"How'd you do that?!"
"Easy," I smirked, cracking my knuckles after a game of chess with my younger brother.
"Ugh!" he pouted, stomping away from the chair he was sitting at. Sophie tentatively reached out to fiddle with the bishop, the irony not losing itself. I looked after the children in the game room, occasionally playing with them whenever they wished.
"How do you play this?" Sophie asked timidly, stroking the cut on the face of the bishop. I smiled at her, before resetting the board.
"Take a seat," I gestured to the chair Rennie had previously occupied. She scrambled onto the chair with her doll clutched tightly to her. It's not every day that you see a little girl eager to learn the strategy and clutch onto the thing that she loved so much. I began to teach her the basic moves, looking at her wide and innocent eyes often to make sure she understood. She made me recall my younger sister often, and I eventually got her to laugh freely as she successfully got me into a supposed trap.
"Lynnie," Ben interrupted from the doorway after an especially loud victorious laughter from my young opponent. I looked up at his sullen tone and immediately sobered up.
"Why don't you take my place, Rennie?" I left the game room after Ben, the events of last night plaguing my mind. "What's wrong?"
He ignored me for a moment, leading me to the breakfast table where the adults were trickling in. "Hungover." was all he offered.
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again," Glenn mourned, his head flat on the table. I snorted at the number of hungover people groaning in chorus. Mischief snuck into my mind as I took a deep breath and shouted loudly.
"GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!"
I cackled with Dale and T-dog at the rate of loud incessant groaning and protesting before Rick jokingly chucked his hat at me. I caught it with ease before leaning on the wall and pretending to be a cowboy.
"Yee-haw, boys," I snickered with a southern drawl.
"Someone press the mute button on her," Glenn mumbled.
"WhAT?! CaN'T HEAR YOU," I teased as Jacqui shot me a nasty look before comforting him again. Carl laughed loudly and I grinned at my success, picking up a green apple on the counter and biting into it. He still snickered and I ruffled his hair before plopping the hat on him.
"What the hell happened to you?" T-dog demanded as Shane showed off his wounds from last night.
"I don't know, must've done it in my sleep," Shane mumbled, pouring himself some coffee.
"Not like me at all."
"Morning." the doctor walked in, only slightly hungover. Seriously, mankind and alcohol.
"Doctor. I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-" Dale started off hesitantly after we greeted him.
"But you will anyway."
"Nice deadpan, doc," I yawned sarcastically. "Almost woke me up."
Glenn stared at me for a long time, suddenly tensing up. Uh-oh.
"What's that on your cheek?"
Everyone turned their heads to look at me. I raised an eyebrow, surprised by what he said. I'd thought he remembered the awkwardness that he had created last night.
"Hm?" I raised a hand to my cheeks, before remembering the slap Shane had given me last night. I purposefully cupped my cheek, pretending to pose for a picture. "What, is there beauty on my cheek?"
Glenn turned red and spluttered for a moment before regaining control over himself. "No, I'm talking about the bruise on your left cheek."
Crap.
"Oh, that? My little brother decided to sleep right next to me, forgetting that he's a rough sleeper," I lied. "I woke up in the middle of the night to the little minx punching me. Maybe he gave me an actual shiner through that."
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea interrupted, shooting me a quick smile of apology.
Jenner led us into the big room, the kids joining us. I ruffled Rennie's head playfully which broke out a playful brawl where he batted at me furiously. Ben sighed in amusement and maturity, stepping in between the two of us as we playfully stuck our tongues out at him in unison. A beeping interrupted our hushed bickering and the three of us looked up at a screen.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few," the doctor mentioned as 3-D brains showed themselves on the wall.
"Is that a brain?" Carl, ever the bright and curious one, inquired.
"An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."
"Did you study this?" Rennie asked Ben in curiosity. The man shrugged, using his hand to indicate a little bit.
The main screen changed to show the upper shoulders and head of the subject. The screen skewed to a horizontal view and then increased the magnification. The image became more and more detailed, showing the inside of the skull. It appeared to be lit with bright blue threads of energy. Some areas were denser with light than others but there are lighted threads throughout the skull. The detail zoomed in until the threads become closer and pulses of light can be distinguished.
"What are those lights?" Shane inquired, intrigued. I snickered at his curiosity, imagining him as a small boy, younger than Carl for a moment.
"It's a person's life—experiences, memories. It's everything. 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 grunted and for once I rolled my eyes.
"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 echoed many of our thoughts in disbelief and curiosity.
"Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil." Jenner grits his teeth for a moment.
"This person died? Who?" Andrea asked boldly, considering she had lost her sister a while back.
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected… and volunteered to have us record the process. VI, Scan forward to the first event."
"Don't call them a subject," Rennie muttered. "It's inhumane."
"Rennie, sometimes it's easier to regard someone as a subject, something that isn't significant or a real living being," I explained to him.
