The Trotting Dead - Book One, Volume One - A New World

Deputy Sheriff Twilight and her partner, Rainbow Dash had just left a bar after a rough night of book-organizing. If anything, the drink was more for Dash, given that she hated re-organizing just about anything, especially books.

Now, re-organizing faces, on the other hand...

But none the less, they were walking home after rocking out at the karaoke machine on the stage and having a few shots, a Tom Collins or two, and each a margarita on the rocks. They were quite a bit out of sorts, so Twilight decided to make things easier and let RD crash at her place until they sobered up.

However, one stallion, whom had been done in a while ago, stepped in front of them. "And where do you think you ladies are going on such an evenin' like this, drunk as Granny Smith on Sunday?" he asked in a heavy southern accent, showing he fit in around these parts.

Dash had her hoof on the holster of her Peacemaker, ready for a fast-draw showdown, and she was prepared to do it drunk. Her trigger hoof began to get itchy for a bullet to fly, but subsided her growing anxiety. Best let Twilight handle the talking.

Twilight said in a bit of a slurred voice, hoof on her own revolver, "We're walkin' home on an evenin' like this, drunk as Granny Smith on Sunday."

Little did the girls know that the opposing drunkard was also ready for a fight. They didn't expect for him to take the initiative, and so was able to take a shot at Twilight. She fell back a bit, horn glowing, while Dash fired at the colt who took a shot at her friend.

"Twilight, are you okay?" she shouted worriedly. Twilight began to get back up slowly, and the magical aura around her horn faded.

"I'm fine," she said. She held her hoof out, showing her friend the 9-mm slug that had been slung at her. "It hit my magic shield."

Just then, the colt got back up from the ground and fired again at Twilight. This time, she wasn't prepared, thinking him to be dead, and so felt a sharp, tugging pain as the bullet pierced her lower chest. She spun about thirty-five degrees to face her friend, then fell down as blood spewed from her mouth.

Dash instantly fired another round at that damned idiot. And another. And another. She wanted to make sure he didn't get back up. She then turned to her friend, now oozing blood all over the street. Ponies all around began staring after they heard the initial shot ring out. Dash cradled her friend in her fore-legs, saying everything would be alright, fighting back angry tears. She finally looked up and said to one of the bystanders, "Well, don't just stand there, call an ambulance,get a doctor, something! She's bleeding out!"

Dash yelled out, "Officer down! Officer down, somepony get me an ambulance!" Twilight's badge fell from her work shirt and onto the ground. Dash picked it up and placed it in the left pocket of Twilight's shirt.

Dash kept comforting her, and Twilight said back with a weak voice, "Tell... tell my daughter... and Spike... I love them so very much..." She kept fading in and out of reality and finally fell unconscious.

Twilight kept waking up and falling asleep in a hospital bed. She could tell it was a hospital bed by the shape and feel of it. Dash was standing there next to her, holding a vase full of flowers. "Hey, your awake! Sorry the others aren't here, we all kinda have busy schedules and didn't expect to see you wake up in here."

Twilight couldn't move, couldn't reach out to touch her friend's hoof.

Twilight finally croaked, "I gotta tell ya, Dash, that vase is mighty somethin'!" Twilight blinked, then looked over at the vase, which was now full of a bunch of crummy old dead flowers. "Wha..." she said in shock. "Dash... Dash, hey, gal, is you in the John?" she called out.

Her friend didn't answer.

Twilight pressed the button on the side of her bed labeled "Nurse", but after a few minutes of pure silence, gave it up. "Nurse," she called out faintly. She tried to get up out of bed, the IV tube still stuck in her arm, and fell over. She struggled to get back up, all the while crying out, "Nurse!" When she got back up again, she braced herself and drew the needle from her arm swiftly. It began to bleed, so she bent down, picked up an unopened package of sterile gauze and placed in the crook of her elbow. She found some medical tape also lying on the ground and began to tape the gauze to her foreleg.

She staggered over to the door, turned the handle, and tried to push it open. The door wouldn't budge, so Twilight to decided to give a bigger shove. She finally cracked it open just wide enough for her to slip through it. She analyzed what was blocking it from moving in the first place: an overturned hospital bed, splattered generously with dry blood. She recoiled, not from the blood on the bed, but the mangled, gnarly, rotting corpse propped up against it. She then noticed there was something in its hoof. No, she new what it was. A Colt .45 semi-automatic, with the barrel grasped by the fallen pony's teeth, with the back of its skull being what splattered the bed-- blood, brains, skull fragments, the whole nine yards.

Why would he commit suicide, she thought after analyzing its masculine facial structure. What would give him a reason to blow his own brains out? Twilight couldn't grasp it, couldn't put her hoof on it.

Then she thought, It was this, or a painful death, simple as that. She could tell by the way the corpse was maimed; these weren't strikes from any weapon, they were bite marks, scratches, and bloody hoof-prints.

Twilight still couldn't think of what was going on as she tried to find a way out of this slaughter house. There were bodies everywhere, and she began to feel sick to her stomach after the smell crept inside her nostrils. "Oh, Luna!" she cried out as she brought her hoof to her muzzle.

She came by the doors leading to the cafeteria and saw they were boarded, barred, and chained together, with blood on the doors that said, "DON'T OPEN! DEAD INSIDE!" She stepped a little closer and peered in through the little slit of open door there was. She caught a glimpse of what appeared to be rotting corpses walking around aimlessly, but then jumped back as several bloodied up and rotten hooves crammed their way through the tiny opening, trying to get at Twilight. "Dear Celestia, this can't be what I think it is," she said aloud.