They were strange sometimes in such circumstances and he realized that he was now going down without checking his footing, and safety too, and he tried to grasp the concept of these tunnels and thought of the last tunnels that he had entered and what they had been for, and he imagined his position in the castle, from the floors, and on the map, and tried to recall the place where they were at and what was behind the walls, and where they were going. He was sure that it might have been part of its defense against invaders, with it being a castle! Unless the castle design had been used just for looks, which he had suspected? Why else should such a structure with such technology need a castle design? Yet it was aliens that had built it and they might have had another use for it!
Sounds from his front and behind altered and echoed and muddled in strange tones, which he imagined were other things, like the stairs collapsing, and at times he expected to go plummeting into a dark abyss, and he strained his eyes more and more to see what he was doing, where Merton was, and occasionally looked back at Parker and what looked like his slow casual approach, even though he stayed at the same distance away, and he wondered why he was so keen to find what was there, which made him believe that there could be something there.
Yet Bryson started to see that it might be guesses and that there could be anything there, from some ancient map that was not connected to anything that had been fully proven!
He saw little below and saw little above, and that there were no new features of anything, and that the tunnel’s small shape (less than a meter all around him) vanished into the dark, where Merton had vanished into.
The steps seemed to descend more sharply and hazardously and he had to climb down more, rather than walk down like with normal stairs, and he had to hold himself upright and lean backwards, and its drop seemed perpendicular at times.
Once he thought he heard distant movements from below, surrounded by their surges of strange sounds, as though sounds from the future were appearing, and he imagined it something like was a warning of something from himself, foreseeing the future, perhaps from something like particles from some future event leaving space and time and reappearing there with it being detected by his mind, with some hidden detection system that had been built up through millions of years, and he reacted by watching out for anything ahead! He believed his body was capable of far more at many different levels!
What was Merton up to? Why was Parker not reacting, and he considered calling down to him or waiting for Parker, and he decided to wait for Parker, and he stopped and watched him, with his light oscillating irregularly. Its light swayed over the stone, and the narrow shaft seemed to vanish into a point below.
A feeble glow from something below caught his attention and he wondered what was there to reflect it, and his eyes altered to the light there and he saw Merton struggling to do something on the steps and he rushed down towards him, and wondered why he was not shouting for help as he saw him hanging from something at the steps.
It was as though sound was vanishing somewhere there and that he could not hear anything!
When he got close to him he stood shocked as he saw that the steps had collapsed, and he wondered why it had not been loud or why he had not felt the shock.
He swiftly placed the light down and watched Merton virtually hanging by his fingertips from the lowest remaining step, and he realized it had collapsed a long time ago and that he had walked over the edge and had just caught the step, and Bryson lifted him onto the dangerous steps above, and he realized how crazy Merton had become!
Chapter 15
The Thing in the Spacesuit
Bryson felt happy to be back at the front of the castle again, and in their meeting room, resting in one of the seats, which the others had made while they had been exploring the center of the castle.
“I know these rooms like the back of my hand!” one of the scientists claimed, and Bryson realized that he was working his way up to asking them what they had explored and found on their trip, and he wondered why nobody had said anything and he realized that they were too tired too.
Suddenly, the scientist jumped, and Bryson’s heart leapt, when a figure entered the room in a spacesuit, which shifted out from the darkness in the corridor, and one of the archeologists reached for his gun and found that the weapon was gone!
They all moved away from the figure and some moved near the door, and they all stared at the figure of the spacesuit, and Bryson relaxed and wondered who the hell was there and where he had got the spacesuit.
Bryson watched the strange figure move in close and bang his glove hard against a table near him, and he watched shocked!
There was something strange there that he could not grasp about it, and he moved and did things far differently than any of them, and Bryson watched Merton and his shocked reactions. It was like there was something there that should not be there!
He could not place the man and put it down to memory loss from his lack of sleep and all the work that they had carried out, and the strange environment.
Parker studied his faceplate and could not see through the dark shiny material, and the figure never reacted and sat in a seat.
“We’ll have to check him!” Mortimer stated, after minutes of silence, to the unsaid questions.
“Who could it be?” one of the archeologists asked confused.
“He’s not one of us!” another archeologist finally stated. “And all the guns are gone!”
“That’s a good question!” Parker replied first. “Who or what else could be here in this hellhole place!”
“He must have something to say if he traveled here!” one of the scientists replied quickly.
“It might be the killer of your scientist friend?” an archeologist stated firmly.
Bryson watched them all become aware of the danger, and start to think of ways of protecting themselves.
“And what does it want?” the scientist replied first. “That is the question! And why did it want to meet us here? It could easily have kept itself hidden away!”
“This could be a first contact situation?” Parker replied.
Bryson studied the figure of the spacesuit and realized that it had not moved or done anything since it had sat down.
“If they monitored us and traced us back here ...”
“What do they want?”
Bryson sensed someone could do something stupid and it was not going to say anything so he walked over to it and slowly lifted the faceplate of the spacesuit, and stood back shocked!
It was the scientist that had been killed, and they stood staggered, and the others that could not see its face rushed to areas where they could see what was there.
The dead scientist removed his spacesuit and sat back into his seat, and they examined him in every detail and saw that his clothes were identical, and one of the archeologists rushed off and returned and told them that the body of the scientist was not there!
“We cannot leave this!” Parker announced.
Bryson sat down confused, trying to work out what they should do, and what it might do, and watched the figure alter and vanish!
Chapter 16
The Next Death
Bryson felt happy as the scientists finished work constructing a small vehicle, using parts that they had got from one of the wall machines. It was a simple but effective means of transport, and moved them and their things about the way that they wanted!
Though they were still to test it properly by using it to travel back into the central region of the castle!
Bryson started to realize that more of them were excepting their fate and that they would have to live on the island and would not be able to return to the Earth, or over a long time! There was, of course, the chance that people back on the Earth realized something had happened and copied what they had done to trace where they ended up or find the treasures that they had been looking for. All they needed was an airplane with the surveillance technology and to copy their scanning where they had been!
Yet even if the world appeared back on the Earth they would have to get in the air and leave the place!
When they used the vehicle to return to the central region and continued their explorations there they decided to build more vehicles with more power and velocity, and they found more items of use on them, and returned satisfied later that day and received to two major surprises from the others on what had happened while they had been away.
The first left them shocked as there had been another death and one of the scientists had been found killed, but they managed to decrease the amount of suspects. Yet many of them thought it might be what had used the dead body of the scientist in the spacesuit! And many of the scientists believed it was something attempting to make contact with them, and had used what it could, and had returned the body back to its original condition and place that it had been.
Bryson believed that someone had killed them, especially by what had been done to them, even if he never had a clue why it had been done! And he noticed that the others started to question each other on where they had been and what they had been doing, and if anyone had argued with the men.
The second surprise was that a communications device that one of them had completed, which was more powerful, started receiving messages from the airplane! But had not been able to reply, but the messages said that they had fully repaired all the damage to the airplane, and found that they had more petrol available than they had thought, and that they intended to make a short flight over the island to search and photograph it.
Parker immediately tried new ways of communicating with them, but could not get through, and told them all in the meeting room that he had a plan.
Parker was the owner of a major company and leading scientist, and was responsible and great at organizing, and they all listened to his ideas regardless of how incredible they seemed.
Bryson straight away knew that there was danger involved, but it did not seem to involve them, but there would a lot of work, and he was not sure there would be no screw-ups or it being a success!
“What is it?” Merton conclusively moaned, after waiting for him to tell them for at least an hour.
“We’ll have to accept that we’re here to stay!” Parker firmly replied. “We cannot even imagine getting off this island! The airplane may have petrol but it cannot make it anywhere, across the sea.”
“Which most of us have known for sometime!” Merton moaned cheekily, showing them his concerns.
“Well, this place is the safest and best place for us on this whole island. True?”
Bryson watched everyone there agree one by one, and Bryson was sure he did not want to leave the safety there, even if there was a killer about, and he did not want to leave his room, bed, food machine, and he agreed out loud that they should stay there, and the others agreed.
“Well,” Parker continued. “We cannot leave the pilots there!”
“So what are we going to do?” Merton replied. “They could even think that we are dead! I would say that they will stay where they are!”
“Correct! If only we could find a way to communicate with them? Has anyone got any ideas?”
Bryson realized that Parker had an idea but had an unsolved problem and that he needed to communicate with them.
“They would still have to travel across the island without any weapons and find this place?” Merton moaned. “It would be a very dangerous mission!”
“I’ve an answer to that! And us keeping the airplane! We could build a landing site on part of the castle roof! Nearby, where it is solid and can support the weight! What do you think?”
“That sounds a great idea!” one of Parker’s scientists replied first. “There actually is an area nearby where the roof is in its original condition and the same as these lower floors, which still repairs damage done to it! We discovered it the other day!”
“What do you think?” Parker asked.
They all agreed, and wanted it there, but they had to find a way to communicate with the pilots!
Bryson nodded firmly in agreement and returned to where he had been resting and wondered how they could communicate with airplane! He was sure that the reason that they had not been able to reply to the airplane was that the communications equipment needed to be far more larger and powerful, and he wondered why they had not tried to build it already, or somehow increased its power of something.
He had some ideas on improving things and told them to Parker and other scientists and they agreed.
The first idea was to build a communications device with enough power, and the second idea was to build the landing site where they had planned and leave a large message written across it telling them to land there!
Chapter 17
The New Mission
The scientists endeavored to inspect everything, and do what could be done in such a position, preparing for the airplane to fly over the island to explore what was there.
Parker worked away, at the edge of the action and the airplane landing site on the castle roof, organizing everything, studying readouts given to him by scientists, making conclusions, and giving his findings into a microphone of a recorder, communicator, or to scientists near him, while occasionally examining the island about him in glances.
The island was a bright, desolate of human activity, and stretched out all around them, and covered mainly by immense trees, with its many dense dangerous jungle areas, and golden sand or hill regions, and with the curious massive cavity around the castle and its jungle.
Bryson and the others had finished all the heavy physical work and procedure, and he felt weary from it having been unexpectedly lengthened after them having to examine the landing site in detail for anything that could damage or destroy an airplane.
The main job had been removing muck, debris, and thick bushes there, and Bryson saw how lucky they were as much of the roof had trees and large thick vegetation growing over it.
It was a perfect landing site, and could not be more even, and Bryson thought he even saw landing sites at other regions, where the roof had deteriorated, where the castle’s builders had landed airplanes and Bryson wondered where the airplanes had ended up, and wondered why the thing that used the dead scientist’s body had got the idea for the spacesuit.
If they were unable to contact the airplane and it never saw them he wondered if they could build a small airplane. Some of Parker’s scientists had experience with airplanes!
They even finished the large message across the landing site that he was sure the pilots might see, asking them to use it as a landing site, and below scientists were furiously working on the communications equipment to try to contact them, and Bryson realized that they were doing their best.
It surprised him how keen they were to have the airplane there, and he wondered if it was actually to use if the Earth appeared there, and Bryson realized if the Earth did appear that the pilots could leave there without them, and they could have a place to land on the Earth.
Bryson noticed that Merton had an idea that he had kept secret, and he wondered why, and he refused to say anything!
It was soon late evening and they finished the work and message, and were cleaning themselves up, when Bryson wondered again why there were no real large flying species there, and heard a faint buzz in the distance, which he listened to wondering if it was something, and realized that it was the airplane when the sound altered to a different tone.
Parker reacted to his response first and used his communications device to the scientists in the castle below, and shouted, “Have you finished the communications equipment!”
“No!” a scientist confirmed. “It’ll take hours to complete!”
Parker and the others gasped and started to realize that all their work could be ineffective, as they realized the airplane was not flying high enough to see it, and it was flying low surveying the island in detail, and Bryson watched on in horror, especially when it clearly took its closest position to the castle struct
ure and it was clear that it could not see them from there, and they all knew that the mission had been a failure.
Yet at the side of Bryson’s eyes he saw Merton working quickly on something, and he wondered what the hell he was up to!
Suddenly Merton ran over to where they were, shouting, “Get the hell down! I used a large amount of explosives in two!”
To their surprise they watched large homemade rockets firing into the air from where Merton had been, from pipes that he had assembled to launch them, and some accurately fired over to the airplane, and Bryson gasped as they exploded, and they stood stunned by the blasts of two of the last rockets exploding like powerful bombs, sending up large flocks of flying creatures from jungle regions all across their front.
Parker’s calm concentrating glare then caught Bryson’s attention, and he followed his glare over to the airplane and they watched it change direction, and fly over towards them, and they stood and waved at it, and ran over to the edges as it came down.
Chapter 18
The Monster
A deep red streak of light shot through the castle walls like a large red laser beam, going through walls like they were just mist, but with accuracy and intelligence, seeking to carry out some programmed mission, with it altering to bright red glowing flickers, and it raged on.
Scientists witnessed it and filmed it with cameras intending to capture the killer, and when Bryson saw it he saw some energy force that traveled through matter with such speed that he could not think of an equivalent.
The Lost Treasure Map Series Page 54