Fallout: Equestria - Sunny Days and Lonely Nights

Chapter One: Baltimare

“The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.’”

The noise from the rotary blades was unbearable. We may have all been safely — in relative terms — locked up inside the cabin of this Griffonchaser and secure from the howling wind outside, but the sheer amount of noise emanating from those damn blades had only been lessened by an obscenely small amount. The walls were only paper thin, so even when the slavers closed up the hatch and gave the all-go to the pilot for take off, the noise tore into my ears and forced me to fold them back against the sides of my head. I would have used my hooves to shield my ears instead, but when you’ve got those same hooves cuffed to a long metal bar underneath your seat things were made a little more difficult.

That was about twenty minutes ago, though, and by now my ears had gotten used to the noise. Well, for the most part. I still kept them pinned against my head, but at least it didn’t feel like both of my eardrums were going to rupture into a rather painful display of an angry ear volcano. I had more time to look over to my right and in front of me and get a good look at the other captives who happened to be joining me on this unpleasant ride off to the middle of Luna-knows where.

Off to my right sat Estoc, a dark brown bat pony who happened to be my partner-in-crime back before these slavers got us. He’s pretty average sized for a stallion, certainly larger than me given that I’m pretty small compared to most mares. He appeared to catch my gaze as he shifted his blue wings uncomfortably against his sides, wings that matched the colors of his mane and tail. Did he think I was looking at his cutiemark? I’ve seen that yellow crescent moon and white feather many times before, and trust me, I’ve got no interest in biting it right now given that we’ve got bigger problems at the moment.

The two ponies sitting across from us were a pale green stallion and a deep blue mare, both earth ponies with similarly colored grey manes. If I’d hazard a guess those two might be siblings, but judging by the steely stare that these slavers kept giving the lot of us I wasn’t very inclined to ask. I don’t even know if those two would have even responded given that they were quivering on their bench. Their cuffs jingled against the bar underneath their seat more so from their shaky hooves than the turbulence from the Griffonchaser. I almost felt kinda bad for them, if they weren’t incessantly staring at me.

Alright, so I look a little different than a normal bat pony. I have red irises instead of yellow, so what? I’ve got the mane and tail to match my purple wings and it’s not like my coat color clashed horribly with everything else. It was grey, for fucks sake.

“Hey, pilot, when’re we landing?”

I snapped my head over to one of the slavers riding with us, a fairly large griffon who carried a hunting rifle with a scope on top. He had had his talons draping over the seat back of the pilot who was in front of him.

The pilot looked back at him. “What, gettin’ a lil’ sick there, pal?”

“Shut up and answer the question.”

The griffon did look a little green around the gills. Whaddya know, a griffon who gets airsick? That’s ironic. I couldn’t help but snicker to myself a little bit.

“What do you think you’re laughing at, rat?”

Oh, he heard that. Can he really blame me, though?

“Need a bag?” I wiped the smirk off of my face, but it didn’t seem like my mouth was done just yet. “You’re starting to look like the stallion over there.”

Next thing I knew I felt my head slammed up against the wall of the Griffonchaser and the griffon’s stupid mouse claws digging into my jaw. Oh, wow, I couldn’t see straight. It looked as if he had grown another pair of eyes all of the sudden.

“I’d suggest you stop flapping your lips, lil’ rat, or I’ll shove this gun barrel so far up your ass you’ll start seeing stars.”

I blinked a few times. “At least I’ll get more out of it than if you shoved your tiny, knotted dick into me.”

“Sunny, shut your-” Estoc whispered over my way, but he was too late as I felt my head connecting with the wall of the Griffonchaser again. Damn, I think that one was harder than the first time. Forget about the gun barrel, this guy was doing an awesome job slamming my head against the wall.

“Ay, cool it back there!” The pilot was looking back at us. “You can ‘ave your fun wit’ ‘er later, aight? We’re o’er the cemetery now so shut your fuckin’ mouth an’ sit down.”

Even after the griffon had let go of my jaw, I still felt the stinging pain that followed from his talons digging into my skin. I shook my head in an effort to dull the pain and caught Estoc staring at me. He was giving me one of those annoying, judging stares that made me feel like an idiot. You know, the whole narrowed eyes and flat lips deal.

“What?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “One of these days your mouth is going to get you killed, you know that?”

