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July 17th, 1939
Somewhere in the Amazon
Peru, South America
Richard held the smoldering torch before a wall covered in carvings of human figures twisting and contorting around a central image. Amid the press of bodies was a pedestal topped with an orb radiating faint lines, giving the impression it was emanating rays of light. Shadows surrounded the misshapen forms, and from those shadows peered countless inhuman eyes and writhed an assortment of serpentine tendrils.
“What are you looking for?” Wilkins asked. The slender Englishman stood well behind Richard as he raised an oil lantern and looked about the small chamber. They had been inside the ruins for almost an hour and discovered nothing of interest save for this dead end and its unsettling artwork.
The American looked back over his shoulder and smiled. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”
Wilkins huffed, blowing out his long mustaches with the sudden puff of air. He had followed Richard on numerous treasure hunting adventures over the past few years. More often than not, they came away with a veritable bounty of artifacts and treasures. Curiosities found all over the globe filled his parlor. His partner had amassed an assortment of expensive automobiles and motorcycles, as suited his own interests. Richard was one of the world’s premier archaeological investigators, but to call him a student of history would be a fallacy. No, while Wilkins may have followed the hot-headed American around the world in search of uncovering historical truths, Richard himself was in search of his next big sale to some overzealous art collector.
“This particular voyage,” Wilkins said, “seems to have born a remarkable lack of fruits to reward our labors. I suggest we write your lead off as bad information and return to town.”
“And leave behind whatever is past this door?” Richard asked.
Wilkins blinked in surprise, the bushy whiskers under his nose twitching. He leaned in closer to the fresco, raising the lantern to add to the illumination of the torch. Amid the writhing bodies, twisting tendrils, and uncountable eyes, there was no evidence to suggest it was anything other than a wall.
Richard caressed the surface, wiping centuries of dust from the grooves between the carvings. Suddenly, he stopped and held the torch closer. There, among the many strange eyes carved in the relief, was a small cavity where one of the oculars seemed to be missing.
“That’s it,” Richard exclaimed. He fished through the pockets of his dirty leather coat and withdrew a small sphere of polished marble.
He held it out for Wilkins to see. There was an iris carved on one side of the strange red orb, and on the other protruded a narrow iron rod in the shape of a hexagon. At the tip of the rod, three spikes extended perpendicular to the shaft. Richard held the sphere up to the hole, aligning the rod inside the void and matching the iris to faint lines on the carving. As he pressed the eye into the hole, a soft click emanated from the other side of the wall.
“By Jove,” Wilkins swore under his breath as the entire tunnel rumbled and the carved wall pivoted on a central axis. As the rumbling stopped, they stood before an open passage, where before had been only an impassable obstacle.
“Well,” Richard said with a wide grin, “let’s go claim our prize.” With that, he strode through the opening.
Wilkins followed more cautiously, creeping through the newly opened portal with his lantern held out before him. As he passed the carving, he felt certain he was being watched. From the corner of his vision, the eyes in the carving seemed to follow his movements. He stopped and stared at them. They were still, and he dismissed the thought as a bit of fear playing tricks on his mind. Surely a three-thousand-year-old carving could not move of its own accord. As he turned to continue, however, he was sure the eyes turned to watch him again.
“Richard,” he cried out, “wait!” A short sprint through the rough-cut stone corridor brought him to the side of his more adventurous companion.
Peering over the taller man’s shoulder, Wilkins found they stood at the entrance to a wide chamber, just large enough for the far end to be lost beyond the flickering lights they held. In the center of the room, upon a raised dais, stood a pedestal. All sorts of strange images were carved into its surface, and atop sat a single dusty statuette.
Richard surged forward, seemingly casting caution to the wind.
Wilkins followed with more care as the American circled around the central dais. Glyphs he had never seen in his research or travels lined the platform. Grooves caked with millennia of dust ran from the edges toward a central plinth which supported the prize Richard sought. Writhing shapes reminiscent of snakes covered the pedestal, coiled around more staring eyes. Those orbs seemed to hold less dust than the rest of the carvings. Remembering the strangely attentive doorway, Wilkins hesitated to approach the central edifice.
His companion seemed unshaken as he strode onto the dais. Reaching out with both hands, he grasped the object sitting atop the small plinth. As Richard touched it, Wilkins’s head exploded with the sound of screaming. He heard hundreds of voices crying out in fear and pain in as many different languages, their cries blending into an unearthly chorus of absolute terror. He could not tell from whence the cacophony came. It seemed as if it was within his own head.
