by Gareth Otton
Dreamcatchers
Book 3 of the Dreams of Reality
Gareth Otton
Copyright © 2020 Gareth Otton
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2020 by Gareth Otton, all rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the author.
Cover design by Gareth Otton
ISBN:
9798643597247
PROLOGUE
Saturday, 30th March 2016
03:47
Click… click, click… click.
Mitena spun toward the sound, eyes wide and struggling to see. However, the darkness was impenetrable. There was only the constant clicking, the coolness of the air, and the god awful tickling of the spider webs she broke with every step.
They were everywhere, clinging to her skin, stuck in her hair, even creeping into her mouth. The more she brushed them away, the more webs she disturbed. She’d never been afraid of spiders, but this was too much. The webs collected so fast she felt like a mummy being wrapped. The urge to scream was building.
“I wouldn’t do that, Mitena dear?” a voice whispered from the darkness.
She gasped as that voice robbed her scream of volume.
She spun again, seeking the voice. It horrified her to discover that it came from the same direction as the clicking. Surprisingly, Mitena recognised it.
“Gran?” she asked, the word barely louder than a breath.
“Yes child, it’s me. Don’t mind the webs. They won’t harm you… yet.”
“Yet?” Mitena asked, taking a tentative step toward the whispering.
“Not tonight. Whether they ever do is up to you.”
Mitena inched forward, her footsteps loud over the uneven ground, but the voice never seemed to grow closer.
“Gran, where are you?” she asked, panic making her whisper louder than expected.
“Shush child, we don’t want to draw her attention. We’re not what she’s here for, but let’s not tempt fate.”
“What who is here for?”
“Asibikaashi.”
Mitena froze, not daring to twitch lest she disturb another web.
“The spider woman?”
“Who else?”
“But… she’s just a story you told us as kids. She’s not real?”
The laugh from her grandmother was unnaturally dry.
Click… Click… Click.
“Who’s to say what’s real here? This is a place where imagination is truth. You should know that.”
Mitena struggled unsuccessfully for the meaning beneath the words.
“Gran, you’re scaring me. What are you talking about? Where are we? Why is it so dark?”
Again came the dry laughter, barely audible over the constant clicking.
“So that’s what you want. A bit of light. You won’t like what you see.”
Her voice was louder, nearly a casual speaking volume. Mitena flinched, expecting the sound to bring Asibikaashi right to them.
The stories Gran told her as a child said the spider woman was a friend to her people. She took bad dreams away and gave her ancestors the knowledge of dreamcatchers. But why live in such cold and darkness? Wasn’t it her job to help return the sun to the world? The benevolent figure of legend would not live here. This was something else.
But nothing responded to the sound, nothing but the constant clicking that was every bit as invasive as the webs.
“Please Gran, just a little light,” she begged, terrified of what she would see yet more frightened of the dark.
Her grandmother laughed one last time.
“It’s probably for the best. You have to see to understand.”
There was the loud cracking of stone striking stone. Sparks lit up the darkness, and Mitena flinched again. Twice more the stones collided, then there was fire, bursting to life all around what turned out to be a giant cave, jumping along torches hung on the wall. Hundreds sprang to life, all of them at the edge of her vision and none providing enough light to chase away a fraction of a darkness so massive. However, what little light they provided was enough.
This time Mitena could not control her fear. She yelped and jumped back, breaking yet more webs that she now saw were everywhere. The place was so thick with them that Mitena could barely see through the silvery strands to the distant figure of her grandmother, sat in a rocking chair at what seemed to be the heart of the web. More horrifying than the webs themselves were the giant globs of oily darkness caught up in them, thousands tied up in the cavern.
Mitena stared in horror.
“What are they?” she asked.
“Nightmares of course. That is what the webs are for, remember. You should know.”
Her grandmother spoke as though no longer worried about the sound. Only, it wasn’t the voice Mitena remembered. Mitena wanted to flee, but where would she go? She turned back to the silhouette of the old woman and walked toward her.
She broke more webs as she passed and horror chilled her as thousands of tiny spiders rushed out to fix what she broke. None touched her skin, thank god, or that would be it for her overtaxed brain. She forced her mind away from spiders and the scream that was building inside, and she kept to her path.
“Why should I know?”
“Because of what you’re becoming. Look at yourself, Mitena. These webs should not even touch you, yet you break them as you walk.”
Mitena looked down and saw nothing amiss until she looked closer at the back of her arm. Beneath the spiderwebs that clung there, she noticed a glistening that was unnatural. Her skin was darker than usual, waxy. It almost looked oily, like the blackness in these webs.
“What’s happening to me?”
There was no answer, instead just the continuance of that awful clicking.
“Gran. What’s happening?” she asked again, picking up her pace, desperate to see a familiar face and seek shelter with someone she loved.
