by J; P Voelkel
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First published by Egmont USA, 2011
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Copyright © J&P Voelkel, 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Voelkel, Jon.
The end of the world club / J&P Voelkel.
p. cm. — (The Jaguar Stones; bk. 2)
Summary: With the end of the Mayan calendar fast approaching, fourteen-year-old Max Murphy and his friend Lola, the Maya girl who saved his life in the perilous jungle, race against time to outwit the twelve villainous Lords of Death, following the trail of the conquistadors into a forgotten land steeped in legend and superstition.
eISBN: 978-1-60684-201-0 [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Mayas—Fiction. 4. Indians of Central America—Fiction.] I. Voelkel, Pamela. II. Title.
PZ7.V861En 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010036641
CPSIA tracking label information
Random House Production • 1745 Broadway • New York, NY 10019
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Egmont is passionate about helping to preserve the world’s ancient and precious forest habitats. The papers used in this book are made from legal and known forestry sources and the inside pages contain 20 percent recycled material, all of which is post-consumer waste.
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v3.1
To Harry, Charly, and Loulou
k yahkume’ex
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
CHARACTERS
PREFACE: THE DREAM
I. THE INVASION BEGINS
II. UNREALITY TV
III. THE RIDDLE
IV. WELCOME TO MAD
V. GETTING HOTTER
VI. THE HOTEL OF HORROR
VII. A STENCH OF EVIL
VIII. EL CASTILLO
IX. THE SERPENT OF TRUTH
X. MISTAKEN IDENTITY
XI. DISASTER
XII. ADIÓS, FOREVER
XIII. THE FAST BUS TO HELL
XIV. HANGING WITH THE RATS
XV. SHOWTIME
XVI. THE KISS OF DEATH
XVII. AN UNHAPPY REUNION
XVIII. DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD
XIX. SHELL-SHOCKED
XX. LOLA’S WEDDING
XXI. THE COAST OF DEATH
XXII. GHOST TOWN
XXIII. THE SEA OF STARS
XXIV. THE END OF THE ROAD
XXV. A SURPRISE
GLOSSARY
MAYA COSMOS
MAYA CALENDAR
RECIPE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHARACTERS
In order of appearance
In Boston
MAX (Massimo Francis Sylvanus) MURPHY: fourteen years old, only child, video gamer, drummer, pizza connoisseur
FRANK and CARLA MURPHY: Max’s parents, famous archaeologists
ZIA: the Murphys’ mysterious housekeeper
In San Xavier
LOLA (Ix Sak Lol—each sock loll): Maya girl about Max’s age
UNCLE TED: Max’s uncle, banana exporter, and reformed smuggler
LORD 6-DOG (Ahaw Wak Ok—uh how walk oak): ancient Maya king
LADY COCO (Ix Kan Kakaw—each con caw cow): Lord 6-Dog’s mother
CHULO and SERI: howler monkey siblings, currently hosting the spirits of Lord 6-Dog and Lady Coco
RAUL: Uncle Ted’s butler
In Spain
NASTY (Anastasia) SMITH-JONES: music blogger
SANTINO GARCIA: law student
DOÑA CARMELA: innkeeper
PUNAK MO, aka CAPTAIN MO: Maya warrior, captain of the guard
INEZ LA LOCA: Maya princess, wife of a conquistador
OFFICER GONZALES: policeman in Polvoredo
AH PUKUH (awe pooh coo): Maya god of violent and unnatural death
PLAGUE RATS: punk band, comprising Ty Phoid (vocals), Vince Vermin (lead guitar), Trigger Mortis (bass), and Odd-Eye Ebola (drums)
ANTONIO DE LANDA: Spanish aristocrat
K’AWIIL (caw wheel): god of lightning, kingship, and lineage
FRIAR DIEGO DE LANDA: monk who burned all the Maya books
TZELEK: Lord 6-Dog’s evil foster brother
In Xibalba
LORD KUY (coo-ee): messenger of the Lords of Death
LORDS of DEATH: twelve lords of the underworld, minions of Ah Pukuh (One Death, Seven Death, Blood Gatherer, Wing, Packstrap, Bone Scepter, Skull Scepter, Scab Stripper, Demon of Woe, Demon of Pus, Demon of Jaundice, and Demon of Filth)
HERMANJILIO (herman-hee-leo) BOL: Maya archaeologist, university professor
LUCKY JIM, aka Jaime Ben: Uncle Ted’s foreman and bodyguard
THE TWELVE LORDS OF DEATH WERE BORED. Bored to death, in fact. For three bak’tuns (over a thousand years by our calendar), their power over Middleworld—the ancient Maya name for the world of mortals—had been waning.
