Burt was careless about the time, probably because of the rough road between parts of forest and farmland. The travel he planned to make wasn't that long, but the road time increased due to some "bathroom" stops, and because we took a lot of detours to avoid passing through cities. We also made a quick stop for some cereal and milk. Nothing like a little sugar running through our veins. The boys, especially Blaine and Sam, wanted to find a place to fish or even, who knows, hunt. But Burt was adamant that this wasn't the time to think about such things. I've never been the most meat-eating person in the world, yet I was dying to get some animal protein but tinned tuna or dried meat. However, like everyone else here, I had to settle for the processed foods that sustained us all those days.

In the anguish of finding a place for us to stay, Burt chose what looked like one of those forest reserve administrative headquarters. I had no idea where exactly we were, but I did know that we were walking parallel to the Ohio border with West Virginia, heading towards Kentucky. The administrative headquarters looked empty. We didn't see cars or movement from anyone. Burt got out of the truck to check the building. He signaled for Finn to follow him and the two circled in opposite directions. That's when we heard a warning shot.

"Hey!" Burt screamed. "I don't want trouble! We don't want trouble! We come in peace! My family and I are looking for a place to spend the night."

There was no immediate response. Just as Burt was giving up to look elsewhere, a female voice called out.

"Do you have food?"

"Why?"

"It's the price."

"We don't have much." Burt bluffed.

"Two packs of pasta." The woman screamed. "And a packet of tomato sauce."

"We don't have pasta, let alone tomato sauce." Burt bluffed again.

"Everyone has pasta. It's the only kind of food left in the world!"

I no longer had the power to decide or vote as a group while I was grounded, but if it were up to me, I would have turned my back and looked elsewhere, taking advantage of the fact that we still had at least one more hour of sunlight. With the amount of zombies and reapers in the world, I'm sure there are plenty of locations left. I was sure there was a house next to this small building that might have been empty. Burt didn't think so. He was a very stubborn chap when it came to making a decision and, apparently, he wanted that particular house for who knows what reason. I think Burt had a certain need to assert himself as a leader whose last word was his. That alone justified the fact that we left a safe house to venture back onto the road.

"That's fine." Burt yelled back. "You let us in and I'll get you some food."

"No. You place the food in front of the door and we'll see if we can let you in."

It was the dumbest deal in the world. There was only one person talking, who certainly had a gun. Even if I wasn't in any condition, let alone Mike, we still had Sam, Blaine, Finn and Rachel ahead. They might as well pick up weapons and balance the forces. But not. Burt walked over to Sam and Blaine's truck and put some of our food in a box. I couldn't see what he put in there, but let's say it was more than two packets of pasta and a packet of sauce. Burt placed the package in front of the door. Someone quickly opened it and pulled the box inside. Daylight was already ending, and from my point of view, that was a complete waste of time.

"You can come in. No weapons."

Burt signaled for us to park the cars in a more discreet spot, out of sight of passers-by on the highway. Then we entered the small building, which was a two-story house. The front door was typical of commercial establishments, like the doors of the public library in the citadel where we were until that morning. The difference was that the glass in those doors no longer existed and they had been replaced with wood.

When we entered, there were two women, one brunette and one Asian, pointing rifles at us. I had my revolver hidden in my leg, but with my left arm still healing, shooting accurately with my right arm would be a matter of luck. I felt Brittany take my right hand, and she didn't seem as concerned about the distrust and initial hostility. Brittany was a good reader of character, so I thought those two women were playing tough because it was really needed in the apocalyptic world.

The two women appeared to be close in age, in their late 20s and early 30s. The brunette had a scar on her face, near her ear. The Asian was as short as Tina, but she had an expression that it wouldn't be good business to fuck with her. I took a look around, and there appeared to be a very modest reception hall. It had a counter, rugs and a set of sofas. The windows were boarded up, there were rooms inside the building, which I had no idea what they were, and there was also a staircase behind the hall.

"Stay on that side, please." The Asian woman directed us to the sofa area, leaving the door open. She then hurried and propped up the door with a board, and closed the curtains.

"My name is Burt Hummel."

The Asian woman put her finger to her lips in silence.

"While you're here, keep your voice down. The contaminated listen very well and we don't want to have this place compromised."

