Chapters The end of one chapter is the start of another
There were sounds of hands furiously beating and clawing at doors and metal trying to make entrance into a strange building of sorts. This building just so happened to be a nuclear power station. The sound of clawing and beating was coming from hordes of the undead furiously attempting to gain entrance to this.
Inside was a group of four humans sitting in a room trying to stay calm. The room was bright red as the control panels that weren't fried said 'Reactor Meltdown imminent'.
"So what now?......What are we gonna do? Just sit here 'til they break in?" the younger dark skinned man asked, his voiced covered in obvious panic.
"Louis, you know it's not Bill's fault...." The woman replied, attempting to comfort her friend.
"I know Zoey, I.. I just can't believe this is really the end for us." Louis said as he buried his face in his hands.
The quieter of the group decided to speak up. "Ya know, for once, I don't think I can hate anyone but myself for what's happening."
The rest of the group went silent when he finished this, the red lights still flashed rapidly and the sounds of the undead trying to make their way in seemed endless. Finally after a few minutes of silence, the oldest of the group spoke again.
"Francis, you know it isn't your fault we're in this mess. It was my bad judgement that got us stuck here." He said as he looked down towards his m16.
"Bill, I respect you and all, but it's my fault more then anyone else's. Now we have no way of escape, and if we don't die from one thing, we're gonna die from the other!" Francis said, his voice filled with a rare hint of emotion as he grabbed his shotgun from its resting place by his side.
The rest of the group was silent, mostly because they knew it was true. Before any of the group members could speak up to Francis, he quickly went to the door, turned around, and spoke. "I don't know about the rest of you, but if I'm going to die, I'm gonna take some'a them out with me." He cocked his shotgun after finishing, a sadistic smile crossing his face. "Cause I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate those things more then anything else right now."
The group agreed with a simple nod, even Bill seemed to agree with Francis's logic on this. There was simply, no way out. They made their way over to the stairs, the sounds of the undead clearly making progress in destroying the blast doors keeping the human group and the horde of zombies separated.
As they went down the staircases, Francis decided to pipe in: "I call pushing the big red button!"
They made it to a large platform of sorts. Miles below them stood a wall of metal that had cracks and breaks on it, under which hid a nuclear generator.
"Alright, Zoey, take point and guard the door with Francis. Louis, you're helping me rig this sucker so instead of a meltdown, we get a giant boom."
After Bill had said this, an audible smashing sound was heard, followed by two loud roars and a large amount of quieter screams of undead.
"Tanks! Incoming!" Francis said as he grabbed out his pipe bomb, ready to light it. The first to crash through the stairs was a group of thirteen regular zombies. Zoey and Francis quickly took action, Zoey firing rapidly at them with her Mini Uzi. Francis taking potshots on the zombies with his shotgun, taking multiple out at a time.
More waves approached them and Zoey was needing to reload more often as the zombies piled in more rapidly.
"How we coming on making this baby go boom!?" Francis yelled, taking down a zombie with his secondary m1911 pistol.
"Almost done! Buy us another thirty seconds!" Bill screamed over the sound of gunfire and screaming undead.
"I'll give you forty!" Francis yelled as he tossed his pipe bomb at the approaching zombies.
The zombies seemed to be failing in numbers, they had yet to see either of the tanks. This only made them worry as they dispatched the last of the approaching zombies.
"How we doing on that boom there Bill!?" Zoey yelled, keeping her eyes trained on the door.
"Ten more seconds!"
"Why'd they stop coming? Something doesn't feel right Zoey, and I hate it when something doesn't feel right." Francis cautiously said as he reloaded and cocked his shotgun.
"I know Francis, there isn't much you don't hate." Zoey said, relaxing a little as there was no longer sounds of undead screeching.
As soon as Zoey had relaxed herself, a loud thundering sound of fists hitting solid cement rocked the whole plant. Immediately, Zoey and Francis looked to the ceiling where the sound was heard. They saw a large gap in the ceiling as a Tank jumped down and tossed the chunk of cement away from him, landing on an assortment of barrels. This effectively broke them as oil spilled out onto the grate everywhere.
Both of the group defenders fired rapidly at the tank, he roared in rage as he threw a broken barrel at Zoey. She managed to jump away just in time, and as soon as she did, she pulled a molotov cocktail off of her bag and promptly lit it, tossing it towards the great behemoth of a zombie.
The behemoth screamed out in agony as its skin burned to a charcoal grey. The tank attempted to charge the two survivors, arms flailing madly as he did so, this failed as right before he got close enough, he collapsed, dead. Not seconds later Bill and Louis returned screaming "It's done!"
After Louis said this, a second roar from another tank was heard. The two didn't have time to do anything but run as the ceiling behind Louis broke. The falling debris nearly hit Louis and caused him to stagger as he screamed "Shit! He's coming!" The second tank jumped down, followed by at least fifteen zombies, some dead from the tanks flailing arm attacks, some rushing the survivors.
Bill dispatched as many zombies as he could while running for the other two. Louis accidentally dropped his secondary weapon promptly screaming "Why does this bad shit always happen to me?!"
Zoey and Francis took cover near the rail grating where it had broken and promptly fired at the fast approaching tank, being careful not to hit their friends.
Once the four were grouped together they scrambled to separate so as to not make themselves an easy target for the tank. They continued circling the great behemoth, rapidly firing as they dazed the monster. After a full minute of this, the monster fell with a loud 'thump'. A crack was heard as the grating they were standing on quickly started to fall apart.
"Hey Bill where's the button?! You know I want to press it and make the undead go boom!"
"Sorry Francis, couldn't take any risks so we set it on a timer. Thirty seconds til boom." Louis explained.
They all agreed in their own ways. More sounds of hungry undead were heard from the flight of stairs and it seemed less likely they would live.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather fall into that thing..." Francis pointed downwards before continuing, "...than be dinner for those things!"
After saying this, The four promptly dropped from the grating, five seconds left on the timer. Undead ran straight through towards the room, some falling with the four survivors, just barely out of reach. The majority of the horde stopped at the edge of the door.
Silently, Bill muttered the rest of the countdown under his breath "Three....Two.....ONE....."
The world went into a blinding light as they were a half second from making impact on the generator itself. Right after the bright light hit, it suddenly became dark and seemed more like unconsciousness rather then death. Bill didn't know if he was dead or not as he floated around in his empty subconscious, nothing was there but him.
More color, Less zombies!
Bill awoke with a splitting headache and many questions. It was early morning it seemed, and the others were unconscious near where he was as well. Thoughts filled his head. 'How did we get here? How did we survive?! Was it all a dream? No. Impossible'. As Bill looked around, he saw that their weapons and most of their equipment were still on them from the fight with the tanks. Louis had no secondary, and Francis and Zoey didn't have their throw-able distractions.
Sighing, he stood up. He grabbed his equipment that was strewn about on the ground and decided to speak aloud his questions as they seemed to be in a forest. "Where the hell are we? And how did we survive?"
Zoey was the next one to wake up "What?" she asked groggily before looking around. "How are we alive?"
"Don't know." Bill responded as he checked his ammo.
Next was Louis who ungraciously farted himself awake. "Huh? whazzat?" He rubbed his eyes, quickly dispelling his grogginess. Upon looking around, he turned to Bill and Zoey and said: "I don't care where we are, I don't care how we survived. I just want my pain pills now."
Bill graciously tossed his bottle of pain pills to Louis who promptly took a few, tossing the rest of the bottle back to Bill.
Louis happily sighed, "Glad these work for headaches."
Finally, as if on cue, Francis woke up. He immediately jumped to his feet, shotgun in hand. Looking around, he saw how colorful the forest they were in was. "I don't know where we are.......but I already hate it."
"So what do we do now?" Louis asked, looking to Bill for an answer.
"No idea. I suppose we should probably find shelter and a source of food and water." Bill looked tired and worried. He was in an unknown location that could be crawling with undead and they were exposed just waiting here.
"Everyone stick together. Once we find a safe place to rest, we will mark that as our temporary camp. Keep on the lookout for zombies, but be careful and look before you shoot, we may find some survivors in these woods." They nodded, obviously having worries of their own about sleeping in an unconfined area that the undead could tred upon.
Bill looked towards the tree. On one side of the tree, moss was growing rapidly, the other was as barren as a regular tree.
"This way" Bill said, pointing towards the direction the moss was growing.
"And how would you know, Bill?" Francis asked, skeptical about his choice.
"Moss always grows on the north side of a tree, we just follow north and hope for the best. That is, unless you have a better idea."
"....."
"Thought not. Now lets get moving!"
***************************
The day was warm and welcoming for Twilight as she woke up feeling relaxed and well rested. She sighed as she groggily got up, getting herself ready for the day. She went over to the mirror and grabbed her brush with her magic, half heartily brushing her mane in a attempt to straighten it out.
"Twilight! Breakfast is ready!" Said a voice calling from downstairs.
"Alright, Spike! I'll be down in a minute!" She sleepily responded in what sounded like a groan.
Twilight half-heartily stumbled to the door, smacking into it by accident. With a loud yelp she fell onto her rear, rubbing her head with a hoof, and muttering a curse word under her breath.
Remembering to open the door this time, Twilight stumbled down the stairs, careful to avoid a slipup. Once down the stairs, she could smell the wonderful breakfast Spike had prepared. But that had not caught her attention as much as the smell of fresh brewed coffee.
Twilight came into the kitchen, a smile on her face as she trotted over to the table where her breakfast was.
Twilight graciously took a sip of her mug of coffee. She immediately dropped the cup with a yelp though, she had suddenly heard a loud screech coming from Froggy Bottom Bog. She muttered a few words, barely audible.
***************************
"What the hell is that?!" Louis screamed as he jumped to his left, firing bullets at a large creature with four heads.
"It's a goddamn hydra!" Bill yelled as he tossed his empty m16 down, grabbing his dual pistols in the process.
"A what?" Zoey yelled as she ducked behind a rock, reloading her gun.
"It's a mythological beast thought up by the Greeks! Now KEEP FIRING!" Bill commanded as he shot one of the hydra heads in the eye. The head fell to the ground, dead, but dragged along as the hydra continued on its attack towards them.
"Why'd you have to shoot that tree and alert this thing Francis?! Huh, WHY!?" Louis screamed as he avoided the hydra's foot as it tried to squish him.
"Because I hate swamps! Why can't anyone understand that?!" Francis screamed as he shot the hydra's foot, effectively causing it to rear backwards.
The group took the opportunity and turned and made a break for the nearby road. "Time to go!" Bill yelled as he ran for the road, making a mad rush away from the hydra. The hydra had already snapped out of its confusion as it quickly got up and roared violently before making chase after the four humans.
***************************
Twilight had gathered her friends who all met at her home, they prepared to take action. Everypony had taken to locking themselves in their homes. The town seemed abandoned, but at least everypony was accounted for.
"-Okay so we know no one is in danger so far. Nopony in town is at or near Froggy Bottom bog and nopony was reported to be seen on the road." Twilight sighed before continuing. "We need to go check this out, something important may be happening there."
The rest of the group nodded in agreement.
"Well what're we waitin' fer! Let's go already!"
The six mares left in a hurry towards Froggy Bottom Bog.
***************************
The four humans had managed to escape the hydra and collapsed along the road and took in air by the buckets.
"Okay......seems like........we're not on earth.......anymore." Bill said as he tried to catch his breath, leaning on a nearby tree.
The other three just silently nodded as they tried to catch their own breaths. After a few minutes of resting, they all had caught their breaths and had huddled over to the tree conversing about what was going on. After a while they heard galloping sounds, like that of horses. "What the hell could that be?" Louis said as he tried to see what was coming up the road.
