Chapter 68. Pool
Island of Boyuca. Bay of Honduras.
Bolinda Jeffries opened her eyes wide. Less than two feet above her head were the faces of three jaguars, staring at her with fierce yellow eyes. Bolinda froze. Don’t move a muscle, she thought. Just then, the door to the hut burst open and the jaguars scattered. Skip Drame came in and picked up a terrified Bolinda from the floor.
“Hey, girl! You made it! I thought you were Catnip. How’d you do it?”
“Is it dawn yet?” asked Bolinda, dazed.
“Yep. Natives just opened up my hut. Zach’s outside. He’s frozen as a Popsicle. I think he might have some frostbite issues on his legs. Let me get you outa here.” Drame held Bolinda’s arm and escorted her from the dark hut into the early morning light. Bolinda felt good to be outside, away from the jaguars. The tribal chieftain was waiting for them, along with dozens of smiling island children, who all seemed excited that the group had made it safely through the night. The children gathered around Drame and Jeffries, touching their hands and clothes like they were gods. Jeffries was still shaken from the evening with the jaguars, but she was starting to lighten up.
“Hey, next time, I’ll take the Dark House, okay?” laughed Jeffries. “Wow, what happened in there? Did you cry for your nightlight?”
“It was awesome. They pumped peyote in through the walls. One of the best trips I ever had. I saw an octopus.”
“Oh, that’s great.” The two walked down the path and joined Zach, who was shivering under a wool blanket. His face looked pale and he had the pallor of a cancer victim. Drame put both of his arms around Zach tightly. “How’s it going, little man? You going to make it?”
“I don’t feel so good,” said Zach. “I cannot feel my foot.”
“Let me check it out,” said Drame. “Here, sit down.” Drame knelt down and took off Zach’s tennis shoe and sock from his right foot. All of the toes on Zach’s foot were black. It did not look good. “Let me see your other foot.” With Zach in obvious discomfort, Drame pulled off the shoe and sock from the left foot. It looked just as bad. The toes and ankle were all black, and there were little red blisters everywhere. Drame was concerned that Zach would never regain sensation in his feet again. It was not a good condition for a runner. But Drame wasn’t a doctor. Maybe some time in the sun would get the feet back to normal.
“What was it like?” asked Drame, as the three made their way to the next hut.
“I was in a frickin’ meat locker. I have never been so cold in my entire life. Fortunately, at about four in the morning, the glass ceiling pane shattered and someone threw in a bunch of firewood and some matches. If it weren’t for that, I am sure I would have died in there. Have you seen my dad?”
“He’s up here. We’ll see him soon.”
The chieftain opened the door of the Bat House, and Ka’-an came out. He had blisters and bites all over his face. His face looked sunburned. Ka’-an also looked sick.
“That was a night I will never forget,” said Ka’-an.
“You don’t look like you are foaming at the mouth or anything,” volunteered Drame hopefully.
“Skip, I was attacked for several hours by vampire bats. How was your night?”
Drame felt guilty again that he had the easy house. He decided not to mention the octopus.
Several natives pulled and dragged Charlie Winston from the Razor House. He was covered in blood. Drame and Jeffries rushed up to him.
“Charlie, are you okay?” asked Jeffries, concerned.
Winston could barely speak. He held up his wounded hand. “I lost all my fingers,” said Winston, crying softly. “I was about an inch away from a guillotine slicing me in half.” Jeffries felt Winston’s forehead.
“You are burning up with fever, Charlie. We have to get off this island and get you to a hospital. What happened in there?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Winston, trembling.
“Can you get up, Charlie?” asked Drame, hooking Winston’s arm around Drame’s shoulder.
“I’ll try,” said Winston. “I broke my leg, too.”
The group went on to the last hut. The chieftain noticed that the door to the hut was in shambles. He kicked open the remaining pieces, and John Morse walked out unscathed. He looked like he had just spent a pleasant evening in the hut. The chieftain was amazed. He looked at Morse in awe, wondering how he had survived the night. The group clapped when they saw Morse, happy that no one had perished. Morse immediately ran over to his son Zach.
“Zach, how are you, son?”
