Thank you for reading! No update next week, but I'll be back on schedule the week after.

Major had been surprised and pleased to be called in by the head of Max Rager as a potential trainer. He hadn't been doing this long, and he didn't love the job, but that would be a big account, a lot of money, and would certainly boost his reputation. Maybe even enough to save something for the future and figure out what he wanted to do long-term.

He was led into the office by a hot redhead who looked him over with quite a bit of interest. Major wasn't sure he was ready for hot redheads, but he appreciated the look.

Vaughn du Clark didn't seem like the monster Liv had depicted him as. Maybe a little crazy, but a lot of guys at the head of companies were. Thinking outside the box and all, Major assumed. But then it quickly became clear that Major wasn't here because du Clark wanted a trainer. He was here because, somehow, du Clark knew that Major knew about the zombies.

"Zombies, sir?"

"Don't play dumb with me. I know what you did at Meat Cute."

"Meat Cute? Oh, that. Drug dealers, so they tell me." Major tried to keep his face open and guileless. He used to be good at that look; he wasn't so sure about it anymore.

"Look, Major, let's not try to evade the topic. You know, I know, and I know you know. And something has to be done to stop it."

"Stop it? How?"

"I'm glad you asked. Because this is what I have in mind. You, out there, hunting zombies … and taking them out of our collective hair." He held up a hand when Major might have objected. "I know what you're going to say, but save it. Zombies don't deserve our mercy, so just put that thought out of your head." The redhead was standing next to him looking bored, but du Clark was all in, furrowing his brow as he muttered to himself, "How to explain? I love submarine movies. Big fan. And there's always this moment. It's the moment where the sub is torpedoed and the compartment is flooding and the captain's got to give the order to seal it up, even though he knows that there are men still alive in there. Cut to the sailor who receives that order, tears in his eyes, closing that hatch on his comrades." du Clark mimed closing a hatch, his face twisted with the imagined grief of the sailor. Then he dropped his hands and met Major's eyes squarely. "The man who closes that hatch is a hero, isn't he? But we're both doing what needs to be done. We are saving lives. There are zombies living among us. And they are feasting on human brains. Where do they get these brains? Who knows? But don't you think it's a good idea to put an end to it?"

The redhead walked across the room to sit in the chair next to Major's. He had to admit, she smelled pretty damn good.

du Clark went on, "Sure, they look like us, they sound like us, but if you think of them as brain-eating atomic bombs, you sleep like a baby."

"You've got the wrong man for the job," Major said. He wasn't in favor of zombies, but between Liv and his client the nice family man who happened to be a zombie, and no doubt other perfectly nice people out there like Lowell, Liv's ex, he didn't think they needed to be killed. There had been a cure once—he knew that better than anyone. Surely there would be a cure again.

"Oh, I have the only man for the job."

du Clark punched the button on a recording device, and Ravi's voice came through it. "More than once now, Major's run into people and he's just utterly convinced they're zombies. His heart starts racing, his hair stands on end. He's a human zombie detector."

Clicking the recording device off, du Clark grinned wildly across the desk at Major. "See? You're singularly qualified." Major kept silent, wanting to know how they had recorded Ravi and who he had been talking to, but not wanting to give du Clark the satisfaction of asking. But du Clark wasn't waiting for him to answer anyway. He went on, "Now, we've learned a few things about zombies. Weird as it sounds, they can't get enough of spicy food." du Clark and the redhead both laughed at that, but Major didn't find it funny. He remembered all too clearly what it had felt like to only want brains. "And in order to blend in, they require pretty regular tanning and hair dyeing. Our tech boys have developed an algorithm which scans credit card statements for charges which fit this zombie profile." He pushed a computer printout across the desk to Major. "Those 322 people are suspected zombies. Your mission? Determine which ones are the real deal, and close that hatch on them." He made the motion with his hands again.

"Kill them," Major clarified.

du Clark looked as though he wanted to find a euphemism, or as if he was having second thoughts, but the expression disappeared from his face too quickly for his hesitation to have been real. "Yes. After all, aren't you the greatest zombie killer alive?"

Damn Meat Cute. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but it had only made everything worse. Major wasn't having any of this. He got up, heading for the glass doors of du Clark's office.

"Forgot your list," du Clark called after him.

"I'm not doing this."

But Major stopped stockstill when another voice came from du Clark's recorder. Liv. They had taped her call to him about Clive's interest in Major's Meat Cute alibi. They were tapping her phone. That must have been where they got the recording of Ravi, too. That was how they knew about Meat Cute at all. Unable to stop himself, Major turned around, facing du Clark and his redhead.

du Clark knew it put the recorder down and said, "Got you over a barrel, big guy. Five murders, that's a lot of years in the pokey."

Major gave that one a brief thought, but really, did it matter if he went to jail? Not really. Not anymore. "Do what you gotta do." He turned to leave again.

du Clark's voice came after him. "Major, we are doing our civic duty here!" He came around the desk toward Major, his voice dropping as he admitted, "We played a big part in creating this problem, and we are going to be very aggressive in cleaning it up." When Major didn't reply, he went on, "We do know of one zombie, Liv Moore. We don't have to start with her, but … we gotta start somewhere."

No matter what had happened between them, the lies she had told, the secrets she'd kept, the many ways she'd broken his heart, Major couldn't let anything happen to Liv. And du Clark knew it, that was plain to see. "Fine. Give me the damn list."

"See, I knew you'd see it my way. You report in regularly, Major." du Clark slapped his stomach. "After all, I really do need a trainer."

Grabbing the paper from him, Major muttered, "Yeah, whatever," and left the office.

The redhead followed him. "Don't mess around with this. He wants results, and he wants them now, and he'll make you regret it if you don't provide them."

It was pure bad luck that his client, the family man, was on the top of Max Rager's list. Hating himself with every step, Major kidnapped him, wrapped him in plastic, shot him in the head, and dumped him in the river. Hopefully that would be enough to buy him some time … but what was he going to do? Vaughn du Clark had Major right where he wanted him, and that wasn't going to change. From counselor to troubled teens to killer for hire. Not really a step up, he thought gloomily.