Hikers: Part Two: Passion

By Lauren Algeo

In the wake of the tragedy at the Grand’s house, Scott Brewer travels to America to team up with Mitch Baines, aka Striker25. Starting in Philadelphia, they begin to hunt the surviving hikers and along the way they meet Ellen MacIntosh, a woman with a deep desire for revenge on one particular hiker. Together they journey across the states, encountering death, pain, love, and the most terrifying possibility of them all – is the Grand somehow back from the dead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lauren Algeo
• Release date: Dec 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310222313

Lauren Algeo

Lauren Algeo (1985 - ) was born in England and currently lives in Kent with her husband. She graduated from Greenwich University with a First-class honours degree in Graphic Design and works for a design agency in west London.Lauren is the best-selling author of The Hikers Trilogy – a horror/sci-fi series about one man's struggle to defeat a family of mind-controlling assassins, and the people he meets along the way. Hikers Part One: Power was published in 2013, followed by Part Two: Passion in 2014 and Part Three: Politics in 2015. There are also two accompanying novels to the Hikers Trilogy - Brewer's Journal (published in 2014) and Georgie's Story (2015). Lauren has a collection of short horror stories, Survive The Night (2014), a standalone romance thriller, The Perfect Date (2013), and a story in charity anthology, Eye of Fear (2016).Lauren is obsessed with books and films, particularly anything horror-related. Her favourite author is Stephen King and she loves watching TV shows like American Horror Story and The Walking Dead. She has an Alaskan Shepherd, called Opie, who she blogs about at opieandus.wordpress.com.Join the 'Lauren Algeo Author' Facebook page for more information: www.facebook.com/HikersTrilogy or follow her on Twitter: @laurenalgeo (https://twitter.com/LaurenAlgeo)

Book preview

For some unknown reason, the image of the old man’s dark eyes swam back to the surface of her mind as she watched with mounting horror. Then she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Chapter 1

Scott Brewer drained the last of his coffee and put the cup down on the table in front of him. He checked his watch again. 12.13pm. The kid was late. He thought about getting up and leaving, he could just go back to the motel and forget all about it. A waitress appeared beside him to end that line of thought.

‘Refill?’ She asked, holding a pot of steaming coffee in her right hand.

‘Yes, please.’

She filled his cup and returned to the counter. If she noticed his accent she didn’t let on. He picked up the now full cup and lifted it to his lips. He didn’t bother adding any milk or sugar; he preferred his coffee strong and bitter. He alternated his gaze between the door of the restaurant and the people passing by the window to his right. He was sat in a booth about halfway down the room, alone. Where was this kid?

It was lunchtime but the restaurant wasn’t overly busy. About two thirds of the tables were full, with people eating quick meals of the giant sandwiches this place specialised in. Brewer just had his coffee. He was the only solo diner in the place.

He’d chosen a restaurant near 15th Street station in Midtown village for the meeting. It had taken a while to get here from the motel he was staying in near Willow Grove and he was starting to regret his choice. He’d seen an Irish pub down the road on his way; maybe he should just head there and drink his life away. Was it too early for a Guinness?

He stroked subconsciously at a bandage on his left wrist. He’d made a promise to himself not to do that. She would’ve been furious if he ducked out of this meeting. Brewer picked at the edge of the tape and snuck a peek at the small tattoo underneath the bandage. He’d had it done yesterday, his first tattoo at forty-two years old. It had hurt like hell on the thin skin on the inside of his wrist.

He looked at the small, scriptive G that was now inked there permanently and embraced the stab of pain in his heart. Georgie would have thought he was an idiot to get a matching tattoo to hers, especially one that was so feminine, but he didn’t care. He needed it as a constant reminder of what she sacrificed and what he was now prepared to do in her memory.

