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The Plague Dogs

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DAY 12

Kurt, Dani, Rachel, and Santana had nearly made it to Hampton before setting up camp for the night in a field a little ways away from the road. It was their first time sleeping outside since leaving Bushwick, and for the most part Kurt tossed and turned, barely dozing throughout the long hours of the night as he couldn't help imagining all sorts of creatures hiding in the dark (not the least of which was simply other people , carrying guns and knives and who knew what else). And he was sleeping on the ground. He doubted his spine would ever fully recover.

In the morning, the air was thick and muggy and dense with cloud cover. Kurt woke with a start from his light sleep when a mosquito bit his neck and his hand flew up to slap it. "Ow!" He grimaced, wiping the dead bug off his fingers onto the grass near his head and forcing himself to sit up. Dani was already awake and (unsuccessfully) trying to build up a fire with damp kindling, but Rachel was still shivering underneath her blanket. Kurt glanced at their surroundings, past their little campsite toward the empty road several yards away, and the trees lining the edge of the field. Frankly, it didn't look much different in the misty daylight than it had last night.

"I hate New Jersey," Kurt grumbled, tugging at the damp collar of his shirt. He would give anything for a bath.

Dani looked up from what she was doing. "Morning."

Kurt groggily rubbed his eyes with a yawn. "Morning." He rested his elbows on his knees, watching her try to light the sticks in the tiny fire pit she must have dug with her hands (judging by the amount of dirt under her nails). "Why aren't you just using the stove?"

"I don't want to waste the gas."

"So instead you're wasting matches," Kurt retorted.

Dani huffed, dropping her fistful of not-kindling and brushing off her palms. "Sorry for trying," she snapped.

Kurt sighed. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't sleep well."

Dani raised her eyebrows. "I can see that."

"Don't," he winced. "I don't even want to know what I look like right now." He scratched at the scruff under his chin and imagined how great it would feel once he was back home and able to shave again. "Where's Santana?"

"She went to find a tree," Dani replied.

Kurt frowned, turning to look over his shoulder at the woods. "How long ago?"

"A couple minutes, Kurt, relax." Digging into their food bag, she pulled out a granola bar and tossed it to him. "Eat up; we should get going soon."

Kurt yawned again, tearing the wrapper. He wasn't really hungry — which was weird, considering how much energy they'd been spending while traveling — but he forced himself to swallow the dry and distastefully crunchy breakfast. A few minutes passed in silence (except for Rachel's noisily chattering teeth — how was that not waking her up?) before Santana came back from the woods, brushing off the knees of her jeans as she sat cross-legged next to Dani.

"I am so damn tired of using leaves to wipe my ass," she snapped. "I tripped over a stupid root on the way back."

"You poor thing," Dani said, giving Santana a quick peck on the cheek.

"Why the hell is Rachel still asleep?" Santana demanded, glowering at Rachel's back as she tugged the blanket tighter around her hunched and trembling shoulders, her knees pulled up to her chest. Only her hair, dirty and clumped where it was tied into a braid to keep out of her face, was visible.

Dani checked her watch. "It's only eight-thirty."

"Yeah, and she's waking up later every day. We need to get going earlier."

"She's only got one leg to walk on," Dani reminded her. "She's working harder than we are."

Abruptly, loudly, and seemingly without any reason at all, Santana burst out laughing.

Kurt and Dani exchanged a confused glance before staring sidelong at Santana, each wondering what the hell had suddenly prompted her to lose her mind. Kurt was fairly sure she was laughing at him since she was pointing directly at him, but he couldn't figure out what she was seeing. If he'd had something embarrassing on his face, Dani would have said something already (unless she'd drawn a penis on his cheek while he was asleep, but he was pretty sure nobody had brought a Sharpie).

"Is… there something funny?" Dani asked as Santana clutched her sides, almost shrieking with hysterical giggles.

Santana's finger was still pointing at Kurt. "He has a beard! Oh my God!" she managed to choke out between chuckles.

Kurt's mildly worried expression immediately faded. "Santana, I haven't shaved in almost a week. This cannot be the first time you've noticed," he snapped.

"It is, and you look like Amanda Bynes!" she guffawed. "I had no idea you were even able to grow a beard!"

It wasn't the first time someone had made a She's The Man reference at his expense, and he was less than amused. "Did you think that the men's razors in our bathroom belonged to Rachel?" Kurt deadpanned.

