Apocalypse After Us

The steel wheels rattled smoothly. The locomotive’s diesel engine roared. Sand swooped around. A never-ending desert landscape.

I was sitting on the roof of my car. Being inside was... different. I always loved to gaze through the window when I was on board. That scenery of meadows and trees, of lakes and rivers just outside my reach. Towns, villages, puny decrepit way-stations. And that for some reason... Stop. What’s wrong with me? I needed a distraction.

A colossal swirl of dust stood out on the horizon. Such usually was left behind a warband of no less than twenty cars. They were going approximately three to four hours faster than the train and probably should have been near Peatbog by now. We still had about half a day’s journey to it.

The sun was getting pretty close to the horizon. It must’ve been around ten to eleven in the morning, I guess. It must’ve been awfully hot, I guess.

We couldn’t get all the way to New Appleloosa. The place, though not under the Horde’s direct control, collaborated quite closely with its masters. We’d have to drop off in a few hours and move on hoof. We’d reach Peatbog by tonight before you know it...

But something was weird. Last time I came here marshes were starting from somewhere nearby. Now there’s the desert spreading all around. Everywhere.

Enormous white clouds raced across the sky. They once used to be called thunderclouds and had been dark blue or lead-coloured. These were dry and white.

The cool wind that whipped my face carried a faint, barely recognizable scent of gasoline coming from the warband.

“There are loved ones in the glory…”

What’s the meaning of this song? I was in no mood to reflect.

“That’s all?” She turned her face to me. “Usually stallions promise you the moon...”

“But I can’t promise you to yourself.”

The unicorn looked at me questioningly, then laughed, flashing her white teeth. “Okay, that’s not bad.”

“Better than what you’ve heard before?”

“Yes. Much better.”

She opened the picnic basket and handed me a bottle of water.

“And,” she continued, resting her head on my lap and looking at the five-storey buildings in the distance, “and everypony says I’ll be living as the Empress herself if I’m with them.”

“Rose,” I touched her shoulder. “I’m not a prince charming from fairy tales. I can’t give you riches. You already have whatever you wish. All I can give you is me. Wholly. And...”

“Don’t.” She leaned her head against the oak tree we were sitting under. “I give up.”

I moved closer to her. She looked at me and whispered softly, “You won.”

Then she kissed me. And I felt that I would do anything for her. Do so much more than I could imagine.

I retracted the binoculars from my eyes. Dusty kept watching with her looking glass.

“What is this place?”

“Peatbog.”

“It doesn’t seem like a town,” she said, apparently referring to a pile of hoofmade pile drivers sticking out of the ground. “If only like a bunch of some weird things… How did you manage to hide a car in a place like this? Where’s the bog, speaking of?”

When I was here back then a dozen years ago, there were humongous swamps of rotten trees. I thanked the lone oak tree that still stood amidst the broken lands now.

The area was deeply rutted with tire treads — rather fresh ones. The Horde’s warband had cruised all over the place. Right above Peatbog. The fading light of the day made it hard to see anything more than that, but the malodour of gas persisted. As if they were still walloping somewhere nearby.

I retained some memories about the place. Particularly, how one could get inside.

An entrance was possible to be found by smell. It leaked in through the sand mass but was very weak. I recalled the approximate location of the entrance. Everything else was up to my nose.

A dozen steps forward from the oak. Three to the right. A score forward…

“Don’t move,” I ordered Dusty as I pointed at the tree. A mare’s scent would only hinder my affair.

The barren land that had replaced what once was a swamp was enormous. There had been many entrances leading underground. I could not tell if I smelled the scent of the passage nearby or the one brought by a wind — no, wait. I found it.

I was digging the sand as fast as I could until my hooves started to pound on the metal.

“Can I go now?” Dusty called out.

I nodded.

The lid was too bulky to lift. The hinges had been all rusted, sand always getting in the way. I tried helping myself with magic, but it wasn’t working out very well.

