The Walking Dead: A New Day Gone Bye
Chapter 29 – Euthanasia Within
Lee looked himself in the bedroom mirror. He saw his normal self. A tall, slender man with a dark complexion, with black, short cropped hair, buttoning his shirt to go teach about Napoleon Bonaparte and civil wars to his students. It was just another usual day.
Lee's apartment had never been very luxurious. It had a quaint and simplistic look to it, however the straws of dusk penetrating the window gave the chamber a natural beauty that painted his skin and the furniture in orange.
Lee finished with his shirt and spun around, marching towards the bedside table. His suitcase was ajar beside it. He crouched and rummaged inside it, verifying that his papers were in order. The corrected tests from last week, the lecture planning, the call forms…
As he closed his suitcase, he realized something as he was struck by a lightning bolt. This world wasn't real. The History teacher was long gone. The decorated room and the beginning of another routinely day was just a delusion in the depths of his subconscious. No, Lee Everett meant something else now. He was nothing now, just one of the few people who were lucky to survive the walkers.
He got up and looked around at the walls, the portraits dangling from the walls with a frown and with peeled eyes. It couldn't be real. It couldn't. He lived in a different universe now, one that he was used to. At least he thought he was. Lee raised his hand and passed it along the wall. He pushed it against it and wasn't surprised to see that it was solid.
He stood there, not quite knowing what to do. It felt like he was in an unknown world, like a person who goes to live in a foreign country. He was lucid, controlling his body, but the world around him, despite being consistent, seemed out of place and surreal.
"Deborah?" Lee called out.
"Over here!" A voice spoke from the kitchen.
Lee was dumbstruck and froze. He ambled around the bed and exited through the door into the kitchen, that was just as minimalistic as the bed. Lee halted in the doorposts. His wife was standing in the kitchen, interacting with the coffee maker. She was a woman with short auburn hair and a tanned skin, and she was already dressed up to go to work like Lee.
Deborah regarded him with a smirk. "Hi, sweetie. I made you coffee."
Lee was silent for a few seconds. Her voice was so…sweet and peaceful. Their relationship had been so troubled in the month preceding the apocalypse, that it had become rare to hear her speaking calmly. Discussions and argue were a guarantee and Lee had back pain from the innumerous times sleeping on the couch.
A genuine smile drew on Lee's face. The whole thing seemed perfect. The shy sun rising and shining upon them an angelic light, a bird twittering in a tree outside, a morning with no hurries or stress. Lee walked up to her, almost forgetting that this scenario wasn't real.
"Thank…you." Lee said, grabbing a cup of coffee she gave him. The hot liquid warmed his hand and the toasted smell pierced his nose. He could've sworn he'd seen the last of coffee. He even forgot the sensation of it.
His immersion in his thoughts left him unaware that he wasn't grabbing the cup from the handle, and the coffee burnt his hand. He let out a squawk and his fingers snapped off in an instinct and the cup fell, shattering and spilling the contents all over the floor and Lee's trousers.
"Jesus!" Lee grumbled, shaking his hand to dissipate the heat.
"What happened?" Deborah gasped and brought a hand to her mouth.
"I…I…" Lee stammered. He was in a loss for words, looking in all directions and frozen in place. Where were the damned paper towels?! "No…! No…! This…this ain't…this…"
"What's wrong, sweetie? You seem a little shaky this morning?" Deborah inquired, in a less concerned expression and walking up to Lee, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Lee closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself. "I'm just a bit…nervous."
Deborah was opening her mouth to say something, but Lee grasped her back and pulled her closer for a hug, burying his face in her shoulder. "Hey…it's okay…"
Lee tightened his grip on his wife. "I don't wanna...I don't wanna…"
"Baby, what's wrong?" Deborah asked in a preoccupied tone.
"I don't wanna go…I don't wanna go…" Lee stuttered between hiccups. "I…I can't…"
"Lee…you gotta go to work." Deborah said. "You know that."
Lee looked up and blinked his watery eyes. He remembered that this fantasy was just a dream. Plus, in the real world, there were people who needed him. One especially. He detached himself from Deborah slowly. "You're right…this isn't real…and I can't stay here…Clementine needs me…"
Deborah wriggled an eyebrow. "What're you talking about?"
"I just need to splash some water on my face." Lee lied.
Lee turned around and headed towards the bathroom door. He opened it, only to notice that it wasn't his bathroom. The bathtub was over-flooding with blood that touched the tip of Lee's shoes, and the floor was littered with dirty medical equipment.
Worst of all, a legless Jim was crawling on the ground.
"Please…!" Jim pleaded, stretching out his hand. "H…hel…help…"
Lee's teeth battered and he took a step back. He lowered his head and saw that his hands were covered in blood. Lee scrubbed his hands one against the other with vigor, essaying to wipe it off. He rubbed them faster, but it persisted, it just wouldn't come off. It wasn't my fault, he thought. It wasn't my fault!
Lee woke up with a startle, jumping onto a sitting position. He let out a short yell until he realized it was all a dream. He shot a glance in all directions, feeling somewhat ashamed and hoping he hadn't woken anyone up. His naked torso was drenched in sweat, making him humid. The room was dark and the lights were out. The lack of windows didn't allow him to see if it was morning or night. The light emanating from the door crack however, let him deduce that there was someone up.
Lee laid back on the mess of blankets scattered on the floor that could be called a cot. Carley, beside him, moved in her sheets and put her hand on his chest. "What's wrong?" She asked, her voice muffled by her pillow.
