I decided to remain with Oswald near the door, as I had to know what was there – and if something was going to happen – and we could not get anything from the equipment.
I was surprised to see someone look out the curtains and see drifting currents of snowflakes blow about outside, and it starting to deepen, with gusts blowing about the building, and I wondered if it affected the Santa appearance or if it had affected it, and realized it surely was the timing of the appearance, and that the weather occasionally reacted at specific times, and positions of the sun, and temperature.
It had been a long day, and the next day could very well be far longer, and I watched Higgins rush about doing something and I wondered what I was missing, and if we should slow down and observe it at a greater distance first, as the occurrence would surely take place at another house, and it was surely not our last chance to get hold of something.
The bright snowing sky seemed to darken and the temperature dropped, and I pointed it out to Oswald, as heavy snow came down all about the area.
I checked a thermometer and realized that there had been accounts of drops in temperature before and during manifestations and I wondered if it had been so powerful that it had affected the weather about us.
While the others were at work I placed a seat at the door of the room and left the door slightly opened, just enough to see into the living room, and entire area where I knew it would arrive, and I wondered why it was late, and if something else could appear, of great danger to us, and I sat looking out, startled.
I slowly started to sense something was there, and it sent a chill through me as I thought of what it could do, and my eyes for no reason fell upon something in the living room and I realized it was there all along and I suddenly jumped back startled, and my heart leapt, and I saw its dark red figure shifting about in the room, and I watched a scientist activate a special camera, and equipment, which I had seen him set up earlier!
Even though it was dark it looked identical to Santa, and I watched its strange figure move making Santa sounds, and I realized it was similar to a department store Santa, and I thought I saw it had bright red eyes, and I tried to grasp what it was and was doing there!
There was something strange that I just could not grasp, and it moved and did things far differently than anyone or anything I had seen, and I was shocked at its now lethal appearance. It was like there was something there that should not be there!
Suddenly I spotted the woman who owned the house on the stairs in the darkness, glancing into the darkness of the living room, watching it in horror, unable to decide what to do, and I realized she might actually do something foolish, and confront it, and I did not know what to do and sat stunned, and thought of the death of the man the last time.
I studied its strange Santa features, and saw nothing, and tried to see if it had detected her, and what it might do.
I had to do something so I did and rushed out the door silently, and closed the door shut behind me, seeing nobody in the room had seen me leave, and entered a dark hidden area at the side of the living room, out of its view, and showed myself to her, and used gestures, and pointed, to get to her to go back up the stairs.
I watched her realize its deadliest and start to move back up the stairs, and saw the Santa react to something, and it march up to the her Christmas tree and remove something from its sack and place something there, which in the other houses we had discovered identical objects to things that were at Christmas trees, with cards with people’s names on them from the other houses, which proved it had not detected what it was copying or had bothered altering it.
For a second I visualized being out in a starless expanse of space, and wondered what it was, and if I had actually seen it, and if I was falling asleep, and its hideous Santa shape shifted, ready to do something, and a dull red radiance gleamed about it, illuminating its hideous devilish face, which I was positive was the devil itself, using it to cover its identity.
I glared at its unmoving silhouette in shock, studying it, wondering what was there, and if all the ghost stories I had heard through my life were false, and they were something else entirely.
The deep blackness about me was so vivid and things so real and unreal, and alive, I felt deep horror, and thought of what I had so far encountered and my original thoughts of it.
For an instant the thing in front of me altered in form, and I saw a demon energy formation, and stood staggered, wondering what it was, and what it intended to do, and how I should handle it!
What strange place had it come from? Did reality actually exist there? Was it actually something entirely different from anything we had encountered?
The being/entity seemed to do nothing, other than transforming itself, and I saw strange ghostly images of what could have been life forms flash through my mind.
When I examined its dark almost invisible Santa costume I saw it was not actually solid but translucent, and had only a faint shadow from it over the carpet, while its interior seemed composed of swirling currents of energy mist, and its shape was not touching the floor, and was floating over it, and I realized it was as if it was not there but somewhere else, and reacting to the surroundings somewhere else.
I was sure that I could solve the case by examining it and finding something! I was sure it might be affected by things, and I could find a way of getting rid of it, and stopping it haunting the region, and I became even more fascinated, and I moved up close to it, behind it, and examined its ghostly demon features.
I tried to grasp everything about it, which I could recognize, and wondered what all the scientists of the world would think of the thing, and would do to see and examine it.
What would the paranormal scientists consider it? I could not get anything, and up close it mainly looked like a mass of strange red energy being generated by something, from somewhere, and to my amazement it exploded into a frenzy of activity, and I realized it had detected me, and at that point I fell over unconscious.
