Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They climbed a crumbled ridge above the swamp just before dawn.

For a moment, everything was still. No lightning. No reanimated giants. Just wind brushing over the exposed hillside, and a distant flicker—blue light, blinking like a heartbeat.

Juno shielded her eyes. "That tower… it's broadcasting."

"Signal Relay C9," H-13 confirmed, examining the pulse on his scanner. "Meant to bounce emergency transmissions to the outer colonies. But it was decommissioned before the breach. No power, no encryption... and yet, it's still on."

Shade knelt beside a rusted VIREX sign half-buried in dirt. The warning had peeled away, but he could just make out a phrase:

"Silent Zone: No Transmission. No Return."

"Something's forcing that signal," he said. "And it's not friendly."

They made their way down the ridge to a valley lined with fallen satellite dishes and shattered towers. Birds—what few remained—flew in manic circles overhead. Something about the air was wrong—like walking through a half-remembered dream.

When they reached the relay tower, the distortion thickened. Their radios crackled. Their thoughts began to blur.

Juno paused. "You feel that? Like someone's whispering between our ears?"

Shade looked pale. "I keep hearing my brother. He's been dead for two years."

"It's not a voice," H-13 murmured. "It's a signal spasm. This tower… it's rebroadcasting memories. Looping them. Corrupting them."

A faded figure stood beneath the tower.

Tattered coat. Face obscured by static. One hand held a transmission pad.

They approached cautiously.

The figure turned, eyes blinking with blue Morse pulses.

Juno gasped. "I know him. That's Micah. One of the earliest VIREX engineers. He designed the neuro-codec interface."

Shade frowned. "He's dead."

"No," H-13 whispered. "He's uploaded. Part of him is still here—trapped in the signal net."

Micah's voice came in bursts:

"Help… break the loop… buried commands… relay is infected…"

Behind him, the screen blinked a single phrase, repeating:

"WE SEE YOU."

Then: static burst.

The tower screamed.

A piercing, layered screech erupted—not sound, but thought. A psychic pulse meant to jam memory. Shade dropped to his knees, clutching his head. Juno staggered back, blood trickling from her nose.

"The signal's an erasure field," H-13 cried. "It's wiping identity. This wasn't a relay. It was a failsafe—built to clean up survivors who got too far."

Juno ripped the override panel open and jammed her neural blade into the core.

Memories surged—hers, Micah's, a thousand broken lives.

She didn't fight them.

She connected them.

The tower shorted.

The light died.

And the silence that followed felt… human.

Micah's figure glitched once, then smiled.

"You changed the signal. You gave them a story."

And then he was gone.

Only the stars blinked overhead now—silent, disconnected.

"We're not just survivors anymore," Juno said, breathless. "We're transmitters."