The Hunter Inside (31 page)

As she thought about the absurdity of
hiding in a bush outside a motel, Sandy felt the first drop of rain hit the
back of her neck. She shivered as it rolled down her spine, sending a chill
through her body like an electrical current.
Great
, she thought.
I’ll
die of pneumonia if nothing else
.

Sandy stayed put, hoping the rain
would stop. Thirty seconds passed. Still no Arnold. The rain droplets were now
more like rain golf balls. A running stream began to pour from her chin, and
she knew she would have to seek shelter. She would be drenched within minutes
if she stayed there. Her reluctant decision was made easier by a rumble of
thunder clapping in the sky above. It was followed by a distant streak of
lightning that looked lethal. She couldn’t risk being around when the lightning
reached the motel. Her biggest shock of the last two days had been reading the
letter in the diner where she worked, and that was the way she wished to keep
it. She couldn’t guarantee that whatever was hunting Arnold and herself
wouldn’t provide her with a few more shocks along the way, but she was not going
to put herself at risk. She couldn’t afford to. She had the boys to think
about. And Joe.

Sandy rose, releasing the balls of
pain that sat waiting in the backs of her knees. She let out a scream as her
knees buckled under her, feeling like a nutcracker had been used to crack open
her kneecaps, and fell face first into the bush.

She waited for a moment, allowing the
pain to reduce to a dull throbbing, before standing up and wiping away the
leaves and twigs that were in her hair and stuck to her clothes. She looked
around for a diner or a store that she could go into. There were none to be
seen.
Damn
, she thought to herself.
Damn this stupid place.

Now she would have to do what she
really
didn’t want to do. She would have to go away from the motel to find shelter
until the storm passed. Then she would have to return, not knowing what, or
whom she would find. Her thirty-minute perch in the bush had been for nothing.
If she were able to remain where she was she would be able to see Arnold upon
his return. She would be able to see if he was alone. Or if he had been tracked
down by the thing that must have stalked him in the same way as it had her.
But
it would know you were watching
, she thought.
It knows your every move
.

The fact that she was going to have to
leave the motel to escape the rain which was beginning to make her clothing
stick to her body, meant that she wouldn’t know whether Arnold was dead or
alive.
Unless it decides to show me
, she thought, trying to suppress the
latest shiver that threatened to roll down her spine.

Thunder rumbled for a second time. The
storm was fast approaching. The sky closed in above Sandy, approaching black
and restricting her, making her feel like a caged animal. It wasn’t going to be
a shower; it was going to be an extended onslaught. Sandy was held in place
momentarily as a beam of lightning divided the sky, cracking like a whip
against the sodden ground. It was too close for comfort, and Sandy dashed
across in front of the motel rooms, sheltering under the eaves of the end room
while getting her breath back, before running through the driving rain, seeking
sanctuary from the wind and rain that howled and swirled around her, leaving
her half blind as she squinted through the downpour, looking for somewhere that
was warm and dry. A handful of cars were in the lot and there were no tourists
anywhere to be seen. Maybe they’d seen the weather forecast. She hadn’t.

She darted from side to side, trying
to avoid the pools of water that were collecting on the asphalt surface of the
parking lot. By the time she reached the end of the block, the pools were
almost ready to become a swimming pool of water, stretching across the entirety
of the lot. Sandy was half-drenched, gasping for breath and shivering
uncontrollably as she searched for the refuge that seemed to be eluding her.
She wondered what the effect of a storm like this would be on her stalker. By
now she would not be surprised to see that the huge figure she had been so
repulsed by earlier could walk
on top
of the water. She traversed
another block before seeing a sign that read,
Monty’s Bar
.

At last
, she thought as she half-ran, half
hobbled towards the deeply stained maple door. Her knees were giving her real
grief. She suffered with her feet due to having to stand for long periods at
work, and arthritis was a prospect she was certain she had to look forward to
if she ever reached old age.

Sandy slammed through the door of the
bar and was hit by a wave of peacefulness that made a sharp contrast to the
thunder and lightning and waves of rain and wind outside. The sound of the
lightning striking somewhere near the motel was muffled by the building, and
Sandy wheezed as she tried to smile at the bartender. He was a jovial looking
man, with deep lines, laugh-lines, around his piercing blue eyes. On first
impressions, Sandy guessed he must be forty, but despite the laugh-lines around
his eyes he looked five, maybe ten, years younger.

The bartender, Monty, had been shocked
when the door had violently swung open. When he had whirled around and seen the
woman standing in the doorway, dripping all over his recently polished floor,
he had not felt jovial. But he smiled nevertheless, pointing towards the
ladies’ room, determined to go with his customer service training. She was his
first customer of the day. At a quarter to five.

Sandy followed the imagined arrow from
Monty’s hand, and quickly saw the sign depicting a matchstick woman in a skirt.
She went through the door and into the ladies’ room. Inside the room was
lavish. Crisp, white hand-towels hung from gold-plated rails that went around
two walls of the room. The four cubicles were spotlessly clean. The tissue
paper that hung in each was as high quality as the hand-towels, and the room
was filled with a scent not unlike incense. This made Sandy think about death
as she walked across the brilliant white tiles towards the two high-powered
hand-dryers, waving her hand underneath one to activate its mechanism. Hot air
gushed out over her hands, face and hair. It was almost unbearably hot, and
Sandy paused several times to cool down as she successfully dried herself off
before going back out into the bar and ordering a G&T, on the rocks. Monty
nodded and prepared the drink without talking.

Sandy was relieved. Small talk was the
last thing she needed at this moment. Dutch courage was the first. Monty held
the drink out towards Sandy. ‘I’ve made it a large one. You look as though you
need it. On the house. Call it a welcome.’

