The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) (3 page)

“
To go and see the world and
universe!
” I replied,
wondering why they did join up.

“
Universe!
” he moaned back. “We’re the Home Guard! You’re
hardly going to see anything …”

“
Or to get about and do things people
normally don’t get to do!
” I continued.

“
Let me explain!
”
he moaned, staring into my
face for a few seconds, staggered by something, and putting his
elbow in his tea cup and making it spill over the table, in a
puddle, and he swiftly grabbed an old pair of pants out his bin and
started using it to clean it up.

Once he finished he calmed himself, showing
his hidden depression and inner despair, by the situation and his
job ahead, and start of the war.

He calmly started saying,
“
Once upon a time,
in the old days, about a century ago or so, people joined the
French Foreign Legion to forget! Problems! Things they just wanted
to escape out of! Escape from weary existences! The problems of the
world! Even hide away from crimes they committed!
”

He suddenly stared straight into the depths
of my eyes, almost trying read my thoughts, searching my
consciousness.

“
Well, I
’
m sure I
’
d have recalled doing that! As you
said it’s just the Home Guard! Not the Foreign Legion!”

“
Really!” he replied, smiling. “How do
you know you never?
”

“
I’ve little recollection of much at
the moment! So I can
’
t properly answer that!
”

Suddenly I realized what he had replied with
and it struck me that he might have been trying to suggest
something to me that I should know, and I realized I could have
done something and have forgotten it and that he might know of it!
I sat in horror for a few moments contemplating it, and if he could
have found out about it, and I gasped as I realized my mind was
more blanker than I had contemplated, and I had hardly any memories
of many things, and I could not grasp what!

While I sat considering this Godfrey sat
making absurd strange faces, which I had not seen before, as though
in pain, and he slightly bent over and held his head firmly in his
hands, and relaxed there, and his shoulders quivered and slackened,
and he remained like it until he recovered, and I watched him
calmly return to what he normally did.

“
Perhaps
you should just
leave!
”
he moaned firmly, looking sad,
almost looking as though he might cry, and he turned away from me
and looked away, and the situation left me confused and I realized
my goal now was to find out what the hell had happened!

Later I was sure the captain and sergeant
thought I was up to something, and hiding something.

“
I
’
ve another question!
”
I quickly asked the
captain.

“
What?
” he moaned back, not looking directly at
me.

“
What the hell will we be doing?
Surely the military doesn
’
t need the Home Guard at the
moment?
”

“
We’re
getting ready!
We
’
re also doing other things! At the moment
we’re helping the police search for a killer! Perhaps you can help
us with that?
”

“
Perhaps I can!” I replied, wondering
why the police needed the army. “What sort of things has he
done?”

“
You’re a reporter! It’s classified!
We don’t want the newspapers getting it! They can have the killings
but not the whole story! Got it?”

“
Yes!”

“
The police don’t want the public
panicking! There have been a large amount of killings by someone!
He virtually destroys his victims …”

“
Are
there any witnesses to anything?”

“
No!
But
the police have just started their
investigations!
”

“
Perhaps this war is having more of a
reaction on people than they think!”

“
Well! We can help them! We can use
you to investigate what’s going on, and get some information for us
on what’s happening!”

A shiver ran through me, and I shuddered,
and I considered the dangers, and the guy who could do such a
thing!

“
Why are they so sure it’s the one
person?” I asked.

“
I don’t know! Perhaps as that is what
normally is the case, and that their investigations have not shown
anyone else! So they take everything on what they
prove!”

I could not grasp if it was the way he had
given the case, my memory condition, or if there really was
something occurring that was new, and far more deadly than they had
encountered.

Chapter 5

Paranormal
Investigators

Outside my
hotel bedroom window Loch Ness stretched out in bright sunlight,
and I rested against the window frame, and dreamily watched its
waves shifting up its shore, and away in the distance I saw a
mysterious mist shift over the surface of the loch and the castle
become visible.

For a few
seconds I saw its prehistoric look and I now realized some kind of
monster or large creature could exist in its confines, even though
it was not entirely isolated, and it never seemed big enough, but
with carefully examinations I accepted it could be and it could be
deep in places.

The bedroom
seemed alright. The two psychic researcher’s equipment was all over
it, everywhere, and they speedily had porters bring it in while
they unpacked it, and examined it for breakages or other
damage.

I had never
seen anything like it, and most of it was new, and new technology,
and I gasped again at what their profession was!

It was
the occurrence at
Craigmillar Road, with the metal
detector, which persuaded me to take the investigation, and I
persuaded Marple to give it to me, even though I never properly
knew what it was and what I was to do, and in the end why I was
needed to accompany two paranormal investigators, Oswald and
Higgins, to the Loch Ness location, and I continuously read through
the documents on the case, and my mission, and their mission, and
found little, and I could barely make anything out.

The documents were virtual missing anything
that said anything about anything!

It suggested the Loch Ness monster
somewhere, and never said anything of what was needed, and at the
time I had heard little on the subject, and was confused why the
paranormal investigators were interested in it, and even though I
had done a little research into them I consistently tried to grasp
what they did, and were doing at Loch Ness.

I examined
their carefully placed thermometers, which Oswald carefully placed
about the room. It was at less than fourteen degrees centigrade,
and I estimated the temperature outside.

“
What
are you looking for here?” I finally enquired.

“
We’re
just checking everything about this place!” he replied, and took
out a book, which he had filled with details from their research,
and I wondered what they had found! But I now knew they would not
give me anything, but I was sure they might accidentally give me a
clue if I kept checking.

“
But why
the hell have I been taken here?” I moaned. “They’ve forgotten to
give me anything! There has to be something here for me to have
been put here, and Marple to take the case!”

It was my best
argument, and I waited for a reply, and I watched Oswald fidget and
look alert and I suddenly saw Higgins shift over to him.

Before he said
anything he stopped and examined me, and stood confused about
something, and he examined my shoes and stood back.

I started to
realize how far they were going to go to avoid giving me
anything!

He whispered
something in Oswald’s ear, and they both started examining me, and
they took measurements of me.

Until I called
out, “What is it? What have you found?”

“
You
look different! Your height has altered! What height are you
then?”

“
Let me
see!” I demanded, and checked the measurements they had taken and
realized that my height had increased, and I measured myself
without my shoes, and realized that I was over three inches taller,
and I sat down confused, and wondered what they thought it was, but
they refused to say anything, and I wondered what I thought of
it.

Again I
wondered if we were actually there to search for the Loch Ness
monster after all and again I never believed it existed, as there
was nothing to back up the claim, accept strange photos, which
could even have been deliberately put there to stop outsiders
discovering it.

The sky
darkened and looked as if night was approaching and snowflakes
started floating down, and I watched Higgins react to it with
disappointment, and I was sure if it remained the way it was it
might ruin the whole trip and investigation, whatever it was, and
later, that night, I heard their low voices in the other room,
deliberately not letting me hear them, and wondered what the hell
they were up to, and my thirst for knowledge grew and I knew I had
to get what they were doing.

Chapter 6

Loch Ness
Monster

After my dreams
the whole account of the Loch Ness monster was inconceivable, and
while I was looking out my room window, when I got up in the night,
I thought I even saw the thing out in the loch, and realized that
it might actually be a night creature, and be hidden away in the
deepest depths of the loch or some dark cave during the night.

I thought of
it being a monster, and not a friendly beast, and I could hardly
believe the events of the past days and that we were now on the
trail of a massive killer monster!

When the first
rays of sunlight blasted out from within a small wood, while the
night and darkness vanished into the other horizon, I studied my
surroundings and the dark blue water, searching for the monster,
and snow covered landscape, trying to explain why the snow had not
been foreseen by the forecast, and I thought of what to do if it
continued and snowed heavily and if it would actually ruin their
investigations and experimenters, and I was not fully sure as they
had not given me enough information.

While the sky
grew brighter I watched the snow glowing and I suddenly saw
something strange and what looked like someone’s distorted
footprints near an area of the shore, and realized that they came
out the water, and went back into it, and I realized the actual
size of them with astonishment, and I rushed over and banged on
Higgins’s room door.

I was
surprised to find both paranormal scientists fully awake and
carrying experiments, and I rushed in, and was amazed that they had
just discovered something, and signs of a paranormal occurrence,
but were unsuccessfully trying to locate it.

“
I think
I found something!” I announced swiftly. “Outside!”

They looked at
each other in confusion, then amazement, and surprise, and grabbed
some of their equipment and shoved it into bags, and I took them to
the window in my room and showed them the marks.

“
Do you
see them?” I announced excitedly.

“
See
what?” Higgins moaned, searching where I was looking.

“
Footprints!”

They examined
them with surprise and we rushed out the door, and down the stairs,
and out the building.

Once outside a
bitter breeze blew across our cheeks and I wondered if we would
regret our actions, and not waiting until later. But it could
easily snow and cover the footprints up and if what I had seen in
the loch earlier in the dark was real we might see it and prove its
existence.

I had
forgotten how hideous monsters were supposed to be! I also realized
that nobody would probably believe us if it was and we never got
any evidence.

The place had
a look of having deadly ghostly things behind all its black
shadows, and dark places.

The sun
faintly shone through gaps in the thick clouds, edging up through
distance trees, casting long black shadows, with demon shapes
through falling snow dust
.

I studied the shore and area with the prints
repeatedly, and the paranormal scientists did the same, as we
shuffled through thick areas of snow, and swiftly accelerated over
thin areas, while going up and down small mounds and hills, and
through thick and thin areas of vegetation.

I tried to
grasp what sort animal it could be and how we should handle it, and
I kept wondering what the two paranormal scientists would do if we
found it.

What if it was
like some form of massive lion and was hungry, and waiting to get a
human alone! Our sightings clearly gave the loch ahead as the
location of it!

“
What
’ll
we do if we find the
thing?
”
I
eventually asked them, watching Higgins leading us forward
faster.

“
We’ll discuss that when we see what’s
there,
”
he
replied.