Lee calmed his breathing and stared at the black ceiling. "Bad dream." He squeezed his temples and rubbed them. "We should be getting up."
. . .
Rick strolled into the big room, his head hurting from last night's wine. His entire body seemed to be backfiring on him and he couldn't move a muscle without losing strength. He couldn't even walk a straight line.
Rick sat by the table. He saw that Dale, Glenn, Kenny, Katjaa, Duck, Lilly, Jacqui, Daryl, Sophia, Andrea, Carol and Doug were there, along with his family. Lori and Carl were eating scrambled eggs. Rick sighed and tried to recover from the rough wake-up.
"Mom said you're hung-over." Carl told him.
"Well then, mom is right." Rick said in a hoarse voice that forced him to clear his voice.
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori admitted in a mumble with a grin.
Rick inspected the table, and stamped a frown on his face when he saw Allen was absent. Jacqui was organizing Billy and Ben, but their father still wasn't there. "Hey, where's Allen?"
"Holed up in his room." Jacqui said in a worried tone. "In all honesty, that man worries me."
"And what about Larry?" Rick asked.
"He's sleeping." Lilly said. "I don't think he'll be up for a while now."
"Eggs. Powdered!" T-Dog announced to the others, bearing in his hand a frying-pan filled with his cooking genius. His loud voice intensified Rick's headache. "But I do 'em good. I bet you can't tell."
Glenn moaned like a zombie. His head was dangling low and he was immobile. Jacqui gave him a pat on the back to comfort him.
"Protein helps the hangover!" T-Dog said, with a smile by seeing how affected Glenn was. He used a spatula to fill Glenn's plate, before he ambled around the table and served more food on different plates.
"Don't…ever, ever, ever let me drink again…" Glenn groaned.
"And that is why I don't drink alcohol." Doug said with a smug smirk.
Rick heard footsteps and turned around on his sore chest. He saw Lee, Clementine and Carley walking down towards the canteen per se, and Lee reflected Rick's image. "Hey."
"'Morning." Lee greeted.
"Feel as bad as I do?" Rick asked.
"Worse." Lee said.
Lee headed towards the sink and simply poured a glass of cold water for him. He wasn't hungry at all. "What do you want to eat, sweet pea?"
"I guess just some eggs." Clementine answered.
"Can you fix her up some eggs, T-Dog?" Lee asked the morning chef.
"Right away." T-Dog obeyed, grabbing a plate and putting a piece of food on it.
Carley just got a steamy coffee for her, before the family of three sat beside the Grimes family. Lee sipped from his water with frequency, trying to forget those horrid images from his dreams.
Carley sniffed her coffee with pleasure. "I'm not sure I would've held one more day without one of these."
Edwin Jenner entered the room, this time wearing a shirt and with a sober air. He strolled towards the counter and grabbed himself a cup of coffee.
Dale sprang around in his chair. "Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing…"
"But you will anyway." Edwin completed his sentence.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Lilly remarked.
Edwin eyed Lilly, before spinning around on his heels and marching up towards the rows of terminals. "Come with me. I'm gonna show you something."
The people sitting at the table exchanged confused looks, but they got up nonetheless and followed Edwin.
Edwin tapped on the keyboard of a computer whilst the crowd scattered around the room. They eagerly awaited what they were about to be shown. "Vi, playback the recording of TS-19."
"What're we gonna see?" Clementine enquired, looking up at Lee.
"I dunno. We'll find out in a minute." Lee muttered back to her.
Lee frowned as he saw a loading bar on the gigantic projection on the wall in front of them. In a split second, four diminished images were exhibited on the lower left of the video, all of them showing views of different angles of a human brain. The bigger image showed a frontal view of a person's cranium, with the brain simulated to the tiniest of details.
"Few people ever got the chance to see this." Edwin stated in a dead serious tone. "Very few."
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked.
"An extraordinary one." Edwin told him with a simper, before switching to a darker behavior. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."
"Enhanced Internal View." Vi clarified.
The image zoomed in on the human head. The brain's curves, loops and contours were visible. Glenn stiffened his eyebrows, seeing that all over the brain there were fragments of blue light sparkling. The image penetrated the brain, until it stopped in a detailed picture of a complex structure of neurons. Rivers of light pulsed through one another like a complicated tram system. It was a magical and unique sight, to see that their brain was such a perplexing organ.
"What're those lights?" Kenny inquired.
"A person's life." Edwin alleged. He paced around the room and jabbed his finger towards the projection like he was giving a lecture. "Experiences, memories. It's everything. In all that organic wiring, those ripples of light, it's you. It's the thing that makes you unique. And human."
"You don't make sense, ever?" Daryl questioned.
"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." Edwin elucidated. "They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
"Death?" Rick repeated, giving a few steps towards Jenner. "That's what this is? A vigil?"
"Yes." Edwin said. "Or rather the playback of the vigil."
Dale and Doug seemed astonished by what they were seeing, like they were staring right at heaven's light. Other such as Kenny and Daryl only understood the scientist's words as nonsense or mumbo-jumbo.
"This person died?" Andrea catechized with a drooped mouth. "Who?"
"Test Subject Nineteen." Edwin declared, his voice dying down with each sentence. "Someone who was bitten…and infected…and volunteered to have us record the process."
"Okay, but are there any other ways to get infected besides getting bit?" Lilly inquired, crossing her arms.
