Tabula Rasa

by Kitty Thomas

  Shannon backed the car into an unlocked empty garage at a house two doors down with a for sale sign in the front. He’d done meticulous research. Even if the garage had been shut and locked, we could have still parked close enough to the abandoned house—given that there was a high row of hedges beside the house that allowed cover. But happily, the garage was open.

  I thought it was dangerous doing this so close to the campus, but Shannon reasoned that if Stevens was able to commit sexual assault here and get away with it, that it was as good a place as any to kill him. And Stevens did have that horrible basement he’d taken me to. Of course Shannon was right, but I still looked over our shoulders from the front porch, paranoid someone would come up the path. But it was late on a weekday. Surely everyone was asleep already.

  Shannon rang the bell, dragging Professor Stevens out of what must have been a sound sleep from the bleary-eyed grumpiness that answered the door. Shannon had instructed me to wait behind the bush until he was inside. So when the door opened, a strange man dressed in black was all the professor saw on the darkened porch.

  “This better be good,” he snarled at Shannon.

  “Trust me, it is.” Shannon lunged forward and knocked the professor out with a chloroform soaked rag, then with speedy smooth practice, he handed it out to me all while he kept the Professor from hitting the ground. I disposed of the bag in Stevens’ trash at the end of the drive. Both Shannon and I wore gloves, appearing as shadows everywhere except for our faces.

  We’d talked about this in the car on the way over. It wasn’t all chloroform, but I wasn’t sure about the other ingredient. He’d assured me the concentration and mixture he’d made would keep someone unconscious for about fifteen minutes—just enough time to move things to the next phase.

  I went inside the house, trying not to flashback to the last time I was brought in here. It looked much the same—exactly like one would imagine a stuffy botany professor’s house might look. Lots of old books. Lots of plants—many exotic and rare. There were several plant lights for the exotics that needed a high amount of light but weren’t close enough to a window to get it. These were turned off for the night.

  I felt as though the plants watched me. As if they’d been awakened from their sleep by our intrusion. The average person might think this completely crazy, but when you study plants, you realize they are even more alive than you imagine. They simply exist on a different time scale than us. On time lapse photography, they seem to live with purpose. A few might even be said to have goals. During my time at the University, I’d anthropomorphized plants to a degree I couldn’t back away from, even though as a scientist I was meant to look at things coldly and clinically. I wasn’t sure how I could have ever done science that required animal experiments since I now saw plants as nearly sentient.

  This sensation wasn’t minimized knowing what I was about to do. The creepy feeling that Professor Stevens’ plants watched me accusingly only escalated as I made my way through the main level of the house. I briefly panicked about what would happen to the plants when Stevens was gone. Would they all die? Would a relative or some students at the university take them under their wing and care for them? Could I orphan all these plants? Now I was being crazy. Because surely I still prioritized people over greenery.

  But I knew even if I got cold feet, Shannon was determined. After all, he hadn’t decided to kill Professor Stevens as a favor to me but because he was angry and wouldn’t be satisfied until the man was dead. Maybe I should have stayed home. During the trip I’d shoved any doubts or dread into the back corners of my mind as if shoving it back there often enough would somehow make the issue vanish altogether.

  It’s one thing to think about killing someone. It’s another to actually do it. Most of us have the good sense to know that the reality won’t be anything like the fantasy. I had that good sense, but I’d acquired it far too late in the game for it to do me any good.

  I quietly crept down to the basement where Shannon had made use of Professor Stevens’ bondage equipment to tie him up.

  My heart thundered in my chest as though race horses galloped through my veins.

  Shannon took out a small 22 caliber handgun. He attached a silencer to the barrel and inserted a magazine, slamming it a little harder than was necessary.

  “It’s quiet anyway, but with the houses so close together here, it’s best to be careful,” he said, almost as if he were talking to himself. “They call this an assassin’s special. The mob used to use these for hits because they’re so quiet and discreet. You can come right up behind someone, and shoot the back of the head. The bullet’s so small it just ricochets around in there. They never see it coming, and there’s no exit wound. Neat. Clean. If I’m not using a sniper rifle, I prefer this. Keeps it simple. And I like the challenge of having to get so close into their space to pull it off.”

