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He’d traveled all over the world for this hobby. Not only were there several photos of signs in foreign languages but Shannon had put labels on each one of where it had been taken. As I worked through the book I saw he’d been to Canada, Spain, Italy, Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Russia. He seemed to have been everywhere, capturing all the strange, wacky, and creepy of these theme parks.
Therewasone photo with people in it. It was a picture of a cluster of found photos of smiling employees from a South Korean park. It was telling that Shannon needed to be this many degrees separated from real people to take a picture of them.
Despite the emptiness in these park images and my fears that it reflected far too much of Shannon himself, something about this hobby made him seem more human to me.
I took my time perusing the album, sure Shannon wouldn’t mind, but he was upstairs for quite a while, so finally I got up and went to explore the kitchen. Unlike the photo album, I was pretty sure my going through all his cabinets and drawers would annoy him, but I was curious.
There was nothing unusual in the kitchen. I didn’t find any heads or fingers in the freezer. Much to my relief.
I ended up standing in front of the sink with the faucet on, staring at the water as it came out, like it was the most interesting thing I could have ever discovered.
I could have been standing in that state for five minutes, ten minutes? An hour? Hell, I don’t know. Time melded together, and all that existed for a while was moving water.
The only thing that broke the spell was Shannon’s hand pressing down firmly on the handle, making the water abruptly stop. “If you’re this fascinated with running water, you could have a future as a plumber,” he said.
He took me to an office on the first floor and sat me down behind a desk in front of a laptop. A browser window was open with several tabs to clothing stores.
“Do you know your sizes?” he asked.
“I... yes, I saw the tags in the clothes I wore there.” At the park.
“Good.” He indicated the chair. “Fill some shopping carts.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Well you aren’t wearing my clothes. And you aren’t going naked. What were you planning to wear?”
I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought about much of anything. It was all too hard and overwhelming. It would have been bad enough trying to reintegrate into the world and get my life back if Trevor had held me captive like he had with my memories intact. But without anything solid to rely on, it was even worse. I was just surviving minute to minute and trying desperately not to think about anything, trying to make the inside of my mind as empty and silent as my surroundings had been most of the trip with Shannon.
Maybe I’d been lying to myself about going crazy from the silence. I was really going crazy from how relieved I was to have it. Running waterandsilence. The motherfucking lottery.
“Shop.” He sat in a chair next to mine so he could watch me. I barely had time to marvel at the continued existence of the Internet.
“I-I don’t know what to get or how much. How will I pay you back?”
“I don’t need you to pay me back. I need you to look like a normal person in my house and not a kidnap victim. Decide on a new hair color and style also. I’ve got to get stuff for that. And we’ll get you colored contacts. No high heels. Every picture they showed of you on the news was in something nice enough to wear heels. People probably imagine you a little taller than you are. Flats only.”
I looked through the sites he’d picked out. It was all nice stuff. “So I’m going to leave the house and see other people?” I asked.
“At some point.”
“You aren’t worried I’ll say something? I thought that was the whole reason you didn’t give me a choice about coming with you?”
“I said you couldn’t be free range. I didn’t say you’d never see other people. You saw what happened at the castle. Do I seem in any way traumatized by it?”
I shook my head. I’d tried and failed multiple times during the trip to his house to not think about how matter-of-factly Trevor’s killing and disposal had been carried out.
“I don’t mind a body count. Don’t put me in a situation to make one or to make you part of it, and you have nothing to worry about. Deal?”
Sure. Nothing to worry about. But I nodded quickly and went back to looking at the sites.
Something else occurred to me suddenly. The ever-looming feminine protection quandary. “I... I need some... some toiletries,” I mumbled. That was the most tactful way I could put it.
Shannon studied me for a moment. “You mean tampons.” Off my shocked expression he said, “Don’t look so surprised. I was raised by a woman, not by wolves. My dad went on a lot of tampon runs when I was growing up. I’ll take care of it. Just write down anything that will help me out in that department. They have a lot of options out there—probably a lot more now than when I was a kid.” He opened a drawer and took out a notepad and pen and put it beside me on the desk.
“Thank you.” I was so ridiculously grateful that not only had I not had to explain to him what I meant, but that he hadn’t made me feel awkward or dirty. It was so strange—yet in hindsight made so much weird sense—that I’d hidden the entire thing from Trevor, unwilling to bring it up under almost any circumstance, yet, I’d somehow been able to tell Shannon, however subtly. Why did I trust this guy when there seemed no rational reason for me to?
“Shannon?”