"I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer." Edwin said. "But from what I've seen, it isn't airborne and direct fluid contact should be the only way of contagion." Edwin cleared his throat before proceeding. "Vi, scan to second event."
"Scanning to first event." Vi said.
The imagery swapped onto something different. The brain and confusing neuron connections were there, but in the core of the brain, the neurons were black like ink and it was killing the blue light, spreading all over the brain in shapes that resembled corals. The holographic torso began bouncing up in down. The subject was hyperventilating.
"Fascinating…" Doug whispered to himself, scratching his chin.
"What is that?" Carley asked in pure awe.
"It invades the brain liked meningitis." Edwin affirmed, looking at Carley. The black disease was spreading through the brain like the pest and the spinal cord along with the brain were now totally dark, and whoever was the guinea-pig became immobilized. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown and then the major organs."
Edwin's eyes were glassy and reflected the light. He inclined his neck and his voice came out low. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be…gone."
"Is that what happened to Mark?" Sophia asked Carol.
"Yes, sweetie. It is." Carol said in a blunt tone.
Jacqui felt her eyes watering and brought her hand to her face. Was that what happened to Mark? In that moment, she felt terrible about just leaving Mark out in the forest to turn. It was awful to think that hours before he passed away, that illness was tainting him from the inside in such a painful way. Her heart was crushed thinking about the suffering. It was even worst to think that he was now roaming the desolated streets of Atlanta in such an undignified and dishonored state.
She didn't want the same to happen to her.
Andrea sat in a chair in a brusque movement. "She lost someone few days ago." Lori revealed. "Her sister."
"I know how it must be devastating." Edwin soothed her, arching over to her face-height. "I lost somebody too."
Edwin was silent for a few seconds, before uncoiling and returning to his normal position. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event." Vi said.
"The reanimation times vary wildly." Edwin apprised. "We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we've heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."
All of the sudden, in the center of the coal-like brain, a red glint ignited.
"It restarts the brain?" Lee observed.
"No, just the brain stem." Edwin corrected. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick asked, approaching Edwin. His intrigue in the matter increased with each stage of the simulation.
"You tell me." Edwin instructed, beaming his finger towards the projection.
Rick bit his lower lip. "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead." Edwin added like a poet. "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part, that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by a mindless instinct."
As Lee stared at that projection, a projectile pierced the person's head, piercing the brain and the cranium.
"God. What was that?" Carol inquired with her eyelids stretched out.
Edwin looked down and placed his palms on his hips. "Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
"Powering down main screen and workstations." Vi said.
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Katjaa guessed straight-forward.
"It could be microbial. Viral, parasitic, fungal." Edwin enumerated. It was a fancy manner of saying that it could anything.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui suggested in a shaky voice.
"There is that." Edwin said.
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Lee asked.
"There may be some." Edwin said with little conviction. "People like me."
"But you don't know?! How can you not know?!" Rick demanded.
"Everything went down…communications, directives, all of it." Edwin elaborated. "I've been in the dark for almost a month. There is nothing else."
Daryl rubbed his eyes and sauntered around the room. "Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again."
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question, but…" Dale intervened with his wise demarche, noticing a descending clock on the wall. "That clock…it's counting down. What happens at zero?"
Everyone's gaze fell upon the clock, that had one more exact hour to reach zero. Lee didn't know what that thing would do, but in the movies, a counting clock only meant one thing. He gulped, praying that he would be wrong.
"The basement generators run out of power." Edwin said.
"Then what happens?" Rick asked.
Edwin didn't respond. He lowered his head to avoid eye contact and marched out of the room, brushing past them. A sense of inquietude settled upon them. The silence of the scientist had sufficed as an answer. But they needed to be sure.
"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick talked to the ceiling.
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi said.
Lee's jaw dropped and he exchanged a look with Carley. Clementine just looked around her with a confused expression. "Lee? What does that mean?"
Lee pondered for a few seconds, if he should tell her the truth or keep it from her a little bit longer. "Nothing, sweet pea."
Lee led T-Dog, Glenn, Rick and Doug down a dark hallway, that lit up automatically as they passed through. Lee glimpsed towards the wall and saw a plaque that indicated the generator room to be just up ahead.
Lee found himself in front of a stairway, and he paced at a frenetic speed down them, along with the others. "Decontamination? What does that mean?" T-Dog enquired.
"I don't like the way Jenner clammed up. How he just wandered off like that." Rick stated with an austere expression.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" T-Dog said. "Is he nuts, medicated, or what?"
"Guys, let's not make hasty assumptions." Doug intervened. "It might not be anything serious."
Lee turned around a corner and into another room. This one was too immersed in obscurity, but the lights didn't go on like they did in the previous corridor. Doug slid his hand down the wall and pressed the switch, illuminating the room.
Lee curved his brows and was static, as he saw a multitude of black barrels with a paper labeling them as flammable, that surrounded the machinery built into the room. The whole place was a maze of numbers, letters and labels drawn on the walls. Parallelepipeds of devices with buttons and levers on them complicated their mission.
"You go that way." Rick beamed his finger to the right side. "I'll take Doug."
Rick and Doug teamed up, before they walked off in the opposite direction. Lee waved towards Glenn and T-Dog, and they ambled into their right side, inspecting each machine with their eyes. Lee led his team through another passageway that was somewhat tight, forcing them to walk in a line, one per one. The walls comported a riddle of pipes that stretched all the way.
