Berry Punch and Lyra Heartstrings' Zombie-Filled, Blood-Splattered, Gore-Pasted Adventure (With Zombies)

Chapters

Chapter One: Of Hangovers and Hilarities
Chapter Two: That Feeling when Something Isn't Quite Right, but you Brush it Off as Being just your Imagination
Chapter Three: Lyra's Cupboard-Shrine and Granny Smith's Introduction to a Baseball Bat
Chapter Four: Sweet Apple Acres; The Applecide
Chapter Five: Skipping Town
Chapter Six: Dried-Out and Deadly
Chapter Seven: Happy Hour! Cheap Booze, Plentiful Gore and Exploding Buildings
Chapter Eight: Emotions'n'Stuff
Chapter Nine: Charge of the Zombie Fucker-Upper Brigade
Chapter Ten: The Battle for Canterlot Castle
Chapter Eleven: Living the Game
Epilogue

Chapter One: Of Hangovers and Hilarities

Berry Punch awoke with a splitting headache. She irritably shoved a few empty cider bottles to the side. The containers toppled off the end of the bed, clinking and smashing respectively as they hit the wooden floorboards. The night before had been a haze of laughter, heavy drinking, screaming and a blur of other things which Berry couldn't remember at all. The possibility had approached her mind that she might have slept with somepony, but to be perfectly honest, she didn't care at the moment. The only thing on her mind right now was swallowing a few painkillers and surviving this hangover. Making her way down to the kitchen, she swung open a cabinet above the sink. She had reached inside this very cabinet many hundreds of times to grab the same packets of painkiller tablets. The closest packet teetered on the edge of the cupboard, and then dropped down, unceremoniously smacking into Berry's face. The individual tablets rained down on the floor like fresh medicinal snowfall. "Oh, Celestia be damned.." She snarled, picking up the packet and popping a few pills into her mouth. She washed them down with a glass of water, and then trotted slowly out of the door and into the bustling streets of Ponyville.

"Hey Berry! Wild party last night, huh?!" Lyra called to the slowly-shuffling Berry Punch a few steps away from her. Berry turned around, her eyes blearily focussing on the cheery mint-coloured mare trotting in her direction. Her bloodshot eyes finally cleared up enough to identify Lyra Heartstrings' bright smile. She offered a lopsided, half-hearted attempt at one in return as she replied.

"Oh, uh.. Yeah, Lyra. Nice party, from what I can remember of it." Lyra smirked at this.

"And what can you remember?" She asked, a little slyly. Berry gave her a septic look.

"You're getting a hoof in the face if you carry on like that." She uttered. The two continued down the road toward the market stalls in the town centre, chattering to one another about the previous night's escapades. From what Berry could gather, a few friends had gotten together at Twilight's library under the pretence of starting up a reading club on that night, to be held once a week. However, the moment that Twilight had left the audible range of activity inside the treehouse, the friends had tossed aside the books and partied harder than the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. Punch and cider had been drunk, songs had been kareoke'd so badly that it was an affront to modern Equestrian music, and Berry herself had apparently climbed onto a table to dance - only to lose her balance and fall into a set of bookshelves, spreading their contents across the floor. All in all, the night had apparently been quite amusing up to the point where Twilight returned to check up on them all. Lyra decided that she had conveniently forgotten the steady stream of rage-filled, drunkenly-delivered expletives she herself had fired at the unicorn to prompt her banishment from the library. Obviously, calling Twilight a "fucking dick-faced shit eating book fucker" had earned her accusatory glares from the purple mare ever since.

After a short while shopping for snacks and other little bits and pieces, the pair made their way back to Lyra and Bon-Bon's house. Bon-Bon was apparently still sleeping off the hangover from the party upstairs, and so the two quietly snuck through the front door and settled down on the sofa, trying to make a minimum of noise.

Berry sat on the TV remote, switching it on. The TV had been set to full volume.

