Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The city ruins stretched in eerie silence, broken only by the distant howl of the wind. Draven led the group through the crumbling streets, past abandoned cars, half-buried corpses, and the occasional shuffling shadow in the distance. The night loomed overhead, the moon a hollow, bloodshot eye.

"We shouldn't be here," Elias muttered, flicking his lighter open and shut. "This place feels… wrong."

Mira clutched the Cursed Book, her fingers tense. "It is. This city—" she hesitated, her voice almost a whisper, "—it's not just abandoned. It's haunted."

A chill swept through them, as if something unseen had passed between them.

Zara tightened her grip on her knife. "Then let's keep moving before we find out by what."

They navigated through the skeletal remains of the city until they reached a massive, gothic archway, leading into what had once been a grand cemetery. The gate was broken, its iron bars twisted, and beyond it, rows of cracked tombstones lay scattered among the overgrown grass.

Draven hesitated. "You sure this is the way?"

Mira nodded grimly. "The Book says the Hollow Man's last victim is buried here. If we can find their grave, we might find a way to stop him."

The wind carried a whisper.

A voice. Faint, yet pressing.

"You shouldn't have come."

Draven swung his shotgun toward the sound, but there was nothing. The whispering grew louder, turning into layered voices, speaking over each other in a chorus of warnings and desperate cries.

Then, the fog rolled in.

Thick, suffocating, unnatural. It swallowed the gravestones, coiling around their legs like grasping fingers. Shadows shifted within it—tall, gaunt figures, their hollow eyes burning with unnatural light.

Elias took a step back. "Yeah. We're leaving."

The figures moved.

Fast.

A spectral hand shot forward, grazing Zara's arm. She gasped as her skin withered, turning gray and vein-laced, as if it had aged a century in an instant.

Draven fired. The shot passed through the entity, scattering the fog for a moment before it reformed, completely unaffected.

"They're not real," Mira said, flipping open the Book. "Not entirely."

A shadow lunged at her.

She slammed her hand onto a page, muttering something in an ancient tongue. The Book shuddered, and suddenly, the fog recoiled, pulling away like an injured beast.

For a moment, the path was clear.

"Move!" Draven ordered.

They sprinted through the cemetery, dodging ghostly hands, as the whispers turned into screams. The specters reached for them, their forms distorting, stretching, splitting apart in wails of agony.

Then—silence.

They had crossed the threshold. The fog hung at the cemetery's edge, unable to follow.

Elias exhaled. "I hate ghosts."

Mira swallowed hard, staring at the grave before them.

The name was scratched out, but the epitaph read:

"His soul was taken. His body remains. And soon, so will yours."