Barn of the Pus Pony

Applejack answered a knock to find a maize-colored pony at the door. "Well, howdy, Carrot Top. What can I do for you this afternoon?"

The neighbor smiled. "Hello, AJ. I was just coming home from the market and noticed Rarity's sister Sweetie Belle poking around the back of the farmhouse. The cellar door's open so I think she may have been in there, too. I know she and Apple Bloom are friends, so I thought she might be looking for her. But she said she was looking for...vampires?"

Applejack chuckled. "Yeah, if you can believe it. There's nothin' I can tell 'em when they get an idea like that into their heads, so I'm lettin' 'em find out for themselves there's no vampires on this farm. The closest thing we got are fruit bats. I figure they'll give up by supper time and be onto the next thing."

"Yes. Well anyway, Sweetie Belle was talking about some of Granny Smith's old kitchen supplies out in the storage barns." Carrot Top swung a front hoof a couple inches above the ground. "I...don't want to impose, but I've started collecting antiques recently, and she mentioned a wooden toaster that sounds like just the cutest thing. I'd love to have it."

Granny called out from behind Applejack. "Y'all can keep whatever you like in them barns. I ain't used none of it in ten years or more."

Applejack nodded in agreement. "You're more than welcome. Whatever's ours is yours. But you may want to see if it still works."

"You're so kind. Thank you both. Enjoy the rest of your day."

***

She said it was in this one here, Carrot Top thought to herself as she creaked open the door of the leftmost storage barn. By now it was late afternoon; shadows were growing long. As she went inside, she did not notice Apple Bloom watching from a couple barns away.

Carrot Top found the toaster on the front table. She stopped to admire it, trying to imagine how it would look once it was freshly repainted. She had just the right paints to restore it to its original colors. As she stepped around the table to look at the other side, she kicked something and looked down to see a pair of hooves right next to her own.

The world went into slow motion as she looked up into the bizarre face of a pony unlike any she had seen before. The face was unmoving except for its deep-set eyes, which eerily lacked irises, bearing only small circular pupils. As she stared into the pony's eyes she fell into a trance. The stranger silently moved in and nudged her mane off her neck with his muzzle.

There on the back of her neck was a boil she had been hiding beneath her orange mane. The pony inspected the bumpy red lump. The sore was nearly the size of a golf ball and puffed out from her coat, swollen with fluid. Here and there, yellow-white pus could be seen just beneath the surface, particularly in two spots near the center where the boil was just beginning to discharge. A few drops of clear serum had leaked out and shimmered in the amber afternoon sunlight.

Long and prehensile, a strange blue tongue, as odd as his eyes, stretched from the pony's mouth. It lightly caressed the tender carbuncle, causing the entranced Carrot Top to flinch. The tongue retracted at the movement, then returned. Inexplicably the tongue suddenly bore a small thornlike tip that shot into the boil and retracted in less than a second.

Unable to defend herself, Carrot Top tried to set her mind on another place, but was brought back to reality by the feel of the pus-covered tongue oozing against her skin, accompanied by smacking and slurping sounds. After what seemed like an eternity, the villain let out a contented sigh and shuffled back into the shadows. Carrot Top found herself released from the trance and did the only thing she could—she screamed.

The shouts of both Carrot Top and Apple Bloom echoed across the farm. Applejack burst out from the kitchen. "What in tarnation? Big Mac, you stay here with Granny!" Already out the door, Applejack sprinted over to the commotion. It took only a few seconds for her to cover the short distance to the barns.

She found Carrot Top sitting outside the barn, alternately weeping and hyperventilating, with Apple Bloom doing her best to comfort her. Scootaloo arrived not ten seconds later and was the first to speak. "What's going on?"

"I saw the whole thing," said Apple Bloom. She related the attack she had witnessed in the barn, describing the pony as well as she could. "She couldn't fight back," Apple Bloom added, "and I was too scared to help her."

Applejack lifted her sister's chin with a hoof. "Darlin', you did exactly the right thing keepin' your distance. And I'm proud of you gettin' as good a look at him as you could. Now y'all get back while I check this out."

