..
Carrion
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Blaine found himself standing in the woods, alone. The branches overhead swayed in the breeze and cast dancing shafts of dappled sunlight across the forest floor. Pine needles crunched underfoot. The tree trunks creaked and moaned. There were no birds singing, no squirrels chattering, no insects buzzing. Save for Blaine, the wood was empty.
Terror gripped him by the chest.
His heart pounded, knocking audibly against his ribs, and he felt his blood pulsing all the way to his fingertips. Dead leaves eddied along the ground, swirling around Blaine's feet.
"Is anybody out there?" Blaine called, his voice ricocheting through the trees. He could barely hear himself over his own heartbeat.
The leaves rustled up above, making the canopy tremble.
"Hello?" he shouted. "Is there anyone out there?" His voice echoed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Blaine tried desperately to slow his pulse, sucking in a deep breath. There wasn't nearly enough oxygen in his lungs. He needed to find a way out of here, wherever here was. The trees were sparse and far apart, but Blaine couldn't see any end to them. The further he looked, the more there were.
The air reeked of decay. Rotting leaves and thick, damp dirt.
Blaine tried to move, and abruptly realized he was stuck. He looked down to see that his feet were buried in the soil, rooted to the earth beneath him.
"Somebody help me!" he screamed. The only response was his own voice rebounding.
Panic shocked through his chest like a lightning bolt, tearing through his heart and his ribs and his veins. He was sinking, the earth sucking him down like quicksand. He screamed again for help, and again was met with nothing but echoes. Desperately pulling at the ground did nothing to release him. The trees swayed above him, seeming to pull away and apart. The forest stretched and grew in every direction. Taller. Farther. It was all out of reach, and Blaine was trapped and alone.
Alone.
He was completely, utterly alone.
Blaine jolted awake, nearly sitting upright. His chest heaved and shuddered and he wiped sweat from his forehead, pushing the bright pink polka-dot blankets away. He sank back into the pile of pillows. Every cell in his body felt like it was on fire, adrenaline making his hands shake and his heartbeat drum in his ears. He stared at the ceiling, desperately trying to slow his breath.
Eventually, he forced himself to actually sit up and climb out of the bed. It was bright and sunny, and even after spending a handful of nights sleeping in Rachel's room, Blaine still couldn't help but feel disoriented. He had spent so many afternoons here with Kurt and Rachel and Mercedes — studying and rehearsing and sometimes just hanging out and watching Netflix — and now, staying here without them felt alien and wrong.
He crossed the carpeted floor and leaned against the window, watching the empty street outside. A couple of cars sat askew on the pavement, stuck where they'd halted at the moment of the blackout and already gaining a thin coating of dust. Like all the other streets in Lima, this one was strewn with dead leaves and bits of trash blown by the wind. A few houses down the road, a dog with a collar but no leash wandered across the lawn, idly sniffing in search of something to eat.
Blaine stepped back from the window, unnerved by the empty quiet outside. The little bulletin board on the wall above Rachel's desk caught his eye, and despite having avoided looking at it too closely for the past several days, Blaine found himself staring at it.
Rachel had made a collage of memories — photos, snippets from the school newsletter, playbills, performance announcements, even a couple of Broadway headlines. The photographs were most prominent, and nearly all of them featured kids from the glee club. A couple were group pictures from the yearbook, but most were snapshots taken outside of school. Artie, Santana, and Quinn making goofy faces over lattes at the Lima Bean, Finn and Puck striking poses in their football gear, Brittany hugging her cat, Rachel and Mercedes and Tina giggling at a table in the mall food court, Kurt and Blaine holding hands outside the local movie theater…
Blaine swallowed, the hollow space in his chest feeling cold. He'd been trying not to think too much about what New York might look like now, or where Kurt was, or even if Kurt was alive, but as the days dragged by it had become increasingly difficult. Staring at Rachel's bulletin board, Blaine felt heavy with the realization that he didn't know where any of them were, save for Finn and Artie – and Finn was buried in the cemetery on the other side of town. Artie was the only person he knew for certain was alive. And that was terrifying.
For all Blaine knew, Kurt and Rachel and the rest of them could have all died the day of the blackout. If they had, he would probably never find out.
