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Introduction: June 27th
It was June 27th.
It was a Wednesday.
It was raining.
Blaine has gone over those details in his head again and again, as if by remembering every second of the day he can somehow pinpoint where it all went so wrong.
He slept late.
He called Kurt.
It was a Wednesday.
It was raining.
His father came home late—well after 7, when dinner had already gotten cold. He yelled at Blaine’s mother. There was a bandage on his arm.
I got mugged on the way home, he said. Some fucking kid. Fucking bit me.
He yelled at Blaine, who took his plate into the den to watch a movie and call Kurt again. Kurt didn’t pick up. He ate. He tried to ignore the sound of his parents arguing in the kitchen. He focused hard on the sound of the rain against the window behind him instead.
Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. It was 8pm.
He finished the movie. It was 9pm. His mother screamed.
He jumped up from the couch and tore through the house, yelling for his mother. He plowed first through the living room, then down the hall, stumbling over furniture and into the kitchen.
There was a bloody handprint streaked across the dull stainless front of the refrigerator.
There was a broken glass scattered across the sink and counter.
His mother was lying on the floor.
His father
His father was
There was so much blood
And he turned and ran like hell out of the kitchen, up the stairs, his socks slipping on the carpet in his mad dash to get away, get far far away from what he had just seen, and he flung open his bedroom door and slammed it closed behind him. He barricaded the door as best he could with his dresser, tipping it over with a tremendous bang that shook the floor and the walls.
That was when his legs gave out, and he fell back and curled against the far wall with his knees against his chest. His whole body shook. And he waited.
On the first day there was a noise outside his door. A rasp. A scratch of nails. Something that sounded like it was once his mother’s voice. Blaine huddled against the wall, pressing his back against it like he could crawl into the plaster and sheetrock where he could be safe. He breathed as quietly as possible, terrified of making a sound.
It went on for what felt like hours. Outside, it got dark, but he did not sleep. His skin itself was awake, stretched, listening. Every creak of the house sent sudden shivers through him. The noises outside his door finally stopped around dawn. He didn’t move.
On the third day the crash and clatter and tinkling of glass breaking downstairs sent him hurtling to his feet and over to the window. From there he could see the entire front of his house.
So he saw when his mother—or what was left of his mother—crawled out the front window and into the yard, trailing shredded skin.
And he saw when what used to be his father followed her.
They walked like something inside them had broken. There were more like them on the street. A car had crashed into the porch across the way.
He buried himself in his bed, burrowing and wrapping himself as tightly as he could. He didn’t cry. He couldn’t catch his breath well enough to cry.
On the fifth or sixth day, things in his mind began to blur and seem less real. He was no longer able to keep track of the rising or setting of the sun. He was hungry. He was exhausted.
He knew he had to go downstairs. He had to find something to eat eventually. He had to find out what was going on. How bad things were.
When he finally pulled the dresser away from his door and stumbled downstairs, the dizziness and blurred vision made everything seem like a horror movie. There was a long streak of blood down the stairs. The living room furniture was tipped over and the curtains billowed and strained in the broken front window like ghosts. Everything tilted one way and then the other.
The kitchen floor was a mess of blood and bits of oh god I can’t look I won’t look and the stink of copper and something rotten flooded his nose and sank into his skin. He didn’t open the refrigerator, knowing the power had been out for some time. Instead he grabbed what he could from the pantry, especially the bottled water his mother had kept just in case.
The thought of how his mother used to be was too much. He couldn’t think about her. Not when her dried blood crackled on the linoleum under his feet.
He didn’t look at the floor again on the way back to his room. He barely even breathed.
On the seventh or eighth or ninth day the thunder started.
On the tenth or eleventh day he realized he was going to die. It was a peaceful feeling, and he knew, somewhere in his mind, that was a bad thing, but couldn’t force himself to fight it.
At some point after that he finally fell asleep.
Then there were noises.
There were noises in the house.
Blaine was pulled from his sleep by the sound of footsteps and hushed voices. Everything was muffled, like he was underwater. His head hurt. His vision blurred and swooped and circled.
Panic rose up, starting deep in his chest and fighting its way up to his brain. It could be more of them. He had to defend himself.
He couldn’t move.
The door was opening.
He couldn’t move.
Someone came in. He couldn’t see who they were. But the voice was familiar.
“Oh, fuck.”
Another voice. “Who is it?”
“Oh fuck. It’s Blaine. Oh, my god.”
Blaine’s muscles slowly began to respond, struggling to pull his head up from where it rested on his bed. He had to tell them he was alive but his voice, rusty with days or more of disuse, couldn’t form words.
The two voices—whose shapes were becoming more distinct—jumped back in a blur of panic.
“Oh fuck oh fuck he’s one of them--“
“We have to do it, dude, we have to put him down—“
He had to tell them he was alive
They were going to kill him
They were going to kill him
His voice finally scraped together a word. “…Nick?”
“Oh shit. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
“He’s alive.”
“Oh my god. SEBASTIAN!”
Unknown Day
Blaine woke up slowly, his hearing returning first before he was able to open his eyes. It was incredibly quiet, so that he could hear every tiny noise of the wind outside and the floorboards creaking in another room as someone walked by and the sound of someone next to him breathing.
“Blaine?” whispered a familiar voice somewhere in the gloom.
When he finally opened his eyes he was lying directly under a window, which, as it came into focus, he realized was covered with boards and thick curtains. A dim half-light filtered through, slicing the air. A half-remembered headache began to throb behind his eyes.
Someone sitting next to him shifted and whispered his name cautiously. It seemed to take forever to turn his head.
The face that finally came into focus was familiar, but it took a second to place.
“Nick?”
His friend smiled. He was thinner than Blaine remembered, more angular, and dirty with his hair too long and mussed.
“Hey, Blaine. I was starting to worry you’d sleep forever. Welcome back.”
His eyes drifted to the ceiling. It was a ceiling he didn’t know. He wasn’t in his room anymore.
“Nick…where are we?”
“Wes’s house. Or, you know, it used to be. Everyone stays here now.”
His head swam. He felt like he was missing something. Something big.
“Everyone?”
“Yeah, there’s five of us. Six, I mean, with you. Me and my sister Jill, Sebastian, and Wes and his brother Max. And now you too. How do you feel? I can get you something to eat. There isn’t much, but you’re with us, so…”
He shook his head. It was like moving through water. God, he was so weak. How long had it been? How long had he slept?