Chapter 9
The Breakthrough
I could not grasp what happened, as my head was spinning, and everything I needed to solve the case was missing, and the scientists were all rushing around doing things I could not grasp, but I recognized by their reactions that they were happy with many of the results, but disappointed with some.
After the disappearance of the Santa and occurrences Oswald had gone and searched for me and had found me sprawled across the floor under the Christmas tree, and I grasped at how lucky I had been to survive what had happened, and it was incredible that they barely even realized what had happened and what I had seen.
The woman gave me cups of coffee and apologized for what had happened, and she was glad to hear from one of the scientists that it would not appear there again, and she was surprised that it had left her a Christmas gift, which confused me, as I recalled what I had seen, and the killings that had occurred.
I realized I had to report what had happened and had entirely missed what had occurred afterwards, and I realized I could say little that Marple would believe, and he would be left disappointed, and I realized that I better get facts from the scientists to give him, and so he would know what I meant, and I realized again that even though he had no beliefs in the existence of ghosts and the supernatural he had a great interest in investigating the paranormal, and liked consistently explaining it away with logical solutions!
After I finished getting what I could I was glad to finally leave the place and return to the headquarters of Reality Investigations, where Marple rushed in and got me a drink and placed it in front of me and stood at the fireplace.
It was incredible! Marple looked more baffled than I had seen him, in a long time, and I then realized we could have problems!
The serial killer Santa was still on the rampage, and all over the media, and the police wanted the culprit, and they still never had any clues to who he was, or anything about him, and they wanted Marple to solve the case, and not only was the sum of
money for solving it incredible he would get the fame and prestige he wanted, in London, and at his new headquarters, and he could become a major investigator, and solve the unsolvable case, and its insolvability was a major factor that kept teasing him, and he seemed partly obsessed with it now, and all his investigators and connections were virtually on the case, checking for anything, and any remote clues.
It amazed him what had happened, when I finally told him some things, and that we had predicted its appearance and had not had the police there to capture him, and I was left staggered, and wondered what would have happened, and was at a loss of what to say, as he clearly never believed it was anything other than the serial killer, and I realized it could be a future massacre.
Eventually Marple grew tired of the lack of evidence, and eventually asked me, “What did their research uncover?”
“Not much!” I moaned.
“Even with all the scientists and all their equipment?”
“They are still accumulating their findings …”
The phone rang out and I answered it as I was the closest to it and was surprised it was the scientists still at work back at the house, who had finished their work there, and had packed away their equipment and were getting ready to leave, and the scientist on the phone put Oswald on the phone.
It staggered me what he then said, and I was surprised that they had collected large amounts of strange readings, which they were at the moment unable to grasp, and had detected a lot of energy and things that they had never heard of, and were also left baffled as paranormal scientists, and they had traced the Santa’s appearance, and emergence out of nowhere, but had found little on how it had appeared there, and its disappearance was just as strange, and was as though it had vanished off the face of the world, and they had detected strange things on its encounter with me, and it seemed to have done something, and had done some form of analyze of me, and its behavior had altered, and it had stopped what it had been doing and had left there, just after I had collapsed, and some of the scientists thought it had detected presence of their equipment at the same time.
I had been unable to explain what he had said to Marple, and asked him to explain everything to Marple instead, as his interest in what was occurring was increasing, and I handed the phone over to him, looking confused about it.
After ten minutes of listening to him and Oswald talking, and other scientists there being put on the line, he stood looking confused and put the phone down.
After sitting at the fireplace silently for a long time I finally asked what he had told him, and to see if I had missed anything.
“There seems to be far more to this case than meets the eye!” he finally moaned, and also seemed to like it, and the challenge of dealing with something new, and deadly, with such a challenge.
“What do you make of it?” I replied, curiously.
“They still seem to believe it’s of a supernatural nature!” he replied calmly, and sat back into his seat. “Well, they backed up their findings with a great deal of readings, findings, and have gone to a great deal of trouble exploring what they believe is there! And the most fascinating findings are their photographs and film footage taken of it, which they are sending someone over here with, which if I am not mistaken will give us a great deal of information on the Santa killer, and what we might be able to give to the police and media!”
I was surprised, and I sensed he was holding something back from me and asked if they had found anything else, and I recalled I had heard them give him something at the end of the conversation, which they had just discovered.
