Witch Lights

by Michael M. Hughes

  Mantu pulled off the road, the van kicking up a thick cloud of dust, and turned off the ignition. A skinny dog with ribs showing through its matted coat ran up beside the van and started barking.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Ray asked. “We don’t have time to eat.”

  “Not to eat. We’re going to have to leave the van here and start walking. I need to find someone who can lead us to his place through the jungle.”

  Across the road a man sitting outside a cantina eyed them warily from beneath his enormous cowboy hat. The dog ran in circles outside the driver’s side door, barking. “How far is it? How long will it take to walk?”

  Mantu held up his hand. “Slow down, man. That’s what I’m going to find out. If we drive any further we’re gonna be on his road. He’ll have guards every couple of miles. I don’t want to deal with them until we have to.”

  “So? We show them the money. And we get to him faster.”

  Mantu rolled his eyes. “And they take the money and bring our heads to their boss to show what good little soldiers they’ve been? No way, José—I prefer to keep my head attached to my shoulders as long as I can. I want to get us as close as possible before we have to do any negotiating.”

  Ray opened the van door. “Okay. Let’s get going.”

  Mantu shook his head. “No, man. You need to rest. You’re not looking so good and we have a long walk ahead. Why don’t you sit in the little restaurant and have some juice or something. Stay in the shade. I’ll ask around. My guess is one or two of those Benjamins in my backpack will find us somebody to take us on our hike.” He opened the door, and the scrawny dog ran up to him and growled. “Vete!” Mantu yelled. The dog turned, tail between its legs, and scampered away.

  —

  It wasn’t much cooler beneath the plastic awning of El Mono Loco. Ray had finally given in to the incessant throbbing in his hand and swallowed half of a pain pill. It was a good thing he’d taken only half. His hand ached less, but he soon felt the onset of the hazy narcotic brain fog. He couldn’t afford to be off his game, not when he was this close, but as soon as he felt sober another rush would wash over him. The drugs, the heat, and the lazy music coming from a tinny speaker on the wall were making him dangerously loose.

  A sweet-voiced man on the radio was singing about a woman who had left him stranded at the altar. Ray stared at the emptiness where his ring finger had been. He didn’t want to read anything symbolic into that, or into the loss of his own cheap wedding band in Sabina’s fire, but as the tenor’s voice sang about throwing his ring into the ocean Ray felt his eyes filling with tears. He caught his head nodding and straightened up.

  A little girl in a neon-pink-and-bright-blue huipil walked up to his table. He wiped at his eyes and smiled at her but she just stared. Gringos like him were surely an oddity in this tiny town. Especially a gringo sweating bullets with an enormous bandaged hand and nodding off like a junkie.

  “Hola,” he said.

  She was extraordinarily pretty. Her wide brown eyes took him in, weighing him, before returning his smile. For the first time since he could remember he felt his despair evaporating. He picked a flower out of a basket on the table and handed it to her.

  “Gracias,” she said in a voice so low it was barely a whisper.

  “De nada,” he said. “Tú eres muy bonita.”

  She smiled and backed away, then turned and ran around the corner, trailed by the skinny—but now appropriately cowering—dog. Ray felt a sob rising in his chest but choked it off with a cough into his good hand. People were already staring at him, including the man in the huge cowboy hat and a group of teenage boys loitering across the street. He shouldn’t make himself more conspicuous, and losing his shit would definitely do that. So he took another swallow of his tepid limonada and closed his eyes.

  Mantu had better hurry. He wasn’t looking forward to trekking through the jungle, but sitting here was driving him crazy. Every second it felt like Ellen and William were drifting farther away.

  He startled. A tap on his shoulder.

  “I found our guide,” Mantu said. Next to him stood a kid who couldn’t have been older than seventeen, gangly limbed with a peach-fuzz mustache. He wore a faded black Metallica T-shirt and acid-washed jeans.

  Ray nodded. “Okay.”

  Mantu spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. The kid tapped his hand on the machete holstered on his belt then hustled off in the direction of a bright red tienda. “He’s getting us some water. If we hurry we can be there by sunset. Let’s get packed up.” He bent and looked into Ray’s eyes. “You popped one of those pain pills, didn’t you? Damn. That must be some good stuff.”

