How Quickly It All Falls Apart, Part Three
Title: How Quickly It All Falls Apart, Part Three
Rating: R
Words: ~4k
Summary: Zombie AU. Santana thinks they have more time. Brittany is worried.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, unfortunately.
Prologue
Part One
Part Two
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The closer they got to the mall, the more on edge Santana felt. She was already rather out of sorts from exiting on the left hand side of the freeway, after the barrier had prevented them from crossing back over to the right side. Santana prided herself in being somewhat of a rebel, but exiting on the opposite side of the road just felt wrong.
Brittany was staring out of the window, the 9mm clutched tightly in her hands. The car was starting to smell slightly from the residual brain matter clinging to the bat. Santana added Fabreeze and Lysol to her mental checklist.
Santana pulled the car slowly into the entrance to the mall; various buildings and outlets extending far out on either sides of them. The parking lot had surprisingly few cars. Though, when Santana thought about it, not many people were likely to take a trip to the mall at four in the morning when the infected entered the city. Hopefully that was good for them: not many people, alive or undead. She took the car to the right and drove for a few minutes before she pulled up to a giant sporting goods store, next to which was Johnson’s Hunting and Fishing.
“You ready?” Santana asked Brittany, who nodded, gripping the gun in one hand and opening the door with the other.
They cautiously made their way to the front of the hunting and fishing storefront.
“It looks like it’s closed,” Brittany commented.
Santana looked at her incredulously.
“That didn’t stop anybody, it seems,” Santana said wryly. The entire glass pane of one of the doors was gone and shards of glass littered the ground. Santana gripped her bat and crossed over the threshold, broken shards crunching beneath her feet.
Before them, aisles extended with various gear: waders, fishing poles, tack, camo-gear, funky looking hats which Brittany seemed to be eyeing appreciatively. Santana’s eyes swept past all this until they came to the far wall, where she could vaguely make out the shapes of guns lining the wall.
“Over there,” she said, pointing ahead of them.
Brittany nodded, making her way in front of Santana, leading the way down an aisle of high shelves, stock full of hundreds of different kinds of fishing wire and various colored bait. Santana was touched by the small gesture. She didn’t like to admit it, but she felt a bit claustrophobic since entering. She didn’t like not knowing if anything could be on the other side of the shelves, she didn’t like how the sunlight from outside only reached the very front of the shop, she didn- well, there were quite a few things about this situation that she didn’t like, but it seemed Brittany understood that. Santana grabbed a thick, camo duffle off the shelf as they passed and brought the strap diagonally across her shoulders.
After a minute, they made it to the back.
“Ok, so what did we need again?” Brittany asked, her voice sounding slightly overwhelmed as it scanned what seemed to be hundreds of guns and racks of ammo. Certain sections of the wall seemed surprisingly empty and Santana wondered if they had just forgotten to restock, or if people had already come in here for the same reason they were.
“Well, I think we should get a couple more guns…” Santana said slowly, “and a shit ton of ammo. Just as a precaution.” She added the last bit, not wanting to sound too eager.
“There are so many though, which ones should we get?”
Santana decided that there was no harm in variety. Soon, they had two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, two more 9mm Glocks, and two Bushmaster pistols lying on the counter.
“What kind of bullets do all of these use?” Brittany asked curiously, brushing her fingers lightly over the various boxes, describing different sizes, weights and grains.
“I have no idea…” Santana admitted.
Brittany chuckled.
“Lord Tubbington didn’t happen to tell you, did he?” Santana asked hopefully.
“He didn’t, but this probably could,” Brittany said, picking up what appeared to be some sort of catalogue from a stack of books. Looking down at the stack, Santana also slipped a book called Practical Shooting into the duffle.
“Ok,” Brittany said slowly as her eyes traced the pages, periodically looking up at the wall of boxes for reference. “So it looks like these-” she gestured at a section of boxes, “can be used for the riffles, and these-” she indicated a different portion of the shelves “are what we can use for the handguns.”
Santana nodded before checking the shelves and picking out a box of 100, 55 grain bullets. Pausing, Santana looked down at the nearly empty duffel, before grabbing all of the boxes off the shelf and throwing them in the bag. Brittany disappeared for a second before coming back with a similar duffel and placing all the ammunition for the handguns in it. It couldn’t hurt to be prepared, Santana reasoned as she began loading magazines for the AR-15’s. Brittany was pushing bullets into clips to her left. Looking around, Santana grabbed a couple straps and holsters off a nearby shelf and brought them over.
