The Deadly Curse of Toco-Rey

by Frank Peretti

  Jacob Cooper prompted, “That is my daughter Lila’s hat. Where did you find it?”

  She still hesitated until her mother bent and spoke some quiet but firm words in her ear. Then she admitted, “I got this hat from a mukai-tochetin.”

  That brought a gasp from some of the women standing nearby and alarmed looks from all of the men, including her father.

  “Tell him the rest,” her father ordered. “Tell us!”

  “She was a girl, like me. Her face . . .” She touched her cheek as she spoke it. “Her face was green, like a lizard.”

  The Kachakas muttered to each other, exchanging looks of alarm.

  “Did she attack you?” the chief asked with a suspicious, sideways glance at Dr. Cooper.

  The girl hesitated, then answered timidly. “Sí. She . . . she jumped out of the bushes and screamed at me. She was like a crazy person. . . .”

  “She was a mukai-tochetin!” the chief proclaimed as if trying to regain his pride. “What did you do?”

  “I ran.”

  “You ran away?”

  “Sí.”

  The chief patted her shoulder. “Ah. That was good.”

  Dr. Cooper asked, “Then . . . how did you get her hat?”

  The girl thought a moment, then replied. “I found her later. She was lying on the ground. And I took her hat.”

  Dr. Cooper leaned forward. “Lying on the ground? Why? Was something wrong with her?”

  The girl looked from Dr. Cooper to the Kachaka men and women to her father and mother, and then at Dr. Cooper again. “She is dead.”

  SEVEN

  Jacob Cooper could not give up hope. “Can you take me to her? Can you show me where she is?”

  She looked to her father. He nodded that it would be okay. “Sí, señor.”

  “We need to go,” said Dr. Cooper. “Right now. Jay’s out there somewhere, too.”

  Chief Yoaxa chose four of his toughest men to go with them. Then quickly, to get it over with, he handed Dr. Cooper his gun and two flashlights. “You will want these in the ruins.”

  María headed through the village while Dr. Cooper, her father, and four burly Kachakas followed. They took the main trail into the jungle, carrying torches and lanterns, guns and knives, as well as Kachaka blowguns with plenty of darts.

  Jay thought he knew where he was when he came to an old stone wall, but it was so covered with jungle growth that he totally lost his bearings as he tried to explore around it. Finally, breaking out from under the thick jungle canopy, he saw stars overhead and determined which direction was north. He’d gotten turned around, all right. Doing a complete about-face, he headed the other direction, south, hoping to encounter the Pyramid of the Sun or any other familiar landmark. He had to get back to the compound and find help.

  He was thinking of his father and sister, and how little time there was. Hope was hard to hang onto, but he tried.

  Lila Cooper was not dead. She was dazed, half-conscious, half-dreaming, lying amid vines and rubble at the base of a lone, basalt pillar that had held up a roof centuries ago. She was still dressed in the extra clothes she’d put on to protect herself from slug slime, and she was feeling hot, sweaty, tired, and achy.

  But she didn’t want to wake up. Somehow she knew there was a very spooky world beyond her closed eyelids. It was better to hide inside her dazed mind where the world was all laughing, dancing colors; the ground was still moving like a carnival ride; and no bogeymen could get her.

  “Señorita?” came a voice from somewhere.

  Who was that, the bogeyman? Go away. I don’t believe in you.

  “Señorita?” came the voice again, and then it started talking in hushed tones with another voice. It was all Spanish; she couldn’t understand much of it.

  She could sense a light shining on her eyelids. It made her squint.

  “Aha!” said the voice. “Está viva!”

  She raised her hand to her face and then opened her eyes just a crack. There were lights out there, shining in her face.

  “Señorita Cooper, it is us, Juan and Tomás. Are you all right?”

  Tomás. It took her a moment to remember who he was. She opened her eyes completely and could make out two men kneeling beside her with their flashlights.

  “Tomás?” she heard herself saying.

  “Sí, señorita. It is a good thing we found you. How are you feeling?”

  “Hot.”