  Ray stood, a bit wobbly. “Just a half.”

  “Doctors here don’t fuck around. None of that ‘Just take some Tylenol’ bullshit. But the walk will sober you up.”

  The kid approached with six large bottles of water.

  “You sure he knows where he’s taking us?”

  Mantu smiled. “Not only that, if you want some killer smoke, my man here has you covered. Not that you need to get any higher than you are.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He took one last swallow of his drink then felt for his wallet. Mantu pulled out some quetzales and dropped them on the table. “Let’s go.”

  The three of them walked to the van. They all climbed in, the kid in the passenger seat while Mantu drove them to what looked like a junkyard behind a soccer field. When they arrived, Mantu began filling their backpacks. The kid got out and leaned against the back of the van, smoking a Marlboro.

  When they were completely packed, Mantu lifted a plastic container and their rifles out of the van. “We’re not gonna need these big guns. I’m gonna hide the rest of our stuff in the scrub over there. This van will be picked through in no time. Probably stripped for parts, too.”

  “You seem pretty sure we’re coming back.”

  He stood still, silent. “It’s a long shot. But crazier things have happened. Get your pack on.”

  Ray shouldered the backpack. “Hey, what’s the kid’s name?”

  Mantu smiled. “Rocky. His mom named him after the movie.”

  —

  After just an hour of hiking, all of the drugginess had been purged through Ray’s sweat. His hand throbbed with every heartbeat—sharp, ugly pains that went all the way up past his elbow—and the constant cloud of bugs seemed especially interested in his bandage, which was beginning to spot with blood. Rocky walked ahead, wearing cheap plastic headphones plugged into a tiny radio. He whacked away at hanging branches with his machete, following a well-worn trail that wound deeper and deeper into vegetation so thick Ray could barely see the sun through the tops of the trees.

  “We’re in the middle of a biological preserve,” Mantu said. Even he was a little out of breath from keeping up with Rocky’s pace. “If we get lucky we might even see a jaguar. And this hill we’re walking on? There’s probably a temple beneath us. Maybe an entire city complex under the ground.”

  Ray grunted. After his Sabina-induced vision of the ancient temple, he had no desire to see any more, so he changed the subject. “Did Rocky tell you anything about El Varón?”

  “Not much that I didn’t know. The town back there? It’s all his. Might as well be called El Varónville. He built the school, fixes the roads during the rainy season, and keeps the clinic stocked and running. If someone’s sick and they can’t pay, he takes care of it. They have a parade for him on his birthday. Everybody loves the hand that feeds them.”

  Ray stared.

  “Shit, man, I’m sorry. I have to watch my metaphors.” He swatted at a bug. “And it’s a good thing we rolled out when we did. You were drawing a lot of attention to yourself. I’ll bet we got out of there right before one of El Varón’s soldiers came looking for us.” He pointed to Ray’s hand. “You want me to rebandage that for you?”

  “Not yet. I can keep going a little longer. You still think we’ll get there by nightfall?”

  “Roc
ky thinks so. But he’s half our age.”

  Ray coughed and spat. “Tell him we can keep up.”

  Mantu eyed him warily. “Just remember—you gotta be alive when we get there. If you drop dead on this trail I’m going to have a hard time explaining that to Ellen.”

  —

  A short time later Rocky stopped abruptly. He was pressing his headphones against his ears with intense concentration. After a minute he pulled them off and held them out to Mantu.

  “What’s going on?” Ray asked.

  “Shhh.” Mantu closed his eyes. He listened for a few minutes. His face turned grim.

  “What?” Ray asked.

  Mantu held out his hand. His mouth opened and his eyes widened. “Damn. Damn damn damn.” He took the headphones off and handed them back to Rocky. Even the imperturbable Rocky seemed freaked out. “Something’s happened back home,” Mantu said. “Something really bad.”

  “What?” Ray asked again.

  “Sounds like terrorist attacks. Multiple explosions. Maybe even dirty bombs. In Philly, for fuck’s sake. I have family there. And Atlanta. Unconfirmed in St. Louis. Jesus. I need to sit down.”

