Pulse➵Glenn Rhee

04

The room was empty. The CDC couldn't be run by only two people. "Where is everybody?" Rick asked, striding towards Jenner. "The other doctors, the staff?"

Jenner reached a computer system and said, "I'm it. It's just me here."

"What about the person you were speaking with?" Lori asked. "Vi?"

"Vi, say hello to our guests," Jenner said and smiled for a moment. "Tell them welcome."

"Hello, guests. Welcome," an automatic voice spoke.

"I'm all that's left," Jenner said. "I'm sorry."

***

I sat in front of Jenner with my arm extended towards him and a plastic tourniquet above my elbow. I hated being stuck with needles. Usually I was the one doing the sticking on patients.

"What's the point?" I asked. "If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever."

"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here. Let me just at least be thorough," Jenner replied, taking the tourniquet and the needle off my arm. "All done."

I swayed when I got to my feet, dizziness overtaking me.

"You okay?" Jenner asked.

"She hasn't eaten in days," Jacqui said, moving to steady me. "None of us have."

Jenner looked over us, his eyebrows drawn together in surprise. "Come with me," he said to us, leading us down another hallway, and into a mess hall.

Later, the group sat with Jenner around a table. There was plenty of food as well as several bottles of wine. Laughter filled the room and I found myself marveling as I looked around at everyone. We had come from a campsite eating stewed squirrel, and now we were eating pasta and wine.

"I must be dreaming," I said to Glenn, who was drinking from a bottle of wine. He grinned at me. "You feeling buzzed yet?"

I laughed when he gave me a goofy smile. It had been a long time since any one of us had a drink and I was feeling slightly buzzed too. Although it could also be due to the euphoria bubbling inside of me.

"What?" Glenn asked when Daryl said his name.

"Keep drinking, little man. I wanna see how red your face can get," Daryl said. More laughter broke out and Glenn good-naturedly joined in.

Rick stood and tapped his wineglass with his fork. "It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly."

"He is more than just our host," T-Dog said, lifting his own glass.

"Hear, hear," Dale chimed in.

Daryl lifted his bottle in a toast, "Booyah!" His cry was echoed by everyone at the table.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?" asked Shane. The air shifted and became stiff. Shane's expression was a few degrees above cold. "All the, uh... the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened. Where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane," Rick said. "No need to do this now."

It was something we'd have to eventually address, but not now. I just wanted to laugh and drink wine; I'm sure everybody else wanted to too.

"Whoa, wait a second. That's why we're here, right?" Shane said. "This was your move- supposed to find all the answers. Instead we-" he chuckled and stabbed his thumb at Jenner, "we found him. Found one man. Why?"

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left," Jenner explained. " Went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."