The Deadly Curse of Toco-Rey (5 page)

Lila kept her hands around her head as she whimpered in fear and disgust. The stench—the slime, the mold, the carvy droppings—was almost overpowering. Carvies still fluttered and flapped around her. She could feel slime dripping off the end of her nose.

Flop! The rope dropped into the pit with a loop tied in the end. “Put your foot in the loop!” her father called.

She reached for the rope, but lost her balance and fell onto something that clattered, clinked, flipped like tiddly-winks as she landed.

Bones. Leg bones, arm bones, ribs, skulls. The carvies were living in them, crawling on them. They scattered like pigeons when she fell, flying by her face and then . . . where? She could hear them withdraw into a deep, echoing void behind her. She turned her head, still protecting her face with her arms, and could just make out the entrance to a dark passage. A tunnel? Hundreds of carvies had retreated into the cavity, clinging to its walls.

But hundreds more continued to scurry and flop like beached stingrays amid the bones around her. Others hung from the walls of the pit, their backs arched with fear, their beady little eyes locked on her.

She had to get out of there. She righted herself, put her foot in the loop and used both slime-slickened hands to cling to the rope. “Okay.”

Dr. Basehart joined Dr. Cooper and Jay, and the three of them hauled in the rope hand over hand until Lila's head popped up through the tangle of weeds and broken branches. She was covered with a thin, greenish slime.

Jay reached out to take her hand, but Dr. Basehart grabbed him. “No. Don't touch her! Just keep pulling on the rope.”

“Try to climb out, Lila,” said her father. “Yeah, that's it.”

She was gasping in fear but used her feet to kick and crawl, and she finally flopped over the wall onto the ground.

Dr. Cooper tore his shirt off. “We've got to get that slime off her! Lila, hold still!” He started wiping the slime from Lila's face with the shirt, speaking gently to her, trying to calm her. Jay took his shirt off as well and started working on one arm while Dr. Basehart used a large handkerchief to work on the other.

“We'll have to get her back to the swamp or the waterfall and wash her off,” Dr. Cooper thought out loud. “We'll make a stretcher to carry her.”

At that moment, Tomás, Juan, and Carlos burst upon the scene, machetes flashing, rifles ready, hollering in Spanish. At the sight of Lila and the open pit, they figured it all out.

And then they started laughing!

Jacob Cooper wanted to strangle them! “Stop laughing and help us! We've got to get her to the stream to wash her off!”

At that, Juan and Carlos looked at each other and then laughed some more.

Tomás tried to explain. “Señor Cooper, your daughter will be all right. Do not be afraid.”

Neither Dr. Cooper nor Jay were ready to believe that. “Help or get out of the way!” Dr. Cooper demanded.

“The slime is green,” said Tomás, pointing at Lila and the shirts used to clean her. “These are morning carvies. They are not dangerous.”

Cooper upended his backpack and the contents dumped onto the ground. “Grab the rope, Jay, and secure it around the ends of the pack board. We'll make a stretcher.”

Tomás kept trying. “Señor Cooper, believe me, if these were yellow evening carvies, Lila would be dead by now.” He pointed to Lila once again. She was crying, frantically wiping her face and hair with clothes that had fallen from her father's backpack. “You see? She is alive, full of energy!”

Juan and Carlos added their observations in Spanish, and Tomás translated, “Juan and Carlos say her skin would be burning, and she would be paralyzed and choking to death if the slime were poison.”

“We'll talk later,” said Cooper, cinching up the last rope on the pack board.

SPLASH! Lila leaped into the pool beneath the waterfall and began rinsing herself off, twirling in the water. Dr. Cooper left a bar of soap, a clean shirt that could serve as a towel, and clean clothes by the pool's edge. Then he joined the others a short distance down the trail. They wanted to give her some privacy, but didn't want to get out of earshot.

“She seems to be all right,” he reported, only now beginning to calm.

“What did I tell you?” said Tomás. “The carvies are only dangerous at night when they are yellow. When they are green, they are like pets. They wouldn't hurt anybody.”

“Nevertheless,” said Basehart, holding up a plastic garbage bag. “I've taken the liberty of bringing back the clothing we used to wipe off the slime. I'd like to analyze it.”

