Edmond Paradis and the Cult of Kukulkan

Edmond Paradis stood at the edge of Breakneck Creek behind the old motel on Montgomery Street near the outer border of St. Louis for several minutes smoking out of white clay tobacco pipe that had once been his fathers and had accompanied the old man on his journey across the ocean from Britain to the new world many decades past. He set about refilling the pipe when all the brown leaves had turned to black and the embers no longer smoldered, but thought better of it as the ancient disembodied finger in his pocket began to quiver.
The finger was another artifact received from Edmond’s father. It seemed to him that the man, his possessions, and his legacy would follow him for the rest of his days, looming large behind him and sometimes in front of him in the same relentless way that his own shadow did.
The finger had been severed by Edmond’s grandfather, Henry Paradis, from the burning corpse of a witch in the southern part of Britain that had been executed for the inexplicable death by way of internal clawing of a six-year-old girl. The witch was Henry’s mother, and the girl was Henry’s sister.
It remains uncertain what spiritual or malicious force overcame Henry Paradis instilling in him the desire to defile the body of his mother, although it is rumored that the mad woman herself forced a promise from her son demanding that in the event of her death he was to do just that.
Standing at that infamous brook with an empty pipe hanging loosely from his teeth, Edmond held the finger between his hands, comparing it to his own, and watching it with both eyes unblinking in hopes to catch it in the act of its unholy shiver, but, as always, when the naked gaze of man came to rest upon it, the finger was as dead as the burnt body from where it came.
The skin of the finger was black and stiff like leather with rough grooves bearing a semblance to the aged and fallen branch of an oak tree. Jutting from its tip was a jagged yellow nail that seemed to grow whenever it was out of sight because although the nail always appeared to be the same length, each time Edmond removed it from his pocket, it left behind several small clippings.
The finger had saved the lives of Edmond’s father and his father before him on countless occasions, and both of the dead men testified to the strange vibrations of the appendage and beseeched Edmond to heed these warnings as they came in any way that they could be understood.
This story is not about the witch’s finger, although it plays a significant enough role in its progression that it might be of great interest to the reader to understand its origins and how it came to be in the possession of Edmond Paradis.
This story is about a journey, a death, and the mystical forces that governed them both.
The journey began with the trembling of the finger in the pocket of Edmond Paradis as he stood on the edge of Breakneck Creek. He interpreted this particular shudder as a warning to not linger on the creekside and to instead return to the motel on Montgomery street that had been his temporary residence during his stay in the city. This interpretation turned out to be well-advised because as Edmond passed through the double doors of the motel, the lady to whom he paid his rent called him over.
“A letter for you Mr. Paradis, sir,” the lady said, holding out a folded sheet of yellow parchment sealed with a red circle of wax.
“Thank you, mam,” Edmond said because his father had raised him to be polite and he thought that the lady was quite beautiful and it felt fine to him to treat her as a gentleman would.
Edmond sat down atop a low, rosewood chair in the corner of the old motel’s parlor near the crackling warmth of the fireside and broke the strange red wax of the letter.
What it said was this:

Dear Cousin,
I am writing to you from the southmost part of Mexico in a small township by the name of Chiapas De Corzo in the state of Chiapas just north of the Guatemalan border. It is the month of January and the locals have spent its entirety participating in a vibrant festival consisting of tasteful food, lively music, and endless dancing.
You may be wondering why I write to you now, dear cousin, after so many years of silence, and why I have taken great pains to ensure that this letter reaches you personally and promptly. This is something that I neither possess the capacity to explain nor the daring to try. I suspect that this correspondence may take many months to reach you, and I do not wish the information I plan on sharing with you to fall into hands other than yours. But I assure you, cousin, the things I wish for you to see are of a variety beyond our own humanity. Higher things, hidden things, matters of the divine, both terrifying and unreal.
I am calling to you, last blood of mine, in hopes that you will join me in the township of Chiapas De Corzo. You will know it by the Moorish fountain in the central square that was given the name, La Pila, by the locals. I am aware of the distance between you and this township and understand that it will not be a journey set out upon lightly, but I am confident that you will undertake it for one reason and it is this:
You have always been, and are likely still, a wanderer, just like me. A searcher of higher meaning and things greater than those which roam the earth. An explorer. A fearless pioneer. I have found higher meaning, cousin. I have found meaning beyond the realm of dreams. Join me, and you will see.
