We enter the CDC as fast as we can
The CDC looks clean and safe as if nothing had ever happened
"Hello? Hello?" the others are calling for someone. I feel uneasy. The place looks abandoned.
"Watch those doors. Watch for walkers."
"Dixon" Shane says. We both look at him. We don't know if he's talking to Daryl or me "you and Daryl watch those doors. Don't let walkers in" Oh. So he'll call me by my last name and Daryl by his name. Ok, I get it
"Hello?" Rick calls again
"Anybody infected?" Comes a voice from the other side of the room
A man is looking at us. Looks like he works here
"One of our group was. He didn't make it." We let Rick talk for us since he seems to know what he's doing
"Why are you here?" The man keeps asking "What do you want?"
"A chance."
"That's asking an awful lot these days."
"I know."
"You all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission."
"We can do that."
The man walks to where we are and stands next to the doors. We look at him "You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed."
No one talks. No one moves. He keeps going "Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here."
The iron curtain closes again. Rick looks at the man and presents himself.
"Rick Grimes."
"Dr. Edwin Jenner." Comes the answer.
We go in the elevator and all the way down. We walk out and Follow Dr. Jenner.
"Are we underground?" Carol asks
"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner asks back
"A little."
"Try not to think about it."
We enter a big room full of computers. Jenner says "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Who's Vi?
As the room light up he turns to us "Welcome to zone 5."
"Where is everybody? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick asks
"I'm it. It's just me here."
Lori jumps in the conversation "What about the person you were speaking with? Vi?"
Jenner smiles "Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome."
Hello, guests Comes a voice from the speakers.
Vi is artificial intelligence. Awesome!
Amy would've loved this. She missed Siri after all.
We are all around in the room. Jenner took blood samples from all of us.
Andrea is sitting in front of him waiting for the blood to be taken.
We all watch in silence. Some of us seem uneasy.
I don't know how I really feel. I feel safe and happy. I'm glad we found this place and nothing in here can hurt me, my brother, or anyone in the group. But I'm nervous. I think we all are.
"What's the point? If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever." Why is Andrea always complaining? Can we like, exchange her and Amy? Please?
"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here." Jenner takes all of our blood samples. Andrea falls back.
"Are you okay?" Jenner asks. Someone helps her up.
"She hasn't eaten a lot these days." Lori says
I shrug looking at Jenner "None of us have."
He looks at us and walks back "Follow me."
We are having dinner!
I can't remember the last time I had dinner with Merle and Daryl.
Oh wait, I do. It was the night at the bar, when Daryl played pool with Merle's friends.*
Everyone is drinking. Daryl even took a bottle of whiskey for himself.
I lift my hand and place it near the bottle. "Can I?"
"Go ahead" he says handing me the bottle. I take a sip. Everyone looks at us surprised because Daryl gave me the bottle.
Daryl takes the bottle back and drinks more.
"Can I try yours?" Carl asks Lori and she shakes her head
"Absolutely not"
"I always knew the Dixon weren't a good influence" Glenn says
"Nobody said we were. Sorry to break your heart." I tell him and we all laugh.
"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France." Someone else tells Lori
"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then."
Rick looks at her and smiles "What's it gonna hurt? Come on."
Lori thinks of it for a second and
"There you are, young lad." Shane gives Carl a glass with a little of red wine it. He takes a sip and tastes it slowly. We wait for his reaction.
"Ew!" He says frowning. We all laugh.
He looks like he tried a lime.
"That's my boy." Lori pats his back and pours Carl's red wine in hers "That's my boy."
We can't stop laughing. Daryl passes me the bottle again.
I drink a little and then pass it
"If the world hadn't gone to shit I would be arresting you for getting a teen drunk" Shane says
Rick laughs adding "Yeah, We both would"
"If the world hadn't gone to shit we wouldn't even be near you." Daryl chuckles.
"How can you drink that?" Carl looks at me "That tastes nasty." We burst onto laughter again.
