The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

It was surprising that it had not flooded with the cracks and holes, from water seeping down. Then he saw signs that it had occurred, and saw thick layers of dried mud ahead.

  Mortimer looked happy and in his natural environment with the strange and unusual, with unsolved mysteries everywhere, and he smoked like he was experiencing an expensive cigar, flaring away at his mouth, tasting the smoke, with the smoke spinning through the air behind him.

  The mystery of where it led to was certainly one of the main inspirations that kept them going, seeking an answer they knew they had to receive, driving them on no matter what.

  If they turned back, they would never know, and could even have to face death, so they kept going.

  Bryson realized that none of them would have believed that it went out to that length. Their pace stayed the same, their walk never changed.

  He noticed that they mainly took it for granted that the tunnel had not collapsed anywhere and would reach somewhere, and that they would not have to journey back.

  Bryson spotted something away in the distance and that the others about him had seen it, and they all went there with their heads facing it trying to observe something there that could not be properly observed.

  His head eventually went back to where it had been, watching the tunnel about him, making sure that nothing was in their immediate way. Occasionally continuing with examining what was ahead, until he saw something blocking the tunnel far ahead, and he started to gasp.

  Merton and Mortimer soon noticed launched into a discussion of the problem, and Bryson attempted to hear everything in their silent hushed chants. And he saw that they did not come to any real conclusions!

  When they finally approached it Mortimer suddenly exploded with anger and went calm, on the brink of losing his patience while he marched up to it.

  “Why did they build a wall there?” Merton moaned first, trying to obtain an answer to such absurdity.

  The four of them stood, resting, glancing at individual sections of the wall, as the others stood back at a distance observing them.

  “Whoever built this obviously was different from the builders and did it years later!” Merton remarked. “Something could be hidden behind this? Where do you think this is?”

  “You’re probably right!” Mitchell remarked, touching the strange shapes of the boulders, and way they were put together. “Someone has hidden something away here ...”

  Bryson saw that none of them knew and that they were starting to think that they would have to return to where they had been, but he ignored that as he was positive that would not happen until the morning.

  Merton started feeling along the edge of the wall where there was a crack going around it.

  “We could trying shoving it over,” Merton announced, looking at it, giving Bryson a smile. “With our combined weight ...”

  He mechanically placed his arm against an area of the wall and started to push it and they joined in, and the bricks, which were not cemented, started falling inwards.

  What they then found were thick webs covering the gap left, and they pushed the rest of the stone until it all crumbled and collapsed across the ground.

  Mitchell removed his communicator and silently started trying to see if it now worked, trying to contact somewhere, and when he could not pick it up he put it away.

  “Could that thing back there stop it working?” he asked them, trying to grasp the situation.

  Nobody answered and showed they never knew, and they left it.

  With the lights held out a black gap became visible behind all the thick webs and dirt, and they illuminated the tunnel going on and they moved in, removing the webs and dirt.

  Bryson watched his shadow flicker along the stone, and his unblinking eyes watched the ground searching for obstructions, and he continued following Mitchell and Merton along.

  Thick cobwebs crawled over his face and covered up everything ahead, and he heard the murmurs of provoked archaeologists behind him, and he realized that Merton had announced something. In the blackness ahead something indistinguishable was emerging, making his heart quicken and at any second he expected to find something deadly, and an immense cavity opened up in front of him.

  Chapter 6

  The Skeleton

  How many centuries had the chamber been hidden away? The distant obscurity was full of chilling silence, which made him feel isolated. Webs hung everywhere around him and he waved his hand in circles scraping them away from him.

  In dimness at the front, just in their light’s range, he watched dim gleams from things in the stone reflect dim light, producing a magical effect upon his hazy tired sight.

  Faint echoes of their breathing and murmurs could be heard in its extraordinary silence, and by their frantic reactions he sensed that they believed that something was actually there. Although the descriptions that some of the archaeologists gave made it too unacceptable to him to believe fully what they had suggested the chamber was. In vivid detail they had specified that the location was a resting place of something! His mind conjured up vague visions of spooky medieval ghosts roaming there.

  Water splashed over his face as it dripped from overhead, from cracks in the rock, and he moved sideways from it.

  With it away from him he cleaned it away from his face, and he watched a light explore what he had missed, and it beamed out over the roof lighting up a vast cavern structure overhead, which had been cut out using the same method as the tunnel.

  The roof was at a height of a hundred feet, and he caught glimpses of where things had once been and he listened to the surreal echoes of the archaeologists giving their explanations.

  He shifted slowly into the fringes of where their lights beamed, as he rested from the journey there and long day, and at his front an object came into sight and he felt its roughness with his fingertips through thick webs and dirt, obscuring a proper view of it, and he placed his hands over it and its shape and hideous outline became clear, and he stepped back jerking his hand away, and saw that it was an open-mouthed skeleton with a rusted knife embedded in its chest.

