by J; P Voelkel
Then, shimmering in the heat haze like a glorious mirage, a bus appeared in the road in front of him. He ran straight into its path, waving it down, the hellhounds snapping at his heels. The bus screeched to a halt inches in front of him, brakes squealing and tires smoking. Max banged on the glass door and it opened with a hiss, letting out a blast of cold air and a salvo of earsplitting rock music. As the door shut behind him, he turned to see the pack of hellhounds clustered at the roadside, happily wagging their tails, as if waving him off.
Still panting and shaking from his narrow escape, Max turned back to the driver.
“Is this the airport express?” he asked, shouting to make himself heard.
The driver turned down the music and gave Max an evil smile.
“This,” he said, “is the fast bus to hell.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE FAST BUS TO HELL
Is this the bus to the airport?” Max repeated, thinking he must have misheard.
“You got cloth ears, buddy?” snapped the driver. “I just told you, it’s the fast bus to hell! Don’t they teach readin’ no more? It’s written on both sides of the bus.” He wore a peaked cap at a rakish angle and he spoke out of the corner of his mouth like an actor in an old gangster movie.
“I … I … didn’t see it.… I got on too fast.… So, um, is Hell a town near the airport?”
“Give me strength!” The driver tapped impatiently on the steering wheel. “The Fast Bus to Hell—it’s the name of the tour bus.”
“Tour bus? A bus for tourists?” babbled Max in confusion.
“Look, buddy, I ain’t got all day. The boss told me to stop for you, so I did.” He revved his engine. “Are you on or are you off?”
The pack of hellhounds was still sitting in line on the roadside.
“I’m on! But can you take me to the airport?”
“You’ll have to ask the boss.”
“Where is he—?” began Max, but the driver had lost interest in him.
Indicating with his thumb that Max should move inside, he crunched the gears, turned up the sound system even louder than before, and roared off through the Spanish countryside.
Max lurched slowly down the aisle, thanking his lucky stars that it had appeared when it did. Back in San Xavier, he’d taken the word tourist as an insult, but this was one tour bus he was happy to join.
Evidently, not many paying guests agreed with him, as all the seats were empty in the front part of the bus.
He kept on going toward the back.
As he passed some curtained-off bunk beds, he realized that this was no ordinary bus: it was fitted out like a luxury hotel. But the ambience that had seemed so refreshingly cool and air-conditioned when he’d first stepped aboard was becoming less and less wholesome. The farther back he made his way, the more pungent the air became.
Max hesitated before entering the next section of the bus. It was some kind of lounge area, with sofas and a huge plasma TV screen. But judging from the air of devastation, the upturned furniture, and broken lamp shades, it had recently been the scene of a minor war or possibly a wild party.
Max stepped over a pile of shredded upholstery and a discarded chain saw, then jumped out of his skin as a body flopped into the aisle. Its face was ghostly white.
Was it dead?
As he stared at the potential cadaver in horror, a loud snore whistled out of its nose.
Could it be …?
No, it couldn’t.…
It was!
Trigger Mortis, bass player for the Plague Rats.
Wait a minute.…
Max skirted the sleeping body and looked around the room. He spotted three more crashed-out band members festooned across the furniture.
Over there was Vince Vermin, curled up on a mattress of pizza boxes and hugging his guitar like a teddy bear; and there was Odd-Eye Ebola, half on and half off the sofa, with his drumsticks entangled in his frizzy black hair. As for the third sleeper, Max deduced that the leather-clad legs and bare feet sticking out from under the sofa could only belong to the Rats’ lead singer, Ty Phoid.
How could anyone sleep through this deafening music? Max shook his head in admiration. He considered himself a pretty good drummer, but he had a lot to learn about being a rock star.
At the far end of the lounge was a bead curtain.
As Max got nearer, he saw it was made up of plastic eyeballs strung on extremely realistic-looking yellow plastic sinew. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Plague Rats’ obsession with fake gore and plastic body parts wasn’t getting a bit uncool.
Still looking for “the boss” and thinking he saw a movement behind the curtain, Max waited for a break between tracks and called out, “Hello?”
