The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  ‘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.

  ‘Paul Wayans Shimasae,’ Bill Arnold said, wondering what would happen next as he did so. What did happen took his breath away. Strands of piercing white light replaced the rain that had poured in for so long. They stretched from the roof, all the way down to the floor of the building, scouring everything like thousands of fingertips. They flitted around the four men, who each looked at one another with wide eyes. For a second or two each was overwhelmed as the lights skirted around their heads and across their skin. All hate was removed from them in that instant; and each knew what peace was truly like. It was like being a baby; a feeling that they had all long forgotten. It passed instantly, and each of them knew why the world could not have true peace; they would not survive. Evil would find a way through their innocence, and it would ravage their world. They had to possess hate. They had to have the knowledge of evil, and they had to have the will to fight it.

  The strands of light reached up the walls of the building towards Sandy as the four men watched from below. They interlaced and interweaved as they went, meeting in points of brilliant white that dazzled the men. Joe Myers smiled as they enfolded his wife, wondering how the lights made her feel. Sean and David would feel it less. They were still children, relatively untouched by evil before this day, but Sandy, he now knew, had suffered at the hands of evil for years. She deserved to feel the peace that had flowed through him a couple of moments before.

  It was a feeling that was alien to Sandy Myers. Since the death of her parents, the only thing that had even come close to the sensation of peace that she felt momentarily was when Sean and David had been born. She had sat and held them, Sean in her left arm, David in her right, while both Joe and she had wept with joy. She had known on that day that the boys were her world, her peace, and now she hung and waited to see what would happen. She didn’t think there were any more names for them left to say. But something was definitely still happening. The voices had departed her head, which made her feel confident that Shimasou’s power was diminishing, but she did not think it was finished. Not yet.

  The building shook violently as the lights concentrated on the ledge above Sandy. The figure that lay surrounded by the lights felt real pain for the first time as the force of Shimasae felt for a way in. It was weak now. It didn’t know how it would reach Sandy; it had trouble moving, but it began to crawl slowly towards the edge of the ledge. The ravaged wood creaked in disapproval and warning to Sandy. Through the thunderous noise that surged throughout the building and the rain, which began once more to pour in and threatened to become its own tidal wave, Sandy called out to the men below, ‘What’s happening?’

  Sam O’Neill looked into the eyes of Todd Mayhew. He was stumped. Something was happening, but they had gone through the list of people that Shimasou had killed, and still it was not over. Unless we’ve missed somebody out, he thought, and considered Paul Wayans’ grandmother. It was his fault that they did not know her name, and the weight of the world seemed to literally be on his shoulders. ‘What d’you think, Todd?’ He asked the question in a tone that was normally reserved for the word Mayday. ‘Do you think it’s Paul’s grandmother?’

  Todd Mayhew didn’t know why it wasn’t over. Maybe it was because they had not said the name of Paul Wayans’ grandmother. She had been one of its victims, after all
. Maybe Bill Arnold knew. The theory that Mayhew had about Shimasou’s intended victims being able to see into its mind had been at least partly true. If it hadn’t, then they would not have found the building. Bill Arnold had seen through its eyes, and had known where it was that they had to go. Maybe he could see through its eyes now. Mayhew looked towards Bill Arnold without answering O’Neill’s question. Arnold looked at the floor, seemingly in deep contemplation.

  ‘Bill, the links you had to the mind of Shimasou,’ he said, ‘do you still have them?’ He waited as Arnold continued to study the swirling dust at his feet. He had assumed the same distanced look as earlier, and Mayhew noticed the look of concern that spread across the face of Joe Myers as he looked at Bill. Thirty seconds passed as all inside the building remained silent, Sandy hanging above, the men looking at Bill Arnold’s face, and the lights.

