| Fan Fiction |
by x.shuang.dao.x
Kale cursed his foot for being so incompetent. He was raring to go, but his foot was the only thing stopping him from stomping out of this house to look for Owodog Zhuang and Ashley Wu. It hurt every time he lifted it up, or whenever he put his weight on it. He should do something about it; he definitely had the means to. He would think about it some more. But for now, he should concentrate on planning how to look for Owodog and Ashley. He was sure they had gone into hiding after that letter.
He couldn’t even try to contact anyone, not even his past clients. Because that was the dumbest thing to do. He’d put them in danger and then he’d be in more danger than he was already in, because they would go after him as well, for indirectly exposing them to the police. No one could help him. He was on his own, like always. Except, this time he didn’t have the upper hand.
He had to stock up on supplies and medication, without being recognized. He knew that the footage and photographs of him that were on the news were all clean-shaven. There was the mug shot too, but with some disguise, he should be able to get past the normal civilians without being identified. Someone who had been in contact with him before might recognize him, but the chances of running into someone like that were quite slim, for Kale did not know many people.
With what was left of the bandages in that house, Kale bound his left ankle tightly. He reckoned he could make it to the convenience store and back. His goatee and moustache were showing. Great, he already looked considerably different from the him on television and the papers. It was still light and he put on a pair of sunglasses and pulled on a baseball cap. His plain t-shirt and three-quarter pants looked normal enough.
Mustering all his energy, he limped out of the house. He had to be quick. So he tried not to think about the pain his ankle was causing, and walked briskly to the convenience store.
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Elisha was having her off-day at Larry’s Bar, so she was heading home after completing her duties at the library.
She made a trip to the police station that morning, after Owodog looked for her the previous night. Detective Landon was the one who took her statement and she was told to report to them right away if she saw Kale again. She had agreed. And she had been paranoiac ever since. She was afraid that Kale would somehow find out that she snitched on him and come after her as well.
But as afraid as she was, she knew that her normal life still had to carry on. Remembering that her home was running out of instant noodles and hot chocolate, Elisha decided to make a detour to the nearby convenience store to get some supplies on the way home.
Elisha entered the convenience store and headed straight for the instant noodles section. She squatted down to have a better view of the flavours on the lowest shelf. She was at the rightmost end of the aisle and suddenly she saw a dark figure pass her on his way to the next aisle. Instinctively, she looked up to see who it was.
She only got a glimpse of him, but that was enough to send shivers down her spine. She knew it was he and she was fairly certain that he didn’t see her, because if he had, he would have stopped. But he had just floated past like a ghoul.
Elisha remained in her squatting position, afraid to move. So she pretended she had not made up her mind about which flavours of instant noodles to get. But her brain was whirring. She had to think, quickly.
Kale Chou was less than ten metres away from her.
She could run out now and call Detective Landon. But Kale would see her running out and that would arouse his suspicions. She could call Detective Landon then and there. But Kale would hear her. Elisha willed her heart to stop beating so frantically. She had to stay on inside the convenience store, and cross her fingers that Kale wouldn’t notice her before he left.
After all, there were around five to six other people browsing in the convenience store too. Then another thought struck her. What if Kale decided to just shoot everyone in the store or hold them hostage?
‘Okay, Elisha Low, calm down. Calm down, he’s not going to kill you. Stay calm. And wait for him to leave. Act normal. Act normal. Continue looking for the stuff you wanted to get. Act normal. Stay calm.’ Elisha silently took a deep breath, then put a few packets of instant noodles into her shopping basket casually.
The cash register was beeping with every item scanned. And then there came the familiar cling of the coins when the cash compartment popped up. Elisha waited for that click which meant the cash compartment was pushed back into place. She quickly walked to the opposite side of the aisle where Kale wouldn’t need to pass if he wanted the quickest way out.
