The Hunter Inside (7 page)

The haze departed
gradually, and he remembered why he had decided to fill his veins with ethanol:
the letter, no: the photograph. That was when he felt even more nauseous. He
ran into the bathroom and threw up the seat of the toilet, just in time to
catch a torrent of liquid vomit. Not the sort of vomit one gets after
overeating; full of stomach lining that looks like carrots and bits of meat,
but the sort of vomit that wrenches the guts of its victim, even after its
contents have been regurgitated. Pure liquid alcohol followed by bile.

Despite feeling that there
was still another gallon of the noxious fluid churning inside him that needed
to be purged, he gave up heaving and slid onto the floor of the bathroom; his
clammy, sweat covered face resting against the cool porcelain as he struggled
to get his breath, his eyes closed and colors dancing in the recess that
divided his hangover from the real world outside.

‘Why is this happening to
me?’ he wondered feebly and out loud to himself. He was a mess.

He stepped into the shower
and turned on the taps. As he felt the warm water massaging his shoulders, part
of the weight of his predicament subsided and his hangover began to fade. He
fought a desire to stay behind the curtain under the water that enclosed him in
what seemed like a protective embrace, and enjoy a permanent Amazonian
experience under this tropical rainstorm, but the actuality of his world
inescapable, he began once again to muse upon what should be his course of
action.

Sleeping on the problem had
not changed his mind, even slightly, upon the matter of whether or not to
involve the police. If he were suspected, then that could (and probably would)
lead to an even worse situation for Bill. His thoughts were so dictated by fear
that running seemed to be the only option open to him.

As he rubbed the wafer thin
piece of soap across his chest, he looked down at the growing amount of flab
accumulating on his stomach. Observing that it was reaching never before seen
proportions, Bill afforded himself a chuckle as he mumbled out loud, ‘I hope I
don’t have to outrun this thing.’

For Bill Arnold laughter
was a good thing. He deserved a chuckle, and it would be a while before he
wholeheartedly chuckled again. It was going to be a struggle for good old Bill.

He stepped out of the
shower, grabbing a towel and rubbing the beads of water from his body briskly,
so briskly in fact, that his skin stung and assumed a dull red tint. He went
into the bedroom and pulled on a pair of briefs, jeans and a T-shirt. Then the
thought hit like a ton of bricks dropped directly onto him from something like
a four story height:

Is there any mail?

*

Bill Arnold went outside, making a
Brrr
sound as his teeth began to chatter instantly. He walked toward the
mailbox, praying inwardly that it would contain nothing more than the sound of
the breeze that passed through it with a low whine. He was disappointed. There
was one piece of mail for him to open.

He recognized the envelope
instantly as being of the same origin as the others that had at times amused
him, but now sent shivers down his spine that replaced with ease the ones the
early morning chill had inspired. His surname was scrawled onto the front of
the envelope, a characteristic that Bill had learned to identify with the
multiple threats he had received.

After the photograph he had
received on the previous day, he wondered what he was going to see. Bill
Arnold, as big and as tough as he looked, didn’t think his overworked ticker
could stand any more gruesome shows like the one that had forced him into an
alcoholic stupor the night before. He eased the paper from the envelope,
dreading the presence of another photograph. He freed the contents from the
envelope, and was relieved by the thinness that told him there was no photograph.
He double-checked the envelope to make sure he hadn’t left anything inside. All
clear.

All of his deliberations
now over, there was nothing to stop Bill Arnold from opening the paper and
looking at what was written on it. This was easier said than done, and it took
him a full minute to ease open the single piece of paper. On it there were just
four words, but four words were enough to inject a huge sense of paranoia into
Bill Arnold.

I am watching you
.

Goose bumps rattled over his skin,
from his head to his feet, when he read this statement. Looking slowly around
the perimeter of the garden, Bill wondered if this were true.

