by Lauren Algeo
Brewer hesitated. He knew his time was running out. Which of the other two women was it? One name read Harriet Underwood and the other was Judy Collins. That gave him no clue.
He picked the darkened room with the half open blinds first. He could look in quickly then back out if she wasn’t the target. He reached the room and put his palm on the door handle.
In and out, he thought. It’ll take two sec…
‘Excuse me, sir?’
He paused with the handle half pushed down. There was a nurse standing along the corridor, next to the entrance to the main ward. Brewer stepped back from the door.
‘I’m afraid visiting hours are finishing for the evening.’ She gave him the once over with her eyes.
She wouldn’t have seen him there before and was wondering who he was. She was middle-aged, and had her brown hair tied in a severe bun. The glasses hanging on a chain around her neck gave her a look of authority. Her eyes came to rest on the hospital pass that was hanging round his own neck.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise you worked here,’ she said, in a friendlier tone.
Brewer paused; glad she was too far away to see the photo on the pass clearly. If he played on the hospital worker card, he could probably get into the side room for a couple of minutes. On the other hand, if the patient in it wasn’t the target, he would be stuck in there and definitely not be able to get in the other side room.
It was wrong; he had a bad feeling about this mission.
‘It’s ok, I was just leaving,’ he told the nurse and backed away from the door.
He gave her what he hoped was a relaxed smile as he started walking down the corridor, towards the exit behind her. Another nurse came out of the main ward and crossed to the other side room he’d wanted to get in. He’d made the right decision. If he had chosen to go into that room first, he would have been caught red-handed.
He passed the nurse who had challenged him and for a split second, he thought he saw a flicker of black in her eyes. His heart gave a start but his body kept moving. Was the hiker in the nurse?
He couldn’t hear any whispering yet and had no option but to leave the unit. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, especially not when security guards would be looking for the man who’d attacked the porter by the lifts. If the nurses got a good look at the pass around his neck he was screwed.
Brewer pressed the exit button, and as the door clicked closed behind him, he heard the nurse call out to her colleague in the side room.
‘I’ll be right in. Sian said Harriet hasn’t had her evening medication yet. I’ll…’ Her voice faded abruptly and Brewer heard the whispering begin. The hiker was back. She was softly murmuring to the nurse that the patient’s dose should be administered.
Brewer was furious; he’d been so close to helping the woman. Had the hiker known he was sniffing around and waited to act until he could no longer intervene? No, surely that was impossible. He lifted the pass from his neck and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. There was no need to get himself arrested.
He thought hard. If the hiker was whispering that softly to the nurse, she had to be somewhere in the hospital grounds. He had to find her.
He took his small hunting knife out of his rucksack and carefully tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. It pressed against the small of his back and was concealed by his jumper. The knife had a dark grey handle and a wickedly sharp blade.
He reached the lifts and the doors pinged open before he’d even pressed the call button. Two hospital security guards came rushing out. They gave Brewer a cursory glance, before charging off down the corridor to the far bank of lifts. The porter must have been found. Brewer had to hope he was too groggy to remember much about what had happened.
He took the lift down to the ground floor and began a sweep of the hospital. It would be difficult to find the hiker but he had to try. Through his tracking, he’d learnt that sometimes he heard the hiker’s voice through the victim’s mind, however other times he heard it from the hiker itself.
The hospital was growing emptier as the last of the evening visitors trickled out. The night staff were settled on their wards and the corridors were almost deserted. Brewer kept his head down when anyone passed him. With any luck, he would be out of there before security checked the CCTV cameras and saw who had followed the porter to the lifts, or before the porter himself gave them an accurate description of him.
The ground floor was clear, no whispering down there. Brewer took the stairs to the first floor. He wanted to go back to the second floor, where the Intensive Care unit was, but he couldn’t risk letting anyone from the ward spot him roaming the halls up there yet.
He searched the first floor as thoroughly as he could, despite being limited in where he was allowed to go. He got away with walking through A&E and EAU but he couldn’t go through any of the smaller wards without being spotted. He used the pass where he dared, although he tried not to keep it out of his pocket for too long.
Brewer took to hovering outside ward entrances and listening for the hiker. A couple of times he picked up the light scratching sound but that was more likely what he was hearing from the woman in intensive care than the hiker.
The first floor was clear as well. He couldn’t imagine the hiker going up past the second floor – it would want to be as near to the target and the exit as it could. It must be hiding on the second floor.
Brewer took the stairs again. He emerged near the far lifts where he’d attacked the porter earlier. He peered cautiously round the wall that partially hid the lifts. At the far end of the corridor, he could see one of the security guards prowling around. He couldn’t head out there just yet.
He checked out the doors nearest him. One was some sort of cupboard, no point in going in there if it didn’t lead anywhere. Just down from him, on the left, was the entrance to a surgical ward but he couldn’t chance cutting through there. There was a set of double doors on the right that looked like some sort of assessment unit. It was pitch black through the glass panels so anyone who worked in the unit had gone home. Brewer stepped out quickly from behind the wall and used the stolen pass to get into the empty unit.