Applejack lowered her head and charged into the barn, ready for a battle. Inside there was only silence. She picked up the flashlight by the door where she'd left it and shone it under the tables. She made her way farther back, checking over her shoulders and in every direction. Finally she reached the back corners and lit them up. No pony anywhere. On a hunch, she pointed the flashlight up into the rafters. Nope, no bats, either.

She returned to find Carrot Top beginning to calm down. Sweetie Belle was now there and Scootaloo was filling her in. Applejack took a closer look at her neighbor's newly drained boil. There was a single puncture like the one on Apple Bloom's sore, but no blood, and nearly every drop of pus or other fluid had been sucked away.

"Girls," she said, "we're not dealin' with a vampire, but with a regular ol' pony who obviously ain't right in the head. And that's even more of a threat. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to ask y'all to go on home for your own safety. Now Carrot Top, I know we usually handle things ourselves out here, but do you want us to get the police for this?"

Carrot Top sniffed and nodded.

AJ returned the nod. "I'll stay here with you. We'll send Big Mac."

"Applejack?" said Sweetie Belle timidly.

"Yes, Sweetie Belle?"

"I know somepony from the market who might know about something like this. He was saying the other day he'd done a lot of study on weird crimes, and he even wrote a book one time called Profiles of the Disturbed. Maybe he could help the police?"

Applejack thought quickly. She didn't want to involve any more outsiders than she had to, but she had a family to protect and needed every resource if they were going to get this settled tonight. But...what if this pony from the market was actually the culprit? Well then, having him here with the police, if he wasn't around here somewhere already, could wrap things up all the more quickly.

"That's good thinkin', but I want you to have your parents or your sister with you. Don't just bring him here alone. And you'll have to hurry. It'll be dark before too long."

Big Mac raced toward Ponyville, and Scootaloo escorted Sweetie Belle off to her sister's Carousel Boutique. Applejack and Carrot Top stood at the trellis looking past them toward town, hoping help would arrive soon.

***

Half an hour later, the Ponyville Police galloped up the hill and began a sweep of the farm. Accompanied by an officer and a paramedic, Carrot Top went back to her house with her wooden toaster. After a short while, Sweetie Belle arrived with her sister Rarity and a bone-colored pony with a dark brown mane, glasses, and a light mustache. Applejack recognized him from the market, but they had never spoken.

"Applejack, allow me to introduce you to this gentlecolt. His name is Gizmo," Rarity said. Applejack exchanged greetings with the scrawny stallion.

"Your friends caught me just as I was leaving," said Gizmo. "This really is the most interesting case I've seen in a long time."

"So you're a criminologist?" Applejack asked.

"Well, I earn my bits selling, uh, various jellies and jams. And I build automata in my spare time. But I consider myself a student of all the sciences, and the abnormal has always been fascinating to me. I had hoped to be a police detective when I was in school, but,"—he glanced back at his robot cutie mark—"that wasn't my talent."

Applejack and Gizmo spoke briefly with the chief and got approval to visit the crime scene. Rarity and Sweetie Belle joined them at the storage barns. Gizmo eagerly lapped up every detail of the attacks on Apple Bloom and Carrot Top.

"This really is fascinating. You might never have guessed this, but I know quite a lot about folliculitis, skin conditions, and, uh, just about anything involving the sebaceous glands."

"You don't say?" Applejack said dryly, noting the would-be scientist's acne-covered face. Various pustules extended down onto Gizmo's shoulders and across the flank, blending in with his unkempt brownish-grey coat.

"Oh, yes! I wonder if your neighbor might be afflicted with chronic carbunculosis. Do you know if she often suffers from fever or fatigue?"

"Gizmo, I'm really more interested in the attacker. The victim could have been anypony, and we gotta live here. Do you have any idea why a pony would suck on sores, and if he might do anythin' else?"

