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Animal Instinct
Jessie Chng, who lives in Dairy Farm
Condo, is taking her dog for a walk along one of the Bukit Timah
Nature Park’s shady tracks. She is an independent lady, working as
a vice-president in a local bank, aged about thirty-seven. Ms Chng
often takes long strolls through the park with her dog called YoYo
every weekend. Sometimes they cross BKE (Bukit Timah Expressway)
towards the forest in the East direction for an adventurous walk.
She knows the place has a reputation of haunting, but she doesn’t
believe in all that ‘paranormal nonsense’.
As they pass a stretch of 'wind bottles' that are inverted bottles
hoisted on wooden sticks (nobody knows why they are there), just about
a few meters
off the shoulder of expressway, YoYo is the first to sense something unusual.
She stops at wind bottles, sniffing and snuffling. Then snuffling and
sniffing.
The dog suddenly becomes fretful; she first barks uncontrollably
at the bottles, then rubs her snout on the grass, as if
ridding herself of something nasty. She continues to yowl franticly
while shaking off from the lash.
Ms Chng feels something weird, too – whining sound of high-pitch
pierces her eardrums. Uncomfortable stomach cramp. Some invisible force has her
engulfed.
The dog rushes off into the forest in the straight line of east
direction. Jessie tries to
go after her pet, but the mysterious forces seize her back. After
2 minutes or so, the abnormal
forces gradually subside. But it is too late. YoYo is
out of sight. Ms Chng returns home with tears in her eyes. She
doesn’t want to call the police to report this weird incident
because of her social status. Instead she called SPI.
A Tiny Case
Late in the afternoon, Ms Chng phoned
SPI office desperately about wanting us to help her find a dog.
Several thousand dollars as reward and the search has to be kept
low profile. The order is accepted on the spot. Abductboy is
agitated, ‘We are paranormal investigators. How did she get an
impression that we are private investigators?’ Gate said
relaxingly, ‘Well she may have mistaken our name. Names that sound
similar usually will be easily mistaken – Parmesan cheese and
Persian cheese’. KC voices out ‘Hey, Persian don’t make cheese’.
Said in a sarcastic tune, ‘By the way, who is that genius picked
up the phone and accepted this order? Think we gotta give him an
IQ test’. ‘No, just get him to spend a sweaty afternoon to go look
for a dog in the jungle would do. I am not going.’ ‘Quiet guys!’
said Kenny. I told Jade to accept the order.
Almost can’t believe what they heard from their chief, they turn
to his direction with their jaws dropping. ‘I want this case.’
Elaborating further, Kenny continues ‘Dairy Farm, Bukit Timah
Nature Reserve, Central Catchment Nature Reserve… How many of you
have fully investigated that area that used to have a Kampong
village but suddenly vanished after the war?’ Everybody was quiet,
except ET who spoke in a somewhat challenging tone ‘There are many
Kampong villages in Singapore that vanished after the war too.’
Kenny smiled, added ‘But geographically that place is right at the
center of Singapore; just like, Ayers Rock, Uluru in Australia.
Besides, we have unofficial sightings of UFO over the jungles and
the nearby reservoirs. In fact I was skimping through our database
last night. Found a case, told by Jade’s ex-boyfriend, that two
bodies after being murdered were disposed in the jungle area of
Dairy Farm near English Assumption School. The Police have not
caught the murderers yet. Since then the place has been rumoured
to be haunted by spirits.’
ET adds in ‘Bukit Timah Nature Park that used to be a brutal
battlefield in the second world war is just next to the location.
One of the bloodiest hand-to-hand battles was fought there in
Singapore’s history. The defense force’s infantry division was
fought to the last man.’
‘Ok, you guys are describing a Bermuda Triangle, a blood-bath
battlefield and a murder scene to me. But practically our noble
mission is just to find a dog! I am afraid I have more important
things to do’ Abductboy grumbles.
Kenny says ‘A dog is a life of its own; I thought you are a dog
lover too. The point is, we are as well investigating why there is
a psychic power that pulled YoYo in. Nobody knows what the creeps
are there in the woods that are so wild and untouched. May be
Bomoh, pagan sect, aliens? The truth is out there…’
Everybody is staring around the office distractedly, and keeping
quiet for some time. Abductboy finally breaks the silence. ‘Well,
listen guys, my plan is, we form two teams – Gate, Jade, KC you
are in one team, called Alpha – me, ET and Kenny make another,
called Beta. Each team starts the search from one of the two
opposite ends of the wood along BKE. I mean a carpet search. The
area covers several square kilometers so it will take at least a
whole day. Eventually Alpha and Beta will meet somewhere in the
middle of the search area. We keep a close contact between the two
teams and a careful look-out on the surroundings. Ok, let us go
home now, have your gears checked, and we assemble tomorrow at
10am. I will contact Ms Chng and obtain some pictures of YoYo by
then.’
