The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  Joe watched as he got into the car without speaking to the second man, and started the ignition. He reversed backwards out of the drive, not pausing to check if there were any other cars coming, and sped away down the road without so much as glancing back at Joe Myers.

  Joe heaved a deep sigh as he closed the door and instantly became imprisoned by the walls around him once more. But he didn’t take my number, he thought disconsolately.

  A mile away, Todd Mayhew broke the silence in the speeding car with a question.

  ‘What did he say?’ He looked at O’Neill expectantly, hoping for an answer that would give him some hope about the future.

  O’Neill took his eyes off the road briefly and looked directly at Mayhew, before saying in a deliberately calm tone, ‘Hold on tight. We’re going to the beach.’

  26

  Sandy Myers lay in front of the sofa in Melissa Dahlia’s lounge. After making the telephone call to Joe she had curled up into a fetal position and cried herself to sleep.

  Opening her eyes, she saw that she was in an old warehouse. She looked up and saw that half of the roof was missing, while the rest hung down precariously. On the floor around her were piles of debris from the crumbling old building.

  It’s a dream. I’m still dreaming, she thought to herself and closed her eyes.

  An image of her mother, battered and bloody, fleeted across the backs of her eyelids. Sandy gasped and opened her eyes once more, trying desperately to stand. She remained where she was on the floor, unable to move so much as a muscle and wondering what was going on. The possibility that her stalker was toying with her was very real for Sandy, as she considered whether this was the hideout from where the letters originated. But if this was its hideout, then where was it?

  Sandy closed her eyes again and was confronted by an image of her father, bleeding to death from wounds inflicted upon his upper body. She fought to keep her eyes closed, in an effort to comfort him as his life ebbed out from massive wounds. He looked up at her from the floor of their back yard; his eyes tortured with fear and horror, and Sandy wondered whether or not he could see her standing in front of him.

  From the look in his eyes, Sandy felt like she herself was his killer. There was seemingly no recognition from him of the fact that his daughter tried to comfort him, and Sandy opened her eyes again to return to the warehouse.

  As she did so she felt herself rising up from her prone position on the cold, concrete floor of the warehouse. She was not controlling this dream. It was. As she straightened up she was shocked to feel like she were ten feet tall, and looked down at two hands that were not her own.

  It held something in both of its large hands, but Sandy could not make out what it was. She thought it looked like envelopes, but her vision was clouded and she could not make out either the detail of the envelopes or a clear image of the large hands that held them.

  One thing she was certain of was that the hands were not her own, and as she watched them they turned over the envelopes. Both looked as though they had something written on the front, and she strained to make out what it was. She failed to do so, and was surprised a second later when she began to move towards a large doorway through which shone a beam of sunlight.

  The sensation was a strange one. She felt as though she were getting a piggyback ride – such was the distance from where she looked to the floor, but she realized this wasn’t the case. She was looking through the eyes of the killer as it went about its business, preparing to take its next victim; which she presumed would be her. Panic surged through her, finding every millimeter of her body, and she told herself repeatedly to wake up.

  Wake up. Wake up.

  But she didn’t wake up, and by the time the thing whose eyes she was looking through reached the outside she had begun to pray, but to little effect; prayers didn’t seem to affect this huge being. There was nothing she could do; her mind was at its mercy.

  The huge figure continued to transport Sandy towards its intended destination, traveling through streets that were deserted despite it being early afternoon.

  Where are all the people? Sandy wondered to herself. Why is there nobody here to see this thing? Where is it taking me? she thought to herself, scared that she was about to witness another murder scene like the one she had witnessed in the early hours of the morning.

  Except this time, she feared it would be her own.

  As her fear grew her sight began to clear somewhat, and by the time she had reached the Sleep-Easy motel her vision had cleared sufficiently for her to be able to see the brightly colored buildings reasonably clearly. Sandy closed her eyes for a couple of seconds and saw a man walking near a lake. He was quite a large man who looked dissatisfied with his lot, and Sandy knew that he must be a target for the thing that had been hunting her.

  This man was in danger.

  Upon opening her eyes, she saw that her vision had cleared totally. Everything had become crystal clear, and she was now standing outside room number Thirteen B of the Sleep-Easy motel, looking down at an envelope with the word ‘ARNOLD’ scrawled onto the front.

  The name was unfamiliar, and she wondered whether Arnold was the name of the man she had seen moments ago, walking away from a picturesque lake. The huge figure stooped and pushed the envelope under the door. It then straightened, turned, and began to walk away from the door without pausing to look back. The first part of its mission was complete.

  Sandy was relieved that she had not been forced to witness another murder by the thing that had hunted her down and got inside her head. Maybe now she would be allowed to wake up. Maybe it had shown her all it wanted to for now. But she remained a passenger, as the figure walked away from the motel towards the road that was still deserted, and she began to take note of the things around her. There was not much for her to see however; just the deserted road, the still branches of the trees, and the motel; as nondescript as a motel could be, despite being painted quite garishly. Things began to blur, as its pace quickened and it left the area surrounding the motel.

