by Mel Odom

“Have you ever seen this man before, Miss Smith?”

Even before Special Agent Thompson took the 8×10 photograph from inside his sleek briefcase, Emily Cooksey knew she had seen the man previously – eight days ago. “No.” She told the lie without inflection, without pause, just as she’d told the man her name was Mary Smith. She was good at lying and would be ashamed of it, if it weren’t so necessary in her life.

Thompson regarded her for a moment while he sat on the threadbare couch she’d gotten at a thrift store. Emily was proud of the couch. The material was dark and rich, a copper color that soothed her mind and didn’t make her thoughts busy.

She’d worked hard for the couch, shopped diligently, then got a friend to help her wheel it the two blocks to her apartment building on a handtruck. The elevator had been out that day and it had taken them nearly an hour to carry it up to her fourth-floor apartment.

Now the FBI agent, and she didn’t think he was that, not really, sat on the couch like it was dirty, like it was a step removed from the trash heap. The tailored black suit the man wore, the Italian tie and shoes, and the French shirt told her that the man liked things.

Emily liked things too. She just didn’t have the money to buy many things. So she made careful investments with the money she made at the seamstress shop only a mile away from her home. She didn’t have a driver’s license because people like Special Agent Thompson would be able to track her more easily.

He tapped the picture on the coffee table between them with a manicured forefinger and smiled warmly, but the coldness in his green eyes remained. Those eyes reminded Emily of snakes, or the glass eyes she’d seen in her grandfather’s taxidermist shop. Those eyes didn’t really have any life to them.

“Maybe you should look again.” His voice was neutral and carried no threat. He was careful about that. All of these agents were. They were very deceitful and they thought they were so much smarter than she was. They were never dangerous till they wanted to be.

Emily sat very primly on the edge of the easy chair she had purchased only last week. The chair didn’t match the couch, but it was comfortable. At the time she’d bought the couch, the thrift store had had a matching chair for sale. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the money for both, and she’d needed a more comfortable place to sleep than the floor. She’d later purchased a child’s bed, but if the chair had still remained there, she probably would have bought the chair before the bed. If she had and her mother had found out, her mother would have badgered her about being nonsensical. Still, not being able to buy the matching chair had left her feeling so disconsolate that she hadn’t found a chair she’d come close to liking for months.

Dutifully, Emily leaned forward and looked at the picture with feigned interest. She was more aware of the way the coffee table cover hung slightly askew, thanks to Thompson’s aggressive finger, but at least the scars and the bad words someone had written in permanent marker remained covered. She hadn’t been able to clean those off.

The man in the picture was perhaps twenty years or more older than Special Agent Thompson. Emily had decided that the agent was only a handful of years older than her, which put him around thirty. The man in the picture had gray hair and a bulldog face, but his hair had been more gray and he’d looked fatigued the day Emily had finally spoken with him.

“No.” Emily shook her head and pulled at her skirt, making certain that it never rose above her knees. She wore tennis shoes and knee-high stockings, sensical clothing that her mother would have approved of.

“You see, that’s strange.” Thompson talked slowly, like he was speaking to a child or a backward person. “Special Agent McReady filed a report that he was going to meet with you.”

“He never did.” Emily met his gaze guilelessly and kept her heart rate under control. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like tea? It would be no problem at all.”

“No, Miss Smith, I wouldn’t like any tea.” Thompson scowled and leaned back so that his coat fell away from the big pistol holstered at his hip.

Emily sat there and wished she had something to do with her hands. But she didn’t, so she just clasped them on her lap. McReady hadn’t wanted any tea either. She did hope that this present situation didn’t go the way the one with McReady had.

“How long have you lived in Chicago, Miss Smith?”

“All my life.”

“Can you prove that?”

Emily couldn’t. She kept her face calm. There was a way out. There was always a way out. She had learned that. “Do I have to?”

“I would like very much for you to. I checked with the building super. You’ve only lived here for fourteen months.”

“Has it really been that long?” That surprised Emily. She hadn’t known she had stayed so long. Usually she didn’t stay in one place much more than six months. She had been more comfortable in Chicago than she had in San Francisco or Boston or Atlanta, though she had liked the weather in San Francisco a lot more. She’d stayed there too long as well.

“You moved in here a year ago, April, Miss Smith.”

“Chicago is a nice place to live. Except for the winters. The winters are very harsh.” Back home in Alabama, winters had been gentle things, a placeholder, really, between fall and spring.

Thompson frowned. “You have a bit of a Southern accent, Miss Smith.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, you do. I’ve been told I have a very good ear for such things, and you’ve covered yours up very well.”

“Maybe what you hear is a bit of an accent I picked up from the other young women I work with.”

“The other young women you work with are Chinese, Miss Smith. I know that because I checked with your employer, Mr. Grimaldi.”

