The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  ‘You’ve gotta be fucking joking!’ O’Neill had given this man a chance, and this was the best he could do? It was impossible for him to hold back any longer; he was not about to believe that this multiple killer was a Chinese spirit that had been awakened after thousands of years to kill randomly.

  ‘Hold on and let me finish before you pass judgment Special Agent. I’m not telling you I didn’t have trouble believing what he told me either at first, but I listened – despite thinking it was mad.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a lot of work yourself if you’re going to convince me that you’re not mad.’ It was all O’Neill could do to prevent himself from shaking his head at Todd Mayhew, and he expected to be leaving the Coffee House within a couple of minutes.

  ‘When the spirit awoke it must already have been huge. It had been absorbing people’s strength for many years.’ The eyes of the wizened old man fixed on the big Special Agent’s and he said deliberately, ‘I’m serious here. When I read what was in the file it got me worried, seriously worried. It doesn’t kill randomly. It forms links with the minds of others through killing their relatives. It targets succeeding generations by controlling their destinies through their minds.’

  O’Neill stared at Mayhew, incredulous. It was preposterous, but the old man was deadly serious, and his gut feeling told him he should listen. His mind told him it all had to be nonsense, but it was something he would have to check out discreetly when he got the chance later in the day. He would have to keep it to himself though; he didn’t want the likes of Hoskins thinking he was going crazy too. ‘So, did it kill Paul’s grandmother?’

  ‘Yes, it did. It drove her mad, and she took her own life. Apparently, it spoke to her inside her head and told her what it was going to do. Maybe it was fear, or guilt at what she was responsible for awakening.’

  ‘Okay, so let’s say I believed you on this. How would we find out who it has already killed, and how would we stop it from killing their relatives?’ O’Neill studied Mayhew with an intent look.

  Mayhew returned his gaze and spoke quietly, ‘Legend has it that it will not move from the area where it awakes until it has forged its links. The psychic bonds it makes with the generations of these families holds it in one place until it has taken them all. We’ve got to stop it before then, because it’s the final twist that is the most serious.’

  ‘What’s the final twist, Todd?’ Special Agent O’Neill felt as though he were looking inside the mind of Stephen King. The story that was unraveling before him was amazing, and he couldn’t help thinking that King could have added to his considerable fortune through writing about a set of circumstances and events as crazy as the ones being detailed to him by Todd Mayhew.

  ‘Did anybody ever tell you that through meeting seven people you could be introduced to everyone in the world?’ Mayhew studied O’Neill to see if he grasped what he was trying to tell him.

  ‘Erm, no they didn’t. Why?’ The Special Agent’s hesitation allowed Todd Mayhew to continue, although he was reluctant to say what he had to say out loud. ‘It goes like this: if you know seven people and they introduce you to everybody they know and they introduce you to everybody they know then you’ve met a lot of new people. Correct?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Mayhew looked at O’Neill, waiting for the penny to drop. The Special Agent continued to look at him blankly, waiting for him to continue. He was determined not to lead or encourage the man.

  ‘It would spiral out of control. Don’t you see?’

  ‘I think I get it Todd. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear you say it though. I want you to prove to me why you think it’s so real.’

  A look of sadness was visible in the eyes of Mayhew. He looked out of the window and said, ‘Paul got the stuff in that file before the days of the Internet, Special Agent. To the people that wrote it, it was just an old legend, a fairytale. None of them really believed it was true. To them it was like a movie, and to me it was too. But it’s true. It must be true. I did some research of my own using the Internet. Shimasou has its own version of the theory that I just mentioned to you. Once it has completed its first chain it will be unstoppable. Its power will be so huge that it will start to stretch its psychic links and begin to control more and more people across the country and then the world. It will just keep getting bigger. Scientists now think that they can trace everybody back to one woman, our earth mother. Everyone who is alive now is related to that first woman. It will take over the world. Unless it is stopped now.’

