We kept moving. My heart was beating a mile a second.
“Which way, Nolan?” Rose yelled out, coming to a halt at a T-intersection of tents and makeshift barriers.
“Right!” he yelled, rushing forward with her hot on his heels. “The helicopters. If this place is going to shit, they’re going to be filling those fuckers as fast as they can.”
“What if there’s not enough?” I questioned loudly. “Look at this place. It’s the Titanic. There weren’t enough rowboats then and there aren’t enough helicopters now. There can’t possibly be.” I heard the fright growing in my voice, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“You’re going to be safe, Sam.” Barrett gripped my upper arm. “I ain’t letting shit happen to you.”
Emotions running higher than a trucker on ten energy drinks, I nodded, and once again swallowed my fear in favor of other feelings.
Lust for my savior and hunger at the bloody smells assaulting my senses. Both things called to me in a primal way.
“There! This way!” Nolan called from ahead of us.
I had to focus. I had to get control of myself. It felt like I was on a spinning wheel, like my body and mind couldn’t decide what they wanted most. Survival. Sex. Food. To be afraid. To be brave. To be ravaged.
The helicopters were ahead of us: ten on the ground that I could count while we ran and bounced and helter-skeltered between horrified bodies and ear-splitting screams. My pulse pounded even quicker as one of the choppers lifted off the ground and found freedom.
There were so many people though, so many desperate to gain passage to safety. I wanted to grab a child, scream that I was his or her only relative, and lie my way to safety.
“Come on, Sam! Don’t stop!” Rose yelled at me.
I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped moving, but I had. And Barrett was looking at me, a strange expression on his face. Nolan didn’t let Rose stop to say anything else. He kept moving. He had her hand, I realized, and was dragging her along behind him. I was dazed, like the wheel had finally stopped turning in my body and mind and I was now reeling and dizzy and couldn’t function.
“Andy, don’t stay with us. Go with Rose and Nolan. We’ll catch up. She’s fine.” Barrett urged the kid forward.
He’d stopped too, watching our group splinter. He didn’t know who to stay with.
“Go, kid!” Barrett shouted, now fiercely.
Andy started and raced away from us, toward the other half of us who were pushing through the crowd. Nolan was shouting something at a uniform pushing people back from the nearest loading helicopter.
“Pull it together,” Barrett pushed his mouth close to my ear and harshly whispered, “or I’ll throw you over my damn shoulder if I have to.”
As if on cue, bodies pushed past us, hard, slamming us together.
“I can’t move. I don’t know what’s wrong. Everything just feels wrong. It’s wrong, Barrett.” I stumbled over my words, repeating myself like a child with no proper vocabulary.
“Sam!” I heard my name screamed, barely audible over the chaos.
I blinked quickly, searching for Rose. I knew it was her.
She was leaning out of a helicopter, her hand outstretched toward me. “Sam!” she shrieked again before a uniformed woman pushed her back into the chopper.
“No!” I cried, realizing what was happening. I rushed forward, finally finding the strength to move again, like the glue that had been holding me frozen to the spot had come dislodged. The hordes of people moved like waves, opening and closing a path to Rose and Nolan and Andy and the helicopter. I didn’t even know if Barrett was behind me. I wanted him to be.
But I wanted to get to Rose more. I wanted my sister-of-circumstance. I needed her.
Gunfire exploded to our right and I was slammed down to the ground. Barrett’s body was over mine and I found I couldn’t breathe, my face pushed into the dusty earth. “Rose,” I whimpered out.
Helicopter blades began their distinctive chopping sound and I fought from under Barrett to see what I already knew was happening.
Rose’s helicopter was lifting into the air, the door of the chopper sliding closed. Her hands were beating against the glass. I could see her frantic face for a moment longer before the helicopter moved too high.
“No…no,” I murmured in disbelief. Then I cringed as bullets began flying around us again.
“We gotta go!” Barrett lifted me up. He didn’t bother setting me down again, but hoisted me over his shoulder and began moving through the panicked crowd as I stared up in horror, watching as Rose and Barrett flew further away from safety. From me and from the nightmare unfolding around us.
A sound of misery clawed its way up my throat.
Rose was gone.
Her helicopter a speck in the sky, and I was all but alone now.
Just Barrett and my growing animalistic urges to keep me alive.
Chapter Eight
~ Rose ~
“Noooo!” I yelled, the scream tearing from my throat like burning flames. “Sam!”
Nolan grabbed me around the waist as I tried to stand up again, and he tugged me back into my seat. I fought him, slapping at his arms and hands as he tried to buckle me back into my seat.
“Get off of me!” I screamed in his face, hot tears drenching my cheeks. “I can’t leave her!”
I could still see her on the ground, growing smaller and smaller as the helicopter rose higher. I lashed out with an elbow, catching Nolan in the face, feeling bones crunch. But I didn’t care. Not about him or anyone else on that stupid helicopter. I wanted off. I wanted Sam.