  “Let me listen,” Ray said. Rocky handed over the radio, then lit a cigarette. The announcer was breathless, reading reports from the Internet of massive casualties and rumors of radioactivity. All borders had been closed. Fighter jets were flying over D.C., and all airplanes had been grounded. The bombs had gone off in the middle of each city’s downtown, in the middle of a busy workday, almost simultaneously. It was huge, and coordinated.

  Ray rubbed his eyes. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. He handed the radio back to Rocky, who muttered “I’m sorry,” and plugged himself back in.

  “This changes things,” Mantu said. “This changes everything.”

  “That’s what Micah told me. In my vision.” And there it was—more confirmation he hadn’t just been hallucinating.

  Mantu hung his head in his hands. “The Brotherhood has been talking about the endgame for a long time. I was never the type to buy into the apocalypse, even Jeremy’s brand. When my mother used to drag me to church the preacher was always going on about the end times and the book of Revelation. I knew it was bullshit even when I was a kid.”

  “It doesn’t change what we’re going to do today. We’re getting Ellen and William out of there. Then we can worry about the rest of the world.”

  Mantu took a deep drink from his water bottle. “Sure. But afterward—if there is an afterward—this is going to change the Brotherhood. If it’s as bad as it sounds—and it sure sounds like the shit has truly hit the fan—we’re already living in a different world. Big forces are in motion.” He wiped his head. “Jesus, man. Think of all those people. Those poor people. And it’s only just beginning.”

  “Let’s just get back to walking, okay?”

  Mantu nodded. “Sure, sure.” He stood. “Okay, Rocky. Vamos.”

  The young man put out his cigarette and walked ahead of them.

  —

  El Varón’s facade of kindness was gone. He and his fat, chinless guard duct-taped Ellen and William’s hands behind their backs and half-pushed, half-carried the two of them through the tunnel system and back into the room of the bat-god. Ellen kept telling William It’s okay, it’s going to be okay, but he seemed to be in shock. He was barely responsive, and his face looked completely drained of blood. He’d known they would wind up here. He’d warned her.

  “Oh, no, I’m afraid it’s not going to be okay,” El Varón said. “Not after what you did to me. I trusted you, Ellen.”

  “Fuck you,” Ellen said. William didn’t even flinch.

  They were thrown roughly on top of the stone altar. Its broad surface was convex, bowled in the center, and still tacky with someone’s blood. Ellen recoiled as her arms touched it. William curled up into a ball against her, his head in her lap. She wondered if maybe he was checking out for good this time—if the past few minutes had finally broken him. And if maybe, as horrible as it sounded, that was for the best.

  The fat guard walked around the perimeter of the cave lighting candles and placing them on the shelves in front of the rows of severed heads. Someone knocked at the far door and El Varón answered it. The discussion was animated, but Ellen couldn’t make out what they were saying. When El Varón returned a few minutes later, he was beaming.

  “Well, now, it turns out your timing was rather good, Ellen. This is a night of sacrifice on a magnitude that has not been seen in my lifetime. The sky is full of blood and ashes. Thousands, tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands. In the blink of an eye—gone.”

  She had no idea what he meant, but the longer he talked the more time it bought them. Even if it seemed hopeless, she had to hope for a way out. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your world, Ellen. Our world. It will never be the same. The Old Gods are returning. Their time has come around again, and they have been liberated from their bindings in the abyss. The world will burn, and they will dance in the flames as the blood of the innocent rises in black smoke.” He looked up at the stone bat creature grinning above them. “Camazotz. He is the one who taught me everything. To whom I owe everything, and it is him that I serve. Can you feel his energy? His power?”

  “He’s a piece of rock.”

  El Varón laughed. “You know better than that. You felt his touch against your naked flesh. You could have carried his child. A firstborn of the new aeon, a nagual who would rule the new world. You and I would be royalty, priest and priestess of the new earth.”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “Sadly, Ellen, that is exactly what is going to happen.” El Varón turned to the fat guard, who had finished lighting the last of the candles. “Uzzül’uüš, Miguel.” The cavern danced with flickering light and shadows, the rows and rows of heads and lifeless faces shifting like an agitated but silent audience. The guard emerged from the darkness with something wrapped in black cloth. Something about two or three feet long.

