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No More Yellow Brick Roads
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DAY 23
Artie jerked awake, finding his lids crusted over with grime and his cheek pressed into the dead leaves and dirt covering the ground. For several seconds, confusion clouded his head and he couldn't quite place where he was. The treetops overhead rustled in the breeze. A grey sky. Caitlin was next to him, squeezed into the crook of his arm and shivering slightly, but still asleep. It was cold and damp, and smelled like impending rain. In the back of his mind, he could still taste sour smoke and hear the deafening, echoing boom of Blaine's house caving in. He wondered if the fire was still smoldering, or if there was even anything left of the house at all.
What were they going to do? What could they do? They were left without food, without shelter, without anyone to protect them other than themselves. And, frankly, Artie didn't have a whole lot of faith that any one of them could offer much protection at all. He couldn't even move around now that his chair was burned to a crisp, Caitlin was just a kid, and Blaine… well. Artie's confidence in Blaine was dwindling by the day. Not that he didn't trust Blaine; it was only that Blaine kept withdrawing into himself, going through the motions of survival as though he didn't have a vested interest in it. And that was before the fire. Artie had no idea what to expect now.
At last, Artie forced himself to sit up, carefully working his arm out from under Caitlin's shoulder. She didn't wake up, and for the moment Artie was grateful for that. Sleep was an ignorance he wanted to let her keep for as long as possible.
Blaine, on the other hand, didn't appear to have gotten any sleep during the night whatsoever. He sat a few feet away from Artie, his back against a tree trunk and his elbows resting on his knees. Artie was struck suddenly by how skinny Blaine looked, and he had to ask himself if that was new or if he'd simply not noticed Blaine's cheekbones sticking out further, his eyes sunken. It occurred to Artie that Blaine might have stopped eating properly days ago.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked, his voice coming out hoarse from a night of breathing the damp night air.
Blaine didn't even make eye contact, only responding with a small shake of his head.
"You can't stay up forever," Artie said lamely. The words felt awkward and clumsy, and there was a long, pregnant moment of silence. "I'm really sorry, Blaine."
"For what?" Blaine's voice, his posture, his expression… everything was collapsed, like all the energy had been sucked out of him.
Artie frowned, his stomach turning. "About your mom and dad. And your house."
Blaine only closed his eyes, looking absolutely exhausted, and raked his fingers through his hair.
"It sucks, and none of this is fair, but…" Artie started again, attempting some kind of a pep talk (he hoped, anyway). How was he supposed to respond to this? "I'm with you, okay?"
"Artie, please don't," Blaine stopped him. He hadn't opened his eyes.
Artie's jaw clenched, and he looked away. Not that Blaine would have noticed the expression, he thought bitterly. His chest was tight, his stomach aching. None of them had eaten anything since just before the attack, and that was a problem that had to be solved soon. Artie swallowed the bile in his throat, feeling something like anger bubble in his gut. Maybe it was just hunger, but it certainly felt like rage.
"Blaine, maybe this isn't the best time for you to hear this, but we're sleeping in the freaking woods and I don't have any more room in my head to deal with this," Artie snapped, the words jumping from his mouth faster than he could think them through. "I'm getting really sick of this whole stoic straight-arm thing you're doing, okay? It's not helping anyone, and we have more important things on our plate to worry about and we need to be able to have a real conversation without pausing for you to silently brood."
Blaine had finally opened his eyes again, and was glaring back at him. "Are you seriously telling me I don't have a right to be upset?" It was the first time that morning that Artie had heard any force in Blaine's voice at all.
"Oh, come on , Blaine! You know exactly what I'm saying!" Artie cried, struggling to keep his voice down so he wouldn't wake Caitlin. "Your parents just died and you're grieving and tired and scared and I get that. Scream, cry, punch a tree, I don't care. Do whatever you have to do. But don't you dare let all of that get in the way of us staying alive. We have to find food. We have to find a safe place to stay. We have to find me another chair, because you can't carry me. And none of that is going to happen if you and I aren't communicating."
Blaine didn't speak right away, still glaring at him. He let out a long, slow breath through his nose.
Artie pressed his lips together, bracing for Blaine to yell at him. To be honest, he wasn't so sure getting Blaine to yell was such a bad thing — maybe it would shake him out of whatever stupor he was stuck in.
When Blaine finally opened his mouth, he didn't shout. His voice came out hoarse and thready and shaking. "How long do you expect we can actually survive out here?"
"Blaine," Artie warned. "Stop it."
Blaine didn't listen. "Artie, we're starving, we're exposed, we've got nowhere to go, and our families are dead. We've got nothing."
"My family isn't dead!" Artie spat. At that, Caitlin stirred at last, shaken awake by the argument. She sat up, glancing back and forth from Artie to Blaine and back again.
Blaine stared at him. "What?"
Artie let out a huff of air and heaved himself all the way up, dragging his legs so that he could sit against the tree trunk to his back. Caitlin sat with her knees pulled to her chest, not sure of what to do.
"Our brother's in Philadelphia for college, and our parents are in Belgium."
Blaine blinked. "Belgium?" he repeated.
"They were on a business trip when the blackout hit," Artie explained with a rock in his throat. "They're not dead."
Blaine's shoulders dropped, and he ran a palm over the back of his head. "Artie, I-I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Yeah, well, you never asked," Artie snapped. He knew exactly what Blaine had assumed, and he couldn't say he blamed him for the assumption, but Blaine could have at least asked.
They both fell quiet, neither of them having any idea how to move the conversation forward.
"I'm hungry," Caitlin said, sounding as though she was trying to fill the silence more than expecting someone to actually give her something.
Blaine stood and brushed the dirt from the seat of his pants.
"Are you going somewhere?" Artie asked with a frown.
"Like you said," Blaine answered. "We need to get you a new chair."
Artie's eyebrows shot up. "You're going now? Where are you even going to look?"
"St. Rita's."
"Blaine, we passed by St. Rita's days ago and it looked like it had already been raided," Artie said. "It's probably empty."
Blaine nodded. "Yeah, of drugs, most likely. What are the chances a gang broke in and stole all the wheelchairs?" He didn't wait for Artie to answer, instead squinting up at the sky for a moment (as if he could actually see the sun despite the cloud cover). "I think it's a little before noon. I'll be gone for a couple hours, so until I get back, stay away from the road."
"I'm not going anywhere," Artie said flatly, gesturing irritatedly at his legs.
Blaine didn't respond to the jab, instead giving a short nod and striding through the ankle-deep ferns in the direction of the road. The pavement was just visible from Artie's place on the ground, but it wasn't more than a few seconds before Blaine vanished entirely from view.
