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

by Lauren Algeo

  I’ve got an old digital camera in my rucksack. Karen and I used to take it on holidays and there are still a couple of pictures on there that I’ve been meaning to save to the computer. I used the camera to take a few photos of the hiker lying there. The flash was ridiculously bright in the darkness and I panicked that it would draw attention to the body. Would the police think I’d killed him if someone called them and they caught me there?

  The female hadn’t been concerned about leaving him on the pavement. It was a fairly secluded road but the body was still right there in the open. I’ve been wondering since, how would the hiker’s death show up in an autopsy? A brain haemorrhage perhaps? And what about identification? I presume hikers don’t have any records anywhere, and their DNA and fingerprints wouldn’t flag up on any database, but I can’t be certain. I didn’t even think they would have names until Ariada tonight.

  I was tempted to take a hair or saliva sample from the male then thought better of it. The only person who would be able to get them analysed for me would be Marcus, and I’m not ready for his questions yet. There’s a guy I know, Jim, who works in forensics. We used to go for the odd beer together but I haven’t spoken to him since before Karen died. I’m not sure how concerned he’d be about my mental health if I called him up out of the blue and asked for a DNA analysis. The first person he’d call after putting the phone down to me would be Marcus then I’d be in a big old mess.

  I imagine he’d turn up at the flat, demanding to know what I was playing at and exactly whose hair or saliva I had a swab of. The only plausible thing I could say that doesn’t involve mind-controlling assassins would be that I suspected Karen of having an affair, and I wanted to find out who with, but I could never taint her memory like that. She was a loyal and loving wife, and she would never have done that to me. I’m not sinking that low for something that might not provide me with any answers.

  I had an ex-girlfriend, Jayne, who cheated on me once and it was a horrible feeling. We’d been together for about two years when I was in my early twenties and she accidently sent me a message that was meant for someone else. She’d told me she was staying at her parents for the weekend but the message said that she was on her way to the hotel and she couldn’t wait to see the mystery person. It was a long time ago but I haven’t forgotten the sensation of my stomach plummeting with sick dread.

  It turned out she’d been seeing a man she met in a bar for a few weeks behind my back. I’d been crushed at the time and it had taken my friends weeks to pull me out of my black hole. I can’t pretend that I suspect Karen of something like that.

  I’m rambling again. I think the cold is getting to me. I can barely hold the pen and I really want a cup of hot, strong coffee only there are no shops around. I might have to go for a walk before my body seizes up completely.

  21st October 2009

  I’m home and warm. I’ve been bundled up on the sofa in a duvet for the last half an hour, after sleeping for most of the day. I caught the first train back to the flat this morning and had a scalding shower to try and get the circulation going in my numb body. I was so tired I passed out on top of the bed and had a long, dreamless sleep. I can’t remember the last time that happened, there’s normally Karen’s face or the hikers’ black eyes haunting me. I feel more refreshed than I have in weeks.

  I woke up famished and ate about six slices of toast with half a pack of bacon. The bread was on the turn but I didn’t care. I’ve been sitting, full, on the sofa since my meal and contemplating last night’s events. Hikers can die! I don’t think that fact had fully sunk in last night. I know I’ve merely toyed with the idea of killing one, but it’s a certainty now. I’m determined to get rid of hikers for good to prevent them from hurting anyone else. I just need a method in which to do it.

  Obviously I can’t use the power of my mind, like the Grand… unless somehow that potential lurks inside everyone and hikers are the only ones who have worked out how to unlock it? Maybe by some potent drug, like in a superhero film? I just don’t know what it is or how to get hold of it. To be honest, I don’t think I would want that kind of power. Some people may see it as a gift but I certainly don’t fancy poking around in other people’s heads. I doubt I’d like what I’d find in most.

  Sure, it might be handy to be able to manipulate people to your way of thinking. I can see where the appeal lies, and powerful leaders and politicians would lap it up, but to be able to see into someone’s inner most secrets? The stuff they keep buried in the deep and dark for a reason. No thanks.

  I guess you could be thinking the same thing about this journal, mystery reader. These are my secrets that I’m spilling out to you. Talking of murder. Going against every value I thought I held as a detective. Dear diary, I’ve officially lost the plot, I want to kill an unknown number of creatures… monsters. I will refuse to think of them as human. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to pluck up the courage to actually attempt to put an end to one’s life.

  I’ll need evidence first, I suppose, to quell the guilt inside. It’ll be my equivalent of the death penalty. A life for a life initially, but then I’ll be able to stop them before they actually hurt people.

  Thinking like this sets my heart racing and it’s hard to catch my breath. I’m not some one-man crusader fighting for justice; I’m just a normal bloke. It feels too daunting, and a million miles away from where I’m huddled on the sofa, but there’s something in my gut, a surety that this is the right thing to do. The only thing I can do. Saying it’s my destiny really does sound like a corny superhero line but that’s what it feels like. I was meant to survive my hiker ordeal and it’s my job to help other people now. To save them.

  Jesus, I need a drink.