Immediately, all the eyeballs swiveled toward him.
Okay, that was cool.
“Come in!” boomed a voice.
As Max pushed aside the curtain, he was disconcerted to notice that the eyeballs felt warm and soft and not at all like plastic.
The room was thick with noxious fumes of incense, like concentrated pine disinfectant, undercut with a base of raw sewage. Max’s eyes watered as the reek hit him but, at the same time, he knew he’d smelled it somewhere before.
Through the fog, on the other side of a big wooden desk piled with phones and papers and assorted Plague Rats merchandise, he could just make out the figure of an extremely large man counting piles of paper money.
The man looked up and saw him, quickly stashed the bills in a cash box, and boomed, “Max Murphy! Long time no see!”
Max’s stomach did a double flip. He knew that voice.
A bloated, lumpy white face leered at him out of the smoke.
It was Ah Pukuh, the Maya god of violent and unnatural death, and ruler of the coming bak’tun. He and Max had last met at a hideous celebration in the Black Pyramid, where the Death Lords had impersonated his parents and, yes, now it came back to him, where he’d first smelled that aroma of acrid dung.
On that occasion, Ah Pukuh had been dressed to the nines in his ceremonial finery. Today he’d fashioned his own riff on business smart, having crammed his enormously fat body into a badly fitting pin-striped suit. His greasy hair was hidden under a black top hat, trimmed with jaguar pelt. His face was plastered in thick white makeup that tried (and failed) to conceal his plague boils, his eyes were heavily lined in black, and his lips were grotesquely daubed with red lipstick.
Credit where credit was due, thought Max. By the standards of punk rock, Ah Pukuh didn’t look too bad today. But remembering his repellent behavior at their last meeting, Max had no desire to renew their acquaintance.
He turned to run back down the aisle, but two burly men stepped out of the shadows and barred his way. They had broad Maya faces, the physiques of professional wrestlers, and matching red shirts that said ROAD CREW in white letters.
“It’s good to see you, man,” gushed Ah Pukuh, in his most oleaginous tones. “Pull up a chair.”
Max hesitated. He could see no escape route.
Ah Pukuh clapped his hands. “Bring pizza for our guest!” he barked at the roadies. “Pepperoni with extra cheese, chewy in the middle and burned at the edges!” He turned back to Max. “That’s how you like it, isn’t it? Am I right? How about a cold soda while you’re waiting?”
Max thought back to the last time he’d experienced his corpulent host’s hospitality. On that occasion, Ah Pukuh had served him a live rat for dinner.
Ah Pukuh read his mind.
“No tricks this time, I promise you,” he said, leaning back and opening a small refrigerator, stacked high with cans of soda. “Help yourself.”
Gingerly, Max took a can of Coke.
It looked normal.
It opened normally.
It smelled normal.
It tasted normal.
“It’s good to see you, man,” gushed Ah Pukuh.
Actually, it tasted better than normal. It tasted like the most refreshing, delicious, thirst-quenching, ic
e-cold soda Max had ever drunk. He chugged it down in one gulp.
“Have another,” Ah Pukuh encouraged him, as the roadies struggled through the bead curtain with the biggest pizza box Max had ever seen. “And do help yourself to pizza.”
Max took a large, juicy slice and, after sniffing it warily, stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. It was the best pizza he’d ever had. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He took another slice. Man, this was good pizza.
The roadies retreated to the shadows.
As Max chewed, Ah Pukuh talked. He seemed like a different person from the ill-mannered, flatulent bully who’d held the party in the Black Pyramid. “I’m glad we ran into each other,” he said, “because I owe you an apology, Max Murphy. I’m sorry about that thing with the rat, yeah? I realize now that it was deeply inappropriate.”
Max took a third piece of pizza and said nothing. Ah Pukuh’s mouth was doing a weird twisty thing that made Max suspect he was not sorry at all. In fact, he looked like he wanted to laugh.
Struggling to control his mirth, Ah Pukuh passed Max a paper napkin. “Am I forgiven? Pretty please?”
