Chapter 3 - Dream
Bo awakened to the soft crackling of a fire nearby. In a daze, she found herself inside a large house.
The house was made of wood primarily, with two rows of supporting columns running the length of it and dividing the entire space into three sections: the corridor in the middle and two areas of low, wooden benches on each side.
She was lying in the corner of one of the bench sides, with layers of blankets on top of her - a sheet of clean, soft linen, then a layer of natural colored woven wool and on the very top an animal hide.
She dug herself out of the blankets and placed her feet on the floor - it was made of flagged stone but topped with a thick layer of fire ash.
She wiggled her toes a little, before she put on her leather boots. Then, she stood up and got dressed by putting on a linen underdress first.
She picked up a second piece of clothing from beside her bed, and gave it a little frown. It was an apron-like dress, something she thought she had never seen before yet had no trouble putting it on like she had done it thousands of times already. She wrapped the dress around her body, and pulled the shoulder straps over her shoulders. Then, she fastened each strap to the hem of the dress with a silver brooch.
She found a leather belt beside her pillow and tied it around her waist. Then, she strapped two small pouches and a short dagger to it.
She tidied her hair briefly, before she put on the last thing - a pendant on a silver chain. After she had put it around her neck, she tried to take a closer look at the pendant, but no matter from which angle she looked at it, she couldn't see it clearly.
She gave up, and started to wander inside the house, checking out everything.
She stopped in front of the large loom on the other side of the house, and admired the fine artwork of the incomplete tapestry of war ships hanging on the loom.
She went to the firepit in the center of the house, taking a whiff from the cauldron that was hanging down from the ceiling. Inside it simmered a pot of meat and vegetable stew. It looked rather bland and overcooked, but weirdly, she found it quite appetizing.
She walked down the corridor as she looked at miscellaneous items on the benches: a box of little trinkets, a woven belt made with fine combed wool, a bowl of crushed herbs and berries, arrowheads, animal hides, feathers….
As she approached the exit, she saw a flock of chattering birds resting on top of a wooden beam right above her.
One of them, a raven, noticed her stare. He stopped gossiping and turned to her, gazing at her with his sparkling eyes.
Strangely, Bo suddenly had this flutter inside her stomach. Her heart raced and her throat became dry.
There was this joy, this anticipation, this nervousness inside her, as if she knew that something exciting was about to happen.
Something, or someone, was waiting for her somewhere outside. A rendezvous.
So, she ran outside.
She was greeted by bright sunlight, blooming wildflowers and green grassland. Snow crested mountains stood afar, blending into the cloudless, pale azure sky.
Underneath the mountains, there was a lake with icy blue water. It was like a drop of tear, its beauty heart wrenching.
Bo took a deep breath, inhaling all the bittersweetness of the wildflowers, the crisp early Spring air and the cleanness of the water.
She felt like she was finally home. She was away from this place for so long and now she had finally returned.
She stood there, reveling in every detail of this place.
Everything was so beautiful, peaceful and perfect, except one thing.
There was a weak howl, a low whine or maybe a sad weep. It was coming from far, far away intermittently.
It was made by someone who was extremely upset and frustrated.
As Bo focused on that voice, she stumbled a little, feeling lightheaded.
Suddenly, she was in a boat, an ancient looking one. She had wooden oars in her hands, and she was rowing the boat deeper into the lake.
At one point, she took a brief rest. She put down the oars, before she gripped the side of the boat and lowered her head.
There, she saw her own reflection in the water. She was in a different outfit now. Instead of the apron-like dress, she had a leather hunting outfit on, a small shield on her back and a sword hanging on her waist.
As she leaned in further, a shiny pendant slipped out and dangled on her neck. She quickly wrapped her fingers around it and stuffed it back inside her undershirt.
She stared at her own face. For some reason, she found that face strange, as if it wasn't hers, but someone else's face.
At the same time, she found the entire scene familiar. She thought she was having a Déjà vu, but…it felt much more real than that….
Soon, the boat docked at the island in the center of the lake. Torched and barron, the island was like a piece of coal dumped into the middle of clear blue water.
Bo searched the island. She didn't know what she was looking for, but she felt that she should be looking for something.
Eventually, she discovered a hatch door between the gray rocks. The door was made of metal bars, and was chained to its frame. The chains were held together by a trapezoidal padlock.
Through the metal bar grids came a weak air flow, which reeked of rotten meat, old blood, mold and mud.
Along that foul smell came that weak whine.
Bo swallowed hard as she approached the trap door. She had no idea what might be down there, but she felt its importance.
She also felt a connection. Something she both longed for and feared, no matter how little sense that feeling might make.
Bo…
The wind sent a mutter from afar. Someone was calling her name.
