Mervin Badman
by: Jonathan Antony Strickland
The four men had stopped talking well over an hour ago. What had started off as a simple one day trek across the moors in search of an old village that Adam Smockrill had found signs of, had now turned into a tiring and pointless journey through rough and wet terrain as all four had become well and truly lost.
It had been Ted Morlando who had been keeping an eye on the map and guiding them at that particular time that had gotten the four into situation that they now found themselves. Only when Greg Hiesiner had questioned whether or not they where nearing the destination they sought, did Ted look down at the map and scratch his head in thought. Adam, who knew the surroundings better than the rest, checked the map that Ted had claimed he could read like the back of his hand and upon his inspection he'd confirmed there lost and lonely position out on the moors.
Ted was an American who had arrived in England and the town of Tremwell when Adam had rang him earlier that month about his lucky discovery. He claimed to Ted to have found several roman coins and some signs of buildings from a past age. Ted's interest had pecked up and he agreed with Adam to accompany him on an expedition into the moors.
Ted was now in his fifties and was the oldest member of the group by a clear ten years. Adam was around ten years younger, with Greg (who was also from England) five years younger than him. He lived up North in a small village called Toningwill. The youngest of the four was Phil Fitzgerald. Phil was in his late twenties and hailed from Derwich in Ireland.
Like Ted the other two men had received a phone call from Adam, telling them of his discovery. Both had arrived likewise in search of an ancient treasure more precious to them than money, though the latter would still be well accepted if enough cash was waved in front of the four pairs of eyes.
Even though the moors where known to be wet, windy and hostile, the news from Adam had lifted there spirits. New discoveries had been few and far between lately and it was well known that the chance of discovering a great find in England in the twentieth century was getting slimmer and slimmer year by year.
The reason for this according to three of the members was that modern technology was improving and uncovering the past at a phenomenal rate. Greg had his own ideas on the subject and according to him it was all down to that little bastard, Tony Robinson. One thing they all agreed on, if indeed they did find the remains of a roman village then the historians of this region would have a field day, though only if any ever got there grubby little hands on it first. Not that the men where totally against historians, in fact they even considered themselves to be partial-historians, though the titles amateur archaeologists was more suitable to them.
All four had first met on a dig in Scotland a couple of years before. It had been a poor dig with only a few minor Celtic baubles being found. However the four had become friends up in the rainy Highlands and many times each would reminisce about the black nights in the old pub, called "The One Legged Runt", of nights spent drinking good warm ale and story-telling of past legends and myths from around parts of the world each in his time had visited.
So when all three had arrived in Tremwell and preparations had been made and equipment had been packed for the walk, the four men had set off the very next day out of the old town in Adam's half clapped out blue van, until the road had ended and the moors had begun.
They had started the walk in good humor, laughing and joking along the way. Even after becoming lost they had remained cheery amongst themselves. They had even made game of Ted's bad map reading and the fact that as a younger man he had been in the American forces and had fought in Vietnam where he claimed to have had to negotiate dense jungle twenty four hours a day while always watching for death in the thick multi-colored undergrowth. They all new that Ted was a person who liked to exaggerate the truth to make himself look a bit more interesting than what he really was. They also new that by playing along and pretending to believe everything he told you then the little white lies would grow and soon he'd be spouting all sorts of crazy stuff. Phil new this better than the other two, he assumed that being the youngest, Ted thought him more gullible and prone to listening to his crap. Still, Phil put up with him and at times he even found that he enjoyed the old mans over-active imagination.
Phil had brought out his powerful binoculars that he had brought along in case he spotted some of the rare wild birds that where noted to frequent these moors. These still were no use and trying to spot one of the uncommon landmarks in the moors even with the binoculars proved next to impossible. So they decided to carry on in a northern direction, if everything went to plan then they should come out of the moors by the middle of the night. All had brought torches so the darkness would not prove a deadly mistress ready to gobble them up and spit them out down a deep dark hole in the middle of nowhere.
Then after two long hours of walking through the strength sapping wet land, a thick dry fog rose quickly from the ground, reducing visibility to a mere ten feet. At this they decided that carrying on would be pointless and more importantly the ground beneath there feet was becoming wet, and the smell of marshland filtered through the air. In these parts, marsh ground was considered very dangerous and many a life had been sucked down into the thick heartless black mud. Indeed many a person had been presumed by police to have gone missing in such a way, in such cases bodies where very rarely found.
