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

by Lauren Algeo

  I woke up drenched in sweat and there was no chance of going back to sleep. I’ve been reading various news websites since and I think I’ve found a possible hiker. There’s a woman in Eddington who came home from work yesterday and stabbed her fiancée to death, before slitting her own wrists. Murder-suicide might not normally hint at a hiker but according to reports this couple were very much in love and due to be married in less than three months. Plus, the man had recently left a post at the U.S Treasury to start a new business. A money angle is always suspicious and it’s enough to start with. I’ll just have to put up with Mitch tagging along.

  I was right; it’s a hiker. A female one. We’ve tracked her to a house in an upmarket residential street. Mitch doesn’t fully believe, mainly due to the fact that he can’t hear it, but she’s loud and clear to me. Unfortunately. Hearing one again is horrendous. I’d hoped the Grand would be the last one but now there’s her voice, snaking its way through my head.

  She’s talking to a young girl, telling her that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a close friend. The seductive tone is the same only this hiker has an American accent. It sounds strange to hear anything other than a British one in my mind. I can’t tell a state of origin but it makes me wonder if this one was raised over here, rather than being sent across by the Grand for a job. That’s something I’ll have to think about when there’s more time. Right now the hiker is insisting this girl find her friend at a nearby gym and get revenge.

  30th January 2012

  I need to tell you something and you’re not going to like it. Not one little bit. I don’t believe it myself. It can’t be possible. He can’t be…

  The Grand is still alive. There I said it. Seeing the words in black and white still doesn’t make them real. How? We killed him – Georgie killed him. I saw him crumple to the ground. I checked his lifeless body for a pulse and there wasn’t one. I even stabbed him in the chest with Georgie’s flick knife and the wound didn’t heal. He was dead. He is dead. Yet that hiker said… Father is coming. Father.

  I vomited then and I’m close to throwing up again now. Tears keep pricking the back of my eyes but I won’t give in to them. I can’t accept that Georgie’s death might have been for nothing. Surely the universe couldn’t be that cruel?

  Mitch got me out of a bad situation yesterday. It’s the first time I was grateful to have him with me. We’d clashed again before that, obviously. We’d followed the girl to the gym in an effort to stop her murdering her innocent friend. Well, I say that but I wanted to monitor the situation first before we went charging in there. I was aware that I had Mitch with me, who was a complete novice, and I didn’t want to put us in unnecessary danger. He blew up at me again. Calling me a ‘sick bastard’ if I didn’t rush straight in to help the girl.

  You know he asked me if I’d killed Karen? Apparently because I can relate to what hikers make people do, he thinks that I murdered a loved one too. It’s completely absurd. Of course my reaction was a lot stronger than that and I yelled at him as well. I mean, really? I’ve told him that she died of a brain tumour. Most people offer their condolences, not accuse you of lying. I can’t believe he would even think something like that. I loved her more than anyone; I would never have hurt her. Hiker or not. I get how people can be manipulated by them enough to do something like that, but I never would have. Not me. Not my Karen.

  Anyway, Mitch stormed off into the leisure centre to ‘find’ the hiker himself and I had no choice but to go after him. He’d have only gotten himself into serious trouble if he had stumbled across them. Mitch was nowhere to be seen so I tracked the girl to the changing rooms. She was in the female ones and the hiker was telling her to sneak into the sauna while her friend was alone in there.

  I went into the men’s changing rooms to see if they led out to the sauna and found Mitch sulking in there. He couldn’t hear any of the exchange I was listening to and hadn’t been able to find the girl as a result. The room led out into the pool area, and the sauna. The girl was already in there but we were two fully clothed men and there were lifeguards between us and there. They would call security immediately and try to stop us.

  I could hear the girl was beginning to strangle her friend. I did the only thing I could think of and hit the fire alarm, in the hope that it would shock the girl out of what she was doing, or distract the hiker. It did neither. The girl was still squeezing her friend’s neck with her bare hands. I could hear the hiker egging her on and giving a running commentary. The alarm was wailing and people started to evacuate the pool. Mitch bolted for the sauna in the chaos to try and stop the girl but I knew it was already too late. Her friend was dead.

