Chapters Keep Calm, We're gonna try to help
I laid in my bed waiting for my body to react to the constant beeping of my alarm clock. I finally decided to get up and get rid of the annoying beep of my navy blue alarm clock. I turned back over to see that my bed was empty, so I stood up and got some pants on and shambled over to my bathroom door. I walked over to the mirror and stared at my reflection for a while before shaving the little stubble that had grown on my face and brushing my teeth. I walked downstairs and looked around for that waitress that I had brought home with me last night. She was cute, for an IHOP waitress but I managed to get her to come back to my place. I walked over to the fridge and pulled out some eggs and the milk. I put them next to a pan that probably hadn't been washed in the past month. I turned on the stove and quickly checked the expiration date on the milk to make sure I didn't eat some two-month-old eggs, again. I threw some scrambled eggs together for a quick breakfast and walked over to my answering machine to check my voicemails.
"One new voice mail," I waited for the automated message to end and play the recording.
"Hi, Zane it's your brother, Maurice, I'm calling to let you know that you missed your exercises and your ASVAB test, and they told me that if you miss another meet then they won't allow me to keep you in this," Maurice told me. I quickly hit the next message button and waited again for the automated message to play the message.
"Hi, Zane it's your wife calling and just wanted to let you know that we're getting divorced. I just can't deal with this anymore Zane, with you bringing hookers to MY house and having sex with them in MY bed. Get your stuff out of my house and if I see you after getting off of work I'm calling the police. Also, I'm not letting you say goodbye to your kids Zane, consider this goodbye," as soon as the message clicked I threw the answering machine against the wall, causing it to shatter it into a million pieces. I quickly ran upstairs to see the waitress that I had brought home from last night throwing up into the toilet.
"Hey, your gonna have to leave," I told her, but all I got back was a slight nod. I closed the bathroom door and threw some clothes on and packed up the rest of my clothes in my ex-wife's duffel bag. I ran downstairs and sat on the couch and turned on the news to see if anything as happening in Shitville, USA. I read the articles at the bottom and one caught my interest. The article stated that the hospital in town and in the city have been quickly packed. I lost attention when my phone rang, so I quickly fished out my phone. I saw that it was my brother and quickly pressed hangup. I grabbed my stuff and got up off the couch. I turned around to see that the waitress from yesterday was in the kitchen trying to get some water from the fridge. I left her for my batshit crazy wife to deal with and started to make my way to the closest motel. On the way, I got a text from my brother saying that I needed to get over to the shooting range. I slammed on my brakes, causing the guy behind me to slam into me, but I quickly did a U-turn and made my way to the shooting range.
I started shooting targets with a variety of different handguns, trying to figure out which would cause the most damage to my idiot brother when he got his lazy ass over here. I was about to get started on assault rifles, but I heard my girlfriends Chevy pickup roll up out front. I put down the M4 and ran out front to greet my stunning girlfriend. I saw that she had also brought her brother and his girlfriend along. I loved my girlfriend because of her talents which were absolutely astounding. She had won six years in a row the Kansas Rodeo tournaments.
"Hi, babe, are we waiting on your brother now," she asked with her very light southern accent, which sounded like liquid gold.
"Yeah, I just texted him, he should be here any minute now, you three go on in and I'll wait for my brother," I watched my girlfriend and other friends walk in. I sat for maybe a second before I heard the terrible roar of my brothers 1999 mustang, which he doesn't take care of, like everything else he owns. I waited for him to pull up to the parking spot, but his car died at the entrance of the shooting range. I watch as he exits his car and jogs over to me, with his grease-stained white wifebeater and torn jeans with his destroyed shoes. I wanted to laugh at the failure that my brother had become, but I managed to hold it in.
I hit my car's steering wheel as the piece of shit just gave out on me. I saw my brother dressed in his military BDU and his dog tags around his neck. I still don't know why he wants me to join the military even though I told him I don't want to be in the military. I got out of my car and ran over to him, and I could tell he was holding back a giggle. I noticed his girlfriend's truck and winced after the last time I met her. I made a bad joke about blonds and she had choked slammed me through a table.
"Hi, Maurice why do you want me to be here," I asked him as I followed him into the gun range.
"Pick a gun, we're here to have fun for a while," he told me with a smile on his face.
