5.
"Don't feel obliged to aim for every bump in the road." Quinn's teeth chattered as the truck bumbled unrelenting over ruts.
"We own these fucking roads!" Santana yelled, leaning out of the window and whooping.
Quinn sat back wide eyed.
"Okay, listen, Furiosa. Just because you blew up a worm-"
"A giant space worm."
"Yeah!" From the driver's seat Brittany lifted her arm up for a high five which Santana slapped joyfully.
"Whatever, it doesn't mean my spine wants to disintegrate. Britt, please!"
Brittany slowed down a tiny amount and the air stopped howling in through the open windows.
"Oh gross," Quinn gagged, "You have to get in a shower. Go faster."
"Make up your mind."
"It's not my fault your girlfriend smells like worm intestines."
"Boom!" Santana chuckled.
"It was more like splat."
Brittany slowed down further as they neared Perfection. Santana leaned out of the window and peered ahead trying to get a glimpse of her store.
"I can't see anyone," she said, her voice amplified by the ghost town's silence.
"Shouldn't we be going quieter so the ground police don't hear us?" Quinn whispered, grabbing ahold of Santana's arm and tugging her back into her seat.
"I can't see any disruption, maybe the worms haven't been here," Brittany said, quietly.
Brittany turned off the engine and they coasted in to the town along the main drag towards their destination.
"Oh, never mind," Brittany said sheepishly.
The front corner of Santana's store had subsided into the valley dirt like a sinkhole had opened up on an important structural point.
The truck rolled to a stop in front of it. For a moment there was silence, no sounds of life anywhere in the town just the breathing of the women in the truck. A tumbleweed rolled past them and continued on its way down the road completely oblivious to the atmosphere in the truck.
Santana glared red hot lasers at her store then spluttered under her breath.
"Those dirt lickers touched my store," she growled out between gritted teeth. "I'm going to destroy them."
She snapped off her seatbelt (safety first, kids) and exited the truck, the door slamming behind her. Brittany and Quinn hurried after her. The gravel crunched underfoot then boots tapped on the deck, the place was otherwise quiet. Santana stood in the open doorway to her business.
The door was hanging off its hinges and the doorframe was lopsided. She unslung her shotgun from her shoulder and stepped inside.
"I was going to ask to move in with you," said Quinn, eyeing the fallen shelves, overturned tables and the shattered floorboards.
In the centre of the store was a suspiciously space grub sized crater. A large smear of blood ran across the wooden floor from the kitchen area, stark against the dust and led into the hole. Directly above the crater the sky was visible through the partially collapsed roof, the debris sloped up.
"You're insured, right?" Quinn asked.
"Only with proof of ownership," Santana growled.
Brittany coughed and then cleared her throat. "Where's my cat?"
Movement caught their attention and they watched as a human head rolled through the hole in the roof, down the sloping roof debris and lolloped to a stop where seconds before the three women had stood.
They were now perched precariously at the top of the pile of shelving. Santana was uppermost, her arms wrapped around Brittany's head and her feet pushing at Quinn's side.
"The fuck, the fuck, the fuck, the fuck," Santana repeated like a mantra. "Whose fucking head is that?"
"Whose is it?" Quinn screeched. "What does it matter? Why isn't it attached to something? Fuck!"
"I'm not looking," Santana said strained and she held Brittany tighter.
"I'm not looking either," Brittany said her voice muffled from where her face was held against Santana's chest.
"I think we should be quieter than this," Quinn hissed. "oh, this is the worst two days of my life."
Brittany extracted her face and leaned her head on Santana's shoulder as they all huddled closer together.
"Hey!"
The three women all looked to each other, puzzled as to who had spoken.
"Up here."
"If that head is fucking talking I am done. I am done and that's it. I've had enough, this can all just stop," Santana rambled as tears began to form in her eyes.
"Santana!"
They looked up to the hole in the roof to see Rachel's upside down head sticking through the hole. "You're okay," she gasped. "Get up here!"
Gingerly they scrambled up the collapsed roof debris careful not to look at lost body parts lying around.
"Lord Tubbington!"
Brittany let out a huge sob and ran across the roof to gather him up in a hug. She rubbed her face in his dusty fur and he chirped happy to see his best friend.
Santana stood by grimly as Rachel hugged her tightly, weeping loudly and wetly.
