He was outside in the sunlight. He was in a soft t-shirt that he loved, under a tree. The light was golden, it kissed the trees. He felt like he was in a painting. The grass was soft under his hands, he could smell flowers. The wind stirred his curls, carrying sweet scents. He felt alive. And then he saw the man.

         It was his brother. His back was to Blaine but he knew his brother anywhere. The way the back of his brother's neck curved, the broadness of his shoulders. It was the boy Blaine had known his whole life, now a man. He smiled and called out his brother's name, "Cooper!"

         Cooper turned to face Blaine slowly and Blaine knew something was wrong.    It was the way his leg dragged behind him, the way his shoulders were off balance. It's not him, a voice told Blaine, but he refused to believe it. "I'm over here!" Blaine called.

         Cooper moved slowly across the grass, and Blaine saw a trail of blood in his wake.

         "Cooper what's wrong?" Blaine asked, but he knew the answer. When Cooper replied, it wasn't in words but a kind of grunt. The closer Cooper got, the clearer he became to Blaine. He was one of them now, a creature. A Walker.

         "Cooper?" Blaine asked, her voice thick with tears. His eyes were not friendly and brown as Blaine remembered them. They were the sick green of the Walkers.          

         He reached out to touch Blaine's arm, grasping it firmly. "Cooper, please."

         He brought Blaine's arm to his mouth. Their eyes locked. "I love you," Blaine told him.

         He bit down on Blaine's arm and he screamed.

***

         There was light all around him when he came to. He kept her eyes shut because he didn't want the light. He wanted to go back under the tree, he wanted to go back to his brother. He was drenched in sweat, his mouth dry. He could hear voices.

         "Did they bite you?"

         "No, they didn't get me. It was close though. If Kurt hadn't come back I don't think I would have made it."

         "I guess we just have to wait for him to wake up."

         "The only way we can get the van moving is by siphoning gas from another car."

         "Didn't we take any gas from the truck stop?"

         "I don't know, that would make sense. Blaine's the only one who knows what all the stuff back here is."

         A pause. Quiet.

         "I'm glad you're OK."

         "Me too."

         "Means I get to do this."

         The sound of lips touching, his heart felt like it was going to burst.

         He opened his eyes so he wouldn't have to hear them loving each other any more.

         Puck was tucking a lock of Quinn's hair behind her ear, staring into her eyes and smiling at her. Blaine rolled over. His back hurt, his head was pounding. He was too exhausted to sleep. He vaguely noticed that he was in the back seat of the van, the side door open so his friends could keep an eye on him.

         "Hey," Quinn's voice said softly.

         "Glad to have you back," Puck murmured.

         Blaine turned to look at them and he remembered how he loved them. How they were his family. How they were his friends. He sat up and extended his hands for them.

         "C'mere," Blaine said. They were in his arms, his face pressed into Puck's neck, Quinn's arms around his waist. He could smell them and they smelled like dirt and sweat and bleach, but they didn't smell like the creatures. The bleached burned his nose but it smelled like home to him. He could hear their heartbeats, he could feel how warm they were. It felt good to be alive.

         "You're awake," he heard Kurt's voice say.

         Quinn and Puck pulled away and turned to face Kurt. He moved and sat next to Blaine in the van.

         "We're going to patrol the area, see if there are any Walkers around," Puck announced. He and Quinn grabbed the axe and the lead pipe and began walking towards the field off the highway.

         Kurt smiled at him, the sun shining through the car window and dancing on his face. "Your swords got lost out there, but I'm glad you're alright," he told Blaine.

         Blaine smiled back, his lips dry and tight. He was angry about his swords, but he was glad Kurt was glad. "Yeah I guess I am."

         "What happened?" Kurt asked softly. He reached for Blaine's hand and pulled it into his lap, tracing the lines on his palm and the veins on his wrists.

         Blaine sighed and stared at their hands.

         "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Kurt told him gently.

         "It was the smell."

         "They smelled pretty awful," Kurt agreed, turning Blaine's hand to hold it and stroke his knuckles.