The brunette caught the Asian's attention and started talking in sign language.

"Okay." Burt said in a lower tone and more slowly. "This is my wife, Carole, and this is my stepson, Finn. The kids here are Finn's school friends. They've been together since it all started."

I rolled my eyes. It even seemed that Burt was largely responsible for gathering and protecting all the kids.

"I'm Tess. This is Sara." The Asian woman said it short and to the point.

"Do you think this house isn't beefy enough to bother talking softly?" Carole asked.

"The building is secure, so far. But those things..."

"Reapers are aggressive, but they're not that smart. We stayed in homes reinforced only with flag boards like this one. We were fine." Finn commented in a more or less normal tone of voice. Tess scolded him, urging him to keep his voice really low.

"Reapers?"

"That's what the kids call those things. Zombies and reapers." Burt quickly explained.

"Well…I agree that the…reapers…were very aggressive and not very smart. Fact. But we just noticed an… evolution?"

"What? How?" Burt asked, which was a curiosity of mine too.

"They are getting more coordinated."

"We are far from the city, I thought there weren't many reapers here." I said.

"I think zombies prefer cities. But we noticed that some infected flocks are migrating to the forests."

"So there is danger here?" I asked.

"Not if you keep your voice down."

I didn't know what happened to Tess, or what Sara's business was. I had no idea of their history, but they were certainly as survivors as we are, and for that they deserved all the credit. They lowered their weapons and Tess invited us up the stairs at the back of the hall. She always asked us to be as quiet as possible, and we did as much as possible. From what I could see, there was a kitchen and another door that was closed. That small building didn't have a basement, and stairs led to the second floor and terrace. Tess wanted to take us out onto the terrace, which took up half the length of the roof and doubled as a sort of surveillance platform. From there, we follow the last streak of sun on the horizon. It would be a cold night, and I was already regretting not taking my jacket from the car. I believe we were still half an hour waiting for what she had to show, until Tess pointed to the clearing in the backyard of that building.

We saw from above at least ten reapers coming out of the forest towards the building. They walked slowly, cautiously. Until I realized what Tess meant by coordinates: one of the reapers, a male, gestured for the pack to circle the house. The group split in two, went around the house, checked the cars as well and, to our complete surprise, threw some of the boxes on the ground. Good thing the guns were in the SUV. Since they didn't find anything that interested them, and since they didn't realize that we were watching them from above, they went back into the forest. Tess again made the sign of silence and invited us to leave the terrace. Good thing, because I was freezing.

Still going down the stairs, Tess explained almost in a whisper.

"They have a pattern or a routine… this pack in question at least. They pass this house twice a night. If they realize we're here, they try to get in. Sara and I locked up before the sun even went down, and we stayed quiet in our room. So we weren't bothered by them. It's been like this for a month. Sometimes we hear horrible noises they make, but we try ignore it because they don't know we're here. Do you understand why if you want to spend the night here, it will have to be in silence?"

Sara stood at the top of the stairs while Tess gave orders about where our boundaries were inside. We could use the bathroom, but the kitchen and laboratory were out of the question. We were given nothing more, no more information or privileges. The hall had a rug of which haven't seen a vacuum cleaner in in a long time, a couch and two armchairs. It wasn't much. Burt and Carole took the couch to sleep. Mike took one of the armchairs and Rachel took the last one by luck. The rest of us settled on the floor. Brittany and I, as usual, settled in together.

Burt ordered vigils because trusting Tess and Sara on sight would be stupid. I was the first and I spent an hour and a half watching the others trying to nap, at least. I looked through one of the windows, but all I saw was our cars and the forest in the dim moonlight. When I had my time, I woke up Blaine, who would be next on the list. An hour and a half for him too. Meanwhile, I leaned against Brittany and tried to doze off even on the hard floor.

I woke up suddenly to banging noises throughout the house. I realized it was Tina who was on watch at that moment, and she was pretty scared, even in the dark I could see it.

"What happened?" Quinn asked in a whisper.

"I just looked out the window…I swear." Tina said in a shaky voice.

