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Neverwhere

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DAY 3

More than anything, Rachel was bored. Although she learned she could briefly hobble around the loft using only her toes and the ball of her foot, while keeping her heel away from the ground, it was difficult to stand for more than a few minutes, and so she had no choice but to spend the majority of her time sitting either on the couch or at the kitchen table. With every kind of clock they owned gone dead, it was impossible to tell how quickly the hours were passing, and the minutes dragged on in a hellish stretch.

Lunch for Rachel consisted of canned pear halves eaten straight from the can with a fork, the juice messily dribbling down her chin. Dani, Santana, and Kurt had gone out to hunt for supplies early that morning and hadn't yet returned, and the worry that something had gone wrong sat uneasily in her gut. She supposed that they were probably fine, but the shouts of looters were still heavy on her mind and she couldn't shake the feeling that something would go wrong sooner rather than later.

She didn't know what was going on — where the power had gone or why she couldn't call home to make sure her dads were unharmed — but she wished she could be doing more than sitting at her kitchen table eating canned pears. At least the others were able to go out and search for supplies.

Finally there was a small commotion from the corridor outside, and the door rolled open. Kurt stumbled in, his arms weighted down with a poorly balanced load of cumbersome objects, including a set of crutches and what looked like a miniature camping stove. Santana and Dani followed behind, each carrying plastic bags full of food and water.

"Honey, I'm home," Santana said dryly, dropping her load onto the table and collapsing into the chair next to Rachel in exhaustion. "The power had better come back before we have to do that again."

Dani flipped the light switch on the wall a few times, her shoulders slumping in disappointment.

"Did it go okay?" Rachel asked.

Kurt pulled his fingers through his unkempt hair. "We found these for you," he said with a forced cheerfulness, handing the crutches over the table to Rachel. "They're cripple-chic."

"Thanks—"

"I'm going to go lie down," Kurt cut her off abruptly, not meeting her eye. He strode stiffly away from the kitchen and disappeared behind his curtain.

Santana and Dani exchanged a look as they unpacked the bags, and Rachel turned to them in confusion. "What's up with him?" she asked.

Dani swallowed. "There were a lot more bodies out there than we expected."

For as long as it took the three girls to unpack and organize the supplies, not one of them said a word.

The small garage attached to the Hudson-Hummel house was cool and damp since the radiator sat uselessly in the corner. Burt, desperate for something to do besides drive himself crazy worrying about Kurt, pushed up his sweatshirt sleeves and reached into the engine of his truck. No matter how many times he turned the key in the ignition, the engine refused to turn over. His fingers were stained black with oil, and he'd found not a single thing wrong with the car no matter where he looked. It was simply and inexplicably dead.

He'd pulled the garage door up all the way to let as much sun in as possible, but it was foggy and grey outside and the light was minimal. A few people had passed the street over the past couple of hours, skirting by like shadowy ghosts in the mist, most likely heading into downtown Lima to scavenge for food and supplies.

"Burt?"

Burt jumped, the back of his head slamming into the truck's hood. "OW!"

"Sorry," said Carole, stepping into the garage and pulling her sweater tighter around her torso. "You okay?"

Burt rubbed at his skull with the unstained heel of his hand, wincing. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've done that so often that I think I have a permanent dent."

Carole prodded the back of his head. "Seems fine to me," she said through a smile. She looked down at the exposed truck engine. "Any luck with this thing?"

Burt sighed, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "Nope. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the truck, but it just won't start. I tried everything with your Volvo too; same thing there."

"Sandra from across the street visited earlier to make sure we were okay," Carole stated. "She says that it might have been some kind of electromagnetic pulse or something that knocked the power out."

Burt flapped a hand. "I'm no good at physics."

"She said it's the only thing that could kill all the batteries."

"Well, then maybe she's right."

Burt had no clue what could cause an electro-magneto pulse or whatever Carole called it, or where the hell it might come from, but in any case he thought the strangest thing was that it had been three days and nothing had changed but the weather. With the fog muffling all the sound from outside, slowly drifting by and chilling the air into an eerie stillness, Burt thought it seemed like the town had dropped from the face of the earth into some kind of strange limbo.

All things considered, Burt supposed it was entirely possible.

Mercedes' heart thudded at a terrifying pace beneath her ribs, the pen trembling in her hand as she shakily scrawled a letter to her roommate. She didn't want to think about the possibility that Erica was lying dead in the street somewhere at the mercy of the sun and the crows, but since Mercedes had heard gunshots going off in the distance at random intervals it was difficult not to entertain the idea. She didn't know why anyone was firing guns at one another, but she wanted nothing to do with it.

So she finished her note briefly explaining where she was going and wishing Erica the best, and she stuck it to the now-useless (and empty) refrigerator and prayed that Erica would eventually come back to find it.

Hefting her heavy backpack onto her shoulders, Mercedes took the handle of her tightly packed suitcase and wheeled it along behind her as she made for the door. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face, and she couldn't tell if it was just from the heat or from the panic clawing at the inside of her stomach.

She drew a long, deep breath in through her nose and gradually released it, feeling like she should be rationing her oxygen in addition to her food.

It's not too late, Mercedes' thoughts prickled in the back of her brain. You can just stay here and hide until all of this blows over. You'll be safe.

Another slow breath, her blood roaring in her ears. Despite the heat, her fingertips were ice cold.

No. She had to leave; she knew that. Staying in Los Angeles would mean being alone, slowly baking in her apartment until she was no longer able to find food outside. She'd already had a gun to her back once. She hated to think what another encounter like that would result in.

