Page 1 of Afraid to Hope

He moans in pain and heaves out the words: “Help me… Help me…”

The dancing circle of light punctuates the dank blackness, surrounding the man lying contorted in the shallow, murky water. Somehow he’s alive. It’s impossible to tell if he’s bleeding, but he is broken. His arms and legs are bent at impossibly unnatural angles, mangled like twisted metal after a car accident.

The man sobs loudly, like a young child, and pants like a dog in the heat of summer. He wails, then gasps, “Pushed… someone… hard…”

Eyes tightly closed, I try to dismiss the image of him and quell the bile that rises closer to my throat with each rolling shudder passing through my body. It’s not working, so I open them and focus on the obsidian wall directly in front of me. Its uneven, wet surface is awash with reflections of torchlights, headlamps, and flashlights. Everywhere else is a blacker-than-black space. The slimy, uneven footing beneath the deepening water slows my pace as I falter toward the wall, intent on distancing myself from my team, the medics, and the Maya who gather around the man, discussing how best to get him onto the basket and out of the ruin.

Perspiration races from my hairline and armpits, drenching my face and arms, racing down to my fingertips. My wet clothing adheres to my skin.Breathe deeply,I chant in my head. Breathe. Nausea is a swallow away. Fear mushrooms within me, as do panic and light-headedness. My hand slips on the slick wall. It undulates under my touch, moving my fingers in a wavy motion. The outline of a monstrous face appears, and I barely save myself from face-planting in the cloudy water as I jump back. I have to get ahold of myself.

“Dr. Jordaan, you okay? We need you.” A voice reverberates in the rock chamber.

I nod and hold my hand up, signaling that I am and that I’ll be with them soon. It’s hard to get my breath my heart is pounding so hard. I glance back at the wall. The face stares at me and fades away. I inhale again, deeply through my nose, then wipe at my face with the back of my clammy hand, rubbing off the sweat, adding the excess moisture to my pants. My heart slows to the point I can no longer hear it in my head. I tell myself this is no worse than many other things I’ve seen.

But it is.

Death mingles with the pungent, earthy wetness and an overpowering scent of sulfur. Not reeking and nasty like sewer gas but different, as if matches have been lit—lots and lots of them, as if to cover the stench of rot permeating the space. None of us have burning torches, so where is the stench coming from?

My nausea is diminishing. Carefully I bend and dip my finger into the water, which covers the tops of my boots. With everything else assaulting my senses, I didn’t notice the water is terribly warm, bordering on hot. The water smells full of minerals. My booted feet are growing uncomfortable. Thermal spring? What the hell is this place?

Something sinister is here, and it waits. Goose bumps break out all over me, and the hairs on my neck rise. My gut screams,“Move! Get out of here!” My body ratchets into alarm mode. I want to flee, run up the uneven and broken steps to the temple above and outside to the steamy, sun-drenched day. Jesus. I’m stronger than this.

I slosh back to the shallower water, careful to minimize splashing as I near where everyone gathers around Eric Schaus. The American.

The paramedics and my men are busy immobilizing his injured body with help from the Maya. Schaus’s face is partly submerged, turned away from where I stand. His loud moans and whimpers are frightening, and then he yelps, the sound echoing out of the black void. His rambling words make no sense.

The Maya freeze their movements. Disbelief and fear fill their expressions.

“Do you understand what he is saying?” I ask of the Maya closest to me.

His voice quakes as he responds, “It is Q’eqchi,’ our language. But it is not. It is more ancient. It is as though the voice comes through him. It is not his.”

My stomach knots, and I gulp down the nausea again. Resorting to academic logic, I’m able to back away from the sensory details and accompanying feelings assaulting me, and I rush to compartmentalize. Something I excel at. Aloud, I say more to myself than anyone else, “Interesting. His creds don’t mention he speaks any Mayan dialect.”

“Dr. Jordaan, we can use you here.” A medic points to the American’s head after he secures a cervical collar. “Can you talk to him while we immobilize his limbs? Try to keep his mind off our manipulations.”

So what should I say to him? Hey, there. Did you know I’ve been tracking you for years? Did you ever think you’d be caught?Instead, I move to Eric Schaus’s head. It’s wet and caked with black silt.I direct a question to the medic next to me. “His neck? Is it broken?”

“It doesn’t appear to be, but we’re taking every precaution.” The medic shakes his head. “I don’t know how in the hell he ended up here, so far from the steps. It’s as if he was thrown. We are not taking any chances. He’s in rough shape. We’ll know more after we get him to Belize.”

Eric Schaus’s screams pierce the black chamber and echo into the unseen voids leading out of it. As the medics and my men skillfully restrain his arms and legs, Schaus screeches like he’s being pulled apart.

Another medic inserts an IV line into Schaus’s trembling arm and administers something from a syringe. “I’m giving you something to manage the pain,” he says, emptying the syringe into the clear, snaking tube.

To disassociate, I sort through my research on Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. The paintings on the upper tiers did not escape my notice. The depiction of flesh separating from bodies. The massive river of blood filled with scorpions. The gaping centipede jaws. The glyphs, the smells, the water. The foreboding undercurrent of death. It all adds up. Gulping, I struggle to inhale. This place has to be a portal to Xibalba.

Schaus whimpers. The sedative has kicked in.

“We’re going to move you, sir,” one of my team states calmly.

The medic closest to me bellows and crosses himself as Schaus’s face rotates upward while he is positioned on the basket. The Maya scramble back, crying out in terror, causing the medics to adjust swiftly to keep from dropping Schaus.

I lose the fight and surrender to the overwhelming urge to look, immediately wishing I hadn’t. His eyes are open. I am paralyzed by the palest blue eyes, almost spectral in his burnished-tan face. He pins me with them and smiles manically. His words bubble through the spittle. I can barely make them out.

“Fear the ghost.”

A charred image extends from above Eric Schaus’s singed left brow to his jaw, within the angry and pulpy skin. The mark ofXquic,the Blood Maiden, the Hero Twins’ mother. The Serpent.

Strike the iron while it’s hot.

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