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Major had never really given a lot of thought to what it would be like to be held prisoner by a bunch of zombies and be tortured by them for information, and now he was kind of glad he had never wasted the time. He would have seriously underestimated how much it sucked.
He hadn't minded the beatings. Those were pretty much de rigueur for being captured and tortured. And being locked in the freezer was a nice touch. Whimsical. And he could tell that the blond, Blaine, prided himself on being whimsical. He'd held his own against all of it, managing to match Blaine quip for quip without telling them anything.
The soup, though. The soup he had drunk so gratefully, as much for the warmth that he could feel moving through his body as for his body's increasing need for food and fuel to fight the continued cold. And then to find that what he was eating was not, in fact, bratwurst, but brains. He had wanted to retch the whole disgusting concoction up, but hadn't had the energy left to do so. But then, when they wheeled in Tommy's body, on a hook, his eyes so empty, and turned him around to show Major the empty skull where the brain should have been … It was one thing to know what they were doing to these innocent, troubled kids. It was another thing entirely to have it shown to him so graphically. He'd wanted to kill them—and to weep for Tommy, and Eddie, and Jerome, and all the other kids whose lives had been cut short by these monsters. He'd attacked Blaine, only to be taken down by a fist in the gut from yet another of Blaine's muscle-bound minions. Even that hadn't caused him to upchuck the brain stew.
It had, however, determined him that this waiting game had gone on long enough. He wasn't about to actually let them freeze him to death, and he no longer had any qualms about killing them, or anyone else in this place who might get in his way. He was going to stop them. Today.
Major was pretty cold by now, and his brain was moving sluggishly. He did some warm-up stretches to try to clear his head, thinking about what he could use in the freezer to get out. Frozen meats? Only if they came in unprepared, and Blaine seemed to pretty much always be prepared. Major glanced past Tommy's body, trying not to look—but that was foolish, wasn't it? Tommy was dead; there was nothing Major could do to help him or to hurt him, not now. And maybe … hadn't Tommy been a smoker? He was pretty sure of it. Maybe he still had his lighter.
Little as he wanted to, Major forced himself to go through Tommy's pockets. The lighter was there! Major felt like cheering—and like using the tiny flame to warm himself up. But neither one was particularly practical right at the moment, so he pushed himself to think further. What next? He looked out the window of the freezer, seeing the big silent one slicing meat. Real meat, it looked like. Unless they were cannibals as well as zombies. Major shuddered. Right now, he was thinking pretty seriously about becoming a vegetarian.
So, he could start a fire. They might let him burn to death, but they wouldn't take the chance of letting the building burn down, if only to keep firefighters and cops from getting too close to the place. No, they would want to stop the fire. So one of them would come in. How could he get the drop on them? Create a patch of ice near the door? With what?
With the only thing he had on him. He unbuckled his belt, dropped his pants, and was glad that he had never had a shy bladder.
It worked like a charm. Bonus that it was the silent one, because he couldn't call out for help. Even more bonus that apparently he was an idiot, because he didn't go get help. But that was all to Major's advantage. As the silent one lay there in front of him, dazed from the sudden fall, Major clocked him in the head with a leg of lamb, and then he rushed out of the freezer and locked Silent Bob back in. With Tommy's burning body. Major felt bad about that, but Tommy would have appreciated the irony, or so he imagined.
So far, no one else seemed to know what was happening. Maybe they couldn't hear over the sound of the meat slicer and the music coming from the front room. He couldn't believe his luck. He took a moment to breathe, to feel the warmth of the room around him, before running out of the shop. By some miracle, his car was still where he'd left it. By an even greater miracle, whoever had searched his car for the missing brains hadn't found the hiding place with the stockpile of weapons.
Major loaded up. He wished he had something with more pockets, better pockets, than his jeans, but you did what you could with what you had. It was now or never, and he was going to end this.
Two of the minions and the cook lady were pigging out in the front of the shop, still blaring the music. His first shot took down the window. He kept shooting as the three zombies ducked behind the table, hitting one, who ran into the back of the shop. Not an auspicious beginning.
The big bald minion was blinded by blood running into his eyes, shooting in entirely the wrong place. Major took the moment to make proper aim, then let go with the shotgun and had the satisfaction of seeing the minion's brains splatter across the room. He turned immediately toward the open door to the back of the shop, not wanting to be ambushed; then it came to him—why not do some ambushing himself? He left through the open window, as quietly as he could, and walked around to the back, easing the back door open and slipping inside. He had the shotgun leveled at the other minion before the guy knew what was happening.
