Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The classroom hadn't been used in over a decade.

Desks were overturned, chairs shattered, and the chalkboard—still smeared with half-erased equations—had become a grim slate of scratch marks and dried streaks that looked too dark, too organic, to be chalk.

Wren stepped through the broken doorframe, flashlight sweeping over forgotten textbooks and long-dead projectors. Her team had gone missing the night before. Three scavengers. One radio call. Then static.

The signal had pinged here.

Room B-13.

A low wind slithered through the cracked windows, carrying with it a metallic tang and something more unnerving: a soft, rhythmic tapping.

She followed it. Closer. Closer.

The chalkboard.

Someone—or something—was writing.

And it was using blood.

She froze as words slowly appeared, drawn by an unseen hand:

"Sit down, Wren. Class is in session."

She spun around.

Empty.

Her radio crackled. A voice hissed through it.

"...We're still here… trapped… behind the board…"

Then screaming.

Not over the radio—behind the chalkboard itself.

She stepped back.

The surface rippled like water, the blood text smearing into unreadable trails. Her light flickered.

She had two choices: run, or investigate. And Wren had never been the running kind.

She grabbed a broken piece of desk and struck the chalkboard.

Crack.

It shattered—not like glass, but like bone. Behind it, a hollow cavity gaped wide. Inside, barely lit, were the outlines of desks, hanging bodies, and… children.

Ghostly. Transparent. Looping motions.

One little girl was writing endlessly on her desk, unaware her hand had worn down to bone. Another stood in the corner, twitching, repeating the same two words: "I failed. I failed."

Her teammates were there too. But not as she remembered them.

They were stitched into the floor, mouths open in silent screams, eyes darting madly in their sockets.

One of them locked eyes with her—Mitch, the medic—and mouthed:

"Don't write."

But it was too late.

The ghost girl at the front of the class looked up. Her eyes were solid black, leaking blood. She slowly raised her hand and pointed.

A chair behind Wren creaked.

Someone—or something—wanted her to sit.

She took a step back.

The floor turned sticky.

Blood oozed from beneath every desk.

The chalkboard repaired itself, growing tendrils that reached for her.

And then—

A shriek.

The ghost girl lunged, chalk in one hand, a bony ruler in the other.

Wren ducked, rolled under a desk, smashed her radio, and sprinted for the door.

It slammed shut.

Screams echoed from all directions.

Then silence.

The board began writing again.

In fresh blood.

"You skipped class, Wren. There will be consequences."

She clawed at the door. A faint hiss escaped the wood. The smell of chalk dust and decay surrounded her.

And then the door opened.

Not by her hand.

On the other side—nothing but empty hall.

She didn't run.

She fled.

But as she turned a corner, her flashlight flickered and caught a final message scrawled down the hallway:

"You never really leave Room B-13."