Full Moon Fever, Book 1: Monster, He Wrote: Full Moon Fever, #1

By Doug Molitor

Drake Callahan is a struggling horror novelist who's about to get married. He also moonlights for the LAPD as their consultant on cult murders.

But the Full Moon Killings turn out to be something far worse. And then Drake finds his love life taking a weird turn...

FULL MOON FEVER is a supernatural romantic comedy from the author of Memoirs of a Time Traveler.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Third Street Press
• Release date: Oct 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386353386

Book preview

1

THE HIGH PRIEST

D eath shall come on swift wings for he who dares defile this tomb, read the curse inscribed on the ancient seal, and had Professor Bramwell heeded its warning, this story would be far shorter than it is. But Bramwell’s place in history depended upon whether beyond the door lay the untouched tomb of the Pharaoh Mentuhotep II.

The light of the rising moon revealed that above the dire hieroglyphs was carved the jackal-headed image of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead. The clay of the seal had dried four millennia ago, encasing the knotted, rotted rope that had closed this tomb, circa 2010 B.C.

The crumbling papyrus scroll he’d bought in a Luxor bazaar was no fake, after all, for it had led him to this hidden cave in the Valley of the Kings, where he had now found his life’s goal.

Professor? Harry Fletcher, Bramwell’s brash young American student, removed his pith helmet and mopped his brow. It’s late. Are we going in?

Yes. Yes, of course. Hold up the lantern. The professor gripped his student’s elbow and moved it up, as if adjusting a piece of equipment—an irritating habit that the younger man had learned to tolerate.

Bramwell neatly cut the seal off the door. There were only the two of them to witness this historic event. Their superstitious workers had quit en masse, as soon as they had seen the dread mark of the jackal.

The dirt-encrusted wooden door swung inward. Out came the faint, foul odor of decay. The two Egyptologists moved down the dim passage, which widened out to a burial chamber. At one end lay a sarcophagus.

In one sense, they were fortunate: The chamber was untouched. Yet their hearts sank, for there was no gold. This was no pharaoh’s tomb.

Then the professor saw the seal on the sarcophagus. Good Lord, he breathed. This isn’t Mentuhotep. It’s Sethis.

The court magician? said Fletcher.

He was quite a bit more than that if the scroll is to be believed, replied the professor. Counselor. High priest. Sorcerer of great power.

The professor again moved Fletcher’s arm higher, for better light as he unsealed the sarcophagus.

Fletcher fumed. Rubbish. It said Sethis could sever an enemy’s arm with a wave of his hand. That he could raise the dead.

Are you so certain he couldn’t?

Come now, Professor, this is the nineteenth century. We live in the age of science.

Harry, the Egyptians forged metal alloys we have yet to duplicate. Their embalming techniques are still a puzzle. Who’s to say they did not possess some occult knowledge that our science does not yet admit?

Then why are you defying their curse?

Bramwell set the seal aside. Because I’m not some bloody heathen. Now, give me a hand.

The two men lifted off the wooden lid, set it on the floor, and gazed at the occupant.

The mummy was remarkably tall and had clearly been a man of powerful build. The scent of sandalwood mixed with a weird stench…not decay, exactly, but something more eldritch.

I’ve never seen such a well-preserved mummy. But isn’t this odd? See how the face and limbs are exposed, not wrapped in the final layer of linen. And the organs in jars are not here. This was not a complete mummification. In fact…good Lord, I think the poor fellow was buried alive, Bramwell said.

Then he wasn’t much of a sorcerer, was he?

He may have been drugged beforehand. And awoke to find himself sealed in the sarcophagus. The professor shuddered at the thought.

But what drew Fletcher’s eyes was the mummy’s ornate breastplate. Look at the neckpiece! Solid gold, from the look of it!

I shouldn’t be surprised. The scroll does give one a distinct impression of Sethis’ vanity. It depicts him wearing as much gold as the pharaoh himself. And he does seem to have been a strapping, handsome fellow. Classical features.

Fletcher frowned at the withered face, dubious.

But look here, Harry! Once more, the professor adjusted Fletcher’s arm higher. Then he read, his lips murmuring the ancient Egyptian words, as he ran his finger along the hieroglyphs on the bottom rim of the neckpiece.

Fletcher could feel his own heart thudding. But it was not fear that thrilled him. It was opportunity.

The professor tapped the pictograms. This is a spell. Whoever entombed Sethis wasn’t taking any chances on offending the gods. They buried his curse with him. He smiled. I daresay the museum will be exceedingly grateful for this find.

Fletcher scoffed. Thirty years you’ve slaved for them. What gratitude did they ever show?

The old man turned to his protégé, surprised. What are you saying?

Fletcher locked eyes with Bramwell. I know a collector who’d pay us a million dollars for this piece, no questions asked.

Bramwell stared back. At last, he spoke. We will forget that you ever said that.

Professor, be reasonable. You could retire. Or you could fund your own expeditions!

We are not tomb robbers! This find belongs to posterity, said Bramwell with finality. He turned away and bent over the mummy, resuming his inspection.

