Santana had never driven so slowly in her entire life. They must have been going at 15 miles/hour. She didn't want to make loud noises and alert the little creepers. Neither Brittany nor Quinn seemed to have a problem with that, though. They were still silent and were already about a third away from the house. Just as they had stipulated, they were heading to a gun store a few blocks away from McKinley High School.

The roads were deserted. Well, besides the amount of abandoned cars crowding them. Some of them even had the doors open, like its previous owner left in a hurry. This made Santana's driving more difficult, having to wander between the cars, drive around them, and sometimes, get off the road and even drive on sidewalks.

The stationary vehicles were almost mocking Santana. The fact that they were there, empty, abandoned, seemed to slap her in the face with the reality that its drivers and passengers must be close by. The more cars they passed, more Santana's fear and anxiety rose. If the cars were there, where were its occupants?

Brittany must've been thinking the same thing.

"Why do you think there's no one out here?" The taller blonde asked, her eyes gazing around.

"Honestly, I don't know," Quinn replied, also looking out the window. "I was expecting an attack a long time ago."

"Me, too," Brittany nodded. "I think it's because the sun is still booming."

Santana looked through the rearview mirror, meeting Brittany's certain gaze. It was a pretty plausible theory. She had no idea how zombies worked, but it did made sense that semi-dead people didn't like the sun. So Santana made a mental note to be back at the house before the sunset. Well, she had already made that note, but with this new possibility, it was only reinforced. However, at the pace they were going, it was becoming a tight schedule. It had taken them half an hour to make a ten minute drive and they were only about halfway to the gun store.

"I think Brittany might be right," Santana said, pressing her foot on the pedal, making them drive a little bit faster. The motionless cars on the road didn't allow her to drive that much faster though. Now that she thought about it, if they had to run away, all those cars would definitely be a problem.

Fifteen minutes later, they were pulling right in front the gun store. Brittany handed the baseball bat to Santana, the crowbar to Quinn, along with a duffle bag to each of them to store the guns, and gripped the axe firmer in her right hand. All of them reached for the door handle with impossibly shaky hands. But they were already here, it didn't made sense to come this far just to chicken out at the last minute.

"Whatever you do, don't let go of your weapon," Santana said before walking cautiously towards the store.

Brittany half watched Santana as she reached for the door handle of the store, half watched over her shoulder, just making sure nothing launched their way. Quinn was unhealthily pale but followed Santana, who took another step towards the inside of the store.

Just as Santana crossed the doorway, three successive and loud beeps filled their ears. It was one of those annoying bells that beeped whenever a costumer entered or exited the store. In normal circumstances it would be perfectly acceptable – even if utterly irritating – but they were not under normal circumstances. In their situation, the bell sounded like a damn ambulance siren screeching in their ears.

"Fuck!" Santana cursed through gritted teeth, watching the inside of the store with panicked eyes and raising her bat, ready to strike.

Quinn prepared to step inside when Brittany stopped her with a hand on the shoulder. Wrong move. Quinn shrieked and turned around, swinging the crowbar with all her might. Brittany just felt a lancinating pain in her left upper arm and shoulder blade, before her knees hit the floor.

"Fuck! Brittany!" Quinn rushed to the blonde on the floor that was clutching her arm and had her teeth gritted. "I'm so sorry, Brittany!"

Quinn was in the verge of tears. This was the last thing they needed.

"Are you okay?" Quinn asked, trying to see the damage she caused. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. I thought it was a zombie and I… Fuck… I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay, Q," Brittany managed through deep breaths. "It was my fault. I was dumb and shouldn't have grabbed you without warning first."

"Brittany, I hit you with a freaking crowbar. I can see blood," Quinn argued because, yeah, Brittany was in fact bleeding. "It's definitely not okay."

Brittany was rising to her feet and palming her shoulder blade when Santana's hushed voice sounded from inside the store.

"What the fuck are you two doing? Oh, and by the way, thanks for the precious backup. I don't know what I would've done without you if there had been a bunch of zombies back there. Thanks a…" She stopped her sarcastic rant when she noticed Brittany's bloodied hand and pained expression. "The fuck happened? Why's Brittany bleeding?"