Bo…
That voice blended into the whispers of the grassland.
Bo turned around, but found no one.
There was no one there. She had not met a single person on her way here. She was all alone.
She groaned as her trance hit her. It was so intense that it started to physically hurt her.
She thought she should leave. She should go home. She needed to go home. She had to, because it was home and someone was waiting for her there.
But…who would that be? Who exactly was it that was waiting for her?
And, where is home? Where is her home….
"Bo!"
Kenzi's loud voice suddenly yanked Bo out of her vivid dream and her weirdest trance ever.
Bo's eyes shot wide open, and saw a panicking Kenzi leaning over her. The petite woman grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her frantically as she noticed the dazed look on Bo's face.
"Kenzi…what…is…going on?" Bo asked slowly, avoiding biting her tongue.
"Oh good, you are still alive and responding!" Kenzi exclaimed as she let go of Bo. She sprawled beside Bo in the bed and let out a long sigh of relief.
Bo sighed and petted Kenzi's hair.
It had been a few days since the spider attack. The wounds might be healing, but the trauma lingered. Both of them would wake up in the middle of the night at the slightest noise, or flinch at the picture, or the mentioning of "spider".
During the past few days, Bo had returned to Laura's lab with Hale, but she could no longer see or find any cobwebs, spiders (whether alive or those killed by her) or even that giant spider sac that had trapped Travis Wood.
Likewise, everything she had seen or killed during the spider attack in her own house - the silk and the spiders - had disappeared completely. The only things that could prove that it wasn't a nightmare were her shattered furniture and the pesticide stains on them.
Laura's death investigation went nowhere, neither did the investigation into the mysterious body with the spider tattoo. Both had been ruled as unfortunate accidents, and no one had come forward to claim, or even identify, that mysterious body.
The broken katana did not lead the police to Bo or Kenzi either, for it had been heavily damaged and any evidence that had possibly been left on the blade had been destroyed by the fire caused by the fallen power tower.
Now the two deaths, like two drops of water disappearing into a torrential rain, had already been buried underneath the many new murder cases in the metro city. Hale had told them that unless he had new leads, he'd put Laura's death investigation aside for now.
"Bo…" Kenzi's voice came to Bo again. This time, it seemed far away and somewhat muted.
"Huh?" Bo hummed, finding herself in her trance again.
"You are having an episode right now, aren't you?"
"Mhm…."
"Have you called your doctor yet?"
"Yeah…"
"Well?"
"I left them a message. They have not called me back yet…."
"Oh well…maybe they are just understaffed and overworked like everyone and everywhere else right now."
"Mhm…" Bo closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling relieved that her trance was gone now. "I'll just…I'll swing by her clinic later today and see if I could talk to the front desk about a walk-in or something."
"You do that. I'm gonna check in with Hale and see if there's any updates on…anything really."
Later that day, Bo went to Dr. Olivia Smith's clinic. As she approached the front desk, she was greeted by a nurse that she didn't recognize.
"Please sign in on the sheet," the nurse instructed absentmindedly while typing on her phone.
"Ummm…I don't really have an appointment today. I just wonder if…I could see Dr. Smith."
"I'm sorry, miss. It's by appointment only," the nurse raised her hand and tapped on the sign on the wall that said "APPOINTMENT ONLY", while still staring at her phone.
"I know," Bo insisted. "I just have this thing…it's urgent."
"Then you might want to go to the ER," the nurse said as if she was reading that sentence from a manual.
"No, I don't need to go to the ER. It's not that kind of emergency. I really, really need to talk to Dr. Smith. Please!"
The nurse finally raised her head to look at Bo. "Sorry, she's out today."
"Out…?"
"As in, she's not in today."
"I know what that means!" Bo cleared her throat, feeling a little embarrassed that she had raised her voice at the nurse. "When…will she be back?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"Will she be back tomorrow or something?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"When is the earliest time that I can see her then?"
"Let's see…" the nurse put down her phone and logged into the computer. After having fumbled with it for a long time, she finally located the calendar and announced,"the next available appointment for Dr. Smith would be…five weeks from now."
"Five weeks?!" Bo exclaimed. "I can't wait that long!"
"Then you might want to go to the ER."
Great. Now this chatbot is trapped in a loop. Bo thought. "Listen, I just…I really need to see her as soon as possible."
The nurse gave her a glance. "Like I said, she's out today."
"Well, could you at least give her a call and let her know or something?"
The nurse let out an open mouthed sigh. "Suuure," she drawled. "I'll give her a call, when I'm not busy."
"Are you the only one here today? Where is Kristy?"
"Where is who?" The nurse frowned at Bo.
"Kristy, the nurse who's usually here?"
