Hikers - The Collection (Complete Box Set of 5 Books)

by Lauren Algeo

  Fear was a rare emotion to their kind, yet the Grand could instil it deep within them. And he could inflict pain; punish them for any failings. He wasn’t concerned though – he would be punished more for not revealing this new development.

  He’d never initiated contact with the Grand before but he knew how. They all knew. It was almost genetic, something they were born with. They all had a connection to their father.

  He shut out the rest of the world and focussed on summoning the Grand. He concentrated hard and felt a pulse leave his mind, almost like a small crackle of static. He heard the Grand immediately after.

  ‘Henres?’ came the rasping voice in his mind. ‘I trust you have… some important news.’

  The words were loaded with a thinly veiled threat.

  ‘My mission is complete Grand,’ Henres replied. ‘But there was an intriguing encounter.’

  He informed the Grand of the man and girl who’d tried to sabotage his job. How he had been unable to access their minds properly. The man had been a fortress, and the girl was learning new tricks to defy them, seemingly from this man who had saved her.

  The Grand listened silently and considered this information. Henres was beginning to feel nervous by the time he finally responded.

  ‘Be alert,’ he instructed. ‘Try to find this pair again… and learn all you can. I’ll put out the word.’

  He was gone. No praise or real guidance. The Grand had heard all he needed to and put a plan in motion.

  Henres didn’t know what the Grand would do if this pair were a threat to their purpose. He felt a burden lifted from his mind when the Grand disappeared.

  Whoever this couple were, they would be found and tortured. He would make sure they paid tenfold for the kills they had made him miss out on.

  Chapter 20

  Brewer and Georgie stayed cooped up in the flat for over a week. Long enough for him to be sure the flat was safe, and more than enough time for them both to be going crazy. The only time they left was to go to the local shop, and then Brewer made them go separately, so one of them was always at the flat. Georgie had begun to feel like a prisoner, and she missed doing what she wanted. She passed the time reading and making plans.

  Brewer was satisfied the hiker hadn’t seen much about them, and definitely hadn’t uncovered the flat. The Grand would’ve acted by now. He picked through every news article and report but couldn’t see any hiker activity that was more unusual than normal. There were a few stories that lead him to believe there were some hikers in London, although not any near their area. London was always the most popular city for them – they could go almost undetected among so many people, and that much crime. Muggings, hit and runs, and random attacks were a common occurrence.

  Brewer spent most of the week researching on the laptop or watching the news. Georgie was quieter than she’d ever been. She kept her nose in books for hours at a time, sometimes enthusiastically taking notes, or staring silently at the news he was watching. She asked to borrow his laptop a couple of times but gave it back a little while later without being asked, rather than hogging it until he made her hand it back to him, like she had before. He wondered if she was feeling guilty about nearly giving them away and he started to feel bad about being so hard on her.

  On the lunchtime of day eight, he decided that enough was enough. They couldn’t stay trapped there any longer, and it was obvious no one was coming for them. He had his eye on a murder that had happened around Whitechapel late last night.

  ‘I’m going to the shops,’ he told Georgie. ‘We need supplies.’

  He paused by the door. She’d barely lifted her head up from the book she was engrossed in.

  ‘Tomorrow morning we’re going hunting again.’ He left the flat without waiting for her reaction.

  Brewer took his time at the shops, enjoying being out of the stuffy flat for a while. He picked up some more food and fresh batteries for the torches. On a whim, he bought some earplugs for Georgie, just in case she needed a physical aid to help her practice her mind techniques. It wouldn’t actually block out any sound but it could give her something to focus her efforts on if she struggled again.

  He carried the shopping back to the flat and Georgie was exactly where he’d left her. She gave him a nod when he passed her on his way to the kitchen but didn’t ask about the trip.

  Brewer weaved through the books on the floor and piles of newspapers. He hadn’t noticed how messy the flat had gotten over the last week.

