Dracula's Lost Treasure Map

by V Bertolaccini

  It was incredible and he suddenly spotted Kurt’s eyes staring at a particular spot near the shore at the opposite side of the lake, where he saw a large white rock was buried away in the trees, and that it looked like a giant skull.

  Chapter 3

  The Mysterious Lake

  Eisenberg shuddered as he considered the dangers that existed and his gaze went out across the small lake to a group of trees and to where the large white skull rock was buried away, searching for any disturbances and signs that the birds were about there, and even though he had seen them on the news, he could not grasp why the birds were classed as dangerous.

  Television and newspaper reporters about the car park, and his sides, were leaving, and he wondered what he missed, and tried to grasp why the birds had been attacking them and where they went, and he searched everywhere about the landscape for activity, or birds and wildlife, and hidden dangers.

  It was even as though they thought they needed some form of protection from something, and he considered if there were dangerous species that he had not noticed, and if predator birds were a danger if they attacked them, and he saw Kurt coming over from behind some trees behind him and was amazed to see his other relatives appear one by one and follow him, and he started to realize that they might be joining up to make an agreement, which he knew he should have predicted at the start, as if one person found the next clue they would all be out the game, as there was no way for them to move on and getting the next clue, unless they found out and followed them about.

  The game was basically stupid and he wondered why he had not packed the whole thing in, and he realized that he could just follow the others around, and have them investigated, and perhaps get something out of it if any of them were successful.

  The lake itself was far too small and empty to have more than a few visitors, perhaps there for its isolation, and he realized it was not classed as a lake to them, and he realized he still had not found it marked anywhere and wondered how they were supposed to have found it, if it had not been on the news, and he felt annoyed realizing it had been classed as an easy clue.

  Eisenberg sat on a boulder and studied the white skull rock in the trees and wondered why they were sure it was anything, and not just their minds, and imagining it looked like it, and he followed Kurt and the others as they left and started walking around the shore to it.

  On their approach to it he suddenly spotted people hidden away about the lake that seemed to be doing things and he tried to identify what they were doing and if they were connected to the media or something, and he stood and watched the others rush over to the white skull rock trying to identify anything they could and they started searching it, and anything they found.

  Near the shore he watched fishermen casting lines and to his surprise he spotted large pigeons and crows all sitting on branches of nearby trees, and he started to realize how many of them there were and studied their fixed features and saw their vicious facial appearances, wondering if they were vicious or looked that way.

  He wondered how much a menace they were, and if they had nests or something nearby, and if they could do something, and he gasped when he saw some attack other birds, and suddenly they all started shrieking, and started gliding up into the air, and flew straight towards the fishermen, and he wondered if he should shout over to them or something.

  One of the fishermen looked up in horror and saw them, and shaded his eyes from the bright sunshine, and stood studying them, and they dived down at them, and big black crows dived-bombed him and flew straight at them, and they started waving their hands and arms about, throwing them away from them if they got near, and hundreds of them started attacking and screeching and the fishermen picked up sticks and waved them in the air, and threw objects.

  Eisenberg realized they were not a real threat and some of the fishermen started to think it was hilarious and he watched others shouting and waving their fists and swearing at them.

  He tried to grasp what they were actually doing and why they had not been discovered before and why they had suddenly been reported to the media.

  Something he could not quite grasp that was there, and he was sure the fishermen and others had clearly visited there before and had not been confronted, and he realized it was not nests, and he watched fishermen furiously waving their fists as they left in a large swarm.

  For a moment he thought they spotted him but saw the swarm head over to a couple romantically rowing along the lake’s edge, and race towards them, and he was surprised when they reached them and that they splattered them with excrement and flew away, and the man waved his fist and overturned the boat, throwing them into the water, and he heard Kurt shout from behind him that he had found something in the mouth of the large skull rock.

  Chapter 4

  The Ancient Mansion

  “Where the hell’s this?” Eisenberg gulped, as he woke, looking about him, and out the taxi window, seeing nothing but blackness.

  “Where you’re going to!” the driver smirked, searching the blackness ahead in the dim headlight, as the car shifted slowly along a farm lane, and Eisenberg realized he had blown it again.

  He sat transfixed, and felt a sensation of happiness when the moon emerged ahead and its light probed that region of the road, and deep through the surrounding dark clouds radiating and he crouched over when he spotted a tomb shape he was sure was the mansion, and mansion Howard Eisenberg had given him, and he felt furious it was so far out in nowhere, from what he saw, and realized he would have a bad time selling the thing.

  In the darkness and moonlight it looked like a haunted building.