With utmost hope that you are faring well,
Alden Reed

P. S. I will send an envoy to La Pila Fountain on Tuesday of each week. You will see him at noon. He will ask you whom you seek. You only need tell him: Alden Reed.

Alden Reed was Edmond’s cousin by blood, but a brother in his heart. The two had grown together on the same land after the death, by illness, of Alden’s father. The boys slept side by side each night after a long day spent carrying rifles through the woods, staring into the warm night sky, counting stars and speaking in hushed whispers of the gods. It was for this reason that Edmond knew that what his cousin said to him was true and that the matters he spoke of were, in fact, divine and not some misunderstood trickery of the local people.
But this was not the reason that he answered his cousin’s call, rising immediately from his chair near the fire and heading to his room to gather his few possessions. The reason he did as such was the horrendous throbbing coming from the severed finger residing in his pocket, so violent that Edmond had to clap his hand down onto his thigh to steady the spirited thing.

-

He rode south from St. Louis on a black colored horse with the name of Crescent, christened as such for the moonlike dash of white fur upon the creature’s rear. Crescent had been in partnership with Edmond since the animal was only a foal and could hardly walk on its four thin, artless limbs. Now the great beast had grown to a towering height of seventeen hands and galloped mightily on thick, muscled legs and could often easily traverse sixty miles of land in a single day, provided it received at least two brief moments of rest and a small drink of water.
In a half month and some days, Edmond and Crescent rode through a forest and knew that they were arriving at their destination, for the witch’s finger began to tremble with the recession of the pine and oak trees and the emergence of scattered huts, beyond which, were several adobe structures rising from the ground like spiritual monoliths, some many stories high with towers like castles, and a great church marked by the cross standing tall at its highest point.
During his wanderings, Edmond had learned to keep track of his calendar and knew it to be Monday of the second week in the month of June, so he had to only pass one night and some hours until he would be able to meet with the envoy at the fountain indicated in Alden’s letter. He spent this time wandering the town and resting in the shade of the tallest structure, for with each passing day of his journey the sun seemed to grow closer to him and the heat was nearly unbearable. When night fell, and stars covered the sky, he slept in the shadow of that same structure, a church called Santo Domingo, whose name he had learned from a passing French immigrant.
The next day, as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, Edmond set off for the Moorish fountain in the central square, located only a short distance from where he had slept.
Arriving at the fountain, Edmond awaited the envoy in the shelter of a great kapok tree, keeping a vigilant watch and a hand upon his revolver.
Santo Domingo’s bell must have been impressive in size because as it struck, signaling the hour of noon, the sound reverberated through Edmond’s skull causing his teeth to clatter. With the resonating of the bell came the quivering of the witch’s finger, so violent that Edmond thought it perhaps had come alive at last and planned on taking some revenge upon the world from which its body was taken. Edmond placed his hand in his pocket and wrestled with the wriggling thing, likely appearing as if he were scratching at a particularly troublesome itch, but stopped the action abruptly as he noticed the approach of a young boy no more than ten years of age wearing nothing but a pair of ragged shorts.
“¿A quién buscas?” The young boy asked, staring directly into the eyes of the much taller man.
“Alden Reed,” Edmond told the boy.

-

The boy walked beside Edmond as they went to retrieve Crescent and the child’s mount, a small mule with patchy, sand-colored fur. Edmond followed the boy and his mule to the town’s edge and beyond until they were traveling through unpopulated woods and sparse fields. The pair had traversed a distance of ten miles when the ground suddenly sloped down into a small valley so covered in foliage that the bowl of the feature looked like nothing more than a sea of green leaves, from the center of which rose a structure of a variety that Edmond had seen drawings of but never laid eyes upon in person.
The structure was best described as a pyramid and it was made with white-gray stones out of which had been carved many steps and flat levels so that it appeared to be several buildings stacked atop each other, growing smaller as the formation gained height.
