by Lauren Algeo
The next day, the voice was still there. It joined him at work, remarking on all the lowlifes who were in the station. Drunks and abusive people, ones who’d spent the night in the cells and were now being released back onto the streets. There was a man who’d been arrested on suspicion of murder; that man didn’t deserve to live.
Brewer was called in to interview the suspect with Marcus. He sat opposite the man feeling sick to his stomach. How dare people like him be in the world over his sweet, caring wife. The anger bubbled to the surface again. He tried to push it back down, but the voice urged him to embrace it.
Before he knew what he was doing, Brewer lunged over the desk and swung a punch at the suspected murderer. His fist glanced off the man’s cheek, and the momentum sent him stumbling to the side. There was shouting and swearing as Marcus wrestled him from the room, and slammed him against the corridor wall. Brewer was breathing hard as he tried to get a handle on his aggression. His hands were still balled into fists, however he didn’t raise them to his friend.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Marcus yelled in his face. ‘You’ve completely screwed up the case!’
Inside the interview room, the suspect was shouting about suing the police but Brewer didn’t care. All he wanted to do was go home. He walked away from Marcus, ignoring his friend’s concerned calls. He knew he would be suspended for this. To plead his case, the station would claim that he hadn’t dealt with his grief properly, and probably try and get him counselling; only he didn’t want help. He just wanted to be left alone.
For the next few days, Brewer stayed holed up in his house. He found that he wasn’t alone; he had the voice for company. It understood him. It reasoned that other people should pay for his pain, and he agreed. Everyone should be made to suffer like he had.
The voice suggested a car crash would be a good idea. He could be reunited with Karen, and leave other people to suffer. Coming from the voice, it seemed perfectly rational and Brewer was inclined to agree. It would be a good way to go. He decided Friday evening rush hour on the M25 would be perfect. He sat in the dark, not eating, not sleeping, and planned.
On Friday morning, there was a knock at the door. He tried to ignore it, hoping the caller would go away, but they were persistent. He eventually opened the door to see Marcus standing there.
A look of horror passed across his face, which Brewer barely registered. Marcus stared at his friend in dismay. In the last few days, Brewer had gotten even thinner and his face was gaunt. His eyes were hollow, like dark pits sunken into his skull. He’d always been clean-shaven, now he was sporting a dark beard and moustache.
‘Scott, mate,’ he said softly. ‘What’s going on?’
Brewer shrugged and walked back to the living room. Marcus followed, not hiding his disgust at the state of the place. All the curtains were closed, and the house smelt stale. There were piles of rubbish, dirty plates, and glasses all over the room. It smelt like rotting food and evil.
‘You can’t live like this.’
Brewer wasn’t listening, the voice was urgently telling him to get rid of the unwelcome visitor.
‘This man has everything,’ it whispered tauntingly. ‘He’s never lost anyone. He doesn’t understand. Make him leave; there’s work to do.’
‘I know it’s been hard,’ Marcus was saying. ‘But Karen wouldn’t want you living this way.’
Brewer’s gaze snapped back at the mention of her name. ‘Don’t you dare talk about her,’ he snarled. ‘You know nothing!’
Marcus took a step back in horror. For a split second, he thought he’d seen something in Brewer’s eyes. Something black, that oozed pure hatred. He held his hands up in front of him.
‘I’m sorry, Scott. We just want to help you.’
‘I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone!’ Brewer screamed. ‘Fuck off and leave me alone!’
Marcus hesitated. Brewer was his oldest friend, however right now something about his behaviour was scaring him. His intuition was begging him to run away.
‘Get out!’
He headed for the front door. ‘I’ll be back. You need to let us help you.’ He closed the door on the roaring man behind him. The smell in there had reminded him of death.
Brewer paced furiously around the living room. How dare Marcus come here and try to ruin his plans.
‘It’s all under control,’ the voice soothed him. ‘It’s nearly time.’
