Zero Repeat Forever

by G. S. Prendergast

  “Damn . . . ,” I whisper. It’s amazing what you don’t know in this world until everything goes to hell.

  I look at my watch—oddly enough, after everything, it still keeps good time—it’s three in the afternoon. I close the computer then, knowing my chances of receiving anything are best at noon. Maybe my chances of sending anything are best then too. What would I send? Mayday? SOS? Would anyone come?

  It’s a while before I can get the laptop out onto the terrace at noon. For some reason August lurks around until after midday for three days, after kneeling by me through the night. Perhaps because it has been particularly cold, or perhaps he has his own reasons. I struggle not to show my frustration. Finally, on the third day, in the morning, I try to entice him out of the penthouse with a promise of my fleeting happiness.

  “I’d love to have some more of that chocolate,” I say. It’s embarrassing how quickly he reacts. In seconds he has fled, practically running as I listen to his heavy metallic footsteps echoing down the stairs. Why is he so quick to try to provide the things I want when surely he must know what I want most is to leave him? I start to wonder if he’s really what’s keeping me here. Or was it my injuries? Maybe I’m too scared to set off on my own.

  I grab the laptop and take it back out onto the terrace. The sun is approaching its apex in the sky, still low on the southern horizon, but it’s a bright day, and warm enough that I don’t even bother putting socks or slippers on.

  If there is any signal at all, it should be easy to find it. I’ll ration the battery time. Ten minutes to search for signals, send messages, or download information. Twenty minutes to view files or anything else I’ve found. Half an hour per day. That way, if this is a good battery, it should last for a week or two. Maybe I won’t be here for that long, but I have to always plan for the worst.

  I give a little shudder then. That’s the kind of thing Topher would say. Plan for the worst. This is the worst, Topher. I’m hundreds of miles away from you, a prisoner. Did you have a plan for this?

  Setting the computer down on a glass and metal table, I find the signal easily. It’s an unsecured network called NKV82. Though I know what I’m going to find, I connect anyway. I’m immediately taken to a directory of video files. Nahx kill videos all. They are sorted by popularity. The most popular one has over twenty million hits. Twenty million? There must be a lot of survivors, then. What Kim hoped about the coastal areas might be true after all. It’s strange to think how isolated we’ve become, how our human connections depend so much on technology that without it we are like lost ships floating in a sunless, windless sea.

  I stop then, for a moment, and consider backtracking. Maybe there is another signal, one not dedicated to these alien snuff movies. Maybe there is some kind of search and rescue network I can log on to. I remember the one time I watched videos like this, how sick they made me feel. But I’m curious to see if I will still feel the same way. I can’t afford to waste time thinking about it. At the very least, if these videos have comments, I should comment on the most popular one. Tell people where I am. Maybe someone can send help. I click on the top file. As the video uploads surprisingly fast and starts to play, I recognize it immediately. It’s the one where the female Nahx is decapitated. My first instinct is revulsion, but then I find I can’t look away. The way the girl Nahx looks up before losing her head mesmerizes me. I pause the video and watch that moment over and over. There is something very familiar about her posture, about the subtle changes with the position of her head and shoulders. Something I recognize. Resignation. I find I’m blinking away tears.

  The video ends and returns me to the directory page. I forgot to check if there were comments. I click again to get back, and the video begins again. Again, I find I can’t stop watching. My bare feet start to ache from cold. Over and over the Nahx girl is taunted, pushed over, and kicked. Over and over she growls until I feel I can understand exactly what she’s saying. It’s not a threat. It’s a plea. Please don’t kill me.

  Maybe, if she could have spoken, she would have said, Just walk away.

  Over and over the machete falls and her head rolls away in a gush of blood. Please don’t kill me. Resignation. Please don’t . . .

  A shadow falls across the laptop. The machete falls. I feel August clutch a handful of my hair just as the Nahx girl’s head comes off.

  I yelp as he yanks me off the chair by my hair. He releases me as soon as I tumble to the tiles.