  It was then I heard the hiker whisper those three little words that made the world crash down around me. She told the girl that she had to leave now because ‘Father is coming’. I have a vague memory of collapsing onto the wet tiles but everything after that is a blur. I suppose I went into shock. Those were the last words I’d ever expected to hear.

  Luckily Mitch dragged me out of there and took me to a nearby café. According to him, I threw up right next to his trainers along the way, although I don’t really remember. I felt like I was drowning. He got me a mug of coffee but it went cold before I was fully with it again. I had to explain to Mitch what I’d heard and what it meant. The Grand isn’t dead. Not only that but he’s coming to Philadelphia. I knew I had to tell Mitch everything about the Grand’s house then so that he would fully understand.

  We went to the nearest bar and I downed several shots of JD to get through it. Mitch just sat with a coke and actually listened to me. I told him all about Georgie and exactly what she did. Everything we went through that night and how she died. In a way it was cathartic to actually talk about it. A little of the crushing weight on my shoulders lifted briefly. He said that she was very brave.

  I know how strong she was but right now I’m struggling to get a handle on my own strength. The fear in my stomach is like lead. I just want to run away, to put thousands of miles between myself and the Grand. I know I can’t though. I need to do this for her.

  I am going to put some distance between us temporarily, just until we’re ready to take him on again, and this time really kill him. I can’t do that until we’ve gotten hold of some more viruses or different methods over here. There’s so much to prepare.

  I told Mitch that I was getting out of the state as quickly as possible and he laughed in disbelief at first. He soon realised that I was deadly serious and he had a decision to make. Did he drop everything to come on a crazy, dangerous journey with me? A man he’d only just met who hunts hikers for a living. It didn’t take him long – he saw that girl in the sauna. When he got in there he saw the friend’s body on the floor, her eyes wide and unblinking. He said the girl was screaming and crying hysterically and he just ran back to the pool, and a semi-conscious me. I think that got through to him. This is all real. People are dying and I’m going to try and put a stop to it.

  He wants to help. He’s in. To be honest, I’m relieved he said that. The thought of being on my own with the Grand out there somewhere is terrifying. Not that having Mitch there would make a blind bit of difference in terms of strength, it just makes me feel better at the moment to have company.

  When we left the bar last night I told him to go home and pack, and be prepared to leave early this morning. I’m all ready to go. I was ready last night. Trying to sleep in this motel room was pointless, all I did was lay there for hours, imagining that I could head the Grand’s voice in my mind. Coming for me. Eventually the alcohol I’d consumed numbed me enough to get a couple of hours of dreamless sleep. I’ve been awake since 4am though.

  I think if I get to Mitch’s for about 8am he’ll be ready to leave. He was going to tell his mum that he is working in a store in a different town for a few weeks and then tell work that he has a family emergency in order to cover his disappearance. I don’t know how long it will take us or where we should even start. I suppose t
he first thing to do is pick a place to go.

  31st January 2012

  We’re in a motel room in New Haven, Connecticut. I picked it out on a map, due to it still being on the East coast but a good few hours away from the Grand. We took a couple of trains across the states and then a bus through Connecticut to New Haven. I used the journey time to fill Mitch in on the rest of my story – all of my hiker encounters, failures and successes. I even let him read a few of the entries in here so he could get a clearer picture of them.

  He knows everything about hikers now and this time he didn’t try to add his own theories. Instead, he apologised for offending me and insulting Karen’s memory. It surprised me to hear him being so genuine. I’ve only known him for a few days and during that time he’s been all over the place, either over-excited and joking or angry and insolent. That was the first time I’d seen him sincere.