“I dunno, it’s helped me out a few times as well.” I bounced my eyebrows to emphasize my point.

Estoc looked like he was about the respond, but another griffon sitting on the other side of him grabbed onto his mane and yanked his head back. “Mister pilot said shut yer fuckin’ mouth, so shut it.”

The entire Griffonchaser lurched when it touched down, nearly knocking me off of my seat. That was a bit of a rough landing, but at least the rotary blades were winding down enough so that it didn’t feel as if we were stuck in the middle of a fucking monsoon.

“Lower the hatch!”

What fun. Looks like it’s time to unload the precious cargo.

The hatch at the back of the Griffonchaser clicked, unlocking itself before it started gradually descending with a whirring noise that clashed horribly with the still-rotating Griffonchaser blades outside. I couldn’t see much beyond the hatch, just that we sure were sitting in the middle of a cemetery judging by all of the crumbling and cracked headstones that lay outside.

Seems like it wasn’t going to be long before I saw the rest of the outside, though, with the griffon who slammed my head against the wall earlier unlocking the cuffs that kept me strapped to the steel bar underneath my seat. Estoc and the other two ponies were having their cuffs taken off as well, then we were all hauled onto our hooves and shoved out of the Griffonchaser.

Quite literally.

I was the last one out, but before I could even take one step onto the hatch leading down into the cemetery, the griffon behind me decided to give me a good push. He laughed as I tumbled down into the deadened grass. Fucking prick.

The pilot walked up next to the griffon, holding up a bag in his talons.

“Now then, you all’ve been gathered here today to take part in quite the momentous occasion. Ya see, while we do all call ourselves slavers because we round all you lil’ buggers up and wait ‘round for you to be picked up for a purty penny, some of you get to be lucky! Instead of gettin’ one a those nasty collars fastened to y’all’s scrawny necks, you get to play a lil’ game with us big boys.”

The pilot tossed the bag at our hooves and out spilled several pistols along with their magazines. At the same time all of the remaining slavers on the Griffonchaser pointed their guns at us, so we didn’t dare reach for the bag.

“Y’all ever ‘eard of ‘cat’n’mouse?’ Well, think of us as the cats while y’all are the mice, and you’ve got a big ‘ol arena for yourselves to play in before we get back. There’s lots of fun lil’ toys and ponies for yourselves to get ahold of, so I’d suggest digging in before we get back an’ hopefully you’ll prove to be some interesting sport. Fuck knows it’s been purty boring ‘round here.”

While the rest of the slavers cracked up again, the pilot disappeared back into the Griffonchaser. Moments later the hatch whirred to life once again. So we were really part of some kind of sick and twisted game for these slavers. What else could it possibly be?

“Have fun in Baltimare, lil’ ponies!”

“We’ll be seeing each other again real soon.”

I growled at the Griffonchaser as it lifted off from the long, brown grass of the cemetery. The wind from its blades whipped our manes back and forth and kicked up so much dust that we were forced to look away lest we risk trying something akin to acupuncture on our eyes. As much as I would have prefered to glare that those damn slavers as they took off, they’re not the last thing that I would have wanted to see forever.

With the Griffonchaser flying back the way it came, the four of us were now alone in the middle of this graveyard. Headstones rose up out of the ground in all directions until they rubbed up against the walls that marked the edge of the cemetery. There were gazebos placed here and there that were entirely overgrown by weeds and shrubbery, giving the entire garden quite the eerie and abandoned kind of look. I felt the urge to check each of the stones, just in case my name might have already been written on one of them.

The cemetery was just the beginning, though. Beyond the walls, crumbling high-rises reached up for the sky, the buildings dull and grey to match the unending clouds that continuously rolled overhead. None of them were quite as tall as the high-rises from the Manehatten Ruins, but they no less looked ready to topple over if you so much as sneezed in their general direction.

Further still was a long, lumbering wall that seemed to span the entire outer perimeter of the city, and no matter where we turned our heads the wall was still there. Large guns mounted on turrets rose up periodically over the wall, making it feel like instead of being placed into some kind of arena that we were shoved into an internment camp. Whether those guns still worked and were used to keep us fliers from escaping I had no idea, but I still couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of claustrophobia shiver down my spine.

“Hey, you gonna hog all of the guns there or are you gonna throw one to one of us?”

