I slowly faced the blackness at the corner of the room, where there was someone rolled up in ball in the corner, and we waited for him to do something, as we searched for his gun.
The policeman that had opened the door stood frozen, holding his gun out at the faintly visible black figure.
My heart rate exploded, beating faster than I had felt it beat in a long time, and I was still standing doing it when Marple removed his gun and pointed it at him, and turned the light on.
As seconds passed I watched the figure lifelessly remain there, rolled up in ball in the corner, and I was sure he had done something to himself, and he could be dead.
I spotted a trail of blood across the floor, in drips, going straight up to him.
We strolled up, not shining their torches directly at the killer, wondering who the hell it could be, and who could have had the entire police force after him for so long.
When he turned I was dumbstruck, and even wondered where the real killer had gone, and I recognized the room, and Captain Godfrey’s main office, and realized I had not noticed it because we had entered through the back of the Home Guard office, and at night, where I had not been before, and had been so obsessed with what was happening to recognize it.
It was Captain Godfrey’s office and it was Captain Godfrey on the floor in the corner, and I realized that it was not the killer, and I realized I had blown it again, and I should not have directed them over to the army base, and realized that he must have been tired after working there late and had gone to sleep in the corner, with an old blanket wrapped about his waist.
He stared at me in horror and started getting up, and shouted furiously, “You again! You’re fired! I kicked you out the army!”
All the policemen stopped pointing their guns at him, realizing that it was the wrong person, and I watched him almost fall over, and gasped, as he was holding an injury he had received from something, which he had recently received, and he attempted to grab his gun off the ground below him, and the police all pointed their guns at him, and one grabbed his gun.
Chapter 28
The Scan
What astonished me was after everything that had happened I had not really solved anything of what had happened to me at Craigmillar Road or in the hospital shaft, and what the black sphere was below the hospital, or what the powers I had were, and I could not grasp what would happen next, as every unsolved puzzle and mystery that had happened seemed to emerge at the one time, and Marple, who had forced me into going there, had not answered anything and had denied the existence of anything, and had phoned me and ordered me to carry out his mission.
I sensed that there was something there in the Craigmillar Road house the minute I reached the door, and it had not been anywhere as powerful as it, even at the hospital, and I was now certain of it, and I sensed that all the exploration association scientists and paranormal scientists that accompanied me there were not saying something, and it was something powerful, and something deep.
I knew I would have to wait for them to give it to me, and I kept wondering if we were in great danger, and which I had felt chasing the killer, and I allowed the scientists to set up their equipment there again, but this time with the equipment from in the hospital shaft, which had found the tunnel, and would scan below the building, as Marple had insisted, and I gasped at what the metal detector had done, and even started thinking of ways to protect myself from the forces it could generate.
I eventually relaxed on the bed in my room there, and recalled the case of the killer, and how astonished I was that it was Captain Godfrey, and I was astonished when Marple that morning had told me who he really was.
Marple had discovered that all the killer’s victims had one thing in common and that they had all fought in the First World War, and he had found out that they had all been in the same army division, and had fought together, and massive amounts of their comrades had been killed, and Marple had traced all the surviving members, and there were only two left.
Captain Godfrey had been German, and a German soldier before he had moved to Scotland, and he had entirely changed his identity, to hide his past, and other killings in Germany, and Marple had discovered that Godfrey had a brother, who had moved to Scotland too, who had served in the same division, and that he had been killed, which Godfrey had admitted to the police, and he blamed the other soldiers for his death, and believed that they had actually killed him, after their discovery of him being German, but what they never knew was he was his brother.
The war with Germany had revived what had happened, and he had used his experience and knowledge of how the police worked, and used it to destroy the soldiers.
The newspapers had the story all over the front pages, with Marple being named as a chief investigator, and the man who had solved the case, and he was receiving numerous calls and new cases, and I realized that he intended to expand the business, and increase the amount of investigators.
Everything was perfect, except this case, and what was there!
While I rested on the bed I considered what could happen next and I listened to Oswald and the other scientists consulting with each other and making an agreement, which I missed and tried to work out from what I heard!
It was incredible as I recalled things they had been saying earlier, and that I had not picked up properly at the time, and realized what they were doing, and that they were even increasing the power of the scan, and I wondered what the hell that would do, as it had been powerful enough in the hospital, and I started seeing the dangers of it again, and thought of going somewhere else, and returning after they had done it, to survive.
For some reason the scientists seemed not to want me to be involved in their discussion and what was occurring, and I believed it was to do with my earlier worries of what could happen, and I realized Oswald had said something about it to them. So I decided just to use it and stay out their way, in the background, and observe what was going on.
