A/N:
Okay, this is just a brief warning that in this chapter, and following chapters, there are brief mentions of a character contemplating suicide. Or rather, death by incineration, which I think still counts. Enjoy the chapter, anyway!
Chapter Fourteen – Bug Out
"There's a loneliness that only exists in one's mind.
The loneliest moment in someone's life
Is when they are watching their whole world fall apart,
And all they can do is blink."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
Glenn groaned and I rubbed his back in sympathy from where I sat next to him. In all honesty, my own head was ringing like I'd been standing too close to a firefight, and the smell of the food that was in front of me was making my stomach want to turn. Most of us were already sitting around one of the tables in the cafeteria, bar Rick, Shane, Jacqui, T-Dog and Daryl, though Jacqui and T-Dog had taken charge of the cooking of breakfast.
I had woken up early in the morning, mostly to avoid Rick, partly because my stomach was turning upside down and I wanted to find a different bathroom to empty my stomach in. If I had thrown up in the bathroom in my room, Rick would have woken up and I wouldn't have been able to avoid a conversation I did not want to have. Or, if God was only answering the smaller, tinier prayers now, that Rick had forgotten the kiss completely and I could continue my pining without being rejected or heartbroken.
"You think this is bad? Try getting wasted the night before you have to go into combat…hangovers and warzones, with heavy gunfire and RPGs, are not the combination you want." I joked, my voice soft as I was trying not to hurt my own head by speaking too loudly.
Glenn grunted beside me, probably imagining the scenario I had painted, and I tried to laugh without jostling my stomach too much.
"Aunt T, did you get drunk last night?" Carl questioned, and I gave a quick glance to Lori, who just raised an amused eyebrow at me as if to ask the same question.
"Yes, yes I did, squirt. Excess alcohol is a bad lifestyle choice, kiddo. If you mimic anything I do, do not let it be drinking…or smoking. Smoking is bad for you." I replied honestly, pointing at him with one half-shaking finger. It looked like it was shaking.
"I know, but if you know that, why do you still do it?" I shrugged my shoulders, and smiled at my godson.
"Because…I'm stupid."
"Why do you think you're stupid?" Rick's voice questioned, and I felt my body tense as I turned my head to look at him. He was smiling widely, looking just as rough as I felt, as he pretty much fell in to the empty chair next to Carl. "Morning."
"Morning-"
"Are you hungover?" Carl asked, cutting me off, and Lori and I gave Carl amused grins. Since he'd woken up and sat down to breakfast, he'd practically asked every adult that same question "Mom said you'd be."
"Mom is right." Rick sighed, and I pushed my plate of untouched food in front of him and he muttered his thanks under his breath.
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori quipped, and I chuckled at her as she tore up a slice of bacon with her fingers.
I passed Rick his knife and fork, and our fingers brushed as he took them, his blue eyes gazing into my own and the glint in his eyes told me that God was still not answering my prayers. Rick remembered. I waited until he had taken his utensils, before looking away and picking up my glass of water to distract myself from the fact my face felt warm. God, I was such a teenage girl, blushing over eye contact with my crush.
God, I hate myself.
"Eggs!" T-Dog exclaimed, as he stepped out of the kitchen area with a steaming pan. "Powdered, but I do 'em good."
Glenn moaned again, and Jacqui and I both reached towards him and rubbed his back and arms, trying to make the kid feel a little better.
"Bet you can't tell," T-Dog continued, a little smirk on his face as he began to pile eggs onto the plate that Glenn was currently hunched over. "Protein helps the hangover."
Glenn groans again, and I chuckle in sympathy, before I take another sip of my water. Rick grabs my attention by shaking a bottle of aspirin, holding it up in the air so we could see what he was about to talk about.
"Where did all this come from?"
"Jenner." Lori answered simply.
Rick nodded, before handing her the bottle of pills, asking for her help opening them. He had always been useless with medicine bottles. The child-proof mechanisms always seemed to stump him. As stupid as it was, it hurt a little to see that old domesticity flare up between them, even after our kiss last night.
"He thought we could use it. Some of us, at least." Amy added, trying not to laugh at Glenn from where she sat on the other end of the table with her sister and Dale.
"Don't ever, ever let me drink again." Glenn moaned, the back of his hand still pressed to his forehead, a fork hanging uselessly from his fingers.
"But who would we laugh at for not being able to handle their brain grenades?" I teased him, and when I noticed the several confused expressions, I sighed and continued. "Alcohol…brain grenades means alcohol…you know what, learn to speak my language."
I crossed my legs over on my chair, folded my arms over my chest and leaned back in my chair, while everyone else laughed at me as I pouted. I was two years away from being considered a lifer. Eighteen years I had served in the US army. Eighteen. I couldn't just switch off the army speak any more than I could stop my annoying feelings for Rick. I missed my brothers. I could speak army all day long and I wouldn't have to deal with the blank expressions of the uninitiated.
"What's up with Pouty?" Shane greeted us, as he trudged into the cafeteria with a pout of his own. "She not had her eighth cup of joe yet?"
