“Hello? Hello!” Rick calls out, us walking in.
“Close those doors,” a voice says.
“Where are you?” Shane asks.
“Anybody infected?” a man holding a rifle comes out from behind a wall.
“No,” Rick answers.
‘Why are you here, and what do you want?”
“A chance,” he replies, desperation dripping off his words.
“That’s asking a lot these days,” the man lowers his gun, stepping closer.
“I know.”
It gets silent for a second, the man looking at each of us. “You all submit to a blood test, that’s the price of admission.”
“We can do that.”
“You got stuff to bring in, do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed,” the many says. He slides a card in a machine, “Vi, close the main entrance, kill the power up here.” The doors suddenly close and the lights turn off.
Rick walks up to him, sticking out his hand, “Rick Grimes.”
Skeptically, the man takes his hand, “Dr. Edwin Jenner.”
*
The close proximity of us in the elevator is almost suffocating. The fact that each of us have weapons doesn’t help. There’s one stabbing me in my side as I think. “Do doctors always go around packin’ heat like that?” Daryl asks, referring to the M-14 in his hand.
“Well, there were plenty lying around. I familiarized myself, but you guys look harmless enough,” Jenner’s eyes turn to Carl, a ghost of a smile haunting his face. “Except you, I’m going to have to keep my eyes on you.” Carl smiles, and the elevator opens. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding in, as we walk out.
“Are we underground?” Carol wonders.
“You claustrophobic?”
“A little.”
“Try not to think about it,” he tells her. We walk into a giant dark room. “Vi, bring the lights up in the big room.” When the come on, I see a ginormous room filled with computes and a digital clock on the wall. “Welcome to zone 5.”
“Where is everybody?” Rick asks.
“I’m it, it’s just me here,” he says somberly.
“What about the person you were speaking with? Vi?” Lori questions him.
“Vi, say hello to our quests, tell them welcome.”
“Hello, guests, welcome, “ a computer voice, Vi, welcomes us.
*
Eating the dinner Jenner made us, Dale gives out glasses of wine. Almost everyone laughs about the sour look Carl got on his face when he drank it. It was amusing, I admit, but I didn’t laugh. I may have smile a bit, but that’s it. I know I should be happy. We’re here, in this safe building. It’s safe, something I haven’t been able to say in a few months. It just doesn’t feel right without Cassie. I wish she was here, toasting a glass of wine. She would have liked it here, the serenity of this place. That poor woman had been giving up hope a long time. Cassie deserves to be here, not me.
“Just stick to sodie-pop there, bud,” Shane tells Carl.
“Not you, Glenn,” Daryl has a smirk, drunk. “Keep drinkin’, little man. I want to see how red you face can get.” Everyone laughs, including Glenn. My smile gets a bit bigger seeing Daryl happy, though his brother is gone.
Rick stands, tapping his wine glass with a knife. “It seems to me, we haven’t thanked our host properly.”
“He is more than just our host,” T-dog mutters.
Daryl raises his wine bottle that he was drinking out of, “Boo-yau!” People raise their winde glasses, repeating what he said.
“So, when are you going to tell us what the hell happened here, Doc? All the other doctors, they’re supposed to be figurin’ out what happened. Where are they?” Shane asks, making the smiles go away.
“We’re celebrating tonight, Shane,” Rick tells him. “We don’t need to do this, now.”
“Whoa, wait a second, that’s why we’re here, right? This was your move. We were supposed to find all the answers. Instead, we found him, one man. Why?”
“Well,” Jenner starts, “When things got bad, a lot of people left to be with their loved ones. And when things got words, when the military got over-ran, the rest bolted.”
“Every last one?”
“No, many couldn’t face what was outside these walls. They… opted out. There was a rash of suicides, that was a bad time.”
“You didn’t leave, why?” Andrew asks him.
“I just kept working, hoping to do some good.”
“Dude,” Glenn addressed Shane, “you are such a buzz kill.” The words make Shane hang his head over his plate, forcing food into his mouth.
*
“Most of the facilities powered down, including housing, so you’ll have to make do here. The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you’d like. There’s a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy, just don’t plug in the video games, okay? Or anything that draws power. The same applies with you guys. If you shower, go easy on the hot water,” Jenner leaves us in the hall way.
“Hot water?” Glenn turns around, a smile on his face.
“That’s what the man said,” T-dog smiles, too.