"Yes!"

Dani only dug back into the food bag for another granola bar, calmly saying over her shoulder, "You've got to breathe at some point, Santana."

Mercedes woke up before Puck did, shivering on the cool linoleum floor of the gas station where the two of them had spent the night. She winced and forced herself to sit up, feeling her skin tighten painfully around her shoulders where it was badly sunburned. There was sunlight, harsh and white, coming in through the windows of the gas station, and outside the only view was a flat expanse of sand and rocks and low-standing shrubs, with a line of electrical towers dotting the horizon and a small range of jagged brown mountains far off in the distance.

Puck snorted in his sleep where he lay on the floor a few feet away, using his balled-up sweatshirt as a pillow, then mumbled something incoherent and settled again.

Mercedes sighed, debating whether she wanted to grab a water bottle from their supply bags now or save it for later when they resumed walking across the desert, following the Barstow Freeway. She sighed, hating that it was even a question she had to consider.

Wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin on her hands, Mercedes stared out the front windows to where Mr. T stood tied to the nearest gas pump in the shade. Mr. T's tail swished and flicked flies away from her hindquarters. Mercedes frowned, studying the horse. Mr. T seemed to be standing with her head hanging lower than usual, as if her own body were too heavy for her to carry.

Mercedes glanced over her shoulder at Puck, still snoring away on the floor. She stood up despite her protesting muscles and walked outside, pushing through the station's front door. Mr. T barely lifted her head as Mercedes approached and ran a palm down the horse's nose. The animal's coat was damp with sweat and caked thick with dust from the road, and her eyes would only blink very slowly, her movements sluggish if she moved at all.

Mercedes sighed, squinting out across the desert through the rippling air. In all honesty, she didn't care about Mr. T nearly as much as Puck did. He was attached to his pet, and that was fine, but she wasn't as keen on considering the horse to be a pet at all. However, Mr. T was a means to an end, and Mercedes knew that they wouldn't make it out of the desert nearly as quickly without her. Mr. T's health was clearly not at peak, and Mercedes couldn't say she was surprised — there was barely any vegetation out here for a horse to eat, let alone enough water, and she didn't have any idea what kind of diet a dressage horse was used to. Either way, if Mr. T was going to survive, they would have to figure something out to keep her fed and hydrated.

For now, though, Mercedes thought as a wave of sand blew across the empty pavement at her feet, the least she could do was give Mr. T some proper shade. Untying the reins from the gas pump, Mercedes clicked her tongue and led Mr. T toward the station. It took a great deal of awkward maneuvering to keep the door open long enough for Mr. T to squeeze through, but Mercedes at last managed to guide her inside and out of the heat. Well, it was still warm inside, but at least it wasn't sweltering, and linoleum was a hell of a lot better to stand on than hot pavement.

As Mr. T's hooves clopped noisily past the cash register, Puck sat up, squinting in the sunlight from outside with his hair matted from sleep. "What are you doing?" he grunted.

"Your horse is practically dying from the heat," Mercedes said sternly, reaching up to unbuckle the bridle from around Mr. T's head. She realized that she probably sounded like Puck's mother, but didn't care quite enough to change her tone. "We can't leave her outside any more."

Puck at least looked guilty, seeing Mr. T's unhealthy coat and slightly shaking legs.

Mercedes began taking large bottles of lukewarm water from the no-longer-functioning coolers at the back of the station. "Go see if you can find a bucket or something we can use as a trough before Mr. T dries up completely," she ordered, half expecting Puck to snark something back about her being bossier than Rachel ever was. Instead, he immediately got up and pushed through a door at the back marked Employees Only, returning a moment later with a large wheeled mop bucket.

"Will this work?"

Mercedes nodded. "More or less. Come over here and help me."

Mr. T huffed loudly through her nose and butted Puck lightly in the shoulder as he passed her.

"You see?" Mercedes said. "She's pissed at you."

"Shut up," Puck grumbled as he helped her open liter after liter of water and dump them into the bucket. "It's not like I've ever had a horse before. I had a cat when I was like three, but that's it."

Mercedes chortled at the mental image of Puck with a kitten. "Didn't peg you for a cat person."

"I'm not; it was my mom's but she was always out with Bill so I had to take care of it."

"Who's Bill?"

"My dad."

