Tabula Rasa (10 page)

As soon as we crossed the threshold, the security system blared at
us. Shannon turned it off, locked the doors, then turned it right
back on again. Message sent. Nobody went in or out of this house
without him knowing about it, and it was going to be locked up
tighter than Fort Knox at all times.

Inside, everything was gray and black and white. The only splash of
color was some red here and there. The color of blood. I wondered if
he realized how much of his internal state he broadcast just with his
decorating choices?

“Stay. I’m going to put my stuff up.”

Anybody else would have tossed his bags beside the door and handled
it later. We’d been driving all day, and he was obviously tired.
But in Shannon’s world, it seemed everything had a place, and
nothing ever deviated from where it was supposed to be.

He took his bag upstairs while I stood in the living area glancing
around awkwardly. A bright red photo album caught my eye from the
coffee table. To give myself something to do, I sat on the sofa and
flipped through the album. It was filled with pictures of abandoned
amusement parks. Decapitated mermaid heads and fins and creepy
peeling clowns abounded. There were broken down wooden roller
coasters that looked to be rotting and seemed held up only by vines.
One rather sad image showed a couple of paddle boats abandoned in the
middle of a lake.

What was it about these places that drew Shannon? They were so empty.
Maybe it felt familiar. He wasn’t in any of the photos, making it
clear he’d been the photographer. But there were almost never other
people in any of the photos either. Occasionally there was a stray
leg or arm, even the side of a face and body as someone walked
through the frame—no doubt his fellow urban explorers. But people
in the photos were clearly accidental, never intentional. People
weren’t what Shannon was interested in.

He’d traveled all over the world for this hobby. Not only were
there several photos of signs in foreign languages but Shannon had
put labels on each one of where it had been taken. As I worked
through the book I saw he’d been to Canada, Spain, Italy, Korea,
Japan, China, Vietnam, Russia. He seemed to have been everywhere,
capturing all the strange, wacky, and creepy of these theme parks.

There
was
one photo with people in it. It was a picture of a
cluster of found photos of smiling employees from a South Korean
park. It was telling that Shannon needed to be this many degrees
separated from real people to take a picture of them.

Despite the emptiness in these park images and my fears that it
reflected far too much of Shannon himself, something about this hobby
made him seem more human to me.

I took my time perusing the album, sure Shannon wouldn’t mind, but
he was upstairs for quite a while, so finally I got up and went to
explore the kitchen. Unlike the photo album, I was pretty sure my
going through all his cabinets and drawers would annoy him, but I was
curious.

There was nothing unusual in the kitchen. I didn’t find any heads
or fingers in the freezer. Much to my relief.

I ended up standing in front of the sink with the faucet on, staring
at the water as it came out, like it was the most interesting thing I
could have ever discovered.

I could have been standing in that state for five minutes, ten
minutes? An hour? Hell, I don’t know. Time melded together, and all
that existed for a while was moving water.

The only thing that broke the spell was Shannon’s hand pressing
down firmly on the handle, making the water abruptly stop. “If
you’re this fascinated with running water, you could have a future
as a plumber,” he said.

He took me to an office on the first floor and sat me down behind a
desk in front of a laptop. A browser window was open with several
tabs to clothing stores.

“Do you know your sizes?” he asked.

“I... yes, I saw the tags in the clothes I wore there.” At the
park.

“Good.” He indicated the chair. “Fill some shopping carts.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Well you aren’t wearing my clothes. And you aren’t going
naked. What were you planning to wear?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought about much of
anything. It was all too hard and overwhelming. It would have been
bad enough trying to reintegrate into the world and get my life back
if Trevor had held me captive like he had with my memories intact.
But without anything solid to rely on, it was even worse. I was just
surviving minute to minute and trying desperately not to think about
anything, trying to make the inside of my mind as empty and silent as
my surroundings had been most of the trip with Shannon.

