As they broke through the final barrier to the ancient tomb, a gust of stale, dead air drifted past their faces. The archeological group turned their noses at the smell, but determined to continue. The four of them had been searching for this for months, and already overcome bureaucratic red tape, government restrictions, feuding guerilla groups, and, most recently, the wet July heat; they weren't going to be deterred at this point by something as worthless as an undesirable smell.

Dr. Richard Carrington was the first through the hole in the tightly sealed wall, into the cave. He was an expert in his field of ancient Mesoamerican studies, having studied it nearly forty of his seventy years of life. Even at this point, he was unwavering in his goals, not allowing age to slow him. This was his life-long goal, his quest. The group may have only been together in Guatemala since the beginning of the year, but he had been studying this legend since almost the beginning of his career.

He'd always been fascinated by the occult — ghouls, vampires, witchcraft and the like — and he seemed to be drawn to the malevolent gods in his studies of mythology. He didn't know why, but the legend of Kisin, the fallen Mayan god of the underworld, had captivated him since he'd first studied it at USC. Perhaps it was the fact that Mesoamerican cultures were so prevalent in his childhood town of Aztec, New Mexico. Whatever the case, when he was taught the myth about the warrior-king Xotachla, a man who had sold his soul to Kisin, he decided to devote his life to finding his hidden tomb, and proving to the world that the legend was true — to a degree. Carrington had never bought into the religions he had studied, unlike some of his peers. He held no more belief in Mayan and Aztec curses and magic than he did in mainstream occult practices, or, as he called it, Anglo-Saxon mythology. In fact, the more he studied the religions of other civilizations, past and present, the more firm he was in his belief that everything was false. There was no Mayan god Kisin for Xotachla to sell his soul to, so there was no curse cast for opening his tomb. He stepped into the underground room with total confidence.

However, confidence was something the second researcher through the door lacked. Thirty-year old Dr. Tom Warner was no real doctor. He had never finished his schooling. While on his way to becoming a museum curator — his dream since he was small — he was enrolled in a class taught by the aging Dr. Carrington. Carrington had noticed how bright the young boy was, and had many one-on-one talks with him outside of class.

Once, while discussing the antiquities of ancient Rome in his office, Dr. Carrington became ill, and fainted. Tom immediately picked up the phone and called the paramedics. He stayed with him when help came, followed the ambulance to the hospital, and stayed in the waiting room for what felt like the longest night of his life. Both of Tom's parents had died when he was only sixteen, and, being an only child, was the sole inheritor of the entire Virginia estate. Even though he received assets totaling several million dollars on his eighteenth birthday, the money could not fill the gap created by the loss of his parents. Dr. Carrington, over a few semesters, had become his surrogate father.

When Richard woke, the doctor told him that he had a minor stroke. His cognitive abilities wouldn't be hampered, but throughout the rest of his life, he would have to deal with a loss of motor functions, as well as a heightened risk of further complications in the future if he didn't take it easy. Richard told Tom, and asked him if he would be his aide in the future. Tom immediately accepted. He became Richard's second-in-command, his shadow. In time, he knew as much or more than his mentor, and when Richard wasn't able to teach his class, Tom took over. He graded tests and papers for Richard and, eventually, students and staff members began calling this twenty-seven year old man "the Little Doctor."

Unlike Richard, the more Tom studied ancient cultures, the more he believed in them. He wasn't ready to convert to ancient Greek or Norse or, in this case, Mayan god-worship. However, as in this case, he fully believed in some of the stories he heard about this place. Stories such as local men known to hunt in this area going out one day and disappearing, docile pets getting lost from the nearby village and coming back to their owners feral and dangerous, and wild animals lining the road through the jungle and just staring at passersby plagued his dreams. He believed in the curse, and hoped he wouldn't wet himself as he followed Richard further into the cave.

