Born 2 Be Wild-A Merle Dixon love story

Chapter 29

  We entered the CDC slowly with our weapons drawn. The entrance was ginormous, our every word echoed. We were met by an ordinary looking man with a shot gun.

"Anybody infected?" The man shouted.

"One of our group was. He didn't make it." Rick responded.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" The man questioned us.

"A chance." Rick told him.

"That's asking an awful lot these days." The man said.

"I know." was all Rick could say.

We all looked around us. Half terrifed, half relieved. But we were off the street. If only for a moment.

He searched all of our faces for a moment, seeing the desperation in our eyes. "You'll all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission."

"We can do that." Rick assured him.

"You got stuff to bring in you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed." The man ordered.

We ran outside and quickly gathered our bags. T-Dog and Dale staying at the door, making sure he wasn't just trying to get rid of us. After we ran back inside they shut the doors. The man slid a card through a keypad.

"Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here."

So maybe he's not alone in here. The roll up doors slid back into place and we were finally safe. Rick introduced himself as we all walked around the entrance of the building. The man introduced himself as Dr. Edwin Jenner.

Our next step was a long somewhat awkward elevator ride. We were all packed into one tiny room. Daryl of course had to break the silence.

"Doctors always go around packing heat like that?"

"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself." Jenner responded. "But you look harmless enough." He added. "Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you." He said to Carl.

We followed him down a hallway. He confirmed my thoughts that we were underground. At the end of the hallway there was another room, almost as big as the entrance.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Jenner ordered.

A ring of lights came on above banks or computers.

"Welcome to zone five." Jenner said.

"Where is everyone? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick asked him.

"I'm it. It's just me here."

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

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them... welcome." Jenner responded.

An automated voice came over the speakers. "Hello, guests. Welcome."

"I'm all that's left. I'm sorry." He told us.

We all lined up to get blood taken. It was quick and relatively painless. When Jacqui informed him that none of us had eaten in days he proposed we have a big dinner.

It was almost like old times. Only we were underground at the CDC and Merle wasn't there of course. But there was plenty of wine, so if he had been here he would have been happy. I sat back against a table with Daryl after we'd eaten and shared a bottle of wine. The table was big, but not quite big enough for all of us so we ate quickly.

Dale talked Carl's parents into letting him have some wine and the face he made when he took a sip was priceless. We all shared a laugh. Something we hadn't done in a long time.

"Stick to soda pop bud." Shane told him with a grin.

"Not you Glenn." Daryl told him. "Keep drinking I want to see how red your face can get."

Daryl was getting tipsy and it showed. He was the old Daryl like this. Not the one that had lost everyone but me. He wasn't angry, or bitter. He was relaxed and happy. That alone was enough to make me thank Jenner.

Rick clinked his spoon against his glass and stood up. "It seems to me that we haven't thanked our host properly."

"He is more than just our host." T-Dog said raising his glass.

"Hear, hear!" Everyone cheered.

"Thank you. Thank you, doctor." Rick told him.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane the buzzkill asked. "All the uh, the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened. Where are they?"

"Shane, we're celebrating here." Rick told him. "Don't need to do this now."

"Whoa, wait a second. That's why we're here, right? This was your move. Supposed to find all the answers. Instead we-" Shane laughed. "we found him." he said pointing to Jenner. "Found one man. Why?"

The mood at the dinner table had went from happy to serious so fast it nearly made my head spin. Or maybe it was just the wine.

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

"Every last one?" Shane asked.

"No, many couldn't face walking out that door." Jenner answered him. "They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

"You didn't leave." Andrea pointed out. "Why?"

"I just kept working, hoping to do some good."

"Dude you are such a buzzkill man." Glenn told Shane.

After everyone was done eating Dr. Jenner led us to where we'd be staying.

"Most of the facility is powered down including housing, so you'll have to make do here. The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall the kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in anything that draws power. The same applies. If you shower go easy on the hot water."

We were all ecstatic about the hot water. I picked out a room and set my stuff down. It was the first time I'd been in a room I could call my own since the day after the outbreak. And Merle ruined that memory for me. I got some clean clothes out of my bag and took a shower, eager to wash all the dirt and sweat off of me. It's funny, the things you miss during an apocalypse, like warm running water. When I got out of the shower Daryl was in my room.

