Warning for chapter 25: Violence and Cursing
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee
This story is unbeta'd and my first language isn't English
Chapter 25
When Rachel woke up several hours later, she found herself sitting alone in an empty car, which was currently standing in front of a dark house. Outside the car, the sun was already setting and Rachel immediately started to panic when she couldn't see Santana anywhere. She didn't know if she was supposed to stay in the car and wait, or if she should go look for Santana. What if something had happened to her, or maybe she needed help? It didn't take long before Rachel was completely freaking out and she hurriedly started to look for her gun. After some frantic searching, Rachel squealed in triumph when she finally located it, laying safely inside of her backpack. She was just about to turn around to look up at the house again, when the driver door suddenly swung open. Rachel jumped so high in surprise, that she almost banged her head on the car roof, but she managed to collected herself again and quickly aimed her gun straight at the intruder.
"Stop pointing your gun at me Berry! That thing is loaded!" Rachel immediately tossed the gun down to the floor of the car and then proceeded to hug the crap out of Santana.
"Okay, OKAY! Stop that! We need to get inside, before the sun goes down." Rachel finally released Santana from her death grip and looked up at the house, a little apprehensively. It didn't go unnoticed by Santana, who was rubbing her sore ribs after Rachel's surprisingly strong bear hug.
"Relax, I have checked the place out. There's nobody home. Now hurry up! Grab your stuff and let's get inside." They quickly grabbed what they needed and walked inside the empty house. Rachel looked around the rather spacious living room and was about to ask Santana what they were doing there, when Santana beat her to it.
"I was getting tired and I didn't want us to end up driving off the road, just because I managed to fall asleep behind the wheel. So I figured that the best thing was to start looking for an empty house, that we could sleep in for the night. I thankfully learned how to spot an abandoned house, when I had to clean out houses for Thompson. This one had no car outside, no curtains were covering the windows, no lights were on and no smoke was coming up from the chimney. Plus there were no footprints outside in the snow. So I checked the rest of the property out, before I tried to knock on the front door. When nobody answered, I decided to take a chance and broke in. I have secured the whole house and there's no zombies or humans, so we're going to stay here for the night." Rachel nodded and watched as Santana close all the curtains, before she tried to turn on the lights, but apparently this house had no electricity. So Santana fished out some candles from her backpack and lighted them instead.
Santana knew that they had to be careful, because they could never know for sure if there could be other survivors traveling by. If they happened to see light coming from inside this house, they could get tempted to break in. Santana certainly didn't want that to happen. Especially since she on top of worrying about possible intruders, still was trying to convince herself that there was no chance, that they could have been followed by that car that she might or might not have seen back at the base, but unfortunately she hadn't been able to shake that awful feeling she had gotten, after they started driving away from the base. Either way they still had to be careful, because they had already experienced what some humans were capable of doing to survive after the outbreak. Santana actually worried more about bumping into people, than she worried about the zombies roaming around somewhere outside in the dark.
It didn't take the two girls long to fix themselves something easy to eat, before Santana decided that they needed to head upstairs to get some sleep. She wanted to get an early start the next morning. Even if there were two separate beds in the bedroom Santana had chosen, they still ended up sleeping in the same bed. It had by now become more of a routine for the two girls to sleep in the same bed, than it was out of necessity. Most of the times one of them ended up spooning the other one, but neither of them complained about their sleeping arrangement.
Santana and Rachel had never talked about it, when it had happened for the first time after Finn's death. They had just continued with it, like it was something that almost instantly became natural for the two of them to do. Neither one of them dared to bring it up, in fear of ruining it. They both felt that this was something they needed, after they had both lost the people they loved. This time it was Santana that shuffled closer and draped her arm around Rachel's waist and dragged her closer to herself.
Rachel sighed in contentment, when she felt Santana's body so close to hers. She always felt so much safer, when Santana would hold her like this. For the most parts Santana only let Rachel hold her, when she had ended up having a breakdowns after returning from one of her missions outside the base, or that week she had been so catatonic that she hadn't reacted to anything Rachel had done to her. The first time Santana let Rachel hold her, it had been an entirely new experience for Rachel. She hadn't been used to being the big spoon, since Finn had always held her, but if she was completely honest with herself, she really didn't mind doing that with Santana. It was actually a rather nice feeling. Still Rachel had to admit that she preferred to be held, since that usually meant that Santana wasn't breaking down in her arms. So even if Rachel had slept in the car, she felt so safe and warm in Santana's embrace, that she quickly fell back to sleep.
Early the next day they continued their journey to Minneapolis, after a quick breakfast. Luckily for the two of them, Santana had managed to gather more than enough food to last them for several weeks, so they didn't have to stop to find more. Rachel was happy about that since she, for the first time, finally got to see how much destruction the outbreak had brought with it. As Santana drove, she could see through the passenger side window, as they passed by shockingly many corpses laying in the streets with blood and guts smeared everywhere, damaged or abandoned cars, burnt down buildings and numerous warning signs, most of which told them to run or turn back. It was complete mayhem.
