Saint Death

by Devan Sagliani

  Not knowing who else to turn to, he confided his utter heartbreak to Dave who, while being supportive and sympathetic, seemed elated to have an excuse to go out on the prowl with his best buddy. Within twenty-four hours Dave had rented them rooms at an all-inclusive resort in Cabo and booked the plane tickets. He'd been pointing out girls he thought might help Zack forget his girl troubles since the limo dropped them off at their terminal in LAX, insisting that the best way to forget Lily and move on was to hook up with the first hot chick he could find. Zack wasn't so sure. His head wasn't right and he questioned his judgment along with his taste in women after what had happened. After all, he'd felt like something was off but he'd let things go on anyway, hoping they'd sort themselves out in time. Now he knew he couldn't trust himself when it came to matters of the heart. He was surprised to realize, awful as she'd turned out to be, that Lily was the first woman he'd ever really loved.

  “Don’t look now but I think you've made an impression on someone,” Dave snickered. Zack glanced back over his seat. There was a pretty blonde girl with dreamy emerald eyes and a tight Delta Nu pledge week shirt on staring in their direction from the front of coach. Zack quickly ducked back down in his plush chair.

  “Well?” Dave prodded. “What do you think?”

  “She's cute I guess,” Zack shrugged.

  “Cute? Are you out of your fucking mind? That chick is a smoking hottie on every level. Did you see the shirt she's wearing? She's a sorority girl. You know what that means don't you?”

  “No Dave,” Zack said feeling annoyed. “You're the high school drop-out. Why don't you tell me what it means?”

  “It means that if you hadn't been so busy pouting and sleeping through the entire flight you might have already joined the mile high club with her,” Dave insisted, ignoring the petty jab. “She must have walked past you about five times since you passed out. It was like she wanted to be the first thing you saw when you woke up.”

  “So what? That doesn't mean anything,” Zack said, hoping to bring the conversation to an end.

  “Um yes it does,” Dave brayed. “You may not know this, being relatively poor and all, but ever since 9/11 passengers aren't supposed to leave their area of the plane. They say it's for security reasons but it's really just so rich folks like me don't have to share a toilet with poor commoners like you. Your girl keeps finding excuses to use the first class bathroom. That's no accident bro. She's practically begging for it.”

  “I'll give you this. You've got a wild imagination,” Zack said. “You think every chick wants it.”

  “That's because they do,” Dave assured him. “They just don't want to look like sluts to their friends. That's why they wait until they are on vacation to show their true colors. Down in Mexico on some exotic beach no one has to know what a ho they really are. They can get as wild as they want and pretend it never happened. You wait and see my uptight friend. You're about to put a lot of new stamps on your pussy passport.”

  Zack cringed at his friend’s crassness. Phrases like 'pussy passport' and 'dildo holster' had become common for Dave after his father’s passing. Zack wondered if Dave even realized how off-putting they were, or how much he was becoming like his old man.

  It’s like all the qualities that he hated about his father are starting to slowly work their way into his new persona, Zack realized with a touch of sadness. Almost like he’s subconsciously turning into him now that he’s gone. I just wish he’d be like he used to be back when we were kids playing in the streets until the lights came on, except on Wednesdays.

  “You said this vacation was just about blowing off steam,” Zack argued, growing annoyed. “You said I didn't have to think about hooking up, that we were just going to get wasted and have some fun.”

  “I said that I would help you forget about Lily,” Dave fired back. “I didn't say anything about not getting laid. In fact the best thing that could happen would be for you to hook up with someone as fast as you can. That's the only way to get her out of your system man. Jesus fucking Christ. How many times do I have to tell you that before it sinks in?”

  Zack grimaced. He knew Dave was just trying to help but once again he was taking things too far. It was Dave's way, and had been since his dad had moved out.

  “Okay man I get it,” Zack relented. “Just take it easy on me man.”

  “I don't think you do,” Dave started but, to Zack's relief, the flight attendant cut him off before he could get any more wound up.

  “Sir please fasten your seatbelt,” the man said with a polite smile. “We're about to land.”

  Zack looked out the window as the plane began its final descent, passing through the marine layer of coastal fog and headed towards a long, semi-paved runway below. He closed his eyes, trying his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest, and waited patiently to feel the tug of the wheels as they connected with ground below.

  Chapter Three

  When she had come to Alexis found herself lying on a cold dirt floor inside a makeshift cell at the back of the old barn. There were iron bars caging her in. Her vision was blurred and her head hurt when she moved. Above her, in the center of the barn, looped over a large wooden beam, was a single light bulb. It dimly glowed, casting pale yellow rays down over the darkened interior of the barn like a blurry smear. In the distance she could still hear the sound of drums and chanting. The grisly festivities were underway, and Alexis feared it wouldn't be long before the people who had locked her and Christie up came for them. Her face throbbed. Her lips felt painfully swollen and puffy, as did the skin around both of her eyes. She reached up to gingerly touch the tender flesh around her lips and mouth, gasping and pulling her hand back as much out of fear as from pain. She looked around to see there were several other cells, and Christie was face down in one of them. She tried calling to her.

