Zero Repeat Forever

by G. S. Prendergast

  “August, don’t, please!” But he heaves the pile over the railing. The wind catches some of it, blowing it up and away, before it wafts downward and out of sight.

  He makes a sign that looks like “sad” but backward, adding a question hand.

  Happy?

  “No, I’m not happy. Why did you do that? I’ll freeze.”

  He crosses his arms, leaning back on the railing. I feel frustrated tears prickling the back of my eyes. It’s the kind of thing bullies used to do to me in school—throw my mittens out of the bus window or drop my hat in a puddle of slush. They did these things because they liked me, people used to say. The idea is horrifying. Better to remember that they did these things until the first time I knocked one of them flat with an uppercut, though I have no chance of knocking August over in this way. Even to wipe his legs out from under him, I would have to take him by surprise. Not likely, since he’s staring back at me now, sulking. My mind ticks over. I didn’t know I could upset him like that, enough for him to become so stubborn. It’s so unlike his usual emotionless attention to my every need.

  The wind blows through my pajamas. My bare feet ache from the cold concrete terrace floor. I wrap my arms around myself and look over the railing. Far below, the clothes and blankets are strewn over cars and snowbanks. Now is as good a time as any to test my power over him, I guess.

  “Go down and get that. Right now.”

  He shakes his head.

  Despite desperately wanting not to, I start to shiver. “You have to! I’ll freeze tonight.”

  He turns his head away, arms still crossed, still defiant.

  You go. He flicks the sign at me with one dismissive hand.

  “I can’t! I can’t walk all that way down and back up. Go down and get it!”

  He doesn’t react at all. Apparently, he’s better at this game than I thought he would be.

  “I can die from freezing, you know. Is that what you want?” I turn and stomp dramatically back into the relative warmth of the penthouse, wincing as the pain in my leg flares up. All my bedding is gone, sheets, blankets, quilts, everything. All the extra clothes I bundle into each night are gone too, and all the ones I’ve been setting aside for my journey away from here. This part is not a game so much. Maybe he doesn’t even know how much this will hurt me. It could kill me tonight if it gets cold enough. I’m already shivering, and the sun isn’t even touching the horizon yet. Worse, all the provisions I’ve gathered for my escape are gone.

  Behind me, I hear the terrace door slide closed. I slump into the sofa and hug my knees, hanging my head, hiding my face, until I know that he’s kneeling in front of me.

  “Do you know how bad it feels to be so dependent on you?” I say into my knees. “My life is in your hands. I have to pretend to like you, because if you change your mind, or get bored of me and leave, I’m dead. That’s repulsive.” I hear him sigh and fidget, his armor clicking. A little farther, I think. What does it matter about his feelings anyway? He’s a killer.

  “And what if that’s not enough? I don’t know what you are, or what you think you want. Whatever it is, I have to give it, if I want to live. Right?” I look up at him. He’s shaking his head, both palms raised at his sides.

  “Just go away,” I say, but before he can get up, I stop him. “No, wait. I have a better idea.” He sits back on his heels, expectant. I open the high collar of my pajama top, exposing my neck. “If you want me dead, do it now.” I lean forward, pressing my bare neck toward him. “Go on. Get it over with.”

  He exhales roughly, almost like a growl, and recoils. As we stare at each other, I realize that I’ve conjured up some tears from somewhere, and I’m not even sure if they’re real. Wiping them away elicits a sob, and seconds later I’m crying for real, curled up on the sofa, shivering with cold and crying in front of this monstrous alien who holds my life in his bloodied hands. I cover my face again because I think I’ve probably cried enough to make my point, but I’m not sure that I can stop. After a few seconds I feel his warm hands on my feet.

  And unlike I normally would, I don’t flinch away.

  AUGUST

  Her skin is cool and smooth. Cold, in fact. Without all her blankets and clothes she could freeze tonight. I know this isn’t really what she wants. It’s not what I want either, and yet I feel something tugging me away, urging me to turn and run, down the stairs three at a time and out into the streets, away from her, because part of me wants this torment to be over.

