The Dark Spirits Beneath

by Kason Laufenberg

  It was Layla who reached the top of the steps first, and she quickly hoised up Becca onto the top step. Becca sat up with a sore groan and childishly took to kicking her feet over the edge of the towering top step. The two girls looked at each other and started giggling in relief. Becca scoffed, "not exactly how I planned to get my name on an important, life-altering archaeological find!" She leaned over and locked a playful expression on Layla. "So, tell me more about your superpower, Miss Talks-To-Dead-People!"

  Layla blushed, before waving it off, "It's... not a big deal or anything," she was choosing her words carefully now, afraid that at any point, the next word would send Becca running back into the jungle to get away, "and... it's not really that I talk to them. I can just sort of hear them. Feel them, I guess, but only if they're buried beneath where I'm standing." Layla flushed, and turned away, "as far as superpowers go, I guess it's pretty lame."

  "Girl... are you kidding me? That's amazing!" Becca shoved Layla's shoulder gently, in approval, "please, tell me more!"

  Layla blushed again, before continuing, "It was just something I could always do, ever since I was a young girl in Stone Creek, Oregon..." Layla didn't know why she was even telling her all this, but something in her smile just made her feel comfortable and made her feel safe. "It was... Something that made me special. Like Alex. We were twins. Alex was always the one that mother would brag to her friends about. He was the whiz kid, the academic, the athletic one. And me? Well, I was the one they were always getting into trouble. Getting notes sent home by my teachers. Starting fights on the playground. Running off into the woods or staying out all night without telling Mom where I was. I got to know them inside of Sheriff Stevenson's pick-up truck pretty well, by the time I was nine."

  Layla's eyes dropped down to the Saint Christopher medallion she was now spinning mindlessly between her fingers. "But not Alex. No, he was always just... there. The one that Mom could always count on. It used to make me so mad, and I used to blame him for all of it. It's funny. After all these years, I still remember, what it was I said to him, right before I stormed out that day. The last time I ever saw him," she closed her eyes, and smiled weakly, as a tear slowly trailed down her cheek, "'I hate you'... I didn't mean it, of course, but I was just so mad. It was dumb. Mom had decided she was going to go to his baseball game, instead of my choir concert. I had this big solo, and it might sound trivial, but I was so, so excited about it. It feels stupid now, but I was just so upset that it felt like she chose him over me. Especially when I felt like singing and music was what really made me special. Was something she and I shared together, in common."

  Layla gave an airy, hollow chuckle, which gave a faint echo within the darkened stone room, "I guess none of that even matters now, huh. Especially since Alex disappeared right out of our front yard later that very afternoon. And what's more, he wasn't even the only one. Five kids in all. Over the course of two months. It tore our little town apart. The local paper called it 'The Summer Innocence Died in Stone Creek'. Five kids, three boys, and two girls. All around the same age. All went missing. All were found, a few weeks later. Buried and mutilated. All out in those damn woods," she looked down at the medallion in her fingers again, "I used to love those woods, ya know? Not anymore.

  "It was Alex's disappearance that eventually broke my mother. Even before we found his body. She always had trouble dealing with depression anyway. She never really talked much about having a very happy childhood. And then, there was our dad leaving before we were even born. Her own parents disowned her for getting pregnant with the two of us so young. And then, there was everything with Alex..." the tears were flowing freely now, and as she continued to open up, Becca gently slid her hand over the dusty stone floor and rested it on top of Layla's, all the while continuing to listen, uninterrupted, and with eyes that shone with nothing but compassion. "I guess it just pushed her over the edge. She... was just... a shell of her former self. Shattered. And then when we finally did find him, three weeks after he went missing," Layla's words trembled, "well, that was too much for her to bear." The next words seemed to almost remain stuck in Layla's throat, as she gripped Becca's over placed hand tighter, feeling the still gritty and dirty floor beneath, "It... It was me who found her, lying on the bathroom floor. The shattered glass of whiskey, alongside her bleeding, lifeless body, from where she cut deep, deliberately lines down each of her wrists. Deciding to end the pain, I guess, and take her own life, all while I was still brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed."