Dusty decided to join me. With her telekinesis, it went considerably faster.

“What’s down there?” she inquired, peering into the dark.

I jumped down. “Stairs area.” The lid was three or so metres high above the floor. “Come on.”

“It’s dark. Do you have—” I lit up the flashlight fastened on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

I examined the sand-clogged stairwell. Since the place still was habitable, all the right passages were supposed to be marked. Maybe not for an outside looker, but undoubtedly when inside.

Of the four doors on the landing, only a single one led further. Probably straight down to the sewers. As far as I could recall, there’s a path through it that went to the metro. Through the metro to the shopping mall; then to the surface again.

It was bizarre.

The place had been full of ponies not a while ago. Burnt-out fire-pits, cold lumps of week-old meat here and there. But I didn’t see a single corpse, and most importantly, I didn’t catch the local inhabitants’ smell. That putrid mix of bodily stench and gasoline. Something else was present in the air, but I could not work out yet whatever it was. And I didn’t like it in slightest.

All the way, the silence bore an ominous air. I took note of traces of a struggle evident around as we made our way through the sand-swept metro tunnels. It could’ve been just a simple slaughter, but I wasn’t one to guess what exactly. Dried-up blood coated the walls and floor, broken shanks scattered everywhere. Someone could have attacked Peatbog, but for what reason? Yes, the locals had got fuel, some water, and a lot of glittery garbage, but they used to easily share it with everypony for food and guzzolene. Well, okay, let’s assume somepony had razed Peatbog down. That meant they’d managed to locate the entrance to the underground while it was quite a task even for me… So what? I remembered the pre-war apartment blocks to stand apart from the rest of the area and those were the tallest buildings. The place became anything worth a town only down in the metro tunnels which you could get into only if you knew the path. The locals must’ve dug up something. But what? Who might be interested in it? The Horde? …The Iron Birds? No way. Crazy bullshit.

“Ponyville Underground… Hey Gas? Look, there’s a map!” Dusty beckoned me with a hoof. “I don’t really know where we are, but there’s a line of sorts over here. Route, maybe? What do you think?”

From one end of the metro towards the centre of the map spiralled a yellow line. The other ones were faded, indistinct and barely recognizable. I shook my head.

“How we’re supposed to find the way then?”

I waved ahead. My estimations told me there were still two train cars before we’d get to the station. We’d marched past five cars since we got out of the sewer. Very quick, yeah. But you’d never know what sort of a trap you could run into down in these burrows, so I decided against taking any chances.

I stepped off the half-buried train onto a relatively clean platform and looked around. There must be reliefs featuring a rather simple plot-motif around somewhere. Something like, ‘Then the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift, and a brother turned arms against a brother’. At least that’s what they told us.

My flashlight’s beam skimmed across the ceiling but found nothing. Hmm. If you looked closely at that spot, you’d think there was something similar to Her image... Yes. That was it. That’s it!

“Park.”

“What park?”

“The station’s name.”

Empress Celestia’s Park station was close at hoof from the mall. You’d need only to go through another station, the factory, then descend the sewers again, and presto: you’re right in front of the parking. If all went well, it’d take another hour or two to cover the distance.

“Hold on. How do you know what this station is called?”

The question floated in the air unanswered.

As far as I could remember, the next station was supposed to have a techs’ quarter jointed with a scrap warehouse. They gathered scrap metal to assemble cars, at least it’s what they used to do in the past. Hopefully nothing really changed; I did not want to think about what they could have done to my sweetheart. She’d got some things precious dearly to me…

I wondered how could it have ended that way. Peatbog had sunk into the earth apex-deep. Before it was one or two storeys of the ancient apartment blocks sticking out above the ground; now even those were buried beneath.

I’d once heard a thing. A prophecy of sorts preached by a loony who’d managed to gather a flock around him. He was ranting that Sun had robbed us of the Greater Water to test all the creatures touched by Its rays. About if we were capable to stood firm and survive the Grand Trial, as he’d called it, to accept Its gift in the end. Water would return after the trials and hardships were suffered. Well. It’s going to last long, as it seemed to me… So much for ranting and preaching in recent times.