Santana stepped into a holster that had thick straps that wrapped around each thigh and was kept on by a study belt that clipped around her waist. She found that the holster comfortably held both pistols at arms-distance. She experimentally walked back and forth, deciding that she liked the weight. She turned to look at Brittany, who had on a shoulder holster with two Glocks fit snuggly by her ribs on either side. Both guns were almost completely concealed beneath Brittany’s leather jacket, with only the handles peaking through. Both girls looked at one another appraisingly; eyes raking each other’s bodies.
“Damn B,” was all Santana managed to get out before Brittany’s mouth was on hers. It seemed Brittany had similar feelings about seeing her girlfriend heavily armed, and Santana couldn’t help but thank life-threatening situations for at least bringing that to the table. Brittany moved her hands swiftly under Santana’s shirt, raking her fingers across bare skin. Santana moaned as Brittany swiped her tongue across her upper lip. However, even her moan wasn’t load enough to cover the sound of something being knocked over a couple aisles down. Santana froze, quickly untangling her fingers from Brittany’s hair before swiftly bringing them to rest upon the pistols secured around her hips. Out of the corner of her eye Santana saw Brittany pull the guns of their shoulder harness. Then, there was the sound of approaching footsteps and Santana brought both hands up, pistols held tightly in each. She took a deep breath, but was at least confident in the fact that, with 30-bullet magazines affixed to each, she would probably be able to hit something at least once.
As the footsteps got louder, Santana’s grip tightened, her fingers lightly touching the trigger.
Then there were voices.
It wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t loud, but it was unmistakable whispering.
“Do zombies talk?” Brittany said quietly.
Santana shook her head slowly.
“Come out!” Santana called sharply, and she heard a quick intake of breath, “and do it slowly,” she added “we’ve got some pretty heavily loaded guns, and well, who knows, I might just be trigger happy.”
“Wait..is…is that..Santana?” a voice came out shakily. Santana’s hands dropped immediately, Brittany’s didn’t.
“Who the fuck is that?” Santana asked, in shock.
Then, two figures made their way out of the aisle. Brittany’s arms lowered and soon she was clasping both guns back in their holster before launching herself at the figures.
“Kurt!” she yelled, “Sam!”
“SHHHH!” Kurt, Sam, and Santana all said, cringing as Brittany’s voice seemed to reverberate around them. Brittany looked guilty as she pulled back.
Sure enough, there were Kurt and Sam, both with backpacks on and Sam carrying a-
“Is that a bow?” Santana asked incredulously, not sure whether to laugh or not. In fact, she really had no idea what she was feeling at the moment. All Santana knew was that her heart hadn’t beaten this wildly since they encountered the zombies on the highway, only this time, she was pretty sure it was a good thing.
Sam at least had the decency to look embarrassed before muttering something about Avatar. Just like that Santana felt, for a brief moment, that she was back in the halls of McKinley, preparing to give Sam a light, verbal smackdown, but then she noticed the dirt on their face, and scuffmarks on their clothing. For once, it appeared Kurt was wearing something practical; Santana hadn’t even realized the boy owned a pair of jeans. Other than that, they both had on long sleeve shirts and thick twill jackets. Santana could see a harness, similar to Brittany’s, strapped around Kurt’s shoulders, but instead of guns it held four knives. That’s when she realized where they were.
“Why are you here?” was the first question out of Santana’s mouth, only to be followed by “Where’s the rest of your family?”
A look of pain crossed Kurt’s face when he looked at her before he opened his mouth and said, “We split up.”
Feeling there was more to the story, Santana waited silently. She looked down to where her fingers clutched Brittany’s. When did that happen? Brittany didn’t look at her, but Santana felt a small squeeze.
“This morning, it was total madness,” Kurt began, “Well, I suppose you guys know, obviously.”
“Actually,” Brittany said, “We don’t. We were out of Lima until almost 8am this morning. We came back and everyone was either already gone or…infected.”
Before Kurt could ask them any questions, Santana interrupted and said “Look peaches, we’ll tell you all the sappy details in due time, but can you just tell us what happened. All we know is that at 3am there was warning call or something and then people started leaving.”
Kurt nodded in confirmation before continuing, “yeah, we got the call too. It was some automated message from the government, I think. My dad was the one who picked up and he didn’t really explain verbatim what was happening. But, basically, the gist of things, you probably already know…the quarantine breakout, infection…”
Santana and Brittany nodded.
“Yeah..” Kurt continued, “So dad just told us to grab a backpack and throw some clothes and stuff in them. It was Finn, Carol, my dad, and I. My dad has this weird sense of duty to the people of Lima, well, at least to the kids in glee club, so when we left the house, he drove by everyone’s houses that were on the way to the highway. We swung by your house Britt,” Kurt acknowledged, and Brittany looked up, surprised.
