Tabula Rasa(13)

I couldn’t believe I might have to try to beg and bargain with a complete stranger who’d just killed the only person I could count on. I was struck with the notion that not only did I have to find a way to keep this man from outright killing me, I had to find a way to get him to let me come with him, even if it was the last thing I wanted. I was sure he was strong enough to protect me and help me survive out here. If he wouldn’t take me with him, it would be more merciful for him to just go ahead and shoot me, considering the impossibility of the challenges that lay before me without Trevor.

I couldn’t even grieve. I had to figure out how to keep going. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

I laid the gun down and slid it over. The man stopped it with his boot.

A walkie talkie crackled on. “Shannon. Are you all right? We thought we heard gunfire.”

He took the gun from the ground, dropped the magazine and ejected a bullet from the top of Trevor’s gun, and put the weapon in his pocket. Then he holstered his own gun. His hands were far too steady after killing a man for my comfort. He raised a finger slowly to his lips to indicate that I must remain quiet. I didn’t know what else to do but stifle my crying because I wasn’t sure what the others with him were capable of or what he might do to me before they got here if I didn’t comply.

Shannon pressed a button on a black plastic device on his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m okay. It was just a wolf. Don’t come into the castle unless I call for backup; there could be others. I’m going to check it out.”

“Roger that. We’ll stay clear. Check in every ten minutes so we know you’re safe.”

“Will do.”

I wrapped the blood-drenched blankets around myself more tightly, struggled to my feet, and got as far back from him as I could. His body still blocked the only easily reachable exit in the room. The fire exits were even farther away, and I didn’t think I had much of a chance of getting to them—definitely not while I felt like I was dropping into shock. And he had a gun he’d already shown he was comfortable using on living flesh.

“W-why didn’t you tell them I was here?”

“I need to assess the situation first,” he said, as if this were some kind of normal response. He eased closer to me, slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal in the forest. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Not the question I’d expected, particularly after our brief standoff. But then, I was a stranger who’d pointed a gun at him—just like Trevor had.

“Of course I’m not okay!” I shouted. “You killed my husband! You f*cking savage. The world is gone, and now he’s gone.”

Immediately, I regretted this outburst. It was so hard to remember I had to appease this person, or I was dead whether he directly killed me or not.

I started to pace. I’d just settled into the new normal. I’d just started to feel like maybe my life wasn’t going to be a never-ending nightmare of bare survival. And this man had to come along and murder my husband.

I was sure Trevor wouldn’t have shot him. It was just to scare him and make him go away and leave us alone. Obviously, a stranger coming in on his naked wife was a threat he had to address. He had to make sure the man didn’t get any ideas in his head. If the other guy had a weapon—which clearly he did—Trevor had to draw first. He had to try to gain the upper hand to protect me.

“What do you mean the world is gone?” Shannon asked. His voice had dropped low and gentle as if he were speaking to a feral cat instead of a person.

I stopped pacing. “What do you mean what do I mean? Weren’t you there, too? Aren’t you a survivor?”

“A survivor of what? I’m an urban explorer. My friends and I like to check out abandoned theme parks. That man I shot... he was all over the news for months, and so was your picture. Missing doctor. Missing patient. No leads. No family came forward to claim you. It was assumed he kidnapped you. I wouldn’t have had to shoot him if he hadn’t been about to shoot me. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted me dead, no doubt to keep whatever this is, going.” He waved a hand around the room on the word this.

“W-what? I-I don’t understand. What about the solar flares?”

“What solar flares?”

It was like we were speaking two different languages with no translation available between us.

“What do you remember?” he asked finally.

“N-nothing. I had an accident. I-I don’t know who I am.” I felt so stupid saying that out loud, like it was a failure of my intelligence or the educational system instead of a legitimate medical issue that wasn’t my fault.

My head throbbed as I tried to put together what I’d thought was true against what now seemed to be actually true. Shannon’s clothes weren’t worn or old like someone who’d survived something awful and was wearing the same two or three outfits for months or years. They were new and nice. There was a bit of mud on his boots, but he’d said he was an urban explorer. This was something he did for fun. If he wasn’t aware of solar flares, they hadn’t happened, and the world was still out there.

Oh, God. The world was still out there. All this time I’d been here with some psycho who’d taken me from the hospital... trying to cope with the new normal, and it wasn’t normal at all. Possibly just a few miles away, life as everyone had known it had been humming along without a hitch. Just-in-time delivery... still there. Electricity, running water... it was all... still there.