Walk The Aftermath

It had been a few days since the attack on the compound, and all remaining survivors were still shaken. The bodies had been moved outside, and what guns weren't stolen were being handed out to the inexperienced. The place was in shambles. Several ponies were working on the gates, while others were trying to familiarize themselves with the firearms. Many had already left, some scared that another attack was immenent, some simply because they felt it was a good call. At the moment, several ponies were standing by the door, ready to leave, while others were trying to convince them to stay.

"I'm just saying that it's very dangerous out in the world, and you yourself have only just recently healed from your injuries!"

"My injuries have healed just fine, I assure you. It's not a matter of time, it's simply a matter of safety. Danger is everywhere, but seeing as how other, living threats are aware of our location, I've chosen to take me and my wife elsewhere."

The elderly earth pony stallion looked back at his wife, and nodded to them, running a shaky hoof through his greying mane.

"Well, I won't be able to make you stay will I?"

"No siree. I'm willin' to take my chances."

The brown coated stallion rubbed his also greying mustache and looked up at the sky.

"Supposin' there's about six hours of daylight left, we'll stumble upon a place by then."

"Well then Mr. Spark, I suppose if you're sure about this."

"Please, call me Ivory. Mr. Spark was my father."

"Right, sorry. You're sure there isn't any way I could sway you?"

"Nope. Sorry to say it kiddo, but I'm stubborn as a mule most times."

"Well, here, at least take this."

The old colt's laughter stopped when the other colt walked up and held a small pistol out to him.

"Oh no, I-I-I can't take no guns. The miss' don't like them and well, I ain't much for them either."

"Just please, only for an emergency. Just conceal it on you somewhere."

The elderly colt looked at the gun for a moment before sighing and grabbing it. He tucked it gently into the pocket on the side of his jacket and nodded.

"Well, good luck out there."

"Same to you in here. May you all prosper."

As the family walked away and the front gates shut, the remaining colt bowed his head, and a single tear fell.

"So what's the plan then dear?"

"Well, I'm thinking that we head somewhere that we can hunker down in for a while, maybe see if we can't find us another community that'll accept us and isn't in bad blood with another."

"You start to wonder if any of those exist anymore nowadays."

"Well don't you worry your sweet little noggin about those minor indescretions, we'll get the situation figured out."

The walk became silent for the two after the last sentence. It was a good kind of quiet; not awkward, as if something should be said that wasn't, and not boring, as if there was nothing to do. It was more of a peaceful walk through the quiet city. When the two had been walking for about ten minutes, they spotted the mini-mall, which unbeknownst to them housed the ponies who had just attacked their previous home. The blue coated mare put a hoof out in front of her husband to stop him, then pointed it as she spoke.

"That place there looks fortified Ivory, what say we try there?"

"I'm not sure, looks like they got guard posts, better we not disturb them."

"Oh nonsense, I'm sure they're not gonna be shooting at the elderly folks, and we certainly are that, aren't we?"

"Suppose we are."

The two laughed warmly as they walked to the compound. High Road and StarFire were in the towers, and both looked at each other when they heard the laughter. When High Road poked her head up to look at who was outside, she immidiately noticed the old couple, and they noticed her.

"Oh, hello there!"

"Hello."

"Is, is there any chance you have room in there for a couple more? We've no place to go, and my hooves aren't much caring for all this walking about aimlessly."

High Road looked over at StarFire, who shrugged, then picked up her radio.

"I'll go check with Stitch and Red."

High Road nodded as StarFire ran into the building, soon spotting and running over to Stitch.

"Inside in middle of tower duty and running to me? I assume is important."

"Well, we have a couple outside, and we were thinking we should have your OK on them."

"You go back to tower, I will see."

Stitch walked toward the main door, clicking the safety on his SMG to the off position. When he stepped into the gated area, he spotted the couple and walked over to the gate.

"Hello there."

"Oh, hello. You must be the one in charge around here?"

"Well, I guess you could say that, madam."

"We were simply wondering if you had any room for us?"

"Well, you two have certainly picked a good time, we were just celebrating."

"Celebrating? What exactly?"

"Well, just recently we saved a mare we'd been looking for, and aside from that, is dog's birthday."

The two elderly ponies looked at each other and started laughing together, Stitch half-heartedly joining in. Stitch was trying to get a decent read on the two, but his rule of letting in only those who can help would almost be voided due to their age.

"What do you bring with you?"

"Not the fanciest of things, but we bring some books, some sewing kits, and some food and water."

"Just about all we had, haven't much been out searching around."

"Well, I suppose there's only so much you two could do."

"We try our hardest."

