But for now, I’d live inside this feeling even when the world was at its ugliest.
Barrett drove in and out of me rhythmically and I pushed my body upward to meet his every thrust, riding the wave.
Not caring about anything.
The dead couldn’t touch me. The living weren’t a threat. Here was all that mattered. Here, where two bodies and the heat between them was the only thing keeping me truly alive.
*
The room felt hot as hell, our bodies heaving next to one another. My leg was slung lazily over Barrett’s and I’d have given anything for a ceiling fan and a glass of ice water. My eyes fluttered and sleep was threatening. It was hard to stay awake with the room so warm and my body so physically spent.
Just as I was drifting off though, a loud string of knocks startled me alert. Barrett grunted, obviously irritated, but he pulled his leg from beneath mine and sat up.
“This is why I travel and do my own goddamn thing. Can’t get a moment’s peace around these fuckers.” He stood, glorious amber ass on full dimpled display, and pulled on his pants. Not bothering with his shirt or shoes, he walked to the front door. I quickly scrambled to yank on the tiny dress, my arms feeling heavy and tired, my body spent and desperate for sleep.
“What the hell do you two want?” Barrett’s words carried the short distance to where I was and I flinched, fumbling to put my clothes on even quicker.
“Charlie said to get over to the arena,” a familiar voice answered him. I felt cold. I knew that voice. Fresh goose bumps prickled on my arms.
“Why?”
“It’s Charlie, man. We don’t ask why.” A different person responded this time, voice younger and timid.
“Dammit.” Barrett groaned. “Just fucking wait here.” The door slammed closed and he appeared in our room again, face drawn in hard lines.
“Everything okay?” I stood up and found my boots, pushing my feet into them and tightening the laces. Wetness dripped down my inner thighs and I cringed, wishing for a pair of damn panties.
“You don’t need shoes. You’re not going.” He grabbed his shirt off the floor and pulled it on.
“I’m not staying here alone,” I said hurriedly, thinking about the familiar voice outside. I glanced toward the doorway.
Barrett followed my gaze, understanding flashing in his eyes. “Ah…Jackson. That fucker won’t touch you.” He saw the worry still on my face and huffed out his annoyance. “Sam,” he warned.
“I’m not staying here without you,” I said, my words as forceful as I could muster.
“Fine, come on then.”
When we stepped out into the evening air, I was relieved to find that the other two men had left already, despite Barrett telling them to wait. If Jackson started something with me, I wasn’t ready to find out if Barrett would choose me or him.
Sins don’t go against Sins. The words ran through my brain again, taunting me.
Chapter Three.
Rose
With shaking legs, I continued to move around the arena, my heartbeat drowning out the sounds of the crowd chanting and whistling. The stamping of feet throbbed through the entire stadium, reverberating back in on itself and making the air tremble.
My entire body was quivering with the desire to live; because I knew that Nathan’s threat was very real. But the desire to run to the caged humans and tell Nolan that I was sorry and beg for his forgiveness was overwhelming. Overwhelming because I was so, so sorry that he was in there and I was out here.
I was grateful and guilty and heartbroken, and it was all churning up inside of me, turning the food I had eaten earlier sour in my stomach and making me feel dizzy.
Guilty because his predicament was my fault.
Nolan had gotten us all here in some idealistic and pathetic attempt to find Sam, and now he would die for it—for my selfishness of wanting to cling on to Sam.
Heartbroken because I felt more than I should for Nolan; this man I barely knew. Something was happening between us. Something was growing. But now we’d never know what it could have been.
And grateful because I knew now that there was a small chance that all of this wouldn’t have been in vain; Sam was likely here, I just hadn’t found her yet, and if I could go back…I wouldn’t, because finding Sam was everything to me. And that fact just compounded the guilt until I thought I’d never get over it—not ever. I’d choke on Nolan’s death until I couldn’t breathe anymore.
“Well, well, well,” Elias, the man from earlier, said loudly. He stood in between the two cages, people on one side sobbing and whimpering, and monsters on the other side growling and snapping. “Looks like it’s the end of the road for these traitorous bastards, huh.”
His face remained expressionless and his voice impassive as he spoke. I wondered if he enjoyed his job or if he hated it. If the screams of man kept him awake at night as he thought about their deaths and if there was a heaven and hell, and if so, which he would be going to. Or if he drank a beer and delighted in the deaths of these people.
I couldn’t tell, and in some ways that made him more frightening than Nathan. With Nathan, I knew he didn’t care. I knew where I stood with him; I didn’t stand, I crawled. But with Elias, there was the worrying thought that maybe he could be an ally. That maybe, just maybe, I could convince him to help me at some point.
And that would probably get me killed.
The crowd of reprobates were cheering again, unforgivably relentless in their lust for death.
I glanced over to Nolan, seeing his beautiful, battered face. His eyes were badly swollen, one so much it was closed, and the other was bloodshot as it stared at me. His skin was purple and red, a mixture of dried blood and bruising that made him look disfigured. He gave a small shake of his head as my chin started to quiver, tears threatening to spill, and then he sank back into the center of the cage where I couldn’t see him so that I wouldn’t break. Because I was going to break, any second now. I was going to throw my life away just for a second’s chance at helping him. And then I’d never see Sam again, the person we’d risked our lives to find.
