Damnit Tobias, Melissa's inner voice cursed him, as she leaned back on her seat.
'What's up buddy?' Katrina exclaimed.
'It's a cat.' Tobias said, pointing his fingers outside the window. The cat's eye was shining like a Lost Incan Golden Coin; like the colour of a highlighter marker. The cat's eyes met John's eyes in a straight field of view. It was like the cat was a warning, to make them stop whatever it is there are about to do; or wherever it is they're going; like the Ancient Hindu belief says.
No reactions of any kind, from John. He looked calm and plain, and his face, pale and motionless, filled with a pure horror.
As they all stood clueless, Melissa was trying to shoo away the cat and indeed succeeded in her attempt within just a few seconds.
The cat left and the ride continued and no one spoke for the rest of the ride. As they finally reached the Meadowridge Memorial, the hands of the clock hit 0700 hours and at the same time, the cemetery's giant clock dinged exactly twelve times and stopped.
* * * * *
The brightness of the sky slowly faded away as the darkness gradually started enveloping the entire sky, leaving the Meadowridge Memorial, suffering in the dark.
The place smelled like something that could never be explained with words. The cemetery was entirely built-up with stone structures, up raised from beneath the dead sand. Everything around the grave stones looked so dead and lifeless. Every grave stones were carved up with some ancient Latin or Hebrew writings that none of them recognized.
There was nothing possibly or even barely human like in the visible sight around the Memorial. Katrina remembered the exact lines from the horror flick, she keeps watching all the time - The dead should never be disturbed.
'We are making a big mistake, by stepping on holy grounds.' She said. 'The dead should not be disturbed. In fact, the dead should remain dead.'
Tobias made a silent giggle and he couldn't control it; it went on forever.
'Are you even suggesting that we are raising back the dead? Like in those horror movies?' questioned John, in a rather frightening tone.
Just before she could counter-attack him with words, Katrina noticed John, carrying a backpack, and with the way he was carrying it, she guessed that it must be heavy.
'Errr? John?' she called. 'Why do you have a backpack with you?'
Melissa and Tobias stopped moving and looked at John, confused.
'Well, I've brought my thermography device and computer, and also a LIDAR.' He said, mentioning the Light Detection & Ranging Device. 'We're on a quest for something, god knows what; wouldn't miss it for life. Would I?'
Melissa frowned at John. 'We agreed to do nothing stupid, just observe and survey. What do you think you're doin' John?'
'Come on Mel, it's just some ground surveying equipment's, what do you think I'm gonna do?' John shot back. 'Besides, we don't even know what're we're looking out for.'
John was absolutely right; he had a point, again. They had to be ready for whatever it is they find. The clock was ticking fast and the place was getting even darker and they were still clueless.
Melissa picked up her phone and opened up the satellite map again and kept looking at the terrain, a little closer this time. She used her thumb and index finger to swipe on her screen and the map enlarged, showing a more accurate point of the co - ordinates in the vicinity.
'Guys, look.' She called out and everyone inched forward. They were just a few steps out from the exact point. Holding the phone right ahead, they started walking towards the blue dot on the map until they were literally standing on it.
The blue dot then suddenly vanished with a short beep tone followed by a quick popup on the screen - You have successfully arrived at the destination. Thanks for using our application. We'll always at your service. It said in an auto - recorded robotic voice.
'What're we looking for, Mystery Man.' Katrina uttered in a hushing tone, as they scattered around and kept looking for whatever it is, they were looking for.
They wandered around clueless for almost an hour until finally Tobias stumbled upon something that he found quite strange.
'Fellas, I guess I found something.' Toby called out. 'Over here.' He shouted, pointing at the gravestone resting in front of him.
Everyone gathered around him and looked at it, puzzled with tonnes of questions floating around in everyone's mind. Unlike the other gravestones, this one had no name on it but something else was carved beneath the marble stone; 'In Loving Memory 1930 - 2011, R.I.P . . . . . . . ilr . . . ., Ja . . . Sr . . . . '
The name was scratched off with a just few trace marks behind and the grave stone's lid surface appeared slightly disturbed. Whoever did this, never wants anyone to find out the person beneath these stones.
'Things are getting strange by the minute.' Melissa sighed. 'So what do we do now?'
John was already unpacking his backpack, setting up his gears as Melissa spoke. Everyone stared at him, as he set up his laptop on top of the disturbed surface of the gravestone. 'What? You wanna help me or not?' John asked, and the next moment, they all were helping John, setting up his instruments.
With everyone working together, it only took around five minutes to set up everything that they needed to find out the thing buried under ground.
'You guys ready?' he asked, for which everyone nodded.
John hit a few keystrokes in his computer and he connected the broad end of the LIDAR's wire to the computer's USB port, switched the screen to the imaging software that they all immediately recognized from the lab, back at JHU.
He stood in position and hit the small red, rounded button on the LIDAR device; a short-pitched groan, and the image slowly started appearing frame by frame on the screen of the computer's imaging software from top to bottom.
