Tabula Rasa (27 page)

Now it was coming back. The effects of the drugs were wearing off
enough that his rational faculties were returning. He looked around
and noticed the table with gleaming knives and the gun. He craned his
head around, and Shannon seemed to materialize from the shadows.

It was as if Shannon’s energy had been so deep in predator mode, so
silent, that you couldn’t see him unless he wanted you to. Now that
subtle energy had shifted, and he suddenly seemed larger and louder
even before he spoke.

“Hello,” Shannon said, mildly. “I hope all your affairs are in
order.”

For the first time since I’d known him, Professor Stevens looked
afraid. The air of smug condescension and power abuse that clung to
him like too strong perfume finally shed its scaly skin.

“Do you want to get some of your anger out first?” Shannon asked
me.

I shook my head. Now that Stevens had stopped being so aggressively
nasty, now that he looked scared and about to start begging for his
life, I once again didn’t have the stomach for it. I wished I did.
I wanted to have the strength and courage to make him pay directly by
my own hand, but now that the moment was upon me, I shrank away.

“Very well. Do you want to watch, or do you want to go upstairs and
wait for me?”

I stood for a moment in indecision, and then there was a sound
upstairs. The front door opened and shut. It was after midnight. Who
the fuck had a key?

“Professor Stevens?” a young woman called from the first floor.
“I finished grading those papers you wanted. You said you didn’t
care how late it was. Hello?”

Fuck. It was his TA.

“Professor? Are you downstairs?” I realized then that the
basement door was open and the light was filtering up. It was just a
matter of seconds before she came down here and saw all this.

I could sit by and let Shannon hurt Stevens. I wasn’t sure I could
sit by and watch him kill an innocent. But Shannon didn’t do loose
ends.

“Yes, I’m down here!” Professor Stevens shouted from the
ground. “Go get help! Call the police!”

Somehow during all this and perhaps even while I’d been waffling on
whether or not I was staying to watch, Stevens had managed to work
the knots behind his back loose. He lunged for Shannon and the two of
them started to struggle on the ground, knocking the gun off the
table. Shannon kicked it to a far corner so the professor couldn’t
get to it.

Then that stupid fucking bouncing blonde innocent TA bounded down the
stairs to investigate like the dumbass in every horror movie.

“Professor Stevens?”

It only took her a moment to take in all the necessary details of the
scene and to process what was going on.

“Call the police, you stupid girl!” Stevens shouted.

I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell him talking to her like
that was going to motivate her to help him. She hesitated for just a
moment before she ran up the stairs. Shannon still struggled with the
professor.

Stevens was an old guy, and Shannon was young and strong, but it was
amazing the kind of fight he could manage with so much adrenaline
surging through him.

I stood frozen for only a microsecond. And in that tiny window of
time it seemed like everything stopped as my mind ran through all
possible options. Shannon couldn’t go deal with her; he was busy
with the professor. She was going to call the police. I was sure she
was. I’d seen the determination on her face.

Without wasting another precious second, I grabbed a large knife off
the table and ran up the stairs after her. She hadn’t stopped
upstairs to use the phone. Instead, she’d run outside. Of course.
Only a few blocks from the university. The main campus security
station was on this end of the campus. She’d be safe there.

I chased her down the road, toward the light and hope of the school.
Realizing I was gaining on her, she got off the road and darted into
the overgrown backyard of the abandoned house. I took a leap for her,
tackling her to the ground. I clamped a hand over her mouth to keep
her from screaming and waking a neighbor. I was paranoid someone
might already be up and looking out their window.

Her eyes were wide, pleading with me, as the hand holding the knife
seemed to act of its own accord.

***

I sat in Professor Stevens’ basement, the cold sweeping over me,
the tremor moving through my limbs like a serpent. I was going into
shock. Didn’t we do this already? Shannon had gone back to laser
focus. He chopped up the drained bodies as if he were cutting meat in
a butcher shop. This time he wrapped them in plastic he’d brought
and took them out to the car for later incineration.