She was right; he grabbed his purchases and left hastily. He never even bothered to glance into the giant convex mirror that practically showed what each shopper was doing in the convenience store. Elisha thanked her lucky stars, then quickly paid for her items and left.
Kale was nowhere to be seen anymore, and Elisha calmed down a bit more. As she walked at a leisurely pace back to her home, she spotted him again. He was perhaps a hundred metres in front of her, with other people in between. Elisha slowed down and then quickly turned into a back alley and rushed home.
Once home, her reflex actions were to lock every window and door and made sure all the curtains were closed. After all, night was falling; it would be quite normal to do that.
Then Elisha grabbed a bottle of beer and went to sit on her sofa.
She calmly fished her cell phone out of her pocket and dialled Detective Landon’s number. He picked up almost right away.
“Detective Landon Chen.”
“Detective Landon? This is Elisha. I just saw Kale Chou.” She managed to say in a cool and composed voice, like she had not been terrified before.
Landon’s expression hardened and he took a moment to respond as he was gesturing to Ben and Matt. “Where?”
“I saw him at Sandy’s Conveniences near Pullet Close.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at home. And I think he might be living somewhere close by.”
“Stay where you are. I’m going to come by now.”
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Kale would spend the night sleeping with his leg raised up. Hopefully by the next day, it would hurt less. He had a lot of things on his agenda. Finding Ashley and Owodog had become less important.
Why should he look for them anyway? Let them come for him.
Since he had already lost track of them, and it was hard to go out stalking, then there was no need to do so.
He deduced he didn’t even need to complete every task on his agenda. Going through merely half of it should be enough to lure them out of hiding. Kale grinned. He was going to have fun again. Too bad so many innocent people would have to be involved. Yeah, too bad for them.
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The first body since the news release of Kale being wanted popped up sometime noon on the second day of Ashley and Owodog’s stay at King Arthur’s. It was nowhere close to where Elisha said she had seen Kale last. And Landon was pissed. They had stationed men scattered around the area.
Yet Kale had gotten away to commit a murder right under their noses, assuming he was really where they thought he was.
Landon was absolutely sure that Kale was hiding in the neighbourhood. He just wasn’t sure where. The surveillance camera in the store had caught him on tape. And Landon noted that Kale wasn’t walking properly; he seemed to be kind of wobbly. The provisions he bought also supported that idea – there was medication, bandages, tape and food.
Elisha had seen him walking in front of her on the street where her house was situated. Landon himself had checked out all the houses in that stretch, and even the neighbouring stretch. There was no Kale. There wasn’t even a house that looked abandoned enough to harbour a fugitive. And he was absolutely sure that none of the houses had basements or secret underground passages because that plot of land restricted the property owners from unearthing it. Offenders had to pay a huge sum or even get thrown in jail.
Either Kale had gone out of his way despite his injuries to throw them off his trail, or there had to be something Landon was missing.
There were no houses within a hundred metres of the two stretches on Pullet Close. And Pullet Close spanned quite some distance as well.
If Kale really had an injury, how far could he have gone?
Ben walked into Landon’s office while Landon was deep in thought. He took a while to realize that there was another human being breathing in his space.
“Oh my God, when did you come in?”
“Some time ago. I thought you’d never notice.”
“Sorry, I was too engrossed in thinking. Have you guys got anything?”
Ben shook his head. Their surveillance work was not going anywhere. Neither were there any prints or even the smallest bit of evidence found on or near the body that would point them to Kale.
What made matters worse, and Landon and Ben’s job worse, especially, was that the second body was found in the evening. This time, it was found more than a hundred kilometres from the first one. The blue rose petal screamed for attention at the crime scene, and it represented deception.
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Owodog paced around in the room, going in continuous circles. Ben had just updated him about the case and obviously, things were going from bad to worse. Owodog wanted to kill himself. At least, if he died, then perhaps Kale Chou would stop murdering all those innocent people.
