Suzy’s Strange Saga

You wake up and find yourself on a small bed in a gray concrete room. There isn’t much else in the room except a dresser and a lamp which is currently turned on. It almost feels like a cell except there is no door, just an entryway, which looks like it leads into a corridor.

You sit up and find that you’re still fully clothed, so either Jack isn’t a serial killing rapist or he was enough of a gentleman to put your clothes back on exactly right after he was done and is now playing mind games with you. Your girl parts and ass don’t feel sore and you don’t have a bad taste in your mouth so you’re guessing that you weren’t violated in any way. (You hope)

However the rest of your body certainly still aches from the kicks and physical abuse you took yesterday, but when you go to touch your head, you don’t feel any bandages like you were expecting. In fact, you aren’t even feeling any open wound that you’re sure that you probably had. The side of your face doesn’t feel to be scratched up either. Is Jack some sort of doctor?

You check your phone which was still in your pocket to see if anyone tried to call you, but nobody has. You thought maybe Peter would have at least tried calling considering you had his car last. If you ever get back home, you can only imagine how pissed he’s going to be when he finds out what happened to it.

You sit in the bed for a while just wondering what exactly is going on and what you should do next. Honestly, you’re drawing a blank. You had a plan, you tried to follow it and you thought you were succeeding and then it all went to shit yesterday. You’re starting wonder if you’re jinxed.

While you could spend your whole time being introspective like you have so many times before, the fact remains that you don’t know where the hell you are and where your “white knight” is. Jack seems like an okay guy, but you really don’t know anything about him except that he’s helped you out quite a bit which would probably make the average person feel grateful, instead it makes you a bit suspicious and this prison like interior isn’t exactly helping.

Still, you don’t seem like you’re being held captive either, so you take the opportunity to get up and leave your room.

When you enter the corridor you see several other open entryways leading to more small rooms. Since the left part of the corridor looks like it ends at a solid wall, you go right. You peer into a few of these rooms as you pass by to find that they aren’t really furnished, but rather hold several boxes and containers. Some of them do contain furniture; none of it is arranged in a useable way. In general everything is stacked or positioned to resemble a warehouse more than anything else.

Maybe you are in some sort of warehouse, because so far the color of every walls you’ve seen is gray and they’re concrete along with the floor and ceiling. Lights embedded in the ceiling provide illumination, but this whole place doesn’t seem like a normal house of any kind, which you assumed Jack lived in, you guess not though.

You pass a set of stairs leading up, so you’re guessing you’re on the ground floor, the way you’re currently heading it looks like a large open room ahead.

As you approach the large room, you start to hear noise. Sounds like it’s coming from one the rooms ahead and to your right causing you to cautiously approach.

You peek around the corner and see Jack occupied and messing about with some sort of large radio system along with a few monitors set up. You hear garbled transmissions, but some of it you’re making out sounds military related, something about marshal law.

“Well you don’t need to spy on me, you’re welcome to come in.” Jack says without immediately looking in your direction. Apparently you’re not as stealthy as you thought and Jack is very aware of his surroundings.

“Didn’t mean to spy, just wasn’t sure who or what I’d be possibly bumping into after finding myself in a strange place.” You say standing in the entryway.
“Understandable. So I trust you’re doing okay?” Jack asks while still messing about with his radio.
“Yeah, I mean I still ache a bit, but I’m more or less fine. Hey you’re not medically trained are you? Because I thought I’d have some bandages or something what with getting smacked with a brick and glass shattering on the side on my head.”
“Not professionally, but I used some medical gel on your wounds. Glad to see it worked well.” Jack says finally turning to look at you.
“Worked well? I’m practically fully healed, is it magical or something?” you joke.
“No, just highly advanced…um…well if you really need to know, I shouldn’t even have the stuff, but you can acquire a lot of stuff you shouldn’t over the deep web.” Jack says.
“I see. So I take it, this is where you live?
“Yeah, more or less now.”
“Wait, so this is where your mom lived too?”
“What? Oh no. When I lived with mom, it was a regular house in town. In fact after she died, I still lived there, but when shit started getting hectic in town, I decided I better move somewhere less vulnerable so here I am at this gray building I bought years ago online. As you might have already seen, I got tons of shit stacked in rooms, told you I was a big of a hoarder.”
“Well it certainly is very gray, must cost a lot to upkeep it.”
“Not really, place sort of takes care of itself. Just never made a permanent living arrangement out of this place because…well it’s a long story.”

There’s a bit of a pause in the conversation since Jack just abruptly stops talking and starts twisting knobs and then eventually waves his hands at the radio altogether and the garbled transmissions stop altogether when he turns it off.

“What are you trying to do?” you ask.
“I’m trying to listen in on a military frequency. Normally I can get clear messages from Fort Timons near Security City, but I’m not having much luck. All I know is marshal law has been declared in major cities across the country. Well that and apparently Ground Zero is still offering their shelters at low low prices. Those ads are fucking everywhere.” Jack replies.
“Marshall law…that sounds pretty serious.” You remark.
“Yeah, but I can’t say I’m surprised with the way things have been going in the world lately. Anyway…so what are your plans?” Jack asks.
“I dunno. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I’m not having much luck either.”
“Well, considering how fucked up things are in town, you’re welcome to stay here. Got plenty of space, food and such.”

It’s a tempting offer. Really tempting, mainly because you don’t have any idea what you’re going to go, but you exhale and try to gather your thoughts.