Where had they gone wrong?
They were still doggedly tormenting humankind with famines, droughts, pain, sickness, and all manner of horrible diseases. But they no longer got the credit. Once, everyone in Middleworld had lived in fear of them. But now, no matter what hideous suffering they inflicted on the denizens of Middleworld, no one seemed to believe in them anymore.
It was de-motivating, to say the least.
Feeling forgotten and unappreciated, the Death Lords frittered away their time in the gambling halls of Xibalba, the Maya underworld, and pined for their glory days.
“Do something,” they begged their boss, Ah Pukuh, the god of violent and unnatural death, ruler of Xibalba. “The mortals don’t fear us anymore.”
“What can I do?” said Ah Pukuh, emitting one of his trademark bouts of flatulence. “We have been replaced by the new gods Money and Big Business.”
“It’s time to reassert yourself,” urged the Lords of Death, holding their noses. “Remind Middleworld who’s in charge.”
Ah Pukuh thought about it.
A smile spread over his evil, bloated, pock-marked face.
“Yes, why not?” he said. “When the bak’tun changes, I will seize my chance. Those idiot mortals are already fearful that the Maya calendar is about to end—and their pathetic lives with it. I will exploit their panic and bring Middleworld to its knees. All I need are my natural talents for destruction … and the five Jaguar Stones.”
Preface
THE DREAM
Max Murphy lay in his coffin, gasping for air.
He’d been buried alive.
The wooden box was exactly the same size as his body, as if it had been tailor-made for him. It smelled of pine resin, straw, and fresh sawdust, with an undertone of cow dung.
A wave of nausea swelled the rising tide of panic in Max’s brain.
He felt something crawling on his cheek.
He went to brush it away and found he couldn’t move.
Everything below his neck was bound in strips of cloth, like a mummy, and his arms were pinned to his sides.
He had a sense of motion, like the rolling of a ship.
As the full meaning of his situation dawned on him, his blood ran cold.
He was wrapped in a shroud, being carried in a coffin.
It could onl
y signify one thing.
He was on his way to his own funeral.
“Let me out!” he yelled, but his voice was muffled by the box.
He strained to work his hands free of the strips of cloth. Then, gathering his strength, he curled his fists and launched them straight upward at the lid.
To his surprise, it flew open easily.
At first, all he saw was a gray sky, and a bird of prey—a vulture?—hovering above him. He could hear whistling and screaming, raucous laughter and firecrackers.
He pulled off more of the bandages until he could move enough to peer over the edge of the coffin.
Immediately, he locked eyes with a fluorescent green devil.
All around him, hideous ghouls were thrusting their garishly painted faces at him and clicking their fat tongues.
The Grim Reaper floated by, pursued by a dancing skeleton.
There was a smell of burning. A screeching of bagpipes, like the sound of a cat having its claws pulled out one by one, filled the smoky air.
Was this some kind of hell?
Max sat up and screamed a scream to wake the dead.
The light snapped on.
“Not again! Every night since we came home from San Xavier, it is the same thing,” groaned his mother, pulling a bathrobe over her nightdress as she shuffled sleepily into the bedroom. “It was a dream, just another dream.”
