Andrew Klavan - The last thing I remember

“You’re sloppy,” said Angeline, watching me from across the table as I gobbled the food.

I winked at her. “Hungry,” was all I could manage to say as I ate. Then I hit the glass of milk. It went bubbling down my throat in a single gulp.

A second later, Mrs. Simmons came back into the room. By then my plate was just about spotless. I was busy pressing my finger to it to get up whatever last Pop-Tart crumbs I could find.

Mrs. Simmons carried the phone to the charger and set it there. Her back was to me and she stayed like that another second or two. Then she turned around and smiled at me-only it wasn’t the same sort of smile as before. She looked different now. I noticed it right away. Some of the color was gone from her cheeks and the softness from her eyes. She looked pale and worried. Her smile was a forced smile.

“Well… um, Charlie,” she said. “Would you like to clean up a little? Maybe even take a shower. You’re about my husband’s size. I could put out some fresh clothes for you.”

I thought about it. A shower would feel awfully nice. Plus I wouldn’t smell so bad when my folks came for me. “Sure,” I said. “Is everything all right? Did you reach the sheriff?”

“What? Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, everything’s fine.” I could see Mrs. Simmons’s eyes go back and forth as if she were searching for the right thing to say. “The deputies are on their way. It’s a bit of a drive from town, but they’ll be here soon.”

“Great,” I said. “You think I should wait to take a shower in case they…”

“No,” Mrs. Simmons said quickly. Then she did a strange thing. She went to the table and scooped Angeline up into her arms. She held her protectively, as if she were afraid of me again, afraid I might hurt them. “No, you just go on into the back room and take a shower like I say. I’ll lay some clothes out on the sofa for you, all right?”

I was kind of confused by her behavior, but I said, “Sure.”

The back room was on the ground floor at the other end of the house. It was a bright room with flowered wallpaper and a sofa. There was a small wooden table with a sewing machine on it. And there was an easy chair with a newspaper lying on it. I could see the headline: “Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”

Still clutching Angeline in her arms, Mrs. Simmons pointed me to the bathroom on the room’s far wall.

“Right in there,” she said. “Go ahead, there are towels and everything, and I’ll bring you some clothes.”

Then she went out-hurried out, I thought-closing the door behind her.

I thought she was acting strange, but then the whole situation was so strange, I shrugged it off again. I went into the bathroom. It was pleasant and homey like the rest of the house. Big fluffy towels hanging on racks. A flowered shower curtain. White tiles on the walls with blue designs on them.

I got the shower going and started to unbutton my shirt. It would be good to get out of my clothes, wet and dirty and bloody as they were. As I worked the buttons, I turned without thinking to look in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

I stopped moving. I stood stock-still. My hand froze on one of the buttons.

My face. The face staring back at me from the mirror. It was me-I mean, I recognized myself, but… but I’d changed. A lot. My face was leaner, sharper, stronger-looking. And my beard… I looked like I hadn’t shaved for a day or two, but instead of the patches of fuzz I usually got, my beard was coming in all over, heavy and full.

I stood there staring at my reflection and this thought-this impossible thought-came into my head.

I was older. I looked older, anyway. I looked older than I did when I went to bed at home last night.

The shower went on running as I stood there. Steam began to seep out from behind the shower curtain. Slowly the mirror began to fog over, the white mist moving in from the edges toward the center. I watched as the reflection of my face was covered until only the eyes were staring out at me. Then the eyes were gone too. I was just a shadow in the mist.

That broke the spell. I turned away from the mirror quickly. I hurried out of the bathroom, out into the other room with the sofa and the sewing table.

There was the easy chair. There was the newspaper on it. I went to the chair. I picked up the paper.

“Homeland Secretary to Meet with President on Terror.”

Above the headline was the date. I could still remember the date from yesterday. A Wednesday in September.

An ordinary Wednesday. It ought to be Thursday now.

And it was. It was Thursday. Only it was October. I thought, Wow, a whole month has passed!

Then my eyes traveled just a little farther, and I saw the rest.

It was October, but a year later. A year had passed since I went to bed last night.

It was one full year since the last day I remembered.

Police I stood in the shower. The hot water streamed down over me. It felt good, really good. The heat seeped into my aching muscles, soothing them. It stung on my cuts and bruises, but it was a good sting, a cleansing sting. The stream drove the dirt and blood off me. I stood with my head down, watching as the dark, gritty water swirled down the drain.

I stared and I thought: A year! How was it possible? A year of my life had vanished. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone and I couldn’t even remember it.

I tried. I tried to remember. Something. Anything. I strained as hard as I could to bring any of it back. But there was nothing there. As far as my mind was concerned, I had gone to bed last night and woken up strapped to a chair. If a year had passed in the meantime, it was lost to me completely. I had no memory of it at all.

I put my hands over my face. I rubbed my eyes. I tried again to make some sense out of the events of the day, sifting through them for any clue I could find. I thought back to that first moment, the moment I had woken up in the chair. What had happened before that? Wasn’t there something? Anything?

I couldn’t come up with it. I turned off the shower. I stepped out and grabbed one of the towels and began to dry myself off. And now there was… just a trace… a hint, a whisper of a memory coming back to me.

It had happened when I first woke up. When I first found myself strapped to that chair. Everything was confusion and fear and pain inside me. But there were voices. I remembered now. There were voices talking just outside the cell door. What did they say? I tried to remember. Maybe there was a clue there-a clue to where a year of my life had gone.

I stepped out of the bathroom. Just as Mrs. Simmons had promised, she’d put some clothes on the sofa for me, a pair of jeans and a flannel work shirt. There were also some clean socks and a pair of old sneakers. There was even some underwear in a package that hadn’t been opened yet.

I started to get dressed. All the while, I was thinking, trying to remember, trying to call back those voices I’d heard.

Homelander!

Yes. That was something. It came back to me now. Someone had said the word Homelander. Homelander One-as if there were more of them, a lot of Homelanders. What did it mean? I had no idea.

What else? My name. Yes. Someone had said my name.

West.

I closed my eyes as I dressed, trying to bring back the scene, trying to bring back the words.

Orton knows the bridge as well as West.

My head was beginning to throb. That was all I could come up with for now. I finished dressing. I sat on the sofa and put the old sneakers on. Everything fit pretty well. I was grateful to be clean and grateful for the feel of fresh clothing.

I opened the door to the back room and stepped out into the hallway.