I. Place Of The Voices
Tikal, Guatemala
The rainforest lived and breathed that night.
Doctor Callisto Cross closed his eyes, took in a lungful of clean air and let the rhythm of the winds guide him through the dense jungle trail. The songs of a thousand crickets resonated throughout the primeval world, along with the silent wailing of spider monkeys on the canopy. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he could only imagine how this fascinating place looked, but with the nearby smell of tree moss and the distant trickle of a waterfall, he could paint a clear picture of this sanctuary within the privacy of his own conscious.
Closing his eyes was a ritual Cross practiced frequently. It was his meditative experiment of perception. He did this to relax. He did this to clear his thoughts. But most importantly, Cross closed his eyes for hours in hopes of seeing into other worlds. The more he tried however, the more he realized what he was actually looking at was his own inner thoughts. Imagination could be misleading and he knew more than anyone that the human brain was not one to play games with. Sighing with disappointment, he opened his eyes and the jungle slowly manifested back into soft focus. There was the Guatemalan guide riding his donkey quietly while Billy hacked away at the thick foliage with his machete. Suddenly, the feedback from his team’s motion detectors interfered with the sounds of nature. Technology was the jungle’s uninvited guest.
Tikal National Park was a two hundred and twenty-two square mile expanse of thick vegetation and wildlife. So far on their thirty-kilometer trek from the closest city, Flores, they had encountered a family of white-nosed coatimundi, the weasel-like scavengers scrounging for food, along with a variety of birds, who watched forebodingly from their fixed positions in the trees. So far the only threat of the night had been the Park Ranger patrol. The tranquilizers would wear out in a few hours. Just enough time for them to find the location. What followed after that was up to fate alone.
“Follow the moonlight,” came Serena’s ghostly whisper that seemed to echo eerily along the tree line. “The moon will show us the way.”
Cross took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief then ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. She had been repeating those words all night. He had the utmost patience with the girl, but it was at times like these where frustration began to wear in. He looked up at the full moon.
Follow the moonlight. What does she mean?
It had been a week since his team broke Serena out of The Santa Clara Health Institution but the journey had felt much longer. She was an extraordinary girl. The team pitied her but Cross knew that if it weren’t for her Autism, she would not have the unbelievable abilities that had led them this far.
Serena’s eyes darted back and forth along the trees in a focused glare, her mouth agape. For a second he wondered if she was having one of her moments but he reasoned she wasn’t, her eyeballs usually turned silver during her rituals. Still, sometimes he wondered where Serena’s mind lingered.
“The moonlight is our path,” she muttered. “We walk in the footsteps of time. Time is an arrow.”
Cross slowly took her frail hand. She did not once look away from the sky. He followed her gaze. The moon was there all right; a sepia-colored full moon that lit up her pale skin and angelic face.
“What do you see, honey?” he asked her, massaging her smooth cheek with the back of his hand. “What does the sky tell you?”
She blinked once. Blinked twice. Her radiant green eyes glimmered in the moonlight. For the first time all night she looked him in the eyes.
“We’re almost there, Doctor Cross,” she said.
“Okay gentlemen. You heard the girl. Microphones and cameras on.”
The team of four powered on their hardware swiftly and silently, putting on their night vision goggles as they refrained from using torches and flashlights to avoid drawing attention from Park Rangers. Either way, each man was equipped with a tranquillizer pistol should the situation call for it. Charlie was the sound technician for the night, mounting his parabolic microphone at the end of a large tripod, a pair of thick headphones on his ears. Billy sheathed his machete and switched on the atmospheric environment monitor while Hector controlled the motion detectors. Riggs turned on his digital video camera and switched it to night vision. Each man was handpicked for tonight’s expedition by Cross, who had done a background check on each of them. All four were loyal scientists and engineers from Scion Enterprises. They could be trusted. As for Serena, he was putting a lifetime’s worth of research in her hands.
“Ya llegamos!” called the Guatemalan guide. He jumped off his donkey and tied the rope to a nearby tree. “Vamonos!”
He was about to make his way into the clearing before Cross stopped him dead in his tracks. He put a hand on his shoulder and said, “This is as far as you go, friend.” He took his hand and stuffed five hundred quetzal into his palm.
“Pero Señor, you no need me on the way back?”
Cross smiled. “We know the way back, right, gentlemen?”
“Damn right,” said Hector.
“Damn right,” came Serena’s little voice in the shadows, imitating Hector’s deep hoarse tone.