She made a step towards the door, but Brittany raised her right hand, motioning her to stop. If Santana stepped outside the store, the damn bell would ring, and they certainly didn't need the extra noise.

"Come on, together," Brittany said to Quinn, who just nodded, understanding Brittany's intention. If they got in together, the bell would only beep once, and it was already too much noise. It was almost deafening in the utter silence of the streets. Brittany struggled a little to walk straight. Her knees hurt from hitting the floor, but nothing compared to the pain shooting from her upper arm and shoulder blade. Especially her shoulder blade. It really freaking hurt.

"What the hell happened?" Santana rushed to Brittany's side the moment they stepped inside. When Brittany didn't respond, she turned to Quinn, only to find her with an incredibly guilty expression on her face.

"What did you do Fabray?" Santana almost roared.

Quinn just gulped, a new wave of fresh tears filling her eyes.

"It doesn't matter, it wasn't her fault," Brittany interrupted before things got too heated. They had more serious things to do. "We don't have time for this. Hurry up!"

With that she opened her duffle bag and went to the shelves, rapidly shoving guns into it. Santana huffed, and with a final glare in Quinn's direction, she made her way towards a door behind the balcony that gave access to the storage room, grabbing a box of bullets from behind the counter on her way.

"Collect as much ammo as you can," Santana said coldly over her shoulder as she passed Quinn, who still stood there, feeling completely guilty.

So Quinn did. She started to clear up the shelves behind the counter and the drawers of the balcony, which were also filled with ammunitions.

The first thing Santana did when she entered the storage room was to get a gun. She grabbed a handgun and loaded it with the bullets she'd retrieved from the shelf. It wasn't the right gun for her, it was too heavy and her fingers didn't fit perfectly on the handle, but for now, it had to do. Later, if they got away safe and sound, she would have time to pick a better one at Quinn's house.

She had her bag almost full when Brittany and Quinn came through the door, carrying extra bags from the shop, just in case.

"I think two duffle bags full of guns are enough," Santana chuckled quietly. "But fuck it, fill them. You'll never know when –"

Beep, beep, beep.

Santana stopped mid-sentence and she swore her heart stopped, too.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no… This cannot be happening. Santana thought as she looked at the panicked faces gazing right back at her. She still thought, even for a brief second, that it could be anything. A dog, a survivor just like them, hell, even the wind, but all that possibilities sunk when she heard a grunt. A sickening and bone chilling grunt.

She passed the two blondes with the intent of locking the door, but froze when she looked down at the knob and didn't find a lock. The door didn't have a fucking lock. What kind of shitty place didn't have a fucking lock in the fucking storage door?

"Grab something," Santana whispered as softly as she could to the other women, who obeyed without batting an eye, pulling the axe and crowbar they'd stored in their belts. It was better if they'd also had guns, but there was no time. Besides, Santana was sure neither blonde had ever fired a gun and that could end up terribly wrong.

Santana clutched the gun in her left hand, ready to shoot, and slowly opened a crack on the storage door with her right hand. She peaked through it and felt her stomach turn instantly. Wandering around the store was a zombie. In times it had been a man, but now, just a rotten human body with bluish flawed skin, eyes almost white, clouded, as if its owner was blind, and nose sniffling the air, definitely searching for his next meal.

Deciding that she wouldn't let the zombie enter the storage room, Santana opened the door completely and aimed her gun at the creature's head. She was not going to die cornered by a fucking rotting monster.

The sound of a gunshot ripped the air and the zombie fell to the floor with a bullet hole between his eyes. Santana vaguely registered Brittany and Quinn letting out surprised shrieks from the gunshot noise, but she had more important things to worry about. Just as the zombie hit the floor, another three were crossing the doorway, making the annoying bell beep once again. The zombies spotted her immediately. She was in their direct line of sight, after all. They were already half way inside the store, eager to get a piece of her warm and very much alive flesh, when she raised her gun again, hands trembling more than a minute ago.

She fired three shots but only two of them were accurate.

