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 outst
andingly 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!
When they mentioned the preservation of the creature the majority of them looked baffled, and nobody gave any proper explanation to why it had not rotted away. It clearly had been there for a great deal of time!
So when it was completely dug out and eventually lifted out into daylight all the scientists frantically talked, studied, and photographed it, avoiding giving much scientific explanations, and remained interested in the study its preservation and the uses it could have if they found something new there.
Bryson examined it to find the best way of killing it, if it was one of those beasts in the wood! Yet where had they appeared from, and they were invisible and partially invisible? So how could they handle such a thing? Would it be impossible to kill something that was invisible? Yet could it have killed while invisible? All the stories of encounters, which some of them could have been from them, as well as many other things, gave accounts of deaths! Did they fully materialize to carry out their attacks?
Bryson was still confused at what they were up against. They had nothing but a monster creature, from somewhere. Their vague examinations of its features and organs gave little, and showed little of its natural environment.
Yet when the helicopter was getting ready to take off, and all the people there were discussing the creature, he realized that they no longer believed it was one of the things in the wood and was something else, and Merton and Mortimer had lost interest in it completely, also thinking so, as all their examinations of it showed it was only a new form of animal.
The helicopter lifted off sweeping out low and increasing its height, with its deafening thuds rattling him to the bone, while simultaneously shattering their eardrums, making him wonder how the pilots never damaged themselves, and realized how much he had adapted to the deep desolate silence at the location, and he watched it vanish into the horizon, leaving its impression firmly in his minds.
Chapter 9
The Exploration
It was shocking how fast they started to realize the truth and that they should actually have left on the helicopter! When the early winter night started edging into the region all their recollections of the night before started emerging, and that they had not achieved their mission of leaving the wood, and at least getting to the castle.
The place was a public menace and should be marked as a danger zone and fenced off! Even as the sun edged into the horizon Bryson saw things that should not be there start to appear about the place, even the ground beneath them seemed to sag like it were turning into swamp.
Bryson felt like he had a sixth sense that could not detect the supernatural, and his brain detected other things caused by it.
The plan was to follow the rest of the tunnel, which they had dug into earlier, and they would find where that went and at least be away from their location.
A peculiar whistle haunted them, which could not be properly heard, like sounds animals hear that humans cannot, which came from no real location and shadowed them, irritating them trying to identify it and its location.
The tunnel was the same, and when they started marching into it Bryson heard scrambling movements and panic-stricken voices behind him and wondered if they had timed it too late, and if something had happened to the last people to enter and they did not know if they should go back or ignore it.
They soon discovered that it was only the last people that entered had seen a light deep in the wood before they entered!
If there were a death he wondered how the police would handle the situation if confronted with it and what the outcome would be?
“We better have our weapons ready anyway!” Mitchell warned his men behind him, as he stood in front of them, removing his weapon and putting it back, and waited for the others to remove their weapons and get the feel of them.
Merton went with Mitchell, in front of everyone, and Bryson and Mortimer followed them, with others in their usual formation following.
It was not as bad as it had been! They had renewed the energy in their lights and had more equipment that they needed, and could easily camp out in the tunnel if they needed to, and were not trapped, plodding on into the night.
Bryson tested the floor of the tunnel, which was dry packed mud and rock, wondering if it was a new form of mining that had created the walls. The technology behind it could be worth a great deal if it was what he thought it was, and the technology behind it was unknown, just like the creature that they found there, which had incredibly been able to burrow through the ground with its immense size, which they had not heard of before, which he would have dismissed as impossible.
It surprised him that if the technology to do it existed, and was unknown, how did it get there? Where did it come from?
Yet there was no proof and he did not know if he ever could prove it existed, and even doubted if the evidence and technology would be found, and yet could something like the creature have created the tunnel though?
Merton shifted around and spoke silently with Mortimer in conversations breaking the deep silence that kept emerging.
Bryson noticed the shaft prevented water flooding it by descending slightly. Small amounts of water had seeped through cracks, flowing down it to places it could exit from the tunnel. Yet he still never knew if it was deliberately built for long lasting use, and most of all why it was built, and he recalled the people that had made the human sacrifice back in the cavity. Yet that never made sense either! Why go to such lengths to build a tunnel and cavity? The time it would have taken could have been incredible!
“Who built this?” Mitchell moaned loudly once, trying to get them to give him something to solve one of the mysteries, but nobody replied and he thought of some other conclusion.
It reminded Bryson of the shaft that he had seen in the last castle, and had been built by William Randall. Yet the other tunnels there were made in the normal way without such technology. Yet the castle, if it existed, was built there about 1880, according the information they had heard. The technology of the tunnel was far more advanced, even by the current technology.
Over and over he thought of it and did not have a clue what a tunnel was doing in a wood! Why had they gone to such lengths to construct it? What hidden motive had been behind it?
They had to have put it there for logical reasons as all the constructions that he could recall had been built for. They had built them for their needs!
“Was it originally part of water system,” Merton mumbled to Mortimer, confused at the enormous distance it had, trying to recollect something such as it.
“Therefore, we should meet with where the water went!” Mitchell answered.
Merton pointed the light straight out in front of him, illuminating the ground many feet further down into it, and examined it. And he lunged forward as if he had decided that he wanted get to the source of it as soon as possible. He shifted down examining it going into the darkness, which seemed to go on endlessly, searching for any evidence of anything.
Its main feature now was its neat perfect size that continuously held without altering, but not from moving downwards now, making it resemble a mine but far more expertly constructed than that, as though built to last a long time like a sewer.
Bryson even wondered if people had found gold or other precious metal there, in a great amount, and had gone out of their way to cover it up, making sure nobody heard of it.
Occasionally he had watched Mitchell and his men examine the ground and mud for anything of value!
Webs shrouded the roof and corners about it again and occasionally they had to wave scraping them away from them, while the radiance from the lights made insects scurry away, especially when they saw them.
The
builders must have known where all the rock had been as they avoided going through areas where it was not there, and must have been able to check for miles where it had been before building it, and he wondered what they would have done if there had not been any rock there as the tunnel would have collapsed if it had not been built in it, and they surely would have needed something to hold it all up.
Large tree roots had been sliced off and their lower areas were gone and some had grown again in places, and they had to walk around them, and the amount of mud increased and the tunnel started to lose shape in places where it sagged, and small collapses of the roof and sides appeared and they started to worry about not being able to reach their destination.
The tunnel went endlessly on into the distance turning in different directions, through nothing but the upper wood, and Bryson marched off into it preparing himself for what they might meet with, and wondering if it had collapsed if they could go back and follow its direction from the outside in the morning.
He was sure that they had compasses in their equipment and knew the general direction anyway, but could they accurately find the place if it was buried away deep in the wood, if it actually led there anyway.
His thoughts went to the wood again and its strange eerie confines and he wondered what normal animals actually existed there during the day, and how they survived.
What dangers could the wood hold? Did it have only something of an incomprehensible nature existing in its darkness?
All the significations of it were startling! The other day he had mostly not believed that it could be there never mind there being a tunnel going under it.
The journey kept giving him feelings of how absurd it was with it going so far into it. The direction and his perspective of where they were had altered so much he was positive that if they had to turn back that he personally could not find where it led to in the above wood.
The Lost Treasure Map Series Page 25