I wake up to the sound of running water. Water, where am I? The CDC, that's right. I sit up looking at the small room I shared with Daryl, his pack was on the cot and he must be in the shower. I get up and put my shoes on, grab the rest of my stuff and walk to the dining hall where I see Dale and Glenn.
Dale is cooking what looks to be eggs and Glenn is groaning over his plate, he is hung over. "Morning, feeling ok there Glenn?" I ask sitting next to him putting my hand on his shoulder. He groans an answer and shakes his head. I smile as the others make their way in.
"Morning." Rick greets everyone.
"Are you hungover Dad? Mom said you would be." Carl asks. I look at Rick and sure enough, he looks bad.
"Mom's right." He mumbles an answer.
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori smiles as I chuckle.
T-Dog brings a skillet of eggs and passes them around as I am checking my blood sugar, 123, it's high, probably from the wine I had last night, I inject some insulin and eat small today.
Shane walks in and goes to get coffee, an annoyed look on his face. "Hey." He mumbles to us all.
"Hey, feel as bad as I do?" Rick questions.
"Worse." He replies as he turns around taking a sip of his coffee.
"The hell happen' to you? Your neck." T-Dog points to Shane's neck where there are 3 scratches. I stand up and approach to look at them.
"Must've done it in my sleep." Is Shane's answer as I move his shirt to get a better look.
"Never seen you do that before." Rick says as I nod knowing there is more to this story than he is letting on.
"Me neither, not like me at all." Shane says as he glances at Lori who is trying to ignore this whole conversation. They must have gotten in a fight…but why would she scratch him… great, this is going to be a lot of drama and when is she going to tell Rick? I think as I shake my head.
Just then Dr. Jenner comes in. "Morning." He calls to everyone. We all greet him as Dale asks a question. "Doc, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing in the…"
"But you will anyway." Dr. Jenner sighs.
"Well, we didn't just come here for the eggs" Andrea retorts, as I agree.
Jenner leads us into the control room and begins to type on one of the computers. We all stand waiting patiently as the screen flickers on.
"Give me a playback of TS-19," Jenner says, talking to VI.
"Playback of TS-19," Vi answers.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this," Jenner explained. "Very few."
I watched the screen as he went through many slides of the images. Carl has a curious look on his face as he finally speaks up. "Is that a brain?"
"An extraordinary one," Jenner replies. "Not that it matters in the end, Take us in for EIV."
"Enhanced internal view." VI answers again. The video on the screen changes perspective as it shows the subject lying down. There were certain lights spread across the screen that Shane points out, "What are those lights?"
"It's a person's life," Jenner answered. "Experiences, memories...It's everything, somewhere, in all that organic writing, all the ripples of light, is you-the thing that makes you unique, and human."
"You don't make sense..." Daryl asked. "Ever?" I smile at his sentence, but I get what Jenner is saying.
"Those are synapses," Dr. Jenner continues to explain. "Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
"Death?" Rick echoed. "That's what this is? A vigil?"
"Yes... or rather the playback of the ...vigil." He answers sadly.
"This person died?" Andrea asked. "Who?"
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process." Jenner turned his attention back to the screen. "VI, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to the first event," VI answers. The video on the screenplays again, but the lights on the brain began to go dark.
"What is that?" Glenn asked.
"It invades the brain like meningitis," Jenner explains. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs.." Jenner paused as he continued watching the screen just as the brain finally went completely dark. "Then death..." He looked down. "Everything you ever were or ever will be gone."
I stare at the screen finally realizing what this was. This was what happens to you when you get bit, the fever, the sickness, everything on this screen is what happens in the brain and body. It looks like pain and most of all, of course, death. This is what happened to Jim, to Amy, to all the others we countlessly fight and will fight till all this is gone. "Oh my gosh." I whisper as Sophia pipes up. "Is that what happened to Jim?"
"Yes," Carol confirms my thoughts. I peered over at Andrea who seemed to be distressed, I frown and walk over to her putting my arm on hers. She smiles weakly at me. Watching what happened to both Amy and Jim after they died from this must heartbreaking for her.
"Scan to the second event," Jenner calls to VI. "Scanning to the second event," VI reiterated.
"The resurrection times vary wildly," Jenner says as the video scans forward. "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."
I watch the screen in anticipation. For a moment everything was still and dark, then a few sparks of red light started to appear at the base of the brain stem.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.
"No..., just the brain stem," Jenner answered. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick asked.
"You tell me," Jenner said.
