Insidious Nightmares

by Ellabee Andrews

  I’ve spent my life waiting. For what? I never knew, just that I wasn’t ever satisfied. Even with Benji, while I had liked him a lot, something was always missing. An integral part of myself, a darker part of myself, I’ve always ignored, but these three men. The Insidious Nightmares, have given me everything I never knew I needed. They’ve given me sweet dreams.

  Whether those dreams are happy, or nightmares, though, I don’t know. And frankly? As we all pile out of the top hatch of the van, Mike and Jase both reaching strong arms inside to lift me up and next to them, I know that either way, I don’t give a damn. I’m exactly where I’ve always been meant to be.

  On top with the three of them, the townsfolk not realizing we’ve climbed outside during their convulsions, I lean in and in quick succession, place a kiss on all three of their mouths.

  Stunned is an adequate term. If that shock turns to pissed, I don’t know. I don’t wait to find out. I just grip my sticks, find the clearest spot where the dead are the thinnest, and drop to the ground. I’ve sent my clean stick up and through the eye of Stephen Craven, head of the local book club, before they even register that I’m gone.

  It’s time to claim my darkness. Time to own my darkest urges, and to take the things I want. Starting with Benji and his ‘old’ lady. Of all the dead, the two spasming five feet away, still together due to the collar around Benji’s neck, that the Russian Lady holds the leash to, clutched in her bluing, wrinkled hands, they’re the ones I’m going to enjoy taking out the most.

  13

  “This is awesome!” Fred yells gleefully as he punches another townsfolk in the face, his hand sticking to the braces they wear over their teeth before Jase twists their head off with one fell swoop of his curved blade. The detached head falls like a brick to the ground, before rolling a few feet and stopping with the mouth gaping wide.

  “Focus, Fred! We’re not out of this yet!” Mike growls, his knife slashing out in front of him. He’s right. We’ve been at this for hours, but so far, we’ve yet to make a dent. The music is helping, but there’s a whole town versus only the four of us. At this rate, we’ll be at this for days.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever be,” Jase growls, gleaning what I already have. We’re fighting a losing battle. We need to do something bigger. Something more than this. My arms are growing numb from the fighting. “Damn, I wish I had a chainsaw or something. This is taking too long.”

  Just then, almost as if Fate herself has noted the futility of our situation and decided to bitch slap us herself, the lights of the van flicker, and with them, the song skips. Like the rest of us, the battery on the van is draining fast and soon enough, we’ll be fucked.

  Backing over to fight closer to Mike, I grunt as I stab a dead ‘prom queen.’ Or, once upon a time she looked like a prom queen. Now, with the blood coating her from head to toe, she looks as if she’s gone swimming in a pool of blood.

  “We need to try something else,” I shout to him, flinching as the music skips once more and for the brief pause it no longer plays, the dead regain their speed and start to charge us quickly before it plays some more and they’re back to their slowed, popping motions.

  Turning to take out an infected man that has just reached my back, Mike shoves him away after a stab in his temple to glance my way. I give him a grateful smile.

  “Yeah, I can see that. Any ideas?” he asks, but not in a hateful way. He genuinely seems curious about that, and I ready myself to tell him that I don’t, that I had been hoping he would, but pause when I look out over the head of all the dead, and my eyes land on a sign. Elm Elementary School.

  “You know what?” I say on a laugh, the sound causing all three men to look my way. I’m sure I look like a madwoman as I grin, wildly swinging my drumsticks. “I do have a plan. You all need to do exactly as I say!” I shout, motioning for them to follow me as I sprint down the road. Behind me, their steps are barely audible over the sounds of Marilyn Manson on repeat.

  “This is crazy. You’re crazy!”

  Fred’s words are serious, but his face is elated as I lay out my plan. And since it’s better to show them, rather than just explain it, we’re now in the humid boiler room of Elm Elementary. The heat down here is almost unbearable and it’s only going to get worse if I have anything to do with it.

