Word Count: 10,997
I was fortunate to be born into a vastly wealthy family. When I graduated from college, a small group of friends and I arranged a one-year excursion to South America. We planned to backpack through some of the wilderness and to see some of the inspiring sites deep in the jungle. The rest of the time we were going to stay in the cities, immersed in the local culture.
Financing the trip was not an issue. Our parents were all footing the bill as well as providing us with plenty of spending money. We had a long flight with two plane changes along the way. I did feel a little sorry, not much but a little, for the people stuck in coach. They were packed back there like sardines in a can. Any time I ever flew, I always flew first-class. I could not imagine the discomfort of such a long flight in the congested space provided to the majority of passengers.
My friends and I had a variety of college degrees. I majored in anthropology and my girlfriend earned a nursing degree. My best friend Adam majored in physics and his girlfriend got her degree in journalism. The third couple I did not know very well. They were more Adam’s friends than mine. The other guy was a food-service major and his girlfriend’s major was in sociology. We all had different reasons for wanting to go on this trip, but we thought we would have more fun as a group.
Whatever everyone’s reason for going on this trip, we were all very excited. I could not wait to see some of the incredible rock formations and to examine some of the ancient structures. I was probably more excited about exploring the latter. Our plan, when we landed in Brazil, was to find a guide that could escort us through the thick steamy jungle and show us sights the typical tourists did not get to see.
I fell asleep after our last plane change and did not wake up until we landed. It was growing late in the afternoon so we sought out a nice hotel to stay for the night. I was very curious to see how a bunch of spoiled kids were going to react to the uncomfortable conditions the natural environment provided.
For the first week we stayed in the city hitting all of the tourist nightspots we could. We were young and still loved to drink, dance and enjoy the energy the crowd had to offer. It was exciting to try out the different beverages various establishments in the city had to offer as many of them we never heard of before this. Every night that week we got nice and inebriated. When we returned to our hotel, my girlfriend and I would enjoy each other intimately until we passed out.
During the week of imbibing the local alcoholic beverages, we asked around about a guide who could bring us to some of the exciting parts of the jungle. Two bartenders at two different clubs told us to find a man named Reyes. He was said to know of hidden ancient wonders unknown to any other guide. It took us a few days, but we eventually ran the man down. It was not like this Reyes fellow was hard to find; the man apparently developed quite a reputation in this region.
Reyes agreed to escort us to the jungle for a price of two hundred American dollars each. Two hundred dollars was chump change to us so we were more than happy to oblige the man’s offer. On our seventh day in the city, we met the man at a predetermined location.
I was happy to see Reyes had an off-road vehicle to carry us to the jungle. We did not take transportation into consideration when initially planning this activity. Those sorts of things were usually prearranged for us, so none of us thought about how we would get to the tree line far outside the city. The vehicle wasn’t pretty, but it had plenty of room and could get us over some rough terrain.
The ride was long and bumpy. Even before we left the dirt road, my behind was growing sore from the constant bouncing. The open air passing by was a nice relief against the heavy humidity. I grew up in Louisiana, so I thought I was used to the worst humidity the atmosphere had to offer.
Nothing prepared me for the dense air of the Brazilian jungle. Some of the excitement in me faded to be replaced by apprehension and regret. This hike was going to be much more difficult than I anticipated. I could see by the looks on their faces a few of the others currently shared my sentiment.
It was too late to turn back now, so I resigned to the fact I was now fully committed to making this hike through the jungle. Our ride stopped when a large fallen tree ended our path. There was no way to maneuver around the huge trunk, so that was where our hike began. Everyone put on their hiking packs and followed Reyes to that wall of vegetation.
There was no hint of a trail, not even a faint one. It was obvious this was not the route taken by most guides. I began to worry this man had no clue where he was leading us and fear he was leading us into some kind of ransom scam. Perhaps we were too eager to pay the man his asking price without question. That was probably an obvious sign we all came from wealth.
None of us were used to dealing with any shady characters. Growing up in the lap of privilege, most transactions were performed for me. I had no experience dealing with people outside the elite upper-class. I seriously began to regret mine and my friends’ decision on this guide. We should have tried to learn more about the man before we followed him into the dangerous wilderness. For a man with such a wide reputation as he, it would not take much effort to learn more about him before blindly following him into the jungle.
Reyes led the way with a very sharp machete, cutting a pathway through the vines, branches and saplings for us to follow. It seemed to me though, if he led other tourists through here before, there should already be a path cut. I suppose if he cut a trail through here before, the vegetation might have hidden it completely by now. I was sure plants grow fast in this hot and humid air, so it was feasible to conceive there was possibly travel through here fairly recently.
The man was very adept at performing his job. It took a man with a lot of endurance to work as long and as hard as Reyes did. There was no wonder now why our guide charged us the high rate he did.
I could now hear the trickle of running water and felt some small sense of relief. I assumed we would stop there for a short rest. I was eager to rinse the dirty sweat off my limbs. I knew better than to drink the water though. Microbes and parasites in the water affected tourists more than locals simply because locals developed immunity from continuous exposure.
I was disappointed when we reached the water. There was nothing but a modest creek cutting its way through the soft floor of the jungle. The water dug deep into the soil, and the bottom was covered with small, rounded stones. The deep and narrow creek carried a fairly rapid current, which produced the audio illusion of it being a much larger body of water. We only stopped long enough for our guide to wash off the sticky sap dulling his blade and we were once again on our way.
My friends and I utilized this brief pause in our progress to consume a power bar and drink some of the water we carried. Reyes drank from his canteen and then refilled the receptacle with the water from the rolling creek. He slung the strap back over his shoulder, dried the water from his blade, and we were again on our way.
