Temple of the Inscriptions
by Humphrey Price
Two university-age friends, Scott and Karyn, are driving through Mexico in 1973 on a self-guided tour of Mayan ruins when they find themselves thrust into an adventure spanning time and history. They must fight for their lives against ancient foes who want a mysterious key that Karyn unknowingly possesses.
Chapter 3: Secret Chamber
We instinctively crouched down on the slab, huddling together, and we could smell fine dust kicked up into the air. We slowly got up to take stock of what had happened. In a trembling voice, Karyn called out, “Scott, look over here.”
In her flashlight beam, over on the far wall opposite the stairway, there was now an open door leading into another chamber. Karyn said wisely, “I’m scared. Let’s get outa here.”
I not so wisely said, “I wanna check this out.” I gingerly climbed down off the slab, retrieved my backpack, and scooted around the sarcophagus over to the new doorway. The floor and sides were solid and smooth, but the top of the doorway was an open slot going up into the ceiling.
“Karyn, I think this slab fell out from the ceiling down through the floor, making this hole in the wall. And the top of the slab is now perfectly flush with the floor. I mean it’s an amazingly perfect fit!”
“Well, that’s just great, Señor Frog. Now let’s get the hell out of here! I mean right now! I’m scared.”
I shined my flashlight into the new chamber beyond the doorway. “This is a large room. It won’t hurt to take a peek inside. It looks like there’s something big in the middle.”
“Don’t go in there! What if the wall collapses and you get trapped inside?”
“Well, something happened to release a latch and make the stone block fall down and open this chamber. It must weigh several tons. I don’t see any way it could possibly go back up again unless it defies gravity. I think it’s safe to go in.”
“Scott, this is an archeological site. We shouldn’t disturb it. Only people who know what they’re doing should go in there. I think we’re in enough trouble already.”
“I’m just going to take a quick look around.” Stepping into the chamber, I played the beam of my light around the walls. I was surprised to see metal tubing, like electrical conduits, snaking around the wall. There were metal boxes at the junctions of tubing. This did not look like an ancient crypt. I was expecting to see something like the tomb of King Tut with gold and jewels, not some kind of electrical utility room.
In the center of the chamber stood a smooth cylindrical tank about two meters in diameter and two meters tall. It was shiny like stainless steel. A T-shaped structure was mounted on top, something like a very thick antenna. I noticed a change in the light and shadows behind me, so I knew that Karyn was entering the room.
“Well, Señor Frog, it looks like we found the maintenance room for the pyramid. I don’t think that big tank is a thousand years old.” She came over to stand beside me, then we heard and felt that dreaded sound again, like a huge boulder rolling down a hill.
Karyn screamed, and we both turned to point our flashlights at the door and see the multi-ton stone slab rising up out of the floor to seal off the chamber again. We didn’t even think about making a run for it to scramble back over the block before it closed us off. WHAM! The door slammed shut and, after the echoes subsided, there was nothing but silence, except for the sounds of our rapid breathing.
“I think we’re in big trouble,” I said in a monumental understatement.
In an amazingly calm voice, Karyn said, “We need to find the button that opens the door back up again.”
I stood dumbstruck for a moment, taking this all in. Then I said, “That sounds like a good plan. Hey, I think there’s light in here!” I switched off my light. “Turn off your flashlight.”
Karyn switched off her light, and we could see that the room was indeed illuminated, though dimly. Vertical cylinders on the walls were spaced around the chamber glowing with a pure, white light. We found a rectangular panel mounted on the far wall that looked like it was made out of a milky white stone or maybe plastic. It was covered with writing in bold black, but there was nothing in English or Spanish. There were different sections that appeared to be in Mayan hieroglyphics, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek, Chinese, and four other languages that we couldn’t figure out.
“Can you read the Chinese?”
“A little. I think this is very ancient. It reminds me of Chinese writing I’ve seen that is over two thousand years old. This is creepy. Why are all these old languages here? Is this some kind of Rosetta stone? Only this doesn’t look like any stone I’ve ever seen, and the writing is printed. Here, this part in Chinese says, ‘The emperor journeyed for five hundred years.’ That doesn’t make sense!”
“Well, we need to get help. I like your idea about finding a button to open the door.”
“Scott, how long are we going to be able to breathe the air in here? This room looks like it’s sealed up tight.”
“Let’s search for a way out.”
Back at the steel cylinder, I explored around all its sides. “Ah ha!” I exclaimed, as I saw a familiar-looking bull-eye design. “Come over here and see this. What do you think?”
Karyn joined me, and we examined a bump with a circle around it. It was the same pattern as the bulls-eye design on the stone slab with the button that had opened the door to the chamber we were now trapped in.
