His name was Kurt. His voice sounded like velvet. His hands were soft and elegant. His lips were full and pink, and Blaine liked that. He wore a lot of bracelets, and Blaine asked him about one - a braided black leather strap.

         "One day I'll tell you about it," he smiled mysteriously.

         They didn't talk much as Blaine drove along the winding highway.

         "Do you know where the quarantine ends?" Kurt asked Blaine.

         Blaine sighed. "I have a good idea, but I haven't seen a news report in months. We only know where it ended three months ago. It might be bigger now…there might not be a quarantine at all."

         "One of my group, he was a doctor. He said it wasn't much farther from here."

         "Really?" Puck asked from the backseat.

         "According to him, yeah," Kurt said, turning to look at Puck.

         "I have to throw up," Quinn announced, and Blaine pulled over. Quinn opened the side door of the van and heaved out onto the highway.

         "She hasn't eaten anything, I don't know why this is happening," Puck mumbled.

         Kurt pulled a pamphlet from his satchel with the heading: ARE YOU OR YOUR COMPANIONS INFECTED? in bright red. He scanned it for a moment and then announced, "This doesn't say anything about vomiting."

         "She had her side torn up by a Walker," Blaine explained.

         Kurt went back to the pamphlet. "The WHO is positive that unless her blood was in contact with the Walker's blood or semen, she's fine."

         "How old is the pamphlet?" Puck asked.

         "Three months," Kurt replied.

         Puck sighed and helped Quinn back into the van, lying her head down in his lap again. "Three months ago no one was admitting that people were turning into zombies," Puck said bitterly. "That pamphlet is useless. Half the WHO has probably turned by now."

         Blaine pulled away and they drove in silence for a while. Staring out at the road, his hands at ten and two, Blaine tried to imagine where they would be tomorrow, and the day after, and the month after that. He couldn't. He had never been this unsure of anything in his life. He felt like the future was going to swallow him whole, it felt like a black hole. Every choice he made sucked him closer towards the event horizon, towards the hole. He chewed on his lip and blankly stared at the stretch of road before him.

         "Penny for your thoughts," Kurt asked. Blaine turned to look at him and Kurt smiled at him coyly.

         "Nothing," he replied. "Just wondering what's going to happen…if we'll reach the quarantine."

         Kurt sighed. "I don't know, honestly. Lately I've just been trying to live day to day…and even that can be hard, you know?"

         Blaine's eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror where he spied Puck and Quinn asleep. "Before I met them I travelled alone, I didn't think about anything. It's almost a relief to have them here, to have people to consider other than myself. Working alone is exhausting."

         "That's interesting for you to say," Kurt mused. "I almost like being alone better, I can think clearly, you know? I know what I want, I don't have to consider anyone else."

         "Something in me just wants to be with other people," Blaine countered. "My family - " he stopped himself before he could reveal any more. He wasn't sure he wanted to get this personal, this fast. Kurt had an energy about him that Quinn and Puck didn't. Blaine felt almost like Kurt held onto his every word, which was strange to Blaine. Surely nothing he said could be that important.

         "Your family…?" he asked.

         "Never mind," Blaine said. Kurt didn't press her further, he merely turned to face the road. They slipped into a comfortable silence.

***

         Blaine had been driving for ten hours when he spotted the first one. Kurt had nodded off an hour before, with the promise to take over the driving after he woke up. Quinn hadn't moved from her place in the backseat, still resting in Puck's lap. Puck faded in and out of consciousness, stroking Quinn's hair. When Blaine saw it, It was walking towards the car, dragging its legs like the pathetic vermin it was. He felt a surge of hatred for the creature. If he had been alone he would have killed it immediately.

         Before its Change the Walker had been a man, a little heavy, in a plaid shirt and brown pants. Now, most of its left cheek was missing, its teeth exposed. As Blaine sped up to pass him he checked the rearview and saw that the back of its skull was gone, leaving his brain grey and exposed. He gagged and hit the gas, putting the horrifying image behind them. Kurt jerked awake with the car.

         "Hey, what's going on?" he asked.

         "There was a Walker back there," Blaine told him. "I wanted to get past it."

         And then the car sputtered and died in the middle of the highway.

         "What did you do?" Puck asked sharply.

         "Nothing!" Blaine answered honestly. "I've just been driving!"

         Puck gingerly moved Quinn's head from his lap and leaned between the passenger's and driver's seats. "No lights came on? The gas or the oil?" he asked.

         "No, no!" Blaine answered agitated. Anxiety was bubbling up inside of him. One Walker they could handle, but if there were more…their tiny car didn't stand a chance.     

         "Fuck." Quinn said from the back.

         "What?" Puck turned to face her.

         "I don't have nearly enough shotgun shells."          

         "Why do you need those?" Kurt asked.

         "Because if you look to your left there's about three Walkers coming towards the car. Could be more." Quinn threw herself into the trunk and began rummaging for supplies.

         "You shouldn't be moving around with your side like that," Blaine told her.

         "Well you're not going to fill the shotgun shells, and I would rather have my side all fucked up than be dead," Quinn snapped. "You should start sharpening your swords."