  Without looking up, Bill Arnold spoke suddenly, ‘Margaret Arnold Shimasae,’ he said, grimacing as he waited for something to happen that would confirm to him that his mother had died at the hands of Shimasou. The lights remained, but nothing new happened to confirm his fear. She had not been killed by it, and a huge sense of relief at the fact made Bill Arnold blink furiously, attempting to clear the tears that clouded his vision like an early morning fog. Maybe it was Paul Wayans’ grandmother whose name had been missed out. A new sense of panic manifested itself inside Bill Arnold’s head. If that was the case then they might still be beaten. If Shimasou was not defeated then it might reach Sandy and begin to rebuild its strength. And it has the kids, he thought, and looked up at Sandy once more, hanging above.

  The other three men followed his gaze, fixing their eyes on the figure of Sandy Myers. Todd Mayhew wondered how she could have held on for so long with events such as the ones they had just witnessed unfolding all around her. But still she clung on.

  What now, Joe Myers wondered. What could they do to help his wife and children?

  Then all at once Bill Arnold realized. It was now up to Sandy. There was nothing they could do; she was alone for this one. His tears spilled over and he glanced at Joe Myers, unseen due to him having his gaze firmly and unblinkingly fixed upon his wife above. The wind called to Sandy, pleading and urging her to end their nightmare, Shimasae begging to be allowed to do the work that had to be done.

  The building spun as the image presented itself in front of her eyes. She still clung on, despite the explosions of shock and disbelief that flashed through her head. But she forgot about her arms, she forgot about everything, and was suspended in the crumbling building, a cocoon of grief surrounding her and isolating her.

  They were gone.

  Her life was gone.

  Just eight years. She had been alive for just eight years. And now her life had been so cruelly snatched away from her by something not of this world. The same way as the lives of her parents had been taken. This time she had seen it only faintly. The figures of her children and the huge shadow thrusting the long knife into their prone bodies was like a reflection shimmering on water on the insides of her eyelids. Maybe the water on which it shimmered was Sandy’s tears. She felt no tears, only a spinning black void surging down through her stomach, enveloping her whole body and battering her mind. As she hung without hanging, she felt as though a freight train was hitting her repeatedly, backing up and returning within seconds of each hit, but on the inside of her body, trying to bust out and continue on its journey to a place Sandy didn’t think about. Sandy couldn’t think about.

  It had killed her boys. Her boys were dead. They were her light, her hope. Her reason for fighting. What did she have left to fight for? All that now remained of the building around Sandy was the edge of the shaking remnants from which she continued to hang. She did not see any lights, or feel any wind blowing. The rain ceased to hit her face, and she had forgotten the men below.

  For Bill Arnold things had changed. The lights that hovered were the same: various colors that wavered at the top of the building where Sandy Myers hung. The rain continued to fall onto the four men and the wind blew restless around them, but things had changed inside his head. The image of the children being killed had made him realize that they couldn’t beat it. They might be able to save the world from it. Well, that was up to Sandy. Bill knew that Shimasou had destroyed the families it had touched, and whether he lived or died he no longer cared. Life would be painful, and the memories, he knew, would haunt him. But now it was up to Sandy, and Bill Arnold’s mind told him that she should be allowed to make a decision on the future of the world. He would only say it if Sandy said it, because if she decided to save the world from Shimasou, then it was a world in which she had to live. He knew that she would never have any peace, and he wanted Joe Myers to hear it come from the lips of his wife. If she said it, that was.

  The floor sagged further. Sandy knew why it continued to sag. It was coming for her, and her mind was focused on it now. Tuned right in. But how could she say it? How could she save this world? Shimasou is not from this world. The voice that spoke up inside her head sounded like that of her father.

  Her temples pounded as an avalanche of grief threatened to crash down, and she pulled herself up slowly as the floor lurched with the weight of Shimasou. The aches and pains of minutes before retreated as the far more powerful emotion of grief overwhelmed Sandy. She raised her head, bringing it parallel to the edge of the remnants of the staircase, and opened her eyes. Shimasou lay, crawling slowly towards the edge, towards Sandy. Its skin had begun to tear as Shimasae had taken away the combined strength of its victims, and blood oozed from seemingly everywhere, soaking the clothes it wore and running over Sandy’s fingertips.