Coffee was one of those blessed luxuries that soldiers, like me, valued the most, second behind a nicotine fix. Living with Shane, he would always complain that I drank too much coffee, because when I was Stateside, I would end up making up for lost time and drinking almost too much all at once. I got coffee jitters once, because I had like eighteen cups in one day and had over caffeinated myself. Shane had been so worried about me; he had taken me to the hospital.
"Hey," Rick smiled, watching Shane walk straight to the coffee machine, getting two cups instead of one. "You feel as bad as I do?"
"Worse." Shane mumbled, turning around with the two cups of coffee in hand.
"What the hell happened to you? Your neck?" T-Dog questioned Shane, as he sat down on the other side of me, nudging one of the coffees towards me.
I furrowed my brow as I reached out and turned his head to the side so I had a better view. Three scratches. Like fingernails. Shane pushed my hand away gently, probably trying to get me to leave it be, but I saw his eyes flicker to Lori. Lori, who was eyeing her half-empty plate very intently, did not seem to have any signs of a fight displayed on her, but I knew that they must have gotten into it last night.
After all, I was trained to notice the unnoticeable.
"Must've done it in my sleep." Shane replied, and I arched an eyebrow at him.
"Never seen you do that before." I remarked, and I would know, having cohabited with Shane for the past eighteen years.
I never lived with him for long. I think the most was eight months when I was shot three times on a search and destroy mission in Baghdad, and I had a rather long recovery time, but mostly it was one week, a month tops that I would crash out in his spare bedroom before returning to work. I didn't have my own place in King County, and I didn't like to be a burden on my parents so Shane and I became roommates, sort of. It was an ideal situation for the both of us.
"Me neither. Not like me at all." Shane stated, and I didn't miss his glance towards Lori, who quickly stuffed some bacon in her mouth to distract herself.
"Morning." Jenner murmured, as he padded into the room, effectively stopping either me or Rick from continuing the discussion on Shane's mystery scratches.
"Hey, Doc." Some of us murmured, and Glenn kind of bobbed his head in recognition of the greeting, bringing a smile to my face.
"Doc, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing." Dale broached, after a nod from Andrea and Amy. Clearly the blondes had listened to my words the night before, about still feeling uneasy because I was certain that there was more to Jenner than what he was showing us, and had brought it up with Dale.
"But you will anyway." Jenner replied, as he served himself some coffee.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea pressed, and our eyes connected over the table, and I nodded my approval.
We needed answers, and, while it had worked, Shane's passive aggressive way of doing it yesterday wasn't the way to go.
Jenner turned around and faced all of us, as we watched him, waiting.
"Follow me to the lab."
So, we did. We abandoned our breakfasts, and our coffee, and followed the doctor through the almost off-putting pristine white corridors to the large computer lab he had shown us before. Jenner walked straight to one of the control computers, putting down his coffee, before he looked up at the large screen mounted on the wall in front of us. I stood myself next to Jenner, leaning back against one of the desks behind me.
"Give me a playback of TS 19," He ordered, and Vi repeated his words as the computer began to boot up and the screen started to show the loading of data and 3D images of a person's brain from different angles and scans. "Few people ever got the chance to see this. Very few."
My eyes flickered from Jenner as he spoke back to the screen, seeing the 3D scan of a person's head being shown, before the imaging zoomed in and showed the brain more closely.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked, and I smiled over at him. The Grimes curiosity burned from father to son, it seemed.
"An extraordinary one," Jenner replied, his face turning sad once he looked away from the boy and back at the screen. He had a personal attachment to the test subject. A friend or colleague, maybe. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for EIV."
"Enhanced Internal View."
The image shifted so we were looking at the brain horizontally, the scan zooming in, showing us the synapses sending electrical impulses around the brain. That's all I knew about the brain, and I had retained that from Advanced Bio in high school.
"What are those lights?" Shane questioned, from where he was sitting.
"It's a person's life. Experiences, memories, it's everything," Jenner informed us, and suddenly I felt like I was in high school all over again, listening to my Bio teacher giving a lecture. The Doc sounded very passionate about it. "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 murmured, and Jenner expanded on his explanation.
"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."
"Death? That's what this is? A vigil?" Rick surmised, stepping forward to stand closer to the screen and, coincidentally, to me.
"Yes. Or r-rather the…playback of the vigil." Jenner added, and I saw Andrea step away from Amy, her blue eyes shining slightly, and I saw the pain there. She was still thinking on the 'what if's'. What if Amy had been bitten? What if I hadn't shot those walkers? What if Amy had died? I could see it all play out on her face, and I wanted to hold her hand and reassure her, but it didn't seem like the right moment.
"This person died? Who?"
"Test Subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered to have us…record the process," The strain in Jenner's voice, the way he got quieter as he went on, only convinced me that TS 19 was more than just a random bitten volunteer. He had cared for this person, whoever he or she may have been. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event."
The brain on the screen suddenly had a dark patch around the brain stem that hadn't been there before.
"What is that?" Glenn verbalized what we were all thinking.
"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs," Jenner explained, as we watched the darkness spread throughout the brain as the patient clearly struggled to breathe, what with the way the body in the scan was shaking, before it went completely dead. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be…gone."
