Treasure

by K. T. Tomb

  “You first,” she said. Her eyes were locked on the building pile of writhing bodies being added to at a rate of a dozen per minute. I had no way of knowing if they were venomous or not.

  I took a deep breath, exhaled, swallowed the lump in my throat and moved toward the nearest wall away from the snakes. Eva did the same, though she spun her light back toward the squirming pile every few seconds. I did the same as well, initially, but finally realized that unless I focused my attention on the job at hand, our snake problem was going to get much worse. “You finding anything, yet?”

  “I can’t concentrate,” she replied.

  “You have to, sweetie, or we’ll have much worse problems in a few minutes.” The pile was already massive. There were at least 100 or more snakes and more dropping in. “Concentrate on the floor. Kick the dirt around and see if you uncover a handle to a trap door or something. I’ll stick to the walls.”

  There were several minutes of silence while we both concentrated on trying to find something that would help us to escape. The walls seemed to be smooth cut stone with no breaks or cracks that presented themselves, neither were there any signs in ancient Mayan saying, “Exit here.”

  “Adam. I was just thinking. Why would snakes be coming into this pit?”

  I turned and looked at her, shrugging my shoulders.

  “I mean, snakes have dens, nests, pits, whatever you call them, but they always have to get out to get food and water, right?”

  “Not necessarily,” I replied. “Some reptiles can go months or years without eating, because of their very low body metabolism. However, you do bring up a good point.”

  “So, somebody put the snakes in here after we fell in?”

  “Who do you think…” I cut the question off before I finished it. The dark figure we had seen the night before came to mind first, but Andres still couldn’t be eliminated from my mind. Likely, both of them had been spying on us and looking for an opportunity to create an accident. The thing I couldn’t understand was, why?

  Eva didn’t finish my question or answer it. “Adam, I’m scared. We could die in here and no one would ever know.”

  “Let’s not go there just yet, okay? Keep searching. There has to be a way out of here.” I was as frightened as she was and I had to admit that I was equally skeptical about our chances of survival. I had searched the walls on three sides away from the snakes and came up empty. I was going to have to make a decision as to how I was going to check the other wall where the massive pile was growing continuously. I actually had pepper spray as well, but I wasn’t sure if it worked on snakes. There was really only one way to find out.

  “Eva,” I said after a few minutes. “We’ve got to check that other wall and floor.”

  “No thank you,” she whispered.

  “We have no choice. Stay with me and get out your pepper spray. I’ve got mine too. We’ll try to clear a path, maybe they’ll move over to the other side of the pit.”

  “What about the ones that are still falling through the holes?”

  “I’m thinking that once we get the main mass to move, we can manage the ones dropping in one at a time.”

  “Like, snake herding?”

  “Well,” I chuckled, “I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but yes.”

  Armed with our cans of pepper spray, we moved along the wall approaching the massive pile of slithering forms. My heart was thundering in my chest and I reached back to take hold of Eva’s hand. “You ready?”

  “Yes. I hope to God this works,” she answered softly.

  “You and me both.”

  I opened up with my can of pepper spray on the mass of snakes. They hissed and instantly began to draw back. Okay, pepper spray does work on snakes.

  “It’s working, Adam.” There was a hopeful tone in her voice.

  “Just keep it up, let’s see if we can move them over against that other wall.”

  With both of us spraying the pile of snakes, the pile slowly redirected toward the other wall. We discovered that the new snakes that were dropping in were following the group, likely because the floor in front of us was wet with pepper spray, though I could feel that my spray can was beginning to feel much lighter; I was going to run out soon. “Stop for a second, Eva. We’re going to have to save some of this.”

  “Too late,” she replied. “I’m already out.”

  “We’ve got another problem,” I said, feeling my eyes beginning to burn and the mucous building up in my throat. “Without air ventilation, this stuff is starting to burn.”

  “Here,” she said.

  I turned back toward her and noticed that she had used some of the gauze in her fanny pack to tie a mask around her mouth and nose. Her eyes were watering, but she was in better shape than I was. She was extending another piece of gauze toward me and secured it over my mouth and nose as well. “That will help some, but we have to find that way out now.”

  “Adam, look.” She shined her light on the floor where the last snakes had moved away from the massive pile. “Is that a handle?”

  I saw it the instant she asked the question. It was a handle indeed, and I scrambled toward it without responding to her question. Excitement began to replace the sense of doom that had begun to grip me. I was like a man in the desert who had discovered a watering hole. Spraying the few lingering snakes to give myself a little bit of working room, I grasped the handle with one hand and pulled with all of my strength. It moved slightly, but didn’t open. I turned toward Eva, extending my flashlight and pepper spray to her. “Hold these. I need both hands.”

  I spread my legs wide, squatted and took hold of the handle with both hands, kicking at a snake that had moved a little too close to back it away. It protested, but did not strike at me. With all of the strength in my arms and legs, I tugged on the handle and felt the door that it was attached to begin to break loose. It had been closed a very long time. The fact that it came open before the handle broke was a testimony to Mayan engineering. The handle had been firmly fixed.