“(Sigh) Look, I’m not ungrateful for probably saving my life yesterday. I didn’t mind speaking with you before all that shit went down in the comic shop. Hell, you’re even not bad looking and you’re obviously got your shit together enough that you own your own damn building. I’m also fairly certain you were telling the truth about not being a serial killer.”
“But?” Jack says predicting your lead in.

“But all of this…well my gut is telling me that something weird is going on with you. I don’t know what exactly, but I imagine it’s complicated. The funny thing is that it probably wouldn’t even necessarily bother me, but you sort of caught me at an unusual point in my life. While I don’t want to bore you with my life story, but I just recently went through an upsetting break up with my first and currently only boyfriend to date a couple days ago and I’m still trying to mentally deal with that along with all the other shit that’s gone on in my life.”

Jack continues to listen as you go on.

“You think YOU were a basement dweller? At least you seemed to be doing something productive, my whole life was just coasting by and living off of other people and the most recent one was my ex. I’m fairly certain he would have done anything to take care of me had I complied, but even basement dwellers have their limits I suppose and I just couldn’t make that step. All of which left me up shit’s creek without a boat, let along a paddle. I’m trying to make a real effort of being self-sufficient and I sort of feel like if I stayed here I’d just be falling back into my old routine of sponging off some guy.”
“You wouldn’t exactly be sponging off me…” Jack starts to say before you interrupt.
“Jack, I think you better stop right there, if you’re about to imply what I think you’re going to imply. I’m not a damn whore.”
“What? No! I wasn’t going to suggest that! I just meant I have so much that it’s not like I’d mind if you stuck around. It’s obviously dangerous out there and I’d be quite the asshole if I just threw you out.”

You just hang your head down at this remark.

“Well that makes you better than my older sister, but it also makes this harder for me, because it would have been easier if you had been looking for some sort of cynical sex exchange like that.”
“Wait…so you WANT me to treat you like a whore?” Jack asks confused.
“No! Fuck. I just…shit…I dunno what the hell I want…” you say putting your head in your hands.

At this point Jack tries to interpret your complete mess of explaining things.

“Okay, I think I know what you’re getting at. You just got out of a relationship and you aren’t really in the mood for another guy to be sniffing around you right now. You also want to be by yourself and try to make it on your own without help since you’ve never been truly independent your whole life. Am I right so far?” Jack asks.
“Yes.” You reply.
“And while you aren’t exactly thinking the worst of me right now, you’re still wisely suspicious enough to wonder why the hell I helped you out if I didn’t want something. Obviously there must be something odd about me, for all you know I’ve been stalking you or something.”
“Well, basically.”
“Okay, good. Now just let me explain my side of things.”

You lean again the side of the entryway before Jack goes into his own speech.

“First, yes, I do think you’re attractive and from what I know of you, I WOULD like to get to know you a lot better. I thought maybe there was something there during our nice conversation at the comic shop, but I dunno…I sort of…well let’s just say I’m not exactly great at the whole asking someone out thing, so I lost my nerve and had to gather it again by leaving, and of course that’s when those guys showed up. Not to mention I wasn’t really planning on doing that anyway since I didn’t expect to see anyone other than Jake at the register. Which brings me to the second point, I helped you, for the same reason I helped Jake yesterday, it was the right thing to do. I just wasn’t so lucky with him as I was with you. I’m not saying I’m some hero, but I’ve always liked to believe I’m not a bad guy. So when I saw the opportunity to get you help, I did it. I assure you there was no ulterior motive.”

At this point Jack fishes something out of his pocket. It’s keys and a wad of money in a roll. He tosses them to you and you catch them.

“Do I want you to stay here because I like you? Yes, of course I would, but I can’t just keep you here, if you don’t want to be. You sound like you have very strong feelings about trying to make it on your own and being by yourself and I understand that. So since your car was trashed, I’m giving you mine. I’m not going to need it much longer…and no that doesn’t mean I’m going to commit suicide. I just won’t be needing it. As for the cash, well you’ll need it more than I will too. You take them both and go live your life and hopefully it will be a good one.”

You’re pretty speechless. You’ve so rarely had anyone be this cool with you and this doesn’t seem to be a “nice guy” act. If it were, he would’ve been calling you a complete cunt the moment you told him you weren’t interested.

“I dunno what to say except thanks.” You say
“Don’t mention it. Come on I’ll walk you out.” Jack responds

Jack and you leave the radio room and enter the large open room which has a lot of boxes stacked in it’s four corners. On one of the walls is a door, which Jack says, leads to the outside.

“Car is parked right outside, and is in good working condition. Um, just to let you know though we’re several miles east outside of town. It will be quite the drive, but you should get back to town by nightfall. Remember, I want you to know you can come back here if it looks like the town is in just complete anarchy. I…I still worry about your safety. Anyway, just knock three times on the door and I’ll know it is you.”
“I’ll certainly keep that in mind Jack.”
“Okay, well…good luck Suzy.” Jack says opening the door, which lets in a blinding brightness.

You look at Jack and then you suddenly hug him and then kiss him on the cheek. You figure it’s the least you can do. Jack wasn’t expecting it though; he returns the hug until you pull away.

You and he don’t exchange any more words; you just turn around and leave as the door shuts behind you.

You get in the car, and count up the money to find that Jack has given you a thousand dollars in hundreds. Not much in the long term, but it would at least sustain you awhile.

You wonder if you should head back to town or just keep driving east and try to start over somewhere else.