RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season Three: Episode Four
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
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 locales is entirely coincidental.
About the episode
** The group is divided, and sides have been chosen. For one person, it’s too little too late. On their way to Las Vegas to Barrett’s secret hideout, the group takes refuge in RV World, but the place isn’t as deserted as it first seems. **
About the Series:
A new location brings more terror as Rose and Sam find themselves at the mercy of Barrett’s crew, the Sins.
Now separated from both Sam and Nolan, Rose is a caged animal, terrified but determined to find the people she cares about the most. But how much can one person take?
More than ever, Rose would give anything to be sat in a boring office back in England right now.
Sam’s secret is never safe; that’s a reality she’s learning to live with. Barrett has protected her up until now, yet surrounded by his so-called family, she wonders how long it will be before he turns on her…
Sam longs for the days when her biggest problems were a failed relationship, too many carbs, and a sprained ankle.
Life has never been easy, not before the zombies and certainly not after. But even with the dead rising, it is the living that are causing the most problems. It’s the humans that elicit the most fear, that make the apocalypse bloodier, and that kill anyone necessary to survive.
Between humans, zombies, and the desire for brains,
the world’s getting darker by the hour.
And the two unlikely friends
need one another more than ever.
That doomed red-eye flight seems a lifetime ago…
*
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 Complete Seasons One & Two (eight episodes) – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode One – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Two – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Three – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Four – OUT NOW
RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season Three: Episode Four
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
&
Victoria Cage Author
Eli Constant
Prologue
They weren’t so hard to kill once you stopped thinking of them as human.
Which wasn’t hard given the state they were in: ratty clothes hanging from their bony bodies. Thin, dirty faces, matted hair, hungry, empty eyes staring into the distance like they were wishing it was over already.
Well, I could help with that, no problem.
I patted Liam on the shoulder and pointed in the direction I wanted him to go. We were going to circle around them and make sure that there were no strays. I had a mean scar down my back from when I hadn’t cleared the area properly and got attacked from behind. Almost died that day, and I hadn’t come this far to die like that. Hell no.
Liam nodded and we separated, him going to the left and me taking the right.
Not sure how this had all started, but I was too far gone to try to stop it now. My soul was as rotted as the monsters that walked the earth and I was going along for the ride now, because what else was there left to do? Ain’t no bars, no casinos, no strip clubs, no family, no friends. Just this…death and decay.
Besides, it was either this or dying, and I wasn’t ready to die just yet, no matter how little I had left. There was a survival instinct in me that just wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard I’d begged it to.
I pressed my back against the side of the abandoned truck, the open door of the driver’s side giving me perfect cover. I watched as Liam slid between the shadows of the vehicles on the opposite side, his knife flashing in that darkness.
Knives, not guns.
Guns attracted too much attention.
Guns drew the monsters.
Guns gave away our location.
Guns ruined the meat…I’d learned that the hard way.
The crackle and glow of the campfire that the family was sitting around danced in between them all, and for a long moment I just watched them, thinking of a different time. A time when I’d gone camping with my own family. I’d been teaching my son how to hunt coyote when we’d been attacked by a pack of them. Never seen anything like it, but something had been in the air that day that had changed their mindset from prey to hunter. It didn’t matter: no coyote was stronger than a bullet, and I’d blown them all to hell—even the little ones, because they would have died out there on their own anyway.
Our freezer had been full for a month after that, and we’d eaten like kings.
Those were happier times.
Now I watched and waited. This family looked sad, lost, hungry.
Hungry. I knew that feeling all too well.
Watched those I loved dearest starve to death, and those that didn’t starve got caught by the monsters because they were too weak to fight or run.
Yeah, hunger…that was the real killer in all of this, and it was the thing I refused to let take me down. No matter the monster it made me.
I rolled my shoulders and pulled out my hunting knife, taking one long look at the tired mom staring into the orange and yellow flames as they lick at the wood she’d collected. Her two kids—a boy and a girl—pressed into either side of her.
I was doing them all a favor.
At least that’s what I told myself.
Stepping from the shadows, I watched Liam do the same. At first no one noticed us, but the little girl looked up as Liam stepped on a twig, making it snap. She tugged on her momma’s sleeve and pointed toward Liam, and while they were distracted with him, I stepped closer to them, putting my blade against the mom’s throat and slitting it wide open.