"Quick hide in the bushes! We don't know if they're friendly or not!" Bill said in a loud whisper as he pointed towards a nearby assortment of bushes. The sounds of galloping got louder and louder and the group had what was left of their weapons aimed towards the road, just in case.
What the four humans saw made their jaws drop in disbelief, six pastel colored ponies galloped by them towards the swamp they had just escaped.
Bill was the first to get a hold of himself as he promptly responded: "Was that a horse?"
Next, Francis got a hold of himself and effectively got everyone else to get a hold of themselves with his signature line, "I hate horses."
It had to be ponies, huh?
"Okay so we just saw a bunch of colorful miniature horses." Louis started "And none of us have a problem as long as we don't have to fight the undead?" Everyone just nodded in response.
Francis shrugged. "Well, can't be worse than zombies; I hate zombies more than horses."
Bill just patted Francis on the back before he motioned the group to sit in a semi circle around him.
"So, what should we do now?" Louis asked as he frowned.
"How about we make a good impression on the locals and try not to get ourselves killed?" Bill suggested as he sat on a tree stump.
More silence fell over the group of survivors as they looked uneasy, nervously looking at random things, avoiding eye contact with one another.
*****************
Down at the bog, Twilight and her friends had froze when they saw the hydra. It laid motionless on the ground, blood spewing from many lacerations and strange wound in its left eye. Fluttershy had promptly pulled herself into a tiny ball and shook with convulsions.
While Fluttershy did this, everyone else puked at the sight, much less the smell.
"Wh-who c-c-c-could have done s-such a thing?" Fluttershy managed to squeak out.
Everyone else was just silent, they didn't have an answer for it and they were scared of the thought of learning it.
"....I think we need to head back to town. Whatever caused this is long gone." Twilight said in a near whisper as she fought back tears.
*****************
"So, I say we head in the direction those six horses came from." Bill started, "We may be able to find a town, and if we do, we can at least find out what's sentient. I'm going to be ahead of the rest of you so we don't accidentally shoot one of them. Got it?"
Everyone silently nodded, putting their guns' safety on.
Trekking along the road, they started to see a town in the distance. Upon getting closer, Bill noted that they were like houses from a different time in the world's history: Thatched roofed wooden buildings. "Pray they have working bathrooms everyone, looks a little under industrialized."
The group walked along, moving from hiding spot to hiding spot. They finally got close enough to the town to realize that there was no one outside. A tumbleweed blew across the road as it was drearily silent.
"Where is everybody?" Louis asked.
"Probably inside their homes, I doubt a hydra being so close to town would be incentive to stay outside for long." Francis said as he pulled out a soda from his jacket pocket.
"Hey! Where'd you get a can of cola?"
"While we were fighting through hordes of zombies I found a working soda machine, and I had a dollar I never emptied out of my pocket. I love cola." Francis said as he popped the top off the can and greedily gulped the drink down.
"So, are we gonna stay sitting here in the bushes 'til we know at least what the locals look like?" Zoey whispered over to Bill.
"That's all I've got for now." Bill responded in the same manner.
*****************
The girls made it back to Ponyville, this time at a much slower pace. They all were silent with their own thoughts on what could have caused the hydra's death. When they entered the town, the townsfolk started to leave their houses and circled the six of them, asking if it was safe.
After assurances that the hydra was not a threat anymore and whatever killed it was gone, the townsfolk started going back to their daily schedules.
The girls all went their separate ways and continued what they were doing. Twilight decided to go back to the library to let Spike know she was okay, then continue her reading.
It was late in the day, the sunset glowing vibrantly as Twilight entered the library. Spike came rushing into the room when he heard the door. He started bombarding her with one question after the other. He spoke so fast it would put Pinkie's rants to shame.
"Whoa, calm down Spike. I'm fine."
"Heh heh... I knew you'd be fine, I mean, it's you, Twilight, but I still can't help worrying." He said nervously.
"Come on, let's just have dinner and we can re-shelve the library." she said with a reassuring smile.
“Okay..” He responded, obviously disappointed.
**********
Bill stood just behind a nearby tree, out of sight of the townspeople. Zoey and Louis were prone on the ground behind the bushes with little visual at what the townsfolk were. Francis, though, had a good view of what the townsfolk were like and was currently in shock at what he saw.
"My god, Colorful miniature horses... Every one of em'.." Bill started, "now I've seen weird shit in my day, but this shit takes the cake."
Francis came out of his shock and landed on his ass, "I really hate today, anyone else? No? Damn."
"So what now? We know what the locals look like, but we still don't know if they're friendly or not. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like being executed by something that came out of a little girls fantasy." Louis said, still trying to get a good look at the natives.
"Well we don't have many choices." Bill started, "seems like our only choice is for one of us to go in and meet them while the rest hide back ready to help get him or her out of a situation if things go south."
"But who'll go? We can't send Francis because he might shoot one of them." Zoey started.
Everyone silently turned to Francis as he cleaned his shotgun's barrel. He looked up at the others.
"I'll go." Bill said, putting his gun down in front of him and standing up.
"Bill, you can't be serious. What if they try to kill you?" Louis piped in.
The old man decided to give Louis the 'are you fucking serious?!' face before speaking up. "I'll be fine. I'll send a signal if i'm in trouble."
Zoey started "But-" but was interrupted by Bill.
"Like I said: I'll be fine, i have a road flare with me and if i need help, I'll set it off and you can storm in and help."
"Okay." the three survivors said in unison.
Bill started to make his way into town, he decided it best if he went into one of the less crowded districts. He knew he had a better survival chance if he went to a less populated section first. After he made it into the section of town, the townsfolk started noticing him.
Bill quickly stopped in his tracks and suddenly all eyes were on him. He carefully stared left and right and not one single pony dared move an inch.
An apple decided to be the catalyst for what was about to happen. As it collided with the ground, a yellow pony with an orange mane decided to scream: "It's a monster! Run for your lives!" As if on cue, everyone went galloping into random directions, trying desperately to get away from the strange bipedal creature before them.
"Well that could've gone better." Bill muttered moodily.
Where one belongs, others may not
In a record breaking time, the entire street was devoid of all inhabitants other than Bill and a lone tumbleweed going across the road.
"Well, this couldn't have started off better. Maybe if I have enough bad luck, they'll form an angry mob and try to torch me up."
Sighing, Bill started to look around to get a better idea of the town.
**********
In no time at all, Twilight had rushed to the door. When she opened it, the ponies attempted to file in as fast as possible.
With a surprised "Wuagh!", Twilight was dragged to the back of her home as ponies filed in and tried to fit into every inch of the small home.
"What the heck is going on?!" Twilight yelled over murmurs in the crowd of ponies as she tried to move around the room.
"Monster! It just walked into town. You have to do something!" A few of the ponies forced out in partial unison.
Twilight cocked an eyebrow and replied: "What did it do? Was it hurting anyone?"
"Then how do you know it was a monster?"
"It was covered in blood!" One of the pegasi in the back of the room responded.
Twilight started to think of what could have been so frightening, then she remembered the hydra and what happened to it earlier. With a nod, she got a paper and quill and began writing a short letter. After it was done, she called for Spike to come downstairs.
"Spiiike!"
"Coming," Spike responded in a sleepy tone, "What is it Twilight?"
Spike wasted no time at all and took the letter from Twilight, sending it off."I'm
"But it's only six?"
"I know, I should have been asleep thirty minutes ago."
Twilight rolled her eyes and decided to go looking for whatever it was that roamed into town.
**********
Bill decided to start wandering around the town so at least he could get a good idea of his escape route if need be. Before he knew it, he had arrived at a small park of sorts. They had all the fine elements to it, except that the cement sidewalks were small dirt paths.
Bill decided to stop there, thinking: 'hmmm, If i'm right then they should be starting to form an angry mob and should soon be hunting for me.' He stopped his thoughts for a minute before continuing them: 'or they are just hiding behind something until I go away.'
**********
-Princess Celestia-
After finishing up with court, Celestia went to go about relaxing; this was the first day she had any free time and she wanted to reacquaint herself with the piles and piles of books just sitting on the shelf in her room.
She was just about to enter her private quarters when a note appeared in front of her in green flames. 'I wonder what my student has learned this time.' She thought to herself as she magicked the scroll to a proper reading level.
A quick once over of the letter and Celestia's cheery face turned to a worried expression.
**********
Twilight had left with her friends to search for this 'strange' creature, worried it might harm somepony. She looked high and low; what started as a lone search for the odd being, ended up being a large planned out survey with each of her friends searching different areas.
About an hour later, Rarity had found Twilight as she searched through another alleyway. Twilight was worried something had happened when Rarity ran over to Twilight, screaming like it was the end of the world.
"Rarity?! What happened?! Did it try to hurt you!" Twilight was frantic and scared to death that Rarity had some untold horror done to her or at the very least, somewhere along the lines.
She calmed herself before responding "No darling, it didn't see me! That's not the problem though. This is THE.Worst.THING.EVER!" She punctuated her point by flailing her hooves around and pulling a therapist couch out of nowhere, where she jumped onto and laid there, over dramatizing the situation.
"What is it then!? What happened!?" Twilight was starting to get worried and nearly went into meltdown mode; Until she heard what Rarity had to say.
Taking in a huge gasp of air, she exclaimed: "He wore the most dreadful outfit dear! Anywhere that wasn’t covered in dried blood was the most tacky green color! And it wasn't just one, it was all kinds of tacky greens that made it look like he was a giant deformed bush!" She said as she somehow added a handkerchief to add even more drama to the over dramatic moment.
Frowning, Twilight glared at the white seamstress before responding "That's it?" She paused for a second to make sure it was. "THAT'S IT?!"
Before the white unicorn had a chance to respond to that Twilight facehoofed. "Sorry, just, get everyone together and show us where he was."
Nodding, she left to gather the others. After about thirty seconds of peaceful silence, Spike came in with a scroll in his hand.
"Twilight! The princess responded to your letter!" He gasped for air as Twilight levitated the letter over to herself to read.
She dropped her jaw as she read over the parchment, then read it again, and again. "The princess herself is coming to try and take care of the situation." She took another moment to gather her thoughts. "She says we should quarantine it to make sure it doesn't try to hurt anypony."
**********
Bill stood there, at the lake in the park, contemplating his life, past, and everything that lead up to now. He looked back at all the zombie's he had killed, how much of the impossible he fought just to end up out of the storm.
"Heh, the calm before the storm all over again." He sighed, "taking the locals longer then I thought to find me. How long does it take to find an over sized ape?"
Just as he finished his musings over such trivial things, the sounds of rustling grass were getting louder. The sounds of hooves were steadily creeping towards him.
"Finally, I was getting impatient over here." He muttered to himself, sitting down on the grass.
His muttering went unnoticed as the figures started coming into sight. Three mares faded in from silhouettes and surrounded him, each displaying mixed forms of nervousness.
As the three mares closed in on the sitting human, three more came into view, but only barely. Nervously, the three mares started to close in a bit more steadily on him as Bill just sat there, staring out into the rest of the park in front of him.
"Beautiful time of day, ain't it?" Bill said, not moving but an inch.
The mares stopped and looked to each other even more nervously, until a purple unicorn walked ahead of the rest.
"Uhm, h-hello sir. My n-name is Twilight," the mare responded nervously. She probably had no idea what Bill was and, as expected, had no idea what to expect.
“That’s a nice name there, young lady, kind of a bit out there for me, but whatever, still nice; what are you doing here anyway?” Bill asked as he thought of how silly it was that the entire town sent six girls to deal with this problem.
“Were you the one that hurt that hydra?” She audibly gulped and fearfully looked around.
