𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐎 (𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐒) *editing*

𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐎𝐮𝐭🌞

"Take cover!"

The bloater howled as it raised its heavy arms. It appeared like it was about to throw something—

"Get down!" Suddenly, the infected released this mass of spores. The ball of poisonous spores was thrown their way. It sounded like a dozen sparklers. It looked like a dozen of them too.

"Maeve!" Ellie yelled out, but Joel held her behind the cover.

All she could do was stand there in a frozen panic, her body refused to move an inch even though her brain screamed for her to get out of the way. One second, she stared at impending doom, the next, she was on the ground with TJ hovering over her protectively.

"You're damn stupid!" He hissed at her and got off her as he pulled his shotgun out. "Come and get me, fucker!"

BLAM!

The bloater was hit in its large fungus-covered stomach. It didn't seem much bothered by the attack, in fact, it pissed it off. It let out this deafening growl and it charged for TJ.

"Hey, over here!" Joel came out of cover, rushing toward the closed bleachers, cocking his own shotgun. The sound was almost as deafening as the barking of the bloater.

Nonetheless, the ugly creature turned its wrath onto Joel. Its boil-covered body twisted toward the man and shot a ball of spores his way. Of course, as if he predicted the bloater's attack, Joel hurried a safe distance away as he shot at the infected being again.

"Get up, Mae!" Ellie raced over to Maeve, who was peeling herself off the gym floor.

"I got it, I got it!" Maeve got pulled up by her sister. "That way!"

The sisters hurried behind cover as the guys kept the bloater busy. Or at least they tried to. They couldn't stay in one place because the bloater seemed to be able to handle all three of them quite easily.

"Holy shit!" Ellie cursed, panting as if she had run a whole mile without stopping. "We're totally sitting fucking ducks here!"

"Maybe not!" Maeve took her bag off and dug out the nail bomb she crafted earlier. "Bombs away."

"You're kidding right?" The girl beside her glanced at her warily.

"Not at all." Maeve left the cover with the nail canister in her hand. "Everyone, get down!"

The bloater snapped its attention to Maeve's shout she gripped the explosive in her hand before she shook it violently. She hurried to throw it, and it hit the floor, ricocheting off the ground. It hit the bloater's right leg and it settled in between its boiled legs.

KABOOM!

Yells coursed throughout the gym, and bright light and smoke engulfed the infected. It screamed out; she could feel its yell in her bones. Parts of its inner thighs were penetrated by the needles from the bomb, black blood oozed from the puncture wounds. It roared once again and catapulted another ball of spores in their direction.

"I think I pissed it off!" Maeve yelped as she and Ellie scrambled away from the oncoming spores.

"You think!?" TJ yelled from halfway across the gym.

"More infected!" Ellie yelled as a Runner crawled through an open window above the closed bleachers.

"Fuck!"

"Ellie, move!" Maeve grabbed her sister and forced her to run as the bloater charged their way.

"Holy—"

Crash!

The giant infected broke the large crate they hid behind. It shrieked out and whirled around, continuing at the girls. Its heavy footsteps thumped loudly, like someone stomping across hollow, rotted wood.