The biggest reason he hoped for this walked right behind him, as excited as Carrington, through the hole. Her name was Victoria Oswald, and even though she, too, held a doctorate, she refused to let anyone call her "Dr. Oswald." Soon after she received her degree in psychology at NYU, she left the big city to become a journalist in her parents' home town of Prospect, Kentucky. She was contacted almost the day after her graduation by the editor of the Prospect Perspective, the new newspaper. He asked her if she would like a job as a reporter. At first she declined, saying that she had no experience or degree in journalism. He asked her if she didn't just finish college, to which she replied "Yes, but in psychology."

"Well, that's more than anyone else here on staff. You're hired if you want the job."

She always wanted to get out of the city, and the idea of analyzing New York or Chicago eccentrics for the rest of her life excited her not at all. So, after calling her parents in Florida, she packed her bag, and left that night.

After a year at the newspaper, it went bankrupt, and she found herself, once again, unemployed. However, once again, providence smiled upon her, and she was contacted by the Kentucky Post, and offered a job. They, apparently, had been watching her for months, and as soon as the Perspective went under, they were there, ready to throw her a line.

A few more years passed, and she was contacted by National Geographic, asking if she wanted to do a free-lance article on an indigenous people living in the Amazon. She accepted, and enjoyed every second of it. Her experience in psychology helped her to gain an insight into their culture, and allowed her to write an article quite unlike the one National Geographic was expecting, but loved, nonetheless. So they offered her another free-lance opportunity, and after that, another. A few years of this went by, and National Geographic offered to sign her on to their staff. Her first assignment as a member of the magazine was to follow an archeologist named Carrington into Guatemala, recording his progress on the research of an ancient Mayan myth. Before she left, she did a little research of her own, and found out all she could about Carrington, his aide, and Xotachla. What she'd learned about all of them had increased her anticipation for this find, and the half-year long wait didn't help. So she found herself, anxious and excited, following the Doctor and the Little Doctor through a dark Guatemalan cave.

Bringing up the rear walked — swaggered, more like — forty-five year old Gerald Blackworth, "Gerry B." to his friends, he insisted. The British tracker had spent a decade living in Guatemala, traveling from one village to another. No one knew the lay of the land — or which guerilla patrolled areas to avoid — more than the "original adventurer extraordinaire," as he called himself. To hear him tell it, he could have made the expedition ten times faster than Lewis and Clark. However, the more Victoria heard of his boasting, the more she, against her better instincts, began to believe him.

Besides, she told herself, I'm a middle-aged single mother. I've shown that I'm responsible. If I want to pursue a relationship with a rugged British explorer, that my own prerogative, not anyone else's. Not Gerry's, not my son's, not even Tom's. Thinking of the mousy aide always brought mother-like feelings to her. The man — boy, more like — desperately tried to hide his growing feelings for Victoria. He tried, and he failed. Every time she said his name, he blushed, visibly.

"Here, here! Yes! This is it!" Carrington's excited shouting carried her out of her reverie. "Look. Look at the drawings! This is definitely Xotachla's tomb!"

The three gathered around him as he explained the drawings. "Tom, write this down," he commanded. As the Little Doctor pulled out his pad of paper, he also turned on a personal tape recorder, just in case he missed something. "No, this figure is what has been generally accepted as Kisin. And this form, kneeling in front of him, has to be Xotachla. See the jaguar skin wrapped draped across his shoulders? The jaguar is a symbol of great power and authority, so he was already a great leader before he sold himself."

Victoria spoke up. "Well, couldn't this be after he gave up his soul? Couldn't he have been worthless until this point?"

