Tabula Rasa (8 page)

Suddenly, remembering all those gallons of purified water in the
kitchen, I realized he’d probably stocked the deep freezer ahead of
time with stuff he’d bought from the grocery store. I was such an
idiot.

I jumped when Shannon put a hand on my knee.

“Elodie. I will
not hurt you. I’m sorry I’m scaring you, but I trust you as much
as you trust me right now. Not at all. You’re putting me in a bad
position. My training screams
eliminate
the problem.
I’m not going to do
that, but you
are
coming
with me.”

I found myself nodding before I realized I had. The stress of being
in this position of not only not remembering anything and having the
world pulled out from under me, but being in this limbo with someone
so dangerous had me making choices I was sure I would otherwise never
make.

He untied me and put the rope back into his bag. “Now, come help me
put out these fires. It’ll help if you can stay busy.”

I nodded and followed him to the fireplace.

He handed me the small shovel and said, “Just keep scooping the
ashes on top until the fire goes out. And then do the other one. I’m
going to look for something to store the body in. Can I trust you not
to run? I don’t want to chase you.”

I nodded again and focused on putting out the fires. When he left I
tried not to think about running because he was right about all that
stuff he said. I couldn’t make it on my own with no memories
without involving the police. And if I involved the police, well...
Shannon would never let that happen. He’d die before he’d let me
get out of this park to implicate him.

Right around the time I’d finally gotten the fires out, Shannon
returned, practically gleeful and giddy with two large rolling pieces
of metal luggage. “Look what I found in the lost and found.”

He took the shovel from me and scooped out Trevor’s charred remains
and put them in the wheelbarrow. Then he went back to the kitchen.
When Shannon returned several minutes later, he was empty-handed.

“Where’s
Trevor?”

“In the freezer.
He needs to cool a bit before I can pack him in the luggage. I think
he’s in small enough pieces to fit.”

As fucked-up as that statement was, by this point it was hard to work
up a lot of shock and distress after I’d been immersed in this
macabre process for hours now. And he was right, putting out the fire
had helped settle my nerves a bit.

“Do you have
shoes?” he asked.

“Y-yes.”

“Let’s go get
them.”

I found myself anxious again, moving with him up tight staircases and
up to the tower. We were isolated and alone anyway, but before we’d
been in a much larger space. Shannon had this really strange sort of
energy. On the one hand, he was terrifying. But on the other, a
solid, stable calm emanated from him, and for small bits of time, I
could imagine that if I could somehow trust him, I could start to
feel truly safe again.

He waited just outside the door while I put my shoes on, then we went
back downstairs. Neither of us spoke while we waited for Trevor to
get cool enough to transport. Finally Shannon took the plastic and
luggage and went back to the kitchen. I followed him and watched
while he moved Trevor out of the deep freezer and into the luggage.
With the plastic in there, too, he just barely fit.

Shannon did a final sweep to check everything, and then he led me out
of the castle. I got the feeling he was taking me purposefully in a
different direction than he otherwise would have and then doubled
back to avoid his traveling companions.

He was right; it was dangerous getting out of here. His group had
hacked their way through some of the thickly growing bushes around
the perimeter and had cut through a fence. It made me wonder how
Trevor had gotten in and how he’d gotten me in. There must have
been some other easier entrance at another part of the park that
Shannon and his group didn’t know about.

We came out in a nearly deserted parking lot. The street lamps were
all out, and the pavement was cracked and full of pot holes. Just
looking at the physical state of the parking lot, it was possible to
imagine the apocalypse really had happened, but Shannon led me to a
shiny black SUV and pressed a button on his keys to unlock it. I got
inside while he put the luggage containing Trevor in the trunk.

I was still half-convinced he’d drive me to a
remote location and kill me. Even though all reason and common sense
said he could have just as easily done this back at the castle. There
was no reason to drag it out, to take me through the park, risking
one of his buddies catching him in the act. But what if he wanted me
for
other reasons
?

I mentally rolled my eyes at myself. There was that vanity and
conceit again that Trevor had mentioned. Shannon was plenty good
looking enough to get his own dates without having to resort to
kidnapping. And though I knew he was some type of predator, I wasn’t
sure his elevator even went up to the sex floor. Not once had he
looked at me that way. Could it be possible that his intentions
really were noble?

“How far are we
going?” I asked as the SUV pulled onto the road.

“This is a
rental car. My friends and I flew to get here, but I can’t get you
on a plane. We’ll have to drive.” He plugged coordinates into a
GPS in the dash. “Twelve hours to our destination. But we’re
going to stop and stay somewhere. It’s getting late, and I’m too
tired to drive straight through.”

I clasped my hands on my lap and tried not to think about sharing a
motel room with him. When we reached the interstate, I started to cry

“Are you
hungry?” he asked, ignoring the tears. He just didn’t seem to
respond to crying.

In a way, I was glad he ignored it. I didn’t want to explain what
it was I was crying about. As scared as I was of everything right
now, that wasn’t what triggered the waterworks.

“It really is
all still here. I can’t believe it.” Big semi-trucks zoomed past
us on the interstate. Bright city lights framed one side of the road.
I could see an uncountable number of restaurants and hotels, and
suddenly it occurred to me I would be able to take real showers. And
use a toilet like a civilized human.

“Elodie? Food?
Do you want me to stop and get you some?”

He was being so nice, but then Trevor had been nice... kind of. Once
I’d started cooperating with the insane world he’d invented, once
I’d known all the triggers that made him angry and worked to skirt
around them.

“C-can I have a
burger and some fries?”

He nodded and took the exit off the interstate. We went through the
drive-through, and about fifteen minutes later, we were back in
motion.

“There’s a
rest stop ten miles up the road. We’ll stop there to eat.”