  Perhaps that’ll help us get along better. We may not have gelled very well yet but we’re going to need to work together going forward. Especially now we have a new method to try. You know I said Mitch drank coke last night while I was putting the alcohol away? Turns out he is tea total for a reason: type 1 diabetes. We’d been thinking of new methods to experiment with on the train and he failed to mention his diabetes until we were getting off hours later, when he told me that he needed some food to get his blood sugar levels back up.

  I’ve done some research since and you can’t infect a hiker with diabetes, it’s not like meningitis or rabies, but Mitch does have insulin and that is an option. An overdose of insulin causes hypoglycaemic shock and can kill someone. Mitch can spare one of his 10ml pens, which is apparently more than enough to kill someone. The plan is to load a tranquiliser dart with the insulin and shoot it into a hiker’s bloodstream. Preferably by the main carotid artery in their neck, so it will act quicker and prevent their body from fighting it.

  That’s one good thing about America; it’s far easier to get hold of a gun here. Worrying, but useful for us. We found a place in nearby West Haven that sold tranquiliser guns. Mitch surprised me by having his own Glock 9mm handgun in his bag, but that will cause no damage to hikers. He has a licence to carry guns in Philadelphia although the bored guy behind the counter in the store didn’t even want to see it. He just wanted a quick sale and sold us a similar tranquiliser gun to the one I used with Georgie, and a new hunting knife for me. Again, not very effective against hikers (short of slowing them down briefly), but it makes me feel better to be armed.

  We’ve had burgers and fries for dinner in the motel room and are currently trying to locate a hiker to test the insulin on. If it works, we could use Mitch’s prescription to get some more. There might be a way to steal a bigger quantity as Mitch is only going to be able to spare a small amount each prescription. I guess that’s a problem for after we’ve found out if it works or not.

  Mitch thought he’d found a hiker half an hour ago but the story he was reading online is from ten weeks ago so I’m not very hopeful. It does reek of a hiker though. There’s a woman in West Rock Ridge, not too far away, whose daughter fell to her death while they were on a hike. There was one line in the report that claimed the first words the mother said through her shock were that they weren’t alone on that trail and she’d heard a man’s voice.

  It was brushed off as hysterical trauma and since been ruled as a tragic accident only I don’t believe that. I’m sure it was a hiker’s voice. I suppose it’s worth a visit to West Rock to confirm it with the mother. Her name is Ellen MacIntosh and she will know for sure what happened to her daughter. It’s the only lead we have at the moment so it’s worth investigating.

  1st February 2012

  Ellen’s daughter, Lucy, was killed by a hiker. She was only sixteen years old. We caught the bus to West Rock early this morning and located her house. It was a nice place, fairly spacious and detached, but the overgrown garden and newspapers on the porch hinted at the grief of the woman inside. The articles said Lucy was her only daughter and there was no mention of a husband or partner. I went up alone first to ring the bell, in case the sight of two strange men on her doorstep scared her.

  I remember clearly the days I spent locked in my own house after Karen died. The curtains drawn and only my pain for company. Ellen’s red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks were fully expected when she finally opened the door. She looked very thin – her body swamped by a baggy grey t-shirt, and the tight ponytail in her brown hair made her cheekbones appear sharper.

  I introduced myself and tried to gently broach the subject of Lucy but she slammed the door in my face. Only calling out to her about the man’s voice she’d heard got her to open it again. I didn’t mean to anger her but I was desperate for her to talk to us. She was too weak to put up a fight and her anger faded rapidly. She let Mitch and I into a house that clearly hadn’t been looked after for weeks.

  With a little persuasion, she told us about Lucy. I think she could tell from my gaze that I’ve lost people too. It’s easy for me to see the grief I feel reflected in her eyes, so maybe she can see it too.

  Ellen said that she and Lucy were on a trail they’d walked countless times before and Lucy had been acting strangely. She’d been withdrawn and quiet for a couple of days but Ellen put that down to some problems she’d been having with school bullies, which she thought was over. On the trail she said she heard a faint whisper but no one was around and Lucy didn’t appear to hear it.

