When The Dead Start To Trot

"Ah'm tellin' ya, Big Mac: That's gonna be a good sale," Applejack told her older brother while filling up baskets with their apples. It was summer and with that the time of the year where they had to work the most. Their cider was always their most bought product during this time.

"Eeyup," he quoted his famous line. They already got a lot done in that short amount of time where they were working. "Lookin' good," he simply said. "Gonna be sellin' a lot next days."

"About time." In the last time, it actually wasn't going that well for their farm. "Less and less ponies came to purchase anything since that weird illness."

Nobody knew what this illness was or where it came from. It didn't seem to harm anybody so that they didn't worry about it too much. All effects seen this far was fever, although it was strangely strong. They didn't manage to actually cure it though because normal medicine just wouldn't work. Celestia herself didn't quite know what to do.

The tree was bucked once again. More apples fell down. She moved on to the next one. She bucked it like all the other trees before. Applejack didn't feel quite well about this whole fever thing. She couldn't explain herself where its roots were from.

"Ya know," she said, bucking a tree. "Don't ya find this... ya know, worrying?" Apples fell into the baskets. "Where should it be from? Don't deny it'd not be botherin' ya," she anticipated her brother before he could deny it. She knew he'd do it to not stress her out as he probably thought.

"..." Big Mac stayed silent. "You ain't gettin' 'way like that!" Applejack almost shouted for seemingly no reason at all. Maybe just because she made herself worry once again. Since Granny Smith also got sick and pretty strong fever with it, she neither knew how to react nor how to feel. Applebloom didn't even know what exactly was going on anyway but what bothered Applejack was that she didn't know either.

She hated leaving her little sister uninformed and puzzled like that but there was nothing she could do about it. She simply hoped for the best that Granny would soon feel better. She's been sick for about a week and her state hasn't changed at all. She mostly lied in bed with her high fever.

Not that she wanted to of course. But whenever she tried doing something, she'd feel like all her bones would immediately break. She was always thirsty. She just felt like a rotten apple, as she told Applejack. They both had to smile at that terrible joke. But something about these smiles seemed off, Applejack thought. They were forced and awkward, not the slightest bit honest.

More apples fell down. "'Course it does," Big Mac only answered. He looked around a bit, obviously distracting and avoiding her gaze. "Should be enough for now." He took his baskets and trotted away. Applejack wanted to stop him but decided against it. It wouldn't help going through this whole thing for like the sixth time. She just couldn't get any piece of rest, it wouldn't change if she forced him to such a to nothing leading conversation.

"Still wanna some?" Applebloom innocently asked her brother. "Nope," he replied distracted, just annoyed that Applejack just went on his nerves again. He hated seeing her worry so much but what should he do? She didn't help making him and herself as well worry, absolutely not. He was sure that Applebloom already began to be affected by this.

He stood up, brought his now empty plate to the rest of the lazily standing stack of plates and went upstairs to Granny without saying anything else. It wouldn't be that special if the whole atmosphere wouldn't have been so depressed.

"Did Ah say anything wrong?" Applebloom asked, looking sad.

"No, no, ya surely didn't," Applejack quickly answered back, not wanting to ruin her little sister's day as well as her mood. "He just... needs a bit of privacy, ya understand?"

Applebloom looked at her puzzled. She didn't understand. Applejack didn't even understand herself right now. She didn't make sense to herself. She wondered how she could help Big Mac.

"Ah'm gonna bring these last baskets down in the basement." A good excuse to get herself a little time for herself and to help her family simultaneously. No, she didn't help her family at all with this right now. She knew that. Applejack just needed more time to sort her feelings.

Applebloom didn't answer. She stared at the table in front of her. Big Mac had upset her, although he didn’t mean to. Applejack didn’t want to intensify that feeling.

“Ah´ll be right back,” she said, took the basket and went to their basement.

It usually wouldn’t be a problem of course but since she wasn’t clear-minded, she was more or less walking into darkness without even noticing where the steps were.

