Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

EXT. SLUM FRINGE – EARLY MORNING

The sun hung low behind a smoky veil. Lena, Briggs, the Girl, and Ward followed an overgrown service path into a part of town no map covered—Old District 5, home to the decommissioned meatpacking plant known only in whispers as "Slaughterhouse Red."

BRIGGS (grumbling):

"Smells like something's still dying."

WARD:

"Place was shut down long before the infection. Locals claimed it was haunted. I saw what really happened—no ghosts. Just the first experiments."

INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE RED – MAIN FLOOR – MOMENTS LATER

The door creaked open. Inside: rusted hooks, conveyor belts, dried blood like black stains on concrete. A low mechanical hum echoed through the empty halls.

THE GIRL (whispering):

"They fed the pigs… people."

Lena flicked her flashlight toward a corner—movement. A shadow darted behind a row of hanging carcasses.

WARD (raising rifle):

"They're here."

Suddenly, a metallic shriek as a security gate dropped behind them. They were locked in.

INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – PROCESSING BAY – CONTINUOUS

Red emergency lights flickered. Machines long thought broken clunked to life. The slicing arm—a robotic limb with dull but deadly blades—whirred and swung.

BRIGGS:

"We need out—now!"

The group ducked and weaved through the narrow maze of meat hooks and conveyor belts. But they weren't alone.

Figures emerged from the shadows—humanoids in blood-stained aprons, faces hidden by metallic slaughter masks. Their movements jerky, unnatural. Not fully undead… but not alive either.

WARD (grim):

"Slabmen. Failed regeneration test subjects. Nerve endings still work. Pain keeps them angry."

One Slabman lunged at Lena—she slammed it into a meat hook. Another caught Briggs, clawing into his arm before the Girl stabbed it in the throat with surgical precision.

INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – SECURITY ROOM – MINUTES LATER

Ward found an old terminal. Static crackled on the screen before flickering to a video log.

RESEARCHER (on screen, panicked):

"They promised revival. But the serum twisted them—mindless but still remembering pain. They don't die. They remember dying."

Briggs winced, clutching his bleeding arm.

BRIGGS:

"If I turn, you end it fast."

Lena shook her head.

LENA:

"No one's dying today."

Ward downloaded coordinates onto a data drive.

WARD:

"Alpha Vault had sister sites. One's close—beneath the Memorial Hospital."

Suddenly, alarms blared again. The conveyor belts reversed direction—toward them.

THE GIRL:

"They're feeding the living now."

INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – EXIT CHUTE – FINAL MOMENTS

The team sprinted toward a chute that once dropped meat to delivery trucks. Slabmen closed in from all sides.

Briggs tossed a fire extinguisher into a control panel—it exploded, triggering a partial collapse.

They slid down the chute just as flames lit up the plant behind them. Screams of the half-dead echoed into the dawn.

EXT. RIVERSIDE CANAL – SAFE FOR NOW

They landed in sludge and silence. Alive, for now.

LENA (breathing hard):

"Next time someone says 'shortcut,' I shoot them."

Ward handed her the drive.

WARD:

"Let's hope Memorial's less dramatic."

The Girl stared back at the burning slaughterhouse, eyes glassy.

THE GIRL:

"They felt everything. Even at the end."