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Miles To Go
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DAY 48
Compared to the hot asphalt, following the railroad tracks was a relief for Kurt, Dani, and Santana. The trees grew closer together, providing more shade, and without pavement to reflect the summer heat the air was cooler and easier to breathe. A carpet of purple flowers hugged the tracks from both sides, rippling in the wind. High above, clouds sailed across a brilliant blue sky, their shadows passing so quickly that it made the earth itself pulse with light.
Dani walked slightly ahead, holding her arms out to balance on one rail with the breeze tugging at the ends of her hair, her pistol tucked into the back of her jeans. Kurt and Santana followed along atop the wood slats in the center, eyes scanning the trees for signs of danger as they walked.
It did feel a little strange, Santana thought, being the only one of the trio without a gun. Earlier that morning they had passed a railyard, a wide meadow of iron and gravel and trains that hadn't moved in months. They'd crossed through the yard quickly — there were people living, at least temporarily, in a few of the empty box cars. And being weaponless, Santana was not eager to find out how territorial the train dwellers might have been.
Apart from the railyard, though, the train tracks provided a kind of shelter, a less confusing path to navigate, and — most importantly — isolation. Guns aside, they felt more protected than they had in weeks.
Birds flitted to and fro between the swaying trees on either side of the tracks. Clouds of insects wheeled through the air, occasionally landing on their arms or bags or heads for a moment before being swatted away. At one point in the early afternoon a red fox ran across their path, pausing only briefly to stare curiously in their direction, then darted away into the underbrush.
The sun was just beginning to sink behind the westward trees ahead, making them squint as the afternoon headed toward evening, when Dani halted abruptly on her toes.
"Whoa," she said, shielding her eyes against the sunlight.
Santana and Kurt slowed to a stop in turn, and Santana felt the pit of her stomach drop.
Straight ahead, where the tracks began to curve slightly to the north, was a derailed train. Santana couldn't tell how many cars it had; they sat in a twisted heap of steel, windows shattered, sides dented, wheels off the tracks or completely in the air. Cars had been sent careening into the trees, knocking several to the ground and leaving scorched vegetation and burn marks blackening the metal hulls.
"Jesus," breathed Santana. She shuddered at the idea of being trapped on a train when the blackout struck, unable to stop or even slow down. Given the choice, she would have jumped.
"Come on," Kurt said. He stepped off the tracks and veered to the right, working his way into the bushes and trees to go around the wreckage.
Santana quickly followed suit, squeezing Dani's hand as she passed.
Closer to the half-charred train there was only a faint odor of soot; it had stopped burning weeks ago. The branches of saplings grazed Santana's face and neck, scrub brush scratching her calves. Kurt craned his neck to peer into a broken window and instantly recoiled.
"Don't look in there," he said grimly.
Santana gulped, and heeded his advice.
It took several minutes to navigate around the debris field, stomping haphazardly through vegetation that was already beginning to grow over the steel. Finally they were able to return to the track, where only three more cars lay at an angle to the rails. The engine car had flipped completely on its side, and the conductor had been thrown several yards further ahead, where his corpse lay rotting amidst the purple flowers.
"Hold on," said Dani, stopping beside the smashed-in door to the second car back from the engine, which was tilted on nearly a forty-five degree angle.
"What's up?"
Dani tapped the dented steel shell, where the paint was badly scratched but DIN NG CA was still just barely legible. "We might as well check while we're here."
Santana shrugged. "I'm game."
Kurt glanced nervously down the tracks like he thought the dead conductor might stand up and shout at them for trespassing. "Okay," he agreed. "But let's make it quick."
Hoisting themselves up off the ground, one by one they clambered up the side of the dining car and squeezed clumsily through the door. Inside, the floor was slanted and they had to brace themselves against the tables and benches bolted in place. Rainwater had collected and pooled, rusty and stagnant in the lowest places. If any of the passengers had been in this car before the crash, they had managed to get out.
The cafe counter took up half the car and the shelves behind it were empty, their contents thrown and scattered. Bags of chips and pretzels and stale plastic-wrapped cookies were piled in the corners, some half-submerged in puddles. Dani unzipped her pack and began stuffing it with anything undamaged and still edible.
Santana worked her way to the cafe counter, gripping anything she could to keep herself from slipping down the floor. She grunted and pulled herself up around the end of the counter, and let out a sharp cry, flinching back and nearly falling.
On the floor behind the counter was the body of the cafe attendant, decomposing beneath a polyester blue apron. As far as Santana could tell, the girl was roughly the same age as them, and had obviously suffered a fatal head injury when the train derailed. A large patch of old blood decorated the interior edge of the counter. With its broken windows the train car was well-ventilated and the rotting body still smelled, but the odor wasn't nearly overpowering.
Dani and Kurt leaned with no small effort over the counter to see what had made Santana scream.
"That's sad," Dani remarked with a sigh.