  She sat up and removed her gloves and extra shirt. When she raised her hand to wipe the hair from her eyes, she saw something peculiar. She looked at her hand again, then leaned forward to view it in the beam of Tomás’s flashlight. “What happened?”

  “We think it was the carvy slime, señorita. It made you loco . . . crazy . . . and it made you look a little green.” Tomás chuckled, and so did Juan.

  “A little . . . ,” Her hand looked very green to her.

  Juan shined his flashlight on her hands and face and made some comments.

  Tomás agreed and told Lila, “It was much worse, but you seem to be getting better now. Can you stand up? We will take you back to the compound.”

  She tried to get her feet under her. With Tomás’s strong arms to help, she finally stood up. “Ouch!” Her hand went to her leg. “My leg hurts.”

  “Would you like me to carry you?”

  She tried to walk. After a few shaky steps, it came a little more easily. “Where are my father and brother?”

  “They are out looking for you. We’ll get you safely back, and then we’ll find them, don’t worry.”

  María knew the ruins well, even in the dark. She led her father, the Kachaka warriors, and Dr. Cooper directly through the jungle to an old basalt pillar that had once supported a roof.

  There María was disturbed to find Lila gone. “She . . . was lying right here! I saw her! I took her hat!”

  Chief Yoaxa puffed up his chest and crossed his arms. “Ha! She is a mukai-tochetin! She cannot die. She will haunt these ruins forever!”

  Dr. Cooper looked at the area carefully. It was matted down as if someone had been lying there. “María . . . how long ago was that?”

  “It was before the mukai-tochetin chased me.”

  “The wild, green man?”

  “Yes. He came from over there.” She pointed toward a spooky looking, pillared temple just barely visible in the dark.

  “He chased me, but you came to help me—”

  “Yes, he came to help you, like the great hero!” Chief Yoaxa cut in, tired of hearing that story. He glared at Dr. Cooper. “Manito thinks you are okay, and María thinks you are okay, but I think you are a mukai-tochetin, like your daughter. You have bewitched María to lie!”

  Dr. Cooper had no time to argue further. “Lila’s still out here somewhere, and we have to find her—”

  The scream. It came from out there somewhere, out in the limitless dark jungle.

  Chief Yoaxa and his men were clearly frightened. “We must get back to our village now.”

  “No, wait,” Dr. Cooper objected. “I need your help.”

  The Chief gathered his daughter close to him. “You do not need our help, Dr. Cooper!” He looked into the dead ruins and ink-black jungle. “You have the mukai-tochetin! They are your friends, yes? Your daughter is one of them. I think you are too. Maybe this is all a trap!”

  Chief Yoaxa’s men started to buy into his argument. They began to edge away.

  “Wait!” said Dr. Cooper. “You know these ruins. You can help me search!”

  The scream echoed through the ruins again, and they all turned tail and ran, leaving Jacob Cooper alone amid the aging stones, the bottomless shadows, the eerie sounds.

  Dr. Armond Basehart held the syringe up to the light. It was full of red blood, a good sample. He was satisfied.

  Lila had shed the extra clothes she’d worn into the pit and sat comfortably on a couch in his lab, pressing a cotton ball to the puncture in her arm. “What about my father and brother?”

&nbs
p; “Tomás, Juan, and Carlos are out searching for them right now,” he answered, preparing to distribute 86 her blood into several small test tubes. “They’ll be all right. But we have to do all we can to find out what happened to you before the symptoms are totally gone.”

  She looked at her arms. They still had a greenish cast but were steadily returning to their natural pink. “It’s going away pretty fast.”

  He leaned over her with a cotton swab. “Lean back.”

  She looked up. “Huh?”

  He forced her head back with his hand on her forehead, a touch she did not appreciate, and took a smear sample from her nostrils.

  “What’s that for?” she asked, wrinkling her nose to relieve the tickle of the swab.

  Instead of answering her question, he asked, “Did you see or touch anything unusual before you fell into the pit the first time?”

  She thought it over and then shook her head. “All I remember is falling into all those slugs and getting slime all over me.”

