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By the next morning, Major was able to see things more clearly than he had in a very long time. Peyton had been right; the pills had allowed him the luxury of a full night's sleep, dreamless and free of the constant image of the exploding house. He was able to cry now, weeping in the shower for all the lives lost, all the futures destroyed.
He cried again, tears of anger and frustration, as he watched the morning news coverage and checked his texts. The group chat was so small now, so few of them left, but those who were still alive were angry at what had happened. Humans. Humans killing zombies. It made Major ashamed to be one of them—ashamed of how reluctant he had been to be a zombie in the first place, and how quickly he had readjusted to not being one. What a relief it had been, how much he had looked forward to leaving the entire zombie lifestyle behind him. All of that felt so … wrong, now.
He got dressed and went back to the familiar compound, certain now of what his next action should be, of where he belonged.
As he approached Chase Graves' office, he saw Blaine coming out of it. Blaine didn't look happy, which only increased Major's sense of how right it was that he should have come back here. Any day that was bad for Blaine had to be good for Major.
"Well, if it isn't Killer Abs," Blaine said to him as they passed in the doorway.
Major had nearly forgotten about that—it felt so long ago and so far away. He glanced at Chase Graves, who nodded at him, and then turned to Blaine. "Restroom's just down the hall," he said.
Blaine decided not to bother continuing his attempts at witty repartee, taking his leave.
Chase Graves regarded Major with a set, unreadable face. "Lilywhite. I don't believe we have an appointment."
"If you've just … got two minutes." That was all he needed.
Graves sat heavily on the couch behind him, gesturing for Major to take his seat on the couch facing it. "Hell of a day," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"You don't need to call me 'sir', Major. You don't work here."
Major didn't beat around the bush. "I want back in."
"We've been through this," Graves said wearily.
"Scratch me. Make me a zombie."
Whatever Graves had expected him to say, it wasn't that. They looked at one another across the room for a moment, Graves studying Major's face and Major utterly certain for the first time in what felt like years of exactly what he wanted.
"We've all been through a lot. We lost a lot of good men."
"Twelve," Major clarified. "We lost twelve."
Graves sat forward, taking Major seriously for possibly the first time. "You need to know what becoming a zombie now means."
"I think I do."
"Trust me, you don't." Graves got to his feet, walking to the window and looking out over Seattle. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Discovery Day is on us. Those humans out there are going to be in for a big surprise, and no one knows how they're going to react."
Major joined him, gazing out over the familiar buildings, trying to imagine the people inside them, what they would do when they found out the horror movies had come to life. "They're going to be terrified."
Graves nodded. "If we're going to survive, we might have to do a few things that can't be undone." He turned to face Major. "If I scratch you, you'd better be damned sure whose side you're on."
Faces flitted through Major's thoughts: Liv, Ravi, Peyton—Zach. Natalie. Faces he would never see again. Something had to be done. He held out his arm and pulled up the sleeve, exposing the tender skin. "It's not even close."
"You have any idea what this will do to you? If memory serves, you've gone from human to zombie to human to zombie to human … and the last change was because you were going to die if you stayed a zombie. Are you prepared for that to happen again?"
There were no more cures, Major knew, at least, not anywhere that Ravi could get his hands on them. If this went south, if his lungs started filling up with fluid again, Ravi couldn't save him. No one could. Well, that was a risk he was just going to have to take, because he couldn't remain human. Not any longer. With so many men gone, Fillmore Graves needed everyone they could get, and he was going to be there for the men who were left. He was one of them; he would take this risk. "I'm prepared."
"All right." Graves reached out, drawing a sharp fingernail along Major's inner arm. The red line of blood healed itself almost immediately, and Major could feel the telltale shifts inside his body—the sharpened hearing and vision, the sudden deadening of his senses of taste and smell, the dispelling of his body heat. The familiar hunger for brains.
Graves went to the minifridge behind his desk and removed a brain tube. He tossed it to Major. "Here. Report for duty on schedule this afternoon." He hesitated, and Major wondered if he was going to bring up Liv, but apparently he thought better of it. "Welcome back, Lilywhite."
"Thank you, sir."
He was going to have to break this to Liv somehow, and Ravi, and he wasn't sure how he was going to do that … but it was worth it to be back here where he belonged.