Puck fell abruptly quiet, and for a while the only sound was the loud slurping as Mr. T gulped down as much water as she could stomach. After a minute or so, Puck sniffed, scratching his nose, and grabbed a Nature Valley granola bar from the nearest shelf. He tore the wrapper open and let Mr. T eat the treat from his palm, wordlessly rubbing his other hand over her forehead like he was intentionally avoiding eye contact with Mercedes.

Mercedes sighed, leaning back against the soda cooler. "You miss them, don't you?" she said. "Your family, I mean."

Puck shrugged, gently pulling a snarl out of Mr. T's mane with his fingers. "Dad, not so much."

"Your mom and sister, then."

His mouth tightened, and he scratched at his nose again. "It was what, nine o'clock in Ohio when the blackout hit?" he said, his jaw tightening. "Around nine, anyways."

Mercedes frowned, not sure where he was going with this, but nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"That's when my mom drives my sister back home from our Nana's house. Every day, once she gets off work." Puck swallowed, glancing out through the front of the gas station at the flat expanses of barren and unfamiliar sand and rock. "If they were in the car when everything stopped, they could have crashed. And even if they weren't, maybe they've run out of food. Or they've been attacked. I saw some nasty crap in the streets before I left L.A. and I'm sure Lima's not any better off. For all I know, they could both be dead."

Mercedes felt her chest tighten. As much as she could, she'd been avoiding thinking about her own family for precisely this reason. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do to make the situation better. "I know how you feel," she added lamely, and even as she said the words they sounded forced.

A grim, pained smile twisted Puck's mouth. "No, you don't," he retorted bitterly. "You've got, what, five brothers?"

"Four."

"And they're all older than you," he continued. "Even if they're not with your parents, they can fend for themselves." He gritted his teeth, yanking his fingers through his hair. "My sister is ten years old ."

"I'm sorry," Mercedes said again, simply because there was nothing else she could say, no lies she could invent to make him feel better. The two of them were stranded in the middle of the desolate wastes of the Mojave, thousands upon thousands of miles from home. No protection, no ready supply of food and water, no trees to shield them from vultures and the pounding heat of the sun. Out here in the burning sand, there was nothing to hide behind.

Puck's shoulders slumped and he released a heavy breath, patting Mr. T's neck as the horse continued to drink from the mop bucket. "You're right," he said. "We can't leave her outside anymore."

"Maybe we can find some more bags around here," Mercedes suggested. "So we can carry more water." She was glad for the change of topic, but the pressure in her chest was still there.

Puck blinked. "Holy crap. We're idiots."

"Huh?"

"There's no way we can carry enough water for Mr. T, let alone us too," he insisted. "But what if we just travel at night? At least until we get out of the desert."

Mercedes eyebrows shot upwards. She wasn't too keen on the idea of being out there in the dark, with all sorts of sand creatures – poisonous snakes and lizards and spiders — lurking in the shadows.

"Think about it," Puck continued. "It won't be as hot and we won't sweat so much. Plus, no sunburn."

As much as the idea of finding their way across the desert in the pitch black made Mercedes feel queasy, she had to admit he had a point. Mainly about the sunburn — her skin was peeling away from her back and shoulders where it had blistered, and there was already another sunburn developing on her new skin. After a week or so, she'd learned to just tune out the constant throbbing, but it would be nice to get rid of the feeling altogether.

"So?" Puck prompted, leaning on Mr. T's flank as the horse sucked at the last few drops of water clinging to the bottom of the bucket. "What do you think?"

Mercedes scratched at the back of her neck, flakes of dead skin coming away under her nails. "Okay," she agreed. "Looks like we're camping here the rest of today. We'll get going again at sunset."

DAY 13

Kurt watched the sky anxiously as a clump of fat rainclouds rolled overhead, casting him and the three girls in shadow for several minutes. He hadn't mentioned it aloud and he didn't know if Santana or Dani had noticed this yet, but since leaving Bushwick behind, they had slowed down exponentially. The first day they had covered almost thirty miles, if the road map Kurt had stolen from a Newark gas station was accurate, and then the second day they'd only covered twenty-five. In the past two days combined, they had barely made it over twelve. Kurt hated to even think it, but he knew the reason why.

He glanced over his shoulder briefly to check on Rachel, like he'd made a habit of doing every five minutes or so. She was lagging behind, slowing the group to a snail's pace. She needed to stop and rest far more often than the rest of them, and Kurt knew it wasn't her fault, but on the same token… her dragging feet and glacial speed were driving him crazy.

