Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The night split apart with the sound of wings. The shriek echoed through the ruins, rattling the hollow bones of the city. Dust rained down as the massive form blotted out the moon, circling the crumbled church tower like a phantom of the skies.

Zara clung to the railing, her knuckles white. "What is it?"

Damien's eyes followed the shape cutting through the fog. For a heartbeat, he thought it might be a vulture, some enormous mutation feasting on carrion. But when the clouds broke, the truth revealed itself.

A pterosaur.

Its leathery wings stretched wider than a house, claws hooked at their tips. Its elongated beak glistened with jagged teeth, snapping at the air as it screeched again.

"Another relic," Damien muttered under his breath. "The earth's coughing up its old monsters."

The creature swooped low, its shadow sweeping across the rooftop. Below, the undead groaned louder, as if answering its call. The horde poured through the church doors, their pale hands scraping against stone, their moans blending with the flap of ancient wings.

Zara pressed against Damien's arm. "They're closing in from both sides. What do we do?"

He studied the beast's circling pattern. "If it thinks we're prey, it'll dive. We use that."

Her eyes widened. "Use it? Damien, it'll tear us apart!"

"Not if the dead get in the way first."

As if on cue, the staircase below groaned under weight. Dozens of corpses pressed upward, clawing toward the tower. Their faces—eyeless, rotting, eager—shimmered in the moonlight.

Damien braced his axe. "Stay behind me."

The first corpse emerged, its skull half-caved in, jaw dangling loose. Damien's swing was fast, merciless. The hatchet split bone, sending the thing tumbling back onto the others. But more came, climbing over the fallen without hesitation.

The air shifted. A shriek thundered above as the pterosaur tucked its wings and dove. Wind whipped around the tower, nearly knocking Zara from her feet. The beast's claws stretched, aiming straight for them.

"Down!" Damien shoved Zara to the floor.

The monster's talons scraped the bell frame, tearing iron like paper. Instead of catching the humans, its claws snagged three zombies scaling the tower's side. With a powerful flap, it lifted them screaming into the air before dropping their twitching bodies into the ruins below.

Zara covered her mouth, her breath ragged. "It's… hunting them?"

"For now," Damien said, pulling her up. "But it won't stay satisfied."

The beast wheeled in the sky, circling back. Below, the Tyrannosaur roared again, locked in its eternal struggle with the horde. The city had become a battlefield of time itself—ancient monsters against the restless dead.

Damien tightened his grip on Zara's hand. "We move while they're distracted. There's an old watchtower past the churchyard. If we reach it, we might live till dawn."

The pterosaur shrieked once more, diving again. The undead pressed up the stairs, unrelenting.

Between sky and earth, Zara realized, there was no safe place left. Only choices between terrors.