by Lauren Algeo
‘No, not this way,’ she muttered. ‘It’s too faint.’
She marched back past Brewer and he turned on his heels to follow her south. This time she stopped after ten minutes.
‘I don’t think this is right either. We came from this way and I didn’t hear it then.’ She looked to Brewer unsurely.
Her wet hair clung to her head and water was running down her face. She suddenly looked very young again.
‘Take your time,’ he said gently. ‘Try some of the side streets.’
She hesitated then chose a road to their left. Brewer squinted to see ahead of them. The rain was pouring down now. He splashed through puddles in his heavy boots and water from his sodden jeans dripped into the top of them, making his socks damp.
This will all have to go in the tumble dryer, he thought to himself. Can’t just let… He stopped sharply, surprised. Very faintly, in the back of his mind, he could hear a light scratching. She’d been right.
‘It’s getting louder!’ Georgie shouted over her shoulder as she ploughed on.
Brewer was baffled – how had she heard it before him? And how could she hear a high-pitched sound when he could only hear scratching?
‘I can hear it too,’ he called to her.
Georgie spun around. ‘See, I told you! It’s definitely this way,’ she beamed.
They struggled on. Visibility was getting worse and the downpour wasn’t showing any signs of easing off. The streets were deserted as all the sensible people took cover to keep dry. Georgie put her hands up to her ears and ducked closer to Brewer.
‘It’s deafening!’ she screamed in his face.
It wasn’t to him yet; it was still at a bearable level. He couldn’t even hear any whispering.
Wait. Was that a buzzing sound? With the rain and Georgie’s yelling, he was getting confused. He grabbed hold of her shoulders so they were stood face to face.
‘Tell me exactly what you can hear,’ he said loudly to her.
‘There’s an awful high-pitched wail,’ she shouted. ‘Then it gets broken up by a quieter, nails-on-a-chalkboard type sound.’
She screwed her face up in pain as the louder sound clearly took over again.
Two of them, Brewer thought.
They stood still while he listened as hard as he could. Over the pounding rain, he could hear the scratching. He waited and watched Georgie’s face. Her hands were still clamped to her head and her eyes were squeezed shut. She winced suddenly and her hands pressed tighter over her ears – the other sound.
He focused his mind and made out the high-pitched noise. It was barely audible over the downpour, but it was there. They were nowhere near close enough to be able to make out any words and yet the fact Georgie could hear them this loudly was staggering.
A tear fell from the corner of her right eye and mingled with the rainwater running down her face. He pulled her into his chest and hugged her tightly, trying to muffle the sound for her. After a few moments, her body relaxed and she stepped back, blinking in surprise.
‘It’s stopped,’ she said in a voice that was hoarse from yelling.
He couldn’t pick up anything either, it had all gone quiet.
‘That wasn’t how you described it,’ she accused him. She was deathly pale with shock. ‘That was unbearable! How can you stand to track them with that?’
‘That wasn’t normal,’ he reassured her. ‘I think we just heard the Grand giving orders to a hiker.’
Georgie looked dumbly back at him. Her teeth were chattering and he could see her body shivering violently.
‘Come on, let’s get out of the rain somewhere.’
Chapter 15
They sat at a small table in the back of a dingy cafe with mugs of steaming tea in front of them. Georgie had her hands clasped around her cup, trying to get warmer.
The waitress hadn’t batted an eyelid at the two bedraggled people in front of her and poured them tea without a word. Brewer took a sip of his drink and scalded his tongue
‘Feel better?’ he asked Georgie.
‘A bit,’ she shrugged.
Some colour had returned to her cheeks and her teeth were still.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you along without teaching you how to block your mind. There’s a technique to muffle the sound.’
‘I wanted to come. The only way I’m going to learn how to block them out is by practising around them, right?’ She took a tentative sip of her hot tea.
‘You’re strong, you know Georgie,’ he told her. ‘Stronger than me.’
She raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘Stronger than you?’
‘Yep,’ he nodded. ‘I don’t know how, but you heard that hiker way before I did and it was so much louder to you.’
Georgie stared at the table and absentmindedly picked at a chip in the surface.
‘The hiker was this horrible, TV-static sound and the noise of the Grand was so powerful. Urgh, I thought my ear drums were going to burst.’ She looked up at Brewer. ‘Does it get even louder than that when you get nearer?’
‘No… well, the Grand’s different, but when you get closer you can make out what they are saying. For me, the scratching turns to whispering then to actual words,’ he said. ‘The Grand sounds like a raspy old man, and he talks bloody slowly. I’ve heard that high pitched sound before, when he killed a hiker, but that must be what you pick up from him when you’re far away, instead of the scratching.’
They drank their teas quietly and Brewer ran his hand through his wet hair. His mind was racing.
‘What’s that look for?’ Georgie asked.
‘I’m wondering… if you’re strong enough to hear them that early, how powerful must you be at blocking them?’
‘We can go after the hiker and find out?’ she suggested.
‘You think you’re ready to experience that again?’
‘You said yourself, the Grand bit was a one off so I can deal with the weaker hiker.’ She had that determined look back on her face.
