The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  Strange thoughts of him leaving the cold confines of the place and that region gave him shivers of ecstatic pleasure. Yet the pleasure he could have if they solved all the riddles there would be far greater! He could return home or go on holiday to some hot place next to a desert and celebrate – after returning to reality – not on the brink of catastrophe – and he could return to solving normal everyday problems with the effortlessness that he had done for most of his life.

  He attempted to work out the exact time that it could have occurred and where the room it was in was located, and wondered why the scientist had been there working alone anyway? At least it might show that the thing would not touch them in groups and in the inhabited regions of the castle.

  He could not get why no sounds seemed to be heard from there, and why the death had not been heard? Some loud sounds outside could be heard miles away. Yet all the castle large stones could block even the loudest sounds!

  Merton still seemed slightly shocked at it! He had seen him working with the scientist on many occasions!

  They all stood about the body while the police examined things about the body. The scientist even looked as though he had tried to crawl over the floor before his death! But he was sure that it only looked that way and that he had been killed swiftly. But by what? And what had the thing done to him?

  Bryson and virtually all of the rest of them, accept the police, gasped when some more of the police arrived and one of them asked, “Who would want to kill him?”

  Everyone there shrugged and nobody seemed to be able to reply and Bryson did not know how they were going to explain the castle and the situation there if they had to! The police there refused to believe anything extraordinary could occur there.

  Merton seemed to mutter, not being able to stay silent any longer, breaking the deep silence, but then was silenced by definitely not wanting to put his foot in it.

  “What worries me more than anything,” Bryson muttered to Merton, with confusion, “is they don’t seem to have any clues!”

  “They’ll find something!” Merton quickly replied.

  “What kind of thing does that? It even looks like a vampire has drained him of blood!”

  “That’s ridiculous! We should not have started entering the castle’s desolate regions on our own!”

  “What do you reckon could do that then?”

  “You’ve a point and I don’t have enough facts to say anything! It may be entirely new to us? They are best treating it as a normal killing until more facts appear.”

  “You’re correct,” he muttered back, glaring through a window at the wood outside with interest, wondering how the police would handle the truth.

  “How did his killer know that he would be here?” Bryson spoke louder, for the police to hear, startled by the thought that whatever it was could be watching them, perhaps now hidden away in the distant shadows.

  “Perhaps that killer was lurking about and encountered the scientist on his own out here, and confronted him ... We’ll have to stay in groups and only enter these regions when we need to.”

  The police at the body seemed to realize the body was drained of something more and discussed having it checked further to discover what had happened to it.

  “Why kill him? Do you think something has been removed from the body?”

  “I do not know that! The body will have to be checked thoroughly.”

  One of the policemen started using a phone to communicate information about the situation to someone, and eventually started talking louder to someone else who had him examine the body for him, and the police vigorously checked the body looking for a wound and they checked bruised areas trying to see it and finally seemed to give up disappointed, and the person on the phone seemed to react strangely to it and had them check the body again at other places.

  The heavy thuds of distant helicopters arriving appeared in the distance and Bryson saw the others starting to leave there.

  Persistent moans followed from the person on the police phone, who was trying to identify what it was, and it gave Bryson the impression that they never had a clue either and that the police at the body had not been entirely able to explain what had happened to the person on the phone, and that the person was being dragged away from another vital case to visit there.

  Although he could not fully get what the person thought, as the occurrences on this occasion were far from normal, he was sure that they had not been able to explain the deadliness and unusualness of the death and that they were trying to persuade the person to investigate it.

  Chapter 11

  The Blood Red Devil

  The enormous blood red devil energy field shot through the thick stone castle walls, like they were mist, seeking to attack something with vengeance, and its speed increased and the walls altered to glowing flickers while it raged on.

  The few people at the castle that rarely caught glimpses of its distant lightening materializations saw only flashes of red, and if it had been slow they would have seen red energy and devil features, straight out of the realms of hell, and realized that they were confronting the devil, with its giant demon shape glowing, altering, whirling, within hideous energy surges, while it consistently stopped itself vanishing from existence and back into its original place and energy states.

  Parts of its composition frequently altered or vanished from view when it totally lost control of itself and it even formed other hideous things, and it would show its powers by forming itself into different versions of itself, like freaks of nature.

  In ancient times people who had witnessed it had either just escaped with their lives and had given accounts of confronting the most deadly and powerful devil from the deepest depths of hell or had been brutally killed with many having their bodies drained of energy, with their remains being found in hideous forms, and some had even been found so unrecognizable that they had not been thought of as being human.

