Don't Leave Me

chapter Five

A blood test.

That was the price of admission from Dr. Edwin Jenner.

I hate needles, before my diagnosis, I was always at the doctors and they loved to stick me with needles.

Once the blood tests were done, we all went to the kitchen where we prepared a big feast.

Ever since we hit the road, we have been rationing our food and I didn't get to eat very much.

But now, here I was, sitting between Lori and Carl, shovelling food down my throat.

"Slow down, Andy." Lori lets out a laugh as she downs another glass of wine.

"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France." Dale announces as he sees Carl eyeing the wine in his mother's hand.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then," Lori tells them, ruffling Carl's hair.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on. Come on." Rick shrugs, clearly drunk.

Lori sighs and Carl gets his glass of wine.

I watch as he takes a sniff and scrunches up his nose.

He raises the glass to his lips and takes an experimental swig.

"Ew!" He exclaims, placing the glass of wine back onto the table.

"That's my boy," Lori says proudly.

"Can I try some?" I question, looking to Andrea who was on her third glass.

She shakes her head. "No, you can get side effects."

I frown. Stupid medicine.

"Okay." I continue to poke at my beans.

Rick stands up and clinks a knife onto his wine glass.

"It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly," Rick announces.

"He is more than just our host," T-dog says.

"He's our hero," I tell them.

Jenner looks towards me with a confused expression on his face.

Glasses clink to the toast as everyone takes another sip of wine.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc? All the-the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?" Shane questioned causing the mood to drop.

"We're celebrating, Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick tries to keep the party going, not wanting to stop.

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move-supposed to find all the answers. Instead we- we found him. Found one man, why?" Shane looks from Rick to Jenner.

"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 started to explain with a heavy tone.

"Every last one?" Shane asked in disbelief.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Jenner sighed, taking another sip of wine.

"You didn't leave. Why?" Andrea questioned.

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

"You did," I speak up causing heads to turn towards me. "You saved us. If the dead came, I wouldn't have been able to run."

"Are you hurting?" Andrea questioned, standing up.