We all stare at the blinding white light emitting from the CDC. Rick leads the group in and my dad gives me a nudge pushing me inside.
"Hello?" Rick says when every one is inside. "Hello?"
"Close those doors," Dale says. "Watch for walkers."
"Anybody infected?" A man asks. He holds a shotgun in his hands and he looks like he's been through some deep shit.
"One of our group was," Rick answers honestly. "He didn't make it."
"Why are you here?" The man asks stepping forward. "What do you want?"
"A chance." Rick says looking at the man. Nice answer, if you where looking to be in the cheesiest answers ever book.
"That's asking an awful lot these days." The man says lowering his voice.
"I know." Rick says giving him a small nod. The man stares at us, taking our group in.
"You all submit a blood test, that's the price of admission." He says lowering his gun.
"We can do that." Rick tells him and lowers his gun. I sigh, I've always hated getting blood tests.
"You guys got stuff do bring in, do it now." The man says pointing his finger at our vehicles. "Once these doors close, they stay closed."
My dad, and some others rush out and grab our things, mostly the necessities. He hands me my back pack and I secure it on my back, along with my crossbow. Rick introduces himself to the man.
"Dr. Edwin Jenner." The man replies hesitantly.
~~~
We're all crammed in an elevator. I'm pushed into the wall in the back and my crossbow and backpack are viscously protruding my back.
"Doctors always go around packin heat like that?" My dad asks, referring to Dr. Jenner's gun.
"There were plenty lyin, around I familiarized myself." He smiles softly. "Besides you all look harmless enough, except you." He looks at Carl. "I'll have to keep my eyes on you."
Carl smiles lightly. I meanwhile, pray that this awkward elevator ride is almost over, I can barely keep my eyes open. The elevator is soon engulfed in awkward silence, and I hold back a yawn. When the ride is over, Jenner leads us down a hallway.
"Are we underground?" Carol asks.
"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner asks her.
"A little." She replies softly.
"Try not to think about it." He says. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." The lights come on, and we stand in a room full of computers and one giant main screen. "Welcome to zone 5."
"Where is everybody? The other doctors?" Rick asks him. "The staff."
"I'm it." Jenner replies looking at him. I take in the giant room. I haven't used a computer since it was library day at school. Even then, it wasn't long. Whoever worked here must have used them all day.
"What about the other person you where talking to?" Lori asks. "Vi."
"Vi! Say hello to our guests," Jenner calls out. "Tell them welcome."
"Hello Guests." A computerized voice says. "Welcome."
"I'm all that's left." Jenner tells us. "I'm sorry."
Jenner then leads us to get our blood tests. I go after my father. I flinch when the needle pierces my skin, but try to focus on my growling stomach instead, after me Andrea goes.
"What's the point of this?" She asks. "If we where infected we'd all be running a fever."
"I've already broken every rule in the book by letting you in here," he says. "Just let me be thorough." He finishes her blood test and let's her get up. "All done." Andrea stands up and wobbles a bit, but Jacqui is there to help her. "You okay?"
"She hasn't eaten in days." Jacqui tells Jenner. "None of us have."
~~~
"In Italy," Dale says pouring a glass of wine for Lori. "Children have a little bit of wine with dinner." We laugh as we eat food. For the first time in forever, it's not squirrel. "And in France!"
Carl looks at his mom. Seeing what she'll say about it.
"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France," she says covering Carl's glass before Dale can pour wine in it. "He can have some then."
"Oh come on!" Rick chuckles. "What's it gonna hurt. Come on!" Lori looks at him and laughs removing her hand from the glass.
"Okay," she says letting Dale pour wine in Carl's cup. Everyone laughs and cheers.
"There you go young lad." Dale hands Carl his cup. Everyone is silent as we await his reaction.
"Ewww." Carl says putting the cup down and making a face.
"That's my boy." Lori laughs pulling him close and pouring his wine into her glass. "That's my boy."
"Ah come on Coral!" I laugh rolling my eyes.
"Please Churro, I'd like to see you try." He sticks his tounge out at me.
"Okay, Dad?" I look at him to make sure it's okay.
"Go ahead, wouldn't be the first time," he says. "Merle use to dip your bottles in beer." Dale pours me a little wine and I bring my cup to my lips. At first it tastes a little bitter but I manage to drink it all. I give a little bow and everyone laughs. "Okay, ya weren't supposed to drink it all."
"Go ahead and stick to soda pop you two." Shane says and we laugh.
"Not you Glenn." Dad says fetching more wine for himself.
"What?" Glenn asks looking confused.
"Keep drinking lil man," he says. "I wanna see how red your face can get."
Everyone laughs and continues eating.