“Nick… What happened?”
He heard his friend sit back, sigh, calm himself. “It’s sorta hard to explain. I think you should rest a little more before I tell you.”
“No… I need to know. Is it what happened to my parents?”
“Your parents—oh, god, Blaine, I’m sorry. Mine too. All of our parents, actually. I’m so sorry.”
“Nick, please.” He turned back. Tears were glittering in Nick’s eyes, which looked far too big for his face now. “What happened?”
He wiped his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. “Sebastian can explain better than me. I’ll go get him.”
He left and Blaine returned to staring at the ceiling, watching the patterns of dust motes floating in the long blades of sunlight coming through the window. It felt like a long time before he heard whispered voices outside the door.
“He won’t stop asking, Sebastian, I tried. I can’t tell him. I just can’t. I thought you could… I don’t know, explain. Gently. Please. He’s still really out of it.”
There was a long pause before the door opened and Sebastian walked in as softly as he could, sitting down next to Blaine.
He didn’t look the same anymore—just like Nick, he was thinner, almost gaunt, with messy too-long hair and a new pallor to his skin. The smell of his cologne was gone, replaced with the faintest musk of sweat and nervous energy.
“Hey, Blaine, how are you feeling?”
He tried to shrug, but only managed to lift one shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s happened, and I’m just so tired.”
“Yeah, that’s to be expected, you’re half-starved.”
“But…how? It was only… a few days? Ten maybe?”
Sebastian looked shocked. “Blaine… what day do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. It was the twenty-seventh when it all happened… so the eighth, maybe?”
A look of amazement crossed Sebastian’s face. “The eighth? It’s July thirtieth. At least, as best we can keep track.” He grinned suddenly, as if he couldn’t help himself. “Blaine Anderson, you’ve officially slept through the zombie apocalypse.”
July 31st
Sebastian hadn’t explained much more, just forced him to drink some water and go back to sleep, so when he woke up the next morning (he thought) he felt a little better but still confused. The house was incredibly quiet but he could hear the faintest hints of people moving around, so he gathered the blanket he’d been wrapped in and tried to get up.
It took a while—rolling over to his knees, then putting one foot up, then the other—but his head still spun when he straightened, threatening to send him pitching back down to the floor.
Getting down the stairs was terrifying and took a long time. He couldn’t always tell how far away the next step was and they seemed to shift under his feet. And by the time he finally got to the bottom, he was so tired he had to sit down for a minute.
He heard faint sounds coming from down the hall, so when he felt like he could handle it, he got up and headed that way, one hand dragging along the wall for balance. He came to the kitchen, where Sebastian sat at the table with Nick, a girl Blaine guessed was Jill, Wes, and a young boy, maybe seven years old, who Blaine assumed must be Wes’s younger brother.
Sebastian jumped to his feet the minute he saw Blaine leaning against the doorframe, grabbing his elbow to steady him. “You okay?”
Blaine just nodded and let himself be guided over to Sebastian’s chair. He sat heavily, head spinning, feeling awful. Sebastian grabbed a bottle of water and put it in front of him, and he took a few long swallows, which helped clear his head a little. Nick, Jill, and Wes were looking at him like they were worried he’d drop dead any second.
Somewhere deep inside, he found the energy to crack a joke. “Geez, do I really look that bad?”
It wasn’t funny, but it was enough to break the tension in the room. They all managed faint smiles, and Sebastian squeezed Blaine’s shoulder reassuringly.
Nick was the first to speak. “I hate to break it to you, but yeah. You do.”
Blaine just nodded. “Awesome.”
Wes chuckled a little, but it was dry. “Other than that, how do you feel?”
Blaine shrugged. “Tired, mostly. But… More than that, I’m just confused. I don’t know what’s gone on. I don’t even know how long I was out.”
He saw the older kids all glance nervously over at Max, who was leaning sleepily against Wes’s shoulder. Wes saw the looks and immediately stood, picking his little brother up from his chair. “Come on, kiddo, nap time,” he said as he walked into the next room.
There was a long pause as they waited for the door into the next room to close before Sebastian took the vacant seat and spoke first. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Everything, I guess. My parents… I lost my parents, and I don’t even know why.”
The silence that fell around them was heavy. Jill sniffled and Nick, unable to meet her eyes, rubbed her back gently. Then Blaine realized: they’d all lost their parents. They were all staying in that house together because they had to—they had nowhere else to go.
He felt awful. “I’m sorry, you guys. You don’t have to say anything.”
Sebastian tried to force a casual shrug, but the defensive hunch of his shoulders kept his whole body tense as he spoke. “To be totally honest, we don’t really know what’s going on. One day in late June….it just started happening.” On the other side of the room, Wes stepped back in, closing the door as quietly as possible so as not to disturb him. “We have no idea where or when it started. I heard a little bit on the news, you know, but everyone was so confused and panicked and then the power went out two days later. So. I don’t really know how it all started.”
“I was over here,” Nick began after a long pause. “This is Wes’s house. We were, um, shit I don’t even remember.”
“Nothing important,” Wes replied as he sat down next to Sebastian. “Playing video games. First few days of summer.”
“Yeah. And my mom called me, like, completely panicked. She just told me to stay where I was, no matter what, that she was going to go find Jill and my dad and she’d call me when she could come get me.” He drifted off and wiped his eyes. Jill leaned her head on his shoulder comfortingly, though her eyes glittered with tears too.
Wes reached over to squeeze his friend’s shoulder before he picked up the story. “We were pretty rattled. I couldn’t get ahold of my parents at all. Then Jill called.”
“I was alone in the house and really scared,” Jill added without looking up.
Nick took a long, shuddering breath before he sat up. “So we went to get her. It was…”
“Awful,” Wes finished for him. “Like something out of a horror movie. Just terrible. People running everywhere. So we got Jill and just came back here. We figured, you know, if our parents knew where we were, maybe they’d come for us. And then… we just stayed. Nowhere else to go.”
Blaine felt choked. The air in the room seemed dense, too hot, stifling. “I’m so sorry.”
Wes just nodded slightly, looking down at the table.
“Have you heard from…Anyone else?”
Sebastian shook his head. He was the only one not tearing up. Something in his eyes had gone distant, cold. “No. We’ve been going into other houses for the last few weeks, looking for supplies. You’re the only person we’ve found.”
