They say zombies are the living-dead—soulless husks roaming the earth in search of flesh to satisfy an unholy hunger.
But I say zombies are the dead-living—those still breathing, still walking, yet hollowed by pain, wandering this world and beyond in search of something to quiet an unrelenting restlessness.
We think hauntings happen only in places touched by death—houses, graveyards, battlefields.
But hauntings happen in the mind, too.
Some people haunt themselves.
Others are haunted by their everyday reality.
And then there are those whose haunting was born in unspeakable terror—one that doesn’t fade with the light, but grows stronger after dark, when the vulnerability of sleep sets in.
This isn’t just restlessness of the body.
It’s a soul-deep disturbance.
It whispers at the edges of consciousness, like a ghost speaking through a medium.
No one else sees it—only the aftershocks etched across a person’s face, voice, choices.
It’s tempting to run.
I’ve run.
I’ve searched shadows, scoured dark corners, tried to flee from the thing inside me.
But here’s the truth:
You can’t outrun what lives in you.
You have to face it.
Head-on..
Deborah Sickle Hill 