  Chapter 14

  Aftermath

  When Layla woke, she was surprised to find that she was no longer in the grand room of that great stone pyramid. She wasn't even in the jungle anymore. It was the inside of a house. And as she ran her fingers over the back of the blue upholstered sofa and wooden end tables, Layla instantly knew where she was.

  She took a step forward and tripped over a pair of muddy pink tennis shoes. Her shoes. And as she walked past the living room, past the sleeping German Shepard in the corner, cast in the glow of a TV, playing a loop of late-night infomercials, and into the darkened dining room, Layla could hear a voice. A voice she knew very well because it was hers. Only fifteen years younger.

  "Mom? Sorry, it's so late. Sheriff Stevenson dropped me off," the nine-year-old version of Layla was speaking to a woman, who was sitting alone at the table, staring blankly and emotionlessly ahead, with a glass of some sort of golden-colored alcohol in one hand on the table. She didn't acknowledge the girl's presence. She hardly blinked. Still, young Layla went on, "I, uh... I wore the Saint Christopher medallion you told me to. To keep me safe, so I don't get hurt while I'm out there looking for those kids, and..." Still no reaction. The young girl's face sank, as she continued, "Mom? It's gonna be okay, Mom. We're gonna find him. Alex is out there, and we're gonna find him." She climbed up on the chair, and kissed the forehead of the statuesque woman, as silent tears were beginning to stream down her trembling cheeks. "I'm... I'm gonna go to bed now, Mom. You should too. Don't stay up too late, okay? I love you." Without any sort of reaction, the girl walked out of the room and down the hall, and into a bedroom. As she shut off the overhead light, a sea of green stars gently glowed overhead, as the girl collapse into the bottom bunk of an unmade bunk bed, and cried herself to sleep into her pillow.

  The emotions of the scene were almost too much for Layla to bear, and she wondered why she was being forcibly subjected to live through all this again when in an instant, the scene changed. She was in the same room, but it was light out, and Layla's nine-year-old self was lying on her bed, pretending to read a book, as rain pelted the window outside. Busy eavesdropping on the conversation between her mother and the stern but compassionate voice of Sheriff Stevenson, coming from the living room down the hall.

  "... Beth, I don't know how she's doing it, but she found another one, just this afternoon."

  "Just like the others?"

  "Afraid so. Damn near ritualistic. The sick bastard's cutting out those poor kids' hearts, and just dumping them out there in the woods. Burying 'em shallow enough that it's like he's taunting us with it!"

  "And Alex? My boy?"

  "Sorry, Beth. Still nothing... It might... Well, it might be time to start considering the possibilities..."

  "No! No, he's alive!"

  "Beth..."

  "You get back out there, and you find my boy! You make her find my boy!"

  Layla looked over to the windbreaker hanging on the handle of the closet and thoughtfully ran her fingers over the wet material before the scene suddenly changed again. And the bedroom dissolved onto nothing, and she found herself in the forest, surrounded by trees.

  Her forest.

  There was a commotion up ahead, and a high pitched scream, and Layla instinctively ran towards the disturbance. Even though she knew where she was. And when she was. And what she would find. Even though, a part of her hoped she was wrong.

  She broke through the last patch of trees, into an ope
n clearing of grass and blue wildflowers. A crowd of men and police officers has crowded around, and her nine-year-old self was sobbing uncontrollably into the jacket of the kind-eyed Sheriff Stevenson. Layla walked past them, and slowly over to where the rest of the search party were gathered around. She had to know. She looked down into the freshly dug pit beneath them, and shuddered at a sight she hoped never to see again.

  "Alex?"

  "Five little ducks went out to play,

  Over the hills and far away,

  Mother duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"

  But only one little duck came back...

  "Hmm... interesting... not exactly what I had expected to see, Miss Marin, but... I think I understand now..."

  Layla instantly spun around to the unexpected voice, as a familiar figure stepped out from behind a fading tree, that was slowly beginning to morph back into a cracked stone pillar at the corner of the great hall of the Mayan pyramid.