Maybe I’d been lying to myself about going crazy from the silence.
I was really going crazy from how relieved I was to have it. Running
water
and
silence. The motherfucking lottery.

“Shop.” He sat in a chair next to mine so he could watch me. I
barely had time to marvel at the continued existence of the Internet.

“I-I don’t know what to get or how much. How will I pay you
back?”

“I don’t need you to pay me back. I need you to look like a
normal person in my house and not a kidnap victim. Decide on a new
hair color and style also. I’ve got to get stuff for that. And
we’ll get you colored contacts. No high heels. Every picture they
showed of you on the news was in something nice enough to wear heels.
People probably imagine you a little taller than you are. Flats
only.”

I looked through the sites he’d picked out. It was all nice stuff.
“So I’m going to leave the house and see other people?” I
asked.

“At some point.”

“You aren’t worried I’ll say something? I thought that was the
whole reason you didn’t give me a choice about coming with you?”

“I said you couldn’t be free range. I didn’t say you’d never
see other people. You saw what happened at the castle. Do I seem in
any way traumatized by it?”

I shook my head. I’d tried and failed multiple times during the
trip to his house to not think about how matter-of-factly Trevor’s
killing and disposal had been carried out.

“I don’t mind a body count. Don’t put me in a situation to make
one or to make you part of it, and you have nothing to worry about.
Deal?”

Sure. Nothing to worry about. But I nodded quickly and went back to
looking at the sites.

Something else occurred to me suddenly. The ever-looming feminine
protection quandary. “I... I need some... some toiletries,” I
mumbled. That was the most tactful way I could put it.

Shannon studied me for a moment. “You mean tampons.” Off my
shocked expression he said, “Don’t look so surprised. I was
raised by a woman, not by wolves. My dad went on a lot of tampon runs
when I was growing up. I’ll take care of it. Just write down
anything that will help me out in that department. They have a lot of
options out there—probably a lot more now than when I was a kid.”
He opened a drawer and took out a notepad and pen and put it beside
me on the desk.

“Thank you.” I was so ridiculously grateful that not only had I
not had to explain to him what I meant, but that he hadn’t made me
feel awkward or dirty. It was so strange—yet in hindsight made so
much weird sense—that I’d hidden the entire thing from Trevor,
unwilling to bring it up under almost any circumstance, yet, I’d
somehow been able to tell Shannon, however subtly. Why did I trust
this guy when there seemed no rational reason for me to?

“Shannon?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you bring me home with you? Why didn’t you just kill me
back there?” Probably not the best question to ask a guy like this,
but I had to know what had been going through his head. Why not just
keep things neat and tidy if he didn’t mind such ugliness?

“I don’t know.”

It was a far less comforting answer than I’d been hoping for. I had
a feeling that the amount of emotion and empathy I’d seen on his
face when he’d discovered me with Trevor was about the most he’d
ever shown. Somehow, despite knowing he’d been traveling with
others that night, I imagined him as a person who lived completely
alone.

But I was wrong about that. A fluffy white cat sauntered into the
room. She jumped up on Shannon’s lap and started to purr, giving me
a disdainful glare as if to say,
Bitch, no way am I sharing him
with you.
I worried the cat might scratch my eyes out while I
slept.

“What’s her name?”

Shannon just stared at me for a moment, completely baffled. “She
doesn’t have one.”

“How can you have a cat without a name? Is she new?”

“No.” He stroked the back of her neck, and she pressed harder
against his hand. “I’ve had her for a long time.”

“How old is she?”

“I don’t know. We could cut her open and count the rings.”

I wasn’t sure if he was serious.

I couldn’t believe it didn’t occur to him just how fucking weird
it was to have a pet in your house that you chose not to give a name
to.

“If she doesn’t have a name, then what do you call her?”

“I don’t need to call her anything. She comes to me on her own
when she’s ready. We communicate just fine. She doesn’t have a
name for me.” The words were almost defensive, but he didn’t
sound defensive when he delivered them. It was more like he was just
rattling off a list of logical facts that should be obvious to any
thinking person.