Max ignored this insincere show of penitence. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m with the band. What are you doing here?”
“I’m going to the airport. What do you mean, you’re with the band?”
“I’m, like, their manager.”
“What? How do you know the Plague Rats?”
“Oh, you know, we have a lot of shared interests: anarchy, nihilism, waterproof mascara.… It was only a matter of time before we joined forces.”
“But you’re the Maya god of violent and unnatural death.… Aren’t you supposed to busy right now, getting ready to rule the new bak’tun?”
Ah Pukuh leaned back in his chair, with his feet up on the desk. “I’m done with all that, Max. I’ve changed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still into senseless violence, but the whole power trip is such a bore. Imagine having to sit on a throne for the next four hundred years, wearing those heavy headdresses, making pronouncements, attending functions.… I’d rather be rockin’ out, man!”
At this point, Ah Pukuh played a blast of accomplished air guitar to demonstrate his newfound passion.
“Cool,” said Max. Then the meaning of Ah Pukuh’s conversion sank in. “You mean you won’t be releasing the forces of chaos and destruction in a few weeks’ time?”
“Not unless that’s the name of the Rats’ new album!”
“Do the Death Lords know about this?”
“Yeah, they’re singing backing vocals on a few tracks.”
“No—I mean, do they know you’ve abdicated?”
“I talked it through with them last night. To be honest, it came as a big relief all round. You know when something just feels right? Like, the world has moved on, you know? This whole ‘god of violent and unnatural death’ thing, I was feeling so labeled. We all were. Now that they’re free to be themselves, the guys are thinking about forming their own band. I mean, The Lords of Death—it’s a gift! You have to admit it’s a catchy name. I’ll send you a demo if you like.”
Max sensed a glimmer of hope. “What about the Yellow Jaguar?” he asked. “Do the Death Lords still want it?”
Ah Pukuh’s eyes darted to Max’s backpack. He licked his fat lips. “Who knows? But I doubt it. I think they’d be more interested in a decent amp.”
“Really? How can I find out for sure?” persisted Max. “I have to know.”
“Relax, man,” drawled Ah Pukuh. “Take a chill pill.”
But Max was wired.
His heart was pounding; his throat was dry; every muscle, sinew, and nerve ending was tautly focused on the possibility that this crazy quest to deliver the Yellow Jaguar was over.
All this time, he’d been so focused on fulfilling his mission that he had never, not for one second, considered the possibility that the Death Lords might lose interest first.
But yes, now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. Hermanjilio had told him that the Death Lords acted like delinquent children—and children had short attention spans. He could easily imagine the Death Lords being distracted by the rockstar lifestyle. And if they were dead set on entering the music business, they’d want to reinvent themselves as quickly as possible.
Ah Pukuh had done it. And if the god of violent and unnatural death could become a laidback hipster, the Death Lords could change as well.
Max smiled to himself. Already this quest was seeming a little ridiculous, a little, well, uncool.
This was the twenty-first century, after all.
Maybe it was time for ancient Maya gods to catch up with the rest of the world.
If so, this was Max’s lucky day.
A sweet relief flooded over him as he imagined what life would feel like without an ancient Maya price on his head. If only he could find out now, instantly, whether Ah Pukuh was right. Had the Lords of Death really given up on the Yellow Jaguar?
“If you were genuinely sorry about serving me rat in the Black Pyramid,” he said, “you’d ask them for me. Right now.”
“I guess I do owe you one, man.” Ah Pukuh thought for a second. “Look, I’ll be seeing the guys later for a poker game.” He gave Max a theatrical wink. “I’ll put in a good word for you, okay? See if I can get you off the hook, yeah?”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Oh, that’s harsh, man.” Ah Pukuh’s many chins quivered with distress. “But hey, it’s your call. But I can tell you that you can’t move forward if you’re living in the past. You have to let it go, Max.”
Max squinted at him suspiciously. “That’s not a very Maya thing to say. Lord 6-Dog thought time worked in cycles.”
