“I have where he was searching … But I believe he chose the wrong spot! I examined there and there is nothing there! He was probably affected by this place and being here himself in the dark, and by the hideous occurrences …”
I left it, as I thought of what had happened and what the earthquake had been like.
“I investigated it further and managed to reveal faded shapes on the map. Which was what I was searching for …”
“The treasure was marked there …?” I asked, surprised.
“I knew it was here and I needed to investigate here … I believe the person that drew the map might have been chased – which might explain why it was left where it was – and hidden away …”
He grabbed his pipe off the table and began smoking.
“Who could have chased him?” I asked, confused.
“I do not know! It was too long ago! There is little history of the era! I believe it was valuable, and far too heavy to carry. Perhaps jewels of some form of ancient king!”
“So there are incredible valuable and historical jewels hidden somewhere here …”
“I think the person, in fear of his life, escaped to safety and marked it on the map, with different writing, in a different style, which faded, and that is where our investigation shall be.”
“As the place is marked in here?”
“Correct! Which is what we shall do, as the last of the archeologists and people here have left ...”
Chapter 18
The Lost Treasure Tunnel
What was unbelievable was Marple took me to an insignificant area of the cavity wall, which I not recall, where there were small rocks and boulders piled up, and he slowly started taking away rocks, and I joined in.
Also while we did so I felt fluctuations occasionally shudder through the stone ground from something, which sounded deep below it, directly going through the rock there, from some form of power surge, as though threatening to do something, and I imagined my remains being found days later scattered everywhere as investigators tried to fit together what happened.
It surprised me Marple was the only one that seemed to not consider there was anything unearthly there, and I did not know what to believe.
When I rested I started examining the cavity further, in more detail, from there, with nobody there, and I saw it was far more perfectly shaped, and I tried to work out how it was formed.
I examined it further, and the heap of rocks, and area above where part of the cavity had collapsed, and realized it looked deliberately done by someone, and I gasped, and wondered why, and if it was to hide something valuable, or stop something escaping, and I returned to removing rocks and throwing them away to our side, with Marple, and we eventually speeded up throwing small rocks and dirt away, and Marple uncovered a hole, and we increased the size of it until it was large enough to allow us to safely enter its dark confines.
Marple grabbed his torch and shone it in and scanned its depths, and sat down and rested, and we sat getting ready to enter it, and when we entered it, and climbed through the dirt and rocks, I was surprised to see the tunnel continued in a form of straight line, doing downwards, and I wondered if it was a natural tunnel and if it was how it was formed, as I had not seen anything like it, and if it was not why had the builders gone to such lengths to build it, and as we marched into it I realized it had to have been built by the Romans, and I wondered what they had been up to.
It must go somewhere, where someone wanted to go, and I tiredly thought it over, and wondered what Marple thought was there, and I followed him into its black hole with his light and I started to see marks of humans having been there, and I kept wondering what we were going to find.
Though, after all we had been through, I had no idea what we were going after, dealing with, and I realized what we had found could be nothing compared to what was ahead!
Chapter 19
The Collapsed Tunnel
The torch slowly shifted to specific calculated positions, probing its way into the deep blackness ahead, and our feet threw up clouds of dust through beams of light; and some entered my lungs, causing me to give short convulsions, while inhaling stale air.
Echoes of our movements were about us and in the deep silence of the thick underground cave, and I felt the coldness of the walls, and depth below the ground, and felt it penetrate my limbs; as I marched along into obscurity, with expectations of plunging into something deadly.
When the tunnel stopped going downwards and went in a straight line I thought we never had far to go until we reached our final destination.
Glimpses of Marple’s darkened marching figure in the dim light with shadows over the walls wavered rhythmically as he calculatedly investigated the tunnel, and when it fluctuated I expected something, and I occasionally heard noises from behind us and reacted, as I wondered what could cause it, and I followed Marple’s eyes once, because he reacted differently suddenly, and I gasped, and I heard him gasp, as it was the end of our adventure and exploration, and I was left disappointed as I really thought we were going to discover something.
The complete tunnel collapsed across our front, firmly preventing us continuing, and we could go no further on, and we had reached our final destination and had not found out what had been there, and I realized the mystery of the treasure could be left there forever without us knowing what was there.
The rubble blocking the tunnel was deeply embedded giant boulders that were too immense to move, and we stood saying nothing, and I watched Marple make some calculations.
By his reactions I sensed that he was not entirely disappointed, and I knew he might have a way to shift the rocks, and I was sure it was to bring in the archeologists with their equipment, and I closely examined the tunnel wondering how it was made as there were no chisel or any tool marks, and I wondered why they had gone to such lengths to create it, and where it had led to.
