diff --git a/core/src/com/riiablo/io/BitInput.java b/core/src/com/riiablo/io/BitInput.java
index 0fa57779..ef7c9950 100644
--- a/core/src/com/riiablo/io/BitInput.java
+++ b/core/src/com/riiablo/io/BitInput.java
@@ -495,9 +495,9 @@ public class BitInput {
     final byte[] dst = new byte[maxLen];
     for (int i = 0; i < maxLen; i++) {
       final byte b = dst[i] = (byte) readUnsigned(bits);
-      if (nullTerminated && b == '\0') break;
+      if (nullTerminated && b == '\0') maxLen = i;
     }
 
-    return new String(dst);
+    return new String(dst, 0, maxLen);
   }
 }
diff --git a/core/src/com/riiablo/io/ByteInput.java b/core/src/com/riiablo/io/ByteInput.java
index 1976b66a..1616fce0 100644
--- a/core/src/com/riiablo/io/ByteInput.java
+++ b/core/src/com/riiablo/io/ByteInput.java
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import io.netty.buffer.Unpooled;
 import io.netty.util.CharsetUtil;
 import java.nio.charset.Charset;
 import java.util.Arrays;
+import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
 
 import com.riiablo.util.DebugUtils;
 
@@ -487,7 +488,9 @@ public class ByteInput {
     assert aligned() : "not aligned";
     try {
       incrementBitsRead((long) len * Byte.SIZE);
-      return buffer.readCharSequence(len, CharsetUtil.US_ASCII).toString();
+      CharSequence charSequence = buffer.readCharSequence(len, CharsetUtil.US_ASCII);
+      charSequence = charSequence.subSequence(0, StringUtils.indexOf(charSequence, '\0'));
+      return charSequence.toString();
     } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException t) {
       throw new EndOfInput(t);
     }