No Tomorrow

.

*4 Months Later*

"Roll him over, roll him over!"

I flipped the young man over in his bed and Hershel shoved a breathing tube down into his throat before smacking my hands away and attaching a bright blue bag to the thing, within seconds of him pumping at the bag the boy stopped thrashing around and just twitched in place.

"Thank you for helping Belle, but I think it's time for you to go. Glenn is in the cell at the very end, this one should be the last one if you don't mind checking in on him before you leave."

"Sure, I don't mind."

I pulled the latex gloves from my hands and left them on a box before I left the cell at the top level and carefully made my way down to the very end on the left, a few people were still sick with meager coughing spells and fevers but it wasn't as bad as it was three weeks ago. A really bad sickness had swept through the prison and caused a lot of our people to die as their immune systems shut down, but the genes in my body were immune to whatever it was. Neither Jay or myself got sick but I knew where he'd be, Holly was one of the very last ones to fall sick but her body was shutting down slower then the others; I knew he'd be in the cell with her in this part of the prison as he had been since she first fell sick. By the time I reached Glenn's cell I propped myself against the door jam with my right shoulder; he was laying in the little cot bed with a thin sheen of sweat all over his skin and Maggie was sitting on an overturned milk crate at his side, holding one of his hands.

"Hey...how is he feeling?"

".....been better, what are you still doing in here?"

I pointed to the floor with my left hand and wiggled my ring finger for emphasis.

"Jay's down there and I thought I'd check in on a few of you before Hershel leaves with Michonne in a bit, something about some herbs or whatever in the forest for the people still coughing..."

Low pitched sobs reached my ears and I turned around with a quick jerk before walking over to the edge of the railing and launching myself over the metal bar, super hero style; landing on the balls of my feet on the concrete floor below. Jay had tears streaming down his face and I could see him shaking Holly roughly by her shoulders but I didn't need to be any closer to know that it was too late, blood was caked around her mouth and eye sockets and her head just flopped around uselessly like a ragdoll's.

"No, n o!"

I brought a few fingers up to my mouth and whistled before I entered the cell and put a hand tentively on Jay's wide back, he shook her around again but I knew that she was dead; I couldn't hear her heartbeat anymore.

"Jay, come on- she's dead. You know what we have to do before her body reanimates."

"No!"

He let her body flop back down onto the bed and whirled around in a sudden fit of anger, grabbing me by the throat and slamming my body so hard into the wall that the air left my lungs in a sudden whoosh of air.

"She can't be dead, you're not going to touch her!"

He growled, and I waved a few people away from the door who'd walked down to see what all the noise was about; I dug a heel into the wall behind me and gripped the wrist close to my throat with both hands so I would have enough leverage to breathe. His brown eyes were blazing with fury and I knew he wasn't in the right state of mind, but so far he was keeping his form.

"Jay, come on...it's me, Belle...you k n o w me......and you know what'll happen to her if we don't put something through her brain."

His arm began to shake a little and tears leaked out of his eyes but he let me go before he started sobbing again, leaning in to smush his face into my chest before the worst of the sobs started; I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and motioned for one of the people near the door to come in. Two people came in weilding a metal cart and they made easy work of loading Holly's body onto it before they took her out, Jay eventually ran out of tears and turned his swollen red eyes to Holly's blood stained mattress.

"....she could have lived....I offered to change her, but she wouldn't do it...she said that she wanted to die human...my soul-mate is gone..."

He tried touching some of the blood stained into the fabric but he recoiled and shook his hand around in the air before he wiped it on one of her pillows, he touched a few pieces of her clothes that were draping from the top bunk and just sighed.

"...can we hunt or something? I need a distraction- I need to do something with my h a n d s.....I don't want to be here anymore."

I rubbed at my raw throat and tried to speak but my voice came out a little squeaky, I wanted to wince; he'd put enough pressure on me to damage my windpipes I could feel it.

"Sure- we shouldn't be here when they start the removal process anyway. I know just the place to help you."

Jay tore down all her clothing without really looking at them and crumpled them into a ball in the middle of the worst blood stain on the thin bed, and I pretended to not see the glint of a diamond crusted wedding band in the midst; if he wanted to talk about it I'm sure he would when he was ready.

After all, that's what partners are made for.