Lee stopped once he spotted a gargantuan machine, painted in a dark-olive color. He strode toward it and spotted a thick tube connecting to a red barrel. White letters on the apparatus said 'Emergency Fuel Reserve'. Lee flicked his eyes downwards and saw a fuel indicator, like the ones that was seen in cars. The red bar was reaching the empty sign.
Just as he made this realization, the lights blinked on and off, before they completely went out. They were emerged in the dark. "What the hell?!" Glenn sputtered.
"Emergency lighting on." Vi said, right before the lights came back, but they weren't as bright.
"Hey! You guys kill the lights?" Rick demanded, as he and Doug came dashing into the scene.
"No, it just went off!" Lee said, a feeling of alert in his voice. "You guys find anything?"
"Bunch of dead generators and more fuel drums I can count." Doug informed.
"Fuck. I don't like this. Not one bit." Lee mumbled. His forehead shone with sweat and his eyes shot in all directions.
Edwin sat in the chair of the director's office. The room was made out of glass walls and it was built on a higher level, so Edwin could get a decent view of the big room.
Edwin held in his tired hands a picture. In it, he could see himself, his arm wrapped around a woman with chocolate, long hair. The two were both wearing lab coats in the photo, and they were standing inside the scientific building.
Edwin had taken care of himself for the remaining time of his life. His hair was combed, rather than the bushy, curly mess from before. His face mutilated by skin deformations was clean-shaved. He wore a tie and another shirt.
Edwin sniffled. His brows became tenser to avoid the tears and the flat fat on his Adam's apple quavered. "I did the best I could…in the time I had…I hope you'd be proud of that…"
His head moved up and down in a subtle and imperceptible motion, his lips twitching. He posited the picture back where it belonged. Edwin got up and walked towards the window panels. He felt like a ghost in that room. He still had carved into his memory the way he saw his wife completing forms in her desk every time he entered her office. Like small segments of distant memories coming back to him, only now to be reduced into a forever state of emptiness and nothingness.
"We always think there's gonna be more time…" Edwin murmured to himself. The lights in the big room decreased in intensity to punctuate his phrase. "…then it runs out…"
Edwin hurried his pace as he walked down the hall of the houses. The people living in the rooms began dangling out of theirs doorways, as they noticed the power failure. Edwin kept his gaze concentrated on the big room up ahead and ignored anyone who stepped in his way.
"What is goin' on?" Daryl asked, an almost empty bottle of liquor in his hand. Edwin tore the bottle of his hand and took a large sip to drown his sorrows.
"Why is the power being turned off?" Carley asked with her arms folded. Clementine was hiding behind her legs.
"Energy use is being prioritized." Edwin explained, slowing down and returning the bottle to Daryl.
"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale asked.
"It's not up to me." Edwin said. He was now entering the big room, with the crowd following behind him. Even Allen along with his boys had come to see what the commotion was about. "Zone 5 is shutting down itself."
"Hey! Hey! What the hell does that mean?!" Daryl demanded. He jogged towards Edwin and gave him a tug on the shoulder, but the scientist continued walking. "Hey! I'm talkin' to you! What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"
"You'd be surprised." Edwin said.
"Hey, motherfucker! Answer him!" Larry barked.
Lee and Rick appeared, running into them as they were in the big room. Lori shouted Rick's name and sprinted towards him along with Carl, before the three gave each other a short hug. Lee did the same with Carley and Clementine.
Rick gently pulled his family away from him and raced towards Jenner, walking along with him. "Jenner, what's going on?"
"The system is dropping all of the nonessential uses of power." Edwin explained. "It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark." Edwin pointed his index towards the clock, that was reaching thirty minutes. "Right on schedule."
Edwin took a break from speaking, grabbing onto the rail of the three steps of stairs that led to the rows and circles of terminals. He faced the group. "It was the French."
"What?" Lilly said.
"They were the last ones to hold out far as I know." Edwin expounded. "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."
Edwin marched up the steps, before Jacqui opened her mouth to speak. "What happened?"
"The same thing that's happening here." Edwin said. "No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel…I mean, how stupid is that?!"
Kenny made hefty steps towards Jenner, but Rick held him by his arm. "No, look, Kenny, stop! I don't even care about him, just…Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff, we're getting outta here."
They sprang around in they heels to obey Rick, but were paralyzed when an alarm blared through the room's speakers. Red lights began flashing. "What is that?" Lori asked.
The screen lit by itself, and a counter was visible in it, counting from thirty down to zero. "30 minutes to decontamination."
"Doc, what the hell is going on here?!" Larry demanded, clenching his fists.
Edwin didn't reply. He walked up to a number pad embedded into the computer and slipped his laboratory card. The light was green, and he inserted a combination of numbers, that made the exit door shut. Rick and Glenn ran up to it, in a futile attempt to stop it. But the solid door was now closed, with no way of opening it. Glenn clawed his hair like he was about to rip it off.
"Did you just lock us in?!" Glenn said. "He just locked us in!"
Edwin sat by the computer and began recording. "We've hit the 30 minute window. I am recording."
"You son of a bitch!" Larry shouted as he made his way towards Edwin.
"No! Stop him!" Rick commanded.
Glenn and T-Dog ran as fast as they could towards Larry. They grasped his arms, but Larry was too bulky and just wavered them off like they were flies. Lilly saw that she was the only one that could calm him down so she sprinted and leaped in front of him, to block his passage.
