Juan Saldo, his interpreter, smiled down at him from his boulder perch, as he pointed ahead. “The entrance is on the other side of this ridge.”

Saldo was at home in the jungle, naming almost every bird and creature they had encountered on their long trek through the wilderness. Roger envied Saldo and his composure in the withering heat. Saldo looked as if he were walking home from a tavern after a few cold cervezas, while on the other hand, Roger was ready to collapse.

“I hope you’re right,” Roger replied.

The Chiquibul Cavern system lay deep in the heart of the Chiquibul National Park on the western slopes of the Maya Mountain Massif region of western Belize and eastern Guatemala. It was inaccessible in the rainy season and difficult to reach at any time of the year. This was Roger’s first trip to Chiquibul, or to anywhere outside the U.S. for that matter. The Tennessee Conservancy, in a joint venture with the Belize government, was performing a thorough study of the 540,000-square foot cavern system to determine the number of visitors the cavern could safely accommodate without damaging its fragile ecosystem. More administrator than spelunker, his journey was to determine the fate of the last expedition, now over two weeks past due. No word had reached any settlement since the expedition had first entered the jungle two months earlier.

The expedition’s leader, Michael Harris, was a thirty-two-year-old-veteran caver with spelunking credits from twenty-five caverns around the world. It was unlike him to remain out of communication for so long. The area’s native Indian tribes – the Garifuna, the Kekchi, and the Yucatec Maya – had heard nothing of the missing team. Roger had hoped to question natives in San Antonio, a small city upriver from Punta Corda where they had arrived by boat from Belize City, but Saldo inexplicably had suggested bypassing the city. “Trouble,” was all he replied when questioned, leaving Roger to ponder what kind of trouble – drug smugglers, or an uprising of the indigenous population over newly imposed strict hunting and fishing laws.

Standing atop a fallen tree, Hutapec waved Roger to stop. The diminutive guide shaded his eyes as he scanned the terrain around them, and then pointed higher up the slope.

“Il Xiib,” he called in Mayan.

Roger turned to Saldo who had waited for him to reach his position. “What did he say?”

“He said he sees men,” Saldo replied.

Roger’s pulse quickened. Had they found Harris? “What men? How many men?” Roger asked eagerly.

Hutapec held up five fingers and yelled, “Ho.”

“Five men,” Saldo translated.

Roger pushed past Saldo, but Saldo reached out and grabbed his arm as Hutapec said something more. “Wait,” Saldo warned.

“Wait for what?”

Saldo shook his head. A look crossed his face that Roger recognized as fear. “Hutapec said ‘Hook’ol’, leave.”

Roger was livid. “Leave,” he snapped, “after coming all this way? If he sees men, it must be some of Harris’ group.”

“Something is wrong, senor. They do not move. They stand as still as statues.”

“I must see.” He shook free of Saldo’s grip and climbed higher up the slope. He quickly spotted the five men standing in a group at the edge of a cliff. “Harris,” he yelled. His voice echoed across the valley, but none of the men moved. Were they deliberately ignoring him? Then he noticed vines growing around them, up their legs and across their faces, as if binding them to the cliff. “What the fu ...” he moaned.

Saldo joined him.

“Are they dead?” Roger asked, knowing no other reason men would stand silently as vines encircled them.

“Hutapec says they are.” He pointed to vultures circling overhead. “He questions why the buitres do not land.”

“I must go to them.”

Saldo sighed, clearly against the idea. “Let Hutapec go first to see if it is safe. Then we follow.”

Roger chaffed at waiting, but after arguing briefly, couldn’t persuade Saldo to change his mind. “Oh, very well,” he finally conceded.

He sat on the ground and waited as Hutapec climbed the slope, disappearing into the trees for fifteen minutes before reappearing beside the motionless men. He waved Roger and Saldo forward. Roger’s heart pounded both from the exertion of the climb and from a sense of dread that mounted with each step that he took. It soon became apparent that Harris and the others were indeed dead. The stench of decay surrounded them, along with another odor, reminiscent of overripe bananas.

As he climbed over the last boulder and got his first close glimpse of Harris, the manner of the men’s deaths became apparent, but still unbelievable. What he had first mistaken as vines anchoring them to the ground, was a network of finger-thick mycelia from a strange fungus growth covering the men’s bodies, almost completely enveloping them. Their desiccated flesh sprouted tendrils with dark purple bulbous tips that swayed ominously in the breeze. Similar bulbs emerged from their ears, eyes, nose, and cracks in their skull, as if their brain had exploded from within. As he watched in horror, one dark bulb burst open, spewing tiny spores that drifted with the wind toward him. The smell of rotten bananas increased. Hutapec, who had remained cautiously upwind of the men, scampered higher up the slope away from the scene of death.

“What … what is this?” he asked Saldo.

Saldo shrugged. “A fungus, maybe, but I’ve never seen it before.” He spoke to Hutapec, who barked out a one-word reply. “He calls it Black Death,” Saldo said. He shrugged again. “I don’t know what he means. He is afraid to speak more of it.”

Roger was puzzled. “Why did they just stand here and let the fungus grow on them?”

“Quien sabe. Who knows?” Hutapec pointed to a nearby ravine and spoke. “Hutapec says six others, all native guides, are also dead, mauled, as if by a jaguar, but he thinks these men did it. Look at their hands.”

Roger saw that three of the dead men’s hands were crusted with dried blood. He refused to believe civilized men could do such a thing. “They wouldn’t kill anyone. They’re scientists for Christ’s sake.” He glanced down at the Chiquibul River flowing westward into Guatemala after emerging from the caverns. The late afternoon sun glinted off its surface like a ribbon of glass stretching through the jungle. “Where are the caves from here?”

Saldo pointed below and to the east. “There, but Hutapec will not go, nor will I. The natives think the caverns are the entrance to hell.”

“You don’t believe that?”

“Hutapec does, and he will not go,” Saldo replied, as if it were explanation enough. He glanced at the bodies and made the sign of the cross. “After seeing this, I will not go either.”

“We have to bury them and call the authorities.”

“We must go back. It will be night soon. Hutapec believes the moon, Uh, will be an evil one. Bad things are happening in the land.”

At this, Roger turned on him. “Why did we avoid San Antonio?”

Saldo paused as if reluctant to speak. Finally, he said, “There were mobs of men, violent men who killed like animals.” He glanced with revulsion at the ravine where the dead natives lay. “Like them.”

Roger was appalled. “You can’t be serious. Men killing like animals.”

“It is so,” Saldo insisted. He pointed to the river below them. “The river flows through San Amelia in Guatemala. There are rumors of much violence there as well.” He crossed himself. “It is a time of much evil.”

Looking at the erect corpses of his colleagues, sent a shudder running through Roger’s body. “We have to bury them,” he insisted.

Saldo nodded. “I will help you, but Hutapec will not touch the dead.”

Two hours later, Roger and Saldo had managed to scrape five shallow graves in the hard earth of the slope and cover the bodies with rocks. Neither Saldo nor Hutapec offered to bury the natives, so Roger ignored them. The jungle would quickly reclaim their bodies. Roger started at the five cairns of stone and the small pile of personal effects he had removed from the bodies. One item was Harris’ journal, slightly moldy and smelling of death. He was loathe to touch it, but hoped some clue to the men’s bizarre deaths lay within its crumbling pages.