Suzy’s Strange Saga

You groggily awaken to the sounds of a bunch of giggling outside, a few bangs on your door and what sounds to be a thumping sound on the side of your trailer.

You look out the window and see a bunch of children playing outside. While you knew there were kids here it was weird that you never really saw them grouped together until today.

Making sure you’re decent, you step outside where upon one of the smaller kids suddenly stops bouncing his ball against your trailer.

“See, I told ya that Tina said that pretty blond lady lived here.” One of the boys says.
“Why the hell are all you kids doing around my trailer?” you ask.
“Tina said we should come over here where we were out of the way since most of the adults are either workin’ on the new barricades or that tank lookin’ thing in the field over there.” One of the kids says and points in that direction.
“I don’t understand what that all has to do with me.” You ask.
“Tina said you’d look after us.”

At this point you drop your head in defeat. It’s too early in the day for this.

“You okay lady?”
“Yeah I’m fine kid. Just re-evaluating what my position is in the community here.”
“Um…yeah anyway, I told Tina that we didn’t need some baby sitter, but then Mel shouted at all of us so we ran over here, before he got madder.”
“Huh, I wasn’t scared. I just didn’t feel like helping that ol’ asshole anyway.” A slightly older kid says attempting to puff up his chest.

So you’ve been assigned to baby-sitting. You aren’t sure if that’s bad or good. On one hand you’re tempted to take it as a good sign since the folks here are obviously trusting enough for you to look after their offspring.

Then again they may just not give a shit and these kids could be little hellraisers that their parents want nothing to do with.

“Hey lady, did you kill any zombies a couple days ago?” one child asks you.
“Tommy, they weren’t zombies ya moron! They were just crazy people!” a girl shouts.
“How do you know Jenny?” Tommy asks.
“Cause my mama shot one in the chest and it died! Zombies only die if you hit ‘em in the head!”
“Yeah, an’ the people who got bit didn’t turn into zombies either, not even Billy Ray an’ he died!” another kid exclaims.

At this point the children begin arguing about zombies until you interrupt.

“Okay quiet down kids, but to answer your question Tommy, yes I did kill a few of those…well whatever they were.” You say.
“Were you scared?! I was scared when they attacked! I hid under my mama’s bed!” the kid with the ball admits.

At this point the oldest boy, who was claiming he wasn’t afraid of Mel, boldly comes up to you. He looks like he might be thirteen at most

“Hah, I wasn’t scared. I even shot one of those things right in the face! Pow! See, I’m not a scared little kid like the rest of them here.” The boy says puffing up again and making gun gestures.
“Hmm, I see. Back up boy.” You say.
“Why?”
“Because you’re invading my personal space.” You answer.
“I wanna invade more than that.” The boy says laughing at his own innuendo. One of the boys laugh along with him; the Jenny girl rolls her eyes. All the rest of the kids look confused on the matter. Considering you’re used to hearing similar from the older knuckle draggers around here, you’re hardly surprised to hear it from this snot nosed brat.

“Well, better save that idea for your wet dreams boy, cause that’s never going to happen.” You remark frankly, which causes Jenny to laugh a bit.
“What are you some sort of dyke like Butchie Billie? Come on I like older women…” the teen says and at this point tries to grab your chest, but you easily grab his wrist.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing you little shit?! Have you lost your fucking mind?” you say and start digging your nails into his flesh.
“OWWW! Lemme go you crazy bitch!” the boy cries and then you twist his arm behind his back.
“That’s right I AM a fucking crazy ass bitch! My uncle was a goddamn serial killer, my ex-boyfriend was a cultist, and I killed several of those fucking cannibal freaks without blinking. Now get the fuck outta here before I do worse to your little ass!” you say in his ear and kick him off the steps of your trailer.

The boy goes face first into the dirt and while he quickly picks himself up, he just glares at you and runs away. It’s obvious he’s going off to cry somewhere.

“Hahahahaha! That was so cool what you did to Alan! Can you teach me to do that?” Jenny asks.
“Was your uncle really a serial killer?” Tommy asks.

Before you can answer a bright flash followed by a loud noise in the distance grabs everyone’s attention. A couple of the kids scream about their eyes, fortunately you weren’t looking in the direction at the time, but it was still really bright.

You then look to the west and in the far distance you see it. A mushroom cloud.

You’re not feeling any tremors or aftershocks, a wave of fire hasn’t engulfed you, so you’re guessing that it wasn’t excessively close, maybe it was even a small one. Still, you can’t help but wonder if you’re in some sort of deadly radiation radius though. If so there isn’t much that can done about it.

“So…they finally went and did it.” You say.

Oddly you don’t even feel any fear. You’re a little anxious you suppose, but the events of this past week have probably helped in putting you in a “doomsday” mindset already.

At this point several of the children huddle together a bit, a few run off to presumably find their parents. A couple of them are visibly crying.

“Are we going to die soon?” Jenny asks.
“Eventually perhaps, but not today.” You answer.

At this point you see several women running towards your direction presumably the mothers of these children (oddly you see no fathers, you don’t know if that’s because they’re busy or none of these children have one).

After the various mothers either scream at you for not looking after their child “properly” (Never mind the fact that they should have been doing it) or are actually pleasant and thank you while they calm down their child, you see Tina briskly approaching, she waves at you.

“Hey blondie, we’ve got an important meeting. Your presence is required.” Tina remarks.
“Glad to see I’m being included in these major decisions unlike this morning.” You say walking towards Tina.
“Hey, you got to sleep in late and barely had to look after all these brats due to nukes, I’d say you got off easy as far as work is concerned.”

As you walk with Tina, you can already hear the shouting from the crowd gathering around Mel’s trailer.

“So how bad off are we?” you ask.
“Well if Mel’s cousin ends up helping on the food and water front, like Mel thinks he will, I suppose we’ll be fine. Just need to travel up to his farm. Mel’s thinking we’ll probably still have to make another attempt into town though for shit. Might as well give you a heads up blondie, but I think you’ll be going on one or the other of these trips today.” Tina says.
“Figured as much. Honestly, I think I’d rather do that than be a baby sitter.”

With Tina chuckling at your remark, you briefly think about your past life and realize it was just as well you enjoyed your “good girl” basement dwelling years as much as you did. If you’d actually done anything with your life, it would’ve likely been for naught anyway considering current events.

You sort of wonder what happened to your siblings and even your ex-boyfriend. Are they all dead now? Are they alive? Do you even care at all? Not really, though you’re pretty sure that you’re going to beat the shit out of Donna if you ever see her again.

You also wonder if you’ll ever leave this place eventually since you can’t really ever seeing yourself being “one of the crowd” here. Still, you’ll have see how things play out.

In any event, this is all stuff for a possible future and you’ll worry about it then, right now you have to worry about surviving the day.