         Blaine looked anxiously out the window, his heart racing. They were sitting ducks. He didn't fear death and he didn't fear the creatures that were quickly approaching. But he knew he couldn't lose them. He couldn't lose Quinn or Puck. Or Kurt. Beautiful Kurt. Kurt felt like a door to Blaine, and open door that he could walk through if he chose to. The Walkers put everything in jeopardy. He had to fight.

         "I'm going out there," he announced. Puck turned to look at her from where he was fiddling with the car's power cables. "Are you going to be OK?" Puck asked.

         "I have to be," he replied, and stepped out of the car, unsheathing his swords.

         The Walkers were about five metres away from him, and he ran towards them to close the gap. The night air was cold on his skin, and the wind bit his face. His legs burned with speed, his eyes were focused like lasers. He was a hunter, he was ready to kill. They had caught his scent. He slashed the first Walker across the chest with his right hand, as a second Walker grabbed his left arm. He turned and sliced the Walker's arm off, shielding his face from its blood. The second Walker staggered back and he took the opportunity to sever the head of the third Walker.

         "COME BACK!"

         He turned to see Quinn standing up through the sunroof of the van, gun cocked and ready. Blaine turned and ran, moments later he heard two shots and the sputtering breath of the Walkers. He reached the van in record time, throwing open the trunk and grabbing the bleach.

         "Quickly, quickly," he heard Quinn urging him. "I see more!"

         "Should I go back out?" Blaine asked, rubbing the bleach on his arms and swords.

         "No, I have enough shells but you need to get in the car!"

         Blaine finished with the bleach, shut the back of the van and leaped into the passenger's side.

         "We're running out shells," Kurt warned.

         Blaine counted the shots Quinn fired. One, two, three, four.

         "Quinn, how many are there?" Puck asked, touching the ignition wires together again and again.

         "I can handle it," Quinn replied, tense.

         "Quinn you need to tell me how many are out there right now." Puck let go of the wires and turned to stare at Quinn's legs standing in the backseat.

         Quinn shoved her head back in the car "How about you focus on your fucking job, and I will kill the fucking Walkers?"

         "I think we're out of gas, OK? We're not going anywhere, Miss 'I'll-Kill-the-Fucking-Walkers', so how 'bout you tell me how many fucking Walkers there are to kill?"

         They glared at each other for a moment, tension crackling like electricity between them. "They keep coming, I don't know how many there are," Quinn yielded to him.

         Puck turned and slammed his hands against the steering wheel. "FUCK!" Blaine and Kurt jumped. Quinn just stood up and started firing again.

         Blaine saw them falling apart before his eyes. This wasn't the end. Not now, when he had just gained back everything he had lost. Not when he could feel them around him. Family.

         "OK, here's what's going to happen - " Blaine started and Puck turned to glare at him. "Don't give me that fucking look, Puck. Listen. Quinn is going to stay in the van and she's going to keep firing until she's out of shells. Puck and I are going to go out there and start picking them off at close range. Kurt can you fight? Do you have a weapon?"

         "Use the axe," Quinn yelled from outside before firing the gun again.

         "Not like we need that for anything else," Puck shouted up at her, acid in his voice.

         "Go get the axe," Blaine instructed Kurt. "Make sure it's nice and sharp." Kurt hopped out of the car and began rummaging in the back. Blaine turned to look at Puck. "Are you going to be OK?"

         He sighed and held Blaine's gaze before saying, "Yeah, let's go."

         "I'm out," Quinn announced, dropping back into the van.

         "You're the most fucking aggravating person in the world, do you know that?" Puck said to her.

         "At least I'm getting shit done instead of whining about the car," Quinn spat back.

         Puck moved toward the back seat so aggressively that Blaine thought he was going to hit Quinn. Instead, he crushed his lips against hers. At first, Quinn looked surprised but she softened into the kiss, her hands reaching up to touch his face.

         Blaine coughed and they broke apart. "Go get them," Quinn said.

         Blaine bolted out the passenger's side and unsheathed his swords. He walked towards the front of the van to meet Puck who was rolling his lead pipe between his hands. Kurt shut the back and walked to stand with them. Puck had his eyes fixed on the van.

         "Come on," Blaine said gently. "Before they catch our scent."

         The three of them broke out running, into the night, into the fray. He could smell them. It was a scent he couldn't describe. It smelled like garbage, and the sewers in the city. It smelled like the morning he had woken up to find his family dead in their beds. He stopped and staggered back, overcome with grief. They were gone.

         Puck was racing ahead of him, pipe in hand, beating the heads of Walkers left and right. Blaine let out a strange moan, a ripping sound coming from his chest. All dead, all gone. Kurt ran back for him.

         "What are you doing?" he asked sharply. "Blaine?"

         Blaine sank to the grass, his shoulders shaking. "All gone, all gone…" he sobbed.

         "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" Puck screamed, running back to them.

         "I don't know, Blaine just collapsed."

         "Take him back to the car, give me your axe. I can hold them off."

         "Are you sure?"

         "Yes, go!"

         Blaine felt arms around him, he felt safe. Kurt swung him over his shoulder and raced him back to the van.

         After that, everything was dark.