The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  As they got nearer the car both men realized – it was Sandy’s car, all right. They’d found it. Now both men knew that she must be nearby. It would surely only be a matter of time before they found her.

  Todd Mayhew felt a renewal of the shaking that had gripped him when he had examined the file given to him by Paul Wayans. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. They were close now. And it was up to him, Todd Mayhew, and the cop, Sam O’Neill, to do something.

  Something to save Arnold and Myers.

  Something to save themselves.

  Something to save us all.

  31

  A problem. Carson. The incarnation of Shimasou saw her clearly inside its head. Carson, crouching, half obscured by the tangle of bush in which she tried to conceal herself. This was not supposed to happen. She was not supposed to go to Arnold.

  It had allowed her to see where Arnold was in the dream. But the dream had been supposed to make her stay put. Now she had changed the course of events. Arnold should come first. And the storm. What effect would the storm have on the strength and ability of Shimasou?

  Now there was a dilemma. What would be the best way? Stop her. Stop her from meeting Arnold.

  Arnold was currently alone, more concerned with the meat he had just eaten than the threat that was less than three miles away from him. Maybe there’s still time. Still time to stop her.

  It was reluctant to venture out in the storm. It would not be able to perform to the maximum of its abilities. Plus, it was changing. Pain wracked its body as the growth and development continued. If it stood, it would now be over twelve feet tall. But it could not stand, it could not venture out, and it could not stop Carson from finding Arnold.

  The woman had surprised it. Arnold was like a lamb to the slaughter, waiting patiently while the huge figure lay in the old Atlantic Beach Herald headquarters, preparing for the correct moment. But she was different. By going to Arnold, she had thrown down a challenge, caught it off guard. She was clinging to hope, the hope that she would see her family again. Arnold had no family. Part of him was already dead, and he had no hope left to cling to. Wayans had been the same. There had been a black knot inside the mind of Paul Wayans that had caused problems for Shimasou. It was the same knot that Arnold carried. But Carson was different. There were no knots inside her mind. Only light. The light of hope.

  A light that would have to be extinguished.

  32

  The pain sat curled in a ball in the knees of Sandy Myers, ready to strike when she stood. From her position amidst the tangle of bush at the end of the block of motel rooms, she looked up at the sky.

  Earlier, it had appeared vast above her, an unreachable ocean that opened out the atmosphere. The clouds had rolled away across the sky, barely strong enough to support a sylph, suspended sand dunes that carried no threat. Now, it was overcast. Dark clouds had rolled in, their murky, puddle-like weight descending and hemming her in, the world reduced to the moment she was in. The heavens were about to open, and Arnold had still not appeared.

  Sandy was scared. Scared that Arnold was not going to return. The thing that was hunting them had left the note. Sandy thought this must mean he was not going to be killed before returning. But she had a strange feeling in her stomach that her brain couldn’t quite work out.

  Her resolve had been strengthened by the dreams she’d had. She was more scared than ever, but she was not running away. She was here to find Arnold and get closure to the whole ordeal, an ordeal that had lasted ten years. An ordeal perpetrated by something that could not be of this world. Sandy knew this – something that could speak to her inside her head and take her on journeys in her dreams had a seriously high strangeness rating. She wondered whether her determination, even if combined with that of Arnold, could come anywhere near the power of the beast that had already killed so many people.

  She was ready to find out. Tonight.

  So here she is, crouching in the tangle of bush, waiting for a man she’s never met to return from god-knows-where.

  As she thought about the absurdity of hiding in a bush outside a motel, Sandy felt the first drop of rain hit the back of her neck. She shivered as it rolled down her spine, sending a chill through her body like an electrical current. Great, she thought. I’ll die of pneumonia if nothing else.