Blaine suddenly found himself wishing he still had his phone. He knew it wouldn't work anymore, but there were so many things saved on it that connected him to Kurt — pictures taken with just the two of them, countless texts, Snapchats back and forth, videos… They had documented everything, and even after the blackout had rendered the phone useless, somehow having it with him had always been some sort of comfort. But the phone had gone up in flames along with everything else in Blaine's house, and Blaine felt like his last tether to Kurt was gone.
It was slowly sinking in that the odds of him ever seeing Kurt again were slim at best.
Blaine took a deep breath, blinking back tears, and forced himself to turn away. Fixating on all the what-ifs wouldn't help anything now.
Rather than let himself stand there and think, Blaine headed downstairs. In the living room, he found Carole sitting with Caitlin on the couch, brushing her hair. Since arriving at the Berrys' house three days ago and receiving almost constant attention from Carole, Caitlin had gone from looking like a Dickensian orphan to being relatively well-groomed (or at least as groomed as the circumstances would allow).
"Morning, Blaine," Carole said over her shoulder as he walked by. She was pulling Caitlin's hair into a new, straightened braid. "How are you feeling?"
"All right," Blaine lied. "Where is everyone?"
"Hiram and Leroy took Artie on a supply run," Carole answered.
"Where'd they go?"
"To the Target truck. You guys barely made a dent in it; there's still tons of stuff there."
Blaine scratched at the back of his neck, feeling like he badly needed a shower. His stomach grumbled loudly.
"Burt's making coffee," Carole added.
Blaine blinked at that. "Coffee? Seriously?" He left Carole and Caitlin on the couch and went to the kitchen without waiting for an answer, eager for a luxury he'd all but forgotten in the past several weeks.
Burt stood at the stove, boiling water over one of the burners.
"Hey, kiddo," Burt greeted him. "You want coffee?"
"Hell yes."
"It's just instant, so don't be expecting anything as good as Starbucks," Burt warned.
"It's the first coffee I've had in a month. Trust me, I don't care," Blaine said. "How'd you get the burner working?"
"The gas line isn't electric. It'll work until the gas runs out."
"Is there any food?"
Burt tilted his head to the side in a half shrug as he took the pot of water off the stove. "Not really, 'til the guys get back," he said. "I think there's a couple cans of pears, though."
Blaine opened the cupboard and retrieved the pears, cracking the can open and slurping unceremoniously at the contents. His stomach longed for something more solid, but knowing that there were people coming back from a supply run lessened the pang in his gut. It was strange, suddenly being in a house full of people again. Or maybe it was just strange being in a house full of people that weren't his family.
"How are you doing, Blaine?" Burt asked, handing Blaine a steaming mug.
Blaine shrugged, letting the cup warm his palms. "I'm fine."
Burt sipped at his own coffee, eyeing Blaine pensively. "You know you can talk to me, right?"
"Um… yeah," Blaine replied awkwardly, feeling scrutinized. "I know. Thanks."
"You've barely spoken since you got here."
Blaine didn't respond to that, unsure of what to say. His fingertips felt cold even against the hot mug in his hand.
Burt leaned against the counter next to Blaine, speaking softly. "Blaine, Artie told me what happened back at your house."
"I don't want to talk about that."
"I know. You don't have to. But closing yourself off isn't going to help anybody, especially you."
Blaine swallowed, refusing to make eye contact and staring at the linoleum instead.
Burt reached over and clapped a solid hand against Blaine's shoulder, squeezing for a moment before letting go. When he spoke again, his voice was thick. "I'm so glad you made it out. Having you around here is almost like having Kurt back."
Blaine drew a long breath, his lungs feeling half empty. Maybe it was that he missed Kurt, maybe he missed Cooper, maybe it was sinking in a little too quickly that his parents were dead now too, but whatever the cause, Blaine suddenly felt his eyes spill over. "I miss them," he said, his voice cracking.
It was Burt's turn to be silent. He reached around and wrapped an arm around Blaine's back, holding tight as Blaine finally began to sob in earnest. All the losses in the past month weighed down on Blaine, almost to the point of crushing him entirely. As he cried onto Burt's shoulder, he felt it all — the grief, the terror, the anger — rushing through him hot and burning. But slowly, with Burt there and Carole in the next room, Blaine began to feel a little lighter.
