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

by Lauren Algeo

  She settled on to the floor and crossed her legs in front of her. A frown of concentration creased her brow – the discovery of the journal was extremely intriguing. She might be able to get some answers to all the questions that were burning in her mind. She flipped the pages to the beginning so she could start at the first entry.

  Ella’s eyes began to eagerly read over the words that Scott had written over thirteen years ago. There was a lot to get through but her dad would be occupied upstairs for a while. She had time.

  ­Hikers

  Brewer’s Journal

  By Lauren Algeo

  Text copyright © 2014 Lauren Algeo

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written warning must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  This work of fiction contains adult situations that may not be suitable for children under eighteen years of age. Recommended for mature audiences.

  Table of Contents

  17th April 2009

  20th April 2009

  15th May 2009

  29th May 2009

  18th June 2009

  5th July 2009

  11th July 2009

  13th July 2009

  25th July 2009

  26th July 2009

  15th August 2009

  3rd September 2009

  17th September 2009

  20th October 2009

  21st October 2009

  24th October 2009

  31st October 2009

  21st November 2009

  22nd November 2009

  8th December 2009

  14th December 2009

  20th December 2009

  25th December 2009

  3rd January 2010

  11th February 2010

  21st February 2010

  6th March 2010

  25th April 2010

  16th August 2010

  3rd November 2010

  25th December 2010

  3rd February 2011

  2nd July 2011

  3rd July 2011

  2nd September 2011

  15th September 2011

  16th September 2011

  17th September 2011

  18th September 2011

  21st September 2011

  22nd September 2011

  23rd September 2011

  30th September 2011

  1st October 2011

  18th October 2011

  29th November 2011

  30th November 2011

  19th December 2011

  20th December 2011

  21st December 2011

  22nd December 2011

  25th December 2011

  27th December 2011

  29th December 2011

  30th December 2011

  31st December 2011

  14th January 2012

  15th January 2012

  17th January 2012

  21st January 2012

  28th January 2012

  29th January 2012

  30th January 2012

  31st January 2012

  1st February 2012

  3rd February 2012

  4th February 2012

  5th February 2012

  6th February 2012

  7th February 2012

  10th February 2012

  17th April 2009

  Today my life changed. Again.

  I can’t even begin to describe what happened to me. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing this down. I’ve never kept a journal before, so this doesn’t come naturally to me, but I feel like I need to tell someone. To work through my jumbled thoughts on the whole thing.

  Except I can’t tell anyone about it. Well, not anyone in my life anyway. I can tell you though, whoever you are. Perhaps I’m even long gone and you’re reading through this random notepad you found in my old house… Now there’s a morbid thought. I told you this doesn’t come naturally.

  I suppose I should stop rambling and tell you what I intended to when I saw the black, leather notepad lying unopened on the dining room dresser. Karen must have bought it a while ago, before… that’s an even longer story.

  Right, I guess the beginning is as good a place to start as any. Introductions first. My name is Scott Brewer. I’m thirty-nine years old. Brown hair, brown eyes, 6ft 2, thin, Virgo. Sounds a little like a dating application, doesn’t it? I’m a Detective Inspector at Lewisham police station. Not the most glamorous of jobs but I enjoy it… or at least I used to. I guess this journal is sort of like my case notes – a way to get all the facts down. You can take this as my sworn statement.

  Today I saw a strange man, although I don’t think he was really a man in the human sense. His eyes were so dark… like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They were black. I saw him for the first time this afternoon, however I’d been hearing his voice for the last few days. Hearing him whisper to me in my head.

  This is probably where you put the notepad down and dismiss what’s written here as nonsense from a crazy man, but I’m telling the truth. Believe me, I know how it sounds. If someone told me this at work I would think they were insane. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t experienced it first-hand.

  Let me tell you what happened. I will be completely honest and not keep anything from you, no matter how terrible it makes me look.

  It started on Tuesday. I was walking home from the local shops when I felt a weird sensation in my mind, as if someone was rustling around in my thoughts. That’s the best way I can describe it. It didn’t feel… natural. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, and I wondered if I was just picking up the uncomfortable feeling of being watched but there was no one around – the road was completely deserted.

  It didn’t happen again so I went home and forgot about it, but that night I heard it for the first time. It was about 2am and I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping much lately. Initially I thought it was my own internal voice, you know, the one you have conversations with in your head. The voice you think in. Only this was something else. I wasn’t thinking it; it was talking to me. Saying things that had crossed my mind.

  It was a male voice, not unlike my own, which was how I’d mistaken it. It spoke low and deep, and for the first time in months it felt as though someone understood what I was going through.

  If you’re in this story for the duration now, I guess I should fill you in a little more. Karen was my wife… God, this is hard to write down. Forgive me if I don’t get it all out at once, but the pain is still raw.

