Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

There were rumors in the market towns—of a woman who wore a veil of black silk and never spoke above a whisper. Some said she was mourning. Others claimed she had no face beneath the fabric. But all agreed on one thing:

Wherever she went, someone died.

Clara Veil found her in the village of Droswick Hollow, where the streets were damp with fog and the bells never rang. It was the third death in as many nights. A merchant, a midwife, a priest—each found with eyes wide open, mouths curled in terror, and nothing physically wrong.

The veiled woman stood in the chapel garden, unmoving, as if carved from grief.

Clara approached slowly, fingers brushing the lantern at her side. The woman turned. No face was visible beneath the thin veil—only the suggestion of hollows where eyes should be.

"You've been following the dead," Clara said.

The woman's voice was the wind through a dying cornfield.

"I do not choose them. The mask does."

"Mask?"

The woman slowly lifted the veil. Beneath was not a face—but a mask fused to flesh. White porcelain, cracked down the middle. No straps. No seams. It pulsed, as if breathing.

"It was placed on me by a man with no shadow," she whispered. "He said it would let me see beyond the veil of life. He lied."

Clara saw movement within the mask's eye holes—shadows crawling, whispering, writhing.

"I see their deaths," the woman said. "Before they happen. And when I do… they cannot be stopped."

"Can it be removed?" Clara asked.

The woman hesitated.

"Not by me."

That night, Clara sat with the veiled woman in the empty chapel. Midnight bells tolled—but there were no bells in Droswick Hollow. The sound came from beneath the earth.

The woman shuddered. "Someone is dying now."

The mask pulsed.

Clara acted quickly. She lit the lantern and held it before the woman's face. The cold flame turned violet. The mask screamed.

Not the woman—the mask.

A thousand voices at once, pleading, threatening, remembering.

Clara held it closer. "Let her go."

The mask cracked again. A third fracture. Then a fourth. It wept a black, inky substance that steamed in the lanternlight.

With a final surge of will, the woman reached up—something she had never dared—and tore the mask free.

It hit the chapel floor with a sound like shattering glass and fluttering wings.

The woman collapsed, gasping.

Behind her, the mask twitched once… then crumbled into ash.

She looked at Clara with real eyes—tired, human, and grateful.

"My name was Maela," she whispered. "Thank you… for letting me wear my own face again."

Later, as they left the chapel, Clara picked up a shard of the mask.

Inside it, faintly, a whisper remained:

"The man with no shadow is watching."