Nightmare Night Sleepover
Admiral Biscuit
Three fillies lay stretched out on the floor, with a bucket of candy in front of each. They'd already left some of their haul at the base of the Nightmare Moon statue, under the watchful guidance of Pinkie Pie, and once they'd returned to Berry Punch's house, they'd sorted through the remainder of their haul, trading back and forth until each was satisfied. They didn't eat the candy; Berry Punch insisted that the only got one treat each, although she'd relaxed her rule and let them have a second—but no more!
A small fire burned in the hearth. It wasn't quite cold enough to be needed, but it was comforting, and a Nightmare Night tradition. Berry Punch had been quite adamant on that point, and all three fillies nodded—she was an adult, and therefore knew things like that.
Berry Pinch was in the center of the trio, the place of honor, since it was her own home. Noi cuddled up on her left, while Dinky lay on the right, her tail extending beyond the blanket the three shared. She kept her eyes on the candy bucket, reviewing every treat contained therein. Pinch had closed her eyes and rested her chin on her forelegs, while Noi was staring intently at the fireplace, watching the logs be slowly consumed by the crepitant flames. Her ears flicked each time a knot popped.
"Lyra and Bon Bon had some scary gourds." Pinch lifted her head, and turned towards Noi. "Didn't you think?"
"Applejack's were better," Noi offered, not even turning to look at Pinch.
"Nuh-huh."
"You just liked them 'cause she's like your distant aunt or something." Dinky tore her gaze away from her candy bucket. "I thought Lyra's were scarier." She shifted a little closer to Pinch.
"You know what's scary?" Noi pulled her attention away from the fire and looked at her friends. "Have you ever gone to the train station?"
Dinky shook her head, while Pinch nodded. "We had to go meet Grandpa Berry there once."
"Did you look down the tracks?"
Pinch shook her head.
"They kind of curve away from the station, so you can't really see what's down there unless you take the train." Noi glanced back at the fire. "I heard this story from Goldie. She's taken the train all the way to Canterlot, and back.
"Down beyond the train station, maybe a couple of miles away, there's a small cluster of abandoned shacks. The ponies who built the rails lived there."
"How come they didn't live in Ponyville?" Dinky asked.
"'Cause the tracks weren't here yet." Noi said. "They moved out—maybe once they'd made rails to Ponyville.
"A poor mare, who didn't have any friends of her own, was walking through the woods one day, and she saw the shacks, and she thought since she didn't have a home and didn't have any friends, she'd stay there.
"It was cold in the fall, though. But the pony who had made the shack put a stove in it, for when the weather got cold. So she went into the woods and got a bunch of wood and chopped it all up, and made a fire in the stove." She turned her head back towards the fireplace and listened to the crackles and pops of the dying fire, waiting until the other two followed her gaze before continuing. "She didn't have much food, 'cause she was a . . . pegasus."
"How come she didn't fly up into the clouds and live there?"
Noi considered this. "Um, maybe she had a hurt wing or something."
"Or it could be winter," Dinky suggested. "Mommy says fresh food is harder to find in winter."
"It was cold," Pinch added. "You said she was cold."
"It was winter. There was snow on the ground, and the grass was all dead. And that's why she had a fire and was cold and hungry. But she didn't know the stove was old and rusty, and some of the fire got out.
“She was thinking about her soup, so she didn’t' feel when a spark landed on her blanket. She was wearing it, 'cause she was cold. And it caught fire! She galloped out of her house, all in a panic, and it caught her mane and tail on fire and then—“
“Cheerilee says we should stop, drop, and roll,” Pinch said soberly. “And stay away from fires unless there's an adult nearby.”
“And never go into a burning building, no matter what,” Dinky added.
“Maybe she didn't know!” Noi looked at the other two brightly. “Maybe there isn't a pegasus Miss Cheerilee to teach pegasuses.”
“Derpy's from Las Pegasus, right?”
Dinky nodded.
“Did she go to school there?”
Dinky nodded again. “And to Ponyville for one year too, before Miss Cheerilee was here. That's how she made friends with your mom and your sister.”
“She was so scared she forgot,” Noi told them. “And so she ran out of her shack with her blanket and her tail and her mane on fire, and her wings, too—and she galloped onto the tracks, 'cause that's the fastest way to Ponyville. But she didn't hear that there was a train coming.
“The engineer set the brakes, but it was too late, and the train hit her. Once it got stopped, the conductor went back to her body and covered it up and carried it back to the train.”
“She shouldn't have been on the tracks,” Pinch insisted. “Nopony should be. It's dangerous—a train could come along and run you over. Mommy says so. If you need to cross the tracks, look both ways, and listen for a whistle.”
Dinky nodded in agreement.
“I guess nopony told her. But that's not the scary part!”
“Trains are kind of scary. They're big and smokey.” Dinky stretched her forelegs out, and lowered her head between them. “Like a dragon that can't fly.”