I dived at the window, slamming my hands upon it.
“Jesus Christ! Can someone control her?” a middle-aged man called from further in the helicopter. “We’ve all lost people, lady.”
An army personnel raised her gun at me. “Ma’am, sit yourself back down and calm yourself immediately.”
I didn’t even respond with a scowl. Instead I ignored her and continued to beat my hands against the window, crying for my friend as we lifted higher into the sky, away from the danger. Away from the dead.
“Ma’am, I need you to get back into your seat.”
She was calling for me. I couldn’t hear her but I could see her mouth opening and closing. I could see the look of grief on her face. And I could feel her desperation to get to me like I was desperate to get to her. I watched as the crowd started to turn into a frenzy, bodies slamming against bodies, bullets flying in all directions. Barrett dived on top of her and she was gone from my sight.
“Sam!” I cried.
“Sir, control your wife or I’ll throw her off this fucking thing!” the woman yelled. I was pretty sure the man from earlier cheered at the thought.
Nolan grabbed me by the waist again and dragged me back to my seat, and that time I went without a fight, all strength in my muscles gone. My mind felt blank. The horror was deafening.
I’d left her there, alone.
No, not alone. I’d left her with Barrett.
“Sit down, Rose,” Nolan soothed, pushing me into my seat and buckling me into it.
“Yeah, Rose, sit down,” the man jeered, giving a sarcastic clap.
“Shut up before I shut you up,” Nolan barked at him, his fingers digging into my waist, keeping me in my seat.
“Nolan, she’ll die,” I said as I turned to glare at him. “I can’t leave her here.”
“Sit the fuck down, Rose,” he barked coldly.
“But she needs me,” I sobbed.
“She’s got Barrett,” Nolan said firmly, his mouth a thin line. “He’ll keep her safe.”
“I need her!” I cried. “I need her, Nolan. Please don’t make me leave her here.”
Nolan didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. There was no going back. This helicopter couldn’t land now even if it wanted to. The world below us was in chaos, the monsters invading and killing once again. All those people we had passed, families, mothers, children—they’d be dead wit
hin minutes.
If anyone could keep Sam alive, it was Barrett.
He was a survivor.
A human cockroach.
He could survive anything, and he had better protect Sam.
I threw my hands up to cover my face and cried until my lungs burned and my body was exhausted. Nolan sat silently next to me, unsure of his place in my grief and desperation, and I was glad, because in that moment I hated him more than I’d ever hated him—or anyone—before.
He’d dragged me to this helicopter.
He’d thrown me on board.
And he’d helped slam the door shut behind us.
He’d separated me and Sam, and now I would never see her again.
My anger left me just as suddenly as it came, and I stopped crying and just sat in numbed silence, deafening grief pulling at me and emptying me of every emotion.
The helicopter turned sharply and I slid sideways, my shoulder slamming into Nolan. I flinched and pulled away from him. Normally I’d be glad of him being there, his quiet strength holding me up and making me feel stronger than I was. But right then, his proximity wasn’t giving me its usual calmness or feelings of safety.
I didn’t want him.
I wanted Sam.
I wanted my friend.
I looked around the helicopter at the other people on board. We all bore the same expression: disbelief, grief, and fear.
A woman sat, clutching a bloody blanket to her chest, warm tears streaking down her empty expression. A man and woman sat side by side, their hands clasped tightly together. The middle-aged man from earlier sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped into submission. There were so many faces, so many people. So much loss and death and grief that it made me feel sick to my stomach.
“I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Andy offered.
I looked over at him, wishing I could believe him. Hoping and praying that he would be right. That Sam would be okay. That she would survive this and everything that came afterwards. But no matter how much I prayed and hoped, I realized that I just didn’t believe it.
God wasn’t listening to us anymore.
The world was praying, thousands of voices begging to be saved, and God had turned away from us.
I finally let the dark realization hit me that this was it now.
This was the end.
This wasn’t a problem that would or could be fixed, any more than we could bring those monsters back from the dead. We wouldn’t get to go home, and we wouldn’t get to hold our loved ones again.
We were doomed, and no one was safe.
It really was the end now.
I may have lost Sam to the frenzied monsters below, but how long did I even have left? How long did any of us have left anymore?
The world was nothing but sickening silence of death and destruction, and there I was bleeding tears for one woman, my only friend—a friend that was likely turning into one of those monsters anyway.
Wrapping my arms around my middle, I hugged myself. And, despite myself, I prayed again. I prayed for my mum and dad back home somewhere. I prayed for myself and all these people on board. But mostly, I prayed for Sam.
I prayed that whatever killed her first—virus or monsters—that it was quick and painless.
Season Two, Episode Two coming January 23rd
Stay tuned…
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Claire C. Riley is a USA Today and international bestselling author.
She’s a genre-jumping book nerd who likes to write about psycho stalkers, alpha males and the strong women that love them, moody anti-heroes, and the end of the bloody world! A lover of all things dark and dirty, she likes to write books that f**k with your heart, and your head.