We only traveled for another hour, but in this humidity, heat, and extremely rugged terrain it felt like much longer. My girlfriend tugged at the back of my pack, so I stopped to see what she wanted. She wanted me to say something to our guide about stopping for some rest. I assured her I had the same thought, and I planned on saying something soon. She feebly nodded her head. Turning around, we increased our speed briefly to catch up with the rest of the group.
When I finally worked up the nerve to tell Reyes to let us stop for a while, he stopped. Pointing to what look like a vine covered rock outcropping, the guide told us we reached our first destination. Riaz started to hack through the foliage and indicated for me and the other two guys to begin pulling the vegetation free. The more we removed the more we could see what the layers of vines concealed. When we finally removed enough of the cover to get a good view of the monument, we could see it was a head.
The large stone head was very strange and gave me the chills despite the heat. It looked human, but certain features were notably distorted. The eyes were huge, dominating a large portion of the face. The small nose was disproportionate to the wide thin lips stretched nearly ear to ear. The ears were huge, reaching from the base of the jaw to the top of the temples. The ears were so large in size, they covered the entire sides of the head.
When we looked closer, we could see much smaller, more intricate carvings all over the surface of the stone. I moved in further and realized the smaller engravings were faces as well. They were all incredibly similar and some of them appeared to match one another perfectly. I heard of the Mayans using such symbology as a written language and wondered if that was what I was looking at.
If they were indeed words spelled out before us, what did they say? Was it directions? Was it a warning? Was it a message left by ancient man to their future descendants?
“No one but me has looked upon this face for thousands of years,” Reyes said with his thick Brazilian accent. “And now you get to see something no other tourists will see for many more years.”
“But won’t you simply bring your charges through here next time?” Teri, the girl I did not know all too well, ask the local man.
He gave the woman and intense look of contempt, “What, do you think I come pour fertilizer over the vines to grow over the monolith for the next people?”
“No I just thought that…”
“I tell you I will bring you to see things no other tourists see. I do as you ask and then you insult my integrity.”
“Look, I don’t think the lady was trying to insult you,” her boyfriend defended.” I would thank you next time not to speak to her in such a manner again.”
Reyes smiled and let out a small chuckle.
“You know nothing of the jungle, but you do seem to be a man of chivalry,” our guide said to the man. “I will not talk down and she will not insult. Is okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah that will be okay.”
I could tell by the Ivy League manner of his speaking he was used to getting his way more so than me. He spoke to the guy like you would speak to one of his house servants, but there was a noticeable wavering of fear in his voice. He looked relieved the local accepted his request without an argument. We all had hunting and pocketknives, but Reyes carried twin machetes slightly under 3 feet long from tip to hilt, and sharp enough to hack through four-inch diameter wood-like vines in a single swing.
In retrospect, it was very ignorant of us to come along this adventure into the unknown without a single firearm on us. Even if Reyes came to our aid, there were plenty of animals in this untamed wilderness capable of dispatching us with very little effort.
We stayed at the monolith for over an hour examining its different aspects. Initially, because of the rough texture of the monolith, I assume the rock had worn from countless years of erosion. As I cleared the accumulated dirt, roots, and lichens, I came to realize that the surface still possessed a smooth shine. I thought this had to be a fake. Very few minerals could stand as long as Reyes claimed without showing some extreme signs of wear.
I was very intrigued by the rock from which the object was chiseled. It appeared to be constructed from a type of felsic rock thought to be the oldest rock on the planet. This stone formed soon after the thin crust of the earth cooled. It was a stone found in very few places in the world. As far as I was aware, South America was not one of them.
What I found even more exciting was the presence of the engravings and the lack of any tool marks. I would expect something created by ancient craftsmen hundreds or even thousands of years ago would do a much cruder job than this. Not even diamond-tipped drills could do such an accurate job. There would be some telltale markings somewhere.
If this stone was truly what I thought it to be, such precise workmanship would not be present. Only recently, through the use of extremely fine-tuned lasers, have we even come close to such expert craftwork as this. I could not conceive how a culture any younger than ours could ever perform such a feat.
This apparently ancient carving was enough to make me want to stay here for the rest of the trip were it not for the others, but they were eager to get to our campsite for the night. If I needed to, I could call my parents and have the necessary equipment flown in to do a much more precise examination. I would love to get some samples of this thing and send them back to the lab, but it was very doubtful we were in possession of anything capable of chipping this rock. I did not think our blade wielding guide would take kindly to that anyway. I wished I took more time to learn about this area prior to leaving for our trip.
While I was an anthropology major, my area of focus was the Native North American peoples. Not much of my schooling was focused on the ancient cultures of South America. I did have a few classes covering the region, and I probably knew more than most vacationers who visited the region. I did not know enough though to even say what civilization may have created it. I had to wonder if Reyes might return to this place with me at a later time. This was doubtful as I did not think he would like me disturbing the ancient carvings.
We were young, in a hurry, and knew our parents were taking care of all the travel arrangements. None of us did much researching this part of the world beyond reading an assortment of travel pamphlets. If we had any sense about us, we would have done some deeper research into the region instead of simply lying to our parents and telling them we had.
I would like to be able to find this place later. I desperately wanted to study this impossible stone megalith. The rest of my group was growing weary as I steadily examined the incredible monolith. Finally, my friend Adam approached me to tell me everyone else was ready to go. I would have liked to have stayed longer, but Reyes told us we needed to get moving if we were going to see any more of the sites before darkness came.
Darkness fell early because of the choking density of the jungle. There were some locations that already appeared dark even though the sun hung brightly in the sky. I looked up to the thick canopy above and thought I saw thousands of little birds fluttering about. I brought the chaotic spectacle to the attention of my friends.
“No, not birds,” our guide interjected.
“If they’re not birds, what are they,” Adam’s girlfriend inquired.
“Bats,” Reyes answered simply.
The girl shivered and shook for a moment as did Sherry’s boyfriend, as the creeps took hold of them.