He’d been in Philadelphia for nearly a week now and still didn’t really have a clue what was going on in the city. It had all been spur of the moment, he’d aimed to take a flight from Heathrow to Philadelphia International airport and make a plan of action on the way. He’d only remembered about America’s strict access rules on the train to the airport but it had been too late to apply for a full visa. He’d been forced to opt for the Visa Waiver Programme instead so at least he could travel around the country for 90 days. The 72-hour wait at the airport hotel to see if he’d been accepted had been nervy so he’d passed the time trying to wrap up everything else he’d forgotten.

By the time he flew out of Heathrow, he’d transferred most of his savings into one accessible account and exchanged a large chunk for dollars. There wasn’t as much money as he’d hoped; he’d steadily been eating into his savings over the last couple of years and a trip like this was going to cost a fortune. He’d forgotten how much hotel rooms cost and he’d need to travel around unfamiliar cities. He budgeted that he could stay for the full three months if he slept in cheap motels and ate fast food. So far he’d found basic motels in the suburbs and used the subway to go back and forth into Philly.

Motels and subways, it was a far cry from his little flat and the good old tube. He and Karen had only been to America a couple of times together for short holidays. Once to New York for a few nights for Karen’s birthday and another time to Florida for a week one summer. Being a tourist in a strange city made him feel even more alone.

He took another sip of coffee and looked impatiently at the door for the hundredth time. He was supposed to be meeting the man behind the emails that had drawn him here. Striker25. Whose real name was in fact Mitchell Baines and he was a twenty-five year old shop worker, who’d lived in Philadelphia all his life.

Brewer was apprehensive about the meeting. From their short email conversations he didn’t think this kid would make a good hunting partner. For a start, he was full of bravado but naïve along with it. He talked of government conspiracies and didn’t seem interested in hearing what Brewer already knew to be fact. He was young and headstrong and could end up getting hurt. Plus, he was lacking a basic requirement for the task. He’d never actually encountered a hiker before and therefore wasn’t able to hear them like Brewer could. What good would he be if he couldn’t track the hikers? Mitchell would just hold him back, or get in the way.

Then again he could be wrong. Brewer picked absentmindedly at a napkin on the table. He’d felt the same way about Georgie when he’d met her but she’d turned out to be… well, like a daughter to him. He tore off small pieces of the napkin and tried not to think about that night at the Grand’s house.

Besides, he was a stranger in this city and Mitchell knew everywhere. He could act as a guide and help him find places. So far Brewer hadn’t had much luck; he couldn’t go about his normal research routine over here. It had taken him a day to sort out his laptop to get free Wi-Fi in certain places and be able to charge it. He’d lost count of the number of wrong subway trains he’d taken this week. He didn’t know the areas or street names; everything confused him. He needed someone with local knowledge.

Georgie would have wanted him to give this kid a chance like he had done with her. If this guy even showed up that was. He was now over twenty-five minutes late. Brewer hadn’t sorted out a mobile phone here yet and didn’t have a number he could call Mitchell on either. He could do nothing but sit and wait.

The minutes ticked by to 12.30pm and Brewer resigned himself to the fact that Mitchell wasn’t coming. He asked for the bill and left the waitress a small tip from his budget. He picked up his battered rucksack and hoisted it onto one shoulder, over his dark trench coat. The weather outside was cold and cloudy but there was no rain in the air. He was wearing a thin black jumper underneath his coat, blue jeans and black Doc Martens. His brown hair hadn’t been cut for several months now and flopped on to his forehead.

He walked to the entrance and reached out to open the door at the exact moment a man came bursting in. They collided hard and Brewer stumbled back against the door, hitting his elbow on the frame and dropping his bag.

‘Sorry man!’ The young, black guy in front of him was clearly in a rush. ‘You ok?’

‘Fine, thanks.’ Brewer replied and noticed the other man’s eyes widen.

‘You’re British, right?’ The man broke into a wide grin. ‘Are you Scott?’

Great. He was going to be working with someone who was both late and clumsy.

‘Brewer, yes. Are you Mitchell?’