  “Shannon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Could we not... with the commentary?” I was sure I was going a little green. We shouldn’t have eaten so close to this event. But of course Shannon wouldn’t be bothered by things like that.

  “Too much for you?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to come.”

  Because it was my revenge. Not his.

  “So... you don’t want him dead now? Is that it? You want him to just waltz along through life thinking he’s gotten away with it? You want him to victimize other women?”

  “What do you care what he does to other women?” I asked.

  Shannon rolled his eyes. “Just because I don’t feel all the range of emotions you feel doesn’t mean I don’t know intellectually if something is right or wrong. You might not think I have a working moral compass, but I was trained to take out the bad guy. And this guy is as bad as they come. I can smell it on him. It wasn’t just you he’s done this to. And he’ll keep doing it. He can’t help it. Someone like me needs to remove him from civilized society.”

  I sank into a red velvet chair in the corner and didn’t say anything else while Shannon pulled a bundle from his bag and unrolled it with a flourish on a small table he’d dragged near the professor. From my position, I could see several gleaming knives and other fun little toys I didn’t want to think about.

  “Shannon?” Was this normal for him? In my head I’d managed to convince myself his job was some sort of necessary evil and that all his kills were quick and clean like hunting a deer for dinner. Did he need them to suffer first?

  He looked up. “I’m taking my time with this one. This one is personal. You can go wait upstairs if you need to.”

  I wished again that we hadn’t had dinner so recently because now it was starting to get real. It wasn’t some abstract notion. There was a living person sitting a few feet away who was going to be carved up like Christmas ham, and I was going to watch it happen.

  “I’ll shoot him when I get bored. Or you can do the honors when it’s time if you like.”

  I shook my head vehemently. When he’d been gone on his last job... when I fantasized about taking Professor Stevens’ out, in the fantasy, I’d actively participated. Shannon and I had been like Bonnie and Clyde—two disaffected sociopaths who didn’t give a shit about playing by the rules. Now I didn’t want anything to do with it. I wasn’t sure I could even stomach being down here.

  “What if he screams and wakes up a neighbor? You can’t afford that,” I said, hoping Shannon would change his mind and just make this quick.

  “I’ll use one of his ball gags. Besides, look at the walls. This place has been soundproofed, and it’s underground. How else do you think he got away with what he did to you?”

  I shuddered at that, and for the smallest moment, my reservations melted away. But then Professor Stevens regained consciousness. His eyes widened when he saw me sitting across the room.

  “W-what’s happening? Elodie? I-I thought you were dead.”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked. I at least had the courage to h
ave a conversation, even if I couldn’t bring myself to rip and tear skin.

  “You were missing. I saw you on the news. That hospital.... that doctor...”

  I could see from the look in his eyes that he’d been thrilled when he thought I was dead.

  “How many others besides me did you do this to?” I asked, my voice getting a little stronger. I wasn’t sure if I was just trying to get some sort of closure or if I was stalling Shannon.

  A smug, satisfied expression, spread over Stevens’ face. “My relationships with other students are none of your business. Jealous, you little slut?”

  I leaped out of the chair and across the room so fast that, for a moment, I didn’t realize I’d even moved. But all at once, I stood in front of him inches from his smarmy little face. Did this asshole not realize what was about to happen? But no, his eyes had found mine immediately. He hadn’t yet noticed Shannon, who’d somehow seemed to dissolve into the shadows behind him. He hadn’t noticed the table with the instruments of pain. He hadn’t noticed the gun. He was too fucking stupid to know this was his last night on earth.

  I hauled back and slapped him so hard my hand stung. “You fucking piece of shit,” I spat.

  He just smiled. “Oh, so you want to try role reversal? I like a good round with a dominatrix as much as the next fellow. It must be why you have me tied to the chair.” His eyes widened suddenly as if only now realizing he was tied up in his own basement. “T-there was a man... before...”

  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 tha
t 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.