He’d been exposed for a couple of seconds and prayed the security guard hadn’t seen him. He stood in the darkness, subconsciously holding his breath. He squinted through the panels in the door but the corridor outside remained clear. The guard hadn’t spotted him.
He let his eyes adjust to the darkness and began to make out shapes in the gloom. There were a couple of rows of chairs in the middle of the room and a desk area beyond. A sensor light was flashing over a set of doors to the left. It appeared the unit connected to another area.
Brewer took a couple of steps away from the door and realised that something was horribly wrong. He’d thought he could hear the sound of the blood rushing in his ears but it wasn’t. The sound was a faint whispering – the hiker was in there.
He stood motionless, his eyes darting rapidly in the darkness. The hiker would have seen him come through the doors, however he couldn’t see where she was. She had the advantage. Was their eyesight better in the dark too?
The hairs on the back of his neck rose with the awful feeling of being watched. He slowly reached behind him and pulled the knife out of his jeans. There was a rustling movement near the desk area. He strained to see into the shadows, only the shapes merged together. Where was she?
With his heart thumping in his chest, he took a couple of paces deeper into the room, trying to get away from the door so he wasn’t illuminated against the light spilling in from the corridor.
The red sensor above the door flicked on again and Brewer caught a glimpse of the female crouched by the desk. Her black eyes stared right at him.
He felt her attempting to get into his mind, trying to control him. He firmly shut her out and heard a snarl of anger from across the room. She tried harder, looking for a way to force her voice into his head.
With a cry of rage, Brewer lurched acro
ss the room to where he had seen her, bringing the knife up in front of him. The door to the left of the desk opened and closed in the blink of an eye, before Brewer had even made it halfway over. She was fast.
He ran to the door and yanked it open. More light spilled into this area, both from another door connecting to the corridor and an emergency exit sign high up on the wall.
His eyes were used to the darkness now, and he could make out a long corridor that ran parallel to the main one, with some rooms along either side. Some of the doors were firmly closed, but others were ajar. The hiker could be in any one of them. He would have seen her if she’d still been running along the corridor, so she must have ducked in to one. Brewer stopped outside the first door, reached inside and flipped the light switch on quickly. He squinted against the sudden brightness. The room was empty.
He moved across to the next one. They looked like small consultation rooms. He hit the light from the doorway, only she wasn’t in there either. He tried three more rooms without any luck. There hadn’t been any movement in the corridor so she hadn’t gotten away. The whispering had stopped temporarily as well and he couldn’t follow the tell tale sound to her.
The corridor was now bathed in light from the rooms. Brewer paused by the next door. It was the last one before a break in the wall, where a passage led out to the main corridor. The hiker didn’t have a pass so she couldn’t have gone through it. His palms were sweaty and he felt sick with adrenaline. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and clutched the knife in a firmer grip.
The door to this room was partially closed. He nudged it open with the toe of his boot and groped for the switch, keeping the knife rigid in front of him. The light flicked on and the hiker was suddenly right in his face. She shoved him backwards and he struck the wall on the far side of the corridor hard. The breath rushed out of his lungs as the knife clattered to the floor, and he slid down the wall.
The hiker was past him in a flash. She was strong and fast, only she made a mistake. She ran down the passage immediately after the door and there was no way out for her down there.
Brewer scrabbled for the knife and pushed himself back up on to his feet. He stood at the head of the passage, brandishing the knife as menacingly as he could. The hiker realised she couldn’t open the door without a pass and slammed it angrily with the heels of her hands. She turned slowly to face Brewer.
Her lip was curled up in an ugly snarl, baring her teeth. She was a trapped animal and he had her cornered. The hiker had long, curly hair that looked to be a dark brown colour. She was wearing a pale, short-sleeved dress that made her skin appear ivory, like a ghost.
He felt her trying to get inside his head again but he held her out with all his might. Her gaze settled on the knife and her face relaxed suddenly. Now her lips curved up in a bemused smile. Brewer felt instantly terrified. What the hell did she have to smile about?
She took a couple of slow steps towards him, gliding lightly on her feet, her head cocked to one side and the eerie smirk still on her face.
‘Stay back!’ Brewer called in a voice that sounded far shakier than he’d hoped it would. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
The hiker gave a throaty chuckle that made goose bumps crawl along his arms. She kept walking towards him, swaying her hips gently as she advanced. Those black eyes locked onto his brown ones.
He had to act now; she couldn’t get past him. That woman’s life depended on him.
With a cry of effort, Brewer charged at the hiker and plunged the knife deep in to her chest, right above her heart. She let out a sickening squeal and backed away from him, yanking the knife out of her chest. She threw it to the floor as Brewer stood shocked. He had never stabbed anyone before, and he’d never killed in the line of duty. He felt his chest hitching with the urge to violently throw up.
The hiker leaned unsteadily against the wall for a moment but she didn’t go down. To Brewer’s horror, she straightened up instead. She turned to fully face him again and laughed insanely.
