Hey there, look who just came back from the grave! Rachel, yes. And me too! I'm so sorry it took me so long to update, but I've been, em, "blessed" with such a ridiculous amount of work for the past couple months it's been tough to find time to write. And now you be like, "After all those months, and he comes back with such a short chap? Is he serious?" Well, worry not my friends, to thank you for your patience I'll post the next chapter on Monday!

TW: graphic description of a corpse, it's kinda gory, nudity and mentions of nasty Dark Room stuff.

There was mud on the roof over the garage of the Price-Madsen household, a wet slimy trail that ran from the edge to Chloe's room's windowsill. And the window was open. Chloe's heart skipped a bit.

"She's here!" she half-shouted, half-whispered as the three of them stood on the dark, silent street in front of the house. "Fuck, we found her!"

"Holy shit, she actually got inside?" Victoria asked. "Did… did she hurt Joyce and David?"

"Wouldn't mind if she made herself some dinner out of Stepdouche," the punk snorted, "but nah, I can hear them just fine. They're talking about the weird shit that happened, apparently the TV went crazy and Step-dildo's penis substitute – I mean his muscle car – started acting up, and they still don't know how to explain that. Other than that, everything seems okay."

"So she managed to sneak into your room unseen and unheard?"

Chloe shrugged: "Vampires, Chase. We're very good at sneaking into places. You would've found that out by now, if it weren't for that sanctum shit."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Victoria frowned.

"Girls, can we please stay on track?" Max intervened. "Talking about sanctums, how did she manage to get in uninvited?"

"I dunno," the bluenette said, then she mused: "You know, I managed to sneak in uninvited, I guess it's because, well, I lived there so technically, it's still my home, you see? Rachel, she… Mom liked her, and she made sure she always felt welcome here. It was like her second home, so… probably why the sanctum doesn't apply. Shit, I wonder why I didn't think about it sooner. I mean, obviously she'd try to come here sooner or later. Stupid, stupid Chloe!"

"Don't beat yourself up," Max comforted her with a gentle touch. "Sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss."

"Yeah, you're probably right, Maximus. Come on, let's go. Can't wait to see her!"

And the vampire punk made a dash to the driveway and from there, flickered to the roof. She was already inside her room when Max and Victoria reached the garage. The brunette gently took her girlfriend in her arms.

"Gonna fly again?" Victoria asked with a bit of apprehension.

"No, I'm still too drained for that. But I can jump."

Victoria tensed and made sure she had a solid grip around Max's neck as the brunette made the jump and landed them safely on the roof. The blonde alighted, trembling a little, and blushed when she realized she was starting to like those adrenaline rushes.

Silently, the girls entered Chloe's room. The place was in the dark, but the moonlight and streetlamps hit the windows in such a way that, even with her puny human vision, Victoria could clearly make out Chloe sitting on the edge of her bed, gently stroking the hair of a female figure curled up next to her. Chloe's eyes glimmered in the moonlight, and the look in her eyes was one of intense concern and absolute devotion for the corpse-girl laid at her side. As they slowly, almost ceremoniously drew nearer, the girls could hear a regular hollow, raspy wheeze coming from the body. Chloe looked at them.

"It's her," she whispered, her eyes sparkling with joy. "Fuck we did it, Max, we brought her back for real!"

"Is she… okay?" Max asked.

At this question, the joy in the punk's eyes faded to make way for anxiety. "She doesn't look okay," she whispered, her throat tight. "Look at her."

And the girls drew nearer. They had just reached the foot of the bed when Victoria had a clear view on Rachel, and the dreadful sight made her draw back with a loud, high yelp just before she covered her mouth in sheer, eye-bulging terror.

"Fuck, Chase!" Chloe scolded her. "My mom's gonna hear you!"

"Tori, what's wrong?" Max asked her with concern, laying her hands on her shoulders.

Still covering her mouth, Victoria shook her head to signal that she was sorry but she couldn't help. She would've said it clearly if she could, but the horror before her had stolen her voice, allowing only the scream to come out.

