facebook.com/StuartHortenStuart Horten’s mysteriously strange adventures continue in
HORTEN’S INCREDIBLE ILLUSIONS...
Inside the dusty side room of the Beeton Museum, Stuart wrote “THE PHAROAH'S PYRAMID” in large, careful letters at the top of the page, and then underlined it. Twice.
He put down the paper and stood on tiptoe, gripped the nearest snake-shaped handle, and pulled. The whole triangular side immediately swung down, cracking him on the head. Rubbing his skull for a moment, he crouched down and stepped inside the pyramid.
Stuart ran his fingertips over the walls and felt, near the top of each, a little loop of metal, just big enough to hook a finger into and colored the same jet-black as the rest of the surface. He hooked his finger and heaved. The side began to swing shut.
There was a loud and definitive click, and Stuart found himself in utter darkness. Then nine or ten stars twinkled from each wall; as he twisted around to look at them, a glimpse of red on the floor caught his eye. One single star shone from the center of it.
Stuart reached out to touch it, and his fingers felt a series of grooves: six of them, like the spokes of a wheel. He delved into his pocket and took out the metal star. It would fit, he just knew it would.
Heart trotting, mouth dry, he slotted the star into place. The effect was instantaneous. All four sides of the pyramid fell open with a noise like a thunderclap, and Stuart screamed.
Instead of the Beeton Museum, Stuart saw a sweep of grayish sand, peppered with rocks. A few low thorn trees were the only vegetation; not far away, a camel was grazing on one of them. The air was cold, damp, and misty; the sky a dirty white. Overhead, a large, dark bird was circling.
Stuart Horten was in the middle of a desert.