Red Eye | Season 2 | Episode 3 Read online

  RED Eye

  The Armageddon Series

  Season Two: Episode Three

  By

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Claire C. Riley

  &

  Victoria Cage Author

  Eli Constant

  RED EYE The Armageddon Series

  Copyright ©2020 Claire C. Riley & Elizabeth Constantopoulos

  Cover Design: Wilde Designs Elizabeth Constantopoulos

  Editor: Amy Jackson

  Formatting: Claire C. Riley

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without express permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  About the episode:

  This entire episode is told from Sam’s perspective.

  ** Separated from Rose, Sam clings to Barrett for support. But the horde of undead and her worsening affliction threaten them both. **

  About the Series

  When Rose and Sam find themselves in a military camp surrounded by other survivors, they have no idea that the darkest days are yet to come.

  Rose, feeling more homesick than ever, looks to Nolan for guidance. With her plans of seeing the world now nothing but a pipe dream, and her parents likely dead, she contemplates the bleak future ahead of her.

  It’s getting easier to kill, but harder to hold onto hope.

  Sam, still in shock over the realization that she’s probably becoming the very thing she fears, seeks reassurance from Barrett—the darkly protective criminal they freed from the airport jail. The end of the world is no time for romance, but he’s not the sort of man who takes no for an answer.

  She’s feeling anxious, confused, and she’s got a terrible craving for red meat!

  People used to say when life gets tough, there’s always tomorrow. But that was before the apocalypse. Now, life is a 24-hour cycle of hard knocks and who knows if there will even be a tomorrow.

  The unlikely pair thought 30,000 feet in the air was hell,

  But being on the ground’s proving no better.

  All they can do is stick together,

  Focus on whatever lies ahead of them,

  And try not to die.

  *

  Start this epic zombie apocalypse thriller written by USA Today Bestselling Author Claire C. Riley and Victoria Cage Author Eli Constant.

  THE SERIES SO FAR:

  Red Eye Season One (four episodes) – OUT NOW

  Red Eye Season Two: Episode One – OUT NOW

  Red Eye Season Two: Episode Two – OUT NOW

  Red Eye Season Two: Episode Three – OUT NOW

  Red Eye Season Two: Episode Four – Coming February 20th

  RED Eye

  The Armageddon Series

  Season Two: Episode Three

  By

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Claire C. Riley

  &

  Victoria Cage Author

  Eli Constant

  Prologue.

  “Nothin’ gonna happen to us here.” Karla smiled at Leon, patting her thighs happily as she watched the activity in the tent—a duo of military women had come in a few minutes earlier and were offering water bottles and extra rations to the kids. “I mean, Lord in Heaven, how much safer could we be? Safe as houses, we are. God’s watching out for us here. I only hope my sister and the kids have been so lucky.” At that, the large woman frowned and stopped the gentle rhythm against her legs. Her brow furrowed deeper after the so-called “cavalry” exited without offering additional nourishment to the adults.

  Leon didn’t say anything; he didn’t feel nearly as at-ease as his companion. He didn’t like the way things had happened with Rose, but she’d made her choice. He didn’t understand her decision… Not my problem anymore, Leon reminded himself. You can’t help someone who’s too damn stubborn to see a problem. Nolan wasn’t the guy he appeared to be—Leon knew that in his gut. And it wasn’t jealousy coloring his perception.

  Well, it wasn’t only jealousy…

  The nuns they were sharing a tent with were okay. He’d never been overly fond of church types, if he were honest. A stint in catholic school was gross plenty to turn him away from the offers of religion and toward the unconditional love of a dog.

  Maybe it was stupid that so many people had lost their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters…kids. And there he was sitting around worrying over Danny. But fuck everyone else. Danny had been there for him through thick and thin. He was the only thing in the whole damn world that Leon actually loved. It didn’t fucking matter that Danny was a Great Dane.

  If his friend Meg was still alive, he was damned sure she’d still be staying with the animals to keep them fed and safe. It made him feel better—convincing himself that her being alive was reality, with no other option.

  Leon glanced at Karla. He felt bad about what he was thinking—about abandoning her so he could work his way home. Leaving a human for the hope that a dog was still alive. But he didn’t feel bad enough to stick the hell around.

  Activity seemed to elevate outside the tent and Leon stood up from his cot, automatically slinging on his pack of supplies. His ears perked up, listening more closely. He’d been lost in his own thoughts for a while, sitting there in the tent’s dimness. Conversation with Karla had punctuated his thoughts, but…how much time had passed since he was last outside?

  Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound was muffled by distance, but Leon was sure it was the distinct noise of a helicopter.

  “What is it?” Karla jolted up from her own cot, responding to her companion’s actions versus her own sense of the surroundings. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Karla. I’m sure everything’s fine. Like you said—we’re safe as houses here.” Leon turned and smiled reassuringly at the woman. “I’m going to pop out and find someone in charge. I want to know how long they plan on keeping operations here. I heard some of the kids talking about a Vegas move. I’m not too keen on hitting the city of sin during a zombie outbreak.”