A Full-scale Search
At 10:30am, a SPI multi-purpose
vehicle (MPV) cutting along
BKE with six of us and the equipment loaded, finally come to a
stop on a grassy verge by the busy expressway. We take
walkie-talkies, navigational devices, torches, night-vision
goggles, eavesdropper with voice recorder, EMF (electric-magnetic
field) meters, IR thermal sensor, Geiger counter and cameras.
‘Is everything up and running? Let’s do a final check.’ asks
Abductboy. A sweep of beeping, tooting, ticking and clicking comes
by, a good mix
of electronic and mechanical sounds is heard from the gadgets.
Jade smiles and hands over another bag, ‘Don’t we forget our
supplementary gadgets for this mission, eh, dog-search mission..’
Open up, she pulls out a net, a dog-sized body-bag (for obvious
reason) and two boxes of doggie chocolate cookies’. ‘I thought the
cookies are for our lunch’, Gate says half-jokingly.
ET protrudes his head out of the window from his driver seat and
says ‘Don’t worry about food buddy. I stock up plenty of rations
in the MPV. Good luck to your dog hunt.’ With a smile, he drives
the vehicle further up along the expressway. Abductboy and Kenny
see the Alpha team walk into the bush on the rear mirror.
Flicking on his walkie-talkie, Abductboy says from the MPV, ‘You
guys read me, “Echo Alpha”? Over.’ ‘This is Echo Alpha. Go ahead.’
The voice hisses and crackles through the headset over his head.
‘Report your location. Over.’ ‘We’re going into the forest now.
Over.’ Everything seems okay.
The Beta team sets their foot on the other side of the forest,
getting ready to trek towards the direction of the Alpha team. The
SPI MPV is fitted out with all the latest communication equipment,
and a two-meter-high radio antenna is hoisted to its side. The words
‘Singapore Paranormal Investigators’ are labeled on the windscreen
like a sunshade. ET acts as a sort
of safety officer: should anything go wrong, he will be alerted
immediately. His job is to record the transmitted video signal
from the team’s mobile camera, while observing for any weird
occurrence from a video screen mounted inside the car. In fact, he
stocks up more first-aid kits than rations in the vehicle. And he
has the contact number of the nearest police station on hand.
Both teams are taking no chances. There are many mysterious
disappearances and strange stories about Dairy Farm for them to go
unprepared.
The time is about noon. The air is hot and humid. The two teams
bash through a wild grass land, climb over the ridge and march up
the steep slope into the forest.
They pass beneath the long shadows of the trees. The grasses are
tall and wild, some are almost at chest height. It still has no sight of a dog. Not even birds or other
life forms.
‘YoYo!’ yells Gate.
‘YoYo!’ yells KC.
‘Chockies!’ yells Gate.
‘Chockies!’ yells KC.
(They call ‘YoYo’ and offer ‘chockies’ so many times in the next
five hours that repeating it would probably fill a telephone
directory)
Jade has been keeping quiet with her eavesdropper on her ears.
However, she is moving a lot, obviously trying to position her
satellite sound dish away from the other two. In any accidental
hit, the amplified phrases of ‘YoYo and Chockies’ reach her ears
like thunders. That is certainly not an easy job.
‘Hmm’ These cookies aren’t bad’ says KC, flicking one in the air
and catching it in his mouth. ‘Yuck’ cries Gate, looking appalled.
‘What I really feel like is a big gulp of iced lemon tea. But I
must admit, I’m pretty hungry too. Are you sure the dog cookies
can eat one?’ The trio continues combing the forest feet by feet at
their own pace.
Their carpet search has not gone in vain although they find no
sign of YoYo yet. Deep in the forest, they discovered a wooden altar
box. Deity statues that placed in altar is a common sight in Asian
country like Singapore. But the statues resemble the two infamous
Hell Agents in Chinese myths – they are Black and White Hell
Agents, Ox Head and Horse Face Hell Police, whose job is to
marshal human spirits to hell. They are classical symbols of
death. Gate and KC wonder why they are there.
A Surprise Found
Dusk descends quickly. Both Alpha and
Beta teams have been in the forest for hours. The Alpha team reaches
the edge of the Upper Peirce Reservoir, jump across a deep ditch
and bash through the woods in the east side. On the other hand,
the Beta team is moving at much slower speed. They are rather busy
at measuring the electro-magnetic flux of the area systemically
and jotting down the numbers on a PDA. Tedious and monotonous.
They meticulously first measure the displacement (where they are
standing now) using an ultrasonic tape in units of 10 meters from
the pivot and then note down the EMF readings every five, ten,
fifteen and twenty meters away from both left and right hand side.
They can do one pivot point for about 15 minutes at their best. It
is like opening up an invisible net covering the whole area. Their
backs and limbs start to ache badly.
