Mary Margaret froze on the spot. She had heard the sounds of a man in great amounts of pain coming from very close by, but as he went quiet so quickly she assumed he had died that way too. Once his roars had subsided, she thought they had just about got away with it, until he had let out another roar of pain. She wished desperately she knew where he was, if only so she could end his misery quickly and not leave him to be feasted upon by the infected, but she had her own mission that she needed to focus on.

Then the feral, ethereal scream had sounded, fairly close and bone-chillingly horrifying. There was only one creature in the world that could make that noise and Mary Margaret was well aware of what it would mean. She felt all the blood rush from her face as she turned to see if she could see the creature.
"Oh flubs." She muttered to herself, looking round to see if she could find shelter. All she saw, however, were shop fronts with large panes of glass missing that wouldn't be able to keep a toddler out, let alone the hoard of infected that were almost certainly heading her way now.

"Neal, come on! We have to stay ahead of them!" She heard coming from the direction the scream had been in and, turning to look once again, saw a group of 3 running towards her. All she could really discern in the time it took them to run past her was that the group was of 2 women and a man, one girl with flowing golden locks, the other a brunette with a skinny, athletic body and a man pulling up the rear, fear clouding his face.
"Hey, come with us!" Shouted the blonde as the three flew past, grabbing Mary Margaret's arm and dragging her along.

Then came the sound Mary Margaret had been dreading, the snarling, snapping and growling crescendo that signalled the infected, a lot of the infected, racing down the street to capture any person still alive. Mary Margaret and the three others ran as fast and as hard as they could, but her and the blonde had fallen a ways behind due to the pause it had taken for Mary Margaret to catch up to speed and start running too, even if it had been only a second.
"Oh God!" Mary Margaret whimpered as she ran, thinking of her husband back at the camp. She hadn't told any of them she was going, knowing they would try and talk her out of her plan, but they needed the supplies she had been heading towards desperately. They had already lost so much, she wasn't willing to just sit around and wait to lose anything else.

"This way!" The blonde gasped to her, pulling her arm once again and leading them into an alleyway with a wall cutting off their path, causing a dead end.
"Now what?" She cried, watching the blonde who was already scrabbling at the wall, pulling herself up and flinging one leg over the top.
"Come on." She demanded from her vantage point, holding a hand down for Mary Margaret to grab, "Those things can't climb." Praying her fitness level was enough to make it to the top in time, Mary Margaret took the blondes hand and, working together, hauled her to the top so she could sit facing the other woman.

Panting heavily, they watched as a broken off bunch of the infected followed them down the alleyway, but couldn't help laughing together when they realised the hoard could not reach them from their resting place. Mary Margaret gained her composure first, turning to her new ally.
"I'm Mary Margaret Nolan." She told her, still huffing the odd laugh of relief.
"Emma Swan." The blonde replied, a great grin on her own face matching Mary Margaret's. "What on Earth were you doing out here on your own? Did the rest of your group not make it or something?" She asked, her face no longer jolly, sympathy and sadness taking its place.
"Oh gosh, no." Mary Margaret smiled a reassuring smile. "I've come from a shelter a couple of towns over. One of the guys is really sick - not infected sick - we think he has a kidney infection or something. He needs antibiotics and pain relief, but we don't have any at our shelter and the hospital nearby was already cleared out when we settled there. I was heading to Boston Medical Centre to get medicine, anything I can carry, you know, just in case, when the screamer sounded. What about you? What were the three of you doing running down the street? Oh my gosh, we lost your friends! What are you going to do? Do you have a meet up point?"
"Oh, Neal and Lily can look after themselves, they'll be fine. No meet up point though." Emma replied, glaring down at the hoard trying to reach them, deep in thought. "I'm sure we'll meet up again at some point. We never really had a plan of action, pretty much just decided we were going to try and kill as many of those things as we could while we still can."

Mary Margaret frowned at that, not sure she liked the direction of Emma's thoughts, but knowing it wasn't really her place to say anything against it. Emma's eyes had already alighted on a nearby fire escape iron staircase, sending a mischievous grin Mary Margaret's way before swinging her other leg over the wall away from the infected and using the leverage to jump from the wall to the stairwell.
"Emma!" Mary Margaret cried in surprise, her hand outstretched as if to try and save her, before breathing a sigh of relief as the blonde landed neatly on her feet and clung to the hand rail of the stairwell.

