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Here are some of my favorite scary things. The thing that I like most about them
is that they all actually happened! Read on if you dare...
The Mummy's Curse
The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500 years before
Christ. When she died, she was laid in an ornate wooden coffin and buried deep
in a vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. In the late 1890's, four rich,
young Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an
excuisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of the Princess of
Amen-Ra. They drew lots. The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had
the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out
towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining
three men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely
wounded it had to be amputated. The third man in the foursome found on his
return home that the band holding his entire savings had failed. The fourth
guy suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches
in the street. Nevertheless, the coffin reached England (causing other
misfortunes along the way), where it was bought by a London businessman. After
three of his family memebers had been injured in a road accident and his house
damaged by fire, the businessman donated it to the British Museum. As the
coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck
suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passer-by. Then as the casket was
being lifted up the stairs by two workmen, one fell and broke his leg. The
other, apparently in perfect health, died unaccountably two days later. Once
the Princess was installed in the Egyptian Room, trouble really started.
Museum's night watchmen frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the
coffin. Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night. One
watchman died on duty; causing the other watchmen wanting to quit. Cleaners
refused to go near the Princess, too. When a visitor derisively flicked a dust
cloth at the face painted on the coffin, his child died of measles soon
afterwards. Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement
figuring it could not do any harm down there. Within a week, one of the helpers
was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead on his desk.
By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took a picture
of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the coffin was of a
horrifying, human face. The photographer went home then, locked his bedroom
door and shot himself. Soon afterwards, the museum sold the mummy to a private
collecter. After continual misfortune (and deaths), the owner banished it to
the attic. A well known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky,
visited the premises. Upon entry, she was seized with a shivering fit and
searced the house for the source of "an evil influence of incredible intensity."
She finally came into the attic and found the mummy case. "Can you exorcise
this evil spirit?" asked the owner. "There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil
remains evil forever. Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid
of this evil as soon as possible." But no British museum would take the mummy;
the fact that almost 20 people had met with misfortune, disaster or death from
handling the casket in barely 10 years, was now well known. Eventually, a hard-
headed American achaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of
circumstance), paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for its removal
to New York. In April of 1912, the new owner escorted its treasure aboard a
sparkling, new White Star liner about to make its maiden voyage to New York. On
the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of
Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the
Atlantic. The name of the ship was Titanic.
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