He just wanted to get home as soon as possible. Was that so bad?

For the most part, they'd been passing by expanses of farmland and patches of woody areas. There wasn't an excess of inhabited areas — not many towns where they could find stores to raid for supplies – and even though they had only encountered a few people on their journey, every house they walked by looked presently lived-in. This meant that their bags of food and water were growing ever lighter, a factor that Kurt was sure was contributing to their decrease in stamina.

Kurt pulled his shirt away from where it was sticking to his chest, adjusting the heavy packs on his shoulders. Ignoring the fact that his back and knees were killing him from carrying a load more than half his body weight, he hadn't had a shower or even a sponge bath since they'd left Bushwick five days ago, and he reeked. Every pore in his skin felt sticky with sweat and travel grime, and the amount of dirt underneath his fingernails was horrific. And to top it all off, his whole jawline constantly itched underneath the scruff that had grown over his chin.

A few small raindrops landed on the back of Kurt's neck, and he sighed. The air was already thick with moisture (as well as more than enough mosquitos) and the last thing he wanted was to be walking for hours in the pouring rain.

Although maybe, if he was lucky, it would feel enough like a shower to make him relax.

Behind him, Kurt heard the sound of Rachel's crutches scraping suddenly on the pavement, and a small oof. "You okay, Rachel?" he asked, stopping for a moment to let her catch up. She had staggered and almost lost her balance.

She sucked in a deep breath through her nose, wiping a strand of hair away from her sweaty forehead. "My foot just hurts; I'm fine." Her face was flushed bright red, her eyes glassy.

"Why don't we rest for a bit?" Dani suggested.

"I'm fine," Rachel insisted, her wrists trembling where she was gripping her crutch handles.

"Rachel, just rest for a minute," Kurt ordered gently. As much as he wanted to keep going, Rachel was clearly having a very difficult time. Pushing her any harder would be unfair.

Rachel huffed, clinging to her crutches where she stood, resting her bad foot on the tips of her toes and carefully keeping her heel away from the ground. Her whole frame was quaking.

Santana put a hand on Rachel's shoulder and gestured to a fairly large boulder seated in the soil by the side of the road. "Sit down," she directed. "Let me look at your foot."

Whether Rachel actually wanted to rest or she just didn't have the energy to argue wasn't clear, but with a shiver she did as she was told, sinking onto the rock and letting her crutches drop to the ground next to her. Santana knelt in front of the rock and lifted Rachel's leg up, propping it on her knee as she gingerly removed the shoe. Almost immediately, a sharp and putrid odor attacked Kurt's nose, and he had to fight against the urge to gag.

If Santana was bothered by the smell, she didn't let on. Her face was expressionless as she carefully unwound the bandage from around Rachel's heel. She was silent for a disturbingly long moment.

Kurt's eyes widened. Rachel's injury didn't look like it was healing, or even growing smaller. If anything, it looked slightly bigger. Her entire heel was red and puffy, and there was a distinct yellow tinge around the edges of the wound.

"Rachel, has this been hurting more than usual?" Santana asked, her voice perfectly level and calm.

Rachel rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. "I don't know, maybe a little."

"Rachel," Santana said sternly.

"Yes. Okay?" Rachel snapped, scratching at her neck where the sweat had been pooling in the dip between her collarbones. "It's been hurting more."

"Like a throbbing?"

Rachel paused, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly. "Yeah."

Santana reached up and pressed the back of her hand to Rachel's forehead. "Have you been feeling sick at all?"

The smaller girl made a face. "What? No."

"Santana, what's going on?" Kurt interjected.

Santana ignored him, still talking to Rachel. "Answer me honestly. Have you had any fever?"

Rachel pushed Santana's hand away. "No!" she protested. "Why?"

"Your foot's infected. It's making you sick."

"Okay, so… the next pharmacy we see, we'll get some meds," Rachel replied with a nod.

Santana didn't argue, but she didn't voice an agreement either, which made Kurt nervous. Instead, she retied the bandage around Rachel's foot in silence (despite the fact that it was the same one Rachel had been wearing for at least the past two days — they just didn't have anything else to use) and then helped Rachel back onto her crutches. Dani quickly came over to make sure Rachel didn't lose her balance again, walking with her along the road as Kurt hung back with Santana.

