Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love

Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love

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By:  Crystal Lake PublishingCompleted
Language: English
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Synopsis

Her mama always said she was special. His daddy called him a demon. But even monsters can fall in love. Montessa Tovar is walking home alone when she is abducted by Lu, a serial killer with unusual talents and a grudge against the world. But in time, the victim becomes the executioner as 'Apocalyptic' Montessa and her doomed lover, 'Nuclear' Lulu, crisscross the country in a bloody firestorm of revenge. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

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Chapter 1

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

She was beautiful, this woman who wandered the graveyard. All hair and eyes. In a light cotton dress covering her rounded belly, she walked barefoot across the overgrown lawns. She smiled and laughed as she touched the flowers garnishing the dead.

She saw a particularly beautiful headstone, a grave marker.

“Montessa,” she read, and something about it, the strength of it, the delicacy, stopped her in her tracks. She stood and waited. Moreover, she felt.

“That will be your name, darling,” she told the child in her womb. The newly named Montessa skipped and spun and twirled. Or perhaps she sucked her thumb in silence. Her mama couldn’t really tell these days now that she was so ill. But she carried a little girl, she was sure of it, and she loved this child fiercely.

“Your life will be charmed,” she said, navigating through the headstones and weeping angels as well as she could. “I believe wonderful things happen to little girls named Montessa. You’re special.”

Sweet thoughts. Sweet desires. But horribly, horribly unfounded. Misery and despair follows little girls named Montessa, especially little girls who are forced to go through their lives with dead mommies. Even more so when that mommy was the only one who loved them.

But she was right about one thing; Montessa was indeed special.

***

Montessa’s shift ended at 3:00 am.

She took a shower, soaping the oils and glitter and makeup off her body. Then, she wrapped herself in a towel and used another to dry her hair. Dry enough, she pulled out her phone.

“Renan?”

“What?”

He sounded dangerous tonight. Forcibly light-hearted, so he was out with the boys, but drunk enough that he’d be mean when he came home.

“I’m off.”

“What’s that gotta do with me?”

“Just wondered if you were gonna pick me up, that’s all.”

“Not tonight. I’m doing something.”

Montessa heard giggling in the background, and waited for her heart to sink and break, but nothing happened. Perhaps it had been ground to dust long ago. This was a relief.

“All right. I’ll see you at home.”

“Don’t wait up.”

“Do I ever? Goodnight.”

“Hey, baby,” he said. He was smiling into the phone, and she could visualize the beauty of it. Now her heart sank. Now it broke. “Who loves you?”

“You do.”

“That’s my girl. Be careful looks like there’s a storm coming in.”

“I’m always careful. Have fun, Renan.”

Without the makeup, she wasn’t Ruby anymore. She was just plain ole Montessa Travor. She seemed years younger when she washed away the faux confidence and sensuality, unlike some of the other girls.

Montessa put her six-inch stilettos in her purse along with her dancing costume. It didn’t take much room.

Jeans and a T-shirt. Sneakers. She left out the back door, the doorman giving her a brotherly grin and a pat on the shoulder. She smiled back, her first genuine one of the day, and stepped onto the shoulder of the highway. It was four miles home, fairly straight through the Northern Nevada desert.

Montessa put her earbuds into her ears and turned on her music. Not because she particularly wanted to listen to anything, but because she didn’t want to hear Renan’s voice assuring her this is what it feels like to be loved.

It always hurt.

***

Lu watched her go.

He always watched her go.

Sitting in the trees, his back pressed against a trunk, he watched her walk home on sore feet from hours of dancing.

The boyfriend seldom came anymore. Lu didn’t mind. The guy seemed mean, hulking, treating the brunette like property, like meat, while his own eyes roved over the hips and breasts of the other dancers.

And he let the girl walk home alone for the last three nights. Stupid. You never knew what could happen to a pretty little girl.

Lu knew. It had happened several times. Several times several.

He settled back against the trees, took a cigarette, and slipped it into his mouth. He then slid his hands back into his pockets. The unlit cigarette started glowing, burning. Lu’s eyes did the same as he watched the woman round the corner, disappearing from sight. He waited for a few more minutes and then walked over to his semi, parked behind the strip club. He climbed inside, laid his head back against the seat and made a decision.

