The Axe, Alfredo & Other Stories by Robert Mitchell

Author:Robert Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystic appearances unexplained, time travel mystery at sea, telepathic thought transference, dreams illusions delusions, supernatural happenings
Publisher: ROBERT MITCHELL
Published: 2019-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

ROB LOOKED AWAY FROM me and stared down at his coffee cup, the coffee now cold. He didn’t move for half a minute, didn’t turn the cup in a full circle as he had been doing for the past fifteen minutes as he’d been speaking. It was almost as if he’d finished his story and there was no more to tell. But there had to be more. He wouldn’t have told me this much if there wasn’t more. He wouldn’t leave me hanging. There had to be an end. Or did there? But what he had said didn’t quite make sense.

“So you found the broken point of the crossbow bolt, then?” I asked quietly. “You found what the idiots had shot at you. Was the shaft splintered where they had snapped it off?”

“No,” he replied. “There was nothing left of the shaft. How could there have been?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The shaft would have been wooden, although some of them were made of bronze later on, the same metal as the heads.”

“What?” I asked again, not certain whether we were on the same page.

“The head was bronze, Mitch,” he replied. “It was bronze. Bronze can last almost indefinitely. The shaft would have rotted away after only a few years.”

“So what the hell did you find exactly?” I asked.

He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a leather pouch.

“I haven’t shown this to anybody,” he said. “You’re the only one who might understand, who’ll believe, who won’t tell me I dreamt the whole thing, or that I’m crazy. I didn’t tell Clare I’d found it. I was back at the hotel before they returned and she never found out that I had gone back to the paddy fields. The others continued to give me a bit of stick from time to time, but I just let it wash off my back. They dropped the subject after a few days. I could have shown them the picture of the rock face, but I didn’t.”

“So what the hell did you pull out of the rock?” I asked again, this time much louder.

He undid the drawstring on the bag and shook its contents out onto the table. I picked it up, knowing straight away by its weight and colour that it was bronze. It was gnarled, pitted and corroded, but its triangular cross-sectional shape could be seen for what it had once been. The dark patina of this ancient piece of metal clearly showed that it was undoubtedly the head of an ancient bolt shot by some crossbow well over a thousand years ago. There was a slight gouge in one side where the screwdriver must have bitten into it.

“Well, Mitch?” Rob asked. “Did it happen? Did I dream it? Do you think I dreamt it?”

“No, mate, no,” I replied quietly. “I don’t think you dreamt it.” I handed it back to him. “I’m damn certain it happened exactly as you said it did.”

“There’s one other thing,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Why

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