The dead move.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" The light purple mare, a low level employee at the Canterlot times, was now being chased by what she deemed, the flesh eaters. Groups of ponies who seemed to have had lost their minds, they ate meat, any meat...even pony meat.

At first it had started off with hardly noticeable things, slight headaches, coughing now and then, but as it progressed, the cravings began, you would look at animals and get hungry, then in about two days even your friends would look appetizing. Within two weeks things had gotten horribly out of control the few who had been infected with this mystery...disease? Virus? Whatever it was, it had killed the ponies, but then they would get back up, they were not who you knew, now they were just vicious animals wanting to eat. If the bit you, scratched you or got their liquids in an open wound, you were screwed.

This mare knew that for a fact, they had bitten her left back leg about a day and a half now, and now she was racing for the roof top, scribbling notes down with her telekinesis all the while, someone would need to know about what she had seen, the horrors, what these...things were capable of. She reached the rooftop and threw her notepad to another roof with all of her telekinetic might, and jumped.

The infected ponies began to disperse on the rooftop looking for their prey, howling in primal anger that they could not find it.

Swifthooves was running as if his very life depended on it, because he was in one Tartarus of a situation, the general store down the road a ways was having a massive sale on canned peaches, his favorite, and those things would be flying off the shelves. As he entered the store he saw that a lot of ponies that had the same idea as him, get dem peaches. He began a slow trot over to the peaches, a few cans were left, victory, sweet sweet peachy victory.

In the background he heard a radio, it was describing what was going on in Canterlot, some kind of mystery disease had broken out, and now ponies were going all kinds of crazy, he didn't really pay attention though, he grabbed a basket in his mouth and walked over to the peaches, swiping in a few cans into the basket, he left about five on the shelf, no need to be greedy.

Along the way he grabbed a few other foods and ingredients, some flour, some bread, little bit of butter for said bread. He walked up to the counter, this was one of his favorite places to shop, the owner was very nice to pretty much everypony, the only ponies he seemed not to like were the ones that viewed themselves above others, he was a good stallion.

"Good afternoon Swifthooves." Abacus greeted you at the counter. His special talent was being very, very good at math, hence the name he had.

"Afternoon abacus, how are you?" This was typical of the two, they were never exactly friends, but if they saw each other they would wave, maybe have some nice chit-chat

"I am doing pretty well, 14 bits please." Normally the canned peaches would be a bit and a half for a can, but now they were just one, quite the deal.

Handing him the money, he said. "Seeya later Abacus, have a nice day."

The cashier smiled. "I always do Swift."

"Celestia dammit! Where is the royal army!?" General Hardsteel was moving about the strategy room, this epidemic was turning into a disaster, the royal army was nowhere to be seen, how was he supposed to help with no troops to order? About halfway through thinking that he heard loud shouts coming from the end of the hall that the door was connected to. "What in the Tartarus is that?" He grabbed the mace he was known for using in his telekinetic grip and began to move towards the door, opening it he could see mass hysteria, crazed ponies covered in blood had gotten in somehow, a majority of them looked like the royal army.

"General Hardsteel! We need some help here!" Four royal guards were doing there best to hold off a massive wave of zombies, there might have been over a hundred, the only reason they had not yet been completely decimated was because of how thin the hallways were, one more pony would make little difference, but this pony happened to have an ironpony suit. Running back to the strategy room he put it on hastily, a few straps were loose, but it would have to do.

Charging back out he saw that the situation had gotten worse, they were losing ground quite steadily to the zombie horde, running head first horn swinging like mad, he got in the middle of the group of zombies, the iron pony suit doing exactly what it was made for, protecting him from all harm. He quickly dispatched ten of the zombies to have another thirty replace them, even with his suit this might be too much.

The group from before, getting the idea went to the strategy room one at a time to get ironpony suits, seeing that they would be the best possible defense against these things. When all three had essentially become invincible to the zombies, the ran in, just as Hardsteel had, Quickly getting rid of the rest of the remaining moving dead. Hardsteel began to talk, sounding quite exhausted. "What... the Tartarus...are these...things?"

"We have no idea sir."

Swifthooves made his way back to his humble little home, it was closer to the edge of town, he was a bit of a recluse and he knew it, he liked it that way, less ponies means less problems. Entering his household we went straight for his can opener, gotta have dem peaches. He began to eat his peaches, and then went to the living room holding the bowl in his teeth and proceeding to set it down on a nearby table, he flipped on his radio, nothing quite like eating some peaches while getting the news and listening to some music.

What he heard surprised him greatly, screaming, loud soul piercing screaming, he quickly switched to another station. What the fuck was that?! This station was talking about that disease again, the same from the store actually, it had apparently knocked out a large portion of the Canterlot population, and that the dead bodies were...getting back up.