Adam inquired of Reyes as to why the bats were out in the daytime. We all held the assumption bats only came out at night. The local man explained to us these were blind bats. It appeared these bats came out during the day to feast on the insects flying about and the sunlight rather than competing with other species at night.
I was sure this was nothing more than a tale he used to impress his charges. As Reyes continued to explain I began to accept what he said as the truth. If Reyes was lying to us, it was a very convincing lie.
He continued to expound, “Most bats can see. Only a very few species are really blind. Those other kinds of bats don’t see well, but they can see.”
He went on to say we would soon see the large fruit bats in the very near future. The guide warned us that the fruit bats were very large, but there was no call for alarm. The species fed on vegetation alone.
Butterflies churned in my stomach with what he said next. “The bloodsuckers, you Americans call vampire bats, only come out to eat when the sun goes down.”
We all took turns exchanging frightened faces. I did not want to see some disease flying mouse digging its teeth into me, and neither did anyone else. The whole concept of vampire bats scared me, and the thought of contracting rabies scared me even more. I knew I would spend my nights safely stowed in the cover of my tent.
Two hours walk from the first ancient structure, Reyes informed us we were at our second destination. We came upon another large protrusion completely engulfed with vegetation. The shape and size of this one was different. The mass was shorter, longer, and more rectangular.
We cleared this one in the same way we cleared the last. Reyes hacked the vines into manageable sections and the three of us guys pulled everything loose. Even after removing the foliage, we all spent ten minutes trying to clear away the dirt. The more of it we cleared, the more we determined what we found. I never heard of anything like it in mythology.
The monolithic statue was, for lack of a better word, a jaguar. The statue’s stance made me think of the Sphinx in Egypt. The heads were different, but there were some striking similarities.
This one did have a head of a jaguar, but it also had a second face on the back of its head. The eyes, even though they were solid stone, seem to stare at me no matter where I stood. It was true I had no discernible knowledge about the myths and legends of this part of the world. That was something I hoped to learn during this year abroad.
Despite my lack of knowledge, I knew this statue represented an ancient god of some sort. The face in the back of the head had no mouth, as a mouth would not fit into the carving, but it had exaggerated eyes and a humanlike nose. The god appeared to be represented as being able to see in all directions. What it said to me was it could watch both the past and the future.
Instead of fur, it was depicted as having feathers although no wings seemed to be present. The talons at the ends of its paws were more like those of a predatory bird than those of a cat. The tail appeared to be a feathered serpent that crept alongside its body and wrapped itself around the right front paw.
This one was fashioned from a different stone than the first, but it was still a felsic mineral. Somehow these ancient artisans found some of the rarest stones in the world from which to create their idols. I knew by the red shade of the rock and the thin crimson bands this one contained large amounts of iron. The stone was millions of years older than that of the first monument we uncovered.
It occurred to me that, instead of trying to clear the dirt and tiny roots with my hands, I could use one of the many tools on my Swiss Army knife to help pry them free. I quickly wiped my hand over a small section then use the flat head screwdriver attachment to dig underneath the clinging roots. I was befuddled when the metal of the tool clung to the stone; the iron in this statue was magnetic.
This should not be. That was impossible. There was only enough iron impurity to change the color, not enough to produce magnetite. In addition, the stone formed early in the life of the earth. Due to the extreme heat and gases, this iron should not have ever become magnetic. I thought perhaps it had a man-made magnetic core, probably inserted through the bottom so no seams were visible. This statue was also covered in small engravings like the first. They were very different from the small faces of the other. This statue was covered in a series of glyphs, like letters or numbers, but there did not appear to be any discernible organization to them. I knew it held the message of some kind. I wished one of us majored or minored in linguistics, archaeology, or something. At this point, I was the only one with a useful degree.
Adam’s expertise did help a little. He knew much more about electromagnetism than me. He took a compass out of his backpack and opened it. Adam and I saw the needle spinning so fast it was almost invisible. We were sitting directly over an electromagnetic hotspot.
We all had a strange feeling, a feeling we were being watched. Even the local man appeared to be uncomfortable here. Something told us this was a place of evil.
Adam’s girlfriend asked Reyes if he knew anything behind the history of the megalith. He was not offering up any information freely. It took a bit of prodding to coax him into telling us. Reluctantly, Reyes told us what he knew about the idol.
“This is a representation of the goddess Sinaa. Sinaa watches over the world, always judging the worthiness of mankind. If Sinaa ever judges man to be unworthy of the earth, the gods will wipe it clean then begin again”
Reyes paused for a moment and then continued, “Once long ago Sinaa saw man came to a deviant state, she flooded the world, leaving only those with a good heart.”
That instantly brought to mind the great flood described in the Bible. Could it be the reason the Bible says only Noah and his survived because the writer of that passage did not know of other lands, other civilizations? The similarities between the two religious beliefs were astounding.
Reyes was eager to continue our journey. He claimed he wanted to get us to one more monument before we set up camp. I think he was as much or more uncomfortable around this thing than we were. He began to hack through the vegetation with his heavy machete, so we threw on our packs and headed after him. Everyone was anxious to depart this haunted place.
It was right at noon when we left the eerie statue. We traveled for three more hours before we arrived at the third and last stop for the day. Here we saw a large foliage covered mound about twelve feet in height. I was tired, and so was everyone else. Reyes told us, if we did not want to clear the megalith today, it was time to create a clearing for our camp.
He demonstrated the most effective way to cut the vines and brush, then handed a machete to me and to Teri’s boyfriend. It appeared our guide was finished with his work for the day. He could have probably cleared the area in less than an hour by himself. It took the three of us taking turns two and a half hours to sufficiently clear the area for the tents.
Reyes disappeared into the jungle for a short time, pushing and climbing through the foliage. The thought occurred to me he might abandon us, and then the local man returned with a moderately sized rock in his hands.
“When you’re done clearing, I found some stones we can use to make a fire pit,” he told us.
