Caleb wheeled the truck around, and they sped back toward the freeway exit. Once on the exit, Jules could see the other trucks a block ahead of them. At first, there were only a handful of scattered homes, but as they drew closer to the Macey's grocery, residential neighborhoods flourished on both sides of the street.
A few blocks from the grocery, a crazy notion drifted into Jules' mind. It occurred to her that they were like criminals on their way to commit a robbery. She recognized that the thought was ludicrous, but still, she struggled to reconcile the task ahead with her law-and-order sensibility. Jules kept reminding herself that survival was all that mattered these days.
A half block before the store, they spotted a group of thirty or more infected ransacking a home down a side street, fourth home up from South Main. One of them started lumbering toward the truck as it passed and the rest began to follow.
At the Macey's, about a dozen cars were scattered around the parking lot. Strewn here and there around the lot were strikingly- white sun-bleached bones. Jules surmised the bones were what was left of people who had tried to get to the store for food. At least a few seemed to have made it to the store as the glass plates to the front doors had been smashed in.
The other trucks had already made their way to the back of the store. "We'll take care of the grays here first," Caleb told Jules. "Then we'll go back for the others."
Caleb headed toward the two grays in the parking lot, a man and a woman. They were waifishly thin and covered in a blanket of grayish-white dust as if they'd just emerged from a desert dust storm. The two infected stared dumbfounded at the F-250 as it sped toward them. They suddenly seemed to realize a meal was coming their way and they moved excitedly toward the truck.
A few seconds later, Caleb smashed into them with the truck's bull bar. The truck sent them flying a good twenty-five feet across the lot. They struggled to pick themselves up off the asphalt.
"We need to finish 'em," he said calmly. "You take the woman on the right. I got the guy on the left."
Caleb grabbed his crowbar and bolted out of the truck.
Jules opened the door and climbed down. She walked cautiously toward the infected woman as the woman scrambled to get to her feet. Jules clutched her crowbar and kept an eye on Caleb. He ran in a crouched running style toward the infected man, crowbar held above his shoulder in a striking position. He moved smoothly with an athletic gait like a jungle cat advancing on its prey.
The infected man labored to get to his feet. One of his legs was bent sideways, and he seemed confused as to how to get to his feet with the twisted leg. When Caleb reached the infected man, he reared the crowbar back and brought it down with great speed on the infected man's head. The infected man froze in place for a moment and fell to the ground.
Jules neared the infected woman, nervous but determined. The woman's dusty gray face was cracked into sections. The woman had righted herself onto her hands and knees, and she grumbled noisily as she unsteadily pushed herself up.
Jules arrived as the woman gained her feet. She felt conflicted but raised the crowbar above her head and brought the blunt end down heavily on the woman's skull.
The woman took a bumbling step toward Jules and crashed to the ground at Jules' feet. Jules thought it was over, but the woman reached her arm out and snagged Jules around the ankle and held onto it with a tenacious grip. Jules yelped and attempted to pull her leg away but lost her balance. She could feel herself tipping backwards. She windmilled her arms to try to regain her balance but it was no use. The crowbar flew out of her hand and clattered noisily on the asphalt.
Jules landed hard on her buttocks. She tried to jerk her foot away but the infected woman was incredibly determined. The woman lisped and moaned excitedly, dragging herself toward Jules. Jules reared her foot back and kicked the woman hard in the face. She heard the bone in the woman's nose crack from the impact. She was about to kick the woman again when Caleb Sanderson buried the fissure end of his crowbar into the woman's skull.
"C'mon, we have to go," he barked.
Sanderson stepped on the woman's back for leverage and popped the crowbar out of her head before he turned and headed to the truck.
Jules jerked her foot away from the woman's grasp and stood up.
"And don't forget your crowbar," Caleb added without looking back.
In the truck, Sanderson reached into the back and grabbed a clean-looking rag—a cutoff piece of a white t-shirt—off the floor. A pile of similar rags lay on the floor in the back. Sanderson poured rubbing alcohol onto the rag and carefully cleaned the fissure end of his crowbar off.
