“How quaint.”
Sirens wailed across the town. Each loop echoed in the woodwork of the decrepit buildings lining Main Street. Windows and furniture shivered. So did the bones of the last two denizens.
“That’s hardly selling your situation,” I replied. “A big, fat backwater cop like you. I can’t believe I had to take your orders.”
My former boss sat across from me. His large gut hugged at the table that separated us in the storeroom of the police station. The room was cold, lined with racks of meshed lockers emptied of all weapons. A single window, barely a slit through one of the walls, let some dusk light sift in.
“How does it feel?” he scowled. “Failing at everything you tried to achieve.”
I huffed, grimacing as I eyed the exit door, reinforced and its lock broken. I glanced down at a snapped key lying on floor.
“How does it feel to know you’re going to die?” I retorted as I looked back at his sweaty, obese demeanor.
He nodded and slumped in his chair, scraping his shirt against the table edge. A lower button snapped off.
“I hope it doesn’t feel as bad.” He apprehensively gripped a hoof at his chest and sighed, “For you.”
I scratched the short fur growing on my jawline. The scars from a plasma hit from a few weeks ago still hurt. I’d been piecing together all the town’s shenanigans since I’d arrived. The contraband from the nearby zebra territories, the murders of officers around to the base down the valley, the deserters getting hit by transport trains… And that zebra foal everypony had searched for.
“Was it you?” I asked, tugging at an old scab.
He laughed heartily, throwing his head back as far as the fat of his neck would allow.
“You saw me. I would have never caught up with you, especially in the old quarry near the caves. You run too fast.”
I looked down, replaying the events of that night in my head. The cadaver at the train station, the sighting of the zebra foal in the forest. I’d given chase through the town and up to the defunct mining facility a couple miles down the dirt road to the mountains. Only to be stopped before I entered the caves.
“Your partner did, though,” he revealed, motioning his hoof at my face, shoulder and chest. “On my order. I’m sorry about… that, by the way. She didn’t intend the battery to be undercharged.”
“Where’s she now?” I growled.
“Up the mountain, going for the shelter.”
I seethed. As I mustered for a retort, the ground shook, cracking the wall paint and trickling dust from the ceiling. A wooden one. If only I could work at it, I could escape. I shot a look at the laser pistol lying on the floor.
“Don’t think about it,” he warned. “You’re an earth pony. I’m a unicorn. I’m faster.”
“We could be leaving this place,” I offered.
“To go where?” he laughed. “The sirens are off. Ten minutes they’ve been going at it. I’m surprised it’s not over yet, knowing how close we are to the frontline.”
“W-Where?” I scoffed in outrage. “The shelter isn’t far from here. It’s a stable! A stable you’re having all its rightful occupants slaughtered at the moment… Officer.”
“It’s a requisition.”
“Bullcrap,” I snapped. “This town’s got barely a hundred souls. I can’t believe you all conspired to take over and murder five hundred.”
“Most likely less. The valley’s a far remote place and it’s slow to get here.” He rubbed his temple. “I’m acting by the book, anyway. A book your kind wrote.”
“My kind?”
“Ministry of Morale!” he spat. “All the brainwashed crazies coming from the pink bitch’s factories. Nopony in this town—”
I slammed my hooves on the table.
“You’re all just a bunch of traitors!” I shouted back.
“Sit,” he ordered, now pointing the pistol at me, firmly held in his magic.
I submitted, crossing my front legs as I sunk back into my chair.
“You’ve been a pain in my ass since you arrived. I hope you know that?” he said, lowering the gun under the table but never relinquishing his magic grasp. “The ministry really tried to nose around our business. Especially with all the crap going on over the mountain range. I still can’t believe the zebra army nearly tipped the frontline over to here.”
“Not like you helped that, right?” I fumed.
“No.”
Another earthquake interrupted us for a short minute. We looked into each other eyes. Sweat trickled off my neck as his horn stayed lit up. I coughed as the dust and paint motes filled the air.
“You really think hillbillies like us would help some army, miles from here?” he continued. “You’re dumber than I thought. Always looking for the zebra explanation.”
“All the time, it was you or some of your little town committee…” I gibed with anger. “I’ve wasted so much time.”
“You only have yourself to blame here,” he hammered, flicking the gun audibly under the table. “We just did our best to survive. Stole shipments here and there from the army trains. Shuffled some resources right out from under the big brains from Red Racer and company. Did you know they were going to reduce our rations to a meager six hundred calories a day?”
I didn’t answer, looking away.
“You did…” He coughed, taking his forced pause to have a look at his watch.
“That’s why the Ministry had put you in my legs. To investigate,” he asserted.
“And what about the foal?” I cut. “You hid him for weeks.”
“Yes, we did!” he burst, rising from his chair as a magic grasp closed in on my heck. “What do you think we were going to do? Hand over a child to murderers like you?”
I gasped for air as he plucked me out of my chair and dragged me to the window.
“See,” he ordered as he shoved my face against the glass. “This town was beautiful. Away from the issues of the world. Then Equestria arrived.”
I gagged, trying to grab at the ethereal lock around my neck.
“You can’t see it...” he mumbled.
I flew in the air, thrown against the table who gave way under the impact.
“What’s the name of this town?!” he hollered.
“Black-Withers,” I rasped, coughing into the joint of my leg.
“Whiters! It was Black-Whiters!” he boomed, shuffling his weight over to me with the gun pointed at my head.
“Where do you think the name came from? Zebras and ponies lived here before.” He was crying with rage. “Then you Equestrians came and took half of the town away. To camps to never come back.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. “We’d never do that.”
A fizzling heat grazed my ears as a shot rang in the room.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, towering over me from his brobdingnagian girth. “The townfolks are taking over the stable… along the zebras we hid in the mountains for all those years. Why do you think we stopped you in the mine?”
I realized the reason why we never found stolen army goods in the town. It was taken to the mines. Ponies… zebras lived there. I glared up at him.
“You hid enemies of the state,” I gargled.
Both his hooves pressed against my chest, crushing me.
“We saved lives you’d have discarded. As many as we could. And now,” he cried, “you’re paying your sins back in full. The stable we built is ours to use.”
As the earth rumble with might, the light slithering from the window hued from a purplish red to a sickly green. Magic circled my neck again as he dragged me back to the window. I felt the cold touch of the gun at the back of my head as he forced me to watch with him. A wall of green unravel over the mountain ridge, swallowing rocks and trees like a hungry behemoth.
“It burns, doesn’t it?” he said. “Who’d have known death would be so bright.”
“Please,” I gasped. “There’s place in the stable.”
“There’s place for those who deserve it,” he sputtered. “And you and I know we aren’t getting an entry ticket.”
The fire raged down the mountain steep, bumbling around slow and steady. Each burst of flame forward plough through the landscape as I watched the baleful fire finally lick at the edge of town. One after the other, houses washed away in the blinding light. Death was a slow-walker.
“Judgement’s here,” he told me in my ear, “and we’re both enjoying front seat.”
