Violet eyes flesh eaters.., p.1
Violet Eyes: Flesh Eaters: season one, page 1
© copyright, 2024 by author F. Greystone. All rights are reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.K copyright law. For permission requests, contact F. Greystone @ authorzombiewriter@gmail.com or
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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. Any establishment named or mentioned, permission was granted for use prior to publication.
Book cover by Cherie Fox
https://www.cheriefox.com/
First edition 2024.
Author Notes and commentary can be found at the back of the book. VIOLET EYES
FLESH EATERS: SEASON ONE
F GREYSTONE EPISODE ONE
ONE
It’s cold and lifeless eyes stared at her as she spoke. It acted as a chillingly silent listener who had no interest in her problems or worries.
Whimpering, Hope slouched on the seat across from the body. Her hysteria was slowly fading as she savoured the bottle of whisky in her hand.
“I still grieve...” she said, with deep raw sadness seeping from her heart.
Hope knew the truth was the last few drops left in the bottle hadn't been enough to get her over this breakdown - She wasn’t nearly as steaming as she would have liked. Instead, she was feeling every aching moment of her desolation.
She smacked the bottom of the bottle, intent on getting those last precious drops.
“Don’t give me that disapproving look - like everyone else has!” She said, pointing an accusing finger at the body. Irritation was taking over the driver's seat now. She wanted to smash the body with the bottle. Its rancid odour was becoming more unbearable.
“You should be thanking me for what I've done for you.” she muttered, her soft-spoken Glaswegian accent shining through.
The blade used to end its meagre existence protruded from the middle parting of the old man's grey hair - he was now being used as a temp therapist.
She had struggled to talk to mental health professionals, even in her days of youth. The school’s shrink would hound her, asking her all the same repetitive questions. But Hope was a bottler of emotions; she wanted to avoid being the centre of gossip. But that was then. Now, she wanted to talk. After a moment she relented. “Am sorry, it was wrong of me to use you like this.” Her voice was sombre. She stared blankly at the corpse; it stared back at her. With its glazed, violet eyes – nothing more than a lifeless cadaver was what had been sat across from her the whole entire time, and she was just now coming to terms with that.
Blinking twice, she felt no regret for her actions. It had tried to bite her - yet here she was saying “Sorry.” Now she was filled with regret, using the creature’s body for her own morbid needs when they deserved to rest in peace.
What am I doing? she thought. She sat up groggily, dropping the bottle, leaned over, and retched uncontrollably. But nothing came out. She wasn’t surprised. When was the last time she ate anything?
Her tired eyes wandered to the window view of the greying sky. Is it going to rain today? Will I die today?
How will I die? Death was a constant fear of Hope’s. There were no more natural or peaceful deaths. Nothing was normal.
It was time for her to move on. She didn’t feel comfortable staying any longer. the body sat across from her was one reason; the second was the lack of supplies. All the room’s she’d checked were bare; only the now empty bottle and the remnants of a stale chocolate bar was all she had gathered. She decided to sort her hair out. It was long overdue for a trim: faded pink fringe sorted covering her brown eyebrows; the bangs now in line with the bottom of her earlobes - it was not a meticulously done job. The back of her hair was a nightmare to reach; she liked it shorter.
Hope spent as little time as possible looking at herself in the mirror these days. She did not want to see her reflection; still, a reflection is what she caught. Fucks am a mess! The lack of ritualistic upkeep with her hair meant her mahogany roots were sprouting like weeds in a garden. It made her love herself even less. Even with her clothing on she could see her body was skinnier, though not by choice. A group of flies were buzzing around the man's rotting body. The sound pulled Hope’s attention away from hatting on herself.
Clocking the door go, she grabbed her black bomber jacket and backpack, also picking up the now empty bottle. I can use that for water she thought.
She looked at her knife, still sticking up from the man's skull, and decided it was a lost cause; she had another one. The hallway was just another layer of horror; none of the lighting or electrics worked. It was the same story all over the city. It was not the amount of blood staining the walls and carpet or the remains of a body laying half-way outside its room; face pressed to the ground, mouth open in a frozen, agonizing scream that chilled Hope’s blood... What really agitated Hope, and filled her with dread, was that behind each closed door were the monsters. Waiting to get her.
She looked back at the door to the room she had stayed in, considering the king size bed. She could hide herself under the covers like a little kid scared of the monsters in the closet.
The reality of her night terrors squashed that illusion of safety; they were why she felt so tired. Nowhere was safe to sleep when in the deepest recesses of the mind lay unfathomable horrors.
Her hand was trembling with anxiety, knowing full well she had to keep moving. She needed to find food and safer shelter.
“You can do this.”
A clicking sound came from behind her; she turned promptly on the spot to see the dead man rising from his seat. Her heart pounded as though it would burst out of her chest. Without thinking, she launched the glass bottle towards his head.
Shit! why the hell did I do that? God damn-it, Hope!
