Curse of the Mummy's Uncle (6 page)

“Hang on,” Carter said, his face going noticeably paler, even in the light of the moon. “You didn't say anything about killer bats.”

Angelo shut off his tablet and returned it to his pack. “I forgot to mention that part. Oh, and by the way, don't freak out, but the Mayans also viewed the entrances to the caves as the mouths of monsters. So the carvings around the doorway might be a little . . . scary.”

By the time they reached the top of the pyramid, the mist seemed to be getting thicker. The sky, which had been clear when they started, was beginning to cloud up, making the night even darker than it had been.

Nick glanced down at the tents, which from this height were barely recognizable as anything more than dark shapes. “Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered the possibility that instead of making up these demons, the aliens might actually be the demons themselves?”

Angelo scratched his head. “UFO researchers have long considered the possibility that what people mistook for angels were actually extraterrestrials. I guess
it only makes sense that they might be what we call demons, too.”

Carter shuddered. “
Soooo
, you're saying we're going inside a cave shaped like the mouth of a monster to find aliens that may or may not cause people to die by swelling up or bleeding to death?”

The sweat that had been running down the middle of Nick's back felt ice-cold.

“It's not like they're still inside,” Angelo said. “We're looking for microscopic bits of hair or skin with alien DNA on them.”

Carter folded his arms across his chest, knitting needles clenched in one tightly closed fist. “And these bits of hair and skin are what made the people who went inside fifty years ago disappear without a trace?”

Angelo had no answer for that.

“I get that you want to be a famous scientist someday,” Carter said. “And I totally have your back. But getting eaten by extraterrestrial demons is
not
my idea of a fun vacation.”

Before Angelo could respond, Nick spotted something on the other side of the pyramid. “What's that?” he asked, pointing.

Carter and Angelo looked up. “What?” Carter asked. “I don't see anything.”

Nick squinted, trying to see through the thickening mist. “It looked like some kind of light.”

“Probably just the moon,” Angelo said. “Or maybe a star.”

“I don't think so.” Nick frowned. “It looked more like a—”

The light came again. This time it was clearly a flashlight of some kind.

“There's another one,” Carter said, pointing to a bobbing light a little to the right of the one Nick had seen. “Somebody's up here, walking around.”

“Stay low and be quiet,” Angelo said, ducking behind the altar. “We don't want them to know we're here.”

“
Them?
” Carter whispered to Nick.

Nick could only shake his head. He had no idea who, or what, was on the pyramid with them, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But Angelo already had his tablet out and was using it to take pictures.

“Is it aliens?” Carter asked, dropping beside him. “Do they look like flying scabs?”

“Shush,” Angelo hissed.

Damp with sweat and fog, Nick peeked over the edge of the cool stone. It was tough to make anything out through the swirling haze, but the beam from one of the flashlights lifted from the ground, briefly illuminating a line of men carrying boxes from the stone
temple at the center of the pyramid toward the back of the platform.

“They're taking things down the back steps so they can't be spotted from the camp.”

“Thieves?” Nick asked. If these men were stealing, they might be armed. In which case the boys should go back down and wake everyone up right away.

“I don't think so,” Angelo said. “I recognize several of the archaeologists from the camp.”

Nick rubbed the moisture from his face. “What's the point of this, then? They're allowed to take stuff from the pyramid. It's why they're here.”

“I don't think they're
stealing
anything,” Angelo said. “I think they're hiding it.”

Carter's fingers moved nervously as he knitted one loop after another. “What would they be hiding? And who would they be hiding it from?”

“They're hiding it from
us
. So we won't see whatever they've found.” Angelo got to his feet. “And I'm going to find out what they're hiding.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Nick jumped up and grabbed Angelo's arm. “Are you crazy? If those guys really
are
hiding something from us, what do you think they'll do if they discover we've seen them?”

“They won't. Look, the lights are gone. They're heading down the far side.”

At the moment, everything was dark, but that didn't mean there weren't more men inside the temple, or that they wouldn't be back any minute.

“It'll take them close to an hour to carry the boxes off the pyramid and get back,” Angelo said, walking toward the temple.

Nick hurried to catch up. “What are you going to do if there's someone still inside?”

“I'll figure it out when I get there.” At the entrance to the temple, Angelo stared into the darkness, before pulling one of his flashlights from his belt and turning it on.

Cupping the light with the palm of his hand, Angelo stepped through the stone archway. Nick couldn't help noticing the carvings of strange, horned beasts, fanged snakes, and humans in all manner of pain.

“Reminds me of going to the dentist's office,” Carter said, studying a particularly gruesome image of a man screaming.

The three boys moved quickly through the dark building. The flashlight's beam revealed stone benches, intricately patterned floors, and strange carvings on the walls. One room was empty except for six curved stones sticking out of the floor and a pair of circular holes close to the ceiling.

“What do you think those men were carrying out?” Nick asked.

“Gold,” Carter said. “And jewels. Crowns and necklaces and coins, like in that movie where the kids look for the pirate treasure.”

“
Goonies
,” Nick said, remembering the boatload of riches all too well. One of those gold necklaces would buy every game system and video game imaginable. Not to mention every monster movie, and the materials to build some amazing Halloween costumes.

“No way.” Angelo broke up their dream. “If it was treasure, why would they go to all the trouble to sneak it out? Jiménez must have told Dr. Canul what I said about aliens, and now he's trying to remove the evidence. I think it's a huge government conspiracy.”

They turned a corner and Nick realized they'd gone completely through the temple. “Where's the entrance to the pyramid?”