“The car was already out of the driveway, so they must have left pretty quickly,” Kurt explained.
“That’s a good thing,” Sam said with a smile.
Brittany nodded, and Santana could see something akin to hope flicker in her eyes.
“Anyways, Sam’s was next…and, well…”he trailed off.
“My parents don’t have a car,” Sam explained bluntly.
“We were in a car meant for 5, not 9,” Kurt continued. “Finn and I got out to make room for Sam’s siblings, and then Sam’s dad went taking off to their neighbors, where the garage was open. They had two cars and I think he was hoping we could use one. You know, dire times, right? But the thing was, the neighbors had already been infected. The second Mr. Evans got there they were on him.”
Santana shot a look at Sam, who was staring determinedly at the ground.
“Sam ran after him, and I…I ran after Sam.”
There was something about that that caused Brittany and Santana to share a questioning look, but neither of them said anything. Then Sam began to speak.
“There were only two of them, but by the time I got to the garage they had already bitten him. There was a shovel hanging on the wall, so I used it to bash both their heads in. By the time I got to my dad, his eyes were already bloodshot and his skin was turning a weird grey color. He told me to kill him… My own dad. I couldn’t. Kurt had made it to me by that point and told me to get in the neighbor’s car. There were other infected on the streets by that point. I don’t know how they move so quickly. Anyway, Kurt shouted at Burt that we would follow them. We left my dad there. We were behind the other car for most of the way, but then when we got to the highway it was madness. There were cars everywhere, horns going off, and then, there were the people running over the tops of cars, trying to escape the infected. At a certain point we just…lost them. There was no way anyone would have been able to keep track.” Sam said sadly.
Santana thought briefly of Finn and found her heart twinge with regret. Sure, when Finn had outed her she had been pretty freaking pissed. I mean, who does that? Hell, she could have outed him for years, but no, she chose to be the better person and keep his lesbianism a secret. Now where’s her fucking award? Still, he had been like her own personal stress ball; soft, doughy and pliable, always the first to experience her aggression, but…always there for her nonetheless. Silently she prayed that they had made it out.
“Kurt did some mad off-roading then,” Sam said, with what sounded like pride in his voice. Did Kurt freaking blush? Oh, Britts and her were going to have a fun conversation about this later, Santana knew it already.
“He got us out of the thick of things and took us parallel to the highway, but a bit further out.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think Prius’s are made for off-roading,” Kurt said sardonically.
“Yeah, I guess they aren’t,” Sam agreed, “because like ten minutes later we hit something and the car stopped moving.”
“And smoke started coming out from under the hood,” Kurt supplied.
“So we got out,” Sam added.
Was it strange that they were talking like one person? Santana thought.
“Then it blew up,” Kurt finished dryly.
“Oh my god,” Brittany exclaimed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Santana said.
“Nope,” Kurt sighed, “Why else do you think I would have dirt on my face, if not because, in an attempt to protect myself from a blazing cannonball, I threw myself face-first into the ground?”
“I was wondering about that,” Brittany said, some of the confusion lifting from her face.
“Anyway, by that point, there was no use going back to Lima,” Kurt said, “So we slowly made our way here, with the hope of finding some supplies and maybe a vehicle. It took us the better part of the morning to get here though, since we were on foot.”
Santana was in shock at the end of their tale. She had no idea what to say.
“So do you wanna, like, band together?” Brittany suggested hopefully, “we have a car.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, a small smile gracing his features. It was interesting that anything having to do with his absurdly large mouth could be called small, But then again, Santana thought, these are different times. I suppose a lot of things are going to change.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Santana hadn’t realized how much time they had spent standing at the back of the store when she looked down at her watch. It was approaching 4. She quickly explained what more they needed.
“I think you guys are set on the weapons,” Kurt said, and Santana was happy to hear a trace of fear in his voice as he took in her and Brittany’s appearance before glancing at the two riffles on the counter and bags full of ammo.
“Are you?” Santana asked, pointedly looking between the knives Kurt was carrying and the hunting bow slung across Sam’s shoulder.
“I think we are,” Sam said, “Kurt is wicked fast with those guys, and make fun of me all you want Santana, but I’d rather like knowing I’m going to hit something with one of these,” he pointed to an arrow, “than waste twenty of your bullets.”
“Fair enough,” Santana said, not wanting to waste any more of their time.
With that, they threw the extra 9mm in a bag and Brittany and Santana each slung a riffle over their shoulders.
“This look may be more frightening than even the Cheerios uniform,” Kurt commented.
Santana snorted.
They exited the store and deposited their bags in the back of the car.
Sam let out a small whistle, “Nice wheels.”
