Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  “I'm, uh, I'm...” What the hell could I say to that? Sorry for jumping you? I didn’t normally act like this? Ok, truth be told, I did. Not with those kinds of emotions, but I wasn’t a prude. I'd made out with many a hot guy at a club that I didn't know from Adam. A girl needed to kiss a lot of guys before she found Mr. Right. After that kiss, I regretted ever feeling that way. Nothing compared.

  “Um...it's...”

  Oh good, he was just as dazed and confused as me. Did he feel the same connection? Something in my gut told me he had. There's no way that I was alone in this.

  c

  chapter fourteen

  Things simmered between us, never fully cooling off. We tried to make the best of it, by ignoring it. Or, at least, I did.

  Since there was, yet again, no available seating, we quietly went to work clearing off places where we could rest our butts. Away from each other. No more of that heated kissing, thank you. Though the memory of his warm lips pressing against mine... Oh, the temptation!

  Thinking about the warmth of his skin against mine sent tingles along every part of my body, but it also nibbled at a corner of my brain. I didn't feel unnaturally cool, but then again it was Mexico. I thought about my last day on the ship, as we prepared to leave for the day trip. What was that weather report? Something in the 90's? That was awful warm, so why wasn't I hot?

  I wasn't cold, but I wasn't hot either. I wasn't sweating. I'd always been sensitive to the heat, so on warm days I always made sure to keep water near me at all times. Nothing spoiled a good time worse than passing out and going to the ER for an IV bag of electrolytes. Wish I could say that was a rare occurrence, but it was guaranteed to happen if I wasn't careful. In the Mexican heat, and no drinks in two days? I should have been so dehydrated that I would probably dry up and blow away at the smallest of breezes. Yet, I felt perfectly comfortable. What did it mean if you never got thirsty even in tropical heat?

  This was in no way normal for me. How could I have not noticed that before? Must have been like the breathing thing. We ignored normal biological things until there was a problem. Of course, I knew what to do now. I needed to mention this to Jon, but then he'd want to run some tests. Taking my temperature seemed platonic enough, but the thought of his hands on me? Well, let's just say it made my temperature rise in a whole different way.

  Common sense ruled out over my own lust. I needed to tell him. If for no other reason than because I needed to be able to share the weirdness with someone. Who else did I have to tell?

  So, I paused in my gathering of papers, and stilled my methodical sorting of them so they’d face the same way. “Um, Jon?”

  He cleared his throat before answering. “Yes?”

  “Uh... have you noticed... I mean... well... when you touched me... did you feel...” Oh dear Lord, what is wrong with me? I've never been tongue tied around men.

  “Feel? Um... uh...”

  Oh dear, was he blushing? “Well, it's just that... is it hot?”

  Oh man, that sounded like the lamest of pickup lines. He probably expected me to break out in a chorus of It's Getting Hot in Here any second. Yeesh.

  “Hot? Um... I suppose.” He looked over at me. I noticed a bead of sweat on his brow. Normally sweat made me feel beyond grossed out, but somehow on him I just wanted to wipe it away. Kiss it away.

  I needed to derail the kissing train right now. I might forget what I wanted to tell him if I didn't change my thought patterns. Which was? Oh right, heat. Heat not between us.

  “I mean, is it hot? Do you know how hot it is supposed to be? I just... I'm not hot. Shouldn't I be?”

  He looked confused and I wasn't surprised. I was babbling and not making a whole lot of sense. Frustrated, I threw up my arms. “I'm sorry, Jon. I just don't know what's come over me. It's just that I thought I should feel hot. But I don't. And usually heat bothers me. I feel hot before anyone else.”

  He put down the book he'd been trying to place when I'd opened my mouth and spouted utter verbal diarrhea. He crossed the room and knelt in front of me.

  “I think it does. I'm sorry. Just... this whole situation... it's got me a bit out of sorts, too. As far as your temperature, well, I didn't notice. I was...”

