The Serpent Passage

by Todd Allen Pitts

  THE SERPENT PASSAGE

  Copyright © 2011 by Todd Allen Pitts

  First Paperback Edition: June 2011

  First eBook Edition: June 2011

  Cover art copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Ruyle

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906575

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Serpent Publishing

  Colorado Springs, CO

  www.serpentpublishing.com

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  {1. Science Fiction. 2. Ancient Maya – Fiction. 3. Time travel – Fiction. 4. Schools – Science Fiction}

  ISBN-13: 978-1456572570

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-4392-8411-7

  Summary: William and Betty find a strange passage in the Yucatán that sends them a thousand years into the past, where they become entangled in conflicts between ancient Mayan kingdoms, and encounter Mayan gods, demons, and extraterrestrials.

  Printed in the United States of America

  MAP OF THE

  ANCIENT MAYA

  Dedicated to the people of the Maya,

  whose incredible achievements

  of the past inspired this novel.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  William bolted from his chair, knocking over his soda as he rushed to the bamboo railing, hoping she would be right there, just out of sight near the water’s edge. “Where the hell did she go?” he muttered, his eyes wide with disbelief, darting from left to right, scanning the entire lake and adjoining restaurant. A hot middle-aged woman with stringy-blonde hair, wearing a bright yellow shirt, shouldn’t be too hard to spot, he thought.

  His activities drew the attention of a chubby waiter with a thin mustache, who noticed the mess he had just made. “Otra cola, friend?” he asked in his broken English, shuffling toward the thatched canopy table near the lake.

  William waved the waiter his way in an erratic manner, as if he was swatting at a bee. “Hey, you know that lady I was just talking to?”

  “Lady? Oh sure, es Betty,” he said quite matter-offactly, while wiping the table with his rag.

  “Did you see her leave?”

  The waiter rolled his eyes, not quite understanding. “Swim here casi every day, esta Betty.”

  “Did you see her get out?” he asked, articulating his words as clearly as he could. He shot his attention over to the railing again, staring at the spot where he had last seen her, dog-paddling in the cool waters of the cenote.

  “She come—she go,” the waiter said. “Sometime swim for hours—strong as a cocodrilo, esta Betty… pero never buying nothing. Nothing!”

  “But she was right there, maybe ten feet from the shore,” he said, pointing at the lake. “I looked away for only a couple seconds—to put some salsa on a chip—and when I looked back… she was gone. I mean nobody can swim that fast!”

  With a glazed expression the waiter processed William’s quick dialogue, seeming to grasp for the few words he could pick out. He noticed the plate of soggy chips, ruined by his spilled drink. “Ah, entonces… mas nachos?” the waiter asked.

  “Look dude, I think… Betty… may have drowned out there! That’s what I’m trying to say. Do you understand me?” he asked, throwing his hands up. But the waiter’s blank expression confirmed that he wasn’t getting it, and so he tried in his second language. “Creo que Betty puede haber ahogado. Entiende usted?”

  The waiter’s face lit up, looking surprised to hear William—a tall American teenager—speaking such fluent Spanish. “Ah, entiendo. Pero, don’t you worry, my friend. She here somewhere… or con su esposo. Relax… enjoy la musica. I get you mas nachos,” he said with a broad grin, chuckling as he toddled off.

  William slumped into his chair with a scowl on his face, annoyed to not be taken seriously. He shrugged and let out a heavy sigh, deciding to assume that Betty had finished her swim, slipped out unnoticed somehow, and was long gone. He brushed it off and tried to forget about her. Besides, he should be thinking about his girlfriend, he scolded himself, not some random lady.

  He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket and glared at it, wondering why his girlfriend hadn’t returned his recent text messages. So he decided to send her a video instead. With his arm extended, he aimed the back of his BlackBerry his way and began recording. “Hey Jen,” he said with a forced smile. “I’m just hanging out here at this lake… the Cenote Azul. I wish you could be here with me, but since you can’t, I thought I’d send the lake to you. Here, have a look.” His video continued with a pan across the cenote, settling on some Mexican children swimming near the shore. He watched through the tiny screen of his phone as they jumped off the rocky ledges into the water with big splashes, filling the air with laughter. Near the kids, William noticed an old American fellow scanning the lake; his squinting eyes accentuated the wrinkles on his face. He seemed to be shouting for someone, but between the noise from the children and trumpets from the Mariachi band by the bar, William couldn’t hear his words. He rolled his thumb along the trackball to zoom in on the man’s face, trying to read his lips.

  The BlackBerry dropped with a clank to the table as William sprang from his chair. He charged toward the old man, startling him by his sudden approach. “Were you calling for Betty?” William asked.

  “Yes…” the man said, cocking his head like he was trying to remember if he knew William from somewhere. “I’m looking for my wife. Have you…”

  “Oh crap!” William blurted. Without hesitation, he grabbed a mask that a kid had left on the rocks, pulled it over his face, and kicked off his sandals. With two large strides he plunged in with a giant splash. As he swam a few strokes to the spot where he had last seen Betty, he heard the old man continuing to call out for her, in a more worried tone than before. While taking a deep breath, William caught sight of a small crowd forming near the shore, drawn to the commotion. He plunged head first into the cenote and kicked his way down.