“Ruth Batson isn’t Chinese. She’s from Atlanta, Georgia, I believe.”

Thompson nodded. “You’re right. I talked with her too. Do you know what she said?”

Emily waited, knowing it couldn’t be good. These government men were a lot like the Treasury men her grandpa had always cursed about when he was roaring drunk.

“Mrs. Batson said she thought you were from somewhere down south too.”

“Well, she is mistaken.”

Thompson looked around the small living room and at the collection of watercolor landscapes Emily had hung. None of the pictures were real, of course, because she couldn’t afford anything like that. She’d cut them from magazines and framed them after seeing a television show about framing.

He returned his gaze to her. “Do you have a high school yearbook, Miss Smith?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“That’s unusual. Most of the women I know have copies of their high school yearbooks.”

“I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of bad luck hanging onto things over the years.”

Thompson smiled. “I don’t think high school was that far away for you, Miss Smith.”

Emily flushed because the man was deliberately flirting with her. She had never been comfortable with being treated like that.

“What about pictures?” Thompson seemed like he was eager to be pleased, that anything would satisfy whatever questions he had.

“Pictures?”

“Sure.” Thompson shrugged. “Pictures of you and your family. Of you when you were younger. I know people who either have shoeboxes of pictures or they’ve filled up Facebook accounts with them.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures either.”

“Facebook?”

“No. I don’t have a computer. They’re too expensive.”

“That’s a shame. You’re very photogenic.”

Emily flushed again.

Thompson shifted on the couch and leaned forward. “That’s how McReady found you, you know. Through pictures.”

McReady had told her that too, but he had caught up with her at the diner on the corner, by the apartment building. Once a week Emily splurged and bought a chicken-fried steak dinner there to reward herself after six days of backbreaking labor over a sewing machine. He had threatened to handcuff her then and there if she hadn’t come with him.

“I don’t know Mr. McReady.”

“I think you did, Miss Smith, and I think that you did something to him that made him step out in front of a produce delivery truck.”

In spite of her effort not to react, the memory of the man getting hit by the truck – THUD! – caused Emily to draw in her breath sharply and close her eyes. When she opened them again, Thompson was smiling.

“That truck killed Agent McReady stone dead.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“Agent McReady wasn’t a friend, but he was a competent agent. The agency I work for doesn’t like to lose its people.”

“That’s very commendable. In this economy, I don’t think many employers care about their employees.”

“My agency cares. That’s why they sent me to follow up.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, and I must point out that it’s getting quite late.”

“Six o’clock isn’t late, Miss Smith.”

“It is when you start your day at four o’clock and work till five.” Emily hoped the man would leave. Once he did, she would pack and go as she always did. Within hours, it would be like she had never lived in the apartment. She would miss the couch, though.

“My apologies, but this won’t take much longer, Miss Smith.” Thompson reached into his briefcase and took out another 8×10. “I was serious when I said you were photogenic.” He laid the photograph on top of the picture of the dead man. “See? This is you.” He tapped the photograph.

The picture showed a small group standing in front of a burning apartment building in San Francisco. The Victorian windows were quite distinctive.

Also quite distinctive, Emily stood in the group. Only one other adult, a woman, was there. The other seven people were all children. The children hung onto the two women fearfully.

“My agency trains its employees to look for stories like this, Miss Smith. Did you know that?”

Emily did know that, and she grew very afraid. She also noticed that Thompson’s hand wasn’t very far from his pistol now. She knew he would have no hesitation about shooting her, but that wasn’t what scared her the most. The thing that truly frightened her was what Thompson’s agency did with someone like her. In their view of the world, people like her were for them or against them. Neutrality didn’t exist.

“On the surface, this is one of those stories news people throw out there to make everybody feel good. A young woman – you, for instance – goes into a burning building and alerts a woman running a home daycare of the danger.” Thompson paused. “It’s a good story, don’t you think?”

Emily remained silent. There was nothing she could say and she knew it. She was sitting quietly in a trap and waiting for Agent Thompson to close it. More than anything, she hated feeling trapped.

“The television news people thought it was a good story. They ran it and the print media picked it up. But do you know what everyone seemed to forget?”

Refusing to be baited, Emily didn’t answer.

“The daycare owner? Mrs. Abigail Schwartz? She told everyone that this young woman, who was identified as Miss Jane Jones, entered the building before the water heater blew up and told her the children were in danger. What do you think of that?”

“I would say that everyone in that picture was lucky that young woman – whomever she may be – was passing by in time to warn them, Agent Thompson.”

“But how did she know? How did she know that water heater was going to blow?”

Emily didn’t answer.

“We could go with the obvious possibility. That she did something to the water heater that made it blow up.”