“Maybe there
is
no entrance,” Carter said. “Maybe the workers were just carrying down their equipment for the night.”

That would be a relief. If there was no secret entrance, the boys could go back to the tent before they got caught, or shot, or eaten.

“Maybe,” Angelo murmured. He turned around and
walked back through the temple, knocking on walls and touching carvings.

Nick noticed Carter had started knitting again. “What are you making, anyway?”

Carter held up a rectangle striped with different colors of yarn. There was a hole in the middle. He stuck his head through the hole, and the front of the rectangle barely reached his chest. “It's one of those Mexican poncho things.”

“A serape,” Nick said. It was ragged looking and lumpy in places, and it looked like it would take weeks, if not months, to finish. But the fact that he'd made it himself was pretty cool. “Maybe my mom could show me how to do that.”

“I don't know. It's a lot harder than it looks. It makes
Dark Souls II
look like finger painting.” Carter pulled off the serape and went back to work with his needles. “When it's done, I'm going to make a big hat to go with it.”

A heavy grating sound came from inside the temple. Nick and Carter spun around.

“Angelo?” Nick called.

There was no answer. Nick stepped farther into the temple and called again. The building wasn't that big. Angelo should have been able to hear him from anywhere inside.

Without a light, it was hard to see anything. The boys shuffled slowly forward. Nick held a hand out in front of him to keep from running into anything.

“This is how it happens,” Carter whispered from the darkness. “One minute there are three of you. The next minute there are two. Then one. The next thing you know they're making a TV movie about how you all disappeared without a trace.”

“We're going to find Angelo,” Nick said. But his heart was pounding. What if one of the archaeologists grabbed him? Or an alien? Or the pus demon?

Something moved behind them. Nick turned. Glowing orange eyes stared down at him. Fire shown from diamond-shaped nostrils. Sharp teeth as big as his arm glittered. It was a demon with a head as large as the room. The demon opened its huge, gaping mouth, and Nick screamed.

Carter held out his knitting needles, hands shaking. “Touch me and die!” he shouted in a quivering voice.

“
Touch me and die
?” Angelo stepped out of the demon's mouth, a wide grin on his face. “What are you going to do, knit me to death?”

As Angelo emerged from the opening, the demon's eyes and nose stopped glowing, and Nick realized the teeth were the curved stones he'd seen earlier. “It's a door,” he said, his voice weak and still a little shaky.

“I told you the entrance might look like a monster,” Angelo said. “Look, it's pretty cool.” He pushed on one of the teeth in the floor and a stone swung down, blending in with the wall. Angelo pushed the tooth again and shoved the door open, making the grinding sound Nick and Carter had heard earlier.

“Couldn't you just have said, ‘Look, guys, I found a door'?” Carter asked, lowering his needles. “You had to scare us half to death?”

Angelo laughed. “Sorry. I shut the door behind me and was trying to figure out how to open it. It's pretty awesome how the light makes it look like a monster though, isn't it?” He stepped through the door and shined the light, turning the wall back into a demon.

“Yeah,
awesome
,” Carter grunted.

“Let's go down and have a look around before the archaeologists come back,” Angelo said.

Nick peered down the dark passage. The walls were coated with moss and the floors looked wet and slick. “Are you sure it's safe? What about those traps you were talking about?”

Angelo handed him the second flashlight. “The archaeologists went down, and they survived.”

“That's what the people with Indiana Jones say, right before they get hit by poison darts,” Carter said.

Nick stepped through the demon's mouth, ducking
his head to keep from hitting the stone. “It can't be too dangerous, can it? I mean, they wouldn't let families come here on vacation if they could get seriously hurt.”

“So far, your family is the only one here,” Carter said. “Maybe that should tell you something.” But he followed Angelo when he walked into the tunnel.

The passage was just as damp and slippery as Nick had imagined. He took small, shuffling steps to keep from falling, and ran one hand along the wall.

Angelo stopped at a section of wall with a series of holes drilled into it and shined his light excitedly up and down. “Look at this!”

Carter pushed past Nick to get a look, then shook his head in disgust. “Yeah, these are some totally cool
holes
. Maybe next we can find a rock. Or some dust.”

“These aren't just holes. They're stars. See how they form constellations?” Angelo pointed his finger from one dot to another. “That's the Big Dipper, also known as Plough. And that's Orion.” He handed Nick his flashlight and swabbed a couple of the holes, carefully noting the time and date in his notebook. “It's important to write down where we took each sample. That way, when we get an alien hit, we will be able to track everywhere they went.”

Nick glanced the way they'd come, wondering how long it would be before the men came back.

“Is it time?” someone asked.

“Time for what?” Nick said.

Carter looked up from his knitting. “Dinner?”

Nick snorted. “What are you talking about? We already had dinner.”

“What are
you
talking about?” Carter asked, clearly irritated. “You asked me what it was time for, and I said dinner. If that's not it, I give up. What's it time for?”

“How should I know?
You're
the one who asked.”

“Would you two stop arguing,” Angelo said, tucking the swabs into his testing kit. “You're going to wake the dead. And there are probably at least a few of them down here.”

Nick glared at Carter, wondering what the point of the argument had been, but his friend had gone back to work on his serape.

The three of them continued down the hallway, Angelo taking DNA samples every so often.

“Are you here to free me?” a voice asked.

Nick spun around, sure Carter was messing with him again, but Carter had drifted behind a little and was fiddling with his serape.

“Did you say something?” Nick asked Angelo.