Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

A red mist rolled across the depot ruins as Father Alistair stepped into view, robes torn, eyes glowing with infernal light. Behind him lurked a grotesque, skeletal creature stitched from the limbs of dozens—The Revenant, born from blood rituals and lost souls. It sniffed the air and grinned with a dozen mouths.

"You thought the girl was the key," Alistair said, voice like gravel soaked in poison. "But she was only the spark. This is the flame."

Draven raised his blade, etched with runes scorched from the cursed book's pages. "You made a pact."

"Not just a pact," Alistair sneered. "A sacrifice. I fed the Hollow Man pieces of my soul for centuries. Now he gives me the power to unmake kings."

The Rotting King hissed, stepping down from his crumbling throne. Shadows curled around him like living serpents.

"You dare challenge me, priest?"

Alistair raised his hands. The Revenant lunged, crashing into the King with the force of a storm. Flesh tore, bone cracked, and the two titans slammed into the collapsing depot floor. Flames danced in the cracks as ancient wards shattered.

Zara scrambled onto the platform, gripping a chain-link whip she stole from a fallen warden. "We need to finish what the girl started."

Elias nodded, flipping through the half-burned remains of the Grimoire. "The final gate's open. We can either close it—or let hell swallow the world."

Mira, bloodied but unbroken, joined them. "Where's the seal?"

Elias pointed to the gate where the girl vanished. "Right there. But it requires one thing we don't have."

"Hope?" Zara asked bitterly.

"A soul willing to be forgotten," he replied.

The silence that followed was heavier than the ash in the air.

Draven stepped forward.

"No," Mira said. "You've come too far."

He looked at her, eyes hollow yet resolute. "I was always meant to burn. This world was never mine. But maybe it can still be yours."

Before anyone could stop him, Draven sprinted through the rift.

A blinding light burst from the gate as the Revenant and Rotting King tore each other apart behind them. The train shrieked once more across realms, this time silent, spectral, fading into memory.

The rift sealed.

The winds died.

And for the first time in years, the dead stopped screaming.

But the silence didn't last.

From the blackened earth, a single skeletal hand erupted—followed by a dozen more.

Zara whispered, "We didn't stop it… we only paused it."

From the ruins of the depot, a tower of bone began to rise.

Mira clutched Elias's arm. "Then we find the next page."

He nodded grimly. "And pray the book isn't writing itself now."

Behind them, the wind whispered in a familiar voice.

"I remember…"

It was the Forsaken Girl.

And she wasn't alone.