I’m a bit of a collector. I just can’t help myself.
As a kid, my parents were pretty well-off, and we took vacations pretty regularly. Wherever we’d go, they’d get me whatever I asked for. One time, we went to Japan for a week, and there was a really neat katana I liked, so they bought it for me on the spot. When we got back home, they had it mounted on my bedroom wall because I asked them to. I was nine at the time. In hindsight, maybe they shouldn’t have given a small child something so dangerous, because two weeks later I cut off the tip of my left pinkie when I tried to pull it down and play with it.
I still have the katana, though. I wasn’t like the other kids; when I got a souvenir I liked, I made sure I kept it safe. I even have an old Chilean blanket I received when I was four. It was apparently blessed by a witch; personally, I couldn’t have cared less about superstitious nonsense like that, but it was still a souvenir, and I still held on to it, worn down as it might be from years of use.
Now, as a young adult with a degree in archaeology, I could finally choose where I wanted to go. It’s part of why I went into archaeology. There are over two hundred countries in the world, and I intended to visit every single one of them, whether as part of my job or as an adventure on my weeks off. Not just for the sights, but for the souvenirs, too. Like I said, I’m a collector. My parents like to come along when they can, but work keeps them busy most of the year, so I usually end up traveling alone on my little excursions.
That’s how I found myself in the newly discovered Temple of Xipe Totec. It’s an old Mayan temple, located deep within the jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula. I wasn’t part of the team assigned to the site, but an old colleague of mine, Felipe, was kind enough to keep me posted on any interesting finds. Historically, Xipe Totec, the Flayed One, was a god associated with the Aztec pantheon, so finding a dedicated Mayan temple to him was an intriguing anomaly that I wanted to see for myself. With a bit of prodding, Felipe was able to obtain permission from the research lead for me to join them on-site for a few days (in an unofficial capacity), though I’d have to fund the travel myself. That wouldn’t be a problem.
It was mid-summer when I finally went down to the Yucatán. I flew into Cancún, stayed the night, then met Felipe in front of my hotel the next morning. I hadn’t recognized him at first, until his jeep pulled up right in front of me.
“Elliot! Hope you brought water, it’s gonna be hot today!” Felipe greeted casually, waving at me. I waved, then hopped in.
“I figured it’d be hot,” I replied dryly. “We’re in southern Mexico, and it’s the middle of the summer.” I tossed my backpack down in front of me and pulled out a small envelope. “For your expenses.” I handed him the envelope; Felipe slipped it into his vest pocket, and then we were off.
We only followed the road for maybe thirty minutes before veering off onto a rugged dirt path that didn’t show on my phone’s GPS, leading right into the jungle. It was sweltering hot, and the humidity felt like a heavy blanket over our heads as the jeep rumbled onward. Even with the sun being partially blocked by the tree cover above us, I still put on my wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.
“Xipe Totec, god of spring…I guess it makes sense his temple would be hidden away by nature,” Felipe rambled absent-mindedly.
“It’s in the Yucatán. A giant jungle,” I pointed out.
“Well, yes, but it’s almost like the jungle masked it on purpose,” Felipe continued. It was clear he had something else in mind, but wanted it to come up naturally.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said flatly. Felipe took a drink of cold water from his Thermos.
“Just food for thought,” he said. He sat in silence for a moment before speaking up again. “I think maybe—”
“What do you want to know?” I pressed. Felipe flinched.
“I just…why the interest?” Felipe finally ventured, his expression growing serious. “This can’t have been cheap.”
“You know I’ve always been interested in archaeology,” I replied nonchalantly. “This was too interesting to pass up.”
“Just interest, huh…” Felipe mused. He didn’t even bother to mask the annoyance in his voice. “We went through a lot of trouble to make accommodations for an extra person, you know.”
“That’s what the money’s for,” I said curtly, my lips curled in disapproval.
“I’m aware of your resources,” Felipe remarked. “That’s not—”
“Then what’s the problem here?” I snapped. That’s it? That’s all he wanted to ask? I’d be disappointed if I didn’t already have such a low opinion of him. The only reason he didn’t flunk out of college is because I stepped in to fix his stupid mistakes. Felipe fell silent after that, which made for a quiet drive for next three hours. Fine by me.