"Get any blood on yours?" he asked.
Jules examined the blunt end of the crowbar where she'd struck the woman. "I don't think so," she said.
"Let me see it," he said.
She handed him the crowbar and he cleaned it off. Then he threw the rag out the window.
"You get blood on your crowbar and touch it and then touch your mouth, you're infected."
Sanderson gave her a stony look and handed the crowbar back to Jules.
"I get it," she told him.
"I wonder," he grumbled.
Jules felt embarrassed that Caleb Sanderson had had to rescue her from the infected woman. She felt even worse about the yelping sound she'd made when the woman grabbed her ankle.
Sanderson turned the truck around and quickly left the parking lot. The group of infected from the side street had begun to make their way onto South Main. Sanderson headed straight for them.
"Next time you have to take one of them out, use the sharp end of the crowbar. That's why it's been sharpened. It'll penetrate their skull and kill them instantly."
"Won't happen again," Jules told him.
Sanderson made a gruff sound as if clearing his throat but didn't say another word. Jules looked straight ahead.
A dozen infected had reached South Main and more were coming. Sanderson veered left to get around the group, then took a sharp right onto the side street, using the lawn of a corner house to steer clear of the group. He rumbled through two front yards before turning back onto the street. Sanderson drove to the end of the block and swung the truck around and positioned it in the middle of the intersection, giving them a view back down the street. The group of infected had already changed direction and were heading toward them. Jules didn't see any infected in either direction down the intersecting street.
Sanderson held the steering wheel lightly and tapped it with his fingers as if mimicking the rhythmic beat of a song. He seemed remarkably comfortable, almost bored, and it struck Jules that Caleb Sanderson was in his element, right at home amongst the infected.
"Maybe you're not cut out for this," he said suddenly, his voice as hard and emotionless as an anvil.
"I can handle it," Jules said, the anger cresting within her.
She hated having her competency questioned.
"The thing is, when you're out here and make a mistake, you can get someone else killed. We don't have time for on-the-job training."
Jules chewed the inside of her cheek. "Let me see if I have this straight," she said, her voice clipped and incisive. "Joel was killed over a week ago, right?"
But it wasn't a question, and she didn't wait for Caleb Sanderson to answer. "And no one in camp volunteered to take his place, did they? Not a single person. That's why Sheriff Conway asked me to join the group, isn't it? They couldn't find anyone else. No one else wanted to do this." Jules paused a moment for effect. "But I volunteered, didn't I? I'm here. I told you it won't happen again and I meant it. Maybe it's time for you to get over it."
He stared curiously at Jules for what seemed an eternity. Jules returned his stare but had been finding it difficult to read him. Caleb Sanderson's posture rarely changed, and he was well-hidden behind his mountain-man beard. He showed her nothing. The only time he'd revealed himself was when he'd met Addy. Jules sensed there was something he was hiding or something he was hiding from. She wasn't sure which.
"Okay," he said, drawing the word out at a snail's pace. He left it at that and didn't say another word.
Jules was surprised by his response.
Sanderson glanced briefly at his watch, then grabbed the walkie-talkie. "How's it going in there?" he asked. "I'm figuring you've got about seven more minutes."
A high-pitched voice crackled through the speaker. "Goin' good, Caleb. We're gettin' a good haul."
Jules recognized Cole's thin, shrill voice.
"Okay," Sanderson said. "See you in seven."
The group of infected was a half block away now, moving determinedly in their stumbling, relentless gait. Jules wondered how much longer they'd have to wait before heading back to the store.
"We'll wait about two more minutes," Sanderson told her, as if he'd read her thoughts. "We'll let them get a little closer."
A lanky gray with spidery legs ran awkwardly toward them. He was well ahead of the group. He was the first runner Jules had seen. Runners were scarce these days. When he was no more than forty feet away, Sanderson eased the truck away from the intersection.
A minute later, Jules and Caleb were back on South Main. Sanderson parked the truck in the middle of South Main, front bumper aimed at the store.