A few minutes were all it took to derive the high resolution image. Everyone came closer and studied it together. 'Wow! Just a few meters down is it?' Tobias said. 'Twenty - Eight Meters, it says.'
'A GPR sweep must show us what's under.' John said, with the Ground - Penetrating Radar in his hands. A GPR sends a highly polarized radar pulses, deep under the ground and as the pulses hit something solid, it scans them and traces the object and its constructional details. They all were familiar with it.
Melissa did the deeds by initiating the GPR device, a high-pitched pulse radiated deep down as Mel hit the button on it. There was no time lag; each frame started appearing in a linear sequence, carefully building the final image.
Everyone leaned closer as the image started appearing. It was something metal, and mostly rusted by the looks of it, and rectangular, and it had some carvings of an ancient hieroglyphics; Egyptian. It looked like a priceless artefact - A treasure chest.
Chapter Three
'Is that what I think it is?' said Katrina, in bewilderment, as the others looked at the Hi-Res image on the computer screen in astonishment.
'We should excavate the site.' John said. 'Get that thing out and take it back to our lab, for further processing. We wouldn't know anything about its origin as long as it's buried in there. For all we know, it could be one of the missing artefacts, professor Gilroy talks about.'
A mild hesitation filled with millions of questions, and slight fear shrouding their faces, but finally they all nodded in approval.
John had only the surveillance and monitoring tools, but nothing that fits for excavating the ground below, at least he didn't feel the need to bring those kinds of tools, after promising Melissa that he wouldn't do anything stupid, which in itself was a stupid thing, that he added to his long lists of wrong doing.
Clearly knowing that standing still won't work, they decided to spread around and expand their search radius; A few more minutes vanished into thin air, which brought the clock close to 0800 hours, with no luck of ever finding tool to dig the place.
They finally ended up with a few thick long rusted metallic rods with a sharp pointed edge, sc
attered around the cemetery office on the corner of the Memorial. Each of them picked one of their own and started jabbing around the perimeter of the gravestone with a hard blow to loosen the soil around it.
'Strike slowly, don't penetrate the rod too much further, could damage our object.' Melissa spoke.
It worked out.
The grip around it loosened and the grave stone started shaking vigorously; just one more blow and it would all come down tumbling. Tobias made the final hit and several million cracks erupted upon the big, wide marble stone, travelling at several hundred miles at once, cracking it open.
Everyone stood motionless, blunt and shocked, in rather surprise than disappointment.
'Ummm? She's a beauty.' Katrina slowly uttered each word, as plain and possible as she could put them. 'Isn't she?'
Melissa nodded, staring at it, so did the rest of them.
'It's dark, we shouldn't be here anymore. Let's grab this thing and get the hell outta here.' Tobias claimed.
John shook his head. 'No, wait.' He said, lifting his hands. 'We should check for any possible radiations. It might be here for ages, so it's only possible that there must be some radiations. Let me get my thermography kit.'
They waited alongside the grave, as John fled the place to grab his kits. As they were guarding the tomb, a sudden thought striked Katrina. 'Guys! Where's the body buried here? There must be one right?' she asked, and the others shot a glance at her.
Why didn't they think of that? The quest has completely blinded them of any further thoughts.
Melissa immediately peeked inside the grave without wasting anymore time. She lended a flashlight from Tobias and inspected inside it. The treasure was placed right in the middle of the tomb, with sediments of soil and rocks covering it, and the edges of the box were slightly disturbed, confirming Melissa's suspicions; the object was buried only recently, but that doesn't make sense, she thought.
There was no doubt that the box was an antique, the hieroglyphics that were carved looked ancient but legit, and the style of the carvings itself was old enough to prove that it pre-dated for at least a few centuries back.
This was definitely not an object to be hanging around in an antique collectors place. It almost cost a fortune, wouldn't want to hold on to it, with the fear of being robbed every single day.
But finally she saw what she needed to see. There was a very mild but visible trace marks of skeletons, the sand was slightly pressed and shallow.
Someone stole skeletons? The world around her was getting weirder.
John returned back with his laptop and his kits, already set-up and ready to go. 'You ready?' he asked, looking at them, and they nodded.
Like the last two times, John hit a few key strokes on his computer and the device finally whirred and came to life. He instructed Mel to slowly move the device from top to bottom and again in the opposite direction.
She did exactly like he said and it went on for a few minutes, after which an image appeared on the screen. It was multi - coloured consisting of patches of green, orange, red, yellow and also some very mild patches of several other colours. The bright red and orange indicated the presence of radiations; but it was very mild and harmless, handling it with a small pair of gloves would suffice.
They couldn't possible know the contents and the weight of the object, so John handed a pair of gloves for each one of them, in case he needed an extra set of hands. He carefully cleared off the soil sediments on top of the box and wiped off the stones in a similar manner.
He inched towards the grave and slowly traced the soil around the object and placed his hands carefully beneath it, and Melissa did the same. They slowly and carefully started lifting the object.
As soon as they started lifting it, they realized that the box was not nearly as heavy as they thought. It was particularly light in weight but stuffed with something inside it; about that, they were completely sure.
