Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

There was no sun over Elder Hollow—only fog.

It rolled in thick and pale, blanketing the withered village like a burial shroud. It coiled through the skeletal trees, whispered against mossy gravestones, and swirled around the crooked chimneys of houses that hadn't seen life in decades.

Evelyn Blackmoor arrived just as the mist began to thicken, swallowing the road behind her.

Locals—those few who hadn't fled—refused to speak of the fog. They warned her in trembling tones: "It listens." "It learns." "It remembers what we forget."

The village square was deserted, its fountain clogged with leaves and bone fragments. At the center stood an iron post with a rusted bell. Above it hung a plaque, worn down by time:

"If the bell tolls, do not breathe. Do not speak. Do not move."

She rang it.

Once.

The sound vanished into the mist without echo.

Then the fog stirred.

It slithered across the cobblestones, pooling at her feet, cold as grave dirt. From its depths came soft footsteps—bare, wet, deliberate. Figures began to emerge.

Not people.

Memories.

The first was a child with a broken jaw, her mouth stitched shut with barbed wire. She pointed at Evelyn and whispered through sealed lips. Behind her came a man in a noose, still swinging. Then a woman burned to charcoal, eyes glowing faintly in her skull.

They didn't speak.

They surrounded.

A memory for every secret the village buried.

Evelyn stood her ground.

"I'm not one of them," she said. "I'm here to uncover the truth."

The figures froze.

Then turned.

They parted to reveal the Fogkeeper.

Draped in a tattered ceremonial robe, his face obscured by a cracked porcelain mask, he moved like drifting smoke. In his hands, he held a lantern that flickered with a lightless flame.

"Truth," he rasped, "is what the living use to forget the dead."

He raised the lantern.

From its glow emerged a vision—Elder Hollow's secret: long ago, in fear of plague and heresy, the villagers walled off the sick, the unwanted, and the cursed. Sealed them underground. Let them starve. Let them rot.

And the fog rose to carry their sorrow.

Their rage.

Their names.

The Fogkeeper extended the lantern toward Evelyn. "Speak their names, and they will rest. Or stay silent, and you will join them."

She reached for the lantern.

It burned cold in her hand.

Closing her eyes, she whispered.

Name after name.

Fifty-six in total.

The fog screamed as if pierced by light. The figures dissolved. The bell rang itself once—clear, final.

By morning, the fog had lifted.

Elder Hollow saw sunlight for the first time in generations.

But Evelyn knew the fog would return… if the names were forgotten again.

She carved each one into stone by the old bell.

And kept the lantern.

Just in case.