  The taxi eventually came to a slow halt at a wall and he considered returning home, as it was nothing like he expected, and he could not forgive Howard Eisenberg for giving him the thing and he sat considering what to do. He originally intended to go and see it before it got dark but he underestimated things and it got dark, and in the end he just paid the driver and jumped out the taxi with his bag and marched away along a lane going to it, watching the surrounding wood, and the taxi left and drove away into the distance, and he wondered what he would do if it was the wrong building and the owners never had a phone.

  It was freezing, and the visible landscape was a mess of wild vegetation and trees.

  What he saw of the dark shape of the building was heavenly and deadly and he wondered why everything was such a mess, and he realized that Howard Eisenberg could not stayed there and he wondered why he had bought such place.

  At the door he knocked when he saw it never had a doorbell and eventually he removed the keys he got and tried them until he found one that fitted the lock and swiftly entered it, and realized he had finally visited the place and he started to explore what he could see in the darkness, and he realized how ancient the place was, but had new things added to it and he felt deep satisfaction to discover it actually had a light and hunted down the light switch.

  Once the light was on he stood dazzled trying to get why Howard Eisenberg bought such a place, as nothing added up, and wondered if he had bought and got stuck with it many years ago, before he got his empire.

  As he wandered about he swiped away webs going across corridors and doorways, and he found what looked like a living room and switched on the light and sat on an ancient form of sofa, which creaked and cracked up one side, and he sat back with a sad expression staring an ancient painting over the fireplace, covered in dust and webs, and he studied the figure in the portrait with some amazement and gasped when he saw the eyes, and gasped at the age of it and rushed over to see it up close.

  It looked so ancient, and centuries old, and the person wore clothes from centuries ago, and he knew the person had to be a distinguished nobleman of wealth and power.

  He studied his sword he had at his waist and saw marks he was sure were bloodstains, and sat back down considering if it was from some war.

  The place looked altered from a far earlier structure and had been repaired and altered and
he wondered if it had a high value to collectors, and he realized that he now wanted more than ever to discover the treasure chest Howard Eisenberg had hidden away, and he sat back contemplating everything he could, and the clue they found in the giant stone skull at the lake, which was: In The Oldest Grave.

  He was sure none of them knew what the clue meant or anything, and that it was too vague, but he was sure they thought they would find it because of its simplicity and their detection methods were improving, and he was sure they were searching on their own again in an attempt to get it for themselves, and even Kurt seemed to be up to something.

  He had been searching graves all over the place for days, and started to doubt he would get it again!

  He decided to find somewhere to sleep in the building, even though it was not late, and he wondered what the place would be like at midnight, and decided to properly check the place out in the morning, and try and find a way of selling the place, and as he looked about he spotted an ancient staircase along the corridor and as he marched over to it he decided to try and get the lawyer to show the old video over again, as he had done earlier in his career, as a private investigator, and he would try and film the video if he could not get a copy of it, as he was sure there would be things in it that he had not noticed, and he also wanted to question the lawyer about Howard Eisenberg, and especially about what he thought he had been doing, and he was also sure he might be able to make a deal with him and get the location of the treasure chest.

  Chapter 5

  The Morning

  Eisenberg woke early and left to go back to New York and was walking up the road when he turned and saw the full size of the mansion, and was staggered, as it was colossal, and he started to realize its true value, and was left confused as he had no idea of how such an ancient structure could be built like it and realized most of it had been built in more modern times and made to look like the original structure.

  What fascinated him was him sleeping there thinking its size and value was far less, and it was colossal, and he was sure it had a value as a historical building. Yet he could not explain how it could be there, and be the age it seemed, and why it had been built there, and all he saw in the surrounding landscape was a river behind it, which would have been there for the occupants.

  Eisenberg rubbed his hands and shoved them deep into the pockets of his thick jacket, and was sure it was colder there than it was in the city, and wondered if he could sell the thing as he could not imagine living in it, and wondered again why Howard Eisenberg wanted it and realized it had to be worth something, but why had he not sold it.

  It was like some form of entity and hideous, as he walked back to it, and walked around it, and at times he was sure it had deadly things behind its black windows, and cursed Howard Eisenberg.

  The sun faintly shone over it and through gaps in the thick walls, and through windows, casting long shadows from the trees over it, and he was sure it resembled some form of castle.

  He studied distant clearings in the surrounding wood, in the mess of vegetation, and saw structures, and at a higher point at its side he saw there was empty land further out, and he shifted along to the nearby river, and realized he may have picked up the structures identity wrongly and that it could be a vast country mansion built for someone that wanted away from city life, where there was isolation and desolate wilderness.

  Though size and amount of rooms was astonishing and he realized it must have been for a lot of people and servants at one point, and he wondered what sort of life his uncle had led and what people he had known.

  What amazed him was he still did know what to do with it and what it was worth, and he returned to the front of it, and entered the trees, going through the wood surrounding it, considering it, going towards a structure he saw.