         "The smell reminded me of my parents, my brother."

         "The virus got them?"

         "I woke up one morning and they were dead. They smelled just like that," he told Kurt. Blaine felt sticky and dirty and thirsty. Kurt was gentle with his hand and it felt good.

         "You were close to them?"

         "They were my world."

         "I'm sorry."

         "You don't need to be," Blaine bristled. He didn't want Kurt's pity, he didn't want Kurt to touch his hand because Kurt felt sorry for him. Blaine didn't even know if he wanted Kurt to touch his hand at all. Blaine didn't pull away. Blaine let Kurt touch him.

         "I know how you feel," Kurt confessed.

         "My dad, my stepmom, my stepbrother…they were the same."

         Blaine turned to stare at Kurt's face. Kurt was looking at Blaine's hand, his face in profile. His eyes were blank.

         "I told them the vaccine was trouble, I told them it wasn't a good idea to share the needle. We were sitting at dinner. One minute my dad was asking me to pass the potatoes and the next he was dead. They were all dead. I just grabbed what I could and ran out of there."

         "I'm sorry," Blaine told him because he didn't know what else to say.

         "Thank you."

         Blaine felt foolish for not accepting his apology. Kurt was gracious in a way Blaine was not, he understood people in a way Blaine had forgotten.

         "It's been so long since I've held someone's hand like this," he said, a smile tugging at his lips.

         Blaine was silent.

         "You're very handsome. I don't even know if you're gay," and here, a bitter laugh. "All these years spent in Ohio wondering if I’d ever find someone, and I don’t even know if you’re gay. I wish your heart didn't hurt so much. I wish there was something I could do for you. I know how you feel."

         Blaine was silent.

         "It's like there's been a hole punched in your chest. You wonder why you're alive and they're not. You wish you had gone with them to get that stupid vaccine. You wish there was something you could have done. CPR or something. You wish you could trade your life for theirs. You wish maybe one of them had made it, you don't care which one you just want to smell them again and feel how warm they are."

         Blaine was silent, tears had begun rolling down his face.

         Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand. "You don't understand why you survived and they didn't. You hate yourself but it's moments like this. Moments where I can hold your hand and feel the sun and understand and know that I am alive. Moments like this make me love being alive. Moments like this make me glad I got up from the table and ran away."

         They stared at each other for a moment.

         "We will survive," Kurt told Blaine. And Blaine knew he was telling the truth.

         Quinn and Puck came back from their patrol, with nothing to report. "Is there any gas?" Quinn asked.

         Blaine sighed and tried to remember. "We must have a can of it somewhere. I'm pretty sure I grabbed some."

         Blaine, Kurt and Puck set out unpacking the boxes in the back of the van from the truck stop, searching for a can of gas with Quinn on watch, her hands gripping the axe tightly. Puck was the furthest in the trunk, pushing boxes forward for Blaine and Kurt to look through.

         "Shit!" Puck cried from the back of van.

         "What is it?" Kurt asked.

         "There's a can of gas back here, but it's leaked. Everywhere."

         "Are you fucking serious?" Blaine asked. His stomach felt like lead. The gas was dangerous and if anyone lit a match, they were as good as dead by the side of the road. Puck began using a knife to tear out the carpet in the van that was stained with gas. They would burn it with the Walkers from the night before later. They had managed to fight off the Walkers from the night before but Blaine feared more were on the way, following the scent of human flesh that was carried on the wind.

         "There's a car," Quinn said.

         "Seriously?" came Puck's reply.

         "Flag it down!" Kurt told her.

         Quinn walked into the road and stepped into the path of the car. It was moving at a strange, slow pace, ignoring the dips and turns of the road. It drifted almost lazily along the highway.

         The car stopped.

         "Careful!" Puck warned.

         Quinn walked towards the driver's side of the car. It was an ancient teal Honda, the wheels looked worn from hours of driving, paint chipped from the doors. Scratches along the sides that looked to be from fingernails. Blaine's heart raced. He hated the unknown, the feeling of not being in control. He reached for the his swords in the back of the van, his fingers gripping the handles. It felt real, solid.