  They walked to the highest point of the trail and Lucy announced that they were ‘here’. Ellen told us that she realised her daughter was crying and then she heard the man’s voice again. He told her to look at Lucy and see how unhappy she was, that the bullying had gotten worse and Lucy was suffering. He laughed at her and cruelly said that what was about to happen was her fault and he wanted her to see it. Lucy marched straight to the edge of the ridge and stepped off. With her arms out at the sides, just like that girl I saw back in Leeds. According to Ellen, she didn’t make a sound. No scream on the way down. It makes me shudder to think about it. The hiker must have stayed in her mind for some of the plummet. I hope she never fully realised what was happening.

  Ellen broke down when she finished telling us and I tried my best to comfort her. I know from experience that it doesn’t mean much when you feel like you’re going to die from the loss but I put my arm around her shoulders all the same. Just so she knew someone was there. Mitch looked pretty dumbfounded but he made himself useful by getting a glass of water and some tissues for her. Eventually she calmed down enough to ask me what had really happened to her daughter. She knew she would never have taken her own life and that man’s voice had something to do with it.

  I told her about hikers, and what they do to people. I expected more of a reaction to me telling her that there are people in the world who can read your mind and manipulate your actions, ones that are stronger than any normal human and possess amazing regenerative abilities. Ellen just nodded then asked if Lucy had been murdered by a hiker. When I said yes, her entire body language changed. Her head snapped up alertly, her eyes focussed and her voice was steadier.

  She wanted to call the police and try to catch her daughter’s killer. It was hard to explain that the police wouldn’t be able to help. Even if they thought you weren’t completely insane, they can’t hear hikers and therefore wouldn’t be able to find them. If we tracked one for them it would still be no good as there’s no evidence, nothing to pin them to these murders and suicides. How could you say that a male hiker’s voice caused Lucy to jump to her death? They can easily manipulate their way out of an interview with the police anyway. A simple persuasion of their innocence and they’d be free to go.

  Ellen understood. She’d changed her own story from her initial outburst after Lucy’s death, from claiming they hadn’t been alone up there, to saying Lucy had slipped accidently. It was easy for her to blame it on her hysteria and she hadn’t wanted anyone to think that Lucy had willingly killed herself. I suppose I get why
she wouldn’t want people to believe that.

  When I told her that we’re planning on hunting a hiker down and trying out the insulin she insisted on coming. Informed us quite forcefully that she wants to kill hikers after what they did to her poor daughter. I must be getting soft as I gave in easily. Her determination is strong and she has the advantage over Mitch of being able to hear them too.

  When we came here earlier, I would never have expected that we would be leaving with another person in our group. And what an odd group we are; three strangers bound by grief and a desire for revenge.

  Ellen’s just packing her stuff to leave and Mitch is waiting impatiently. We’ve had lunch since Ellen announced that she would be joining us, just some pizzas while we finished filling her in on hikers, and answered dozens of her questions. She went to shower while the food was cooking and Mitch had a nap on the sofa. When she came back she looked completely different. She’d washed her hair and put some make up on. The baggy clothes were gone and she had on a fitted blue jumper and jeans.

  It feels like a betrayal to write this down but she’s an attractive woman. I hadn’t noticed initially but now I can’t stop myself from thinking it. I don’t know what it is. The smell of her perfume sent a hot flush creeping up my neck. It’s ridiculous – I don’t know why I’m even mentioning it. I’m not really attracted to her; it must be an emotional reaction to the news of the Grand. Yes, that’s it. Just noting that someone is good looking doesn’t mean anything.

  I found out during lunch that she’s thirty-eight years old and she worked in the local library before Lucy died. She hasn’t mentioned Lucy’s dad yet and I don’t want to push it. She did reveal one very useful fact though – she is a member of the local gun range and a very good shot. She has her own Glock handgun, like Mitch’s, and is going to bring it with us. We’ve stored the guns in her navy holdall so they are inconspicuous.