The Lost Treasure Map Series (97 page)

The next morning Malone had them
brought to his tent again, and Cameron realized immediately the
horse idea was a bigger disaster than he had imagined and Malone
had the newspapers all over his desk with the story of its rampage
at the racecourse and it had clearly drastically altered
Malone
’
s
view of the incident and the racehorse, and he was shouting loudly
at them, and at the roof of the tent, where he now seemed to have
an imaginary person, and he informed them that people higher up had
recognized them and their horse and had complained!

He finished by gasping at a newspaper
article about their crash, which he had found before they entered,
and it had the headline: MONSTER WILLY ON THE LOOSE AND CAUSES
CRASH!

Going by what they wrote they believed it
was a normal horse and that they had done something to it, and that
they were the ones guilty of the occurrences!

Simpson, Fogler, Hanks, and Cameron stood
silent and just took what was coming! The damage they could get for
it was high, especially if they decided to take action over the
horse attacking so many people!

None of them
could imagine the horse winning now! It was crazy
and Cameron was sure that they or the horse would be banned from
ever racing again, and he felt sorry for Hanks as it could be the
end of his career as a jockey!

He was sure
Malone was so upset by the bad publicity he was going to order them
to have the horse destroyed! Even though he was sure that they
could sell it for far more than the price they had bought it for,
especially with having been in all the media!

They all stood frigid and he realized
that
Malone
had run out of things to say and had planned on getting them
replying, and Cameron examined his face and saw he was trying not
to look surprised about the affair in the newspapers, and he
suddenly poured a drink, and calmed himself.

“
Sit down!
”
Malone eventually ordered, clearly
less annoyed now, and they all took seats and sat about his
table.

“
Cameron!
”
he eventually whispered,
annoyed.
“
Are you behind this?
”

His stare went deep into his mind and
Malone realized by the reactions of the other three soldiers about
him that it hadn
’
t been Cameron, and he joked,
“
Are you drunk
again, Cameron?
”

“
I
’
d a drink before I came in
here!
”
he
moaned back, annoyed at being accused of the whole problem when it
had not been his horse or idea and that he had been talked into it
all!

“
Perhaps you can explain how a horse
crashed the vehicle?
”

“
Well!
”
he moaned, angrily.
“You know how it is! We were
racing back here at a hundred mile an hour in the horse vehicle,
which has a Ferrari engine, and a woman with no clothes on jumped
out in front of it and it smashed into a guardrail at the side of
the road, at just the right angle causing it to fly away up in the
air, but miraculously landed on all four wheels!”

“
Ferrari
engine in that old banger truck!” Malone gasped, examining his
eyes.

“
But it
continued on going, with its acceleration, racing forward and hit
the guardrail again, bounced off and furiously flew around like an
airplane propeller blade, bouncing against a wall, consistently
smashing parts from the front and back off sending them flying
through the air, over to the other side of the road, with them
hitting objects all across the road and into other vehicles and
house windows, landing on top of people in bed and watching
television, with glass shattering and exploding in
everywhere!”

“
They
must have been flattened!” Malone silently moaned.

“
It
landed on its wheels again, and never stopped and went on at full
blast, continuously exploding forward and hitting objects in its
path, which bounced away across the road, and it finally flipped
through the air and did another cartwheel all over the road,
hitting a guardrail, until it finally smashed away the body and
rolled down a steep slope below, doing cartwheels and bouncing up
into the air, bouncing off the sides of trees, and it finally
landed on its wheels on a road below, and a cop in a police car
raced out from the side of the road and stopped at its
side!”

“
So you
had to have been charged?”

“
He told
us how dangerous our driving had been and I explained that it had
occurred for a good reason and that there was an
emergency!”

“
What
was so urgent?” Malone asked curiously.

“
I told
him that we were late for work!”

“
Late
for work! The cheek!”

“
He
asked what line of work we were in and what was so
important!”

“
What
did you tell him?”

“
That
the truck had a six-foot ass!”

“
The
horse, of course!”

“
He
asked what people did with six-foot asses and I shouted that they
gave them radar guns and parked them at the side of roads, and I
shoved the accelerator hard down and shot away into the
horizon!”

“
I’ll
handle your corruption, Cameron!” Malone hollered. “After this
meeting you’ll go straight to the kitchen again and squeeze the
juice out of ten strong citric lemons into a glass and pour in a
full bottle of castor oil and add strong chili powder and drink it
straight down your throat!”

He sat forward
and firmly ignored them, and shuffled papers!

“
There has been another complaint of
all of you!
”
Malone announced loudly, studying them again, seeing if they
would react.
“
This time it is authentic!
”

Simpson burst out laughing, and
asked
“
What
about?
”

“
Some people don
’
t like you lot! They
complain everywhere about things you do!
”

His eyes suddenly fell on the papers that he
had forgotten about, across his front, and he gasped and sat back
in his seat.

Simpson showed an expression of being
humiliated and tried to get what he was going on about, and
asked,
“
You
should send them to us for us to resolve things!
”

“
People should stop complaining of
nothing!
”
Fogler continued.
“
They should save it for all the real things
there are!
”

Malone stared at them in disbelief and
agreed.

“
Don
’
t let it happen
again!
”
he
replied, tired of beating about the bush.
“
You were lucky!
You
’
ve only
been banned from racing horses! Your horse has been banned by them
from racing again! I guess the creature will be happy now, and will
be able to retire!
”

Chapter 21

The Horse’s Release

The night was elevated and Cameron felt
ecstatic, as the blasted horse affair was over, and the others
never wanted the racehorse as they now could not imagine it doing
anything they wanted!

They had been sitting in the bar for all
most four hours and it was sadly reaching closing time and the bar
was only starting to empty, and Hanks had just turned up looking
gloomy and weary and they had soon found out it was over getting
rid of the horse!

Cameron sat with the other three
soldiers drinking and celebrating getting rid of it, when someone
finally asked how he had got rid of it anyhow, and he
replied,
“
Well, nobody would buy it, and thought of
using it, so I just released it into some remote woods, buried away
... The thing can survive and be free at last ...
”

“
Free at last!
”
Simpson moaned.
“
If I can remember
rightly you were to sell the blasted thing! We were all expecting
to get our cash back for it!
”

“
Right!
”
he replied, downing another
drink.
“
But
I could not sell it and now it
’
s free ...
”

“
We
’
d have made more out of it selling it to a
glue factory!
”

Cameron gasped and felt and saw beer pouring
down over his head and swiftly turned and watched the disabled
pensioner, that he had dragged into a taxi, who had complained to
Malone of him dragging him out the bar, on crutches pouring the
last of his pint over him, and shouted drunkenly at him and rushed
over to a group of his friends and they left out the pub door.

The three soldiers burst out laughing
hysterically at it, showing him their happiness at the horse affair
being over as well!

Cameron laughed as well and realized
how funny it had been and recalled how funny the woman at the door
of the pensioner
’
s house had been when he had brought him
home!

When he stopped laughing, he asked
Hanks,
“
What did the horse look like when you
released it?
”

“
It looked great! I was a sad sight
seeing it go! I was ashamed and sad at the plan not being a success
... But it realized it was free and it seemed to thank me as it
rushed away into the trees ...
”

Cameron was mildly confused at it as he had
not even heard of any horses running freely anywhere! Perhaps they
were hidden away, and rare, or something. Yet he could believe the
thing may remain free for long time and wondered where it would end
up, and if someone decided to use it again.

“
Are you still seeing that
psychiatrist?
”

“
What psychiatrist?
”
Cameron gasped, realizing
that he thought the army doctor was a psychiatrist.

“
He
’
s an army psychiatrist too!
”

Cameron gasped and realized they all thought
that he had been visiting a psychiatrist, and after a few minutes
he started realizing he was a psychiatrist and he realized all the
things he had been coming out with, and wondered what the outcome
of it would be!

“
How what
’
ve you heard?
”
he finally asked,
calmly.

“
I just heard rumours
that
’
s
all!
”
he
silently replied, examining Cameron occasionally cleaning beer out
of the side of his eyes.

“
What rumours?
”
he asked,
calmly.

“
Well! You have been having crazy
dreams! You also gave him accounts of you doing crazy
things!
”

“
That
’
s absurd!
”
he replied.
“
I
’
ve given normally stuff to keep the
idiot amused ...
”

He was surprised that Hanks burst out
laughing and the other two soldiers joined in, and kept laughing
adding funny accounts of him doing things, and what they thought of
his dream of being a werewolf and then he sat annoyed and surprised
that they had actually heard things about it, and he sat trying to
grasp what the doctor had heard and told. It was deplorable that a
doctor or psychiatrist could give away such information to the
public!

“
He claimed you told him
you
’
ve had
character changes and that you
’
ve been turning into two different people, as
well as you having lost your memory!
”

Cameron calmed himself and decided to
confess what had occurred! They had found him in the pool of mud
with his memory gone anyway, and he still could not recall what he
was like before and what had happened.

“
I
’
ve lost memories of myself and I get memories
of two different people! So what!
”

“
But do you actually turn into someone
else?
”
he
replied, seriously, concerned.

“
No! But I get strange thoughts of
myself and someone else! Dreams are crazy! Like I
’
m a werewolf in one crashing
through a wood, after being injured by something!
”

“
I heard you the other night dreaming
of something! What was that all about?
”

“
Alright I
’
ll tell you!
”

“
Go! The whole lot!
”