Once the camp was set, we soon had a fire blazing inside the ring of stones. I had absolutely no vigor left in me as we set up our small tents. Just as soon as we ate what could scarcely be called dinner, my girlfriend and I climbed into our tent and went to sleep. We were so exhausted we did not even think about anything but rest. Besides, we were both dirty and sweaty from the rigors of the day.
I awoke several times during the night when a nocturnal bird or some other animal would emit a piercing echo through the jungle. Each time I crawled out of my tent to see Reyes sleeping by the fire. He was not afraid of these animals, so I tried not to be scared either.
All of us awoke early because the heat inside the tents increased dramatically when the morning came. I climbed out of the tent to find Teri, her boyfriend, and Reyes coming back from somewhere. They were clean and in their underwear, so I knew they found a place to bathe. I was happy when they told me there was a pool at the foot of a waterfall. It was about a ten-minute walk from camp.
After a breakfast of reconstituted eggs Adam, myself, and our girlfriends followed the trail Reyes cleared for us. We walked approximately five minutes before I could hear the rushing water. It was going to feel so nice to get yesterday’s dirt and sweat off my body.
We arrived to find a magnificently beautiful spectacle. A multitude of small trickling waterfalls converged as the water flowed down the steep rocky slope. The falls landed on a flat slab of stone and poured over the edge like a curtain. The pool was so clear we could see all the way to its bottom.
I stripped off everything and dove into the water. I returned to the surface and screamed. The pool was a lot colder than I expected. My nipples grew hard and my testicles drew up into my body. Although the initial shock of the cool water was intense, it did not take my body long to acclimate to it. It felt great, but the water could not be any more than seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The others joined me, and we had ourselves a long refreshing skinny dip.
We splashed and played for four or five minutes and then went to get our clothes. We removed what things we had in our pockets and washed our clothes in the sparkling water. Another fifteen minutes or so we figured it was time to head back to camp. By the time we returned Reyes had grown impatient. He was ready to clear the huge mound and needed the rest of us there to help. This time he gave me one of the machetes, cleaned of its sap, and told me to start chopping. It was a rather major task, so even the girls helped out this time.
As we exposed more and more of the monument, we could see it was pyramidal in shape. Its sheer size made the task long and difficult. Enough dirt and vegetation made the top of the pyramid look like it was a conical mound. There was not much point in us having bathed because two minutes into the work, we were covered in the rich soil.
Adam’s girlfriend found several pieces of thick bark slightly curled from drying. She and the other two girls used these as shovels to dig away dirt while the four guys worked on removing the foliage. As the sides were exposed, I could see it was also covered in inscriptions.
This time the inscriptions were different. Instead of faces or glyphs, this ancient structure was carved with dozens of series’ of long lines. Some of them curved like a rainbow while others were perfectly straight. One section bore a striking resemblance to a giant fingerprint. The more we cleared, the more sets of lines we found.
This excited Adam. He stopped working and began to count the lines in successive series. It kind of pissed me off that he stopped helping with the dirty work, but I understood. I was just as eager to examine the last two statues. By the time we managed to clear away years of accumulated dirt and foliage, Adam was sure he had the code deciphered.
“They’re numbers,” he said. “This is incredible. I think that these lines represent mathematical equations.”
He chose one area in particular to decode for us. It was a series of thirteen circles. Inside were three separate sets of lines. One section had three, one section had six, and the last section had five lines.
“This is a calendar man,” he said with zealous enthusiasm. “They used a thirteen-month calendar, the lunar calendar.”
He pointed at the center of the circle and continued his lecture.” Look, three-six-five. Three hundred and sixty-five days in a year.”
Initially I thought he was seeing what he wanted to see, but when he explained the calendar, I began to believe Adam’s deduction. He rifled through his pack to find his digital camera. He wanted to get a record of everything on these three steps of the small pyramid.
I took the opportunity to examine the makeup of the stones. Each level was cut from a different type of granite. The only granite close to here was in the mountains, and these stones were huge. Upon close inspection, I could see each level had a ridge at the top and a plug at the bottom. The stones were cut to fit perfectly in place.
Adam’s buddy continued to dig around the base of the structure. It astounded me to see a spoiled rich kid like this digging in the dirt. We were all a bit snobby, but this guy thought he was more ‘cultured’ and ‘civilized’ than the rest of us. He dug for a good twenty minutes and discovered yet another level. I began to realize that all we saw was the top of a very large structure.
The capstone was not too large. We decided to try to move the top stone to see if it revealed anything underneath. Reyes strongly urged us against following through with our plan. He kept telling us bad things happen every time someone disrupts one of the megaliths or monuments of the gods.
Despite his arguments, we did what we intended and flipped the top stone over onto the second tier. Stale air sealed away for hundreds or even thousands of years rushed out of the three feet by three feet opening we uncovered with a deep moan. The blowing air had a musical effect as it exhaled into the open. I could feel a low vibration in my body even after my ears could detect it no longer.
Adam’s girlfriend raised her voice in alarm that she saw Reyes running as fast as he could back into the jungle.
“Our guide is leaving us,” she screamed in panic.
Indeed, Reyes skillfully made his way back into the thick jungle and then he kept going. We shouted at him to stop, to not leave us out here lost, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. The local man ran until we could see him no longer. We were six pampered rich kids, left stranded in the jungle of Brazil with no idea of how to survive on our own. Both Teri and Adam’s girlfriend became instantly hysterical.
The guys tried to calm their significant others given the desperate situation in which we now found ourselves. I thought of how we could find our way back to civilization. We knew we traveled west from the most part, so all we had to do was head east. If we traveled east, we would eventually hit civilization. I shouted to everyone to shut up and told them my idea.
They appeared to take some solace in my words because everyone slowly started to calm down. I explained it would take us longer without a guide, but we would make it out of the jungle. I thought of how the jaguar statue had such a strange effect on that compass. I did not want to worry the others with this thought yet though. I just hoped the compass would work well enough to get us out of here.
