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

by Lauren Algeo

  There’s no time for guilt, she scolded herself, get a grip.

  Three rooms. One held what they needed. The private rooms were past one of the larger bays. Georgie snuck by the first one quietly. There was another nurse in there, talking to a little girl who was propped up in bed with a broken leg. Two doors at the end of the corridor had red isolation signs on, meaning you were supposed to put on a plastic apron and surgical gloves to go in.

  One of them would have the boy with meningitis in; he would still be contagious. She poked her head round the door on the left. The sign in the small holding room beyond had a girl’s name on. She went to the other door and peered inside. Jacob Lawrence was the name on the whiteboard. Jackpot.

  Georgie put on an apron and took a pair of the gloves, as if she had every right to be there. The boy was alone in the room. He looked very small in the bed, and was either asleep or unconscious. There was a machine beeping next to the bed and he had a couple of tubes running down to it from his right arm.

  She picked up his notes from the end of the bed and had a quick scan through to make sure she had the right boy. Jacob was eight years old; he had a rash, high temperature, and had been diagnosed with meningitis.

  Georgie took the box out of her waistband and fumbled out the syringe. She stood by the boy’s left side to take blood from his free arm. She turned over his wrist and looked for the vein in the soft skin in the crock of his elbow. The surgical gloves made it difficult for her to get a solid grip and she struggled to find the vein.

  Suddenly the main door to the room opened, making her jump out of her skin, and a middle aged woman poked her head around the inside door. She had brown curly hair, which was secured in a stern bun, and she looked at Georgie with questioning, narrowed eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  Georgie racked her brain to remember the boy’s notes. ‘Doctor Tavistock asked me to take a blood sample,’ she said, recalling a name from the file and praying this woman wasn’t Doctor Tavistock.

  ‘Oh, ok,’ the woman replied. ‘Are you one of her students?’

  Georgie nodded and to her dismay, the woman put on an apron and gloves to come into the room.

  ‘You know you need someone with you for taking samples,’ she scolded.

  The woman was wearing a nurse’s uniform and she had a senior, brisk manner about her. Georgie hoped she couldn’t see her hands shaking. Luckily her pass was mainly hidden under the plastic apron so the woman couldn’t get a good look at her ID.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘Tina,’ Georgie replied. Her voice sounded strained to her ears.

  ‘Ok Tina, go ahead.’

  Georgie’s legs were trembling badly and she fought the urge to drop the syringe and run from the room. Instead, she got a firmer grip on the boy’s arm and located the vein again. They hadn’t prepared for a scenario under this much pressure and she could feel beads of sweat on her forehead. Her rubbery legs could barely support her.

  The nurse’s pager beeped loudly in the silent room, making Georgie jump again. Her hand slipped and she scratched the boy’s arm with the needle.

  ‘Sorry!’ Her face flushed bright red.

  The woman glanced at her pager and scowled. ‘Here let me, I’m needed urgently in one of the bays.’

  To Georgie’s relief, she took the syringe from her grasp.

  ‘What on earth are they teaching you these days,’ the nurse muttered under her breath as she expertly drew blood from the boy’s arm.

  The syringe filled with the virus they needed and Georgie was grateful for whatever drama had set off the woman’s pager.

  ‘Here,’ the nurse said, handing over the full syringe. ‘You do know what to do with the sample, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Georgie replied. She didn’t have a clue.

  ‘And clean up Jacob’s arm carefully.’ The woman bustled out of the room, taking off her gloves as she went.

  Georgie exhaled loudly. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and scratched at the thin line of moisture that had trickled down her back. That had been way too stressful for her.

  With a sympathetic look at little Jacob in his bed, Georgie cleaned the blood from his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You could save a lot of people if this works though.’

  She put a cap on the syringe and slotted it carefully into its box. She tucked it back into the top of her trousers and left the room.

  Act natural, she told herself. Like you’re supposed to be here.

