Bryson considered it for a moment and realized that was what Mitchell was considering, and he wondered if he would knock a hole in the wall of the room where the map cross had been marked? Their faces still some showed puzzlement, indicating that he had a problem and had not realized how best to get into it.
Bryson started tapping the room wall and listening to see how hollow it was in different places.
Mitchell decided to do more, suddenly looking more energetic!
“It would be a shame to ruin this wall,” Bryson explained, considering the hole that they had made in the floor to enter the chamber beneath the floor. “It could make a hell of a mess!”
The man who had found the mark on the map suddenly used the opportunity to show them what they were missing and went over to the corner of the room and lifted up the edges of the wallpaper, showing them that there was, in fact, a gap going around the entire wall, and looked like a large crack and was deliberately concealed.
“What do you think it is then?” Bryson asked, confused, not fully grasping what it was or what he was explaining it was.
“We’ll need to find a way to tug it out from the side at the door as the hinges are at the other side,” he replied, and Bryson shrugged and decided to wait for him to show him what he was talking about.
He went to different places of the wall examining the crack and inserted a tool into the gap, which allowed him to grip the wall and yank it slightly outwards, proving nothing was holding it, and Bryson recalled an inner library that they had found at the last castle, and realized that the wall was really a giant doorway concealing something behind it, and he helped the man pull it out, and soon realized that it opened out on hinges at the opposite side.
It opened out like a giant door revealing a hidden chamber full of old books and scrolls, and Mitchell’s men saw value in the books and the information they could hold, and Bryson wondered why the map had it marked on it and why someone would keep just books as a secret?
Chapter 22
The Police Investigation
A bright large fire burning furiously in the fireplace in the lounge enticed Bryson in and to a seat, where he intended to rest and go through all the things that they had found in detail, and he was sure he missing things and that he would realize them now, while resting on his own.
Yet as soon as he sat down three of the policemen marched in, and looked him over!
The heat from the fire made the central policeman’s eyes bulge out as they entered further in, making their way to the fireplace, and Bryson saw he was the policeman in charge there.
“So you’re Bryson!” he exclaimed, looking about him. “I’m Lieutenant Spelman. I’m in charge at the moment ...”
“Have you found anything?” Bryson asked, becoming interested, examining their official clothing, wondering what they would make of the disturbances there, and wondered if they had encountered anything or what they had heard and thought of it.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re at the top floor rooms,” he answered authoritatively.
“They’ll all be back down soon?” he asked.
“I don’t know when they’ll be down! But I’m sure most of them will be down soon ... It’s dark now! Have you found anything out about the death of the man in the kitchen?”
“Various things! But we don’t have the killer yet!”
“So have you found any fingerprints or DNA?”
“You’re one of the scientists here! This place is strange!”
“Strange? Stay here long enough and I’m sure you’ll never see anything as strange again!”
The policemen showed signs of confusion and surprise, but Bryson was sure that they had been informed of some of the things that had happened there or had already seen something. He was sure someone in the ex-military men with Mitchell had been telling them what had happened. It was also them that had called the police in and he was sure one of them also knew them.
In distance Bryson realized that there were noises of trouble, and action by the police, and he realized that something was happening, especially going by the reactions of the police in the room, and a policeman rushed in the door.
“We had him but he escaped!” he hollered, breathing faster. “We know where he went and two of our men are going after him!
“We were investigating the castle where his footprints were and we found him at the floor of a room. He escaped down a tunnel there!”
They followed him out and they rushed over to the room, and Bryson sensed that he was going to be in danger of getting it!
At the side of the room the carpet had been rolled over, and the person had removed a hidden entrance to a tunnel and had escaped without covering it over, and Bryson heard scrambling movements and panic-stricken voices deep in it, where the police were clearly chasing the killer out towards the wood.
It was worse than he had imagined! More police were rushing in determined for action, and they were contacting the rest of the police force, and he now positively knew that they never knew of the dangers out there and that great danger was there! And yet if he told them, warned them, he not only knew that it would be a mistake, it could very well make things far worse.
He just did not know what to do and was too tired, and he hoped that Merton and Mortimer would appear and help prevent things escalating further.
Then he realized that they might be able to catch the man before he left the tunnel, and he thought he could either catch him or make them go faster, and he rushed into the tunnel with the others.
“That guy was sneaking around up there!” Bryson gasped, speaking to a policeman at his side.
“If he escapes we may never have a chance to get him again.”
“Let’s go as fast as we can!” Bryson announced, checking his watch.
He swiftly led them deeper into the tunnel, surprising them with how fast and experienced he was in going through tunnels.