"It seems we haven't thanked our host properly." Rick says tapping his glass.
"Oh he's more than our host!" T-dog says raising his glass.
"Booyah!" My fathers says raising his bottle.
"Booyah!" Everyone choruses.
"So when ya gonna tell us what the hell happened doc?" Shane asks making everyone go silent. "All the other doctors, where are they?"
"We're celebrating Shane." Rick tells him. "We don't need to do this now."
"Well wait a second," Shane tells Rick. "That's why we're here isn't it?" He looks at Rick. "This was your move man, wanted to find all the answers, well instead we found him." He points to Jenner. "Found one man, why?"
"When things got bad, the people just left, they wanted to be with their families." He explains. "And when things got worse, the military cord got over run, the rest just bolted."
"Every last one?" Shane asks smugly.
"No, many couldn't face walking out the door." He pauses. "They 'opted out'" I knew what that meant and I looked down and continued to eat my food. "There was a rash, of suicides. That was a bad time."
"You didn't leave." Andrea states. "Why?"
"I just kept working." He says looking down a little. "Hoping, to do some uh-good."
"Dude, you are such a buzzkill man." Glenn says plopping down in a chair as Shane just licks his lips.
~~~
"Most of the facilities are powered down, including housing so you'll just have to make do here." Jenner says leading us down a hallway where the lights are flickering on. "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 like, just don't plug any of the video games in, or anything that draws power, and if you shower, go easy on the hot water."
He turns around and walks away. I grin widely at the thought of hot water.
"Hot water?" Glenn asks.
"That's what the man said!" T-dog says. We all look at each other and disperse into our own rooms, I of course share a room with my dad.
When it's my turn to shower, I hesitate to get in because I know as soon as I do, I won't want to get out. Sticking my hand under the running water almost feels foreign. I take a quick shower, so my dad can also enjoy the hot water. On the toilet seat sits a pair of fresh clothes, and I change into them quickly, seeing that the shirt is just one of my dads cut smaller to fit me. The pants are my own and quite old.
Stepping out of the bathroom I let my dad know that I'm going to the rec room with Sophia and Carl. It's not much but it provides more entertainment then cards.
We play with board games while Carol supervises us. We play multiple rounds of checkers before Lori comes in.
"Any good books?" She asks Carol.
"Enough to keep us busy for years." Carol says. "All right kids time for bed." Carl and Sophia get up first. When I get up I grab a book off of the shelf that caught my eye when I first entered and I leave with Carol. She makes sure I'm in my room before walking to hers with Sophia.
I see that my dad has a cot set up and some blankets on the couch. For the first night since this whole thing started, I might get some actual sleep. I open my book and read on the couch until my dad tells me lights out. He has a bottle of wine in his hand and he sets it near his cot.
"Did Merle really dip my bottles in beer?" I ask.
"Sure did," he chuckles. "I could never leave that man alone for two seconds. Especially with you. Y'all where always planning somethin when you where together."
"You still mad about that one time when we filled your pillow case with whipped cream?" I laugh.
"Well am I supposed to be thanken ya?" He chuckles and I laugh with him. "Good nigh' Cherri."
"Night daddy." I yawn and give him a hug before retreating into my blankets.
~~~
The next morning comes all too quick. Dad and I join the others in the cafeteria to eat breakfast. Rick comes in and Carl looks at him funny.
"Are you hung over?" Carl asks him. I snort and almost choke on my juice. "Mom said you'd be."
"Mom was right." Rick responds sitting down.
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori admits quietly.
"Eggs!" T-dog announces. "They're powdered but I do em good."
"Ugh.." Glenn groans and I laugh at the poor man. He must have a hell of a hangover.
"Bet you can't tell," T-Dog jokes and Dale chuckles softly. He puts another scoop of eggs on Glenn's plate. "Protein helps the Hangover." Glenn just groans again and I giggle.
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asks holding up a bottle of pills.
"Jenner." Lori replies looking at her plate.
"Could you help me please?" Rick asks her handing over the bottle of pills.
"He thought we could use it." Lori states opening the pills. She then looks at Glenn as he moans again. "Some of us at least."
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn tells us.
"Hey." Shane says entering the cafeteria.
"Hey." Rick responds. I stuff more of my eggs in my mouth. "Feel as bad as I do?"
"Worse." Shane tells him walking over to get some food.
"The hell happened to you?" T-dog asks. I look up at Shane in confusion. "Your neck?"
That's when I notice it. Shane has long scratch marks all along his neck. They're fresh too, they happened recently.
"Must've done it in my sleep." Shane says sitting down.
"Never seen ya do that before." Rick tells him almost concerned.
"Me neither." Shane says looking at Lori. "Not like me at all."
