The Darkness Walks Among Us

The trio of ponies arrived at Sugarcube Corner to find a crowd had formed just outside its doors. It seemed as if almost everypony in Ponyville had gathered to see for themselves what had become of Berry Punch. Lyra let out a long sigh. "We're never going to get to see what happened with everypony crowding her like that," the mint unicorn said despairingly. Bon Bon gave her friend an optimistic look. "Don't worry, We'll see eventually. They can't stand here all day!" Bon Bon comforted. "Why did you have to go and say that? Now they're going to stand there all day!" Lyra said sarcastically. The cream earth pony giggled slightly at Lyra's sarcasm while Carrot Top rolled her eyes in disapproval.

They sat outside sugar cube corner for hours, waiting for the crowd to dissipate. Lyra had brought out her lyre again and played soothing and sad songs to pass the time. Several ponies even came over and dropped a few bits into the musician's saddle bag.

While Lyra played, Bon Bon watched the crowd. Ponies came and went. They stared at the body for a while, which neither Bon Bon nor Carrot Top got a glimpse of, then went on their way. Two particularly interesting events occurred while the trio of ponies waited for a chance to see the only murder in Ponyville history. First, Berry's younger sister, Pina Colada, appeared on the scene wailing. Apparently the filly had only found out about her sister's death when she arrived on the scene herself. The grief ridden foal had lain her pink body down beside her sister's corpse and cried for what Bon Bon thought was hours, but turned out to be only a few minutes. Second, Royal guards from Canterlot came to Ponyville to inspect the crime scene. On their approach, Lyra quickly changed her song to the royal anthem and played her lyre much louder then usual. The guards seemed quite unamused with Lyra's performance but it was difficult to discern their emotions on the Armored pegasai's disciplined faces. The white stallions parted the crowd and inspected the body for a long time before coming to a consensus. They would allow the body to be buried in Ponyville and a proper investigator would be sent later this month.

Over the hours of the group's wait, their friends had arrived to observe the crime for themselves and had decided to wait with Lyra, Bon Bon, and Carrot Top. As the crowd around Berry Punch's body began to thin, Lyra looked over the small crowd that had formed around herself. There were now six ponies gathered including Lyra. Bon Bon and Carrot Top had long since stopped watching the boring crowd and had begun to exchange gossip on various ponies around Ponyville.

Sitting scarily close to Lyra was Ditzy Doo. The Grey pegasus was not what Lyra would describe as smart. Ditzy was quite clumsy and often times didn't understand social customs but she was amazing at her job. The cross-eyed filly was the best mail mare in all of Ponyville and, in Lyra's opinion, all of Equestria, though Ditzy Doo never liked it when Lyra bragged about her.

Sprawled out on the grass behind Lyra and Ditzy was the pale form of Vinyl Scratch. The white unicorn currently had a large pair of headphones wrapped around her ears and seemed incapable of hearing anything besides her blaring music. Lyra never quite understood the DJ pony. During her shows, Vinyl couldn't be more outgoing. She would party just as hard as the crowds she served, mabee even harder, but when she was home in Ponyville, the electric maned pony was very quiet and reserved. Perhaps her rowdiness was a part of her show or perhaps the unicorn used up all her energy during her all night raves and had none left for the rest of the day.

Finally there was Octavia. The brown earth pony had been pacing back and forth in front of the rest of the ponies almost since she got there. The cellist was a very impatient pony. She always wanted things to happen immediately and it seemed that waiting here for hours was the worst possible thing for her, but Octavia was far too polite to ever complain about it. Octavia had performed at many high class events in Canterlot and took great pride in her music. Often times the musician had tried to convince Lyra to come play with her for one of her high society events but Lyra had always rejected. It wasn't that Lyra didn't think she was good enough or that she didn't like Octavia, it was that Lyra didn't like playing for large crowds. It made her nervous and they made her think that everypony was judging her every move. Even crowded market streets unnerved Lyra which is why she often times played her lyre on back streets she knew nopony would go down.