"Dad, no!" Lilly screeched. Larry's nostrils were flaring like a bull. "If you beat him, he won't be able to open the door. Think about your heart, dad."
Larry calmed his breathing, his eyes popping out of his orbits. He spun around with a heavy breathing, as he marched away from them. Lee had to dodge from his way, otherwise Larry would've knocked him down like a bowling pin. Lee watched as he disappeared back into the household rooms. Lilly sighed and rubbed her temples, before chasing after him.
Edwin adjusted his coat and cleaned his throat. Lee advanced towards the scientist, his brows pressing against his eyelids. "Jenner, open that door, now!" Lee commanded, his voice raising.
"There's no point." Edwin calmly said. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."
"Well then, open the damned things!" Lee ordered, banging his hand against the table.
"That's not something I control." Edwin stated, shaking his head. "The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that."
"I didn't know you meant THIS." Lee confessed, illustrating by pointing his hand towards the countdown. "Listen to me, Jenner. That little girl is in my care. And I'm not gonna let her die in here!"
"I can't do anything." Edwin insisted. "Look, it's better this way."
Lee straightened his posture, squeezing his nose with his fingers. "What is?! What happens in twenty-eight minutes?!" He reinforced his argument by giving a small push on Edwin's chair. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes…?!"
"Do you know what this place is?!" Edwin yelled at the top of his lungs, jumping onto his feet in a sudden move. His voice was molded by bottled-up anger and he stared right into Lee's eyes. "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!"
Edwin sat back in his chair and recomposed himself, passing his hand through his mouth. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example. H.I.T.S. are deployed to prevent any organism from getting out."
"H.I.T.S.?" Rick repeated, giving a step toward Jenner.
"Vi, define." Edwin voiced.
"H.I.T.S." Vi said. "High-impulse thermo-baric fuel-air explosives coexists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive, except nuclear."
Carol broke into tears as so did her daughter. Kenny tried to calm Katjaa and Duck down as best as he could. Carol hugged Sophia and brought her closer to her, sobbing into her shoulder. Rick trekked towards his family in a shellshock state and then clutched Lori and Carl, who were surprisingly not crying. Jacqui and Allen listened to that announcement with neutrality.
"The vacuum-pressure affects the oxygen between five thousand degrees and six thousand degrees and is used when the greater loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
"It sets the air on fire…" Edwin uttered, his eyes locked on the floor and his voice a murmur. "No pain…an end to sorrow…grief…regret…" Edwin's gaze fell upon Dale, who stared at him with his eyelids peeled off. "…everything…"
Allen walked off, distant from the others, after seeing that Billy and Ben were in the care of Katjaa. He rolled a chair towards him and dropped his weight on it. His sight was fixated on the countdown on the wall. He was so close to the clock that the red light reflected from his visage.
"Lee!" Clementine called, clinging Lee's hand. Lee snapped from his spell and glimpsed down at her. "Lee. I'm scared. What's happening?"
Lee gulped as he squatted in front of Clementine and seized her shoulders. "Listen to me, Clementine…I need you to be calm, okay? I need you to be strong right now."
"Why?!" Clementine asked.
"Because…" Lee choked in his sentence. He exhaled. "Fuck it…look, Jenner locked us in here. And if we don't get out quickly, it's gonna be bad. But we're gonna get out. I promise."
Lee returned to his normal stature and looked at Carley. "Keep an eye on her?"
"Yeah, of course." Carley said with some reluctance. "What're you gonna do?"
"I don't know." Lee said in an earnest demeanor. "But I will open that door."
Daryl tightened his fingers around his bottle, before making his way towards the tough door and tossing his flask towards it. The bottle shattered in a million pieces and the door was splashed with whisky. "Open the damned door!"
Kenny appeared, running up to the door with a determination in his eyes, with an axe cradled in his hands. "Out of my way!"
Kenny braked as he reached the door and swooped the axe. The blow hit hard with an echoing sound, but it didn't even leave a scratch. T-Dog broke a fire emergency case that contained another axe, and threw it at Daryl. "Daryl!"
Daryl joined by Kenny's side, and the two struck the door alternatively like two men digging for diamonds in a mine. The strikes made a resounding noise that repeated itself after each turn.
"You should've left well enough alone." Edwin said. "It would've been so much easier."
"Easier for who?!" Lori demanded. Her eyes were gorked out in disbelief of what Edwin was saying.
"For all of you." Edwin said. "You know what's out there. A short, brutal life, and an agonizing death."
Edwin twisted his rotating chair towards Andrea, who was sitting on the ground. "Your…your sister, what was her name?"
"Amy." Andrea said, followed by a snivel.
"Amy." Edwin repeated. "You know what this does. You've seen it."
"That doesn't mean I wanna die!" Andrea riposted, jerking her head forward as a tear slid down her cheek.
"That's just your self-preservation instinct talking." Edwin turned to Lee. "What about you? Is that really what you want for your daughter?"
"I. Don't. Want. This!" Lee said between teeth, pausing after each word.
Kenny appeared beside Lee and dropped the axe on the floor, before he curled over the computers and panted heavily. He seemed to have given up on axing the door, but Daryl kept at it. "Can't make a dent."
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Edwin stated.
"Well, your head ain't!" Daryl sputtered, running towards Jenner with his axe raised.
Rick, Lee and Dale stepped in the way and grabbed him, preventing from continuing.
"Just back up! Just back up!" Rick growled, pushing Daryl away, which seemed to calm him.
