The military head officer talking to Marple amazed me, and his accounts of the occurrences were astonishing, and surprised Marple, and he occasionally laughed at them, and I overheard his conversation with another officer over attacks at highly confidential military bases, and the theft of large amounts of a highly confidential deadly high explosive material, and that the whole of the military was searching for its whereabouts.
It was incredible as the scientists at their laboratories at the military bases claimed the ghostly formations had been sighted and something had taken it from them, and the military officers insisted it was someone who had used it to take it.
They wished to investigate things further there, and if they had found something, and had heard of the occurrences with McMurdo and the earthquake, and wanted to solve what had happened.
Yet nobody seemed to know what was behind it, and it seemed to be the source of the occurrences, and it was getting dangerous!
I tried to detect any differences in the surrounding environment, and I silently gasped when I noticed some of the life forms the archeologists had uncovered had moved to new positions again, and looked as if they had at one point attempted to do something.
I stood with my mouth partly open trying grasp what the hell they were and if they had come alive, and how the hell they would handle it there, and it felt as if some incredible event was going to occur, or was starting to occur.
I watched all the scientists standing around waiting for something to happen, viewing things differently now, and I realized many were standing near particular places and watching some archeologists actively digging deep into the ground.
Suddenly Marple approached me and showed me the cleaned up scan they got beneath the cavity, and showed me what looked like tunnels below there.
Yet many were faint tunnels that had collapsed, and he showed where the archaeologists were digging and that there was a tunnel below, and I realized they were on to something, and trying to enter it.
I realized it went in the same direction as the tunnel we had followed, but the view of all the tunnels was muddled and I could not see where they were going, and why none of them seemed to lead anywhere, and it looked like something had been removed from it.
Suddenly a vast unstable energy shockwave, from deep below, somewhere, blasted out and vanished, with such force it threatened to smash the cavity, and some rocks fell down across the ground in areas.
I recalled the earthquake and McMurdo’s warnings and I wondered what the hell it really was, and what really was going to happen, and I watched parts of the equipment explode and burst into flames nearby, and scientists quickly turning everything that was undamaged off, while gasping at the power of it.
When it was over many looked glad to be still alive and that nobody had been killed, and that the cavity and roof overhead had not come crashing down on top of them, and most were happy that they could not use the equipment again.
The major scientists were only concerned in what they had found, and I saw them searching through the recorded data, and I moved over to see it.
From what I gathered was that they believed something was stopping them from seeing what was really below and that the new instantaneous scan still showed little that they had not previously seen, and that they had to search below themselves to find it, and I spotted strange reactions from the archaeologists who were digging down to the tunnel, and I saw them starting to break through into what was below.
Chapter 24
The Lost Ancient Tunnels
White radiance streaked through clouds of dust in the cave from Marple’s bright torch as I shifted down, and Oswald climbed down, and we shifted away into the tunnel, startled at what we were doing, and how far we were going.
Nobody else wanted to join us, and the people who never thought it was too dangerous had no reason to enter it, and only the three of us had firm enough objectives to check it.
It was incredible! I was glad to even see spiders and webs hanging from the rocks, and going over me, as we strolled on through, entering its dark confines, as it seemed so deadly and hideous, with demons lurking in its dark regions.
Once I thought I saw something watching us, from behind us, in the darkness, and carefully listened behind me, for anything, and the slightest clue of it being real.
It surprise me when the tunnel changed direction, and took us in the opposite directions, and I wondered why, as the people who had built surely would have built it straight lines, and we found another cave below, where its roof and our floor had caved in, and we entered the cave below.
When we entered it I sensed something strange, as though there was something else there, and that we were getting closer to where we wanted to go, and I was surprised at the new cave as it was made far better, and had clearly been made by someone else.
It was in a long straight tunnel going downwards and my dreamy sight probed into its confines, and into an abyss going deep into the ground, and I watched silky dust fall down from the roof and blow about in light beams, and the unmarked dust on the ground as we rushed on.
Faint echoes of our noises and breathing could be heard in its extraordinary silence, and I wondered where it led to, and what we were doing, and what the outcome would be.
It was incredible at one point I felt like we were the only people alive, and I was surprised to see a thin fog in an area ahead, and I watched it hover there, and could not grasp why it was there, and wondered if it was gas, and was surprised that Marple just ignored it and marched straight through it, and I realized there was no smell from it, and saw it was little.
It was like entering another time in the past, and expected to see ancient tunnel builders, in their ancient clothing!
I was confused by its length and wondered why it went so deep, and why the builders had gone there for whatever it was.
