When The Dead Start To Trot

“Why should we?”
“She seems to be alright. We can help her.”
“You don't know that!”
“Well, let's check her then.”
“NO! I won't take that risk!”
“Why that? Where's the risk? She can't do anything right now. No problem.”
“... Why are you so naive, Doc? Why do you always need to help literally everypony?”
“It's in my nature, so if you don't want to check her, I'll do it.”

Applejack slowly regained her consciousness. She now was inside the dark school building. But she was tied up on one of the chairs. Her head still hurt a bit because of the one that hit her on the head.

The school didn't look much better than the hospital. Not just because of the darkness but also because the windows were smashed but also obstructed with wood boards. Tables and chairs were scattered everywhere.

Slowly, Applejack could recognize the two ponies standing in the back of the room.

The one was a mare she only knew because she and her two friends were pretty famous, at least in Ponyville. She was part of the flower ponies, Daisy.

Just then, she realized that Lily Valley, the pony she met outside that didn't seem to be alive or dead, was a friend of her. If Applejack would have to tell her, she wouldn't know how or even what to say.

The other pony was a pony she saw a few times before but she didn't really know anything about him. It was Doctor Whooves. She once heard a rumor about him being a time lord or something but she always put it off as a fantasy of some filly or colt.

She didn't know what was going on right now. Why would they knock her out in the first place? She didn't do anything to them.

“Good, you’re awake. I already thought Daisy hit you too hard,” Doctor Whooves said as he walked towards Applejack and wanted to free her.

Daisy then suddenly ran towards them and jumped on the Doc, preventing him from freeing Applejack.

“What is goin’ on?!” she called out, indeed a bit scared.

The Doctor managed to get Daisy off of him. He gave her a kind of threatening look and them began to free Applejack without further disorder.

“I think I owe you an apology for all of this here. I am sorry,” the Doc told her truthfully.

“Ya could better tell me what the hey is goin' on outside!” Applejack told him quietly but seriously.

“Do you really not know? I mean, this is already going on for like four months.”

“Four months?!”

Daisy just stood in the back of the room without saying a word, only looking at her with an angry face for whatever reason while Doctor Whooves told Applejack everything that happened four months ago.

“Well, it started with ponies dying because of the fever that ‘illness’ entailed,” he began.
Applejack immediately remembered Granny Smith who also had gotten this fever.

“Granny! What's with Granny?” she yelled at the Doctor but also realized that he of course didn't know her.
At the sight of his puzzled and a bit startled look, she apologized.

“Well then, I think I can continue. After the first deaths, everypony began to panic. Celestia herself was asked millions of times what everypony should do, what she planned to do, but she didn't know. Then, a week later, an originally dead pony I don't know the name of started to trot around like nothing had happened. Somepony that knew this pony noticed and was shocked at the sight of course. But when she approached this 'undead’ pony, it bit her right in the shoulder, simply…,” he said, having trouble saying the last part, “ripping the flesh out.”

Applejack couldn't believe that this actually happened while she was in her coma. How could a fever cause this?

He continued, “Then, there were no rules anymore. Almost whole Ponyville seemed to have fled. I guess that they went to Canterlot - I heard many ponies saying something about it - because the city seems to be safe and free of the… walkers, as I call them.”

“Walkers?” Applejack didn't quite know why he named 'them’ like that.

“Yeah. All they do is trot and eat. They don't have any intelligence or something left.”

“How do ya know?”

“...” Doctor Whooves didn't answer at all. He just avoided her gaze and changed the topic.

“There is still one thing you should know,” he quietly said, still not looking in her direction.
“You know, Applejack, first you need to remember that they are not alive anymore. They are not ponies anymore.”

“Wait, what? They’re not alive. But Ah saw’em moving.” She then remembered Lily Valley who also couldn't be alive anymore but was also still moving.

“But they’re not dead either.” This time, it was Daisy speaking. “I guess you could say that they are 'undead’.”

“Undead….”

“Right. But here is the point you must know,” the Doc continued. “Everypony who dies from a bite by a walker becomes one of them a while later.”

“They… return? What? How?” Applejack couldn't just believe them. “That's impossible!”

“It should be,” he said. “There's absolutely no scientific and logical answer or reason to it, but it happens. You return as one of those things.”

“But what can we do?” Applejack asked.

The Doc looked at Daisy. She didn't do anything at first, but then just nodded. He nodded back.

“Come with us,” he whispered and lead the puzzled as well as shocked and not understanding Applejack outside on the playground of the school.

“Why are we here now?” Applejack asked, clearly not understanding the whole purpose of that all.

