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.

You don't accept the answer

And with that lie you hear from Johnny, your head drops briefly in despair. With tears in your eyes you look back at Johnny.

"I…don't believe you…and if I don't believe you, I can't trust you. (sob) And if I can't trust you…(sob) I…I…"
"You have to kill me." Johnny says for you.
"I'm sorry…" you say.

Johnny just stares at you and a tear actually comes down his left eye.

"Nobody is ever going to love you like I will Suzy."
"That… I do believe."

You then shoot Johnny. The first shot hits him in the body, causing him to fall backwards, but not enough to kill him, but you soon get over your shock and sorrow not just by remembering that he's killed Julie and Donna, but that eventually he'll kill you as well.

You don't stop pumping rounds into the son of a bitch until the pistol is completely empty.

Johnny's body lies motionless in a bloody mess. His eyes still open, staring at you even in death.

You slump down on the floor crying that it had to be this way, but it was survival.

After a few minutes of releasing your sadness, you realize that you can't just leave Johnny's body down here. The problem is you can't very well carry it up the ladder from the shelter either, at least not in one piece.

You slowly get up and head back to the armory. There you find a good-sized machete that looks very sharp. You also get some garbage bags you saw in one of the supply rooms. You're not sure why Ben had them down here, but it's handy that he did.

You go back to Johnny's body. You think about dragging the body to the shelter's bathtub and doing your grisly work there, but you decide the best thing you can do is just to get it over with. You lay out some of the bags on the floor and roll Johnny's body on to them and get to work.

It's not an easy task for you and you get physically sick more than once, but eventually you get through it. Johnny's limbs, torso and head all get put into bags. You then make several trips up and down the ladder to haul the pieces up to the basement. It's still an exhausting task, even more so after having to go through hacking him up and the emotional drain you feel from it.

You don't go any further than the basement after you've hauled all of Johnny's parts up. You're just not in the mood to deal with more. You look at the blood-drenched fatigues you're wearing and strip them off to throw them into one of the bags.

Leaving the "body bags" by the entrance, you go back to your room to get a spare set of clothes. You also see Kelly's body still lying in a heap there. Just reminds you that you'll have more cleaning up to do tomorrow.

For now though you grab something comfortable from the closet and head back down to the shelter where you take a long hot shower. Afterwards you go to the bedroom and collapse on the bed, completely spent.

Doesn't take long for you to fall asleep, it's a welcome escape from reality.

Next day…

SATURDAY


You wake up to silence and it's an odd feeling.

You half expect Johnny to be vacuuming or cleaning or just being around, but you know that's not going to happen ever again.

You sit up just thinking about what you're going to do today for a few moments. Everyone you know or close to is gone and you're truly alone now. Granted you've spent most of your life alone, but there was still always someone around to intrude. Most of the time this was unwanted like when Kelly bullied you or when Peter stole your clothes. Other times this was your choice like spending time with Bobby.

Now? There is nobody.

You finally get up and shuffle into the living room which still has a lot of blood on the floor.

"(Sigh) I guess I should clean that up too." You mutter to your self and remind yourself to get some of the cleaning products from upstairs.

After ascending up the ladder you see the same garbage bags you left in a group nearby.

"I'll be back to take care you later Johnny." You say, then you glance your head towards your old room.

"You too bitch." You say and head upstairs.

When you get upstairs to get something to clean with, you notice several bags on the floor in the living room. They're yours or mostly yours anyway. It's all the stuff you brought with you from Julie's house. Johnny must've brought them in from the jeep last night. He always was thoughtful.

As you go to get your bags, a bright flash shines through one of the uncovered windows along with the sound of a large explosion in the distance. You can't help but take a quick glance out the window.

And there you see it in the far distance, the dissipating remnants of a mushroom cloud rising up in the sky.

"…they finally went and did it." You say.

From the direction it looks like it probably hit the city, but it still had to be a "small" one since you imagine your home still would've suffered a backlash of your windows breaking from the long range impact.

