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Animal Tracks

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DAY 6

Mercedes staggered slightly, fighting a wave of dizziness as she dragged herself along the road. A hot, dry wind blew past her, making her cracked lips burn. She could taste blood on them, although she wasn't exactly sure why her lips were bleeding. She'd been following the Angeles Crest Highway for almost four days, and she had badly underestimated how much water she would need. Whatever water she drank she was losing too quickly through the pores in her skin, unable to keep it in her body long enough to stay hydrated. The rolling suitcase she'd filled with water and food had been emptied much faster than she expected, and she'd dropped it on the side of the road somewhere several miles back, left only with the supplies in her backpack.

She had, of course, passed several gas stations and a couple of small towns, but every store she peered into had already been gutted and left empty. Most of the gas stations had water fountains, but with the power still dead none of the pumps were working and the fountains yielded nothing but a slow trickle for a few seconds before they were dried up.

Was it just her imagination, or was the air rippling around her?

Every breath she drew into her chest felt like it was burning her from the inside out. Her skin ached every time she moved, blistered from sunburn and sweat.

She could feel her pulse in her fingertips.

There was a loud screech of a bird echoing down from the hills above — was it a falcon? A vulture?

And dear God, she was sore . She wasn't unhealthy, but she wasn't in the best of shape either and walking for nearly four days straight had set every one of her muscles on fire.

Mercedes coughed, willing herself to keep going. "I hate California," she grumbled.

A cool wind rushed down the empty streets of New York, whistling through the abandoned cars and shattered windows and raising goosebumps on Kurt's skin. He shivered and tightened the straps of his empty backpack, his eyes scrutinizing his surroundings for shops, cars, trucks — anything that hadn't yet been emptied of usable goods. He and Santana had volunteered to go on the supply run on their own so that Rachel wouldn't be left alone and instead would have Dani for company, but even though the two of them had been walking through the city for close to two hours, they hadn't been much company for each other. Kurt wondered briefly if Dani should have gone with Santana instead of him, but as they were now somewhere in the vicinity of Brooklyn Heights, there was hardly any point in deciding differently.

"You're quiet," Santana observed as they rounded a corner near Columbus Park, passing the TD Bank.

Kurt watched a stray cat dig through a trash can on the sidewalk, hissing at them as they passed by. "Is there something we should be talking about?" he asked, keeping his voice aloof.

"You're just usually such a chatty Kathy." Her hair was about to fall out of its bun, hanging lopsidedly from the back of her head. There was a smudge of dirt on her temple.

"We've all been stuck in our apartment without electricity for a week. There's not exactly a lot to talk about," Kurt replied, lifting his head to watch a large flock of swifts swoop through the air between the high rises overhead.

Santana gave him a pointed look. "You're still mad at me, aren't you?"

"For what?" Kurt sighed. He peered through the broken front window of TD Bank, finding it eerily vacant.

She made a face at him. "For disagreeing with you, dumbass. You still think we should leave."

Kurt finally looked her in the eye, pressing his lips together for a moment before responding. "Santana, we're four miles from home and we haven't found a single store that hasn't been completely emptied. It's been one week . Do you really still think that the power is coming back soon?"

Santana was quick to counter. "And do you really think we're going to find food any easier outside the city?"

Kurt pulled his fingers through his hair, mentally grimacing at how dirty it felt. None of them had had a proper shower in a week, and it was driving him mad. "I don't know," he admitted. "But at least we wouldn't be stuck ."

Santana abruptly stopped short in her tracks, giving Kurt a glare that fell somewhere between earnestness and fury. "Okay, Kurt, I'm not going to argue that the power's coming back tomorrow. But you know what we have here?" she demanded. "We have protection. We have a place to live and we know that we're safe there."

Kurt shook his head solemnly. "Santana, we're not safe," he said. "Nearly every building we passed on our way here was broken into. Half of those were apartment buildings. We saw at least a dozen people lying dead in the street and most of them looked like they'd been shot. What the hell makes you think we're safe from any of that?"