Turning to go inside, he
noticed the newspaper on the veranda, leaning against the edge of the window
frame and bent in two.
Damn, that paperboy’s slack
, he thought.
Why
can’t he stop and put it in the damn mailbox?
He grabbed the paper and
hurried inside. He opened the cupboard that was under the sink in the kitchen
and quickly found a black plastic bag, taking it into the lounge of the small
house and placing the empty beer bottles into it.

Once he had sorted the lounge into a
presentable state he sat down and thought again about what he would do. A quick
scan through the morning paper failed, as it had the night before, to turn up a
report of the murder.

Still no body for the
police, but now he’s ready for me
.

If he were being watched
then surely the thing to do would be to run, wouldn’t it? If he were being
watched then there was no point in going to the police. But how could somebody
be watching him twenty-four hours a day?

Bill Arnold had crucial
decisions to make. His most prevalent thought was to run. A voice inside his
mind told him to run. He could watch his surroundings, try to see if he could
spot anyone, and then take off when he was least likely to be followed. Then
the ball would be in his court, wouldn’t it?

But for how long would he
have to stay away? The rest of his life? Bill didn’t want that. He was settled
in Glen Rock; New Jersey was his kind of place. The town was quiet; a small
town that didn’t normally have major happenings. That was how he liked it. When
he wasn’t driving he liked to be in an environment that wasn’t all hustle and
bustle. Glen Rock was that environment.

While Paul Wayans sat,
waiting anxiously for the police to call him back, Bill Arnold was laying his
plans. Having decided not to go very far from home (he did not see the point in
traveling to the other end of the world when he didn’t want to be running
forever), he got out a map.

‘Right, not too far away.
Hell, I might as well go into New York City. Everyone’s anonymous there. If I
do that then I’ll be safe.’

His sentiments were
probably accurate, for any normal person couldn’t follow somebody around New
York - it was just too big and too busy.

‘Second thoughts, I might
as well go to the coast; Long Island, Coney Island, perhaps even Atlantic
Beach.’

Maybe once he was out of
danger he could relax and have a good time – forget his stalker existed and put
his head and his life back together.

As Paul Wayans was being
told to stay put and wait for the police to get to him, Bill Arnold was
deciding what he needed to do to make sure he got away from Glen Rock in one
piece. Firstly, he would have to make sure that nobody who might be watching
the house would see him leave. This meant binoculars. Bill grabbed a pad and a
pen and wrote in capital letters, ‘BINOCULARS’, underlining it twice, one line
managing to dissect the word into two parts. Then he had a brainstorm to see
what else he would need to take. He came up with money, clothes, weapons (he
would take a gun
and
a knife), and ammunition.

He tore the piece of
paper from the pad upon which he had made his inventory and drew a quick plan
of the house and its surroundings. Then he proceeded to divide it into eight
sections, four at the front and four at the rear. He would take up positions in
each of the sections and observe, using the binoculars, the perimeter of the
garden by scanning back and forth and up and down for ten minutes per section.
He would be looking not just for a madman in a tree, but also for anything that
looked odd or out of place. If he was really lucky then he
might
see a
madman in a tree. He wondered if this
would
be something he could
consider lucky, or if it would paralyze him with fear. But that was the chance
Bill Arnold was forced to take if his escape plan was to be successful and he
was to get to the coast unnoticed.

As Bill Arnold was settling
into the first position of his hastily drawn plan, a car was on its way to Paul
Wayans that would deliver him to a helicopter that would take him to where Bill
Arnold wanted to be within an hour. Bill didn’t know this and he didn’t care.
He would be sitting at various points inside the house for the next hour and a
half, watching and waiting for signs of his anonymous stalker. But if this
meant that he could get into his car and drive away safely, without being
followed, then that was fine by him.

It was going to be a long
day. There was still another thing he had to before he could leave Glen Rock.

By the time Paul Wayans and
the annoying Pat Forsby were getting into the car that would take them to the
waiting helicopter, Bill Arnold had completed half of his eight-point plan to
surveillance success. He saw nothing out of order and nobody watching him. But
he felt tense. What was he going to do if he
did
see a maniac edging
toward the house with a gun or a knife?