  It’s exhausting being the object of her hate, her disdain and disgust. I’m so tired. Between her and Sixth, the effort of being the only creature on this planet who even marginally cares whether I live or die has worn me out. I’ll leave her. It’s something I should have done weeks ago. I feel the oily sludge bubbling up, erasing my own thoughts, thinking for me.

  It would be easier if she would look at me, so I could say something to her at least, maybe good-bye.

  Open your eyes, Dandelion, please.

  I feel the pain in my chest before I realize I’m hitting myself there.

  Please, please, please.

  Her feet are so delicate, so slender and pretty. Sometimes when I look at her I think of unspeakable things, things that make me want . . . to be anyone but who I am.

  I make a noise, with my breathing, like a hiss, and pull my fingers away from her cold skin. She looks up at me.

  Sorry. Sorry. Very sorry forever.

  She slides down to the end of the sofa, away from me.

  Don’t be scared.

  “I’m not.”

  She’s lying. I can smell the adrenaline flowing through her.

  Sorry forever.

  “Right, I get it,” she says, mockingly imitating my last sign, shooting her hand upward, to the stars. “Big sorry. Forever sorry.” She wipes the tears from her face. “Go get my clothes and blankets now. It’s cold in here.”

  Of course. Of course I will. My body is on fire with shame. I try to lower my temperature to something more comfortable, but fail. Even though it is close to freezing, I’m burning. I have to fight to keep from gagging on the tube in my throat as I stagger to the door.

  “August.”

  I turn to the sound of her voice.

  “Don’t ever touch me again, okay? I mean it. My leg is healed. My ribs are fine. I can take the splint off my arm. So just . . . don’t touch me. Don’t come near me. Don’t even look at me. Unless you really are going to kill me, keep your creepy hands to yourself.”

  Before I can stop myself, I make a set of signs to her, a terrible curse I learned from Sixth.

  Die in mud and pain, defective low rank.

  I regret it immediately and hope that she didn’t understand.

  “Yeah, fuck you, too,” she says, adding her own sign, and two of mine. “Fuck you, pervert, repeat forever.”

  Outside the door, out of her sight, I rest my left hand on the wall and stand there, trying to get my thoughts to flow properly again. The numbing fluid is churning in me. I badly want to break something, but I’ve already broken almost all the locks and kicked in almost all the doors in this building. Instead, I rest my head on my hand, breathing in and out, while the spasms in my throat subside. Inside the apartment, I can hear her crying.

  It’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard.

  RAVEN

  The blankets return, and all the clothes. Even the book comes back, damp but undamaged. He also brings two bowls that miraculously survived the fall, and a pile of bowls I assume he found in another apartment. He doesn’t look in my direction as he delivers these things.

  Later, after I’ve eaten the food he gives me and he’s disappeared, I find the teddy bear in the bathroom. It’s in two pieces, its head torn right off. I’m not sure if this is some kind of warning to me, or an admission of guilt or an oversight on his part. I wet the head in the bucket of water and use it to wash my face and under my arms before throwing it in the bath.

  He doesn’t reappear that night, a
nd despite the piles of blankets the cold is a punishment I did not anticipate. I shiver and toss and turn, tucking and retucking the blankets around me. I dream, when I finally sleep, of crawling into his warm lap, having him wrap his arms around me. He breathes in my ear and whispers vivid, violent, and terrifying things. I wake in the dark, paralyzed with fear and cold. And missing him. Missing his warmth, his protective shadow.

  Missing August. The one who perpetually seems inches away from killing me, simply out of habit. I wish I didn’t know his name or the details of him that I’ve gathered over the weeks. How he loves sunsets and falling snow. How he checks my breathing when I sleep. Sometimes I pretend to be sleeping and hold my breath, just to bug him. If he knows I’m doing this he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t eat, or sleep. He never sits; he rarely even kneels. Sometimes, especially after I’ve said something unforgivable, he leans against the wall or doorframe, always with his left hand.