  "Dr. Ruiz?" Layla was more than a little dumbstruck by the presence of what she had assumed at first to be a ghost. Still a little dizzy, she stammered, "what... what the hell did you do to me?"

  "A hallucinogenic neurotoxic compound, used by Mayan priests in rituals such as this. It reveals your true path and your connection to gods," he smirked, "I just didn't realize we shared the same path."

  "What... the hell are you talking about? Where's Becca?" Layla's head was spinning, as she stumbled attempting to get to her feet.

  "Oh, take it easy, Miss Marin. The effects of the neurotoxin will take a while to wear off. You'll feel considerably woozy until then, so I'd recommend against trying anything stupid," he cocked his head to the side quizzically, before continuing, "but I have to ask, just because the curiosity is killing me... the date you entered into the calendar, on the wall behind us... it corresponds to a real date, you know? July 26, 2005. But I have to ask, why that particular date? What's the significance?"

  Layla searched through her mind, before realizing the importance of the date herself. And like that, it all suddenly made sense. "That... that was the day, I found the first boy. The boy you killed. The first time I even knew I could."

  "Interesting..."Ruiz mused, smiling menacingly, "so, it was really you, then? I must say, you did make things difficult for a while. After all, I thought I'd be safe way up there. Who's going to look for a Mayan sacrificial cult in the Pacific Northwest! But you... You're the one who was just a little too good at finding my handy work back then. You're the reason I had to move my base of operations and flee to New Mexico. You're the reason I had to wait fifteen years before I could finally finish my work to the Great War Serpent, Kukulkan," he twirled the ebony blade of the obsidian knife in his hand, "and in the end, it was you who set me on the path to fixing all of it. I suppose I should be thanking you. Do you know how long it took me to find this blade? Do you know what I went through to find the nine sacrificial souls necessary to complete the ritual?"

  "Nine?" Layla coughed, still trying to get her bearings and wrap her whirring mind around everything that was happening.

  "Yes, there were those five children from fifteen years ago, of course, and now," he motioned over to a stone slab residing in front of the massive red Chac-Mool statue, where Layla finally could see the body of Becca. She was still breathing, but unconscious, and bound to the platform. "And now, the deaths of you and your colleagues will complete the fated ritual, and free the great Kukulkan to reign once more! In his glory, he is the beginning of everything, and now, he will be the end!"

  "You're insane! Even your own daughter?!" Layla sputtered in a level of rage that was still quite painful.

  "Lanie... was an unfortunate sacrifice, to be sure, but one that the Great Feathered Serpent demanded," he seemed in a trance of obsession, unphased by Layla's words, "and James, that poor fool... well, whatever mauled him out there in the jungle left enough of a still-living husk for me to bring him back here to complete the ritual," he smirked, maniacally before continuing, "they did not die in vain, and rest assured, neither will you," Ruiz smirked, "but you... my dear Miss Marin... I want you to be last. I want you to see this next part."

  Ruiz walked over, and looked down into the pit, before coming up on Becca's still, lifeless form. Taking the dagger in on hand, he drugs the blade alone one of her wrists and up her forearm, as she winced and writhed in her bindings ever so slightly. The blood from her wound dripping out slowly and flowing, funneling down the length of the stone slab, and into the waiting offering pedestal of the Chac-Mool. The yellow light from the put grew even brighter. Ruiz smiled menacingly and chanted something in what Layla assumed to be Mayan, in repetition, as he performed the same act on Becca's other arm. As the blood trickled into the collection plate as well, the light grew brighter still. And as his chanting continued to intensify, Ruiz raised the dagger in two hands over Becca's still body, ready to plunge it into her heart, when suddenly, Layla felt it...

  The warm energy swirled around her and the entire room with an intensity Layla had never felt before. She could hear the chanting of hundreds of lost souls. She could see the faint forms of people in red warpaint and Ancient Mayan dress. She felt their pain and their sorrow and their sacrifice to a god that was not worthy of their blood. And she felt them yearning for justice. And as the energy spun faster and faster around Layla and the rest or the room, even Ruiz, who dropped the knife and went pale, could seem to see something happening.