"Is that how you thought of your older brother?" Jacqui snapped at me, obviously still sensitive about Jim.
"Bite me, bitch," I snarled in response. "At least my brother wouldn't hide his injuries when they may kill us."
"What is that?" Glenn asked again, effectively stepping in between Jacqui's red face and my snarl.
"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be…gone."
"She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori, ever the person to air anyone's dirty laundry remarked about Andrea's tears.
"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." Jenner spoke softly. "The resurrection times vary wildly. We had 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."
A red glow flickers at the base of the brain. The rest remains dark. Random sparks shoot out into the larger area of the brain but no further lights grow.
" It restarts the brain?" Ben inquired, cocking his head to the side.
"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick remarked.
"You tell me."
"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." The cowboy shook his head, answering his own question. It reminded me of a school for a second, with classrooms filled with annoying teachers and students.
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part—that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."
The subject moves, and its mouth opens and closes. The head moves side to side, the shoulders move as if the arms were being lifted. The barrel of a gun appears at the forehead pointing down. A bullet enters the brain and tears through the red cluster of embers. The brain goes completely dark, the subject stops moving.
"God. What was that?" Carol asked, looking a little sick.
"Mercy," I heard myself say as everyone turned to stare at me.
"He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?" Andrea accused. "You have no idea what it is, do you?"
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal," Jenner listed all the possibilities, driving me insane.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui inquired.
"Why would God make all of us eat each other? If that's true we should be in hell or heaven, not on earth," I interrupted, ever the Christian.
"There is that," Jenner still nodded at her, ignoring my comment.
"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere," Andrea pleaded, grasping at straws.
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol glanced worriedly at Sophia.
"There may be some. People like me."
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked, looking like he was a step away from crying or being aggressive.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives—all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?
I rolled my eyes, unable to hold back the sarcasm. "I mean that's totally not what he was saying for the past thirty minutes. We totally understood what he was saying 'cause we're just that smart, you know?"
"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again." Daryl, ever the bright optimist who cared for the children's ears, cursed.
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but…that clock—it's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asked as we all noticed the clock.
"The basement generators—they run out of fuel."
"And then?" Seriously, what is it with this doctor never elaborating?
Jenner ignored the question and walked out of the big room, leaving me half-murderous. Ben held me closer to the center, glancing around nervously.
"VI, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick demanded at the robot.
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."
Several people from our group ran downstairs looking for the generators. I ran instead to the kitchen, grabbing Rennie's stuff and filling his pack and my pack with food. It might weigh us down a bit, but the food is better than nothing. I paused as I ran past the game room before cursing myself and grabbing the chess set and the pieces for Sophia. It wouldn't hurt for her to become a queen from a bishop.
I ran into Rennie just as the lights flickered out and the air was no longer cool. Glenn ran past us in panic towards his room, faster than most I had seen. I quickly put my brother's pack on him before handing him my dagger. He looked up at me with wide scared eyes.
"Just in case, Rennie. Just in case," ice-cold dread filled me, terror gripping my veins. He nodded, running down the hallway to where the group would be. He halted all of a sudden and returned towards me, hugging me with so much fervor that I let a few tears escape. He pulled away when Ben flew past us, heading to the same room Glenn occupied.
I hoisted my bag, adjusting the straps in case of running or fighting my way out. I went to the medical room, grabbed a pack, and stuffed it with medical stuff. I'm no doctor, so I don't know everything but I threw in what looked important. A cabinet door flung open behind me and I swirled around quickly and saw Glenn doing what I was doing. We met eyes for a moment and nodded before returning to raiding the shelves.
"He locked us in," Glenn informed me, making me halt. "That sick doctor locked us in."
My hand shook for a moment before I returned to stuffing the small pack as best as I could.
"He's gonna set the whole air on fire and wipe us out. Lynnie, I can't believe this," Glenn paused for a moment, sniffling. I finally looked at him, seeing him scared and worried. Tentatively, I let my hand reach out and rub his back soothingly.
"If there's anything I know we're good at, it's evading death," I soothed. "If we're locked in, we find a way out. If we're locked out, we find a way in. If we're stuck, we find a way to run."
Glenn nodded, a strange glint shining in his eyes instead of the terror I'd seen earlier.
"You're right. We'll find a way out. We'll find a way to go back home," Glenn gave a small smile before standing up. He slung the pack he'd filled over his shoulder, dusting off his hands before offering one to me. I looked up at him dumbly for a moment before he smiled and I reached up. He easily helped me up like I was light as a feather and I got a breath of his scent, something that soothed me but something I could not name. It was just his. The alarms blared, piercing my sensitive ears as I groaned. I quickly covered them, feeling as if my brain would be sliced open. A warm and firm hand covered each of my hands, adding an extra layer of protection to prevent the knives from stabbing my eardrums.
The red lights flashed against our faces, illuminating Glenn in a red hue. I flinched as a memory overtook me.