The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  Yet there was no sign of the scent of smoke or anything, and he sat upright in bed and watched a dark shadow from the mist creep over the walls, while cold swirling currents of mist shifted about in a hovering shape, and a wild beast’s blood-chilling screech came from a distant place, hidden out in the landscape, and he considered what it was.

  When his eyes adapted and his vision grew in strength he saw a cloud drifting about over the floor that was moving around as though there were no gravity and he considered if it was real or something else. He proved that it was not made of smoke and only looked like it – and was really something else that was unidentifiable that was very faint that he could hardly see – and he looked about to find its source and where it was being generated, but never saw anything and he checked if it was a mirage, and some form of light illusion and reflection off something, and he checked all possible sources. Yet there was nothing visible to him that could produce it and it hung in the air over the middle of the room and swirled about, and seemed to be actually doing something. He was unable to explain its presence, and he stayed where he was, and started to grasp it could be one of the supernatural disturbances there, like the mist in the wood, and he realized that it could be dangerous.

  When it thickened he started shifting and grabbed his clothes, without entering the central region, and he moved right up to it and watched it forming a turbulent cloud formation, with it forming shapes in itself, like something was forming itself into a life form, and, even after seeing all the things on the previous day in the tunnel, he still tried to prove that it was something else and he started thinking of other things that it could be.

  It was forming itself into something that was unidentifiable and he knew Merton and Mortimer would love to see it and started to work out a route to the door without entering it and realized that he would have to go through one of its edges.

  He strained himself and prepared himself to handle what could happen if it reacted and did anything. Though he could not really see it doing much as it was only in a mist formation!

  Then within it he spotted what looked like a head and he sat dazed trying to figure out what it would form into, confused at what would happen when it did! What if it formed some form of dangerous life form or something else?

  The color of the head region was white, with a far more dense shade than it had been minutes before, and it clearly was now forming at an accelerated rate, and he decided to go and get the others and rushed to the door and out into the corridor and looked out for others but never saw any of them about.

  When he knocked on Merton and Mortimer’s doors he wondered if he had imagined what it was and he informed them of what had happened and they both dressed quickly and rushed over with him to his room.

  They stood dazed examining it at the doorway, searching it for clues to its identity, trying to see what it could do.

  “What the hell is that?” Mitchell said, announcing his arrival from behind them, from the side of the doorway. “Is it dangerous?”

  “We don’t know yet?” Mortimer replied first, examining it more than the others. “What I want to know is why it’s in your room and why we have not seen this anywhere else?

  “What did you do yesterday? Did you go out into the wood or something? I noticed you were away for a long time ...”

  Bryson considered what to say and whether to tell him, ignore him, or tell him something else.

  “We went to find the other tunnel where Pendleton entered ...”

  “Was that over there where the police banned us from going?”

  “Yes! And we found it! Pendleton recalled where it was – as he now has an interest in the treasure ...”

  “That could have been dangerous!”

  “Did you find anything?” Mitchell said, startled at the mention of someone making a major move to find the treasure without him knowing of it. “What was there?”

  “We only found another tunnel like the other one under the library!”

  “Where is it then?”

  “I’ll have to show you!”

  “Alright! Show it to us later!”

  “I think it is transferring itself here!” Mortimer announced, staring at the formation forming in the center of the area in front of the bed.

  “What will we do with it?” Bryson muttered, wondering if it had a means of understanding them.

  “Wait here!” Mitchell replied, and he rushed off to get his men at their rooms.

  “It is becoming more powerful!” Merton stated, staring at its large head shape that kept reforming into something, which it was clearly putting most of its time and energy into.

  Bryson spotted that it had transformed into normal matter in places and that yellow slime dripped from its head into the carpet, and a slight human/animal odor scented the air.

  The thing seemed to sense something somewhere, perhaps danger, and increased how fast it was building itself, and Bryson wondered why it had chosen his room – which the others thought was connected to his visit to the tunnel – and he wondered why something wanted to visit him and he realized that it could have easily formed itself somewhere nearby!

  The main questions had to be was it dangerous and what did it want to do there?

  Mitchell arrived with his men and their weapons, and moved Bryson and the two scientists out of the way, and stood at the doorway aiming their guns at it, waiting for the opportunity to fire at it.

  Bryson wondered if they could kill it in its original state as the bullets surely would have gone straight through it, and now it could keep repairing the damage.

  “What are we going to do with it?” Merton suddenly announced emotionally, realizing something about it, deliberately grasping Mitchell’s attention.

  “What we need to do now is decide what to do with it if it does not attack us?” Mortimer continued, wondering what Merton had noticed, and he studied it in detail.