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked her mother, her tiny voice carrying in the large, almost deadly silent, room. I thought about Jenny and how this had happened to her. All it took was one little bite, and then a whole lot of pain, and then she was gone.
"Yes."
I didn't even realize that I was crying until I felt Rick's arm wrap around me, and noticed Jenner's curious gaze on me.
"I lost somebody to this a couple months ago…a friend." I sniffed, thinking of Jenny and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand as I tried to ignore the warmth of Rick's hand on my shoulder, or how our sides were pressed firmly together. It wasn't an appropriate time to be mooning over him.
"I lost somebody, too. I know how devastating it is," Jenner divulged, confirming what I had known all along. TS 19 was that somebody he had lost. I nodded once at him, wrapping my arms around myself and tried to ignore the niggling thoughts in the back of my mind about Morgan and Duane's welfare. Jenner himself turned back to the screen. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event."
"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have 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." Jenner disclosed, as we watched the screen shift forward in time again, though the image didn't change.
Until, slowly, it did.
Little red and orange sparks lit up around the brain stem, just around the brain stem. Nowhere else.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked incredulously, the surprise in her voice echoing the surprise on all our faces, bar Jenner's.
"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving." Jenner announced, and I felt Rick shift next to me, standing up straighter as though he was trying to get a better view.
"But they're not alive." He stated, though it felt like it should have been more of a question.
I knew why he had said that. Ever since the outbreak started, we've had to deal with the brain-ache-inducing conundrum of whether it was morally ethical to kill the walkers, as they had once been people. Everyday people, just trying to live their lives like everybody else, only their lives were cut short by a mystery disease or virus or infection and were now condemned to continue walking the Earth, even after death.
Rick wanted an end to the guilt of having to choose his family and the group over the once-living walkers.
"You tell me." Jenner suggested, gesturing to the screen as Rick and everybody else stared up at it.
"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick concluded, and Jenner nodded.
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobes, the neocortex, the human part, that doesn't come back. The 'you' part. It's just a shell, driven by mindless instinct." Jenner informed us, and I felt like a small weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It would make it easier to defend ourselves against them, now that we knew for certain that they weren't human anymore.
Suddenly, something tore through TS 19's brain and the relit brain stem was destroyed.
"God! What was that?" Carol questioned, and I looked at Jenner tiredly.
"He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?"
"Vi, power down the main screen and the work stations." Jenner instructed, as he walked past me and Rick, his arms crossed over his chest tightly.
"Powering down main screen and work stations."
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea guessed, and I could see from the defeated look on Jenner's face that she was right, and my stomach fell into my boots at our suspicions being confirmed.
If a doctor who specialized in disease control had no idea what had caused the dead to rise, what hope was there for a cure?
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui interjected, and I squeezed my eyes closed tightly, as I tried not to cry.
The CDC had been our beacon of hope, our chance at a cure and at survival, and not only had we only found one doctor left, but he had no clue as to what was happening here. He was pulling at straws, guessing.
I suddenly felt hopeless again.
"There is that."
"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Amy vocalized, and I could see the panic in her eyes that mirrored her sister's.
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Lori pressed, and I could see Jenner becoming deflated. He didn't have answers for us, not the ones we wanted or the ones we needed. He was just as lost as we were, due to no fault of his own.
"There may be some. People like me." Jenner answered, but it wasn't good enough for Rick.
"But you don't know…how can you not know?"
"The same way I didn't know if Atlanta was safe. Everything turned to shit, Rick," I snapped, feeling all my frustration finally boiling over. "Communications, directives, all of it stopped. He's just as in the dark as we all are. Right?"
Jenner nodded.
"I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here? There's nothing left anywhere. Nothing," Andrea lamented, gripping her sister's hand in hers as the young girl silently wept onto her shoulder. "That's what you're really saying, right?"
Jenner's silence gave Andrea, and all of us, the answer we were anticipating. I breathed deeply in and out, as I tried to get a grip on myself. I was a soldier. Being up the creek without a paddle shouldn't faze me, especially not when I had people relying on me to stay strong and calm and collected.
"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl decided, running his hands through his hair, before he bent over a table, resting his head in his hands wearily.
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but…that clock," Dale pointed out, grabbing our attention as he walked towards it. I hadn't noticed it before. It was a digital clock…except the seconds were ticking backwards, not forwards. Dread filled my stomach. Ticking clocks were never fucking good in my experience. "It's counting down. What happens at zero?"
"The…basement generators, they run out of fuel."
"And then?" Rick questioned, and I gave him a dry look, before answering his question.
"Kaboom."
Rick looked at me with wide eyes, before turning back to Jenner for confirmation, but Jenner simply walked away. He wasn't giving anymore answers.
"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."
Rick, Shane, T-Dog and Glenn had gone to the basement to check out the generators, while the rest of us headed back to our rooms, but before anyone could go into their rooms, I stopped them.
"I don't want anybody to panic. Rick and the guys will figure something out in the basement, but having a Plan B never hurt anybody," I started off, noticing that nobody really understood what Vi had meant when she said facility-wide decontamination. "Everyone pack up their stuff, and leave it on the inside of your door. If they don't find any good news in that basement, we are leaving. Everybody got that?"