Kurt made no remarks at all, and only pointed to the latched cupboards below the bolted-down Keurig machine. "Check in there."
Santana winced, but edged forward. She propped a leg against the inside of the counter, careful to avoid stepping on the dead girl, and reached for the cupboard handles. Once unlatched, the door fell open and a cascade of packaged sandwiches fell out, sliding across the floor and piling up against the attendant's body.
"Those still look good, actually," Kurt said in surprise.
He was right. The sandwiches were all sealed in plastic and free of mold, as far as they could tell. The bread and other ingredients had to be chock-full of chemical preservatives, which Kurt would have complained about in any other circumstance, but now it was a lucky break.
Santana began gathering sandwiches from the floor, handing them up over the counter for Kurt and Dani to pack, then unzipping her own bag to shove more inside. When she went to close her backpack, Kurt stopped her.
"You missed some."
Santana blinked. The only sandwiches left were touching the corpse. "You still want to eat those?"
Kurt shrugged. "They're plastic-wrapped. It's fine."
She raised an eyebrow at him. He had a point — there was little risk of germs — but she was still shocked to hear it coming from him. "You know, three months ago you threw out Rachel's almond milk because it was a week before its expiration date."
"I stand by that decision," Kurt replied smoothly. "But if I'd found a corpse in a train car three months ago I'd also have been a lot more upset than I am now."
Santana clicked her tongue, and opened her bag again. Kurt was right. They were in no position to be wasting food. She gathered up the remaining sandwiches, careful not to touch the corpse herself.
In the small fridge behind the counter they found plenty of bottled water and juice, which they tucked into every pocket and spare space in their bags they could find. And then, with the sunlight just beginning to fade from the train windows, they climbed back out onto solid ground.
"That was a good find," Dani said, grinning as they passed the conductor's body and left the train wreckage behind them.
Kurt made a noise of agreement in his throat. "Yeah, it was," he agreed. "Remind me to listen to you more often."
Dani laughed and reached to interlock her fingers with Santana's while they walked. Santana smiled, and felt lucky.
In the weeks since leaving the Mojave behind, Puck had gotten exceptionally good at building campfires. They'd stolen matches and lighters every time they found them, but any time Mercedes tried to build one herself, the fire sputtered and faded within only a few minutes. So instead, most nights she helped to gather kindling and firewood but stepped back to let Puck actually build the fire and get it going. Without fail, his efforts invariably yielded a much longer-lasting, bigger, and warmer flame.
Here in the woods, after the sun had gone down, the fire provided a solace for Mercedes to focus on when her fears crept up behind her. Any time she thought she heard an animal in the shadows, any time she imagined monsters lurking where she couldn't see them, any time she worried that they'd fall off the side of the mountain and never make it back home, she clung to the light and warmth and safety of the campfire. She watched the sparks whirl up into the atmosphere, disappearing among the stars, and breathed deeply.
Puck wasn't nearly as nervous being in the middle of the woods at night — or at least, if he was, he hid it better. He was quiet, though. Quieter than she'd ever seen him. Something about the mountains and the forest seemed to knock him deep into his own thoughts, and his words were few and far between.
The lack of conversation bothered Mercedes more than she'd have liked to admit. It was far too easy to spiral into her own anxieties without Puck distracting her, and tonight was no exception. The fire crackled, shadows flickering against the surrounding tree trunks, and somewhere in the distance an owl hooted.
On the opposite side of the fire, Puck lay back against Mr. T's belly, head tilted up to watch the stars, moving slightly every time the horse breathed. Peach had no such inclination to be close to Mercedes, and instead was tied to a tree close by.
"What are you thinking about?" Mercedes asked. She hadn't spoken loudly, but her voice still shattered the quiet as easily as a gunshot.
"Home."
She sighed, tossing a twig into the fire and watching it burn, twisting and crackling in the heat. "Yeah, me too."
"What do you think Lima looks like now?" he mused aloud, still staring up at the stars with his head resting on Mr. T's back. It sounded like he wasn't expecting an answer.
"The same as all the other towns," Mercedes replied. She shifted to a more comfortable position, stretching her legs out in front of her, warming her bare blistered feet.
Before she'd left home to go to Los Angeles, Mercedes had spent nearly every night on the couch with her parents, watching TV. Jeopardy, Family Feud, The Voice, any other game show or reality show that might have been on. Anything where they could shout out the answers and yell at the contestants on screen for making mistakes. It was one of the few things both she and her parents enjoyed doing together, and whenever her older brothers swung back through town to visit, they joined in. She'd give anything to be back in Lima right this second, lounging on the sofa in front of the TV, the living room filled with laughter.
She supposed that wouldn't ever happen again. Even if the power did come back, and even if everybody in her family was still alive, she couldn't imagine going back to the same things she'd had before the blackout like nothing had happened.