As the pair proceeded down the sloping hill and through the dense trees, some thick, aromatic scent began to drift past them. Noticing Edmond’s audible sniffing, the boy said, “incienso,” and kicked the sides of his mule causing the beast to run faster towards the pyramid. As they grew closer to the structure, some small tents and huts began to appear within the bounds of the wood, and the singing of many flutes reached Edmond’s ear sounding ghostly and foreign in a way that chilled his bones causing him to start with a short gasp as the witch’s finger once more began to tremble. So great was this quaking that Edmond decided to remove the thing from his pocket, which at once caused it to cease the motion, and place it securely in his saddlebag.
When the pair reached the base of the pyramid, Edmond was struck by its incredible size, rising from the ground, up and out of the canopy so that its top was not visible from below. Climbing up the pyramid’s side was a set of steps that seemed to rise into eternity, and sitting at the base of these steps was Edmond’s cousin.
As the pair drew near, the boy dismounted from his horse and collapsed to the earth, shoving his face into the dirt before Alden Reed.
“Levántate,” Alden told the boy, stepping around the prostrate child and approaching his cousin.
“Cousin,” Alden said, “I trust your journey was not too difficult?”
Edmond climbed from his horse’s back and patted the beast’s side. “Nothing Crescent could not handle.”
“If there ever was a more noble creature, I have yet to meet it,” Alden said, stroking the horse’s face before turning to his cousin. “It is truly fine to see you, Ed. I am both flattered and amazed by your grit in undertaking this expedition.”
“How could I refuse? You sounded like a man converted.”
Alden nodded slowly. “I am a man converted. In more ways than one. The things I have to show you, you have never seen anything like it, even in your most absurd dreams. But I expect that you are quite tired and would like to rest. I can bring you to a bed and offer you some wine, if it would please you to follow me.”
“I didn’t come all this way for a bed and wine, Alden. I could have gotten those back on the frontier.”
Alden laughed loudly and the sound seemed to echo in the dense woods. “You never fail me, cousin. I knew that curiosity of your sort does not just dwindle and die. It burns ever higher, does it not?”
Edmond shrugged and turned to Crescent as a sound had begun to emanate from the saddle-bags.
“Have you brought a stowaway mouse with you?” Alden asked.
Edmond slapped the side of the leather bag and paused to see if the sound would continue. All remained still. “I’ll deal with it later. What’s this you have to show me?”
“Wait and see, cousin. Wait and see.”
Alden shouted some words to the people milling about beneath the pyramid and a pair of them brought forth two items: a torch and a length of barbed rope bearing an appearance similar to the stem of a rosebush. The two ascended the steps of the pyramid, crossing beyond the canopy of the trees, with the branches of the tallest oaks brushing against their backs. Before the men, at the highest point of the pyramid, was a door that led into a closed-off room, and as the sun was shining onto the backside of the pyramid, the room was shrouded in darkness so complete that it seemed to consume the light of Edmond’s torch. When they reached the top of the steps, Edmond turned and surveyed the valley, feeling like he was some sort of deity standing atop the world.
“Hold that torch steady, cousin,” Alden said, raising the barbed rope, “and do not be afraid.”
Standing before the darkened door, Alden stuck out his tongue until its tip was touching the bottom of his chin. He then held the rope to his mouth and dragged it back and forth across his flesh until blood began to drip onto the stone floor.
“What are you doing?” Edmond asked. Although he was not afraid, he was quite confused.
Alden did not reply, continuing the massacre of his tongue until the fibers of the rope had gone from a dark brown to a vibrant red.
“Hold out the torch,” Alden demanded, speaking as best as he could with his flayed tongue.
Edmond held the torch aloft and Alden ran the rope through the flame until it burned. The fumes smelt of death and dirt and that same aroma that had been drifting through the woods and was now strongest here at the peak of the pyramid. When all the rope had turned to ash, a sound came from within the darkened room. The sound was so thick, and wet, and terrible that Edmond was certain it came from some beast of tremendous size. It sounded like muddy, bubbling water, and it poured out of the room in much the same way.
