They had made it to the Center for Disease Control. The building was ominous; the amount of the dead lying around the building was almost too much to take in. Rotting bodies rested in lines or in piles on the barricade. The got out of got out of the truck, and Brandy put her hand over her nose because of the smell. She had smelled the rot before, but in the air around them it was thick. She felt herself gag, but she overcame the feeling to vomit.
Brandy kept her back to the rest of the group, walking backwards, making sure they didn't get surprised by any Walker's. Both of her blades pointed outward, ready to strike when and if need be. A military barricade was over run, and flies buzzed, hovering around the rotten bodies.
They got to the doors, but they were covered with locked shutters. In the back of Brandy's mind, she knew someone was in there; if they were still alive was the question. A place like that wouldn't have been fully abandoned, and someone must have stayed behind.
Rick and Shane tried to get the shutters up, but they could not budge them. The CDC had to have some of the best security on Earth. If not, things would be a lot worse. Who knew what was hiding behind those doors and in the hot labs? She could hear Shane and Rick go back and forth with each other.
She saw a Walker bumbling towards them. She readied her gun, but Daryl got it first. The men were getting into it. No one knew what was going on, and women were yelping with panic. Brandy saw another Walker; she fired off a silenced round, dropping it.
"Fort Benning," Shane urged.
Daryl said something that he did not like, and Shane pushed him and told him to shut up.
"No food no, no fuel it. It's a hundred miles!" Lori said in a frightened voice.
"We'll think of something!" Rick spoke, but Shane wanted them to leave. He was pushing them back towards the cars.
"Back to the cars, lets go!" Shane ordered.
"The camera! The camera moved!" Rick yelled out stopping them, looking up at the camera.
Brandy could hear them all yelling; Lori screamed at Rick telling him that there was no one there. But he still banged on the shutter doors. There was another Walker; this time Glenn got it.
"There's more of them!" Brandy yelled. "Hurry up!"
She took another shot. It missed, but she took another, and got it. Shane pulled Rick back, but Rick still yelled at the camera.
"You're killing us! You're killing us!"
With a screech through the dusk the shutters, they lifted. Brandy turned around and saw nothing but white light casting into the dark night. She'd be damned; Rick was right.
They all sprinted in, not wasting any time. She looked around. The entrance hall was huge and empty, and their voices echoed off of each wall. They heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and they looked towards a dim hallway, seeing a man standing there with an M-16. He asked if any of them were infected. Rick spoke for the group and answered the man's the mismatch group, and answered the man's question.
"You'll submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission," the man told them.
Brandy swallowed hard at his words, and uncomfortably shifted her weight from foot to foot. Rick agreed for the group; they grabbed their belongings from the cars, and the doors were sealed behind them. The idea made her nervous, being trapped in a place that had some of the most dangerous diseases known to man. It was even a possibility that they might have been responsible for what happened in the world.
The group made it to a large elevator, all of them squeezing in. Brandy stood in between Glenn and Daryl. Keeping her eyes tightly closed, she listened to the pings and sounds the elevator made. She heard Daryl say something to the doctor about having an M-16, but she was not listening. She just wanted to get out of that death trap.
Walkers were nothing compared to the fear she felt when it came to elevators; they were steel boxes that, with one snap of a cord, could drop them to their deaths. Brandy had hated them her whole life. The phobia seemed trivial now, but it still made her uncomfortable. After that she would have to take a blood test, and the prospect of it terrorized her.
They went down a hall and then to a huge room with computers. Rick asked where everyone else was, and then they all found out that the man that let them in was the last. The idea of a cure was shattered with that news. There was no one working on anything, no one studying it, no one working in labs day in and day out to put the world back together. There was nothing.
Brandy took a deep breath as she got up and walked towards the table where the doctor was. It was her turn to submit her blood. She knew it was an obvious precaution, but that didn't make her dislike it any less. He looked at her; she could tell he was taking in her disfigured side of her face. Jenner made it a point to test the temperature of her skin with the back of his hand.
"What happened?" he asked, preparing the needle. Brandy closed her eyes tightly while he stuck it into the thick blue vein that rested in the bend of her arm.
"An accident- I got into a fight," she spoke, watching the tube fill with her blood.
"Those scars look a little infected."
"They're not, it's just the damage left over," she assured.
"Well, in any case, I'll give you give antibiotics just to be safe," Jenner said with a smile, as he finished.
Brandy smiled, and went back to sit down and wait for everyone else to be done.
It was the first in a long time that she was sitting down, and eating a real meal, being with people, laughing, drinking and enjoying something. There hadn't been anything to smile about since it all happened. This was a welcome change. Brandy tried the wine. It wasn't her thing. She became excited when she saw that Daryl had a bottle of Southern Comfort.
"Hey, give me some of that?" she held up her glass and shook it. Everyone chuckled at the fact that the young woman wanted something hard to drink. Daryl smiled and raised an eyebrow.
"This shit will put you on your ass, little girl."
"Shut up and gimmie me some!"