  ‘We’ll have a tidy up later before we head out tomorrow,’ he called to her from the kitchen.

  ‘Ok,’ came the distracted reply.

  Brewer was impressed; Georgie seemed to have gotten really into reading and was taking research a lot more seriously.

  When the cleaning operation began that afternoon, Georgie jumped up from the sofa.

  ‘I’ll do the bedroom and bathroom,’ she offered. ‘It’s mainly my mess anyway.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he shrugged.

  She took some polish and a duster and disappeared for a while. Brewer tackled the main room. He washed up all the dirty cups and plates, and binned the rubbish. Most of the mess was stacks of books so he gathered them up to put back on the shelves. Georgie had been reading up on a wide variety of topics from the look of it. There were books on urban legends, brain surgery, and fiction stories, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. When she’d had a few more encounters with hikers they could talk through her theories. He was interested to find out her perspective on them.

  He was putting the hoover away when Georgie emerged from the bedroom with some empty glasses and a bag of rubbish.

  ‘All clean in there,’ she said. ‘At least it made the day go quicker.’

  Brewer sat down in the spotless main room and flicked on the TV. There was nothing on the national evening news covering the story he’d read that morning about the Whitechapel murder. It wasn’t a high profile killing, or one with multiple casualties, so he wasn’t too surprised. He picked up the laptop to check over the report one more time.

  Late last night, a wealthy businessman had disappeared while walking his dog. His wife had raised the alarm when he didn’t return after two hours however there was nothing the police could do until he’d been missing longer. The wife decided to go out looking along their usual dog-walking route and found her husband’s mutilated body in the local park. He had dozens of stab wounds to his torso and chunks taken out of his hands and arms where he’d tried to defend himself. There was no sign of the attacker, and no clear motive anyone could see. The man hadn’t been mugged and so far no witnesses had been found.

  It was the dog that had drawn Brewer’s attention. It had been found nearby, cowering and whimpering under a bush. Apparently it was a fairly old dog, and visibly in distress, but no one could coax it out. Every time they got near it would go crazy – snarling and biting people. In the end, they had to put it down for the sake of people’s safety.

  Only a hiker could have gotten an animal that spooked so it would attack every person who came near it. The dog wouldn’t have been able to get the scent of fear out of its nose. Brewer was sure the murder was the work of a hiker.

  He handed the laptop to Georgie so she could read over the story.

  ‘You think a suicide will happen near Whitechapel tomorrow then?’ she asked when she’d finished skimming over the article.

  ‘Yes,’ Brewer replied, watching her closely. ‘Are you ready for that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered immediately, her face giving nothing away.

  ‘Ok then. We’ll head out at 7am.’

  They ate a light dinner of chicken salad, and passed the time with bad TV. Brewer went through his usual rituals of charging the laptop and phone, checking his torch, and looking at tomorrow’s weather forecast. It was supposed to be dry but cold, so they would need layers.

  He got out the two rucksacks and left them on the kitchen counter. They could finish packing them in the morning.

&n
bsp; Georgie seemed restless. She fidgeted on the sofa and got up to go to the bathroom more times than needed. He worried she was more nervous about tomorrow than she was letting on, however she’d said yes and wouldn’t admit otherwise. She was a stubborn one.

  ‘Georgie,’ Brewer said before she disappeared off to bed. ‘If we go out tomorrow and it gets too much, we can always come back. I know it will be hard.’

  It was meant to sound reassuring but she got instantly defensive.

  ‘I told you, I’ll be fine,’ she insisted. ‘The golf club was a one off. It was my first time.’

  ‘Ok,’ he relented. ‘But we’re just going to observe this one from a safe distance so you can learn about them and practice your mind control.’

  She sighed loudly. ‘I know, no intervening.’

  A flicker of emotion that Brewer couldn’t read crossed her face but it was gone in an instant. What was that, he wondered. Self doubt?

