The Deadly Curse of Toco-Rey (6 page)

“Yeah,” she finally forced herself to say. “I'm ready.”

Mustering just enough courage, she put her weight on the rope and went over the wall, through the tangled leaves and branches . . . and into the dark throat of the pit.

“That's it,” came the voice of her father from below. “Easy does it.”

She began to rotate on the rope. The walls of the pit moved around her making her dizzy; she felt herself getting sick.

She could hear Jay and her father talking somewhere below her. “Who do you suppose these people were?” Jay asked. “Sacrificial victims, most likely,” her father answered, “thrown into this pit after the ceremony on top of the Pyramid of the Sun.”

She couldn't look down. “How much farther?” she called, her voice betraying her fear.

“Only six more feet, sis,” answered Jay. “No sweat.”

Her feet touched down on the crunching, crumbling bones and soft droppings, and she stumbled a little. Jay and Dr. Cooper reached out to steady her.

“You okay?” Dr. Cooper asked. His voice sounded far away.

No
, she thought. “Of course I'm okay!” She was still having trouble standing up.

“The ground's firm a few inches down,” Dr. Cooper reported.

Strange. To her, the ground seemed to be moving in waves like a water bed.

As her father led the way into the tunnel, he talked in hushed, excited tones, as he always did when he was in the midst of discovery. “I don't think this tunnel was dug by José de Carlon. The tool marks and workmanship are too much like the pit itself. And it's been here so long there are limestone formations. The Oltecas must have chiseled it out.”

“Cool,” said Jay, following just behind him. “Maybe this was supposed to be a secret passage into the tomb.”

“Watch your head and where you step.”

There was only room enough for them to squeeze through the tunnel in single file. They had very little headroom thanks to the sharp, menacing stalactites that hung from the ceiling. The floor was no better; jagged stalagmites poked up like daggers everywhere. To Lila, they looked like teeth, and she had the overwhelming impression they were walking into a monster's jaws. The flashlights of her brother and father created sharp, spooky shadows that lunged and leaped all around her head. She kept her light low and her head down. She didn't want to look.

After what seemed like an endless journey through the belly of a monster, Dr. Cooper finally announced, “Okay, there's something up ahead. You see that?”

“Wow! It's got to be the tomb!” said Jay.

Lila stopped.
Tomb
. The very word terrified her. She'd never been terrified of a tomb before, but she was now. She put her hand against the cold limestone wall to steady herself. The tunnel felt like it was pitching, rolling.

Dr. Cooper and Jay had entered a room, or was it a hallway? There was a flat wall directly in front of them, but the room seemed to stretch a great distance to either side of them.

Dr. Cooper shined his light both ways and could see that the hall turned a corner at each end. “This passage might go clear around the base of the pyramid, kind of an outer hallway around a room in the middle.”

Back in the tunnel, Lila forced herself to take more steps forward. She dared to look up and saw that her brother and father had found a room of some kind.

“Lookitthe formindiss inscriptonida walllll . . .” she heard her father say.

“Den mebbe idwazda curse dey watogginbout . . .” she thought Jay replied.

She took off her gloves and rubbed her ears. It seemed so noisy in this place. A roaring sound everywhere . . .

Dr. Cooper scanned the relief carvings on the wall. “Yes . . . pictures of the serpent god and human sacrifice. You know, human sacrifices were often dressed up in gold and finery donated by the people. Considering what a greedy scoundrel old Kachi-Tochetin was, I wonder if the priests used this passage to sneak into the pit and strip the dead.”

Jay could imagine the scenario. “They kill the victim on the Pyramid of the Sun, throw the body into the pit . . .”

“As a sacred offering to some form of god . . .”

“And then sneak into the pit through this tunnel to get all the gold and jewels for themselves.”

“Could be they had quite a scam going here.” Dr. Cooper shined his flashlight up and down the long passage. “But if that's true, then there has to be another way in and out.”

Jay could hear Lila stumbling in the tunnel behind him and looked back. “Lila?” Her flashlight beam was drooping. She seemed to be staggering. “Hey, Lila, you okay?”

“Okay your minute when it's wider, I'm a gimme . . .” she answered.

Jay reached out and grabbed his father's arm. “Dad . . .”

