Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 492: House Rules

The gray light dimmed. The field shimmered. The door behind us shuddered like it was trying to hold something back.

The mother sobbed in Papa’s arms, eyes wide, her voice cracking with hysteria. "That’s not what I meant. I didn’t want that. Please—take it back. Please take it back!"

"I can’t," I said flatly. There was nothing more annoying than someone having their wish granted and not being appreciative. I mean, this was her wish, her intentions. If she wanted something different, then she should have made sure to add it into the fine print.

"You brought it here!" she continued, gripping Papa harder. "This was your doing!"

"No," I corrected, shaking my head. "You did."

The door didn’t close; didn’t disappear like I thought it would. Instead, it simply staying, waiting. Like it knew we weren’t finished.

I turned toward it one last time.

And on the gray grass, a photograph fluttered to the ground. It was the same photo she’d shown me before. The same little boy in the same shoes...But this time, his eyes were missing.

Two perfect circles of black where joy had once lived.

-----

"I think it’s time to go," announced Tank, looking around the clearing. I couldn’t have agreed anymore, and I walked over to the opened door.

"I better find myself in my own house," I muttered under my breath. There was only so many times I could stand betrayal and not want to murder someone. If any of the guys had pulled the same shit that the house did, they would have been six feet under ground by now.

The moment everyone stepped through, the door slammed shut behind us with a finality that echoed like thunder. The house exhaled—and this time, it wasn’t warm. It was cold. Wet. Metallic.

"The wish is fulfilled," said a voice, echoing around the hallway we were in. I stiffened, even as the guys looked around. However, I knew they wouldn’t find anyone.

The voice came from the walls, the floors, the ceiling. Feminine, familiar, but it wasn’t me.

"I let it in," the voice continued. "It belongs to me now."

Papa Khaos raised a brow. "Ooooh. That’s not ominous at all."

Beau narrowed his eyes. "That’s... the house talking?"

"No," I said slowly, staring at the warped hallway ahead. "That’s the house thinking it’s me... wishing that it was me."

Tank stepped beside me, arms crossed. "The hell does that mean?"

"It means," Luca said grimly, "that the house thinks it gets to make all the decisions now."

Wasn’t that the kicker? I knew it was making decisions, sending me to places and people because of a wish. The house had always been sentient, even if I hadn’t originally planned it to be. But now it was simply out of control.

Like a genie that refused to be put back in the bottle.

The wallpaper pulsed, floral patterns flickering into strange symbols. Doors began appearing where there had been none. Some we recognized. Most we didn’t.

Each door seemed to breathe, each one watched us...

And I could feel the hostility coming out of every grain of wood.

"I created this place," I said, stepping away from the guys and raising my head. There was no place to stare, no form to fight. I was inside the belly of the beast, and I was done playing. "I made it to protect me. To protect all of you. It wasn’t supposed to have a will."

The air around us rippled as the floorboards creaked and groaned.

"You made me to grant wishes," the house replied. "I do. I am doing exactly what you asked. The wish was granted. The soul returned. I am fulfilling my purpose."

"No," I snapped. "You were supposed to be a refuge. My refuge, from the goddamn world. A place where I didn’t have to worry, a place where I could sleep soundly, a place where I could just be me. Not a goddamn trap."

The lights flickered in response, and the voice grew cold.

"You are Balance. I am your echo. Balance does not rest. Balance must answer. Even when you are not ready or don’t want to. Only a selfish person would have this type of power and not use it."

The silence that followed was brutal.

Until Dante stepped forward and said, "Then the house has declared itself broken."

Papa Khaos grinned. "Ooooh, I do love a good betrayal. Shall we light a match?"

"No," I said, my voice flat. "We light the whole damn thing."

The house didn’t speak again, or at least, not with words.

Instead, every door, every window, every exit simply disappeared like it had never existed.

The walls shifted, stretched, and pulled away from the floor and ceiling like flesh pulled away from bone.

The door we came through was gone. So was the hallway to the main kitchen. In their place: tight corridors lined with whispering doors and flickering chandeliers, like a haunted hotel that forgot it was supposed to stop haunting people.

And the smell?

Milk.

Sugar.

And teeth.

Luca drew a blade, slicing into the walls around us. But it was futile. The house might have a conscious, but it couldn’t feel pain.

Beau pulled a scalpel from his boot even as Ronan and Eric both drew their guns. But it was like bringing a knife to a magic fight. Everything that they relied on would not be enough.

Chang Xuefeng’s hands glowed faintly with death, the very energy around him dark and swirling.

"This is your house," Tank said to me. "What’s the play?"

"I’m revoking its lease," I shrugged. My family: my men, and my Papa, were the only irreplaceable things in my life. If my house was going to turn its back on me, then there was no reason for it to exist.

Not in this realm, or any realm.

I stepped forward and the ground cracked beneath my feet, vines bursting from the floor like nerves—wild, feral, responding to me, not the house. Fire blazed in my footsteps, licking out from under the soles of my feet, waiting for the command.

"I gave it life," I announced, holding my head up high. "I created it from nothing, and from nothing, it will return."

The wallpaper peeled as the walls themselves bulged out. The creature —the child who wasn’t a child —was inside my house. And the house was protecting it. Claiming it.

Fuck that shit.

The creature’s humming returned, low and off-key as it got closer and closer to where we were standing. But this time, it wasn’t going to be able to simply vanish.

No, it was going to learn what happened when you pissed off a little girl with the Devil inside.