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Chapter Four

Nick



It happened when I was walking to the gas station. I'd passed a couple more cars, their occupants frozen in mid-motion. I could see the little convenience store, the light glowing in the dark, and I was just about to step over the curb that lined the street when everything in the world seemed to shift and I stumbled and fell to the ground. Funny enough, although I'd gone down on my left knee, my entire right side felt the pain.

"Oh fuck," I groaned, and I grabbed at my shoulder, which smarted the most and I winced. I wondered what nerve in hell is located in my knee that would make a shooting pain travel down my right side like that. I'm not one for anatomy, and I never memorized that old song the hip bones connected to the whatever bone. Despite my interest in horror movies, blood and guts always freaked me out more than they probably should.

There was one time I threw up because AJ got one helluva papercut on his finger. It was really nasty, though, and in my defense, at least I didn't pass out at the sight of the blood, like he did.

I held my shoulder as I continued walking across the parking lot, past people frozen pumping gas into their tanks, and I pulled open the door to the mini-mart. Inside there were people waiting in line, holding various snacks. I looked at the guy behind the counter, whose register was frozen open, his hand reaching for the cash a woman was holding up to him.

I spun through the rack of batteries that was located by the register until I found a pack of AAAs. As I spun the battery rack, I thought I caught a movement out of the corner of my eyes, but there wasn't anything out there when I looked. I'm going crazy, I thought to myself. Then I realized how crazy it was that I was thinking I was going crazy because I thought I saw motion when everything else was paused because I'd hit a remote control button just before an eighteen-wheeler had flattened me like a crepe.

After pulling the batteries I wanted from the rack, I glanced at the people in line. "Sorry, I'm gonna cut in line, cos...well, ya'll are frozen 'til I get this thing fixed anyhow..." I said to them. Most of them had probably just come from the concert, I thought. One even had a BSB t-shirt on. I reached in my pocket and realized I'd left my wallet on the tour bus in my hurry to catch up with Brian. I looked up at the clerk. "I'm sorry, dude, but I promise I'll come back and give ya the cash for the batteries I'm about to steal."

He, of course, didn't respond.

So stolen batteries in hand, I scurried out into the night again and made my way back down the street to the scene of the accident, passed all the cars and the windbent trees and the rain drops I'd pushed aside until I came back to the car, it's brake lights still glowing in the night, the eighteen-wheeler crashing into it. I climbed the hill beside the accident to where Brian was still laying in the same awkward position I'd left him in, the remote control on his chest. I sat down beside him and pulled the battery compartment open again and shook the batteries out. I ripped the package of the new ones open with my teeth and pressed them into the compartment and closed it up.

"Okay, here we go," I said again. I aimed the remote and was just about to click the button when I was tackled to the ground, the remote flew out of my hand, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, where it shattered a puddle into pieces.

"What in the hell?!" I gasped and I found myself looking up into the eyes of a girl.

She had me pegged to the ground, her hands on my wrists, her body leaning over me. By girl I mean a woman, like a woman my age. She had dirty blonde hair and bright green eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose that you couldda used to play connect the dots or something. She stared into my face, her eyes searching mine with an expression of determination.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"I might ask the exact same thing," she replied.

"You might, but I asked first," I said.

"How are you -- moving?" she demanded, ignoring me.

I stared up at her, "How are you moving."

"I asked first."

"That didn't work for me when it was my argument, why would it work for you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just answer me."

"Get off me and maybe I will."

She stared at me, then leaned back, releasing me from my pinned-down position. I sat up slowly, studying her carefully. "Well?" she asked expectantly.

"I said maybe I would answer," I said. "Tell me who you are, then I'll answer your questions."

She hesitated. "I'm Margo," she said slowly. "Now who are you?"

"Nick," I answered.

"How are you moving?"

"I don't know," I replied, "I just -- am, I guess. I was in the car," I pointed, "That car. I was fighting with my friend, Brian, and suddenly that truck was there and I hit the pause button on the remote control, mostly out of like delusional last hopes, you know, 'cos I thought I was about to die, but instead the pause button worked and here I am." I shrugged, "I don't know why I can move. Everyone else seems to be frozen in place. Well, everyone except you, that is, I guess."