So the men backtracked fifty meters to where the ground was more solid and set up there one man tents apiece. There was no wood to make a fire but each man had brought with him a small gas trangiar stove. The small stove was more designed for cooking but after many nights camping out in the cold Highlands of Scotland, one found that when used within a small tent it could provide a good heat source, although there was always that slight risk of setting ones self or ones tent alight.
Ted, Phil and Adam remained glum. It did not seem to them that there was a much chance now of the expedition carrying on in the morrow. More importantly if the weather was going to change for the worse, things could still become dangerous no matter how well prepared they where. Greg on the other hand was a bit more optimistic than the rest. This was mainly due to his life saving beetle and lucky charm.
He had nicknamed the beetle Horus, and reassured the rest of the group that as long as Horus remained in his glass jam-jar (that Greg kept hanging from his waist) then things, no matter how bad they looked, would turn out O.K. The three other men all considered Greg to be a little strange but he was still a good bloke and if he felt more secure in himself by carrying around a small black garden beetle with him at all times, well that was fine by them.
There was not much to do once the tents had been set up, but each of the men occupied himself in his own little way. Phil began reading his book on Roman legends while being constantly harassed by Ted who told him stories of his past life and when he'd played professionally as a younger man in the southern baseball league. Adam was writing about events in his diary, while Greg sat and stared at the big black bug in the jam-jar.
By the time the four had got settled, it was around 7.00-PM and the first signs of night where beginning to taint the chilly fog filled air. Within the hour a cool wind started to whip up and to the men's grim amusement the heavy fog began to lift as the wind took a hold beneath it. Within twenty minutes there was not even one wisp of fog still left in the air, though there surroundings where still not crystal clear as the darkness had thickened, reducing visibility to around a mile. Looking about though they did see something that they must have missed before the fog had hit them. About half a mile away, a small lonely hill rose out from a small grey lake.
Phil raised
his binoculars up to his eyes to get a better look at the hill. The hill looked fairly bare, covered only in lush green grass; around its base the water reflected no light upwards so the scene remained dark and half hidden.
Phil noticed something unusual about the middle of the hill, a small point of darkness glistened directly in the centre making it look to him like a belly button on a fat, monstrous green stomach. Taking a closer look at the point of blackness and adjusting the binoculars to get a clearer image he realized that the point of blackness must be the beginnings of a cave mouth.
He then passed the binoculars around so the other three men could get a look at what he had seen.
"What do you make of it", said Ted to Adam as he held the binoculars to his eyes.
"Looks to me to be a hill with a cave in it", said Adam grinning sarcastically.
Phil and Greg laughed while Ted shook his head, then said: "What I mean buddy, is have you ever seen it before".
"Nope, but it does look interesting".
"And warm", commented Phil. "If where going to be stuck out here all night and the weather changes, what better place to be than inside a place with thick stone walls and solid ground".
"Yep, reckon if it's O.K inside that there cave, even a nuke sent by us to destroy your tiny lill island would have trouble getting us", said Ted.
"As long as the water around it's not too deep and the cave is not wet inside then I don't have a problem with it", Adam said thoughtfully. "What about the rest, are we all agreed". The other three men nodded and Adam led the way as they headed for the cave.
They began making there way across the soft muddy ground, taking each step carefully as they went. As they closed within thirty meters of the lake the ground became covered in a shiny carpet of green pond weed. Beneath the weed was water and the men realized that the place they now stood at was in fact the edge of the lake. The pond weed acted as a cloak and disguised the beginnings of the lake, this made it a lot bigger than they had first assumed.
On they continued, wading through the thick green slime that tugged at there ankles like manacles, sapping strength from legs and forcing grimaces of disgust and pain onto faces. The going was tough and the further they went the deeper the water got. Fortunately it did not take too long and soon they neared the edge of the pond weed to where the dark water began. The depth had doubled since they had first started and the water was well above there knees. At this point the men stopped to catch there breaths and to clean off any of the green weed that seemed to have an uncanny way of sticking to the body in various unpleasant places.
The darkness now was so great that the hill looked like a large black dome silhouetted directly in front of them. Ted raised his torch which like the rest of the men he had been using to watch his footing as he had progressed deeper into the weed. It took him a matter of moments to find the cave mouth that the darkness had shrouded over. As the light of his torch shone onto the small gaping hole revealing the roof of the cave, a sudden
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