  “Don’t sneak up on me, and you won’t see things you don’t like!” I snarl, cornered by the table and his dark shape. My scalp aches from where he grabbed me.

  His shoulders rise and fall, his breath growling as he grabs the laptop and flings it over the railing. Seconds later I hear it clang mournfully against the roof of a car. Hating myself for not managing to send any call for help, I try to slither past him, but he steps to the side, blocking me. His hands are clenched and raised in front of his chest.

  “You don’t scare me.” I kick out feebly with one leg. “You wouldn’t dare hit me.”

  His fists come crashing down on the table. It explodes into a million shards of glass. I throw my arms over my face. While he is occupied with hurling the tangled metal remains of the table over the railing, I try to crawl away. There is broken glass everywhere. He reaches down and picks me up like a toy, carrying me back into the apartment.

  “Don’t touch me! Put me down!” I kick and scratch at him as he shoves me into the sofa. My hands fly back and wrap around a vase on the sofa table. I swing it out and smash it across his head, shattering it, and showering myself in more glass. “See? Two can play that game!” Before I can dive off the sofa, he grabs me up again, pinning my arms at my sides. Glass tinkles to the floor as I writhe in his arms.

  As he carries me away, I kick out and connect my foot to one of the pictures he had turned to the wall. It smashes to the floor in another shower of glass. He moves into the hallway, which is lined with art. I drag my legs along the wall, sending each piece crashing down, all the while hurling abuse at him, spitting and biting like a trapped viper.

  When I manage to get an arm free, I grab one of the ornate mirrors he had turned, waving it in his face. “Is this what you’re scared of? Monsters? Mutants?” He smacks it away and it shatters against the wall. I slide down, but he scoops me up before I reach the floor.

  “Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting me!” Then my words dissolve into unformed wordless screaming as he carries me flailing down to the bedroom, my feet still scraping framed art from the walls. He kicks the door open, and I see the room where I lingered between life and death for the first time since I came out of my fever-induced haze. The bed is minus its mattress, and most evidence of my sickness is gone. I tear another mirror from the wall, and it splinters on the floor. August presses me down on the box spring, clutching my twisting wrists in one of his hands. In his other hand I see the shackles appear from somewhere in his armor.

  “No! August, you can’t! Don’t, please, don’t!” I twist and squirm, but he manages to attach one of my wrists to the metal bedpost. I swing my other fist at his head, cracking my knuckles painfully against the hard armor. “Let me go!” I scream, and worse things, until tears are streaming down my cheeks. Somehow he has managed to restrain my good leg too. The shame and betrayal that boil up inside me turn into a terrible rage. I could kill him right now. I could kill him for this. I kick my injured leg around until he grabs me by the ankle, trying to hold my foot in front of his face.

  “Is that it?” I snarl. “You have a foot fetish? Fuck you, you pervert! You deviant!” I wrench my foot from his grip and kick out. He steps back, crunching broken glass under his boots, holding his hands palms out, as though he might dive forward and grab me, all his . . . whatever . . . everything he’s held inside all this time about to spill out. Like he’s going to kill me after all, or something worse. Or he’s trying to placate me, maybe. It’s hard to tell. It’s hard to see through the tears pouring out of my ey
es. “You’re disgusting. I hate you!” I wail between sobbing, pulling, and clawing at the restraints. He takes another step backward. I grab things from the bedside table and hurl them at him—candles, a clock radio, the lamp. He steps back again and puts both hands on top of his head.

  “You feel bad now? You should feel bad, asshole! I hate you! I hate you repeat forever! I wish you were dead!”

  We fall silent for a moment, staring at each other. He makes a tiny movement, as though he might step toward me, and I suck saliva into my mouth and spit at him. He jerks back as my spit sprays his chest, retreating until his back is pressed against the wall by the door. Before I can plead with him to stop, he turns and runs down the hallway.

  “Come back! Don’t leave me like this! August, please, don’t leave me! Come back!”

