Chapter 7: The CDC Option
The morning after the attack dawned gray and sullen, mirroring Jake's mood as he sat beside Amy's covered body. Andrea hadn't moved from her sister's side all night, maintaining a vigil that bordered on the obsessive. Her rifle lay across her knees, and she'd made it clear that anyone who tried to take Amy away would get a bullet for their trouble.
Jake understood. Grief made people do impossible things, cling to hope when logic demanded acceptance. He'd tried to save Amy with powers that should have made him godlike, and he'd failed spectacularly. The taste of that failure still lingered in his mouth like copper and ash.
Around the camp, the survivors moved with the shell-shocked efficiency of people processing trauma. Ed Peletier was dead, torn apart near the RV while trying to flee instead of fight. The Morales family had decided to leave, convinced that Atlanta held nothing but death. They were packing their vehicle now, exchanging quiet goodbyes with people they might never see again.
Jake watched it all with growing dread. He knew what came next in the timeline—the debate, the decision, the journey to the CDC that would nearly kill them all. And he was powerless to stop it.
"We need to talk about our options," Rick announced, gathering the survivors around the smoldering remains of their campfire. His voice carried the weight of command, but Jake could see the exhaustion beneath it. Leadership in a dead world aged people fast.
Shane stood at Rick's shoulder, his face hard with barely controlled aggression. The deputy's eyes kept flicking toward Jake with undisguised suspicion. The night's events had shaken everyone, but Shane seemed particularly disturbed by Jake's display of... whatever it had been.
"Fort Benning's still on the table," Shane said. "Military base, fortified position, maybe some survivors holed up there."
"Maybe," Dale countered, adjusting his fishing hat against the morning sun. "But it's a long shot. Most bases were probably overrun in the first wave."
Glenn shifted nervously, his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. "What about the CDC? Centers for Disease Control. If anyone has answers about what's happening, it'd be them, right?"
Jake's blood turned to ice. The CDC. Of course. He'd been dreading this moment since arriving at the camp, knowing it was inevitable but hoping somehow they'd choose differently.
"I have to stop this. I have to make them understand it's a trap."
"The CDC might have information," Jake said carefully, testing the waters. "But it could also be dangerous."
The words came out normally, no scrambling or voice distortion. His heart leaped with hope.
"Dangerous how?" Rick asked.
Jake took a breath and tried to push further. "The CDC is—"
His throat closed up. The words became thick, gummy, refusing to form properly. He tried again, forcing each syllable: "The... greedy... is... oranges!"
Several people stared at him in confusion. Lori frowned with concern. "Jake, are you feeling alright? You're not making sense."
"The building will explode! Everyone inside will die! Jenner's lost his mind and he's going to take us all with him!"
But what came out was: "Vee gilding pill plode! Very slide pill die! Nerd lost find ill take bull ith dim!"
Shane stepped forward, his hand moving instinctively toward his weapon. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Jake pressed his hands against his temples, feeling the familiar crushing pressure that accompanied his speech block. The entity that had sent him here was making sure he couldn't warn them directly, couldn't change the timeline through simple exposition.
"Heat stroke," Dale suggested kindly. "He's been through a lot. We all have."
"I'm fine," Jake managed, the words coming easier now that he wasn't trying to reveal forbidden knowledge. "Just... tired. The CDC might not be our best option, that's all."
Rick studied him with those sharp cop eyes, clearly sensing there was more to Jake's reaction than simple fatigue. "Why not?"
Jake groped for an explanation that wouldn't trigger his limitations. "Gut feeling. Something about it feels... wrong."
It was weak, pathetically so, but it was all he could manage. The cosmic gag order was absolute when it came to specific future knowledge.
The debate continued around him, voices rising and falling as the group weighed their options. Fort Benning offered the promise of military resources but was far away and uncertain. The CDC was closer, more concrete, offering the hope of answers and possibly a cure.
Hope. That was the killer. These people had lost so much, seen such horror, that they desperately needed something to believe in. The CDC represented the possibility that science could explain what was happening, could provide solutions, could restore some semblance of order to their shattered world.
Jake wanted to scream.
"I say we vote," Rick decided finally. "All in favor of Fort Benning?"
Three hands went up: Shane, Dale, and Jake.
"CDC?"