"Hi, Zane, how are you," Kim asked me. I didn't want to talk to her as I was scared that she would shoot. "You're not still nervous about when I choke slammed you through a table?"
"A little bit," I told her. "But I'm good Kim, how have you been?"
"Fine, but have you heard about this strange sickness that's sweeping through Kansas," she asked everyone.
"Yeah, I heard about that, it's hitting Kansas like wildfire," I just noticed Marlene and her boyfriend, Denis. I walked over to the gun rack and picked up an AR15 and walked back over to the shooting range. I put on the ear mufflers and took aim.
Keep Calm, We're gonna try to help
I sat in the armored humvee and waited for orders from my brother who was my squad's Admiral. The rest of my squad was a funny African American who's name was Hester and he was the newest recruit, next was my girlfriend, Lyra, who was the Captain, and finally was my friend and my brother's worst enemy, Matt, who was a Lieutenant. I was a Rear Admiral.
"We're getting reports of rioting in downtown Miami, Boston, and L.A.," my brother announced. I turned on the radio and all I got back was static. I switched back to the Coast Gaurd reserved radio channel and received a whole bunch of static.
"Squad Charlie, are you there, I repeat, squad Charlie, do you read me," I waited for squad Charlie to respond but I got nothing back. "Maurice we need to get back to base, Hester's been injured.
"Yeah, get us back to base, Zane," he told me as I started to drive from one of the Coast Guards f.o.b that have been attacked by the walking dead. I sped through the front gate, that had been barricaded to keep the dead from breaking in, but it didn't work that well as were standing in the ruins of the Kansas International Airport. The drive from the airport to the coast guard Kansas HQ isn't a long drive, but it will be trying to get past all the abandoned cars.
"Ah, fuck this hurts like hell," I looked back at Hester, to see that his leg was starting to bleed worse, and it wasn't showing signs of stopping.
"Lyra, help him," I told her.
"Sorry sir, but I can't as we have no more Gauze or painkillers," she told me. I looked back at the road and saw a car 25 meters ahead of us, so I quickly swerved to avoid hitting it, but our humvee careened into a forest. We hit a tree and I blacked out from the force of the crash.
I slowly came around and saw a tree right in front of me. I sat up and saw that I had flown far from the humvee. I stood up and walked over to the humvee, and started to drag my squad out of the wrecked vehicle. I laid them 20 or so feet away from the wreck. I grabbed anything that would be useful, such as our guns, ammo, and medical supplies. I walked over and sat our stuff next to a tree and waited for my squad to wake up. The first to wake up was my brother and he ran over to a tree and vomited out what looked to be a bunch of water and bread. He walked back over and started to wake up the others and equipped himself for a trek through the forest. Everyone else awoke and equipped themselves. Lyra and I carried Hester through the thick jungle. We finally came to an edge of the forest, but at the rate, we were walking we would be in the town that my brother had spotted as he went to scout out a little bit ahead of our group.
"We're going to be there for maybe half an hour if we keep at the pace we're at," Maurice told us. I almost face planted when my left leg went entirely numb. I dropped Hester who landed on the ground next to me. I looked down at my leg to see a gash in it from the twisted metal of our wrecked humvee. Lyra picked up Hester and Matt picked me up. They carried us into the town and I saw a group of multi-colored horses approached us and a lavender purple one walked up to us. I heard it say something which made me damn near faint. It sounded like it was concerned for us and about us. I heard my brother tell it that we were part of the United States Coast Guard.
"Listen, my brother and friend need medical attention," Maurice told it.
"Um... yeah, follow me, I'll take you to Ponyville Medical," It sounded like a she, so my brain matched the voice with a gender. She led us to a hospital that had a typical hospital look. "What happened, to you brother and friend?"
"My friend got his cut on a helicopter blade," the helicopter, in general, had exploded which is how he got his leg almost severed from his body. "And my brother cut his leg open on a twisted piece of metal on our wrecked humvee."
When he finished his answer, I was laid on a medical bed and a white horse with a pink mane pushed a needle through my leg and quickly stitched my leg up and then bandaged it up. My friend was treated with stitches as well, but he didn't get bandaged.
"What's a helicopter," the purple horse asked. "And a humvee."
