The passage was a rectangle lying on its long side, and it was full of old and fresh spider webs as well as places where the roots grew in from the ceiling. With only one direction to go, we proceeded in as the torchlight pierced through the darkness that had remained undisturbed for centuries. The smooth granite stones barely reflected back any light at all as we slowly worked our way back into the unknown of our discovery. “I don’t see any engravings on any of the walls,” Mandy said as she clicked on her flashlight and looked in the most likely places to find some carved relief.
“Just think,” I said as I led the way with Mandy directly behind me, “A whole civilization used to live here. I wonder how many thousands of people have already been right here.”
“The research seems to indicate that this was a city of some fifteen thousand,” Mandy replied.
“I know that,” I said as I stopped and turned to face her. “I was just thinking about how many of them would have been in here on any given day.”
“We won’t know till we find out what this leads to,” she responded.
The passage led us quite a long way back into the depths of the big structure with several passages leading off to either side via a series of 4 way intersections. By my estimate we were a good 80 yards from where the outer edges sloped upward from our position on the ground. I was just beginning to second guess having gone in so far when we came to the end of the tunnel. It was nothing grandiose it was just a large square room. In the center of the room atop a large stone platform was a big stone chair with ornate engravings all over it. There was nothing to indicate what the chair was for or why it was here; the engravings appeared to be only ornamental. But the really weird thing about it was that it faced away from the passage that had brought us in here. In fact, it faced the blank wall at the back of the room.
Looking at the stone seat it was obvious that this was the place for someone of importance. The sheer size of it and its decorative beauty made it the obvious center of attention in the room. It more resembled a thrown rather than a simple seat. “Look at this,” I said as I leaned down with my torch to give the seat a closer inspection. In the center of the seat bottom was a small circle with a slot cut in it that was about as wide as the thickness of a quarter. A single line started from one point on the circle and traced out the outline of someone sitting in the chair, notably marking the buttocks and thighs with the circle remaining directly under the crotch. Other than that the seat bottom was completely smooth with only a small engraved boarder around the edges.
“What do you make of that?” I said as I ran my fingers over the small slit in the stone seat.
“Not a clue,” Mandy replied as her hand joined mine to move the dust out of the way, revealing a little more of the detail of the engraving in the stone. “You know what that looks like…” she said as she quickly pulled her notebook from her back pocket and flipped through several of the pages. “It looks a lot like the engravings on this…” she said as she pointed to the drawing she had made of the silver knife we had found several days before.
“We’ll have to go back and get it,” I said as I stood up and looked around the room. The rest of the room was completely featureless except for a few small holes in the walls. Only the dust and cob webs from a few centuries of neglect littered the otherwise vacant place. “I don’t see anything else in here,” I said as Mandy continued to look at the engravings on the chair against what she had copied into her book. “Let’s check out those other 4 rooms on the way out. We really need to get our packs.”
It only took the hint of the light leaving the room for Mandy to catch up to me. As disciplined as she might be, she still has an innate fear of the dark. I can’t say that I blame her because I sure as hell would not want to be left in her with no lights. But to feel her grip on my hips as I led the way out told me that it was just a bit more than a simple fear.
The first of the 4 rooms we looked into on the way out was empty except for some old woven baskets in one corner that looked to have seen better days. There was no telling what had been in them due to the state of decay they were in so we really didn’t mess with them.
Directly across the hall the find was a bit more interesting. The room was about half full of what looked like coconuts. But upon closer inspection they turned out to be fired earthen pots with some kind of simple plug in the top. Mandy lifted one and gently shook it, causing the liquid inside to slosh around a bit. “Back up with that torch!” Mandy said suddenly.
“What is it sweetie?” I asked as I took a few steps back and assumed a bit of a defensive posture.
“They’re either flasks or oil lamps,” Mandy said as she eyed the pile from side to side. “And it appears that some of them are still full.”
“Oh yea,” I said as I took an extra step backward with the open flame torch I was carrying.
“A little closer and we might have met Montezuma ourselves,” Mandy said as she backed away from the potentially explosive pile.
