Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They told Clara Veil the manor had been abandoned for decades, but someone was still lighting candles in the west wing.

She'd seen it herself—through cracked windows and moonlight: a single room glowing faintly every night at precisely 2:16 a.m.

She was drawn to it.

The manor, once called Edevane House, had belonged to a painter whose name had been erased from local records. Only one artifact remained—a massive, dust-caked portrait that hung in the parlor like a warning. Covered in a velvet drape, its frame was taller than Clara and thrice as wide.

The caretaker, an old man with trembling hands, warned her:

"Don't look at it. It speaks when it's hungry."

Clara, of course, looked.

That night, beneath the dripping ceiling and rotting beams, she pulled aside the velvet cloth and gasped.

The painting was lifelike—too lifelike. A man stood within it, draped in fine garments, eyes sharp and aware. The brushwork shimmered as if the oil had never dried. The figure's lips curled into a faint, knowing smile.

And then it whispered.

"You're the first one clever enough to uncover me."

Clara stepped back.

The voice came not from the room, but from inside her mind—cool and fluid like ink on parchment.

"I was a maker of beauty… and horror. My brush could steal a soul in a stroke. So they locked me away. Not in chains… in canvas."

She tried to leave, but the air around her thickened. Her legs felt rooted. The candles flickered, elongating shadows like claws across the wall.

"You see, girl, art must breathe. And I—have held my breath for far too long."

The portrait's eyes moved. Not subtly. Not a trick. They followed her. Blinked. Studied.

Clara felt her own thoughts slipping. The frame pulled at her mind, coaxing her forward, one step at a time. If she stared long enough, she feared she'd be painted too—trapped in the oil, her soul scraped into pigment.

With trembling fingers, she reached into her coat.

The lantern. The cold flame Evelyn had entrusted her weeks ago.

She lit it.

The blue light struck the portrait, and for the first time, the man inside recoiled.

He screamed—not with sound, but with color. His face blurred. Brushstrokes unraveled. Canvas wept.

"I only wanted to be remembered…"

Clara held the flame closer. "Then be remembered as a monster."

The painting cracked down the center. The voice fell silent.

And in the morning, the manor's west wing collapsed.

But the velvet drape remained—folded neatly, untouched by rot.

Clara kept it in her satchel.

Just in case another portrait ever whispered.

Edevane's name returned to local legend, but no one dared paint within the manor ruins again.

Because art, like memory, doesn't always stay quiet.