Jane opened her eyes and looked around, trying to get her bearings, but sleep pulled them shut before she could. Her limbs were stiff and didn’t seem to be doing what they were supposed to be. Something moved around her. Long tendrils of scaly bodies tumbling around her.
“Snakes,” was the word that came to mind, but something felt off as she whispered it.
She willed her eyes back open and moved her head to see what was crawling around her.
They were snakes. Slithering around her.
Cute little garter snakes. She loves snakes. Something about their little eyes and happy little mouths gave her joy. She couldn’t help smiling at them, wanting to see how friendly they might be. They slithered in bunches paying very little attention to the woman lying in their bed with her ankles and wrists bound together. She began looking for a way out and noticed sharp protrusions on the walls which she assumed were meant for torches that had long since burned out or rotted and turned to ash.
She also noticed that she had been changed from her sensible cargo pants, boots, and t-shirt into a somewhat hideous, dated yellow dress and yellow pumps that were a size too small. She wondered how her new outfit had gotten on her but brushed the thoughts away quickly as she tried to plan an escape.
“What are you going to do now?” the diabolical Dr. Daemon demanded.
He was leering at her from the vaulted ceiling of the ancient temple that she had spent most of her life dreaming of finding, but only ever dreaming about. A cruel twist of fate had thrust her into the arms of a handsome adventurer, Oliver; however, they had been drugged at the hotel and apparently separated.
She wondered how long Dr. Daemon had been checking on her to see if she had woken up and fought the urge to giggle at him repeatedly asking her unconscious body what it was going to do now. These things were always perfectly timed in movies. Real-life would require manipulation for perfect timing.
“Probably take a nap,” she said as a large garter snake shifted her short hair.
“What about the sna—”
Something pulled Dr. Daemon’s attention away from her. Faint shouts told her that he was being attacked and she saw her opportunity. She rolled onto her chest, groaning as she flopped forward onto her breasts and stomach. She was a larger woman and found herself crawl-hopping toward one of the torch fixtures.
She had moved away from her spot just in time as Dr. Daemon hit the ground right where she had been and the snakes scattered. She used one of the fixtures to haphazardly saw the rope binding her wrists together. Another body landed just to the side of Dr. Daemon. She jumped and cut the meaty part of her palm on the fixture. Red blood oozed, droplets spilling onto the dusty sand-colored floor of the temple.
“Damn it!” she hissed, pressing the bloody part against her dress, hoping to stop the bleeding.
Several more bodies fell in and she hid in the shadows, hoping someone might toss a ladder in for her to get out.
“Ahhh!” a familiar voice screamed as he fell onto the pile of men who were groaning and stirring.
The man popped up on his feet and adjusted his felt hat before moving toward where she waited in the dark. His boots clicked on the ground. He paused at the small pool of blood and dipped his fingers in to see what it was.
“Oliver,” she whispered.
He moved toward her. “Jane?” he said.
“I’m right here,” she said.
He walked blindly to where the light didn’t touch and he was swallowed by the darkness too. He reached out and his fingers brushed her love handle through the dress, sending an icy hot feeling up her spine. She grabbed his hand and pulled him farther into the darkness. She dragged her other hand along the wall, looking for a doorway or window or something.
Shouts and footsteps were soon following them deeper into the mysterious temple. Her hand disappeared through an open doorway and she yanked Oliver into it. He took the lead. They moved like a snake through the hall, their footsteps barely made a sound on the stone floor. When they were sure they weren’t being followed, Oliver flicked on his flashlight.
It was just in time because they were less than a foot from a towering sculpture of a god, or goddess, it was hard to tell with many of these ancient civilizations. At least that was what Jane had noticed in over the last few weeks with Oliver. They had seen temples of at least four ancient cultures around the world in the search for a special book preserved from the library of Alexandria. Jane was only involved because Oliver felt she was at continued risk of being kidnapped again by Dr. Daemon.
Something slid over her feet. She looked to see snakes fleeing from the light. The patterns suggested they weren’t poisonous, but she couldn’t be totally positive because she wasn’t entirely familiar with the various snakes of South America. When Jane looked back at Oliver, his fear stricken face told her all she needed to know.
“Why do all you adventurers hate snakes? They’re more scared of you than you are of them. Look.” She picked up the smallest one that was coiling itself around her ankle. Its little eyes looked up at her as it wrapped around her hand. Its tongue flitted out in the air. She smiled at it and showed it to Oliver. “See? Look at that cute little face.”
“Get it away from me,” Oliver’s voice quivered.
Jane thought he looked funny, fleeing from a sweet little snake.
The snake’s body tense in response to Oliver’s reaction.
“You poor baby,” she cooed at the snake. “You’re such a little cutie! I’m gonna put you back down. Be careful. There’s some bad men out there.” Jane let the snake go. Oliver’s attention had turned to the statue where one of the snakes was slithering out through a crack in the base. “Why don’t you like snakes?”
“They’re creepy and slimy,” he said, looking at the base of the statue more carefully.
“They’re not slimy.”
“Help me,” he said, pushing the front of the statue’s base. Jane joined him and it was just big enough for them to fit through. “I’ll go first.”
He took the flashlight and crawled down the tunnel. Darkness engulfed Jane once again. She kept an eye out in the direction they had come from. She couldn’t see much, so she strained to listen. More footsteps sent her heart racing. She crawled into the black hole and slid the block of stone back in front of her.
She held her breath as voices got closer. It was hot as hell crammed up in this little space. Sweat trickled down her neck, making her hair stick. She fought the urge to move the hair away, afraid that even the slightest movement might give her away.
Something grabbed her arm as light panned over her through the crack that wasn’t quite sealed. She fought the urge to scream. It was Oliver, he had a finger to his lips and was beckoning her to follow.
