Dark Passages Box Set Page 3

  “What is going on?” Stan whispered.

  I shook my head, my heart racing.

  A figure appeared in the flames—a man, painted red from head to foot, his face turned downward in a hard scowl. He was the man we’d seen on the pyramid walls.

  The Jemwaju.

  He opened his eyes and cast his hands outward, shooting flames across the clearing. They landed at our feet, causing the grass and vines to curl like snakes. The boys screamed as the vines wrapped around their ankles and locked them in place.

  “Mr. Stan!” Leo wailed, grabbing at his legs. They didn’t move.

  The boys erupted in cries, pulling and flailing against their restraints.

  “Pull harder!” Stan shouted. “As hard as you can!”

  Behind the Jemwaju, warriors appeared, their cheeks streaked white—the same as I’d seen on their leathery corpses in the tomb—but now very much alive. They marched out of the fire with their spears in their hands, encircling us.

  The drumming became louder and more intense, beating faster. The warriors chanted, pounding their spears on the ground. The high priest stepped from the flames, holding his arms out, then clapped them to his sides.

  The drums and chanting stopped.

  The flames roaring behind him, the priest lowered a hand and pointed at me, his eyes filled with pain and hate. “Watenga zomwe sizinali zako!”

  The massive bonfire burst upward, and the red man’s voice came out of the flames. “You have taken what was not yours.”

  My breath left me. I glanced at Stan.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I heard it, too.”

  The five boys cowered behind their troop leader, tears flowing down their cheeks.

  The priest threw his head back and screamed, his cries echoing off the trees. The fire burst forward again with his words. “You have taken what was not yours!”

  My heart pounding, I managed a nod. “I . . . I have.”

  He stretched his hand toward me, scowling as the fire spoke. “You will repay what you owe.”

  I threw my hands out. “The bones are here. Tomorrow, in the light, we can find them and—”

  “You will pay now.”

  Tommy.

  I looked around the clearing. “Where is the boy? He came in here. We followed him.”

  The Jenwaju shook his head. The flame spoke his words. “He is mine.”

  “I took what wasn’t mine.” I thumped my finger into my chest. “I’m ready to repay you.”

  Stan held his arms out, facing the Jemwaju. “The boy didn’t take anything from you!”

  “You took what you wanted from us. Now I will take what I want from you.”

  The ground shook, and a chasm opened. Rocks and dirt fell into its deep blackness.

  The red man’s gaze fell on the scouts. “Come, children.”

  Vines sprung forth from the pit, wrapping around the boys. They screamed and kicked as it pulled them to their knees, dragging them toward the edge.

  The Jemwaju looked at me and laughed, his bonfire dancing behind him.

  Stan fell to the ground, twisting and flailing, unable to free the scouts from the Jemwaju’s grip. “Stop! Stop this. The bones are here. I can give them to you.”

  “The time for that has passed. You took from me. Now I take from you.”

  Shrieking, the boys slipped nearer to the edge of the precipice, frantically clawing the ground to keep from being pulled over the side.

  The Jemwaju smiled.

  “Let them go!” Stan grabbed the vines and dug his heels into the dirt, straining to keep the children from being pulled over the edge. “These boys had nothing to do with it!”

  The flames grew higher. I squeezed my eyes shut against the heat. “I took the bones of your king. Let me repay the debt I have incurred.”

  Leo screamed, his legs and torso slipping over the edge. “Help me, Mr. Brett!” He gripped grass and thin, exposed roots, wailing as his legs dangling beneath him. The black chasm loomed below.

  “Help!” Tommy stood quivering on a narrow ledge in the pit, pressing himself into the side to keep from dropping into the blackness.

  The other boys screamed as they struggled against the vines, being slowly dragged toward the chasm.

  “Mr. Brett!” Tommy’s wide eyes met mine. His cheeks were streaked with tears. “Help me!”

  “Don’t!” Stan shouted again. “Don’t take these boys!”

  The Jemwaju’s voice roared through the flames. “I will take you all.”

