"Officials have reported that what had originally been thought of as an outbreak of riots and violence, is in-fact an outbreak of a virus that had been dubbed by Dr. Vid Mudrost as 'rage'! The Center For Disease Control has issued notices that the infected are easily recognisable by their telltale blood-shot eyes, red irises, and blood dripping from every facial orifice. CDC officials have issued that under no circumstances are civilians to come in contact with the infected. You have been warned to avoid them at all costs, and if need be, to defend yourself from the infected with deadly force, by the order of Princess Celestia."

Day 8: Epidemic

Rainbow has been barricaded away in Twilight's library for two days, ever since the Apple Family had gone missing and her house had been attacked by other pegasi looking for shelter. Twilight was in Canterlot with Spike on a conference with Princess Celestia; the purple alicorn was royalty after all.

After a few moments of silence, she heard banging against the door. It was irregular. It wasn't knocking, but it sound as if somepony was slamming their body against the door. After a few shrieks and angry shouts, she took out a Glock 17 from its case. She hoped that she wouldn't have to use it, but it seemed that she had no other choice. It was either stay alive, or go wherever one goes when they get beaten to a pulp. Her hooves shook as she loaded the clip.

She kept the firearm ready in her hooves. It lightly rattled as her forelegs shook. For a few seconds, all was well. However, that was short lived when a crack sped across a living room window. The first level was no longer safe.

Rainbow Dash scuttled up to the observatory. With a swift flick of her hoof, the door was locked. She ran across the room and huddled in a dark, dusty corner between a desk and the wall. Perking her ears, she heard the telltale sound of glass shattering. An in-equine yowl filled the air just below her. Her frantic breathing felt hot against her cyan coat, her eyes where limericks in size. The scream sent a chilling torrent down her spine. Just as she thought it couldn't get any worse, she heard more screams. This time, there were more than one. At least three of the infected were standing below her

To her terror, there was banging a giant the door of the observatory. It rang through her ears, the pounding was loud, hard. The rapping against the door grew stronger. She hoped, pleaded that it would go away. Rainbow sighed in relief when it did. She knew that it would eventually think that there wasn't anything in the room.

She began to push herself off the dusty floor. Just as she reached her full height, a loud slam emanated from the weakened door. The infected had tried to desperately open the door by using its full force. She plopped her rear back down on the floor, barely withholding a sneeze. When a minute of silence passed, Dash realized that the infected must have been drawn away by the shots of gunfire and the few screeches that remained.

She dared open the trap door, peering down into the second floor level. Her hooves gently guided her down the stairs, one step at a time. When she finally made it back down to the first floor, she grabbed the ammo she left behind and tossed them into her saddlebags that were resting against a stack of toppled books. After she buckled the bags, she slung them onto her back and galloped out the back door. As she distanced herself away from the house, she bolted into the sky. She climbed up, enjoying her newfound freedom.

CRACK!!

A crisp, sharp shot echoed through the streets. Rainbow Dash felt a bullet pierce her left wing. She went down, a twenty foot drop, landing on her side. She felt at least two ribs crack, and gave a scream of pain.

"Gah! Shit!!"

She struggled to hold herself up as the crimson life line of her body dripped from her wound. The bullet had torn through her wing, that was obvious. She slowly pivoted around till she could reach her saddlebags. When she did, she opened it and stuck her head inside.

Rainbow's head retreated from it with a bag of peroxide salts clenched between her teeth. She spit the bag out onto her hoof carefully after she ripped the top off.

She scanned the area around her body. With a seconds search, she found a newly broken stick. Taking it carefully in her mouth, she looked back to the bag resting on her hoof. Realizing that she couldn't pour it with a stick in her mouth, she spat it out and grasped the bag. Figuring that it would be better to get it all done at once, she dumped all of it on the gaping hole in her shoulder. To be blunt, it burned. She felt like Celestia condensed the sun into a small ball and played pingpong with her shoulder, the sun being the being the little plastic ball. Rainbow gritted her teeth against the pain, holding out screams of her own.

As the agonizing pain continued, she managed to sift around in her saddlebags and fished out a ACE bandage and some gauze. She placed sterile, snow white gauze over both sides of the wound, wrapped the bandage twice around her wing, and made her best attempts to wind its beige length around her torso to hold her wings to her body.

She knew this wound would greatly hinder her ability to travel, but she assured herself that at this point, survival was the main goal. She bent down to pick up the machete she had packed, seeing that it was now a friend. She glanced left, right, behind her, before turning to a backroad behind Twilight's library.