Mostly, she was worried about Marcus. Three of her brothers still lived relatively close to Lima; it wouldn't have been that difficult for them to get home on foot. But Marcus had just been finishing up his senior year of college in Miami, and Florida seemed so far away it may as well have been on another planet. If he had survived the blackout without injury, he had nearly as far to travel as she did.
She let out a breath, trying to push the fear of never seeing her family again to the back of her head. This was exactly why she needed Puck to distract her.
"I miss watching American Idol," she said.
Puck yawned. "I miss Deadliest Catch."
"You think Simon Cowell is still alive?"
"How the hell should I know?"
Mercedes shrugged. "I don't know. Don't you think it'd be kind of weird to run into a famous person in the middle of all this?"
Puck made a noise of agreement in his throat, though he was only half-interested. He watched the flames crackle and spark.
"I bet Lady Gaga's alive. She's tough," Mercedes added.
"Maybe."
She tried to think of a name who might engage Puck's attention. "What about Charlie Sheen?"
Puck snorted. "He's either OD'd by now or he's conquered half of Los Angeles."
Mercedes laughed at the idea. "John Cena?" she suggested.
"Definitely alive." Puck scrunched up his face in thought, watching the campfire smoke blot out the stars above. "Tom Hanks?"
This was a game Mercedes could get behind. She grinned, picking a bit of dirt from under her fingernail. "He's alive, but only because nobody wants to hurt him. He's like everybody's grandpa."
"Good point. Okay, hold on, I gotta think of a good one." Puck lowered his position against Mr. T's belly so that he was closer to lying down. "Justin Bieber?"
Mercedes didn't have to think about her answer. "He's dead as hell."
Their laughter echoed out into the forest, disappearing into the trees beyond the firelight, and Mercedes wiped a mirthful tear from the corner of her eye. It was much easier to wonder about the survival status of people she'd never met. Puck sagged back against Mr. T, chuckling.
Out of the darkness, a scream cut through the air.
Puck and Mercedes jolted upright in an instant, laughter dying in their throats, and Puck reached to grab his bat from where it was lying beside their bags. Mr. T raised her head, alert. Peach sidestepped and probably would have bolted if he wasn't tied to the tree. He snorted, pawing the ground with a hoof. The hairs on Mercedes' arms and the back of her neck stood on end.
"What the hell was that?" Puck hissed, standing upright with the bat gripped tightly in his fist.
Mercedes' heart pounded in her chest. She shakily pulled herself to her feet, eyes wide and looking for any sign of danger.
Another scream, shrill and piercing, made them jump. Peach whinnied, pulling at his reins. Mercedes stepped closer to Puck without a second thought. Some primitive instinct, handed down through the oldest fragments of her genetic code, told her to stay close to the fire, close to her pack.
"That sounds like a person," Puck said, voice hushed.
The back of Mercedes' head prickled, stomach twisting, fingertips tingling. "I don't think it is."
"Neither do I."
They heard the scream one more time, strident and unearthly and dissipating into the dark. After that, it was quiet.
For the rest of the night, they barely slept.
DAY 49
The morning in Lima dawned sunny and humid, mist hanging heavy and low over the lake. Carole's clothes stuck to her skin as she walked alone through the suburbs. It hardly looked like a suburb any more — after only a month and a half, lawns and gardens were overgrown, weeds poking up through cracks in the sidewalks. Abandoned vehicles sat collecting dust in the middle of the streets and windblown debris piled up along the curbs.
Spencerville Road, where she and Burt had lived since they'd been married, was barely recognizable. She felt a pang of sadness at seeing their neighbor's homes in such a state. Many had been broken into, others were boarded up. One house had burned down, though she wasn't sure if it had been an accident or another attack like the one that had killed Blaine's parents.
Across the street from Burt and Carole's, Sandra's house sat with broken windows and the door smashed in. It seemed like a cosmic joke, Carole thought, that Sandra had been desperate enough to rob their house only to turn around and have the same thing happen to her. The house looked empty; whatever had happened to Sandra, Carole had a feeling she'd never see her old neighbor again.
Carole let out a breath and stepped from the sidewalk onto her own lawn, crossing the overgrown grass and ascending the steps to the porch. Her heart ached to see the shattered window glass strewn across the deck and the front door hanging by only one hinge. Instinctively, she wanted to clean it up, to keep taking care of her home, but it would be a pointless task that she had no time for anyway. She had to get back to her group quickly.
Burt had offered to come with her, disliking the idea of her wandering town alone, but she'd insisted that he stay with the kids and Hiram and Leroy. For this, she wanted to be by herself. They had agreed on a meeting point by the edge of town and whoever got there first would wait. The seven of them had spent most of the morning packing and tonight would be their first night on the road, but there were a couple of things still in her house that Carole wasn't willing to leave Lima without.