  A vine slinked out of the trembling pit, stretching across the ground and moving toward Stan. It coiled around his feet like a snake, jerking him across the ground and pulling him to the edge.

  Wrapped in the vines, Evan and Wyatt were inches from the crevasse, screaming and twisting. Leo cried in agony, grabbing at the muddy ground to keep from dropping into the blackness. Luke thrashed frantically at vines, screaming as they dragged him over the edge. He crashed into the ledge, knocking Tommy off balance and nearly sending him toppling into the vast darkness below.

  I was held in place. The Jemwaju pointed at me and scowled. “Where are the bones of my king?”

  The smell of the ancient tomb came to me, like his words conjured it from my past. It filled my senses like it had done decades before, the musty stench of mold and death, brimming in my nose and lungs, making my stomach lurch. I fell to my knees, holding my gut to keep from retching.

  The Jemwaju screamed, blasting flames into the trees and setting them on fire. “Give my king to me!”

  The ground trembled. Hot embers hit me. “Stan!”

  The Jemwaju raged again, sending fire upwards, higher than the treetops. It scorched my eyes.

  “I will kill you all.” The Jemwaju’s voice boomed like thunder. The ground shook with his words. “Give me my king!”

  My lungs filled with scorching heat, choking me. I gasped, holding my hands up to block the flames. “Stan! Where did you bury the bones!”

  The Jemwaju’s eyes flashed. Turning away from me, he pulled flames from the bonfire and heaved them toward Stan. The fires wrapped around the scoutmaster. He squeezed his eyes shut, crying out and curling up in a ball, unable to keep the fire away.

  But he didn’t burn. The flames swirled all around him, but didn’t touch him.

  “Give me my king!”

  Stan stood, encircled in fire, and walked a few feet to the base of a tree. Reaching down, he pushed back the brush and uncovered a wide, flat rock.

  “Do it!” I shouted.

  Stan’s trembling fingers stretched over the rough edge of the stone, and he wrenched it backwards. Digging with his hands, he pushed away pile after pile of dirt until he exposed a beige, wood-like oval in the ground. He forced his fingers around it and pulled out a skull.

  The rest of the king was there, a few inches deeper.

  “Here.” Stan fell backward onto the leaves. “Here is your king.”

  The Jemwaju reared upward, becoming one with the bonfire, launching hands of flame toward the hole. Thunder boomed through the forest as the high priest gazed upon the bones.

  “You have your king.” Stan shook as he spoke, gasping. “Let the boys go.”

  The Jemwaju’s arms stretched past the scoutmaster and into the ground, lifting the bones out. In his hands, they aligned themselves, sprouting the leathery flesh we’d seen in the tomb. The fire leaped skyward as skin formed and stretched over the bones, until the body of the king was complete. Eyes, hair, hands, feet—the dead king rested in the arms of his high priest.

  The king looked young—hardly older than our scouts—with smooth skin and small features.

  The Jemwaju looked to the skies, cradling his master, his face somber. “A price must be paid.”

  With his king in his arms. The flames swirled and grew larger until they encompassed his soldiers and the trees beyond.

  I clenched my teeth, bracing for the fire.

  The ground trembled as a howling wind swept through the forest
, surging upwards with the flames and the Jemwaju. The wind grew to a roar. Trees swayed and crashed into each other.

  A vine whipped across the ground and grabbed Stan’s ankle. He kicked as it dragged him toward the edge of the cliff. “No! What are you doing?”

  The voice of the Jemwaju echoed through the trees. “A price must be paid.”

  “You have your king!” Stan rolled over, clawing in the dirt. His fingers etched the ground. “I paid. I gave you back your bones!”

  “You took what you wanted from us.” The Jemwaju threw his hands into the air. “Now I will take what I want from you.”

  Fire burst forward from the pit. Stan screamed and disappeared over the edge.

  The boys howled as the vines dragged them forward, hauling them into the black depths of the crevasse.

  The fire swooped down from the treetops, disappearing into the yawning hole as the dirt walls slammed shut. The ground shook once more, and they were gone.

  The fire had stopped. Darkness descended on the woods.

