RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season One: Episode Three
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
&
Victoria Cage Author
Eli Constant
RED EYE The Armageddon Series
Copyright ©2019 Claire C. Riley & Elizabeth Constantopoulos
Cover Design: Wilde Designs Elizabeth Constantopoulos
Editor: Amy Jackson
Formatting: Claire C. Riley
ALL RIGHT 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:
Ain’t no day like today for fading away.
* The stakes are high as the group realizes they might need to make
a mad dash for freedom. And one of their own is harboring dark secrets that
threaten to split the group. *
About the Series
When a red-eye flight from London to Los Angeles brings two strangers together, they have no idea that it’s the end of the bloody world!
Rose, a British runaway, is ready for the adventure of a lifetime. Her hopes are high, her funds are low, and nothing is going to rain on her parade.
Except maybe the apocalypse!
Sam is an American ballerina on her way home from a hellish vacation. She’s tired of culture, tired of traveling, and seriously tired of men. She can’t wait to get home.
That is until everyone turns into flesh-eating zombies!
Neither woman expects their exhausting overnight flight to devolve into bloody carnage of terror and mayhem.
But when you’re over 30,000 feet in the air
and there’s nowhere to run
and nowhere to hide…
what else can you do but team up with as many survivors as possible and try to stay alive?
***
Start this epic zombie apocalypse thriller written by USA Today Bestseller Claire C. Riley and Victoria Cage Author Eli Constant.
EPISODES SO FAR:
Red Eye Season 1: Episode 1- OUT NOW!
UK: http://bit.ly/2ouPKWLRedEYEUK
US: http://bit.ly/31ZIRKTRedEyeUS
Red Eye Season 1: Episode 2 – OUT NOW!
US: http://bit.ly/34EFbjyRedEye2US
UK: http://bit.ly/32rgl4SRedEye2UK
Red Eye Season 1: Episode 3 - OUT NOW
Red Eye Season 1: Episode 4 – COMING December 5th
RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season one: Episode three
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
&
Victoria Cage Author
Eli Constant
Prologue
God, she was bored.
The job had seemed like the best thing ever when she’d gone for the interview.
“See the world,” the advert had declared. The most Vicky ever got to see was other people’s suitcases as they ran to their terminals. She worked in one of the small airport stores that sold magazines, newspapers, on-board cushions and accessories, and other flight-related things. It was normally busy and there were always at least two people working. But today, for some reason, it was exceptionally quiet.
“Ma’am?”
Vicky looked up sharply, dislodging her hand from under her chin as she turned her attention to the couple in front of her. “Sorry, how can I help you?” she asked with fake gusto.
The old lady smiled, patting her husband’s arm absently. “I’m wondering if there’s somewhere I can get some antihistamines. Frank here isn’t feeling too great. I think it’s his hay fever playing up.”
Vicky smiled, her gaze moving from the lady to her husband, who looked like he needed more than hay fever tablets. His skin was pallid and sweaty, his eyes looking distant. “Umm, yeah, just down the center aisle on the right, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” the lady said, tugging gently on her husband’s arm. “Come on, Frank.”
They both turned and moved away, and Vicky gave a small shake of her head. Poor guy needed to get home to bed and sleep for a month, not take a flight to wherever they were going.
Vicky returned her attention to the window, staring into the main terminal beyond. She wished desperately that she were one of the lucky people going on vacation. Barbados, Hawaii, Japan, Croatia. They were all countries that she desperately wanted to see, but a year after taking this job and she was still no closer to reaching any of them.
She sighed and plucked out her cell phone from her back pocket. You weren’t really supposed to have your cell phone on while at work, but since her supervisor had called in sick that day, it wasn’t like there was anyone around to stop her.
She was mid-way through a game of Color Blocks when a small cry drew her attention. She looked up, and though she couldn’t see anything, she knew there was someone else in the small store with her.
“Hello?” she called, her brow furrowing. It dawned on her then, relief washing away the short period of fear, that the older couple hadn’t checked out yet. They were still in there, getting antihistamines and whatever else. She shouldn’t have played the game and gotten distracted.
Feeling better, she walked around the counter and threaded her way through the aisles one by one. Maybe the couple still needed help.
Each row was empty, but the center one had a splash of red across the floor. It looked too dark to be blood, but she was cautious as she approached regardless.
“Hello?” she called, this time quieter. “Anyone here?” She crept closer to the dark stain, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the smell. “Oh gross,” she mumbled.
The small creak of the door made her look up as another customer came in. God, she’d no doubt get in trouble if anyone saw that mess, even though she’d had nothing to do with it.