On the way back I kept sensing Marple had another plan, and way to get to where he wanted, and was not saying anything.
Chapter 20
The Deep Depth Scan
The next day I returned to the cavity and saw something was on the brink of occurring, and saw the scientists working hard and away at their equipment and I swiftly moved there, and realized I had nearly missed something, and had luckily arrived when I had, and I watched the paranormal scientists and technicians rushing excitedly back and forward checking equipment all over the place, and tried questioning them but got little, and wondered what was going on, and I soon realized that they were about to activate their equipment to scan below the ground again, and braced myself, and watched Marple come down on the elevator.
I never knew what they were doing, as they had carried out all their scans, and they had not shown anything.
I tried to spot any differences there, and I jumped when I noticed some of the life forms the archeologists had uncovered, and had washed down with water and brushes, and stood with my mouth open trying grasp what the hell they were, and doing there, and why they were so preserved, in immaculate condition, and after examining them closely I saw nothing I recognized anywhere, and I was sure they could return to life if they did something to them.
I watched all the scientists eagerly standing around waiting for something, viewing things differently now, and I wondered what, and as I approached them I realized they might have been waiting for me, to continue, and to activate the equipment, and the experiment, and I wondered why.
When they activated it nobody reacted and barely noticed anything. My mind wandered through all the occurrences that had led up to its discovery.
Suddenly a vast unstable energy shockwave, from deep below, and somewhere else, like another dimension, emerged all about the place, with so much force it threatened to smash the cavity, and I recalled the earthquake and McMurdo’s warnings and I went back to wondering what it really was and what damage it could do, and I watched parts of the equipment explode into flames, and the scientists quickly turning it all off and
putting it out.
When it was over I was glad to be alive, and that nobody had been killed, and the cavity and roof overhead had not come crashing down on top of us, and I was happy they could not use the equipment again.
Yet I noticed Orwell and Higgins and some other scientists were unconcerned, and I saw them at the equipment, searching through the recorded data, and a scientist had removed a sheet of paper, and they went around him, and I moved over to them.
From what they said I gathered that they believed something was stopping them from seeing what was really below and that their swift instantaneous scan of below had been so fast they had been able to get an unaltered view, and that they had used an instantaneous rough scan, before the equipment was damaged, and they showed us the sheet of paper with the rough scan, and in the blurred image I spotted strange images and forms of tunnels that had not been there before.
Chapter 21
The Mist Visitation
On our way back to Reality Investigations’s headquarters Marple surprised me by telling me that the scan had been his idea and he had asked the paranormal scientists to do it, and had done it to search for the rest of the tunnel, and if they should uncover it, and he left it there, and I realized he had a certain happiness and I knew he had something.
Later while I walked home I saw a strange look to the streets, which at first I thought was my tiredness, but I then noticed the place looked far emptier than I had seen them about that time and I wondered if something had happened, or if it was some event, and tried to recall the date and anything happening.
It was incredible I felt like I was the last person to set foot on the Earth, and watched a thin fog engulf the area, and realized it was the famous London fog, and I watched it thicken around me, and I just thought of it as part of my hazy tired vision and felt like going to sleep early that night.
It was like seeing another time in the past, and I expected to see ancient people in their ancient clothing.
Fog rapidly engulfed me and thickened up until I had barely any sight of anything left.
It was shocking how easily I lost my way there, and realized I could be stuck there for hours.
I was sure that I was somewhere else at times, and I occasionally saw through gaps in the thick fog and saw distant regions of strange places. Yet I stuck to the same route and never altered direction, and I wondered if I could get out of it by going back and remaining there until it went away, but I realized it was now everywhere.
Out of nowhere I saw a powerful light’s emergence through thinner mist and watched its radiance pulsating like an entity, magically illuminating the fog around it everywhere, and I stopped and studied it, wondering what the hell it was, and watched strange shadow formations around it, which I could not see what they were from, from things I could not see, and I just took it that it was an optical illusion and tried to work out what they were from the shadow shapes, and watched their mind-bending shapes shifting and weaving, and probed their way around.
In the distance I heard sounds like some form of animal was there, causing them, buried away deep in the fog, and I wondered if it was a real animal reacting to the sudden blinding mist.
For a short time I moved away, blindly through the fog, and stopped when I heard humans and thought I saw them shifting through thin areas of mist, and was surprised to see them, but as dark ghostly figures, and stood wondering what they were doing, as they looked strange, and like ancient people.
For one moment they looked as if they spotted me, and observing me, wondering what I was doing, and I just ignored them and moved on, and later they reappeared and their sounds were angry, and that there were people having a confrontation with someone or something, and they grew silent.
Later out of nowhere I saw people with their limbs missing or hanging from them, and wondered what had happened, and the mist seemed to separate at the same time, and I saw their features clearly and stood staggered as I realized they were zombies, and I also saw strange unearthly creatures.
The zombies turned barely human looking, and looked like something else altered to look like them, and were barely human looking, and I rushed over to one and was about to throw it on the ground to examine it closely and realized it was like the Santa that had been emerging in the houses, and scaring and killing people, and I rushed away, wondering how we could handle them.
While I moved away from them and thought more clearly about what was happening the fog thinned more and more and I recognized the route home, and moved away, and realized something deadly had been occurring there.
It was like being in someone else’s dream and I started to spot an immense shadow spread right through an area of the fog, where sounds exploded out!
I was tired and sleepy and stared blankly, at the dark shape shifting about through the mist, and I realized I still had not found any conclusions to what was occurring or was there, or back at the cavity, and was sure I was missing something, which was there but I just had not grasped, and I saw a colossal ghost demon shape float through the last of the mist, before it vanished.
Chapter 22
The Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum captivated me as I made my way through the exhibitions eating a meal, and I thought of staying longer, and was surprised when I spotted the exhibition of one of the life forms from the cavity and its glowing shape under the bright lights, and people standing around it speechless.
While I had been returning to the cavity that morning I saw all the newspapers and headlines with amazement and were of ghost and zombie formations appearing all over London out of a mysterious fog cloud.
I was staggered to read of deaths occurring, and people having been found mutilated, and there was a major police and army investigation presence, and I was amazed to see the army on the streets in armed military vehicles, and wondered what the connection of the incidences were, and in one newspaper I had seen the exploration association scientists and archeologists had one of the life forms in the cavity put in the Natural History Museum, and I had rushed over to see it.
It was incredible, as it looked nothing like the prehistoric creature it was described as, and I stood glaring at it in amazement, and laughed at it, and studied it over and over trying to grasp some vague unseen detail to it, and I realized it was the only time I had properly seen it up close in proper light, and without the muck covering it, and I realized this one was of the early Earth as it did have some characteristics and features of it, but it seemed like some form of mutant, and looked like a hideous monster when viewed at angles.
How the thing even survived left me confounded, as I never seen any form of mouth or anything, and I wondered what the museum had made of it, and why they had put it there, and I recalled the influence of the members of the exploration association, and I realized that the newspaper had suggested it might only be a temporary exhibition, and I continued to march around it, before tourists and other visitors arrived, as I had to grasp something about it, and I even thought lives could be at stake as it be could of great danger, or what was in the cavity could be, and there might be a connection between them, and where they originated from, and what their origins were.
I stood, staggered, wondering what the hell it was! And what strange place had it come from!
What wonders of the universe could exist out there in space? Where had it come from?
I imagined space and mind-bending visions of worlds, and of a turquoise ocean of a world with a wild crazy rotation, and a long mass stretching out, and imagined the life form’s greenish shape darting about through the sea of chemicals.
Yet there was no proof it was from anywhere else, and there could easily have been similar strange conditions on this world very early on, when the surface of the world was turning solid.
I stood fixed there, and finally moved away from it, and watched crowds of tourists, from all across the world, approach it with astonishment. Unable to recognize what it was. Where it came from. If it was
real or put there by the museum.
The atmosphere was breathtaking! Its visitors almost always tried in vain to bestow logical explanations to explain its incredible lifelike features, and I realized there that I had to solve the case, and investigate what was there.
Chapter 23
The Tunnels
While I was returning to the cavity I watched the army at work on the streets and tried to see what they were doing, and searching for, and in military vehicles, and wondered what they expected to discover, and if they believed the things were humans.
I strolled down the underground railway line and saw army personnel leaving there, and at the top of the cavity I entered the elevator wondering what was happening.
I was surprised to see the military below, and armed, and I wondered what happened, and I saw Marple talking to the head of the military, and wondered if they went there or they had called them in for something, and I realized it was probably both.
The whole cavity was full of activity, and things had clearly been occurring, with something new, and I realized I had nearly missed something, and had luckily arrived when I had.
At the bottom I watched the paranormal scientists and technicians rushing excitedly back and forward checking equipment all over the place, and I tried questioning them but got little, and wondered what was going on, and I soon realized that they were about to activate new equipment they had brought in to scan precise areas below the ground, and I braced myself, and watched Marple, and wondered what he thought the zombie and ghost formations were, and knew he had an explanation, and I was amazed from what the soldiers said and that there were sightings of ghost, zombie, and creatures formations there, and I realized that the Santa formations had been connected to there all along, and I realized that they had detected them appearing from there.
The Reality Investigators Page 6