Suzy’s Strange Saga

It’s no good. You’d never manage to grab the pistol before Kelly. Even if you did, she’d probably manage to shoot you before you could shoot her. Fear and panic begins to well up inside you as you believe this is the beginning of the end.

Kelly picks up the pistol and smiles as she puts it in front of her pants. You look helplessly as she does this…and then that’s when your eyes wander to your closet.

You don’t remember shutting the closet door. In fact you never shut your closet door…

And it’s opening right now.

Instinctively you try to flatten your body and disappear into the crevasse of your couch as much as possible. You then place your arms up to your face.

“What the hell are you doing? That’s not gonna…” Kelly starts to say and then she hears a creak.

Johnny unloads several rounds into Kelly’s body and head. She doesn’t even have time to fully turn around. Pieces of her fly out from the exit wounds and she falls to the floor in a bloody mess still twitching a bit.

“Shit. Shit. Oh Shit. Oh fuck. Fuck. Please oh God. Please.” You’re muttering to yourself the whole time, barely aware of everything else.

Johnny walks over from the closet and kneels over to you.

“It’s over Suzy. Calm down. It’s over. She’s dead. That bitch will never bully you again.” Johnny says grabbing one of your hands.

You calm down and look at Johnny. In that moment you don’t care about what he has done in the past or what he might do in the future. All you care about is that he was ultimately there for you when it counted.

You sit up and hug him, getting teary eyed in the process.

“Oh god, I thought…I thought maybe…”
“No, I was always there to protect you. I told you. I’ll always be here. You’re my perfect angel. You give my life…purpose.” Johnny replies hugging you in return and patting you on the back.

Johnny also sniffs your hair as he’s hugging you at which point causes you to pull back a bit.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just…” Johnny says.
“It’s okay. I know. It was the moment.” You say trying not to make it too uncomfortable.

With you and Johnny done embracing, you stand up and look over at your sister’s body, which has stopped any sort of death twitch it might’ve briefly had.

You just stare at it silently. Johnny doesn’t even speak, he instead watches you looking at your sister. After about a couple of minutes of this, he finally speaks.

“How do you feel?”
“Honestly? I feel nothing. I don’t feel anger for what she did. I don’t feel guilt or even happiness that she’s dead. I just don’t feel anything for her anymore. She’s dead and that’s it. Just like Peter upstairs. Just like my Mom, my Dad, my whole family at this point. They’re all dead and I’m alive.”
“Well, we don’t know about your sister Donna.” Johnny remarks.
“She’s dead too. I know she is.” You say and look at Johnny who looks away and focuses back on Kelly’s body.

“Well anyway, it looks like we know where the shelter entrance is now. Why don’t we check it out?”
“Well that was the whole goal of this ordeal I suppose.” You say.

Johnny exits the room and you grab your pistol back from Kelly’s body before leaving. Stepping out of your room you see the hatch in the floor wide open where the fluorescent glow of lighting coming from.

You take a look inside and see a long ladder down leading to another floor, which you imagine that’s the main shelter. You can’t believe how close it was to your room and how you never knew about it!

“How the hell did you brother do this with you hearing or knowing about it?” Johnny asks.
“I dunno. I mean he managed to routinely change the entrance all the damn time too. Ben had a gift I guess. Everyone does I suppose.” you say and you and Johnny start climbing down the ladder and you close up the hatch.

Eventually you get to the bottom and you and Johnny open up a metal door, which is fortunately not locked.

And there it is, you’re in the shelter proper. Before you is a dimly lit living area with various furniture and even a TV. Other rooms include a bathroom, kitchen area, a couple of bedrooms and A LOT of storage rooms. One such room is huge, as rows and rows of canned food and bottled water are found.

“Well looks like sustenance is plentiful. Doesn’t even look like Kelly put a dent in the supplies.” You say.

Another storage room contains a goodly amount of ammo and weapons of all kinds. Mostly rifles. Medical supplies are in another.

One thing that stands out is that Ben’s shelter has solid steel walls. You have no idea how the hell he did this and you guess you never will. You do notice on several of the walls something has been repeatedly scratched out though not entirely successfully everywhere.

At one point you make out most of it.

Pr-p---- o- th- Gr--n- -er- Cor---at-o-

“Well, I guess spending thousands on one of those Ground Zero shelters would’ve been a waste of money for you Seems like you got a nice one for free.” Johnny says looking around.
“Indeed. Now we need to talk about us Johnny.”

Johnny turns to you and sees you’re holding your pistol directly at him. He doesn’t react with surprise or anger or anything. It’s nothing.

And that’s the “real” Johnny right there. The one you’ve always known even when you weren’t quite sure.

“So…what is this Suzy?” Johnny asks.
“I don’t know yet. I really don’t. I wish I did. I wish I could make a decision. I wish I could be the killer my sister thought I was. This would be so much easier. On the other hand I also wish I could trust and just let go.”

Johnny makes no move towards you. He just continues to stand there. You briefly wipe your eyes while still holding the pistol on him.

