They survived the night. The ceiling had caved in on top of them and yet somehow, miraculously, they survived. Scraped, bruised, and bleeding - but still alive.
The basement's air was hot and stuffy beyond measure. They'd taken refuge in the narrow space beneath the stairs, cramming together like sardines. As far as any of them could tell in the near pitch black darkness, a shelving unit had toppled over, shielding them from the debris but also blocking them in. It was hard to breathe, one person's exhale becoming another person's inhaled breath. As the dust settled, the group realized that they were trapped there, beneath the rubble. No one was coming to their rescue. They would have to claw their way out of the wreckage or die huddled in the dark, where at least they had each other.
Claire didn't dare move, even though someone's elbow was digging into her rib cage. Every time they shifted, something above them creaked or shuddered, threatening to bury them alive. She'd hurt her knee, somehow. It was throbbing like crazy. Had she been injured when the house collapsed? Or had it happened earlier, when they were fleeing from Castiel? Claire couldn't remember.
"There's gotta be a window or something," Claire whispered, her heart hammering away in her chest. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
The air was stuffy with the scent of blood and sweat, but with the slightest hint of a cool night's air seeping in. Carefully, they followed that lifeline, crawling under the slanted shelving unit, bumping heads and elbows, and swallowing their panicked breaths. As dawn broke and slivers of light trickled in, their hopes were lifted by the sight before them: a hopper window hanging high on the far wall, their beacon of salvation.
The window was blocked from the other side, but tiny embers of light shone through the rubble. Claire was the first to reach the gap by the wall. She stood there, holding her palms flat to the surface. She lifted her face to suck in trickles of fresh air.
They began to chip away at the blocked window. They did it until their fingernails bled and their arms were sore, taking turns sitting on each others' shoulders in order to reach the window high above them.
"It's not good enough," Enid rasped, climbing down from Mikey's shoulders, her face chalk-white even in the dull light. She dropped to her knees, exhausted, coughing up concrete dust.
Claire gripped Enid's shoulder, taking comfort in her friend's presence. She looked up at the window, biting her lip to stifle a scream of frustration. All that time and all they could manage was to open the smallest gap. None of the teenagers could fit through it.
Claire breathed out slowly. "We have to keep going."
Enid hid her face in her hands. Then she looked up, and her gaze fixed on Oliver. Claire understood immediately. The teenagers couldn't fit through the gap, but the children could. Of course, they couldn't send Judith, but Oliver was just small enough to fit through it. It was a lot to ask from a six-year-old. Oliver was just as tired and frightened as the rest of them, but he nodded his head solemnly, a waft of dust rising from his curly head.
"Wait," said Carl, stopping them.
He passed a reluctant Judith to Mikey, having to peel the whimpering toddler away with softly whispered reassurances. The space they had painstakingly claimed was so small that they were practically on top of one another, but Carl managed to inch closer to Oliver, dropping down to his eye level.
"No more kids stuff," Carl said, voice hard as steel. It was an intensity he rarely displayed, leaving no room for arguing. He pulled out his pistol.
Claire closed her eyes. Suddenly she felt lightheaded. In what crazy, fucked-up world did it make sense to hand a six-year-old a loaded gun? She bit her tongue, knowing Carl was right.
With practiced movements, Carl showed Oliver how to engage and disengage the safety, and how to aim, and fire. "Hold it with both hands, like this."
After the short lesson, it was time to go. Carl lifted Oliver to the window, a full foot above his head. The boy was a good climber, latching on to the opening with surprising strength and tenacity. He pulled and wriggled, making little grunts of effort, gaining nicks and scratches from the sharp edges.
"Suck your belly in!" Jake called out, then immediately succumbed to a coughing fit.
Oliver complied, taking a deep, audible breath. He squirmed and twisted until finally, his feet disappeared through the small opening. "I did it!" he exclaimed proudly.
"Atta boy, Ollie," Jake croaked, wiping his mouth with his wrist.