At last, by mid-afternoon, I could see lights up ahead.
“We’re almost there,” Felipe said. He continued to drive, using several lanterns hung from the branches as a guide. After a few minutes, he led us into a large clearing. A multitude of jeeps and trailers were arrayed around the clearing, and a cluster of tents were set up just beyond that. One of the wall tents was open on all sides, and two researchers sat at a table beneath it; one was typing away on his laptop, while the other seemed to be sketching something in a notebook. I couldn’t see the temple itself anywhere nearby, but I knew better than to assume it wasn’t there. Perhaps it was just obscured by the foliage. Felipe parked at the end of a row of jeeps and then climbed out, gesturing for me to follow. I jumped down, threw my backpack over my shoulder, and made my way after him.
“Our team’s all set up here,” Felipe explained. “The temple’s deeper in the jungle. We set up a tent for you over here.” He led me towards a small blue tent at the edge of the camp. “We got you a sleeping bag, a lantern, and a solar-powered generator for any electronics, but that’s all. Extra flashlights and cameras are in the main tent. You’ve had plenty of experience with field work, so I don’t think you need a full tour.”
“How far is the temple?” I asked.
“Very close,” Felipe said. “Did you…want me to take you there right now?”
“I’m not some tourist that needs a whole day to settle in,” I remarked.
“Right, right. Follow me, then.” Felipe led me to the edge of the campsite; a path had been carved into the jungle, the leaves and branches haphazardly piled off to the side. We went down the path for maybe thirty feet…then Felipe stopped abruptly, nearly knocking me over.
“What are you—” I started, then bit my tongue. Not even one foot in front of us was a massive wall of green. Well, it was stone, but it was covered almost entirely by vines. As I looked around, I could tell that the temple was enormous, though hardly any of it was discernible from the leaves. It was almost as if the entire thing was a giant botanical garden, with every surface completely overwhelmed by greenery. At the time, it seemed unnatural, but I quickly dismissed the thought. Superstitious nonsense, right?
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Felipe asked.
“How’d you even find it?” I inquired.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Felipe admitted. “That’s a question for our team lead. She’s been working the Yucatán for years.”
“Where are the steps?” I pressed. Most Mayan temples had a consistent layout: steep stone steps along one of the sides, leading up to a sizable sanctuary at the top. Oftentimes, the temple was built over older, smaller temples as an expansion of sorts (hence the steep stairs), but not always.
“Follow me.” Felipe led me around the edge of the great stone base of the temple, through a path marked by lanterns. We walked and walked, and eventually made our way to a small table set up at the foot of a large tree, just beside the temple wall. Several archaeological tools and survey equipment were splayed out atop the table. No one stood watch, but it didn’t matter; we were too far out from civilization for theft to be a concern. The steps were to our right leading up the temple wall, the weeds and overgrowth cut away in uneven patches.
“Is this the only set of steps?” I asked.
“No, but the others are…a bit of a walk,” Felipe said vaguely. “Be careful on your way up. The stone’s pretty stable, but there’s not a lot of footroom.”
“I’m aware,” I said, adjusting my gloves before I put my foot up onto the first step.
The bottommost stair rose all the way up to my lower knee, so it took an effort to hoist myself up. The next stair was about the same, but as I slowly ascended the side of the temple, the stairs gradually became taller and taller, and the footing became even more narrow. By the time I was reaching the top, it felt like climbing a cliffside, with barely enough room for me to stand on my toes.
What I found at the top caught me by surprise. It wasn’t an ordinary sanctuary; in fact, it could hardly be called a sanctuary at all. No - I was looking at a full-fledged city! I was speechless. It was enormous! How could something this huge have remained hidden for so long?!
“Quite a find, I’d say,” Felipe remarked, reaching the top just behind me. “Wouldn’t have found it at all without our upgraded LiDAR system.”
“I agree. It seems you left out a lot of the details in your report,” I sneered.
“Y-Yes, well… We didn’t—I didn’t fully know all the details until later,” Felipe stuttered weakly.
“I expect better,” I declared coldly. It’s obvious he didn’t want me here, but he could at least do a better job of hiding it. He stood silently for a moment, fidgeting with his fingers.
“Should I show you around? Take you to the main sanctuary?”
