The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

  Once he finished he calmed himself, showing his hidden depression and inner despair, by the situation and his job ahead, and start of the war.

  He calmly started saying, “Once upon a time, in the old days, about a century ago or so, people joined the French Foreign Legion to forget! Problems! Things they just wanted to escape out of! Escape from weary existences! The problems of the world! Even hide away from crimes they committed!”

  He suddenly stared straight into the depths of my eyes, almost trying read my thoughts, searching my consciousness.

  “Well, I’m sure I’d have recalled doing that! As you said it’s just the Home Guard! Not the Foreign Legion!”

  “Really!” he replied, smiling. “How do you know you never?”

  “I’ve little recollection of much at the moment! So I can’t properly answer that!”

  Suddenly I realized what he had replied with and it struck me that he might have been trying to suggest something to me that I should know, and I realized I could have done something and have forgotten it and that he might know of it! I sat in horror for a few moments contemplating it, and if he could have found out about it, and I gasped as I realized my mind was more blanker than I had contemplated, and I had hardly any memories of many things, and I could not grasp what!

  While I sat considering this Godfrey sat making absurd strange faces, which I had not seen before, as though in pain, and he slightly bent over and held his head firmly in his hands, and relaxed there, and his shoulders quivered and slackened, and he remained like it until he recovered, and I watched him calmly return to what he normally did.

  “Perhaps you should just leave!” he moaned firmly, looking sad, almost looking as though he might cry, and he turned away from me and looked away, and the situation left me confused and I realized my goal now was to find out what the hell had happened!

  Later I was sure the captain and sergeant thought I was up to something, and hiding something.

  “I’ve another question!” I quickly asked the captain.

  “What?” he moaned back, not looking directly at me.

  “What the hell will we be doing? Surely the military doesn’t need the Home Guard at the moment?”

  “We’re getting ready! We’re also doing other things! At the moment we’re helping the police search for a killer! Perhaps you can help us with that?”

  “Perhaps I can!” I replied, wondering why the police needed the army. “What sort of things has he done?”

  “You’re a reporter! It’s classified! We don’t want the newspapers getting it! They can have the killings but not the whole story! Got it?”

  “Yes!”

  “The police don’t want the public panicking! There have been a large amount of killings by someone! He virtually destroys his victims …”

  “Are there any witnesses to anything?”

  “No! But the police have just started their investigations!”

  “Perhaps this war is having more of a reaction on people than they think!”

  “Well! We can help them! We can use you to investigate what’s going on, and get some information for us on what’s happening!”

  A shiver ran through me, and I shuddered, and I considered the dangers, and the guy who could do such a thing!

  “Why are they so sure it’s the one person?” I asked.

  “I don’t know! Perhaps as that is what normally is the case, and that their investigations have not shown anyone else! So they take everything on what they prove!”

  I could not grasp if it was the way he had given the case, my memory condition, or if there really was something occurring that was new, and far more deadly than they had encountered.

  Chapter 5

  Paranormal Investigators

  Outside my hotel bedroom window Loch Ness stretched out in bright sunlight, and I rested against the window frame, and dreamily watched its waves shifting up its shore, and away in the distance I saw a mysterious mist shift over the surface of the loch and the castle become visible.

  For a few seconds I saw its prehistoric look and I now realized some kind of monster or large creature could exist in its confines, even though it was not entirely isolated, and it never seemed big enough, but with carefully examinations I accepted it could be and it could be deep in places.

  The bedroom seemed alright. The two psychic researcher’s equipment was all over it, everywhere, and they speedily had porters bring it in while they unpacked it, and examined it for breakages or other damage.

  I had never seen anything like it, and most of it was new, and new technology, and I gasped again at what their profession was!

  It was the occurrence at Craigmillar Road, with the metal detector, which persuaded me to take the investigation, and I persuaded Marple to give it to me, even though I never properly knew what it was and what I was to do, and in the end why I was needed to accompany two paranormal investigators, Oswald and Higgins, to the Loch Ness location, and I continuously read through the documents on the case, and my mission, and their mission, and found little, and I could barely make anything out.

  The documents were virtual missing anything that said anything about anything!

  It suggested the Loch Ness monster somewhere, and never said anything of what was needed, and at the time I had heard little on the subject, and was confused why the paranormal investigators were interested in it, and even though I had done a little research into them I consistently tried to grasp what they did, and were doing at Loch Ness.

  I examined their carefully placed thermometers, which Oswald carefully placed about the room. It was at less than fourteen degrees centigrade, and I estimated the temperature outside.

  “What are you looking for here?” I finally enquired.