  I say unforgivable things to him a lot, call him a creep if I catch him watching me at night, accuse him of murder when my mind won’t stop replaying Felix’s death behind my eyes. I let the venom out of me as words, sometimes barely knowing whether it’s under my control at all. My parents were smart putting me in martial arts all those years ago, and my teachers were right—anger needs to be controlled. It’s as though with my body weak and wounded, my words are the only outlet I have.

  But when I can manage it, I still fake civility, and it’s tragic how no amount of venom seems to change his attitude toward me. I can see he’s sad, and frustrated, but his manner is always kind, indulgent even. So I try to get him to answer questions.

  “What is the poison in the darts?” I say one day when I find him in the hallway, leaning on the wall. He shrugs.

  “What are your plans for my planet?”

  I have no plans.

  His word for “plans” is like three lines drawn over his right ear.

  “Your people,” I say. “What plans do your people have for my planet?”

  He just shakes his head and walks away. He does that for about 50 percent of the questions I ask him. At first this made me angry, but now I think maybe he’s tired of telling me he doesn’t know. I’m reminded of school, of lessons I hadn’t done the reading for, and how teachers seemed to relish putting me and the other slackers in our place by asking us questions we couldn’t possibly answer. Say I don’t know enough times and it starts to sounds like I’m a fucking idiot.

  I let August get close to me only so I can study his armor, and I no longer care if he decides to off me as I sleep, or abandon me. I know, even with his help, it’s nearly impossible that I will ever see the others again. Topher thinks I’m dead. He saw it, I think. I have a vague memory of knowing he was nearby in the stadium. From his point of view, that Nahx killed me, beat me to death. That Nahx that wasn’t August. That August says wasn’t him. I have no way of being sure he’s not lying. I don’t remember it very well. In my mind the attacker and the rescuer blend together as one, blend and spin together in pain and terror until I’m nauseous just thinking about it.

  He knows how angry I am at him, at his kind, at the whole world. And he does try. As if the decapitated teddy bear wasn’t enough, there begins now a parade of gifts and offerings, each more unexpected or inappropriate than the last. There are over a hundred apartments in this building, and he is pilfering through each, one by one, in search of some trinket that might appease me. It’s a rather sad and poignant quest actually, the kind of thing some sick person might write a poem about one day, but it has little effect on me. Though the day he finds an unopened box of Belgian chocolates is a good day. The day he turns up with someone’s diamond bracelet is a bad day. A very bad day. But he stands stoically for twenty minutes while I tell him a made-up story of the man who splurged on the bracelet for the woman he loved, maybe for her birthday, their anniversary, or Valentine’s Day, only to watch her be murdered by the Nahx, then succumb himself, a poison dart in his heart.

  “Were their bodies still there?” I ask accusingly. “Did you take this right off her wrist?”

  He simply snatches the bracelet back and sends it sailing over the balcony. I don’t see him for a day and night after that. Another cold night, shivering, wondering if he’ll ever come back, struggling to not regret the things I said. I only need him, I remind myself; I don’t care about him. Once I get back to the mountains, back to the base, I could cut his throat without a second thought. My fingers slip around the knife concealed in the lining under the sofa.

  He can still surprise me though. One day, as I doze on the sofa, afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sliding doors, he tosses something onto the blankets. I open my eyes, closing my fingers around a small hardcover book. My breath catches as I see what it is. It’s an illustrated book of the Edgar Allan Poe poem “The Raven.” He stands there, silent, as I stare at it for a few moments.

  “Can you read?” I ask. He nods slowly. I’m quite surprised. “You can? Did you read this?” He nods again.

  Sad. Repeat sad.

  “It is sad, yes. Very sad.” I open it and flip through a page or two. As I read, I’m dimly aware of him taking a step forward, then another. He kneels in front of me.

  Zero repeat forever.

  “Repeat?” I say, imitating his sign.

  He taps the book in my lap. This is as close as he’s come to me since the blankets came back. Zero repeat forever.

  My mind translates it this time to “nothing again forever.”

  “Oh! Nevermore?”

  He nods firmly, satisfied. Sad, he signs before standing and disappearing into the kitchen.