Out of nowhere I saw a powerful light appear and vanish ahead, and we stopped and studied there, and Marple wondered what it was, and we eventually ignored it.
Later I started to realize the dangers, and if what was there was the same as the killer Santa, and I realized we should not do anything, and ignore it, and I realized whatever it was it had been attempting to copy things, and it was as though it could not properly grasp what it was copying, and I recalled McMurdo’s warning, and his belief it was the devil!
Chapter 25
The End of the Tunnel
In dimness at the front of us, just in the light’s range, I watched dim gleams from things in the stone reflect dim light, playing with my hazy tired sight.
Faint echoes of breathing and occasional murmurs could be heard in its extraordinary silence, and by Marple’s sudden frantic reactions I sensed that he believed that something was actually ahead, and I wondered what.
I watched the light probe what was there, and it beamed out over a circular cavity ahead, which had been created using the same method as the tunnel.
The cavity was strange, when I entered it, and never seemed to fit in with what we had already seen!
The roof was at a height of twenty feet, and I caught glimpses of where things had once been, and I listened to surreal echoes of our movements, and as I entered its central region I conjured up vague visions of spooky ancient Roman ghosts in its confines.
I shifted into its fringes, treating it as an archeological find, as I rested from our journey there, and long day, and I curiously watched Marple searching, and wondered what he expected to find there anyway.
At the front an object came into my sight and I saw that a massive black boulder had fallen down behind the tunnel entrance, across the front, where the tunnel would have continued, and I wondered if it had stopped us reaching our real destination, as I and Oswald could not see anything there, and all there was there was the cavity, and yet Marple continued searching it, and looking at his treasure map.
He approached massive the black boulder blocking the entrance, and felt its smoothness with his fingertips, through thick webs
and dirt, and looked up startled, and removed his hands, and started examining it, and placed his hands over its surface and traced its perfect shape, measuring it, and he stepped back, and saw something in the dirt below, and started brushing the dirt away from it.
To our surprise he gradually revealed an open-mouthed skeleton with a rusted knife embedded in its chest.
We went over to it and examined it, and discussed what age it could be, and Marple tried to get information about the person, and he searched the remains of the clothing of the man, but nothing was there except pieces of rope where he had been tied.
To me it looked like where devil worship or witchcraft could have taken place.
“Someone gave a human sacrifice here to something!” Marple stated, considering what had happened.
I moved back checking it all in more detail, and I saw its hideous agonized face more, covered in dirt – where the person had hideously died with his mouth open in pain, and had remained that way for centuries.
Marple continued brushing away thick dirt from it and about it, while some crumbling bits of gray rot fell off the skeleton.
I grasped its hideous outline, and I stepped back wondering what the place was, and why it was there, and why everything I expected now kept turning out differently.
We checked everything we could in the cavity and found little, and a large boulder against a side wall, which looked mysterious, and out of place.
Eventually we started resting, and I rested near the skeleton, after making some close examinations of it, and I realized that if the large black boulder in front of it had fallen down and blocked the tunnel ahead that something could be behind it, and I started wondering what the hell could be there, and why they had been making human sacrifices.
Epilogue
The Thing from Beyond Reality
Gigantic eruptions blasted out everywhere, woke us from our sleep, in unadulterated horror, with such force that with my eyes shut I thought I was in some form of early state of death.
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but blinding light, and energy exploding out everywhere, threatening to do damage to the physical universe, and for some reason I imagined space and time going out for light years, going across vast reaches of space, and I wondered what the hell it was!
Echoes of our last conversations and occurrences, before we had gone to sleep, went through my mind as I tried to grasp what happened, and as I did my eyes altered to the unadulterated dazzling light, and I wondered where the hell the cave and cavity had gone, and I felt the ground beneath me with my feet, and I considered what could have happened, and looked about for my companion explorers, and saw their vague shapes further out.
The vast powers surrounding us were staggering and I wondered how we could escape alive, as surely we were still underground somewhere, and I started searching everywhere I could see, and saw that the cave and cavity had vanished, and all about me I realized I was surrounded by strange energy formations, energy formation, and I watched its energy in vast complex formations doing strange things, and some regions altering to other formations, as though reforming, and I watched Marple and Oswald examining it.
Away in the distance I incredibly saw a cavity wall, and I saw it going around us, which I measured it at around four miles away, going across our front, and the roof a few hundred feet above.
I realized if I was going to die that I was best being on my own, and having the others away at a distance, and I wondered if I would get what we were up against, and what we were actually investigating, and what had just happened.