He surely did not have that much of a head start! If they moved fast enough they might catch him in the wood.
He gasped at the fact that they could end up going miles into the wood with those things there, as his footprints were guaranteed to be there and force them into getting him. Yet if they moved far faster than him they might capture him first before anything happened. It had only just turned dark!
As he rushed on he studied the walls of the tunnel amazed at the workmanship and that it had been manufactured like the other tunnels that they found there, and he wondered if the guy knew the people that had made it.
As he grew tired he thought the police in the tunnel would just give up. Yet he was sure that they could catch him! He wondered what he looked like, and what he was up to? He also knew that the police would be using helicopters and wondered what would happen there, and if he used a hideout?
From one of the communicators behind him he learned that it was now snowing heavily above and over the whole region, and he happily knew it would cover his trail in the wood, if they could not get there before him entering deep into the wood. They had to be as fast as they could! This could be the only chance to get him!
As he heard the police not that far ahead of him he realized that they had not been in a tunnel before and that they were going slow, trying to see what was ahead, and he gasped as he suddenly heard the police communicators stop work, from the disturbances in the wood.
Bryson regulated his breathing, blowing out steam through beams of torchlight, and rushed on and on, as he searched for obstacles ahead.
He felt surprisingly awake now, with no need to sleep, and he felt things could be successful and he intended to increase their pace further.
So when the police ahead of him in the tunnel appeared, now going very slowly, they allowed them to pass, almost not believing that they could capture the killer, probably put off by the length of the tunnel.
While they continued Bryson saw that they were following them, at the back, and he realized that he was now at the front an
d that the killer could even be nearby, and suddenly realized why they had been so happy to allow him to pass and he realized that he never even knew if the police directly behind even had guns.
It was hideous! It could be anyone and the guy could be far more different from what he accepted, especially going by what this place had come out with so far.
He definitely did not want to confront him in the tunnel as he could easily shoot him as there was nothing to give him any cover, and it was better to wait until they were outside. Even though that could mean him escaping or dragging them through the wood in something like a gun battle!
His eyes stayed on the most distant part of the tunnel, searching for him, waiting for him to take a shot at them or to attempt to ambush them.
When he recognized the steps to get out the tunnel he sprinted there, and when he approached them he considered what to do next and realized how easily the killer could be waiting for them to climb out of the tunnel. He knew that they were chasing him, and had to have heard them as they had not tried to conceal them being there, and going by the distance the police in front of him were he considered him not far ahead.
Bryson rushed up the stairs and waited, and the others appeared behind him with startled faces, and he realized that at least he might have talked them out of doing something stupid, and was amused to hear some of them wondering who the hell he was.
“Well, what will we do now?” one of them asked, panting slightly, looking at him as though he was crazy.
“We’d better have the police with guns here! We don’t know what this guy could do!”
Once the police moved to his side Bryson climbed out into an immense blizzard, with the snow blanketing his entire surroundings, almost in complete darkness, without any lights, shifting into deep snow, considering everything that he was up against, attempting to observe any place he could see, and wondered if the killer could possibly see him.
He listened through the howl of the wind and all that he heard was the trees being blown around, and he looked for a place to take cover and move over to, and one of the policemen appeared at his side and shone his torch about, and though the wood became visible, he could barely see anything else.
“There is part of his footstep!” a policeman announced, pointing, and they realized that they could not follow him, as there was only part of one footstep there.
Chapter 23
The Space/Time Gateway
Once Bryson arrived back at the top floor that night after resting and having a meal he instantly realized that they had found something else, and he saw Mitchell and his men standing around a large hole in the floor in front of the bookshelves.
“We just dug through,” Mitchell announced, in excitement, as Bryson arrived, glaring, and Mitchell shone his light around the large hole, where they had removed floorboards and smashed in a stone entrance slab.
“When did you find it?” he replied, wondering what was there, realizing it probably was what was marked on the map, and that the bookshelves were covering it up.
“We found it only an hour ago!” Mitchell replied.
“How did you find it?”
“Some of the men, who were still exploring the chamber with the tomb, found the area below here was surrounded and hidden by a thick wall ... And we found a sealed entrance over it ...”
“What’s down there?” Bryson asked, trying to see in it.
“There’s stairs ... They go down below somewhere!”
Mitchell entered first, using his light to see the ancient steps going straight down, and Bryson followed, surprised that the tunnel and stairs fitted into the massive walls in the floors below.
Bryson watched Mitchell moving down making sure he never slipped, and a deep thud echoed down from behind, and he saw that only one other man followed him, and he realized that it was a good idea only having the three of them as the ancient derelict castle steps might not be able to support more weight.