It took us a while to recompose ourselves and convince ourselves we were not trapped and going to die out here lost in the jungle. When everyone settled down, we turned our attention back to the stone monument. Shining his flashlight into the dark abyss, Adam’s buddy saw a plateau not thirty feet under us.
We brought rope and some climbing equipment, but not one of us had any experience. Eventually we thought we had the equipment figured out. Our backpacks almost did not fit in the whole. We turned them cross cornered and finally got the first one to fit.
We lowered his packed into the bowels of the ancient monument first, then Adam’s friend went next. The four hundred dollar flashlight he brought with him did not seem like such a waste of money now. It was extremely bright and had a long range.
“There’s a platform down here,” the guy called up to us. “There’s walls on three sides, but there are steps that lead to another platform. Probably fifty feet down.”
The rest of us looked at one another, trying to gauge the others’ thoughts. We all stood there quiet for a minute or two, and then the fellow yelled up to us again.
“Are you coming down or are you going to pull me back up,” he asked. “Do not leave me down here.”
We were all scared. Hell, we were scared out of our wits, but we knew this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to explore a building sealed away from the rest of the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Right in front of us was an opportunity very few people were lucky enough to experience. Finally, we decided we could not let this golden opportunity go to waste.
I went down second. Doing the best I could to keep my hands steady, my whole body trembled with both fear and excitement. When I reached the bottom, I told them to lower the rest of the packs down. Everyone could then come down for this unprecedented exploration. It took us thirty minutes to get everyone into the structure. Adam came last, so the women would not be left standing in the jungle alone.
We found ourselves in what could be called a room. The three existing walls were perfect squares. The stone stairwell led down at a steep angle. All we could see at the bottom of those stairs was another platform. I had no doubt we would find another stairwell once we reached the next level.
We anticipated the possibility we might venture into some dark place at some point in this jungle excursion, so we all carried at least one flashlight. Each of us guys carried extra batteries. That friend of Adam’s brought a spotlight with a huge battery, therefore light should not be a problem for us.
Donning our packs, we headed down the steep stairs. The steps were not constructed at regular sizes, and they did not seem like they were made for modern humans. Organized into different sizes, the steps repeated the pattern after three steps for as far as we could see. The first step in each set was almost two feet from one horizontal plane to the next. As expected, we found another downward passage when we hit the second level.
The walls were incredibly smooth, as was the floor. The steps were topped with engravings probably to give any climber some grip. The rock in this region of the world is primarily sedimentary. It was not until the mountains, one-hundred or so miles away, that marble and granite could be found. That was exactly the mineral used to create the walls.
Counting the first, we ended up hitting ten different plateau levels. This took us three spirals around the widening corridor before we reached what must be the bottom. None of us were prepared for what we found.
We expected to find some kind of temple, mausoleum or sacrifice chamber. As we shined our lights around the massive room, we saw rows upon rows of what could only be books. Each book was three feet high and eight inches wide. The covers appeared to be made of platinum, and as we looked closer we could see the pages were pressed from sheets of gold. If this whole library held books such as these, this place probably held more wealth than the entire continent.
The massive metal tomes appeared to be organized by some sort of system, but what system we could not discern. They were probably categorized by subject matter or possibly in chronological order. Each row was over three hundred feet long and there were at least fifteen of them we could see.
We explored the place for half an hour before we finally decided to pull one of the large volumes from the shelves. The weight was incredible, and it took four of us to get it down and onto the floor. We opened the cover to find the thick gold pages covered with strange inscriptions etched into the metal. There were also several pictures in the tome, pictures of what had to be alien creatures.
Terror filled the air as we began to understand exactly what was happening. We found a library of books that might not even be from this world. It was very possible this library remained hidden for millions of years.
The monetary value of the metals was not even a consideration for me. This was a discovery that could win us all a Nobel Prize. The Lord only knew what kind of information these absolutely astounding books contained. As we turned the untarnished gold pages, we found what we assumed might be different chapters. The writing would follow one lettering style, but in the next section it would obviously switch to a different language. We counted seven distinct languages inscribed on the golden leaves of this book.
Whoever or whatever wrote these books used gold and platinum for a specific reason; both metals were resistant to tarnishing, did not rust or otherwise degrade over time like other materials. Books like this could remain stored for tens of millions of years and still be in mint condition. This library was left here for future generations to find. We were that generation.
We walked up and down three aisles before we removed another book. This metallic tome was larger than the last. It took all we had to do was lower it to the ground without dropping it. Terror and excitement filled us as we opened the cover of the second book.
This tome contained many more illustrations than the first. It almost looked like a nature’s guide, like a guide to different species. The first pages contained inscriptions of tall thin beings whose head bore a striking resemblance to the Moai of Easter Island. A few pages later there were pictures of other humanoids, but these had a dome like chitinous shell over their faces.
Following these came a series of entries about bipedal species that looked like they could have evolved from dinosaurs. Then came pictures of different races of primitive man. The last section filled our bodies with ice. The pictures progressed to humans around the 1500s. The last section was what caused us such terror, what close to scared me to death.
The final section was an entry on modern-day man. Existing buildings were illustrated into the book, buildings I saw with my own eyes back in the United States. Depictions of modern-day humans were also represented in the books. Then, terror filled us all as we began to see pictures of five of us. Everyone was drawn in that ancient book, everyone except Adam’s friend.
I quickly looked around to everyone and I could see Teri’s boyfriend nowhere. He must have wandered off while the rest of us looked through the book. Teri shouted for him. Her voice echoed up and down the rows of books over and over. Frantically we searched for our missing party member.
We hastened from one row to another, of which we found a total of thirty-one three-hundred-foot-long rows. The shelves contained four, five, or even six rows of books in each section.
