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Major's phone buzzed as he was sitting in the drive-through lane waiting for his burger and fries, a much-needed indulgence after wrestling that reporter's chubby body into the freezer. He had to admit, having Blaine lure the guy to his funeral parlor had been a lot easier than the stalking, the breaking in, the Chaos Killer scene staging, and the sneaking the body out of the house mess required to do the job on his own. But was it easy enough to be worth the constant dosage of Blaine's mouth? Or his superior smirk? Or the knowledge that Major was basically the guy's cat toy?
It was going to have to be, he thought morosely, taking the bag and dropping it onto the passenger seat. After all, he didn't have any other choice.
His phone buzzed again, and he pulled into a parking space, grabbing a handful of fries and downing them before checking the caller ID. Ravi.
"Hey. What's up? You need someone to rock the casbah?"
"What? No, my casbah is just fine, thank you, and I resent the implication that I can't do my own rocking."
"Fair enough. My casbah-rocking doesn't come cheap, anyway."
"I have good news," Ravi said. "We know where—"
"In the world is Carmen Sandiego? That is good news," Major broke in, not wanting Max Rager to know what they were really looking for. He didn't think they monitored his calls—but he knew they could, which was reason enough to be cautious. "I'll meet you at home and you can draw me a map."
"Uh … yeah. Okay. Sounds good."
Liv was at the house when he got there, and she explained that she'd had a vision showing her where the man in question had been shot. She was cagy about where she'd been when she had the vision or why it had been triggered, but Major wasn't sure he cared. If there was a chance for a cure, a way to keep himself from turning zombie and a way to save Liv and take her off Max Rager's hit list, a way to bring back all the bodies in the freezers and return them to their families and their lives … that was enough. That was everything.
They gathered up their digging equipment and drove out to a fairly under-dug part of the field, near a derelict playground. They hadn't focused on this section because they had assumed no one would bury a body near a playground, regardless of its condition … but apparently these people were no respecters of the simple joys of childhood.
Liv led them across the cracked concrete of the playground to the hard-packed dirt and patchy grass, stopping to look intently at the swing set and gauge her distance. She shone the flashlight on the ground near her feet. "Right around here." Kneeling down, she put one of their red flags in the ground, and reached into her pockets for her little shovels, grinning up at Major. He couldn't help smiling back. Things were looking up. Life could get back to normal. He and Liv could think about being together again. He could be free of Vaughn du Clark forever.
He hadn't felt this much energy at the digging since the first couple of weeks, this much optimism behind every thrust of the spade into the ground.
Major turned up the grass, always the hardest part, then Ravi joined him to excavate the top layer of dirt.
"Wait," Ravi said eventually. He tapped the ground with his shovel. "I feel something. Best be careful."
So all three of them got down on their knees and dug through the dirt with their hands, scraping away at it heedless of the damp, the cold, the late night, or the fact that they were doing all this to dig up a dead guy. As Ravi raked through the dirt, Major happened to look over and saw it shining in the beam of the flashlight—a human skull. "Ravi!"
"I see it. I see it," his roommate said tensely, and dug more carefully, but still rapidly, exposing more of the bone. Major was at the feet, and he worked at uncovering the artificial leg of the veteran who had gotten in with the wrong crowd, tugging at it until it came loose so abruptly he was knocked back on his rear. He held it up, laughing with glee. Liv came to him, holding him in a way that told him how worried she was about his eventual reversion to zombiedom, while Ravi took the artificial leg from him and ran around the open grave, brandishing it in the air and whooping with delight.
It felt damned good.
Digging out the rest of the body, and wrapping it up for transport so Ravi could carefully scavenge for the tainted Utopium, felt like a bit of an anticlimax. Major devoutly hoped that neither of his companions noticed how comfortable he was carrying and wrapping dead bodies. Fortunately, they both did it professionally, so it didn't occur to them that he had no reason to be a pro at it.
They drove home fighting over the radio and whose triumphant music they were going to sing along to, and got to the morgue, where Liv distracted the other shift long enough for Major and Ravi to sneak the body in where it would be ready for Ravi to work on the next day. From there, they finished up the night at an all-night taco place with a celebratory feast. Major felt freedom fizzing in his veins. Soon. Soon this long nightmare would be over.