Edited.
I swear the world came to a halt when the metal door slid open. For a moment I couldn't move, my eyes transfixed at the blinding white light.
Then reality kicked in.
"Daryl, you cover the back," Shane ordered as we hurried inside. The light switched off, leaving a dimmer light in its place.
"Hello?" Rick called. "Hello?"
No one answered.
"Close the doors. Watch for walkers," Dale warned as we moved a bit further into the building.
"Hello?" Rick tried again.
This time the sound of a gun cocking answered.
A man stood in a doorway, clutching an automatic. "Anybody infected?" he called.
"One of our group was. He didn't make it," Rick said.
The man came closer, still aiming his weapon at us. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
"A chance," Rick said.
"That's asking an awful lot there days," the man countered, still edging closer to us. He was a middle-aged man with bloodshot eyes and a five o'clock shadow, dressed in baggy clothes.
Rick lowered his gun. "I know."
Silence descended over the lobby of the CDC. I wondered if we were about to die or if we were about to be given a chance on this godforsaken earth. I hoped for the latter.
"You all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission," the man said.
"We can do that," Rick said, nodding.
The man lowered his gun. "You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed." Immediately Glenn, Shane, Daryl, and Rick set out to grab bags from the cars.
It took a while for them to get back inside and once they did, Dale and T-Dog closed the door behind them. "Vi, seal the main entrance," the man said into an alarm system in the wall. "Kill the power up here."
The metal shutters closed and sealed us safely inside the CDC building.
Rick turns to the man and holds out his hand. "Rick Grimes."
The man looks down at Rick's extended hand, but he doesn't shake it. "Dr. Edwin Jenner," he said, glancing away from Rick. He leads away from the lobby and to the entrance of an elevator.
We all piled in and I was squished between Glenn and T-Dog.
"Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" Daryl questions Jenner, who held his gun by his side.
"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself. But you look harmless enough," Jenner joked, glancing at the group. "Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you," he said to Carl, who cracked a smile.
I let out a breath of relief when we stepped out of the elevator and into a wide hallways. Carol asked, "Are we underground?"
Jenner looked at Carol. "Are you claustrophobic?"
"A little."
"Try not to think about it," Jenner said, leading us into a large entrance. It was hard to see much of the room beyond; vague impressions of a metal ramp and gleaming computer screens. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room."
With a whirring nose, light flooded into the room from an almost painfully bright halogen ring suspended from the ceiling. "Welcome to Zone Five," Jenner said.
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."
Shane pressed, "Every last one?"
"No," Jenner said, with a stony look. "Many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. That was a bad time."
"Why didn't you leave?" I asked.
"I just kept working. Hoping to... do some good," Jenner said.
Glenn hopped off the counter and shuffled past Shane. "Dude, you are such a buzzkill."
After, Jenner lead us down a narrow corridor with many doors. "Most of the facility is powered down, including housing. So you'll have to make do here," Jenner explained. "The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like."
Jenner turned to Carl and Sophia. "There's a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in the video games. Or anything that draws power," Jenner said and paused, "The same applies- if you shower, go easy on the hot water."
Glenn turned to face us, his eyes were wide. "Hot water?" A smile broke out in all our faces.
"That's what the man said," T-Dog grinned. Glenn rushed after Jenner like an overexcited child.
With that being said, everyone claimed their own room. I walked into the four walled room and smiled. Finally.
***
I hadn't remembered the last time I took a shower. Was it the day of the breakout? Before? It must have been a long time since my skin was grimy with dirt and roamer blood. Now, I was clean.
Later that night a knock sounded at my door. "Come in," I called, sitting up on the bed.
The door opened and Glenn walked in. "Mind if we, uh, hang out for a while?" Glenn muttered. I patted the spot next to me. He stumbled a little.
Glenn was drunk. He was eloquently and lovingly drunk.
He sat down, holding a pillow to his chest. "You comfy?" I asked.
"Very."
It was silent for a moment.
His eyes were half-closed when he asked, "Is Rae your actual name or is it a nickname?"
