Chapter 14:

The others left me alone for the day, some of them peaked their heads into the rec room, asking if I was okay, how are you doing. Apparently when I decided to storm out, it worried everyone. I guess they had never seen that emotion from me before. I was acting "volatile."

The good thing about the rec room is that the books it carried were varied widely. Curling up on the couch, I decided to pick up a lengthy Nora Roberts. I had gotten about halfway through when I felt I wasn't alone.

Daryl stood quietly in the door, staring down at the bottle of liquor in his hand. I watched him expectantly, and he brought his hand behind his head, rubbing profusely. When he looked up at me I could tell he had a slight buzz, and I felt terrible for him.

Closing the book, I quietly set it down on the table. I went to stand, when Daryl spoke.

"I can't-" he stopped, rethinking his words. "I don't know how to do this." He started awkwardly. We sat in silence, I wanted him to continue and he licked his lips thoughtfully. "I don't get women, I don't get what women want." He chuckled. "And I thought a zombie apocalypse would mean I'd never have to figure it out." He finally looked up at me with his blue eyes. "I ain't no bitch, never have been, but you've softened me up, and the fucked up part about it is... I ain't mad about it..." He trailed off and I stood up, walking over to him. Brushing my fingers across his cheek, I smiled at him.

The lights went off, leaving only the emergency lights on, and a click rang out, signaling the end of the A/C.

"What the hell?" Daryl and I both looked up at the ceiling. The other survivors began to emerge from their rooms.

"What's going on?" footsteps in the hall, and Doctor Jenner walked past the rec room at a brisk pace, the others struggling to keep up with him. He grabbed Daryl's bottle away from him. Daryl and I shared a look, before following them back to the big room.

"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner took a swig of the bottle as he walked down the hall.

"Air isn't a priority? And lights?"

"Its not up to me, the system is shutting itself down."

"What the hell does that mean?" Daryl called over to him, only to get no response. He sped up to the front of the group. "Hey man, I'm talking to you, what do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?" Rick, T Dogg and Glenn bolted in from the other room, the failing lights and A/C catching their attentions as well. Rick questioned Jenner, who finally answered someone.

"The system is dropping all non essential use of power, it's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. We're approaching the half hour mark, right on schedule." He pointed to the counting down red clock on the wall and I followed his gesture, the itchy sensation of fear creeping up into my throat.

Jenner took a swig of Daryl's bottle and handed it back to him silently, as the rest of waited to hear what the hell all of this meant.

"It was the French."

"What are you talking about?" My patience was wearing thin, and I waved my hands wildly. "The hell is going on?"

"They were the last to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors, committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." He said matter of factly.

"What happened?"

"The same things that's happening here." Jenner sighed, depression evident on his face. "No power grid; ran out of juice. This world runs on fossil fuel, how stupid is that?" Was he making jokes now? Shane jumped at the man, but Rick held him back.

Rick turned around, yelling about grabbing our things and I sighed angrily, rubbing my temples. When I looked at the bright red digital clock on the wall I noticed we had lost so much time. Suddenly alarms began to blare loudly, and Rick and the others stopped in their tracks, looking up at the ceiling. The clock was now on the screen, in big letters.

"30 minutes to decontamination." Vi said emotionlessly. My heart sank.

"We need to leave!" I grabbed Daryl's wrist, and looked at Carol who began to usher Sophia to the door. We were so close I could taste freedom, when big metal doors slammed shut in front of us.

I ran up to them, resting my head on their cool surface, taking a few deep, shaky breaths.

"He just locked us in!" Glenn shouted, rightfully panicked. I should have assumed this was what the clock was counting down to. It's the CDC for crying out loud. Daryl had left my side and I heard him screaming at Jenner.

"You sonuvabitch!"

"Shane! Stop him!"

"You locked us in here!" There was a ruckus behind me and I turned around slowly, leaning back against the door with my head back. T Dogg and Shane had successfully pulled Daryl off of Doctor Jenner.

"Jenner, open that door now." Rick pleaded with the man. He shrugged in reply.

"There's no point, everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Well open the damn things!" Daryl snapped, struggling against T Dogg.

"Once these doors shut they stay shut. That's what you meant by that, huh?" I spoke up from my spot on the door.

"You all heard me say it." I laughed soundlessly at his stupid justification.

"So a vague double entendre just automatically makes this okay, right?" Pushing myself off the door I approached him, stopping mere inches from his face. "You disgust me." Soft hands on my shoulder and I was pulled away from him.

"It's better this way." His eyes told me he actually thought that was true.

"What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick questioned him. We all knew what happened in 28 minutes, we just didn't want to see it. We hadn't wanted to see it the whole time we'd been here, but now that we all knew, the idea scared us more than a horde of walkers. It was a countdown to our deaths. Jenner didn't respond so Rick asked again, more forcefully. "What HAPPENS in 28 minutes?"

"Do you know what this place is? We've protected the public from very nasty stuff." Jenner was yelling now. "Weaponized smallpox, Ebola strains that can wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out EVER!" He stopped in front of me, screaming the last word in my face. Daryl pushed me behind him, out of the mad mans angry gaze. The two men stared each other down for only a moment before Jenner sat back down at his computer collecting himself. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, a terrorist attack for example; H.I.T.'s Are deployed to, preventing an organisms from getting out." His explanation was so calm, it made me even angrier.

"You fucking asshole." I muttered. Some of the survivors didn't know what they were, but i had a pretty good guess.

"Vi, define."

"H.I.T's, high-impulse thermo-baric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition, which produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between five-thousand, and six-thousand degrees, and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." The shock that came next was indescribable. Every reaction was different, and I found I was short of breath. I began to hyperventilate, and fell to my knees. Jenner smiled at us bitterly before speaking.

"It sets the air on fire," Jenner's words only made it worse, and I couldn't catch my breath, no matter how many times I tried. Its exactly how you would expect to react, learning that in 27 minutes, you're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it but wait. "No pain. An end to sorrow, greif, regret, everything." He spoke with such finality.

"You can't choose for us," I said dejectedly from floor. "You can't just pick for us! I want to fucking live!" I screamed with such a pitch it made my throat raw.