Santana's jaw twitched, and she crossed her arms.

"So no, I can't promise that we'll be okay if we leave, but I can promise that we won't be okay if we stay here."

Santana frowned suddenly, turning her head in the direction of the Columbus Park greenery. "Wait, be quiet," she said.

"What?"

"Shh!" she snapped, moving to the left and craning her neck to look at the park. "I thought I heard something weird."

Kurt scowled in confusion, but said nothing, instead following her gaze and attempting to see what she'd heard.

Then Santana slapped a hand against his chest to stop him, staring straight ahead with her eyes wide in terror. "Kurt," she hissed under her breath. "Don't move."

Kurt froze, the pit of his stomach tightening in anxiety and the hairs on his arms standing on end. "Where the hell did those come from?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Santana spit through her teeth. "What do we do?"

"J-just back away. Back away."

Pacing across the lush green grass of Columbus Park, ears twitching and noses sniffing the air, yipping back and forth to one another, was a pack of three huge spotted hyenas.

The sun beat down on the back of Blaine's neck as he forced his aching shoulders to swing the axe down on a section of the tree he and his father had felled at the edge of their property. He'd been out here on his own for a long time, chopping wood for the fireplace to keep the house warm and so his mom could cook. They'd never actually used the fireplace before, and until the power had vanished Blaine had actually believed that it was only decorative.

A bead of sweat dripped into Blaine's eye, making him stop and put down the axe for a moment, digging the heel of his hand against his eyelid. He paused to draw a deep breath into his chest, brushing his hands off on the seat of his pants (and for God's sake it had been a week — why were his fingers still shaking?). He glanced over toward his mom's flower garden, his stomach twisting at the spot where Cooper was buried, marked only by a few gardenias that hadn't yet bloomed.

Swallowing the sudden nausea building in his chest, Blaine picked up the axe again and chopped a thin cross-section of the tree's trunk as smoothly as he could. He hefted it up and laid it flat on the ground, crouching over it to brush the excess splinters from the uneven surface. Taking the sharp corner of the axe and using it as a chisel, Blaine laboriously carved a few letters into the wood:

C.A.

1987 — 2014

Blowing the dust away from his work, Blaine stood and carried the cross-section over to Cooper's grave, pressing it into the not-quite-settled soil in front of his mom's gardenias.

"What are you doing?"

Blaine jumped, just noticing that his mother had walked down to the slope from the house to join him. She was hugging her middle, a pale blue cardigan hanging from her shoulders, and she wasn't wearing her usual heels and stockings. She looked down at the grave marker Blaine had made, then knelt down on the grass beside him.

"I know it's not permanent, but I figured it would do until everything gets back to normal and we can get a real one," Blaine said. He rolled off his knees to sit cross-legged on the ground.

"It's lovely, sweetheart."

Blaine watched a robin hop through the grass several yards away in silence, pecking at the dirt for worms and bugs, and for the first time in a week, he felt calm. He didn't know what would happen in the next few days, or if everything would ever go back to the way it was before the blackout, or if Kurt was safe and sound hundreds of miles away in New York, or if his own family would be able to continue living normal without his brother, but for the moment it seemed like none of that mattered. The earth and everything on it would go on, regardless of what happened to them, and even if it felt like Blaine's world was ending, his world was so very small.

Kurt could feel his heartbeat in his temples, adrenaline pumping from his chest to the tips of his fingers as every cell in his body frantically screamed at him to run . There was a war raging between the walls of his brain, a hundred different shouted thoughts and all of them conflicting. Don't move, run for your life, scream, don't let them see you, I wish I had a gun, WHERE THE HELL DID HYENAS COME FROM. Kurt had never even seen hyenas except at the zoo.

"…Oh, crap," he breathed.

"What?" Santana whispered, still frozen to the spot next to him.