         "Hello?" she heard Quinn say. Quinn was standing at the driver's side of the Honda, tapping on the window.

         "It's like he's sleeping…" she said, turning to face the group. Blaine gripped his swords tighter. "It's like he's…oh my god," Quinn said, her face white.

         "What?" Puck asked. Quinn was silent. "You have to tell us!" Puck screamed, bordering hysterical.

         "It's like he's dead."

         "Shit," Kurt said.

         "We have to burn the car," Puck announced. "Siphon the gas and burn the car."

         "We don't have much time before he turns," Kurt said. "It was in some of the pamphlets. I'm surprised he's not already."

         "He might not be infected," Puck pointed out. "He might just be dead."

         "How are we going to siphon the gas without a tube?" Blaine asked. They'd just dug through the back of the van in search of their useless gas can; he knew there wasn't a tube they could use to siphon gas.

         "Check the trunk of his car," Puck instructed. "That's our only shot. Otherwise we have to switch cars."

         "What do you want to do, pick the lock?" Quinn asked.

         "No, let's see if there's a trunk release in the glove box," Puck said, crawling out of the van.

         "We have to get him out of the car," Quinn said. "The guy…what if he turns while you're checking the glove box?"

         "Alright," Kurt said. "Blaine, grab some matches so we can get rid of this guy," he said, turning to face Blaine. Kurt took care to look Blaine straight in the eye, and he felt his breath hitch. Kurt trusted Blaine, he could tell from Kurt's eyes. They were kind and calm and patient. Blaine missed feeling like a human so much, to have Kurt look at him like this made him feel at home.

         "Sure thing," Blaine told him, not breaking eye contact. Kurt smiled, and Blaine felt his stomach clench. This felt good, a boy smiling at him. The sun on his face felt good. Blaine smiled back and turned to grab the matches. For a fleeting moment, it didn't matter that the matches were to burn a dead body, or that if they weren't careful the flames could also consume all their worldly belongings. It mattered that the weather was nice and a boy had smiled at him.

         Quinn and Kurt had slipped on rubber gloves to drag the man's body out of the car. He wasn't much older than they were, Blaine noticed. His face seemed peaceful, a pair of thick black glasses sat nicely on his round face. He was about six feet tall, dressed in a plaid shirt. He looked like a boy who could have been Cooper's friend. Blaine suddenly felt guilty about having to set him on fire.

         "Bring him over here," Blaine said, gesturing to the pile of last night's Walkers that Kurt and Puck had arranged in a pile to burn.

         Quinn was dragging the boy's right leg, and Kurt had the other. They had dragged him from the right lane to the left, approaching the pile just off the road. Blaine had just flicked the match on the boy, his plaid shirt catching fire, when Blaine noticed the boy's eyes snap open. They were the sickly green of his nightmares. They were the eyes of a Walker. Blaine screamed. "IT'S AWAKE!"

         Quinn dropped her leg and backed up, Blaine lunged back to the van to grab the axe. He gripped it securely and turned to face the flaming Walker, writhing on the asphalt in pain. Kurt had backed away from the Walker and was looking at Blaine.

         "Are you OK to kill it?" he asked, as Blaine raised the axe over his head, aiming for the Walker's neck.

         Blaine didn't answer, instead bringing the axe down on the Walker, sending its head flying across the highway back towards the Honda, where Puck had managed to open the trunk.

         "HOLYFUCKINGSHIT!" Puck cried, staggering back from the trunk.

         "What?" Quinn asked sharply.

         "THERE'S A FUCKING WALKER IN HERE!"

         "What?" Quinn asked again. She looked at Blaine, the fire from the burning Walker between them illuminating the fear in Quinn's eyes.

         "I don't know how to describe it…" Puck said. "This is so fucked up…"

         Quinn, Kurt and Blaine walked across the road to the Honda, where Puck was staring at the trunk, running his fingers through his hair anxiously.

