Chapter Twenty
More freaky-ass bat shit in my immediate future.
If the Maya are right and reincarnation is legit, I must’ve been a real dickhead in my past life.
“What are you doing?” Angélica whispered, turning her flashlight on him.
“Just writing some additional notes,” Quint said quietly, stuffing his field notebook in his pants pocket.
He was utilizing the ol’ pen-on-paper therapy to keep his worries about the grim reaper at bay.
And the death-bat god.
Actually, all the bats in this creepy place, including whatever the hell it was that had made the whistling sound Esteban claimed to have heard coming from inside the ruin.
Now there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and their footfalls on the gritty, stone floor.
“More notes about the dimensions I gave?” Juan asked.
Angélica’s father had been rattling off heights and widths, along with possible structural issues while Quint wrote it all down.
He and Daisy had returned from their temple inspection in time to hear Esteban’s claim that someone was inside whistling tunes.
Juan had pulled out his flashlight and led the charge inside, not listening to his daughter’s concerns about his physical condition one iota.
“Yep, just double-checking everything.” Quint raised his camera. “Ready for some photos? I’ll probably have to use flash, which might scare the bats.”
“Not yet, Junior Mint,” Juan said, tapping the ceiling with his cane. Clack clack clack. He grunted about whatever those sounds meant to him.
To Quint, it sounded like a wooden cane hitting rock, plain and simple, an act he wasn’t in favor of continuing due to the numerous cracks in the stone ceiling.
Where the large slabs of stone had been originally mined was a question that Angélica had asked him to write down for her to research later.
“Can we come in yet?” Daisy whispered loudly from behind them.
She, Bronko, and Raul were waiting at the entrance for the green light to join them inside—or a cry for help, whichever came first. Esteban, on the other hand, had volunteered to play it safe.
He was going to wait out the exploration from his seat on the log where Angélica had told Quint the stories of Camazotz.
“Not yet,” Juan said in a low voice before limping several steps further in the warm, musty darkness.
“Dad, wait,” Angélica said, tiptoeing after him.
“What did he say?” Raul whispered, his flashlight aimed at Quint.
“He’s not ready for you guys yet,” Quint answered, shielding his eyes from the mini-spotlight.
Taking the opportunity at hand, he held his camera up in the light and changed the settings. A larger aperture might help for when Juan wanted him to take pictures in the dark, allowing Quint to skip using the flash if both Garcías aimed their flashlights at the subject.
“Parker.” Angélica hit him from the other direction with her beam. “Come on. Dad says he found something.”
“What did he find?” Daisy whisper-called.
“Is it an animal using this place as its den?” Raul asked.
“Are there any snakes in there?” A third beam of light bounced around the walls and ceiling near Quint. Bronko stood just inside the entrance. “Check for skins. I read that snakes will wait to shed until they’re back in their burrows.”
“Quint!” Angélica whispered. “Now.”
“I’m coming, boss lady.” He waved at the others while shielding his eyes from their spotlights. “Stay tuned. If you hear me screaming, run the other way.”
“That’s not funny, Quint,” Daisy said.
“Remember, snakes can climb walls,” Raul added.
Bronko cursed and stepped back outside.
Had Angélica and her father not been heading the other way, Quint would have followed in the sicario’s footsteps. Spelunking through a cave-like tunnel inside an ancient, decaying building required a titanium spine, and right now his was a wet noodle.
Hunching to avoid scraping his head on the low ceiling, Quint caught up with Angélica. “After you, siren.”
They walked single file. The walls near the entrance had started out relatively smooth with stacked and mortared blocks and plenty of spread between each side.
But a little farther back, they narrowed and grew rocky, more like a natural cave with jagged edges sticking out.
It was at that transition point that the floor began to slope steadily downward, along with the ceiling.
Quint tried to focus on slowing his breathing while keeping an eye out for bats in the overhead nooks and crannies. Panic was squeezing his lungs like an extra-friendly boa constrictor. The urge to turn tail and run hell-bent for leather back to the fresh oxygen under the trees had him panting.
The red paint coating portions of the walls was not helping matters.
Sure, he knew from past discussions with Angélica and Juan that the Maya liked to paint stuff red, made with the mineral cinnabar or other mercury-containing paints.
Who could blame them? Red was the color of passion and love.
The Egyptians and Maya both linked it with power and status.