"Vehicles," he told her, which she seemed to accept. I laid there and decided to pass out to let my leg heal slightly.
"Oh, and my name is Twilight Sparkle."
Keep Calm, We're gonna try to help
I sat next to brother with Lyra right across from me. It had been about an hour since he had passed out either from blood loss or to relax from the pure hell we went through yesterday. I had so many questions for the purple unicorn that was our saviour. I wanted to ask how humans never found their kind before and how a magical entity could even exist on our planet. I stared at Hester, who hadn't awoken since we got to the beautiful world, and at back to Lyra who gave me a worried look. She opened her mouth to say something but was stopped by the door to our room bursting open. I saw a few doctors bring in a very sick looking pony, that had dark grey and messy greyish blue hair, and a tattoo, which I have found out to be the horses 'cutie mark', that looked like a speeding thunder cloud and wings that were the same colour as the pegasi's coat. I stood up and walked over to the dark grey pegasus to ask what was wrong. I walked over and it was clear that I still wasn't expected as the doctors and nurse ponies walked away when I got close. I frowned but still looked at the pegasi, and watched as his breathing became more rapid. I got pushed away from the horse so I walked back over to the chair I was sitting in. I heard the door open again and I saw Twilight and 5 other ponies walk in with her. The others were a pink pony that had fluffy hair and was constantly bouncing, a flying rainbow streak that flew into the room via the window, a white unicorn that was holding a pile of clothes, via magic, an orange pony that had a stetson on her head and piece of straw in her mouth, and a yellow pegasus that had birds and squirrels flying and climbing on her. Twilight also had a small purple lizard on her back. I put my head in my hands and sighed, getting ready to meet five more ponies. I looked up to see a blue pony right in front of my face. I jumped back and landed on my back knocking the window out of me. I laid on the ground for a minute only blinking every few seconds. I saw the cyan blue pegasus laughing at me, and flew over to Twilight.
"Was that really necessary," I said as I slowly stood up and fixed my chair. I damn near jumped out of my chair again when a pink blur fell out of the sky, saying the most ear shattering hi I've ever heard. I stared at the pink pony and she returned the glare but started to show signs of blinking. She finally blinked and all of the other ponies started to whisper to one another, and the pink pony looked as if she were really mad that she lost.
"Nopony ever beats Pinkie in staring contests," said the flying rainbow one. I looked at Twilight and she shrugged, which made it clear that she didn't know either.
"Everypony I'd like you to meet our... rather strange visitors," Twilight told the others and the other ponies either dispersed to go to everyone else. I was surrounded by the yellow and orange pony. Lyra and Zane were bombarded by the pink pony, and Matt and Hester were attacked by the cyan blue pegasus and the white unicorn.
"Umm... what's your... name... mister," the yellow one was clearly shy, which made me want to hug her. "My name... is uh... Fluttershy."
"My name is Maurice Elwood, and it's nice to meet you Fluttershy," I gave her my hand and we shook, which I never thought I would do in my life. "And what might your name be?"
"Name's Applejack, nice to meet ya," she had a very thick southern accent, which reminded me of... her. I pushed the thought out of my mind and shook hands... hooves... with the country pony. She shook my hand hard so I returned with a hard shake of my own. I heard gasping and I looked up to see Zane waking after his deep sleep, but he always had troubles with sleeping. I stood up and walked over to Zane and made sure he was alright before punching him once in the arm. He winced but was good. A tug at my right leg made me look down to see the pink pony tugging on my pants. I crouched down and looked her in the eyes.
"My name is Pinkie Pie, what's yours," she was so giddy, almost to the point of giving me a headache.
"My name is Maurice Elwood," I told her, then she looked to all my other friends. "This is my brother, Zane Elwood, his girlfriend, Lyra Love, that one is Matt Marsh, and that one is Hester Lynch."
"I have a friend named Lyra," Pinkie told me before bouncing off.
"So what are you exactly," the rainbow one asked. "Oh, and my name is Rainbow Dash."
"Where humans," Zane blurted out before I could come up with an answer.
"Okay," she annoyed me so much.
"What do you do for a job or hobby, darling," the white unicorn asked. "And darling call me Rarity."