Dr. Cooper had also heard Lila's response. “Lila? How's it going back there?”

They could only see the beam of her flashlight coming up the tunnel. She didn't answer.

Dr. Cooper shined his light in her face.

She cowered, covering her face with her arms. “NOO! Light now, I'm over inside!”

“She's talking crazy!” Jay exclaimed.

“Something's wrong,” said Dr. Cooper. They hurried back into the tunnel. “Lila, hold still, sweetheart, we're coming.”

Jacob Cooper had almost reached her, was just about to touch her, when she dropped her arms and he saw her face.

Her skin had turned a pale green. Her eyes were wild, like a savage animal's. She screamed a scream that chilled his blood.

He tried to grab hold of her. “Lila—”

SWAT! She struck him across the face before he even saw it coming, her fingernails gouging him, the power of the blow enough to knock him off balance. He fell backward to the tunnel floor, a sharp stalagmite just missed his rib cage.

“Lila,” Jay cried, “what are you doing?”

Her flashlight lay amid the stalagmites, still shining. Far beyond its small circle of light, Jay and Dr. Cooper could hear Lila racing back up the tunnel with incredible speed.

“Did you see her?” Dr. Cooper exclaimed, carefully getting to his feet. “Did you see her face?”

“What happened?”

His voice was desperate. “The very thing José de Carlon wrote about and warned about. Whatever it is, she has it—the curse of Toco-Rey!”

FIVE

A
rmond Basehart and his three men were suddenly startled by faraway, echoing screams coming out of the pit like anguished screams from hell. Tomás, Juan, and Carlos crouched, gripping their rifles, their eyes white and wide with terror in the dark of the jungle.

Even scientific-minded Dr. Basehart was unnerved by the sound. “It's—I think it's the girl.”

Tomás nodded, his face etched with fear. “This is not good, señor. It's—”

The sound was getting closer, louder, wilder. They could hear running footsteps, the other Coopers shouting, the girl screaming. All the voices echoed from far below like ghosts in a deep, forbidden crypt.

Dr. Basehart leaned over the wall and shined his light into the pit. “One of you had better get down there and see what happened.” He looked at his men. “It could be—AAUUGH!”

Something grabbed his arm, then the edge of his coat, then clawed and climbed over him like a wild cat, knocking him to the ground. Juan and Carlos cursed in Spanish, unable to believe their eyes.

“Grab her!” Tomás yelled. “Señorita, stop!”

Juan dropped his rifle to free his hands. She was coming right at him, her eyes wild, her teeth bared, her breath huffing.

He tried to stop her, plead with her. He grabbed hold of her. “Señorita, please—”

She threw him off as if he weighed nothing, and he tumbled head over heels into the brush. Without looking back, she ran headlong into the jungle. They could hear her crashing through the thick growth into the dark night, getting farther and farther away. She screamed again.

And then they heard another scream—
the
other scream, from somewhere in the ruins. It seemed to be answering her.

“Basehart!” came Dr. Cooper's voice from below.

Dr. Basehart and his men dove at the rope and pulled Dr. Cooper from the pit.

“Where's my daughter?” Jacob Cooper demanded, scrambling over the wall.

“She . . .” Dr. Basehart fumbled to answer, still in shock.

“Where is she?”
he yelled.

Dr. Basehart's voice trembled. “She ran into the jungle. We couldn't stop her. She was mad, out of her mind!”

“Get my son out of there!”

They quickly pulled Jay out of the pit.

Dr. Cooper was seething. “So the green slugs are harmless, eh?” He grabbed Tomás by the collar.

“You call
that
harmless? My daughter is a raving animal!”

Dr. Basehart intervened, pulling Jacob Cooper away from Tomás. “Dr. Cooper, we are just as surprised as you! We had no idea—”

They heard another scream. It was Lila.

“Come on,” said Dr. Cooper, leading the way into the jungle, “we'll talk later.”

Tomás cautioned, “It is dangerous! There are snakes, carvies, maybe Kachakas!”

“Come on!”

