The Mayan Apocalypse

by Mark Hitchcock

  “Now children, no need to try and impress me.” Sonya’s voice was almost musical. “Try to remember that there’s a lady present.”

  Rickman swiveled her direction and was about to speak, but she cut him off. “Careful, Mr. Rickman. The snide remark rattling around in your empty head is liable to get you slapped so hard your mother will scream.”

  The driver erupted with laughter. “Ha! I love Americans.”

  Balfour maintained an even keel, and Morgan admired him for it. The man had to be as weary as he was, if not more. “As I was about to say, the airport is secured as is our destination. However, we will be passing through several small towns. Three identical cars might attract some attention. We don’t want people taking photos. We promised to keep your identity concealed.”

  “What about Chuckles here?” Rickman pointed at the driver.

  “He knows how to keep a secret, and we’re paying him enough to make sure he does.”

  “No worries,” the driver said, and started the car.

  A moment later, they pulled into the darkness.

  The road was smooth. For some reason, Morgan had expected a serpentine, pothole-plagued dirt path, as if they were traveling in the deep wilderness. He could see enough through the windshield to know that the road was narrow and paved in a new coat of macadam. Forward was the only view available, and the empty road soon bored Morgan. Even the towns they passed through were dark and the streets empty.

  The trip had taken its toll. Rickman slumped in his place and rested his head on the seat. Sonya leaned against the door, her hand serving as a pillow. She blamed the wine she consumed on the flight as the cause for sleepiness, but Morgan guessed that the stress of pending disaster and the long trip had drained her. It had certainly drained him.

  Occasionally, he would glance over his shoulder and see the headlights of the other cars in the convoy. No one seemed to be in a hurry. In the front seat, Balfour sat erect, his eyes boring into the night.

  Morgan had traveled abroad many times but never under these conditions. He was having trouble believing that he was at Kamchatka—having just landed at a former military field—and was now allowing himself to be chauffeured to an unknown destination. He knew something of his destination, but details were kept under wraps. He had come to trust Quetzal and Balfour, but each time he thought of that, a sense of disquiet swept through him. He comforted himself with the thought that scores of other people, each as successful and bright as he, had found the men and their organization trustworthy.

  Something caught his eye. A light appeared in front of them. At first, Morgan thought they were driving head-on into an oncoming train. The driver continued forward and the light grew. Still, it seemed unusual.

  “What’s that?”

  Morgan glanced at Sonya, who had awakened. He heard her smack her lips. Post-drinking aftertaste. Morgan remembered what that was like.

  “A light.” Rickman had come to.

  “Ya think?” Apparently Sonya wasn’t one of those people who woke up chipper. “Looks weird.”

  Balfour shifted to face them. “It’s our destination. You’re seeing a light in the entrance tunnel. The Russians placed it well back so it wouldn’t draw attention from above.”

  “You mean God?” Rickman said.

  “US bombers,” Balfour explained. “Remember, Cold War and all that.”

  “I knew that.”

  Morgan chose to keep quiet.

  The driver slowed, and Morgan leaned forward, looking around Balfour’s head. “A bomb shelter.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Morgan. We promised you much more than that. This is no bomb shelter, but it was designed to withstand a direct hit.”

  “So it is a bomb shelter.” Rickman squinted at the light.

  “It’s a COG, Mr. Rickman, a ‘continuation of government’ facility. Just like the US has Mount Washington and several other places where government leaders can wait out an attack, so the Russians have theirs. This is just one such facility and was designed to harbor military leaders in the eastern part of the USSR—when there was a USSR. There are others, including one near Moscow. Those aren’t available. The Russian government doesn’t trust your government very much.”

  “The feeling’s mutual,” Rickman said.

  “Then why have they let us use this one?” the driver asked.

  “Money,” Morgan said. “It’s one reason we’ve been pouring millions into this.”

  “Well said, Mr. Morgan. You’re exactly right. The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Communist government, and the economic upheaval of the last few years have put the Russians in a financial hole. I don’t need to tell business leaders like you about the problems Greece, Italy, France, and our own country have endured when the global economy went belly-up.”

