Poison [Rick Grimes]

0.3

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
-Benjamin Franklin

Gonzalez watched as Rick walked in between the trees. She was confused when he had told her that he had an old friend to visit. Actually, she didn't really care, but it did catch her interest for at least three seconds. Especially when a shot rang out.

Rick was met with a harsh glare when he got back to the car.

"What part of walkers being attracted to noise do you not understand?"

Gonzalez flared her nostrils at him. That gunshot just alerted everything walker within a mile of their current location. She had decided in that very moment that Rick was just as much of a dumbass as Shane. That wasn't a very good thing.

Rick glanced at her with an amused expression. Her hair that once flowed down to the middle of her back now barely reached the top of the letters of her gray T-shirt that read softball across her breasts. Gonzalez quickly pulled her thick hair into a ponytail as Rick chuckled at her.

"I'm sorry," he mused. He glanced at her again. "You cut your hair."

Gonzalez scoffed at his effort to change the subject. She pulled out a white fitted cap and placed it neatly on her head. Rick smiled at her cheekily.

"You look cute."

"And you look like your wife might be dead."

Rick's jaw clenched. He gripped the steering wheel tightly causing his biceps to flex and the veins in his arms to pop out. When Gonzalez noticed his knuckles turn white she raised and eyebrow at him.

"It was a joke," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Rick sighed angrily, "well I didn't laugh."

Gonzalez shrugged. "You weren't supposed to. It's called motivational humor. I think it's funny and you get angry enough to do something about it. Now are gonna find your family, or are just gonna let us be crowded by dead people? Because I prefer to live, if you don't mind."

Rick started the car and drove. His mind was in a bit of a hurricane, and he couldn't quite grip the fact that there were dead people walking amongst the earth. He couldn't understand that he shouldn't get his hopes up too high about his family being alive. They were probably dead. He surely did not comprehend the true seriousness of their situation. It was no longer life and death; it was life or death.

Gonzalez enjoyed the quiet. It gave her time to think, not that she thought much. She wasn't a dimwit or anything. In fact, she was extremely intelligent. So intelligent that everything seemed overbearingly obvious to her. She almost always knew what to do in almost every situation she came across. She was a problem solver. She didn't have to know why things happened, but she always had the perfect solution. It was common sense, except it wasn't as common as it should be.

The news said that there was deadly virus that turned people rabid. They turned aggressive and started to attack civilians. Gonzalez had prepared for this her entire life. There was no other explanation than zombies. That was just common sense to her.

Also common sense, when facing anything dangerous, zombie or no zombie, one should stay quiet and make no sudden movements. Discovery channel and every horror movie taught her that.

In a time of crisis, perhaps the apocalypse, laws are void in the eyes of society. It's good to keep a couple friends, but you should never trust anyone. Common sense.

When things between a group seem shady, when you're an outcast, and especially when you're surrounded by short tempered people, never piss anyone off. Common sense.