“They seem to have discovered how he entered and left the building! They detected that he left there by going under the building! By some new method, which they have not yet been able to discover …”
I was left confused, staggered, and wished I had remained on the phone, and wondered what he meant! Or they meant! And I could not grasp how it emerged and left going below the ground, and what he thought it was, as I had seen its appearance, and the reindeer creatures emergence the last time, and was positive that it had not just went under the floor, and wondered what the scientists had discovered, and in the end decided to wait and question Oswald.
Chapter 10
The Ancient Visitation
McMurdo’s pale complexion and shaken appearance showed he had encountered something beyond his comprehension, of an immensely deadly diabolical nature, and he shook in terror, barely able to speak, and looked gravely ill.
I strained my eyes to see him in the dimness of the underground train tunnel, near London Bridge, beside the underground Roman cavity they had just uncovered in the side of the tunnel, which he had just climbed out!
“What did you see down there?” I gasped, in horror, at what he had suggested existed.
“I saw its face!” he muttered. “It’s hideous! Its existence goes back far further than humans, and far beyond! It’s trapped down there somewhere!”
I stood frigid and staggered at the danger, and started to comprehend what we were up against, and had been missing!
I wondered what could be powerful enough to trap it, and if there was even anything in existence to free it!
“Its origins go beyond humans, and the Romans who settled here, and has been dormant, waiting to be revived, and uncovered, and has remained undetected by our technology!”
He continued, biting his lower lip hard, “Our detection methods are far inferior and are mainly created and function to discover normal objects, and even normal unidentified objects, and our investigations of it are futile!”
I sat frigid, realizing the mistake we had made and what the outcome of what was occurring could be, and by trying to handle something of its nature, which could categorically kill us all!
“Some scientists found traces of it though, which were kept confidential – while they tried to locate and investigate it!”
“It must be incredible!” I answered firmly. “It must have been tremendous! What made it come to this place, in the first place?”
“Nobody knows! Perhaps there’s something here, which it came to investigate! If it was far less dormant it might have been located by some means! It is powerful!”
I was amazed that he thought it could have some form of powerful presence, and I believed it was supposed to be entirely supernatural, and was sure I was destined to discover its existence, and full potential, and believed it could be buried away below us, below the cavity, unearthed by them, working there, and I detected he had been up to something when he discovered its existence.
Deep down I thought McMurdo had barely survived, and seemed to believe he could be killed in some hideous way!
It was lucky Marple had not been able to get hold of the archaeologists to investigate his accounts of the lost treasure, and Roman map he had found, as they were working on another project, but I knew they soon would, and that we could not do anything about it, and I thanked him for warning me.
In the ground below my feet I was surprised to see an object, which I saw was a Roman coin, and I grabbed it and cleaned dirt away from it, in the dim light, and I entered further into the massive cavity in the side of the tunnel wall, and looked down into the large hole there, going deep below, and into the hideous cavity, and wondered why in the hell it was there, and why the railway company had not filled it in, but I knew they would once they had completed the rest of the railway line, and it could be buried away for future explorers to uncover.
I recalled the other incident we had investigated, at Battlefield Road, and after all the observations, research, and by leading scientists, scientists admitted that the thing found in the woman’s house we investigated had unknown origins, mainly by its appearance and tremendous unrecognized powers! Although they still had a lot of work and investigations to carry out, and had found little, and they were trying to keep it confidential!
“We have to investigate it!” McMurdo warned. “The future of the world could be at stake? If the wrong peo
ple get hold of it …”
“We should investigate it!” I agreed, recalling a newspaper article. “There may soon be many more constructions being built around here! They’re building far more constructions now … We have to get anything we can on it – and as much information on it and its origins …”
“There’s little! That’s been found! It’s mainly in ancient lost legends, which show its hideous features – and that of the devil!”
I was left confused at what information he had discovered, and stated, “If it has a physical presence we could discover something new about it – and it would be worthwhile to investigate!”
McMurdo gasped, in horror, still badly shaken from his confrontation with it, and replied, “I never thought I would live to see it and survive!”
Chapter 11
The Lost Cavity
After a week the descriptions McMurdo gave were unbelievable and I could not believe I was exploring the cavity, on my own, with the scientists and archeologists above, with me on the end of a rope, daggling in hideous deep blackness.
It was too unacceptable for me to fully believe McMurdo’s accounts, and I left it at that, and believed I could survive, if I watched what I did, and believed there were great dangers lurking in the cavity below, and I recalled being surprised by him showing me an ancient almost incomprehensive account that specified that the location was the resting place of something hideously wicked, buried away there.
I conjured up vague visions of a spooky medieval haunted torture chamber and ancient dungeon below.
A distant rumble shook the surrounding area, from a distant train, releasing small debris and dust from overhead, and vibrated through the rope.
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