The Attraction by Douglas Clegg Read Free Book Online Page B

than peer at the Great Unspeakable Mystery from the corner of his eye, as if it reminded him of something not so wonderful.
    The thing itself was a light dusty gray color all over with a sort of brackish, almost seaweed under-color to it—faint but noticeable. Its skull seemed enlarged, as if it were too big for the rest of its skeleton. Wrapped around its head and along its collarbone were gauzelike strips that criss-crossed all the way to its shriveled belly. Its skin was somehow glued to the gauze, and Josh blurted out, “It’s a mummy. A creepy little crappy mummy. These people are whack jobs to sell tickets to it.”
    Its hands were elongated, with fingers that looked more like fins that then curled into talons. At the end of its fingertips, what looked like long, sharp, curved, black, shiny, smooth stone that ended in hooks. Its feet and toenails were similar.
    In its eye sockets, two rounded turquoise stones in place of eyes.
    Bronwyn read aloud from one of the signs. “It is a creature of the night, although it never sleeps. But the Sun God is its enemy, and so it prefers darkness.”
    Its hands were crossed over each other, with a twisted, knotted rope keeping them together.
    “It looks like a big baby, sleeping,” Tammy cooed. “From hell.”
    “Big ugly bondage baby,” Griff chuckled.
    “It’s the size of a kid. Maybe it’s a small adult. I can’t tell,” Bronwyn said.
    “I like the turquoise,” Tammy added. “I kept hoping we’d find someplace that had decent jewelry out here. So far, this is the closest I’ve come to any.”
    “Maybe I should pop his little eyes out,” Griff said. “Put them in a necklace for you.”
    “Ew,” Tammy said.
    “How could they do this?” Josh asked. “They had to dig up a grave and then do something to the body? It’s sick.”
    Bronwyn lit up a cigarette. “Maybe. But you know, out here on the desert, people die, bodies are found years later. The desert mummifies them. Maybe it’s fake. I mean, it could be plastic.”
    “I bet it is,” Griff said.
    “Nope, it’s real,” Josh said.
    “No way. Look at those hands. Nobody can have hands like that. Look at them. It’s so fake it’s funny.”
    Josh leaned over the glass cover of the display. “I can’t tell. This is probably all fake.”
    “Just lift the lid up,” Griff said. Then, he pushed Josh back a little and went to feel under the glass lid. “Here’s the hinge.” He raised the lid and held it back. “Touch it.”
    “No thanks.”
    “Oh Lord.” Griff reached in and touched the forehead of the skull.
    For just a second, Josh felt as if something happened. Not anything awful, just as if something changed. Then he began coughing. It was dust—the dust of the display case had come up in a brief smoky cloud and then dissipated.
    “Hell,” Griff said.
    “What is it?”
    “It’s warm. This thing is warm.”
    “I’m sure,” Bronwyn said. “It probably bakes in here every day.”
    “No, I mean, it’s . . . it’s . . . alive!” Griff shouted and then cackled gleefully. Then, stupidly, he let go of the glass display top, and it fell backward, shattering on the floor.
    Each of them looked at the other.
    “I wonder how much that’ll cost to replace,” Bronwyn said.
    After several seconds, Josh said, “They didn’t hear it in the shop. We’re too far out here.”
    “Well, we can’t leave it like that.”
    “Oh yeah we can,” Griff said.
    That’s when Josh noticed the sign. He read it aloud. “Please Do Not Touch Glass. We at the Brakedown Palace have nicknamed this special ancient mummy Scratch, and he has been good luck for us all these years. We must warn any who view it that there is a legend that once Scratch gets fresh human skin under its fingernails and the taste of blood, he’ll come back from oblivion to reap the human harvest. Do Not Touch. Do Not Feed.”
    “Scratch. Now that’s original,” Bronwyn said. “That’s nothing but some little kid mummified and