  “Anything afterward?”

  “The pit,” she answered. “The pit was weird.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  Dr. Basehart rolled the cotton swab along a microscope slide. Then he put the slide under his microscope and slowly turned the focus knob.

  From the look on his face, Lila could see he’d found something interesting. “What do you see?”

  He ignored her question.

  She didn’t mind asking again. “What’s . . . uh, what are you looking at?”

  He gave an exasperated sigh like he didn’t want to answer her question, but then he turned and smiled at her. The smile looked a little phony. “Oh, pollen, dust . . . even a tiny bug!”

  In her nose? “Oh, yuk!”

  He just laughed.

  “Can I see?”

  He waved her off. “No, not now. I have too many things to process here.”

  His tone actually sounded a little harsh. She didn’t argue with him. She was too tired and she didn’t want to aggravate him. Besides, a burning itch on her lower leg was screaming for attention. She pulled her sock down to scratch it and found a welt. “Hey, Dr. Basehart. The green’s going away faster around this insect bite. Does that mean anything?”

  He didn’t seem to mind that question. He came over immediately to take a closer look. The welt seemed to fascinate him for a moment, but then he just shook his head. “Mm, no, I think that’s coincidental.”

  “Sure hurts,” she complained.

  “Well, the insects around here can bite pretty hard!” He patted her on the shoulder. “I think I’m all through with you for now. Why don’t you go to your trailer and see if you can sleep?”

  He went back to the counter and started arranging various samples in a neat row. Lila recognized some of them: the slime he’d wiped from her after she fell in the pit; the blood he’d drawn from her arm; the smear he’d just taken from her nose. He wouldn’t say anything, but he had figured something out, she could tell.

  And he was excited about whatever it was.

  At last! Jay came to the huge pillars that formed the gate to the city. A spare flashlight would have helped immensely, but he had no time for a side trip to the burial temple to get his backpack. Running through the gates, he prayed the Lord would help him find the safe route through the treacherous swamp. He couldn’t wait to get back to the compound.

  Jay didn’t know that his father was only a mile or so behind him, rushing desperately to catch up. Dr. Cooper could not call out for his son for fear he’d attract the mad man again. All he could do was hurry along, picking his way through the jungle. He located the Pyramid of the Sun, the Avenue of the Dead, and the Pyramid of the Moon. He’d been putting pieces together in his mind and was certain there were no friends waiting for Jay at the compound— only a cunning enemy.

  Lila decided she’d follow Dr. Basehart’s suggestion and go back to the guest trailer to get some sleep. Soon she would see her father and brother again. After they all rested up, they could get back to finding the treasure with no more interruptions.

  I’ve caused everyone enough trouble, she thought.

  But she had another reason for wanting to get out of Armond Basehart’s lab trailer, and that was Dr. Basehart. Something about him gave her the creeps, and she didn’t need any more needle pokes in her arm or cotton swabs up her nose—not from him, anyway.

  She stepped outside, closed the door behind her, and paused to listen to the jungle sounds on the still night air. When would this long night be over, anyway? She wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had to be getting close to morning by now.

  Hmm. Was that another vehicle parked just behind the rig the Coopers had brought? Had someone new come to the compound? As far as she knew, Dr. Basehart was the only person in the lab trailer. The lights were on in his living trailer, but she couldn’t see anyone through the windows.

  Well, she could find out in the morning. All she wanted to do right now was wash up as best she could and go to bed. She headed for the guest trailer, stretching her arms and bending out the kinks she still felt from her ordeal.

  What was that? The sound wasn’t much more than a low thud, but the jungle was spooky. Her nerves were raw enough for the sound to make her jump. It came from behind the lab trailer—from a small, windowless shack she’d never noticed before.

  There. Another thumping noise. She could feel her skin tingling with fear.

  But now she was curious—and suspicious. Dr. Basehart had a strange way of not answering her questions and keeping information to himself. Just what was he not telling? And what might that little shack be hiding?