Still the thing that scared Rachel the most was that she never saw any humans, only zombies which always tried to chase after the car when they drove past them. The whole thing was like a horrible nightmare coming to life. After a while Rachel had to stop looking at it, to prevent herself from going insane. So instead she tried to focus on Santana, which was the reason she suddenly noticed that Santana regularly glanced up at the back view mirror, like she was afraid that someone was following them. Rachel however couldn't understand why she would be so anxious about that, because they hadn't seen any living being since they had been forced to flee the base. Still it was good to know that Santana was keeping an eye out, for any possible danger they might be facing. It certainly made Rachel feel a lot safer.
After their latest stop to fill up the car with more fuel, from one of the gas cans Santana and Grimes had managed to smuggle out of the base. Rachel noticed that Santana looked a little worried, when she came back inside the car. It made Rachel's heart do a little jump in fear.
"What's wrong?" Santana looked up at her in concern.
"We need more fuel. We're apparently using more fuel, than that car we were originally going to drive with. Tom have obviously calculated that we didn't need more than we have with us to get us safely to our destination, but this military car apparently consumes a lot more gas than a regular car. So we need to find more or we won't make it to Minneapolis. " That certainly didn't help Rachel's heartbeat slow down. This had to be really bad news.
"What can we do about it?" Rachel voice trembled in fear. Santana furrowed her brows.
"We either have to try to steal some fuel from one of the abandoned cars, or we have to try to fill at a gas station. I have the equipment to siphon gas, but it's pretty risky if there's any zombies nearby. So I think we'll just drive for a little while longer, since the tank is full. In the meantime we can see if we can spot a gas stations first, hopefully we'll find one where there's some fuel left. So if we're lucky, we won't get forced to try to pump up gas from an abandoned car." Santana didn't wait for a reply from Rachel and started the car. Rachel didn't say a word, but she was silently starting to freak out over the prospect, of them having to step outside of the car to go in search of more fuel to get them safely to Minneapolis.
Santana had been driving for almost an hour, when they finally came to an abandoned gas station. She quickly instructed Rachel to keep watch, while she tried the first gas pumps to find out if one of them had any fuel left for their car.
Rachel's heart started beating faster, when the first gas pump was empty. There were only two pumps, so the odds was rather meager. Rachel held her breath in anticipation, when Santana tried the last one. She almost started laughing when Santana started doing a happy dance in joy, when fuel suddenly poured out from the second pump.
Santana quickly filled the truck and the extra gas cans they had with them. She was filling the last one, when Rachel suddenly noticed something moving towards them in the distance. Rachel quickly exited the truck, to alert Santana about the possible treat. It didn't take long before they could make out, that it was a group of zombies that was coming towards them.
"Get inside the car!" Rachel was about to run to get into the passenger side, when Santana stopped her.
"On the driver side, you'll have to drive." Rachel had never driven a military car before, so she really didn't understand why Santana wanted her to drive, but she still hurried back to the driver side.
Santana quickly filled up the last can, before she fixed the remaining hoses to keep pumping out gas. Rachel briefly wondered what Santana was trying to do, but she didn't have time to question it before Santana jumped back inside the car with the gas can. She quickly rolled down the passenger side window and instructed Rachel to "Drive, but not too fast." Rachel complied and was baffled to see that Santana was poring gas out of the window, as they were slowly driving away from the gas station. Not long after, Santana asked Rachel to stop and then she jumped out of the car.
Rachel was for a moment a little bit scared that Santana had finally gone insane, because she was just standing there waiting for the zombies to come. When the rather large group had almost reached the gas station, Rachel was about to ask her what she was waiting for, but then Santana suddenly pulled something out of her uniform pocket. Rachel barley got a glimpse of the lighter in Santana's hand, before she quickly threw the whole thing down to the ground. Rachel almost jumped out of her seat when the fuel, that Santana had poured on the ground, suddenly ignited. The fire quickly found its way to the abandoned gas station and when it reached the gas pumps, the whole gas station blew up and engulfed all the zombies in flames.
Rachel almost didn't hear Santana laugh in triumph and shout out "Fuck Yeah!" because her ears were ringing from the immense explosion. Santana jumped back inside the car with a huge grin on her face and Rachel quickly started to drive away from the burning inferno behind them. She had felt the warmth from the fire, even from inside of the car, so she thought it was best to get as fast as possible away from it. She didn't look at Santana when she asked.
"Was that really necessary?" Santana only shrugged her shoulders.
"Well yeah why not. I'm not going back there ever again and hopefully I just helped the world get rid of some more zombies. Win, win if you ask me."
Rachel shook her head, but secretly smiled because Santana was babbling enthusiastically about how cool that explosion had been and how it was just like in the movies. She really didn't want to ruin Santana's good mood, by being mad about her behavior. However she was still a little bit worried about the fact that Santana had used some of their extra fuel so stupidly, but when Santana told her that they had more than enough to get to Minneapolis, she finally calmed down and just enjoyed Santana's giddiness.
