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

Chapter Sixteen

Something grabbed my wrist and I fell forwards, just missing Guy's claws; tumbling onto the ground I spun around and was getting ready to face Guy again when I heard another gunshot and someone go running into Guy. 

The zombie fell onto the floor and I saw Rylie above him, slicing a butcher's knife across his neck. The creature let out a wet groan and a brown goo seeped onto the concrete; Rylie didn't stop though, she kept attacking him again and again and didn't stop until Harrison linked his arms around her and pulled her away from him.

"You got him Ry, he's dead," Harrison said softly and that's when I saw it.

The blood seeping from a bite mark on Rylie's arm.

"Rylie what happened to your arm?" I asked, nervously.

I took a few steps forward and Rylie looked up, "It's nothing, honestly. I'm fine and so are you, see? We're fine. Perfect. Dandy. Just fine."

She let out a laugh and I turned to Harrison, "Where's the vaccine, quick! Harrison!"

I ran over to him and grabbed the black bag out of his hands just as Rylie's body thudded onto the ground; I opened it quickly and drew out a note which caused my blood to freeze.

"Keep testing, this will protect you before you are bitten but will kill a zombie or a person infected.

Good luck, Doctor Marcus."

I dropped the bag on the ground and ran over to Rylie's body as the tears began to poor down my face.

"Rylie, rylie, rylie," I crooned and a gunshot went off above me -Colton. "Rylie."

"Rylie, rylie, rylie." 

I pulled her against my chest and my tears dripped onto her cold, stiff body. An annoying ringing sound was filtering in my ears and it took me a while to realise it was my screams; my screams got louder as Rylie's body started convulsing in my arms. 

I screamed louder as someone wrapped their arms around my stomach and pulled me away from her as her body contiued to shake on the ground. I thrashed in Colton's arms and began to hit him as he dragged me away from her.

"NO! Rylie!!" I screamed but I couldn't see anything because I was crying so hard. "RYLIEE! NO! DON'T YOU DARE TAKE ME AWAY FROM HER! LET ME GO BACK! NO! PLEASE!

"Please!!" I screamed and thrashed inside of Colton's arms but I could see her now, more clearly.

Her body was stiff now -unmoving- and as I was thrown into the car, Olton and Harrison rushing into it as well, I could see the body of my best friend stand up and look around hungrily. 

"NO!" I shrieked and now the tears came harder then before as I grabbed the door handle and pulled, nearly ripping it off in the proces. "NO! DON'T YOU DARE DRIVE AWAY COLTON. THAT'S MY BEST FRIEND. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! PLEASE!"

Someone's fingers wrapped around mine as the car roared to life, several zombies looking at us hungrily, starting towards us with a grunt. Rylie was there with them, heading towards our car and I collapsed onto my seat, crying until there was nothing left to cry as we drove away.

My best friend was dead.

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So that'ss ittt ~of course there will be a sequel but this is the end of this book~ and the sequel will be up soon! Please vote because this going into the Watty Awards and yeaahh

Also Hali, I dedicated this to u bc u vote everytime :)) and I kind of feel like if this was real life, i just killed you... oops?

Epilogue below...

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Epilogue:

1 week later:

It was a haze. I hadn't really recovered after Rylie's death but Colton hadn't left my side once since she'd died. I wasn't sure if I had forgiven him for dragging me away from her but I could see where he was coming from -it was either one or both of us. 

And for the first few days, I'd wished it had been both of us so I wouldn't have to live without my best friend but I had kind of changed my mind now. After all, I still had hope we could find a cure for her -no matter how naiive that may be.

Harrison ad taken it badly becuase although we'd offered support, he didn't have the kind of support I'd had. Rylie would have been that support for him.

But she wasn't here.

I'd cried out every last bit of liguid in my body after the first three days and after that I just hadn't been able to cry anymore, no matter how much I wanted to; but we were set for supplies, guns and weapons. But I'd also been informed that Rylie hadn't been bitten by Guy as I'd earlier suspected -and that suspicion had only made it that much worse- and in fact been bitten when a zombie had run into her. 

It gave us a little bit of evidence that the change between human to zombie did take more then  8 seconds -we'd been running tests too. We had equipment for that and tissue cell samples from us but we weren't doing very well -even with the profession I wanted to do, none of us had any idea what to do but we would learn right?

We had to.

For Rylie.

For the world.

For us.