Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The night was carved from obsidian, and the moon hung fractured like a shattered eye. Draven stood at the rusted gates of the Hollow Line—a spectral railway said to drift between realms. With the bone compass pulsing in his palm, he stepped onto the ancient platform. The train was already arriving.

It screamed into the station like a dying animal, wheels shrieking against warped tracks. Its engine glowed with a sickly green fire, casting twisted shadows along the platform walls. The doors creaked open with a whisper of wind and whispers that weren't wind.

He stepped aboard.

Inside, the train was alive. Walls pulsed like lungs, the floor beneath his boots was wet and warm, and every window revealed a different apocalypse—one world drowned, another burned, one filled with flying corpses that looked up as he passed. He moved car by car, eyes sharp, weapon ready.

In the third car, he found her.

Mira sat alone, eyes hollow, clutching a bloodstained journal. She didn't speak until he touched her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be here," she said softly. "This train feeds on regret."

"I've got enough to fuel it for miles," Draven replied.

Before she could answer, the lights died.

A low growl rippled through the car, followed by skittering across the ceiling. A figure dropped down—a creature of bones and tendons, its face a mess of eyeless sockets. One of the Glimmers—phantoms who fed on emotional resonance.

It lunged.

Draven fired, the bullets bursting through its form like mist, but Mira moved faster. With a scream, she opened the journal, speaking forgotten words. Light burst from the pages, forcing the creature back. Its form contorted, howling as it was ripped into spectral ribbons.

The train shuddered. It was angry now.

"What did you just do?" Draven asked.

"I used the girl's memory," Mira whispered. "One of the pages returned to me on this train. It's part of her soul."

In the next car, the walls bled. Elias Grimm was there, tending bar to no one, mixing drinks with trembling hands. When he saw them, his eyes lit up with fear and warning.

"You're not supposed to be here," he said. "The Ghoul Trainmaster… he rides this line now. He's collecting passengers for the Rotting King."

Too late.

The car lurched violently. The lights turned crimson. From the engine ahead, a figure emerged—cloaked in conductor's garb, his face a skeleton sewn with wires and gears. The Ghoul Trainmaster.

"You stole time," he rasped. "Now pay in blood."

The doors slammed shut behind them. No way back. Only forward.

Draven looked to Mira. She nodded, clutching the journal like a weapon. Elias tossed him a glowing bottle.

"Drink that when you're almost dead," he muttered.

As the Trainmaster raised a bladed cane, the three surged forward into the next car—toward battle, blood, and whatever nightmare awaited in the heart of the Hollow Line.