“We looked, early on,” Nick added, almost in a whisper. “Some of our friends.” His voice cracked, and he wiped his eyes again. “We didn’t find anybody.”
Blaine’s mind began to race. They hadn’t found anybody. Not their families, not their friends. He thought of the people they must have lost contact with, all his old friends from school, how they had to assume, after so long, that they were all dead. Or one of them.
His family, too. And his friends. Kurt. Tina. Sam. Gone, probably.
He slumped down in his chair, overwhelmed. Everyone he loved.
Sebastian reached over to rub soothing circles on his back, but he hardly felt it. He felt like he was falling, down farther and farther like some awful version of Alice in Wonderland. The world as he knew it was gone.
And he hadn’t even been able to fight for it.
August 14th
It was two weeks before Sebastian deemed Blaine strong enough to go with them on a hunt for supplies. He had to be quick, and sharp, and fast. It was dangerous out there, they all told him. He didn’t know the half of it.
The night before they went out, Nick came into his room to get him prepared. They sat facing each other on the bed. He couldn’t help but stare at his friend. God, he was so thin. His eyes looked sunken into his face, and hollow somehow, like grief and fear had just stripped away his youth and spirit. Blaine hadn’t seen his own reflection, so he could only imagine he looked just as bad.
“I want you to stick by my side when we’re out there. We’re not too far from your old house, but things are a lot different. We’ve marked the houses that are safe to go into, and we’re only hitting two tomorrow. But still, things change. So I need you to be in my sight the whole time, okay?”
Blaine just nodded. He’d managed to convince himself, since Sebastian had okayed going out with them, that he’d be safe in the group. The way Nick was talking made him nervous all over again.
“The most important thing: if you see one of the dead, get the hell out of there. If they bite you or scratch you, it’s all over. Get away as fast as you can, get everyone else, and go. Okay?”
Blaine nodded. “Okay.”
He felt himself trembling, and Nick saw it and reached over to clasp his hands. “You don’t have to go if you don’t think you’re ready. It’s bad out there, I won’t lie to you. And the last thing we need is you getting hurt.”
Blaine took a deep breath. “I’ll be okay. You guys have taken care of me for the last two weeks and I know you don’t have a lot to share. I want to help.”
“Okay. Just remember, we won’t think any less of you if you don’t go.”
“No. I want to.”
“Okay. Get some rest, I’ll see you in the morning.”
By the time the sun came up and Nick shook Blaine gently awake, he was scared again. He fought hard against it, but could still feel his muscles quivering under his skin. Sebastian and
Nick outfitted him with a large backpack and a flashlight, then stood debating between themselves what kind of weapon to give him. They didn’t have actual weapons, per se, so he was finally handed a worn, wooden baseball bat. He refused to take it. He didn’t think he’d be able to kill (“put down” Sebastian corrected) one of the dead people if he came across them.
“Blaine, take it. Just in case. I’m not going to let you go out there unable to defend yourself,” Sebastian insisted, and that was the end of the discussion.
The neighborhood was nothing like how he remembered. Before, it had been a quiet, well-ordered, almost boring place to live. Now the house two down from Wes’s was burned to the ground. There were cars in yards and abandoned on the streets, which they gave a wide buffer zone as they passed. Blaine realized with a sinking horror that something could be in there, waiting to grab them.
They aimed for a house two blocks over, walking as quickly as they could without making noise. At the second corner, Sebastian suddenly dropped to his knees and signaled for all of them to do the same. They ducked behind cars, Nick pulling Blaine by the arm and Wes grabbing Jill around the shoulders. Nick whispered “quiet” next to his ear, leaning over to put a hand over his mouth. Blaine’s heart was racing, his breathing coming fast and frantic, but he forced himself to calm down.
“Don’t look,” Nick whispered again, and there was a terrible sound, like a choking, followed by a sickening, dull crunch. Blaine tried not to think of what act of violence had made that sound. The other boys had told him already that the only way to put the dead down was to destroy their brain.
Sebastian whistled quietly as an “all clear” signal and they were back on their feet again. There was a splatter of brown blood on his shoulder.
The house was a sprawling, one-story ranch style, windows and doors intact, with a big red “X” spray painted on the front wall. Sebastian scouted the outside quickly before they went in.
It looked like it had been hastily abandoned, but everything was still in order, with no signs of struggle. It was eerily silent, and Blaine felt every nerve on edge, waiting for a sound, any sound.
Sebastian signaled Wes and Jill to the far side of the house, Nick and Blaine into the kitchen, and indicated that he was going to investigate the basement. They set to work quickly, opening the cabinets and stuffing everything into their bags. They avoided the refrigerator—the power had long been out and the smell, even when it was closed, filled the kitchen.
Nick paused only to laugh when he found a six-pack of beer in one of the cabinets. Blaine raised an eyebrow at him, but he just shrugged and arranged it in the bottom of the bag. “After everything we’ve been through? We could use some.”
They finished and rejoined Wes and Jill in the main entryway. They hadn’t found much, so they rearranged some things between their four bags as they waited for Sebastian. He came bounding up from the basement with a full bag, holding a camping lantern.
“What did we get?”
Wes shrugged. “Not much on our end. There were little kids here, so nothing we could use.”
“We got plenty from the kitchen,” Nick added, “so we should be good for a while.”
“Good. Let’s get going.”
They headed outside, looking every which way to keep an eye out for the dead. The bag felt heavy on Blaine’s shoulders, but he refused to fall behind or complain. He’d lost a lot of weight, and was unable to put any of it back on, but he had to be as strong as the rest of the group.
The house next door had an “X” painted on the wall like the first, but the front picture windows were shattered, fragments of glass glittering in the overgrown yard. They stopped to assess for a moment and Blaine took the opportunity to shift the weight of the bag.
“It wasn’t like this yesterday,” Wes said, his voice quiet with nervousness.
“Shit. We’re skipping it.” Sebastian turned away. “Let’s head back.”
They were even more uneasy as they headed back to the house, Sebastian a few steps ahead of the rest of them with his bat held in a loose, ready grip, scouting. All Blaine could hear was their breathing and footfalls, unbearably loud on the abandoned street.
