Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Ash rained like snow, falling in thick, suffocating drifts over the broken tracks of Black Hollow Depot. The ruins moaned with the memory of arrivals that never left. Rusted trains, overgrown with thorned vines and slick with blood, loomed like iron coffins in the mist.

Draven led the group down the shattered platform, revolver drawn, every sense wired. The Forsaken Girl walked beside him, her steps echoing like prophecy. Behind them, Mira gripped the cursed book—its flame dimmed, its cover blistered like flesh.

They passed a rotting conductor, his jaw unhinged, whispering in tongues no one recognized. Elias muttered, "This place... it's not haunted. It is the haunting."

Suddenly, a sharp clang rang out. A rail spike rolled across the floor. Zara froze. "Something's here."

From the shadows of an overturned engine, a wall of corpses stood—once passengers, now puppets. Strings of black sinew held them up like marionettes. In front of them, a grotesque figure stepped forward.

The Bone Harbinger.

A herald of the Rotting King, sewn from the limbs of preachers and monsters alike. Its face was a cage, rattling with screams that never ended.

"You have come," it hissed, "to unbind what cannot be killed."

Elias raised his gun. "We've killed worse."

"You killed echoes. This is the origin."

The ground beneath them cracked—roots of flesh and wire erupting, dragging Mira down. Draven lunged, catching her wrist. The cursed book dropped to the floor, glowing brighter than before.

The Forsaken Girl stepped forward. "Let them go," she said.

The Harbinger laughed. "You are the offering."

"No," she replied. "I'm the judgment."

She raised her hand—and the depot shook. Windows shattered. Trains groaned. And the Rotting King's name echoed from the walls, a sound that bent reality.

Behind them, the depot gates slammed shut.

A distant whistle blew—deep, otherworldly.

From beneath the tracks, the true train arrived.

Carved from bone and black stone, pulled by chained ghouls, it hissed to a stop. A throne sat atop it, forged of ribcages and war banners.

And there he was.

The Rotting King.

Crowned in thorns, his mouth stitched by time, his eyes burning with centuries of plague and pain. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

Every one of them felt death unraveling around them.

Mira clutched the book. It opened to a blank page—then words bled in:

To seal the King, one must fall.

She looked at the others.

"No," Draven said, reading her face.

Zara shook her head. "We're not losing anyone else."

But the girl stepped forward.

"I was never meant to leave," she said softly.

She smiled at Mira.

"End it."

Then, she walked into the firelight of the throne.

The cursed book howled, pages tearing from within.

And the battle for the end of everything… began.