by David Wood
“I can help you,” she went on.
He secured the cuff and activated the stand-mounted electronic sphygmomanometer. For a few seconds, the only noise in the room was the low hum of the device cycling. Maria did not move or speak, knowing that doing so might affect the accuracy of the readings. When the machine finished, she took note of the results.
Her systolic was slightly higher than normal. So was her heart rate.
The young man began loosening the cuff.
“Let me help you,” she said again. “I am a physician. I can tell you what’s happening to me. I know it’s too late for me, but I can still help you find a cure. Please let me help you.”
The man still refused to look, but his subsequent movements were hesitant, as if he were fighting his own inner irresistible compulsion.
“It’s a fungal infection of some kind, isn’t it?” She kept talking, hoping that her display of cooperation might somehow reach through the barriers that separated them. “That fits most of the symptoms, but it’s unbelievably aggressive. It seems to be spread by skin-to-skin contact, but airborne transmission is also possible. I don’t think it’s contagious in the early stages. The first symptom...”
She faltered here, knowing that she was diagnosing her own terminal condition.
“The first symptom is an urge to start walking. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m fighting it right now. It’s like my brain is telling me that I really want to do it. I think the infection is interfering with dopamine receptors. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
The young man placed a thermometer in her mouth, silencing her, and once again she did not resist. After a few seconds, the device beeped, signaling that it had finished measuring her body temperature.
“I have a fever, don’t I?”
No response.
“It feels mild right now, maybe 37 degrees... About 100 degrees Fahrenheit,” she amended. If he was American, he probably wouldn’t know Celsius temperatures. “Are my eyes bloodshot? I think capillary leakage is an early symptom, too. In a few hours, I’ll develop petechiae. It spreads through contact with infected blood, and maybe other bodily fluids. Aerosolized blood from coughing. After a while, I won’t be lucid anymore.”
The young man put away the diagnostic machine and turned to leave.
“Please,” she said again. “Let me help.”
The man disconnected his air supply and reached for the door, but before he hit the button to open it, he turned and faced her. His lips moved but she heard no sounds at first. Then he took a breath, and spoke again more forcefully. “Doug. My name is Doug. I’m so sorry, Maria.”
Then, he turned away quickly, opened the door and left without looking back.
Doug Simpson lingered under the disinfectant shower, as if the harsh chemicals might somehow burn away the guilt he felt. The suit kept the solution from making contact with his skin, just as it kept the microbes in the patient rooms at bay, but it offered scant protection from the pain of watching another person die.
The shower was part of the multi-layered Bio-Safety protocol designed to keep infectious agents from escaping the lab and spreading to the outside world, yet despite such precautions, on more than one occasion, deadly pathogens had made it out of even the most capable BSL IV facilities. Because this was a privately operated lab, operating without oversight from any government, additional layers of protection had been put in place, including a fail-safe that would sanitize the entire facility in the event of a containment breach—something as simple as attempting to leave the airlock before the disinfectant shower finished its cycle.
After five minutes, the flow of chemicals switched to pure distilled water, which sluiced away all traces of the caustic disinfectants. The pressure of the shower pushed his clammy skin against the inside of the suit, chilling him.
What am I even doing here? he thought. I’m not going to be able to help Maria or any of them.
Several more patients had died, and those few from the village who had been exposed but were asymptomatic—like Maria—were now exhibiting the first signs of infection. Bloodshot eyes, fever, and that weird compulsion to move.
Maria had been partially right about that. Somehow, the disease hijacked the central nervous system, making infected victims start walking. It was probably some evolutionary adaptation to spread the pathogen. He knew of a similar example in nature—Ophiocordyceps unilateralis—the so-called “zombie fungus” which caused infected ants to immediately climb up the nearest tree and bite down on a leaf with a death-grip until actual death occurred, whereupon the fungus would reach maturity inside the ant’s carcass and scatter spores on the forest floor below.