"If there's no power, the zoo's backup security isn't working."

"Seriously, Kurt?!" she spat, her voice high-pitched and stretched in terror. "That's what you're trying to figure out right now?!"

Across the street, the hyenas barked and cackled at one another, short tails flicking back and forth. Kurt wanted to throw up.

"Wait, wait, wait," Santana said, her words shaking. "Hyenas are scavengers, aren't they? They don't hunt. They only eat dead stuff."

"I-I think so," Kurt whispered back.

"So… if we just walk away, they won't come after us. Right?"

Kurt's heart skipped as one of the hyenas lifted its head, sniffing curiously until its beady eyes landed on the two of them. "I hope so," he said. "We need to go, now."

Santana swore under her breath, all three hyenas now staring directly at them.

Kurt wordlessly reached down and grabbed Santana's hand, his fingers clenching around hers tightly. "Run."

In unison, Kurt and Santana spun round and bolted, their empty backpacks swinging back and forth uselessly on their shoulders as they dashed through the cars strewn chaotically through the street. Kurt heard a loud snarl, and he glanced over his shoulder for half a second to see a hyena jump onto the hood of a car a hundred feet back, its teeth bared as it closed in on them. He couldn't see the other two, but he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that they weren't far behind.

Santana screamed as another hyena reappeared to their right, driving them left. Her fingers gripped Kurt's so tightly that they were likely cutting off circulation.

"There!" Kurt shouted, pointing to a large eighteen-wheeler standing abandoned a few hundred yards up ahead. If he and Santana could make it to the truck and climb into the cab, they'd be safe. At least, he hoped they would.

Suddenly, some unseen debris on the ground caught the toe of his sneaker, and Kurt felt Santana's hand rip out of his as his arms flailed and he slammed into the pavement, skidding and badly scraping his elbows. Santana shrieked and whirled back to help Kurt up just as the third hyena leaped into view behind her, between them and the truck.

Oh God, we're going to die.

Grasping Santana's hand like a vice, Kurt scrambled back onto his feet, the adrenaline in every vein setting his skin on fire. "This way!" he ordered, heaving himself onto the hood of the nearest car and pulling Santana with him. Together, they jumped onto the next vehicle — a gigantic black SUV that burned their hands with the heat it had been absorbing all day from the sun — and climbed up to its roof.

They just barely managed to straighten up as the first hyena to reach them launched itself at the SUV, its teeth bared in a loud snarl as it lunged. Santana swung her leg out with as much force as she could muster and kicked the beast squarely in the jaw, knocking it back and making it yelp in pain.

Kurt's mouth dropped open. "Whoa," he said.

Santana panted, her chest heaving. The other two hyenas had already closed in on either side of the SUV, and the one Santana had kicked was already back on its feet.

Kurt felt his heart squeeze into his throat as the hyenas circled, all whooping in an eerie, wild and definitely unfriendly chortle. The eighteen-wheeler was only fifteen feet ahead, but the space between them and the truck seemed to stretch and pull, growing until the truck was miles away. It suddenly occurred to Kurt that he didn't even have any idea if the truck's doors were locked.

"Kurt!" Santana snapped her fingers in front of his nose. "Stay with me! We gotta go!"

A hyena reared back on its hind legs, pounding its front paws against the side of the SUV and rocking it beneath Kurt and Santana's feet. Another jumped onto the hood, its throat bobbing in a loud cackle. Santana seized Kurt's wrist, and they quickly vaulted from the SUV to the roof of a sedan stranded a few feet away. The hyena on the SUV bounded after them, nipping at their heels as they jumped down from the sedan and broke into a flat-out run, bolting for the truck.

Please don't be locked, please don't be locked, PLEASE—

Kurt rushed to climb the side of the cab and yank the door handle, a wave of relief cascading over his body when it easily opened. He threw himself into the driver's seat, wheeling around to grab Santana's outstretched hand as she scrambled up behind him, but Santana shrieked as a hyena's teeth snapped at her calf and managed to tug her down by the denim of her jeans. The other two had caught up and were eagerly screeching as they closed in.