Hector shook his head. “Kid’s getting on my nerves.”
The Guatemalan guide looked at them suspiciously, then quickly pocketed the money.
“This never happened, okay fella?” said Cross, pretending his mouth was a zipper and closing it. “Go home and forget about us.”
“Si, Señor. Secret. I don’t tell no people.”
“Very good.”
They waited for the guide to get back on his donkey and ride into the darkness before assembling their tools. Serena took off her shoes and sprawled on the dirt.
“Put your shoes on, Sweetie,” said Cross. “And get up from the dirty floor. We have work to do.”
“No!” she insisted, pulling away from his grip. “The earth is so soft.” She dug her hands into the soil and pulled out clumps of dirt and tree roots, then smeared her face with it.
“You’re making a mess of yourself, darling,” he said, trying to pull her up but the fifteen year old girl was strong for her age.
“The earth is so pure,” she continued. “We take it for granted.”
“Listen, Doc,” said Billy. “We don’t have time for this. We still don’t know what’s on the other side. How bout one of us baby sits the brat, while the rest of us do our jobs? Charlie, you’re great with kids. What do you say?”
“Not happening,” said Charlie.
“Why not? You have a daughter, don’t you?”
“My daughter’s not a retard problem child.”
“Hey!” shouted Cross. “The girl comes with us whether you like it or not. Your fancy equipment will only get us so far. She’s our link to the other side and could get us back if we happen to get lost. So I’d appreciate it if you treated Serena with a little more respect.”
“You’re the boss, Boss,” said Riggs. “Let’s move out.”
Cross turned his attention back to Serena who was back on her feet, jaw hanging open.
“Retard problem child,” she whispered. “Her condition is severe.”
Cross moved a streak of hair away from her face. “Don’t listen to them, kiddo. They don’t understand.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Nobody understands. The universe floats in an endless sea, a mere bubble.” She opened her eyes abruptly. “The door is open tonight. We gotta hurry, Doctor Cross.”
He took her hand. “Only if you promise to stay close.”
“Close. Far. Distance is irrelevant where we’re going.” Her voice was filled with sadness. “Mommy and Daddy just wanted to learn. Curiosity killed the cat.” The tears came, salty beads streaming down her cheeks. “So much violence in a world too complex for its own good.”
“Hang in there, love.”
“We’re almost there, Doctor Cross. The door will be closing soon. Hurry.”
“Pick up the pace, boys!”
They soldiered through the vast darkness until they reached what used to be the Mendez Causeway and was now a rugged jungle path. A hundred yards down the path and Cross could already smell it, the familiar aroma of age-old stone. He’d read about it in countless textbooks, seen so many pictures of the historic sacred grounds, but here it was right before his eyes. It was called the Place of the Voices; the cradle of Mayan civilization still standing after hundreds of years. At the first sight of the Central Acropolis, Cross’s skin began to crawl. Clouds of fog began to appear and he could feel the humidity that came along with them. Right away he could feel the difference in the air, the natural stillness of sacred ground. Suddenly, the hardware came alive with a repetitive beeping noise.
“Just ghosts,” said Hector, gripping the motion detectors. “A lot of them.”
“Getting a lot of heat in this area,” said Billy.
“Ignore them,” said Cross. “We’re headed to the Great Plaza. Follow me.”
Holding Serena by the hand, Cross led the way and soon the Mayan city of Tikal began to slowly reveal itself one stone structure after another. They bordered the length of the Central Acropolis until they met the square plaza, where Temples I and II towered high above the canopy. A staircase made up the front of each structure and led up to the actual Temple. The North Acropolis stood tall before them, a jagged set of stone steps, eroded at base level, set high upon the rising earth. This was once a stadium-like sitting ground where Mayan’s watched their recreational events below. Since this area was a hot tourist attraction, a number of straw huts were built around the Acropolis as information booths. Despite their awkward appearance, the huts didn’t take away from the prehistoric aura that came from the ruins. Cross switched off his night vision goggles. He wanted to look upon these marvels with his own eyes, besides; the moonlight seemed brighter in Tikal.
“Fascinating,” he whispered. “It seems unreal to walk upon the same soil where the Mayans once reigned.”
“Still reign,” said Charlie, gripping the microphone. He turned the knob to get a better frequency. “I’m getting some pretty eerie stuff.”
“They don’t call it the Place of Voices for no reason,” said Riggs.
