I hoped you guys liked that cliffhanger that I gave you. I do apologise but I thought it would be a great way to end the chapter. I do apologise for the lack of uploads this week, I was working and I celebrated my birthday. So I wanted to spend time with my family. Anyways, let's get started. Disclaimer I don't own any of The Walking Dead just my ocs and plotlines.
Josie's PoV
Herself, Connor and Maya, as well as Lori, Carl, Sophia, Carol, Jeremy, Tabby and Amy were in the rec room. Andrea was off moping around, being sick in the toilets, which Dale is looking after her.
Jeremy doesn't drink so he's been drinking soda pops for a while.
"I wonder who's had too much to drink tonight." Tabby teases as she reads 'Of Mice and Men'.
"Probably a lot. But I bet Glenn." Jeremy mutters and they all agree.
Josie grins. "It is one hundred percent Glenn."
Carl and Maya are playing checkers while Sophia watches. Connor is laying out a card deck with Jeremy. While Tabby, herself, Amy and Carol were reading. Lori quickly went to get a glass of wine.
"Any good books?" Lori asks as she walks in with a glass of wine.
Carol nods. "Uh huh." She says closing a book. "Enough to keep us busy for years. All right. Come on, kids, it's bed time."
"Oh, seriously?" Connor moans, looking at Josie.
She nods. "Yeah. Hon, it's your bed time. You've had a long stressful day. Maybe soon, you'll stay up a little longer."
"Baby, go say your prayers. I'm gonna browse a bit." Lori tells Carl.
"Come on." Carol ushers and looks to Lori. "This is the first night we might actually get some real sleep. It's a miracle, isn't it?"
They head out.
"I'm gonna be out like a light, tonight." Josie jokes and they all grin.
"Shoot. I left my book." Tabby curses before heading back to the rec room.
Tabby's PoV
Tabby gets closer to the rec room and notices the door closed.
"If you thought for one second that he was still alive, would you have come? So I saved your life- you and your little boy's. That's what I did, right?" Tabby hears Shane say. "And if I could've traded places with him right now because-
"No no no. No."
"No no no, you-- I love you. Shh. Shh."
"No, you're drunk."
Tabby tenses up at that. What was Shane trying to do? Were they still seeing each other behind Rick's back? Maybe he was too drunk and Lori is stopping it? Or is he- is he trying to rape her?She hears footsteps and sees Jeremy there. She puts a finger to her lips.
"And I know there were some things that say that you love me, too. Because there's no way that you could've been with me the way that you were."
"Shane! Shane! Shane!"
"Just- okay, stop. Listen. You love me."
"Get your hands off me!" Tabby quickly opens the door. "Get your hands off me!" Lori cries.
"I love you! There's nobody here." Shane puts his hand between her two legs.
"Please! No!"
"Hey!" Tabby yells which makes Shane stop and Lori slaps him in the face. "What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing.Nothing is going on." Shane denies anything.
Jeremy goes up to him and punches him in the eye, causing him to collapse to the floor.Shane clenches his jaw and storms past them, pounding on the wall as he leaves the room.
Lori sobs and shakes by the table, and both Jeremy and Tabby go to her.
"What happened? Did he hurtyou?" Jeremy asks her and she shakes her head.
"N-no. He tried- he tried to--" she sobs again and Tabby brings her into a hug.
"Let's get you back to your room." Tabby tells her.
"We need to tell Rick." Jeremy points out and Tabby agrees with him.
"No!" Lori yells and Jeremy looks at her wide eyes. "No. He can't know. Shane's his best friend. He's drunk."
Jeremy nods his head. "Okay. Sure."
Callie's PoV
Everyone is eating breakfast, T-Dog is making the breakfast which is a godsend in Callie's opinion. The best damn eggs she's ever had. Rick walks in.
"Hello." Rick greets.
"Morning." Dale smiles.
Rick sits at the table.
"Are you hangover? Mom said you'd be." Carl points out to his father.
Rick smiles. "Mom is right."
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori mutters, shovelling more eggs into her mouth.
T-Dog smiles as he dished some eggs onto Rick's plate. "Eggs. Powdered, but-- I do 'em good." He goes around to Glenn, who moans. "I bet you can't tell. Protein helps the hangover."
Dale laughs at Glenn's misery and T-Dog's teasing to everyone. Callie is smiling as she's eating. Jacqui rubs Glenn's shoulders.
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asks, holding a bottle of aspirin.
"Jenner." Lori answers.