  “Christie! Christie! Are you okay?”

  For a moment she wondered if her friend was dead, if perhaps they had already done whatever horrible things to her they'd been planning while Alexis was passed out, but then Christie let out a low moan and rolled over on her back. Her shirt was torn open and her breasts were exposed. She had a bright shiner ringing her eye, but not nearly the extent of damage Alexis was sure she now had on her face.

  “Christie! Wake up!”

  Christie tried to sit up but slumped over. She looked drugged and confused as she involuntarily made dirt angels, flapping her arms as she writhed on her back. An incomprehensible jumble of words issued from her pretty lips, like sticky vowel sounds drenched in gummy molasses.

  “Dwheeryaamhiiiennjwhyyycanthife-fe-fe-filmuh-muh-leggzz?”

  “I don't know what they gave us,” Alexis croaked, her throaty feeling dry and raw. “But you're way more fucked up than I am and not making any sense. We're going to get out of here. I promise you. And we're going to make these fuckers pay for what they did. If it is the last thing I ever do we're going to make them pay.”

  “None of us are getting out of here alive,” a strange man's voice said to the right of her. Alexis turned to see a shaggy haired hippie-type two cells over. He was around their age, but his sullen amber eyes suggested the cynical heart of a much older man.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I've been here for almost two days,” the stranger said flatly. “And in that time the only people that have left have been carried out kicking and screaming by dark-skinned men with guns and knives. They don't return but you can hear them shrieking in the distance if you listen closely.”

  “St-st-stop it Francois,” a girl’s voice shakily said.

  “Why, Karen?” Francois turned and leered at a girl in the cell nearest him. She was slightly younger than Alexis, with long brown hair and bright blue eyes. “It's the truth. I've come to accept it. You should too.”

  “What is this place?” Alexis asked. “Who are you people?”

  “This place is hell,” Francois said. “Or at least the mouth of it. I suspect we won't fu
lly understand it before we're taken back outside and butchered like mindless animals.”

  “How is this possible?” Alexis cried in anger. “They can't just kidnap tourists and get away with it. Someone is going to come looking for us.”

  “Who?” Francois asked, an ironic smile creasing his grimy face. “Does anyone else besides your drugged friend there know where you are right now? Somehow I doubt it.”

  Alexis gulped as the sinking feeling returned to the pit of her stomach.

  “We were at a bar,” Alexis said. “They told us there was a rave party going all night.”

  “And you just left with them,” Francois said matter-of-factly. “You never stopped to think about what might happen. You just assumed no one would ever dare harm an orange hair on your pretty little head because you're an American. Typical.”

  “Okay wise ass,” Alexis said, feeling her blood rising in her face at his casual insults and at the same time oddly complimented by the fact he'd referred to her as pretty. “What's your excuse? Why are you and your friends here?”

  “These aren't my friends,” Francois laughed. “I know them as well as I know you. We're nothing more than victims of the same unfortunate circumstance, fools lured into the web by our less than gracious hosts. We'll all end up in a mass grave together, or be dissolved in barrels full of chemicals like pozolé. That's all we have in common. That and the fact we all wandered off the path of safety at some point like fucking childish idiots.”

  “Stop avoiding the question,” Alexis pressed on, her anger giving her new energy. It was quiet for a moment as she waited for a response. She could hear several people rustling around in their cages, silently listening to their conversation.

  “Same as you,” Francois said at last, his words like a pitiful confession. “I met a gorgeous local girl down at The Office, you know the bar on the beach? She told me her girlfriend had always wanted to have a three-way with a guy with a French accent. How could I resist? It's funny. When I told my family I was going to America to study they were sure I'd get shot. That's all you ever hear about America. Everyone has a gun. Who would have thought I'd die in Mexico on Spring Break instead?”

  “Maybe someone else saw you leave with her,” Alexis said, an edge of new hope creeping into her voice. “Did she drive you up here or did you take your own car?”

  “Neither,” Francois said. “She gave me some ecstasy, to 'enhance the experience' she said. At least I thought that's what it was, but a few minutes later I passed out instead. When I woke up my arms were bound and I was being led to this barn by a tall man with bad tattoos and worse breath. I could hear the sound of a woman screaming but I couldn't see why. I know now. I wish I didn't.”

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “My guess is that they are a religious cult,” Francois shrugged. “What else can it be? They kidnap college kids and sell them as sacrificial offerings to drug lords looking for some kind of supernatural protection, like black magic. It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened. There was a case with a premed student from Florida several years back as well in Mexico City. They took him right out in front of a bar in broad daylight. Mexican authorities later found his butchered corpse along with fourteen other chopped up human corpses on a ranch not unlike this one, although in that case the cult leader was killed by police in a hail of bullets.”

  Images of the girl being murdered when they arrived flashed through Alexis's mind, but she forced them out as quickly as she could. Still her stomach churned as a wave of nausea overtook her.

  “Devil worship?” Alexis shook her head in disbelief. “Is that what this is? Some kind of primitive Satanic cult?”

  “Not in their eyes,” Francois said. “Judging by the bride of death altar they've got out front and the way they're praying and making offerings to it I'd say it's Santa Muerte they are worshipping.”