‘Yeah man, just Mitch.’ He held out a hand, which Brewer shook briefly.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, sizing each other up. Mitch looked older in the face than Brewer had imagined but he was dressed like a teenager. He had on baggy blue jeans, hung low to reveal his bright purple boxer shorts, a white t-shirt with a slogan so distressed Brewer couldn’t read the type, and grimy white trainers. He had a shaved head and a gold stud glittered in one ear. All he needed was a backwards cap and he’d have looked like the clichéd college kids that Brewer always saw in films and TV programmes. Mitch was fairly tall, almost his height, but it was hard to tell his build under the baggy clothes.

‘You don’t look how I thought you would.’ Mitch said in his strong Philly accent. His ‘O’s were overly pronounced, so ‘how’ sounded more like ‘heowuh’.

Brewer raised his eyebrows in surprise. He was just wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black jumper. Was he being judged on his plain dress sense by this ghetto kid? A waitress shuffled past and he was aware that they were blocking the entrance.

‘Let’s sit down.’ He led Mitch back to the booth he’d departed only a minute ago.

‘Really, man. You look younger than I thought and you don’t seem very… English.’ Mitch carried on talking as he took a seat. ‘I thought you’d be in a suit or something!’

With a bowler hat? Brewer wondered. It sounded as though Mitch had the same clichéd ideas as him.

‘You’re late.’ Was all he said in return.

‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I got held up after my shift and didn’t have any way to hit you up. You know how it is.’

Brewer didn’t. The same waitress who’d been serving his coffee came over and stood by the table.

‘What can I get you?’ She asked ‘More coffee?’

Brewer didn’t think he could handle any more strong coffee; he’d already had two cups at the motel this morning before another two here. ‘What teas have you got?’ He asked.

The waitress looked vacantly at him and Mitch laughed out loud. ‘Now you sound English!’

Brewer shrugged and considered picking up the menu then decided that it wasn’t too early for that beer now. ‘I’ll have a lager please, whatever you’ve got.’ He half-turned and glanced at the specials board. It was lunchtime now and he hadn’t eaten since 7am. ‘And a steak sandwich please.’

‘Fries and ‘slaw?’ The waitress scribbled in her pad.

‘Yes please.’ He looked expectantly at Mitch.

The kid must have been here before as he ordered a meatball sandwich without looking at the board or menu. He added a strawberry shake to his order and Brewer nearly rethought his beer, until the kid started speaking again.

‘It’s good to finally have someone in town who knows what I’m talking about!’ He exclaimed as soon as the waitress left the table. ‘I’ve been telling all my friends on the forums about you.’

Brewer groaned inwardly. All the weirdos and whack jobs on those sites didn’t have a clue what was going on in the real world.

‘When did you get here?’ Mitch asked.

‘About five days ago. I’ve been staying in motels just outside the city.’ Brewer replied.

‘Yeah. I live in north Philly. You know Nicetown? I’m not far from Hunting Park.’

Brewer stared back blankly.

‘So, have you found any yet?’ Mitch fidgeted excitedly in his chair. ‘What did you call them again, hikers?’

‘Yes hikers.’ Brewer said ‘No, I haven’t found one for definite yet but that doesn’t mean it isn’t here. My research has been a bit slower so far.’

‘How come?’ Mitch asked.

‘I don’t really know the area or which news websites and channels are reliable to use yet. You have to find clues to a hiker’s whereabouts first.’

‘Gotcha.’ Mitch nodded ‘Then we can go and kill it.’

Brewer’s beer arrived just in time. He took a sip while he thought how best to respond. If there was hiker activity here, there could be more than one in a city this size. And if there were some here, then who knew how many there could be across America; the country was huge. He’d been trying not to think about it all week. The prospect was too overwhelming. If the Grand’s reach hadn’t made it this far, there could be hikers still alive in other countries too.

He also didn’t want to tell Mitch that there was a large gap between them locating a hiker and killing it. They’d have to start from scratch with getting hold of a virus to use against it. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he could work with this kid yet.

‘I read over your email earlier.’ Mitch carried on, oblivious to Brewer’s hesitation. ‘We’re going to need to start looking into things to kill it. There might be something else we can use besides what Georgie told me you’d tried.’