  Over my sobbing screams I hear the front door open and close.

  AUGUST

  What.

  Just.

  Happened?

  I fall to my knees at the top of the stairs, tearing at my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

  The door to the roof is propped open. I crawl out into the sunlight, gagging, gasping. I need to disconnect. Now. Something is malfunctioning. I can’t breathe. My mind is fragmenting, shattering like glass. Glass. Glass. There was so much glass on the floor. Her feet were bare. Her feet.

  Something bubbles inside me, and I feel like I might vomit, though I know I can’t. But the breathing tube constricts and contracts all the way back up into my mouth. I cough violently and the tube unwinds and snakes back downward, back into my lungs and insides, filling me with thick sludge, wiping my mind clean for a second, until I can catch my breath.

  I rest there, on my hands and knees, trying to hang on to my slippery thoughts. The syrup wants to push them away, turn them into anger, turn me against the vermin, the humans, the girl. . . .

  What happened? She was watching something, a video, a girl. A girl being killed. One of us.

  Like Sixth. My girl. I wish she were here. She would know what to do. But she’s dead. Wings of blood pooled around her neck.

  The edge of the roof is only a few feet away. I struggle to my feet and stumble forward, hanging my head over the side. Below me is the terrace off the bedroom. Over the wind I can hear her screaming and crying. Maybe I imagine it. I could hop down; it’s only fifteen feet. I could hop down and be with her in seconds, unbinding her and begging her to forgive me. I don’t have a sign for “forgive,” but I’ll make one up.

  I don’t even know what half those words mean, those things she called me.

  There’s another edge behind me, at the other side of the roof, with no terrace below it. Forty-one stories straight down. The fall will probably kill me. Probably. What do I believe more? That she’ll ever forgive me, or that the fall will kill me? What do I want more? Forgiveness? Or death?

  Or sunsets. Or spiderwebs. Pine needles.

  Snowflakes.

  Dandelions.

  Slippery thoughts slither away. I lean my head over the edge until I imagine I can hear her again. Screaming my name. I can’t leave her there. Hold on to that thought. I can’t forget that she’s down there, tied up, alone. If I die, she dies. Starves, freezes. Tied to a bed like . . .

  What have I done?

  How long have I been up here? Time seems to have passed.The sun is kissing the mountaintops, the light changing from golden to indigo. I stand and measure the distance to each edge, moving my feet slightly until it is exactly even.

  The orange orb of the sun dipping behind the snowcapped mountains catches my mind for a second, enough for me to think more clearly than I have in days.

  I can string five thoughts together, I think. Try anyway. It’s important.

  One, she doesn’t love me. She never will. Zero repeat forever. Nevermore. I doesn’t matter what I bring her or how I care for her. I can never make her love me. It’s embarrassing to think how hard I’ve tried.

  Two, I love her so completely I can barely think of anything else. That feels like something I won’t be able to forget, no matter what.

  Three, she’ll die if I leave her. Hang on to that. It’s important.

  Four, it hasn’t snowed in six days. That’s not really relevant, I get that, but it’s true. The fact that I can even remember the last time it snowed is something to celebrate at this point.

  Five, I can be by her side in seconds. And she hates me, thinks I’m a monster, which I am. But I don’t care. I’ll do whatever she wants, whatever it takes, let her hate me, abuse me, even kill me. I don’t care. That makes me a sentimental fool, as well as a pervert and a deviant. Defective, stupid, weak . . .

  My head clears. Absolute clarity. I step toward the roof edge, barely aware of which direction I have chosen.

  RAVEN

  Here’s the thing about being handcuffed: It’s a lot worse when you don’t know when or how it’s going to end.

  I scream his name and beg him to come back, beg and scream and cry until all my self-respect is gone. Then I cry for Topher, even for Xander and Emily. My parents. I cry for anyone who would never do this to me. And I cry for the dead, Sawyer and Felix and Tucker and the little child whose teddy bear lies decapitated in the bath. And after I cry about the laptop computer smashed below us, I relive the exploding glass table and the Nahx girl losing her head, drifting into exhaustion and jerking awake again and again.