  “Adam, look out!” Eva squealed just as I raised the trap door to its full height. She was reacting to the snake that had fallen from a hole above and onto my leg. I squealed as well and on reflex, quickly snatched it away and threw it toward the pile at the other side of the pit. “Hand me my light.”

  With the flashlight in my hand, I looked up at the wall where snakes continued to fall into the pit, there was another poised to drop right on me. Trying to focus, I turned the light back toward the hole and saw a ladder below.

  “What do you see?” Eva asked.

  “There’s a ladder. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “What if it falls or there are more snakes?”

  “You can risk it or stay with the ones that you can already see. Get moving,” I snapped, regretting the tone, but feeling like there was a need for urgency.

  For Eva’s part, she took a deep breath and moved toward the open trap door. “You go first,” she said. “I’ll use the last of your pepper spray to keep the snakes back a little while you start down.”

  I took several tentative steps on the ladder and discovered that it was extremely solid, another Mayan marvel. “It’s sturdy, come on.”

  I continued downward, not knowing into what we were descending, but believing that anything would be better than being knee-deep in snakes. It was only moments before I felt Eva coming down from above me very rapidly. “What’s the rush?” I called out.

  “I ran out of pepper spray.”

  Chapter Ten

  For some unknown reason, I had counted each rung of the ladder as I stepped on it and was on 97 when my foot came down on solid ground rather than another rung. “I’m at the bottom,” I called out. Eva was only a few rungs above me and she paused.

  “I’m going to stay right here while you check things out.”

  I had advised her to turn off her flashlight and save the battery, since there was really no point in exploring the walls while we descended on the
ladder. I had done the same and clicked my light back on the moment I had both feet on the stone floor. I shined the light in all directions and saw stone walls on all sides except for one. A tunnel opening was in that excepted wall. “There’s a tunnel.”

  “Any snakes or worse that I need to know about?” Eva asked.

  “No, just a tunnel.”

  “Thank God,” she gasped as she moved down the last several rungs and then felt both of her feet on the solid floor.

  I shined the light back up the narrow, stone shaft where we had descended on the ladder and saw that the trap door was a very long way away. I saw movement above, like something falling and instinctively drew back. I knew instantly what the object was when I heard Eva scream again and start whirling and fighting with a snake that had landed on her shoulders. Before I could react, she had flung it into the nearest wall and had retreated away from the ladder.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “What the hell do you think?” she snapped. It was the first time that I’d heard her use that tone.

  “Sorry,” I replied, feeling a little bit hurt.

  “No, Adam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

  “So, we’re good?”

  “We’re good. Thank you for getting me out of there.”

  “Well, don’t thank me just yet. Who knows what else we’re going to have to face before we get back to the house.” I started to add, “if we get back to the house,” but decided that I didn’t need to fill her with any of my negative thoughts. Letting her know that there might be more challenges was being honest, but there was no sense being hopeless about our chances, even if my own confidence in that department was severely shaken.

  Eva had turned on her flashlight and was exploring the small room that we had landed in below the shaft. There were several snakes scattered about on the floor and another dropped in as we stood there. “Let’s get out of here before this area fills up too.”

  “Okay. Turn off your light and take my hand. We need to save the battery in at least one of them.” She did more than just take my hand; she wrapped both of her arms around one of my arms and pressed in beside me. Though it made it hard to walk, feeling her so close to me was thrilling in spite of the circumstances and it was giving my confidence a boost. We have to survive this. This is like my fantasy dream and my fantasy girl; it can’t end badly. Whoever heard of a fantasy ending badly?

  I wasn’t completely convinced; things were much too real and much too terrifying in that fantasy of mine and I still had no idea where we were or what still lay ahead of us. We continued to follow the tunnel for what seemed like an hour, though it was difficult to tell how long we had been walking or how far we had gone. I was beginning to see the soft hint of what appeared to be light up ahead. Maybe things were going to work out after all. “There’s light up ahead.”

  The announcement brought a little gasp from Eva and she loosened her death grip on my arm, sliding her hand down so that our fingers interlocked. The feeling was starting to feel very natural to me. We continued forward at a quicker pace, confidence growing the closer we came to the light.

  When we came to the end of the tunnel, it opened up into a large chamber with a ceiling that was several hundred feet above our heads, the center of which had a large hole; the source of light that we had been following.

  On three sides of the chamber were the openings to tunnels; the one that we were coming out of and two others. The fourth wall had an enormous stone statue carved out of it. It was easily recognizable as the image of Kukulkan. The serpent god’s mouth was open and its tongue rolled out in a grotesque pose. Typical of the other images of the Mayan god, it had the feathered headdress and the giant eyes that could see all.

  “Wow,” Eva whispered as she studied the massive figure in front of us. “Kukulkan. It must be some sort of temple.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I had turned to examine another part of the chamber before I added a single phrase to my statement. “The worst type.”

  I drew her attention toward the stone table centered perfectly below the hole in the roof. It was placed directly in front of the image of Kukulkan and between it and the image there was a broad, open pit. Eva began to move toward the stone table, still holding my hand and leading me along behind her.