Fanning out, we choose rooms. I end up rooming with Daryl because we are the only ones without friends, you could say. I sit down on the couch, uncomfortable. “Do you want to take a shower first?” Daryl asks, uncomfortable just as much as I am.
“You can,” I tell him.
He takes his bow with him in the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I lay down, looking at the ceiling. Cassie’s favorite song “Fall” by He is We pops into my head, making me sing it out loud. Sometimes, I mess the words up, or I just don’t remember some lines. Basically, I just repeat the melody over and over, again. I lose myself in a world of Cassie’s happiness when she heard this song.
“You can take a shower, now,” Daryl stands before me in a towel covering half of him.
I stand up, “Okay.” When I walk past him, he makes it a point not to turn his back to me. I pretend not to notice, finding it odd, however.
After shutting the bathroom door, I take my clothes off and step into the shower. I swear that I had full intentions of washing myself, but having a working shower and being here with Daryl makes everything seem too familiar, too homey. The only thing keeping it from being completely homey is the fact that Cassie’s not here. Before I know it, my backs against the wall, cool water splattering against my skin. My eyes fascinate on the mucky water running into the drain, as “Fall” lyrics run through my head, making me think of all the times sang that song when we were bored, how many times she would make me fall of the bed at night, how many times I would have to take a gun away from her and give her a knife because I was afraid she was going to shoot me on accident.
I get overwhelmed with emotions and just start crying. I have non-stop tears streaming down my face, blending in with the rest of the water. I guess I didn’t control how loud I am crying, however, because Daryl comes into the bathroom. Still wearing his towel around his waist, he stands in front of me for a while. I don’t bother to look up, too ashamed of me crying. Turning the water off, he walks into the shower and pulls me to my feet, but I still can’t stop the tears. His grip leaves my arms and just wraps around me. I keep my arms covering chest, though I lay my head on his chest, burying my face in the small amount of chest hair he has. “Everything’s gone, nothing’s left,” I mutter, sniffing. I don’t know how long I stand there. About the amount of time it takes me to come to my senses, I pull away. “Sorry,” I say, embarrassed, avoiding eye contact. I cover my breast better and walk over to get a towel.
When I turn around, Daryl stands about three inches away from my face. “It’s fine,” Daryl says. Feeling like I’m in a romance novel, which I hate, I walk back in to the room and get dress. Daryl comes out when I slip my shirt on. Like before, he doesn’t turn his back to me, slipping his boxers and pants on. Then, a shirt follows afterwards. Finally, his back finally faces me, while he puts a pillow and blanket on the couch. I get on my couch, wrapping the sheet around me. I turn on my side, so I can see Daryl get into bed. His muscles on his arms move as his body does. By the time he lays down, my eyelids are too heavy to keep open.
*
“Hey,” Shane says to Rick, just walking in for breakfast.
“Hey,” Rick responds; “Do you feel as bad as I do?”
“Worse,” Shane answers, grabbing coffee.
He turns to walk to the table, and T-dog says, “What the hell happened to you? Your neck, there’s three giant scratches on it.”
Shane hesitates. “I must’ve done it in my sleep.”
“Never seen you do that before,” Rick tells him, the lie completely going over his head.
“Me, neither, not like me at all,” Shane stares at Lori, making her glance at him. Wow, they couldn’t make it more obvious.
“Morning,” Jenner walks in, getting coffee, too.
“Doctor,” Dale starts, “I don’t mean to slam you with questions first thing.”
“But, you will anyways,” he fills in the rest.
“We didn’t come here for the eggs,” Andrea tells him.
Jenner turns around, saying, “Come here.” Putting a quick spoonful of scrambled eggs in my mouth, I stand, following everyone else to Zone 5. “Vi, give me a playback of TS-19.”
“Playback of TS-19,” Vi repeats, as a giant computer screen lights up on the wall.
“Few people ever got the chance to see this, very few,” Jenner informs us.
“Is that a brain?” Carl asks, referring to the picture on the screen.
“An extraordinary one, not that it matters in the end,” he mumbles the last part.
“Enhanced internal view,” Vi says. On the screen, it shows us the inside of a head. The nerves sending impulses to the rest of our body.
“Those are electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages,” Jenner confirms what I thought. “They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks from the moment of birth ‘til the moment of death.” Daryl walks closer to me. A part of me wants him to hold me, to make me feel how he made me feel last night, but another part is telling me to stay away from him.
“Death? Is that what this is? A visual?” Rick steps forward.
“Yes—well, rather the playback of the visual.”
“This person died? Who?” Andrea asks.
