Day 99

It is a sad day for me today, I woke up and forgot about everything for a split second before my brain switched on and I realised I was alone, again. In the start, Steve tried to hold out as best he could, first by trying to hide that he was infected, but by yesterday it was impossible, he lost all colour in his face, his eye sockets had sunk and started to go dark too. If it wasn't for his visual appearance giving it away, it was the constant vomiting, coughing and clutching his head in pain. I sat there and said "Stop trying to deny it, you know you are infected, I know you are infected so lets stop trying to cover it up." He then tried to grab at straws, in his own desperation trying anything he could to stay in the flat. First he said he was fighting it as hard as he could and was not going to turn into one of those things, which I knew was futile as no person can ever fight the virus for long, no matter how strong the will power. Then he  tried to justify that by throwing him out was murder, when he was still alive, and that he had no way of defending himself when he couldn't even climb off the sofa. He then tried the classic "I thought we were friends" line to save himself. We had only known each other for a short amount of time, had more differences than anything in common and to be fair if we had bumped into each other before this happened, we probably wouldn't have given a second glance. To be fair if I were in his position I too would probably think of any excuse possible to stay within the house. However, by the afternoon, his breathing got deep and shallow, he turned to me, paused for a second and began to talk.

"I'm not going to fight this am I? I can feel the infection swelling in my head, fighting against my urges to resist it. I can't take the pain anymore and I don't want to turn into one of those. I need you to kill me while I am still me, while I'm still human."

I didn't know what to say or do, I didn't want this moment to arrive, but to ensure my own survival, know it has to be done. He said that he didn't want to see it coming or to feel it so he was taking a bunch of sleeping tablets and as soon as he is in a deep sleep, I needed to do it, quick and painless. The only real option I had was either beating his skull with a maglite (again) a hammer or my pistol. I had seen enough gore and leaky brain leakage to send me over the edge, from being hit around the skull, not to mention if I didn't hit the right place hard enough the first time, he could wake up and suffer while I had to continue crushing his skull in. That is no way to die and its not quick if done wrong. I was lucky with Robyn because she was already dead when I used the maglite on her, so there was no real suffering. Then I had an idea, I was going to use the gun, however I needed to find a way to muffle the loud noise. It didn't come with a silencer so I had to make one of my own.
I found an old empty plastic bottle of coke, this was perfect, and after checking the drawer I came across some duct tape, I now had my one shot disposable silencer. I put the nozzle of the pistol into the empty bottle, I then wrapped the tape around the gun, creating an airtight closure inside the bottle. This way when fired the loud bang of the gun would be kept within the bottle until the bullet crashed out the end, by which time the noise would have faded out. Of course this only works once, but once was all I needed. Steve was lying asleep on the sofa, I didn't particularly want to see his head open up in front of me so I placed a pillow over his face, then rested the bottle on the pillow. I took a deep breath, looked away and pulled the trigger. The silencer worked, it made a very weird 'PHUT!' noise, but it wasn't loud enough to alert any other zombies. A small cloud of feathers blew out from the pillow, Steve's body twitched violently, then his muscles relaxed.
I went into my bedroom and collapsed on the bed, I just lay there making no sound feeling like rock bottom. I was alone, again. I hated being alone because it sent me mad, Steve was there and having company made everything better, now like Robyn, he was gone too. The only good thing to come out of this was the food was going to last longer, however I didn't deserve any of it, Steve made all the sacrifices, he collected it and did all the work, I just kept my eye out, and a bad job that turned out to be. I haven't worked out what I'm going to do with Steve's body yet, for the moment I am just going to relax and enjoy the quiet.