The colt said, smiling proudly and pulling his wife closer. Stitch smiled back, and after a few seconds slid open the gate.

"Come on in, make yourselves at home."

The two elderly ponied smiled widely and quickly shuffled into the front gate. When Stitch led them inside, they looked around in admiration.

"Everypony, new arrivals, come say hello!"

Many of the compound's residents were holding drinks, and at the sound of Stitch's call, walked over. Ivory Spark's eyes widened when he caught a glimpse of three familiar figures walking over, and started slowly backing up.

"Say, y-you folks don't happen to have a um, what do you call them, a recreational vehicle do you?"

"Um, yes, we have an RV parked out back. How did you know?"

"Uh, we-we'll just be leaving now then. We don't want any trouble. We swear we didn't have anything to do with that bad stallion!"

As Redline got closer, the elderly couple back away further.

"Woah woah woah, you was in that compound that we just rescued our friends from."

"Yes, but we weren't responsible, please sir."

"Don't worry, we were just there for our friend. Besides, you two look like you need a drink anyways."

Redline levitated two glasses of amber liquid to the couple, and after quickly exchanging glances, graciously accepted the alcohol.

"To new members of the community!"

All ponies in the circle raised their respective drinks and drained them after cheering, or some clinking their glasses.

"So, have you all heard the rumors?"

"Which rumors?"

"Well, I'm sure you of all ponies would've heard them, being at the old community."

"Yeah, but there were a lot of rumors, eventually you tune them out to some extent."

"Well, according to the late WheelSmith and the runners before, there were some mighty strange happenings out east. Something dangerous."

"What kind of dangerous?"

Stitch asked the stallion, stepping forward. Ivory Spark looked around at all the questioning faces and cleared his throat.

"W-well, I can't say for certain, all I know is that whenever a group of runners went out that way, most times they didn't come back in the same number. Fewer each time. And these were strong, able young mares and stallions, much like yourselves, armed to the teeth to boot. Eventually, though be it too late, they learned their lesson and stopped goin' out that way. I don't know exactly what's out there, mister, but if it's anything half as bad as they're saying, I sure as shoot don't wanna be here if it happens to come this way."

There was a dead silence as the ponies in the circle exchanged worried glances and expressions of slight panic.

"Alright, alright, listen up. Sure there could be something out there even worse than what we've seen, but there are two factors in our favour. One, it could be heading any direction but towards us, and two, we have a vehicle that can fit all of us! We will flee from the danger if need be, and we will start anew in a place unscavenged, and unriddled by danger."

As Stitch raised his glass as the end of his speech, the faces slowly started smiling, and then slowly raised their glasses with him.

Windy Nights had taken StarFire's place in the left tower, and High Road was still in the right one. At one point, closer to when the dusk started to take over the skies, Oscar came up into the tower, and was now sitting with Windy.

"It's a beautiful night though, shame it has to be ruined by what's happening under it."

Windy Nights sighed as she ran her hoof over the top of Oscar's head and back up to his ears. She looked over through the hatch and saw High Road, sitting down in the tower like herself, but not exactly as awake. Windy Night's chuckled to herself and picked up the walkie talkie.

"Hey there champ, still holding in?"

High Road shook awake, and after looking quickly from side to side, saw Windy Nights waving through the hatch.

"Oh, uh, nothing went wrong, right?"

"Nope, we're all good, just trying to give you a little wake up call."

"Sorry, this tower duty's rough. Ten hours straight up in here without any food, no socialization, it just gets a little boring I guess."

"Well, I think you should maybe go back inside, get somepony else to pick up for you."

"No, I'll stay out here a couple more hours I suppose. Just wish I had some coffee or something, need to kind wake up a little."

After High Road stretched and emitted a short yawn, a deafening crack of thunder boomed overhead, making her visibly jump. Windy Nights turned to Oscar, who she assumed would be whimpering at the loud noise, but he remained perfectly calm.

"I think that did the trick, I'm awake now. How's Oscar doing?"

"He's actually doing perfectly fine. Isn't it weird to be getting a thunderstorm right now? What are we like, four days into August?"

"Sounds about right. Seems kinda weird to be getting a thunderstorm right now then doesn't it?"

"Sort of. We'd get a few of them sometimes, but they don't happen much in the summer. At least it isn't raining too hard."

High Road stuck her head slightly out of the tower at the moment that thunder cracked again, and a heavy rain started falling. Windy Nights tried to hold back her laughter as High Road attempted to shake the water off of her mane.

"Ok, I get it, I'll shut up now."

"No, keep talking, say something about all the zombies suddenly dying."

High Road looked at the laughing mare and shook her head. When Windy Nights calmed down, she heard the faint whimpering of Oscar.

