A/N: Final chapter! I had a lot of fun writing this fic. Thanks for giving this freaky concept a shot! lol I've appreciated all of the reviews, alerts, and favorites. Thanks so much for reading!

Chapter Sixteen

It was getting kind of hard not to touch Finn at every given opportunity. If his hands weren't on him, his mouth was. If his mouth wasn't, his eyes were, and they did more to Finn than his hands and mouth combined. Puck called it 'eye fucking' and told him to cut it out twice on two separate occasions while he was watching them play video games. Well, watching Finn play and periodically licking his lips. Kurt couldn't even be embarrassed about it. There was something about almost dying that lowered his inhibitions and compelled him to appreciate Finn in every way he was capable.

The good thing was Finn was feeling the same way. He got as much as he gave and then some. The bad news, their move to New York wasn't for another two and a half months and to avoid mortifying themselves and their parents, their eyes were doing a lot of the work their hands and mouths wanted to. They didn't have that problem at the moment however.

Puck's back yard was packed with McKinley's Class of Lima Loser graduates for the first of many graduation parties that would probably get raided by police by the end of the night. His mom had taken his sister and gone to his aunt's house, her graduation gift to her son. Kurt couldn't think of a worse person to be given free reign and no supervision, but he wasn't complaining. Finn was sitting in one of the long lawn chairs in the grass away from the pool with his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands exploring Kurt's butt as he straddled him. Kurt's hands framed his face as he tilted his head and ran his tongue along Finn's teeth. They had been making out for…an undetermined amount of time.

It was getting hard to remember a time before their mouths were steaming against each other, tasting and nibbling. So much PDA would have normally given Kurt hives, but he was a little buzzed from the keg, Finn felt absolutely wonderful underneath him, and they had the advantage of being at a Puck hosted party, making it a safe zone. If anyone gave them trouble they would get kicked out or a kicked ass, depending on gender.

Unless, of course, they were Mercedes Jones.

Aiming a squirt gun at them, she fired. A thin stream of cold water doused their faces apart. Kurt blinked, pulling out of his hunch, but by the time he came out of his Finn Hudson Brain Fog, Finn was already trying to catch water in his mouth from her attack.

Kurt wiped the moisture from his eyes and shot a testy look at her. "Do you have any idea how much this top cost me?"

She snorted. "Who cares? You were about to ruin your pants."

Kurt was packing a semi, so she wasn't entirely off. He blushed an unflattering shade of red, looking like Miss Piggy in a rage.

Finn caressed his thighs with a shrug, squeezing the higher he went. "We could always ditch the pants."

Kurt bit his bottom lip, because Finn's hotness knew no bounds. Except for those puffy vests. They were really starting to grind on Kurt's nerves. He was considering burning them all before they moved to the city.

"No way." Puck appeared beside Mercedes with a plastic cup in his hand. "You two snog whores aren't flaking on my party to go have rainbow sex in my room."

Kurt carefully maneuvered so that he was sitting sideways on Finn's lap. "As if I would ever let my bare flesh touch anything in your bedroom. You could probably catch herpes from inhaling the air."

"Damn straight." Puck snickered as though it were a badge of honor.

Mercedes wrinkled her nose. "You do know you're nasty right?"

Puck moved up beside her, directing his pelvis at her hips. "Nasty for you, sugar momma."

"Ew." She raised her palm to his face and stepped away as Finn laughed.

"Noah." Rachel bumped into him and a couple of cups off of the top of the big pile in her arms fell to the grass. "Are you aware that the underage drinking here is nearly at a hundred percent? This is no small party. I think we should start asking people their weight so we can properly calculate the amount of alcohol they may ingest without being poisoned, wrecking their kidneys or going blind."

Puck popped a hand over her mouth. "Quiet, half-pint, you're ruining my buzz." He knocked all the empty cups in her arms to the ground and her jaw dropped. "No cleaning up either. I took everyone's keys and I've got a buddy system going, all right? Party, Rach. This is the last time you have to see any of these douchebags."

"Not true, Noah. I'll still see you occasionally for Shabbat dinner."