Rachel's body was almost naked, dressed in the flimsy tatters of what used to be a dress and caked with mud. Her body was a patchwork of yellowish, sick skin, deep, black-rimmed wounds revealing ruby-red pulsating muscles, and patches of gray, decaying flesh. Here, the skin of her thigh was absent and the ragged muscle fibers were laid bare, contracting and relaxing as she breathed in and out. There, it was a pair of ribs popping out of her side through a skin so thin and dark it looked like paper consumed by the flame of a candle. Her bare toes and clutched fingers were but ash-white claws. But that wasn't the vision of her pathetic, zombie-like body that had shocked Victoria the most.

It was her face.

Underneath Rachel's long, healthy blond hair, the right side of her face was the same sick yellowish hue as her body, so thin and parchment-like they could see the criss-cross of her blue veins running underneath. Her right hazel eye was open, staring in the dark of the room without seeing.

The left side of her face was skinless, an abominable white bare skull, her pink gums and tongue out in the open, the eye but an empty orbit, a void. Looking at this empty eye, Victoria found herself overwhelmed by other emotions, on top of her terror. An immense feeling of soul-crushing despair, topped by a bone-shaking hatred. Looking at Rachel made her want to hurt people. To hurt the people who had done this to her. If Mark Jefferson were here with them, right now, she felt she could rip his heart out of his chest with her own manicured hands.

The corpse-girl was doing nothing but breathe, taking deep, coarse inspirations and expiring in long death rattles. And with each of her breaths, her bare ribs came up and down, and her fangs extended and retracted, in as she breathed in, out as she breathed out.

In, and out.

In, and out.

The motion was as hypnotic in its regularity as the sight was sickening.

"What's wrong with her?" Chloe asked, raising her imploring eyes at Max. "Why is she like that? Like… she's not reacting at all. Did she come back… broken?"

Max pulled her friend in a tight hug.

"I don't know," she murmured, "but she looks much better than this morning already, don't you think?"

"I guess. But she's still not alright!"

Then Max studied the motion of the fangs. There was an undeniable sense of distress in this.

"Maybe…" she started, but then the door was flung open, startling the girls.

"Chloe! Max!" Joyce called as she stepped in. "And Victoria? What are you girls doing? We didn't even hear you come in, and then there was a scream and… what the hell is that?" the older woman gasped when she spotted the figure curled on the bed.

She drew closer to take a look, and she jumped back, literally jumped in her husband's arms, covering her mouth with her hands.

"No way!" she gasped from between her fingers.

"What is it?" David asked. "Honey, what's wrong? Who is this?"

"David, it's…" Joyce choked. "It's… it's Rachel Amber!"

"Rachel…" the man repeated slowly, confused. Then: "It can't be! Rachel Amber is dead!"

"So was I," Chloe snapped back.

"So you girls brought her back too?"

"Yes," Max explained, placing herself between Chloe and her stepfather to prevent any escalation. "We did it last night, we thought it didn't work and we were about to put her back to her grave when… she woke up."

"Victoria," a pale-faced Joyce asked, grabbing the blonde's arm with concern. "Are you a vampire too?"

"What? No, I'm a human, I… Max had just told me about all this when those… strange things happened, they had a feeling something bad was happening to their hideout so I went with them and… we looked for Rachel everywhere until we found her here."

"So she made it here by herself?"

"Yeah," Chloe sighed. "I think she was scared and looking for safety." Her throat tightened as she added: "Looking for me."

"Chloe, please let me see," David asked, gently shoving Max aside and stooping over the heaving figure.

"Good God!" he blurted out. "She looks like a zombie!"

"Yeah, but she's my zombie!" Chloe retorted, taking the corpse-girl in a protective embrace.

"We need to take her to the hospital!" the man declared.

"Guys," Max said, but no-one heard her.

"Fuck no!" his stepdaughter replied.

"We can't leave her like this!"

"Guys," Max repeated, again without success.

"And what are we gonna tell them? That she just walked out of her grave like this, can you do something about her please?"

"Well, no," David conceded, "but… I mean, look at her!"

"I know! And if I knew what the fuck I'm supposed to do, I'd fucking do it!"

"David's right," Joyce intervened, joining her husband, "we're in way over our heads and we need some help-"

"GUYS!" Max yelled this time, and finally, everyone shut up and listened. "I think she's starving."