"Aren't we safe here?" Sophia asked, and I found myself torn between wanting to keep the children's minds at ease and being honest.
"We could be, okay, Sophia? I just want us prepared in case we aren't. Do you guys understand?" Sophia and Carl both nodded, and I gestured for them to go into their rooms. "Let me talk to the other adults for a minute, okay? You guys start packing up your stuff."
Carl and Sophia hesitated, but, with encouraging nods from their respective mothers, they listened, vanishing into their rooms, and I breathed in one large breath before turning back to the remaining adults of the group.
"Look…I have served in the army for eighteen years. I've done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, so believe me when I say that a clock that is counting down is the only sign we need to pick up our shit and run for the hills."
"We don't know if decontamination necessarily means an explosion, Thea. We shouldn't jump the gun here." Dale argued, and I chuckled almost manically at his naivety.
"We're in the Centre for Disease Control, Dale. They grow some nasty shit in these labs, and the generators that are running this place, stopping those incurable diseases, viruses, parasites and fungal infections from getting out, are running out of juice," I explained, widening my eyes so that they saw the panic in them. I was scared shitless, and the fact that they weren't worried me. While I hadn't wanted to panic them before, mostly because of the kids being there, they needed to be more than just a little concerned. "I don't think decontamination in this case means a chemical shower, okay? A countdown always leads to an explosion…and we are in the center of it. If they don't find more fuel in that basement…we're dead."
"What should we do?" Amy asked, and I was grateful that she and Andrea seemed to be listening to me.
"Pack up your stuff. If we have to run, we won't have time to mess around with collecting everything. Keep your packs and anything you think is important on you until we are more certain of the situation. Everybody got that?"
They nodded, but I could see that Dale, Jacqui and the two moms were still a little unconvinced at the severity of the situation. They could doubt me as much as they wanted, if they took the steps that I had deemed necessary, I was fine with that.
We all parted ways, separating into our own rooms, and as soon as I closed my door, I started to rush around. Most of my stuff was packed, but Rick…the few things he had were scattered around the room. I picked up his uniform shirt, folding it up and packing it away in my duffel, before I picked up his few belongings and tucked them away in the weapon's bag he had brought in.
I collected my wash stuff from the shower, placing it back into my duffel, before I grabbed the last loose item in the room and placed it on top of Rick's bag. His deputy hat.
And that's when I felt it…or rather, didn't feel it. Air.
The air-conditioning had stopped.
The lights went out.
Doors to other rooms opened.
"Huh," I uttered, throwing on my backpack and grabbing my duffel and weapons bags as I listened to the others start to question a reappearing Dr. Jenner. "That started sooner than I had anticipated."
I moved quickly to my door, yanking it open just as Jenner breezed past with Daryl's bottle of whiskey in his hand.
"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner answered someone's question, and I arched a brow as I fell into line behind him, just in front of the others, noticing that no one had listened to me about their stuff. Not even Andrea and Amy.
"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale questioned, and I watched as the doctor took a swig of the hard liquor and shook his head, just as the lights in the corridor went out.
"It's not up to me. Zone Five is shutting itself down."
"Hey! What the hell does that mean?" Daryl demanded, as we all stalked Jenner through the halls, and I turned my head to acknowledge the redneck and answered his question when it appeared that Jenner wouldn't.
"It means that this building is mostly run by a giant computer that is programmed to run the computers until the last drop of juice runs out. Am I right, Doc?" I pushed, as we stepped back into the computer lab, and Jenner looked at me in surprise. His expression disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but he nodded, confirming my suspicions.
We heard footsteps thundering underneath us, and saw Rick and the others appear just as we started to clamber down the metal staircase.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick's tone mimicked Daryl's from earlier, the demand for information clear in his voice, as he marched forward as we met him halfway, before having to turn around as Jenner continued to the computers.
"The system is dropping all non-essential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second, like your girlfriend so cleverly worked out," Jenner sounded almost bitter, and, because of the seriousness of the situation, I brushed aside the 'girlfriend' comment. "As it starts, we'd have just reached the half hour mark. Right on schedule."
The ominous red numbers of the wall clock mocked us as they ticked down from 31 minutes and 28 seconds.
Jenner took another large pull from the whiskey bottle, before he paused next to the steps that led to the computer bay. He looked back at us for a brief moment, probably registering the worry and panic, before he wordlessly handed Daryl the booze back.
"It was the French." He spoke, looking at Andrea before he headed to his computer.
"What?" Andrea's question made the doctor pause again.
"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting up the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs to the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jenner answered, turning his back on us again.
"What happened?" Jacqui pushed him, the need for answers making us disregard the stress and pain in his voice.
"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice," Jenner stated, almost casually, and I glared up at him, as he skirted around what was really going to happen. I had worked it out, but there were others who wouldn't see the whole picture. "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"
Shane surged forward, muttering angrily under his breath, but Rick grabbed him and held him back, before pointing back at us.
