Corpse

***This is the first chapter in a short novel I've started, any feedback will help keep things moving along, thanks***

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His eyes slid slowly over the worm ridden corpse before him. He felt the bile rise up from his stomach and nudge at his throat. He held it down and closed his eyes and nose from the sight and smell. He backed slowly away from the dead horror at his feet. He told himself if he just got out, just "out" he would be okay. Stumbling over something behind him he fell onto the stone that composed the floor. Groaning in pain he felt the fear he had noticed earlier beat more fervently against his chest. He turned and began crawling away in hopes to free himself from the same fate as the man behind him. As he crawled his hand pushed a stone further down into the floor and he heard a resounding click. After the click he could hear movement in the walls as wheels turned into motion. He cried out in fear and dug his hands into the ground getting to his feet to run. And then he felt sharp and sudden pain and blackness crept into his vision.

"So did you hear about Tom Abernathy?" he overheard some professors at a table nearby. Carl shook his head. The news had blown up the incident about his colleague. The man had once been a revered anthropologist, in the last decade he had fallen in with a rather nefarious crowd and turned into a grave robber. Probably because they refused to give him tenure at the college, and had fired him a day before it was to be in effect. They were penny pinchers at the college and they did this kind of thing to all the professors who didn't teach the required subjects. Especially to the anthropology department, he figured it was because a bunch of bible thumping rednecks were running the college and considered anyone who thought the story of creation was just that, a story was not worth the time of day. Carl had been friends with Tom until he started talking crazy. He had tried to suck Carl into it. Some story about ancient cities each one containing a clue about the location of Atlantis. And that the clue to the cities was in the dialogue from Plato. It had all been fanatic ramblings of a man given up hope on a future. So Carl had dismissed it and refused to listen to Tom, or to answer any of his messages.

"He was found dead in that new tomb they found in Egypt."

"That one they said they found the grave robbers at?"

"Yup, apparently he was with them, helping to guide them to the important things"

"Are you sure? Well I heard he found a room that was still booby trapped and that's how he died."

"That's not what I heard, I heard that he sent one of his own men in and they died. And he heard about their finds all from the safety of his tent. One of his men betrayed him and said the room was all clear."

"That's what I heard, and that they left one of the men's bodies in there and that it upset him so much he set off another trap they had left."

Carl frowned as he sipped his coffee trying to focus on his morning paper. Yup, that would be Tom alright. The man had never dealt with anything that hadn't been over 1,000 years old. Anything that was fresh and still "gooey" as he had called it would have greatly upset him. Carl sighed and poured the last dregs of his coffee on to the grass nearby and folding his paper up he collected his things, not wanting to listen to these mathematicians discuss his old friend anymore.

Emily looked at the seismic graph frowning. There had been a lot of activity in the last couple of days. This caldera was huge and at the rim of it sat the city. If it went the city would be in ruins, and that would only be the beginning of it. Lives would be lost, several and not of just the ones in that city. The caldera was big enough it would affect almost every part of the continent if it were to have an explosion the size the numbers were pointing at. She growled in frustration standing up on the island in the middle of the caldera. It had gotten bigger in the last two years then it had in the last hundred. Worry creased her usually smooth brow. Flipping some stray blond hairs out of her eyes she started picking up her gear and placed the sheet readouts in her pack. They had told her that the machine had simply been malfunctioning and producing bad information. So she had brought a man out with her to check it. And it was as good as the day it was made, if not for the dirt it would be as good as new. The man whistled at her from the small boat they had used to get to the island.

"Hurry up Em I've got a ton of stuff to do back at headquarters." She waved him off as she slowly tromped over.

"I know I know. And I've got one hell of a presentation to make to the United Nations." The man laughed.

"They won't believe you until they've blown up all their asses. And then they'll wish they took you women more seriously."

"Eh, you're only saying that because you're batting for the other team and a woman in every way, except physically"

"I'm happily married to my wife and we have four children."

"Oh so Scott is the wife?"

"Yes and your our friend the dyke who is more manly then the both of us combined." She laughed.

"Alright enough with the joking, lets get out of here." She climbed in as he started up the motor.

"So how is your brother Scott? Has he found a place so he can move out yet?" They slowly made their way across the water that was getting warmer every day and soon would be boiling. The danger below them was starting to arise from its slumber and to violently awake itself and its neighbors out of their security.

Natalie looked down at the pages under her gloved fingers. These pages hadn't been touched by human hands in 500 years. And certainly never by a woman. She smiled down at the pages and picked up basically a spatula and used it to the turn the very delicate page. Of course a Librarian in her line of work would never have called it a spatula. It was a tool of the trade for those dealing in antique writings and literature. Dust rolled off the pages smacking into the mask refusing entry into the respiratory system. Somewhere above a loud and annoying timer went off. Wah! Wah! Wah! She frowned and setting her tool down spun around to look out the glass room to the man in a similar decontaminant suit as hers. He was speaking, but she couldn't hear and he pointed at his watch forcibly. She groaned getting up and went into the room that would decontaminate her. The air rushed in and soon the button above the outer door turned green saying she could leave. She stepped out removing the whole helmet.

"Oh come on Walter. I could have stayed another five minutes! It was talking about the flood!"

"You and your obsession about Atlantis! You are exactly the reason that Abernotty fellow is dead."

"Abernathy. And all he did was ask me some questions about books! How the hell am I responsible?"

"Because you fed his impulsive obsession and he ended up getting himself killed."

"I had nothing to do with that." She was losing her vehemence, secretly she had worried. Secretly she had believed that she had killed that poor strange man. He had come asking questions about her secret passion, and she had fanned his flame hoping beyond rational belief that he would find what he was looking for (what she was looking for). If he had found it he would have made all of her life's work worth it. The time she had spent neglecting her family as she studied. Like the time she had spent fighting with her parents in school, when she changed her major half way through school. Or like that time when she and that crazed professor had demanded free reign of the Library of Congress to fuel their lunatic beliefs.