“I think that's an excellent idea,” said Dr. Cooper. He hollered up the hill, “How's it going, Lila?”

“Okay,” came her response.

Jacob Cooper allowed himself a deep sigh of relief. “Thank the Lord.”

They sat down to wait.

Dr. Cooper removed his hat, wiped his brow, and asked Tomás, “Now. Would you mind explaining why the carvies are only dangerous when they are yellow?”

Tomás shrugged. “I don't know. In the morning they are green and so we know they are safe. At night, they turn yellow, which means they are deadly.”

Dr. Basehart ventured a theory. “I would guess it has something to do with their feeding habits. They forage at night and hide in caves and hollows during the day, like bats. The venom could be for protection from predators while they're out in the open feeding.”

Tomás waved his finger in warning. “When they are hungry, they get very mean.”

Dr. Cooper wanted to be sure. “But they do go out to forage at night?”

“Sí, señor.”

Dr. Cooper thought a moment and then revealed, “Lila says she saw a tunnel down there.”

That got everyone's attention.

“A tunnel?” Armond Basehart was ecstatic. “Then we've found it—or rather, Lila has found it! The route to the treasure!”

“Possibly,” Jacob Cooper cautioned. “It does seem to fit what the Corys said in the video.”

“Yeah,” said Jay. “They talked about the carvies being a problem.”

“And they said something about guards that weren't helping much.” Dr. Cooper smiled at the Corys' dry humor. “Lila found human bones down there. The Corys were probably joking about that.”

“Well, there you are!” said Dr. Basehart. “We
have
found it!”

“So . . .” Jay could see a problem immediately. “What about the carvies?”

Just then, Lila came down the trail with wet hair and dry clothes. She was smiling a little, clean but embarrassed by all the fuss she'd caused.

Dr. Cooper put out his hand to help her down the trail. “How are you feeling?”

She was surprised, but greatly relieved. “I feel just fine. I guess Tomás is right.”

Her father gave her a hug and so did Jay. Tomás grinned, jubilant.

“So what do we do now?” Jay asked.

Dr. Cooper had already been formulating a plan and announced it to everyone. “We'll come back tonight, after the carvies have gone out foraging and the tunnel is clear. If we time it right, we should finish our business before they come back.”

Back at the compound, the Coopers regrouped. They cleaned their slimed clothes, restudied the maps and notes the Corys had left behind, and spent some of the afternoon catching a much-needed siesta in their trailer.

Dr. Armond Basehart said he would nap as well, but he actually spent the time in his laboratory in the third trailer, studying a sample of the green slime he'd taken from Lila. Looking at the sample through his microscope, he nodded to himself. It appeared his theory about the mysterious
caracole volante
was proving correct. Lila Cooper was a very lucky girl indeed.

And he was a very lucky biologist.

When dusk came to the jungle and the treetops looked black against the darkening sky, the Coopers led the group on their second expedition with flashlights in hand and climbing rope in their backpacks. They had extra clothes to cover themselves in case they had a run-in with yellow carvies. The men also carried their weapons again in case they had a run-in with dart-shooting Kachakas.

By the time they reached the gates of Toco-Rey, complete darkness shrouded everything beyond the reach of their flashlights. The pyramids were hidden in the night; the ruins were shrouded under the jungle's thick mantle.

Silently, they stole through the tangled brush until they reached the burial temple of Kachi-Tochetin, now a coal-black silhouette against a tapestry of stars. The birds were silent, but the insects of the jungle were chattering. The still air just above the ruins was quite busy with tiny black bats and, most important, carvies. The slugs were out foraging, just as the Coopers had hoped.

They quickly found the circular pit. Tomás, Juan, and Carlos took positions around it, keeping watch with their rifles. The others knelt in the vines and branches and quietly eased off their backpacks. Even as they prepared to go into the hole they could see a few stray carvies flutter up out of it.

“How many would you estimate were down there?” Dr. Cooper whispered to Lila. None of them wanted to talk too loudly, not knowing what enemies might be lurking in the darkness beyond their sight.