"Lori, Thea, grab our things. Everybody. We're getting out of here now!" Rick ordered, shouting the last word, and we all turned around, ready to follow his instruction, when an alarm sounded stopping us all in our tracks.
"What's that?" Carl questioned, his voice shaking in fear, and Rick reached out and ran a hand through his hair, trying to comfort his son.
"30 minutes to decontamination." Vi announced, and I gestured for everyone to start running towards the doors again.
"Doc, what's going on here, damn it?" Shane shouted, at the same time I yelled, "Everybody out!" as I tried to get our group to safety.
"Ya'll heard her and Rick. Go grab your stuff and let's go. Come on!" Shane encouraged, as we all headed towards the doors again, only for them to shut in our faces.
"Did he just lock us in? He just locked us in!" Glenn exclaimed, and I spun on my heel and turned back, launching myself up onto the computer bay, skidding to a halt next to Rick, dropping my bags down onto the ramp that led to one of the newly sealed doors.
"What are we going to do?" I whispered to him, and he just looked at me, his eyes dull with his hopelessness.
"You sonofabitch!" Daryl bellowed, running right past Shane, hurtling towards the doctor where he sat in front of one of the computers, talking into a camera as he recorded our potential final moments.
"Shane! Shane!" Rick gestured frantically towards the redneck. Shane and T-Dog burst into action, darting towards Daryl, just as he reached Jenner and wrenched him away before he could do any damage to him. Seeing that one volcanic eruption had been dealt with, we pushed the focus back onto the more serious one as Rick and I advanced on the doctor. "Jenner, open that door now."
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."
"Well, open the damn things!" Dale argued, and I felt my fingers itching to the gun strapped on my leg. The blood-lusting side of the soldier in me was telling me to shoot him in the leg, apply some pressure on to it, get my answers through pain and intimidation, but I knew that wouldn't fly with the group.
"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 pointed out, and I vaguely remembered that, but that did not excuse what he was doing right now. He was holding us hostage, and was going to force us to die on terms we did not agree to. "It's better this way."
"What is? What happens in 28 minutes?"
"Kaboom." I whispered, repeating myself from earlier, but Rick wasn't listening to me. He was looking to Jenner to give him a straight answer, but the scientist simply ignored him, and began typing on his computer.
"What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick repeated himself, bellowing the words and making poor Carol and Amy jump at the sound.
The kids were starting to cry, along with Amy, Carol and Lori. Even Glenn was shedding a tear or two, but nobody could blame them. We were facing our own deaths. They were looming over us right now, and there was nothing we could do to stop them from happening.
Except convince Jenner to let us go.
"Do you know what this place is? We protect the public from very nasty stuff!" Jenner shouted at Rick and Shane, echoing my words to the others, and I knew then that I had been right. We were going to be blown to pieces. "Weaponised smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!"
He had stunned us into silence as he practically screamed in our faces, but I wasn't angry with him. I felt sorry for him. He had the weight of the continuity of humanity's survival resting on his shoulders, and time was quite literally running out and he had failed. He was almost entitled to a nervous breakdown. I just wish it hadn't included making us die with him.
Jenner seemed to deflate after he had finished yelling, settling back into his chair and staring blankly ahead of himself.
"In the event of a catastrophic power failure and a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms getting out."
"HITs?" Rick questioned, stepping forward. I could see Jenner open his mouth, either to give the definition himself or to get Vi to define it for him, but I beat him to the punch.
"High-Impulse Thermobaric fuel-air explosives," I breathed, tears falling down my cheeks as I realized exactly how we were going to die. I cleared my throat, trying to moisten it with my saliva, as it suddenly felt like I'd swallowed the Sahara Desert. "It's a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave that is more powerful and lasts longer than any type of explosion except nuclear. It ignites the oxygen in the atmosphere. It's only used when the greatest loss of life and damage is desired."
I looked around the room, my vision clear enough to see everybody's devastation. Carl was holding onto his mother for dear life, sobbing into her stomach, and Lori looked terrified as she clutched her son to her. Carol and Sophia were holding each other, their tiny bodies both heaving with their tears. Amy was huddled with Andrea and Jacqui, all three women crying in fear as Dale did his best to comfort them. Daryl looked pissed, angry that his choices were being taken away, and his expression was mirrored onto Shane's face. T-Dog looked like he had just been gut-punched, like the very breath in his body had been stolen away and Glenn looked like he was going to throw up, his face rapidly turning pale in his anguish.
"It sets the air on fire." Jenner muttered, just as Rick pulled me into his arms, and tucked my head into the crook of his neck, holding me close to him as I tried not to break down.
Two months ago, I had been ready to die.
Two months ago, the arrival of Morgan and Duane had forced me to live.
And now that choice was being ripped away from me again.
"No pain. An end to sorrow. Grief. Regret. Everything." Jenner continued, in drawn out, clipped sentences, probably to increase their devastation.
His words, and the high emotional intensity in the room, only pissed off our resident hunter. He growled before hurtling the whiskey bottle in his hand at one of the sealed doors, glaring down at the doctor.
"Open the damn door!" He demanded, just as Shane rushed forward, grabbing one of the fire axes.