  Karen Julia Brewer, nee Dixon, was my beautiful wife of nearly ten years. She died two months ago, at only thirty-five years old. I’d like to say it was a sudden death, some sort of accident and she didn’t suffer, but that would be a lie. She died of a brain tumour.

  They found it in September last year, after Karen had been getting crippling headaches. She was always stubborn and wouldn’t go to the doctor straightaway, even though I nagged at her. She tried to brush over it, to palm them off as bad migraines, only she must have known deep down that it was something serious.

  The day they told us it was a tumour was the worst day of my life. Inoperable. That was the only word I could focus on. They could manage her pain but there was nothing they would be able to do to save her. I lost control and broke down but Karen didn’t. She sat calmly and asked the doctor some questions that I can’t recall now. She didn’t cry and she didn�
��t look at me. She stayed composed the entire way home.

  The drive back was awful. We sat in silence, still trying to process what we’d been told. Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, you can never fully understand what it feels like to be told something like that. To have the whole life you’ve become comfortable with snatched away from you. We were hoping to have a baby this year. We had a holiday booked for next month. We had plans for our life together. Our future. But to be told there would no longer be one, that the woman you love is going to die, that feeling is unimaginable. The worst pain you’ve ever felt. Sorrow, anguish, grief, anger, fury, helplessness, defeat. I would’ve given anything for it to be me instead of her.

  Her tears came when we got home. She shut herself in the bathroom and I heard her sobs through the door. It was heart breaking, but I knew she needed time to take it all on board herself before she could grieve with me. I waited downstairs. I sat on the sofa and stared at the photo of us on the mantelpiece. The same one I can see when I look up now.

  It was taken on our wedding day and we both look so happy. Karen had her brown hair put up professionally so it’s swept away from her face. Her hazel eyes are shining with excitement and she’s smiling widely. Her white veil is blowing a little behind her in a gust of wind. I can only focus on her face when I look at the picture. Seeing my own expression is too painful. I’m smiling as well, and I look like I could burst with pride. I’ve never felt more in love than I did on that day. You can see it clearly on my face.

  I’ve thought about moving the photo frame so I don’t have to look at it every day, but a small part of me needs it there, so Karen can watch over me. Like she did today.

  Sorry, I had to take a quick break. Writing about Karen is harder than I thought. I haven’t really spoken about her much in the last few weeks. People don’t know what to say around me or how to act. Conversations stop when I walk into a room and people look uncomfortable or guilty if they’re caught laughing.

  My closest friend, Marcus West, is at the same station as me and he’s been trying his best, but it’s too hard for me to talk about her. Marcus’s wife, Trudy, was really close to Karen and they’ve been insisting on coming to see me every couple of days so we can grieve together. I hate it. I just want to be on my own. My misery does not love company.

  I’ve known Marcus since we trained together at Hendon to be PCs and we’ve stayed friends over the years. We separated to work at different stations for a while but both transferred to Lewisham a couple of years ago. Marcus used to be a real ladies man, always out on the pull, and the women loved him. He’s as tall as me, but more muscular, and has blond hair, blue eyes and a chiselled jaw. He changed the moment he met Trudy though. She tamed him somehow and they were engaged within months.

  We were best men at each other’s weddings and the four of us were a tight group. We used to go on holidays together, and we’d meet up socially for dinner or drinks every couple of weeks. How do I tell Marcus and Trudy that the sight of them together now is killing me? I can’t bear to see their little looks to each other, their closeness. Small mannerisms that I’ve never really paid attention to before now make my heart ache.

  I’m ashamed to admit it that makes me angry too. Bitterly jealous that they still have each other whereas I’m all alone. These feelings bring me to the man I saw today, and to the voice that whispered to me in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

  He… it? I don’t know if I can really think of him as a man, surely men are incapable of what he did? Humans aren’t capable of it. Regardless, he whispered in my mind about how my life was unfair and that Karen should never have been taken away from me at such a young age. And in such a cruel, suffering manner.

  It was dark, and I was lonely, so I listened to him. He was just reiterating what I’d been thinking for days anyway. Eventually I fell into a dreamless sleep and when I woke up, I wasn’t sure if the voice had been real or if I’d imagined the whole thing. I had a shift at work so I went to the station and tried to muddle through with as little contact with people as possible.

  It was only after a few hours that I realised the voice was still there. At the time, I didn’t know where it was coming from, or whose voice it was, but I didn’t really question it. The voice was comforting in a way. It spoke about everything I was feeling. When I saw a couple of overnight, aggressive drunks getting released from the cells it commented on how they were scum and I was inclined to agree.