         Blaine gasped when she saw the inside of the trunk. There was a Walker curled up like a fetus. It looked to be the same age as the driver, another male. The smell of rotting flesh was overpowering, and Quinn had turned to vomit. The carcass was full of maggots, the Walker had clearly been inactive for a while.     "What are those tubes?" Kurt asked, gesturing to the Walker's wrists.

         "I don't know, man," Puck answered. "I just don't know."

         There were tubes jammed in the Walker's wrists like the kind Blaine had used in chemistry class. His eyes followed the tubes to the back of the Honda's trunk.

         "There's something back there," Blaine told them. "The tubes lead somewhere."

         Kurt reached in with his gloved hands to gently tug on the tubes. "They're attached to something for sure," he murmured, and he gave the tube a sharp tug. Blaine gasped as a glass jar full of blood revealed itself at the end of the tube.

         "What did this guy want with Walker blood?" Blaine asked, but he knew the answer.

         They all did.

         Experiment.

         Antidote.

***

         His name was Mike Chang. He was in his fourth year of university, studying Bioethics. He had a girlfriend named Tina. He loved pens and pencils, and sitting in lecture. He took his notes longhand because he liked the way the pen ink puckered on the paper. He had a smile that could light up a room. He was brilliant. He had been accepted into his Master's program early. His parents were very proud of him.

         His parents were immigrants from Korea. They owned a restaurant. In the summers, he worked as a waiter, smiling and greeting his parent's customers.

         He liked bioethics. He liked thinking about tar sands and DDT and justice. He fantasized about creating new kinds of pesticides, kinds that were gentle on plants and the ozone layer. He dreamt of the Nobel Prize. He wanted to be a scientist because he knew he could make a difference. Sitting in the lab and examining plant cells, taking notes felt like art to him. Bioethics gave him a kind of life that mattered.

         His girlfriend thought he was a genius. She was a music major. She sang opera. He loved the way her voiced sounded as it soared through an aria. He loved to put his hands on her waist as she ran through her scales on the keyboard in their living room. He would gently kiss her neck as she ran through her music. He liked to be close to her. They were both artists. His canvas was a microscope slide.

         They lived together in a tiny apartment a few blocks from campus. They slept on a mattress because they couldn't afford furniture. She made him a bagged lunch. If he was studying late, she packed extra snacks. His parents didn't approve of Mike and Tina living together, but he didn't care. They were going to get married one day. His work would benefit their children, and their grandchildren. When they were old they would move to a huge house in the country and have family picnics and fireworks in the summer.

         God, he loved her.

         He knew about the virus before the public did. He had been working late in the lab, testing a chemical compound he had created on corn cells. His supervisor had walked in, her face ashen.

         "Are you alright?" Mike asked her.

         "How much do you know about zombies?" she had asked him.

         He laughed at her.

         His supervisor didn't smile. "There have been dozens of cases. Three different continents. People who have died and come back to life. I've never heard of anything like it…we don't know what's causing it. Someone was diagnosed with it only an hour outside the city. I think this is the end, Mike."

         He abandoned his lab bench, running home to find Tina. She was in the middle of her final exam prep. She had been working tirelessly on an aria from Madame Butterfly, "Un Bel Di Vedremo." Mike had heard Tina sing it so many times, he knew every note, every sharp and flat as well as he knew the curves of her body.

         He hopped on his bike and pedaled back to their apartment. She would be home, she didn't have to meet with her advisor for another hour. He had never been more terrified in his life. All his plans could be laid to waste if scientists didn't get this virus under control. They must be working on a vaccine already, they must be formulating a global plan. His bike ride, which normally took about 15 minutes, took five that day. His legs were burning as he bolted up the stairs to their building. He jammed the key in the lock, turned the handle furiously and burst into the apartment.

         "TINA!" he bellowed.

         She came running. "Mike? Mike what's wrong? Mike!"

         His knees buckled out from beneath him, and he sank to the floor. "A virus…." he choked out. "We have to get out of here…"

         "A virus? What kind of virus are you talking about?" she was down on the floor with him now, her hands feverishly stroking his face.

