Zero
Chapter 2
Theo’s hands wanted to shake, but he wouldn’t let them. He held the curved sword in front of him, both hands on the hilt of the weapon, ready to use it if he needed to. The stranger in the middle of the clearing stared at him calmly, displaying none of the nervousness of the teenager standing across the clearing from her. Suddenly, before Theo could react, she leapt forward, wrapping her hands around the blade of his katana and pulling it from his hands with an inhuman strength. The razor sharp steel didn’t seem to bother her.
Standing at arms length, Theo had a clear view of her face. The stranger who had appeared to meet with him in the woods had the red, furry face of a fox. Theo screamed in terror…
…And woke up.
It had all been a nightmare, he realized. His fear about the strange email that
had plagued him all last night had followed him into sleep and haunted his
dreams. He slid out of bed. It was still night, and Theo could see the
starlight through the window. Across the room from him, Thad slept. His twin
brother, so angry and hurtful while awake, looked strangely peaceful in his
slumber. Theo looked away from his brother, realizing that his skin was soaking
wet with sweat. He walked into the bathroom to clean up. Glancing at the clock
in the hallway on the way to the bathroom revealed that it was
Theo got on his bicycle and started riding to school. He enjoyed the solace of being on his bike and loved to feel the cool wind on his face. It made him feel free to travel places on his own, under his own power. He had ridden the bus all through middle school, and the contrast was great. He pitied all the kids who took the bus.
Looking ahead, he powered forward as fast as he could, making the little plastic speedometer on his handlebars move up rapidly and finally stop on twenty-five miles an hour. It pleased Theo to be able to move this fast; when he first started riding he could barely break fifteen. Before long he was passing the woods that were the focus of last night’s dream, which he had by now mostly forgotten. Still, a little chill went through the young man as he looked at the green trees standing motionless on that windless morning. He almost felt like he should go into the woods now, instead of school, like something he couldn’t understand was calling to him. Scared now, Theo tore his eyes from the forest and once again rode as hard as he could, looking straight ahead. Something didn’t feel right.
Theo made it to school in less than ten minutes, panting as he dismounted and locked up his bike. There were no other signs of activity besides his own. He looked down at his Casio watch: it was 5:42. He was almost two hours early for his first class. He was often early, but never more than an hour or so. Somehow, though, the young man didn’t feel odd about being at school so long before classes would start. It felt right, somehow, like there was something he needed to do. The morning dew on the grass shone in the fist rays of morning light creeping over the horizon as Theo walked to the library building. He stopped and looked at the sunrise, awed by it’s beauty. Somehow the fear he had felt earlier was melting away, being replaced by something warmer and happier. Goodwill permeated his being, and in this new state of emotion Theo decided suddenly that he would go to the woods later that day and confront whomever it was that wrote the mysterious email.
This decision made the teen feel a lot better. Theo had always been a man of action, and sitting and brooding about a problem was not his style. He walked through the double doors of the library and stopped. In addition to the one aging librarian that seemed to inhabit the building at all hours, someone else was here. This was unusual, as Thad, and rarely other members of the school’s outcasts were the only ones to use the library this early. All of the early studiers were male. The person sitting quietly in the back of the large room, reading quietly, was a girl. A girl he knew. It was Thad’s ex-girlfriend Ashley.
Ashley was beautiful, popular, and a member of the cheerleading squad. And while she got decent grades, (Theo graded papers for several of the school’s teachers) she was by no means a serious student such as himself. He didn’t recall ever seeing her in the library before, let alone at this hour. Theo wondered why she was here, but felt too embarrassed to ask. It was none of his business.
Ignoring her, he walked quietly to a bookshelf and pulled down a tome on biochemistry, a subject he found fascinating. He sat at one of the many unoccupied tables and buried himself in the thick book, reading rapidly and mentally digesting the information as he went. He went on reading for a while. Suddenly, he felt something touch his shoulder. Moving quickly, he jerked away from the hand and bolted up, assuming a combat stance and turning to face whatever was behind him. It was a shocked looking Ashley.
Smiling in embarrassment, Theo dropped his karate stance and gave her a sheepish grin. He felt like an idiot. “Uh, sorry,” he managed to say.
The blond girl gave a tentative smile and a weak chuckle. “You sure can move fast. Playing karate-kid, huh?” Ashley smiled to let him know that her words were not an insult. Looking at her like this, standing face-to-face, Theo realized that his brother’s ex-girlfriend was almost half a foot taller than him.
