Kingdom Keepers VII(7)

The man marches directly to a control panel of digital readouts so bright that Tia Dalma can make out their neon greens, ambers, and reds from where she lurks in the shadows of the jungle. He acts without haste as she raises the doll’s right arm, giving his brain a cue to work the controls.

Immediately, the wheezing of pressurized pipes rises like a chorus. Steam valves cough; the generator revs to keep up with the demand for electricity. Three of the green displays turn amber; two of the amber, red. A wiry man with slicked-back hair and a tattoo of a snake that winds from his wrist to his neck approaches her worker. The supervisor wears a DayGlo orange hard hat, distinguishing himself from the yellow hard hats of his team. He barks angrily at the worker.

Three more amber displays become red. The supervisor rants, gesticulating at the panel, and moves in to correct the changes his worker has made.

Tia Dalma lifts the doll’s arms, pushes the hands together, and lowers them fast, like a sledgehammer driving down a tent spike. The supervisor collapses to his knees. Her worker smashes the man’s back a second time; now he’s down on all fours, shouting. Four other workers emerge from a small trailer.

All the green is gone from the panel, replaced by amber, red…and flashing red. The sounds intensify. Tia Dalma doesn’t understand the process—she is no mechanical engineer—but by the look of it, steam and chemicals are being injected into the ground, flushing or pressurizing the cavity far below and causing it to disgorge its valuable natural gas. Some form of extraction that goes well beyond her limited knowledge. Whatever the case, the worker’s efforts are charging the well with added pressure; she needs no gauge or display to tell her that. The earth beneath her feet is trembling now, more strongly than she felt from the top of the temple.

The four men rush toward her worker, hollering. The ground shakes so violently that one of the men loses his balance and falls, comically. It feels to Tia Dalma like the earth itself is sliding. Shifting.

She works the doll’s feet and arms in a flurry of inhuman gestures that knock the other three men aside. They go down like bowling pins, and then jump to their feet as the supervisor recovers and stands.

Her priorities set, Tia Dalma turns her worker, holding him upright as the three men attack him from behind. She hears the cracking of her worker’s bones, but keeps the doll steady; it will not yield. The worker swings at the supervisor. The wiry man soars through the air, crashing hard into a rusted pickup truck.

The sight stops the other three men. In an instant, they understand that they are dealing with something cursed, something from another realm. They back up as Tia Dalma turns her worker and marches him forward. Two of the three men hesitate. The other runs, screaming.

Her worker’s legs are broken in several places, the bones showing through the skin—and yet he walks on, undeterred.

The vibration in the earth gives way to shaking, and the shaking to quaking. Tia Dalma steadies herself, reaching out for a palm tree. Behind her, other trees begin to fall, their roots torn from the loosening soil.

From a bird’s-eye view, a ring of destruction emanates outward from the drilling rig, with ever-expanding concentric circles formed by rippling shock waves. The jungle growth inside this ring falls silently, as though a wind has toppled everything taller than a few inches. Birds, snakes, and other creatures scatter. On and on the ring spreads, like ripples in a pond in the wake of a stone’s splash.

As the leading edge of the ring reaches the temple compound, dust rises. The earth collapses, folding inward, swallowing the surface whole.

Against the backdrop of a low rumble, so terrifying that the very birds take flight, can be heard the cackle of a witch doctor’s cruel laugh.

There, in the midst of the mud and grime, as the drill tower teeters and collapses, Tia Dalma has her dull-eyed, broken-boned worker dancing an Irish jig in celebration.