The Beta team has advanced slightly more than 1 km by now. While
they stop for a break, Kenny is trying to plot the existing data
on a notebook computer. ‘You won’t believe it..’ ‘What?’ Abductboy
probes his head over. The EMF is pretty distorted at the starting
point, probably due to the influences of the SingTel Satellite
Dish installation, which is logical. But it picks up its strength
as it gets further away or actually when it gets closer to the
reservoir on our right. ‘How could that be? It should be the other
way round instead, logically speaking.’ Abductboy smiles ‘So are
you implying that a huge power generator or an UFO station is
hidden in the reservoir?’ ‘Or may be MINDEF is up to some big game
around here..’ ‘Well, we don’t know. But I know that we better get
done the rest of the journey before it gets too dark.’ The pair
stands up stretching their arms and legs.
‘Ok, back to our gadget work. Not a sign of the dog anyway. I’ll
bet that …’ Kenny stops. Abductboy’s face has turned to a ghastly
pallor. His mouth opening and closing like a fish’s – but no sound
is coming out.
Finally he manages to point to his right and say, ‘Look!’ Kenny
takes a glance off from his PDA and he couldn’t believe his eyes.
A huge charcoal colored two-storey-tall house situates in the wood
like a couching dinosaur. ‘Why didn’t we see that before our
break?’ Kenny astonished. ‘Well, em, may be we were too
concentrated on our meters, or may be… it is our nirvana?’ It is
as though they have stepped into the past. They keep admiring its
unique old-fashioned design while walking close.
When they move close enough to the house, they can see another one
behind, with a similar architecture and age. Both huge houses look
quite naked, with the windows and doors stripped off like an empty
skeleton. ‘YoYo may be in there. Let’s go in check it out.’
Wearing a mouth mask is a must inside the house. There is a little
shower of dust and specks falling from the ceiling whenever we
cause a slight vibration on the floor. Rubbles, deserted furniture
and ruins are what we can see around this big house. ‘Lets inspect
every item on the floor and not let go any details.’ This house is
very mysterious.
Abductboy is carrying the Geiger counter. It is a device for
detecting and counting ionizing particles in order to measure
radioactivity. SPI team let him carry it because he is the only one who
knows what does each button do. In layman terms, the Geiger
counter is SPI’s supernatural detector. If it gives a high reading,
something extraordinary is nearby.
A rabbit darts out in front of them and disappears at speed. ‘Gee,
I thought that was YoYo. I wonder what he’s seen that we don’t
know about!’ Kenny says, only half-seriously.
An unknown force that devours animals. A pagan sect. Abductboy
gives Kenny a sour look. ‘I don’t know how I have got dragged into
this hellish zone today. 'You know my principle of investigation
is always to check out the place thoroughly, preferably during
daytime’ Abductboy mutters scrupulously. ‘We haven’t planned it
properly or anything.’ We all know that Abductboy is grumpy
because his full-time job is a safety officer, who insists
everything has to be well-planned, and of course, safety must come
first. We never anticipate going into a ghost house.
The Geiger counter gives a whining sound.
‘Hey! I’m getting an unbelievable reading on this …’ A moment later, Kenny
wobbles side-way and collapses on the ground.
Abductboy melts to his knees with a nauseating moan, clasping his
forehead. While bearing the pain, Abductboy presses the walki-talki
button as though he is using his last breath. ‘Echo Alpha, Echo Alpha!
We …’ He finally passes out, his stomach stuffed with unbearable
twinge.
A Scary Encounter
The walkie-talkie bursts out loud.
‘Echo Beta! Echo Beta! Do you require assistance, Echo Beta?’ But
there is no reply.
‘Echo Beta! Do you require assistance?’ asks ET from the safe
asylum of the SPI MPV. If they don’t answer this time, he will call
the police.
Inside the mysterious house. Abductboy rubs his head delicately.
‘Negative. Negative, Echo ET and Echo Alpha. We are all right now.
But we must have just experienced some of those odd psychic
effects that have been widely rumored. For no apparent reason this
“force” struck. And for no apparent reason it vanished.’
‘I feel as if my brains have turned into rojak,’ Kenny cuts in. ‘…
Echo Alpha. Perhaps you should come and have a look here. We found
two mysterious houses. We are in the first one of them. Position
1.17Km North-West 34 degree from MPV. Get ET to give you further
GPS data. Over.’
Kenny and Abductboy rest on where they collapsed in the house.
They wait for Alpha team come over and let them escort back to SPI
MPV – the multiple purpose vehicle that can convert itself into a
medic centre with comfortable sickbeds.