Once Blaine was gone, it fell terrifyingly quiet. Artie looked up at the thin canopy of leaves, his skin running cold. A small flock of sparrows chittered in the branches somewhere overhead.
Caitlin sat with her legs crossed and ripped a dead leaf to smaller and smaller pieces in her fingers. "I'm hungry," she said again.
Artie sighed, leaning his head against the tree trunk to his back. "Me too."
Santana was slow to wake, the battering rain and thunder from the previous night still echoing distantly in her head. Every part of her ached from sleeping on the hard tiled floor — her head especially since somehow she had managed to shove away the balled-up sweater she'd been using as a pillow. Despite the pain in her twisted spine, neck, and the back of her head, Santana didn't move. She remained lying on her side and staring at the wall, her eyes tracing the pattern of meanders painted along the baseboard as her mind slowly drifted into wakefulness.
Eventually, the realization that she couldn't hear Kurt or Dani — no talking or moving around or even breathing — jerked her upright. A jolt of panic shocked through her when she saw the bistro was empty beside herself, and she quickly lurched to her feet. She spotted Kurt sitting on the front step outside with his back to her, and her shoulders relaxed, her stomach still in knots from anxiety or panic or hunger or some combination thereof.
Scraping her hideously dirty hair off the back of her neck and pulling it up into a messy bun, Santana pushed the front door open. Kurt looked up for a moment, then returned his attention to scanning up and down the street.
"Hey," he said as she sat next to him.
She swallowed a sudden urge to gag — they both badly needed a shower. Santana had thought that after a certain amount of time, her nostrils would eventually just tune out the stink, but as the days of walking and sweating and not bathing multiplied, the smell only got worse.
"What are you looking at?" Santana asked, careful to breathe through her mouth.
Kurt shrugged. "Dani went to see if she could find some stuff."
Santana couldn't quite tell if that was a direct answer and he was watching for Dani to return, or if he didn't even know what he was looking for and he was just avoiding the question.
She rested her elbows on her knees, her stomach cramping in hunger. Kurt didn't notice her staring at him. Santana hadn't looked in a mirror in weeks and was sure she looked awful, but the difference in how Kurt looked compared to before the blackout was nothing short of shocking. He was bony. His cheeks and jaw were covered in a coat of dark facial hair that made him look like someone else. The hair on his head was overgrown and unstyled, covering the tips of his ears and thick with dirt and oils. His fingernails were caked underneath. Dark shadows beneath his eyes made them appear sunken and hollow.
Santana swallowed and forced herself to look away.
She turned her gaze upward, watching the sun vanish and reappear as white fluffy clouds blew past across a patchy blue sky. Her abdomen clenched as a particularly strong hunger pang shot through her.
"There's Dani," said Kurt, breaking the quiet.
Santana spotted Dani a few blocks away down the empty street, her backpack slung over one shoulder. The pack didn't appear any heavier than it had been the previous evening.
"Anything?" Santana asked as Dani finally approached them.
Dani shook her head, her shoulders hanging low. "Everything I did find expired ages ago. More mold than food."
Santana sighed. She couldn't say she was surprised. But… they were out of food completely now. There was nothing left, and if they didn't find anything to eat soon, they wouldn't make it much further than Easton. Every cell in her body was fatigued, and she felt like she could barely lift her arms, let alone walk to Ohio from the far end of Pennsylvania.
She wished Rachel was here, helping to fill the silence.
"We should get going," said Kurt, pulling himself up from the granite step. He turned and went inside without another word to start packing.
Santana didn't move quite yet; instead, she glanced up at the sun again. Now that she thought about it, the sun was much higher than it usually was when they started walking in the mornings. "What time is it?"
Dani peered at her watch. "Almost noon." She shrugged the pack off her shoulder and sat next to Santana. "Did you sleep any better last night?"
"A little bit."
"Your hands are shaking."
Santana looked down. Dani was right — her fingers were trembling. "I'm just hungry."
Dani didn't have an answer to that. She reached over and wrapped her hand around Santana's, leaning into her side and resting her head on her shoulder. Dani's fingertips were freezing cold against Santana's skin.
They sat there for a few minutes, silently watching the clouds pass overhead, the few trees planted along the sidewalks rustle in the breeze, and a couple of squirrels scamper across the road. The sun was warm, but Santana felt frigid inside, as though her blood couldn't reach any deeper than her skin.
Santana's head nodded for a moment before her body jolted her awake again.
"You okay?" asked Dani, squeezing Santana's hand.
"Yeah, I think so." Santana gave her head a shake, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. Now was not the time to fall asleep — it was already late in the day, and they had to keep going. "Come on, we should pack up and head out."
When Santana stood up, the blood rushed from her head and she swayed on her feet, her vision disappearing into a cloud of black spots. Her ears roared, and she felt Dani's arms grab her shoulders before she could fall. As she rapidly blinked and sucked in a deep, deep breath, the spots cleared from her eyes and the roaring in her ears faded. She steadied herself on her feet.
Dani was still gripping her shoulders. "We have to find something soon," she said solemnly. "We can't keep doing this."
"We don't have any other option," Santana replied, shrugging away from Dani's hold. "It's okay, I'm fine."
Dani didn't argue, but her mouth was set in a grim line as she followed Santana back inside.
Kurt was standing by the booth he'd slept next to, shoving his blanket and a few pieces of clothing into his pack. His hands were shaking too.
Santana knelt on the floor to roll up the tangle of blankets she'd been sleeping on, the back of her head buzzing like her skull was filled with static.
"Are you going to help or what?" Kurt snapped.
Santana paused and looked over her shoulder. Dani was still standing by the door, her arms hugging her torso and her bottom lip clamped between her teeth.
"Guys, we need to stop," she blurted out.
Kurt frowned. "What?"
"We need a break, okay?" Dani continued. "We can camp out here, comb the town for supplies. Rest for a while before getting back on the road."
"We need to go home," Kurt insisted, shaking his head.
Dani's arms dropped to her sides, her shoulders falling. "Kurt, we didn't even make it five miles yesterday. Over the whole day. We weren't even that slow when Rachel was with us."
Kurt's jaw clenched shut and he looked away, like he was angry at Dani for bringing Rachel up. Santana's chest hurt and for a split second she wanted to burst into tears.
"We're tired, we've eaten pretty much nothing the last two days, and we're not going to make it home if we keep going like this," Dani persisted.
Kurt bristled at that, and a shadow flickered across his face. His eyes flared. "It's not your home," he spat lowly, speaking through his teeth. "You don't get to make the calls. You're just along for the ride."