The two deaths earlier that day were people who had no connection with each other whatsoever. In addition to that, they were less horribly mutilated as well – something that Kale was unlikely to do. But the rose petal was a definite sign, and the method of killing was still very similar to Kale’s style. He might change his ways each time he executed a kill, but the pattern remained congruent.
Owodog knew that exceptionally well. He had seen so many of his victims. And now Landon and Ben were the ones fretting over something that he should be agonizing about. He should have been happier about this break he was getting, but the thought of not arresting Kale himself still bugged him all the time.
In fact, Owodog had been thinking. He had been thinking since Ben told him about Kale Chou striking again. Then he thought even more since the second body appeared. A kazillion ideas were swarming through his mind as he glanced at Ashley on the next bed.
She was reading through a magazine. Or, at least, that was what she appeared to be doing or wanted Owodog to think she was doing. He saw that her eyes were unfocused. He sighed softly. She had to be attempting to figure out the same thing as he was. Being dropped from the case obviously wasn’t stopping them at all. It seemed there would be no running away from Kale Chou.
Owodog picked up his beer and got off his bed. He walked to the balcony and sat on the chair, gazing out at the vast ocean that stretched across the horizon. It was a clear, cloudless night so the moon reflected most of the light from the sun, resulting in a very bright glow. The stars dotted the sky and it was a fantastic view, but he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.
Kale Chou thoughts disappeared from his mind as his brain yelled at him to take a look at his lousy life. Owodog mused about it as he drank his beer.
His life was really fucking lousy, all right. He was a detective. He was a detective on a murder case. He had followed that case for months and years. He had not caught the culprit. He was causing more lives to be lost just because he had not caught the culprit. He had not caught the culprit because he couldn’t find enough evidence. Then he became the murderer’s next target. His assistant was also the murderer’s next target. He happened to be hopelessly in love with his assistant. His assistant was hopelessly lost in love.
He was stuck in the same room with his assistant – whom he loved – for God knows how long it might be.
Yet he was sitting in the balcony drinking beer, at night.
Owodog inwardly laughed at himself for being such a coward.
The love of his life was sitting on a bed – never mind that it was a single bed – just a few metres away from him, looking so tired, sad, forlorn and beautiful. It wouldn’t take much effort to have her where he wanted. But he sat on his own, feeling dejected as well, and wondering what he could afford to do right then.
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Once she heard that the second corpse had turned up, Ashley knew Kale Chou wasn’t going to stop until he had both she and Owodog. If he kept up with what he was doing, that would mean two bodies a day. And that would be two bodies each day, or perhaps even more, until the day he manages to track down the both of them.
Based on Landon’s belief that Kale was really injured and not faking it, it might be weeks before Kale could find them. His current kills were easy to carry out and did not need much planning or strength. He could probably keep up at it for days unless he became careless again and unknowingly left proof of his wrongdoing. Or, his luck might run out and Landon and the guys would find the missing piece to the puzzle that would lead them right to Kale.
Either way, it would definitely take some time. And Ashley sure wasn’t willing to let all those innocent people die just because of them.
She saw Owodog walk out to the balcony and watched him as he sat on the chair, drinking his beer as the moonlight cast a soft, faint silhouette of him. At that moment, a notion suddenly hit her and right away Ashley knew what she needed to and was definitely going to do.
These two days she had thought about a lot of things because that was all she could do while being cooped up in a room with nothing much to do. Memories that she was afraid to revisit were brought up. People she was afraid to think too much about occupied her brain.
She didn’t want Owodog to die because of her. She didn’t want yet another innocent person to die because of her. She didn’t want to die. But if she had to in order to ensure that no one else would be sacrificed, then there was one more thing she had to do before she stepped back out into the open to continue playing this game of hide-and-seek with Kale Chou.
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->shuang.dao
okay, almost done with this! just a few more chapters to go. might extend to 17 or so. hehhs. don't forget to comment, yeah? :D