The Ballot

I made a promise to myself years ago I would go. Every winter, as the snow began to melt away around the windows of my home, and the tulips in the front yard would again spring to life like a vampire in a cheap, sixties horror movie, I would pack my bags, and jump on the internet to search for the cheapest flight to South America. Somehow though, every year I would find some reason not to go. Whether it was the bad weather, work or even the desperate need to deep clean the garage, I had always decided to postpone my trip until next year. 

“I’ll go next year for sure!” That was my solemn cry, and it had happened so often that it crowded out the number of times I had said other, more normal word. This year would be different though, since the sudden disappearance of my older brother at the festival last year gave more of a pull and desire to go and try and find him among my family's strange celebrations. That is why, on March 19, 2020, I bought the first ticket I could to fly the Yucatan and visit that strange, rumor haunted village of my ancestors. 

As I exited the air-conditioned plane in the Chetumal International Airport, I was met by a blast of hot, dry air which caught me off guard to the point where I had to stop and adjust to my new, tropical surroundings. Paradise stretched off, all around me unbroken for seventy-six thousand miles in every direction. This was a place which famous pop artists sang about and starving college students dreamed about As I bustled my way through customs, happy families of tourists snapped pictures which they will look back on with nothing but happy memories. This was a place of joy, for everyone but me. I had heard for years from my more adventurous and strange friends and family about the rumors of this jungle of violence and hinted at dark secrets that were buried or hidden away among the slowly rotting trees and deep jungles; by this point that even the cawing of far off jungle birds sounded sinister to my ears.

Although the cab that picked me up was driven by a kind man, who asked me about my family and health in his broken English, I was not in the mood for pleasantries. As the driver attempted in vain to make conversation, I poured more and more of my attention into reading the news report I had in front of me. The heading was perfectly normal, nothing was out of the ordinary. Even the two paragraphs about my brother's purpose in coming were been respectful. To a normal person, with a normal family and normal life, this news article would have been perfect. That was my problem, my family was the farthest thing from perfect that could have existed, so I searched the page letter by letter to find anything that could be wrong. 

Edward Castello Goes Missing

That was what I read during that surprisingly long cab ride to my hotel. The article mentioned that my brother had come down to Chetumal on a business trip on a business trip, and, after finishing his business, had taken the last two days of his trip to go sightseeing in the Biological Reserve of Camakul. As part of his trip, he had rented a horse to carry him through the thick jungles and long trails of the reserve, so as not to disturb any of the rare wildlife he might encounter on his trip. Then he set off, leaving the town of X-Canaha early on Saturday morning. A group of young boys playing with a soccer ball watched him as he rode off the asphalt road into the foreboding trees. They were the last people to see Edward alive. I had to keep reminding myself that this was the reason why I was here, although maybe that was just a convenient excuse to justify keeping my promise even though where I was going was evil. 

Nothing in the article had caught my attention yet, so I read on. Then, in a moment of odd surprise, I saw something. In the center of the last paragraph, a single sentence caught his eye. 

The young heir to Presidia Holdings left his wallet and phone behind in a rental car. 

I knew my brother, and he was careful in the most extreme way. He didn’t leave anything behind that he would need when he went traveling. The fact that he had left behind his phone in a rental car anywhere was unlike him and it reminded me unnervingly of an old ghost story my cousins and I used as kids to the other boy scouts. 

“ There ain’t no use in bringing things with you, because if they draw your name, then no one is going to find them.” The fear-tainted “they” of his family's oldest tradition, the story of a strange, black devils who lived in the tunnels and ruins of the old mayan temples, and slithered out every spring to feast on the living. In ancient times, they would creep into the towns of the conquistadors to look for their victims who, when found, were never seen again. Those were just ghost stories that our grandparents told us to keep us in line, like La Llorona or the bat-winged witches that supposedly terrorized our ancestors. I had stopped believing in those stories a long time ago, but why did this article seem to hint at them so strongly for me.