  No.

  The dagger’s handle was polished black obsidian and reflected the light of the candles. The blade looked like stone, too, only sharpened to a wicked gleam. El Varón looked at it with admiration. “This blade has tasted blood for more than a thousand years. It has cut the beating hearts from countless sacrifices. Its name in the old language is head taker, skin flayer. Opener of the chest.”

  She couldn’t help but stare at it. It was beautiful in its dark obscenity.

  William twitched against her.

  “The Old Gods of my people are very simple in their needs, Ellen. They drink from the blood of the living and feast on the souls of the dead delivered to them in Xibalba.” He ran his hands along the blade. “My people were powerful—the priests and kings ruled for centuries because they fed and nourished the Old Ones. They laughed at your pitiful god, your dead man hanging from a tree—a god-man of weakness and cowardice. But it was your diseases and blades and bullets that killed my people. So the Old Ones went into a deep sleep in the dark abyss in the earth. Knowing that one day the blood would flow again, and their time would come.”

  William shuddered again. His eyes were rolling around wildly in his head. He muttered something that sounded like gibberish. But it wasn’t his voice. It was an octave or more lower, and sharp as a razor.

  “William!” She shook his shoulder.

  “Shh!” El Varón silenced her. His eyes widened.

  “Mel-kalga szz’iglus,” William said. His mouth drew into a sneer.

  Ellen couldn’t help herself. She drew back. A wave of cold was pouring off him, as if he were carved from a block of ice.

  “He is with him!” El Varón said, his face aglow. “He is in the boy!”

  The fat man behind him muttered, “Dios mío.”

  William’s body started seizing. His legs flailed. With her hands taped behind her back, Ellen could do nothing, so the boy’s head bounced up and down on her lap. “Geth’gzz kala’ga zotz,
” he said in the deep, ugly voice. His tongue slipped between his lips then curled back in between his teeth.

  “No, William,” Ellen shouted. “Stop it!”

  William sat up, eyes blinking, as if he were seeing for the first time. His eyes scanned the cave, the rows of unseeing faces, then settled on his mother’s face. There was no recognition at all—she was a stranger to him.

  “Cha’ kik’ el,” El Varón whispered. “Zotzilhala Chamalcan. He has risen.”

  William sprang to a crouch with an uncanny lightness. Ellen fell to the cavern floor. Whatever this thing was, it had taken over William—it was inhabiting him, working his body like a puppet.

  “Get out of my son!” she screamed.

  William’s cold stare stilled her voice. The candle flames danced in his pupils, which had grown until they nearly filled up the whites of his eyes. Their black was endless and alien.

  Something ripped, and then he was holding his hands in front of his face. He’d torn through the duct tape, and shreds of it hung from his wrists.

  A click from behind them. El Varón turned to the fat guard. “No!” he said. The guard was pointing his rifle at William, his eyes wide with terror. “Leave him! He is bringing forth the Cha’ kik’ el!”

  William stared at his hands, turning them, examining them. Flexed his fingers. Again his tongue poked between his lips, darting like a snake tasting the air. Then a smile spread across his face, stretching so far it seemed his mouth would rip. He opened his mouth wide, and a sound emerged—a high-pitched shriek, like the scraping of metal against rock. The fat guard fell to his knees, praying in Spanish to Jesus.

  El Varón backhanded the guard. “Silencio!” He stood in front of the altar, eye level with William. “Camazotz, al-k’a mishgullah.” He turned to Ellen. “Look upon your son, woman! He has taken the Old One into himself.”

  Ellen could only stare in mute horror. Please get out of him. Please, whatever you are, leave him alone.

  William moved his face within inches of El Varón’s. The boy’s head tilted and turned, and his tongue again flashed out between the lips. There was some sort of communication happening, wordless, between the boy and the man. El Varón’s face went slack. William’s small hands reached out and held the man’s face still.