"Thanks, Berry, but I wasn't actually lumping myself in with the douchebags." He stared at her until she looked properly chagrined.

She turned her appraising look to Kurt instead; sitting in Finn's lap with his hair mussed, his cheeks rosy, and his lips royally abused. She huffed. "Kurt, really, you were once a man of dignified restraint."

Yep. Rachel's survivor's high had definitely faded. She was back to her anal retentive nose-in-the-air self. Just like they liked her. A lot of things had returned to normal in the past few weeks. Puck had started coming over again, coming back to life a little at a time. Kurt had gone shopping with Mercedes twice and hadn't flinched around cars, a get-back-on-the-horse move that he was particularly proud of himself for accomplishing without a decade in therapy. He heard from Rachel that Mr. Schuester was thinking up ways to recruit new members and fill the Glee Club back up for next year. As a whole, they weren't crying as much. Though the sadness was there, it was becoming more manageable, and the healing process was underway.

The strangest part in the last couple of weeks was Karofsky, Azimio, and Jacob. He hadn't seen anything pertaining to them and as far as he knew, no unspeakable 'accident' had befallen any of them. He had heard that a couple of the aquarium survivors had died in mysterious welding accidents. They were two of the people he had tried to contact, but he hadn't seen anything about them and his warnings had been rejected so he refused to shoulder any blame about their deaths, losing sleep over it only a few nights. His classmates seemed to be A-okay though, proven by Jacob running around the party filming everything for his vlog and the arrival of Karofsky and Azimio in the crowded back yard. He didn't know what to make of that.

He also didn't know how comfortable he was having those two anywhere near him. Their hearing wasn't for another few weeks and he would just as soon not see them before that. Finn noticed them at the same time. He stiffened under Kurt.

"What the hell are they doing here?" He asked angrily. Kurt was glad he was weighing him down or he might have shot up and been across the yard by now. Anger made him impulsive and combative.

Puck followed his glare and made a face. "Speaking of douchebags. I got this." He headed off with Rachel at his side. Kurt couldn't hear them as they reached the jocks but saw Rachel pointing in their faces, her mouth running a million miles a minute.

"That girl's like a Chihuahua." Mercedes observed. "Has no idea the difference between her and two big Rottweilers."

Kurt knew it. But Puck, being the Pit Bull that he was, had her back as she wagged her finger in their stunned faces.

"You know, it actually looks pretty nice out here." He looked around, appreciating something that wasn't attached to Finn for the first time since he got there. Finn hesitantly drew his eyes away from Puck and Rachel's Jock Population Control mission and looked around, snaking an arm around Kurt's waist.

The sky was dark, dotted with a speckle of bright stars. Puck had tiki lights set up on strings that hung from poles around the perimeter of the back yard. The pool was lit up and the people who hadn't brought a suit were jumping in fully clothed or fully not. It was a cheerful atmosphere. Everyone was saying goodbye with a final major hangover and happy to move on. High school was over. They made it. Lima hadn't eaten their souls. Just sucked them out a little bit.

"Porcelain."

Kurt looked up in shock to see Sue Sylvester standing nearby, curling her lip at all of the drunken debauchery she would no doubt enjoy calling the cops on. She crooked her finger for him to come to her. He felt like a minion being summoned by Count Dracula but wasn't sure there was a way to not go. He shared a look with Finn who looked confused and a little alarmed.

"Uh, I'll get us another drink." He hesitated as they wiggled themselves up. "It'll probably be water though. Coach Sylvester scares me."

Kurt gave him a half-smile and squeezed his hand. Mercedes took one look at the track suit wearing villainess and scooted off with Finn. Coward. Kurt walked over to his former Cheerio coach, wary and alone.

"Coach Sylvester!" He gave her a practiced smile. "How may I help you?"

Sue waved at his strain. "Calm down, Minnie Mouse, I'm not here to bust you and your delinquent comrades. It's enough for me to know I'll never have to see any of you mongrels in my school again. I'll undoubtedly spy castoffs from the bottom of the barrel around town checking out my groceries and digging for food out of trash bins like overgrown rats, but that's a problem for another day. Here it is. I have uncovered some disturbing news about your devilry that I didn't think could wait."