We finally found the man seven rows away from where we were reading. He was lying on the ground. We ran toward him thinking he was unconscious. Absolute horror overtook us as we look down at our companion. He looked like something instantly removed all the moisture from his body. His skin and muscle tissues were completely dry, and his flesh wrinkled like that of cured sausage.
My girlfriend began to vomit as Teri commenced to screaming. Her high-pitched scream echoed through the library with a deafening roar. Adam finally grabbed Teri as I tended to the woman I loved. We knew that we were not down here alone. Something killed our friend and it was hidden somewhere in this warehouse of a library.
Horrible shrieking, the deafening ringing of metal scraping on metal, sounded throughout the chamber. The noise was so loud it was painful, causing all of us to drop what we were holding in a vain attempt to protect our ears. The tons of metal scraping together sounded like dozens of freight trains screeching to a halt. I tried to hold my girlfriend tightly, but the resounding noise forced me to cup my hands over my ears. Teri continued to stay knelt by the dried up mummy that was our friend only minutes ago. The sound of metal drowned out her anguished screams. So loud was the noise, I could feel it vibrating my own skin.
When the torturous screeching ultimately came to a halt, it took several minutes for my ears to stop ringing enough that I could finally hear the others. Adam was yelling that we had to get out of this place. Most of us agreed with him. Teri refused to leave her dead lover.
Adam and I had to physically drag the hysterical woman, kicking and screaming, away from the dried corpse. I could not imagine the hell she must be in. We could not stay; we could not leave her behind. The two of us were strong men. Teri kicked and fought so hard against us. It was all we could do to hold onto her.
The girls were trying to calm her down. We had to do something to stop her screaming. Somehow the sounds we made no longer seem to echo. We did not know why; our sounds were almost muted. We understood why when we all reached the end of the aisle.
We no longer had a clear walk along the walls. It appeared the aisles on either side of us moved from where they were when we entered. The only passage open to us were around to the left or to the right. The entrance to this unholy place was to the right of us, so we went in that direction. Teri finally calmed down enough that we could put her down, and we all ran down a long corridor between more rows of books.
Our hearts sank when we reached the end of the aisle to find it to be a dead end. When we came in this godless library there were clear paths along both walls. We were terrified at the thought of what was doing this. First, it killed our companion, now it was trapping us, stalking us.
All of us could feel it, but nobody wanted to say it out loud. Something was watching us. Where it was, what it was we could not say. The eerie sensation back at the Sinaa statue was no comparison to this. I felt like a gazelle being stalked by a lion.
We retraced our steps and took the left route. Halfway through the aisle, the wall created by the bookshelves made a ninety-degree turn to the right. We were nothing more than rats trapped in a maze. It was not enough that our stalker had to terrorize us. Now it appeared we had to play its game if we stood any chance of survival.
We ran, making turn after turn. Three times we hit a dead end, but we were making mental maps. If there were any disagreements concerning which direction to flee, we followed Adam’s advice. He was a physics major with a math minor. With a natural propensity toward logic. If anyone could remember the right direction, it was him.
There came a point when we had to stop. We were nearly hyperventilating and dehydrated. Everyone quickly gulped down a bottle of water. All of us except Teri shoveled down two protein bars. As soon as we caught our breath, we were on the move again. Thirty more minutes and Adam, along with the rest of us, were sure we had to be close to the exit.
We rounded a corner to another dead end. As we turned back, the metal on metal screeching boomed through the library once again. I wanted to run but I could not take my hands off my ears. Adam attempted running but fell to his knees, cupping his hands around the sides of his head. A few extra seconds of unprotected exposure literally had him rolling on the ground in inhuman agony.
The piercingly high-pitched screeching lasted longer this time. It finally stopped and everyone except me was crying from the pain. The only reason I was not wailing with the others was because I was petrified with fear. We had to be close to the way out, but now the maze changed. Whatever malicious being was behind this probably found joy in our anguish.
Was our stalker ever going to let us leave? Would we be trapped here forever? Were we all going to be dried corpses in the end?
If there was anything I could do about it, we were not. Once Adam managed himself off the floor, I tried to persuade him to concentrate. If anyone was able to lead us out of here it had to be him. Adam was the most logical of us; the numbers came naturally to him.
We stared back in despair. No one paid much attention to who was around. We made it forty feet when we realized Adam’s girlfriend was not with us. We turned and ran back to find her lifeless body on the ground. Examining her revealed nothing we did not expect. Her flesh was as dry as leather. A look of immeasurable torment remained frozen and distorted on her shriveled face.
Blankly, Adam approached her and removed a diamond ring from her pocket. The grieving man turned to us to show us the beautiful diamonds set in a gold ring. Cupping the ring in his hands, Adam began to sob.
“We were going to get married you know,” he pushed through the tears. “When we got back to America, we were going to become husband and wife.”
No one said a word. Everyone stood there in shock. We had no clue as to how to respond to Adam’s comment. Teri lost a boyfriend, and now my best friend just took an engagement ring out of the pocket of his mummified fiancée. Several moments later I pulled my friend in for a sympathetic hug. When I released him, I told him we had to go. Feebly he nodded his head in agreement.
What do you say to someone who’s fiancée, who was alive and running only minutes ago, was instantly turned to a dry mummy? How can you console someone who has experienced that?
I gently tugged on Adam’s arm and began moving. Adam walked very slowly at first, but soon we were at a fair jogging pace. I prayed for the miniscule chance that our path to the exit was open. My hopes were dashed once I saw our only open path led directly away from the exit to the stairwell.
I thought I was as terrified as I could possibly be, and then we heard the voice. It was dry, scratchy. The voice did not echo through the tunnels of the maze. It simply seemed to come from the air itself. Wisps of weak smoke appeared in the air around us as if the immediate atmosphere were on fire.
“Are you ready to take the weight of the world into your hands?” The disembodied voice asked with a rasp.
