"Out of Time" Short Story, Part 2

        The hot air filled his lungs as he sprinted toward a gap in the gate. This had to be where they came in, Sam thought as he examined the tire tracks that led back down the path that had brought him here. The path through the jungle was only known by the scientists and researchers who worked on the site. Questions like, "Who would do this?," and "how could anyone enter a protected site unnoticed?" raced through his mind. Sam ran through the trees, past giant monument to men long since dead. He had always had the feeling that the stone eyes were watching him whenever he walked the grounds of the ancient city. As he ran toward the conservation center, an absent stare suddenly stopped him in his tracks. The multi-ton boulder, known as Zoomorph B, was no longer at the center of the great plaza. His stomach turned at the throughout of one Mayan histories earliest treasures was gone without a trace. A new question filled his mind, "who could move a 13 ton rock from the middle of the Guatemalan jungle?"
        The sun was now peaking over the trees as he looked into the empty space. The moment of shock was now passing, as he snapped back into reality. He bolted for the conservation center in search for anyone who could help him answer his questions. As he turned the corner of the modern building he saw the door to the main office was pried open. Without hesitation, he ran through the door only to be shacked once again. He had found the guards who where on watch that night, their bodies lay strewn about the floor. They had all been shot through the head and their blood was now pooling around the center of the room. He had seen dead bodies before, but these where not wrapped in ceremonial cloth or buried deep within Egyptian tombs. 

  He recoiled back into the adjacent board room still dark with drawn curtains. He tried to catch his breath as he searched for the light switch. He walked around the long table to the switch plate across the room. As he searched through the dark with his hands, his feet stumbled over something strange. He reached the switch on the far wall, as he flicked it on he turned to see what was there. He could see the hands of a man sticking out from under the long oak table. His heart still racing, he slowly walked around the black chairs that surrounded the room. He could see the body now, and reached for the shoulder to turn the mans limp body over. As he turned the body, he could see the bloody and bruised face. Through the red and purple he began to recognize the face beneath it.
        It was his friend and colleague Dr. Rodrigo Mata, a local anthropologist who taken him under his wing when he first came here as a novice archeologist. He held his lifeless friend and mentor in his lap for a moment, and as he stared at the his friends battered body he noticed a lump under his shirt. Sam reached under his red stained shirt and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He opened the wad and glanced over the hand written notes that had been torn out of a journal or diary. He examined the words and symbols written in the familiar scribble he had learned to decipher years ago. His eyes stopped at a few words surrounding the Mayan symbol for "time."