Her kitchen was filthy. Dusty and mud-tracked and in desperate need of a good scrubbing; she didn't bother checking the cupboards she knew would be empty. At some point a pigeon had gotten in and shit all over the sink, leaving feathers scattered on the counter.
The living room was dusty too, but not in such a bad state otherwise. She went to the shelf by the TV and picked up the framed photo of her and Finn at the beach, swallowing the rock in her throat. Despite being pressed for time, she couldn't help staring down at the photo for a few moments, her finger tracing Finn's little sunscreen-streaked face. Once she left Lima, nobody would take care of Finn's gravesite, and the thought of him being neglected made her want to dig her heels in and refuse to leave.
But her other child was still out there, and she was determined to bring the only parts of Finn with her that she could. She flipped the frame over and quickly slid the photograph out, tucking it into her pocket and leaving the empty frame on the shelf.
She then climbed the stairs to the second floor, ears ringing in the quiet.
Kurt's bedroom was pristine; he'd always been a neat freak and Burt had never had occasion to go into Kurt's room without Kurt present. The shelves of trophies and photos and other keepsakes took over an entire wall, impeccably organized, and it didn't take Carole long to find what she was looking for: another picture frame. This one held a photo of Kurt and Burt sitting in a booth at Breadstix during one of their family dinners, back when she and Burt had only just begun to see each other. They were both mid-laugh in the picture — Carole had taken the photo herself and she wished she could remember what they'd been laughing at.
She took the photo out of its frame and slid it into her pocket alongside the one of her and Finn. Burt hadn't asked her to get any photos of Kurt, but Carole knew he'd want one. And New York was a big place. Having a photo reference would be helpful, once they got there.
Pushing through the door to Finn's bedroom, she found it as she'd left it. The bed made, Finn's school backpack still hanging from his desk chair and full of half-finished college assignments. Carole fought off the urge to sit and just stay here — she didn't have time, and clinging to Finn's things without moving forward would do nobody any good, least of all her.
Instead, she opened the closet and dragged out the box labeled JACKETS & SWEATERS. Her favorite of Finn's hoodies, with its solid white and gray stripes, had been meticulously cleaned by Burt when she'd accidentally gotten blood on it after the shooting at the hospital. It was badly wrinkled, having been folded and refolded so many times, but that was hardly a concern these days.
It was too hot to wear it outside, so Carole stuffed the hoodie into what little space was left in her backpack. She closed the box and returned it to its place on the closet floor.
As she turned to leave, she paused for just long enough to kiss the tips of her fingers, then press them to the door jamb. "I love you," she whispered, and walked away.
Leaving the house wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. As much as the things inside it still belonged to her, the house itself didn't feel like her home anymore. Instead, her home lay elsewhere — with Burt, waiting for her at the edge of town, and with Kurt, somewhere in New York. Wherever they were was where she wanted to be, and everything else could be left behind.
Walking eastward through Lima, Carole could feel the world changing under her feet.
She met up with Burt and the rest of their group at the corner of Reservoir Road and Fenway Drive, as promised, and couldn't help but smile. They were all packed and ready — even Caitlin, who carried a backpack nearly half her own size.
Carole was grateful that Artie and Caitlin had elected to come with them; their older brother was in Philadelphia, after all, and this trip would at least get them within throwing distance. If they had decided to stay in Lima on their own, Carole would have worried every day, so at least she could keep an eye on them this way.
Blaine had chosen to go too in an instant. He was eager to find Kurt and, ultimately, he had nowhere else to be. No other family beside the one that had adopted him in the absence of his own.
Hiram and Leroy were fidgeting, chomping at the bit, more than ready to go and find their daughter.
Burt smiled and gave Carole a kiss when she joined them, and asked if she'd found everything she needed from the house. She pulled the photo of Kurt from her pocket, pressing it to Burt's palm.
Burt's eyes went a little glassy, and he held the photo like it was made of pure gold. "Thanks, hon," was all he said. He cleared his throat, tucked the picture into his own breast pocket, then squared his shoulders and tightened the straps of his backpack. "You ready?"
Carole nodded, reaching out to squeeze Burt's hand. "Let's go find our son."
The hiking trail leading through the mountains was rocky, narrow, and difficult to navigate. Puck and Mercedes had both descended to walk on the ground and lead the horses by the reins in order to lessen the load, lowering the chances that one might stumble and fall. It was slow going, though, and Mercedes didn't exactly enjoy being out in the wilderness. Still, by now she was at least used to it, and complaining wouldn't get them home any faster.
The trade-off, of course, was that they were rewarded with stunning views whenever the tree cover broke long enough for them to see beyond the trail. Sweeping slopes with dense forest glowing green in the sunlight, with granite and limestone ridges piercing through toward the sky at the higher altitudes. Wind rushed through the valleys, up the hills, swirling around Puck and Mercedes like the mountains themselves were asking Who are you? What are you doing here?