I could not grasp what would happen, and I did not know what was there, and what was incredible was I realized that they had read my report on the occurrence in the building with the metal detector and what had happened and they had entirely missed what had occurred, and what I had meant, and I could not explain it any further to them what had happened, and they never seemed to think anything had happened, and I realized again that I could not properly explain what was there, as I never knew what was there.
Marple had once had a great interest in investigating the paranormal, which he never believed in, and consistently explained logical solutions to everything easily, which I and the others investigators normally did, but he was far more experienced and determined, and I realized that I had to find something of that nature to prove something existed.
The elderly woman, and owner of the house, was glad to see me again, and did everything to welcome us, and not put me off the case, and at her dinner I discussed the case and she told me what had been happening since I left and she told me that the haunting had decreased occurring, especially since we started work at the hospital, and neighbors had also admitted it.
What could it be? I was still at the start of the investigation! I considered everything, and only had the metal detector that had activated it, and that never added up to much.
After I was asleep later on the bed I awakened and realized I had missed something, while I had been asleep, and I watched the paranormal scientists and technicians rushing excitedly back and forward checking their equipment all over the woman’s outer corridor, and where the source had mainly been detected, and where I had activated the metal detector, and collapsed, and wondered what was going on, and I realized that they were about to activate their equipment, and braced myself.
When nothing happened I looked up and saw Oswald look into the room, and I wondered if anything had happened.
“Are you scanning below the building?” I asked.
“Yes!” he replied.
I gasped, and tried to detect any diffe
rences in the surrounding environment, and I jumped off the bed, and stood at the room entrance, and watched all the scientists standing around waiting for something, and I wondered what, and as I approached them I realized they had all been standing waiting for me, to continue and activate the equipment and experiment, and I wondered why.
When they activated it nobody reacted and barely noticed anything. My mind wandered through all the occurrences that had led up to its discovery.
Suddenly a vast unstable energy blast, which seemed to come from somewhere else, and not below, or from anywhere in the normal universe, and like it came from another outer dimension, and emerged all about the place, with so much force it threatened to warp space, and I went back to wondering what it really was and what damage it could do, and I watched parts of the equipment burst into flames, and the scientists quickly turning it all off and going crazy trying to put out flames.
I was happy it was over and nobody had been killed, and that they could not use the equipment.
Yet I noticed Orwell and Higgins and some other scientists were not concerned, and I saw them at the equipment, and a scientist holding a sheet of paper, and I moved over.
The scientist explained that the energy blast had damaged the equipment, as they had predicted, and their swift instantaneous scan of below the building had worked, and that they had used the instantaneous rough scan below, with a fast enough speed capable of checking there, before the equipment was damaged, and he showed us the sheet of paper with the rough scan, and at first I thought it had not worked as it looked like a blur of lines, but as I examined it further in more detail I grasped a strange image in it of an unusual formation.
Chapter 29
The Exploration
I stood blinded by the black abyss below me, as I searched into the depths of the tunnel, as though it led into some strange region of space, outside normal space, and I saw the stone steps below, which were the same as they had been in the tunnel going under the hospital, which had been accurately made.
They were in a hole, below the woman’s hall, at the exact point the occurrences had originated, and it had been uncovered by the archeologists, with help from the scientists, who were all standing along the hall in a line, with the woman standing at the end, with them all standing with their mouths partially open, with a slight look of horror, waiting for me to descend down into its depths, and I knew I was the chosen one.
I gripped my light, and shifted down the stone steps, looking for any obstacles ahead, and moved a little faster, and watched their faces vanish behind me as I went down, and saw the two paranormal scientists enter behind me, and the others watch as the three of us descended, and left them behind, and I wondered what the hell I had done and if I would someday regret what I had done.
At a point deep below I heard scientists, which seemed magnified by the tunnel, as they conferred on what was below, after so much they had found so little so far, and they had been arranging the exploration of it for a long time, and I had been unchallenged in going down, and the scientists and archeologists had insisted, and had done everything to help.
It was strange as I thought of what was there, if I was not insane, and I realized it could be dormant, and being partially awakened, and was far different than anything else on this world, and it seemed to want to do something!
Our scan had activated something, and there were reports of ghost sightings in the region, and there were sightings of the soldiers from the battle that had taken place, and their ghostly figures marching along a region of the battle site.
A deep thud echoed came down from the top as someone at the top dropped something inside, while trying to look inside, and I and I speeded up.