  ‘I really would like to believe that this is a wind-up Todd,’ the bemused Special Agent said ruefully.

  ‘Me too, Sam. Me too.’ A note of resignation sounded in his voice as he repeated himself to the Special Agent.

  ‘With all due respect to you Todd, you don’t have any concrete proof of this.’

  ‘That’s where you come in, Sam. You can help me find out who it’s killed and where it is going to be.’ Mayhew had thought carefully about what his next move was going to be. As reluctant as he was to be a part of this seemingly crazy story, he had resolved to take it seriously.

  Special Agent O’Neill considered the situation for a moment before he spoke. ‘I don’t know about this, Todd. I mean, me and my boss have had some differences of opinion concerning this case, and I don’t think he’s in the mood for listening to anything unorthodox at this moment.’

  ‘So don’t tell him about it. Check it off the record. If you can find out the links it has made then the others can beat it. That’s if we can find the others. Find out the names of the relatives killed by it, and they might just stand a chance.’

  The two men sat tensely monitoring each other’s expression. O’Neill wondered how he knew so much about this thing. It could be an attempt to deflect my attention, he thought to himself, before addressing Todd Mayhew. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about this Shimasou.’

  ‘I told you, Sam. I researched it using the Internet. Everything I found is included in that file.’ He gestured toward the file that lay between the two men. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by O’Neill that Mayhew was now on first name basis with him, and he decided to give it a shot. Any lead was better than no lead at all.

  ‘Okay Todd. I’ll take the file and check it out. But it’s off the record, and I’m not making any promises, okay?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Sure, thank you.’ An elated look spread across Mayhew’s face. The Special Agent would not be able to deny it was true once he checked it out. He would have to help, and he would have the means for doing so.

  He felt in his pocket before taking out a biro and jotting down a telephone number across the back of the file. ‘That’s my number. Call me once you’ve checked it out. Thank you, Sam.’ Mayhew smiled, extending a hand toward the O’Neill. The big man grasped it and shook it firmly.

  ‘If all of this is true then I’ll be thanking you, Todd.’ But O’Neill wondered if he would. If all this were true then even he might not be alive long enough to thank Todd Mayhew.

  Both men stood, and Todd watched O’Neill walk out through the door of the Coffee House, before sitting down on the leather chair and taking a deep breath. His heartbeat was rapid, and the stress of the pressure of the situation in which he was involved was immense.

  The cop had to help.

  24

  Sam O’Neill walked out of the Coffee House and into the afternoon. The sun had managed to peep through the clouds, and it was a lot warmer than it had been when he had first met Todd Mayhew. As he began to walk in the direction they had driven three-quarters of an hour earlier, he felt a sense of detachment from the people that were going about their everyday business all around him. If Todd Mayhew’s Shimasou story were true then the people that walked around oblivious to it were wasting their time. They’d be better off getting drunk and having a wild time.

  He walked onwards; making steady progress, clutching the file that Mayhew had given him under his left arm. Taking out his cell phone, he was annoyed to s
ee that the display telling the strength of the signal was blank, meaning that he had been unable to receive any calls for up to forty minutes while he’d been with Mayhew.

  ‘Damn it,’ he lamented to himself, and switched the phone off and then back on in an attempt to reestablish the signal. He’d been meaning to buy a new phone; one that didn’t lose its usefulness whenever he went indoors, but he had made do with this one. Now, he watched as three lines appeared in the top left hand corner of the screen, registering a strong signal. This was accompanied by a beep that was followed by two more, indicating the arrival of a text message. He fumbled with the small keys on the cell phone as he tried to retrieve it.

  The sender’s name was the first thing that appeared on the screen. O’Neill saw that it was from Hoskins and got even more annoyed. Now he’ll think I’m slacking off, he thought, and pressed the OK button to reveal the content of the message, which read, ‘CHIEF – CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS MESSAGE – IMP. NEWS’.

