The Deadly Curse Of Toco-Rey Part 4

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.

"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 Jose 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 pa.s.sage 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 stalact.i.tes 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d ..."

"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 pa.s.sage. "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 Jose de Carlon wrote about and warned about. Whatever it is, she has it-the curse of Toco-Rey!"

FIVE.

Armond Basehart and his three men were suddenly startled by faraway, echoing screams coming out of the pit like anguished screams from h.e.l.l. Toms, 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."

Toms nodded, his face etched with fear. "This is not good, seor. 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!" Toms yelled. "Seorita, 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. "Seorita, 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 Toms by the collar.

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

Dr. Basehart intervened, pulling Jacob Cooper away from Toms. "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."

Toms 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 ma.s.sive 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 Jose de Carlon encountered. That's all it ever was. I shouldn't have believed Toms. I should have gotten Lila out of here right away and put her in a hospital!"