DAY 27
Sweat dripped down Kurt's neck, his knees shaking beneath him as he dragged himself along behind Dani and Santana. There were no clouds to provide shade and the sun beat relentlessly down on his shoulders, making his head spin. He couldn't keep this up much longer.
It had been four days. Four days, and their plan to stay in Easton and thoroughly search the town for supplies had proved barely effective. The box of cereal from the Rite Aid hadn't even lasted a full day, and despite being better rested (not to mention cleaner thanks to Santana's baking soda trick), they were still desperately short on food. They'd managed to find a measly few edible items left behind — two protein bars and a diet Snapple from a gas station, and a bag of pretzels found concealed in an abandoned lunch box behind a deli counter. But it wasn't nearly enough for one person, let alone three.
"What about there?" Dani suggested, pointing to a mom-and-pop grocery store on the corner up ahead.
"I checked it yesterday," Kurt said dejectedly. "It was empty."
Santana released a frustrated growl, stopping to rake her fingers through her stringy hair. "This isn't working," she snapped. "Everything's cleaned out. There's nothing left in town."
"We don't have anywhere else to—" Dani started.
"Yes, we do. There's plenty of houses."
Kurt stared at Santana. "You're not serious."
"In case you haven't noticed, Kurt, we are starving," she spat. "You think we have a choice? If you really want to make it home, then yeah, we're going to have to do some breaking and entering."
For the first time in the past month, Kurt looked at Santana and actually saw her. He saw how drastically she'd changed in such a short while, how scared she was, and he barely recognized her. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken and hollow, her collarbones poking through her sweat-stained t-shirt. Her limbs visibly shook, and her jeans hung loosely on her hips, held up only by her belt. She seemed like she might fall apart at any second.
Kurt swallowed, then nodded. "Okay," he acquiesced. "Okay, we'll search the houses."
"Should we really do this empty-handed, though?" asked Dani uncertainly.
"You think we should be armed?"
Dani scratched nervously at her temple. "I think that if we're going into people's homes, we don't know what or who we're going to find."
Kurt sighed. "That's… a good point," he said, already trying to think of another alternative that didn't involve trespassing on private property. There was only one gun store they had seen in town, and it had been thoroughly raided. He didn't want to find out who had the guns now.
Santana straightened up suddenly. "Wait, I have an idea. There's a hardware store, like three streets over from here. I went in there when I got chased — there's no guns, but there's plenty of other stuff we can use."
Dani nodded eagerly. "Works for me."
Kurt wasn't sure what kind of weapons they might find at a hardware store or how effective they'd be, but he didn't argue and instead fell into step behind Santana as she led the way. At this point, he was willing to entertain any and all possible solutions.
Duncan & Sons Hardware, as the sign above the door proclaimed, was a relatively small shop with dusty windows and a dark interior. The fluorescent lights lining the ceiling sat dead and the shelves of wares were high enough that the sunlight couldn't penetrate very far inside, so the majority of the store remained shadowed. The cash register had been broken open and knocked on the floor next to the front counter, empty of its contents.
"I think I remember seeing a hunting section in the back," said Santana as she walked toward the aisles further away. "Here it is!" she called a moment later.
Kurt and Dani circled around the counter and followed Santana's voice. The very last aisle was so dimly lit that Kurt had to stand there for several seconds to let his eyes adjust, but once they did, Kurt's jaw dropped. The entire shelf that Santana was currently pawing through was fully stocked with hunting knives — blades in so many varieties that Kurt quickly ran out of possible explanations for what they were all for. Some were large and serrated, some small and barbed, some just looked like miniature machetes. All of them would be sufficiently intimidating, Kurt thought, and he suddenly felt very grateful that Santana had thought to check here.
Each of them grabbed two knives, agreeing that it would be best to have more than one. Kurt chose a reasonably sized bowie knife, tucking the sheath into the back of his jeans, and a small folding knife which he hid in his sock. It felt awkward, having two bulky objects jabbing into his ankle and the small of his back, but Kurt did feel safer with them in reach. Santana selected a larger camp knife, attaching it to her belt, while Dani chose a smaller survival knife with a hooked tip. They each took a small folding knife like Kurt's as well, hiding them in similar places.
