Love and other Nightmares Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Rights

  Love and other Nightmares

  Also by Jessica Gadziala

  About the author

  LOVE and other NIGHTMARES

  —

  a creepy short romance by:

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2020 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover Design by: Jessica Gadziala

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/memo angeles

  Love and other Nightmares

  June

  They'd slowed down.

  The zombies, that is.

  There hadn't been any new flesh-and-blood bodies to devour for them in a few months, making their previously freaky warp-speed pace become more like a slow trudge to sure true death.

  I felt real freaking bad for them, lemme tell ya.

  Taking a deep breath, I shoved the rag down inside the bottle of whiskey, turning it upside down, shaking it to dampen the makeshift wick. I reached in my back pocket for my lighter, flipping it open, watching the flame dance for a second before lighting the wick, then grabbing the bottle, aiming, and tossing it into the small group.

  I wanted to be like one of those badass chicks in all those shows I'd once watched—back before an apocalypse seemed like a remote possibility—and have some clever last words to toss at the big baddies before they would succumb to the fate I was sending their way.

  But you never knew where other groups of the green-tinted bastards might be hiding, and the last thing you wanted to do was bring attention to the fact that you still had a pulse, and edible brains.

  So as soon I was sure the bottle hit the mark, I ran across the roof, checking down below, then sliding down the ladder leading up, and jumping into my waiting SUV.

  I always felt safest in a vehicle. Sure, the windows could be shattered, but you were also behind the wheel of a death machine that could take you clear out of town should you need it.

  The zombies, well, they weren't exactly bright. They never looked twice when they saw my car, only if they got a whiff of me.

  They were especially dumb these days, without a proper food source. And I had no intentions of becoming one.

  I'd lost everyone I'd ever known to one of those monsters, and had needed to stand behind a locked door and watch the girls I used to go to bars with get ripped apart while still alive. Their nightmares still made sleep more of a wish than an actuality.

  If there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I didn't want to be made a meal out of.

  I'd never been a girl someone thought would survive the end of the world. I'd always been a little too vain, a little too wrapped up in superficial nonsense. I was more worried about my manicure than kicking ass.

  It was amazing how strongly your survival instinct can kick in when you need it to.

  I took those initial long days of isolation in stride. Back when the grid was still going, when I could gather all the zombie and monster movies I could, along with all the kick-ass babe ones, the spy ones, the martial arts ones. I binged until I had a working knowledge of self-defense, of all the varied, improvisational ways someone could kill other human beings.

  Then, when the food ran out, and there was very little choice but to go seek it out, I was prepared.

  I mean, I wasn't.

  I screamed my head off, almost got eaten five times, and legitimately peed myself, but I got to the store, I shoved everything I could that would last into the back of my stolen SUV, then I drove back to my shelter.

  Until, of course, that became unsafe.

  You really had no idea how penetrable your home is until hordes of hungry flesh-eaters start bursting through the doors and windows, leaving you jumping out a second-floor window, breaking your arm, and just barely making it to the safety of your car.

  I took out my pain by running three of those red-eyed freaks over before making a run for it, restocking the car with goods, and all the drugs that seemed useful at the pharmacy, and racking my brain for the safest place in the area to call my new headquarters.

  Then it hit me.

  Restaurant Nikola.

  It was a fancy place for fancy people, and I'd never been quite their target clientele. But it was a building built on stilts out on the water. And the only way to get to it was a long pier.

  So with a little improvisation—like some explosive devices to said pier—I was able to, essentially, zombie, proof my shelter.

  See, they couldn't swim.

  I'd learned this watching some surfer dude run off the blood-stained beach to get away from the monsters, and watched in morbid amusement as the zombies followed, bobbed for a while, then slid under the depths, never to be seen again.

  The surfer dude didn't make it, of course. Because the zombies that stayed on land, waited there patiently for him to come back for food, for water, for shelter.

  He blistered and sweated in the sun for two days before he died by the elements.

  Given the choice, I'd have chosen his fate over having my ligaments torn out and eaten, though.

  And I was always thankful to the surfer dude for teaching me something I never could have known about zombies before.

  So I got myself a little boat—the kind that made no noise and gave me killer arm muscles that no one was alive anymore to be jealous of—so that I could transfer supplies, and then I shacked up for weeks or even months at a time, eating canned food, experimenting with growing fresh fruits and vegetables on in the windowsills and on the deck with limited success.

  I read books about survival.

  I wrote down the nightmares that weren't nightmares at all, but memories, down in the hopes that it worked to purge them from my system. I worked out. I practiced using a bow and arrow, and worked on my aim.

  All in all, it wasn't so bad.

  I was alive.

  I was safe.

  But good God, I was bored as hell.