“Test Subject 19, someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered to have us record the process,” he tells her. “Vi, scan forward to the first event.”
“Scanning to first event,” she repeats back, making the lights in the brain go away. Then, the brain goes completely black.
“What is that?” Glenn asks in curiosity.
“It invades the brain, like Meningitis. The brain goes into shut down, then the major organs, then death. Everything you were or will be is gone.” The words from Jenner hit home, tugging on tears.
“Is that what happened to Jim?” Sophia mumbles to Carol.
“Yes,” she answers.
“Vi, scan to the second event.”
“Scanning to second event.”
“The reanimation time is very widely. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes to eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minutes, seven seconds.”
Lights start to come back on in the brain. It’s only in a small area, though. “It restarts the brain?” Lori asks.
“No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving.”
“But, they’re not alive?”
“You tell me.”
“It doesn’t look anything like before; most of that brain is dark.”
“Dark, lifeless, dead; the frontal lobe, the human part, that doesn’t come back—the you part. It’s just a shell driven by mindless instincts.” The body starts moving more. Then, a giant slash goes through its head, and it stops moving.
“God, what was that?” Carol sounds mortified.
“Shot his patient,” I speak.
“Vi, power down the main screen and the work stations.”
“Powering down the main screen and the work stations.”
“You have no idea what is, do you?” I ask, disappointed.
“It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal.”
“Or the wrath of God?” Jaquie suggests, making me roll my eyes.
“There’s that,” Jenner shrugs.
“Somebody must know something. There are others, right?” I ignore Jaquie’s stupid suggestion.
“There may be some, people like me.”
“You don’t know? How can you not know?” Rick asks.
“Everything went down: communications, directives, all of it. I’ve been in the for almost a month.”
“So, it’s not just here? There’s nothing left anywhere? Nothing, that’s what you’re really saying,” my tone makes the words sound harsher than they are. He doesn’t answer, just stands there. I know that means “yes,” and so does everyone else.
Andrea sighs, as Jaquie says, “Jesus.”
“I’m gonna get drunk,” I muffle, rubbing my hands over my face.
“Doctor, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question, but that clock is counting down, not up. What happens at zero?” Dale’s referring to the digital clock on the wall.
“The basement generators, they run out of fuel,” he sighs.
“And then?” Rick wants more of an answer, but the doctor just walks away. “Vi, what happens when the power runs out?”
“What the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur,” Vi answers.
*
“What do you think Vi meant by decontamination?” Daryl asks me, while we’re in our room.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like how he walked off like that,” I tell him. Then, I notice the air conditioning stop. “What the hell?”
Seeing Jenner walk down the hallway, Daryl stands, walking over, “What’s going on? Why’s everything turning off?”
“The energy use is being prioritized,” Jenner replies, still walking, so everyone starts following him.
“Air isn’t a priority?” Dale asks.
“It’s not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down.”
“Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?” Daryl yells after Jenner. “Hey, man, I’m talking to you. What do you mean it’s shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Doctor, what’s happened?” Rick asks.
“The building is designed to keep the computers running ‘til the last possible second. It starts as we approach the half hour mark,” he looks at the clock. “Right on time,” he stops walking and hands the wine bottle to Daryl. Daryl grabs it, spilling some because he grabbed it so rough. “It was the French,” he turns to me.
“Huh?”
“They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed and worked on a cure. They thought they were close to a solution,” he starts walking away, again.
“What happened?” I press.
“Same thing that’s happening here: no power grid, they ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. Now, how stupid is that?”
“Lori, everybody,” Rick addresses us, “grab your things. We’re getting out of here, now!”
Alarm goes off. Then, Vi says, “Thirty minutes until decontamination.”
“Everybody, you heard Rick. Let’s get your stuff and leave—go, now!” Shane yells.
“Come on, come on,” T-dog hurdles us.
As everyone starts to run to their rooms, the metal door, our exit to get to the front entrance, closes. “Did you just lock us in? He just locked us in!” Glenn shouts.
Running toward Jenner, Daryl yells, “You son of a bitch! You locked us in here!” He was just about to hit the wine bottle over Jenner’s head when T-dog and Shane had to run over and pull him away.
“Doctor, open that door, now,” Rick commands him.
“There’s no point; everything top side is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed,” Jenner says, sitting at his computer.
“Open the damn things, then!” I yell at him.
“That’s not something I control, the computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn’t open, again. You heard me say that. It’s better this way.”