  The effort it had made to put an image of the dead boys into their heads had almost been too much. For a moment it had even passed out as it tried to crawl with the weight of the lights of Shimasae to contend with. But it had to destroy her hope, even if it was only as an act of defiance.

  It was now close enough for Sandy to look into its eyes. They were cloudy, but looking into those eyes Sandy saw eyes that she knew. Small streams of blood trickled out down its cheeks.

  ‘Sean Myers Shimasae,’ she said in a flat, weak tone.

  The world would be spared from Shimasou. Because it was not of this world. She knew that the world needed a second chance, and she gave it that chance. Her world would never have a second chance; it was gone, blown away by a set of events that had unraveled with frightening speed. The grief was too strong and too deep to ever be erased, and the memories were indelibly stamped upon her mind.

  Below, Joe Myers fell to his knees. A humming sound began to swell inside the building as O’Neill also fell to his knees and held the distraught Joe Myers in his arms, burying his weeping in the shoulder of the big Special Agent. Bill Arnold looked up at Sandy and said, ‘David Myers Shimasae’. The humming inside the building became louder, forcing Todd Mayhew to put his hands over his ears and drop his head. Bill Arnold continued to stare upwards at Sandy as the lights that surrounded her moved away, up onto the ledge where the two lifeless bodies lay. Where Shimasou lay. From his position he could not see Shimasou. Sandy dropped her own head due to the brightness of the lights as they rained down onto the figure of Shimasou like arrows. It stopped moving entirely, completely overwhelmed as Shimasae found its entry and stripped away the final levels of its existence. The lights swirled around the building as black dust began to rain down into the eyes of Bill Arnold, making him put his hands in front of his face to shield himself. The others raised their heads and shielded their faces in similar fashion, trying to see what was happening above.

  The dust that rained down was like lumps of coal hitting them, and the lights that swirled around the building sought it out and carried it back towards the top of the building, away from those below. It was Shimasou that rained down, and each of them knew that Shimasae was in the lights that protected them from its final threat.

  The world had been saved from Shimasou. Sandy Myers had saved the worl
d. Her husband continued to weep, hiding his face in the shoulder of Special Agent O’Neill, who kept his own head down. It was his failure that had killed those children, his failure as a Special Agent. If he had anticipated Shimasou targeting the children, then maybe they would still be alive. A sense of grief welled up with the guilt, and for Special Agent Sam O’Neill it felt like his own children had been murdered. It was almost like he had murdered them himself. His heart tore down the middle as he held the agonized Joe Myers, and he bit his lip so hard that blood trickled down his chin with the tears from his stinging eyes.

  The five people inside the building were united in grief and desolation. Todd Mayhew despaired. He was not quite sure how his heart had withstood the strain that had been placed upon it. Even now, as yellow and purple and red and blue lights carried the lumpy black particles away from the building in a swirling black cloud, his heartbeat raced. They still had to find a way of getting Sandy down from her position before the building tumbled to the ground and erased what had happened, and he did not know how they were going to do it. It was their final challenge, and they all looked up at Sandy as the storm ceased and the wind fell. The building was silent and dark. The lights that had held on to Sandy and had inspired the feeling of peace that they had felt briefly had now departed the building, taking with them the evil of Shimasou, but leaving behind the grief and pain that evil and sorrow caused in each of them.

  The world had been saved, but Sandy was lost. She was lost in a sea of grief that was infinitely larger in size than even the one she had felt when Shimasou had killed her parents. The building had darkened again, and the rain had stopped. Shimasou was gone, defeated. But for Sandy Myers, the rain still fell. It fell inside her heart, drowning her. It fell harder than it had for the previous hours, filling her up and spilling out of her eyes in torrents. It filled up the void that had opened inside her heart, weighing her down with grief. She felt the pain seeping back into her, and the joints of her fingers stiffened as her whole body ached once more. Ached with grief and despair.