Margo stared at me. Her eyes were so fucking intense that I wondered if she was capable of pausing me with them. They seemed to almost glow in the dark. "But - that's -- that's incredible," she breathed. "I've been alone here for... years..." she shook her head. "You're the first person I've seen moving in years."

I shrugged. What could I say? I didn't know how it worked anymore than she did. However... "Years? You've been paused for years?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"But that's impossible," I argued, "Because it's all only been paused for a couple minutes. If you've been paused for years, then everyone would've been paused for years. It's only been a couple minutes."

"Not for me," she said simply with a shrug.

I didn't feel like arguing with her about the space-time continuum and how I couldn't have been unpaused ten minutes ago when she'd supposedly been paused for years. It just wasn't possible. Was it?

"Why didn't you just unpause everything in all these years you've been here?" I asked.

"I don't know how to," she answered.

"Did you try hitting play on your remote?" I asked. Then, "Or maybe pause again. Some remotes want you to hit pause a second time."

Margo shook her head, "I don't have a remote."

"Then how did you get pause everything?" I asked.

Margo shrugged, "I'm not sure. I don't really remember. It was a really long time ago and I don't think I meant to pause everything. I think it just happened."

I pointed to the remote at the bottom of the hill, "Well, I hit pause on that remote. But the batteries died, so I just walked down the street and got some new ones --"

"I know, I followed you."

"You what?"

"I followed you. I saw you walking so I followed you and then I realized you might be using that thing to - to leave somehow... That's why I tackled you. I didn't want to get left behind. I don't want to be alone again."

I shrugged, "Not so much to leave as much as to restart everything. I saved my friend and got out of the car, but now I gotta get everything going again, you know?"

Margo looked at Brian.

I got up and walked down the hill to get the remote control. Margo followed me, sliding down on her bottom, sending frozen raindrops every which way. I bent down and picked up the remote control. "Here, c'mon, we gotta get back, that eighteen-wheeler's gonna do a shitload of damage to the car when I unpause everything." I took Margo by the elbow and pulled her a few yards away from the accident. I leveled the remote and pressed the button again.

Nothing happened.

My heart rate increased. I could feel it accelerate. "What?" I squeaked. I looked at the remote. "But... I put in new batteries, they're brand new. Of course they work. What the hell?" I flipped the remote over in my palm and ripped the compartment off and stared down at the batteries, knocking them out and carefully putting them back in again, being extra conscious of the polarity.

Again, though, when I tried the button, nothing happened.

"Maybe the remote's functionality is paused, too," Margo suggested.

The thought made a chill run down my spine. "But -- it can't be. It's what paused everything. How am I supposed to unpause if the remote is paused, too?"

Margo shrugged. "I've been trying to figure that out for years, remember?"

I sat down in the street. "No, no that's impossible. It can't be paused. How does something pause itself? That's impossible. I must be doing this wrong. Maybe I got faulty batteries. There's no telling how long batteries sit on the shelf in a gas station store, right? They could be expired." I knocked the batteries out of the compartment again and proceeded to replace them over and over again, each time desperately trying to unpause by hitting the play button and the pause button.

Margo stood beside me for a few minutes before she finally sat down on the pavement, too, and watched as I struggled with the compartment over and over.

"I missed this," she said suddenly.

"Missed what?" I asked absently, since I was still working at the batteries. She didn't answer. I looked up and saw she had her eyes closed. "Missed what?" I repeated.

She smiled, "The sound of noise that I'm not making."

"What?"

"Every sound I've heard for years has been generated by me - me moving something, me talking to myself, you know?" Margo closed her eyes and leaned back again, "But I can hear you now, and that's nice. I missed that."

I clicked the batteries back into place again one last time and then I sat still and I listened and she was right. The entire world was eerily silent. There were no night noises, no bugs, no distant hums from vehicles. The only sound that broke the silence was that of her breath going in and out of her lungs and I thought of the way the moon was always depicted in movies, where you can hear the Darth-Vadary breathing of the oxygen tanks.

And just like that, I understood completely why didn't want to be alone.