He walked over to Gretchen. “Have you seen anything?”
“No, but I know they’re coming. I could hear them moving through the woods in this direction.”
“Any ideas? We need to take a stand.”
“How do you take a stand against something you don’t understand?”
Bryan shrugged. “By being ready for anything.” He went over to the empty reception desk and took a golf club from the top of it. “Found this in one of the empty rooms. Hope you know how to swing it.”
Gretchen took the graphite shaft. “I’ve been known to hit a few.”
“Good. Let’s hope they have soft heads.”
There was the sound of crunching metal outside, from the car park. Gretchen and Bryan headed across the lobby and peered through the doors.
The ambulance had been tipped onto its side and had slid almost a dozen feet closer to the hotel. Its rear doors were open and the gurney from inside had spilled halfway out. Logan was nowhere to be seen.
Then he appeared at the doors, his bloody hands pressed up against the glass. Half his face was missing as if torn off by barbed wire.
“They’re magnificent…” he moaned, before collapsing to the ground and dying.
Those still standing in the lobby screamed.
“Calm down,” Bryan shouted. “We’re all together and we’re fine. No one panic.”
“Don’t panic?” someone said. “Logan has half of his face missing. What can do something like that?”
There was an almighty roar that shook the lobby’s windows in their frames. There was movement in the shadows of the car park and the sounds of heavy footsteps – like a stomping elephant.
“It sounds like a herd of elephants out there,” said Bryan. “Shouldn’t they be little green men or something?”
Gretchen shrugged. “I think anything we imagined about aliens is very wrong. If they come from a planet with more gravity than us then they would be larger and heavier.
Groves raced down the main staircase, holding a flaming mop in his hands. He put the torch against a bin full of rubbish and set it alight. “We have fires set up all around. Hopefully the light will keep them away.”
Gretchen nodded. “Good idea. Make sure they’re all lit.”
There were more sounds of the parked vehicles outside being pushed around by something monumentally strong.
Everyone regrouped at the bottom of the stairs, standing beside the bin full of flaming debris. The shadows continued to shift and swirl outside, something moving but unseen stalking the survivors.
Bryan returned with his flaming mop. The stench of faded bleach burning made Gretchen turn away. Once she was used to the smell, she took the torch from Bryan.
“What do you want with it?” said Bryan. “We have fires burning at all of the downstairs entrances as well as one in the lounge. We need to keep an eye on them all; last thing we want is to burn ourselves down.”
Gretchen took the torch over to the entrance. The flames illuminated Logan’s corpse. “I’m going to see if I can get a look at what’s out there.”
“That’s crazy,” said Bryan. “Stay away from the doors.”
“I need to know what we’re up against.”
Gretchen didn’t know why she was so determined to step outside, but something inside of her was tired of hiding. She wanted to face death head on; to finally say that she had had enough.
Gretchen shoved open one of the double doors of the entrance and slowly slid out into the courtyard. The roaring had stopped and no more vehicles were being shoved around. Something was still nearby, though; she could sense it.
Something flashed by in front of her, silvery scales peeking out of the darkness for a brief second. Gretchen tracked the movement with her torch, but it had been too quick.
Something else moved up ahead. Again she caught a glimpse of silvery scales beneath the moonlight. An important decision presented itself: whether to step back towards the hotel, or whether to venture forwards into the car park.
Despite what her thundering heartbeat suggested, Gretchen took a step forwards.
Something swopped past the back of her. She flinched and took another step forward. A low growl made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
“Gretchen!” It was Bryan shouting. “Get back in here.”
What the hell am I doing out here? Bryan’s right, I need to get the hell back inside.
Gretchen turned around, holding the torch out in front of her.
As the cone of light around the flame moved, the darkness parted and illuminated the creature standing between Gretchen and the hotel.
Gretchen screamed. The thing in front of her blinked a reptilian eye the size of a basketball on a head the size of a Toyota.
An unseen appendage cut through the air and struck the torch from Gretchen’s hands. She fell backwards on to her rump and dropped the golf club that she had forgotten she even had.
Surrounded by darkness, Gretchen could see nothing but the glint of moonlit scales as the huge beast towered over her. She felt its fetid breath beat down on her like an intermittent gale. She could sense the beat of its mighty heart within its cavernous chest.
The creature bellowed. Gretchen closed her eyes, frozen to the ground.
There was the sound of something being struck multiple times. Gretchen heard human voices followed by the inhuman growl of the beast.
Gretchen opened her eyes.
David and Bryan ran over to her and grabbed her under the arms. “Looks like you need a hand, you daft cow,” said David.
The two men dragged her towards the hotel while a handful of other survivors – including Groves and Colin – proceeded to beat at the creature with a variety of make-shift weapons. The blows seemed to have little effect, but they at least distracted the enemy while David and Bryan got Gretchen out of there.
People held the doors open while Gretchen leapt through them and skidded to her knees on the tiles. David yanked her back up, before tuning and going back to the doorway. Groves and Colin were still outside.
