Behind them shifting lights were darting everywhere through the trees with ghost images of creatures doing hideous things.
Chapter 11
The Phantoms
The thin fog engulfed them before they reached the castle and peculiar vivid streaks like colored lightening exploded all over the top level of it, and Bryson saw the sky above it full of massive blinding stars that he had never seen before.
One star’s flickering light streaked into his face showing its real immense size! It was truly unique and clearly some form of space from somewhere else emerging.
He wondered from his scientific perspective what the larger and more advanced life forms would be like in such an environment. They had not seen anything there, and he sometimes thought he existed in one of the most barn regions of space.
The fog rapidly engulfed them and they lost more of what little sight they had, and they briskly moved faster, 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, covering their boots and clothes with muck, and he imagined the mind-bending landscapes beyond there and if they were the same, and he realized how tired he felt.
It was shocking how easily they got trapped and lost and the worst of it was he could not realize how they could avoid it. All they needed to do was stick to the exact places in the last castle and they avoided it. But here they could not have done it! Yet he was sure that at the majority of the time they could actually have done it if they had done it during the day, and that it was Mitchell and his men’s fault that they had kept going and had not slept in the tunnel until the morning. The vast dangers seemed to either stop them dead or they went charging in, and everything turned indistinguishable about him, and he wondered if it would be the end of him.
At one point he thought that he was actually on another world when he saw through slight gaps in the thickening fog and saw distant regions of strange places. Mitchell and the others stuck to the same routine and never seemed tire or alter their course.
Strange high frequency sounds shadowed them from unknown places, driving some of them insane trying to identify them.
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. Many smelt like they had been dumped there by some industrial site and he considered if an intelligent species there could have built civilizations there. But his mind refused to accept anything without further evidence and he considered it being put there either by the builders of the castle, or the tunnel, or someone else that had been there.
Out of nowhere the most powerful light emerged through the thickest formation of the mist with its radiance pulsating like an entity, magically illuminating the thin 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.
While they casually slowed and observed them sounds of heavy pounds of something of incredible size and weight rushed out, causing them to scurry away without being able to see anything behind them.
Mitchell and his men withdrew their weapons and rushed along with them but trying to see their target, and they furiously moved their legs in and out of bogs as it grew nearer and deadlier, causing their legs to become painful and tired, and they shifted away to hard ground to be able to escape better.
It was like they were making their last stand and being on the edge of destruction and Bryson watched how each of them reacted, and noticed Mitchell reacted the least and even looked as if he was definitely going to kill the thing with his weapon.
For a short time they ran almost blindly up and down over bogs and humps, rushing through to where the flat had ground was.
Heavy beast sounds furiously exploded out nearby and clearly chased them and they considered turning and firing. It was common for large animals to get frightened away from being fired on and he was sure that Mitchell believed it and was sure that it was the same as the dead creature that they had found in the tunnel, and that the last creatures had not heard or seen their weapons as they had not fully appeared there, and Bryson wished that he would confirm it with the thing fully appearing, which he believed that it would have to do to kill them.
It was like being in someone else’s strange nightmare and Bryson started to get annoyed over its avoidance of doing anything at all, and when he swiftly turned he saw an immense shadow spread through an area of the fog, where the sounds exploded out!
They were breathless and they all stared blankly, and he wondered what he was missing and what their explanations of what had happened would be.
One of the soldiers suddenly turned and started firing at the dark shape shifting through the mist, looking too tired to be able to go on properly at the rate they were going at and making an attempt at survival.
With interest the majority of them turned to watch the thing, and as far as Bryson saw and heard it never even acknowledged his direct hit on it, and it left them confused, and he decided to get him to try again if it appeared visible.
Their legs could not take them fast enough after the shot and the thing seemed to speed up and close in on them, and Bryson cursed their stupid idea of firing on it and running. Surely they could have made it appear by entering a thin area of the fog and confronted it, as it had to materialize to kill them, and at least they would not be exhausted and could aim and fire all their weapons at it at the one time.
The shape of the castle appearing through the vapor was blissful, and they all stared fascinated with it and in their luck.
The lighted castle radiated through a mass of trees and foliage and Bryson was sure he would not normally have seen it, and that it was not even visible to planes with its roof being completely covered in vegetation and small trees.
It was like a phantom oasis out on the edge of realism, on the bounds of what lay beyond, with the things charging out of the depths of hell, with them running to it and to reality.
