Previously on Mark Flynn's Revenge

Quote:“Daddy…!”

“HEY. I HAVE NOT BEEN HANGING OUT WITH PETER GILMOUR, OKAY?”

Quote:“FUCK YOU!”

Quote:"Fucking weird, Daddy."

Quote: “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”

Quote:Katie runs over to the pinned Flynn, drops down and looks him in the eyes.

"Wanna go to the movies?"

Suddenly, smoke rises up from where Flynn once was.

It slowly comes to rest on the ceiling and begins to spell out letters.

"Thursday at 7."

And now… the next chapter of Mark Flynn's Revenge
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Alexandria, Egypt - The Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa- August 14th, 2012

"[In the Beginning] The World was formless and empty..."

"And Black..." - Genesis 1:2

Water dripping, slowly streaking in bursts...Traveling through the narrowest cracks within the soil...

Down...

A Hundred and fifteen feet below the Earth's surface.

From the skies to the earth below. From above to within to under. Deep under, through grass then soil then earth… To the forehead of a man… It rests on his head a moment, before he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his brow, just above his librarian’s spectacles, for approximately the thousandth time that day...

"Hurry up with that, Percy. It's early enough that if we finish this now, we might be able to reach the surface before nightfall."

The two men, or more accurately, the man and the teenager, in front of him don't accelerate their work. One continues to carefully brush dust specks off of the stone... Pausing only momentarily to listen to the question.

As the other slowly turns his head... Earnestly trying, with a glare, to cut out another man's vocal cords.

His voice is grave, his face long, his brow tangled, furled into a scowl. Wearing a dark suit…. A lengthy cloak that drags down to the floor, a white ascot tied, resting across his chest…

"Belay that remark, Percival. We are not going to lose this valuable specimen simply because Mr. Carroll has gone eight days without patronizing his favorite brothel."

Todd Carroll sighs, as the sweat accumulates, running down his back, before gazing back to the path they traveled...

Having dismissed the interloper, the long-faced man turns back, hovering over Percival...

"That's it... That's it..."

Percival, a white-faced boy, dressed in rags and a cap, a pack on his back twice as wide as he is… his pants tattered into shorts, his bare legs ivory, arms lanky and bone-thin... Whittles the duster finely. His hand floating, no jitter, no imprecision to his motion. A very elegant, calculated combing back and forth, quickly vertically. Slowly deliberate, precise horizontally. Covering... Or more accurately, uncovering... Every crack and crevice in the rock.

Every few seconds, another quiet bit of praise from the long-faced man, free of recommendation of criticism. Just the same remark every time.

"That's it... That's it..."

Carroll's hand again rises to his brow, preventing another batch of fresh sweat from running into his eyes. He'd use the rag in his pocket but after so many uses it's become damp, sipping and useless. White shirt… Doused in a layer of sweat, brown slacks and loafers… Breathing heavily… Lean, but out of his element.

Carroll looks back longingly at the path, toward a single light, a lamp hung in the doorway, illuminating a small circle around it, just beyond his reach...The light otherwordly... The entire tomb was pitch black, save for the pale blue light shining off the two lamps... One Percy's... One at the door...

His tan sports coat hanging around the lamp, shed quickly from the unbearable heat within the stuffy burial chamber…

Now behind him, the archaeologist duo work by flashlight, the long-faced man's hand carefully, precisely following Percival's path with the duster.

"Excuse my discomfort," Carroll shouts a bit louder than necessary, as he turns back to his partners in excavation. "But we're a bit too close to the Earth's core for my taste... I might prefer the surface... Where man was intended to reside comfortably."

The long-faced man doesn't bother looking up, nor is there a drop of perspiration on his face. "Contrary to your opinion, Mr. Carroll."

"Professor."'

The long-faced man doesn't notice the correction, "The temperature only increases above that on the surface at approximately 328 feet of depth. At 35 meters, the depth at which we currently find ourselves, we find ourselves significantly cooler than those above us."

He glares back again towards Carroll, balancing his hand, not daring to move the light source from Percival's work.

