“Please, don’t do this to me. You just got to hold on, okay? Please, man, please.” Sam Evans is dangerously close to freaking out. He hefts the warm, bleeding body closer to his chest, muscles straining and heart thumping. He’s running to the camp’s infirmary, a ragtag pool of friends and strangers following behind him.

“You got him?” Finn asks in a low, hoarse voice, panting slightly as they keep a steady pace. His gun is still clutched in his hand, trained on the woods around them, even as they approach the guarded sentry station at the gate of their survival camp. ”I can carry him if you want.”

“I got him,” He grunts, trying to angle his arm better underneath the barely conscious boy’s knees. It’s harder to maneuver than he thought it would be with the pants slick and heavy from the blood seeping through. He skids to a stop as they approach the gates, barking a sharp, “Sam Evans” at the guards who block their entry and, instead, check them critically for hidden injuries or bites. It wouldn’t be the first time someone (who was still in their right mind) attempted to sneak into the compound with a fresh bite. Sam tries to suppress the full body shudder that creeps through his body at the very memory of the massacre that occurred last time. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the vacant blue eyes of his old history teacher, and the sight of his ninety year old neighbor gnawing through the skin of her seven year old granddaughter.

Yes, on any normal day, he would fully support the guards’ decisions to search them.

But not today, not when one of his closest friends is dying in his arms. 

“We sent Puckerman ahead,” Finn argues when one of the guards block Sam from barreling through the gate. Sam’s bundle makes a small weak noise, blearily opening confused hazel eyes. Sam ignores Finn and the guards, shifting Blaine Anderson in his arms so he doesn’t drop the poor kid. Blaine whines pitifully, and Sam shushes him, eyeing the field bandage that had been haphazardly placed at the bleeding scratches on his head.

It had been a shoddy job handled by an unprepared college undergraduate with only a First Aid class of experience to his name. He had been the unlucky one to get stuck with their group the day a major food mission crashed and burned around them. At the first scream, Sam had reacted immediately, shooting at the victims of the disastrous Influenza Q. Finn and Puck had come to attention quickly, dodging and flaming the living dead predators. Blaine had been a mess by the time the zombie had been destroyed, so Sam had scooped him up and they had sprinted out of the woods, heading directly toward the compound, dodging zombies and taking shots as they ran.

“Come on, Sam.” Finn is tapping his shoulder and literally pushing him through the gates and toward the infirmary. As they run, Sam prays that Kurt’s not there yet. He doesn’t want him to freak out when he sees how bad off Blaine really is.

The infirmary isn’t far away, but Sam feels like it’s miles away. He’s frantically running, Finn again a pace behind him, and Sam doesn’t understand how the fuck the infirmary is so far away.

“Plse—Sam—Kurt,” Blaine’s nearly unintelligible. He’s been struggling to prop his eyelids open for minutes, and there’s just a little bit of blood on his lips where he bit through to keep from screaming. Sam doesn’t think he can make himself run any faster, but he pushes through any reserves he has left.

“Wes! David! Mike! Anyone!” Sam screeches as they sprint up the small porch and dash through the screened door. “Wes, where are you? We need help now. Please, Mike, Wes! Someone?”

“We’re coming!” There’s a scramble of voices and footsteps above his head, and suddenly two boys, barely older than Sam are jumping down the stairwell, panicked and stunned, but carrying bundles of gauze and tape and antibiotics they’d stolen from the pharmacy before things got really bad. Sam’s heavy bundle squirms just a little, mumbling slightly. Wes and Mike skid to a halt about a foot in front of him, eyes wide and mouths dropping. Wes is the first to jump to attention.

“Put him on the couch,” Wes stutters out, reaching a hand to touch Blaine before he twitches a little, his breathing fastening just slightly. Sam races toward the couch, and gently places him on the couch with help from Finn. “Oh, my god, what happened?”

“Didn’t Puck—“ Finn begins, glancing from the two boys to Sam. Sam isn’t paying attention, his eyes glued on Blaine’s pliant, unmoving form. Placed against the smooth leather couch, Sam realizes just how horrible he looks. There’s just so much blood—everywhere. He staggers away from the couch, his head spinning, and almost falls to the ground. Finn catches him around the elbow and drags him to a nearby armchair, gently helping lean forward just a little.