Gizmo shifted gears and went into detective mode. "Well, all bodily fluids provide protein. And pus is particularly viscous and therefore more filling in large quantities. I suppose the, uh, odor might be an appealing factor." He scratched his chin with his hoof. "There could even be an instinctive symbiotic relationship whereby the victim benefits. 'If there's pus about, let it out,' as they say."

Applejack was a little annoyed at this point. "I mean, is this creep really crazy, and could he be out to hurt my family?"

"Hmm. The culprit is probably disturbed, possibly an escapee. Earth ponies and some unicorns are particularly prone to psychological disturbances. In most cases the patients aren't inclined toward violence, but they may have an altered perception of reality. Something of this nature is probably a singular fixation. I imagine anypony without sores would be perfectly safe. Wow, my mind is just full to bursting with theories!"

"Bursting?" Rarity winced as she noticed a large pimple on Gizmo's back that looked ready to split open.

Gizmo shook his head with enthusiasm. "Absolutely. I just need some time alone to piece it all together. Do you suppose I could camp out at the scene of the crime? I'm curious as to whether he's, uh, using this building for shelter at night."

Applejack glanced over at the police chief, who nodded. "Well then, I guess it's okay." AJ took one more look at the pimply pony. "Are you sure you'll be safe? We haven't figured how he's gettin' in and out of that barn."

Gizmo pushed his glasses in place with a hoof. "I'll just be an observer. If this is a patient, I'm sure he's used to being around, uh, doctors and scientists. I'm certain he'll just ignore me."

As the others looked on dubiously, Gizmo stepped into the kitchen barn. The setting sun left the dirt floor blood-red in color. On the ground he noticed the discarded trumpet Apple Bloom had seen earlier. "Odd. Not an easy instrument for a pony to play. Perhaps a griffon or a small dragon. Rarity, have you ever seen your dragon friend, uh, playing the trumpet?"

Caught off guard, Rarity blushed. "Why, Gizmo, that's quite a personal, um..."

"I mean this thing here," said the scientist, pointing to the battered brass instrument.

"Oh, well in that case no. So...we'll leave you to your observations. Oh, and take this in case you get cold." Rarity lent him the scarf she was wearing.

Gizmo took the scarf and wrapped it around his neck. "Why thank you, Rarity. You're too generous."

Applejack walked with the others toward the farmhouse. "Thank y'all for bringin' him. He's a peculiar one, alright, but he might know somethin' that'll help us out. Granny'll have supper ready by now. Y'all wanna join us before headin' back?"

"You bet! He sure talks a lot, doesn't he?" Sweetie Belle said to Rarity.

"Well, some ponies never learned not to dominate a conversation."

"It was nice of you to give him your scarf."

Rarity halted as she pondered that moment. "He said I was generous. Generous. If only he knew. If only anypony knew how empty it all is. I have come to realize my acts of giving, of kindness, are merely desperate pleas for attention. Generosity has only ever put me in the spotlight, placed me in others' debt, in some ponies' eyes made me look like a shining star. But have my superficial gifts ever really helped a pony? It's all just makeovers and costumes, sapphires and scarves! Oh, how could I have become so self-serving? Beneath my surface there's only more surface, only Rarity the fraud!"

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she extended a hoof toward her kid sister. "And Sweetie Belle! Oh, how can you ever forgive me? You've depended on me, given me your time, offered me everything, and how have I repaid you? By trying to make you into another me? The Rarity I could have been? What I should have been but never was? Applejack, you could never guess where I come from, that dark hour of my life before the boutique. Perhaps then you would understand. If you could only see me as a filly staring out my bedroom window at the windmill next door..."

She stopped and noticed her companions and a couple of the police staring blankly at her. As if realizing her monologue was completely out of step with the tone and pacing of this story, she silently dropped her head, pulled a chunk of grass from the ground, and began chewing.

The awkward silence was broken by a blood-curdling scream. "Gizmo?" Rarity wondered.

A nasal-sounding shout followed, "No, not there!"

Sweetie Belle answered, "Gizmo."

Leaving Sweetie Belle with one of the officers, Rarity and Applejack trudged back to the barns.

(Commercial break)