  “Oh.” Karla’s mouth fell, jaw slack. She crossed herself quickly and muttered, “Lawd help us.” Then she shooed Leon out of the tent, hurrying him toward information.

  When Leon stepped outside, he realized it wasn’t just normal activities on overdrive. The shouting and sounds weren’t welcoming new arrivals. Something is wrong. Something is going wrong, right the hell now.

  He jogged away from the tent, looking for answers, his brain and body on high alert. When he came to the end of a fourth tent, he looked to the right.

  The undead were pouring through a breach in the barrier, maybe two hundred feet away. Leon watched the scene with mounting horror. Why aren’t people screaming? He heard shouting. Running. Dull pops that he now recognized as muffled gunfire. Were there multiple breaches?

  And then…the screams did start. It was almost as if that part of the world had been momentarily on mute. Or Leon had blocked it, simply because his brain couldn’t take how damn horrible it was.

  High-pitched. Male. Female. Children. It was fear incarnate. If deep-seated agony had a sound, it would be this choir of human desperation Leon was now hearing.

  He turned on his heels and raced back toward the tent. It wasn’t so easy to desert Karla now, not with the wolves a
t her door. He hoped the threat was localized, that they weren’t attacking from all sides.

  And where was Rose? Was she safe?

  I can’t help her now, he admonished himself. Death traveled behind him, yet Leon’s mind still turned to the pretty Brit with her endearing-though-also-infuriating stubbornness. “Karla!” Leon shouted several yards from the tent.

  He knew though, somehow, that he was already too late.

  He smelled the blood before he pulled the tent flap back. He heard the teeth gnashing and flesh tearing before his eyes adjusted to ingest the sight. Karla was on the ground, her face slack, her eyes mercifully closed. The zombie on top of her was digging into her abdomen. It pulled her intestines out, eating them like cherry Fruit by the Foot. The thought of the childhood snack made bile rise in his throat.

  He didn’t care to look at the rest of the carnage.

  Leon turned and raced back into the thick of the invasion. He was going to get out of there, make his way home, and get his goddamn dog. Or he was going to die trying.

  Chapter One.

  “No…no.” I couldn’t stop saying that word. It slipped from between my lips over and over again, even though the helicopter and…and Rose…were both gone. The bullets were still flying around us. Barrett was carrying me; I bobbed up and down jerkily against his shoulder as he ran, my face hitting his backpack. I felt the quick breeze and whine of a too-near bullet. A spray of wetness hit my face and I licked my lips.

  Hot, metallic blood. Sweet endnotes that seemed to travel down my throat and up my sinuses to overwhelm me—overwhelm me totally, every sense awash in an unquenchable hunger.

  My eyes went to Barrett’s back now, where red stains dotted the material of his shirt and the pack. I could feel the burning at the back of my throat. I was on fire, the inferno building in my chest and traveling through the lava of my veins. I clawed at his back, yanking the material from beneath the rucksack and up to my mouth. I licked at the spots, which were already darkening to a less-appetizing brown.

  “Barrett,” I whispered hoarsely.

  He grunted in reply.

  “Barrett, you need to get me out of here.” My voice devolved into a growl toward the end as my fingers gripped his shirt. “I can’t control it. I can’t control it.” Barrett had kept me grounded before. I needed him now more than ever. I was eyeing his bag now…there was more blood on it than the shirt. And I could feel him. I could feel the blood rushing through his veins. It was like each blue-green line got darker the longer I stared. Pulsing like a strobe light.

  Barrett pulled me down from his shoulder to cradle against his body. It was a good thing he did, because my eyes had found the pulse of life in his neck. If I could only angle toward it…only clasp my teeth around the pumping, life-giving veins.

  He must have seen the wildness in my eyes, because suddenly he took a sharp right and we were thrust into warm, humid darkness. One of the sleeping tents, several cots dotting the floor, discarded belongings like corpses that would never smell, but still filled the world with a poisonous odor of memory. Memory that there was a time when frivolous things filled our lives—frivolous things like the tablet on the ground with the fractured glass screen or the satin top that was once a delicate pink but was now dust-coated and torn.

  Barrett put me down, but it didn’t feel real—the way my feet connected with the dirt. The world felt unstable, tilting. And everything was still so hot…so very hot.

  “Barrett,” I groaned out. “I can’t be this way. I won’t be this way.” I staggered away from him, though what I most wanted to do was cleave to his body and relish in the way my teeth could sink into the tender skin of his neck.

  “You can do this, Sam. Just take a deep breath.”

  “No!” I screamed. “That only makes it worse! I smell everything. I smell the people that were in here. I smell...Christ, I smell a teen girl on her fucking period. I smell a mother and child’s tears, their scents mingling because the mom was holding her child so close as they both cried. I smell death in the air. I smell life spilling like overflowing rivers to the ground. I smell everything, Barrett. I smell you. You’re like…” I walked a step forward, then forced myself to stop. “You smell like tobacco and whiskey. Like the outdoors, but also Vegas craps tables.” I took a deep breath, hoping I was wrong, hoping it would help. It didn’t. I sputtered, nearly choking as saliva filled my mouth. “And you smell like blood, Barrett. Not just your own. You smell like…other people’s blood.”