The hands of the clock hit almost 0900. It was the closing time of the Meadowridge cemetery. Within five minutes and the combined effort of all four of them, they cleared the place and set it as nearly as how it was an hour ago.
There was a sudden noise; the sound of the tree's twigs cracking. Probably the guard, they thought, but it was the local law enforcement, patrolling the area.
They quickly snuck through the rear and powered up the Chevy 67' Impala and rode away as far as they could.
* * * * *
A few miles up North, in an expensive hotel suite, the man in the thick black leather jacket looked much cozy than he appeared to be, bumping up on his expensive couch, while the Air - Conditioning unit was cloaking up the remaining heat in the suite. At the same time, he was listening to the conversation on the other side.
He knew it was time he spoke to his boss. He grabbed his phone resting on the small wooden teapot and dialled a number he knew from memory.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A nearby cell tower picks up the call request from its service area and transfers it to the destination cell tower, after which the target mobile number's service area is triangulated and the call is transferred to it, then the phone starts ringing.
A very huge set of processes, but altogether, a very few seconds is all it takes for the overall process; but the man didn't have any concerns nor interest in any of this, as long as the call came through.
'Yes?' The voice from the other end was rough, and windy.
'I think they took our bait.' The man said. 'They have the box with them and they're taking it back to the JHU's research lab, as we're speaking.'
'Good.' The voice from the other side said. One word, one syllable, four letters; as short as it may sound, but the more powerful it is, coming from the man from the other end of the call. 'Keep pursuing. Do not engage, unless necessary.' He said and the line went dead.
* * * * *
Chapter Four
Back at JHU, nothing had changed since their last visit. The same infected silence, routine lectures, occasional public visits at the William's Medieval Museum, and a small brunch break, things sounded normal.
The research lab was on the third floor; which was on top of the Museum by two floors and the lecture hall by one floor.
'If we need to keep this from Gilroy, we need to avoid any traces of us ever being inside that lab. Agreed?' Melissa asked everyone.
'What's your plan? You wanna sneak inside without authorization?' Tobias said. 'It's against JHU's regulations. We could be expelled, if someone finds out; let alone find out about the box.' He said, mentioning the antique they just uncovered.
Melissa expressed a wide smile. 'I have an idea, but you might not like it.' She said, searching for something inside her bag. It was a regular sized plastic laminated ID. She held it up close for the others to see. 'There we have our authorization.' Mel said, with her teeth widening.
'Shit! Its professor David O' Brian's ID. You stole them?' Katrina asked in surprise. David O' Brian was Archaeology department's History professor and a fine man in his fifties; he was also in-charge of the research laboratory of that specific block.
Katrina caught her off guard. 'Well, I think so . . . . Yes, but . . . . . Purely with the intention of returning it back . . . . . No offense.' She said, mumbling.
'He'll kill us if he finds us.' John said, for which Melissa replied, confidently. 'No he's reported in for sick leave. He won't be around until after next week, probably.'
They paused a beat, exchanged looks and finally rushed to the third floor, to the lab.'
They climbed up the stairs to avoid the sound of the elevator. The third floor corridor was almost empty. It was break time and most of the students would probably be at the cafeteria, and so do the professors, so no surprises. Each of them slowly approached the lab, in an orderly fashion, with their heads faced down the floor, trying to avoid being captured by the surveillance cameras.
When they finally made it to the la
b area, Mel picked up the stolen professor's ID to gain access to the laboratory.
Then suddenly the sound of an approaching footstep echoed through the empty corridor, gradually increasing with each second and each step. Katrina patted on Melissa's shoulders in dismay and Mel nodded and quickly swiped the ID on the lab's entry pad after which the door slid open emitting a loud beep with the red LED's switching its colour to green.
They rushed inside the lab as the door immediately closed behind them. They ducked across one of the windows within the next second, waited for the passer-by to disappear away from the area. It was Albert, the Economics professor, they recognized from the University's year book, some kind of freak, was the impression they all had on him.
After he left, the place was back to its normalcy and the gang started their initial phase of work by setting up a work space and grabbing the necessary tools. The research lab of JHU was like any other usual laboratory stuffed with the general items like bottles of various kinds acids, devices for performing various kinds of dating's on antiques, file cabinets and dossiers, computers and other necessary tools.
Melissa dusted off the work space and laid out a thin, wide piece of a fibre cloth and carefully placed the antique box on top of the piece of fibre and she picked up some brushes in varying sizes and thickness and spread them out on the table, near the box.
In a battle between choosing the right brush for the work, she finally chose one of the brushes with a thin hair and started off by cleaning the visible contaminants slowly and carefully while the rest of them prepared sample acids and Spectrometry devices for carbon dating the sample inside it.
Once she cleaned the visible contaminants, she wore a pair of gloves and picked up the tweezers from the draw below, to unlock the mystery box. The rest of the crew gathered around Melissa, waiting for the final surprise, as she unlocked the mystery box. A few metallic clanks and a slight struggle and the box finally clicked open.
They all came closer and sneaked inside the chest. They wouldn't believe their own eyes.