Half-Dose:

Love Stories

and

Other Hallucinations

Copyright © 2020 Erica Lyn Burden

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This Book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblances to actual places or events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

For The People I Love.

I have no idea how I got so lucky.

And for anyone who ever found the key to their own soul

through loving others.

The Text: Part I

Basie: There’s only one working tower here. I tried to call you but nobody picked up. Text or call me as soon as you get this, I’m at work but I told them I was staying where I could get service until I talked to yo.

*you

Please say something.

This is so nuts.

Renata: I didn’t get your call and my phone won’t dial out, I’m sorry. The service is so messed up right now.

Renata: Two people are dead, Marcy and Yasmine… It doesn’t even make sense. Nobody can see the bodies, no funeral services are even running. They are just sitting on ice in some storage facility run by the CDC. We’ve bickered about zombie apocalypses happening before, but this isn’t zombies. It’s something real. Something we’re not ready for. I wish you were home. I can’t deal with this without you.

Basie: I’m so glad you’re okay. You need to try and call me or text every day. I get to the reception tower every break and at the end of my shift. Stay inside. The late stages of the fever make people fucking dangerous. We’re pretty safe at the Med Bay. Well, not from germs. It’s the wuss version of the virus. We’re getting overwhelmed, tho. My favorite Doc is sick, he’s so careful. They said just by pulling off your gloves wrong even after decontamination can get you. It made me paranoid because I checked in on a guy who was coughing like crazy. He wasn’t running a fever then, so it’s probably fine. But he’s on life support now and every time I walk by him I keep thinking I’m next. God, I miss you. When things calm down they promised me a secure way back home. I can not fucking wait.

Basie: If I leave right now I’m out of a job. This isn’t the end of the world, not yet anyway. It’ll be okay, it always is.

Renata: Don’t worry about the job! We don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day. I feel like I’m screaming and nobody is listening. Why won’t you just trust me about how dangerous this is?

Basie: I had enough for the down payment on the house we looked at. It was kind of a surprise but that world seems really far away now so I thought I’d tell you. In case anything happens. It’s in my credit union account.

Renata: You know what, in the morning I’m going to try to get to you, okay?

Basie: What if I’m sick? You’d be exposed. I can’t live with that. And something could happen to you on the way. It’s just not safe for either of us to do anything but wait it out.

Renata: Fine. I think my phone may have a good enough signal for a decent phone call. Let me try calling you, and maybe I could tell you a few stories since most likely neither one of us will be sleeping well. Remember like I used to when we first met?

Basie: Yeah, tell me some stories. I have to get my mind on something else. I literally have an alarm set to go off when I know I’m in the clear from the exposure, I need to hear a good story.

Renata: Anything specific, my love?

Basie: Tell me some love stories. Good ones.

Long Distance

Tanner and Addison stood by the buffet, reaching down every few minutes to help clear away plates and food, but mostly they were just talking, and talking with that half-smile on their faces that meant gossip. Tanner was somewhere near blonde. Addison had red tones with blonde highlights, and her hair changed lengths so often that it had to be clipped in somewhere, but both women had the same weirdly doe-ish brown eyes. So alike were their eyes in color and shape that they could be related. But, they weren’t.

Hart stood apart from the other girls, putting rolls and lunch meat into a plastic topped bin. They couldn’t convince anyone else to take leftovers from the buffet, so this would go into the fridge in the back for the workers. Hart’s phone buzzed with the sound effect from her favorite horror video game—she checked it but knew who it was.

So, you are….?

The text message read. It was Kendry. He knew this event was stressful and, though he was stuck at his own work event, he’d been checking in with her every hour.

Hart: Surviving. Packing everything up and should be back home by 5.

Kendry: Survive faster. I’ll be home shortly and I’ll be waiting at your place at 5. Can’t wait to see you.

Hart stopped for a moment. His texts had literally been the highlight of her day. But she didn’t feel right telling him and putting that kind of pressure on him. They were still new to dating, new to each other even. But knowing he would be waiting for her after all of this had been what carried her through the worst of today.

Okay, that’s great! Thank you. C U Later, she typed out. That was about as close as she could get to revealing what he meant to her right now.

The funeral had been horrible, awkward and draining. A mass event for Shadelynn Max, the young woman from the office. She was two years younger than Hart herself, and cover-of-a-magazine beautiful. And smart. Somehow, all of those things made her hated.

The entire thing just reminded Hart that, when she died, only those closest would be allowed to remember her in an intimate setting like this. The obscenity of those who didn’t care, or who hated Shadelynn,