  The words of the clue echoed through his mind, as it had done before he had arrived there, and he had almost done in his sleep, and he suddenly recalled a strange dream he had entered in the mansion of him dreamily going through strange graves, and as he recalled things he watched the structure he was walking to emerge across his front.

  He rhythmically crunched through layers of branches and thought of it as a type of mansion pavilion and saw columns of stone going about it like a Greek temple and at the other side he spotted gravestones, and small ancient graveyard, and he walked over to the nearest graves, curious of what was written on them.

  Chapter 6

  The Ancient Graveyard

  The words carved into the stone of one of the large gravestones left Eisenberg staggered and searching the surrounding landscape for signs of anyone, and he searched areas of mud and for signs humans had recently been there, and he read the words over again and realized that he had to be imagining what he thought and that it was just an amazing coincidence.

  Suddenly he stepped back, and gasped, positive the words on it were certainly the clue, but he could not grasp what they were doing there, in a small graveyard out in the middle of nowhere.

  The words In The Oldest Grave were the only words on the grave, and he stood hypnotized by it, and realized he was tired from marching through the vegetation, and calmed himself down, and thought what it meant and gasped when he thought of the only thing he could do was search the grave, and wondered who the hell had a grave with those words on it, without a name.

  When he thought of the money and the businesses he realized he needed to check it as he could not let it go, as he would be the only one to answer it and be able to move on in the treasure hunt, and surely solve the other answers someday, which he surely would do by some means.

  He had the right to do it as the property and graves belonged to him, and he wondered what the hell Howard Eisenberg had been up to, and if he had been there and supervised it being put there.

  For a long time he strolled around in the morning sunshine examining other graves and words engraved on them, and proved it was the only abnormal grave there, and he checked the mansion structure through the trees, and finally returned to it with an old spade he found near it and started digging it up, while he watched strange crows watching him from the trees.

  Though the words were there he could not grasp what they meant, as it clearly was not the oldest grave, and his mind was keyed into trying to decipher them as a clue, and he thought they perhaps were in a riddle only comprehensible to someone else.

  What had surprised him about the graves was the amount of them for one building, and he decided to check the place out and check libraries, and as he dug away at the ground of the grave, throwing the soil in a pile nearby, where he could quickly return it back after he got what he wanted, he wondered if any of the graves belonged to his ancestors, and if not who had they been.

  Who did Howard Eisenberg buy the place off and why? Why the hell did he want the place? Was it just an early business deal? Did he overestimate the value?

  It was incredible as he had been sitting inside the mansion on the previous night trying to figure where it had been and how to get what he had been looking for, and it had been sitting out in the grounds of the mansion.

  He realized that Howard Eisenberg must have thought he would find it eventually! He realized that the game of solving the clues and his treasure hunt was designed not to be answered in a few days, as he had made out, but over a long time, and that they were lucky in discovering the small lake, which had not even been marked down on many maps for some reason, and he was sure they had been really lucky.

  The soil was hard and had surely not been put there in a long time, and he recalled how old the video of Howard Eisenberg had been, and he was sure it could have been from then.

  Howard Eisenberg did everything for a reason and he could not grasp what the hell he was up to, and why he originally wanted it done, and if he changed and forgot about the video and plan.

  There were things on the other graves and suggestions of war, and the civil war, and the usual things, and the grave and its strange wording was all that was different, and
as he dug faster and harder into the ground he wondered if it was talking about the other graves and was mentioning a grave that was older, and perhaps not marked or known as such, which someone else knew the location of and the grave was put there to indicate its existence for some reason, or had Howard Eisenberg seen the grave and remembered it and had used it for some reason.

  The graveyard was ghostly beside such a building, and he watched the building glow in the sunlight, through the trees – and watched crows sitting on branches sleepily watching.

  He slowly became exhausted and thought of climbing out the hole, and was about to rest, when the shovel hit solid wood, and he immediately started cleaning muck away from it, and banged it hard with the shovel and heard it was hollow, and the grave.

  While he rested he saw it was a normal old grave, and he heard a distant noise and saw a crow react and followed its gaze to a strange black shape away in the distance, and saw that it was just a dark tree.

  When he removed all the muck from the coffin he started shoving the thick wooden cover off, and something stopped the lid being shoved any further, and he spotted the edge of a boulder sticking out blocking it and he gave it a quick heavy shove and pushed it away, and shifted it away, and lifted the lid off the coffin and threw it over to the side, and rested.

  In its dark interior he tiredly examined an old dried out object and realized it was part of a tree trunk, and he sat back wondering what it was doing there, and thought of the trouble he would have filling the grave back in and wondered if he would end up staying another night at the mansion, and realized he had little food left, and spotted a tube of translucent plastic buried away in the coffin and grabbed it, astonished at seeing such a modern looking object there, and spotted a rolled up piece of parchment in its interior.