Tabula Rasa(4)

“Which one?”

“The big one in the middle... The Banquet Hall. It’s got the most working equipment. Come down in a few, okay?”

“Okay.”

After he’d gone, I closed my eyes, desperately trying to remember something—anything that could help me make any sense of all this. Or wake up. That would be a welcome option as well. I went to the bathroom to turn on the faucet, already having forgotten there was no running water. I stared at my reflection over the sink.

She’s pretty.

I was the woman in his wallet, but I wasn’t feeling nearly as generous with myself now that I was seeing it live and in person. My clothes were grimy and worn. I brushed back my hair and noticed a dark scar on my temple and wondered what had happened to produce it. I seemed to have a few other scars and wondered if they were injuries I’d sustained while here and how they’d managed to not get infected and kill me.

I looked down at my hand. No wedding band. But why would anyone in some post-apocalyptic wasteland still have a wedding band? We’d probably bartered or sold it early on when we were just getting our bearings, when people still cared about things like that. Or maybe some marauders stole it. I felt like if something apocalyptic had happened that suddenly marauders must have popped up everywhere, and we would actually start using that word to describe them.

Did I have surviving family? Friends? Maybe it was better that I didn’t remember anything—I mean, if they hadn’t made it. Trevor had said a lot of people died. Why wouldn’t my family and friends be with us? Or his family and friends? Wouldn’t we have done better in a larger group instead of just the two of us so isolated like this? I had a feeling I was getting the warm-and-fuzzy edited version of events, which was terrifying in itself.

The bathroom had once been luxurious with a giant tub with jets, a walk-in shower built for two on the other end, and an enormous counter with a sink large enough to bathe a fat baby in. Everything had been meant to look as if it were made of gold, but the plating was flecking off, and the whole place smelled like it had been packed up in someone’s grandmother’s attic for several winters.

The main tower suite was a large open circle with some seating areas, a TV and DVD player, one king-sized bed, and a few windows. It was full dark now, so I couldn’t see anything out of the windows. Back when the park was running, it would have no doubt been beautiful all lit up at night. I wondered if any celebrities had stayed in this tower in the middle of the park with their entourage just below in the smaller rooms.

I clicked the button on the TV, not expecting it to work, but a snowy buzz lit up the screen. Of course TV itself wouldn’t work. Who would be broadcasting? I looked through the cabinet and found several rows of DVDs. I turned on the DVD player and popped in a romantic comedy. I couldn’t believe it worked.

After a few minutes, I clicked it off and left the tower. I looked through the office and the hotel rooms on the floor below. Nothing of interest. Though I don’t think I was looking to be entertained. I was looking for comfort, and absent that, distraction.

The gift shop on the second floor unbelievably had some T-shirts. One was in my size. I peeled off the hot, sweaty top I’d been wearing and exchanged it for a gift shop T-shirt. I took one that had been wrapped in plastic. After sitting there exposed to the elements for so long, the ones on the rack weren’t much better than what I’d had on.

Trevor was in the main restaurant’s kitchen, as promised, heating up food. Something from a can and something from a deep freezer the sun must have kept operational all this time.

I spotted a small handgun lying on the counter near him.

“W-why do you have that?”

Trevor glanced over at the gun and then back at me. “Why wouldn’t I have it? We’re lucky I have it and that I haven’t had to use it. This is a very different world, Elodie. You know that. I have to protect us.”

It wasn’t as if he’d waved the gun at me like a lunatic. He’d probably had it concealed on him earlier. And it wasn’t as if someone as strong as Trevor needed a weapon to harm me, particularly in such isolation, but it still scared me that he had it.

“How come this whole place isn’t looted?” I asked, trying to shift the subject away to something safer.

He looked up from a bag of frozen chicken nuggets. “Several of the stores on the main strip were looted. The castle may have been harder to get to when they came through. And the park is a bit off the beaten path. It wasn’t a well-known park. So not too many groups would have come through.”

The kitchen looked modern, but the main dining room was like a banquet hall in some old castle right out of a fairy tale. There were long banquet tables, which were positioned in a big square, leaving a wide-open space where there must have been some form of entertainment for the diners.

“Those are some big fireplaces out in the dining hall,” I said.

Trevor smiled. “Yeah. It’s great for when it gets cold out.”

We ate in the big, empty banquet hall on two throne-like chairs that I imagined had been set aside for actors playing the king and queen of the castle. Sitting there like royalty dining on food that was anything but royal fare was depressing as hell.

As if I didn’t already feel like I was one of the last two remaining humans on the planet.

For some reason it made me think of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. I couldn’t pull out a single personal detail about my life, but somehow an old religious myth was right there perched on the surface of my brain.