“Nuh-uh, trains are neat. Mommy says next year maybe we can go visit Uncle Berry, and take the train.”
“The scary part is, the next night, another train was coming along, and when came around the bend, the engineer saw a pony in the middle of the tracks, all on fire. He'd already heard what had happened the night before, and he set the brakes . . . but when his conductor went out to check, there was nopony there.
“Every moon since then, her ghost appears on the tracks, walking towards Ponyville until she gets hit by a train . . . but if there are no trains, then she comes into town, searching for a little filly she can take with her.”
“When . . . when did she die?”
Noi's eyes glittered in the firelight. “Twenty-five moons ago . . . exactly.”
Pinch gave a small gasp and tucked her muzzle against Dinky's neck.
“She's not as scary as the headless horse,” Dinky finally decreed. “If she's on fire, she'd be easy to see . . . but the headless horse is all black, and only appears on moonless nights. Its hooves never touch the ground, so you can't hear it. It hunts for ponies who are outside and alone at night, and when it finds them. . . .”
Dinky turned her ears back, as a faint clip of hooves could be heard on the wood floor. She looked Noi in the eye. “But sometimes, it comes inside, and when it does—“
“Are you girls doing all right in here?”
Noi shrieked and ducked her head under the blanket, huddling up against Pinch's side. She knew that if you couldn't see the monster, it couldn't see you.
“We're telling ghost stories, Mom.”
“Ghost stories?” Berry smiled. “Dinky, Sparkler is here.”
“Sparky!” Dinky looked over at her two companions. “Can . . . can I stay a little bit longer?”
“You'll have to ask her.” Berry gently ruffled Pinch's mane, as Noi slowly emerged from the blanket. “She's in the kitchen.”
Dinky shot out from under the covers. “Okay thanks!”
She came back into the living room a minute later, Sparkler following along behind. She looked down at the other two fillies. “Dinky told me you were telling ghost stories?”
A pair of heads nodded.
Sparkler levitated a log into the fireplace, before sitting on the floor. Dinky curled up next to her, resting her head on Sparkler's foreleg.
“Gather 'round,” Sparkler said, “and I'll tell you the story of the pony with the golden horseshoe.”
She waited until the fillies had re-arranged their positions. Now Noi was in the middle, with a unicorn filly on either side. Berry Punch sat next to her daughter, while Sparkler bracketed the other end.
“Once upon a time, in Manehattan, there was a rich unicorn mare,” Sparkler began. “She'd lost her stallion, and was quite lonely, so she noticed when a well-off unicorn stallion moved into the empty apartment next to hers.”
Sparkler continued telling the story, with Berry Punch adding a few details here and there. The fillies gasped when Sparkler described the mare murdering the stallion, and Noi winced at the thought of the murderous mare yanking the golden horseshoe off his hoof—even if he was already dead. She lifted a hoof up to check her own shoes, making certain that they were firmly attached to her hooves.
“That night when she went to sleep,” Sparkler said, “she had a vision of her lover, coming on a green mist. 'You killed me,' he said. 'You killed me and took my horseshoe.'
“'You're dead!' she said, pulling the covers over her barrel. 'You're dead and in the ground.'”
“He reached out a hoof and twisted it, and the prized golden horseshoe levitated out of the nightstand and spread its heels wide, reaching for her neck. She tried to stop it, but it was too strong, and it pressed against her neck and squeezed the life right out of her.”
Sparkler gave the fillies plenty of time to imagine the gruesome scene, putting another log on the fire. Berry slid closer to Pinch, and gently nuzzled her daughter's forehead.
“The next morning the unicorn's maid found the body and called the police—it still had the golden horseshoe wound around its neck—but once the police came, the shoe was nowhere to be found.
“Some say it's back in the grave with the stallion,” Berry added. “Other ponies think it wanders the land, looking for its next victim.”
“And now it's time for us to go home,” Sparkler said. “Derpy's probably already wondering where we are. Come on, Dinks.”
“Aww, do I have to?”
“Yes.” Sparkler stood up and lifted Dinky's candy bucket in her aura. “Say goodnight to Berry Punch.”
“Goodnight!” Dinky walked over to the mare and rubbed muzzles with her. “Thanks for watching us and taking us trick-or-treating.”
“Good night, Dinky and Sparkler.” Noi waved enthusiastically as they left, while Pinch gave a brief wave then covered a yawn.
Berry scrambled to her hooves. “Okay, girls, time for bed.”
“Can we sleep with you?” Noi asked. “'Cause . . . just in case.”
“I'll tell you girls what.” Berry looked over at the fireplace, where the flames were still dancing above the half-consumed logs. “Go up to my bedroom and bring down all the blankets, and we'll have a little sleep-over right here. How does that sound?”
“You're the best.” Noi hopped up and galloped for the stairs. “Come on, Pinch!”
Author's Note
A One-Shot-Ober fic
31! Yay!
