The Alien Artifact 7 (6 page)

Hanks
eventually went over and tried to cheer the horse up by comforting
it and reassuring it, and it just ignored him, and he admitted that
they had an incredible ability of making the horse more cheerful
and laugh!

In the end he
asked them how they had cheered it up, and Simpson replied
jokingly, “I whispered in its ear that if it laughed I’d give it my
beer!”

They laughed
and watched Hanks unsuccessfully try to get the real answer and
they started getting ready to leave and return to the army camp,
and Cameron was surprised to hear Hanks say that he might free the
thing in a nearby field.

Chapter 10

William the Conqueror

It was a bright hot day and everything looked
perfect and about as perfect as they were going to get and Cameron
wondered what could possibly go wrong! Even if the horse did not
win it was its first race and he was sure its performance would
become far better in the future!

Hanks was transformed now and looked a
perfectly normal jockey, and not the soldier they knew, and his
weight had dropped and he looked skinny and even fragile, but very
determined to do his job! His knowledge in horse racing was great,
which had even surprised Simpson and Fogler, who thought they knew
everything about him, and they even thought he had a good chance of
winning the race. For one thing all the horses looked lethargic
compared to their horse, and the jockeys looked inexperienced.

The only major argument they had was
the name of the horse, which was Willy, which Hanks insisted in
calling it, which he claimed was
after William the Conqueror, but Cameron was sure
it was named after a relative!

They had argued
over it with him as they could not imagine a horse with the name
becoming a leading racehorse! But Hanks insisted that it was a
great name and horse names never mattered that much, and that there
were many examples!

Willy still looked a monster even in the
light of day and sober and they still looked twice at it when they
had not seen it for a while, checking if they were imaging things,
and they were surprised that experienced people at the racecourse
had strange reactions to the horse and many stood with their mouths
wide open trying to grasp something, and some thought they were up
to something and checked on things.

He wondered if it could win and what the
outcome of the race would be, and he saw how prepared for the race
the other jockeys really were and their horses were more trained
than he had seen.

Near the starting line he stood beside Fogler
and Simpson at the front of the audience and watched Hanks
preparing himself for action and he wondered again why he was so
keen to have the horse and just how good he was at the game.

Fogler soon started handing them beers and he
grabbed his and opened it and drank thirstily and realized that he
had not had anything to eat and eyed up a place where he was sure
there was food, and decided to get over there later if he
could.

He wondered what he was missing about horse
racing, and realized that they probably had to make it big to do
anything worthwhile, as most sports.

When the starting gun blasted out he jumped
and was amazed at the speed the horses raced away and that Willy
left slow and uninterested in the race and he watched Hanks going
crazy trying to get it to move it, and he spotted what looked like
a glint of satisfaction on the horse’s face, and realized it was
the first glint of happiness he had seen on it since it had made an
expression in the pub. It was like it was being kept fully captive
against its will and would do anything it could to escape.

Simpson looked the happiest for some reason
and Cameron was sure he had bet on another horse or it losing!
Fogler at one point looked furious and clenched his fist and had to
calm himself!

Yet just when they had all packed in thinking
anything but a bigger disappointment was possible Cameron saw
something strange and that Willy was speeding up and his eyes had
changed to being bloodthirsty, and not just his furious look, and
his eyes were on the front horses and he looked as if he was going
to attack them and he accelerated faster than any animal he had
seen in person and he soon caught up with the horses and the front
horses, and Cameron was sure he was going to attack.

It was incredible the audience went crazy all
around them and Fogler spotted it and burst out laughing loudly and
cheered the horse on loudly and Simpson’s face dropped.

It was incredible! When Willy reached the
front horses they were at the finishing line and Hanks forced Willy
to race passed the finishing line before them and it won the
race!

Though Willy
looked shabby, badly treated and starved, he figured it had
colossal inner strength and powers and could win races, and he
realized the name was a good one as he was named after William the
Conqueror!

Though to his
surprise Willy stayed furious, burst into life more, and rebelled
against Hanks and his treatment and once he jumped off the saddle
it ran furiously away and after one of the horses it had chased,
but the jockeys stopped it going near it, and it jumped up and down
and managed to loosen its saddle and throw it off it and it leapt
crazily on one of the other jockeys and chased after him all over
the track and into the audience!

People ran away
from it screaming in fear when it attacked and bit them furiously
like a wild carnivore beast, and the whole audience stampeded away
in the opposite direction as it ran after them attacking, biting,
bucking, and smashing glasses, handbags, seats, and anything in its
path!

It finally
charged into the car park and chased people everywhere about the
cars, leaping on roofs and people, but it finally jumped through a
car windscreen and got trapped, and security guards finally arrived
and caught it!

Chapter 11

The Show

Afterwards to celebrate their
incredible win they went to a
Las Vegas type of show, even though they nearly got charged
for the destruction Willy did, and Cameron was sure it was because
they were interested in the horse for more races!

The victory had
them all far more drunk than normal and the horse incident was an
incredible event, which was in many of the newspapers, and they
were sure it was a winner.

It was
incredible that before they thought the horse was an absolute
monster but they now even encouraged it to be, as they wanted it to
get the publicity they believed it needed. Especially Hanks who was
like he was making a last desperate bid at his horse racing career,
and he was sure that he had paid far more than he had said for the
horse, and was carefully hiding the fact.

