Something was hunting my zombies.
I felt it in the network—three of my horde, stationed at the eastern perimeter, suddenly going dark. Not the gradual fade of a destroyed corpse, but a sharp severance. Clean. Deliberate.
Like someone had cut the threads.
I was on my feet before Ghost could even raise her head. The connection to those zombies was just... gone. As if they'd never existed.
Master? Ghost's voice was alarmed. What—
"Something's out there." I reached out through my Death Aura, trying to sense the eastern boundary. One hundred and fourteen connections now. Three missing.
And at the edge of my range, something was watching.
The presence from last night. It was back.
Not approaching. Not attacking. Just... observing. Testing.
It took them, Ghost realized. It took master's pack.
My hands clenched into fists. In ten thousand years, nothing had been able to sever my connection to my horde. Nothing except—
"A controller," I breathed. "Another controller."
The presence flickered with that same amusement I'd felt last night. Then it retreated, pulling back beyond my sensing range like a predator that had made its point.
Three of my zombies. Gone.
Day 1 had just become a lot more complicated.
------------------------------
The compound was already stirring when I emerged.
Max Yang stood at the center of the courtyard, organizing the morning's activities with military precision. Harold Chen was running cable from the compound's generator to the secondary building. Dr. Vasquez was examining one of the new survivors—a woman with a nasty gash on her arm that she'd apparently hidden until infection set in.
"It's not a bite," Dr. Vasquez said, catching my approach. "Just a cut. She'll live."
"Good." I didn't slow down. "Max, status?"
"Food for three weeks if we ration carefully. Water's the bigger concern—the taps are still working, but that won't last. Harold says he can set up a rainwater collection system if we can find the right materials."
"Make a list. I'll have my scouts bring back what we need."
Max Yang's eyebrow rose slightly. "Your scouts?"
I gestured toward the perimeter, where my zombies stood in silent formation. "They don't tire. They don't eat. And they can carry supplies."
She considered this. "That's... practical."
"That's the point."
------------------------------
By mid-morning, I was back in the streets.
The city looked different in daylight. Worse, somehow. The night had hidden the true scope of the devastation. Now, with the sun climbing over the ruined skyline, every horror was visible.
Bodies littered the streets—some still, some twitching, some rising as I watched. Cars sat abandoned, doors hanging open, engines dead. A fire had consumed an entire apartment block during the night, leaving nothing but smoking rubble.
And everywhere, zombies.
They wandered aimlessly, drawn by sound, by movement, by the scent of the living. My horde cleared a path ahead of me, and I followed, Ghost padding at my side.
Many dead things today, Ghost observed. More than yesterday.
"The virus is spreading faster." I'd expected this. The initial wave had been just the beginning. Those bitten on Day 0 were now turning, adding to the horde. By Day 3, the city's population would be predominantly dead.
By Day 7, there might not be anyone left to save.
Must hurry, Ghost agreed. Save the living things before they become dead things.
I smiled grimly. "Something like that."
------------------------------
My first target was a residential block three streets east.
Through my Death Aura, I sensed forty-seven zombies scattered through the buildings. Some were trapped in apartments, scratching at doors they couldn't open. Others wandered the hallways or courtyard.
I reached out with my will.
Mine.
The command rippled through my Death Aura like a stone thrown into still water. One by one, the zombies stopped their wandering. Their heads turned toward me. Their clouded eyes found mine.
And they obeyed.
One hundred and sixty-one.
One hundred and sixty-one, I corrected myself. Not one hundred and sixty-four. Three were taken.
The thought burned. Whoever—or whatever—had stolen my zombies this morning was still out there. Still watching.
I pushed the anger aside and focused on the task. Three lost meant three to reclaim.
The strain increased—a dull ache behind my eyes, a slight tremor in my hands. But it was manageable. I'd expected worse.
Master's pack grows, Ghost noted with satisfaction. Strong pack.
"Not strong enough," I said. "Not yet."
I pushed forward.
------------------------------
By noon, I'd claimed two hundred and twenty-eight.
Three short of what I'd have had without the morning's theft. The thought gnawed at me.
The headache was constant now, a throbbing pressure that never quite faded. My vision blurred occasionally, and I had to stop and steady myself against a wall more than once.
But I kept going.
Each zombie I claimed was one less threat to the compound. One less danger for Min-Tong Lin, wherever she was. One more soldier in my growing army.
Ghost watched me with concern.
Master pushes too hard. Master will break.
"Masters don't break," I said. "Masters adapt."
This sounds like something master tells himself to avoid admitting weakness.
I laughed despite the pain. "You're getting too smart, Ghost."
Ghost has always been smart. Master is only now noticing.
------------------------------
I was clearing a parking garage when I felt it.
A resistance.
Not the weak pushback of a fresh zombie or the stubborn defiance of a strong one. This was different—a solid wall of will that my Death Aura slid off like water on glass.
I stopped.
The garage was dark, the only light filtering through cracked concrete from floors above. My horde spread out behind me, silent and waiting. Ghost pressed close to my leg, her fur bristling.
Something wrong, she said. Different.
She was right.
At the far end of the garage, a single zombie stood motionless. It was watching me.
That alone was wrong. Zombies didn't watch. They didn't think. They followed instinct—hunger, movement, sound. But this one stood perfectly still, its head tilted at an angle that was almost... curious.
I reached out with my Death Aura again.
Mine.