She lives in the United Kingdom with her husband, three daughters, and ridiculously naughty rescue beagle aka Dogface.
She also really likes drinking cheap instant coffee, because she’s not a coffee snob like Elizabeth. (wink wink)
Also by Claire C. Riley
Post-Apocalypse:
Odium I – VI The Dead Saga.
Odium Origins 0.5, 1.5, 2.5
Out of the Dark #1
Red Eye The Armageddon Series Season One - co-authored with Eli Constant
Paranormal Romance:
Limerence. (The Obsession Series)
Limerence II (The Obsession Series)
Twisted Magic Raven’s Cove
Thriller:
Beautiful Victim
Horror:
Blood Claim
MC Romance:
Ride or Die a Devil’s Highwaymen series
Nomad the Devil’s Highwaymen Series:
Crank #1, Sketch #2, Battle #3, Fighter #4, Cowboy #5
New Adult Romance:
Wrath #3 the Elite Seven Series
Short Stories/Anthology contributions
Lockdown
Treasured Chests
Let’s Scare Cancer to Death
Painted Mayhem
State of Horror Illinois
Co-Authored Books
With Madeline Sheehan
Post-Apocalyptic:
Thicker than Blood #1
Beneath Blood and Bone #2
Contemporary Romance:
Shut Up & Kiss Me
With Eli Constant
Apocalyptic:
Red Eye The Armageddon Series
Season One
CONTACT LINKS:
Website: www.clairecriley.com
Claire C. Riley FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ClaireCRileyAuthor/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1GDpF3I
Reader Group: Riley’s Rebels: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClaireCRileyFansGroup/
Newsletter Sign-up: http://bit.ly/2xTY2bx
IG: https://www.instagram.com/redheadapocalypse/
@ClaireCRiley
Eli Constant also writes as Eliza Grace.
Eli adores all things quirky, eats ice cream with a fork, and likes warm Dr. Pepper (on a cool day). She once thought she'd marry Martin Short...until she discovered Alan Rickman. #Always (She might also have Martin Freeman and Simon Pegg on her 'I get a pass' list. And, please, don't get her started on Jeff Godblum...erhm, Goldblum. #lifefindsaway).
The most important things to her are family, friends, books, and dresses with pockets. Typically in that order. Also really, really good coffee (winks at Claire).
Available Books by Eli Constant:
The Victoria Cage Necromancer Series
The Dead Trees Series
The Water is Sweeter
To Scream Within a Dream
and many more…
Available Books by Eliza Grace:
The Shadow Forest Series
The Birthright
A Shade of Hades (Book 1 coming 2020)
and more coming…
Available Co-authored Books:
Scatter My Ashes,
Darwin’s Fall (re-releasing soon)
Red Eye: The Armageddon Series
and more coming…
*
Stalk Eli Constant on social media:
Website: www.authoreliconstant.com
Newsletter: https://www.authoreliconstant.com/newsletter-subscription
Reader Group: Beastly Books & Badass Readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1996067960679574/
Twitter: @Author_EliC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorEliConstant/
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/30Y0KJk
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2LWSiGj
MORE FROM THE AUTHORS
Have you read…
Beautiful Victim
The perfect villain… or the perfect victim?
Growing up, Carrie was Ethan’s one true love, his fixation, and his constant obsession. Friends to the bloody end, they were each other’s rocks while navigating through their dark and monstrous childhoods together. But then Carrie died, and Ethan was almost destroyed by the secrets that were revealed in her wake.
It�
�s now fifteen years later, and Carrie is back from the dead…and Ethan is forced to confront a truth he’s tried to deny himself for all these years.
With his obsession renewed, the situation rapidly spirals out of control as their story escalates toward a dark and startling conclusion. Because now Ethan has a singular focus:
Keep the girl, no matter what the consequences!
The truth should set you free, but what happens when the truth is the one thing that can destroy you?
Can Ethan’s obsession for the girl he’s always loved ever really be more than that? Or is the idea of her the only thing left to fight for…because perhaps, the illusion of Carrie was the only thing he ever really had.
Read on for a sneak peek…
Beautiful Victim
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
The part before the beginning of the end…
There’s so much blood.
I’ve never seen so much blood before.
It paints the walls, dripping from the ceiling. It’s a living, breathing thing that’s being absorbed into the very foundations of the woodwork. Drops and drips. Splatters and puddles. I don’t know where I begin and the blood ends. We are one and the same.
“We have to go.”
I nod. But still my feet don’t move.
My heart is pounding.
My stomach is rolling and turning. I think I might throw up. The horror embeds itself into my skin. It will never let me go. I’m its prisoner. Now.
Forever.
The blood and me. Together.
I clench my hands. Nails breaking skin. I feel raw and bruised. My eyes are burning. My body is on fire. I wonder how long until I incinerate. Fade away into nothing.
Red Eye | Season 2 | Episode 1 Page 8