This was the kind of thing that makes something like this trip to southern Mexico turn from what is supposed to be fun and adventurous into an obituary for your parents. Just a moment of carelessness and we could have been blown into the next archeological find. Mandy cradled the one pot she had picked up against her belly as we quietly retreated from the room.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked as we headed for the third room.
“We need to know what this is,” she said as she made sure to keep the side with the plug aimed upward. “I’ll check it out back at the camp.”
The last two rooms both yielded nothing. Room 3, the closest to the entrance on the right as we came in was completely full of roots from top to bottom. With a chainsaw I might be able to open it up in a few days. And room 4 on the opposite side of the hall had a collapsed ceiling. Whatever was in there was going to stay in there. All things considered it was not a total bust. We now had more things to work on and more research to do.
At our bungalow Mandy had me pull the ‘cork” out of the flask as her quest to find out what was in it commenced. Instantly there was a strong aroma of petroleum. The people of this place must have figured out a way to boil down some tree sap or something to come up with oil. Mandy dipped the end of a piece of straw into the flask and withdrew it. The end was covered in a yellowish brown kind of fluid that clung to the straw rather well.
“Here goes nothing,” Mandy said as she reached for the end of the straw with her lighter in hand. It took just a moment before the ‘oil’ caught up and began to burn, making a small line of blackish gray smoke that trailed up toward the ceiling. “Voila,” she said like she had just conjured a rabbit out of thin air.
“Ok,” I said as I set the pot down, “We now have an alternate fuel source.”
“That will come in really handy when we try to figure out that chair,” Mandy said as she blew out the straw and began gathering her things into her backpack.
“I’ll make up some torches before we head back down there,” I said as I strapped the machete to my waist.
Have you ever seen a deer caught in the headlights on a really dark night? They freeze in place. It’s partially because they are completely scared shitless and do not have the ability to move, and it’s partially because they cannot see. And since they can’t see they don’t move. The way both Mandy and I froze in place would have fit the description of a deer caught in the headlights of a car when we heard the voices. I can tell you that instantly Mandy turned as white as a sheet. I mean every last bit of color washed out of her in a microsecond. I’m sure the same must have happened to me, but I was geared more for action than freezing in place.
“Holy shit!” Mandy whispered as she covered her mouth with one hand and her crotch with the other.
“Calm down,” I said as I moved over to the window that afforded a view back in the direction we had originally come from.
Just within the reach of sight I could see 4 or 5 Mexicans working their way up the path I had made several days before. My guess is that they were a bunch of the local low life’s from the village of Barrio El Zorrillo and they were looking to make an easy hit on some stupid Americans. I had not even thought about trying to move through the jungle without leaving a trail, so I had left the trackers a highway to follow. They still had not spotted our position and were a good 250 yards away, but they were on an intercept course and I was certain that this meeting was not going to turn out good for us.
I turned around to see Mandy still covering her mouth with tears now coming out of her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “Sweetie,” I said as I picked up my backpack and quickly put it on, “I really need you to be with me right now, ok?” Mandy just nodded her head but still stood almost motionless. “Get your pack on and let’s go,” I said as I lifted the strap of her backpack and handed it to her.
I know she was scared, and rightfully so. Out here there would be no chance for her. After these guys killed me they would probably rape her to death and just leave her. It was a no win situation for us if we got caught in this old city. And an even bigger no win if they found the silver knife in Mandy’s backpack. We had to get out, and it had to be now.
“What are we going to do, what are we going to do?” Mandy kept repeating over and over as she slowly worked herself into hysteria.
She was definitely not helping now and I really needed to get a grip on this whole situation before it spiraled out of control. Just before we would have stepped out into the open I pushed Mandy back against the wall inside our bungalow. Before she could say or do a thing I brought my right hand up between her legs and shoved my hand in through the open leg hole of her shorts. A sudden look of shock came across Mandy’s face as I forced three of my fingers up into her before taking a firm grip on her pelvic bone.
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