The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  After a ten second interval the words ‘Search Complete’ flashed up on the screen in front of him, and a list of the twenty nearest matches was shown, split onto two pages. O’Neill scanned up and down the first page and saw that there was no Riley present on the list. This disappointed him somewhat, as he expected any match to be at the very top of the list, and he used the mouse to click on the icon marked ‘Next’, revealing numbers eleven to twenty. His heart sank as he read through the second page of results. He was coming to the end of the list, and still hadn’t made a link between John Riley and a relative that would support the information given to him by Todd Mayhew.

  As he reached the end of the list, O’Neill’s jaw dropped. There was a Riley alright. Whoever had inputted the details had managed to put a comma in the middle of the word (probably when pressing the ‘L’ key, he thought), meaning that the name read as ‘Ri,ley’.

  So the name of June Riley had been relegated to the bottom of the list.

  O’Neill sat for a moment, looking at the screen. This could be the proof he needed to be convinced that the legend of Shimasou was real. It could also be the fourth murder (fifth if Paul Wayans’ grandmother had also been a victim) that Shimasou was responsible for. He took a deep breath, before using a sweaty palm to direct the flashing cursor towards the name and clicking what was possibly the five most important letters he would ever see.

  Within seconds the screen filled with the details of the case, including a picture of the victim. O’Neill began to read the case notes that were set before him on the screen. The date of the murder was the 17th of July 1990. ‘Oh fuck’, O’Neill mumbled, as his heart rate began to increase. He read on,

  ‘Cause of Death: Repeated stab wounds to the upper torso, several of which pierced the heart of the victim. Profile: Single white female. Age: 40. Family: One child, John (aged 15 years).’

  O’Neill was struck dumb by the information. From the details on the screen, it looked as though Mayhew’s story checked out, and that in turn probably meant that the legend of Shimasou was true. The busy office that surrounded him receded, as he slumped in the chair and continued to stare at the monitor for a full minute, trying to figure out a reason that could link Sandy Myers to the crimes.

  He clicked on the ‘Notes’ option for the record, and saw amongst them that details of the name of the victim had not been released to the press. This meant only one thing to Special Agent O’Neill. It meant that Sandy Myers could not have known to target John Riley if she were a copycat killer or someone trying to achieve the twisted goals of her parent’s killer.

  Shimasou was his only option. It was time to accept Mayhew’s theory and do something about it.

  What would be his next move? He couldn’t tell Lineker about it; he’d be committed to an asylum for the mentally insane. That or he would be ridiculed, taken off the case, and eventually forced into sick leave that he didn’t need. There was only one person he thought could help him. If the Internet legend of Shimasou was even half correct, then he knew he was definitely going to need help. Everyone was. Todd Mayhew would help him. While everybody involved with the case would laugh at such a bizarre theory, Mayhew already believed it.

  O’Neill decided he would take Mayhew with him to Sandy Myers’ home. The only problem with this decision was that he would have to go to Stamford to collect Mayhew, and this would add significantly to the time it was already going to take to get there. But this could not be helped. The feeling he had was strong; Todd Mayhew was going to help him with this case.

  O’Neill used the mouse for the last time, clicking on the option to reset the search field, before standing up and taking a lingering look around the office. Neither Lineker nor Hoskins were anywhere to be seen, and he went quickly towards the exit of the building without anybody interfering with his progress. When he returned he would be in dire straits as a result of flouting the orders of his boss. That was if he ever made it back. He was involved in something huge, and now that he realized this he didn’t want Hoskins with him, getting in the way and trying to take over with his new-fangled, 21st century policing methods.

  He went through the doors and out into an unsuspecting world. The birds continued to sing in the trees, and the branches swayed gently as if responding to the birdcalls. It was a dance of nature that O’Neill rarely took any notice of as he rushed around various scenes of unnatural occurrences, but he paused for a moment, savoring the innocence and simplicity inherent in the row of trees, all too rare in Brooklyn.

  If Shimasou succeeded, would the birds and the trees survive? O’Neill wondered, as he walked towards the rear of the building where he had left his car. Did they know something humans didn’t? Were the seemingly innocent and fragile sounding calls actually frantic warnings from above? O’Neill didn’t know. The world had taken on a different appearance for him, and his thoughts dealt only with minute-by-minute assessment.

  He looked towards where he had parked his car. What he saw made a smile spread across his face. His instinct had been correct. Leaning on the bonnet of the beaten up old vehicle was Todd Mayhew. Now they could really get moving. He would be able to get to Sandy Myers’ home in about thirty minutes. He would also be able to fill Mayhew in on the way, regarding the murders of June and John Riley. O’Neill felt that any real breaks he’d had on the case so far had come from Todd Mayhew, and as O’Neill reached the car he extended a hand towards the old man and said, ‘How did you know to come?’

  Mayhew smiled and answered, ‘I followed you through Brooklyn, because I know that Shimasou is real. I figured it was only a matter of time before you did too.’

