James Knapp - State of Decay

“Zhang knew the truth,” it gasped softly. “You have to wake up….”

I shook my head, not knowing what it meant.

“I don’t understand.”

“Zhang knew the truth….”

The revivor mouthed the words again, and not long after, its lips stopped moving. Its mechanical breathing hitched and stopped, then it sagged in my arms, this time gone from this world for good.

Back at the truck, nothing else was moving. The people around me got their fill and moved closer to the truck, trying to see inside and get shots of the bodies. The lettering on the side of the truck read FBI.

It’s hard to say exactly what motivated me to make the call. Later I thought maybe it was something I could ask Dr. Pyznar about, if I actually made it over there for the next exam. On the surface of it, I was a law enforcement officer, calling a sister bureau with information. It was their truck; these were their prisoners. The trafficking of revivors fell into their jurisdiction; they would have to be called and told what had happened, if they didn’t already know.

That call didn’t need to be made by me, though, and the fact that the person I called was the one who wanted to know was just a coincidence. I called because he was the only person I knew who worked at the FBI, even though I hadn’t spoken to him for years. Maybe that was why. Maybe I’d been waiting for a reason to break that silence.

My vision blurred as cold wind blasted me in the face, followed by a burst of hot, smoky air. I had to disengage myself from the defunct revivor and get moving. This wasn’t my case. My case was still waiting for me….

Blinking, I stared as, for just a second, it looked like someone was standing next to me. Not like a person; more like an outline. It was as if the smoke from the fire blew by, and for just a brief moment it revealed an invisible man standing there. He was looking down at me.

“Ma’am?” a voice in the phone said. Someone had picked up and was trying to get my name. The outline I had seen faded as soon as I saw it. I waved my hand across the spot, but there was nothing there.

“Ma’am?”

“Sorry,” I said, still staring at the empty spot. “My name is Detective Faye Dasalia. I need to speak to Agent Wachalowski.”

Someone was knocking. It must have been going on for a while if it brought me out of it. I opened my eyes partway and saw light around the edges of the shade, making my head hurt and my stomach turn over. Stretching out on the bed, I craned my neck back until it popped.

“What?” I mumbled, but whoever it was wouldn’t be able to hear me.

My first thought, which was my first thought most every day, was that this better be real. It was kind of a hit-or-miss thing, that. One time I woke up because my phone was ringing, and talked for fifteen minutes before I realized there was no one on the other end. Another time I woke up and found a man standing in my bedroom, and was so convinced he was a dream that I just went back to sleep, only to find out later he was the landlord’s brother checking to make sure I wasn’t dead.

The knock came again and I decided one thing my dreams never did was knock. If someone was knocking at the door, they were probably real.

“Go away,” I said.

My head was pounding now, and it looked like I wasn’t going to get any peace until I took care of whatever it was. I crawled out of bed and looked in the mirror; my nightshirt was long enough to cover up everything that needed covering, which, admittedly, wasn’t much. I plodded out into the living room and opened the front door a little bit.

“What?” I asked.

I guess I was expecting either one of the take-out guys or some kid selling something, because no one from the apartment complex ever knocked on my door. Once in a while I forgot that I ordered food and got surprised by the delivery guy, but even they knew to just leave it if I didn’t answer.

It wasn’t a delivery guy, though, and it wasn’t a kid peddling something. It was the woman who lived in the apartment below me, standing there with a black eye and a cardboard box in her hands.

“Uh, hi,” she said. “I’m—”

“Yeah,” I said, “from downstairs. What do you want?”

“I’m Karen,” she said. She was looking at me expectantly. My head really hurt, and I was dying of thirst. I couldn’t figure out what she wanted.

“And you are?” she asked finally, extending her hand a little.

“Right,” I said, “Zoe. I’m Zoe.”

Her hand hovered between us uncertainly. I gave it a little shake.

“Look, no offense, but what do you want?”

“I just …wanted to …”

“Wanted to what?”

“Thank you,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you. I’ve never thanked you.”

“Oh.”

“Here,” she said, holding out the box, “I hope sugar cookies are okay. I would have made something better, but I didn’t know if you had any allergies or anything.”

I took the box.

“You made cookies for me?”

“Well, I bought them.”

“Why?”

She gave me a frustrated look, and I could tell she was starting to get upset.

“I mean, thanks,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t know what to do in these situations.”

“Usually you invite the other person in,” she said.

“My place is kind of a mess. Like, really.”

She smiled and nodded, but the smile didn’t stay. She looked upset, and I felt bad. I actually thought about letting her in, but I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let anyone see my place the way it looked.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“No, really, maybe some other—”

“How do you do it?” she asked suddenly.

“Do what?”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Ted, when he gets like he does sometimes …like he was last night. You just tell him to calm down and he does. You just …switch him off. How do you—”

“Don’t read too much into it.”

One thing I learned a long time ago was not to talk about that. Bringing it up was a mistake.

“You shouldn’t hide it,” she said.

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“You do something to him,” she insisted. “I’ve watched it; it’s like your face changes. Your eyes change. Something happens. It’s like something passes between you, and he just stops being angry.”

“Maybe it’s my personality.”

I had meant it as a joke, but she made this kind of “as if” expression when I said it. My face started getting hot.

“No offense, but it’s not that,” she said.

“Yeah, well, no offense, but go away.”

“I don’t know how you do it, but he’s actually gotten better since you started coming down.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “If I could influence people, would I be living here, like this? Even if I could influence people, it doesn’t mean I can change anything that’s going to happen. I can’t change anything that’s going to happen; you should think about that.”

I focused on her and the lights surged brighter, the colors draining away. She looked surprised for just a second.

“There,” she said, pointing at my face. “That’s …”

Her finger stopped, hanging there. The aura around her head was blue and red, licking out curiously. I pushed it back.

“I can’t change what’s going to happen to you,” I told her. She didn’t say anything; she just stood there, her eyelids drooping a bit. For a minute I thought about trying to give her the idea to dump the stupid ox, but there wasn’t anything I could do. He had his hooks into her way deeper than I ever could, and nothing I did could change anything anyway.