I snapped myself out of my trance to look over at the mare. She looked at me warily while the pistols were still at my hooves, as if she thought I was gonna pick these up and run off with them. I mean, that’s not a bad idea, these two look like they’d never be able to hit the nearest tombstone with one of these things so it’d probably be best to leave them here for the slavers. Still, four of us against those slavers is better than two.

Even so…

I picked up one of the pistols, a 10mm, and loaded it with its magazine. “Do you two even know how to use one of these things?”

“Well enough.”

“So if I just pointed at you and…” I put the pistol in my mouth and pointed it at the stallion. “...pulmm thm triggm, yoom knwm wha happn?”

Oh ho! Look at those two raising their hooves like they actually thought I was going to shoot them. Yeah, right.

I tossed the 10mm over to the stallion and he successfully caught it in his mouth. “That’s good enough for me. Let’s get your little marefriend hooked up with one, too, and we’ll head out, yeah?”

Estoc already had a .45 pistol holstered on his back leg in a holster he always carried around. He tossed me a loaded .44 revolver, which I put in my own hind leg holster, then tossed over the 9mm to the mare. She caught it in her mouth before looking over at her brother.

The way those two looked at each other with those pistols still in their mouth felt very off putting. In fact, Estoc and I, like the fucking dumbasses that we are, had our weapons holstered already while these two had their pistols pointing directly at us and looked as if they had no intention of lowering them. Smooth move.

“We’ll be taking your guns as well.”

I’m gonna kill that mare. You know, we’re right in the middle of a city with Luna-knows what lurking in it, and these two are already stripping weapons off of other ponies. What the hell was I expecting? We’re still in the Wasteland, just with a bit more desperation added to the mix.

“You guys sure you really want to be doing this?” Estoc asked. I had no words for these two, instead the edges of my lips curling into a growl. “You dunno what’s out there, but I can guarantee you that there’s going to be more bullshit than rainbows.”

“Just shut up and gives us the guns,” the mare said. Yup, I’m going to kill her. “We don’t care what’s out there, but if we’ve got your guns then that means we’ve got a better chance than you two and that’s all that matters. Better you freaks than us.”

Oh, nice. It’s because we’re bat ponies. “Is it the eyes? It’s the eyes, isn’t it?”

The mare pointed her gun at me. Wonderful. “How many times do I have to say it? SHUT UP! Give us your fucking guns, we’re not going to ask again.”

“Ten caps says you will.”

The mare pointed the gun at my hooves and fired, causing the bullet to bury itself into the dirt with a puff of dust. I jumped back because, you know, just in case it ricocheted.

“Fucking cunt.” I pulled the revolver out of my holster and tossed it at the stallion’s hooves. Estoc did the same with his .45, then the two of us took a step back. Better to keep putting some more distance on ourselves if those two really did have plans to kill both of us.

“Why’d you stop? Keep backing away,” the stallion said to us, nodding his head like he was emphasizing his point.

Estoc had stopped backing up. Fucking help me, Luna. I tried to catch his gaze by shaking my head at him, but he appeared to be much too focused on the stallion.

“How far do you think you’ll get?” Estoc challenged. “It’s almost dark and none of us have any idea of what’s out there. You think you two are going to do better on your own than taking us with you?”

“We’ll do far better!” the mare replied, switching back to pointing her gun at my partner. “You really think that the two of us would want some bat ponies following us around as we try to look for a way out?”

I shook my head. “Seriously, is it the eyes? There’s nothing that we can do about that.”

“Sunny, will you shut up, please?”

Well, fuck you, too, Estoc.

The mare snorted. “No, it’s not the eyes! Well, that’s partly it, but what’s to stop one of you from ripping into our necks and draining us dry? You really think we want to risk something like that?”

Here we go. We haven’t heard that one before. Next thing you know they’re going to be lacing their bullets with garlic next time we run into them.

I had opened my mouth to give yet another witty reply, but Estoc beat me to it, “Really? You know what? How about you keep those guns. You’ll have a better chance of one of them misfiring and launching the bullet through your tiny-ass, mud pony heads. Think of it as a good luck gift.”

The mare sneered at Estoc before both she and her brother picked up the pistols that we had thrown at them and started backing up. On the far side of the cemetery was a bit of wall that had crumbled away, revealing the streets that lay just beyond it, and it looks like that was their exit. It was the quickest way to get to downtown compared to the stone arches that marked the actual entrance behind us.