The blood that had been gushing from the knife wound stopped instantly and to his disbelief, the wound began to rapidly heal. The skin pulled seamlessly together on her chest and within seconds, it was as if she’d never been stabbed. Her skin was smooth. Her dress was stained a dark red, almost black, over her breasts and there were a few drops of blood on the floor but that was it.
Brewer slowly shook his head in terror. ‘No, no, no,’ he moaned under his breath.
He had stabbed her. He’d seen the knife go in, felt the resistance as it went deeper into her chest. The knife on the floor was covered in her blood. She should be dead, or at least dying, but she was standing there without a mark on her.
Brewer felt his legs buckle and his bladder go loose. The hiker stopped laughing. She picked up the knife from next to the wall and waggled it towards him, teasing him. He had lost all resistance to her with the shock and she was suddenly inside his head.
‘Naughty, naughty,’ she whispered seductively as she moved along the corridor towards him.
Brewer had no control over his body. She was consuming his mind. He stood rigid as she stepped so close their faces were almost touching. He felt the sharp point of the knife blade press against his stomach.
To his shame, his bladder let go completely and he felt warm piss trickling down his right jeans leg.
The hiker’s black eyes were millimetres away from his. He wanted to close his eyes and shut her out but he was paralysed. She leaned her head to the side and put her mouth by his right ear. He could feel her warm breath tickling him.
‘I have a job to finish,’ she whispered out loud in her sensuous voice. ‘I’ll be back to play with you after.’
She stroked her tongue along the length of his ear lobe. Brewer wanted to scream with repulsion, however his body stayed motionless.
‘Stay here,’ she murmured.
She pulled away and walked around him. He could hear her moving down the corridor, yet he was physically incapable of turning to look.
He tried lifting his arms but they were glued to his sides, and his feet were cemented to the floor. Panic began to engulf him. The hiker was going to kill the woman then come back for him; he would be the suicide victim. He screamed internally with frustration, trying to twist his body, only it was locked down.
‘Ok, calm down,’ he scolded himself.
He took shallow breaths and tried to clear his head. He had let his guard down and she had gotten into his mind, so he just had to get his defences back in place. She would be busy with the woman in Intensive Care so he could act quickly while she was distracted. She couldn’t fully control both of them at the same time. By the time she realised what he was doing he would be gone.
Brewer gathered all his strength and visualised building a wall around his mind. He left space for one door. He could hear faint whispering from somewhere in the hospital – the female was otherwise occupied.
He came up behind her presence in his mind and pushed her through the open door. He quickly slammed it shut behind her and slid across the dead lock bolts. His body was instantly released from her power. He could move freely again and wasted no time in sprinting for the door.
The whispering had stopped momentarily and Brewer knew the hiker would be weighing up her options. Did she come after him and try to overpower him again, or did she keep the wrath of the Grand at bay by finishing her job fast.
He didn’t wait for her to decide. He fumbled in his pocket with trembling fingers and pulled out the porter’s pass. It slipped from his shaky grasp and fell to the ground.
‘Get a grip,’ he growled as he bent to pick it up.
He touched the pass to the security pad; the light turned green and the doors clicked open.
His legs felt like rubber and his breathing was laboured. The crotch of his jeans was wet and cold, and he could faintly smell his own urine. He didn’t want to risk the lifts nearest Intensive Care so he went to the ones at the far end.
&n
bsp; Two security guards were standing in the spot where he’d attacked the porter. They were studying the dent in the lift doors the porter’s head had made. Brewer kept moving forward and at the last minute, he ducked into the stairwell before the lifts. No one shouted after him; the guards were too engrossed in their detective work to notice the culprit sneaking past.
He took the stairs two at a time down to the ground floor. He strained his ears but couldn’t hear any whispering. Had she decided to pursue him after all?
Brewer wanted to race for the exit, however he held himself back and walked briskly instead. Trying to appear as normal as possible while fighting off the urge to look over his shoulder every two seconds. The exit doors loomed over him and he felt fresh, cool air on his face.
He was out. He dropped the porter’s pass into a bin by the entrance then at last, he let himself break into a run. He sprinted wildly off the hospital grounds, towards the nearest form of transport to take him away from the hiker. Hot tears coursing down his cheeks and cold piss drying on his legs.
Chapter 9
‘That can’t be it!’ Georgie cried. ‘Hikers can’t only be killed by the Grand, there has to be another way.’
‘There is one other way,’ Brewer said reluctantly.
He was exhausted from revealing his personal experiences to her. He had omitted the part about him wetting himself from the stabbing story though; that was a little too private.
‘I should think so,’ Georgie huffed. ‘They can’t be invincible. What is it? Shooting them? Burning them?’
‘Uh, not exactly,’ Brewer replied. ‘After the stabbing failed, I managed to get a gun from an ex-informant who owed me a favour. I shot a male hiker in the head at point blank range while it was sleeping in an alley. They sleep standing up you know, so it was easy to do. It actually fell to the floor this time, and looked like it was rolling around in pain, but after a minute it sat up and the hole I’d put in its forehead was closing up. The bullet that had gone through its head was on the floor, yet the hiker was fine. I just ran like hell away from there.’