The rest of the group raised their hands. Glenn, T-Dog, Lori, Carl, Carol, Sophia, Jacqui, even Daryl after a moment's hesitation. They were choosing hope over pragmatism, dreams over survival.
They were choosing death.
"CDC it is," Rick announced. "We'll leave in an hour. Pack light—we're running low on fuel as it is."
The group dispersed to break camp, but Jake remained sitting by the cold fire pit. His hands were shaking now, fine tremors that spoke of barely controlled panic. He'd failed. Failed to warn them, failed to protect them, failed to change anything at all.
"They're going to die because of this decision. Not all of them, but some. And I'll have to watch it happen."
The thought was unbearable.
The convoy of vehicles crawled through the Georgia countryside like a funeral procession, which Jake supposed it was in a way. They were driving toward their own deaths, led by hope and ignorance in equal measure.
Jake rode in Dale's RV, squeezed between supply boxes and the suffocating weight of his own foreknowledge. Every mile that passed brought them closer to the CDC, closer to Jenner's madness, closer to the countdown that would nearly end them all.
The frustration built in his chest like pressure in a sealed container, rising and rising until it demanded release. His fist crashed into the RV's paneled wall with enough force to split his knuckles open. Blood welled from the cuts, bright red against his pale skin.
"WHY CAN'T I JUST TELL THEM?!"
The words exploded from him like a primal scream, raw with anguish and fury. He hit the wall again, harder, leaving a smear of crimson on the fake wood paneling.
"Jake?" Carol's voice was soft, concerned. She appeared from the front of the RV, Sophia close behind her, both wearing expressions of alarm.
"Why?" Jake whispered, his voice breaking. Blood dripped from his knuckles onto the floor. "Why can't I warn them? Why can't I save them?"
Carol knelt beside him without hesitation, her arms encircling him like a mother comforting a wounded child. "Shh, honey, it's okay."
"It's not," Jake sobbed against her shoulder. "It's really not. People are going to die, and I can't stop it. I can't even try."
She didn't understand—how could she? But she held him anyway, one hand stroking his hair while she murmured wordless comfort. Sophia watched with wide eyes, too young to comprehend the depth of Jake's anguish but old enough to recognize genuine pain.
"I know the script. I just can't read my lines. Every tragedy that's coming, every death that could be prevented, and I'm muzzled like a rabid dog. What's the point of having foreknowledge if I can't use it to help anyone?"
The internal monologue threatened to consume him, a spiral of self-recrimination and helpless rage. He was a god in chains, a prophet with his tongue cut out, a doctor forbidden to heal.
Carol held him until the shaking stopped, until the tears dried up, until the rage collapsed into hollow exhaustion. She didn't ask for explanations or demand answers. She simply offered comfort to someone who needed it, expecting nothing in return.
It was more than Jake deserved.
When the convoy stopped for gas at an abandoned station, Daryl appeared at the RV's door with a strip of jerky and a expression of casual concern.
"You look like hell," the tracker observed, settling onto the ground beside Jake with his crossbow across his knees.
"Feel worse," Jake admitted.
Daryl chewed his jerky thoughtfully, pale eyes scanning the treeline out of habit. "You got some kinda sense about danger, don't ya? Like back at the quarry with the geeks."
Jake nodded miserably. There was no point in denying it—Daryl had seen too much, understood too much.
"Can't explain it?"
Jake shook his head.
"Then don't." Daryl's voice was matter-of-fact, devoid of judgment. "I trust your gut. If you think this CDC thing's a bad idea, that's good enough for me."
The simple acceptance hit Jake like a physical blow. Here was someone willing to trust him without demanding explanations, without needing to understand the mechanics of his knowledge. It was a gift more precious than gold.
"Thanks," Jake whispered.
Daryl shrugged. "Everybody's got secrets now. Long as yours helps us live, I don't need to know what they are."
If only it were that simple. If only Jake's secrets could help them live instead of forcing him to watch them die.
The convoy rolled on toward Atlanta, toward the CDC, toward the ticking clock that would nearly end them all. And Jake sat in the RV, surrounded by people he cared about, counting down to their potential doom while his voice remained locked in his throat.
The entity that had granted him his powers had been thorough. It had given him the ability to save lives and the knowledge to prevent disasters, then made sure he could use neither when it mattered most.
It was the perfect torture: omniscience coupled with impotence, foresight paired with silence.
Jake closed his eyes and tried not to think about what was waiting for them in Atlanta.
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