I shook my head. "It's short for Rachel. It was my grandmother's name."
"Another question," he said. "Why do you call them roamers? Saying geeks or walkers is so much easier."
"Don't know," I shrugged. "I'll try it out next time though."
His eyes opened and took in my appearance. "You showered."
"So did you," I said. "It felt like ages since I last showered."
"At the campsite, we tied tarps up to these trees and we attatched a hose to the bottom. So when it rained it would fill up. That was our shower," he said. "I only used it twice since it was cold."
He shuffled closer to me. "Rachel Miller, who were you before all this?"
"I was a nurse in Savannah," I said. "There's not much else."
"I bet there was more," Glenn said. "Did you get to see your parents before it all happened?"
I lowered my eyes. "No."
"Did they live far away?" Glenn asked.
"They lived in Jacksonville," I said. "Hadn't seen them in a few years."
My parents were good parents. The best, actually. I remembered having a good childhood in Jacksonville, where we had a nice house with a big tree in the front yard.
"Why so long?"
I admitted, "They died in a car accident my freshman year of college."
It happened halfway through my second semester at Savannah State. I couldn't imagine a life without one of my parents, let alone two. It was a tough year to surpass and I had almost dropped out.
"We don't have to talk about it," Glenn said quietly. I nodded gratefully.
It was quiet for a minute before Glenn's eyes widened. "Who was I?"
"Oh God, you are drunk," I laughed. "You were a pizza boy from Michigan. You're a brother and a son."
"Was," he corrected. "I was a brother and son. I don't even know if my family is alive." My eyes dropped to my hands that were on my lap. It was silent for a while.
"You think we would've been friends if none of this had happened?" Glenn asked. I looked up and he was staring at me.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I'd like to believe that."
"Me too, Rae," he said, moving his hand onto mine. He grazed my hand with his fingertips and I wondered how drunk he was.
I wondered how drunk I was for me to let him touch me.
"You are so beautiful," Glenn said, reaching up to touch my face.
I wasn't too drunk to know this was a bad idea. I glanced away, trying to conceal the blush that was creeping onto my face. "Okay, Glenn, you're drunk. Let's get you to bed."
I stood up, ready to help him up and guide him to his room. His eyes were half-closed, "Can I stay here?"
Now it was his face that was red. "Please?" Glenn asked.
I rolled my eyes. "Fine, but no funny business."
He stretched out onto the mattress. "I meant on the couch," I said.
"Oh," he said drowsily and a blush crept onto his face before moving to the couch. I watched him for a second as he shuffled a pillow under his head. He went into a drunken sleep a few moments later.
I settled onto the mattressand curled into the fleece blanket.
That night, before I drifted into sleep, I wondered what would have happened if I had let Glenn touch me.
***
"Eggs," T-Dog's voice called out, his hands holding out a hot skillet. "Powdered, but I do 'em good."
That morning I had run quickly out of the room to avoid an awkward conversation with Glenn. He was most likely too drunk to remember what he had said last night. We hadn't done anything but talk, but I still wanted to avoid him.
I glanced over to Glenn, who was sat at another table. He moaned, putting a hand to his forehead that pounded from the loud voices. Jacqui was behind him, rubbing his shoulders soothingly. T-Dog walked over to Glenn, pouring more egg onto his plate. He said, "Protein helps the hangover."
Glenn moaned again. "Don't ever ever ever let me drink again."
Shane strode into the room, making a beeline for the coffee. "Hey."
Rick asked, "You feel as bad as I do?"
"Worse."
A frown creased my face when I looked at Shane. I asked, "The hell happened to you? Your neck."
I studied the raw, angry marks that ran along Shane's neck and jaw. They were clearly scratch-marks. "Must've done it in my sleep," Shane replied.
"Never seen you do that before," Rick said.
"Me neither," Shane said, but I was still unconvinced. "Not like me at all."
Jenner padded into the room. "Morning," he said.
"Hey, doc," I said. The others around the table uttered similar greetings.