Rick gazes up at the screen and shakes his head. "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain was dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead... The frontal lobe, the neocortex, The human part, that doesn't come back; the you part. Just a shell is driven by mindless instinct."
Mindless... that's what these things are, mindless bodies, a shell of nothing. This is what happened to everyone's loved ones…. I think. Just then a line shot through the subject's brain, destroying the brain stem as well as a small portion of the brain.
"God!" Carol cried. "What was that?"
"Oh…" I gasp.
"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea breathed. "Didn't you?"
"VI, power down the main screen and workstations," Jenner says ignoring Andrea.
"Powering down main screen and workstations," VI said, as the computers and screen shut off.
"Do you happen to know what this is?" I ask still staring at the blank screen.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal..." Jenner trailed off.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui added.
Jenner nodded his head. "There is that."
I scoff at the two. One hell of a fucking god, more like the wrath of mother nature if anything…
"Somebody must know something," Andrea tried. "Somebody, somewhere."
"There are others, right?" Carol asked hopefully. "Other facilities?"
"There may be some," Dr. Jenner answered. "People like me."
"But you don't know?" Rick asked. "How can you not know?"
"Everything went down. Communications, directives...all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here," Andrea said. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"
Jenner chose again not to say anything. I look around at everyone as this all sinks in. We're all alone it's just us here. My eyes meet a pair of blue ones across the room, and we stare at each other for a millisecond before he turns away.
"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk, again," Daryl says as he ran his hands over his face. I chuckle for a second before being interrupted.
Dale stepped forward looking over at something. "Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but that clock...It's counting down, What happens at zero?"
I follow Dale's gaze… Forty Minutes till zero.
Dr. Jenner seemed hesitant to reply. "The...basement generators, they run out of fuel."
"And then?" Rick asked. Jenner once again refused to answer as he began to walk away. Rick turned to speak to the room, "VI, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." VI answers without hesitation.
Everybody was following behind Jenner, as Daryl bombarded him with questions, to no avail of answers. We continued to follow down the stairs where we were met with Glenn, Rick, Shane, and T-Dog again.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked.
"The system is dropping all the non-essential uses of power," Jenner answered. "It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That starts as we approached the half-hour mark."
Rick and Shane started to give out orders to pack our stuff so we could leave and meet up in the stadium room. Just then a loud clanging sound was heard.
"He just locked us in!" Glenn yelled. My heart sunk and panic set in….
Rick stalked towards Jenner. "Jenner, open that door now." He demanded.
"There's no point," Jenner argued. "Everything topside is locked down. Emergency exits are sealed."
"Well, open the damn things," Daryl snapped.
"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." Jenner then glanced all around us, and even though I seemed like a harmless girl, I made sure my glare was known. "It's better this way." he tried to reason with us.
"What is?" Rick asked.
"What happens in twenty-eight minutes?" I yelled at Jenner, I was done, I was about to slap him.
Jenner jumped to his feet as he snaps at me. "Do you know what this place is? We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!" He paused and sat back down in his chair, calming himself. "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 asked confused.
"VI, explain," Jenner ordered.
"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." The now very annoying computer explained.
"It sets the air on fire," Jenner mumbled. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief.. ."
I stood there shocked. This was sure as hell, not the way I wanted to go. I wanted to fight, and that's what I did, I ran to Jenner slapping him. "Open the fucking doors!" I yelled in his face. "My family is not going out like this you fucking coward!" I felt a pair of arms grab me, but I fought. "Esmeralda that's enough." Rick's voice calmed me.
"Open the damn door." Daryl yelled throwing his leftover whiskey bottle.
"You should've left well enough alone," Jenner muttered. "It would've been so much easier."
"Easier for who?" Lori snapped.
"All of you. You know what's out there... A short, brutal life and an agonizing death. Your sister, what was her name?" Jenner asked Andrea.
"Amy."
"Amy, you know what this does. You've seen it." Jenner tells her. Then turns to Rick. "Is that really what you want for your wife, sister, and son?"
"I don't want this." Rick snapped.
"How fucking dare you! How dare you lock us in here with no say, no choice, knowing we would die. You don't get to choose that for us. Now let us out!" I yelled at him.
Daryl and Shane had finally given up on axing the door, both panting as they made their way back over to us.
"Can't make a dent," Shane muttered.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said. I sighed not knowing what to do.
"Well, your head ain't!" Daryl yelled running at Jenner as all the guys tried to hold him back from the attack.