“Yes, yes, but I want to hear it from all of you,”  Wes waves off their question with a hand and sighs, running his hands over his face before he takes a deep breath and proceeds to unwrap the jacket and towel ensemble wrapped around Blaine’s body. He can’t quite stifle a gasp when Blaine’s blood seems to be covering every inch of his body.

“We were in the clearing, and eight zombs totally jumped us,” Finn begins, perching on Sam’s armchair, and looking away when Mike grabs a little basin of water from the side of the couch and dips a few washcloths in the water.  “They’re getting smarter and it’s scary as hell. I don’t know how they knew to distract us, but they got the rest of us to focus on about four of them, and then the others clawed through Blaine.”

“Did he get bitten?” Mike’s voice is barely a whisper, and he doesn’t look up from where he’s gently wiping at the bloodied cut on Blaine’s head. His hand is still poised over Blaine’s forehead, warily waiting an answer that he really doesn’t want to hear.

“No,” Finn says.

“Are you sure?”

Finn swallows hard, “Mostly. I didn’t watch him the entire time.”

Wes and Mike exchange a look, but anything they have to say is cut short by the sound of the backdoor slamming open. Finn is on his feet in an instant, as is Mike, with his gun trained at the doorway. They all relax when they hear the quiet clatter of boots and a familiar rough voice, murmuring quietly. Blaine, however, is the only one to visibly relax when a tinkling voice answers back.  

“Blaine? Blaine?” Kurt shouts from the other room, boots clattering on the floor as he tries to find them. “Finn? Sam? Where is he?”

Wes freezes just slightly in his ministrations, casting a panicked look over his shoulder before he hurriedly covers the worst of Blaine’s injuries—the unnatural angle of Blaine’s left knee as well as the deep, bone revealing cut on his upper thigh—with a few gauze pads. He tries to tend to the all of the wounds but he looks overwhelmed and out of sorts. Sam can’t blame him.

He’s using a thin needle, with an additional numbing agent, to sew one of the several other wounds, when David and Puck enter, quickly moving out of Kurt’s way. He enters the room a second later, stalking toward them, eyes wild. His chest is heaving, and he’s obviously panicking. His face falls at the sight of Blaine stretched out on the couch, a strained gasp leaving his lips, and he nearly pushes Mike out of the way to pull himself as close as he can to Blaine. Sam’s heart goes out to him, but he’s still feeling weak and shaky to actually do anything remotely comforting.

He can only watch, and awkwardly listen as Kurt coos to Blaine, and pets his forehead and just barely holds back his tears. It’s more awful than he ever thought it could be, but Kurt’s holding himself together, slipping his hand into Blaine’s limp one and shushing him. He tries not to listen.

“Blaine, baby, please look at me. Open your eyes, open those hazel eyes for me.”

“Ku—rt.”

They all wince when Blaine’s hoarse whisper is interrupted by a body-shaking cough. Kurt pulls back, wincing, drawing him up in a hug as Blaine winces and whimpers, heavy like a doll in Kurt’s arms. It’s almost painful for Sam to watch them, knowing how hard it is for Kurt to see Blaine so not Blaine.

“I can’t do this.”

Wes’s whisper is almost unheard above the commotion. Kurt is cuddling with Blaine’s upper torso, pressing his face to Blaine’s hair, Mike and David are having a detailed discussion even as Mike tends to a few nasty scratches on Blaine’s shoulder and neck, and Finn and Puck have walked away toward the door to strategize. Sam slowly gets off the armchair, wincing at the brief flash of dizziness before he reaches Wes’s side.

The other boy is shaken, pale-faced and staring helplessly at only one of Blaine’s torn, blood-splattered legs. It’s bad, so bad that Sam can’t even feel disgusted at the grotesque sight that lies before him, he’s feeling so empty. He grips Wes by the shoulder, and lets the older boy collapse against him.

“You’re incredible Wes, you have to help him.”

“It’s too much,” Wes whispers, mindful of Kurt beside them, “That’s bone, Sam. Bone! I can’t—I don’t know what to do. He’s bleeding from his head, his legs, his chest. I don’t think any of the scratches hit any arteries because he’s not dead yet, but it’s coming. He’s already showing signs of infection—“

“The Influenza Q kind of viral infection?”

