Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The moon hung low and red over the village of Thornmere, casting shadows that twitched where they should not. Every villager knew that once a generation, when the blood moon rose, the Beast of the Hollow Ridge would come down from the woods seeking tribute.

It was not just a beast—it was a curse made flesh. Fur like matted thorns, eyes like pits of fire, and breath that carried the rot of centuries.

This time, it wanted more than livestock.

It wanted a name.

Young Ruth Arlen, daughter of the village blacksmith, had heard the stories her whole life. She didn't believe them—not until she heard the howl on the first night of the blood moon. Not until the earth trembled beneath her window. Not until the council gathered and announced the old words:

"One must go, or all shall fall."

There would be a lottery at dusk.

But Ruth's father, broken and shaking, confessed the truth to her before the drawing.

He had made a pact with the beast.

Thirty years ago, during a famine, he had wandered into Hollow Ridge, starving and mad with grief. He found the creature there, standing in a grove where the trees bent inward like praying figures.

He offered his unborn daughter's name in exchange for food, rain, and health. The beast accepted.

And now it had come to collect.

"I didn't think it would live this long," her father wept, "I didn't think it would remember…"

Ruth did not scream. She did not cry.

She walked.

Alone, into the Hollow Ridge.

She found the beast waiting in the clearing, just as her father described. It stood as tall as a horse, with long, bramble-thick limbs and a face more shadow than flesh. Its voice came not from its mouth, but from the air around it.

"You have come willingly. That changes the terms."

Ruth narrowed her eyes. "What terms?"

"A pact must be balanced. If not blood, then soul."

The creature knelt before her. It placed a clawed finger against her chest. Ruth flinched—but then, pain blossomed, not from her body, but within her name. Memories fractured. Her favorite song, her mother's lullaby, the way her father smiled—began to fade.

"Wait—stop!"

The beast paused.

"You said it changes the terms. What if I make a new pact?"

It leaned closer. "Speak it."

"My name, my memory, my past... take it. But give me your power. Let me remember through you."

The clearing fell silent.

Then, slowly, the beast nodded.

Its shadow wrapped around Ruth like a cloak. She gasped as strength surged through her bones, her eyes burned red, and her heartbeat echoed like a war drum.

When she returned to Thornmere, the people fled in terror.

Ruth Arlen was no longer a girl.

She was a beast in human skin. A pact incarnate.

And once a year, on the blood moon, she returns to Hollow Ridge—not to pay tribute.

But to collect her own.

A name is power.

And power never comes without teeth.