None of us knew what to make of it. The cryptic question did not seem so much a question as it was a dare. I suddenly began to think that we really did have a chance of escaping this infernal place. Perhaps it was not my destiny to spend eternity here after all. Grabbing hold of one another, we ran as fast as we could. No matter how fast we ran, we could not evade our tormentor.
“I can show you the way back to the world of sunlight,” the ghastly voice said tauntingly.
First something trapped us in here, now our unseen stalker was maliciously teasing us. I still could not help but wonder if its offer was genuine or if this disembodied voice was only trying to strike more fear into us. Perhaps it needed our fear. Perhaps it fed off the horror that ripped into our very bones.
“I can give you all the knowledge you crave,” the voice called as it followed us at every turn.
Why would it kill two of us in such a gruesome ungodly way and then offer us everything. Could it be that we had to pay such a high price for the untold knowledge held in these millions of metallic tones? Was it true that all knowledge has its price? If this is so, what world changing knowledge could we learn from the wraith librarian?
We continued to try to escape this rat maze formed by the ceiling high bookshelves. The flashlight in my hand burned out as we tried to escape the intangible voice. I had batteries and another flashlight in my pack, but there was no way I was going to halt my flight. For the time being I was at the mercy of the illuminations carried by my comrades. I wish we would have taken the incredibly bright spotlight carried by Teri’s dead boyfriend.
“Run if you wish; I have all eternity to wait,” the disembodied voice rasped hauntingly.
Unless there was another exit from this monstrously huge chamber, the voice was undoubtedly telling the truth. The capstone obstructing the stairwell leading to this hellish place was there for an unfathomable period of time. If that was the only way in, this malign presence could have been down here for centuries. It then occurred to me that it may have fed off the others, drinking in their very life force.
I did not know how to say how much longer we ran. Being as terrified as I was, time no longer seem to have any meaning. No matter how fast we ran, no matter how far we went, the horrid voice stuck with us. We all resigned to the fact that, whatever our stalker was, we were never going to escape it. The one time we did reach the vicinity of the exit, the maze began to screech deafeningly as it again change configuration. If our concealed stalker was in control of this deep tomb, we were only going to exit if it allowed us to.
“What do you want from us?” I yelled with exasperation.
“Corpo Seco only wants to share the wonders of the universe,” the stalker said with an air of condemnation.
Corpo Seco, I knew the translation for the first part of that name. Corpo had to be the root for the word corpse. I shuddered at the thought of what the words meant together. It was absolutely ignorant of us to venture into the wilderness without knowing anything of the history, anything of the folklore, or any of the mythology of the jungle. We did not even know where we were going. Had we any knowledge of this place, we may have known about this Corpo Seco.
“Why? Why kill my wife to be and offer me knowledge,” Adam shouted in hate and anguish. “Why!”
“All things are known here,” the unseen entity called Corpo Seco explained. “Even the secrets of life and death. You can save those you love.”
We were all reticent and stricken with a cold paralysis. Could it be that we could bring the dead back to life? Momentarily I entertain the notion that Corpo Seco turned our friends to dried corpses simply so it could teach us how to revive them. That may be the only way it thought it could bless us with the ability to resurrect them.
“You’ll show us how to resurrect our friends?” my girlfriend asked in hopeful desperation.
“Corpo Seco will teach you to do that and much-much more.”
If this Corpo Seco did want to help us, to teach us, the concept did not ease the fright that numbed my body. The sensation of the malicious presence did not change with this revelation. Despite all logic and reason, I believed the entity told us the truth. It could help us return our friends to life. Corpo Seco could teach us the knowledge contained in these books, but its reasons were not benevolent. Corpo Seco’s offer was driven by evil.
What choice did we have? We could run around this maze until judgment day so long as it continued to reconfigure. Death would come to us much sooner because we would soon run out of food and water. This Corpo Seco could bring the dead back to this world, surviving with its cooperation we might live indefinitely.
Rusty brown smoke and dust rose up and swirled, retreating deeper into the aisle. It was impossible to tell if the putrid sulfuric smoke coalesced into a body or if Corpo Seco simply walk through it. Either way, I had my eyes fixed on the abomination that stood before us. It was not human, but it looked like it was perhaps from an earlier period in human evolution.
Now, Corpo Seco was no more than dry leathery flesh stretched between yellow bones. Its muscle tissue connected to the bone by moldy green tendons. The condition of this thing was much worse than that of our murdered friends. Scraps of what ages ago were probably clothing hung from the scabby, leathery skin. I found myself face-to-face with a horror I could never imagine.
The worst of all was his eyes. The dusty orbs were devoid of surrounding flesh. The corneas were dry and concave. Its pupils were cloudy and white with small pinpoints of a sickly pale light coming from within.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run and most of all I wanted to vomit. I thought the fear I felt before was the worst in this world had to offer, but that was minuscule when held against the inhuman terror I experience now. No words could describe it. It was like I was staring into the very eyes of the devil himself.
“You accept Corpo Seco’s offer,” it said, each word releasing a puff of mold and dust from its rotted mouth.
“I will get my fiancée back?” Adam asked, seriously considering the thing’s offer. I believed I would have preferred death. Before I could object, Adam already accepted its offer. The blasphemous creature grinned, exposing what few rotting teeth remained in its mouth. With a wave of its hand, the bookshelves begin the shift.
Again, the warehouse filled with the sound of a thousand screeching cargo trains. I cupped my hand so tightly over my ears, my left eardrum burst. I never could say for certain if it ruptured due to the pressure I applied or from the sheer volume of the noise. Chill bumps covered my body as the vibrations stung my skin.
When the piercing screech again came to an end, the bookshelves were realigned into straight rows. This time the walls of metal tomes terminated at the ends. An open passageway led directly to the center of the unholy library. Corpo Seco led and we followed.
“Long before history, the mother of gold descended from the sky,” the undead thing explained.