To get to the factory station, you just needed to choose another tunnel. Which we did. There was no train this time and the corridor went hollow, giving me a chance to spot just one more little detail. The roof was supported and hardened like down in mines. I had not seen anything of it for my first time here. Yeah, the tunnels were constantly under the pressure of the sand, but people were not afraid of some part collapsing on their heads. In the time I was absent, they had reinforced the ceiling decently and thoroughly as if to cover themselves from…

Something crashed nearby. The noise echoed across the tunnel from the station that lay ahead. I sped forward, Dusty apparently copying my movement.

Shit. That smell. I could swear it boded something really fucking bad. No matter how hard I tried to remember, the odour elusively escaped my memory.

The station greeted us empty. Those who visited it had already left. Not so far, my nose told me, keep moving to the factory. Long ago the locals had dug a pass through the very sand. The one and only way to get out of from the metro and to, ah, the ‘ground level’.

The smell hinted there were five of them. Maybe less. One of the ponies was different from the others, fear betraying the lack of his allegiance to them, while the rest of the group reeked of grudge. I slowed my trot to a plodding gait.

I saw five dim shapes. Four ponies wore black rubber attires, and one looking like a fitter shambled with them, his figure somewhat crooked, a speed counter stitched into his chest.

These four reminded me of the smokers. The Horde employed them as a certain kind of fighters. I thought I’d heard they were long gone. Nonetheless, if it were truly them, it’d be no wonder I felt that iffy.

Throughout the whole wasteland from northern peaks to the Boundless Sea, you wouldn’t find thugs more barking and psychotic. Whoever they caught could leave any hope to pass away painlessly, since they did not kill a victim till they found a way to burn them with fashion. A savvy lot, duh. I’d seen it with my own eyes when they stuffed a foal in a corpse and burned him — the incineration itself being only the cherry on the top, that’s it.

The grease-monkey belonged to here. The locals had a soft spot for fitting themselves with mechanical parts left from damaged cars. The smokers were probably dragging him to some hole to burn alive. Nopony would miss the bastards if I finished them off, right?

The smokers walked in a single file, dragging the chained grease-monkey behind. He had probably spotted me but kept silent. Smart guy.

I pulled out my knife, crept up to the last one in the line, and stabbed him in the heart. Before the body fell, I plucked my knife and flung it at the back of the next pony’s head. I used the butt of my assault rifle to knock the last two, then just broke their necks.

“Freeze,” I croaked as I grabbed and yanked the chain.

The tech-pony, which had tried to escape, stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing Dusty. “I-I’m but a humble servant to Ignition! Don’tcha hurt me!” He attempted to hide behind my legs. “Let me live! I-I can help! Yes yes! I know where the car is! Rogues, aren’t y’all? Y’all’re able to drive the vehicle, yes y’all are! I gonna show you, y’all… y’all take me along! Save me!”

I just wanted to know for sure he was blabbering about that particular car. “The car?”

“Eight cylinders! It soars ‘bove the ground as it goes, for real! Faster than wind! If ya can crank it… Ya’re a ‘corn, aren’t ya? Real ‘corn?”

“Show the way.”

“Oh yes, yes, of course! Bird be showing the way! Follow Bird!”

The grease-monkey’s coat was a burnt-all-over mess. I dared not to guess if he looked so from foalhood, but his scarred flesh bore no fresh marks. He also had no tools or instruments, and had that general look of a shady character.

“What happened?” Dusty asked. “Will you tell us, Bird?”

