The Tale of Johnny and Jenny

“I can’t believe you threw her in the back without putting down the tarpaulin first... I just got Ghoul’s guts out of the leather. And you know how hard anti-bac is to get hold of with our ration books...........”

She coughed a little as she came around; listening to a voice she didn’t recognise talk like she was a corpse already. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes, her breaths stuttered and she counted slowly to five in her head trying to keep herself in the moment. The urge to sleep was overwhelming everything but the pain she felt all over.

“Shut up, Kobra. She moved.” There was a shuffle as heavy leather moved against the material of the seat and she felt a soothing hand cup underneath the back of her head, supporting her neck as a metal canister of some sort was pressed to her lips. “Drink, it’s been purified.” After a hesitant sip, she started thirstily trying to gulp the water down, her good hand holding his in place and spilling some down her chin. It was cool and such a relief to her dried out throat. “Woah, woah! Slow down or you’re gonna choke.” His hand was stronger than hers and pulled the bottle away despite her weak protests.

“I’m already a dead woman; it probably wouldn’t make much difference how it happens.” She mumbled at him, eyes still shut and arm now limp at her side ready to fall back into quiet unconsciousness. She could tell she was in a car now, she was moving at high speed and she was relieved but she couldn’t bring herself to find out more.

“I can’t understand you so don’t bother speaking. But I need you to stay awake for me.” He insisted.

He asked too much of her. Stay awake? But she was hurt and she needed to recuperate. You did that in your sleep. She tried to move her lips to tell him no but found no noise coming from her voice box. She tried again, louder, swallowing saliva and trying to clear her throat. “No...”

“Look you’ve taken a really big blow to your head. Stay awake. I’m not letting you die now.” He sounded frustrated, impatient and maybe a tiny bit concerned.

“Fuuuuuuuuck you,” she groaned through her split lip, and began to blink hard so she could see who was so high and mighty he thought he could tell her when she was allowed to die. When her vision cleared the face that greeted her was one she’d seen only on a poster. “I know you, you’re...”

“Well done, Party Poison. You’ve picked up a feisty one. Jet Star will be so pleased...” It was the slightly more nasal sounding voice that had piped up, sarcasm dripping like venom from each word.

She turned her head to the other man, the driver, and could only see the back of his cropped blonde hair, but gave it a glare anyway. ‘Party Poison’ chuckled a little at her attempts to be angry but the action never reached his eyes before he was back to watching her carefully.

“Well, now you know I’m Party Poison, and this grumpy fuck is Kobra Kid. Who are you?”

She looked at him carefully before answering in her croaky voice, “Good Time.”

He let out another small chuckle. “It’s nice to meet you, Good Time. Although I wish you were having a better time right now.”

She didn’t move. Had he really just made a joke of her name when she was about to bleed out in his car? “Fuucck offf.” She stuttered.

“I’m sorry, just trying to lighten the mood.”

“He does it a lot. You’ll learn to tune it out if you don’t die in the next ten minutes.” Kobra Kid announced, finally addressing her personally. Although she almost wished he hadn’t with that ‘positive attitude’.

She couldn’t bring herself to talk anymore. She ignored them and started trying to focus on anything but her injuries, starting with her current environment.

They were driving along in an old muscle car, with faded and patchy black leather seats. There was the distinct smell of cigarette smoke and motor oil in the back of the car. Her rescuers were killjoys – The Killjoys, even. She’d heard about these two from Doctor Death Defying on his radio broadcast that you can pick up in some of the zones near 5. She tried to move her neck into a more comfortable position to relieve some of her aching muscles but stars flew across her vision and her eyelids fluttered shut briefly.

“I thought I told you already – No sleeping!” Party Poison barked at her and her eyes snapped open to meet his steady gaze. She had very little verbal fight left in her, but just continued to keep as still as possible, staring at him intently. She began to look a little closer at him.

Visually his face was made up of bright red tangled hair, bronzed and wind burnt skin, deep-set eyes. Wide mouth, strong upturned nose, blue ‘Dead Pegasus’ jacket covered in grime, dust and... Was that her blood?

Suddenly the car swerved violently and their eye contact was broken.

“KOBRA WHAT THE-“ Party Poison began to shout as she screamed in pain from the abrupt movement. “SHIT.”

The car was still and the engine ticking over as they scrambled for their ray guns.

“What’s going on?” She asked fervently, fighting the pain to sit up and get a better view of the situation. Her heart was pounding and her head was ringing and her stomach was sinking. The two men voiced her deepest fear just as she thought of it.

“Dracs!”