The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  What was their story? Why was he there? Why did they not send in an entire military group to search the place? It would take them far longer for them to get results the way that they were working there!

  He felt amazed at actually meeting an alien and one of the builders of the tunnels out there, and the killer that they had been hunting for, with the police everywhere and the story being covered by the media in such depth.

  The problem now was he never thought the other death was the alien killer and that something else had completely drained the body of water and of something else that they could not recognize.

  A glance into the corridor once again showed him that the archaeologists were scanning regions of the castle with their equipment as they had said they would.

  Bryson was amazed at the destruction some had made and they had removed the lower ceiling to reveal the original ceiling, made of solid oak beams, and he considered what it would be like being upon the castle roof and wondered why they never searched there?

  The wires from the lights had rot and webs over them and had been easily broken and were in bits scattered over the floor, and he eyed up the mess wondering why they had not left it and if someone intended to fix it as they would have no lights there if they were not repaired.

  The place would have to be cleaned up anyway or left if the place remained with its disturbances, as many more deaths would follow, and he wondered how the hell they would handle the situation? Would the military make it a forbidden zone?

  Bryson marched along the corridor occasionally looking into rooms, which the others had clearly rigorously searched through, and he made an occasional search of anything that looked interesting to see if he could spot anything that they had not.

  Bryson decided to go and see William, and left the top floor, and was amazed to see the police rushing up the stairs on the next floor and going out to the scene of another death, and he decided to follow to discover what had happened.

  At the door of a room, where the police had gone in, Bryson studied a crumpled up body of one of the police and gasped and realized that all the police would be returning there, and he realized that he recognized the policeman and had seen him a few times at the lounge and he tried to see if he had missed anything about the death and if there was anything different this time, and as he did he realized that the police there thought the alien was the culprit – and that they thought there was another there.

  Again the body was completely drained of water and of something else that he could not recognize and he saw why they had blamed the alien, and he even considered if it had been. The alien in the wood had been a genetic cross with a human! What if the proper alien was far different? The genetic cross version was clearly adapted to meet and talk to humans.

  According to the alien they had advanced technology – and had built the tunnels – and had made human sacrifices to their ancient gods. Yet it could have lied to cover up there being aliens there, or were there others that it had not known about?

  Chapter 22

  The Invasion

  Only a few days had passed and six more deaths had occurred in the castle, and Bryson realized that there must be at least a hundred policemen there now.

  The entire castle and media to Bryson seemed to be going crazy – mentioning and thinking of the occurrences at the castle!

  The deaths were unbelievable and all done in the same hideous fashion leaving the victims drained of energy! The police could not realize anything new now! And it seemed something was killing people all about them, right under their noses, which was totally unbelievable, and it was like someone had come up with something to make a fool of them all and ruin their methods of detection and representation. All their leading people from all over the country were trying to solve the mystery! The most advanced surveillance methods and equipment were everywhere monitoring the place night and day.

  Yet the problem with it was that they never put it in people’s rooms or in the rooms that the people were working in – but in the main places and corridors that any person would have to through to get someone, including the outer building.

  Yet most of the people now had phones and were sharing rooms and could hear any sounds from the rooms next to them, as well as having the corridors monitored by the police and soldiers guarding them.

  What annoyed Bryson was nothing indicated and gave any clues to what it was!

  William seemed confused and to be in danger like the rest of them and Bryson and everyone else watched him everywhere, and he just gave confused remarks.

  There were stories being put on television for days and mainly because it was the only real occurrence that was happening! Everyone seemed to be taking an interest in it and their safety! Most, Bryson believed, wondered what would happen if it started occurring everywhere – and they could not even control the region of the castle!

  Everyone took it that it had been a human killer and not something else, which was only suggested, clearly because of the castle! Surely something so hideous, evil, and unearthly that they suggested could not exist? He tried to ignore how hideous it was, trying to look upon it as an artist observed a crazy exhibit, but it was no use! Something was now out to get them! The things in the wood, if they were not the culprits, were nothing compared to it and they now looked as if they had been playing with them and only scaring them away from their territory.

  The thing, whatever it was, played with their imaginations and they were not allowed to get anything about it and if it had been something like the aliens that had built the tunnels in the wood. There still was no connection and anything in the castle!

  He had thoughts that it could be what had caused all the deaths through the centuries and that the thing had been thrown out of one of the gateways, vortex in the tunnel, or from what had put the aliens there. It could have been trapped there, and perhaps not been such a killer, and it could either have gone mad or something had happened to it to make that way.