  “Distracted?” Uh oh. What did it mean when you started finishing someone's sentences?

  He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up his nose. Nerves in a bunch? I guessed so.

  “Uh, yeah. Distracted...”

  “Um, do you think that there's something in that? That I don't feel hot?”

  “Probably. The body cools postmortem...” He paused and I knew it was because of me. I didn't need a mirror; I could feel the color leaving my face. “You okay?”

  Concern edged his words and that touched me. I didn't know how to answer him so I remained quiet while he stared at me intently.

  “I'm sorry... I just... to hear you say that. I really am dead, aren't I?”

  It was his turn to pale. “I'm so sorry. I should have thought more about what I was saying. Um...”

  The fact I was still walking and talking held little comfort. Talking about all these differences made my condition even more real. Couldn't I just pretend this was some sort of crazy nightmare?

  I sighed, a longing and dejected sound. I wanted to plan a major sob fest, but instead I fought back tears. I needed to be strong. No one liked a girl that burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Sure, my death probably wasn't so “drop of the hat,” but still.

  “It's fine. It sucks, but I guess I've just gotta deal. I'm too young to be dead. I was on vacation. Who dies on vacation?” I was being a bit whiny. Maybe he'd offer me cheese.

  “Let's not think about it. I'm really sorry. I didn't think about it. Really.” Well, at least he had the decency to look like he felt bad.

  “It's all right. I know. Let's get back to it... I need to focus on... anything.”

  He looked at me and I really hoped that wasn't pity in his eyes. I didn't want his pity or anyone else's. At least he seemed fine with that. He picked up pretty much where he left off.

  “The body cools, so I bet that your body temperature is running low. The question is, how low and will it go lower?”

  “What happens if my body temperature gets too low?”

  “No idea, really. I know what happens when a person – um, so, I just don't know. Guess we'll find out? We should probably monitor your temperature. But I don't know if I have a thermometer.”

  Who had a thermometer? Parents with babies that get ear infections? I sure didn't have one back home. “If you don't have one, how will we monitor me?”

  “Got me. But we probably should. We'll have to figure it out. I'll go check; you never know what could be laying around here.”

  Really? No kidding? I started to snicker, but it turned into a roar of laughter. Must have been caused by the nerves. I just started laughing and couldn't stop. Deep belly laughs that made my sides hurt. My laughter became infectious. He joined in. In between chortles, I managed to work in, “You don't say?”

  “I know, it's a wreck. You don't have to say it again. Who knows what I have here. Let me know if you see Jimmy Hoffa.”

  “That could be interesting. We should try to find him.”

  It felt good to just joke around, even for a few moments. To pretend I was a normal, living, warm blooded, American girl. Maybe that was why I enjoyed that kiss earlier and longed for another. You don't get more normal and warm blooded than a good passionate kiss.

  “I don't have any ideas. But, hey, I'll check the bathroom. Maybe there's something in there.”

  If he came out of that nasty bathroom with a thermometer, there was no way he'd get it near my person. Lord only knew what diseases grew in the shadows of that hole. I shivered. And he noticed.

  “Cold?”

  “Uh, no. Just thinking of that bathroom. Are you growing toxic mold in there? The cure to cancer? It's foul!”

  Yeah, it was rude. But there was no way to politely ex
plain that the room was beyond absolutely and positively disgusting.

  “I suppose it is. I keep some of my artifacts in there as I clean them, and it gets filthy.”

  So that was it? He used it to clean dirty artifacts from the ground? I didn't know if I believed that was an excuse or not. Especially since I was sure that thing in the corner was not only alive but sure to rise and kill people in their sleep.

  “Uh-huh.” Still wouldn't want something found in that room near me. I had better things to do with my second chance at life than end it in that way.

  “I'm pretty sure there's nothing there. I wonder if Leahonia would have a thermometer?”