Brewer took his car key out of his pocket and clutched it tightly. It was all ok, he had his plan and no one could stop him. He sat on the sofa, squeezing the key and muttering to himself, until the clock ticked around to 4:30pm. It was time.
Brewer stood up and walked to the front door. He didn’t bother with one final look around the house; it held nothing for him anymore. His silver Ford was parked on the driveway and it had a full tank of petrol. He hoped the car would catch fire when he crashed: a nice, big, bright explosion. He opened the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. He put the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life.
Suddenly, he heard Karen’s voice. ‘What are you doing?’
It was loud and clear, as if she was sitting in the passenger seat beside him. He froze, with his hands on the steering wheel, gripping so tightly his knuckles turned white. He sat there rigidly for what seemed like hours, not knowing what to do, listening intently for the sound of her voice again, or the other voice.
There was nothing but silence. It was as if he had woken up from a nightmare, one he’d been living in for nearly a week. Panic flooded him and he scrabbled to get out of the car. What the hell had he been planning to do? Suicide? And why would he want to cause other people pain?
He stumbled free from his destined coffin and landed hard on his knees on the driveway. It was then he noticed the man sitting in a dark blue car in front of his house. Their eyes met and Brewer physically shuddered with repellence.
The man was completely non-descript. He didn’t appear to be tall or short, fat or thin. His hair seemed brown but could have been darker or fairer, depending on the light. His features were normal, with no distinguishing marks or blemishes. His nose was neither large nor small. Everything was in proportion. He was wearing plain clothes: a light-coloured shirt and dark trousers. If Brewer had walked past this man in the street, he would barely have noticed him and wouldn’t have been able to give an accurate description if he had.
It was his eyes that caused Brewer’s reaction. They looked hard and black, and were filled with a burning hatred. Instinctively he knew it was this thing’s voice that had been consuming his mind.
He heard a faint whispering starting deep at the back of his head, and he crawled backwards in alarm, his eyes still locked on the man in the car.
‘No!’ he shouted out loud, forcefully closing his mind to the man.
There was a faded howl of pain in his thoughts and the intrusive sensation was gone. The man in the car broke his gaze and sped off rapidly down the road, screeching round the bend at high speed.
Brewer didn’t think to look at the car’s number plate; instead, he sat dumbly on the floor, staring down the road with his mouth hanging open. After an infinite amount of time, he went back inside the house and poured himself a stiff drink.
Six months later, Brewer arrived in Leeds with one purpose: to find a hiker and kill it. He’d read a story in the newspaper about a man who’d crashed a bus full of passengers into oncoming traffic in the city. The bus driver had died on impact, and a survivor from the crash had said he was behaving erratically beforehand.
The man who survived had been sitting near the driver, and had heard him muttering to himself. He’d thought the driver was crazy and had picked up some of the words he was saying, such as ‘pay back’ and ‘nearly time’.
Three people on the bus had died in the crash, as well as the driver of the car the bus had slammed in to. The police had no idea why it had happened – the bus driver hadn’t swerved to avoid anything, and driving conditions
were good; it was a mystery. There wasn’t much to go on, but Brewer had a hunch this was a hiker’s doing; partly because of his own experience in plotting a similar crash.
Shortly after his personal hiker encounter, he’d bought a new flat, which had signalled the start of his new life tracking them. His parents were both gone, so he’d had quite a bit of inheritance money tucked away, and Karen had been sensible and taken out a life insurance policy, which paid for the mortgage on the house after she’d died.
He’d formally resigned from the police force, and sold the house they’d shared together. Marcus had tried to make him see sense, but Brewer’s head had been clear. A black-eyed man had been able to influence his thoughts, and he’d needed to find out how. And why. And if there were more people like him out there. He’d taken to calling him a ‘hiker’ in his head, as the man had ‘hitchhiked’ inside his mind. He’d spent the last few months researching, tracking, and trying to learn all he could about them.