"I am left to conclude that your current discomfort stems simultaneously from your pre-supposed baseless opinions about change in atmospheric pressure below ground and your mind's ability to create bodily effects and hallucinatory conditions based on those aforementioned imaginations."

Carroll chews his tongue before muttering under his breath a mocking "Bleh bleh bleh...." and turning back to the ghostly blue light reflected from lamp at the door.

The long-faced man soundlessly turns back to Percy.

"That's it... That's it..."

Carroll gives the leather pack on his shoulder a tug and swings in front of him.

He digs an arm deep to the bottom. A clinking of glass rings and his face brightens up.

He yanks out a clear red-tinted flask. He presses it to his lips and a wondrous sweet swig of brandy disappears down his gullet.

"Don't suppose either you or Percy would fancy a taste?"

"No."

"Oh, good. Not big on sharing, if I'm being honest." Carroll chuckles to himself. Neither of his business associates reciprocate.

Carroll edges from his spot at the center of the tombs to the right side of the room, where three large tombs rest along the sides of the chamber…

Carroll slips his flask back into his pack with a flick of his wrist… And rifles through the bag…

Until he finds a whole new flask… He presses it to his lips…

Another swig of brandy… His brow relaxes…

And then immediately tenses.

He desperately shakes the thing up and down, the swishing and trickling within indicating the emptiness in the flask. This one he’s already fully utilized. That makes… too many of them… He’s running out…

He forces his love, frustrated, to his temple, leaning against one of the giant coffins…

His hand accidentally slips against the top of the coffin…And the cover creaks open a nudge…

“AH!” Carroll immediately tries to force the top! But it’s jammed!!!!

He leans his head in, to try to force the thing closed with all his might!! Straining and pushing!!!!

And as his eyes squint open… He finds the coffin empty…

“Hey…”

He calls back over the shoulder, panicking!

“HEY! I THINK GRAVE ROBBERS HAVE PASSED THROUGH HERE!!!”

The long-faced man didn’t bother looking away from Percival’s brushing.

“The coffins with bodies in them have non-removable covers, Mr. Carroll. Before the bodies were inserted into them, the Greeks would seal the covers and insert the bodies using a passageway that runs from the funeral chamber to this very room. Now, please stop squawking, Percival must concentrate.”

The comment calms down Carroll, as his hands come to rest back on the seal… as he peers within the coffin itself…

And confirms those statements. The coffin is in fact empty. He admires the stonework within as dust, centuries old is released into the air with the slow creak of the coffin top being slowly slid across to reveal what lays within…

“So, heh, which one of these holds ‘Kom El Shoqafa’?”

“’Kom El Shoqafa’ isn’t a person, it’s the name of the catacombs. Now, silence, please.”

“…Er… It was a joke, actually. Kom El Shoqafa means ‘Mound of Sha-“

“SILENCE, PLEASE.”

Professor Carroll runs a finger along the bottom of the sarcophagus… And retracts his hand, now black… Covered in ancient soot.

He peers back for a second to the pair… at twenty paces distance…

And quietly sticks a hand back in again…There must be something down in this dead man’s treasure chest… Gold… Jade… If he can just find… Something..

“So… fun bit of trivia… Do you know why the Greeks ended up setting catacombs in Egy-“

Carroll glances back a moment… Hand still stuck in the mummified ‘cookie jar.’

With the long-faced man now just millimeters from his face.

A RUSH! Hands wrap around Carroll’s throat and jerk him away from the sarcophagus!!!

He flinches!!

…



…

Still. Alive. His eyes slowly peer open, still feeling the hands on his throat.

And comes to find his business partner adjusting the tie resting at his neck.

His eyes… cold…

“Mr. Carroll.”

“Are you dissatisfied with your current employment status? Something about our current business arrangement doesn’t tickle your fancy?”

“Well, no, I-”

“Do you feel you're not being treated well enough?”

“Oh, goodness no, I wouldn’t s-“

“Is $5000 at the end of every day to sit here and watch a boy dust a rock not high enough? Do you feel this unique talent you seem to have warrants higher pay? Will that keep you quiet?”

