The Hunter Inside by David McGowan Page B

the thing to do would be to run, wouldn’t it? If he were being
watched then there was no point in going to the police. But how could somebody
be watching him twenty-four hours a day?
    Bill Arnold had crucial
decisions to make. His most prevalent thought was to run. A voice inside his
mind told him to run. He could watch his surroundings, try to see if he could
spot anyone, and then take off when he was least likely to be followed. Then
the ball would be in his court, wouldn’t it?
    But for how long would he
have to stay away? The rest of his life? Bill didn’t want that. He was settled
in Glen Rock; New Jersey was his kind of place. The town was quiet; a small
town that didn’t normally have major happenings. That was how he liked it. When
he wasn’t driving he liked to be in an environment that wasn’t all hustle and
bustle. Glen Rock was that environment.
    While Paul Wayans sat,
waiting anxiously for the police to call him back, Bill Arnold was laying his
plans. Having decided not to go very far from home (he did not see the point in
traveling to the other end of the world when he didn’t want to be running
forever), he got out a map.
    ‘Right, not too far away.
Hell, I might as well go into New York City. Everyone’s anonymous there. If I
do that then I’ll be safe.’
    His sentiments were
probably accurate, for any normal person couldn’t follow somebody around New
York - it was just too big and too busy.
    ‘Second thoughts, I might
as well go to the coast; Long Island, Coney Island, perhaps even Atlantic
Beach.’
    Maybe once he was out of
danger he could relax and have a good time – forget his stalker existed and put
his head and his life back together.
    As Paul Wayans was being
told to stay put and wait for the police to get to him, Bill Arnold was
deciding what he needed to do to make sure he got away from Glen Rock in one
piece. Firstly, he would have to make sure that nobody who might be watching
the house would see him leave. This meant binoculars. Bill grabbed a pad and a
pen and wrote in capital letters, ‘BINOCULARS’, underlining it twice, one line
managing to dissect the word into two parts. Then he had a brainstorm to see
what else he would need to take. He came up with money, clothes, weapons (he
would take a gun and a knife), and ammunition.
    He tore the piece of
paper from the pad upon which he had made his inventory and drew a quick plan
of the house and its surroundings. Then he proceeded to divide it into eight
sections, four at the front and four at the rear. He would take up positions in
each of the sections and observe, using the binoculars, the perimeter of the
garden by scanning back and forth and up and down for ten minutes per section.
He would be looking not just for a madman in a tree, but also for anything that
looked odd or out of place. If he was really lucky then he might see a
madman in a tree. He wondered if this would be something he could
consider lucky, or if it would paralyze him with fear. But that was the chance
Bill Arnold was forced to take if his escape plan was to be successful and he
was to get to the coast unnoticed.
    As Bill Arnold was settling
into the first position of his hastily drawn plan, a car was on its way to Paul
Wayans that would deliver him to a helicopter that would take him to where Bill
Arnold wanted to be within an hour. Bill didn’t know this and he didn’t care.
He would be sitting at various points inside the house for the next hour and a
half, watching and waiting for signs of his anonymous stalker. But if this
meant that he could get into his car and drive away safely, without being
followed, then that was fine by him.
    It was going to be a long
day. There was still another thing he had to before he could leave Glen Rock.
    By the time Paul Wayans and
the annoying Pat Forsby were getting into the car that would take them to the
waiting helicopter, Bill Arnold had completed half of his eight-point plan to
surveillance success. He saw