"Probably out too…?" The nurse replied absentmindedly while scrolling through the feed on her phone. As she sensed Bo's stabbing stare, she sighed again and told Bo, "look, I'm here because the hospital to which this clinic is affiliated sent me here. They sent me here because of…staff shortage or something, so…."
She trailed off, giggling at something on her phone.
Frustrated, Bo shook her head and left the clinic.
On her way home, Bo received a text from Kenzi urging her to come home quickly. She rushed home, worrying that something might have happened to Kenzi at home.
When she arrived home, she found Kenzi dancing with excitement in the living room. Around her were scattered pages of case files and printouts.
"Are you okay? Is this some sort of…Stranger Things parody?" Bo frowned.
"Breakthrough, Bo! Major breakthrough, like mind blowing," Kenzi dashed to her and cupped her face. She stared into Bo's confused eyes and announced, "I now officially pronounce our case the work of a serial killer."
"What? What case?"
"Laura's case!"
"Oh…wait…hold on, a serial killer? What do you mean?"
"Well, I talked to Hale but he didn't have any updates. So I thought, could there be any case that might be related to Laura's case? I then went into the police database and-"
"How did you even have access to that? Wait, did you use Hale's credentials or something?"
"What? I let him use my bath towels!" Kenzi argued. "Anyway, how I got into their database is not important at all. The important thing is that…I think I've found more victims like Laura."
"Really? There are more?"
"Yeeeep, mysterious death, heart failure, died when they were alone, all that kinda shit," Kenzi explained as she picked up a stack of printouts and showed them to Bo.
Bo quickly read through the very first one, before she sighed and said, "Kenz, this guy was like 89 years old when he died. Don't you think maybe heart failure is kind of a…natural cause of death for him?"
"Okay, I'll admit, that one was probably a bit of a stretch, but what about the other three?"
Bo read the files of the other three deaths. The first one was a woman named Amanda Parsons. She was born and raised in this city. After graduating from highschool she worked as a cashier at a gas station not far from her childhood home. She was found dead at the back parking lot of the gas station a couple of weeks ago. The surveillance camera on the back side of the gas station caught the entire scene where she seemed to have had sudden spasms briefly before she collapsed. She was the only person caught on tape at that time.
The second deceased was also a woman, and her name was Leah Becker. She grew up moving from place to place with her siblings and parents, before she settled here and got a job at the local steel factory. She had just been promoted to a senior manager there. She was found dead at a secluded trail in the park where joggers would frequent. There had been no witness of her death.
The third person was again a woman. Her name was Sonia Mendez. She had just moved to the city a year ago, for she had accepted a job at a local private K-12 school. She died when she was in her classroom grading students' homework after school dismissal. There had been signs of a struggle, but the classroom door was found to be locked from the inside, and so were all the windows.
"So…what do ya think? Strong connection, right?"
"I mean…" Bo murmured with a deep frown. "Yeah they were all in their late twenties, and they were all women. They all died of heart failure, sure…but…they had nothing else in common. I mean, they…they didn't go to the same school, or live in the same area…."
"They all lived in this metro city," Kenzi reminded her.
"Yeah, but…roughly 2.5 million other people also live in this metro city," Bo reminded her. "Why them? Let's just…for a second let's just say these deaths are related. Why them?"
"I don't know. That's why I texted you telling you to come home quickly, bro!" Kenzi slammed her hand on Bo's shoulder. "I can feel it. I can just smell it! This is a biiiiig case. This is our big break!"
After pausing briefly, she lowered her voice and asked, "like…do you think maybe, just maybe…like all of them were killed by…you know what?"
By the spiders? Bo frowned. Of course, it would all have made sense, if these people had been killed by invisible, vicious spiders that later would disappear….
"I know. I know. I sound like one of those low budget cliché horror movies but…wouldn't it make more sense than…any other explanation? I mean, invisible monster spiders! Where do you think they come from? A secret government lab? A cursed ancient forest? Oh! Maybe a radioactive waste site ..."
Kenzi rambled along, but Bo wasn't paying attention to her at all.
She was having a trance episode again. This episode reminded her how suddenly and frequently she was having them recently. It also reminded her that those spiders were only visible and killable when she was having her episodes.
Why would her episodes be related to…the visibility of those monsters? Why had they disappeared all of a sudden? Where did they come from? What were they exactly?
She really needed answers, and she really needed to see Dr. Olivia Smith.
It had been two days since Bo had visited Dr. Smith's clinic, and they had not contacted her once. She had called them multiple times, but not a single call had been answered, nor had they responded to any of her voice messages.
Her patient had finally run out, so she decided to visit the clinic again.
