James Knapp - State of Decay

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Send me the information,” he said.

I streamed over her name.

“I’ll call you back,” he said, and cut the line.

Walking through the apartment, I found her bedroom. I opened the closet and grabbed a pair of slacks and a shirt, then threw them onto the bed. I pulled open the dresser drawers one at a time; the top drawer contained stockings arranged on the left side, and underwear on the right. I grabbed one of each, a bra, and threw them down with the rest. I folded everything up and stacked them together, then stood in the dark and waited for the phone to ring.

Eventually it did. I picked up.

“I can make it happen,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, because you never had this idea and I never helped you.”

“Got it.”

“You don’t know how you ended up with it, and you’re never going to.”

“I understand.”

“You won’t listen,” he said, “but I’ll say it: this isn’t a good idea.”

“She …” I began. I stopped, and started again. “It knows something.”

“Revivors aren’t people,” he said. “Remember that.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

He hung up. I grabbed the clothes off the bed and made one more phone call. There was another person I could think of who could help me with this who would also be off everyone’s radar. The phone rang several times before it bounced to voice mail.

“Zoe, this is Agent Wachalowski,” I said. “Call me when you get this; I need your help.”

An hour went by, and my ears still rang. My face still hurt, and the stub where my tooth broke off throbbed like hell. All the way back home on the bike, I had to breathe through my nose, and every block my nose got plugged with blood. My knuckles were raw, my fists felt like I’d been punching bricks, and they dicked me on the reward since Luis got killed. The docs made sure I was in one piece, then slapped a bandage on my face and gave me the boot. The cops never even said thanks, and the fed bolted right after he got that call he picked up in the garage.

So I got my face mashed up, got shot at, got dicked on the reward, and Luis bought it anyway. Eddie got booked for taking potshots at the psycho with a shotgun, then sent word from the tank that I was off roll for a month. Great fucking night.

I parked the bike and kicked the front door open. Someone bitched when I stomped up the stairs, but I didn’t care. I shoved the door open and whipped my helmet into the kitchen right through a stack of plates in the sink. Glass pinged off the wall as they smashed and slid in pieces onto the floor with a huge crash.

“Shut the hell up!” a voice yelled from under the floor, banging it with a fist.

“Fuck you!” I yelled back, stomping the floor with my boot.

I was so pissed, I was glad when I heard the door slam down the stairs. Heavy footsteps thumped down the hall, and the door down there crashed open.

“You got a problem?” I heard him yell.

Kicking my door back open, I hit the stairs before he got halfway up. He was some big, fat piece of shit with a sweat-stained shirt and tattoos on his shoulders. Beer foam or snot was stuck to his little bushy moustache. He had a wooden bat in one hand.

From the stairs up over him, I stomped my boot down on his chest and he went down like a big sack of garbage. A floorboard cracked when he hit the landing, face red and bloodshot eyes bugged out.

“Get up and get out,” I told him, “or I’ll jam that stick up your ass!”

“I’ll shoot you through the floor, you ugly bitch!” he spat, grunting as he rolled onto his hands and knees.

“You better not miss, asshole!”

I stormed back through the door and slammed it, so mad I was seeing red. I felt like I had to tear something apart or I’d lose my mind. People were banging and yelling on the walls and floors, and with each thump my blood got hotter and hotter. It would have felt so good to just trash the place, to break every last thing inside it to pieces. To take what I started with the dishes and not stop until it was all gone. To—

Over the racket, my cell went off and I flipped it open.

“What?” I snapped.

“Ms. Flax?” a voice asked. It was the G-man, Nico.

“It’s Cal. Not Calliope, not Ms. Flax, and not ma’am. Cal.”

“Cal,” he said. “I need some help.”

“Help? You guys screwed me—”

“I said you’d get paid for the tip on Valle,” he said.

“You will. I’ll take care of it. You help me out, and there’s a little more in it for you.”

My heart was still thumping, and I could still hear people yelling in the units around mine. I sucked air through my nose.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because I don’t want anyone else involved.”

“You mean you don’t want to tell anyone.”

“Yes.”

His voice sounded rough. It was different from before.

“Illegal?”

“No. Just a favor.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I think you’re worth more than the cage at the arena,” he said, “and I think you do too. Besides, you could use a favor in return.”

There was something about the way he said it that made me think twice. Usually guys like him didn’t ask; they took. With the back of my hand, I rubbed my eyes and wiped the blood out from under my nose.

“I’m listening.”

“I need some things dropped off somewhere,” he said. “I won’t have time to get them myself.”

“That’s it? Drop some shit off?”

“Drop it off, wait, and then go back.”

“Why?”

“In case I don’t come out on my own.”

I thought about it a minute. He saved my life. I guessed I owed him something.

“What am I picking up and where am I taking it?”

He gave me the list. Loading up the bike was a trick, but it didn’t have to get far. I strapped on a pack, threw a bag over the gas tank, and stuffed the rest in my coat. He gave me the credit to get it all, and said I could keep what was left.

The drop point was some piece-of-shit storage hole that I didn’t like the looks of, and I’d seen some shit holes. It looked like no one had been there in years, like the people who kept their stuff there died and the guys that ran it skipped town. Who knew what was left down there, but I hoped not a bunch of junkies and hobos.

The lock was still there, so with any luck it was empty. He had given me the code to get in, and it worked, so I rolled the bike down to the freight elevator and rode it right in and cut the engine. With the tip of my boot, I kicked the button marked 8; bottom floor.

The underground part was as nasty as the part up top, and it looked like no one had been down there for years either, except for a set of wheel tracks that looked like they came from a hand truck, and some footprints following them. Another set followed them down and to the right.

Walking the bike, I followed the tracks, and sure enough, they went right where I was going: a green metal door marked C. The tracks went through the door, but when I pushed it, there was no give. I tried the handle and it was locked, so I banged on the door. No one answered. I was alone down there.

It didn’t matter. Wachalowski said just bring the stuff, leave it, and don’t ask questions. After I dropped it off, there was a bar nearby where I could knock back a few and watch some TV, then go back and check on him. I could do that.

I dropped the stuff next to the door in a pile, as he said: four gallons of water in two plastic containers, one bundle of plastic ties, a sharp knife, a first-aid kit, a battery-powered lamp, a length of chain, a padlock, and three clean towels. I wondered what it was for.