Carrington shook his head. "No, not if the stories are correct; from what we've seen in this cave, we can prove that they are. Historically, Xotachla was already a king, but he was corrupted by his power. He wanted more. He fought against the other nations, but he was always forced to retreat. He never achieved his goals. But at one point, he began winning every battle he fought. Those who went against him in hand to hand combat — and survived — said that he had the strength of ten men, and the speed of a jungle cat. What's more is he always went into battle adorned," he pointed to the next picture of a man wearing what looked like a black cape, "in the skin of a black jaguar. Now, if the jaguar was a symbol of power, then the black jaguar was a symbol of ultimate power. Now," he began moving is flashlight back and forth across the room, "there should be one final room, because there is none of the traditional burial symbols on the walls, nor are there any trophies of his conquests. This is not the place of his final internment, but it is, I guess, the lobby. There must be one more room."

After a few moments of searching, Gerry alerted the rest of the group. "I've found something." In a small corner of the room, there was what looked like the remains of a wall's foundation, separating the large room from a much, much smaller one. Victoria and Carrington moved towards it with interest. Victoria was about to call Tom to follow them, but she saw him deeply involved with studying and copying the drawings on the wall. She decided to let him finish. The small room looked empty, anyway.

"Professor, look at these." Gerry flashed his light on the walls to both sides of the small room. Painted there were images of people being ripped apart by a man in, again, a black cape; the skin of a black jaguar. "What does it say?"

It was Victoria who spoke up. "Unlike the Egyptians, the Mayans didn't write in hieroglyphs. When they drew a picture, it was just that; a picture."

"Almost right," responded Carrington. "The Mayans did use hieroglyphs, but they were not as…picture-like. They were symbols, on a somewhat literary standpoint, quite like ours. Maybe more like oriental or Semitic alphabets. But that doesn't matter. It's true that when Mayans drew pictures, they were pictures, as well as stories."

"So what happened here?" asked Gerry.

"Well, strictly speaking, the way this is written, it's not what has happened. It's showing us what will happen if anyone opens this tomb."

"And what's that?" Victoria, this time.

"Well, as near as I can tell, it says that if we open this tomb, Xotachla will kill us, and spread across the world, leaving a wave of death." The troop became silent.

"But we didn't open the tomb," offered Gerry, after a few moments. "It was already open."

Carrington nodded. "Yes, troublesome. It would appear that someone has beaten us to the tomb and stolen everything, which would explain the lack of items." He pointed to the bare walls and floor. "Not even any drawings around where his body was. Nothing…"

Victoria felt a shiver go down her spine. "Professor, no one could have broken into here. We knocked down six walls through the cave to get to here, and every one had the symbol that you called 'a Mayan keep-out.' We're the first."

"The girl, however attractive she may be, has a point," said Gerry. "I looked at the walls we've come through. Each one was older than the last. But the masonry of the one we've just come through, and the structure of this wall," he bent down and picked up one of the fallen bricks in his hand, "is from the same period. I'd say about two thousand years ago."

"Which means," Carrington continued, "that whoever buried Xotachla in this tiny room also sealed off the outer room. And over the generations, locals, afraid of some sort of curse, built wall after wall through the cave, until they forgot who was interred here."

"Which turns out to be no one at all, just a bunch of drawings?" finished Gerry. "No, I don't buy it. First of all, Xotachla was not revered; he was feared. Totally and completely. Second, this is not the burial tomb of a great king. I think he was placed here after some sort of battle when he was captured. I think he was here, but he was placed in this tomb alive. After some time, he was able to break the first wall, but not the second. The second was much thicker than this one was. He must have eventually starved in the outer room, and decomposed."

Carrington shook his head, again. "No, we would have seen some signs of his corpse. There isn't anything. And besides-"

"Where's Tom?" Gerry and Carrington looked at Victoria, then shone their flashlights over the room. Nothing.

Victoria walked over to where she last remembered him standing, and found his writing pad on the floor. Next to the picture of Xotachla wearing the black skin, Tom had written some notes. He's larger than the other people. He's surrounded by those who had died. One of the dead bodies in one picture is walking in the next. Next to this last note, there were two lines drawn pointing to the two figures in question. Looking back at the wall, she noticed that they did, in fact, look identical to each other. And in the one where he was walking, had had an arrow in his back. She didn't notice that the first time she looked at it.

