Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The baby wouldn't stop crying.

And neither would the woman holding it.

The sound pierced the night—a lullaby of sorrow and survival. But it wasn't just the baby's hunger echoing through the collapsed hospital corridors. It was the mother's grief… and something worse.

Guilt.

Her name was Suri, and she'd been rocking the infant in a shredded blanket stained with blood. Not hers. Not the child's. But someone's.

Maybe her husband's.

Maybe a nurse's.

Maybe a stranger who got too close.

No one asked. No one had the right to.

Alek and Mara found her in the maternity wing, barricaded behind a wall of overturned cribs and IV stands.

"She's been singing," Mara whispered, peeking through the gap in the barricade.

"Even when the baby's asleep," Alek muttered.

"Especially then," Mara replied.

They entered with caution.

Suri didn't scream. Didn't threaten. Didn't beg.

She just stared.

Eyes swollen, voice hoarse from hours of whispering lullabies to the little one curled against her chest.

"I call him Echo," she said softly.

"Is that his name?" Alek asked.

"No," she replied, rocking back and forth. "He just… echoes the dead."

The baby stirred, letting out a faint whimper.

Suri began humming again. The melody was haunting—fragile and ancient, like something sung in old battlefields or cradles during war.

Mara recognized it.

A wartime lullaby.

One her grandmother used to hum during air raids.

Sleep, child, in crimson light…

They'll never find you in the night…

"What happened here?" Mara asked.

Suri didn't answer with words.

She tilted her head toward the ceiling, where a handprint streaked in blood ran down from the ventilation duct.

Then, slowly, she unwrapped part of the blanket.

On the baby's arm was a band—a patient ID. Not for the child.

For the mother.

It read: "INFECTED – OBSERVATION ONLY"

Alek stepped back instinctively.

Suri noticed. She didn't flinch.

"I didn't turn," she whispered. "They said I would… but I didn't."

Mara looked at the baby. His chest rose and fell like any newborn. No grey in the skin. No twitching.

Still… that band haunted her.

"We can take you with us," Mara offered.

Suri's lullaby stopped.

"I don't leave this room."

"Why?"

"Because the last time I tried, I had to kill three nurses. Two were already turning. One… wasn't."

Alek swallowed hard. "What happened to your husband?"

Suri looked down.

Then began to sing again.

They left that night, without her.

But the lullaby lingered.

Carried on the wind.

A mother's broken promise wrapped in melody.

Later, in their tent, Mara couldn't sleep. The tune echoed in her ears.

Then she heard it again—faint, in the distance.

Sleep, child, in crimson light…

They'll never find you in the night…

A baby's cry followed.

Or maybe… just the memory of one.

Because not every survivor walks out.

Some stay behind, holding onto love with bloodstained hands.

Singing lullabies to ghosts.

And the ghosts?

Sometimes, they sing back.