  "What... what the hell is this?! How are you doing this?!"

  "It's not me," Layla smirked, "these are the countless souls, the many who lost their lives here, sacrificed in the name of your false god!" The warmth and energy had built into a fury of light and black smoke, forming into a shape Layla had seen before. It was the form of a massive black dog, with glowing red eyes. "They're here to make sure that their deaths were not in vain. That this dark evil stays locked away, and never grows to power, ever again!"

  "No... they're all gone... Dead... Ancient, silent echoes of a past, that was not ready for... was not worthy of Kukulkan, in all his greatness!" Ruiz stammered as he backed away in trembling fear from the advancing, vengeful black visage.

  While he was distracted by all this, Layla swooped down to pick up the dagger, and cut Becca lose, before turning her attention to a terrified Dr. Ruiz, who was still stumbling over rubble, and backing away from the black spectral hound, as it advanced, snarling and ferocious. Layla cracked a knowing smile. "Just because something is ancient, doesn't mean that it doesn't still deserve a little respect."

  Ruiz spun around, and locked eyes with Layla, who growled, "This is for Alex!", before plunging the dagger deep into the man's chest. He staggered, bewildered, before tripping, and falling backward, into the glowing yellow pit, screaming terror and agony as he disappeared. Layla rushed over and looked down, as the opening to the pit was closing. There was no sign of Ruiz. All Layla could see, as the heavy stone slab slid shut, was an enormous writhing mass of iridescent green scales, and flashes of giant, scarlet feathers. And those eyes. Those evil, glowing, yellow eyes, looking up at her, with unbridled malice, before the opening to the pit closed completely with a loud thud.

  The yellow light now was gone, Layla could see the moonlight just beginning to break through the trees, flooding the great hall with a vibrant azure glow, and scattered, piercing shafts of flurrying dust. The black dog, only partially illuminated, was already beginning to fade at the other end of the room, as its gaze remained locked on Layla. It didn't seem frightening or menacing to her. Not anymore. Right before fading completely, it gave an approving nod, before disappearing, into dust and nothingness.

  Layla smiled. "Thank you, Sacniete."

  It was at that moment that Layla gasped, as she suddenly remembered Becca. She rushed over to the stone slab by the Chac-Mool, and saw to her great relief that the girl was weak, but still breathing. She tore off strips from her shirt, and wrapped her wrists to stop the bleeding, and brought her down to the floor at the top
of the stone steps. She cradled her across her lap, stroking her fingers gently up and down Becca's arm.

  Layla looked up, and out through the door of the citadel. To a deep, dark sky, flooded with an ocean of stars, twinkling faintly in the distance. Across the full vista arched the winding path of the Milky Way, and centered perfectly on their vantage were the fourteen faint stars that make up the constellation of Draco. Layla looked down at Becca's dirty face, and gently brushed the hair from over her eyes, and smiling, whispered, "Think I'm ready for those margaritas now," before fully taking her up in her arms and beginning the long climb down the pyramid steps.

  By the time Layla had reached the base of the massive structure, the sun was already beginning to make its presence known, announcing the coming dawn. Layla didn't care. She didn't skip a beat and was on her way heading due east. Back through the jungle. Back to the clearing. To the big red X on the map. That's where they'd find their ride, hopefully, and get the hell out of this God-forsaken place.

  When she finally reached the clearing, Layla collapsed, exhausted, to the forest floor, Becca still weakly in her arms. The voices from before were silent now. And the warm, familiar energy was gone. Layla took a deep breath, and in that moment, heard the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard.

  "... Oops, I did it again. I played with your heart, got lost in the game. Oh baby, baby..."

  The angelic voice of Brittney Spears, with Alejandro's special brand of accompaniment, echoed off the trees, as the yellow jeep, sheared a path through the verdant vegetation, and advanced down the trail to their position. Seeing the two girls lying on the ground, Alejandro immediately stopped singing, and turned off the engine, jumping out of the cab to help them both up.