"What is it buddy? You want inside?"

When she reached over and held the door open, the dog quickly stood up and ran through it, into the inner compound.

"What's up with him?"

"Tired maybe. He doesn't exactly hide it if you're responsible for keeping him up."

Inside the compound, most ponies were already asleep, save for Redline, who was standing in the doorway to the motor pool, smoking. Just as he was closing the door behind himself, Oscar slipped through and into the motor pool. The rain soaked his coat immediately, weighing it down to some degree, but he held his head up, staring east. Suddenly, and without warning, he jumped off the step, and darted off into the night. However, he wasn't alone. A young pink pegasus filly had been watching him, despite the rest thinking she was asleep, and followed him. She could fly, her father had taught her, but she didn't like to in the rain. The rain flattened her mane against her face, making it that much harder to coordinate the fast steps she was taking. There was a lot of dodging over and around trash, running past zombies, and sometimes even narrowly avoiding traps as the pursuit carried on. At one point, Bubble Blitz felt her leg snap a tripwire, and ducked down just in time for a strand of wire to go over her head, avoiding her but cutting off a very small portion of her mane. Back at the base, Stitch had just traded shifts with High Road, who was more than happy to go to bed, but noticed ThunderBolt thrashing around in his sleep.

"Bolt?"

No response. It seemed like ThunderBolt was just having a nightmare, but it was incredibly vivid. After a few more seconds, he shot upright with a gasp and looked at High Road.

"Jeez, how long you been there?"

"Not very, bad dream?"

"Boy, that's the light way of saying it was a total shi-"

ThunderBolt cut himself dead short when he turned around and saw the empty cot beside him.

"Wait, wait wait wait, w-where's Bubble Blitz?"

"I don't know, I just got back in here."

"Did either of you in the towers see her?"

"No, we didn't see anything. Wait, have you seen Oscar?"

"I thought he was with Windy!"

"He was, but he came inside. He must've got out somehow, and she followed him."

"Curse her obsession with that dog. Everypony! Everyone up now!"

The bodies in the sleeping area slowly shifted and started moving to look at the pegasus.

"Bolt? What the hell?"

"This is important, so you better all wake the hell up."

Most of the ponies didn't need to wake up any further, as they were very much accustomed to being woken up in the middle of the night. Angel was one of the first to notice the concern on ThunderBolt's face, and after quickly looking around, she soon shared the expression.

"Oh no."

"Everypony, Bubble Blitz is missing!"

"What?!"

"When?"

"I-I don't know, I woke up and she was gone!"

"Hold on, hold on, she couldn't have been gone that long, I'm sure that-"

"You're sure of nothing Angel, no one's sure of anything."

ThunderBolt started toward the motor pool exit, but Redline ran up and turned him around by the shoulder.

"Hang on there, look at the time Bolt, ya can't be going out there. 'Specially not in the middle'a damn storm!"

"Hey, it's my daughter we're talking about. I'll do whatever the hell I need to."

"And what you need to do is calm down. Flipping lids ain't gonna solve nothin'"

"Think for a second Red, what if this was you, huh? You and Angel wanna have foals, don't you? Well what if this was your son or daughter out there, lost and alone, zombies all over the damn place, what would you do, huh?"

"Don't make me have t' say it Bolt."

"Say what? That you wouldn't go and look? That you would sit back and hope that-"

"Look at the world out there Bolt! Face it, neither of them are coming back. They're too defenseless, and it's too dangerous out there. I'm sorry, but you may have to move on."

"Fuck you."

ThunderBolt muttered under his breath, seconds before delivering a hoof to Redline's face that sent him backward. ThunderBolt drew his revolver and counted how many shots he had. He was one bullet short of a full cylinder, but pushed it back into ace and holstered it anyway.

"I'm going out to look. If what you're thinking really is true, then don't ever expect to see me around again."

Faces of shock and disbelief were on the ponies in the room as the door slammed shut, sending the room into an eerie silence.

"Are you alright sweetie?"

"I'm fine. Thunder's just gotta git outta'is head for a while, pwnic sets in and he becomes his own worst enemy."

At the parking lot compound, almost all ponies were safe from the rain inside their tents. All except for one stallion, the one who had tried to convince Ivory Spark and his wife to stay. He hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights, and tonight was certainly no exception. He sighed as he poked his head out of his tent, the rain instantly matting down his mane. He quickly ran over to the guard standing on the wall beside the front doors, a mare that unfortunately had no idea how to shoot.

"Anything happening?"

"Nothing so far."

The mare had to shout over the storm as the wind whipped her windbreaker around her face. She awkwardly holstered the rifle and leaned closer to the other pony.