After the theme song to 'My Little Human' (One of Lyra's DVDs had been left in the player, and the content on the DVD further fuelled Berry's notions of Lyra's obsessions) had blasted out, and an irate Bon-Bon had clattered down the stairs, screeching out obscenities before leaving the building, the two sat in an awkward silence as MLH continued on the TV.. Now at an acceptable volume level. As Lyra watched the television in worshipful silence, Berry Punch began to wonder about her friend's sanity. The fact that she watched a show about something as silly as humans was a little odd, to say the least. The clock on the mantlepiece soon struck the hour, dinging a little bell. Sighing, Berry hopped off the couch.

"Right, I'm off." She muttered, glancing at Lyra. The mint-hued mare was watching the cartoon with rapt attention. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." She spoke, a little louder. There was a tone of annoyance in her voice.

"Oh, uh.. Yeah, see you.." Lyra drawled slowly, her eyes still quite glued to the screen. Berry left with a huff, heading back to her own home. After an evening of heavy cider consumption, she shambled back upstairs (tripping over at one point, to her drunken dismay) and collapsed onto the bed, drifting into a deep sleep. Her dreams were filled with odd shapes and colours.In the hazy background, she could hear a loud commotion, an awful yelling and crying, and the screams of hundreds of ponies. Suffice to say, it was more than a little unnerving.

Berry Punch awoke with a splitting headache. As she shakily pulled herself out of bed, the only thing on her mind was swallowing a few painkillers and surviving this hangover. Making her way down to the kitchen, she swung open a cabinet above the sink. She had reached inside this very cabinet many hundreds of times to grab the same packets of painkiller tablets. The closest packet teetered on the edge of the cupboard again, and then dropped down again, unceremoniously smacking into Berry's face.. Again. "Fuck me sideways." She snarled, picking up the packet and popping a few pills into her mouth. She washed them down with a glass of water, and then trotted slowly out of the door and into the quiet, relatively empty streets of Ponyville.

Chapter Two: That Feeling when Something Isn't Quite Right, but you Brush it Off as Being just your Imagination

The town of Ponyville was never usually this empty, was it? There were just a few near-silent residents hanging around the streets now, shuffling aimlessly with stiff, jerky movements. Berry's mind tried to take in all of this information. However, due to her horrendous hangover, the main thought that floated into her head at that moment happened to be, 'I'm hungry.'

She trotted slowly down Mane Street, oblivious to the shambling, grimy-looking ponies clustered around. Their breathless groaning and gurgling went unnoticed. Heading toward the Sugarcube Corner, Berry tried to shake her head clear. The attempt just happened to make her headache worse, and so she stopped. Stepping through the door of the bakery and hearing the familiar tinkling of the bell, she slumped down into the nearest chair and sighed, staring at the ceiling. She picked out the mass of moving shadows being cast onto the ceiling and wall below it from outside, the figures of many ponies moving in a slow and uneasy gait. Something was realised in her mind, but when she tried to discern what it was, she was met with the hazy pain of the hangover.

"Service, please!" Berry barked out irately. A wheezing gasp came from behind the counter. "Hello?" She called, stepping toward the counter. She quickly peered over the top, but couldn't see a thing in the shadows behind the counter-top. Giving a snort of annoyance, she trotted out of the bakery again. As she left, the half-mauled, broken and blood-stained figure of Pinkie Pie slowly dragged herself up over the counter, watching the mare leave. She tried to climb over the counter, but fell back down again, one of her legs snapping backward as she hit the bakery floor.

Berry had made it about halfway to Lyra and Bon Bon's house before her head began to clear. And with that clearance came abject horror. By the time she had briskly cantered up the house's front path, she had noticed the apparent lack of normality in her surroundings. Ignoring the few shambling ponies which slowly approached up the path behind her, she slammed the door shut and trotted inside. Lyra was watching My Little Human again.. As usual. She seemed oblivious to the change around them.

