The Broken Clock is Right Thrice: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #4

Chapter 31 - The Black Swan

"A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see."

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

The flesh that meets the metal isn't Zandra's. It's Sunglasses's. The metal isn't from an axe, either.

The release of pressure from her back allows Zandra to free up the contents of her stomach onto the floor by her head. She rolls onto her back to see a face peering down at her. As her eyes adjust, she expects to see Hank. It's not.

It's Emile.

Did Hank find the key and let her out of the freezer?

Zandra props herself up on her elbows. It feels good to give her lower limbs a break as they bleed into a coagulated sheet of red. Emile's drooping arm dangles a cast iron frying pan. Sunglasses huffs into the floor, his hands holding his head, next to Emile's electric scooter. Zandra can see her own confusion reflected in Emile's eyes.

"Did I do that?" Emile says, turning her head to Sunglasses. She talks like she just woke up.

"Who else?" Zandra says and coughs into her sleeve.

Emile sets the pan in her lap and rubs her eyes.

Zandra spots her lawnmower knife laying just within her reach. She wraps her fingers around the paracord handle.

I missed you.

"Where's Hank?" Zandra says as she cuts off the sleeve she doesn't cough into from her purple gown.

"Hank? Oh, yes. Well, I don't know," Emile says.

"Then who let you out of the freezer?" Zandra says as she wraps the wound on her calf with the sleeve. She secures the makeshift bandage with a knot that's not so tight that it cuts off the blood. "Because the freezer, uh, locked itself after you entered that trance when we were both in there."

"I don't know," Emile says, again acting as if she just dropped in from Mars.

Good. No need to explain anything else to her about that.

"What about the screaming? Wasn't that you?" Zandra says and stuffs the lawnmower knife back in its sheath.

"If I did, I don't remember."

"Then what was the last thing you remember from being in there?" Zandra says and tries to stand. It's hard to balance both legs without one screaming in pain at the expense of the other. She finds the battle axe makes for a suitable crutch, with the weight of the head pointed down.