The beginning of a nightmare
Rainbow Dash smiled as she stirred up her latest batter of Prank cookies. Her Prank cookies were going to be flawless, as they would make all the ponies turn rainbow colored. She had acquired her special recipe from a shop in Cloudsdale called pranks and flanks, a shop dedicated to pranks and other various jokes. The teller had warned her about something like side effects of candy rotting teeth and maybe a slight amnesia.
She pulled out a pan of the cookies and marveled at her masterpieces. They steamed with the smell of chocolaty deliciousness. She smiled as she placed the cookies on a rack to cool. Over the past day and a half Rainbow Dash had made over two thousand of her special cookies. She had been in partnership with her prank buddie Pinkie Pie, but Pinkie had backed out because of the last prank she had done. They had pranked Spike again, giving him a thousand scrolls that said bananas that he sent to Celestia. She had been furious, and threatened to send the two ponies to the moon for a year.
She sighed as she placed the last batch of cookies on the cooling rack. The first part of her prank was done. She looked at her giant prank check list, make your special rainbow cookies. Second was to pack the cookies into boxes to give to the ponies of ponyville. Third was to watch and wait as the ponies walked out with rainbow stripes.
She groaned as she began to pack the prank cookies into the boxes. She would of had Pinkie to help her pack, but se had said that Dash had been taking it too far again. A few hours later she looked at the boxes of cookies she had just packed, Enough to place at every doorstep in ponyville. She sat down to take a break before she began to file the boxes in accordance to what part of Ponyville they were going to, one pile for the north side and Sweet Apple Acres, another pile for the west side and the market district. She made another pile for the east side and Ponyville boutique, and her last pile would go to the last pile would go to the south and the orphanage where Scootaloo was, and she would meet up with the young filly and laugh at the hilarious prank.
Rainbow began carrying boxes out and flying them to the various homes of Ponyville, dropping them on the doorstep before ringing the doorbell and flying away to the next house and doing the same. As she passed the castle, she seen what appeared to be a stink eye from Spike, who had said if she tried to prank them again that he would have Twilight turn her into a banana and send her to Celestia. She made sure to drop two boxes off at the castle, smiling at the thought of herself looking like a banana. Once she had delivered all of the boxes, she would rest at the orphanage for an hour or so before flying out and yelling out to the ponies that she was the pony that turned them into rainbow ponies for the day.
As she flew over to the orphanage however, something just didn't seem right. The town seemed quiet, too quiet. She flew over to one of the houses that she had delivered to earlier and looked through the window. There were cookies scattered across the floor and a couple glasses of milk on the table, they looked like they had been spilt, an obvious reaction to turning rainbow.
She caught a glimpse of carrot top, or what was supposed to be carrot top in the corner of her eye. She was walking slow and almost drunk, wobbling back and forth and groaning. Rainbow decided to fly inside and see how the cookies had tasted, having not trying them herself before delivering them.
She opened the door slowly and stepped inside, looking inside for the pony she had seen from the window. She heard a grunt coming from the room to her left, and walked slowly to the doorway and seen what she could only describe as a nightmare. Carrot Top was standing over what looked to be daisy, and Daisy looked to have bite marks in her neck, and chunks of flesh missing from her side. What truly terrified Rainbow however was the fact that Carrot Top had blood dripping from her mouth and had a look of pure hunger upon her face.
"Carrot Top?" Rainbow Dash asked slowly, looking at the pony standing in front of her.
The pony heard the voice and turned around and looked to Rainbow Dash. She began to groan as she wobbled toward Rainbow, her eyes wide, almost with fright, but her facial expression was only of hunger, hunger that could only be quenched by that of pony flesh. Rainbow backed up slowly, trying to avoid the walls, keeping her eyes fixed on Carrot Top, who only began to draw closer to the rainbow maned Pegasus. Rainbow backed out of the door way, and before the pony was able to reach the same doorway, rainbow slammed the door and locked it. The door then pounded from the other side, as the pony beat on the door, trying to get through the obstacle that was now it it's way.