"Don't be an asshole," Santana cut in, glaring at him. She sighed, pulling herself shakily to her feet. "She's right. We're exhausted."
Kurt's jaw twitched, his fists tight.
Rather than argue any further, Dani pleaded. "Kurt, let's just stay here for a few days, okay? We'll rest up and get back out there as soon as we can. We all need a break."
"We have to go home," Kurt repeated, his words thin and unsteady. "I can't just sit here and do nothing!"
"Kurt, we're not going to make it home if we starve to death on the way," Santana countered, raising her voice. "You want to end up dead in a ditch by the side of the road like Rachel did? Be my guest. But I'm staying here with Dani, and if you want to keep on with your freaking death march, then I won't stop you."
"Oh, screw you!" Kurt shouted, his voice breaking.
"Kurt…" said Dani gently. "Please. Let's stay alive."
Kurt gritted his teeth, his eyes glassy. His breath shuddered out of his chest and his shoulders sunk. He ran a hand over his face. "Fine," he choked out. "Fine."
Santana glanced at Dani, who looked like she was about to cry. "How about you and Kurt go to the river and I'll meet you there in a little bit?"
Dani blinked back a few tears, nodding. "Okay. What are you going to do?"
"I saw a Rite Aid a couple blocks away that I want to check out. If we're going to be here for a day or two, we should at least try to clean ourselves up."
Santana could feel Kurt glaring at her, but she ignored him. He would just have to get over it. Maybe that was callous, but they'd all had to make adjustments in favor of their safety, and Kurt was no different. They couldn't prioritize their feelings anymore.
She headed out the door with one of their empty backpacks hanging from her shoulder, striding quickly along the sidewalk in the direction of the Rite Aid she'd spotted on their way into town. The road was littered with trash, dead leaves, dust, and abandoned cars, and most of the shops she passed had been looted. In all likelihood, the Rite Aid wasn't going to have anything more, but Santana preferred to be thorough. She wasn't going to risk losing a possible resource based on an assumption.
By the time she reached the Rite Aid parking lot six blocks away, her legs nearly felt ready to give out. The sun no longer felt pleasantly warm — instead, it beat down on Santana's neck, brutal and dry and hot. She paused at the edge of the lot to brace an arm against a streetlamp and give herself a few seconds to rest. Dani had been right; if she couldn't make it a few blocks without feeling dizzy and sick, then a rest for a few days was what they needed.
Swallowing, Santana stepped off the curb and walked across the lot to the front entrance. The automatic doors had been smashed, so she stepped through the hollow frame and was careful to not catch her feet on the jagged shards of glass sticking up from it like teeth.
Inside the Rite Aid, Santana found nearly all the shelves empty and a filthy floor. She could hear a few pigeons cooing somewhere toward the back of the store, and a few bird droppings decorated the cash registers. Looters had tracked in dirt and mud, leaving smeared shoe prints across most of the linoleum, and rain falling in through the broken doors over the past several weeks had made the mess worse. Santana wrinkled her nose — though the open entrance had helped to ventilate somewhat, it still stank.
The grocery aisles were entirely devoid of anything useful. The only food left that Santana could immediately spot was a shattered jar of salsa that someone had dropped on the ground, leaving its splattered contents dried and crusted on the floor like a huge scab.
Desperately but without any real expectation of success, Santana knelt on the ground, then lay on her belly to peer beneath the aluminum shelves. Her eyes widened when she saw the shadow of a box that had been somehow kicked underneath. Her stomach grumbled loudly, as if to ask what she was waiting for. She grunted slightly as she wedged her arm into the gap between the shelf and the floor, batting the box clumsily toward herself, and finally yanked it out.
She nearly laughed out loud. It was a box of Frosted Flakes.
Eagerly stuffing the box of cereal into her pack, Santana stood back up and began to wander throughout the store in search of anything else of use. There was no more food, but Santana was able to retrieve a handful of supplies from the other aisles — three boxes of tampons, a single tube of shaving cream, a packet of five razors, and a box of baking soda. Everything else that was left (mostly cosmetics and stationery) was nowhere near essential.
She had just zipped her bag shut when the pigeons sprung away from their roost near the ceiling, flapping and hooting in a frenzy. Santana jumped at the noise. She slung the pack back over her shoulders and turned to leave, only to stop in her tracks when she realized she wasn't the only one in the store.
Two women stood at the door, watching her.
Santana didn't say anything, her heart in her throat. She suddenly felt very, very alone.
"Did you find anything?" said the older woman. She was in her fifties, while the other was closer to Santana's age. They looked like a mother and daughter. Both of them were skinny and in need of a bath, and both had the same haunted, starved glint in their eyes that Santana had seen in every single person she'd encountered since the blackout.
Santana shook her head. "No, nothing."
The strangers exchanged a glance, and then the daughter spoke. "I don't believe you."
Santana stepped back. "I don't have anything."
"Give us your bag."
Her hands tightened around the straps, her palms sweating. "No."
The mother's eyes flared, and she stepped forward. "Give us your bag," she repeated.
Santana swallowed. She quickly ran her eyes over the women's figures — they had no weapons, nothing to give them the upper hand besides the fact that they outnumbered her.
After a split second of indecision, Santana bolted.
Blaine shivered as he approached the looming hospital, a bead of cold sweat dripping down his neck. His heart thudded hard against his ribs, and he hesitated at the edge of the curb with his pulse roaring in his ears and his stomach turning somersaults in his gut. Every nerve in his body was urging Blaine to turn and walk in the other direction, to leave the hospital behind him and not look back. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and reminded himself that Artie desperately needed a new chair. And at the moment, one could argue that a new wheelchair was more important than finding food and shelter. Blaine couldn't keep carrying Artie, and he couldn't be doing all the work. Mobility was a necessity that none of them — Artie included — could afford to sacrifice.
"Come on, come on," Blaine whispered to himself. "You can do this." He finally stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the Emergency Room doors. A hot breeze blew past, causing dust and leaves and old trash to eddy around his feet.
The sliding doors stood only half closed — one door sat crooked on its bearings, the glass cracked around two massive bullet holes. Blaine swallowed and shouldered his way through the gap, only to cough and clap his hand over his mouth and nose as he was slammed with an overwhelming stench of decay. He froze in his tracks, his lungs halting entirely as he took in the gruesome scene in front of him. The bullet holes in the door had been only the beginning. Inside, holes peppered the walls, the nurse's station counter, the doors leading to other rooms and hallways. And there were bodies. A man and a woman in scrubs by the door to the stairwell. A woman in a white coat in front of the nurse's station. Another nurse to Blaine's right, near the exam rooms. All of them lay in pools of dried blood, staining their clothes and the floor underneath dark brown. The buzzing of flies made Blaine sick.
