The Hunter Inside (17 page)

Todd sat on a bar stool and
decided to wait until morning to look at what Paul had given to him. He was
tired (and just a
little
drunk). He didn’t feel that he would be able to
concentrate tonight. Besides, if what Paul had told him really was true, then
surely it would be a remarkable coincidence if tonight was the night it planned
to kill him, after waiting so many years.

Right?

Wrong.

Wayans stepped out into the
night, the alcohol in his bloodstream bolstering his bravery and allowing him
to rush on his way. He still had to return home, and the thought of what could
be waiting for him made his blood freeze. If it would have been one hundred
degrees below zero, the chill he felt internally would match.

He walked hurriedly along
the sidewalk, wondering why he hadn’t just packed some clothes and driven to
Chee-Uz. He couldn’t think of a reason. The mind works in mysterious ways under
severe stress. The fear and desperation of his situation meant that he was not
thinking straight and had put himself in more danger by walking to the bar.

Despite realizing that
returning to the house placed him in even further danger, he was determined to
make it, get what he needed, and get out in one piece. He must.

Further down the street the
figure that had waited for him was relieved to see him leave the bar. He kept
out of Paul Wayans’ wandering gaze and followed him at a distance.

Nothing was going to go
wrong now; he would make sure of that.

The cold had begun to
really affect him, however, and the gap between the two widened as hunted set
the pace for hunter.

But he wanted Wayans to
reach his home, and Wayans wanted to reach his home. Both were on the same
wavelength. It was something on which they agreed.

Wayans continued at a
steady pace, hands stuffed deep into his jeans pockets in an attempt to keep
them warm. He was anxious to be off the street and on his way away from
Stamford. As he walked, he began to get a dull pain in his neck from looking
around constantly to make sure he was not being followed. Each time he looked,
however, the only thing to be seen was the glare of the street lights on the
sidewalk.

Not a soul in sight.

As he made progress, his
feeling of being watched abated slightly and his confidence grew. There were
still things that he had to do when he arrived home, but he was feeling more
and more confident that he could get away alive and unharmed.

The huge figure hugged the
shadows as he made his way in the same direction. It did not matter that Wayans
had opened up a lead; he knew exactly where he was. Neither did it matter that
Wayans thought he could escape. As long as the figure that walked in the
shadows caught up with him before he left the house, he would be able to do
what he wanted to do.

What he had to do.

It took Wayans ten minutes
to reach the drive of his house. In the time it took for him to walk there from
the bar, any warming effect of the alcohol had worn off. The figure that was
two blocks away felt the cold almost as much.

He hesitated before
entering the house, relieved to see nothing amiss.

He had half expected the
door to be ajar as he approached it. That was how it always was in the movies,
and this seemed like a movie to Paul. The victim
always
entered the
house, despite it being glaringly obvious that he would never leave it again.
Paul was determined to leave without meeting the maniac from a thousand movies.
Determined to survive.

He entered the house,
leaving the door ajar behind him to facilitate what he hoped would be a quick
exit. A block away, the figure that made its way towards the house was happy to
see this. The door being open meant that he would not have to make any noise
when he entered the house. This would make things even easier.

Wayans went quickly through
the dark and up the stairs. A shiver attacked his body as he reached half way,
traveling from his head to his foot in half a second, and he paused for a
moment before carrying on to the top and entering the bedroom situated on his
left. He navigated his way around the bed in the dark, feeling with his hands
over the edges of the bed covers, towards the closet that held his clothes in
the corner of the room. He grabbed a carryall from the floor of the closet and
pulled some clothes from the hangers inside the closet. He was unable to see
what he was grabbing, as the meager light from the street outside did not
penetrate into the bedroom closet, but for Paul this did not matter. Stopping
to turn on a light would take up a couple more seconds, and in the situation he
was in he knew that might be fatal. He unceremoniously shoved the clothes into
the carryall and grabbed two towels from the shelf on the left hand side of the
closet.

Outside, the huge figure
paused at the entrance to the drive and looked into the upstairs window where
he knew Wayans was hurriedly trying to sort himself out before attempting his
getaway.

This is being made easy
, the tall figure thought
as he went into the garden and grabbed the bag he had deposited earlier, before
turning and making his way back across the garden and through the front door of
the house as it blew back and forth slightly in the breeze.

The noise of the door
banging incessantly made Paul nervous. He was almost ready to leave. It
surprised him that he was sorry to be leaving. He had not thought he held much
affection for the house, but now he fought back tears as he made his final
preparations before leaving on a long journey away from Stamford.

Maybe it’s just that I want
what I can’t have
,
he thought to himself, as he absent mindedly wiped an escaped tear from his
cheek, cutting it off in mid flow. Whatever the reason for his reluctance to
leave, he knew that dwelling on it was doing him no good whatsoever. The more
time he wasted, the more danger he felt he was in.

In the lounge the huge
figure made itself at home; crouching behind the sofa totally unbeknown to the
doomed Paul Wayans. He placed his large hand inside the cloth bag and located
the hunting knife with which he would take the life of his victim, withdrawing
it smoothly and revealing, in a glint of light that came through the window
from outside, a twelve-inch length of razor-sharp metal.

This was going to be the
easiest kill yet. He hungered for, and enjoyed, the process of hunting down and
killing his victims. Each time he killed, the sense of pleasure was stronger.
His mind spiraled outwards, growing in strength as his body was made more
complete. Soon the time for killing would give way to a stronger impulse.