The night has quickly fallen. Venus is on the skirt of the horizon
shining right above the treetops. Alpha team follows the bearings
on the GPS device, moving closer to the location. Perhaps there
was rain last night. They find themselves trekking
shin-deep in heavy mud on the far side. They slosh and squelch along
a track. The darkness and hostile terrain do not hamper their
speed and enthusiasm; partly because they are concerned about the
other team members, but mainly because they are curious to find
out the mysterious encounter and the house.
Not before long, Gate, KC and Jade found the house, and met the
other team. ‘Be careful, we have just got attacked, by some
invisible force. If the Geiger meter crackles again, we better run
for our lives immediately. By the way, I suggest we abort the
mission and retreat now. Come back on another day.’ Abductboy
warns.
KC passed on his hand-held strong torch light to Jade, ‘Take this.
You will need it to lead a way out for Abductboy and Kenny return
to MPV for resting. Gate and I want to investigate a little
further.’ KC and Gate exchange an eye-sight, agreeing to hang on
for a little while. ‘Don’t worry, we have been through Pontianak
Hunt in Malaysia, head-hunting kampong in Java, and …’ Kenny
interrupts by landing his hand on KC’s shoulder, yet too exhausted
to speak. After he struggles to get up, he says in a soft and
broken tune ‘Hold on to your radio, anything, just SOS, take
care…’ Kenny and Abductboy limberly walk away while holding on to
Jade’s shoulder. The Geiger meter is handed over to KC.
Left with KC and Gate who believe can survive in any hostile
situation. They are simply stunned by the mess inside this eerie
house while inspecting every corner. But they don’t take chances.
They put on the miner’s hard helmet with a headlamp attached. And
wear protective gloves that have a high industrial standard.
Suddenly the Geiger meter bleats in jitter for few seconds, and
then back to silence. ‘Interference?’ KC raised his eye-brow.
Gate points to something his headlamp is illuminating. ‘Look at
this!’
Floating in front of them is a patch of shadow, the whole thing no
bigger than the size of a bear. The shadow seems to be hovering
slowly along the wall of the house in an anti-clockwise direction,
surrounding them. The strangest thing is that they don’t see there
is anything in front of the shadow, as though the shadow is some
form of life of its own. And yes, it moves!
KC takes a reading with the Geiger meter. ‘It is up again … ‘
The shadow intensifies its darkness, then fades. It is gone.’ …
and now it’s dropped again!’
The shadow reappears behind KC and Gate. Drift slowly downward on
a wall. Disappear again. It seems to be a single entity although
it takes a fuzzy form. Now it’s darting over to the ceiling.
After watching this lively, eccentric performance for fifteen
minutes or so, KC move further deep into the house, looking for
anything else out of the ordinary. Another door comes into view.
The ‘shadow’ follows.
KC is jubilant. ‘This is absolutely unbelievable! We’ve found
something here that I’m at loss to explain…’
Gate considers the practical side. ‘I’m not looking forward to
explaining it. You can just imagine what people will say when we
come out of here and start babbling about a moving shadow. They’ll
think we’re crazy!’
They quicken their pace. The shadow silently speeds up too. KC
stops. He studies it again. It stays with him.
Gate is about to call ET. Suddenly a feeling of evil pours over
him. As if every piece of his fibers immerses in cold water. He shudders as
the chill creeps through his body. He’s totally spooked by it.
‘Get out of there! KC! Get out!’ he bawls.
KC does something strange: he just smiles. Why is Gate making such
a fuss? After all, he’s only looking at a shadow…
But KC can’t see what Gate can see now.
Gate’s headlamp captures a side-view of the ‘shadow’. It surpasses
anything human knows about theories of optics in physics 101. It
is a vast, shapeless mass with flickering dim light moving along
its length in waves. Like energy in physical form. It is a
sinister, spectral grey. But, at the same time, you can still see right
through it.
The weird form seems to be crouching – ready to spring …
‘Get out of there, you idiot!’
But all KC can see is only a shadow from its front view…
The Escape
KC seems bewitched. He stumbles
blindly towards the wall where the entity lurks. The shadow keeps
changing its density… from thin to thick, then from thick to thin
again.
Gate is absolutely terrified. But he knows what to do here. He
inserts the
Geiger meter into his waist pouch, then switches off all lights he carries.
Swallowing nervously, he climbs out of the house from a window and
whispers into the walkie-talkie, ‘Echo ET. This is Echo Gate. Get
the car started. We urgently need to get out of here.’
‘Roger, Echo-Gate. This is Echo ET. Send me your current GPS
location. We are coming. Over’
‘We’ve found something. Something inexplicable. And it looks very,
very dangerous. KC could be in trouble. I’m going to pull him out.
Be ready to call the police and an ambulance immediately.’
‘Roger, Echo Gate.’