Once the three of them felt comfortably armed, they headed for the northern edge of town, where the strip malls and shops gave way to neighborhoods and streets less crowded with abandoned cars. Small cul-de-sacs curled away from the wider residential streets, short fences lining the front yards of more than a few houses. Most of the houses were painted in pastels, and it looked like the type of place that would have block parties and neighborhood barbecues — a place that was safe. Gardens had overgrown in the weeks since the blackout, weeds sprouting through the fence slats and sidewalk cracks. Dust had collected on the porches and front steps, windows covered with either drawn curtains or plywood nailed to the inside, the only sign of people still inside.
The first four houses they checked were already picked clean, the owners long gone and the kitchens raided.
At the fifth house, they were greeted by a rifle poking through the window and a man shouting to back off, or he'd blow their brains out. They quickly obeyed.
House number six was hedged in by a now-unkempt row of rose bushes, little garden gnomes peeking out mischievously from the weeds. The three of them walked up the flagstones to the porch, where Dani sighed at the sight of the door hanging on only one hinge.
"That's not a good sign," she remarked.
"Ugh, tacky," Santana said, kicking at the welcome mat that exclaimed WIPE YOUR PAWS AND COME ON IN!
Inside was a riot of paisley and doilies, the smell of stale potpourri lingering in the air. Framed pictures of grandkids lined the mantle (they had to be grandkids — there was no way anybody under the age of seventy lived here), well-used armchairs and an out-of-date TV decorating the living room. A basket of half-finished knitting projects sat beside the coffee table. On the walls hung signs reading various Bible verses, encouraging good deeds and generosity and loving thy neighbor. It was exactly the kind of church-lady style that had always made Kurt vomit. Now, he barely noticed, instead focusing on finding the kitchen.
The kitchen was toward the back of the house, and Santana was already peering into the refrigerator with a scowl.
"Anything?" asked Dani.
Santana shook her head. "Unless you like moldy tapioca and salad dressing. Everything else is gone." She opened a few cupboards, but it was a fruitless exercise. Whatever canned goods the owner of this house might have had were gone, and the dusty shelves were left empty.
Dani only sighed, gazing around the kitchen at the various framed Bible verses on the walls. Give us this day our daily bread …
Kurt studied the front of the refrigerator as Santana slammed her way through the rest of the cupboards. Family photos, grandkids' school pictures, a blue ribbon for the best fruit preserves and jams at the Northampton County Fair, and touristy magnets from a handful of other states were scattered across the freezer door. The display was almost eerie.
"Okay, there's nothing here," Santana said, exasperated. "Let's go."
"We should look upstairs," Dani stopped her. "There might be stuff we can use — blankets and things."
Santana didn't argue, though she looked like she was more than impatient to move on to the next house.
The three of them headed for the stairs with Dani in the lead, Kurt trailing behind. The upstairs hallway smelled primarily of cat urine, but the cat must have gotten out of the house at some point. Santana peered into the first room, which only had a sewing station and a desk with a very old computer collecting dust. The second door down the hall was closed, and when she opened it, Santana let out a startled yell and jerked back.
Kurt didn't have to ask why — immediately, the most awful stench Kurt had ever smelled slammed into his nose, nearly making him vomit onto the carpet. Dani clapped a hand over her mouth and nose, her eyes watering.
"Oh God," Dani said, muffled through her fingers as she flinched away from the door.
Kurt pulled his shirt up over his nose and tried his very best not to breathe as he leaned to look over Dani's shoulder. A bed sat in the middle of the room, and in the bed was the rotting corpse of the old woman. The body had been there so long that it had started to liquefy, soaking into the covers and mattress below, the outline of bones poking through what was left of the skin. Flies buzzed along the walls, almost deafening compared to the previous quiet of the unoccupied house. The bedroom door being closed and the window being open had prevented the smell from reaching the rest of the house, but had made the corpse easily accessible to insects.
"Jesus," Kurt muttered.
Santana threw up in the hallway. "Close the door already!" she grunted, buckled over.
Kurt grabbed the handle and closed the door again, but the smell had already permeated the hallway.