“No, no,” Wes hurriedly answers, “Just normal infection, I think.” There are tears pooling in his eyes that he wipes at frantically with a clean wrist. “I just can’t help him. I was a sophomore in college, Sam, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“Yes, he is,” Sam insists shakily, eyeing the blood pooling out of Blaine that seems thicker than before. It looks almost gelatinous, thick and a deep ruby red. Sam feels like he’s going to hurl.

“Sam, stop kidding yourself,” Wes barks sharply, attracting the attention of everyone in the room. “He’s dying. Blaine is dying and we can’t do anything about it.”­

“No.”

“Kurt, I’m sorry, but we can’t—“

“No,” Kurt insists, voice harsh and unyielding. He runs a soothing hand over Blaine’s sweaty forehead and pets his hair almost absently as the only sort of conscious boy murmurs incoherently. “He’ll be fine. We’ll look for more pain killers, and you can read more about setting bones and transfusing blood.”

“It’s not that simple—“

“It really is,” Kurt snaps, his eyes darkening and narrowing as he stares down a miserable looking Wes. “He’s going to be fine. Wes and Mike are going to fix him and he’s going to be fine.”

Sam doesn’t want to think what will happen to Kurt if Blaine dies. He’d been a wreck for weeks after his father’s death and subsequent resurrection. He can’t imagine how bad it’ll be if Blaine doesn’t survive.

It’s at that moment that Blaine goes rigid, his neck twisting at an unnatural angle that jars Kurt from him. He twitches three times in rapid succession before he moans, long and guttural. It stops them all short and sends trickle of fear down Sam’s spine.  They’ve witnessed it before. Heard about it before.

Stage One.

Sam was one of the major players that went on missions. He was familiar with the moans, echoing in dark alleyways, and stumbling through the woods on muscular atrophied legs.  He’d seen friends fall ill from the viral infection; he’s watched them fall into seizures, spew blood, suffer through agonizing fevers and fall into a coma before waking up as the living dead. It’s happened to so many of their loved ones.

Kurt is frozen above him, left hand paused with fingers carding through Blaine’s curls. Even though, he hasn’t moved a step back yet, his eyes are wide and terrified. Puck and David have already sprinted out of the backdoor in fear. Sam is still pressed to the couch with Wes at his side, his heart pounding and his body suddenly frozen in shock.

“But I didn’t think that—”

“I guess we’ll just—”

“We have to kill him—“

“No, no, no, I won’t let you—”

Sam is already on his feet, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he critically checks Blaine for visible bites signs. It’s incredibly hard to do with his other injuries, but Sam peruses his upper torso, and then travels down his lower body looking for classic signs. His one leg is a mess from the broken bones and gaping wound, but the other is relatively fine, despite a quickly darkening blood rusty blood pool at his ankle.

And suddenly, as he passes a gentle hand over Blaine’s other leg, all Sam can smell is decomposing flesh. His stomach rolls and he tries desperately to not puke. He makes a noise, pulling back and stumbling into Finn who had come closer when Blaine had moaned. Wes jumps to his feet, pulling at the blood soaked jeans and yanking them up his thigh.

The middle of his shin is covered in blood, but right at the center is a browning, rugged mark. The ‘bite’—he really doesn’t want to call it that—has stopped bleeding, but it’s crusted over and oozing greenish white pus. Sam knows that the poisons already leaching the infection through Blaine’s body. There are sharp red lightning bolt lines that lead away from the ‘bite’ and the skin itself is turning a dull ashen gray right around the bite. Sam knows that within hours the dull gray will encompass his entire body.

Sam can only stare at it in horror. They are all quiet.

Blaine gives that moment to moan, allowing it to turn quickly into a pathetic cough, spraying the blanket Kurt had placed on his lap with spittle. Sam notices with disgust that he’s already spitting up blackened blood. Blaine gives a deep gasp, shuttering and moaning as he finally opens his eyes. Kurt stifles a gasp, taking a step back finally when they see that Blaine’s eyes are no longer a playful hazel but now threaded with dull red specks that are classic symptoms of Influenza Q.

Finn is inching forward, his shotgun poised on Blaine’s immobile body. He cocks the gun, and Kurt launches himself in front of Finn, screeching at the top of his lungs, “No! You can’t kill him! Oh god, please, don’t kill him!”