  The photos I took of the hiker are gone! Well, the pictures are still there on the camera, only the hiker isn’t. All my earlier bravado has just been shot down by uncertainty. You can see the pavement in the photo then there’s this bright glare where the hiker’s body should be. As though the flash reflected off some shiny surface. I don’t understand how that can be? I’m baffled. First the memory of them fades after your encounter and now they don’t show up in pictures? Just what are they?

  There are three images that are exactly the same so it can’t just have been a fluke, or fault with the camera. Every other photo on the memory card is fine. It has to be a hiker thing. I guess how vampires aren’t supposed to have reflections in mirrors; hikers don’t show up in photographic evidence.

  I feel deflated. I’ve been clinging onto the hope that if I can gather enough solid proof then I can tell someone about them; share the pressure and horror of the situation with another person. I guess that bubble’s been burst. I can only hear them because of my encounter with one and I don’t want to expose anyone else to that ordeal just so they can hear them too.

  I wonder if the same thing would happen if I tried to take a video rather than a still image? Maybe I’ll attempt that next time… as well as trying to kill one. A hiker’s body would be pretty undeniable evidence. Unless they are the same genetic makeup as a normal human and it just looks as though I’ve murdered someone and am raving about being able to hear voices in my head. A full on loony tunes.

  I really don’t want that. The proof thing is out for now. I just need to focus on making a plan for killing one. I suppose the conventional methods should be considered first. A gun would be the most detached. A direct shot to the head or heart for a swift death with minimal involvement. If I approach one in darkness, it’ll be a surprise and they won’t have time to get into my head and try to stop me.

  I never thought I would be considering something like this. A few months ago I was trying to catch murderers, now I’m planning to be one myself. I remember my first big arrest as a new Detective Constable.

  We’d been working a tough case for a few days – a woman had been killed in a car park late one evening. She’d been to see a film at the cinema with friends then gone to her car alone. It was fairly empty
at that time so there were no witnesses, and the only CCTV camera was by the entrance barrier – there were none on the level her car was parked or in the stairwell to get there.

  Her body had been found a couple of hours later, on the floor by the driver’s side door of her car. She’d been strangled. Someone had come up behind her as she went to get in her car and killed her with their hands. There were bruises on her neck but nothing to suggest an object, like a noose, had been used. The attacker must have worn gloves, as there were no fingerprints on the victim. The woman hadn’t managed to put up much of a fight either and there was no DNA evidence under her fingernails or anything.

  We were stumped for days. Was this a random attack or someone she knew? It wasn’t a robbery or sexual assault, and forensics didn’t turn up anything useful. We interviewed all the friends and family, and pieced together the woman’s life. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Her name was Sarah Matthews. She was single, late twenties, had a full-time job and her own flat. She didn’t have any enemies. We followed her movements on CCTV from the cinema but no one was lurking in the shadows. Someone must have known that it was her car parked there and been waiting for her.

  We were hitting our heads against a brick wall. Then on the third night I had a break through. It was something so small that it seemed insignificant, but it ended up unravelling the whole case. I remembered one of her friends had mentioned she’d changed her route to work in the mornings to avoid seeing a man on the train who she’d briefly dated. They thought his name was Mike but none of them had met him, and Sarah hadn’t said much about him to them.

  I asked for access to her email accounts and we uncovered a ton of deleted messages in her trash folder. All from a guy called Michael Saunders, and they were pretty abusive. He’d obviously started harassing her after she ended their brief romance and she hadn’t told anyone about it. He asked why she was avoiding him and demanded to know what train she now took. He threatened to find out on his own. He was clearly obsessed. Sarah hadn’t responded to his messages, just deleted them, but it was a new lead for us.

  We arrested him that night and I got to sit in on the questioning. He crumbled after two hours and admitted to strangling Sarah. He claimed he had been on drugs at the time and that he had not intended to kill her, only find her to talk. He blamed psychological problems but it didn’t matter, he was guilty.

  Even now I can recall the feeling of euphoria that I’d helped to catch a killer. That I’d given Sarah’s parents some closure, knowing who had senselessly killed their daughter. In the courtroom, they got to see him sentenced to prison. My evidence had done that.

  So now it’s my turn to do the killing, I guess. These are not innocent people though, who simply spurned someone’s love, these are cold-blooded murderers. I’ll be a vigilante in a way, doling out my own kind of justice. Maybe one day I’ll have to be accountable for my actions, but not yet.

  24th October 2009

  I’ve decided on a knife as my first weapon of choice. I know I said I wanted to use a gun before, for the detachment, but I can’t risk getting hold of one. There’s no way I can ask anyone from my old station to get one for me, they’d be too suspicious. Marcus would probably think I was going to kill myself or something.

  I know some dodgy housing estates where I could manage to get one for the right price, although I don’t want to chance it. I wouldn’t be able to think of a plausible enough excuse if I got caught in possession of a gun.

  I considered a few other things – poison, strangulation, somehow giving one an overdose. Hikers remind me of vampires so maybe garlic and a wooden stake to the heart? Too far? They are all methods that involve getting up close and personal with a hiker though. I don’t think I have the stomach for physically strangling someone, and it takes too long. The hiker would have time to worm its way inside my mind and try to control me again. I could end up being killed instead.

