My eyes widened slightly as a burst of light darted across the screen. I figured that must have been a bullet.
"God," Carol gasped, "What was that?"
"They were shot," I confirmed. I turned on my heels to look at Jenner.
He turned away from my gaze. "Vi, power down the main screen and work stations." He ordered. Vi repeated his orders and followed them. The room got eerily darker. The group stood in their places, looking to Jenner for any more answers.
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea spoke, sounding annoyed. Jenner looked to his shoes, thinking slowly of his answer.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." He listed.
Jacqui then interupted with a shaky voice, "Or the wrath of God."
"There is that."
We all looked at him in disbelief. This was the guy who was supposed to give us hope, and yet, he had the least. This is who we've had the answers in the hands of. Some dismal, tall, monotone-like-his-computer-wife-dude.
"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea questioned, desperate for answers.
"I've been in the dark for almost a month," Jenner said, turning to Rick.
"So it's not just here," Andrea said. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying."
Jenner didn't say a thing, and yet his silence answered that question.
"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again," Daryl muttered, bringing his hands up to his hair.
I was then considering getting drunk again. There's obviously not anything left. There's no tommorow, so why remember today?
"Dr Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question," Dale began, "but... that clock. It's counting down. What happens at zero?"
Worry washed over me. Nothing good was going to come out of that clock hitting zero, for sure. Even more reason to get drunk.
"The basement generators... they run out of fuel," he quickly explained.
What did that mean? They run out, and then there will be no more power. I suppose this place was getting more useless as the seconds went by.
"Then what?" Rick asked. Jenner continued to walk away. "Hey!" he ordered. Rick glanced up at the ceiling. "Vi?" he asked. "What happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur," Vi replied.
So what? They spit soaps on us?
Rick retreated off somewhere with Shane. Glenn, and T-Dog. The rest of us started going back to our rooms.
I didn't know what everyone else was doing but I immediatly started packing my bag. The power was running out, which meant we can't stay here. Obviously. We would be living in a dark dismal shell.
After packing my things, I walked down the hallway, and stopped at a door. It was Daryl's.
"Why aren't you packing?" I asked him. He was sitting there with a whisky bottle in his hands. The whisky bottle that I was cuddling up to this morning.
He turned to look at me. He didn't say anything, he just looked at me like he was judging me. Like he was assessing what my next move would be.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked confusedly. He didn't answer me, he just turned his back to me.
Then the lights above his head started to flicker, then they went black.
"Whoa," I gasped. I heard Jenner coming down the hall. I looked to my right and found him in his lab coat. He looked so formal.
A hand came to my shoulder, moving me away from the door. "What's going on? Why is everything turned off?" Daryl asked.
Jenner simply snatched the whisky bottle from his hand and brought it to his lips.
This time the hand on my shoulder was dragging me along the corridor after Jenner. I had my hands grasping the ends of my shirt.
Questions were being asked back and forth, with Jenner giving no straight answers. We swiveled through long corridors and stairs until we came to one that led staright to the big office room.
Jenner took a large gulp of the whisky, then grasped the railing to the stairs that lead to the desks.
He passed the bottle back to Daryl, who yanked it back so hard, whisky splashed on the floor.
We all stood there waitng for answers.
"It was the French." He said suddenly
"What?" I asked.
"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 in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." He explained.
"What happened?" Rick asked.
"The same thing that's happening here," he started. "No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs of fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"
Rick then ordered us to get our things. I didn't know why everyone else didn't start packing after he told us the power would go out.
An alarm started blaring, signalling that is what the half-hour mark. Whatever that meant. I already had my backpack on me, so I stood by the door waiting for everyone.
Whirs and clang echoed from my right, and as I looked, the door snapped shut.
My eyes went wide. He locked us in.
"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn gasped, coming up beside me. "He just locked us in," he screeched, obviously scared for his life.
I turned to my left and saw everyone coming back, scared looks on their faces.
"You son of a bitch!" Daryl yelled, starting to run up to Jenner, who sat at his desk. Whisky bottle in hand, he lifted it above his head, ready to strike him. He only hust got a little grasp at Jenner's coat but then T-Dog and Shane dragged him away. He still tried to get at him though.
"Jenner open the door," I pleaded, walking up to him.
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down." He said, looking up at me from his seat.
"Well open them," I screeched, getting angry.
"That's not something I control. The computers do." he reasoned. He pointed a finger at me. "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?" Rick started, glancing at the large red clock. "What happens in 28 minutes?" Jenner tore his gaze from us, and looked at his computer screen again. He was avoiding any more questions.
Shane kicked his chair, wanting an answer. "Come on!" he yelled.
"What happens in 28 minutes?" I yelled.
"Do you know what this place is?!" Jenner roared, stepping up from his chair. I stepped back into Rick. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!"