  And there it was.

  The horror and realization of what was happening to me.

  I could deny it all I wanted. Rose and Nolan could tell me that I would be okay, but the bleak reality was that I was becoming something else entirely. Something that would be dangerous to other people. If I had to end up stranded with someone out of our group…maybe Barrett was the best choice. He would kill me if necessary. He wouldn’t hesitate.

  Barrett’s normal bravado had faded here, here in this tent where I could smell every single living thing that had ever entered. Even his Texas slur was lesser, just an undertone of current beneath a whispering sea of uncertainty. If you’d told me that there’d come a time when Barrett would look at me like I was something to be afraid of, I’d have said you were full of shit.

  But there he was, his tall, thick-built frame tensed. His deeply tanned skin had gone a shade paler—even in the heavy shadows around us, I could see that. Turning, I saw him appraise the tent. “This place isn’t sturdy enough,” he said quietly, as if I hadn’t just declared my worst fear to him. “We’re gonna need somewhere stronger to keep you in check. At least until we can get the fuck outta dodge.” He dug the toe of his cowboy boot into the dirt floor. He pulled his long, braided hair over his shoulder and I wondered if it was a nervous habit. “Stay here,” he murmured, pushing past me and back out into the chaos. Just the quick opening of the tent flap sent a rush of heady wind into the space around me and I reeled from the polluted air. There was so much blood out there.

  So much blood.

  So many people dying.

  I fell to my knees, the backpack I wore shifting side to side jerkily. I gripped my hair hard, fingers digging into my scalp. This wasn’t like noise—noise you could slam your hands against your ears and muffle everything. You could save yourself the din and disturbing sounds.

  But smells?

  Smells were harder.

  Even if pressed my fingers to my mouth and kept my lips pursed as tightly as possible, I could still taste the scent of coppery blood and it was so good.

  I rocked back and forth, wishing the carnage outside would stop. If only wishes did come true.

  I’d be alive again…not this changing, monstrous thing whose mind was out of control. I wanted Rose. I wanted my father. I wanted the week before any of this happened—when my biggest issue was a defunct fiancé and a horrible, horrible honeymoon. Those problems had seemed like the end of the fucking world. And now? Now I’d give anything to be worrying about re-selling a wedding dress and canceling caterers.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Barrett’s gruff voice greeted me and his large, weathered hands gripped my upper arms. He pulled me to a standing position while I continued to tug at my hair and wish for silence, clear air, and better days with normal fucking problems. “Come on. I know where we’re going.”

  “I can’t go back out there, Barrett. I won’t, we’ll die!” I sobbed out the words, my gut clenching at the idea of being back in the thick of blood and terror.

  “You don’t have to be afraid, Sam. If anything? Everyone else needs to be.” Barrett shook me a little until I let down my hair and looked up into his dark gaze. His words were harsh and blunt, but he was right: I was the one to be feared here. He softened in those seconds, as we studied one another. But then the steel was back, his already deeply hued eyes welcoming shadows. “So pull yourself together. Show me the feisty fuckin’ woman who fought the dead like a goddamned samurai. Show me that survivor.”
>
  The world blurred as tears filled my eyes and began to race down my face.

  “Show me you hear me and understand.” Barrett shook me again, and his words held a dark edge.

  Rage rather than fear rushed into my stomach—I was grateful for it. “Stop.” I pushed him. “Shaking me!” I staggered, trying to gain my footing. I needed solid ground more than I ever had; it felt like a sacred thing nowadays. When I danced, I took the floor for granted—the way it would sink away when I leaped into the air and the way it would rise back up to meet me when I floated back down once more.

  “There we go,” he said, cocking a sideways smile. “There’s the beast beneath the beauty.” He brushed a finger down my cheek.

  “You’re not sexy at all to me right now,” I bit back, like it was some world-stopping comeback.

  He leaned forward, dipping down so that our eyes were nearly level with one another. “I find that unlikely.” His joking twang matched the way his stupid face smirked. “Now, are you ready? I found a safe place to wait this shit out. We need to get there fast, which means you have to be in control. Can you do that?”

  “Can I go out there”—I pointed at the tent flap—“smell all of that damn blood, and stay in control of myself? I don’t fucking know, Barrett.”

  “We don’t have time to wait for a better answer,” he growled, grabbing my hand and yanking me out of the tent into the late-afternoon sunlight. I flinched against the brightness. But that was nothing, nothing, compared to the smells and the screams and the total carnage that surrounded us.

  As Barrett pulled me through the crowded chaos, I kept a hand over my nose and wished desperately for the antiseptic smell of the cloth Rose had fixed over my face when I was zomming out. If we could find sanitizer again, that would help. There was no time for that now, though...

  I finally focused—not with my sense of smell, but with my sight—on everything that was happening.