"Doc, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-" Dale said.
"But you will anyway," Jenner interjected, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
Andrea twisted towards him. "We didn't come here for the eggs."
After breakfast, Jenner led us into the big room. He tapped a few keys on a computer before he said, "Give me playback of TS-19."
The vast screen that was mounted on the far wall flickered to life. Data and images filled the screen, but I couldn't make much out of it. I only recognized images of a brain.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this," Jenner said. "Take us in for E.I.V."
"Enhanced Internal View," Vi said. The image shifted, now showing a horizontal view of the test subject. The brain was lit with bright blue threads of energy. The magnification increased again until the pulsing blue threads of light filled the screen.
"What are those lights?" Shane asked.
Jenner didn't take his eyes off the screen. "It's a person's life. Experiences, memories- it's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you," he said and turned to face us. "The thing that makes you unique and human."
Daryl folded his arms across his chest. "You don't ever make sense ever?"
"Those are synapses," Jenner pointed to the screen. "Electrical pulses 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?" Rick asked and moved closer to Jenner. "That's what this is, a vigil?"
"Yes," Jenner paused, "Or rather the playback of a vigil."
"This person died?" Andrea asked, gazing at the ripples of blue light. "Who?"
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected... and volunteered to have us record the process," Jenner said. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event."
The brain changed and lost most of its blue pulses of energy. Dark tendrils spread throughout the brain. "Is that the disease?" I asked.
"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs."
The body on the screen jerked as the blackness spread. Whoever this person was, they had suffered. The whole brain shut down and the subject stopped moving. "Then death," Jenner said quietly. "Everything you ever were or ever will be... gone."
Sophia looked up at her mom. "Is that what happened to Jim?"
"Yes," Carol said, taking a hold of Sophia's hand.
I looked at Andrea, who didn't bother wiping her tears. She took in a deep breath that sounded more like a gasp. "She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister," Lori explained.
Jenner moved towards Andrea. "I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is."
Jenner turned back to the screen. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event."
"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."
A red glow flickered at the stem of the brain. The brain remained dark, save for the red glow. The test subject was 'resurrecting'.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked, stunned.
"No, just the brain stem," Jenner explained. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick said.
"You tell me," Jenner said and gestured to the screen.
Rick approached, staring at the image of the infected brain. "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobes, the neocortex, the human part- that doesn't come back. The you part." The subject stirred, its jaws opening. "It's just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."
On the screen, an image of a gun appeared above the subjects head. A bullet ripped through the brain, straight into the red glow.
"God! What was that?" Carol cried.
"You shot your patient in the head," I said. "Didn't you?"
Jenner didn't reply. He didn't need to.
"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
"Powering down main screen and workstations."
Jenner stared at the floor. There was a look of defeat in his eyes. I realized, "You have no idea what it is, do you?"
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui's voice quivered.
"There is that," Jenner said.
"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere," Andrea said.
"There are others, right?" I asked. "Other facilities?"
Jenner hesitated. "There may be some... people like me."
Disbelief and hopelessness swept through me.
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked, the fear was evident in his eyes. He had put all his hope into the CDC.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives- all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month," Jenner replied.
"So it's not just here," Andrea said. "There's nothing left anywhere. Nothing. That's what you're really saying, right?"
"Doctor Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question but... that clock," Dale's eyebrows were drawn together. His finger pointed to a clock on the wall. "It's counting down. What happens at zero?"
Dale was right. The bright red numbers were counting down from an hour.
Jenner didn't meet Dale's eyes, instead he looked at the ground. "The basement generators-they run out of fuel."
"And then?" Rick asked. Jenner didn't answer, instead he strode up the ramp. "Vi, what happens when power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."
There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Alright, let's not panic," Shane said, but it seemed to be the only thing we were doing. "Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, and I will go check on the generators in the basement. Ya'll go back to your rooms and we'll figure it out then."
I used to be able to keep my calm in the hospital. Being in the ER was second nature to me and I never freaked out. Everything was different now. People were coming back from the dead as cannibals and now it was hard to not freak out.