It was an hour or two past midday, after they'd stopped to rest and eat a quick lunch of stolen granola from the Purgatory Resort, when Puck stopped abruptly in his tracks. He pulled Mr. T to a halt, brushing a hand down the long bridge of her nose, and waved for Mercedes to stop too. He pressed a finger to his lips.
Peach snorted indignantly when she tugged on his reins, and Mercedes had a feeling he would have just kept going if Mr. T hadn't been blocking the path directly in front of him. Mr. T's ears swiveled back and forth, tail swishing. Puck scanned their surroundings, wide-eyed and alert.
"What is it?" Mercedes asked, half terrified that they were about to hear the same unearthly scream from the night before. She hadn't been entirely certain whether it was a person or an animal, and she wasn't all that inclined to find out.
"Shh!" Puck hissed. "I think…"
He trailed off, eyes darting to and fro, and then Mercedes heard it too.
Voices.
There were at least two, one male and one female, carried on the air. She couldn't tell how far away they were and she couldn't see them yet, but they were close, and getting closer.
Instantly, Mercedes bit back a barrage of curses she wanted to hurl in Puck's direction. Instead she snapped, "Puck, the whole point of coming this way was to avoid people!"
Puck glared at her, throwing up his hands. "Well, what do you want me to do about it now?! We need to hide."
She wanted to strangle him. "We have horses, Puck! Where the hell are we going to hide?!"
Puck opened his mouth to make some kind of clever retort, but it was too late.
Up ahead, from around the next bend in the trail, two people appeared. A man and a woman, both young and in the middle of laughing at something one of them had said when they saw Puck, Mercedes, and their two unhideable horses. They stopped short, smiles fading.
A long, tense moment passed as the strangers studied them, and vice versa.
Mercedes saw the man's eyes linger on Puck's baseball bat where it was poking out of one of the bags on Mr. T's back. Neither the man nor the woman were armed. Rather, quite the opposite. They had only baskets strapped to their shoulders, their hands dirt-streaked, and appeared to be in the middle of foraging for food.
The man was short, with curly black hair pulled into a topknot and a trimmed beard. The woman was only slightly taller, with hair the color of straw and gold-rimmed glasses. She gripped her partner's hand tightly, as though she was expecting Puck or Mercedes to attack at any moment.
"Um," said the man. "Hi."
Puck hesitantly raised a hand in greeting. "What's up?"
"We weren't expecting to see anyone out here."
"Neither were we."
The man stared at the horses for several seconds, confusion knitting his eyebrows together. "What exactly are you doing all the way out here?"
"We could ask you the same question," Mercedes retorted, feeling bold.
"I'm a park ranger," the man replied flatly, as though it should have been obvious despite his lack of a uniform. "It's literally my job to be out here."
"We just want to get home, that's all," Puck said quickly. "We're trying to stay off the roads."
The woman spoke for the first time. "Where's home?" she asked.
"Ohio."
The man's brows shot toward his hairline. "And you're taking a hiking trail through the Rockies? With two horses?"
Puck shrugged. "Like I said. Trying to stay off the road. We were hoping to avoid people."
"Well done."
The woman lightly slapped his shoulder, chiding, "Don't be rude."
"Babe, we don't know these people, and for all we know they could just want to rob us at gunpoint," the man protested.
Mercedes drew a breath to take offense and instead throw a few choice accusations at this stranger, but instead the woman had a rebuttal ready to go.
"They had no way of knowing we'd be here, and if they had guns they wouldn't be avoiding the road," she countered smoothly. She then turned her attention back to Puck and Mercedes, adjusting her spectacles on her nose. "Are you hungry?"
Mercedes blinked. "What?"
The woman smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Look, no offense, but you two are obviously not outdoorsmen. You don't have the right clothes or the right shoes, and I'm guessing whatever food you have on you, you're just hoping it'll last until you're out of the woods."
Puck laughed awkwardly, patting Mr. T's flank like his hands were looking for something to occupy themselves. "You're not wrong."
"Our place isn't far," the woman continued. "Why don't you come and take a load off for a bit? Stay the night if you want."
"Your place?" echoed Mercedes. She couldn't imagine there were any houses out here.
The man scratched behind his ear, looking like he'd much rather not share this information. "We moved into the ranger cabin when the blackout hit."
"It's not big," the woman elaborated. "But it's got a roof and four walls."
Mercedes shifted from foot to foot, every instinct shouting that she and Puck should just tell these people to shove it and then continue on their way. "Well… we don't know you."
"I'm Elizabeth," the woman said, her smile unfading. "And this is Billy."
"Okay, but I mean, you might want to rob us, too."
Puck sent a warning glare to Mercedes over his shoulder. "I don't think it's smart to turn down help," he told her.
Mercedes swallowed, her jaw twitching. But Puck had a point, and to be fair, Billy and Elizabeth didn't really seem any more dangerous than they were. Puck's bat was the only weapon to be had between the four of them, so technically, Billy and Elizabeth were the ones at a disadvantage.