Lila gave a little shrug. “It could have been thousands. They were everywhere.”

Dr. Cooper got on his belly and crawled to the wall. Lifting himself just over the top and pushing some vines aside, he clicked his light on and peered into the pit.

The walls glistened with moisture and slime, and far below, the bones Lila had encountered lay in a scattered heap like jackstraws.

“Okay,” he called in a quiet voice, digging out a length of rope and tying a loop in the end. “Let's go down and check it out.”

“I'll hold a position up here,” said Dr. Basehart. “I hate to admit it, but I suffer terribly from claustrophobia. I would be of little use to you in a dark, cramped tunnel.”

Jacob Cooper accepted that. “Okay, you and your men can handle the rope. I'll go first. Jay and Lila, you provide the lights.”

Dr. Cooper put on an extra shirt, some gloves, and a scarf to cover most of his face. Then he put his foot in the rope loop, stepped over the wall, and disappeared into the dark, clammy space below as Dr. Basehart and his men lowered him. Jay and Lila shined their flashlights after him, helping to illuminate his way.

He immediately noticed it was cooler down here. It was also dank and smelly. As he rotated on the rope, he shined his light to inspect the walls. The pit was hand dug through soil and limestone, between eight and ten feet across and about fifteen feet deep. The thick layers of dried slime on the walls indicated the carvies had lived here for quite a while. The slime was green, which brought a little comfort. It made sense: The carvies only occupied this place when they were well fed and content.

His foot scraped the wall and knocked some rubble loose. The dirt and rocks fell on the bones with hollow, clinking sounds, and a carvy—this one not so content —hissed and skittered out of the way.

“Hold up!” he called, and they stopped lowering him.

He was only four feet above the bone-covered floor. In the beam of his flashlight he could see two yellow carvies perched on a skull. They didn't like being discovered and hissed and chirped at him, their backs arched. He moved slowly, pulling a plastic spray bottle from his belt. He wished he could predict their behavior.

They bolted from the skull in a mad flutter with piercing little shrieks, moving so fast he had trouble tracking them. They came at him, flapping toward his head. Lashing out, he swatted one away with his flashlight. The other landed on his boot, and he sprayed it with the spray bottle.

The bottle contained a strong salt solution, and the carvy's hide began to melt. It flopped to the floor, squeaking and dying.

The second one came at him again, but he sprayed it in midair and it fell immediately to the floor where it flopped about like a landed fish.

“Jay,” he called upward, “your spray bottle idea worked.”

“All
right
,” Jay called back.

“Dad, be careful!” said Lila.

He hooked the spray bottle back onto his belt and explored the floor of the pit with his flashlight. He saw no more carvies.

“Lower away.”

His feet finally came down on the bones, pressing them into the thick layer of carvy droppings that covered the floor. Under his weight, they crumbled. He stepped out of the rope loop and yelled, “Okay, pull it up.” Then, turning in the direction of the burial temple, he found the long, narrow tunnel Lila had talked about. Penetrating deep under the earth, it swallowed up the beam of his flashlight in limitless, black distance.

“I see the tunnel,” he called. “Come on ahead. It's all clear.”

Above, Dr. Basehart and his men pulled the rope back up as Jay motioned to Lila.

She saw his signal, but shook her head. “No, you go first.”

It was usually Jay's custom to go last, so he could keep an eye out for his sister. But as he considered her previous encounter with this pit, he understood. “Okay. I'll wait at the bottom for you.”

“It's a deal.”

Jay pulled a cap down over his head and some gloves on his hands for protection, and Dr. Basehart's men lowered him. Then it was Lila's turn. She put on her drooping, billed, army surplus cap, an extra long-sleeved shirt, and some gloves, and then sat on the wall and swung her legs over the pit.

And then she froze.

“Ready?” asked Dr. Basehart.

Of course she was ready. She was just . . .

She pulled in a deep breath.
Come on, Lila,
she thought.
Get a grip. You can't get scared now, not
with everybody watching.
She'd crawled into plenty of deep, dark places with her father and brother. This was nothing new.

But something about this ugly, smelly hole turned her stomach. She felt unsteady. Her hands were trembling.