reply to that was a weird face and the word, “Bitch.”

It prompted some laughter from the rest of the gang, and Teala’s spirits lightened a bit.

“Yeah,” Jc figured, “not a good idea, huh?”

“Normally, I’d be all for splitting up,” Joey said, “but it might be safest if we all stick close for now. Jc, why don’t you and I look around the kitchen for clues, and the girls take the dining area…” His face wandered to someone behind the rest of the gang. “And you check that way.” His eyes instantly popped after he said that.

Uh-oh...

That was when Teala realized the ominous presence behind her and her friends. They all whirled around to see who the mysterious sixth member of the group was.

Tarik stood in the entrance, and he did not look happy to see them.

“GRRAAAAAAUUUUUGHH!”

The five of them screamed and scrambled to run away, with Tarik charging after them like his legs weren’t a pair of decaying sticks. Teala’s body took over and all that was running through her head was: GRAB THAT SANDWICH! NOW THROW IT AT HIM! NOW RUN FASTER!!! A quick glance back at the mayonnaise and pepperoni covering Tarik’s enraged face told her that it must have worked. He stopped in his tracks for a brief moment, taken aback by the sandwich that suddenly pelted him out of nowhere.

“Into the kitchen!” Joey screamed, “Quick!”

The group scrambled behind one of the counters and rushed to the back. They nearly tripped over one another trying to squeeze their way into the kitchen. She hadn’t really paid attention to which restaurant this kitchen was connected to, but the smell of fresh bread and cold cuts told Teala that this was the sandwich shop’s kitchen. They had just enough time to catch sight of Tarik clamoring over the countertop before Joey threw the door shut, putting his back against it. It wasn’t enough though - the door shook a bit as the Mummy tried to shove it open from the other side.

“We gotta block the door!” Joey yelled.

“Um, um, ah-! Here!” Teala stuttered as she spotted a heavy-looking metal cart.

She had to force all her weight against the cart to get it to move. Jc had to help and Joey had to move quickly to get out of the way. But they managed to shove the cart in front of the door just in time. As Tarik kept slamming against the door on the other side, the gang backed away to catch their breath.

“That was way too close!” Teala gasped.

“We’d better be getting a stupid amount of extra credit for this!” Joey griped.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Jc told them. “You guys hear that?”

Jc was right - their friend on the outside wasn’t letting up. They could hear his shrieking as he kept trying to force his way in. By the sound of it, he wasn’t about to let up anytime soon.

“How the hell are we supposed to get out of this one?!” Nikita fretted.

Colleen made a weird face, darted her eyes around the kitchen and muttered, “I have a stupid idea.”

Hoo boy… Teala thought.

Whenever any of her friends said that sentence, it usually meant that some sort of crazy shenanigans wouldn’t be too far behind. But if it got old rock-eyes away from them, Teala wasn’t about to object.

Yep, Colleen was right. This was a stupid idea. There was no freakin’ way this was going to work. Nikita might not have known how smart undead Pharaohs were, but there was no way he was stupid enough to fall for what Colleen had in mind. Even so, the gang had had more wild ideas before - some of which Nikita had come up with.

Although, it was always a mystery to her how Colleen always managed to have some sort of disguise handy lately. And this particular disaster - uh, she meant “plan” - involved a bunch of artist and tailors’ outfits and props. That Colleen had just so happened to have on hand.

Yeah... Nikita didn’t know either.

But at this point, she didn’t have time to ask questions. She and Teala were in charge of the first part of this crazy idea. Meanwhile, Tarik was still outside, banging and slamming away at the door for the past ten minutes. Did this guy seriously not have anything better to do than chase after a bunch of teenagers?!

“Get ready, bitches!” Nikita hissed to the rest of the group, and started forcing the cart out of the door.

Teala wasn’t kidding, that thing really was heavy! Once it was out of the way, the two girls scurried to get into position as Tarik finally burst through the door and into the kitchen. This was it - now or never. Nikita somehow managed to resist her urge to sprint in the opposite direction, and put on her best “customer service” smile.

“There you are!” she exclaimed as cheerily as she could. “We’ve been waiting for you all afternoon!”

Teala clapped her hands together and chimed, “We were starting to worry you weren’t going to show up!”

Tarik definitely wasn’t buying anything they were selling. He glared at the two of them, grunting loudly. He was probably just about to lunge at them when Niktia caught him in the nick of time. She grabbed his boney shoulders and forced him upright. Teala took that as her cue to pull out the measuring tape.

“Stand up straight,” Nikita told him. “Arms out, chin up. We gotta make sure we get these measurements right!”

She couldn’t quite tell what was going through his head, but he seemed pretty out of his element. So much so that he was actually doing what Nikita said. All the while, Teala was haphazardly pretending to measure different parts of his body and muttering, “Uh-huh, mm-hmm, okay…” It might have gotten dangerous if Teala wasn’t moving around so quickly.

After a moment, Nikita reached out her hand and said, “Hand me one end of that tape, if you would?”

“Yes ma’am!”

Teala tossed one end of the tape to Nikita. Quick as a flash, she forced his arms against his sides, wrapped her end of the tape around his waist and screamed, “RUN!” The two girls started sprinting around him like mad, holding on to the tape all the way. Tarik was probably trying to swipe at them, but the tape was surprisingly strong. By the time they were finished, there was just enough left in Nikita’s hand to study it and mock him a bit.

“Oof,” she muttered. “You should eat a sandwich or something, honey.”

Tarik clearly didn’t like the sound of that. He started growling at them again, and the look he gave them was not the look of mercy! The girls took this opportunity to shove him along - they weren’t about to be dried up in amber cocoons today!

Nikita grabbed hold of her end of the tape and gave it a good, hard yank. The force caused Tarik to start spinning around as the tape unraveled itself. By the time he was free of his bindings, the guy was practically a tornado. Teala jumped in and shoved the still-spinning Tarik further down the kitchen and into the direction of Joey and Jc.

“Come again soon!~” Teala sang.

Wow, Nikita marveled. I can’t believe that actually worked!

She ended up being the one holding the strip by the time Tarik was gone. Her eyes wandered down to it, half expecting it to have bits of his skin or something left over. She was a little surprised to find the measuring tape completely clean. Nikita turned it over and studied it a bit, but she couldn’t find a single flake of anything. It was a little weird - Tarik clearly hadn’t been moisturizing during the four-thousand years he’d been in that tomb. Surely he would have left something behind, right?

“Huh..?” she muttered.

“What’s up?”

“Look at the tape.” Nikita held it out so Teala could see. “Wouldn’t there be, like, bits of dried out skin left on this, or something?”

“I guess… look how clean it is, though. Not a trace of that thing.”

They both snapped a quick picture of the tape for later. This would probably be worth bringing up with the rest of the gang once they met back up.

With the girls’ mission accomplished, Joey’s and Jc’s part of the plan was about to go underway. Tarik came stumbling from behind a corner, and Joey took that as his cue.

“And you must be the muse this evening!” he chirped, trying to sound as upbeat as possible. “Right this way!”

Joey grabbed Tarik and pulled him to the rack by his wrist, hoping to whatever god was listening that he wouldn’t accidentally yank it off. He tried to pretend he was just talking to some rich guy looking for a suit. Maybe if he ignored the carnelian eyes glowing with pure malice, the bandages haphazardly hanging off his sunken, decaying skin, and the fact that Tarik could practically fall apart at any moment…

Okay, it was gonna take a lot of effort to forget this guy was a literal dead man walking.

Thankfully, Jc was waiting close by with a rack of fancy outfits. He was a lot better at being chill in situations like this.

“One piece or two piece, my good man?” Jc asked Tarik before showing him an outfit. “Might I recommend a slimming pinstripe?”

Tarik took the grey-and-black pinstripe suit from Jc’s hands and held it up to his body. It almost looked like he was trying to see how it would look on him. He gave the boys a grunt, which Joey could only assume was some sort of sign of approval.

“Ah, yes,” Jc said. “Excellent choice.”

“Yes, very posh,” Joey agreed. “Now, hold still for a moment.”

There was no possible way he would be able to fit anything over that massive headpiece Tarik was wearing, so Joey just settled for pulling the tightly fitted sleeves over his bony arms and shoulders. Jc needed some help with the slacks, but Tarik was soon as spiffy as… well… He was about as spiffy as a few-thousand-year-old dead guy in a pinstripe suit. It was still far too tight, even for the skinny-ass Mummy, but that was part of the plan.

Joey nodded his head in approval. “Oh, smashing. Absolutely gorgeous.”

“Now, run along!” Jc encouraged him. “The artist is waiting for you.”

They shoved Tarik along, and it took all of the Mummy’s effort to keep from stumbling over. Before long, he was on his way to the very back of the kitchen, where Colleen was waiting to wrap everything up.

“If the detective business doesn’t work out,” Jc noted, “the two of us should consider opening a tailor’s shop.”

Honestly? Not a bad idea.

Colleen anxiously tapped her fingers against her paint palette and shifted from foot to foot as she waited for Tarik to arrive. Not only was she basically being taunted by the smell of food around her - that she couldn’t even get because she couldn’t leave her post - but Tarik could show up any minute. That would be her signal to carry out the last part of her plan. She hoped the Mummy be too distracted by the tightness of his clothes to be able to smell the condiments that were on her palette instead of paint.

“Can mummies smell?” she wondered aloud. “Their noses are probably all decomposed and gross, but do the insides still work? How do the insides of noses even work?”

Okay, girl, she warned herself. Stop while you’re ahead. If you start talking now, you’ll literally be too freaked out to stop.

Right on cue, Tarik came stumbling out from behind a corner. He didn’t look like he had much on his bones to begin with, but the suit he was waddling in definitely looked restricting.

“Wonderful!” Colleen cheered. “My muse has arrived!”

She pulled him in front of her canvas and easel, pretending to pose him, though the thin sleeves didn’t really allow her to do much. What size even was this tiny-ass suit if it was too small for a literal pile of skin and bones like him? She figured it might be in her best interest not to ask him that question.

“Alright, without further ado, let’s get started!”

It was probably safe to say that she knew absolutely nothing about portrait painting, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to smell this bad. For context, the stuff she was using was basically a pile of ketchup, mustard, relish, and other condiments she could get her hands on. She chastised herself for bringing an entire art garb, but totally forgetting to bring actual paints. Well, if all her time in theatre's taught her anything, it was how to improvise. Speaking of improvising, now that the Mummy was right in front of her in all his terrifying glory, she took the opportunity to finally release a mile of words a minute.

“So, did you guys have paintings in ancient Egypt? I mean, I assume you did, considering there were hieroglyphics and stuff. And sculptures, you guys had those, too. Did you guys have canvases to paint on, or was it strictly on walls? I’m guessing kids never got in trouble for drawing on the walls in your day, huh? My brothers and I used to get in trouble for doing that all the time when we were little! According to our parents, at least. I remember absolutely none of that. What were we doing again? Oh, right - I’m painting you.”

Judging by the look on Tarik’s face, he was having absolutely none of this anymore. She'd have to hurry along if she wanted to be alive the next morning. Only then did she notice how little she’d been paying attention to the canvas. By that point, the painting was beyond hope of turning out even decent-looking. The blobs of ketchup, mustard and mayo looked more like a sad Converse sneaker than a great and powerful Pharaoh.

Holy crap, why is painting so hard?!

Oh, well. It wouldn’t really matter whether it was pretty or not in a moment anyway.

“Okay, all done!” she chirped as she set the palette and brush down.

Before Tarik could lose whatever was left of his patience, she picked up the canvas and presented it to him. He leaned in close to examine the details… giving Colleen the perfect opportunity to bring it up and slam it down onto his head! She heard a loud SHRRRIP! as the upper half of the canvas tore through his head and stopped at his arms, pinning them to his sides so he looked like an undead toothpick.

“HA!” she yelled. “You just got GOT, bitch!”

Tarik didn’t take too kindly to getting got, as it turned out. He bellowed at Colleen and tried to grab her, but he ended up looking more like a confused, extremely malnourished tree with no branches. Colleen broke out in an all-out run toward the rest of her friends. Joey and Jc followed once she found them, along with Nikita and Teala, everyone practically ripping off their disguises to return to their normal attire underneath. Tarik let out a blood curdling howl from where he was still standing, which only caused everyone to pick up speed as they made their way back into the dining area.

“Lift those legs, guys!” Joey exclaimed. “That stuff won’t hold him for long!”

Colleen caught a quick glance behind them and saw through the slowly-closing kitchen door that he was right. Tarik was already trying to shake himself out of the canvas's wooden frame and tear his suit off, glaring at her and her friends as they made their way to the double doors. There was just enough time for her to grab a donut from an open tray of pastries by the exit before the five of them burst through the doors to make a mad dash to anywhere that wasn’t there.

Nikita gasped between breaths, “Y'know - I’m glad this actually worked and all, but it seemed like a really convoluted plan just to keep that guy stuck in the kitchen!”

Colleen stuffed the entire donut in her mouth in two bites before replying, “Hey! Like you said, it worked , didn’t it?!”

“What do we do now?!” Teala fretted. 

“We gotta find the rest of the gang!” Joey suggested. “They've gotta be on the other side of the museum somewhere!”

“Good thinking!” Jc added. “The sooner we find 'em, the better!”

Colleen certainly hoped that would be the case. Tarik didn’t seem to be following them for the time being, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find them again if they weren’t careful! The more people they were around, the safer she’d feel.

Chapter Text

The museum had been full of people when the gang first started their investigation earlier that day. At this point, though, they’d be lucky if they ran into one or two people in every other exhibit. Roi’s group was still exploring the rest of the museum, looking for clues, or the rest of their friends, or something. By the time they’d arrived at the pirate exhibit for a second time, the museum was almost entirely empty. Roi would’ve expected more people to be there , at least - pirates were awesome!

Rosanna wrung her hands as she glanced around the room. “Where’d everybody go?”

“We still have some time before closing, don’t we?” Manny asked.

Matt nodded. “Surely there’d be at least a few stragglers.”

“Maybe the Mummy scared them off,” Safiya guessed.

“Or maybe they… um…” Roi started, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to finish.

He hoped no one else got stuck in one of those cocoons they saw last night. He wondered that if they could find them, they could still let them out. He wasn’t entirely sure how mummy’s curses worked, but maybe if they broke open the shell, their bodies would go back to normal.

Speaking of which…

Roi turned to his friends and asked, “Do you think the professors figured out what that stuff was yet?”

“Probably,” Matt replied. “Maybe we should head back that way and-”

All of a sudden, an eerie groaning noise rang out from somewhere. It sounded muffled, but it bounced around the room like someone was trying to talk through a megaphone. The hairs on the back of Roi’s neck stood on end as he tried to figure out if he’d actually heard that.

“Did you guys hear that?” he whispered to the gang.

“Nope,” Manny replied nervously.

“Uh-uh,” Rosanna insisted.

Another groan, a little louder than the first. Whoever it was sounded pained, like they were calling out for something.

Safiya tensed up. “Okay. That, I heard.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Matt wanted to know.

Roi turned to get a look around the exhibit, still trying to figure that out. Whatever made that noise had gone unsettlingly quiet all of a sudden. He hoped they weren’t dealing with ghosts on top of the Mummy. Then again, there was a lot of old stuff surrounding them, and none of them were in their original places anymore. It probably wouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

“Do ghosts follow their stuff to museums and haunt them?” Roi wondered aloud.

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t ask that question,” Manny said matter-of-factly.

Safiya shrugged. “I mean, it might not be out of the-”

Manny covered his ears and sang, “Ignooooorrrriiiing!”

Maybe he had a point there. After all, if museums were haunted, there’d be a loooooot of ghosts. Roi could even hear a bunch of footsteps down the hall from them, and they sounded like they were in a hurry.

Wait… those weren’t ghosts. That was their friends!

The other half of the gang came barreling through the pirate exhibit. They had just enough time to skid to a halt before they all crashed into each other. They must have been running for a while because they were almost totally winded by the time they stopped.

“Hey - woah woah, guys!” Roi exclaimed, waving his hands. “Where’s the fire?!”

Teala pointed back where they came from and screamed, “Tarik!”

“Wait, you saw him?!” Rosanna cried.

Matt asked, “Where is he now?”

The answer to that question unleashed a loud, “GRRAAAUUUUUGGHHH!” from far down the halls.

“Oh…” Roi squeaked. “There he is.”

“Run!” Colleen shrieked. “Again!”

The gang was right back where they started by the time they felt like they put enough ground between them and Tarik. They all stood off to the side in the main lobby, catching their breath. Matt could see from a window leading outside that the sun had already started going down. When was the last time he’d checked the time? He really hoped they hadn’t just wasted their first day of investigating running around in circles.

Joey motioned toward everyone and said, “Okay, guys… Clues. Whaddo we got?”

Manny started off, and inhaled sharply from his nose. “Well… we know right now that the little bits of whatever-it-is we found last night might be organic.”

The other half of the gang looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell them what it was.

“...Anything else?” Joey prompted.

“That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.”

Matt chimed in. “We were gonna ask Lingard and Boggs about it before we met back up with you.”

Roi’s hand shot up. “We’re pretty sure we heard a ghost!”

“What do you mean you heard a ghost?” Jc wanted to know.

Matt explained, “We’re not sure what it was, but we heard some sort of moaning in the pirate exhibit.”

“That’s… weird…” Joey remarked. “Let’s keep an ear out, guys.”

It seemed a bit strange for one place to be that haunted, but Matt was generally a pretty skeptical person. More often than not, supernatural phenomena had a pretty natural explanation. Still, it was worth looking into.

“Did you guys have any luck?” Safiya asked the other half of the group.

Jc said, “The good news is we ran into our buddy, Tarik, a little while ago. The bad news is that we were, uh, too busy trying to get away from him to find any clues.”

Rosanna shot up. “What?! Are you guys okay?! Did he hurt you?!”

“Nope!” Colleen replied proudly. “Just the opposite, actually. Thanks to a plan devised by yours truly, we managed to trap him in the kitchens!” She drooped a bit after she said that. “It fell through a little bit… but we got away!”

Matt was a little annoyed at the sound of that. “So… you guys had the mummy in your grasp, tied up at one point, and you didn’t think to get any clues from him?”

“Not totally,” Nikita replied. “Home girl Teala and I found a clue of our own when we were unwrapping him from our measuring tape.”

Teala nodded. “The strip was totally clean when we took a look at it.”

Rosanna cocked her head. “You did what with measuring tape?”

“Don’t ask. The point is, he would’ve left something behind if his skin was really as old as it looked, right?”

“We’re pretty sure it could just be some sort of costume,” Nikita added.

The girls might have been right about that. Even if they had unraveled him really quickly, Matt had his doubts that a few-thousand-year-old mummy wouldn’t leave behind some kind of residue. But even if this wasn’t a real mummy they were dealing with, a bare strip of measuring tape and spooky noises didn’t really get them anywhere.

“That’s not really enough to add up to anything, though,” he pointed out. “We have nothing that points towards any specific person who could be behind all this.”

Jc added, “We also don’t have any proof that there’s even a person behind this at all.”

“Not yet,” Safiya reminded them. “If the professors can figure out what that stuff we gave them really is, maybe it’ll be easier to come up with some sort of lead.”

“So…” Nikita said, “we’ve essentially got nothing right now, other than some probably-organic crystal stuff, and a piece of measuring tape with nothing else on it.”

Matt sighed and shook his head. He hated when a clue hunt came up dry. But it wasn’t like this was the end of the investigation, right? They still had a little more than a day to do some more digging. Besides, the gang had plenty of time to keep looking around the museum before closing!

Or at least, that’s what he thought, until a two-toned bell rang out through the museum’s intercom followed by a message...

“Good evening, explorers. The Lancaster Museum of Natural History will be closing in fifteen minutes. We hope you all enjoyed your visit, and please come back for more adventures soon!”

Wait, what? No! How was it already closing time?!

Joey was almost tempted to spring up to the ceiling and rip out the intercom to keep it from announcing closing time. He could already see a few families and groups passing by on their way to the exits. They’d been here all day, and they’d barely found any clues! 

“We can’t go home now, guys!” Joey exclaimed. “There’s gotta be something here we can still do!”

“What can we do?” Jc asked. “We’ve been all over the place today and we came up with nothing.”

Rosanna sighed. “Besides, won't the staff just find us and kick us out if we try to stay behind?”

“Maybe…” Joey mused. “Unless … ”

“Watch out, guys,” Colleen warned. “Joey’s getting an idea.”

But he was too distracted by the sounds of the gears turning in his head to acknowledge Colleen’s sarcasm. Joey remembered hearing that the sole security guard on duty had quit just before the gang arrived, thanks to that beef-jerky-looking-ass-bitch they were dealing with. Which meant…

Lightbulb!

He ushered his friends further away from the lobby, so less people could hear his brilliant idea.

“This museum has lots of places to hide,” Joey pointed out. “And the security guard quit, remember? All we need to do is stay out of sight for a while, and we’ll have the whole museum to ourselves!”

Nikita’s eyes lit up. “Oh… oh, hell yeah..!”