  Sandy Myers’ head spun as it continued on its journey. Her reluctance to close her eyes for the fear of seeing any more horrific sights meant that she was forced to keep them open, and the whirl around her made her so dizzy that she felt nauseated by her experience.

  She could make out nothing now as it progressed on its journey at a frantic pace, and the challenge to her equilibrium was equaled by the feeling of dread in her stomach as she wondered what would happen next. She resolved that it was definitely real: the emotions and feelings that she was being subjected to were not normally present in dreams, and she knew that she was powerless to stop what was happening. Somehow, somewhere, this was actually happening.

  Just as she felt she would lose consciousness (and wondered how this could be possible when she was already asleep), her surroundings began to come into focus as the thing that transported her began to slow. The spinning sensation that had so dizzied Sandy left her with a ringing sensation in her ears. Now, she came to a standstill, and looked at the remaining envelope that was held in the right hand of her tormentor. The large hand that frightened her so much turned the envelope over, and she read the name on the front of it.

  CARSON.

  Oh my god, it’s coming for me.

  Sandy Myers couldn’t move; it controlled her mind. All that she could do was to look at its hands and be repulsed by the crooked fingers and the open sores that were visible. As her fear grew, something strange began to happen. They began to heal. It was like watching a flower growing, filmed by a time lapse camera, such was the pace of the healing progress as the sores began to disappear and the fingers straightened, and it seemed to Sandy that her fear was making this beast more complete.

  The large figure began to move at an almost imperceptible rate. The scraping of twigs against the assumed form of Sandy Myers made her realize the fact, and she looked up to be horrified by what she saw. She was outside the home of Melissa Dahlia; the house where she lay as
leep and paralyzed, unable to do anything but wait and see whether the huge thing that she thought could not be from the same planet as her decided to take her life and allow her to watch.

  Arnold isn’t its next victim. I’m its next victim. It’s toying with Arnold the same way it’s toying with me. And now it’s going to kill me and then it’s going to do the same to Arnold.

  As she watched, the figure moved towards the front door of the house. Her desire to scream did her no good, as she was not in control of her own faculties. Also, there was nobody there to hear her scream even if she could, and she wondered once again why, in the middle of the afternoon, there was nobody to witness a thing that was ten feet tall stooping down and pushing an envelope under the door. An envelope Sandy knew she didn’t want to see the contents of. Why is there no one here to see it?

  When it stooped, Sandy felt as though she were on a roller coaster; such was the pace and distance of her descent towards the ground. If she had been receiving a piggyback ride from this thing she would have fallen onto the floor as it bent down or even as it stood back up, such was the swiftness of every action it undertook.

  In a flash it was at the rear of the house and slowed as it walked towards the window through which Sandy knew she must be visible.

  This is it, she thought, as it peered through the window at her prone figure that lay on the floor, exhibiting no signs of the dream in which she was involved. She could hear its ragged breath issuing from it in a guttural, almost spluttering fashion.

  It’s going to kill me; this is it, she repeated to herself, and felt a sense of tortured anguish at the realization that she was never to see her boys again. A patch of condensation appeared and disappeared repeatedly on the pane of glass, as it continued to watch her for over a minute, standing close enough to the glass for its nose to touch.

  Suddenly it began to move again. Sandy’s fear continued to reach new levels. She had always wondered how it would feel to know that you were about to die and now she knew; it felt like torture. As the vessel which carried her sleeping yet awake form stepped back from the window, she began once more to pray, despite the knowledge that it would do her no good. There was nothing she could do now.

  She couldn’t fight for Joe and the boys; it hadn’t given her a chance. She couldn’t help Arnold – just the same as she had been unable to help her own parents and the others it had killed. She was beaten, and she would have to submit to the will of this huge creature.

  Sandy’s view of her actual self lying on Melissa’s lounge floor began to fade. As it did so, the reflection of her stalker became more visible in the glass in front of her. As several seconds passed, the outline of the huge head became clearer and clearer.

  Sandy wished she could look away. She closed her eyes, trying to escape seeing the features of the figure, only to be confronted by an image of herself, standing in the old warehouse from where her current journey had been made, feeling even more afraid and alone and more desperate than ever before.

  But it was night.

  What does this mean? she wondered, and opened her eyes to see the reflection of her stalker in crystal clear detail in the window in front of her.

  Sandy was sickened and repulsed by what she saw. Its face was hideous, and looked only half-formed despite the huge size of its head. Similar sores to the ones that had been on its hands earlier were present on its face also, and to Sandy it looked as though her stalker had been in a bad car accident; one that he would surely not have survived.

  She reeled back in horror, feeling as though her heart were about to explode, and suddenly found that she stood behind the huge figure. It had its back to her, and as it began to turn away from the window through which it had watched her, she realized that she was now in control of her body. Opening her mouth she screamed and screamed and…

  …Woke up.

  *

  Sandy cowered against the sofa, fighting for breath.

