Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Every city has a place where the lost gather. Not the drunk or displaced—but the truly lost: the cursed, the forgotten, the ones who speak to mirrors and wake up with sand in their veins. In the City of Echoes, that place is a crooked, ivy-choked structure wedged between two impossible alleys.

No signs.

No hours.

Only a flickering lantern swinging over the door.

Madame Grin's Tavern.

If you find it, it's because she wants you to.

Calia Morn had been a medium once—until the dead stopped speaking to her. Now, she wandered the city's edge, chasing scraps of meaning in strangers' footsteps. The night she arrived at the tavern, she hadn't meant to. One wrong turn off Bleeding Street, and she stood before the door, cold wind pressing against her spine.

She entered.

The tavern smelled of smoke, rust, and dried roses. The floor creaked underfoot like it remembered every step ever taken. No music played, yet whispers filled the air—voices too muffled to identify, but too specific to ignore.

Behind the bar stood a tall woman in crimson velvet, her mouth stretched in an unnatural, permanent smile. Her eyes were black pearls, catching candlelight like wells of ink.

"Welcome, darling," she purred. "You've come to unburden yourself."

Madame Grin.

Her teeth were too many. Her laugh too knowing.

The patrons sat quietly, each nursing drinks that shimmered with memories—glimpses of loved ones, regrets, fears. One man wept into his mug as the voice of a lost daughter echoed from its surface. Another woman laughed at shadows only she could see.

Calia sat, hands shaking. She hadn't spoken to her dead sister in years—not since the séance that went wrong. The one that cost her voice in the spirit world.

Grin placed a cup before her. "No charge. First confession's free."

Calia hesitated, then drank.

She saw her sister, plain as day, dancing in a field of white lilies. She was smiling, alive—until she turned. Her face was wrong: hollow-eyed, mouth sewn shut with black thread.

The vision ended. Calia gasped.

"Why would you show me that?" she demanded.

Madame Grin leaned close. "I show only what your guilt ferments."

Calia stood, trembling. "I want the truth."

Grin tilted her head, grin never breaking. "Then stay until closing. If you can survive the final round."

The tavern's lights dimmed. The door locked itself.

The patrons turned to stare at Calia.

Their eyes were mirrors.

Their reflections flickered.

Not hers.

The next day, the tavern was gone.

Just a scorched patch of cobblestone, the scent of roses, and a broken teacup—still warm.

Some say Madame Grin still roams the streets, her tavern materializing where secrets are heaviest.

Others whisper that once you drink from her cup, you never really leave.

You just become part of the tavern's story.

Confess your sins,

drink your memory,

and pray the smile forgets your name.