“Well, that’s just it, you see..”

“WHAT is IT?”

The long-faced man sharpens the t’s in his words into daggers, as his hands tighten Carroll’s tie, his hands drawing ever closer to his neck…

“I… You hired me under the pretenses that I would be utilizing my expertise in ancient languages an-….”

“Is this task I’ve laid out too challenging for a professor of diachronic linguistics? Is this beyond your skillset, taking money for nothing, just reading the occasional hieroglyph? Would you prefer to return to your old prestigious career of being penniless and drunk in Cairo?”

“Well, no, I must admit. But, I can’t use the money you’re paying me with if all we do is stay down in these catacombs? I’ve translated the messages Percy has uncovered perfectly and they didn’t seem to please you at all.”

“They didn’t PLEASE me at all, because they AREN’T what we’re LOOKING FOR.”

Carroll raises his arms defensively, palms out, as the long-faced man backs him into the wall. The feel of the stone, the sensation of suddenly being trapped sends a shiver down Carroll’s spine… He looks for some salvation in reason…

“Well, then… Um…If I knew what you were looking for… maybe just an inkling of what we were striving to accomplish, or what part I play in these conceptions of yours, perhaps then we could more quickly achieve your desired goal.”

“You know what you need to know, Mr. Carroll, and I’d suggest you’d keep your train of thought away from any ‘conceptions of mi-”

“DONE!”

Both turn stunned! The voices echo off the walls, back up the path, the words rattling to every corner of the catacombs…

The location of this cry…

Percival… Duster held aloft like a mighty weapon… His specimen… Legible as ink on paper…

What was flat solid rock. Now bears a clear message. Not even hieroglyphs. Words in a character-based language…

“That’s… That’s unus-“

FWSSH! His skull rushes through the air, forced to waist height as he is dragged by his tie by his boss’s fist…

Sands sift as the two stomp through the sand. The long-faced man’s stomps forceful, sending shockwaves of pebbles shooting into the air, his captive dragging his feet, left and right raking his path out…

Carroll’s throat is thrown to the ground, planted beside Percival… On his hands and knees, his slacks covered in dirt, as smoke is kicked up into the air… Coughing and hacking as air rushes back into his lungs, his hand rushing for his heart…

“Read it.”

Carroll, with the sweat on his arm, narrowly manages to wipe his glasses clean… Pressing them back to his face…

“I need a pad and p-“

Percy’s hands, faster than a man could blink, shoot his pack off the back, submerge his hands into the satchel… And return with a pad and pen…

Carroll rests the pad on the ground, shifts the lamp toward the stone... His hands brush across the symbols… Clear letters… His fingers dance around… Then into the crevices…

“This is Aramaic… What is this doing in a Greek burial cham-“

“READ IT.”

Carroll brushes his hands against the stones with his left hand… Feeling the edges of the stone, establishing definition to the picture in his mind’s eyes… Slowly, carefully, his right hand, equipped with pen, begins drawing…

Carroll’s brow furrows…

“I don’t… This is the Old Testament… This is the Book of Genesis… Why would the Old Testament be in Greek ca-“

“READ IT!!!”

Carroll looks down at his notes… And carefully reads… Alternately his view from the rock wall to his transcribed words…

A hand shuffles into Percy’s pack…

Quietly… Gently…

“In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth… Is this actually what you want read?”

Silence.

Carroll shakes his head and reads on…

“Do you really want the Bible read to you… It’s all the same…This is Genesis 1:2...The World was formless and empty..."

"And… Bla... Hold on… There’s a discrepancy here…"

The hand slowly rises from the bottom of the pack… contents silently shifting around…

“The original message is ‘The World was black…’”

And a pistol… rises from the bag…

“But this one…”

Glides through the air with its dancing partner, the hand caressing its trigger…

“This one says… The World was Black’s… As if a fellow named Black owned the wor-”

Click. The gun is cocked.

…

And rests just behind Carroll’s skull

…


….

“…Please… No…”

“That’s it... That’s it....”

...








...








BANG

End of Prologue