"Bon Bon hasn't come back yet. You seen her around?" Lyra inquired, eyes glued to the screen. "It's been a while."

"It's been a fucking day." Berry muttered, sitting down beside her friend on the sofa. The ponies outside began to bang weakly against the door, hooves sliding down the wooden surface with a squeaking.

"I think there's someone at the door, you know." Lyra spoke softly. Berry glanced worriedly over to the hallway, taking note of the three silhouettes through the door's small window. All three looked a little worse for wear.

"Lyra, I think there's something wrong with everypony. They're acting weird."

"Maybe you have something on your face, and that's why they're acting weird around you." Lyra offered.

"Do I have anything on my face though?" Berry asked, a little annoyed. Lyra's golden eyes roamed from the TV screen to Berry's face.

"Um.. No." She mumbled, returning her gaze to the TV.

"There you go then. Besides, it's not like they're just laughing at me, or something. They all look wrong, they smell bad, they move slowly and they're not talking at all." Berry stared back to the three ponies at the door. They continued to bang on it slowly, and it appeared two more had joined their ranks.. Along with a few tapping on the house's living room window. There were dark red stains of something on the windowpanes where their hooves met the glass. Berry's mind began searching frantically for the least worrying explanation. The best she could come up with was an out-of-season Nightmare Night party.

"Oh, fuck's sake, they're messing up the windows.. Hey!" Lyra's voice broke the tense silence. The mint-coloured mare haughtily stomped up to the window, glaring at the ponies outside. "Stop making a mess on our windows! Look, go and paint your own windows red if you want, but leave ours alone! Me and Bon Bon worked hard to-" Berry stepped up behind her.

"Lyra, I don't think that's paint."

Lyra didn't listen. In her blind rage, she set off to the front door - only to find the same mess-making going on. There were bloody hoof marks smeared on the front door's window, and she was not going to stand for this. She flung open the door.

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to stand for this, things have got to.. Oh.. Oh shit." Lyra noticed the large group of lopsided, battered-looking ponies. Blood encrusted around open wounds on their bodies, and slimy, dark gore dribbled from their open mouths as they stared at her with lifeless, dull eyes. They moved forward, shambling and moaning weakly, into the hallway. Lyra dashed back into the living room, slamming the door shut. Berry watched as she slid as many articles of furniture in front of the door as possible. It would be comical if it weren't so terrifying. "Shit, shit, shit.." Lyra repeated, eyes darting around at the uncovered windows. The undead ponies outside began to batter on them.

After a few minutes of boarding up the doors and windows, Berry and Lyra sat down on the sofa again. Lyra resumed watching MLH. Berry trotted out to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of strong cider. She downed half of it in one gulp.

"So.. What now?" She asked, watching Lyra as she stared blankly at the TV.

"I dunno." She mumbled, eyes not leaving the screen. Berry felt herself losing her temper. She considered tossing the bottle at the wall, and then remembered that the contents of the bottle tasted good. So she downed the rest of it, and then made good on her initial plan. The glass container exploded into shards against the wall with an echoing smash. "Look, you can't just sit here and watch TV while that happens out there.. That's just stupid."

"Why not?" Lyra retorted, tearing herself away from the screen. She looked dumbfounded. "As long as we stay here and pretend nothing is happening out there, we won't have to deal with it." Berry facehooved.

"That is not the way to go about dealing with problems at all, you dolt." She grumbled.

"Well I don't want to deal with the problem, I want to watch My Little Human." It soon became apparent to Berry that her friend was not going to cooperate, and so she made a decision. A decision to do the unthinkable.

Climbing off the sofa, Berry stepped over to the TV. Before Lyra could react, she yanked the electrical plug out of the socket. The TV cut out and died. Lyra gasped, horrified.

"What have you done?!" She cried.

"I'm sorry, Lyra.. But it's the only way." She stood on her hind legs, and picked up the TV in her hooves. She started towards the window.