I felt as though I kept zoning in and out of time. Time as I
perceived it was like a bunch of tubes I kept hopping in and out of.
Sometimes it moved faster sucking me through and causing life to blur
around me. Sometimes it moved so slow that I zeroed in on the tiniest
details—like the incongruity of the delicate hand-painted teapot
that had been upstairs on Professor Stevens’ fireplace mantel. What
would a man like Professor Stevens want with such a thing?

I’m missing a few pieces as well. There are gaps. I just sat there,
staring at the blood on my hands, shaking, moving in and out of the
surreality. I worried somebody else would show up unexpectedly. How
high would the body count have to get for us to get away tonight?

I’d just wanted Stevens gone. Not her. But I had to. I couldn’t
let Shannon go to prison. Would I have gone to prison as well just
for being here? I didn’t know. Probably. I had clearly been
helping. I couldn’t pretend to be the victim.

Killing him, making him pay, had seemed like the perfect fantasy, the
best ending. The deserved ending. And yet, I was right back where I’d
started, staring at all the blood, trying to remember how to breathe
in and out, how to make my heart beat, how to feel something besides
completely numb and terrified of the killer I found myself alone
with.

I couldn’t even decide if I was glad Stevens was dead. The event
was too clouded by the unexpected intruder, by the sickening slice of
the knife. I should have felt relief he was gone. Instead, there was
this complication. This complication that Shannon seemed perfectly
calm and serene about. I was sure I would never feel calm and serene
again.

I had no idea what had happened with Stevens during my absence. I
wasn’t even sure how I’d gotten the TA back to the basement by
myself. I couldn’t remember anything from the moment I’d started
stabbing. All I knew was that there were two bodies, and I’d been
responsible for the innocent one.

Now I was on to worrying if we’d get away with it. It would be the
cruelest irony for that bastard to get away with what he’d done to
me only for me to be punished for his murder. My mind kept spinning
around and around all these things, and in the end, I decided
Stevens’ early departure from this world hadn’t been as
satisfying as I’d hoped—like longing for a favorite food, only to
find it not as sweet or rich or delicious as you remembered. But
disappointment after dessert was a wholly different thing from
disappointment that killing someone hadn’t turned out as great as
you’d imagined—that the fantasy couldn’t live up to the
reality, that unless you were someone like Shannon, it would infect
your soul and begin to rip it apart from the inside like a closet
full of tiny moths quietly eviscerating clothing.

Finally, it was done. Shannon felt my skin and shined the flashlight
in my eyes. He hurried me along to get me moving to get me engaged
with the physicality of the world, as if I might float away
otherwise.

We got cleaned up and changed clothes. He made sure nothing was left
behind, no evidence, no hair, no fibers, nothing incriminating.
Though I wasn’t in any database anywhere, and I was sure Shannon
was fully off the DNA grid as well.

I got into his car, and we drove. As lights blurred past my window, I
fantasized that Trevor’s world in the theme park had been the real
one, that that simple, yet terrifying, life had been true. A part of
me wanted that world back—the post-apocalyptic wasteland that at
least left me virtuous and untainted by my memories or the future
actions I’d take.

Shannon patted my knee. “Don’t worry. Things don’t always go as
expected on jobs, but we won’t be caught. There’s no reason to
worry.” He looked electric, alive, pulsing with energy as if he’d
just gotten off a roller coaster. His cheeks were flushed, and his
lips kept inching up in a smile.

“I could go for some pizza, how about you?” he asked. “I always
get pizza after.”

I just stared at him in horror. This was what I’d tied myself to.
This was who I had somehow started to love, who I wanted, who I felt
safe with. This monster who was happy and excited and ready for some
celebratory pizza. And yet, at every turn and bend, I’d chosen him.
I no longer had the will to choose differently.

I couldn’t stop silent tears from sliding down my cheeks. Shannon
finally realized I was crying when we stopped at a red light.

“What’s wrong?”

He really didn’t know? He really couldn’t comprehend?

