Chapter 8

The next morning Arianna and Abby woke before Merle and Daryl. They showered again taking advantage of the hot water and moved around the room collecting all there clean, dry laundry and folding it up. By the time they were done they were starving but didn't want to leave without the Dixon's first.

"Ari how are we going to get them up. Look there snoring." Abby said smiling when Merle let out a really loud snore. Chuckling she smirked and went to Merle first leaning down she blew in his ear and had to bite her lip to stop laughing as he moaned in his sleep.

"Hey Merle. Get your ass up. Were hungry." Arianna said in his ear, groaning he shot her the bird.

"Go way. Sleeping." He mumbled. Huffing she stood up and jumped landing on his stomach. He gasp loudly groaning and cursing.

"Bitch. Alright I'm up. Shit." He told her as he gently shoved her off him and sat up sticking his tongue out at a laughing Abby.

"You going to get my dumb ass brother up the same way." Merle ask her taking a drink of water she handed him.

"Naw. I got a different way to wake him up." She said chuckling as she walked over towards Daryl. Merle leaned back in his bed and smirked. This girl was going to keep his little brother on his toes. That's for sure.

Arianna was just about to Daryl when she heard a small knock on the door. Opening it she saw Carol standing there with Carl and Sophia.

"Morning we were heading down for breakfast and they wanted to see if Abby would join them." Carol told her smiling. Arianna nodded and Abby ran out the door to head for breakfast with her two best friends.

"Now time to wake Daryl." Arianna told Merle who laughed.

Arianna walked over to the man who she was very attracted to. She carefully straddle is lap and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Wake up sexy it's time for breakfast." She said in a low sexy voice. Little did she knew Daryl had been awake for a while secretly watching the two girls fold the laundry. When she woke his brother up he had to bite the inside of his cheeks to stop from laughing and he held still to see how she'd wake him. He wasn't disappointed. She feel of her straddling him made him instantly hard.

Ari gasp in shock when she felt his arms come around her waist and he flipped them over to where he was now hovering over her. She looked up and saw his smirked face looking down at her but she could see the lust in his eyes and it made her shiver.

"Do you wake up every one that way?" he ask her and she shook her head.

"Nope just you." She told him her hands gripping his blankets to stop herself from running her hands up his strong arms.

"Good." He purred before leaning down and nuzzling her neck running his nose along her collarbone and she shivered in pleasure.

"Damn sugar why didn't I get a wakeup call like that." Merle said breaking them out of there trance. Daryl sighed at his cock blocking brother who was now heading to the bathroom.

"Sorry about him." Daryl said but was cut off when Arianna surprised him by leaning up and capturing his lips in a kiss. She pulled back quickly looking at him. They stared at each other for a moment before he grabbed her hair and kissed her again forcing her back to the bed as he settled over top her kissing her with all the pent up passion he had been feeling since he met her.

Arianna was in heaven the feel of his warm strong lips against hers had him instantly wet as she wrapped her legs around his waist and moaning when he automatically thrusted against her with a moan of his own.

Fuck she tasted good and he could feel the heat from between her legs and he wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off and bury balls deep inside her but with Merle about to walk in on them that wouldn't be good so he just enjoyed kissing her instead.

"Damn boy. Get it." Merle hollered as he opened the door and saw his brother wrap around Ari. About time his brother grew a pair.

"Shut up Merle." Daryl said rolling his eyes. He placed one more kiss to Arianna's lips before hopping off the bed and headed for the shower. He needed to work out some tension.

Merle smirked as Arianna laid there breathing deeply for a moment before blushing at the smirk on Merle's face.

"Speechless sugar." He said and she flipped him off before rolling out the bed and leaving to head to breakfast with Abby while trying to control her heart that was pounding in her chest.

Daryl was her's alright. She'd make sure of it.

"Morning." Rick said coming into the room where they were eating breakfast. Daryl and Merle right behind him. They took a seat on each side of Arianna and Daryl gave her a wink when she looked at him and blushed before she winked back.

"Are you hungover?" Carl asked. "Mom said you'd be."