Blaine didn't know how long they had been dead, but the air was rancid and stinking, and he gagged as he struggled to breathe. He froze again as he noticed one final detail — a line of bloody footprints leading from the nurse's station straight towards him, disappearing out the door. The prints were old and dried, ghostly traces of someone left unnamed. Whatever had happened here, someone had survived and made it out.
He tried not to think too hard about the fact that even if they'd survived the massacre here, they could have easily been killed elsewhere between then and now. He wasn't sure if it even mattered anymore when or where or how a person died.
Swallowing the bile in his throat, Blaine clenched his teeth and tore his gaze away from the corpses, searching the room for any abandoned wheelchairs. His heart sank — not a single one was in sight. No. There had to be at least one or two chairs left, maybe on the other floors. Blaine carefully avoided the bloody footprints on the floor and edged toward a large sign on the far wall listing the various departments. He kept his eyes forward and refused to look at the bodies on the ground again.
Blaine waved a couple of flies away from his face as he read the department directory, trying to decide which one was the most likely to have several wheelchairs on hand. He settled on Surgical Center – 2nd Floor.
He had to step over the nurses' corpses to get to the stairwell.
On the second floor, the smell was even worse. A total lack of open windows and doors had trapped the stench inside for weeks, and Blaine guessed that the bodies on this floor had died in the blackout itself — they had to have been here for longer than the dead doctors and nurses in the lobby. Blaine pulled the collar of his t-shirt up over his nose, trying not to think about it too hard.
Next to the nurses' station close to the elevator, Blaine found a line of three folded wheelchairs kept well out of the way against the wall. He quickly unfolded one, rolled it back and forth a few feet to test it, then collapsed it again and hurried back to the stairs. He was acutely eager to get out of the hospital and out of the smell. It only took him a few minutes to heft the wheelchair down the flight of stairs to the lobby, shoulder his way through the door, and step back over the bodies blocking his path.
By the time he reached the main entrance, Blaine was almost running. At this point, the hospital was really nothing more than a necropolis, and Blaine was all too happy to leave it behind.
Outside, Blaine drew a huge gasp of fresh air as though he'd just barely escaped drowning. The air — clean air — filled his lungs and made the back of his head buzz with oxygen. He stood there for a moment to catch his breath before setting the wheelchair on the pavement and unfolding it again.
He turned to look one last time at the hospital entrance, and noticed for the first time that someone had spray-painted a wooden sign and nailed it to the bench closest to the door.
HOSPITAL OPEN
WE CAN HELP
Santana's chest heaved, adrenaline coursing through her veins with such intensity that she couldn't feel her arms and legs. Her backpack bounced back and forth on her shoulders as her feet pounded the pavement. Her head was swimming, her ears roaring, and she couldn't hear anything besides her own gasps for breath. Her throat burned.
In a blind panic, Santana made turn after turn, dashing down street after unfamiliar street. She paid no attention to which direction she was heading — the only thing driving her was the overwhelming urge to get AWAY from the strangers on her heels. A quick glance over her shoulder showed they were still behind her, running just as fast and showing no signs of slowing.
Santana grabbed the pole of an approaching streetlamp, using it to swing her weight ninety degrees before fleeing down yet another street. She hadn't run this fast since the hyena attack in New York. (This was scarier.)
She was exhausted.
They had to give up soon, didn't they?
One of the women shouted something at her, but with her pulse and the wind drumming in her ears, she couldn't hear what they said. She didn't stop to ask for clarification.
Why did she feel like there were lead weights hanging from her ankles?
She was breathing so fast through her teeth that her gums hurt.
She couldn't keep this up.
With the air tearing raggedly through her lungs on each inhale, Santana darted into the first open door she could spot — a small coffee shop. She didn't pause even for half a second, sprinting past the tables, past the counter, through the door to the back storage room and finally bursting out of the emergency exit. She found herself in an alley and quickly made a break for the street, turning the corner just as she heard her pursuers crash through the door after her.
Her legs were going to give out.
Every cell in her body was screaming at her to stop, to give up, to collapse on the pavement. The oxygen was barely reaching her brain, and with no food in her stomach she could feel her muscles burning instead. Her skin felt like it was about to rupture.
She didn't stop.
She ducked into another doorway, this time a hardware store. She ran past the cash register and down an aisle of nails stacked on shelves ten feet high, her eyes desperately searching for another exit.
Wait.
Nearly everything in this store was either heavy, blunt, or sharp.
Santana skidded to a stop, her legs and knees and arms shaking almost uncontrollably, and she grabbed the first object within reach — a long-handled ten-pound sledgehammer. She heard the front doors slam open, two pairs of sneakers squeaking on the floor.
Santana could barely breathe, her ribs aching from the strain of opening and closing so quickly and her blood boiling. With trembling arms, she heaved the sledgehammer as high as she could, bracing herself as the strangers' stomping feet drew closer.
She clenched her teeth, halted her breath, and swung with every last ounce of strength in her body.
She felt the hammer make contact, felt the crunch of multiple splintered bones and heard a bloodcurdling scream as one of the women crumpled to the ground. The force of the swing combined with the weight of the hammer nearly made Santana topple to the floor as well, but she managed to catch herself on the shelf by her side. The woman on the ground was still screaming.
"Mom!" shouted the daughter, dropping to her knees. Her mother was sobbing in agony, clutching her shoulder with her uninjured arm.
Santana's blow had struck the woman's right shoulder, collarbone, and upper arm, shattering every bone beneath it.
The daughter looked up at Santana with an expression that could only be described as terror.
Santana gritted her teeth. "Leave me alone!" she snarled. Her throat had been burned so badly during her run that it hurt to speak.
The mother was still sobbing, her daughter frozen to the spot.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Santana screamed. She mustered enough willpower to stand upright, lifting the hammer slightly to show she wasn't afraid to swing it again (even if she was).
Immediately, the daughter scrambled to help her mother to her feet. The older woman could barely stand, clinging to her daughter with her good arm as they hobbled out of the hardware store. Santana stood there, breath heaving and body shaking, until the door banged shut behind them.
As soon as they were gone, Santana retched. There was nothing in her stomach to throw up, and so the acid in her throat sent shocks of pain stabbing through her abdomen.
Absolute and total exhaustion took over then, her body surrendering. She lost consciousness before she hit the floor.