“I just
killed
someone.” Never mind that he had. I’d
never expected him to cry over it. But I at least expected him to
understand on some basic level why I might, particularly since my
victim was an innocent. The sick idea slid into me that she could
have been the professor’s victim, too. And I’d killed her. To
protect Shannon? To protect myself?

There wasn’t a flicker of anything human in him. Nothing registered
with him. He didn’t get it. How could I ever be safe with him if he
didn’t get it?

I managed to collect myself by the time we got to a small pizza
parlor a couple of towns over. We sat in a booth in a back corner
where patrons were smoking, even though I was sure it was against the
law. They didn’t care, and nobody else seemed to, either.

“You’re glad he’s gone, right?” Shannon asked after our pizza
and drinks arrived. “I couldn’t let him...” he trailed off,
remembering we were in semi-public, and maybe not as completely
anonymous as we’d like to be.

“Yeah,” I said. “I just... I wasn’t prepared for how I would
feel or for... what happened.” I had to speak in code, too, now.
Even in my darkest fantasies, where I was more active in Stevens’
murder, I couldn’t have anticipated an unexpected visitor. An
innocent bystander. The way
I
had made metal rip through
flesh, and blood and life spill out in such sweeping finality.

I closed my eyes against the images that came unbidden, filling in
some of the gaps, leaving no doubt that it had been me doing that
awful thing. In a twisted way, I almost wished Shannon had gone after
her and left me to deal with Stevens. Maybe I could have reached the
gun and ended him quickly. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like a shadow
about to be destroyed by the light.

“Shannon?”

“Yeah?” he said between bites of a fully loaded pizza.

“Don’t you feel...” I trailed off, wishing we were having this
non-conversation in the car, but also knowing that possible witnesses
in nearby booths were the only thing forcing me to keep it together.

He looked at me blankly. “What should I feel?”

And there was my answer. I knew I would be haunted by this for the
rest of my life, and tomorrow Shannon would get up, have a hearty
breakfast, breathe in the crisp air, and just go on, not a single
ruffle against his soul. I envied him that.

“Hey, do you want to go to Paris? It’ll be spring soon. I’ve
heard Paris is nice in the spring. You could see some of your
friends,” he said.

I had never before seen him this happy and animated. This
peaceful—like all the pieces inside him suddenly fit together
right.

“What about my plants?” Once again, my mind wandered to the fate
of all of the professor’s plants. And now I was worried about
leaving my own for an extended time.

“We’ll be gone a couple of weeks maybe.”

“Yeah, Paris sounds great.” But my voice was flat. I didn’t
even bother asking how we’d accomplish that. He’d figure out fake
IDs and passports or whatever we needed. I was sure he
knew a guy
,
and all would be taken care of as if by the wave of a wand.

“Good. We’ll make a quick stop at the house when we get back and
check on the cat and your plants. We’ll get in late—well after
all the nosy neighbors are asleep. We can let them believe we’re
still in Thailand.”

I wondered if he’d planned this all along, to get me somewhere off
far away for a week or two to distract me from what I’d
participated in.

When we stopped for the night, it wasn’t a run-down motel. It was
some place much nicer. It was the kind of hotel you take someone you
love, though by this point I was sure, if Shannon didn’t understand
regret, he could never understand love.

More than ever, I saw him as a wild animal trying to live inside an
artificial habitat. He was a predator who didn’t belong here in our
world. It wouldn’t matter if he was ever caught and put in jail. He
was already caged just by the constraint of trying to blend with
society, to look normal.

I stood in the middle of the hotel bedroom while steam from Shannon’s
shower poured out of the bathroom. I stared at the gleaming gun on
the bed. He’d removed the silencer.

I felt at that moment, that it was me or him. It had to be. I wasn’t
sure which outcome was worse.

I didn’t think, even after everything, that I could pull the
trigger to end myself. And if I killed him, here, now, in this nice
hotel, I’d go straight to prison unless I could convince them it
was self-defense. A credible story started to unfold in my mind. I
would tell them I was that missing girl. I would make them remember.
He had kidnapped me. I took the one opportunity I had to free myself.
I had to do it, don’t you see? I had to. It was me or him.