Suddenly something snagged his ankle and he went down hard, his face and hands scraping on the asphalt, the bag knocking the air out of him as it landed on his back. He clawed and scrambled for purchase, trying desperately to get away. Behind him, something creaked and hissed and locked its grip down on his leg. Nick yelled and the group dashed back, Jill and Wes and Nick grabbing his hands and shoulders and pulling him as his feet scrambled and finally caught and pushed himself away. Behind him, Sebastian hoisted his bat and brought it down with a horrible, wet cracking sound, then again, and again and again until blood splattered everywhere.
Blaine sat on the pavement, watching, horrified. Nick and Wes pulled up the leg of his jeans to check him for scratches and Jill just knelt behind him, embracing him fiercely to try to calm him down. But all he could focus on was Sebastian—the rage that he channeled into the swing of his bat, hiding the fear.
When he was done he ran back and dropped to his knees in front of Blaine, nearly frantic as he cupped Blaine’s face in his hands. He could feel his racing pulse against his cheeks. “You’re okay? It didn’t bite you, it didn’t scratch you?” His eyes were wide and glassy with fear.
“No. No, I’m okay, I’m okay.”
They sat like that for a moment, hearts pounding, breath coming in desperate gasps. He’d never seen Sebastian like that—it was pure terror. Terror for his safety.
“It’s okay, Sebastian. I’m okay.”
It took another long moment for it to sink in. “Alright.” He stood then, offering a hand to pull Blaine to his feet. Nick offered to take the bag from him, and he was tempted to agree to it, since there were bound to be huge bruises on his back, but in the end he refused. He couldn’t slow Nick down.
Sebastian kept a firm grip on his upper arm until they got safely inside.
Night, August 14th into the 15th
That night, after they’d cooked on camping stoves and Wes had put Max to bed, they gathered in the living room with every extra blanket and pillow, set up the new camping lantern in the center of the floor, and cracked open the beers. They were warm, but no one minded as they sat up late, telling old stories of their friends and loved ones, laughing quietly, savoring the few hours of peace and safety.
It was probably past midnight when Nick suddenly looked at Blaine and asked, “Did we ever tell you how Sebastian joined us?”
Blaine shook his head. He’d always been a lightweight, but he was a lot skinnier now and the beer he’d drunk made him tired. He was leaning comfortably on Wes’s shoulder, just letting the night wash over him.
“I just assumed he found you guys.”
“Oh, he did. But it’s not quite as simple as that. Sebastian, you mind if I tell him about it?”
Sebastian just shrugged, though Blaine saw the faintest beginnings of his old, lopsided grin.
Nick took a swig of his beer, emptying the can. “It was, like, two weeks after it all started. The four of us—“ he gestured to include Wes, Jill, and the absent, sleeping Max—“had been hunkered down here the whole time. Power was out, cell phones were long gone, we didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. Best we could do was scout out the neighborhood, so Wes was up on the roof with some old binoculars we’d found. I guess we were still holding out hope that someone was coming to help. But—“
“No one but the dead,” Wes interrupted. “Hadn’t seen a single other person since it all went down.”
“Right,” Nick rejoined the conversation. “But suddenly, I hear him stomping on the roof, which means get the fuck up here. So I climb out the fucking window and haul my ass up there, and what do I see? Sebastian fucking Smythe. Walking right down the road, calm as you please. No backpack, no supplies. Just a spear. A homemade fucking spear. And he walks right into the front yard and waves to us. Like he was dropping by for lunch.”
Blaine looked over at Sebastian, who was grinning widely, nodding a little along with the story.
“Tell him what you said to us,” Wes insisted, reaching over to smack Sebastian’s knee.
He laughed. “I said, ‘I hear you’re renting rooms.’”
Nick laughed, then quickly covered his mouth so he wasn’t so loud. “Fucking crazy bastard,” he whispered through his fingers, but fondly.
Blaine sat up. “So where were you before?”
The smile faded from Sebastian’s face and he shifted uncomfortably. He finished his beer before responding, simply, “Out there.”
Blaine realized that he’d made a big mistake, and that Sebastian didn’t want to think about it. “Oh. Sorry.”
There was nothing left to say after that, and they slowly broke off from the group and went to their respective rooms—Wes sharing the guestroom with his brother, Nick and Jill sharing the master bedroom, Blaine to the second bedroom where he’d been for a few weeks. He left Sebastian alone in the living room, staring off into space. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
When he crawled into the small twin bed, he couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the clamp of a dead hand around his ankle, saw the bloody ruin of a head after Sebastian had finished.
The sound of the door opening scared him and he gasped, then held his breath as someone came into the room.
“Blaine.” Sebastian’s voice, low and gentle. “I know you’re awake.”
Blaine didn’t respond, just kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He didn’t know what Sebastian wanted, and suddenly was too afraid to ask. He listened as Sebastian stepped closer, footfalls muffled by his socks on the carpet, until he was standing right over Blaine’s bed. Still, he didn’t look.
“I’m just… I’m gonna sleep on the floor here. I know…today was scary. So.” His voice dropped even softer. “I’ll be right here, okay?”
Blaine didn’t look, but nodded just slightly, hoping Sebastian could see him and know that he was giving permission. Whether he did or not, Sebastian just lay down on the floor, next to the bed, and didn’t say anything else. Blaine lay awake for a long time, listening as his breathing got slow and even, and finally slept.
August 23rd
There’d been too much activity the last few days. Too many of the dead. They couldn’t go outside, couldn’t hunt for supplies. It was too risky.
One day, one of them came right up to the windows. Scratched at the glass. They heard it, even through the boards and the thick blankets they had stapled over the windows.
Everyone was on edge, and they had begun sitting watch on the roof. Even at night, someone was always up there. Just in case.
More than a week had passed and Blaine was still having trouble sleeping. Sebastian camped out on his room, coming in quietly late at night to lie on the floor next to the bed. His presence was the only thing that helped. They never said anything about it, and Sebastian was always awake and out before Blaine.
It was Sebastian’s turn to sit up overnight and Blaine waited, lying in bed staring up at where the ceiling would be in the pitch black of his bedroom.
Finally, with a sigh, he swung his legs out of bed, searched around to find the sweatshirt he left on the foot of the bed, and carefully shuffled out the bedroom door to the window in the hallway that led to the roof. He’d been out there plenty, keeping watch during the day, but never at night. He was still too jumpy. He knew no one wanted to take night watch, and felt that the rest of the group resented him a little for not doing it, but he knew he couldn’t handle it.
He leaned out the window and whispered Sebastian’s name so the other boy knew he was coming out, then climbed out the open window, cautiously balancing himself on the narrow lip of the roof and walking his way over.