The dirt road eventually lead her to a pharmacy, a place that she need to enter. Using her common sense, she knew that her little wrap up wasn't going to be good enough. She would definitely need a better kind of painkillers as well. Hopefully, the pharmacy still had some stock left.

Rainbow heard screams and deathly shouts to her right, coming from the streets. She ignored it, focusing on her own safety. She looked over to the back entrance of the pharmacy, running towards it. She drew her Glock and tried the handle; surprisingly open. She holstered the firearm and trotted in carefully, her machete still out and primed. She gently closed the door behind her, locking it.

Dash reached for a light switch, and instantly wished she hadn't-- something in the room, behind the counter, growled fiercely. It jumped at over the counter and sprang at her, beady eyed and bloodthirsty. It jumped at her from over the counter, and she slashed at it with her blade, catching it across the chest. It suffered a rather serious wound, but rather than bother with self-preservation, it leaped up again and charged.

She then brought the machete down to bear on its skull, a sickening crunch and a splatter echoing through the shop. It sank down, and she used her hoof to draw the blade from the head. She wiped it on the body and slid it into its sheath by her hip. She shuddered as she realized what she had done. Ignoring that thought for now, her eyes looked over the counter. Rainbow was overjoyed.

There stood a shelf devoted to pain medication. Normally, she'd expect the place to be alphabetically organised, but this was not the case. It was organised by genre, thank goodness for that. She hopped he counter and instantly made a grab for the bottle labeled "Codeine." She instantly knew how well this worked, so she grabbed a styrofoam cup of water from the nearby spigot, emptied a single pill into her hoof, and swallowed the two together.

Capping the bottle and tossing it in her bags, she snatched up another bottle as well, and also noticed something that amused her in the non-prescription section of the store: a box of fifteen condoms. She chuckled at the thought and tossed the small box in her bag anyways, just to spur the moment. Rainbow turned around and left out the back door, closing it gently. Trotting down the road, she had one more place to stop: the gun store. She knew that this store would either be devoid, or stocked full with an unfriendly guard at the entrance. It wasn't guns she wanted so much as ammunition and a flash/sound suppressor.

By the time she arrived at the back entrance to the store, she was indeed shocked again; somepony left the back door open. She gently paced in, this time with her Glock drawn. She peered around one corner, then the next, before approaching the main section of the store.
Her first prediction was more accurate then the second. Somepony took several guns, a few boxes of ammo, shot the front desk clerk, and ran. She covered her snout with a hoof at the stench, then overcame it as her eyes met the accessories table. She grabbed a suppressor and searched for any clips of ammo. After she found several boxes of the precise kind, she took two. She then picked up the Glock clips. She saw the store had been barred on the windows and doors; only natural, who wouldn't come in search for weapons? Upon finishing loading her last 17-round clip, she stuffed two more boxes of rounds and the seven spare clips into her bags. She decided to take the risk and darted out into the streets. Nearly immediately, she wished she hadn't.

Two infected, clearly ticked and aggravated, paused for a moment, stared at her, and then made a mad dash for her. She turned on her hooves and began galloping hard. They were on her tail, drawing in quickly. Her breathing was hard, but she managed to stay ahead of them. One advance quickly, effectively taking her by surprise. In that moment, when it nearly caught her, someone shot it. She stopped, another round flying past her and striking the other. Looking around, she saw nopony. After a few more seconds of searching, she saw Applejack and her little sister's friend, Sweetie Belle. Dash grinned happily, showing her pearly whites.

"Howdy there, sugar-cube." Running into the building she was stationed on top of and climbing out onto the rooftop, Rainbow was eager for an embrace with her close friend.

"Oh my gosh, where were you?" Applejack smiled, eager to answer.

"Well, Macintosh was goin' off to the AGT Army, so we went to go drop 'im off. We come back, an' all hell as broken loose." She almost let go a tear as she continued. "They took Apple Bloom an' Granny Smith... Beat 'em to death right in front o' me..." Rainbow Dash, shaking her head, hugged her friend tight.

"I'm so sorry, AJ.."

"Don't be. I killed the sons o' bitches. Now it's just me an' Sweetie Belle. They got Rares too, and Pinkie Pie an' her boyfriend done run off with the Cakes. You already know about Twi, and Fluttershy, well..." She looked down. "She's one of them... I couldn't bring myself to put her down, I just ran."

Rainbow shook her head. "AJ, it's okay. Just be glad we still have each other. We can do this." She looked at her friend with promise shining in her magenta eyes.

"You, me, and Sweetie against the world."

Author's Note

And enter Applejack and Sweetie.