The ebbing radiance of the light was not enough to allow more than three to go safely down either, and he tried to grasp the concept of the tunnel and he imagined the outside of the castle, as he had seen it, and tried to recall the place where they were on it, and where they were going. He was sure that it might have been part of its defense against invaders!
Sounds from behind altered and echoed down giving muddled and strange tones, and he had to strain his eyes more and more to see what he was doing, what Mitchell was doing, and occasionally look back at Mitchell’s man behind him, who was the man that had seen the cross map on the map, which had led them there, and he wondered why he was so keen to find what was there.
He saw little below and that there were no new features of anything, and that the tunnel’s small shape (less than a meter all around him) vanished into the dark.
The steps descended sharply and hazardously and they had to climb down slowly, rather than walk down like with normal stairs, and he had to hold himself upright and lean backwards, and its drop seemed perpendicular at times.
Once he thought he heard distant movements from below, surrounded by their growing surges of strange sounds, and he was sure Mitchell reacted, just ahead of him, with the light oscillating irregularly. Its light swayed over the stone, and the narrow shaft seemed to vanish at a point below.
A feeble glow from something reflecting light caught his attention and he wondered what was there to reflect it, and he saw what looked like a crack in a wall, between the castle stones, and when he looked down he realized Mitchell had vanished!
At first he thought he never saw him as his light had gone, and that he had broken it and that they would have to return, but as he moved down an explosion of colors exploded out from something stunning him, and he opened his eyes and studied his surroundings and saw that he was no longer in the shaft, and as he confusedly studied his surroundings a colossal whirlpool of shifting outlines magically shifted about him and he realized that he had no body or proper presence, and was some form of energy formation.
Part II
Beyond the Universe
Chapter 1
The Mind-Bending Black Hole
A bright explosion of radiance exploded out stunning Kruger as he came to. An immense whirlpool of shifting outlines of globes magically shifted by, and he studied it for a long time and realized that he had no body or proper presence, and was some form of force formation, and he was swirling out into a vortex of reshaping energy patterns that replaced reality, in a surreal splendor of transforming elements and that the mind-bending display of displacements were altering to something that he could not recognize.
Why he was there mesmerized him! Was he even classified as being alive?
He gave a vague gasp as reality magically spun around him in different patterns while he wondered how worse the situation could become. He could be trapped there for all eternity!
So when he saw a white blur in a miniature central region of darkness emerge ahead, as he swirled around, he grew interested, and he started to recognize more and more detail as it grew, and shifted he into it, and within its depths he saw magnificent distant stars, within a haze, blending into his surrounding brilliant colors.
Spectacular white beams exploded out, and stars shot to him, and he realized the tremendous speed that he was traveling at.
Space was expanding all across his front, and he floated into it.
Gradually he felt feelings and saw a transparent view of his body emerge as it transformed and became solid again, and he saw the others appear as ghost images, in the swirling brightness.
The voyager appeared and grew solid about him in stages, as it entered space and time, and magnificent bright white and golden lights filled his entire vision everywhere, as if he were floating into a form of cartoon universe.
The stars became dazzling, which he could not recognize! Their density filled space everywhere, and he was staggered that they could even exist in their state, without being pulled together into an immense explosion.
&n
bsp; He exploded with excitement as he looked back and saw the biggest black hole that he had ever seen stretching across space, and he wondered why he was being thrown out of it, and he realized the immense speed that he had been traveling at.
The size of it looked close to the size of a small galaxy, and the vision staggered him and stuck in his mind as he watched it vanish out of view and the spacecraft become solid around him.
Chapter 2
The Monster’s Death
The monster/entity had turned mad in the end, especially when it had attacked the control center of the GX1 spacecraft.
The last shreds of its plan had been instantly ruined when the scientists at the other side of the spacecraft had activated a field that had thrown the whole spacecraft out of space and time, to kill it and escape with their lives.
It had been crazy, but it was all that they could do!
It had been hideous beyond anything anyone had seen, and resembled the devil itself! Not only had it been an entity/monster, altering from one form to another again, the G1 explosions had damaged it and its mind beyond repair, and it continued with only the one goal to kill every life form aboard, and take down the energy shield around the whole voyager to give it to the outer entity, and have it to repair the damage done to it.
Its last moments had been a chaos of killing and destroying everywhere, to gain control of the outer energy shield, but it was unable to think properly and realize how to remove the energy shield, and near the end had even realized that it was close to death and would not survive if it never.
Its last thoughts had been screams of agony, and it watched its existence in all the dimensions become annihilated.
The Deadliest Haunted Castle Page 9