  And silence.

  I pushed myself to my feet, staring into the black of the clearing. A hollow feeling flashed through me, then it left. It was the same feeling I’d gotten when I stared into the pyramid’s crypt decades before, breathing that awful dust, that dead air. At that time, I knew I had to leave the tomb before the feeling got too big. If I didn’t, it would overtake me.

  But I didn’t leave the pyramid. I went back in.

  I inhaled that dead air, taking the particles of decaying bodies and ingesting them into me, allowing it into my lungs and my bloodstream.

  The voice of the Jemwaju rumbled low through the trees like distant thunder. “Walk on, my brother-soldier. You are one of us, and our blood lives in your veins. Tonight, we have avenged our king. Positi.”

  The sound of the crickets came back. A light wind rustled the trees.

  I shined my flashlight around the clearing. It was unscathed. No embers, no ash pile, no scorched plants; no evidence that a fire had burned there at all.

  No gap in the forest floor.

  I took a deep breath and nodded, then turned off my flashlight and walked back to my RV.

  I drove home in a daze. There was no way to explain what had happened. Parents were outraged, and the police were called. Threats were made, and search parties formed. I helped. What else could I do? But no one ever found anything, and without a body no one could say what really happened.

  Things were never the same after that.

  Three months later, I’d had enough of the funny looks and decided to leave town, relocating to a small, crappy apartment in Corona Beach and a quieter life there as a researcher again.

  But I had nagging questions.

  Nightmares that wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Cold sweats would overtake me, even on the hottest days.

  That fall, I met a guy from Tomb Explorer magazine, the online website that compiles the junk all of us professionals dig up. He was a professor, giving a presentation in Orlando on ancient languages, and I was lucky enough to score a short sit-down interview at his hotel.

  I had a question for him.

  Positi.

  The Jemwaju said it to me—the last thing he said before he disappeared into the night. I’m a digger, not an expert in ancient languages, but it sounded like he was giving me a name.

  I didn’t tell the professor about the circumstances of how I’d heard it. I said I read it on the tomb wall decades earlier.

  The professor shook his head when I said it to him. “Ancient Mayan is tough to transfer into modern-day meanings, but positi would not be a name.” He went to his suitcase and dug out a thick, weather-worn textbook with a cracked leather cover, heaving it open to the middle and scrolling down the page with his finger. “Yes, here.” He tapped the yellowing text. “Positi is a kind of trade term. It would be a deposit or a down payment.” He gazed at me. “If someone said it to you, it would be taken to mean, this will do for now—but they’ll eventually be calling on you for another payment.”

  I stared out the hotel room window in stunned silence, an awful, empty feeling growing inside me. I thought I heard the faint sound of distance drumming as the words of the professor echoed in my head, sending chills down my spine.

  “They’ll eventually be calling on you for another payment.”

  Best Monday Ever

  The keyboards were clicking outside the office of J. Edward Hartford, but all he could do was alternate between staring at the clock and staring at the phone.

  His partner stuck her head in the door. “They’ll call when they call, Ed. Relax.”

  Hartford shook his head, drumming his fingers on the desk. “I can’t, Melanie. Do you know what this award could mean for this firm?”

  “Let me see if I can remember how you put it.” She stroked her chin and gazed at the ceiling. “I think it was, ‘A huge opportunity, the chance to make the big time . . .’”

  A chorus of office workers voiced the last part in unison. “All of the dreams of this little firm coming true.”

  “Okay, okay.” Hartford chuckled. “I guess I may have mentioned it a few times.”

  “Pretty sure I was reciting it in my sleep last night. Got an elbow from Chuck. He has a strict policy against snoring and no Successories-type slogans after 10 P. M.”

  Angelo stood up and went to the owner’s doorway. “Ed, how about I get you some green tea from Charlemagne’s?”

  Ed’s face brightened. “And one of their muffins?”

  “I think a pre-announcement muffin might be just the thing.” Angelo headed for the exit. “I’ll be right back.

