by K. T. Tomb
“You going to be okay?” I struggled to get out of my cotton-filled mouth.
“I think I’ll be okay. Thanks for everything, Adam.”
When she looked up at me with her large, beautiful dark eyes, I felt all sorts of sensations rushing through me, but I gave in to only one of them. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her thick, parted lips and held her as tightly to me as I was able while we spent the last moments of our evening together in a long, passionate kiss.
“Well, goodnight,” she whispered, again looking up at me with her penetrating stare. She turned away from me and opened the door to her room, looking back over her shoulder as she stepped through. “Go to bed, silly,” she giggled when she saw me standing there, looking after her.
“Um, yeah, right. Goodnight.” I replied, turning toward my own door as I heard hers close. The taste of her kiss was still on my lips and the feeling of her body pressed against mine still lingered as I absently undressed and slipped into bed. It was another fitful night for sleeping as my mind replayed the events of the day over and over in my mind from the boat ride to that delicious final goodnight kiss. Eventually, I fell into a deep slumber and knew nothing until I heard pounding on my door the following morning.
“Sweetie, are you up?” Eva called through the door.
I looked toward the window and realized that the sun was well up on the eastern horizon. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Jesus, I overslept! “Yeah. I’m up,” I lied, scrambling out of bed and pulling on the clothes that were on the floor.
“I’m starving. Let’s go eat breakfast.” She was completing the last sentence as I pulled the door open. “You just got out of bed didn’t you,” she giggled.
“No, I’ve been up for a while.”
“Liar,” she laughed. “Go get ready for breakfast.”
She looked so incredible standing there looking up at me with a glow to her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes that had dazzled me the night before. “I’m ready. Just let me put on my flip flops.”
“You might run a comb through that tangle on your head too.”
I glanced at my hair as I passed the mirror. She was right.
We’d gotten a much later start than we’d planned, but with a packed lunch in our backpacks and both of us equipped with the fanny packs for our smaller, more valuable and necessary items, we started out the door and along the trail toward Kukulkan’s Pyramid and the Mango Grove.
Armed with a great deal more information than we’d had before, we discussed what sorts of indications we might be searching for in order to determine when and why an attempt had been made to disguise the existence of the pyramid. It was all speculation, of course, but in order to solve a problem, one first needed to come up with a theory and Eva and I had several.
The day passed slowly, but we accomplished a great deal in spite of the fact that we had to take several breaks from working in order to hold each other and revisit the kiss that we had shared the night before. When the sun began to set, we were still atop Kukulkan’s Pyramid, watching the streaks of color spread out across the sky, changing in shade and tone as light slowly gave way to the coming darkness.
With flashlights in hand, we descended the steps, watching carefully for crumbling spots in order to avoid a horrible accident. The going was slow, but we eventually made it to the ground and started on our way through the Mango Grove on the trail back to the house.
When we were nearing the edge of the Mango Grove and starting into the jungle, we heard heavy rustling in the brush and we froze in place.
“What was that, Adam?” Eva whispered.
I could hear the panic in her voice, at the same instant feeling my own rise up. “I don’t know. Probably a monkey.”
“The monkeys are up in the trees. Maybe it’s a jaguar.” She wrapped her arms around me clutching my arms tightly to my sides.
“It’s not a jaguar,” I fought to get my arms free. No sooner were they free than her arms were again wrapped tightly about my waist.
“How do you know?”
“Because…” I whispered, not exactly sure how I knew.
“Because by the time you hear a jaguar, he’s already eating you,” A voice spoke up from the brush where we had heard the noise. A figure rose up in the beam of my flashlight and began walking toward us.
“Who are you?” I asked, not exactly sure what I was going to do when he responded.
“That depends on who you are?” he replied.
“We’re archeology students and we’re staying in the house on the lagoon,” Eva replied. “And someone will be out looking for us pretty soon if we don’t get back to the house.”
“Well, then,” he replied, coming closer. “I guess I better let you get back to the house then. I don’t really fancy having someone out looking about. It would be bad for me. Thing is, I need to be sure that you’re not going to be tattling about seeing me out here.”
I saw the beam from my flashlight reflect off of a long, silver blade in his hand. “We’re not going to tell anyone,” I replied, shaking, but keeping myself between the approaching man and Eva.
“We have no interest in who you are or what business you have here, mister.” Eva spoke harshly from behind me. “Just leave us be.”
The man chuckled and then sat down on a boulder beside the trail. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he spoke again. “So you’re staying down at the house, huh?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Archeology students? What school you from?”
“St. Paul University in Minnesota,” I answered.
The man let go of a long burst of laughter from deep in his chest. “That has to be the truth, because nobody around here would even think of using that school in order to tell a fib. Now that you said it, I thought I heard that accent in your voice.”
“I’m glad that you’re entertained,” Eva shot back. “Can we please be on our way now?”
“You’ve got a feisty partner there, a pretty young lady with plenty of curves too from what I saw earlier.”
“You’ve been spying on us?” Her voice was harsh.