They crawled for a very long time before they saw the light of day again. Humid air filled her lungs. It was salty like ocean air. Her heart leaped into her chest with excitement as they crawled out into a little cove.
She stood to her feet, stumbling on the edges of her dress. She looked out into the light. Her eyes watered as they adjusted to the afternoon sun. Birds tweeted. Water tumbling over the edge of a cliff gave this picturesque cove a peace that she had never felt anywhere else. It seemed untouched by time and humans. It was everything she needed right now.
She inhaled deeply and let the calmness wash over her.
“We gotta go,” Oliver said. He had put his flashlight away and pulled out a compass.
Jane kicked off the too-small shoes and followed him along the shoreline. Her toes squished in the sand. She loved the feeling. The beach was her favorite place to be. The beach on a rainy day was heaven to her and the clouds moving in seemed to hint that a storm was rolling in.
Sure enough, thunder cracked and huge globs of rain began to drop on them. Rain pooled on Oliver’s fedora, which he offered to Jane.
“It’s not much, but it’ll keep your face dry,” he said.
“No thanks,” Jane replied, smiling. Rain dripped onto her face from her hair as it flattened in the storm.
“We should be getting close to a town,” he said. “We’ll get a room and get cleaned up and dried off.” Thunder cracked in the distance.
Sure enough, they came to a small town with a small resort that was filled with people from all over the world. It was a good place for two very American people to blend in. Oliver got them a room and paid cash for two days.
The hotel smelled strongly of pool water and sand. The floor was covered in thin 1980s carpeting the walls were painted a clean cream and dragged luggage stains dotted the bottom half of the wall. Oliver opened the door to a room on the first floor about five doors from the exit. She noted this just in case they would have to make a quick escape.
Once inside, Oliver threw his bag onto one of the beds.
“I’m sure that dress isn’t comfortable, especially soaked like that,” he said, looking at her for the first time since the hotel last night.
His eyes ravaged her as he moved closer.
“I grabbed some of your clothes from the hotel yesterday. They’re in my bag.”
An invisible magnet drew them together the same way it had the night before.
“Do you want me to get them for you?” he said, unbuttoning the blue light-weight shirt he was wearing.
He had a black ribbed tank top underneath that clung to his body. She slid the blue shirt over his muscular arms. He was a strong man, but he was soft. He clearly ate well and Jane liked that. He pulled her close and kissed her.
She melted into his arms.
They peeled wet clothes off of each other between kisses. Their hands explored each other’s bodies as they transitioned to the shower. They washed each other before they fell into bed.
He held her tightly as she stared at the ceiling.
“We should go back tomorrow,” he said.
“To get the book? Did you find it?”
“No, but I think I know where it is.”
“Where?”
“Under the waterfall. The waterfall is man-made. Someone routed the water there a long time ago.”
“So, tomorrow we go back.”
They drifted off to sleep shortly after. In the morning, they barely spoke as they got dressed, then they rented horses and made their way down the beach to where the waterfall was.
They tied the horses to nearby trees and disappeared under the fall. There was a cave opening there. They entered the cave with their flashlights lighting the way. Smooth carvings along the walls seemed to tell a story of some kind. Years of water had damaged the carvings and made them that much harder to read.
Oliver moved ahead, but Jane noticed a thin seam that interrupted the carvings. The seam ran up the wall about as tall as her. It connected with another seam that ran about three feet across and back down to the floor. She pushed it, but it didn’t budge.
“Jane?” Oliver’s voice registered somewhere in the back of her consciousness as she inspected the worn carvings for answers as to how to open the door.
Oliver joined her, looking at the wall. “This must be it.”
“I can’t open it.”
He looked more closely then he poked what looked like the pupil of an eye on one of the carvings that seemed to jut out slightly more than the others. A loud noise followed and the door seemed to shift. Jane noticed another shape that jutted out slightly. She pushed it too and the door shifted again.
They exchanged a look with half-smiles.
They continued pushing the various parts that jutted out. Not all of them worked, but eventually, the door dropped to the floor. They crossed over the threshold into a new space. This was full of items more modern than should have been here. Artifacts from World History seemed to be stored here. Everything from ancient scrolls to crowns to cars lined the room.
It was clearly still in use.
“There’s light,” Jane said. She realized that the newest artifact was from the 1950s and that fresh torches burned along the wall lighting up the room. “We’re not alone.”
“Welcome!” Dr. Daemon’s voice said from behind them. “You found it.”
He shoved them inside.
“Now you have to die,” Dr. Daemon said. Dr. Daemon shot Oliver first. Oliver screamed and fell to the floor. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
“What? Me? What did I do?” Jane asked, stumbling backward. She noticed a suit of armor behind her and was trying to subtly move toward it.
“You should have gotten on a plane and went home the first time he broke you free. You’re such a fool,” he said.
Jane lost her footing and fell into the armor.
“You’re about to die because of a, what did you call it? ‘Miserable date with a conceited asshole’?”
Oliver grabbed Dr. Daemon from behind, giving Jane time to pick up a sword. Dr. Daemon’s gun went flying and the men scrambled toward it.
“Not so fast,” Jane said, holding the sword to Dr. Daemon’s neck.
“I didn’t realize our date was so bad,” Oliver said with a chuckle.
“It's a lot worse when you remember that this guy kidnapped me to get to you.”
Oliver felt Dr. Daemon up for rope but found only zip ties. Oliver zip-tied his hands behind his back and they escorted him out.
“Where’s your crew?” Oliver asked. “Did they desert you?”
Dr. Daemon glared in response.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jane said.
They returned with the horses and turned Dr. Daemon into the proper authorities.
“What will we do about the cave?” Jane asked.
“Share it with the world.”
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