“Exactly! I’m breaking the cycle! I’ve been in therapy, Max, and I’ve done a lot of thinking. I’ve changed for good. Why don’t you give me a chance to prove it to you? What do you have to lose?”
Max thought it over. “Okay,” he agreed. A cautious optimism was welling up inside him. All he had to do now was keep on Ah Pukuh’s good side.
There was a sound like distant thunder. A bad smell, elephant house times twenty, reminded Max why Ah Pukuh’s Mayan nickname was Kisin—“the Flatulent One.”
“So what brings the band to Spain?” squeaked Max, trying to make small talk. His eyes were watering from the smell. “Aren’t they supposed to be in Japan right now?”
Ah Pukuh smirked. “That’s what I wanted everyone to think. We’ve snuck away to play some private gigs, test out some new material, before the big world tour.”
“What big world tour?”
Ah Pukuh opened his pin-striped jacket to reveal the black T-shirt underneath and pointed with a fat finger to the words printed on his chest.
“ ‘FIN DEL …,’ ” read Max. “Um, what does it say? I can’t see the rest.…”
Ah Pukuh pulled out the fabric from between his rolls of stomach fat and stretched it out to reveal the lettering. “ ‘EL FIN DEL MUNDO WORLD TOUR,’ ” he read. “Cool, huh?”
Even Max knew enough Spanish to translate it.
“Why’s it called The End of the World tour? They’re not splitting up, are they?”
“It’s meant to be ironic—you know, a nod to all that Maya calendar hoo-ha.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in that anymore.”
“I am if it sells tickets.”
“It’s a cool shirt,” said Max longingly.
“It’s a collectors’ item, limited edition …,” boasted Ah Pukuh, rummaging around under his desk. He pulled out a shirt and threw it to Max. “Here, try this on for size.”
Max caught it gingerly, as if he thought it might come alive and bite him. But when he held up the shirt and saw it was the genuine article, his reservations about the new, reformed Ah Pukuh melted away. “Thanks. I really like it.”
“You’re welcome.” Ah Pukuh made a steeple with his fingers and tapped his fingertips together, as if
searching for a new topic of conversation. “So,” he said casually, “I heard you’ve parted ways with that Maya chick.”
“How did you—?” began Max, and then stopped himself. He had no wish to discuss Lola with this bloated lump. He shrugged as if he didn’t care.
Ah Pukuh twisted the knife. “I heard she’s seeing someone else.”
Max couldn’t help himself. “You did? Who is it?”
Ah Pukuh laughed and tapped his bulbous nose with his pudgy forefinger. “That would be telling. But I believe you know him.”
Max’s face burned with anger. It was Santino. It had to be. Of all the low-down, dirty, double-crossing tricks.…
“That’s chicks for you,” said Ah Pukuh. “But there are plenty more grubs in the dungpile, right?”
“I think you mean fish in the sea,” said Max.
Ah Pukuh smiled his grisly smile. His stubby yellow teeth looked like two rows of dead maggots. “So remind me, Max Murphy, where are you from?”
“Boston.”
“Boston? Boston, Massachusetts? Shut up! Talk about coincidence! The End of the World tour kicks off in Boston in the fall.…”
“It does? It’s not on the Web site.…”
“It’s top secret, hasn’t been announced yet.” Ah Pukuh inspected his black-painted fingernails. “It’s expected to sell out in seconds.”
Max looked at him hopefully. “I don’t suppose …?”
Ah Pukuh reached into his desk drawer, pulled out an envelope, and tossed it across the desk.
Max looked inside. Four front-row seats and four “Access All Areas” backstage passes. He felt woozy with pleasure.
“You could bring those crazy parents of yours,” suggested Ah Pukuh.
“I don’t think so,” laughed Max. “They’re not really into the Plague Rats.”
“No? Their loss! How are they these days?”
“Not so good. Mom’s hair has fallen out, and Dad’s got a botfly growing in his neck. It’s their punishment for trying to help me.”
Ah Pukuh tutted sympathetically. “Nasty business, man. You must be glad it’s over.”
“Technically, it isn’t over until the Death Lords say it is.”