Immediately, Oliver began to clear away the blockage. He babbled as he worked, narrating his efforts until his squeaky voice was wheezy with exertion. The rest of them could do nothing besides call out words of encouragement, offering guidance where they could. It took time; Oliver was just a little kid, small for his age. But bit by bit, the passage grew.
Claire pressed her forehead against the wall, shifting to take the weight off her aching knee. It hurt more when she was standing still, she discovered.
"Are you okay?" Carl murmured beside her.
Claire tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. "I think I'll live."
Something metal clattered to the ground outside, and Oliver gasped. "Oh no!"
Claire stiffened in alarm. "Oliver?" she called to the boy, palms pressed to the wall and face lifted toward the window. She could see a bit of the blue sky outside, but nothing else besides. "What happened?"
The cause of Oliver's distress soon reached their ears. A walker stumbling closer and closer, its gasping snarls unmistakable. There was nothing they could do, the gap was still too small for them to crawl through. Suddenly, there was a gunshot. A body fell to the ground.
Claire held her breath, blood rushing in her ears.
"I'm okay!"
The group erupted into chaotic cheers, the terror that had ripped them so tightly for a moment displaced by a shocking sense of relief. Claire turned her back to the wall, sagging against it. Her bones felt like noodles. She caught Carl's eye, giving him a slight nod. He looked away, Adam's apple bobbing.
Soon enough, they were crawling out of that basement, one by one. Claire collapsed to the ground, every nerve in her body on fire. She rolled onto her back, not caring what she was lying on. She stared up into the blue, blue sky, breathing in the clean air. Oliver's head popped into her field of vision. Like her, he was covered in dust and grime, but he was grinning.
Claire started to laugh uncontrollably. She was so very thirsty and so very tired, but the knowledge that they'd escaped, that they were not buried alive, made every bone in her body tingle with euphoria. She pulled the startled boy into her arms, squeezing until he squealed in protest.
"Nice going, kid," Claire said as soon as she could speak again, her ribs aching from the sudden laughing fit.
She stood up slowly, releasing Oliver from her grasp. Taking in the sight around her, Claire felt the last ebbs of laughter dying in her throat. There was rubble all around, stretching as far as she could see, as though they were standing in the aftermath of a major natural disaster. In the light of day, it was shocking how bad her friends looked. They were a mess, bruised and battered, covered head to toe with gray dust. Brown streaks ran down their ears. Claire's hands rose to her own head, returning with flecks of dry blood. She stared down at her fingers numbly.
Jake was the last one to exit the basement. He had to be pulled out after helping the rest of them scale up the wall. He crawled out on his knees and forearms, coughing hard, his brother thumping his back. Finally, Jake shuddered and hacked, spitting out a large amount of phlegm.
"That's nasty," Scott said lightly, patting his brother's back lightly. His dark, wavy hair was colored chalk-gray with dust.
Sagging with relief, Jake spat out one last time. "Feel like I smoked a volcano," he said hoarsely. "And not the fun kind." With a long groan, he climbed to his feet, shaking off Scott's help. He turned to study the hole they'd just crawled out of, and what had been left of the house. "Jesus. I hope they had insurance."
Scott looked at Claire. He asked quietly, "Cas did this?"
Claire nodded slowly, wrapping her arms around herself. They'd spoken about it briefly, but seeing the reality of it was staggering. The town was gone, reduced to miles of ruin. All because of those Hunters and what they'd done to Castiel.
Enid released a long, shuddering breath. She stared at the remains of the house in horror. "How did we survive this?"
Claire remembered the van crash. Castiel had protected them then, hadn't he? She looked at her friends, bruised and battered but still standing. "We have to go find him."
Carl was holding a sniffling Judith to his chest. He looked at her, face full of dust. "Do you think he's still alive?" he asked quietly.
Claire swallowed. "We have to check."