"Starving?" Chloe asked with surprise. "But she's had, uh…"

"Yeah, I know, she drank a doe dry," Max cut her short. Better not mention Stella or Joyce and David would go nuts. "But look at her fangs, it really looks like she's desperate to bite something."

"So we can just drive back to the lair to get the pig blood?" Chloe asked.

"I can do this," Victoria offered, but Max shook her head.

"I'm not sure, I mean, she's had a whole doe and it didn't sate her, I think in her condition, animal blood may not cut it. I think she needs human blood."

The five people in the room stared at each other in turn, silently, none of them daring to speak. Finally, Joyce broke the silence:

"You said drinking blood has no consequence for the… donor?" she asked.

"Absolutely not," Max confirmed. "As long as we don't drink too much, of course."

"Okay," the older woman said quietly. Then she sighed, nodded, and rolled back the sleeve of her bathrobe. "Make sure you pull me out when I say so."

"Joyce!" David roared. "What are you doing?"

"What needs be done," she answered sternly.

She went to kneel in front of Rachel, but David grabbed her shoulder.

"You can't do that! This is… this is dangerous!"

"Honey, this is a girl who was – who is – my daughter's best friend, she has always been as much part of the family as Max, and she always will be. Now she needs my help, and I swear on everything I hold dearest, that no child shall ever go hungry in my house. Human or vampire. And if you have a problem with it, I suggest you find yourself another wife."

David shut his mouth and let her go. He knew her well enough to know she wasn't messing around when she used this tone.

Joyce knelt down and gently held Rachel's head in one of her hands, while she pressed her other arm against her gaping mouth.

"Come on beauty," she encouraged her. "Come on."

"Drink up, Buttercup," Chloe added, petting the living dead girl's hair. "Come on, you can do it."

Joyce hissed a little when she felt the sharp fangs pierce the skin of her forearm. Then she took a deep breath and tried to relax as Rachel drank voraciously. She had donated blood before, and the feeling was much the same actually: first nothing, and then, little by little, a sense of weakness and dizziness as her life was being sucked out of her.

"Enough," she gasped when she couldn't take it anymore, and Chloe pulled her out.

But Rachel protested. Angry at her meal being pulled away from her, the girl started gasping loudly and raised an arm to try and reach for the woman, her bloodied fangs coming in and out faster and more insistently than before.

"She's still hungry!" Chloe said.

"Honey," Joyce called, looking up to her husband. "Will you?"

The man blanched: "You can't be serious!"

"David, please!"

But the man froze, terrified at the prospect of giving himself up to feed… this…

Max lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. Startled, he looked at her, met her pleading blue eyes.

"Please," she whispered.

He shook his head, feeling his throat go sandpaper dry. What should he do? He looked at the decayed body that once was Rachel Amber again, and his gaze met Chloe's. The girl looked at him, and for the first time since they met, he saw in her eyes something other than wrath and contempt. She was pleading him. She was way too proud to plead openly, but her eyes were, so obviously it shook the man's resolve.

"Fine," he sighed, and rolled back his sleeve.

Once more Rachel fed until David said stop, and once more she begged for more, gasping and rattling and reaching out desperately. Max looked at Victoria. The blonde let out a hiccup of shock.

"Me?" she asked.

"I know how much I'm asking," Max soothed her, "and you don't have to do this, but…"

"But you don't have any other option?"

"Right."

Victoria sighed: "Okay, then…"

Trembling, she rolled back her sleeve and knelt down in front of Rachel, struggling to shut up the voices in her head that kept screaming at her to get the fuck away from this thing, as far away as you can! She raised her reluctant arm in front of the girl's mouth, and shut her eyes tight, biting her lower lip. The teeth against her delicate skin felt like a jolt of electricity, and it took all her patented Chase self-control to stay still and ignore the pain, ignore the fear, ignore the growing dizziness, ignore the growing delight… what?

Oh crap, I really am getting turned on by this. What the fuck?

After what felt like hours of this torture, she finally said she'd had enough and pulled back, all weak and flustered.

But Rachel was still hungry.