Her blood gurgled from her throat and her hands went up to try to stem the flow of it, but it was too late for that. There was no time to scream as the kids startled and I reached for the girl, snapping her neck in one quick movement, and Liam did the same to the boy.
Later, I smiled, staring down at the bodies as we wrapped them in tarp, ready to haul them all back to camp. We’d been lucky today. There weren’t a lot of living that came by these parts anymore. Most people moved away from the big cities because they seemed to attract the dead.
Yeah, we’d been real lucky today.
These people would keep us alive for a little longer…if you could really call this living.
Chapter One.
Rose
I followed Barrett, glaring at his turned back and wonderin
g what my odds were that I could stick my knife in him before he could stop me. Sure, we technically needed him right now—no one but him knew his secret hideout—but we could find somewhere else. The world was our oyster now, so to speak. We could go anywhere, hide anywhere, do anything. I cast my gaze downwards, thinking about that for a moment.
Now that I’d come to the conclusion that the US Army didn’t have a handle on this…whatever it was, it was easier to not think about my parents at all. I didn’t have to think about them missing me, or worrying about me, or trying to survive themselves. I couldn’t do anything to get to them and they couldn’t do anything to get to me, and I’d drive myself crazy with the stress of that very fact if I didn’t stop thinking about it altogether.
The world would get its shit together at some point, and when it did, then I would go home. For now, this was my home…wherever I may roam, as my favorite band once sang.
I glanced back up at Barrett’s back again and I wondered what Sam would do if I came back with blood on my hands, having killed Barrett. Would she attack me? Release her red-eyed beast and eat me, turning me into one of the undead? Or would she, for the sake of our lost friendship, allow me to get away with it?
“Don’t even think about it, UK,” Barrett grumbled, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder and winking at me like he’d just read my mind. “Trust me when I say this: I’m quicker than I look, and I’ll happily snap you like a fuckin’ twig if you try anything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, as blasé as I could, and he chuckled darkly to show me he knew I was lying.
“Yeah, and I’m Johnny Cash’s younger brother.” He shook his head and carried on walking.
Whatever.
It didn’t matter.
His time was coming, and I would be there for it.
There was nothing and no one that could keep me away.
He held up a hand, stopping me in my tracks, and I held the small handgun Nolan had given me in one hand and a knife in the other. I couldn’t use both at the same time, of course. I wasn’t exactly trained, but I did love Sarah Connor and my dream was to be like her by the end of all of this.
Badass.
Fierce.
Strong.
And slightly unhinged too.
But either way, at least I’d still be alive.
Because just like Sarah Connor, I was going to survive this. I had to.
We waited a beat in silence until Barrett was satisfied that whatever he’d heard had gone. I hated that I trusted him when it came to stuff like this. I hated that he was so good at it. I guess a lifetime on the run had sharpened his skills. And they say crime doesn’t pay… It was certainly paying now.
Because the good, normal people—those people who’d been living happy, easy lives before all of this happened—they were the ones who didn’t have the skills to survive. It was a fact at the end of the world that bastards like Barrett were indestructible roaches.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, his voice deep and husky, and we started to move again.
We traveled the perimeter of the RV yard, finding no one and nothing, thankfully. No zombies, no people, just piles of old clothes, rusted empty cans of food, and a pile of ash and bones which looked like animal bones that had been picked clean.
Someone had definitely been living here, and I wondered how they were getting in and out since the gates had been locked.
“Hey,” I whispered, drawing Barrett’s attention to me.
He was currently using the butt of his rifle to move the pile of ash and bones around, his forehead creased in thought, but he stopped and glanced over at me.
“What?”
“Someone’s clearly been in here, right? Like, they’re either in here somewhere with us now or maybe they’re out for the day, or”—I shrugged—“maybe they went out hunting and something got them.” I nodded towards the pile of bones. “And by something I mean one of the undead.” I made a zombie face to get my point across further.
“What’s your point?” he said, straightening up and coming closer to me.
I wanted to back away from him as he came closer, his serious expression making me uncomfortable. The stupid man was always trying to seem like the dominant force in any group, and that was the only reason I refused to step back. I was not going to be a pushover. Not anymore.
After everything that had happened with his sick little friends, the Sins, I was done letting any man tell me what to do again. And there was no way he’d be able to put one hand on me before I put a bullet in his head.
Maybe some of my anger and resentment towards him was misplaced because of what had happened with Nathan, but I still had the right to hate Barrett and everything he stood for regardless.
An image of Nathan popped into my mind.