He sighed, and poured her some, and she mixed it with some cola.
"Look you already ruined it!" Daryl teased, and everyone laughed at her again.
"Come on, drink it straight!" he said, putting the bottle down in front of her. She took him up on it and down a gulp.
Brandy squinted at her eyes at the strong taste and let out a hic. She shook her head, and reached for her mixed drink.
"You're suppose to put diet in a mixer," T-dog said to her. "If you use normal soda you'll get a hang over, it's all the sugar."
"Pshhh! I have been drinkin' since-" she started, but was cut off by Daryl.
"Since what, high school?"
She rolled her eyes at his words, and everyone else chuckled at her expense. She could not believe how much fun they were all having. Before long, her one drink became two, and two became two and a half. And then someone had to ruin the fun.
"We were supposed to find all of the answers, and instead we found him," Shane said pointing at Jenner.
"Ughh...Shane…shut up," Brandy slurred, but of course he didn't listen.
"We found one man. Why?" Shane continued.
Brandy didn't want to hear any of it. She finished third drink, and while the Debbie Downers were talking, she wanted a refill.
"Daryl… Daryl," she whispered, turning around in her chair and pointing at her glass. "I want more."
"How many have ya had?" he whispered, leaning over her and pouring her some more.
"Three."
"Yer goanna' drink it all."
"Naw I ain't," Brandy giggled, looking up at him with a wide smile. He could tell she was going to be slop.
"I'm cuttin' ya off after this."
Brandy let out a little whimper and rolled her eyes. She didn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
"Dude, you are such a buzz kill," Glenn said to Shane.
"Yeah, dude, way to fuck up the fun," Brandy agreed.
After the best shower of her life, she threw on a long over-sized shirt that she had packed. At one point, it had belonged one of her old flings. It was his varsity football shirt, bearing the name of her alma mater on the front.
Everything felt so perfect; the only thing that wasn't was the fact she had to go hunt down that bottle of Southern Comfort. She shuffled down the hallway, going back into the café, but it wasn't there.
"Shit," she uttered, grabbing a glass and the bottle of cola.
She went back down the hallway looking for the bottle, and she had an idea of who had it.
"Hey Carol, do you know where Daryl is?" she asked the woman, who was headed to the showers.
"Um. I think he is in that room down there."
She pointed down the hall. Brandy smiled, heading for his room. Carol nodded and continued on to showers. Brandy knocked on the door and leaned against the threshold.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Brandy," she chuckled.
"What ya' want?"
"I want some of dat' liquor."
She heard him sigh, and the door opened. Brandy smiled and made her way in.
Brandy fully intended to get a glass and leave, but some how she just stayed. She sat on the floor with her legs crossed at the ankles, aware that she only had on a pair of lacy panties on under her large shirt. She was now on her fourth glass, and her head was swimming.
"So, Hood-Rat, where ya from?" Daryl asked, sitting on the couch and looking down at his surprising drinking partner.
"Atlanta. Duh."
She took a big gulp of her drink.
"Yeah no shit, smart ass," Daryl said, grabbing one of the pillows and threw it at her.
"Okay! I'm from Clayton County, and that's all ya need to know. I ain't gonna give ya my life story," Brandy snickered, reaching for her glass again. "What about you? Trailer park?"
Daryl scoffed at her question and shook his head.
"In the middle of fucking no where," Daryl said, taking a drink from the bottle.
Brandy put her hand on her face when she felt the room start to spin. She was officially wasted.
"What would you have done?" she heard Daryl say through her liquor-induced haze.
"Huh?" she closed her eyes, but that only made the room spin even more.
"If the world hadn't gone to shit," he clarified.
"I was goin' to go to college," Brandy mumbled, looking down at the carpet. "I got in to Morris Brown, I would have been da first one in my family that got in to college."
"If yer so smart, then why all this hood shit?" Daryl asked looking her up and down.
Brandy looked up at him, and let out chuckle.
"Daryl, you're smart too. Why da dumb Redneck act?"
"I ain't smart, I didn't even go to high school," he huffed.
Brandy shook her head and leaned forward with her glass. Daryl poured her some more, and then took a drink for himself.
"A lot of people in my graduating class were dumb as fuck. I think yer' are smarter then a lot of them. Hell, yer still alive. That shits gotta' count for somethin'," Brandy said with a smile.
Eventually, the Southern Comfort got to Daryl, and he passed out on the couch. He woke up a few hours later from being too hot. He opened his eyes, let out grunt, and pulled off the covers off. The only light in the room was from the tiny amount that was peeking from up under the door from the hallway.
He heard a sound coming from somewhere in the room. He instinctively reached over for the lamp that was on the table next to him and turned it on. On the floor he saw Brandy, curled in the fetal position, her hand still holding the empty glass. Daryl grunted at the sight of her, and rolled his eyes. He covered her with the blanket. Brandy let out a tiny pleased sigh in her sleep when she felt the warmth.
"Fuckin', Rat," Daryl mumbled, before tuning the light back off and falling back asleep.
