Rosalie doodled on a deposit slip with a ballpoint pen that had the smiling face of Rex, the Rex's Club Membership Warehouse mascot, on it. The doodle was of a person fending off a zombie attack with a gun, not that anyone buy Rosalie would be able to tell that from the drawing.
It had been three days since Tyrone said an intelligible word, and her fear of what she was going to have to do coupled with only having T'Nesha for company was driving her crazy. The thought of leaving the two of them and facing the zeds, bikers, and God knew what else out there on her own was looking better and better.
“I think he's gettin' better,” T'Nesha said, ringing out the washcloth that she had been rubbing on the unconscious man's forehead as he lay in his sleeping bag on the floor, “His head feels cooler. I think the drugs are startin' to work.”
Rosalie knew that this was wishful thinking; she had wished the same thoughts herself, but she knew that this was just the final stage of the virus. No one recovered from a zombie bite, at least not as far as she had heard before the TV stations stopped broadcasting.
She silently cursed the younger woman, practically a girl, really. Tyrone had been bit saving the useless girl from a zed. The deepest, darkest part of her wished that it had been T'Nesha that had been infected instead, but she kept thoughts like that between her and her diary.
The antibiotics didn't do a thing; in fact Rosalie half suspected that they had somehow sped along the infection. The two women watched over the last week as Tyrone's dark skin paled, his eyes clouded over, his skin burned with fever, and his breathing became labored. It wouldn't be long before he turned now.
Rosalie shook her head, “He's not getting better; he's dying.”
“Don't say that!” T'Nesha almost shrieked; her voice making Rosalie’s ears hurt in the small room. “Don't say he's dyin'.”
She loved him, Rosalie understood that, and she had even found him first, but she needed to accept facts. The next time he got up, he was going to try and kill them; at least he would unless she did something to stop it.
“You gonna kill him, I know you are,” T'Nesha said bitterly.
“I'm not going to let him become one of those things.”
“You wish it had been me! You wish I had been bit so that you could have Tyrone all for yourself!”
Rosalie had spent much of the time since she had met up with them, but especially over the last few days, wondering how T'Nesha had managed to survive so long when so many people who were more intelligent and better suited for the world's current situation had died. Hooking up with Tyrone had clearly been her saving grace because the woman seemed to have about as much sense as a suicidal lemming.
“I have no romantic interests in Tyrone, if that's what-”
T'Nesha cut her off, throwing her words back at her in a mocking tone, “I have no romantic interests! Why don't you just talk normal?”
Rosalie answered through clenched teeth, “I speak like someone who has an education. I'm sorry if not sounding like ignorant street-trash offends you.”
“Yeah, tha's right! You think I'm trash. You think I shoulda been the one got bit so you could shoot me instead!”
“I wish no one had been infected. I wanted us to get to that group in Berkeley that Tyrone heard about.”
“Nah, you want me dead,” T'Nesha reached under her sleeping bag and pulled out a very familiar looking black notebook. She opened the book, and started reading “Says it right here: why couldn't it have been T'Nesha instead? She's horrible, annoying, and she's probably going to get me killed too. Our chances of survival would have gone up expo...exponitially, or whatever the fuck that says, exponentally if she had been the one killed instead.”
T'Nesha ripped the page from the book, leaving roughly the bottom third of it still attached to the metal spiral that bound the pages together, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at Rosalie. The older woman bent down and picked the paper up.
Unfolding the piece of paper, Rosalie saw her own handwriting staring back at her. She had written this a couple of days ago while T'Nesha had been asleep. It did indeed say that she wished T'Nesha had been the one infected instead.
“Give me back the book,” Rosalie said as calmly as the anger inside her would allow, “That's private. You shouldn't be going through my stuff.”
“Yeah, you thought you were bein' all secret and shit about this, but I saw you writin' in it. I saw that you plan to murder Tyrone.”
“It's not murder; it's mercy.”
“Yeah, bullshit, that's why I took this too,” T'Nesha pulled out the revolver, and pointed it at Rosalie.
“You don't want to do this.”
“Yeah I do, you stuck-up bitch!” she replied, getting to her feet.
“T'Nesha, give me the gun. You're more likely to hurt yourself with it that you are me.”
“Not so long as I keep the end pointin' at you I'm not.”
“You can barely bring yourself to shoot a zed, why should I think you'll shoot me?”
“'Cause I don't like you.”
“You won't,” Rosalie said, trying to sound confident, taking a step towards the woman.
“Try me, bitch!”
Rosalie lunged forward, grabbing for the gun, and pushing it upwards. T'Nesha pulled the trigger, and the sound was like thunder as it bounced off the walls, but the bullet flew harmlessly into the ceiling.
As the women fought over the gun, neither noticed that Tyrone's chest had stilled as his breathing stopped. Neither of his companions were paying any attention to him as he passed.
Rosalie managed to turn the gun towards T'Nesha, straining the younger woman's wrist as she did. The gun fired again as T'Nesha's finger was forced back on the trigger. The bullet tore past her, grazing her neck on its way through her hair; a survivable injury, but enough pain and surprise to make her release her hold on the gun and fall backwards onto her sleeping bag.
Turning the gun on the younger woman, Rosalie started to back towards the door, “My diary, you little skank, give it to me, and I'll leave. You can have Tyrone all to yourself until he tries to eat your face off.”
Tears flowed from T'Nesha's eyes; pain coupled with fear. She looked up at the barrel of the revolver, and the look of fear on the older woman's face.
“You gon' kill me now?” she asked, her voice cracking.
Looking down on the girl, Rosalie felt a moment of pity. Tyrone would resurrect and probably kill her. Even if she managed to escape from him, there was no way she could survive on her own. It was too late to turn back now though; the girl had forced her hand, and there was no coming back from it.
“Not unless you force me to. Give me the diary.”
T'Nesha moved slowly, picking the book up from the floor next to her sleeping bag, and held it out towards Rosalie.
“Just toss it towards me.”
T'Nesha tossed the book, it landed a few inches from Rosalie's feet.
Without taking the gun off of T'Nesha, Rosalie stooped down and picked it up. Returning to her full height, she looked over and saw that Tyrone's eyes were fluttering.
“If you're smart, you'll kill him now; before it's too late,” Rosalie said, opening the door leading out into the back area of the warehouse store. She turned quickly, and disappeared into the darkness.
T'Nesha turned to look at Tyrone as he started to sit up, and a smile broke out on her face, “I knew it was working, how are you feeling?” she asked as relief flooded through her.
Rosalie burst through the exit at the back of the building, leaving the smell of rotting food behind for the smell of decomposition that clung to the world on a bright, spring day. As she ran towards the street she thought she heard T'Nesha's screams echo through open doorway.