The command hit the zombie like a wave hitting a seawall. For just an instant, I felt something push back—not the void of a mindless corpse, but something else. Something that felt almost like... recognition.
Then the zombie turned and walked deeper into the darkness.
Not running. Not fleeing. Just... leaving. As if my presence was a minor annoyance it had noted and dismissed.
I stared after it.
"What the hell was that?"
Ghost's mental voice was subdued. That was not like the others. That was... aware.
"A Tier 2," I realized. "Already."
In my original timeline, the first evolved zombies hadn't appeared until Day 5 or 6. The virus needed time to mutate, to consume enough biomass to trigger evolution.
But this was Day 1.
Something was accelerating the process.
------------------------------
I didn't chase the evolved zombie. Not yet.
With two hundred and twenty-eight under my control and my head pounding like a war drum, engaging a Tier 2 would be suicide. Even in my peak—at the height of my power in my original timeline—a lone Tier 2 had been a genuine threat.
Right now, I was barely Tier 1.
Smart, Ghost approved. Live to hunt another day.
"I'm not living," I muttered. "I'm surviving. There's a difference."
What is difference?
I thought about it as we made our way back to the compound. "Living is having something to fight for. Surviving is just not dying."
Then master is living. Master has things to fight for.
"Do I?"
Pack. Territory. The one master thinks about at night.
I stopped walking.
Min-Tong Lin.
I hadn't told Ghost about her—not explicitly. But our bond ran deeper than words. She'd felt my emotions, my memories, the echoes of ten thousand years of loss.
"Day 3," I said quietly. "She dies on Day 3 in the original timeline. I have to get to her before then."
Then master should stop hunting dead things and hunt for her instead.
"It's not that simple. I don't know exactly where she is now. I know where she was on Day -5, but that was before the outbreak. She could be anywhere."
Then find her. Master has many eyes now.
She was right. Two hundred and twenty-eight zombies, spread across the city. Each one a potential scout, a pair of eyes I could look through if I concentrated hard enough.
The question was whether I could manage that level of control without my head exploding.
------------------------------
The compound was in controlled chaos when I returned.
New survivors had arrived—three of them, found by one of my roaming zombie patrols and escorted (terrified) to the gates. Max Yang was integrating them into the community while Dr. Vasquez performed medical checks.
Liu Feng was on roof watch, his face pale as always. Hui Zhang was cataloging the supplies my zombie scouts had brought back—canned food, water bottles, medical supplies, tools.
"Two hundred and thirty-one," Max Yang said as I approached. She'd been counting. "Your power is growing."
"Not fast enough." I gestured toward the city. "There's a problem."
Her expression sharpened. "What kind of problem?"
"An evolved zombie. Tier 2, maybe higher. It resisted my control."
The courtyard went quiet. Even the new survivors, who didn't fully understand the situation, could read the tension.
"I thought zombies couldn't resist you," Liu Feng called down from the roof.
"Regular zombies can't. This one wasn't regular." I met Max Yang's eyes. "It looked at me, Max. It recognized me. And then it left. Not because I drove it off, but because it chose to leave."
"A thinking zombie." Her voice was flat.
"A zombie that evolves faster than it should." I shook my head. "Something's wrong with the timeline. Things are happening too quickly."
"Too quickly compared to what?"
I paused. I'd told them about my return, about my ten thousand years of experience. But I hadn't told them everything.
"Compared to my original timeline," I said carefully. "In my first life, evolved zombies didn't appear until Day 5 at the earliest. We're on Day 1, and I've already encountered one. Either the virus is different this time, or something is pushing evolution faster."
"Something like what?"
I didn't answer immediately.
In ten thousand years, I'd seen things that defied explanation. Zombie emperors that commanded armies with a thought. Awakened who could reshape reality. And at the very end, before the reset, something that had felt almost... divine.
But those were answers for another time.
"I don't know yet," I said. "But I intend to find out."
------------------------------
That night, I tried something new.
I sat in my room, Ghost curled beside me, and reached out through my zombie network.
Two hundred and twenty-eight connections. Each one a thread of will, a link between my mind and theirs. Normally, I kept those connections passive—giving orders, receiving basic sensory feedback, but nothing more.
Now, I pushed deeper.
I chose a zombie near the edge of my territory—a woman in a torn business suit, wandering near the entrance to the shopping district. I focused on her connection, pouring more of my will into the link.
The world shifted.
Suddenly, I was seeing through her eyes.
The night street stretched before me, lit by distant fires and the cold light of the moon. Everything was gray and flat—zombie senses didn't process color well. But I could see clearly enough.
More importantly, I could feel her location. The street she was on. The buildings around her. The other zombies wandering nearby, all connected to me, all waiting for commands.
This, I thought. This is how I find her.
I shifted my focus to another zombie, then another. Each time, I got a brief flash of their perspective—different streets, different buildings, different corners of the city.
It was exhausting. Each shift felt like being pulled through a keyhole. But it worked.
I could search the entire city this way. It would take time, but I could do it.
Master is doing something strange, Ghost observed. Master's mind is... scattered.
"I'm looking for her," I said. "Min-Tong Lin. I'm going to search the whole city if I have to."
Then Ghost will help. Ghost will watch over master's body while master's mind wanders.
"Thank you."
Ghost does not do this for thanks. Ghost does this because master is pack. Pack protects pack.
I smiled despite the headache.
Then I closed my eyes and sent my consciousness racing through my zombie network, searching for a single familiar face in a city of the dead.