The Monster

A trio of fillies sat around a little lantern inside a tree house. The three fillies were having a sleepover dealing with 'official business' of their not-so-secret society. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, as they were known, had doused every light in their little clubhouse except for the lantern in the center of the floor. The small light source gave off an eerie glow, with shadows flickering and dancing across the faces of the three fillies.

The group of friends were reveling in the fact that they could stay in the clubhouse all by themselves for an entire night. After all, that meant they could do whatever their little hearts desired, be it stay up late, eat junk food, or just do the same old silly things they always did.

As fillies in sleepovers are wont to do, the trio had eaten s'mores, played a game of truth or dare, waged a three-way war with pillows, almost destroying the clubhouse in the process, and stayed up far past their bedtimes. It was now the middle of the night, and time for the almost sacred tradition of the campfire story. The unicorn, Sweetie Belle, started the round by asking a question.

"Ever hear the one about the Doctor of the Everfree and his monster?"

"Nope."

"Can't say Ah have..."

Encouraged by her friend's lack of knowledge in her story, Sweetie Belle grinned, and leaned forward so that the lighting would make her look as sinister as possible. With shadows trailing up the sides of her face, making her look like a cliched ghost, she said,

"If you've ever heard something scratching at your door late at night, it might just be the doctor's monster...

"You see, a few years ago, some doctor from Canterlot built a house deep in the Everfree Forest. Nopony knew just why somepony'd be crazy enough to do that, but he was dead set on building his home in that particular spot. When he finished it, he moved a lot of science gadgets out there, and only came into town every other month for food. Then things got a little...strange...

"See, about a year after he moved his stuff out there, some ponies found some fresh graves had been dug up, and the bodies were missing a few parts. A hoof from one, the head off of another, but never the whole body. After a month or so, the whole thing stopped," -Sweetie tapped a hoof on the floor, making her friends jump- "just like that. One week after that mess, the doctor comes into town, returning some shovels he rented from the tool store. Shovels he rented just before the grave robbing started...

"Now, the police get a little suspicious about the good doctor, so one day, they take him down to the station, and go out to his house, to see if he had anything to do with it. They went up the little pathway leading to the house, and opened the door to find a lab straight out of a movie. And right in the middle of it all, there's this platform holding something, covered with a sheet.

"Hanging from under the sheet's this off-color hoof. So, they pull back the sheet to find that not only did the doctor take all those parts, he stitched them together into one big body. They decide to go back and take the doctor to a nuthouse, because, y'know, he must've been crazy to do something like that. But the thing is, the last pony out the door heard something behind him, and when he looked back, he screamed and ran straight to town. He said the body started turning its head to look at him, and even looked like it was going to sit up on the table.

"Naturally, the rest of the ponies who were with him think he's losing it, so they go back to get the body. But when they get back to the doctor's house, the body's gone, and there's a set of hoofprints leading out into the forest. And they say that, to this day, that body of parts is lurking around the forest, even walking into town on some nights. So if you ever hear somepony scratching at your door late one night, be extra careful when you answer it, because it might just be the doctor's monster."

The yellow earth pony with a bow in her red mane, Applebloom, yawned, and said,

"That wasn't scary at all. Ah've got a better one..." She launched into a story of her own, as the tradition of campfire stories dictates. The other filly in the clubhouse, an orange and purple pegasus, kept nervously glancing at the door. Scootaloo knew she'd heard something lightly scratching at the door the moment Sweetie Belle finished her story. Scootaloo's imagination ran wild, thinking about how there could be a terrifying monster right outside the door, waiting for her to open it. Though, on second thought, she'd had an entire night of worrying about the Headless Horse not too long ago, and that proved to just be her imagination. Maybe this was just another case of-

"Hey Scoots, whatcha looking at?"

Scootaloo snapped her head back around to face the other two crusaders. Putting on a rather obviously fake grin, she said,

"Ah, i-it's nothing."

The two other crusaders gave their friend a skeptical look, but shrugged instead of pursuing the matter. Applebloom said to Scootaloo,

"Well, it's yer turn, Scoots. Go ahead."

Scootaloo gulped, before trying to tell a frightening tale of her own.

Outside, a shadowy figure resembling a pony moved away from the door of the clubhouse. It slowly made its way down the creaking ramp, back down to the ground. Its stitched-together hooves carried it down a narrow path in the orchard, before the mismatched body wandered off into the forest across from the rows of apple trees.