I'm just gonna sit there and I'm just gonna…not leave until she agrees to see me. Bo told herself as she pulled her car into the parking lot in front of the small business center where Dr. Smith's clinic was at.
She exited her car and stormed to the clinic's front door, like she was here to pick a fight. To her surprise, the door to the clinic was locked.
On the door, there was a notice printed on an A4 paper that said: We are closed. Please give us a call if you have any questions. Please call 911 or go to the nearest ER if you are having a life threatening emergency.
"Seriously?" Bo growled in frustration as she pulled on the door a few times to check if it was really locked - and it really was locked.
Bo placed both hands on the glass door and formed a cup with them. She leaned in and peeked through the cup, as she wanted to see if anyone was inside.
Vaguely, she saw someone sitting behind the front desk, so she yelled, waved and pounded the door, hoping that that person would let her in and at least tell her when she could see or even talk to Dr. Smith. However, that person didn't answer the door.
Bo stepped back and called the clinic's number again. She could practically hear the phone ringing inside, but the person inside did not answer the phone either.
"The fuck is wrong with them…" Bo grunted in anger. She was about to pound the door again, before something occurred to her.
There was a small, employee-only parking lot on the side. If she had remembered correctly, the clinic had a window that was facing that parking lot, and that window should be to the left of the person who sat at the front desk.
Maybe I can catch their attention over there. Bo thought as she circled to the left side of the business center. She squeezed her way through the thick bush row that was separating the parking and the building structure to approach the clinic's window.
This time, she had a much clearer view of that person inside. To her surprise, it wasn't a nurse - not any of Dr. Smith's friendly nurse she knew, nor was it the unprofessional nurse she had met two days ago.
The person inside was a teenage girl. She was maybe 15, 16, slightly taller than Kenzi, with a pair of narrow eyes and thin lips.
What the hell is this kid doing in here? Bo frowned hard as she inched closer, practically pressing her face into the window glass.
The girl was looking at something on the front desk computer, which Bo had no idea how she would have access to. Bo also noticed pages of paper scattering across the shelf beside the front desk.
Those must be patient files. Bo thought as she remembered that shelf being the place where all patient files were being stored.
The girl, now sitting in the chair, turned a little and showed Bo her back briefly.
Bo saw, on her right shoulder blade and right under the shoulder strap of her tank top, a part of a dark inked tattoo.
It looked like some sort of a hook. Under the hook, there were a couple of letters which Bo couldn't see clearly enough to make out what they were exactly.
For some reason, she found that tattoo familiar. She wondered where she had seen it, not the pattern, but that style….
Until, she recalled the morning news she had watched the morning after the spider attack. When the news mentioned the mysterious body found under the collapsed power tower, it showed a tattoo found on the body. It was a black spider tattoo with the word "Spinner".
Bo gasped at that thought and accidentally bumped her head into the window loudly.
The girl inside turned immediately with spite in her eyes.
Bo turned around and ran, but was stopped by an eight foot long scorpion that had come out from nowhere.
"Not again…" Bo murmured with a shaky voice. She didn't know if she should be more scared because of the traumatized experience with a monster spider, or less scared since she had already met another deadly giant insect before this one.
She stumbled back, tripped over the bushes and fell. The scorpion whipped its tail into the air.
Suddenly, Bo figured out what that hook of that tattoo might be - it must be the tail of a scorpion.
She scrambled to stand up, before dashed to the exit of the parking lot as the scorpion's tail came at her from behind.
Bo threw herself to the side. The scorpion's stinger cut her right arm like the tip of a sharp knife.
Bo cried out as she rolled away, dodging a second jab of the stinger. The stinger hit the concrete ground beside her instead, leaving a pencil sized hole there.
Bo was now crawling on her hands and knees as she headed to the front side of the business center. She had only managed to move forward a few feet, before she noticed that her heart was pounding like it was about to burst out from her chest.
Before she could figure out what was wrong, she felt a numbness. It started from the tip of her fingers and toes and crawled up along her limbs aggressively.
She collapsed, shivering in fear. Even her tongue had turned numb.
Letting out a few vague grunts, she lay there as many thoughts fleeted across her mind: the numbness from scorpion's venom, the tattoo, the teenage girl, Kenzi, the spiders, Dr. Olivia Smith, the lake, the raven….
The scorpion stood beside her, giving her a glance of scorn while raising its stinger at Bo again.
Tears of fear poured out of Bo's eyes. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't even do that.
In despair, Bo waited for the scorpion's fatal sting with her eyes wide open.
The stinger got closer and closer, until something appeared in the air. It was something dark and fuzzy, small and swift, launching itself at the scorpion's stinger.
That was the last thing that Bo remembered seeing before she passed out.