She missed. She fucking missed.

The third zombie only had its right ear shredded by the bullet and was now fifteen feet away from her, but Santana couldn't move her legs, or arms for that matter. Her body seemed to have shut down. Maybe it was the detailed view of the zombie in front of her – fingers and ear missing, chunks of face ripped out, and yellow uneven teeth, maybe it was the damn bell beeping again, signaling the entrance of four more zombies, grunting and running over each other.

Santana was still petrified by fear, and the zombies continued to drag themselves towards her. The closest zombie – the one she'd ripped the ear off – was almost at arm reach, and she couldn't move. This was going to be the end of Santana fucking Lopez.

She barely had time to register a flash of blonde past beside her, when the zombie was hit with an axe right in the eye. It definitely wasn't a pretty sight. Blood pouring out of the zombie's skull, neck snapping backwards with a horrible crack from the force of impact, the disgusting groan that filled the room... All of that was enough to make Santana snap out of her trance. And just in time. Brittany was desperately trying to pull the axe from the zombie's head because another one was almost reaching her, but she seemed to be in trouble. And it was in the second that the zombie reached for Brittany's arm that everything seemed to happen at the same time.

Santana fired in the monster's direction, aiming a little upwards from Brittany's shoulder, yet the bullet never reached its destination. It hit something on the way, falling uselessly on the floor. Brittany swung her axe at the zombie's head but it also collided with an invisible barrier. It could only be Quinn's doing. The later had tried to protect Brittany from the attack at the same time Santana had fired her gun and Brittany swayed her axe. This made Quinn cry out in pain and sunk to the floor next to Santana, her protective shield crushed by the strong impact of both the bullet and the axe. All this while the bell beeped again.

Great, more to join the party, Santana thought as pressed the trigger again, successfully hitting the closest zombie on the head.

Quinn rapidly rose to her feet again and both Brittany and Quinn were launching forward, fighting back to back, hitting every head they found in their way. Santana kept shooting, rarely missing her target. Her aim was something she was highly proud of. Even though the zombies were falling to the floor with every gunshot, they were too many. They kept coming their way, closing the space between them. Santana gazed at the two blondes rapidly and saw them backed against a side door she remembered checking but hadn't deserved her further attention. It was only an empty restroom.

"Quinn, Brittany! Enter the door!" Santana yelled between shots. "Make a shield around you, enter the door, and don't come out until I say so!"

"I'm not going to leave you here alone!" Quinn screamed back.

"I have a gun, just do as I say!" She screamed so angrily that both women obeyed, even if reluctantly.

Now with her friends somewhere safer, she could fire freely without the fear of injuring one of them. She just kept shooting, bringing down as much as she could, even though the fucking bell kept on beeping. It was unnerving to say the least, so Santana aimed her gun, and with a single shot, she silenced the damn thing. She made a quick count of the moving bodies in the room. There were eight heading her way and three clawing at the restroom door. The only positive aspect was that it didn't seem to be more of them. For now, at least.

She quickly fired seven clean shots, each of them hitting a head. It was a fucking mess. Blood and putrid bodies everywhere on the floor, but she patted herself on the back. It was still pretty impressive, if she could say so herself.

When the last zombie walking in her direction tripped clumsily in a mate's body, Santana let out a sarcastic chuckle. How dumb. And so she took this perfect opportunity to fire three accurate shots to the zombies scratching the door Quinn and Brittany were behind. She smirked again to herself. Yeah, she was good. But soon the smirk was whipped off her face. The clumsy zombie was back on his feet and much closer than she'd expected.

Santana took two quick steps backwards and raised her gun. When she pressed the trigger though, nothing happened. Just the empty click of the gun. She pressed it again and again but nothing. She was out of bullets. Just one more to take down and she was out of bullets. Why did she have to shoot the damn bell? The zombie was closer than ever and she was unprotected. Unprotected in a fucking gun store, how ironic.

She took one more quick step back and her back hit the counter, making her lose her balance and sink to the floor. She gazed urgently around in order to spot the duffle bags but found none. They were left back in the storage room. What she did found was that she was cornered against the shelves and counter, the monster towering over her, and it made her heart beat wildly in her rib cage so fast it hurt.

