Red Eye | Season 3 | Episode 3

by Riley, Claire C.

  “Rose, I’d do anything to save you. Please believe that.” I dragged her a few feet toward the front of the truck and sat her down.

  Nolan appeared seconds later, taking her from me and shaking her. “You get a grip right now, Rose. I’m not losing you, dammit. Do you hear me!”

  “We’re all going to fucking die.” Elias’s voice shook as he joined us, and all of our eyes turned to stare at the mass of men converging on us.

  “Don’t give up yet, you bunch of suburban housewives.” Barrett fired so close to us that my ears rang.

  But I didn’t see how we had a chance. Not anymore.

  It was over.

  We were dead.

  A concussive explosion rocked the earth.

  The ground shook.

  And, like someone had hit pause on the entire world, everyone stopped pursuing us to look at the giant mushroom cloud of fire.

  “Distraction,” Elias breathed out, face pale.

  “A little goddamn late, don’t you think?” Barrett barked.

  “Timing is everything,” Elias said, his voice shaking.

  Chapter Six.

  Rose

  My head hurt, the sounds around me ringing in and out. Quieter and louder and then quieter again. I’d banged my head on the side of the door when the truck had gone into the building, and I could feel the pain of whiplash and maybe even a light concussion running through my body. It made my entire body feel too weightless, too hollow. And what I needed to be was heavy, firm to the ground, and mentally present. Otherwise, how could I survive this?

  I groaned and grabbed my head, knowing I needed to pull myself together and get moving. Sam was still talking to me, but I was having trouble focusing on anything but the booming in my ears as the world shook around us. I felt the thunder of an explosion running through the ground and my hands automatically gripped on to Sam, wondering what had happened.

  The gunshots stopped momentarily and I listened to Barrett and Nolan going at it as Elias opened his backpack and pulled out some weapons.

  “We need to go,” I said, my voice sounding pathetically weak. I felt sick, nausea dancing through my insides. No one paid any attention to me so I said it louder, dragging myself to my feet. “We need to go!”

  Barrett stopped and looked at me. “I agree—all talk and no action makes Barrett a dull boy.” He smirked, grabbing my axe from the truck and handing it to me.

  I didn’t thank him. I just took the offering and nodded as I tried to get my brain to focus again.

  “Rose, are you okay?” Sam asked, her hands hovering like she wanted to help in some way. It was too late for that. I didn’t want her help anymore.

  “We need to go,” I replied, and pushed away from the truck to move closer to Nolan.

  Nolan, who I could trust.

  The only person I could trust.

  Elias was crouched down behind the crashed truck but now he started moving away from it, back towards the parking lot. We all followed suit, like a singular wavelength was passing through our brains. And that wavelength screamed “safety.”

  Past the building. The water tower in the distance. I prayed to God the sniper was no longer in his perch.

  We moved around the derelict building this time, not through it. Elias was beelining towards another vehicle. It looked like more of a tight squeeze, but comfort wasn’t exactly a priority right now. We continued to follow him, the sounds of angry voices and screaming coming back from the waterpark. I winced, wondering if some of those screams were coming from the women Nathan housed. Or were there more people like those I’d tried to save yesterday: trapped in cages before they were forced to fight for their lives for the amusement of men like Nathan and Charlie. They were innocent people being hurt by God knows what in there…monsters, men, or the huge fire I could see burning from inside the waterpark.

  Elias climbed into the driver’s seat, Barrett into the front passenger, and the rest of us piled into the back. This time I buckled up, not wanting to dislodge my brain any more than it already had been, and I said a silent prayer that we wouldn’t crash again as we pulled away in a screech of tire smoke. The unmistakable pop pop pop of gunfire chased after us and we all ducked down in our seats to avoid being hit by any stray bullets.

  It didn’t matter though. Elias drove us out of the car park faster than a lit rocket heading to space and we all breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled onto a long stretch of road with burnt-out vehicles on either side.