  “Cost me a fortune in stocks.” Rickman shook his head. “That’s money I’ll never see again.”

  “You’re not alone in that,” Sonya said. “When money gets tight, computer sales go in the toilet.”

  Rickman nudged Morgan. “As I recall, only oil barons made money in those early years.”

  “Yup. My mattress is stuffed with hundred dollar bills.” He let the sarcasm slip in. “We did okay. I lost a lot in the market as well, but oil held its value. I didn’t miss any meals.”

  The car pulled into a concrete tunnel that reminded him of a large pipe. The headlights cast enough sidelight for him to see the heavy foliage that concealed the entrance.

  The feel of the drive changed, and Morgan assumed they had pulled from the asphalt road.

  Balfour pointed to his left. “The road continues around the mountain. Seen from the air, it would look like any other roads weaving through the area.” A short distance into the tunnel, the car stopped.

  “You’ll want to see this.” Balfour opened his door, and Morgan did the same.

  The first thing Morgan noticed was the size of the tunnel, something he had trouble gauging from the vehicle. He estimated the tunnel to be a hundred or more feet across. It was a half tube, which meant the ceiling was at least five stories over his head. A set of track ran down the middle of the floor. He assumed it had been used to move supplies and equipment deeper into the facility. Everything looked cleaner than it should.

  The two other cars in the caravan pulled into line, and the others started to exit. Quetzal drove the third vehicle. Those in the car were laughing as they stepped onto the hard, bare floor. Apparently, he had been entertaining them.

  He walked to the front of the first car, breezing past Morgan. His baritone voice echoed off the rigid walls. “Welcome, friends. Welcome to your salvation.”

  At first, no one spoke, then Rickman—who apparently couldn’t leave any silence unmolested—said, “This? This is it? This is what I forked over millions of dollars for? A big, concrete sewer pipe?”

  For a moment, Quetzal’s smile faltered, then brightened. “Of course not, Mr. Rickman. If I were trying to swindle you, I wouldn’t have traveled all this distance to lock myself away with the people I conned. This is just the entrance. Watch.”

  He stepped up to a metal switchbox about the size of a deck of playing cards and pulled away the cover. Inside was a keypad and five small glass plates. “Anyone want to guess the code?”

  No one spoke. A few seconds later, Morgan said, “One-two-two-one-two-zero-one-two.”

  Quetzal let loose a laugh. “Right, Mr. Morgan.” He entered the code.

  Rickman looked at him. “How did you know that?”

  “Think about it.”

  Sonya huffed. “December 21, 2012.”

  “Ah. Of course.” Rickman seemed embarrassed. Maybe he was human after all.

  The moment Quetzal hit the last button, the tiny glass panes began to glow. He placed the fingers of his right hand on the sensors, one finger per pane. A moment later, a massive metal door emerged from the floor at the front threshold and continued upward until it had sealed the party inside.

  “Impressive, isn’t it
?” Quetzal pointed at where they had entered. “That blast door can withstand attack by bombs, missiles, and anything else you can imagine. Now watch.” He turned, and the back wall of the tunnel began to move, descending into the floor just as the entrance door had risen. It took two minutes for the opening to clear.

  “Now, my friends, prepare to be amazed.” Quetzal marched toward the opening.

  They crossed the threshold into which the second blast door had descended. A narrow metal sill piece covered the gap in the floor. Morgan stepped over it. The room on the other side was two to three times as wide and twice as tall as the entry tunnel. Like the entrance, the foyer was made of concrete. On the walls hung plaster reliefs, depictions of Mayan iconography and life. The art was stunning but still seemed out of place for the environment. Track lighting was mounted to the wall above the three-dimensional cast, flattering light on the surfaces. A dozen life-size figures stood on two-foot-high pedestals, each wearing Mayan ceremonial dress. Morgan could have sworn the lifelike eyes were following them.