All his looks back annoyingly never showed him a proper view of the heavy monster thing rampaging towards them and he wondered if the thing was playing with them, like a cat with a mouse, waiting until it fully had it.
They moved straight up to the massive castle doors, and Mitchell shot the lock and smashed it in and they rushed in, exhausted and staggered, and when Bryson got in the doorway he stayed at the side of the door and listened and watched the fog outside until the last of the men had entered and they shut the door, and he heard its powerful movements rapidly taking it to the edge of a lane in front of the castle, where for some reason it could not pass, and he saw its colossal ghost demon shape floating through the mist, snapping its massive jaws, before it vanished.
Chapter 12
Inside the Castle
Even though Bryson had not properly seen and measured the castle, as it was mostly buried away in thick trees and undergrowth, it was colossal and he was sure that it was far longer and wider than any type of football field, and as high as an average eight-story building (and could even reach up to 150 meters long and 60 meters wide, and 30 meters high).
The builder, William Randall, who had built a castle already, surely would not have built it so massive at the date that it had been built, and he wondered if the people that rebuilt it there had built it bigger! If it was built for defense, like most castles had been, why did he need it to be such a size, as it would have been far easier to build and defend a small castle? He would have needed and had to have maintained an immense army for decades!
Why did they not just increase the size of his army? Everything he had seen of people of that time had been done for logical reasons! Yet he realized it was exaggerated and that William Randall had built it, as he had built the last large castle, but not as large as it, and it might have been to show his immense power an
d wealth, and an army would also have thought twice before attacking such a construction, and they could easily have thought it held a great and powerful king, while it being buried away in a wood would have added to its defense.
He was determined to solve all the riddles, and prepared himself to find the proper answers!
He was determined to ignore the events of the past few days and concentrate on what was in the castle. He had seen little of it in the darkness with their lights, and it was cold and smelled of dampness, and nobody left the location at the lounge at the door.
Most of the night had been subjected to false alarms of the things in the wood reappearing there, and they had been glad when the morning arrived.
Later on he and Mortimer and Merton went outside to see it in the light of day and were surprised and disappointed. It was unbelievable and historical, but had fallen into being a derelict. Vegetation and trees virtually entirely covered it, including its roof, and it was part of the wood. It was lucky the interior was preserved, as they would have had a bad time staying there.
Bryson studied pieces from exterior walls strewn about in the undergrowth, and immense square boulders and other parts.
They wandered around it checking what they could but a lot of it was hidden from view, and he had a hard time realizing how they had been able to move it there! Why they had allowed such a valuable construction to become derelict? And realized again that it was the haunting of it and its deadliness! There were abundant deaths marked as occurring there! He thought the last castle had been bad but this one was deadly beyond belief and people avoided it to save their lives!
He wondered if they should have just left it! If they could not get rid of what was there they could be playing with something of great danger that could result in an immense amount of deaths, for decades to come.
Bryson made a rough drawing/map of it as they wandered around. At the front there seemed to be only the one central door, but there were others at the sides and back, and there was one at a kitchen at the back.
The front door had a hall that led to the other side of the castle, and long corridors of rooms went from one end of the castle to the other all the way through it. With different shaped and sized rooms everywhere. The majority of it was confusing, and he found little to answer his queries. The floors above were not identical, and he considered his theory that the place was built to scare off enemies with its magnitude and value, and he put all the things in it there for the building and with no real use. Yet if an army and other group of people stayed there it could well have all been used by them. They could have been complex and advanced people of that age and did many things not normally done.
He wondered where William had stayed in it, and where his room was located? Perhaps at the top floor, where he would have had a good view of his wood and grounds?
When they arrived back in the castle he heard Mitchell on his phone and listened to his conversation and that he was bringing in all their supplies, as they had planned to do once they had found and entered the castle. They had an area on the remains of the lane to it where the helicopters could land.
All the rest of the scientists and psychic investigators and their highly advanced equipment, to begin a detailed investigation, were being brought, as well as more men to help Mitchell, and as well as food supplies they were bringing generators for proper power supplies for the lights and everything else.
Chapter 13
The Legends
Throughout centuries the place had been viciously subjected to deadly mind-bending forces and manifestations!
Legends were extraordinary, bordering on absurd, and once Bryson got all his things off a helicopter he was able to check through the details that they had gathered in intense investigations at loads of locations, which was used to locate the lost castle.