  Sometimes it had lurked in the dark shadows of the castle doing unseen hideous things, and examining the formation of things.

  At times it had seemed to detect their thoughts and try to understand what they were and be able to detect strange forms of energy or energy sources from somewhere and alternate, as though trying to imagine what it could be and that it wished to confront it if it could.

  Its vast unstable energy explosions could blast out across outer dimensions with so much force that they threatened to make space and time either unbalanced and warped or completely rip away and destroy the fabric of space and time.

  Chapter 12

  The Psychic Research Room

  The psychic researcher’s room, beside the tunnel, was fantastic now and Bryson felt comfortable being there, and especially away from the murder scene at the other side of the castle, which was now packed with police investigators and the media that they had brought there and he was sure they were using the media to cover up making a mess of things somewhere.

  It was incredible as at one point he had considered the room that he was in to be the most dangerous place there, with the supernatural disturbance just behind the wall in the tunnel, and which could well be the most powerful supernatural spot on the planet, and he now felt happy there with feelings of comfort from being away from the murder occurrences.

  At one point he had been sure that they had been going to remove them from there or take them all away to interrogate them. Sounds of them could be heard away in the distance, as he watched all the scientists in the room about him doing their work and he considered what they could achieve there at the most – but again he still had too little facts to assume anything.

  He had thought of getting permission from Merton or Mortimer to have their scientists inform him of any discoveries and information from the equipment as they monitored it, but decided not to disturb them as they would tell him anything important when it occurred anyway.

  He frequently gave gasps like the scientists there when he considered what was behind the wall, and the powe
r of it, with it being able to open powerful gateways out the universe and to beyond. It reminded him of sitting on a wall over hell or some hideous place. What was he missing? What were they missing?

  He was sure that he could believe that anything could exist somewhere if it had the right means and he knew the powers of science could be used to create.

  The situation was bad and the castle’s interior was very dangerous and he wondered if he was imagining that they could get out the place and situations alive, and that the place and supernatural disturbances was playing with them and when either they tried to escape from there or it was ready it would take action against them. The tension on them had clearly been increasing and some people in or near to the targeted areas reacted as if they were in war zones.

  Bryson suddenly recalled recognizing some of the work that some of the scientists had done years ago, when he had been examining documents of theirs, and he recalled why he had remembered it all – as it had to do with them checking for the existence of paranormal for the military.

  Their stuff was surprising and even more surprising with them working there with the psychic researchers and he recalled that he had even originally thought that they had been deliberately putting the paranormal research title on their project to cover their work and discoveries, as he had not properly seen anyone even check what they had claimed they had been doing or had created. He had thought that they had been checking an alien encounter or the possibility of an alien encounter having happened.

  He questioned them on what they were doing and if they had found anything and they gave him documents that informed him that they were checking for virtually all known forms of energy and matter disturbances within and from the tunnel.

  He questioned Mortimer about it and if they had detected anything occurring there or elsewhere when the death had taken place and he informed him that they had not and had acknowledged no differences.

  He wondered if they could put something together that could properly detect anything emerging from it into the castle so they would know where it was located and they could warn the others. Their lives could also be in danger, especially at such a close range, and that they were not actually protected by anything, and he wondered if there was some reason that it never reacted to them being there?

  “What do you have that can be used to detect that thing that killed one of your scientists if it reappears?” he asked Merton, when Merton entered the room, when he finally returned there, and Bryson watched him consider it as though he had been already for a long time and was now thinking of something to say about it, and come to some a conclusion.

  “Presumable reactions and any presence might act on things and produce effects to indicate them being there,” Merton replied firmly, but not sure. “Such as it altering air currents, gravity, magnetic fields, radioactivity, scent, sound waves, static, and the light spectrum ...”

  “Most of the equipment here is to check everything in a degree that has not been done before!” Bryson replied. “To find out if we are missing something! That thing is starting to kill the people now and they have not come up with anything to destroy it. And if things go the way that they are it could kill far more people! We may even have to leave here in the end! If you have anything, even if it just helps locate its position then it will help ...”

  Merton glared at him and just laughed, and he looked as if he was wondered how much he was exaggerating things and if they should help.

  “That may be a good idea if we can find anything,” Mortimer finally replied for Merton, considering it. “This is not the same as the last castle either! What I want to know is what does it wants here? Why has it not left here after such a length of time? And, very importantly, why does it do what it does?”

  “We have an abundance of things as we have shown!” Merton continued. “We specialize and experiment in detecting things! This is the best there is and we love investigating anything extraordinary! Even if it is an assassin trying to wipe us all out ... And we would love to help stop it if we can get it ...”