“Listen to this.” Charlie handed the headphones to Riggs.
“Focus,” said Cross. “Serena said the door won’t be open for long.”
Charlie dug into his satchel and pulled out the EMF detector. The small device was used to detect fluctuations in energy levels by paranormal investigators to measure what they believed to be spirits in the form of heat waves. The closer they moved towards Temple I, the higher the magnification coil rose.
“Detecting 30 watts of heat,” he said. “What exactly are we looking for, Doctor?”
“The kind of heat we’re looking for will fry that little tool of yours. When the coil starts to hit 50,000 volts, then we’re on to something.”
By the end of the 10th Century, the Mayans abandoned their city for reasons still unknown. Some historians reasoned that the city declined after the nobles fled, leaving the others unable to govern themselves, but there is still no reason why the nobles would flee. What would drive an entire civilization to abandon such a miraculous place? If Serena was indeed on the right track and all his research was correct, they were about to find out why. Suddenly, Serena squeezed Cross’s hand and began to pull him back.
“This is wrong,” she cried, shaking her head uncontrollably. “No! No! Wrong!”
“Control your specimen, Doctor,” said Billy.
She began to run but Cross wasn’t about to let her go. Not after all this. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him. She struggled in his grip, slapped him once in the face but Cross managed to pin her against the wall of Temple I. He held in his anger, knowing he had to be patient with the girl. They couldn’t afford to lose her at a time like this.
“Don’t give up now, Serena,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Have some faith. Only you know where to find it.”
She refused to look him in the eye and continued to struggle. “This is a bad place, Doctor Cross. The air is still. Shadows are closing in. Waves are shifting. People have died here and people will die again.”
He held her tighter now. “Is that what you see? Tell me, love.”
“I see darkness.” Her head jerked back and forth against the cold stone. “The door is here. Someone left it wide open.”
“Now this is very important, Serena. I need you to take a deep breath and relax. Where is the door? Only you can help us find it. This is your task, sweetie. You’re an incredible girl with a gift. It’s time to use that gift.”
She closed her eyes and he could already feel the energy running through her body.
“Follow the moonlight. The moon is your guardian when it is highest in the sky.” She cried now and through her sobs, Cross could see that she was just a lost child, confused and scared. He felt for her more than ever.
“History will repeat itself, Doctor Cross,” she continued. “It will happen right here.” She took his face in her hands and turned his head to face Temple II. “The moonlight will show you the way!”
He looked up at the full moon and focused on the thick cloud covering it. He tried to move but Serena kept his head in place.
“Wait,” she whispered.
Unable to move, he watched the highest peak of Temple II and the endless steps that led up to it.
“Wait. The moon is coming.”
The cloud moved slowly across the moon.
“Wait.”
His heart raced at what lay ahead as Serena’s whispers sent chills along his spine.
“Now!”
The cloud drifted and the moonlight came. Like switching on a light bulb, the blue rays beamed across the Temple stairwell, killing the darkness in a massive wave of light. When the wave reached the top of the Temple it revealed the floating ball of white light within the entrance for a split second. He blinked once and the ball of light was gone, like blowing out a candle. A rush of excitement ran through his body. He kissed Serena on the cheek and said, “You did it!”
“Anybody else see that?” said Riggs.
“See what?” said Charlie.
“We have our location, boys,” said Cross. “The portal is the entrance to Temple II!” He turned to Serena. “You were right. The moonlight is our guardian. You’re brilliant!”
But Serena did not share in his enthusiasm. The look of utter dread on her face worried him. She grabbed his arm and said, “Mommy and Daddy just wanted to learn. They were happy too but they disintegrated. So will you.”
“What are you talking about, sweetie? This is a breakthrough. You’re going to make us very very rich. I need you to smile for me.”
She shook her head aggressively. “No! They’re coming for you! History will repeat itself!”
“Doc,” came Billy’s voice. “This portal won’t be open forever. We gotta move.”
“Hold on, damn you!” ordered Cross. He turned back to Serena. “You need to come with us, Serena. You’ve done great so far but there’s more to this journey and we can’t do it without you.”
She slapped him in the face again but this time harder than ever and screamed, “Shadows are emerging! They are coming for us!”
That was the last straw. His patience had run dry with the girl. Cross wasn’t a violent man by nature but that night he found himself pinning the poor fifteen year old to the ground out of sheer desperation as she kicked her legs furiously.