  Nearly a minute later, William resurfaced, gasped for air, and made his way to the shore. He staggered from the water and threw the mask to the ground. “My God,” he said, trying to catch his breath, “she’s down there… I can see her yellow shirt!”

  The waiter rushed over with a fake smile. “No pasa nada… no pasa nada,” he said, trying to calm the crowd. He snapped his fingers several times, signaling the Mariachis to pick up their tempo. With the speed of a track change on a CD, they shifted gears and began singing an upbeat tune. The patrons returned to their seats, enjoying the ambiance and their private conversations. Those who remained were gawking at William, obviously wondering what he was so upset about.

  “But she’s too deep!” William said. He dropped to his hands and knees, coughing, “Sixty—maybe seventy feet. I couldn’t rea
ch her.”

  Betty’s husband shot a glaring look at the waiter beside him. “Well, call for help God damn it!” He slapped the waiter hard on the back, drawing even more onlookers.

  The waiter sprang to attention. “Yes—yes—I try… pero, it take time for help to come,” he said, and ran off to the back of the restaurant.

  The Mariachi music fizzled out, for the band had also become distracted by the scene, and they joined the crowd with their instruments still in hand.

  With his strength returning, William jumped to his feet—his eyes wide with revelation. He glanced at his watch. “There’s still time,” he said to Betty’s husband. William gave him a reassuring nod and ran off.

  Sprinting up the stairway to the restaurant’s exit, William wondered how long she had been under. Five minutes? Perhaps six? Could she still be revived? His father had told him of cases like that—of people being brought back long after drowning.

  As he reached the top of the stairway, William passed by a very old Mayan man with milky-white eyes, tapping his cane along the steps, making his way down to the cenote. The blind man paused, the way a deer does when it hears a hunter approaching, and he followed William with his ears as he ran by.

  William had his keys in hand when he arrived at his car. He popped open the trunk and yanked out his scuba tank; it was still attached to the buoyancy vest. He flung another dive bag over his shoulder, grabbed a mess of tubes, and hustled back to the restaurant, leaving the keys still dangling from the opened trunk. Fumbling with his equipment as he went, he connected the first stage of the regulator to the tank valve and snapped the low pressure inflator hose onto the vest. He twisted the tank valve open; the pressurized air made a hissing noise as it flooded the tubes. At the top of the steps he dropped the dive bag from his shoulder, slipped the vest and tank over his back in a sweeping motion, picked up the bag again, and kept going. A quick check of his watch revealed that another minute had passed.

  Halfway down the steps, the blind Mayan stepped out and grabbed William’s wrist with surprising strength for a man of his years. The Mayan’s stare was blank—his glazed white eyes not quite aimed in the right direction. “Tu'ux ka biin?” he asked in Yucatec-Maya.

  William paused, his eyes darting while his brain scrambled to switch languages. “To the lake,” he said, tugging to free his arm. “I’m going to the lake.”

  The old Mayan wrenched at his arm, urging him back up the steps, with fear in his voice. William could barely make out what the man was saying—something about the cenote being hungry? He wasn’t making sense. Yet there was no time to figure out what the crazed man wanted. Yucatec-Maya was a language William required at a slower pace, but he couldn’t waste another second. “Let me go! K’ p’aat in biin!” William said, prying the bony fingers from his arm and pushing the man aside.

  The blind Mayan stumbled, but regained his balance by grabbing hold of the stairway railing. “Bik xi’ikech! Bik xi’ikech!” he said, begging William to return.

  Everyone in the restaurant spoke in hushed tones, gawking at William with big eyes as he raced by, his gauges and tubes clanging against the tank on his back. His six-foot-two frame plowed through clusters of people on his way to the cenote. He bumped over a few empty chairs while he focused on getting his mask and fins out from the dive bag he carried.

  Betty’s husband watched William with a renewed sense of hope in his eyes.

  A thin man wearing a suit stepped in front of William, raising his hands in a halting gesture, blocking the path to the lake. “Help is on the way. We must wait. I have told you before that you cannot dive from the restaurant,” he said, his voice cracking when William’s large stature overshadowed him.

  “Get out of my way!” William said, barging past the restaurant manager. He pulled on his mask, shot some air through the regulator with a couple taps on the purge valve, and bit down on the mouthpiece.

  “Diving is not permitted,” the manager said, pointing to a faded sign nailed to a tree to reaffirm his declaration.

  Ignoring the manager, William took a few last steps and plunged into the cenote. He could hear the crowd cheering in a rowdy manner. While positioning his deflator hose over his head, he saw the manager stomp his foot and storm off, jerking a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He knew he would be in some kind of trouble when he came out of the water.