         "Zombies."

         She didn't laugh, she understood. She stared at his face for a moment. He looked into her eyes and his heart was breaking. It all flashed before him - their house, their children, the fireworks, the Nobel Prize. All gone.

         "How bad?" was all she said.

         "Three different continents."

         "You have to help."

         "We need to leave - "

         "Mike, listen to me. You've worked your whole life to help others with science. Baby," and here she smiled at him, the smile that was only for him. "This is your chance."

         She kissed him hard. Their mouths opened, tongues sliding together. Slippery hot heat. She climbed on top of him, unbuttoning his pants. They made love on the floor, silently. Clothes half on and palming each other, it felt animalistic. They had never felt like this before. They stared into each other's eyes, feeling, tasting, touching every moment. He held her arms so tightly he left bruises on her skin. It was a tattoo, a reminder of their love. I was here. You are mine. She let out a little moan as he came, throwing her head back, her hair cascading around her body. In the evening light, he had never seen anything more beautiful.

         They lay on the hardwood for a while, holding each other, her head on his chest. He pressed gently kisses into her hair.

         "I have to go back to the lab," he told her. "I have to figure out a way to beat this before it hits the city."

         "I love you," she told him.

         He never saw her again.

         He biked back to the lab, tested samples of his own blood, tested every theory he could think of. It had to be blood, it had to be. About seven hours into his research, the media got wind of the virus. It was in the city now, someone in a downtown hospital had been diagnosed. Traffic was backed up as people fled the city. It didn't make a difference, it was everywhere. Tina nagged at the back of his mind. Go to her, go. His work was more important. He had to work.

         He collapsed at his lab bench, exhausted after ten hours of fruitless research. He had mutated some cells, but not the way he wanted, he had studied some cases, but symptoms weren't similar. The radio near the bench crackled with news.

         Lock yourself indoors.

         Avoid the subways.

         Do not have sex, do not touch anyone who is bleeding.

         Do not help anyone.

         He decided there was nothing to do but go home and shower. The door was open when he got home. His heart dropped. He gently walked into the apartment. There was blood everywhere.

         "Tina?" he called softly.

         Silence.

         He walked to their bedroom, the mattress torn and bloodstained. He saw her then. She was to the left of the mattress on the floor. Her jugular veins had been torn out and flung across the room. He fought the urge to touch her, to lie down next to her and never wake up.

         There were footprints in her blood, slow and dragging. Someone had been here. One of them.

         He stared at her body for what felt like hours, but was really only minutes. He gave no thought to getting a weapon. He only thought of her, and her smell and her taste. The way she had clung to him earlier. He thought about their first kiss, among the stacks of dusty books in the library. He thought of her after a performance, flushed and excited, red lipstick staining her mouth, the way she tasted like stage makeup. He thought about her breasts and they way they fit in his hands. He thought about how they had lost their virginity to each other. He thought of her smile as he met her in the quad after a day of classes. He thought about all that wouldn't be. His heart broke.

         She stirred then. Her legs and arms shifting, a guttural moan coming from her lips. He let out a sob, hot tears springing to his eyes. She was one of them. She had to be terminated. For a fleeting moment, he realized that he would have a specimen to work with, and he was disgusted. He left the apartment and broke the fire glass in the hall, retrieving the axe. He walked back into the apartment. She was standing now, shakily moving around, getting the feel of her new legs.

         She didn't move with the grace of the girl he had come to love but with the clumsiness of the horror film creature that she was. He walked towards her swiftly, raising the axe. He met her eyes before he did. They were not the warm brown he was used to. They were green, sick. He could see the hunger in them. He sliced her head clean off.

         He walked to the kitchen, grabbed a garbage bag and pair of rubber gloves. He bagged her head and used some spare vials to take some of her blood. He put everything in another garbage bag and biked back to the lab.

         Mike Chang the man was gone.

         There was only the scientist.