  The smile slipped from the lips of O’Neill when he said this, and he fumbled with his keys before opening the car door and motioning for Mayhew to get in. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said as the old man lowered himself into the seat, being careful not to put his back out, and reminding O’Neill that the last thing he wanted to do was become involved in a violent encounter with Shimasou. He didn’t think his police issue revolver would stand much chance of stopping something so powerful.

  When Mayhew was comfortable, he slammed the door and went around to the driver’s side of the car before knocking on the window. Mayhew popped the lock on the door and O’Neill got into the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Mayhew asked O’Neill as he jammed his key in the ignition and attempted to start the engine.

  ‘We’re going to the home of Sandy Myers,’ came the reply from O’Neill, and Mayhew remained silent as he waited for an explanation from the big Special Agent. O’Neill didn’t answer, as he was busy trying to start the car’s failing engine, and Mayhew waited until they had begun to move before questioning O’Neill again.

  ‘First of all, who is Sandy Myers? Secondly, where is her home? And thirdly, why are we going there?’

  O’Neill glanced across momentarily and said, ‘You really would make a good Special Agent, Todd. After I left you I went to the forensics laboratory on May’s Street.’

  ‘I followed you, remember?’ The statement had a slightly sardonic air to it and O’Neill mumbled ‘Oh yeah’ before continuing with, ‘Anyway, they had recovered forensic evidence from the murder scene. When that evidence was checked using our database, we realized that it had come from a woman named Sandy Myers.’ O’Neill continued to stare at the road in front of him as he explained to Mayhew how he’d come to believe that Shimasou was real.

  Mayhew allowed him to speak, as much through intrigue as fear. He continued, ‘Ten years ago, both of Sandy Myers’ parents were killed in similar circumstances to Paul Wayans and John Riley. We found evidence that she was both outside and inside the property of Paul Wayans.’

  ‘But what does that mean?’ The old man looked bewildered at receiving O’Neill’s information.

  ‘At first I thought Sandy Myers might be the killer. I thought that maybe she was trying to exact some form of revenge or exorcise the demon of the murder of her parents. It’s been known to happen
in the past. That was why I came to Brooklyn. I wanted to check out Riley’s family history and try to find something to link Sandy Myers to that crime.’

  ‘And?’ Mayhew wanted each sentence to come ahead of the one it preceded; such was his eagerness to have all the information from O’Neill.

  ‘And I found out that John Riley’s mother was also murdered ten years ago. However, when I looked in the notes, I found out that her details had not been released to the press. So I knew it wasn’t some sort of copycat spree, because Sandy Myers could not have known to target John Riley. I had to believe that Shimasou was true then; it all made sense when you considered the theory.’

  ‘So why are we going to the home of Sandy Myers? It must already have her if she was at Paul’s house.’ The question was one O’Neill couldn’t answer. It was something that had already run through his mind, and all that he could do was to hope they could find out where she was. Then they could ask her why she had been at Wayans’ house at around the same time as he was murdered.

  Only by finding her would they stand a chance of saving her, and themselves. The only way Sandy stood any chance of beating the incarnated spirit of Shimasou was if they could reach her and tell her what the last page of the file had told them.

  Both men fell silent as they continued to make progress on their journey. O’Neill concentrated on the road ahead. Mayhew looked out of the window at the surroundings as they sped by.

  And both men feared that it might take a miracle.

  25

  Joe Myers paced up and down, wearing out further the already thinning carpet in the lounge of his home. The anxiety he felt after hearing his wife’s voice had induced in him a nervous energy. His pacing was an attempt to expel some of the energy and reduce the tension that had taken over his body and held him in an iron-like grip. It wasn’t working though. He felt tortured by his indecision, enclosed by the walls around him, unable to move in case the phone rang again.

  He stopped pacing momentarily, and looked at the clock. It hung on a tastefully decorated wall, beige wallpaper inset with a large floral plum colored pattern. Sandy had delighted in how it had transformed the room and made it feel more spacious. When he had eventually gotten round to doing it, that was.

  Every one second that ticked away seemed like four to him, as he considered his options and wondered what would be the best thing to do.

  He now knew that Sandy had gone to Melissa’s. This knowledge only made things harder for him. He wanted to protect Sandy. He wanted to shield her from a tsunami, deflect a nuclear bomb from hitting her, and climb a mountain to save her. But more than anything else, he wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. He wanted to dry her tears with kisses and calm her beating heart with his embrace. To look deep into her eyes and see the strength of their bond reflecting the faith they had in one another. Then nothing else would matter. A love as strong as theirs would survive any horror, any torture.

  Joe also knew that he wanted their children to still have parents when all this was over. He was devoted to Sandy and their happiness, and the torture making his blood boil came from the fact that if he went to Sandy, he would have to take Sean and David with him. Then they would all be at risk. If he didn’t go the kids were not at risk, but he felt as though he were abandoning his wife if he did nothing to protect her. They had made a vow that they would stand side by side through anything, and now more than ever this was what he wanted to do.

  He began to pace up and down the room once more, shuffling a pack of cards inside his head, as another five minutes dragged slowly by, seeming like twenty. A noise outside the property startled him and he went to the window.