"Stick to sour pop then" I say
"Not you, Glenn." Daryl walks to the table and puts more alcohol in front of the... Chinese? Korean? Whatever. Daryl puts more alcohol in front of him.
"What?" He asks confused
"Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get." By the look on his face I can officially say that my brother is drunk. Like everyone else here.
Not me though... yet.
"It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly." Comes Rick's
Right, Jenner has been here the whole " I forgot about him
"Here's to you, doc." Shane says raising his cup.
"Booyah!" Daryl raises his bottle.
"Booyah!" The others laugh.
Then Shane talks again. "So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc? All the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened."
"Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick looks pissed
"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move, supposed to find all the answers. Instead we found him. Found one man." Now everyone is quiet. Thanks Shane. "Why?"
"Well" Jenner starts "When things got bad, a lot of people just left. Went off to be with their families."
I think of Merle. I wonder if he's alright.
"And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted. Many couldn't face walking out the door. They opted out. There was a rash of suicides." he pauses for a bit and then keeps going "That was a bad time."
"You didn't leave." Lori says "Why?"
"I just kept working. Hoping to do some good."
Glenn gives Shane a death stare. "Dude, you are such a buzzkill, man."
Indeed. He is.
Everyone finished eating. Now we are following Jenner again. He explains that most of the facility is off so we'll have to stay in an area with couches instead of beds
He says the couches are comfortable. Honestly, I think couches are better than sleeping bags. I think we will finally sleep without being alert at the same time. He says there are cots in some storage and tells Carl and Sophia where is the rec room. "Just don't plug in the video games, or anything that draws power." I look at Daryl. Video games?! If Jenner wouldn't have added that no plug them part I would go with Carl and Sophia. I better stay with the adults. Both kids run amused.
After that Jenner turns and says "The same applies to all of you. If you shower, go easy on the hot water." Then he walks
Did I just heard that right?
We look at each other in shock
"Hot water?" Glenn asks. Looks like I'm not the only one who couldn't believe it.
T-Dog replies smiling "That's what the man said."
We all chose where to stay. Daryl and I got a room big enough for the two if us.
I made him take a shower first. He was all sweaty and disgusting.
We all are but I just did because he's been doing a lot of hard work. He deserves hot water.
I bet he'll in there for a while. I take a random book and start reading.
It is about a dog who had an accident involving a bat, then the dog went insane because of the rabies and started killing people. He even bit some guy's balls off.
Hardcore! This book is intense! I like this kind of books. The bathroom door opens and I put the book away.
I look at my brother who even has new clothes on him. "I thought you were going to become a raisin"
He snorts "what were you reading?"
"Some weird book about a killer dog with rabies." I say taking my bag. I move to the bathroom and close the door behind me, The hot water feels nice. Best thing I've felt in weeks.
When I'm done I take the last pair of clothes I have and put them on.
The couch has been split into two making an improvised bed on the floor and another on the top of the couch.
Daryl is sitting on the upper bed with the whiskey bottle besides him. He is counting the bullets we have left of the hunting rifle and ordering his arrows.
"Here." He says handing the revolver I used the other night. I take it and look at him.
"It's empty. I used the last four bullets."
He hands me a little box for 9mm bullets. Half of it it filled with revolver bullets. "Not at all. Those were in Merle's bag. I took them out before we left the camp."
"I thought those were for a 9mm"
"The box was empty and we needed somewhere to store them" he says "you need more than a bowie knife to kill those motherfuckers."
I thank him taking the bullets and put them next to the gun in my backpack.
We find a playing cards set.
We try to play something and drink from the bottle until were drunk. He drank most of it anyway...
I take the dog book and read more
I feel safe. Or maybe I'm too drunk?
Before I know it I'm asleep on the upper improvised bed
"Morning..." Rick arrives looking
We are all eating in the same spot we did last night but this time everyone is sleepy or hungover.
"Are you hungover?" Carl looks at him with a curious look in his eyes "Mom said you'd be."
Rick sits awkwardly besides his son "Mom is right."
