AN: Here we go, another little chapter.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl didn't know what was happening when Alice came barreling into the room, screaming in such a way that he would have believed that Walkers were in hot pursuit of her if he didn't know that they were locked away, safe and sound, underground.
Most of them were congregated in the recreation room, now more or less their living room, and were recovering from eating more at lunch than they'd been accustomed to eating for days. Her loud and hysterical arrival immediately pricked everyone and Daryl, out of instinct, rushed for the crossbow that he'd left by the door just in case there were to be some kind of unforeseen attack.
Whatever it was, it was serious enough that Alice wasn't making sense. Her words were coming out in broken pieces and most of what Daryl could get was that she thought they were leaving.
Before he could get to her, Shane got to Alice and caught her in something between a bear hug and wrestling move, forcing her to stay still and inhale.
"What the hell is wrong?" He asked.
"We…have…to go…NOW!" Alice coughed out. "He's going to kill us! We have to go! NOW!"
Daryl, like the rest of them, thought that she'd lost her mind. The world that they were living in now seemed more than able to do that to someone and really it was just a matter of time before someone went stark raving mad. He was surprised, though, that it had been Alice to be the first to crack.
Alice continued her protests, some pitiful crying urgings that they all leave right this very minute or else they were all going to die, and everyone else tried to figure out what to do. There was no way, it seemed, to get her to abandon her urgency long enough to explain to anyone what it was that had brought her to a point where she believed the things that she was saying.
Jenner came to the door and Daryl, not wanting to take any chances that Alice might not have lost her mind and the man, rather, might be the lunatic, raised his crossbow in the man's direction.
"What the hell is she goin' on about?" He asked.
Jenner smiled. It wasn't a comforting smile. It was the kind of smile that always made Daryl want to punch the person wearing it in the face because it held more mocking in it than their words could ever actually express.
"I guess you'll find out," he said. "She's starting to calm down a little. The CDC is a facility for exploring and dealing with the most noxious diseases known to man. It was never meant to last forever. In the event of the end of civilization, the goal of the place was to keep going, only long enough to find a cure to whatever was happening. If there were a cure…"
"It's going to blow the fuck up!" Alice spat. Gaining her voice and her strength with the sobering nature of his words. She struggled against the hold that Shane had on her. "He's going to blow us the fuck up in less than a damn hour if we don't get our asses the fuck out of here! We have to go now!"
There was a moment where everyone watched the struggle between the brunette and the man twice her size, but then it was as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over them all and sent them reeling back into realization and animation.
Daryl realized what she was saying and believed it. The madman in the basement was going to blow them up.
"MOVE!" He yelled out, even as he heard Rick start some kind of protesting speech to everyone else. Daryl moved to find Carol and Sophia and to push them into some kind of action, but they were ahead of him. Carol pushed Sophia out the door and they ran for their close by rooms. Daryl ran for his and their movement seemed to cause a stir among the others.
Shane must have released Alice because she ran screaming into the hallway that there wasn't time to pack. There was time to grab, perhaps, and there was time to run if they wanted to live.
Jenner was yelling protests. The doors were locked. They couldn't get out, they were locked in.
"Open the fuckin' doors, asshole!" Merle spat, nothing on him but his weapons, but he was probably little worried about supplies at the moment.
"You don't understand," Jenner said. "They won't open. They're locked. Everything's sealed. The clock is ticking down. Don't fight this. It's fast and painless. There's nothing for you out there."
Daryl didn't hear the rest of the maniac's speech. He ran into the hallway and pushed Carol in front of him as she pushed a frightened and almost hysterical Sophia. Others followed suit and Daryl turned back only when he heard Andrea protesting loudly that she wouldn't go.
Daryl tugged at her and tried to talk reason into her quickly and frantically. Everyone else scrambled about, pulling their loved ones. Daryl sent Carol and Sophia ahead and tried to get Merle's attention away from the obviously suicidal blonde that had fallen into some kind of declaration that she wasn't going to go. She had nothing to live for.
"Leave her the fuck alone, Merle!" Daryl growled. "Let her blow her fuckin' ass up if she don't wanna live. Let's move!"
Daryl was torn for the moment between running after Carol and Sophia, toward whatever future this life might have for them, and hanging back with his brother…the only thing that had ever even been semi constant in his life.
"Go on! Get the damn doors open!" Merle spat back.
Daryl hesitated a moment longer, pleading with Merle to move, hearing in his head the ticking down of the clock that Jenner had spoken of.
Merle surprised him, heaving the blonde up and slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes that was hell bent on fighting back…fighting for the loss of her life as hard as anyone else might have fought to kept theirs.
"Move brother!" Merle called at him, rushing toward him, not even trying at the moment to calm the angry protests of the woman he was heaving along.
And seeing Merle move motivated Daryl to move. He ran up the stairs that the others were already climbing and, as he came out on the first floor, he was slammed with the words of those trying to escape already.
Things they already knew…the doors were locked. He threw himself into one of the doors and tried to sling it open to no avail. They were closed tight and probably beyond them were the heavy roll down doors that would have stopped them even if they'd made it through the first barrier.