  “Don’t stop praying yet,” Barrett said, turning to look at me in his seat. “We’re only out of the damn parking lot. Long way to go before we reach any sort of safety.”

  “You mean car park,” I corrected, looking away from him.

  “Not in this country, Miss UK,” Barrett chuckled as I rolled my eyes at him, scowling like I’d eaten something bad. “Always with the smart-ass attitude, huh, Rose. That’s why I like you so much,” he continued like we weren’t in a life-or-death situation.

  God, how I hated him.

  I hated him more than anything in the whole wide world in that moment. More than the zombies, more than Nathan, more than anything.

  I hated him for acting like nothing had happened between us. Like he hadn’t almost gotten me and Nolan killed. Like he hadn’t turned my only friend against me. Like he wasn’t the most selfish, awful man on the planet.

  And then I lost it.

  I saw red much the way I supposed Sam saw red when…when whatever happened to her when the zombie thing took over.

  I threw myself forwards, only to be jerked painfully back as my seatbelt locked, and I cried out as pain lanced through my shoulder. Barrett chuckled again and told me to calm down, but I was so angry. Furious at everything he’d tried to do. The way he’d come between Sam and me. He’d ruined everything!

  I unclipped my belt and threw myself forwards again. This time, with nothing restraining me, my hands began slapping at the side of his head. He swore and tried to push me away, but I was too quick as I hit him over and over and no one, not a single person, tried to stop me.

  “I hate you! I hate you so much!” I screamed at him, furious rage burning through me like I was on fire. “We almost died because of you!”

  “We still might! Now sit the hell back down!” he roared back.

  “Don’t speak to her like that,” Nolan barked, leaning forwards to point a finger in Barrett’s face.

  “I will rip that fucking finger off if you point it at me again,” Barrett gritted out, his humor finally falling away. “I’ll rip it off, shove it up your ass, and set it on fire so I can light a cigar off of it, now move it away from me.”

  I picked up my axe from the footwell, more than ready to swing it at Barrett and kill him if I had to. I was done with him threatening the people that I cared about. Done with him ruining everything. I was just done with him, this world, and everything in it.

  “Woah…” Elias swerved the truck as he looked back at me, seeing my deadly intent as I raised the axe.

  “Rose!” Nolan yelled, and made a grab for the axe in my hand. Sam cried out as I struggled against Nolan, thoroughly intent on killing Barrett. “Rose, calm down!” he yelled again.

  “Did you hear him? Did you hear him threaten you again! I won’t have it anymore, I just won’t,” I yelled. “He needs to die.”

  “Well listen here. The innocent Rose finally found her fight,” Barrett taunted, his mouth pulled back in a sneer.

  I screamed in temper, still gripping on to the axe for dear life.

  “Fuck him, Rose,” Nolan yelled. “We don’t need him. We can do this on our own, okay? I’ve got you, and you’ve got me, fuck him.”

  My chin trembled and my heart thumped loudly in my chest, but I finally nodded as I released the axe to Nolan, sagging against him with a fitful sob.

  Barrett was still chuckling, but I could hear the difference in his laughter now. He was laughing at me, but he was scared and using it to mask his fear.

  “Y
ou know what, just drop Sam and me off at the next town over and we’ll make it on our own too,” he gritted.

  I leaned forward and slapped repeatedly at his head again, and he turned around and glared at me.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Rose!” Barrett roared, the booming of his voice awakening a thunderstorm in my ears. “You ever threaten me again and I will…”

  “You’ll what, Barrett?” Sam growled, her voice sounding…inhuman.

  His eyes widened momentarily before his expression hardened, and I moved away from her quickly, scared to hell and back that she was about to try to bite me. Her eyes were bright red, the veins in her neck twitching, but she was sat back in her seat looking completely calm and composed.

  “What will you do?” she said, accentuating each word, her eyes focused on the man in the front seat.

  Barrett’s nostrils flared as he stared at her, bitterness creeping into his expression. “So that’s how it is, huh, Sam?”

  Nolan’s arm tucked around me, pulling me even closer to his body. “You and me, Rose,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ve got you.”