Roi started bouncing up and down. “Yes! I always knew museums would be the perfect place to play Hide and Seek!”

Jc nodded and said, “Why not? Less people around means we can be as thorough as we need.”

Colleen slammed her fist into her other hand. “That dried out bitch won’t know what hit him!”

Safiya looked skeptical. “I don’t know… this sounds very not-allowed.”

“Come on, Saf!” Matt egged her. “Haven’t you always wanted a museum all to yourself?”

“No.” But she seemed a bit hesitant. “But... now that you mention it … Okay, I’m in.”

Manny pointed out, “Y’all do realize we’re gonna be all alone in here with a literal monster, right?”

“Oh, please,” Nikita replied. “Like that’s never happened to us before.”

“But it’s a huge place,” Teala said. “He could be anywhere right now, and we wouldn’t know it.”

Rosanna added, “Not to mention it’s gonna be really dark. What if he attacks us and we can’t see him?!”

“Which sounds more worrisome to you three?” Colleen asked them. “A bunch of people hanging out in a museum after hours, or a dead guy hanging out in a museum after hours?”

“Personally,” Manny replied, “I’m more worried about the idea of us hanging out in the same place as the dead guy after hours.”

“Come on, Manny!” Nikita begged. “I’ll get you some new gloss!”

Manny tapped his chin. “Well, I have been running low…” And he decided, “Okay, but I’m holding you to that.”

Nikita pumped her fists and hissed, “Yes!”

Joey turned to Rosanna. “Are you in, Ro?”

She shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know…”

“What if I got you cookies after this?” Matt offered.

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at the sound of that. “What kind of cookies..?”

“Uh… snickerdoodles?”

“I’m in!” Rosanna’s demeanor did an instant 180, and she looked ready to go charging into a whole herd of mummies!

“What about you, Teala?” Joey asked.

She crossed her arms. “You might have Manny and Ro convinced, but I can’t be so easily bribed.”

Colleen offered, “I’ll buy you coffee for a week.”

“...Dammit,” Teala muttered under her breath. “Okay, fine.”

Ah, bribery, Joey mused. How you sing to the hearts of us all...

With the lack of security guards, it was apparently left to a few of the other employees to do rounds on the museum and make sure it was empty when it came time to close. The bad news was that there were a fair number of people searching for stragglers. The good news was that there were, indeed, plenty of places to hide.

Manny could see Ms. Gramm, the front desk attendant, from the inside of a knight’s helmet. She shone a flashlight around the medieval exhibit, totally oblivious to where he and a few of the others were hiding. He’d picked an empty suit of armor that was, conveniently, just his size. Joey and Nikita were ducked into a model of a horse wagon, while Matt and Colleen were crouched behind a pile of fake straw. All the while, Ms. Gramm had no idea they were there. Manny would’ve been tempted to snicker to himself if it weren’t for the risk of making a noise. 

But something felt a little... off. Ms. Gramm wandered around the exhibit for a bit, pointing the flashlight in different directions. It was almost like she suspected someone was there. She shone the light in Manny’s direction, and he had to squint to keep the light out of his eyes. She was gonna see him through the slits in the helmet!

Go away… Manny thought. Go away, go away, go away! No one’s here!

Suddenly, Manny thought he could make out the sound of something bouncing on the floor. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think it was a tennis ball. It echoed throughout the exhibit until it left the room, and Ms. Gramm immediately switched her attention to that.

“Who’s there?” she called out, and headed toward the sound and out of the exhibit.

Yeah… he thought. She’d definitely be the first to die in a horror movie.

He glanced over at the wagon. Once the coast was clear, his friends emerged from their hiding spot and headed toward where Manny was standing. It was dark, but Manny could just make out the satisfied sneer MatPat was sporting.

“And you all said the old Tennis-Ball-Distraction technique wouldn’t work,” he remarked.

“I stand corrected!” Manny said. His voice was a mix of a muffle and an echo from the metal.

“Indubitably!” Colleen agreed. 

Nikita rolled her eyes. “It was a decent idea.”

Joey motioned toward the door. “Come on, guys. We’d better get out of here before she comes back.”

Manny was totally down to do that, but his suit was so stiff that he couldn’t move to lift anything off. He couldn’t even lift his legs to walk in that thing!

“Uh… guys?” Manny squeaked. “I think I’m stuck.”

A few doors away, Teala was watching as one of the attendants made his way into the prehistoric exhibit. She and Rosanna carefully moved a bit further behind a large stegosaurus plate to keep him from catching sight of them. Teala normally wouldn’t have climbed up a fossil in a museum exhibit like this, but the two of them figured they’d get some good cover up there. It felt surprisingly similar to climbing a jungle gym.

Jc and Safiya were hidden in one of the fake bushes by the T-rex model on the other side of the exhibit. As for Roi, Teala didn’t quite know where he was, but she figured that was because he was that well-concealed.

She followed the attendant with her eyes as he looked over the exhibit, and he apparently thought it would be a fun idea to narrate what he was doing.

“The lone museum employee lurks through the darkened corridors, softer than a mouse suppressing a sneeze in a library. He’s on the lookout for unsuspecting intruders, remaining mindful of - DOH! ” He was interrupted as he walked right into one of the display cases, trying to regather his bearings to continue his narration. “ Ahem! Uh… mindful of his surroundings…”

He was starting to get a bit too close to the stegosaurus fossil for Teala’s liking, so she tried to work herself a little further behind a plate. She was almost at a place where she felt a bit safer before her hand slipped between the ribs, causing her to jerk downward as her arm fell through. She reflexively let out a gasp before Rosanna caught her, and the girls froze where they were.

The attendant squealed like a little girl before choking out a nervous, “Who’s... Who’s there?! I have a taser!”

…Oh no! Teala fretted. Now what?!

Before she could think of anything, she heard a loud, creepy wail ring out across the exhibit. Teala was about to freak out even more when she realized it sounded like Jc.

The attendant sure looked fooled, though. He jumped out of his skin and almost dropped his flashlight. “What’s going on here?!”

Jc answered in a loud, ghostly voice. “Weeee are the ghooooosts of… um… the cretaceous eraaaaaaa!”

Safiya added, “Uh… that’s riiiiight! Yooouuuu thought you were rid of us when the asteroid fell, but you were wrooooooong! ”

Wow… Teala thought, fighting the urge to shake her head. There’s no way in hell that guy’s gonna buy that.

To her surprise, though, the attendant looked pretty spooked. He sounded spooked, too.

“What… What is it you want from me, oh, ferocious ones?!” he asked in a shaky voice.

Rosanna took the opportunity to cup her hands and shout, “Leeeeaaaave this exhiibiiiiiit!”

“And dooooon’t come baaaaack!” Teala called out.

Roi hopped in from wherever he was hiding. “At least not until moooooorrrniiiiiing!”

The attendant didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped his flashlight and ran straight through the exit as fast as he could. The five of them waited a moment to make sure he was really gone, with nothing but the abandoned flashlight to help them see.

When they were sure it was safe to come out, Jc and Safiya climbed out of the fake bush, which apparently proved to be a lot more difficult than it was to climb in. Rosanna popped up from behind the plate and hopped down to the ground. Teala immediately followed, lowering herself a bit more carefully than her hiding buddy. But they were still missing someone.

“Has anyone seen Roi?” Teala asked them.

 Roi’s voice sounded squished as he called out, “Over here!”

Teala and the others turned to the direction they’d heard him, and saw him jammed against the glass in a dimly lit vending machine. He looked more like a puzzle piece with the way he was positioned. They all rushed over to the vending machine as quietly as they could.

“How did you get in there?!” Safiya exclaimed.

“Well! I… um...” he trailed off. “That’s a good question.”

“Dang it!” Rosanna hissed. “Why didn’t I think to hide in there?”

Teala turned to Jc to find him looking at her expectantly. “What?” she asked.

“Your turn,” was his matter-of-fact reply.

She sighed and pulled a crumpled dollar bill and some quarters out of her pocket. Figures this would happen again.

The gang wasn’t back together for long. Almost immediately after they were left alone in the museum, they split up once more to check a few places. Joey took Safiya and Manny back up to the administrators’ area to see if they could find anything more. Rosanna led Teala and Jc to where she’d seen Dr. Rosen to see if they’d overlooked something. That left Nikita, Colleen, Roi and Matt went off to search the Egyptian exhibit one more time.

Little did they know that a pair of cold, red carnelian eyes were watching them as they left, taking note of where they were all going…

Chapter Text

If the administratives area wasn’t dark the night before, it definitely was now. The light from their phones was the only thing illuminating the walls and doors as Manny, Safiya and Joey passed. Manny didn’t remember being in this part of the administrative section earlier that day, and he had a feeling they weren’t alone up there. Or they wouldn’t be alone for very long. This might have been sort of cool if it weren’t so creepy. Manny could get behind learning about history and all that, but what business did museums have constantly giving off the vibe that there was always a ghost or something hiding around the corner?

Joey pointed his light at an office door. A closer look at the tag plastered on it revealed it belonged to Delilah Gramm. The lights seemed to be off on the other side, assuring them that she was probably long gone by now.

“Maybe Ms. Gramm has some sort of clue in her office,” Joey thought aloud.

“Alrighty, then,” Manny said. “Why don’t we see what our dear front desk lady is hiding?”

“ If she’s hiding anything,” Safiya pointed out. “Let’s not count our eggs before they hatch.”

Manny reached out and tried the door knob to find it unlocked, which caught him a little off guard. A good number of doors the gang ran into were left unlocked after a building’s hours, but a personal office? That could either mean that she was still somewhere nearby, or… or she was inside.

The three of them froze where they stood, and Manny expected Ms. Gramm to come bursting through the door saying something like, “What are you three doing out here?!” They didn’t move until thirty seconds of silence passed. Good, no one was on the other side of the door…

“Keep an ear out, guys,” Joey warned them. “If it’s unlocked, she might be planning on coming back here.”

Manny went first, with each of his friends both keeping a hand glued to the shoulders of his shirt. The door creaked a lot louder than he expected, which didn’t make him feel any less nervous. They flicked on the overhead light, and Manny was a little surprised to find that the inside of Ms. Gramm’s office was significantly less creepy than anything they’d seen on the way here.

“Looks like the faculty here has a theme with their offices,” Joey observed.

Manny blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah. Rosen has dinosaur fossils in his office - looks like Gramm’s thing is fish.”

One short glance around the place would definitely confirm that. A deep red futon sat on the left side of the room, with a book on coral reefs on a side table. A small shelf of coral samples rested on the wall above the seat, with little name tags labeling which one was which. A tank full of beautiful, multicolored betta fish sat at the far right wall.

I’m gonna have to get some interior decorating tips from this woman if she’s not the Mummy, Manny thought to himself.

But first things first - it was time to look for clues!

As the three of them set about the office, Safiya couldn’t help but feel an odd sense of foreboding. The idea that either Ms. Gramm or the Mummy would run into them hung over her head, but the circumstances made it feel like a sleepover or an overnight field trip. Having a museum all to herself after hours was definitely a first, but a welcome first. As long as they were in and out of the office before anyone knew, there probably wouldn’t be any trouble.

Probably.

“So, what are we looking for here exactly?” Manny asked.

Safiya replied, “Given what Ms. Gramm told us earlier today, she’s definitely been keeping tabs on what’s been going on.”

“Yeah,” Joey added. “Maybe she’s got some kind of record of some of the stuff that’s been happening lately.”

Manny pointed to the desk and asked, “You mean like that?”

They made their way behind the desk to get a closer look. Resting on the surface was a piece of looseleaf paper that had been torn from a spiral notebook. A short paragraph was written on it, and a number of words and phrases had been crossed out. Safiya skimmed through it first, and sighed in annoyance when she saw it was unsigned.

Of course it’s not signed, she griped. That would be too easy…

“Is this some kind of draft letter?” Joey asked.

“I think so,” Safiya replied. “It's definitely a first draft of something. ”

“You’re telling me,” Manny said, pointing at one of the crossed out phrases. “The writer’s in definite need of an editor if you ask me.”

Safiya was inclined to agree. Whoever wrote this wanted to get this right before they did anything with it. She leaned down and started reading the letter aloud.

To whom it should concern,

I’m writing to you from the desk of Lancaster Museum of Natural History in regards to our most recent addition of the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. Due to a series of unfortunate ev complications that arose after transportation, we’ve made the difficult decision to return the treasures retrieved, along with the body of the Great Pharaoh, Tarik. It seems that a number of the Pharaohs gems have begun mysteriously disappearing after arrival. This matter is currently being investigated. I advise any further questions be delivered to the director of the excursion, Professor Minerva Lingard.

“Woah…” Safiya muttered.

This was going deeper than the gang had thought.

“Someone’s been trying to get the exhibit taken down?” Manny realized. “And they’re trying to pin the whole mess on Lingard!”

“Did Ms. Gramm write this?” Joey wondered.

“Maybe,” Safiya said. “But why would she leave such a damning piece of evidence out in the open like this?.”

“Maybe because this is her office?” Manny offered.

Joey shook his head. “Whatever the case, it looks like this really is being done on the inside.”

So someone in the museum might actually be behind all the weird stuff that’s been going on. Manny tried to remember if anything from their list of potential suspects stood out. He wondered if the professors had something to do with it - like, maybe they didn’t get as big of a cut as they were expecting or something. Then there was Ms. Gramm - she’d probably benefit from all the foot traffic in the museum today. And what about that Micheal Goodman kid? Maybe he was so desperate for a story that he was willing to put on a costume to get a few extra clicks. Dr. Rosen was MIA as far as anyone knew, but maybe that’s just what the culprit wanted them to think…

His pondering was cut short by a sudden THUD against the door, causing the three of them to jump.

“Bitch…” Manny hissed. “What was that?”

“I don’t know…” Safiya whispered.

Was it Ms. Gramm? Had she come back from wherever she was?! Wait, no, no, it couldn’t have been her. She wouldn’t just knock on her own office door, would she?

“Manny,” Joey said, “go see who it is.”

He recoiled. “Why do I have to do it?”

“Because you’re the strongest here - if it’s Tarik out there, you can just rough him up!”

Manny rolled his eyes and begrudgingly walked across the room. Figures he’d be the one opening the creepy-ass door. Why was he even opening the creepy-ass door? Everyone knows you don’t open doors when someone knocks in a situation like this! But fine.

He tiptoed to the door and turned the handle, hoping it was just one of their friends who’d wandered up here during their search. He pulled it open just enough for him to stick his head out in case he needed to make a hasty escape.

And good thing he did, because waiting for him on the other side was the mass of dried out skin and ancient jewelry himself.

“Hrr-” the Mummy started, but Manny wasn’t about to let him finish!

He immediately let out a silent scream as the air was practically jerked out of his lungs before ducking away from the opening and shoved the door shut.

“Oh, Safiya!” he sang.

Her head shot up. “Yes?”

“There’s a friend of yours at the door.”

He stepped aside to let her deal with their friend on the other side. She was the monster-nut, afterall. She could handle him.

Unless this supposed “friend” was a necromancer (or the opposite of a necromancer? What was the opposite of a necromancer?), Safiya didn’t really feel in the door-answering mood. But alright. She wandered over and turned the knob. She let out a sharp gasp when she saw who was waiting on the other side.

“Hrraa-!”

She threw the door shut right in the Mummy’s face before he could finish his groan.

“Hey, Joey!” she called.

He popped up from behind the desk. “Yeah?”

She gestured toward the door. “It’s for you.”

Yep. She was definitely very much less in a door answering mood now. Joey was the leader - he could deal with this.

Joey sure hoped the three of them weren’t going to be waltzing around answering doors all night. He trudged over to the door and pulled it open, scolding his friends.

“You guys, if this is some kind of joke, it’s not-” He was cut off by the sight of the Pharaoh himself.

He let out a yelp and slammed the door shut, pressing his back against it. He could feel Tarik throwing his weight against the door from the other side, trying to break in. What was this - National Make-Joey-Block-The-Door Day?!

Joey’s eyes flew about the office while Manny and Safiya scrambled around. They were cornered! The guy was literally right outside! They had nowhere to run and no idea what to do!

“Now what?!” Manny babbled, throwing his head around to look for a way out. “The bitch is right there! ”

Safiya ceased running around in circles to announce, “I have an idea! But we gotta be fast!”

“Fine!” Joey blurted out. “As long as it gets me off the door!”

After a few moments of banging on the door, Tarik could finally feel it giving way. He knew exactly what those kids were trying to do in that room, and he had no intention of letting them get away with it. He forced the door open with his shoulder, letting out an ear splitting roar as he entered the office.

But when he got inside, they were nowhere to be found. There was no sign that a single person had been inside. It was almost as if they’d vanished into thin air. At least, that’s what he thought, until he saw a few pairs of shoes poking out from behind a curtain. One was a pair of red canvas sneakers, one was a pair of black combat boots, and one was a pair of white running shoes.

That was them.

Tarik growled and stumbled over to the curtain, ripping it out of the way to face his foes… only to be greeted by the dark view of the night out the window.

Tarik grimaced. How did they manage to slip away?! He wound his leg back and kicked the shoes aside with all his might, sending them flying behind the desk in the back of the room. He let out one last shriek before turning around and stumbling out of the office, slamming the door behind him. Wherever anyone had gotten to, Tarik would find them, and make them sorry.

He’d make all of them sorry...

Meanwhile, Joey and his friends were squeezed together in the tight space underneath the desk. Luckily for them, the built-in space for someone’s legs was just big enough for the three of them to hide. They sat motionless, staring wide-eyed at their scattered shoes in front of them that Tarik had just sent behind the desk.

Manny let out a sigh of relief. “Good thing none of us are wearing sandals today.”

“Is it me?” Joey asked. “Or does he have a really strong kick for a dead guy?”

“It’s not just you,” Safiya agreed.

Joey thought for a moment. Either this guy was quite the soccer player back in his day, or something else was up…

“Okay, I think we got what we needed,” Joey told them. “We gotta get out of here before he comes back!”

But it was easier said than done. They’d had no problem getting into their hiding spot, but now they had to make their way out. Honestly, Joey had no idea how they’d all managed to squeeze into that tiny little space, because now they were all pushing and shoving each other trying to free themselves.

“Hey - ow!” Manny hissed.

“Watch it!” Safiya barked.

“Move over!” Joey gritted.

“Manny! Get your foot out of my face!”

“Get your face outta my foot!”

“Ow - ow!” Joey winced. “Elbow in my side - elbow in my side - ow!”

Finally, they tumbled out from under the desk in a tangled heap. Joey stretched himself out, trying to shake the soreness in his muscles.

“Okay…” Manny muttered, flexing his hands. “Ow.”

Safiya rubbed the side of her head. “Is he gone?”

Joey sat up and poked his head over the desk to find Tarik really had left. “Yeah,” he sighed, “yeah, we’re good.”

They pushed themselves to their feet and pulled their shoes back on. Joey then grabbed the letter from the desk, folded it, and shoved it into his pocket. It was definitely a clue, and he figured the gang would need for later. Even though Tarik was gone, they crept across the office as quietly as they could. Joey pushed the door open as slowly as he dared, allowing just enough room to peak out into the hall. He slowly poked through and scanned for any sign of danger.

“Coast is clear!” he hissed. “Come on! Before Gramm or that pile of bones comes back!”

He shoved the door open, and the three of them dashed down the hall to anywhere that wasn’t there.

Chapter Text

The Egyptian exhibit was a lot more crime-scene-like than Roi remembered. The plastic that had been covering the entrance had been taken down and set aside. A few spots were marked off with police tape and labeled with notes. Some of the rocks that had been found in place of gems were set on top of the boxes they’d been found in, and marked as evidence. A table of photos rested in one corner, and another table of actual gems had been pushed in another.

The original plan had been to go back into the exhibit and poke around. As much as Roi wanted to do just that, Matt pointed out that it probably wasn’t a good idea to tamper with the crime scene. They’d probably need to come up with something else.

Nikita wasn’t so keen on that suggestion, though. “But what if there’s some good info in there that the cops didn’t notice? We should go in there as, like, a second opinion type thing.”

“Have you seen all the stuff in there?” Roi said, pointing back to the exhibit. “I’m pretty sure whoever’s in charge wouldn’t want us messing up their setup.”

Nikita narrowed her eyes, as if she were doubting the fact that trained professionals had set up shop alongside them.

Colleen sharply cut down whatever Nikita was thinking with an, “Absolutely the hell not , Nikita.”

Matt motioned them to the side. “Come on, guys. Let’s see if we can find somewhere else to look.”

The group wandered away and into the Ancient Greek exhibit, huddling together by a display about the Minotaur and his labyrinth. Roi pulled up a map of the museum on his phone to see where else the gang might have missed. It felt pretty cool - like he was a bank robber going over schematics to perform a heist!

“Okay, let’s see…” Matt muttered. He pointed to different spots on the map as he spoke. “If the Egyptian exhibit is here, that means the administrative area where Joey, Manny and Saf are is there, and… Roi, Colleen, where do you think you guys saw Dr. Rosen?”