"Just let him kill the fucker he's going to die here anyway." I told the guys.
"Esme…" Lori chastised me, but I saw the small smile on her face.
After they settled Daryl, Jenner had stood from his seat. "You do want this," he said to Rick. "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
My eyes widened as I glanced up at my brother in shock. Lori held the same expression as me as Carl cried into his mother's shoulder.
"You really said that?" Shane asked, disappointment in his voice. "After all your big talk?"
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick said.
"There is no hope," Jenner tried again. "There never was."
"There's always hope," Rick argued. "Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere." "What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand?" Andrea scoffed.
"Listen to your friend," Jenner said. Motioning to Andrea. "She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."
"You don't know that you're just a fucking scientist who has given up, well we haven't," I say to Jenner then round on Andrea. "And you, don't you fucking give up on us, we will find a way, we are not dying like this." I scold her.
"This isn't right," Carol said tearfully. "You can't just keep us here."
"One tiny moment, a millisecond," Jenner tried to assure her. "No pain."
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this." Carol starts to sob.
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner asks. I glare at him wishing looks actually could kill.
At the sound of a gun cocking, I snapped my head towards Shane direction as he had a scary glint in his eyes. The same look he had when he had beaten Ed. "Open the damn door or I'm gonna blow your head off," Shane threatened. "Do you hear me?"
"Brother, this is not the way to do this. We will never get out of here," Rick tried to calm him.
"Shane, you listen to him," Lori tried to help, though I doubted it would.
"It's too late," Shane said.
"He dies, we all die!" Rick said as Shane started to yell in frustration.
"Shane!" I yelled at him, as much as I wanted him dead, I knew Rick was right.
Just then Shane turns around and starts to shoot the computers repeatedly yelling, Rick struggles with Shane for a second and manages to pry the gun out of his hands. Knocking him off of his feet and onto the ground. "Are you done?" he muttered.
Shane scoffed. "Yeah, I guess we all are."
Rick turns to Jenner. "I think you're lying."
"What?" Jenner asked, confused.
"You're lying," Rick repeated himself. "About no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to," Jenner replied as he stood to his feet. "I made a promise, to her." he pointed up to the main screen. "My wife."
"Test subject 19 was your wife.." Lori stated in astonishment.
I rolled my eyes. "What does this matter, Rick?" He just held his hand up to me and nodded for Jenner to continue.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? she was dying. It should've been me on that table," Jenner continued. "I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here...In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."
I jumped at the sound of metal scraping against metal, to look over and see Daryl attempting to get that door open with the ax again. I couldn't blame him I wanted out just as bad.
"Your wife didn't have a choice," Rick said. "You do. That's all we want, a choice, a chance."
"Let us keep trying as long as we can," Lori begged him.
Jenner sighed as he made his way over to some controls. "I told you topsides locked down," he muttered. "I can't open those."
As soon as the metal doors had opened again and Daryl quickly dropped the ax. "Come on, let's go!" He yelled at us.
Everyone was quick to get up the ramp, I looked around doing a mental headcount and noticed 3 people were missing: Dale, Andrea, and Jacqui. I ran down the stairs to them, Dale was trying to convince Andrea to come with us. "Guys lets go." I yell. Just then I was yanked by my arm towards the door. I turn around to see Daryl. "Let me go I have to help them." I yell at him.
"It's her choice." He said tossing me into Shane's arms who looked at me mad.
"Get down!" Shane yells out as he shoots the glass, barely leaving a mark.
"The glass won't break?" Sophia squeaked.
"Rick," Carol called as she made her way towards him. "I have something that might help."
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it," Shane muttered.
Carol ignored him. "Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket," she said as she handed him a grenade. Rick looked hesitant but he took the grenade out of her hand. "Everyone get down!" he called.
I ducked down as Shane shield my body from harm, I looked around as best I could to see Daryl staring at me. We held our stare until the blast from the grenade sounded.
"Let's go, everyone!" Shane yelled helping me up and pushing me towards the now broken window. We make our way outside to have to kill more walkers who were attracted by the noise. I only killed 2 that were in my way.
We all hurried into the RV as I was pushed by Daryl under the table who crawled in next to me. I looked at him nodding a thank you, as the loudest bang made my ears hurt, then came the heat wave.
Once it seemed to be done we all stood up staring at each other in shock. We lost 3 more…. I think to myself just as Dale and Andrea made their way into the RV, to my surprise, Only 1…
I only stayed awake enough to know that we were going to try for Fort Benning next.