"Out of my way!" He warned the others on the ramp, including Rick, Glenn and myself, and we stepped out of the way as he charged at the doors, lifted the axe over his shoulder and brought it down hard against the heavy metal seal.
I knew it was a useless attempt, but I didn't have it in me to discourage him, nor stop Daryl from joining him as T-Dog tossed him another axe. I just walked back to Lori and Carl, reaching out a hand, which Lori took, squeezing it tight as we exchanged a panicked look.
The mothers were huddled back against one of the computer desks with their kids. Amy, Andrea and Dale were still holding each other, though Jacqui had moved away, sitting on one of the chairs. The kids were still crying, and it broke my heart. This was supposed to be a safe place for them, so they didn't have to be scared anymore, but this place had turned out to be just as dangerous as outside.
"You should have left it alone. It would have been so much easier."
I turned around sharply, glaring at the doctor with as much hate as I could muster.
"Easier for who?" Lori demanded, her voice still audible over the loud grunts of exertion coming from Shane and Daryl at the door.
"All of you. You know what's out there. A short, brutal life and an agonizing death," Jenner insisted, turning his eyes onto me. "Your friend…What was their name?"
"Jenny."
"Jenny. You know what this does. You've seen it," He turned to Rick next, looking up at him from his seat. "Is that really what you want for your family, for your girlfriend, ex-wife and son?"
"I don't want this!" Rick hissed in reply, just as Shane came back, panting.
"I can't make a dent." He informed us, hunched over as he leaned on one of the computer monitors while trying to catch his breath.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner stated, matter of fact, just as Daryl returned, still grasping his axe.
"Your head ain't!" He growled, surging forward only to be stopped by Rick, Dale and T-Dog. The latter wrenched the axe out of the hunter's hand and forced him back.
"You do want this," Jenner pressed, climbing to his feet, his eyes burning into Rick. "Last night, you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me, as I turned and caught Rick's guilt-ridden eyes with mine.
"What?" I whispered, hardly able to believe that Mr. Opti-fucking-mistic had even had that thought, let alone let the words pass his lips, but the look on his face said it all. He hadn't had hope at all. After everything he said, everything we survived, Rick hadn't believed in us, in the group. "Is he telling the truth?"
"What? You really said that? After your big talk?" Shane questioned, and I took a step away from Rick.
He had lied to me. He claimed to have this hope that we could survive this, he said we could, but he didn't even believe his own words. He didn't even believe me when I said the same damn thing. His hope was all I had now and he didn't even have any. I felt like the one thing I was counting on had just been ripped away from me.
I felt betrayed.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick defended himself, taking a step towards me, his eyes burning into mine.
"There is no hope. There never was." Jenner pushed, and I found myself starting to listen to him.
If Rick hadn't believed there was hope, the man who had always believed heart and soul in being optimistic and hopeful and honest, then how could there be?
What hope was there for us? We'd already lost twelve people, plus four more left us. Our group was dropping like flies already. How could we have been so stupidly naïve to believe that we could have survived any longer than this, longer than the rest of humanity?
"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, but somebody, somewhere."
"What part of everything's gone don't you understand, Rick?" I snapped, and I almost flinched when Rick looked at me like my words had physically wounded him, but I didn't. I looked at him and felt it all suddenly hit me. The utter exhaustion. The fear. The hopelessness. It all came rushing at me, and I was certain that he saw that. "There's no army, no government, no CDC. There's nothing left."
"Listen to her. She finally gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event." Jenner announced, and I kind of wanted to block him out, but I couldn't.
Instead, I moved towards one of the desks, slid down the back of it, ignored the uncomfortable feeling of my backpack being in the way and curled in on myself. I tucked my knees up to my chin, wrapped my arms around them and held myself, while I waited for the clock to hit zero. Who did I have to live for anyway? My parents gave up right at the start of this thing, and I had no real family left, no boyfriend or fiancé or husband, no children to protect.
I had nothing and no one.
Maybe Jenner had been right all along. What was there to live for?
Rick crouched down in front of me, taking my hands, and forced me to look in his eyes.
"I need you to be on my side with this. I didn't mean what I said last night. I promise. We can survive this together, I know we can, but I need you with me. I can't do it without you," Rick whispered, and I stared into those blue eyes and knew that he believed it, but part of me still felt like Jenner was right. I'd taken the hard way my whole life, maybe it was time to choose the easy road. Or maybe, if I continued with the hard road, all that suffering and all that work might finally pay off. "You with me?"
Normally, I would give my usual reply, but this time I didn't know what to say. Carol spoke out before I could decide, and I saw the panic flare up in his eyes at the thought of me wanting to just say here and die.
"This isn't right! You can't just keep us here!" Carol argued, and her cries, and the cries of the children, made my more maternal side flare up.
Regardless of my own inner battle on whether to stay and die or leave and fight, Jenner had no right to keep the others here. If they wanted to carry on pretending that there might be some way to live though this nightmare, then that was their choice and he couldn't take that away from them.
"One tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain." Jenner informed her, trying to assuage her worries.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol cried.