She could already feel the intensified smell of putrefied flesh exhaling from the zombie's parted lips filling her nostrils. It made bile rise to her throat instantly. It was a thousand times stronger up close and Santana wished she'd never have to smell it again. Considering her current situation, her wish might become true in a matter of seconds.

Well, it seemed that Santana fucking Lopez was going to die cornered by a fucking rotting monster after all.

Her spine pressed impossibly harder against the counter but she was already glued to the cold glassed showcase. This was it. Santana closed her eyes as she felt an ice cold hand wrap powerfully around her upper arm. She wriggled and kicked but the zombie didn't seem fazed at all. The grasp around her arm only intensified. There was nothing she could do. This was the end. She only hoped Quinn and Brittany would made it out of there safely. Brittany… Now she regretted not kissing Brittany the moment she saw her standing on Quinn's front porch, as beautiful and perfect as she'd been twenty years ago. Now she was going to die without tasting those perfect lips just one more time. God, she would do anything, absolutely anything, to kiss Brittany again. But now it was too late. She could feel the horrifying mouth hovering over her arm.

There was nothing left to do. Just wait for the irrefutable death.

However, the ending bite never came. In its place, the distressing sound of crushing bone filled the room, and the decomposing body was ripped off from Santana's. At the feel of the cold hand leaving her arm, Santana opened her eyes and gazed into blue ones.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Santana spat angrily the second she looked at the person standing before her, bloodied machete in hand and chest slightly heaving.

"You're welcome," Hailey said sarcastically.

"I'm serious! How did you even get here?" Santana was seeing red. That and stressing out. Hailey shouldn't be here. They had to get out of there right that instance. There could be more zombies passing the doorway at any minute. "Don't you know how foolish you were by coming here?"

"Yeah, guess what?" Hailey spat back, her anger also growing. "If it weren't for my foolish self, you'd be dead right now!"

Santana opened her mouth to speak, but before she could let out a word, the side door was wide open and a very confused Brittany barged out the bathroom.

"Though I heard… Hailey!" Brittany looked from Santana to her daughter, to all the dead bodies on the floor. "What are you doing here? We specifically prohibited any of you to leave the house!"

"Mom…"

Brittany's expression turned dark.

"No! Don't you have any idea of how dangerous this is? Do you think this is all a joke? That we're playing a game? That if anything happens to you, you'll get the chance to start over? This is real life! If anything happens to you, you die or you'll get infected! Is this what you want?"

"I'm sorry, Mom, I…"

"I don't even want to hear your voice right now! God, I'm so disappointed in you. Never thought you'd pull something like this on me," Brittany continued, voice cracking with anger but also sadness and disappointment.

Hailey had the decency to look ashamed, cheeks red and eyes glued to the floor.

"I don't care if we're in the damn zombie apocalypse or staying at someone else's house, you're getting the grounding of your life," the taller blonde said to her daughter before turning to the storage room to get the duffle bags. "Let's go."

The other women all followed wordlessly, a little thrown back by Brittany's authority and anger, something they'd never been familiar with back in high school. Luckily they were able to return to the car, bags in hand, without any other setback. The ride back to Quinn's house was just as slow and silent as the one before. Only instead of comfortable silence, the car was engulfed in tension. Brittany was still incredibly pissed off, sitting in the passenger seat, gazing outside the window.

Santana threw hesitant glances in Brittany's direction every once in a while. The silence was slowly driving her crazy, but the look in Brittany's face told her not to break it. They drove slowly, bypassing the abandoned cars and forty minutes later they were parking the car in Quinn's large garage.

"Go to your room, we'll talk later," Brittany said dryly without looking at her daughter.

Hailey glued her eyes to the floor and practically dragged herself up the stairs, completely devastated.

"Come on, let's get Tina to check out your arm, Britt," Quinn said hesitantly, trying to lift the tension. Brittany just nodded before trailing up the stairs, quickly followed by Santana and Quinn.

"How did it go? Why are you all bloodied?" Tina asked urgently the moment they crossed the kitchen's doorway.