"Gimme a sec!" Emma called back, sprinting down the stairs and over to one of the dumpsters in the new alleyway, checking inside. Happy with whatever it was she found in there, she rolled it over to just underneath Mary Margaret. "Okay, you should be alright to jump down and onto this thing."

"You want me to jump onto the bin?" Mary Margaret repeated back, scrunching her nose up in disgust. Emma looked up and nodded, no sign of a joke on her face.
"Yeah. The bin's full of paper, take out cartons and stuff. Even if you fall through the lid you shouldn't hurt yourself too badly."
"Emma, that's disgusting!"
"Look, that screamer didn't just bring a couple of infected this way and although they can't climb places, they can sure as hell turn corners. Pretty soon you'll have them on both sides of the wall and then you'll be stranded. These things don't give up easily so you'll be stuck there a long while. It's either gross bin landing or getting eaten. Your choice."

Groaning at how much sense Emma's logic made, Mary Margaret took a deep breath in, squeezed her eyes and mouth shut as tight as she could, then swung her leg over the wall and let herself fall into the bin beneath her. The lid did indeed give out under her weight and the momentum of her fall, but as Emma said, the landing was made much easier by the soft contents within.
"You alright?" Emma asked her, leaning over and once again offering her hand to help pull Mary Margaret out of her landing place.
"Yeah," She replied, pulling herself out with Emma's help, scrunching her nose at the state her clothes were now in. "I think I sat in mustard."

Emma's laugh was a silver bell in the misery surrounding them, bright and cheerful as she reached into the bin for a mostly unused tissue to wipe the offending stain off Mary Margaret's clothes, causing Mary Margaret to let out a pathetic little chuckle as the funny side of the situation washed over her.

"So, Boston MC, huh?" Emma finally stated, tossing the tissue back in the bin and rubbing her hands together. "Pretty sure it's this way, come on."
"Wait, wait, Emma you don't have to come with me." Mary Margaret said, putting a hand on her new friend's shoulder, worry in her gaze. "I mean, what about your friends? They might need you."
"Like I said, Neal and Lily can look after themselves." Emma told her confidently. "With the number of infected that came down the street, it's going to take a while to clear out and I don't have a chance of finding them until that lot has moved on. So I might as well come help you at the hospital, then come back and look for them once the crowd has cleared."
"Well, if you insist." Mary Margaret shrugged, once again struggling to find a way of arguing against her.

Carefully and silently, the two women poked their head around the corner of the alleyway and, although the street had a few infected milling around, they didn't see anything anywhere near as terrifying as the hoard they had escaped from.
"If we stay silent we should be able to outmanoeuvre them." Emma whispered over her shoulder. "Come on, this way."

The apartment block went silent as they heard the scream ring out over the city. It took a whole minute after the sound before anyone said anything.
"We can't stay here." Gold declared, fighting against the way his voice wanted to wobble in terror. "The place will be over-run in no time. We have to leave. Now."
"Jones is in shock." Smee said, voice thick with worry. "He's lost a fair amount of blood. I know some basic first aid but this? I don't even know where to start."
"Then we need to find him a doctor." Milah stated as though it was the most obvious choice in the world.
"And where do you propose we find one, Milah? In a hospital?" One of the women snapped back, head whipping from the group in front of her to outside and back again.
"You were all for your husband leaving him for dead a minute ago, Milah." Another woman retorted, "Maybe we should do just that. Let's leave him. We can get away faster without his dead weight."
"I won't leave him." Milah ground out, her eyes flashing anger at the woman.
"Aye, me neither." Smee agreed, standing up and coming to stand beside her.

"Your funeral." Someone muttered and with that, the whole group dispersed, going to gather their basic belongings ready to make a run for it.
"Milah, you can't be serious." Gold asked her incredulously, looking down at Jone's unconscious form, his clothes mostly stained red with blood and the stump of his arm still leaking a little.

"We need to do something to stop the bleeding completely." Smee told Milah, "That tourniquet is already sodden, if it gets caught on anything it won't be hard to get off at all, then he'll be bleeding out again."
"You're right." Milah replied, crouching down and brushing her hand down Killian's face. "We need to make a stretcher to carry him out. Got any ideas?"
"I have a hammock in my apartment." Smee suggested, already heading back that way to go get it.
"Of course you do." Gold groaned, rolling his eyes. "Can you believe some of the people we live with?" He asked Milah, a joking note to his tone. She didn't even look at him.