"Holy shit, it never ends!" Chloe moaned.

"And we're out of donors!" Max added. "What should we do now?"

For a short while, they all stared at each other in silence, each of them silently begging the others to come up with an idea while Rachel kept gasping and moaning. Then:

"Max, do you think vampires can drink other vampires' blood?" Chloe asked.

Startled, the brunette stuttered: "Huh? Oh, well, I… never thought about it… I dunno… never asked… but… I mean, we revived her with our blood, right? So I guess it can't hurt to try…"

"Let's do this, then," Chloe muttered as she placed her wrist between Rachel's teeth.

The blonde started drinking at once, swallowing gulp after gulp like she had not been fed for years. When Chloe got tired, Max took over, and when the brunette withdrew her arm, weak and reeling, they stared at Rachel's blood-soaked mouth, afraid she would beg for more, again.

It didn't happen.

With a wail like a tormented soul breaking out of Hell, Rachel tensed, her body arching with such violence everyone pulled back in silent awe. Then she slowly rose, as if lifted by invisible hands, and remained laid on thin air, a few inches over the bed.

"What the…" David whispered.

Then the girl's muscles appeared to throb and quiver, waving under her skin with disgusting mushy sounds. Blood and lymph began to ooze from her rotten wounds as her waving skin appeared to inflate, gorged with fluids.

"What's happening to her?" Chloe shrieked. "What the fuck?"

The bluenette stepped forward, reached out for Rachel, but Max held her back.

"Let me go! She needs help!"

"No, Chloe, wait! Look!"

And Chloe looked in the direction Max was pointing: Rachel's exposed ribs were now coated with congealed blood, and this crimson shell grew thicker as it pulsated, gaining a fibrous texture, until it took the recognizable pattern of muscles and tissues. The same phenomenon occurred on her hands and feet, and once those exposed bones were coated in fresh flesh, the skin began to crawl forward to colonize these new territories.

Joyce and David hugged each other for support. Victoria ran off to throw up in the toilets. Chloe and Max stared in awe at this nauseously mesmerizing sight for a couple more minutes, none of them daring to say a word or make a move anymore, until, at last, Rachel stopped screaming and she slowly floated down to the bed where she lay, panting. There were no more scars, no more exposed bones or muscles. The skin was no longer paper thin, yellow and dry, it was ghastly pale but otherwise plump, healthy. No longer a decaying husk, what they were contemplating now was the young, lively body of Rachel Dawn Amber.

And oh dog she was beautiful!

It was no wonder how Chloe had fallen for her, with her long golden hair, her delicate features, her absolutely flawless body built to be a model, and the way her round breasts, full of life, bounced up and down as she breathed…

Max, quit staring!

Trembling, Chloe took an uneasy step forward.

"Rach?" she asked.

She walked slowly around the bed and toward the head, bending down to try and have a look at Rachel's face. She drew back with a gasp. Max was right behind her to catch her and support her. She saw it too: everything but the right side of her face had grown back, leaving her with half the face of a beautiful teenager, the other half a bare, grimacing skull like a goddamn Batman villain. The girl jerked as though awakening from a nightmare, and stared at them with her two eyes, the left one wide open, the right one a lidless hazel eyeball.

"K… K… Chloe?" she quivered, her voice coarse and raspy. "Chloe… is that you?"

Max felt her friend throb in her arms, and as she looked up, she saw her face was bathed in tears.

"Rach!" Chloe broke down sobbing, breaking free from her friend's hold to throw herself on the bed and hug her dear friend. "Rach! Oh my God, oh my everloving fucking God! We made it! You're back! I can't fucking believe it, this must be the best day of my whole fucking life! You're back!"

Hesitant, with a lisp in her voice due to half the skin of her mouth being missing, Rachel asked:

"What's going on, Chloe? Am I… in your room? And why am I naked and so dirty? And…"

Upon seeing the others staring at her, Rachel promptly took a hold of the soiled bedsheets to cover herself.

"Shit, why is David here? And Joyce? And… who is this?" she asked, looking at Max.

"Okay, chill out, Rach," Chloe said softly, wrapping her friend's shoulders in her arms. "It's alright, I promise everything is alright. You're safe here, okay?"

