Part XIX

Puck whistled in appreciation.

"Is it dead?" Tina asked, not even wanting to open her eyes.

"I think it's as dead as it can be" Hiram answered, a bit too loud, probably because he was a bit deaf from being so close to the explosion.

"Damn, Kurt, you have one hell of an aim. Didn't think you had it in you" Puck said, without turning off his flashlight and rounding the counter, with Kurt close on his back.

There was blood on the wall where the burst from the creature's head had ended, and there was something that was currently sliding down and which might have been brains… though Kurt didn't really want to think about it.

He made himself look, mostly because he knew that whatever this was he'd have to get used to it. There was no turning back now that he had actually killed one.

The thing on the ground looked pretty much human, just like Santana said, like a common neighbor with a cannibal kink. It was a woman, if the clothes and shape were any indication, a bit on the big side and its skin looked pretty bad. She smelled like decay and blood.

It was the same acrid smell they had felt at Mercedes' house.

"Is it someone we know?" Tina asked, still on the other side of the counter. Kurt shook his head as a no and shrugged.

"I know her" Puck said, and for the first time Kurt took his eyes from the body on the floor to look at his partner. He looked shaken. "It's Lauren's mom"

"Wasn't she dead?" Kurt asked, surprised, keeping his eyes off the floor where the woman was bleeding and where the remains of muscle and fat were so obviously present, still attached to half the face. He knew it was there, he didn't really want to see it.

Hearing it spasm with the last bits of blood and electric impulses in the body was enough.

"That's what Lauren said, and really, if she said she broke her neck I completely believe her, that girl can open a watermelon with her hands" Puck said, shrugging. "I wonder what she was doing here"

"I wonder what she was doing alive, really" Kurt said, looking at him as if he were crazy.

"Dude, things are weird. She could be a zombie for all we know" Puck answered.

"That actually kind of fits with what is happening doesn't it?" Tina said from the other side. "Can you please come back here? You are making me nervous being all the way there"

"Zombies you say?" Puck asked, biting his lower lip. "Assuming they are real… we might be in a real problem, you know?"

"You mean, besides the possibility of all of us dying or being eaten?" Kurt asked with his bitch face at the ready.

"Well… Lauren's mom was eating her husband, and she bit Lauren before she killed her… and we all know what happens to people when they get bitten by zombies" he explained, looking really stricken.

"So you are saying…"

"That she is infected" Kurt supplied when he realized that Puck wasn't going to be able to keep talking.

"But… that happened on Saturday, it's Monday and she wasn't showing any kind of sign that she might be one of them, has she?" Tina asked, looking worried.

"Besides being really, really hungry? Well… she has always been a hungry girl, and she did spend the whole weekend fastening… I'm not sure if that's a sign" Hiram answered, motioning them to continue walking past the woman on the floor and pointing his flashlight to the trail they had been following before.

They started walking, Tina and Hiram on the front, Kurt and Puck in the back. Under the cover of the darkness Kurt gave the mohawked boy a one armed hug and walking with him like that until the guy had calmed down a little.

"She is dangerous" he said after a while. "She is really strong, more than any of us, and if she turns into a zombie she is going to be deathly, more than the others"

"I know" Kurt said, leaning so that their heads touched.

"I'm worried about the others… we left them alone with her and… what if…?"

"We already did it, if something happens… I guess we'll find out when we come back" he said, shrugging. "We can't worry about that now, if there are any others like Lauren's mom we must be careful, we can't be distracted"

"I know… I'm sorry, it's just… she is my friend… I don't want to lose her"

"It's ok, but we have to hurry for now. I'll be there if you need me"

"I know" Puck said, standing tall again. "Thank you"