"My devilry?" Kurt asked cautiously. "This isn't about my sexuality is it, because I find you crashing a high school party to try to 'straighten me out' rather alarming."

"Oh, Tom Cruise Jr., how many times must I tell you I don't care who you bone as long as it doesn't involve any actual animal bones? That's a step towards witchcraft and just like my ancestors in Salem, I have no patience for it."

Kurt narrowed his eyes. "Okay. What is it then?"

"Your premonitions, Porcelain. Death's list isn't written in a line. It's written in a circle." She said, her head hunched toward him.

All of the air went out of the party. "What do you mean?"

"After losing three of my star cheerios, I looked into their deaths. Their common connection? You. Through the help of my contacts at NASA and the Underground Group of Lascivious Youngsters I was able to determine the depth and reality of this pattern. Also, Ben Israel's YouTube channel helped. I looked up the same things you must have. When I took it to William to verify, though, he seemed surprised by something in my findings. This torture happy Death cretin finds the people who evade It and kick their buckets one by one, correct?"

Kurt nodded but everything in him was telling him not to listen. He didn't want to follow this trail, didn't want to know what she did. Even as his impulses pled with him to run, he noticed Puck was now alone with Karofsky and Azimio. Rachel was standing a few feet away with Mr. Schuester. They were huddled together as Mr. Schue spoke quietly and Rachel grew steadily more uneasy. Any hope that Sue was playing a final prank on the Glee Club faded. If Mr. Schuester had crashed to warn them he obviously thought the information was credible.

"Did you also know," Sue asked, "that Death isn't as big a quitter as the typical Lima resident? If at first It doesn't succeed, It will try and try again. Much like Ben Israel every single day of every year of high school as he tried and failed repeatedly to get into the girls' locker room on my watch. The kid is a pervert and requires the kind of help his family just can't afford." Kurt turned his face away from her, but his eyebrows raised. That was true. "I looked up previously reported events like this." She went on. "Pieced together the orders, who died when It sought them out, who was skipped. Everyone who was skipped…"

Don't say it.

Kurt looked over his shoulder at Finn and Mercedes clinking their water bottles together and laughing at someone who just did a cannonball into the pool.

"They were all found again." Sue finished and an unsettling foreign look of sympathy entered her eyes. She put a hand on his shoulder. "It came again and again until It could finish the job. The post-mortem photos were so disturbing that I threw up down my best track suit. Porcelain, there were no survivors…"

A cool breeze blew through the party and rippled over the pool water. By the house, someone was messing with the music trying to get it to play something else, but John Denver's 'Rocky Mountain High' continued to waft through the stereo system.

But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care

It keeps changin' fast and it don't last for long

Kurt's eyes darted up to the longest line of tiki lights as one by one they flickered off and on again as though something dark was devouring their energy as it passed.

"Hummel?" Sue inquired.

Kurt took a step back. "It's here."

Quickly his mind jumped over trying to process the idea that it wasn't over and went straight to the immediate danger. Karofsky, Azimio, and Jacob were still next. Those three and then it would come back around.

He spotted Puck still squabbling with the jocks by the back door to his house and started in that direction, shoving past people who got in his way. He scanned the crowd for Jacob but didn't see his big hair sticking out in the masses. Finn and Mercedes were leaning against a table by one of the tiki lamp posts talking to people from their English Lit class. Mr. Schuester and Rachel had moved over by the shallow end of the pool where they could get some privacy. Rachel was gesturing wildly and looked more riled up than she did before a competition. She started ducking her head around, probably searching the rest of their group out. A coldness settled within him as he realized every one of them was there. A full menu.

"Puck," Kurt called when he was close enough to be heard over the music. "We have a problem. Have you seen Jacob Ben Israel? I think he might be next. We need to find-"

The static pop of shattered glass and electricity blew once behind them and then several more times. Kurt flinched and whipped around, raising his eyes toward the noise. The far line of tiki lamps were firing off and exploding along their string. The people in the pool screamed and swam for the sides, pulling themselves out. Jacob was squatting at the edge recording the girls in their bathing suits and stood, swinging his camera upward to catch what was going on along the lights. Two cheerios rushing out of the pool yanked themselves out and shoved past him as they distanced themselves from the pool.

