Part 2: Fall
"Hold up Ellie," I grabbed her shoulder ",There's a bloater over there."
"Where?"
"See that car?", I pointed towards a twisted wreck on the desert highway, "Its right behind it."
"Ah, there it is, time to tryout your new toy then."
"Yeah, but I can't hit it from here."
"I'll draw it out then."
"Ok, but you be bloody care full. I didn't come out here to get you only for you to get killed by a fucking bloater."
"I got a Molotov and my pistol. I'll be fine," She said as she ran off towards the fungus covered abomination.
I pulled the .50 off my shoulder and set it on the ground and aimed down the sights.
"C'mon Ellie," I said to myself.
"There we go," I saw the bloater walk out from behind the car, chasing Ellie, molotov in hand. I placed the crosshairs on the monstrosity's fungus covered head and squeezed the trigger.
"Shit!" I screamed in agony as the rifle exploded in my arms, peppering them with shattered parts of the weapon, "I should've fucking known! You stupid idiot."
I didn't feel the pain but rather the anger of making a stupid mistake. I then remembered Ellie who was waiting for me to kill the bloater.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit," I picked up my .30-06 and started popping off shots at it while moving closer. Hopefully Ellie would take the hint and throw the cocktail to burn off its fungal armour. She did hitting it square on the chest, burning it alive. It threw a pod of toxins at her and the resulting explosion threw her to the ground. The bloater started walking towards her and I fired the last round in the magazine at its blackened head. It missed scraping its shoulder. It reached down to pick her up as I loaded a single round into the breach and fired. I closed my eyes not wanting to see what would happen if I missed. I heard Ellie scream which suddenly stopped.
I opened my eyes again and saw a dead bloater, no sign of Ellie. I ran towards the corpse calling her name. I saw her legs stuck underneath the charred bloater.
"Fuck, get this thing off of me," she said as she noticed me.
"I'm on it," I replied as we rolled the infected off her.
"Shit, Daniel, your arms."
Only then did I feel the blood oozing from my arms.
"I'm fine. Fucking rifle exploded in my hands."
"It doesn't look like it," she took a couple of bandages out of her bag and started wrapping them around my arms.
"You ok?"
"Other than having the shit scared out of me, yeah I'm fine."
"That makes two of us. And don't ever do that again."