Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They say it only smiles when it's full.

The villagers of Ashendell once warned travelers of a tree deep in the Mourning Wood—a tree with a face that smiles wider with each soul it devours. Over time, the town fell, swallowed by the undead. But the tree remained.

And now, something new stirred beneath its roots.

Esmé Dreadmoor moved silently between the trees, her twin blades humming with spectral energy. The forest had grown unnatural—too quiet, too watchful. Leaves didn't rustle. Crows hung suspended from the branches like ornaments, their necks twisted.

She'd been hired by a survivor from Ashendell to retrieve his wife's locket, left behind during the initial zombie outbreak. But Esmé knew a fetch quest was never just that—especially in cursed woods.

She saw it just past a cluster of thorned oaks: the Grinning Tree.

Its trunk was twisted like a tortured spine. The bark peeled like flayed skin, revealing shapes—faces—screaming silently in the grain. And there, in the center, was the smile. A grotesque, jagged mouth carved into the bark, stretching wider than nature intended. It didn't just look like it smiled.

It was smiling.

At her.

As Esmé approached, whispers began to echo—not around her, but within.

"Come closer. She waits inside. So lonely. So hungry."

She gripped her blades. "I've seen worse than you."

The ground pulsed. Roots lashed out from beneath the soil, trying to grasp her ankles. She leapt into the air, slicing through them with grace and fury.

Then, the bark opened like a door.

And from the hollow trunk, a woman emerged—barefoot, pale, her eyes void of thought.

The locket gleamed on her chest.

The wife.

"She's alive?" Esmé murmured.

The woman looked at her. Her head tilted. Then her mouth split—literally tore open—far too wide.

From her chest burst branches, sharp and barbed, dragging Esmé forward.

The tree laughed—low and rumbling like creaking wood. "Feed me."

Esmé screamed, spectral energy exploding from her mask. Her dead twin's voice echoed in the wind: "Cut the heart, not the face."

She twisted in the air and stabbed both blades into the ground. Ghostlight spread in a circle, burning through the roots. The possessed woman shrieked as her tree-body splintered. The Grinning Tree howled, smoke pouring from its mouth as if its breath was being exorcised.

With one final cry, the woman fell—free of the tree's grasp. Esmé caught the locket before it hit the dirt.

The Grinning Tree's smile cracked.

It wasn't gone—but it was starving again.

Esmé walked away from the woods, her blades stained with sap and sorrow. Behind her, in the black hollow of the tree, a new face appeared in the bark.

Hers.

And it was smiling.