Brewer travelled to the site of the bus crash and wandered around the scene. There was still police tape at the side of the road, and evidence of debris. Someone had placed a bouquet of flowers at the edge of the kerb. The road where it had happened was a straight A-road. The article he’d read was right; there was nothing there that would perhaps cause someone to crash.
The article had said the witness was in a local hospital, recovering from a fractured leg and a couple of broken ribs, so Brewer tracked him down. He talked his way into the man’s side room on the pretence of being a journalist who wanted to interview him for a local paper.
The man was propped up in bed with his leg in plaster. He had several cuts and bruises to his face, but he was lucky it hadn’t been a lot worse considering how close to the front of the bus he’d been sitting.
The man’s name was Jamie Winters, and Brewer took an instant dislike to him. Winters was young, maybe early twenties, and he acted like a petulant child. His light brown hair was dishevelled and greasy, and he had a dusting of stubble on his chin, which couldn’t pass as a beard.
‘Don’t get me wrong, I feel sorry for the families of the people who died and all that, but I got it worse,’ Winters whined. ‘I gotta live with what happened, you know what I mean? I might have nightmares about getting back on a bus. I deserve compensation, mate.’
Brewer sighed inwardly and fought back the urge to get up and leave this annoying man. Instead, he nodded in mock agreement. ‘Yes you should. Someone must be accountable for the crash.’
Winters nodded enthusiastically. ‘I already know whose fault it was. The crazy bus driver, man. That bus company will be hearing from my lawyers.’
Brewer doubted this man had lawyers. He’d probably just ring one of those ‘no win, no fee’ dodgy places that were always being advertised on daytime TV.
‘Are you sure it was the driver’s fault?’ Brewer coaxed. ‘If you sue, they’ll try and pin it on something else to wriggle out of paying you.’
‘No, it was definitely him. An old guy, like forty or something.’
Brewer bristled and bit back a retort about forty not being that old.
‘He had grey hair, and must have been going senile or something,’ Winters told him. ‘He kept muttering to himself and looking all twitchy.’
‘Did you hear what he was saying?’
‘Some of it, but it was all crazy, you know? Like “I’ll pay them all back” and shit. Then he just spun the wheel and drove straight at this blue car coming the other way.’ Winters shook his head. ‘I swear the mental bastard did it on purpose.’
Brewer had heard all he needed to. This definitely sounded like the work of a hiker, and he couldn’t wait to get away from this repulsive man.
‘So when’s my exclusive gonna be in the papers?’ Winters asked. ‘I wanna make sure all my mates see it.’
‘Let me just nip to the toilet then we’ll go over the details one more time to make sure you’re happy with it.’
‘Great,’ Winters beamed and settled back on his pillows.
Brewer gave him one last disgusted look from the door then walked away. He felt sorry for the poor nurses who had to look after him, while he no doubt leered at them and made lewd remarks. He shot one young girl a sympathetic smile as she walked reluctantly to the room, where Winters was now repeatedly pressing his emergency bell. It was a shame Winters hadn’t broken his jaw in the crash.
Brewer returned to the scene of the crash and stood quietly for a minute. The traffic was lighter for mid-afternoon, and he closed his eyes to try and block out all other noise.
Very faintly, in the back of his mind, he could hear a light scratching sound. It wasn’t even a noise really, just a feeling, like a vibration. Since his own encounter, he’d discovered he could hear other hikers. It started out as a kind of scratching sound, deep in the back of his head. When he got nearer to the hiker, it became whispering, and he could make out words.
He’d first heard another hiker four weeks after his ordeal and had been terrified. He knew then just how dangerous they were, and vowed to stop them, whatever the cost.
Brewer walked in the direction of the city centre, stopping every ten minutes or so to see if it was still there. Now he was aware of the sound, he couldn’t un-hear it. After a couple of miles, it began to get louder. It sounded like light whispering now, although as hard as he strained, he couldn’t hear what it was saying. He couldn’t even tell if it was male or female yet.