Still no answer, just clicking and silence.
Mitena ran, breaking the webs faster and hating the feeling of them covering her so heavily she could no longer see her oily skin or her clothes any longer. Yet no matter how fast she ran, always her grandmother was just out of reach.
“Beware of the path you tread, Mitena,” her grandmother said. “Do not become that which you hunt.”
In time with her final word, Mitena broke through the last strands of webbing surrounding the woman in the rocking chair and that scream that had been building had its release.
The figure in the chair was her grandmother, but also not at the same time. Her grandmother had only two eyes, not eight, and only two hands. This woman’s eight hands were busy at work, half of them feeding thread to the hands holding the knitting needles. Those needles moved in a blur, clicking as they collided with one another, tying the silvery thread into knots that the army of spiders covering the old woman carried away.
Her grandmother, or Asibikaashi, smiled at Mitena as she continued to weave the giant web that filled the darkness in all directions.
Mitena screamed again, and this time she didn’t stop.
Mitena’s eyes snapped open and instantly she was brushing the spiderwebs from her skin… spiderwebs that weren’t there. Instead, she found only sweat, grime, and bandages hiding injuri
es that stung as she probed them.
Distantly as though hearing the sound through water, she heard a deep voice swear in surprise. The world jumped in a way that made her nauseous and there was a distant screeching sound until the world stabilised once more.
Mitena lifted her head for a better view, but where before she saw only dark, blurry shapes, now she saw slightly brighter blurry shapes. In the back of her head she felt an ache, but like everything else it seemed a long way off.
“Easy, Ten,” that deep voice spoke up again, a little louder and a little closer.
“Kuruk?” she asked in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.
“That’s right, I’m here. You hang in there, okay.”
A heavy weight pressed on her arm, firm but comforting, a gentle touch she recognised instantly. She didn’t know whether all twins felt this way, but she recognised her brother on an instinctual level. From the sound of his footsteps, to the way he breathed, his touch, or even his odour, she always knew it was him. Knew she was safe.
Only that wasn’t true now, was it? Something had changed.
“What happened?” she asked, her words slurred and the effort of speaking nearly overwhelming her.
Kuruk hesitated, and she looked up again. It was no easier this time, but she persisted. Kuruk didn’t keep secrets from her. From other people maybe, but never her.
She was working up the strength to ask again when he finally spoke.
“You banged your head,” he answered. “It’s nothing to worry about, I promise. I’m taking you somewhere to get help.”
“The hospital?”
Again that strange, awkward silence. This time it was more than just hesitation, and Kuruk sidestepped her question altogether.
“Don’t worry about it? You just rest and we’ll get you better in no time.”
Mitena wanted to ask another question, but it was too much. The darkness was returning, and she couldn’t keep hold of her train of thought. There was something wrong with her brother, she knew that much. But as the darkness consumed even the blurriness before her eyes, that slipped away too.
When Mitena next opened her eyes, she recognised instantly that she was no longer moving. Her world still span, but it was just a side effect of her injury.
She felt the full impact of her headache and she hurt everywhere, but she could at least make out shapes in the darkness this time.
She was in her brother’s truck, curled up on the passenger seat. Of Kuruk, there was no sign.
Thinking of her brother, his voice trickled into her awareness. It sounded muffled and came from a distance, but it was an actual distance this time and not a mind fog. Mitena gritted her teeth and shifted her head to look out her window. It hurt to move, but it was easier than before.
She found Kuruk standing under the porch of a modest family home. Over seven feet tall, he towered over the man standing in the doorway. However, even though that man only wore a robe and had obviously been woken from sleep, he wasn’t intimidated.
He matched Kuruk’s rage with his own.
Mitena reached for the button that controlled her window, hoping it still worked with the engine off. A gentle hum sounded as the window dropped a little. Instantly the voices became clearer.
“…don’t care. I told you to never come here. My wife is asleep and my neighbours—”
“She’s hurt, asshole,” Kuruk shouted. “What did you want me to do, take her to the hospital? I’m sure you’d love that if people started asking questions. Who knows what our answers might be.”
Still angry, the man in the bathrobe looked around, checking the windows of the houses around them and taking one last look into the darkness behind him before closing the door to his house.
“Fine. Let me look at her. But at the least, keep your fucking voice down. If my kids wake up—”
“You’ll what?” Kuruk interrupted, his patience used up.
Mitena wanted to wind the window back up. She hated hearing that anger in his voice, hated seeing him using his size to intimidate. Just four months ago he was the most gentle person she’d ever met. He knew exactly how imposing he could be and countered with friendliness. She couldn’t remember hearing him raise his voice since they were children.
Now though…
Kuruk was a changed man, focused on only one deadly goal, and it was all her fault.