  Sandy stayed put, hoping the rain would stop. Thirty seconds passed. Still no Arnold. The rain droplets were now more like rain golf balls. A running stream began to pour from her chin, and she knew she would have to seek shelter. She would be drenched within minutes if she stayed there. Her reluctant decision was made easier by a rumble of thunder clapping in the sky above. It was followed by a distant streak of lightning that looked lethal. She couldn’t risk being around when the lightning reached the motel. Her biggest shock of the last two days had been reading the letter in the diner where she worked, and that was the way she wished to keep it. She couldn’t guarantee that whatever was hunting Arnold and herself wouldn’t provide her with a few more shocks along the way, but she was not going to put herself at risk. She couldn’t afford to. She had the boys to think about. And Joe.

  Sandy rose, releasing the balls of pain that sat waiting in the backs of her knees. She let out a scream as her knees buckled under her, feeling like a nutcracker had been used to crack open her kneecaps, and fell face first into the bush.

  She waited for a moment, allowing the pain to reduce to a dull throbbing, before standing up and wiping away the leaves and twigs that were in her hair and stuck to her clothes. She looked around for a diner or a store that she could go into. There were none to be seen. Damn, she thought to herself. Damn this stupid place.

  Now she would have to do what she really didn’t want to do. She would have to go away from the motel to find shelter until the storm passed. Then she would have to return, not knowing what, or whom she would find. Her thirty-minute perch in the bush had been for nothing. If she were able to remain where she was she would be able to see Arnold upon his return. She would be able to see if he was alone. Or if he had been tracked down by the thing that must have stalked him in the same way as it had her. But it would know you were watching, she thought. It knows your every move.

  The fact that she was going to have to leave the motel to escape the rain which was beginning to make her clothing stick to her body, meant that she wouldn’t know whether Arnold was dead or alive. Unless it decides to show me, she thought, trying to suppress the latest shiver that threatened to roll down her spine.

  Thunder rumbled for a second time. The storm was fast approaching. The sky closed in above Sandy, approaching black and restricting her, making her feel like a caged animal. It wasn’t going to be a shower; it was going to be an extended onslaught. Sandy was held in place momentarily as a beam of lightning divided the sky, cracking like a whip against the sodden ground. It was too close for comfort, and Sandy dashed across in front of the motel rooms, sheltering under the eaves of the end room while getting her breath back, before running through the driving rain, seeking sanctuary from the wind and rain that howled and swirled around her, leaving her half blind as she squinted through the downpour, looking for somewhere that was warm and dry. A handful of cars were in the lot and there were no tourists anywhere to be seen. Maybe they’d seen the weather forecast. She hadn’t.

  She darted from side to side, trying to avoid the pools of water that were collecting on the asphalt surface of the parking lot. By the time she reached the end of the block, the pools were almost ready to become a swimming pool of water, stretching across the entirety of the lot. Sandy was half-drenched, gasping for breath and shivering uncontrollably as she searched for the refuge that seemed to be eluding her. She wondered what the effect of a storm like this would be on her stalker. By now she would not be surprised to see that the huge figure she had been so repulsed by earlier could walk on top of the water. She traversed another block before seeing a sign that read, Monty’s Bar.

  At last, she thought as she hal
f-ran, half hobbled towards the deeply stained maple door. Her knees were giving her real grief. She suffered with her feet due to having to stand for long periods at work, and arthritis was a prospect she was certain she had to look forward to if she ever reached old age.

  Sandy slammed through the door of the bar and was hit by a wave of peacefulness that made a sharp contrast to the thunder and lightning and waves of rain and wind outside. The sound of the lightning striking somewhere near the motel was muffled by the building, and Sandy wheezed as she tried to smile at the bartender. He was a jovial looking man, with deep lines, laugh-lines, around his piercing blue eyes. On first impressions, Sandy guessed he must be forty, but despite the laugh-lines around his eyes he looked five, maybe ten, years younger.

  The bartender, Monty, had been shocked when the door had violently swung open. When he had whirled around and seen the woman standing in the doorway, dripping all over his recently polished floor, he had not felt jovial. But he smiled nevertheless, pointing towards the ladies’ room, determined to go with his customer service training. She was his first customer of the day. At a quarter to five.