Brewer flinched at the mention of her name. It sounded strange to hear it from someone who hadn’t ever met her. He kept forgetting she was the one who’d first emailed Striker25 about what they were up to. About their plan to kill the Grand. A fresh wave of pain washed over him and he found himself pressing his right thumb hard against the bandage on his left wrist. He tried to keep his face neutral but his jaw had tensed considerably.

Mitch clearly wasn’t very good at reading people as he kept on talking. ‘I was sorry to hear about Georgie, she sounded cool in her message. What did happen to her at that Grand’s place?’

Brewer hid behind his beer again. There was no way he was ready to talk about that yet, especially not with someone as seemingly insensitive as Mitch. He gulped a couple of mouthfuls then wiped the foam from his lips.

‘I think that’s a conversation for another time.’ He said evenly.

Mitch nodded and finally had the tact to change the subject. ‘Anyways, I can be your guide now. I know everywhere around here. I’ve lived here my whole life!’

‘Do you live with your parents?’ Brewer asked to keep the topic lighter.

It seemed to be the wrong question as Mitch’s face hardened. ‘Just my mum and my little brother.’

‘I see.’ Brewer struggled to think of something else to say. He could read people better and obviously Mitch’s dad was a sore point.

The waitress saved him the trouble by appearing with their food. Mitch smothered his fries with ketchup and tucked straight in but Brewer picked at the edge of his sandwich. The mention of Georgie had killed his appetite, as the expression went. Her death was still too recent and the grief more raw compared to how he felt about Karen.

He’d become accustomed to the pain when he thought about his beautiful wife. Time had dulled that ache a little as he’d come to terms with it. There had been time during her fight with the brain tumour to consider the outcome. He hadn’t even begun to process his grief over Georgie’s sudden loss yet. She’d only been with him for a few months but she’d had a huge impact. She’d saved his life.

He forced her memory aside and nibbled at some fries while Mitch shovelled his in. It was time to get down to business.

‘I’ll level with you,’ Brewer said ‘I’m a bit reluctant to work together on this.’

Mitch started to protest through a mouthful of food but Brewer held up a hand to stop him. ‘I know, I don’t know anything about you yet and, yes, you’re the reason I came over here in the first place, but I just need to get this off my chest before we go any further. I don’t think you realise just how dangerous hikers are yet. They kill people like that.’ He clicked his fingers to emphasise his point. ‘I have an advantage in that I can hear them and find out their next move, but you… you don’t have that safety net. You’re going in to this thing completely blind!’

‘That’s bullshit!’ Mitch swallowed the last of his food, his eyes flashing angrily. ‘I’ve been doing the research. I know exactly what these things are capable of. People are dying man!’ He slammed his fist on the table, drawing curious stares from other diners. ‘My friend was killed too if you remember! I know I don’t have your experience with them but you have to at least give me the chance to try and help! You need me as much as I need you. Just give me a few days to try; if it doesn’t work out then so be it, we’ll go our separate ways, but give me a shot here?’

Brewer had forgotten that Mitch had lost someone too. His taxi driver friend had been involved in a head on collision that killed him and two passengers.

He nodded slowly. ‘Ok then. We’ll try it for a few days.’

‘Good.’ The anger evaporated from Mitch’s eyes and they flicked down to Brewer’s full plate. ‘Now, are you going to eat that?’

Chapter 2

Brewer was powerless to move. All around him were black eyes, surrounding him, consuming him. There was laughter. A horrible, bitter rasp that echoed through his mind. Then she was running. Flying past him and he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t lift his arms to grab her. The glass shattered with a deafening scream.

‘No!’

He bolted upright in bed. The scream had come from his lips. He sat there panting, with sweat trickling down his back. The nightmare had been so vivid, more memory than dream.

He fumbled on the bedside table for the lamp switch, hoping that light would chase away the last fragments from his head. It didn’t. His heart was racing and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He looked down and saw the bedcovers were twisted around his legs. He reached down with trembling fingers and freed himself from the cotton prison.