In that moment, Fletcher felt the crowbar seem to take on a life of its own, rising high overhead, and then plunging down with ferocious force. Fletcher felt cranial bone give way to forged metal, which bogged down in soft matter underneath.

Fletcher released his grip. The gory crowbar hit the stone, and the clank echoed from the tomb walls.

The corpse of Fletcher’s slain mentor lay at his feet, but it seemed no more real to him than the fallen troops in the tomb wall paintings: just another victim in history’s inexorable march.

Fletcher gingerly took hold of the neckpiece. It was dense—pure gold, as he’d guessed. But it would not come loose. It seemed to be fastened behind the mummy’s neck.

He could have reached behind the mummy and untied or unhooked or whatever needed doing, but he was loath to touch the filthy thing. Instead, he gave the golden ornament a fierce upward tug.

The neckpiece came loose. As did the head, which flew at Fletcher, bounced off his shirt, and rolled across the floor.

Fletcher frantically swatted the mummy dust off himself and shivered in revulsion. Then he turned his attention to his gleaming prize.

Wait, what was that behind him?

He whirled.

There was no one there. Except the head of Sethis, which had come to rest by the tomb wall. Facing him.

It looked so absurd sitting by itself on the stone floor, Fletcher could not suppress a high-pitched laugh.

Well, it’s no great loss, High Priest. You may have been handsome once, but this neckpiece deserves a prettier face than yours.

As he turned away, Fletcher glimpsed in his peripheral vision something from the mummy’s puckered eye sockets.

A glint of bright crimson? A reflection? He looked back. No. The eyes were closed. As they had to be. Mummified flesh might last four thousand years in this parched climate, but eyes? Impossible. And in any event, no human eye could have glowed as red as he had just imagined.

He was tired. That was it. Overwork had taken its toll.

His gaze turned back to his treasure. It was perfect. Not so much as a scratch.

Once again, he felt fingers grab his arm. Irritation got the better of him.

Professor, I wish you would not… Fletcher stopped.

It was not the late professor’s hand that gripped his forearm…but that of the headless mummy.

Horror as he had never before known engulfed him, but he was helpless to move, as the mummy’s torso rose from the sarcophagus and its other hand reached for his throat.

He had time for only one scream, but it was as high and as loud as any sound he had made in his life.

It was noon when a young Egyptologist named Carter made his way down the passageway to the burial chamber. That morning Bramwell’s foreman had told him of the find, and at once Carter had been seized by an inexplicable premonition that his colleagues were in mortal danger.

Entering the tomb, he held his torch high. A mummified head lay in the far corner. Also, a freshly dead body. Probably Bramwell. But that must wait. First, Carter felt compelled to see what was in that sarcophagus.

Imagine his surprise when he looked upon the mummy and saw, set off by the golden neckpiece, the handsome face of his friend Fletcher…HIS HEAD TORN OFF!

---

And thirty children screamed as one.

2

THE MONSTER MAN

He’d designed it as the perfect campfire ghost story, like The Golden Arm or The Walking Coffin . Only his tale had the classy retro touch of a mummy antagonist. And it didn’t end on a groaner. Jeez, the walking casket that is halted because Luden’s Cough Drops always stop the coughin’? Yikes. Pre-school stuff.

The problem was, after the scream, you’re supposed to get a relieved laugh.

But the kids sitting on the foam-rubber jigsaw puzzle mat were neither relieved nor laughing. Petrified and jaws agape would be closer to the mark.

Drake Callahan brushed unruly hair off his brow and tried to prime the pump with a hearty laugh of his own, but it died away, having elicited nothing but more saucer-eyed stares from his charges. Possibly, they thought he’d gone crazy. Drake gave them his best disarming, brainy-slacker grin. No dice.

All right, maybe a decapitating mummy was a bit intense for this age group. He made a mental note to go with The Walking Coffin next Halloween.

Now, come on, kids, it’s just a story, he cajoled. You asked for a scary one.

"Not that scary!" protested Madison, a disagreeable tot under the best of circumstances.

Her pal Tyrone nodded his head in furious agreement. "I hate story time!"

The reviews were in, and they were not good.

Suddenly, just beyond his range of vision, Drake sensed a shape looming behind him. Impossible, he thought. Not the principal. She was off campus this afternoon.

Someone cleared her throat.

Drake turned and tried not to flinch at seeing Dr. Zylpha Benson, six-feet-two and hawk-beaked, glaring at him from the doorway in a manner that Anubis, guide of the dead, would have admired.

Beside the principal stood Nicole Finley, the love of Drake’s life, chestnut-haired, heartbreakingly lovely…and at the moment, utterly mortified.

Mr. Callahan, may I speak to you? asked Dr. Benson.

Drake nodded and rose. Okay, kids, everyone get your pillows and lie down; it’s naptime.

I’m never gonna sleep again! vowed Madison.

Me neither! chimed in Tyrone and several others.

Drake came over to the doorway, which was draped on both sides with orange paper pumpkins bearing the students’ names.

Dr. Benson beckoned him out into the hallway, keeping her voice low. "And you are never going to substitute here again."

Keeping one foot inside the door, Drake looked back at the kids lying on the rug. They had formed a tight