  Sandy followed the imagined arrow from Monty’s hand, and quickly saw the sign depicting a matchstick woman in a skirt. She went through the door and into the ladies’ room. Inside the room was lavish. Crisp, white hand-towels hung from gold-plated rails that went around two walls of the room. The four cubicles were spotlessly clean. The tissue paper that hung in each was as high quality as the hand-towels, and the room was filled with a scent not unlike incense. This made Sandy think about death as she walked across the brilliant white tiles towards the two high-powered hand-dryers, waving her hand underneath one to activate its mechanism. Hot air gushed out over her hands, face and hair. It was almost unbearably hot, and Sandy paused several times to cool down as she successfully dried herself off before going back out into the bar and ordering a G&T, on the rocks. Monty nodded and prepared the drink without talking.

  Sandy was relieved. Small talk was the last thing she needed at this moment. Dutch courage was the first. Monty held the drink out towards Sandy. ‘I’ve made it a large one. You look as though you need it. On the house. Call it a welcome.’

  ‘Gee, erm…thanks,’ Sandy replied. She flushed with embarrassment at her rudeness in asking for the drink without so much as a greeting for poor old Monty.

  ‘Hey, that’s just A-okay,’ Monty replied, before turning to fetch a mop and bucket. He didn’t carry on into a conversation, so Sandy took the drink and sat in the corner nearest the ladies’ room.

  The bar had a distinctly Irish flavor. Around the walls were various photographs. The one nearest to Sandy showed a horse and cart traversing a cobbled road. Another that was ten feet away depicted a picturesque stream, water babbling over rocks, forever captured within the ten-inch frame. Both were black and white. At various points around the bar were paper shamrock, hanging from string and turning gently one way before spinning back on themselves in an endless pirouette. Cartoons depicting Leprechauns and pots of gold smiled down at Sandy and the bar was swathed in advertisements for Guinness.

  Quaint, Sandy thought to herself. Monty obviously cared a great deal for his bar, despite the apparent lack of custom. He bustled past carrying a mop and bucket containing what could only be detergent and water, and began to clean the area that Sandy had so rudely dripped on after entering the bar.

  Sandy took a drink of the G&T and looked towards the window. Frosted glass. This was a fact that Sandy didn’t mind too much about. She knew she wouldn’t be able to see the motel from two blocks away anyway, and the thing that was stalking her could see into her mind.

  So frosted glass was okay.

  Again, her thoughts turned to Arnold. She wondered how long she would have to leave it before she returned to the motel. If the storm relaxed its grip on Atlantic Beach then she would be able to return to watch for him. However, she didn’t think it would, the corrugated roof of the bar sounded as if it was having trouble keeping the rain out as it got heavier still. From a low drum when she had entered the bar, it had now become a steady pounding. This is going to be one hell of a storm, Sandy thought. An hour. I’ll give it an hour. Hell, I might as well carry on my Dutch courage session.

  She downed the last of the G&T in one, causing the remaining rocks to clink together in the glass. She stood and went to the bar. After purchasing another G&T (though this time a single measure), she asked Monty for change for the cigarette machine.

  ‘That’s a bad habit, lil lady,’ Monty said, still smiling jovially.

  ‘You try having the day I’ve had,’ Sandy shot back as he counted the change into her hand.

  ‘You wanna talk about it? We’re good listeners us bartenders.’

  Sandy did want to talk about it. To Arnold. Not to somebody who couldn’t help her. She smiled wanly, wishing she could share his mischievous smile. Maybe on another day, she thought, while shaking her head slowly from side to side. She went towards the cigarette machine, clutching the G&T in her left hand, money in her right.

