《Hell Mask: God King of Xibalba "A Splatterhouse 1987 Manga"》 Nameless voids in the starlight sepulcre ¡°Even kings are not safe here¡± was the inscription on the stone door to the underworld. Professor Talbot has waited his whole life to be here. He was studying Mayan death masks of great kings in newly discovered tombs in the northern Yucat¨¢n. It was a race against time as the pyramid complex had laid undisturbed for millennia has been cleared of brush and overgrown trees, and already bandits and treasure hunters had broken into the site and dug a 25 foot tunnel into an earth mound above the temple complex. Disturbing a treasure trove of skeletons, rare scrolls and archeological evidence that was destroyed forever as a protective moat flooded the tunnel. The bodies of 8 local men were recovered and the damage they did was unbelievable. Untouched tombs are rare, more rare are mayan books that survived the purges of the Catholic church. He is already behind schedule and now dealing with bandits and looters made him worried about the state of what awaits him in the depths bellow. Talbot had to don a scuba tank and follow a team from the University of Mexico City down into the flooded tomb of the God King of Xibalba. Talbot remembers sadly earlier looted tombs of the Aztec, where priceless artifacts where smashed to remove gold teeth and gems inlaid in skulls and death masks of Tezcatlipoca the Smoking mirror. Now in rancid water barely above freezing they descend into the underworld. Black water fills the hallway beyond the 80 ton stone door they had to raise out by crane. Their dive lights only illuminate 3 feet in front of them, the other researchers are ahead on a guided rope line to stay connected. Visions of corpses and poison arrows that fell the looters fill the tunnel as locals were unwilling to recover cadavers killed in tomb looting due to local superstition, likely allowing the academics to incur casualties first before they raid the tomb again once its safe. This was not Talbots first tribe down here to these temples. He had spent his youth after world war one and university in Europe, down in sweltering heat of the jungles of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatamala discovering Mixtec Zouche-Nuttal Codex of Pre-Colombian inscriptions on kings and the universe. Being betrayed once before by the British Museum he was apprehensive about involving other academics but this find was not his and he was lucky to have been invited by his friends in Mexico. Talbot was kind of superstitious, since his first forays into archeology, he feels followed by the trickster god Tezcatlipoca of the underworld, known as ¡°the smoking mirror.¡± Haunting his dreams and filling the lonely hours of the night with shrill screams of torment form the underworld. Feeling as if he was being driven mad by demons and devils of Meso-American cosmology. Demanding he rediscover their worldview and bring artifacts up into the light. Professor Talbot is torn from these tortured reminiscences as there is a struggle head. One of the Mexico City staff is struggling with their air tank and pushing past him roughly as blood fills the water. Talbot lets them pass but doesn¡¯t follow. Ahead is a dry chamber where he will make the tunnel impassable. Alone in the dark, he weaves his body around fallen pillars and traps that have killed many in the days before his team arrived. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. As his light falters, shocking sights of shrieking skulls of dead kings flash before his eyes as his water logged flashlight does not cooperate and his dive lamp gives off only a dirty moss colored light. Above the far-off dawn has broken through holes in the roof, turning the sky the color of a stormy sea, darkening the brilliant starry sky under angry black clouds before sunrise. Feeling the floor around him, he finds scraping metal, jagged swords and conquistador armor rusting around rotting bones. Some earlier treasure hunters must have fallen here in Spanish times. Finding a torch, he lights old dry wood wrapped with deer skin and dry palm leaves. Filling the chamber with golden light, he sees the shining eyes of countless corpses adorned with shining jade, gold, turquoise and pyrite. The chamber was full of corpses. This was the meeting point of empires, The Aztec, Maya, Olmec and Mixtec all considered this region holy and dedicated to the gods of the underworld. Clay and jade masks shaped to represent yet unnamed deities leered at him. Googley eyed monsters representing the Jaguar, Eagle, Toad and River Fist take on a horrible dancing the flickering torch light. On an alter on a raised platform, he finds the centerpiece. A death mask of the lord of Xibalba. His shaking hands reach out, goose bumps raise on his neck as he grasps the cold inlaid stone mask. It is heavy, like something made of marble and gold but it wasn¡¯t. It was thin and felt like it was made of obsidian and some other dark metallic material from the heart of an asteroid. His fingers tremble with an energy from inside the carved skull face. Its undead hunger drawing on his lifeforce. Something bit him on his leg and he drops the mask as it rolls into the darkness he feels some biting insect has climbed the inside of his pants. Swatting at what ever it in, feeling some large spider fall from his pants leg. Panicking he realized he has lost the mask into a hole in the floor. Looking down into the hole, he sees easy foot holds to descend into the depths. He scrambled down into a pit another 70 feet into the darkness. Here is a luminous underground lake, blue and green light dance across the ceiling. A voice terrorized his mind, a scratchy and cruel voice reaching out across time. A shriveled figure seizes the sides of his head. Looking into the eyes of this horrific wraith of a dead king, he is transported into the distant past. A time where a mighty king goes on a journey into the underworld to find his stolen bride. Fighting vengeful ghosts and denizens of the underworld with a funeral mask and an obsidian