| STORY 2 Page 8 |
| Everyone inside the Carnahan-O'Connell home came running out into the street when they heard Jonathan's scream. Jonathan was lying face down in the ditch, trying to get his breath back that had been forced out of his lungs. Jonathan tried to make it to a standing position, but clutched his shoulder in pain. Still, he managed to wipe enough mud off his face to see his family come running towards him. "Bloody hell!" "Just look at my clothes!" Rick started to look Jonathan over, trying to find any other damage than to his clothes. Rick grabbed onto Jon's right arm and helped him stand. Jonathan batted his hands away, then yelped in pain while moving his left arm. "What the bloody hell are you doing?" "Looking, damn it! Hold still!" Rick looked suspiciously at the cut over Jonathan's eye that Jonathan kept rubbing. "Damned mud's all over me!" "Got some bad news ol' buddy. That's not mud you're rubbing off. That's blood." "BLOODY HELL!" "Yep, that's about right," Rick nodded. "And I'd say it's gonna take about five stitches to close it up too." "What happened, sadiq?", Ardeth asked. Jonathan was livid, but clearly in pain. "Bloody damned car came out of nowhere and the buggar tried to run me down!", he fumed. Then Ardeth reached out and touched Jon's left shoulder and Jonathan stepped back away from the pain, nearly falling down into the ditch all over again. "Ungh! I think it's my shoulder." Penny ([email protected]) December 11, 2002 Inside the library, Jonathan sat on the huge overstuffed couch, his left arm in a sling and a gauze bandage above his eye. He looked like he had been in a war and lost but, the look on his face said he'd go back for more, if he ever found the blighter behind the wheel of car that sent him rolling into a ditch. Evie poured him a cup of tea, to which Rick added a healthy shot of Glenlivet. She frowned at her husband, but he waved it off. "He deserves it, after what the doctor put him through, pullin' that shoulder back into place, and stitches on top of that. Hell, that's just adding insult to injury if you ask me. I'd still be rolling around on the floor," he grinned at her and picked up the cup. "Look at it as a medicinal painkiller." When she continued to frown he winked at her and turned toward Jonathan. "Here, drink this, doctor's orders." Jonathan took the cup and wrinkled up his nose when he saw the tea. "No, thank you," he said, pushing it back in Rick's direction. Rick curled up his lip at the sarcasm. "Just smell it, Lunk Head! Then if you still don't want it, we'll know there's something wrong with your head!" Jon eyed his suspiciously and looked down at the cup. He took a sniff. "What is it?" "Peace offering. Take it or leave it. Your choice." Jon took a tentative sip. Then another. "Thank you." He leaned back against the couch settling into the cushions and continued to take small sips, as if the shock of the days events and the attempted hit and run were beginning to take their toll on him. Evie picked up a crocheted afgan and laid it over her brother's lap. "Darling, why don't you let Rick and Ardeth help you upstairs, so you can rest. Let them put you in the second floor guest room. That way, you're just down the hall and not up on the third floor." "It'll save you the extra climb, ol' buddy," Rick offered. He could see Jonathan's eyelids getting heavy and knew it was just a matter of time, till Jon was as limp as the afgan on his lap. "Be fine here," he mumbled as the tea cup began to lean at a dangerous angle. Rick reached over and gently removed it from his hand and grinned, hearing the soft snores. "Sleeping Beauty it out for the count," he announced. "Hey Ardeth, give me a hand with this sack of turnips, huh?" He pulled a very limp Jonathan to a sitting position and chuckled, "I've seen pate with more life than this." Ardeth frowned at the word. "Pa...pate? What is that?" Rick grinned even bigger. "Ground up, goose liver. You put it on a cracker and eat it." Ardeth looked appalled. "LA!(no)" "�Fraid so," he laughed. "You eat this?" "Not this Kid! Not ever! Give me a steak and potatoes any day!" He looked down at Jonathan who was beginning to lean toward the floor. "You take south and I'll take north." Ardeth nodded and in fifteen minutes they had Jon in the second floor bedroom and tucked in. "Well, he should sleep the rest of the night, God willin' and the creek don't rise." Ardeth wasn't sure if he would ever get used to Rick's colorful vocabulary, but maybe some things were better left unknown, he decided as they left the door ajar and went back down to the library. They had been friends and brother Med-Jai too long for Ardeth to start questioning him now. Usually whatever Rick said, made sense in it's own way. At least to him anyway, rather it made sense to anyone else, was another matter altogether. Back in the library, they sat over coffee and sandwiches, Evie had been busy fixing, when they had carried Jonathan off to bed. They poured over the journal for hours, yielding nothing really, but names and places. Jon and Evie's parents, Sonderburg, somebody by the name of Christopher and Caroline O'Malley, and Allan Skarzinski. As far as places it mentioned Thebes, Luxor, Karnak, Cairo and even a place that still sent shivers down Rick's spine just thinking about the damn place. Hamunaptra! "Great," he thought to himself, "MORE DAMN BOOKS!" He suddenly had the urge to ask his beautiful wife as she translated Aswad's Arabic into English, that if she didn't believe in curses and fairy tales and hokum, WHY THE HELL DID THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO BE SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DUNG HEAP? He saw the look in her eye before she even spoke and felt the dread in his stomach clench tight. He knew what was going through her head. "Evie? NO!" "Then stay home. Jonathan and I can manage on our own." He glanced at the ceiling, thinking of his brother-in-law. "Yeah like he managed all that great today," he shot back. "Go or stay. Like you told Jonathan earlier. It's YOUR choice!" Hell, he'd lost the war before the battle even started. They were going to Egypt. Not for a visit or to see old friends or a vacation. NO! They were gonna play Sherlock Holmes and probably get shot in the ass in the process. Weren't they lucky, he thought with a frown. He sighed, knowing there was no way in hell he was going to talk her out of it, once her mind was made up. "Okay. I'll go to the docks tomorrow and look the WaSi (Guardian) over and you can pack. It hasn't been that long since we sailed her so I imagine all she needs is some of the basics. Oil, petrol, food, water. You know basics," he sighed again. "The rest Hon, you can take care of from here. Passports, Jon, Alex." Then he mumbled, "Flowers for my funeral." They continued to talk until it grew late and decide to turn in. Ardeth would spend the night and go with Rick in the morning to retrieve his bag from the hotel, where he would stow it on the yacht. They would leave when The WaSi was stocked and ready to go, which Rick said would be about nine. At precisely 3:35, the residents of the manor woke to a loud crash on the first floor. Rick O'Connell grabbing both Colts told his family to stay where they were. He flipped a switch and the down stairs hallway flooded with light. Followed by Ardeth Bay, scimitar in hand they moved cautiously down the stairs. The front door stood wide open and a cold wet night made its way into the manor. Ardeth moved past Rick pushing at the door to close it against the rain and wind. He turned |