The Hunter Inside (40 page)

There’s just no way, no way at all,
Special Agent Sam O’Neill thought
as he estimated that Sandy must be thirty-five feet from the ground.
She’s
going to fall, and I can’t help her.
An image of the bathroom in the motel
room fleeted through his mind. Sandy, cowering against the bathtub with her
head down, hugging her knees with both hands. Then, he had been hopeful. They
had found her, and he could at least try and do
something
to help her.
He had wanted to hug her then, and he wished that he could reach up now and
take her away from the danger that she was in.

The rubble in front of the four men
would almost certainly be fatal to her if she was to fall, and he couldn’t see
her doing anything else
but
fall. With the power of the wind and the
cold that must be gnawing through her fingers, plus the rain making her hold slippery,
Special Agent O’Neill became Sam O’Neill.
There’s nothing I can do,
he
thought despairingly.

It’s time,
a voice whispered inside
the head of Bill Arnold.
Time for what?
he wondered. He stood next to
Todd Mayhew, behind O’Neill and Joe Myers, just over the threshold of the
building.
Maybe it should be me up there,
he thought to himself. Guilt
found its place inside his head, despite the voices that had begun to crowd in.
His head felt woozy, and he wished that he could sit down. There was only cold,
wet rubble to sit on though, and as he tried to usher the voices away, he
wondered how Sandy could hang on to the wet, splintered edges of the only floor
that remained partly intact. He also wondered for how long it would remain
intact. He could not see Shimasou from where he stood, but the fact that Sandy
was up there must mean that
it
was up there too.

The kids must be up there,
he thought, and wondered
how much the combined weight of the three people was, plus Shimasou itself. Two
struts were left, holding the remnants of the stairs intact, and he figured
that they were not going to stay intact under the strain of the storm and the
weight of the people relying on them for life.

‘Sandy, are you okay?’ Todd Mayhew
called out. The others only watched like they were part of a virtual reality
game, and Mayhew was not prepared to do the same. They knew how to beat
Shimasou, now they just had to do it. The piece of paper with the order in
which the victims had been taken was in his trouser pocket, and he withdrew it.

‘I’m okay,’ Sandy called. She had
found a decent grip on the wood above her, and while she was terrified that
calling out would make her move and put extra strain on the unsteady stairs,
she wanted something to happen. She could see the shadows of the four men below
her, and realized that it was Mayhew who had called out. He had told her
earlier that they knew how to beat Shimasou, and now she was ready to hear what
he had to say. He would have to be quick; she knew she was close to Shimasou,
and in her current position she was defenseless if it could reach her.

‘We have to evoke Shimasae to beat
this thing,’ Mayhew called out as he opened the small piece of paper. He was
glad that he had not given it to O’Neill to look after; they probably wouldn’t
have it now if he had. O’Neill looked more like a statue than a cop, and the
others were not much different. Bill Arnold looked dazed to Mayhew, and he
shook him gently to get his attention before he continued.

‘You’ve got to repeat the names of the
people it’s killed and evoke Shimasae to take their strength away from
Shimasou. Then it should unravel.’

O’Neill had left his gun in his car.
It didn’t matter, Mayhew knew; there was only one way to beat Shimasou, and now
was the time to try it. It was their only chance.

‘Are you ready?’ Mayhew asked Bill
Arnold.

‘I’m ready. We gotta do something. We
can’t just leave her hanging there. And the kids…’ He felt tired, drained, but
he was determined that he would do his bit to try and help Sandy. It was him
she had sought out in her time of crisis and, while it had only been hours ago,
it seemed a lifetime away as he shifted his gaze from Mayhew’s face to Joe
Myers’ face. A contortion of emotion was set there and his eyes pleaded with
Bill Arnold’s.
Do something
, they said, and Bill Arnold looked up at
Sandy again.
I will. We will.

‘Sandy, are you ready?’ Todd Mayhew
called out.