He pulled out, turning onto the road. It only took a few minutes to pass the frail girl with the dancer’s body. A few minutes more and he parked his semi on the soft shoulder of a curve, waiting.

***

Montessa tended to think too much.

At home, she constantly thought about Renan’s moods, where his blows would strike if he landed them. She always wondered if he was in the mood to joke, or to ask for money, or if he would go and get high in the back room. At work, she thought about escape, about leaping off the platform and running for the door. She’d go out the back way before the bouncer could catch her, kicking off her stilettos and pelting barefoot down the street. Into the trees somewhere, living like a beast. A wild animal of wonder. She’d walk through the forest until she came out the other side, into a land of marvels.

When she walked home at night, she purposely tried not to think. She listened to her breathing, to her heartbeat, to her tender feet hitting the pavement. She felt her arms swing, her ribs move as she breathed in and out. Her body, her muscles. That was it. That was all. It was the only escape she had.

She saw a semi up ahead, gray and sleek. Normally she would have briefly wondered where it was headed, who was inside, how it would feel to walk up and ask for a ride. It didn’t matter where the driver was going. In fact, she’d rather not know until it was time to wake up and stretch at her final destination. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Wouldn’t that be grand?

But tonight wasn’t that night.

Something was . . . off.

With her eyes pinned forward, Montessa pushed her wild hair out of her face, and tried to pay attention to the music—a new playlist one of the girls at work burned for her. It was too poppy, too light, and Montessa hated it more than she thought she could ever hate anything, but it acted as a distraction.

Only three and a half more miles to go.

She blinked the burn from her eyes, dashing at them with her wrist, and then reminded herself that she never cried.

She passed the semi, her steps faltering a little before she righted herself. A little too tired, but she could push through. After all, she was her mama’s daughter, and there was something special about her. A girl like her could never give up, but just needed to keep going.

If Montessa had been paying attention, she would have noticed a shadow sliding behind her. If she had taken her earbuds out, she would have heard the surreptitious sound of sneakers on pavement, heard the sound of shallow breaths. She might have caught sight of the glint of something sinisterly sharp in the moonlight, the smell of evil deeds being considered.

None of this. None.

Montessa focused on putting one bruised foot in front of the other, on getting home so she could collapse into her bed smelling of Renan’s sweat. She thought of getting something to eat, if there was anything in the house. On drinking two big glasses of cold water if there wasn’t.

She focused on getting home . . . No, to the place she lived because it wasn’t a home. It wasn’t a nest. It was somewhere she paid rent and left her clothes and closed her eyes and slid under the water in the bathtub. There was no such thing as home.

She thought too much, and cursed herself mentally. Montessa bit her tongue, focusing on the steady bop, bop, bop of the music she endured.

A hood slid over her head. A hand clamped over her mouth. She felt something sharp dig into her neck, heard something said over the sound of her music, but couldn’t make it out.

Montessa tried to scream, kicking and fighting, but the hand over her hooded face pressed harder, and the steely sharpness pierced her skin. The trickle of blood running down her neck shocked her. The pain of the knife was so sharp, so sweet, so sudden and cold that she sucked in a breath as well as she could, reactively stiffening. Her legs wouldn’t work anymore, but stuck out like the tiny wooden legs of dolls. The hand came off her mouth and wrapped itself around her ribcage, pinning her arms to her sides.

The voice again, right in her ear, “Move, and I’ll kill you right here.”

The blade pressed into her throat again, that same shock, the sheer surprise of being cut, of her skin being rent, of her blood, which was so precious, being wasted in such a careless way.

She was dragged backward, away from the road, away from help, away from the path that would lead her back to Renan.

Oh, thank goodness, she caught herself thinking, and it was a surprise. Then there was a great, ringing pain in her head, and she was relieved of thinking for a while.