The Romans tied it to courage and war. In ancient China, it was all about good luck and happy times.
But while slinking along inside what felt like a blood-coated throat, Quint would have preferred sunny yellow with rainbows.
Wait. Angélica had said rainbows could mean bad luck and something about demons off-gassing. He shuddered. Screw it, just plain white.
Two bends later along the sloping, tightening tunnel, they came upon Juan, who stood with his back to them. On the other side of him was a solid wall—the end of the road.
But what about …
Quint shined his flashlight at the ceiling, making sure they were still bat-free. So far, so good. Except for the fact that he could still smell a hint of ammonia from the bat guano but had yet to walk through any.
Where had the bats come from if not back here?
“Your ankle okay, Dad?” Angélica asked, slowing to a stop behind her father.
“Like I’ve told you three times already since entering this place, my ankle is fine. Please stop mollycoddling me.”
“Okay, but if you trip and break something, I’m leaving you in here for the bats to bite.”
“No, you won’t,” her dad said, aiming his light beam at the floor in front of him. “You love me too much.”
She muttered something under her breath that included the words “trade you in” and “stubborn old mule.”
“I heard that, gatita.”
“So, what is this?” Quint asked, trying to see around Angélica and her father. “Just a dead end? Or is there a secret door in the wall that will open to another tunnel if you tap your cane in the right place?”
He was joking, but a little serious.
Egyptians had fun with secret passages, tucked-away chambers, and mysterious open spaces in some of their pyramids.
From what he’d learned about the Maya, they concealed rooms and burials, too.
Hell, more than once he’d read about a Maya king who’d built a big, new temple over an old, smaller one, thus hiding away for centuries the accomplishments of a previous dynasty.
“Well, I’ve tapped a few blocks, but no luck.” Juan poked at the ceiling overhead, making Quint cringe and take a step back. “I think we’re at the end of the line.”
“Then where did the bats come from?” Quint asked.
“There was a hole in the wall near the floor a little ways back,” Angélica said. “About the size of a manhole cover.”
“There was?” Quint turned, shining his light back that way. “How did I not see it?”
“It was tucked behind an outcropping, and you were too busy staring at the ceiling.” She squeezed by her dad.
“Hey, can’t blame a tall guy for wanting to keep his head attached, especially in a structure that you believe has the death-bat god carved on the outside.”
“You think that carving is Camazotz?” Juan asked her.
“I’m not certain.” Handing her father her flashlight, she indicated for him to point it at the wall. “But I’d bet a box of your expensive cigars on it.”
Juan leaned against the wall, taking the weight off his bad ankle. “Stay away from my pride and joys, child.”
He shined both lights on Angélica, who was now running her palms over the wall, pausing on each block while putting her ear close to the stone.
“What are you doing, boss lady?”
“Listening,” she whispered, moving to the next block.
“What? For sounds to travel through solid rock?” her dad asked, his tone edged with sarcasm. He looked at Quint. “Her mother used to do that. When I’d tease Marianne about it, she’d remind me that if you listen to the rails sing, you can hear a train coming down the track before you can see it.”
“Dad …”
“At least you could in the old days,” Juan continued, “when vibrations were plentiful due to the steel wheels traveling over the joints connecting sections of rails.”
“Metal is a better conductor for sound than air,” Quint said, nodding. “But how does stone compare?”
Juan shrugged. “That depends on the type of rock.”
“Criminy, you two.” Angélica kneeled, moving her hands further down the wall. “I’m trying to listen for the whistling Esteban claims to have heard. Now shush.”
Quint leaned against the wall next to Juan, stretching his shoulders back and his neck from side to side. Hunching was for bell ringers in old French cathedrals, not six-feet-plus photojournalists.
He peeled his soaked shirt away from his skin, fanning it, trying to pretend it wasn’t six hundred degrees inside this narrow, crumbling tomb. No, more like a stone-lined casket.
At least there weren’t any mosquitoes or flies in here.
Wait, why weren’t there any bugs in here?
He checked the floor. Not a single roach, or beetle, or cricket. Nor a wandering ant, out hunting for food for the colony. Hmm. That was weird, wasn’t it? Had they entered the Maya Underworld without realizing it?
After a few minutes of searching for signs of bugs and bats or other tunnel life, Quint focused on Angélica. She had soaked through her shirt, same as him. Beads of sweat glistened on her face, leaving streaks as they rolled down her neck.