‘Don’t you want to get out of the rain? We can try again tomorrow.’ Brewer’s protest was half-hearted. He was dying to find out how good Georgie would be at shutting one out.
‘No, fuck the rain!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’re going after this one. We know it’s near, and we know it’s got a job. I’m not waiting days to find another one.’
‘Ok,’ he agreed, feeling a twinge of excited anticipation. ‘But we’ll take it slowly and I’ll teach you what to do.’
‘Awesome!’ she grinned. She’d forgotten all about being cold, wet and tired.
They left the café and were instantly soaked again. The rain had eased off slightly although they hadn’t dried much during the time they were in the café. Georgie shivered involuntarily, however she’d slept outside during worse, and this time she knew they had Brewer’s warm flat to go back to at the end of the day.
The hiker evaded them for half an hour and Brewer didn’t hold too much hope of finding it again. If its new job was far away, it would be long gone and they wouldn’t be able to hear it whispering across much distance.
He was wrong – Georgie could sense it. He could only hear them when they were whispering to victims, or each other, but Georgie could track them when they were silent.
‘It’s not far from here,’ she told him as they powered down a narrow road.
Brewer was helpless to do anything but follow her lead. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked for the tenth time.
‘I can feel it,’ she replied for the tenth time.
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’ He saw her shoulders shrug in front of him. ‘It’s like a pressure in my head that’s getting stronger.’
She was practically running down the street now and Brewer had to jog a few paces to catch her. He put a hand on her arm and tugged her back gently.
‘Slow down,’ he told her. ‘We can’t just go barrelling up to it. We need to take our time and track it.’
He f
elt a niggle of apprehension that he couldn’t shake. If Georgie could sense the hiker so clearly, was it aware of her presence too? She slowed reluctantly.
‘What does it mean?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Why can I feel it?’
And why can’t I? He thought to himself.
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘Maybe it’s because you have only just experienced one so they’re louder to you.’
Could that be right? He was struck by a moment of panic. Did the ability to hear them diminish over time? No, surely not. His encounters had always seemed similar in volume.
But what if they weren’t, a little voice in the back of his mind teased. What if he was getting weaker and weaker, and one day he wouldn’t be able to hear them at all?
No. He shut the voice up firmly. He didn’t believe that. Georgie was just stronger than him somehow. A new idea popped into his head.
‘Perhaps it’s because you’re younger than me. So the younger your mind, the greater your ability to sense them.’
‘Whatever.’ Georgie was impatient to keep moving. ‘We can figure it out later, right now the hiker is heading that way and fading fast.’ She pointed along the road in the direction they had been walking.
‘Let’s go...’ Brewer started to say only Georgie was off before the words were out of his mouth.
They walked for over an hour. The rain eased off for a while then pelted down again. They were both drenched to the bone and Brewer couldn’t stop his teeth from knocking together. Even his boxer shorts were soaked and plastered uncomfortably to his skin. He followed Georgie unquestioningly, trusting every twist and turn she made. Finally, she stopped walking.
‘We’re here,’ she said, exhausted.
Brewer peered closely at their surroundings. They were on the outskirts of a large industrial estate. There was a cluster of grey, unmarked buildings to their left and he could make out a couple of factories behind them. They’d walked for so long, with their heads down against the driving rain, that he had no idea where they were.
‘What can you hear?’ he asked.
He couldn’t make out the hiker whispering to anyone. Could Georgie?
‘Nothing yet.’ She pushed some dripping strands of hair away from her face. ‘But we’re too close now. The hiker has stopped moving.’
‘And you can just sense that it’s here somewhere?’ Brewer still couldn’t grasp the fact she could detect them when they were silent.
‘Yep.’ She nodded towards the buildings. ‘It’s somewhere over there, maybe up high. One of the top floors or the roof?’
He shrugged. How the hell would he know? He was supposed to be teaching her how to track the hikers but right now he was redundant.
They found an overhanging sign around the side of the estate, not far from the entrance and took shelter from the rain. Georgie sat cross-legged on the damp floor and drank some water while Brewer leant against the wall and studied the area.
They waited.
Georgie stretched her leg muscles out for a while and Brewer eventually caved and hunched down on the ground with his knees bent in front of him. Every now and again he would look at Georgie questioningly and she would shake her head. Nothing was happening.
The day was drawing to a close for the people working on the industrial estate and they began to trickle out of the entrance. Brewer checked his watch: 5:50pm. It would take them a good couple of hours to get back to the flat from there.
He could feel stirrings of hunger in his stomach; there wasn’t any food left in the rucksack. They could always buy something to eat on the way back to the flat but he was aware that he had more food than ever stocked in the fridge and cupboards. They would have to eat it all before they went on longer, further missions.
He heard it first this time. Scratch scratch. Scratch.
Well, hello Mr Hiker, he thought, getting wearily to his feet.
Georgie had been dozing with her back against the wall, which was the only reason he had heard it first. He nudged her arm gently and her eyes flew open instantly. He saw them widen as she took in the sound of the hiker in her head.
