The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) Read Free

scattered throughout a wood
nearby, and others of people being attacked and chased by things
with fearful sounds.
    Upon reading
it with fascination my eyes fell upon something in corridor, which
I had seen but had ignored, as I was engrossed in it, and I stared
at it for almost a minute trying to recognize it but was unable to
form an image of what was there, and what I was looking at, as it
had no real form, and the darkness and my tiredness never allowed
my mind to come to a conclusion.
    It was the
woman’s appearance there that brought me to, and she stood behind
the door, out in the hallway, and I could say little, and she
quickly entered my room and closed the door, and turned on the
light.
    After
questioning her again about it, with me this time realizing that
there was something there, I asked what she had been doing before
its appearance, and if she had done something that could have
caused its appearance, and she considered everything and was at a
loss.
    I then asked
her if she had done anything anywhere that she had not done
before!
    For a long
time she thought it over and came up with something!
    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