Jacob stumbled back over the slick pool edge, sneakers squeaking through the water as his legs went out from under him. The back of his head smashed against the edge of the pool with a sickening crunch. An instant secretion of thick red poured down the side into the pool. Long shrieks webbed throughout the party in random areas where people had caught sight of the accident.

"Oh fuck! Did you see that shit?" Azimio clipped Puck's shoulder and shoved past Kurt to get a better view. "Ben Idiot busted his head!" He pointed a thick finger at the pool where the last of the swimmers were hauling themselves out and Jacob's still figure was gaining more attention. There was a slight chuckle in his voice. "Karofsky, did you-"

A screaming girl bumped into Azimio as she ran past him, and he turned with an immediate scowl. He took a step after her. "Woman, watch where you're-" His foot stuck on the step up to the patio and he tripped, reaching out and grabbing the refreshment table with the huge cap and gown frosted cake. It folded under his weight, slipping the sweets down the side and knocking the knife on its handle before Azimio could catch himself. The tip pierced his eyes as he went down hard, burying the blade through his socket and silencing Azimio's started bellow with a choked garble. Kurt gasped and jumped, flipping toward Karofsky as he swore loudly and scrambled backward. He turned and ran hard for the house, barreling into the clean glass of the sliding doors and breaking through it. The glass shattered apart and he collapsed, throat slicing through a jagged spear. He choked and gagged on the instant outpour of blood, falling limp over the glittery glass. The panic spread from the pool to the patio with increasingly sharp cries that cut over the blaring music with bone chilling fright.

"Ah, what the fuck?" Puck exclaimed.

The short flames flickering off the far side lantern across the yard singed the string and burned straight through it. The string of lights fell down with a swing, falling into the water.

Sparks bounced erratically from the electric lanterns on the adjacent line of lights as they too began exploding. A hockey player threw his arms over his head for cover and shoved past the people in front of him, banging into Mr. Schuester's side and making him slip over the wet side of the pool. Rachel reached for him, but he slipped hard and splashed sideways into the pool. The lights in the water sparked and fired jolts of electricity in the water, catching Mr. Schuester in their fatal claws. His body jittered in stiff jerky movements and twitched in the charged water.

Kurt tripped into Puck's side as he stared over his shoulder, pushing them both backward in shock. Rachel stood on the edge of the pool, arms bent at her sides and stared at their teacher's body screaming. Kurt's wide eyes grew and darted around as he flinched and jumped at the commotion around him. Too much was happening at once with no time for any of it to properly compute.

Chaos erupted. Screams from all sides pierced the party as people either stared at the pool, moved minutely closer for a better view, or fled. Those fleeing bumped into anyone in their way, shouting and shoving their way toward the house.

"Fuck, man, was that Schuester?" Puck bellowed, pushing Kurt off of him and back to his senses. Several people clipped his shoulder on the way to the back door, others bypassing the house entirely and running around the side to get to the front yard, desperate for distance or their cars.

Familiar voices cut above the frantic screams.

"Oh my God!" Mercedes took a step toward the pool and screaming Rachel but stopped.

"Mr. Schue?" Finn took a step closer like Mercedes and began jogging toward the pool.

Kurt's mind worked furiously. This wasn't right. Even if it circled back it was happening too quickly. There was no recovery time. No opportunity to regroup. It was too fast to track or slow it down or stop. But the fury in the air stung the night with a deeper darkness. Not only were all three of the last of them taken out, but Death had just circled back and claimed Mr. Schuester. It would turn to the next person on the list. So that meant…

Kurt took off at a run for his best friend. "Mercedes!"

She turned in his direction as the lamps behind her buzzed and popped. Finn recognized his voice and the terror behind it and stopped in his tracks. He saw where Kurt was headed and changed course, shouting over his shoulder with a deep furious baritone that was commanding enough to get through the shock.