‘It’s found its target,’ she whispered quietly.
Brewer pulled Georgie to her feet and they stood together, listening. The rain was beginning to let up. The main entrance to the estate was a good fifty metres away and the people coming out were too busy shielding themselves with umbrellas to notice the tall man and small girl standing there.
‘Can you make out any words?’ he asked.
Georgie nodded and held a finger to her lips. He waited patiently while her eyes narrowed in concentration. He tried again himself only it was too faint for him to make out what it was saying.
‘It’s a male hiker.’ She was still whispering, as if the hiker could hear her. ‘It’s talking to a man who works in one of the factories over there.’ She waved her hand flippantly towards the buildings in the estate.
‘What’s it saying?’
Georgie listened again. ‘It’s telling the man that his wife is having an affair… shagging some golfer at the course where she works.’
‘Sounds about right.’
Whoever this golfer was, he was the target. Sometimes the Grand got creative with jobs. Someone wanted the golfer dead, most likely some sort of rich business associate, but rather than using a random attack, they would use a jealous husband motive instead. If this man in the factory was susceptible to the hiker, of course. Plan B would no doubt be some generic car crash or freak accident.
Georgie frowned suddenly. ‘Urgh, it’s saying some disgusting things!’
‘Then don’t listen,’ Brewer said simply.
‘Huh?’
‘Don’t listen,’ he repeated. ‘This is the perfect time for you to learn about blocking your mind from them.’
Georgie put her hands over her ears and Brewer bit his lip to suppress a smile.
‘Not literally.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Mentally.’
‘How?’
He thought about how best to explain it. ‘Ok, what I do is imagine closing a door against the hiker in my mind. Like shutting it out. Or you could maybe lock it in a box or something? Anything you want.’
‘The door sounds fine.’
She tensed her face and squeezed her eyes closed tightly. Brewer could see the tendons in her neck straining – still too physical.
‘Nothing’s happening, the sound’s still there.’ She glowered at him.
‘Right, imagine your mind is like a room…’
‘How about a house?’ she interrupted.
‘Whatever. But there’s only one door to get in or out of it. Right now that door is open and the sound of the hiker is coming through it. So, you have to close the door on it to block the noise out. Get it?’
Georgie didn’t reply. Her eyes were closed and he could see the rapid movement of her pupils under the thin skin of her eyelids.
‘It’s kind of working,’ she said excitedly. ‘The whispering’s quieter but it’s still there.’
‘Sometimes when you’re this close to it, you can’t block the sound out completely, only muffle it. Keep trying though.’
Brewer found that he could quiet his mind easily, although he hadn’t been able to hear it as loudly as Georgie, and she was new to this. She was silent for a couple more minutes, and then shook her head.
‘Every time I close the door it gets fainter but it’s still there, scratching away.’
‘Try slamming the door,’ he suggested.
She closed her eyes again and Brewer saw her rock back on her feet slightly then push her weight onto her toes. He could imagine the mental noise of the door slamming in the frame.
Her eyes flew open and she laughed giddily. ‘It’s gone!’ She paused as if to reconfirm then laughed again. ‘The sound’s gone!’
Brewer’s face broke into a grin; he’d known she would be good at this.
‘Keep practising,’ he instructed. ‘Get used to the sound of the hik
er and get confident in your ability to block it.’
The smile died on her lips. ‘Can’t, they’re on the move.’
Chapter 16
They trailed the hiker, and its target, to a residential street four miles away. There was a panicked moment when they lost the sound – the target was in a car, whereas they were on foot so it got too far ahead of them – but Georgie soon picked it up again.
‘The hiker must be in a car or something to get there as fast?’ She sounded confused. ‘Can they drive?’
Brewer recalled the hiker in the car outside his own house. The non-descript man with the non-descript car. ‘Yes, they can drive.’
The man from the factory lived in a quiet cul-de-sac lined with brick, semi-detached houses. Even though it was starting to get dark, Brewer and Georgie stopped in the shadows of some hedges near the end of the road.
‘It’s that house there,’ she whispered.
Brewer didn’t need to follow the line of her pointing finger; he knew which one it was. He could hear the whispering himself now. It radiated from a house in the corner of the road.
A light was glowing in one of the downstairs windows however the rest of the house was dark. There was a light-coloured car parked on the driveway in front of the house. It looked like a silver Fiat but he couldn’t be sure from a distance.
Georgie was looking around rapidly. ‘Where do you think it is?’ She hissed.
Brewer nodded towards a dark estate car parked alongside the kerb a couple of houses down from the target.
‘There,’ he said quietly.
Georgie shrank back further into the safety of the shadows. ‘Does it know we’re here? Can it see us?’ Her voice rose in panic.
‘It’s ok,’ Brewer reassured her. ‘It won’t know we’re here unless we give ourselves away or intervene.’
Did he know that for sure? He used to, only Georgie was throwing everything up in the air. He squinted at the dark car, trying to make out a silhouette inside but he couldn’t see anyone. Was the hiker hiding in there or was it outside the house? Watching the target through one of the back windows.