The thought of what would soon happen to Maria made him want to throw up. She was in the control group, which meant that, even if, through some miracle, they found the right combination of therapies to cure the afflicted patients, Maria would not be spared. When—if—such a cure was found, she would be too far gone to save.
The patients belonged in a real hospital, USAMRIID in Reston, Virginia, or maybe a CDC facility, not here, in a privately operated facility owned by a biotech outfit. What Alex had him doing was insane. It was profoundly unethical.
Worse, it was probably criminal.
He knew his boss’s reputation for putting profits ahead of everything else, even basic humanity. Alex was impetuous, hot-tempered, vindictive, like his legendary father in many ways, and utterly without compassion. He had rushed into the hot zone and brought the infected patients here to this mobile BSL IV facility, not so that he could save their lives, but so that, when a treatment was finally discovered, he and he alone would control it. If the contagion ever got out into the open, the governments of the world would be forced to pay whatever exorbitant price he set for that cure.
Alex called it capitalism in action, and Simpson had tried to convince himself that he was right, but no amount of money would take away the shame he now felt.
He marched back to his office, wondering who to call first. The CDC? Or the FBI?
Who even has jurisdiction out here?
The light in the airlock went from red to ordinary white, signaling that it was safe to exit, but as he opened the door, a chill shot through him. Alex was there, sitting behind a disused desk across from the suit storage area, with his feet propped up on the desktop.
“Doug. Took your sweet time.”
Simpson gaped for a moment, then finally nodded. “I was just...with the patients. Er...subjects.”
“I figured as much. I took the liberty of reviewing the data you’ve collected so far. I have to say, I’m not altogether happy with the results. This should have been a cakewalk.”
Simpson sucked in a breath. “Mister...Alex...I think we’re going about this the wrong way.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed into cold reptilian slits. “Is that what you think?”
“I just mean...we...there are other agencies, with resources we don’t have. We should turn this over to someone else. I know what you’re going to say. That there’s no profit in doing things that way, but...” Simpson shook his head miserably. “Some things are more important than money.”
Alex brought his feet off the desk, planting them on the ground with the suddenness of a gunshot. He pointed a finger at Simpson. “Exactly. I can see you’re a man after my own heart, Doug. Maybe it’s time I let you in on a little project I’ve been working on. I call it ‘Shadow and Light.’ And it’s going to change the world.”
CHAPTER 17
Maddock shone his light into the dark recess. The stone blocks framing the opening had been partially forced out of place by plant roots, but in an ironic twist the vegetation seemed to be the only thing preventing the structure from crumbling completely into ruin. Beyond the opening, he could see irregular stone steps descending into inky darkness.
“I thought the steps on pyramids were supposed to go up,” Bones observed.
“It’s the City of Shadow,” Bell said, as if that ou
ght to explain everything. “The Underworld lies below.”
“Normal rules don’t apply,” added Angel.
Bones just grunted.
“You really think this is the entrance to Xibalba?” Maddock asked.
“That’s what my research indicates, though you must bear in mind that the legends are not to be taken literally. ‘Xibalba’ may be nothing more than a sacred crypt or a tomb containing the men who were revered as the Lords of Xibalba.” Bell was downplaying the find, but Maddock guessed he was hoping for a lot more than just an old crypt.
“Odds are,” Maddock said, “all we’re going to find is a flooded passage. If we’re lucky.”
“And if we’re not?”
“A cave in.” He shrugged. “Only one way to know for sure, though. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to convince all of you to stay up here while Bones and I check it out.”
He half-hoped that Angel would take him up on the offer. Surely, tagging along with him in dark musty caves had lost any appeal it might once have held for her. And if Angel stayed back, maybe Miranda would be persuaded as well. But he knew Bell would not be left behind, not while the exploration required no technical expertise, and where Bell went, his daughter would surely follow.
“No? Okay, then. Ground rules. Don’t follow too close. Watch your step but be observant at all times. If I tell you to freeze, or to turn around and run for the top, do it, no questions.”
