The End of the World Club

by J; P Voelkel

  While the roadies carried Odd-Eye back to the bus, Max and the rest of the band trooped through the palace behind Ah Pukuh, through various rooms and halls, until they came to a set of double doors embedded in the floor. The doors were open and a grand staircase, lit by flaming torches, descended underground.

  “Is this a nightclub?” asked Vince, sounding impressed.

  “You could say that,” responded Ah Pukuh. He glanced at Max. “You could say it’s the End of the World Club.”

  Max narrowed his eyes. He’d never heard anyone but his father use that phrase. Was Ah Pukuh taunting him? He began to get a bad feeling as he followed the band down the stairs and into a cavernous space, where a small army of servants were bustling about, setting up tables, polishing glassware, and lighting incense and perfumed candles to mask the pervading smell of damp and mold. At the far end of the room was a professional-looking stage, framed by red velvet curtains. A black backdrop adorned with kitschy silver writing proclaimed CONGRATULATIONS in many different languages.

  “Oi,” yelled Trigger, “careful wiv me bass!” as a chain of little boys, dressed as pages in brocade coats and powdered wigs, passed the band’s equipment up to the stage.

  “So,” said Max, “Ah Pukuh said you’d be trying out some new material.”

  The band exchanged mystified glances.

  “Do you have a set list I could look at?” persisted Max.

  “A set list?” Ty snorted. “Wot do you fink we are—a boy band?”

  “But how will I know what to play?” asked Max.

  Ty put an arm around him. “The fans don’t care wot you play. They can’t hear nuffink anyway, wot wiv all the screamin’,” he explained. “Bein’ a rock star is all about attitude. I don’t even know the words to most of our songs.”

  “But you’re the lead singer.”

  “I fink of myself more as the front man. When I forget the words, I just do me tongue waggle.” He stuck out an improbably long tongue and undulated it impressively.

  “It’s true,” said Vince. “I can only play three chords on me ax, but I can do a windmill wiv me arm, and I’ve got the biggest amp in the business.”

  Trigger nodded. “Musical talent is overrated. Wot the fans like is when I play bass wiv me teeth.”

  “So what does Odd-Eye usually do?”

  “ ’E touches ’is chin wiv ’is tongue,” volunteered Ty.

  “ ’E throws ’is drumsticks in the air and catches ’em,” proposed Vince.

  “And ’e takes ’is shirt off,” added Trigger.

  “But he’s the best rock drummer in the business,” said Max. “There must be more to it than that.”

  The remaining three Plague Rats looked at one another blankly.

  “I’ll call ’im,” said Ty. He pulled out a cell phone and jabbed in a number. “Oi, Odd-Eye, the new kid wants to talk to you, mate. I told ’im anyone can be a drummer, but ’e wants you to give ’im some tips.”

  He passed to phone to Max.

  “First fing, right,” gasped Odd Eye, obviously still in pain, “is to ignore all the drummer jokes. They’re only jealous coz you ’ave more fun than the rest of ’em. It’s all about gettin’ noticed. So make sure to ’old yer arms as ’igh as you can, otherwise no one will see you behind that pile of kit. Remember, yer not playin’ the drums, you are the drums. Shake yer ’ed like a madman, jump in yer seat, whirl yer sticks like a dervish, bulge yer eyes, do anythin’ you can to channel the beat an’ steal the limelight from the guitarists. It don’t matter wot rubbish yer playing, as long as you make it look ’ard. Got that?”

  “Wow! Thanks!” said Max, giving Ty his phone back. “I better start practicing.” He picked up some drumsticks.

  “Give me those,” said Trigger, snatching them off him. “Wot do you mean, practicin’? Do you wanna make the rest of us look bad?”

  “But—”

  “The ’ole point about the Plague Rats, kid, is that we’re raw,” said Vince.

  “Raw like liver,” agreed Trigger.

  “Good album title,” mused Ty.

  “Speakin’ of liver,” said Trigger, “I could murder a nice steak ’n’ kidney pie. Is there anythin’ to eat around ’ere?”

  “I’ll go and have a look,” offered Max, eager to get away and practice his tongue extensions.

  He walked through the huge underground room, trying to guess its original function. It seemed to be dug out of the bare earth. Could it be a wine cellar? (He saw no wine bottles.) Or a dungeon? (No shackles or manacles.)

  Narrow passages radiated off the central space like the spokes of a wheel. Thinking it might be a good idea to plan an escape route in case Landa recognized him, Max turned into the first passage he came to.

  As soon as he stepped inside, he realized what it was.

  All along both sides were deep shelves, like the rows of cramped bunk beds on a submarine. But instead of a sleeping sailor, each of these bunks housed the tomb of a dead Landa, each corpse’s name engraved on its marble coffin.

  In between the larger alcoves, smaller niches held neatly stacked bones and skulls. The passage was lit by hundreds of dripping yellow candles, and at the end Max could see an elaborately carved mausoleum behind a pair of iron gates. His head spinning, he peered into the next passage, and the next, and the next: more tombs, more bones, more skulls.

  Max ran back to the stage, where the Plague Rats were still larking around.

  “Did you find any food?” asked Ty.

  “No,” spluttered Max, “but guess what? This place is not a nightclub, it’s a crypt!”

  Trigger looked up. “A place for dead dudes?”

  “Yes! They’re all around us! Those passageways are full of them!”

  Trigger turned to his bandmates. “Hear that, guys? We’re playin’ to a bunch of real-live stiffs!”

  “Cool!” said Ty.

  Ah Pukuh peered out from one of the velvet curtains. He was evidently in mid-toilette, as his hair was in a toweling turban and he wore a little woven cape to protect his clothes from the loose flakes of powder that rained down from his caked white face. “The guests are arriving,” he trilled. “It’s showtime, boys! Give it everything you’ve got!”

  Vince Vermin strapped on his guitar.

  “Let’s rock!” he whooped, and Max leapt onstage to take his place behind Odd-Eye’s drum kit and join the band in a full-blooded rendition of their last big hit, “Wake the Dead.” The music thudded and echoed around the chamber, darkness closing in on them, flaming torches reflected in gleaming glassware like stars in the midnight sky, everything blurred by sweat and sheer exhilaration as they played on and on, crashing and screaming through the Rats’ back catalog … until Max finally looked up and saw, to his surprise, a sea of party guests bobbing to the music. The masked ball was in full swing.

  Vince launched into a solo and, as he thrashed his guitar in a howl of feedback, Max took the time to study the audience.

  In ball gowns, diamond jewelry, and powdered wigs, all the women looked like Marie Antoinette. Some of them also had alarmingly realistic gashes around their necks, as if they’d just come from the guillotine.

  Also in powdered wigs, plus brocade vests, frock coats, frilled shirts, and knickerbockers, all the men looked like Mozart. Some of them wore so much face powder, they looked like Mozart after he’d died his untimely death.

  Everyone wore an ornate mask over their eyes or carried a mask on a stick. They certainly weren’t the usual Rats crowd. But to judge from the amount of screeching and braying and guzzling, they thought it a hoot to party with a punk band in an underground cemetery.

  Around the edges of the room, sword-swallowers, fire-eaters, and stilt-walkers plied their trades. A group of white-painted mime artists made a living sculpture of an elephant; a headless horseman juggled a selection of large objects including his own head; a conjurer made a tray of drinks vanish from under the nose of a flustered waiter.

  Just as Max was deciding tha
t it was the best party he’d ever been to, someone pulled the plug, and all the amps and speakers lost their power.

  The guitars fizzled to a halt and Max stopped with them.

  As the Plague Rats looked around, confused, Ah Pukuh lumbered onto the stage. Beneath his jaguar mask of painted papier-mâché, his chubby cheeks were heavily rouged, he wore black lipstick, and his greasy hair was powdered white. But nothing could disguise his obese body. The rolls of jiggling blubber under his white ceremonial robes looked like a herd of sea cows fighting under a bedsheet.

  He made a dismissive gesture to indicate that the set was finished. Max began to leave the stage with the rest of the band.

  “Not so fast,” said Ah Pukuh. “I’ll be needing you.”

  The two Maya roadies frog-marched him back to the drumkit and pushed him roughly into his seat. He watched, glumly, as Ah Pukuh fussed with a handheld microphone—tapping it repeatedly and emitting a lot of testing one-two-threes—before waddling into the spotlight.

  “Welcome, one and all, on this auspicious occasion, the eve of the wedding of the century—or should I say, the betrothal of the bak’tun.”

  He pointed at Max.

  Ba-dum-bum-CHING. Max obediently supplied a comedy drumroll to set off Ah Pukuh’s lame joke.

  It was interesting, he thought, to see how completely the god of violent and unnatural death had shed the persona of a laid-back rock-band manager and become a slick, if unconventionally dressed, emcee.

  “In keeping with a quaint Maya tradition,” continued Ah Pukuh, “I will now begin the proceedings by inviting a genuine Maya fortune teller to tell us the meaning of these nuptial days in the ritual Maya calendar so please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen—and enjoy the show!”

  A small man in a white tunic, his head wrapped in a woven scarf, entered reluctantly from the wings. He carried with him a deerskin bundle, which he placed on the stage and unwrapped with shaking hands. Max saw that it contained a variety of small objects—white crystals, yellow corn kernels, red seeds—just like he’d seen Zia set out on the Murphys’ front room carpet in Boston.

  “Speak!” commanded Ah Pukuh.

  “Today is Kan K’an, 4-Maize,” whispered the shaman.

  “Louder!” barked Ah Pukuh.

  “Kan K’an, a day to burn, a day of debts.”

  Ah Pukuh’s fleshy jowls shook in fury. “What? You were supposed to say a day of feasting and making merry. Stick to the script I gave you or you won’t get paid.”

  “I am a shaman, not an actor.”

  “It’s a wedding party. Would it have hurt you to say something nice?”

  “I cannot change the days, Lord Ah Pukuh. No one can change the days.”

  “Well, what do you have to say about tomorrow, the wedding day itself?”

  The shaman regarded Ah Pukuh with dread.

  “Come on now, something about happiness and many offspring, wasn’t it?” prompted the god of violent and unnatural death.

  “Tomorrow is Ho Chikchan, 5-Snakebite. It”—the shaman swallowed nervously—“it is a day of weeping, the day when an enemy comes.”

  The entire audience breathed in sharply, as one.

  “Take him away!” bellowed Ah Pukuh, kicking the shaman’s bundle and scattering his crystals, corn, and seeds into the audience. “I ask you, folks—is it any wonder that Maya civilization collapsed with killjoys like him around?”

  He pointed at Max.

  Ba-dum-bum-CHING.

  The two red-shirted roadies dragged the hapless shaman off the stage.

  “Tear off his fingernails and skin him alive!” Ah Pukuh called after them.

  The audience laughed nervously.

  Max was pretty sure that Ah Pukuh was not joking.

  Speaking loudly to drown out the screams of the shaman, Ah Pukuh reverted to smarmy emcee mode. “There’s nothing like a great opening act to get a party going,” he said. “And that was nothing like a great opening act.”

  Ba-dum-bum-CHING.

  “But don’t worry, folks, we have plenty more thrills and surprises lined up for you. It’s going to be an unforgettable night, and I think it’s time we met the man who made it all possible.” At Ah Pukuh’s signal, the stage lights dimmed until he was alone in a spotlight. “And now, I am delighted to introduce your host for the evening: put your hands together, lay-deez and gentlemen, for … Count Antonio de Landa!”

  Max watched in dread as the spotlight swung to the back of the room and picked out the loathsome Landa, looking extremely pleased with himself in a richly embroidered blue velvet doublet with a short black cape, black leather gloves, and a steel conquistador helmet.

  There was a smattering of applause, and the audience parted to allow him to make his way to the stage. He pulled behind him a woman in a heavy black lace veil that made her look like a birdcage with a cloth over it. To complete her unflattering ensemble, she wore an old-fashioned yellow ball gown with a skirt so wide she had to walk slightly sideways to get through the crowd.

  Max tried to hide behind his drums as the happy couple climbed the steps to the stage. Ah Pukuh handed Landa a microphone.

  “Muchas gracias, many thanks to my best man, Lord Ah Pukuh,” began Landa in his distinctive lisp, “and thank you to all my guests for joining me on this historic evening. Tonight, my friends, we will celebrate the union of two great bloodlines. For, to the eternal glory of the house of Landa, I have at last found a vessel worthy to bear my sons.”

  Max studied Landa’s bride-to-be.

  He certainly didn’t envy her fate. But what kind of person would agree to marry that creep? It was impossible to see what she looked like under that veil, but Max was sure that she must be as repellant, both physically and mentally, as the count himself. That would serve Landa right.

  “Tomorrow,” continued Landa, “I hope you will join us in Santiago de Compostela, the ancient city named for Saint James of the Field of Stars, as my bride and I plight our troth. How fitting that we will seal our union in the great cathedral where lies the tomb of Saint James, patron saint of Spain. For with this marriage, I will fulfill the destiny of the Landa family and bring glory to my beloved homeland—”

  “Splendid, splendid,” interrupted Ah Pukuh impatiently. He turned to the audience. “Now, who wants to see the bride?” At his urging, everyone shouted and whistled and stamped their feet. Ah Pukuh motioned for silence and pointed at Max. “Drumroll puh-lease.”

  Clumsily, Landa lifted the veil. Max ended his drumroll with a flourish as the unfortunate fiancée was revealed. From behind the drum kit, all Max could see was that she looked young and that she had dark hair twisted into a low bun. He couldn’t see her face but, judging from the audience reaction, he guessed she was not the hideous monster he’d imagined.

  Landa took her hand and presented her to the audience. “Bueno, now I give you the new Countess de Landa—a royal princess from a long and glorious dynasty.”

  “Kiss! Kiss!” chanted the crowd. “Que se besan! Que se besan!”

  Landa turned the girl’s chin toward him, and Max craned to see her profile.

  It was Lola.

  And she didn’t exactly look unhappy.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE KISS OF DEATH

  As she stood there on the stage, awaiting Landa’s kiss, Lola didn’t look unhappy. She didn’t look anything. Her eyes were open but her face was blank.

  As Landa made his move on her, she didn’t so much as flinch. But the sight of Landa’s thin and bloodless lips zeroing in on Lola turned Max’s stomach. He could only think that she’d been hypnotized, that she didn’t know what she was doing, that he had to save her from that kiss.

  Do something.… Do anything.… Make a distraction.…

  He crashed like fury on the cymbals.

  Landa jumped out of his skin.

  Mission accomplished.

  The romantic moment was lost.

  Max was willing Lola to turn around and make eye contac
t so that he could give her a signal, make sure she knew it was him under the newly dyed hair and layers of face paint. But she stood stiffly facing forward, eyes cast down.

  Landa cast an angry glance back at Max and his drum set.

  Max froze, waiting for the shout of recognition, but his disguise held.

  Ah Pukuh, roaring with laughter, slapped Landa on the back. “Never mind, Antonio,” he chuckled. “There will be time for smooching later. Let us proceed with the formalities.”

  Landa turned back and tried to gather himself together.

  He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and began to read: “Bueno, before we begin, I would like to explain to my distinguished guests about the significance of the theatrical performance that they are about to witness.”

  “Must you?” asked Ah Pukuh. “I think your guests would rather watch the show.”

  “I must,” snapped Landa. “My family has waited five hundred years for this day. I will have my moment.”

  He clapped his hands officiously, and four liveried servants staggered onto the stage with a heavy stone block. It was shaped like an anvil, but longer and flatter, and carved on all sides with jaguar heads. The servants carefully set it down and placed a couple of jaguar-pelt cushions on top.

  Ah Pukuh tapped his foot impatiently. “Get on with it,” he said.

  Scowling at the rudeness of his best man, Landa clapped his hands, and one of the servants stepped forward with a scroll. Landa clapped again, and the servant began to read in a dull monotone:

  “This is the famous throne of K’awiil, the seat of ancient Maya kingship, where the kings and queens of the Monkey River were crowned. Although some details of the ritual have been lost, we know they used the fabled Yellow Jaguar, the Stone of Truth, to release the Scepter of K’awiil that is embedded in the throne. Thus they would prove their lineage and verify their claim to rulership.”

  The servant rolled up the scroll and hurried off the stage.

  Now Landa himself stepped up to the microphone.

  “Although we do not have the Yellow Jaguar here today, I call upon my future wife to join me on the Throne of Kings.”