“It pays to know who is in the jungle with you, don’t you think?” he replied. There was another long pause. “Well, if you’re not going to tattle on me, then there’s no point in keeping you here.”
“We won’t, I swear,” I replied.
“Can I give you one piece of advice first, though?”
“Why not.”
“Get the hell off of this island the first chance you get. There’s some damned weird shit that happens here and I’d hate to see nice young people like yourselves—especially that little Latina hottie there—get hurt or worse.”
“Why? It seems to be okay so far,” Eva responded. There was a little bit of acid in her voice even yet.
“Things aren’t all that they appear to be. Take my advice and pack up first thing in the morning.” As he made the last statement, he disappeared into the brush beside the trail.
Still spooked from the encounter, Eva and I picked up our pace and hurried down the trail toward the house, arriving nearly out of breath, but safe and sound.
Chapter Eight
Eva and I didn’t follow the dark figure’s advice. Once we were back under the roof of the house on the lagoon and had our stomachs filled with another of Inez’s incredible meals, we were feeling quite safe. Worn out from lack of sleep, we had every intention of going to bed early, but try as we might, we were still kissing by the light of the fireplace—the need of which I had finally understood—when midnight rolled around.
We eventually parted, went to our rooms and slept. I was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before and had little trouble sleeping. We got our things together and left the house equipped in a similar fashion to what we were the day before, but with a newly cautious intention to be back to the house well before the sun set. Neither of us was eager to meet the dark figure from the jungle who had frightened us the night before. I had contempla
ted what his warning had meant and Eva and I had even discussed it a couple of times; however, other than his creepy presence and my discomfort whenever I looked into Andres’ eyes, we had been treated quite well and the only danger we had encountered to that point had been the dark figure who had issued the warning. Needless to say, we dismissed it.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Eva said suddenly. We had been eating our lunch among the ruins of the temple atop Kukulkan’s Pyramid in silence.
“Sure. What you got?” I replied. A part of me hoped that she would once again tell me how much she liked me and that she wanted me. I had a secret of my own; the image of her naked body pressed against me, but it wasn’t one that I was willing to share.
“Ever since we were told that the mangoes on this tree were forbidden, I’ve wanted to eat one,” she giggled.
“That’s it?” I smiled. “Not much of a secret. I have too.”
“There’s more.” She suddenly turned serious. “You’re going to think that I’m crazy.”
“I already think that,” I laughed.
“I’m serious!” She slapped me on the shoulder. “Promise me that you won’t think I’m crazy for what I’m going to tell you.”
“I promise.”
“Ever since that snake bit me, I’ve had all kinds of weird things start happening to me; some of them good and some of them more sinister.”
“You, sinister?” The idea was completely unbelievable. Sweet, intelligent, organized, OCD and sexy all came to mind, but sinister didn’t fit my description of her in any way.
“Okay. Maybe not sinister, just bad temptations.”
I wondered if I was going to be classified under the bad temptations and braced myself for what was coming. I was pretty sure that she was about to say that she had enjoyed spending time with me, laughing and getting to know me better, but we were moving too fast and needed to cool it. I was the way things always went for me. What actually came out of her mouth was completely different than what I was expecting.
“I’ve had this almost delirious craving for mangoes, but not just any mangoes, God knows there are plenty to choose from around here, but that big, fat, juicy one right there.” She extended her finger to indicate a particularly beautiful specimen just out of reach above a fallen slab of stone. “I have had my eye on it since yesterday.”
“What about the curse?” I asked.
“There’s no curse,” she laughed. “Didn’t you see how Andres’ eyes twinkled when he told us the tree was forbidden?”
The fact of the matter was, I did remember how his eyes twinkled, but I didn’t take it as a joke like she had. Still, I didn’t really believe that the fruit was cursed either. “Yeah. So?”
“Let’s pick it and eat it.” The look on her face made it impossible to tell her no.
“How do you propose that we reach it?”
“If I was sitting on your shoulders, I could reach it.”
I stood and estimated the distance that the fruit was above the fallen slab of stone. “You may be right.”
“Let’s try it.” The look in her eyes had a devilish sparkle to it, like she was a naughty child about to do something that she knew she wasn’t supposed to do, but was thrilled by the excitement of it all. Seeing that sparkle, I would have done absolutely anything she asked me to do.
We climbed up onto the slab and made our way to the trunk of the tree. She used the trunk to support herself as I squatted and allowed her to drape her legs over my shoulders. There was plenty of squealing and laughing as we worked on getting her into position, nearly falling from the slab several times before she was finally sitting precariously on my shoulders. Once I had gotten my balance with her on my shoulders, I stepped away from the trunk of the tree and turned around. Eva let out a squeal as her weight shifted suddenly and threatened to send us tumbling off of the slab. She steadied herself by wrapping her hands around my eyes as I fought to regain my balance.
“Um, Babe, with your hands over my eyes, this really isn’t going to work very well,” I said as I regained my balance.
“Did you just call me, Babe?”