"We as a group are a squadron of the United States Coast Guard," I told her which she put a hoof to her chin and walked off. After I had answered another 50 questions, I went over to check on Hester, who hadn't awoken yet and his heart rate was dropping fast. I was about to ask Matt how he and Hester were doing before a loud yell of pain rang out from the other side of the room. I threw my hand to my pistol but relaxed a little as I walked over to the curtains. I pulled back the curtains to see that one of the doctors had been bitten on the arm trying to get the dark grey pegasus to calm down, and at the very least put him in bound leather straps.
"Thunder Lane, are you okay," I saw Twilight walk past me and walked over to Thunder Lane, but his response was a violent coughing fit. She helped the doctors get him into restraints using her magic and walked the doctor out of the room. I followed Twilight out of the room and watched her give the doctor to another group of doctors. I followed her back to the room. I wanted to tell her about the disease that had plagued my entire planet in a matter of a few days, but I didn't want to ruin this beautiful world with quarintine zones, F.O.V's, and violence.
"Thank you for your help with that, I don't know what has infected him but let's hope it doesn't get too bad," Twilight said, I wanted to tell her that it was but I was to scared of the consequence, even though not saying will have worse consequences. What have I done?
Keep Calm, We're gonna try to help
After all of Twilight's friends had left the room, Twilight sent a note to her mentor about how she would them to meet us. I was confused when she said mentor as I always thought princesses wouldn't have mentors, but her mentor wasn't exactly a normal mentor. I stared up at the 7-foot tall princess and 6-foot tall princess that towered over everyone in the room. I was told to bow to the princesses when the got here, which I didn't think would be instantly but I quickly bowed in front of the towering horses. We all greeted them with smiles and nice tones, but the room's cheery nature went away in the blink of an eye when Princess Celestia asked Twilight about a problem. The princesses left the room with us and the doctors and "patient zero", which freaked me out enough without having to be on my absolute best behaviour around the rulers of a country, or was it a continent, I couldn't remember. I watched another doctor come in to check on Zane and Hester and change their bandages around.
"Hey bro, how are doing," I asked my brother who only looked at me with an "I'ma fuck you up when I get up" look to where I put my hands up in defence. "Just asking sorry." The nurse left the room after checking on Hester. I overheard Hester trying to flirt with the nurse to which the nurse continuesly turned him down, but finally agreed to go on a date with him.
"Redheart, get him breathig again," I heard a male doctor yell. I looked around the sheet dividing and saw the dark grey colored horse lying on the table not breathing at all. I watched as a white pony tryed to get the pegasus breathing again, but was failing as the heart rate monitor was slowly starting to decrease. I heard a scream come from Lyra and I saw Lyra standing on a chair hiding from what looked to be the cutest mouse in the world. I walked over and scared the mouse towards the operation on the other side of the room. I got Lyra off the chair and calmed down enought to get her to breathe right. I swore in my head that for a member of the military she was sure afraid of rats and mice. I heard another scream come from the other side of the room and didn't bother going over to calm down another female from a cute mouse. I sat down only to be tackled to the ground by a falling curtain and two ponies. I got out from under the curtain and stared at the bloody mess before me. I saw the doctor that gave the orders getting his throat ripped out by the dark grey pegasus that was once held down by leather straps. I grabbed the the pegasus and tried to throw him off the doctor only for the winged creature to turn and lung at me. I was thrown over the hospital bed that was caked in blood and onto my back. I heard screaming coming from damn near everyone and pony in the room, except Hester, the doctor, and me as I had the wind knocked out of me to not be able to scream. I felt a drop of saliva hit by forehead, but was saved by something throwing the dead pony off of me.
"Are you alright Maurice," Twilight said as she lifted me to my feet, but only to be knocked back down by the pony. I was thankfully back to a state of awearness and threw the pony off me. I got to me feet and saw the nurses and doctors trying to contain the crazed pony. "What happened to the doctor?" I pointed at the pony.
"Where are the princesses are they alright," I asked.
"They're fine they went back to Canterlot," she told me. I walked over to the now deceased doctor and closed his eyes in respect. I walked over to a chair and sat and checked my body for any bites. I watched as the zombie pony was forced out of the room by two ponies with their horns ready to attack the dead one. I was just glad that me and my friends got to leave the hospital tomorrow.
