Puck wiped sweat off his Brow as he leapt onto the roof of yet anther building.
"Yo, agent dude," he said. "Can we take a break?"
Quinn, Finn, Rachel and Kurt looked bedraggled as well. They had barely had time to rest after springing through the bushes and now they were roof-hopping.
"Geez, you're tired already? I mean… wow, I had no idea regular people had such poor stamina."
"We're taking a break, Agent Anderson," said Finn, scowling.
"Okay, but you should really get more protein in your diet. I mean seriously, it's been like an hour."
Quinn clutched her stomach. "Oh God, I'm hungry."
Kurt peered over the side of the building. They had tried to travel away from the flow of the spiders, into an abandoned part of town. There were still a few packs of spiders scuttling around the streets as well as two giants, these ones only about the size of coffee tables. Luckily none of them were climbing very high up the buildings. Kurt tried to ignore the occasional screams of homeless people far below.
"Is there any food in that bag?" Puck asked Blaine as they sat down on the rooftop.
"Well yeah, but it's mine."
"You cannot be serious," Quinn growled.
"It's canned beef stew, it's my favourite!"
Quinn stood up, marched over to Blaine and smacked him upside the head before snatching the large duffel bag.
"Hey, I could run you in for assaulting a federal agent!"
"Shut up."
Quinn pulled out three cans of beef stew, some plastic cutlery and a can opener.
"Let me open those for you," said Puck, reaching for the opener.
"I don't need your help!" Quinn spat.
Puck backed away. "What's your problem?"
"Stop it!" Rachel cried, and they all fell silent. "Let's eat," she continued simply.
Quinn sat and opened the cans and they ate in silence; even Blaine didn't raise his voice for once.
Kurt sat next to Finn and laid his head on his brother's shoulder. It seemed almost funny that just a day ago he would have been hesitant to make such intimate contact after he had previously made Finn so uncomfortable. That seemed so trivial now. So stupid and trivial. Finn put his arm around Kurt's shoulders and held him close.
The six of them ravenously gulped down the beef stew, sharing four plastic forks and using their fingers. Once they finished none of them wanted to stand back up again. They all wanted to stay like that on the rooftop and sleep, but they new they could waste no time in getting to the other glee kids, and none of them wanted to be asleep if the spiders decided to start climbing up the buildings.
"What exactly is in that bag, Blaine?" asked Finn.
"You should address me as Mr. Anderson," he replied cockily.
"Like hell. What's in it?"
Blaine put his hand on the bag. "Spy stuff."
"I thought you were a secret agent."
"Same thing."
"Actually," Kurt chimed in, "spies and secret agents are quite different. Spies—"
"Stop making noise."
Kurt pursed his lips and glared at Blaine.
"Do you have any friends?" said Puck, "Because you are impossible to get along with."
"I'll have you know I am a veritable socialite."
"Who told you that, your mom?"
"She would have if my mother wasn't a selfish bitch."
"Whoa."
"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Rachel, "we need to decide who we're going after first."
"Okay, little miss serious, but you should know that I'm not coming with you."
"What?" Quinn and Rachel spoke at the same time.
"I have and actual mission here in Lima, and I'm not going to babysit you guys while you go find your friends."
"You can't leave!" said Puck.
"Oh, so suddenly I'm not so hard to get along with, huh?" Blaine smirked.
"Why did you even help us in the first place?" Quinn looked like she was going to punch something.
"You were all yell-y and cry-y and I just wanted to shut you up. It was getting annoying."
"You can't go out there alone," said Finn, "you need us!"
"Oh really," Blaine stood up and looked Finn directly in the eye, swaggering. "I'm a special agent with supplies, weapons and years of training. You're a bunch of scared students. What could you possibly do to help me?"
"I know a lot about spiders," said Kurt. Everyone turned to him. He was the only one who had kept his cool. "I know about their behaviour and where they're most likely to go. I'm sure everyone here has something to offer as well. No matter how much prowess you claim to have, you're going to need extra eyes, ears and hands. You're going to need people to watch your back while you sleep. You're going to need people to rely on. If we can get our hands on some weapons, maybe all of us will make it out of this alive. But only if we stay together.
Again there was silence. Kurt stared directly into Blaine's eyes, daring him to argue.
"Not to mention you still think this is all because of spider flu," grumbled Quinn, "you're going to need some brains on your side."