Silently, Emily screamed. When she’d been a child and given warnings to other people, they had accused her of causing “accidents” just so she could claim credit for trying to help. Those incidents and the accusations had made her childhood miserable. Later, when people began to believe she could see things, they grew afraid of her, all of them wanting to know the answer to the one question most were afraid to ask.

“If she did that – ” Thompson stopped himself. “If you did that, Miss Smith, my agency wouldn’t be interested in you at all. But we don’t think you did that. We believe that you somehow sensed that water heater was going to blow up and you got there just in time to keep those children from being killed. I think that was a very brave and wonderful thing.”

Emily sat in the quiet of the apartment that had been her home but now no longer was. She wanted to weep, but she knew it wasn’t worth the effort. She just wanted to be able to get out of the apartment alive now. Alive and free.

“My agency, Miss Smith, seeks out people with gifts like yours. We pay them to work for us, to see little bits of the future and help us tilt the odds in favor of this country.” Thompson looked at her with bright interest. “You do love this country, don’t you, Miss Smith?”

“Yes, I do.” Emily knew her voice shook with sorrow and pain and frustration. “But I do not like your agency at all. I’ve seen what they do to people who have these gifts you’re talking about. They imprison them. They put them in compounds and make them work at seeing things until they die. Or until they kill themselves because the things they see are horrible and they just won’t stop coming.”

Thompson dropped his hand onto the butt of his pistol.

“It’s one thing, Agent Thompson, to flash on something horrible, to see it unexpectedly and then try to do something to stop it, but it’s another to sit and gaze out into the world at all the atrocities that take place everywhere at all times. Do you know what it’s like to get a vision of a small child perishing in a fire?”

Thompson said nothing.

“If you can go to that child, save him or her, the horror isn’t the same. It’s not real any more. But suppose you can’t save the child? Because you don’t know where he or she is, or no one believes you and they don’t do anything to save him or her? Can you even contemplate how horrible that is?” Emily knew her Southern accent was in her words now, but she didn’t care. “I don’t have a television because I don’t want to see people I know bad things are going to happen to. I don’t read newspapers or magazines for the same reason. If I’m not careful, my life is one nightmare after another. Did you know that?”

With one hand on his pistol, Thompson pulled a pair of handcuffs from behind his back. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Emily ignored him, no longer able to hold back her anger. “You see, you don’t know what it’s like. But I’m going to show you. In less than a minute, Mrs. Ferguson from down the hall is going to knock on my door and ask for a cup of sugar and two eggs because there was a traffic accident today and she didn’t get to stop at the store. You’re going to get a text message on your phone from your superior telling you that Agent McReady had had inoperable cancer, which is what I told him the day he tried to arrest me. And out in the street a car is going to lose control because the brakes fail and it’s going to run into the building.” She took a breath. “And that’s only a taste of what I go through every day.”

Thompson stood up with his gun drawn and a hard look on his face. “You’re coming with me. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Someone knocked on the door. “Mary? It’s Tanya Ferguson. From down the hall? Mary?”

“If I don’t answer the door, she’ll call the police.”

Thompson waved the pistol. “Answer the door. If you try to run, I’ll take you down and cuff you. I won’t be gentle.”

Emily got up and went to the door.

Mrs. Ferguson was in her forties and always stressed. Her red hair teased and sprawling now, she looked flustered. “I hate to do this, but could I borrow a cup of sugar and two eggs? I was going to stop on my way home, but there was a traffic accident near the store today and I thought maybe I had enough for dinner tonight.”

“Of course. Let me get them for you.”

Mrs. Ferguson stepped into the living room and nodded pleasantly to Agent Thompson. “How are you?”

“Fine. Thank you.” Thompson stood with the pistol and handcuffs behind his back. He smiled confidently, certain he was in control of everything. Emily lived on the fourth floor and he had every reason to feel confident she couldn’t escape.

Emily returned with the sugar and the eggs and told Mrs. Ferguson she was welcome when the woman thanked her for them. Then she closed the door and faced Thompson.

His cell phone buzzed for attention. Slowly, he pocketed the handcuffs and reached for his phone. Emily thought it was quite telling that he’d decided to keep the gun instead of a means to restrain her.

He looked at his phone, then looked at her. “McReady had a brain tumor. It was inoperable. He was a walking time bomb.”

“He would have died Tuesday if he hadn’t stepped in front of that produce truck. All he would have managed to do by going to the doctor was confirm the news and run up a huge medical bill to leave his wife and kids.” Emily shrugged. “You see, sometimes the future can be altered. Just like that day when I warned Mrs. Schwartz about the water heater that was about to explode. But it doesn’t always change. That’s when I truly hate seeing things.”

A loud crash sounded outside. Horns started honking and people started yelling.

“Constance Gillicutty, age thirty-two, just lost control of her vehicle while talking on the phone to her cheating boyfriend.” Emily smiled sadly. “Of course, Constance – Connie to her friends – doesn’t know for a fact that Eduardo is cheating on her. But I do. And I know that he’s cheating on her with her best friend.”

