The Ruin of Lamanai

Today is April 31. Or maybe May 1? I don’t remember. My boyfriend broke my phone on the cruise ship, and this cell in the guardhouse doesn’t have a calendar. I don’t know what happened. I mean, I know what happened, but not how it was possible. It was just a stupid port of call tour. How could it end like this?

It started five days ago when a tour boat collected us from our cruise ship, the Song of Atlantis, anchored off the coast of Belize City. It wasn’t the cruise line’s sanctioned excursion of the Mayan ruins. That one went to Altun Ha, and my best friend told me that one was crazy busy. She suggested Lamanai Archaeological Reserve for smaller crowds and a more exclusive experience. I booked a tour directly with the agency to go to Lamanai because they guaranteed a return to the ship in time to board.

I was there with Jason, my on-again-off-again boyfriend with whom I was on again, mostly because his mom wanted me there for their family reunion cruise. I knew she was more afraid of who he might bring than out of genuine care for me, but I was not saying no to a free vacation. It wasn’t going well. Jason was drinking too much and spending most of his time dragging me with him to hang out with his twin cousins. Not because he wanted me there, but because he enjoyed making me the butt of his jokes. The only reason I put up with his crap was the free vacation and that he paid for the excursion to Lamanai. I’d wanted to visit the Mayan temples since I was a starry-eyed ten-year-old reading books about the indigenous cultures of the Americas. I was a broke college student. It would take years for me to afford a trip to Central America myself. The trip was worth dealing with him for a few more days.

Belize is dangerously beautiful. The boat ride down the river to Lamanai was astounding. The jungle was vibrant and teeming with wildlife. Our tour guide pointed out crocodiles, snakes, and monkeys, but I also spied brightly colored butterflies and tropical birds. Color was everywhere: every shade of green, reds, browns, and yellows. The explosion of color made me feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, stepping out of the black and white house onto the bright yellow brick road. I was awestruck.

The site itself was busier than I expected. Many other groups I recognized from the cruise ship were also there. Families walked the footpaths lined with palm trees and dark green brush. Hardwood trees draped with vines surrounded the site and almost seemed to hug the back of some buildings.

We toured the museum, climbed the temples, and learned the cultural and trade history of the people. I stood before stone masks taller than me and ancient carvings of crocodiles and other animals. The entire tour, Jason and the twins complained at the back of the group. They snuck swallows from hidden flasks, becoming increasingly bold as the day progressed. They didn’t stop until one woman snapped at them that children were present, and the others in the group glared their agreement instead of supporting them.

They switched tactics. They bent their heads together, whispering amongst themselves while watching the rest of us. When they edged around the base of the High Temple into the trees, away from the staircase to the top, I followed them.

I almost lost them under the shade of the trees and the thick undergrowth. When I stepped around the roots of one tree, I saw them again. One twin crouched beside a steel door, trying to pick the lock. It had a clear warning of “Authorized Personnel Only.” He gave a low cry of triumph when the door clicked and popped open.

I should have gone to look for security immediately. But I was afraid I would get delayed and miss boarding the cruise ship. I can’t afford a flight back to Miami. So I followed them inside.

Stairs with scaffolding built around them led down into the ground. They explored rooms with pottery shards, rocks, and archaeological tools scattered around, but quickly grew bored. One said something about Mayans and gold, and they pushed further down the stairs until they entered a cavern with me trailing quietly behind.

A low ceiling dripped with stalactites and crowned rough walls. Opposite the staircase, the wall featured a fountain with a pool nearby. The fountain was a carved death’s head skull over a skeletal body, featuring a grotesquely round belly. A stream trickled out of the wall itself into a shallow, beaten gold bowl on the top of the skull. On the front of the bowl, a spout poured the overflow down a groove following the sternum of the ribcage. The water streamed into a crevice gouged into the floor, leading to a pool on the adjacent wall. The wall above the pool held a massive carving of the moon with an old woman kneeling below it. Brown plants floated listlessly on the surface of the water and looked as if they were rotting.

Jason and his cousins went straight for the bowl, trying to pluck it out. When it didn’t move, they started trying to pry it loose with their hands. I thought that would be the end, but one twin found a toolbox, popped it open, and crowed when he found a pointed spade. They began working to gouge the bowl out of the fountain, and I decided I had to stop them. I stomped over to snatch the spade away from them. Jason spun around when I reached over and shoved me back. I stumbled backwards a couple of steps, caught the heel of my hiking boot in the crevice, and plunged into the frigid water of the pool.