Mercedes thought of Carter and June, opening their home, giving them food and a second horse, providing a safe space for Puck to heal and Mercedes to rest.
Finally, she nodded. "Okay. Thank you."
Elizabeth was right — the ranger cabin was not very far. Barely half a mile down the trail from where they'd met, Billy and Elizabeth turned from the main trail onto a smaller secondary path branching off to the left, heading up the slope through the trees.
Between the horses' bulk and the trail growing narrower, the pace was glacial. But only another ten minutes or so later, they found themselves standing in front of a small wooden cabin outfitted with a chimney and a low porch. The trees broke apart below the porch, giving the cabin a sweeping, stunning view of the mountains to the east.
"All right," Elizabeth said, trotting up the steps onto the porch. "Home sweet home."
"Nice view," Puck remarked.
"It's so we can watch for fires during the dry season," Billy replied, as though to him the natural wonders of the Rockies were about as interesting as a grocery store cereal aisle.
He shouldered off his basket, setting it on the porch, and pointed to a spot near the rear of the house where the ground was even and there was several yards' clearance before the trees closed in. "You can tie the horses up back there for now."
Once the horses were somewhat settled, Mercedes and Puck followed their hosts inside. The interior of the ranger cabin was exactly what one might expect, rustic and cramped. It was one room, with a bed barely big enough for two built into the far corner, and a small wood stove constituting the kitchen. A cast-iron pan and a kettle rested atop the stove. There were only two windows but plenty of sunlight, and a couple kerosene lamps sat on a shelf above a line of well-worn books. In the middle of the room was a wooden table, and Billy and Elizabeth hoisted their baskets up onto its surface.
"Make yourselves at home," Elizabeth said. "You want some tea?"
Mercedes shook her head, feeling awkward and claustrophobic. The cabin didn't even seem big enough for two people, let alone four. "What's in the baskets?" she asked instead.
"Dinner." Billy took his basket and tipped it, letting its contents spill out across the table. It was a strange, dirty pile of random plants and fungi that Mercedes didn't recognize at all.
"All of that is edible?" Mercedes leaned over the table to peer at their haul.
Billy nodded and began to explain, picking up one after the other and naming them as he went. "We've got oyster mushrooms, chanterelles, wild leeks, wild mustard, nettles—"
"And," Elizabeth cut in, pulling a large red mass the size of her hand from her basket, "a lobster mushroom! These are hard to find."
Puck sat down at the table, staring at the hoard in awe. "How do you guys know all this stuff?" he asked, picking up a bright golden chanterelle to inspect it more closely.
"We got lucky," Billy said as he brushed soil from a bunch of wild leeks. "We were already into foraging before the blackout hit. We used to do this for fun, every weekend."
Mercedes wandered closer to the small bookshelf by the front window, inspecting the titles. A couple of novels were mixed in, but the majority had titles like Identifying Wild Edible Plants and Rustic Shelters for the Rustic Camper. The spines were a bit faded from use, and most of them had library tags.
"I stole those from work," Elizabeth said with a grin, coming to stand beside Mercedes.
"What?"
"I'm a librarian," she elaborated. "After the blackout when Billy and I decided to come out here, we raided the library and took everything that seemed useful."
Mercedes stared at the line of books, nearly all guides on living without electricity in some capacity or another, and felt like an idiot. "I can't believe Puck and I didn't think of that."
Elizabeth laughed. "You and everybody else. Nobody thinks of the library as a resource when something like this happens. Trust me, books are the best advantage we have."
The day faded into evening quickly, and Billy cooked dinner on the wood stove, a fantastically filling goulash of mushrooms and leeks and leafy greens. It was by far the most flavorful and satisfying meal Puck and Mercedes had eaten since before the blackout, and they devoured their servings in short order. By then, Billy seemed to have warmed somewhat to the idea of having guests, and was friendlier.
As the moon rose and the stars came out, glittering against the black, Elizabeth went to bed, and Mercedes laid down on the cabin floor once they'd moved the table to make room for her and her blankets. Belly full and muscles exhausted, she was asleep in minutes.
Outside, Puck and Billy sat on the porch, drinking tea from metal mugs and watching the night sky. Clouds were moving in from the east but rain was still distant, at least a day away.
"I'll never get tired of this view," Billy said, staring upward at the stars.
"It is nice," Puck agreed.
Billy took a long gulp of tea and adjusted himself to sit back against the porch post. "So you're trying to get all the way to Ohio," he said. "Where'd you start from?"
"Los Angeles."
Billy whistled lowly. "Jesus."
"Yeah, I'm surprised we made it this far too," Puck chuckled. Off to the right and behind the cabin, he heard one of the horses snort. "What d'you think happened? To the power, I mean."