That left the woman, who was shivering in terror—almost convincingly, especially once she put down the butcher knife. She came toward him, begging for her life, swearing she was an innocent victim. The minions had been easy, but this woman seemed so normal. Like somebody's mom.
Major gestured with the shotgun. "It's okay. Just … get out of here."
She looked like she was going to—but she passed by a conveniently placed mirror just in time for Major to see her pulling another knife out of her apron, so he was able to swing the shotgun up even as she charged him. He ended up hitting her with his elbow, knocking her charge off course, and she took care of herself by falling face-first into the slicer. It was gross, and Major was kind of sorry for her … but not too sorry. She'd been the one cooking up those kids' brains, after all.
He pulled the handgun just as Silent Bob's face showed up in the window of the freezer, and Major shot him right between the eyes without a second's thought.
The shop was silent now, just Major and a bunch of dead people. He should get out of here, he thought. Someone would have heard the shots and called the police, and he did not want to be found here. But … Julian. God, he wanted to kill Julian. He promised himself he would wait until he heard sirens.
Fortunately for him, Julian showed up before he could. Even more fortunately, Julian walked right through the temptingly open freezer door, just the way Major had hoped he would. He shut the door with a feeling of absolute glee, and looked at Julian through the window as he pulled the pin on the grenade. "Walk away from this." Then he ducked below the door, glad for its thick metal between him and the end of Julian—finally.
He stood up, looking in through the window and admiring his handiwork, and was feeling pretty damn good about tonight's work—until he turned around to see Blaine standing there. Before he could react, there was a knife sliding into his guts, and it hurt. A lot. Like you would have expected it to, really, if you'd been thinking this night would end with you getting stabbed in the gut. Major sank to his knees, futilely trying to stop the flow of the blood by clamping his hand over the wound. It was bleeding too much, though. This would be the end. Overall, he wasn't sure he minded, but he wished he could see Liv again.
Blaine was taking stock of the damage, turning things off. He kicked Major over onto his back in a fit of pique. "Just what we need, a noise complaint. You got the slow and agonizing death thing under control, right? Great. Hope it hurts."
It really did. So much that Major couldn't summon up a quip. He was disappointed in himself for that. He'd have liked to go out giving Blaine as good as he got.
Vaguely he was aware of Blaine walking to the front of the shop, and a loud sound. Another gunshot? It was hard to care, not with pain moving through him, a whole different kind of cold starting at his feet and beginning to move up his legs. Voices now, arguing. One … familiar? He struggled to place it. No, she couldn't be here. Could she?
He called her name, because he couldn't not call her name, because she was all he wanted. "Liv!"
And then, in the greatest miracle of the night, she was there, on her knees next to him. "We have to stop the bleeding!" Always the doctor. She should have been a doctor, finished medical school. Why hadn't she? He would never know now. Maybe he didn't need to know.
"Just … be here with me. Okay?" She didn't answer, and he wanted her to know that he had succeeded—that she was safe. "I told you there were zombies. You didn't believe me."
She lifted a hand, stroking his hair. He had missed her touch so much.
And then Blaine was there, in the midst of Major's last moment, his beautiful moment alone with Liv. He was laughing.
"Wait. He doesn't know." Blaine had a wound, as well, his hand clasped over it, but it wasn't so bad. Or he was a zombie and it didn't matter. He looked down at Major. "Dude, you are about to go out with one large dose of irony. Seattle's preeminent zombie hunter, not realizing the entire time that his own beloved …"
Major didn't want to look. He didn't want to believe. But in the increasing fog that filled his head, it made so much sense. Her hair and her eyes. The way she had withdrawn from everyone. Ending the engagement but still seeming like she loved him. No. Not Liv. That couldn't be. His Liv wasn't a monster.
"I mean, the hair, the eyes, the complexion," Blaine continued, forcing Major to see it even while he tried not to. "You thought those were, what, just questionable style choices?"
"Liv," Major murmured. "You."
She wasn't denying it. She was stricken, she was anguished, but she wasn't denying it.
"Major." She touched him again, and he couldn't help but pull away. "Please, I—"
The fog was clouding his vision now, his ears ringing. Everything seemed very far away. Too far to care. He let himself go. There was no longer any reason not to.