“It was me or him. Sorry but I have never planned on becoming a light snack for an overgrown lizard.”
The group of mares glanced around at each other again, each with worried glances. After five minutes of silence, the yellow one decided to speak.
"I-is t-t-that blood from the hydra?" She asked as she stared at Bill with puppy dog eyes, mouth shaking at the possibility.
Bill stared down at his clothes and then back up at the group of mares "What? This?" he pointed to his shirt, "no, this is from before; same reason applied with that too. Don't ask what kinda thing it was, you'll sleep better if you don't."
The yellow mare went back to her spot and promptly hid behind her mane.
"Well this chat has been fun," Bill started as he got up, "but if you don't plan on killing me I have somewhere to be."
Bill started to leave when a shadow passed over him. To his surprise, it was a flying carriage of some kind.
"Well I be a monkey's uncle..." Bill muttered to himself as he saw it land.
To his surprise, a horse thrice the size of the ponies walked out; adorned upon her was both a horn and a pair of wings. Following the overgrown pony were a rather sizeable group of guards armed with some type of spear that has been heavily modified. The guardsmen (guardsponies?) wasted no time in surrounding Bill and holding their weapons to him.
One of the guards spoke up as he jabbed his weapon threateningly towards Bill. "Stand back! This creature could be dangerous!"
“Or a completely sentient alien from some other place entirely and is marooned on this planet,” Bill deadpanned.
Silence reigns over the group of ponies and human standing there eyeing them.”Look.” Bill started, “I don’t mean to..” he reached to his back pocket, meaning to grab his road flare.
The same guard narrowed his eyes at Bill and yelled an order “Appendages where I can see them monster! I said: appendages where I can see them!”
“I just..” Bill began, but found himself being brought to the ground. His road flare flew from his hand and with a sickening ‘crack’; The flare hit the side of a rock, igniting it.
“Oh shit.”
**********
The three survivors were hidden by the side of the dirt road in a group of tight, dense, bushes. They had yet to relax but were silent the entire time after Bill had left. Worry ate up each of them; it had gotten so bad that Francis had just stayed silent. No comments of how much he hated the world or the many things within it, that’s what scared them all the most.
The survivors heard a loud ‘cracking’ sound in the distance. Turning, they saw a bright light coming from the small village.
Quickly grabbing their weapons they rush off into the village of miniaturized, pastel ponies. With a final grunt from Francis, they speed down the dirt path.
A/N: sorry for the wait a lot has been going down for anyone following my blog. of course i hope i made up for the wait with the chapter length (for now) it was tough for me to get it because of a lot of writers block. Thanks again to nobrains for helping me through it.
confusion of thy actions is a miracle sent from hell
“Guards remove yourselves right this instant,” Celestia ordered. Without hesitation, the guards got off of Bill and went back into formation.
Bill ignored this and as soon as he was free, he ran after the road flare yelling ‘no’ over and over again.
The guards took it as a threatening act and chased him again trying to tackle him, Bill managed to grab the flare and throw it into the water just as the guards tackled him a second time.
********** Moments earlier **********
The three survivors managed to catch sight of Bill as he got up into a standing position, guards flocking back to the white horse. They didn’t know what that meant, but regardless, Francis made an attempt to go out there and shoot everything in sight before Zoey stopped him.
In a hushed tone he said: “Hey, why are you stopping me from saving Bill?!”
She just shushed him and pointed towards the group again. They saw something that none of the three had expected, Bill threw the flare into the water.
They kept staring for a short while longer before Francis spoke up, “The fuck is he thinking? Old man’s lost his mind, and that’s saying something.”
Zoey silenced him before whispering. “We need to get a closer look, maybe if we could hear what they were saying, we could see why he threw it. If worst comes to pass, you can make a game out of how many of ‘em you can shoot.”
Francis huffed out of irritation but otherwise complied. “So how we gonna get closer then, Zoe?”
“I don’t know” She sighed depressingly.
Louis decided it was a good time to pipe in. “Well, I don’t know ‘bout y’all, but I think that patch of grass is tall enough to hide us,” Louis pointed over to some nearby unkempt grass.
“Great then, Einstein. Care to tell us how we’re gonna get close enough to hide there?” Francis sneered at him, grasping his shotgun’s handle in the process.
Louis looked to be in thought for a minute before speaking up. “Well.. we could probably just crawl over to the grass. I mean, they’re pretty distracted with Bill right now.”
Seeing as this was their only choice, the other two nodded to Louis and decided to crawl across the dust inlaid road.
As they got closer the voices became clearer and clearer.
“.....-old on! Your guards may have nearly killed you all when that flare started!”
“Explain yourself stranger, what was that thing for!? Why did it light up like that?” One of the guards said as he got his spear closer to Bill’s chest.
The survivors were ready with their weapons, waiting for when things would go south. Suddenly, a loud ‘boom’ was heard and the guard flew back, unconscious. Upon the place where the guard once stood, was a bright jagged light almost as tall as Celestia. It started to stretch and made a look of a crumpled paper with a hole being made in it.
A strange looking zombie stood forcing the hole open. Bill saw this and backed away at a brisk pace yelling: “Get back! Get back if you want to live!”
Most of which did as Bill had said, but a few of the cockier guards stood their ground and surrounded the undead mutation. It fell to the ground through the opening and screeched in anger before taking sight of the living beings near it.
The creature got to its feet and slowly started shuffling towards the guards. Still confident, the guards responded with a verbal warning. “Stay where you are monster! Do as we say, or else!” The guard yelled. The mutant just ignored this and continued for the guard that had spoke up.
The guards started to look uneasily to one another as the head guard tried to stay his ground. Once the undead monster was close enough, the guard took the chance and lunged his weapon into the creatures heart, where it stopped moving. For a moment, the guards had thought it was no big deal and they worried for nothing; Until it started moving again, hand on the spear where it was impaled.
The creature ripped it out of its chest along with its own heart and continued its motion towards the guard. The guards were now nervously backing away from it, Bill decided to speak up while they were doing so “Could use my gun about now if you don’t mind!” Bill turned towards a large patch of grass where the survivors were hiding.
They got the message and promptly jumped to their feet, tossing Bill his m16. Bill grabbed it out of the air and rushed towards the slow moving zombie. He stopped a few feet from it and with a ‘click’ his safety was off. Aiming down the sights he shot the undead with a semi auto shot to the forehead causing it to fall to the ground, dead.
“Well, looks like nowhere is safe now for sure,” Bill muttered aloud as he stared down at the corpse.
Before any kind of response could be made, a small group of regular zombies started to run through the open portal. A good twelve zombies made it through while another had its head severed when the portal closed on it.
Bill started to make a backwards run as he shot at them. The survivors ran to him to give him covering fire as he was the only one close enough to get targeted by the zombies.
Francis was the first to get in range and ran straight for the crowd of zombies, shotgun in his right hand. He threw his arm forward and slammed the barrel of the gun into the lead zombies face; Before he pulled the trigger and sent three zombies to their deaths.
Two zombies broke away from the others the survivors were fighting and went straight for the guards, whom were trying to look tough and stay in front of all the “civilians”. They started getting nervous and antsy when the two zombies got so close so fast. They stabbed them in the chest just like before and the rest of the guards tried to help. This was a huge mistake; The first zombie fell down to the ground and they retracted their weapons from the undead. As soon as they did this it started crawling frantically and jumped onto the nearest guard and started chewing up his face. With a scream of pain, the guard fell to the ground, a bullet came flying and hit the zombie in the head shortly after; While it was distracted eating the guard’s brain.
The other zombie, the guards managed to hit a spear straight in its head, killing it for sure; After retracting their spears, they went in and kept stabbing the zombie to make sure it was dead. By the time they stopped, it wasn’t even recognizable of what it used to be, now it was just a pile of meat.
The zombies stopped their assault upon them and it went quite fast.
Celestia spoke up after a few minutes of silence. “You four will explain everything to me at the castle, understood?” She glared at each of the four survivors and then stopped and faced Bill.
Bill looked at his fellow comrades for a minute before turning back to Celestia and speaking up. “Yes, of course, I wouldn’t think of anything better now that things have changed.”
let thy own sin return and corrupt innocence
******Hours Later******
The ride to the castle was fairly quick, a lot of the guards were adamant about not letting the princess ride in the same carriage as the four humans, but her word was law.
The entire trip was silent. None of the four humans uttered more than a few words after the zombie went through that portal. Once arriving at the castle, a lot of the guards were worried for Celestia after they saw the four humans caked with blood across their clothes.
They followed the princess silently as they went through corridor after corridor. After a while, they ended up at a very huge doorway with engravings of the sun and moon. There were, of course, more guards standing watch. After a few whispers from Celestia, the guards opened the door and let everyone in before silently shutting it.
She turned to the four who stood facing her, she took a minute to compose her thoughts before speaking up.
“Now, explain everything from the beginning; leave nothing out, is this understood?” She looked over each of the survivors, for a moment there was silence, then, Bill walked a few steps ahead of the others and spoke up.
“Alright, you might want to sit down. This will take a while.” Nodding her head in agreement, Celestia took a seat on the floor. The other three survivors followed her action as he began his tale of the infection and it’s outbreak.
********** 5 hours before Outbreak, POV Bill **********
It was a sunny Pennsylvania day, birds were chirping, kids were playing out at the park across from my favorite coffee shop. The owners were good friends of mine, they knew what I wanted the second I walked through that door.
This day seemed to be going good, everyone was happy and it seemed the day was cheery enough to make Francis not hate it. Anyway, I walked into the coffee shop with the smell of decaf burning away in the machines of theirs. The tv was turned on for once and the news was being broadcasted.
I walked up to the counter and decided to greet the owner while he was on duty. “Hey, Marty.” At first, he seemed to not notice me even after I spoke right to him.
I tried again, hoping he would at least realize I was right there. “Marty, you there?” I snapped my fingers in front of him. “Marty!” I leaned in and snapped my fingers again, this time in his face, not even a blink. Then he pointed to the tv before grabbing the remote and turning the volume up.
“That’s right ladies and gentlemen, a disease has been identified by the CEDA corporation in the pennsylvania area. They call it the Green Flu, today we have a CEDA member to explain just what exactly this ‘Green Flu’ is.”
The screen changed from the news reporter to a scientist with a blank white wall behind him. “So, basically, this is a mutated strand of the mad cow disease. It has mutated into a flu form and is not deadly to the most of us. This is exactly what it is, a Flu. Nothing more, nothing less. If anyone is infected with the green flu please contact the CEDA corporation, and we shall take care of any infected with the green flu, I assure you. The CEDA corporation advises all viewers to go home, lock your doors, and stay inside until they can take care of the people who have the green flu. If someone is infected with the flu, do not approach them. Call the CEDA, and members will be in your city to take care of each individual appropriately and humanely. Thank you all for your time.”
The tv switched back again to the news reporter. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Garson. Well folks, you heard it from us, now back to our latest story about a boy who-” The tv flicked off and Marty turned to me, we were both worried about what the news had just said.
Marty decided to speak up finally. “So, venta cappuccino extra foam and two extra shots, am I right?” Marty started to smile warmly again, as if the broadcast had never happened.
I eyed him a bit, he didn’t seem to care “Uhm, yeah. That sounds good ‘bout now.”
He almost mechanically told me the price to which I paid for before sitting down at one of the tables. Staring out the giant window like walls, I saw what looked to be a sickly young man swiping at birds in the park. I started to feel a lump in my stomach when a bus passed in front of me, obscuring my vision of the man attacking the birds. When the bus stopped blocking my vision, the man was gone. Barely visible on the ground where the weird guy was, was a dead bird.