"There is a fucking head in my store, Rachel. I left you with specific instructions. Whose head is it?"
Rachel gripped her harder.
Quinn looked around the ruined rooftop at its inhabitants with grim realisation.
"Where's Puck?" she asked, in a subdued tone.
A thoroughly bedraggled looking Mercedes, who was tucked up against the roof edge in partial shade next to a blood spattered Kurt, shook her head in reply.
"Puck woke up and started screaming in pain," she said in a shaky voice. "The next thing we know the floor erupted and a monster grabbed him and started dragging him into the ground. Kurt stabbed it with a kitchen knife and Rachel hit it with a chair. I blasted it with a fire extinguisher and it let him go and went back under. Within seconds it came back and shot up out of the ground so hard it hit the roof. It knocked us all down and… took him. Most of him."
Quinn sat down next to Mercedes and gripped her hand. Santana walked over to Brittany who was staring out into the desert with a frown and a cat grasped tightly to her shoulder. Santana leaned into her side and rested her head on Brittany's free shoulder. Brittany turned her head and dropped a kiss on the top of Santana's head.
Eventually Mercedes broke the quiet to explain that Kurt had been trying the CB radio every ten minutes but there had been no response.
"Rachel's been using a mirror to try to signal Sue."
"It's stupid, I know."
"No," Santana said, trying not to look surprised. "That's a brilliant idea, Rachel."
Rachel gave her a watery smile.
"Any response?"
She sniffled and shook her head.
"Okay," Santana tapped her awkwardly on the arm. "Keep trying."
"Uh," Kurt whispered to Quinn, nodding his head indicating where Santana and Brittany were standing. "Why does Brittany smell and look like she crawled out of a sewer?"
"She was about to be eaten by a grub but Santana blew it up kind of in her face. So we do have some good news," Quinn said to Mercedes, Rachel and Kurt.
They looked up hopefully.
"Well technically two, no three pieces of good news. And then two pieces of bad news." She looked over to Santana and Brittany for support but they were cuddled up quietly. "So, the good news is we killed one of the grubs."
Three grime stricken faces stared at her.
"One of?" Mercedes asked. "I don't like the way you phrased that."
"Yeah, that's the bad news. There's two more of them."
"And the other piece of bad news?" Rachel pleaded. "Please Quinn, just get it over and done with."
"The grub things are at least thirty foot long, potentially longer."
"Well, that just fucking fantastic," Rachel spluttered and began to cry, again.
Quinn relayed the trios experience of monster battle and the reason behind Brittany covered head to foot in slime and guts. Once their tales of survival were exchanged, the sorry looking bunch of survivors fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.
"What's the rest of the good news?" Kurt asked hopefully.
Quinn cracked a smile.
"Brittany's some kind of super genius astronaut and she contacted NASA and they're hopefully coming to rescue us. And last but not least, those two," she nodded her head in Brittany and Santana's direction, "look like they're finally getting their act together."
Rachel wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffed morosely. "You all owe me twenty bucks apiece. I called this week. If we live, that is. You don't have to pay if you get eaten."
"What?" Mercedes began to argue but was interrupted by Santana's shotgun going off.
The gamblers heads all snapped around to find Brittany and Santana struggling over control of the shotgun. Lord Tubbington was now cowering in the corner away from them.
"Don't shoot it!" Brittany was yelling.
"What the ever loving fuck is going on?" Santana roared. "Imma shoot the shit out of everything that moves!" Santana was screeching as she wrestled for control of the gun.
Quinn got up and moved warily towards them until Rachel screeched in her ear and jumped on her back as a shiny white flying machine rose from behind the building and hovered in front of them.
"I did not sign up for aliens," Mercedes yelled and threw the CB radio at the four foot wide UFO. She missed and it plummeted over the side of the building. "I am drawing a fucking line! Santana, blow its brains out!"
Brittany jumped in between them all and the flying machine rising her arms to stop their attack. Santana glared at her, her chest heaving but the shotgun pointing away.
"Brittany…."
"It's Sue's drone!" Brittany explained. "Sue got your message, Rachel. She sent her drone." She grinned at them and turned to stare at the hovering machine that buzzed in front of her, then waved happily at the drone. "No wonder that box was heavy, that's huge. Military grade."