Blaine shot a glare at her. "Fine. I'll help you get your friends together and find some weapons. After that you can figure things out yourselves. I've got a mission to do."
'What's the mission?" asked Finn.
"That's classified."
They all stood and groaned from tiredness.
"Tina's house is closest to here," said Puck, "we should start there."
They all nodded and leapt onto the next rooftop.
They stood on top of a small grocery store at the edge of a suburban area. The house roofs were deeply slanted and would be nearly impossible to get across quickly. They all knew that they would have to start traveling by ground.
This area was currently spider-free, but there was no one outside. All the houses were locked with the lights off and the curtains drawn. News of the spider swarms in the rest of the city had spread quickly. Everything was completely quiet in the night.
They eased themselves off the roof and onto the pavement. As soon as he was on the ground, Finn felt himself begin to panic. He looked over his shoulder over and over, constantly expecting a mass of spindly black legs to flood around the corner.
"Hey," Rachel said softly, holding onto Finn's arm. "Don't worry, this place is safe for now."
Finn smiled and swallowed.
"Tina's house is this way," said Kurt.
They all spoke quietly, as if too much noise would wake some giant being beneath the ground that would toss up geysers of spiders. The small neighbourhood seemed to be alive and tense, like a hospital patient waiting for some horrible, inevitable surgery.
Puck held his chin high and stood tall as he walked, but his eyes moved back and forth, surveying the area. A black movement caught his attention and a nova of heavy fear bloomed in is chest. The neighbourhood was still. It must have been a trick of the light.
Quinn's fists were clenched tightly at her sides and her teeth were gritted. Despite the cold night air brushing her bare arms, she felt incredibly hot, like her dress was smothering her. She just wanted to escape, she just wanted to break out sprinting and sprint away from her friends and sprint away from the spiders and sprint away from the city and just be safe again.
Blaine started to whistle.
"Shut up," Kurt hissed, shakily brushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead.
"Okay, just trying to ease the tension. God."
It took everything Quinn had not to tackle him.
"This is it," said Finn, pointing to a small blue house with a well-kept garden. The lights were off.
The teens approached the door and stood still. They all felt anxious, as if the spiders were all in this house, behind this door, waiting to pour out as soon as they knocked,
Finally Rachel raised her hand and rapped on the door.
There was silence. Puck thought he heard a thump.
More silence.
Then they heard a light sob behind the door. "Who is it?" said the shaky, unmistakeable voice of Tina Cohen-Chang.
Rachel swallowed. "It's… It's the glee club."
There was a pause and Tina pulled the door open, looking puzzled. Then she choked and threw herself into Rachel's arms, wailing.
"Ohmygodrachelit''tknowwhattodo—"
"Calm down," said Finn, putting his hand on Tina's back as she bawled.
"I don't like her," said Blaine.
Tina sniffled and extricated herself from Rachel's arms. "Who's he?"
Blaine made a show of reaching for his FBI I.D. "Agen—"
"An asshole," Quinn interrupted, not even looking at him.
Blaine stared at Quinn, scowling. "You interrupted my introduction," he said after a moment. "My introduction is like my thing."
"Your thing is to annoy the shit out of everyone around you. Now quiet down."
Blaine crossed his arms and pouted.
"Uh, that's Blaine. He's an FBI agent, he's helping us out," said Rachel. Tina's eyes widened.
"Where are your parents, Tina?" asked Puck.
The girl sniffed and for a second it looked like she might start sobbing again. "They went downtown to get a movie a few hours ago… they haven't come back."
Everyone's hearts fell as Tina hugged herself. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
Puck and Finn moved in and put their hands on her shoulders. "I'm sure they're okay," said Puck.
"Yeah," said Finn, "they probably found a safe place to stay and they're trying to contact you. Have you tried phoning them?"
"The phone lines are down," said Tina, "even cell phones aren't getting reception. Some places have lost power altogether."
"We're making sure all the glee kids are safe, Tina," Kurt spoke up. "We're going to stay together."
Tina's eyes widened again. "Mike," she said. "We have to find Mike."
Rachel nodded. "Do you know where he is?"
"He said he was going to the arcade with Artie. They might still be there, trapped or…"
Tina's eyes flooded and Kurt spoke quickly before she could start weeping again.
"Come on, we'll find them. The arcade isn't far."