  The only real evidence that existed was what had happened to the people killed by it! The complexion of the bodies showed it had drained them of blood and showed the deadliness of the place, and their chances of survival had vastly decreased and danger could now exist there in the castle and during the day.

  They never knew what they were up against and how to survive against it! They were becoming defenseless and they could not do anything about it!

  They were confused more than he could ever recall seeing the police and they had difficulty talking about what was occurring because they had so little!

  Strange thoughts of him leaving the cold confines of the place and whole region gave him shivers of ecstatic pleasure once again!

  Yet the pleasure they would get if they solved the case and showed it to the world was far greater, and it was clear in the things that they said, especially in the dinning room when they were not working. It was a classic new scenario and there seemed no way to solve it! Something had to happen? How could they stay there with more and more deaths occurring without what was behind it being caught?

  Bryson kept thinking of it at two angles and that he could leave and go on holiday to some hot place next to a desert or when he realized what was happening that he quite definitely would have to be forced into leave there as he did not want to miss what happened there.

  He worked out the exact time the deaths occurred and asked the police what their times for the deaths occurring were and they all closely matched, and he recorded all the times, and he tried to compare the times with each other to see what they all had in common. What had been happening there when the deaths had occurred? Were they at the same times of the day or were they at times something happened?

  Yet after a great deal of investigation he only proved that they were random times! He also checked the people who had been killed and what they had in common, what they had been doing, and at the time of their deaths, and what locations they had been in and he established that there were no real connections other t
han that they had been on their own and mainly in places that people had not been near, which showed whatever it had been had deliberately hidden itself, which he considered might show that it might be destroyed.

  Was the thing only being safe, preferring solitude, or did it have weaknesses and could be destroyed? The thing could be anything though? It surely was not of this world! It could have been a normal powerful alien life form turned into one of the most deadliest entities, still with reactions of its original self, and he considered how they could use that? Could they find a way to scare it from there? Could they persuade it to do something else?

  The police still unsuccessfully tried to discover how the killer had drained the victims of water and energy, and there was a suggestion a scientist was thought be involved or the technology of one had been used. Yet Bryson never believed anything to do with any scientists was involved, and he knew that the thing doing it did not really need what it was taking from them – unless it was some form of vampire.

  He believed it was using the best way it could to kill them, and silently and quickly!

  The rooms that most of the victims had been found in left them wondering why they had been there working alone!

  Most of them still felt safe in the inhabited regions of the castle!

  He could not get why no sounds seemed to be heard from the attacks? Why the deaths had not been heard? And he knew that the castle and its thick stones and strange formation could alter sounds – making silent sounds travel further at some places and stop even the loudest sounds being heard at some nearby places!

  The police seemed to have secrets concerning the alien killer that they had killed in the wood and many of them thought there were more – and that they clearly had the technology to carry out the deaths. They had built the tunnels there!

  Why kill them though? The alien in the wood had done it to survive and not get caught! The only logical reason, other than it liked it, was that it was determined to destroy them or scare them away from the castle!

  Chapter 23

  The Military

  Bryson was amazed when he entered the psychic researcher’s room, at the tunnel with the vortex, where the scientists were still setting up equipment around the wall where the vortex was behind, and that their equipment had gone beyond anything that he had seen, which was immense and powerful, and the power supply there had been increased immensely to it with large cables being fed into there from massive generators.

  He had not even been able to get near Merton and Mortimer, who now were just advisors on things! They had so much work that they had not slept in a long time!

  The military scientists there had full control of the situation, and they clearly knew the equipment far greater than any of them.

  The military’s mission there seemed to be a death or glory scenario. He was sure that they really wanted answers to what was there – and not to free the castle from what was there – and get any new technology or advancements there were a far greater achievement. Their interest in the aliens there was tremendous and far more than he had thought! They were checking out all the tunnels there and the alien that the police had killed, and where he had been staying and everything about him.

  They had seen the story all over the media and had decided in sending in more people to investigate. Yet there was still much confusion on what was happening there and what was there, and they could only really investigate things as far he was concerned.

  Some high-ranking officers had arrived and were being escorted around places by Mitchell, which Bryson gave occasional gasps at, thinking of what was killing people there. There had been two more deaths, unseen and unsolved again, and three sightings of other things of paranormal that resembled ghosts. The disturbances were clearly increasing and Bryson and the other scientists were working away to solve the situation, and find a solution, and he had been surprised that the treasure there was being forgotten, for the moment anyway.