sword that was so sharp it opens chests and heads at a molecular level. Talbot feels sharp elephant grass cut his skin, feels leeches and insects biting his legs. He feels all the power of a god king from a lost epoch. Haunted visions of a thousand nameless kings who died in torment, ravaged by disease and immortal visions from the demonic knowledge lost to untold horrors. The curse of the underworld crawls into his soul with monstrous anamosity from wars fought and families beating hearts wrenched out of still beating chests. He howls and shakes, trying to free himself from the skeletal embrace of this dead king. A snarling smile crosses the green corpses face, filling Talbot with centuries of anguish. He falls alone, waking up wearing the funeral mask on top of the pyramid. His hands shaking as he watches the Mexico City team rush back in looking for him. A celestial map fills the sky with a beautiful last scream of starlight across the lip of dawn. Whispers in the Dark ¡°Fuck¡± Rick Taylor screamed as he cut his fingernail and banged his head in the same moment. He laughs as the blood gets under his eye lid and his tiny metal splinter of metal under his fingernail screams like nuclear war in his mind. Trying to yell to his friends for a shop rag over the loop of Sepultura ¡°arise¡± blaring from the schools auto shop PA system. Rick nudged the jack that almost dropped the car on his legs, lucky the car is kind of back heavy with a full tank of gas and band equipment in the trunk. He is just able to balance it back on its other 3 wheels and carefully back out before it crushes down on his chest. He should have been paying closer attention to what he was doing under his 1971 Plymouth Baracuda, but he was so excited about his date tonight. It was 1987 and all his dreams were coming together. Jennifer, his long time crush finally told her best friend she had a crush on him too. Despite his crushing social anxiety, he got the courage to ask her out to a concert last fall and she accepted! For six months it was like a dream. Him a grubby little nerd who spent his days in metal shop and playing the guitar, her an angel who excelled in all subjects, art and music. Crawling out of from under the ¡¯71 Baracuda¡¯s engine block, the shops PA cuts out and it¡¯s eerily silent. Among his monster magazines, nudie mags and comic books on the workbench is a picture of them together. Rick cant believe his luck, it¡¯s almost as if some divine force watching his life of suffering finally rewarded him with someone to believe in his dreams and sooth his demons as he struggles to find reason to get up every day. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Rick was orphaned young and raised by his Vietnam vet uncle who was an emotional cripple and had no idea who to raise a teenager. Rick thinks they did ok, figuring out life as a motley little family including the pet dog Blackula. All these racing thoughts of both troubled past and hopeful future fade away when a cracking voice of the shop teacher Mr Talbot calls him to the office. Mr Talbot is cool, he is also the science teacher, runs detention and checks out the band equipment from the Audio/Visual dept¡­ despite being a ww1 veteran and easily 40 years past retirement age. Besides his crazy uncle, Jennifer, Mr Talbot might be his favorite person in the world. He loves to hear his long winded lectures on history and strange anticdotes of a world lost to time. Behind the school is an auto graveyard going back to model T trucks and every thing in between. Mr Talbot was not in the office at the back of the shop, he was likely calling from a bomb shelter in the back he had turned into his study. It was a creepy old place full of relics from decades of world travels from the south seas to Egypt and the Mayan highlands. Down the flights of stairs into a damp domain of a mad scientist. Mr Talbot looked like he had been awake for days, hunched over his desk full of papers and maps. With a broken voice he asked Rick to go to his house and fetch an artifact, a drop it off at post office box in town before the concert. Rick tried to use every excuse in the book to avoid this stop off. It was a big night with Jennifer and could easily be the big night for them. Mr Talbot was leaving town and needed the mask to be at the London museum before he arrived for a critical lecture on his work. It is imperative you follow these specific directions! Rick gets his spare tire on and is taken away from his work when Jennifer¡¯s sing song voice comes from the side door. She is not a rocker but she managed to find a half-way cool t-shirt to wear. It¡¯s not in english and has grainy face on a TV screen with neon pink and green writing in kanji, could be for a skateboard company. Rick wipes up his face with a shop rag and smiles. She runs to him, kissing him with her hands around his neck, twirling him around and dropping several wrenches and quarts of dirty oil from the work bench. Mr Talbot peeks his scowling face around the corner, squinting to see what all the ruckus is. Seeing Jennifer, he smiles and waves then slams the door to his office. The concert tonight is a full thrash metal extravaganza, Death, Obituary, Exodus, Bathory, Kreator and D.R.I. As the clouds turn ugly they spin out of the parking lot to take Mr Talbot to the Airport. He is too busy squinting at his notes with a magnifying glass to comment on the loud music or burnouts Rick is making as he takes turns and starts from stop lights like an asshole with a death wish. Helping Mr Talbot with his suit cases, Rick pretends to listen to a list of grievances and special instructions. Instead of following Professor Talbots instructions about getting to the mansion before dark and promptly mailing the relic. Rick blows it off for later and goes to the concert instead. It was amazing but Jennifer didn¡¯t seem like she was really enjoying her self. Rick tried to introduce her to his friends and their girlfriends but she wasn¡¯t into it. Just nodding blankly and smiling. Eventually she wandered off to sit by her self in a corner. Rick felt bad so he pulled up stakes and left early. It was just before midnight and before the last 2 main acts went on. But keeping her happy was important to him. He kept thinking if it would be too sleazy to ask her to spend the night with him. She smiled and said she told her mom she wasn¡¯t coming home tonight and was with her best friends at a sleep over. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. All Rick can think about is getting Jennifer would of her cute outfit, but first he had to take care of Mr Talbots errand. The mansion was at the edge of town in the woods. Rumors are it was built on the site of a pioneer massacre where 70 Indian families had been cornered by a lake and killed. That wasn¡¯t an odd story, you could say the same about any where in America. The fact was, there was a colonial cemetary on the grounds but the mansion proper was behind it. The road to the mansion was rough and unpaved, full of violent potholes and puddles of rain. Just their luck one of the pot holes was so deep it had become part of a seasonal stream crossing the driveway. The car wouldn¡¯t move no matter how much he gunned the engine. More and more rain came down, black in front of the large moon. Thunder clouds and lightning showed no signs of stopping. The way she smiled at him, he wanted more than any thing to spend the night right here in the car. But she reminded him, he gave his word and now the mask wouldn¡¯t be mailed in time to make the midnight pick up. It was Friday so as long as they made the afternoon mail Saturday afternoon, there was still a chance it would be there by Mr Talbots lecture. Rick wondered why Mr Talbot didn¡¯t take the relic with him. Screwing up his weekend and important date. Pushing the car out of the mud and growing stream undermining the gravel drive way wasn¡¯t an option. They would have to run to the house and call for a tow. Beside them in the blackness of the forrest, sounds of running and branches breaking were loud enough to cut through the wind and rain. Jennifer thinks she heard howling but thats not uncommon here in the wild country north of town. No packs of wolves would be so hungry they would chase them down. He hoped. West Mansion The mansion was set way back from the road. More than a mile and the trees splintering and storm raging made the moonlight struggle to shine with black streaks of darkness from the storm. Finally after 15 minutes of stumbling in the dark to stay on the path, they see the flickers of the main house. Lights in the windows guided them into a large formal garden full of ghastly statues and sickly ponds. The place might have been nice once, now it was just a haven for nesting spiders and owls. Rick struggled to find the key. He thinks he brought it but isn¡¯t totally sure. Checking his pockets and looking at a more and more cold and alarmed Jennifer, he remembers he stuck it in his sock. Sounds like cataclysmic violence in the forrest startle them. Sounds like only an earthquake or rockslide could make. Deafening sounds of geologic violence. Rick tried the old skeleton key and had no luck. Twisting it trying to get it in the lock. Jennifer smiled and in one deft move gets it to slide in and turn. Opening the heavy wood door to a dark hall beyond. Inside was dry as a bone but something here felt off. The cavernous space of the entry hall was strewn with dead leaves and muddy footprints. A statue was knocked over of some female divinity and the angelic faces on the ornate brass wall lamps had a look of extreme hate on their cold faces. Rick tried to remember where the relic was supposed to be. Somewhere in an adjacent drawing room. In the blackness they could make out the rose colored glass of a room beside them to the right, beyond the hall way stairs in the far end and pools of total blackness to the left where roman pillars opened to another room that gave off unpleasant vibes. They tried the glass doors to the right and it opened. Inside was a cozy room with french couches of another era, books covering the walls and relics of a lifetime of learning. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The relic wasn¡¯t here and Jennifer had to use the bathroom. Rich vaguely remembered there was one off the kitchen and several more upstairs but the layout of the house was not as he remembered it. Where he thought the kitchen would be was another dark hallway that led to an outdoor courtyard and rooms that looked like they were full of abandoned medical equipment and ominious devices under white sheets. Exploring more they found a maze of disused annexes, servants quarters and porticos that seemed to lead to endless other buildings that seemed to be in less and less of a lived in state. Jennfier was ready to pee her pants so she set off alone with his lighter to relieve her self at the first oppertunity. Rick tried to find the study where the relic should be. Beside Jennifer he felt like a protective knight and protector. Alone in the sprawling hallways he felt like he wanted to run as fast as he could and sleep in the safety of the car. He keeps stumbling over books strewn about the floor. ¡°Current practices in vivisection, a modern guide to dissection¡± ¡°West Mansion, scar on the face of the Earth¡± ¡°Mayan incantations and death rituals¡± ¡°Demons and Demigods of the Hebrew Bible¡± ¡°Spiritual manifestations, a new take on the Afterlife, death and journeys to the underworld in classical fiction¡± Thoughts of horrid faces lurking in the dark, whispers in empty rooms and antechambers filled him with dread. A feeling of panic washed over them as sounds came from the opposite direction of where Jennifer went. Rick didnt know if he should follow her or investigate the sounds of running and crashing coming from where they had just come from. He wants to check on her but is scared he might interupt her trying to wipe her ass or come off as a pervert, but he cant stay here. He needs to pick a direction and commit to it. At least wanting to peek at whats going on, he moves to a doorway to get a look. It''s the police!