Roi examined all the little lines that represented rooms and halls, and the names of each place. If Roi remembered right, they’d run into Colleen and Manny close to the prehistoric exhibit. So that would mean…

“Over there!” Roi pointed to a space that turned out to be near a raptor display. “That’s where we found his cocoon-thingy.”

“Okay!” Matt said. “That’s where Ro, Teala and Jc are going right now. So that leaves…”

“Not much else,” Colleen concluded.

“Not much else.”

Roi’s shoulders slumped. “Well, we can’t just sit here and do nothing! There’s gotta be something we can do.”

Nikita pointed. “Um, hello! Egyptian exhibit - right over there! Still an option, right?”

“After that mess in the prehistoric exhibit?” Colleen retorted. “What makes you think we’ll trust you with a crime scene?”

“What mess in the prehistoric exhibit?” Roi pried. What did he and Matt miss while they were all off searching earlier that day?

Before Nikita could explain, Colleen took over. “She scared some poor guy off for no reason before any of us could question him.”

Nikita groaned and rolled her eyes. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

“Like that does us any good! You can’t just go around choosing violence and expecting it to work out in your favor all the time!”

“Did you really just make a ‘choosing violence’ reference?”

Colleen shook her head. “Don’t change the subject!”

Nikita couldn’t believe Colleen was still on that. She’d just been trying to help, hadn’t she? Besides, it’s not like that was their last chance to get info from someone when they had so many actual suspects anyway. How did the gang expect the mystery to go anywhere if someone didn’t play the role of Bad Cop once in a while?

She was about to say just that when a stranger’s voice jolted them out of their argument: “Who’s in here?!”

The group jumped and Nikita’s heart dropped into her stomach. Had someone figured out they were there?! Did they stay behind to find any extra stragglers?! At least that was what Nikita thought until she saw a lanky, nerdy-looking kid walking into the exhibit.

“Oh, brother,” was the very first thing the guy said. “Not you all. Of all things, why did I have to run into you amatures again?!”

Well, Nikita thought, this is a pleasant bitch.

Michael made his way over, and he didn’t look any more threatening in the near-darkness. Matt was all for a fellow detective hanging out in the museum with them, but he remembered how badly their last interaction went. He had a feeling this conversation wouldn’t be much different.

“What exactly are you all doing here?” Michael demanded.

Matt crossed his arms. “I think we should be asking you the same thing.”

“Yeah,” Roi agreed. “Are you here to plan your next act of sabotage?! ” He moved his light so close to Michael’s face Matt was almost worried it would cause retina damage.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Michael replied, shoving the phone out of his way. “I’m here to gather more information on the events that have been transpiring in these halls. I couldn’t possibly have gotten enough info during the day with a bunch of crowds getting in my way.” He grimaced at the gang. “I see that was wishful thinking, though.”

Matt grimaced. This guy was a fellow detective, wasn’t he? Why did he have to be such a jerk? More importantly, what exactly had he been getting up to while he was right under the gang’s noses?

“Join the club, man,” Colleen said. “We’re all here for the same reason, it looks like.”

“Yes, I figured as much,” Michael replied in a monotone voice.

Nikita snapped, “Is there a reason you’re tromping on our territory, geek?”

“If you must know, I was following a lead. It seems that a few of the staff members have stayed behind, along with me and your group. I caught a glimpse of one of said staff just a moment ago before I decided to investigate the commotion that you all were making.”

Crap. Had they really been making that much noise?

Matt straightened up. “Well, what leads were you following, exactly? My friends and I are a little lost right now.”

“Clearly.”

“Come on, man. Maybe we could all help each other out? It would be a lot easier if we had another pair of eyes looking around with us.”

Michael squinted at Matt, as if he were considering his suggestion. Even if Michael was mean, if he knew something the rest of the gang didn’t, they’d be one step closer to solving the mystery.

“Well… I suppose you could learn from a professional… Alright,” Michael decided. He leaned in close to the gang and whispered. “It would seem that the woman who works the front desk is among those who stayed behind tonight.”

“Ms. Gramm?” Matt checked.

“If that’s her name, then yes. I’m not sure just what she’s up to yet, but I caught sight of her sneaking around a few minutes before I ran into you all. She seemed pretty skittish, whatever she was up to.”

Matt thought. Ms. Gramm was as likely to have been innocent or guilty as anyone, but what would she have to gain from the Mummy that was part of a fresh new exhibit wandering around the museum? Then he remembered all the foot traffic the gang had seen that day. Maybe she would have been given some sort of commission with the now booming business? He wasn’t quite sure how being a front desk attendant worked, but it was as descent of a theory as any.

Colleen suggested, “ Well, since it looks like we’ve all got the same goal, maybe we could team up! Strength in numbers, right?”

Michael squinted his eyes thoughtfully, eyeing the four of them over before deciding, “Okay, fine. But you all have to do exactly what I say the entire time, understood?”

Colleen didn’t like the thought of following a guy she just met in search of monsters, but she couldn’t think of anything else. She was about to agree to his terms, when Nikita cut her off.

“Like hell we’re gonna follow you! We’re trying to get to the bottom of this, and that doesn’t involve following around a little wannabe Sherlock Hol-”

“Nikita!” Colleen gritted her teeth as she growled her name.

She had the nerve to side-eye her. “What?”

Colleen put a hand on Nikita’s shoulder and dug her fingers into her sleeve. “I’m sorry guys, could you give us a second?”

Matt was the one to answer. “Go ahead.”

Colleen dragged Nikita away from the group by her shirt, and she could feel Nikita trying to resist. She almost felt like an annoyed Mom taking her grounded kid away from her friends. She waited until the boys were out of earshot to let go of Nikita, and gave her the most stern look she could muster.

“What?” Nikita repeated.

“Listen, Nikita, I don’t like the idea of teaming up with this guy either, but we need all the help we can get right now. And you acting like a bitch to anyone you deem suspicious isn’t gonna help us find any more clues.”

“I do not act like a bitch to anyone I deem suspicious,” She insisted before switching to a jokingly smug tone. “Okay, I haven’t in, like, the past couple hours.”

Colleen wasn’t amused. “I don’t care. We have a job to do. We all have to work together right now, and that includes you. Understand?”

“Is this what you dragged me away to tell me? I already-”

“Do you understand?”

“Fine, yes, I understand. Whatever.” She heaved a heavy sigh and trudged off.

Colleen followed, making sure Nikita could feel her eyes boring into the back of her head. It would be a cold day in Hell before she let one person in their crew ruin the investigation for everyone else. And given Nikita’s track record, Colleen didn’t exactly trust her to keep a pacifist stance for the rest of the investigation.

Michael practically had one foot in the adjoining hallway by the time they met back up with the guys. She returned her attention to Matt and Roi when she and Nikita were finally close enough to the three of them.

“There they are!” Matt exclaimed before turning to Michael. “See? I told you they’d be quick.”

“I suppose you had.” Michael dusted some imaginary dirt off his sweater vest before diving right into an explanation of his plan. “Now then, Ms. Gramm was making her way toward the lobby when I last saw her. I assume to get something from the front desk before returning to her office. We’ll have to follow her and keep a good distance so she doesn’t realize there’s a bunch of people following her.” He gave the group another once over. “Do you and your friends normally have so many people in teams when you split up?”

Matt replied, “We’ve got a big team! So what?”

Exactly! More people just meant more hands to help and more eyes to spot clues! Although, Colleen could see where Michael was coming from. To anyone who didn’t know the gang, ten people going at a mystery at once might have seemed like a lot of people.

Michael shrugged. “Well, I suppose three people is a decent number as it is now.”

“Three?” Colleen asked. “What are you talking about? There are four of-”

Wait… she thought, oh, no.

“Uh… hey, guys?” Roi asked. “Where’s Nikita?”

Colleen shot her head back. Sure enough, Nikita was nowhere to be found. She’d somehow managed to give her the slip while she was distracted!

She clenched her hands into fists. “Son of a bitch…”

No way was Nikita gonna let anyone tell her how to solve a mystery, especially some nerd they didn’t even know. She already put up with Matt, and that was far more than enough. At least Matt was decently cool when he made an effort to be.

So, maybe she did sneak away from the group to go back to the exhibit that she probably wasn’t supposed to set foot in. It wasn’t like following a know-it-all like Michael was gonna get them anywhere. She knew how and where to get the good information in a case like this. Besides, she’d agreed not to rough anybody up. Colleen hadn’t said anything about sneaking off. By that logic, Nikita technically wasn’t breaking any rules.

She arrived back at the exhibit, peering in to make sure everything was still where they’d left it. It was.

Just in and out, real quick…

She glanced behind her to make sure no one else was around to see, and carefully stepped through the police tape. Sure, it might have looked sketchy from a distance, but there could be something important here that the cops hadn’t found yet. The gang would thank her later.

There wasn’t much more to the scene than what she’d seen when the group had been there a few minutes ago. The sarcophagus got the most attention when it came to the police tape, and the notes on the wall read things Nikita already kind of knew. Things like warnings about wearing gloves and who could possibly be the culprit. But what caught her eye were the tables in the back corners, each with a tag that read, “Possible Evidence.”

She got closer to the tables to inspect them only to find that her intuition about the cops not knowing what they were doing was right yet again. While the table of photos was full and labeled just fine, the table that was supposed to house the gems was a mess. These guys jumped the gun, labeling evidence they haven’t even found yet. There were little white circles with tags that labeled what they were supposed to be. She could see some spots for sapphires, rubies, and some amethyst clusters, but not all of them were present. Some of the empty circles and labels that read “Ruby 1”, “Sapphire 2,” and “Amethyst 1” had no stones to be found. There was even an extra circle that remained empty, with what might have been the label laying on the floor. It was easily one of the sloppiest setups she had ever seen, and that was saying something.

She knelt down to get a look at the tag. She didn’t want to risk touching it, but she was able to get close enough to read, “Ruby 3.” The weird thing was, even though Niktia had been far from the table, she was almost positive she’d seen a bright, red ruby in the now empty Ruby 3 spot when they’d first gotten a look at the scene. Surely the cops would have picked up the fallen label at least.

Either this was a serious rookie situation, or Nikita was seeing things, or…

Niktia pulled out her phone to snap pictures of the gem table and the label on the floor, trying to ignore the nervous knot forming in her stomach. This couldn’t have happened too long ago. Maybe the gang wasn’t as alone in the museum as they’d thought.

“Nikita!”

Nikia jumped so high she almost cleared the tables. She whirled around to see Colleen standing at the entrance, eyes narrowed and her fists on her hips.

“Oh, my god, bitch!” Nikita gasped. “Wear a bell or something!”

“What the hell are you doing in there?!”

“ Someone had to come in here and look over this place!”

“No! No, we didn’t!” Colleen pointed to the floor next to her. “Get back out here!”

“Or what? You’ll come in here and get me?”

Colleen’s eyes widened and she moved her head forward a bit - very, very slowly. She wasn’t as easy to piss off as Nikita was, but when she got this mad, you’d better either do as she says or run. Fast. Very fast.

“Okay, fine!” Nikita spat. She’d gotten what she needed in there anyway.

She stomped over to the entrance and stepped through the tape, wishing she could curl up into a ball and disappear. This entire time, she felt like a kid who’d just gotten chastised by her Mom. Colleen hadn’t even asked what Nikita had found.

“I found a clue in there, by the by,” Niktia said. “It looks like some of the evidence the cops found is missing. It might have been taken while we were gone.”

But Colleen either didn’t hear or didn’t care. “I can’t believe you just snuck away and trespassed on a crime scene!”

“Bitch, we’re literally sneaking around a museum after dark! I don’t think that matters! Besides, I recall you saying nothing about not sneaking away.”

“We’re a team for a reason, Nikita! We all have to cooperate, like it or not! You can’t just go doing whatever you want and expect it to work out all peachykeen for the rest of us!” Colleen huffed. “I swear, you’ve got about as much self control as an untrained dog!”

Ouch.

Okay. Nikita was a tough bitch, don’t get her wrong. But that stung a little. Was she really that bad? The shock must have shown on her face because Colleen’s eyebrows eased upward.

“Let’s just catch up with the boys,” she said.

Nikita robotically followed behind Colleen without saying anything, playing what just happened over and over in her head. She would be lying if she called herself a patient person, but maybe she went a little too far back there. Did the rest of the gang think that about her? Great. Was she seriously getting self conscious? She never cared about what people thought of her, so why did this bother her?

It took some convincing to get Michael to wait for the girls again, and they ended up near the lobby by the time they came back. They were both in a weird state. They looked ice cold and extremely tensed up, like someone had just eaten the last piece of cake on their birthday.

“There you guys are!” Roi exclaimed. “Is everything okay?”

“We’re fine now,” Colleen replied before staring down the gang’s escapee. “ Right, Nikita?”

Nikita just gave a monotone, “Sure,” in response.

Uh-oh… Roi’s chest felt heavy. He really hoped the two of them hadn't been fighting - he hated it when his friends fought.

“If you’re all done with this wandering-off-and-coming-back charade,” Michael said, “we don’t have all night!”

“We’re coming!” Matt exclaimed. “Let’s get a move on, guys.”

The group left the Minotaur’s labyrinth exhibit and into the dimming lights of the empty corridors. Roi wished they were all here under less scary circumstances - the place would be like a playground if they weren’t chasing after the vengeful corpse of a Pharaoh. Maybe if they’d had the time, he could have taken the suits of armor for a spin, or climbed up one of the dinosaur fossils like Rosanna and Teala had.

Once they got to a corner, Michael stopped dead in his tracks and put a hand out in front of the gang, getting them to stop too. Roi peered over their impromptu leader’s shoulder to find they were staring right into an opening to the lobby. It was almost completely dark, with the only light coming from a slim window on a door behind the front desk that Roi hadn’t noticed before. There was no one at the desk itself, but he could make out a shadow from the lit-up window. That had to be Ms. Gramm.

“Yep. Gramm’s in there, alright,” Michael confirmed. “I saw her enter before I left to look around some more. We can’t all go over there at once, though. One of us is gonna have to go over to the door and see if they can find what she’s doing through the window.”

Roi stepped out into the open, grinning ear to ear. “Don’t worry, guys. I got this. ”

“Uh, Roi,” Matt warned. “I don’t think-”

But Roi was already doing a sick dive roll on the linoleum floor. He stood to a crouch behind a display case holding a shark tooth pattern before flattening himself back onto the floor. He crossed his arms over his chest and rolled over to a row of ceramic pots by one of the windows. All that was left to do was to get to the front desk, which he tried to do with a cartwheel, but it failed spectacularly and he ended up flat on his face. Oh, well - nothing a couple more dive rolls couldn’t fix!

He got to his feet once he was finally behind the front desk, his grin returning as he peaked over the edge to see everyone’s reactions. Colleen returned his smile and gave him two thumbs up. Matt and Nikita both looked like they were trying not to laugh for some reason. Michael was just shaking his head and staring at the floor. Well at least one of them seemed to appreciate Roi’s awesome parkour!

He straightened up and peered through the window on the door, trying not to reveal too much of his face. It must have been some kind of office, judging from all the drawers on the sides and the desk at the other end. Ms. Gramm was in there, as Roi and his friends had suspected, and she seemed pretty disheveled. She was scrambling to get a few papers and files together, sometimes dropping them on the surface of the desk or on the floor. She then rushed around the office to gather a few different documents, sometimes frantically digging around through drawers to find whatever exactly she was looking for. Roi had to duck out of sight when she turned to grab a particularly slippery piece of paper that slid across the floor. He decided to refrain from his awesome parkour as he hurried back to the group, but he still kept low in a painful squat.

“What’s happening?” Matt wanted to know.

“She’s trying to get some papers and stuff together,” Roi explained. “Like, really quickly. She looks pretty freaked out by something.”

“Like what?” Nikita asked. “The Mummy?”

Michael squinted at the office door. “Or maybe she’s hiding something…”

That was the moment they heard the door opening. Roi practically lept back behind the corner to keep himself hidden as Ms. Gramm slipped out of the office and immediately locked the door behind her. Well, they certainly weren’t getting in there, but Roi could see her holding a couple of nearly-bursting manilla folders to her chest as she scanned the lobby. He was worried she was looking for the group, but she ended up heading through a mouth leading into a different part of the museum.

“What do you guys think is in those folders?” Matt asked.

Colleen stepped out of their hiding spot. “I say we go find out.”

Alright! Roi loved a good chase!

The five of them started off through the corridor that Ms. Gramm went down, far enough away to stay hidden but close enough to hear her footsteps. But Ms. Gramm was surprisingly quick. Wherever she was going, she was on a mission. They kept turning corners and speeding up to try and keep her shadow in sight. Roi almost suspected that she knew they were following her, and was leading them on a wild goose chase. It wasn’t much longer until they’d lost her, and they were alone in the increasingly darkening halls.

“Woah,” Roi whispered, “that lady’s faster than she looks!”

“Dammit!” Nikita cursed. “Where’d she go?”

“How do people keep slipping away?!” Colleen grumbled.

“Can you all be quiet?!” Michael growled. “Do you want us to get found out?!”

“We gotta keep moving!” Matt insisted. “She couldn’t have gone too far!”

Roi sure hoped they found her soon. This was getting more and more confusing. They continued down the corridors as it kept getting darker and darker. Roi could feel his shoulders tensing as the halls slowly turned pitch black. It wasn’t long until he couldn’t see any of his friends anymore.

“Guys!” Roi hissed. “You there?!”

“Still here!” Matt replied. “Uh, somehow!”

“Are we still going the right way?” Nikita wondered.

“There’s no other way to go,” Colleen said. “Ms. Gramm must have come down this way.”

“You guys, I can barely see my hand in front of my face!” Nikita hissed.

“Hey, Michael!” Roi hissed. “Any ideas?”

No response.

“Uh… Michael?” Matt tried. “Are you still with us?”

Silence.

“Shit!” Colleen hissed. “We lost him!

“Where even are we?!” Nikita exclaimed. Even Roi could tell she was trying to hide the panic in her voice.

“Uh, maybe we should all hold hands,” Roi, who totally wasn’t suppressing some urge to scream or anything, suggested. “So we don’t get separated?”

Colleen might have been mad at one of her teammates, but this was getting a little too creepy to worry about holding onto a grudge. Besides, there was a slightly higher chance she’d end up holding one of the guys’ hands than Nikita’s. 

She was pretty sure she was standing in front of the rest of the group, so she stretched her hand out behind her, grabbing a hand that might have been Matt’s. Her other hand went straight ahead of her and onto the wall, feeling around for a corner to turn into, or a light switch to flip on. She slowly pushed forward, pulling the others along with her and trying to ignore her increasingly pounding heart.

“Yeesh, Nikita,” Roi muttered. He sounded like he was at the very back of the line. “You ever heard of lotion? Your hands are practically sandpaper!”

“ Me? ” Nikita retorted. She was probably right in front of Roi. “You’d think with all the time you spend in bathtubs, your hands wouldn’t feel like a giant nail file!”

“Shh!” Matt hissed. “Quiet back there, guys! You wanna wake up the whole museum?”

Colleen’s hand kept landing on the flat surface of the wall. Where the heck were all the light switches?! Now that she thought about it, in all her years of going to museums, she’d never once noticed a light switch anywhere. Maybe that was a precaution to keep people like the gang from messing with them during their hours of operation?

Finally, after what felt like forever, her hand landed on something that felt like a light switch.

“Found a light!” she announced, flipping the little knob upward.

It wasn’t much, but the amount of light they did get was enough to brighten up a little ways around them. The halls were so empty and dull that Colleen wondered if they accidentally wandered somewhere outside of the museum for a split second.

Roi squeaked. “Uh… guys? ”

Colleen whirled around faster than she’d expected to. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see, but Tarik holding hands with Roi and Nikita definitely wasn’t it! The pair immediately snatched their hands out of his grasp as he glowered at the group, shrieking at them with whatever was left of his gravelly voice. Colleen let out a scream as Matt started sputtering out scientific nonsense out of pure fear.

“FLUORINE URANIUM CARBON POTASSIUM NITROGEN OXYGEN! Everybody run!!!”

Now, just because Matt was almost certain they weren’t dealing with a real Mummy didn’t mean he wasn’t scared of it! There was still someone chasing after him and his friends! They made a mad dash through the museum, running so quickly that Matt could barely hear Tarik behind them. Come to think of it, He wasn’t sure he could hear anything behind them at all.

Hold up. Tarik was coming after them, right?

Matt risked turning his head around to find no one pursuing them. He wondered if maybe Tarik was just farther behind them, but the only footfalls he heard were coming from him and the rest of his friends. He couldn’t even see a shadow in pockets of places where light would peek through.

“Guys!” Matt exclaimed. “He’s gone!”

The four of them slid to a halt. Their heads spun all around trying to figure out where Tarik had gone. Somehow, the Mummy had caused them to end up back in the lobby. Between their heavy breaths, the apparent running in a massive circle and all the whirling around, Matt almost felt like he was going to collapse.

“Why…” Roi panted. “Why didn’t he follow us?”

“Maybe we… lost him back there… somewhere?” Nikita guessed.

“I don’t know…” Colleen said. “We were pretty loud.”