They pushed into the jungle, trying their best to follow Lila's trail. Dr. Cooper kept probing the thick growth with his flashlight, finding broken branches, trampled leaves and vines, footprints in the soft earth. Her speed and agility through this tangled mess was uncanny. Not only was she out of her mind, but a massive adrenaline rush also gave her super strength. Sometimes it seemed she had bounded over the top of everything.

“The curse of Toco-Rey,” Dr. Cooper muttered bitterly, groping about, slashing with his machete. “Toxic slime! That's all José de Carlon encountered. That's all it ever was. I shouldn't have believed Tomás. I should have gotten Lila out of here right away and put her in a hospital!”

Dr. Basehart tried to defend himself. “Dr. Cooper, we can't be sure what caused—”

“Then find out!” Dr. Cooper snapped back. “You're the scientist, the biologist with the lab. Find out what the stuff is and how we can undo whatever it's doing!”

“My primary purpose here is not biological research, Doctor!” Basehart objected loudly. “I'm here to find the treasure of Kachi-Tochetin—and so are you, I might add!”

Dr. Cooper spun around, eyes blazing, clenching a fist, ready to strike. He quickly controlled himself but struck hard with his words. “Put your greed on hold, Dr. Basehart, until we find my daughter!” He turned and continued pushing through the brush.

Armond Basehart followed, clearly offended. “I beg your pardon!”

“You heard me! You and your boss can just—”

They burst into the clear.

Juan screamed. The others froze, guns in hand.

They were standing before the crumbling stone wall of what had been an Oltecan dwelling. On the ground at the base of the wall, a human-shaped mass of squirming, slimy blobs boiled, crawled, hissed, and squeaked.

For a moment, no one moved. No one could think of what to do.

Tomás came up behind Dr. Cooper and whispered in his ear. “They are turning from yellow to green,” Tomás noted. “They may be more timid now.”

Dr. Cooper approached cautiously, machete and spray bottle ready to take on any carvy that came near him. Some of the slimy creatures began to notice him and half-fly, half-hop away.

So suddenly that he startled the others, Jacob Cooper yelled and flashed his machete back and forth, causing a commotion that sent the carvies fluttering into the trees and ruins like a flock of frightened birds.

“Oh no . . .” said Dr. Basehart as he looked, horrified, at what remained on the ground.

Tomás took one look and then crossed himself.

Jacob Cooper approached cautiously, shining his flashlight on the remains of a person, now nothing more than a skeleton covered with green slime, propped against the wall. “It's Brad Frederick, one of the Cory party.”

The others moved closer in shock and amazement, flashlights illuminating the dead, grinning skeleton before them.

“How can you tell?” Dr. Basehart asked.

“Remember the video?” Dr. Cooper responded, shining his light in the skeleton's face. “That big, white grin is unmistakable.”

“No one touch it,” Dr. Basehart cautioned as he knelt beside the skeleton to scrape off a sample of the green slime with a stick. “I'll take this sample back to the lab and see if I can match it with the slime we took from Lila earlier today.” He carefully folded the stick in his handkerchief and placed it in a vest pocket. “But now it all makes perfect sense, doesn't it?”

“Does it?” Dr. Cooper asked.

Dr. Basehart looked up at the group. “The slug toxin. The Kachakas use it to tip their darts. We found darts at the Corys' camp, so we know the Kachakas must have attacked them. This man, Brad Frederick, must have been hit with a poison dart, and he contracted the same symptoms as your daughter: madness and extreme paranoia, followed eventually by paralysis and death. He fled the scene of the attack, wandered among these ruins, and finally succumbed here. The carvies are the jungle's housekeepers. They have, uh, cleaned up the remains in their own way.” Now he directed his words to Tomás, Juan, and Carlos. “So this ‘curse' you've been so afraid of is nothing more than the toxin the carvies produce in their slime. Nature itself has found a way to guard the treasure of Kachi-Tochetin: poisonous slugs.”

Tomás tried to argue. “But Señor Basehart, Juan and Carlos and I have all touched the green slime before. We have handled the green slugs. We have never gone crazy. The slime does not hurt us.”

Basehart thought that over. “Your ancestors have probably developed an immunity over the generations. The slime, regardless of its color, could produce a very different reaction in foreigners.” He looked at the Coopers. “Which could be why Kachi-Tochetin found it so appropriate.”