  The others soon came over and they crowded around it.

  “How recent do you think this happened?” Mitchell asked, examining it up close.

  “A very long time ago ...” one of the archaeologists confirmed first, who had been first to examine it.

  Their voices were changed and more professional, and made surreal echoes about them. Some archaeologist gave silent explanations to what might have happened, but only gave imprecise replies, especially after all the occurrences that had happened.

  With a little amusement Bryson watched Mitchell’s figure hanging over it trying to grasp information about the person, and he searched the clothing of the man, but nothing was there except he spotted some pieces of rope where he had been tied up.

  “This place has definitely been used for devil worship or witchcraft, or similar?” Mitchell asked firmly, unsure what else could have happened.

  “I would say so!” the archaeologists replied.

  “Someone gave a human sacrifice here, a long time ago, then!” he stated to one of his men, who wrote it down.

  They all moved back or away from it, and the archaeologists got to work on checking it in detail – with gasps and surprises when they revealed its hideous agonized face more from webs and dirt – where the person had hideously died with his mouth open in pain, and had remained that way.

  They continued brushing away thick webs and dirt, obscuring a proper view of it, while crumbling bits of gray rot fell off.

  Bryson’s mind slowly grasped its hideous outline, and he stepped back wondering what the place was, and why they were doing it there.

  The others checked everything they could about the cavity and one of the archeologists discovered another tunnel.

  With their lights held out, they all started entering it and continued their journey, and Bryson saw that their lights would slowly drain of power and wondered what would happen.

&nb
sp; The second tunnel was thinner and had a different look and atmosphere, and he realized their thoughts had changed of things. They no longer really thought of the things outside, but of the dead body that they had found cruelly sacrificed, and he continued walking with Mortimer behind Mitchell and Merton.

  It had been a long day and he walked with unblinking eyes, almost hypnotized by the lights shifting over the walls, watching the ground in the glimmer searching for obstructions.

  Occasionally cobwebs crawled over his face, and he no longer heard the murmurs of the archaeologists still discussing their find, and what other people would think of it when they returned.

  Its creepy blackness made his heart beat fast and made him alert, and though, at times, he expected to find something deadly to confront them, he thought they might handle it, even though the things outside could have killed them.

  How many decades had the chamber been hidden away there, and how long ago had the death occurred? The distant obscurity was full of chilling silence, which made him feel isolated.

  Out in front, of the light range, he regularly watched dim gleams from stone lighting up like from a mysterious source, and he would confirm its type when he shifted passed it.

  After listening to more of the archeologists’ allegations he realized that not much had actually been found out! Why had anyone built the tunnels? Why would devil worshippers or whoever made the deadly sacrifices?

  Alright it was hidden away with little chance of anyone finding it, but why there and why go to such lengths to do what they had done?

  He wondered what the place would throw at him next! All his life he had been use to solving things as they appeared and now he was having every unsolvable mystery, perhaps on the planet, for centuries, dumped on him without the suggesting of a clue.

  In the pale illumination the tunnel went straight along, distinctively different from other tunnels – with its sides with smooth rock that never looked man-made and made by some means he could not quite grasp.

  “Did you come up with anything?” Mortimer asked once, to his amusement, noticing that he was frustrated with having so little to go on and finding nothing.

  Yet they seemed to have made a human sacrifice to something, and he wondered if they were done for the things outside, and that they could be even more deadly and powerful than they imagined, which would explain why they built the tunnels.

  While he was wondering if they and the tunnel were actually connected to the castle his sight fixed on a magical glow at a point directly in front, which he realized was not a wall, and its surface glowed like white lava in the bright rays of the light, as though it contained energy.

  “What could that be?” Mitchell moaned tiredly, leaning closer, as though he had partly fallen asleep and been awakened when he had seen it.

  Some of his men removed guns and remained ready to fire, and some of the others thought of retreating to where they had come.

  Nobody seemed to answer Mitchell and they remained silent, watching for signs of movement as they journeyed on.

  The pace was slow but they saw no real danger, but they had much confusion in what was there and Bryson continued on and on unable to see a thing, captivated in it, and started to realize how faint the lights were becoming and that he was half asleep, and that most of the others looked the same, and he heard silent moans.

  Jagged rocks scattered and piled over the ground brushed under their shoes, and he wondered why and saw rocks pile up more across his front.

  Mitchell increased the power of his light by removing the batteries and adding some new ones from his pocket, and when it lit up they all stopped in horror, scarcely believing their eyes.

  A monster creature, with large dark red eyes, with dimensions bigger than the tunnel was embedded in the side of the tunnel, like it had been tunneling through there and got trapped with its upper part embedded in the tunnel.