  “We’re just checking everything about this place!” he replied, and took out a book, which he had filled with details from their research, and I wondered what they had found! But I now knew they would not give me anything, but I was sure they might accidentally give me a clue if I kept checking.

  “But why the hell have I been taken here?” I moaned. “They’ve forgotten to give me anything! There has to be something here for me to have been put here, and Marple to take the case!”

  It was my best argument, and I waited for a reply, and I watched Oswald fidget and look alert and I suddenly saw Higgins shift over to him.

  Before he said anything he stopped and examined me, and stood confused about something, and he examined my shoes and stood back.

  I started to realize how far they were going to go to avoid giving me anything!

  He whispered something in Oswald’s ear, and they both started examining me, and they took measurements of me.

  Until I called out, “What is it? What have you found?”

  “You look different! Your height has altered! What height are you then?”

  “Let me see!” I demanded, and checked the measurements they had taken and realized that my height had increased, and I measured myself without my shoes, and realized that I was over three inches taller, and I sat down confused, and wondered what they thought it was, but they refused to say anything, and I wondered what I thought of it.

  Again I wondered if we were actually there to search for the Loch Ness monster after all and again I never believed it existed, as there was nothing to back up the claim, accept strange photos, which could even have been deliberately put there to stop outsiders discovering it.

  The sky darkened and looked as if night was approaching and snowflakes started floating down, and I watched Higgins react to it with disappointment, and I was sure if it remained the way it was it might ruin the whole trip and investigation, whatever it was, and later, that night, I heard their low voices in the other room, deliberately not letting me hear them, and wondered what the hell they were up to, and my thirst for knowledge grew and I knew I had to get what they were doing.

  Chapter 6

  Loch Ness Monster

  After my dreams the whole account of the
Loch Ness monster was inconceivable, and while I was looking out my room window, when I got up in the night, I thought I even saw the thing out in the loch, and realized that it might actually be a night creature, and be hidden away in the deepest depths of the loch or some dark cave during the night.

  I thought of it being a monster, and not a friendly beast, and I could hardly believe the events of the past days and that we were now on the trail of a massive killer monster!

  When the first rays of sunlight blasted out from within a small wood, while the night and darkness vanished into the other horizon, I studied my surroundings and the dark blue water, searching for the monster, and snow covered landscape, trying to explain why the snow had not been foreseen by the forecast, and I thought of what to do if it continued and snowed heavily and if it would actually ruin their investigations and experimenters, and I was not fully sure as they had not given me enough information.

  While the sky grew brighter I watched the snow glowing and I suddenly saw something strange and what looked like someone’s distorted footprints near an area of the shore, and realized that they came out the water, and went back into it, and I realized the actual size of them with astonishment, and I rushed over and banged on Higgins’s room door.

  I was surprised to find both paranormal scientists fully awake and carrying experiments, and I rushed in, and was amazed that they had just discovered something, and signs of a paranormal occurrence, but were unsuccessfully trying to locate it.

  “I think I found something!” I announced swiftly. “Outside!”

  They looked at each other in confusion, then amazement, and surprise, and grabbed some of their equipment and shoved it into bags, and I took them to the window in my room and showed them the marks.

  “Do you see them?” I announced excitedly.

  “See what?” Higgins moaned, searching where I was looking.

  “Footprints!”

  They examined them with surprise and we rushed out the door, and down the stairs, and out the building.

  Once outside a bitter breeze blew across our cheeks and I wondered if we would regret our actions, and not waiting until later. But it could easily snow and cover the footprints up and if what I had seen in the loch earlier in the dark was real we might see it and prove its existence.

  I had forgotten how hideous monsters were supposed to be! I also realized that nobody would probably believe us if it was and we never got any evidence.

  The place had a look of having deadly ghostly things behind all its black shadows, and dark places.

  The sun faintly shone through gaps in the thick clouds, edging up through distance trees, casting long black shadows, with demon shapes through falling snow dust.

  I studied the shore and area with the prints repeatedly, and the paranormal scientists did the same, as we shuffled through thick areas of snow, and swiftly accelerated over thin areas, while going up and down small mounds and hills, and through thick and thin areas of vegetation.

  I tried to grasp what sort animal it could be and how we should handle it, and I kept wondering what the two paranormal scientists would do if we found it.

  What if it was like some form of massive lion and was hungry, and waiting to get a human alone! Our sightings clearly gave the loch ahead as the location of it!

  “What’ll we do if we find the thing?” I eventually asked them, watching Higgins leading us forward faster.

  “We’ll discuss that when we see what’s there,” he replied.

  The brightening sunshine and white snow was blinding when the sun properly emerged, and early in the morning, and I had a hard time seeing what was in front of us.

  “Over there ...!” Higgins moaned, looking at part of the ground ahead, where we followed his eyes to. “Footprints are visible!”