He had apparently showered too because there wasn't dirt on his face anymore. He had pulled the cot out of the closet and was laying across it with a full bottle of wine in his hand. He sat up when I opened the bathroom door. Steam entered the room and he smiled at me.

"I thought I'd swipe a bottle of wine and we could see who got drunk fastest. Just like old times."

I laughed and sat down across from him. "Well if you drink anything at all like you did when we were teenagers, it'll be you."

What would have been a couple glasses in we were both pretty drunk and laughing almost non stop. Daryl mentioned something that I had completely forgotten about.

"Remember when you used to keep a bottle of vodka in the freezer at your house?"

"Oh God. I had honestly forgotten about Merle and the tree."

At mine and Merle's house in Savannah we had a shade tree in our backyard. When Merle was home he liked to sit under it and get drunk. He had already drank every beer he had when he went searching for more. I kept a bottle of vodka in the back of the freezer hidden behind some bags of frozen veggies. Merle must've not found any other drop of liquor in the house because he hates vodka. He sat under that tree in the backyard and got so drunk he couldn't move. I tried everything to get him to get up but it wouldn't work because he literally couldn't move. So, me being myself I took what was left of my vodka and went back inside. The effects of the alcohol would wear off before too long and I wasn't worried about it. I eventually fell asleep waiting on him to get in. While I was asleep it had rained. So I went out to check on Merle who was still under the tree, soaking wet. So I called Daryl and he helped me drag him into the living room floor. That's where he slept that night. He was surprisingly not that angry the next morning. Daryl and I have been laughing about it ever since.

We had nearly finished the bottle between us. I was laughing so hard I nearly fell off of the narrow bed. Daryl grabbed my shoulder to steady me and the next thing I knew we were kissing.

He was on top of me with his fingers in my hair. We were kissing with a passion that I didn't think was possible. I pulled his shirt off of him and ran my hand down his back as he grabbed my shirt and started pulling it off. He stopped when my shirt came off. He slowly got off of the cot and backed away towards the door. He bumped the door frame on his way out and closed his eyes.

"Night Jess." He said softly before leaving, closing the door quietly behind him.

I sat there for a moment in disbelief with my fingers on my lips. Did that really just happen? I pulled my shirt back on and tossed what was left of the wine in the trash. I was still drunk, but sobered up enough to walk. I stuck my head out of my door and walked to the rec room.

It was empty when I arrived, everyone else was probably asleep. I went to one of the bookshelves and started scanning the names, looking for anything familiar. I searched for my favorite author, Stephen King, and finally found a book of his. It was a very well read copy of The Shining, but it was exactly what I needed. I took it back to my room and read through the first few pages. I couldn't focus on the book so I gave up and decided to try to rest. I put the book in my suitcase and laid down. Jenner wouldn't miss just one little book, would he?

The next morning I got dressed and headed to breakfast. I got there as Glenn was swearing off drinking and T-Dog was serving eggs. I don't remember how many times I've swore never to drink again. It's never stuck. I sat down and ate eggs and bacon with orange juice and it felt wonderful. My head was pounding but it would stop soon.

Daryl walked into the kitchen not long after I sat down. Everyone was talking to Jenner but I didn't pay attention. When Daryl sat down he looked at me and smirked. That made me feel better. He didn't feel weird or hate me about what happened last night after all.

After everyone was full we followed Jenner into the big room filled with the boxy looking computers. He stood in front of a big screen at the end of the room and spoke.

"Give me playback of TS-19."

"Playback of TS-19." Vi responded.

Pictures of what I'd guess were brains were loading on the screen.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this." Jenner told us.

On the screen now was a silhouette of a human face, then the skull, then the brain.

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked him.

"An extraordinary one." Jenner answered. "Not that it matters in the end." He added. "Take us in for EIV." He told Vi.

"Enhanced Internal View." Vi responded.

The human head and brain turned sideways on the screen, so it looked like the person was laying horizontally. The picture zoomed into what looked like millions of tiny blue wires constantly lighting up and dimming.

"What are those lights?" Shane asked him.

"It's a person's life, experiences, memories. It's everything." He answered. "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique and human."

Daryl crossed his arms. "You don't make sense, ever?"

I let out a small laugh.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses 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." Jenner said.

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asked.

"Yes." Jenner answered. "Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" Asked Andrea.

"Test Subject 19." Jenner said. "Someone who was bitten and infected... and volunteered to have us record the process. Vi scan forward to the first event."

