Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The moon rose like a polished blade—cold, curved, merciless. It cast its glow upon the marshes that fringed the Moonwood, where shadows grew long and the cries of night beasts echoed like laughter from forgotten gods.

Brenna Alder, apprentice to the Bonekeeper, walked the fen's edge with nothing but a rusted lantern and a satchel of salt. Her master had vanished three nights prior, last seen following strange prints in the muck—prints too wide for any beast known to the woods.

And now, Brenna followed them too.

Each step squelched beneath her boots, and yet there were no frogs. No birds. No insects. Just silence—and that feeling, like something sharp trailed just behind her spine, never touching but never far.

Then she saw them again.

Clawed footprints.

They didn't belong to man or beast. The toes were too long. The claws too curved. And between each print—gouges, like the creature had dragged its limbs, or worse... a second set of limbs.

She knelt and pressed her fingers to the print.

Still warm.

A howl shattered the stillness.

Not a wolf's cry—something larger, lonelier, and so full of pain that Brenna clutched her chest to keep her heart from leaping out. She turned just in time to see the rush of shadow between the trees, swift and low.

Then silence again.

She backed into the fens, lantern trembling in her grip.

The moonlight shifted.

There, on the far side of the water, it stood.

Tall. Lithe. Wrapped in tangled fur and moss. Its limbs too long, bent at the wrong angles. Yellow eyes like coals buried deep in its skull. Its breath steamed in the cold air—and as it moved, moonlight traced the claws on its feet, gleaming like knives.

It sniffed the air and spoke—not with words, but with sound.

A low, guttural hum, vibrating in her bones.

"Why do you follow the trail of the marked?"

Brenna couldn't reply.

It stepped closer, its clawed feet barely disturbing the water.

"The Bonekeeper fed on what he should not. Dug in graves not meant to be found."

It lifted a hand. Something dropped at Brenna's feet.

Her master's mask—shattered.

The creature stepped back, fading toward the trees.

Brenna gathered her courage. "What are you?"

The beast paused.

"I am the moon's justice. Born from every clawed print erased by greedy men."

And it was gone.

No rustle. No splash. Nothing.

Just silence once more.

Brenna returned to the village at dawn, clutching the broken mask, salt still unused. She didn't speak of what she saw, but from that day, she never stepped into the fens again. And when the moon rose full, she sat quietly by the fire, eyes fixed on the window, waiting.

Some say she still sees those clawed feet, dancing beneath the silver light.

And that when the wind howls through the reeds, it sings with a voice that once asked her a single, unforgettable question:

"Why do you follow the trail of the marked?"

The Moonwood remembers. And so does she.