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The Undead City
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Infection Spreads How the World Became Undead
It started on the edge of town, where the earth trembled and the wind howled with an unnatural intensity. No one knew what lay beneath the old cemetery. For years, the ancient burial ground had been a place of quiet reflection, where the town’s ancestors were laid to rest. Its stones were weathered by time, the names carved long ago almost illegible. But no one dared disturb it. Not even the town’s most curious children ventured into that sacred, forsaken ground.
That was until they came—three men, strangers, from outside the town. Their faces were hidden behind masks, their clothes dark and unsettlingly out of place in the peaceful rural town. They arrived in the dead of night, with only a brief message for the town’s mayor: We are here for something older than time itself.
The men had come to excavate. At first, it seemed harmless—just a few men with a metal detector, digging for artifacts. The mayor had tried to warn them, telling them the stories of the place, of the long-held belief that disturbing the graves of the dead would unleash something terrible, something vengeful. But the men ignored him, their eyes fixed with a hunger that belied the simple task of treasure hunting.
They didn’t listen.
It wasn’t long before the ground gave way. They had uncovered a stone, ancient and covered in strange markings. As the men brushed the dirt off, the air around them grew cold. The earth groaned as if something beneath it had awakened, something buried for far too long. The stone cracked open with a sudden, deafening sound. And from the fissures, an ancient curse was released.
The first to fall was the youngest of the strangers. He had stood over the stone, eyes wide with awe as a shadow seemed to rise from the earth itself. He staggered back, mouth open in silent terror, but before he could scream, his body began to tremble. His face turned an unnatural shade of gray, his eyes bulging with an unseen force. The others watched in horror as the shadow seemed to pour into his body, as if the very essence of death was being siphoned into his flesh.
His mouth opened, but it was no longer his voice. It was a deep, guttural growl, a sound that sent shivers down their spines. He reached out toward them with stiff, jerking motions, his fingers curling into claws. The men tried to run, but it was too late. The curse had already begun.
As the hours passed, the men’s fates were sealed. One by one, they were overtaken by the vengeful spirits of the dead, their bodies twisted and warped as the spirits took control. Their eyes became black as coal, their faces void of any human recognition. The village was cursed, and the spirits were hungry for vengeance.
The dead no longer rested in their graves. They were walking, possessing the living, forcing their bodies to rise as one, driven by a need to wreak havoc upon the town. The men—now possessed shells of their former selves—began their attack.
The transformation was slow at first. Infected townsfolk were seen staggering toward the cemetery, their eyes vacant and faces frozen in a grimace of despair. They made no sound, save for the awful growls escaping their lips, like some primal force urging them forward.
As the first night fell after the disturbance, the town awoke to a nightmare. Those who had been infected during the day—the ones who had passed by the graveyard or innocently ventured near the cursed stone—began to act strangely. At first, they were disoriented, their movements stiff and jerky, like marionettes on tangled strings. They muttered nonsense, their voices filled with strange words no one understood. But as the sun dipped lower, the hunger began.
The hunger for flesh.
It was then that the horror truly began. The infected attacked without mercy, their hands ripping through the living, tearing at their throats, devouring their flesh in a frenzy that seemed impossible for the human body to perform. Their strength, unnatural and terrifying, was fueled by the spirits that had taken root in their minds.
Inside the once-safe walls of the town, people barricaded themselves in homes, churches, and businesses, too frightened to leave, too terrified to fight. The dead didn’t stop. They never stopped. They were relentless, insatiable, driven by vengeance, their bodies reanimated by the malevolent spirits that had haunted the land for centuries.
Inside one of the surviving houses, John, a local farmer, had holed up with his wife, Abigail, and their two children. They had tried to escape once, running toward the edge of the woods, but had found their path blocked by bodies—bodies that had once been their neighbors, their friends. Now they were just empty shells, their faces contorted in agony, their eyes blank, filled only with hunger.
“Stay inside. Lock the door,” John whispered, his hands trembling as he gripped the old rifle in his hands. Abigail clutched her children close, her face pale, terror-stricken. She knew, as he did, that there was no escape. The spirits of the dead had risen, and they would not stop until every last person in the town had been consumed.
Outside, the streets were filled with moans and groans—grotesque sounds that echoed from every corner. The infected were not just attacking—they were calling to each other, their voices strange and echoing as if a collective, ancient power was urging them to gather, to complete the ritual. They were not just mindless zombies, driven only by hunger. They were agents of something older, something vengeful, their purpose far more sinister.
As the days passed, the town fell into darkness. There were no more cries of resistance, no more hope for salvation. Every house was a tomb. Every family was devoured. John and Abigail could hear the soft shuffle of footsteps outside their door, the click of teeth grinding, gnawing on whatever was left.
In the end, John and Abigail gave in to the inevitable. They gathered their children close, holding them tightly, preparing for the end. As the door was kicked open by the first of the infected, John whispered a final, desperate prayer. The vengeful spirits who had once been buried were now free, and their wrath had consumed the world.
There would be no salvation. No reckoning.
The dead were not gone. They would never rest. The cursed spirits of the ancient burial ground had returned, and with them, they had brought an irreversible plague—the undead city was born, and it would spread.
Forever.
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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