"Bloodied? What happened?" Rachel rushed to their side.

"Nothing special, we're fine," Brittany tried to shrug but grimaced when pain shoot through her back. She was having trouble moving her shoulder blade now that the adrenaline rush was coming down.

"We're fine," Santana said, pointing to herself and Quinn, before pointing in Brittany's direction. "She's not."

"Were you attacked?" Tina asked while moving to examine Brittany's shoulder and arm.

"Yeah, at the gun store," Quinn replied with a disgusted look adoring her face. "They came in while we're packing the guns."

"How many? God, you should've never gone alone," Tina looked remorsefully at the three women. "Brittany, I need you to lie down."

"Let's go to my room," the blonde said dryly.

"I'll be there in a minute, just need to grab my first aid kit."

Brittany entered her room and carefully flopped on the bed. Tiredness was starting to take over her entire body. Her muscles, her head, even her bones seemed to ache.

There was a knock on the door and Tina made her way to the bed carrying a bag.

"This doesn't look good," the doctor commented upon taking a closer look at the wound. "Can you take your shirt off?"

Brittany sat up and grabbed the hem of the shirt but groaned in pain when she lifted her arms.

"I can't take it off," Brittany almost whispered, feeling a little frustrated. She wasn't one to be dependent on someone.

"Do you want help?" Tina asked gently, seeing the light shade of pink that adorned Brittany's cheeks. The blonde just nodded her head silently. Tina grabbed the hem and went to pull the shirt off but it didn't pass mid torso. Brittany was clenching her teeth and a light sheen of sweat was covering her forehead with her efforts to lift her arm.

"Britt, let's not force it, we'll find another way."

The blonde tried to pull the shirt over her head again, but she was starting to get dizzy from the pain so she had no other choice but give in.

"Fine, cut it off," Brittany sighed, motioning to the scissors peeking out of Tina's bag. "It's already ruined anyway."

In a second Brittany's bloodied shirt was lying in shreds on the bed.

"Now your bra," Tina motioned for Brittany to turn around but the blonde was a little hesitant. "Oh, come on Brittany. I'm a doctor, I've seen boobs in every shape, size, and color."

Brittany let out a small chuckle and lay back down on her stomach as Tina unhooked the bra.

"This does not look good, how did this happen?" Tina asked looking at the wound surrounded by dry blood.

"Quinn hit me with a crowbar –"

"What?"

"It was an accident, I approached her from behind and she just defended herself. If anything it was my fault. We're all in high alert and freaking out; I'd probably have done the same."

Tina just shook her head and retrieved some cotton balls that she soaked with disinfectant. She started to clean Brittany's shoulder blade and the blonde hissed lowly when the solution made her already abused skin burn.

"Your skin ripped but, luckily, it isn't very deep," Tina stated as she worked. "It was a strong hit, though. It's pretty swollen."

"Yeah, Quinn still has what it takes," Brittany chuckled.

"I'm going to bandage the wound, and wrap gauze around your shoulder to immobilize it. It's not broken and I don't think it's dislocated either, but just to be on the safe side, you shouldn't move it for a few days."

"A few days?" Brittany raised her eyebrow skeptically.

"A couple of weeks, maybe more. And you need to ice it as well," Tina said and chuckled lightly when Brittany let out a groan half of frustration half of pain. "Hang on, Pierce."

Tina was gently lifting her arm to warp the gauze around her shoulder and across her chest. It hurt like a bitch, and with all the moving, it was only intensifying.

"There, all done." Tina got up and retrieved an oversized t-shirt from one of the drawers and helped Brittany to put it on. Next she popped two painkillers on her hand and handed them to the blonde along with a bottle of water that was on the nightstand. "Here, take this."

Brittany took the pills leisurely, her movements slowed by the exhaustion she was feeling. Her eyelids were heavy and a nap sounded heavenly.

"Get some sleep, Britt," Tina stated and made her way to the door. "I'll get you an ice pack."

"Thanks, Tina," Brittany slurred, eyelids already dropping before diving into darkness.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think :)