  “Is that a bad thing?” I ask, meaning the part about me being crazy. Not the plan. I already know that is.

  As if he doesn't even need me to explain which I'm referring to, Fred comes to stand closer. This time when I met his green eyes, they're much more serious than they were before. Serious, and lit with fire to match the one burning within the boiler we stand before.

  Breath cascading over my face, he reaches up and rubs at something on my cheek. “Don’t misunderstand me, Laurie. Crazy, is most certainly not a bad thing. I like a woman who's spark can match my own, and you, my dear, are the one that will haunt my dreams if I let you get away. So I hope that the stunt with the kiss was more than just that… You don’t know what you started with me... or the others.”

  Biting my lip as I take in his expression, letting my eyes roam over his face, my hand almost trembles with the need to reach out and touch him, but I abstain. But only because I desperately need to know what he means. “And what,” I start, and lick my lips. “Did I start?”

  “That, you’ll find out after we survive the night. Until then, let’s try out this plan of yours.”

  The answer doesn't come from Fred's smirking lips, but from Mike, where he and Jase stand by the thermostat control on the boiler. Jase, in his side job as a maintenance man, had known how to adjust the temperature and has currently been turning it higher than it should go.

  With the water low in the tank from the workers being preoccupied all day from the essential oil inducing zombieism, their neglect has created the perfect set up for my plan to work.

  As I watch them, brows furrowed as it seems everyone seems to know something that I don’t, Jase gives a few more twists of a large valve, and I watch the needle in the gauge rise some more as it grows hotter.

  "Ok, time to go. I'd say we have thirty minutes. Forty tops before this thing blows and takes out everything in the vicinity. This motherfucker is going to blow, that I can guarantee you, but how do you propose we get all the townsfolk here?" Jase asks and crosses his arms over his chest.

  Rubbing his hand down his neck, Mike and Jase appear to have the same idea, and as a predatory smile spreads across both their mouths, I hear Fred groan as soon as their stares fall on him.

  “Damn it! Why is it always me?” he asks, shaking his head, but leaning down to tighten the laces on his shoes.

  Confused, as my plan had only brought us to the point of blowing the boiler and killing all the townsfolk in the blast, I hadn't considered how to actually get them to the school, to begin with. The guys, however, seem to have that covered. At least, if Fred's stretching motions are any indication, they do.

  Frustrated as they haven’t explained themselves yet, I mimic Jase and cross my arms over my chest. Which doesn’t appear to intimidate them in the least as their gazes fall to my breasts and how my sweat has left my top clinging to them.

  Rolling my eyes, I toss my hands up over my head. “Focus, assholes, and tell me what you're talking about. I mean, damn. You’ve already seen them. Nothing has changed since an hour ago. They still can’t do tricks or carry on a conversation. They’re just breasts,” I tell them, but they don’t appear embarrassed at being caught staring.

  Jase is the first to work his gaze up my body and to my face, expression as ravenous as the dead outside. I swallow roughly.

  "Say about them what you will, Laurie. But there are a few certainties in a man's life. Will he become president? Probably more likely to become a serial killer. Will he remember to leave the toilet seat down? Fat chance. You're the one that needs it lowered, so you can fix it. See? Some things just aren’t a guarantee. But a few are," Jase says and I flutter my hand to speed him alon
g.

  With a scoff at his side, Mike goes back to checking the thermostat and twisting knobs, while I keep my focus on Jase and wherever he's going with this.

  Jase doesn't even turn to address Mike's noise and waves his hand up and down my body as he turns my move from earlier into something a lot sexier. "The guarantees are that our dicks will always naturally fall to one side. We will forever wake with morning wood, and we'll never pass up the chance to see your tits. You call it thinking with the wrong head. We call it a happy co-op relationship between our brain up north, and the one between our legs. A symbiotic relationship that's been around since man grew thumbs and masturbated for the enthrallment of women. Literally, the reason men have gone to war."

  "Three cheers for the power of the puss!" Fred cuts in and thrusts his fist up once Jase has finished his surprisingly thought out speech.