The crowd was nearly gone now and only a few ponies remained around the body. Lyra heaved a sigh of relief. The only thing that had kept the street musician from freaking out was playing her lyre and hoping that everypony was too preoccupied with Berry's corpse to judge her.

The six ponies now approached the drunkard's body. The first thing that hit them was the stench. The body reeked of cider and maggots as the creatures had already began to consume the decaying corpse. Berry had been more than just killed though, she had been mutilated. The earth ponies body had been torn open, revealing her ribs. Her intestines were pulled out of her body and strewn across the ground around her. Among this carnage however was one more wound. This one was far smaller than the other but it seemed far more lethal; four puncture wounds in her neck which looked almost as if she had been bitten. It seemed almost as if the party ponies disembowelment was only to distract ponies so they wouldn't notice her neck wounds.

Carrot Top was the first among them to say something. "Who would do something like this?" the farmer wondered out loud. The look of pure terror on Vinyl's face showed that the disc jockey shared her concern. Octavia seemed unamused, as if somepony had just told her a particularly bad joke. "Well obviously there is a murderer in Ponyville," the cellist answered bluntly. It was entirely true of course, but nopony really wanted to hear the words said out loud. Ditzy began to shake slightly, evidently in just as much fear as vinyl. The grey pegasus floated over to the body and hovered next to it, her crossed eyes attempting to take in exactly what they were seeing. "What's going to happen now?" Ditzy Doo asked, her voice wavering. Bon Bon walked over to the mail mare and wrapped her fore hooves around her. "It'll be okay Ditzy," the cream earth pony soothed, "The royal guard will come and catch this criminal and everything will be back to normal." Vinyl's head snapped towards the soothing mare, the look of horror dancing across her red eyes. "Everything will be okay? How can everything be okay when there's a killer on the loose in Ponyville? Just look what they did to Berry! Whats to stop them from doing the exact same thing to one of us?" the pale pony ranted. "Calm down Vinyl!" Octavia commanded, "I agree with Bon Bon. The guards will be here in a few days and they'll find this murderer. Just relax and enjoy your life." Vinyl looked at Octavia as if she wanted to argue, but decided against it.

Through all of this panic Lyra couldn't help but fixate on Berry's wounds. Who would go to such great lengths to mutilate a body and put it in such a public place? Either this killer was insane or they had an agenda. Either way Berry Punch was only the start.

The one thing that kept nagging at the edge of Lyra's mind was her neck wounds. The musician knew she had heard of wounds like this somewhere before but the pieces didn't fit together.

One day when she had been playing in the same street she was earlier today, before all this had happened, Lyra had met Twilight Sparkle who apparently lived in the library. Twilight had invited Lyra into the library for a short meal which Lyra couldn't refuse. Times were much tougher back then and Lyra had only eaten if she was tipped particularly well. Lyra had sat in the library for a while chatting with the purple unicorn and eating a small lunch. When she finished her meal, Twilight did Lyra another favor, she gave her a book. Lyra had always wondered why a student of Princess Celestia like Twilight would ever give a homeless street performer like Lyra anything, let alone that expensive book. Though Lyra had quickly sold the book so she wouldn't starve, the mint pony had read a bit of the book first. It was a book on mythical creatures and Lyra actually enjoyed reading it. It was a shame to have to sell it but it would have been a bigger shame to die because she hadn't.

One creature in particular had stood out to Lyra: the Vampire. Vampires look exactly like normal ponies accept the don't act like normal ponies. They never age and they have to feed on the blood of other ponies to survive or else they become weak. If they don't feed, vampires may become sick or may begin to burn in the sun which is usually the reason they end up being caught. However, the one telltale sign there is a vampire in your town is that ponies would show up dead with bite marks in their neck. At the time Lyra had thought vampires were just a myth or a story to tell on nightmare night but now she saw they were very real and there was one in Ponyville.