Taken By Surprise

by Jessica Frances

  ***

  For two long hours we have to endure Martha asking us questions about our lives and all the usual getting to know you things. I find out a general background from everyone, although Will is rather hard to get much from. Martha does try, though. After we’ve all mumbled through that, feeling like we’re trying to pass some test of hers, we finally come to a reasonable time to get up and leave.

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll be administering a general check up on you all. Nothing that won’t take a few minutes each. We’ll get them started before breakfast because you’ll need to have a blood test and you have to have that on an empty stomach,” Martha tells us.

  “You expect us to let you take our blood? Are you insane?” Rose blurts out.

  “We would just like to make sure you are all in good health,” Martha responds calmly.

  “I can already tell you I’m perfectly fine. No blood needed,” Rose snaps.

  “Rose,” I snap back at her, remembering Drew’s words. Fight with them and they’ll fight back. We have to get along with everyone here or they’ll get suspicious.

  “I don’t care, Zoe. I’m not giving them my blood.”

  “We can discuss this in the morning; you’ve had a full day and you’ve had a lot to take in.”

  “I’m not changing my mind.” Rose stubbornly crosses her arms over her chest and storms out of the room.

  “Zoe, Charlie, can I have a quick word?” Martha stops us in our tracks and I have a bad feeling I won’t like this discussion much. Charlie and I sit back down at our seats and wait for Martha’s lecture. I again think of future Drew’s words. Can Martha really have that much of an effect over someone to poison the mind? What would that even entail?

  “I know you’re both adults and perhaps we should have expected this to happen, but I just want to reiterate for you both that you are likely to be here for a while. So there is no reason things between you can’t slow down a bit.”

  I look down at my hands and try to think of a reasonable response for her. I come up empty and apparently, so does Charlie.

  “Right, well, if you need to talk, I’m always here for you, day or night. You can just call out my name and I will be alerted that I’m needed.”

  We both nod and breathe sighs of relief when she gets up and leaves through the wall door.

  “Condoms!” I quietly shriek at Charlie.

  “You put me on the spot!” Charlie whispers back.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I concede. I hadn’t intended to do that to him.

  “Don’t be, I did sort of head us in that direction by kissing you.” Charlie shrugs off my apology while moving his hands through his short hair. He looks nervous.

  “It worked, so we can’t fault that. What was that Harold guy talking to you about?”

  “It was weird. First, he was lecturing me about not getting you pregnant because he didn’t have the facilities here to cope with a baby and then his eyes lit up and he started muttering about a baby. I don’t know. I just took the condoms and walked away.”

  “Weird.” I cough over my embarrassment and stand up, walking out into the lounge area where Rose and Will are sitting down, watching the television.

  “Do you mind if we talk to Drew some more?” I ask Charlie quietly, knowing it’ll mean cutting off the power again and so soon after talking with Martha. She’s going to think we’ve got problems. “It’s just, I don’t know how long he has and this is my only chance to talk…”

  “Of course, come on.”

  “You better keep up appearances and put those condoms to good use,” Rose teases again and I glare daggers at her, but can’t feel any true annoyance towards her. Truthfully, my emotions are too stretched right now to worry about Rose.

  Back in my room’s bathroom, Drew has sagged down the wall and appears to not be able to move himself.

  “Drew!” I help lift Drew to a sitting position then sit down in front of him and try not to notice how much worse he’s looking. At least the light from outside is disappearing and it’s making it harder to see his deterioration.

  “Told you I would still be here when you got back,” he mutters quietly.

  “Do you need to leave? We can help you get back to your time machine thing or whatever you call it,” I offer, not really knowing how we’re meant to do that since it’ll mean escaping.

  “There isn’t anything to send me back with. In fact, I no longer exist because the timeline in which I go back in time no longer exists,” he explains.

  I feel a headache coming on.

  “It’s a bit of a flaw with time travel. If you go back to a time when the technology isn’t there to send you forward, then you’re stuck,” Drew says.

  “So you’re just going to die?” Stray tears fall down my face, knowing that there really isn’t anything I can do.

  “Sort of, technically, I’m out there somewhere right now, alive, so you don’t need to cry over me, Zoe.” Drew reaches out and touches my hand, leaving it resting over mine.

  “Let’s move him out onto the bed,” Charlie suggests. I let him come in and mostly carry Drew over to my bed. He sits him down on it and Drew doesn’t appear to have the strength to hold himself up so he ends up lying down.

  “So who was the woman who was sent back for me? I didn’t recognize her,” Charlie asks, which gives me more time to compose myself.

  “She was a friend of your Mom’s. She bumped into your Dad on the street about a year from now and she became very close to you both.”