"Keep a lookout to your right in case anyone comes from the freeway exit."
"Okay," Jules responded.
Sanderson kept a lookout to his left. After a minute, he grabbed his binoculars and peered through them. Jules stopped her lookout and tried to see if she could see any movement.
Sanderson flipped the binoculars into the back seat and grabbed the walkie-talkie.
"Abort," he barked into the speaker. "Abort. We got company. Acknowledge."
"Hear ya. We're outta here."
Sanderson looked at Jules. "I need you to drive. Can you do it? It's an automatic. Rides easy."
"Yes. I can do it."
Sanderson climbed into the back and retrieved the rifle from the back window.
"Follow the other trucks," he said. "When we get to the freeway, don't go any faster than seventy. When you get to seventy, stay there, and drive in the middle of the freeway. Nice and steady. When I pound on the back window, you can speed up and catch up to the others."
Jules climbed into the driver's seat. She adjusted the seat to get closer to the pedals. She watched Caleb climb into the bed of the truck. After he was settled, he slapped his hand on the back fender to let her know he was set. She shifted the truck into drive and turned it toward the freeway. She stopped where she believed the other two trucks would be coming out of the parking lot.
Seconds later she heard the trucks. They roared into view from the side of the store and hit the street moments later.
When Jules checked the rearview mirror, she could see the pursuing trucks three blocks behind them. She couldn't tell how many trucks there were because she didn't have an angled view. Jules could see Caleb Sanderson huddled in the corner of the truck bed behind the tailgate.
She sped away from the store and followed the other trucks. Once on the freeway, it didn't take long to get the F-250 up to seventy. Jules watched as the crew's trucks ahead of them steadily pulled away. Jules alternated glancing at the road ahead, the speedometer, and the rearview mirror. She focused on keeping the truck steady.
When their pursuers entered the freeway, Jules could see that the first two vehicles were trucks, followed by a car, a Ford Bronco, and a third truck. It didn't take long for them to close the distance. They spread their vehicles across the three freeway lanes. A lake-blue pickup truck spearheaded the chase in the center lane.
Jules wondered if they could see Caleb Sanderson in the back of the truck. He was hunkered down in the corner, well hidden, his head barely above the tailgate, the barrel of his rifle an inch or two above the tailgate. It appeared to Jules that Sanderson was drawing a bead on the lead truck.
She braced herself for the shot she knew was coming. She stopped looking in the rearview mirror and concentrated on keeping her speed steady and keeping the truck in a straight line.
When it came, the shot drew out like a smooth boom followed by a rapidly fading echo. Jules flinched, but kept her hands steady on the wheel.
Jules glimpsed into the rearview mirror. All five vehicles were still closing. A few seconds later, she took another look. A stream of white smoke was rushing back over the hood of the lead truck. Sanderson had hit the radiator and the truck had begun to slow. Two of the vehicles swung to the outside lanes to avoid the slowing truck. The other vehicles were coming fast and continued to cut the distance between them.
A second shot, followed by a third, boomed out and quickly faded. Jules kept the truck on a straight line. She checked the mirror and saw a man leaning out the window of one of the trucks aiming a rifle at the F-250. A moment later a loud ping rang out as a bullet ricocheted off the truck.
Jules gauged the speed of the vehicles behind them at eighty to ninety. A silver-gray Honda had taken the lead and couldn't have been more than five-hundred feet behind them now. Sanderson fired again and Jules heard the screeching of brakes. She looked in the mirror and saw the sedan fishtailing as the driver tried to bring the car under control. Sanderson had hit one of the front tires. The other vehicles slowed to avoid a collision. The driver over-corrected and the car's rear end swung forward in a slow-motion arc. The moment the car reached a perpendicular angle to the road, it flipped and rolled several times, leaving pieces of metal and plastic and shredded rubber in its wake before it finally came to a stop on its hood.
The trailing vehicles came to a stop when they caught up to the sedan. The pursuit was over.