  Bryson looked at where Merton was staring, at its head region, and he suddenly noticed that it was taking the shape of a human head, and realized that they could be in trouble if they destroyed it in the form of a human.

  Chapter 16

  The New Species of Human

  Once it had completely formed into a human the men dropped their guns down and stared at it with their mouth open, and they acknowledged that they had to have witnessed a miracle.

  Surprisingly Bryson had to be the most startled and if not certainly the most confused as it was identical to him, and he realized he was now going to meet himself.

  The men seemed happier that they were not now in any apparent danger, and they could destroy it or take it prisoner.

  Bryson started to wonder if it had any of his memories and wondered how much of a danger it was to him? Was it intelligent? What did it want? Why had it deliberately done it in front of him, and when he awoke?

  Did it have a mission? Was it connected to the thing or was it the thing itself that he had encountered in the tunnel the day before? And was it the same thing that had done the killings there?

  They all seemed confused and wishing for answers, and a few of the police, some of Mitchell’s men knew, had passed there and had tried to explain what had been happening, and now never understood why there was another Bryson about.

  They watched it put on some clothes one of Mitchell’s men got for it and stand next to them at the doorway, and Bryson realized that not only had it put on clothes that it had done it in the same way that he normally did, and he gasped at the thing knowing all his thoughts and memories and he tried to work out how dangerous it could be.

  Yet the supernatural thing could have read and got his make up from the first seconds that he entered the supernatural vortex, and perhaps even before then when he had arrived at the castle.

  What was the answer to this problem? None of them knew what they were dealing with! Was it more than one thing? Were the rest things that it had picked up through the vortex? And what was it up to? Was it part of the thing in the tunnel t
hat he had visited the day before?

  He did think it had some connection to the thing in the tunnel as it had looked as if it had wanted to make contact or something with him, but he did not risk it as he could have end up in a worse place and situation than the last time!

  Yet why had the thing in the tunnel wanted to make contact with him when he must have made contact with it going into the other tunnel and going through the vortex? The thing would have got all the information that it had wanted there and could have communicated with him! Was there two things – one in each tunnel – or perhaps more?

  Bryson watched the copy of himself and realized that he could learn a lot of things from it and about himself, and saw all the advantages of it being there. If it was there to do harm why did it not just kill him?

  His first thing to do was try to communicate with it and somehow get information about its mission.

  Merton and Mortimer took Mitchell further up the corridor and communicated in whispers with him, decided on something and returned, and they took him and the thing down to the empty dinning room, and closed the door behind them, and offered the thing food that Bryson normally ate and they all ate their breakfast, with Bryson sitting opposite them directly in front of the thing, occasionally watching it with some amazement. He had never fully known what he had been like until now – even though it had a great deal of different reactions – mainly due to it being a stranger and unfamiliar with many things – and Bryson slowly accepted it was something else in his body, and realized the potential again, as well as the others as well, and them actually getting information from the thing haunting the place.

  Yet after more observations he realized that it could be something else – and not the thing haunting there!

  None of them said anything to it and waiting for something to happen, and Bryson wondered what would happen and sat chewing pieces of his food, considering what he would do if he was it in different scenarios and when he finished he considered what the others would do, until he felt that he had considered everything, and was surprised that something else actually happened instead and the dinning room door swiftly swung open and two archeologists entered with startled faces – and stared at the two versions of Bryson facing each other across the table with amazement and laughed – and even thought of changing what they had planned to do but went through with it anyway.

  Both of them sat next to Mitchell and one of them removed some documents and placed them on the table in front of him, and Bryson recognized him as the archeologist that had been at the tomb when they had taken it up into the room and found the tomb had the name William Randall engraved on it.

  “We had both skeletons examined to see if they are genetically linked to Bryson’s blood sample you gave us?” the archeologist announced. “To prove what one was William Randall and what one was not William Randall!”

  “As William Randall is marked as being in a tomb at the other castle and in the tomb here ...” Mitchell continued further, vaguely amused, watching the thing along the table from him.

  “That’s correct!” he replied, almost laughing hideously for some reason that baffled Bryson – who wondered which one had been the authentic one – thinking the archeologist would now tell them that it was neither.

  “We even had the results checked again after receiving them!” the archeologist firmly replied.

  “And what ...?” Mitchell moaned.

  “Well! They are both William Randall!” the archeologist announced, handing the documents over to them, shrugging and wondering again why the stranger looked like Bryson.

  Chapter 17

  The Two Randalls

  Bryson recalled examining the features of the skeleton in the tomb at the top floor and comparing it with the other skeleton at the last castle and knew that they had been the same.