  The car that had pulled up in the drive looked beaten up. The noise that had startled him, he now realized, had been the driver applying the hand brake to prevent it from rolling back down the drive, and Joe watched as two men inside the car exchanged several words before the man who had been driving got out and slammed the door. He was a big man, and Joe watched as he made his way up to the door of the house and rang the bell twice.

  Joe walked to the door. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Special Agent Sam O’Neill of the FBI, Sir,’ came the reply from outside, as O’Neill struggled to maintain a courteous manner, despite his eagerness to keep moving on the case. He didn’t need anybody delaying him – in any way.

  ‘You got some I.D?’

  ‘Yes I have. But you’re going to have to open the door if you want to see it.’ O’Neill could not keep the irritation from his voice, and his exact pronunciation of each syllable of his sentence only made it more apparent to Joe Myers, who opened the door nevertheless, looking long and hard at the FBI badge that O’Neill presented to him.

  As soon as he was visibly satisfied with what he saw (and maybe even slightly before), O’Neill began to probe for information. ‘You seem a little edgy Mr. Myers. Is everything okay?’

  Joe Myers stepped to the side and motioned the Special Agent into the lounge of his home without replying to the big man’s question.

  When O’Neill saw that he was not going to get a reply from the obviously tense man he continued, ‘I’m actually here to see your wife Mr. Myers. Is she here?’

  By looking at the unwashed crockery and children’s toys that were dotted around the room, O’Neill surmised quickly that she was not. If she was, he mused to himself as he waited momentarily for disheveled man’s response, the lounge probably wouldn’t look so bad. That was what women were good at.

  Joe Myers replied in a shaky voice. ‘She’s away at the moment.’

  ‘Listen, Mr. Myers. I’m not gonna beat around the bush here,’ O’Neill’s voice had begun to rise, and Myers looked increasingly alarmed as he continued, ‘I think your wife may be in great danger and I need to find her. Can you help me?’

  Myers sensed that the Special Agent did not want to repeat his question. He had fixed him with a stony glare that showed he meant business. His dark, brooding eyes suggested that now was not the time for games, and that he expected full cooperation from the man who stood in front of him, shaking like a leaf.

  ‘She told me you didn’t know what it was. You couldn’t catch it when it killed her parents because you didn’t know what it was. She said what was the point in going to you now if you couldn’t help her? She had to get away from it.’ Joe Myers’ words had come so rapidly and without pause that they had brought with them several splashes of saliva. They landed on O’Neill’s face, and he wiped them with his sleeve, grimacing slightly, before replying.

  ‘We know what it is, Mr. Myers. We want to help Sandy, but we need to know where she is.’ His usual method of beating information out of people had not done him much good as far as Paul Wayans was concerned. Maybe coaxing it out would prove more successful.

  Myers continued to speak; seemingly oblivious to the hurry the Special Agent was in to get moving, ‘She left yesterday. She didn’t tell me where she was going, because she didn’t want to put the boys or me at risk. She thought I’d follow her if I knew.’

  O’Neill nodded apologetically towards the distraught man. He tempered his irritation at being held up in his quest to find Sandy with the thought of how hard such a situation must be on a family, and allowed him to continue.

  ‘It’s been so hard. I took the kids to school to keep their routine the same. I’ll have to go and get them soon, and I don’t know what I’m going to tell them. She called earlier and said she was okay, but I just want her back here with me and the boys.’

  ‘Did she tell you where she was when she called?’

  O’Neill was desperate for this information. He wanted to find her before this thing did and save her. A part of him wanted to achieve every good cop’s dream: he wanted to save the world from an evil force that was plotting against it. He wanted to be the hero. Normal life wasn’t usually like the movies though, and he didn’t often get the chance to ride off into the sunset.

  Today, he didn’t know what
the sunset was going to bring. It may bring him the corpse of Sandy Myers, and plunge the human race further into peril. It may destroy not just the life of the man who struggled to prevent himself from weeping in front of the Special Agent, but also the lives of billions of people across the planet.

  ‘She told me she was at her friend’s house,’ Joe Myers relented. He couldn’t allow the situation to torture him any longer without trying to do something positive that may help his wife, and O’Neill felt as though a huge wave of relief washed over him, submerging him as he escaped every Agent’s nightmare: the dead-end.

  ‘Do you have her friend’s full address, Mr. Myers?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in our address book,’ Joe Myers said, before retrieving a small black hard-backed book from the drawer of a small wooden table on which stood a telephone, and flipping through the first couple of pages.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said, and ripped a page from the book. He handed it to O’Neill, who scrutinized it as if looking for microscopic germs that may be on its surface.

  But he was not interested in germs, he had bigger fish to fry, and he was working out the fact that he now had another seventy-kilometer drive to make before he reached Sandy Myers.

  That was if she was still there. And still alive.

  Deciding he’d better not hang around, O’Neill turned abruptly and walked out the door, murmuring ‘Thanks’ as he went.

  ‘Hold on. What about me?’ Joe cried out after him. O’Neill walked towards the car where the second man sat waiting.

  ‘You’ve got to stay here, Mr. Myers. Sandy was right. You need to look after your boys. I’ll call you as soon as I have any news.’