It was slow going, making their way to what used to be a shopping area. The farther they went, the worse the devastation became. Walkers began to appear, popping out of the ground or drawn in by the chaos. Some of them were blind, their eyes hollow and burned out. A few of them seemed to be stuck in a stupor, ignoring their presence altogether. There were more bodies on the ground, burnt-out husks with blackened mouths. They passed hills of rubble and ruins, and long crevasses cutting deep into the earth. It was like a scene out of a disaster movie.
Claire sighed long and hard. It was hard to determine directions when the entire town was a crater. She stepped around a large car door displaying the word emergency in bright red letters. "It was somewhere around here," she muttered.
"There, look!" Scott called out, pointing.
A body lay on the ground. It was too far away to make out any features, but there was no mistaking the dark blue coat. It was Castiel. And something else had noticed him too.
"Oh, God," Claire whispered, frozen in horror.
They were slow, the walkers. But they'd noticed Castiel as well, and they were so much closer. Ignoring the pain exploding in her knee, Claire broke out into a run, not waiting to see if her friends followed, knowing they would be right behind her. She waved her hands and yelled at the walkers, anything to draw them away from Castiel. A gunshot passed right by her ear, taking out one of the dead closing in on Castiel.
Her foot caught on something. She tripped, scratching her hands and knees on broken asphalt. Scrambling to her feet, not caring that her hands were bleeding, Claire screamed at the walkers, "Get away from him! Get away!"
It was too late. The walkers didn't stop. They never, ever stopped, especially not when their target was so tantalizingly within their grasp. Screams of horror broke out when the dead descended on Castiel, coming down like locusts, frenzied and ravenous.
The noises that came out of Claire's mouth were nothing short of animalistic. She reached the walker bent over Castiel's head just in time for it to look up, a long string of flesh dangling from its mouth. Screaming, furious, Claire killed it and shoved it away. The rest of them didn't stand a chance, but the damage had already been done.
Breathing hard, vision blurring, Claire fell to her knees. It was incredible how fast those slow, shambling monsters were when they fed. There was so much blood, so much more than any human body could lose. Her hand fisted in Castiel's coat, the one she'd given him back on the ship, and that he had refused to part with, even after it had been damaged.
Claire looked over her shoulder, at her friends. "I don't know what to do," she said in a strangled voice.
Enid's face was a mask of horror. She took a step back. "Oh, God." Then she turned on her heels and fled.
Scott chased after her. "Enid, wait!"
Face sealed, Carl knelt down next to Castiel. He began shoving Castiel's guts back into his body. He didn't hesitate. He didn't even blink. He just continued putting Castiel together like a crude, human-shaped puzzle. "He's gonna live," Carl simply said, face speckled with Castiel's blood.
"I'm gonna be sick." Mikey stumbled, throwing up all over his shoes in his haste to get away.
Carl glanced up at Claire. "Remember what he said. It's just a body."
Swallowing hard, Claire nodded. She dropped her ear to Castiel's chest, ignoring the blood and gore. She couldn't hear his heartbeat, but with Carl's machinations, and Judith's hysterical crying in the background, it didn't have to mean anything. Somewhere far away, Claire could hear shambling footsteps as more walkers encroached on them. Jake fought them off, buying them time.
An idea struck her. The bullet! The angel-killing bullet!
Claire pried under Castiel's coat, looking for the wound where the bullet had pierced his shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she dug in with her dirty fingernails. She couldn't help but stare searchingly at Castiel's face, looking for a hint of pain. His expression was oddly peaceful except for the chunk missing out of it. Claire's fingers slipped in the wound, but she felt it. It was there! The bullet!
"Knife!" Claire snapped at Carl.
Claire didn't want to use her own blade, an angel blade, to pierce Castiel's skin. Carl didn't understand what she was doing, but he trusted her enough to hand it over. She dug into the wound with Carl's knife. The bullet didn't want to come out at first, but with determination, Claire managed to dig it out. She held it in between her fingers, studying it. The blood dripped away from it easily, leaving a twisted clump of shiny metal. It looked to be made of the same strange silvery metal as her angel blade.