He walked on. His legs grew heavy, and his mouth was bone dry, but he kept moving; trying to get closer to the voice. After another few miles the whispering grew louder still. It was a female. Her voice was silky smooth, and she whispered seductively, relentlessly, to whoever the vessel was. Brewer could only catch the odd sentence, however he was getting nearer.
‘You don’t need him. Look what he’s done to you.’
As though he had tuned into a radio station, Brewer could suddenly make out what she was saying. He stopped walking and looked around. He was in a residential area, with small cul-de-sacs and blocks of flats. His eyes darted around but he couldn’t see anyone.
‘You know how to make him sorry, don’t you?’ the hiker coaxed. ‘He’ll be so sorry for what he did.’
There. Brewer caught a glimpse of movement on the roof of one of the blocks of flats. It was about six storeys high, and a sheer drop to the concrete below. There was a woman standing up there. She was hovering near the edge of the roof, and he could make out the blank look on her face from where he was. She tottered back and forth along the length of the roof as the hiker whispered to her. It was going to make her jump.
Brewer broke out of his daze, and sprinted towards the building. He tugged at the front door, only it was one of those places where you needed to be buzzed in or have a key. He didn’t have time to try all twelve flats for someone to let him in.
He pulled his coat sleeve over his hand and punched through one of the glass panels on the door. It shattered inwards and he carefully slipped his arm through to unlock the door from the inside. His heart was racing as he took the stairs two at a time.
He could still hear the hiker whispering. It was urging the woman to get her revenge – the man who had cheated on her would never forgive himself.
Panting, Brewer burst through the door to the roof. The woman didn’t even turn around at the sound. She was standing on the ledge now, swaying gently in the breeze. The hiker’s voice was deafening up here.
‘Hey!’ Brewer called to her, shouting over the noise of the hiker.
He dropped his rucksack of clothes and took a few steps towards the woman, not wanting to startle her and cause her to fall. She looked quite young, and had girlish features. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, and Brewer could make out tears streaming down her face.
He was almost close enough to touch her now. He started to bring up his hand to grab her arm then froze. The hiker had seen him. He felt her fingers caressing the back of his mind, searching for a way in.
His eyes darted around wildly but he couldn’t see the hiker. She was a powerful one; he could hear her voice fully in his mind now, consuming him. She was starting to cajole him too. He felt helpless as he lost all control of his body. She forced him to take a couple of shaky steps closer to the edge of the roof.
‘No!’ he shouted again, desperately trying to remember exactly how he had pushed the first hiker from his mind.
‘Karen help,’ he choked out.
The young woman had her tiptoes over the edge of the roof now, and she was looking more and more unsteady. She brought her arms out to both sides, as if they were wings and she could fly.
‘Stop!’ Brewer cried but she couldn’t hear him.
He was only two steps away from the roof himself. He sensed movement to his right and he forced his head to turn as much as he could. He saw her. She was crouched by a chimney stack several buildings over, looking slightly up at them. The hiker shifted and he caught a glimpse of a long, pale dress. She had dark hair and porcelain skin. Brewer’s eyes latched onto her cold, black ones.
‘You’ve come to play too,’ she whispered in his mind.
No, no, he thought desperately.
‘An even better reward for completing my mission,’ she cooed.
Mission? Brewer didn’t understand.
There was a chilling chuckle in his head. ‘My target died in a delightfully painful way, now you will too. The Grand will be pleased. Now walk.’
With a scream of effort, he imagined physically pushing her out of his mind. It worked this time and he instantly felt in control of his body again.
His relief was short lived. The hiker snapped her head back to the young woman and in a split second she had pushed herself off the edge of the roof. Brewer had no time to react. He made a wild lunge but his hands grabbed nothing but air. The girl plummeted straight to the ground, her arms flapping by her sides.