Thompson stood there.

“Now you’re going to let me walk out of here and tell your bosses at the Agency that you just missed me. They’ll think it was because I saw you coming before you got here.” Emily smiled a little at that. Having the agency think she could do that, on a regular basis, might convince them to give up chasing her. That would be nice. It was frustrating that she didn’t know that, but no one knew everything. Not even her. Like now, she didn’t know how this confrontation was going to turn out.

“I’m not going to do that.” Thompson took the cuffs back out of his pocket.

“Agent Thompson, your real name is Michael Bowers. You grew up in Dallas, Texas. You’re twenty-eight years old, engaged, and are the second son of four boys. Your father is a welder. Your mother is a schoolteacher. Third grade, with a reading specialization.” Emily paused. “And you’re going to die in the month of August.”

The man paled slightly at that.

“If you don’t let me go, I’m going to tell you what year you’re going to die, and you can live with that hanging over your head until it happens.”

“You’re lying.”

“Do you want to go down and ask Connie for her driver’s license to find out? She doesn’t actually have one. She has her sister Carman’s. But she has a library card in her name. That should be enough proof for you, I think.”

“You said the future can be changed. I don’t have to die in August.”

“If you know how to stop an accident, true. But what if it’s a medical issue? Like with Agent McReady? Do you really want to know the time of your death?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“If you take me in to your agency, I won’t have a life anymore. I’ll be a prisoner. I’ve already given up my family because of the way I am, and I can’t ever let anyone close to me because I know how that person’s life will work out. Do you know how horrible that is? To know so much and to be so alone?” Emily shook her head because she knew he had no clue. “Still, it’s better to know it and be alone than to be locked up somewhere in a government institution. I’ll take what I can get. I’ve already learned that life isn’t always very kind.”

A police siren sounded out in the street.

“So what will it be, Agent Thompson?”

His left eye spasmed. “You could still be lying. You said yourself that you don’t know everything.”

“You’re going to die on August 24th at 10:38 a.m.” Emily paused. “Do you really want to know the year?”

Thompson lowered his pistol, closed his eyes, and leaned back against the wall. “Get out of here.” He took a breath, then turned, got the pictures and the briefcase, and left her home.

Emily went straight to her closet and got her traveling bag, the suitcase she always kept packed so she could leave at a moment’s notice. She took out the letter she’d already prepared to leave for the building super explaining that she had a family emergency and had to leave, to please keep the deposit, and thanking him for all his kindness.

She locked her door behind her for the last time and breathed a little easier when she saw that Thompson really was gone. She hadn’t seen his future, any of it, but the man hadn’t known that. Still, she felt bad for him because she had taken away every August 24th for the rest of his life, and at 10:38 on each of those days he was going to feel – literally – like he was going to die.

That was better than losing her own life, though.

Before she left for the bus station, she walked down three doors and knocked.

Debbie Gruner answered, looking frazzled. She was in her late thirties, a mom with two pre-teens, who for three years had been taking care of her invalid husband who’d had a stroke and become paralyzed from the waist down and on one side. She had peroxide blond hair and a good figure that she liked to flaunt. None of them deserved to have the hard lives they were having. It was just how the world worked.

“You need to stay home tomorrow night, Mrs. Gruner.” Emily spoke politely.

The woman turned angry at once. “Who are you to be telling me what to do?”

Emily didn’t let the woman’s anger touch her. “Your husband needs you tomorrow. Your boyfriend can wait.”

Mrs. Gruner stepped out of the apartment and pulled the door shut behind her. The sound of her children’s voices and Spongebob Squarepants became muted. “Don’t come down here and start something with me. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Tomorrow night your husband is going to have another stroke. If you’re here, you can call 911 in time to save him. If you’re not, your two boys won’t know what to do and they’ll watch their father die while you’re out with your lover.” Emily had planned to be there in time to help. That wasn’t possible now.

Mrs. Gruner stared at her. “Are you some kind of crazy woman? Get the hell out of my face!”

Emily turned and went. She didn’t know how tomorrow night would turn out, but she’d done everything she could do. That was how it was sometimes.

When she got a quiet life back, without anyone interfering with her, and with hard work to keep her focused on things her hands did, she’d see very little. She hoped to find that again soon.

Copyright © 2012 by Mel Odom

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Mel Odom

Mel Odom lives in Oklahoma and writes in several genres, including science fiction, horror, suspense, fantasy, and several tie-in novels that include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, as well as movie novelizations of xXx, Blade, and others. He’s a contributor to the Rogue Angel, Rancho Diablo, Fight Card, and other series. He teaches professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, and blogs at www.melodom.blogspot.com.

He is also a reviewer of books, movies and video games. You can read his book blog at www.bookhound.wordpress.com.

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