Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The chimney hadn't smoked in a decade.

Not since the Ash Hollow Fire, when most of the hamlet burned under a blood-red moon. They said the blaze had been unnatural—spread against the wind, burned cold to the touch, and left behind no bones. Just soot, black and bitter.

Now, after all this time, the old chimney in the ruins of Ash Hollow Inn was puffing smoke once more.

And the faces had returned with it.

Merrin Faye, a traveling herbalist, was the first to see them.

She had come seeking solitude, hoping to spend the night among ruins where no one would bother her. The bones of the inn stood quiet, its stone hearth the only structure still intact. Her fire crackled warmly, its smoke trailing lazily into the gray sky.

She sat beside it, sipping elderflower tea, when she saw the first face.

It appeared not in the fire—but in the smoke.

A man's face, mouth open in a silent scream, his skin charred and flaking. His eyes wept ash. Then it vanished.

Merrin blinked, setting the teacup down. She rubbed her eyes.

The next face was a child's. Then a woman's.

They floated upward, mouths agape, lips trying to form words the smoke could not carry.

She stood up fast, knocking the kettle over.

"Who's there?" she called out.

Only the fire answered, hissing as the kettle hissed against the stone.

The wind picked up.

The smoke thickened.

More faces emerged—dozens, maybe hundreds—spiraling upward in the column of ash-gray vapor. Their expressions twisted between agony, rage, sorrow, and pleading.

One drifted closer.

Merrin stumbled back.

It was her mother.

But her mother had died seven years ago.

Burned alive in the very fire that had consumed Ash Hollow.

"Come with us," the face mouthed silently.

"The fire never stopped burning."

Then the smoke surged.

It swallowed the sky.

Merrin tried to flee, but the wind spun around her like a cyclone of soot and memory. Her lantern flickered and died. She screamed into the black, but it came out as a cough, her throat filling with dust that wasn't there a moment before.

She opened her eyes again inside a tavern—untouched.

Chairs stood neatly at tables. The hearth glowed with fresh logs. The air smelled of stew and cinnamon. She heard laughter.

And at every table… sat the dead.

Burned faces. Ashen skin. Wide, glowing eyes.

Her mother stood behind the counter, polishing a glass.

"Welcome home, Merrin."

Merrin turned to run—but the door had become stone.

The fire roared.

The chimney belched black smoke.

And outside, travelers passing by whispered that the old inn had come alive again.

That someone inside was tending the hearth.

They say if you breathe in the smoke… you'll dream of faces you forgot you loved.

And if you see your own?

It means your room is ready.