“Okay.”

At the rest stop, we ate quietly. It was the
best thing I’d ever had. As far as I knew. And soda. Holy shit.
Soda, my new friend. I’d spent months drinking what I’d
considered to be possibly questionable water—which Trevor had
really just bought at the store with everything else. He couldn’t
have pretended the park had some never ending supply of other
beverages?

I was sure I must look like a pig, the way I was eating. But Shannon
was busy with his own burger and fries. He seemed okay with silence.
If we got down to it, Shannon seemed strangely calm and okay with
just about everything. What the hell did he do for a living? Black
ops? Contract killer? Did he torture people?

He seemed uncomfortably at home with other people’s suffering. So
much so that I was shocked he’d had it in him to give any kind of
shit about my outcome at all. And I wondered idly if he’d worked
past that and was now suddenly over giving any kind of shit about it.

Trevor was the type who’d always had to be talking, and everything
out of his mouth had been either baiting me for a fight or had seemed
like a weird attempt at gaining my approval. Shannon didn’t seem to
give a fuck what I approved of.

When we were finished, he went to throw out the trash. When he came
back, he said, “Use the bathroom now if you need to. I’m not
stopping again until I’m ready to stop for the night.”

I got out of the SUV, and he followed me up to the ladies’ room. He
went inside and had a look around. I don’t know what or who he was
looking for. I’m not sure if he had some paranoia that made him
check the safety of every space before using it or if he thought
there might be some other person in there, and I might ask for help.

Whatever he was looking for, when he was satisfied with what he
saw—or didn’t see—he went outside to wait.

I can’t describe the luxury and meaning of an actual bathroom. I’d
spent long periods of time back in the park just standing in the
suite’s bathroom, wishing flushing toilets and hot showers were
still a thing. And now they were. It was like Christmas. I flushed
every toilet. I turned on every faucet.

I know that’s extremely strange, but it was like I couldn’t quite
believe these were real things that functioned, and I had to test
them all out just to make sure the world still worked. It was like...
if every sink and toilet worked, grocery stores and malls still
existed. That’s just the leap my brain made. Even seeing all the
lights off the interstate and going through a drive-thru, I still
felt the need to test the reality of every modern convenience I came
upon. Just to be sure.

When I got outside, Shannon gave me another of those assessing cold
stares. He’d obviously heard all the flushing and running water.
Before I knew what was happening, he’d swiftly spun me around and
pressed me against the brick wall outside. He patted me down.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said after a moment.

“W-what was that about?”

“Making sure you didn’t make a weapon or have a cell phone.”

“Make a weapon out of what?” And as if some dinky rest stop
bathroom weapon was going to have any effect against someone like
him. I wasn’t that suicidal.

“You were in there a while, and then there was all the flushing and
faucets. I thought you might be masking some activity you didn’t
want me to know about like making a weapon or calling for help.”

The more he worried I was going to kill him or call for help, the
more I worried that maybe I really needed to be considering those
options.

He kept a brisk pace back to the SUV while I stumbled along—like
I’d just learned to walk last week—trying to keep up with him.

“Where the hell would I have gotten a cell phone?” I asked when I
reached the passenger door, already out of breath. As if Trevor would
have let me have one. Yeah, we had electricity. We could have kept
one charged, but that would have completely defeated his
end-of-the-world charade.

“There could have been one in the tower when we went up for shoes.
I should have gone in with you and watched, but you were already so
skittish, and I was more concerned with getting you out of the park
undetected.”

“In the reality I was living in, cell phones no longer functioned,
and even if they did, the cell phone companies would have all
collapsed, preventing service from being provided. And the battery
would have died anyway. So, no, I didn’t have a cell phone.”

“Right,” he said, looking almost human in his momentary
embarrassment. “I can’t believe how elaborate his scam was.”

The way he said it, it seemed like some part of him respected or was
impressed with the effort. Like professional admiration or something.

The SUV beeped and unlocked, and I got into the passenger side still
a little shaken from the way Shannon had just flipped to that
laser-focused place again. It was the same place he’d gone to when
he was cutting Trevor up into small, barely recognizable pieces, and
ideally I wanted him to spend as little time in that place while he
was around me as possible.

More driving in silence while I stared out the window.

By this point, I was seriously contemplating trying to find a phone
or make a weapon. How could I not? He kept putting the ideas in my
head. If he’d just act like a normal person for five minutes, I
might not be so paranoid.

What was I doing? I should have let him call the shooting in—back
when it still looked like self-defense instead of like he was trying
to cover crime tracks. Maybe I should have just let the police get
involved and deal with the fall out and awfulness of being plastered
all over the news some more and trying to cope with memory loss in
the spotlight. Was my choice going to end up being... go to the
police or die? Framed that way, I’d made the most foolish of all
possible choices.

I’d just been so overwhelmed and didn’t want to go to the police
or doctors or face a million questions and poking and prodding. I was
terrified someone would finally come forward claiming to be someone
close to me—someone else who might spin lies about my life that I
had no choice but to go along with. I hadn’t thought about what
asking Shannon not to make me face the world meant would happen next.
Nor had I realized how quickly he’d spring into action and start
hacking up a body like it was nothing. I mean... who did that?

What did they say about snakes? They’re more scared of you than you
are of them? Shannon seemed in that category, like something had
rattled him out of whatever in his world passed for comfortable. Now
that it had happened, he saw me as a potential threat. And the last
thing I wanted was for someone like Shannon to see me as a threat. So
I sat very still and silent, hoping in another of his laser-focus
moments, he’d somehow forget my existence so I could slip away
quietly.

Chapter Four

He drove a few hours before stopping at a run-down motel off a small,
barely marked exit. Half of the neon-lit vacancy sign was burned out,
but the point still got across.