Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Night cloaked the hills beyond the safehouse. Mist curled between the trees, silver under a sickle moon. Juno led the way down a narrow path, lit only by the flickering light of a cracked beacon pulled from the last outpost.

They didn't talk much anymore. Every word cost breath. Every step was weighed by the dead behind them.

That's when they saw the fire.

A faint glow through the pines.

Someone had built a camp. Clean. Silent.

Juno motioned for silence. Shade raised his rifle. H-13 held up a scanner—it pulsed green, then froze.

"One heartbeat," he whispered. "Stable. Familiar."

They moved in, weapons drawn.

And then Juno stopped.

Sitting beside the fire, sharpening a blade, was Caleb.

She lowered her weapon an inch, disbelief tightening her chest. "No…"

He looked up, slowly. Same eyes. Same scar under his jaw.

"Hello, June," he said softly.

Caleb had been the first person Juno ever trusted outside the lab. A fellow escapee. A fighter. A lover. But he'd died during the Collapse. She saw it—body dragged into the flames by the infected.

She stepped forward, trembling. "You're not real."

"I survived," he said. "Dragged myself out. The Cult of Decay found me. Healed me. Changed me."

Shade hissed, "He's a Turned."

Juno shook her head. "He's… not like them."

Caleb rose, blade gleaming in the firelight. "No. I'm better. I saw what the Cult was—false gods playing with rot. I broke away. I evolved. And I waited for you."

H-13 interjected. "Waited… to help?"

Caleb's expression hardened.

"To finish what we started."

He pulled back his coat.

Underneath, veins glowed faintly red—serum-tainted. Not infected. Modified.

"You still think the world can be saved," he said, stepping closer. "But it can't. VIREX won. Even when they lost. Every step you take, every battle you survive—it's all part of their evolution sequence. You're not a survivor, June. You're a lab rat with teeth."

She stared at him, tears stinging her eyes. "You were the one thing I believed in. Don't make me kill that, too."

"I won't let them use you," Caleb whispered. "Not again. Let me end it here. Quick. Clean. No more chasing freedom that doesn't exist."

He lunged.

Juno dodged, drew her blade, parried—sparks flew.

They fought in silence, only breath and steel.

He was faster.

She was smarter.

He cut her cheek.

She stabbed his side.

"I loved you," she hissed, twisting the blade.

He smiled, even as blood poured down. "I still do."

Then she shoved him into the fire.

He didn't scream.

Just whispered, "Free…" as the flames consumed him.

Silence.

Shade stepped beside her. "You okay?"

"No," she whispered, voice cracking. "But I'm awake."

She turned from the fire and kept walking—into the dark, where ghosts couldn't follow.