The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) Read online

  The only thing she had been doing, which she could recall, was she had been using a metal detector, which she had borrowed off a friend, who had given it to her as she had lost her old wedding ring, and she could not find it anywhere.

  While using it, searching for it, she had found a small hole in the floor and carpet, and she had taken up the floorboards under the carpet and had used it to examine all the heaps of rubble, dirt, and building remains below for it, and she had found the ring, but the metal detector stopped working, but was working again the next day.

  I asked her when the occurrences had started and she eventually told me that it had appeared there that night.

  So I asked her if she still had the metal detector and she took me into her living room and removed it from a box, behind her sofa, and I examined it and I realized how expensive it was, and that it was powerful!

  It was then that I was sure the thing in the hall could be affected by it, and that I could solve the case by using it on it, and perhaps get rid of it, as I was sure ghosts might be affected by such forces.

  Once I found out how to use it and its controls I went out into the hall with it, and prepared myself, and waited for the woman to turn it on at the mains, and I was so fascinated with the ghost or whatever it was I marched towards it trying grasp any detail in it that I could recognize, but I could not get anything, and up close it looked like a mass of red energy being generated by something, and to my amazement it exploded into a frenzy of activity, and I realized the metal detector had been switched on, and at that point I collapsed across the floor, unconscious.

  Chapter 4

  The Home Guard

  Everything seemed to look weird and somehow unbelievable, and I studied everywhere trying to grasp what, and I kept recalling the moments before I collapsed and awakened in bed in the morning, wondering what the hell happened.

  I was sure it damaged my brain and I had a bad time recalling things. I could not think of what to do and if I should try to help the woman further, but it was ridicules as I had never heard of such an occurrence, and never mind what the solution was, and I wondered if I had blown my first case, and I decided to ignore it and hope the woman never asked Marple for further help.

  I wanted to join the Home Guard, even though I could not recall wanting to do it before, after I saw an advert looking for part time Home Guard soldiers, and realized I could fit it into my schedule.

  I had immediately gone there, and sat bored in the Home Guard office waiting room, sitting on my own, with some faint sounds behind the office door in front of me, where I assumed I was to be interviewed, and I started wondering what I was about to do and how deadly this war could become, as if the Germans invaded it would equivalent to being on the frontline, and I was also getting desperate for answers and wondering repeatedly if I had received damage to his mind, and realized that I would be checked by an army doctor at some point and realized I could have him properly check me out.

  I felt different somehow and I could not grasp what and stood and started checking myself, and feeling my head for damage where I collapsed and hit the floor, and realized the woman could have covered up me hitting something when I collapsed, as she would have felt responsible for it, and I started examining my whole body, trying to see how it functioned to me doing things, and I started jumping up and down and waving my arms about, and examined my legs, and they responded, and I did a handstand and noticed my body was weak and seemed to move differently than I intended, and I partially looked upwards and saw a large shadow shift across the floor, and saw someone standing over me, in front of me.

  An officer was standing staring at me crazily.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” the sergeant shouted, and I collapsed over the floor.

  “I’m starting to get out of shape sitting in here!” I moaned.

  He stood staring insanely, and not believing anything, and clearly thinking I was someone else.

  “God help us!” he shouted. “If this is all we get …”

  “This is the Home Guard?” I swiftly replied, trying to look normal.

  “Well it surely isn’t the boy Scouts!” he moaned. “Yes! We’re the Local Defence Volunteers!”

  He ordered me into the front office, and I knew I was in the army, and I sat in a seat at the desk and waited for an officer to come. Then I wondered what the hell I was doing there!

  An officer entered, looked through a form about me, which I had filled in and handed in at the entrance office.

  “Captain Godfrey!” he announced. “And that’s Sergeant Clooney my deputy officer.”

  Clooney sat in the seat beside me, in front of the captain’s desk, and watched us both, and the captain shuffle through his stuff.

  “We’re putting together a group of soldiers because of the war and you look suitable …” he announced, examining information on him. “So you’re a private investigator?”

  Clooney looked sideways in surprise, and examined me over again, differently.

  Suddenly the phone blared out and the captain picked it up and instantly realized who it was and launched into an argument with the person, and shouted not to phone him there unless it was an emergency, and thumped the phone down.

  He glanced over and gasped, stopped what he was doing and examined me up close and looked straight into my face as if he suddenly saw something he did not want to see and could not fully grasp, and continued studying me.

  “Your face it’s familiar!” he moaned, and he started tapping his finger hard against the desk, and tried to grasp something.

  “I want to ask you a few questions!” he finally asked.

  I sat upright and waited.

  “Why do you want to join the army, Malone?” he asked firmly, studying me with confusion, and he started sipping tea from a cup.

  “I can’t remember!”

  “What?” he loudly gasped, also coughing up the tea in his mouth. “What can’t you remember?”

  “I have had an accident recently and have had some memory loss!” I confessed, and suddenly wondered why I had done it, and sat depressed.

  The captain seemed to alter somehow, and he suddenly grew interested in me, and seemed to want me.

  “Okay! You’ve had a recent misfortune! Perhaps caused by this blasted war! But surely you can make a rough guess as to why?”

  Clooney stood up and went over and got a cup of tea, and sat back down, and sipped it and watched us both.

  “I can’t really remember at all!” I moaned, and made Clooney gasp and cough out all the tea in his mouth, blasting it all across his front, and he instantly started cleaning it up.

  When I offered to help clean it Godfrey screamed, “Leave it!”

  After resting and calming himself he looked over, and he finally asked, “Why do you think people join the army?”

  “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 d
ark 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.