The two men yelled outside in the courtyard as they continued fighting the monster. The monster replied with a rumbling growl so loud that it made Gretchen’s head ache.
“We have to help them,” she cried.
But it was too late. The ear-piercing scream that suddenly ripped through the air was proof enough that Groves and Colin were beyond help. Two seconds later, their screams halted and silence reigned.
Everyone left alive inside the lobby stood around in silence, glancing at one another nervously. The burning bin in the centre of the room cast dancing shadows across each of their stark white faces.
Gretchen felt her heart beating in her chest as she peered out into the darkness and saw nothing but a velvet sheet of black. If she didn’t know otherwise she could claim that the courtyard and car park were completely deserted – but she knew that something unspeakable roamed the darkness out there, ready to extinguish them all.
“We have to get out of here,” someone said.
“And go where?” said David. “Stepping outside is as good as committing suicide.”
“Well, we can’t just stay here.”
“Nobody has been hurt staying inside. It’s going out there that has gotten people killed.”
The front doors of the lobby smashed into a thousand pieces as a shredded body came flying through the glass. The corpse hit the ground and lay on the tiles facing up with empty sockets where its eyes had once been.
Gretchen tried not to gag. “Jesus, Colin!”
“Not anymore,” said David.
Everybody in the lobby scattered in all directions, some running up the staircase and others heading into the lounge. David got caught over by the doors by something that snatched in at him from the darkness. The brief flash of scales was all that Gretchen saw and then David was gone.
The hotel filled with the screams of terrified men and women, but Gretchen stayed rooted to the spot. The outside
wall of the lobby crumpled as something huge began to force itself in. The creature was like nothing she had ever seen, nor even imagined.
Gretchen knew right then, as she stared at the beast from a place unknown, that humanity’s days were over. There would be no last stands or intergalactic war. There would be nothing more than a frightened handful of people screaming for their lives.
In fact, the only victory she could achieve was not to scream at all as she faced extinction; so she just closed her eyes and waited; waited for it all to be over.
And within seconds it was.
BOOK 7 OF 7
SLASHER
1
Rain battered the windshield like machine gunfire as MCU officer, Howard Hopkins, stopped the Range Rover outside the nature reserve. Redlake’s police officers were already on scene, busily cordoning off the area.
Dr Jessica Bennett turned to her partner and raised her eyebrow. “Tell me where we are again?”
“Redlake,” said Howard. “I know, I’d never heard of it either.”
“Why did our fugitive trek halfway across the country to some place most people have never heard of?”
“One of his victims lives here. That big Thriller writer—Blake Price, you know the one—moved his family here in 2009 after what Heinz did to them. Heinz has been obsessed with Price for most of his adult life, thinks the guy’s books were written specifically for him. Local police have his home on total lock-down as that’s likely where he’s heading.”
Jessica reviewed her mental notes. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been entirely unaware of Richard Heinz and his sickening acts, but when Director Palu had slapped a dossier across her table, his only instructions had been: “Learn all you can about this monster. He’s escaped and we’re going to catch him.” She’d been surprised because she’d thought the Major Crimes Unit existed to stop terrorism, not recapture escaped inmates. However, once she’d read the file on Heinz, she understood how the man qualified as a special case.
Howard switched off the engine and looked at her. “You ready?”
It was Jessica’s first time out in the field. She had zero experience and zero desire to be out there in the rain and wind, but she nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”
They got out of the car. Together they headed through the downpour towards a group of uniformed police officers who’d been waiting for them. Back home in Savannah, Georgia, the local police were never pleased to see badges with initials—FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, EPA, DEA, America had dozens of them—but here in England the various crime enforcement agencies always seemed happy to cooperate.
Tonight was no different as one of the police officers broke away to greet them with a grim smile. “Sergeant Mike Young,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “You’re both from MCU, I take it?”
Howard wiped his wet hair out of his eyes and returned the handshake. “Officer Hopkins and Dr Bennett. We’re here to help you with your unwanted visitor.”
The officer chuckled. “Great, well, we’ve got all the exits from the town’s nature reserve covered and we had eyes on Heinz just under two hours ago. He entered from this direction.”
Jessica eyed the tree-line. A paved pathway cut through the middle of the dark woods, but it melted into the shadows after a dozen feet or so. “Where does that path lead?” she asked.
“It leads to the town’s lake, but branches off in a few places. There’s a bridle path and cycle route, plus a path to the old abbey and museum. It’s hard to know where Heinz will go, but like I said, we have all exits covered. I’ve also stationed a team at the abbey. It makes a good lookout over the northern end of the lake.
“Your director, Palu, has coordinated with our guv and asked us to stand off until you call us in. The press are just waiting for us to shoot the guy down for a story, so we’re happy to let you try and bring the guy in alive. Especially since Heinz may have knowledge of a missing girl.”
Jessica frowned. “Missing girl?”
“Yeah, young lass by the name of Chloe Tanner, thirteen years old. Disappeared eight years ago, but Heinz has been making reference to her lately. Problem is the guy’s so nuts they haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of him. Least if we can bring him in alive they can up his dosage or something, keep trying.”