"How is it?"
Artie nodded, flipping the chair's brakes a couple times to test them. "Much better than sitting in the dirt," he said. "Thanks."
Blaine could see that the wheelchair wasn't perfect — it was a little too wide for Artie to push it comfortably and was clearly designed for hospital use, where there were plenty of nurses to do the legwork for their patients. But it seemed manageable, and Artie was already wheeling himself clumsily toward the road.
"Whoa, hold on," Blaine interjected quickly, grabbing the handlebars of the new chair. "Might be easier to get you to the pavement first."
Artie let go of the wheels and allowed Blaine to push him across the thick carpet of dirt and dead leaves, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Caitlin was following.
"I miss your light-up wheels," Caitlin remarked.
Artie smiled. "Yeah, me too," he agreed. "Here's hoping I can get another chair like that again someday."
Blaine jostled Artie over the lip of the asphalt, then released him. Artie turned in a few practice circles, adjusting to the new equipment.
"So, what's the plan here?" Blaine asked, crossing his arms. "What next?"
"Food," Artie replied immediately. "No point trying to find someplace to stay if we starve before we get there."
"Where do you think we should look?"
"What about the truck?" suggested Caitlin. "You said there was still a lot of stuff in it."
Artie shook his head. "The key was back in the house. Even if it didn't melt in the fire, we'd never find it."
"I bet there's a hardware store in town where we could find bolt cutters," Blaine said. "We could get a new lock and key for it too."
"It's pretty late in the day already — do we have time for that?"
Blaine scratched the underside of his jaw in thought. "The truck's pretty close to downtown, but I don't think we do if we want time afterward to find a place for the night."
Caitlin tensed up at that. "I don't want to sleep in the woods again," she insisted, looking pleadingly at her big brother.
"Maybe we should prioritize finding a roof first," Artie said with a sigh. "I hate to say it but if worse comes to worse, we can make it another day without eating. And it's dangerous to be out here all night. We could check on some people from school like I was saying earlier, crash with one of them. They might even have food."
Blaine nodded in agreement, though a cold knot of apprehension settled into his gut. Why did he have the sickening premonition that they would find all the people they knew burned to death and left for the crows?
"Ryder lives closest to here," Artie continued. "We should check his house first."
"All right, let's go."
Blaine had never visited Ryder before, and so Artie led the way, wheeling just ahead and giving the occasional direction until they reached Dunbury Lane. The street was a small cul-de-sac at the end of a road that was little more than a driveway, and like the rest of the town, it was dead quiet. Caitlin wordlessly grabbed Blaine's hand, hugging close to his side as they neared the circle of houses. There was a sudden bang! like a gunshot, making all three of them flinch. Blaine released a shaky breath — the noise had only been the wind causing the unlocked door of the nearest house to slam against its frame. Eerily, the house didn't appear to have been broken into at all — the windows were all intact, there were no signs of fire, no debris left on the front lawn. But it didn't seem to be occupied either.
Movement out of the corner of his eye made Blaine's gaze shift quickly to the house on their left. He turned in time to see the curtain in an upstairs window pull shut, the shadow of a person just vanishing from view.
"Artie," Blaine said softly. "There's still people here."
"I don't think this place has been attacked yet," Artie replied, scanning the houses for signs of damage.
It should have been a relief, but Blaine had to remind himself that the operative word in that statement was yet .
"Which one is Ryder's house?" he asked.
Artie slowed to a stop, his shoulders falling. "Crap. It's that one."
Blaine followed Artie's gaze, and felt his heart skip. Ryder's house was smallish and painted robin's egg blue, bearing no signs of any break-ins, and might have seemed safe if it weren't for the huge message spray-painted in massive black letters across the entire front:
SOPHIE — WE WENT TO ATLANTA
"Who's Sophie?" was the only thing Blaine could think to say.
"Ryder said he had an older sister," Artie said.
"Why did they leave?" asked Caitlin, squeezing Blaine's hand.
"Maybe they had other family in Atlanta."
Blaine swallowed, his stomach flipping over. He was struck suddenly by the disturbing notion that Ryder and his family would have to choose who to save, being forced to leave someone to fend for themselves. He wondered what he and his parents would have done if Cooper had been out in Los Angeles when the blackout hit, and if Cooper would have even died at all if he hadn't been here in Lima.
"Who next?" he asked, forcing all the what-ifs to the back of his head.
Artie cleared his throat, turning his chair to face away from Ryder's house. "Sam," he said. "Brackett Street's not far."
Blaine's skin ran cold. "I, uh…" he stammered. "That's not a good idea."
Artie froze. "What do you mean?"
"I already checked Sam's place."
"…Is he dead?"
"I don't know," Blaine answered honestly. "The house was burned down." He was careful to not mention the corpse on the front step.
Artie was quiet for a moment, his fingers tightly gripping the rims of his wheels. "Okay. It's okay," he said, sounding as though he were trying to reassure himself more than Blaine or Caitlin. "I'm sure we'll find someone. Let's just… let's just keep going."
Dani and Kurt knelt at the edge of the river by the trestle bridge, each rinsing their clothes as best they could in the shallow water at their feet. The water on Dani's forearms was freezing cold and sent shivers across her skin as she wrung out one of her shirts, heaving herself back onto her feet in order to turn and lay the shirt out on a sunny rock to dry. She brushed her damp hands off on the seat of her jeans, watching a kingfisher dive a little ways down the shoreline. The constant gurgling of the water passing was soothing, especially now that they weren't rushed to get back on the road, but she was sure Kurt didn't feel the same. He had barely spoken to her since they'd split up with Santana, and when he had his responses had been monosyllabic.
Dani sighed, shoving her hands in her pockets. "Kurt, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Kurt said tautly, not looking up.
Dani bit the inside of her cheek. "You don't seem fine."
"No, Dani, I'm not fine!" he spat over his shoulder. "Rachel is dead, we're still hundreds of miles from home, the world's freaking collapsed, and I'm washing my clothes in a goddamn river!" He huffed, angrily scrubbing at his soaking t-shirt with his fingers. "Things aren't exactly butterflies and rainbows."
"You don't have to yell at me," Dani retorted, though she didn't have the energy to put much force into her words at all.
Kurt didn't respond to that.
"And for your information, Kurt," she continued. "I'm dealing with the exact same things you are, so don't pretend like you're the only one going through this crap."
"You were the one who said we should stay in Easton," Kurt argued.
Dani threw her hands up. "I didn't say we were going to live here! We just need a break! If we keep pushing ourselves as hard as we've been so far, we're going to end up killing ourselves before we ever get to Ohio. Is that what you want?"