After a long period of uninterrupted reading, I was lapsed from the article by a rocking of the taxi as it veered off from the paved highway and onto a rutted dirt path that led off into the jungle. I groaned, rolled my eyes, and reminded myself that this was all for Edward. Finding my brother was the only thing that made keeping this ancient promise worth it, and if bringing him home safely meant bearing the bumpy, ill-kept paths of Camakul then I would not complain. I remembered reading about this jungle in the journals of one of my ancestors, Pedro Antonio Castillo-Barrera, who marched with Cortez during his conquest of Mexico. The Catholic padres had hated this jungle, as did their native servants who Cortez had carried off to use as human pack-mules. “It was a dark, and evil place, and the devil lived there.” None of the natives would not go into Camakul, and after beating and threatening them, Cortez was forced to accept their aversion to the place and go around. During the journey, one of the Padres had asked one of the natives why they shunned that place. 

“Shebalba”, or Hell, was all most of them would say, though my spelling is never right when I try to write it down or tell someone about it. Finally, one of the natives, an older man, finally explained what they meant. He said that there was an evil ruin there, a city older than any of the cities that the conquistadors had seen so far, called Camakul in that jungle where the people worshiped ‘the older gods” who were crueler and bloodthirsty than any of the gods which the Aztecs gave their blood offerings to.

The sun was setting as we wound our way down the jungle road into the heart of the reserve, and the darkness of twilight made me shiver with an unplaceable fear. I remember thinking how odd it was that there was no toll booth or guard on the way into the jungle. I did see two guards when we left the town, but they were facing the jungle, not the road. It was as if they were guarding against something that would come out of the trees to do them harm. Now, as we rose from the jungle floor up one of the curious hills that hid beneath the trees, I began to wonder about those old legends of black devils that would crawl into the town at night. That idea was ridiculous, there was no such thing as demons or devils, or whatever else people believed was haunting these jungles. I believed then that people are the worst monsters this world has. 

“We are close now senor.” He said with a shake in his voice. I rolled my eyes, this man was more superstitious than I had imagined. Then I saw it, the blood-soaked ruins of Villa-Sangre. 

It was the fires that caught my attention first. Rows of braziers that lined the still white stone road that must have been there for a thousand years. The fires disgusted and horrified me, though I couldn’t explain exactly why. As we passed the first set, I thought I saw a charred human skull stare at me from the flames, I passed it off as my imagination. The atmosphere of the whole place was enough to cause nightmares and hallucinations. The town itself was set on a rise overlooking the largely intact ruins of an Aztec city center, beyond the fires a set of white stone steps descended into a street of ruined buildings built of titan blocks of gray stones which flanked four mammoth stone arches. At the end of the street, a mammoth step temple loomed against the indigo sky. The temple sickened him, the gray stone exterior seemed sinister, the usual stone staircase had been replaced by a behemoth gateway of some unknown black stone or glass. The whole temple seemed to glow in the dark, and a faint, unwholesome light emanated from the black gateway. Below in the ruins I could see the faint light of candles and torches at the foot of the gigantic gateway, and I stopped the driver at the top of the white steps

.

I rushed from the cab, leaving my belongings in the car. I did stop and think about what it was that I was going to do when I got down there. It was as if a sudden, uncontrollable hate had overcome me. Those lights below me had taken my brother, and I was going to give them the punishment I found to fit the crime they supposedly had done. My blood boiled, and my heart was racing when I reached the bottom of the hill. Panting, I looked around me for a weapon that I could use against my attackers. Rummaging in a pile of loose items in one of the abandoned buildings, I found an old, six-shot revolver, which I eyed with a predatory curiosity. When I opened the catch and revealed the cylinder, which was not only free of rust, but shone brightly in the moonlight above me. I could see my own, nightmare twisted reflection in the silvery revolver, an insane look on my face. I didn't recognize myself. Whatever madness had swept over me was impossible to explain. All I knew was that I had to avenge my brother, whatever it took. I wonder now as I think back if my ancestral, conquistador blood had taken over that night. It makes me ashamed to think about now that I look back, but at the time my mind was in a different place.