After a long time I realized it had a definite state, and had been in another state, and it was close to completion, and I was surprised to see we were actually at its edge, with Marple and Oswald at two different positions at my side, and I tried to realize what it now was.
It had formed a perfect energy formation of some sort, clearly of transcendent origins, and pulsated in the center of it and the cavity, and I examined the rim of the cavity all round me and saw that it held, and never looked as though it would collapse.
I sensed something would happen and I saw it happen and an immense whirlpool of energy lines magically shifting around it, and I studied it for a long time fascinated and realized that it had no proper presence in this universe and was some form of force formation, perhaps going through many dimensions, and I saw signs of a vortex within it, and its energy patterns!
I suddenly realized the black boulder that had been blocking the cavity had been its edge, and subconscious region, in the dormant formation it had taken, and it had not actually been solid, and made of matter, and it had mixed rock atoms within it and over its edge to hide itself, and that it as the black boulder had actually stretched out for nearly four miles, under central London, and the cavity had been built in front of it, which I looked about behind me and saw, in the cavity wall there, and for some reason I realized I had actually activated it.
I was left staggered and recalled going to sleep beside it, and recalled touching it once and feeling a strange energy from it, and pulling away my hand, and I realized my touching it had done something and activated it.
I realized that I had seen it as the rock formation and a vague line in the last scan the scientists had taken in the cavity above, and that they had described it as something else.
I realized something in me had activated it, and revived it, and I sensed its communications with it, and I gasped at the vast complexity of it, and that it was exchanging information, and suddenly I realized it was in communication with the thing we had discovered under the building at Battlefield Road, which was in the basement in the museum, and I realized it had been part of it, and the lost section of it, which it had used for exploration, and it had been unable to leave the universe without it, and it had split itself into two, and the other half was far smaller than it in this universe, and it had put part of itself in me with the aim of locating it, and I realized that both parts of it had been trapped there, unable to do anything, and had been too far apart to detect each other in the state they had been in.
I also realized it had created a subconscious part of it, when it had gone dormant, and that it had created it to protect it and awaken it if it detected its other half, and it had been it that created the Santa and other formations, in its weakened state, from being activating and deactivating over vast amounts of time, and I realized it had been activated by McMurdo in the cavity at the underground railway line, and had been in its weakened state after being there for so long, and had been almost crazy, and had been protecting it, and was stopping people discovering it, and scaring them away.
In the past it attempted to discover what it needed and let people build tunnels, and it had created tunnels and cavities, and many had later been hidden or destroyed.
I realized that it had found a way to leave the universe to where it had come from, but it had never been able to go through with its plan, and I was left staggered at the sheer power and forces of it, and magnitude, and I realized it had even created humans to achieve its goal, from other species, and it had genetically altered them to advance.
It had originally been unable to even define what existed in this universe, and its first attempts at making and altering species were left in the cavity McMurdo uncovered, in suspended states, and many had been found on other worlds, in the depths of the universe, and it had determined humans would progress far enough to give it what it wanted, to complete its mission, and its subconscious state had helped humans progress.
It had detected humans creating plutonium atomic bombs and had realized they had enough power for it to leave the universe!
I recalled two of the scientists secretively talking about the atomic bombs, and the sheer power of them, and I recalled the army officer mention there had been a break in at their secret military bases, and that something had been taken, and I was sure they might have traced something to there, as its Santa entity had been detected being transmitted under the buildings, an
d it had later been traced to the cavity region.
I was left staggered by everything and at its real history, and that it had been trying to survive in this universe, and wanted to someday escape from its confines, and I was sure I sensed it react as it prepared itself to leave, as though it had thought of leaving, and escaping from its imprisonment and eventual destruction, and I thought of where it came from and I realized that I still never had a clue what was there and where it was.
Everything around me seemed to explode with energy and alter, reviving it, putting life back into it, and it pulsated furiously with more energy than it ever had since it arrived, and appeared on this desolate world, with its strange existence.
It was something out of a mind-bending dream, altering its formations, as it completed its mission, and I felt energy from it blast through my body, and everything transformed, and it vanished, leaving emptiness, blackness, and Marple and Oswald turned on their lights, and we stood mystified in the massive empty cavity.
I eventually looked for our exit and checked the tunnel, where we had been, where the small cavity we slept in had been, and saw something shine near it.
When I was about to enter the tunnel, with Marple and Oswald behind me, as we went silently back up to the surface, I spotted something strange hidden in the darkness there, and after careful and close examinations I realized it was large black wooden chests, heaped in a pile on top of one another, and I rushed over and crouched down in front of it, and held one, which was partly open, where I had seen the shine appear.
The Reality Investigators Page 7