His gleeful smile and deviant gaze.
The rusty cage that he’d kept me in.
The cold, hard floor against my knees.
I swallowed, trying to bring myself back from that place and be fully present. I looked back up at Barrett, who must have noticed the weird expression on my face because he was frowning even harder. Thankfully he chose not to ask me what I’d been thinking about.
“They must have worked here,” I whispered. “Otherwise this place wouldn’t still be locked up, right?”
He raised an eyebrow at that, taking a quick glance around us as if to confirm that yes, it was completely fenced in and there was no other way anyone could have gotten in.
“Makes sense. The store is teeming with those dead fuckers,” he drolled.
“I wonder if he, or she, or they locked those people in there when it all started,” I said anxiously. “With no way out, they would have turned on one another pretty quickly and…” I didn’t need to say the rest. We both knew what happened when you got locked in with a zombie, and it wasn’t anything pleasant.
Barrett shrugged. “Dead or alive, what’s the big deal? Maybe those people in there were a liability to survival. Either way, we have to do what we have to do.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and gave a slow shake of my head. “You really don’t care about anyone but yourself, do you?”
Barrett’s serious expression fell away and his face split into a huge grin, his mask firmly back in place. Because that was what it was, I’d decided—a mask.
“Not. A. Damn,” he said, accentuating each word, his grin still in place. “Well, I mean, I care about Sam, obviously.”
“And if it was you or her?”
“Ain’t going to happen.”
“But if it did. If it came to a choice between her survival or yours…what would it be?” I cocked my head, already knowing his answer. Barrett had shown his true colors many times since I’d met him, and he’d never shocked me—at least not in a good way. I shook my head at him again and smirked. “Never mind, I think we both know who would be walking away from that scenario, don’t we?”
I turned and started back the way we’d come, feeling justified in my assumption.
I couldn’t wait to get away from him.
We bumped into Elias as we walked round, checking as many of the RVs as possible. Some were locked, others weren’t. Some had clearly been lived in, others hadn’t. All of it just solidified my theory that someone had been living in this place, and they had the keys to get in and out.
“You find anything?” Barrett asked Elias as we stopped and waited for Sam and Nolan to come back.
Elias shook his head. “Found a decent RV we could take.”
Barrett opened his arms wide and spun in a circle. “Because that’s what we were short of right now,” he said sarcastically.
Elias blinked slowly, practically yawning in Barrett’s face. “Never did like you.”
Barrett chuckled as he looked between Elias and me. “Looks like you got another groupie for the band, UK. One more and you lot could take this thing on the road. Maybe think about writing a couple of ballads about how much you hate me. Those
sorts of songs tend to do real good.”
“Ha, ha,” I said dryly, fanning myself with an RV flyer I’d found on the ground. The air was still and dry, and I really needed to get out of the sun soon or I was going to pass out. My British rain-acclimated body just wasn’t made for this weather. It was too hot. Too humid. Too moist… most of those words meant the same thing, but whatever. The weather was just too, and I found myself longing for the cold weather and pelting rain of England.
“So you found us an RV?” Barrett’s voice was thick with condemnation. “Any reason you’re so fond of this one particular RV in a yard full of them, or did this one give you the come-on signal, huh?” He chuckled at his own joke.
“You’re not funny you know,” I bit out, wishing that Nolan would come back soon because I was almost done with keeping the peace and not shooting Barrett in the head.
Barrett laughed some more. “Sure I am. If I wasn’t then you wouldn’t look like you were about to explode.”
I rolled my eyes and continued to fan myself.
“It’s got supplies in it,” Elias interrupted as I stepped forwards, ready to give Barrett a piece of my mind. “No food, but it’s got blankets and water, weapons, lots of shoes.”
“Shoes?” I said with a frown, deciding to ignore Barrett for the moment.
Elias nodded. “Yeah, like boxes and boxes of shoes.”
Barrett had stopped laughing and was staring at Elias with a hard expression. “You know what I’m thinking,” he said, and Elias nodded.
I looked between them, back and forth, waiting for someone to fill me in, but when no one did I huffed out my annoyance.
“Well could someone tell me? Because I don’t get it.”
Elias looked at me. “Back at Sins HQ we used to take the shoes from the dead.”
“Ewww,” I said.
“Or the living,” he added. “Basically, we stripped the living and the dead of everything they had of use, and shoes are always useful.”
Red Eye | Season 3 | Episode 4 Page 1