  “Wow,” Sonya said. “Who’s your decorator?”

  “Do you like it?” Quetzal seemed pleased.

  “It’s stunning,” she said.

  Rickman grunted. “I hope our money went to better use.”

  Quetzal faced the man, his face expressionless. “The art came from my pocket, Mr. Rickman…not yours. If you’re unhappy with the way I’m running things, I can have one of the drivers take you back to the airport, and you can wait for us there. If you want to back out, now is the time to say so. Once we move on, there will be no turning around.”

  “No need.” Rickman took a step back. “I’m just a little tired—a little grumpy. It’s all very lovely. Carry on.”

  Morgan saw Sonya grinning.

  Quetzal stepped up to Rickman. For a moment, Morgan expected their host to slam a fist in the man’s face. Instead, he smiled broadly. “You’re going to love the next part.” He slipped an arm around the executive’s shoulders. “This way, my friends.”

  Quetzal took the lead again and mimicked a museum docent. “And we’re walking, walking, walking.”

  Several of the group chuckled.

  Ten steps in, the blast door behind them began to rise, and the grinding of machinery rolled through the space. Morgan saw Bal-four standing by a control panel on the wall by the door. It gave Morgan the creeps.

  They reached another door. Again, Quetzal approached another panel. This one was less complicated. The door was fifteen feet high and looked like something that should be hanging in front of a Fort Knox vault. It swung open on massive hinges with very little noise.

  Cool air rushed from the opening. High-pressure sodium overhead lights painted the next room in an eerie yellow glow. The art in this room consisted of ceremonial Mayan headdresses, each reproduced in detail and kept safe from dust in cases made of thick plastic.

  To one side was a long row of electric golf carts. Morgan counted twenty. Quetzal turned to the group. “Your chariots await. I’ll drive the lead cart. Mr. Balfour will drive the next. Any of you CEOs know how to handle a golf cart?”

  This time, the laughter was loud.

  Quetzal continued. “We have about a mile to go, and all of it is downhill. The walk down would be easy, but the return trip would be a little trying.” He slipped behind the wheel of the first cart. Morgan sat behind him. Sonya quickly took the spot next to him. Rickman chose to sit in the front with Quetzal.

  Quetzal raised a hand and motioned forward like the master of a nineteenth-century wagon train. “Tallyho!”

  “Could we have just driven in the cars?” Sonya asked Morgan.

  “Yes, but we’d be filling the space with exhaust. I’m sure the place is designed to scrub the air, but why tax the system?”

  Quetzal glanced. “Absolutely right, Mr. Morgan. In the old days, the Russians hid many things down here, including aircraft. It’s designed to exchange air on a regular basis, but we’re not running everything to speed yet. No need to for our small group.”

  “Are we the first to see this place?” Sonya asked.

  “Well, the first of our little group. We bring groups in every few days. This is the premium shelter. Less than one hundred people will wait out the destruction here. We have two years of food and water stored here. As I’ll explain to everyone later, you can live here in full comfort for a long time without ever going above ground. The severity of the catastrophe will determine how long we stay here.”

  “We?” Rickman said.

  “Yes. We. I will be with you. As you know, we have a few more of these places, but none as nice as this. We even have a sports area. There will be plenty to do.”

  “And if nothing bad happens?”

  Quetzal cut him a glance. “If you believed that, you wouldn’t be here.”

  The transit tunnel ended, giving way to a huge expanse. Quetzal exited the cart and waited for the others to do the same. He bounced on the balls of his feet like a child in front of a Christmas tree.

  The small group surrounded him. He motioned. “Welcome, my friends, to Xibalba. The next time you’re here, this area will be filled with furniture and an eating area. Think of a high-end cafeteria. Right now, you have to use your imagination.”

  He started for a hallway at the far end of the space. “For security reasons, I’ve sent the workers home. After we leave, they’ll come back. We have teams working twenty-four hours a day.” He paused. “But let me show you what you really want to see.”