The image on the screen changed. Most of the wires were still blue, but some were turning black. The black spread.

"What is that?" Glenn asked.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs."

The person on the screen coughed a few times, then the brain darkened. The test subject was dead.

"Then death." Jenner said. "Everything you ever were or will be... gone."

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked Carol.

"Yes." She answered her.

Everyone who had lost someone recently was shedding tears. Myself included.

"She lost somebody two days ago." Lori told Jenner, talking about Andrea. "Her sister." She said in a whisper.

"I lost somebody too." He said approaching Andrea. "I know how devastating it is." He turned back to the computer screen. "Scan to the second event. The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."

The dark brain on the screen started to light up again. Only this time instead of blue, the wires lit up red. They didn't spread as far as the blue did either.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.

"No, just the brain stem." Jenner answered."Basically it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick asked.

"You tell me." Jenner said, gesturing to the screen.

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick answered.

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part. That doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."

A flash happened on the screen. The brain was now divided, a gash dividing to halves.

"God. What was that?" Carol asked.

"He shot his patient in the head." I answered. "Didn't you?"

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations." Jenner said

The big screen and all of the boxy computers shut off.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asked with panic.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." The Doc answered.

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui added

"There is that." Jenner said.

"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere" Andrea said.

"There are other facilities, right?" Carol asked.

"There may be some. People like me." Jenner told us.

"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner informed him.

"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing?" Andrea asked. "That's what you're really saying, right?"

"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl said rubbing his face with his hands.

I walked over to Daryl and laid my hand on his back. Trying to reassure him that we would still kick the world's ass.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... that clock. It's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asked.

"The basement generators, they run out of fuel." Jenner said.

"And then?" Rick asked.

Dr. Jenner didn't answer, he just walked out. Which led me to believe that was not all that would happen.

"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asked the AI.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi answered.

Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog rushed off to the basement hoping to find what exactly Vi meant by decontamination. I went back to my room and packed up my stuff hoping that I didn't really need to. I went back to the rec room to look at the books when I finished.

Daryl was there when I walked in. He was looking around at everything. I didn't say anything to him, I just walked to a bookshelf and started grabbing books that looked like they'd be worth reading. Daryl walked up behind me and watched me grab as many books as I could carry.

"Book thief." Daryl said, then laughed.

"Is a very good book."

"Wait. There's a book called Book Thief?"

"The Book Thief, but yes. If I find it here, I'll read it to you someday."

"Why are you taking so many?"

"Because knowledge is power."

"Jess."

"Mmhhmm?"

"What's wrong?"

"Judging by the look on Jenner's face decontamintaion is not good. So in case my judgement was right, I'm gonna grab as many books as will fit in my suit case. So that when we get out of here I'll have books to read. I missed my books."

"What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure, but I'd like to get out of here before I find out."

"I'm with you on that one."

When I had all that would fit in my bag I started down the hall to my room, Daryl followed. In the hall I noticed the air conditioner shut off and the lights dimmed. The generator must be almost empty. I picked up the pace and shoved the books into my suitcase. Daryl stayed in the doorway, looking down the hall.

Dr. Jenner must have been walking through because everyone was asking questions.

"Energy use is being prioritized." He answered them.

"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale asked.

"It's not up to me. Zone five is shutting itself down." Jenner said.

All the lights were turning off as we walked down the hallway, following Jenner.

"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Daryl asked him. When Jenner didn't answer Daryl ran up to him. "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." Was all Jenner said.

As we were headed down to the computer room Rick and the others that went down to the basement came running in.

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked in a serious tone.

"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half hour mark. Right on schedule." He said pointing at the large clock on the wall.

The clock was at 31:28 and going down.

"It was the French." Jenner said.

"What?" We 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 their labs to the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jenner answered us.

"What happened?" Jacqui inquired.

"The same thing that's happening here." Jenner responded. "No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"

"Let me tell you-" Shane started to say.

"To hell with it. I don't care." Rick interrupted. "Lori, grab our things. Every body, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!"

Before I could run back to my room an alarm started blaring. A counter came up on the big screen at the end of the room. It was counting down from 30 minutes.

"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi said.

"Doc what's going on here, damn it?" Daryl yelled.

Jenner messed with a keypad on a desk and the alarm stopped.

"Everybody, ya'll heard Rick. Get your stuff and let's go! Go now! Go!" Shane yelled at us.