  She removed the plastic apron and peeled off the surgical gloves. Her hands were clammy and she used the alcohol gel before she left the room. Anyone watching would think she belonged there.

  She moved along the corridor in a fast walk, as though she had somewhere to get to. Near the ward desk, she saw two of the nurses coming out of a side room. She turned sharply for the exit door before they saw her. Thankfully the nurse from Jacob’s room was nowhere to be seen.

  Georgie pulled on the door handle and panicked briefly when it didn’t open, before she remembered that she needed a pass to get out, or for someone to buzz her out. She hovered by the phone next to the door, trying to be invisible, until someone rang the buzzer outside to be let in. When a nurse at the desk released the door, she rushed forward and passed through to safety. Nearly there.

  She walked as casually as she could towards the main exit. The syringe box dug painfully into her hipbone but she didn’t stop to adjust it. The air grew cooler as she got closer to the doors. She stared down at the ground to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Suddenly she was there, outside, being blasted by the biting wind. Freedom.

  She couldn’t hold back any longer. She jogged away from the hospital, with her right hand clamped protectively over the box. Brewer was waiting for her down by one of the car parks. She could see him leaning against a post by the hedges with their bags at his feet. She almost barrelled straight into him.

  ‘I got it!’ she panted. ‘I got it.’

  Brewer started laughing and he gave her a brief, tight hug. ‘I knew you could do it!’

  He handed her back her coat and she slipped it on gratefully. The sweat on her body had chilled rapidly and she found she was shivering uncontrollably. She took off the pass from around her neck and stuffed it into her coat pocket. She carefully took the box out of her waistband and passed it to Brewer. He cradled it as though it was the most precious thing in the world and put it into his inside coat pocket.

  It was only mid afternoon but it was already nearly dark. They stood for a moment, preparing for the next phase.

  ‘You’re sure you want to go after this one?’ he asked.

  He shrugged on his rucksack and zipped up his coat, subconsciously patting at the box inside.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Let’s find him.’

  Chapter 29

  They left the hospital and caught the train from Dartford back to the centre of London. They’d decided the best place to start looking for their hiker was around Clapham. It was where they’d both encountered him so he must have some ties to the area.

  They got to Clapham Junction just after 5pm. The high street was packed with people finishing their Christmas shopping. Georgie had to weave in and out of the bustling bodies to keep up with Brewer. Somehow more people seemed to sidestep around him. She’d never felt anything odd when she was with him, most likely because she was tarnished by her own encounter, but she’d seen plenty of people look at him nervously. Perhaps some animal instinct told them to stay away. She tried to keep directly behind him as they walked.

  The high street was too busy to hear much, and she wasn’t sensing any hikers. They gave up and headed down some residential roads towards the common.

  It felt like the longest day ever to Georgie as they searched. She could barely remember phoning the hospitals that morning, and even being on the children’s ward seemed so long ago. Her stomach rumbled and she realised they hadn’t ea
ten anything since breakfast.

  They stopped for dinner at 8pm and sheltered by a closed office building to eat. Brewer had packed them some ham rolls, cereal bars, and a few bottles of water. Georgie downed a bottle thirstily; she’d sweated a lot at the hospital.

  ‘We’ve got one night remember,’ Brewer said as he chewed.

  ‘We’ll find him.’ She refused to believe they wouldn’t.

  It was about time everything went their way. Brewer was worried the hiker would be off on a job elsewhere, but Georgie knew he was near there somewhere. He had to be. She wouldn’t give up on revenge.

  They trawled the area for hours. There was no whispering of hiker activity and the night grew quiet. By 2am, Brewer was shooting longer glances at Georgie, which she tried to ignore. She knew he wanted to give up and go and look for another hiker. They had the blood and to him, it didn’t matter as much which hiker they used it on. He was just desperate to see if it would work.

  At 4am, Brewer sat on a bench to rest. It was at least -4°c and they had kept warmer by moving constantly. Still, the chill had crept into his bones. He rubbed his hands together; even the thick leather of his gloves hadn’t stopped his fingers from freezing.