  One hour later, Morgan wished he could spend a couple of hours sitting and contemplating what he had just seen. He was a difficult man to impress, but this had taken his breath away.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Morgan?” Balfour was in the front seat of the Patriot again. Morgan and Sonya sat in the back. Rickman had decided to ride back to the airport in another vehicle. No one in this car complained.

  “I’m fine. Why do ask?”

  “You seem distant.”

  The driver backed from the entrance tunnel and into the night.

  “Just thinking. I don’t do it often, so I have to be careful.”

  Balfour grinned. “I enjoy your self-deprecating humor. Do you have concerns?”

  “Just one.”

  “About what you’ve seen, or are you bothered that we will be spending the night in a hotel? It will be safe. We’ve rented all the rooms and have brought in our own staff. We need to vacate Xibalba to allow the workers back in.”

  “No, that’s not it. It’s the name.”

  Sonya perked up. “You don’t like the name? I think it has high marketability. Of course, we’re not marketing it.”

  “What bothers you about the name, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Its meaning.”

  Sonya frowned. “What’s it mean?”

  Morgan faced her. “It’s the Mayan word for the underworld. It means ‘the place of fear.’ ”

  Lisa read the text message again as she had done twenty times before.

  WANT TO SEE YOU. NEED TO SEE YOU. PLEASE COME TO OC ON FRIDAY.—M.

  Over the last sixteen months, she had visited Morgan in Oklahoma City many times. He would pay her airfare and hire a limo service to pick her up. They would spend time chatting, visiting restaurants, and had even gone bowling. Morgan was athletic, but bowling eluded him. It was the only sport she stood a chance of winning.

  She had attended professional and college basketball games, gone to movies and dinner theater, and even visited museums. When she stayed overnight, he put her up in a local Marriott. Had he invited her stay in his mansion, she would have refused. He never offered. He remained the perfect gentleman.

  On several occasions, the conversation turned to Lisa’s faith. He argued against it with logic, but he was never cruel. He never mocked her. However, her faith in Christ and his lack of it is what kept them at arm’s length.

  In her secret moments, when her mind and heart weren’t too busy lying to her, she had to admit that she was drawn to the
man. She felt this way only when she thought of him—and she thought of him constantly.

  No matter how often she wanted to give in to the attraction, it was—as the Bible put it—an unequally yoked situation, a believer tied to an unbeliever. Could they live happily in such a combination? Perhaps, but Lisa knew too many who had tried and failed.

  Morgan had told her that he’d be out of town for a few days, but he’d get in touch when he returned. He kept that promise. The text message was time-stamped 3:15 a.m. Lisa didn’t find it until she crawled from bed at 6:30.

  She went to work, reporting on the mild 2012 furor oozing over the world. Many had predicted panic in the streets, but aside from radio stations specializing in paranormal events, and an unending cascade of documentaries on cable channels, most of the world viewed the pending end with boredom.

  And why not? The world had been through this before. In 1974, the bestselling book The Jupiter Effect by Gribbin and Plagemann predicted catastrophic events caused by the rare alignment of the planets. Disastrous earthquakes along California’s San Andreas Fault were to all but destroy the state. Nothing happened. Then there was Y2K, the heralded end of all electronics as the calendar changed from 1999 to the triple-zero of 2000. Aside from a few microwave ovens that refused to operate, less than nothing happened. Of course, many said the world would forever change at the dawn of the twenty-first century. They were over a decade into the new millennium, and all remained as it was.

  She had written scores of articles on fringe groups that took the 2012 prophecies seriously, including groups that stored food and guns. Some were moving into caves and bomb shelters. Lisa had visited several such places.

  There had been an uptick in the sales of guns, dried food, cases of water, and toilet paper, but most people treated the whole matter as a curiosity, some resorting to, “Well, if it’s my time, then it’s my time.”

  Still, prophets of doom appeared by the dozens. Each claimed a special insight, a spirit guide, or an ecstatic vision. Some people purported to be able to read hidden prophecies in the Bible. Not one prophet agreed with another.