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The Cursed River
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Infection Spreads How the World Became Undead
The town of Hollowbrook had always been a quiet place. Nestled between the hills, with its old houses and rusty street signs, it was a town that felt timeless. The town’s lifeblood, however, was its river—the Raven’s Edge River, a once-pristine body of water that had been vital to the town’s existence for generations. It ran deep, clear, and cold, supplying the people of Hollowbrook with water for drinking, irrigation, and recreation.
But not anymore.
The Raven’s Edge River had always been fed by a series of smaller tributaries that wound through the hills, their streams trickling down from a nearby chemical plant. The plant had been there for decades, an eyesore to many but a necessary evil for the town’s economy. Over the years, however, no one had thought much about the chemicals it produced. No one had thought about the waste that was dumped into the river.
It was supposed to be controlled. Supposed to be filtered. But greed, negligence, and carelessness had slowly worn down the safeguards. The plant’s machinery had been aging, falling apart, and the management, under pressure to cut costs, had begun cutting corners. The chemicals were still being released into the river, unnoticed, unseen.
Then, one summer afternoon, disaster struck.
A heavy storm rumbled over Hollowbrook, the kind of storm that came and went without warning, but this time it didn’t pass quickly. The rains fell relentlessly, the sky turning an ominous gray as the wind howled through the trees. The swollen riverbanks, already saturated from days of rainfall, couldn’t hold any longer. A flash flood tore through the town, a torrent of blackened, roiling water, laced with chemicals from the plant.
In the aftermath, the residents of Hollowbrook were left to pick up the pieces. But no one knew that the flood had carried something far more dangerous than mud and debris. It carried the poison of the river itself.
When the first few families returned to their homes, they found that their wells were contaminated. The water from the taps ran thick, discolored, and foul-smelling. But desperation led them to drink it anyway. It was their only source of water, and they couldn’t risk getting sick from dehydration. In the days that followed, strange things began happening to those who had consumed the tainted water.
It started with headaches, then dizziness. A few people complained of feeling “off,” their skin growing pale, their joints stiffening as if their bodies were aging in fast forward. They had no way of knowing what had truly happened—how the river’s poison had seeped deep into their systems, changing their biology in horrifying ways.
But by the time the first violent outburst occurred, it was already too late.
It was Agnes Miles, a local woman in her late sixties, who was the first to go mad. She was a well-known figure in the town—sweet, elderly, and always willing to lend a helping hand. But after drinking the water from her tap, she had been struck with an insatiable fever. She lay in bed, burning up with sweat, and muttering to herself, until the fever finally broke, and she rose.
At first, her husband thought she was just delirious, her old age finally catching up with her. But then she turned on him. He never saw it coming. Her frail hands were strong now, almost unnatural, and her teeth—sharp, jagged like the teeth of a predator—sank into his neck, tearing the flesh with terrifying ease. She didn’t scream, didn’t show any emotion at all. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, her movements stiff and jerky, like a machine that had been switched on.
Agnes’s attack was quick. And brutal.
The town was in chaos within hours. No one knew what was happening, but they could feel it. The air smelled of fear, of something deeply wrong. The sick, the elderly, and the children had been the first to drink the water, and they were the first to change. The virus—if it could be called that—began to twist their minds and bodies. Their humanity was gone, replaced by an insatiable hunger.
It wasn’t long before more and more of the infected began to rise. They were no longer the people Hollowbrook had known. They had become hollowed-out creatures—walking, stumbling things, driven by a hunger that consumed everything in its path. Flesh, bone, muscle—nothing was off-limits. Their skin grew taut and ashen, their eyes turned dark and soulless. They were no longer people; they were predators.
A new wave of panic spread through the town as neighbors turned on neighbors. The flood had opened the door to something far worse than they had ever imagined. People ran, barricaded themselves in their homes, trying to escape the horrors that now roamed the streets. But no one was safe. They were everywhere. Hungry, relentless, and unfeeling.
Some survivors tried to band together, but the fear of being infected kept them apart. They couldn’t trust anyone. Who had drunk from the cursed river? Who was still human? It was impossible to tell. And it didn’t matter. As the sun set each night, the streets became a battleground. The infected lurked, prowling through the darkness, hungry for whatever life remained.
Dr. Joseph Lee, the town’s only physician, had been working tirelessly to help those still showing symptoms, but he had quickly come to the grim realization that the water was the cause of the infection. It wasn’t just a fever or a disease—it was something deeper, something that changed the very essence of humanity. The virus from the river seeped into the mind, erasing empathy, rational thought, and compassion, replacing them with nothing but the drive to consume.
The survivors were few. Those who had somehow escaped the river’s taint began to feel the strain, the desperation gnawing at them. Food was scarce, water even scarcer. The infected tore through whatever had been left behind, leaving nothing but corpses and ruined homes in their wake. There was no safe haven. The town had become a slaughterhouse, and there was no escape from the river’s curse.
By the time the first responders arrived, it was too late. They were met with nothing but destruction—burned-out houses, bodies piled high, and the groans of the infected echoing in the distance. No one could stand against the curse that had been unleashed.
The river’s poison had claimed the town. It had consumed them all. And with every passing day, as the floodwaters receded, more and more towns were infected. The curse was spreading.
The world was falling apart, and there was no hope for salvation. The Cursed River had turned humanity into something monstrous, and it had no end.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
The Infection Spreads How the World Became Undead
$3.99
The Infection Spreads: How the World Became Undead is a chilling collection of dark, morbid, and mind-bending short stories that explore the terrifying origins of the zombie apocalypse. Each story reveals a new, unexpected cause of the outbreak, blending science fiction, horror, and dystopian terror in one unforgettable anthology.
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