“Corpo Seco’s people labored themselves to death as slaves in her mines. Corpo Seco revered the mother of gold and forced his people to give up offerings to her.”
Dust puffed out of the rotting thing’s mouth with each word. It paused in its narration to stop and cough. The air filled with such vast amounts of dust and grime; it began causing us all to gag. In a futile effort, we tried to wave the filthy air away from our own faces, fanning it with our hands. Our host resumed his walk, and we followed.
“As payment for his unyielding loyalty, the mother of gold printed these volumes of knowledge and gave Corpo Seco immortality. Corpo Seco was given all of time to study and learn. Now there is no more for Corpo Seco to study, no more for Corpo Seco to know.”
With the end of that statement, the creature made a sharp right turn. I was sure the exit was somewhere to my left. He led us halfway down the aisle and removed one of the three-foot-tall books from the shelf. Corpo Seco lifted the tome like it was no more than a notebook. Placing the metallic tome on the stone floor, the horror opened the book and began to read. With its dusty voice, the creature read aloud a few words. Making us all repeat the words, Corpo Seco would enunciate them again. This pattern continued until all four of us could say the words properly. Once we spoke the words in unison, the living cadaver progressed to the next phrase.
This went on countless hours. We did not grow sleepy, hungry, or thirsty. From the front cover to the back, Corpo Seco had us recite the words until they were annunciated perfectly. Progression was incredibly slow and the tome incredibly long. I had no doubt we spent two days if we spent six seconds chanting the words.
Corpo Seco slammed the platinum back cover of the tome. Immediately two screams echoed through the ordered library. One of the cries of terror belonged to a male and the other to a female. Recognizing the voices, Adam and Teri ran to the ones they loved.
Their return to life frightened me more than their deaths. My girlfriend and I gripped each other tightly, afraid of being torn apart. Thirty minutes passed as the two of us stood alone with the walking corpse. It took no breaths and exhaled only to speak. We sat there absolutely still until the others returned.
Adam and His friend returned with their significant others. Both of our recently deceased companions appeared to be as healthy now as when we entered the buried pyramid to begin with. Adam and Teri were elated to have their lovers back. The two recently deceased were elated to be alive, but my girlfriend and I were about to cross the threshold from fear into insanity.
I insisted that we leave immediately. Corpo Seco offered no dissenting words. It even offered to lead us directly back to the stairwell that was our exit to this subterranean nightmare. My girlfriend and I gave it no second thoughts; we wanted out of this place immediately. I was dumbstruck to see the other four pondering the ghastly choices.
Eventually the others came to their senses and realized they did not want to spend eternity locked away in this library regardless of the knowledge we could obtain. It was not worth whatever this thing wanted from us to learn what this place could teach us. Since performing the ritual with Corpo Seco to bring back our friends, we had no need for food, water, or rest. Something was already affecting us for that to be possible. If we did not get out immediately, I knew we would never leave.
We came to a consensus so without question or argument, Corpo Seco led us to the exit we never thought we would see again. I ran up the massive spiral stairs until I reached the top, never letting go of the hand of my girlfriend. I never turned to see if the others were following, but I could hear their footfalls and panting breaths.
I stuck my head back into the freshness of the jungle air. The warmth of the sun was never so soothing. I rolled out and pulled my girlfriend up with me. The others were ascending the rope in turn. Adams fiancé just cleared the opening when we noticed.
There must have been twenty or thirty men, all locals, all wielding weapons. I tried to shield the two women with my own body, but we were fully encircled by the men.
“We can’t let you leave now,” came a familiar voice. I turned my head to see Reyes. He appeared to be the leader of this lynch mob. I could not formulate anything audible to say but Adam climbed out of the whole. He must’ve heard our renegade guide.
“The hell you can’t,” Adam demanded.” We are leaving and going home.”
The sounds of guns cocking, the shells entering the chambers drowned out everything else for a moment. Several of the men had bows and arrows trained on us. Adam was determined that these men were not going to send us back into that black abyss. Positioning himself in front of his fiancée, Adam attempted to take one step down the pyramid. That was as far as he made it.
Whizzing through the air too fast to see, and arrow sank deep into the side of his voice box. A second later a shotgun rang out, the blast forcing Adam into the hole. Falling 25 feet, I heard him hit the floor with an audible thud.
“Please, you don’t know what’s in there. I beg of you, let us go,” I pled with demand.
“We know what is in there,” another man said.” That is why we cannot let you go.”
The women were crying, and now I realized we were doomed the minute we set foot in this ancient structure. We were changing; I could feel it. I began to wheeze, then I caught a bullet in the right shoulder. The force caused me to twist to the right, and I also fell down the chute. Stunned from the fall, I was unable to do anything as the girls were forced to climb back down the rope into this ancient tomb.
“If your infection spreads,” a voice called into the whole,” Sinaa will cleanse the world again and wash away the evil again.”
That was the last we would ever see the surface world. The capstone we remove was returned to its original place.
The others carried Adam and I back to the library as fast as possible. Even before we cleared the exit, they were calling out to Corpo Seco. The creature was upon us in no time. The four pled to him to save Adam and me. I did not like the grin spread across its dry cracked lips.
“They are already saved,” it said to us.” I assure you they will not die.” Corpo Seco broke the head off of the arrow protruding from Adam’s throat, sliding the shaft out by the feathery in. It withdrew a long thin spike from I know not where. Stabbing it into the back of my shoulder, the living cadaver pushed the bullet out from the other side. It obviously took pleasure in my pain.
Corpo Seco began to walk away. Dust spewed from his mouth as he said,” I guarantee your friends will live.”
It laughed, gagged, and said.” You will live with me until Judgment Day. You are immortal. Death will never take you, but your pain, your pain, it will never end.”
Copyright © 2017
Photo by Freerange Stock Archives from Freerange Stock
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