"Look, why don't you make yourself useful and go pack a bag for us. Food cans, water, weapons, spare clothes, whatever you get fit in there. You're right, we can't stay here." She bit out to him, her attention still entirely focused on the man on the floor. Gold was taken aback, unsure where her attitude had come from but knowing he didn't like it. He also knew it was pointless to argue with her, though, especially now when the danger was so close and so, spinning on his heels, he went to pack as she requested.

It took nearly 10 minutes for Smee and Milah to wrap the hammock around Killian's body, the two agreeing they would be the ones to carry him to safety and deciding that safety was the woodland area just outside of the city. One of the other men that had returned when the scream sounded told them he had a jeep outside, much to their relief, and he was happy to carry Killian and whoever else wanted to get away to safety. So working quickly together, they managed to stumble down the stairs, out of the foyer of the apartment building and into the jeep, but not before the first few infected of the hoard rounded the corner.

"Get in the car and drive!" Milah screamed, shoving her husband hard in the back to get him in quicker so she could squeeze in after him. Everyone else that was not already in the car began scattering, humans spreading out in all directions, a few names shouted out as people recognised their friends, family and loved ones amongst the throng of infected being racing towards them. The tension in the car rose even higher as the engine struggled to turn over, the accelerator being slammed against the floor when it finally did and the car shooting forward just in time to miss the first few hands getting hold of any of the metal roof or bike bars on the outside of the framework.

"Faster, faster, faster, faster, faster..." Chanted the wife of the car's owner, looking terrified in the wing mirror of the car, not noticing the infected appearing at either side of the road. No-one could help but see them, though, when the driver had to start making sharp turns to avoid hitting the ones appearing in the road, curses spilling from his lips as he steered left and right in a mad dance to get to the safety of the woodland ahead.

It was just as they hit the tree-line that Smee noticed the warm, wetness against his hand.
"Milah... Killian!" He choked out, looking at the red smeared all over the hammock and his arm, his gaze slowly coming back to her horror filled eyes. Almost simultaneously they came to the same conclusion and began fighting together to get the fabric of the hammock away.

"Oh God, there's so much blood!" Milah cried, tears rolling down her cheeks as they inspected the stump that was now Killian's arm, the tourniquet having slipped off and the ragged flesh dripping in time with his heartbeat, coating everything in red, gory warmth.

"Here," Said Gold, tearing a strip of his own shirt off and handing it over to Smee. "Re-tie his arm up. It can at least bide us some time until we work out what to do about him." Working together, they managed to make a new tourniquet, all fully aware it simply wouldn't be enough to save his life. All they could be grateful for was that the shock had already knocked him out so at least there were no screams of pain this time as they pulled the wound closed as best they could.

Luckily, their plan seemed to have paid off as the numbers of infected outside seemed to decrease until they were flying down the forest road completely unhindered, although also completely aimlessly. Smee continued ripping up items of clothing and using them to add to the tourniquet around Killian's arm, binding it together as tight as possible and wrapping other pieces of fabric around as a make-shift bandage. It seemed to do the trick, as the drip of blood stopped and less and less of the fabric being tied around seeped as soon as it was applied. More pieces of clothing were passed over by the couple in the front and together, Milah and Smee used them to wrap him up to keep him warm.

After about 30 minutes of driving, Jones stirred just enough to open his eyes. A water canteen was immediately passed over and Milah carefully guided it to his mouth, sighing in relief when he greedily gulped a few mouthfuls before resting his head back and breathing heavily.
"How do you feel?" She asked him, gently moving a sweat soaked lock of hair off his forehead.
"Hung-over, without the fun bit the night before." He grinned, letting a little chuckle out before his forehead once again scrunched in pain.
"Sounded like you were having plenty of fun in your apartment last night." Milah told him, a glint in her eye that could be mischief, could be another tear.
"Aye, and thank the Gods it wasn't my dominant hand that was sliced." He told her, "Looks like my fun-having days aren't over just yet."
"Oh, gross you two!" Shouted the woman from the front seat, giggling a little at their crude jokes.
"You never change, do you, Jones?" Smee grinned happily, slapping his friend on the right shoulder and ignoring the faint grunt of pain Killian let out at the way his hand was disturbed from the movement.

"Okay guys, we have a slight problem." Their driver told them, effectively killing the humorous mood in the car. "I'm getting real close to empty and I don't see any other vehicles I can steal fuel from or any gas stations nearby. What do we wanna do?"
"It's starting to get fairly dark." Gold pointed out. "Maybe we should find a clearing in the forest, get some rest before going looking for fuel."
"That's what I was thinking." The driver's wife spoke up, "Might as well pull over fairly soon, I haven't seen any infected for a while and there's not going to be much different between here and a couple miles up the road."