“-The fuck is going on?” I wondered before Marty called over to me.
“Hey Bill! Got your coffee right here.” he said, signaling for me to come over.
As soon as I got close enough to him, I decided to make some small talk. “So how have you and Samantha been, Marty? Doesn’t it get bothersome with her bad smoking habits?” I took a big gulp of my drink before he spoke up in response to my question. “We’ve been good. It’s a problem I’ll admit, but it’s a more likely chance she would burn me alive before giving up her smokes.”
“I heard that Marty!” Samantha’s voice was heard from the back room, to which Marty made a sort of god fearing face for a split second before it became his usual premiere smile.
After a few meaningless bits of chit chat, I finished the coffee and went home. It was a decent sized flat in the apartments; not the best, but it was home. It had been months since I kept in contact with some of my old friends. Last I heard, Wade’s daughter just got into college, so I would need to go see him for old times sake.
It was getting late and I decided to go to sleep, skipping dinner. I never really felt like eating tonight.
******************
I awoke to the annoying buzzer, slapping the off button. I stumbled out of bed, grabbing my wallet; I managed to get dressed in my favorite army green pants, white shirt and green jacket. I decided to get myself a quick breakfast before heading out again. Just a fairly simple one, eggs and toast.
I got a call once I was finished. Picking it up,I found Marty on the other end.
“Hey, Bill. You there?” his voice was hoarse and scared.
I started to clench my fist nervously when I spoke up. “Yeah? What’s wrong Marty?” He started to pant heavily now, he didn’t respond for a long while, each second felt like a minute.
“The, the flu. I don’t know what the fucks going on man!” He paused and took a breath before speaking up again in his whisper like tone “This can’t be a flu man, we got cannibal people with sickly grey skin running around eating anything that moves!” I felt my stomach clench up in fear at where he was going with this. “I-I was opening the shop when....Oh god why!” The line went silent for a long while.
Eventually, I found the will to speak again. “Marty? You still there?” I heard heavy breathing on the other line, signifying he was indeed still alive.
“Y-Yeah I’m still here. One of those t-things bit me when I was opening up the shop. I managed to barricade myself and Samantha in but I’m not feeling too well. Do you know wha-” The line went silent for another long while. I heard Marty’s phone drop to the ground, quickly followed by agonizing screams from the owner of the phone “AUgh, AAAHHH, waugh!” After a few sporadic sounds his screams, the screams turned into wails, after that, they became high pitched hungry sounds that to me didn’t sound human.
Then I heard it. I heard Samantha in the background. “Marty? Is everythi-” then the sound of the phone shattering was heard. I started to lose it mentally and I looked outside to see some random grey people stumbling around the early hours of the morning.
I started to think Marty was just pulling a joke on me for the time I accidentally burnt him,but there was no luck in that, I saw a few of the grey people start dashing for a woman who was on her cellphone on the sidewalk adjacent from my apartment.
I rushed over to my gun closet. ‘Thank god they license automatic guns in Pennsylvania.’ I thought as I pulled out an m16 and two desert eagle pistols. Grabbing a few extra clips and my lucky beret I kicked open my door, gun at the ready. It was silent, too silent.
I started carefully making my way through the halls, looking around the corners before making my way through them.
‘Empty, empty, empty..’ Something didn’t feel right, as I passed through the hallways and made my way to the stairs, everything continued to remain silent. No crying babies, no screaming people, what was going on? ‘Do they still think its only a flu?’ I wondered to myself as I made my way to the staircase. I got closer and spied a large quantity of blood caked on the ground, the few bodies there were lying against walls without heads or in the middle of the hallway as guts, ‘Hey look, I think that guy just stole a spleen.’ Dammit those jokes were getting to me.
Facepalming myself, I carefully started my descent to the first floor of the apartment complex. I peered outside, none of those sickly grey bastards were in sight so, of course, I snuck outside and, like a paranoid moron, looked in all directions multiple times before continuing.
I was about halfway to the shop when I heard some inhuman moans from behind me, I turned around in time to see a grey female dart towards me. I quickly pulled up my m16, but I wasn’t fast enough and the woman smacked it away from me. She stopped for a second before trying again, this pause gave me enough time to pull out my pistol and shoot her directly in the face. She fell down immediately and didn’t get back up.
I started hearing more moans heading in my direction, so instead of face them I decided to pick up my m16 and make a dash for the shop. I was about a block away anyway.
…..Big mistake assuming I could avoid the undead running towards there. Now I was inside the shop with about twelve of those Green Flu bastards outside banging on the boarded up windows. The lights to the shop were burnt out so I had to use the flashlight attachment for my m16. ‘Gotta love paranoia and its force of habit to prepare for anything and everything.’ I thought as I turned the corner into the backroom. I was greeted by the site of a grey Marty devouring the head of Samantha. I managed to not be noticed by it as I hopped immediately behind a corner as soon as I caught sight of what was before me.
I started mumbling to myself. “Shit shit shit! C’mon think Bill! Shoot him or let yourself die. Okay you know two things: one, This alleged ‘Green Flu’ ain’t a goddamn flu. Two, your best friend is eating his wife.” I thought over what I just said again. “Well fuck me..” I turned back around to see that both bodies were gone, I started getting nervous wondering where they went.
I looked down to see the blood trails leading off into the open backdoor.
I sighed in relief thinking that the ‘thing’ must’ve taken Samantha’s body out of here and won’t be coming back soon.
...I sighed too early, the sound of crashing in the front windows came loud and clear, prompting me to run like hell.
A/N: Alright guys! The next chapter will continue this story of ours!
A Tragedy is a Sin Gift Wrapped in silk
********** 6 hours after infection, POV Bill ***********Pant* *pant* I managed to get away from that group of infected, I managed to escape and lose them in the housing districts. I got to a fairly small one story house and hid there. Everything fell silent except for my panting.
To put it bluntly, everything was covered in blood. I had looked up for only a second and at first it looked as though the people that lived there liked the color red for their walls and ceilings. Nope. All of it was blood that had been splattered across everything.
I started to look around, check for other infected things that could’ve been in the house with me. When I found nothing there, I decided to board up the houses doors and windows, being as quiet as possible.
I had just finished up the repairs when I suddenly heard ghastly moans coming from a closet. ‘Dammit I forgot to check the closets and bathrooms.’ Sighing, I got my gun ready and aimed it towards the closet in question.
The moans were now getting annoying and slightly louder, I thought to myself, ‘wonder what poor bastard tried to hide in a closet.’ I was met by the site of an elderly woman that must’ve been in her 70’s. There was an oxygen mask and an oxygen tank.
The woman made a demonic screech before sprinting towards me, without hesitation, I pulled the trigger and sent twelve bullets at her; Ten of the bullets hit her directly in the chest at random parts, one hit her in the left knee, and the final one hit straight in the neck. She fell over dead as soon as the final bullet hit.
After checking and confirming that there was no infected left in the house, I holed myself up in the bedroom. I used the previous owners bed for my nights sleep there.
************************
I awoke to a sudden sound coming from my pocket ‘wait, sound. My god, I forgot about my cell phone, wonder who it is.’ I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see the name of the last number I ever thought would be on there. “Wade.....”
I picked up the call as soon as I uttered his name and spoke fast “Wade? Is that you? Are you okay?”
I stopped my questions when I heard a crying, frantic, woman on the other side of the phone...
********** 48 Hours after infection, POV Zoey **********
It was dinnertime in my family's old home near the center of Pennsylvania; I had returned home for the holidays and everything seemed to be going off like it usually did. Meaning dad would go on about how I should join the police force. When that didn’t work, he just talked about the latest horror films and some of the past ones we watched together when I was younger. Well, that and all the times dad took me to the gun ranges, but back then he still thought I would become a police officer.
Of course, mom would be even worse. She would nag and lecture me over how I’ve let my grades drop and how if I didn’t stop watching those ‘silly’ horror films, she was gonna make me drop out and move back in. Of course, as routine, I told her it was research. She always gave in after a few hours, finding no way to counteract comments like that and let it go for the time being.
Honestly, I would say I’m a horror connoisseur, otherwise known as a horror maniac. I loved horror films to death after my father decided to bond with me using them.
Anyway, we were all having our usual dinner like I said. Things were going better than I thought they would go. That was until I started hearing some kind of ghastly moan from nowhere.
“Guys? You hear that?” I said, putting my fork back on my plate.
“Hear what, honny? I don’t hear anything.” Mom said, confused by my question.
The moan came again, slightly louder this time. “That! It sounds like a zombie or something...”
“Oh my, really Zoey? You should stop watching those horror movies, they’ve finally gotten to you.” She paused, taking a breath before speaking again. “Well, first thing after your break you are getting rid of those films and getting your grades up. Or else.” Mom glared daggers at me for a moment until dad came to the rescue.
“Now hold on a minute dear, I hear it too.” Dad said as he started to get wide eyes.
“What are you both talking abo-” Mom stopped mid sentence, dad dropped his fork and shakily pointed it towards something behind mom. I didn’t get a good look at it at first, but even then I had no doubts as to what it was.
With a cold and deathly screech, it charged for mom. She barely had time to see what it was before screaming in pain as it ate at her neck.
Dad jumped from his seat with his dinner knife, charging for the undead he barked, “Zoey! Get the revolver from under my bed! Quick!”
He dove at the undead creature and started to stab the zombie’s head over and over as it jerked in his arms. I rushed upstairs, afraid to see what was happening. I rushed over to dad’s gun cabinet and jerked it open.
Pulling the revolver out, I quickly managed to fit in three bullets and stuffed the majority of the others in my pocket, a large quantity of them falling to the floor during my haste. I rushed back downstairs to find the undead zombie that bit mom had died, but mom was now gnawing on dads neck.
I aimed the gun towards the empty husk that used to be mom, my eyes got watery as my finger clicked on the trigger, hitting her in the center of her head.
After she fell to the ground, I fired another shot into her skull to make sure, then another. If the gun didn’t have only three shots in it I would’ve been there for hours. But after the first few clicks dad stopped me with a weak breath.
“Zoe, sweetheart.” His eyes were bloodshot and he was crying hard.
“....Y-yeah d-dad?” I was trying my hardest not to cry, but I failed to hold them in and they started pouring out more liquid than the niagara falls
He motioned for me to get close to him and I carefully obliged, with a whispered, hoarse, and very fearful tone, he spoke up. “Zoe, we b-both know whats-s gonna happen. Y-you know what t-to do.......”
I couldn’t stop crying now. I had started to speak extremely fast and I sounded hysterical as dad took in slow, calm breaths. In the end he shushed me and ordered me to do it.
I loaded the revolver so it had all six of its shots, he stopped me from raising the gun when he motioned he had a bit more to say though.
“Zoe, h-here take this.” Dad handed me his cell phone. “H-hit speed dial s-six, a man should be on the other side of the phone that goes b-by the name of Bill. He’ll keep you safe. Now d-do it, before I change my mind and we b-both regret it.”
Nodding to him, through choked tears; I raised the gun to him, “I love you dad.” I whispered as I pulled the trigger, killing my father and stopping him from resurrecting as a zombie.
I fell to my knees crying. For the next two and a half hours, I had only cried, sitting in that same position. After I stopped crying, I noticed it had gotten substantially darker, I remembered what dad had told me to do; and so I opened his cell phone and hit the speed dial button six just like he told me to.
The phone rang for a while but no one had answered, I was worried about ‘if dad’s friend had already died’ and things like that. But I called again just incase. After about three rings, someone had answered the other end of the line.
“Wade? Is that you? Are you okay?” A gravelly voice on the other end said.
I started crying a bit again at the mention of my dad’s name; after taking a few deep breaths, I spoke up. “N-no, he’s d-dead. I’m h-his daughter Zoey.”