"But it is downtown." Puck looked wary.
Kurt swallowed. "I know."
The streetlamps illuminated their path as they walked quickly down the street. They kept an eye on every dark corner, waiting for the shadows to start growing legs and fangs. Kurt kept his arm around Tina who was doing her best to stop the flow of tears.
It wasn't long before they reached the edge of downtown again. Still no spiders in sight.
"Blaine, get another grappling hook so we can go back to the rooftops," said Finn.
"That one at the hotel was my only one."
Finn turned around. "What? Then why didn't you cut it once we were all across so you could have at least launched it by hand?"
"Only losers re-use their grappling hooks. A badass secret agent only needs his once. Haven't you ever watched a spy movie?"
They all stared at him, partially stunned.
"What?"
"Oh my god…" Quinn's tone got angrier with each word.
"We need that grappling hook now, dumbass! As in we need it again!" Puck reprimanded.
"Well then I guess you guys aren't badasses."
"This is not our fault!" Quinn yelled, her face red.
"You unbelievable moron." Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Oh don't be such a bunch of babies. A badass secret agent can scale any building with ease."
Blaine grasped a windowsill on a nearby shop and pulled himself up. He fumbled with another tiny handhold and tumbled onto his back, having made it all of five feet off the ground.
"Ow. Thanks for catching me, you guys."
Quinn made a furious noise and Puck had to restrain her from stomping on Blaine's head.
"I guess we're walking then," said the agent, dusting himself off.
Finn shook his head as they continued. He wondered if they should have just let Blaine leave them; he had barely proved at all useful so far.
"Wait," said Puck. They all froze.
"You guys, we need guns."
They all looked at each other. "G-guns?" stuttered Tina.
"We're walking right into downtown, and it's swarmed with giant spiders. We need something to defend ourselves!"
"He's absolutely right," said Blaine. "We're gonna need a lot more than this pistol if we're gonna survive."
Finn frowned, looking uncertain. "Where are we gonna find guns?"
"There's a shop over on Third Street. We bust in there, take some guns and then we're ready to kick some eight-legged ass!"
"Wait, stealing?" said Kurt. "We can't do that."
"We're in the middle of a fucking spider apocalypse," said Quinn. "Who's gonna care?"
Tina shook her head. "But we have to go get Mike and Artie! We can't waste time!"
"What if they are trapped?" Puck was getting impatient. "What if they are surrounded by giant spiders? How are we supposed to help them without weapons?"
Finn ran a hand through his hair. "No, I… I don't like this. It's not right. We can find weapons some other way,"
"Puck's right, Finn," said Rachel tightly.
He turned to face his girlfriend. "What?"
"If we want to survive, we're going to have to do this. It's the only way."
"You can't be serious."
"Finn we have to do whatever it takes." Rachel's eyes were cold and serious.
Finn couldn't believe what he was hearing. Had the events of the past twenty-four hours really changed Rachel that much? Then again, she'd always been willing to do whatever it took… but this?
"What are we waiting for?" said Quinn. "Let's go."
The seven of them changed direction and headed toward Third Street with Finn, Tina and Kurt trailing reluctantly in the back. There was no sign of uncertainty in Rachel's face.
It was as if some force had sucked every human being right out of the city. There was no sign of life anywhere. Luckily, that also meant no spiders… for now. It was somewhere around 3 a.m. now and every one of them was completely exhausted. Finn wanted nothing more than to collapse against the side of a building and sleep.
He thought about what his life had very suddenly and very violently become. Just a day ago he had been worrying about grades, homework, his girlfriend, football, glee club… now he was worrying about getting eaten alive by hordes of spiders, and about everyone he cared about possibly being dead. He looked around him. Well, not everyone he cared about.
He wondered how he could go from normal student life to fighting for survival so suddenly without simply breaking down. How had this complete upheaval of everything he knew not ruined him? He guessed it was some sort of animal instinct; a will to survive that blocked the weight of his situation from crashing down on him in his mind. He tried not to think about it too much, worried that he might break that dam and turn into a hysterical wreck. Still, he couldn't help but wonder about his mother and Burt and…
Finn looked over at Kurt. The other boy had kept his composure this entire time. His head had remained clear and level even with the world crashing down around him. Finn marvelled at how strong Kurt really was at his core. Being gay, having to come out, being harassed and bullied every single day, not being able to find love… and now this. Through all of it, he kept his chin up, didn't complain and took it all in stride. Finn hoped some day he could be half as strong as that.