This time I was the one to look out the window, and what I saw were reapers probing the house, banging their arms against the walls. The reapers began to beat harder against the windows, and it reminded me so much of that terrible night in the mass suicide village. Until a reaper broke the window glass, which was thankfully boarded up. It was enough for everyone to wake up and be alert. I hiked up the hem of my pants and grabbed my revolver. Obviously my left shoulder was still very sore and a little weak, so I decided to once again hand over my gun to the person I most trusted with a gun in hand: Rachel.

The reapers found the main door, which had only one strut, and began to press on it. I looked at the counter and tried to push it around, but it was too heavy for me. Brittany tried to help me while Burt pulled the sofa in the doorway. Reapers began to break the window panes, and I feared for the first time how effective the boards were. I had never seen a reaper as aggressive as those. The others began to press on the door so that the brace began to bend, and we saw that the sofa would not be of much help.

"All of you upstairs now!" Burt ordered.

We ran to the second floor with Mike being helped by Sam and Finn. We tried the rooms, and one of them was securely locked. I knew Tess and Sara were inside, and they wouldn't let us in. We tested the other rooms. Two of them were locked as well. There was only one room left, and luckily this one was open. We all got into it. Apparently there was an administrative office there. The boys threw the steel cabinet and table to block the door. We were still, in silence. Waiting for the door to be pushed open, while the slamming and rattling of glass continued downstairs.

"What did you do?" Finn asked angrily, even whispering.

"Nothing!" Tina was tearful. "I just looked out of the window."

"What?"

"I looked out of the window. I didn't make any noise, I just looked out of the window. I don't know how that reaper could have possibly seen me with everything dark in here."

"Quiet!" Burt ordered.

The second-story windows were only latched simple, because reapers could not climb a wall very well, apparently, just as they couldn't swim. Burt carefully unlocked the window and looked down to see the situation. Then he closed the window again and asked for absolute silence. The noises on the first floor subsided. Burt pointed at the clock. It was almost seven in the morning and the sun was rising. It was our salvation. When the noises had stopped for good, Burt, Blaine and Finn moved the furniture blocking the door. Burt left slowly, cautiously, with Rachel behind him, after all, she had our only firearm there. We also left that room, going down the stairs slowly, in silence. When we got to the first floor, we saw that the front door held.

"Get out of our house now!" Tess surprised us, and she really was furious. Sara was right behind her also holding a rifle.

"Tess, it wasn't our fault." Burt tried to justify it.

"I said now, if you are decent people, leave now."

Burt didn't even try to argue anymore, much less Rachel pointed the gun at them. We moved the coach out of the way and the wooden plank that protected the main door. Always in Tess and Sara's sights. We had no excuses, no words were exchanged. The owners of that place were kicking us out and we respected that. The reapers did damage, but the house was still safe for those two. The front door had blood there, but the reapers weren't insistent enough to finish breaking it all in, perhaps because of the proximity of sunrise. We went towards the parked trucks, and the boys were soon putting our groceries back in the cars.

"The boxes stay." Tess said firmly.

"What?" Carole was outraged.

"It's the price you pay for compromising our home."

"We aren't going to hand over our things." I challenged and Sara pointed the gun at me. She was close enough not to miss.

"You have a very big mouth, girl. If I were you, I would leave the boxes, get in your car and drive away." Tess said firmly.

But before Tess made any further threats, we heard a gunshot. It was Rachel. She fired precisely at Sara, who was pointing the gun at me. She didn't shoot to kill, but Rachel hit her in the leg, which was enough for the brunette to fall to the ground screaming in a strange way. It was when I realized why Sara had never said a word in all that time, and why Tess had been communicating with her in sign language: Sara was mute and maybe deaf. Tess was desperate not knowing whether to help her friend or if she continued to point the gun at us.

"Rachel has accurate aim." Burt negotiated. "You'd better let us go in peace. Go take care of your friend while we go back to the road."

"I don't know how." Tess said almost crying.

"What?"

"I don't know how to treat a wound like that. I can't lose Sara."

"I can help." Quinn volunteered. "We've done them more harm than good, Burt. I'll check the wound and remove the bullet if necessary. Santana can sew it up and we leave with all our stuff."

"Do you agree with these terms, Tess?" Burt asked loud and clear.

"Yes." Tess lowered the gun, and so did Rachel.