“Alden…”
Alden held up his hand to silence his cousin, then ducked into the darkened room, collapsing prostrate onto the floor just as the young envoy had at the base of the pyramid.
Fear was an emotion more foreign to Edmond than any beast he might encounter within the bounds of the pyramid, and so with a steady heart, he crept into the darkened room, holding the torch high above his head. Within the blackened shadows of the room, Edmond spied a silhouette of immense stature standing somewhere near the back wall.
“Fool!” Alden hissed with his body still prone to the floor. “Bow before it consumes us both!”
Edmond had bowed before neither king nor beast, yet he heeded his cousin’s words, crouching until his knees met the cool stone below him. He set the torch to his side and peered into the darkness at the imposing shadow as it crawled near.
As the horror crossed the barrier of light and exposed itself into the illumination, Edmond’s heart turned to wax, melting in such a way that he felt it streaming down the sides of his ribs.
The beast was not so much a beast as it was a monster, and it was a type of monster that was not too far removed from man. It was made with colossal bulk and although it crouched as if its spine were weighed down by some great burden, it held a size roughly akin to two grown men standing atop each other. Its skin was pale, flaking off in layers like scales on a fish and its eyes glowed yellow in the firelight with thin black windows for pupils like arrow-slits on a castle wall. Its neck was long and its head was narrow and bald, for no hair grew from the monster’s body. Frail wings sprouted from its back, extending out further than the beast stood tall, with sickly looking feathers hanging loosely from the tips. The monster held its face near Edmond’s and the man met its terrible gaze without movement or breath. From a lipless mouth, a blackened tongue slithered with a fork at its tip, stroking Edmond’s face and cheeks, leaving behind damp streaks of black.
Alden remained prostrate throughout this interaction, mumbling soft words beneath his breath like some infernal prayer. When the monster had finished tasting the flavor of Edmond’s flesh, it receded into the blackness and released a screech so horrendous and terrible that it likely shook the waters of Breakneck Creek where Edmond had begun his journey.
“It is time to go, cousin,” Alden whispered with his crippled tongue, crawling backward out the door with his face to the dirt. “You must not look away.”
Edmond, no longer certain what he was dealing with, did as his cousin commanded, backing out of the room with his eyes on the shadow of the beast, leaving the torch behind and watching its flames wither as if they were doused with water.
Neither of the men spoke as they descended the side of the pyramid. When their feet, at last touched the earth, Edmond turned to his cousin.
“Have we just been made party to a demon?”
Alden shook his head and protracted his tongue. It looked like a gutted animal, flesh torn at its center and blood dripping from its tip. Alden held his hand above the injured muscle, and Edmond watched in amazement as the wound began to reconstruct itself to its original countenance. Flesh weaved and threaded throughout the appendage as if an invisible sewer were mending the damage with a spool wound with the threads of man.
“What is this witchcraft!” Edmond shouted, taking two steps back.
When his tongue was fully healed, Alden popped it back into his mouth and clicked it loudly against his teeth. “The thing you were just made party to is no demon. A demon is servant to the devil. That thing is greater than the devil himself. That thing is not a thing at all. It is a being, equal parts unholy and divine, that demands worship, and returns to its followers gifts far exceeding the value of any treasure.”
The matter that terrified Edmond the most, chilling his bones so that they shivered beneath his skin, was that the words his cousin spoke came not from his mouth. They made their way towards him by unseen means, depositing themselves directly into his mind.
“Am I going mad?” Edmond asked, suddenly feeling faint.
“You are not mad, cousin,” Alden said, now making use of the normal method of conversation. “You are enlightened. You have just met the eyes of Kukulkan and you have survived. That is more than any man before you can attest.”
Edmond could feel the earth twirling beneath his feet, growing faster with each bewildering word his cousin spoke or conveyed through other means. He quickly realized that what he required to ease his ailment and rapid heart was respite by way of tobacco, and so he reached into his saddlebag and hunted for his pipe. His searching hand brushed against the witch’s finger and set the thing seizing like never before. Edmond looked up frantically, afraid that his cousin might have taken notice of the incident, but Alden was occupied, suddenly surrounded by ten or fifteen of the mysterious peoples occupying the grounds beneath the ancient pyramid, mumbling in some incoherent language.