"Wait, what are you.. What the freaking hell are you doing?!" Lyra yelped, hopping off the sofa and edging closer. Berry rammed the TV against the barricaded window, smashing the wooden planks across it. The groaning commotion of the ponies outside became clearly audible again.

"I'm sorry, Lyra." She sighed, taking a moment to contemplate before tossing the TV out into the crowd. The heavy piece of equipment hit one of the shambling undead, smashing his skull to pieces. His brain splattered across Lyra and Bon Bon's lawn.

"NO!" Lyra wailed, dropping to the floor and weeping openly. Berry hastily re-boarded the window before stomping over to her sobbing friend. She smacked Lyra's head lightly with a hoof, glaring at her.

"Get a hold of yourself, and help me check on these boards." She ordered, pointing to the boards nailed over the windows.

Chapter Three: Lyra's Cupboard-Shrine and Granny Smith's Introduction to a Baseball Bat

Berry and Lyra slowly peeled one of the boards off the front window, peeking outside. Nope, she was still there. The peeling, green, mouldy face of Granny Smith was staring intently in at them, her mouth awash with blackened blood. She had been doing this for at least the last hour or so. Every once in a while, the pair had taken a peep outside, and that one rotting mare remained outside, just staring at them. By now, the undead ponies which had swarmed the house before had apparently left to hunt somepony else. After all, there had been a loud screaming from somewhere outside a short while ago. The board was replaced over the window.

"How long has she been standing there?" Lyra moaned, slumping back down on the sofa. Her eyes were still a little pink from weeping over the loss of her beloved TV. Berry sighed, stepping toward the living room door.

"Look, we're going to have to go out there. We need to see if anyone else needs help, and besides.." She began shoving the pile of furniture out of the way of the door. "There's no more alcohol in your kitchen."

"But there could still be more of them in the house.. And Granny Smith is right outside.." Lyra said, a hint of apprehension in her voice. Berry finally got the door open, peeking out into the hallway.

"Just.. Follow me." She muttered, quietly edging out into the hallway. Lyra followed, and immediately dashed to the cupboard under the stairs. "What are you doing?.." Berry hissed. She craned her head inside the spacious cupboard, and stared. She was a little dumbfounded.

Lyra was sorting through a box of human memorabilia, pulling out a baseball bat and a golf club. There were photographs and posters pasted across the walls of the little cupboard, all dedicated to humans. A small table held a group of lit candles, an athame and a large book, which turned out to be a part of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Lyra stepped back from the shrine, handing Berry the baseball bat. She solemnly shut over the door.

"Tell no-one." She breathed, holding the golf club in her hooves. "No-one." She glared at Berry, more seriousness in her eyes than she had ever shown in her life. Berry nodded vigorously, quite afraid at this point. After an awkward moment's silence, the two made their way back down the hall to the front door. The door hung open, stained with dark blood and battered with hoof-marks, dents and minor scratches. The pair peered around the doorway.

Granny Smith was still standing in front of the window, her body stiff and unmoving. Her mouth still dribbled a little.

"Wait.. What if she's dead?" Berry offered, raising her eyebrows.

"Haven't you ever seen a zombie film?!" Lyra hissed in return, wielding the golf club and glaring. "She's already dead. She can't be more dead, or she'd be double-dead. And that doesn't make any sense, does it?" Berry considered this for a moment, and then stepped forward. she held the baseball bad in her hooves, standing up on her hind legs. With the very tip of the bat, she nudged the rotten old applecore. Granny Smith remained quite unresponsive and still, not moving a muscle. Lyra looked a little confused.

"Well whaddaya know.." Berry smirked, dropping the bat. She leaned forward and tapped Granny Smith on the nose with a hoof. Again, no response. "I fucking told you so." She called in a smarmy voice, turning her head back to face Lyra. "She's dead and completely harmless. I don't know what you're so worried about."

Granny Smith bit down on Berry's hoof.