I’m going to take a guess here. As soon as those two are a good distance away from me and Estoc, they’re going to break into a little run for their lives.

“Just be grateful that they didn’t shoot us as soon as they grabbed those guns,” I heard Estoc say, but my eyes were still fixed on the retreating siblings.

“Grateful my fucking ass, those little fucksticks took our guns! You have any idea what’s out there? Because I sure fucking don’t, and if there’s one thing you learn out in the Wastes really quickly it’s that having a gun… No, you know what? You’re not a dumbass yet, so you know how great guns are.”

“Yeah? And I also know dumb luck when I see it.”

I rolled my eyes and stepped forward. Those two siblings were still backing away towards the crumbling wall a bit too slowly for my liking, so might as well speed them up.

“Alright, I gave ya enough of a head start! You’d better start running fast because guess what? I HAVE WINGS!”

Hopping into the air with a mighty powerful flap of my wings surely did the job. Both of those mud ponies jumped several feet into the air before high-tailing it towards the hole in the wall. They didn’t even manage to get a shot off at me before fight-or-flight kicked in, and who would have guessed that as soon as something more than a bat mare caught off guard would send them running with their tail between their legs?

Once those two were long gone through the broken wall, I landed back down next to Estoc with a big ‘ol grin on my face. It always felt good to send a few dumb ponies running as if they’d just seen a whole heard of Hellhounds charging straight for them.

“You know, I wonder about you sometimes,” Estoc said.

“Huh?”

“While those two were running for their lives, you could have dove on one of them, knocked them out, and took their guns. Instead you chose to float there and laugh at them like you were playing some kinda game.”

“And what happens when the other one turns around and shoots me? Hm?”

Estoc chuckled at me. “I wouldn’t have been far behind you.”

“Then why didn’t you do anything?”

“And ruin letting you listen to yourself be clever?”

This was getting ridiculous. I hated that damn smile on his face. I hated the way he looked at me. The way he was so amused by riling me up the way he does. I have no idea how he does it, but I wanted to wipe that stupid grin off of his face. We have better things to do than bantering back and forth here in the middle of this cemetery.

“Is that all?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, also for the fact that if they did happen to turn around and shoot at us, we’d probably drop faster than you do after you’ve been taking it up the ass for an hour.”

Okay, that’s it, wise guy. I swung my hoof against Estoc’s face as hard as I could, hearing a satisfying clap when my hoof connected with his cheek. He hardly stumbled back and my hoof stung, but I feel like I had delivered quite the appropriate message. I hope. He was still grinning at me while rubbing his cheek.

“‘little bit too much?” Estoc asked me.

“Ya think?” I felt my nose scrunching up as I glared at him. “And you’re the one telling me to shut up.”

“While you were flailing your lips when we had those guns trained on us, I was only getting under your skin.”

“Yeah, ‘only.’”

I rolled my eyes and started off towards the actual entrance to the cemetery. The path leading down to the moderately sized archways wound its way between rows upon rows of headstones, each headstone looking unique to the one that sat next to it. Most of them were covered in brown moss or overgrown and totally covered by the grass or weeds surrounding them. For the very few that I did see that weren’t obscured by shrubbery, the names written on the stones were almost entirely illegible. It’s not easy to preserve these things when there’s no one around who actually wants to do the work.

This place was a little eerie, I’m not going to lie. Estoc and I passed by a statue of a pony rearing up onto his hind legs. He was dressed in some of the most ornate armor that I had ever seen. I could make out all of the little details of his chest plate even though the statue itself was covered in dirt and grime. Tiny runes were inscribed over the armor and seemed to wrap around underneath his armor only to come back around over his shoulders and end at the star protruding from his chest. He carried a spear in his mouth and held it high.

The statues laying all around the Manehatten Ruins looked nothing like this one. Most of them depicted ponies with or without guns, but from what I’ve seen, there hasn’t been one carrying a spear and wearing metal armor.

I stared at the statue as Estoc walked passed me, and I asked, “I thought most ponies used guns by the time the whole Great War thing was going on?”

“They did.”

“Then why’s this guy holding up a spear like some kinda fanatic?”

Estoc stepped up next to me, looking at the statue as well. “I read somewhere about these guys called ‘Royal Guard’ who wore more ‘traditional’ armor and whatnot. This could be one of them, although why he’s in a cemetery is beyond me. Maybe he was important?”