Gate steps forward cautiously. Like someone who’s dropped their
car-keys in a crocodile’s mouth. He plans to grab hold of KC from
his back and pull him straight out. He even gets ready to punch
his cheek to wake him up if needed. The dim moonlight casts an
eerie lit path along the way. He moves closer. Closer. Closer…
He joins KC in about a meter, within his reach of arm.
‘Let’s move it,’ Gate hisses urgently, glancing fearfully at the
‘shadow’ twinkling innocently. From here, it is nothing but just a patch of
grey dyed on the wall. It wobbles very little in motion, looking
quite harmless. … But he knows better. The Geiger meter crackles
insanely – jammed on maximum. The kicking movement of the needle
makes the meter vibrates.
KC replies, almost dreamily, ‘It’s as if it’s trying to suck my
mind from my body …’ He casually passes his hand through the
‘shadow’.
Gate’s eyes widen in horror. The paranormal manifestation sizzles.
The odor of hot electric wire fills the air. It appears to be
angry. Very angry.
Face bathed in sweat, Gate drags KC by the shoulders with all his
strength. Back along
the track outside the house. Then jabber into the walkie-talkie,
‘Echo ET! We’re getting out of here! Fast!’
They run away from the house. KC shakes his head from
side to side. ‘I feel like I’ve just awoken from hypnosis or
something. What happened?’
‘That happened!’ Gate screams.
For the first time KC’s headlamp reveals the true extent of the
apparition to him. ‘Wow! Unbelievable!’ He is daunted – and afraid.
It is a huge, trans-dimensional ‘creature’. This flickering grey
monster assumes a more menacing posture.
ET is revving the car’s engine. Roll the car into the woods as
close as he could. Gate and KC are about to jump over the ditch,
but then they notice something weird. The shadowy apparition seems
to be altering … shape-shifting. Tensing like a coiled spring.
Without warning, it roars towards them like a raging fireball. A
hot pulse hits the pair. They shriek and scramble over the ditch
with fear-weakened limbs, just as the apparition hits them.
It oozes through the trees – and re-forms.
Gate and KC bundle into the car. ‘Go-go-go, now!’ they scream.
ET slams the accelerator of the MPV violently. But the MPV cuts out completely.
Lights black out. No power. Nothing. The apparition
billows across the windscreen. They watch from the MPV in fear. Will it come into the car? There’s
no way they’re going to hang around and find out.
Four doors fly open. Six bodies scramble out of the MPV and into
the road on all fours. Then run. And run. And run.
Finally, they slow down. Exhausted. ‘Hang on, where are we?’ asks
Gate.
‘Johor, I think!’ ET jokes, gasping and wheezing, trying to catch
his breath.
In the distance they can see the apparition, floating by the edge
of the road. It seems to be studying them. Summing them up.
Warning them…
Then it vanishes.
YoYo Is Found
There are too much for the SPI to
digest, too much to believe. It is just like a dream. They go home
resting last night, and meet again as the first thing in the
morning. At least to get back the car. That used to be a mild
debate on whether they should call the police.
‘Something attacked us, made us ill, and damaged our car. We can’t
let that something get away. The best candidate in town to catch
that something is police, not us!’ argues Abductboy.
‘I am not disagreeing with you. We can always go to police and
file a report, fine. But I opt for more physical evidences.
Without such, people will think we are crazy; just imagine how you
would think if somebody approach you with a story that he saw a
shadow and the shadow made him sick in the forest at night.’ Kenny
explains.
Gate says, ‘Let’s go check out our car first. I think we have
taken photos and recording video of what happened last night.’
It is dawn in Bukit Timah Nature Park that has one of the most
beautiful scenes in Singapore. The merest warm orange sliver, like
a piece of marmalade rind, hints at where the whole of the sun had
been. There is the gentlest breeze on this warm and balmy morning.
‘We can see our car!’ It is completely intact. Nothing is missing
from inside. Gate and KC can’t help to look out around the wood,
hoping to find some traces of the grey shadowy creature. Then they
turn into the car examining on the footage captured yesterday from
the cameras.
‘Oh Sh*t!’ Three different voices arise almost simultaneously from
three different directions; ET from the front of the car, Gate
from the inside, and Jade from the behind. At the split of a
second Abductboy and Kenny do not know which one to attend first
in this chaos.
Each of them is too busy with his own discovery and yet too
fanatical to share with the group. They keep talking as if only to
themselves. Jade almost jumps when she is yelling in a frightening
tone and pointing her finger on the ground. ‘Is this YoYo? Is this
YoYo?’
‘We can’t believe our eyes. The dog that we have been searching
for the whole day yesterday, is now found dead, disposed just
behind our vehicle.’ That is very likely to be YoYo from its size
and its fur. Unfortunately it is impossible to compare its face to
the one in the given photo. The head is chopped off.