"Now can we go?" Santana snapped, wiping sweat from her forehead as she shakily straightened back up. "Even if we find stuff to use, the smell's going to stick."
Dani nodded eagerly, her face tinted green and her hand still clamped over her nose. They rushed back downstairs towards the front door, eager to run. As they passed through the kitchen, however, Kurt abruptly stopped. Dani nearly crashed into him.
"What are you doing?"
"Hold on," Kurt said, turning to look at the fridge again. Something had just occurred to him.
Santana was having none of his delay. "Kurt! Let's go!"
Kurt ignored her, picking the county fair ribbon off the freezer door. "She won first prize for fruit preserves," he said, holding the ribbon up for the girls to see.
Santana looked like she was about ready to murder Kurt where he stood. "So freaking what?"
"So how much do you want to bet there's a basement?"
Dani blinked, her furrowed brow smoothing in realization.
Santana crossed her arms. "Kurt, we are in a house with a freaking corpse. Let's go."
"We check the basement first," he insisted, already going back to the stairs. "Then we go."
Past the stairwell in the corridor, the old-fashioned cellar door was set into the floral wallpaper, sagging in its frame like it was upset it had been discovered. Kurt turned the knob and yanked — the door gave reluctantly, squeezing uncomfortably out of the ill-fitted jambs. He descended the steps into the basement lit only by sunlight from the small windows at ground level. Dani and Santana tentatively followed him down.
As they reached the cracked cement floor, all three of their jaws fell open.
One entire wall of the cellar was covered by shelves as tall as Kurt, each ledge toting at least twenty fist-sized jars. A practical rainbow of choices glinted in the dim sunlight, succulent reds and purples and oranges. Each jar was labelled with neat cursive announcing the flavors held inside, as well as a printed logo for EDNA MCCREADY'S JAMS AND JELLIES.
"They haven't been touched," Kurt said, noting the thin layer of undisturbed dust. "I can't believe no one's found this yet."
"People don't usually keep food in their basements. I guess nobody thought to check," Dani replied, hushed and awed and still gaping at the edible treasure before them. She finally shook herself out of her shock, shrugging off her backpack and unzipping it. "You're a genius, Kurt."
The three of them filled their packs to bursting with as many jars as they could carry. For a moment, Kurt considered just sitting and eating here in the cellar, but he was just as eager as Santana to get away from the dead body upstairs. They could find someplace outside to rest and eat; a few more minutes wouldn't make a difference. He hefted his clinking pack onto his shoulders, almost tipping over from the sudden weight of it.
"Should we get some more bags?" Dani asked. "Come back for the rest of it?"
Kurt glanced over the shelves. There was still a healthy number of jars left, though they had made a significant dent in it. It would be smart to do as Dani said, to horde as much of this precious resource as possible. But Kurt shook his head.
"No. This is already heavy enough. We'll leave it for someone else to get lucky."
Amazingly, Santana didn't argue, only tightening the straps of her backpack around her armpits. She swayed, adjusting to the bulk. "Let's go," was all she said.
Santana led the way up the stairs and out of the house, eager to find a place to eat elsewhere. As they exited into the sunshine, Kurt's stomach rumbled loudly enough that he was sure it could be heard from several houses away. He stopped at the garden gate, his hand on the fence, and glanced for a moment up at the open bedroom window on the second floor. From out here, he couldn't hear the flies.
"Thank you, Edna McCready," he muttered under his breath.
He shut the gate behind him, hurrying to catch up with Santana and Dani.
DAY 29
Having left the Ring of Fire in their wake several days prior, Mercedes and Puck had fallen once again into their routine of traveling under the cover of night and camping in gas stations during the day. The only changes from before the ranch were that they were now both on horseback, save for when they wanted to stretch their legs, and the stations were a bit more cramped with two horses. Settling down for the day now included taking time to push a shelf or two out of the way to make more floor space, but all in all it wasn't a bad system, especially since the stations were all still chock-full of food and water. They had elected to save the beans and jerky from Carter until they were out of the desert and food would be, ironically, scarcer.