  In the afternoon things took a turn for the worse, even though I didn’t see it at the time. Marcus and I had to interview a suspect in a rape case. I sat in the hard plastic chair in the interview room and glared at the man in front of me. The anger I mentioned was bubbling away beneath the surface. The voice pointed out that this disgusting man shouldn’t be here while people like my Karen had died. A suspected rapist over my beautiful, caring wife.

  The rage overflowed and the voice told me to embrace it. Before I could fully comprehend what I was doing, I’d lunged over the table and swung a punch at the suspect. The momentum sent me flying and Marcus bundled me from the room. He was furious and kept yelling at me about how I’d ruined the case. It was chaos – the suspect was shouting about suing me from inside the room and Marcus had me pinned to the wall to get me to calm down.

  I’m ashamed to say I almost hit him too. My hands were still balled into fists but I didn’t do it. Instead, I got out of the station. I no longer cared about the job I was supposed to be doing. As strange as it seems now, I felt like I had a new job to do. That the voice had plans for me. I’m shaking my head in disbelief even as I write this. I know how it sounds yet at the time it seemed perfectly logical.

  I spent the rest of Wednesday and yesterday holed up in the house. It’s a bit of a blur and I can’t tell you exactly what I was doing for all those hours, mainly sitting in the dark and listening to his voice. He was there constantly. He was proud of what I’d done at the station and said there was more I could do.

  I remember getting a couple of voicemails from Marcus and the station, but I didn’t return their calls. They prattled on about how I hadn’t dealt with my grief properly and I should have taken a longer period of compassionate leave. Marcus said they were pleading my case with the suspect’s lawyer. None of it meant anything to me though, I just wanted to be on my own with my new, sympathetic friend. The only person I could relate to.

  I have no excuses for what happened next. I told you I would be brutally honest with you, so I will. At some point during the whispering yesterday, the voice suggested that I make other people feel how I was feeling. He said I should cause an accident to inflict pain on them. Then everyone would know how it felt. It’s absurd now I’m thinking rationally again, but yesterday it just made sense.

  I began to plot with the voice. We decided that today, Friday, would be the perfect time. I was to orchestrate a crash on the motorway during the evening rush hour. I even went and filled up my car’s tank with as much petrol as it would hold, in the hope that it would catch fire and cause more damage. It all seemed straightforward and simple. The voice made it sound ok, like a positive thing even.

  So this morning I woke up with every intention of killing myself. I felt no emotion about that fact. I’ve never contemplated suicide before but the voice reasoned that it was natural, and necessary for the bigger purpose. I’m trembling as I write this. It’s so horrific to think about what I was intending to do... all those people I could have hurt or killed. What it would have done to everyone I know.

  Thankfully I didn’t go through with it. Karen saved me. Marcus tried first, not that he had any idea what was going on in my head. He came to the house late this morning to check on me. The voice didn’t want me to let him in but Marcus was insistent. He was only here for a few minutes and I can barely remember what he said. All I know is that I was furious and the voice was telling me to get rid of him. I’m embarrassed to say I lost it again, and shouted and swore at him until he left.

  I�
��ll have to give him a call tomorrow to apologise; it’s a bit too late in the evening to ring now. Anyway, after he left the house, I sat and waited for the clock to tick round to 4:30pm. I had my car key in my hand, and no doubt in my mind that I was going through with it. I still can’t believe this only happened a few hours ago. It doesn’t seem real.

  I closed the front door without a second glance back and got into my car. I’ve got a silver Ford Focus and it was parked on the driveway. I sat in the front seat and actually put the key in the ignition.

  The next part is going to seem very farfetched, even more so than everything you’ve already read. I was about to reverse down the drive when I heard Karen’s voice in my head. It was loud and clear, and sounded exactly like her. It was as if she was sitting beside me in the passenger seat. She only said a few words: ‘What are you doing’. It was more of a demand than a question.

  That one sentence froze me in place. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that it hurt. Somehow her voice had penetrated through the fog that had been clouding my thoughts for days. It was as though I was waking up from a nightmare.

  I actually turned to look at the seat next to me but it was, of course, empty. Everything I’d been about to do suddenly hit me at once and I couldn’t breathe with the enormity of it. I managed to scramble out of the car and fell into a heap on the concrete. It was then that I saw the man.

  I hadn’t even noticed anyone in front of the house when I’d got into the car, but he was right there. Sitting in a dark blue car of some kind and staring straight at me. I don’t know how to explain it but there was a danger radiating out from him and I instantly knew it was his voice I’d been hearing in my head for the last few days.

  At first glance, he looked just like a normal man. He was sitting in the car so I could only see the top half of him, and he appeared to be the same age as me. He had hair that looked brown in the shadows of the car but could have been lighter. He was quite pale, although there was nothing else really distinctive about his face. His features were in proportion and non-descript. He had a light-coloured shirt on, with the top button undone and no tie.