“She’s right…” Matt agreed. “He definitely would’ve heard us-”

But before anyone else could say anything, they heard a scream. A woman’s high pitched scream rang out from another part of the museum. And she sounded close.

“Oh, crap!” Matt gasped. “Ms. Gramm?!”

More screams. No mistake - that was Ms. Gramm! And she was in trouble! Matt could feel a second wind coming with the adrenaline.

“Shit!” Nikita cursed repeatedly. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“We’re coming, Ms. Gramm!” Roi called out.

“Hold on!” Colleen added.

The four of them took off through the corridors in a full on sprint, some of them letting out yelps as they ran. They followed Ms. Gramm’s cries for help through the corridors as quickly as they could possibly go. Who cared about being quiet at this point?! Let Tarik hear them! Let him know they were coming to stop him!

The screams started going quiet, but the group could tell exactly where they were coming from. They flew all the way back to the labyrinth exhibit where they’d started. If Matt didn’t know any better, he might think it was a little darker than it was when they’d first gotten there. They skidded to a halt once again, frantically trying to find their front desk lady in distress.

But the screams had stopped. There were no other sounds. Nothing but silence.

Silence and the flickering lights overhead.

Matt half expected the statue of the Minotaur to come to life and lunge at them.

“Ms. Gramm?” His voice was softer than he’d meant it to be.

“We’re… we’re here to save you?” Roi’s words were even quieter than Matt’s.

Nikita tried. “Say something so we know you’re not dead…”

“Hold on…” Colleen’s voice was slower than normal. “What’s that sound?”

They listened, and they caught one other sound that sent a shiver across Matt’s skin.

drip… drip… drip…

They all turned to the sound to see a small puddle forming between the four of them. Matt couldn’t tell what color it was, but he could smell a mix of something sweet and vaguely meaty. He pulled out his phone with a shaking hand and switched on the flashlight, pointing it upwards in the direction the dripping was coming from. 

At the sight of a dried out Ms. Gramm in a golden capsule, everyone in the exhibit let out a scream.

Chapter Text

Rosanna used her free hand to hold up her phone screen that displayed a map of the museum as she walked, while her left arm was looped with Teala’s. Jc stood at her right side, flashlight in hand as they all made their way back to the far side of the museum. If Rosanna had known she’d end up back in here, she would’ve come back in broad daylight surrounded by more people. At least she had a couple of her friends with her - she definitely wouldn’t be able to walk through this creepy museum all by herself.
“I think it’s through this way,” Rosanna told them, pointing to an exit to one of the dinosaur exhibits near a pair of velociraptors.

She didn’t know why, but the two raptors in that part of the exhibit always made her skin crawl, even when she was a kid visiting the place back in Beaver Scouts. Something about their small but razor sharp teeth, and the hungry look in their eyes made them look almost alive. She was usually all about dinosaurs, and Jurassic World made raptors in particular seem more like puppies. But these two in the exhibit… she was never so sure she could trust them if they somehow came to life.

The exit opened up into the hallway where the gang was first chased by the Mummy, and the closet where they tried to hide wasn’t too far away. Rosanna didn’t know Dr. Rosen’s body was this close to one of the exhibits. She and the others had been so focused on getting away from King Tarik that they hadn’t really paid attention to where they were going. As they got closer and opened the door, Rosanna realized how small the closet actually was. There wasn’t that much space with all the supplies and clutter. Part of her was worried the amber cocoon thing would be up on the ceiling again when they looked, and Dr Rosen’s… remains … with it.

“You good, little dude?” Jc asked her.

“We don’t have to go in there if you don’t want to,” Teala assured her.

“I’m okay.” Rosanna clenched her fists and steadied herself. “Let’s do this.”

She did the best she could to force her nerves down, trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Sure she was scared, but they still had a job to do. Besides, at least Rosanna wasn’t all alone.

She took a step inside and heard a tiny crunch! from under her foot. She lifted up her shoe to find several tiny pieces of… something. Each of the pieces were about the size of a fingernail. She shone her flashlight down to the floor and guessed they used to be part of Dr. Rosen’s cocoon.

“Guys,” she whispered. “Come look at this.”

Rosanna took a step back to let Jc and Teala have a better look at the fragments. She was starting to wonder what exactly the deal with the cocoons was. How were they able to hold their shape the way they had? How were they able to turn the person inside into a basically-mummy? And most of all, what even were they?

Teala knelt down to look more closely at the fragments. She figured from what little light they had that the stuff was sort of golden, and she could almost see the floor through the tiny little bits.

“Careful,” Jc warned. “Don’t touch that stuff with your hands - it might be a clue.”

She grabbed a pen from the nearby shelf, and pressed it down on one of the pieces. If she couldn’t pick it up, maybe she could move it closer between everyone so they could inspect it with their flashlights. She kept the tip of the pen held down and tried to slide it over, but the pressure she was putting on it caused the fragment to snap in half.

“Crap!” Teala chastised herself. She leaned down lower to survey the damage, thinking maybe it could be pushed back together or something.

“What’s up?” Jc asked.

“I pressed the pen too hard and one of the pieces broke.” Teala stood up to give her friends a look at the little fragments.

“Does amber usually break that easily?” Rosanna asked. “That’s what that cocoon thing looked like last night.”

“Not that I know of,” Jc replied. “I think the shortest amount of time it takes for amber to harden would be a couple million years at the fastest. This stuff might be hard, but it looks pretty recent. Now that I think about it though…” Jc pulled out his notebook and flipped to a page that Teala couldn’t see. “Guys, come look at this.”

The girls gathered around to see what Jc was looking at, and Teala saw a sketch of the little golden particle-things she and Jc had discovered back at the Egyptian exhibit with a few other members of the gang when the investigation first started. The pieces in the closet looked almost identical to what they’d found by the sarcophagus. It looked like this case was starting to tie itself together…

Teala noticed Rosanna staring down at the fragments on the floor and scratching her chin. “What is this stuff then?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” Jc replied. “It’s probably not amber, I’m pretty sure about that.”

“Well, whatever it was,” Teala said, “it’s strong enough to turn someone into a human raisin.”

“This stuff needs a smell test,” was Rosanna’s oddly straightforward comment on that matter.

Before Teala could question her further, Rosanna crouched down to the floor, leaning downward and taking a deep breath in through her nose. She came back up with a scrunched up face and a rapidly shaking head, as if trying to shake something off.

“Gah!” she exclaimed. “It smells weird!”

“Weird?” Teala repeated. “Like how?”

“It smelled musty last night, but now it’s like a really gross, pungent plant or something.”

Teala and Jc both leaned over to get a whiff of the fragments. As soon as Teala sniffed it, her first reaction was, Ew! Gross! Get this away from me! And she yanked her head back.

She had no idea what that stuff was, but the smell was an absolute assault on her senses. At first she thought it was some kind of tree, but not the kind that smelled particularly good. It was pungent and sour, as if dead tree bark, a pile of rotten corn, and old cheese had a baby. There was no way they couldn’t notice the scent once they were close enough, but Teala didn’t know how to place what it was.

“Woof,” Jc gasped. “That is not pleasant.”

“Oh yeah,” Rosanna said, “that’s definitely not amber.”

Teala pointed her phone light at the fragments. If they couldn’t name the scent, maybe they could figure out what exactly their appearance could remind them of. It was sort of golden brown in color, and she could still see through them. Teala thought back to the descriptions of the amber cocoons that Rosanna described when she and the others found Dr. Rosen. If Teala was being honest, she didn’t know too much about amber, but she thought she heard from somewhere that bug fossils came from some of the residue from trees. Maybe that was why this stuff kind of smelled like a tree?

“Doesn’t amber come from trees?” Teala thought out loud. “Like, from sap?”

Jc nodded. “It comes from trees, but it’s not made from sap - it’s made of this stuff called resin. I’d imagine it would probably smell different from sap, too.”

Rosanna knitted her eyebrows. “Hmm… sap does make syrup though, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s syrup either, though,” Teala said. “It definitely doesn’t smell like it.”

She wasn’t sure what sap smelled like, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t what this was. Rosanna was right that it smelled like a weird plant, but Teala couldn’t really picture anything in her mind when she thought about it. She wished one of the professors were there to help them figure out what exactly this stuff was. Maybe any of the other members of the gang could help piece this together, too.

Come to think of it, the museum was sounding pretty barren. She knew the rest of the gang was somewhere in the building, but it was so big that it felt like they were all alone. The deafening silence all around them definitely wasn’t helping soothe Teala’s nerves.

“You guys?” Teala whispered. “When was the last time you heard, like, any sound at all?”

The trio fell silent and tried to listen for something - anything. But all they could hear was the low hum of a nearby air conditioner.

Then came the voices, followed by the thuds. It sounded far away and it was extremely faint, but they could hear it from wherever it was. Teala couldn’t tell if someone was whispering, or if they were trying to quietly yell. The knocking was rhythmic and came in waves, stopping for a second before continuing again.

Teala didn’t dare to move. It felt like if she tried, something would reach out from the darkness and grab her.

“Okay,” she muttered. “You guys hear that too, right? It’s not just me?”

Jc wove his phone light around. “What the heck is that? I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“The ghosts are back!” Rosanna cried.

“The ghosts you heard earlier?!” Teala exclaimed. She looked about ready to drop everything and hightail it out of there.

“These sound different, though - Oh no! There’s more of them!”

Jc poked his head out of the closet and kept shining his flashlight through the halls. They certainly heard something that sounded like ghosts, but he couldn’t see any. Though, that was usually the case with some ghosts, wasn’t it? Either way, Jc wasn’t entirely convinced they were dealing with a haunting. No one was that unlucky. Unless it was part of the curse…

Okay, dude, Jc thought to himself. Don’t get freaked out just yet.

Rosanna and Teala were good investigators, but they both scared pretty easily. Even now, they were both starting to babble incoherently to each other, which was usually a sign that they were ready to start scattering. Jc wasn’t a big fan of ghosts either, but the last thing they needed was for all three of them to be in a panic.

“Wait just a second guys,” he told them. “The professors didn’t say anything about ghosts when they told us about the curse, did they?”

“No?” Teala replied.

“Come to think of it, did either of them say anything specific about it?”

“I don’t think so,” Rosanna confirmed.

When he thought back on it, Jc was pretty sure all they said was, “the Pharoah will curse anyone who disturbs his grave.” Ghosts coming back to haunt someone didn’t ring a bell. Jc wasn’t exactly an authority on the supernatural, but something told him it would take something more powerful than one person to summon a bunch of different spirits. A human ghost probably wouldn’t be able to do that, even if they were seen as a god while they were alive.

In fact… had anyone mentioned anything about those cocoons?

“We should still let the others know about this when we regroup,” Rosanna said.

“For sure,” Jc agreed. “But for now, we’d better get back to looking for clues.”

More noises rang out from somewhere, but they were different from the eerie moans. This noise sounded like… uneven footsteps. And Jc was pretty sure he could hear the occasional shuffle. They were coming from much further down the hall, and they sounded like they were making their way towards the group.

“Uh… why don’t we look somewhere that isn’t here?” Jc suggested.

With that, the trio quickly made their way to a safer, more well-lit area of the museum.

As it turned out, even when the rest of the museum was closed, the kids’ area was the brightest section of the place. Rosanna remembered that she used to love that place when she was little. There were so many windows around the room that the streetlights peeking through were enough to let the group know exactly where they were, and where everything else was. Cute little statues of dinosaurs about as tall as she was that kids could climb on littered the floor. Little models of happy-looking molecules were smiling next to boards with facts about biology. Bugs in fancy clothes posed in front of a few similar boards talking about their life cycles. Even though it was relatively bright though, it wasn’t nearly enough to be comforting. In fact, the little light coming from outside made all the shadows and dark corners that much more ominous.

“Oh God this is so much worse than I thought it was gonna be,” Teala babbled as she saw what looked like a possessed statue of a baby stegosaurus, grinning at them as if it were thinking about disemboweling all of them.

Rosanna was almost glad they were just there to hide and not investigate. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of walking around and suddenly hearing a little kid ghost giggling in the dark. She tried to remember if she noticed a kid’s voice among the ghosts they’d heard so far. She was pretty sure she didn’t, but you couldn’t be too careful when it came to ghosts.

Rosanna froze as a muffled voice proved her anxieties correct. Then another! One of them was a little deeper and seemed pretty urgent with whatever it was spookily whispering about, and the other sounded a little more rational, like they were trying to bring the other voice back down from a panic.

How many ghosts are in this museum?! Rosanna fretted to herself. Actually, no, never mind. I don’t wanna know, ghosts!

But it wasn’t just Rosanna that the voices were getting to. Teala ducked behind a spooky-looking caterpillar in a top hat, while Jc nestled near a butterfly to hide behind its wings. Her friends had the right idea, so Rosanna squeezed into the chrysalis in between them.

“More voices?” Jc whispered. “Where are all these people coming from?”

“I don’t know what I’m more worried about,” Teala hissed, “Ghosts finding us here, or people finding us here!”

Rosanna agreed, but something about these particular ghosts struck her in a weird way. Rosanna slowly poked her head out from the chrysalis, cupped a hand to her ear and tried to listen. She was a little surprised by what she heard.

“Hey, guys,” Rosanna whispered. “Do those ghosts sound familiar to you?”

Jc and Teala fell silent and listened with her. It definitely sounded like two people arguing. After a few backs and forths, they put it together. These two ghosts weren’t ghosts at all, but the two professors - both Lingard and Boggs. What were they still doing there? And long after hours, no less?

“We’re totally gonna go check this out, right?” Jc asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Teala confirmed.

“Absolutely,” Rosanna agreed.

At first, Jc just figured the professors were arguing so loudly that the group could hear them from far away. He was surprised to find out how close the kids’ area and the administrative offices were to one another. He wondered how many children had wandered off from the play area to find themselves in the middle of an important science conference or something?

They turned a corner as Rosanna motioned towards one of the doors at the end of the hall that led toward the lab the professors used. Jc noticed the door was cracked open a tad, with a tiny sliver of light leaking out into the hall. The three of them inched towards the door with Jc now in the lead, Rosanna close behind, and Teala at the rear. Rosanna put one hand on his shoulder and the other in front of Teala to stop them before they got too close, but they were still able to hear the professors just fine. They all stood, completely frozen, and secretly listened.

“I don’t think you understand what’s happening, Minerva.” It was Professor Boggs. And he sounded extremely pressed. “People’s lives are at stake here! Do you really want to risk them all for the sake of a museum exhibit?”

Professor Lingard sighed. “I don’t want to doubt what the kids saw yesterday. I’m sure there’s more afoot here than just things going missing, but it just doesn’t make any sense. We’ve both been working with mummies like this for years, and no curse has ever come out of it - certainly not anything of this kind of magnitude.”

“That’s exactly my point. Even if it turns out this isn’t a curse, people are still going to get hurt because of this ordeal. And the numbers will keep climbing unless we do something about it.”

“Well, what exactly do you propose? It’s like you said, this won’t end unless we do something to stop it.”

“I propose we take the safe route. We do what the Pharaoh wants and return what we can to Egypt. That might be the only way to save anyone who’s left.”

“With all due respect, Walter, I really don’t think that would be a good idea. Giving into a thief’s demands all because of superstition won’t help us get to the bottom of this. And with all of this happening at such a coincidental time, when there’s a new exhibit full of treasures being opened up… I know you’re just being cautious, but I just don’t think it’s possible that a walking corpse is behind all of this. And besides, for all we know, the thief could be planning for exactly that scenario, and they could try and intercept the return trip.”

There was a long pause after that. It sounded like someone was pacing around, and they heard a long, heavy sigh followed by fingers tapping on a hard surface.

Professor Boggs continued, slow and deliberate. “This is going to come back to bite us all in the ass, Minerva. And by the time it does, it might be too late…”

“Walter.” Professor Lingard’s voice was deep and razor sharp. “I know what I’m doing.”

Jc’s head was swimming with everything the two professors had just said. On the one hand, there was Professor Lingard - stubborn, but determined to keep the operation going and the exhibit afloat. On the other hand, there was professor Boggs - superstitious, but trying to play it safe so no one would get hurt.

Jc turned to face the girls and motioned down the hall. They couldn’t afford to be heard out in the hall, but the rest of the gang needed to know what they’d just heard, and that they were no longer alone in the museum. Well, other than the Mummy, of course, but you get the point. They crept back up the way they’d come from, quiet as a trio of mice as the professors continued arguing. Jc spared a glance back just to make sure the door hadn’t opened any more. The door was staying in place, but Jc heard a clonk! as he felt his foot hitting clay as he accidentally walked into a potted plant.

Shit! Jc thought.

He heard Professor Boggs speaking first. “What was that?”

“It came from the hall,” Professor Lingard replied before calling out, “Is someone out there?” After a pause, she said more quietly, “Wait here, Walter. I’ll go check it out.”

Shit again!

“Hide!” Jc hissed.

They shot back around the corner at a fork in the hall. They made their way toward a closet that sat much further down the hall, trying to make as little noise as possible. Jc really hoped there wouldn’t be something waiting for them in there. Given how some of the gang described it, he wasn’t too keen on running into one of those cocoons in a tiny broom closet.

Teala got to the door first. She pushed it open and held it for Rosanna and Jc before ducking into the darkness behind them, and shut the door as softly as she could. It was pitch black in the closet, and almost completely quiet. They sat there for what felt like forever, even though it might have just been a minute or two. They could faintly hear the footsteps of Professor Lingard as she walked toward their hiding spot. Teala covered her mouth, not even daring to breathe. She didn’t move a muscle until the footsteps started fading away. They lingered outside for a bit, and then they were gone.

“Whew…” Teala sighed. “She missed us.”

“Thank goodness,” Rosanna added.

“Okay,” Jc whispered. “I think we’re safe.”

In the darkness, someone who didn’t sound like one of Teala’s partners hissed, “Safe from what?”

Teala instantly let out a scream and threw her arms around her two equally-screaming friends. Rosanna almost threw her flashlight trying to point it at whoever the hell just spoke before seeing their huddled trio of friends in front of them!

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” Joey’s group screamed back at them.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” Teala’s group screamed again.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“WHY ARE WE SCREAMING?!” Jc exclaimed.

“YOU GUYS SCREAMED FIRST!” was Joey’s reply.

Oh, yeah. They had, hadn’t they?

Everyone eased themselves out of their panic, taking deep breaths and trying to calm themselves down. It was just one of the other groups - Joey, Manny and Safiya. Nothing dangerous about them. They were all okay. They were fine.

Everything was just f-

KRASH!!!

The closet door swung open!

A big, dark blob of a shadow in the doorway cried, “WHO’S IN HERE?!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” the closet group screamed.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” the blob screamed back as it morphed closer together.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

Teala shot her phone’s flashlight at the blob, almost throwing it like Jc nearly had. She almost melted with relief when the light revealed the blob to just be the rest of their friends standing in the hall. Matt, Colleen, Roi and Nikita left their mass scared-cling as they squinted to keep the light from their eyes.

“Oh, hey guys,” Jc said when he realized who it was.

“You’re all okay!” Rosanna cheered.

“Define ‘okay!’” Colleen gasped, her hand over her heart.

“You scared the shit out of us!” Nikita barked.

“What are you all doing here?” Teala asked.

“We should probably be asking you guys that!” Roi replied.

“That being said,” Matt added, “what are you guys doing in this closet?”

“Well,” Safiya said, “we were hiding.”

At that moment, one last dark figure came up behind the group standing in the doorway to say, “From what, might I ask?”

The entire gang crashed together in one huge mass and let out one final, “AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“Woah! Woah! Guys! Calm down!” The figure exclaimed, turning on the light in the closet. “It’s just me!” 

The light revealed Professor Lingard standing in the doorway.

“Professor?!” Joey gasped.

“What the hell are you doing here so late?!” Nikita asked.

“I should be asking you all the same thing! Come out of the closet, all of you.”

Teala thought she could hear Manny muttering, “Some of us already had, sis,” as the gang gathered out into the hall.

So much for their hiding spot. Oh, well. At least they were finally done screaming. Well, for now at least.

“Now,” Professor Lingard said, clapping her hands together and motioning towards the gang. “Could you all please tell me what in the world you’re doing here this late? And why were you all screaming so much?”

“Weellll…” Joey started. “We kinda stayed after everyone else in the museum left… We just wanted to see if we could find any other clues while we had the place to ourselves. But, uh… apparently we’re not alone… as, there you are…”

Joey trailed off, stopping before he could damn himself and his friends even further. That’s it, they were toast. Joey was almost certain Professor Lingard would kick them out now that she found them. Best case scenario, they’d probably get banned from the museum and get a zero for their grade.

But Lingard just grinned and shrugged. “Well, I suppose Boggs and I technically aren't supposed to be here right now either. I won’t tell if you guys don’t.”

Joey mimicked zipping his lips and throwing away the key as the anxiety in his chest lightened. Thank God their supervisor was so chill.

Joey asked her, “So, what are you and Professor Boggs doing here? You’re not doing anything suspicious , are you?” He was kinda joking, but he also just wanted to make sure she was really on their side.