Rachel nodded hesitantly. Blushing, David mumbled something about going to check on Victoria and left the room. Joyce followed a second later, after announcing she was making tea.

"Hi Rachel," Max said, smiling coyly at her as she sat on the bed so the girl had a better look at her. "I'm Max Caulfield. Nice to meet you at last. Chloe told me so much about you."

Surprised at how strangled her own voice sounded, Max passed a hand over her cheeks and realized she'd been crying too.

"Max Caulfield? The Max Caulfield? The one you always told me about?"

Chloe nodded. "The one and only," she said. "And we brought you back all thanks to her."

"Brought me back?" Rachel frowned. "From where? I don't…"

Then a sudden flash, like a knock over the head, overcame the blonde and she groaned as she grabbed her temples with force.

"What's wrong?" Chloe asked.

For all answer, Rachel gasped and yelled and started to thrash around the bed, and as Chloe and Max attempted to take a hold of her and calm her down, she cried out:

"The Dark Room! Holy shit, I remember! I was… Jefferson, he… he drugged me… kept me locked up in this bunker, took pictures… then he… he took me to the junkyard. I remember seeing him dig a hole, I was so scared but I couldn't do anything, I couldn't even move a finger! And then… and then… I… blacked out. I woke up back in the Dark Room, but Jefferson wasn't there, and I was in a coffin, I… I freaked out, I ran away, in the woods. It was dark, and cold. I don't remember much, it's kind of confused, all I remember is that I was looking for you, Chlo, and I couldn't find you! I was so terrified, all alone!"

"Shhh," Chloe soothed her, gently petting her hair. "It's okay, sweetie, it's okay. We found you. And we found Jefferson, and Nathan. They're locked up, they can't hurt you anymore. You're safe now, I promise."

Rachel let out a heavy sigh upon hearing this, and then she buried her head in Chloe's bosom and wept her soul out.

"It was so horrible!" she cried. "It was a nightmare!"

"I know, sweetie, I know. But it's over."

Uncomfortable, Max just sat and watched the two snuggle, eventually reaching out to lay a tentative hand on Rachel's arm.

Suddenly, the door opened, and right after came the sound of Victoria's voice:

"I heard crying, did she wake u-oh my goodness!"

Her face pale, her eyes sunken and wet from her recent sickness, Victoria froze dead in her track at the incredible and horrific sight. Immediately, the newly revived girl glared at her, her eyes flaring with scorn and barely-contained wrath, so intensely the rich girl took a step back and felt, for a split second, as though she was going to crap herself.

"The fuck is she doing here?" Rachel growled.

"Wait, Rachel, let me explain," Max said as she got up to stand by Victoria's side. "Look, I know you don't know me, and I know things have never been… the best, between you and Tori, but believe me, she's on your side now! She helped us find you."

Rachel scoffed: "Bitchtoria Chase doing something good? Okay, Jefferson killed me, right? And this is some kind of twisted dying dream?"

"No it's not," Max assured her. "You're pretty much alive, Rachel, and yes, Victoria is actually a good person. I know because…"

Victoria shivered as she felt Max's cold hand against hers, their fingers overlapping. She looked at her. Max smiled. She smiled back.

"She's my girlfriend," Max announced.

Rachel forgot how to breathe. Stunned, she looked at Chloe, and Chloe nodded softly at her, confirming that yes, this was real. So Rachel sighed.

"The fuck happened while I was gone?"

"It's a… long story," Chloe said. "Look, we'll fill you in later, cause there's a hell of a lot of things to talk about, but right now, you need to rest and recover, okay?"

"Tea!" Joyce chimed as she walked in, holding a tray with smoking mugs. "David is in the kitchen, making snacks. We figured we could use some food after all the blood we lost, don't you think Victoria?"

"Blood?" Rachel asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Oh, uh, she meant effort, all the effort looking for you. You know my mom always has those weird Southern phrases," Chloe intervened.

"Well, I-" Joyce started, feeling a little confused, but her daughter cut her off:

"That's what she meant, didn't she?"