The show was
fantastic and he watched on sniggering and thinking of a headline
on one of the newspapers, which read: JOCKEY’S MONSTER ASS ON THE
LINE, and showed a stupid photo of Hanks going over the finishing
line.

They had been
lucky, but how lucky? He was really interested in what would happen
with the horse in future races!

During the
interval Cameron drunkenly staggered about trying to find a toilet,
wandering about for almost half an hour, and was angered that he
had allowed them to get him so drunk and by the fact that there
were no toilets anywhere! No matter where he looked there was
nothing, and was eventually told off by a parking attendant for
trying to do the toilet in a nearby car park.

He even though
he was sure he was going to collapse somewhere he forced himself to
keep walking about outside, and to get some air, and once back in
the building he decided to look for one of the people working there
for directions to a toilet.

Then after
wandering around there for ages he spotted an old usherette and
quickly asked for directions, and she told him, “Go up the stairs
over there! Go through the double doors you come to! Turn left and
carry on through the foyer! Turn left at the end, go up stairs, and
then left again! Don’t worry about it you’ll find it!”

She left with a
sadistic smile on her face that worried Cameron, and he thanked her
and started marching up the stairs.

He arrived at
the top dizzy and sick, and wobbled around in a circle and dizzily
nearly collapsed in a heap, and had a hard time recalling what she
had said!

The place was
entirely new and he could not recall anywhere like it, but rushed
on so he would not miss the rest of the show.

The place was
empty there and he could not find anyone and he recalled the double
doors and went there and turned left, and he knew the place could
not be that big and that he would come across the toilets if he
kept wandering, and he was sure he could recall the directions
anyhow!

After he
recalled the next set of stairs he was sure he could find the
toilet somewhere! Yet the place was far larger than he had
estimated, as he had not properly seen it at the outside.

Eventually he
found stairs, which looked as they were for the staff, and he
followed the instructions and turned left and he became worried
about being lost and ruining the night wandering around there, and
perhaps collapsing in a drunken mess and spending the night there,
and he lost his temper, and saw a distant figure like the usherette
away along a corridor and shouted at her calling her an old
hag.

Eventually he
found his way back to the stairs, which he confirmed were the same
ones, and he followed her instructions and turned left but got lost
again and arrived at a dark place, just below the roof of the
building, and realized it was where the staff did the toilet and he
managed to relieve himself in complete darkness as he listened to
the audience roaring away in the distance below, and realized that
they were cheering a famous performer and rushed back to the
stairs, the show, and to his seat!

When he arrived
back he was tired and breathless and could not believe that they
never had a proper toilet available.

The others
hardly noticed him and seemed far more excited and louder than when
he had left, and he was disappointed at missing the action, and he
started asking them what had happened.

“
You
missed the best bit!” Simpson announced, laughing cheerfully,
watching the now empty stage, imaging what had happened was still
there.

Cameron finally
had to ask him what he had missed and sat wondering what could have
happened and if he should come back the next night to watch it.

Simpson downed
his drink, and to his horror told him, “While you were away some
guy did the toilet all over the orchestra from somewhere up on the
roof!”

Chapter 12

The Treasure Hunt

Cameron could
hardly believe the events of the past weeks as they were astounding
and the fact that they were once again on the trail of the treasure
and had returned to the well.

The last shreds
of sunlight vanished beneath the wood, below the horizon, with a
deep black night engulfing them, and Cameron studied his
surroundings trying to see what he was doing in the darkness and
fitted the harness on, getting ready to go down the well, and a car
raced passed on Floors Road and its bright headlights illuminated
the whole wood and them, showing him how easy it was to see
them.

The well had
been covered over with something else and the four of them had
uncovered it! It was now like they were doing something they should
not but all they were doing was climbing down an old well and
looking for something and he despised the darkness there as he was
sure a bad accident could occur. He had already had some accidents
there already!

In the well the
darkness would be the same with the torches!

Why did they
insist that there was something there? Why did they insist he had
been the main person that had thought there had been evidence? It
was an incredible situation! He was trying to argue that there was
nothing there and he had been the one they insisted had the
evidence and had convinced them that there was something buried
away there, and they still refused to say anything and back up what
had happened.

The wood looked
different somehow, even though the darkness altered it greatly, and
he was sure someone had altered something else there for some
reason, but he was determined and it made little difference.

He considered
their search for the lion and tried to search for it in the dark
landscape, realizing that lions did come out at night, and was
amazed that his senses started increasing, which he was sure was
his body gaining heightened awareness to the potential dangers, but
he started hearing and seeing things more powerfully than he had
ever done before, and could recall, even though he had lost a lot
of memory, and he saw a rabbit at a great distance away as though
his sight had been magnified like binoculars.

It was also as
though he could see in infrared and he watched the rabbit move from
hiding place to hiding place, and wondered why they were still even
at the location and he was sure that once the army moved they would
no longer want to search there for it and that they were on their
final attempts at searching.

Fogler was
determined in finding what was there and he was going down with
him, instead of Simpson, and Cameron put on a harness and they
lowered him into the well.

As he went down air currents made strange
sounds and he wondered if it was the normal sound of them, and he
was hearing it in its real form, and he was sure he heard an insect
scurrying along a piece of rock, and he listened to Fogler
breathing below, now at the bottom of the well, and he sounded
annoyed at what he found there and he watched him moving about
trying to check things, as though doing it before he arrived
below.