It was their ultimate discovery and expedition and I wished it to be done right, and to give the full discovery everything that it deserved. Though I was mainly confused as to what had been discovered and would be found, especially after being surprised at so much in the past week, with such strange occurrences, and being given such little facts, and I believed the war had generated all the action, or perhaps something else had done it and had caused the war.
Hazy echoes off our deep breathing broke the extraordinary silence that accumulated, and we examined the walls around us with surprise as we shifted downwards, and it still mystified me, and I wondered what I was missing.
For some reason I realized that the other tunnel that we had been going through from the hospital led to what was at the bottom of this tunnel, and in its original state it had not wanted to be discovered and had later put the occurrences at the hospital to make us go there, and it had checked me out in the other tunnel, and before that in another state in the woman’s house.
I realized how ancient it was and it had been trapped on this world, waiting to leave this universe, which it had tried to do before on many occasions, and it had been buried higher above at one point.
In its current partially awakened/dormant state it was like some form of ultimate advanced living computer, in the ways it thought and existed, and in its partially altering state, still waiting to accomplish its plan, and had other forms and powers that could never exist in this universe.
Humans had once worshipped it when they had encountered it, and they had hidden its location, and Mary Queen of Scots had once been hidden away near it, before she was captured, when it had last met humans.
For some reason I knew things that I had not known, and I knew I was approaching something, and I tried straining my eyes to see further down, but there were no features of anything, and the steps vanished away into deep blackness.
When I looked backwards I saw the top of the tunnel had vanished into darkness, and I looked around and saw the paranormal scientists had vanished, and I knew it would make contact with me alone!
Chapter 30
The Lost Chamber
A loud screech from something strange startled me and nearly made me fall down the stone steps, and I waked on, and I stood dazzled and blinded as bright light exploded out, and I held my hands over my eyes, and my eyes slowly adjusted from the dark tunnel behind me, and I staggered down the last steps, into a twenty foot circular cavity.
I staggered straight into the blinding light, beaming from a large sphere formation, and felt its powerful energy pulsating through the floor, with some form of life, floating over the central region of the cavity, and I tried to grasp what was in front me!
Silent sounds manifested around my surroundings, as though invisible things were surrounding me, and I saw strange glowing and swirling ghostly formations, forces, and some were like spirits with shrouds, and flew about with silent wails, and I realized why people in the past reacted as they had.
The central thing resembled a magical living sphere, altering its forms of energy, and I felt its energy and powers, and knew it had no physical form, and it normally had a colossal size and powers somewhere else, and I tried to grasp what was there, and why it was there, and what Marple would explain it as!
In its blinding light I grasped little, and physically felt its powers everywhere, and saw mental images of stars exploding around me, as though I was shooting through the cosmos, some strange form of space, and I knew it was giving it to me.
Its formation seemed to have constant dramatic changes, and powerful energy surges, as though unstable, and it bordering on vanishing, and rejuvenating itself, and I watched it shift in its central region, as though trapped in some force field, and for a moment something formed in it, with some unknown form of life, and it altered as though its energy was constantly controlling itself.
In the blinding light I saw another tunnel entrance at the opposite side of the chamber and knew it led down to the tunnel that we had been going through from the hospital, and it had made it in an attempt to make contact with us, and it had made the black sphere in the cavity, under the hospital, after it had realized it would not work.
The black sphere had the capacity to communicate with us for it, but it had realized it
needed to make contact differently and by itself, and it had chosen me to do it as a representative of our species, as it had checked me out, especially after my use of the metal detector.
It was from some other form of existence, and it used vast amounts of energy making contact with me, and remaining out of its normal hibernation state, and I thought of what paranormal really meant, and thought of ancient devil and black magic worshippers, and I knew it was far more and from somewhere beyond our comprehension, and had been hidden away there from mankind from the dawn of time!
At one point something had been caught in its energy field, and it fought for its life to escape, and it altered itself, and it vanished from it to survive, and I was staggered at the sheer power of it and at what had been caught in it!
It was something artificial and something alive and I had to decide what to do, and I decided to do my best to help it!
I could not allow such a life form/existence to die, and such an advanced and rare species, after being alive for so long, and with it being trapped and trying to escape from there for so long, and I decided then and there to do my best to find a way to help it, and I would get Marple to help me do it as he was known to find solutions to such problems and had solved some of the hardest most advanced cases I had heard of.
I decided to leave and was about to climb back up the steps, to the building away above, and felt sorry for it being trapped there, and perhaps for eternity, and I wondered what the scientists would make of it and I knew that they would help it, and I decided what to do, and I realized I could be famous and remembered in history for the discovery, and the first discovery of an extraterrestrial.
The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) Page 9
