Story 1045: Noosehill Cemetery

The dead never stayed quiet in Noosehill. Not since the hangings.

Built on the edge of a hollowed valley, Noosehill Cemetery was once a final resting place for those society deemed unsalvageable. Murderers, witches, madmen—each buried without ceremony beneath crooked tombstones and strangling vines. Locals called it “The Garden of the Damned.”

After the zombie apocalypse, survivors thought it safe to hide there.

They were wrong.

The first warning came as windless whispers.

Elias Trent, a grizzled hunter with a silver jaw and a rusted crossbow, led his crew of six into the graveyard seeking shelter. By morning, two were missing. By nightfall, the dirt around the graves began to breathe.

And in the center of the cemetery stood the twisted Noose Tree—a gnarled old thing hung with rotted ropes and eyeless skulls that swung without wind.

One rope began to sway on its own.

Then another.

Then six.