As I wandered the park, an idea hit me, and I went in search of a ladies’ room. I shrieked when a long slinky rodent zipped past me inside the first bathroom I came to. Of course creatures would be nesting in here. But on the wall was just what I expected: one of those machines with feminine hygiene products. Fantastic.
The machines were intact, so unless someone wandering past had a bunch of quarters on them, I might be in luck. I took apart the pipe on one of the sinks and used it to break into the machine. It was a lot more difficult than I expected, especially given how the metal box on the wall was rusting out.
When it finally broke, feminine care products rained out like candy from a pi?ata. I gathered everything that had spilled out like I had just found a hoard of gold and continued on my way. I stopped in one of the gift shops. Looted. Almost picked clean.
Whoever had been in the park before us must have been guys or the tampons would have already been raided. Despite the shop being savaged, I found a large shopping bag behind the register. I put my bounty from the bathroom machine into the bag then went and collected everything out of the other ladies’ rooms. A few of the machines were running low or empty but most were still full.
When I got back, Trevor was in the tower reading a book. “Find anything interesting?” he asked, indicating my bag as if I’d just been out shopping or something.
“More creepy than interesting,” I said. I wasn’t willing to get into a discussion about my hoarding. I took the bag to the bathroom and stashed it under the sink and locked the bathroom door. I was right, my period had started. I quickly took care of things and went back out into the main suite where Trevor sat with a curious expression on his face.
There was no way I was talking about this directly, but I did need information. What I’d collected would last several months, but I was sure there had to be a storeroom somewhere, probably here in the castle. If it was in the castle, I was set and could worry about what happened when that ran out way in the future.
“Umm, Trevor?”
He looked up from his book. “Yes, dear?”
I wished he wouldn’t call me that, but I let it go. “So, I know we don’t have running water, but surely if there’s a stock room in the castle, we have soap and shampoo at least.”
He seemed almost disappointed that I’d figured that out. What an asshole.
“Yeah, there’s a stock room on the second floor. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I’ve got it, thanks,” I said.
He shrugged and went back to reading.
When I reached the second floor, I found the stock room hidden away at the end of a hallway—something I’d overlooked in my previous exploration because it was so nondescript. I let out a relieved sigh when I discovered the door was unlocked. Inside was a wondrous bounty of little hotel soaps and shampoos, towels, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, and... jackpot... feminine protection. Endless boxes of pads and tampons. It was the happiest I’d been since waking up in that pirate ship. These were things that made me feel halfway civilized.
I didn’t bother relocating any of it up to the tower. It was enough that I knew it was there. And with the drawbridge coming up each night, I didn’t have to worry someone would wander in and take anything. I was, somehow disturbed Trevor hadn’t already shown me this stuff. Wouldn’t he realize how important soap and shampoo and all the rest would be to me?
Didn’t he care?
I went back up to the tower.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.
“Yeah. Where’d you get a book?” I asked. I’d been preoccupied before but now that I was thinking about it, I couldn’t imagine Trevor had traveled with books while the world was dying. And if he had, he’d probably read it so many times he could have it memorized by now.
“There were a whole bunch of them in the office below us when we got here. We relocated them to the cabinet in the entertainment center. Check the side without the DVDs. You might like some of them. And without your memory, it’s all new again.”
“Yeah, thrilling. You’re such a silver lining kind of guy.”
Trevor frowned. “Are you going to be like this forever?”
“Like what?”
“Before you had that stupid fall you were optimistic, acclimating to our life. Things were good.”
I wrinkled my nose at that. “They were so good that we had a huge fight before the accident?”
A disturbing thought occurred to me. What if I hadn’t fallen at all? What if he’d pushed me? What if he’d tried to kill me during the fight? It would explain why he didn’t seem too upset about my memory loss.
Trevor slammed his book shut and stalked out of the suite, leaving me alone in the tower. I was hungry, but I was also exhausted, and I didn’t want to run into him again for a while, so I lay down on the bed for a nap.
I woke to find Trevor standing over me with a look I couldn’t quite translate into a coherent emotional state. Anticipatory maybe?
“I made you some dinner.”