"What happened here, why is she acting like this?" Rainbow said out loud, before remembering that they had a huge prank on her last time, and began to laugh softly. "He he, alright Carrot Top, Daisy, good one, you got me," Rainbow laughed, but the pony on the other side didn't respond with words, but with another groan, and pounding on the door. Rainbow began to worry now, maybe it wasn't a prank on her after all. "Come on girls, this isn't funny anymore," Rainbow screamed, but again, there was only a groaning answer from the pony on the other side.
Rainbow screamed as she flew out of the house, this was terrible. "Twilight will know what to do, after she is done lecturing me about my pranking, in which I will totally listen to, I never want this to happen again" Rainbow thought as she began to fly towards the castle. As she approached, she caught a glimpse of Twilight on the edge of Sugar Cube Corner, and flew as fast as she could to the purple alicorn. She was standing by a pink pony, looking to be Pinkie Pie, and Dash landed to see what had happened. The purple alicorn was standing over her, her snout pressed into the side of Pinkie, tearing out a piece of flesh.
"No, not you Twilight, not you," Rainbow screamed as Twilight raised her head and turned to see the Pegasus.
She groaned as she began to stumble towards her newest prey. Rainbow screamed as she flew away from the scene with tears in her eyes. She flew towards Sweet apple acres, but was stopped dead in her tracks when she seen nurse Red Heart, the earth pony trying to keep a group of ponies at bay, all of them zombie ponies. She flew towards the nurse, her body situated to knock the zombie ponies out of the way and save the nurse. She narrowed on the last pony, and brought her hoof crashing into the pony's side, and sent the pony flying into the others. She stood up as she hit the ground, knocking the ponies into a nearby wall, where they groaned and rose back to their hooves.
"Thank you ever so much Rainbow Dash, but what are we going to do now?" Nurse Red Heart said as she eyed the ponies beginning to hobble back to where they were.
"Come on, follow me," Rainbow said as she began to run down the street, now looking for more survivors, and a clue to what could of happened.....
Rainbow Dash and Nurse Red Heart ran through the streets of Ponyville, looking frantically for survivors of the recent outbreak of zombie ponies, but their search was beginning to turn up in vane, as the body count was growing in the streets. They ran past a house by the spa, when they heard a blood curdling scream come from the building that made their blood run as cold as ice.
"Do you think?" Nurse Red Heart asked as they stopped their rush. She looked to the building again before returning her frightened gaze back to Rainbow Dash, who returned the look.
"We have to look, come on," Rainbow Dash said as she began to walk towards the building, when another scream erupted from the house.
The second scream sounded like that of a stallion, and it sounded as though it was a few feet from the door. Rainbow charged the door, breaking down the door with the force of a young wonderbolt, splintering the door. As the door fell down around her in pieces, her eyes began to shudder. The mail mare, that they had all called Derpy had eaten one of the cookies and had turned, but it seemed that the other two hadn't and were at the mercy of the zombie pony. Her heart fell even more when the little one spoke.
"Daddy, why is mommy acting like this, I don't like it," The little unicorn asked, looking to the brown earth pony beside her.
The earth stallion looked down to the small filly, before looking to the mare in front of him. "I don't know darling, I just don't know, but I know that we can't stay here," The stallion said before his eyes caught Rainbow's. His face began to show a little relief before looking down to his daughter. "We have to get out of here Dinky, come on," He said as he picked up the small filly and ran towards the door where Rainbow had began to distract the zombie Derpy, it's predatory eyes looking to the one that had disrupted it's next meal.
"MOMMY!!" Dinky screamed as they left the house, her legs flailing and kicking at the stallion holding her on his back.
The zombie began to look to Dinky, before saying something that could of been Dinky, but Rainbow wasn't sure, what she was sure of was that she had to get out of here now. She flew up to the ceiling, and began to fly towards the door. The zombie began to hobble towards her slowly, with the same look of hunger that had been on the others. She flew through the door to find the three others surrounded by zombie ponies, and they were closing in on them. Rainbow then began to climb into the air until she was at the same height as the top of Sugar Cube Corner, and began to fly downwards at sonic speeds. She positioned herself to land on her hooves in such a way that she would create a shockwave upon the ground, stunning the zombies surrounding them.
