Story 1071: The Moon That Screams

They called it a red moon, but that was a mercy. A lie. Because the moon that rose over Deadroot Hollow that night was no celestial body—it was an eye. A wound. A mouth.

And it screamed.

It started with the howlers—feral zombies whose shrieks suddenly matched the pitch of the lunar wail. Their bodies twisted skyward, jaws dislocating as they echoed the unholy sound. Flocks of crows dove from the trees mid-flight, crashing to the ground in twitching heaps. Livestock burst into flames. Glass fractured without being touched.

And people?

They dreamed of teeth.

Sergeant Margo Ellis—one of the last surviving members of the Hollow Pack militia—led a dwindling caravan of survivors toward the ruins of an observatory nestled in the woods. It was there the wails began. And it was there she hoped they’d end.