The man on the other end stayed silent, I decided to continue. “A-are you, Bill?”
The line was silent for what felt like hours, but turned out to be minutes. Finally, the man on the other end sighed and responded “Yes....Yes I am, are you okay?” He made his voice sound a bit more caring, but I could hear the sorrow in it, if only faintly.
“Yes, I’m okay.”
Bill sighed with what I could only guess is relief before speaking up. “Where are you? What’s the address? I’ll come get you and we can get you out of here.”
“706, North Sweet.” I said, wiping away the tears in my eyes.
“Alright and do you have a weapon on you?”
“Yes, but only my dad’s revolver. I think his shotgun is upstairs too in the gun cabinet still.”
“Good, now the streets are too crowded, so we have to meet up at a halfway point. I’m at 1300 Junction Street so..” He paused taking a breath and what I could only assume as him looking at a map, “Well.... Looks like we have to meet up at the local bar, it’s about two miles to the north of your house, go there, not only will there be a higher chance of other survivors, but it also may be well barricaded and holds a small stock of their own guns.”
I had started up the stairs for the shotgun when he said this, it took me a second to respond, “are you sure it’s wise, Bill? I mean, I don’t think I can make it out there on my own like that.”
Bill spoke up almost immediately, “Well, if you’ve got a better idea that has a better chance at us not dying then I would be happy to hear it.”
I was silent for another minute or so when he spoke up again. “Thought not. Now, do you know where the local bar is?” He asked as he started to pant, I could more or less hear a zombie or two in the background; before I spoke up, I heard gunshots, then Bill continued. “Sorry, zombies got in through the boards.”
“Y-yes. I do know where it’s at, the slum one at the corner of Mars and Gloomy right?” I asked, I had already started to look out the door and windows and saw swarms of zombies in small groups out there everywhere.
“Yes, that’s the one. Go there but use the alleyways; avoid all the main roads if at all possible, and try not getting spotted. These bastards from hell really love sound, ‘specially car alarms.”
********** 56 hours after infection POV Bill **********
Goddamnit! I was running from alleyway to alleyway with about ten zombies right on my tail. I had to blindly shoot behind me and hope I hit them. ‘For god’s sakes, I pray Zoey has a better time getting to the bar then I do.’
I turned to look behind me as I turned the corner to where the bar was located, I saw just about three zombies left. I started to sigh with relief when I remembered there were still zombies after me.
I looked back to my front right as another zombie charged for me, I curved around it and got to the back entrance of the bar, I tried the door but it was jammed shut. “Goddamn, this day just gets better and better.”
I hoisted up my m16 and aimed it towards the four offending zombies. With precision shots, I killed them before they could even get near me.
I heard the sounds of clicking from the bar and guessed Zoey must have made it inside before I got here. I turned around right as a zombie came face to face with me. Everything seemed to slow down as there was no doubt in my mind that the thing would kill me. Then, right before it took a bite out of my skull, the back door shot open and a shotgun loomed in front of me, jamming itself inside the infected’s mouth. It tried to gnaw on the gun and cut through it to get to me, but failed. It squirmed for another few seconds before an audible ‘click’ was heard, right before the sound of the shotgun going off.
I turned around to come face to face with a biker gang looking fellow. He smirked at me and before I could say anything he spoke up. “Happy birthday, old man.”
And a side of what now?!
“What happened then?” Luna asked.
Celestia had lost herself in the story the four survivors were telling, so she didn’t see Luna walk up.
“Luna?! How did you get here?” Celestia asked, confused as to why she came.
“Sister, it’s already time for you to lower the sun, I came by to let you know.”
Realization hit Celestia harder than Mike Tyson could in a fight with a 90 pound weakling. Frantically, she looked out the window to see the sun halfway set, a beautiful twilight formed just barely at its top.
Celestia ran to the open balcony. With a glow from her horn, she lowered the sun.
Luna came up behind her and raised the moon as Celestia lowered the sun, the four humans clueless the entire time.
When Celestia had finished, Bill spoke up in a questioning tone. “Mind telling us what that was?”
With mischief in her eyes she responded, “magic.”
Accepting this as an adequate answer, Bill continued. “So how about we get something to eat before I continue the story?”
“Yeah, I’ve been hungry for some grub since I drank my last cola.” Francis blurted out as he absentmindedly rubbed his stomach.
Ignoring him, Celestia spoke up. “Then I’ll let my sister go inform the cooks we have guests for tonight's dinner.”
“Awwwww... but I wanted to hear the rest of the storyyyyyy...” Luna whined. Celestia just gave Luna a look. As soon as she did, Luna bolted from the room with a “Right away, dearest sister.”
“We shall continue the story another time. Until then, I shall have guards escort you all to proper rooms where you can await for dinner.” Celestia said, a thin smile upon her face.
“Shining armor,” Celestia called out. Shortly after she said this, a white furred guard stepped forth; he had a dark blue mane with a lighter blue streak going through it. He wore an outfit that suggested he was a higher ranking officer as he stood in salute to the princess.
“Yes your majesty?” He responded.
“Take these four and show them where they shall be staying for the time being.”
“Yes princess. Follow me, please.” Shining armor trotted past the four as he almost mechanically lead them through the long corridors.
After a while, they reached a long hallway with a set of six doors on each side. Shining silently opened the first door and turned to them. “This will be one of the rooms you shall be staying in.” Then he continued on to the next three doors doing the same thing.
“A servant will be back here to inform you four when the food is ready.” After that, he left the four in the corridor with the four open doors.
The four of them looked to see each of the rooms were the same with little to no difference in each of them. The beds were almost too small for them, but appeared to be extremely comfortable on first glance. Each room had their own bathrooms as well as a mirror, closet, and dresser.
“What’s gonna happen Bill? I’m worried.” Zoey softly said as she stood by him.
“Whatever it is, let’s hope it ain’t gonna bite us in the rear.” He said as he clenched his fist a bit. “Let’s just get some rest and hope for the best come dinner.”
********** 1 hour later **********
A unicorn dressed in a maid’s outfit cantered across the corridor. Merrily humming away a serene song as she dusted the walls and miscellaneous objects in the corridor.
She passed by and knocked firmly and softly against the doors the four humans were relaxing in.
With a cheery and almost sing song way, she pronounced: “dinner!” Then awaited in front of the doors.
The four wooden doors creaked open at a similar pace as the four came into view. The maid smiled a nervous smile as she saw them and their clothing.
She said in a less sing song and more nerve racked tone, “this way please.” She chuckled nervously as all Francis did was clean his ear with his pinkie, Zoey stretched, Louis yawned and almost skipped, and Bill nodded.
The unicorn took the lead as the rest followed behind. She increased her pace slightly out of nervousness as the others followed in suit, almost too close for comfort for her. She noticed as they walked that the one with the black (leather?!) jacket was cradling his shotgun in his arms. She nervously spoke up, “S-sir, I do believe you might not want to bring that with you.”
Francis looked at her as if she was insane. After a minute or so of this, he laughed like a madman before speaking up. “This? This is just my dinner partner. No one’s convincing me to let this baby go, it’s one of the few things I like!”
The maid refrained from debating about whether Francis could take his shotgun to dinner or not.
Bill only rolled his eyes at Francis and his silly antics. They silently made the rest of their trip to the dining hall silently, except for the small chit chat Bill unsuccessfully tried to make.
After they arrived, the maid departed in a hurry like-way while still trying to maintain a calm and composed look.
Two guards stood at the front of the door and when the maid left sight, they opened the door with surprising ease. It creaked and groaned as it let way to the four survivors. Inside, the princesses were already sitting there with a set of odd silverware and china set out. The seats were just as odd; they looked like chairs that were remodeled to fit ponies. Tt was basically a really short stool.
Shrugging, Francis was the first to sit down on one of them. It creaked and groaned in protest, but stayed nonetheless. The rest soon followed and sat as well. Once they did, Celestia rang a bell with her magic, eliciting a group of ponies dressed as cooks to come into the room with carts of food. The majority of the cooks were ponies, but Bill noticed as a gryphon placed the food down instead of the unicorns.
Bill looked over the banquet they have been gifted with and saw one thing that was missing. He remembered they were not carnivorous or omnivorous creatures; the ponies (at least he assumed so) were herbivorous; But that didn’t stop Francis.
“Hey, what about meat?”
The ponies all stopped what they were doing and stared at Francis as if he screamed murder, and he very well may have. The gryphon looked at him with a slight smile in the thing’s face, probably in a good mood to finding something other than him that eats meat.
The princesses didn’t so much as bat an eye at that question as they sat there, unphased.
Celestia lowered her fork before speaking up. “Apologies, but since we did not know your dietary habits, we hoped it was similar to ours.”
Francis fell back into his seat and muttered. “Fine, you are excused, because it’s a reasonable excuse.”
Celestia spoke up again, “but you may have to give up some of your dietary habits to blend in with the pony society even if only for a temporary time or permanent.”
After Celestia had finished her sentence, Francis’ face grew upset. He uttered a few things to himself and kept taking venomous looks towards everyone and everypony present. The chef’s had just finished placing the food on the table and were quickly retreating to the safe haven of the kitchen against Francis’ death glare. The Gryphon even did so but was a bit hesitant because of Francis and him having something in common; but he left nonetheless.
Francis ungracefully got up from where he was sitting, his face cold stoned upset as he stomped off. He muttered something inaudible to the guard and he just nodded and took Francis somewhere.
Bill coughed a bit and spoke up, “apologies, Francis is just sour about the fact he hadn’t had a good meal in months and even longer since he had meat that wasn’t rotten. He should get over it with time.”
Celestia nodded in agreement as Luna just stared off where Francis had stormed off to.
“Sorry sister, but i’m not hungry as of now, if you all will excuse me,” Luna said as she slowly got up and walked out of the room.
Looking over to where Luna just sat, Bill saw she had barely even touched her food. Shrugging, he went back to eating, oblivious of the night goddess’ plans for the evening.
**********
Luna was now trotting a bit. She assumed Francis would have had the guard lead him to his designated room, to which he can let his anger and frustration out in full force. She knew of what it was like to be misunderstood, to be troubled yet seemingly unnoticed in one’s own inner feelings. She knew of how it was like to go from her own time, like being a world away from it. To a new and different world that one was oblivious to.
She knew, and she didn’t like it...
Luna was now in front of Francis’ door and knocked on it. When she got no response, the Lunar Princess knocked again, this time speaking up. “Francis, may I have a word with you?”
Again no response came. She was beginning to get a tad annoyed but tried again. “Francis, open up.”
Again, nothing, so she finally just let herself in. But when she opened it, no one was inside. It was empty and almost untouched. As if to prove her point a passing guard came by.
“Sorry your majesty but the creature that used this room is out in the gardens. I just took him there myself.” The guard left after giving the regal sister a salute and continued on with his duties.
Muttering inaudibly under her breath, the Lunar Princess left the room and, in a less happy manor, went to the gardens.
Once she arrived, she was met by the sitting silhouette of Francis as he stared up into the night sky. She walked at a slower pace now as she snuck up behind Francis.
Once she was in arms length of Francis, he spoke up. “What happened to dinner?”
“I wasn’t hungry. What about you? I don’t know you, but you don’t come off as the kind of pony to do something like that.” She smiled warmly towards him as she sat down at his side.
“Maybe. Maybe you need to get to know me to find out.” Francis half grunted out. Luna saw him crack a smile slightly as he kept his eyes fixed upon the sky.
“So, care to explain the bout of immaturity you showed earlier?” She faced towards the direction of the sky as she layed down on her stomach.