  Charlie is silent at that, I feel his body next to me tense, but he doesn’t say anything to give me a clue as to why that is. When Rose had mentioned her parents being worried, Charlie had only said his Dad would be worried. What had happened to his Mom?

  “Nicole was the only successful one out of us all.”

  “She hurt the boy that got brought in here bleeding?” I ask.

  “Yes, she killed him, her brother, Blake. They’re twins so you can imagine how hard that was for her to do.”

  “What was his ability?”

  “He could read minds.”

  “Wow.” I feel like that puts all of us to shame, although I guess on paper, me being able to see the future probably sounds cool. I suppose hearing thoughts might not be that much fun. “So the fact that you know about us, about me, does that mean I told you about my dreams? I told Dana?”

  “Yes, after getting a job here it became harder to not tell her what was going on.”

  “How did she take it?” I hold my breath, fearing the answer.

  “She was a little upset that you kept it a secret for so long, but honestly, she seemed to think it was pretty cool.”

  It’s the answer I feared. At least if I knew she hated me, then I would know I had done the right thing keeping it from her. However, I hadn’t done the right thing. Deep down, I always feared how Dana would react to hearing about my dreams and all along she would have been fine with it. All that worry and for nothing. Keeping it from her only harmed her in the end.

  “I wish I had told her the first day we met. I wish I didn’t keep it a secret from her.” I can’t see Drew’s expression in the dark, but I know he can easily know how mine looks. I’m devastated.

  “She reacted well, being told when she was an adult. I don’t know how she would have reacted when she was six. Don’t beat yourself up over it, Zoe. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Things might have turned out differently if I had told her.”

  “She might have thought you were weird and you two would never have been best friends,” he points out.

  “Then she would be alive today.” I’m openly crying now, not caring that Charlie is hearing all of this.

  “Don’t do that, Zoe. Don’t say that. I know Dana and I know she wouldn’t change a thing. She would never want to not be your best friend.”

  I wipe away at the tears falling down my face, but more replace them. My eyes are a running tap right now.

  “Yo
u know, in my past we didn’t throw you a surprise party for your twenty-first birthday.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, you and Joel had already hit it off a week or so after he started working with you. You had been on several dates already and that night we all went out for dinner.”

  “I had already been on several dates with him? Really?”

  “Yeah, you guys were happy.”

  “I don’t understand that at all. Joel barely spoke to me when we first met and it wasn’t until a couple weeks before my birthday that he actually started to talk to me. How could we have already been dating in your past? Was I different?”

  “The only thing that would have been different was Joel. He wouldn’t have been having his dreams then. It explains why he wasn’t his usual charming self, or at least, not right away.”

  “Why did he have dreams? What did they do to him?”

  “I came back for you, Zoe, but really, I was just a backup plan if Joel failed. He was able to break through to the past using dreams. His plan was to drive your Joel to a breaking point.”

  “Why not just come back himself like you all did? Now Joel is in prison for murder. His life is over.”

  “He blamed himself for the path you took, for not seeing what it did to you. He wanted to be the one to end this and he couldn’t come back over with us because he was too weak. The dreams alone took everything out of him.”

  “It just seems so pointless, especially with what happened.”

  “I know,” I hear Drew’s voice break.

  “What was Dana like as she got older? Did you marry? Did you have kids?” I know these answers will torture me, but I have to know. Charlie’s hand takes hold of mine and I feel warmth traveling up my arm. It feels comforting so I don’t move away from him.

  “I don’t think it will help you to know these things.”

  “Please…” I desperately beg.

  “We married three years from now. The engagement was a long one because Dana was incapable of making up her mind. We married on December 26th. You know what Dana is like at Christmas time.”

  I smile. Dana’s favorite time of year is Christmas. I can picture her walking down the aisle, Christmas trees surrounding the outside of the seats. She would do it at night so she can have the lights of the trees lighting the room.

  “I wish I could have been there.”

  “You were. You were her maid of honor. Joel was my best man. When Joel and you got married, we swapped spots.”

  I feel more tears falling, hearing that. Joel and I had been married in our old future. That seems too unbelievable to me.

  “I never felt sure with Joel. I always wanted to run when he was around. How could I date someone who made me feel that way?”

  “You wouldn’t have felt that way when you saw him in my past. You repressed your dreams so much, Zoe, that you don’t always remember what you’re seeing. Your body compensates for that by giving you incredibly good instincts. I’m assuming those instincts told you to run from Joel because you already knew what he was going to do, you just couldn’t remember. In my past, Joel was never going to hurt you or Dana, so you never felt the need to run from him.”

  “My instincts are telling me we have to get out of this place.” They’re also telling me I want Charlie, so what does that mean?