Sebastian sat at the peak of the roof, looking out over the front yard and the street. The moon was near full and hung low and gold and ripe in the sky, highlighting the boy’s profile. He looked so still, so calm, that Blaine felt awkward and stompy as he made his way across.
“Hey,” he murmured lowly as he sat down.
“Hey,” Sebastian replied without looking at him, still surveying the street. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No. I keep…I don’t know. I feel like I’m never going to sleep normally again.”
“Yeah, I know how you feel.” Sebastian shifted a little, but carefully so they didn’t touch. “I’m starting to think… maybe it’s good, to not be letting our guard down with the world the way it is.”
Blaine sighed, feeling the familiar heaviness of fear and grief settling over him. It was a feeling that never left him, these days. “Do you think it’ll ever be normal again? You know, the way it was…before?”
He watched as Sebastian’s shoulders fell, just slightly, as if the same weight was settling over him. There was a long pause as he took a deep breath. “I wish… Honestly, Blaine, I wish I could tell you that yes, I think it will be someday. But I can’t, because it won’t. It’s been almost two months, don’t you think we’d have gotten help by now? Police, the National Guard, the UN, somebody. If they were out there, they would have come by now. And I have to think that they aren’t. There’s other people, I’m sure, groups of survivors like us, but with no way to communicate and no way to even get to them, how could we ever hope to—“ His voice caught in his throat suddenly, and he stopped, then cleared his throat. Blaine saw the slightest shine in his eyes, like tears, though he would never show them. After another moment, he spoke again, and his voice was even and flat. “This is it, Blaine. This is how it’s going to be. Surviving.”
Blaine felt overwhelmed. He felt scared. He had no idea how to survive. He was a musician, a high-school kid for god’s sake, he couldn’t fight or put down the dead.
Trying not to cry, he scooted closer to Sebastian and rested his head on the other boy’s shoulder. They weren’t close, hell, they were hardly even friends—but he needed it. He needed to be comforted, to feel for just a second like it might be alright in the end—even if he knew it never would be.
Sebastian didn’t say anything, just let him sit there until he felt sleepy and, without a word, went back inside.
August 28th
It was another few days before they decided to make another supply run. The dead had thinned out some, but not enough for it to be safe. But they were desperate. They needed more clean water, or the supplies to make a filtration system for the water that remained in the house’s pipes.
Wes, Nick, Jill, and Sebastian had spent the previous few days hovering over a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood, filling in their memories of who had lived in the nearby houses, trying to remember if anyone they knew was a hardcore camper (or, better yet, as Sebastian put it, “one of those doomsday freaks. God, I’d give anything to get my hands on a survival freak’s stash right now.”)
Unfortunately, their section of Westerville seemed devoid of paranoid survivalists, so they decided they were going to hit two of the houses they’d marked several streets away. It was farther than really felt safe, but they’d cleaned out the immediate neighborhood. There weren’t any good options.
They decided to head out early in the morning, since the last few days had been blisteringly hot and, with low water supplies, being out at midday was just too dangerous. They got ready in the cool, still hours before dawn, going over the plan, securing their tools. Then, when the sun was finally up and the day brilliantly clear, they headed out the door.
They got maybe ten steps before Sebastian put out an arm to stop them. “Jill, get Nick back inside.”
Nick stepped forward, confused. “What? Sebastian, I—“
“Nick.” Sebastian’s tone allowed for no argument. “Go back inside.”
That was when Blaine saw it.
Him.
It.
He had to think of it as an it. Otherwise he’d lose his mind.
Its blond hair was matted and dirty. Its left shoulder and arm were torn and open and hanging in strings. It shirt was a mess of dried blood and dirt and god only knew.
And its face. Oh god, its face, once gentle and prone to big smiles and mischievous smirks, was nearly gone, lips a bloody ruin.
What was left of Jeff Sterling snarled at them as it approached.
Blaine froze in place, then Jill grabbed Nick and pulled at him. He started screaming then, screaming his best friend’s name and curses and huge sobs as he tried to fight her, tried to run to the boy who was no longer a boy but something awful and corrupt. Wes grabbed him too and together they pulled him into the house, trying to shush him before his screams brought all the dead down upon them. Even after the door closed, Blaine could still hear him sobbing.
Sebastian and Blaine just stood there in the yard as it approached, then Sebastian shrugged off his bag and held it out for Blaine to take. “I have to… He wouldn’t want us to leave him like this.”
Blaine just nodded and took the bag.
Sebastian walked slowly toward the thing that used to be his friend and classmate, adjusting his grip on the bat he carried with one hand. He stopped a few paces away and lifted it over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Jeff.”
The thing snarled again and lunged for Sebastian and he swung as hard as he could. The bat met the things skull with a horrible, wet smack that knocked the whole body to the ground. Then Sebastian swung again when it was down. Once. Twice. Three times. And it stopped moving.
Sebastian stood over the body of his friend for a long, long time, then dropped the bat beside it and turned back toward the house. He grabbed Blaine’s arm as he passed and pulled him inside. They wouldn’t be going out that day.
Inside the house, they could hear Nick sobbing in his bedroom, an awful, end of the world crying that had lost all hope. Jill sat on the floor outside the door, blocking them from entering. Blaine could hear Wes murmuring to Nick inside, though he couldn’t imagine the boy could hear. Jill just sat, silent, eyes wide and vacant as she stared at a point on the wall above their heads.
That night, Blaine knew he wouldn’t sleep, so he just lay on top of the bed sheets. He wanted to wrap himself in them, huddle into someplace where it was safe and dark, but it was too hot.
As always, his door opened softly, and as always, Sebastian drummed his fingers on it to give Blaine a warning that he was coming in.
But that time, for the first time, Sebastian was sniffling, breathing fast and shallow.
“Blaine,” he whispered. Something in his voice was broken.
Blaine turned toward the sound of his voice. “I’m here,” he murmured, knowing Sebastian couldn’t see him.
The foot of the bed dipped under the other boy’s weight and Blaine opened his arms as Sebastian crawled across the mattress and sank against him. His whole body shook as he sobbed into the front of Blaine’s tee shirt, crying the words “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over again.
