Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 471: Unintended Consequences

That night, I stared up at the stars, my mind wandering to places it shouldn’t go. Everything was too bright, too clear, too quiet, and it forced me to confront things that I really didn’t want to confront.

Why couldn’t I just go back to the chaos of everything before? Why did everything have to follow this path until there was no way out for me?

I sat at the edge of the beach where the light from the guys’ fire couldn’t quite reach, my toes buried in cooling white sand. The moon hung heavy and full above the sea, casting silver paths across the water that no one ever seemed brave enough to walk.

Behind me, the guys were laughing. Softly. Warmly. The remnants of dinner still lingered in the air—grilled fish, roasted pineapple, and mint.

It should’ve been enough. But it wasn’t.

"You can feel it too, huh?" came a deep voice from behind me.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to.

Beau sat down beside me, his feet sinking into the sand with the same slow weight as mine. He held a glass of something blue, glittering faintly, probably stolen from one of the zombie waiters. He didn’t offer it to me, but I wouldn’t drink it even if he did.

"The air’s heavier than it should be," he said, stretching his long legs out. "Like someone is waiting for the other shoe to drop." There was a moment of silence before he continued. "I know about the note," he started, not meeting my eyes. "How do they keep finding us, Hat?"

I didn’t answer at first, trying to figure out just how deep into the web I was. The Sins could leave any time. Tank, Chang Xuefeng, and even Eric could turn around when the wishes got to be too much.

But not me. Never me.

"They don’t find me," I whispered, deciding the truth was the best way to go. "It’s the house. It puts them in my path so I have no other option but to grant their wish."

For the first time since he sat down, Beau looked at me, the easygoing edge of his smirk gone. "You mean the house sends them to you?"

"Yes... but no," I murmured, curling my hands around my knees. "The house brings them to me."

He didn’t speak, so I kept going. Because once the words started, they refused to stop.

"It’s not just a house. It’s alive. A creature of will and magic and something older than all of us. It was born for one thing—to grant wishes. To take the strongest desires in the world and answer them. I’m just the middleman."

"But you are the one who create it," he said softly. "Didn’t you?"

"I designed it," I corrected. "The essence of the house already existed. I just gave it form."

Beau was quiet for a long moment. "And the people who knock?"

"If their wish is strong enough, they find a door. Doesn’t matter where the door is. It doesn’t matter when they make the wish. One second, they’re walking through a grocery store, and the next... they’re in front of the door, knocking."

"And if you aren’t in the house to grant the wishes?" asked Beau. It was actually sweet how concerned he was for me. I really didn’t have the heart to tell him that he and his brothers were the root cause of all this trouble.

"Then the house finds me," I shrugged. "It’s a new development," I continued, a sad smile on my face. "I guess it thought that since I had figured out the benefit of not being home, then it would now hunt me down."

That made him flinch. Just slightly. Like something cold had brushed the back of his neck. "So all this," he said slowly, "this whole beach trip... the house let you rest just long enough to recover. Then it sent the next one."

I nodded.

Beau ran a hand down his face. "That’s so messed up."

"I signed a contract," I said simply. "It gave me what I wanted. I was warned that there was going to be unintended consequences to any of the wishes I granted. I was told that I would need to make a sacrifice to get what I wished for. But for some reason, I just assumed that I was a lucky one. That the need for a sacrifice wouldn’t apply to me. Guess I was wrong."

"What was your wish?" asked Beau, gently taking my hands in his. "What were you willing to sacrifice?"

I looked down at where my hands joined his. This was the moment of truth...what happened next would determine the rest of eternity.

"I wished to become stronger, so that the Seven Deadly Sins could be beside me for the rest of eternity. My sacrifice was anything and everything to make that happen. I gave my life so that your demons could come to Earth and stay by my side."

"And the consequence of your wish?" Beau didn’t say anything about what my wish actually was, and I didn’t know if he had put two and two together yet. But I was going to stay in my nice little bubble for as long as possible.

I smiled, bitter as blood and lollypops. "I got everything I wanted. Now I have to pay it back. One wish at a time."

Beau didn’t say anything after that.

He just sat beside me, shoulder pressed to mine, while the sea whispered secrets we were never meant to hear.

----

By morning, the beach had changed. Not by much, not enough to startle, but you could feel it.

The bananas in the fruit bowl were too ripe. The drinks were too watered down. The horizon looked just a little too flat. The colors of paradise a little too dull.

Ronan was the first to say it aloud. "Something’s off," he grunted, trying to get comfortable in a lounge chair that no longer wanted someone in it.

"I thought it was just my hangover," muttered Désiré.

"It’s the house," Chang Xuefeng said, appearing like fog from the treeline. "It’s watching."

Luca pulled a gun from under his chair. "Is something coming?"

"No," I said, walking up from the water’s edge, the sea air wrapping around my ankles like shackles. "It’s already here."