  Its massive deadly shape glowed under their lights when they surrounded it, with its giant head frozen in place with its jaws wide open, and identical to a colossal killing demon attacking.

  “There’s no heat from it!” one of the scientists announced, holding a device at it, reassuring them that it was dead, if it was in fact a life form at all. “And there’s no radioactivity ...! If anyone needs that information?”

  His last statement confused Bryson and left him wondering what he had meant.

  “Why is its surface so smooth?” one of he archeologists remarked feeling it. “Why it’s so perfectly preserved ... All signs identify it as being here a great deal of time!”

  A stream of light was inundating the tunnel further along, producing a magical effect upon Bryson’s hazy sight, and he realized that they had finally reached the end.

  Chapter 7

  The Demon Creature

  The morning sun stretched over the horizon throwing its golden rays amongst the trees, stretching long shadows everywhere, and brightly streaming its rays over Bryson and the others as they rested sleepily around a blazing campfire in the middle of a clearing in the snow covered wood.

  What a night! He could barely feel his legs, never mind his feet, which he watched perched on a bolder near the fire, absorbing the heat.

  The wood seemed perfect and like a winter wonderland, without its nightly dangers, which most of the others could not properly conclude why. Only he and the paranormal researchers and their scientists had any real insight into why as they had been at the last castle.

  The sunlight stretched along the wood putting life back into it, making snow specks sparkle as they floated down from the trees.

  A distant sound of scientists down in the tunnel, to his left, broke his silence, and he acknowledged a sweet pipe tobacco aroma lingering in the air, and he listened to their debates over what species the creature was classed as with some amusement, thinking of what the paranormal scientists would class it.

  He examined the giant hole in the tunnel, where they had been able to escape from the tunnel from, where the ground had collapsed in years before through corrosion from water and weight, and he tried to see into the rest of the tunnel where it had collapsed over, but he could not see any entrance in to it.

  He turned and stared into the smoldering red ashes in the campfire and imagined images of the creature’s large red eyes, as he had seen it in the tunnel, and realized that nobody there had seen eyes like it on any other animal. At times he had believed all the myths of the world and their remarkable things! Were there occult creatures buried away all over the world? He gasped at a drawing he recalled of a dragon creature.

  What the hell was this thing? Its head resembled old draws he had seen of demons, from a collection of ancient parchments. All demons were not the same! They had different features and they could be far different from what they had been drawn like and perceived. What were they anyway if they really existed? The thing that they discovered might even change the image of prehistoric animals if they released photos of it. It could make the trip a perfect success, and all the trouble that they had gone through worthwhile! It was a discovery of the wildest dreams of paranormal scientists, and perhaps proper concrete proof!

  Had they actually captured one of them things that had chased them through the wood? He was not sure if he could believe it! The things had been invisible! He had proven that!

  Had this one become solid and burrowed through to there, where it had been killed hitting and trapping itself in the tunnel? He had a hard time believing they were what they were being described as! Yet what if it was something else that they had missed? The thing William Randall had found at the last castle had alien origins! With its powers opening up gateways into supernatural places.

  “We’ve made contact with the outside!” Mitchell shrieked, holding his phone close into his ear, and joyfully walking back and forth on a flat area of snow, and entered a conversation with someone he knew that he was desperate to get in touch with.

  After he had finished his conversation he hung up and
put away his phone in his chest pocket.

  “Well it looks as though we may get that thing ...”

  “How what’s happening?” one of his men replied, moving over to where he was.

  “There’s a transporter army helicopter on the way ... I managed to get a loan of it ...”

  “I thought we were going to continue with this ...?”

  “I’ve informed them of the situation here and that we’ve decided to stay ... But if anyone wants out they can leave ...”

  “Why the helicopter?”

  “To remove that thing and get it back ... For it to be investigated, of course. I want their opinion on what it is?”

  Chapter 8

  The Military Helicopter

  The helicopter emerged in the horizon and swept in low across the trees, blowing up massive clouds of snow with its powerful twin rotor blades, with loud deafening thuds shattering the silence, and it hovered in slowly blowing snow and debris about everywhere before landing on an area of flat ground, where they had flattened.

  Bryson watched how startled the pilots were at what the mission was, with their strange looks and hidden thoughts, which he had expected with the descriptions Mitchell had given.

  The region was desolate and a mystery, and they had not seen there before. They soon opened the compartment door at the rear end and removed a smaller digger, and one of the men aboard drove it over to where they had marked where the creature was buried under, and he soon started digging it out.

  Bryson and the two paranormal scientists had become outstandingly famous since their discoveries at the last castle and some of the helicopter people were surprised to see them there, and gave more gasps at the discovery when they saw it. Yet Bryson was not sure what would become of the creature or what they would find it to be! They could easily end up classing it as some new variation of some animal!