She then saw one of those ‘undead’ ponies. 'It’ didn’t look as bad as Lily Valley but it still looked terrible. There were holes on its body in a few areas like the stomach, the shoulder and and even in the head so that you could see the brain. It was bounded to the fence.

“S-silver Spoon?...”

Applejack suddenly noticed that this was indeed Silver Spoon. The sight of the undead Lily Valley was already traumatizing enough for her but now a filly? She's been still so young…

“You knew her?” Daisy asked her, seemingly without any emotion in her voice.

Applejack didn’t answer her question directly. “She and Diamond Tiara had their… problems with Applebloom and her friends. They didn’t get along really well but this… and why the holes?”

“Well,” Doctor Whooves began to explain, “we tried to find out how to… well, get rid of them because they won't just die like normal ponies.”

“How do ya know that?” Applejack asked him although she was pretty sure she already knew.

“…” he hesitated.

“Ya two did this to her, didn’t ya?”

He didn’t look at her and didn’t say anything as well. Daisy returned her look but she didn’t bother giving her the now obvious answer.

Applejack couldn’t handle the thought of these two slicing open the body of a little filly. She already thought of running away but the Doc seemed to know what kind of thoughts were running through her mind so he put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Do not forget that she isn’t alive anymore. She was already undead when we had found her,” he calmly told her, actually calming her down a bit. “We didn’t want to do this but we had no choice. We need to know how to… handle them if we want to survive.”

“…He doesn’t seem to be lyin´,” Applejack thought. “Ah believe him. But still, why´d be holes there?”

“Why the holes though?” she wanted to know, looking back at the formerly Silver Spoon, croaking and trying to get free to get to them.

“After our… efforts to find the proper way of… disposing them, I wanted to find out what caused this so I tried to find some clues in them but it's hard to analyze anything without any tools,” he said. Applejack noticed that he always used less negative terms for what he meant, especially when it came to kill the undead ponies.

She also noticed Daisy’s annoyed looks every time he did that. She didn’t like to beautify it either.

“Ya ain´t losin´ the fear of doin´ it if ya beautify it,” Applejack thought to herself. She wanted to tell him but decided that this wasn’t the right time to.

“We figured out that stabbing them in the head and damaging their brain stops…”

“Kills them!” Daisy almost shouted. “It's enough with twisting the reality, Doc!”

“Ah wouldn’t call it like that but she's technically right,” Applejack admitted. “Ah think we should call it like it is. That’d make it much simpler for us.”

“Who said that you're gonna stay with us?” Daisy retorted rudely.

“Of course she will, Daisy!” Doctor Whooves said surprised. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“We barely managed to survive and get along with the food left in the school. With another pony, we’re all gonna die sooner or later.”

“We have to find food left in Ponyville anyway. Why not take her with us? I won't just leave her alone!” the Doc said surprisingly confident for Applejack who was getting quite angry right now because of Daisy. She just wanted to leave her to probably die.

Not caring about what she said right now, she angrily said, “Ah ain't endin´ up like Silver Spoon or Lily Valley, no matter what!”

“…W-w-what? Lily…” Daisy stuttered. Just then, Applejack realized what exactly she said. She of course didn’t know what had happened to her friend.

“Ah… ah’m sorry,” she quietly said. “But it’s true. They got her too.”

Daisy didn’t say anything.

Then suddenly, she jumped on Applejack, catching her off-guard and throwing her to the ground. Her anger was overtaking her.

“What have you done?” she yelled at her.

“Ah didn’t do anything! She just got caught!” Applejack tried to throw her off which succeeded in the end with the help of the Doc who pulled Daisy off of her.

“What are you doing, Daisy?” he shouted. “She isn’t responsible for this!”

Daisy was finally off of Applejack.

“Look, I am sorry this happened,” he told her. “But we need to help each other now.”

Daisy stood up, looked at Applejack mischievously and simply trotted away without losing another word.

“She probably just needs some time to handle this,” Doctor Whooves said, helping Applejack up.

“Ah need to find my friends,” she said and already wanted to go. She had the feeling that it wouldn’t end well if she stayed with them or more exactly with Daisy since the Doc seemed to be okay.

“Wait!” the Doc stopped her. “We need food. The reserves are exhausted. We wanted to look around if there's still some left. While we do that, we can look for your friends as well, together. There's also somepony I need to find…”

“Nothin’ here,” Applejack said. She went to another shelf and started to search again.

Doctor Whooves was looking through the shelves on the other side of the room. He didn't have much luck either as all he found this far were two cans of peanuts. At least Applejack had found a giant can of soup and a lot of bread earlier.

