Pulse

TEN

King woke to a hard object poking his ribs. He grabbed at it and pulled it away, tossing it to the side. It clattered across the floor of the pitch-black, resealed burial pit. He realized he'd thrown a bone, probably one of the mummified men's arms.

Colors danced in his vision as he opened his eyes wide, searching for any sign of sunlight that might signify an escape route, but saw only phantom colors. He knew he hadn't been unconscious long because the colors he saw were created by his eyes adjusting to the pitch dark of the tomb. He experienced the phenomenon every time he went on a night mission. That first plunge into darkness always filled his vision with reds, purples, and greens.

Two other indicators told him he hadn't been out long. First, he was still breathing. There couldn't be much air inside the chamber and the lack of light also meant a lack of air passage. That was good news and bad news; good because he wasn't dead yet, bad because he soon would be. The second indicator was that he was only beginning to feel thirsty. Dehydration would set in soon enough as the sun-baked sand cooked him like a roast pig in a Hawaiian imu pit, but for now he was functioning fine, except for the ringing in his ears. Damn grenade.

King stood and smacked his head on the ceiling. "Damnit!" he shouted, bending down. The center of the pit stood seven feet high, but the edge, where he'd been thrown, shrunk to just under five feet. He shuffled to the center of the pit, hunching until his foot struck something, filling the chamber with a metallic clang. He bent down and searched with his hands until he found the source of the noise — the lantern.

He felt the electric lantern's body, searching for the power button. As he did, he wondered if he really wanted to light the chamber. What good would it do him? Any sunlight peeking through wouldn't be able to compete with the lantern light. He'd never see it. And he'd have to look at the ugly mugs of the mummified men surrounding him, reminding him of his fate. Buried alive. Mummified by the scorching sun and moisture-sucking air. But when he found the button, he decided he'd rather die being able to see. He said a quick prayer and pushed the button.

Light filled the small chamber, revealing a circle of horrified expressions, eyes pale, mouths agape, fingers torn to shreds, heads bashed in. Most of the men had survived the blast, being dead already, but several had been tossed and shattered after being blown across the chamber and striking the far wall.

The light blinked out as King pushed the button again. Perhaps it was best to keep it extinguished. Bullshit, King thought, then switched the light back on. Doing his best to ignore the never-fading shocked expressions of the corpses, he circled the chamber, hammering away with the butt of his handgun where the earth wall met the stone above. The sand and stone, packed in tight, couldn't be budged, even where the entrance used to be. Without a shovel, there would be no getting through. Still, he had to try.

For ten minutes he hammered at the wall where the entrance once was. After loosing a small chunk he began clawing at it with his fingers. Progress came slow and he noticed each dust-filled breath doing less and less to satiate his body's craving for oxygen. His physical exertion used more oxygen than his body at rest… or unconscious. He stopped digging and rested his hand against the wall. After a few breaths, which he attempted to slow, a dull ache in his fingertips caught his attention. He looked at his hand and found it covered in blood. He pulled his hand away from the wall and saw bloody finger marks matching the ancient, dry stains left by the men first buried here.

He had become one of them.

King looked at his fingertips, rubbed raw and bleeding. He couldn't escape. And though someone would come looking for him long before the moisture-wicking air transformed him into a mummy, he'd still be just as dead.

Accepting his fate as each breath he took sucked more oxygen out of the stale air and replaced it with more carbon dioxide, King sat down between two of the mummified men. He looked at each and grinned, finding humor in the fact that he was dying slowly at an archaeological dig rather than being blown to bits or riddled with bullets during combat. "This is gonna suck, right?"

The heat of the chamber pounded on his body, clinging to his black Elvis T-shirt and pulling the water in his body to the surface and away. He longed to remove his clothing, but found himself unable to move. His eyes lulled as his mind and body began shutting down. The only consolation he felt about dying was that he wouldn't be awake to experience it.

As his head slowly tilted toward his shoulder, his thoughts turned to Pierce. He'd failed his friend. He'd never failed so grossly at a mission, but even that would have been forgivable — war was hell and even the good guys sometimes lost. But Pierce was his friend. This never should have happened and he'd never forgive himself for it, not that he had long left to self-deprecate.

In his waning moments, King resolved that if he returned as a ghost, he'd haunt the bastards that did this for the rest of their lives. And if he somehow survived, he'd make them wish he were a ghost. His vision failed and his head thumped heavily against the skull of his neighbor. He'd become one more sacrifice for the sands to absorb.