“Just.. it’s hard to keep up with everything. Having damn near everything taken away forcibly. That’s one thing, but when you get the chance to have some of it back and it’s taken away as well, this time less forcefully, anyone would get upset.” He sighed as he laid down on his back; he yawned and stretched a bit before speaking up again. “I just need some time, I need to adapt if I don’t want to go back to before we ended up here.”
Nodding silently, Luna accepted his reasoning. She mused a bit on what he had said; how similar it was to her thoughts. It was similar to when she first was freed from Nightmare Moon’s control.
She thought of how mysterious Francis seemed, how thick headed he appeared on the outside. But she could almost see something more inside him, far deeper but just in reach enough to catch a glimpse of.
Before she could continue with her thought process, Francis spoke again. “The night here sure is beautiful. Lot better than our nights, even before everything that happened, happened.”
Luna blushed a bit. “Thanks. Many ponies don’t appreciate what I do with the night. It’s usually taken for granted, even days like today.” She looked towards Francis as he started to get up from where he was laying.
Brushing off the excess dirt and plant life from his clothes, he spoke up. “Well, it’s getting late.” He smiled a bit more openly towards Luna.
She got up and smiled back. “Yes, of course. May you have pleasant dreams Francis. Goodnight.”
The two went their separate ways as both of them seemed a bit more optimistic than before they spoke to each other.
A beacon for the undead
****** somewhere nearby Canterlot ******
The morning dawn shined in as the world seemed to slowly awaken. A small few critters were crawling around on the mountain bushes and trees that seemed to be randomly placed about.
One such bunny was chewing on a very tasty berry from the bush in front of it. Gnawing happily as it took in bit by bit in a speedy manor, it seemed content with its day already.
That is, until it became frightened. A fairly decent amount of portals started to open up and a small amount of zombies stumbled through, falling in random directions. All except for one, this one was different somehow, it’s eyes, instead of pure empty white, showed fiery red as they swirled inside its head. Its body was vastly different from the others and seemed more edged and sharp. It seemed more than just an empty husk, like the others were and stood in place, watching the others fumble about on their feet.
This zombie seemed to have some very witch like claws, only they seemed more scaled and withered in a natural like way. Each arm that followed up showed similar patterns, as well as sharp, jagged edges where its elbows and shoulder joints connected. The creatures head was shaped like that of a humans that ended once the back of the undead’s head was seen. Instead of hair, or just a plain scalp, the creature had spikes pulling like a part of itself backwards. The center of the spikes was clear and at first appearance, looked like a closed eye.
It spoke up with a haunting and angry voice. “Fiiiind the ooonnneeeessssssss....” It hissed, pointing off in the direction of Canterlot, eyes glowing its sinister red.
The group of zombies stumbled off in the general direction now, hungry for flesh with a purpose unknown.
********** Canterlot Castle **********
Francis had his head buried into his pillow, arm lazily hanging on the side of the bed. His snoring was abhorrent and obnoxious, loud enough to rattle the lamp that was precariously placed near the edge of the small table.
A soft wind was aiding in the disbalance in the lamp, it wobbled side to side until it sat amazingly stable at a slight angle.
The door swung softly open as a maid trotted in, the wind current from the opening door caused the lamp to become unbalanced once again and it fell straight to the floor. The loud crash surprised the young maid and caused her to yelp and fall onto her haunches. This in turn, sent Francis’ once calm mind into a rocketing mess of surprise as he fell onto his face on the solid floor below.
With an exasperated groan, Francis got up and rubbed the bridge of his nose as a distinct bruising started on his forehead.
Giving an annoyed look to the maid, she smiled sheepishly before speaking up. “Sorry.”
She started to take her leave when she remembered what she came into Francis’ room to do. She turned back to him and smiled the same smile once again. “Sorry again, but breakfast is in ten minutes and the others are already awake,”
As Francis nursed his head, he muttered a gruff, “fine” before looking back to the accursed lamp. “Ain’t you gonna clean it up?”
The maid pony physically face hoofed at her forgetfulness and walked over and started to pick up the broken lamp pieces with her magic. When Francis showed no signs of leaving the room, the maid spoke up. “Are you not going to breakfast?”
“Not yet, wanted to think some. Maybe clean my shotgun a bit before going to breakfast.” Francis pulled out a fairly used cloth, picked up his shotgun, and began to wipe down the barrel.
The maid quickened her cleaning pace before rushing out the door.
********** 5 miles outside Canterlot **********
A stallion was pulling a fairly creaky wagon along. Rather, it seemed more fitting that he was ‘dragging’ it along as it creaked and sputtered in denial. The stallion was a plain dark blue with a white mane.
The stallion grunted in ire as he thought to himself. ‘Dammit, why did the wheel have to give out now? It was the last spare I had’.
He continued to complain in his head in extreme annoyance when a distant, hellish moan erupted nearby. He stopped and looked around. When he saw nothing, he continued on his path, slowly dragging along the chunk of wood that was his wagon.
That is, until he heard more hellish moans coming from behind the wagon back the way he came. He looked behind himself to see something that caused him extreme trepidation. A small group of beings he thought came from Tartarus itself. The one leading in front had a missing jaw, it filled the stallion with so much dread as the being charged at him in a speedy pace.
The stallion fumbled with the restraints that connected him with the wagon but kept losing grip. The zombie was now at least three feet away as it maliciously chased down it’s meal.
It tripped over a rock that was meticulously, and most ironically, in it’s way. The zombie fell to the ground with a ‘thud’ and the stallion managed to unhook himself. He started to think he would make it when two other zombies that were trailing shortly behind the lead zombie, were now sprinting faster towards him.
In the heated moment, the stallion managed to run with god like magnitude in the opposite direction, just barely fast enough to keep away from their teeth. The stallion was completely adrenaline fueled and failed to notice as he was being boxed in and sent to the left for whatever reason.
He didn’t do so much as think other than the ‘getaway’ thought. He failed to notice until he reached two rather close together trees, but once he squeezed through them, he realized just how screwed he was.
On the other side of the two tree’s was............
“A bucking cliff, shit.” The exasperated stallion looked over the edge to see a huge drop onto solid ground. No water. No hope.
The moans behind him started to sound like joyous ones as the Tartarus like beasts closed in on their prey.
Weighing his options quickly, the stallion decidedly jumped off the edge of the cliff, hoping for a less painful death. ‘Or at least a quicker one’.
He tumbled and hit the cliff a few times, painfully stabbing into him. He cried out breathlessly in pain. He started to choke on his lack of oxygen. He was going too fast to breathe and he was now even more terrified. But his prayers of a quick death was answered as his haunches met with the cold, dusty ground at the bottom of the cliff; his blood and guts splattered across the ground, marking where he once lived for but a mere millisecond.
End Game
The survivors and two alicorn princess’ were finishing up breakfast, chit chatting on random and odd subjects.
It came to an abrupt halt as a unicorn guard slammed through the doorway. He was hurt and bleeding in many areas, others had bite marks. He spoke with tormented and ragged breathing.
“My princess’! The city is under attack! Some kind of creatures that walk on two legs. They.....We managed to find that they die from a good attack to the head but they have entered the city!” The guard started to catch his breath and two more came in after him.
“Guards, help this one to the medical wing and inform Shining Armor to have a battalion of the guards ready to go asap.” Celestia bellowed in her regal voice, strained with worry and dread.
One of the guards helped the unicorn as he limped out, the other ran out faster with a purpose of informing Shining of his new orders.
Francis’ features turned grim slightly. He carefully lifted his shotgun from under the table where it was meticulously lain. He started to walk out the way the guards left from when Bill spoke up.
“Francis, wait! Stop. We need a plan.” Bill pleaded with a commanding voice.
Francis just cocked his shotgun and said: “This is my plan: ain’t nothing undead gonna survive when I’m around.” He continued, unwavered as he got closer to the door.
Bill had leapt from his seat already and stopped Francis with a hand on his shoulder. He spoke up in a more parental and soothing voice, almost apologetic. “We need a plan. We can’t have things turn out like the nuclear facility.....”
Francis just jerked his shoulder away in frustration and responded. “We got a new life that is going to be devoid of undead. Now it’s being threatened before we even enjoyed it yet. Things won't be like then, I promise.” He made it out of the room and down the corridor in a quickened pace as he aimed to kill all zombies.
He reached the door leading to the courtyard, and in a muttered tone, he said: “I may hate horses, but I love ‘em a helluva lot more than zombies,” and with that, he kicked the door open and stepped out into the surprisingly chaotic-less day.
********** At the edge of Canterlot
Bodies lay about on the ground, some being picked at and nibbled on by undead, some just left to rot. The royal guard was being forced back as they shot bolts of magic and spears out towards the merciless zombies.
It was too little an accomplishment as they were still forced back by the numbers; even more so when most of their attacks had not killed the undead and merely stunned them shortly.
Everyone that was not a guard was taken back from the edge of Canterlot and moved safely further in. Few stayed and tried to aid the guard in protecting the fearful citizens that lay beyond the wall of the grand castle.
The left flank was being held with a unicorn leading them, clad in traditional celestial armor. He had a coat as green as a forest, with a mane as grey as graphite. He gave off this impression of leadership and showed it off by his vigilant eyes, making sure no cracks were in his line of defense.
“To the right! Two running up. One on the left, Jolly!” He barked. The guards followed his orders and kept alive by his eagle eye sight. One of the guards, more meek and helpless, stood next to him, merely making a few comments about the situation.
“Uhm, captain Eye Spy? I d-don’t think we can keep this up forever. M-maybe we should think about g-getting to safety?”
“I know what I’m doing, Fresco. Two on the left! We got three coming up the middle! I want two taking position over there!” Eye barked at a few nervous guards. Things were going to shit and he was going to be at the fine line keeping it at bay. He felt he was fighting a losing battle, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he could to defend the ponies of canterlot.
One of the fatter, stronger zombies managed to get a few preoccupied guards. It’s teeth shining off of the light out it charged towards Eye Spy at alarming speeds, its maw dripping with fresh blood.
Eye wasted no time and charged back at the demonic thing; his horn started glowing, alight with a deadly spell. The undead tripped as he got into range and its jaw fell into the horn, his teeth ready to crunch down on it.
Only......that never came; Eye Spy had fired off his spell as soon as his horn was enclosed by the zombie’s mouth and the back of the undead’s head erupted in magic, blood, and brain matter. It fell limp and he shoved the thing off. He looked around to see many of his guard’s already needed help, for most it was too late.
He attempted to save the ones he could from there, but it seemed to only delay their inevitable ends. He kept this up for minutes. Not until he noticed he was one of only a handful left did he finally see they failed, they had not kept the creatures back and it wouldn’t be long until the city was infested.
He was completely surrounded and it seemed for every one he killed, three more came to take their fallen brethren’s place. One rather pesky zombie managed to get close enough and grab hold of Eye Spy. The others were being forced back, too far to help him. He closed his eyes as he awaited the pain of death to come at him in full force.
The sound that was like a supercharged thundercrack sounded out. Eye Spy kept his eyes closed as he heard an odd sound following it, ‘chk-chk’.
After a few more thundercracks with that same sound quickly following it, he opened his eyes slowly to see that some of the undead had completely lost their heads, including the one about to eat him.
He turned and saw the strangest looking creature he ever laid eyes on. It looked like one of those creatures attacking, but different. This one was clad in a thick black leather jacket, he had these cutie mark looking things on his arms and held a metallic object in both his hands. He looked down at Eye while reloading the metal object with more smaller objects. These ones round and red with a hint of yellowish copper.
The creature spoke: “‘less you want to die, I suggest getting off your pony ass and start killing.”
