Mayan Storm

I was impressed. Shithead is a big boy, two hundred eighty five pounds, at least. The warrior had no difficulty pulling him to his feet. Whereas Shithead just looked irritated, Jessie looked absolutely terrified when another warrior coaxed her to her feet with a prod from his obsidian tipped spear. Suddenly the head priest wheeled away from the crowd; he shrieked some kind of unintelligible accusation and pointed at my brother and Jessie. The crowd below went ballistic. I couldn’t see them, but my impression was that they were about to climb the pyramid themselves to get at the gringo intruders. “Oh shit, bad things,” I mumbled as a triple shot of adrenaline surged through my body. I thought I saw another shooting star out of my peripheral vision, but it might have been one of the torches flaring. “Focus.” I got rid of the robe and gripped the handle of the sword. Shithead momentarily cut his eyes towards me as two more guards took up position next to him. “Game over,” I thought as I prepared to charge out and make a futile last stand with only my sword against the better part of the Mayan army. I coiled and prepared to send the largest warrior to meet “The Destroyer,” but something made me hesitate. The two bathing beauties from down below suddenly appeared. One stopped in front Jessie, the other in front of Shithead. They each carried a flat terracotta bowl. The High Priest spread his arms to quiet the crowd, and then he nodded to the warrior guards. Shithead’s guard used his razor sharp obsidian sword to quickly cut the waistband of the hula skirt. The grass skirt fell to the deck of the pyramid leaving Shithead wearing only his Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hat and a couple of flowered Hawaiian leis around his neck. After a moment’s hesitation, Shithead reached up and yanked them off as well. At the same time, Jessie’s guard also used his sword to cut away her clothing. His chore was a bit more challenging only because he had to cut through a blouse, bra, cargo shorts, and thong panties. That, of course, pissed me off. “Asshole, I’ll remember you.” Yet another star shot across the sky behind the crowd. As soon as Jessie and Shithead stood completely naked, the bathing beauties moved in. With what looked like wooden spoons and small paint brushes they started painting their naked subjects with blue dye… “Oh shit!” Blue dye, I recalled hearing about that. Mayans frequently painted many of their sacrificial victims with blue dye just prior to killing them and dumping their bodies into sacred ceremonial cenotes. Shithead cut his eyes to me once more as his personal painter worked her way south. Unbelievably, he had a big smile on his face. Jessie does not; she still looks terrified; she knows the significance of the blue dye. Not having as much canvas to cover, Jessie’s painter finished her work quickly and then turned her attention to Shithead. It was probably not quite the threesome that he envisioned when he woke up this morning, but he didn’t seem to mind. Their work finally complete, each of the painters took Shithead by a hand and led him towards the center of the pyramid. They were followed closely by the three warriors. The priests all took a few steps back to give them room. I ducked back a little lower into the stairwell. I’m wasn’t sure where Shithead originally thought the bathing beauties were taking him, but the light bulb came on pretty quickly when they stopped him at the foot of the sacrificial altar. He yanked his hands away from theirs. “Oh, hell no!” He started to push his way past the girls and towards me. Before he took two steps, the guards closed in. One tossed a thin leather strap over his head and yanked back on his neck. The other two forcefully drove him backwards onto the altar. Apparently they’d done this before. Several more leather straps were quickly fixed into place immobilizing Shithead on the stone altar. Other than an admirable string of expletives from Shithead, the only other voice was Jessie’s as she pleaded for mercy. Her words were ignored as an ancient looking priest took up position at Shithead’s side. The high priest and his underlings then started whipping the crowd back into blood crazed frenzy. The old priest chanted loudly while starting to raise his wicked looking obsidian dagger high above Shithead’s chest. “I can’t believe this is happening. They should have just stayed at the boat until I called.” I readied my sword. Everything then exploded in the same vivid slow motion detail that I always seem to experience in moments of combat and intense stress. Jessie charged towards the altar, momentarily distracting the high priest. Using all of my strength, I hurled my sword towards the priest. I watched it tumble end over end before it sliced through the side of his skull. I was sure I saw grey matter geyser into the air. At the same instant, the obsidian dagger in his hand somehow disintegrated into a thousand tiny shards of glass. I made it to the nearest warrior guard before anyone else had a clue what was happening. I caught him completely by surprise and snapped his neck before he knew to fight back or even to tense up. I had this dead warrior’s spear in my hand before the freshly deceased priest completed his bloody collapse onto Shithead, who was still strapped to the altar. I locked eyes with the surprised warrior closest to me, the same one who cut Jessie’s clothes off. He held my naked and blue girlfriend by the shoulders after having blocked her path to save Shithead. I thrust the spear through his face and lunged forward to take the sword from his side. “Now we’re even asshole!”