Billy shook his head, tapping his fingertips on his kneecap. "I don't know. I'm not sure it matters, really."
Puck frowned in surprise. "You're not sure if the apocalypse matters?"
At that, Billy drew his eyes away from the night sky and met Puck's gaze evenly, seeming overly patient. "This is not the apocalypse," he said. "The world is fine. People might not be, but the world is. You really think the blackout qualifies as the end of the world?"
Puck swallowed, wanting to argue that yes, anything that caused the deaths of millions and left the living with barely any means to survive would be the very definition of the end of the world.
Billy only turned his attention back to the stars, watching a meteor flare and streak across a few degrees of sky before winking into nothing.
"As far as potential apocalypses go, we're lucky it was this one," he said definitively, in a tone that made Puck think that Billy had spent a lot of time evaluating the pros and cons of different world-ending scenarios. "People have lived without electricity for a lot longer than they've lived with it. We can learn how to do that again."
Perhaps Billy had a point, but Puck couldn't help feeling resentful of Billy's apparent philosophy — could it be called nonchalance? — and when he spoke, he spoke harshly. "It sounds like you didn't lose anyone," he snapped.
Billy turned again to meet Puck's gaze, unoffended but unyielding. "Statistically, do you think that's likely?"
Puck blinked. "What?"
Swallowing the rest of his tea and placing the empty cup on the porch beside him, Billy let out a long breath and rested his elbows on his knees. "My sister died," he said, matter-of-fact.
"Your sister?"
"My mom and dad live in Georgia," Billy elaborated, picking bits of dirt from under his nails as he spoke. "And my sister was on her way to visit them. Her plane took off from Denver at six-thirty, and the blackout hit half an hour later."
Puck's heart sank, his mug feeling cold in his palm.
"My guess is her plane went down somewhere in Kansas. Maybe Oklahoma."
Puck scratched behind his ear, eyes prickling. "I have a sister too," he said, and was surprised that it came out sounding choked-up. His throat hurt. "She's ten. But I have no idea if she's alive or not. Her name's Sarah."
Billy nodded in understanding. "My sister's name is Millie."
Before he could stop himself, Puck snorted. "Millie and Billy? Seriously?"
For the first time since they'd met, Billy grinned widely. "Yeah, our parents weren't the most creative."
Puck laughed, leaning back to watch the sky. He lifted his mug in a salute and said, "To Millie."
Billy smiled again, raising his own empty cup, and replied, "To Sarah."
As Puck drank the rest of his tea, sitting here on the cabin porch and staring up at the stars overhead, his thoughts traveled thousands of miles eastward, out of the mountains and across the endless patchwork of cornfields and farmlands of the Midwest. He could picture his mother and sister watching TV every evening, his grandmother occasionally joining for dinner. He could see the lights of his house as easily as if he were standing in his own kitchen right now, fridge open as he rummaged for a soda or a beer, his mom's cat continuously getting underfoot.
He always hated those nights, when his mom insisted that he join them to watch whatever stupid show had caught their attention that night, that he not spend his time in his room by himself. Now, he'd give anything, sacrifice anything, to be back home, eating crappy microwaved dinners that his mom had picked up at the gas station and arguing with Sarah about who got to hold the TV remote.
The last time he'd seen her, Sarah had tried to show him her hair — she'd been watching tutorials on YouTube and had finally figured out how to do a French braid — and he'd dismissed her, wholly uninterested in girly things like that. He'd jokingly suggested that she shave her head into a Mohawk like he'd done, and she'd gasped in horror and clutched the top of her hair like she'd expected him to try to snatch it from her scalp. He thought, if she were sitting on the porch right now beside him, he'd offer to try to braid her hair for her.
His thoughts were interrupted, then, by a piercing scream.
Puck, slammed instantly back into the present, sat ramrod straight. The scream was the same he and Mercedes had heard the night before, shrill and unearthly and not quite human. Behind the cabin, Puck heard one of the horses stomp and snort.
Billy, on the other hand, was alert but otherwise unperturbed. He sat up straight, turning his head to try and pinpoint the origin of the scream, but didn't appear afraid.
The scream repeated, raising the hairs on Puck's neck and arms. "What the hell is that?"
"It's a mountain lion," Billy answered calmly.
"What?" Every muscle in Puck's body tensed, instinctively wanting to run. "Shouldn't we go inside, then?"
Billy shook his head in a manner that Puck thought was probably a little too casual. "Nah."
Aghast, Puck flinched as the mountain lion screamed again, sounding closer than before. "What do you mean, 'nah'?"
"Puck, we're fine," Billy said with a hint of a chuckle, which Puck did not appreciate. "The lion's not hunting."
Puck was unconvinced. "How do you know?"
"Because if it was, we wouldn't hear it," Billy replied, and the creature shrieked again as if to illustrate Billy's point. "It's just communicating — a mating call, or something."
"That's how they talk?"
"Freaky, isn't it?"