“I’m not officially on your research team,” I pointed out. “I’ll look around at my own pace.”
“Oh… Of course,” Felipe muttered. I turned my back to him, then looked forward. The city was built around one continuous road, with buildings lining it along the left and right. Even to my trained eye, it was difficult to tell what kinds of buildings they were, thanks to the thick layer of weeds coating them like a blanket. I stalked over to the nearest building on the right, reaching out with a gloved hand. Always wear gloves in the jungle; you never know when a vine acts like a harsher poison ivy.
“…I don’t need a babysitter,” I murmured, just loud enough for Felipe to hear right behind me. He was following me, fidgeting the entire time.
“Right—I’ll just—erm, I’m just gonna go, then…” Felipe stammered, turning around and awkwardly making his way back towards the steep steps.
Once I was alone, I felt much more at ease exploring the buildings. I won’t bore you with the details, as interesting as they might be to me; you probably wouldn’t understand most of them, anyway. Most of the buildings were too eroded to discern anything useful; nature had seen to that. Even the sturdiest of stones won’t stand the test of time against the jungle, and this city was no exception to that.
The most intact building was the sanctuary itself—which was a temple of its own, a temple atop the temple city. A unique architectural design if I’d ever seen one. There were a few researchers at the top, but I wasn’t keen on dealing with them. I’m not one for idle chatting, and I’d rather see things for myself than have them try and explain their meager deductions to me as though I were a child. Instead, I lurked in one of the nearby buildings, using the hanging vines to hide myself as best I could. I wound up waiting for a while, but finally the researchers left, carrying cameras, flashlights, and a journal, probably returning to camp to sort out their day’s findings. That was my chance; as soon as they were out of sight, I stalked over to the sanctuary and slipped inside, my footsteps muffled by the moss underfoot.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. A better-preserved structure, maybe. But instead I found just the opposite. Though the outside of the sanctuary was mostly intact, the inside was more like a cavern of foliage. It was dark enough that I had to pull out a flashlight from my satchel to even see the walls. Walls as they were, at any rate.
Vines. All vines. Vines, and weeds, and ivy. There was even a small tree that had sprouted in front of what might have been an altar at one point, judging by how the vines formed a rectangle, like a giant gift box wrapped in greenery. It would be nearly impossible to find anything worth keeping that wasn’t green or toxic to the touch.
That didn’t stop me from trying, though. I’d come all this way, and I wasn’t about to leave empty-handed. So I shone my flashlight around, and searched every corner of the large chamber. Needless to say, I was elated when I found a small statuette wrapped up in the vines. I’m not surprised the research team missed it; even to my watchful eye, it was hardly discernible from the overgrowth around it. In fact, I could hardly even reach it. It was suspended in the air by thick vines, far above the altar. I had to climb on top of the altar and step onto one of the branches of the small tree, stretching my arms as far as I could, just to grab the base of the statuette. It took a considerable effort to wrench the statuette out of the foliage, but I managed.
Upon closer inspection, the statuette looked to be in surprisingly good condition. Despite the vines coating the walls or the moss carpeting the floor, the statuette was spotless. It was a human figure, presumably of Xipe Totec. The exposed skin was rough with rippling waves, like muscles, but the figure was clothed in patches of skin, overlaying each other like chainmail. In one hand was a striped shield, and in the other was a small sapling, sprouting from a container of some kind. As with most portrayals of the Flayed God, his eyes were shut tight, but his mouth was ajar. An authentic, original statuette, found in the only known Mayan temple to Xipe Totec.
The perfect souvenir.
I didn’t wait around a second longer. I slipped the statuette into my satchel. I could already envision where I’d display it: at the top of the shelf in my dining room, between the Buddha statuette from an abandoned temple in northeastern Nepal and the Virgin Mary statuette from the catacombs beneath Florence. It was a whole row of statuettes, acquired from various religious sites around the world. I wanted one for every pantheon, practiced or otherwise. I hadn’t gotten an authentic Greek statuette yet—most were Roman copies of the Greek originals—but it was only a matter of time.