He took hold of the shotgun
that he was to take with him on his journey southwards. Today was going to be
tense, and the gun made him feel a little bit better, more comfortable. He
carried on surveying the borders around the house, following the same routine
for each sector of the property, using the binoculars to scrutinize dense areas
of brush. By the time he had completed surveillance of the entire area
surrounding the property, it was twelve thirty, and Paul Wayans was arriving at
the police station in Atlantic Beach.

He had seen nothing that
looked out of the ordinary while conducting his vigil. He also didn’t feel any
better. He grew tenser and more nervous as the time went on, much the same way
that Paul Wayans was feeling as Special Agent Sam O’Neill walked into the room
fifty kilometers away.

He went into the kitchen of
the house. Sweat dripped from his armpits and rolled down his body, some of it
making its way across his stomach, which was fighting a battle of its own
against the turmoil of nerves that made it tie itself into knots. All of this
was heightened by the hum that rang in his head from his alcohol binge, which
he now regretted intensely.

Fifty kilometers away, Sam
O’Neill was getting angry. So angry, in fact, that he felt he might strike Paul
Wayans at any moment. His patience was running out as the man in front of him
told him lie after lie. Paul too was starting to feel the strain getting to
him.

So now it was time to go.
Bill’s scanning the garden at the back of his house, looking in greater detail
than he would have previously thought possible at the thick bushes and even up
into the trees, had failed to reveal anything that looked remotely out of
place. It had failed also to reveal a psychotic madman sitting in a tree with
war paint on his face, holding a samurai sword and waiting to pounce. This
didn’t surprise Bill. He’d had a feeling that he wouldn’t see anyone or
anything - it all seemed too crazy - but his time-consuming inspection had made
him feel better about venturing outside the door of his small house.

He was anxious to be away
from Glen Rock for a while and out of the reach of the madman that was plaguing
him. Now that he had completed his surveillance, he was confident that he could
get away unnoticed. He looked up and placed two of the fingers of his left hand
against the wooden door of a cupboard that was home to his pots and pans and muttered,
‘touch wood’.

While he didn’t
think
he was superstitious, it was something his father had always done when Bill was
growing up and it had rubbed off on him. Today was the anniversary of his
father’s death: ten years, and he would not fail to visit his father’s grave
for anybody, not even a psychotic killer.

Bill grabbed a sports
carryall from the bedroom and hurriedly threw in some clothes. He went into the
bathroom and gathered some toiletries; toothbrush, shampoo, razor and shaving
foam were all placed into the large bag, then went back into the lounge and
retrieved the binoculars and the map. He placed them inside and closed the
zipper, before placing the bag on the floor near the door.

Next, he went back into the
bedroom and opened the closet, fishing around inside before retrieving a small,
steel box that contained ammunition for the shotgun. He took the box and went
back into the lounge. Everything felt as though it were taking twice as long as
it should. It felt to Bill like he was operating in slow motion. He placed the
shotgun and ammunition next to the bulky carryall and shoved his wallet into
the pocket of his Lee jeans. He was ready to go.

Paul Wayans was sat at the
same moment, fifty kilometers away, nursing a split lip and a busted nose and
waiting for his attorney, Jim Brown, to arrive and obtain his release.

Bill Arnold ran to his
Ford, which was still parked diagonally across the drive, the way he had left
it in his hurry to get the smell of beer into his nostrils the previous night. He
deposited the carryall onto the back seat of the car, before grabbing the
shotgun from the doorway and placing it underneath the driver’s seat. He then
closed and locked the door of the house, looking around nervously as he did so,
before getting into the Ford. He sat for a moment, thinking about the journey
he was about to undertake, looking around the garden once more. He felt uneasy,
like somebody
was
watching him. He’d scanned the whole of the perimeter,
and had remembered to quickly look down the sides of the property as he came
out. He had seen no one and nothing to make him feel that anybody was, or had
been, watching him