I released a breath I didn't realise I was holding.
Jenner huffed, and straightened out his lab coat. He spoke again, but calmer this time. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, H.I.T's are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"H.I.T's?" Rick asked.
"Vi, define."
"High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other explosive except nuclear.The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000° and 6,000° and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
My breathing became heavy. I didn't exactly have a good relationship with fire. At least not lately.
"It sets the air on fire," Jenner muttered. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything."
I could hear Carl and Sophia crying. I blinked away any tears that threatened to spill over my eyes. I couldn't do it now. If I was going to die, I wasn't going to die crying. But I didn't want to die. I'm too determined to get better to die now.
I felt an anger that boiled like water. I had never experience this strong an emotion before. Nearly six years of my life without making my own choices, and someone was making my choice for me again. I didn't want this. Not today.
I turned on my heels, fists balled up. Pain coursed through my wrists as I squeezed them.
I scurried past Shane, Dale, Jacqui, and some others who were huddled together on the floor. I looked to my side, and saw a large red axe behind a protective glass door. I walked quickly towards it, throwing open the door and grabbing it. It weighed a lot, almost popping my shoulder out of joint from not anticipating it.
I turned and stomped towards the large metal door. I could feel people's eyes burning into the back of my head. They must be thinking: "Marley wouldn't do that, she's just a small little girl who always runs away." I must admit, I didn't really know what I was doing. Surviving could be a word for it. That's what I wanted to do.
I angrily lifted the axe and struck the door. A spark came off of it, but there wasn't a dent made. With more force, I struck again. Nothing. I then just threw the axe at the door, making it clatter loudly on the floor.
I banged on the door with my fists. I screamed and screeched. "Open the door!" I roared. I put all my pent up emotions into trying to beat the door to death.
I turned around and snatched the whisky bottle from Daryl's hand, throwing it at the door. The bottle shattered, and the whisky splashed everywhere.
"Outta my way!" Shane yelled, coming at the door with his own axe. I moved to grasp the railing, shoulders moving quickly from my heavy breathing.
Daryl came up and picked up the axe which I threw on the floor, and joined in on hitting the door like I previously did.
"Can't make a dent," T-Dog exclaimed.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner said, surprisingly calm. Daryl grasped the axe harder, and I knew what he was going to do. He took a run up to Jenner, raising it above his head. "But your head ain't!" He shouted, ready to strike him.
I ran up behind Daryl, wrapping my arms around his torso. We couldn't get Jenner killed, he held the key to getting out. Dale and Rick joined in in grasping Daryl away, trying to calm him down.
"Daryl, don't do it!" I ordered. Dale pushed him back, and I pulled him back. The axe was taken from his hands. I let go of him, and he turned to look at me. I gave him a warning look, and he did what my eyes told him to do. He walked away.
Rick started arguing about trying to keep hope alive. I continued to try and control my anger.
"What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand?" Andrea said from her seat on the floor.
"Listen to your friend. She gets it," Jenner said. "This is what take us down. This is our extinction event."
"This isn't right," Carol sobbed, clutching Sophia. "You can't just keep us here."
"One tiny millisecond. No pain."
"I don't think being burnt to death includes 'no pain'." I added.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this."
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner asked, leaning forward.
I heard a gun cock, and looked to see Shane approaching with a shotgun aimed at Jenner. He placed the nozzle on Jenner's face, who remained calm. Rick tried to reason with Shane.
He screamed like I had earlier, but lifted the gun to aim at the computers on the other side of Jenner. I shot at them sending sparks spiralling around them. Then he shot the ceiling above them.
We all ducked at the loud noises. Rick knocked Shane with his own gun, and warned him.
Then silence filled the air, as Rick looked at us all. Probably trying to access our emotions. I looked around myself, and they were all looking back at Rick. Except Daryl, who was looking at me.
"You're lying," Rick accused, turning back to Jenner. "About no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. It always matters." Rick started, wiping the nervous sweat from his chin. "You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to," Jenner started, looking Rick in the eyes. "I made a promise," he said proudly, standing up, and now towering over Rick. "To her... my wife"
"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Lori asked.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no."
I heard pounding on the door behind me, and knew Daryl was still trying to open the door.
"She was dying. It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just... Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this."
"Your wife didn't have a choice," Lori reasoned. "You do. That's... that's all we want... a choice, a chance. Let us keep trying as long as we can."
There was a pause, I hoped it was that Jenner was thinking of letting us go.
"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those," he said. He walked over to his computer desk, and scanned a card on something a pressed a few buttons.
My heart leaped. He was letting us go. I looked at the door, and sure enough it opened.
"Come on, let's go!" Daryl yelled.
We could live. Let's hope I don't regret this.