When Santana's adrenaline buzz had finally subsided, she started to look for an empty house for them to stay in for the night. It didn't take long before she found one that looked promising. Rachel drove up to the house, where Santana told her to stay in the car, no matter what happened. Before she exited the car and carefully started checking out the house. When she didn't see any signs of life inside, after looking through most of the windows, she finally walked up to the front door and knocked. She had her gun ready and pointing at the door, in case of any trouble, but when nobody answered Santana lowered her gun and walked to the backside of the house, where Rachel lost sight of her.
When Santana hadn't return after ten minutes, Rachel was getting a little bit anxious. It certainly didn't help her calm down, when the next thing she heard was two gunshot from inside the house. Her first instinct was to bolt out of the car to run inside the house and check on Santana, but Rachel stopped, with her hand on the door opener, when she remembered that Santana had told her to stay in the car no matter what happened. The wait was almost unbearable and her heart jumped in fear when the front door suddenly swung open. Rachel desperately clutched the gun in her hands tighter and her heart was beating a mile a minute, but when Santana finally emerged from the open door unharmed, Rachel's heart did a little dance in joy.
Santana quickly walked over to the car and told Rachel to drive it to the backside of the house, so nobody could see it from the main road. Rachel did as she was told and parked the car at the back. The first thing she was greeted with, when she exited the car, was two zombies laying dead on the ground. Judging by the blood trail leading from the back door, Rachel guessed that Santana had dragged them out of the house after shooting them. Santana didn't say anything about it and just opened the backdoor of the car to get their things. When they were finally safely inside the house, Santana told Rachel to stay away from two of the bedrooms. Rachel found it wise to not ask why. She knew that when Santana told her that she didn't want to know, that the truth was that she really didn't want to know, but she had still made Santana promise to tell her the truth if it was necessary. So Rachel decided to not question her about it, since Santana usually didn't like to talk about it anyway.
Even if Rachel never found out what it was that Santana was hiding behind those two door, she was still relived when they finally left the house the next day. She had unfortunately seen the family portrait, hanging in the living room, of a happy family of five. Two of which she had already seen laying outside, but the faith of those three beautiful smiling kids standing beside their two proud parents, was something Rachel could only speculate about. Sadly her mind only managed to come up with the tragic conclusion, that the answer was hiding behind those two closed doors and nothing she could try to think of gave any of them a happy ending. So she was truly relived to get back inside the car again. Thankfully it wasn't far left to Minneapolis.
Santana had hoped that they would manage to get to Minneapolis before it got dark, but they were unexpectedly forced to take a detour, when they came to a roadblock made up by wrecked cars. At first Santana was contemplating trying to push some of the cars away to get past them, but after what had happened the last time they had come across an accident, she quickly decided to use the car horn to check if there really wasn't any zombies nearby. It proved to be a smart decision, when a group of zombies suddenly emerged from the wreckage and immediately ran towards the car. Santana quickly put the car in reverse, as the group chase after the car. At the first chance Santana got, she hurriedly spun the car around and quickly drove away from the approaching zombies. When they found themselves safely away from the accident site, Santana stopped the car, before she snapped the map out of Rachel's shaking hands. She quickly started to look through it, to find an alternative route to Minneapolis. The new road took them a little bit longer, but they luckily didn't encounter more roadblocks.
On the last stage of their journey, they were forced to drive on the highway leading into Minneapolis. They were both a little bit anxious to see if there had been any accidents, since that road would have had a lot more panicked drivers trying to get out of the city after the outbreak. If there had been any major crashes and they ended up being stopped by yet another roadblock, it would most likely force them to turn back around. If that was the case, than they would end up having to take an even longer detour to get into Minneapolis. Which obviously would mean that they wouldn't have enough fuel left to reach the city in time. Santana really hoped that they didn't have to try to find more, because she was pretty sure that Rachel would give her a several hours long lecture about not wasting fuel, just because she had unnecessary blown up that gas station with the help of one of their extra gas cans, that obviously would have helped them if they were forced to take a new detour. So when Santana finally pulled into the highway, both girls felt their heart beat pick up in fear of what they possibly were going to be faced with.
From the moment they turned into the highway, it was pretty clear that there had been several accidents on that road, but it strangely enough looked like the cars had been cleared away from most of the lanes. Both girls took that as a good sign and they both smiled when they could finally see the vague outline of the city of Minneapolis in the far distance. When they came a little bit closer, they could clearly see that someone had built a large wall around the city, mostly likely to keep the zombies out. However before they came that far, the highway was suddenly blocked by a barrier stretching across all the lanes, that were leading in and out of the city.
To Santana it looked like the military had constructed a high barbed wire fence, that stretched across from one side of the highway to the other. Behind the barrier there were two watchtowers and a military building. So Santana stopped the car, at a safe distance from the gate. When she killed the engine, she noticed that the two guards up in the towers, immediately signalizing to the guards on the ground that they had company outside the fence. It didn't take long before a little group of armed soldiers came marching out to greet them, with their guns raised pointing directly at Santana and Rachel, sitting helplessly inside the car.