“I’ll be right there,” she called to the customer, heading to the back to grab the wet floor sign. The staff room door swung open easily and she grabbed the small yellow sign from the corner before hurrying back out and placing it over the splashes of…god, whatever the hell that was, and then she headed back to the counter.
“Sorry for that,” she said, happy to be away from the stench. “Looks like someone spilled something, and—”
She looked up at the customer.
Her fake smile dissolved.
Her gaze roamed over the bite mark in his left cheek, where pus and blood trickled down out of the gaping hole.
His eyes were red and fixed upon her.
“Sir?” she said, the single word a whisper on her trembling lips. “Are you okay?”
Chapter one.
Rose
My adrenalin had finally worn off, leaving behind an anxious, sickly feeling in the base of my stomach. It had finally dawned on me that this was really happening. This—this outbreak? End of days scenario? Or whatever the hell it was. It was real and not some horrible nightmare that I was going to wake up from anytime soon.
What was worse was that it had finally settled into my brain that I might never see my mum and dad again. My friends, my family, our pet dog—Bertie—and all the other things that had made up my life…it was all
gone. Because even if it wasn’t all gone, if this whatever-the-hell-it-was was only happening in LA, the likelihood that I would ever make it home alive was so small that it wasn’t even worth thinking about.
I was likely going to die today. Tomorrow. One day soon, for sure.
Despite all that, strangely, my fear of never seeing my family again far outweighed the fear that I might die, because I’d never be able to apologize to them.
I had wanted to take a year out to discover who I really was, and now that year might end up being forever.
The image of my mum’s face kept on creeping into my brain. Her walking into my room to find the note on my bedside cabinet and having to tell my dad that I’d gone. And then what? What had happened then?
The fucking world had ended, that was what!
Or at least that’s what it seemed like.
The thought made me feel sick.
Sick, and devastated, but not nearly as sick as the thought of how my parents must have been feeling at the moment, watching everything unfold on their TV and knowing that I was over here, living or dying in this nightmare. Hell, for all I knew, they could be on their way over here to try to rescue me. The thought would most definitely have crossed my mum’s mind. I was still her baby, no matter how old I was.
In between swigging the tequila, Nolan was fiddling with a television set in the corner. Unlike the other monitors, it wasn’t broadcasting images of the airport. We couldn’t get any reception on it—something had broken inside it, apparently—but he thought he could fix it. I sure hoped so, because we needed to know what was going on in the world.
The phone lines were dead, and so were all of our mobile phones (or cell phones, as Sam kept on trying to correct me).
We had no connection with the outside world.
No way of knowing what was going on.
How widespread this thing was.
Or if help was coming.
Nothing.
After locking ourselves in the room, that’s what had dawned on me the most… help may or may not have been coming. We had been pinning all our hopes on the army or someone intervening and coming to our rescue. That was what happened in all the movies, right? The American army came barreling through and rescued everyone. Or the bulked-up hunk in a white vest top went on a one-man crusade to save everyone…but now, as the adrenalin finally wore off and reality set in, I had to wonder if that were really true.
What if we were all that was left?
Those were just action movies, and for better or for worse, this was real life. The bleak reality of the situation was that everyone was just going to try and save themselves—army and bulked-up hunk included.
“Hey.” Leon tapped my shoulder with the bottle of rum, and I looked up at him. “You look like you could use some company.” He pulled up a chair next to me.
I felt empty, numb with worry, sick with the agony of not knowing.
“We’re going to be all right, Rose,” he said softly.
I placed the bottle on the desk in front of me and stared at the monitor, watching the man in the cell sleeping soundly. Sleep? How could anyone bloody sleep right now? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a myriad of terrifying images: Jamie being eaten alive. Sam turning into one of those flesh-eating zombies. Alexa screaming at me to help her as zombies surrounded her, dragging her to the ground and eating her alive, leaving only a pile of chicken bones in their wake.
I shuddered and rubbed at my tired eyes.
“Are we though?” I finally replied, without looking at Leon. “How can you be so sure?”
He was silent a moment—long enough to make me turn my head to look at him. His expression was soft yet determined, a small frown pulling between his eyebrows.
“Because it has to be,” he replied with a small shrug.
I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to that. I wanted to be positive, I really did, but how could I be? The situation seemed hopeless.
“I think I’ve got it,” Nolan grunted as he screwed the backplate back onto the television. He pressed the on button, but the screen remained black. “Fucking work, you piece of shit!” He slammed his hand against the side in frustration and the screen finally flashed to life.
I almost fell out of my chair as I dived up and rushed forwards, my eagerness to see the screen one of noisy desperation. And then I almost stumbled backwards, a wave of grief and sickness blanketing me with heavy dread.