"Think maybe we should stop with the guard duty?"

"No, we can't let down our guard."

"Come on man, I'm freezing out here!"

"Sorry, you'll just have to stick it out till morning."

The stallion walked away from the wall and back into his tent as the mare watched. She shivered as she looked back outside the compound, staring into the almost pitch black. A red glint catching her eye, she squinted to see through the heavy rainfall.

"What the hell?"

The mare quickly walked down the stairs and over to the heap of scrap car parts currently being used to block the front doors. She pulled open a hood and squeezed through it to the outside. Her rifle safety off, she shakily started walking toward the glint she had seen.

"I anyone out there?"

As her shaky voice rang out into the night, the mare nervously adjuster her rifle. She stepped forward slowly, switching between aiming through her sight and looking around every few seconds.

"Screw this, I'm out."

The mare aimed her gun away and turned to start running back to the compound, but a snap from behind her turned her back around.

"H-hello?"

There were mere seconds of rain being the only sound the mare heard before a figure from the dark leaped out and sank it's teeth into her neck. The scream she let out was enough to wake a few members of the compound that weren't awake already. Those awoken ran outside their tents and looked around, panic ensuing.

"Who was that?"

"I don't know, who was on duty?"

"What happened?"

"Everyone calm down!"

The stallion from before shouted, stopping all conversation.

"It's nothing we can worry ourselves with. Whatever happened, I'm sure we-"

The stallion's speech was interupted by a loud crash at the front doors, followed by the mare stumbling inside. Shocked expressions spread across the ponies watching as the mare fell to her knees, puke up a large amount of bile, and spasm to the floor as she died. Horrified gasps and cries erupted as the survivors watched the mare take her final breaths, the slightly acidic bile pouring out of her mouth. Many shielded their eyes, others couldn't look away. However, one stallion stepped forward, drew his pistol, and shot the dying mare in the head. The stallion had an odd gait as he walked away from the body.

"It has to be done, we can't let or hearts get to our heads."

The rain still poured as ThunderBolt flew around, every glimpse of pink, grey, or blue sending hin down to the ground.

"Alright, think, think, what way would she go? She's following that dog, so where the hell would he go?"

ThunderBolt continued to run down the street, looking all around instead of flying. A flash of grey and blue caught his eye, and he looked at the small tuft of mane that had been cut off by a trap.

"You did go this way. Please just let this be all that happened to you. Now where could you have gone?"

As he looked all around him, ThunderBolt started to panic slightly. He started to spin around as if he was being cornered, aiming his gun loosely at nothing. When he heard a noise from a nearby building, he shot towards it and immediately burst through the door.

"Bubble Blitz!"

He stumbled through the building, some sort of small restaurant, repeatedly shouting the foal's name. As he looked into the back room, a flash of lightning illuminated a small corpse being eaten by a zombie. All hope vanished from ThunderBolt's life at that moment. He stood completely motionless as the zombie began to notice his presense, looking back towards him with a snarl. ThunderBolt snapped back into reality, rage filling him as he drew his revolver and rapidly shot the zombie four times. After the body fell to the floor in it's place, ThunderBolt did the same in his. His revolver dropped to his side as he fell at first to his knees, then with his back against the wall. The tears came quickly as he sat staring at the corpse on the floor, barely visible in the dark. The body was very highly mangled and bloodied, but for ThunderBolt, it was all but confirmed. His daughter was dead. After a few moments of deep crying, ThunderBolt looked at the corpse again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

ThunderBolt shakily raised his revolver to the side of his head, the barrel of the gun pressed gently against his temple. Seconds away from pulling the trigger, ThunderBolt's ear perked up. He heard barking, from a medium to large dog.

"That dog. Bubble Blitz better still be with that damn dog."

ThunderBolt shot out of the room, out the front door and back into the rainy night. When he heard a few more barks, he sprinted off in the direction he heard the barks coming from. When he ran down an alleyway that led him into an open roundabout with a statue in the middle. Oscar was close to the statue, staring off to the east and barking at odd intervals. When he looked to the left, ThunderBolt saw Bubble Blitz hiding behind a garbage can, watching the dog.

"Bubble Blitz!"

He half-shouted as he ran over to the filly, immediately picking her up and hugging her tightly when he got to her.

"Don't ever run off without me again, OK?"

When he looked at the filly, she nodded to him, then pointed to Oscar. ThunderBolt looked over to the dog and gasped when he saw a figure slowly emerging from the darkness.

"Oscar! Oscar!"

ThunderBolt's cries rang out, but Oscar was unphased by them, and continued to bark until the figure fully emerged from the darkness.