  She stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck to see through the window of Dr. Basehart’s lab trailer. He was still in there, busily at work on the samples.

  Ducking down so she wouldn’t be seen and moving silently, she slipped into the shadows behind the trailer. There she got a clear look at the thrown-together shack that stood in a clear area all by itself. Fresh soil lay on the ground all around it. It could have been an outhouse with a pit dug under it, but it sure seemed big for an outhouse.

  Besides, the narrow door was locked shut with not only a padlock but also two hefty slide bolts—all on the outside. Outhouses had little slide bolts on the inside to keep people from bursting in unexpectedly; this one was well secured from the outside to . . . well, to keep someone or something from getting out.

  And one other thing: It didn’t smell like an outhouse. This shed had a strange, musty smell, like mold or mildew. She wrinkled her nose. Not a good smell.

  But it seemed strangely familiar. Where had she smelled it before? She stepped closer, sniffing curiously.

  A shriek! Flapping wings, flying feathers! Lila almost jumped out of her skin as a huge macaw fluttered from the roof of the shack, disturbed by her intrusion.

  She tried to remain motionless while she found her breath again, her eyes on the rear window of Dr. Basehart’s lab trailer. That silly bird must have been making that thumping noise she’d heard, and now it made such a racket she feared she would be discovered.

  She could see Dr. Basehart through the window. Apparently he was used to jungle noises. He didn’t seem bothered, but just continued cleaning off his work counter. It looked like he might be closing things up for the night. He’d opened a folding partition and was putting some small jars away on a shelf behind it.

  Wait a minute. What’s that in the room behind the partition? She only caught a glimpse of it before he closed the partition again, but it looked like . . .

  CREAK! She flinched, shaking. It was the door to Dr. Basehart’s trailer. He was stepping outside. She froze, her mind racing. What if he sees me back here?

  Click. Dr. Basehart turned out the lights of the lab trailer and closed the trailer door behind him. Maybe he was turning in for the night. Yes, she could hear his footsteps crossing the open space between the three trailers, and then the door to his living trailer squeaked open.

  The door slammed
shut, and everything went quiet again.

  Her heart was still racing—but beginning to slow down. He was gone. She was alone now, hiding in the close, shadowy confines behind his lab.

  And she was thinking—not that she wanted to think it; it just occurred to her—that if she wanted to, she could take a look inside that trailer. She might be able to figure out what he was working on. She could also take a peek behind that partition. If nothing else, she could have a look at the bug he’d found in her nose, if there really was one. She even remembered that Dr. Basehart kept a flashlight by the door.

  Stepping carefully and silently, she peeked around the corner of the lab trailer to be sure he was really gone for the night. She could see one light still on in his living trailer, but then it winked out. Armond Basehart had to be calling it a night.

  The thought of taking a look inside the lab trailer became more than a thought; it became a plan.

  She built up her courage, drew a deep breath, and then moved like a cat around the lab trailer to its door. It creaked a bit when she opened it, but she got inside without drawing anyone’s attention.

  Dr. Basehart’s emergency flashlight was on a little holder next to the door. She clicked it on, keeping the beam low so it wouldn’t be seen, and went to the counter where Dr. Basehart had been working so intently.

  The samples were still there, all very orderly: slime from the pit; some other slime she had not seen before; the smear from her nose, still under the microscope; her blood, now distributed into several small vials for testing; and . . .

  What is this? She hadn’t noticed the glass jar before. Sealed with a lid, it contained a piece of cloth. Somehow it looked familiar. She gave the jar a few turns so she could view it from every side—gray cloth, with a green, chalky dust on it.

  Then she remembered. The rag from the Corys’ video! She recalled the images of John Cory using this rag to wipe the golden artifacts from Kachi-Tochetin’s tomb. Why would Dr. Basehart want to keep it in a jar?

  Oh, wait a minute. She remembered the very first carvy she and her father and brother had seen; it had been hiding in the Corys’ tent under a rag just like this one. Maybe that was the connection; Dr. Basehart seemed to want a sample of anything a carvy might touch.