"Is she okay?" Kurt asked under his breath.

Santana's expression was severe. "We need to find a pharmacy now."

Kurt swallowed, feeling like he might throw up. A few more raindrops pattered against the pavement around their feet. "What if… what if we just sew it up ourselves?"

Santana only glared at him. "Are you insane, Kurt?" she hissed, still making sure Rachel couldn't hear their conversation. "You can't sew an infected cut closed. All that does is trap the infection inside and make it harder to treat. It would just go into her blood faster."

"It was just a suggestion."

"It was a stupid suggestion."

DAY 15

Two weeks. Two weeks of silence. No traffic, no buzzing hum of streetlamps at night, no thumping bass from someone obnoxiously blasting music three blocks away, no sign that any kind of familiar order was still in place beyond Burt's own doorstep. At night, it was all but impossible to sleep, listening to the nothingness outside the safety of their walls, punctuated only by the occasional call of some nocturnal bird or a far-off gunshot out in the darkness. Everything was empty, not just the streets. People were in hiding, like it was the aftermath of some horrific nuclear fallout. Frankly, Burt wasn't sure the comparison was at all inaccurate.

He hadn't made another supply run into town for the past four days, even though he and Carole were by no means well-stocked. It wasn't that he was in hiding too, not like his neighbors, nor was it that he was afraid to face the plane wreckage in Kinney Square again, with its hundreds of charred corpses entombed inside. It was only because of the emptiness, in every place he'd thought to check. There was simply nothing left to take.

If he was being honest with himself, Burt would have to admit that he was a little surprised that food had even lasted this long. But circumstances were different now, and honesty was a terrifying thing.

Today, as Burt stood on his porch watching the road for any sign of life beyond the occasional stranger passing by on their way to and from town, it was even quieter than usual. It was like Lima's population had slowly vanished, person by person, leaving their houses and cars behind without so much as a whisper. Burt didn't know if they had actually left town or had just backed deeper into their own homes, but either way, the emptiness was spreading.

He took a long gulp from the glass of water he held in his hands, leaning with his elbows braced on the porch rail, and swallowed with a grimace. He'd had to build a fire pit in their back lawn so they could boil the water from McClintock Lake before drinking it, and even though it was clean it still tasted vastly different from the tap water Burt was used to. He supposed, though, that a detail as small as the taste of his drinking water shouldn't be a big deal given why they were taking water from the lake in the first place.

What he'd give for a cup of fresh coffee. Or a cold beer.

Across the street, Burt saw their neighbor Sandra peering out through her front window between the curtains. She glanced skittishly up and down the street, like she was cowering from gunfire, and when her gaze landed on Burt he raised his arm in a tentative wave. There was a brief moment of hesitation, and then Sandra gave a short, nervous wave and vanished again behind the curtains. Burt sighed; he didn't actually know Sandra all that well anyways. She was barely more than an acquaintance to Carole, let alone him. But he couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed by Sandra's avoidance. Maybe he was too optimistic, but he'd hoped that their neighborhood would work together a little more after the blackout. Instead, they hid from each other. What had been suburban potlucks and neighborhood barbecues only a few weeks earlier was now mistrust and isolation.

Movement further down the road caught the corner of his eye, and Burt felt a small surge of relief as he recognized his wife's silhouette walking down the sidewalk several houses away. She was home much earlier than usual; she hadn't gotten back until after dark most nights since she started at St. Rita's, but now the sun was just barely grazing the treetops toward the western end of the street and there had to be at least another three hours before sunset.

He smiled to himself, glad she was home, and walked out to the sidewalk to wait for her. He waved a hand over his head in greeting, but she didn't wave back. She must not have seen him yet. Burt abruptly felt a strange tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach, and the hairs on his arms stood on end. He squinted through the sunlight, realizing with a start that Carole wasn't walking quite right; her shape was tensely bent and her movements rigidly fearful. She was hugging her stomach, and Burt's heart jumped into his throat.

When she'd left the house that morning, her shirt had been light blue. Now it was red.

Burt broke into a run, dropping his water glass and not realizing that it shattered on the sidewalk. He rushed toward his wife, meeting her almost halfway down the street. "Where are you hurt?" he demanded. "Where are you hurt?!"

Carole shook her head, her bloodstained hands trembling. "I'm okay," she said, her voice cracking.