  “Maybe. I dunno,” I shrugged. At least if it came from her, I knew it would have been cleaned and disinfected. Not carrying 2000-year-old cooties or something. Something killed off these people that Jon liked to dig up and learn about. I'd rather not meet whatever it was that did the killing.

  Dying once on vacation was one time too many. And if he died, well goodness knows there'd be no way I could haul his corpse to some ancient temple to perform witch doctor magic on him.

  “Maybe we can ask her?” Jon suggested.

  “And how, pray tell, do you plan to do that? 'Have you met my friend, the dead girl? We just wanted to make sure that her body temperature wasn't like... dead.'”

  “Good point. We'll figure it out.”

  “Yeah? Cuz I'm also thinking going to a doctor might not be in my best interest. Do you know what doctors like to do to dead people? I'd like my insides to remain firmly attached to the inside of my body, thank you very much.”

  “You'd definitely become a science experiment then. I would hate to see you locked up somewhere and treated like a lab rat.”

  So, he could understand my peevishness of earlier. That was nice. Who knew what they would do to him if he could do this again? Well, that was an awful lot of power and people coveted power more than anything else.

  “Yeah. So... doctors bad. Fine by me. I never really liked doctors anyway,” I agreed.

  “So, this works for you?”

  “Of course, it works for me. I'm not... you know... dead. Well, technically I am, but I'm not. If it means avoiding doctors, I'm okay with that. I would like to remain... well... not six feet under. Now, can we find something else to talk about?”

  “Let's talk about Day of the Dead,” Jon said, changing the subject for me. “I'm not sure what this will mean for you, but it's a huge holiday here. Like, really huge. Halloween has nothing on Day of the Dead. I think because so many around here are like Leahonia, they have ancestors that go back thousands of years on this continent.”

  “So why is that? In the US it's not so much like that. The Indians keep to themselves.”

  “I guess it's just a difference of settlements at the time. The English didn't want to mix with the Indians, and so they constantly fought. Here, the Spanish wanted to bring the locals into their faith of Catholicism. Of course, they weren't so nice about it."

  "No religious freedom. People in the States now would flip."

  “Christianity became the dominant religion, but you see a lot of the original pagan leanings in areas like this one. Sure, it's all said to be legend now, but the stories remain. It's like Bigfoot and Nessie. The stories are there, but no one believes the creatures exist."

  “I got all that. What's your point?” I asked.

  “My point is that with Day of the Dead, it's such a huge holiday. But here, they believe it more than they observe it. It's like Halloween. What is Halloween to you?”

  “You get dressed up, you party, there's loads of free candy,” I shrugged. Easy, peasy.

  “Right, it's all fun. But why do you dress up?”

  “Because… it's fun? Who doesn't like to pretend they are a princess or a superhero or something?”

  “Why did the tradition to dress up start?” he persisted.

  “Hell if I know. Does it matter?” Seriously, it seemed to me like this conversation was pointless. Where was he going with all this?

  “It does. See, it started out for wholly other reasons. Some people thought if they dressed up like a ghoul, it would scare real ones away.”

  “No kidding? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!”

  “Yeah, if I were a ghoul, surely I'd have some kind of great ghoul-like power. So why would I be afraid of a human dressed up like me?”

  He had a point. “Or what if they thought I was one of them. Would I get an invite to go terrorize humans? Not so sure I wanna do that. Seems like it could go bad. Like gangs kicking you out bad.”

  “You said princesses... how are they scary? That's fun. Nothing but fun,” he pointed out.

  “Right. So, you are saying that some of these people really do this stuff because of like, believing it? Not just out of habit or because of society?”

  “Yeah, this isn't like non-Christians celebrating Christmas. They aren't just doing it because everyone else does. There really is a deep-seated belief. Some might not admit it, but it's there.”

  "Like throwing salt over your shoulder?”

  “Exactly. So, because of that, I think we need tread carefully. But at the same time, I'm hoping maybe we can get some more information. We just need to find the right people.”