The origins, from a majority of accumulated sources, to which he and the others had proven had occurred, occurred around 1620 when fishermen at a Scottish fishing village had witnessed the materialization of something of unknown origins, and that a bright light of magnitude had exploded out of the early morning mist over the sea, like a crazy shooting star, and had been seen landing.
After a great deal of observations, research, and discussions by the leading scientists they had agreed that the thing that they had found at Grovnor Castle, with its appearance there and its alien artifact creating gateways throughout space and time, could very well have been detected and located by it. The first had left traces through space and time for anything to detect!
Space and time could be full of things of unknown origins searching for other things of unknown origins throughout space and time. The description of the second revealed that it could well have been attempting to mimic the first and could have even been there to make contact with it or check what it was and analyze it.
Something encountering something new at an unknown location could easily assume that it belonged there, and they believed that when it had appeared there that it had assumed that the other thing had been an inhabitant of this world!
There was no proof that both encountered each other, and though the castles had been in the same region there had in fact been a great deal of distance between them. They also believed that though they had reached their destinations that neither had been able to achieve their objectives.
They knew why the original one had nearly been killed when it had made an appearance, when it had been found by fishermen, and that it had eventually died where the first castle had been built before the other had arrived, even though its powers had haunted that castle for centuries with its lost alien artifact hidden there.
Accounts of the other reshaping and continually altering its appearance showed that it had altered from something else and had been trying to adapt, and it having accelerated/decelerated motions and forms like a crazy entity/life form as it had appeared.
At first it had appeared to have damaged itself and be on the brink of losing its existence but it had been later perceived that it had entered some form of damaged or dormant state – surely exhausted of energy from either its extraordinary manifestation, or from its impact with the world, or it not even having existed in space and time.
The fishermen that found it had taken it to the most knowledgeable and powerful person there and to William Randall, who had been staggered by its existence, and who gave them his extensive knowledge and experience, but had displayed more confusion on its appearance than them.
He had taken it from them and it was never seen again, but years later, after the construction of William Randall’s second castle, they had heard of its activation at the second castle and that many deaths had occurred and that they had been trying use it for magical purposes – to foresee future occurrences – and to accumulate its powerful powers.
According to legends all the people there had been found dead, and it had left the most powerful magical object in existence at the castle – in whatever state and place they had left it – with powers going beyond anything else – with power surges opening gateways going beyond space and time – and with William Randall’s valuable treasure nearby.
For centuries the lost treasure had been thought to exist there by a few explorers, who had carried out investigations and searches for it, of which many had paid by losing their lives, by being in the confines of the castle at the wrong time or place.
No real clues to its whereabouts existed other than it was located near a magical object! The legends gave mentions of it but the actual details were too little and too vague and the occurrences at the place made it too confused to establish. All the facts were missing, but having seen what the William Randall had been like and that the other treasure had existed Bryson and the paranormal scientists thought he could have had it, and it was hidden there.
The place must have been one of the most dangerous places in the world and nobody attempted to live there, or even live near there. People could not survive permanently living in its confines!
Even though most of the time its powers dwindled and some people had managed to survive and escape after living for months there, and had given horrific accounts of the mind-bending wonders and deadliest menaces that they had been subjected to.
At one point, in 1880, to which nobody knows why, its existence had become entirely dormant and a wealthy businessman had found the castle by accident while visiting the region and had bought it from the owners of the land.
He had recognized its value, historical importance, colossal architecture and dimensions, and had seen that it was worthless in the desolate wood, in the middle of nowhere, and had it removed in large sections and shipped across the Atlantic, where he had intended to reconstruct it near New York.
What occurred next was never revealed, and there occurred an extensive amount of lost information, and all that was known was that the owner had died in mysterious circumstances and that the castle had ended up at a different and secret location in the depths of an immense desolate wood, hidden away from anyone locating it, with what was there activated again.
Chapter 14
The Disturbances
When Bryson opened his eyes he never even knew what he was! He had no recognition of anything or where he was, or that he was in one of the rooms in the castle!
He was staggered and sat upright and turned on his room light, and wondered if it was caused by his exhaustion, done on the day before, or his lack of food, the severe cold and snow falling outside, or something in the castle influencing him.
The dreams that he had had been incomprehensible and he wondered if they had actually been dreams! They never made sense and had been made up with shimmering lights and freakish sounds being whirled about him, and like being in a colossal vortex, where he never thought or even did anything, and had been like he never existed and just experienced what was there.
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