Now assured of his privacy, Edmond resolved to remove the finger into the light of day, so as to quiet the thing, but when he did so, he released a gasp that echoed throughout the valley, for the finger no longer held the countenance of old, cracked leather. The witch’s finger now bled, as if it had been severed that same day.
“What’s that you’ve got there, cousin?” Alden asked, brushing his crowd aside.
“It's nothing,” Edmond said, hiding the object in question behind his back like a child.
Alden squinted his eyes. “Great-grandmother’s finger?”
The finger remained behind Edmond’s back, out of Alden’s view, and for a brief moment, he thought that not only did his cousin have powers of restoration and wordless speech, but also the ability to see through solid forms.
“No,” Alden said, hearing the words thought by Edmond, but never uttered aloud. “Although, what a gift that would be.”
He knows what I’m thinking?
A toothy smile broke out on Alden’s face. “I know everything you have ever thought, so I know with certainty that I can do things you have never imagined.”
In the blink of an eye, the sun plagued day was broken by a crack like a whip as lightning crossed the sky and storm clouds swarmed above. In another blink still, the clouds cleared and the lightning faded so that the sound of thunder reached Edmond’s ears just as the sun returned to his sight.
Alden could control the weather, and before then, Edmond had thought that to be a power reserved for the gods.
“What do you want from me?” Edmond asked with no small quiver in his voice.
“I want nothing from you. Kukulkan...he wants everything.”
Alden snapped his fingers and the people congregating around him reacted as hunting dogs do, immediately and without question. In moments, Edmond was surrounded, three or four hands per limb, and hoisted into the air atop a horde of men. Edmond struggled, reaching for the pistol strapped to his hip, but one of his attackers noticed and relieved it from his person. He was taken to the side of the pyramid where a small entrance was located leading into a sort of cave blocked off by a wooden door. The men placed Edmond into the cell, removing from him all of his belongings except for the clothes upon his body. As soon as the men’s backs were turned, Edmond searched himself for the witch’s finger, but determined that it must have been lost at some point during his skirmish, as it was nowhere to be found. The door shut behind him and Edmond rushed to it, tested its integrity, and found it to be solid, unbreakable by the strength of man. He was effectively imprisoned, weaponless, and altogether hopeless.
Edmond sat for hours as day turned to night, listening to the melancholy sound of flutes and the heartbeat thump of drums. He thought about the child his cousin used to be. He had been a loyal friend, one to sacrifice himself if the necessary moment arose, but power had changed the man. He wondered to himself if his cousin could hear his thoughts now, and acting accordingly, sent out a plea, appealing to his captor’s former honor and reminding him of the moments they had shared as brothers, separated only by body, but the same in spirit. Perhaps his cousin did not hear, or perhaps he chose to ignore the pitiful appeal, but Edmond’s thoughts remained quiet apart from his own.
After night had lingered for some time, and the moon had risen beyond view of the prison door, Edmond felt a sensation in the pocket of his pants. Gasping aloud and fumbling from the wall where he leaned, Edmond reached into his pocket and felt his hand close around the witch’s finger. The thing was magic, and this moment proved it more than any other. It had made itself invisible, out of reach of his captors, and reappeared at the opportune moment.
But what use could a disembodied finger be to a captive man? He could not claw his way out of his cell and no man could be felled by the stroke of a single finger, but the finger was as wise as the witch whose body it had once attached itself to, and Edmond trusted that it had not reappeared without purpose. He held tight to the appendage, still struck by the miraculous health it now displayed.
Before long, a group of people appeared by the door. They held spears and swords and torches whose light penetrated into the cell. They shouted a foreign phrase that Edmond could not make out and opened the cell door, approaching the man crouched in the corner. Edmond was lifted by the group and carried from his cell into the moonlight. The witch’s finger was still clutched in his hand and, by some magic, his captors took no notice. They led him to the base of the steps where a massive crowd bowed before Alden Reed.
“Why me?” Edmond asked as he was deposited near his cousin’s side, being careful to surround his thoughts of the witch’s finger so as to disguise his mind from his captor. “I came from thousands of miles away. You waited for this moment. Why?”