Berry began to scream, flailing around as she felt the pain course through her foreleg. The damage would be terrible, she told herself, as she chanced another look back at the old, wizened ghoul biting down on her arm. Granny Smith was trying to maul her hoof with a toothless, gummy mouth, slobbering dark gore and Celestia-knows-what all over her foreleg. Berry shook the little old mare off, picking up the baseball bat down on her head a few times. Eventually, she stopped moving. Lyra was wathcing the entire event, a little horrified. Her eyes were wide, and her legs shaking.

"That was Granny Smith.. You just.. How could you?" Berry glared at her.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're going to go soft on me now.. She was already dead. They're all dead."

There was a moment of silent consideration.

"Oh yeah. Forgot that bit."

Ten minutes later, Berry and Lyra were trotting down the darkening road into the middle of town. The sun was setting, and the groans of the undead drifted on the air, mixed with the cries of their victims. It was all rather unnerving.

"Right.. First, we go and check up on Mayor Mare, and then we can-" Berry stopped abruptly. Turning the corner, the two mares took in the sight before them. The middle of town was a bloodbath. Zombie ponies littered the place, and the ground was pasted with dry blood which had pooled around a handful of torn-up corpses and body parts dotted about the place. At a glance, five ponies had been mauled to death overall - although their bodies now lay in pieces across the floor. The closest undead pony noticed Berry and Lyra, her face rising from a ripped-open torso. A gory strand of intestinal tract dropped from her mouth as she let out a breathless moan. It was Bon Bon, her neck chewed to a bloody pulp and her eyes as dull and lifeless as all the others.

"Oh.. At least we know where Bon Bon is now." Lyra mumbled. The rest of the undead noticed, and began to move, slowly but surely, toward them.

"Oh for fuck's sake.. RUN!" Berry yelled. Lyra didn't need to be told twice. The pair dashed through the streets, clutching the makeshift weapons in their teeth as the horde followed behind, slowly shuffling forth in a groaning, gurgling mass.

"Where are we going?!" Lyra yelled over the commotion behind them as they sped onward. In the distance, Berry spied the looming structure of the Sweet Apple Acres barn on the hill.

"Follow me!" She called, sprinting at full gallop toward the apple farm. Lyra followed on, glancing back at the undead. They had fallen behind, and they were now a good distance away.

Berry and Lyra burst through the door of the farmhouse, and screeched to a halt just in time to avoid being skewered on the pitchforks being held at the ready by Applejack, Big Macintosh, and even little Applebloom. The Apples quickly lowered their weapons, ushering the two startled mares inside and slamming the doors of the farmhouse - then sliding a heavy bar over the door to seal it shut. After a few minutes of calming down, putting away their weapons and catching their breath, Berry and Lyra were ready to talk. They and the Apples sat in the living room. As though the night couldn't get worse, the darkening sky was lit with a flash, followed by a loud booming of thunder.

"All right.. So y'all are tellin' me that you were too hung over to notice those flesh-eatin' varmints?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. Berry nodded, and Lyra confirmed the fact.

"So.. Could we stay here for a while?" Berry asked, her voice trailing off a little. "We won't be any trouble, we promise." Lyra cast an amused glance at Berry, considering to herself just how much trouble her friend's alcohol addiction could cause in the space of a mere few days. Applejack sighed, and gently nodded.

"Ah can't have y'all staying out there with them brain-feastin' monsters.. You can stay in the barn, it's plenty warm in there, and there's enough hay to make a comfy enough bed for sleepin' on." The two thanked them, heading through the back door and down a newly built fenced-in path to the barn's back door. Applejack called to them over the sound of the crashing rain and rumbling thunder. "Don't open the front doors of the barn, if y'all were stupid enough to consider it.. And dinner's served in an hour, so you're welcome to wander back in for somethin' to eat!" Berry and Lyra shut over the door to the barn. A few lamps set up in the structure illuminated it with a dim golden glow. The two mares collapsed onto a pile of hay, and let out huge sighs at the very same moment.

