Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The villagers never spoke of the old church on Hollow Hill.

Not because of its crumbling steeple or the faded stain-glass eyes that seemed to watch you.

But because at night, the pews whispered… and if you listened long enough,

you could hear the ocean beneath the floorboards.

Father Aldric had returned to tend the church after twenty years in exile.

He had once been its priest. Before the storm. Before the flood. Before the drowning.

The church was meant to be built on sacred stone, but that was a lie.

It was built on salt. On bones. On a sea that had no surface—just a mouth, waiting beneath.

He lit the lanterns out of habit, though the shadows were wrong.

They rippled. Moved. Waved.

A strange brine-slick wind stirred the air, and each flame flickered in rhythm—as if something far below was breathing.

Father Aldric tried to pray.

But his voice echoed back… wet.

That night, he walked barefoot down the aisle.

The altar stood untouched, the holy books rotted shut.

But beneath the pulpit was the trapdoor, warped with moisture and age.

He should've left it shut.

But the whispers called him by name.

He opened it.

A staircase, spiraling downward.

Moss-coated. Black with mildew. Dripping.

He descended. Step by step.

And the air grew… colder.

Not with chill, but with pressure, as if the weight of a great sea hung just above his lungs.

Then he reached it.

A vast, sunken chamber—a cathedral inverted, flooded not with water, but a dark, moving brine that shimmered with stars and forgotten names.

The sea was still.

Until he stepped closer.

Then it moved, a tide without waves. A shudder.

And something within rose—not a creature, but a presence.

It wore the shape of drowned saints—limbs of coral and barnacled cloth, mouths filled with salt and hymns.

They did not speak, yet the chant began:

"We remember the tide that never came…"

"We remember the lungs that drank the sermon…"

"We remember you, Aldric."

The sea rose. Not fast, but inevitable.

Father Aldric fell to his knees, the brine licking at his robe, pulling him gently forward.

"What do you want?" he whispered.

The water answered in a thousand tongues:

"To baptize the silence."

He did not fight.

He walked into the sea beneath the church.

It welcomed him. Took his name. Left his shape behind, carved in salt upon the altar.

By dawn, the villagers found the chapel doors open.

Inside, everything was dry.

But in the pulpit where Father Aldric once preached, there stood a pool of seawater, still and black, with a single barnacle-covered crucifix floating in its center.

And if you listened very closely…

You could hear the waves crashing…

far below.