Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They danced between shadows and death like it was a game.

It was Tess's idea, of course. It usually was.

Milo had barely recovered from the last ambush—his glowing veins dulled for now, pain managed by whatever cocktail of meds Lara left behind. But Tess? She was smiling again.

Not because she wasn't scared.

But because she'd found a new thrill:

Living louder than the dead.

They'd stumbled on the rooftop compound by accident.

An old nightclub, four floors above a shopping plaza. Reinforced windows. Rooftop access. A twisted disco ball still hung from the rafters, half-shattered, catching the sun like a fractured star.

The infected didn't make it up this high.

Which made it the perfect hideout.

And for one night—a dance floor.

Tess scavenged a solar-powered speaker from the tech shop across the street. Milo re-routed the generator for one final surge.

And when the system clicked on and the first beat dropped…

They forgot the apocalypse.

Tess laughed as the music echoed over the city ruins, a haunting pulse through dead streets.

"What if they hear us?" Milo asked.

She spun toward him. "Then let them."

"They'll come."

"Let them come slow. We'll dance fast."

She pulled him close. He resisted for all of two seconds.

Then the beat took them.

Not graceful. Not pretty.

But real.

Raw.

A girl with cracked knuckles and ash in her hair.

A boy with fire under his skin and a ticking clock in his chest.

Two souls flirting with death like it was the third dancer in the room.

He looked at her.

Really looked.

The lines beneath her eyes. The bruise on her jaw. The cut on her collarbone from the last escape.

But also… the smile.

That reckless, radiant smile.

"How are you still like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Alive. Inside."

She stepped close again. Whispered, "Because I've already died once. The night my brother turned. I stayed in that bunker for three days. I cried. I screamed. I almost swallowed a bullet."

She looked him in the eye.

"But then I heard music. Just once. Someone played it in the distance. I never found out who. But it made me remember I was still here. Still breathing."

She touched his chest.

"Still burning."

The music faded.

The generator died.

But neither moved away.

Down below, a shriek tore through the ruins.

Followed by another.

The infected had heard.

They were coming.

But Tess didn't flinch.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing her gear.

Milo paused. "Would you do it again? That dance?"

She smirked. "Every time."

Because in a world where every day was a funeral…

Flirting with death was the only way to feel alive.