Chapter 11:

The air outside the classroom was thick and white, and Kurt coughed and waved his hand in front of his face. "Fuck," He muttered, squinting through the floating debris. Next to him, Sam coughed as well, and Kurt tried to wave away the dust from his face. Then he put his hand back on Sam's hip, trying to keep a firm grip on him.

"Uh, follow me," Ash instructed, and Kurt saw a blurry figure move towards his left.

"This is ridiculous," Puck mumbled, still holding up Santana with Mike's help. "I can't see a fucking thing."

"We can't wait any longer for the dust to settle," Mike said, stumbling forward to where he thought Ash was. "The deadites are probably on their way here right now. There's no way the blast didn't catch their attention."

"Mike's right," Ash said. "We need to go now."

Mike stared at him. "You called me Mike."

Ash rolled his eyes, turning away and starting through the fallen debris. "Well don't make it gay..." Behind him, Kurt gave an irritated cough. Ash glanced over his shoulder. "Stop swallowing the dust, it's bad for you."

Kurt glared at Ash's general direction.

They walked forward, stepping slowly and carefully and feeling around in front of them. Every now and then, Ash would yell something back to them to make sure they all knew where he was.

"I think we're near the wall Sue detonated," Ash yelled, kicking at a fallen chunk of plaster to clear the course for the others. "Everybody still with me?"

"I'm here," Mike choked, accidentally inhaling a mouth full of debris.

"Your chins been clearing a path for me, so I'm right behind you," Sue said. She looked around for the others. "Q? You and the lesbi-lovers still here?"

There was a chorus of replies from all three girls, who had all formed a line together with Puck. Quinn had her arm hooked around one of his, while he supported Santana with the other. Brittany had taken Mike's place on Santana's other side. "I'm a bi-lover though," Brittany added. Santana smiled at her.

Sue rolled her eyes. "Alright, what about Porcelain and Ladylips?"

"We're here," Kurt said, speaking on both their behalves. "But we need to get going- Sam's starting to pass out."

"M'fine," Sam mumbled, his head lolling slightly to one side. "Just...can't breath..."

"Alright, come on." Finn, hoisting Sam up for a better grip. Sam groaned, the violent movement sending sharp pains through his arm. "Rachel and I are both here, she's still got the book, and we need to keep going forward."

"It's warm," Rachel whispered, clinging to Finn's shirt as they continued on their way.

"Huh?" Finn asked, glancing down at her.

"The book," She said. "I can feel it in the bag...it's getting warm."

"Maybe its batteries are over-heating?" Finn suggested.

"Books don't run on batteries, Finn." Rachel said.

"Yeah, I know that, Rachel." Finn muttered. "But they don't usually have faces and teeth, either. And they don't heat up, or contain crazy rituals that create fucked up giggling monsters."

Rachel was quiet for a moment. "They are rather giddy, aren't they? I mean, for creatures from hell they're very...gleeful."

From inside the bag, the Necronomicon chuckled.


It was still standing. The wall was still standing.

"No way," Mike whispered. "No fucking way."

The hallway was half-destroyed- chunks of plaster from the ceiling and walls had crumbled around them. Beams and lights had fallen, and at the end of the hallway they could see a pipe had burst.

But the wall was still standing. There were holes in it, wide deep craters, and it looked on the verge of collapse...but it was still standing.

Sue barred her teeth, and Ash thought he saw one of her eyes start to twitch. He took a careful step away.

"God damn it," Sue seethed, forming claws with her hands. Without warning, she let out a a crazed shriek and threw herself at the wall, smashing it with her fists. "GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT!"

"God's not listening, Sue." Kurt said, appearing behind them with a barely-conscious Sam on arm. "He never is."

Sue gave a strangled cry, and her fist slid down the wall, leaving a bloody trail in the plaster.

"You can't lose it now, Sue." Ash said, speaking to her back. She didn't acknowledge him.

"Sam?" Ash heard Kurt say. He sounded scared, and Ash turned around to see him trying to lift Sam's head from off his shoulder, where he seemed to have finally passed out. "Sam, wake up."

Sam's head continued to hang lifelessly off his neck, giving no response to Kurt's panicked cries.

"What's happening?" Brittany whispered, looking at Santana with wide eyes. For once, Santana didn't seem to have anything to say.

"It's the dust," Puck said, as Kurt and Finn set Sam down on the floor, resting his head back against the wall. "It's gotta be. He can't breathe."

Kurt pressed two fingers against Sam's neck. He let out a wet sob. "Sam, please don't do this." Kurt begged. He pushed his fingers deep into Sam's skin, desperately searching for a pulse. "We just found each other...you can't leave me now..."