I keep thinking that life plays certain jokes and ironies with us. We needed shelter, and we found two distrustful but apparently honest women inside a house that was the administrative headquarters of a forest reserve. These women helped us. What did we do, even if unintentionally? We compromised their home and still caused harm. As for the latter, it was self-defense, yet it was evil from both Tess and Sara's perspective. So we negotiated, we came to an agreement to partially remedy the evil. But all this happened without the deaf and mute girl lying on the floor being able to understand what was being negotiated. She was in too much pain to pay attention to movement or lip reading. What she saw was Finn approaching. Imagine, a guy almost two meters tall approaching to pick you up, and you not knowing what it's about? Sara still held the gun and she shot the guy who was coming to help her.

...

Imagine the rush and scream? Carole went wild, screaming as she was held by Burt. I was with Sara and I could hear a mother's despair from that laboratory. I wanted to drop Sara right there on top of that counter in what looked like a botany lab. I never got a chance to get into college and I had never taken the Hippocratic Oath. My father had a framed replica of that oath in his office at the hospital. What did the oath even say? Something about sick health will be the first concern. No, that wasn't me. But I was there anyway holding tweezers in my hand.

Tess held Sara's hand while I tried to get the shit bullet out of her leg with those tweezers from the lab. Imagine a left-handed pseudo-nurse wanting to perform an improvised surgery with her right hand. That would be nerve-racking for the patient and that person's loved ones. But I found the bullet and took it out, doing who knows what more damage to that woman's body. It was a matter of luck. There was significant bleeding there, and I didn't know how to stop blood by doing vascular surgeries. So I did what I knew to be rudimentary and which used to work. I had Tess press on the wound as best she could until the blood stopped. After I realised that the bleeding had stopped, not least because I hadn't caught any major veins, I cauterised the wound.

I did my best not to look at what Quinn was doing with Finn. Joe was helping her as best he could, poor thing, but everyone knew that Quinn's best helper would be me... and I was busy with the girl who shot Finn.

"Let me look." Tess took the pad off and I saw that everything was in place.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Tess asked tearfully.

"I don't know. Do you believe in God?"

"Sara has never shot someone before. We never did that. When we ran away from Charleston, we joined a group and some guys raped us..."

"Ma am!" I interrupted Tess. "I imagine you must have suffered the devil's bread along with your friend, but honestly I don't give a fuck. You're not going to make me sympathize with you after what happened. I'm not saving your friend because I want to or because I'm a better person. This is not me. I'm only here because that icy blonde who's trying to save my friend asked me to."

"Sorry."

"Let me have one more look."

Tess was startled by my indifference, and removed the compress. The blood had stopped after cauterisation, so I threw in some rubbing alcohol to prevent infection and sewed it up. If Sara felt pain, that was her problem. She was passed out anyway. I took the already disinfected needle and thread and started doing my great specialty. I sewed up the bullet hole, applied an antibiotic ointment that was available in our pharmacy, and applied the bandage.

"Take it easy for at least three days and keep your leg elevated." I don't even know if this was proper medical advice, but I thought I should say something, some nonsense.

In the apocalypse, we didn't have the luxury of wasting material. That's why I washed my hands with the surgical gloves on and rubbed them with alcohol afterwards. Then I went to help Quinn with Finn who was lying on the same counter, only further away. Finn was unconscious too and Quinn had a tired, tearful expression. Her clothes were stained with blood, as was Joe's, and she was pressing on the wound with tears in her eyes.

"I can't get the bullet out. He's bleeding profusely. I think the bullet hit his stomach."

Whether Quinn was right or wrong didn't matter. She wasn't a surgeon. If the bullet had wounded his stomach, maybe Finn would be safe in an operating room with my dad. Everything was a question of "what if" at that point. What if my father hadn't died in the hospital in Lima, and what if the island hadn't been compromised, what if Tina hadn't looked out that window at that specific time, and what if Rachel hadn't shot first once again.

Finn was pale and unconscious. If he'd been shot in the shoulder, arm, or leg like Sara, chances were we'd be able to save him. But that crap hit the abdomen and most likely an internal organ. Maybe it was the stomach, as Quinn suspected. Finn spat up blood, he opened his eyes quickly, and I wasn't sure he was really seeing anything. Maybe it was a reflection of the brain dying, I don't know. What I do know is that he emptied his lungs and his head fell to the side.