  I nodded, deathly afraid of Sam right then. I didn’t know her anymore. The bond we had shared had shattered with Barrett’s news that she was staying with him. That she knew Nolan and I had been here and hadn’t helped us.

  I didn’t know her and I didn’t trust her anymore.

  “We have bigger people to fight than…” Elias looked over at Barrett and then into the rearview mirror at Sam, the truck swerving again as he caught sight of Sam’s red eyes. “What the fuck is she?” he yelled, pulling out his gun and trying to aim it back at her while still driving.

  “No!” I cried out, shoving out from under Nolan’s grip. “Don’t you hurt her!”

  Barrett snatched Elias’s gun away while he was distracted with me yelling at him, and then he aimed the gun at Elias “No one is killing anyone, unless it’s me killing one of you. Ya hear me?” he yelled, looking at each of us.

  The atmosphere darkened, the temperature dropping as we all sat back in our chairs. I guess none of us trusted Barrett not to actually follow through on the threat.

  Nolan’s arm snaked around my waist again and I looked up at his bruised and battered face. Even now, he was like my rock. He glanced down at me, his expression hard, but his grip tightened on me.

  My head was throbbing from where I’d banged it, my heart even more so. I looked over at Sam. Her eyes had started to turn to pink, the red fading from them, but the feral look was still there. I sighed heavily, worry and anger still running through me as my gaze slipped to her arm, where I noticed blood soaking her clothes.

  “Oh my god, what happened?” I asked.

  Everyone’s gaze went to Sam again. Even Sam looked down at her arm. “I was shot,” she said simply, her voice lacking any emotion to it. She swallowed, and I watched her nostrils flare a little as she sniffed the air like she was an animal searching for food.

  “Jesus, Sam, get a damn grip. You can’t eat yourself!” Barrett snapped, looking like he was just about done with her shit.

  Sam pouted and then seemed to pull herself together. “Sorry,” she replied sullenly, sitting back in her seat.

  I heard the sound of tearing and then Barrett leaned back holding out a thin strip of material. “Tie that around her arm, UK, just above the bullet wound.”

  I snatched it from him with as much aggression as I could muster and a look that should have sent a stabbing pain through to his heart, but instead he smirked.

  “Bite me,” he growled, and turned back around.

  I shifted over to Sam. “Lift your arm,” I ordered. I was mad at her, and right then couldn’t imagine us being friends again, but I didn’t want her to die. That much I knew. Sam lifted her arm and I wrapped the material around her arm, trying not to be queasy about the blood that was everywhere. “This might hurt,” I warned, looking in her eyes and seeing that they were practically back to normal. I pulled both sides of the material, squeezing it as tight around the muscle as I could. Blood oozed from the hole before slowing to a drip that looked like it might stop soon. Sam didn’t even wince, though her gaze stayed on me.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, looking so sad that I had the urge to wrap my arms around her and tell her how much I had missed her, how much I loved her, and how much I was glad that we were back together again. But then I remembered all the things that Barrett had told me and I shook my head and looked away.

  “We’ve got company,” Elias said darkly from the driver’s seat.

  We all swung around to look at the road behind us, seeing several vehicles heading in our direction.

  “Put your foot down,” Barrett growled to Elias. “You need to get us to the city so we can lose them, or we’re dead.”

  “That’s fucking still an hour and like fifty away, Barrett.” Nolan spoke up, leaning forward but still holding on to me tightly.

  A spray of bullets hit the cracked tarmac behind us in confirmation.

  “You got a better goddamn idea?!” Barrett shot back as Elias lurched us forward even faster.

  Chapter Seven.

  Sam

  We all cringed lower against the torn seats, avoiding the dance of bullets that ricocheted off the vehicle and cracked against the dark, heated pavement. Fireworks, but instead of pretty colors, they were quick-dying sparks failing to catch their prizes. Flesh. Blood. Death.

  We’d been in the game of cat and mouse for nearly an hour. We’d pull out of range, take a corner, breathe easier. And then seconds later, the Sins would be behind us again. They just would not give up.