  Bryson started to grasp how advanced and undetectable the thing really was! And he wanted to see what they were up against!

  “We barely even found it here,” Mortimer added, clearly trying to encourage them in their work again. “It was pretty well concealed!”

  Bryson was confused and wondered what they were suggesting, and why they were so secretive again? Surely they would only really receive fame for their discovery? Scientists all over here could have announced whatever it was straightaway, without any hesitation, just to be acknowledged with the finders, yet they wished it to be concealed.

  “We have found something new!” Bryson continued. “And we have not seen anything like it before. It is totally unknown and it has intelligence!”

  “An existence that exists in other dimensions than the ones we’re in?” Merton replied.

  “We do not know what it is or if it ever was a life form?” Mortimer continued. “Or what other form of life it could have been? But we are sure one of its properties is that it exists through other dimensions!”

  “So you have equipment that can detect outer dimensions? I never knew all that stuff actually existed! I have not seen it proven to exist or anything that can enter or detect there!”

  “Exactly! What about when you entered that vortex? We have ways of detecting it! It is confidential, of course.”

  Bryson realized their point once again and heard them silently confide that they wished to keep their research as confidential as possible, especially with there being the media and so many not fully checked scientists there, and leading scientists, and they thought of having him to agree to a verbal contract agreement of not disclosing anything without their consent, which he agreed to anyway to show them that he would, and wondered what they could actually discover.

  As they considered what to say next Bryson examined nearby equipment, and stuff that he recognized and that it was for detecting neutrinos, and he considered what they used it for, and guessed it was another way of detecting paranormal phenomena.

  “Of course! But will you sell it? It could make a lot of cash and they may be able to advance the technology further along!”

  “Perhaps!” Mortimer answered. “But it is new and needs to be checked out further and we may come up with other findings before anyone else does!”

  “Alright! I get you now.”

  “I am certain you’re thing, running about the castle, is connected to what’s in this tunnel!”

  “That could explain where it came from!”

  “Exactly! We have barely done any research on it and we have been at this virtually since we arrived here. We have barely slept! We have so little time!”

  “You could contact someone to prolong the stay to carry out your work? And you may be able to advance the technology further along!”

  “Perhaps we may! But it is new and it needs to be checked out further, and we may also come up with other equipment ...”

  Chapter 13

  The New Scientists

  Bryson had decided to keep their new equipment as secret as he could, even though he was not sure what they had, and what he had seen had been little and could be easily have been exaggerated by them either to keep the scientists all interested or cover up something else they never wanted to reveal!

  When he arrived back at their paranormal research room the next day he was surprised to see that the place was packed with more equipment and even though he never knew what it was and had seen any of it before, and he was well updated in technology. The place looked transformed into something new, and he was surprised to see new scientists had arrived and by what they said he was sure that the equipment had been brought by them and belonged to them. Yet one of the biggest surprises he got was when examined it up close and saw how expensive and advanced it was! He could not understand how they could put it there with such value!

  He decided he still liked being there, especially away f
rom the other murder scene at the other side of the castle where things had become worse! Everywhere he had looked he had found investigators and people searching for clues, and examining him! He had listened to helicopters arriving all morning, and had been woken up by a loud one landing nearby.

  What staggered him was what would happen if they found that the killer was of supernatural origins? Would they come up with another killer that was human to give to the public?

  They had thought of telling them to see what would happen and realized that they would firmly believe that they were crazy, and perhaps check them out as suspects.

  The situation was bad and could escalate, and them coming up with a fake culprit might do little. The tension amongst Mitchell’s men for one had increased! The people near the outskirts of where the targeted area seemed to react far more to it being a danger. And he wondered if most of them were hiding behind illusions that what was there would avoid the areas they were together in and he started considering in more detail why the others were so sure about it avoiding there! What could stop it going there? Yet he recalled he had been sure that it originated from the things in the wood not getting near the castle there!

  Was there some form of rules to how it worked? Was it the same as vampires not being able to come out in the daylight? Were they missing the fact that these things actually existed? It was thought to be supernatural in nature and have originated from supernatural gateways.

  Bryson recalled recognizing some of the work that one of the new scientists in the room had done, after Bryson had examined documents that they had given him.

  Their stuff was surprising and far more surprising with them using it to work with the psychic researchers and he even thought that they were deliberately putting the psychic researching title on it to cover their work and discoveries, as he had hardly even seen anyone even check what scientists did or created in that region.