"You do want this." Edwin told Rick in a determined tone. "Last night you said it was just a matter of time before everyone you loved was dead."
Lori's jaw drooped and she shifted her attention elsewhere. Kenny rolled his eyes and passed his hands through his mullet. "What?! You really said that, Rick? After all your big talk?"
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?!" Rick said.
"There is no hope." Edwin replied. "There never was."
"There's always hope!" Rick argued. "Maybe it won't be you, maybe it won't be here…but somebody, somewhere…"
"What part of everything is gone don't you understand?" Edwin enquired. "This…this is the end…this is what takes us down…this is our extinction event."
"This isn't right!" Carol said. She was barely comprehensible due to the snot leaking from her nose and her dried throat. "You can't just keep us here!"
"One tiny moment…a…a…a millisecond. No pain." Edwin tried to convince her.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol blurted out.
"Wouldn't it be kinder?" Edwin enquired. "More…compassionate to just grab your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"
Lee turned his torso around as he heard a gun cocking. His eyelids stretched out as he saw Larry storming into the scene with a shotgun in his arms, Lilly trying to halt him but Larry just kept going.
"Whoa, whoa! Larry, no!" Lee screamed, reaching his arms towards the old man but he shoved him aside, sending him against the terminals.
"Dad, dad, please, you don't wanna do this…" Lilly begged, her cheeks red and shining from a few shed tears.
Larry raised the gun and aimed it at Edwin's face. Edwin just looked back at Larry with no emotion in his visage, whilst Larry breathed heavily and had a rose face from the rage. "Now listen to me, you little shit! I served in the military whilst you were still wearing diapers. I know how to use this shotgun and don't think I won't! I've had a miserable fuckin' life, and the only nice thing I have in this world is my daughter Lilly, you hear me?! So you open that door, or I swear, you'll regret the day you came crawling outta your mother's womb."
"Larry, hear me out…" Rick comforted him, hunching his back forward, lowering his head but keeping his gaze up. "I'm pissed at him too, but if you kill him, we'll never open that door and…"
Larry let out a war-cry, before moving the shotgun inches away from Edwin's face and firing a round. The lead pellets hit the computer screen that broke into thousands of different pieces, with four visible holes in it. Edwin flinched and whined as he clutched his right ear that was deafened.
"Open the goddamned door!" Larry threatened.
"Dad, just lower the gun, please…I think he's got the message…" Lilly pleaded, her voice desperate.
Larry sighed and soothed his respiration, before casting down his arms.
Rick drew a breath in relieve. His brain ran a mile per hour, thinking of something to say. "I think you're lying."
"What?" Edwin asked, recovering from the ringing noise in his hearing.
"I think you're lying." Rick insisted. "About there being no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. But you didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter." Edwin whispered.
"It matters. It always does." Rick disclosed. "You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to." Edwin revealed. He jabbed his finger towards the video-projection that marked fifteen remaining minutes, in which they'd seen the TS-19 video earlier. "I made a promise…to her. My wife, Candace Jenner."
"Test Subject Nineteen was your wife?" Lee asked.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could." Edwin explicated. His words were accompanied by Daryl's bumps on the door. "How could I say no? She was dying…you know…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…I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me!"
"Your wife didn't have a choice." Rick opined. "You do…that's…that's all we want…a choice…a chance…"
"Let us keep trying for as long as we can…" Lori beseeched with the voice of a strangled cat.
Edwin stayed silent for a while. He looked back at Rick and Lee, before walking past them and towards the number pad. "I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those."
Edwin slipped his card, re-inserting the code. The door opened, and Daryl dropped his axe. "Hey! Everybody, it's open! Let's go!"
The crowd began hollering orders to get going, as they grabbed their families and friends and sprinted towards the passage in a frenzy.
"There's your chance. Take it." Edwin said.
"I'm grateful." Lee said, staring right into Edwin's eyes.
"The day will come where you won't be…" Edwin declared.
The two men exchanged one, final hand-shake, but Edwin pulled Lee closer to him and placed his mouth next to his ear. An aspect of confusion was stamped on his face, but once Edwin began saying his sentence, Lee's face lightened with what he was hearing.
Edwin detached from him and gave him a pat on the shoulder. Lee locked his gaze on Edwin. No…it can't be…no, no, no…it…it…can't…
"Lee, we gotta go!" Carley yakked, giving Lee's shoulder a shake.
Lee was yanked from his day-dreaming and gave Edwin's static, faintly-smiling figure a last glance, before spinning around and putting a hand on Clementine's shoulder and the other one on Carley's back. The three of them ran away, as the scientist's words dazzled Lee from the real world.
"Hey, guys! We've got four minutes left!" Glenn shouted.
T-Dog made a waving motion to the door. "C'mon, Jacqui, let's go."
"I'm not…I'm not going…!" Jacqui acknowledged. The mob of people stopped in the door, whilst T-Dog was frozen in place. "I'm stayin'."
"But that's insane!" T-Dog told her between teeth.
"No! It's completely sane." Jacqui replied, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "For the first time in a long time. I'm not ending up like Mark or Amy. There's no time to argue…and no point, not if you wanna get out." Jacqui pushed T-Dog away. "Just get out. Get out…"
"Dog…c'mon, man." Kenny said, towing T-Dog slowly back with the group.
Dale strutted closer to Jacqui, opening his arms in a telepathic manner of saying 'Jacqui, why are you doing this?!'. Jacqui just swung her arm towards Dale, and paraded off.