This particular evening was — amazingly — damp. As Mercedes and Puck led the horses out of the station and the copper-red sun dipped below the western horizon, a breeze brought a wave of sudden humidity rushing past them from the east. Mercedes breathed deeply, relishing in the sensation of air that wasn't dry as a bone, as if all the water had been boiled straight out of it, feeling for the first time that they were close to the desert's edge. While she wasn't precisely sure where they were at the present moment, she knew they were in southern Utah. They had exited Nevada within hours of leaving the Ring of Fire, and it had taken them only a few days to cross the northwest corner of Arizona. And now, with water in the air and a hopeful wind blowing, Colorado was near.
The moon sat fat and yellow and marbled against a cloudless lavender sky, and Mercedes looked out at the barren landscape toward the distant eastern mountains barely touched by the last vanishing rays of red sunlight. She wasn't sure if it was real or just a trick of the light, but Mercedes was pretty sure that the mountains looked almost green. The range didn't look tall enough to be the Rockies, but maybe they were closer than they thought.
The downsides to traveling on horseback were numerous, however, and as eager as Mercedes was to get out of the desert, the pain from being seated in a saddle for hours on end made the boredom that much more unbearable. Peach had turned out to be a poorly trained horse (or maybe he just didn't like Mercedes specifically), and she found herself fighting with him several times nightly. Luckily, most of the time Peach simply followed after Mr. T and Mercedes didn't feel the need to try so hard to direct him. Thank goodness for herd instincts.
The painted starry sky hadn't quite lost its splendor, but as each night passed in near silence, Mercedes found that she was filled less with a sense of awe and more with a simple lonely ache. Puck didn't talk much, and neither did she. After all, there was nothing to talk about, really, when they were experiencing everything side by side. It was almost like she was traveling alone, and Mercedes sometimes fell into such a state of monotonous thought that she would occasionally forget that Puck was even there.
And so, when Puck spoke, it made her jump in the saddle and accidentally cause Peach to sidestep irritably.
"So what are you going to name him?"
Mercedes frowned at him. "Huh?"
"Your horse. What are you going to name him?"
"His name is Peach," Mercedes said dryly. Puck knew this already.
Puck shook his head, shifting in Mr. T's saddle. "That was his name at the ranch, but now he's your horse so you get to pick the name."
"Okay, I pick Peach."
Puck gave her an exasperated look. "You can't pick—"
"Puck, I'm not an animal person, all right?" she cut him off. "I'm not planning on keeping this horse any further than I need to. He's not my horse."
"Fine, I'll take him then."
Mercedes snorted. "Sure, cowboy. You have the makings of your very own stable."
Puck ignored the implication that he didn't know what he was doing. Mercedes had no idea what Puck was even thinking, assuming he could take care of one horse long term, let alone two. It wasn't like he'd grown up on a farm, and honestly it was nothing short of a miracle that he hadn't managed to kill Mr. T already. But on the other hand, it occurred to her that perhaps Puck just wanted to have something to plan for. After all, they had no idea what was waiting for them back in Ohio (if they ever made it).
Puck gazed up at the infinite sky, beginning to sing to himself quietly. "Well, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name—"
"Shut the hell up."
DAY 31
The minutes dragged on. Step by step. Santana attempted to count her footsteps, having nothing else to occupy herself, but quickly lost track once the number reached three digits. Clouds drifted across the sun, periodically casting them in shadow. They passed by a handful of scattered houses, all empty and deathly silent. Santana found herself wishing they had some other means of travel besides walking — a carriage, a horse, or hell, even a bicycle. If she didn't starve to death between here and Ohio, she was fairly sure the boredom would kill her just as quickly.
They had stayed camped in Easton for a few more days to regain their strength and see if they could find any more food. They hadn't had much luck, but the jars from the old woman's house had given them enough calories to return to the road. The downside was the sugar content — eating nothing but tart jams and preserves had left Santana's mouth with more than one canker sore, not to mention the headache from the sugar rush every time she ate. But she'd rather deal with a headache than starve, so she tried to ignore it as much as possible. Vitamin deficiency wasn't high on their list of priorities at the moment.
At last, the road diverged into two up ahead, and a tall green sign clearly announced that Bethlehem was only a mile away.
Santana sighed in relief — after walking from Manhattan, a mile seemed like barely a blip. And according to the map, Allentown wasn't much more than a few miles past Bethlehem. Maybe they'd be able to bed down early today. She glanced up at the sky — it was no longer midday but sunset was still a long way off. They had time.
