The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

Chapter 21

  The Killer

  When he arrived back at the meeting room he heard a heavy thud that sounded like an explosion of something and he felt it shudder through his body, and he realized someone had fired a gun and he and Merton rushed over to where they heard it and at the front of the castle, where they now usually avoided!

  As they reached there, wondering what was happening, they saw a strange black figure like a hairy ape creature covered in long black hair rushing out into the jungle, which he thought was staggering, and wondered what it was.

  When it started vanishing into the trees he looked about for what he was missing and stood confused when he saw two of the archeologists hidden behind a tree blasting rounds of bullets at it, and one finally hitting it!

  Bryson put on a thicker jacket from his bag and threw his bag into the castle, and rushed over to them, and he became sure something was going to happen there as they were getting ready to do something, and they rushed out into the jungle and invited them to follow them and they followed, checking that it was not going to turn darker, but he was sure that they had at least an hour before it did.

  Bryson soon started showing his presence when he questioned one of them, while they scrambled through the trees and he heard something in front of them giving panic-stricken cries.

  They clearly were chasing the killer out into the jungle, after it had tried to kill one of the archeologists and they were glad to have Bryson there.

  None of them could identify the killer and they wondered what it was and why it was killing them! None of them clearly had seen its face, and they were positive that they had shot and could kill it, before it escaped!

  It had entered the castle and tried to kill one of them again but had been caught this time, and it had alerted Bryson that they had not even locked or shut the castle entrance, especially with all the things in the jungle there!

  One of the archeologists removed a light and flashed it over a dark area, heavily surrounded in large trees, and they watched it illuminate there, making Bryson also realize it had become dimmer around them, with the sky above darker, and he wondered if they had mistimed it. Was this thing even setting them up and luring them into a trap somewhere ahead?

  It turned worse later when he realized that they were going to refuse to return until they came to a conclusion!

  Yet they had guns and many bullets, which they had made, and the thing surely had not seen guns before, and he realized it could have them out there in the dark with all those things there about!

  It confused him as nobody yet had properly seen its features below its hair, which was clearly covered, and the speed of it was incredible and like a good athlete. Yet had it increased its running speed to get out of being caught, and he wondered how long it could run at that speed? They were sure that it had slowed down!

  Its speed was all it had and where they had underestimated it and it had managed to get out into the jungle, but it had left bloodstains and footprints and them going after it fast.

  When Bryson saw one of its full footprints he was surprised! As it looked like a human footprint, but far smaller and lighter, with its placement strange and placed differently than he had seen before! Yet he knew nothing like a human or anything else could exist there, and to Bryson’s disappointment it still seemed to be traveling at a fast pace and he wondered where the hell it was going to out there, and he wondered if it had attacked them as they had been the same as it, which could mean that it was on its own and at war with its own species.

  It had survived in the jungle and seemed to know it and where it was going, and it proved that they could survive there. He was sure that the other things in jungle when they had arrived at the castle might have attacked them there as they walked straight through them and openly stood against them, and he was sure that it survived by hiding and avoiding them!

  Their confidence increased by the discovery of a large amount of blood that showed that it had been badly wounded and that they had not imagined it, and they collected some and examined it and Bryson was amazed that it looked the same as theirs and as though it had been altered with something, and something on the wound had altered it somehow, and he wondered if they could catch it if they chased it for long enough, and he was sure that it was attempting to keep going until they gave up!

  Although they kept considering turning back as it became darker and deeper in the jungle, and it looked as though they could be ambushed at any time, and Bryson even started wondering if they could make it back without getting lost there, and even thought of leaving a trail of something.

  When it finally turned to its darkest they saw its shape away in the distance racing and stumbling through trees, giving out cries of despair when it realized the grim truth, and he felt sorry for it and wondered if they let it go if it would avoid them and killing them, but he could not be sure and thought that they should at least capture the thing and check it out! It was far too dangerous!

  He wondered where such a thing lived and why it never moved away from such a deadly place? Why had it entered there? Why had it killed them? And why had it kept returning?

  The surprising thing was he was sure that it could escape by climbing to the top of a tree! It was lighter and an ape creature!

  On the horizon through an area of trees he spotted a bright glowing light, from an immense star beaming out, with beams of radiance blasting through the darkness, through the trees, and he watched its surreal features and tried to compare them to anything that he had seen on the Earth, but never succeeded and ignored it.

  The archaeologists suddenly shouted and ran away in front as fast as they could, leaving them behind.

  Chapter 22

  The Last Human

  Away in the distance they watched the archeologists using their lights to search for somewhere beside some trees and stopped and Bryson tried to see what was happening, through the trees in vague light there, and he raced towards them.