  “It’s amazing,” she said, as we examined the swivel mechanism under the table. “A sacrificial table with a swivel. They likely pulled that lever to release the catch in the cogwheel and then dumped the body into the pit once the ceremony was over.”

  As I examined the table something struck me suddenly. On an ancient, sacrificial table, there might be ancient, dark stains where blood had soaked into the stone for thousands of years before, but on closer examination, it looked to me like the stains were extremely new. A sudden shiver went through me. “Eva. This table has been used very recently,” I whispered.

  “No way. Are you serious?”

  “Look at those blood stains. Those are recent.”

  “Oh my God.” She placed her hand over her mouth.

  “The equinox will be at noon tomorrow. What do you want to bet…?”

  “There will be a sacrifice here tomorrow?” she finished the question.

  “Knowing Mayan engineering and astronomic accuracy, I’d be willing to wager that hole is placed perfectly so that the exact moment that the equinox sun shoots a ray of light through it, it will be focused directly on this table.”

  “That would be entirely correct.” I recognized the deep voice behind us and its suddenness made both of us leap and spin around. Before I could react, the speaker and six other men moved up rapidly to surround us and block our escape. “So, you made it out of the pit of snakes, then,” he laughed. The voice, the face, the laugh and the eyes all belonged to Andres, our former caretaker. He waved at the six men accompanying him. “Tie them up.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There was another face in the group that I recognized, but the rest were completely unknown to me. “You’re the one that set the trap and put the snakes into the pit.” My recognition of Andres and Enrique made my anger well up suddenly and my confidence along with it, though my bound hands made me pretty much useless.

  “I had to see if you were worthy,” Andres responded.

  “And the snake in my shower?” Eva asked.

  “Let’s call it a little tease, shall we?” His laughter came from his chest.

  I focused my eyes upon Enrique and attempted to bore a hole through him with my blazing stare. He turned his eyes downward and refused to meet my gaze. Was he ashamed of his part in what had to be a set up?

  “You are quite correct in your assessment of the table. It is another engineering marvel of the Mayans, my people, I should add. You are also correct that the hole above us is perfectly positioned to allow the rays of the sun from the equinox to be above the sacrificial table at the precise moment that midday arrives, just twice a year. In truth, it is a spectacular feat, especially for an ancient people without the sophistication of computers and other electronic devices. It was, no doubt, a superior culture and a people with minds far superior to those of your arrogant generation.”

  “We’re arrogant?” Eva snapped. “In spite of our technology, we don’t sacrifice human beings. We’re beyond that savagery!”

  I was proud that though she was frightened, she still had a lot of fight in her. Perhaps it was a scorn that was similar to that which I felt when I recognized two of our captors.

  “You’re beyond that savagery? Explain to me about abortions and euthanasia; sacrifices that are made to your gods, to the gods of convenience and selfishness?” He paused and smiled. “To tell you the truth, I like you two. You’re very knowledgeable, you’re intelligent, you’re sensible and quite thorough. You’re admirable for your generation and I’m actually pretty impressed.”

  “Then let us go!” Eva snapped.

  “Um, no,” he laughed. “You’ve got plenty of fire and spunk in you. I wonde
r if you’re a descendent of the Mayans. There is certainly some of ancient Mexico’s bloodline in you. I can tell by your bone structure, your intelligence and your spirit. Might you be baked from the mixture of yellow and white corn?”

  I knew that he was referring to the ancient creation story of the Mayans and I also made note of the fact that what I had read in his eyes before was showing itself in full force as he spoke. Why hadn’t I trusted my instincts about him; about Enrique too? It was too late to worry about either. I could only hope that the intelligence that he saw in us and those things that he found “admirable” could convince him to let us go. I decided to take a chance.

  “If you admire us so much,” I jumped in, “then let us continue studying what we came here to study. We can tell the world about the genius of the Mayan culture. We’re not talking about just the papers that we have to write to finish our class and graduate, but more research. We can draw attention to the Mayans, their religion and their culture. We can work with you instead of against you. There’s no point in being at odds here.”

  “Very nice try, Señor Adam, but you were also correct in the wager that you were willing to make a few moments ago. Tomorrow is, indeed, the spring equinox and we are, indeed, going to have a sacrifice. It’s really too bad that you had not mentioned any dollar amount for your wager, I’d willingly pay it on behalf of Miss Eva.” His eyes danced with delight, proud of his cleverness.

  “To be sure, you’re going to get a front row seat that will enlighten you a great deal about your studies of the ancient Mayans, because tomorrow’s ceremony hasn’t changed in thousands of years. You see, ever since Kukulkan sailed away from the mainland on his raft of snakes and vowed to return again, secret sacrifices have been carried out twice per year in this very temple. The priesthood has been passed down from generation to generation and the rituals taught in precisely the same manner down to the very last detail. I’m passing it all along to my son too. You are lucky enough to be able to take part in the very first sacrifice carried out by my son. I think that you’ll recall meeting him: Enrique.” He turned and waved a hand toward Enrique.