I flew past a few doors and into my own room. My hands shook as I folded some clothes and shoved them into my bag before throwing the bag on my shoulder. I ran to Glenn's room and did the same.
"Emergency lighting on." The lights shut off, as well as the air conditioner. This was what Jenner had meant when he said the generators would shut off.
I walked out the room, Lori and Carl immediately coming to my side. "Why is the air off?" Lori questioned Jenner when he appeared from his room. "And the lights in our room?"
Daryl steps out as well, a bottle of liquor in his hand. "What's going on? Why is everything turned off?"
Jenner's hand swept down and grabbed Daryl's bottle, taking a gulp. "Energy use is being prioritized."
I glared at Jenner. "Air and lights aren't a priority?"
"It's not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down." We followed him into the big room again.
"What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?" Daryl questioned.
"You'd be surprised."
We met Rick, Glenn, T-Dog, Shane at the bottom of the ramp. "Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked, following Jenner.
"The system in dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computer running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark."
I looked at the digital clock that neared it's half-hour mark. "Right on schedule," Jenner said, taking another swig of the bottle before handing it back to Daryl. He paused before he said, "It was the French."
"What?" Andrea 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."
"What happened?" Jacqui asked.
Jenner climbed the steps onto the platform full of computers. "The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"
"Let me tell you something-" Shane launched himself up the steps and after Jenner.
"To hell with it, Shane. I don't even care," Rick said as he leaped after him, grabbing Shane's arm. Shane shrugged him off. "Everybody grab your stuff. We're getting out of here, now!"
I stopped Glenn from leaving and I motioned to his bag that was strapped onto my shoulder. He smiled gratefully.
An alarm split the air before the rest of the group reached the door. "What's that?" Shane asked.
"Thirty minutes to decontamination."
The vast screen on the wall flickered to life, large red numbers counted down from a half hour. "Doc, what's going on here, damn it," Daryl yelled. Jenner didn't answer.
"Ya'll heard Rick," Shane shouted. "Go!"
The alarm continued to blare, filling the room. Jenner swiped a card across a pane l set in one of the workstations, then tapped on a keyboard. Something whirred and clanked, and a metal door slid up in front of the ramp that led away from the big room. We were cut off.
The alarm stopped and the sudden silence filled me with terror.
"No," Glenn whispered. "Did you just lock us in?" His voice rose to a panicked scream. "He just locked us in!"
Daryl leaped up the steps and charged at Jenner. "You son of a bitch," he yelled. "You locked us in here!"
T-Dog ran after him and held him back. "Open that door now," Rick said. He sounded remarkably calm, but there was an undercurrent of ice to his words.
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed," Jenner said. "I told you. Once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that."
"It's better this way," Jenner added.
Rick edged closer to Jenner. "What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" When Jenner ignored him, he yelled. "What happens in 28 minutes?"
Jenner shoved himself away and stood up. "You know what this place is? We protected the public from some very nasty stuff. Weaponized smallpox. Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country. Stuff you don't want getting out. Ever!"
The anger drained from Jenner's face and he sat back down. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure- in a terrorist attack, for example- H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"H.I.T.s?" Rick asked.
Jenner looked away. "Vi, define."
"H.I.T.s- high impulse high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives cocoists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
"It sets the air on fire," I realized. I looked at Glenn, who took off his cap and pinched his forehead.
"No pain," Jenner murmured. "An end to sorrow. Grief. Regret. Everything."
I stared at Jenner in sheer horror. Jenner had sheltered us, fed us, given us hope. And now he was going to kill us.
Shane ran at the sealed door with an axe. "Out of my way!" He pounded the door, but it wouldn't give.
Lori and Carol sat on the floor, holding their sobbing children. "You should've left well enough alone. It would've been so much easier."
I raised my voice, "Easier for who?"
"All of you. You know what's out there- A short, brutal life and an agonizing death," Jenner said before turning to Andrea. "Your sister. What was her name?"
