July, 2007. Hot, Humid and stuck in a pyramid in Millcreek Canyon. You may be thinking by now what the heck am I doing stuck in a pyramid in the middle of Utah? Well, I am 9 years old and I am stuck in a cub scout camp. This year it is Indiana Jones camp I love him, but this camp is creeping me out. There is a phantom pharaoh thing that keeps popping up randomly. He is my only fear at this place. I am usually not scared easily, but today I have that feeling that this is not going to end well.

My cub scout troop has been called. We have been told that we are the most skilled archaeologists at the camp and they have found an ancient pyramid, and they want us to explore it. I start thinking to myself a pyramid in the middle of Utah? really? What do you think I was born yesterday? Pyramids are only in Egypt, and Central America! I was expecting a cardboard pyramid that was about 10 square feet, but no it was solid stone or so it looked to a 9 year old.

Now, I am about to pee my pants! I keep thinking that the pharaoh is just waiting inside to make us his minions. If you are wondering where I got this idea it was from the movie The Mummy. We enter. It smelled of death and decay, and surprisingly pizza. That was weird, but comforting. There are hieroglyphics as you would expect to see. Our guide tells us that the hieroglyphics say that the tomb of the pharaoh must not be disturbed, and whosoever does disturb him will be lost forever. We then proceed through the pyramid and go down two flights of stairs, and enter the tomb room. There it is the sarcophagus, with open lid and everything. There was a body sitting inside the sarcophagus, which was very surprising because he looked nothing like the phantom thing.

Our guide asked us if anything seemed out of place or weird and then I pointed out that the phantom looked very different than the body in the coffin in front of us. Almost immediately after our guide required of us that we need to summon the phantom and to my horror that meant stealing a jewel from the pharaoh’s coffin. That will call him, but should someone take two we will all be instantly be turned to stone.

Then I approached the coffin and saw the years had not been kind to this former king of one of the greatest empires in my mind. He also smelled as if four-hundred rats had puked eaten their puke and then died.

I took my jewel a small red ruby(it was one of the sticker backed plastic jewels) and then stood back as the rest of our squad took their jewels. Right after the fourth person took his, the opening behind us closed it was made of solid stone. Then we hear our guide ask if any of us took two? because there was a statue of what looked like a boy scout sitting near the coffin and it had not been their before.

Then gases poured into the room there were yellows and greens and reds. Then the door that had just sealed itself opened and there it was with its eyes glowing. Then right as he was about to attack us we heard our guide shout saying I have found an exit! It couldn’t have come at a better time. One of our squad members had been grabbed by the pharaoh and was being carried off into the dark, but I hurried and ran up to him kicked him in what seemed to be his man spot and we both ran.

It took minutes to find our way out the pyramid because we had been separated from the rest of our group and we didn’t have a guide. Eventually we escaped after a couple more encounters with the phantom pharaoh. Yeah it turns out that the phantom pharaoh was just a guy in a costume, so I apologized for kicking him in the balls. After the camp, I told my parents what they put us through and they laughed and said “It’s good to get the crap scared out of you ever once in a while”.