Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition
Chapter 1303 - 1303: Story 1303: Infection at Midnight

The truck groaned to a halt outside an abandoned fire station. The street was littered with burnt cars, broken glass, and the eerie quiet of a city that had stopped breathing. Lara could feel it in her bones—the world was holding its breath, waiting to collapse just a little more.

Ethan was pale. Too pale.

"We need to stop the bleeding," she whispered, helping him out of the truck and onto the dusty garage floor. His jeans were soaked in blood. His eyes, once the warm brown she'd fallen in love with, were now glazed with a fevered sheen.

"You said there was a med kit in the back," he mumbled.

"There is. Hold on."

She rummaged through the emergency bag they kept beneath the back seat—gauze, painkillers, a combat tourniquet. Her hands trembled as she wrapped his leg, trying to ignore the jagged teeth marks. The skin was already graying, pulsing with a sickly heat. It didn't look like a normal infection. It looked wrong.

"How long do we have?" he asked quietly.

Lara bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. "You're not dying."

He gave a broken chuckle. "Not dying… not yet."

They barricaded the fire station's doors with metal lockers. Every sound outside felt amplified—the scuff of ash, the thud of something crawling. But the true horror lay inside.

By midnight, Ethan was convulsing.

He screamed once, then again, curling on the cot they'd dragged into the corner. Lara soaked a towel in cold water and wiped his forehead.

"I'm burning," he groaned.

"You're not. You're fighting it. Stay with me."

"Hurts. Hurts all over."

He started thrashing. His skin darkened in patches. His veins looked like spiderwebs etched in black ink beneath his flesh. His breath came in short, choking gasps.

Lara held him down, weeping. "You promised you wouldn't leave."

His eyes shot open. But they weren't Ethan's anymore. They were clouded… dim… foreign.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, stay here—stay with me!"

For a moment, he blinked—like her voice called something back. He looked at her, and for a flicker of time, it was him again.

"I love you," he whispered.

Then he went still.

Lara sat beside him for what felt like hours, waiting for him to wake. Praying he wouldn't.

At 12:17 a.m., his fingers twitched.

He moved with a slow, unnatural rhythm.

She backed away, gripping the axe.

His body rose.

And with hollow eyes, Ethan turned toward her.

The infection had won.

Midnight had come.

And the man she loved was gone.