"Come on!" Kurt shouted, pulling hard on Santana's arm.

She gritted her teeth, growling under her breath, and suddenly there was a pained yip from below her as she smashed her free foot into the animal's nose, forcing it to release her leg. Santana hopped into the cab, knocking Kurt over, and slammed the truck's door shut.

For several seconds, the two of them sat there catching their breath, listening to the hyenas hoot and cackle outside as they circled the truck. Kurt grunted and pulled himself off the floor and into the passenger seat, looking down out of the window as one of the hyenas raised itself on its hind legs, sniffing and attempting to find a way into the cab.

"Are you okay?" he finally mustered the energy to ask.

Santana lifted her leg to show him where a large piece of her jeans had been ripped away, leaving exposed her uninjured leg. The hyena's teeth had just barely missed her flesh. "I think half an inch closer and I'd have a pretty nasty scar to show for it," she said flatly.

"Jesus," Kurt breathed, his lungs still heaving.

"So… what now?"

"I… I think we just wait them out."

"Fine by me," Santana said, nervously eyeing the hyenas below. "I am never watching The Lion King again."

The Angeles Crest rest stop to Mercedes appeared like an oasis in the desert, and when she pushed through the dusty doors and found the coolers by the cash register only half-emptied, she felt so happy she nearly cried. Muttering repeated thanks to God or Allah or whoever the hell was in control of whether she ate or starved, Mercedes pulled open the door to the cooler and grabbed the largest bottle of water on the shelf. She sank to sit on the floor, letting her sore legs rest as she gulped down a third of the bottle's contents, not even caring that the water was warm.

Letting out a long, calming breath and leaning her back against the cooler, Mercedes took her time rehydrating and enjoying the shade inside the rest stop. A couple of sparrows chirped overhead, probably having flown in through a broken window somewhere in the building.

Setting the bottle of water aside, Mercedes reached down to untie her shoes, hissing through her teeth as she pulled her sneakers off and peeled her socks away from her blistered soles. Maybe the rest stop had some First Aid supplies she could salvage.

For now, Mercedes stocked up on water and Gatorade, shoving as many bottles as would fit into her backpack. Forcing herself to stand (and oh God her feet were killing her), she sifted through the maps sitting in the counter display by the cash register, road maps and hiking trails cutting through the state of California in a massive spider web. Squinting at the network of roads, she finally found her own location, a tiny black tick mark indicating the rest stop where she was currently standing, and measured how far she'd come.

"Eighty-one miles," she sighed. That was barely anything. It was going to take her months to get home at this rate, and she could only pray that the electricity would come back before then.

She was so absorbed in plotting out how she would cross over to Nevada that she almost didn't hear the footsteps outside. At the sound of boots crunching on gravel, her head snapped up and she saw the silhouette of a man walking up to the rest stop's front doors. She sucked in a terrified breath, her heart in her throat, and she ducked behind the cash register. For a brief moment, she was back in the supermarket near her apartment, with a gun to her back and a stranger demanding her money.

The door opened and clanked shut as the man entered the rest stop, casually whistling as his clunking footsteps neared the register's counter. Mercedes held her breath, a hand over her mouth and nose.

"…the hell?" she heard him mumble, kicking at her discarded shoes. She sent a quick prayer skyward that he would leave her backpack alone.

The man's footsteps drew closer, circling around the counter and heading toward the vending machines at the back. For a split second, Mercedes saw a large baseball bat hanging from the man's hand, and she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to contain a small gasp.

The man's footsteps stopped, his boots scraping slightly as he turned in her direction.

He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her and take her water and her backpack and there was nothing she could do about it.

"…Mercedes?!"

Mercedes jumped at the familiar voice, her eyes snapping open. "…Puck?!"