“Johnny, you’ve been here for me this whole crazy week. I don’t think I would’ve survived if you hadn’t been around…but I know you. I know what you are.”
“I never thought that you wouldn’t figure it out, you’re an intelligent woman after all which is matched only by your beauty of course.” Johnny replies.
“Stop. Just stop.” You exclaim.

You tear up and sniffle for a moment and then address Johnny again.

“My uncle Ed was a serial killer. We all sort of wondered, but it wasn’t until that fateful day when I decided to go snooping around where I shouldn’t have that I learned the awful truth. He caught me finding where he was storing body parts, but in his own twisted honorable way due to being related, he said he’d spare my life if I helped him kill someone. Kept saying I was pure and good, and not like the rest of those whores he killed.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raise when you say this. Now he seems genuinely surprised.

“In a more fucked up twist, he was feuding with a group of cultists into human sacrifice. Wanted me to help kill them. I initially did out of fear, but then I met Bobby during this mission. I ended up betraying my uncle because I felt that connection to Bobby because we both came from fucked up families. I thought it was love, and maybe it was, but it didn’t last obviously.”

Johnny seems a bit overwhelmed by your new information.

“That’s… some story Suzy. I have to admit, I never would have guessed…”
“That what? That I’m not perfect? I’m not good? I’m not so pure? That I’m a backstabbing whore like all the rest?” you snap.

“That…that wasn’t what I was going to say at all. Suzy, do you really think I could ever see you in that light?”
“I…I don’t know Johnny. You’ve never told me much about your past. I mean I can piece things together by what you have told me and how you’ve acted. And that’s the problem I DON’T KNOW.”
“Okay, Suzy, let’s just get it completely out in the open. What exactly is it that you think I’ve done or what I am?”
“You’re a serial killer. I mean I don’t exactly know just how bad you are for certain and I can’t know for certain, but I do know you’re a killer. I’ve been studying you probably just as much as you’ve been studying me. I mean…Christ…I don’t KNOW if you killed Donna. I don’t KNOW if you killed Julie, but the more I think about it and how they just disappeared and the conclusion I come to isn’t pleasant. There’s also your own suspicious behavior, the incident with the soldier “falling” down the stairs, your rage when beating that guy’s head in, claiming that you’ve done bad things, stealing a jeep and most likely killing the owners in process, and finally your obsession with me. I’m quite familiar with your kind enough that even if I can’t prove some of this shit, I feel it in my heart that’s what you are.”
“Well…if I am so terrible, then I suppose you should kill me.”
“Goddamn it Johnny, if it was THAT FUCKING EASY I WOULD! But YOU KNOW it isn’t and I KNOW it isn’t! Because I also know underneath the fucked up social chameleon predator, I KNOW there actually IS a human being capable of love. I believe you really love me Johnny. I do. I don’t doubt it. The problem is, how can I fucking trust that it’s going to last?”

Johnny has no answer. He just looks down.

“Well see there’s my problem. How do I know that I’m not going to do something that’s going to set you off? Make you see me as fallen angel or a flawed person that is fit only for destruction? And this goes both ways Johnny, how do YOU know that I might not strike first? Granted I’m not a killer, but I still manipulated events to cause the death of my uncle. Can YOU really trust me, if I’m scared of you?” you say.

Johnny at this point rubs his eyes and sniffles a bit. He’s not exactly crying, but he’s definitely having an emotional moment.

“Suzy. I cannot think of anything more that I can do, that would convince you that I’ll love you forever and that I will always protect you. It’s true I have done bad things…it’s also true that I probably would be classified as a serial killer. I’m very sick Suzy. I have a lot of bad thoughts going on in my head most of the time and even though I can emulate emotions, they don’t feel genuine. It’s like I’m just a mask. But with you, it’s different. I haven’t felt this way towards anyone since…well my first love. I don’t really want to get into that right now, but I want to say it was a much different situation.”

Johnny falls to his knees.

“Almost everything I felt during my time with you this week was actually real to me. You made me feel like a normal person. Like I had at last found a purpose to my life. I love you Suzy. You can never fall off that pedestal. I know that this is difficult for you. I understand the alienation and mistrust you feel, perhaps in a different way, but I understand it. But I also know that you want to give us a chance, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be struggling with this right now.”

You continue to point the pistol at Johnny as more tears roll down your cheeks.

“Johnny…I know you’ve lied to me or been evasive about things this week. I’ve been nothing but truthful. If this has any chance of working. I need to know right now. (Exhale) Did you kill Donna and Julie?”
“I thought you said you didn’t care what happened to them and that they abandoned you.” Johnny says.
“And that may be the case because you FUCKING killed them! Now stop evading the fucking question and answer it!” you demand.

Johnny looks at you. In fact it’s the most cold-blooded stare you’ve ever seen from him. It’s like when Uncle Ed looked at you in his van.

“Would you believe me, if I said no?” he asks.
“ANSWER!” you demand.
“Very well. No, I didn’t.” Johnny says looking straight at you.