Managing Midnight Zombies

Every night at exactly midnight, the quiet town of Black Hollow had the same problem: zombies.   Not the terrifying kind — these zombies were exhausted office workers, students, and parents who wandered the streets half-awake, clutching coffee cups and staring blankly into space. The townspeople called them the Midnight Zombies.   Mara, the newly appointed “Midnight Manager,” had one job: keep the town functioning between midnight and sunrise. She organized emergency pancake stations, calming jazz broadcasts, and glowing street signs pointing tired souls back home.   But one night, something changed.   The zombies stopped wandering.   Instead, they all gathered silently in the town square, staring at the old clock tower. When the clock struck twelve, a hidden door creaked open beneath it, revealing a staircase glowing with blue light.   Curious and slightly terrified, Mara followed them underground.   There she discovered the truth: the Midnight Zombies weren’t cursed at all. They were sleepwalkers drawn by a strange machine built decades earlier to “collect lost dreams.” The machine had been quietly stealing people’s rest for years.   With the help of a sleepy engineer and a very judgmental orange cat named Pickles, Mara shut the machine down just before dawn.   The next morning, Black Hollow woke up feeling different — rested, peaceful, alive.   And for the first time in years, midnight was quiet. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.