The bottle smashed on impact with the wall. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.
Hope blinked. The dead man still sat in the chair, unmoving. It had all been in her mind.
Now it was too late. The head slowly began to snap from its tender neck. There was a sudden sound of commotion from various rooms on the same level. The monsters were coming to get her.
Thud, Thud, Thud. It sounded like someone playing the drums for the first time. She raced for the elevator shaft, while all around her door handles slowly creaked. Doors began to open.
Hope made it to the busted elevator door. Reaching for the maintenance stairs, she began her descent.
The stairwell door opposite began to open. She had missed them by seconds.
TWO
A small bead of sweat trickled down her nose. She wiped it away on her sleeve. She slowed her hurried escape from the tenth floor as she passed more elevator doors that had been pried open.
She looked back up to tenth floor, getting glints of creepy shadows casting over the walls.
She reached the sixth floor and froze on the spot; she had that uncomfortable feeling of being watched. The lift door to her right was only open a few inches. She dared a quick look and turned her head away as soon as she had.
Hope started her mental mantra. Stay strong. She repeated this until she reached the bottom. In her mind, as she did this, it wasn't her voice she heard, but her Grans.’ It was an abbreviation of a much longer sentence she had spoken to Hope. Letting go of the ladders had taken her longer as she thought about the sixth floor, and what was looking at her through the gap of the lift doors.
Her head started to ache. Migraines were becoming a regular occurrence., She ignored the idea it might be something else.
The grandness of the main reception floor was breathtaking to Hope, even considering the years of neglect and decay. It still held that glint of opulence. But like everything else in this world, it also bared the scars. The mess of newspapers, posters, three-year-old plates festering with flies, and dead maggots laying uncollected in the deserted restaurant bar were only a small detail of this morbid picture. It was always the stains of blood that caught her eye. It just felt wrong in so many ways to her.
Being a big-time horror fanatic before all the madness, you would think that she would be used to the grotesqueness of the world she now lived in. It did not matter how gruesome the films were, how over-the-top with blood and guts, Seeing the real deal was different. It stirred feelings of unhappiness; it ate away at her sanity. But then, Hope already knew she was bordering on the cusp of insanity.
On the ground was singular A4 sized handout. Picking it up, she saw it wasn’t in bad condition. A few dusty footprints across the top, but aside from that she could discern the words.
“29th Nov 2025”
That was the day before the last broadcasts. Hope thinks to herself, remembering that year vividly as the start of the never-ending nightmare.
Her reading was disturbed abruptly by a door opening in the direction of the bar. Slowly, shadowy figures descended from the second stairwell. Hope would be long gone before they even had a chance to catch a glimpse of her.
THREE
The main entrance of the hotel was host to cars that had been there for three years, as well as the remains of their occupants. Birds and rats were scurrying about the dead bodies that littered the ground,
A seagull was pulling at an old bin bag when the integrity became compromised, letting out a smell so ghastly it made Hope gag. She rushed over to the rail guard of the waterfront, taking in deep breaths of fresh air. The feeling the stench had settled on her tongue made her spit frantically into the river Clyde.
The Clyde split Glasgow – Scotland’s biggest city and a main powerhouse with a rich history of industrialisation and shipping – in half. Glasgow had enjoyed the fame of being a city of culture in the nineties’ and became even more booming over the 2000’s. It had its own unique identity, which Hope loved. That was long since gone now the city had lost its light and, worst of all, its people. She hated staring out the window of the hotel that looked onto the city. The dark shadows of the buildings, gloomy and bleak, filled her with a feeling of despair.
She lit a cigarette, still trying to cleanse her pallet. She noticed her hand trembling, and grasped it with the other, resting her arms on the bars for support. Get it together. Telling herself that was easy; actually, keeping it together was difficult.
She stubbed the cigarette out. She hated the habit, but it seemed to quell her hunger. Smoking was something she rarely done and truthfully got no enjoyment from either.
The handout was an old newspaper article. Probably the last one published before the infrastructure completely collapsed, with the internet following not long after as the electric grid failed. She squinted as she read.
“Lifelong readers of my work, I regret to inform you that this is the end. No functional government is left binding my hands with red tape as to what I can and can’t say.
I am sorry I lied many times over, during this chaotic time, I have no words that can articulate the irrationality of what we are facing right now. It would be factually incorrect to say this is still an epidemic which we can recover from. This is simply the extinction of humanity as we know it. W.H.O, N.H.S, even the C.D.C in America are at dead ends trying to find a cure for the incurable, much like Covid 19 before this.”
Covid. What a blast from the past. she remembers those days vividly.
She doesn’t want to read the rest of the article, deciding to scrunch it up. It blesses the water of the river, becoming wet and slowly disappearing into the distance, carried off by the motion of the water.