"I'm staying too." Allen revealed.
Dale's jaw fell to the floor. "Allen, no!"
Allen ignored him and just stared at the clock. Dale looked at the people standing by the door and fluttered them in a gesture to get them going. "Just go! Go!"
"Dale?! What're you doing?!" Andrea asked with a preoccupied tone, waiting by the door.
"I'll be right there, Andrea! Just go!" Dale instructed. Andrea looked at him but Dale reassured her with his wise look, and Lee escorted Andrea towards the group.
The group reached the main lobby. Glenn dashed towards the frontal doors and yanked their handles, but they were locked with the outside shutters closed.
"Get them doors open!" Daryl shouted.
"It doesn't work!" Glenn stated, giving a frustrated kick to the doors.
"Wait a sec!" T-Dog said, running up to the number pad on the wall. He inserted the same code he saw Edwin type when they got there. "Try it now!"
Glenn pulled the doors, but they still didn't budge. "No!"
"What about the window?" Clementine suggested, casting her finger towards the windows. She was balked behind her two adoptive parents.
Daryl tossed Kenny his axe back and the two rednecks ran up to the window façade. They distributed hits on the window with all of their might and strength. They were able to make scratches but their blasts just bounced off.
T-Dog came sprinting with a metal chair. "Daryl, watch out!"
Daryl and Kenny saw T-Dog investing towards the window, so they hopped from his path. T-Dog raised the chair and beat the window as he let out savage cries. The window remained sturdy.
Larry cocked the shotgun he had before and butted the stock against his shoulder to fire it. "Get down, asshole!"
"Who the hell had the idea to let Larry have a shotgun?!" Lee shrieked in a high-pitched voice.
T-Dog dropped the chair and leaped away from the gun's aim. Larry walked up to the window and fired a round. The pellets sparkled as they made contact, but still nothing. "Fuck! It's not breaking!"
Dale sat beside Allen, who was trapped in his thoughts with an empty expression. "Allen…! This isn't what Donna would've wanted for you!"
"She's dead…and you need to leave…" Allen bluntly said.
"Allen, think about Billy and Ben!" Dale insisted. "Are you really going to leave them without a father? They've already lost their mother! They'll be crushed if you do this!"
"They don't deserve me!" Allen said, tears now streaming from his tear-ducts. "I'm a fucking mess…and a terrible fucking parent…yesterday…I didn't even gave them dinner…I was so caught up in my shit…the kids didn't eat yesterday…what kind of father leaves his kids to starve…?!"
"Dale…" Jacqui appeared, putting her hand on Dale's shoulder. "Allen's made his choice. You should go before it's too late."
Dale pondered for a while. He couldn't just walk out the door, but he couldn't bluff and risk getting blown up. He got up with hesitation, before looking at Allen. "Please reconsider…think about those boys…"
"Rick!" Carol caught Rick's attention. "I have something that might help."
"I don't think a nail file's gonna do it…" Kenny sputtered, leaning on his knees as Katjaa rubbed his back. Kenny latched his side, probably from the gunshot wound Andy had inflicted on him.
"Your first morning at camp…" Carol said as she rummaged through her handbag. "When I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket."
Carol took from her bag a frag grenade. Rick inspected the object with a frown, completely forgetting he had picked one up from the police station. He grabbed it and thanked using a nod.
"Everybody, get down!" Rick instructed. Everyone obeyed as they saw what he bore in his hand.
Rick walked up to the window. He crouched and verified that they were all in cover and protected. They were all in a prone position, below the stairs and behind a few pillars and columns. He held his breath as he pulled the pin and let go of the safety lever, deploying the grenade near the glass.
Rick let out a throbbing breath and rushed away with feeble legs. "Ooohhhhh shit!"
The grenade went off, the air wave sending Rick flying and falling to the ground. The window cracked and shattered, the glass making a loud noise as it collided against the floor.
Lee rose his head slowly. "Oh my God…it's open! C'mon, let's go!"
Lee gripped Clementine by the hand and dived out the window. The sunlight blinded him as his blind pupils adjusted to the light. The grass was still a tide of dead bodies, and a few zombies lurked in the background, limping towards them as they noticed the humans.
Lee whipped out his Glock and shot a walker through the forehead. It snapped back and the blood spewed out a hole in the back of his skull, before it collapsed on the ground.
The group reached their convoy. Rick burst inside the RV, as he settled in the driver's seat and his family went towards the back. Lee followed after him, as Carley protected Clementine by taking her with Lori and Carl. She'd be safer when the explosion occurred.
Lee sat beside Rick and saw as the others leaped onto their vehicles. Rick stared at his watch, knowing that there were only a few more seconds. "C'mon…c'mon…Dale, where are you?!"
"There!" Lee exclaimed, beaming his finger towards the horizon.
Rick lurched his head and was relieved to see that Dale was bending over the broken window to get past it. Dale ran as fast as he could across the open field. Lee rolled down his window as he saw a walker lurking near the vehicles and shot it through the cranium.
Edwin, Jacqui and Allen sat around the computer that emitted the feed to the exterior security camera. Edwin narrowed his eyes and distanced his skull from the screen as he saw Dale stepping out the window. "They got out…"
A smile drew on Jacqui's teary face, as she and Edwin exchanged looks. Jacqui placed her hand on Edwin's and interlaced her fingers with his, as the clock reached then seconds. Edwin stared into her eyes in a mist of confusion. Jacqui used her second hand to grab Allen's palm, and the three people just waited for the last seconds to pass.