“The same thing as you all, I imagine,” Lingard replied, “trying to figure out who’s behind the thefts. Professor Boggs and I have been going over notes and theories since closing, but we haven’t landed on anything solid yet. I hope you’ve all been more successful in gathering clues of your own?”

“Well,” Joey replied, “we did find something… ”

He thought back to the letter he, Manny and Safiya found in Ms. Gramm’s office. Professor Lingard would definitely want to know about that.

“We found some stuff during our search, too!” Teala chimed in.

“We saw some pretty weird stuff,” Matt said. “I have a feeling we might not want to talk about it out in the open, though.”

Professor Lingard nodded. “Good point. Why don’t you all come back to the lab so we can speak with Professor Boggs as well? That way we can-”

The sound of several loud bangs and crashes cut her off. A loud scream of terror echoed through the halls and made everybody jump. Only the scream hadn’t come from anyone in their group…

“Walter!?” Lingard gasped.

“Professor Boggs?!” Joey exclaimed.

Joey had a feeling he knew what was about to happen, but he couldn’t afford to get cold feet. He and the rest of the group needed to save Professor Boggs! They all ran back down the hall and into the laboratory, but it was too dark to see anything when they got there. When everyone was inside, Professor Lingard flipped one of the light switches by the door to reveal a horrible sight.

The lab was a disaster zone. Beakers and test tubes were smashed to pieces on the desks and the tile floor, and liquids were mixing together in puddles. Notebooks and papers were torn up and scattered about like a tornado had swept through. The glass case where the artifacts were being held had been broken, and the treasures that had been kept inside had all gone missing.

“What happened in here?!” Matt shrieked.

“I… I don’t know..!” Professor Lingard sounded like it hurt to speak. “I couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes!”

The gang went into a chorus of shocked exclamations and frightened questions as they rushed around the ruins of the lab.

“What the hell?!” Teala gasped.

“Look at this place!” Jc cried.

“What is that?” Manny asked.

Roi threw up his hands. “Who in the hecking heck did this?!”

“More like what did this!” Nikita added.

Safiya said to Manny, “Huh? Isn’t this the same-” 

“Everything is broken!” Rosanna fretted.

“What are we gonna do about this?!” Colleen exclaimed.

Professor Lingard shook her head slowly in disbelief. “All our work… all my research…”

Joey rushed over to the glass case to survey the damage. Shards of broken glass littered the floor surrounding it, and it was almost completely bare. The only thing remaining were a few pieces of parchment paper. But the strangest part was the goldish-colored, syrupy-looking substance covering parts of the case. It still looked fresh, some of it dripping down to the floor. And there was that smell again - the mix of an old meat smell with something plant-like.

His blood ran cold, and he had a terrible, terrible thought.

“Where’s Professor Boggs?” Joey blurted out the question before he could stop himself.

Professor Lingard went white. “He… he stayed behind to keep an eye on the lab…”

She rushed back over to the lights and flipped a second switch, lighting up the rest of the lab. Along with revealing more of the mess, the gang saw more of the ceiling. 

And they saw the horror waiting for them.

They saw the golden mass nesting in one of the corners near the entrance. They saw the labcoat and the small, rectangular glasses. They saw the dried out, wrinkled skin, and the face frozen in a permanent scream, staring out at a threat that was no longer there.

Professor Lingard shrieked. “Oh, my God! Walter!” Her usual logical, rational demeanor had completely vanished, replaced by sheer terror.

Oh, my god… oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god..! That was all Joey could think before his brain started running at the speed of light.

He covered his mouth to muffle a scream, and grabbed hold of the closest person. He was pretty sure it was Colleen, and she grabbed him right back. He had to hold onto someone alive. Someone who hadn’t yet been touched by the curse that was coming for everyone. One by one, this thing was taking everyone in the museum. People with families, friends, jobs… lives! How long before it came for the museum guests?! Or Professor Lingard?! Or Joey’s friends?! Or Joey?! They were all gonna end up like King Tarik at this rate!

But that wasn’t nearly the end of it.

As everyone stared up in panic at the former Professor Walter Boggs, a grunt followed by a slam in the hallway signaled that they weren’t alone. Everyone pried their eyes away from the cocoon and towards the lab’s entryway… just as a familiar glint of red and the sight of papery flesh brought itself out of the shadows and into the lab.

Chapter Text

The gang stared in horror as none other than King Tarik revealed himself from the darkness, standing in front of their only exit. At the sight of everyone, he seemed to glower at them, as if he were furious that they had the nerve to still be there, on his territory. Safiya could feel her heart starting to pound faster and faster as Rosanna grabbed hold of her and Matt.

They had to think fast. If they didn’t start moving, everyone in the lab would be turned into mummies!

“hhnnnggrrrRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!”

King Tarik’s roar bounced off the walls of the lab, and everyone inside let out a scream. He charged through the entrance, sending everyone running in different directions. Most of the gang managed to get out of the lab, while Safiya, Joey, Teala and Professor Lingard were cornered.

The Mummy loomed in front of them between one of the tables. When they moved to the right to try and get away, so did Tarik. When they moved to the left, so did Tarik. When they were in the center, so was Tarik. Finally, the Mummy leaped up and dove across the lab table, knocking any remaining materials to the floor. 

Safiya and Joey both let out screams as Matt cried out, “OH GOD!” and Professor Lingard yelled, “Look out!” They all dove out of the way just in time, sending King Tarik crashing down to the floor behind the desk. Safiya almost tripped over her feet as she and Joey ducked to the left while Matt and Lingard ducked to the right in the nick of time.

“All of you!” the professor called out. “To the exit! Quickly!”

Everyone scrambled out of the lab and into the hall as the Mummy tried to pull himself up to follow them. It wasn’t until Safiya was out of the administrative area and back into the main part of the museum that she realized they’d gotten separated. She was pretty sure she was in the kids area judging by all the bugs and playstuff. As for her friends, she wasn’t sure if they’d gotten to another part of the museum, or if they were still in the admin’s area with the Mummy. She hoped it was the former…

Someone yelled from close by, “COMING THROUGH!”

Safiya whirled her head around to try and figure out where the voice was coming from, when- CRASH!

Something slammed into her, forcing her off her feet and tumbling onto whatever hit her. Only it didn’t stop. Safiya pushed herself up to find her riding out of the kid’s area at full speed on… a book cart?

“What the hell?!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, Safiya,” Jc said calmly. She hadn’t even realized he was on the cart with her.

Safiya replied with a calm, “Oh, hey, Jc,” based on the vibes he was giving. But then she realized… “Wait, what the-?! ”

She shot her head around once again, confused as hell, when she saw Roi at the back of the cart. He had one leg on the lower rack and was using his free foot to push the cart forward like some kind of scooter.

“Hey, Saf!” Roi exclaimed. “We found a cart!”

“Uh, I can see that!” Safiya babbled.

It occurred to her for the first time in a hot minute that this whole thing was supposed to be a makeup/extra credit assignment. How did the gang manage to get this far off the rails?!

Roi might not have been the strongest in the gang, but he was probably one of the fastest! Being with Jc helped his situation too. When he and Jc came across the cart, they barely had to think about what to do. All Roi needed to do was point to it and yell, “That thing!” and off they went. Having a friend who could read people helped in more ways than one.

Plus, this was kinda fun! Pushing the cart almost felt like he was riding a scooter. Only it was a lot bigger and there were two other people riding on the same scooter. Despite how much fun this was, though, all this effort was starting to wear him out. His leg was beginning to hurt from all this pushing.

“You guys..!” Roi gasped. “Where's… where’s the Mummy..? Is he still following us?”

Both Safiya and Jc turned around to take a look. The halls were dark and they were moving pretty quickly, but nothing by the looks on their faces hinted that old paper face was behind them. 

“I think we lost him!” Jc exclaimed.

“Heck yeah!” Roi cheered. “We rule, dudes!”

“Roi!” Safiya called out. “If were safe, you can probably-!”

A gravely cry rang out from somewhere else in the museum, louder than Roi would have liked, and Safiya’s sentence got caught in her throat. Roi probably would have froze up if the cart wasn’t moving so fast. Maybe Tarik was closer than the three of them thought…

“Actually, you know what?” Safiya exclaimed. “Don’t stop!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Roi replied as he picked up the pace.

His ankle was probably gonna hate him in the morning, but as long as he was still alive to see the morning, he didn’t care!

Joey almost didn’t remember The Mummy coming into the lab, or even when he, the gang and Professor Lingard started to run. The next thing he knew, he was crouched inside of an overturned, empty mop bucket, with Lingard hiding in a similar bucket right next to him. Meanwhile Nikita and Teala were hiding in two other buckets right next to them. Joey was pretty sure King Tarik was somewhere close by. He could tell by the sound of his other friends screaming and the footsteps that followed. He hoped those footsteps were just them running because the Mummy was there and not because the Mummy did something to them.

Professor Lingard was still shaken up, both from seeing her research partner encased in that… stuff , and due to the fact that they had a freakin’ mummy after them.

“This is impossible..!” she gasped. “In all my years of working in this field, nothing like this has ever happened before! And now Walter…”

Joey wanted so badly to squeeze Lingard’s hand or offer some sort of comfort. She sounded terrified.

“This isn’t your fault, Professor,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice low enough to keep him hidden, but loud enough for Lingard to hear. “You had no clue any of this was gonna happen!”

“Yeah!” Nikita added. Her voice was muttered from her own bucket. “You couldn’t have known the bitch would decide to wake up from an eon’s long nap!”

“All this stuff is Tarik’s doing!” Teala exclaimed. “You were just looking for cool, old stuff!”

“You kids are sweet,” Lingard muttered. “I just wish…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but Joey decided not to push it. He had a clue what she might have been thinking. He thought back to when the gang talked about the mummy’s curse, and how it seemed to be a real phenomenon in some cases. He had to wonder, out of all the mummies to be cursed by, why did it have to be this one? Why a king who’d apparently ruled during a peaceful time? Then he remembered what Dr. Boggs had said about Tarik’s curse. How he’d come back to the land of the living to destroy any and all who lay a finger on his treasures. Joey was a fan of gems and crystals himself, but he didn’t know if he’d go so far as to kill someone over touching his collection.

Something didn’t add up, but he couldn’t figure out what…

A crashing sound from somewhere else brought him out of his head and back into the buckets that he, the professor, and two of his friends were hiding under. The crashing was growing louder and louder.

“We gotta get out of here!” he heard Nikita hiss.

“How?!” Lingard replied. “It’s not like we can burst out of these buckets without being noticed!”

Wait… that was right. They couldn’t leave their hiding spots… But maybe their hiding spots could leave with them! If the four of them could move from under the buckets, they could escape without being spotted!

Yes! It was genius!

“You guys!” Joey whispered. “I have an idea!” He explained his plan to everyone.

“Are you sure about this?” the Professor asked.

“Totally!” Joey confirmed. “Just follow our lead and we’ll be home free before you know it!”

“If you say so,” Lingard replied apprehensively.

Joey moved to the side of his bucket to try and listen. It was quiet - no sign that Bandage-Breath was anywhere nearby. That was their cue!

Joey hissed, “Go!” and he started shuffling from under his overturned mop bucket.

He could hear the distinctive sound of three other pairs of feet shuffling around him, which meant his comrades were on the move as well. His ears were his best friend at that moment as he strained to listen to any extra footsteps or voices that sounded particularly menacing. And that was when he heard an angry groan from somewhere he couldn’t place.

“Stop!” Joey whispered.

Everyone froze where they were and fell silent. They waited a moment, and then…

No more noise.

“Go!” Joey hissed.

They were on the move again, and Joey could tell everyone was trying to be quieter. He couldn’t see where they were going, but as long as they were getting further away from the Mummy, that was all that mattered. Well, as long as they didn’t hit a wall or something.

“I can’t believe this is actually working!” Professor Lingard whispered.

Me neither! Joey wanted to say, but he kept quiet.

He tried to focus on staying hidden by willing himself to be one with the mop bucket. He was the mop bucket. He was the mop bucket. He was that ugly shade of yellow and he had a “wet floor” logo to match, complete with a guy slipping over. He was-

Someone screamed from close by - it sounded like one of the girls! Was that Teala?! Joey’s heart almost stopped. Was she okay?! Then he heard a loud KLONK! followed by another scream, longer and more high-pitched. Nikita. Then one more - the screamer was right next to Joey. Professor Lingard.

Wait. That meant…

Something outside slammed itself into the lower side of Joey’s bucket, causing it to flip over and slam into his side, knocking him to the floor. Joey was greeted by one of the knight statues in the medieval exhibit standing directly in front of him. He whirled around only to find an unwelcome, decaying face towering over him and his friends. Tarik took a few steps closer, preparing to rip them to pieces, or turn them into mummified cocoons, or whatever mummies did to their victims.

But then Professor Lingard reached into her lab coat pockets and grabbed something. Her hand flew out towards Tarik, and a handful of stuff that looked like sticks pelted him in the face. When they all clattered to the floor, Joey realized they were… a bunch of ballpoint pens? Tarik stumbled back, giving them a chance to get away.

Lingard yelled, “Split up, everyone!”

They did just that, moving fast to make sure the Mummy wouldn’t catch sight of any of them. The girls ran off in different directions while Joey and Lingard darted out through an entryway into the weapons area.

“Good thinking, Professor!” Joey exclaimed.

“A good Professor always carries a pocket full of extra pens with them!”

Rosanna had ended up running through the halls with Matt, Teala, Manny and Colleen. Far be it from her to complain about being in a larger group - safety in numbers, after all! The only problem was - Tarik had been right on their tails for the past five minutes. He had them all trapped in one of the kitchens in the food court, and they’d used a bunch of supplies to barricade themselves inside. Said supplies were all falling over as Tarik pounded on the door to try and get inside.

She clutched onto Matt and yelled, “For once, I wish I wasn’t locked in a kitchen!”

“Now what do we do?!” Teala exclaimed. “We’re trapped!”

Manny threw up his hands. “I told you guys it would be a dead end in here!”

“Okay okay okay,” Colleen babbled. “This is fine! Everything is cool! We can totally figure a way out of this we’re not gonna turn into mummies not at all EVERYONE STOP PANICKING!!!”

“Guys!” Matt exclaimed, squeezing Rosanna’s hand. “We’re gonna be fine - we just need some way to get out of here!”

“Like what?” Teala asked. “Oh, god, this is worse than earlier!”

“Earlier?” Matt asked.

“Oh, right,” Colleen remembered. “Teala and I were trapped in here earlier today with a few others when we were looking for clues.”

“Yeah,” Teala said. “The only reason we got away was because we were able to distract him. And he’s is way more pissed off this time!”

“Wait, that’s it!” Matt exclaimed. “We need some kind of distraction to get past him!”

Rosanna tried to think. If they were all gonna make it out of this in one piece, they needed a solid plan. Tarik clearly wouldn’t be happy to see them once he got through that door, and as much as Rosanna would have loved to, they couldn’t hide in the kitchen forever. She glanced around to try and see what they could use to get themselves out of there. There were a bunch of cooking utensils, ingredients, even a couple finished pieces of dessert. But how could they use them to…

Wait a minute - utensils, food, a kitchen…

That’s it! she thought.

“I have an idea!” Rosanna announced. “What do you do if you’re in a bad mood and you’re near a kitchen?”

“Go to bed?” Manny guessed.

“No, that’s more for if you’re close to a bedroom. I was thinking more along the lines of food! ”

A few minutes later after Rosanna explained her plan, they were all ready. They had their disguises, their props, and the food they needed to use. Honestly, it wasn’t the worst idea Teala had ever heard. In fact, it made a bit more sense than the last time she was cornered in there, considering they were actually using the stuff they’d found in the kitchen this time around. Besides, they all looked pretty good in waiter outfits, in her own opinion, and Rosanna looked professional as hell in her chef garb.

“Ready, girls?” Rosanna asked.

“Ready!” Colleen replied eagerly.

“Ready…” Teala was starting to have second thoughts, but she had to give it her best shot.

The door burst open with King Tarik stalking inside. He roared when he caught sight of the three of them…

And Teala and her friends stood up straight and gave him their best “customer service” smiles.

Rosanna opened with the most extreme Italian accent she could muster. “Good evening-a, sir-a! Welcome-a to Rosanna’s-a Kitchen-a! How can we serve-a you tonight-a?!”

King Tarik made a weird grunting noise that almost sounded like, “Huh?”

Teala clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking, and said, “Right-a this-a way, sir! We have a fine-a selection-a for you!”

“Indeed-a!” Colleen added cheerily. “Have a seat-a! I’m-a sure you’ll find our-a dishes-a to your liking-a!”

I’m so sorry, Italy, Teala found herself thinking.

She and Colleen leaped forward and ushered the Pharaoh out of the doorway and into the kitchen. Rosanna moved ahead towards the cooking area, and the three of them followed. They rounded a corner to a cooking station disguised as a tiny section of a restaurant (technically it was a tiny section of a restaurant, but still). Thankfully, the sandwich shop kitchen had plenty of ingredients to help them play the part better.

The girls shoved a confused Tarik onto a wheeled stool next to a long metal table covered with a white cloth, and a vase full of flowers in the center. Rosanna ducked into the small cooking area to get started on something. Colleen took out a napkin and tied it around Tarik’s neck while Teala set down a plate and silverware. She risked a look away from her task to see if Tarik was as mad as she was afraid he was, only to be met with the ominous, reddish-orange shine of his carnelian stone eyes. He looked even more bloodthirsty than when he entered the kitchen. She instinctively froze, unable to move.

This was it, he was gonna turn her and her friends into a bunch of mummies-

She felt someone take her hand and almost jumped, but relaxed a little when she saw it was only Colleen.

“Come-a with-a me, my companion-a!” she said. “The chef needs-a space-a!”

Teala managed another smile. “Yes-a!” She turned back to the Mummy. “Your-a meal is-a coming right up-a, sir!”

The two of them darted out of the way before Tarik could try and strike at them. They heard a ding! coming from a toaster, and Rosanna quickly took something out and put it on a tray. She covered it up with one of those dome-shaped dish thingies (Teala was sure Rosanna knew the name), then skipped up next to Tarik, tray in hand.

“Dinner is-a served-a!” Rosanna exclaimed.

She lifted the cover to reveal a delicious-looking meatball sub. Teala could see some pepperoni poking out of the sides, along with some melty white cheese. It didn’t smell like mozzarella, though. What was that other white cheese? P-something? Provolone! It was provolone! She could still see a little bit of steam despite the darkness in the kitchen. It looked like a delicious sandwich, even with how rushed Rosanna had to be.

Rosanna set down the plate in front of Tarik. He stared down at it, then looked up at the girls, then back down at the sandwich. Did he even know what sandwiches were?

Did they have sandwiches in ancient Egypt? Teala wondered.

“I assure-a you-a, sir,” Rosanna said, “it’s got-a real-a kick!”

Tarik finally took a bite, and part of Teala was worried his jaw might fall off. But it didn’t. In fact, he seemed to like the sandwich because he took another bite. He made some kind of grunt that Teala took to mean he was satisfied with his meal.

Perfect!

But then something happened. Tarik started to breathe heavier than Teala would expect from someone with no lungs. A lot heavier. His face would probably turn red if he had blood to turn it red. He dropped his sandwich onto the table to frantically fan his mouth, causing it to fall apart and reveal the full chili peppers that were hidden inside, with a visible bite taken out of one of them.

Perfect.

“Wonderful-a”! Colleen said. “I would-a say that this is a success-a!”

“Quite-a!” Teala added. “A ten-out-of-a-ten, I believe-a!”

“Now on-a to the next course-a!” Rosanna exclaimed.

As Rosanna started to push the stool, the Mummy let out a growl and tried to reach out to grab one of them. Teala and Colleen managed to leap out of the way just in time as Rosanna took over the next part of the plan. She ran as she shoved the stool and Tarik further into the kitchen, taking a moment to look back and wink at Teala and Colleen before they disappeared around the corner.

“It worked!” Teala whispered.

“Hell yeah!” Colleen cheered, throwing her hand up for a high-five.

Teala happily obliged with the hardest high-five she could. One stage of the plan down, just one more to go!

Colleen reached over to the sandwich and picked up a meatball from the sandwich. It looked like she was about to take a bite.

“Colleen!” Teala hissed. “Corpse germs!”

Her foodie of a friend dropped the ball to the floor. “Sorry!”

Oh, yeah. This was a good plan. This would definitely work, as far as Matt was concerned. They were in a kitchen, after all. Matt was crouched down with Manny, hiding behind a serving cart that they’d dressed up as a tiny dining room table as they waited to kick off the next stage.

A distinctive, “Hnnggh!” told the guys that Rosanna and Sir Gruntsalot were on their way.

“Get ready!” Matt hissed.

Manny nodded eagerly. “Always ready, honey!”

The sounds of the wheeling of the stool and Rosanna’s quick footsteps ended at the other side of the table, and the boys popped out of their hiding spot.

“‘Ello, mate!” Manny said in a very much not Italian accent. “Wot seems to be the kerfuffle?”

Matt nudged him and whispered, “Wrong accent!”

“Sorry!” Manny straightened up. “What-a seems-a to be the problem-a?”