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori says smiling
"Eggs." T-dog comes and gives puts some eggs in front of him and Glenn "Powdered, but... but I do 'em good. Protein helps the hangover."
I smile. Poor guys.
I'm happy to feel sober again and no pain affecting me. I love my strong brain.
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asks in pain
"Jenner. He thought we could use it. Some of us, at least." We all look at Glenn. If Rick looks awful, Glenn looks like shit.
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again."
"This is why asian people shouldn't drink" Daryl whispers to me
I laugh "This is all your fault" I whisper back
"Don't blame me. He's the one who drank that much" I laugh. That's true.
"Feel as bad as I do?" Shane is now here too
"Worse" Glenn mumbles
"The hell happened to you?" T-dog asks Shane. Shane looks at him confused "Your neck?"
He answers "I must have done it in my sleep."
"Never seen you do that before." Rick says
"Me neither." Shane adds "Not like me at all."
Why did he and Lori looked at each other like that? Does it have something to do with it?
Dr. Jenner enters the room greeting us like Rick did a moment ago. "Morning."
Everyone greets him the same
I roll my eyes when Dale starts asking him questions. And Andrea mentions something about the eggs. I forgot how annoying they both are sometimes.
Dr. Jenner lead us to the computer room and says to Vi "Give me playback of TS-19."
Playback of TS-19 . Comes the Vi's voice
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner tell us while Vi plays an image of something and magnifies it.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asks
"An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end." After this his face changes. He looks sad for a moment, then keeps going." Vi, Take us in for E.I.V."
Enhanced internal view
"What are those lights?" We all watch surprised, yet confused, but it's fascinating how it all catches everyone's attention. Including mine.
"It's a person's life. experiences, memories. It's everything." Jenner explains. "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, All those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique. And human."
"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asks. The hangover ain't helping him. Poor brother of mine. He walks closer to the rest of the group.
"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." Jenner tells him. "They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Lori asks
"Yes...Or rather the playback of the vigil."
"This person died? Who?"
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered to have us record the process." He turns and talks to Vi again "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
Scanning to first event
Something dark enters the brain and starts shutting it down. "It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brian goes into shutdown, then the major organs." Jenner turns to us "then death." The brain in the image shuts down. Everything is dark in there
He says looking at us. "Everything you ever were or ever will be. Gone."
I hear Sophia asking "Is that what happened to Jim?" Carol says yes.
Andrea starts crying silently. Jenner looks at her confused. Lori tells him about Amy..
He walks near her and says.
"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is. Scan to the second event."
Scanning to second event
"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, Seven seconds." The base of the brain lights up again but it changes from blue to red. The rest is still dark.
Rick gets closer "It restarts the brain?"
"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?"
"You tell me." He says pointing at the screen
Rick shakes his head "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, The human part. that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."
Something strange happens in the playback and the head is now divided in two
"What was that?" Lori asks
"He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?" Andrea says
"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
Powering down main screen and workstations
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" I ask. Jenner looks frustrated
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
Jackie talks finally "Or the wrath of god?"
"There is that."
"How can you not know?" I am now lost in my thoughts. I don't know if the one who asked is Andrea or Lori.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
Daryl covers his face completely using his hands and rubs his eyes walking back to where I am. He stops and says "Man, I'm gonna get soon faced drunk again." Then uncovers his eyes and looks at me "Wanna join me?"
Drunk Daryl is awesome. I smile "Whatever. Were all fucked anyway." Shane rolls his eyes.
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you And I hate to ask one more question, but..." Hooray! Dale is asking more questions! "...That clock, It's counting down. What happens at zero?"
"The basement generators. They run out of fuel."
"And then?" There is no answer to Rick's question. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"
When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur.
I do not like how that sounds.
Daryl and I are sitting facing each other. We have a new bottle of whiskey sitting next to us.
I don't even know why we're doing a stare contest. Maybe we're a bit drunk.
Its the stupidest thing I've ever done with my brother. The one who blinks, drinks.