Daryl pulled his crossbow in front of him and ran down the halls looking for the one thing that he hoped this building had at this moment. When his eyes fell on the red box, tucked in the corner connecting some of the long forgotten hallways, he used the butt of his crossbow to break the glass and freed the axe from inside it before he strapped on the bow and jogged back to where T-Dog and Shane were trying to break the glass with chairs they'd found somewhere.
In the chaos and confusion around them, Daryl couldn't make out the words of hardly anyone. There was nothing more than the panicked din of screaming and crying…the sounds of people facing the unwanted end of their lives with their freedom in sight and just beyond a thick glass window.
Daryl ran toward the window and beat at it with his axe, but the glass deflected his blows and sent the force of them back into his body, jarring his bones and clacking his teeth.
But he was desperate. He was desperate to escape himself, and he was desperate to get everyone else to safety. They hadn't come this far to be blown up by a madman who thought that sitting calmly in the middle of a bomb was the best that the world had to offer them.
Daryl didn't know if the world had much to offer them, and maybe Jenner was right, but he'd gotten a taste of something that he hadn't ever had before…shallow and useless as it may be in this new world…and he wasn't ready to give it up just when it was so new to him. He was getting out of there, and he was taking Carol and Sophia with him, hoping that the others followed.
"Wait!" Carol called, her voice echoing in the room over the protests of Rick and Shane who were ready to give up and were almost snickering at Daryl's continued efforts against the un-giving windows. "I've got something that might help!"
"It's gonna take more than a nail file, Carol!" Shane snapped back.
And for a moment Daryl fought the urge to turn the axe he was swinging on the man instead of the window…but there wasn't time for that.
And it wasn't necessary, either, because what Carol produced…not a nail file by any means…did a better job of introducing Shane to the plate of crow he needed to eat than the axe might have done.
In her hand, shaking with everything happening around them, Carol held a grenade.
It was maybe the only chance.
"I found it that first morning when Rick came," Carol said. "In his clothes. I kept it."
Rick took the grenade without discussion and yelled at everyone to prepare. They dropped in a scramble to the floor as fast as they could. Daryl hit the ground and covered his head, unable to locate anyone else at the moment, and hoped that they all had the sense to do the same.
The explosion was deafening, the heat coming off of the blown grenade was a blazing cloud, and Daryl felt the bite and sting of being pelted by what he hoped were pieces of the stubborn window.
Scrambling to his feet and seeing the window was open, Daryl grabbed up his weapons and got to where Carol was herding Sophia around by her shoulder, everyone obviously too confused and overwhelmed to function well. He pushed her toward the window.
"Let's go, we gotta get outta here!" He called at her, making sure she made it toward the front of the group of people now leaping from the window.
He turned back a moment, but Merle wasn't anywhere to be seen. Daryl knew he couldn't wait on him…but he'd never forgive him if his dumb ass brother did something so stupid as to throw away his life for a suicidal woman that would never think a damn thing of him anyway.
He couldn't wait, though. He had weapons and Carol didn't…out there the Walkers were swarming, drawn by the sound of the explosion. He leapt out the window and double timed his steps, catching up with Carol and Sophia and swinging the axe as he went, chopping down anything that dared to get near them.
He cleared the way back toward his truck, barely breathing from exhaustion at this point, and pushed Carol and Sophia into it, slamming their door. He ran around and climbed inside, tight against them, before he dared to look back and take some type of inventory of the others that were running for any vehicle they could reach.
"Fuckin' Merle!" He spat without thinking about it and turned back to look at the building.
He didn't know how many minutes were left on the clock, but he could hear it ticking down in his head. He could hear time running out for his stupid ass brother.
"There he comes!" Carol yelped.
And sure enough, Daryl saw Merle throw Andrea out of the window before jumping out and landing beside her on the ground.
Whatever quest she'd had for death, she must have lost in an instant. She hit her feet as quickly as he did and ran as fast as she could toward the vehicles with him hot on her heels. Even the Walkers in their vicinity weren't a threat because they couldn't have caught them with the speed that both of them achieved.
When the building blew with a force that was strong enough to shake the ground, both of them hit the ground in a lump.
The explosion was unbelievable. It was something that Daryl might have expected to see in a movie, but never in his real life. The huge place that had been meant to be their paradise was gone now…completely gone…nothing more but the burning remains and a crater in the ground.
And he laughed to himself when Merle got up, probably having pissed his pants or come damn close to it, and did something of a bow…clearly laughing over the surprise of being alive. He snatched Andrea up from the ground by her arm and the two of them walked, wobbling like newborn calves on shaky legs, toward his bike.
Daryl thought Merle would never get the damn thing to crank with his nerves like they were…but somehow he did. And he pulled off with no more fanfare than that. Daryl cranked his truck and followed suit, his brother guiding them on down the road toward whatever might come, leaving behind the memory of the CDC and the explosion that had, by some grace, taken nothing from them than a few replaceable belongings and a madman that was determined to go to his death in a true blaze of glory.