Santana looked at the car indifferently, though she supposed it’s recent additions made it look slightly more badass: a large scratch spanning the entire left side from where they scraped the Civic and what was, unmistakably, remnants of human flesh stuck to the front grill. Santana grinned wickedly.
They hurried into the neighboring sporting goods store and grabbed two small, portable tents, some sleeping bags, a couple water filter pumps, about every map in stock, a large, clear jug, and some tubing.
“What’s that for?” Sam asked Santana, nodding to the coil of thin, clear plastic tubes in her hands and the plastic jug.
“You’ll find out soon enough Samwise,” Santana replied coyly.
They made a quick loop around, making sure they had everything they needed. Santana threw a stick of chapstick at Sam’s head, and he caught it, grinning. Then Brittany pulled Sam up in front with her, and they began speaking in low voices. Brittany had her hand on Sam’s back and Santana saw her rubbing gently on his shoulders.
“What’s going on?” Kurt asked.
“We went back to our houses,” Santana explained quietly, “We had no idea what had happened. I guess Britt’s mom had stayed back for her, but by the time we got there, she was already infected. I mean, even though we-” she gestured between herself and Kurt “-don’t know where our parents are right now, don’t know what’s happened to them, at least we didn’t need to see them like that.”
Kurt’s eyes were soft and sympathetic as he nodded.
“I’m glad we ran into you guys,” he said softly.
Santana didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. He knew how much she cared.
“Hold up,” Santana said as they made their way to the exit and ran back to where she had seen motorcycle gear in the corner.
Five minutes later she was back with boots, not too unlike Brittany’s, and a smile on her face.
“So scary,” Kurt said. Sam nodded.
“So hot,” Brittany murmured. Sam nodded once again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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This time, they threw most of their things in the trunk, so that there would be room for two in the back seat.
“Why did we get those sleeping bags when there are all these blankets and pillows back here?” Sam asked, confused.
Santana had forgotten about those. She looked at Brittany sadly, as they remembered the previous night.
“They’re not portable,” Santana said, “If, for some reason, we have to leave the car, there’s no way in hell we’re caring those with us.”
She began walked away from the car, the jug and tube in her hand.
“Come on Trouty Mouth,” Santana called over her shoulder, “I’m gonna need those luscious lips of yours.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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“Oh god!” Sam spluttered, spitting furiously as he took his mouth away from one end of the tube, the other end situated comfortably in the tank of an empty car in the lot. Gas began flowing into the jug and Santana looked on approvingly. She had noticed they were low when they got to the mall.
“Wonderful!” Santana said, pulling the tube out as they got close to full.
Sam glowered at her.
“Look, I’m sorry Sam,” he gave her a sharp look, “oh, not for that,” Santana said, gesturing at the jug of gas, “We’ve got to use your mouth for something. No, I’m sorry about what happened, to your dad and I’m sorry you got separated from the rest of your family.”
“It’s not your fault,” Sam said, but his eyes were glistening.
“Yeah, I know,” Santana said, “But it just…sucks,” she finished lamely.
“It does,” Sam said quietly. “Brittany told me about what happened.”
Sam caught Santana’s eye, “with her mom,” he clarified.
When Santana didn’t say anything, he continued, “Not a lot of people would have the strength to do that, you know. And I’m not talking physical strength. We all know you’re mad buff,” he gave her little grin, “But, I know Mrs. Pierce was like a mom to you too. So that can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” Santana stated, wanting to change the subject. “We should probably go. As much as I would love to sit and have girl talk, the sun is going to set pretty soon and I want to get as far away from here as possible before it does.”
Sam agreed and they made their way back to the car, where Kurt and Brittany were talking.
“Though, that brings up a point,” Sam said, “Where exactly are we going? Do we have a plan?”
“Well, we were going to head west,” Santana said, “towards LA. That’s where Britt’s family was going.”
“Ok…” Kurt began slowly, “I think west is a good idea, but LA is really far away. In the recording they mentioned some military bases that would be providing shelter, we wrote them down.” Kurt dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket, on which were about ten locations.
“Maybe,” Kurt said hesitantly “we could have one in the middle or something, that way, if things are really rough, we would have somewhere to go.”
Santana looked at Brittany, who nodded.
“That sounds good,” Santana said.
“Great!” Kurt exclaimed. “I think the one in Illinois will be too dangerous to get close to, seeing as that’s where the infection started, but maybe this one,” he said, pointing to a base. Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
“Ok,” Santana said.
“Ok,” they all repeated, before climbing in the car and getting back on the highway. This time, Santana made sure to enter on the right side of the dividing barrier before speeding away.
PART FOUR
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a/n: Thanks for reading! Please review and let me know what you like/dislike.
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