It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamt of her since that night. In fact, it had been a regular occurrence over the last couple of weeks. Always the same dark eyes and the same evil laugh. The only part that changed was her. He never really got a good look as she raced by, but sometimes the hair whipping past his face was Georgie’s red shade and other times it was Karen’s brown colour.

The two women in his life that he hadn’t been able to save.

Brewer struggled to his feet and padded barefoot across the room to the bathroom. He filled a glass with tap water and took a few sips before splashing his face with cold water in the sink. The cheap lighting above the mirror gave his reflection a green tinge. His eyes were hooded and his face was drawn. He turned away from the haunted apparition, torturing himself for still being alive.

He dried his face on the stiff, white towel over the rail and walked back to the bedroom. The motel room he’d booked was small and basic. It had two armchairs in the corner pointing towards an ancient TV, a queen-size bed and a wardrobe alongside it. There was a small dressing table with a mirror and tea and coffee making facilities in the corner but no stool underneath. He’d been staying here for the last couple of nights to get a cheaper rate. It would do for sleeping in and that was all he needed.

He glanced at the bed and considered getting back in but dismissed the idea. Sleep wasn’t going to come again tonight. He picked up his watch from the bedside table to check the time. 3.24am. Dawn was still a long way off.

He dug his laptop out of his bag and wandered over to the battered armchair nearest the TV. He picked up the remote control and turned on the set, flicking through the channels until he found a news station. It was a worldwide one and they were covering the economy in Greece. He left the volume low and settled back into the chair with his computer propped on his legs.

The desktop loaded with the familiar photo of him and Karen and he stroked a finger over her smiling face before opening the internet browser. He was starting to think this whole trip had been a bad idea. America was simply too big for him. It was impossible to track the news properly across multiple states.

Even just focussing on Philadelphia was hard. A lot of the strange stories were just turning out to be committed by local nutters with no hiker involvement and others were too subtle to tell. He was struggling to get a handle on a decent process. By the time he’d found a story and started to research it, something else had happened to grab the headlines. He couldn’t move quick enough in the unfamiliar city. He didn’t know where places were that they mentioned in stories and it wasted time having to work out the geography. That was where Mitch would come in.

They’d gone for a drink in the Irish pub after lunch earlier. He’d told Mitch about a few of his encounters with hikers, leaving out the ones involving Georgie for the time being. It felt strange to go over some of his experiences and theories again with someone new. Georgie had been a great audience but with Mitch it seemed like he was only half-listening. As though he’d made his own mind up and was only adding the ideas of Brewer’s that suited his own.

He cut in all the time with ‘facts’ he’d learnt from various blogs and forums. Like how mind-snatchers, as he called them, could add new memories to your own so people thought they were someone else. He used the example of a woman waking up from a coma and believing she was really a renowned musician. Apparently they could add skills to people too and the previously music-illiterate woman could now read notes and play the piano to an exceptional standard.

Brewer had to bite his tongue on that one. He’d seen no evidence that hikers could do any such thing; why would they? They loved taking things away from people, not adding trivial hobbies for no reason. They were murderers, sadists in fact. Unless the woman then went on to kill an entire orchestra, Brewer didn’t believe a word. Mitch clearly did though. He spouted this nonsense as if it was gospel truth and Brewer couldn’t hide his frustration.

He gave up repeating the mantra that there was no evidence for any of these theories and resorted to sarcastic comments. He’d cut the meeting short after one drink in the pub and wandered around town on his own for a while to cool off. Mitch had been none-the-wiser and cheerily passed over his mobile number on a piece of napkin for Brewer to call the next morning. Brewer would just have to swallow his pride to work with him.

It’ll only be temporary, he told himself as he hunted for news websites. He just had to stick it out for the few days he’d agreed to. He could take advantage of Mitch’s local knowledge then move on.

To where, he didn’t know yet. There was no way of telling how many hikers were in the country and no way of killing them all at once with the Grand already dead. This was going to be an uphill struggle from the start so it made sense to have someone as ignorant as Mitch adding to the misery. Like a punishment.