  ‘Georgie…’ he started.

  ‘No!’ she shot back. She knew what he was going to say.

  ‘You’ve got to let it go. He’s not here.’

  ‘You said we had one night.’ She glared at him accusingly. ‘It’s not up yet, so we’re looking until it is.’

  He took out another bottle of water from his rucksack and had a long drink. The liquid was ice cold.

  ‘Ok, this is what we’ll do,’ he reasoned. ‘We’ll search until it’s light and if we haven’t found him, we’ll go back to the flat for a couple of hours sleep before looking for a new hiker. Sound fair?’

  Georgie calculated that it wouldn’t get light until 7.30am so they had about three and a half hours of searching left. The clock was ticking.

  ‘Ok,’ she relented.

  She was exhausted and even she would have to admit the hiker wasn’t there after looking for over 14 hours.

  It was nearly 6am when they both heard it. Georgie’s brain had switched off through tiredness and the cold and she didn’t register it straightaway. Brewer was the first to pick up the sound and stop walking.

  ‘Georgie.’

  She thought he was going to tell her it was time to give up.

  ‘One more hour,’ she pleaded.

  ‘No, listen.’

  The low whispering slowly seeped in to her mind. ‘Is it… have we found him?’

  ‘I can’t tell,’ Brewer replied. ‘We’ll need to be closer to hear. I think whatever hiker we find though; we should infect it. Otherwise it might take us days to find another one.’

  Georgie prayed that it was their hiker, however she was too exhausted to argue anymore. She would settle for experimenting on whatever hiker it was.

  They spent another half an hour plodding through the darkness until they were close enough to make out the hiker’s voice clearly. It was their one.

  Georgie nearly wept with gratitude. Her persistence had finally paid off. Now she wanted to inflict some serious pain on the hiker that had caused them so much grief.

  The hiker was busy implanting a murderous idea into the mind of an unsuspecting man. Hopefully this was the last time he would ever be able to do that.

  They stopped close to the hiker’s position and found a bus shelter to wait in. The hiker would be preoccupied with his vessel for a while but he would need to rest sometime, and they would be ready for him.

  Brewer felt the comforting weight of the syringe box against his body. He still couldn’t believe Georgie had pulled it off. This infected blood could be the key to ridding the world of hikers for good. It had to work.

  They listened until the morning grew light and people began to travel to work. Their bus stop was getting popular so they had to move on. They circled the area they thought the hiker was in. He was deeply involved in plotting with the vessel. From what they could hear, he was planning to get the man to go to a local leisure centre and somehow drop an electrically charged appliance into the swimming pool. They didn’t know who the target would be but it didn’t sound like a very pleasant way to go. Plenty of innocent people in the pool could be killed too.

  ‘Would that work in a pool?’ Georgie asked.

  She’d heard about people dropping hairdryers into bathtubs but never a swimming pool.

  ‘I guess so,’ he shrugged. ‘The volume of water might conduct the electricity and give whoever’s in the pool a nasty shock.’

  ‘Sick.’

  She was amazed by how desensitised she had become to hearing about murder. Like Brewer, she was all about the bigger picture now.

  It was another long day. The vessel was at home and made no move to go to work, or anywhere else, so the hiker stayed put and whispered incessantly.

  Brewer and Georgie narrowed his position down to a small road and took it in turns to walk the length of the street to pinpoint which house it was. Brewer thought it was number 9, on the left hand side, and Georgie thought it was number 13, also on the left, so they settled on it being number 11 by default. They camped out in the next road, in a position by some fences, which meant they could see the first part of the target street, however they were quite concealed.

  ‘There was no sign of him anywhere,’ Georgie said.

  She had grown tired of standing around and was slumped on the pavement with her back against the fence.

  ‘There won’t be.’ Brewer took out a pair of binoculars from his rucksack.

