Zoe Thanatos

by Cierlak, Crystal

  Chapter 4: Honest Conversations

  Evan shifted the car into park and switched off the ignition. It was early evening and only a few cars were in the parking lot. He recognized Anne’s car parked next to his, the driver seat empty. She must have been inside waiting for him, having mastered the freeway system he was not used to. The restaurant was a whole four miles away from the harbor and yet he still managed to get lost. A deep breath escaped from his mouth, though he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it. He was nervous, even a bit scared. She’d made her need for answers evident and he wasn’t quite sure how much of the truth he could tell her. He suspected she would believe none of it. If he even wanted to tell her the truth, which he did to some extent,, he was bound by an obligation greater than he could explain. There would be enough of an answer for her to decide if it was the truth and nothing more. It wasn’t his place to divulge any more than that.

  He climbed out of the vehicle and locked it as he made his way towards the restaurant. Anne was sitting outside, lounging on a blue couch tucked up against a floor-to-ceiling glass window that made up the entrance to the building. She held a large glass of wine with one hand with her free arm crossed over her chest, and was staring off into the distance, completely unaware of his presence.

  She looked guarded and controlled, lost in thoughts he couldn’t see or hear. He noticed she had put her hair up since leaving the harbor. It was a thick mound wrapped around itself at the crown of her head, moving lazily as she dipped her head back to take a sip from her wineglass. Her too-big brown eyes were stuck on something in the middle distance, her brows furrowed above them. His thoughts wandered absentmindedly from his identity concerns to how she looked, wondering what thoughts had created the distant look in her eyes. There was something familiar about her, a similarity in her face that he had seen elsewhere but could not place.

  The voice of a restaurant patron excusing herself behind him snapped him from his thoughts. Anne looked up and feigned a polite smile. Evan took a seat in a plush upholstered chair opposite her and tried to push the thought aside.

  “Sorry, I got lost,” he mumbled.

  “I didn’t know what you’d like so I just ordered the first thing on the menu.” Her hand waived carelessly over a plate of cheese and fruit and a pitcher of chilled water. “The Riesling is pretty decent if you like white.”

  “Thank you, but, I don’t drink,” he politely declined.

  “Usually I don’t either,” she revealed, observing what little liquid remained in her wineglass. “Somehow it seemed appropriate.” Her eyes met his and he could tell she was not interested in small talk or pleasantries. She had questions and seemed to be holding back the urge to let them spill out all at once. He recalled the horror on her face when she awoke from unconsciousness, and how she turned red while screaming at him. He could only imagine how she was feeling.

  A waiter appeared, welcomed Evan, and took an order for two meatloaf sandwiches - Anne’s recommendation - before disappearing as quickly as he’d appeared. She was staring at him, expecting him to start explaining himself. The time for silence had long since passed and he knew he could no longer keep her from the answers she desired.

  He didn’t have to be there at all. He could have easily declined her invitation to dinner and kept driving along the coast towards Santa Barbara, but that wasn’t who he was. He always believed in honoring his commitments, even the ones he didn’t like, and Anne was no different.

  “So tell me. How does an ordinary man like you jump off a cliff after someone he doesn’t know, only to catch her and land miles away on a beach perfectly intact?”

  He swallowed hard at the question. During the drive from the harbor he had tried to come up with any explanation that might satisfy her while protecting him. He hadn’t come up with anything.

  “I suppose I’m not an ordinary man,” he answered. She looked at him pointedly, clearly not in the mood for games or pointless distractions. Being evasive would do neither of them any favors. “I told you. It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Try me.” Her eyes bore into his with an intensity that caught him by surprise. The truth was the only direction to go. Even if he could come up with an adequate lie he doubted she would believe him. Though he also doubted she would believe the absolute truth.

  “You’re going to think I’m lying,” he warned.

  “Well, my disbelief is already pretty suspended after what happened. Why don’t you just explain yourself and allow me the benefit of coming to my own conclusion?”

  He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, resting his right leg over his left. “I have what you may consider to be certain abilities that would ordinarily preclude rational logic.” He picked up the pitcher of water and poured himself a glass. He looked at her as he took a sip and tried to gauge her reaction. She looked utterly perplexed.

  “So you’re some sort of...” her words dropped off in the middle. Her eyes searched around as if the answer were lying on table in front of her. Finally she shrugged and with a raise of her shoulders mumbled, “Superhero?” He couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or amused by the question.

  “No. It’s nothing like that.”

  “So you’re not some kind of caped crusader who goes around saving women in distress?” Whether annoyed or amused she definitely looked at him as though she thought he was crazy.

  He had to laugh at the implication. No, he was not a superhero, nor was he crazy. From what he observed during his time there, superheroes were caricatures of myths, created for entertainment and consumption. He was nothing like that.

  “Nothing of the kind.” He took another sip of water in an attempt to try to hide his amusement from her. Clearly she was trying to seriously understand him the only way she could think of.

