The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition)

by V Bertolaccini

  Chapter 17

  The Treasure Quest

  The entire castle was colossal and dangerous beyond belief, even during the day, and they had checked all the stuff that they had accumulated and found there had been many occurrences and deaths during the day, and nobody seemed to want to go into the unexplored regions, where they also thought the killer lurked.

  So when they started their investigations of the castle it was in search of the treasure there and was organized by Mitchell and he brought all his men, with Bryson and the two psychic investigators, and some scientists and archaeologists, who were curious what was in the unexplored regions.

  They had been no further than the central region, and region that they slept in on the second floor, so Mitchell’s idea of going to the central region of the top floor was really interesting.

  Bryson climbed the stairs studying everything, while curiously watching Mitchell as he followed him up and occasionally listened to everyone else behind him, and Bryson noticed that his surroundings seemed to get dirtier the further up they went and by the time they reached the top they were sweeping giant webs away, which seemed to increase in size, and he started to consider there being dangerous spiders there.

  “Well,” Mitchell finally announced, breaking his silence. “We now know that killer has not been here! Though there must be other staircases up here, so we still have him being about as a problem.”

  They entered the top floor and it looked incredible to Bryson. It was like another world and like seeing a real haunted place, place where supernatural existed, and he considered it as being either one of the only places like it on the planet or one of the most powerful places on the planet.

  The corridor had to be the most ghostly darkest places he had seen, and with freezing cold and snow it was even more still, silent, and empty of life as was possible. Even with the lights on there were strange haunting dark shadows and glows that held secrets and dangers!

  Some of Mitchell’s men insisted in announcing their being there clearly to the killer, if he was up there, and they insisted in leaving him until the police arrived. And even though it was one of his men and he had directly attacked them, he had escaped and it was a police matter! Though he was sure most of them actually still intended to do something when they could!

  They grouped closely together and wander down the corridor in the one direction with startled and amused faces as they searched its interior, with faint thoughts of what it would be like there at night. The place to everyone there seemed to be the source of all the occurrences in the wood, and it at times was like being in a central area where something existed that was more powerful than anything else there, and perhaps on the planet, and the stuff in the wood avoided going there because of its power and that they were being checked and it had hidden intentions to do things with them.

  The treasure being hidden away there was like something were using it to lure people there to their deaths, and he wondered again if he would survive this adventure!

  Merton wandered about offering anyone next to him a cigarette, and spoke to them confidently, and they gave startled expressions at their surroundings and what he actually worked as and a famous leading investigator of psychic occurrences.

  Mitchell, Bryson noticed, was giving them confidence and his wisdom in carrying out the task ahead, while gently persuading them to do what he wished, and use their powers of deduction to find clues or anything there. There main motivation seemed to be money, and they were all positive that was what motivated the killer there.

  As they passed different rooms it became clear that nobody had been there in many decades. Cobwebs and dirt just about shrouded everything they met with!

  Nothing showed any clues to what Bryson wanted, and it made little sense.

  The killer had to be ruthless and carefree to have done it in the way that it had been done, especially to one of Mitchell’s men. The person had done it under their noses! Yet it could indicate that he never knew them or what they were like?

  From the looks that that he caught he knew that the incident had affected them all. Some of them were argumentative when they mentioned the dead guy, and he was sure that they had not found any major clues.

  Bryson touched his sore forehead with his fingers feeling if the coldness had sunk into his brain.

  He saw that it had still stopped snowing and that there was a good chance, according to a forecast, that the weather would stay that way until the night.

  He wondered if the place had actually turned people insane! He wondered if the killer had an interest in anything else and if they were thinking of him as being only after one thing.

  A loud helicopter thud gradually emerged away in the distance, and they all grew silent and considered the arrival of the police, and at a window Bryson and some of the others watched it and another three helicopters arrive, making them even change their interest there to below the castle, where they landed, and Bryson watched the faces of all the police and people connected with them get out and looking about slightly amused but mainly very curious, and some actually knowing some things about the place, and he heard some of their communications blaring out as they told of their arrival and what the place looked like.

  The police had a hard time realizing what they were dealing with, and Bryson listened to the person he was sure was in charge of everything. He had clearly been communicating with the police elsewhere in his helicopter.

  “We can separately look about more,” Merton declared, clearly losing interest with looking out the window. “We can cover more ground ...”

  They all split up more and into groups, going into rooms more, and searching more.

  Bryson marched away himself straight to where he thought one of the main rooms was, which was larger and unusual, and he was sure it belonged to the owner that had reconstructed the castle, if he had even lived there or had it built for him before his death.

  It was incredible how fast Mitchell rushed after him, and he watched Merton follow him, seeing it was the most interesting place to go.

