We were halfway back to the compound when the screaming started.
Not zombie screaming—that had become background noise, the ambient soundtrack of the new world. This was human screaming. Desperate. Close.
Ghost's ears flattened. Humans in danger. North. Two blocks.
I raised my hand, and my hundred and fifty zombies halted as one.
"There," Min-Tong pointed. A figure was running down the center of the street, stumbling over debris and abandoned cars. Behind them, a pack of eight zombies closed the distance with relentless hunger.
"Wei—" Rachel started.
"I see them."
The runner collapsed. Went down hard, sprawling across the pavement. The zombies surged forward.
Claim.
I reached out with my Death Aura, and the eight pursuing zombies stopped mid-stride. Their hunger vanished, replaced by obedience. They turned, walked to the edges of the street, and took up position like sentries.
The fallen runner didn't move.
"Is that...?" Min-Tong squinted. "That looks like someone from your building."
I walked forward, my zombies parting around me like water.
The runner was a man. Late thirties, expensive running shoes now caked with blood and filth, what had once been designer athletic wear torn to ribbons. He was lying face-down, hyperventilating, too terrified to look up even though the attack had stopped.
I recognized him.
Richard Park. 12C.
The man who'd complained about my "suspicious behavior" to building management three weeks before the apocalypse.
------------------------------
"Get up."
My voice cut through his panic. Richard flinched, then slowly raised his head.
His eyes went wide.
"You—" His voice cracked. "Wei? Wei from 14A?"
"Get up," I repeated. "You're safe. For now."
Richard scrambled to his feet, his gaze darting between me and the eight zombies that had been chasing him moments ago—now standing at attention, utterly still.
"How did you—what did you—" He backed away, nearly tripping over his own feet. "What the hell is going on?"
"The dead obey me." I gestured at my army. "All of them. Including the ones that were about to eat you."
Richard's face cycled through confusion, disbelief, and finally settling on something that looked like desperate hope.
"You can control them? You can actually control them?"
"Obviously."
"Then you have to help us. Please." He stumbled forward, reaching for my arm. "There are others. A whole group of us. We've been trapped in the Bellevue Towers for three days. No food, no water, zombies everywhere. We thought we were going to die—"
"Bellevue Towers." I knew that building. High-end residential complex, about eight blocks from my old apartment. "How many survivors?"
"Fifteen. Maybe sixteen. We had twenty, but some of them..." Richard's voice broke. "Please. You have to help."
I studied him.
In the before-times, Richard Park had been everything I despised about my old life. Wealthy, entitled, convinced that his money made him superior to everyone around him. He'd complained about my "odd hours" to the building manager. He'd sneered when we passed in the hallway. He'd once threatened to call the police because Ghost was "clearly a health code violation."
Now he was standing in front of me, covered in blood and dirt, begging for scraps of survival from the "suspicious" neighbor he'd tried to evict.
The irony was almost poetic.
------------------------------
"Why should I help you?"
Richard blinked.
"What?"
"You heard me." I kept my voice flat, emotionless. "Three weeks ago, you filed a complaint about me with building management. Said I was 'behaving erratically.' Said I was 'stockpiling supplies in a way that suggested dangerous intentions.'"
His face went pale.
"I—that was—I didn't mean—"
"You called me paranoid. You said people like me were the reason the building was going downhill." I tilted my head. "Now you want my help. Explain why I should give it."
Richard's mouth opened and closed.
Behind me, I could feel Min-Tong's surprise. Rachel Chen's calculating gaze. Maya's silver eyes watching with ancient curiosity.
"I was wrong," Richard said finally. His voice was small, broken. "I was completely wrong. You were right about everything. The supplies, the preparations, the..." He gestured helplessly at the ruined city around us. "All of it. You knew this was coming."
"I did."
"And I mocked you for it. I tried to get you in trouble for it." Tears were streaming down his face now. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But please—the others didn't do anything wrong. They're innocent. There are children in that building. Families. They're going to die if someone doesn't help them."
I let the silence stretch.
This was the moment. The face-slapping moment that every web novel protagonist lived for. The arrogant fool brought low, groveling at the feet of the person they'd wronged.
In another life, I might have savored it.
In another life, I might have turned away and let him suffer.
But I wasn't here for petty revenge. I was here to build something. To save people. To create a force strong enough to face the Hive King in two days.
Fifteen survivors. Maybe sixteen.
Every life mattered now.
------------------------------
"I'll help," I said.
Richard's knees buckled. He would have fallen if Min-Tong hadn't stepped forward to catch him.
"Thank you," he gasped. "Thank you, thank you—"
"Don't thank me yet. The rescue won't be free."
His tear-streaked face looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"I have a compound. Fortified, supplied, protected by my army. Your survivors can join us—but they join as members of the community. That means following rules, contributing labor, accepting my authority." I held his gaze. "No special treatment for anyone. No exceptions."
"Yes. Yes, of course. Whatever you want."
"And Richard?" I waited until he met my eyes. "If you ever try to undermine me again—if you spread dissent, or sow fear, or work against the community in any way—I'll throw you outside the walls and let the dead have you. Understood?"
He nodded frantically.
"Good. Now tell me about the building. How many zombies? What are the entry points? Where are the survivors barricaded?"
The interrogation took ten minutes.
Bellevue Towers: eighteen floors, two stairwells, underground parking. The survivors were trapped on the fifth floor, barricaded in a combination of three apartments. They'd been sending out foragers every few hours, but the zombie density in the building had been increasing. Their last water supply ran out yesterday.