The hairs on Puck's neck and arms stood erect, his heart thudding away in his chest. Another scream reverberated through the air, and somehow, knowing the source made it that much more terrifying. "Are you sure it's not hunting?"
"Yeah. Cats are ambush predators. Their whole attack repertoire is being quiet." Billy flapped a hand in the direction of the woods, like he spent his time constantly fending off mountain lions and bears and this was just an average weekday for him. "Look, if a mountain lion is hunting you, you won't know it's there until it's too late."
This, incredibly, did not make Puck feel better. "Should we do something about the horses, then?"
Billy made a face and said, flatly, "Like what?"
Puck huffed, his gaze searching the woods for a flash of predatory eyes in the dark. There was no barn, no stable, no room in the cabin. If the mountain lion decided it wanted to eat Peach or Mr. T, there was nothing Puck or anyone else could do about that, and the thought made him sick to his stomach.
The moon gradually drifted westward, and the world fell quiet again. Whether the lion had moved on or if it was lurking nearby, waiting for the opportune moment to attack, Puck had no way of knowing. Billy eventually stood and dumped the last few drops from his mug, recommending that Puck get some rest.
Puck let out a long, anxious breath. It seemed he had no choice but to leave the horses unguarded for the rest of the night. With no small amount of effort, he convinced himself to head inside.
As he restlessly slept on the floor alongside Mercedes, Puck dreamed again and again and again of monsters silently leaping from the shadows, with huge claws and massive teeth.
DAY 50
Summer was in full swing now, sunlight bearing down on the top of Santana's head as she trailed behind Kurt and Dani. Even with more tree cover over the railroad tracks, it wasn't enough to fight the June heatwave that had taken over this particular area of rural Pennsylvania, and both the temperature and the humidity were edging on unbearable. Sweat poured from Santana's skin, and she was sure she'd never smelled so badly in her life.
Rather than focus on the discomfort, she concentrated on the tracks beneath her feet. With an obvious path to follow, they'd covered more miles in a shorter amount of time than they had in weeks. Not only did they not have to spend precious minutes poring over paper maps and weighing the pros and cons of different roads, but Santana could feel the knots of newly-developed muscles in her shoulders and her lower back, the hardened swell of her calves and thighs. She saw similar changes in Kurt and Dani — the little rolls of fat that smoothed out the contours of their figures were all but gone, the shapes of muscles stark beneath tightening skin. Their bodies were slowly but surely adjusting.
Santana kept her eyes on Kurt and Dani's backs a few yards up ahead, preferring to follow rather than lead. It wasn't that she was tired — she was exhausted, but no more than usual, and she was sure the others felt the same — but rather she had reached the dawning realization that she felt calmer, less afraid, and all-around better if she could keep Kurt and Dani within view. If they were behind her or even just out of her peripheral vision, it was far too easy to forget they were there.
It was just after midday when Kurt slowed to a stop, frowning and turning in place.
"What's up?" Dani asked.
Kurt shook his head in confusion and sniffed the air. "Do you smell that?"
Santana raised her nose and took a deep inhale, but all she could smell was her own odor. Dani did the same, with similar results.
"What are you talking about?"
"Really? You don't smell anything?" Kurt said, surprised.
Santana sniffed again, and made a face. "I smell us. Not much else."
"Wait a sec." Dani scrunched up her nose and took a long breath, and her eyes widened. "It smells like burgers!"
Santana blinked, and again breathed in as big a gulp of air as she could manage. This time, she did pick up on it — a distinct aroma of grilling meat. "You think there's people nearby?"
"Gotta be," Kurt answered. "Let's be on the lookout."
They continued forward, remaining alert. While Santana was somewhat hopeful that whoever was cooking might be willing to share, should they actually find the source, mostly she felt apprehensive. The only time they'd encountered anyone manning a grill since leaving New York was in Nazareth, and she knew all too well that groups of people had the potential to be extremely dangerous.
As they walked, picking up the pace, the aroma only grew stronger. Santana's stomach growled.
And then, they heard a sound they'd not heard in months.
Music.
Somewhere in the distance, beyond the trees lining the railroad, someone was playing a guitar. Santana felt the apprehension and fear drain from her body, fading away into the earth underfoot in an instant. Amazingly, the music immediately conquered whatever suspicions she'd harbored about the nearby people, and all she wanted to do was run straight toward it.
Kurt and Dani seemed to have a similar reaction, as they exchanged an astonished glance and stepped off the tracks. The three of them paused for a moment, just listening, until they heard people calling back and forth to one another, layered over the guitar's melody in the background.
In unspoken agreement, Kurt, Dani, and Santana left the tracks behind and pressed into the woods, through the knee-high ferns and saplings, heading for the sunlight on the other side.
The moment they broke free of the vegetation, stepping out onto an open grassy field, Kurt was hit directly in the face with a soccer ball.