  The others mainly agreed to search the corridor and to check paintings and antiques, which were really ancient and valuable looking, especially being there and covered in such dust and dirt.

  The door to the room at first seemed locked when Bryson reached it, before the other two had made it to him, and he quickly confirmed it was locked before trying to shove it in.

  “Curious!” Mitchell muttered. “Very curious! It’s got a lock and it’s locked!”

  Merton ducked and stuck his eye to the keyhole and moved back, and asked, “We could wait and try to find a key, which may not exist, or we could just break in?”

  “Let’s break in!” Mitchell quickly replied first. “What’s in there could be of great value! And if we leave it someone else could get here first! This place is getting more and more people ...”

  “Alright!” Bryson replied. “The door can be replaced anyway, if it’s of any value ...”

  Mitchell immediately left to nearby rooms until he found what he wanted, and arrived with a large log of wood, which had been in a fireplace, and used it to smash in the lock and viciously shove it in, until the door screeched right open and Bryson saw only darkness and then windows that were covered by thick curtains, and dust flew down over them as they moved in and they entered like they were entering a tomb.

  The mess was shocking! Webs and fungus had shrouded everything and an ancient bed was left rotted away within the room, with small amounts of ancient furniture around the edges of the large room, and Bryson attempted to age it all but never succeeded.

  “The owner liked a large bed,” Merton muttered, humorously, examining its remains, watching a dust cloud from their entrance float in beams of light, from streaks of sunlight from the window where Mitchell started opening the curtains, trying not to destroy the rotted remains of them, and looking out at the wood from there with some fascination!

  They then crept around the room watching h
is fascination of the wood, and his drawing all the areas of interest in a vague map, and listening to their creaks and cracks from the floorboards.

  Bryson’s attention fell on the bed again trying to imagine what age it was, and he realized it was early twenty-century technology.

  When he moved back he saw the humorous side of what they were doing. The place interested him and he liked such places and their history, imagining all the past events and people who had been there, and all the many hours and days and thoughts that they had, and he wondered what the future would hold for it and fantasized being in a time machine shooting through the depths of time. What would the future be? And what would the outcome of their investigations there be? What would the future be now that the murder and all the police were there? Was this the end of the desolation of it? Or could the place become so deadly that they would have to isolate it from humanity?

  He saw a small drawer under the legs of the remains of a wardrobe in the corner of the room and saw it had not been seen, and investigated it with interest, while he considered the room from different perspectives. He wondered if the people had just slowly left there or had been forced out by the occurrences there, or had they died there?

  The stiff drawer revealed it was full of old clothes and he looked through and man’s clothes considering what he had been like.

  Mitchell never investigated anything any further and assumed that they had found what they were going to, while Merton copied Bryson and still searched unusual places and objects that he came to, and looked under a small gap below the bed.

  “This place is gruesome!” Bryson muttered. “This place must have been the biggest castle in the world when it was built! And it could have had one of the richest people too! It must have been the most magnificence building to live in at one time, with luxury beyond other people’s wildest dreams! And look at what it ended up like! One of the worst deadliest places on the planet!”

  He wondered if something might occur to mankind in hundreds of years with the world turning desolate like the castle! Could this be really what happens to the whole of civilization one day? Will the remains of the human race end up living in the remains of everything, treating it as desolate gruesome remains of an ancient race obsessed with size and power, building immense structures for unknown strange reasons?

  “An incredible place with an even more incredible history!” he remarked, flicking webs away from him.

  “Do you think that we made a mistake being here?” Merton asked, seeing his change of feelings. “This place is cursed with deaths ... And not just one or two people at a time ...!”

  “A ruthlessly place with many lost secrets that does not like people staying in its locality for too long ...”

  “Let’s check somewhere else!”

  As they left they were amazed at how far the others were going to search the place, and even Mitchell gave a surprised look at what some of his men were doing and that they were frantically yanking up floorboards all over the place, as well as in specific places.

  When they walked further up Mitchell was even more surprised and stood with his mouth open, and one of his men whispered something in his ear and he realized something and nodded back in agreement, making Bryson wonder what they had realized and had turned frantic over.

  “A good way!” Merton revealed. “We can get this place searched properly if they all carry on like this.”

  When they moved along the corridor Bryson realized that it was a good idea and slowly started copying and helping them.

  Though Mitchell allowed it he never joined in and remained ready to go to anywhere anything was occurring though.

  Bryson wandered around just to see what he randomly found, and stopped at paintings and antiques wondering what they were worth. The owners were immensely wealthy and could easily have left something that could have vastly increased in value, and he studied a painting and wondered what it was worth.

  He quickly phoned an old friend to see if he would value them and was surprised that he had heard about the castle and occurrences there and that it was all over the media, and he was comforted to know that they never knew the location as the police did not want to give away the location, and Bryson knew that they knew there was danger there and that people would be in danger.

  His next surprise was that he was more interested than he had thought in checking the value the things there for him and Bryson sent photos of paintings and antiques when came to them, and left him to check them.

  While he searched a repetitive forceful hammering appeared in the distance and occasionally interrupted him enough to stop and listen and wonder why someone was so determined to break through something.

  He realized how much he liked and missed treasure hunting and quest for the discovery of the paranormal cause and the solutions, and realized why he was there more than ever. The quest, the exhilaration, and the thrill of the chase made gave him immense excitement and adrenalin rushes! He was sure there was stuff all over the place after seeing the reactions and things there!

  While he considered the castle’s interior from various perspectives the sounds in the background escalated into a furious rummaging and banging, which made everyone about him stand alert and listen. What was happening? What had they missed by not checking there? The people behind the sounds sounded as if they had really found something and were trying breakthrough to something to get it.

  Bryson stood next to Merton and watched a room far along the corridor where there was a cloud of dust was coming out, and heavy thuds were accelerating louder, almost climaxing and the people were about to uncover something and they marched quickly there, and the others around them joined them.

  “What the hell have they found there!” one of Mitchell’s men finally moaned out loud, glaring ahead.

  Bryson followed behind him and watched the room – where the cloud of dust increased and moved along towards them, and they heard and felt shudders going through the walls and sounds of boulders crashing across the floor.

  Their looks changed from bewildered glances to observing everything as they approached it, and they looked in the doorway and saw chunks of rock and pieces of plaster scattered everywhere across the room and Mitchell and his men crowded around an area of the floor where there was a large black hole, which they had smashed the floor away to reveal.

  They had discovered something concealed below the stone floor beneath the wooden planks. Perhaps after they had discovered that the ground under the floorboards had given a hollow tone, but when he questioned Mitchell he told them that when they had lifted the floorboards there that they found that the stone floor had a hole in it, where it had caved in, and that they had seen a chamber below.

  Bryson measured the floor with amazement and realized that he had not even considered it, even after being in the last castle. It was phenomenal how thick the floor between the top floor and the lower floor was and he had not noticed it, and it even looked large enough to conceal something, and he recalled what William Randall, the builder of the castles, was like and had done in the other castle.

  Yet why had he gone to such lengths to conceal this one? Was there any connection between it and the disturbances that had occurred at the place?

  Mitchell’s men viciously smashed heavy hammers against the thick stone and chunks of it crumbled away and crashed down beneath the floor, while the others got ready to climb down.

  Chapter 18

  The Hidden Chamber

  A deep thud echoed down when Bryson jumped down into the chamber below, through the hole, landing on all the debris that they had smashed in, and he watched Mitchell and his men looking around with a single torch and Bryson looked up and out the hole at the faces of the others glaring down, interested but remaining there until more lights arrived.

  It was hard to figure out why it was so valuable to them and why it was even anything, although in the last castle it had been, and he started looking for proof that it was more than part of the str
ucture of the castle.

  The ebbing radiance of the torch clearly was not enough to allow more of them to see properly at any proper distance and they moved gradually while checking everything, and Bryson followed scarcely grasping the concept of why such things had been built, and recalled in the last castle they had been used as hiding places and escape routes from being attacked and overcome by enemies.

  He had only one fact to prove and that because it was in the castle it might have been part of its defense against invaders! So he searched everywhere for clues that people had been supposed to stay in it and all he saw were chimneys and supporting walls as his eyes slowly adjusted to the vague light.

  The height of it was low and they were crouched over to avoid hitting their heads against the above floor and they crept through the dirt and building debris, while sounds took strange tones, and he strained his eyes more trying to see further in, but there were no features of anything.

  After a great deal of time they wandered around and the new lights arrived and surprised them as they were able to see away into distant regions all around them, and one of Mitchell’s men suddenly shouted and they all followed his gaze to a strange shape away in the distance, and one of the men shone his light directly on it and revealed a large square object.

  While they shifted there it became clear the place had not been used as a hiding place, unless it could have been going to be one or the builder had put it in to convert into it if they had needed it.

  They approached the object slowly and Bryson wondered where they were under, at the above floor, and tried to grasp what would be there. Was it hidden away or was it part of the structure of the castle? His examinations of it at a close range gave him little to go on other than it was made of gray stone and square, but when they finally approached the thing it became clear it was the square end of a tomb, and if they had seen it from a front angle they might have recognized it.