Whether or not Kurt would have argued further, Dani never found out. The sound of shifting gravel made her turn towards the edge of the road by the bridge, where Santana was unsteadily making her way down the hill. Immediately, Dani realized something was wrong. Santana's expression was terrified and her limbs shook like she was barely able to hold herself up.
"Santana?" Dani rushed to her side, meeting Santana just as she reached the bottom of the slope. "Santana, what happened?"
Santana waved her off, feigning strength even as she had to lower herself to sit on a boulder sunk into the dirt. "Had a run-in with some people who tried to take my bag. Long story short, I won." Even her voice was shaking.
Kurt stood up, wringing out his shirt, and came to stand next to Dani. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Santana nodded, looking ill. "Yeah, I'm fine." She winced as she shrugged off the backpack — Dani quickly took it and placed it on the ground by Santana's feet. It was heavy and bulging.
"What happened?" Dani asked again.
"A couple people chased me all over town, I ran into a hardware store and then hit them with a sledgehammer. Not much else to tell. They won't be coming after me."
Dani stared at her, her jaw slack.
Kurt cleared his throat. "Did you find anything?"
"Yeah, there was some stuff left at the Rite Aid," Santana said, seeming grateful for the change of topic. "The only food I found was a box of cereal, but I got some other things that'll be good to have."
Dani couldn't help but perk up at that, eagerly waiting as Santana unzipped the bag. When the first thing that Santana pulled out was a box of baking soda, Dani had to raise an eyebrow.
"…Are you going to make cookies?" Kurt asked with a frown, equally confused.
"No, Kurt, I'm not making cookies," Santana retorted flatly. "This is for washing up. We all need a shower. I'm not sure I can take the stink any more." She shoved the box into Kurt's hands.
"Huh?" was Kurt's only response.
"You can use baking soda as shampoo and toothpaste," Santana explained patiently. "Doesn't work as well as the real stuff, but it's better than nothing."
Dani blinked. "Really?"
Santana nodded. "When I was little, my mom was working like five jobs and we were still broke as hell. Baking soda's cheaper than real soap." She dug back into the bag. "And Kurt, I got you some razors and shaving cream. Seriously, it's time to lose the creeper beard. You're starting to look like Charles Manson."
"Gee, thanks," Kurt deadpanned.
"She has a point," Dani interjected, only to receive a glare from Kurt.
Santana then pulled out three boxes of tampons, and Dani nearly cried from sheer joy.
"Okay, but before anything else," Santana said, handing the tampons to Dani. She then yanked out the box of Frosted Flakes. "Breakfast."
The three of them sat on the gravel beach and watched the water rush by, eating fistfuls of dry cereal as the sun warmed the earth beneath them and stretched into afternoon. Clouds rolled by against a brilliant blue sky. The kingfishers dove from the trees lining the water a little ways upstream, and every once in a while the truss bridge would creak in the breeze.
Sitting on the ground next to Santana with their backs against the boulder, Kurt tried to allow himself to relax. He was already beginning to feel a bit better with some food in his stomach — even if it was only carbs and sugar — but he couldn't help repeatedly glancing over his shoulder to watch the road. It was possible he was just being paranoid, but the fact that Santana had had a violent encounter in town was making him nervous, and he kept imagining more thieves suddenly appearing at the top of the slope. Whether Santana thought there was a possibility she'd been followed, he wasn't sure.
When his belly began to cramp, they had only eaten halfway through the box. There wasn't much in his stomach, but he'd gotten far too used to having nothing in it at all that he had to stop himself from eating any more.
"I'm good," he said when Dani offered him the box again. "Save it for later."
Dani shrugged and rolled up the bag, stuffing it back into Santana's pack.
"You know, I'd give anything for a pizza right now," Kurt mused aloud.
"Mm, and a cold Diet Coke," Dani agreed.
Santana leaned back against the boulder, squinting up at the sky. "I just want a pint of Ben & Jerry's," she said wistfully. "Actually, scratch that. I want a whole gallon."
"I can't remember the last time I ate junk food just because I felt like it," Kurt said. He rested his elbows on his knees, tugging his overgrown hair back away from his forehead. "I'm sick of this eating-whatever-we-find shtick. It's gotten old fast."
Santana huffed through her nose. "Well, if you find a fast food joint that's still open, you let me know."
Kurt swallowed, watching the river in silence for a few minutes. It was the first time they had really stopped to take a breather, and by now Kurt was completely unfamiliar with the sensation of not being pressed for time. They weren't rushing to pack up and get back on the road by a certain time or to find a good place to sleep before dark. Maybe Dani had been right — they did need a break.
As far as whether they deserved one, having let Rachel die and left her in New Jersey, Kurt didn't know.
Finally, he stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. "Okay, I'm taking a bath," he stated, pulling his shirt off over his head.
"Me too," Santana followed.
"I'm going to sit for a little while, digest a bit more," Dani said, waving them off.
"Suit yourself," Kurt replied as he yanked off his shoes, socks, and pants. He winced as the gravel dug into the soles of his feet and the breeze raised goosebumps on his skin.
Santana had also stripped to her underwear, and she grabbed the box of baking soda as she and Kurt walked to the edge of the water. Despite the fact that everything else was about as awful as it could be, Kurt couldn't help feeling excited at the prospect of actually being clean. With only his toes in the freezing cold water, he held out his hand and Santana poured a small amount of soda onto his palm.
Only half a second later, Kurt realized he kind of had no clue what to do with it. Was he supposed to mix it with water and make a paste or something?
Having no other ideas, Kurt knelt and splashed a bit of river water onto his palm, trying to mix it into the soda without letting all of the powder simply wash off.
Santana only rolled her eyes at him. "You're doing it wrong. Here." Without warning, she dumped a handful of dry baking soda onto his head.
Kurt flinched and grimaced. "Feels like you just poured sand all over me."
Santana placed the box on the shore behind them and reached over to rub the soda into his hair, massaging it into his scalp with her fingers. "Suck it up, it'll be out in a minute."
Kurt fell quiet, standing with his head bowed so that Santana could easily reach it. It'd been ages since someone had done this for him — he'd been to the hairdresser a couple weeks before the blackout, but it seemed like eons ago and he'd almost forgotten how good it felt. He hadn't realized how much things like this made him feel like a human being.
Suddenly, he felt like a person again.
His vision blurred, and he struggled to blink back tears.
"You've got a pretty impressive tan line back here, you know," Santana remarked as she continued to work her fingers through his hair.
