Equestria: The Trotting Dead

I stepped into the woods with Twilight as my partner. We kept our weapons at the ready, prepared for trotters.

“Where do you think she might have gone?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I told her to wait for me, and that I’d come back. I don’t know what could have compelled her to leave.”

“Maybe she got scared,” Twilight suggested. “For a filly her age, being out here alone could be terrifying.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. I heard a snap of a twig behind us. We whipped around, guns drawn. A lone trotter was hobbling toward us. I pulled out my knife and walked up to the trotter. It growled at me, but I quickly drove the blade into its skull, killing it. It dropped to the dirt, stomach up.

“Better check its stomach,” Twilight said.

“What?” I asked.

“We’ve got to make sure Sweetie Belle wasn’t bit and eaten,” Twilight explained. I sighed and kneeled down with Twilight next to the trotter corpse. Twilight pulled out her knife and stabbed it into the trotter’s stomach. She cut a hole in the trotter, then used her magic to grab its stomach contents. She carefully inspected the partially digested meat. After a moment, she dropped the gunk.

“Nothing,” she said. “She still might be alive.” We kept searching through the woods, but ultimately found nothing. When we returned to the highway, a car had been painted on and supplies had been laid out on the hood. The paint read “Sweetie Belle, we’ll come back every evening. Wait here for us.”

“Just in case she wanders back here,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Didn’t find her?” I assumed.

“No,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’ll go out together tomorrow.” I nodded and walked over to Celestia and Scootaloo.

“How’s the wound?” I asked.

“Bandaged it up,” Celestia said. “She got a fever once or twice, but it subsided with some antibiotics.”

“Good,” I said. “We don’t need another pony missing or dead.” I looked around the camp. Pinkamena and Vinyl were just coming back from their scout, and Fluttershy flew down from above.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Not a trace of Sweetie Belle.”

“Damn it,” I muttered. “Where could she be?” I walked back to the camper and stepped inside. Flitter was still there, reassembling her pistol. She still seemed shaken from her recent trotter surprise. I didn’t blame her.

“You know how to put that thing together?” I asked. Flitter nodded a little.

“Pinkamena taught me,” she quietly replied. “Showed me how each part fits together.”

“You gonna be OK?” I asked. She nodded. “All right,” I said. “I guess I’ll leave you to it.” I walked back out into the dark, where a small fire was being made. I climbed up on top of the camper and Celestia gave me her gun.

“You make a better lookout than I do,” she said. We gave each other a smile and I got to work watching for trotters. The rest of the group were discussing Sweetie Belle.

“I do hope that my sister can take care of herself,” Rarity said, clearly worried. “I’d hate for something to happen to her.”

“Hell, I was younger than her, and I got lost once,” Rainbow Dash said. “Sprained my wings pretty badly, wandered around the Everfree for nine days, eating berries and wiping my ass with poison joke.” I winced at that.

“For real?” Fluttershy asked.

“For real,” Rainbow responded. “My wings finally healed, flew back home, went straight to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. My ass itched something awful, and my head was twice as large as it should be.” I stifled a laugh, and Rainbow gave me a light glare.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was imagining what you looked like, and your reaction when you looked into the mirror.”

“I flipped out,” Rainbow continued. “Flew straight to Zecora’s, and asked her to make some of that herbal bath. It fixed me right up. Felt great.”

“I bet,” Twilight agreed. “Poison joke is serious stuff.”

“You should know,” I said. “Shut down your magic the last time you encountered it. Pinkie wasn’t able to speak without mumbling and spitting everywhere, Rarity’s hair was a mess, and Fluttershy…” I stifled a laugh. “…had a deep stallion’s voice.” I saw Fluttershy’s face redden in the firelight. Pinkamena growled at me.

“That was quite an awful experience,” Rarity said, shuddering. “However, it was quite funny seeing Applejack a fifth of her size.”

“That was awesome to see,” Rainbow remembered. Everyone except Pinkamena laughed, who instead groaned in disgust.

“Oh, lighten up,” I said. Pinkamena simply rolled her eyes.  I took a look through the scope, and spotted a trotter in the distance, heading toward the camp. I flicked on the laser and took aim. I focused the red dot on the trotter and fired. Celestia looked up.

“Another one?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” I said, reloading. I took another look, and found no other trotters. The fire went out, and the rest of the group went to bed. But I stayed up, watching, waiting, hoping Sweetie Belle was somewhere out there, and alive.