September 1st
Nick hadn’t shown his face for three days or made a sound for two. He’d kicked Wes out and locked himself in, refusing to respond even when Jill pounded on the door and begged. She sat in the hallway with her head on the door, crying, throughout the first night and well into the second day, when exhaustion finally overwhelmed her and she slumped down to the floor. No one was sure how long she’d been there when Blaine found her. He wasn’t strong enough to carry her anywhere, but Sebastian scooped her up gently and carried her down to the couch. Wes sat up with her, cooling her forehead and wrists with a damp cloth, until she woke the next morning.
When she did, she wouldn’t speak, and the silence in the house without her voice or Nick’s was truly unbearable.
Blaine escaped by taking longer shifts on watch, no matter how hot the day was. The third evening, he stayed up on the roof through the sunset and well into the dark hours of the night. The waning moon gave just enough light that he could see shapes moving below, but nothing too distinct.
He heard someone knock on the windowsill off to his left and turned to see Sebastian swinging his long legs out easily. He balanced himself and walked across the roof easy as a cat, but the way he sat down next to Blaine was anything but light.
Blaine still didn’t know what to make of Sebastian’s long, sullen silences. The boy he’d known before hadn’t been chatty, but had always had something snarky or funny to say. The boy sitting next to him now was broken and angry and never spoke unnecessarily.
He never thought he’d have agreed to share a bed with someone he didn’t understand. And while they hadn’t done anything but sleep for the last three nights, they shared a strange intimacy in those silent moonlit hours as Sebastian clutched at Blaine’s clothes like an anchor and curled into himself, mourning.
There was no hint of that vulnerability up on the roof as Sebastian lit a cigarette and sat smoking for a few long moments. Blaine sat just as quietly, knowing that Sebastian would speak only when he was ready.
Finally, he took a drag, blew a long line of smoke toward the moon, and began abruptly.
“I knew Jeff was dead.” Blaine noticed that his hand trembled as he lifted the cigarette to his lips again. “The day it all went down, he called me. He was at work at this record store in Westerville, and the news was on and he was scared and crying. He couldn’t reach Nick so he called me and begged me to pick him up so he could go home and check on his brother and sister. And I tried. I really, honestly tried. But by the time I got there, it was just hell on earth and he was gone. I thought maybe he’d gone home so I turned around and headed there—we lived three blocks apart so I knew how to find him. It just kept getting worse and worse. People were fleeing town, the roads were jammed with stranded cars and dying people and I had to abandon my car and try to get there on foot. And when I got there… I just knew. The front window was smashed and the door was open. And his little sister… Her name was Robin, she was two or three. I met her on Family Weekend. Cute kid.” He took a deep breath, a drag on the cigarette. It didn’t stop his hands from shaking. “She was laying in the front yard. And that’s when I knew, because if he’d been alive, he would never have left her like that.”
He flicked the still-burning end of his cigarette out into the night. There was a rustle in the yard of the next house over, but it couldn’t make him look up. There was a high fence between them and danger.
“I was out there for two weeks. I looked for anyone alive. I slept in abandoned houses when they seemed safe. I slept in a fucking tree for two nights when some of the dead came after me. And after those two weeks, I found Nick and he told Wes to let me in and kept me from getting killed. And I looked him straight in the eye and told him no, I didn’t know what happened to his best friend. I hoped he’d just…accept it. Everyone else was gone.” He sighed heavily. “At least, I thought so, until we found you. And you were half-dead but you were half-alive too and… Fuck, Blaine, it’s the first time I had any hope.”
Blaine wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t feel like anyone’s reason to hope. He was scared to the point of shaking all the time, weak from hunger and bone-deep tired. But he realized that Sebastian hadn’t been clinging to him in the night because he was an anchor, dragging him back down to earth. He clung to Blaine to keep him afloat and alive in a world where horror broke over him again and again.
He reached out for Sebastian’s hand but before he could form the right words—or any words—Sebastian stood.
“If Nick doesn’t come out of there tomorrow, I’m kicking the fucking door down. I’m not losing him too.”
When Blaine went inside, Sebastian was already asleep in his—their—bed, so Blaine slipped carefully in to lie with him. As he sank into sleep, he felt Sebastian’s arm tighten around his waist.
September 2nd
Jill’s high, frantic shrieking cracked the morning open.
Blaine fought through the seconds of sheer panic, heart racing as he and Sebastian both bolted out from bed and into the hall. They were too scared to even arm themselves.
The door to the bedroom where Nick had locked himself was open and Jill’s screams came from inside, filling the house with her breathy, strangled cries.
Sebastian got there first and immediately turned back to Blaine and shoved him away, cursing a long stream of senseless words “fuck oh fuck oh fuck Blaine don’t look go back” before slamming the door, muffling Jill’s voice.
He just stood there helplessly in the hall. He could hear sobs. He’d heard so much crying the last few days, but Jill’s voice sank a deep chill into his bones. At the foot of the stairs, Wes approached slowly and stared up at Blaine. He could only stare back. There were no words to describe what they both knew had happened.
The moment was only broken when Max came up behind Wes and tugged on the hem of his older brother’s shirt.
“Wes? What happened to Jill?”
Wes turned and carefully flattened his brother’s messy morning hair. “Nothing, kiddo. Bad dreams. She’s just scared, that’s all.”
“Can I go give her a hug?”
Wes’s shoulders dropped, but Blaine knew he was trying to be strong. “Not right now, Max. Let’s get you something to eat.” He looked up at Blaine as he took his little brother’s hand and headed to the kitchen.
It took an awfully long time to get down the stairs, and when he got to the kitchen he still didn’t know what to say. Wes made coffee at the stove and he and Blaine sat across from each other at the kitchen table, staring at each other over their mugs as Max ate peanut butter and crackers.
Their coffee had long gone cold, untouched, when Sebastian walked heavily down the stairs. His eyes stared vacantly at a point just above Blaine’s head. When he spoke, his voice came out just above a whisper. “I need your help.”
It took an hour to dig the grave in the soft earth of the backyard. Sebastian wrapped Nick in the cleanest sheet they could find and carried him out, holding him gently as if not wanting to wake him. When he handed him down to Blaine and Wes, he weighed no more than a doll.
Wes and Blaine managed a few words of goodbye. Sebastian stood silent. Jill never came outside.
Blaine and Sebastian went to bed together for the first time, standing on either side of the mattress, fidgeting, unsure of what to do. Not once in the last few weeks had they had to face each other.