Burt gripped her by the shoulders, looking her up and down and desperately searching for an open wound. The front of her shirt and cardigan had been soaked red, her jeans stained and her neck and shoulders smeared all over. There was even blood on her shoes, but Burt saw no cuts, no lacerations, not even tears in her clothing. "What happened? Where are you bleeding?"

"Burt," she said, raising her voice slightly to force him to meet her eye. "It's not mine."

He released a heavy breath. She was still standing. She had made it home on her own. He wrapped his fingers gently around her wrists. "What happened?" he asked, more calmly this time.

Carole's face contorted, her chin quivering, and she looked down. "Th-there were some people who-who…" She sniffed, her fingers clenching into fists in Burt's hands. "They just broke down the doors a-and started sh-shooting— I don't—"

Burt didn't wait to hear any more. He wrapped his arms around her and clutched her to him as tightly as he dared, running his fingers through her hair. "You're sure you're okay?"

She sobbed once into his chest. "I just want to go home," she choked out.

"All right," Burt said softly, planting a quick kiss on her forehead. "Okay, come on, sweetie." He looped an arm around her shoulders and guided her off the sidewalk, back across the street toward their house. Her whole frame was shaking, and Burt was amazed she'd made it back home by herself on such unsteady legs.

Navigating their porch steps carefully with his wife clutched to his side, Burt quickly walked her inside and let the front door swing shut behind them with a heavy thunk . He let go of her momentarily to lock it behind him, but when he turned around again, Carole was already out of reach and heading for the stairwell.

"Honey?" he called, but she didn't stop, forcing him to rush up the stairs after her. "Carole, what are you doing?"

Burt wasn't sure where he'd been expecting her to go, but when he saw her push through the door to Finn's room, a shock jolted his heart. Finn's door had been kept closed for months; as far as he knew, nobody had been inside since they had packed up some of Finn's things.

"Carole?" he repeated, more gently this time. The door to Finn's room had swung halfway shut again, and Burt slowly pushed it open, completely unsure if he should be going in to make sure she was okay or giving her some space.

Carole was sitting on the floor with her back against the side of the bed. The closet door was open and she'd dragged out a box labeled JACKETS & SWEATERS in Sharpie, tearing open the top and leaving it by her feet. She'd taken out a white and grey striped hoodie and wrapped it across her shoulders, pulling it tight around her torso. She had her knees folded up to her chest and looked like she was having trouble breathing.

"Oh, sweetie," Burt trailed off, kneeling next to her.

"I can't… I can't do this anymore," she said through gritted teeth. Her voice was thin and strained, like it was nearly impossible to push the air from her lungs.

Burt didn't know what to say. His wife — who, for the record, had always been much stronger than him — sat covered in someone else's blood and crying and clinging to her dead son's hoodie like a lifeline, and he just… had no idea what to do. Wishing that there was some magically simple cure-all he could invoke to fix everything that was causing Carole pain — bring the electricity back, bring the other doctors from the hospital back, and hell, bring Finn back too. Carole deserved none of this.

He reached forward and carefully brushed a few strands away from her forehead, her skin burning up under his fingertips. He had no idea if the fever was from sickness or sheer adrenaline. A fresh stream of tears leaked from the corners of Carole's eyes, and she hid her face behind her hands, leaving small streaks of blood on her brows and cheeks.

"Carole," he said gently, taking her arm. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

A broken sob escaped her chest, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She looked down, tightening her fingers around the fabric of Finn's hoodie. "I—," she hiccoughed. "I got… I got blood on it. I can't—"

"Hey. Hey, it's okay. Look at me." Burt quickly got her attention, brushing a hand over her warm forehead again. "I'll wash it, alright? I'll take care of it, I promise." He kissed the top of her head, slipping the hoodie off her shoulders. He folded it, painstakingly keeping the bloodstained parts of it hidden, and placed it on the foot of Finn's empty bed.

"Burt—"

"It's okay," he assured her again. "It's okay. Come on." Letting her grip his hand like a vice, Burt helped Carole to her feet, looping his arm around her back. She leaned into his side, relying on his weight to guide her from the room (finally, since she'd carried her own weight nearly four miles from the center of town). Burt held her as tightly as he could. He couldn't revive any of her losses, but he could take care of her now.

So he let the door fall shut behind them, sealing inside Finn's empty bed, empty clothes, and empty room.