Caught in the Riptide {Unedited} {Watty Awards 2013}

Chapter Eleven

Caught in the Riptide

Chapter Eleven

I looked at the mess in front of us and then looked at Colton and Riley, frowning I then looked at the mess in front of me again. I could already see a zombie stumbling towards the carnage a few hundred meters away and I knew this must not have happened that long ago. Someone in there could still be alive.

Maybe it was the guilt that I had littered (or maybe it was the guilt from not doing anything about the people in the cars when we had been travelling to Exmouth) or maybe it was the hope that if I was alive and stuck in a mess like that, someone would help me before the zombies got there but I grabbed the gun in the centre console of the car and leaped out, running towards the closest car, ignoring Riley and Colton's shouts of warning.

When I got close enough, I peered through the overturned car and stumbled back a few steps, the floor of the car wasn't the grey I had been expecting, it was covered in a thick, red blood seeping through the clothes of the men still sitting in their seats, seatbelts strapped against their waist -the only thing that kept their bodies from lying against the ground.

It didn't take long before I came to the conclusion that there was no one living in that car.

Warily moving onto the next car, I gasped when I heard a painful wheezing and ran to it, flinging open the door to find a man slumped against the steering wheel breathing heavily.

I turned around to look at Colton and Riley who were standing by the other car in shock, "GET FIRST AID! SOMEONE'S ALIVE IN HERE!"

They both glanced at me with surprise before Riley turned and sprinted back to our car and rummaging around in the backseat while Colton ran towards me. I turned quickly back to the guy in the car and realised that there was no way I was going to be able to get him out of the car without possibly causing some serious damage. A woman in the seat next to him was bleeding through a head wound and I stifled a gasp, she was dead.

"He-help," the man croaked out and I took a step back as Colton rushed forward, pulling the man out through his arms. The man whimpered and I had to stop the tears that were threatening to spill over my eyes -this wasn't the time to loose it. I wouldn't loose it now -I couldn't.

Riley ran past me with the first aid kit and I watched as Colton and Riley spread him out on the ground; his left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, there was blood seeping through a wound in his stomach that looked scarily like a gun shot and there was a large bump forming on his head. I whimpered before glancing around, wondering if anyone else was in these cars, still alive.

Only my looking didn't get far as I saw a zombie limping towards the car furthest away from me -the car was at least 20 meters away and the zombie was about 8 meters away from it. What worried me was I heard something bang against metal that meant somewhere here in this wreck, someone else was alive and it sounded like they were far away. As in, they could be in that car. Throwing myself into a sprint with the shotgun in my hand, I aimed it for the head of the zombie and shot; only it buried itself in the creature's shoulder and the zombie didn't even stop. I pushed myself faster but realised I wasn't going to make it.

I aimed again and this time it hit the zombie's throat and it paused for a second and glanced up at me, groaning and then continued it's journey towards the car; except that pause had been all the time I had needed because I wasn't going to miss the shot this time. I stopped running and aimed the gun.

Boom.

The zombie shuddered and collapsed onto the ground, its head hitting the side of the car with a thwack on the way down; I gaped, suddenly realising how close the creature had been from getting a meal and by the sounds of it a live meal -something yelped and then cursed from inside the car when the zombie fell onto the ground- and I dashed to the other side of the car and shoved the dead body away from the door. This car had been luckier then the others and was still upright -except the other side of the car had caved in on itself and the roof height had dropped by at least a few centimetres.