Abductboy frown while inspecting the corpse. ‘Sadly speaking, I
think YoYo died in a very brutal way. And she seems to be dead for
some time already.’ The paws and the head are gone, stripped
apart. On the side of her body, there is a three-inches stabbing
wound. It looks like somebody used a spear to pierce through her.
Pretty much resemble how live offering is sacrificed in some
occult ritual. Jade is disgusted, coughing her way away from the
dead scene.
Gate and KC look like a dead fish, and utter weakly, ‘The pictures
are gone.’ Each single photo they captured yesterday become blank,
like those over exposed pictures where all you can see is white
light. ‘I think the strong EMF has cooked them up!’ ET tries to
explain. ‘Guys, may be you want to look at this too’. ET is
rewinding and fast-forwarding the tape that he recorded last
night, from the mobile infra-red camera mounted on Gate’s outfit.
‘Take a special note here.’ ET annotates with his index finger on
the TV screen mounted on the car dashboard. The video shows that
Gate was watching over KC in the house. He looked very frightened.
But yet, the shadow that supposed to have appeared on the wall
doesn’t show up here. It shows just an ordinary wall with no weird
shade or shadow. As the video plays along, flickers increase,
increase, and increase until no signal. ‘Damn!’ Gate swears and
hammers his fist on the dashboard.
‘Wait first.’ ET says. ‘I think the mobile transmitter that Gate
carried was too close to that creature and hence jammed off the
signal. Let’s look at this one.’ He presses the fast-forward
button for a few seconds, and the picture gradually restores to
normal. It shows how Gate and KC were running away from the house.
Occasionally, Gate turned back and captured the scene behind him.
Disappointingly the footage reveals nothing on the backdrop – just
an ordinary bush with no sign of the shadowy creature. From an eye
of an outsider, it is just video footage of two guys running madly
away from nothing, in a jungle late at night.
‘How can we show this to the police? Anyone would think that we
are playing pranks.’ Gate says frustratingly. ‘What about we show
them the dead dog?’ Jade asks. ‘Yeah, and they will think that we
killed it. Five slashes for dog slaughtering on every one of us?’
KC said.
The whole team looks despaired. The air is stagnant inside the MPV
and nobody speaks. SPI for the first time is overwhelmed with too
many mysteries – the wind bottles, the hell altar, the murdered
dog, the black houses and the spiritual attack…
ET suddenly whistles and waves a piece of brief note on his hand.
‘Guys, this may be our chance for a breakthrough. I found it on
the windscreen under the wiper. I was calling you just now but
nobody listened. Now let me read it out to you.’
“Come to F4/138/Peripulis at midnight. No police, only 2 SPI”
A Secret Meeting
‘What is F4/138/Peripulis? Singapore
has no such addressing format. And no street is called Peripulis
as far as I know’ Abductboy analyses. ‘Wait a minute, I think I
know what it is’ said Kenny. (Note that he didn’t say “where it
is” but “what it is” instead.)
He continues, sort of like speaking to himself ‘Oh my God, who is
that? I can’t believe he can know this.’
‘What! Tell us what you know! Where is that place?’ Gate is losing
his patience. Kenny is leaning on the MPV with his hands covering
his forehead and his eyes closed.
Then he slips into the car, pulls out a Singapore Street Atlas
from behind the driver’s seat and shows it to everyone. On the top
left corner of the Atlas, it shows the publisher’s name “Peripulis”.
Quickly, he flips to Map 138, slides his finger along the “F” and
“4” locators, and stops on a location. That is F4/138/Peripulis.
The location as shown on the map is the end of a track off Old
Upper Thomson Road where it is renowned as ‘Devil’s Bend’, in
Upper Peirce Reservoir Park. It takes its name Devil’s Bend for
the fact that many car racers met their fate in the 70’s at such
sharp road turn.
Kenny is utterly shocked by how that person knows we use such an
Atlas; he can read our mind? However, this mystery is later
debunked by Abductboy, without much effort. ‘You half inserted the
Atlas in the seat pocket so visibly inside the car. Of course
anyone who walks pass the car would know one!’, ‘Then how he knows
the Map number and the locator coordinates when he writes the
note? Don’t tell me he go and get a copy of the Atlas after he
peeped into our car, then com back. Or he memories the whole map
in advance…’ The argument goes on.
Anyway, the ultimate mystery now is, ‘WHO IS THAT PERSON?’
Are We Close To The Truth?
Without taken too long, SPI nominated
Abductboy and ET to be the two representatives for meeting the
mysterious man. It never means they are the most capable and the
rest are otherwise. Gate and KC equipped with night-vision
goggles, long-range cameras, eavesdroppers and walkie-talkies
ambush in the proximity from evening to perhaps next morning!
Their physical strengths are the best among the team. And it is
Kenny and Jade’s turn to wait in the MPV, getting ready to rescue
and call the police should anything goes wrong. In the MPV control
center, video and audio data are continuously received and
recorded from a pin-hole camera and mike wore by ET that has no
bigger than the size of a wrist watch.