  Leaving his spot by the controls as the temperature rises more. Either from their professions of my 'magical pussy' or the overheating boiler, beads of sweat roll down the corded muscle in Mike's arms.

  "No cheers until we finish this. And save your energy Fred," Mike says but those dark eyes don't leave my face. He steps close enough that I'm left tilting back my neck to hold his stare. "The plan is to blow the townsfolk up as you suggested. To do that, we need to get them here. That's where Fred comes in. He's going to play bait and lead them to the school. Before he can do that, we have to get the radios turned off so they can follow."

  "And then?" I ask, my voice breathy.

  Mike lifts his arm and slides his hands up into the hair at the base of my neck. "And then, we watch this fucker burn. After that? We'll just have to wait and see."

  All I can do is nod since I don't trust what I'll say if I open my mouth, but Mike appears satisfied by my response, and with a brush of his fingers down my neck, he picks up his knife and heads out the door.

  With a knowing smirk from Fred, and a hot glance from Jase, they follow him without another word as I stand there and relearn to breathe.

  The infected aren't going to have a chance to get me. If I spend much more time with Insidious Nightmares, I may end up combusting from want. But what a way it would be to go. I'd relish the burn, embrace the embers, and settle with the dust left behind.

  Though my heart aches for the loss of my cousin, I know that she’d be proud of me for taking a chance with these guys. I can imagine the way she’d check out their asses then give me a high five when they weren’t looking. She never did like Benji, and now that I’ve seen his true colors, I understand why. But something tells me she would have approved of this wayward bunch, and with my heart a little less dark for thinking how pleased with me she’d be, I run out the door behind them.

  14

  Sneaking to the van and killing the music is easy. It was hardly playing at this point anyway, the battery oscillating between keeping the headlights turned on and playing the music. The repetitive switches were almost dizzying, and I’d been glad when Mike had killed the switch and it went dark and silent, for good.

  "What do we do now?" I ask as I duck down behind the seat of the van, peeking around the edge to see the meandering townsfolk regain their normal speed now that they're no longer a slave to the beat.

  At my side, Mike cuts his eyes to me, but mainly stays focused on the infected. They haven’t seen us yet, but then Fred shoots out from behind a large building with some stick he’s fashioned into a torch.

  With a shout, the sound like he's rolled his tongue, he waves that flaming stick around back and forth. When the noise leaves him, all of the townsfolk’s heads jerk in his direction and they start sprinting his way, bloody eyes bright from the chance at a fresh meal.

  While I can't hear what Fred says when the group starts heading his way, it's easy enough to read his lips as he mouths ‘oh, shit', and starts running as fast as he can toward the school. It's a wonder he doesn't trip with how quickly he moves, and the last I see of him before he turns a corner are knees and elbows.

  As if he was waiting to ensure Fred did his job before speaking, Mike turns my way. “Now, we wait. Fred will herd them towards the school. When he arrives, Jase is going to raise the temps of the boiler one last time, and it should give them enough time to get out of there before it blows. All goes to plan, the townsfolk will blow with it.”

  I nod, already knowing all this, but hearing Mike say it in his ever-steady confidence is soothing, and my shoulders relax.

  As if sensing the change come over me, Mike pulls me into his lap. A gasp leaves my lips when I find him hard beneath my ass.

  “Ok. Jase and Fred have their jobs, but what do you suppose we do with our time?” I ask, but my voice has grown husky. As the words leave my lips, I move my body slightly over his, pushing up harder against his length.

  “Oh, Laurie. You have no idea what you’re getting into,” Mike warns, but leans forward and begins to kiss my neck. Trailing kisses along my jaw and down my chest, he fingers the hem of my sweater.

  It may be because adrenaline has had my heart racing all night. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that death could come for us at any moment. Or it’s possible that it’s taken the apocalypse to unleash this side of me. This daring, unapologetic, and happy side of me, but regardless, I want this.