  The other version of him had seemed to react for a brief moment when it had been told!

  Bryson was astonished and realized that there had been two William Randalls and that they had not been twins! Mitchell had suggested that they had been twins and that the accounts of them had for some reason missed out details of them, which was common in historical accounts as Bryson had learned on many occasions, but the archeologist had firmly declared that they had not been twins and had been identical – and that the documents affirmed that they were of the same person.

  It was strange as he now had to think of there being two William Randalls at two castles and he wondered what had happened to create such a situation? How did the William Randall at the top floor die? And why had he been put where he had been? And what had people at the time thought of it, and he wondered if they had thought of it as witchcraft? There had been accounts of it at the last castle, and he even thought the occurrences there had been responsible for putting so much accounts of witchcraft into the history books – as they had been the only proper accounts of witchcraft happening – as far as he was concerned!

  For a moment they had all silently watched the other him at the table as he had finished his meal and Bryson had started going through the problems that might surface and that they might keep identifying it as being him and vice versa, and he had wondered what would happen if it started claiming it was and how he could explain to people who had not witnessed what had happened what was happening? They could barely explain anything there to the police already and they insisted in knowing everything there!

  He wondered what it was classed as? If it had not been for the strange appearance it had made in his room he could have taken it for something else! He might have thought the disturbance had done something with time and allowed an earlier or older version of him to appear!

  Bryson could not realize who was more amazed him or the others, and he dared not let the other him out of his sight in case it did something that he would get the blame for!

  “Just tell me – what the hell you are?” Mitchell demanded once, finally trying answer at least one of his queries.

  “I do not know!” it announced, clearly not knowing.

  “I never knew you had a brother?” Mitchell continued, amused, trying to think of what he was missing. He clearly thought there was a hidden joke!

  “I don’t remember anything!” it continued, not knowing what to do now.

  “What? You lost your memory? Where did that happen?”

  “On my way back here!”

  “Back here!” Mitchell replied, and laughed loudly. “What? You are claiming you were here and left ...?”

  “Of course! I awakened – up there!”

  The stranger pointed over in the direction that that had come from, from Bryson’s room, and Bryson tried to detect if it was now following an act to cover up its identity.

  Mitchell heard a noise from his communication device and picked it up and started talking to someone.

  Bryson wondered what would happen if the thing made copies of all of them? They would be breaking the law if they tried to do anything to them! What could they do with them? Could they prove that they were aliens?

  Bryson decided to keep the thing near him! But not to near! He was not going to sleep with it near him! Yet the thing could have easily have already killed him in his opinion!

  “That’s strange!” Mitchell announced, leaving the room. “A lot of the stuff on the people here has been erased from our files!”

  Bryson immediately wondered why Mitchell had files on the people there, and as if they knew about it. It was strange! They had brought Mitchell there to find the treasure and basically help them with anything dangerous – and he was now running things further than anyone else – and seemed to have connections in the police as well as in the military, where he seemed to be still a major figure for some reason, which he had claimed he had no longer anything to do with – and all the men working for him had treated him as being far more than ex-military, and some had even given him a high up military title and salute.

  Bryson watched Merton and Mortimer follow him out and leave him alone w
ith the thing, facing him across the table.

  “So what’s your name then?” Bryson finally asked jokingly, realizing that he had to talk to it and he had been in far worse situations there already – like going through the vortex ...

  “Bryson!” it joked back, making him gag for a moment.

  “We could be twins?” he replied, not just joking but seriously trying to solve the problem of what to do with it, for the moment.

  “Alright!”

  “My name is Bryson so you’ll have to choose another ...”

  “Call me Thomas!” it replied, making him gasp again, knowing it had deliberately used his first name knowing that it had not been told to it, and he thanked it for letting him know it.

  “Choose another!”

  “Call me William then!”

  “Alright!”

  “Maybe we can do each other a favor ... We could have information that we both want?”

  “You are perfectly correct!”

  Bryson observed how human and identical it really was and tried to establish the differences in it to establish what it was really like and he saw differences in the way it used its features.

  Chapter 18

  The Thing from the Tunnel

  Bryson wondered if the thing was automatically carrying out a programming given to it by what was in the second tunnel, even though it was capable of being human and doing human things it was like it was carrying out a plan, which he never fully knew what and left it as it wanting to gather information.

  It seemed to like finding information on what it could and checking for anything of interest, abnormalities, and he watched it examining things. And even though he could not get if it was hiding anything he avoided questioning it.

  He was starting to think Mitchell was part of scheme to carry out some very illegal activity there. Yet what could he be up to there? Unless he intended to take the treasure away and disappear with it?