"Hey," he said, touching Kurt's arm and smiling.
Kurt smiled back. "Hey."
"How you holding up?"
Kurt nodded. "I… I'm doing okay."
"You sure?"
Kurt looked ahead. "As okay as I can be."
There was a moment of silence. "You know, you were right back on the rooftop."
Kurt raised an eyebrow.
"I think all your spider knowledge is really gonna come in handy. I used to think it was weird that you spent all that time reading up on them, but it might just save our lives, no matter what that dickhead thinks." They spoke softly, out of earshot from the others.
Kurt smiled. "I don't think he's so bad actually. He's stupid and he's annoying as hell, but I think he likes us."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean what kind of a reason is 'cause I wanted to shut you up' for helping us out of the hotel? He could have easily left us there."
"Then why did he try to abandon us later?"
Kurt shrugged. "I don't know."
They walked a little further before speaking again.
"I think the others were surprised. They didn't expect spiders to be one of your areas of expertise."
"Well they're trying to make spider silk gowns now. It's very haute-couture," Kurt smirked. "And they say spider silk and lemon blended into a cream is a great exfoliate."
Finn laughed, grateful for the humour.
Kurt's smile, however, didn't last. He seemed to be lost in thought. He had been like that a lot recently, withdrawing into himself.
"I'm sorry," he said finally.
Finn frowned. "What?"
"I'm sorry for… being all over you last year. I did some… bad things because of it… I tried to ruin Rachel's chances with you, I tried to sabotage Quinn's relationship with you, I manipulated our parents into getting together so I could get closer to you… and I never took responsibility for it. Whenever somebody confronted me about it I waved it away, blamed it on something else, scolded them for accusing me of having ulterior motives even though I did have ulterior motives… and I never really apologized to you for it."
Finn was touched. For a moment he didn't know what to say "Kurt… it's okay. I understand why you did what you did. We all do stupid things when we're in love, and when there's nobody else like you that you can be with… I completely understand why you would want to do anything for the chance for love. And hey, if you hadn't manipulated our parents, they wouldn't have gotten together and I wouldn't have a father right now…" he put his hand on Kurt's shoulder. "…or a brother."
Kurt looked up at him, his eyes glistening. Finn went cold when he saw a tear roll down Kurt's cheek.
Finally the boy broke down and threw his arms around his brother, crying into Finn's chest. Finn put his arms on Kurt's back, shocked, and held him as he sobbed uncontrollably, his cries growing even louder than Tina's. It was raw, bare crying with no emotions held back. Every emotional weight, every piece of grief and fear and doubt and terror and sorrow that had slowly accumulated spilled out of Kurt for everyone to see. He let his entire being simply unravel and come apart in Finn's arms.
The rest of the teens stared silently for a moment and Quinn motioned for them to take a break. They were in a tunnel under a wide overpass now, with orange lights illuminating Kurt's weeping features. They all sat and Finn guided Kurt to the wall where they sat together, Kurt's tears soaking Finn's shoulder and Finn's arms wrapped around Kurt. The others watched in silence. Blaine didn't say anything this time. Instead, he took out some granola bars that they had taken from Tina's kitchen and passed them around.
They stayed there for a long time, Kurt's voice echoing in the tunnel until it was raw and sore. He choked and wailed and coughed and snorted and blubbered, not even trying to retain his dignity. By the time his crying had finally receded into quiet trembling, Kurt's face and Finn's chest and shoulder were soaked with tears and snot.
Kurt sniffed. "Oh god, I've ruined your shirt."
Finn laughed. "You really think that's what I care about?" Kurt laughed a little too. Eventually his breathing calmed and he took out a handkerchief, wiping his face off before blowing his nose.
The silence still hung in the air; it seemed even heavier now that Kurt's cries had subsided. They all knew that they needed to get up and keep moving, but they were all so tired and had only had one short rest in about eight hours.
Finn heard Kurt take in a sharp breath beside him. He looked over and saw his brother's face had gone white. He was staring past all six other teens, his eyes wide.
"Finn," he whispered.
Finn followed Kurt's gaze to the end of the tunnel. The air suddenly got several degrees colder.