She turned back to tell Carrington, but saw that she was alone in the chamber. Carrington and Gerry were walking back up through the cave.

Shivering violently, she ran after them. She, like Carrington, had never really bought in to the legends, but this room frightened her. Xotachla frightened her.

Soon, she caught up with Carrington and Gerry. They were crouching around something on the ground, looking at it. When she got closer, she realized what it was; Tom's tape recorder and his canteen. They were covered with what looked like blood.

Then, she noticed something else. "It's still recording," she said. The other two looked at her, puzzled. "It's still recording; we can play it back, and find out what happened," she explained.

Gerry snorted. "Good thinking, actually." He daintily picked up the machine, hit the stop button, and then pressed rewind. A few moments later, the tape stopped. Playing it, they heard Carrington discussing the pictures on the wall.

"Past this," said Victoria. "I saw him when we were looking at the small room."

"Okay," responded Gerry. Holding the fast-forward button, they heard Carrington speaking quickly in a high-pitched voice. He released after a short pause, and found that it was when they were searching for the room.

I've found something they heard Gerry say on the tape. Then, after a few more seconds, he said Professor, look at these. They heard themselves conversing about the room, and intermittently, they could hear Tom muttering to himself.

Oh, really? Well, that's interesting. I'll have to show them this. Then scratching with the pencil. Abruptly, the scratching stopped. Oh, no. It can't- He stopped, and they heard what sounded like the rustling of clothes. They heard their voices get muffled, then quieter, and finally, they could hear nothing at all. Gerry stopped the tape.

"It sounds like the chap got scared, and ran. At this point, he dropped the recorder. He's probably back to the camp by now."

Victoria's breath became short. She spoke very slowly. "But what. About. The blood?"

Carrington looked at the machine. "You know, when the red rock and dust in this cave gets some water mixed with it, it quite closely resembles blood."

Something happened inside Victoria. She would never be able to explain what it was; it just snapped. "It's not dust, dammit!" She reached out, wiped a finger in the red substance on the rocky floor, and then licked off what she picked up. "It's blood! He's dead! Play the damn recorded!"

Gerry, confused, hit the button again. After a few moments, they heard noises. It sounded like something was being dragged. Then it stopped. They heard Tom's voice after a short pause. It sounded like he was waking up. What's going on? What's happening? Why does my stomach-" Abruptly he cut off, and took a deep breath like he was going to scream. But when the noise came, it was muffled, like he had something shoved in his mouth. But he screamed anyway. He screamed for several seconds before stopping to breathe. He spoke, and it was muffled, but they understood. What is this? Who are you? Up until this point, they could hear a noise almost in the background that sounded like something mixing. When Tom spoke, the noise stopped. A few more seconds, then breathing very close to the recorder. A voice. Xotachla. Then bone snapped, and Tom was silent. The mixing sound continued.

The three of them sat in silence. Eventually, they heard Gerry call Tom's name from the chamber, and the mixing sound stopped. There was a loud crack from the tape as the recorder hit the floor, and a metallic crash next to it that was the canteen, then a scraping/dragging sound that got quieter and quieter until it was silent again. Then Carrington's voice. What's this?

Gerry stopped the tape. "That's where we came in." Silence.

"What was that sound?" Carrington asked no one in particular.

Suddenly, Victoria knew. It wasn't mixing; it was chewing. "That son of a bitch was eating him! He was eating him alive, and then broke his neck! That's what those sounds were!" Sobbing, she ran up the cave.

As she left the mouth of the cave, Gerry caught up with her. "Vicky, Vicky!" He grabbed her shoulders, stopping her running, but she was still sobbing. "VICKY! You need to calm down!" She continued to sob, so he knocked her on the forehead with one of his knuckles. Not enough to hurt, but enough to notice. Victoria stopped crying.

"What the hell was that for? Usually, people slap to stop a panic."