"There's one more thing," Richard said hesitantly. "One of the survivors—she's been asking about you specifically. Said she knew you from before."
I went still.
"Who?"
"An older woman. Chinese. She said her name was Yang." Richard frowned, trying to remember. "Yang... Chen Chen? Something like that. She said you worked together."
Chen Chen.
The name hit me like a physical blow.
------------------------------
Chen Chen had been my coworker at the tech company. My friend, before the apocalypse. She'd covered for me when I started "acting strange" in the week before Day 0. She'd asked if I was okay when everyone else avoided eye contact.
In my original timeline, she'd died on Day 7.
But I'd changed things. The company had different preparations. The timeline was different.
And now she was trapped in a building eight blocks away, running out of water, surrounded by the dead.
"We move now," I said.
Rachel raised an eyebrow. "It's getting dark. Shouldn't we wait until morning—"
"No." My voice brooked no argument. "We move now. Rachel, take your team back to the compound. Tell Max Yang we're bringing new survivors. Maya, can you see anything about this building?"
The girl's silver eyes went distant.
"Fire," she said softly. "There's going to be fire. Be careful on the third floor."
"Noted. Min-Tong, you're with me."
"Wei—"
"I'm not leaving you alone. The compound is safe. You come with me, or you go with Rachel's team." I met her eyes. "Your choice."
Min-Tong's jaw set.
"I'm with you. Always."
------------------------------
Bellevue Towers loomed against the darkening sky like a monolith of broken glass and concrete.
The lobby doors hung open, shattered by something that had wanted in badly. Through the shadows, I could see movement—shuffling shapes, the occasional glint of dead eyes catching the fading light.
"How many?" Min-Tong whispered.
I closed my eyes and extended my Death Aura.
The building lit up in my mind like a constellation of cold stars. Each zombie a point of dead light. Each survivor a warm ember struggling to stay lit.
"Forty-seven zombies between us and the fifth floor. Another thirty on floors six through ten. The survivors are clustered in three apartments—I count..." I focused. "Fourteen heartbeats. Richard said fifteen or sixteen. Someone's missing."
"Dead?"
"Or out foraging." I opened my eyes. "We go in fast. I'll claim everything on the way up. Stay behind me, don't engage unless something gets through."
"Got it."
Ghost?
Ghost hunts. Her presence brushed against mine, eager. Ghost protects pack.
"Let's move."
------------------------------
The first floor was a slaughterhouse.
Bodies everywhere—some risen, some not, all of them wearing the tattered remains of expensive clothes. The Bellevue Towers had catered to Seattle's wealthy elite. Now its residents wandered the marble lobby as shambling corpses.
I claimed them as I walked.
Claim. Claim. Claim.
Each zombie stopped mid-step, their hunger redirecting to obedience. By the time I reached the stairwell door, I'd added twelve to my network.
The headache pulsed, but I pushed through it.
Second floor. Clear. Third floor—
Maya's warning flashed through my mind.
I stopped.
"What is it?" Min-Tong's hand went to her knife.
"Fire," I said. "Maya said be careful on the third floor."
The stairwell was dark, but not quiet. Somewhere above us, I could hear movement. The scrape of dead feet. The rasp of dead lungs.
And something else.
A smell.
Gas.
"Back," I ordered, grabbing Min-Tong's arm. "Back now—"
The explosion lit up the stairwell.
------------------------------
I threw myself over Min-Tong as fire roared past us.
The heat was incredible—a wall of burning air that seared exposed skin and filled my lungs with smoke. My zombies on the third floor were incinerated instantly, the connections snapping like burning threads.
But the fire didn't reach us. I'd pulled us back far enough. Just barely.
"What the hell was that?" Min-Tong coughed, her eyes streaming.
"Gas leak. Or sabotage." I pulled her to her feet. "Someone didn't want us using this stairwell."
"Sabotage? Who would—"
"I don't know. But we're not going up this way." I looked at my mental map of the building. "Second stairwell. Other side of the building. We go around."
The detour cost us ten minutes—ten minutes of claiming zombies, navigating collapsed hallways, and avoiding the spreading fire from the third floor.
But we made it.
Fifth floor. Three apartments. Fourteen survivors.
And one face I'd thought I'd never see again.
------------------------------
The barricade was impressive—furniture, appliances, even what looked like parts of a car engine, all piled into a chokepoint that would have stopped a conventional assault.
It wouldn't have stopped a determined Tier 2. But against regular zombies, it was solid work.
"Don't shoot!" I called out. "We're alive. We're here to help."
Silence. Then a voice—male, suspicious.
"How do we know you're not infected?"
"Because the infected don't talk." I gestured at the zombies behind me—twenty-three now, claimed on the way up. "And because I'm controlling these."
More silence. The sound of frantic whispered debate.
Then the barricade shifted, and a face appeared in the gap.
Chen Chen.
She looked older than I remembered—gray streaking her black hair, lines around her eyes that hadn't been there a week ago. But her gaze was the same. Sharp. Kind. The eyes of someone who'd always seen more than she let on.
"Wei." Her voice was barely a whisper. "You came."
"I came."
"Richard found you. He said—" She broke off, her eyes finding the zombies standing behind me. "It's true. What he said about you."
"It's true."
"You can control them. The dead."
"Yes."
Chen Chen stared at me for a long moment.
Then she did something I didn't expect.
She smiled.
"I knew it," she said. "When you started acting strange before everything happened. When you were stockpiling supplies and talking about 'preparations.' I knew you knew something the rest of us didn't." She reached through the barricade and took my hand. "I'm glad you came back for us."
I squeezed her hand.
"Let's get you out of here."