My eyes had long since drifted from the statue of the armored pony in front of us, instead scanning around the cemetery until they landed on an obelisk that lay further down the pathway. The obelisk stood much taller than any of the headstones and other armored pony statues inside of the cemetery. The very tip top of it had come off, now laying next to the base, but at least it still stood out from practically everything else in the cemetery being that it was so tall. I’m thinking that you could probably see this obelisk from outside of this place, too.

“Hey, don’t you think we should get moving?” Estoc called out as I was making my way over to the obelisk. “It’s getting dark out and we’re going to need to find some shelter.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Yes, well, since the time we were kicked out of that Griffonchaser it’s gotten much darker. Estoc and I might have been bat ponies and can see in the dark better than most, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything out there that couldn’t see in the dark as well. Even so, this obelisk here currently held my attention. I could see the inscriptions on the stonework from where Estoc was still standing as well as the plaque that was mounted at the base. I just couldn’t resist. Stuff like this piqued my batty curiosity.

The plaque read, “In the memory of Commander Macintosh, the citizens of Baltimare erect this obelisk to commemorate him on his defense of our glorious leader, Princess Celestia. We honor the sacrifice he made to all of ponykind. He will forever be in our hearts and souls.”

I slowly looked up from the plaque at the inscriptions written on the sides of the obelisk. “AJB3ST120NGS1S” was written on two sides while “May hostilities subside so that the skies can be free once again” was written on the other two sides.

“Satisfied?” I heard Estoc ask behind me. “Or are you going to keep staring at that thing until the slavers come back?”

“If it’ll get you to stop whining then yeah, let’s get going. It’s just another monument for a dead war hero.”

Although there was something off about it. You don’t see very many monuments made for dead guys laying around cemeteries unless the dead guy happened to be buried there, too. This Macintosh guy, though? If you’ve done remotely even a little traveling around the Wasteland you would have heard of his name or seen one of the monuments made for him. Kinda strange, if you ask me.

We trotted the rest of the way down to the large archways marking the entrance to the cemetery. They looked like the barbican to a castle of sorts, but the black gates that had once barred its entrance were completely blow open, making it quite easy for us to step out onto the street.

“Would you look at that,” Estoc breathed.

The street itself had fractures running through the asphalt while the sidewalks on either side accommodated the sickly weeds which sprouted up between their cracks. Broken street lights lined the edges of the sidewalks. Not a single light fixture emitting any kind of light despite the darkening sky overhead. In fact, from this cemetery I couldn’t see any kinds of lights that were coming from the city.

The buildings themselves looked to all be in very sorry states of decays. In front of us was what looked like a laundromat, but many of the machines inside had been either torn apart entirely or were completely covered with bullet holes. Most of the glass had been shattered out, and the sign hanging over the store that said “Laundromat” was missing several of the letters from it. The “n” in particular was lying in front of the door.

However, what Estoc was referring to were the skeletal pony bodies lying outside of the laundromat, as well as several other buildings. While the bodies weren’t literally covering the streets and sidewalks, there were more than enough to make these first steps out into Baltimore to feel like this was only an extension of the cemetery.

“Looks like not too many of ‘em strayed away from the cemetery,” he added, stepping across the street towards a pony who was clutching a fire hydrant.

I followed after him, although my eyes drifted over to the bones of another pony lying against a streetlamp. “What’s the use of hanging around here once the slavers have left?”

“Desperation maybe.”

I snorted. The pony lying up against the streetlamp had what looked like a weathered teddy bear wrapped up in their hooves. That doesn’t seem normal for a slave to be carrying around with them.

“What, desperate to see if the slavers will take them back and fit them with those nasty-ass collars?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Stupidity always seems to surprise me, I guess.”

Estoc looked like he was ready to turn on me, but before he could swing fully around he stopped dead in his tracks. I heard them before I even saw his ears perk. The soft clip-clop of hooves on hardened asphalt. These weren’t the same kind of hooves that you’d hear from a pony moseying on down the street, steady and even. Maybe even a little methodical. No. These hoofsteps were the same kind that you might hear from somepony who was shambling along. Uneven, labored, heavy.

