The River of No Return

by Jon Voelkel

  “Poor thing,” said Lola, “it can’t move an inch. I mean, it’s true that if it could turn round, it would send a spray of pee all over the room, but that’s not the tapir’s fault. It’s a natural defense mechanism.”

  The saddest sight of all was the big cage at the far end of the room. For there, in an easy-clean environment devoid of grass or trees or soft, sweet earth, paced a jaguar.

  You didn’t have to be an animal lover to see how miserable he was.

  “Behold the eternal dominance of man over beast,” exclaimed the concierge with a flourish. He paused for applause that didn’t come. “This brute had some fight in it when it first arrived, but we soon showed it who’s boss.”

  “Where did you find him?” asked Lola.

  The concierge tapped his nose. “Classified information.”

  As they got closer to the jaguar’s cage, Lola gave a little gasp. “Are those whip marks on his pelt?”

  “No one said show business is easy,” said the concierge. “But it’s a fast learner. We’re working up a jaguar-taming act that will be the talk of San Xavier.”

  Lola put her hands against the cage mesh. The jaguar stopped pacing and came to stand in front of her. Lola knelt down so her eyes were level with his.

  “Care to feed it?” asked the concierge. “At your own risk, of course. We cannot be responsible for unattended limbs.”

  Lola nodded enthusiastically.

  “Pepe! Bring food!” called the concierge.

  A zookeeper appeared, carrying a tray of raw meat in one hand. His other hand and arm appeared to be missing.

  “What happened to him?” Max whispered.

  The concierge cocked his head toward the jaguar. “It was a nasty business. Did you know that a jaguar’s tongue can part skin from flesh, and flesh from bone? And its teeth are specially designed to pierce the skull and bite the brain—so Pepe here got off lightly.”

  The keeper regarded the animal with hatred. He passed the tray to Lola and took a leather bullwhip off the wall. Tucking the whip under his stump, he unlocked the metal door. Then he cracked the whip to make the jaguar retreat to the far end of the cage.

  He gestured to Lola to place the tray of food inside.

  Refusing his offer of the whip, she stepped into the cage.

  The jaguar growled.

  Max couldn’t help noticing how chewy Lola’s legs looked. How tasty her arms. How thin her skull—

  “Coming, Hoop?”

  “Not me; I’ll wait out here. Animals don’t like me.”

  “Think of the memories,” said the concierge, pushing Max into the cage. “It’s part of your VIP Backstage Tour experience. You’ll be glad you did it, afterward.”

  Max heard the door clang shut behind him. He was so nervous, he thought his legs might collapse beneath him.

  The jaguar growled louder and licked his chops.

  “Just stay calm, maintain eye contact, and don’t make any sudden movements,” Lola instructed him. “Do what I do.”

  Lola walked slowly toward the jaguar, holding out the tray.

  Max took one step, tripped over an old chewed bone, and landed headfirst not far from the jaguar’s front paws. All he could see at that moment were two sets of long, sharp claws flexing in readiness to clamp him down while his skull was pierced and his brain was bitten into.

  He smelled jaguar breath.

  He shut his eyes.

  He heard Lola say something in Mayan.

  A rough tongue licked his face.

  Max waited for his skin to part from his flesh and his flesh to part from his bones, but it didn’t happen. The jaguar was licking him tenderly, as if he were a cub.

  “I told him you’re a friend,” said Lola. “He likes you.” She tried to distract the jaguar with the tray of meat, but he wasn’t interested. He put a paw on Max’s head, pinning him down in the sawdust, and flicked his tail contentedly, like a cat with a mouse.

  Lola crouched down. “I will set you free,” she whispered.

  “Thanks,” said Max, “but can you hurry up?”

  “I was talking to Bahlam, the jaguar,” she said.

  “What about me?”

  Lola ignored him and carried on crooning in Mayan to her new best friend. Max only had a sideways view of the proceedings as his head was still squashed to the ground, but he could see they were getting along well. Then—what was she doing?—Lola leaned over and—No, don’t do it—plucked out one of the jaguar’s long, white whiskers.

  Max winced. Way to get eaten, Monkey Girl.

  But the jaguar seemed to purr his approval.

  She bowed to the animal and stood up. “Come, Hoop, let’s leave him to his food.”

  “Can’t move,” Max reminded her.

  Lola stroked the jaguar’s paw and gently lifted it off Max’s head. “Not much longer, Bahlam. We will come back.”

  Max felt a pang of guilt. Much as he hated to see the animal confined to a cage, he knew Lola’s rescue plan was doomed. There was no way that two kids could smuggle out a jaguar without anyone noticing.

  He tried not to meet the jaguar’s eyes as he got to his feet and brushed himself down, but he could feel him watching sadly as he and Lola left the cage. The second they were out and the steel door clicked shut, the creature attacked the hunk of meat, ripping flesh from bone with a ferocity that made Max feel weak at the knees again.

  The concierge looked at Lola suspiciously. “What did you say to it? It seemed to like you.”

  Lola shrugged. “Just baby talk. What can you say to a dumb animal? It’s not like it can understand me.”

  “Quite so. Shall we continue the tour? Where would you like to go next—casino or pizza buffet?”

  The World’s Biggest Pizza Buffet on the seventh floor was like a huge, poorly lit diner. The booths were arranged around a long central table that groaned under wooden platters of pizza, each one as big as a cart wheel. There must have been fifty different kinds.

  “Eat all you like—it’s on the house,” said the concierge, showing them to a booth. “I must leave you for a moment to finalize some details for the big show tonight. Bon appétit!”

  “It’s good to get him off our backs,” said Lola when he’d gone. “He’s so creepy. There’s something about his eyes and the way he twitches his nose—”

  “You’re acting pretty weird yourself today. It’s not exactly normal to go around pulling out jaguar whiskers.”

  Lola took the long white bristle out of her pocket and held it up to the light. Her eyes were shining. “See how beautiful it is? So now I have a jaguar to be my animal guide.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’ll protect me.”

  “He’s stuck in a cage.”

  “It’s deeper than that. It’s like a bond between us. And anyway, we’re going to rescue him.”

  “Yeah … about that. How exactly?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I know we’re deep underground, but there must be staircases and emergency exits, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” said Max. “Because this hotel’s priority is obviously the safety of its guests.”

  Lola sighed. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

  “I just don’t think you’ve thought this through. I mean, assuming you did spring the jaguar, what would you do with him? You can’t set him loose in Limón. And it’s not like he can get the bus with us to Puerto Muerto.”

  “I’ll take him back to wherever they caught him.”

  Max put his head in his hands. “Don’t do this, Monkey Girl. We promised Uncle Ted we’d go straight back to the villa.”

  “You think you’ll be safe if you can get to your uncle’s house? You must know by now that it doesn’t work like that. As long as we have a Jaguar Stone, the Death Lords will come after us. It doesn’t matter where we are, or what we’re doing.”

  “That doesn’t mean we should act like crazy people.”

  “It’s not crazy, Hoop. Yo
u’re the one who convinced me that two kids can save the world. Maybe we can start right now by saving these animals.”

  “Animals? I thought it was just the jaguar?”

  She made a sad face at him.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he said. “You seriously think we’re going to walk out of here with a performing jaguar, an incontinent tapir, a flock of parrots, and an army of monkeys?”

  “Don’t forget the snakes.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Come on, Hoop. You know it’s the right thing to do.”

  “I can’t think straight. I need food.”

  Lola smiled at him. “Let’s have some pizza. And then we’ll work out a plan.”

  Max and Lola chewed in silence for a while. A body-language expert might have guessed (correctly) that Lola was thinking about animal welfare, Maya mythology, and the big questions of the universe, while Max was focused solely on the food.

  “See this?” He thrust a slice of bubbling, cheesy pizza under her nose. “This is proof that the Death Lords are not running this hotel.”

  “Oh really?” said Lola. “How’s that?”

  “Because if the ancient Maya were in charge, that buffet would be all greasy tamales and corn mush.”

  “It’s true that Xibalba is not famous for its wood-fired pizzas,” conceded Lola. “Maybe I just haven’t stayed in enough big hotels.”

  As Max lifted the cheesy slice to his mouth, a yellowish brown substance the color and consistency of mustard splattered down on it.

  “What the …?”

  He looked up to see where it had come from, and instantly lost his appetite.

  He pointed to the ceiling. “Bats! They pooped on my pizza!”

  “They look like vampire bats,” added Lola. “And they’re everywhere.”

  And so they were.

  Max realized that what he’d assumed was a decorative brown stripe running around the top of the walls was actually a large bat colony, hanging from a plasterwork ledge. Most were sleeping, but a few flitted about.

  As he watched, one peeled away from the rest and landed on the carpet near their table. It was a mouselike creature with shiny black eyes, and it sidled sneakily along on two bony webbed legs toward Lola’s bare ankle.

  “That’s so gross,” he said, stamping to make it take flight. “I didn’t know bats could walk.”

  “It’s only the vampires.” Lola drew her feet up under her on the seat. “That’s how they creep up on victims in the night.” She waved to a server, and he came rushing over.

  “Ba’ax tawa’alih?” he asked. “Is anything wrong?”

  “It’s the bats!” said Lola.

  “Uukum Soots’,” said the server, nodding and pointing upward.

  “Uukum Soots’ means ‘vampire bat,’ ” translated Lola.

  “I got that,” said Max. “But where did they come from?”

  The server spoke again in rapid-fire Mayan.

  “He says that a crew from Hollywood have been shooting a vampire movie,” explained Lola. “The bats were extras and a few of them escaped.”

  “A few? There are thousands of them.” Max was outraged. “Are they just going to let them hang there?”

  “The term is roosting,” said Lola. “He says that if we wait a little, they’re planning to release some hawks to catch them. We can watch if we like.”

  “Seriously? A massacre over the mozzarella? Dead bats in the doughballs?”

  Lola shuddered. “Let’s get out of here. I thought we could go back up to second and have a snoop around.”

  “I still don’t like this rescue idea,” said Max.

  “Do you want to wait here for me?” She stood up.

  Another splatter of bat guano plopped onto the table.

  “No, I’ll come with you. But only because I promised Uncle Ted that we’d stick together.”

  “Not leaving already?” asked a voice that was as brown and silky as the maple syrup Max poured on his pancakes in Boston.

  He looked up. The voice wasn’t talking to him. It was talking to Lola. And it was wafting out of the handsomest face Max had ever seen.

  Lola smiled shyly at the newcomer and sat back down. “Have we met?”

  “Only in my dreams.”

  As the stranger slid, uninvited, into the booth next to Lola, Max took in the rest of his appearance. He was about eighteen years old, tall, with piercing blue eyes and long black hair combed dramatically back from his pale, chiseled face. He wore a frilly white shirt and black jeans. He looked like a poet. From his accent, he sounded English. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar.

  The stranger saw Max studying him. “You’ve recognized me, haven’t you? Would you like an autograph, kid?”

  “Kid?” Max glared at him. “You’re not much older than me.”

  “Is he your little brother?” the stranger asked Lola.

  Lola laughed. “He’s not even Maya. You’re not very observant, are you?”

  “It’s been a long day. Trouble with the bats. Why we can’t add them in postproduction is beyond me.” He switched on a charming smile. “But that’s not your concern. You’re just here for the magic. And why shouldn’t you be? You pay good money at the cinema to see me. I never forget that it’s people like you that keep me in designer hair products. I love my fans and I’d like to thank you for hunting me down.”

  Max broke it to him bluntly. “We’re not your fans. We didn’t hunt you down. We don’t know who you are.”

  “Really? You don’t know me?”

  Max shook his head.

  The stranger looked at Lola quizzically.

  She shook her head, too.

  The stranger slapped his hand on the table. “I guess that’s my reward for coming to a dump like this. ‘Let’s do something different,’ they said. ‘The world’s first jungle vampire movie,’ they said. I should have known it was a bad idea when the sun dried up all the fake blood on the first day of shooting.”

  “Who are you?” asked Lola.

  “Does the name Ray Love mean anything to you?”

  “No,” she answered truthfully.

  Max narrowed his eyes. “Ray Love? Wait, are you the one they call Loverboy?”

  The stranger put up his hands in surrender. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Love,” said Lola briskly, “but we have to go.”

  Loverboy pouted and ran his fingers through his glossy black hair. “Don’t be intimidated by me. I may be a famous movie star but, underneath the showbiz glamour, I’m a person just like you. Well, much wealthier, obviously. And better looking. And more talented. But my acting coach says it’s good for me to mix with ordinary mortals now and again.” He smirked at Max. “Go on, kid, say something ordinary.”

  “A bat just pooped on your head,” said Max.

  As Loverboy dabbed at his hair with a napkin, Max and Lola wondered how to escape. Since the movie star was sitting next to her and blocking her exit from the booth, Lola began by saying, “Excuse me.…”

  Loverboy perked up. “Here it comes. Wherever I go, it’s always the same.” He puckered his lips, ready to give Lola a kiss.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, horrified. “I just want to get past you.”

  “As in, get over me? You never will. I’m scoring a ninety percent approval rating across the whole females-aged-nine-to-ninety-nine demographic.”

  “Really?” Lola sounded surprised.

  “I know what you’re thinking: Why isn’t it one hundred percent? But my agent tells me that these things are never accurate.”

  “I can believe that.” Lola leaned against him slightly to get him to scooch along in the booth. “So if you’ll just—”

  “Kiss you? But of course.” He winked at Max. “Get the camera ready!”

  Max watched, appalled, as the movie star turned to Lola, drew back his lips to expose two sharp fangs, changed course from her mouth to her neck, and—


  “Get off me!” yelled Lola.

  “Leave her alone!” shouted Max. For want of a better weapon, he grabbed a plastic ketchup bottle, leaned across the table, and squirted it at Loverboy.

  For one mad moment that Max would never forget, he was staring at an angry vampire and a beautiful girl, both splattered with blood-red sauce like the stars of a gory horror movie.

  Loverboy’s eyes blazed with fury. “You stupid boy! My director will kill me! What’s wardrobe going to say when they see this shirt? It was hand-sewn.”

  “You should have thought about that before you lunged at Lola!”

  “It’s my thing. It’s what the fans expect. It’s called ‘The Kiss of the Vampire’ after my first movie. It’s what I do for photographs, you moron!”

  “But your teeth … her neck?”

  “You didn’t think these fangs were real, did you?”

  Max shrugged, slightly embarrassed.

  “Are you people savages or what?” spat Loverboy. And with that, he was gone.

  “Thanks, Hoop,” said Lola.

  “For saving you from a vampire?”

  “No, for covering me in ketchup. I was being sarcastic.”

  “I’m sorry. But those fangs were very realistic, didn’t you think?”

  Lola laughed. “Don’t tell me you believe in vampires?”

  “Well, it’s a big thing back home right now. All the girls at my school are reading vampire books.”

  “Really? They’ve obviously never had a toe attacked by a real vampire bat in the middle of the night.” Lola stood up and picked up her backpack. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Hoop, but I’m sensing a pattern.”

  “Bring on the conspiracy theory.”

  “Think about it. When the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanke, went down to Xibalba, they were set a series of tests. There was dark and cold and jaguars and vampire bats—”

  “No! This doesn’t count! We were eating pizza and we happened to meet a guy who’s playing a vampire in some dumb movie. You can’t call that a test!”

  “Don’t you want to know what comes next?”

  “Let me guess. After the pizza … the burger and the hotdog?”