Suzy’s Strange Saga

You’re still not quite sure if any of this is going to lead anywhere, but fucked up or not, Johnny’s still been there for you. To abandon him without even an explanation is just something you’re not willing to do.

Besides, if you’re right about Johnny’s past, having someone like that around might be necessary given how crazy things are right now. Other than pushing someone down the stairs out of panic, it isn’t like you’re a fighter.

Looking a nearby clock on the wall, you figure it’ll be getting dark in a few hours. Johnny didn’t tell you when to wake him, but you figure you should give him a few extra hours after it goes dark if only so he’ll be more rested. Then you’ll try to convince him to just leave in Donna’s car again since you still think it would be safer than trying to steal a military jeep.

Still feeling a little uncomfortable about the back door windows now being broken and thus your safety more compromised, you head back into the kitchen to fix the problem. As you get close to the backdoor, you briefly see the thing still lying dead with several holes in its body and head on the back porch. Looks human, but even dead it does look a bit feral.

With great effort you manage to push the refrigerator in front of the back door. Nothing is getting in now, well at least not easily anyway.

You return to your room and check to see if your phone isn’t quite as damaged, as it appeared when you threw it against the wall, but of course it is. Hardly matters, you don’t have anyone to keep in contact with any more anyway.

With the gunfire still going on outside, you flop down on your couch-bed and realize that barring something trying to break in again, there’s nothing to do. You re-open your laptop and lose yourself in a game because it’s way better than reality right now.

Hours pass…

You look at the time on your laptop and realize you’ve been playing much longer than you intended to. You immediately get up to go wake up Johnny. It actually sounds like the gunfire has died down outside as well.

“Hey Johnny wake up! It’s time to go. I know you said you had plans to steal a jeep, but I really think we should…”

When you get to the living room though, Johnny is gone. You call out to him a couple times figuring that maybe he’s upstairs or even in the basement, but you get no answer.

You do see a note placed on the nearby end table in such a way that you’d notice it. You almost hesitate to pick it up, but of course you do anyway.

To my dearest Suzy,

I’ve left to go get that jeep. I know you probably still want to use your sister’s car, but I still think our best shot is with a military vehicle. I figure we can blend in a whole lot better in one of those and not look suspicious while driving around at a casual glance by soldiers. Probably better at running over those rabid people too. We might even be able to get out of this forsaken town.

Anyway, I left this note since I didn’t want to disturb you or cause any unpleasant arguments on this matter.

I also know you didn’t leave while I slept, even though you could have. This means so much to me, I don’t think you know how much.

I know I haven’t exactly given you much reason to not be distrustful of me, but the very fact that you didn’t leave tells me that you believe in me on some level. You know I’ll try to come through for you and that you’re willing to wait.

I knew when I first heard your drunken whore of a sister talk about you; I thought you sounded like you were the one.

Then when I saw and spoke with you, I was sure of it.

I will come back tonight as planned, however if the situation becomes dangerous over there, then by all means escape in your sister’s car. It would never be my wish for you to stay in danger.

Forever my love,
Johnny


When the hell did he leave and write this? And how did you not hear him? He wasn’t joking about being stealthy you guess.

Of course you probably would have known all this a lot sooner had you not got wrapped up in your game and actually left your room.

As for the note itself, well…it’s standard Johnny in the short term you’ve known him. The “whore” description of your sister is a bit of a standout from the rest of letter which is fairly white knightish.

Of course you know damn well Johnny is far from being a “white knight”.

Suddenly you hear the basement door opening. You tense up in fear since you’ve left not only the car keys but also your pistol in your room. You think at first you’re going to have to risk just running out the front door, but…

“Hey Suzy! Suzy? I got the jeep, come on let’s get ready to go!” you hear Johnny’s voice call out.

You cautiously walk towards the hallway and see Johnny standing there looking into your room, then he turns his head and sees you. He’s got some clothing in his hand.

“Oh there you are. I was worried for a moment that you had to run out in a hurry!”
“Johnny, what the hell…didn’t you hear me calling you?” you ask.
“No, I just got here.”
“What? How? I’ve been in the living room for the past few minutes! You couldn’t have gotten by me.”
“No I came in through the basement window. I couldn’t just leave the front door unlocked when I left.”
“Basement win…wait I didn’t hear any glass breaking.”
“That’s because it’s not broken. I had it so I could easily open it. Don’t worry, I thought about your safety. That window is pretty well hidden and not exactly easy to crawl through so I didn’t think any of those things would see it. They would’ve been more likely to just try to bash the ground floor doors or windows in.”
“When did you mess around with the basement window and why didn’t you just tell me you were leaving?”
“Didn’t you get my note? I explained why I left with bothering you in it.”
“I only just finished reading it this minute.”
“Oh, well I assumed you would’ve left your room before now. Anyway, here I got you these to wear. I think they might be a bit baggy, but they should work to help us blend in more.”

Johnny shoves the clothing at you as if to distract you from asking more questions. It’s a uniform like what Johnny is wearing.

You almost ask Johnny how he got the uniform, but as with most things concerning Johnny you’re starting to think it might better if you don’t know.

As far as the basement window weirdness, you’re not going to dwell on it too much because it’s really not important right now.

“Alright, that sounds like a good idea, I’ll go put these on.” You say and go to your room.
“Um, don’t worry, I didn’t get those from a dead person or anything. It was a spare one I found.” Johnny blurts out.
“Okay. I trust you Johnny.” You say which seems to make him smile.

You lock the door and change into the military fatigues. Granted you don’t see any blood or tears in the fatigues, but then he could’ve just choked the person wearing it to death.

“(Sigh) Suzy, why the hell are you attracted to this guy? Oh right, because you’ve got some serious psychological issues yourself, that’s why.” You mumble to yourself as if being painfully aware of the situation makes everything okay.

You grab your bags and exit your room.

“Glad to see the fatigues aren’t excessively big on you, I know you’re small framed and all. You ready to go?” Johnny asks.
“Yeah, let’s get out of this place. How is it out there?”
“In our immediate area? It’s fairly quiet now. Haven’t seen any of the rabid and the remainder of the Guard is busy burning bodies right now. I mean there are still patrols, but nobody even batted an eye when I drove this thing up to the house. Probably assumed whoever was inside was investigating or something. We shouldn’t linger here though.”

With both of you ready and as prepared as you’re going to be, you and Johnny exit out the front door and quickly enter the jeep which is sitting right next to your sister’s car. You have to admit, you do feel a little safer sitting in this thing than if you did in your sister’s car.

Johnny starts up the vehicle and turns to you.

“Suzy, you know I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. So is there any place you had in mind?” Johnny asks.
‘Never been anywhere, so not really.” You answer.
“I remember you saying you wanted to go home before.”
“Well that would be nice, but things aren’t exactly normal any more. I mean the only reason for going back there would be to look for my brother’s bomb shelter, which definitely would be a safe zone knowing how Ben spent so much time building and constantly modifying it. Of course my other brother Peter is currently looking for it as well and who knows if he already claimed and locked himself inside it.”
“Hmm, well it might be worth a look if you still want to try it. I mean the only other logical option I can think of is to as I suggested, leave town altogether. Should be much easier while driving around in this thing. Of course it might still be risky, if they’ve set up some sort of checkpoints outside of town…but maybe we can get the edge by fooling them briefly before smashing through such things.”

Pretty risky stuff, but then these are risky times.