“Help me!” he yelled and Charlie came to his aid, grabbing Serena’s legs.
“This is for your own good, you little brat,” he said.
“Don’t call her a brat!” snapped Cross. “Let’s just get her to the top of that Temple!”
The rest of the team watched with awkward stares.
“What are you all waiting for! Get up there before it closes!”
The team reacted to Cross’s orders immediately, gathering the equipment and making their way up the Temple steps, as Serena’s wails grew louder.
“Shadows are surrounding us! You’re all gonna be vaporized! The stars are crying!”
“Shut her up,” said Hector.
Billy took off his bandana and stuffed it in her mouth. This was enough for her to give up the fight. She made herself limp in defeat, her head falling back, her hair dragging against the stone steps.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” said Cross. “But you just wouldn’t listen. Now, I need you to be a good and cooperative girl on this journey. If you behave, we’ll be nice. If you don’t, it’s back to Santa Clara for you.”
She was deathly silent now with the bandana stuffed in her mouth, but somewhere he could hear her humming an eerie muffled tune.
“Fluctuations are rising,” said Charlie, gripping the EMF detector.
“Put that thing away,” said Cross. “It’s no longer needed. Save your power.”
Before Riggs could switch anything off, the ear-splitting frequency feedback blared through his headphones. He threw them off and fell to his knees, gripping his ears. Smoke began to seap out of the malfunctioning atmospheric monitor and Billy had to drop it before it burned his hands. The monitor smashed into pieces that rolled down the steps.
“Turn it all off!” Cross ordered.
They switched off the hardware and slowly inched closer to the invisible portal at the top of the steps. A pungent odor rolled in, the smell of burnt rubber and ozone. The area suddenly became unbearably hot. Cross heard a bizarre ringing in his earlobes that stung with pain. All the while, Serena’s faint humming continued. The entrance to the Temple was a door eight feet high. Behind it was nothing but darkness. For a minute, Cross thought he heard whispering. Perhaps it came from entities on the other side of the portal but the whispers echoed from somewhere behind them. He turned and looked at the ruins below, and at the Temple opposite him. He thought he saw movement within the darkness, but he knew his mind was just playing tricks again. This happened in moments of great anticipation. He disregarded the paranoia that said they were being followed and focused on the task at hand.
Charlie reached into his satchel and pulled out what looked like a spray-paint canister. He pointed the canister at the door and pressed the top, spraying a cold liquid nitrogen mist into the open air. Instantly, the blinding white light from the portal became visible amidst the spray. Energy waves rippled out from the portal, like those of a pebble tossed in a still puddle.
At last they faced a real interdimensional portal and it was far more beautiful than any textbook diagram. Einstein was not far off in his descriptions. The liquid nitrogen mist began to wear off, so Charlie sprayed it once more. This time a bolt of electricity jolted out of the portal and chiseled the rock inches from his feet.
“Easy,” said Cross. “It’s sensitive.”
The whispers echoed behind them once again. Cross jerked his head back and stared down at the ruins immersed in darkness. The fog below was very still. He couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that they were not alone in the ruins. A thick cloud crawled its way over the moon once again. They were cloaked in darkness as a howling wind blew in from the North. Serena’s humming grew louder. As Cross clutched her firmly, her head dropped again, long hair covering her face, and she began to tremble violently in his arms.
“What’s she doing?” asked Riggs. “She having one of her moments?”
Her humming became a deafening whine as the wind picked up its pace. Something was not right. The air was not responding the way it should. Out of fear, Cross turned to the only person who could give him answers. He grabbed Serena’s trembling head and pulled the bandana out of her mouth. When she lifted her head, her eyeballs were glowing silver. He let her go and she slowly stood up, stretching her arms out beside her, her head tilting to the side. Her glowing eyes felt as if they were penetrating his scull, his every vein pulsing with fury. Her mouth opened and she spoke in a low frequency monotone.
“They are here.”
The whispers became voices now and the shadows became visible all around them as if they had appeared out of thin air. Dark figures emerged from every corner of every building structure. On the Central Acropolis, four black shadows watched from afar. Opposite them on Temple I, another two figures stood at the highest stone platform wearing cloaks that danced in the wind.
“We’ve been compromised!” yelled Cross. “Jump the portal now! It’s our only escape!”
“We don’t know what’s in there!” cried Billy.