It was thunder that brought me back to the present. Startled, I stepped outside the sanctuary and looked up. Through the sparse gaps in the trees, I could barely see that the sky above had grown dark, and I could smell the rain in the air. Unusual given how sunny it had been earlier that day, but at the time I’d dismissed it as a local phenomenon. I had my souvenir, so I wrapped up my exploration for the day and made my way back to the campsite. It was pouring rain by the time I got to my tent. I should’ve taken it for the sign that it was, but instead I cursed my bad luck and went to sleep.
The rest of my trip was uneventful. I stayed one more day so as to avoid suspicion, then left for Cancún the day afterward. Felipe seemed particularly annoyed at my swift departure, but after I’d spoken to his supervisor about his abrasive attitude, he knew better than to complain about it.
Within a day, I was back home in Seattle. I put up the statuette exactly where I’d envisioned it in my dining room, overlooking the long wooden table atop the fireplace shelf, and when my parents came by for our weekly dinner the following evening, I made sure to point it out to them. My father was fascinated, but my mother was just disturbed.
“Elliot, honey, don’t you think that’s a little…macabre for the dining room?” she asked uncertainly.
“Xipe Totec is the Aztec god of spring and agriculture,” I said. “Fitting for a dining hall, I’d say.” Of course, that was enough to appease her; just one sentence was always enough.
The first week back was mundane enough. I did have odd dreams, though, and my sleep was unrestful. I could never remember the dreams in the morning, but they sent a chill down my spine regardless. My gardener seemed to be slacking, and the bushes lining my windows and driveway always seemed to be begging for a trim, so I hired a new gardener for twice the pay.
Things took a turn for the worse during the second week, though. My sleep was fitful now; I’d awaken, my muscles sore as though I’d just finished a serious workout, and I’d feel gross, with sweat clinging to my skin like glue. My new gardener wasn’t much better, either. I saw him working whenever I went outside; he always seemed exhausted, and wore long sleeves no matter how hot it was. Yet despite his efforts, the bushes just kept regrowing overnight.
My houseplants had similar troubles, too. Their branches and leaves started growing at a much faster rate; I had to get bigger pots for most of them, and even had to cut off entire branches when they started to become unmanageable. At my parents’ weekly dinner, they even remarked how the whole house seemed more lush than before. It could just be a good season, but more likely some kind of parasite’s gotten into the soil. I’d have to have them purged, and maybe get new plants, just to be sure.
“God of spring, right?” my father joked. “You should pay that statuette instead of those gardeners—it’d probably do a better job, I’ll say!”
“Maybe this superstitious nonsense isn’t nonsense after all, eh, honey?” my mother quipped. I laughed at that; they were all too familiar with my skeptical nature, and never missed an opportunity to tease me for it.
“I probably brought some contagion from the Yucatán,” I reasoned. “Nothing unnatural about it except my carelessness. I should have given the statuette a good cleaning first.”
“You’re no fun,” my mother pouted.
I made sure to clean that statuette that night, scrubbing down every inch of the thing. Damn parasites. These were some nice plants, too. As I was cleaning, the statue’s eyes seemed to squint, ever so slightly open. Had they been squinting before? They must have been. I only had my flashlight to illuminate the sanctuary back at the temple; maybe a trick of the light made them look shut.
Two days later, I left the house again. I had another trip scheduled; this one was to Olympia, in Greece. As I said before, it was only a matter of time. It was a genuinely enjoyable trip, and I even felt rested at the end of it; I was given a guided tour of the Temple of Zeus, and a week later, I returned home with a bronze votive statuette to Zeus stashed in my luggage. There were hundreds on-site, and this one was nothing too special, but it completed my religious collection, and that was what I cared about.
Only this time, the house was different.
The bushes and shrubbery seemed slightly overgrown, even with the gardener’s daily care, but the house seemed otherwise normal at first glance. The inside of the house, however, was a world of its own. The houseplants had grown, far beyond what was natural. The roots had burst through the bottoms of the pots and looked ready to burrow into the tiling below. The branches stretched out and wrapped themselves along the walls and around any furniture within reach. The whole house smelled of earth, thanks to the crumbling soil that spilled from the damaged pottery.
This definitely wasn’t just a parasite.
I went to check on the statuette, examining it. It was pristine, as ever…only, its eyes had opened. My heart sank, and my blood ran cold. This…definitely wasn’t natural. That much I knew for certain. Maybe…just maybe there are forces out there that can’t be explained. Maybe the Ancient Mayans understood that. Maybe they found a way to use those forces to their benefit. Who can say? They’re all gone now.