“Not so good, Pops. I can’t feel my feet.” Morse inspected his son’s feet. He was upset when he saw the damage to his son’s feet. He would never be a runner again. He decided not to tell him the bad news.
“It looks okay, Zach. We just have to get you out of here and to a hospital, and your feet will be fine.”
“Hey, Dad, was that you that visited me last night?”
Morse motioned for his son to be quiet, and then winked at him.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Zach.”
The tribal chieftain began speaking loudly, and Ka’-an translated.
“He wants us to follow him.” The chieftain, with hordes of island children following the group, made their way from the six houses up a winding trail, which went up the side of a mountain. Finally, near the top of the mountain, the chieftain arrived at another cave opening, and beckoned the group of six to enter the cave.
“Ka’-an, can you tell them that we need to leave the island and get Zach and Charlie and you to a hospital for medical care?”
Ka’-an translated, and the chieftain seemed to get angry and began yelling at Ka’-an. “Um, let’s just say the answer was no,” said Ka’-an. “But he says that this is our last test, the final Trial of the Xibalba. If we pass this test, then there is no question that we are Xbalanque and Hunahpu. My guess is that we can call the shots after that.”
With Winston being supported by Drame, and Zach being supported by his father, the group of six limped into the cave. As soon as they were inside the mouth of the cave, the chieftain yelled out a command, and rocks began falling, covering the mouth of the cave. There was no turning back. The pathway went on for several hundred feet and then went up a stone staircase. A solid metal door was framed into the stone. When everyone had made it to the top of the landing, Bolinda Jeffries turned the metal handle. They were in a small room. On three sides were stone walls. On the far side, there was a large opening in the rock. The group of six went to the opening. They could see a good part of the island from their lofty perch. Morse looked down. Down below them over a hundred feet below was a large pool of water. John Morse became excited. “The pool of water,” he mumbled to himself. Just then, there was a rushing sound, and, from a groove just in front of their feet, fire shot up. All six dove back to avoid the flames. Soon, there was a wall of fire where the cave opening once was. The flame went up to the ceiling, some fifteen feet high in the air. John Morse suddenly remembered with concern the writing on the map which he had shown the others on the yacht. The final Trial of the Xibalba, he thought. “Welcome to the Oven,” said Morse, staring at the fire.
Charlie Winston collapsed to the floor. He was very weak from loss of blood. He curled up on the floor of the oven room, fire swirling all around him, and thought of his son and his wife. He was never going to see them again. Why had he ever come on this Godforsaken trip? Murielle would never know what happened to him. She would probably spend the rest of her life searching the Bay of Honduras for him. As he began to lose hope, Winston looked at the floor next to his cheek. He noticed that there were grooves along the floor. Winston remembered the guillotines and the buzz saws from the Razor House.
“Oh, hell no!” he said. He crouched up and looked into the grooves, searching for a blade or a saw but he saw nothing. Bolinda Jeffries saw him inspecting the floor. She had seen something like this herself in the Jaguar House--the groove in the floor which contained oil for the fire separating her from the jaguars.
“Watch out, guys. I think there are saws that are going to come out of there,” said Winston.
“No, Charlie,” said Jeffries. “I think it is a track for oil. They had one like this in the Jaguar House. They pour oil down the groove and the fire spreads down the line.” Twenty minutes later, Bolinda Jeffries was proved correct, as fire slowly erupted along the groove line, and began to spread down one of the groove tracks closest to the door where they had come in. Morse looked up at the ceiling, but he could see no way out. Drame took off his shirt, as it was sweltering in this room with the flames all around them.
“Can you see what they are doing?” asked Jeffries. “The fire is going to keep spreading, going line after line, until we have no way out of here and the whole room is covered in fire. We have to get out of here!”
Morse inspected the lines in the floor. She was right.
“Man,” said Zach. “First they freeze me to death, and now they want to burn me alive. Like, make up your mind, you know?”
“There has to be a way out,” said Morse under his breath. “We cannot panic. This is our last test. There is always a way out. We have seen that with every test so far. We just have to use our heads.” But try as he might, Morse could not think of anything.
“We have nothing to put the fire out with,” said Morse, talking out loud. “There is no door that I can see. There is no way to go up. It is almost as if the only way out is through the fire.”