Rick struggles to open the bottle and all the kids are giggling at him. Connor is smiling at the fact that a grown man is struggling to open a bottle. Rick looks to his wife. "Could you help me please?"
Lori opens the bottle. "He thought we could use it."
"More like need it." Connor jokes and everyone smiles at him.
"Thank you."
"Some of us, at least." Lori mutters.
Callie looks at Glenn at that comment, who is face down on the table, still moaning.
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn mutters.
Shane walks in. "Hey."
Callie takes note of the black eye he has.
"Hey. What happened?" Rick asks him concerned.
"Must have done it in my sleep." He comments and Callie takes note of Jeremy and Tabby's body language, how they tended up seeing him. What happened?
"Never seen you do that before." Rick points out to his friend.
"Me neither." Shane looks at Lori. What is going on here? "Not like me at all."
"Morning." Jenner greets as he grabs a coffee.
Shane perks up. "Hey, doc."
Dale looks at Jenner. "Doctor. I don't mean to slamyou with questions first thing-
"But you will anyway." Jenner interrupts.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea adds.
The group is lead to the main room from last night.
"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner orders.
"Playback of TS-19."
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner tells them.
Callie looks at the screen showing 3D views of human skills.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asks, amazed at the images.
"An extraordinary one." Jenner smiles.
"Who's brain is it?" Maya asks him and Callie sees his smile drop.
"A scientist here. They were amazing at what they loved." Jenner explains. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."
"Enhanced internal view."
The screen changes to show the upper shoulders and head of the subject. The screen skews to a horizontal view then increases the magnification. It shows blue threads of energy in the brain.
"What are those lights?" Shane asks and even Callie was confused.
"They're memories, aren't they?" Tabby asks Jenner who nods.
"You're a doctor?" He asks.
"I was studying biomedical science." She responds and he nods his head.
"Yes, they're memories. 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 asks.
Callie was right with Daryl. She doesn't understand anything.
"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." He explains and the group looks at him.
"Death?" Callie repeats.
"That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick adds.
Jenner nods. "Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil."
"This person died? Who?" Andrea asks him.
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected... and volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event." Jenner orders.
"Scanning to first event."
It shows the brain has lights still flickering in the outer areas but the center has become dark as if black roots were growing inside.
"What is that?" Glenn asks.
"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... gone."
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asks and everyone stays quiet.
Carol nods. "Yes."
Andrea and Amy have tears in their eyes.
"They lost somebody two days ago, their best friend."
Jenner looks at the two sisters. "I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is. Scan to the second event."
I guess everyone has lost somebody.
"Scanning to second event."
Jenner turns back to the screen. "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 starts flickering at the base of the brain which catches Callie's attention. Random sparks light up the rest of the brain but nothing more.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asks, eyes wide staring at the screen.
"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving." Jenner explains.
"But they're not alive?" Rick asks.
Jenner gestures to the monitor. "You tell me."
Rick shakes his head. "It's nothing like before. Most of the brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead." Jenner lists. "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 starts to move, its mouth opens and closes like a fish. Its head moving side to side. The barrel of a gun appears at the forehead and fires. The brain completely goes dark and the subject stops moving.
Amy gasps.
"God, what was that?" Carol asks.
"He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?" Andrea asks. Callie could tell she was thinking about Aubrey.
The same as Callie thinking about Elijah. She stopped this from happening.
Jenner doesn't answer. "Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
"Powering main screen and workstations."
Andrea whirls around to Jenner, "you have no idea whatit is, do you?"
Jenner shrugs. "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." He offers.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui spits.
"There is that."
"So you don't know what it is?" Callie asks him and he shakes his head.
"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea voices.
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asks him.
"There may be some. People like me." He says uncertain.
"There has to be." Amy cries.
Everyone was realising one thing. There is nothing out there. No one is left.
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick presses.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives- all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner explains.
Andrea just blinks at him."So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"
Jenner stays quiet. The group all looks at each other, taking in the information. Josie puts a hand over her growing stomach.
"Jesus." Jacqui mutters.
"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again." Daryl announces.
"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 asks.
Jenner turns around. "The basement generators-- they run out of fuel."
"And then?" Rick presses.
Edwin ignores the question and walks out of the room.
"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asks the computer.
"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur."
Nothing last forever. It was a bit of a slow chapter but it'll pick up in the next one. Obviously there are a few changes, one we have Amy alive, will Andrea act differently or no? Jeremy and Tabby saw Shane about to rape Lori, so that's one secret. Daryl knows who Callie really is, that's another secret.