Something on the opposite side of the river draws her attention; it’s a glitter in the distance, in one of the wealthy looking apartments overlooking the Clyde. It fades momentarily, but then returns. This happens again, only this time it’s longer before it disappears. Hope wonders if it’s a mirror catching the reflection or if it’s someone watching her. She decides that she's going to wait patiently to see if it comes back and, when it does, she will wave.
The shimmer returns and Hope waves her arms in desperation. Without binoculars, she can’t be sure if it’s a person.
It disappears again, this time for good. For the first time in a long time, she’s optimistic. She might not be alone. The sky is getting greyer, and she thinks that maybe it was no one, just her imagination playing tricks. There would be no way to tell. North Glasgow is cut off from the south. All the bridges were blown after the evacuation effort. Or at least that is what she was led to believe.
She takes a long-drawn inhale – a strong odour creeps into Hope’s nose, and she decides her lavender infused mask is required.
Her eyes widen as another figure appears, its reflection in the water below towering above her own.
Rapidly moving to the side, she looks behind her.
There’s nothing there.
“Fuck...Fuck!” her breathing is rapid and her heart races in her chest. Her combat knife is clenched firmly in both hands, instinctively ready to strike.
Her neck starts to tingle – hairs rising on end – She feels like she’s being watched.
Searching the area, her eyes pass over the hotel she just left. In one of the windows, she spots something looking down at her.
Hope crouched against the corner of a building not far from the hotel, still trying to calm down.
The building she found protection in was one of the city’s many musical venues: The SEC Armadillo.
Visages in her brain kept replaying; persisting their relentless assault making her feel even more uneasy. The shadowy figure behind her, eyes always the bloody eyes! She closes her eyes but then opens them again, too alert to perform her calming ritual. No more distractions, Hope! She tells herself.
She thought about the body in the hotel room, the bottle smashing against its decayed face, the sound forcing her to leave. “You wanted someone to talk to” she murmured. Hope remembered all the inanimate objects she had spoken to; from posters of singers to famous personalities she did not even recognise. She even tried talking to herself in a mirror one time, only to have a surreal experience where the person in the mirror came out and tried to kill her.
She got up, deciding that was enough sitting on her ass for one day. Her priority was food; her growling stomach made that abundantly clear. Releasing a slow breath of hot air, she watched as her breath dissipated in the air before zipping up her bomber jacket and raising the collar.
Her attention to the cold had been lax before. Now she was aware of it and for good reason. She would need warmer clothing; the last winter had nearly killed her. The significant drop in temperature was a surprise. It had snowed heavily recently. Of course, the weather was always going to change with the lack of people polluting the planet. For the first time in months, she wondered what the date was. She had stopped counting, or, more correctly, had gone on a major bender courtesy of some rich bitch in the west end with a house well stocked with fancy wine, alcohol, the works. It was a band aid nothing more! She reminded herself. Afterwards, she stopped trying to keep up with the date.
Why did she bother now? Her age came to mind. She must be twenty-seven now. She found herself walking towards the old SEC Hydro. There were post-it notes in one of the flats she’d held up in a few weeks back, saying something about the army setting up a rescue station there. Rescue stations and the army implied the possibility of food. If today was going to be her birthday, she decided she was going to reinvent herself.
FOUR
Hope’s idea of reinventing herself was to think of fictional characters who would do a damn sight better than her, who lived and survived in equally shitty situations. She would try to think of how they dealt with the problems they faced. These fantasies were dashed quickly as the Hydro came into view and what lay before it.
Bodies of both the military and what she could discern to be (them), were everywhere. The roads leading into the vicinity of the Hydro had army checkpoints set up as a means of control. The evidence that it had failed to control anything was obvious.
Tanks and other vehicles all sat abandoned, yet none of them showed the signs of conventional warfare damage. The smell was enough to make Hope put her lavender infused mask back on.
Billboards that used to promote gigs and upcoming events, now in their place were N.H.S and government information posters about symptoms of infection and what to expect when bitten. A picture of a purple eye stood out like a swollen thumb; Hope knew what stage that was. That was the point where the virus had full control over the victim.
Her stomach growled yet again; this time accompanied by a pang of pain. Maybe she could source some food from one of these tents. She would have to navigate the sea of dead bodies obstructing her path. Providing they were all dead. It looked like the army had left in tremendous speed; maybe they had left some food around. She half-heartedly smiled at the thought that someone had given her consideration. You’re no one's priority. she harshly reminded herself.
Knife at the ready, she stepped over the bodies, trying her damnedest not to disturb any of them. Arms lay spread out, heads turned facing all directions. The closer she got to the tent, the harder it became to navigate.
She tripped on someone’s arm and fell forward. She managed to catch herself but was now face-to-face with a pallid-coloured female in a black dress, her unkempt black hair stuck to her scalp in greasy tufts. Her lips were covered in dried blood, and though her eyes were closed, Hope knew their colour. That was when she noticed the twitching under closed eyelids. Shit! She thought. She backed up carefully, doing her best to control her breathing.