  William released the air from his vest and pulled his fins on. While sinking beneath the surface, he flipped over and kicked his way down to accelerate his descent. He surveyed the area beneath him and spotted Betty caught in some branches along the edge of the cenote. William shivered from the chilly water; it became colder the deeper he went. He cracked his jaw every few feet to equalize the pressure in his ears—deeper and deeper—zoning in on the yellow of Betty’s shirt, a color that stood out like the moon in the night sky, amidst the dark shades at those depths.

  The increased atmospheric pressure forced a large belch from his lungs in the form of bubbles that made their way back to the surface; William regretted drinking so much soda just before.

  Upon nearing Betty, it looked like her arms and legs were greenish-brown. He realized that it was only her shirt that he had seen from above. The rest of her… wasn’t there. William deduced that the snarl of branches had ripped off her shirt when she sank.

  He pulled Betty’s shirt loose, stirring up a cloud of decayed particles all around him, and he tucked it into a pocket on his vest. After detaching a small flashlight from a clip on his buoyancy vest, he beamed the light in all directions, hoping to spot her body nearby. However, he only found a school of tiny fish attracted to the light. He aimed his flashlight into the depths of the cenote, unable to see the bottom. No way would he risk descending any deeper just to find the body of a dead woman. Yet William felt terrible that he would have to return to the surface with nothing more than Betty’s shirt. So he remained at the same depth, surveying an area of about fifty feet in either direction, lighting up the algae-covered branches and roots with his flashlight.

  Had he retrieved her immediately, there may have been time for resuscitation. Now it was hopeless—too much time had elapsed. He decided to begin his ascent, but paused when he noticed how the sediment drifted to the center of the cenote. While watching the clumps of muck moving away from him, he discovered that he too had drifted away from the cenote’s edge. He wondered how such a strong current could be in a cenote. It occurred to him that Betty’s body had likely floated off in the same direction.

  William checked his pressure gauge—just over eleven hundred pounds; still plenty of air for a final search. He shot a burst of air into his vest to adjust his buoyancy and allowed himself to be carried by the drift. He scanned the area with his flashlight, expecting to be startled any moment by the sudden vision of a dead woman hovering before him.

  The current intensified as he went along, reminding him of his drift dives off the shores of Cancún with his dad the year before. Tears formed in his eyes as images of his father flooded past. He still missed him so much. William grimaced, remembering the time he promised his dad that he would never dive alone. His mom was going to be so angry with him. For sure she would find out about his diving stunt from that restaurant manager. He shook his head, wondering what kind of punishment he would be facing.

  William began kicking his way to the surface, but he couldn’t break free from the current. He repositioned himself and kicked in the opposite direction to slow his progress. An image began to take shape ahead amidst the dark-blue of the cenote. He could not believe his eyes, and he cleared his mask to make sure his vision wasn’t obscured in some way. With long powerful strokes, he kicked hard to maintain distance from it. Ahead of him, a gigantic frothy whirlpool swayed from side to side, occasionally reaching closer to the surface, sucking down anything in its path. He watched in amazement as a large tree trunk slipped down the funnel.

  The blind Mayan’s words snapped into place in his mind—something about the cenote
being hungry—that it needed to eat. A shot of adrenaline raced through William’s veins. That’s what had pulled Betty under! He kicked with his fins to back away, but the suction still held him. He pressed the low pressure inflator button, filling his buoyancy vest to capacity, feeling it tighten around his chest. Trying to break free, he kicked with the force of a seal running from a great white shark. Yet he continued to descend.

  The whirlpool had him—snared him in a tornado of bubbles. He couldn’t tell up from down, but felt himself spinning to the center of the whirlpool. His stomach rose with the sensation of falling. Darkness enveloped him. He plunged down into the depths and lost consciousness.

  William snapped awake, coughing from the water that he had swallowed. The sharp pain behind his eyes explained the clouded view from his mask; his sinuses had burst during the rapid descent. He tipped up the edge of the mask to flood and clear it, but no water entered. A steady breeze drifted across his face, so he pulled his mask down and wiped the water and blood from his eyes. Although he had dropped his flashlight somewhere along the journey, the green florescent algae that clung to the slippery rocks provided a little light for William to see his surroundings—a narrow underground river propelling him along.

  The darkness consumed him as the tunnel twisted and turned. The river veered to the right, slamming him hard against the wall, popping the regulator from his mouth. William grasped and clawed at the sides of the tunnel, but the walls were too smooth and his fingers slipped off the slimy algae. With no other recourse, he gave in to the ride.

  The sounds of crashing water intensified just as the source of the noise became apparent. William slipped off the top of a waterfall, falling feet-first, with a big splash into an underground cenote. Resurfacing a moment later due to his inflated vest, he paddled to the shore like a half-dead dog. Upon reaching a rocky beach, he dragged his battered body out, grunting and moaning all the way. He unbuckled his scuba equipment and allowed it to fall to the ground with a loud ‘clunk’ that echoed through the cavern around him.