Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Beneath the rotting belly of the city, in a maze of tunnels forgotten even by the rats, the screams echoed again.

Evelyn Blackmoor adjusted her lantern, its flame barely holding against the oppressive damp. The map she clutched—torn from the journals of the mad grave-scribe Jasper Crane—had led her to this juncture: a rusted grate smeared with handprints. Some human. Some not.

The city above no longer slept. Since the Thirteenth Lantern had flared to life, nightmares walked cobbled alleys and haunted reflections. Evelyn had followed their trail to the only place that still stank of old gods and older lies: the Sewer Depths.

A splash behind her.

She turned fast, pistol raised, but nothing moved except her own breath fogging the lantern glass.

Then she heard it. A scream.

Not the sound of pain, but something worse—joy in agony. Dozens of voices, twisted and layered, called from below. Not for help. But in celebration.

She forced the grate open. The stench hit her like a blow. Sewage and rot, yes—but beneath it, incense. And blood.

The descent was steep, carved from stone veined with bone. Along the walls, crude murals danced in the glow—figures kneeling before writhing tentacles, men flayed and smiling, a spiral of eyes. She had seen these symbols before, scrawled on the skin of cultists during the Ritual in Crimson.

But here, the symbols pulsed.

The stairway ended at a black pool. In its surface, no reflection—only swirling void.

And there they were.

The Sewer Choir.

Once people. Now husks. Hollow-eyed and open-mouthed, their bodies twisted in a circle around the pool, swaying in rhythm to a sound Evelyn could barely comprehend. It wasn't music. It was memory, decayed and reborn as sound. Suffering tuned into harmony.

At the center stood a tall figure cloaked in filth and shadow. A mask made of rusted sewer grates and bone crowned its head.

"The city above forgets," it intoned. "But the dark remembers."

Evelyn's lantern flared. The light disrupted the circle. The singing cracked.

The figure shrieked—not in fear, but in delight. "Another seeker! Another soul for the drain!"

The pool rippled.

And something rose.

It had no shape—just wet, slapping sound and the smell of sewage and grief. Eyes blinked open along its surface, each filled with screaming faces.

Evelyn opened fire.

Bullets vanished into its mass.

The lantern, she realized. It wasn't just for sight. It was for banishing.

She hurled it.

Flame struck flesh, and the creature reeled, howling. The choir dissolved into ash. The masked figure shrieked as light carved symbols into its robe—seals it could no longer endure.

The void recoiled, swallowing the pool in a final moan.

Evelyn stood alone in the silence.

Or so she thought.

From a tunnel behind her, one voice remained.

Whispering.

Repeating her name.

She didn't look back.