Book 1
MUMMY MOUSE
(A tail of evil)
Tevin Hansen
Handersen Publishing LLC
Lincoln, Nebraska
Mummy Mouse
Handersen Publishing LLC
Lincoln, Nebraska
Text copyright © 2013 Handersen Publishing LLC
Cover copyright © 2015 Handersen Publishing LLC
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means is prohibited without permission of the publisher.
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, locales, and other incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.
ISBN: 9781941429198
Dedicated to the memory of Mummy Mouse:
We really did intend to release you back into the wild. We didn’t mean to turn you into a mummy.
Sorry.
Contents:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Not all mummies are cut open and stuffed with spices, wrapped in cloth, then left to rot for thousands of years in some Egyptian tomb. Some mummies are very tiny, have whiskers, and scurry around on all fours looking for crumbs left behind by the family whose house they inhabit. They too dream of coming back to life, sucking life-forces, and achieving god-like status.
Mummy Mouse was such a mummy.
Chapter One
Until recently, the beautiful white mouse that lived at 6671 Perfection Drive was lively and full of energy, measuring just a mouse hair over three-and-one-quarter-inches long.
In life, he was so undeniably cute.
In death, he was a terrifying sight. All cuteness gone, only a grotesque, pocket-sized tyrant remained.
On the night it happened, Mrs. Percy had just finished cleaning the kitchen. Mrs. Percy was raised to believe that the most important part of married life was a clean home. After putting the last dish away, she carefully placed the dish towel behind the stove handle, then reached below the sink and pulled out the poison she’d bought earlier in the day. Just a few pellets of DIE RODENT DIE! could easily kill a large rat.
“I certainly hope that’s enough to turn that creepy crawling mouse into a rotted pile of dust and bones,” said Mrs. Percy as she poured the entire contents of the box onto a large plate and placed it inside the closet by the front door, the last place she’d seen the mouse scampering to.
Satisfied, she went upstairs and at least thought about saying goodnight to her only child and possibly reading him a bedtime story. Thankfully, she came to her senses. She was raised to believe that one of the primary goals of parenting was to squash out all bad influences, such as imagination.
Instead, she took a bath.
After her nightly beautification ritual was complete, she too was off to get some rest. Mrs. Percy understood that staying beautiful all day long is the most important aspect of being married. Her last thought before fading into a soft sleep (with her head propped up just right, so her hair would stay lively and pert) was a hopeful wish that the little mouse that had invaded her home would eat the poison, suffer tremendously, and die a torturously painful death.
But something else happened.
When Mrs. Percy went downstairs the next morning, long before her husband and only child woke, she went straight to the closet by the front door. She wanted to check and see if the poison she’d set out the night before had done what it was supposed to do, which was decimate an entire mouse population in a single dose (according to the box). When she opened the closet door, hoping to see optimum results, she received quite a shock.
“A rotted mouse corpse? How delightful!” said a cheerful Mrs. Percy.
There was, in fact, a dead mouse in the closet by the front door. But upon further inspection, she discovered that the little mouse that caused her so much grief was not dead, but simply lying in wait. Tight grayish skin covered the once plump body, which was now bone thin and skeletal. The mouth was pulled back into a monstrous grin. The cute little white mouse that would scurry across the living room carpet while Mrs. Percy was trying to vacuum, or dart across the kitchen while she was scrubbing the floor, was dead.
But not all the way dead.
Mummified.
Standing there, looking at the dead mouse lying in the middle of a plate of poison, she could’ve sworn she saw movement.
First a leg twitch…
Then a whisker wiggle…
It wasn’t until the mummified mouse pulled its ghastly decayed body up onto its rotted feet and looked directly at her with those demonic red eyes that fear, panic, terror, and a whole range of emotions came upon her. Next, a terrified, gut-wrenching scream escaped from Mrs. Percy’s lips, which were colored bright red with lipstick even at this early hour.
Then Mummy Mouse spoke.
GRRAAH-HAAK!!
The tiny creature uttered a series of rasping, breathy words mixed with odd tongue-clicking noises, thereby unleashing an ancient Egyptian curse that would instantly turn its victim into an unresponsive, incoherent, all around muddled mess of humanity.
HAAVAH-MAAH, KAHL
FAAAHVAH, SHEEEECK, HAA-MAH
KEEEHL AAAHL
Mrs. Percy was not instantly killed. In fact, she did not die at all. She was merely reduced to a crude, lifeless version of her former self. Her life-force had been drained. Her emotions, her ambitions, her goals, her essence had all been sucked away by the four-legged creature she had tried to kill with poison.
Mrs. Percy had become the first victim of Mummy Mouse.
Many more would soon obey.