  “Thanks, Angelo.” Ed swallowed hard. “Thank you, everyone. I really—”

  “Need to calm down.” Melanie stepped out of the office. “Want me to close your door?”

  “No, no, Mel. I’m a nervous wreck in here.”

  “That’s why we need your door closed. Some of us have work to do.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, flinging his hands like they had water on them. “Yes, okay. Shut it. I’ll worry in silence here in my—”

  The desk phone rang.

  Ed jumped. “This could be it!”

  “Better answer it, then,” Melanie said.

  He wiped his hands on his pants and cleared his throat, then grabbed the receiver. “This is Ed Hartford.”

  A small crowd of employees gathered at his office door.

  “Yes . . . yes. Of course.” Ed smiled. “Thank you. It’s a huge honor. Yes, I’ll be there.”

  He gently laid the phone in the cradle, sitting back in his chair with glassy eyes. His jaw hung slack. Gazing at his employees, he whispered. “This is the best Monday, ever. We did it. We won.”

  “You won?” Melanie cheered. “Congratulations! Business executive of the year!”

  “I won!” Ed jumped up from his desk, his hands over his head. “I did it! I really did it! They’re going to announce it on the radio in a few minutes and then there’s the big ceremony on Friday.”

  “Way to go.” Melanie patted him on the back. “Better call Erica. She’s been on pins and needles all week—almost worse than you.”

  “Oh, she will be thrilled,” Ed said. “Thrilled! I need to call her.” He grabbed his cell phone. “This is the best Monday, ever.”

  “You earned it, partner. You really put us on the map today.”

  “Cake!” Ed stopped dialing. “We need a celebration cake!”

  Tina peered around the doorway into her boss’ office. “Charlemagne’s?”

  “You read my mind. Off you go!” Ed resumed dialing. “Get the biggest cake they have!”

  She smiled. “Carrot cake, sir?”

  Ed stopped dialing again. “Well, yeah, preferably. I mean, I know how much everyone here likes the carrot cake from Charlemagne’s . . .”

  Melanie rolled her eyes.

  “Nothing says ‘congratulations’ like carrot cake.” Tina turned and grabbed her
purse from her chair. “I’ll be right back.”

  The celebrating went on for over an hour.

  * * * * *

  The home of J. Edward Hartford was where Erica made her office—and where she received the good news from her husband with a rush of pride and relief. Ed had worked hard, and he was finally being recognized for it. All the late nights at the office finally paid off.

  She clicked off the radio and smiled, leaning back in her desk chair. The station reached over 100,000 listeners. Business would soon be booming. It was nice that they mentioned Melanie in the announcement, too. She worked nearly as hard as Ed did.

  Her phone rang again.

  Ed’s so excited he can’t remember he already told me.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Hartford? This is Ron Farragut from the Executive of the Year committee.”

  “Oh, yes.” She sat up. “We just heard the news.”

  “Yes, the broadcast. Well, we have a special surprise lined up for your husband. We’ve arranged for the Governor to meet with our committee and honor our newest Executive of the Year, at a private luncheon. It’s scheduled Wednesday at noon, and we’d love for you to be there.”

  “A meeting with the Governor! Oh, Ed will be thrilled.” She clicked her mouse and glanced at her calendar. “Of course I can make it. I work from home and schedule my own hours. It will be no problem.”

  “Fantastic. Now, it’s a surprise for Ed, so please don’t say anything about it. And if you don’t mind, would you help us with a few other details, so we can customize the award ceremony for your husband? For example, we want to know his favorite restaurant, and maybe his favorite dessert. Things like that.”

  Erica chuckled. “Steak from anywhere, medium rare, and the double chocolate cake from Charlemagne’s.”

  “Perfect. Do you think you’d have some time to go over the menu with someone from the Governor’s office and a member of our staff? I’d say it won’t take more than an hour.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” she said. “Where should I meet you, and when did you have in mind?”

  “The Governor’s private aide is already here arranging things with us at the restaurant. We have some time available this afternoon before 5 P. M., or tomorrow morning after ten. Is either of those good for you? Melanie suggested today, since she thinks Ed will be working late.”