Brewer had a brief flashback of the nightmare and his body convulsed. The sweat on his skin had cooled now and he realised that he was shivering. He put the laptop aside to fetch a jumper then settled back down to his research. It was harder to know what he was looking for in the articles. The writing style was different to the UK, more sensationalist in some reports. He had to sift through everything looking for the tell tale glint of a hiker.

Two hours and one strong cup of instant coffee later, he found one. Or he thought he had. Hidden halfway down a news homepage was a story about a young woman who had killed her fiancée and then herself. Her name was Beth Adams and she’d come home from work yesterday afternoon and stabbed her partner, Graham Landers, to death before slitting her own wrists. According to the report, the stabbing had been brutal, with her fiancée suffering multiple wounds.

The friends and family who had commented so far had expressed shock and disbelief at the scenario. The couple’s wedding was only three months away and apparently the bride-to-be had been ecstatic about it. One friend was quoted as saying she didn’t believe Beth would ever take her own life, not when she was looking forward to so much. By all accounts Graham was a devoted partner who’d never have done anything to provoke his usually placid wife. Of course, Brewer couldn’t vouch for that. Maybe Graham had been having an affair and Beth had attacked him in a fit of jealous rage?

There was one line in the article that led Brewer to believe that wasn’t the case. Graham had recently left a position with the US treasury to concentrate on starting his own business.

It wasn’t much to go on but it sounded the instinctive warning bells in Brewer’s head. The whole thing seemed too suspicious. A loved up woman killing her fiancée for no apparent reason? He needed to find out more.

He tried Googling Graham Landers but there wasn’t much on the first hit. He added his location and the US treasury and came up with a decent link. Graham’s position had been fairly classified with minimal details on what his actual role was. Something to do with government accounts? It all centred on money and that was one motive hikers exploited to the max. Anyone could have wanted Graham dead over money matters and using his wife to do it would be textbook hiker behaviour.

Brewer closed the laptop and rubbed tiredly at his temples. He’d need to act fast on this if the hiker was still in the area. The murders, he counted both deaths as such, had happened in Eddington, on the northern side of the state. It was too early to rouse Mitch, who probably slept until midday, but he could get himself ready then head to the kid’s house and collect him on the way.

This was his last paid for night at this motel so he could check out then find another one wherever he ended up tonight. He’d packed light and could travel around with all his belongings in his rucksack, including the small laptop. Brewer had a lukewarm shower then dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a grey jumper. He only had his Doc Martens with him and one jacket. He didn’t want to be lugging extra layers around all the time.

He folded up his spare t-shirts and packed them in the bag alongside his extra pants and socks. He took his toothbrush and comb from the bathroom but left the little bottles of shower gel and shaving foam, he could pick up new ones when he needed to. Maybe the next motel room would come with free ones like the first place he’d stayed in.

He scanned around the room but there was nothing else of his there. It was 7am and a slither of light was showing between the gap in the curtains. Now was as good a time as any to check out. He could have breakfast somewhere near Mitch’s place. Brewer hoisted his bag over one shoulder and opened the front door on a slightly muggy morning. Now to find his first American hiker.

Chapter 3

Mitch was taking forever. Brewer peered up and down the street then checked his watch again. After the diner yesterday he wasn’t really surprised but that had just been a meeting, this was important. Every minute they wasted, the further away the hiker could be getting.

He was standing in the shadow of a doorway across the road from Mitch’s place. He lived in an apartment in a block of about ten others. Brewer had caught the subway over to Hunting Park then phoned Mitch from a payphone to let him know they had a potential case. Mitch had sounded half asleep when he’d answered his mobile but soon perked up when Brewer mentioned the hiker. He’d given some swift directions to his block and said he’d have a shower and be right out. That had been nearly thirty minutes ago.

Going up to his apartment would prompt too many questions if his mum were home so Brewer could do nothing but wait for him again. He was itching to get going but dreading what they might find when they got there. He hadn’t heard the scratching