‘Gee, erm…thanks,’ Sandy replied. She
flushed with embarrassment at her rudeness in asking for the drink without so
much as a greeting for poor old Monty.

‘Hey, that’s just A-okay,’ Monty
replied, before turning to fetch a mop and bucket. He didn’t carry on into a
conversation, so Sandy took the drink and sat in the corner nearest the ladies’
room.

The bar had a distinctly Irish flavor.
Around the walls were various photographs. The one nearest to Sandy showed a
horse and cart traversing a cobbled road. Another that was ten feet away
depicted a picturesque stream, water babbling over rocks, forever captured
within the ten-inch frame. Both were black and white. At various points around
the bar were paper shamrock, hanging from string and turning gently one way
before spinning back on themselves in an endless pirouette. Cartoons depicting
Leprechauns and pots of gold smiled down at Sandy and the bar was swathed in
advertisements for Guinness.

Quaint
, Sandy thought to herself. Monty
obviously cared a great deal for his bar, despite the apparent lack of custom.
He bustled past carrying a mop and bucket containing what could only be
detergent and water, and began to clean the area that Sandy had so rudely
dripped on after entering the bar.

Sandy took a drink of the G&T and
looked towards the window. Frosted glass. This was a fact that Sandy didn’t
mind too much about. She knew she wouldn’t be able to see the motel from two
blocks away anyway, and the thing that was stalking her could see into her
mind.

So frosted glass was okay.

Again, her thoughts turned to Arnold.
She wondered how long she would have to leave it before she returned to the
motel. If the storm relaxed its grip on Atlantic Beach then she would be able
to return to watch for him. However, she didn’t think it would, the corrugated
roof of the bar sounded as if it was having trouble keeping the rain out as it
got heavier still. From a low drum when she had entered the bar, it had now
become a steady pounding.
This is going to be one hell of a storm
, Sandy
thought.
An hour. I’ll give it an hour. Hell, I might as well carry on my
Dutch courage session.

She downed the last of the G&T in
one, causing the remaining rocks to clink together in the glass. She stood and
went to the bar. After purchasing another G&T (though this time a single
measure), she asked Monty for change for the cigarette machine.

‘That’s a bad habit, lil lady,’ Monty
said, still smiling jovially.

‘You try having the day I’ve had,’
Sandy shot back as he counted the change into her hand.

‘You wanna talk about it? We’re good
listeners us bartenders.’

Sandy did want to talk about it. To
Arnold. Not to somebody who couldn’t help her. She smiled wanly, wishing she
could share his mischievous smile.
Maybe on another day,
she thought,
while shaking her head slowly from side to side. She went towards the cigarette
machine, clutching the G&T in her left hand, money in her right.

Bad habit? Hey, there’s six million
ways to die
,
she thought as she placed the glass on top of the machine and began feeding in
change like a zookeeper feeding fish to seals. The old machine coughed up a
pack of cigarettes and Sandy returned to her seat. She lit a cigarette using
the personalized matches on the table.
Nice touch.
The first drink she’d
had, the large one, had gone straight to her head. This, coupled with the rush
she got from the nicotine, made her head spin. The second drink looked a lot
less appealing, and she drank it more slowly than the first, listening all the
time to the rain thudding against the roof above her. The leprechauns had by
now taken on a hazy quality, but she went back to the bar and ordered a third
drink. Then she went to the ladies’ room once more, this time to use the
facilities as they were meant to be used.

Sandy swayed slightly as she went into
the cubicle and locked the door behind her. She peed for an eternity as she
listened to the sounds of Monty pottering around the bar. When eventually she
finished and fixed her clothes, she was surprised to hear the sound of the door
opening in the bar.

‘Great,’ she mumbled, ‘here’s me
looking like death with a fucked-up afro full of twigs and the evening rush is
about to start.’ As she washed her hands under hot water, she heard the latest
arrival to the bar ask for a beer. It was a man, obviously not a local she
thought, because he fell silent after ordering his drink.

Sandy looked in the mirror. The face
that stared back at her looked ten years older than it had two days previously.
Huge bags hung under her eyes, shocking in the dark contrast they made with the
rest of her face, which was as pale as uncooked pastry. Her hair
did
look wild, and she tried to tame it a little, without much success. She decided
to give up and get back to her drink.

The pounding of the rain upon the roof
had subsided somewhat, and once she finished the G&T she would be able to
go back to room number Thirteen B.

Sandy opened the door to the ladies’
room. Directly in front of her was the bar. Monty glanced at her for a second,
before bending down behind the bar to continue his pottering. The man who had
entered the bar sat with his back to her at the end of the bar.

She went back to the table and picked
up her drink. Then she put it down quickly, as a sharp pain thundered through
every brain cell. She grabbed the edge of the table as she waited for the pain
to pass, white stars flashing before her eyes as she thought she would pass
out. When it did pass, she looked back towards the end of the bar.

No, it can’t be,
she thought. Sandy stood
and walked towards the man hesitantly. Monty remained under the bar, but Sandy
only had eyes for one man.

‘Arnold?’ She said in a tone
encapsulating shock, hesitancy and relief. The man turned so that she could see
his face. He wore a bewildered look as he examined her with his eyes.

It’s him,
Sandy thought. She noticed the same
bags under
his
eyes, but he looked as though he was standing up to
everything better than she herself was. She couldn’t believe her luck. All her
fears that he would be killed before she could get to him were laid to rest in
a split second. Here he was, large as life and sitting three feet away from
her.

Bill Arnold stood as a mark of
courtesy for the woman who knew his name. He’d never seen her before, and his
courtesy was tinged by and interweaved with suspicion. Things had been quiet in
Atlantic Beach, until now.