Kurt let out a shaky breath, hoping that when he spoke it wouldn't sound like he was crying. "First tan of my life," he joked.
"It's more like a freckle line," Santana amended.
"I guess that's what happens when someone with my complexion is stuck outside for a month straight." Kurt paused, the inside of his chest feeling cold. "…It's really been a month, hasn't it?"
Santana sighed. "I think so."
"Do you think things will ever go back to normal?"
"You really want to have a philosophical discussion while I'm rubbing baking soda into your hair?"
"I'm not sure that question counts as purely philosophical."
"Either way," Santana said with a shrug. She didn't seem to want to talk about it, and instead changed the topic. "You need a haircut."
"So do you."
There was a long, pregnant pause, and then Santana abruptly spoke again. "You never mention Blaine," she blurted out, as though she'd been working up the courage to broach the subject.
Kurt tensed at that, his heart leaping into his throat. "Your point?"
"Might help to talk. We're all in the same boat."
"You never mention Brittany," Kurt countered.
Santana glanced at Dani out of the corner of her eye. "That's different."
"No, it's not."
Santana quickly drew her hands away from him. "You're done," she said brusquely. "Go rinse it out."
Kurt didn't move right away. Santana knelt to rinse her hands off in the water at her feet.
"For all I know, Blaine stepped on a piece of glass too," Kurt said. This time, he wasn't able to keep his voice from shaking.
"He's not that stupid," Santana replied.
"Neither was Rachel."
"Obviously she was."
Kurt bit his lip. "You don't mean that."
"Maybe I do," she snapped. She didn't meet his eye, but her hands were trembling.
Kurt didn't press it any further. Instead, he waded deeper into the river, diving in headfirst after a few steps. It was shallow and cold and the current was almost enough to drag him away, but it felt good. He could feel the frigid water digging into every pore of his skin, slowly rinsing a month's worth of sweat and dirt and grime away. It was almost as though he was shedding his skin entirely.
For the first time in a long while, he felt alive.
As the hours dragged on through the day and the sun swung across the sky, Blaine and Artie and Caitlin trekked in a massive convoluted loop around the town as they searched for the people they knew. But as the day edged toward evening and their energy dwindled, exhaustion gradually took hold. And even worse — much worse — they had not been able to make contact with anyone at all.
Marley's home had been ransacked, the house all but torn to shreds, and she and her mother were nowhere to be found. Blaine had found a huge spray of blood in the kitchen where someone had been shot, but there was no body.
Unique's house had been razed to the ground. If there had been anyone trapped inside when it burned down, they weren't able to tell.
Tina and her family, much like Ryder and his, had abandoned the place. But here there wasn't so much as a note to hint at where they'd gone.
The only occupied house they encountered was Sugar's, but rather than being allowed inside, the three of them had only been shot at from an upstairs window. Artie was pretty sure it was Sugar's father holding the rifle, but to be honest he wasn't all that sure that Sugar would have let them in anyways.
As they walked back along Spencerville Road over the bridge crossing McClintock Lake, Artie broke the quiet. "Blaine, we have to check Kurt's house," he said finally. "We have to."
Blaine sighed, his shoulders slumping like he knew he'd been avoiding it. "I know. I know."
"How far is it?" Artie glanced up at the sun for a moment to check its distance from the horizon. They still had a couple hours left before dark.
"Couple blocks," Blaine answered. "Not far." His voice was almost shaking, like he was readying himself to jump off a cliff.
"Okay, let's go." Artie paused before turning his chair to backtrack along the road. "You going to be all right?"
Blaine nodded, though he didn't meet Artie's eye. "Yeah. Have to be."
They didn't discuss it any further, continuing on in silence as the sun dipped along the tops of the trees lining the street. Artie's heart was thudding noisily in his chest, as though his brain was instinctively preparing him for a quick escape from something. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. A chill ran down his spine, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to reach out and grip Caitlin's hand, to make sure that she was with him, but he couldn't push his chair with only one hand. Instead, he slowed for a moment to let Caitlin walk a few steps ahead of him and kept her well within his sight.
When the three of them at last turned onto Wilson Avenue and spotted Kurt's house standing five doors down, Blaine released a massive, audible breath of relief. No signs of fire, no lingering stench of smoke and charcoal. The house stood exactly as it had the last time they'd seen it.
And then… they got closer, and Artie's heart sank.
The front door of the Hudson-Hummel house was left open and hanging by one hinge. Two of the windows at the front of the house had been smashed, shards of glass strewn across the porch and glinting in the evening sun.
Blaine broke into a run.
"Blaine, wait!" Artie cried, trying (and quickly failing) to keep up. "Blaine!"
Blaine ignored him, sprinting up the porch steps and vanishing into the house. Artie could hear him yelling. "Burt? Carole? Hello?!"
Artie finally rolled up to the front of the house, forced to stop at the steps. Caitlin stood next to him, anxiously shifting from foot to foot. "Blaine!" Artie shouted again, receiving no response from inside. It was so quiet that he could hear Blaine's heavy footfalls as he ran from room to room.
Artie and Caitlin waited impatiently on the flagstone path until Blaine at last re-emerged from the house, his shoulders low. He didn't say anything immediately, only sinking down to sit on the top step.
"Anything?" Artie prompted.
Blaine shook his head.
"…Are they in there?" Artie asked, his stomach in knots. Are they dead?
"It's empty," Blaine said quietly. "They're gone."
Well, that was at least better than finding more bodies. "M-Maybe they went to New York to find Kurt."
There was a short beat, and then Blaine sucked in a sudden gasp, his chest shuddering. "Oh my God…" he whispered, beginning to hyperventilate. Within seconds, he could barely breathe.
Artie blinked, startled by Blaine's abrupt panic attack.
"I should've come here sooner. I— I— What if they're dead? God, Kurt's never going to forgive me. I should've—"
Artie leaned forward to grab Blaine's shoulder. "Blaine!" he said sharply. "Listen to me. If there's one thing we absolutely cannot do right now, it's panic. You need to calm down."
Blaine was fighting tears. "Are — are we the last ones?"
Artie's chest was tight, and he gritted his teeth for a moment. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "But we're going to keep looking, okay? We'll find someplace safe. I promise."
Blaine nodded, the tendons in his neck tightening as he struggled to slow his breathing. He swallowed. "Okay," he said thickly. "Okay."
Artie glanced at Caitlin; she was hugging her torso, her eyes wide with worry. "We'll go to Rachel's place," he declared, straightening his shoulders. "Her dads will be there, and if they're not, we'll just camp in the house for at least tonight."