  Bryson exhausted himself trying not to miss anything, determined to find out what happened, and was blinded by one of the archeologist’s bright light as he beamed it directly in his direction, blasting out of the blackness, and Bryson stopped and waited until Merton caught up with him and they continued when they saw things clearly ahead and moved over to them, standing around something in the vegetation.

  Bryson rushed over, sensing that it was needed for some reason, almost blinded from the mixture of bright light and intense dark there, considering everything that he was up against and attempting to observe every place at the one time!

  He listened and all he heard was a faint wind blowing some trees about, with pieces of debris falling around wildly.

  In all the footsteps below him he suddenly noticed the killer’s footprints and that they staggered around and he saw that it had collapsed where the archeologists were standing ahead of him, and he saw a trail of blood there.

  They had attempted to fix its wound with bandages, and when Bryson stood beside them he saw that it was still alive but very close to death.

  By their reactions he was sure that they did not have a clue what they were dealing with now! It was dark, within the grounds of the deadliest jungle that he had been in, and they had chased a vicious killer animal and had shot it!

  Bryson froze trying to see its face, expecting it to attack him, and he saw that they had tied it up with thick string.

  Bryson moved in close trying to see it properly and saw its face, and it watched a nearby branch come falling down from a tree.

  Bryson’s heart exploded into action as he recognized its features, and its facial features were directly illuminated by one of the lights!

  He watched the figure almost fall sideways, barely able to stay alive, and he saw its blood was the same!

  Merton strolled there, not shining his light there, as though not daring to – approaching in wonder as though he were going to meet the devil himself!

  Bryson stared down in horror at what he was positive had
to be a genetic cross between a human and some alien, crippled across the ground!

  It resembled some form of ghost there, with it giving weak splutters from its mouth!

  “Do you know what it is?” one of the archeologists muttered, slightly shivering and gritting his teeth.

  And they waited for Bryson to say something!

  “I want to try to talk to it first!” he pleaded, and they moved back and Bryson knelt down beside it.

  “Scientists!” its weak voice muttered, making them gasp, and Bryson nodded in agreement, amazed it could speak his language.

  “Are you human?”

  “Yes! The last of your future species of human! The last of us returned to living as animals years ago!”

  “How did you get here though?” he asked confused.

  “We were on the last starship to leave Earth, traveling to a dazzling new world hidden in the depths of the galaxy! It was believed that there was nobody left on the Earth! But we encountered something in the depths of space, far beyond the solar system, and though we had one of the most advanced and powerful starships created with the most advanced defenses it captured it! We were in suspended animation and were brought out of it to witness what happened!

  “It brought our starship down on this island, where it rests to this day!”

  “Where is it buried?” Bryson asked, amazed, and amazed that they could have missed it.

  “The castle!”

  “That castle is a starship?” one of the archeologists gasped.

  “It was designed and controlled by our most advanced computers, and was capable of many things, and was capable of altering itself into many things, which we wanted, and supplying us with all our needs! Except the alien encounter!

  “Our leaders and people decided on the castle as a defense, with the defenses that they created to defend it from the things on this island and on the other worlds it moved to!

  “This Earth island moved from world to world, uncontrollably, and more and more people made mistakes and died! Many of us reentered suspended animation, and made frequent reappearances, controlled by its computers, taking us out of suspended animation to view any changes or anything we asked to be brought out of it for! I was determined to be the last, and asked it be, and I watched our people slowly die away. They had wars and deaths from the dangers here!”

  Bryson realized that it had been them that had built the canyon and tunnel that they had found there, and that it had been humans that had built everything there! Then he recalled what had happened when he had been going down the stone steps in the tunnel from the canyon and that he had left space and time, and he knew that it was not the humans there, and their technology was not good enough to do it, and he recalled being analyzed and tested by something, before he awakened in the room below, and he knew it was the thing that had landed the starship and the airplane on the island.

  “Where did this alien look like?” Bryson asked, concerned.

  “Nobody has ever saw it! I think it only used its powers one other time! I think some people found it and attacked it!”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “I think it was detected directly below the castle!”

  “Below the tower?”

  “Yes! There! Where you are investigating it!”

  “Why do all those things at this place avoid the castle?”

  “The castle has defenses against them! Hidden energy shields that detects them that they avoid as they can kill them, or damage them until they leave its grounds!”

  “So what happened to the top floor of the castle?”

  “The starship’s functions and energy supplies diminished over millions of years ... And it will eventually no longer function!”

  “Millions of years!” Bryson gasped, amazed at how much they had underestimated it. “Your millions of years old?”