  ‘Anyway, we can go through techniques to make sure any details of this place, or what we do, stays buried in your mind from prying hikers.’

  Georgie skulked off to bed and Brewer double-checked their route for the morning. It would take a bit longer in the crush of commuters and he wanted to get there early. He was looking forward to getting out and having his mind occupied after being stuck in the flat. He’d spent more time there in the last few weeks with Georgie than he had for months before. He was determined to train her properly this time.

  Brewer turned off the TV and set his alarm for 6am. The sofa was calling him, as were his frequent nightmares.

  Chapter 21

  The next morning, Georgie awoke before Brewer. When he groggily got up from the sofa to turn off the shrill beeping coming from his phone, he heard the faint sound of the shower running in the bathroom. At least she was taking this trip seriously.

  He boiled the kettle and poured himself a strong cup of coffee. The morning was still dark, and winter was now fully here. Soon there would be frost and snow to contend with. It was always harder to track hikers in the snow. They seemed to glide over it, while he trudged noisily through and tried to stop himself from slipping over on every icy patch. The freezing temperatures didn’t make for very successful overnight trips either, and he usually spent more money on B&Bs and hotels in the winter.

  Brewer sipped his coffee and packed some supplies in his rucksack while he waited. He heard Georgie leave the bathroom five minutes later and shut the door of the bedroom. He gave it a few moments but she didn’t come back out so he picked up one of the clean towels he’d left on the dining table and went for a shower.

  When he emerged shortly after, with a damp towel around his waist, the bedroom door was ajar. He opened the door to the main room and Georgie jumped back from the kitchen counter in surprise.

  ‘You made me jump!’ she laughed, picking up a bottle of water and putting it in the rucksack in front of her.

  Perhaps she was more nervous about their trip than she was letting on.

  Georgie was wearing dark skinny jeans and a thin, grey jumper. She hadn’t dried her hair yet and it clung wetly to the sides of her pale face. The bags under her eyes looked darker this morning. She gathered up the rucksack from the counter and carried it to the bedroom to finish packing and getting ready.

  Brewer had a pile of his clothes folded on the dining table. It had become his wardrobe while Georgie was occupying the bedroom. He dressed quickly in black jeans and a v-necked navy jumper. He packed an extra hoodie in case it got too cold later then sat down to lace up his Timberlands. He was ready.

  Georgie joined him ten minutes later. She had tied her hair up in a messy ponytail and covered the circles under her eyes with make-up. She’d also put on her converses and jacket. She hoisted the rucksack carefully onto her back and stood by the doorway.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked with an eyebrow raised, as though she had been waiting for him.

  Brewer locked up the flat and they set off in the direction of Whitechapel. The train was heaving with early morning commuters and it took them longer to navigate the tube with all the extra bodies. They arrived at Whitechapel at 8.15am. It was all quiet, no whispering of hikers.

  ‘Can you sense one?’ Brewer asked.

  Georgie furrowed her brow in concentration. ‘No, not yet.’

  They walked east from the station. After a mile, Georgie grabbed Brewer’s arm excitedly. ‘I can feel one!’

  ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘That way,’ she pointed ahead.

  A few minutes later, he heard the faint scratching. She was right: it was that way. When they got nearer, and the whispering grew loud enough to make out, Georgie’s enthusiasm vanished.

  The hiker was female and she was whispering to a young girl. Her voice was light and breezy.

  ‘It’s not like anyone pays any attention to you at school,’ she almost sang to her vulnerable victim. ‘You’re not one of the popular girls. No boy is going to notice you. You’re what they call plain, and the weight…’ The hiker laughed cruelly. ‘It’s not just going to drop off like your mother thinks. Your puppy fat is going to stay. You’ll probably get even fatter as you get older!’

  Georgie bristled with rage. She remembered all too vividly the bullying she’d suffered at school because of the size she’d been. This girl was at her most impressionable, an easy target for the hiker.