  “A mutant then?” she guessed.

  “No! At least... at least not in the way your movies and entertainment would lead you to believe.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction and her head moved back as though she were physically repelled by the information.

  “Will all of your guesses come from movies?” His pretense was gone and he couldn’t hide his own amusement. For as crazy as she may have thought him to be, he wondered if she found her line of questioning to be just as crazy, if not more.

  “Well, excuse me if I have nothing else to base them on!” she retorted. She absconded from the conversation as the waiter returned balancing two plates and a bottle of wine in his hands. He placed each plate in front of them and at Anne’s request refilled her glass. She took it and sipped deeply, eyeing him from the rim.

  The sandwich was thick with meat and smelled delicious, making him realize he was starving. A deliberate bite was distraction enough from the conversation at hand. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but he could tell just by the look on her face that she was processing his answers and thinking of even more questions. Around them the sky deepened into a golden orange, the sun having started its descent across the Pacific to the other side of the world. The exterior lighting of the restaurant was glowing, striking a rich contrast against the blue interior of the restaurant.

  She readjusted, crossing one leg over the other as she sat at the edge of the plush couch. It was difficult to imagine that she was the same woman who stood at the edge of a cliff and jumped.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked. She looked up from her plate and frowned. There was a long stretch of silence as she appeared to considered the question, a fork full of meatloaf stationary in her hand. Perhaps she was also estimating how much of the truth she would reveal to him?

  “We aren’t talking about me,” she finally answered before putting the fork in her mouth.

  “You wanted to know why I jumped after you. I want to know why you jumped at all.”

  “That should be obvious, Evan,” she pointedly replied.

  “To kill yourself. Why?” He resisted the urge to frown for fear of appearing judgmental.

  The fork dropped t
o her plate and her fingers went absentmindedly to the wineglass, twisting around the stem. “I intended to take my life.” Her eyes dropped back to the table as she took a slow sip.

  He put his sandwich down and reached for a napkin. He couldn’t eat and talk about her perceived value of life at the same time. Why she thought she could question him without answering a few questions herself was unknown to him. He caught her and therefore the obligation was his to explain, but she couldn’t honestly expect to not get involved, could she?

  “I just don’t understand why someone like you would want to do that.”

  “Someone like me?” she asked. She shook her head and looked back up him, a fury in her brown eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  That much was true. “And yet, here we are.” He shrugged but didn’t look away from her. He wasn’t going to give up so easily.

  “I could just as easily ask why you felt compelled to save the life of someone you don’t know.”

  “Isn’t that what people do here?” he asked.

  “Here? Where? Ventura? California?”

  He shook his head at the misspoken word. “I just mean... isn’t that what anyone else would have done?”

  She looked at him incredulously. “Nobody else would have done it, even if they could fly, which you apparently can!”

  His fingers went to the deep crease in his eyebrows and he pushed the skin down flat against his skull. “I can’t fly.”

  “Right, you just have abilities. Such as the ability to, I don’t know, teleport or whatever. Oh, and you’re sort of a mutant but not like in the movies. Whatever the hell that means.”

  He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at her. “Teleport? No, it’s... Yeah, I guess you could call it that, for lack of a better word. I teleported with you from 500 feet above the ocean to a beach miles away. Something like that.” In spite of his laughter he could barely hide his irritation. He picked up the sandwich and continued eating knowing she was staring at him, still stuck on his words.

  “So then... what are you?” she asked.

  “I’m a person! Not some foolish mythical character from a stupid movie!” he practically shouted. He took a quick look around to make sure no one else heard him. Clearly he would sound crazy to a random passerby.

  “Well, people don’t usually break the laws of physics and teleport, Evan. There are natural laws preventing science fiction crap like that from happening.”

  “Clearly your natural laws don’t apply to me, Anne,” he retorted. “Things are different where I’m from.”

  “Right, and where is that? Another planet?” She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe she was engaged in such a conversation. She sipped the last of the wine and signaled the waiter for the bottle.

  He sighed. “Not another planet,” he replied, exasperated. He fell silent as the waiter came back and cheerfully replenished Anne’s wineglass. She took another slow sip then placed the glass down on the table before her, just out of her reach.

  “You know what? I really don’t know how I’m supposed to take you right now. Nothing about this day has gone according to plan and I never imagined I would ever be having the kind of ludicrous conversation you and I are having right now. There’s no such thing as teleportation, or whatever, and yet somehow you managed to do it.” She cradled her head in her hands with her elbows resting on the table. He watched as her fingers moved through her hair, rubbing her scalp as if it were aching. She was clearly at odds with herself, distressed at the cognitive dissonance of what she believed could happen and the impossible nature of what did happen. He felt responsible for her anguish and frustration at having to talk about something she clearly found to be beyond the bounds of possibility.