“Now there’s a brilliant idea, John,” scoffed Bolinda Jeffries. “Let’s just run right through the fire.”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Charlie weakly from the ground. “We run through the fire! We’re the catfish!”
Everyone turned to Winston on the ground, and gave him a look like he was a raving lunatic. Winston leaned up on one arm.
“No, no, think about it. Remember the story Ka’-an told us on the yacht,” said Winston. “When Xbalanque and Hunahpu were put into the oven, they were consumed by fire, and then their ashes were thrown into the river, where they turned into catfish and eventually escaped to return and defeat the Xibalba. If they were victorious by entering the fire, then that is what we have to do!”
Morse thought about it. The more he thought about it, the more it made a perverse kind of sense. “I think Charlie may be right,” said Morse.
Zach thought everyone had lost their minds. “Um, hello? Last I checked, none of you could turn yourself into catfish. We have bone and skin like any other human. And that will burn, Dad. You go through that fire, and it is sure suicide.”
“Maybe they are watching us right now,” said Morse, “and the minute we run for the fire, they somehow turn the fire off, and we thereby prove ourselves as the Hero Twins.”
“Or maybe these are backwoods natives,” said Zach, “who believe in a bunch of crazy things like talking mosquitoes, and they are waiting to see if you have some kind of magical power that prevents you from getting burned and allows you to turn into a fish! Dad, don’t do it! This is crazy talk.”
“Look at those lines in the floor. We are going to get burned in here eventually if we do nothing. I do not see another way out,” said Morse. “Do you?”
“What if we just wait it out and ultimately they turn the fire off? Maybe it is a test of our nerve to see how long we can last,” said Zach.
“I see your point, Zach,” said his father, “but that does not fit with the Hero Myth. I think that everything we have seen so far matches the Hero Myth—the river of blood, the room with the scorpion, the riddle of the bridges, the stone chair, the mannequins, the houses. It all fits, don’t you see? This HAS to be the way!”
“I know one thing,” said Winston. “If I stay on this island much longer, I am going to die of infection or sepsis from my hand and leg injuries; Zach is going to lose his feet to frostbite; and Ka’-an is going to go into toxic shock from those vampire bat bites, or we can simply sit here and get consumed by fire. I am in favor of risking it.”
“I am with Charlie,” said Morse.
“I am in favor of not risking it,” said Zach Morse.
“I am with Zach,” said Drame.
“Me too,” said Jeffries.
“Me too,” said Ka’-an.
John Morse helped his friend Charlie Winston up from the ground.
“Well, Charlie, what do you think?” asked Morse.
“I think I will see you chumps on the other side.”
Winston held on to John Morse’s hand and they faced the wall of fire. Morse and Winston borrowed some clothing from their friends and held it over their faces and necks.
Zach was panicked. “Dad! Seriously! Don’t do this, Dad!” He ran to his father and grabbed his arm. “Dad! Don’t leave me! You will die if you run in there.”
John Morse hugged his son. “I love you, Zach. No father was ever more proud of a son that I am proud of you.” Morse kissed his son on the cheek. “But I have to do this.” He eased his son’s hand away and then looked at Winston. “On three.”
“One, two, three!” Morse sprinted and Winston hobbled toward the wall of flame.
Instantly, John Morse felt himself falling off the cliff. But that feeling was immediately overwhelmed by the massive pain all over his body. His whole body was engulfed in flame, and it was burning him. Zach had been right. He was going to be burned alive. After two seconds of excruciating pain from the fire, he felt himself hit something below. He had fallen into the pool of water. Morse went unconscious, his charred body floating toward the bottom of the pool.
Back up in the Oven room, the wall of flame had subsided to less than ankle height. Apparently, after Morse and Winston dove through the flames, the natives had somehow turned down the flames.
