The Lost Treasure Map Series (53 page)

If only he had taken some of the equipment
the archaeologists had to scan the wall first he could have gotten
a vague view of its interior, as well as of the floor. Yet the
scans of the other tunnel had shown little! The technology would
have to be improved!

Bryson repeatedly thumped his hand hard
against the wall, intensely listening for anything, while he slowly
moved over the bed. Then he suddenly halted and jumped back, as a
chunk of stone crumbled and shifted in behind the wallpaper.

The destruction of a historical castle gave
him slight feelings of guilt but he knew it could be easily
repaired and if they got rid of the haunting there he was positive
someone would do up the place and turn it into the expensive
historic castle that it was supposed to be, and perhaps clear the
region of wood surrounding it into gardens with lanes and a
road.

He carefully shifted the awkward mass of
stone out, in stages, from the wall, as Pendleton stayed ready to
help him. Pendleton had little strength now, after being on the
island for so many years and though his body was not old it was
weak and he suffered from being ill a lot, especially with the
intense cold.

They were both obsessed and
Bryson
’
s
clambering resumed until he finally had to stop
–
feeling a sudden loss of
energy, with his legs starting to collapse under him, with much
discomfort to his hands and arms being cut and bruised at where he
had been tugging the boulder out.

His eyes occasionally fell on the mess under
him with little interest! The thick layer of stone and dust
fragments scattered across the room was nothing now!

With a sudden heave he incredibly wrenched
the boulder out and dropped it over to his side, where it bounced
off the bed onto the floor, where a loud bang instantly came from
the floorboards, which even collapsed in with the weight.

In the large black gap left in the wall,
where the stone block had blocked, there was nothing visible and he
waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. But it stayed dim
and showed him nothing!

Pendleton handed him one of the most
powerful lights that they had brought to the castle, and which was
another reason why they were there as the lights that they had used
in the tunnels had been weak and showed nothing because of their
limited range.

He turned on his light and confirmed that it
was the tunnel and he poked his head in and crawled into the hole
towards it.

Once further in, with his arms out in front,
he pulled himself into the tunnel, with his head facing downwards,
and he shone the powerful light down the tunnel. Where he saw the
tunnel going deep down below, and as his sight adjusted to it he
saw nothing and started to wonder if it was a large chimney.

Yet it seemed too large to be a chimney and
there was no trace of soot or anything that would surely be there,
even if they had it cleaned. Although there was the chance that
nobody had really used it and that any marks were hidden below. But
again it was not in the right position to be one! And he was sure
that there were no fireplaces below to be connected to a
chimney!

He saw its true size the more he looked and
that it went further down to the bottom of the castle. His
breathing echoed into it, and its coldness made clouds of steam
pour out of his mouth into it.

Suddenly sounds started emerging below and
he wondered if he had activated it! They started sounding
mind-bending and started screaming through the shaft until they had
a fury that stunned him, with some sounding like screams and others
like wailing spirits.

Clouds of powdered dirt and stone fell about
at different points around boulders far below as though the tunnel
were being shaken by an earthquake. Dust swirled through his beam
of light as he wondered where the treasure would be buried
away!

He imagined Pendleton and the other two
treasure hunters there years before, during the Second World War,
hanging on their ropes, just over the disturbance, which he tried
to locate and realized he could find something there by watching
what was happening below carefully, which he had not been able to
do when he had been in the other tunnel on the steps, surrounded in
darkness, and he realized that he had actually avoided being killed
there after all, and wondered if he was going to be killed later
instead and was unsure what was worse.

He groaned and grabbed hold of part of
a castle boulder he was resting over, with his head and arms
sticking over into the tunnel, glimpsing parts of the shaft below,
and he wondered what William Randall, his great ancestor, builder
of the castle, had done and built there? They had clearly gone to
great lengths to build something! At times it had felt like the
whole castle was something else
–
created for some function that he could not
even imagine
–
which went beyond his understanding.

Yet going by the stories something happened
that had killed them all! So if it was true then what happened then
and how did it end up in the tunnel and in the other tunnel, and
was it there in other dimensions, and what was there below? Why had
it not moved away into the other dimensions? What was keeping it
there? Surely there had to be something there that they were
missing? Perhaps it was disguised as something or had been hidden?
Such advanced technology could achieve virtually anything and it
could be something that he had not even considered possible?

He had always wanted to explore and discover
something new of value and greatness in science, and perhaps even
be remembered in history!

What interested and alarmed them was why it
was hidden in such a place and created such occurrences! What was
it they were dealing with anyway? Why was it in such a far out
place?

Something of unfathomable unidentifiable
supernatural nature sounded as though it were under him trapped in
some form of magnetic or energy field, trapped and trying to free
itself from something, ultimately escaping to another location of
liberty, and he tried imagining some form of spirit trapped there
every night for hundreds of years.

“
Have
you found if it’s
down there?
”
Pendleton shouted in, in an alarmed
state, with a combination of annoyance and confusion, and Bryson
realized that he had been trying to get his attention, and he gave
him the impression that he might be on the edge of considering
doing something extreme, beyond the normal.

“
It
’
s that disturbance below! I need more time
here to examine the tunnel and see if I can discover
something!
”

Bryson again started to realize the
implications of the find and that they might have to check what was
there someday, and he better start finding information about
it.

Pendleton
shouted loudly, “Good idea!”

Bryson was
confused at what they would do if he found the treasure there
below? How would they go about getting it? What was there could be
guarding the treasure, and why nobody had got it? William Randall
could have left it there to guard his treasure while he was away?
Yet if that were the case how would he have gotten the treasure
himself and how did he put the thing and the treasure below?

Bryson felt
that he had finally found something that might even be above his
understanding and he wondered if he was going pay for his
encountering the thing below?

It amazed Bryson, from what Pendleton
had told him, was that they had been trying to get the treasure
there in the middle of the night, in what had been a haunted castle
buried away in a wood. Yet he believed that they were good
–
as they had
traced the treasure there and found the location
–
and had survived getting
through the wood.

He imagined them shifting into the shaft and
making their way down, with their ancient lights.

Bryson looked up and saw
ventilation s
hafts
entering the tunnel and realized that they must run through most of
the building.

“
What
else could it be?” Pendleton asked, trying to get some information
on the tunnel, and Bryson ignored him.

The height of
the castle was incredible, especially with it having been built
when it had, as well as the length being so massive with rooms and
corridors going out everywhere – and he could hardly believe that
they had built it and he wondered if it was built by something else
– and he remembered that he had not thought such a construction had
been possible at that date. It was also unbelievable that somebody
had managed to ship the construction over to there when it had
happened, in such large sections and fit them together.

How could
people spend so much on such things at the date it was built? It
was a disgrace and offense that such a work of art and construction
should end up derelict out in such a desolate wood? He really
wished to solve the mysteries there and put them out in the open
for everyone to see.

He gasped as
he recalled the legends and what had already happened there and
wondered if this could be his final encounter!

For a moment
he considered if it had actually come from Transylvania and had
vampires or something – and that was what they were missing! At
times he had thought it had similarities to castles over there!

“
You
could
send down a camera with a light attached
down?
”
Pendleton announced, to his surprise, and wondered why the
scientists had not done it and recalled that he had heard some of
them mention exploring the tunnel with equipment, and remembered
that their stuff had vanished.

Sounds were now screaming up at him and he
realized how loud they had become, as if a gateway into hell were
there, with him balanced over it.

He jerked when he heard some sort of almost
human scream as though from out of in a distant strange place, and
he searched below where the bottom of the castle was and saw
blackness, like it were really located out in space.

Some of blocks of stone about him resembled
smaller versions of stones in Egyptian pyramids and he even
wondered if they were the same and there for some reason. They were
strange things to use to build with as their weight was immense and
they could easily have decreased their size and made them easier to
shift about and work with, but they were hard to penetrate and were
needed in a good castle.

He realized some sounds were now not
emerging from far below him but were coming from somewhere
just
below him, and then he thought
he heard one emerge next to him and he listened intensely with
confusion.

Sounds
manifested everywhere as though they were invisible unidentifiable
things surrounding there, and strange glowing and swirling forces
seemed to form in the blackness below, and he saw something that
looked like a transparent rectangle black shape.

As he tried to see what was going on about
him he noticed that light across his front was moving upwards and
he fixed his eyes onto a strange orb of light floating upwards.

With a loud thud he banged his shoulder
against the side of him and clouds of gray dust flew about almost
blinding him, going into his face and lungs, and he rushed back
into the room.

Chapter 15

The Mist

Early the next morning Bryson awoke in the
deep silence of his room and opened his eyes to see that it was
starting to get light, and realized something was somehow different
and instead of seeing peaceful surroundings of his darkened room he
slowly focused upon a faint mist about him and he instantly started
searching for signs of a fire.

Yet there was nothing there to burn as the
castle was virtually entirely made of thick stone and was as
non-flammable as it could be! So he considered what could be
burning!

Could smoke reach there from the lounge,
dinning room, or kitchen? Perhaps one of the chimneys caught fire
with all the rubbish stuck up in them, from years of being there,
with small trees and vegetation covering the outer walls and roof?
A hole in a chimney from it crumbling away could let smoke in!

Yet there was no sign of the scent of
smoke or anything, and he sat upright in bed and watched a dark
shadow from the mist creep over the walls, while cold swirling
currents of mist shifted about in a hovering shape, and a wild
beast
’
s
blood-chilling screech came from a distant place, hidden out in the
landscape, and he considered what it was.

When his eyes adapted and his vision
grew in strength he saw a cloud drifting about over the floor that
was moving around as though there were no gravity and he considered
if it was real or something else. He proved that it was not made of
smoke and only looked like it
–
and was really something else that was
unidentifiable that was very faint that he could hardly see
–
and he looked
about to find its source and where it was being generated, but
never saw anything and he checked if it was a mirage, and some form
of light illusion and reflection off something, and he checked all
possible sources. Yet there was nothing visible to him that could
produce it and it hung in the air over the middle of the room and
swirled about, and seemed to be actually doing something. He was
unable to explain its presence, and he stayed where he was, and
started to grasp it could be one of the supernatural disturbances
there, like the mist in the wood, and he realized that it could be
dangerous.