The next morning, after another sleepless night, I had my plants removed from the house. As terrifying as the supernatural statuette was, I would not give it up so easily. I’d only just completed my collection, and I wasn’t about to let years of work go to waste. That meant the plants had to go. Without plants to affect, the little statue would be powerless. Right?
If only.
It turns out removing the plants wasn’t enough. The statuette’s reach went beyond the walls of my home; the bushes outside were even more unruly, and the roots of the trees along my street had started to crack the concrete of the sidewalks. Not that it mattered, anyway; that’s a problem for the city to deal with, not me. As for the bushes, I’ll leave that to the gardener I’d hired to replace the old one. I did my best to ignore these minor issues, but now my dining hall had started to smell strange on top of everything else. It was definitely out of place, but was too faint for me to identify. There might’ve be a mold problem; I’d have to remember to take a look another day.
That night was the worst night I’d had so far. I fell asleep immediately, but when I woke just before sunrise, my entire body ached, and I reeked of sweat. The room was cold, as I usually kept it, but my body felt hot to the touch. That morning, the gardener didn’t show up when he normally did; instead, he showed up several hours late, and instead of getting to work, he rang my doorbell.
“The shrubs? I’m already paying you double,” I said defensively as I opened the door. He was a man in his mid-fifties, with a scraggly gray beard and fierce brown eyes.
“That ain’t the problem,” the gardener snapped. “This is.” He ripped off his gloves, exposing dark rashes across his hands, riddled with purple splotches. “Your plants did this.”
“Impossible,” I declared quickly. “Lilacs and hydrangeas don’t cause rashes like that.”
“No shit,” the gardener spat. “But yours do.”
“Then wear gloves,” I said sharply. “You should be wearing gloves anyway.” This guy’s even more incompetent than the last!
“That’s not all.” To my surprise, he suddenly began to roll up his sleeves, exposing his forearms. I’m not sure what I expected, but what I saw definitely wasn’t it.
Scars. Fresh scars, from the looks of them. Scars, and cuts, all of them wide. They weren’t deep; they were more like scrapes, with patches of his rough skin completely worn down. Like leather, I thought suddenly.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked, more confused than anything. “Do I have a thorn problem you’ve neglected to tell me about?” Somehow, I knew the answer before he said it.
“Thorns?!” he stammered, his face incredulous. “I wear long sleeves for a reason! No, this is somethin’ else, and it’s got to do with you! I dunno what kind of curse you’ve brought here from your damn vacation, but I ain’t gonna have any part of it!” His face was red as a beet as he threw an envelope at my feet. “Take the money, I don’t care. Find yourself a new gardener!” Before I even had the chance to reply, the man whirled on his feet and stormed down to his gray pickup truck. I could only stand there and watch as he started the engine and drove off as fast as he could.
He mentioned a curse. My ingrained habits wanted to dismiss it as superstitious nonsense, but I’d already seen what the statuette could do, and I knew in my heart that this was directly connected to me. It hardly even surprised me, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. He mentioned my trip to Greece. He said I brought the curse from Greece. That’s ridiculous, but it does mean that he wasn’t experiencing these symptoms from the statue while I was gone. They only started when I was here. Evidently, there was something unnatural here, and it’s tied to that statue.
The rest of that day was spent sulking, pondering my choices. Giving up that precious artifact wasn’t an option, so I had to work around it. I needed to get rid of the plants in my garden, for starters, because I refuse to hire a new gardener every other day, even if I can afford it. It’s the principle of the thing. If it spreads, that isn’t my problem. I don’t pay half my income in taxes for the city to not clean up their own damn sidewalks. I called the local landscaping company and paid them to have someone remove the plants up front sometime the next day. Temporary solutions, at best. Though the plants weren’t my problem, my sleep was. I can’t rest when I’m home, and it sure as hell isn’t just jet lag. So the next day, I paid a priest to come inside and purify the statue. He said some prayers and sprinkled it with holy water, and I hoped that’d be enough. I suppose I’d find out that night.
