Ghostly Haunting Shy Turned Loose

Chapter 2: Sitting up with the Dead

"Fluttershy?"

Rainbow called for her friend, trying to find her. The bright spotlight had disappeared and once more she was in complete darkness. She stumbled forward and a single red light turned on.

"Pss, over here," a voice that sounded like Fluttershy but off called out.

Rainbow neared the voice and she felt the ground get soft. Suddenly she couldn't run, she couldn't move fast at all.

"Aww poor Dashie... you're slower than a snail..."

"Fluttershy?!"

The light dimmed and before she could react a form appeared. Her eyes were glowing red, the maid outfit was pin striped, and her teeth looked like fangs.

Dash screamed as Demonshy's hair turned to pink snakes and lifted her up. She felt them slither under her jeans, ripping them apart.

"Hmmm, always wanted to taste the rainbow, bahahahaha!"

The voice sounded like a man's and not like Fluttershy at all. Demonshy neared her, a forked tongue slithered out of her mouth, and Rainbow desperately tried to get loose, to touch the geode that helped her become superfast, but the weird pink snakes that was once Fluttershy’s hair was keeping her perfectly in place. She heard the material rip, her jeans fell to the ground, and she felt something wet and slimy touch her leg.

“You know, it’s been a while, at least about thirty years, but I’ve got to imagine that it’s just like riding a bicycle. It’s something you just don’t forget,” the man’s voice said.

Rainbow struggled as the snakes began moving under her baseball jersey. Whatever it was that had gotten into Fluttershy was a whole lot stronger than she was. She tried to hold onto the jersey. She felt the snakes flexing under it, widening out again, stretching the material, and then there was loud banging on the door.

“We heard screaming, everyone okay?” Sunset’s muffled voice cried out.

“HELP!!!” Rainbow shouted.

She found a snake enter her mouth and clamp down on her tongue. She wanted to cry out again, but the pink snake was making certain that couldn’t happen. At the same time she began to feel drowsy. It was odd, but something was making her want to fight less. Sleeping sounded like a wonderful idea, and it was all she could do in order to keep her eyes open. Her vision began to get darker, and she felt her consciousness beginning to slip away. Darkness had almost completely clouded her vision before a chill passed by her. Suddenly there was an echoing voice from the middle of nowhere. Rainbow could barely hear it, but no sooner had it said the same words that Fluttershy had said earlier than the door swung open, the snakes disappeared, and Rainbow fell to the ground.

Sunset ran over to Rainbow Dash first. She found that her athetetic friend seemed to be covered in some kind of slimy mucus, but it wasn’t just that. She felt cold, almost like the very life had nearly been sucked out of her. She turned to see Fluttershy who was kneeling in place. Her eyes were vacant, and she was wearing some strange pin striped maid outfit. She wanted to ask what was going on, but first they needed to move the both of them out of the room. To his credit Dusk Shine quickly helped in moving both girls. Once they were down stairs he found some clean, but stale, wash cloths to clean up Rainbow with.

Sunset noticed that he kept looking at Fluttershy, and she wondered what it was that bothering him other than the fact that she seemed to be so non-responsive. Dusk moved toward her, gently touching her shoulder, and there wasn’t any kind of response. Sunset would have expected her to at least pull away, but there wasn’t anything of the kind. She watched as he looked into her eyes and then he shook his head. He gently laid her down, finding a blanket to cover her with, and stepped back.

“What’s going on?” Sunset asked.

Dusk shook his head, “I’m not sure. With her,” he pointed to Rainbow Dash, “I’d almost swear that she nearly lost her life, but her,” he pointed to Fluttershy, “I’ve only read about it, but it looks like something happened that actually scared her so bad that her soul left her body.”

Sunset shook her head as he said that. She looked at Fluttershy and then back at him, “Wha… How could that happen?!”

He looked at her and shook his head, “I don’t know. I knew that house was supposed to be haunted, but I had no idea that anything in here could be that dangerous.”

Strange Waiting Room - Fluttershy

Fluttershy looked around and saw a few people sitting down. She walked further into the room and gasped as she looked at the people there. One of them looked like the back of his head was missing. She could see a hole between his eyes, and he gave her a pleasant enough smile. She did notice that his clothes looked really outdated. It was something she was certain that her parents would have worn. Actually, he looked really familiar. It was almost like she had seen his picture before, but that couldn’t be right.

She looked somewhere else and saw a girl that was holding her head. There was a massive bruise line across her chest like a seatbelt had caused it. The girl slightly waved, and this time she did recognize the girl. She hadn’t really known her very well, but she knew that the girl had gone to Crystal Prep, and she remembered hearing about the car crash that happened. But that had been at least three years ago. In fact the girl was still wearing her skirt from Crystal Prep. She looked away and saw an elderly woman. She was holding onto a stand that had an iv attached to it. The bag was empty, and she was softly clicking a button on the line.

She felt tears gathering up, but the door behind her opened and she heard something squeaking. She turned around to see a man hanging from a noose.

“Fluttershy?”

She nodded, looking away form his dark purple face, “Y..Yes? Excuse me, where am I? What’s going on?!”

The man gained a softer expression, “Nothing that you should worry about,” his voice sounded strained, “but follow me to meet with Silvermane.”

She shook as she stood there in her green sundress, “Who’s Silvermane?”

He gave her a soft smile as his hung there, “She’s the one that’s going to help set this straight. Now come on.”