"Anything?" Finn asked.

"Does it look like I've got anything!" Kurt snapped, his voice verging on hysteria. He took his fingers off Sam's neck, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "We need to get him air," Kurt said. He looked around. "Does anyone know CPR? S-something about compressions- how many compressions?" He asked, his eyes wild. "Does anyone kn-know?"

"I do," Puck said, setting Santana down against the wall. "I took a course last summer, after a kid almost drowned in one of the pools I was cleaning."

Kurt moved out of the way, and Puck shifted Sam away from the wall, and cleared a spot on the floor for him with one hand.

"Of course Guppy-Lips is the one asphyxiating," Santana said, watching Puck tilt Sam's chin up, and bend down to press his mouth against him. "His mouth is so huge, he's breathing in twice the amount of dust as the rest of us."

"Santana you c-" Kurt began, turning around to scream at her. He paused, seeing her eyes were wide and terrified, brimming with tears. She was scared.

Puck pressed his hands against Sam's chest, counting out compressions with a look of intense concentration on his face. Everyone was silent.

Quinn's hands were at her throat, turning her small gold cross over in her palms. Brittany and Santana clung to each other. Mike, Ash and Sue watched with grim expressions, and Rachel pressed her face into the side of Finn's shirt.

Finn and Kurt hovered close to Puck, who was once again breathing into Sam's mouth. Tears streamed down Kurt's face. Not Sam. Please, not Sam.

On the floor, Sam's body twitched, and Puck's head snapped back as Sam began to cough and sputter. Clouds of dust erupted from his mouth and he turned over on the floor, clutching his chest and hacking uncontrollably.

"Oh thank god," Kurt cried, scrambling back over to Sam. He pulled him into his lap, resting Sam's head against his chest as Sam continued to cough. Around them, everyone else gave sighs of relief. Kurt wrapped his arms over Sam's chest and pressed his face against the top of his head, his shoulders shaking as he started to sob again. Unable to speak yet, Sam put his own arm over Kurt's, hugging it to his chest.

"I've had enough of this," Sue said, storming over and grabbing the back-pack from Rachel's arms.

"Hey!" She protested. Sue ignored her, ripping the Necronomicon out of it.

"This is all your fault," Sue shouted. "Evil fucking piece of literature."

"Why is Coach Sylvester talking to a book?" Brittany whispered to Santana. Santana shrugged, and twirled her finger next to her ear, in the universal sign for "crazy."

"Sue, what are you doing?" Ash asked, approaching her slowly. She'd taken a flare out of the bag now, and she put it in her mouth. She bit down on the tip of the flare, ripping it off and causing it to ignite. Around her, the glee club watched with wide eyes.

"Let me show you what my mother taught me to do with books," She said, the blaze of the flare reflected in her eyes. She flipped the book open, and pressed the flare against it's thick pages.

They all felt the air around them change as the book caught fire. Brittany gasped.

Sam gripped Kurt's arm harder as whispering filled the air. He couldn't tell what it was saying- it didn't sound like english. He looked around desperately, trying to find the source of it. It was all around, filling up every inch of the hallway.

"God, what's happening?" Rachel whispered, clinging to Finn. She shut her eyes, and found herself thinking there's no place like home, there's no place like home.

Rachel's eyes flew open again as she heard someone scream. It was the book- the book had flown out of Sue's hands, and a terrible, soulless shriek was pouring from it's burning pages. They all watched in horror as the screaming book attached itself to the ceiling, and it's flames spread out to engulf it.

"I think you made it mad!" Brittany shouted, holding her hand up to shield her eyes.

They looked away as there was loud cracking noise, and bits of plaster fell from the ceiling as a large hole was suddenly ripped into it, in a circle surrounding the Necronomicon. There was a whoosh of air, and Quinn looked up as she found her hair being whipped around her face. The hole went through the entire school, right out to the dark purple sky.

The air around them swirled upwards, sending bits of debris flying around them and whipping their faces. "Everybody hold onto something!" Ash commanded, as he, Sue and Mike took hold of broken beams.

Kurt hauled a moaning Sam across the hall, and stuck both their arms into a bottom locker. Brittany and Santana did the same, and Puck, Quinn and Finn held onto the lockers higher up. Rachel clung to Finn.

The lightening above them crackled and struck, right into the pages of the hovering Necronomicon. The book was still wailing, but the sound was lost in the violent wind which formed a narrow vortex out of the school and up into the sky. They held on tight as the wind threatened to lift their feet off the ground, and up into the dark sky.