It was that day of the week again, but only my mother showed up for dinner. She said my father wasn’t feeling well, but I shouldn’t worry about it. But frankly, what concerned me was that my mother didn’t look well, either.
“Are you alright? Are you sick?” I asked her.
“I’m fine, honey, just some scrapes is all,” she sighed. That caught my attention.
“Scrapes?”
“Mhm. Your dad thinks I must’ve fallen off the bed,” she continued.
“Your bedroom is carpeted, isn’t it?” I pointed out.
“Well, yes, but if that’s what Thomas says, then he’s probably right,” she decided.
“You said he wasn’t feeling well. Is he scraped up too?” I pressed.
“Don’t worry about it, honey, we’ll be fine,” Mom replied. So he was scraped up. This was…disconcerting. I wrapped up dinner quickly that night, and watched through a window as my mother left the driveway. Hopefully, that priest’s rituals were enough to cleanse the statue.
But when I tried to sleep, I discovered that they weren’t. In fact, the rituals had made it worse. Forget sleep; I was overwhelmed by nightmares the entire night. Foreign dreams, and this time, I remembered snippets of them. I was a Mayan priest, back at that overgrown temple. It was well-maintained, and the altar at the top had a basin and a ritual knife. I know I partook in the ritual, but I couldn’t recall the details when I woke up in the morning, drenched in sweat…and some kind of slime.
It was colorless, a slime-like substance coating my skin and caking my hair to my head. It smelled funky—not a smell I could identify, but whatever it was made me feel sick to the stomach. Terrible thoughts rushed into my mind as the smell started to bring back memories of my dreams, and in a panic I grabbed my phone and called my parents, a hollow feeling in my gut. When they didn’t answer, I called again, and again—until finally, my mother picked up.
“H-Honey?” she stammered. Her voice sounded strained.
“Mom! Is everything okay? I was worried,” I said quickly, doing my best to sound calm.
“It’s…It’s your father…” she whispered. I could hear her sobbing on the line, and some part of me already knew what she was about to say. “He’s…his skin was…your father is…”
“Dead,” I croaked, the dread sinking in deeper and deeper. “Are you…?”
“In the nearby hospital,” she managed to say. “Just…come see.” Before I could reply, she hung up.
I was worried, but my father was already gone, and my mother was safe in the hospital. More importantly, I was awake. She would be fine. I needed to be sure.
Without bothering to get dressed, I ran downstairs and to the dining room as fast as I could, nearly slipping on the slime coating my feet. Immediately, the rancid smell of decay assaulted my nostrils, and I could see the source: the fireplace, where a fire burned that I hadn’t lit the night before. Moving quickly, I grabbed a bucket of water from the kitchen and doused the fire, the smoke erupting from the fireplace and clouding my vision for several seconds before I could peer into the hearth. Smoldering remains of something floppy were piled up inside, remains that smelled like charred flesh. Like leather, I thought. The statuette’s eyes were open wide, and its gaping mouth had stretched into a smile. The knife lay next to the statuette, still lathered in blood and slime. The same slime that caked my skin.
The Flayed God.
Just as I’d thought, my father was dead. He’d been murdered overnight while my mother watched. The culprit was wearing flayed skin, held together by human tendons tied up like string, and had flayed my father alive. He moved on to my mother next, but after finishing her arms, he suddenly left without warning, about an hour before dawn. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, though he handled the knife with precision. My mother was alive, but to say she was “fine” would be a lie.
When I tried to step outside to go to the hospital, I had to remove my door from its hinges. My yard was completely overgrown by weeds and vines, which had wrapped themselves around the front of my house and partially blocked the door. The trees lining the street had doubled in size, and their roots had smashed through the asphalt of the street, entangling cars and houses alike. Like the vines at the temple. Thankfully, the growth hadn’t spread beyond my street, so I was able to grab an Uber to the hospital once I’d navigated to the neighboring street.
I got rid of that statuette within a few hours. I tried to smash it with a hammer, but it wouldn’t even crack. I even rented a car and ran it over, but it was still intact. So I drove myself all the way down to San Francisco and dropped it off at some no-name thrift shop where they wouldn’t ask questions. Was that unethical? I don’t care, because it’s not my problem any more. Never again. Let someone else deal with that shit.
Needless to say, I’m done collecting souvenirs.