  Thank god we’d ended up in this truck. Elias said the tank was nearly full, and the largest capacity of any on the market. We could easily make Vegas without running out of gas.

  Small blessings.

  Though gunfire was damaging its exterior, fast and furiously, and gas wouldn’t matter if the vehicle was riddled with holes around us.

  “Drive faster, ya bastard!” Barrett barked at Elias, who was visibly shaking in the driver’s seat. In retrospect, I didn’t understand how he ended up the one behind the wheel. He didn’t seem calm enough right now to give chase from the big baddies in the Mad Max style convoy behind us.

  “I’m going as fucking fast as I can, Barrett,” Elias yelled back, showing some backbone.

  With wild eyes, as a fresh wave of gunfire busted out the back window of the cab, I looked to Rose’s face. She was cowered against Nolan, whose arms were wrapped protectively around her. The axe handle was gripped firmly in her hands, the blade down against the floorboards. A useless weapon against what was happening, but like her own security blanket.

  I didn’t understand the distance between me and Rose. Even when she reached out to protect me, there was still so much…hesitation. Like she didn’t know how to be around me anymore. And there was a scent of fear coming off her. I could taste it. Not like before. Not a mild worry and panic over what I was becoming.

  Real fear…of me.

  And that hurt me more than anything else. More than Barrett’s betrayal. More than seeing her in that fighting ring. The emotional pain of her being scared of me was worse than any physical wound. Like I was walking around with a gaping hole in my chest, and air was just rushing through it, from one side to the other, carrying with it tiny bits of the humanity I was still clinging to despite the monster flowing through my veins.

  And it wasn’t like her to lose control like she had, though I had to admit that watching her beat Barrett brought me sparks of real joy to fill the emptiness. Something I hadn’t felt in… God, since the beginning of all of this bloody, dark mess. At least, I hadn’t felt any real joy untethered from the bloody happy desires of my own personal beastie. The aftereffects were still in my stomach, like little carbonation bubbles from chugging a gallon of ginger ale.

  But joy didn’t last at the end of the world, even the joy of violence.

  “It’s okay, Rose. I got you.” Nolan squeezed Rose�
��s shaking body as they hunkered down together. They’d gotten closer in my absence, and even if I could figure out why she was pulling away from me and repair the damage, I wondered if there’d be a place for me now. Or if their bodies were too tightly knit to allow someone else entrance.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  For a brief moment, I’d had the thought that Barrett and I could be something—something real to each other. A passing fancy that had been demolished by his actions. Irreparably.

  Helping us escape wasn’t enough to change things. He’d done it to save his own skin too.

  I wanted him gone. The sooner, the better.

  Even so, I found myself hoping that Barrett could save us when a new barrage of bullets bit into the truck’s outer metal.

  Elias took a turn too fast, and it felt like the truck was tipping. I rose in the seat, sliding over to push into Rose. I tried to scramble away, knowing she didn’t want to be near me.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” I gripped the door’s armrest and pulled myself away from her, holding on until the truck righted itself to careen down the new road.

  “It’s fine,” Rose muttered, but she wouldn’t look at me.

  The bullets might as well have forced their way into the truck. They might as well have stung into my flesh. I had already been shot once. What was a few more times?

  That would be easier to handle than her rejection of me.

  I touched the thin bandage absentmindedly; it hadn’t done much good. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, soaking through and painting most of the bandage red. It didn’t hurt, not even a little bit. Just another sign that I wasn’t really a person anymore.

  “There, head that way.” Barrett was shoving a thick, long finger at the windshield.

  “Are you sure?” Elias questioned, hesitating at the wheel.

  “I know these streets better than you, son.”

  “Don’t call me son.”

  “Then just fucking turn, you goddamn waste of space, before you get us all killed!” Barrett didn’t wait for Elias to get with the program, instead reaching across the console and grabbing the wheel, yanking it in the right direction in a jerk that made all of us gasp.