  Bad habit? Hey, there’s six million ways to die, she thought as she placed the glass on top of the machine and began feeding in change like a zookeeper feeding fish to seals. The old machine coughed up a pack of cigarettes and Sandy returned to her seat. She lit a cigarette using the personalized matches on the table. Nice touch. The first drink she’d had, the large one, had gone straight to her head. This, coupled with the rush she got from the nicotine, made her head spin. The second drink looked a lot less appealing, and she drank it more slowly than the first, listening all the time to the rain thudding against the roof above her. The leprechauns had by now taken on a hazy quality, but she went back to the bar and ordered a third drink. Then she went to the ladies’ room once more, this time to use the facilities as they were meant to be used.

  Sandy swayed slightly as she went into the cubicle and locked the door behind her. She peed for an eternity as she listened to the sounds of Monty pottering around the bar. When eventually she finished and fixed her clothes, she was surprised to hear the sound of the door opening in the bar.

  ‘Great,’ she mumbled, ‘here’s me looking like death with a fucked-up afro full of twigs and the evening rush is about to start.’ As she washed her hands under hot water, she heard the latest arrival to the bar ask for a beer. It was a man, obviously not a local she thought, because he fell silent after ordering his drink.

  Sandy looked in the mirror. The face that stared back at her looked ten years older than it had two days previously. Huge bags hung under her eyes, shocking in the dark contrast they made with the rest of her face, which was as pale as uncooked pastry. Her hair did look wild, and she tried to tame it a little, without much success. She decided to give up and get back to her drink.

  The pounding of the rain upon the roof had subsided somewhat, and once she finished the G&T she would be able to go back to room number Thirteen B.

  Sandy opened the door to the ladies’ room. Directly in front of her was the bar. Monty glanced at her for a second, before bending down behind the bar to continue his pottering. The man who had entered the bar sat with his back to her at the end of the bar.

  She went back to the table and picked up her drink. Then she put it down quickly, as a sharp pain thundered through every brain cell. She grabbed the edge of the table as she waited for the pain to pass, white stars flashing before her eyes as she thought she would pass out. When it did pass, she looked back towards the end of the bar.

  No, it can’t be, she thought. Sandy stood and walked towards the man hesitantly. Monty remained under the bar, but Sandy only had eyes for one man.

  ‘Arnold?’ She said in a tone encapsulating shock, hesitancy and relief. The man turned so that she could see his face. He wore a bewildered look as he examined her with his eyes.

  It’s him, Sandy thought. She noticed the same bags under his eyes, but he looked as though he was standing up to everything better than she herself was. Sh
e couldn’t believe her luck. All her fears that he would be killed before she could get to him were laid to rest in a split second. Here he was, large as life and sitting three feet away from her.

  Bill Arnold stood as a mark of courtesy for the woman who knew his name. He’d never seen her before, and his courtesy was tinged by and interweaved with suspicion. Things had been quiet in Atlantic Beach, until now.

  Before she realized what she was doing, Sandy threw her arms around Bill Arnold’s neck. ‘Thank God. Thank God I’ve found you.’ Her eyes filled up with tears and she tried to blink them away before releasing her hold on him. He was rigid. Sandy stepped back, remembering that this was somebody who had probably never seen her before.

  ‘Your name is Sandy, right?’ Bill Arnold was shocked at this knowledge. It was given to him by a voice inside his head, a voice that wasn’t his.

  Sandy Myers knew what had happened. It had told him. It was watching their every move. Maybe it was close too. She would have to tell Arnold everything she knew, quickly. Maybe he would understand some of it. Maybe the things that had happened to him were different to the things that had happened to her. Maybe by combining their knowledge and strength they would first be able to understand, and then fight and beat whatever was hunting them.

  Together.

  SHOWDOWN

  When the wind is around you

  When the rain beats down on you

  When you feel fear surround you

  Walk onwards, and keep hope in your heart

  33

  Monty the bartender looked first at the lady, before turning his glance towards the guy who’d just entered the bar (and who also dripped water on his floor). As he watched the pair, who stood in front of one another, both with a certain amount of bemusement etched onto their faces, he relaxed his grip on the cloth in his hand.