The second mattress is an eyesore. It catches his eyes the way a corpse would—rather, the way a corpse would have before they scattered the streets in hordes. So the next time Bill's camping out at the old church, he drags Frank's old bed outside and sets it alight. He supposes he should feel good about it, feel some sort of catharsis, but he doesn't.

It still prickles on his conscience that he couldn't give Frank any sort of burial. Stupid, sure, and it's presumptuous to treat his old partner any different from all of the other dead. It's not like Frank died asking any favors from him. Maybe if the note had been an apology…

Bill's got an unnaturally sharp memory, something that helped him breeze through school with ease. He looks back with unbridled scorn on his adolescent dreams of becoming an engineer. He'd even been fucking optimistic enough to dream that he'd get to work on something big, maybe for the military, maybe even for NASA. Then he'd ended up working in a shop, doing car repairs. The dull monotony of every day had made him wish that something exciting would happen. And how his prayers had been answered.

It's this sharp memory that lets him remember every word exchanged during his last night with Frank. They were arguing, as was usual in those last days, with Frank desperately trying to persuade Bill to leave. Frank was extremely genial, always a peacekeeper, so every swear from his usually couth mouth was a sign that he was serious.

"You really want to die here, like this? Your fucking bombs aren't going to keep them away forever! All it takes is one slipup, and then you're just another monster running around with your head turned to mushrooms!"

"So you'd rather take your chances out in the goddamned wild? You want to get murdered by a gang of hunters? Or—no! Let me guess! You want to go to Boston and join the military! I'm sure the rations will be great before you're blown up by the Fireflies!"

"What's the use of even being alive if we're stuck here, day after day? You roam the perimeter, you set your traps, you clean up. Aren't you tired, Bill? Aren't you bored? There's more to life than sitting in a cage!"

"Yeah? You want to go that badly? Go. Get yourself killed. Hell, see the motherfucking world! I'm sure you'd love the view of the Grand Canyon before some clicker pushes you over the edge!"

The trouble is that Frank's right. Bill doesn't have his horizons set any further than Lincoln. Survival's become its own goal. And somehow, despite its repetitiveness, despite the endless blood and gore and danger, the search for ever-dwindling supplies, Bill doesn't mind too much. There's a part of him, even, that enjoys it. He's good at surviving. He's taught himself to handle a bow and a gun. He's working on building a flamethrower, and every week presents an idea for a new bomb. He's the king of his little territory, thriving on nothing but gut instinct. Kill or be killed. The rule of the wild.

He doesn't usually give any of this that much thought. But ever since Joel and that brat came through, the quiet has been a little more unbearable than usual.

He gets up in the morning and tries not to remember his dreams. Who the hell has pleasant dreams anymore? Not him. Then he tries to ignore the now-conspicuous space where Frank's mattress used to be. Who'd have thought that its absence would prove to be just as annoying as its presence?

He still needs to assemble that next shipment for Tess. He can't wait to see her, interrogate her about why she's sending Joel cross-country with some childish nuisance. His load has been remarkably good, especially since he managed to smuggle several new bottles of pills while on the far side of town. So he puts on his gear and sets out to check his traps and go scavenging in the houses he hasn't yet cleared. They're marked on the map, plain and simple, impossible to fuck up.

The routine feels a little more tired with each day after his discovery of Frank's corpse. His feet start to drag, and he starts to feel fatigued even after a full night's sleep. It never happened before, but now the drive is seeping out of him. When he goes hunting, it's reluctantly, and he doesn't derive the enjoyment he used to from it.

"This one's you, Frank," he mutters, slicing the head off a trapped runner to stop its screeching. "You're as noisy as that, anyway."

His old partner's voice rings clearly in his head as he recalls Frank's suicide note.

I'd rather be dead than spend another day with you.