Turning our heads towards the corner of a building located only five hundred feet away, we were just in time to see five ghouls hobble onto the same street as us. They were pony in shape, but that was it. Depending on which one you looked at they were missing large chunks of their flesh, their manes or tails, their coats, their eyes, pieces of their jaw, and the list goes on. Let’s just say that if you’ve seen a decaying, animated corpse before, it probably looked like what the two of us were gaping at right now.

“Let’s start running,” I squeaked.

Before the first of the zombies could let out one of their blood curdling howls, Estoc and I were already spinning around on our hooves and galloping down the street. Without any weapons of our own, going up against a bunch of zombies would have been a very, very stupid idea. You shoot those things in the head and it isn’t guaranteed that they’ll go down. What the hell would hooves do against that? Tickle them?

Unfortunately the zombies appeared to be much better at sprinting compared to their eerie stumbling. In seconds the small mob gave chase after us. Their hooves exploded into a roar of clip-clops, clashing with the guttural, howling cries they uttered like a bunch of wild dogs who had picked up the scent of a freshly wounded animal. I glanced behind me to see their rotting bodies gradually catching up to us. Holy shit these things were fast.

“We need to get onto a roof!” I shouted.

Estoc already spread open his wings alongside mine, and with a powerful flap the two of us took off into the air. We landed on top of a steeply sloped roof of a run-down chiropractor, our hooves dislodging several roof tiles and causing us to stumble. Luckily none of the zombies appeared to know how to jump up onto the roof with us, but we couldn’t just stay here and try to remain out of sight of them. What, you think that zombies would simply stop trying to chase us because they can’t see us anymore? Pfft.

We took off along the roof, more tiles snapping off under our hooves. The zombies continued to chase after us, fully intent on seeing us as some kind of meal for them to eat. Or to simply kill. Probably just simply to kill.

“Sunny, look!” Estoc called back to me, drawing my attention from looking over our shoulders. Ahead of us was a hole gouged out into the side of an apartment complex, allowing us to swoop inside once we cross the wide street between it and the row of roof tops we ran on top of. “C’mon, we’ll fly across and lose them in there!”

As we reached the last rooftop before our flight towards the apartment complex, a chunk of shingles snapped out from under one of my hind hooves. I lost my balance, tripping over onto my side before rolling off of the eave of the roof. I threw one of my hooves out for Estoc to take, seeing him twisting around to reach for me before I fell down to the street, but he was far too late. I landed right onto my back.

Ouch.

The wind was clearly knocked out of me, but I had bigger problems than that. One of those zombies was already on top of me, trampling me as he attempted to pull himself to a stop. I felt his hoof slam into my gut, forcing me to yelp painfully. Another zombied brought herself to a halt on my side, sliding almost, before she lunged at my foreleg and tore into my skin with her teeth.

With another yelp I kicked my hind legs upwarps, smashing them into the side of the zombie’s face with a loud crunch. Her teeth were promptly and agonizingly ripped from my foreleg, with some of my own fur with it, but at least she was off of me. Another zombie was already lunging at me, though, once again in an effort to bite me and this time for my neck.

Before the ghoul could effectively sink his teeth into my neck, however, Estoc slammed down onto the his head and drove it into the ground. His face exploded into a bloody display of fireworks, coating both myself and Estoc’s belly and legs in blood and brain matter.

“Get up!” he yelled at me, grabbing my hoof. Instantly he had me back on my hooves again and pushed me towards the entrance of the building I had just fallen down in front of. All of the windows were boarded up, but the single door leading inside was slightly ajar.

“We need to get inside now, Sunny! One zombie’s down, but there’s still four more and only two of us. Let’s go!”

“Fuck you, I know what I’m doing!” I screamed back at him before throwing myself through the door. By the looks of it, we had just locked ourselves in a convenience store.

I spun around just in time to see Estoc zip into the store behind me and shut the door. He slammed his body weight up against it with only seconds to spare before the door was met with a very rough ram from one of the zombies on the otherside.

Estoc pointed over at one of the empty aisles of shelves. “Grab one of those and bring it over here. I can’t stand here all day and hold this damn door closed!”

The door lurched a second time as the ghoul rammed into it again.

“Alright, quit complaining and give me a sec!” I shouted back at him.

The closest empty shelf was only a few feet away from us. As I grabbed it with both of my forehooves to pull it from the aisle, however, the whole thing pitifully scooted less than five inches.