“I am to be made prince,” Alden said, refusing to meet the eyes of his cousin. “Kukulkan demands a sacrifice of my own blood. You are all that I have left.”
Edmond groaned. “Cousin, if you have made up your mind to proceed with this wickedness, at least afford me one mercy. Tell me what I am to expect when we reach this construction’s top. It pains me to admit it, but I am frightened. More so than I have been in my entire life.”
Alden looked upon his cousin and pity flashed across his eyes. “We will cut our tongues, as I did before, and together we will venture into the darkness. Kukulkan will make you his sacrifice and crown me as his prince. I will tell you no more, because I know no more.”
The crowd at the base of the pyramid began to chant and their voices echoed through the woods sounding like tenfold their score. Alden Reed grabbed the arm of his cousin and began to trek up the steps of the pyramid. Although their bodies grew in distance from the crowd below, the chanting only increased in volume.
When they reached the top of the steps, Alden produced two lengths of rope. Edmond hesitated to place the harmful device against his tongue, but the witch’s finger in his pocket quivered and Edmond determined this to mean he should proceed. Lifting the rope to his tongue, he began to imitate his cousin, dragging the rope back and forth. Although blood flowed, Edmond felt no pain and knew this to be the work of the witch. The men knew the ritual was sufficient when a warm glow emanating from within the rope consumed the threaded fibers until they found their hands empty apart from an ash falling between their fingers.
Without pause, the pair ventured into the darkness where a terrible, swirling shadow awaited, lit only by a thin beam of moonlight. The two collapsed prostrate on the floor of the room and Edmond could feel the monster approaching, its breath hot and wet on his skin.
He heard a voice moving through his mind, but it was not his own, nor did it belong to his cousin. The voice was Kukulkan’s. Edmond knew this because it slithered and hissed just like the creature’s tongue.
For what reason do you bring yourself here, witch?
As the words slipped into Edmond’s mind, the witch’s finger began to tremble, and to his surprise, the disembodied thing offered a reply. This new voice was of neither man nor beast, for it uttered no words. It simply laughed, horribly and manically, the sound resonating through the stones making up the vile temple atop the pyramid of Kukulkan.
The monstrosity growled with both its throat and its thoughts.
Malefica, wretched wraith. You die by neither blade nor flame. Let us see if your kin is the same.
Suddenly, Kukulkan leapt from the shadows in which he had been concealed. The pale skin of his hairless head was the first thing revealed as the monster’s body passed through the beam of moonlight. The ghostly illumination seemed to sink into the creature’s eyes the same way a heavy stone sinks into the mud.
As the beast soared through the air, shrieking with its frail, sickly wings fluttering lamely behind it, its wicked teeth flashed, long, hooked, and crooked. It ended its terrible flight atop the prostrate form of Alden Reed, wrapping its mouth around the man’s head until his screams fell silent in the throat of Kukulkan.
The creature gagged as it devoured Edmond’s cousin whole, the same way a python might devour a deer. Only Alden’s legs were still visible, flailing from in between Kukulkan’s jaws. The beast had one soulless, inhuman eye on Edmond as it chomped and bit at his cousin’s body until it at last severed something vital in the man’s spine, sapping all life from the corpse that had once been Alden Reed.
Throughout this whole ordeal, Edmond had been mesmerized, staring frightfully at the beast. A creature of such eldritch origins could be nothing holy or just, only some infernal leftover from an impossible dimension of a flimsy reality. And although the witch’s finger was trembling with greater strength than it had ever trembled with before, Edmond did not consider the possibility of running.
When Kukulkan turned his carnivorous gaze on the only earthly man left atop the pyramid, Edmond found that running had never been a possibility, for his arms and legs and even his head had been rendered entirely immobile. Shock gave way to horror, and Edmond felt as if his bones were quivering inside the cage of his flesh. Unable to scream, lash out, or shut his eyes, Edmond simply remained still and watched as Kukulkan’s grotesque, monstrous form stalked towards him. The beast opened its mouth, unhinging its jaw so that Edmond could see all the way into the back of its throat where Alden’s feet were still visible.