"Mom is right." Rick said.

"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori said.

"Eggs." T-Dog said walking over. "Powdered but I do 'em good." Glenn moaned. "I bet you can't tell. Protein helps the hangover." He said putting some eggs on Glenn's plate. Arianna laughed at the look on Glenn's face. He was fucked this morning.

"Can't handle the hard stuff buddy." She ask him and he groaned again causing everyone to laugh at him.

"How are you not feeling as bad as me?" Glenn ask watching as she shoved eggs in her mouth.

"I can hold my liquor that's why." She said and he rolled his eyes when the Dixon's laughed at his pain.

"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked holding up a thing of pills before taking some and handing the bottle to Glenn.

"Jenner." Lori said.

"He thought we could use it." She told him and he nodded.

"Some of us, at least."

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn moaned.

"Hey." Shane said walking in. Abby and Ari tensed when they saw him. Everyone else was shocked. He looked like hell. His face was bruised and he had scratches on his neck that Ari knew she didn't put there and he was holding his ribs from where Merle kicked him.

"Hey." Rick said. "Feel as bad as I do?"

"Worse." He told his friend pouring a cup of coffee and sitting as far away from Arianna and the Rednecks as he could.

"What the fuck happened to you. Look like you got into a fight." T dogg ask when they got a good look at him and Merle snorted.

"Cause he did. He got grabby with Abby and Ari last night and we put him in his place. Through i don't know where the scathes came from." Merle said before taking a sip of his drink. Everyone looked at the two girls and back at Shane who looked ashamed and shared a pity look with Lori when they mentioned his scratches.

"Shane?" Rick questioned.

"Yeah sorry about that guys. Don't know what happened." Shane said shrugging and Arianna just rolled her eyes. She hated him.

"Just member our warning." Daryl growled before going back to eating. He'd keep his girls away from that asshole. His girls. He liked that. He thought as he laid his hand on Ari's thigh. She smiled back at him and he relaxed glad she like his touch as much as he liked hers.

"Morning." Jenner said walking in distracting everyone from leaning that Shane had done something to Ari and Abby that caused the Dixons to beat his ass.

"Hey, doc." Shane said.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." Dale said.

"But you will anyway."

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea said rudely.

Everyone went back to the computer room with Jenner.

"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner sad.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this." Jenner said as images of a brain showed on the screen. "Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked.

"An extraordinary one."

"Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V.."

"Enhanced internal view."

"What are those lights?" Shane asked.

"It's a person's life..." Jenner said. " experiences, memories. It's everything. 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 asked from Arianna's side where she was standing with Abby in front of her. She had a bad feeling that they weren't about to get good news and she was glad she had packed up all their things this morning in case they had to leave.

"Those are synapses, 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." Jenner said.

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asked.

"Yes."

"Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died?" Andrea asked. "Who?"

"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected. And volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."

"What is that?" Glenn asked.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." The person stopped moving as the brain went black. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... Gone." Jenner told him as they watched in shock.

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked.

"Yes." Carol said.

"The resurrection times vary wildly." Jenner said. "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."

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick said. Jenner gestured to the screen.

"You tell me."

"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." Suddenly something shot across the image of the brain.

"God. What was that?" Carol asked.

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea said. "Didn't you?"

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations." Jenner said.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea said.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Jenner said.

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui asked.

"There is that." Jenner said.

"Somebody must know something." Andrea said. "Somebody somewhere."

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Lori asked.

"There may be some. People like me."

"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked.

"Everything went down." Jenner said. "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 was silent. "Jesus."

"Man, I'm gunna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl said rubbing his face. And Ari nodded along with him and Merle.

"Dr. Jenner," Dale said. "I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... That clock..." Dale pointed to a digital clock that had an hour left. "It's counting down. What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators... they run out of fuel." And Ari felt a sense of dread.

"And then?" Rick asked. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Everyone looked at each other.

"We need to leave." Ari whispered to Daryl and Merle and they knew she was right. This had been a mistake coming here.