text: he back door for you and you get in and lay down while Jack closes the door and then gets in the driver's seat.
  
  "That one I know is dead since I shot him right in the head. I was sort of in shock for a moment since I've never killed another person before. The other teen had already run by the time I snapped out of it. I came out and I saw what was going on with you and I just reacted again. I dunno if I killed the others. I mean maybe I just knocked the fat one out and the other one when I kicked him in the face. Although I guess I paralyzed him for sure." Jack says.
  
  Jack pulls out of the parking lot and your lids are starting to get heavy.
  
  "You kill pimple boy? I left that asshole in a heap outside the shop." You ask.
  "Um, no. I didn't see him when I came out. Guess he ran off?" Jack answers.
  "Wish I'd killed him. Little fucker... ah, shit... "
  "Hey, I'll help like I said so just hang in there okay?"
  "Yeah... okay... " you start to say.
  
  Within the next five minutes all you hear is Jack swearing and making exclamations of how everyone is driving like an asshole or acting crazy. You can feel the car swerving back and forth when you guess that Jack must be avoiding various things on the wrong.
  
  At some point as you're drifting in and out of consciousness. You hear Jack swear some more about how he can't get to the hospital because the entire area is barricaded and part of the hospital is even on fire.
  
  "Fuck! Suzy! You still with me?!" he asks.
  "Huh? Yeah... " you answer groggily.
  "I can't take you to the hospital, but I can still get you help. You trust me?"
  "Well I'm not really in any condition to not trust you I suppose."
  "I'm not a serial killer or anything I swear." Jack says.
  
  You start chuckling at that proclamation. For one thing his name is Jack, which is a bit on the nose for a serial killer. For another if this guy actually did turn out to be one; it pretty much would be in line of your run of luck lately. Hell, if you're REALLY lucky, he'll probably be your next boyfriend because you're certainly fucked up enough to fall for someone like that.
  
  "Bet you say that to all the girls." You say while still chuckling.
  "Is there any way I can convince you? I mean... if you don't trust me, I understand. I suppose I could try to take you home if you told me how to get there, but given how fucked up this town is getting, I'm not sure if... " Jack start to say until you interrupt him.
  
  "Jack...  just take me to wherever it is you're going to take me. I truly don't care at this point because I don't even really have a home to go back to now. I've been having a shitty week, I just lost the only job I ever had, I got groped by some fucking asshole, my fucking head is bleeding, I think I got glass embedded in my face, my body aches, and I'm this close to just falling unconscious. So like I said, if you got anything sinister in mind for me, I'm not exactly in any position to stop you. Just drive." You say as the sleep is starting to take you.
  
  Jack doesn't say anything and just begins reversing the car and swinging it around. You hear something hit the back windshield, not enough to break it though. Sirens and the general sounds of chaos can be heard throughout the drive.
  
  You have no idea where Jack is going to take you or even if he's going to make it wherever he has in mind. All that encompasses your mind is the slumber that eventually wins you over.
  > Next day... 
  WEDNESDAY
  
  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.
  > head back to town
  Maybe if he'd given you ten or even five thousand you'd feel more comfortable making the risk of "starting over" but with just a thousand, you're not that confident even with your new found self sufficient approach to life.
  
  Besides, you're not even sure where the hell eastward even takes you. For all you know it ends in wilderness, you've never been out of your own town before. Better to take your chances with the devil you know.
  
  As you drive down the empty road, you pass long stretches of trees and wilderness. You never realized until just now how rural in an area you lived in before.
  
  You briefly check your phone again to see if anyone has called, but as usual nobody has. Nobody cares.
  
  You continue driving thinking about probably having to deal with the near state of anarchy the town is in. Assuming you even get home in one piece you'll have to deal with Peter and his car. You figure you'll have to at least give him this one.
  
  All of which isn't going to help you with Kelly who is still intent on throwing you out by the end of the week. Chances are if you attempted to "pay rent" with some of your money she'd just punch you in the face and take ALL of your money and let you stay another month at best which means being on a time limit and scrambling for a job again. You got very lucky once with the job situation as fast as you did, and you don't think you'll manage it that quickly again even if the town wasn't all fucked up.
  
  That leaves your plan "B" choice of living with your sister Donna and your so called best friend Julie which isn't much of a plan at all so much as it's just a free living arrangement. What a joy that's going to be, dealing with their partying every night. You might as well be living out in the chaos filled streets given how they carry on. Hell, you might even be safer. You'll definitely have to make sure to keep your newly acquired loot well hidden.
  
  You try to take you mind off of all this by turning on the radio... Ground Zero ads.
  
  "Ground Zero... how fucking original." You say and turn the radio off, shaking your head.
  
  You continue driving and driving and driving; your thoughts continuing to go back and forth about why you're even going back to town.
  
  It really would be so much easier to just stay with Jack.
  > keep driving to town
  As much as it might be tempting to go stay with Jack, you need to keep to your plan of self-sufficiency or at least an attempt at it. Staying with Jack is just a bad idea in the long term.
  
  While he might say he isn't expecting anything, the longer you stay the more likely he's going to get resentful and the more likely you're just going to revert to your old ways. It's a recipe for disaster. Jack and his Gray Building were pretty weird anyway, better you just put all of that out of your head right now.
  
  Living with your sister and friend won't be fun, but at least it will motivate you to get a means of employment to get the hell out of there quicker. It probably won't even be as bad as you think it will be either.
  
  So that's it. You've made up your mind, set a goal and you're going to stick to it. You actually feel a little good about that.
  
  "And fuck Peter, I'm keeping this damn car. Peter's stolen enough of my clothing over the years that I already paid for his damn vehicle." You mumble to yourself.
  
  Now you feel even better. So much so you're smiling.
  
  With your thoughts getting comfortable with risk and leaving behind thoughts of doing the "safe" thing you continue back to town.
  
  You must drive for hours and never see another car on the road. It's sort of eerie, especially as it starts to get dark. At least you don't have to worry about traffic though.
  
  As you get within the distance of the town, you wonder just how fucked up it's gotten since you left, or if order has been restored. You remember Jake mentioned marshal law being enforced in cities across the country. Makes you sort of wonder if the whole damn world is going mad or something.
  
  Just as you get within the town's limits, you think you notice a large vehicle up head and even people. Then suddenly several spotlights shine in the direction of your vehicle and one right ahead of you. You nearly lose control of your vehicle due to the blinding light and slam on your breaks.
  
  "HALT! BY THE ORDER OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THIS TOWN IS UNDER MARSHAL LAW! ALL ENTRY AND IN AND OUT IS FORBIDDEN! STOP YOUR VEHICLE FOR INSPECTION!" a loud speaker echoes.
  
  The government has apparently decided to place your shithole town under marshal law as well, you can't imagine why, but you aren't even really thinking about that, all you're thinking about is getting the hell out of here before you get shot, rounded up into a camp or both.
  
  "Christ, Suzy, you ARE fucking jinxed." You say and then with a deft maneuver you reverse the car and spin it around. You then slam on the gas.
  
  Gunshots ring out and your back window is shot out. Soon the sounds of a jeep can be heard followed by more gunfire.
  
  Your attempt to outrun the National Guard prove to be a failure as your back tires are shot and blown out causing your car to spin out of control, flip a few times and then slam into a row of tree along the side of the road.
  
  Unlike the last accident you got into, you aren't quite as lucky and you are severely injured due to low hanging branches going right through the windshield and impaling you through the chest. By the time the guardsmen reach you, all they find is a bloody mangled corpse.