Chapter Five

Ghost Town

Half of Appleoosa was on fire, but no one was around to put out the flames. Since the train station was also burning, the train had to stop a ways back.

Twilight pulled the Elements of Harmony out of her saddlebags with her magic. As she gave them to their bearers, she commanded, “Rarity, and I will put out the fires. Equus? You, Vinyl and Octavia will search the left part of town, the rest of you search the right half. Look for survivors and watch each other’s backs.”

We all leapt out and headed for the water tower. Twilight and Rarity used their magic to send streams of water into the fires. The rest of us searched for the locals.

The town’s one set of phone wires were snapped and torn from half a dozen poles, I noticed. Appleoosa might as well have been on the moon, as the nearest town was fifty miles away.

When the town hall’s fires were put out, Vinyl, Octavia and I ran inside. The holes in the roof let smokey beams of midday sun in. The floor was a clotted mess of burned paper and scorched wood chunks. The walls were blackened with fire damage.

“Yo! Anypony in here?” yelled Vinyl.

Our ears swiveled around, waiting for a reply. Only the sizzle of cooling charcoaled wood could be heard.

“Why are we the only ones in town?” Octavia asked.

“Good question, Tavi,” replied Vinyl. “A few fires wouldn’t have scared everypony off. I’m thinkin’ they all got abducted.”

Octavia picked through the rubble. “But this town must have had at least a few hundred residents. Who could have spirited them away?”

“Beats me, babe. Maybe a bunch of those grey bugs snatched ‘em.”

I looked behind a pile of charred roofing beams. There was the corpse of a large insect, lying in a puddle of green blood, the throat torn open. This one had solid black chitin, however. I knelt down for a closer look at the wound.

Twin grooves started from the middle of the neck, between the head and shoulder plating. They dug in deep, like a predator’s bite. Then the gouging teeth cut down and along the throat.
There were defensive scratches on all four hooves. It fought hard against it’s killer.

Whatever did that knew how to tear open throats. No pony has teeth like that. But those giant insects did. Why would they be fighting each other while stealing away ponies? Where was this creature’s opponent?

I lifted a nearby scorched table and found him. Grey and skinny, almost starved looking. Judging by the impact on the table and the cracks on its back and head, I could tell the black insect kicked his opponent into the table hard enough to kill him.

Wait a minute. I looked at the charred floor and saw scuffs and scratches in the floor where the two bugs were fighting. They killed each other in the middle of a burning building. Why would they hate each other enough to do that?

“Equus!” shouted Applejack from across the street.

All three of us ran outside and saw her waving us over to another building. “Yew ain’t gonna believe this,” she said, pointing through a window.

I peered inside. There were shredded bodies of grey and black insects in what I now recognized as a bar. They tore each other apart even in buildings that weren’t on fire.

When I and Applejack stepped through the front door, I saw pony blood on a nearby wall. One dead grey insect was dripping with it.

Dripping blood. Fresh blood.

“This had to have happened in the last hour or so,” I said. “I see a lot of dead insects and pony blood, but no pony bodies.”

Applejack gritted her teeth and snorted. “If these little bastards killed my cousin Braeburn, Ah’m gonna squash ‘em all.”

“There’s a chance he’s still alive, A.J.,” I assured her. “It looks like these grey bugs kidnapped all of Appleoosa’s ponies, and the black bugs tried to stop them.”

“There aren’t any barricades,” observed Octavia. “No resistance to this invasion. Everypony had to have been snatched within five minutes or so.”

Vinyl nodded. “You got it, Tavi. There had to have been a ton of bugs in the air to do this much damage.”

Twilight studied the bug-slaughter. “I don’t get it. No one knew these things existed until they threatened you, Equus. Now they’re killing each other over a species they couldn’t have known about until just recently.”

“If these black critters were huntin’ for food, why didn’t they attack somethin’ easier to hunt, like coyotes or . . .” Applejack’s ears flattened as her eyes bugged out. “Uh oh. Twi? Ah think we’d better see if Chief Thunderhooves’s tribe’s okay.”

Vinyl raised a hoof like a school-foal. “Could I get a refresher course here? Who are you talkin’ about?”

“Chief Thunderhooves is the leader of the local buffalo tribe,” answered Twilight. “We helped his people and Appaloosa with a peace treaty a few years ago.”

Applejack pointed out the front window. “They live a few miles north of here, if Ah remember right. They had to have at least seen the smoke.”

Spike and the other ponies joined us.

“Twilight?” said Spike. “We’ve searched every building, top to bottom. There are a lot of dead bugs, but no ponies.”

Fluttershy said, “My bats have these creature’s scent now, but they can’t find any live ones.”

“One curious thing I noticed,” Rarity pondered. “Several walls and floors in the grocery store have been removed.”

Spike scratched his head. “Yeah, I saw that. What do these bugs need all that wood for?”

Twilight rubbed her chin, using her magic to lift a black insect. “It’s weird that these dark ones are so much healthier than their opponents. What do you think, Equus?”

“I’m not sure what to think,” I said as I examined the blood-soaked grey creature. He was curled into a ball. Something was in his front hooves. When I turned him over, the object slipped onto the floor.

It was a severed pony hoof. Blond fur.

Applejack growled. “That had better not have come from Braeburn.”

Octavia quickly looked away, whispering “Sweet Celestia . . .”

Studying the blood-spatter, I noticed there were two trails of blood. One was larger, with thicker blood spray, as if from a severed limb. The smaller, thinner trail led to the hoof on the floor.

Both trails led to the back of the bar. Following the blood, I saw the trails going out an open door.

I took a step towards the door, but Twilight stopped me. “Hang on, let me and Rarity take point. There might still be bugs hiding somewhere.”

The two unicorns peered outside and waved us to follow.

When the harsh sun hit my eyes, I heard Rarity hiss in surprise. Her ears flattened as she backed away from what she stared at. I followed her gaze at a message painted on the back of the bar. That hoof must have been used as a grisly paint brush, for in thick, blotchy letters of pony blood we read:

WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU, EQUUS. COME TO THE NORTH MALARSON MOUNTAINS OR WE WILL KILL THE HOSTAGES.

A map was glued under the message, a small X of blood marking where we had to go.

Vinyl whistled through her teeth. “Man, can these bastards sink any lower?”

“If these critters live in the mountains, maybe the buffalo’ll know somethin’ about them,” suggested Applejack. “After all, ponies haven’t lived out here all that long.”

“That’s the best lead we have, Applejack,” Twilight conceded. “Let’s go find that tribe. I just hope those monsters didn’t snatch them, too.”

When we walked away from the town. I heard a buzzing sound from behind a building, like a large dragonfly in flight. I turned to see where it came from, but found nothing.

Someone was watching us.

Author's Note

This chapter's theme is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (soundtrack 1974)" by Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell