The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  He was sure he could do it, and wondered if he had been some form of climber, and he was so enthralled in finding his own identity he decided to see what would happen if he started to climb it, and if any memories returned to him.

  So he stared to climb and to his amazement his mind and body seemed to alter and he climbed the wall of mud and rocks in massive leaps, as though gravity never existed, not knowing how he managed to remain up without falling, and as he swiftly reached the rope he watched Simpson below staring up, staggered by his speed and strange ability, and Cameron grabbed the rope and leapt up it and was soon at the top of the well.

  Chapter 3

  The Wood

  The whole account of the lion was now incredible to Cameron and he could hardly believe the events of the past days and that they were on the trail of a massive killer lion!

  The last of the sunlight was vanishing within the small wood, in front of them, into the western horizon, with the night there engulfing them, and he studied his surroundings and the bright blue Linn Products building through the trees, trying to explain why the small wood could actually shelter the beast.

  Perhaps the lion was hungry and waiting to get a human alone! Sightings clearly gave the wood as the location of it!

  Fifteen of their armed soldiers were there, and a few police, and he kept wondering why the police had not been used in the first place. They had weapons! They could have used animal handlers!

  There was something different about the lion that was extraordinary and vastly dangerous that he could not grasp! All the soldiers and police were in a line through the wood and they were nervous and ready with their guns as they started searching!

  Cameron marched on with his rifle pointing at the undergrowth directly ahead, while he watched Simpson, Fogler, and Hanks at his side, and saw their eyes wide and alert, ready for action.

  As they moved on they heard a helicopter appear in the distance and they increased their speed, but they slowed as it emerged with its sound beating heavily everywhere, as it started circling the above wood with its searchlight beaming through the trees, and he wondered what the hell had they done! The lion would go crazy and he expected the thing to come flying straight out at them through the dark wood, and he was left considering if they could even shoot it accurately in the environment and dimness at such a speed! He was unsure if they could hit such a moving dark target!

  “What the hell would that lion be doing here?” Fogler moaned, trying to get an answer, and Cameron saw that they did not fully believe it was there.

  The wood looked empty of animals in all the places he saw, and he considered their search for it.

  Though the adventure brought them to life after a long rest earlier and from inactivity! The information was little and no evidence had been given, and in the end everything seemed to add up to little, and yet he still thought they would find something, but it was strange. His memory loss confused him! At times he seemed go from one character to another as though he had been two different people, and deep within him he sensed something was hidden away. It was also as if he was gasping over its discovery! Which was stupid unless it was of great danger!

  The vegetation around them was thick but suddenly his eyes darted about and spotted something, as if he was looking for something there at another part of his brain, and he searched what was there and he was surprised as the plants and undergrowth were withered and burnt as though a terrific heat had blasted through there.

  To his surprise when they moved further into the region all the soldiers started talking of it and he saw it all across his front, as though something of tremendous heat had been ahead somewhere, but the strange thing was there was nothing ahead and he searched the entire front area for signs of a fire and found nothing!

  Had someone nearby been working on something, with some form of rocket propulsion, and the blast had gone straight through the wood?

  How could anyone over at the blue building not have noticed?

  He spotted an old gravestone and fence and saw by the soldiers there that there was nothing there! The source seemed to be near the furthest away point from the building and road, and he gasped for no reason and started examining there and saw something had done incredible damage! Something had exploded or something!

  “Looks like kids have been camping out over there?” Simpson uttered, examining where his eyes were on, wondering what his startled look was for.

  While they neared the spot their reactions altered and they seemed to forget the killer lion and started examining the place with great interest!

  All the soldiers approached the place searching everything they could see! Looking for explanations!

  “What the hell happened here!” one of the soldiers replied, approaching the place first. “Looks like someone exploded some form of bomb!”

  “Bomb!” Simpson replied. “Like a miniature atomic one!”

  All the ground, rocks and dirt, was melted deep into the ground by intense heat, and the center point was covered in a strange substance and metal.

  “What happened here?” a police sergeant continued, wandering up to them, picking up loose bits of the ground, and Cameron wondered if the police would investigate it!

  Chapter 4

  The Discovery

  Early the next morning Malone took them back to the site to investigate what was there more decisively and to try and answer unanswered questions that had accumulated on the previous night!

  Military scientists arrived and they all marched into the wood to the site, where they were going to carry out examinations of what they could find, and remove samples.

  What astounded Cameron was that only within visible distance of there that their attitude drastically altered! The heat from it had had more of an effect than the soldiers had realized in the darkness! Things somehow took a different perspective than the damage from normal fire and heat damage and they all looked closely in detail for why.

  “I was just thinking!” one of the aged scientists stated. “Could it have been the energy surge that was detected in this region?”

  “But we do not fully know what or of the amount detected!” another scientist stated, staring over where the occurrence took place, with his mouth wide open.

  The soldiers were dazed and wondering what and how they had detected anything, and what they were going to unravel there and just how dangerous it was! Why were the scientists reacting so peculiar to it?

  “Its powers have incredible properties,” the first scientist continued. “There are many peculiarities here!”

  “It looks like something sent out an energy surge!” he replied, after he examined powerful damage to the trees, with many trees blown over.

  “Could that not have just been a massive wind surges?” Simpson finally moaned.

  Cameron gasped and examined a slight look of horror on the scientist’s face, and watched him moan back, “A weather disturbance wouldn’t do that like that!”

  “I’ll believe the theories when I have proof!” Simpson uttered to the other soldiers.

  “They’re probably altering an explosion of some unknown explosive ...” Fogler replied. “Someone could have been testing out something from where they worked!”

  Simpson gave a short burst of laughter, and replied, “Someone has removed some classified explosive and tested it out! I don’t know what it is but I somehow think it could be far more confidential for anyone to remove anything and detonate it in a public place! Why not go up on the moors near the army camp?”

  “It’d be an incredible military innovation if it did!” the scientist remarked, while listening in, making them all go silent wondering what they were actually talking of!

  “What happens if it is something new?” Fogler replied confused, and they ignored him and moved in slowly to where the occurrence had occurred, and they stood in a circle around its circular shape, with most of them gasping at the sheer magnitude of what something had done there.

  Cameron
stood staring with his eyes wide open beside the gasping startled scientists, who were now at a loss of words!

  Fogler finally could not help reply, “What the hell was it then?”

  The region was covered strange melted unknown substances and looked like nothing they had seen before.

  “Are we going to go through with releasing it to the media?” Malone firmly asked the head scientist, to clarify the situation.

  “How can they keep it a secret?” the scientist moaned, startled and annoyed that his discovery might be hidden away. “The whole place may be at the center of attention of the world media when the media arrive!”

  “We could chase the media away and claim it was something else?”

  The scientists just stared at him with shock not believing what had heard, and replied, “Alright! It could be a military secret or part of a confidential project!”

  “We’ll allow them here at the moment anyway! There’s nothing that can be identified with anything! It is not customary to classify anything without an order anyway. And if we show the media it someone may recognize it and turn up! While they may never know of it if we don’t!”

  “Correct!” one of the scientists acknowledged.

  Away in the distance Cameron heard a car and a voice and he was sure it was someone from the media driving there. Even though he could not understand how he heard it! He was sure he had never heard someone in a vehicle before!

  Chapter 5

  The Media

  Television and newspaper reporters and cameramen arrived at the site to capture what they had found and Cameron watched on shocked! One of them was one of the people he had overheard in the car driving there and looked as he imagined him!

  They were amazed at the large military presence and could not get to what was there, and then were more startled at the scientists and their keenness and secretiveness!

  At the edge of the crash site they stood confused trying to work out what it was and what had occurred, and Cameron was amazed by how it looked and how incredible it was in bright sunlight now blasting through the trees.

  At the army camp the night before he had become convinced that it had only looked like something in the darkness and dim torchlight. Yet what the hell could crash almost vertically with such force and power?

  Cameron realized after a few smiling glances from reporters that they found his facial appearance amusing, and he wondered why almost everyone saw him at a certain distance gasped and studied his face and appearance. It was like for almost a few seconds they thought he was someone else and someone famous! Someone they considered amusing! One woman reporter even moved in close to him and started questioning him, after being unable to ignore his resemblances, and he coolly ignored it and behaved like a soldier and gave information of the discovery and a detailed account of what had happened when they had found it.

  What confused him more was that she recognized his voice too!

  When the police started carrying out investigations nearby he soon forgot their reactions, and they reported to the increasing media presence their reported accounts of an identified flying object crashing down there, which he had a hard time believing and he realized later that they had meant unidentified aircraft.

  The police investigations also told of the giant killer lion that had been witnessed nearby and they realized that it could exist again and Malone soon joined the police making a more detailed investigation!

  Accounts of what was believed to be an earthquake tremor, an immense explosion, and sounds of what sounded like an airplane crashing down were the most reported! Some were startling and of a giant meteorite impact, and of a bright light shooting down! Sightings of fierce light and smoke from burning in the wood was later told by people nearby and on the main road. Many thought it was some form of social gathering!

  Yet nothing solved what had actually happened, and what had crashed into the wood! Yet the media was sure that something would be found and they had the police carry out a national investigation, and especially to locate any missing planes and anything that had been in the vicinity.

  The mysteries kept accumulating, instead of decreasing, and soon everyone Cameron met never had a clue what was going on!

  What the hell had he been doing? Why had he lost his memory in only certain places? What treasure were they looking for in the well in the trees by the road? Why did the three soldiers he was searching with never tell him anything no matter how far he questioned them? What form of air accident occurred vertically? Had something hit there or been exploded? Why had all the occurrences that had been witnessed not been investigated by any of the witnesses?

  At one point the only thing that added up was they were all up to something and hiding it from them!

  The press at one point seemed to know what was fully happening to their surprise and they were sure something was found that altered things, which they never told, and the story circulated around the globe!

  Chapter 6

  The Horse

  The whole event was a muddled mess, which now seemed to have no conclusion, and Cameron believed he would never get the opportunity to get his memory back, but he kept trying!

  In his army bed he examined everything about him always looking for clues about anything, but found little, and he kept realizing that the three soldiers had been close to him and had put his bed in the middle of theirs, but he could not get them to communicate on anything.

  The killer lion was strange now! Like a mythical creature! After all the accounts of it there was nothing about it that seemed normal! Even the first accounts had confused it, as why were they claiming it was a killer lion? What was a killer lion doing out there? If it had been part of a circus or zoo it should have adapted to there, and why would they have a killer lion? He had not heard anything of killer animals being used! Even though some animal parks insisted in getting new active animals.

  What got him was that they were the most vulnerable as everyone else was indoors and protected! He was even sure that it would go for their tent due to the noise and smell! He even considered that they had deliberately put them there as bait for the thing! They were soldiers and paid to be used in such deadly scenarios!

  Other things bothered him! Was there a treasure? And what was he doing in the pool of mud? He had thought something would have arose to give a suggestion of what was going on! Now it seemed he would never know!

  He recalled his arrival at the army camp and when he got cleaned and washed in the toilet and had seen his face in the mirror and had not recognized himself! Who the hell was he? Was there a form of illness that affected certain parts of his memory?

  He sat at the edge of his bed watching the other three soldiers around him and their habits, and them occasionally examine him, giving occasional whispers to each other, sometimes staggered at his face, and other soldiers stared over for long periods, contemplating things, and carrying out conversations about their home life.

  He groaned in despair and recalled the piece of paper he had found in his jacket pocket at the bottom of the well and he searched deep into his pocket and found where he had shoved it and played around with it against the lining and finally removed it and examined the smudged lines and writing in the bright light for the first time.

  He saw that they were not as smudged as he had originally thought, but he could not make out what it was and shoved it back into his pocket, and he tried to recall and realize what it was.

  He listened to Simpson and Fogler having an argument over racing horses, and which would win, and in the end laughed at it and cracked a silent joke that they were unable to hear, and they eventually asked him what horse he thought was better, with them trying persuade him that their horse was better than the other, and he eventually gave up listening in the end and wondered what the hell would happen in the future.

  Hanks, the third soldier, who was normally silent, sat beside him on his bed, and showed him horses being sold on the internet on a device.

  �
�What do you think then?”

  “They’re alright! What are you thinking of buying one?”

  “Sure!”

  “What for?”

  “To race!”

  “What! You race horses?”

  “Yes!” he replied smiling. “I was a jockey! I’m still thinking of racing in my spare time!”

  One of the other soldiers entered the tent after leaving minutes earlier and he walked straight up to Cameron and stared straight his face, and moaned, “Malone says he wants to talk to you!”

  “What of?”

  “Just don’t know!”

  The soldier left the tent after carrying out his order, and Cameron sat wondering what it was about.

  “Look at this one! What a beauty! What do think, Dave?”

  “Can you make good money from a good horse?” he asked, considering if it was an easy way to make money, and Hanks nodded in agreement.

  After examining them, and realizing that they were basically all the same, he wondered how Hanks could tell a good horse and in the end he chose what looked the fittest horse.

  He was surprised Hanks instantly agreed, and thought it was a winner, and was so sure he offered Fogler and Simpson a wager on it, and they instantly came to a halt with their argument and marched over and started examining the horses and eventually broke into another argument.

  Hanks eventually got bored listening, and showed Cameron the horse again.

  “Want in?”

  “Where’ll you keep it?”

  “I’ve place at our farm! We’d split the money!”

  On his reply the other two came to a complete stop and started shifting over to him, and they all started debating the horse and what they could make.