Not sure if what I said was something she approved of or was insulted by, I stuttered a lame response. “Well… um… I’m not sure what I said.”
“You called me Babe,” she laughed.
“I don’t know.”
“Admit it and I’ll take my hands off of your eyes.”
“Okay, yes, I called you Babe.”
“Okay.” She moved her hands. “Now. keep walking until I tell you to stop.”
I moved slowly, careful to maintain my balance on the slab as I placed one foot in front of the other.
“Stop!”
I stopped.
“Yes! I got it!” She pumped her fist in the air as she celebrated her victory while at the same time lowering the mango in front of my face so that I could see that she had it. The fist pump was just enough to set us off balance once more. Try as I might, I simply couldn’t get my feet balanced back under me. With each stumbling attempt, Eva’s weight would shift anew and send me reeling in another direction. Tumbling off of the stone slab, we expected to land on the hard stone below, but when we hit, something like a thick crust crunched beneath us and we suddenly found ourselves plunging through darkness on a smooth, steep incline, which ended abruptly several dozen meters below.
“Oh, God, Eva, are you alright?” I patted around in the darkness and found her body beside me not far away.
“I’m okay, I think. What the hell happened?”
“We fell through the roof.” It was the only explanation I had.
“But Mayan pyramids don’t have roofs.”
“We crunched through something and fell into some sort of hole,” I replied. I suddenly remembered the small flashlight in my fanny pack. It was a good thing that we had them on, because anything else we might need was in our backpacks several dozen meters above. As I pulled out the flashlight and switched it on, I turned it toward Eva. She was sitting there, somewhat dazed, and still holding onto the mango. There was a small scrape on her left cheek and it was oozing blood. “Hold still a sec.” I brought a compress out of the fanny pack and pressed it to her cheek. By the time I had applied the bandage to her wound, she had fished in her own fanny pack and pulled out her flashlight.
“Let’s check each other over,” she suggested. “That was quite a fall.”
I discovered a couple more scrapes on her arms and legs, but nothing very serious. As she checked me out, she found pretty much the same thing, although there were certainly plenty of areas on my body that would have bruises. From all indications, we were not seriously injured.
“So, where do you think we are? I mean, besides being inside the pyramid.”
“That’s about all I know too,” I replied. I scanned the small chamber with my flashlight and then stood. Eva did the same. I shined my flashlight toward the ceiling and discovered what looked like a chute. Far above it was a small circle of daylight, where we had broken through. “Looks like some sort of chute.”
Eva glanced up at the chute and the hole and then continued scanning the walls with her light. “Duh! We have cell phones!” she said suddenly.
“Mine is in the small pocket on the outside of my backpack, up there. Do you have yours?”
“I most certainly do,” she replied, “and Enrique’s phone number.”
That last part of her announcement stung a bit, but I tried to fight back my emotions; if Enrique could save us, then so be it. I began to feel hopeful. I watched her open her up the screen.
“Crap! No service.”
“Figures,” I replied. I watched as she moved around the pit in an attempt to find a coverage sweet spot. Since we had arrived at the island, we hadn’t even considered using our phones. It was likely there wasn’t any cell service on the island at all. I turned away from her and continued searching the chute above us.
She sighed heavily and replaced the cell phone back in her fanny pac
k. “So, what do we do now?”
“I don’t think we can get back up out of here that way,” I announced after a long study, using the flashlight to try to find something that would allow us to climb out. I had no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth before Eva let out a terrified scream.
Chapter Nine
When a woman lets out a blood-curdling scream, it fires a man’s adrenaline into overdrive and sends a chill throughout his body.
It was no different for me; in fact, the effect was doubled by the fact that we were in a dark pit somewhere inside of a Mayan pyramid. I spun the beam of my flashlight around frantically trying to find what had scared Eva, who was once again clutching my arms and pinning them to my sides. She was going to have to stop doing that. If we were going to be attacked, my arms were going to be useful for defense. I fought to get them free.
“What? What is it?”
“Over there… snakes,” she whispered.
I turned the beam of my flashlight in the direction she indicated and saw a snake wriggling through a hole in the wall and then falling to the floor of the pit with a plop. He had just joined a half-dozen others who were beginning to intertwine with each other. I heard several more plops and refocused the beam on the wall above them to see if I could figure out where they were coming from. There were at least a dozen holes in the wall and snakes were coming through them, dropping to the floor.
“What the hell?” The hair was standing up on the back of my neck. I tried to calm myself so that I could think. At the rate the snakes were falling into the pit, we’d be knee-deep in them in the space of 30 minutes. We had to do something, but ideas weren’t coming to me. I took several deep breaths. “Okay, Eva, I know you’re scared. I am too, but we’ve got to come up with a plan.”
“I have pepper spray,” she said, producing a small can from her fanny pack.
“Keep that handy, but for the moment, we’ve got to find an escape route. Up isn’t going to work, so we’ve got the walls or the floor. We’ve got to explore every inch of this pit.”