Abductboy and ET reach the destined location half an hour early.
Gate and KC can see clearly their every move – even their facial
expression.
The end of the track leads to a brim of the reservoir surrounded
by nothing but wild bushes. The moonlight reflects on the surface
of the water with some ripples, forming a spooky mosaic of pale
gold and blue. The two pairs of eyes scan the whole place around
and see nobody. ‘May be we are early or he is late. It is exactly
11:59pm now’.
‘You must be the SPI,’ a husky voice suddenly comes from behind
them.
Quickly Abductboy and ET turn around, and they see an angler
dressed in hood holding a fishing rod facing the reservoir. Their
hearts start to thump fast. ‘We didn’t see him just now. Where the
hell did he come from?’ ET whispers to Abductboy as well to the
walkie-talkie.
‘Come over here.’ The man is sitting calmly; continue to speak to
them without looking at them.
Abductboy gets impatient. They have been through too many
unexplained. ‘Who are you? What is that you can tell us about?’
The man isn’t going to be rushed. He wants to have his moment of
pride. He takes off the hood, turns his face slowly to them. ‘My
name is Eye. I have been here for nearly a century. Don’t you
think you all are experts in paranormal. I can tell you, you know
not even a thing in this island.’ Eye is an about eighty-years old
man, with one eye covered in blind-fold, the other one glaring in
fire.
‘No one could discover the truth of the weird occurrences here. No
one could work it out. Except me, may be. I am part of the truth.’
Eye sighs, ‘Only a small part of the truth.’
‘SPI, I have something to tell you, also I have something to ask
you to do. Sit over here, next to me! I don’t like your pin-hole
camera keep facing me!’ Abductboy and ET feel instantly a chill on
their spines. Then embarrassingly they choose a rock next to Eye
and sit down.
Eye talks in a hushed, dramatic tone. ‘I know what happened to
Jessie Chng’s dog! And I know what happened to all the others…’
Eye paused for effect. Entranced, the SPI leans forward. Tension
mounts. Then rides away. ‘They were devoured by the unknown forces
that lurk in this reservoir region. And our Master Shaman, Vasuki,
believes in ley-lines when he first came here by accident, many
many years ago. You see, where we are sitting right now is the
center point of this island that in turn is a center point in what
you modern people call, Asia. Do you know what leys are?’
‘A line joining two prominent points in the landscape, thought to
be the line of a prehistoric track, e.g. in Wilshire, UK, a ley
line runs through Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral and Clearbury
Ring…’ ET intones, as if he’s memorized the whole thing, word for
word, from a book.
‘Yes! Yes! But a ley is so much more than that!’ Eye says,
becoming animated. ‘Natural earth energy flows along these unseen
ancient pathways. Our ancestors knew the secret of using this
powerful source. It enabled them to do amazing things, such as
alter the weather and communicate telepathically with people in
the next village; at least, this is what a lot of us believe. You
must remember, this was in the days when Magic was the reality and
Science unheard of. In this modern scientific age we scoff at
words like “magic”, and consequently have forgotten how to use the
power of the ley-lines…’
ET’s eyes have a fanatical gleam as Eye continues. ‘But this is
the most important part. There is a sect in the wood who for the
past decades has been trying to relearn the secrets of our
forebears with the help of our Master Shaman Vasuki. But in their
ignorance of the workings of the leys, they are inadvertently
unleashing strange forces. These appear as pure energy, weird
lights and apparitions.’
Abductboy gulps nervously. ‘Have you ever seen these things
yourself?’
‘Yes, many times. And some of them exude an awesome power.’ Eye
suddenly changed his topic. ‘Why do you think the Jap fought so
hard to take this region? Ammunition store in Bukit Timah? I bet
you will say that. But truly there is an untold legend. A Jap spy
who infiltrated our sect stole an utmost secret to the army. This
place is full of natural energy. Some Chinese believe in geomancy
which means earth magic or feng shui. It is about aligning
landscapes and buildings in order to tap into this secret energy,
what some people call ‘Chi’. [Well, SPI did experiments around and
picked up many weird signals here. We later thought it was due to
the SingTel Satellite Dish!].’
‘The ley energy was discovered by our ancestors who built a
special arrangement of temples along the leyline in order to
capture the energy for our head Shaman Vasuki to use. Shaman
Vasuki has great magical power. He was more than a thousand years
old as he claimed, but he said he was dying. He wasn’t afraid of
death. He said if we can build him the three temples and let him
absorb the ley energy for 99 years he will resurrect. He can then
go home. His home is so far away beyond anyone’s imagination.
Fifty years were elapsed after the temples were built. But the
Japanese came and the war broke out. Most of our men fled or
killed in the war.’