Blaine made the first move by reaching out with both hands toward Sebastian, who took them, and they met in the middle and lay down together, with Blaine tucking his head under Sebastian’s chin and letting himself just be held.
September 3rd
The next morning, Jill was nowhere to be found. The front door was closed, but the bars that usually held it shut at night had been taken down and carefully put aside. They knew better than to look for her.
September 5th
For days, the dead had been restless.
It was if, somehow, they knew the house was occupied. They’d been alerted by Jill’s screams and the digging of the grave, and had, one by one and then in small groups, drifted toward the house. And several days later, they still hadn’t dispersed.
It made them all nervous, especially when one of the dead scratched listlessly at the front window. Max hid in the guestroom, burying himself in every blanket on the bed despite the heat. Wes paced relentlessly throughout the first floor of the house until Sebastian—who sat silently in the living room, chain smoking and watching the window and front door—told him to knock it off. Blaine just sat next to Sebastian, silent but flinching whenever he heard the dead outside.
On the second night after Jill disappeared, Wes put Max to bed early and asked Sebastian and Blaine to join him in the kitchen.
He sat for a long time with his hands folded in front of him. Blaine could see the tension and fear etched in every line of his body and in the way his shoulders arched toward his ears. Finally, he spoke.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to take Max and try to make it to Chicago. We have more family there. Our grandparents were there, plus a few aunts and uncles. Most of them live in the same neighborhood outside the city, and I figure they might have banded together…sort of like we did.”
Blaine was too shocked to speak, but Sebastian shook his head. “Wes, you can’t. It’s suicide and you know it.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve thought about it. They live far enough from the city that they may have been safe if it fell. When we’ve been out scouting I’ve seen some cars that will run. I won’t take a lot of supplies. We don’t need much, and it used to only be a six hour drive, so I figure now it’ll still take less than a day.”
They stared each other down for a long moment, and Blaine saw it in Wes’s eyes. He knew. He knew there was little chance they’d survive the trip, and even if they did, there was almost no hope of finding any family. The highways between there and Chicago were probably just as blocked with abandoned cars as the streets of Westerville, and travel would be even slower going with a small child in tow. But he also saw that Wes was determined to try. Leaving meant that he would likely die, but staying there meant it was certain. And if there was any chance he’d survive, he’d take it.
Blaine found himself nodding, though his heart ached at the prospect of death. “I understand, Wes.”
His friend managed the barest of half-smiles. “Thanks, Blaine.”
Sebastian was shaking his head even more. “No. Wes, I won’t allow this. I told you when I got here that I would protect you. I’m not going to let you walk out of here to certain death.”
“Sebastian.” Wes’s voice was quiet, but firm, as he reached across the table and covered Sebastian’s hands with his. To Blaine’s surprise, he didn’t pull away. “You did protect us. You gave us the chance to survive and find our family. I know that doesn’t feel like enough to you. But it’s enough for me, and I’m grateful to you for it.”
Sebastian bit his lip, worrying it with his teeth. He was the type to refuse to cry. He was the type to hold in his rage, keep it down packed hard around his heart and let it grow cold. But as he realized that Wes would not be persuaded, he gritted his teeth and pulled his friend out of his chair and into a fierce embrace.
After a moment, Wes reached over to Blaine and pulled him in too, his and Sebastian’s arms opening to accommodate him. Sebastian clutched at his waist and Wes at his shoulders as they leaned in together, breathing each other in as if it was the last time.
Which, he realized, it probably would be.
September 10th
It took the better part of a week to get Wes and Max ready to start for Chicago, and when they finally left with a few days’ worth of food and not nearly enough gas cans, Blaine felt his heart sink.
There was supposed to be strength in numbers, but even in a group they hadn’t been able to find Jeff or save Nick or stop Jill. Now, with Wes and Max gone, it was just the two of them.
When the car was out of sight, Blaine realized that tears were streaming down his face. He knew he’d just said goodbye for the last time.
He only felt safe when Sebastian slid his arm around his waist and pulled him in close.
September 15th
Downstairs, the window shattered with a great crash. Sebastian was up first, vaulting out of bed and yelling at Blaine to stay upstairs. Panic seized him and he fumbled for the bat he was supposed to carry as a weapon, which he kept on the floor. He couldn’t find it. The moans of the dead carried up the stairs and he couldn’t find the bat and—
Sebastian crashed back into the room, slamming the door behind him. “We have to go. We have to go now.”
“What happened?” he demanded as he flung himself up, still partially tangled in the sheets.
Sebastian was tearing open the closet, searching frantically for something. “They’re coming in the front window. None of them are in the house yet but—fuck, where are the bags?” He gave the closet door a vicious kick before turning back to Blaine, who stood paralyzed with fear at his outburst.
“What are you doing? We need to get the fuck out of here!”
He opened his mouth, but was shaking so hard only gibberish came out. “I don’t—I can’t—I can’t go down there I—“
When Sebastian saw Blaine’s unmasked fear, he paused, his frantic energy held back for just a moment. He crossed the room in three steps, then stopped abruptly just in front of Blaine, as if unsure how close he could come. It was a strange moment—they’d shared so much intimacy in the dark, and even then with their lives in danger they struggled with the hesitant craving for it.
Finally, Blaine gave in first and stepped into Sebastian’s arms, leaning his head against the other boy’s strong shoulder. Sebastian held him silently for a few seconds before resting his chin on the top of Blaine’s head.
“We have to go,” he whispered. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But I’m not going to let you get hurt.”
Blaine sniffled, surprised to find himself crying. He hadn’t cried since his parents died almost two months ago. “Promise?”
Sebastian stepped back just a little so he could meet his eyes. “I promise.” He squeezed Blaine’s shoulders in an attempt to be reassuring. “Now, we have to go.”
“Okay.”
Sebastian reached down to flip the blankets up from the floor and reached under the bed to grab Blaine’s bat, which he handed off to him, then grabbed his wrist and pulled him out the door.
They stopped at the top of the stairs. They could hear glass crackling below, mixed with the raspy terrible sounds of the dead. He couldn’t see far enough to figure out if they’d gotten inside the house.
“Ready?” Sebastian asked quietly, relinquishing his hold on Blaine’s wrist to readjust his grip on his bat.
“No,” he responded quietly, his voice quaking with fear.
“Yeah, neither am I.”