  He stopped as he scanned through his stored numbers, looking for Hoskins’ number. When he found it he pressed the OK button and held it to his ear. He was greeted by the crackle that always accompanied his calls, and heard Hoskins’ cell phone ring for two seconds before Hoskins answered it with, ‘Hi Boss.’ Without pausing for O’Neill to answer him he continued, ‘you’d better get down here. There’s a break on the case.’

  ‘I might have a chance of getting down there if you tell me where you are,’ O’Neill replied, both unable and unwilling to mask his usual annoyance from Hoskins.

  ‘I’m at the forensics laboratory on May’s Street.’ Hoskins himself was having trouble keeping his temper and not telling O’Neill to go and screw himself.

  ‘Okay. Listen, I’m not that far away from there. Stay there and don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in ten minutes or so.’

  He hung up before Hoskins could reply, and ran towards Paul Wayans’ house where he had left his car, getting out of breath very quickly due to the fact that he never exercised. He did not have far to go though, and he reached the car within a couple of minutes, wheezing and needing a glass of water as he got into the car and drove away past the remaining agents that guarded the crime scene he had witnessed earlier.

  Only a couple remained. They were good at their jobs; bagging up everything quickly and with the minimum amount of fuss and maximum amount of organization, ensuring that nothing was lost from the majority of the crime scenes that they visited. O’Neill thought again about the file as he turned the corner and lost sight of Wayans’ house in his rear-view mirror. It would have to wait. Todd Mayhew would have to wait.

  May’s Street was a short distance from Paul Wayans’ house. He had driven past it on his way to the scene of Wayans’ murder earlier that morning, and it did not take him long to negotiate his way back to the drab two-story building through the sparse traffic. Parking directly in front of the building, he took out a police parking permit and placed it in the window of the car, to ensure it did not get towed away while he was inside, before exiting, locking the vehicle and walking towards the building.

  O’Neill pushed open the door and strode up to the counter. He did not recognize the woman who sat with her head bowed, studying paperwork. As he approached she lifted her head to look directly at him and he was pleased when she said, ‘Good afternoon Special Agent O’Neill. How can I help you?’

  He hadn’t recognized her even when she had lifted her head, and he took a compliment from her greeting that soothed his faltering ego somewhat. He stood smiling for a second before saying, ‘Good afternoon. Can you direct me to my fellow officer, Hoskins?’

  ‘Sure, of course. You need to go through these doors and follow the corridor until you see an archway. Go through the archway and turn left. It’s Doctor Jules’ room.’

  ‘Thanks,’ O’Neill replied, before pushing his way through the doors and walking down a wide corridor that stretched away in front of him until it reached an archway that as yet he could not fully make out. As he continued, he ignored the view from the windows on either side of him in favor of the archway that he now approached. It was amazingly ornate, with stone children surrounded by flowers that were also carved from stone that intertwined around them, covering their nudity and maintaining their innocence as they played on despite their obviously old age. The building itself was more modern, which explained its drabness, and O’Neill realized that the new building must have been built around this, very old archway. He passed through the archway and turned into another corridor. This, he thought, was very much a part of the new building.

  To his left, windows were blocked by notice boards containing prevalent articles from different medical journals that O’Neill did not pay much attention to. To his right, across the length of the corridor, were three doors. The first door contained a plastic sign that read ‘Dr. Heinze’. O’Neill continued on to the second door and saw that its sign read ‘Dr. Jules’. He rapped on the door with the knuckles of his left hand and waited a moment before entering the room. It was a laboratory, with shelves on one wall that were lined with large textbooks. On the other side of the room was a desk piled high with paperwork, and O’Neill thought this a very similar filing technique to his own as he walked towards the two men standing with their backs to him in the center of the room, looking at a second computer screen that seemed to be either scanning something or checking directories. As he approached, Hoskins whirled around and said, ‘Jesus, Chief. I nearly died.’

  ‘You didn’t hear me knock, O’Neill replied as he shook hands with Doctor Jules.