  “Yes! Perhaps billions! I have changed my lifestyle a great deal every time I have been awakened from suspended animation! I only awoke this time on your appearance here!”

  “Did you actually see this alien actually kill anyone directly?”

  “No!”

  “Why did you kill our friends?” one of the archeologists asked.

  “I was searching for information in their rooms! I did not want to be discovered and could have been killed myself! I am still not fully sure of your identity!”

  “Have you heard anything of the ultimate time traveler and the lost treasures?” Bryson asked.

  He laughed aloud, and went into fits of hysterical laughs, and stopped himself and held himself, and answered humorously, “What you don’t believe in those old tales? Even though that alien encounter threw us back in time and onto this island, which was an original prehistoric Earth island, time travel is too dangerous and many people who attempted to find the ultimate time traveler and its lost treasures with it have died!”

  Bryson watched the billion year old man gradually fall over dead, and he wondered if they had made a mistake and killed the last human born on the planet Earth!

  Chapter 23

  The Zombies

  On their way back through the dark jungle they barely noticed the darkness and dangers and Bryson even walked into a few trees, while in deep thought over what they had witnessed.

  It was incredible he had met one of the last people to set foot on the Earth and they had thought he was a killer ape!

  A thin fog engulfed them without him noticing it and it soon thickened around them and he thought of it as part of his hazy tired vision and daydreams of what had taken place there.

  Would the others believe that the castle was an ultimate last starship of the planet Earth, and that thing that had landed the airplane had been an alien that had captured it and landed it there?

  Peculiar vivid streaks like colored lightning exploded all about them all through the jungle and Bryson saw the sky above through the thickening mist filling with massive blinding stars that he had never seen before.

  It was like seeing there at another time in the future or past!

  One star’s flickering light streaked into his face showing its real immensity! A truly unique form of space from somewhere else emerging there.

  He wondered from his scientific perspective what larger and more advanced life forms would be like in such an environment. He sometimes thought the Earth existed in one of the most barn regions of space, and avoid things.

  The fog rapidly engulfed them and thickened and they lost more of what little sight they had, and they moved faster, but they were all too tired to go faster without exhausting themselves, draining themselves of energy.

  If only they could discover what was there without being killed, and he would be annoyed if they never found anything!

  Thick mud and vegetation shrouded everything and they had to force their way through regions, and it forced him into realizing that the archeologists had taken a slightly different route back!

  It covered their boots and clothes with muck, and he imagined the mind-bending landscapes beyond there and he realized how tired he felt.

  It was shocking how easily they could get trapped and lost and the worst of it was he could not realize how they could have avoided it now.

  Everything turned indistinguishable about him and he wondered if it would be the end of him!

  He was sure that they were actually appearing on another world and he saw through gaps in the thickening fog and saw distant regions of strange places. Yet they stuck to the same route and never seemed tire or alter their course, and he wondered if they could have gotten out of it by going back and remaining there for it to change.

  He was sure that it might have been a different route that they had taken. The killer had told them that it had defenses and things to scare away with, and he was sure that the route that he had taken and they had followed avoided it!

  Strange high frequencies shadowed them driving the archeologists insane trying to identify them, and Bryson wondered if he could find the rou
te from where he was and he recalled the route that they had taken back and at what angle they had left it, and he measured the distance away from them it was, and started talking the archeologists and Merton into shifting over to it and they eventually started moving directly over to it.

  Though their legs started entering deep bogs of stinking rotting vegetation with chemical stenches, resembling some chemical that he kept examining to identify, wondering how such chemicals got there, and he knew that it was being created like the other effects to scare them away from the castle.

  Out of nowhere a powerful light emerged through the thickest formation of the mist with its radiance pulsating as an entity, magically illuminating the fog around them with strange shadow formations from things he could not see, creating mind-bending shifting shadows that weaved and probed their way towards them.

  Sounds of heavy pounds of beasts of incredible size and weight emerged, causing them to scurry fast without being able to see anything with the fog thickening.

  The archeologists stopped and started to conserve their energy and withdrew their weapons and Bryson and Merton put themselves out of the way of the two archeologists to allow them to fire at anything around them.

  Bryson watched how each of them reacted and noticed Merton reacted the least and even looked as if he was not bothered by it.

  For a short time they ran almost blindly through the fog and stopped when they saw humans, aliens, and robots of the future shifting through thin areas of mist, and Bryson saw them and tribes of ancient warriors with swords emerging and turning solid, covered in blood and wounds, clearly coming out of battles.

  Their heavy violent sounds furiously exploded out as they charged at each other and them and the archeologists shot the most dangerous, and they watched some get back onto their feet, even with their limbs hanging from them, and they started realizing that they were zombies, and had come from some supernatural place.