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Alexa Emily
This is great
2025-03-01 04:34:27
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24 Chapters
Chapter One
CHAPTER ONEShe was beautiful, this woman who wandered the graveyard. All hair and eyes. In a light cotton dress covering her rounded belly, she walked barefoot across the overgrown lawns. She smiled and laughed as she touched the flowers garnishing the dead.She saw a particularly beautiful headstone, a grave marker.“Montessa,” she read, and something about it, the strength of it, the delicacy, stopped her in her tracks. She stood and waited. Moreover, she felt.“That will be your name, darling,” she told the child in her womb. The newly named Montessa skipped and spun and twirled. Or perhaps she sucked her thumb in silence. Her mama couldn’t really tell these days now that she was so ill. But she carried a little girl, she was sure of it, and she loved this child fiercely.“Your life will be charmed,” she said, navigating through the headstones and weeping angels as well as she could. “I believe wonderful things happen to little girls named Montessa. You’re special.”Sweet tho
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWOMontessa awoke and moaned. Renan’s blows had been nearly unbearable this time. She blinked, but the room remained dark.“Decided to wake up?” The voice was soft, surprisingly so. The words were spoken intimately like a lover would, but she didn’t recognize the voice, except to say that it was strangely beautiful and foreign.The hood was yanked off her head, and Montessa blinked in the dim light that came from a small lamp. Even that light was too much.“I’m going to throw up,” she said. A shadow suddenly swooped close, holding a large, plastic bowl in front of her face. She retched, twice. Montessa realized the stranger was holding her hair back from her face. “Thank you,” she whispered when she was done. The bowl was emptied. The stranger mopped at her face with a damp baby wipe. She closed her eyes to keep out the light.“I don’t like filth. Don’t mistake this for tenderness.”That soft voice again.She nearly laughed. She felt her lips turn up despite herself.“
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREEThe meathead bouncer saw Montessa leave that night, but he didn’t see where she went. Assumed she walked home if she didn’t have a ride. She’d been walking home a lot lately.“What’s that supposed to mean?” Renan demanded. His voice was hot and dangerous, his eyes narrowed to slits. He took his aggression and turned it on high.“Nothing. It just means that she’s been walking home a lot lately. What’s with the attitude, man?”“You didn’t see nobody pick her up or nothin’?”“Not that I saw.”Renan ran his hand over his hair. “She’ll be so sorry for this.”“Cool it. She could be in trouble. This doesn’t seem like her.”Renan glared at the meathead. “And just how do you know anything about her, huh? Not supposed to talk to the girls, are you? Not supposed to talk to my girl.”The bouncer stepped forward. “Then maybe you should take care of your girl, huh? Keep an eye out for her.”“What was that?”“You heard me.”Renan left with his anger burning slow. Didn’t come
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOURIt seemed a shame to be so close to the sea and not to dabble in it just a little. There was nowhere Lu liked better. Sometimes he thought he’d been born of the sea, a Boy of Sorrows, and one day he’d simply walk back into the waves and disappear.“Fitting,” she said.“Why is that?”She stared at the ocean with a fierceness that belied her earlier good nature.He saw long canines, guillotines, and axes in her eyes.“You get rid of all of us, don’t you? In pieces and parts. How many are found? How long does it take? You have this life of secrecy. And in the end, you think you’ll just disappear and nobody will notice. It doesn’t happen like that.”“It happens exactly like that.”“It doesn’t. There’s always somebody who will miss you. Somebody who will know you’re gone. You think you can live on this Earth and not leave some kind of imprint?”Had he been the laughing type, he would have laughed at this, but it didn’t seem terribly funny. It just seemed terrible. “Who
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVEThis guy?” Lu said.“Renan.”“Yeah. Him. Why are you guys together, anyway? He’s obviously a complete tool.”Montessa stayed silent. This was where she was supposed to defend Renan. Tell her kidnapper she was in love, that he didn’t know her boyfriend, that he couldn’t make judgments on the wonderful man that she committed her life to.“Hey. Girl.”“I told you it’s Montessa. Why don’t you tell me your name?”“I don’t want to.”“It’s Lu.”“How did you know that?”She looked out of the window. He’d let her into the front of the cab, shackled her to the door handle again. It was dark. The seat was soft and comfortable and felt like luxury. She had told Lu as much. He said he was frightened that such small things made her happy. She must be awfully used to being miserable, he said, if such tiny things meant so much.“There’s a lot of energy to you, Lu. Built up under your skin. Behind your eyes. One day, you’re just going to explode.”She turned to him, studied his