"What if it got burned down?" Caitlin asked.
"Then we'll find the nearest empty house and stay there." Artie knew it was a solution that would only last so long, but it was better than nothing.
Blaine shakily stood up from the step, and as the sky already began to slowly turn pink the three of them left the vacated house in their wake. It was getting cold, and goosebumps coursed over Artie's skin in waves. He wished he'd been able to snatch a coat from Blaine's house before it had gone up in flames, but as it was, a coat was probably low on the list of their priorities. They had nothing to carry — no food, no extra clothes, no tent, nothing they could possibly use as weapons if they ran into Kitty's gang a second time. Though this made moving from place to place easier, it also made them utterly exposed. Artie's heart still knocked heavily against his ribs as if to scream at him:
You're still in danger — why aren't you running?!
Sweat dripped down Puck's neck as he yanked snug the belt of Mr. T's saddle, the sun beating down harshly on his shoulders. He had been anxious to get out of the desert for weeks, but now that Arizona was barely a mile or two away, he had progressed to sheer impatience. Adjusting the saddle one final time to be sure it wouldn't slip, Puck moved to Mr. T's head to double-check that the bridle wasn't too tight. Mr. T butted her nose into his chest with a snort, as though she was equally eager to leave.
He patted her cheek, telling her, "Just a few more minutes, and then we can get out of here."
Taking her reins in hand, Puck led Mr. T out of the corral, making sure to latch the gate behind them. "Mercedes!" he shouted in the direction of the cabin where they'd been staying. "You ready or what?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," she called back from inside.
"Hurry up!"
June emerged from the small horse barn past the corral, toting a large burlap sack in each arm. She had tied them together by the handles with a two-foot-long strap, and as she approached Puck she swung one over Mr. T's shoulders so that the pair hung crossways in front of the saddle. Mr. T stamped, adjusting to the weight.
"What's that?" asked Puck.
"She needs to eat better than what you were giving her before," June said. "I've got two more sacks of oats in the barn, and you're also going to take one of our other horses."
"Wait, what? You're serious?"
June gave a short nod. "We have five horses now, which is three too many now that all our ranch hands have gone. You'll get home quicker this way, and we won't have as many animals to worry about."
Puck stared at her in stunned silence for a full three seconds before he mustered up enough composure to thank her.
"Don't thank me. Just take proper care of your horses." She patted Mr. T's flank. "A couple more days out there and this one would've dropped dead. Don't let that happen again."
"Yes, ma'am."
The door to the cabin finally swung open and Mercedes stepped out with her backpack on her shoulders and Puck's clutched in her hand. She walked over to where Puck and Mr. T were standing, a small bounce in her step.
"I'm so ready to be gone," Mercedes said, grinning. "No offense, June, but I have had enough of this freaking desert."
June smiled understandingly. "You need to get home."
"She's giving us another horse," Puck said.
The grin on Mercedes' face vanished, replaced by shock. "Th-thank you," she stammered.
June nodded, then gestured to the barn. "Come on, we'll get Peach geared up for you."
As Mercedes followed June back to the horse barn, Puck left Mr. T with her reins tied to the corral fence and strode over to June and Carter's house. He crossed the front porch and rapped twice on the door before stepping inside to their 1950s-esque kitchen. Carter was standing at the counter, packing a few supplies into a canvas bag.
"Hey there," Carter greeted him over his shoulder. "You and Mercedes about ready to head off?"
"Almost," Puck replied.
Carter lifted the bag off the counter and handed it over to Puck. "There you go," he said. "There's a few cans of beans and some beef jerky in there for you. It ain't much, but it's something."
Puck set the bag on the little dining table by the window. "Listen, I, uh…" He scratched at the remaining scab on his arm, feeling awkward. "I just wanted to thank you for everything. Gila bite or not, I'm pretty sure Mercedes and I would've died if we hadn't run into you."
Carter nodded, a genuine smile crinkling his eyes. A moment later, the smile faded and Carter's face turned serious. "Puck, I want you to take care of that horse as best you can, alright? He's June's favorite."
Puck frowned. "Then why's she giving him to us?"
Carter's shoulders fell. "You can't seriously think this ranch is going to be able to stay afloat for much longer," he said solemnly. "June and I can take care of the herd for a while on our own, but food's running out quick — for the herd and for us. Eventually, we're going to have to slaughter them. The horses are probably not going to make it either."
Puck's stomach went cold. "What are you going to do?"
Carter shrugged. "We'll likely end up going back to the reservation, if we can make it." He scratched the back of his neck. "June's giving you her favorite horse so that he's got the best chance of living. This desert is a death trap, but you'll make it out. So take care of him."
Puck nodded. "I will. Promise."
"I hope you get home safe," Carter said. "It's a dangerous world out there." He held out his hand, and Puck gripped it in a firm shake.
And for the first time since the blackout, Puck felt as though they had a fighting chance.
Luckily, Rachel's house wasn't far from Kurt's, and so Blaine, Artie, and Caitlin only had roughly a twenty-minute journey before reaching Maplewood Drive. It was a slightly wealthier part of town (only slightly) and the houses lining the street here were a bit nicer than some of the other neighborhoods. Now, several of the houses had been broken into or abandoned, but at the very least there weren't any that had been burned. At least, not yet.
Rachel's house was a few hundred yards back from the main road, and when the three of them approached it, Blaine was relieved to see there was no evidence of anyone breaking in. The curtains had been drawn shut in every window, the door tightly closed. Blaine wasn't sure if any of that meant that someone was still here, but at the very least, they would have a place to stay tonight (provided they could actually get in).
He turned to Artie and Caitlin. "Okay, wait here. I'll go see if anyone's inside."
Artie nodded, and Caitlin anxiously grabbed her brother's hand.
Blaine took a deep breath before striding up the flagstone path to the front door, careful not to make any noise as he stepped onto the stair below the door. He knocked sharply three times.
Silence.
He glanced back at Artie and Caitlin, then reached up to knock again.
This time, a curtain shifted in the window to his left, an eye peering out at him for half a second before vanishing. The curtain drew closed again.
For a moment, Blaine was certain whoever was inside was ignoring him and hoping he'd go away, but then the door flung open.
"Blaine!"
Blaine blinked and nearly fell back off the step in shock. "Carole!"
Carole lurched forward and engulfed him in a fierce hug. "Thank God you're okay," she said, clutching his shoulders. "Thank God."
Relief and something that was probably akin to joy flooded his chest, and Blaine found himself hugging her back as tightly as he could. Suddenly and incredibly, he felt safe.