Rosanna spoke. “It-a seems our patron didn’t like-a the main-a course-a!”

“Well-a then-a,” Matt said, “perhaps-a we can-a cool him off a bit with some-a dessert-a!”

“Indeed-a!”

The three of them ran over to a counter covered with ingredients and bits of food.

“Okay, okay,” Rosanna whispered. “What do you guys think?”

“Cookies?” Manny suggested.

“I’m not sure those would settle the heat in his mouth.”

“A hot fudge sundae?” Matt tried.

“I don’t think we don’t have any ice cream.” Rosanna’s face lit up. “Wait- cream! That’s it!”

They all turned their attention to a whole bunch of pies resting on one of the tray shelves in a corner. A sign labeled them as “banana cream.”

Bingo!

Rosanna ran to grab one of the pies, Manny went to get a plate, and Matt made a beeline for a knife. He saw a whole line of utensils over one of the counters - knives, skewers, soup ladles - you name it, it was there. He came to a stop when he saw a plating knife resting dead in the middle of the row. He swiped it off its hook and power walked back to his friends.

What? He knew better than to run with knives.

Rosanna motioned the boys over. “This pie’s already got a few slices missing. I don’t think they’ll notice one more, right?”

Matt took a look, and sure enough, the pie in question already had a good sized chunk missing. As long as it was a decently small piece, they probably wouldn’t miss a little more. He carefully cut a slice of pie, lifted it up, and set it down on the plate in Manny’s hand.

Tarik let out a frustrated-sounding, “HnGRAAH!” as if he were getting impatient. His breathing was increasing. He really needed something to cool off!

“Coming-a right up-a!” Manny said, taking the plate and setting it down in front of the Mummy. “Oopsie! I seem-a to have forgotten to give you a fork-a. Here let-a me just-a…”

WHAM!

Manny slammed the plate of banana cream pie right in Old Frightening Face’s… um, face!

Tarik was either so shocked, or Manny had hit him so hard that he fell right off his stool and flat on his back to the floor, swiping at his face and trying to get the stuff off of him.

“Run, bitches!” Manny cried as he tore off his waiter garb to reveal his regular clothes underneath. “The pie can only hold him off for so long!”

“D’oh Mama Mia!” Rosanna yelped as they scampered away.

Matt could feel the adrenaline flowing in his veins as he yelled out the pythagorean theorem. “WHEN THE THREE SIDES OF A TRIANGLE MAKE A-SQUARED PLUS B-SQUARED EQUALS C-SQUARED THE TRIANGLE IS RIGHT ANGLED! We gotta get out of here!”

They rounded a corner to see that the girls were already out of their disguises, and they all made a mad dash for the exit. They had to get as far away as they could while that old Mummy King was down! Matt made sure everyone else was ahead of him as they left the dining area and ran out into the rest of the museum. He really hoped the others were okay right about now.

Honestly, Jc could think of worse ways to spend a Saturday night than riding on a book cart through an abandoned museum while an undead Pharaoh chased after you and your friends. Well, he didn’t like that particular situation, but it could always be worse. Riding on a cart like that almost felt like skateboarding, only he and Safiya had to stay on their hands and knees while Roi was the one doing the pushing.

Safiya pushed herself up to turn around. “Guys! I think we actually lost him this time!”

The boys turned to check. Jc had no idea where the Pharaoh was, but he definitely couldn’t find any trace of him.

“Hell yeah, dudes!” Jc cheered.

“We did it!” Roi shouted.

From here on out, it was nothing but smooth sailing!

Safiya turned back around and gasped at something ahead of them. “Uh..! You guys?!”

They turned their attention back ahead of them to see that they were flying right towards the Greek mythology exhibit at top speed. Roi and Safiya both let out a shout as statues of monsters and famous Greek historical figures popped up directly in the path of their cart.

“We’re gonna crash!” Safiya exclaimed.

“Where are the breaks on this thing?!” Roi added.

Upon finding that there were indeed no breaks on the cart, Roi tried to use his foot to stop the cart. The momentum ended up almost pulling him off, causing him to grip the handles harder. Both Roi and Safiya were starting to freak out - a few figures were already sipping past them, and the cart was going way too fast to stop before they’d crash into one of the displays.

Jc wasn’t worried one bit, though. He knew exactly what to do.

He shoved himself to his feet and slowly brought himself to stand up on the cart. He spread out his arms and made sure his feet were far enough apart, and leaned as much of his weight as he could to the left. Sure enough, the entire cart made a steady left, completely missing a glass display case that housed the Gorgon model. He leaned to the right when they got close to a second case with a few stone tablets, and they dodged it with ease.

Nothing to it - it was just like skateboarding.

“Okay, dudes!” Jc yelled to Roi and Safiya. “I’m gonna need your help with this! Follow my lead, okay?!”

“Okay!” they both replied.

Jc spread his feet a bit further apart and bent his knees, making sure his weight stayed as even as possible. As he got himself situated, he saw they were about to enter another exhibit - the medieval exhibit. If Jc was remembering right, that place was littered with props. Knights’ armor, weapons, a castle model about the size of Manny’s van, the works. They’d have to concentrate if they were gonna make it out of there unscathed, but he had faith in them.

“Okay..!” Jc called as they passed through the entrance. “Right!”

Roi and Safiya leaned to the right along with him, and the cart rolled out of the way in the nick of time. They passed right on through the exhibit until another came into view - the dinosaur exhibit - but Jc knew they could handle it. They’d gotten this far, after all.

He kept calling out which direction to lean as they zoomed through. “Left! Right! Left! Sharp left!” Each time, they avoided whatever was in their way with the greatest of ease. They went through exhibit to exhibit, working as a team to pull off some rad maneuvers that, Jc figured, would make Tony Hawk proud. If only Jc were actually skateboarding with dinosaurs around him - that would be so cool.

“HA-HA!” Roi exclaimed. “Take that, museum props!”

“Physics for the win!” Safiya cheered.

Jc threw his fists in the air and yelled, “ We! Are! Invincib-!”

BAM!

The cart rammed to a stop and jolted forward, throwing the three of them right off. Jc landed hard on his hip as he, Safiya and Roi skidded across the floor and crashed into the wall. Jc tried to shake himself off and get a sense of where the hell they were. He saw a canon, some bearded guys with peglegs and eyepatches, and a few model ships. Their cart lay sideways next to a fake treasure chest about the size of a bench, with fake gold and jewels littered around it. That thing was probably what caused their crash. They seemed to have ended up in the pirate exhibit in all the chaos.

“Not cool,” Jc sighed, rubbing the sore spot where he’d landed.

“I take it back,” Safiya muttered, shaking her head. “Curse you, physics.”

Roi tried to push himself up on his elbows. “Somebody get the license plate of that canon…”

Jc thought he could hear some faint footsteps from somewhere outside the exhibit. At first, he was worried that Wrinkles McGee had found them, but he realized how steady they seemed. Whoever was coming towards them wasn’t shuffling. And it sounded like there were two of them?

He was even more at ease when he saw Joey and the Professor enter the exhibit.

“Holy crap!” Joey exclaimed. “Are you guys okay?!”

“More or less,” Safiya replied.

Roi sat straight up like he hadn’t been thrown onto the hardwood floor and screamed, “That was awesome! Let’s do it again!”

“Maybe when we’re not running for our lives, buddy,” Jc said.

Professor Lingard held out her hand to the trio. “Here, let us help you kids up.”

“I think it came from over here!” Matt yelled, pointing towards the pirate exhibit.

Now Colleen wasn’t one to run towards danger. Usually. Sometimes. Okay, like, five times out of ten, she probably wouldn’t charge blindly towards the unknown. One of the key moments being when she was being chased by something. But given that the thing chasing them was behind them, the crash that she and the rest of her group heard was probably another group of their friends.

As Colleen expected, they found a good chunk of the gang - Joey and Professor Lingard looked like they were helping Jc, Roi and Safiya pick themselves up off the floor, and Colleen caught sight of an overturned book cart next to a fake treasure chest. Had they been flung from that thing?

“You guys!” she yelled. “What happened?!”

“We kinda crashed into that chest over there,” Jc replied, pointing to one of the model ships.

Joey added, “Lingard and I found them on the floor.”

“Hold up,” Safiya said. “Please tell me you guys aren’t running from-”

Too late.

Before she could finish her sentence, Tarik had caught up with them, showing his ugly face in the entryway. The entire gang screamed and scattered once again, and Colleen was just about to join them when she tripped over that damned treasure chest. She fell flat on her face as everyone else was too distracted to notice.

Part of her thought about how Manny would chastise her for literally falling into a horror movie trope, but the thought was ejected from her brain as she turned upward and realized she was trapped. The decayed form of King Tarik was getting closer and closer. Colleen tried to back away, but one of the ships stopped her from being able to move back any farther.

She was trapped. No one knew where she was. Her heart roared in her ears as the Pharaoh stared down at her, probably considering how she’d look as a mummy.

“Guys!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Joey! Manny! Matt! Professor! Somebody help me!”

She heard a pair of footsteps from the hall, and Nikita came rushing in from the entrance on the other side of the exhibit, coming to a stop once she caught sight of the Pharaoh. His back was turned, so it looked like she went unnoticed as she stared at the two of them with wide eyes. Colleen had no idea where Nikita had been throughout this whole chase, but it didn’t matter anymore. The two of them locked eyes, then Nikita looked at the Mummy, then back to her. Nikita was Colleen’s only hope. Despite everything that went wrong tonight, Nikita would never leave a friend behind.

Or at least, that was what she thought, until Nikita turned on her heel and ran out of the exhibit.

Wait.

Did she…

Did Nikita seriously just DITCH HER?!

“What the hell , Nikita?!” Colleen yelled.

That tore it. If Colleen made it out of this alive and she saw Nikita’s stupid face again..!

Nikita had to move fast. She probably didn’t have much time before that bitch turned her friend into a dried up caterpillar! Who cared that they fought earlier anymore?! Colleen needed help!

“Come on, bitch…” she muttered to herself, “think! Where would it be… where would it be…”

One of the utility closets! That had to have what she was looking for, right? She sprinted up the hall until she found a closet she needed, and practically threw the door open. She scanned the shelves until she found a toolbox, with a hammer and a tiny box of nails sticking out of it.

Jackpot! she thought gratefully.

She swiped them both out of the box and sprinted back out of the closet and back down the hall, praying her friend was still safe. She skidded to a stop when she got back to the exhibit and peaked around the corner. Colleen’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her skull as she stared up at Bandage Bitch. Terrified, but alive.

Yes..! Colleen was still okay!

But Nikita couldn’t let herself breathe just yet.

She moved as quickly and quietly as she could, hammer and nail in hand, as the Mummy got closer and closer to her friend. She couldn’t risk letting him hear her. Once she was inches behind him, she knelt down to the floor next to a loose bandage by Tarik’s ankle. She pinned it down with the nail and pounded it into the floor with the hammer as fast as her hands could manage. It was a miracle she didn’t smash her finger in the process.

The Mummy whirled around at the noise, but thankfully, Niktia’s job was done. The crusty-ass thing swiped at her, barely missing her as she rolled out of the way and back to her feet. With Tarik both focused on her and stuck where he was, it would give the girls enough of a window to escape.

“Nikita!” Colleen cried.

“Let’s go, girl!” Nikita screamed.

Colleen pushed herself to her feet and ducked around King Tarik as he tried to reach out and grab the two of them. Thankfully, the stupid bag of bones was too disoriented to catch them. Nikita grabbed

Colleen’s wrist as the two of them ran full speed out of the pirate exhibit together.

“Nikita!” Colleen exclaimed. “You saved me!”

“You can thank me when we’re out of here!”

She had to admit, though, it felt good to hear that she actually did something good that day.

The girls didn’t have to run far to find the rest of the gang. They had all ended up in the dinosaur exhibit, waiting for the pair to join them.

“Thank God you two are safe!” Joey exclaimed.

Professor Lingard pointed somewhere else. “Everyone, head to the entrance! Quickly!”

Manny risked a look behind the group as they all ran to the main lobby. He didn’t see Tarik following them, but he could hear an extremely faint ripping sound. Manny didn’t quite know what made that sound - maybe one of Tarik’s bandages - but he took it to mean that he was going after them one final time. They had enough ground between them to be safe, but now wasn’t the time to relax. With that dusty-ass pile of old band-aids after all of them, they had no more time to look around for clues! They had to get the hell out of there!

“Everyone get to the van!” Manny yelled. “Hurry!”

Once they finally made it to the lobby, Professor Lingard held the door open for the kids to get out first. The gang thundered down the stairs and towards the parking lot, with Professor Lingard following as soon as everyone was out. Manny fumbled for his keys in his pocket, worried for a second that he might have dropped them in the chaos. He felt a small weight lift from his chest when his fingers closed around a cold piece of metal. He took them out and clicked the unlock button just as the rest of the gang arrived at the van. He dared a look around the lot as everyone piled in to see Professor Lingard clamoring into her own car on the other side of the parking lot. The Mummy was standing at the top of the stairs to the entrance of the museum, shrieking at them.

Manny wasn’t sticking around any longer to hear what that dried up bitch had to say! He ran around to the driver's side and swung open the door, nearly diving into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut.

He jammed the keys into the ignition and the van started up. A quick glance in the rearview mirror assured him that the entire gang was present. He was just about to start driving when something of the utmost importance occurred to him.

“Punch it, Manny!” Joey exclaimed from the seat next to him.

“Hold it!” Manny paused his panic for a second and turned to face his passengers. “Is everyone bucked up?”

His eyes darted around. Yes, yes they were. Good!

The gang then answered his question with an urgent shriek of “DRIIIIIIIIIVE!!!”

“OKAY!!!”

Manny whirled back around, flipping the gear and slamming his foot hard on the gas. There was a loud SKREEEE! as the wheels screeched against the pavement and the van started off. Thankfully, they didn’t have to worry about crashing into anyone. There was just one other moving car in the lot, belonging to Professor Lingard, who was in just as much of a hurry to get the hell outta there as they were. There were only two others that were still parked, but they were plenty far away. They probably belonged to Ms. Gramm and Professor Boggs, but they weren’t…

…they weren’t going anywhere…

Manny shuttered.

Joey lowered the window and leaned his head out, the wind tangling his hair. He looked back at the museum just as the Mummy came to a stop at the bottom of the entrance’s stairs. Tarik glared out at the cars as if warning the trespassers to never set foot in the museum again.

Joey ducked back inside once he got an eyeful, realizing how tired he was. Not only had he and his friends been running for their damn lives for the past he-didn’t-even-know-how-long, but the van’s digital clock told him it was almost midnight.

He turned to face the rest of the gang, and they all looked just as scared and exhausted as he felt.

“Is everyone alright?” he asked. “Sort of?”

“Oh, my god, bitch…” Manny sighed. “My doctor is not gonna be happy with my blood pressure this year…”

Teala had a hand on her chest. “I was not aware this was in the syllabus for our assignment.”

“It was not,” Safiya confirmed. “I read that thing cover to cover, and it had no mention of a dead guy chasing after you.”

Colleen turned to Nikita and said breathlessly, “Nikita… you really saved my ass back there… thank you.”

“Don’t even mention it, girl,” Nikita replied. “You know I’d never leave the gang hanging.”

Colleen's eyes widened a bit, like she hadn’t been expecting to hear that from Nikita. Joey felt something tugging at his chest, hoping his friends hadn’t been fighting tonight.

“Okay, guys…” Joey said, trying to steady his still-shaking voice. “It’s been a chaotic night, to say the least. Let’s… let’s try to get some rest, and we’ll regroup at the clubhouse tomorrow. Okay?”

“Sounds good,” Roi said, taking a big, deep breath. “But sleep first. I don’t think I can think right now.”

“Sleep first,” Jc agreed. “Maybe sleeping on everything will help us figure everything out.”

Matt sank in his seat. “We’d better get so much extra credit for all this.”

Rosanna crossed her arms. “That was so not worth a snickerdoodle!... Probably.”

Chapter Text

The gang had all agreed that there was no way in hell Manny was gonna be driving the other nine of them back to their individual houses, so they split up in a few different groups to spend the night at someone’s house. Roi and Teala stayed at Jc’s house, Matt and Rosanna stayed at Safiya’s, and Manny, Nikita and Colleen crashed at Joey’s place. The next morning couldn’t come soon enough - Colleen spent two hours tossing and turning before she fell asleep, her mind swimming with everything the group had found that night the night before.

Apparently the rest of the gang had been thinking the same thing - they all texted around nine AM saying they’d be on their way soon because they couldn’t wait to discuss everything. Even Nikita was up early, and it was a Sunday! Speaking of which, the mystery wasn’t the only thing keeping Colleen antsy.

Nikita saving her yesterday reminded her of something extremely important - they were still a team, and Nikita was still her friend. Colleen might have gotten mad at her sometimes, and yeah, sometimes her antics were kind of annoying. But she was still a team player at the end of the day. It had been hard to remember that when Nikita had been going off and doing her own thing so often lately.
Arguing about it wasn’t going to solve anything, though. She had hoped after the end of last night, Nikita would at least be willing to talk things through.

The morning after they were chased around by that walking corpse, she, Joey, Manny and Nikita were all chatting in Joey’s kitchen over bowls of cereal. Colleen’s plain bowl of Cheerios was tasting a little bland, so she cut up a banana and added a little bit of honey to it.

Joey smirked at her bowl. “Girl, what are you doing?”

“Hey,” Colleen asserted, “this bowl of sawdust needed some sort of kick. Besides, don’t knock it till you try it - it’s a good combo!”

“She’s right, y’know,” Manny chimed in. “ The honey kinda soaks into the milk and adds a sweeter taste to the banana.”

“You two are weird,” Nikita said, rolling her eyes.

Colleen had to admit, the honey tasted a lot better than it smelled. She scrunched up her nose when she accidentally got a whiff of the golden stuff. The smell reminded her almost of a dead plant or something. It probably wouldn’t leave her nose for the rest of the day.

Joey checked his phone after they were all done eating and said, “Okay, looks like the others are gonna be here soon. Y’all wanna head on out to the clubhouse?”

He pointed outside at the treehouse in his backyard. Since the gang had started the Everlock Irregulars, they had all worked together to give the thing a complete makeover. Some new wood here, a fresh coat of paint there, even a tire swing! The outside of it looked better than it had in a long time, and the interior was nothing to sneeze at either. It was the perfect hideout for them.

“Let’s do it!” Colleen said, feeling a rush come into her.

“Hell yeah!” Manny added.

Nikita nodded and said, “Let’s catch this bitch once and for all!”

They made their way out to the backyard, when Colleen stopped in her tracks when they got off the patio.

“Oh, shoot,” Colleen said. “I think I left my phone inside somewhere. Nikita, come with me to help look?”

“Huh?” Nikita asked. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

That took Nikita off guard. She didn’t think Colleen would be willing to ask her for help after yesterday.

“We’ll be up in a minute, guys!” Colleen said.

“Okay,” Joey said. “Don’t take too long!”

“See you guys in a bit!” Manny exclaimed.

The girls turned back and headed back toward the house. For a split second after the backdoor shut behind her, Nikita thought she was about to get chewed out again. But as Colleen stopped at the kitchen island and sat down, motioning for Nikita to sit next to her, she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be another fight. She took the seat next to Colleen and faced her, getting the sense this wasn’t about looking for a phone.

“So… what’s going on here?” Nikita asked.

“Nikita, I just wanted to apologize.”

“What about?”

“About that stuff I said last night - I’m sorry. I know I probably don’t say it enough, but you’re a super valuable asset to the team.”

Normally, Nikita would say something like “I know” in a sorta-joking-but-kinda-not way because, yeah. Obviously she was valuable. But now probably wasn’t the time for that. Besides, she wasn’t expecting to hear that. Nikita would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a little warm hearing Colleen say that.

“You mean that?” Nikita asked.

“Of course I do. I guess I was so mad yesterday that I forgot about how much you always help us. It’s just… well…”

Colleen paused for a bit, probably trying to think of how to put her words.

“It’s just what?” Nikita tried.

“Lately it feels like you’ve been more focused on taking things into your own hands. We all have our own individual strengths, and yours is definitely…”

“Brute force?”

That made Colleen smirk a little. “I was gonna say something like ‘bluntness,’ but yeah, that too. And that can be pretty useful when we need it, but I just want you to remember that we’re all a team. We don’t work if it’s just one of us disappearing for a bit to look around by themselves. Plus we obviously get worried if someone goes off on their own and we don’t know where they are, or what’s going on with them.”

Okay, Nikita could understand that. When she thought about it, she probably would have been worried too if one of her friends just up and vanished in the middle of hunting a ghost. If there was one thing in this world she didn’t want to do, it was letting her friends down. Sometimes she got so caught up in her own head and what she was doing, she forgot to think about how the rest of the gang felt.

“Yeah, I get that,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, too. I guess I do need to be better at thinking about everyone else.”

Colleen thought for a bit before responding. “Maybe just be a little more open about what you’re doing from now on?” she suggested.