Hector prepared to leap into the energy field but suddenly a thunderous blast went off in Temple I and a ball of red light shot towards them landing directly on the portal and reacting in a mini explosion of static electricity. The red light formed a glowing barrier along the length of the portal. Hector went for it anyways and was pushed back with a jolt of electricity that tossed him down the steps like a rag doll.
On the dome above them, a man appeared carrying a strange tube-like machine that glowed with a blue light. He wore a loose black trench coat that seemed to cloak him in darkness. From below, Cross could see the scars across his face and he towered over them with a menacing glare, black eyes filled with hate and a mouth full of yellow clenched teeth. When he spoke, his voice was chilled to the bone.
“This area is off limits.”
With that said, the stranger pointed his machine at Riggs and shot a ray of shimmering light at him that went straight into his chest. The light enveloped his body, illuminating his bones and Riggs became a cloud of black ash that blew off in the wind. The killer did the same to Charlie, whose deafening cry of anguish faded to a whisper as his body vaporized into dust. The stranger jumped down to their level, his boots landing with a hard thump on the stone. Hector pulled out his tranquilizer pistol and shot a dart towards him, but the killer snatched the dart from the air with a gloved hand and stabbed Hector in the shoulder with it. Hector’s eyes opened wide with fear as the killer lifted him off his feet by the shirt and pushed him off the Temple. Cross closed his eyes but still heard the violent bone-breaking impact below. In a hopeless attempt to survive, Billy used a karate move on the killer, kicking him in the head, but the blow did nothing but aggravate the killer. As he prepared for his next kill, Cross couldn’t bear to watch and knew there was only one way out of this slaughter. He grabbed Serena by the shoulders and shook her violently, her silver eyes still glowing in the darkness.
“Take me with you!” he shouted. “Wherever you are, take me with you!”
She responded with an eerie gesture and tilted her head to the side, lost in her own world where nothing mattered but her own traveling conscious. Her body was here, but her mind was roaming the unknown. Falling to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her like a hopeless child and pleaded, “Take me with you! I don’t want to die!”
She grabbed his arms and pulled them away from her and suddenly her strength had doubled. She walked down the steps backwards until she was a good distance away from him, opened her mouth and murmured, “Time to go now.”
With a flash of light, Serena disappeared into the unknown chasms of Space, leaving Cross to fend for himself, alone in the hands of armed shadows. He looked back and watched as Billy was kicked to the stone by the killer and vaporized into a cloud of death. The wind blew Billy’s ashes into Cross’s eyes and mouth. Choking on his colleague, he couldn’t help crying helplessly. He crawled down the steep stairs, falling and banging his head against the stone as he did. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he clawed at the grass with childish whimpers but was met by the rest of the dark figures. They formed a perimeter around him and closed in slowly as the armed killer took his time down the Temple steps, whistling Whistle While You Work at a slow, disturbing pace. He turned a knob on his vaporizing machine and Cross could hear it powering up for his own death. The killer took a minute to observe him, studying him from head to toe with a fixed fascination that made Cross shudder.
“What is your name?” came the bone-chilling voice.
Cross trembled in the grass, unable to speak.
The growl that followed was nothing short of hellish. “WHAT IS YOUR NAME!?”
“Ca…Callisto. Callisto Cross.”
The army of shadows surrounding him watched from the dark.
“Well, Mr. Cross. These are sacred grounds. Your visit has disturbed the natural way of the universe. You are now going to tell me where you heard about the portal.”
“It was the girl. It was all Serena. She…she led us here.”
The fear in Cross’s voice sent a smile to the killer’s face. He shook his head disapprovingly, his yellow teeth clearly visible.
“Blaming it on a fifteen year old, retarded girl. Heartless.”
The killer stepped on Cross’s head, the heel of his boot pressing hard onto his face. “I’m going to kill you, Mr. Cross. And then I’m going to find your girl and I’m going to kill her too.”
He pressed his boot harder onto his Cross’s face who squirmed beneath his foot, tears filling his eyes. He bent down and moved close to his ear. Cross could feel the killer’s hot breath on his face
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “In this reality you may end in ashes, but in another world, you may reawaken as a swirl of matter in the cosmos. The end is only the beginning.” He pulled back and flipped a switch on his machine. “Say goodbye now, Mr. Cross.”
Cross closed his eyes as tight as he could and let the energy surround his body, as he’d seen Serena do. It was in that final desperate attempt to jump into the fourth dimension that he felt his insides ignite before the world plunged into darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment