I wondered if McMurdo had fully reported it to the train company, as if the whole surrounding area collapsed down, and other areas like it there, they should think of filling them in.
By Marple’s frantic reactions, as he attached the rope and got ready to come down, I sensed that he might have found something, and I knew we might find something, and realized that we must be under streets I knew above the railway tunnel and I tried to work out the exact location.
It was strange as there had to be something deadly there and I could not grasp what and where, and tried going over what McMurdo had said, and I realized he had hardly said anything, and I wondered how I would get back up to the top, and I watched Marple come down and knew he had something, and was not saying anything at the moment, but I could not quite grasp what.
I wondered why someone would want to go to such lengths to build the cavity, and realized it had to be a natural cavity, and I started exploring an area nearby.
Water dripped down from somewhere overhead and I cleaned it from my face, and whished I had taken down the torch they had, but it would have left them all in darkness, but in my pocket I had matches if I needed them, and lit one to see if I could see anything, but it was too faint, and I saw a cloud of dust spraying down, and I covered my eyes.
While I walked away I listened to vague hollow surges come down from above, and I caught glimpses of people watching me in the hole above, while Marple came down below them.
At the front of me I saw the cavity wall and mechanically tried to place my hand against an area of it, trying to feel what I could not see.
I expected to find stone but all I found were thicker webs, covering something, where an area of stone had crumbled down and collapsed over the ground.
As I shifted forward a flicker of dim light overhead grabbed my attention and I felt thick cobwebs crawling over my face and hands, and I heard murmurs of archaeologists, excited about coming down, and I wondered what we were doing there.
I felt about, still unable to grasp anything, desperate to get answers, and find something, before the others got down, and I felt jagged rocks under my shoes, and further along felt rocks pile up across my front; and I blindly touched shapes, embedded in others, and felt something strange directly ahead, and jerked my hand away, realizing it was some form of deadly life form.
Chapter 12
The visitations by the Santa formation stopped after the encounter and I returned to the cavity to check how the archeologists were getting on, and what they had discovered.
While climbing down their rope ladder to the bottom I was surprised at the difference there, and the amount of archaeologists and scientists now below, and the place with so many powerful lights, and I examined the size of the cables going down below, and watched them all over the cavity animatedly working, not just doing normal work, but digging out ancient things, and examining small discoveries.
They had dug away massive chunks of the ground, deep into the ground, with powerful drills and other equipment, and I was fascinated by the dead creature and its remains I found there, which nobody had yet recognized, and I knew it was too ancient and decomposed, with little to identify it, but I knew it was something different, of unknown origins.
I knew they had to be onto something big, and tried to see what, and I then examined them for people I knew, and to see what they were doing.
Near the bottom I realized how big the cavity actually was, with some surprise, and wondered why it was not in danger of collapsing, and examined it for anything they might have used to reinforce it to prevent it occurring.
There were many scientists, of especially from the exploration association, and they were everywhere examining and setting up equipment, with archeologists excitedly excavating large and small regions, and I climbed onto the ground and examined equipment nearby for clues to what was generally happening, and I recalled reading about some of their work in a science magazine, and I watched Oswald and Higgins at work, and sensed they had recently had a discovery or major discovery.
Their determination was roaring and unbelievable and they had proven there were occurrences centered there, and they had brought in all the scientists, paranormal scientists, and members of the exploration association, and I realized it was their biggest discovery, and that it was perhaps their greatest chance to prove the existence of theories to the world, and science world.
It was incredible as when they realized they never had all the evidence they needed they withdrew telling me anything, which was a major factor of why they never told much.
What was there confused me, and when I thought of McMurdo I was left astounded, and it sent a deep chill through me, as I thought of what it could do.
I recalled our investigating the killer Santa in the woman’s living room, when they were monitoring it with their equipment, and I recalled seeing it in the living room, and realized it was there, and jumped back startled, and my heart leapt, and saw its dark red figure shifting into the room, which shifted out of nothing and the darkness of the corridor, and I watched a scientist activate cameras and equipment, he had been adjusting.
I suddenly recalled all the data they had collected, and wondered if they had found anything from it since, and asked Oswald about it and he nodded that they had.
“Did you get a proper photo of it?” I quickly asked, wondering why they had not sent a photo, for us to use to identify it, and give the police to identify it.
“Okay!” he replied, and searched through his case and looked through a group of photos, and eventually handed me one, to my surprise, and I stood with my mouth open.
The photo was unbelievable as in my recollections of it I only saw energy formations, and I wondered if I had imagined it now.
“When was this one taken?” I asked, curiously.
“Just before it left!”
“Have you any earlier ones?”
“Not any longer! I eventually threw them away! They showed little, and no face or anything could be seen! Including on all the stuff we got!”
I studied the photo again, and tried to realize what it looked like again, and held it away from me, and again realized it looked like an ancient drawing I had once seen of the devil, and gasped when I recalled what McMurdo had said.
What confused me was if it was evil, or doing something else, and why it had killed people it had visited, including the boy, and had left his bones.
Even though it was dark it looked like Santa when I had seen it, and I had watched its strange figure move and make sounds like Santa, and I realized again how similar it was to a department store Santa, and I tried to grasp what it was doing there!
There was something strange I just could not grasp, from everything it did, and how it had moved and did things far differently than anyone or anything I had seen, and I was shocked at how lethal its appearance was. It was like there was something there that should not be there!
I stared at where the scientists were at work, as a distant train rumbled away in the distance, and shook the roof slightly, and dust blew about from it.
“Did you get anything else about it?” I asked, curiously.
“Yes! As we told Marple! We discovered it was transmitted there!”
“What?” I gasped, wondering what he meant.
“We discovered something else later!” he continued, walking away. “It was transmitted there from somewhere underground!”