My body snapped straight at the shock of the cold, and I panicked. I thrashed my arms and legs, felt my feet squishing into the muddy bottom of the pool, and realized it wasn’t deep. I thrust my hands down into the mud to push myself upright and gulped a deep gasp of air when my head broke the surface. The men were laughing as I struggled to my feet with trails of the brown plant clinging to me. Rather than dead, the plant felt surprisingly firm; silky, but not slimy. One cousin held the bowl in his hands. I was covered in dark, sludgy mud with water streaming from my hair, and brown leaves covering my body while the jerk squad walked out with a priceless artifact.

Defeated, I slogged out of the pool and through the temple. I knew what I had to do. The security guards needed to be alerted before the tour group left. I would miss boarding the ship, but I had my passport, and Belize was an English-speaking country. Hopefully, someone will help me get to the next port of call to meet my ship.

I didn’t have to find security. As I approached the outer door, men in uniform were handcuffing the guys. I smiled in relief and tried to tell them what had happened. They ignored me, shoving me into the wall and handcuffing me as well. They told me I could tell my story to the police.

The police didn’t care about my story. They interviewed us, but instead of taking us to town, they left us in the little cells of the guardhouse on-site. Jason and I in one cell, the twins in the other. I heard them telling the security guard that the cells in town were full from a group caught attempting to trap wildlife. They said they would return the next day. When they came back, Jason, the cousins, and the guards were coughing. The police were wiping their noses. The jail in Orange Walk, the nearest town, was still full.

By day three, Jason and the twins were feverish and lying listless on their cots, only moving for violent coughing fits. Their eyes became sunken pits surrounded by purplish-black skin. Likewise, their lips were becoming almost black around the edges. A clear, slick fluid oozed from the corner of Jason’s lips. When I tried to wipe it away, it was sticky and smelled sweet and sour, like an orange rotting in the sun. The guards were avoiding us by then. One took pity on me enough to let me have my bag. At least I had a pen and this journal. The police didn’t come that day.

Day four, no one came back. Jason and the cousins were lying in their own filth. I tried to stay as far from them as possible. The twins struggled to turn in their cots, their stomachs swollen and hard, and they kept vomiting black bile. I screamed for help, but no one answered.

Now it’s the fifth day. I can’t see tourists outside the windows of the guard building anymore. The twins died during the night. Jason’s stomach was bloating this morning, and the vomiting started. I huddled in the corner, crying and trying not to get splashed. No one came, and eventually Jason stopped breathing. They haven’t given us food since day three, but I’m not hungry. I’m trapped in this cell with a dead man. Though I never got sick, I’m still going to die. The water stopped running last night. I discovered that when I tried to flush the little toilet. No one can hear me. I don’t have any food or clean water.

All I can do now is think. I’ve been thinking about everything I know about the Mayan gods. The skull and skeleton were often used to depict Ah Puch, the god of death and master of the underworld. I thought I remembered he was also a god of disease. The crone under the moon was probably Ixchel, goddess of the moon, childbirth, and medicine. I think maybe the ancient Mayans had built the temple around the cave to guard it. Maybe the carving of Ah Puch was a warning: the water is poison. And maybe the plants in the pool somehow made the water safe to drink. The plant was healthy, even though it wasn’t green. While splashing around in the fountain to steal the bowl, they splashed that killer bug all over themselves. Then they saved me by accident when Jason knocked me into the pool.

Except I’m not really saved.

May 2? No water. No food. Everything around me is death. Flies are everywhere. I’m breathing through my mouth. If I breathe through my nose, I vomit from the stench.

One archeologist dragged in here yesterday. Surprised I’m alive. I thought he would save me. He turned towards the bathroom to bring water, but collapsed before he reached the door. Died last night, with his belly swollen and all that black vomit. And I can’t stop thinking about my parents and little brother. I keep picturing them with swollen stomachs and that thick, sticky saliva, and it’s all my fault. I can’t even cry. My eyes burn when I try.

I did this. I could have stopped it. I wish I had gone to security when I saw them picking the lock. They wouldn’t have reached that godforsaken room. The world wouldn’t be dying. Jason and his vile cousins killed the world, and I let them do it because I was afraid of missing a stupid cruise ship.

If anyone finds this, go to the pool. The cure is there. Save my family. Please don’t let the world die because I was a coward.

The man in the hazmat suit snapped the journal shut. He looked at his partner in the other cell, then at the body at his feet. Instead of the black corpse of the infected, this one was decaying naturally.

“We found patient zero,” he said into the radio in his hood. “There’s a journal describing the inciting event. The symptoms described match the Cocoliztli virus. She said she was there but didn’t get sick. She thinks she survived because of a pool in the High Temple. Let’s get a team in there.”