  For a moment she lay still, drinking in life and thanking her lucky stars that she was still alive. When her shock gave way to full consciousness, she crawled to the side of the sofa without looking towards the window. The last thing she wanted to see was the hideous face of the thing that stalked her peering through the window as she crouched, defenseless and terrified, at the side of Melissa Dahlia’s sofa.

  Ninety percent of her consciousness remained paralyzed by fear, and she continued to hide from the window she had somehow been on both sides of moments previously. The other ten percent represented survival instinct for Sandy, but the dreams told her that she could not run from whoever, or rather whatever, it was that wanted to kill her. The way in which it was able to manipulate her mind was terrifying, and she wondered whether her next move would be her own.

  It was obvious that the dreams held significance. In ten years she had never had dreams like the two that had so tortured her nerves over the previous twelve hours. Her body shook violently from head to foot, as the paralysis of fear gave way to full wakefulness.

  It must be warning me, she reflected. The time must be close, and it’s feeding off the fear.

  Her reasoning was good; and she could not stop fearing meeting this thing face-to-face. Her life and the future of her family were at stake, and that would ensure she would keep on her toes. She would fight this thing to the very end. She had to fight it; she couldn’t let Sean and David down.

  She had to beat it. For their sakes.

  Using the determination given to her by thinking of her family, Sandy rose from her position at the side of the sofa and looked towards the window.

  Nothing.

  The garden was quiet except for the birds that passed their day singing and chirruping in the trees around the home of Melissa Dahlia, but Sandy’s fear was not extinguished by the hulking figure’s absence from the area directly in front of the house. It could be lingering anywhere. It had said it was watching her, and now she realized that it could be watching from inside her mind.

  Also, she was yet to check for the envelope it had pushed under the door. It was not something about which she had forgotten. It was the last thing she wanted to do, however, because she knew that if the envelope was there, then the dreams had both been real. It was definitive confirmation of the fact that her stalker was perhaps ten feet tall and could show her things in dreams that suggested it was unstoppable.

  She walked from the lounge and down the hallway towards the front door of the house. On the floor near the doorway lay the envelope, and she locked the front door before stooping and picking it up with hands that shook fiercely.

  This is it, she thought as she looked at the word ‘CARSON’ on the front of the envelope, before turning it over and pulling at the seal that held it together. The seal came away easily, and she gingerly opened the envelope, dreading what she was about to see.

  A postal bomb could not have made her more nervous, as she pulled the edge of what she expected to be (and appeared to be) a single sheet of paper from the envelope. As it came out of the envelope it caught, and she pulled it more firmly, jumping nervously as the paper came free in her hand.

  A photograph fell to the floor.

  She stood still, now listening to the sound of her own ragged breath, and looked down at the back of the photograph. It lay at her feet, one edge propped against her foot.

  The memory of the other photo she had received from her tormentor made her reluctant to look at the photograph at all. Even seeing words on a page from this, this thing, made her feel physically sick. She left the photograph for a moment, deciding she would look at the written message before she stooped to pick up the small black and white pictorial one.

  It was no less or more than she expected, containing the two names, Arnold and Carson, underneath which the words ‘Tick-Tock’ were repeated. Two shivers raced down her spine, the second losing the race towards her toes, and she convulsed with the strength of their invasion as they worked to ravage her body momentarily, before petering out and allowing her fu
ll control of her faculties once more.

  The photograph. Now she had to look at the photograph.

  It still lay propped against her foot, and she took a step away from it, allowing it to fall completely faced down before she stooped and picked it up. Adrenalin surged through her veins, and she stood up too quickly, stumbling as stars swirled in front of her eyes. For a moment her head seemed to become filled with helium. Her eyes bulged and she stood still, telling herself unsuccessfully to calm down.

  The photograph faced away from her, and she turned it over slowly, fearing the new revelation that was about to be made. When she saw what the photograph contained, tears welled in her eyes.

  Everything was real.

  Both of the dreams had certainly been real, for the image with which she was now confronted was the man she had seen murdered in her dream last night. Now, she looked at his lifeless body and recognized his surroundings as the house where the killing had taken place in her dream.

  If these dreams are what I have to look forward to every night, then I’ll never be able to sleep again.

  Sandy knew what she must do. She must get help, as soon as she could. Right now, in fact. She would not seek help from her husband, and she did not feel that she could seek help from the police. They had not stopped the thing responsible for the murder of her parents from killing again, and they would probably suspect her if she told them of the detail in which she knew two of the murder scenes. She could certainly not tell them of the strange dreams and the huge size of the thing that stalked her; she would be locked up straight away, and while she knew that she would be more likely to survive if she were locked up, she would still be separated from her children.

  She had to find another way. She had to find the man from her dream. If she found Arnold then they could fight it together. Maybe together they could find a way to beat it. It knew her every move, so it would know she had gone to find Arnold, but it was almost like that was what it wanted her to do. It had shown her where he was staying in the earlier dream, and now it was the only option available to her. She had to find Arnold. Maybe it was a trap, but she was backed into a corner, and she had to find a way out.