  When my arm and leg are both numb and aching, and the fingers on my free hand bleeding from tearing at the shackles, I relive the vase smashing over August’s head, and the mirrors and the pictures on the wall. The sun sinks low on the horizon. Golden light streams in through the terrace windows. I turn my head away and look down the hallway, where the debris of the broken picture frames makes long shadows, and the broken glass glitters golden on the floor like distant stars.

  Oh my God, the glass on the floor.

  Broken glass all over the floor. And I have bare feet. Something inside me cracks and spiderwebs, like a windshield, and all the little shards tinkle down to join the destruction. This is certainly not the first time I’ve fallen apart, but it’s the first time when I’m not sure I want to pick up all the pieces and put myself back together. Because somewhere among the shards is the piece of me that hated August so much that I dreamed of killing him. That I got pleasure from mocking him. That hurled insults and curses even though I know they burned him like acid. What kind of person would be so cruel and distrustful to someone who saved their life? He’s never done anything but try to help me and make me happy.

  “August . . . ,” I whimper. “Come back, please. . . .”

  Tugging at the restraints, I lift my free foot back, turning it awkwardly. There is a small cut on one side, nothing serious. I wriggle my other foot. It feels sound.

  Time passes. The sun touches the snowy mountaintops and sinks. The twinkling stars in the hallway blink out. I’m so ashamed of myself, I actually long for darkness. If he ever does come back, I don’t want him to see me like this. If he ever does come back, the girl they would have called Rage, the fighter, the angry, lost soldier, is gone. Someone else has taken her place, someone nobody would recognize.

  Above the mountains the first star appears. It’s probably Venus, but I don’t care; I press my eyes shut and make a wish anyway, whispering, “Please let him come back. . . .”

  Outside on the terrace I hear something thump onto the concrete floor. The sliding door opens.

  With the fading sunset behind him all I see is his silhouette. He steps forward and kneels by the bed.

  Sorry. Repeat sorry. Forever.

  “Me too,” I manage, though my heart is lodged in my throat.

  He reaches up and clicks something on my wrist restraint, releasing it, then does the same with my ankle. I slide backward, away from him, and tumble onto the floor. When he comes around the bed, I’m pressed into the corner of the room, rubbing the feeling back into my wrist and ankle.

  Four. Give.

&
nbsp; It’s the first time I’ve seen him use that phrase. Probably not the last. I can forgive—I do forgive—but my mouth won’t work.

  He hangs his head and slowly kneels in front of me, then falls forward until his forehead is on the floor, both his hands on the top of his helmet. It’s an impressive display of remorse, I have to admit. Even Tucker’s impassioned apologies were never this all-encompassing, this visceral. But Tucker’s anger was never so explosive, either. I mean at least he never smashed a table in front of me.

  “It was because of the broken glass, right? You didn’t want me to cut my feet?”

  He moves his head slightly, nodding into the floor.

  “Why did you get so angry? Did you know that girl? The one in the video?”

  He taps the thumb on his left hand. I’m not sure what this means. When I don’t respond, he makes two other familiar signs.

  Feel broken.

  “I’m okay. You didn’t really hurt me.”

  I—I—I— feel broken.

  He sits up, leaning back on his heels. Hanging his head, not looking at me, he signs slowly with one hand. I translate it effortlessly in my head.

  You make me very, very sad.

  This feels like an attack more than an admission. I reach forward and lift his chin up so he can see me, making his signs as I speak, slicing my thumb across my throat. “You make me feel like killing myself.”

  He pulls his chin away and turns his head slightly, just enough that I know he’s not looking at me anymore.

  Repeat me.

  Repeat.

  Forever.

  I couldn’t hate him now if I found him torturing puppies. All I want is to put my arms around him and tell him that everything will be all right. But of course I realize that’s the last thing he needs. Because it would be a lie. And no one needs that.