  The cold stone inside me breaks for him then, a little bit. What he must think of this terrible story of a man haunted by the memory of his lost love, Lenore. Of all of human literature, that he should read this one, this depressing, fatalistic dish of melancholy. It can’t have been good for him. The fact that he seemed to understand it so well tells me something about him too. I see him then, as that miserable wretch, cowering in his lonely chamber, unable to let go of who he is, what he’s done, and all that he’s lost. I swallow a sob, crushing the blankets over my mouth so he won’t hear.

  All this time I thought I was the saddest person in the world, when really, it’s probably him. It takes an hour of intense concentration for me to finally convince myself that he deserves all the sadness he feels. That the things I think about him and his sorrow must be imagined. That I know nothing about his life before he rescued me in the stadium. That I don’t care. That I only need him until I find Topher again. That Topher will put an arrow into his neck this time, and that will be the end of it, the end of August, the Nahx.

  Then I will think of him nevermore.

  The day comes when I am able walk down to the ground floor and back up, forty flights. I sweat and pant, but there is no discernible strain to my convalescing lungs or leg. I took the splint off in the previous week, and my arm feels strong too, as I jab and block at my shadow in the hallway. I feel strong. Strong enough to leave, maybe, but probably not strong enough to fight him off if he tries to stop me.

  We have been here for five weeks. August still brings me things nearly every day. Food mainly, though I prepare my own meals now, and clothes. I have shown him that warm clothes make me happy, so he piles them up all over the apartment. So far they are all indoor clothes. I haven’t figured out a way to express a desire for outdoor clothes without revealing my intention to leave him. After all this time, I’m still not sure he would let me.

  I remember an outdoor equipment supplier on the outskirts of town. Tucker and I bought our sleeping bags for camp there. It’s a half-hour walk, an hour, tops. If I bundle up with enough sweaters and the day is fine, I’ll make it with no trouble. My plan is to leave soon, but I don’t set a date or a deadline. I want to wait for the right moment, then slip away. I don’t want him to sense my anticipation. Feeling less dependent on him softens my hatred somewhat. I don’t want him to know I’m
leaving and try to stop me, because I would have to kill him. There are still sharp knives in the kitchen. I know exactly where they all are, as well as the one under the sofa where I sleep, and others wrapped among the pile of clothes I’ve amassed. I have studied his neck, where the armor is weaker, when he’s not looking. I know I could do it, if I caught him by surprise, but I don’t want to as much as I once did. He saved my life, though I never asked him to. He deserves at least that much consideration in return.

  Though my mood improves with my recovery, his does not. I often find him in the long hallway, leaning on the wall, holding his head in his left hand. Occasionally I find him the other way, leaning on the right, with his left hand extended, like he is reaching for something. Once, unable to help myself, I ask him what’s wrong.

  Tired, he signs, letting his left hand fall. I don’t think he means from lack of sleep. I think he’s growing tired of me and my venom. Who could blame him?

  One day, to my astonishment, he brings me a working laptop computer. There are two computers in the penthouse and several in the other apartments, but none of them are working. There is no power—that’s part of the problem—but the laptops at least should have had some battery time left, but they don’t. This is why I’m so surprised when this one boots up, like nothing happened. Seeing the home screen with the owner’s files, the full battery icon, and boxes popping up fills me with nostalgia for a world that feels centuries past, not just months.

  I spot the wireless icon flashing, one weak signal bar. Somehow, it has connected with a network. This could be . . . I slam the laptop shut.

  “Thanks,” I say evenly. “I’ll play with it later, maybe. I don’t want to waste the battery.”

  He nods lightly and leaves me, unaware, I hope, of what he has given me.

  Later that day, after I watch him trail his left hand down the wall of the long hallway and disappear into the stairwell, I take the computer around the apartment, searching for a better signal. Not surprisingly, out on the west-facing terrace is best. There are several high buildings in my sight line, and even, in the distance, what looks like a cell phone tower. According to Kim, lots of these are fitted with solar-powered transmitters and connected to the emergency broadcast system.