  “That is because you’ve seen the horror this place is, you just can’t remember.”

  “What if we can’t get out of here? What if we fail?”

  “You all worked so well as a team, it’s another reason you’re so valuable to them. Work together to get out of here, it’s the only way.”

  Drew violently begins coughing and I lean forward, unsure if I should go towards him or not. Instead, my feet stay frozen, waiting for the coughing to cease.

  “Maybe you should get some rest?” I suggest.

  “Rest isn’t going to help me, Zoe. I don’t know how much use I’m going to be to you now. I feel like it’s close.”

  “We’ll stay with you.” I can’t imagine dying alone, but I also can’t imagine being in here alone when Drew passes away. I can’t deal with that on top of everything else.

  “Thank you. I want you to know I’m sorry we failed you. I only hope you can understand why we did this.”

  “We understand.” I speak for all of us, but I have no idea if the others feel the same. Having someone try to kill you isn’t something that many would understand or be able to forgive. “Do you mind staying?” I ask Charlie, hoping he’ll stay.

  “No, I’ll stay. It’ll work better for our cover anyway. I’ll get us a blanket.” Charlie leaves the room and I again feel embarrassed by his comment. I can’t believe our cover is that Charlie and I are having sex right now.

  “He’s a good guy. He was always there for you.”

  I feel uncomfortable by what Drew says. Is he trying to say something happened between us in his timeline?

  “He seems nice.” I can tell I sound nervous and I cough to hopefully mask it.

  “You can have your bed back, Zoe. It doesn’t really matter where I die.”

  I know having Drew die on my bed will freak me out, that there won’t be any way I’ll be able to sleep on it again, but I feel bad kicking him off. He has done a lot for us, sacrificed a lot and he doesn’t deserve to die on the floor.

  “No, it’s fine. You stay where you are.”

  “Thank you, Zoe. I’ve probably never said this to you, but you were always a good friend to me.”

  More tears fall down my face and I know I’m not ready to say goodbye to Drew. I’ve already lost Dana, I can’t lose him, too.

  Charlie walks back in just as I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom and move over to the bed where I take Drew’s hand in mine. It feels weak and bony. I hate to think what the rest of him is like now.

  “Please don’t leave me. I can’t take losing someone else right now.”

  “Zoe, remember. I’m still alive. I’m in Boston right now, my heart is beating fine and I’m breathing in the cold air. Don’t mourn me, please.”

  I look down at where my hand rests for a while before Charlie takes my other hand and pulls me over to the wall next to the door facing the bed. I lean my back against it and let my legs give out, sliding downwards until I land softly on the ground. Charlie is more graceful and once we’re next to each other, he places a blanket over our legs. He rests his warm hand around mine and I’m surprised by how natural that feels. If I didn’t know better, I would think he’d been taking my hand and comforting me my entire life. Even given our closeness, I resist the urge to rest my head on his shoulder.

  I listen to Drew raggedly breathing and I dread the moment when that sound goes away.

  It’s past midnight when Drew’s breathing gives out. We’ve sat in silence the whole time and fresh tears burst out when I know he’s gone. Charlie puts his arm around my shoulders and I cry into his chest. When I finally catch my breath, I feel like an idiot.

  “I’m sorry. You must think I’m some crazy person who can’t stop crying.”

  “Don’t be sorry. From what I gathered, you’ve been through a lot these past few days. I know what it’s like to lose someone close. I’m just a bit worried what everyone is going to think with you crying so much. Not much for our first time together.”

  I laugh abruptly, finding the joke funnier than it probably is. I haven’t even thought about that. If Martha or Stan walked past this room at all tonight, they would more than likely have heard me sobbing.

  “And now you’re laughing, you’re not doing my reputation any good around here,” Charlie jokes again and I laugh just as loudly, feeling a bit lighter.

  “Thank you for being here, Charlie. I know you don’t know me, but I get a good feeling about you.”

  “Well, I might not have superhuman instinct powers like you, but I get a good feeling about you, too.”

  I smile hearing his words and let my eyes close. Falling asleep sitting up isn’t all that
comfortable, however being with Charlie, it’s definitely more bearable. As tired as I am, I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to get any sleep tonight. My mind is stuck on Dana and Drew. Regardless of whether Drew is still out there, somewhere, alive; technically, I have witnessed both Dana and Drew die and only days apart. That is too much for anyone to take, let alone someone as lost as me.

  “Goodnight, Zoe.” Charlie’s hand squeezes mine and I pull myself out of my depressing thoughts.

  “Night, Charlie.” I let my head rest on Charlie’s shoulder, deciding I don’t care if I’m being weird.