The revolver had five of its six shots full, and the hammer was still in working order, so I took my new-found weapon and crept slowly towards the torch glow ahead. The shadows of the buildings took on a sinister quality as my crazed mind drove me on towards my unwary victims. In the darkness I could hear voices ahead, though I could not make out what they said. They were chanting something to the beat of a single drum as I approached, that much I knew. I was less than one building length when I started to feel the aching in my cheeks, I was grinning, though I didn’t remember feeling my lips curl up into a smile. I was still stalking the unseen visitors when a crowd appeared on from the sides of the buildings around me. The sight of bodies ahead of me, English speaking bodies, seemed to bring me back to sanity. I hid the revolver beneath my shirt before the group noticed me. They welcomed me when they noticed me, like a family accepting a long-lost cousin. Together we moved past the last archway to the foot of the temple. Where a dark skinned man in red robes stood behind a makeshift podium.  

Standing at the foot of the temple, I was dumbfounded by the size and horrible detail of the gigantic, black gate. The doors were now swung inward, revealing a cavernous expanse beyond. The interior was thick, deep blackness and I felt uneasy to not be able to see what might have been lurking inside. The faint glow I had seen earlier came from the light of two lamps that hung off of two massive pillars that stretched up into the black of the inside of the temple. They did nothing to reveal what lay beyond, though I saw, or maybe imagined I saw a deeper blackness in the back of the lamp light, it looked like a descending stair, although the fact that it seemed to stretch wider than the distance of the columns seemed to suggest that the steps were wider than it’s exterior stone shell. That idea then and now seems ridiculous and it makes me doubt my whole experience. 

The robed man raised his hands and made everyone fell silent. He started to speak about why they were gathered together that night. 

“ Tonight we gather to draw the ballot, as our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers have done.” The man’s voice was horrible, raspy and hollow sounding, in a way that I disliked. It was almost like his voice was echoing from someplace deep in the temple rather than his own mouth. When he finished speaking everyone cheered. 

“As we have done for centuries, we pick the names of those who will sacrifice themselves for the Gods of the deep places, so that we may be protected for another year!” To me this all seemed normal, though I was confused about what the strange priest was alluding to. I thought I heard, or more felt, a deep sound from beneath my feet, like the sound of great wings. I discounted that as well, since again the rage from somewhere deep in my mind was welling up again, and I gripped the revolver that I hid in my belt line. The crowd was cheering and singing in horrible tones that I could not understand. Then the priest spoke again. 

“But first!” He cried, “ Let us welcome the servants of the old gods!” The crowd screamed and cheered, and the sound of wings returned louder. I imagined that those sounds came from gigantic bats that I could not see. Then, I did see them. 

They were horrible, inhuman monsters that I can not describe. I shivered as they bounded and flopped into the dim lamp light of the temple, making horrible noises. Those oversized, twisted things that only vaguely resemble things of nature. I think I went mad then, though I can not be sure. When those things, those godforsaken, unnatural things slid into the sane air, I think I screamed. 

Then my madness overcame me, I pushed the natives next to me aside and fired. The bullet striking the priest in the throat. Then I ran, as people around me screamed and scattered in all directions. I ran as fast as I could up the stone steps, killing two more of the celebrants that tried to stop me by throwing them from the steps to the street below. I made it to the top of the stairs and ran wildly back down the jungle path from where I came. 

I ran for hours, I don’t know how long. Though I remember checking my phone once to see through the dark. The screen March 19, the first day of spring. I had come just as I promised, and I had fled from my past as so many of my ancestors had done before me. Was that why Pedro was afraid to write what he saw? Did he also see those horrible, batwing abominations which were only able to hop because of their bloated forms. That must have been why. Then I heard something which made my blood run cold. 

“Where are you going brother?” It was Eduardo’s voice, though the sound came from deep, blood-red eyes. 

I remember nothing after that. Eventually I found my back to X-Caha, though I'm not sure how long it took. Eventually I made it back to the states, it took longer than expected, as I was stopped and questioned about the death of three natives who had been found on one of the trails in Camakul. They found Eduardo two days later. He had been killed in a dramatic fashion, shot in the chest four times with a revolver found next to him. They claim he was robbed and then killed since there were no valuables on him. I know it was because I kept my promise. 

• The End  -