The drone buzzed and flew over the roof scrutinising the survivors who were huddled together in a pack, minus Brittany who was watching its movements with interest and Santana who was still puffing out steam from her adrenaline high.
The tension abated as the drone hovered down over an open patch of roof.
"We need to tell Sue what's happening," said Brittany, eyeing it thoughtfully. "There's no microphone. It's visual only."
"Ohhh! Rachel and I have got this," Kurt stepped forward dusting off his shirt. Rachel flicked her hair back a determined look on her face.
"'Cedes?" Kurt asked.
"Uh no, you carry on," she said and backed away.
Twenty minutes later Mercedes, Quinn, Santana and Brittany sat with their backs against the wall around the edge of the roof all in various stages of fascination at the mime show they had just witnessed. There had been an occasional prompt thrown in but they had sat back and watched as the previous couple of days events had been melodramatically re-enacted before their eyes for the benefit of Sue's unresponsive drone.
"This is the strangest day of my life," Mercedes said quietly.
"I think I'll be scarred for life from this," Quinn said. "And I don't mean by the giant worms."
Santana and Brittany had tried valiantly not to catch each other's eye through the whole show but now there was nothing else to look at collapsed into hysterical laughter.
"Will you shut up," Quinn hissed, thumping Santana who was sitting within arm's reach. "We're supposed to be quiet."
"But, but," Santana snorted. "When Rachel was being you running away from the grub-" she had to stop talking from laughing too much.
"Yeah, I didn't realise you were constipated at the time," Brittany said with glee. "I hope Sue recorded all that."
Kurt and Rachel stood before them unsure whether to be offended or pleased with the varied reactions.
"Uh, you're welcome? I knew those acting classes would pay off." Kurt beamed.
"Anyway." Brittany pulled a notebook out of her pocket and began to write in block capital letters. "We could have just done this but your way was much more entertaining."
Under attack. 20ft+ subterranean monsters. 2 remaining. Need heavy artillery.
"No, no, no," Santana snatched it out of her hands and flipped over to a new page.
Being eaten by giant space grubs. Bring every fucking gun you have
"Does she have nukes?" Santana asked.
"No!" Brittany, Mercedes and Quinn chorused.
"I'm vegan," Rachel shook her head. "Nukes are bad for the environment."
"There will be no nuking of anything," said Brittany, taking back her notepad before anything devastating could be written on it.
"I was just asking," Santana huffed. "But she does have some, right? I thought that's why she was crazy, because of the radiation."
"I think she's just regular crazy," said Quinn.
They all watched as the drone landed on the rooftop and powered down.
"Whatever she is," said Mercedes watching as Lord Tubbington sniffed the machine, now finding himself brave enough while it wasn't moving. "I hope she comes to save our asses."
##########
In the control room of her bunker atop the valley ridge Sue peered carefully at one of the monitors in front of her relaying the visuals from the drone. Still in shock from Kurt and Rachel's bewildering Punch and Judy mime show the penny dropped as she read first Brittany's note and then Santana's.
"Oh, yes." A gleeful smile split her face. "Oh yes!" she cackled. "Becky!"
A 5ft tall hologram appeared in the control room imitating a young blonde haired woman.
"What, Sue?" Her A.I. snapped. "I'm on level 42876 on candy crush. It better be important."
Sue spun around on her swivel chair to face her assistant. "I've been waiting for this my whole life," she sighed, happily. "Becky! Initiate a Code Green."
Becky's face scrunched up in disbelief. "Code Green. That's the alien invasion code."
"I am well aware of my own finely honed code system. I have spent thirty years preparing for war with an alien invasion force, now get to work and do the job I paid for you for!"
Immediately the lights dimmed and a beacon began to flash red in the corner of the room. A piercing siren wailed and what appeared to be a wall with various spanners and wrenches lined up flipped around 180 degrees to reveal a rack of rifles.
"It's still set for code red, for when the IRS came by. I don't think we have a green light bulb." Becky snorted. "You can't be that prepared, you haven't even got the right colour light!"
"How about you mute yourself and that damn siren. That's how the IRS knew I was home."
"Hmmm," Sue mused, checking her rifle selection. "Not enough. Get the RPG's out. And make sure the chaingun is loaded. Is that napalm still in date?"
Sue rolled her eyes. "Unmute, just keep the commentary to a minimum. Now, fire up the Suetank."