“We’ll bring him in, don’t you worry,” said Howard. He patted a radio fastened to a strap above his chest. “Are you reachable by radio?”
The sergeant nodded. “Usual band.”
“If you get any sighting of the fugitive, make sure we’re first to know.”
“Will do. Hope you catch the sick bastard. He’s killed three since he escaped. I don’t know how they ever thought it was safe to send a nutcase like him to a hospital instead of a prison.”
“It was a secure facility,” said Jessica, “and it was the appropriate place to send an offender like Heinz. He has a multitude of psychological issues.”
The sergeant shrugged. “There’s no curing evil, luv. They shoulda locked him up and tossed the key.”
Before Jessica had a chance to tell the officer how ignorant he was being, Howard strode towards the pathway. His gait was confident and authoritative. Jessica hoped she came off the same way as she hurried after him, but the truth was her stomach clenched unhappily.
She managed to catch up to Howard and nudged him. “Let me know the next time we’re going for a swift exit so I don’t end up trotting along behind you like a numpty.”
Howard grinned at her. The water dripping off the dark tips of his hair, along with his square, jutting chin, made him look like some lothario off the cover of a bad romance novel. “Numpty? Why Dr Bennett, we’re going to have to make you an honorary Brit if you keep talking like that.”
Jessica smirked. British slang wasn’t something she consciously tried to adopt, but the longer she was in the country, the more she seemed to absorb. In fact, it might have been several weeks since she’d last said “y’all.” “Hey, I’m a daughter of the South,” she said. “You folks are just borrowin’ me for a time.”
Howard touched her elbow. “Come on, quicker we make it through these woods, greater chance we have of finding Heinz before he moves on through.”
Jessica felt a lump rising in her throat but held it down. This was really happening. She was going into the woods to catch a killer.
She followed Howard into the tree-line, sticking to the path. Every now and then there would be a lamppost lighting a short stretch, but other times they navigated only by the glow of the moon. Each of them carried flashlights, along with a can of CS gas and handcuffs, but it was the Glock strapped beneath Jessica’s blazer that she thought about now. She hoped her aim in the field was as competent as it was at the firing range.
Part of her had wondered if a time would even come when she’d be required to wear her weapon—she was a medical doctor and a criminal profiler, not a soldier—but Palu had surprised her by deciding to send her as Howard’s backup. MCU was currently short of officers and most of the usual task force were nursing wounds from a previous mission, so Palu was forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Her inexperience had shown immediately when she’d turned up wearing trousers and jacket, instead of the black fatigues Howard was wearing. Her polyester threads clung to her now as the downpour soaked her through.
“So what did you get from this guy’s file?” Howard asked her. “Do we know what kind of crazy to expect?”
Jessica thought about Heinz’s crimes: several major sexual offences had led to his prosecution and incarceration to a secure hospital, but his psychosis had only worsened from there. One day he attacked a nurse, chewing off her nipples and part of her face, leaving her to bleed from a torn artery in her neck. Heinz also managed to kill two fellow inmates before he was finally restrained and placed in solitary care, where he’d remained for the last eighteen months.
That was until Heinz had escaped two days ago, killing the pair of guards transporting him to an MRI appointment at a local clinic. Heinz
had complained of excruciating headaches and the Prison Service could not refuse him his human right to medical care. Now two prison officers were dead along with an innocent woman who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The young schoolteacher had run into Heinz on her lunch break. By the time she was due back at her primary school, he’d cut a hole in her belly and raped her in the backseat of her car while she’d bled to death.
Jessica swallowed, took a deep breath, then recounted what she’d theorised from the case file Palu had given her. “Richard Heinz is unlike most serial killers in that he had a pleasant childhood. He was the son of an architect and his mother stayed home to raise him. He was an only child who socialised normally and performed well at school, eventually training as an accountant. He was completely ordinary.”
“So what changed?” asked Howard. “What was his…trigger?”
“I believe his attachment to his mother is key. The reports I read suggest she doted on his every need, until her death when he was aged twenty-three. When Heinz eventually married, he found that his wife was not the accommodating, subservient, surrogate mother he’d been searching for. His frustration led to violence, and his wife left and divorced him the very first time he dared to strike her. Good on her, it might have saved her life.
“Heinz tried several times for a reconciliation, but his ex-wife totally cut him off, making him feel insignificant and weak. He blamed her for not pandering to his ego the way his mother had taught him women should. He projected his anger onto innocent women by raping them.”
“Thus making himself feel powerful again,” said Howard.
Jessica nodded. “Heinz’s sociopathic tendencies are exacerbated by mental illness. Paranoid Schizophrenia has long been associated with serial killers: David Gonzalez, David Berkowitz, Richard Chase, Albert Fish, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kenneth Bianchi, and Ed Gein, to name the most prominent. It’s believed Heinz also suffers from the condition. His version of reality is not the same as yours or mine. That must be why he’s here chasing down some author: he’s fantasising.”
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 128
