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Major knew what he had to do; the question was where. He took Minor on one last walk, watching with affection as the dog snuffled the ground and marked the bushes. For a moment, he could almost let himself believe none of this had ever happened and he was with Liv, married, with a baby on the way, and this was their dog.

But there was no point in going there. That future was over, gone, vanished—it was never going to come, no matter how much he wished for it. And Minor was a danger. Sooner or later, he would lead the police to Major. This time it was a chip in the collar, but there could be one in the dog, too, that they didn't know about yet, or pictures might come out and someone would see them and connect Major to them. No, he couldn't afford to keep the dog.

He took Minor on a bus, sitting in the back, holding the dog in his lap, stroking him and petting him and letting his ears flop all around. "You're gonna be famous, buddy. Yeah. You know that? Huh?" The dog whined and snuggled in closer, like he knew what was about to happen. "Everyone's lookin' for you. Yeah, I know. This time tomorrow you'll have a great home, maybe a couple of kids … I'm sorry, buddy. I'm gonna miss you."

The bus pulled to a stop, and Major bent down, kissing the top of the fuzzy head. Then he slipped out from under the dog, leaving Minor lying on the back seat, flipped his hood up so he couldn't be recognized, and hopped down off the bus.

The SuperMax had faded from his system now, leaving behind it a bone-deep weariness that went well with his sense of failure and loss at having to leave the dog behind, especially in such an irresponsible way. This wasn't the man he had ever meant to be, and even though most of the missing people were in freezers, waiting for the day they could be safely returned to their lives and families, the fact was Major had killed two men who hadn't done anything to anyone. He never regretted the men and woman he had killed at Meat Cute, but he regretted those men. He had traded their lives for Liv's. For Natalie's, and for all the others. But they hadn't had a choice. They probably hadn't had a choice in becoming zombies, either, just as Liv and Natalie hadn't, so it had sucked for them all around.

He watched the bus, with the dog watching him out the back window, until it was gone, wondering how long it would take for the bus driver to notice there was an unaccompanied Minor on board. Probably not long.

With a sigh, Major turned and headed home.

He didn't see Ravi until the following night, having avoided his roommate this morning, pretending Minor was in his room, putting off the inevitable as long as he could. Ravi came in late from digging up the field, calling for the dog, carrying bones from his dig. Hopefully not human bones, Major thought reflexively, but really, what did it matter? There was no dog to feed them to anymore anyway.

Major was grabbing some orange juice—anything to get the residual taste of SuperMax out of his mouth, which nothing so far had been able to do—when Ravi came into the kitchen.

"Hey. Good night making rich white people less fat?"

Grabbing a mug, Major shook his head. "Yeah, it's god's work, what I do." Some parts of it, anyway. And Vaughn du Clark certainly did think he was some kind of deity, no question there.

"Where's Minor?"

Major carefully didn't look at his roommate when he answered. "Gone, I'm afraid."

"Gone … gone where?"

Still focusing on pouring the orange juice, like it was important, Major said, "I saw a missing dog flyer on a telephone pole with a photo of Minor, so I called the number, the owner swung by, and picked him up."

"Oh. They must have been thrilled." Ravi was flummoxed, it appeared, but he was buying it. Major wasn't sure why he'd thought Ravi wouldn't—his roommate was a good-hearted, trusting soul. Lucky bastard.

"Yeah. Happy ending." Poor pup. Major hoped he was going to get a happy ending, with a family who loved him. He deserved that. "Bummer for us, though."

"I, uh, do wish I could've … said good-bye."

"Well, I'm sorry, I just—well, they got here so fast." Orange juice in hand, Major pushed past his roommate, hoping this would be the end of the discussion. He wished it could be the end of all of it, but tomorrow he would have to suit up again and start hunting the next person on his list, and so on and on and on. The list would never end because new zombies were made all the time, or so he believed, and he would never be off the hook, and Liv was gone, and Minor was gone, and everything Major had ever set out to be in life was gone.