Nodding his assent, the driver pulled over to the side of the road, turning the engine off and hopping out, opening doors as he walked round the car to help the passengers out.

Killian winced as he moved, the cold hitting him as the bits of clothing fell from his body and causing tendrils of pain to shoot up his arm and across his body. He stood on shaking legs, trying to take a step but almost immediately losing his balance, only to be caught by Milah and Gold, who both grabbed him under an arm and pushed him back up to standing. Meeting each other's faces over him, Milah's eyes told Gold he needed to wrap an arm around Killian's waist and help him stay upright as they walked.

They had only been walking 5 minutes, looking for a good place to make camp when the sound of cans hitting together sounded, the driver and his wife having walked right into a trip wire alarm system. Not sure what to expect next, the group froze, looking all around and pulling out whatever knives and weapons they had collected on their way out. A twig cracked ahead of them and shuffling footsteps were heard before a tall, largely built man came into view. He stood stock still as he took in their group, confusion on his face.

"Hey, you guys aren't OU's." He told them, the confusion leaking into his voice as he tossed a long, curled lock of hair over his shoulder.
"OU's?" Their driver repeated back, his voice matching the confusion of the other man.
"Yeah, like the ones with the virus that's ended the world." The man replied back, turning to look at Killian, "Although he doesn't look far off turning-"
"Oh no, he's not turning." The driver's wife cut in, "He had an accident and lost a hand. The most medical training any of us have is Smee here who is only a first aid worker. We simply couldn't leave Jones back in the city to die."
"Wow, you guys have come from the city?" The man said back, his eyebrows shooting up to match how impressed he sounded. "Well, hey, none of us are officially medically trained, but I've seen Robin and Marian perform a few miracles since we got out here. Maybe they can help out?"

Sticking a meaty hand out, the man smiled at them. "Name's Little John by the way. Pleased to meet you all. Follow me, we'll see what we can do for you."

Smiling at the irony of the man's name, the group followed to a clearing not too far from where they had caught the trip wire, the area surrounded by professional looking tents, a bonfire in the middle and a whole group of people sharing food, jokes, love and laughter. Leaving the group behind to stare about them in awe, Little John went ahead to speak with a man who was sitting on a log next to a heavily pregnant woman. He gestured towards them, their faced becoming awash with concern as Little John spoke. The man stood up and turned, looking around.

"Alan! Alan Dale, where have you got to?" He asked in a broad, well spoken English accent, making his way over to the group even as he called. From somewhere behind one of the tents, a man with red hair and a goatee to match came rushing over.
"Yes Locksley?" The red-head called as he rushed over to join the approaching man the group guessed was Robin.
"Be a good man, Dale, show these people where they can rest their heads and get some food in them will you? I have an injury to attend to." Locksley commanded, calmly, as he turned to take in Killian's appearance.

"The name's Robin Locksley, who might you be?" He asked, walking over to Killian and taking the arm he had wrapped around Milah's shoulder for support.
"Jones, Killian Jones." Killian replied, his face contorting in pain as it was moved from Milah's shoulders to Locksley's.
"Well, Jones, it looks like you've been trying to feed the infected." Locksley joked with him, starting to lead him over to the fire. "Bloody painful thing to do, that. And I'm afraid there's more pain in your future if we're to save your life."
"Figured as much." Killian replied, gritting his teeth as he was lowered to the ground in front of the bonfire.

Milah and Smee sat on either side of him, pushing up against him on either side to keep him upright. Milah's eyes dancing in the light of the bonfire as she watched the pregnant woman approach with caution. But then Locksley wrapped his arm around the woman's swollen waist and smiled softly and lovingly at her, quelling Milah's worry.
"May I introduce my wife? This is Marian. Our second child in her belly." Robin told them, proudly, pointing to a small child who was chattering loudly to whoever seemed to be listening. "There's our first. Roland, his name. He's only 4."