"Are we getting something to eat, like Applejack said?" Lyra asked. Berry turned to her with a glare.

"Take a friggin' guess." She answered grimly, before cracking a little smile and getting comfortable. Lyra nodded, smiling to herself and staring into the hazy glow of the lamp on the far wall.

Chapter Four: Sweet Apple Acres; The Applecide

Berry, Lyra and the three Apples sat at the dinner table in the farmhouse. Thunder roared in the sky outside, and flashes of lightning cracked across the sky at various points. Rain hammered against the old glass of the windows.

"So.. What's for dinner?" Lyra asked, a smile spreading on her face. Applejack rose from her seat as the bell on the oven gave a light beep. She began plating up the food as she spoke.

"I'm afraid there ain't much of a choice at the moment.. We got some baked apple slices, some apple pie, apple fritters, toffee apples, oatmeal with apple sauce, applesauce on its own, and.. Um.."

"Let me guess.. Apples?" Berry asked, her expression a little put-off, but mainly just disappointed.

"No, we got this." Applejack held up a single, small box of cornflakes. Lyra reacted immediately.

"I want that one." She yelped, pointing excitedly at the cereal which should not have even existed in Equestria, never mind the Apple Family's kitchen. Applejack shrugged and tossed over the box.

"I'll have some of the apple slices, please." Berry said, staring at the infatuated Lyra, who was inspecting the cornflakes box from every angle, scrutinising it meticulously.

After the food had been made and served up, Applejack sat with the rest of the group and tucked in, burying her muzzle into a steaming-hot apple pie. Lyra began munching down cornflakes right out of the box, ravenously gobbling down the cereal with a loud crunching and gnashing of her teeth. As for Berry, she simply picked up a slice of apple in her hoof, wondered how she and the others were able to hold things without fingers, and then decided she didn't care, taking a bite of the apple slice.It tasted rather good, she thought. The dinner continued on in silence, which was only broken by the pattering of rain and the tremendous rumbling of the thunder outside. Soon enough, the silence was too great to bear for a certain somepony. Unable to take it anymore, Berry snapped. She couldn't hold back.

"So, me and Lyra saw Granny Smith this afternoon." She blurted out, needing to kill the silence.

"You.. You did?" Applejack stuttered, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, thank Celestia.. We were all gettin' darn worried about the old gal, she's been gone for hours.. Where is she?" Lyra stared at Berry, horrified. Berry suddenly recalled exactly where Granny Smith was at that very moment, and turned a queasy shade of green.

"Um.. Well..." Berry began, her voice weak and shaking. She began to regret ever opening her mouth. How could she have been so stupid as to bring that incident up?

"I do hope she's feelin' okay.. Was she hurt?" Applejack asked, her smile a little faded. Berry gulped.

"Well, she.. She isn't exactly.. Uh.." She muttered, tripping over her words.

"She's dead." Lyra spoke up, ending the uncomfortable few minutes abruptly and unsympathetically. Berry flinched.

"Dead?!" Applejack gasped, tears welling up in her eyes. Applebloom, who had been listening intently, buried her face into Big Macintosh's side, the tears flowing freely. Even Big Mac looked pained at the news. "How? Please don't tell me that those freaks outside ate her up.." The orange-coated mare uttered breathlessly between sobs.

"Not exactly.. Well, sort of.." Berry explained. Or rather, made a poor attempt at explanation. Lyra cut in.

"Granny Smith was a zombie." Applejack began to openly weep.

"Well, she sort of-" Berry began.

"Berry smashed her head in with a baseball bat." Lyra mumbled. Berry's eyes shot wide open, and she began to panic.

"It's not like that, I swear!" She yelped. The Apples all stared at the two. Lyra turned and tried staring at Berry, then realised that she was also under accusation. She instead chose to stare intently down, avoiding the hateful glares.