  That sounded crazy to say, but there was no other way around it. I'd been living the same existence day in and day out for two years, since all of this started.

  I hadn't talked to another living soul in, oh, seven months, I'd say. He'd been all decked out in hunting gear and stopping in the weapon store for more ammo while I loaded up on every bow and arrow I could find, deciding silent weapons were the smartest choice for me.

  We'd shared a short "I thought I was the only one left!" and "Be safe out there!" both of us not wanting to get attached, to risk someone else's stupidity coming back to bite us in the ass if we decided to team up.

  I had been driving back from the store when I heard the gunshots. Then the telltale whooshing sound of the zombies coming out of their hiding spots, moving toward the sound.

  Against my better judgement, I'd gone in that direction, a part of me wanting to help, not wanting to be the last person alive.

  But when I'd gotten there, they'd already pulled him out of his car, had him on the ground.

  Our gazes locked.

  And I knew what he was asking.r />
  So I'd rolled down the window, took the best aim I could, and sent an arrow sailing into his head.

  It was over fast, much faster than it would have been if they got to eat him alive. It took a long time to get to the vital organs. You could suffer so much before then.

  So, yeah, that was the last time I'd spoken to someone else. Well, that's not fair. I talked to myself a lot. And the various plants that had survived in the restaurant. I even had conversations with the seagulls who had become my only companions when I went out onto the deck for a little Vitamin D. And, of course, my little rescue pet.

  But no one talked back.

  I was going to go ahead and call that a win. The only thing worse than an actual physical ailment was a mental one when you were trying to stay alive, maybe ride this thing out to see if the zombies all finally die off, if other countries maybe survived and would swoop in to take in those of us who made it through.

  Hope was probably a naive thing.

  But I let it keep me going.

  Well, hope, and the kitten I'd saved two days before making the former restaurant my new home.

  I'd become really hardened to things since the outbreak began. When you saw so much terror for so long, you had to become somewhat immune to it. Which had left me wondering if I was a monster, if I'd lost all my humanity.

  But then there'd been this little, skinny, mewling tabby kitten next to her dead mother and siblings. And my heart melted.

  I guess you could say I'd felt a certain kinship with her and her loss. So I all but emptied out the cat section in the local pet store for her, brought her home, and made her my own.

  Some days, we shared similarly melancholy canned meals with a sort of resigned understanding that it was the best we could do. Others, I would get lucky with a fish net I'd set up, and we would dine on something fresh for a change, treating each morsel like the fine cuisine that restaurant used to be known for.

  She was Buffy, for obvious reasons. I often wondered if I would ever come across a little Faith or Willow one day to add to my crew.

  It seemed fitting that, even during the end of times, I would become a solitary cat lady, closing in on thirty-five who had an addiction to eating expired icing right out of the container, and reading old, smutty romances in my spare time.

  It seemed that would be it for us.

  Until one fateful day.

  Supply day was the most stressful day of any given month when I chose to do it. Even though I was stocked up, there was this paranoid little part of me that worried I might run out of food or water if I got trapped for a long period of time in the house.

  So I planned trips, I kept adding to the coffers.

  I took trips out here and there to take out some baddies when I was feeling restless and daring.

  But the whole point of those trips were not to be seen and to keep all my focus on the zombies, no other task.

  Loading up supplies was risky. You had to focus on what you were doing while still trying to be hyper-aware of your surroundings.

  I said my farewells to Buffy, leaving the door open for her, worried that if I didn't make it back, she would have no way to feed herself. If she could go out onto the deck, I imagined she could snag herself a fish if she tried, or even one of the birds that visited, could drink out of the water catchment systems I had set up.

  I mean, rationally, I knew she likely wouldn't make it either, but I had to hope.

  Always.

  Then I made my way across town to the grocery store I hadn't hit yet, mostly because it had been new before the end of the world, and I didn't know my way around it, which made it risky.

  But it could still be full of canned goods and dried rice and beans, all that gross crap that would keep me alive even if I had to gag it down.

  Heart thumping, I made my way through the store, stocking everything into a blissfully silent cart, feeling—like I always did—that I was doing something wrong when I didn't bring everything up to a register to check out.

  "Oh, cute," I whispered to myself, grabbing a little set of cat toys from an end-cap before I cleared out the books, before finally making my way back out the back where I'd come in, liking that the building created a secluded little L-shape which prevented anyone from coming up behind me while I loaded my SUV.

  I'd just quietly slammed my trunk when I heard it.

  It was a hard sound to describe.

  Like a growling mixed with that "mmm" sound people would make when trying some amazing food for the first time.

  That was what they sounded like.

  Shit.

  Shit shit, double shit.

  My head whipped up, seeing one of them several feet from the front of my car.