Karyn said, “What the heck,” and touched her meteorite pendant to the bump. It didn’t magnetically stick, but we immediately heard a humming noise. Where there had previously been only a smooth metallic surface, there was now a square outline with rounded corners. The surface inside the square moved inward, and then the whole square area slid over to the side, leaving an opening to the inside of the cylinder.
The structure was hollow. In the center was a round pedestal with a top that had indentations molded for a person to sit in. Above it was a control panel or dashboard. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Karyn. “Scott! That’s what’s in the carving! This is what the Mayan king is sitting in!”
I looked at the pedestal, the surrounding cylinder, and the T-shaped structure on top and took it all in. “Oh my god. That’s it!”
“I’m completely freaked out! Forget about this space capsule thing. We need to look for more buttons to open the door to get out of here.”
The obvious place to look was near the door where we had entered the chamber, and we did find something. On one of the metal boxes on the wall near the door was a button that looked like the one that had opened the hatch on the space capsule. We tried Karyn’s meteorite on it many times, we tried jiggling it, pushing it with our hands, knocking on the box, but nothing happened.
We frantically searched the chamber for other buttons or features but could find nothing. Now Karyn was pounding on the stone slab door and yelling for help, but to no avail. I put my hands firmly on her shoulders and said, “Come on, Karyn, you’re just going to hurt your hands. Let’s look around some more for a way out.”
Her body sagged, and she started sobbing. She sank to the floor and buried her head in her hands. I knelt down next to her, and she said in a soft voice, “Just leave me alone for a few minutes.”
I got up and returned to the steel cylinder with the open hatch. I grabbed my backpack. I’m not sure why, maybe because I thought I’d need my knife or a candy bar to snack on. I stepped through the hatch and stood inside. Other than the pedestal in the center, it was mostly empty. I wanted to take a close look at the control panel above the pedestal, so I sat down on top of it. The tractor seat depression was quite comfortable to sit in. There was a stirrup for each foot, so I put my feet in. Comfy.
I heard a humming sound, got a very bad feeling, and looked over, to my horror, to see the hatch sliding closed. I scrambled off my perch on the pedestal and lurched over to the opening, but I knew I wasn’t going to get out before it closed or that I would be sliced in two by the thin metal plate closing like a guillotine. I yelled out before the hatch slid shut, possibly cutting off all sound to and from the outside.
At the last second, I thought to yank out my handy pocket screwdriver and jam the shaft into the closing sliver of the opening. The door slid completely closed without being the slightest bit perturbed, neatly slicing my favorite screwdriver in half, leaving me holding the handle and what remained of the shaft. The outline of the hatch opening disappeared altogether.
It wasn’t dark inside. There was a light source, but I couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. I stood stunned for a few seconds and then started pounding on the spot where the hatch used to be. I yelled, “Karyn, can you hear me!”
Then I heard faint pounding back from the outside and a muffled voice saying, “Scott, Scott, I can barely hear you. I’m going to try and open the door with the meteorite.”
I heard nothing for about a minute and then more muffled pounding from the outside. Finally, I heard Karyn’s faint voice say, “I can’t get the door to open. I’m going to keep trying.”
I shouted back, “Okay!”
“Are you alright in there?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I searched around, but the only things that looked like buttons or controls were on the panel over the seat. I sat down again, semi-reclined on the tractor seat with my backpack plopped on my lap and my feet in the stirrups.
There were two knobs on the control panel. The one on the left was a round knob that rotated, and there was a little window on top that showed an Egyptian hieroglyph. In the center of the knob was a bulls-eye button. The knob on the right had no window on top, but it could move to twelve different positions marked by tick marks on the panel.
The knob on the left had six positions. One position showed an Egyptian hieroglyph in the window. I rotated it to the right one click, and a Chinese character came into the window, replacing the hieroglyph. Another position showed Greek writing. The other positions were in unknown languages. I set it back to where it originally was.
The knob on the right was set on the third tick mark from the right. I clicked it around counterclockwise to the first tick, then I clicked it around clockwise to the last tick.
The bulls-eye button seemed promising, since two buttons like these had already opened doors for us in this wacky place. The problem was that I did not have a magical meteorite pendant to activate it. I tentatively touched the button with my hand, and the bump slowly started rising up, just like the one on the big stone slab. I took a deep breath and pushed the button in.
I thought I saw a flash of light, but it was like it was inside of my head, and I could have imagined it. I was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea and found myself gasping for breath. I felt like I had a bad case of food poisoning, and I didn’t think I would be able to get up or even move. Then, as I lay there gasping and heaving on top of the crazy ancient Mayan pedestal, the awful feelings began to subside.
Now I just felt like I had a bad hangover. I cautiously slid off of the pedestal and was surprised to see that the hatch was open! I yelled, “Karyn! It’s open!” I heard no reply.
Copyright © 2023 by Humphrey Price