After I'm done with my food I decide to head to the rec room. Maybe find some more books to read. Everyone has questions so they go with Jenner to get them answered. All I know is that he's gonna answer them with big scientific words that I'm too dumb to understand.
After a couple minutes of searching, I grab the books I'd read and take them back to my room putting them in my packed bag before joining the others in the big room.
"I hate to ask one more question, but that clock is counting down." Dale states looking at the red clock on the wall that is in fact counting down. "What happens when it reaches zero?"
"The basement generators-" Jenner says looking a little choked up. "They run out of fuel."
"What happens then?" Rick asks. Jenner just walks away. "Vi! What happens when the basement generators run out of fuel?"
"When the generators run out of fuel, facility wide decontamination occurs." The robotic voice responds.
~~~
I sit in Lori's room with Carl as we do our school work. Well Carl does his, I attempt mine.
"Ugh." I groan in frustration, throwing my pencil in the crease of my book. "This doesn't make sense, I feel like it's asking me how to make the cure for all this!"
"By asking you how many pickles Mrs. Jones needs for her recipe?" Carl says laughing a little bit.
"Okay. Maybe not." I say looking down.
"Mom?" Carl asks. Lori is waving her hand around one of the vents. "Something wrong?"
"Nothing, just," she says appearing confused. "The air conditioning stopped."
"I'm gonna head back to my room." I say getting up. If shit hits the fan, once again, I want to be ready for it at least. My dad is laying on the bed, drinking some kind of alcohol. "I gotta bad feeling."
"Me too." He says sitting up. All of a sudden the power whirs off.
"The hell?" I say looking at the lights that where on just a second ago. The group seems to be panicking in the hallway.
"What's going on." my dad says poking his head out the door. "Why is everythin turned off?"
"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner says. But that doesn't answer any of our questions much.
"Air isn't a priority?" Dale asks questioning Jenner. "And lights?"
"It's not up to me, zone 5 is shutting itself down." Jenner tells us. I grab my dads rough hand and follow him down the dark hallway.
"Hey! Hey what the hell does tha mean?" Dad asks Jenner as more of the power shuts itself off. "Hey, man, I'm talking to you!" My dad walks faster and I let go of his hand breathing heavily. "What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"
"You'd be surprised." Jenner says grimly.
"Rick?" Lori calls looking over the railing at the rest of our group that has just run into the room.
I don't listen as our group starts to argue back and forth. At least I think that's what they're doing. All I can focus on is my heavy breathing. Until an alarm starts blaring that is.
"What the hell." I whisper finding my dad. I squeeze his hand tightly when I approach him.
"Thirty minutes until decontamination." Vi says.
"Doc, what's going on here huh?" My dad yells at Jenner. I feel like I can't breathe. My dad picks my small body up and holds me close.
"Everybody Y'all heard Rick!" Shane yells. "Get your stuff and let's go!"
"Come on!" T-dog yells. There's a clang and I look to see that the door has been locked shut.
"Did he just lock us in?" Glenn yells. "He just locked us in!"
I start to breathe even heavier. As much as I don't want them too, tears start to roll down my face. My dad sets me down and looks me in the eyes.
"Hey, calm down okay?" He whispers, using his rag to wipe away my tears. "You gotta make this easier on yerself."
"Okay," I whisper. "Okay."
Jenner sits down at a computer, and my dad leaves me alone for a moment.
"You son of a bitch!" My dad yells running towards Jenner. "You locked us in here!" There's yelling as the group tries to get my dad to not kill Jenner. When they move away from I run to him, not wanting to be alone.
"Jenner, open those doors now." Rick demands.
"I can't everything topside is locked down." He replies. "The emergency exits are sealed."
I latch my arms around my fathers waist and he holds me close.
"Well open the damn things!" Dale tells him.
"That's not something I control the computers do." Jenner tells Dale. "I told you, once those doors close, they're not opening again! You heard me say that." Everyone is silent for a few moments and my father holds me tighter. "It's better this way."
"What is?" Rick asks. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?" Jenner turns back to his computer and starts to type something. Rick looks at Shane. "What happens in 28 minutes?"
"Come on!" my dad yells at Jenner letting me go.
"You know what this place is?!" Jenner yells getting up and facing 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!" Jenner sits down and my dad glares at him for a moment. "In the event of a catastrophic event, in a terrorist attack for example H.I.T.'s are deployed to keep any organism from getting out."
"H.I.T.'s?" Rick asks getting closer to Jenner.
"Vi, define." Jenner calls out looking down.