After receiving a round of nods, he started forward, sweeping back and forth with his light as he stepped beneath the misshaped lintel.
The air inside the descending shaft was markedly cooler, and the air did not smell quite as bad as the conditions would have led Maddock to expect. There was only a faint earthy aroma, not the expected reek of decay. He took that as a hopeful sign that the shaft was neither flooded nor a den for bats or other jungle creatures. After just a few steps, the intrusion of roots and other plant life abated, revealing solid uncracked masonry with no deformity. The shaft was wide enough for them to walk two abreast, so Maddock brought Bell forward to walk beside him, letting Angel and Miranda follow, with Bones bringing up the rear. The flashlights reliably illuminated an area about ten yards ahead of them, revealing damp stone steps, but nothing else noteworthy.
Maddock knew they had to be well below the level of the local water table, which meant the builders of the pyramid had engineered some method to keep the subterranean chamber more or less dry. He was about to ask Bell about this when he realized the archaeologist was softly counting the steps.
He distinctly heard the other man say, “Forty-seven.”
Forty-seven steps, each one about eight inches high. That rounded to about thirty-two feet.
“No creepy-crawlies yet,” Bones said. “That’s a good sign.”
“If you jinx us,” Angel warned. “I’ll toss you down these steps. Swear to God.”
“Hmm. You could turn it into a game. Bowling for Maddock.”
“Guys,” Maddock murmured. “Trying to work here.”
Bell ticked through the fifties, then the sixties. Below step sixty-five, the walls simply ended, and where they had been, there was only open space—and impenetrable blackness. Maddock sensed they were approaching the end of the descent, and sure enough, by the time they got to step number eighty, he could just make out the flat bottom of the shaft about a dozen steps away.
“Ninety-one steps,” Bell said. “Just like at Chichén Itzá . There are probably three more staircases just like this one, each from a different cardinal direction, all meeting here. Counting the floor, three hundred and sixty-five, just like the days of the year.”
Maddock aimed his light to the side but it was too dark to confirm the hypothesis. He could however make out the floor, which consisted of elaborately decorated stone blocks, each one a good six feet across. It took him a moment to register that the shadowy lines in the blocks were not merely relief carvings but deep holes cut completely through the stone.
“That explains where all the water goes,” Bell said, shining his own light down at the block directly before them. “The entire floor of this chamber is an enormous drain, conducting seepage and rainwater away.”
“One mystery solved,” Maddock agreed, though that explanation seemed incomplete. “But where does the water go after that?”
“Maybe this isn’t actually the bottom,” Miranda suggested. “Maybe we have to keep going.”
Maddock played his light on the floor at the base of the stairs, paying particular attention to where the blocks joined together. “Think it’s safe to walk on?”
“Better have Bones go first,” Angel said.
“Fine by me,” Bones said, pushing past his sister. “I’m sick of looking at your fat behind anyway.”
“Right,” Miranda said with undisguised sarcasm. “Like it’s her you’ve been checking out.”
Bones grinned at her. “You just might fit in here.” He stepped off the staircase without hesitation, solidly planting one foot, then the other, on the elaborately decorated floor.
Maddock cringed, half-expecting the floor to collapse or spikes to shoot up through the holes in the blocks, but nothing of the sort happened. “Looks safe enough,” he said, advancing tentatively to stand beside Bones. “But watch your step all the same.”
“Look,” Bell said, venturing out across the floor, seemingly heedless of the warning. He was shining his light on an enormous stone sculpture occupying the exact center of the chamber.
Maddock aimed his own light at the carving, a familiar reptilian head, its jaws agape, facing the staircase to their right. “It looks just like the statue at Chichén Itzá . The one at the base of El Castillo.” He checked his orientation and then turned so he was facing the same direction as the carving. “We came in from the west, which means the statue is facing south.”