  “Would it help if I could prove it to you?” he asked. Even before the words finished coming from his mouth he regretted them. He had never once been in a position where his actions caused disbelief by those around him; he went above and beyond to appear to be as normal as everyone else. And yet this beautiful woman indirectly caused him do many things that he never would have otherwise. What started out as a routine day had become anything but. Perhaps there was no turning back.

  Her head lifted up from her hands and he could see she was both confused and intrigued. “What do you mean?”

  “Name a place.”

  “Name a place? Any place in the world?” She looked absolutely dumbstruck.

  “You name any place in the world and I’ll take you there.”

  A too-loud laugh escaped from her mouth and she quickly covered it with her hand. She looked at him as though he had gone utterly insane. She continued to laugh a series of small, disbelieving chuckles and she grabbed her wineglass to take a sip. The laughter calmed and after pausing for a moment, she held the glass out in front of her face and looked up at him.

  “Okay. This Riesling is made at the Gainey vineyard in Santa Ynez. Take me there.” Her smile suggested she didn’t believe him at all and was quite possibly mocking him. Either way, he wondered if she even realized she was smiling.

  Evan glanced around and noticed their waiter was busy inside. Of the few patrons present none of them were paying attention to Anne and him. He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. She recoiled at his touch.

  “Just relax,” he whispered as his hand covered hers, holding her knuckles beneath the width of his palm.

  The street, restaurant, and city of Ventura dissipated around them, a grove of trees taking their place. A two-lane highway stretched out behind them with an expanse of vineyard in front. The sky turned a different shade of blue, illuminating a heavy stone inscribed ‘Gainey Vineyard, Tasting & Tours’ in front of them. A bed of green shrubbery dotted with purple flowers sat in a shallow well that made up the front portion of the sign, the petals swaying gently in a cool breeze that touched their face and hands.

  “Holy shit,” she exclaimed. She circled around him, taking in the 360 degrees of new environment with her jaw dropped open.

  Evan’s heart beat at an uncomfortable pace inside his chest. Transporting with another person was not something he had ever done before, and he felt certain he was never meant to do it at all. Catching her on the island had been a quick decision on his part, and one he was willing to accept the consequences for. Transporting her just to prove he could was another matter entirely. Subsequently, he was even more obligated to her, creating a connection he was certain was not meant to ever exist. However, there in a vineyard in a strange place he’d never been to before, the look of pure astonishment on her face made it worth the risk. He took a moment to study her face again, and to appreciate her beauty.

  In another moment the sign, vineyard and highway were gone, replaced with the restaurant, street and the city of Ventura around them. They were back in their seats, her glass of wine still chilled on the table next to their half-eaten sandwiches, the waiter still distracted with other patrons in the far corner of the restaurant.

  “How did you do that?” she exclaimed with breath caught in her throat. She was looking around at her environment again, seemingly trying to comprehend how the world had changed around her so literally.

  Evan shrugged and took a sip from his water glass, settling back into his seat and preparing himself for the inevitable questions to follow. “I told you that I have certain abilities.” He tried to sound nonchalant but inside he was reeling. He didn’t like not knowing what was going to happen next, especially when he had opened himself to her in a way that could not be undone.

  “So when you say you caught me, you did so literally and then just zapped instantly to the beach?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. He watched her face carefully. Clearly it was one thing to explain the truth to her, and another to to prove that it really did happen.

  “And you can do that anywhere?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly she didn’t look like the sad girl he watched that morning. There was no more melancholy or sadness, no more anger;
just pure, unfiltered excitement.

  “Hang here for a second,” she insisted as she rifled through her backpack for something. Having found what she was looking for, she went inside of the restaurant and consulted with the waiter. Evan took a sip of water so as to not look like he was watching her. The orange glow of the sunset diffused into a soft blue, a sign that night was falling through the city. His eyes found her again and he realized she was paying the check for dinner. He took a final sip from his glass of water and moved to stand from his seat.

  She was back at the table as he did, grabbing her bag from the blue couch.

  “I was planning to pay,” he mumbled awkwardly. She wrapped her bag around her shoulders and looked up into his eyes.

  “Take me somewhere and we’ll call it even.”

  He wasn’t sure what was going on. She demanded answers but he hadn’t given her many, and he thought for sure she would only want to know more now that she’d seen what he was capable of. What was going on? “Anne, I...” he began.

  “Actually,” she interrupted, her hand reaching up to silence him. “My name is Zoe.”

  Chapter 5: Before Sunrise

  The knowledge that she lied to him about her name bothered him in a strange way. Her lie, as small and insignificant as it was, happened before he caught her, before he followed her, even before they landed on the island. They were mutual travelers on a boat headed out for a day’s worth of adventure. He didn’t understand why she felt it was necessary to lie about something as simple as her name. Ordinarily he wouldn’t stand for it, but he decided to make an exception in her case.

  “Zoe,” he confirmed. He gave a terse smile and tried to hide the irritation from his face. “You know, I’ve never done anything like this.”