  I want Mike with his sullen looks and dark eyes. I crave Jase with his surprisingly sweet side mixed with the brute that fights for what he wants. And I refuse to give up Fred who is shy and sweet, but naughty at all the right and wrong times. All three have fulfilled a part of me I'd been unaware of, and they'd done so in one night.

  So while this may be the worst time in the world to fall, I’ve fallen hard for these three, and don’t regret an instant of it. Mike’s large hands on my hips as he grinds himself harder into my throbbing sex, tells me that he doesn’t either.

  With a moan, I run my hand up to his neck and grip him lightly to meet his eyes. When I have his full attention, I kiss him briefly before leaning back and in a quick move, yank my top over my head and drag the bra away with it. His eyes flick down but return to my face.

  “I may not know a lot of things, Mike, but I know exactly what it is I’m wanting. This question is for you though. Are you going to keep warning me away? Or are you going to help me finish getting undressed and deliver on all the treats your hot looks have been promising me since I got in this van?”

  Mike is the cat that ate the cream, as a wide, predatory smile curls his lips, and he doesn’t even hesitate to reach down and slowly shove me onto my back on the carpeted van bed.

  He never looks away as he begins to work my yoga pants over my hips and ass, and only once I'm bare before him, does he lean back onto his haunches as his gaze roams over my body.

  “Sweet, Laurie. Didn’t you know? Bad guys like me don’t make promises. We raise hell,” he says in a throaty growl, and before I can even contemplate what he means, his head falls between my legs and his tongue does all the talking.

  And man, can he talk.

  The boom in the distance threatens to burst my eardrums as the shockwaves of the blast hit the van so hard, that I fly right off of Mike where I’ve been about to encase his cock inside of me.

  He tries to grab me, to keep me from smacking into the side of the van as I’m forced away, but it happens so suddenly that all it accomplishes is him landing with a thud at my side.

  “Fuuuuck,” he coughs as if the air has been knocked out of him. “You ok?” he asks while he breathes harshly and rolls onto his side to look my way, his naked body gleaming from sweat despite the chill in the air outside. Things had been heating up quickly inside the back of the van.

  Taking a mental account of my body, I weakly nod. “Y-yeah. I’m good. Guess that means it worked?” I say when I can speak again, and sit up. I reach for my stretchy black yoga pants, but before I can reach them, Mike hands them to me. He’s still nude, and my eyes drop to his bare cock. The beast of a penis standing proudly at least 13 inches long.

  “Mayb
e. The boiler exploded, but we won’t know if it worked until we speak with the others. Let’s get dressed and head that way,” Mike says and begins to work his large body and rock hard cock back into the coveralls. He pauses once they’re to his hips, leaving his dick pointing at me as if to help punctuate his point. “And Laurie?”

  I look up once he says my name, my gaze feeling glued to the gleaming head of his dick, to the cum that glistens there, and see that he’s watching me with an intent look on his face. My breath hitches in my throat. “Yeah?”

  “This isn’t over. We may have been interrupted, but I plan to finish this later,” he adds, and with a last lingering look over my body, exits the van as I sit there topless and trembling from the effort not to pull him back in to finish it now.

  The things he had been doing to me with just his hands had been sensational, what he'd been doing with his tongue was transcendental, so the thought of what he can do with that great length of his is mind-blowing. He's damn right we're not finished.

  A girl can't just have one taste like that and not the rest of the meal. And if I'm really lucky, and play my cards just right, I hope to have not only the appetizer but entree and dessert too.

  15

  Jase walks into view first, his jacket missing and the white shirt he’s been wearing beneath in tatters. His face has smudges of soot along his cheek, with a weeping cut above his eyebrow, and there’s a slight limp to his walk as he heads our way.

  Not even hesitating, I rush towards him. I may have been having some fun with Mike, but that doesn't negate that I like Jase too. The finger fucking had been a good distraction from thinking about whether or not he and Fred would survive, but not enough to erase the worry completely. Now that I see for myself that he's in one piece, I can't help but throw my arms around him, ignoring his low grunt of pain.