I stepped out of the hospital in clothes that Rarity had brought me and my friends yesterday. I looked back at Hester and Zane with their crutches. I followed Twilight towards her house or library I guess. She used to have a castle but she had it torn down and replaced with a treehouse library. I saw at the middle of the town was a big oak that looked like it had been there for atleast a century but was aparently built last week. We approached the libabry and I was amazed at the look of it, but didn't want to stand outside to long as it was getting late and the temperature had dropped substantially since we left the hospital. We walked inside and Zane fell onto the couch basically passing out immediatley. Everyone else went somewhere else and Twilight went downstairs into her basement. I looked at her books to be disapointed that they were all in Equinian. I wandered over to the couch and sat next to Zane who was fast asleep. I couldn't sleep over all the stuff we had witnessed in the past week. I pulled out my phone and started to turn on my music only to remeber that there wasn't any signal.
"You should get some sleep, you've been through so much this week and tomorrow we're going back to the hospital to explain to the athorites what happened," I was about to argue to her that I didn't want to go back, but shut my trap as I remebered that she could blast me through the wall of her house and fix the wall without thinking about it. I finally just closed my eyes and decided to go to sleep. Sleep, or what I could manage.
Keep Calm, We're gonna try to help
I was awoken by a quick shock to my temple by the Twilight, who almost got punched in the jaw. I stood up and got ready to walk back to the hospital. The trip to the hospital was quicker as we had decided to leave Hester and Zane at home to rest and heal. I saw the hospital and saw two police carriages outside of the hospital. I wandered inside and was lead upstairs to the room we were in yesterday and the day before. I was asked how the scene played out and told them from the moment the horse entered the room. The police officers started gagging when I told them that the pony had swallowed parts of the doctor's neck, I asked why they were gagging and they said that most ponies weren't meat eaters and that eating any meat products was frowned upon.
"This is fucking boring," I told Lyra as I sat down in a chair out of ear range of the police ponies, Twilight and the nurses that were there.
"You're right their friend," Matt sat next to me, to which I wanted to punch in the chin. Matt irritated me to a point that I couldn't stand him. "They should be inspecting that zombie pony, but I'm gonna go out and get a smoke, be right back.
"Bye, Matt," Lyra told him. I watched Matt leave the room and went back to talking, more like listening, to Lyra. My mind was elsewhere. Was Earth still a planet with living humans, or had zombies overpowered the living? My thoughts were interrupted by the rooms door slamming open and seeing Matt hold a bloodied cloth to the leg of a creme colored nurse, that had a name tag on her nurse's cap. Nurse Snowheart is what the tag said. Matt looked at the wound and I saw the bite marks on the poor pony. I heard a moan and looked up to see the pegasus that had killed the doctor in the doorway. I slammed the door shut and leaned against it, before finally putting a chair under the doorway. The pegasus slammed on the door, but thankfully the door didn't give. The police had their guns drawn and pointed at the door.
"What the hell happened out there," I asked Matt.
"I went out for a smoke then she comes barreling out of a doorway at me with that thing behind her," he told me while motioning at the door. His voice was so shaky that he could barely talk. I noticed teardrops falling from his and Snowheart's eyes.
"Please don't let me die," Snowheart asked with a voice so quiet I could barely hear her over her sniffling. Twilight laid next to her and nuzzled her.
"Of course Snowheart, of course," I watched as Snowheart's eyes slowly became glazed over while Twilight and Matthew were both crying. I felt tears trickling down my cheeks. I watched Lyra stand up and walk over to the other side of the room and cry with her knees to her face. The sad moment was cut short by a low audible moan. I looked down and saw Snowheart start to lift her head off the ground. Matt threw himself backward and Twilight backed up a little. "Shoot her now!"
"But princess, she's alive," they didn't understand. The zombie lunged at the police ponies, bringing down one of them and bit his jugular. I threw myself at the zombie and threw it off the police officer. I grabbed the ponies gun and shot the pony in the head, watching it drop dead. I pointed the gun at the bitten police officers and pulled the trigger. I heard a boom and walked over to the window to see one of the police carriages in flames, with two burning corpses inside. I saw the dead start walking towards the town. The pounding on the rooms door got more intense until the chair and door broke. Twilight teleported us out of there before anyone else got hurt. Due to my already tired position, I fainted in the middle of the teleport.