"HIT's high impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives. Consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration of any other known explosive, except nuclear." Sophia whimpers and I sink to my knees. I don't want to listen anymore but I can't bring myself to stop. "The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5000 and 6000 degrees when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
"It sets the air on fire." Jenner says with an almost sickening smile on his face. "No pain," Carol and Sophia are now both crying. "an end to sorrow grief, regret..."
I feel soft tears trailing down my face. I don't want to die, even if it is painless. "Everything."
The minutes start to pass by. I'm with Lori and Carl now, I might not be her child but she holds me in her arms as if I was her own. My dad is staring at the door. Eventually he gets fed up and throws his bottle of alcohol at it.
"Open the damn door!" He yells.
"Out of my way!" Shane yells running with an ax towards to door. He begins to hit it, trying to make it shatter so we can escape.
"Daryl!" Someone calls my dads name and hands him another axe and soon he's hitting the door too.
"You should've left well enough alone." Jenner tells us. "It would've been so much easier."
"Easier for who?" Lori snaps.
"All of you!" Jenner tells us. "You know what's out there, a short brutal life and agonizing death." He then looks at Andrea. "Your sister, what, what was her name?"
"Amy." Andrea almost whispers.
"Amy." Jenner says to her. "You know what this does, you've seen it. "He then turns to Rick who's watching him."Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"
"I don't want this!" Rick tells him.
"Can't make a dent." Shane says panting. That doesn't matter to my father. I want to say.
"Those doors are made to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner tells us.
"Well your head ain't!" My dad yells going to swing an axe at Jenner's head.
"Daryl! Daryl!" Choruses through the room.
"Just back up!" Rick yells as T-dog takes his axe. "Back up."
I remove myself from Lori's arms. I make my way to my dad. He picks me up, and paces back and forth. I'm not going to cry. I've cried to much in the past few days and if these are my last moments, I sure as hell ain't gonna spend them crying.
I tune out the conversation and just focus on my dad.
I hear a gun cock and then Rick yelling at Shane. My dad has his axe back and he holds it by his side. Rick starts to whisper at Shane. Then Shane goes insane with shooting the computers. My dad covers my head as everyone else ducks down. Everyone is silent before Rick begins to speak again.
"I think your lying." He tells Jenner.
"What?" Jenner asks confused.
"Your lying." Rick repeats. "About no hope. If that where true you would've bolted with the rest. Or taken the easy way out. But you didn't, you chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter." Jenner says grimly.
"It does." Rick replies. "It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted too." Jenner tells him. "I made a promise," he stands up and points to the screen. "To her."
I'm lost. Something must've happened when I went to get books. "My wife."
"Test subject 19 was your wife." Lori croaks.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could." Jenner states. My dad has put me down and is now trying to get the door open once again. I sigh, there's a slim chance we're getting out of this. "How could I say no? She was dying, it should've been me on that table."
He then explains how amazing she was in their field. Even compared her to Einstein. I hear my dad grunting in the background.
"Let us keep trying as long as we can," Lori says gripping Carl tight.
"I told you top sides locked down I can't open those," he walks over to the thing that locked us in here and opens the door.
"Come on!" My dad yells and immediately I run towards the door. "Let's go!"
Everyone is yelling and running towards the exit. "Come on let's go!"
The group is stopped when Jacqui decides she's staying.
"Just get out," she says her eyes cloudy. "Get out."
Shane gets T-dog to move again. Andrea says she's also staying and Dale goes to talk to her telling the rest of us to go.
We race up the stairs in the dark with only flash lights leading us. I trip at the top and my dad pulls me up quickly making sure I don't fall. When we get to top side the men are focusing on finding a way out. My dad and Shane are hitting the windows with their axes, trying to break the glass. T-dog even hits it with a chair, but it doesn't make a scratch.
"The glass won't break?" Sophia asks from the floor.
"Rick I have something that may help." Carol says reaching into her purse.
"I don't think a nail files going to help Carol." Shane says snarky.
"Nows not the time for a smartass Shane!" I yell at him.
Carol pulls out a grenade and shakily holds it out to Rick. I rush to be by my dad and he covers me from behind a stair well. Rick pulls the pin and the grenade explodes, the window shattering. We rush out of the window and run past the walkers that where now coming to investigate the noise. Rick shoots some and my crossbow bounces on my back. We reach the cars and quickly enter our vehicles.
"Get down." Dad says pushing me down into the seat before covering me with his own body. It's only seconds later when the CDC explodes along with everything inside. When it's done my father let's up and I stare in awe at the area around the CDC that is now in flames.
It takes a couple moments for the line of cars to move and when we do I can only imagine of what lies ahead.
~~~
Word count: 3988
Alright, that was the end of season one. Things between Carl and Cheri should start to become more frequent once they get to the farm💕
~Aj