Before we could make it to the hallway the doors closed.

"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn asked in a panicked tone. "He just locked us in!"

Jenner sat down at a computer. Daryl did what I was debating on. He ran at Jenner, a mostly empty alcohol bottle in his hand.

"You son of a bitch! You locked us in here!"

It took two people to keep Daryl from smashing the bottle over Jenner's head.

"Hey Jenner, open that door now." Rick said, trying a calmer approach.

"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner replied.

"Well open the damn things." Dale said.

"That's not something I control. The computers do." Jenner informed us. "I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that."

"We didn't know you meant forever you son of a bitch!" I yelled at him, no longer to control my panic or my rage.

"It's better this way." Jenner said.

"What is?" Rick demanded. "What happens in 28 minutes?"

Jenner didn't respond.

"What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick yelled.

"Do you know what this place is?!" Jenner yelled back. 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!" He sat down and put a cap on his rage. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"HITs?" Rick inquired.

"Vi, define." Jenner ordered.

"HITs. High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist 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 at between five thousand and six thousand degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structure is desired." Vi's computerized voice told us.

"It sets the air on fire. No pain." Jenner added. "An end to sorrow, grief... regret. Everything."

Daryl was enraged. Everyone else was too. Daryl took the mostly empty bottle he was going to use on Jenner's head and instead threw it at the door. It busted against the steel.

"Open the damn door!" Daryl screamed.

Shane ran up the ramp to the door with a large ax.

"Out of my way!" He yelled as he charged the door.

Glenn tossed Daryl a second ax and they both beat on the steel door as hard as they could. They finally gave up after they couldn't make a dent.

"Those doors are made to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner told us.

Daryl charged at him. "Well your head ain't."

This time it took three people to keep Daryl away and I had to get the axe out of his hands. I walked away with him, trying to keep him calm enough to keep from killing Jenner. As much as I wanted him to die, he can't let us out if he's dead.

I heard a shotgun cock. Shane was approaching Jenner with it. Rick tried to stop him but he couldn't. Shane pointed the shotgun in Jenner's face.

"You open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you understand me?!" Shane yelled.

Rick tried to talk Shane out of shooting Jenner. Shane screamed then fired shots off at the computers surrounding us. Rick wrenched the shotgun out of his hands and knocked him to the floor.

"Are you done now? Are you done?" Rick asked Shane, holding the butt of the shotgun over his face.

"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane responded.

Rick handed the shotgun off to T-Dog then turned to Jenner.

"I think you're lying."

"What?" Jenner asked.

"You're lying." Rick repeated. "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." Jenner replied.

"It does matter. It always matters." Rick told him. "You stayed when others ran. Why?"

"Not because I wanted to." Jenner said. "I made a promise. To her." He pointed at the big screen. "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? She was dying. It should have been me on that table."

Daryl took the ax from my hands and started hitting the door again.

Jenner continued on. "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."

"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's all we want, a choice." Rick told him.

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori pleaded.

"I told you topside is locked down. I can't open those." Jenner punched in some numbers on the key pad, the door opened.

As soon as the door was open Daryl ran back to grab my hand. He hauled ass back to the door, dragging me with him. We ran out of the room and down the hallway, not looking back. I grabbed my bag and weapons from my room and followed everyone up the stairs to the surface level.

Immediately everyone started banging against the doors, but they wouldn't open. Shane and Daryl took their axes to the huge windows, trying to break them. Shane shot the window with a shot gun, still nothing. Carol was searching through her bag.

"Rick I have something that might help."

"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it." Shane retorted.

"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket." Carol dug through the backpack and pulled out a fucking grenade.

Rick took it and went for the windows. Everyone ran for the other side of the room and got down on the floor. I put my hands over my ears and waited for the boom. The explosion worked. The window shattered and we all climbed out. Daryl grabbed my hand again and we ran for his truck taking out walkers along the way. Once we were in the truck I held onto his hand tightly and waited for the explosion. Before anything happened Daryl pushed me down on the seat and laid on top of me. Trying to shield me from the blast.

Then it happened. Flames shot out of the building accompanied by an earth shaking explosion. The entire building was laid to waste in just a few minutes. We sat up and watched black smoke and flames rise towards the sky from the rubble.

We left just a few minutes later, not wanting to stick around any longer. I watched the massive cloud of black smoke from the side view mirror of the truck as we drove away, thankful that we made it out.