Marian knelt down in front of Jones, gesturing to his stump.
"May I see?" She asked, kindly, her face twisted in sympathy.
"I'd rather you didn't, milady," Killian told her, his mouth curling into a smile at one end, "I'm afraid that bloody infected has eaten some of the handsome out of me." Everyone around Killian laughed a little at that, Milah's heart growing at her brave lover, trying to make everyone laugh even while he was in incredible amounts of agony.
"I assure you, it's nothing I've not seen before." Marian smiled back at him, carefully taking the heavily wrapped bundle that was the end of his arm and starting to unravel it. "I worked as a military nurse on the front line for a number of years before Roland came along. This used to be an every day for me."
"I was navy for a spell." Killian told her, trying to keep a conversation going to keep his mind off the pain. "Joined with my brother, Liam. We served together, he was my captain. But our ship was bombed from an aircraft, Liam went down with the ship. I still have no clue how I survived that one." He was cut off by a sharp lightening rod shooting up his arm as Marian began getting to the more blood soaked rags that were closer to his arm.

"At least I know I don't have to worry about you being squeamish then." Marian smiled, feeling awful that she was causing him pain but knowing she needed to work to save him. As much as Killian Jones was not squeamish, his face changed colour at an alarming rate as she pulled off the final rag and exposed his arm to the world, the pale colour first going grey then fading into a sickly green. Frowning, she carefully untied the slippery tourniquet and pulled it off to see the full extent of the damage. Standing, she moved off to give some orders to one of the women standing behind her, telling them exactly what she needed and telling them to be quick about procuring it.

Milah rubbed a comforting hand down Killian's back, looking at his face with worry.
"Don't look at it, Killi', just look at me. That's it." She cooed to him, trying to do anything she could to make things better for him. Killian turned his head slowly, swallowing hard as the world seemed to take it's time in following the movement of his head, which was starting to feel dangerously light once more.

Within a few moments, Marian had returned, her arms full of metal objects - pans, metal cutlery and ladles, even the odd tin plate which she buried deep in the flames from the bonfire before turning back to Killian. Taking the leather belt she had brought over, she folded it over a number of times before presenting it to his face.
"I'm afraid you're really going to want this." She told him, inserting it into his open mouth and trying not to react to his whimper of fear. Behind him, Little John, Robin, Alan and a number of the other men knelt down, each grabbing a part of Killian and holding him down, a couple of them whispering apologies for what was about to happen.

Killian swallowed hard again, begging himself to not scream too loud even as Marian pulled the cork out of the top of the bottle of rum she had brought over. Thinking about it for half a second, she leant over and took the belt out of Killian's mouth again, offering the bottle instead.
"Drink, as much as you can, but I'll warn you, it's strong stuff." She ordered him, slowly and carefully pouring the drink into his mouth, him gulping it down gratefully, knowing it would help dull the pain even a little bit, but still coughing as the alcohol trickled down his throat. Taking the bottle away, Marian once again gave him the belt to bite down on and everyone prepared, tensing for what was about to come.

"I won't lie," Marian told him, hovering the bottle over the end of his stump, "This will hurt like a bitch." With that, she began to pour the alcohol over the wound and instantly, Killian was grateful so many strong men were holding him down because with the pain that was setting his whole body alight there was no way he wouldn't have tried to attack Marian. He knew he needed this, needed the alcohol to clean the wound as much as could be under the circumstances, but it didn't lessen the torture he was undergoing. Every ounce of his willpower went into holding back, both his movements and the sounds he made around the belt between his teeth, grunting as he squeezed his eyes closed and desperately trying to think of anything other than the electric, sharp agony firing up his arm.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Marian began saying over and over, even as she passed the bottle over to one of the women standing beside her. With her free hand, she reached round herself to grab one of the metal spoons, now glowing white from the heat of the fire. Squeezing her eyes shut, she once more whispered "I am so sorry," before allowing a cloud of determination to settle over her, opening her eyes, she pressed the scolding metal against the wound, instantly cauterising the open flesh and stopping the bleeding. The pain was so intense, Killian passed out once again, his head lolling back against the men at his back, and instead of working to hold him down, the men were now working at keeping him upright and still so Marian could finish cauterising the wound and bandaging it in actual medical material she had stolen from their local pharmacy when the infection really kicked off outside.

"Now that is one bloody brave bloke." Alan stated quietly, his tone matching the mood around the fire, "I seriously thought we'd have a hoard on our hands, thinking he was going to scream the forest down, but a couple of growls around the leather and he passes out? More than I could have managed."
"Killian is one of the best." Smee replied glumly, looking down at his once-again unconscious best friend.
"The very best." Milah added, swallowing the tears that threatened to overflow.

In the shadows behind the crowd, Gold's eyes flashed as he watched the way his wife interacted with Killian Jones, connections starting to form in his mind that made his heart clench and his hands curl into fists at his side.