Zombie

 The gravel crunched beneath the tires, a slow, agonizing grind that sounded far too much like teeth chewing on bone.

Through the cracked, grime-smeared windshield, the dilapidated church loomed against the bleeding twilight. Its wooden steeple stabbed at the bruised sky like a broken finger. Nature had long since reclaimed the grounds; choking weeds and tangled briars strangled the rotting picket fence, and the air carried a heavy, cloying stench—like wet earth mixed with copper and spoiled meat.

Inside the cramped sedan, the atmosphere was suffocating. Mark gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, his eyes bloodshot from hours of staring at endless asphalt. His rustic flannel shirt felt damp against his skin, soaked in a cold sweat he couldn't seem to shake.

Beside him, Georgia shifted anxiously. Her polka-dot dress, once bright and cheerful, looked faded and ghostly in the dashboard’s dying amber glow. She clutched a crudely fashioned wooden cross to her chest like a shield.

"You know Mom wants us to remember," Georgia said, her voice trembling, though she tried to anchor it with purpose. "That’s why we're here. To plant this cross on her beloved husband’s grave... on our father's grave. It’s the anniversary of their marriage. We had to."

Mark let out a harsh, bitter breath, the engine idling with a low, uneasy rattle. "Yeah, I know. But it’s been a long trek of over six hundred miles, Georgia. I'm exhausted. The roads are empty, the radio's been dead for hours, and this place..." He glanced out the window, a primal instinct screaming at him to put the car in reverse. "I just want to get this over and done with."

"It'll take five minutes," she pleaded, though her eyes darted nervously toward the shadows stretching across the cemetery. "We find the plot, we drive the cross into the dirt, and we leave."

Mark sighed, turning off the ignition. The sudden silence that slammed into the car was deafening. No birds. No crickets. Just the ticking of the cooling engine.

"Fine," Mark muttered, reaching into the backseat for a flashlight. "Let’s move."

The air outside was freezing, carrying that same sickening, sweet rot. They stepped onto the gravel, their footsteps echoing too loudly. Georgia held the cross tight, while Mark clicked on the flashlight. The beam cut through the encroaching fog, illuminating a sea of tilted, cracked headstones swallowed by overgrown grass.

They walked past the rusted iron gates of the churchyard. Shadows seemed to stretch and twist just beyond the edge of the flashlight's beam.

"Over there," Georgia whispered, pointing toward a massive oak tree whose gnarled branches looked like reaching claws. "Dad’s plot is near the old oak."

As they neared the tree, a sound broke the silence.

*Wet. Tearing. Wet.*

Mark froze, swinging the light. "Did you hear that?"

"It's just the wind, Mark. Come on," Georgia urged, her voice tight with rising panic. She knelt quickly before a headstone half-buried in thorny vines. *Thomas Vance.*

With trembling hands, she forced the pointed end of the wooden cross into the damp earth. "We're here, Dad," she whispered.

*Crunch.*

This time, it wasn't the wind. It was the distinct sound of heavy, dragging footsteps on the gravel driveway.

Mark whipped the flashlight back toward the car. The beam illuminated the sedan. And then, it illuminated *them*.

Emerging from the shadow of the church porch were three figures. They didn't walk; they lurched. Their limbs moved with a horrific, jerky asymmetry, as if the nerves inside were misfiring. One of them, a man in a tattered suit, had his jaw hanging open at an impossible angle, unhinged and dripping a dark, viscous fluid. The second was a woman whose throat had been torn open, her eyes milky white, reflecting the flashlight like a cat's in the dark.

> **"Mark..."** Georgia choked out, rising slowly. Her face had gone completely pale.

> 

From the treeline behind them, more shadows began to upright themselves from the tall grass. The graves weren't just keeping the dead down anymore. The stench of copper and rot instantly tripled, filling their lungs.

The things let out a collective sound—a low, rattling, communal groan that vibrated through the soles of Mark and Georgia's shoes. It was the sound of absolute, unyielding hunger.

"To the car," Mark hissed, his fatigue instantly vaporized by a violent jolt of adrenaline. "Georgia, *run!*"

They bolted, but the gravel betrayed them, shifting under their feet. The creatures ahead heard the commotion. With terrifying, sudden speed, their sluggish movements snapped into a frantic, predatory scramble. They lunged toward the driveway, cutting off the path to the sedan.

Mark and Georgia were trapped in the center of the graveyard, surrounded by a rising tide of the walking dead, with nothing but a flashlight and a wooden  cross to defend themselves.Both knew inside thier heads that thier fate was too become one of the walking dead.