Staying was not an option. It had never been an option, and she was doing herself a favor by realizing that now rather than later.

Mercedes swallowed, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth. She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, pausing before letting the door shut to pull her apartment key out of her pocket. She stared at it for a long moment, debating whether or not she needed to bring it with her.

Then, in the spirit of refusing to allow herself to turn back, Mercedes tossed the key into her empty apartment, and let her front door lock behind her.

"Do you have any… eights?" Dani sighed boredly from her seat on the floor by the coffee table, opposite from Rachel on the couch. She idly mixed her cards up in her hand, wondering how the hell anyone had ever survived without electricity for more than twenty-four hours.

"Nope," Rachel replied. "Go fish."

Dani pursed her lips, drawing a card from the pile on the table. "Your turn."

"You know, you don't need to play just to keep me occupied," Rachel said. "This game isn't that much fun with only two people anyways."

"I'm not," Dani promised. "I'm trying to keep myself occupied. We've already sorted and rationed the food, we've gotten the supplies we need for the time being, and I'm not tired enough to take a nap, so it doesn't seem like there's anything else to be done."

Rachel shrugged.

"I don't suppose your bandage needs a change?"

"You sound a little too eager to get your fingers on my gross foot wound," Rachel remarked with a light chuckle. "And no, I changed it an hour ago. You could go see if Santana needs help with dinner?"

Dani glanced over to the kitchen window, where she could see Santana cooking with the camp stove out on the fire escape landing. "You sure you're okay?" she asked.

Rachel waved a hand, sitting up to gather up the cards. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll play Solitaire or something. Go on."

Dani nodded, pulling herself to her feet. "Call if you need anything," she said over her shoulder as she went to join Santana on the fire escape.

"Hey," Santana greeted her as Dani swung her legs through the window. "This is actually working like a charm." She stirred the small pot resting on the camp stove, the water near boiling. "First time we've gotten hot water since the blackout. Let's just hope we don't get sick of ramen."

"I'm sure we will, if the power doesn't come back," Dani said. "You need any help at all?"

Santana shook her head. "No, it's kind of a one-person job."

Dani sat on the stairs leading up to the roof of the building, her hands between her knees. It was a bit strange seeing Santana dressed so… unimpressively was probably the appropriate word. She wore plain jeans and a thin sweatshirt, and her hair was in a half-hearted twist bun, carefully brushed but unwashed. Dani could hardly blame her for that; with the pumps for the building's plumbing long dead, none of them had been able to bathe beyond rinsing off their armpits over a bowl of soapy water in the sink. Dani didn't think she'd ever even seen Santana without makeup.

Santana looked at her askance for a moment. "What are you staring at?"

Dani blinked, straightening up. "Nothing, sorry. Spaced out."

Santana ripped open a ramen package and dumped the contents into the boiling water. "If you're bored, you can go see what Kurt's up to. He went up to the roof like an hour ago."

Dani stood up, eager for the chance to do something rather than just sit and feel useless, and quickly ascended the steps up to the ladder at the top of the fire escape. Scaling the handful of rungs and carefully climbing over the raised edge of the roof, Dani saw Kurt standing at the far side of the building, looking out across Brooklyn toward the river and Manhattan beyond.

"Hey," Dani called as she approached, not wanting to startle him. He turned around and gave a small wave, allowing Dani to walk up and lean on the short wall beside him. "What are you doing?"

Kurt squinted into the sun, which was just beginning to touch the skyline in the west. "I've never seen the city this quiet," he said.

Dani made a noise of agreement in her throat, musing aloud, "More than eight million people, and none of them making a sound."

Kurt was silent for a long time, apparently deep in thought as the sun inched lower in the sky. There was a light breeze that buffeted their clothes, and Dani spotted a flock of pigeons swooping up from a park several blocks away.

"We should leave."

Dani's gaze snapped back to Kurt, not sure she'd heard him correctly. "What? Why?"

Kurt straightened his back, tracing an invisible pattern on the wall with his finger. "Santana was right," he said, and it almost sounded like it pained him to admit it. He gestured to the empty skyline. "There's no planes. No helicopters. I was up here last night too and I didn't even see any satellites." He bit his lip, shaking his head. "There were riots in Manhattan, and no one's come to help."

Dani didn't know what to say, and a cold heavy rock was settling into the pit of her stomach.

Kurt scratched at his forehead nervously. "My point is, it's not just New York," he continued. "It might be the whole country. It might be everywhere. I don't know. Either way, we can't just sit here and wait until someone breaks into our apartment to steal our food — which, by the way, we will run out of eventually."

He let out a heavy breath, and Dani wondered how long he'd been running over this in his head.

"I need to know my parents are okay." He swallowed, his voice cracking. "I'm sure Santana's just as worried about the same thing, and Rachel too."

"Kurt…" Dani started carefully. "That means walking. To Ohio. Rachel can't even stand."

"We'll figure something out."

"It'll take weeks."

"If it means knowing our families are okay, then it's worth it." He chewed on the insides of his cheeks, looking over to her and meeting her eye for the first time since she'd climbed onto the roof. "Are you going to go home?"

Dani's stomach abruptly twisted painfully in her abdomen, and she shook her head, biting back an unexpected sting in her eyes. "No," she said. "No, my parents kicked me out of the house. I don't think they'd want to see me even if I did walk all the way back to Tennessee."

The look in Kurt's eyes was something akin to pity. "You'd be welcome to come with us," he said.

Dani nodded wordlessly in gratitude.

"Come on," he said, tilting his head back in the direction of the fire escape. "We can all talk it over during dinner."