The creature smacked an undead away with the butt of his object and then turned it around and clicked the trigger of it. It alighted and shot off a large amount of metal objects, effectively turning their head’s to something resembling swiss cheese.
Francis kept firing into the endless waves and soon, similar sounds came from behind, there were three others that were similar looking and had similar metal weapons.
Eye thought to himself. ‘When this is over, I have to figure out how those things work.’ As he shot a zombie’s legs off, it started to crawl furiously towards him. It reached out its hand just as he lifted his hoof up and brought it down, caving in the rather useless lump of meat that was its head. Brain matter stuck to his hoof as he shot off at more.
They seemed to lessen in number. It was a great relief for the captain to see this, but it wasn’t just that. They seemed to be purposefully falling back. What does a mindless creature gain from falling back?
He didn’t have time to question it further in his head as a very sharp, very metallic hand, jabbed straight through his chest.
Eye looked down and saw his blood drip out slowly, his organs sprawled out under him, two tears fell from his eyes both at almost the exact same time. He muttered one final word: “Fuck...” and the metal clawed hand pulled out of him as he collapsed on the ground.
The four survivors turned to where Eye Spy had fallen to see the impossible. It’s skin was such a dark grey it almost looked like smoke, it’s mouth was covered with a breathing mask connected to nothing. Its left arm looked like it’s right, only the left was made of metal and reflected in the daylight. Its face was all but gone and its legs were just bone, but it didn’t stop this zombie, not in the least.
With a demonic cry, it charged the survivors in a blind fury. Louis shot frantically at the thing, but the things skin was hard enough that the bullets just seemingly bounced off of the thing, leaving nothing but a few scrapes.
The zombie collided into Louis and sent him back against a wall, he fell to the ground as the others started firing off at it.
Bill spoke up, his voice commanding and strong. “Dammit! Get away from him, you unholy bastard!”
It turned around and roared out as bullet after bullet bounced off of it. The demonic zombie charged Francis this time, faster than when he charged Louis. It was getting closer and closer and Francis just stood there with his shotgun in his hands, he was unwavered by the sight of what might be his demise.
The monstrous thing was now only a few feet away from him; this triggered Francis into action. He outstretched his arm holding his shotgun and once it hit directly against the zombie’s face, he pulled the trigger.
The resounding shot sent it flying backwards into the ground. It grabbed at it’s right eye which was bleeding profusely. It started to get up when Francis stepped onto its chest and fired off at the creature’s other eye. This time a loud crack was heard and blood pooled at the back of the sightless undead’s head.
It lay motionless on the ground, unmoving after that last shot.
The zombies that had backed off seemed organized now that the survivors could stop and take a look at their surroundings. They were in a formation that almost seemed familiar to Bill and it disconcerted him at the sight of it.
But soon, a creature much like the previous one with metal enhancements, came walking up in a formal manner. The survivors clutched their weapons and prepared for the worst of it when the zombie stopped a few feet away, just safely out of reach of them.
This one pointed a bony finger at the four and, in an eerie and wretched voice, “Cooorrrrruuuupppptttt oonnnnnneeeeessssssss. Weeeeeeeee waaaaaaaannnnnt yoouuuuuuu...........” It stopped and took in a deep breath before screaming out in fury, “Deeeaaaaaaaddd!”
Final standoff
The zombies came at endless waves. They refused to let up and the survivors had to fall back into the city. Shining armor had arrived as they managed to clear another wave of undead, their weapons nearly diminished at the endless horde.
Shining had a rather sizeable armed militia and royal guardsmen with him, all with mixed emotional states due to the enemy. Word was Celestia was evacuating the citizens, but she needed time, something she may not have the leisure to afford.
“You must be the infamous Shining Armor. Did I hit the nail on the head?” Louis said as he reloaded his pistols. “Damn, only two clips left. How about the rest of you?”
“One clip.” Bill said as he reloaded his m16.
“Just what’s left in these two.” Zoey said.
“Maybe a good 6 shells if we’re lucky.” Francis said.
“Fuck, we’re so screwed.” Louis said. The faint sounds of another wave of rotting undead was heard in the distance.
“Weapons at the ready!” Bill said as he aimed down his sights.
They waited, ready for anything. The ground ahead of them erupted and a large force of undead started to flood out of it.
The survivors shot into the crowd of flesh eating monsters, the guards providing support with spears and magic.
The front few started to fall like grass to a wildfire and some of the ones following close behind stumbled over and fell onto the ground. Some even dying from the impact of it.
It did little but temporarily halt their movement for but a moment. Bill was the first to hear the unsatisfactory click of his gun. He tossed it away and turned to Shining.
“Spear.”
Shining tossed him a spear that seemed a bit sharper than the others. Bill stood back and waited for the undead to get close as the rest of the survivors heard the similar resounding click that created dissatisfaction among them.
Francis was the second one to end up in this situational moment. Instead of tossing his gun away, he turned it around and held it like he would a bat, getting ready to charge the motherfuckers that would dare make him waste his last shell. Soon Zoey and Louis followed with their empty weapons and they got spears as well, tossing away the useless metal.
This wave was nearly done with, only a handful of zombies left standing. The next wave could already be heard in the distance and Bill made a note to finish these ones off quickly.
**********
Most of the flying carriage’s were now filled with the citizens, and even the princesses, as they readied for departure.
Celestia told one of the pegasi to leave and inform the group to fall back for a final evacuation with the last remaining carriages. Slowly, the filled carriages finally took off, gaining great altitude at a decent pace. The citizens watched in horror as they finally got a good look at the city of Canterlot, or what was left of it.
The city had smoke erupting from a good amount of housing districts. The citizens were less shocked at that as they were at the sight of what seemed like a giant green wave crashing in towards one single point.
**********
Things were heating up. Zombies started coming in left and right and it wasn’t just wave after wave now, it was one huge horde coming in all at once.
The number of able bodied ponies started to rapidly decrease with the increase of undead. One of them even tried to turn and run, only to get trapped against a wall and ten zombies.
One zombie started to come from above. It jumped like a hunter from rooftop to rooftop as it watched the survivor’s, waiting for a moment to strike. The only problem was that it wasn’t a hunter, it looked like a mad scientist took a hunter, a witch, and a regular infected, and just started mashing them together until something came out that resembled another being.
It licked its lips as it saw Zoey separate a bit from the group to take down a singled out zombie. The agile zombie took the opportunity and jumped down at Zoey, knocking her to the ground. Her weapon was thrown away from her and she screamed out for help as the undead started to claw at her arms.
A spear went flying off and hit the thing in its arm. It cried in pain, jumping back to its perch above. The thing took the spear with it in its arm, jerking and twitching with muscle contractions.
Zoey got back up to her feet, her arms scraped and bled, but not mortally so. She got her spear and jabbed it into an oncoming undead.
The group had fallen back and was only half the number it started with. What started as a group of at least fifty guards was now a group of twenty at best. The group kept a good and stable fight pattern to keep from losing any more, and it was effective for the most part.
One pegasi came flying in as Bill killed two zombies. He seemed slightly distressed and spoke really fast and loud to make sure everypony heard him.
“Get to the castle! That’s your escape. Everypony’s gotten out and you’re the only one’s left. You have an hour before we are ordered to leave you all behind. See you all there.” And like that, the pegasi flew back the way he came.
“You heard ‘em boys! We get to the castle or we get to killing the dead!” Shining announced as he started for the direction of the castle. Things seemed easy...Too easy.
********** five minutes later
Undead were crowding in from all sides. The survivors and the few guards were backed against a corner, fighting for their lives.
“Dammit! You had to make us take the left road! I told you it was right Bill, not left.” Shining griped as he jabbed his spear into another zombie.
“Just focus on making a path through ‘em! We need to make this fast if we want to make any leeway.” Bill grunted as he kicked two away from him.
They spent minute after minute gaining little ground as the endless undead refused to break formation. Some more dead that looked much like the ones Zoey got attacked from started to come in as well. Bouncing off the walls after their prey.
One of them pounced off of a low hanging pole onto one of the guards and tore at his throat before he could even react. The undead jumped away before a spear could pivot the center of the undead’s head. Instead, the spear aimed for the agile undead’s head reached past into two zombies that were practically in tow with one another.
Shining and a few of the unicorns took it upon themselves to try and take down the more agile undead while the rest guarded them and pushed the wall of zombies back. They easily dropped like flies as the magical blasts pierced cleanly through their skins with precision. The agile zombie’s fell back and ran while the wall of ‘dead-meat’ dwindled and thinned out as well. The dead had slowly come to a halt in numbers as the survivors and guards made short work of them.
The last one fell with a distinct ‘crack’ from the force of a spell that pushed it into a solid wall. They made a mad dash out of the corner they had recently been forced to and back to the turnoff point. The streets were so empty now that it made the survivors uneasy. It couldn’t have been the last undead, there were so many it was hard to believe that was it. Something wasn’t right and that new talking zombie was getting to Bill.
‘How the hell did that thing speak?! And what could that thing be planning? Shit, I don’t know anything other than it want’s us dead.’ Bill hoped to the heavens they could get away alive, he knew they needed to get to the castle soon or it would be too late for them to live.
Minutes passed with the group on edge. The zombies had just stopped coming and they were both relieved and fearful. A leader of zombies couldn’t be good; Zoey started to fall behind the rest of the group as fatigue took over her. The group made it to a rather low hanging bridge when a loud roar seemed to split the city in two. A large chunk of rock from the street came flying and hit the ceiling to the bridge. Louis and Zoey were caught on the outside of it while the others were caught on the inside, a few unlucky guards getting caught and flattened in the middle amongst the rubble.
Francis bellowed in fear and anger. “No! Goddamnit no, we need to get back.” Francis started to breathe faster and the others were not looking at him. Bill put his hand on Francis for comfort.
Louis’ voice was barely audible from the other side of the rubble, “Hey!........Don’t......ait!....eet us at the castle!”
Francis ignored Louis’ almost inaudible words as he tried to move the rocks out of the way. Bill didn’t try to stop him.
Francis did stop when he heard Zoey’s voice on the other side. “We’ll be fine Francis! Just go. We’ll......you there!”
Francis did nothing but stand there. He turned back to the others, his face was stone cold and less playful than it had been when they usually faced the zombie hordes. “Let’s get this over with,” and like that, he started back the way ahead of them.
********** Zoey & Louis
The others had left, Zoey could tell. She turned back and watched as Louis stabbed another zombie in the face. They knew they wouldn’t be making any leeway anytime soon. The sound of an angry tank was heard in the distance behind the mass of undead just starting to form up and they both knew it was fruitless to try and take one on without their guns, or at least a molotov cocktail.
They wanted to make sure the others would have hope, since that’s all they could give them now.
“Well, if we’re going down, lets take some of these fuckers with us!” Zoey said as she grabbed her spear and aimed it at a zombie that was particularly fatter than the rest. “C’mon you fat bastard, you’re going to have to work for this meal!” And she ran at it.
********** Francis & Bill
The deserted alleyways and streets only added to Francis’ and Bill’s worries as they moved closer to the castle. They couldn’t help but hope the other two had beat them there, but that hope was shattered as they got in sight of the castle gates. The front doors were shattered and pegasi guards were laying dead left and right.
One in specific was still barely alive, he was leaned against a wall and Bill noticed it was the same one that gave them the information earlier.
The pegasus coughed up some blood onto the ground and looked at the group with a waned and sad, yet accepting smile. “H-hey, heh. You made it. *cough* Sorry we couldn’t.....*cough* *hack* couldn’t roll out the welcome carpet for you. The dead came with some weird one with a scary voice leading ‘em. *cough*” The guard slowly started to lose it and hallucinate from the lack of blood. “Hey, heheh, three of *cough*......There’s three of you sir Shining.” The pegasus muttered something inaudible as his final breath left him. He slumped down onto the ground, dead.
