City of the Dead

Chapter 3

I stare out to the clear blue sky, trying to block the sun's rays with my hand. The suffocating air and unbearable heat settles in, ensuring me that we arrived in Cairo, Egypt. As we unload the supplies and luggage from our small cramped cargo plane, I go to inspect that all of my luggage made it in one piece. Luckily for me, most of my luggage consists of just medical supplies like bandages, sutures, and of course medications as a precautionary. As the boys were finishing up, I went to unraveled my scarf that I have tied to my wrist and quickly make a somewhat decent bun out of my long black hair, until I hear a voice from behind me saying,

"I remember when you actually hated having long hair," Isaac said tauntingly.

"You used to always try to cut your hair so short that some of the adults in our neighborhood thought you were one of the boys," he laughs as he nudges me for a reaction.

"Yeah, that's because someone I know went and stuck gum in my hair, not once, but twice when we were kids!" I say in an irritating manner, while looking straight into his light blue eyes.

Isaac puts his hands up in the air as if he was guilty but with a smirk on his face showing he didn't regret saying it.

"Better get used to this heat, Anna, 'cuz from here on out, it's nothing but sand and camels out here" Isaac said as he walks away to unload the rest of his supplies.

I give an unenthusiastic laugh as I go to place the last of my bags in the trunk of our rental car, when I notice David talking to an older gentleman with a monocle and a red fez hat on. The old man carried himself with his chest held high as if he's trying to hide his slender figure and everywhere he went, there was a servant with an umbrella following close behind.

"That must be our boss" I muttered under my breath.

I walk over to Bernard, who seems to be setting up a folding camera of some sort, when I asked,

"Hey Bernard, who's that man talking to David?"

He then proceeds to take a moment to clean his glasses. Once he finally puts his glasses back on, he squints in the direction of where David and the slender old man are standing.

"Oh, that's Dr. Allen Chamberlain, he's the one leading this excavation to Hamunaptra."

I looked over to see that David and Dr. Chamberlain was staring back, as if they heard us from that distance.

"So how does he know about this place?" I questioned.

In which Bernard replies, "He's a treasure hunter like us, but he has his headquarters here in Cairo, he often runs these excavations and brings any treasure they find back to either sell or place into a museum." in which Bernard then added,

"At least, we think that's what he does."

Bernard goes back to setting up his camera, when Isaac started walking in our general direction. It was not long when David and Dr. Chamberlain started walking towards our group. David then started to introduce everyone to Dr. Chamberlain.

"Dr. Chamberlain, this is Isaac Henderson, our weaponologist, Bernard Burns, our archeologist, and Annabelle Cambell, our onsite physician for the expedition."

I noticed when David was introducing me to Dr. Chamberlain, the slender old man, gave me a piercing look, scanning me up and down, as if observing me. I was too familiar with that look, it's the same look that I would often receive throughout my life. After the introductions, I go to shake Dr. Chamberlain's hand, when he interrupts to say "Gentleman! How glad I am to have you here! I take it that the flight wasn't too rough getting to Cairo?" he says sarcastically.