Carol's tears tugged at my heartstrings, but not enough to make me want to get up.
"Wouldn't it be kinder? More compassionate to hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"
"I can't do this without you, T." Rick whispered to me, his eyes begging and I wanted to scream.
I wanted to scream at him for all the time we'd wasted, for letting him have such a hold on me, even now, that his words were like a battle cry I wanted to take up. Fuck this man, fuck him and his need to be the hero, to save me even from my own damned self.
Dale helped Carol, Sophia, Lori and Carl move away from Jenner, moving them closer to him, just in time for Shane to come striding forward with his shotgun. Shane ignored Rick's protests, ignored Rick when he stood and tried to hold him back, simply telling his best friend to stay out his way, before he aimed the barrel of the gun right between Jenner's eyes.
"Open that door, or I'm gonna blow your head off, do you hear me?" Shane demanded, his eyes wide and crazy as he stared down the gun at his target.
I climbed to my feet, stepped towards him, moving to his other side as Rick was on his right, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Brother, this is not the way we do this." Rick stated, and I continued, squeezing Shane's shoulder gently to remind him of my presence.
"Honey, you do this, nobody will get out of here. Think of the kids. This is not how they go out. This is not the way." I insisted, and I saw Shane's eyes flicker to me.
"Shane, you listen to them!" Lori ordered, and that's when I knew we had him. He was still pissed though, and let out a loud roar of rage, before firing several shots into the computers, before Rick managed to wrangle the shotgun out of his hands, and knocked him to the ground.
"Are you done now? Are you done?" Rick questioned, both breathing heavily, as the rest of us straightened back up from where we had hit the deck to avoid being shot.
"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane hissed, but Rick said nothing.
He just stepped back and handed T-Dog the rifle and looked back at us as we all watched him, waiting for answers, for him to find the solution. He must have seen the desperation on all our faces, or, in some cases, the resignation, because he nodded to himself and turned around to face Jenner.
"I think you're lying."
"What?" Jenner asked, barely turning his head to show an outward sign of acknowledgement that he had been spoken to.
"You're lying. About no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest and taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?" Rick questioned, and I blinked at him, shocked to hear some of my inner words being used by him.
"It doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters. It always matters. Why didn't you leave?" I pressed, hoping he'd give up the information, so Rick could do whatever he was going to do, prove whatever point he was trying to make.
I needed this. I needed to hear why he stayed alive when he could have just ended everything along with everybody else.
The clock was still ticking.
"You stayed when others ran. Why?" Rick pushed.
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise," Jenner snapped as he stood up, looking down at Rick, as he gestured to the blank, switched off screen. "To her. My wife."
"Test Subject 19 was your wife?" Lori asked softly.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no?" Jenner divulged to us, as a metallic clanging began behind us again. I glanced back briefly to see Daryl start trying to axe down the door again. When I turned back, I saw Rick's eyes on me, and I knew what his look meant. It was a silent plea to stay with him, to keep going, just as Jenner had for his wife. That bastard. "She was dying. It should have been me on that table. It wouldn't have mattered. 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 have done something about this. Not me."
"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's…That's all we want. A choice. A chance."
I sighed, defeated. If Jenner let us out, Rick was going to make me go, or he would stay with me, and he knew I wouldn't let that happen.
"You can't just decide this for us. All we have left is each other and our free will. You have to let us go." I added, feeling tears build up in my eyes again. It felt like all I did anymore was cry.
"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori pleaded, her arms around Carl, who was shaking and pale and seemed to be frozen with fear.
Jenner seemed to consider our words, sighing, before he locked eyes with Rick again.
"I told you topside is locked down. I can't open those."
We all watched with bated breath, as Jenner moved past Rick to a keypad, swiped his employee card across it and punched in some number code. I felt Rick's hand slip into mine when we heard the door swoosh open, and Daryl and Glenn urging us to hurry up and go.
While everyone ran towards the exit, we stayed and faced Jenner.
"There's your chance. Take it."
"We're grateful." Rick spoke for both of us, and I squeezed his hand tightly in mine, reassuring him that I was with him.
"The day will come when you won't be." Jenner declared, before shaking Rick's hand and leaning towards him to whisper something in his ear.
I couldn't hear him over the sounds of everybody yelling behind us, urging us to leave, and I didn't really care, as long as we got out of there, but whatever he said, Rick pulled away looking horrified. I tugged on Rick's hand, pulling him backwards, grabbing my duffel and my weapon bag as we rushed past them.
"Hey! We've got four minutes left! Come on!" Glenn urged, as we made our way towards the ramp with the others. I did a quick mental count and saw everyone on the ramp, no one left behind until T-Dog tried to make Jacqui move.
"Let's go, Jacqui!" T-Dog insisted, trying to get her to move along with him, but she yanked herself out of his hold.
"No! I'm staying! I'm staying, sweetie." Jacqui announced, and we all stared at her in surprise. I know that, for a moment, I had given in to my darkest thoughts and had all but decided on giving up, but that's when I was sure that Jenner wouldn't budge. The door was open now. We could leave, and Jacqui wanted to stay?
"But that's insane!"