“Interesting,” Bell said. “The figure at El Castillo faces west, but thus far, south has consistently been the dominant cardinal direction.” He clapped his hands together. “The guidestone indicated we would find the entrance to the Underworld at the Serpent’s Maw. It would appear that was to be taken quite literally.”
Maddock approached the statue for a closer look. The space between the jaws was easily large enough for him to stand inside it, which was almost certainly intentional. At the back of the carved mouth was a shadowy opening, about two feet in diameter. The hole angled downward and appeared to keep going, beyond the reach of Maddock’s light. “I guess that means we have to go through there.”
Bones put his hands on his hips. “Look, I’m all for sticking my big nose where it doesn’t belong, but I feel like someone needs to point out the obvious. The Underworld is the afterlife—the place you go after life. The Maya practiced human sacrifice. So...and bear with me here... maybe we should think this through. You know, before we let ourselves be swallowed by the Hellmouth.”
“He’s right,” Miranda said.
Maddock stared at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Miranda to somehow twist Bones’ wariness into a mean-spirited jab, but to his astonishment, she did not. “Dad, we’ve found the City of Shadow. You were right and everyone else was wrong. The discovery is the important thing. So, let’s head back to civilization, and let the world know what you’ve found. We don’t need to take any more risks.”
Bell shook his head. “I can’t leave without knowing what’s down there.”
“I agree,” Maddock said before Miranda could argue. “Kasey’s not going to be back until tomorrow morning. And I think I know a way for us to look before we leap.”
Five minutes later, they were gathered around Bell’s tablet computer, watching the live video feed from Miranda’s GoPro. The camera was no longer strapped to her forehead, but was instead sliding down the carved serpent’s throat, taped to the end of one of the climbing ropes, along with one of their flashlights. Bones was paying out the line slowly.
The shaft turned vertical after just a few feet, then without warni
ng, the screen went black.
“Lost the wi-fi signal,” Miranda said.
“I don’t think so,” Maddock said, pointing at the signal strength indicator. “The reason we can’t see anything is that there isn’t anything to see. There’s another open chamber underneath us, but the light isn’t powerful enough. Bones, how far in are we?”
“About ten feet.”
Bones continued feeding the rope into the serpent’s maw, measuring progress in one-foot increments. Maddock kept his eye on the wi-fi signal indicator. The deeper the camera went, the fainter the signal became until, at about twenty feet, it failed altogether.
“Keep going,” Maddock said.
Bones nodded, but after just a few seconds, he stopped. “Feels like we just hit bottom. Twenty-four feet.”
He reeled in the line without difficulty. Both camera and light were functioning normally and showed no signs of damage, but the playback revealed little that they had not already seen. The only difference was at the end of the camera’s downward journey when the flashlight shone upon the floor of the hidden chamber. The beam was reflected back in dozens of tiny pinpoints, as if the floor was covered with broken glass.
“There’s something down there,” Miranda said, running the feed back for another look. “Can’t tell what it is though.”
“It looks safe enough,” Maddock said. “I’ll go down for a better look.”
With the rope secured to his field-expedient Swiss seat climbing harness, Maddock lowered himself into the serpent’s throat feet first while Bones anchored the line from above.
“Oof,” Bones grunted, exaggerating his effort. “I don’t want to hear any more crap about my weight.”
“Muscle weighs more than fat,” Maddock said, playing along, but his voice sounded weird in the close confines of the passage, ruining his attempt to keep the mood light.
After a few seconds of descending, he dropped out of the shaft and found himself dangling in mid-air, about twenty feet above the floor of the lower chamber. The room was at least as big as the upper chamber, the walls beyond the reach of his light, but he could easily make out the floor below. It was decorated with elaborate carved patterns, just like the holes cut in the stone floor above except these holes were not empty, but filled with something that reflected back the flashlight beam in a weird interplay of light and shadow, like asphalt encrusted with diamonds. The only undecorated area was a four-foot square directly below him.