‘I’m ready,’ Sandy said, barely
audible to the four darkened figures below.

O’Neill and Joe Myers looked on, mere
spectators in a situation that would decide the fate of everybody on the
planet. Both men were acutely aware of their helplessness, and both men hated
it. Joe Myers wanted to scale the dangerously sagging wall that led to Sandy’s
position, but he knew the whole building would probably collapse if he tried to
make it to his wife. He had to rely on others, and what if they were
unsuccessful? What would happen then? O’Neill hated depending on others to sort
things out for him, and now was no exception. He did the only thing available to
him and placed a hand on the shoulder of Joe Myers, drawing him back out of the
way of Todd Mayhew and Bill Arnold, who stepped forward.

They stumbled across the rubble in
front of them, holding onto each other for balance, until they were almost
directly below the place where Sandy hung. Todd Mayhew wanted to make sure she
could hear him. He did not know what would happen when they began to evoke
Shimasae, but he knew he was about to find out. Shimasou must only be feet away
from Sandy, and if it reached her, it would kill her. That was something Mayhew
was certain of. Maybe the unsteady floor was stopping it from getting to her,
and if that was the case, then they
did
have a chance.

‘Sandy, I’ll tell you what names you
need to say, and you need to add the word
Shimasae
to the end of each.
You and Bill will go in turn. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

*

Something strange was
happening. Shimasou tried to step forwards. The floor lurched under the
shifting weight, and Sandy screamed as her grip was shaken. The huge figure
stepped back, behind the two children. What was happening? Both Sandy and Bill
had newfound hope, but where had they gotten it? They believed they had a
chance of winning this fight, but Shimasou knew something different. It knew
its destiny, and it was only a matter of time before its potential was fully
realized. How could anyone beat it now?

‘Sandy, first you must say the name of
your mother,’ Todd Mayhew called to Sandy. They would have to be quick; the
floor above looked ready to collapse and the storm was not letting up. It would
be hard for Sandy, he knew. But he thought she would be able to do it when she
weighed her pain against her desire to save her children.

He was right.

As both Mayhew and Arnold looked up
towards the hole in the roof, they heard Sandy’s voice as she said ‘Betty
Carson Shimasae’.

Immediately the storm seemed to
strengthen. Rain poured in like never before, and Joe Myers thought of the
great flood in the Bible. Special Agent O’Neill knew it was going to take more
than building an ark to get out of this situation, and he was also pretty sure
that faith was not going to carry anybody through.

A streak of lightning came down inside
the building, hitting the twisted rubble and starting a fire that made Arnold
and Mayhew step back. Even the floods of rain could not stop the fire, and it
began to reach up to Sandy, thirty feet above it. Sandy clung on tighter,
actually relieved at the warmth of the fire, which brought some feeling back to
her hands and fingertips. All inside the building were deafened temporarily by
the crack of the lightning, Shimasou included, who wondered why the cold was
beginning to have such an effect. Part of it had gone. She had said her
mother’s name and part of it had been taken away.
How can this be?
It
wondered.
How can
they
take from
me
?

‘Fred Carson Shimasae,’ Bill Arnold
called out. A second bolt of lightning came down, striking the building, and
the wall began to crumble, allowing the roof to sag further. Sandy clutched the
wood tighter as the wind strengthened. It blew so strong that it took her
breath away and she thought it would prize her grip off the unsteady staircase.
After a moment it seemed to shift, and she thought that maybe it pushed her up
slightly, helping her to maintain her grip.

‘June Riley, Sandy,’ Todd Mayhew
called out.