She was lost in that thought and jumped as the passenger door abruptly opened, letting the cool air in. Mitena looked up, her vision swimming as the truck’s interior lights came on and the glow of a streetlight, previously blocked by the door pillar, hit her squarely in the face.
“Jesus, look at her. She’s a mess.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m here,” Kuruk grumbled.
“What about the scene? Did you leave any of her blood behind? Any evidence that—”
“It’s in flames, just like the others. Now can you help her or not.”
Mitena flinched from the shape that loomed over her, but relaxed when finally she recognised his face. She didn't know him well, but recently she’d seen him more than she’d like. He was a man in his middle thirties who was going prematurely grey. His robe helped hide his identity because she’d only ever seen him wear suits.
“How’d this happen?” he asked Kuruk as he checked her over.
“There was a second dreamwalker waiting—”
“What? Who?”
The questions were sharp and fast as the man backed out of the truck, forgetting Mitena in an instant.
“I don’t know who. Some girl who wasn’t on your list.”
“Describe her.”
“Do we have time for this?” Kuruk asked. “Mitena—”
“Describe her,” the man repeated impatiently.
“I don’t know. Five foot nothing, maybe sixteen. Came from nowhere with a bottle and knocked Ten round the back of the head as she was helping me out.”
“Describe her,” the man repeated a third time.
“For fuck’s sake. I don’t know. It happened fast. Uh, blonde hair, over weight... She lived there so—”
“His daughter,” the man interrupted. “Interesting. I didn’t know she was one of them… Wait, you said she hit Mitena with a bottle. How did you know she was a dreamwalker?”
“Because after I did her father in, she shot fire from her fingers like she was a flame thrower.”
“Fascinating.”
“Yeah? Say that when those flames are coming at you.”
“What happened to her?”
Kuruk hesitated, and Mitena shifted so she could look at her brother’s face. One look and she knew what his answer would be. She groaned, unable to keep it inside as tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
What have I done? She asked herself as Kuruk answered the man’s question.
“She’s burning with her father.”
Mitena barely heard his words. She recognised the pain on his face and knew that even though he sounded okay, he was hurting inside. However, no matter how bad he felt, he’d just admitted to killing a sixteen-year-old girl. That only made the conviction in his voice more painful to hear.
No matter how much it hurt, he was sure he’d done the right thing.
“It’s hard, I know,” the man said, false sympathy dripping from his voice like oil. “But it had to be done. You and Mitena are doing God’s work.”
“About Ten. Can you help with her or should—”
“Calm down, Kuruk. I know a guy. He’s sympathetic to our cause. Let me give him a ring, then I’ll give you an address to go to. Mitena will be fine.”
Kuruk let out a relieved sigh, and the truck shook as he fell against it.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the man who shrugged it off and started back towards his house.
Mitena watched him go through blurry eyes, this time caused by her tears, not her injuries. When the house door closed again, Kuruk shut her door and made his way to the driver side. When he climbe
d in, Mitena couldn’t help but stare at him. It didn’t take him long to notice.
“You will be okay, Ten. I promise.”
Mitena didn’t answer immediately, just watched Kuruk and let the tears flow.
Finally she said, “You killed her.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Kuruk’s expression hardened and he looked away.
“She was going to kill you, Ten. What the fuck did you want me to do? Besides, it was only a matter of time, you know that. They’ve got to die, Mitena. That’s why we started this, remember. We need to keep the world safe from them because no one else can.”
“Not the innocent ones,” Mitena whispered. She wanted to scream and shout at him, but she just didn’t have the energy. “We were only supposed to kill the evil ones.”
“Yeah, well, she was about to kill you. That’s evil in my book,” Kuruk answered, his voice hard, his mind closed.
Even when dazed she knew better than to argue when he got like this. She looked away, wondering again just how they got to this point. Taking her silence for judgement, Kuruk snorted angrily and slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Despite the violence, Mitena didn’t jump. She knew he’d never hurt her.
Therefore, she was still enough to hear what he’d barely even whispered into the silence.
“Lucy was innocent.”
Mitena closed her eyes and shed another tear. She’d loved Lucy too and missed her every day. Just hearing her name made her think better of her brother and she hated herself for pushing him when he was only trying to do what was right.
But she wasn’t sure she knew what was right anymore.
She opened her eyes again and looked out the passenger window. Movement from the corner of her eye made her look at the wing mirror.
She froze.
Hanging from a silvery thread that glistened in the moonlight, a spider swung lazily back and forth. It was too small for her to know for sure, but she thought it was watching her.
The cackling laughter of Asibikaashi echoed through her mind, and Mitena shuddered. She couldn’t help brushing her skin to wipe away phantom cobwebs. Instead of webs, she felt only a cold clamminess that reminded her far too much of the oiliness she’d felt on her skin in the dream.