I gritted my teeth and lifted my chin, making a silent promise to survive this, if not for me, then for him. I wouldn’t let him die for nothing.
“So it’s man against monster. The dead against the living,” Elias continued. “One winner. One survivor. Don’t die and you’re free to go… Die and you’re stuck here with us forever.” Again, there was no expression, no smile, no glee visible on his face. There was nothing. Just emptiness.
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking, but I must have because he walked forwards, his hand wrapping around my elbow.
“Time to go,” he said quietly, calmly, tugging me out of the arena.
I glanced back over my shoulder to catch one last glance at Nolan, but I couldn’t see him anymore. I guessed that that was for the best.
A tall gate at the entrance to the arena I hadn’t noticed before was closed and locked behind us and then Elias slid over two stools.
“Sit,” he ordered.
I looked between him and the arena. The arena where everyone was about to die. And he expected me to sit there and calmly watch.
“Please don’t make me do this,” I said, my voice a whisper. “I can’t watch, I can’t…”
“Sit,” he ordered again, “or you’ll be in there with them.”
I shook my head, and the two men from earlier were behind me, so close that I could smell their sweat and feel the heat coming from their bodies.
“Not before we get a go,” one of them said with glee.
Elias glanced over at me. “Sit,” he said again, his tone matter-of-fact.
I swiftly moved to the small stool and sat down, glad to be away from those creeps. I could handle death, but I couldn’t handle being someone’s plaything. It was the only thing I had left—the last shred of dignity. This world had taken everything else from me. My body was the last thing I had, and I knew Nathan was going to ta
ke that soon enough, but at least I could make that work. At least there was still a chance of surviving him. But not this. Not these men. Not like this.
“Fuck off,” Elias barked at the men, and they retreated just as quickly as they’d appeared, like rats coming out of a hole.
My knees bounced up and down and I dug my nails into the palms of my hands as I watched two kids of about thirteen running over to the cages in the arena to open the doors. I whimpered, fear and anger humming through me. They were so young, scrawny, pale, and looking terrified. They should be safe, kids like that should be kept safe, but I was in the middle of a world that didn’t give a shit about innocence and youth. Everything was a form of currency…drugs, bodies, blood. Especially blood.
I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle my cries.
“Close your eyes if you need to,” Elias said quietly, and I looked over. He was staring straight into the arena, though, paying me no mind. “He’s watching you, so don’t get out of that stool though.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back, my voice shaking with grateful emotion that I at least wouldn’t have to watch. “Thank you.”
But when I tried to close my eyes, to not see what was going to happen, I couldn’t. It was like a car wreck. You don’t want to look, you don’t want to be one of those people so fascinated by the accident that you take your foot off the gas and slow down. But you do. You look, despite all of your misgivings, and you see the body on the pavement. You see the blood splatters. You see the fractured glass blinking up at the blue sky.
God, I wanted to close my eyes.
I willed my body to stay still as the locks for the cages were opened. The smallest kid tried to drag open the door of the cage with the living people inside, but they fought against him, pulling it back closed. The bigger kid had barely unlatched the other door when the zombies inside surged forwards, pushing the door wide and knocking the young boy to the ground. A zombie grabbed his arm and started pulling at him before he could run away. He tugged and tugged to get away from it, but it was too strong. Its fingers dug into his flesh, breaking the skin, and he let out a high-pitched scream as it leaned over and bit down on his arm, blood spurting up in a crimson arc between them. The boy screamed louder, still pulling to get away from them as the crowd cheered the zombies on. They wanted this kid dead. They wanted to see the blood and the death and the carnage. They wanted all of this—the end of the world and every evil thing it entailed. There was no humanity here. No love. No life. There was only evil. More zombies descended on the boy, dragging him to the ground until his cries died out.
I didn’t want to keep watching, but it all happened so quickly. I yelled something indistinguishable and started to stand, but Elias placed his large, rough hand on my knee, stilling me in my seat.
“Told you to close your eyes,” he spat out, sounding almost angry with me.
“I…” I whimpered, my vision blurred as tears washed down my face and I squeezed my eyes closed so I didn’t have to see it anymore. But it didn’t stop the smells or the sounds; if anything, it made it worse because everything was intensified, and I sobbed loudly before opening my eyes again. “But he’s just a boy,” I cried.
“And I’m just a man. And you’re just a woman. And they’re just monsters,” he drolled casually. “So what?”
A gunshot rang out, making me yelp and jump in my seat.
The bigger kid was no longer screaming.
The smaller kid was bleeding now, on his knees trying to crawl away from the cage as the zombies got up and headed towards him, now bored of their earlier prey. Another shot rang out and someone in the human cage called out in pain. That door was still held forcibly closed by the prey inside, but their line of defense was faltering.
“Get that goddamn cage open!” a brute voice barked, laced with anger that the sport wasn’t going as planned.
Another shot, and another shot, and blood stained the ground as it ran from the cage of people and tried to join the red trail of blood the young kid was leaving behind him as he desperately made his way to salvation.
