Sarah wasn't alone when she came back.
Something had followed her.
I felt it before I saw her—a presence at the edge of my Death Aura, trailing behind her invisible form like a shadow made of malice. It wasn't a zombie. It wasn't human. It was something cold and ancient, something that scraped against my senses like fingernails on glass.
And then Sarah flickered into visibility at the compound gate, and I realized the presence wasn't following her.
It was inside her.
"Sarah!" I was moving before I finished speaking, closing the distance between us in seconds.
She collapsed into my arms, shaking violently. Her eyes were wide, unfocused—and for just an instant, I saw something else looking out through them. Something vast and patient and hungry.
Then the presence retreated, pulling back into whatever dark corner of her mind it had claimed, and Sarah was just Sarah again. Traumatized. Exhausted. But herself.
"Get her inside," I ordered. "Medical bay. Now."
Whatever she'd found at Facility Seven-Alpha had found her right back.
------------------------------
The debrief was short. Sarah's words came in fragments—she was too shaken for a proper report. But what she said was enough.
"Forget the military installation," she whispered, clutching a cup of hot tea like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. "Forget the fifty soldiers and the helicopters. There's something in a pit. Something old. Something that's been waiting."
Her eyes found mine.
"It knows you, Wei. It called you 'the one who carries my gift.'" Her voice cracked. "'I gave him his power. I gave him his second chance. And soon, I will collect what is owed.'"
The words hit me like a physical blow.
Collect what is owed.
I found myself gripping the edge of Sarah's bed, my knuckles bloodless. The room felt smaller suddenly. Colder.
"Wei?" Min-Tong's voice was sharp with concern. "Wei, you've gone pale."
I hadn't told anyone the full truth about my return. They knew I'd come back from the future. They knew I'd lived ten thousand years in an apocalyptic world.
But I'd never told them how I'd died.
I'd never told them about the voice in the darkness. The presence that had caught me as I fell into oblivion. The sensation of something ancient taking notice, making a decision, sending me back.
I'd always assumed it was an accident. A cosmic fluke.
Now I knew better.
------------------------------
"There's more," Sarah said. "It told me to deliver a message. It said..." She swallowed. "'Tell the Zombie King that I am patient. I have waited ten thousand years. I can wait a few weeks more. But when I wake fully, when this body is complete, he will return what is mine. Or I will take it from his corpse.'"
Silence.
Then Drake: "What does it want? What did you promise it?"
"I didn't promise anything." My voice came out harsher than intended. "I died. Fell into darkness. And something caught me, sent me back. I assumed it was chance. Random. Unexplainable."
"But it wasn't," Maya said softly. Her silver eyes were distant, seeing things none of us could. "It was deliberate. Calculated. It gave you power, sent you back, and now it expects payment."
"Payment of what?"
"I don't know." I ran a hand through my hair. "I don't remember making any deals. Any bargains. The last thing I remember from my original death is falling, and then waking up here, seven days before Day 0."
"Maybe you don't remember because you weren't meant to," Min-Tong said. "Maybe the bargain was made when you were unconscious. Dying. Unable to consent."
The implications of that settled over the room like a shroud.
------------------------------
"What is it?" Rachel asked. "This thing in the pit—what are we dealing with?"
I thought about the Hive King's warning. About Maya's visions of ancient power. About the voice Sarah had described.
"I don't know exactly. But based on everything we've learned..." I paused, organizing my thoughts. "It's something that existed before the apocalypse. Something that may have caused the apocalypse. It gave me my powers—which means it has power over the dead. Over souls. Over the boundary between life and death."
"A god," Harold said quietly. "You're describing a god."
"I'm describing something that thinks it is one." I stood, pacing. "It's been waiting in that facility. Growing. Regenerating. The government found it—or maybe it let them find it—and now they're trying to study it. Control it."
"Can they?"
"No." I was certain of that, at least. "You don't control something that's been waiting ten thousand years. You survive it. Or you don't."
------------------------------
"So what do we do?" Max asked. "The 72-hour deadline is still running. They're expecting an answer."
"We ignore the deadline."
Everyone looked at me.
"They were never going to attack us if we said no. That was a bluff. They need me—or rather, it needs me. That's why they've been monitoring us. That's why they made contact." I stopped pacing. "If they wanted me dead, I'd be dead. They want me alive and cooperative."
"And the creature?" Drake's voice was tight. "What does it want?"
"To collect its debt. Whatever that means." I met his eyes. "But I didn't make a deal. I didn't consent to anything. And I'm not going to let some ancient horror dictate my choices just because it thinks it owns me."
"Bold words," Sarah said. "But that thing... Wei, you didn't feel it. The weight of it. The age. It's older than anything I can comprehend."
"So am I."
The words came out before I could stop them.
Everyone stared.
"I lived ten thousand years in the future," I said quietly. "I watched civilizations rise and fall. Saw gods and monsters and things with no name. I died more times than I can count, and each time, something brought me back."
I looked at my hands—at the power that pulsed beneath my skin, the connection to six thousand dead that hummed in the back of my mind.
"Maybe this creature made me. Maybe it gave me my abilities. But I'm not its puppet. I'm not its vessel. I'm Wei, the Zombie King, and if it wants to collect..."
I clenched my fists.
"Then it's going to have to fight me for it."
------------------------------
"There's something else," Sarah said. "On my way to the facility, I passed zombies in the mountains. Hundreds of them. And they were... different."
"Different how?"
"Mutations. Bony growths. Extra limbs. Darker skin." She looked at me. "You said the mutations started on Day 10. But this was Day 8."
Maya's head snapped up.
"The timeline—"
"Is accelerating again. Yes." I'd expected this, but it still sent a chill through me. "The Hive King appeared on Day 5 instead of Day 365. Now the mutations are coming early too."
"How early?" Min-Tong asked.
I reached out through my connection—six thousand minds scattered across Seattle, sensing, watching, reporting.
And I found what I was looking for.
Three miles from the compound.
Zombies that didn't move like the others. Zombies with ridged spines and elongated limbs. Zombies that were evolving.
"They're already here," I said. "The mutations have started."
------------------------------
"Battle stations," Rachel said immediately. "I want every patrol doubled. Snipers on the rooftops. Harold, is the generator at full capacity?"
"Running at eighty percent. I can push it higher if we need floodlights."
"Do it."
I held up a hand.
"Wait."
Everyone paused.
"These aren't like normal zombies. They're faster. Smarter. Harder to kill." I thought back to my original timeline—to the nightmares that had emerged after Day 30, the terrors that had forced humanity into smaller and smaller refuges. "But they're also not unified. No Hive King to command them."
"Yet," Maya said.
"Yet," I agreed. "But that gives us an advantage. Right now, they're wandering. Uncoordinated. If I can reach them before they organize..."
"You can claim them," Drake finished. His eyes had that dangerous gleam again—the one that meant he was looking for a fight. "Turn the mutations from a threat into an asset."
"Exactly."
Min-Tong took my hand.
"How many can you control?"
I thought about the mental barrier I'd shattered during the Hive King battle. The infinite expansion I'd felt when my limits had broken.
"I don't know anymore," I admitted. "But I think it's time to find out."