“Dad!!” Zach screamed. He went to the edge and looked out. Where the fire once was the opening in the cliff wall was now clear. From here, he could see the entire island. Far below him was the large pool of crystal blue water. He looked down for his father and his professor, but he could not see either one emerging from the water. “Dad!” he screamed again. Zach dove from the top of the cliff towards the water below and landed with a splat into the pool. Where was his father? He dove down into the water. He was quickly surprised by slithering, slimy things around his legs and body. This pool had snakes in it! But snakes were the last thing on Zach’s mind right now. He dove down frantically looking for his father. A moment later, three more giant splashes hit the water as Ka’-an, Bolinda Jeffries, and Skip Drame came plummeting into the pool. Drame dove down and found the burned body of Charlie Winston and pulled him to the surface of the pool. Zach found his father, and pulled him up as well.
“Dad! Are you okay? Breathe, Dad! Oh, God, Dad! Don’t die!” Zach pulled his father to the edge of the pool. John Morse was unconscious, but his face was covered in third degree burns. Zach tried to take his father to the edge of the pool to get him out of the water and give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but he was met by an islander who pushed him back into the water.
“You son of a bitch!” yelled Zach. “He’s dying, let him out, motherfucker!” But the islander pushed Zach and his father back in. Zach was crying, begging his father to wake up. But suddenly, an amazing thing happened. The burns on John Morse’s face started to heal themselves. What was previously a bloody pulp of red burns was now starting to look like a bad sunburn. Zach also felt something amazing himself. He was getting feeling back into his feet. He lifted his father out of the water a little bit and looked at his father’s chest. It was beginning to heal. Ten feet away, Skip and Bolinda were helping Charlie Winston.
“Hey, Zach,” said Drame, mesmerized. “Take a look at Charlie’s hand.”
Under the water, it appeared as though Charlie Winston’s fingers were regenerating, like a lizard re-growing a cut tail. Almost on cue, both John Morse and Charlie Winston started coughing and sputtering.
“Dad!” yelled Zach from the water. “Dad, are you okay!”
“Ahhhhhhh!” yelled John Morse in agony. “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!” Zach shook him by the shoulders.
“Dad! You’re not on fire anymore. This water healed you. You are okay!”
“Huh?” John Morse looked at his arms and they were not scalded anymore.
“What do I look like? Am I burned?” asked Morse.
“You were a minute ago, Pops, and then this water healed you. Don’t you see, Dad? This is the mother-freakin’ Fountain of Youth! We are swimming in it!!”
Winston inspected his own body and was astounded that his fingers had regenerated. He looked at his arms and torso. He was not burned. He felt his broken shin. It was healed as well.
“Hey, what’s that by my legs?” asked Winston. He reached down and pulled up a purple snake out of the water. “Well, what do you know? We landed in a snake pit.” Noting the shape of their heads, Winston said, “Don’t worry, boys, I don’t think they are poisonous.”
Zach rolled onto his back and took off the shoe and sock on one foot. He held the foot out of the water. His toes were pink and moving just fine!
“Hey, Dad! Look, no more frostbite!”
“And look at me,” said Ka’-an. “Those bat bites are all gone.”
Bolinda was busy treading water in the pool. She was happy that her friends were healed. “Well, I am glad you are all okay, but the important thing is, do I look any younger?”
“As a matter of fact you do,” said Morse. And while he was kind of joking, as he looked at Bolinda, she actually did look pretty good. Now that he thought about it, he was feeling pretty good himself. The six travelers laughed and dog-paddled to the edge of the pool and walked out onto the lush grass. This time, the islander helped them out of the pool. Zach now realized he had kept them in the pool for the healing process to finish. The five men and one woman walked over a small crest, and there below them were thousands of islanders, who immediately gave a mighty, happy cheer. The islanders applauded and began chanting, “Xbalanque! Hunahpu! Xbalanque! Hunahpu!” John Morse turned to his friend Charlie Winston, who had one of the purple snakes draped around his neck as a souvenir.
“Well, I guess I now know what it is like to be a catfish!” joked Morse.
“Ha! You got that right!” said Winston.
Zach came up and hugged his dad and looked out on the crowd.
“Dad, don’t ever run into a wall of fire again. That was really stupid.”
“Ha ha, Zach. Don’t you know that your Father is always right?”
As the tribal chieftain made his way up a set of stairs to reach them, all six members of the party turned back to the crystal blue pool. They were definitely going to get some of that water. No one back home would ever believe that they had actually found the Fountain of Youth.