“I was in a coffin …,” began Max.
“Shhhh.” His mother put a finger to her lips. With her tired eyes all red and bloodshot, she looked alarmingly like one of the ghouls in his dream. “It is the middle of the night. Go back to sleep.”
“But it was so real, Mom. There were skeletons and demons and—”
“Were you reading about the ancient Maya again today?” she interrupted.
Max nodded.
“That is where these nightmares come from, I am sure of it. Too much bloodletting and human sacrifice. Tomorrow, I am going to hide the books, and maybe we can all get a good night of sleep.”
“No!” protested Max, sitting up in bed. “I need to know everything I can about the Maya. There’s something I have to do.…”
His mother opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. “I hear you,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “You have made a choice to study the Maya, and I will support it. Tomorrow, I will find you a book about corn. It was one of their staple foods.”
Max sighed. His mother had just acquired a parenting manual (her first in fourteen years) and, with it, the annoying habit of talking in therapyspeak.
“I wish you’d stop saying you hear me and actually listen to me, Mom. I don’t need to know about corn. I need to know about the Lords of Death and their ruler, Ah Pukuh.”
His mother placed the back of her hand against her forehead, like a Victorian heroine about to have a fainting spell. (Possibly because she was Italian, she was always a little prone to dramatics.) “I understand that you are exploring your identity as a preadult, but this Lords of Death silliness has got to stop.” Her voice quavered. “You are ruining the summer for everyone.…”
“Excuse me?” he said in disbelief. “You think I’m ruining the summer? It was you and Dad who got us into this mess.”
“You’re fourteen years of age. You cannot keep blaming your father and me for everything that happens. You make us sound like bad parents.”
But that’s exactly what you are, thought Max.
Ironically, his friends thought he was lucky to be the only child of the famous archaeologists Frank and Carla Murphy. But then, his friends just saw the gifts that his parents lavished on him: the video games, the laptop, the electronic drums—all peace offerings for being too busy at work to support their son at school concerts and class nights and sports meets. (After the recent events in San Xavier, he was expecting a “sorry for opening a portal to the Maya underworld and unleashing the forces of evil that almost killed you” gift any day now.)
Max had long ago accepted that his parents cared more about the ancient Maya than about their own son, but recently they’d reached a new low in the history of bad parenting.
He could still remember the shock of that afternoon, a few weeks ago, when they’d come home early from work and dropped three bombshells, one after the other.
Boom! They’d canceled the upcoming family vacation in Italy.
Boom! They were leaving there and then for a dig in San Xavier, the tiny Central American country where his father had grown up.
Boom! Max’s whole summer was shot to pieces.
And that was it. They were gone.
But their irresponsible behavior didn’t end there.
It turned out that his father had got his hands on a Jaguar Stone, one of five sacred carvings that supposedly gave Maya kings their special powers, and his parents had gone to San Xavier to test it out.
All too predictably—didn’t adults learn anything from disaster movies?—things had spiraled out of control, and soon they’d unleashed all sorts of ancient evils into the world.
And then they’d vanished off the face of the earth.
That would have been the last anyone had heard of Frank and Carla Murphy, reflected Max, if their incredibly brave and intelligent son hadn’t tracked them down to Xibalba, the Maya underworld. Which was how he now found himself in negotiations with a gang of crazies called the Lords of Death.
And that was the lite version of his visit to San Xavier.
Along the way, he’d survived numerous assassination attempts, an oath of blood, a toxic stew, snakes, scorpions, an undead army, several terrifying encounters with the forces of evil, and at least one attempt at human sacrifice.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Max had been all alone in the perilous jungle until he’d run into the beautiful Lola. (Of course, she didn’t know he thought she was beautiful. At least he hoped she didn’t.) Lola was a modern Maya girl, which was news to Max as he thought the Maya had all died out hundreds of years ago. Anyway, Chan Kan, the Maya wise man, had said that Max and Lola made a good team—like the Hero Twins in Maya mythology. And it was true that, with Lola to teach him, Max had been starting to get the hang of life in the jungle.
