Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The girl's name was Nessa.

They found her at sunset, lying on a stone bench in the ruined courtyard of what used to be a library. Her leg was bitten—bad. The skin around the wound was blistered, blackening. But her eyes were clear. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft and steady.

"Don't waste your bullets," she said, blinking up at Lara. "I'm not turning. Not yet. Just let me enjoy the sky a little longer."

Lara knelt beside her. "We've seen people survive bites."

Nessa smiled. "You're lying, but I appreciate it."

The team set up camp near the courtyard, too exposed for comfort, but it was the only quiet place they'd found in hours. Nessa insisted on staying outside—said the air helped her breathe. She refused painkillers.

That night, Milo brought her water. She was no older than him—maybe seventeen, but with the hollow calm of someone who'd stopped expecting rescue.

"Did it hurt?" he asked her, quietly.

"The bite?" She looked down at her leg. "No. The screaming after did. My sister tried to cut it off, thinking she could stop it from spreading. She didn't make it."

Milo didn't speak. Just sat beside her.

"You can kill me in the morning," she said. "But not tonight. I want one more night to feel pretty."

He furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"

"I used to be obsessed with beauty," she said, brushing dirt from her cracked nails. "Skincare, lip gloss, angles for selfies. And now I'm… this." She pointed to her ruined leg. "But tonight, under this bleeding sky, with no mirrors and no followers… I think this is the first time I feel real."

Milo looked at her in the firelight—her face pale, eyes glassy with pain, and yet… beautiful. Not because of how she looked. But because of how she faced death.

"You are," he said softly. "You are real. And you're beautiful."

She smiled. A real one.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked.

He nodded. "Till morning."

When Tess and Lara checked on them at dawn, Milo was sitting cross-legged beside Nessa's bench. She had passed during the night—peacefully, eyes open to the stars, a soft smile on her lips.

"She didn't turn," he whispered.

Lara checked the pulse. Nothing.

"She beat it," Tess said. "Or maybe… she left before it could take her."

They buried Nessa beneath the tree beside the courtyard, using books to line her grave. Milo placed a cracked mirror from the library shelves as her headstone.

Bitten, but beautiful.

The road ahead was still long, still full of screams and blood.

But that morning, they remembered something else:

Grace. Dignity. Humanity.

Even in the bite.