James Knapp: State of Decay

“Up!”

“Winner!” the judge wailed on the amp. “Winner by submission: Calliope Flax!”

My face came up on the big board, and I saw that the whole right side was covered in blood with a big, open cut on a fat black-and-blue bulge over my eye.

My name is Cal, asshole….

I hated my name. If I ever got out of third tier, I swore the first thing I’d do would be to change it. They made me put my full name, and Eddie said he liked it because of some sales shit. Ironic, he said. Asshole.

I faced the crowd and watched them freak, half of them wanting to shake my hand and the rest wanting to kill me. Some guy up front was going nuts, screaming something. He whipped a brown bottle at me and it smashed on the fence, spraying glass.

“Fuck you!” I screamed, sticking out my finger at him.

“Flax, you bitch!” he yelled, grabbing the fence and pulling on it. I kicked it, and he got his fingers out just in time.

One of the refs helped the girl limp to the center of the ring with me. She was hurting, and I could tell her neck was jacked up. She glared at me over the bridge of her broken nose and there were tears in her eyes.

“Shake hands,” the ref said.

I held out my hand, and she took it, but her eyes showed how much she hated me. I pumped her hand twice, then looked at the crowd so I didn’t have to look at her. All through the stands they were going nuts. The guy who threw the bottle now threw a folded chair at the fence, his face red. Another bottle hit the chain link and sprayed onto the ring.

“Come on!” Eddie shouted, calling me over to the corner where the exit was. A bunch of big dudes were pushing back the crowd on both sides as some of them tried to get to the spot I’d come out of, while other guys went after them from the stands. Eddie opened the door in the fence.

“Straight back to the lockers and don’t stop!” he said as I went by.

I gave him the finger and hopped down in between the security guys, then stuck both fingers straight up in the air as I walked the line back to the lockers. Marko was up next and Jefe after him, so they were hanging near the door.

“You messed that bitch up,” Marko said.

“Good.”

I said it, but it still didn’t sit right, the way she popped and went limp like that. The way she stared me down afterward wasn’t like usual, and the look in her eyes was still on my mind.

“We’re hitting the Bucket after the fights,” Jefe said. “You in?”

“Yeah, I’m in.”

So that was that. When the whole thing got going, that’s where I was. Third tier, dirt-poor, beat to hell, and ready to drink. I didn’t know shit about any of it or that half of it could even happen in this life, but that’s that.

I guess you never know.

“Zoe?” a woman was asking. Through a window I could see the city was burning, the neon lights were dark, and cherry red cinders swirled in the cold night air.

“Yes?”

“Follow me.”

“Why?”

“Because you are the last piece of the puzzle,” she said, and she took my hand with her cold, dead one.

All I wanted, the only thing I wanted in the whole stupid world, was some peace. I would have been happy with a day, or even just one minute where someone or something wasn’t in my face or buzzing in my head, but it was never going to happen, because even when I shut myself inside for days, they still managed to find me. They hounded me until I slept, and then they followed me into my dreams.

This time it was the dead woman with the short dirty blond hair. I wasn’t sure who she was, but she had a look that made me think she’d been a professional of some kind. She wore a woman’s suit, but it wasn’t just that; it was her face, her hair, and the way she held herself. In the middle of her forehead, about the size of a quarter, the number 3 had been pressed into the skin with black ink.

She had been killed recently and looked a little disheveled, but even so, she managed to seem authoritative and sure. She had nice cheekbones, gorgeous eyes, and a strong jaw. She was a couple inches taller than me, with long legs and a good body. I hated her. I hated her for her looks, the way she dragged me around, and because she never left me alone.

“Why is the city burning?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer me. Her hand was cold on my wrist as she pulled me along after her, away from the window and down a dark hallway.

“Where are we going?” I asked. She looked over her shoulder and caught me staring at her free hand, which was covered in blood. It was clutched around what looked like a human heart, a big gash cut into the middle of it.

“It got split,” she said, like that explained it.

“This is a dream,” I told her.

She didn’t respond to that. She dragged me after her and pushed open a door that led into a green concrete room.

“Not this again,” I said. The room was rectangular, about eight feet side to side, twelve feet front to back, and eight feet again to the ceiling. The walls and floors were smooth concrete painted dark green, and whatever the place was for, it must have had some significance, because it wasn’t the first time I ended up there.

She let go of my wrist and grabbed the power switch mounted on the wall, slamming it into the up position and causing the overhead lights to flicker on with an angry electric buzzing noise. There were two people standing at the far end of the room, staring forward. One was a man; the other I thought was a man at first, but it was a very butch woman. There was a space between them for a third person.

“Who are they?” I asked. A light came on over the man, illuminating him, so I could see him clearly. I recognized him; I’d seen him on TV a couple times, on the news.

“This one will need your help,” she said, pointing. “When he calls, go to him.”

He was a tall, handsome man with very blue eyes and short black hair. When I saw him on the news, I remembered he was wearing a suit. He carried a badge, the kind you kept in a leather wallet. He was somebody important, some kind of investigator or something. He wasn’t wearing his suit now, though; he was wearing a white sleeveless undershirt. In the middle of his forehead, pressed in black ink, was the number 4.

“Where did the scar come from?” I asked. There was a big white scar that started up beneath his jawline and got thicker as it moved down his neck, then behind the undershirt. There was more scar tissue across his right shoulder. The woman didn’t answer.

“Your chance of successfully navigating this relationship is fifty percent,” she said instead.

“What relationship?” I asked, but she was on to the next one. The light came on over the woman, letting me see her clearly.

“This one will help you,” she said, pointing. “When you call, she will go to you.”

She was about six inches shorter than the man, and thinner, but even more muscular. She looked like she was all muscle and bone, with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and a mean face. Her lips were painted black and peeled back in a wide frown, and her nose had been broken at some point. Her hair was cropped almost to stubble, and her prominent chin jutted forward. I had never seen her before in my life.

Her left hand was a pale gray that went up to the middle of her forearm, and black veins stood out under the skin. The number 2 was stamped on her forehead.

“Your chance of successfully navigating this relationship is ninety percent.”

“What about the middle spot?” I asked.

“That is where I stand,” she said.

“So we’re going to meet?”

“We will meet three times before this is all over.”