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIXWanna take a walk?” Lu asked. He was tired of driving. His back ached, and his legs were cramped, and his head was full of cotton or bees or bloodlust. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which. Montessa hesitated. Lu tossed her a look. “What? I thought you’d be all over getting out and stretching your legs.”She swallowed hard. “Is this a killing sort of walk?”Lu frowned. He didn’t know why. He felt his lips curl and turn and stretch, felt his eyebrows furrow and his eyes spark. He was slightly offended. A killing sort of walk, indeed.“Nah, lady. It’s just a walk. A normal, everyday kind of walk.”“Call me Montessa,” she said, and stared out of the window again.He pulled over on the shoulder, next to a group of trees. Thick. Leafy. Perfect cover. Wonderfully remote-feeling. The type of place where, yes, he would gladly go on a killing walk. But that made his newly-beating heart heavy somehow.“I will kill you, you know. Just not now.”“I know.” Her voice, it had
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVENRenan had favors. Lots of them. Things owed to him since before the dawn of time, it seemed, and this was the perfect time to call them all in.Monty had been gone for over a week now. A week. No calls. Nothing. And that wasn’t right, wasn’t what a woman was supposed to do for her man. He found himself seeking comfort wherever he could find it, cursing her name with each bump, each hit, each woman. She was selfish, making him worry. Running off and passing her little whorish self around to any panting dog that looked at her. Laughing at him, he knew it. He just knew.So he called in his favors. Had sets of eyes looking for her everywhere. If she used her credit card, if she showed up on any newsfeed, if she stuck her head out anywhere in the country, he’d find her. He’d drag her back, screaming, if he had to. Then he’d make her pay. Oh, he’d enjoy that part. Making her pay was like nothing else on Earth. It was like hearing the angels sing.
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHTMontessa was enthralled. She watched Lu’s mouth while he spoke, watched the way he used his hands, the way his emotions changed his face according to where he was in the story.He talked about his dad’s abuse, about the way he hid in his closet as a little boy. The way they took him to rituals and the shamans beat their drums and how he ate the special foods meant to cleanse the soul and body. Lu had set the shaman aflame the last time his parents took him. She had been put out quickly. Maimed but not murdered. Scarred but alive.“So not my first kill, but almost,” he said, and the way his eyes twinkled, it was like something out of a fairytale.“Tell me how it felt to kill your father,” Montessa urged, and even though he had already told her, he told her again. And again, when she asked for it a third time. She was a child with a favorite bedtime story. Tell me again, please. Again. More and more and more.“The way his bones cracked, it was like nothing I’d ever ima
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINEHis heart hurt in a strange new way.Felt too tight, like it was bound and everything in him screamed to take his knife to the knotted tissue and whatever iron band had wrapped around it. Release it. Take away the hurt. Take away this pain. Lu didn’t like it, not at all.It came from letting the girl go. He knew this. When she left, she’d go directly to the police and tell them all about the young Asian man, early 20s, surprisingly muscled and wiry, maybe 130 pounds. 150? He usually wore a T-shirt. A dirty denim jacket when things got cold. Jeans and sneakers. Oh, yes, and he had a knife—long, shiny, very clean and very sharp knife. He murdered his father with that knife. He drives a semi. His name is Lu. He’s killed several other girls. When you find him, it should be the death penalty all the way, please. He hit me in the head with a wrench. It hurt so terribly, so terribly that I threw up, over and over and over. It’s a miracle I got away.He’d be dead before the po
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TENHer hair swirled around her, and her breaths came in gasping almost-sobs of rage that she tried to rein in. The pressure behind her eyes, in her head and chest pushed out, nearly exploding from behind her eyes and teeth. If she didn’t hold back, she’d blow the truck apart, she could feel it. Kill herself and Lu and there wouldn’t be anything to find, just tiny bits of rubble and detritus carried on the wind.She had to calm down. Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe.Montessa held her hands to her face, her wrists bloodied and sore and raw. With her eyes covered, things seemed less pressing. She was here. She was safe. He had put her here to let her escape. She knew this and appreciated it on a level, too, of course. Of course she did. But at the same time . . .I’m tired of being tossed away.Abandoned by her mother. Used up until her body and soul ground into little bits by her father or at least the man that she had been trained to think of as her father. Used and lef
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
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