She landed on the ground hard, causing the ground around her to ripple like the surface of water, disturbed by a raindrop. The zombies around them fell to the ground, stunned for a moment or two, in which Rainbow rose up and held out her hoof to the three ponies huddled together. "Come on, that's not going to hold them for very long, we need to get moving," Rainbow said as she looked to the old family farm that was Sweet Apple Acres. She had hid there when her last prank had went sour, and wasn't going to get stuck there again, but she needed to see if there was any pony alive on the farm.
The three ponies got to their feet, the filly Dinky, still crying about the loss of her mother, slower than the rest. The stallion took her and placed her on his back, before running forward along with Nurse Red Heart and Rainbow Dash towards the old family apple Farm. As they began to pass the last few buildings of town and the features of the farm began to come into view.
Rainbow turned to the stallion and spoke. "So, what's your story?" she asked.
"Well, what's there to tell, my name is.... is....., well most of the ponies just call me doctor, doctor Whooves, and my story, we had just set down for a few of the cookies sent to us when Derpy, Derpy....." the Doctor said, starting to fall apart.
"It's ok Doctor," Rainbow said, stopping the stallion, "You don't have to go into too much detail," She said again, trying to comfort the doctor.
As they closed in on the farm however, another scream caught their attention. Rainbow stopped and looked to the other ponies. "I think you guys better stay here for a moment, I'll be right back," Rainbow said before turning around and taking off the ground and flying toward the farmhouse.
Upon arriving at the house however, she heard another scream from the barn, so she turned her attention to it instead. She flew to the barn as fast as she could muster for a short burst and threw open the door. Applejack and Granny Smith had been turned and had Big Mac and Applebloom cornered. Big mac looked up to a window above them and lifted Applebloom over his head to reach it.
"What about you Big Mac?" Applebloom squeaked out with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I don't think ahm gonna make it Applebloom, but you need to get outta here," Big Mac said as he lifted her up higher.
"But Big Mac.."
"But nothin, get outta here Applebloom, you don't wanna see this," Big Mac snapped back.
He then shoved the young green filly out of the window and looked at the two zombies. Normally he would never raise a hoof to any pony, but these weren't ponies, they were mindless eating machines. Applejack began to open her mouth and close in on Big Mac, but he brought one of his massive hooves down upon her head, knocking the Zombie pony out for a moment, but he didn't see Granny Smith land a bite upon his other hoof. Bic Mac looked to the bite mark on his hoof, and then to the window. There was no way of him leaving now, having read a few things on zombie ponies in his comics with spike, he simply laid down and waited for the inevitable to happen. Granny smith, having taken a bite, moved in and began to feed on the large stallion. Rainbow closed her eyes and shut the door slowly, before she heard the sound of Applebloom crying on the other side of the barn.
She ran over the other side to see Applebloom, with what looked to be a broken foreleg. she looked up with fear at first, but then relief at the sight of Rainbow Dash.
"Rainbow Dash....., You have to...... get...... Big Mac....... You have to," Applebloom said through a fit of tears.
"Applebloom....." Rainbow Dash said slowly.
"He's dead, ain't he?" she asked again, tears clouding her eyes.
Rainbow slowly nodded before turning to the road, where she could two ponies looking from the road.
"Come on Applebloom, we need to get moving, it's not safe here," Rainbow said as she gestured towards the road.
"Mah leg Rainbow, it hurts, and I can't step on it," Applebloom said as she held her leg up. The leg appeared normal, except for an irregular bump, and swelling there.
"Can you get on my back, and then we can get you back to the nurse, maybe she can help?" Rainbow said, laying down as the young filly crawled over and onto her back.
Rainbow stood slowly, and began to walk with extra caution towards the two ponies at the road. The whole time she walked, the thought came through her brain, haunting her like the pony of shadows, always behind her, but always out of her reach. "What have I done, and how can I fix this, if I can......"