Neither of us is blinking. My eyes are burning
He blinks. I give him the bottle.
He drinks. A little less than half of it.
"Not a single word of this. To anyone." He says
"Never" I agree. We restart the game.
Vi's voice comes from the speakers.
Emergency lights on.
"What the.." He says
"What was that?"
Now the AC stops
"Wait here" he says and stands up.
Waiting? Yeah, sure.
I follow him to the door
We can hear others outside complaining the same thing.
"Why is the air off? And the lights in our room?"
"What's going on? Why is everything turned off?" Daryl peeks out and Jenner steals the bottle in his hand.
"Energy use is being prioritized." We follow the man outside the hall. "Zone 5 is shutting itself down."
"Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Daryl asks. No answer. I can see my brother is nervous. He walks faster to where Jenner is. "Hey man, I'm talking to you! What do you mean it's shutting itself down?!"
"How can a building do anything?" Andrea asks.
"You'd be surprised." Jenner says
"Jenner, what's happening?" We find Rick in out way and follow Jenner all the way to the computer
"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule."
"What?" Sophia asks.
"It was the French." He turns and looks at us "They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution.
"What happened?" Someone behind me asks
"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice." He walks to one of the computers "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" He says laughing. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?! Now I'm nervous. I don't really know if I'm scared.
"Lori, grab our things." Rick says looking stressed. "Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!"
"Everybody, y'all heard Rick. Get your stuff and let's go!" Shane shouts
The doors start closing. We run to the exits.
When we're near them the doors close on us. Theres no way out now. Vi puts a clock on the screen and says 30 minutes to decontamination
We are all now shocked. Someone shouts "He just locked us in!"
"We've hit the 30-minute window. I am recording." Jenner adjusts a camera in the computer he's using.
"Recording my ass!" I say running back to where Jenner is. I want to kill the fucker. Jacqui stops me. Daryl runs towards him yelling "You son of a bitch!" Looks like he's thinking the same as me. Rick shouts and Shane runs to stop him.
Daryl keeps fighting. "You let us out of here!"
"Hey, Jenner, open that door now." Rick tries to be reasonable.
"There's no point." Jenner says. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."
"Well, open the damn things."
"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that" we are all shocked
I push Jaqui's hand away from me and move to where Shane and Daryl are."You specify everything you say except for that! Thank you very much, asshole!"
"You don't understand, do you? It's better this way!"
"What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick asks desperately "What happens in 28 minutes?!"
"COME ON!" Shane shouts.
"You know what this place is?!" Jenner looses his patience and shouts back. He stands up from his chair and looks at all of us "We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponised smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever! In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out.!"
"HITs?" " Rick asks. Jenner is quiet again so he commands Vi to define.
HITs. high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired
I look at Daryl completely terrified. Are we going to die here?
I turn to Jenner and mumble "It sets the air on fire?"
He walks near me and explain. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief regret. Everything."
"You cant do this to us!" I feel so weak and desperate right now. I don't want to die like this.
We're going to work something out. We always do. Rick will think of something.
Shane gets two axes and runs to the door calling my brother. Both are hitting the iron door as hard as they can with the axes. I am watching everything happening around me. I really want to kill this motherfucker right now but others wont let me do that.
"It would've been so much easier." Dr. Fucker says. I was so lost in my anger I dont even know what he's talking about
"Easier for who?"
"All of you. You know what's out there. A short, brutal life and an agonising death." He walks towards Andrea. "your sister. what was her name?"
"Amy." She replies. Why the fuck does she look so calm? Is she just sitting there and accepting this?!
"Amy." Jenner continues "You know what this does. You've seen it."
"Yeah. She's seen it. We've all seen it. But it doesn't mean we want to just give up." I tell him.
"You prefer a life out there where you or your brother will get bit and see each other die?" He asks me. I don't know how to answer that. He turns and tells Rick "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"
"I don't want this!" He says. Shane and Daryl are still trying to open the doors
"Daryl, just..." They wont be able to do it. I just know it. He turns to look at
He is really desperate. "Just what?!"