Theo’s face reddened anyway. “Well, uh, I do a little karate.” He tried to smile. Deciding he wanted to be off his feet before his embarrassment made him keel over, he sat down at the table. Ashley joined him, taking a chair not quite opposite his. She looked at him uncertainly.
“I heard you might be in here before class.” She said. He didn’t reply. “You’re a little shy, aren’t you?” she asked, more seriously.
Theo just nodded. He wondered why she had approached him and where this conversation was going. It unnerved him, and yet he was enjoying it very much. He hardly got a chance to talk with anyone since his shyness prevented him from initiating a conversation, and Ashley was a very beautiful girl.
“I’m glad you told me about your brother yesterday. He always seemed so nice, until I asked him about…” she trailed off, not certain about how to continue, “…about what you said,” she finally decided. “He looked angry, like he wanted to hurt me. It was really scary. I’m glad I broke up with him in the hallway, with all those people around. If we had been alone I’m not sure what he would have done.” She looked sad and a little hurt. Theo realized that she had probably cared for his brother quite a bit. It must have been a shock to her to see the accusations he had made confirmed.
Her eyes, which Theo realized were a bright green, had steadily been falling as she spoke, and by the time she was done with her oration the teenaged girl’s face was pointed down at the table. He felt a bad for destroying her relationship, but only fleetingly. Thad was bad news. Ashley straightened her posture, and her eyes once again rested on the young man across from her.
“I guess I just wanted to say thanks,” she finished, standing up. She walked across the table to Theo, leaned down, and gave him a little peck on the lips. Theo’s breath stopped and he felt like his face was on fire. With a hastily spoken goodbye, Ashley was gone.
He sat there for a long time, replaying the incident in his mind over and over; savoring the memory of the split-second her lips had been on his. Finally he put the book he had been reading back on the shelf and left the library. Theo was late for class for the first time in his life.
His first period teacher had been very understanding of his tardiness, thought Theo, considering his perfect performance in class and his, until now, unblemished record of attendance. The rest of the day had flown by in no time at all, with Theo caught in a warm haze of some pleasant emotion he couldn’t define. He wondered if he loved Ashley. Probably not, he answered to himself. But he definitely had a crush on her. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else but her beautiful eyes and soft lips all day. He sighed as he walked out of his last and favorite class, AP chemistry. His day was over, nearly two hours before most of the other students. Because he had already completed more credits than were required to graduate, he could pretty much do as he pleased, and he had decided to end each school day with an off-campus open period. He walked to the bike racks and unlocked his machine, with the intention of his usual afternoon routine: homework, Tanaka-Sensei’s lessons, dinner, Internet, and then bed.
Theo's thought process, and the haze of teenaged lust that had been enveloping him, were interrupted as his mind’s idle meanderings triggered the episode of the email he had received yesterday. It had read: “be at the spot where you killed the fox tomorrow at 4 o clock pm”. No capitols. No punctuation. The boy glanced down at his watch. It was a little after one thirty. In less than two and a half hours he had promised himself that he would be at the place where his brother had tortured the baby fox, and where he later ended it’s suffering. His blood felt icy when he though of the unknown person who would face him there. He decided to seek the council of the person who he trusted above anyone else. Theo hopped onto his bicycle and peddled rapidly in the direction of Tanaka-Sensei’s house.
Tanaka was cutting the grass in his front lawn when Theo rode up to his house. The ancient Japanese man was shoving an old fashioned, manual lawn mower across his well-kept yard, struggling with the stubborn device. Theo had offered to mow his teacher’s lawn and do other chores several times but Tanaka always declined. Theo knew it was the man’s sense of pride that kept him from accepting his help. The old man obviously loved his lawn a great deal. Theo had seen the Asian man resting on his porch step on several occasions admiring the beauty of his work, sometimes for hours at a time.
Yoshi Tanaka looked up from his task, mildly surprised as he saw his young student approaching. The teenager parked his bicycle in the old man’s driveway and walked toward him. Tanaka wondered why the boy was here. Over the years, Theo had invariably arrived at 3PM every weekday, excusing the few times Theo had been sick or grounded. And at those times he phoned to let the older martial artist know he wasn’t coming. Theo had also never been more than ten minutes early.
“What is it, Zero?” asked Tanaka, his wispy white eyebrows rising in curiosity. Theo took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.
“Maybe we should go inside to talk about it, Sensei. I have a problem and I need your help.” More curious than ever, Tanaka walked into his house, lawnmower forgotten, and motioned for his student to follow.
The two martial artists walked into the kitchen and sat in the two chairs the old man kept there. Tanaka patiently waited for Theo to begin.