  Bryson was amazed when Merton and Mortimer handed him a military report and other documents, which they insisted he saw, perhaps to give his opinion on.

  Documents told of investigations there going back to the start of the last century, before Pendleton and his friends had arrived there, and of police investigations that had told of paranormal disturbances, and why they and the military had left the place, and gave major investigations in the sixties that had ended with all the scientists there being killed and their bodies being found later, and that they had fenced the entire region off, and not allowed anyone near there, and that it had been left for people of the future to investigate someday with proper technology and ways of investigating and handling what existed there.

  Again Bryson realized that all the scientists there were in danger, and that he would be lucky to get away from there alive!

  Bryson knew there was far more behind Mitchell and the military being there, and he left things there. He wondered again what Mitchell would have put in his report about his entering the tunnel and going through the vortex.

  In the end the paranormal scientists had decided against going near or in the direct path of the alien if they were able to detect where it was, which was what they were attempting to do, and to locate the vortex and everything with it in other dimensions, and find out what was there and build up an illustration of it and what they were dealing with.

  The problem was getting their equipment to work as their attempts had so far failed there, and the stuff had never been fully and properly tested as not very many things existed in other dimensions.

  If anything attacked them they had a procedure to escape from there, which Bryson thought was all they could do at the moment!

  He wondered if it would turn predictable, since it could beat their weapons and had killed large amounts of soldiers, and mainly intended to wipe everyone out and scare the living daylights out of them.

  All the paranormal scientists had recently had consultations with all the other scientists and the military and they now entirely left their minds open to what was there and would happen.

  Bryson was surprised that when one of the scientists started cheerfully calling them over to a computer screen and showed a blurred view of the vortex in the tunnel, which Bryson was sure was of the vortex in another dimension as it was normally invisible and he had only seen it when he had entered it in an altered state in another dimension.

  “This is entirely new!” Mortimer stated, considering it from various perspectives, and he watched it as if he had been waiting all his life to see what was there, and gasped slightly.

  “What do you make of it?” Mitchell asked, walking over to them. “We so far have had nothing properly put forward on what its identity is?”

  “How about calling it a vortex?” Bryson stated, realizing that Mitchell had entered the vortex too.

  “You’re right! It can be called some form of vortex!”

  “Well, it’s a start!” Mortimer continued. “The visible part of the vortex has been detected in another dimension! We should be able search what else is there. For instance what is causing the vortex to exist, and what it really is? Maybe even places it leads to!”

  They were there to investigate what other scientists had not and to do it to a greater degree every time and Bryson was positive by their reactions that they had never had their day yet and they now never considered that they might never come upon anything, and achieve their goal, and that it would not be left for the people who followed them someday to find and get marked in the history books for.

  If only they could find something there that had gone undetected by everyone else, with their detection methods and equipment being improved!

  He gasped when he considered what they could come up with if they had something that really worked – as they had advanced far further than he had even imagined, and the place was packed solid with ever form of equipment possible and it went beyond his imagination what they might do.

  It was like an experiment to Merton and M
ortimer to see what would happen if they pushed beyond the boundaries of natural science, and out into the supernatural.

  The dark sky of the place through the room widow now showed him the abyss of billions of light years of space, and the dangers of their exploration, and he considered if they would find anything if they used the equipment at night.

  Chapter 24

  The Interdimensional Surveillance

  Once they had moved all the equipment that they needed over to a room at the second tunnel the other scientists joined them, and Mitchell arrived, and stood wondering, looking slightly annoyed and watching the equipment.

  The scientists decided to check the second tunnel at the same time as the other tunnel with their improved outer dimensional scan, to see if they were connected to each as the majority of the scientists believed, which Bryson also wanted to find out.

  It was morning and the scientists had increased the power of the dimensional scan and had started exploring the other tunnel.

  Bryson sensed that there was something that they were not saying, but he knew he would only needed to wait for them to tell what it was as they were in danger and needed to give all the information that they could, to survive there.

  While he considered what could happen next the scientists started examining the information on their screens on the equipment, and he wondered if the stuff worked anything like the stuff for detecting neutrinos, and he considered what it did.

  “It’s found something new!” Merton announced, updating Mitchell and the other scientists on what they had found. “I’ve not seen anything like it! It is unknown and looks like it has intelligence!”