Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The crows came first—by the hundreds.

They circled above Greymarrow's eastern fields, blotting out the pale morning sun with wings black as night. No one dared step outside when they began to gather, not even the brave. Doors were locked. Curtains drawn. Only Evelyn Blackmoor rode toward them, the Lantern of the Forgotten fastened to her belt like a ward.

The field had long been fallow. Once it held a chapel and an orphanage, both devoured in a fire decades ago—no survivors, no answers. Only crows. Always the crows.

Evelyn dismounted as the wind died, her boots sinking slightly into the ashen soil. The crows watched from fence posts, trees, and the sagging bones of the chapel's ruins. Not a single bird made a sound.

Then she saw it—half-buried in the soil where the chapel's altar once stood.

A cradle.

Old. Splintered. Rocking gently though no wind stirred.

And in it… a bundle wrapped in bloodstained linen.

As Evelyn approached, her lantern dimmed again. The soil pulsed. The crows shuffled in place.

She leaned in and peeled the cloth back.

There was no child inside.

Only feathers. Black and slick with something wet. At their center, a withered heart—still beating.

The crows cawed at once, deafening and furious. Evelyn staggered back, covering her ears. From the far end of the field, something rose—dragging itself out of the ground. A woman, scorched and skeletal, face frozen in a permanent scream.

Mother Avette.

The matron of the lost orphanage.

Her eyes glowed like smoldering coal. "The children never left," she rasped. "They're in the roots. In the bones. The crows keep them still."

Evelyn raised her lantern. "What curse binds this land?"

"Grief," Avette hissed. "Grief so deep it cracked the veil. I rocked them to sleep as the walls burned. I whispered lullabies as the smoke took their breath."

She pointed at the cradle. "Now they dream. And they want more."

Beneath Evelyn's feet, the ground split. Tiny hands reached out—some skeletal, others burnt, all hungry. The crows took flight again, forming a cyclone overhead. Their cries twisted into something human—wails of infants and children.

Evelyn threw the lantern at the cradle.

It struck true.

Flames erupted—blue and wild. The cradle shrieked. The heart blackened. The hands retreated. Mother Avette let out a final, piercing cry before vanishing in a gust of ashes.

And then, silence.

The crows were gone.

The field was empty.

All that remained was a circle of scorched earth where the cradle once rocked.

Evelyn stood alone, heart pounding, eyes on the darkening sky.

But as she turned to leave, one final feather drifted down and landed on her shoulder. A whisper followed it, soft and chilling:

"You're their mother now."