It was all going so well until Hermanjilio, the eccentric local archaeologist who’d been with Max’s parents on the night they disappeared, decided to try and bring back the ancient Maya king Lord 6-Dog. To Lola’s dismay, the spirits of the king and his mother had ended up in the bodies of her two friendly howler monkeys. But worse still, the evil priest Tzelek had gate-crashed the party and taken over Hermanjilio’s own body.
Max shivered at the memory.
“Are you cold?” asked his mother. “Would you like some hot salami soup?”
Salami soup? Who makes soup out of salami?
He shook his head in revulsion.
Since they’d got back from San Xavier, Carla Murphy had cut back her hours at work to concentrate on her mothering skills. When she wasn’t reading her new parenting manual, Understanding Your Teen, she now spent most of her time in the kitchen, wearing a flowery apron and trying out new culinary creations. She was convinced that a talent for cooking was in her Italian genes and saw no need to consult the recipe books. As a result, her lasagna looked like joke-shop rubber vomit, her risotto resembled boiled earwax, and her pizza brought to mind a cheese-encrusted Frisbee.
Max longed for the day when they could go back to ordering takeout.
“No soup?” His mother pursed her lips. “Then I will make you something special for breakfast. Venetian liver and onions, perhaps? It is your nonno’s favorite.”
Nonno is Italian for “grandfather,” and Max’s Italian grandfather ate anything—even tripe, which is the lining of a cow’s stomach.
Max shuddered. “Toast is fine, mom.”
Her shoulders slumped in disappointment for a moment. Then she had another idea. “I know,” she said, perking up. “Tomorrow we will spend quality time together. Maybe dig out your old baby photos and do
some scrapbooking.…”
“Scrapbooking?” Max sounded appalled. “Is that an idea from your parenting book? It should be called Misunderstanding Your Teen.”
His mother sniffed. “It is written by experts,” she said.
“If you want us to spend time together, why not sit and tell me everything you know about the Death Lords? I had to promise them a favor in return for releasing you and Dad from Xibalba. I owe them big-time and, sooner or later, they’re going to collect on it. I have no idea what they’re going to ask me, but I’m fairly sure that it won’t be for a loan of my Xbox. There’s something going on, Mom, something big, and I don’t know how much time I have. Will you help me learn everything I can about the Maya?”
Carla Murphy stiffened. “I cannot be an enabler for your morbid fantasies, Massimo.”
Massimo was the first name on Max’s birth certificate. His full name was Massimo Francis Sylvanus Murphy:
Massimo after his nonno …
Francis after his father …
And the truly embarrassing Sylvanus after some old archaeologist.
Luckily for Max, everyone had always called him Max for short—except his mother when she was angry with him. And boy, was she angry now.
“Either you stop this crazy talk,” she was saying, “or you see a therapist. I know you are at a difficult age, Massimo, but this behavior is not normal.”
“I’ll show you what’s not normal,” responded Max. “Look at me! I’m still covered with cuts and bruises from fighting an evil Maya priest called Tzelek on top of the Black Pyramid.…”
He held out his battered arms and hands.
Carla inspected his wounds.
“It was that machete you used in the jungle,” she said. “Those things are lethal.” She pointed accusingly at the sharp steel blade Max had hung on his wall as a souvenir of San Xavier. “I do not know what you were thinking, bringing it back to Boston with you.”
“What about the marks on my neck? You can still see where Tzelek dug in his fingernails.” Max remembered how he’d felt his life slipping away before Lucky Jim, a tough guy from a long line of Maya warriors, had saved him in the nick of time.
Carla regarded the line of little scabs and waved dismissively.
“Insect bites,” she said. “The mosquitoes are vicious in San Xavier.”