“Kurt—“

“No,” Kurt’s sobbing now, finally giving up any kind of strong front now that death is almost certain. He wipes unsteadily at his eyes, pleading now with Finn, “Please, we don’t have to kill him. We don’t know that this is definitely the virus.”

“Kurt, I’m positive that it is,” Wes says softly, his voice brittle. He’s perched at Blaine’s head, laying a cool washcloth on his forehead. “He has about three hours, I think, until he’ll fall into a coma, possibly less due to his injuries, and then in ten hours he’ll become one of them.”

“I know you want to save him, Kurt. I do too,” Mike adds, his own voice tinged with emotion, “But, he’s dying and soon he’ll be hungry for our brains. We have to kill him, Kurt. Blaine wouldn’t want to be in this position.”

“No! We can tie him up. We can chain him to a bed or a pole and feed him animal meats we find,” Kurt babbles, eyes filling with tears, the more he thinks about Blaine, “It’ll work out, I promise. He’ll never attack anyone; Blaine would never attack anyone.”

“Not when he’s in control of his mind,” Wes counters.

“He wouldn’t.”

“He’ll be in pain, Kurt,” Sam whispers, “He’ll be screaming in agony within an hour or two. Don’t you remember watching Mercedes die?” His voice cracks horribly as he talks about his long deceased girlfriend. She had been one of the first victims, falling incredibly ill and suffering through so much pain until she finally turned into a zombie.

“Of course I remember,” Kurt snaps, “But Blaine won’t be. We can help him and keep him comfortable and then he’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

Sam thinks he’s trying to convince himself that everything will be fine.

“I’m sorry, Kurt,” Wes whispers, getting to his feet. He presses a hand to Blaine’s forehead, closing his eyes for a second. “We need to kill him, Kurt. I’m sorry, I’m so incredibly sorry.”

“No, he’ll be fine.” Kurt insists, his voice cracking as he falls to his knees beside the couch. He slips his hand into Blaine’s and buries his face in Blaine’s side, chest heaving with sobs. Sam feels distinctly like he’s invading in the most private moment of their relationship, and tries to turn away only to meet Finn’s thoughtful gaze.

Sam inches close to him, “What you think it’ll work?”

Finn shakes his head, “Nah, not at all. The zombs are really freakishly strong when hungry.” He licks his lips, and gestures, “We need to kill him.”

Blaine twitches in Kurt’s hold, making another long drawn out moaning noise that sends shivers up and down Sam’s spine.  He speaks up without thinking, “I’ll take him.”

Kurt freaks out, pulling at the arm Finn wraps around and the grasp Mike tightens around his shoulders. Kurt Hummel is screaming and sobbing when Sam reaches for Blaine Anderson and picks him up gently like a tiny, sleeping baby. It’s an oddly personal moment, but Sam turns to Kurt and tries to send him a reassuring smile, “I’ll take good care of him, Kurt. I promise.”

Kurt doesn’t answer him with words, letting out a stream of mumbled sobs and bucking against the firm hold Finn and Mike both have on him. Sam speedily walks toward the backdoor, realizing sadly that Kurt Hummel will probably never speak to him again.

He glances down at Blaine, as they cross the threshold, and it hits him, once again, that he’s been put in the position to kill one of his dearest friends. He doesn’t want to, he really likes Blaine, but he has to. Blaine’s a threat to safety of thousands of citizens and he needs to do what he has to so they can survive. 

He walks with Blaine to the farthest corner of the yard, checking quickly to make sure he still has some matches and lighter fluid tucked away in his jacket pocket to burn the body after. He’s so jaded now that he thinks about his friend as nothing more than a body. He’s not just blonde-haired, comic book loving boy anymore. He’s a man. He’s watched neighbors die, zombies eat his friends, and has killed enough people to have perfected his kill shot. It’s not too shocking anymore. It stings because it’s his friend, but he swallows down the pain and the sorrow to deal with later. He needs to focus.

He takes out his handgun once Blaine is placed on the ground and snugly wrapped in his blankets. He twitches again, making a small soft whimpering noise and Sam has to press his fist into his eyes to stop from thinking about crying. He swallows hard and steels himself, clicking off the safety. 

His hands aren’t shaky when he lines up the shot with Blaine’s head.

He doesn’t think.

Not more than ten seconds later a single gunshot is heard.