They passed by the sign, taking the left fork of the road onward. Santana again tried to count her footsteps, and again quickly lost track.
The houses scattered along the road eventually grew more frequent, and they walked by several smaller roads branching off into residential streets and cul-de-sacs. It seemed a nice enough area, and didn't appear any different from the neighborhoods along Easton's outer edge.
Kurt abruptly halted in front of her, and Santana nearly bumped into him.
"What's up?" Dani asked.
Kurt wordlessly jerked his chin in the same direction he was looking, and Santana and Dani followed his gaze.
About two hundred yards ahead, a man was walking towards them.
Santana frowned in confusion. They'd passed plenty of people on the road since New York, and this particular stranger didn't seem any more threatening than the average wanderer.
"He's got a gun," Kurt said under his breath.
Santana's heart skipped, and she squinted at the stranger, who was still walking in their direction. Kurt was right. There was a large rifle hanging by his side from a strap on his shoulder.
"He's already seen us," Dani said. "We should just keep walking and hope he leaves us alone."
Kurt nodded in agreement, and immediately continued forward at a controlled, intentionally moderate pace. He sidestepped slightly to move toward the edge of the road, giving the stranger a wide berth. Santana and Dani quickly followed suit, staying a little bit closer to each other than before.
The distance between them and the stranger grew smaller, and Santana's heart worked its way into her throat. She knew the man had seen them already, and even though he hadn't lifted his gun or given any other indication that he would hurt them, she knew he could. She held her breath and kept close to Kurt and Dani and hoped the stranger wouldn't try anything.
Instead, the man called out to them as soon as they were only a few yards away.
"Hi there," he greeted them.
Kurt, Dani, and Santana stopped in their tracks.
"Where are you folks coming from?"
Kurt hesitated. Santana saw his hand reach behind him to grip the handle of his knife, but he didn't draw it out yet.
"It's fine," the man said conversationally. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's just been a while since I've seen anyone. Where you from?"
"New York," Kurt replied tightly.
The man whistled lowly, and the hairs on Santana's arms stood on end. Something wasn't quite right, but she couldn't put her finger on why the alarm bells in her head were ringing so loudly. The man was tall, thin and narrow-faced. Fairly young, although he looked a bit older than they were. A worn baseball cap covered the top of his head. The gun hanging by his side wasn't any old hunting rifle — it looked like the sort of gun police officers carried when expecting a riot.
"Where are you headed?"
Kurt apparently had the same suspicions as Santana, as the next thing he said was an outright lie. "Montana."
"That's pretty far."
"And you?" Kurt asked, his voice tense. His knuckles were white around the knife handle.
The stranger avoided the question, only worsening the apprehension in Santana's gut. She was glad Kurt had lied — she didn't want this person knowing anything about them.
"What's your name?" the man inquired instead.
Santana abruptly realized what was wrong with this picture: the man was carrying nothing apart from the gun. No packs of food, no bedding or blankets stuffed into a sack, not even extra clothing. And stranger still, the man was clean. Every person they had seen since the blackout had been unwashed and unkempt, but his clothes looked recently laundered, his skin clear of dirt smudges, and his hair wasn't heavy and dark with oil.
Kurt's jaw twitched. "Look, why don't we just keep going the way we're going, and you keep going the way you're going, and we leave it at that?"
The man's mouth tightened for a second, and he almost looked… sad. "I'm sorry," he said, and it sounded like the first honest thing that had come out of his mouth. "I can't do that."
In one fluid motion, he swung the gun from his side up to aim directly at them, and Dani yelped, seizing Santana's arm. In the same instant, Kurt yanked the knife out of his belt. Santana's heart was galloping in her chest, and she could feel her pulse all the way to her fingertips. For a split second, Santana reached for her own knife, but stopped as she realized it would do no good against an assault rifle.
Movement out of the corner of her eye caught Santana's attention, and she turned to see another man emerging from behind a house to their right. He carried an identical gun. Santana turned again — there was a third man coming out of the woods to their left and a woman closing in from the road behind them. All were equally armed, rifles aimed and ready to fire.
She couldn't breathe, her heart pounding in her eardrums. This was an ambush.