Gerry smiled. "Yeah, that's why it doesn't work. You weren't expecting me to knock on your head like a door, were you?"

Victoria laughed, then cried again, but controlled this time. "I just can't believe he's dead. Not like that."

Gerry shook his head. "You don't know that. Those noises could have been anything."

"But what about the other voice? The one that called himself Xotachla? It doesn't make sense."

Gerry shook his head, again. "No, it doesn't but we shouldn't jump to bizarre conclusions. Someone needs to investigate this. We need to-" he cut off. "Bloody hell?"

Victoria looked at him, and saw his gaze directed toward the mouth of the cave. When she looked, she saw what he'd noticed. Someone was sitting on the ground. He wore a brown cloak and a big hat, and it obscured sight of his face. But the hair that stuck out from under the hat was wispy and white, and the small corner of his face that they could see was dark, like the local people. But he wasn't there when she passed; she was sure of it.

They sat, staring at his unmoving form in silence as Carrington came from the inner bowels of the cave. "Oh, you caught her, I see," he said to Gerry. "Well, see that she- Hello! What have we here?" Carrington, too, had noticed the old man. "Excuse me, sir," he said, approaching the sitting figure. "I was wondering if you've seen a short man with black hair and glasses some by here. He may have been wounded and bleeding, we're not sure." No response. "Umm, sir? Excuse me, sir?" Carrington reached out, and pulled the man's hat off. He was definitely local, and very old.

"That's better. Now, sir, have you seen our man?"

The old man slowly, ever so slowly, raised his head. His eyes were closed. As he moved, Victoria felt the same cold fear she had experienced in the cave. There was danger. Something should be done. They needed to get out! She was about to run for Carrington when the old man's eyes shot open. They were red, and full of hate.

Victoria froze, Gerry cursed, and Carrington just stared. The old man began to stand. Fear coursed through them all as he moved. So slow and menacing. It was inhuman.

As he rose to his full height, Victoria saw that he was tall. Very tall. At least six feet eight inches. His extreme height, his sunken red eyes, and his hollow cheeks combined to form the most hideous creature she had ever seen. If anyone had eaten Tom, it was him.

He reached up to the neck of his cloak, and pulled it off, revealing a gaunt, nearly naked skeleton-like figure beneath. The only cloth he woke was an old black loincloth, and a black skin across his chest. Jaguar. And he was covered in blood.

Before they could react, before his brown cloak could even hit the floor, he reached out, and plunged his hands through Carrington's stomach. The old man looked down in amazement to see the man's arms disappear into his torso. Then he screamed.

The man lifted him up into the air until his arms were parallel to the ground. With Carrington screaming, the old man gave a shout of his own, then pulled his arms in opposite directions in such a way that the force ripped the old professor in half, showering the area in blood.

Gerry grabbed Victoria's shoulder again, and spun her towards him. "Go for the jeep. I'll distract him." As she didn't move, he shouted again, while running into the jungle. "GO!"

The old man looked at Victoria, then towards Gerry, and then back towards Victoria. Smiling, revealing sharp teeth, he ran towards Gerry.

He took two steps, then leaped impossibly far over the remaining distance. Mesmerized, Victoria stood and stared.

The old man landed in front of Gerry, and, without ever taking his eyes off of Victoria's, grabbed the British explorer by the throat. He tossed him up in the air with a half spin, and when he'd turned one-hundred-eighty degrees, the old man punched him in the back.

Gerry flew fifteen yards into a tree, and then bent over backwards at an angle his spine should not have allowed. His sightless eyes seemed to glare at Victoria, saying "Why didn't you run?"

Turning back to the old man, she watched him advance upon her. He showed none of his previous inhuman speed, but was once again moving agonizingly slow. As he approached her, he smiled again, showing those wickedly sharp teeth. Victoria couldn't move. Danny, she thought. Her son would never see her again. Danny, I'm so sorry.