Rachel shrieked as a chunk of wall crashed into her, causing her to lose her grip on Finn. She flailed her arms madly, trying to find something to hold onto as the wind began to sweep her away.

"Rachel!" Finn screamed, letting go of the locker and jumping at his girlfriend. He snatched her out of the air and held her close to his chest as the wind knocked them both around.

"Grab this!" Ash shouted, extending his chainsaw arm to Finn.

Finn looked at him like he was crazy. "You're not seri-!" Before he could finish, he and Rachel together were lifted off the ground, and then went crashing back down onto the floor.

"Does it look like this is a time for jokes?" Ash yelled. "I'm not gonna turn it on!"

With a pained expression, Finn reached out and grabbed hold of the chainsaw, grimacing as it's blade dug into his skin. Rachel held on tightly as Ash pulled them over to the wall he and Sue were at.

There was another flash of lightening and violent burst of wind, and Ash lost his grip on the beam just as Finn and Rachel managed to get a hold of it. The intensity of the wind seemed to double, and Ash found his feet being lifted up off the ground. Finn reached out a hand and Ash grabbed it, but the wind almost seemed determined to take him, as though it was really Ash it had wanted all along.

"For God's sake! How do you stop it? " Finn shouted, as he felt Ash's fingers begin to slip from his grasp.

"You don't!" Ash shouted back. In the last second before he was sucked up into the vortex, Ash looked at Mike. Mike almost wanted to laugh, because the look on Ash's face was far more annoyed than scared. Their eyes met, and Mike understood what he'd meant to Finn. He nodded.

There was a great gust of wind, and Ash was sucked away from them, up into the growling sky. They all held onto for dear life as the sky seemed to grow brighter and the lightening intensified. There was one more violent flash, and the air dropped. The wind died down almost instantly and the Necronomicon fell back to the ground with a thump, landing face up and closed, it's pages unblemished.

Their arms shaking, but still attached to the things they'd been clinging to, the glee club and Sue exchanged tired and scared glances. They all had the same question, but none of them seemed capable of speaking it.

Was it finally over?

"Guys..." Puck said, looking across the hall. They turned, and saw the wall that Sue had attempted to detonate was gone, crumbled to the ground as it should have been in the first place.

They could see the outside.


None of them would wind up remembering much about the chaos that followed their escape from the school. It was all a blur- the sirens, the screaming parents, the questions from the police...they couldn't keep it all. Not on top of everything else they had to.

But what they didn't remember wasn't important...at least, not as important as the things they would remember.

Kurt would remember the relief he'd felt when he saw the ambulances there, the big white vans that meant help and safety. He would remember the he'd jogged along next to Sam's stretcher as they took him across the lawn. He couldn't remember what he'd said to Sam, just that he hadn't stopped talking to him the whole time.

Finn would remember the way Rachel had shrieked, and thrown her arms around him when she realized they'd made it. They'd survived the unthinkable, together. They were going to be okay.

Mike would remember turning back around, away from the emerging sunlight and the people, and looking back into the school. He would remember seeing the Necronomicon still lying there in the middle of the hallway, and his silent promise to Ash.

At the end of the day, the number of confirmed dead or missing students was in the hundreds. The police would question the survivors- that is, those survivors who hadn't been left mentally unstable- but they would never receive any answers. Some students thought it might have been drug related...their attackers had been crazy, they could agree on that. Other suggested some sort of gang war. None had gotten a clear look at them.

No one mentioned monsters, or a wild man with a chainsaw on his arm.


The End


A/N: Epilogue pending. Sorry about the wait. Also, there are links to some art I made for this story on my profile.

Also, I have ret-conned the scene where Sue shows them her weapons cabinet, to include Ash's "catchphrase," because I realized I didn't ever have it in the story and that is unacceptable to me. The scene now goes like this:

They turned to find Coach Sylvester standing in front of a large cabinet of guns.

Everyone's jaw dropped in unison (except for Brittany- she had found a mini-fridge, and was now helping herself to a pudding cup).

"Oh my god..." Puck said, looking awed. "I think I just got hard."

Kurt glanced at Sam, who raised his eyebrows. They exchanged knowing smiles.

"Why do you have all this stuff?" Rachel asked, walking over and looking at the guns.

"I've been preparing for a situation like this since my early teens." Sue said. "To be honest, I thought it would be the Russians."

Ash walked over to the cabinet as well, and inspected Sue's arsenal with a raised eyebrow. Seeming to approve of the weapons, a smirk appeared on his face. "Groovy."