It was carnage as the zombies left the inert bigger kid and moved to the caged humans and the injured crawling boy, each of them fighting for life as equally as they were fighting for death. The people inside still tried to keep the door shut, but whenever they tried to hold it closed a shot was fired at their hands so they had to let go. It wouldn’t stay closed without help. Each time they were made to release the steel and wire, the hinges whined and the door started swinging open.
“How can you sit here and do nothing!” I cried, the scent of blood heady in the air. “How can you do nothing.”
“I’m doing something,” Elias replied. “I’m doing my damn job.”
“Your job!” I gasped, attempting to stand up.
He pushed me back down in my seat. “My job. We all have a job, and we all have a part to play. We do it right and we live. We do it wrong, and…” He shrugged and nodded towards the cages.
People were screaming as the zombies finally got the door open and the human crowd surged out as the zombies tried to surge in. The two kids were both dead now, or dying. I wasn’t sure anymore. Their bodies were just a pile of gore. Blood was running across the ground in rivers, zombies were attacking people, and the crowd…the bloodthirsty crowd were cheering them on. Encouraging every death.
I saw Nolan move between people, his movements quick. A zombie reached for him but he ducked, somehow ending up behind it as he kicked its legs out from under it.
“Go for the heads,” I heard him call out, his deep voice loud above the cries of everyone. “Team up and go for the heads!”
I gasped and watched as the zombie fell to the ground and he stomped heavily on its head, crushing its soft skull almost too easily. Despite his injuries and how weak he must have been feeling, he was like a machine as he did the same again to another zombie. He moved quickly, diving between reaching hands and snapping teeth to shove the dead to the ground where he could crush their heads with his boots.
“Yes!” I called out, hope surging in me as I dove forwards, shrugging free of Elias’s grip, my hands gripping the bars tightly.
Two other people had dragged another zombie to the ground and were doing the same as Nolan. And a man was holding one up against the bars of the cage, ignoring the hands clawing at his body as he pounded its head over and over against the bars until blood oozed free.
Nolan dragged a fallen zombie to the cage door, dropping it in the doorway and then proceeding to slam the door on its head until it was nothing but mush left behind.
I cheered as zombie after zombie fell. I cried for the fallen people who died and joined the ranks of the undead. But Nolan was winning. It was Nolan, three other people, and only two zombies now. This was doable.
Nolan might live, I realized with agonizing relief.
He might live and we might get out of this.
Elias came to stand with me. “You ready?” he asked.
I glanced sideways, my adrenaline pumping through me. “Ready?” I frowned.
The two men from earlier came over with a cardboard sign, the words Round 2 written on it as the last of the zombies fell.
I should have felt happy. Nolan had won, he was alive, and so were those other people. I shook my head, my gaze skipping between the sign, Elias, and Nolan, before eventually falling on Nathan. Nathan, who was sat back in his chair casual as anything and smiling as he watched the chaos below.
“What is this?” I asked as the sign was thrust into my hands.
“We’ve all got a job to do,” he said.
The gate to the arena was opened and Elias tugged my elbow, pulling me in with him.
“Well, fuck me, what a match, right?” he said, his tone still neutral as he looked over the gluttonous crowd. “Rose, would you do the honors?”
I stared wide-eyed around me, my hands clasping the sign as my legs shook. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare arou
nd me at the death and decay, at the devastation and the feral crowd. And then my eyes fell on him—Nolan. He was bloody and broken, coated in death, and he only had eyes for me.
“Rose,” Elias prompted, “remember how I said there could only be one winner. One survivor. The dead are dead, so now it’s time for round two: the living against the dead.”
A sharp pain hit me in the stomach so hard I thought I’d been shot, but it was only realization that was hitting me.
“Nolan,” I cried, seeking him out. Our eyes connected, our souls entwined. “I can’t,” I sobbed.
God, when would this end? When would this hell be over?
“Yeah you can, Rose,” he called back to me. “You have to.”
Chapter Four.
Sam
Barrett walked lazily, even though the two men who’d sent word from Charlie acted like we should have been in a rush. I lagged a few feet behind, having to yank down the skirt of the dress every few feet. The elevated combat boots made me even taller. Someone was likely to see all my lady bits tonight.
“Shouldn’t we, umm.” I bit my lip, but there was no one else around right now. I didn’t have to shut my mouth and act pretty. “Barrett, it seemed like we should hurry. You’re acting like you’re on a Sunday stroll to smell the flowers.”
“Charlie’s bark is worse than his bite. Besides, I don’t hurry for no one.” He stopped in his tracks, turning around to look at me. I was in the middle of, once again, pulling down the too-short skirt. “Goddammit,” he growled, glancing at my legs, a mixture of hunger and anger in his gaze. Reaching down, he grabbed my wrist roughly and started pulling me angrily. “I should have kicked Stash’s ass for the stunt he pulled with the fucking clothes.”
I stumbled along, the skirt riding up again. I desperately tried to keep it down, but moving fast made it nearly impossible and the inner lining bunched up at my waist. Which meant I was just sheer material between my bare ass and the world’s eyes.
Red Eye | Season 3 | Episode 2 Page 3