  Just one.

  But there was never just one.

  They roamed in packs.

  My hands moved immediately, instinct kicking in, grabbing my bow and an arrow, loading up, arms raising as the noise got louder.

  But before I could send the arrow shooting, there was a glint of metal, then a lot of red as the zombie's head ripped clean off his body.

  "What the..." I started to whisper to myself.

  But then there the dealer of the beheading was, massive sword down by his side, hulking body no worse for the wear.

  I knew that body.

  I knew every hard edge of that body, its hot spots, its scars.

  "Junie?" an old, familiar, rough voice asked, shock clear in his voice. "How the fuck did you survive this long?" he asked.

  That right there, in flesh and blood, looking somehow better than he had when I'd last seen him, was Watts.

  My ex asshole.

  The man I'd wasted three years of my life on, only to have him unceremoniously dump me via text with a simple, "I can't do this anymore."

  He'd blocked me after, refusing to give me any reason, any closure, leaving me scrambling for months afterward. Confidence shattered, I went out drinking and dancing too much with friends, fell into a few regrettable beds with practical strangers, tried to fix my shattered heart with Band-Aids and Elmer's Glue.

  To no avail.

  You could say that I was still not "over it."

  Seeing as I had comforted myself in low moments with the idea of zombies ripping his cold heart right out of his chest.

  "You gonna put that bow down now?" he asked, cool, cocky, the same old bastard he always was.

  "I haven't decided yet," I shot back, glaring at him.

  It was annoying that he seemed to use all his abundant free time to work out even more than he used to, making his shoulders wider, his chest stronger, his legs resembling tree limbs under his well-fitting black jeans.

  He was all in black, in fact, which had always been a good look for him. It went well with his black hair, his dark eyes, his olive skin.

  Age had chiseled his features a bit more too, sharpening his jaw, making his cheekbones etch a bit deeper.

  The asshole had no right to look so good at the end of the world.

  I got a low, rumbling, all-too-appealing chuckle from him at my words as he rolled his neck.

  "You're welcome, Junebug," he said, waving the tip of his sword down at the body at his feet.

  "I wasn't going to thank you," I told him, lowering my bow, but not putting it away. "I was going to take care of it myself."

  "I knew someone else was still alive around here," he said, coming down into the alley a bit more. "Saw charred bodies of a bunch of these fuckers a couple weeks back."

  "Yeah, when I get bored, I hunt."

  "Stupid."

  "And yet here you are," I said, brow raising, nodding toward his sword.

  "I'm more equipped to handle the hunting," he said, shrugging.

  "What? Because you're a guy?" I shot back. It had been so long since I had been offended on behalf of my gender. It was almost a relief to be offended by his sexism. It was a sensation other than boredom and fear, at least.

  "Because... fuck," he hissed, hearing it just when
I did, the sound of the decapitated guy's friends.

  Instinct kicked in faster for me, already facing the threat. Before Watts could even turn to face it, my arrow was shooting through the air, landing right in the zombie's eye before he could reach out for Watts.

  "Damn... oh, incoming," he said, rushing back a few steps as more started coming in.

  I shot forward, opening my door, climbing in, turning it over, and hitting the gas, slamming into one zombie as I went.

  Reaching across the seat, I threw open the passenger door once I was past Watts.

  "Get in," I demanded, not sure why I wasn't leaving him to his fate when I had dreamed about the moment for so long.

  But before I could even think it through, Watts was flying in the seat, slamming the door, and demanding I take off.

  So I did, clipping one more of the monsters as I floored it, getting us the hell out of Dodge.

  "Gotta love that adrenaline," Watts mumbled as we flew onto the main drag in town, no more zombies in sight, letting me slow down as he turned in his seat, looking toward the back. "How many people are you feeding?" he asked, and if I wasn't mistaken, there was a hint of hope in his voice. My old, familiar friend.

  "Just me. And my cat, Buffy," I said, shrugging.

  "For how long?"

  "As long as it takes. Why do you care how much food I have?"

  "Because you're not leaving much left for other survivors."

  "Aside from you, the last time I saw someone alive was seven months ago. I put an arrow through his head to save him from a slow, torturous death."

  "Pete," Watts said.

  "What?"

  "That was Pete Wilson."

  "You knew him?"

  "We hunted together for a while."

  "Have you seen anyone else?"

  "No."

  "So who am I saving food for then?"

  "Me?"

  "You put a lot of faith to rest in the idea that I wouldn't enjoy watching you starve."

  "You talk a lot of shit for someone who just saved me back there."

  "Purely instinct. If I had a second to think it through, I would have asked them to start with your heart. I mean, there couldn't be much of it in there, but it would be a little appetizer."