Jenner sat down and I let go of Daryl hand, wrapping my arms around Charlie.
"You son of a bitch." Daryl said as he went towards Jenner. "You locked us in here!"
"Shane!" Rick yelled and Shane ran towards Daryl to stop him.
Daryl tried to pull Jenner from his chair, but Shane and T-Dog pulled him away.
"Hey, Jenner, open that door now." Rick demanded.
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner replied.
"Well, open the damn things." Dale said.
Jenner shook his head, "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. It's better this way."
"What is?" Rick asked, "What happens in 28 minutes?"
Jenner turned back to the computer and Shane kicked his chair,
"What happens in 28 minutes?!"
Jenner stood up "Do you know what this place is?! We protected the public from some very nasty stuff! Weaponized, small pox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out, ever!" He yelled before sitting back down, "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example, HIT's are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"H.I.T.s?" Rick questioned.
"Vi, define."
"H.I.T.s - high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosive consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition which 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."
"It sets the air on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything." Jenner said.
Charlie cried into my shirt and I kissed her head and held her tighter. I flinched when I heard the sound of glass breaking. I looked up and saw Daryl standing by the door, his bottle was smashed against the metal door, "Open the damn door!"
Shane grabbed an axe and started banging it against the door and Daryl soon followed. I sat on the chair and Charlie sat on my lap, her head on my shoulder. She was still crying, but it was quiet. I knew she was still crying because my shirt was getting wet.
Lori and Carol and their kids sat against the back of some computers, and they were also crying.
"You should've left well enough alone." Jenner said. "It would've been so much easier."
"Easier for who?" Lori questioned.
"All of you. You know what's out there. A short, brutal life and an agonizing death." Jenner turned to Andrea, "Your sister, what was her name?"
"Amy."
"Amy. You know what this does. You've seen it." Jenner looked up at Rick, "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"
"I don't want this." Rick said.
"Can't make a dent." Shane panted.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner said.
"Well, your head ain't!" Daryl yelled, getting ready to swing the axe into Jenner's head.
I don't blame him.
Shane, Rick, T-Dog, and Dale grabbed both Daryl and the axe and managed to get him away.
"You do want this." Jenner replied, "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
"What? You really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane questioned.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick responded.
"There is no hope. There never was." Jenner said.
"There's always hope. Maybe it won't you, maybe not be here. But somebody somewhere..." Rick started.
"What part of "everything is gone" do you not understand?" Andrea asked.
"Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event." Jenner said.
"This isn't right. You can't just keep us here." Carol replied.
"One tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain." Jenner told her.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die." She cried.
"Wouldn't it be kinder, to be more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" He asked.
We heard a gun cock and Shane went towards Jenner with a gun. Daryl grabbed Charlie and he grabbed my hand and pulled us away from Jenner,
"Open that door!" Shane yelled at the doctor. "Or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?!"
"Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this." Rick told Shane, "We will never get out of here."
"Shane, you listen to him." Lori said.
"He dies, we all-"
Shane yelled and aimed the gun behind Jenner and shot the computers. Charlie screamed and buried her head into Daryl's neck and I covered my arms so I wouldn't be hit with the sparks. When I looked up, Shane was on the ground and Rick was standing over him, holding the gun.
"You done now? Are you done?"
"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane answered.
Rick gave T-Dog the gun and turned to look at all of us, and we were all looking at him.
"I think your lying." Rick told Jenner.
"What?"
"You're lying." Rick repeated, "About no hope. If that were true, you'd bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter." Jenner responded.
"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?" Rick asked.
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise..." Jenner stood and pointed at the screen, "To her. My wife."
"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Lori questioned.
Daryl set Charlie down next to me and went back to hitting the door with his axe.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no?" Jenner replied. "She was dying. It should've been me on that table. 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 made a promise, too." I spoke up and everyone looked at me, "My dad was bit and my mom didn't want to leave him alone. She gave me a gun and told me to take care of my sister. I promised her I would. But now I'm forced to break that promise because we're trapped in here."
Rick turned back to Jenner, "You're wife didn't have a choice. But that's all we want. A choice, a chance."
"Let us keep trying for as long as we can."
Jenner sighed, "I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those."
He scanned his card and pressed in a code, opening the door.
"Come on!" Daryl yelled.
I gave Charlie her back pack and put mine on before grabbing her hand and we ran up the ramp to the opened door. Everyone grabbed their things and we ran. Everyone except for Jacqui, Andrea, and Dale. We couldn't use the elevator, so we ran up a bunch of stairs. Charlie wasn't going fast enough, so I held onto Daryl's crossbow as he picked her up and ran.
When we got to the exit, the doors were locked and the windows weren't breakable. Daryl set Charlie down and tried to smash it with the axe. Shane even shot it.
"The glass won't break?"
"Rick," Carol reached into her bag, "I have something that might help."
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it."
Carol grabbed a grenade and held it towards Rick, "Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket."
Rick took it and we all moved away and ducked. Daryl covered us both and I made sure Charlie had her ears covered.
"Oh shi-!"
The grenade exploded and the glass broke. Rick, Shane, and Daryl got out first and helped the rest of us out. We ran towards the car, killing come walkers along the way. I got the the SUV and put Charlie inside and Daryl forced me inside next to her. I put her blanket over her head,
"Charlie, cover your ears!"
Daryl got into the driver's seat and turned to face us, "Get down!"
I wrapped my arms around Charlie's covered form and ducked down as the building exploded. It was loud and event through the car you could feel the heat. When I looked back up, the CDC was gone. All that was left was a giant pile of rubble and fire. Behind a wall of sandbags was Andrea and Dale. At least they made it out. Unlike Jacqui.
Daryl looked at us, "You okay?"
I nodded and took the blanket off of Charlie, "Yeah."
Daryl and I got out. I buckled Charlie in before going around to the driver's seat and took the keys out of my bag.
Daryl put his hand on my shoulder, "Just remember to use turn signals."
He went to get into his truck and I got into the seat and started the car and we all began driving away from the city.