  ‘Still, at least you have some brains to fall back on,’ the hiker clucked. ‘It just means a life of people ignoring you – an unimportant existence. A plain, chubby Jane, who’ll never get a boyfriend.’

  ‘What a bitch!’ Georgie spat. ‘How dare she!’

  ‘Easy,’ Brewer said. ‘We’re finding them to observe, remember?’ There was a hint of warning in his tone.

  ‘I’ll remain objective,’ Georgie replied through her clenched jaw.

  He shot a sideways look at her as they walked towards the noise. Female hikers could be tricky, and the fire burning in Georgie’s eyes didn’t fill him with confidence. Maybe this was a bad idea with the suicide victim being so close to Georgie’s age.

  If she gets too emotional, we’re getting the hell away, he thought to himself.

  But she didn’t. When they found the house of the victim, Georgie stayed quiet and behaved herself. She huffed and shook her head a few times in disgust as they listened to the hiker’s increasingly spiteful rants. She chipped away at the poor girl’s confidence and did her best to make her feel worthless.

  They got a glimpse of the girl at an upstairs window. She looked about fifteen years old and had brown, wavy hair. She was a bit overweight, although not as obese as the hiker was making her out to be. With a good diet and exercise it wouldn’t have taken her long to lose the excess weight, only the hiker was drawing on how much of a big issue it was to her.

  The girl had told her mother she was ill to stay home from school. It meant they had found where she was easier but that the hiker planned to kill this girl quickly. Brewer wasn’t sure she’d last until the end of the day – her self-esteem was too battered. She’d probably endured her fair share of bullying at school and now she had this in her mind.

  Brewer and Georgie sat in a bus shelter down the road from the girl’s house. She lived on a residential street, lined with semi-detached houses. They couldn’t see the hiker anywhere but she would be well hidden. There was a high gate next to the girl’s house that led to the garden. The hiker could be anywhere back there. Watching and whispering; planning the meanest way for this girl to kill herself.

  It took several hours of taunting but the hiker planted a simple idea in the girl’s mind. Her mother had a couple of bottles of strong painkillers and sleeping pills in her bathroom cabinet. They’d been left over from a prescription she’d had after a car accident.

  The hiker reasoned that if the girl took some of those, it would get her noticed. There would be an ambulance and hospital visit. Her family would all be worried and fuss over her. Word would get around school and the kids
would pay attention to her. Everyone would know who she was.

  Georgie paced anxiously round the bus stop. If she went and knocked on the door, could she make the girl see sense? No, she’d promised just to observe… for now. There was a bigger plan to think about.

  At around 3pm, the girl got out all the pills and a bottle of vodka from the drinks cabinet. She sat in her room with the deadly cocktail spread out on the bed.

  ‘Here we go,’ the hiker murmured. ‘Just pop one in your mouth and swallow. The first pill on your way to infamy.’

  Georgie sat back down next to Brewer and they listened silently. The world around them gradually fell quiet so there was only the hiker’s voice.

  ‘That’s it,’ she cooed. ‘Good girl. And another one… have a drink to wash them down.’

  A tear slipped from the corner of Georgie’s eye and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. She stayed motionless on the hard plastic seat.

  ‘Just a couple more,’ the hiker coaxed. ‘There we go. It’s all going to get better now.’

  Brewer put his hand over Georgie’s fist and squeezed gently. She choked back a sob and kept her head down. A few minutes later, the whispering stopped – the girl was dead. They hadn’t even known her name.

  ‘Are you ok?’ Brewer asked.

  It took a few hard gulps for Georgie to trust her voice again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry but you had to see for yourself the kind of stuff they’re capable of,’ he told her. ‘We can head back now if you want?’

  When the poor girl’s mum got home the place would be crawling with paramedics and police. Brewer wanted to be well away when that happened.

  ‘No,’ Georgie said. ‘I want to keep tracking it. She’s on the move.’