He nodded his head as a skeleton would nod its skull at the top of the tubular body. “Oh yes, Bird be tellin’! They came from ‘eavens! They descended in strings of light! Many, so many warriors of theirs! Ours blocked the paths, but theirs git booms to blow us! Booms! Oh, so many! Tunnels caved in, only sand and sand and sand ev’rywhere! They took mares and foals as they saw ‘em, techs too. Our warriors barricaded in the Temple of Ignition to defend archangels from infidels… But those infidels y’all git down, they said they killed our warriors and ate their hearts! The Temple stands unprotected! Dark days indeed…”

“What is the Temple?” Dusty asked.

“Shopping mall,” I said.

“Shodding maul… Wut? How dare ya!”

I smacked him upside the head. “Silence.”

“Git it. I git it. Bird be silent. Bird be good!”

What had been a network of tunnels and cavities in the sand where cars and trucks used to be made in the name of religion and belief, as well as a nearby station housing the apprentices, might be described as ‘nothing’. The factory was completely emptied. No cars, no scrap metal, no machinery. Not even shit. Desolate as a fuck.

“How long?” I inquired.

“Twenty moons ago. The battle was long, very long. ‘Eavens fell upon us. We fought as much we could!” He started all over again. “But gods of Ignition were angry with us. They let the infidels win! Still I was in the Temple! Infidels didn’t make it to Mother of Archangels!”

“Tone it the hell down.”

“Yesh, if you s. Infidels didn’t make it to Mother of Archangels. Gods git her hidden behind a wall! Nopony but me could make it there. I knew the paths. I be leadin’ you there but we must be fast. I heard infidels ‘ave brought Brute to break the wall!”

Perhaps they had refrained from using explosives in fear of damaging the car or collapsing the rest of the system down on their heads. The whole half of the metro had sunk down the sands since my last time here.

“Not first time?”

“Infidels came before, yes. We fought them off. They always got good meat. Oh so tasty, oh so juicy!” My unicorn companion looked like she was going to throw up. “Now they got ours! The rest are down in mines. Diggin’ metal for Brass Calculator. Only brass and nothing else, more and more! Gods gonna punish ‘em! So was it written!”

I never loved religious zealots. They usually were a fine lot until they messed with you, but that fact did not prevent them from always being out with preaches and looking for troubles. I’d been following the grease-monkey for no more than quarter an hour, and my ears had already got numb.

Metallic clangs pierced the air. It was as if a massive anvil were repeatedly struck with a gigantic hammer, the noise coming from the upper floors. It seemed the Horde had driven a brigade of breakers to pry open the gate to the ‘archangels’. And what we needed to do was to get first to our car and then the fuck out of there.

Once it was a spacious shopping mall. They called it The Planet or The Star or something similar — I couldn’t quite remember. The atrium sported a huge iron-wrought assembly hanging at the level of the first floor, a symbol of the mall. You would not be wrong to guess that the structure was sphere-shaped.

The construction had before been covered with some stuff. Facing of sorts depicting… something I did not recall. But now… But now there were only bare iron rods transformed into a grand brazier. The whole mall was like a slaughterhouse. Crucified corpses stuffed with stones. Piles and piles of burnt, coal-black bodies — not of the locals, though. Some soldiers of the Horde had murdered the others in the most brutal, fucked-up way possible. What thing had they found that they had to kill their own storm-troopers? They didn’t call on the smokers to do such trifling job. The smokers cried for tortures and fun in the quantities comparable to genocide in cruelty. Burn, kill, burn again, so that there’s not even ash left! As for those left alive… They’d better been burned.

Bird’s words had proved truthful. In a course of twenty days, maybe fewer, Peatbog had hollowed out. Given what he’d said, stallions had been killed on the spot, mares led away to make wives or cows at dairy farms, foals sent to mines or Undercity to dig shinies. Those younger could even get lucky and fill the ranks of the boom-kabooms. Those who didn’t would become meat to feed others.

We were going upstairs. From the second and last floor, you could get to the cinema where the pathway led outside, at least that’s what had been earlier. Now everything could have changed, but as Bird had told there was another exit literally at hoof. Right in front of the cinema theatre.