The cat probably
did
have a name for him... it was just some
version of a meow that didn’t translate straight to English.

“I thought sociopaths killed small animals.” I don’t know why I
felt the need to say that. It was out of my mouth before I could stop
it. It seemed unwise now that it was out there—like making
unappreciated commentary on someone’s handicap.

He gave me a dark look. “You watch too much TV.”

“I don’t remember ever watching TV.” Except the movies at the
castle. He must have forgotten the amnesiac trapped in a theme park
for months situation.

“You must have watched it at some point. Where else would you get
your ideas about sociopaths? The abnormal psychology fairy?”

Had he just made a joke? Possibly his second in the space of a couple
of minutes? It was so odd even thinking about him making a joke. I
swear his face just had that one expression. I wasn’t sure how he
got on in life without every single person near him clearing a big
wide path in terror. I thought sociopaths were supposed to be
outwardly charming. He was really attractive, but I wasn’t sure I’d
call him in any way charming.

“There are plenty of low-level sociopaths in the world who get a
lot of evil accomplished with very little feeling involved. More than
you’d care to know about have wives, kids, dogs. For most, those
things are camouflage.”

“Is your cat camouflage?”

Shannon shrugged. “Not a lot of things make me feel things. When
they do, I don’t let them go.”

I’d made him feel something.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask more. He already seemed like he’d
hit his human interaction quota for the day, and more frightening
than making him feel something where he wouldn’t let me go, was not
making him feel something so he would. I was sure with Shannon,
letting someone go was pretty much final.

When
I was finished shopping, he ushered me out of the office and locked
the door.

“I
have to finish cleaning up. I’m going to lock you in for a while.”

“I...
um... finish cleaning up?”

Shannon
looked at me like I was a mental patient. “The body?”

“Oh.”
I’d somehow almost forgotten about Trevor’s charred remains.
“Okay.”

"I'll
get your... toiletries while I'm out."

When
I was alone, I finally had time and space to think. I searched the
house. Nothing weird anywhere. There were a few locked doors,
including what I thought was probably Shannon’s bedroom on the
second floor. There was no land line phone anywhere in the house, and
no computer outside the now-locked office.

The
white cat followed me from room to room yowling in an irritated
fashion like she was going to tell on me for checking things out. But
everything looked
normal
.
So normal, in fact, that for a moment I could pretend that Shannon
was just a regular nice guy and that all the nasty business with
Trevor had never happened.

But it
had
happened. Intellectually I knew I should be searching for a way to
escape, but I couldn't bring myself to believe that a man who wanted
me dead would have just spent so much money buying me new clothes.

Chapter Five

Eventually, we settled into something resembling a routine. I finally
stopped fearing that he’d throw me down and take my imagined
virtue, or that he’d kill or otherwise harm me. Shannon treated me
like I was his roommate—his deadbeat mooch of a roommate who didn’t
pay rent. I actually started to feel guilty about it. I was wearing
clothes he’d bought, using his water and electricity, eating his
food, invading his space. And so far he hadn’t asked for anything
in return.

But still I felt like it was coming. I expected any day now to see
some version of an invoice slipped under my door with a demand for
immediate payment.

This invasion was clearly uncomfortable for him—like my existence
interrupted the flow of his space, like I’d thrown off the
feng
shui
or something. But he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t act
like he was going to get rid of me. The cat followed him everywhere,
shooting me dirty looks whenever she passed by. If anybody was
planning my demise, it was that freaky nameless cat.

So far, despite Shannon’s promise, I hadn’t left the house yet,
even though my hair had been short and black for two weeks now
instead of its previous long blonde. My eyes were now chocolate brown
instead of blue. Or they would be if I ever left the house and wore
the contacts. They mainly just sat in their case. A part of me
doubted I’d even remember to put them in if and when he ever let me
venture outside.