The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories by Christopher Bunn Page B

while—”
    “I’m Backus.” He took off his floppy hat.
    “Oh,” said the mayor.
    Backus took the microphone from his hands.
    “I’m Backus,” he repeated, the microphone booming his words out into the crowd. The whole place erupted into wild applause. Backus looked uncomfortable. “The reason I’m here is to donate an old necklace to the museum. I found the thing last year when I was doing excavations in the southern Nile valley. Found it in a tomb. It’s a pearl necklace. It was wrapped around the neck of one of the royal mummies. The last queen of the Neflureti Dynasty. Wrapped tight, like it was strangling the old lady. I’m convinced the damned thing is cursed, so I’m happy to hand it over to the museum. Have fun fending off the zombies when they start showing up. Chainsaws work well. So, without any further babbling—”
    That was as far as he got. I had a pretty good view of him from where I stood. My hand was in my coat, holding my Glock ready. Maura was poised, tensed like a cheetah ready to pounce. But neither of us was ready for what happened next.
    The Bulgarian ambassador had been standing right in the front row, his wife next to him. Both of them were pretty scrawny specimens, evidence for either a shortage of food in Bulgaria or an epidemic of tapeworms. The ambassador sort of shook himself. Shook himself like a dog. His skin fell off him in big swaths.
    “Uh oh,” said Maura.
    Something else emerged out of that Bulgarian chrysalis. A big, huge, dark, hairy thing. The gorilla. He looked bad-tempered, which I suppose made sense, having been cooped up in that tight-fitting Bulgarian skin. The gorilla roared and pounced on Backus. Only he didn’t get Backus. The little zillionaire dodged and the gorilla plowed right into the mayor and the curator. They went over like rag dolls. All three crashed into the aquarium wall behind them. The glass shook. The gorilla bounced up with another roar.
    I was hotfooting it forward, my Glock out. The room was in pandemonium. Women shrieking their fool heads off. Men screaming as well. There was a concerted effort to get out of the place as fast as possible, but, in general, people don’t do well in emergencies. Most of them seemed to have forgotten where the front doors were. The string quartet in the corner kept their heads, however, and launched into an energetic rendition of Flight of the Bumblebees. Maura grabbed my arm.
    “Wait!” she hissed. “Look!”
    Backus had disappeared. The gorilla dove into the crowd. Bodies were flying like ripe bananas. But that wasn’t what Maura was looking at. It was the Bulgarian ambassador’s wife. She was a skinny little thing with too much hair, too many diamonds, and enough lipstick to outfit a whole squad of cheerleaders. And that lipsticked mouth was muttering away a mile a minute. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was just muttering into the air.
    “It’s her!” Maura’s fingers closed on my arm like a vise. “Let’s get out of here!”
    “An excellent idea!” snapped Backus, popping up out of the crowd. “Now!”
    The air abruptly thickened. The lights flickered and dimmed. The front doors slammed shut with an ominous bang. The string quartet seemed to be playing at supersonic speed. With a throaty growl, the stuffed tiger guarding the entrance to the main wing came alive. It jumped off its perch and fell on a fat congressman from New Jersey. A line of short, freeze-dried pygmies, complete with spears and grass skirts, came marching past the tiger. On the other side of the room, from the darkness of the Special Exhibits wing, something stirred in the shadows. Something wrapped in crumbling linen shrouds. A mummy. It staggered forward. Another one followed it. And another.
    “Mummies,” said Backus sourly. “I should’ve never gone to Egypt.”
    The crowd screamed and ran in circles. Pandemonium was complete. The Bulgarian ambassador’s wife seemed to be growing taller and thickening in all the