“Nothing here.”

The Doc began to be frustrated. This was already the sixth house they have searched through.

“Of course they took their food with’em,” she said.

“Yes, of course. I just didn't think that everything would be this empty,” he explained. “For me, it seems like there were unicorns in all the houses we searched through this far.”

Applejack chuckled. “And here we are, three earth ponies.”

She then realized that they were only two earth ponies right now.

“Do ya know where Daisy’s at?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “She said that she would help us searching for food but if that’s the case, she must have gone to another house, obviously.”

“Here!” she yelled and showed him another can which was full of corn.

“Great!” the Doc told her happily. “Thank Celestia that we have a can opener.”

“HELP!” they heard somepony shouting.

“That's Daisy!” the Doc remarked. “We must save her!”

“Yeah,” Applejack said. Although she didn't like Daisy and Daisy didn't like her, she wouldn't let herself down to her level. She wouldn't let somepony just die.

“Just when we talk about her.”

She couldn't suppress that thought.

After a minute, they already found the house Daisy was in. It wasn't that hard to find thanks to her screaming.

As soon as they arrived, they could see that around a dozen walkers tried to get in.

Applejack could make one of them out. As soon as she remarked the pony, she could feel her heart stop beating. She simply collapsed on the ground.

She could feel tears starting to form. She wanted to cry but felt like she couldn't.

The walker she remarked was Granny Smith.

The Doc went ahead and killed one of the walkers with something that remembers an ice pickle.

Before they went looking, the Doc had also given her a weapon since she could possibly need one.

Daisy had lost her weapon earlier when she wasn't attentive and got caught from behind. Her weapon which was a simple hammer got lost somewhere between the walkers.

Doctor Whooves then went right to the undead Granny Smith. She turned around to him before her body collapsed on the ground from having an ice pickle rammed into the head and with that in the brain.

“Applejack! What are you waiting for?”

She felt the tears starting to flow as she saw Granny Smith's body laying on the ground. She would never see her alive ever again. She could never talk to her again. It was over.

Her body was already rotten like the bodies of all walkers but there were no holes in her body, no bites taken out of it, nothing. She must have died from the fever and simply turned to one of them.

But still, the Doc was right. He had shown her how to kill a walker, how she should use her 'spear’ to kill them.

Letting her anger out, she ran towards the walkers.

“FOR GRANNY!” she shouted out loudly just before stabbing a walker through its left eye socket with her spear.

A few walkers have got in the store. Applejack ran around the house and found a suspected rear entrance which was luckily open. There were only three walkers left at the front entrance with Doctor Whooves and one of them was stuck in a window.

“He should be able to manage that,” she hastily thought.

There were luckily no walkers in the back of the store so that she had no problem pressing forward.

Daisy had somehow managed to climb onto one of the shelves that was high enough that the walkers couldn't reach her.

“What do ya want?” Applejack shouted at the walkers who almost immediately yet slowly turned around and started to trot to her.

The Doc already killed the three walkers that were left at the entrance and came inside as well.

The Doc has found Daisy’s hammer and threw it to her which was a bit complicated since he's had to throw it with his jaw but he still did it.

Daisy who had already climbed down the shelf took the hammer began killing the walkers as well.

One walker managed to 'sneak up’ on Applejack and she didn't notice.

Daisy went in her direction to kill the walker slowly approaching her from behind while she was busy handling two walkers coming directly to her.

But then, she stopped.

The walker came closer to Applejack.

Daisy just stood there and watched.

“Behind you, Applejack!”

Doctor Whooves had noticed the walker behind her.

He ran to her and killed the last walker in front of her since Applejack already killed the other one.

With that, she could turn around and kill the walker behind her.

She could barely kill it before it could sink its teeth in her left hind leg.

Its body dropped down on the floor. Applejack was unharmed.

Applejack then noticed Daisys stare in her direction. She knew that this walker was there but she just didn't do anything to save her. She would have let her get killed.

A few minutes later after they killed off all the walkers, they calmed down again and went back to searching.

“I am going back to get the food we left at the house. Can you come with me and help me, Applejack?” Doctor Whooves asked without knowing what Daisy just did.

But Applejack knew.

“Sure thing,” she said and went to him.

She threw one last look back to Daisy who looked back before looking in a different direction to avoid her gaze.

Applejack didn't tell him though that Daisy did that. It wasn't the right time. She thought that she should concentrate on getting the food and getting safely back to the school first before dealing with Daisy.

“That’s gonna be tough,” she thought.

She didn't know yet how to deal with her but she knew that she had to.

Or she was going to die...