State of Decay

chance. Already people were shoving past with shoulders, hands, and elbows. Screams filled the air as I saw a woman slip and go down behind a parked car as people forced their way past. I couldn’t even get to her.

“Come on!” I shouted, grabbing Faye. She gripped my arm and held on while we pushed our way back to the closest storefront. When we pushed through to the door, I saw faces staring out at us from behind the safety glass. A newspaper dispenser crashed off one of the windows, bouncing back onto the sidewalk and knocking someone over. A man on the other side of the door looked at me and shook his head.

I held out my badge, and that got him to back up. The door opened enough to squeeze through, and I dragged Faye in along with me.

“Get back away from the door!” I shouted.

It’s a madhouse down here. What’s going on?

They’re organizing a response; stay low until then.

We’ve got dead and wounded down here.

Get inside and stay put. You can’t do anything out there. Help is coming.

A man who looked like he was missing a chunk of his shoulder stumbled against the window and left a streak of blood as he scrambled away. The crowd had become one giant organism, ready to consume anything that got too close.

With no way to stop it, we stood there and watched it happen.

4 I, Oneiros

Zoe Ott—Pleasantview Apartments, Apartment 713

I found myself becoming giddy as I headed down the hallway to my apartment, and by the time I got to my front door, I was smiling uncontrollably but I didn’t feel happy. When I unzipped my purse, my hands were shaking and I had to fumble for my keys.

The door next to mine opened and the guy with the red hair stepped out, making me jump and drop my purse onto the floor.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Yeah, hi.”

I scooped up my purse and dug my keys out, trying to find the one to the door. The man stood there and watched me as I managed to find it, then tried to stab it into the lock, but I couldn’t keep it steady. The tip of the key quivered as I tried to home in on the keyhole.

“You look like you’ve had some excitement,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“What?”

He was watching me, his expression not changing. It was weird enough that I was about to focus on him and make him go back inside, when my key found the lock and I pushed it in and turned it.

“I don’t see you out much,” the man said. He was still talking, I think, when I pushed the door open, then slammed it behind me and turned the bolt. Shrugging out of my coat, I dropped it on the floor and sat down on the sofa, crossing my arms over my stomach and leaning forward.

My visit didn’t go anything like I thought it might. The place was uninviting and everyone looked at me funny, if they looked at me at all. I didn’t think I’d talk face-to-face with a suspect, and I never expected to see anyone look like that. He was so beaten up, it made me feel sick.

The image of his face clenching up and the blood spraying out of his ear kept playing in my mind over and over again. The popping sound that came from inside his head was horrible. All I could think of was him lying there in that wheelchair with blood draining out of his ear, splattering all over the floor.

Why did I go there? What made me think I could go there and deal with something like that? Nico didn’t even flinch when he examined the body. How could that not bother him?

It worked, though.

Yes, it had worked. For whatever it was worth, it had worked, and Nico Wachalowski was now very interested in me, I could tell.

I remembered his hand on my shoulder, and the electricity I felt when he touched me. I hadn’t been touched in so long it made me ache a little, just in those seconds before he moved it away. I shook my head. There were tears in my eyes.

The room was dark, and behind the shade across the room the sky was gray. I needed a drink. I felt sick, but I needed a drink more.

Someone knocked on the door, breaking me out of my thoughts. I should have ignored it, but instead I opened it like a zombie. It was the woman from downstairs. She was standing there with her hands behind her back and smiling, but her face fell when she saw me.

“Hi,” she said kind of uncertainly. I didn’t say anything.

“Karen,” she prompted.

“Hi, Karen. What do you want?”

“I was thinking about it,” she said. “I think cookies were the wrong way to go.”

“Cookies?”

“Yeah. I brought you something better.”

“Better?”

She brought her hands out from behind her back and held out a bottle. It was clear, filled with amber liquid. I looked at the label; it was top-shelf stuff.

“Wow,” I said. She pulled it back just a little as I reached for it.

“The only catch is, you have to share it,” she said, “with me.”

“Gifts aren’t supposed to have catches.”

“I know, but this one does.”

I felt kind of embarrassed that she thought she could ply me with booze, and even more so that it was working.

“When?”

“Now?”

Maybe I was still just delirious from everything that had happened, but my mouth opened and the word came out.

“Okay,” I said, and she smiled a great, big smile.

“My place is a dump,” I told her.

“That’s fine,” she said.

“Seriously, it’s bad. I don’t want to hear anything about it.”

“My lips are sealed.”

This is a mistake. You know this is a huge mistake….

“My life is a complete mess,” I warned her.

“Birds of a feather.”

She stood there smiling, and I wondered what it was that some people had inside of them that made them enjoy meeting strangers and interacting with them. I wondered how the prospect of coming up here and getting me to just let her in the front door could put a smile like that on her face.

Stepping back, I let the door swing open so she could come inside. She made a face when she first walked in, but true to her word, she didn’t say anything.

“Still want to stay?”

“It could use a little light,” she said.