“What about last night? I probably wouldn’t have been able to nail the bitch down if I were just like, ‘Hey Colleen I’m gonna go get a hammer and nail to trap this guy! BRB!’ ”

That made both of them laugh.

“Okay, yeah, you get a pass for that,” Colleen said. “Tarik probably would have chased after you if you just outright yelled your plan in front of him. But when it’s the gang together investigating something, I want you to just tell us your plans. It might stress someone out if you just disappear to carry out your schemes in the middle of talking to a suspect or chasing after a monster. Can you do that?”

Nikita nodded. “Totally. I promise.”

She meant that, too. From here on out, she’d be a better team player. She’d take the gang into consideration more. She’d contribute to hunting for clues as a group. And most importantly, she’d be there for her friends when they needed her. And maybe tackle people to the ground less.

“Awesome,” Colleen sighed. She got up from her seat and motioned back toward the door. “C’mon, the rest of the gang will be here any minute.”

Nikita clenched her fists eagerly. “Let’s finish this thing.”

It didn’t take too long for the rest of the gang to get together inside the clubhouse. The inside of the place had definitely improved over the past few months. They put a couple of bean bags around to chill in, thanks to Jc bringing up some of his personal stash. Teala and Joey stacked the place with a few decorative pillows and trinkets. A small bookshelf rested against one of the walls, which was already stacked with everyone’s favorite stories. Most of them mysteries of course, courtesy of Matt and Safiya. Manny and Nikita both brought up a little radio, a record player, and a crap load of CDs and records in case the gang needed a little atmosphere. Finally, as Roi, Rosanna and Colleen’s idea, a little fridge was plugged into an extension cord, and it was stocked full of a whole slew of snacks.

It didn’t look too bad, in Joey’s humble opinion! And it made for a pretty cool place for everyone to hang out.

Joey placed his palms on the surface of a table made out of smooth wooden planks. “Alright, crew… what do we know?”

Teala snickered. “Crew?”

“What? We’re a crew, aren’t we?”

“Well, yeah,” Jc said, “but like… come on, man. That’s kind of a geeky word, isn’t it?”

“Oh, come on!” Joey exclaimed. “We all use the word ‘gang’ all the time! No one ever comments about how geeky that word is!”

“Exactly,” Matt said. “We use the word ‘gang’ so much, using ‘crew’ just does not sound right.”

Joey let out a long sigh before saying, “Okay, let’s stay on topic! Now, what did everyone find last night?”

Everyone got out their notes, whether on their phones or on notepads.

Matt started. “Our group came across Micheal Goodman last night, and we managed to follow Ms. Gramm to an office in the main lobby.”

Roi continued. “It looked like she was looking through some files for something before she ran off somewhere else, and… um…” He trailed off, looking to the side.

Colleen put a hand on Roi’s shoulder. “We lost both of them for a bit, then Tarik found Ms. Gramm...”

Nikita looked off to the side. “Whatever she was looking for must have been so important that he felt the need to, like… come after her.”

Joey didn’t blame his friends for still being nervous. The sight of those people in cocoons was pretty scary. He was still worried about the idea that he and his friends would be turned into mummies themselves before this was over. But the further along they got, the more Joey got the feeling there was something a lot less supernatural at play.

Jc spoke up next. “We found more of those weird golden particles in a broom closet. Whatever they are, I’m pretty sure they aren’t amber like we thought at first.”

“And they have a really strange smell to them,” Rosanna added. “It was, like, planty and earthy, but not in a good way. And it had a really… sharp smell, like it was piercing my nose.”
“Hmm…” Colleen muttered. “That’s interesting…”

Teala said, “We also heard some stuff, too. We eavesdropped on a pretty heated argument between Lingard and Boggs, and we heard more spooky moaning in one of the exhibits. It sounded like it was echoing around the room.”

Echoing around the room, huh? That sounded pretty up to par with the average ghost, but Joey wasn’t so sure they were dealing with a haunt and a curse at the same time.

Joey motioned toward Manny and Safiya and said, “And then there was the stuff that my group found in Ms. Gramm’s office.”

“There were these pretty damning letters on her desk,” Safiya explained. “It wasn’t signed, but the writer made it sound like they were blaming Professor Lingard for what’s been happening.”

“They might have been found on Ms. Gramm’s desk,” Manny pointed out, “but there’s no way she’d leave something so obvious out in the open for anyone to find.”

“Pretty good findings, Joey noted. “I don’t know about you guys, but it’s starting to look like we aren’t dealing with a real Mummy’s curse.”

“I agree,” Matt said, “but there’s just one problem. We don’t know where all the missing people are. We’ll still need to figure out what happened to them.”

That was true. Just because Joey was getting more and more convinced that this wasn’t a monster they were dealing with didn’t make their situation any less dangerous. People and treasures were still missing, and they still needed to find them. And they needed to make sure Professor Lingard’s name was clear in the process.

That was when Joey felt his phone ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out to look at the caller ID and his heart skipped a beat. It was an unknown caller, but Joey recognized the number immediately.

“Who was that?” Colleen asked.

“It’s Professor Lingard!” Joey gasped. He answered his phone with, “Hello?”

“Joey!” the Professor exclaimed. “New evidence has come to light! Bring your friends to the labs as quickly as you can - I have something important to show you all!”

“Seriously?” Joey gasped. “That’s awesome! We’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” He hung up.

“What did she say?” Matt asked.

Joey replied, “It looks like we’re about to get a break in the case, gang!”

“See?” Nikita pointed out. “‘Gang’ has a much better ring to it.”

He ignored her as the gang clammored out of the treehouse one by one and made a beeline for the van.

It was much easier for Manny to park the van in the museum parking lot that morning than it had been the day before. Partially because the museum was almost entirely empty. Manny counted, maybe, ten cars that he didn’t recognize, along with a few… police cruisers?

Uh-oh.

The group practically ran to the museum entrance to be greeted by a pair of police officers. One was a tall, buff-looking man wearing sunglasses despite the sky being overcast, and the other was a stone faced woman with her hair in a tight bun.

“Sorry kids,” the man said. “Museum’s closed today.”

The woman spoke. “We’ve got an investigation going- Wait, aren't you those detective kids?” 

“That’s one name for us,” Manny replied, “but yes.”

Joey stepped forward. “We’re here to see Professor Lingard - she said she had something she wanted to show us.”

Speak of the devil - the entrance door swung open to reveal a disheveled-looking Minerva Lingard. The poor girl looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept all night. Her usual neat bun had bits of hair poking out, and her lab coat looked wrinkled, like she’d just tossed it to the floor overnight and threw it back on the next morning. She sure didn’t seem as tired as she looked, though. She seemed almost elated, like she’d just made the scientific discovery of a lifetime.

“Kids! I’m so glad you’re all here!” Lingard exclaimed. She turned to the officers and said, “It’s okay, they’re with me.”

Manny felt a little more at ease knowing the Professor was still okay. Sleep-deprived, maybe, but still in action. He was worried Tarik’s curse would have gotten to her by now. That being said, she was pretty brave to come back to the museum after last night. If he were in her shoes, he would have hightailed it out of the country to start a new life among the sheep and goats, far away from any dried out dead guys. Plus, the gang was still there, which usually made him feel safer.

They followed the Professor through the museum, which had turned into a complete crime scene. Almost all of the exhibits were closed off from police tape, and there were at least one or two cops in every room they passed. It seemed the base of operation was the Egyptian exhibit - there was a group of officers and a few detectives going over the evidence they found. Or more accurately, they were examining the gems that went missing from the evidence. When they saw the gang, one of the officers held up a hand to get their attention.

“Excuse me!” called one of the officers. He was looking directly at Manny and Nikita. “Can we snag a couple of you for a minute?”

Nikita looked a little nervous. “Oh, uh… okay.”

Manny put a hand on her shoulder and told the gang, “You guys go on to the lab. We’ll catch up in a sec.”

“You guys sure?” Joey asked.

Nikita smiled at Manny and said, “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

“Okay, we’ll see you guys soon.”

With that, the rest of the gang headed off, leaving Manny and Nikita to deal with the team at the exhibit.

The officer who got their attention came up to the pair and took out a pen and notepad. A closer look at him revealed his last name was Gonzales , and he was rocking some pretty sick looking five o’clock shadow. Nikita glanced at Manny and gave him a grateful smile, and Manny returned it. She’d told Manny how she’d snuck into the exhibit the night before, and he could tell that, now that it was the next day, she was worried about getting in trouble somehow. It would be okay, though - Nikita didn't even touch anything. As long as they were honest about what was going on, things would be alright.

“I just wanted to ask you two a couple of questions and update you about what we found,” Officer Gonzales said. “We noticed that some important pieces of evidence went missing last night. Have you noticed anything strange about the Egyptian exhibit back there?”

“I think I did, actually,” Niktia replied, a little more relaxed. “I noticed last night that some of the evidence that had been there earlier last night went missing. I’m pretty sure the Mummy might have taken it.” She leaned over to get a look behind Gonzales.” Woah, is it me or is there more missing back there?”

Gonzales nodded. “There’s definitely more missing back there.”

“Really?” Manny asked. “Do you think the Mummy took it back because it was rightfully his or something?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Morales said, writing down what they were saying. “We’ve got reason to believe it was simply taken - no historic motive needed. You kids have been investigating this as well, right?”

“Yeah,” Manny confirmed. “We found a whole bunch of stuff last night that might mean we aren’t dealing with a real Mummy.”

Manny kind of had to hear himself say that. He was starting to believe Tarik was a fake, but that didn’t quite mean he wasn’t scared of him anymore.

Gonzales wrote more stuff down on his pad. “Would you two mind telling me some of the things you and your friends have found?”

The laboratory was a little cleaner than it was when they left it last night, but it was still pretty busted up. The broken glass had been swept and the chemicals cleaned up, but there was still visible damage to the treasure cabinet, and a lot of the papers were still haphazardly scattered about. Part of Safiya wanted to lean down and scoop everything up, putting things back into their proper places to make it less of a mess. Now wasn’t the time for reorganizing, though. Now was the time for mysteries.

“So,” Safiya said, “what did you want to show us?”

Lingard walked up to one of the desks and stopped next to her microscope. “I’ve been doing a bit more research since last night after I got home. I had another sample of those crystals you kids gave us yesterday, and I couldn’t go to sleep until I figured out what exactly it was. I managed to figure it out just a few hours ago!”

Now that was some dedication. Safiya could relate. Whenever she had her mind set on figuring something out, she put 100% into solving whatever she was looking into until she knew exactly what was going on.

“So what did you find?” Matt asked.

“Well…” Professor Lingard held out a hand containing the very samples they’d given to her and Professor Boggs a day ago. “Why don’t you taste it and find out for yourselves?”

…

Safiya couldn’t say anything other than, “What.”

“Is, uh…” Joey squinted at the particles in Lingard’s hand. “Is this some kind of… joke?”

“This is normally the last thing you’d want to do in a laboratory, I know,” Professor Lingard said, “but trust me. It’s completely safe to eat.”

Surely she was joking. Surely she wasn’t actually insinuating what Safiya thought she was insinuating. Surely a certified member of the scientific community wasn’t telling them to eat something that probably contained a dead thing.

“Uh…” Matt hesitated. “No thank you…”

“I think we’ll pass,” Joey said.

“I think we’re good,” Jc added.

“I’m not really hungry,” Rosanna whimpered.

Before Safiya could add her two cents on not eating the probably-cursed-whatever-it-was, Roi took one of the bits from the Professor’s hand and plopped it into his mouth with no question.

“What the hell?!” Safiya gasped.

“Roi!” Teala shrieked. “Get that out of your mouth!”

“You don’t know where that’s been!” Joey added.

Roi got a strange look on his face. It didn’t read something like, Oh no I just ate something cursed and now I’m dying , however. His eyes widened and he stood upright, like he was genuinely surprised by whatever he was tasting.

“It’s honey..!” Roi gasped.

Safiya’s brain hit a roadblock. “It’s what?”

“This stuff isn’t amber!” Roi explained. “I recognize that taste anywhere! This is honey!”

Rosanna leaned over - not to have a taste, but to take a sniff of the remaining particles in Professor Lingard’s hand. She shot upright. “ Oh! He’s right! This stuff is just crystalized honey!”

“That’s right!” Professor Lingard confirmed. “I knew it had to be something organic, but I didn’t quite know what it was at first. After looking through a few of my notes, some books and our good friend, the internet, however - I realized the pattern of organisms that I was seeing through the microscope lined up with how honey would look after it’s been hardened.

“But honey doesn’t just…” Teala thought aloud, “dry stuff out like that, right?”

“No,” Matt replied. “No it does not.”

Lingard nodded. “Which is why I was led to believe that our mummified comrades we found in the cocoons weren’t really our comrades.”

It made sense when Safiya thought about it. On the other hand, though, she was having trouble figuring out how the culprit could have even pulled something like that off. There was no way they were actually mummified in that honey - she just didn’t know how they did it.

That was when their discovery was cut short by a pair of echoing voices. But it wasn’t moaning like the gang had been hearing the previous day. Safiya couldn’t tell what they were saying, but they sounded like someone mumbling.

“Do you guys hear that?” she asked.

“Is it the ghosts again?” Roi asked.

“I don’t know if ‘ghosts’ is the proper word here,” Colleen said.

“Hold on,” Professor Lingard said. “I think it’s coming from the vents over there.”

The Professor pointed to an air duct at the other end of the lab. Jc and Safiya both approached the cover, leaning down to put their heads closer to it. Sure enough, the voices seemed to get louder and more concentrated. And they somehow sounded… familiar.

Was that where those spooky noises had been coming from this whole time? Had they been traveling through the air vents?

“Either these ‘ghosts’ have been using passageways to get around…” Jc said slowly.

“Or these voices belong to actual living people, ” Safiya concluded.

The gang agreed to send a group to go throughout the museum to find out who, or what, exactly those voices were. Joey went to make sure nobody got lost or hurt, Rosanna and Roi came with a handful of flashlights, Safiya went along just to make sure there weren’t any spirits, and Matt went because he knew for a fact they weren’t spirits. It was more the idea of running into the Mummy that Matt was worried about.

“Wait a second,” Roi said. “I think we were here last night.”

Matt took a look around to find that Roi was right. This was one of the lower areas of the museum. The very place they’d lost Micheal in and found Tarik immediately after. The lights were still extremely dim despite it being early in the afternoon, and there wasn’t much space to walk around in the narrow hallway.

“You’re right,” Matt said. “We lost Micheal somewhere around here last night.”

Rosanna shuddered. “Uh-oh… he didn’t get… mummified , did he?”

Matt put an arm on her shoulder. “Not as far as we know - we lost track of him when it was starting to get darker.”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Roi said. “Maybe Tarik scared him off, too.”

“Or maybe he’s Tarik,” Safiya guessed.

“Anything’s possible at this point,” Joey said. “Let’s keep moving, guys.”

Matt and Roi kept leading the group further into the museum, since they more or less knew where they were. They came across a set of stairs to find themselves in some kind of basement. Because of course they had to go down into a creepy basement. Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket so he could add an extra flashlight to the mix. This seemed to be the place where the museum stored some of the extra exhibit pieces they didn’t need. Boxes of all kinds of ancient goods were stacked on top of each other or pushed together into groups. A few swords and daggers from the medieval times rested against a wall, and Matt wondered if they were authentic. A little model of a Chinese Dragon sat on a shelf next to a glass frame of pressed exotic plants. A teeny tiny fossil of a theropod sat on one of the taller boxes, like the little guy was guarding the hidden treasures down there.

But it wasn’t all treasures that were hiding there. A trash can in the corner was overflowing with some kind of bags that looked like they used to contain chips or something. Rosanna shined her flashlight over in the bin’s direction to get a better look, and they were able to see what the bags actually were.

“Yeesh,” Rosanna said. “Whoever was down here really likes beef jerky.”

“Probably more than us,” Roi added.

Matt knelt down to inspect the bags. Sure enough, they were some of Crazy Mac’s Jerky Beef.

“Dang,” Joey said with a shake of the head, “it’s not even good brand beef jerky.”

“This culprit has a pretty crappy taste in jerky,” Matt noted, “that’s for sure.”

“Right?” Safiya agreed. “It always feels more like you’re eating… rubber…”

Safiya got a look on her face. Matt joined in, giving a similar look . Joey nodded, giving his own look , followed by Rosanna, then Roi. It wasn’t long before all five of them were looking between each other, and Matt got a feeling they were thinking the same thing. He thought back to the cocoons, and the smell they gave off. There was the smell of the dried honey, of course, but there was also a faint smell of something old, meaty, dried out, and really not-that-delicious.

“We’re all totally thinking the same thing, right?” Joey asked.

Before anyone could answer Joey’s question, the pair of voices started again. Only they weren’t coming from the vents this time. They sounded close. Really close…

The hair on Matt’s neck stood on end. “You guys hear that too, right?”

“We’re not alone down here…” Safiya’s voice was silent and completely monotone.

More voices, this time sounding a little more urgent.

“Who’s doing that?!” Joey hissed.

Rosanna hugged herself and whispered, “Where’s it coming from?”

Roi pointed. “I think it’s coming from over there…”

The group saw a door at the far end of the basement. Whoever or whatever was making that noise was waiting for them behind that door. They slowly approached it, all their arms linked together.

“Sooo uh…” Roi said. “Wanna open this bad boy, Ro?”

Rosanna hesitated. “Um… How about you open it, Joey?”

“What?” Joey gasped. “No way - one of you open it. Matthew?”

“Uh, how about no?” Matt replied. “Safiya? Ladies first, right?”

“Absolutely not,” Safiya said. "Roi, you do it.”

All of a sudden, from the other side of the door-

“Hello?! Is someone out there?” It sounded like a woman’s voice, probably on the older side.

“Can someone let us out please?!” This one was a man’s voice, maybe around the same age.

The group glanced at each other, and their fear instantly dissipated. Matt stepped forward, grabbed the handle and rattled it.

“Locked,” Matt reported. He figured as much.

“I was afraid of that,” Roi said.

“No worries, guys,” Rosanna said. “We have our own personal locksmith!”

“Saf?” Joey turned to her. “Would you do the honors?”

Safiya took a paperclip and a hairpin out of her pocket. “Way ahead of you guys.”

Matt leaned against the door as she worked the lock, listening to make sure it was working.

“Hello?!” the man shouted from behind the door.

Joey was the one to speak up, “Don’t worry! We’ll get you out!”

“We just need to-” Matt started, but then he heard a click!

“Got it!” Safiya cheered.

Everyone got close to the door.

“Okay, on three,” Matt said. “One… two… three! ”

Matt grabbed the handle again and turned it with ease, as the rest of the group shoved the door wide open to reveal a broom closet. Man, this museum sure had a lot of broom closets. But brooms, mops and cleaning products weren’t the only contents in there.

“What the..!” Matt said.

“Oh..!” Roi gasped.

“Em..!” Rosanna whispered.

“Eff..!” Safiya muttered.

“God..!” Joey finished.

This broke the case wide open!

The entire gang practically sprinted to meet back up and talk about what they found. When everyone got back together in the labs, they could feel the entire mystery unraveling before their eyes and ears. Joey thought back to everything they saw and everything they brought together, and he was pretty sure this mystery was just about wrapped up!

“You guys know what this means, right?” Nikita asked.

Joey got a feeling he knew what Nikita was thinking. “Time to set a trap?”

“Time to set a damn trap! ”

“What do we do first, captain?” Roi asked, bouncing up and down from excitement.

“We’re gonna need honey,” Nikita said with a menacing sneer. “And beef jerky. Lots and lots of honey and beef jerky…”

“Oh…” Joey said. “Oh, hell yes! ”

This trap was going to be absolutely delicious… Figuratively. Literally speaking, it was a bit debatable.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until much later in the evening when the museum was completely empty. There were no signs of staff, police, or those pesky kids anywhere. The Great King Tarik stalked through the deafeningly silent halls, making sure he was all alone. It was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Wonderful.

Now all that was left was to pay one last visit down to the basement to make sure everything was still where it was supposed to be.

He made his way to the depths of the building and down to the basement. It took a while with how slow he was shuffling, but he could never be too sure who he’d come across, even if it did seem like he was the only one in those halls. Besides, even though the actual police were nowhere to be found, who knew where those kids were? They just didn’t know when to give up. Oh, well. They seemed easy enough to scare off, at the very least.

After a few minutes of painfully slow shuffling, Tarik finally entered the basement. He reached for a light switch and tried to flip it on. Nothing. He tried flipping again - no dice. In fact, now that he thought about it, the lights had even stopped flickering. There was hardly any light down there at all.

Hm, the lights down here are more faulty than I thought, Tarik thought to himself.

That didn’t matter, though - there was still just enough light left to keep him from tripping over all the old artifacts that were haphazardly thrown around the place. It really was a shame that so many of those ancient treasures weren’t given the proper display they deserved. Someone would have to fix that once all this was over.

Tarik finally made his way to the closet in the darkest corner of the room. He stopped in his tracks when he realized something that made his blood run cold.

The door had been left ajar.