"Y'all killed Granny? In cold blood, no less?!" Applejack spoke, her voice raising in volume. "And then ya come in here, expectin' sanctuary from the outside world?" Berry stared down as Lyra looked up. The mint-coloured mare gave a nod.

"Why not? I mean, you guys have a really big farm and plently of food and-" Applejack cut Lyra off by leaping over the dining table and swinging a hoof at her. It connected, sending Lyra flying across the room and smacking into the wall. The window-frame set into the wall above her rattled, a few nails coming loose. The window crumpled, glass cracking, as it exploded outward under the weight of the collapsing frame. There was a loud, gurgling moan, and a green, wrinkled mare stumbled through the window, dragging herself with her hooves. The mare's head was caved in and bloodied, only one eye visible on her head, the other crushed under a collapsed section of skull. Her toothless mouth moved uselessly, tounge lolling about as dark slime dribbled from her open maw.

Granny Smith was, in fact, not quite dead.

Applebloom screamed, darting into the living room and slamming the door as her Granny stumbled into the room.

"Oh.. She survived." Lyra muttered, edging toward the table on which the golf club and baseball bat both rested. Applejack stepped toward Granny Smith, her eyes blurred with tears.

"Granny Smith.. What did they do to you?!" She cried, pulling the walking cadaver close. Something fell off. A foreleg clattered to the ground, blackened blood spraying across the floor. Berry dashed over to Lyra's side. Her friend lay crumpled against the wall, blood trickling from a bruised gash on her head from the punch.

"Hey.." Berry hissed, nudging Lyra and whispering into her ear. "She can't bite, can she?"

"She couldn't bite you, so no.. She hasn't got teeth, remember?" Lyra replied blearily, watching the grisly spectacle.

"Sis.. I don't think that's the best idea.." Big Mac uttered quietly, watching Granny Smith's fruitless attempts to maul Applejack with a toothless, gummy mouth. Applejack stared at him.

"How can y'all say that?! This is Granny! She ain't dead, she's.. She's sick! She needs help, and we-" Applejack's pleading reply was cut short as something sharp cut into her neck. Apparently, the baseball bat's impact had shattered Granny's skull so severely that shards of broken bone had protruded out of the roof of her mouth. One of the sharper pieces of skull cut into Applejack's neck, ripping the flesh wide open. Blood began to ooze from the cut, as the slimy gore from Granny Smith's open mouth sloshed against the open wound, infecting it.

"What just happened?.." Lyra asked quietly, watching Applejack stumble back, her neck spurting dark red liquid all over the dining table as she fell back onto it. The farmer pony tried to cry out, but her throat was torn too badly, and she was choking. After a few moments, she stopped moving. Granny Smith stumbled over to the other end of the room, falling into a set of drawers and smearing blood across the clean wooden surfaces as she toppled aimlessly to the floor.

"Sis.. Applejack, are you all right?" Big Macintosh asked, shaking his sister's limp, lifeless body. There was a gurgle from her throat as she dribbled out a mouthful of dark blood, staining Big Mac's hooves. Her shook her again, panicked by now. "Applejack, don't leave me.. I can't run the farm without you.. With you and Granny gone, apple sales will go into freefall, the family will go bankrupt!"

Applejack's head raised back up with a slow, unsteady movement. Her neck cracked a little, blood flowing freely from her mouth and her open throat as she stared at her brother with empty, glazed-over eyes. "Aw, shit." Was all that Big Mac could utter before Applejack bit into his face, tearing away a huge chunk of bloody meat. He bellowed with pain, falling to the floor as his sister mauled him to death. The floor was pasted with chunks of flesh and pools of blood.

"Do you think we should.. Ya know.." Lyra spoke as the zombies all turned toward the two mares. Lyra motioned toward the weapons lying on the kitchen table. Berry shook her head.

"They'd reach us before we got the stuff.." She replied, helping Lyra back up onto her hooves. The two backed into a corner, both trying to come up with a good plan which didn't involve them ending up lying on the floor in pieces.