  Poison and overdosing are out due to technicality. I presume hikers eat and drink but I haven’t actually seen one doing it yet, and they don’t carry any possessions with them. I have no way of slipping something to them without them knowing.

  I think a knife will be best. If I catch one unawares and inflict some swift fatal wounds, I can be sprinting away before it even knows what has happened. One deadly stab to the chest. The very thought of it makes me want to throw up. I’ve never injured anyone in my life. Actually feeling a knife entering someone’s flesh with your own hands? It sends shivers down my spine.

  I must not think of them as people. They are monsters. Things. Murderous creatures that like killing. They forced that innocent girl to jump to her death from the roof.

  I’m uncertain yet if it’s just the money that motivates them, or if it’s all done for pleasure. Could they be that sick that they enjoy causing people so much pain? The female had sounded excited at the prospect of that girl’s suicide. It’s an uneasy topic to think about.

  Psychology has always interested me. Finding out why people do what they do; what motivates them. I read some fascinating books about psychopaths a few years ago. Their lack of empathy and emotion is something I can connect hikers to. That female had actually laughed after the girl’s death; there was no remorse there.

  I don’t know if that’s a mind-set they have been born with or if they are somehow trained. Could the Grand have raised them to be like they are? Ariada called him ‘father’ and I’m inclined to take that literally, given how much older his voice sounded. Could he have spawned the whole race? Could all their brainpower be inherited from him? Can you pass down a thing like that genetically? I think I might have to get the books out again.

  31st October 2009

  I’m still gearing up for my attack. For the last week I’ve been busy finding and tracking two hikers. One female in Surrey, who I managed to follow for most of an afternoon and evening, and one male in Bristol, who I lost after a couple of hours.

  There’s some horrible fascination with watching them, similar to how I can’t help but stare as I go past the scene of an accident on the motorway. They are more evil and inhumane than I imagined.

  The female in Surrey had killed a father of two, which is what took me to the area. I picked her up after a few hours and she already had another victim under her spell. This time a teenage boy, who was being physically abused at home by his stepfather. From the words I could make out, he was only about seventeen years old. She made him slit his wrists in the bath.

  I was too late to help him. I found his house just as he was slipping away and everything went silent. Purely by chance, I caught a glimpse of the female walking away down the road. She was wearing a long, black dress and had raven black hair. I could only see the back of her but I knew exactly who she was.

  I stayed as far back as I dared and followed her as she roamed the streets. She was in no hurry and didn’t seem as if she had any destination in mind. I tracked her as she went into a café on a small high street and had dinner. I didn’t go inside but I passed by the window twice and saw her sitting near the back with a plate of something in front of her.

  After about twenty minutes, she came out and resumed her wandering. By the time it got dark, I was thirsty, tired and starving. I hadn’t been very prepared and didn’t have any food or drink in my rucksack. I didn’t want to risk stopping to buy something though, in case I lost her.

  Eventually she slipped through a fence into the grounds of a closed school. I can’t tell you how hard my heart was pounding as I followed her into the darkness. I had my knife in the side pocket of my pack; it’s the small hunting knife I bought the other month. The shop specialised in fishing equipment and sporting goods but I found the perfect knife in there, supposedly for gutting fish. It’s got a razor-sharp blade, dark grey handle and it’s small enough to conceal easily. I told the shop assistant at the time that I was a diver and liked to carry a knife just in case. He looked completely bored and I doubt he’d remember anything I said to him.

  T
he female led me around the side of a building, deep into the blackness. I poked my head round the corner to check how far ahead she was but she was gone. In a split second she’d vanished. My terrified mind jumped to the conclusion that she’d realised I was tracking her and she was now circling around the shadows to attack me instead.

  I could barely catch my breath over the thumping of my heart. My ears strained to hear any little sound only the blood rushing to my head was too loud. I crept along the wall, imagining that I could feel her eyes on me. I realised ten metres down that there was a gap through to some bins. The hiker hadn’t disappeared; she had simply gone along there. I inched my way slowly through the passage and caught a glimpse of a figure at the end. It was her. She was standing there, motionless.

  I ducked behind one of the wheelie bins and waited for her to call out to me. Surely she must have seen me? There was only silence. After a long minute, I plucked up the courage to take another look. I craned my neck and saw that she was still standing in the same position. Her head was lowered so her hair fell forward across half her face. Her arms were hanging limply by her sides. What was she doing?

  I crept out from behind the bins and started to walk towards her. Somehow, without registering it, I’d taken the hunting knife out of my rucksack and had it clenched in my hand. I’ve got to say, I’m not entirely sure what I thought I was going to do. I’m not certain I had the conviction in that moment to actually stab her.

  I walked slowly over to where she was standing and realised she was asleep. Her breathing was slow and her body still. It seems hikers can sleep standing up. The other strange thing was her eyes – they were half open and fixed on a spot on the ground about a metre in front of her, but they weren’t seeing anything.