Robert Browne: Down Among the Dead Men

Vargas nodded, then they climbed into the Barracuda and headed back to the church.

Time to get busy.

They gathered in the cave at 10:00 P.M., the supplies distributed under the light of the moon. Many of the children were asleep now, and despite the churning ocean, there was a calmness here. No fear or trepidation-at least not for Vargas. When he looked into Beth’s eyes, he knew this was the right thing to do.

Five minutes later Cristo said, “We go,” and they all flicked on their flashlights and followed him into the tunnel, leaving the sounds of the ocean behind them. When they reached the junction, Cristo took the second tunnel on the left, which then curved away toward the right and branched off again in several different directions.

Vargas was already confused and decided that Cristo must have some super sense of direction to be able to remember the correct path. The boy traveled effortlessly, without thought, as if he’d done this hundreds of times before. Which, Vargas knew, he had.

Then, about a good hour into their trek, they came to a small cave, where Cristo stopped near a pile of large fallen rocks. Gesturing for help, he began pulling the rocks away, and the others joined in until an opening in the cave wall was revealed.

The opening was large enough for Cristo to easily crawl through, but the others had to remove their backpacks and pass them to the boy before squeezing through themselves.

Once on the other side, they found another pile of rocks and stacked them up to hide the hole.

They were now inside another small cave, and Cristo pointed to a tunnel on the right.

“Through there,” he said. “We go straight for a while, then make two lefts and a right, and we are beneath La Santa Muerte’s compound.”

“And where’s the Great Chamber?” Beth asked.

“You will know as soon as we get there. Just follow the others.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Ortiz said. “Don’t you think we’ll stick out a little?”

“People from all over the country come here for the Holy Night. Besides, we will be wearing masks, and robes.”

“I didn’t see those on the supply list.”

“They are provided for us. I will show you.”

“No, Cristo,” Beth said. “I can’t let you go any farther. I’d never forgive myself if you were hurt.”

Cristo gestured to the scars on his neck and arm. “What could they do to me that is worse than this?”

He was right, Vargas thought. Any kid who could go through what this one had and come out of it still sane was not someone you needed to be worrying about.

“They could kill you,” Beth said. “I can’t let you do it.”

“And how will you find Jennifer and the baby?”

“I’ll find them.”

“No, they keep them in a special room before the ceremony, where they prepare them for the fire. If I do not show you, it may be too late.”

“Tell me something,” Vargas said. “Why the baby? Why would they sacrifice an innocent child?”

Cristo looked at him as if this was a silly question. “It is tradition,” he said. “He is the firstborn male.”

And with this, Cristo crossed the cave and stepped into the tunnel on the right.

“Cristo, no,” Beth said.

But the boy ignored her, once again signaling for them to follow.

When they drew close to the compound, Cristo told them they would have to turn off their flashlights. The tunnels were lit by torches after the next turn.

Beth was surprised. With the kind of money El Santo had to be making through his drug and prostitution rings, you’d think he would have wired the place for electricity.

But since the cult seemed to be living in a kind of netherworld between the old and the new, basing their lives on traditions and rituals that were modeled after some ancient pagan society, maybe torches was the way to go.

What would a good old-fashioned cleansing or ritual sacrifice be without the proper ambiance?

“Wait here,” Cristo said, and started to leave.

Beth grabbed his hand. “Where are you going?”

“I come back soon,” he said, pulling away. Then he darted through the tunnel, stopped at a junction to peek around the corner, then continued on, disappearing from sight.

Beth had butterflies in her stomach. The plan, they had decided, was for Beth to find Jen and the baby and get them out of there as quickly as possible before the ceremony began.

Meanwhile, Ortiz and Vargas would go to the cages and release any women who might be held there, then round up as many of the children as they could find and take them all to safety.

It was an ambitious and maybe even a foolhardy plan, but they thought they might be able to pull it off while all attention was centered on the festivities in the Great Chamber.

Even the guards attended these festivities, Cristo had told them. So if all worked out right, they’d have plenty of time to do what they needed to do and remain undetected.

Maybe.

Based on the story Cristo had told them earlier, it was painfully obvious that such plans didn’t always work.

After several nervous minutes, Cristo returned carrying black hooded robes and gold skull masks and handed them out. As Beth put hers on, she suddenly remembered a Stanley Kubrick movie she’d seen a few years back, where Tom Cruise and Sydney Pollack dressed up in robes and watched people have anonymous sex in a New York mansion. The filthy rich caught up in a decadent fantasy.

It wouldn’t surprise her, she thought, to discover that many of the people who attended this shindig were equally rich-and emotionally empty. People who rationalized their callous indifference to the suffering of others by wrapping it in pseudo-religious hokum.

It would almost be laughable if it all weren’t so deadly serious.

Nevertheless, Beth felt ridiculous wearing this thing. But she had to admit it was a great way to enter the place undetected.

Their backpacks, which were filled with the Jarrito bottles, would have to be left behind. So Vargas and Ortiz stuffed their pockets with as many of the bottles as they could fit. Which wasn’t many.

“Where’s your robe?” Beth asked Cristo.

“The children do not wear robes,” he said, then showed her his skull mask, which was white instead of gold. “Come. The ceremony is about to begin. I show you where they keep Jennifer.”

Feeling the butterflies fluttering away, Beth followed him.

As they turned the first corner, the tunnel started to narrow slightly and, as promised, its walls were lined with torches, lighting their way.

Beth heard the buzz of conversation ahead, and when they turned the next corner they stepped into yet another cave, this one at least twice the size of any of the previous caves. It was filled with two or three hundred people, standing shoulder to shoulder, every one of them wearing a black robe and gold skull mask.

Beth, Vargas, and Ortiz followed Cristo into the crowd, Beth suddenly feeling exposed, waiting for someone to point a finger and shout, Stop her! She’s not one of us!

But as they continued through, there were no shouts, no accusations, only the excited hum of spectators waiting for the show to begin.

All eyes were fixed on the front of the cave, which was dominated by several large stone statues of La Santisima Muerte, a huge, circular slab of intricately carved stone at their feet, looking like something out of an Aztec nightmare. Flaming torches lined the circle, throwing light on the focus of everyone’s attention: a large fire pit with a crude stone chair standing at its center. And high above it was a man-made wind tunnel, carved into the roof of the cave, where smoke from the torches funneled into the night sky.