Claire looked down at Castiel's face, waiting for the ugly wound to magically knit itself before her eyes. "Come on," she whispered. "Please."
Nothing happened. Frustrated, Claire threw the bullet as far away as she could, letting out a shrill scream of anguish.
Suddenly, Castiel lurched up, spitting up blood. He coughed once, twice, and then dropped back down, eyes closed. He didn't wake up, and he wasn't healing, but… he was breathing. Raspy breaths that rattled in his chest, but still breathing. Claire stared at him, trembling.
Enid's voice calling out to her snapped her back to reality. She spun around, realizing Scott and Enid were running back to them, carrying something large between them. It was a stretcher, Claire realized, a lump rising in her throat. Enid hadn't abandoned her. She went to find the ambulance they'd stumbled on last night.
Enid crashed down to her knees beside them, leaving the stretcher with Scott. She dropped a bag to the ground, stuffed full of medical supplies. "How can I help?" she asked, eyes wide.
The road seemed to stretch on forever, cut in the middle of a thick, green forest. They barely spoke a word to each other, exhausted and aching. It was possible they were headed in the wrong direction; they didn't have a map, or the bandwidth to search for one. It didn't seem so important as just getting out of that ruined town.
The road was eerily quiet; no chirping birds, or buzzing insects, no sounds beyond Castiel's labored breathing, and the leaves crunching beneath their trudging footsteps. Even the air was still. It was as though nature itself had been left in a daze.
Scott was helping Claire walk. The pulsing pain in her knee was becoming impossible to ignore, yet Claire intended to do just that. It didn't help that her stomach was rolling, or that shivers kept sending jitters up her spine.
"Do you need a break?" Scott asked softly.
Claire shook her head minutely, a decision she instantly regretted. "I'm fine. Just keep walking."
"Are you sure?" Scott didn't bother to mask his concern. One of his hands was curled around her waist, supporting her weight. He brought his other hand to her forehead. "You look like the dead," he said, mouth twitching in a crooked smile.
"I said I'm fine, grandma." Claire slapped his hand away. She sighed. "It's just… it's been a day."
Claire stole a furtive look at Castiel, carried along on the stretcher by Jake and Carl. They'd bundled him up as best as they could, with staples and bandages and everything else they could find. Covered up with his own coat, his injuries were not as startling anymore, but the bandage around his throat was soaked through, and there was no hiding that horrible bite mark on his cheek, a chunk of it missing entirely.
"Don't worry," said Scott, catching her staring. He gave her a small smile. "I'm sure he just needs to rest. Soon he'll be as good as new, just like last time. You'll see."
Jake was not so delicate. "He's not healing like last time." He stared at the road ahead as he spoke, expression unreadable. "What if he dies? Are we gonna have a superpowered dead guy on our hands?"
"He's not going to die," Carl spoke calmly.
Claire looked away. She worried her dry, peeling lip between her teeth. Her mind raced with possibilities. Castiel's sickness had been the result of an overabundance of power. He'd leveled a town setting loose to all that power. Where did that leave him? Was he human? Something close to human? Angels couldn't turn, Claire was sure of that. Even animals couldn't turn. But Castiel was, for all intents and purposes, wearing a human body. Could he turn, then? Would that mean that Castiel was already dead, and all they were doing was lugging around his empty, dying shell?
The silence was broken by the unmistakable sound of a car heading toward them. They froze, knowing they were nowhere near in shape for a fight.
"Into the woods," Carl shot, already pivoting Castiel's stretcher off the road. "Quickly!"
Gritting her teeth, Claire turned to follow, but she stumbled when Scott suddenly let her go. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
The car appeared around the bend in the road. Claire recognized it instantly as one of the Hunters' cars. It upped its speed, hurtling toward them. Scott stared down at the approaching vehicle calmly. With confident, practiced movements, Scott went down on one knee and pressed the rifle's stock to his shoulder, slightly adjusting his aim. Then he fired.