"Rachel, get away from the pool!"

Rachel stumbled away from the edge on clumsy zombie feet as the string behind Mercedes singed and split. The one directly over her swung down with dangerous aim. Finn ran for her, but the lamp buzzed and crackled, exploding just as he reached her. The miniature bomb caught Mercedes mid-duck and blew through the side of her head. A hole caved and busted her skull like a shotgun blast. She went down in a heap as the sparks and flames forced Finn to hit the ground with his arms over his head. Kurt tripped in horror, falling to his knees on the grass and staring at his fallen friend in nearly paralyzing shock.

The fire and uncontained electrical bursts ran along the string of wire to the pole stand. Finn grabbed his chest as he stared with his jaw dropped at Mercedes gaping head wound. Several feet away, Kurt shook so hard on the ground that he couldn't even begin to get his legs under him to stand. He could barely get his name out of his trembling lips in warning.

"F-Finn!"

The spurting charges behind him caught the pole, sending dangerous pulses down the wood and exploding. It broke at the middle and the long spear head of the post flew out like a magnet for Finn. It sliced down, catching Finn through the chest and stabbed the ground with enough force to tear through bone. Finn's body jerked against the attack but the light left his eyes in a fraction of a second as he went limp against the grass.

An anguished scream ripped through Kurt from his core, tearing through his throat and polluting the night with unmatched emotion within a cacophony of other screams.

Rachel was as pale as a sheet as she stumbled toward Finn and Mercedes' bodies.

"Kurt, who's next?" Puck hollered from somewhere at his side, grasping the situation quickly. "Who's next?"

Kurt's eyes burned unblinkingly into Finn's grotesquely butchered body in the grass, feeling like his heart was exploding in his chest. He could barely find his voice and when he did it sounded like a weak ghostly version of itself passing through his dazed lips.

"I don't…I don't know." A sharp unsteady breath hitched in his lungs.

"Hummel!" Puck shouted.

Kurt tried to focus his swimming mind. His head flew up at the girl in front of them. "Rachel!" He warned.

She didn't so much as look up from staring at Finn and Mercedes' bodies before the two posts along the side of the house caught the sparking flames and blew in two, firing out like missiles through a flame thrower. They shot toward Rachel, but Puck rushed for her. He almost caught her around the middle, but the flaming posts nailed the area where she was standing, bulldozing through her back. Between blinks, the second one drove through Puck and pinned them both to the ground like morbid garden gnomes.

Blood splattered out against Kurt's face in a jarring spray of dotted crimson streams. He stared up at their mangled bodies from the ground and screamed in harmony with the many shrieks of other partygoers. He was barely able to drag a shaky breath into his lungs before the last post along the house burst. It fired down at him in an arc, too quickly to even raise his arms as a shield. He watched it fly towards him and gasped- -

- -With a hard wince, Finn flinched away from Mercedes and dropped the water bottle in his hands. He stared down at the ground in shock, hands flying up to his chest to feel for the post he felt tear through his heart. His palms slapped against his sweater, but there was no blood or stab or pain. He looked up, but Mercedes' hair was in place too, not blown apart on the side of her head. His eyes flew up to the strung up lights, all hanging harmlessly where they were set up around the perimeter of the party. His chest heaved with quick panicked breaths.

Mercedes chuckled as she narrowed her eyes on him. "You okay, White Boy?"

His eyes searched the party quickly and found his boyfriend standing near the lawn chair they had shared still talking to Coach Sylvester. Kurt was clutching his own chest and shaking violently, and Finn knew he wasn't the only one who just had his fate laid out in front of him.

Finn couldn't hear anything over the loud speakers where someone was trying to get the music to change off of the weird old folksy sounding song it was stuck on.

Kurt turned his head toward him instinctively and caught his eyes across the cluttered party. There was a dark set to his expression, a heavy grimness in his eyes that matched Finn's own bleak gaze. A chill swept through the night.

The static pop of shattered glass and electricity blew once by the pool and then several more times as the lamps exploded rapidly down the string, shooting sparks in every direction. Finn's heart sunk, and screams rose through the darkness.