‘Shaman Vasuki chose four close guards and nick-named each of them
with a special ability he gave: Eye, Ear, Mouth and Nose. Each has
an extraordinary power borrowed from the ley. And we have been
given a life-long duty to protect the ley and the temples.’
‘Unfortunately, as more and more people believe in science, the
temples were then pulled down by the government. Shaman Vasuki’s
main shrine was the one on top of the hill and now it is
completely gone. The other two temples had been brought over by
some private business man, recently had been turned into
warehouses. But the four loyal guards including me vowed to live
up to this legend. As far as I know, two of us had already passed
away (Ear and Nose). Mouth has become insane when he saw that his
family was raped and brutally killed during the war. He became
very hideous. One thing I know he is still alive because I know
his addicted habit of eating raw animals and drinking fresh blood.
There are cases of missing pets around, probably done by him I
suppose.’
Clouds over ET and Abductboy’s faces are gradually dismissing.
Thoughts just link up at the speed of sparks in their mind. They
had been investigating the Dairy Farm region, and have impression
on the three temples – one is demolished on the top of the ridge,
and the other two they visited just last night. Little they know
that the three temples are aligned, and (they just reminisce!) all
the three temples are facing east! From a bird eye view, the three
temples form a line connecting Upper Peirce Reservoir and the
summit of Bukit Timah Park, right in the center of Singapore.
Right in the center of Asia (as claimed by Eye)!
Abductboy is overjoyed, uncontrollably waves his hand in the air.
‘Wait, what about the wind bottles; they are cut breaking the ley
line aren’t they?’
‘What wind bottles? You meant those bottle fences near the
expressway? Yes, they are set up by me. Although the temples are
no longer there, I believe Shaman Vasuki’s spirit is still around.
I’m doing all I can to fulfill my destiny. Why the bottles fences
are there? Ever since BKE was built the high volume of traffic has
interrupted the ley. Shaman Vasuki told me in a dream one night
that I must set up a fence of bottles to minimize the disruptions.
The empty bottles placed on the wood sticks radiate the ley over
the road, and the two giant Banyang trees on the ridge serve as
absorber (or receiver). But I must keep the absorber “spiritually”
alive by building a shrine at the foot of the tree.’
‘That is why small altars are placed at the trees and regularly
you make sure the villagers nearby come and offer joss-sticks,’
followed by Abductboy. ‘But why do you tell us all this?’ he says
in an alarming tone.
Eye put on a fierce look in response. ‘You guys are bastards. I
wish I could eliminate you all than telling you the truth. But I
know, you SPI will go all the way to dig out the truth if I don’t
tell you so. Therefore I decided to confide you with this secret.
But in return, I only ask you to do me ONE favor: Give up the
search and spare Mouth. He has gone through too much torment
already and I know he won’t harm people. I don’t want you to alert
the police and let him get caught as a result. I am urging you to
give up. You want to know the truth and I was giving it to you. I
urge you to keep it secret too. I can see you have a compassionate
heart, Abductboy. I don’t know how to say but you resemble
somewhat of Shaman Vasuki, some unearthly, lofty and noble breed
who come from heaven. So I took the risk of trusting you. I have
told you the truth, have your curiosity satisfied and please go
home.’
ET adds on, ‘How do you know we are SPI? Searching for a missing
dog? You have been watching over us all the while?’
‘Your fool! My name is called “Eye”, and your uniform has a big
word of SPI printed on! Go! We will see each other no more. You
have got what you wanted. You have heard an incredible tale and
you are happy. Go, go, go… Get your two hiding friends in the bush
go away too, and don’t let me see you come back anymore.’ Eye
becomes hysterical. He flung the fishing rod into the water, stood
up and chased the pair away.
Gate, KC, Kenny and Jade have seen this. A worried voice sent to
Abductboy’s earpiece ‘Do you need assistance? Over’
Abductboy and ET do not reply, but start walking backwards, and
staring at Eye. Then they turn around and walk away.
This case has come to such surprise ending. Is this the truth yet?
It sounds too incredible to believe. From the moment SPI met Eye,
Gate and KC have been voice recording the whole conversation and
secretly taken picture of Eye with a long-range camera.
In the later days, SPI ask around, interview the neighborhoods,
and even check with authorities, trying to find out Eye’s
identity. One day, ET has got something, the man who called
himself Eye is found to be a mental patient, discharged from
Woodbridge Hospital about twenty years ago.
SPI are first stunned, and then become confused. Still vividly we
can remember the incredible story he told us. We are puzzled among
ourselves. Do leyline and Shaman Vasuki ever exist? We don’t know.
We only heard of an incredible tale from a man called Eye who is a
mentally disordered patient. And we see him no more in our
subsequent visits to Dairy Farm. He seems to disappear in the air…
The End
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