Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

She's been dead for seventeen days.

But I swear I can still smell her.

Lavender and smoke.

The perfume she always dabbed behind her ears.

Mixed with gun oil and rainwater.

It clings to the collar of my coat. To the pillow I carry. To the air itself, sometimes, when I'm not ready.

I thought maybe it was hallucination. Or grief. Or infection.

But no.

Even the others noticed.

"Who's wearing flowers?" Ronny had asked on day three.

No one was.

No one but memory.

Her name was Mayra.

We met two years before the fall.

She worked in a pharmacy. I fixed solar panels.

We made plans.

Saved for a small house.

Argued about names for kids we never had.

Then came the sickness.

And after, the screams.

She didn't die dramatically.

No swarm. No firefight.

Just a slow cough one night, followed by a fever that took her under.

She made me promise not to shoot her unless I saw her eyes go white.

"I want to feel like I'm still me," she whispered. "Even when I'm not."

So I waited.

Waited too long.

She came back snarling.

Blood in her teeth.

No recognition in her face.

But even then—her scent was still there.

Even as she lunged, I smelled lavender.

And I hesitated.

She scratched me across the chest.

Deep, but not enough to turn me.

Just enough to remember.

I pulled the trigger with my eyes shut.

Now, I carry her scarf in my pocket.

I press it to my face when the nights get too loud.

Sometimes I see her in crowds of the undead.

Not the rotting ones.

The newly turned.

She's always in the background.

Not attacking.

Just… watching.

A woman in the new group—Trish—started wearing lilac soap.

I asked her to stop.

She didn't ask why.

She just did.

Another woman offered to help wash my jacket once.

I screamed at her.

I told her, "If the smell goes, she's really gone."

The rest think I'm unraveling.

Maybe I am.

But I know the difference between madness and memory.

And this is memory.

Vivid. Cruel. Real.

She is gone.

But her scent remains.

Even now.

Especially now.

Tonight, we camped in a burned-out greenhouse.

Everything reeked of ash and mildew.

Except my corner.

There, she returned.

Soft. Warm.

Like she was standing behind me.

I turned.

There was nothing.

But the scent lingered.

And for a moment,

I felt married again.

Maybe that's my curse.

Not that I lost her…

…but that I remember too well.

And maybe,

in this world,

that's the cruelest kind of infection.