She wasn’t quite attentive. She lost her balance. She fell down the stairs, the basket after her. Apples fell down. As she laid on the ground, she didn’t say anything. Her vision slowly faded. She still could hear somebody yell something above, probably Applebloom. She could feel blood running down her hurting flanks and she knew that she probably looked terrible right now. She didn’t want Applebloom to ever see her like this but it's not like she could do anything about that now.

“Is she gonna be alright?”
“Yes, she´ll be. She just needs to rest for a while.”
“And for how long?”
“I can't exactly tell. Around two to three weeks, I guess.”
Peep,… peep,………
“What? Nurse Redheart! Come assist me!”
Peep,………
“What´s happenin´?”
“No, don´t… coma…”

It was pretty dark when Applejack woke up. The first thing she did was looking around the room she was in. She had no idea where she was at first but then realized that it was just the nearby hospital in Ponyville. “Big Mac?... Applebloom?... Granny?...” she whispered, not being able to raise her voice just yet. There were a few machines standing around her she couldn´t quite make out what they were there for or what they´d do.

“Anypony?”

Nothing. She couldn't hear anything. Even the machines she was cabled to seemed to be turned off. “Or they´re just extremely quiet,” Applejack thought.

She tried to stand up but it hurt pretty bad. Still, she managed to get up but almost immediately collapsed on the ground, the machines joining in. The cables were ripped off her body as well. With the help of one of the fallen over machines, she got up and managed to walk.

As she reached the front door, she wouldn't get it to open. “What the hay? What´s blockin´ it?” She pushed more forcefully against the door. It slid a bit open but still by far not enough. Now she basically threw herself against the door. It hurt but at least the door was now open. “A bed in front of the door? Who did this? Why would anypony block the door?”

The hallways light was flickering. Papers, even beds and more stuff were spread throughout the entire floor. “What happened here?” Applejack couldn’t believe her eyes at the sight of this chaos. “And nopony around.” Then, as soon as she found the exit to the outside, she saw something traumatizing.

Dead ponies everywhere, at least 200 of them. Most of them were covered up although you still could see dried blood around them. But there were still some ponies laying around uncovered. “W-w-what?... W-who...?” Those bodies were completely rotted and it looked like somepony took bites out of them.

Applejack suppressed the urge to vomit. “W-what could have… d-done t-this…?” she stammered out. She hurried up to leave that place and to find somepony that could help her.

Outside everything looked as terrible as it did inside of the hospital. No, even worse. Everywhere was garbage and other stuff. But there was still nopony around.

“I must find somepony… I must find somepony…,” Applejack murmured. She walked around in the now empty Ponyville.

“ANYPONY!!” she yelled out. “CAN ANYPONY HELP ME?!”

Silence. No answer.

But suddenly, she heard somepony… or something. It didn't sound like a pony...

“H-hello?” she quietly asked. She then saw the figure that was making that weird moaning and rasping sound. It was Lily Valley! But she seemed a bit… weird.

When Applejack got closer, she saw that she wasn’t normal anymore. Her body was completely rotten like the corpses in front of the hospital. But it was a bit different here. Her entire lower body was missing, her guts hanging out. Even her right eye missed. Blood was everywhere around her mouth as if she just… bit somepony... and ripped flesh out with that...

Applejack vomited. She just couldn't hold it back anymore. She stared at her unbelievingly at first, then started backing up slowly. After a while, she began to run. She didn't know where to run, she just wanted to get away from her, from all of this.

In the end, she stopped in front of the school building. She tried opening the door with all her might. “C’mon! C’MON!” But it was locked. With that, she slipped down the door and started to cry.

“Why is this happenin’?” she sobbed.

She didn't notice that the door was opening behind her.

Then, a sudden bump. Applejack went down on the ground. Somepony had knocked her down. Before she lost her consciousness, she could make out somepony mumble something.

“Let’s just get rid of her!”

...