Am I screaming, as well?
His mouth hung open and his throat was raw, but he could not hear his own voice. Looking at Richard, he saw his friend was also frozen with his maw agape in a silent shout. Either their own voices were being drowned out by the multitude of others, or they were both bound in silence by the explosion of chaos within their own minds.
As soon as the tumult began, it was over. When Wilkins regained his senses, he found himself sprawled on his back in the darkness. Various aches shooting throughout his body told him that he had fallen. The lantern was no longer lit, and neither was Richard’s torch. He heard a nearby groan. Richard was alive. Fumbling, numb from fear, Wilkins reached into his pocket and withdrew a box of matches. His shaking hands struggled with the slender shafts of wood.
The world burst into sudden, painful light as he struck a match, then the darkness encroached upon the small flame as it flickered in the moist air. Wilkins reached out, searching for his friend. There was a scrape of stone on stone followed by several footsteps, and Richard stumbled into view. He held the statuette from the plinth.
Wilkins’s jaw dropped as he laid eyes upon the piece. He sat up and adjusted his narrow wire-frame glasses. “I need light,” he gasped.
Richard set the idol down and shuffled into the darkness in search of the lost lantern. The sounds of fumbling and cursing echoed in the chamber, but Wilkins never took his eyes from the statue. It stood a foot tall, consisting of a man-like form crouched atop a circular base. Its arched back was to Wilkins, the surface riddled in strange shapes he could not make the out in the meager light. He leaned in closer, then shouted in pain as the match burned down to his fingers. He dropped it, and with a sizzle, they were once again blanketed in utter blackness.
“Dammit, Wilkins,” Richard said. “Light another match, will you?”
Wilkins fumbled again with shaking hands and tried to light a match. After three failed attempts, he finally got one to take the flame. He looked about and saw the silhouette of Richard feeling around on the floor behind him.
He turned back to the idol and gasped. He was sure its back had been turned to him, but now it faced directly at him. Its posture was hunched over, as if it depicted a figure in extreme duress. More odd shapes covered the skin. Without proper illumination, Wilkins could not determine their nature. “Richard, please hurry with the lantern.”
“Keep your knickers on,” Richard said. “I found it.” The athletic figure strode into the dim light of the match, holding the shattered remains of the oil lantern. Fortunately, the reservoir was still intact. Wilkins carefully lit the oil-soaked wick, which blossomed into a bright flame.
He turned back to the statue, examining it more closely in the renewed illumination. A broad figure crouched with hands held over the sides of its head. Its mouth was open in a silent scream, eerily reminiscent to that which had frozen Wilkins and Richard in place not minutes before.
Wilkins reached out with trembling hands and picked up the object. It was mostly green with whorls of black. The pattern was reminiscent of marble, but he had never seen that stone in these colors. The black swirls seemed to shift as he stared into them. Wilkins blinked and shook his head as a sudden bout of nausea overtook him, then continued his examination. The strange shapes covering he surface stood out in the light. The figure’s flesh was broken and cracked open all over, and from these wounds emerged a mass of writhing tentacles and bulging eyes.
“Ghastly,” Wilkins murmured.
“Hopefully worth something?” Richard asked.
“Are you serious?” Wilkins asked. “After what we just experienced, I say we leave the cursed thing here and forget we ever came to this place.”
Richard grabbed the statue from Wilkins and slid it into a leather satchel. “Not a chance. It cost too much to get out here to leave empty-handed.”
“Please,” Wilkins implored. “There is something strange about this artifact.”
“Since when are you superstitious?” Richard asked as he picked up the broken lantern and turned toward the tunnel.
Wilkins stood and hurried to catch up. “Since several minutes ago when that statue almost killed us.”
“Eh.” Richard waved a dismissive gesture. “Exhaustion, heat, dehydration. We’ve been trekking through the jungle for two days trying to find this place. I’m sure we were simply relieved to finally find what we were looking for.”
“And that screams?” Wilkins asked.
Richard continued through the open portal covered in carven eyes and kneeling figures without a word.
Wilkins kept a close watch on the carvings as he passed. “Richard?”
“Euphoria,” the American said.
“It didn’t feel euphoric,” Wilkins said as he picked his way over the crumbling flagstones.
Richard threw a grin over his shoulder. “It will when we sell this.”