         In the lab he worked, using Tina's blood, examining the T-Cells, the plasma, the platelets. He knew her blood as well as he knew the sound of her voice running through her scales. Another boy had taken refuge in the lab. His name was Rory. Mike remembered Rory from a couple of organic chemistry classes. They were not friendly, they were cool and businesslike with each other. It was dangerous to get attached. Mike and Rory worked together on the antidote, on the science. There were problems in the blood; mutations like neither boy had seen before. They didn't eat, they drank water and slept. At night they could hear Walkers banging on the door of the lab, desperate to get in and taste their flesh.        

         One day Rory turned to Mike and he said, "I think it would be better if we could see the cells mutate."

         "What are you saying?" Mike asked, although he knew the answer.

         "I'll open the door."

         "Are you sure?"

         "I don't have anything left anymore. I think it would help you with your work. I don't feel like I have any reason to stay. Just draw some of my blood, observe the mutation. Please kill me when you're done."

         "You're the bravest person I've ever met," Mike told him, because it was true.

         "I'm a coward," Rory laughed. "I'm just going to give up."       

         Mike walked over to Rory, placed his hands on the other man's shoulders. "You are the furthest thing from a coward. You're a hero. Your life will save millions."

         They hugged, tightly. Rory breathed deeply in his final moments.

         "Thank you," Rory told him, and opened the door to the lab. He stepped out and shut the door again.

         Mike heard them tearing Rory apart through the night. He cried. When the sounds outside the lab were gone, he opened the door and looked down his companion. He drew blood, and stared at it patiently under a microscope. He took notes as he watched the blood change, the cells morph. He knew what was happening. He understood. He did not know how to stop it. He had ideas and theories, but there were not enough supplies in the lab.

         He killed Rory again and decided it was time to move on. He took Rory's body and put it in the trunk of a teal Honda he found in the lab parking lot. He knew a place a few day's drive from the city - a place where there were chemicals. It was an industrial lab used to mass-produce drugs that Mike had interned for a few summers before. It was secluded enough that Mike thought maybe there would be people to help him with his work. He attached Rory's body to the jars. He started to drive.

         When he drove he thought of Tina, and a road trip they had taken together to visit her parents. She had taken off her shoes and put her bare feet up on the dashboard, singing along to the radio as he drove. As he drove around a curve on the highway, she reached for his hand. He turned to smile at her.

         "I love you," she told him, dazzlingly backlit by the sun.

         "I love you too," he told her.

         They parked the car and slept by the side of the road, huddled together in the backseat. They giggled like teenagers, moving slowly in the cramped space, finding each other's bodies in the darkness, hands dipping below waistbands, lips touching, tongues sliding.

         He did not cry when he remembered her. Instead, his body came alive with the electricity of her. She was all around him. He could feel her. He listened to the radio. There was only static. The lab was locked, abandoned. He broke in, used the microscopes. Worked for four days quietly testing, using the materials that were left by those before.

         The morning he was infected he was working in the lab, using what daylight he could. A vaccine wasn't effective enough - he knew an antidote had to be used. If it was injected before the victim died, they could be saved. A Walker bite wasn't lethal. He bit his lip as he bent over his microscope. Close. So close.

         He didn't hear the Walker come it. It was a female Walker - her thick brown hair matted with blood and dirt. Her chest cavity had been torn open, her sternum exposed, maggots wriggling in her dead flesh. She shuffled up behind him, and as gentle as a kiss, she bit him in the neck.

         He laughed.

         He turned and snapped her neck with one swift movement. It was a moment of pure violence. He grabbed a test tube and mixed his theory. He injected himself with the antidote.

         He thought that if he was going to die, he would like to die on the highway, surrounded by nature and life. He got behind the wheel of the teal Honda and he drove. He died as he reached the bend in the highway where she had told him she loved him. He knew he was dead because he felt her hand in his. He looked over, and there she was.

         She smiled. "I'm so proud of you," she told him.

         He didn't know if she was real or if his brain had produced her for him. "I love you," he told her.

         "Come with me," she said, tugging on his hand.

         He did.