Wayans came down the stairs
quickly, almost tripping over his feet as he struggled with the zip on the
carryall. He reached the bottom of the stairs and felt in the darkness for the
small table that held his car keys. They were not there. He cursed his luck,
remembering that he had left them upstairs on the bedside table and turned,
racing up the stairs two at a time, propelling himself by grabbing the handrail
forcefully to maintain his balance.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he
mumbled with each step until he reached the top, grabbed the keys from the
table and ran back the way he had come; again two steps at a time. He had
already taken too long to sort himself out, and he knew that he should have
already been well away, putting distance between his stalker and himself.

Wayans ran across the
lounge. A million thoughts raced through his mind as he made his way towards
the door. The darkness was punctured by dull light that shone through the
window.

A split second before it
happened he knew. But it was too late. If he had lived long enough to think
back to the event that followed, he would have wondered
how
he knew a
split second before he saw the huge figure pop up from behind the sofa and
lunge towards him. It was revealed to him just in time to be too late as the
huge outline lunged forwards, missing Wayans with the first swipe as he
struggled to get out of the way. He managed to avoid the knife before falling
onto the white carpet that would shortly be unrecognizable as ever being white.

The time was here and the
figure lunged forwards for a second time. The glint of the light on the knife
looked to Paul Wayans like a bolt of lightning that was coming from the sky to
kill him.

Then pain.

He struggled to turn away
from the figure that had by now fallen on top of him, growling as it drove the
thick blade into his body repeatedly with huge strength that the dying Paul
Wayans could not match.

Paul forgot all about the
knife. He saw his mother before his eyes and it was he who she held in her
arms. He was once again a small baby, free from the bad things of the world and
innocent of the trouble and fear and murder and hunger that characterized human
existence.

Everything to him was love
as the almost supernatural bond between mother and child reinforced his sense
of safety and he saw himself growing quickly. Family holidays and school trips,
good times and bad times all whirled before his eyes as the blood dripped from
his body and his life was extinguished. He was once again with Emmy Bradley;
the girl to whom he lost his virginity when he was sixteen, having a ball of a
time at the funfair.

But only for a split
second.

Before he knew it he was
standing at the altar with Marcie, saying ‘I do’ and kissing her while everyone
applauded behind them, far away.

As he whirled around and around
he saw himself opening the envelopes that his stalker had sent to him and now
he knew that it
was
Shimasou and not just a stalker with a grudge.

But it was too late. His
time was up.

The blood flowed from
around fifty stab wounds that had been inflicted violently upon his body, and
with it went the life as his heart struggled to cope and his blood pressure
dropped. There was not enough blood left to pump.

He opened his eyes for one
last time, to see that he was not a child or a teenager with his first
girlfriend.

Today was not his wedding
day; it was his death day.

He closed his eyes for the
final time and his heart stopped beating. His time was up.

The huge figure grew half a
foot as the attack was played out. By the time Wayans died he was visibly
taller and already considerably stronger as a result of his actions. He had
prepared well, and now he could reap the rewards. He would feast upon Wayans
and take with him what he needed.

Adrenalin flowed through
the veins of the blood soaked figure, and immediately he felt the strength of
Wayans becoming his own strength.

Later he would go back to
Atlantic Beach where he would be able to take Arnold and Carson. Then he would
be almost ready to take on the world.

The shadowy figure dragged
the corpse through the lounge towards the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood
across the carpet as he went. The weight of the body was no trouble to him. He
moved the body to the kitchen to make the next part of his mission slightly
less risky. In the kitchen there was no chance of anybody spotting his huge
shadow through the window, and he threw down the body with a crunch, the skull
hitting the wooden floor and splitting wide open to reveal to him his feast. He
left the body in the kitchen and retrieved the bag that he had left near to the
sofa. He went back to the kitchen, picking up the knife as he went, and
depositing it inside the bag once more.

Then he feasted.

Wayans gave him the
strength and knowledge that he required. There was only one thing left for him
to do, before he could leave and go back to his resting place. Out of the bag
he took the Polaroid instant camera that his instinct had told him to take from
the apartment of John Riley, and photographed the body twice.

One of the photographs
would bring Sandy Carson to him, while the other would ensure that Arnold did
not leave Atlantic Beach. He knew that Arnold had had enough of the fear that
he woke up with every day. This photograph, he knew, would make Arnold
determined to stand and fight his foe once and for all to decide his fate.
Carson was so stupid she would run straight to him. She would not escape. He
would have both of them as and when he wanted them.

Then victory would be a
formality.

Once he had killed them he
would be almost complete and ready. Ready for anything.

The bark of the tree is cold and wet
against the small of Sandy Myers’ back. Drips of water fall from the leaves of
the tall trees, landing heavily on her face and running down the back of her
neck, meeting and running down the length of her spine, bringing shivers
tumbling throughout her body. She looks around frantically, sensing that a
threat is imminent, and her chest heaves as she sucks in the air around her
before spewing it out in gasps that make her feel her chest will explode at any
minute.

She is running away.
Running away from something and trying to hide. She is being stalked, and
despite taking refuge behind the tall tree she feels she is being watched by
something, something inhuman. The chill and goose flesh that she feels is added
to by a breeze that whistles around her exposed ankles as the branches above
her sway to and fro, moving leisurely in the breeze.