“What the hell’s wrong?” Estoc asked, grunting as the zombie impacted the door a third time. “Too heavy for you?”

“No,” I groaned in reply, dragging the shelves another measly few inches. “I can handle myself just fine!”

“We can switch roles.”

“You really want lil’ ‘ol me to stand there and hold the door closed?” My ears flopped back as soon as the ghoul rammed against the door again, this time splintering the door frame. Estoc winced. “My point exactly. Now hold that fucking door closed!”

Pulling these shelves over to the door was a damn chore, but once I was close enough from Estoc that he could reach out and grab one end, I hopped around to the other side and pushed. Between our combined efforts, the shelves slid into place in front of the door, only to visibly shake when the zombie headbutted the door yet again.

Estoc leaned against the shelves. “Help me hold it in place!”

THUMP

I pushed myself up against the shelves as well. “You really think this is gonna work!?”

THUMP

“You got any better ideas?”

“I wouldn’t be fucking asking if I did now, would I?”

THUMP

Estoc and I jerked against the shelves as the door frame splintered again.

~~~

After about an hour of guttural howls, wood splintering and splitting, and a bunch of sore shoulders, Estoc and I sat behind the counter of the convenience store towards the back. The zombie ramming it’s head into the door finally gave up when his head exploded. Blood and more brain matter covered the outside of the door, or at least what we could see from one of the cracks in the door that the stupid monster lay behind. Luckily that appeared to be the cue for the other zombies to fuck off being that we didn’t hear their heavy, labored breathing anymore.

We had spent the better part of the next hour scouring this whole convenience store for supplies, but surprise surprise. There was hardly anything that we could scavenge. Baked beans, a lead pipe that we ripped from the bathroom sink, and some old paper towels from the bathroom that Estoc was using to try to clean my bite wound.

It looked nasty. That zombie had really gotten his teeth deep into my skin, but neither of us were skilled enough with injuries to do anything but try to clean it with some towels. The bite mark burned a little bit whenever Estoc touched it, but beyond that it was only the look that was the nasty part.

“I think I should start calling you Twinkle Hooves,” Estoc muttered, smirking to himself.

“Oh, look who’s trying to be the funny guy.”

“It’s fitting considering how you let those two ponies slip away and then fell off of a roof into a pack of ghouls.”

“Did you see how old those damn shingles were!?” I felt my nose scrunching up into a menacing glare.

Estoc shook his head and touched me on the nose. He touched me on the fucking nose! I tried to bite him in retaliation, but he pulled his hoof away.

“I made it just fine, it was you who slipped,” he said.

“You weakened them. You were in the lead, dipshit!”

“Someone had to be.” He rolled up the last dirty paper towel into a ball and tossed it into the corner of the store where a bunch of other paper balls were already settled. He picked up the can of beans, then, and started glancing over the faded print stuck to the side of it. “We need a plan to get out of here.”

I looked down at the bite mark again. Well, that was as good as it was going to get for now.

“How much do you wanna bet that there’s a reason why all of those turrets on that massive wall are still intact?”

“I’ve got ten caps that says there is one.” Estoc put down the can of beans between the two of us. “And I’ve got another ten caps saying that it’s for keeping ponies like you and me in.”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously. Only questions is is how does that work? Are there slavers operating those things?”

“Could be. Then again, who knows when it comes to pre-war tech?”

I grabbed the can of beans and and tore the lid open by sticking my fang through the aluminum top and twisting. It popped off easily enough, and after a quick check there didn’t seem to be any sort of fleshy substance hiding away in this can. Safe enough to eat.

I put the can up to my lips and used my tongue to slurp up a mouthful of beans. “I think we should go check it out.”

Estoc gave me one of those doubtful looks. “You want us to walk up to one of those turrets with a lead pipe? What if there are slavers watching that thing?”

“We’re only going to take a look.” I slurped up another portion of the beans, then gave over the rest of Estoc. He grabbed the can gratefully before downing the rest in one big gulp. “It’s not like we have to walk right up to one of those things and poke around inside of it to see if it’ll go bang.”

“And if there doesn’t appear to be any of those slavers operating the turrets?” Estoc asked as he tossed the can into the pile of paper towels.

“Then it looks like we might have our way out of here.”

Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Flight  (Rank 1) - You can lift yourself off the ground and drift by at a slow pace. You’re a fucking embarrassment to the Enclave, soldier!