Bill looked through the shattered doorway and saw that there was only a handful of zombies shuffling about. He held his spear tight and readied to charge them, but found it unnecessary. Francis had already rushed past him with his shotgun ready to whack the undead into submission. It took but a minute, maybe two tops.
Francis got a good swing in and sent the first in circles where it landed in a sitting position against the wall. The rest of them were now alert to his presence and turned to attack him. Francis swung his shotgun in an upwards motion and sent the second zombie reeling backwards, it crashed and stumbled on the third one. Before the two undead could go back and attack the zombies, the biker swung his weapon in an arc where it connected with both of their heads, slamming them into the ground. The fourth one got a bite into francis’ left arm, erecting a cry of pain from him. Bill had stepped in and caught up with the survivor and speared the zombie in the face, causing it to relinquish its hold on Francis’ arm.
Francis muttered “Thanks” before going off ahead. The smell of death and voided bowels now wafted through the air.
The rest of the corridors were filled with the same, small-ish packs of idle zombies. That or ones that were focused on the flesh of their hard earned meal of pegasi meat. They repeated the pattern, mixing different tactics to what the undead were focused on at that moment in time. After at least ten grueling minutes passed, they finally made it to the gardens where the carriages were supposedly at. Bill whispered to Shining as they entered the garden courtyard. “You sure your unicorn soldiers can use a spell to get us out of here on those things?” Bill didn’t question the guard captain but he was still worried it wouldn’t work.
“Of course we can! Just clear the area and we can get out of here.” Shining whispered back.
They got to the open area the carriages would be at.......
......To find them completely destroyed, shards and bodies strewn about like someone just spilled a box of crayons on the ground, broke them in half, then kept breaking them. A large amount of the horde of undead were in the area or wandering away from it, but near the center of the wreckage was a whole other story. The strange and bony (rather ancient like) zombie was there laughing eerily in a haunting manner.
But then good news began to shine through; a single flicker of hope. There was but one carriage left. One left untouched by the wandering rotting monsters that stumbled in random formations.
The zombie with the eerie and echoed voice yelled out. “Cooooorrrruppppt oonnnnneees! Yoooooouuuu arrrrrreeeee nnnneeeaaaar! I can smeeeeeeeeellllll the hoooooopppppe iiiiinnnn yourrrrrrrrrrr ssssooooooouuuuuuullllllssss!!!”
Francis clenched his fist on his empty shotgun so hard the handle started to crack. He saw two lumps that were mostly untouched near the undead’s feet. Two unforgettable lumps that made him burn with a hate hell could not conceive.........
...........The bodies of Louis and Zoey.
Bill didn’t recognize, at first, the two broken and tattered lumps near the zombies feet. But after a minute or two, he finally realized. “My god...”
The two dead bodies were chewed at and ripped in certain areas. Zoey had a missing arm, blood still pooling fresh as the wound is. Her soulless eyes stare at the infinite expanse above. Her left leg was ripped up and large chunks of it were missing in different intervals. Her right ankle was torn off and the bone jutted out, stabbing into the earth. Her tendons were clearly splayed out on the grass below her which had long since stained crimson.
Louis............ was much worse.
Louis had half of his head smashed in, sizeable chunks of cinder sticking out from it. His left arm was broken and hung by the few tendons that had not been bitten through. His other arm seemed more intact with only a few bite marks in them. His clothes were nearly completely torn to shreds with claw marks and such like it. His stomach was devoid of any organs whatsoever as it now looked like a hollowed out red, wet cave. His lower half was completely devoid of any form of skin or muscle as it was just pure bone. Bits of saliva and red drips of blood were all that remained on them. His eye sockets were devoid of the soulless eyeballs that would have been looking straight at the one zombie that seemed to control the rest.
Francis nearly jumped up and ran after the hellspawn that stood there in glee. Bill and a few of the guards held him back though, keeping him quiet so as to not alert them to where they were exactly......yet.
Francis struggled in their grasp, fueled by the endless fire of anger that filled him. He fought and fought in defiance, hoping to end the zombie’s unlife. Francis managed to utter a bit just under his breath. “Just let me go, goddammit... Let me go and smash his fuckin’ skull in, I swear it won’t even be as difficult as you think.”
Bill spoke up in a slightly quieter way. “No. We need to think this through before we get ourselves killed. It’s too late for them and we can take him maybe, but we need a fucking plan if we’re going to have revenge.”
Francis stopped fighting and the force of all those that were holding him back caused him to fall onto his ass, a few tears dropping from his eyes as his breathing became rapid.
“Don’t you think I want the bastard to pay too? We can’t just go in weapons blazing at it or we’ll die before it does.”
“Then what do you plan on doing? Because I ain’t got horseshit other than make the fucker pay.” Francis said. He stood up and wiped a few tears from his eyes as he looked at Bill with a scowl so deep, it ingrained itself into Bill’s brain. They both knew there was no way in hell everyone would be able to get out alive, especially with only one carriage. With any luck, Shining and his men could get out of here, but there wasn’t room for all those that were present and accounted for.
Bill turned to Shining with a solemn and slightly dejected expression. “We’ll hold ‘em off. Just get out of here and don’t worry about us.”
“That’s suicide!” Shining accidentally blurted out a bit too loudly, he covered his muzzle with a hoof. After a second he took it away and spoke in a more quieter tone. “We can’t just leave you! You’ll both certainly die. There’s gotta be another way.”
Shining’s men looked at him with a sad smile. Bill looked at him with a more determined smile while Francis looked at him with a grim and displeased look. It seemed everyone and everypony knew what had to be done and made their pick. Sighing, he picked his spear up with his magic and whispered. “Alright.”
The undead started to spread out and head off in different directions to find the survivors. The lead zombie still stood there by the carriages, watching the shadows for any hint of them. Bill had started to sweat as he gripped his weapon tightly.
“I’ll distract them. You wait for an opening and take it. Understand Francis?”
Francis just gripped his weapon tighter as he stared daggers at the undead he could just barely see. “Yeah....”
Bill snuck through the shadows, trying to make his existence as unnoticeable as possible. It worked for a short while as he made his way around to the other side of the garden and other side of the control-zombie that stood centerfold. It failed when he accidently stepped upon a branch that made a loud snap.
The lead control-zombie turned and faced it with a rotted smile as he willed the undead towards it. Bill stood out of the shadows with his spear in hand. As soon as he did, the undead quickened their pace towards him.
He ran and ducked under a zombie that swung its arms in an arced motion. Bill jabbed his spear upwards and connected it with the undead’s head. It cut cleanly through, almost like Bill was just stabbing into butter.
Two more got into range and Bill stabbed into one while the other one bit into his arm. He cried out and pulled his spear out of the first one, knocking into the other’s head. It stumbled backwards, releasing its grip of his arm and Bill took the opportunity to stab the undead in the head.
More zombies surrounded Bill, obscuring any sight of him by anything outside the circle of undead. Francis, in the meantime, took the opportunity to sneak around the control-zombie and came in close.
Its back was towards Francis so he hoped he had the upper hand in the matter. He was wrong, however, as the undead turned around, two zombies coming up behind Francis.
Francis let his anger overturn his thoughts now that he was seen. The undead laughed in a hollow tone as Francis came charging at him. Francis cocked his weapon back and got ready to swing; Predicting this, the undead brought his hands to guard himself..........
........To receive a spear through his head from behind. Shining armor and his guardsmen snuck up behind the thing while it was distracted by Francis. Unfortunately, the thing was still moving and pulled itself off the spear. In a fury it swung its arms at Francis, whom had reached arm length by now. Francis gained a clean slash into his chest, it was fairly deep and blood dropped out like a cup that was tilted on its side.
He fell to the ground. A few seconds later, the undead control-zombie did as well, twitching. Shining did another stab into the undead’s head to make it stop twitching.
The zombies started to disperse from where Bill was surrounded at. He was fighting pretty much tooth and nail as he killed zombies left and right. Bite marks and missing chunks of skin were on his arms as he held his weapon to the best of his ability. The world around Bill was enclosing with black spots as the blood from his wounds circled him on the ground below. Four more zombies were still focused on him with mindless hunger. Bill made a quick stab at one of the undead’s head’s and got bit on the arm again in the process. The other two bit into his sides and the one to his left pulled away with a rather sizeable chunk of flesh. Shining’s men managed to get to Bill and took down the other three fairly quickly but it was too late. Bill’s blood caked the ground with a crimson shine. Too much was lost and he fell to the ground into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.
The undead were now less orderly and stumbled into one another as Shining and his men got Francis and Bill into the carriage. With a glow of his horn, Shining got the carriage moving and they flew off towards the direction of the nearest village...........
.............................The end?
A/N: One more chapter to wrap it up and that's it. I hope everyone's enjoyed reading this story as much as I have writing it.
The final condolence
It was a bright and sunny day. Birds were chirping happily as they flew from tree to tree, dancing in the embrace of the wind. The clear sound of stone meeting miscellaneous tools bellowed around as the buildings of Canterlot were being repaired. Bodies of the recently undead were still burning away in piles as the guards finished their duty.
Things started to gain normalcy and everypony was just relieved that the short nightmare was ending before it could escalate. Many who died were given proper commemoration for their bravery and sacrifice.
A plot was bought up by the princesses who had the dead buried there, all those mares, stallions......
.......and humans.
There was a clear bird’s eye view to the graveyard from Celestia’s room. As of late, she spent at least one hour every day just staring at the new graveyard. Four graves in specific she seemed to eye every detail of.
The four graves had a stone plaque in front of it. It appeared to be older than the graves, but that could be debated for another time. The plaque on the stone was inscribed with the Celestial and Lunar seals to show importance for what it had to say.
The four strangers of another place entirely. They gave their lives for a country that was not their own. Let their sacrifice never be in vain.
Let them never be forgotten.
Even though that plaque was constructed, few took much more than a glance at it as they went to mourn their own losses.
Though those that did were the ones that had been there for the most part. Shining and his men remembered to pay a visit to their graves at least once every month where they would just stand in silence, honoring the four humans.
The four graves had their own sayings engraved into the gravestones. It went in line from left to right:
Zoey - “Caring and deadly, she was a selfless and helpful soul. Rest In Peace.”
Louis - “Run or shoot? He never knows. Rest In Peace.”
Bill - “I’ll take a bullet for you not because I’m your friend, but because it’s the right thing to do. Rest In Peace.”
Francis - “I hate zombies, and you better remember that. Rest In Peace.”
The days following were very much going back to normal. Everypony fell back into line with the event falling to the back of their minds, ending up in the dark abyss of the forgotten.
...The forgotten, a place of darkness, yet of light. It’s all knowing faculties holding the secrets that were withheld by those who died with it. Both good and evil secrets, most unimportant, others that could decide the fate of the planet. All just bawled away there.
On the other side of its ever seeing eyes, was somewhere so familiar, yet so different to the first survivors who had been taken by the forgotten.
These were a group of four much like them, three males and one female. The lead man was wearing a nice white suit as he shot a hole into another zombie’s skull. A more thicker black one just batted a redneck looking zombie off of a skinnier, less educated human. The woman was with the man with the white suit and tossed a pipe bomb that started to attract dead like flies to a bug zapper.
The one with the white suit spoke up. “Well shit. Just another day at work.”
The end for real.
A/N: Thank you all who read this story! You guys are amazing. I hope you all liked reading this story just as much as I did writing it and I hope you all a wonderful day. To be clear there is not going to be a sequel for all of you who want one after this.