  ‘When did you get those?’ Georgie asked.

  ‘When you were doing your hospital research visits,’ he shrugged. ‘I thought they might come in handy. I don’t know why I’ve never bought any before.’

  He lifted them to his eyes and surveyed the road from behind a tree. Georgie burst out laughing in spite of her exhaustion.

  ‘Because you look like a pervert!’ she giggled. ‘Standing in the street spying on people with binoculars isn’t exactly discreet. You’d be arrested in no time!’

  Brewer smiled back. ‘You don’t think anyone would believe me if I said I was looking for a murderous hiker rather than a naked woman then?’

  The street was deserted so he used them for a bit anyway.

  ‘There’s some movement in number 11,’ he reported to Georgie. ‘A man’s walked back and forth across the front room window a few times.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Georgie got painfully to her feet.

  Her legs were starting to seize up from walking all night, and she hadn’t been able to feel most of her body for hours, despite the extra jumper she now had on under her coat. She squinted through the binoculars and scanned the front of the target house. There was nothing for a minute, then a man walked across her field of vision. He was only visible for a few seconds, although she got a good look at him. He was around thirty and wearing a black jumper and blue jeans. He had a mop of unruly brown hair and several days’ worth of stubble on his face. He was talking animatedly and gesturing with his hands but Georgie couldn’t see anyone else in the room.

  ‘He looks agitated,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of flailing going on.’

  She trained the binoculars over the outside of the house and the garden. There was no sign of life but the hiker would be around somewhere. She was about to lower the binoculars when a slight movement caught her eye. There was a dark car parked two doors down from the house, on the other side of the road. Georgie swept over it and could make out a black silhouette in the shadows inside the car.

  She gasped and gripped Brewer’s arm. ‘He’s in the car,’ she squeaked.

  Brewer grabbed the binoculars from her slack fingers and searched wildly along the road. He focused on the car near the house and watched. Nothing. Was this the car she meant? Wait, there. What was that? His eyes narrowed in concentration. There was a jerky motion in the front of the car
, as though the hiker had fidgeted in the seat. He was there.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he breathed.

  ‘What do we do?’ Georgie asked, wide eyed.

  ‘Stay put. We can’t inject him while he’s in the car so we need to wait for an opportunity when he comes out.’

  They locked eyes knowingly for a second. They were going to kill this bastard.

  They settled down again to wait it out. Georgie’s eyes were stinging with the lack of sleep yet her body was buzzing. They had the hiker in their sights.

  He got out of the car an hour later. They’d been taking it in turns to watch through the binoculars and it was Brewer’s shift when the hiker moved.

  He’d been looking at the house for a few seconds and when he turned back to the car, the hiker was suddenly standing beside it. He ducked further behind the tree, even though he knew he couldn’t see him.

  The hiker was average height and average build as usual, with no distinguishing features, but there was no mistaking it. It was the second time he’d gotten a good look at the hiker that had changed his life forever. The time he’d spied him at the end of his driveway, after he’d rebelled against his plan, seemed like a lifetime ago, and he hadn’t seen him when he’d rescued Georgie from the tube train.

  It filled him with a primal fear to see him standing there now in broad daylight. He knew this one was strong however he also knew they’d beaten him twice and could do it again.

  The hiker was wearing a long, dark coat and black trousers. He was staring intently at the house so thankfully Brewer couldn’t see his eyes. Those horrible black pits that would look into his soul and know in a second what he’d been doing. A sudden thought occurred to him.

  Georgie was propped up against the fence with her head slumped forward and her eyes closed. He nudged her leg with his foot and her head snapped up instantly to look at him.

  ‘Is it my turn?’

  ‘No, he’s out.’ He gestured for her to get up quietly.

  She staggered to her feet and he leant over to whisper so the hiker wouldn’t hear, even though he was quite far away.

  ‘Listen, if the hiker gets into either of our heads we can’t let on what we’re planning. He can’t know we have the syringe or what’s in it.’