"Amy," Andrea said. She was sat on the floor, leaning against a counter.
"Amy," Jenner said. "You know what this does. You've seen it." He turned to Rick, who was glaring at him. "Is that what you want for your wife and son?"
"I don't want this," Rick stated, angrily. Shane stopped trying to beat the door down and came to stand by Rick.
"Can't make a dent," Shane breathed.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said.
Daryl grabbed an axe and strode towards Jenner. "Well, your head ain't!"
It took 3 men to hold back Daryl.
"You do want this," Jenner tried to reason with Rick. "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
The group murmured, shocked. Shane said,"What? You really said that? After all your big talk?"
Rick said, "I had to keep hope alive." Jenner said there was no hope. "There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, But somebody somewhere."
Andrea looked up at Rick. "What part of 'Everything is gone' do you not understand?"
Carol sobbed, "This isn't right. You can't just keep us here."
Jenner inched his chair closer to Carol. "One tiny moment- a millisecond. No pain."
"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?"
Shane lost it. He cocked his gun and aimed it at Jenner's head. "Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off!"
Rick said, "Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get outta here."
Shane let out a scream of pure white rage and shifted his aim to one of the consoles behind Jenner. He fired and the console shattered. He fired again and again.
Rick got his hand under the butt of the gun and rammed it into Shane's face, followed by a hard elbow to Shane's shoulder. Shane crumpled on the floor and Rick stood over him, holding the butt of the gun above his face in case he tried to get back up. "You done now?" Rick panted. "Are you done?"
Shane glared up at him. "Yeah, I guess we all are."
Rick turned back to Jenner. "I think you're lying."
"What?"
"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?"
Jenner shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. It always matters,"Rick crouched in front of Jenner. "You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise," Jenner rose to his feet and so did Rick. He pointed to the screen. "To her. My wife."
"Test subject 19?" I asked. "She was your wife?"
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She way dying. It should have 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. Not me."
Rick held out a hand. "Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's all we want. A choice. A chance."
***
We had less than four minutes to get out of the CDC. There was no time to do anything but run upstairs and to the lobby.
The doors were locked and T-Dog hefted a chair with both hands. He smashed the chair into the windows, bellowing with each swing. It left the glass scratched. It wasn't enough.
Shane grabbed his gun. "Dog, get down, get down." He fired at the window, but the round barely made a dent. "Jesus!"
There had to be a way through. What was left that they hadn't tried?
"Rick," Carol hurried forward, fumbling in one of the backpacks. "I have something that might help."
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it," Shane snapped.
Carol held a grenade in her shaking hand. Rick took it from her hands and made a run for the windows. "Look out," T-Dog yelled, and I ran for cover.
The grenade exploded and a huge section of glass shattered. We leaped through it and made a run for the vehicles we had left parked a short distance away.
Several walkers lurched towards us. Shane and Rick opened fire, while Daryl used his axe.
Rick and his family, Glenn, and I ran towards the RV. Dale might not be coming back, but we weren't about to abandon his Winnebago. Dale had left his keys in the RV.
Rick started the engine. "Whoa, wait, wait," I cried when I saw Dale and Andrea emerging from the broken window of the CDC. "They're coming."
I was hit with a surge of relief.
Rick honked the horn. "Get down!" Glenn and I huddled at the back of the RV. I didn't know how far the blast wave from the H.I.T.s would extend, but it might shatter the RVs windows. Glenn extended his arm around me.
The explosion felt like it rocked the planet. A huge roar of fire and power ripped through the air like a red-hot tidal wave. The scream of tortured metal and glass seemed to go on forever.
Glenn pressed himself against me as the RV shuddered from the impact.
After what seemed like ages, I lifted my head. The CDC was a pile of flaming rubble. All hopes of a cure were gone.
After Dale and Andrea mounted the RV, Rick pulled the Winnebago away from the flaming ruin of the CDC.
Rick lead the group of survivors away from the outskirts of Atlanta and into an uncertain future.