"No, it's completely sane. For the first time in a long time. I'm not ending up like Jim and the others. There's not time to argue. And no point, not if you want to get out. Just get out. Get out!" Jacqui pushed T-Dog back, tenderly cupping his face for the last time, making me wonder if there had been anything between them, before Shane pulled him back and forced him up the ramp.
"Come on, man. Come on! Let's go, let's go!" Shane pushed them both up the ramp, leaving only Dale behind, before Jacqui forced him to go too.
Suddenly, we were running through the halls, all of us, only briefly stopping to grab our stuff. Thankfully, everyone had left their packs by the doors just like I'd told them to, making it easier for us to step off to the entrance more quickly.
I kept the time, and we were cutting it close, but we made it to the front doors with just a minute and a half to spare, only to come face to face with our next obstacle. The sealed entrance with no way to unlock it. The guys tried the doors, T-Dog even trying to use the keypad, until I remembered something I had that could help us.
I dropped to my knees, putting my bags on the floor in front of me, before I began rifling through my weapons bag for what I was looking for, wincing when I heard Shane firing off a couple rounds into one of the windows. And that's when I came across it.
I grabbed our ticket to freedom, and rose to my feet.
"Everybody, get back. I got us our ticket outta here." I said, jogging towards the window that Shane had already weakened the integrity of with his shotgun and began to lay out the plastic putty blocks on the windows, setting it up with a detonator cord so I could set it off from a distance.
"What are you doing?" Glenn questioned, yelling at me, as I rushed back to the others, and pushed them all down to the ground.
"Everybody, get down! On the ground!" I ordered, setting off the detonator and covering my head as the C4 exploded, shattering the window outward.
As soon as the second wave was over, we all grabbed our stuff again and headed out. Rick and I climbed out first, taking the kids from Carol and Lori, before helping them climb down, as well as the others.
As soon as everyone was out, we rushed forwards again, across the dead littered grass, taking out the awakened walkers who crossed our paths.
We split up then. Dale, Glenn, Amy and Andrea headed into the RV, Carol, Sophia, Lori and Carl hopped into Carol's mom-mobile, T-Dog got into his van, Daryl into his truck, Shane into his Jeep, and Rick and I rushed into my trusted Explorer, barely making it in and ducking down before the whole place went up.
I felt Rick's body hovering over mine as he had all but thrown himself over me to protect me and felt the explosion rock the car as the CDC blew up completely. When we felt it die down, Rick and I slowly sat up straighter, eyes wide at the total destruction of the building in front of us, a fiery inferno left behind and the fact that we had somehow survived the blast. I glanced at Rick as we both panted slightly, because of all the running, the adrenaline, the fear that still gripped our hearts…but I tossed Rick the keys, not trusting my shaking hands to handle the wheel.
He turned on the engine, his eyes still on mine, and reached out to grab my hand with his free one, until he saw Shane pull away in front of us, signaling that we could follow on behind him.
All I kept thinking as we drove back down the same road we had driven up the day before was...that was far too damn close.
A/N:
Hey guys! Here's an update!
In this one, Thea is very conflicted about everything. First, we see her interacting awkwardly with Rick post-drunk kiss, and then the Jenner meltdown and the reveal of potential imminent death, Thea goes through a lot of conflicting emotions. She struggles with figuring out what her best option in that situation; does she fight for survival and a bleak future, or does she resign herself to her fate and stay in the lab for a quick, painless death? And as we see, Thea chooses, at first, to die with Jenner, or at least to accept that as her fate, but she then leaves with Rick and the others because she knew that Rick would stay with her and she could not let that happen, not with Lori and Carl needing him.
I tried to mirror Andrea's desperation in Thea in this chapter, seeing as Andrea's despair is absent from Amy surviving the camp attack, because I thought that was an interesting part of Andrea's story. Her transition from depressed pessimist to determined survivor was great for me to see, especially as someone who suffers depression and anxiety. So, since she isn't depressed from the loss of her sister, I'm having Thea take that up, after losing her parents and a friend in Jenny, and the absent Morgan and Duane. And it will affect a lot of her decision making. Thea, after all, is a war vet. She's served overseas and she's seen a lot of shit, PTSD is practically a given.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, despite it's heaviness. But we're officially done with Season 1. I have a lot of ideas for Season 2 - which I will continue here in 'Exit Wounds' for a number of reasons that will become clear as we move through this next stage of the story!
I want to thank my reviewers for the last chapter, you guys rock;
emberlies, PsychoBeachGirl88, Morrowsong, Guest, and ElysiumPhoenix.
Oh, and I have some great news! I have opened a page! So, if you guys want to become part of my writing process and support me on my journey on writing, editing and publishing my first ever original novel, you can pledge a monthly donation over on salstratton (taking away the spaces, obviously) and you can get rewarded in return with a dedication in my book, or getting access to reading unpublished work, or a one-shot written just for you, depending on how much you choose to donate. Go and check it out if you want, and donate if you can!
I love and appreciate all my readers and I'm grateful for your support, in whatever form it comes in!
Love to you all and be kind to one another!
S.A.L. Stratton.