  “Who?” asked Alexis.

  “Saint Death,” Francois said dourly. “Didn't you see the statue out front? It's the skeleton of a woman dressed up in a wedding gown, a sickle in one hand and a globe in the other. That's a dead giveaway, if you'll pardon the pun. In Mexican culture she is considered the master of death.”

  “How do you know all of this again?” Alexis eyed him suspiciously, wondering for the first time if Francois was really a victim like her or if he was somehow part of the kidnapping ring.

  “I am an anthropology major,” Francois explained. “Or at least I was. That's what makes this all the more ironic, knowing that I'm going to die at the hands of one of the religious subcultures I've recently studied. There are millions of them in this country, but for the most part all they do is say prayers and make offerings. The poor love Saint Death because she listens but doesn’t judge, but they aren’t the only ones worshipping her. The drug cartels that have taken the practice and made it into something dark and terrible.”

  “This is insane,” Alexis fiercely whispered. “I don't understand. What do drug cartels have to do with this?”

  “The cartels have begun to demand that their foot soldiers make human sacrifices to Santa Muerte for protection and wealth,” Francois explained. “They encourage them to torture their victims as part of the ritual and to take delight in their suffering.”

  “Why?” Alexis asked, her stomach churning at the thought.

  “Control. Why else? They use their devotion to get them to kill their enemies without feeling guilty about it. The foot soldiers celebrate death by turning gruesome killings into religiously sanctioned offerings to the figure of death herself. Plus it's a good way to weed out who the weak ones are in their organization. Anyone not willing to make a brutal human sacrifice can't be part of the gang. It's a good way to cut down on imposters and wannabe thugs.”

  Alexis felt a cold shiver involuntarily run up her spine. “What about the police?”

  “What about them?” Francois replied.

  “Sooner or later the cops are going to figure out that people are disappearing and being killed right under their noses,” Alexis argued. “At the very least it's got to be bad for business, tourists being sacrificed by blood thirsty local cults.”

  “Assuming the cops are not in on it or being paid off to look the other way the chances are slim,” Francois admitted. “There was a cult of Santa Muerte worshippers near Nogales that got busted a few years ago, but they were preying on ten-year-old Mexican boys. Even then it took years to break the case and the confession of one of the cult members. The terrible, awful truth is that we will join the legions of the missing, the unmourned, those who wander off from the rest of the civilized world and are never heard from again. If you are religious I'd suggest you start praying. Time to get right with God. Me, I'm an atheist, so all I can do is sit here and wait for them to come and take me.”

  “Sooner or later someone is going to come looking for us,” Alexis argued, shaking her head as if she could keep his unpleasant words from crawling into her ears and sinking her spirits. She was unwilling to believe what he was telling her on any level.

  “Sure,” Francois said. “And then what? They'll hear that you were partying your brains out and went off in search of a drug-fueled rave in the middle of the night and vanished. If anything they'll chalk up your disappearance to drug-related violence. Over a hundred thousand people have gone missing since the cartels began fighting one another for control of Mexico, including plenty of pretty American college students. Just look at the statistics. It's not all the media, making shit up to scare off tourism. This shit is actually happening. We're living proof of how fucking dangerous and out of control this country has become.”

  “Baja wasn't supposed to have cartel violence,” Alexis protested. “The website for the resort said it was safe.”

  “And yet here we all are,” Francois snorted.

  Alexis opened her mouth to argue but a loud crash near the front of the barn caused her to jump instead, the words freezing in her throat, her skin crawling with goose pimples.
Angel strutted in like a General come to examine his prisoners of war. He was followed by a short, dark man with thin black mustache and no shirt wearing tan Dickies shorts and a black belt with a large, matte-black handgun tucked into his waist. The man had tattoos covering every inch of his bare chest. There was a serious air to him that said in no uncertain terms that he was far more dangerous than his size suggested. He walked with the carefree ease of a hardened psycho, one who knows no fear, not even of death. Following close behind him were two imposing bodyguards both nearly twice his size in muscle.

  Alexis scrambled to her feet, rushing to the bars and reaching through them to get his attention. “Please,” she pleaded. “You've got to help us. We're Americans! There's been some kind of mistake! Please let us go!”

  The short man calmly walked over and stood in front of her cage, leering at her. The look on his face made Alexis's blood run cold. His piercing eyes were solid black, like two large bullet holes. Alexis quivered in fear, unable to shake the feeling of dread his skull-like features inspired. Her eyes left his and wandered down across pictures of dead bodies, names, weapons, and pictures of naked women all scribbled indelibly in his light brown skin. In the middle of it all was a large detailed Gothic cross with what appeared to be glowing light radiating from behind it. Alexis didn't understand how someone who glorified death and violence could also consider themselves to be religious.

  “Juss whoodooyoo think you are?” Christie had managed to crawl part way towards standing by dragging herself up holding onto the metal bars of her makeshift cage. “When my fadduur findzzoout about this yoooar gunna wisshzuu whir nuverrbourn, youduuurtyfuukinn wetback!”