Still who knows which way the wind is blowing and there is no reason to not be extra cautious. So you gather up your bags and a few extra items and head back down to the shelter as quick as possible.

And once again you're locked away from the outside world. This time possibly for a lot longer than average. Sadly, you know it can't be forever.

As you look through your supplies, you think you could probably stay down here for about a decade before you completely ran out of what you needed, which means eventually you'll have to go up to the surface at some point to scavenge or trade or whatever it is that you'll need to do for more supplies.

And if you go up to the surface, you're going to need to be prepared and that unfortunately means a lot of regular use for that exercise room you saw, along with reading all those survivalist books you saw in the library.

Still, this week has already prepared you in some ways. You have a much better mindset to deal with the outside world that you can't hide away from anymore. You even know that you can do unpleasant things if you need to.

It's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fun, but for now you can continue to afford to hide out from reality, if only for a little while longer.
Repression of Reality


The Future...

"I'm home!" you shout as you enter the shelter loaded with goodies.

As you unburden yourself of your haul, you hear the end credits of a movie playing on the TV.

"See? I told you I wouldn't be that long. I got here just in time to put on another movie! In fact I got some new ones from that redneck encampment. I know most of them are a bunch of assholes, but they're always up for trading and that Mel guy keeps 'em mostly in line. Plus they got bigger things to worry about now that they're at war with the Cult of Tiamat."

You open up your bag and go through some of the DVDs you picked up in trade. You pick one and exchange it out for the one that was playing.

"I haven't seen this one in a long time. I'm glad we'll be able to watch it together." You say.

As the movie starts playing you return to unloading your bags occasionally looking up to watch the movie playing.

"So speaking of the Cult of Tiamat. I meant to tell you I…uh…ran into Bobby a few days ago."

You unpack some of the canned food you found. Sure you still have tons of food to last for years, but it never hurts to have more.

"See? This is why I didn't tell you! I knew you were going to get mad! I wasn't trying to hide it, I just…well you know how your temper is and I didn't want you getting all jealous and screaming at me.

You finish unpacking the rest of your bags and place most of the items on the table where you plan on going through a complete inventory later, right now though you just want to relax. You strip down to your underwear and sit on the couch to watch the movie playing.

"One of my favorite parts is coming up...(sigh) are you still mad? Look I told you, nothing is going on with Bobby and me! Just because that bitch Diana is dead doesn't mean I'm going to get back with him! Bobby's got other sisters you know? Besides, he's pretty much firmly entrenched in his beliefs now. I only think he's cordial with me, because we once had something. I mean being friendly isn't a crime. I mean it's a good thing. One less person for me to worry about blowing my head off."

You briefly glance over at the TV before returning to your argument.

"Oh that's fucking low. Don't you think I wish it didn't have to happen? I wish every day that things could've been different, but you know what? They weren't, so you need to just fucking deal with it!" you shout and get so angry that you punch the mannequin positioned on the sofa and its head falls off and tumbled to the floor.

"Shit. Oh shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me help you." You say and scramble to pick up the head.

You reattach the head and inspect it for damage; fortunately you didn't do any save for a minor loss of paint near the ear.

"Hold on…there. Not so bad. Look I'm sorry I got angry, but you shouldn't have said that to me. You know I still feel bad about that. I don't want you throwing that back in my face okay?"

You kiss the mannequin on the cheek and cuddle up next to it while holding one of its hands.

"I accept your apology too. Like I said, you really shouldn't get so jealous. You know you're the only one for me. Let's just finish watching the movie together, then maybe later, who knows?" you say and giggle a bit.

You finish watching the movie as planned, and then afterwards you take your companion to the bedroom where you have an interesting time with certain attachments that you've made to him.

After relieving your tension you roll over next to your companion and turn your head to look at it. You still can't believe how you stumbled upon one that looked a little similar to him.

Sometimes you wonder about your sanity and if one day you'll just completely lose yourself in your made up world, but then you think you never did before no matter how hard you tried. And you certainly won't now, besides what's a little retreat from reality every now and then?

"Goodnight Johnny." You say and kiss him before going to sleep.