She punctuated her question with that look that meant Shut up and play along, and fortunately Joyce took the hint:

"Of course, that's what I meant. Anyway, how are you feeling, Rachel?"

"A bit better," the young woman said as Joyce carefully set the tray down on the bed and gave each girl a mug. "I don't know what happened to me, earlier, I was… fuck, it's so confusing, I kind of like remember jumping on your roof and getting inside all by myself, but it's not possible, is it? How and where did you guys find me, by the way?"

She took a sip from her mug, and was surprised to hear and feel the clang of the porcelain against her teeth, as if she had no lips on the right side. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't feel the right side of her face at all.

"What's wrong with my face?" she asked as she instinctively held up her hand to touch it.

"Don't!" Chloe gasped, grabbing her hand. "Don't touch, it's, uh… you were drugged, Rach. We found you wandering around the junkyard and brought you back here until it wore off, but that side of your face is still paralyzed. Makes you look like Stallone."

She bit her lip, hoping that white lie would hold on long enough for her face to heal completely. Which it was going to, wasn't it? After all, she'd healed her whole body, so surely it was only a matter of time before her face was whole again. And in the meantime, she really didn't want her to know about it. No need to add to the trauma. Having all the explaining to do about her being dead for months and coming back as a vampire was already going to be tough enough.

Fortunately, Rachel bought it and chuckled: "Oh crap, I wouldn't want to know what my face looks like now." Then she looked down at her body and added: "I must look like a fucking tramp, I feel so dirty and grimy…"

"Well, you are dirty and grimy, you were crawling in the mud when we found you."

Rachel sighed: "Jesus H. Christ, what kind of shit did that sick fuck pump me with?"

At the recollection of Jefferson, Rachel's face (the left side, that is) grew stern and cold, and her free hand clenched into a fist. On Chloe's dresser and around the room, the cans of hairspray, perfume, Pr. Amaury soda and the beer bottles began to shake, tinting lightly, and Joyce, Victoria, Max and Chloe suddenly felt sick to their stomach. The air felt heavy and brooding.

"I swear I could kill this guy if I ran into him again," she muttered between clenched teeth.

"Don't worry about him," Chloe murmured, hugging her friend. "You're alive now, and he's locked up, hopefully for good. It's all that matters."

And just as suddenly as it had started, the tinting of bottles and the nauseous sensations vanished. The air felt normal again.

"Yeah, you're probably right. You still need to tell me what happened. How did he get caught?"

Sensing her daughter's unease, Joyce came in for the rescue: "There's plenty of time for stories, hon. I think you should rest some more first. How about you take a shower?"

Rachel's eyes lit up at that: "Oh, I'd kill for a shower!"

With Chloe's help, she tried to stand up, but her legs felt wobbly and her punk friend was here to take a hold of her before she collapsed.

"Sorry," Rachel chuckled. "I guess I'm still a little dizzy."

"Don't worry," Chloe said, "but maybe I should give you a hand in the shower?"

"Chloe!" Rachel called out with mock outrage. "Not in front of your mother!"

Max and Victoria laughed at Chloe's face turning a nice shade of pink, while Joyce shook her head softly in disapproval, but with a smirk on her face, as she used to do in answer to Rachel's antics. It was good to see that she was recovered enough to joke. It was good to have her back. It was good to have them all back.

"You do that," the older woman said. "In the meantime, Max, Victoria and I are going to change those sheets, and I'll wait here to help you get dressed while they get down for snacks, is that okay with you?"

Max and Victoria nodded.

"Sure," Chloe said. "Oh by the way!"

The punk searched her pocket and produced a pretty blue feather earring.

"You dropped that in y- in the Dark Room, when you fled," she said. She was about to say your coffin, but that kind of technicality could wait a little longer still.

"My lucky charm!" Rachel exclaimed, eyes beaming with delight. "Thanks, Chlo!"

"No problem," Chloe said, winking at her, smiling with delight as well.

It was all relief and laughter. They'd done it. They'd revived Rachel, Max had told Victoria everything, Victoria had made peace with Chloe, they were all together now, they could go on with their lives as a close-knit gang... the future looked bright.

So why did Victoria still feel a cold knot in the pit of her stomach?