No more pain…no more suffering…an end to all things…
In the remaining seconds, Allen began thinking about Billy and Ben. He wondered how they were going to fare in the new world. They would probably grow up to be great men. The image of their faces on Allen's mind saddened him further…and he remembered that there were so many things he hadn't done with them…he had never gone to the cinema with them or taught them how to play baseball. He had never changed their diapers because he was terrible at it nor did he ever help them with their homework.
So many things to do with them…and so little time.
That's when Allen realized that what he was doing was wrong.
He jumped onto his feet, but by then the counter had reached zero.
Rick grinded his teeth as he saw that there were only five more seconds to the explosion. Dale wasn't gonna make it in time. "Everybody, get down! Now! Dale! Get down!"
Lee obeyed and he curled into a ball, so did Rick and the group. Dale, realizing that he was too far away, ducked behind a sandbag barricade just as the bombs detonated.
The air that paired inside the CDC turned into a gigantic ball of fire that grew and violently discharged, shattering all of the windows. The grass, foliage and bushes outside the facility were singed and turned to ashes whilst the bodies roasted like a barbecue. The blast wave shook the survivors' vehicles and threw a tempest of dust onto them. The edifice began rupturing, breaking the walls into colossal hunks of brick that came crashing down due to gravity. The remnants were engulfed in the ascending fire as the structure came down, turning the CDC into a decimated pile of debris and hills of stone.
When it was safe, Andrea hurtled out of Glenn's pizza car and found Dale lying behind the barricade. She lift him up with difficulty and they got back inside the car.
The light of the flames was mirrored in Rick's face as he lit the ignition. Lee's eyes couldn't be taken off that majestic spectacle of fire. The engine of the camper roared back to life, and Rick drove off into the endless road, the rest of the vehicles following behind.
His mind drifted off. He thought about Edwin, Jacqui and Allen. He couldn't believe how they had just lost hope and given up on everybody. Allen especially. He decided to pass the luggage of his kids onto someone else and take the easy way out. Everything was crumbling around him. Everybody was dying and killing.
For a brief moment, Lee felt slightly hateful towards him. Who were gonna take care of the twins?! Who were gonna tell them the bad news?!
"Hey. You okay, Lee?" Rick asked.
Lee stared down the road, pondering for a lengthy period. "I can't believe…just…they just…just…"
"No need to say anything else." Rick asserted, curving his eyebrows as his heart was daggered by an invisible presence. "I feel ya. It's a bitch…knowing that this shit has gone world-wide."
Lee sighed and reclined on his sit, resting his fatigued muscles. Edwin's words came back to him, which made his blood run cold. In a split second, he began feeling more uncomfortable. He started tossing in his seat, but he couldn't find a comfy position. He eventually gave up and just laid with his back pressed against the seating. He recalled as Edwin drew his arm and approximated his dehydrated lips to Lee's ear, and most importantly, he recalled that cold whisper.
We're all infected.
NOTE: Another arc concluded. If you've made it through this ridiculously long chapter, I wanna say thanks for all of your support, guys. You're all fuckity fucking awesome! Sorry if it took a while, this chapter was long and I had to edit a million times to make sure it was perfect.
In order to improve the story and cooperate with you guys, I'm asking you is there anything you have disliked in this story up until now? What were the positive and negative points in this chapter? And is there anything you'd especially like to see in the future? (No, Rebloxic/ParadisalBitterness. There won't be any LiLee.)
Don't forget to check out the preview for the next Season/Volume/Episode:
NEXT TIME ON THE WALKING DEAD
Kenny, Lee and Rick marched through the forest, all of them armed with a rifle. Rick was a few meters away from them, whilst Lee and Kenny lagged behind and spoke in private.
"Things have been tough." Kenny said.
"Tell me about it." Lee responded.
"I'm not sure how much longer we got." Kenny said. "I think I'm leaving, Lee. Definitely. I was thinking going to the coast. Got a lotta boats there. Getting away from the mainland's the best way to avoid all of this shit. I'm serious about that offer, Lee. You, Clem and Carley can come with us."
"My name's Dave." The man introduced himself. "That guy over there is Tony."
Larry fell against the side of the camper, clutching his chest.
"Dad!" Lilly yelled, grabbing him. "He needs pills now!"
"We can't stop!" Kenny argued back. "We're too fuckin' close to stop now!"
"Lilly's right. We have to help him." Lee said.
"We're almost to the river." Kenny stated. "Almost to the boats. Wanna get on a boat or wait around until the walkers figure out we're here?"
"We've got a farm up ahead!" The beautiful, farmer's daughter said.
Billy walked away from the camp, searching for his brother. "Ben?"
He found Ben kneeling near a walker that was incapacitated, and could only move its jaws. Billy gasped and his jaw dropped. "Ben…what're you doing…?"
Kenny exited the RV and contemplated the vehicle that was blocking their way. "Well, if it isn't a fucking train!"
Andrea looked down the scope of her rifle and shivered to see a horde forming in the horizon. Oh my God, she thought. They're thousands…
She ran back towards the group. "We gotta go!"
"I don't care about safety." Clementine told Lee. "I care about my parents. They were in Savannah. I care about finding them."
THE WALKING DEAD
VOLUME/SEASON/EPISODE 3 – SAFETY BEHIND A LONG ROAD
COMING SOON