Edmond thought he ought to say a prayer, but he knew not which deity should claim his last invocation, for if such a cruel beast as Kukulkan existed, the world could not have been created by a merciful god. So instead, Edmond thought, to hell with it, and waited for the blackness at the bottom of the monster’s throat.
Yet no blackness came. Edmond’s paralysis broke just before the creature’s teeth brushed against his skin. As Edmond toppled to the ground, like a hanged man whose noose has been cut, and Kukulkan loosed a violent screech, another hateful cackle penetrated through Edmond’s mind, for the witch, even in death, was not yet scarce of tricks. Edmond looked up at Kukulkan as the creature grasped at its teeth with its inhuman hands. Those wicked fangs were melting away just as a stick of butter might in a molten smelter.
Edmond knew that the witch had granted him this opportunity, and he knew that it was likely to be his last, so he leapt to his feet with daring abandon and rushed out of the door into the light of the moon, leaving the howling beast behind him.
Standing at the top of the steps, Edmond loosed a whistle, certain that his only true friend in this world would hear it. By the time he reached the base of the pyramid, the horse was ready for him, with his backside to the steps. Edmond took a leap, spreading his legs in the air so that he landed cleanly atop the creature’s saddle.
Edmond did not need to kick for Crescent to know that this particular occasion called for a gallop. The horse shot from the side of the pyramid like a bullet the moment Edmond’s body touched its own, going from zero to forty miles an hour in seconds. Edmond reached mechanically into his saddlebag until his hand wrapped around a revolver, cocking the weapon’s hammer as he pulled it to his side. Armed, Edmond felt a far greater security than he had felt since he entered Kukulkan’s cursed valley.
As he rode forth from the pyramid, away from the thrashing and shrieking of the beast at its top, Edmond noticed that the locals had fallen silent. Even the ghostly piping of their flutes had dissipated with Kukulkan’s outburst. Peering through the trees, Edmond saw that the locals had their heads to the dirt, bowing towards the depraved sound of the monster they worshipped.
As Edmond and Crescent made their way up the hill leading out of the valley and above the treeline, Kukulkan’s pained howling turned into a violent roar that shook the branches of the trees and penetrated into Edmond’s mind. At the edge of the valley, the faint glow of lights in the township of Chiapas de Corzo graced their sight, so Edmond risked a glance behind him, letting his jaw drop open in horror.
Kukulkan had burst from the temple atop the pyramid and floated in the sky just above the structure, its hulking form blocking out the light of the moon so that a terrible, ethereal aura surrounded the beast. With a roar, Edmond pulled Crescent to a stop and turned so that he was facing the beast that had stolen the last of his blood from him.
Kukulkan’s voice trembled inside Edmond’s mind.
None have escaped me. None will.
Quick as the flicker of a flame, Edmond lifted the revolver that he had been clutching in his hand. Kukulkan, with some monstrous keenness of sight, saw this motion and struck the air with its wings so that it rushed towards Edmond faster than a brick drops from a cliff. Edmond aimed his sights in between the eyes of the beast and with a prayer of hate sent to the deity of the valley, he squeezed the trigger.
The shot rang out, echoing across all of Mexico. Just as lightning follows thunder, so did Kukulkan’s screech follow that shot. The sound was both pathetic and menacing, like the moan of a dying lion. With one last weak flutter of its wings, the great and terrible monster dropped from the sky, crashing through the thick branches of the oaks on its way to the ground.
With a single whistle, Crescent turned from the valley and galloped off into the woods in the direction of the township. In the darkness atop his horse’s back, Edmond returned the revolver to his saddlebag, in need of a new holster, and clumsily managed to procure and pack the white-clay tobacco pipe that he had neglected since he first laid eyes on the pyramid. He brought it to his lips, struck a match, and inhaled deeply, thinking that with any luck, the witch’s finger would never have any reason to trouble him again.

***

Jacob Park is a top-shelf bartender, begrudging poet, and aspiring novelist with a love for pulp fiction and a fear of the dark. He is currently seeking representation for his debut novel, "The Community," a horror-thriller set on an island off the coast of California.