Jules continued at seventy miles per hour till Sanderson pounded on the back window. The rest of the crew had been out of sight for a while now. Jules sped up to ninety as they rushed toward Gideon.
Chapter 9
The Tsao Killer
Jules eyelids were like magnets irresistibly drawing her eyelids to a close. To fight it, she opened her eyes as wide as she could and shook her head. She'd been skimming through a calligraphy book on her iPad—History of Chinese Calligraphy by Zhang Jie. She'd hoped to gain some insight into the Calligrapher.
She glanced at the clock radio next to her bed. It was past one in the morning. She'd have to get to sleep soon. Eight hours from now she'd be presenting her profile to the lead investigators—Beckerman, Stohl, and Coleman—and she wanted to be fresh and alert.
Jules had leafed through the first half of the book and had developed a rudimentary understanding of Chinese calligraphy. Its origins began with Bone Script. Characters were inscribed in bone rather than by brush and ink.
Later on, calligraphy in China burgeoned during the Shang Dynasty around 1600-1050 years BCE. The writing from that period was used in a ritual context for communication with spirits or for prophesy. Jules made a mental note that the Shang period calligraphy had a mystical element woven into its core.
Zhang Jie's "history" was ordered by the evolution of calligraphy styles and the dynastic period in which the style developed. The main point Jules had gleaned from what she'd read thus far was that Chinese calligraphy was far more than a way of drawing characters. Calligraphy in China was a form of high art, reflecting a reverent pursuit of symmetry and balance where each character represented a thought and there was an honoring of the abstract beauty of lines.
For a moment, Jules imagined the Calligrapher combing through these same pages, and she wondered what he was feeling as he read them. She had no idea if he'd read the book or not, but she liked to think that he had. If he had, it would give her a better feel for who he was.
Jules fought a yawn. She knew she wouldn't be able to finish the book. Not tonight. She skipped to the last chapter—an old habit reserved for late night reading when she wasn't in love with a book and was too tired to keep reading. The last chapter was titled, "Myths and Anecdotes," a collection of colorful tales surrounding calligraphy styles and famous calligraphers. Most of the ta
les were less than a page in length. Jules was ready to give up when she saw a heading on the seventh page of the chapter. She sat up, stirred to attention. The heading read: "The Tsao Killer."
Jules plunged in. The killings occurred during the height of the Tang dynasty on the outskirts of Luoyang nearly twelve hundred years ago. The author attributed the tale to folklore. But it didn't matter. Jules knew the Calligrapher wouldn't care if the tale was real or not, and Jules sensed a connection.
The name "Tsao Killer" referred to the Tsao style of calligraphy; the same calligraphy style used by the Calligrapher. Seven young women had fallen victim to the Tsao killer. They had all been strangled to death. Their bodies were discovered in natural settings in forests and next to streams, meticulously posed as if they'd stopped to rest and had fallen asleep. The victims were naked with two calligraphy characters carved into the area below each victim's navel. Their clothes were nowhere to be found. And, as it was with the Calligrapher, cinnamon had been carefully sifted into the cuts to mimic the fullness of brush strokes. According to legend, the Tsao style calligraphy characters were expertly crafted.
Each time a murder occurred, a note would be left at the local prefect's home detailing where the body could be found. According to Zhang Jie, the calligraphy characters used by the killer symbolized the notion of "lost souls."
After three years, the killings stopped. The Tsao killer was never found and his identity remained a mystery. Jules was certain the Calligrapher knew the story of the Tsao killer and had perhaps even been inspired by him.
Jules felt the vibrant thrill of discovery ride through her as she had whenever she would uncover a piece of a puzzle. The hairs on her arms stood up as if from a sudden chill.
Jules was suddenly wide awake.
*****
"The Calligrapher is a copycat," Jules announced quietly. She said it without fanfare as she handed out copies of "The Tsao Killer" tale to them.
Beckerman and Coleman looked puzzled. Stohl made a chuckling ahem sound and looked at Jules as if she were daft.
Apocalypse Journeys (Book 2): Finding AJ Page 9