Theo looked into his teacher’s craggy face for a moment and suddenly began to talk. “Tanaka-Sensei… you remember when I told you about seeing Thad hurting that fox?” The old man’s eyes widened, but he only nodded and motioned for the young man to continue. “Well, yesterday I told Thad’s girlfriend about it. I was afraid he might hurt her, too.” Tanaka saw the young man blush when he mentioned the girl. A smile played at the corner of the old man’s lips. “She broke up with him that same day,” Theo continued, “and later that evening, at home, I got a message on my computer. The message was disguised, so I could not tell who it was from, and all it said was “be at the spot where you killed the fox tomorrow at 4 o clock pm”. He stopped talking and looked at his teacher, hoping the old man understood why he was afraid. “The message called me “Zero”. Nobody but you calls me that,” he added, finishing.
“Hmmm….” Tanaka grumbled. The ancient man sat in thought for several minutes. This was not rudeness, Theo knew, but quite the opposite. The old doctor was simply pondering over his student’s words, trying to come up with something to say that could help him.
“Zero, could it be your brother, trying to lure you into a trap?” asked Tanaka. Theo nodded his head negatively. Tanaka did not question, but stopped to think again before he asked his next question. “Do you think it is the girl you told about the fox, who sent you the message?” the old man queried.
Theo thought about it for a second. “It could be, Sensei, but I don’t think so. I spoke to her earlier today, ah, privately, and if she wanted to tell me something in confidence, she could have told me then. And I really don’t see a reason why she would have wrote something like that,” said the young man. He shook his head in confusion. “It has to be one of the two, though. You, Thad, and Ashley are the only ones who know about the fox. I never told anyone else.” Theo finished.
“Very troubling,” said Tanaka. He didn’t really know what advice to give his young student. Perhaps Theo was wrong, and his brother would be laying in wait, to hurt him like he hurt the animal in the forest, or to do something worse. Maybe it was the girl, remote as that idea seemed. Tanaka didn’t have a solution to the problem, but he did have one piece of useful advice to give the teenager. “Luck favors the prepared, Zero,” he spoke.
“So you think I should go and meet whoever sent that message, Sensei?” asked the boy.
“Hai.” Yes. Tanaka had never had any doubt about that part. A warrior faced his enemies. Only a coward ran from danger.
“Wait here for a moment, Zero.” Tanaka ordered. He walked rapidly out of the room. Theo waited patiently for the old man to return, occasionally glancing at the clock. It was almost three when Theo’s teacher returned. In his hands was a long, thin object. Theo realized it was a katana, a long, curved Japanese sword. It was not one of the wooden training tools he practiced with daily, but a real weapon made of razor sharp steel. The blade was covered with a wooden sheath so it could be carried without harm, but Theo knew that to draw it out of it’s case would be to reveal a deadly weapon capable of cleaving a man in half in one stroke.
“Sensei?” he asked, confused.
“As I said, Zero. Luck favors the prepared. I was going to give this to you on your next birthday, but now seems a more appropriate time,” the old man said. He looked down into Theo eyes. “Carry it well,” he finished.
Theo was shocked at the gift. He recognized it as one of the ancient, but lovingly cared for swords that Tanaka had brought with him over the sea from Japan. It was one of his family heirlooms, something that his teacher’s great-great grandfather had carried.
Emotion welled up in the young man’s throat, making his words thick. “Sensei… thank you. I will care for it,” Theo managed to get out.
Tanaka smiled. “Now we will eat,” said the old man.
They ate rice and little pieces of pan-fried beef, which Theo cooked. Tanaka enjoyed simple meals. They talked of inconsequential things, and time, as it always does, moved forward. At 3:45, Theo thanked his teacher for the meal, and made ready to leave.
Before Theo could walk out the door, Tanaka surprised him by giving him a hug, something he had never done before. He quickly released the boy, letting him go.
“Be brave, my son,” he whispered as Theo rode away.
Theo peddled towards the woods, sword stuck through his belt. It slapped his leg as he rode. He stopped and dismounted only when the foliage prevented him from riding further. He chained his bicycle to a tree, just in case, and walked slowly to the meeting spot.
When he arrived, he found himself alone. Theo looked at his watch: 3:56PM. Four minutes passed as he walked around the clearing as quietly as he could, waiting for the mysterious author of the email to show up.
Finally it was exactly 4PM. The minutes had felt like hours. Theo’s muscles suddenly felt tense for no reason at all, and the hairs on his neck stood up. He slowly turned around.
A stranger was there, staring at him silently. Theo’s eyes widened in surprise, and he drew his katana.