Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The engine room pulsed like a living wound. The air reeked of scorched memory and rusted time. Soul-shackles clinked with every heartbeat of the train, and above them, the Ghoul Trainmaster loomed—half-machine, half-phantom, a conductor of oblivion.

Draven led the charge, his blade glowing with runes scorched from the burning pages of the cursed book. Mira followed, the last vial of stolen starlight clenched in her fist. Elias hung back, whispering incantations beneath his breath, fingers dancing across the spine of a tome that bled ink and fire.

The Ghoul Trainmaster bellowed. "You seek to end the rhythm? Fools. I am the tempo of decay."

It unleashed a shockwave. Echoes of every dead passenger screamed from the walls, writhing like maggots in smoke. Mira stumbled. One of the spirits—a child—latched onto her ankle, whispering her sins in a loop.

Draven swung his blade, slicing through phantoms and metal tendrils alike. "Get to the Heart!"

The engine's core pulsed ahead—a grotesque mass of arteries and gears, pumping corrupted time. The Forsaken Girl's power had been funneled into it, Mira realized. That was how the Trainmaster broke time—how it resurrected the dead over and over, trapping the world in its endless loop of horror.

Mira hurled the vial of starlight.

It shattered against the heart, igniting it in white flame. The ghost-train shrieked, but it didn't stop. Instead, the train surged forward faster, tearing through dimensions, dragging the world closer to the final moment—The End Pulse.

From the shadows, Father Alistair emerged—his face a map of scars and ash. "You have no idea what you're doing," he said. "Without the Heart, time collapses. The world ends, but it ends empty."

"You made it empty," Mira spat. "You and your cult of rot."

Elias stepped forward, book in one hand, bloodied key in the other. "There's one way left. We bind the Heart—to a willing soul."

Silas Lockwood appeared behind them, silent and steady. "Then I'll do it. I've spent my life uncovering this evil. Let me bury it."

Draven shook his head. "That's not your burden."

But Silas smiled, stepped into the circle of runes, and plunged the key into the Heart. The train howled—metal shrieking, ghosts wailing, reality tearing. The Ghoul Trainmaster lunged, but Elias raised the book and chanted the Banishing Rite.

A flash of light.

Silas screamed.

The Ghoul Trainmaster vanished—dispersed into ash.

The train slowed.

And then the gates appeared.

A towering, wrought-iron archway under a blood moon. Behind it, the final stronghold: the Rotting King's fortress. They had reached the last station.

Draven turned to the others, face grim. "One stop left."

Zara stepped from the shadows, silent until now. "And he's waiting for us."

The gate creaked open.