The car's front tire exploded. The hunters swerved out of control, tires screeching. Without taking a pause, Scott stood up and released another bullet, this time meeting the driver square in the forehead. The car lost control, running into the shrubbery, wheels still turning under the dead driver's foot. Scott lifted his rifle again, taking a step forward. This time, however, his rifle made a loud noise of protest.
"Damn dust!" Scott huffed.
The car's back doors opened. A man began to crawl out, a pistol grasped in his hand. "Scott," Claire hissed, grabbing her friend's arm. She wasn't about to test their luck any further.
Scott ducked under her arm. "Okay, okay." Helping Claire with her injured knee, they went into the woods, running to catch up with the others.
As they ran, Claire had only one thing to say to him: "Scott, what the fuck."
The group kept going until they couldn't go anymore, all but collapsing in pain and exhaustion. If they thought they had been lost before, there was no longer any doubt. Whatever wrongness Claire had sensed before had ebbed away, but it didn't make the woods any less creepy come nightfall. Even exhausted as they were, falling asleep seemed nigh impossible. Their nerves were wrecked. Every so often Mikey would get up and pace, looking around like he was waiting for his night vision to kick in, setting them all on edge.
Carl, having had enough, finally grabbed Mikey's hand and yanked him down. "Will you relax?" he said, huffing. "You're making everybody nervous."
Mikey rubbed his wrist, glaring. "It's not like we're out of the woods yet."
"Ha ha." Carl rolled his one eye.
"You know what I meant."
Carl didn't respond, just turned his face away. He'd been in a strange mood since they'd clawed their way out of that basement. Claire peered at him, furrowing her brows. Carl had never been a particularly tactile person, except maybe with Judith, but now he seemed especially unapproachable. A hard person. Claire sighed, not wanting to press the issue. She might never get the image of Carl elbow-deep in Castiel's guts out of her head.
The night grew colder, and Claire found herself beginning to shiver. Lighting a fire was out of the question, not with those Hunters still lurking about. Either way, as their grumbling stomachs constantly reminded them, it wasn't like they had anything to cook.
Noticing her shivering, Jake threw a hoodie at Claire's head. "What? You look cold."
Claire swallowed a smile, well versed with Jake's particular brand of empathy. She lifted the hoodie to her face, giving it a perfunctory sniff. It was several sizes too big, letting off a musty sort of smell that vaguely reminded Claire of her grandmother's house. She put it on anyway. "Thanks."
He waved it off. "Don't wanna deal with your sick ass, s'all."
Claire burrowed deeper into the hoodie. She couldn't seem to stop shivering. "Don't worry, I don't get sick. Can't remember the last time I got so much as a cold."
Enid leaned over to give her a side-armed hug. "'Cause you're Wolverine." Her smile wavered. "Are you sure you're okay? You look a bit, I dunno, off."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? I'm fine." She poked her finger between Enid's eyebrows, right under the nasty gash that's been swelling there, giving her a rather unfortunate double forehead. "You don't look so hot yourself."
Enid winced a little. "Fair."
"I think it's a good look," Jake said, snickering. "Now you're like, brainey."
"What, are you jealous?" Enid shot back.
Claire rolled her eyes, secretly glad her friends were well enough to bicker. Perhaps it meant things weren't as bad as they seemed. She shifted a little, the movement sending a jolt of pain up her knee. Wincing, Claire reached down to take her boot off, hoping it might relieve some of the pressure. Her fingers passed over a hole in her jeans, right above her ankle. The skin there felt bruised, hot to the touch.
Frowning, Claire rolled up her pant leg. What she found made her freeze, the blood draining from her face.
"What is it?" Enid asked, bumping Claire with her shoulder.
Claire didn't respond. Her fingers ghosted over the wound. It was barely a graze. The skin was only slightly broken. But there was no mistaking it for anything than what it was:
A bitemark.