Quinn screamed desperately while Joe and I were stunned. I looked at Tess holding Sara's hand. I wanted to unload my revolver on those two. Instead, I went to the front desk where everyone else was.

"Did Quinn save him?" Burt asked and Carole couldn't even speak.

"No." I answered plain and simple. "I'm very sorry."

I don't know who cried the loudest, Carole or Rachel. Everyone else… well, we couldn't do anything else. Finn died because he was going to help someone. It was a death just like that idiot: he died being a good Samaritan. How this personality trait of Finn pissed me off. And how I respected him for the same damn reason.

...

I was orphaned in this apocalypse. I didn't even have confirmation of my father's death, and my mother killed herself to keep from turning into a reaper. In neither case I manage to say goodbye, or bury my parents. My abuela's funeral was solemn, until it turned into chaos. I say this because I really haven't had the opportunity to say goodbye to someone close to me with dignity since the virus was spread during the articulated series of attacks. Finn was the first person I cared that I really could say goodbye without some shit, like a zombie attack, interrupting.

Sara and Tess must have locked themselves in their room, and I'm glad they did. Because we've had a shitty day. I didn't want to witness Carole and Rachel say goodbye. They and Burt spent hours in that lab guarding the body, while we weren't much better off in that goddamn building, reinforcing doors and windows. Blaine and Sam dug a grave that would be filled the next day. You know what was weird? I remember no one eating anything. I only drank a little water throughout the day, and I felt neither hungry nor thirsty. I worked hard on strengthening the security of the house because if I stopped to think about it, I was going to fall apart.

At night, reapers tried to broke in, but the house was already well reinforced. We weren't afraid of them, even though the boys still struggled to hold the main door. Carole and Rachel were like ghosts, and I didn't have the heart to say any words of support to them because nothing I said would be comforting. Nothing. Quinn and Tina were tasked with wrapping Finn in a sheet, and that was another task I didn't volunteer for. I just wanted to be in Brittany's arms. Just that. I couldn't get the vision of Finn taking his last breath out of my head. People tend to want to know what the last words were, if there was a moment of epiphany before the final passage. No, it was none of that. There were no last words from Finn Hudson.

I didn't sleep. Nobody could at that night. We saw that the day dawned when the reapers stopped trying to come in to eat us. When we opened the door. We just embrace ourselves. The boys picked up Finn's body and carried it to the grave. It was solemn. Burt said a few words, we put up a cross with the name Finn Hudson on it, and Joe said a prayer.

"We need to leave." Quinn warned after the burial. "I can't stay another day in this place."

"I can't." Carole told us tearfully. "I can't leave my son now."

"Burt?" I snapped at him, wanting an adult to rationalize.

"I don't think you should stay here one more day. But I won't leave my wife either. If she wants to stay one more day, so can I."

"Staying at the house with Finn's killer?" I raged. "This is crazy!"

"That woman is not a murderer..." Burt tried to rationalize. "Maybe Carole and I should stay because maybe we need to find solace in forgiveness."

I wasn't convinced of that, but neither was I in a position to object. In a way, I agreed with Quinn: we needed to get out of there immediately, or that house was going to swallow us up.

"Let's split things up." Mike spoke. "Food, clothes, some medicine and two guns with a box of ammo. Do you think that will be enough, Burt?"

"It will be enough. Thanks Mike."

We left two boxes of food for Burt and Carole, some clothes, two guns, some medicine... everything as promised, plus a truck with a full tank of gas. Everything else was ours. We saw Rachel arguing with Burt and Carole. I believe she wanted to stay, but the couple wouldn't allow it. They thought Rachel should stay with us, and that's how it turned out. I climbed into the SUV and climbed into the backseat along with Brittany and Rachel. Sam and Quinn took the front seats. In the other truck were Mike, Tina, Joe and Blaine. It was approximately noon, and we would be making a short journey, but it would be enough to get us away from that place, which was our main objective.

As Sam drove in silence down that empty back road, Rachel said in a near whisper.

"How did you deal?"

"What?" I asked.

"How did you deal with your mother's death?"

"I didn't, Rachel. Not yet. But I need to keep the promise I made to her."

"What promise?"

"Keep living, die old in a warm bed."

"Like Rose in Titanic?"

"Something like that."

"Do you think we'll make it?"

"Yes, Rachel. I think so."