She stepped out and instantly she wanted to run. All around her was hundreds of corpses sitting at desks. Most seemed to be skeletons, but there was more than a few that looked mostly human. She noticed that all of them were dressed in business casual wear, but that didn’t make it any less scary. She felt a reassuring squeeze from man that was hanging and followed him. She walked across the floor, hearing dozens of computers running, the clacking of bones moving against one another, and finally they stopped before a large steel door. The hanging man knocked on the door for a moment and finally it opened. He looked down at Fluttershy and motioned for her to go inside.

She stepped into the room and the door slammed shut behind her. A timid squeak came from her lips and she looked to see an older woman sitting at a desk.

“Let me ask you something. Do I come into your house and leave a mess? Or perhaps this will be more to your understanding. Do I come over and swim in your toilet?”

Fluttershy watched as the woman stood. Her Silver hair was in curls, she wore a wonderful business suit, except for the blood around her collar. She took out a cigarette, lit it, and breathed in a bit before exhaling through a large slit in her neck that Fluttershy hadn’t see a moment before. She wanted to faint right there. Instead the woman looked at her with the most hardened blue eyes she had ever seen.

“First, you come into a known haunted house, then you go and summon up someone that should have remained trapped,” she shook her head, “You have really fucked the pooch here. I’ve got no less than twenty new files opened, not to mention that you’re not even supposed to be here yet!”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Silvermane sighed and walked past her. She looked at the various awards hanging on the wall, “So am I kid. /Look, I don’t mean to give you too hard of a time, but the fact of the matter is that you’ve released a Poltergeist into your world that shouldn’t be there. And unfortunately since a living person welcomed him in it’s got to be a living person that sends him back,” she saw the confused look on Fluttershy’s face, “It’s in the rules, which reminds me that you’ll need a handbook. I’ll make sure that Cheerful gets you one before you leave.”

Fluttershy looked at her, “Cheerful?”

Silvermane smiled at her, “The man that lead you here. His name is Cheerful Message. He’s my assistant, and he’ll get you the handbook,” she looked around, “I guess that we need to get a contract started before anything else though.”

“Contract?”

Silvermane nodded, “Yes, I need a full non-disclosure contract stating that you will not disclose anything that you’ve seen here. Plus, I’m going to have to preuse one of your D-90’s in order to get you back to your body.”

Fluttershy felt more at ease, but certainly incredibly confused, “What’s a D-90?”

Silverman shook her head, “It’s a help voucher that we assign to every new cause. Each new case gets a maximum of three help vouchers for the first one hundred and twenty-five years of their afterlife.”

Fluttershy shook her head, “Ummm… What about the idea of going to a wonderful place after you die?”

Silvermane grinned, “Sorry. The first one hundred twenty-five years is spent in the place where you died. Houses, schools, hotels, bus stops, train stations, and the like are the most common places where most people reside. Well beside here…” she said before a phone rang.

Silvermane’s eyebrow lifted as she neared it, picked it up, and held it to her ear, “Hello?”

“Are you sure you want this on speaker?” she asked, “Okay.”

She placed it on Speaker, and a moment later a soft motherly voice came over the air.

“Ms Shy, how are you doing?”

Fluttershy neared the phone, “I guess okay,” she said, “Who is this?”

There was a soft laugh, “I go by Mort, but for all rights and purposes I’m upper management. Now, what Silvermane has told you is what usually happens. Although we haven’t really had someone who has had their soul scared out of them in some time,” there was another soft laugh, “but there are always exceptions, and we are making one today. You will still need to sign that non-disclosure contract. We honestly can’t have too much of what goes on here as common knowledge, but we aren’t going to use your first D-90 either. Instead I’m going to have Ms Silvermane escort you back to your body. Once there I’m certain that your friends will find a way of helping you get back into it. Oh, do try to keep from visiting us too early again, okay?”

“S..sure.” she said before the line disconnected.

Silvermane took a pin and handed it to her, “Well, at least that is in order. Now, if you wouldn’t mind to sign this we’ll get you back there.”

Magpie House - Living Room

Sunset and Dusk Shine worked feverishly worked at getting their friends back into some semblance of life. Rainbow Dash was starting to come around, even though she was slow to restart. Fluttershy, though, was becoming a cause of concern. Nothing either of the teens did seemed to rouse her from her stupor. Sunset was starting to panic some. Fluttershy was a good friend and seeing her so insensate was disturbing in a very fundamental way.

“I’m not sure what we can do with her,” Dusk Shine said, “she appears catatonic.”

“She isn’t dead?” Sunset asked.

“No,” Dusk replied, “she still has a pulse.”

Sunset was about to say something when her timid friend came to with a gasp.

“OHMYWHATHAPPENED?!”

Sunset tried to calm down, but there was a sense of absolute joy at seeing Fluttershy recover. She gently touched her friend’s hand and Fluttershy gave her a gentle smile. No sooner had that happened then they heard running from upstairs. She ran toward the stairwell and saw Rarity coming down it. She noticed right away that her normally prim and proper friend was completely nude, second that Rarity really did have an hourglass figure, and third that right behind her was Applejack who was missing pulling against a lasso that was tied across her waist trying to pull her back upstairs.

She ran toward the rope and something knocked her back like she was a rag doll. She hit the wall, slid down, and watched as Applejack screamed as the rope changed from a simple rope to a long striped tongue.

“YeeeHAW! I ain’t got to cornhole a cornpone before! Comeon back up here darlin! I want to make a deal with you!”

The voice sounded male, and it sounded menacing. Before Sunset could get back up Applejack was lifted into the air and jerked back upstairs by the striped tongue that held her.

Author's Note

(AN: and a second chapter already out? Well when inspiration strikes you have to answer. A big thank you to L0rd0f7hund3r for helping with looking the story over, adding a little bit, and basically being a great sounding board.)