"You know what? Fuck this." Berry yelled, stomping forwards. She grabbed a dining chair, smashing it over Applejack's head. The undead mare stumbled back, shards of broken wood tearing into her. Berry continued to beat the slowly-moving zombie with the remains of the chair until she was nothing short of completely broken. Dropping the bloodied wooden wreck she had been using, she turned back to Lyra. "Well don't just stand there!"

"Um.. Berry?" Lyra uttered quietly, pointing behind her.

"Oh.. Oh fucking shit." Berry mumbled, turning slowly. Granny Smith was hobbling slowly forward, but that was not the main problem. The hulking, torn-up reanimated corpse of Big Macintosh was also lumbering toward her. He was partially ripped to shreds, strips of flesh hanging off his body and skin ripped to pieces in gruesome wounds. Berry backed away, tripping over Granny Smith's severed foreleg and falling to the floor with a painful thump. She looked up to see Big Mac looming over her, staring with cold eyes.

A wall clock smacked into the huge stallion's face, shattering against his skull and leaving his face pierced with pieces of broken glass. The minute hand of the clock lodged itself through his eyeball. Berry took a quick glance back to see Lyra picking up another object, which happened to be an ornamental statuette of Celestia. She chucked it at Granny Smith, and it knocked a good chunk of her head off with a meaty 'splat'. Berry crawled back rapidly toward Lyra, who had now picked up a broom and gotten ready to swing it.

"We can't stay here.. Come on!" Berry yelled, backing out of the house and running toward the barn. Lyra followed suit, dropping the broom and running as Granny and Big Mac continued to shuffle slowly after them.

Inside the barn, Lyra and Berry collected together the closest weapons to hand and stood their ground. Both mares were each holding a barrel of apples in front of them. As Big Mac and Granny stepped through the doors, they began throwing. The apples smacked into the two undead ponies, covering them in juices and debris as the fruit hit them and shattered. Granny Smith was pushed back, falling to the ground in a flurry of flying fruit projectiles. However, Big Mac seemed not to be having quite as much trouble. He continued lumbering forward as the apples smacked into him, smashing against his face and his body and doing little damage.

"It's no good.. The fruit's no good!" Lyra yelled, continuing to throw apples at the oncoming zombie. Berry disappeared to the side of the barn for a moment, returning with a large pitchfork.

"Use this instead." She said, chucking the farming tool to her friend.

"Where did you even get this? And why didn't we use it before?" Lyra replied, holding the pitchfork steady.

"I thought the apples would be a better weapon. There are more apples here than pitchforks."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Lyra huffed, charging forward and ramming the pitchfork's metal prongs into Big Mac's face. The iron spikes went straight through his eyes and punched into his brain, damaging it quite badly. Big Mac collapsed, shuddering, as his brain overloaded and refused to work. Lyra tried to yank the pitchfork out, but it wouldn't budge.

As Big Mac was now brain-dead and Applejack was a smashed-up pulp in the dining room, only the fruit-covered Granny Smith was left of the undead Apple Family members. She currently shuffled about on the floor, covered with fruit juice and bits of smashed apple. Berry and Lyra sighed in unison, watching the hapless little failure of a zombie.

"What are we gonna do with her? The baseball bat didn't work.." Berry murmured.

"Wait there." Lyra said, trotting to the back of the barn. She returned with a large scythe, strolling nonchalantly over to the writhing little ghoul on the floor. Angling the curved blade downward and raising the tool upward, she took careful aim. In a split second, Lyra brought the scythe down on Granny Smith's skull, splitting her head open like a rotten apple and destroying her brain, stopping her weak shuffling. "There. Done." She sighed, trying to wipe some of the blood off her coat as she threw the saw to the ground and stood up. Berry just gaped. "Okay, so.. Let's go and get Applebloom." Lyra said, trotting back toward the farmhouse through the rain. Berry followed, a little concerned as to her friend's casual handling of the situation.

Chapter Five: Skipping Town