‘June Riley Shimasae,’ she repeated,
as those below her steeled themselves for a third bolt of lightning to come.
What did come amazed them all. Through the hole in the roof poured lights.
Purple and blue and red and yellow orbs of light rained down into the building,
inspiring awe and the feeling in O’Neill that they were part of some magical
fireworks display. They were not. He knew that. He had never seen anything so
beautiful. They swirled in several directions as they floated down, amongst the
rain but not influenced by it, and settled around the figure of Sandy Myers.
The brilliance of the colors was something he had never before seen. These were
alive; they were life itself. They dazzled without dazzling, and they had a
presence, a strength inside the building that nobody who was present could
deny.
They’re holding up the walls of the building
, Todd Mayhew thought.
They were Shimasae; they had to be. It was already here, and it was already
unraveling Shimasou’s strength.

We’re winning
, Bill Arnold thought.

You will not win,
a whisper answered inside
his head. He knew from where the whisper came, and a shiver coursed through his
body. They mustn’t get complacent; they still had work to do if they were to
beat Shimasou. He would not allow himself to be dazzled by the lights that
looked as though they cushioned Sandy Myers. Joe Myers stood looking at the
lights with his jaw hanging open. Bill Arnold was not going to allow the beauty
of the lights to overcome
his
thinking on the situation. Only when the
lights were gone would he consider the importance of them, a light that
represented what the world could never have: true peace without evil.

What’s happening?
The huge figure wondered as
it looked down at the children in front of it. It looked at its hands and saw
that the wounds had begun to reappear. It was weakening and something was
happening. The lights were making something happen, and the memories it held
were fading. The links it had to the minds of the people below were weakening,
and there was a force inside the building that was growing as Carson and Arnold
repeated the names. It would have to reach her. It would have to try and take
her strength. She was only fifteen feet away. If it lay down, it would almost
be able to reach the edge. It would just have to crawl a couple of feet, and
then it would be able to grab her and regain its strength.
They will not win
,
it thought.

‘Bill Arnold Shimasae.’ It was hard,
and tears ran with the rainwater down his face, but Bill Arnold managed to say
the name of his father through the grief that still rattled through his world.
More lights poured in, this time all a brilliant purple, and descended onto the
ledge above Sandy’s position. A wind groaned through the building. It was like
a voice that sighed around the high walls, groaning but powerful, resigned but
strong. Sandy’s legs were pushed by it, and she wondered for a moment if the
lights and wind were going to carry her away from the ledge to safety.
But
the boys.

The four men stood below, unaffected
by the wind, which whirled around their heads without touching them, groaning
into their ears and inspiring a sense of the unknown in each of them. Something
truly unbelievable was happening. O’Neill knew it was not something he was
likely to see on Ripley’s
Believe It Or Not;
it was definitely an
out-of-this-world experience.

‘John Riley, Sandy,’ Todd Mayhew
called out, and was surprised as the sound inside the building decreased,
allowing Sandy to hear the name.

‘John Riley Shimasae,’ she said, and
raised her head to try and look over the edge of the ledge from where she hung.
She did not feel as though she would fall now, but she could not quite see over
the ledge to where her children, and Shimasou, were positioned.

Shimasou lay, flattened by the stream
of purple lights that had rained down on it. They brought with them a feeling
of confinement, much like the one it had felt before it had been released, a
feeling of being penned in. They also fixed the huge figure to the place where
it lay, grasping at the edge, trying to reach Sandy. Trying to renew its force
and strength, which had begun to seriously wane. A cloak fell over its mind as
it felt the layers of existence being stripped away from it. It tried to reach
out towards the minds of Sandy and Bill, but the links were now very weak. They
were amazed and they were supremely confident that they would succeed, but they
were afraid. They were still afraid, and Shimasou fed off the fear as much as
was possible, clinging on in much the same way as Sandy Myers held on to the
fractured staircase at the top of which it lay.

‘Paul Wayans,’ Todd Mayhew said to
Bill Arnold. It was the reason that came before all others for his being there.
He wanted to do something for Paul. It was how he’d felt ever since he’d met
the man who had so tragically lost his wife. He hadn’t been able to help him in
life, but now he was helping him in death. And in doing so, he was helping the
world. Saving the world.