He rushed over to the closet and threw it open the rest of the way. It was completely empty. Not only had his prisoners disappeared, but so had the one thing that would ruin his entire plan! Screw keeping up the act - he had to hurry up and find a way to cover his tracks! He stumbled through the dark, making his way back up to the main part of the museum.
Where could he look? They couldn’t have gone too far, right?

Meanwhile, in the main lobby of the museum, the last few parts of Nikita’s Grand Master Trap were underway.

“Alright, bitches,” Niktia hissed. “You ready for the grand finale?”

Teala was pretty sure she was ready, but the only thing she was 100% certain of was that she was ready for a shower. She was covered head to toe in honey, with a few strips of beef jerky haphazardly placed on her hands and face. The whole gang had to do this in order to look similar to some of the “mummies” that Tarik had made out of some of the museum employees.

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Teala asked.

Nikita shrugged. “Probably. As long as the place is kept dark, we should be okay.”

Speaking of which, Matt, Roi and Professor Lingard jogged in to report their part of the plan.

“Okay,” Lingard said, “the generator’s off. All the lights in the museum should be down building-wide now.”

Matt nodded. “None of these lights are turning on until the generator is back on.”

Roi rubbed his hands together and said, “All we gotta do now is let our culprit’s imagination do the rest.”

“I’m all for scaring the Mummy to get him back for scaring us and all,” Teala said, “but doesn’t this seem like a bit of a long shot? I mean, yeah, it’ll be dark, but what if Tarik’s eyes start to adjust? Or what if this honey starts to harden?”

“I’m a little worried about that, too,” Safiya pointed out. “We aren’t exactly professional cosmetic designers. What if he starts to notice some flaws in our disguises?

“There are hardly any windows around,” Jc said. “If his eyes do start to adjust, he probably wouldn’t be able to tell we’re not actually dead.”

“And besides, you never know,” Colleen added. “We’ve had more ridiculous ideas before, and Nikita knows how to set a good trap. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Nikita smiled at that.

They both had a point about that. Funnily enough, when Teala thought about it, every idea they all had over the past couple of days seemed to work the more ridiculous they seemed. Maybe it would be okay. All they had to do was scare that walking dust pile before it scared them.

That was when they heard a familiar shuffling from somewhere else in the halls. Teala knew exactly who it was, only this time, it seemed a lot faster than the average Mummy would be able to move.

“That’s our cue!” Rosanna whispered.

“Everybody!” Nikita hissed. “Get into positions!”

Everyone split into three groups and scattered throughout the museum. Teala, Roi and Matt were left to man the lobby to try and keep Tarik from leaving. She hid behind the front desk while the boys each ducked behind a pair of fake plants at the front door. She knelt down and watched the entryway leading to the rest of the museum, not even daring to breathe. She was absolutely terrified, but a little excited at the same time. This time, she would be the scary one…

It was all Roi could do to keep himself from bouncing behind the plastic monstera by the entrance. He kept his eyes glued to the pathway to the rest of the museum, only breaking for a quick glance over at Matt’s and Teala’s hiding spots to make sure they were still hidden. He was SO ready for this! This was gonna be awesome!

Focus, Roi, he had to tell himself. Be spooky… be scary… you might not be a skeleton, but you’ll still scare the skarubs out of that guy!

Roi was pulled out of his excitement when he heard shuffling from down the hall. Whoever was shuffling sounded like they were in a hurry.

Perfect timing.

Roi shared a look with Matt and Teala, the three of them nodding and grinning maliciously at each other. Teala ducked back behind the desk as the guys made themselves smaller behind the plants. Roi tried to keep himself positioned just enough to peek through the fake leaves. He saw a long shadow along one of the walls followed by the sound of footsteps. They didn’t sound like shuffling anymore, though - they were faster, more rhythmic. Almost like… running?

And then, there he was - King Tarik himself. The man of the hour seemed to be in a pretty big hurry to get to wherever exactly he was going. He figured Tarik must have found the closet in the basement, and more importantly, noticed what was missing from inside.

Right on cue, Teala started growling and grunting as she slammed her hands on the surface of the desk. The noise got Tarik’s attention just as Teala began slowly lifting her head from the desk. Her movements were slow and twitchy, like she was a mummy trying to figure out how to move her body again. Roi couldn’t help but shudder as he saw her movements, almost believing she was actually undead for a split second. The sight of her sure scared the mighty Pharoah, and he started backing away towards the exit - towards Roi’s and Matt’s hiding spot.

The guys eagerly nodded at each other. Rio was supposed to make the first move. He tried to copy Teala’s uneven movements, twitching his arm wildly as he started to reach out from behind the plant. Roi twisted his face into a gnarly snarl and stared right into Tarik’s shiny organry-red eyes as he channeled his inner Walking Dead , and started growling and groaning. Matt followed suit, putting his whole throat into his groans. The three of them were filling the lobby with a chorus of guttural noises that sounded like they were tearing their throats apart.

If this were one of those haunted houses, Roi would be pretty freaked out. The sight of the three of them covered in what looked like amber goop and dried skin sure seemed to freak Tarik out. He started backing away from the entrance until he bumped into the front desk. Teala seized the opportunity to grab at Tarik’s bony wrist, causing him to jerk his arm away and let out what sounded like… a yelp? And at that moment, the great and mighty Pharaoh turned on his heels and ran back into the innermost part of the museum like a scared little baby.

They waited until they couldn’t hear the Pharaoh's footsteps anymore and fully straightened up out of their hiding places. They gathered at the center of the lobby once they were certain it was safe.

Teala pointed in the direction the Mummy ran off and hissed, “Not so great when it’s you getting freaked out, is it?!”

Roi joined in. “Some amazing Mummy you are!”

Matt pumped his fists. “I don’t think so!” he cheered with a mad sneer.

They all gave each other some well-deserved high-fives for a job well done! One stage down, a couple more to go! Roi had to give ol’ Tarik credit, though. He was running super quickly for a dead guy. A little too quickly, if you asked him…

Meanwhile, in the Greek mythology exhibit, Jc, Manny, Safiya and Rosanna sat in their positions waiting to activate their stage of the plan. Jc was crouched with Manny in the Minotaur’s display while the girls were hiding among the Gorgon’s lair. Luckily for the guys, the Minotaur was a real big guy, making it easy to just hide behind him until it was their time to shine.

And judging by the sound of approaching footsteps, their cue was coming. Fast.

“Get ready, bitches!” Manny hissed. “He’s coming!”

Jc flashed a thumbs up. Safiya grinned mischievously. Rosanna clapped her hands as quietly as she could. And Manny rubbed his hands together and took a few deep breaths. This was probably going to absolutely kill his throat, but he was about ready to give that creepy little punk a taste of his own medicine!

Without a moment to spare, there he was - the undead star of the show. He stopped in the middle of the exhibit, frantically swinging his head around to try and get a look at where he was. He sure seemed freaked out by something.

Manny steeled himself and clenched his fists with anticipation. This was it… showtime!

He and Jc let out the most menacing growls they could muster before they made their way out from behind the minotaur. Slowly, so it seemed like they were struggling to move. Manny decided to crank it up a notch and fall to the ground, reaching out to Tarik and giving the most “eeeennnd meeeeeeee” facial expression he possibly could. Meanwhile, Jc was jerking and twitching as he moved closer to the Mummy, growling in the most gravely voice he could as he moved towards him.

The sight of the guys made the great and powerful Pharaoh back away towards the other exit of the exhibit, straight in the direction of the girls. Right on cue, Safiya and Rosanna started moaning and groaning as they came out from a pile of fake rocks surrounding the gorgon. Rosanna revealed herself first as the Mummy got closer, reaching out to him and calling out, “Taaaarrrriiiiiikkk… Taaarrriiikkk…” as he passed. He whirled around to face her, staring in what seemed to be horror. Safiya followed suit, falling over and crawling towards him. Manny couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like she was croaking out something like, “You did this…” If Manny didn’t know it was actually his friends, he’d be freaking out as much as the Mummy seemed to have been right now.

The shaking pile of ash took one last look at the group and all their horror, and spun around to hightail it out of there. They waited until he was nice and far away to break character and go back to their normal selves. The moment they were back in normal-person mode, they all broke out into excited cheers.

“We got that bitch!” Manny hollered. “Not so high and mighty anymore!”

Rosanna hopped up and down. “Who knew being scary was so fun?!”

“Hell yeah!” Jc cheered, pumping his fists. “We showed that creep!”

“That’s what you get!” Safiya called out, sounding a little too pleased with herself. “That is what you GET! HOME! BOY! ”

Manny placed a hand on her shoulder and tried not to laugh as he told her, “Okay, girl, settle down.”

Safiya quieted down when she replied, “Okay sorry.”

Back at the Egyptian exhibit, Joey sat crouched under one of the now empty evidence tables. They had to move all the important clues out of the way to make sure the honey-and-jerky mess wouldn’t taint them.  By that point, it was all Joey could do not to let out a malicious giggle and give away his position as he watched Professor Lingard getting ready to leap out from under the table next to him. She looked less like a professor and more like a kid getting ready to jump out and scream, “surprise!” at a party. Which was exactly what Joey was hoping for. The mix of determination and anticipation (and maybe excitement?) in Lingard’s eyes assured Joey that she completely understood the assignment.

Then come the shouts and the sound of sprinting steps quickly approaching. He couldn’t be sure, but Joey thought he could hear whoever was out in the hall saying something like, “It’s real… it’s all real!”

Since when could the Mummy talk? he wondered.

Joey steeled himself and got ready for what was next.

“Ready?” Joey asked Professor Lingard.

She nodded and whispered, “You know it!”

They only had to wait a few seconds until King Tarik came stumbling into the exhibit, looking like someone who had just witnessed the most horrifying sight imaginable (Which, to be fair, he probably had in his mind). They waited until Tarik skidded to a stop in the middle of the exhibit, and executed the final stage of the plan. Joey and Professor Lingard both started groaning and gurgling like the secret monsters they were, and crawled out of their hiding spots. Joey had to remember to move slowly and unevenly to keep from tipping Tarik off, but it was working like a charm. At the sight of him and the professor covered in golden glop and looking like literal death, the Mummy backed away from them. He seemed particularly fixated on the professor - staring at her like she was the dead body of an old friend. His eyes probably would have popped out of their sockets if he still had normal eyes. He had nowhere to go but backwards toward the sarcophagus, holding out his shriveled hands in an attempt to keep his pursuers at bay.

And then…

“ Surprise, bitch!!!”

Nikita and Colleen both popped out from behind the box, giant net  they’d found in the basement in hand, and overpowered the almighty Tarik in an instant! They threw the net over him, catching him off guard at the last possible second. He was so surprised that he started trying to whirl around to get a look at his assailants, only to become more and more tangled up. Joey and Lingard leaped at the opportunity, lunging forward and shoving Tarik with all their might. He fell back into the sarcophagus, letting out a loud grunt.

“Now!” Nikita screamed.

The four of them wasted no time. They ran for the box as Nikita threw the lid shut and blocked it with their collective weight, making sure the culprit was sealed inside. At least for the time being.

“It worked!” Colleen cheered.

Joey threw his fists in the air. “We did it!”

“That was incredible!” Lingard exclaimed.

“I’ll be honest,” Nikita laughed. “I did not think that would go as well as it did!”

“But it did!” Colleen confirmed. “And it’s all thanks to you!”

Nikita tried to hide it, but Joey could see the tiniest hint of a proud smile creeping onto her face.

“So,” Officer Gonzales said, “who is it?”

The gang and the police were gathered back in the Egyptian exhibit, surrounding a very annoyed-looking Mummy. It didn’t take too long for everyone to get together in the Egyptian exhibit for the big reveal. The police were on stand-by while the plan was in motion, patrolling the perimeter of the museum to make sure Tarik wouldn’t try running away from the scene of his multiple crimes.

“I’m pretty sure we know who it is,” Joey announced, “but there was a whole mess of suspects for us to sift through.”

“Like Ms. Gramm?” Gonzalez offered. “With the papers on her desk and how much she was in a hurry to not be seen last night, I’d be pretty suspicious of her.”

“Or that kid, Michael,” Officer Morales guessed. “You mentioned you never found him again after you got separated and ran into Tarik.”

“And what about Dr. Rosen? He’d definitely know enough about museum curation to get away with something like this.”

“All very good guesses,” Matt said, “but wrong.”

“Right,” Joey said. “The real identity of the Great Pharaoh Tarik is…!”

Nikita and the rest of the gang watched as Joey and Matt both stepped forward and grabbed different ends of the Pharoah’s terrifying mask, and pulled it off to reveal…

“Professor Boggs?!”

Everyone gasped his name in shock as they realized none other than Professor Walter Boggs stood trapped before them. It turned out he wasn’t a random victim of an undead Pharaoh's curse after all. He hadn’t been encased in a cursed amber cocoon like the rest of the staff - it had been him behind the mask all along!

“Walter?!” Professor Lingard gasped. Her voice cracked a bit as she spoke. “But why? Why would you sabotage our own exhibit after all our hard work?”

“You mean your exhibit,” Boggs barked back. “You’ve gotten all the credit for everything over the years while I was reduced to nothing more than an assistant all this time!”

Joey started explaining. “That’s why Boggs decided to sabotage the exhibit. He was tired of being pushed aside in favor of his research partner, so he decided to get the exhibit shut down before it even had the chance to see the light of day.”

Gonzalez glanced around. “But, what happened to the rest of the staff?”

An older man’s voice announced, “We’re right here.”

Everyone turned to see none other than Dr. Rosen and Ms. Gramm walking through the entrance to the exhibit, completely unharmed.

“As for Michael-” Matt started to talk, but he was interrupted by a loud, nasally voice.

“What about me?” Michael Goodman asked as he sauntered into the exhibit, camera in hand. His face fell when he saw the scene before him. “What is this?! What happened to the Great Tarik?!”

“And there he is,” Matt sighed.

“Well, that’s everyone accounted for, I suppose,” Morales said. “But how did you kids figure it out?”

“It wasn’t easy at first,” Colleen said. “The professor had to move his plan along pretty slowly to keep anyone from catching him in the act.”

Matt explained, “We started to suspect something was up once we found the missing gems while we were first unpacking things for the exhibit. Then we found those weird little fragments when we started looking for clues.”

“We had no idea what it was when we first saw it,” Safiya added, “but it turned out it was just left behind when Boggs took the gems. Those cocoons he’d been using to trap his victims in were made out of crystalized honey, which we mistook as amber.”

“And as for the mummies inside…” Roi reached into his pocket and took out an empty bag of Crazy Mac’s beef jerky. “He made them out of these. The dried up meat and the smell of both it and the honey made for a few pretty convincing fake mummies.”

Rosanna nodded in agreement. “He used the idea of a mummy’s curse to try and cover his tracks while he stole the treasures they brought back from their dig to keep for himself.”

Dr. Rosen spoke up. “Boggs over here got to me first. He caught me off guard while I was taking a stroll through the museum on Friday night. He’s been keeping me hidden and fed in the basement over the past two nights.”

Manny spoke. “But he tried to leave red herrings to throw us off his track. We found a letter accusing Professor Lingard of foul play on Ms. Gramm's desk last night. He wasn’t just trying to pin everything on Lingard - he was trying to throw us off his trail by placing the blame on their coworkers.”

Teala asked Ms. Gramm, “What were you doing last night, by the way? Some of our group apparently saw you running around the museum in a pretty big hurry.”

Ms. Gramm explained, “I was staying late trying to gather as much information about the professors’ expedition as I could. I had to search the office in the front lobby for some of the files and reports they’d made during the dig.”

“So that’s what you were doing!” Jc realized. “You were trying to find information to prove Lingard’s innocence, weren’t you?”

“Correct. But before I could present my findings to anyone, Professor Boggs found me. His plan was to keep us in a closet in the museum’s basement, out of sight of any cameras or personnel, until the exhibit was disbanded.”

“But he realized we were getting close last night,” Nikita added, “so he decided to make a decoy. He made a fake mummy of himself to make it seem like he was another one of the victims, and to try and scare us off for good.” 

Joey nodded and concluded, “And while the exhibit shut down and Lingard took the fall, Boggs was gonna make off with the Pharaoh's gold, jewels and the rest of the Pharoah’s treasures.”

“But what happened to Tarik’s real body?” Micheal wanted to know. He’d been typing away on his phone, possibly to keep notes of everything that was being said.

“It was in the closet with us,” Dr. Rosen said, a bit too matter-of-factly.

“What?! He just kept a dead body in a closet with you two?!”

Matt pointed out, “Mummies don’t actually smell that bad - the mummification process essentially dries the body out completely.”

“That’s right,” Ms. Gramm confirmed. “It was essentially like being in a closet with a bunch of ancient paper.”

Officer Gonzalez spoke. “The kids showed it to us a little while before they carried out their plan to make sure it was in safe hands.”

Professor Lingard shook her head sadly. “We’ve been partners for years , Walter. Why didn’t you tell me how you were being treated? I would have fought for you.”

“What good would that have done?” Professor Boggs barked. “For years I’ve been putting in as much work as you, and did anyone recognize my contributions to our most recent studies? No! It was high time something had to give, even if it involved foul play to get me the fortunes I truly deserved.” Boggs’ eyes narrowed as his gaze turned to the gang. “And it all would have been mine, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the prison library,” Dr. Rosen told Boggs. “Let me know if you ever need any good recommendations on fossil books.”

Morales and Gonzales lifted Boggs out of his ancient trap and put a pair of cuffs on his wrists. Joey watched as the officers led the former professor out of the exhibit and into a group of other officers to take him to a car outside. The gang lingered for a bit after the excitement, helping to clean up some of the mess left behind and talking with the officers and museum staff. They had to clean themselves up a little to prevent any further messes, but Joey still felt pretty nasty. Despite the gross feeling of the honey and jerky, though, the gang was in high spirits after another successful investigation. Even Michael was beaming as he ran around gathering notes from as many people as he could. Despite not having found an actual mummy brought back to life, it sounded like he was more satisfied by the idea of a culprit being caught instead. To hear him tell it, “One of the most exciting aspects of paranormal investigations is finding some kind of explanation for everything!” Joey had to agree - he and his friends knew that feeling firsthand.

Joey had just finished helping Matt and Nikita carry in some of the missing gems when they made their way back into the exhibit with the rest of the gang. They noticed Professor Lingard placing some things around the sarcophagus. Tarik's body had been carefully placed back in its proper place, with him finally resting peacefully back inside. Joey thought he could detect the slightest hint of sadness in her eyes, when she turned her attention to the three of them as if she just remembered they were standing there.

“Just making sure some of these artifacts are in their proper places,” she explained. “It was thought that a Pharaoh had to have their possessions close to their body in death, otherwise they’d be in trouble in the afterlife.”

“Are you alright, Professor?” Joey asked. “This whole thing was probably, like… a lot to take in. To put it freakin’ lightly.”

Lingard laughed a bit at that statement. “I’m sure I will be. I just wish I’d seen through Walter’s motivations sooner. This shouldn’t have been about recognition or fortune. I put years of research into ancient Egypt to educate others about a branch of history I’m passionate about.”

Matt shook his head. “None of this is your fault, Professor. You couldn’t have known any of that would happen. The fact that this exhibit will be opening and you’ll be able to teach so many people about ancient Egypt is just as much reward as solving the mystery has been.”

 Lingard gave them a grateful smile. “That’s all I could ever hope for. Thank you all for everything you’ve done this weekend. It’s because of you and your friends that the exhibit will be officially opening without any worry.”

“Don’t even mention it,” Nikita replied. “We were all happy to help. And we’ll all be sure to come back once the exhibit is up and running.” Her eyes shifted and she lowered her voice a bit as she muttered, “But that extra credit would still be pretty cool.”

The Professor laughed. “Don’t worry, I haven't forgotten about that. I’ll notify your teacher about everything you’ve done first thing tomorrow morning. You all keep up the good work - both with your sleuthing and your academics, yeah?”

Just as they were agreeing to those terms, everyone heard an eerie shuffling sound coming from behind the sarcophagus. Everyone reluctantly turned their attention to the box, moving a little closer to each other. Joey’s mind immediately started racing at the speed of light. What the hell was happening? Was it another mummy? Was Tarik waking up - for real this time?!

And then breathed a collective sigh of relief when a very excited Roi popped out, carefully holding a foot-long golden scepter that was topped with a stylized dog head.

“Hey! I found a little staff thingie!” Roi exclaimed, proudly holding up his discovery. “This needs to be close to Tarik too, right?”

Lingard didn’t even try to hide her laughter. “Yes, Roi. Thank you.”

Everyone burst out laughing, and Joey felt a full sense of accomplishment. Another mystery had been solved, and the exhibit was safe. But what always made him the happiest was seeing how much fun everyone was having, both during the mystery and when things calmed down. Another mystery would probably pop up soon enough, as they usually did, and Joey couldn’t wait for that day to come.

“Okay!” Joey announced after everyone quieted down. “We all did great! But I don’t know about you all, but I still feel super nasty right now.” He held up his hand - the honey and jerky were both gone, but he could still feel traces of the stuff on himself. “ So! I propose we all go home, take some celebratory showers, and get that extra credit in the morning!”

That earned him an uproar of cheers from the gang.