  “Who's the right people?”

  “That, I don't know.”

  I thought it might be a pretty bad idea to just go wandering about telling people about how I was really a dead girl walking. Tell the wrong person and whammo. Bad things happened. Like lab rat cages. Or people thinking they needed to return you to the land of the dead. Not that I knew how that would happen, but I'm sure it was possible. You died once, you could die again, right? Even vampires could die if you stuck a stake through their heart.

  Were there vampires? If so, I wanted them to keep to their own fangs. That's right. I could easily bust outta legend and start the party of the undead. But I was fairly harmless. Right? The thought of the scary things that go bump in the night, not so much.

  “Well, I don't know anyone here. You know anyone there that might know who fits the bill?” I asked.

  “As you heard, I went with Leahonia and her family last year. I met a few people. None that I could say for sure would be helpful to us. But you never know. They know me. They think I'm interesting.”

  They do? He must not come off near as geeky to them. “Interesting...”

  “To them, this is just their life. They don't think anything of living so close to Chichen Itza. Or the fact that there's a giant temple there or that the people who built the temple were geniuses. Their legends are just everyday life to them. They are amused that my whole job is to learn about these things.”

  “And that is interesting? Really?”

  “I guess so,” Jon shrugged. “To me it's work. It's different. It's not what I grew up with. I guess it would be like someone coming to your work and watching what you do. It's normal to you, but not to them.”

  “Hmmm, I could see that.” I loved my job. But to study someone doing it? That was kind of weird.

  “On a bright note, everyone is really friendly and open to talking to me. It helps a lot to have a good rapport with the people who can help you most in your research.”

  “I bet. Do you think maybe we can figure out how to get the people to open up and talk about raising the dead? 'Cause, I know it's like spooky time and all, but still. That might be a bit... much.”

  “Judging by Leahonia's reaction, yes. But, I'm hopeful. Maybe one of the teenagers. They tend to be the most open. In today's world, they think everything is just bunk. If they can't see it, they don't believe it.”

  “Sounds rather... American...”

  “Maybe that's the nature of today's world. Everything is so global. It may be rural and a different country, but with movies and television and tourism? The world is a much smaller place today than it was before.”

  I hadn't really thought about it. With people able to easily come and go fr
om just about anywhere, and the news reporters not afraid to use that ability... there was nothing we didn't know. Or at least, that was what we thought. People tended to get a bit pissy if they thought they were uninformed.

  Look at me, I watched the Travel Channel. There were people who watched documentaries on just about anything and everything on Discovery or History channels. Everything got covered eventually. It sure looked like people had the same concerns, the same interests, the same clothes. Leahonia wore a pair of blue jeans today, yet here I was wearing something more traditionally Mexican.

  “You are right. People don't just take things on blind faith anymore. They want proof. The whole need to see it before they believe it thing.”

  “Right. The youth think because they have a little more education in them, that they know everything. You remember being a kid.”

  Did I ever. I was the biggest know-it-all.

  We devised a game plan. Namely, I'd be quiet, and he'd talk. He was more the expert than me and would hopefully find a way to talk to people so that they didn't go all nuts on him. Meanwhile, we'd stick to the story of me getting stranded during the earthquake. Jon was being a good fellow American. After the holiday we were planning to take a trip to try to get me back home.

  Which brought me back to another concern.

  “Jon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I'm kind of worried. There's going to be eating at this festival, right? How bad is it going to look if I don't accept food?”

  People heard about it all the time: Someone goes to some foreign country. They get offered food. They don’t eat it. Then the people would kill them from the rudeness of not eating food. I didn't want to make any enemies, especially if I would be sticking around this area for any length of time. Not that I wanted to, but we had to work out some serious issues in order to get me out of here.

  “There will be food. But it will probably be okay. You still not hungry?”

  “No. And the last time I ate was the morning on the ship before coming to land. I didn't even really eat then. I was in too much of a rush.”