About a dozen fighters were standing in a dead-end on the second floor around some big son of a bitch that was banging on a metal door. Sledgehammers were tied to his hooves to make the blows he dealt even more terrifying, the door crushing under his forelegs.

“They’re more, many more! Others are not far away, waitin’ and watchin’ as they be opening the door! This one is a strong door! Very strong!” Bird whispered. “I was behind all tryin’ to crack it open, but it git some smart lock! All symbols and marks… Divine Providence! Yes it is!”

We had to open the door from the inside and pull it up. It might be hard and sturdy for the locals, but if it went the way it was going now, the door would be wrenched from its hinges. Somepony had to be the diversion.

“Lead her,” I ordered Bird as I passed my rifle and flashlight to Dusty. “She will open.”

“How?” the unicorn asked as she stiffly accepted the weapon.

“Security lock. Zero, zero, zero, zero. Pull it up.” Hopefully she would get it right.

The tech and the mare disappeared swiftly. Thankfully the sound of their steps was drowned in metal banging on metal.

Now shall we dance fillies, shan’t we.

I stepped out of hiding and cocked my revolver. Supporting the barrel with magic, I put three rounds out of six into the lesser ponies as I moved. Not that it made much sense to kill them. Others — those that were ready in ambush above — would realize something was wrong down there. And who knew how many more there were.

I only needed Brute to notice me. I got something special for him.

Brute was a paragon of attraction, his muzzle skinless and jaws covered with chrome.”Wanna play?!” He was ready to lash out at the mere fact that I was standing there and pointing a hoof at him. “Me like play!”

One of his minions aimed a hoofed crossbow at me, but Brute smashed his head off. “Two ponies enter, one pony leave!”

The gargantuan bastard charged forward and was right next to me in an instant. I had jumped away to evade his mighty stomp, but he fetched me a back-hoofed slap with his other foreleg, the sheer force sending me flying against a wall. Got a collarbone broken, it seemed.

Those thugs who had been spectating Brute in action just a couple of minutes ago were now galloping to the exit as promptly as they could.

I attempted to stand up, but Mr Chrome Face was already upon me, staring straight into my eyes and reeking of rotting meat. “Yer skull good! Me like skulls!” He grasped my head and tried to squeeze grey matter out of my ears. “Wanna drink yer brains!”

I mustered all my flexibility, twisted out of his grapple, and delivered a powerful kick. The monster howled as my hind hooves connected with his teeth. He staggered but managed to keep footing, still irrevocably losing a chance to catch me.

Open the bloody door! Open up!

I barely escaped being crushed under a double hit of the sledgehammers as I crouched and rolled away. I felt the building starting to fall apart.

There was a long creaking sound. The rusty mechanism started working, and the door slowly slid up.

“Me help! Me help ya, Calculator!” Brute bellowed, any interest in me lost.

He scrambled on the floor, darted to the door. Both sledgehammered forelegs slammed into the door so hard it finally came off its hinges and flung into the dark.

Before the bastard could swat the knocked-out Dusty like a fly, I loaded two bullets into the back of his skull. Still not so sure he was dead for good.

The mare recovered quite quickly. I shouted at her to get in the car. I myself was going to revive its dust-covered engine.

“I lead you to Mother of Archangels! Get me—” I put the last bullet into Bird’s forehead. No time to cut him. I needed to charge magic into the engine as fast as a fuck! “Turn the key!”

Dusty did as I’d said. The engine roared but zapped me slightly. I quickly got behind the wheel and habitually put on the radio.

“Riot in Fillydelphia! Grid six lost! Colonel Carrot refuses to follow orders—”

I looked at the old photo tucked in a gap between the dashboard and the windshield.

“Water is ending, supplies insufficient! Darn sand stuffed the wells!”

Rose…

“Peace killer!”

Rose.

Go!

What?

“Go! Go! Go go go! Faster!” Dusty, having grabbed my wounded shoulder, was shaking the hell out of me. I threw a glance at the entryway as lots and lots of Horde ponies were spilling inside.

Oh, what a day…