  I examined the snow all around us, keeping my eyes peeled for anything, especially behind trees.

  It was incredible the prints were there, but covered in some snow, and I knew that they had to belong to something immense, and larger than anything I had seen before, and we stopped in front of them amazed, and staggered at the enormity of what it was.

  We strolled about them, and the two scientists took photos and measured them, and I started to realize with disappointment that we had not actually achieved our goal and they were covered in too much snow and the photos would not be enough to prove anything, and I saw that the snow was about to come down heavily on top of them and us, and I searched where the prints went and followed them down to the shore and out into the loch, where I saw something emerge in the dark water, like a black shadow, and I saw it shift, with amazement.

  Chapter 7

  The Wood

  Fifteen armed soldiers arrived, and the police, and I kept wondering why the police had not been used in the first place, but I recalled hearing the soldiers had been nearby.

  There was something different about the monster that was extraordinary and vastly dangerous that I could not fully grasp! All the soldiers and police were marching in a line through the wood, and they were ready with their guns as they started searching!

  One marched with his rifle pointing at the undergrowth directly ahead, while officers watched at his side, and I saw their eyes wide and how alert they were, and ready for action.

  It was incredible the monster actually existed and came out the loch further along from where we had been at the loch, but distant, but we saw the size of the thing and that it was far larger than anything we had heard of, and it had vanished into the wood, which they were searching.

  It was a shame if they shot the thing or even captured it! Even though it would prove it existed!

  I could not grasp how such a thing could exist there, and had not been caught, and going by the others they thought the same, and it was amazing seeing the soldiers discovering its footprints, and I waited to hear gunfire from the wood.

  At the time I expected some form of flying vehicle to appear, as I had heard of stuff, and that there had been a form helicopter that had been experimented with, and I watched the loch go along the wood away into the distance and realized the creature definitely belonged in the loch, and I realized it would probably reenter it further along, instead of moving back through the wood, and I wondered why there were no soldiers there, and with amazement I saw it shoot out of the wood and shift swiftly into the water away in the distance.

  A deep heavy thud echoed about the place and I realized it was an altered version of a gun being fired, and for a few seconds I gasped wondering if it had entered the loch after all and if they had just killed it.

  I watched the most distant soldier, away in the depths of the wood, and him using a torch and its beam shifting around everywhere, while he stood aiming his rifle.

  I realized how dangerous the monster was and that it could go crazy and I expected the thing to come flying straight out the loch, and I wondered if they could accurately shoot and kill it, and if their bullets could kill it!

  Chapter 8

  The Search

  The entire front page of a major newspaper covered the story, of the Loch Ness sighting, and what had happened, but they had not authenticated the discovery or produced evidence, and its species was marked as unknown.

  The story was seen all over the country, and tourists, reporters, scientists, people from other groups started to turn up, and the two paranormal scientists, with some luck, saved the day, just when we were about to leave Loch Ness with no proper proof of the monster’s existence, when they brought in conventional scientists, who had the technology to scan the loch, to the deepest depths, and even into regions of the ground.

  Though it was not accurate, and produced some mapping below the ground, to a certain depth, it made it possible to observe some objects with some clarity, and perhaps even a dinosaur fossil, and it worked from a plane.

  The scientists were also members of an exploration association, and they had been on a scientific expedition to uncover a legendry form of dinosaur in the Amazon, an
d they had declared how they could help them, and they gave them an insight into their technology and how it could be used.

  Though dark clouds shifted in at nightfall and the heavy snow arrived, and it even looked as if we would be snowed in and trapped in the hotel, and unable to even reach the airport, to get to the airplane, but luckily in the morning it cleared.

  The roads were cleared by the evening and we got to the airport and airplane and started investigating their new technology, trying to grasp what we could from what they gave, and we left on the airplane from the airport towards Loch Ness.

  The two paranormal investigators were enthralled with their setup and operating methods, and thought that it could be a major breakthrough, and in their investigations, grasping its full potential and the future possibilities that it could offer their various forms of scientific exploration.

  At the same time I investigated what I could and how the technology functioned in far greater detail and what its capabilities were. It soon began to look too hard to produce and use, but my thoughts of it and the mission altered once we started investigating large regions of the loch.

  How could they fail? The creature had to be around where our hotel was, and they were swiftly exploring the entire loch!

  The equipment system was monitoring everything perfectly and I sensed that they could detect the monster and I considered if they had deliberately given incorrect information on the distance of the scan to hide its faults and power, as it was expensive equipment!

  I later became sure from things some of the scientists on the plane had indicated that they were carrying out a more distant and less accurate scan, which I was sure could not detect it without it being close up.