"Stop. You wont be able to open it." He grabs the axe tighter. I can see his knuckles turning white. Looks at Jenner as he
"Listen to her. Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Talking when Daryl wants to kill you. Bad choice
"Well, your head ain't!" He runs towards Jenner again. This time I know he will kill him if we don't stop him.
Good! Can I help?
"Daryl!" Some run to stop him.
He walks in circles like a pound dog besides me and Shane shouts "Dixon, keep your brother away from Jenner"
"I can't promise you anything." I reply looking at Jenner in the eye. "Its either him or me trying to kill this asshole."
Rick comes near me "keep away from him, alright?" I roll my eyes and nod.
"You do want this." We hear the fucker talk again. He's talking to Rick "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
What? Why would he say that?
We are all confused. Rick is the one who brought us here.
Lori and Carl are more surprised than any of us "You really said that? After all your big talk?"
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" So it was all a lie?
"There is no hope." Fucker says "there never was."
"There's always hope." Rick tells him "Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, But somebody somewhere.
"What part of 'Everything is gone' Do you not understand?" Andrea. I knew that bitch would only fuck things up!
"Listen to your friend. She gets it." Rick shakes his head "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."
"This isn't right." Carol cries with Sophia in her arms. "You can't just keep us here."
Jenner kneels and talks softly "One tiny moment. A millisecond. No pain."
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!"
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"
"Fuck no!" I say loudly, then Shane looses it completely putting his shotgun to the doctor's head.
"Shane no!" Rick shouts
"Stay out of the way, Rick!" He says with the shotgun on Jenner's face "Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?!"
Rick tries to hold him back "Brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get out of dies, we all die!"
Shane screams. Rick pushes him away of Dr. Fucker
Shane shoots some computers around us.
They both fight for the shotgun.
Rick wins "Are you done now?!"
"Yeah, I guess we all are."
Rick turns and approaches Fucker "I think you're lying."
"What?"
"You're lying About no hope. You'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard way"
"Not because my wife was The subject 19 and she was the one who ran this place and could have done something." Rick and Lori beg him to let us keep trying to survive. He thinks and opens the doors saying "There's your chance. Take it."
Daryl stops and shouts "Come on! Let's go! we've wanted to." Daryl takes the axe and starts hitting the door again while Jenner explains how he promised his wife that he was going as long as he could. He explains his e got four minutes left!"
We run to take the crossbow and our bags. Then we head out.
"Get them doors open!" Rick shouts
"Stay back" Daryl tells me. He runs and tries to break a window with the axe. Its not working.
"Time's almost up." Someone says
"Daryl, look out!" Says T-dog and tries the same with a chair. Nope.
Daryl runs back to where I am.
"Dog, get down!" Shane shoots his shotgun again. I can't believe it didn't work!
"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol runs to Rick and gives him a grenade.
"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket."
Rick takes the safety off the grenade and puts it on the window "Get down! Get down!" He shouts running. We all jump to the floor. The window breaks finally and we run to the cars killing every walker in our
We jump in our truck and see Andrea and Dale coming out of the building. Weren't they with us?
"Down!" My brother pushes me down besides him.
The CDC implodes. I can feel the heat coming from it and pieces falling
We stay there for a while until we stop feeling that heat burning us and lift our heads.
Theres nothing left of it.
"Are you ok?" I ask my brother
Daryl nods "you?"
"Cool." We turn and check that the motorcycle is on its place.
Daryl takes a deep breath
"that was intense" I mumble he snorts and starts driving like the others.
"no shit" he replies sarcastically.
It doesn't matter where. We wont give up.
* - Mac's Memories: sometimes this appears at the end of a sentence (*). It means the next Chapter will start with one of Mac's pre-apocalyptic memories! In case you didn't notice, this time it appeared when she mentioned something about having dinner with her brothers. I hope this wont confuse y'all.
End Of Season 1!
Thank you for reading!