They charged down the stairs full speed, racing for the guest room where they kept duffel bags packed with emergency supplies. The dead were reaching through the living room window but none of them were inside, so they just sprinted past. Sebastian went for the bags, pitching one to Blaine, who caught it just before the arm came through the window right behind him. A hand scrabbled for his shoulder and he screamed and went down hard, but the dead thing didn’t release its grip on his shirt and he pulled its head and shoulders down with him. For a horrifying second, all he could see were gnashing, bloody teeth before Sebastian pulled it off of him and threw the body on the floor.
He lost all sense of up or down as Sebastian, yelling incoherently, pulled him up and around the window and they stumbled out of the room. They went for the back door, away from the horde at the front of the house. When Sebastian flung open the door it was clear and they sprinted across the yard. They threw their bags over the fence and Sebastian gave him a boost before pulling himself over and they landed hard on the grass.
They ran for blocks, clearing fences as fast as they could. Blaine’s chest burned and his legs felt weak but he kept going until they’d gone a few blocks without seeing any of the dead. They stopped in the middle of the street where they could see around them, gasping for air.
Blaine was shocked when Sebastian doubled over, one hand clutching at his other forearm.
“Sebastian?”
No response. Sebastian’s whole body shook with the force of his labored breathing.
Blaine’s voice shook with fear when he said his friend’s name again. “Sebastian… what happened?”
“Fuck,” Sebastian managed through gritted teeth. “Fuck everything, this fucking hurts.”
Blaine’s mouth dropped open when he saw blood seeping between Sebastian’s fingers. Oh god, it couldn’t be, he couldn’t have been…
“Sebastian…Please tell me that’s from glass or something.”
When he looked up, Sebastian’s face was pale and his teeth were gritted from pain. When he saw the look of terror on Blaine’s face, he sank even further, shrinking into himself a little. “You know it isn’t. Fuck, it got me back at the house. The one that came through the window.”
Blaine ran to him, unable to stop the stream of helpless pleadings that came from his mouth, and tried to pry his fingers away from the wound. He gagged when he saw it. It was deep, a chunk of skin torn raggedly away and blood pouring out. “Oh god. Oh, god, Sebastian, it’s bad.”
“I know.” Sebastian’s face had lost all color. “Shit. You have to get out of here, Blaine.”
“What? No! We have to find help—there must be someone around, we can try to get to the hospital—“
“Blaine. There is no hospital. You know that.”
“But… you don’t want me to leave you! You can’t mean that!”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” His breath caught in his chest and he sucked in air desperately, eyes rolling backward for a split second. “Fuck, you haven’t seen what happens to people who get bit. I don’t even know how long I have.”
Blaine felt tears as the panic rose and crested in his chest. “But I can’t just leave you. You saved me, and I was almost dead and I can’t—I won’t!” He grabbed Sebastian, blood smearing between their hands, and started pulling him. “There’s one of the marked houses, we can go there and hide until the dead are gone and then we can find a car and try to find a hospital or a refugee center or something and we’ll get you some help…” Tears poured freely down his face. “Please, Sebastian, please.”
It took a very long time for Sebastian to nod his agreement.
September 16th
The plan to find a car and a hospital would never come to fruition, and both of them knew it. Within hours, heat radiated from Sebastian’s body. The skin around his wound flared angry red and sweat pooled at his collarbone and in the dip between his hipbones as he lay on the floor.
The first night, he shut himself into one of the bedrooms and tried to barricade it. He only relented and let Blaine in when he pounded on the door, sobbing loud enough to alert all the dead for blocks. Blaine spent that night—and most of the following day—curled up tightly against Sebastian’s body, listening to and counting every raspy breath.
September 17th
On the second day, Blaine woke to Sebastian’s horrific, deep, painful coughing. His whole body shook with it, and when he was done he spat out a mouthful of blood.
Blaine tried his hardest not to cry as he rubbed Sebastian’s back, unable to figure out what else to do.
“Blaine,” he finally managed between coughs, “you have to get out of here.”
“No,” he responded stubbornly, willing his hands to stop trembling. They didn’t. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Then just fucking shove me outside.” Another fit of coughing wracked him, and he couldn’t hide the blood on his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “I don’t have much time left. I can tell.”
“No. I won’t.” He bit his lip to stop from crying, so hard he tasted his thin coppery blood.
“You have to. When I die…” He wheezed and coughed again, weakly. “I’ll come back, and I won’t be me anymore. I won’t remember you. I’ll try to kill you.”
“But I don’t want you to be alone.”
The look Sebastian gave him was indescribable. His eyes were full of tears and hazy with pain, but he managed to focus on him for the faintest flicker of a moment. His hand reached out, fumbled for Blaine’s, and squeezed it until it hurt. “Promise me… I don’t want…” His voice was failing, but he gasped for air to keep speaking. “I don’t want to be one of them. Promise me you’ll put me down.”
He choked back a sob, then managed to nod, not knowing if Sebastian could see him as his eyes glassed over and they rolled back in his head and fluttered closed. As Sebastian passed out, Blaine was sure he heard him whisper “thank you.”
September 18th
It happened early in the morning: the hitch in Sebastian’s breathing, which Blaine felt as he lay with his head against the other boy’s chest, sweating from the heat that came off his skin like a fire.
He sat up and looked at the boy he’d been curled up against, who lay on his back struggling to breathe. A horrible bubbling noise came from his throat as his breath caught again and he bucked and choked, mouth opening and closing as he gulped for air.
Blaine reached out and grabbed for his hand, holding it as tightly as he could just to let him know he was there, that he wasn’t leaving, as blood bubbled up from Sebastian’s throat and over his lips.
After a long few moments, he lay still.
A single sob escaped from Blaine’s chest as he sat, still gripping Sebastian’s hand, which had gone limp. Tears traced their way down his face as he leaned down and cupped the dead boy’s face in his hands.
Slowly, hesitantly, shaking from crying, he kissed his still-flushed forehead, the skin far too hot against his lips.
He stood then and reached for the bat he’d been given only a month before. His whole body shook as he bit back more tears.
And he waited.
After what felt like hours, he heard the faint, rasping sound of the last bit of air escaping dead lungs.
The cold fingers twitched.
The dead boy’s head turned, stiff and slow.
The eyes opened. They were no longer piercing, fascinating green, but unfocused and beginning to glaze over with death.
Blaine sucked in a deep breath.
He whispered “goodbye.”
He whispered “I’m sorry.”
He raised the bat.