“What is? What happens in twenty-eight minutes? “ I look him in the eyes, taking everything in me not to punch him.
He stands up. “You know what this place is? We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Small pox, things you don’t even know about, stuff that can wipe out half the country! Stuff that you don’t want getting out, ever!” Daryl is restrained, again, and Jenner sits back down. “In the event of a terrorist attack, for example, H.I.T.’s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out.”
“Oh, shit,” I mumble, remembering what H.I.T.’s are.
“What? What is that?”
“It’s a bomb that sets fire to the fucking air, it’s so thorough,” I put my fingers in my hair, trying to think of a strategy out of here.
Daryl throws a wine bottle at the metal door. “Open the damn door!”
Shane runs to the door, yelling, “Out of my way,” carrying an ax. He starts beating the door with it. T-dog throws Daryl one, and they all start beating the door. “We can’t make a dent,” Shane tells us.
“Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher,” Jenner informs him.
“Well, your head ain’t!” Daryl lifts the ax, trying to hit him, but gets restrained again by T-dog and Rick.
“Let night, you said you know it’s just a matter of time before everyone you know dies,” Jenner admits to all of us about Rick.
“What?” Shane says, panting. “You really said that?”
“I had to keep hope alive,” Rick attempts to justify his reasoning.
“There is no hope. There never was,” Jenner tries to convince everyone.
“There’s always hope; maybe not here—but somewhere,” Rick tells him.
“What part of everything’s gone do you not understand?” Andrea asks viciously.
“Listen to your friend,” Jenner’s just glad he has someone on his side; “she gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction.”
Through tears, Carol says, “This isn’t right. You can’t just keep us here. My daughter doesn’t deserve to die like this.”
“Wouldn’t it be kinder to hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?”
Shane grabs a gun, stomping over to Jenner. “Shane, no!” Rick yells.
“Get out of my way,” he points the gun at Jenner’s head. “Open that door, or I’m going to blow your head off. Do you hear me?” Shane spits.
“Shane, this is not the way we do this. We’ll never get out of here. When he dies, we all dies,” Rick says. Shane grunts in frustration, walking away.
“If there were no hope, you would have bolted with the rest, taken the easy way out. You didn’t, you chose the hard path, why?” I think I’ve found a road out of here.
“Not because I wanted to. I made a promise to her, my wife,” Jenner points to the giant screen.
“Test Subject 19 was your wife?” Lori asks.
“She begged me to keep going for as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying. It should’ve been me on that table. It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone. She was loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I’m nobody. She could’ve done something about this, not me.”
“Your wife didn’t have a choice, you do—that’s all we want,” Rick begs.
“Let us keep trying as long as we can,” Lori adds.
Jenner sighs. “I told you, top side is locked down. I can’t open those.” He types in a password in a little machine and opens the door.
“Come on!” Daryl yells.
“There’s you chance, take it,” Jenner tells Rick, as people start bolting to the door.
“I’m grateful,” he says back.
“The day will come when you won’t be,” Jenner looks at me, then leans into whisper something to Rick.
“Rick, come on,” Lori drags him away.
“Ami!” Daryl yells for me.
“What’re you doing?” T-dog asks Jaquie.
“I’m stayin’!” she answers with tears in her eyes.
“That’s insane!” T-dog says, shock on his face.
“No, it’s completely sane for the first time in a long time. I’m not ending up like Jim and Cassie. There’s no time to argue, get out,” she wipes a tear away.
T-dog looks frozen, making Glenn practically drag him away. We run up four flights of stairs before we get to the main level. Getting to the front entrance, all the guys start banging on the glass doors and windows. Daryl and Rick take axes and start hacking at the window. Then, Shane takes a gun and fires.
“Dammit, it’s bulletproof!”
“Rick, I have something that might help,” Carol says, reaching into her bag. “Your first morning at the camp, I found this in your clothes when I was washing them,” she hands him a grenade.
A look of relief washes over Rick. “Look out!” Rick yells, while throwing the grenade.
Daryl pulls me as he runs behind a wall. It explodes, as Rick runs away from it. When we see that the glass broke, we start running out to our vehicles and shooting walkers. When I get in the truck, I see Dale and Andrea start to walk across the lawn.
“Shit,” Daryl tugs me down, covering my body with his. After the explosion, we look at it for a while. If Daryl and I didn't start talking, I would have been in that explosion. The cars in front of us start driving, so Daryl starts following them, though I have no clue where we’re going. There’s nowhere to go.