“The situation has rapidly grown out of control. The disease, if that’s what it is, is quick acting and easily spread, passing from person to person through bites, blood, saliva, and any other form of fluid transfer.”
The news reporter was stood on the top of a building, her once smart suit smeared with stains, and sweat trailing down the sides of her face. The cameraman was shaking, judging by the way the picture was jittering. The news reporter looked down over the edge of the building and the camera panned out to film what she was looking at.
The streets were swimming in blood—a river of it running between buildings and park benches. And then there were the infected—the dead, or whatever they were—marching through the blood, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.
They were crowded around doorways, banging and groaning, smashing windows to get inside the buildings—to the people trapped within, no doubt.
Leon caught me before I fell, pulling me back down into my seat as the room swayed and narrowed in, my vision blurring. I wasn’t sure if it was the rum making me unsteady or the horror I was witnessing on the battered TV. Maybe a combination of both.
“As you can see, the…the…sick are seemingly unstoppable and relentless in their pursuit of—” Her expression crumpled as she stumbled over the words. She dragged a hand down her face, bending herself at the knees as she struggled to catch her breath. Whoever was filming ran to her, grabbing her before she fell. The camera slid sideways, the angle obscure as we all stared with bated breath at their feet.
“It’s okay, Karen, you don’t have to do this,” the camera person said.
“I do! People need to know, they need to see!”
“Let someone else do it and let’s get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”
The camera shifted and I looked nervously at Sam. She was chewing on her bottom lip so hard I thought it was going to split wide open. My gaze traveled to her arm, to the wound she had received earlier. The bleeding had stopped, but she’d been spiking a temperature ever since. No one had noticed. They’d probably think it was stress and worry or fighting the dead that was making her sweat.
But not me, and not Nolan. We knew the truth. And my stomach ached with the knowledge.
“I can’t. It’s already too late,” Karen’s hushed voice came again.
The camera shifted again as whoever it was took a step backwards. “When?”
“I’m not sure. But I can feel it, Rick. It’s burning through my veins already,” she sobbed out. “Oh god, they’re almost in. Let me finish this, please.”
The camera shifted once more and Rick lifted the camera back up. He was still close to Karen and the image on the television showed a closeup of her face, the backdrop of the Los Angeles skyline behind her. She rubbed her hands down her skirt and pulled on a mask of professionalism before speaking. But the fear and total terror were etched into her features.
“This is Karen McFarly reporting from on top of the LA Today Press Building. Like I was saying, the disease is spread through fluid transfer. The infection spreads rapidly and the change happens within varying speeds—from as little as twenty minutes to anything up to”—she lifted her wrist and checked her watch—“three hours and counting. If you are somewhere safe, stay there. Do not leave under any circumstances. Prepare to be in this for the long haul, because I don’t know if anyone is coming—”
“Karen!” a male voice admonished off camera.
Karen shook her head. “What? We don’t know if they are! We haven’t seen or heard from anyon
e. No army, no CDC, no military, no government officials, nothing! And this thing is everywhere, literally everywhere.” Karen’s gaze fell behind Rick. “We need to wrap this up now. This is Karen McFarly reporting with probably her last report ever.” The camera zoomed in closer, so close I could see the burst capillaries in her eyes and the blood that was slowly turning the whites of her eyes red.
“Run, hide, fight! Do what you need to do to survive. Protect your loved ones, because this is it, this is—” She started to cough, blood dribbling out of the corner of her mouth as her body began to tremble.
The camera dropped to the ground, and all we could see were feet again, and the sound of chaos in the background.
“Lord have mercy,” Karla spoke as we all stared in horror as blood splattered to the ground, splashing the lens of the camera. “Lord, please have mercy on our souls.”
“Ie ni Kaeranakya,” Akhira muttered, his gaze fixed on the screen.
A body fell to the ground making us all flinch. A splash of brown hair mixed with blood as it rolled in front of the camera, blocking most of the view. It didn’t block the sounds though. They were still loud and clear.
Sam let out a noise next to me—a cross between a sob and a moan. I stood up and went to her, feeling empty and frightened. I dragged her to me, pulling her shaking body close. She was hot, sweat dampening her back. The container she’d been drinking from was set between her legs. It had been filled with water at one point, then rum. Most everyone else had just passed around the main liquor bottles in an attempt to take the edge off. I hadn’t thought about it at first, when Sam had poured what she’d wanted into the water container, but now I realized why she’d done it. So no one else would drink after her, just in case she was going to become…
No. I wouldn’t think about it.
I realized that it wasn’t just her that was trembling now, but me too. I hated to admit it, but I was scared of her. I didn’t want to be, but how could I not be?
Red Eye | Season 1 | Episode 3 Page 1