There, only ten feet away from the group, was a giant spider the size of a pickup truck. Its pale beige exoskeleton was orange in the tunnel lights. It had four shining pure black eyes and fangs the size of machetes that were slowly twitching. Its long legs were like pointed fence poles. The thing was absolutely still.
Time froze momentarily. Finn stared into the glistening black globes and could hear nothing but his heart beating in his ears and feel nothing but his brother beside him.
"RUN!" he shouted, jumping to his feet. The rest of the kids whipped around to see the monstrosity and scrambled up. Blaine fumbled in his suit pocket for his pistol.
It was too late. The spider closed the gap with terrifying speed and soon it was right in front of Finn and the others. The arachnid raised its spear-like forelegs and reared up slightly. Finn felt bile rise in his throat and he knew he was about to be impaled. Oh god please don't let it kill the others, he thought.
There was a sound like thunder and the world exploded. Finn couldn't see. He felt wet. There was a strange noise in his ears. He had expected the pearly gates to be a little different from this.
Suddenly the world came rushing back to him. There was some kind of goo covering his face. The noise was a sort of panicked chittering.
Finn wiped the warm slime out of his eyes and saw the giant spider scrambling backwards. A massive chunk had been taken out of its head and it was leaking the same blue goop that was covering Finn's face and chest.
There was another blast and another chunk of the spider exploded, causing one of the forelegs to come flying off. More and more thunderous blasts hammered into the giant until it was a gory, twitching mess of limbs.
Finn looked behind him. None of his friends had pulled a bazooka out of nowhere and he highly doubted he had suddenly gained god-like powers of telekinesis.
That's when he saw them: two girls standing just a few feet away from Finn. One held a sawn-off shotgun at arm's length and had another one strapped to the small of her back just above her shapely bottom. The other held a massive automatic shotgun, nearly 5 feet long.
"Leave it to you to be out in a city full of giant venomous spiders without a weapon, man-tits," said Santana Lopez, blowing smoke away from the barrel of her sawn-off.
"That was really dumb, and that's coming from me," said Brittany Pierce in her hazy confused-sounding drawl.
Finn was dumb-struck. He had almost been killed moments earlier, he was now covered in sticky slime and two of his friends had just appeared out of nowhere carrying heavy weapons.
Tina ran forward and enveloped them both in a tight hug. Santana looked startled and Brittany just smiled. Soon Kurt, Rachel and Quinn joined her.
"Where'd you get shotguns?" asked Puck, agape.
"We were in Brittany's trailer when the spiders got to us. It turns out Britt's dad had these stashed in there."
"I thought they were didgeridoos," mumbled Brittany. "My parents cried when I tried to play them."
"How did you know we were here?" There were tears in Quinn's eyes.
Santana glanced at Kurt. "We heard Kurt's caterwauling a mile away. We thought you were already being killed… looks like we got here in time though."
"I'll say!" said Tina, who was once again weeping.
"Hang on," said Finn. "Can someone please get this… spider blood off me?"
Kurt took out another handkerchief and began wiping at Finn's face. "Actually, spiders don't have blood. The substance you're covered in is called hemolymph."
"Whatever, just get this… emo-lynch off me."
"Is he a lawyer?" asked Brittany, who had just noticed Blaine.
Santana frowned. "Yeah, who's he?"
Blaine dusted off his suit lapel and cleared his throat grandiosely. "Ag—"
"He's nobody," Quinn interrupted once again.
Blaine glared and took out his pistol. "Bitch, I will end you."
"Ah-ah-ah," chided Santana, pointing her sawn-off at Blaine. "Let's see who's is bigger, hobbit."
Blaine scowled and put the pistol away. "I'm not that short," he grumbled.
"Where are you guys headed?" asked Finn once the gunk had been cleared away from his face.
The two girls looked at each other.
"We were coming to find the rest of the glee club," said Brittany
"Well… we were gonna find a place to hold out and maybe try to find you along the way." Santana looked away.
"We were trying to find you guys too," said Rachel, smiling.
"We're on our way to the gun shop," said Puck, "It looks like you guys are set but we need weapons."
"No kidding." Santana twirled her sawn-off smugly.
"After that we're gonna find Mike and Artie," said Tina.
Santana nodded. "Afterwards that'll just leave Mercedes."
"Well what are we waiting for?" Quinn started to exit the tunnel. "Let's go."