  The doctor smiled in amusement at the words spoken to the shaken Hoskins. ‘Hello, Special Agent O’Neill. How are you?’ O’Neill let go of his hand and turned back to Hoskins. ‘Okay, Hoskins. I want you to do something very important for me.’

  Hoskins’ face became a picture of concentration, as he waited for his instructions. ‘I want you to go outside and keep an eye on my car. Make sure it doesn’t get towed away. We all know how tight police budgets are nowadays.’

  Hoskins shook his head in disgust at O’Neill. It was obvious that he didn’t want to let him in on the details of the case, and Hoskins did not try to hide the fact that he did not want to be O’Neill’s personal assistant. O’Neill didn’t care about his feelings. He turned away without reacting to Hoskins’ look. A dejected Hoskins turned and left the room, before O’Neill continued, ‘Okay Doctor, what’s the news?’

  ‘Well, Special Agent O’Neill. As you know, officers at the crime scene found two spots in the garden of the house from where they think the victim was observed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They did an excellent job of collecting anything that might have contained DNA from the killer, or killers, of Paul Wayans.’ The doctor managed to raise another smile.

  ‘What did they find?’ O’Neill was eager to hear what the doctor had to say and tried to prompt him onwards.

  ‘Well, from the first spot nearest the house they didn’t find anything that could give us any clues. But from the second spot they retrieved a hair. They also found a hair on the stairs of house, and that hair belonged to the same person. I’m waiting on a result from the FBI files to see if they have a match; and you know yourself Special Agent, that anyone who has touched a dollar bill in the United States of America has a record on this system.’

  Both men watched the screen tentatively in silence. A window in the middle of the screen almost buzzed, such was the speed of the names and other information that passed through the system, before the speakers that were placed on either side of the monitor attempted to initiate another conversation.

  ‘Search complete. One match,’ the computer piped up in its monosyllabic tone, before beginning to produce an image of the person whose hair had been found at the Wayans crime scene.

  Doctor Jules and Special Agent Sam O’Neill looked expectantly at one another, before both looked back at the monitor. O’Neill always felt a sense of excitement welling up inside
of him as he got nearer to identifying a killer. As the hair and forehead of a woman appeared on the screen, he wondered if a woman could be responsible for such crimes. The force exercised in the murder of Riley and Wayans was equivalent to no other murder scene he had witnessed, and he expected that if a woman were involved then she surely must have a male accomplice. That would explain the second spot in the garden, but he had obviously been more careful than the woman whose eyes were now visible.

  ‘Can it go any faster than this?’ O’Neill asked Doctor Jules, impatient to find out who he was dealing with and get moving.

  ‘Yes. Hang on,’ Jules replied and used the mouse to logoff from the main frame. As the window closed the full picture became visible straight away.

  Surely not, O’Neill thought to himself. This can’t be the killer.

  The face that stared back at him from the screen was the face of one Sandy Carson. Older now and with longer hair, but unmistakably Sandy Carson. Her name had changed too; she was now Sandy Myers, and a second theory came into the head of O’Neill. He thought about the death of her parents, and remembered how they had been unable to bring the case to a conclusion. It had been a case that he had badly wanted to solve; the young Sandy Carson had been a teenager and the brutality of the murder coupled with the loss of both of her parents had angered him.

  Mayhew would say that the first spot in the garden was where Shimasou had been watching Wayans, and that there was no forensic evidence to be found because it was not made up of its victims DNA, despite feeding from their strength and experience.

  Maybe he was right. It would certainly make a link. The murder of Sandy’s parents had been similar, with the huge force that had been used to kill Riley and Wayans, and he had to take the possibility of Sandy Carson being a victim seriously.

  On the other hand, his training and years of experience suggested another scenario that could explain the presence of Sandy Carson’s hairs at the crime scene. It seemed to be on the television regularly; a story about somebody who was so badly affected by the murder of a loved one that they became murderers themselves, intent on gaining revenge or realizing the killer’s objectives to ensure the death of their loved one was not totally in vain.