Equestria: Left 4 Deadby Quite The AnonymousChaptersChapter One: Vamponies!Chapter Two: Zombies!Chapter Three: Infected?Chapter Four: Enemy.Chapter Five: So That Others May LiveChapter One: Vamponies!Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♣ ♣ ♣ CHCHCHCHCHCHKKKKK A pegasus’s ears flattened against his skull. A unicorn pony in a navy blue long-sleeve vest jammed the keys into his locks. His hoof locks were already removed, but the dreaded wing restraints remained. Ponies sat in the waiting room, waiting for their conjugal visit. He had never gotten a conjugal visit during his time, he preferred to stick with one-night stands. Not even a family member had visited him, his mom was hospitalized for cardiac arrest not too long ago, and his dad beat him growing up, so why would he care? The keys clicked, the officer beside him sighed and smirked. Magic lifted him into the air and threw him out of the city jail. The guard laughed and slammed the glass door shut when he fell muzzle-first into a puddle of water. He groaned, sitting up from his surprise bath. The rain beat down upon his gray fur. He lifted his wings to try and cover himself, but the embossed feathers from the tightened constraints exploded into a fiery pain. His head swiveled as he observed the city around him, an abundance of ponies, griffons, and changelings raced to their jobs. What time was it? Nine, maybe ten? The skyscrapers over Fillydelhpia hit him, the giant buildings, filled with bodies of all assortments of creatures. Many pegasi and griffons were flying five stories overhead, casting their shadows down upon the city in a seemingly endless light show. He stood up from his puddle, tangling his feathers together and pushing upward. “Urrrrrrrgh.” He sighed in relief and dropped his wings down to his sides again. He set off south down the city, trying to remember his way back to where his apartment was. His apartment was located in District Twelve, widely considered the poorest district out of the Eighteen. The northern districts were where the lucky bodies lived. He went for a little sight-seeing in the rain, District Fourteen was a nice place, a lot of diversity, knowledgable ponies, cops. Cops. The corrupt bastards, Completely left districts Twelve and Thirteen to rot. That’s where the majority of crime goes down, and it’s the place he could rob a store and lay low for three days and get away with it. He turned down the block, dodging a coughing pony nearly a few feet away. A Griffon hot dog vendor was calling for ponies to come and try his hotdogs, but he thinks they forgot ponies were herbivores. He caught some looks when he sold to a griffon couple, though. He was just about to pass into District Twelve before he saw a banner covering almost the entire length of a fourteen-story building. The banner flapped in the wind, with big black words reading: CLEAN HOOVES SAVE LIVES! He scoffed, observing the black water droplet directly below the sentence, then at the bottom, the word “CEDA” stretched to fit the poster near the bottom. A worldwide agency was freaking out over a flu outbreak. An outbreak they deemed to be a “Flu.” He pushed himself into an alley. A nice shortcut to dodge traffic and head directly to his apartment. “Spare bits?” An old, homely earth pony coughed into his hooves, laying on his cardboard bed and makeshift trash covers. He informed the pony, “sorry, if I had any spare bits I wouldn’t be coming from the city jail.” “Oh,” the old stallion erupted into a coughing fit. “That’s alright,” he coughed, “gods be with you!” “I wish you the best of luck.” The pegasus took a step back to look at his apartment: broken shards of glass and boarded windows served as the only viewable scenery. It was a five-story apartment complex decorated by two poorly maintained bushes sitting outside and at the bottom of the steps in pots. Many of the rooms were abandoned. Save for a few poor bodies, himself included. He looked up into the spiraling staircase. Normally he’d fly up them, but now he’d have to trot. Frowning in displeasure, each step he took hurt worse than the last. He got to his floor, the third story, and strode past his floor-mates. He didn’t have much connection with either of them, one was a stallion who lived closest to the steps and the other was a mare who lived across from him. The only thing he knows about the stallion is that he always leaves his apartment door open, although he still hasn’t seen what he looks like. He could only infer it was a stallion because he saw a mare he had never seen enter his apartment four days ago. He has met the mare, on one occasion. She reeked of cat piss during that occasion. When she opened her door, her apartment was even worse. He opened his apartment door, the final door on the left, and trotted inside. He slammed the door shut with his back hoof, dust fell from the crevices and cracks around the door and to the floor. He kicked the dust into his dust pile in the corner and went into the living room. A single, torn gray couch faced a box TV that sat awkwardly on the floor. A round table stood to the left of the couch, with a small buffet lamp placed off-center from the middle. It was hard having to reach the middle, so he pulled the lamp closer to the couch to turn the light off. His bed had caved in three months ago, but he never bothered replacing it—he enjoyed the couch a lot more. He trotted into his kitchen, a single five-foot-tall fridge sat in the corner, a rusted stove to its left. He managed to find an old microwave in some dumpster only mere weeks ago. Everything in-between the stove and microwave was just cabinets. The ones on the floor, almost neck-high in height, morphed into a poorly maintained countertop for all his unenthusiastic meal preparations. The ceiling cabinets, one the other hoof, were prepared to fit any food if he ever were to buy any. Take out was much easier to prepare anyway, just pull it out of the bag and indulge. He opened the bottom compartment of the fridge. A brown bag of a half-eaten hayburger sat on the top shelf, the middle was empty, and laying comfortably on the bottom shelf was a spilled beer. ’Damn it.’ He sighed, placing a hoof on the dirtied marble counter. He pushed himself up and placed his second hoof on the small, rectangular handle. Stupid carpenters, it’s all about being ‘politically correct’ in this world. Everything has to be built to accommodate for minotaurs because “minotaur lives matter!” He pushed the tip of his hoof through the small hole and pulled the cabinet open. It didn’t budge. He brought his second hoof up and stuck it through the other side of the cabinet. His hoof-tips just barely touching. He grunted and pulled with all his might. The cabinet unhinged. He fell flat on his flank with a loud thud. ’I hate minotaurs.’ He dropped the broken cabinet door to the ground and jumped to his hooves. Balancing himself on the countertop again, he peered into the cabinet interior. ’Empty.’ The other cabinets, while they didn’t break when he pried them open, also contained no drinks or food. His stomach growled. ’I guess its hayburger with a side of contaminated city air tonight.’ He tossed the hayburger into the microwave and plugged it into the outlet. Beep! Frantic knocking barraged his worn door. He took one, long breath. “Coming!” Bam. Bam. Bam! “Celestia’s sake, I said I was coming!” He ran up to the door and turned the handle. Bam! Bam! WHAM! The door flew open, denting the wall it smacked into. A grayed-out yellow fur mare, with substantial blood coating her muzzle and hooves, lept onto the pegasus. She went for his neck, but he panicked and threw his hoof up and into her mouth. She bit down. Hard. The pegasus screamed in agony and kicked her off him, she landed back first into the cabinets. Another cabinet partially became unhinged from the force. She tried to move, but her spine had broken. The mare—no, the vampony was paralyzed. The pegasus jumped to his hooves and grabbed the cabinet before that had come unhinged. THWACK! CRACK! The mare wasn’t moving, splinters of the cabinet mangled her face and fur. He scooted himself beside the mare. “Huff. Huff.” He stood up, his legs trembling over the seemingly increased weight he possessed. He tossed himself to the couch and used it as a prop to keep himself up. He sat there for a moment and, with one final inhale, he bolted to his bedroom. He disregarded everything in that filthy room. His eyes were locked on one thing. His drawer. He peered into the dark box and pulled out his trusty survival kit. A P220 semi-automatic pistol, three fifteen-round magazines, a wooden stake, and a frame vest to hold the gun and ammunition. Before he equipped his vest, he hopped over a pile of used sheets to reach his closet where his prized possession hung proudly alone on a hanger. A minotaur-styled vest, shrunk down to fit him three years ago. It didn’t have any sleeves, as minotaurs often preferred to show off their biceps. It helped with mating, or something, although it was probably just a way to boost their egos. He pulled his hooves into the holes of his vest and wrapped his belt around his back and stomach, securing it with two clicks. ChhhhCK! Pulling the slide of his pistol back with his hoof, he flicked the safety on with his wing and slid the barrel into his holster. The pistol faced backward, allowing him to quickly pull it out with his opposite hoof and begin shooting. The vamponies have finally revealed themselves. It was time to fight back and take his place as the almighty vampony-slayer pegasus! He trotted and stopped in his doorway. The trashed apartment he called home, he was finally leaving this place for good. Breathing a sigh of relief, he trotted down the hallway to that stallion’s room. A trail of blood streaked across the floor heading to his room. ’He’ll become a vampony.’ He trotted into the blackened apartment and searched the wall for a switch. He couldn’t see a damn thing! “Aha!” He found and flipped the switch upward. He covered his eyes to let them have a chance to get used to it. Slowly, he let his hoof down. The room was just like his, but more barren. He didn’t think that was possible. A blue couch, covered in blood, faced nothing. No TV, not even a box one. ‘Poor bastard.’ He propped his two hooves on the back of the couch and looked over. A giant, pool of blood outlined a gray pegasus. His body was beaten and his neck was oozing out any blood it had left. His face was left mortified from being attacked. The gray pegasus, the alive one, looked at the trail of blood, similar to the one in the hallway, that ran over the couch. He didn’t want to waste any bullets, but the pony wasn’t turning, yet. He looked around the room, the only notable things were a bookshelf with four books on it, a golf club and bag, and a spilled cup of water. ’Fore!’ He jumped onto his back hooves and came down on the skull of the dead pony, then he did it again and again. He did not stop until the face was unrecognizable to even their mother. He’s not taking any chances, what good is a vampony-slayer if they can’t prevent more from popping up? He slid the golf club handle first into his right sheathe. The building shook as a helicopter flew overhead. A hardened, booming voice echoed throughout the streets below. “To anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” ’Well, that’s no fun.’ He trotted out the door and into the hallway, when did authorities ever stop him? He looked at the stairway. Groaning and turning his head to the other end of the hallway, his face brightened with an idea. He smiled, running full spring toward the window. He jumped through the window, three-stories above the street. His sore wings strained as he attempted to glide to the ground. He was only a story up before his wings gave out, he steered himself into a trash pile in an alley across the street. Slamming muzzle first into the trash pile, he mentally cursed as he rolled over on his already fatigued wings. He took one, long breath and closed his eyes. He smelt smoke, then his ears came back to him. Screaming and gunfire filled the air. ’The vamponies have been preparing for this.’ Griffons and ponies ran by the alleyway, yelling in terror. Shrieks and growls grew louder as the seconds ticked by, before one growl he heard was closer than expected. He looked up, an upside-down homely stallion, with blood covering his neck and muzzle, shrieked at him. His ears flattened and he winced as the stallion charged him. He panicked, pushing his body around one-eighty in the trash pile, the pony dropped onto him, his muzzle opened to bite into his neck. He pulled his back hooves up, catching the leaping pony’s stomach and guiding it over him. It landed back first into a rusted dumpster. The pegasus turned one-eighty again, hugging himself with his left hoof as he pulled his gun loose. He flicked the safety off with his other hoof and aimed. BANG! The bullet shredded a hole through its chest and out the left side of its flank. The vampony fell just shy of him, but quickly got to its hooves and charged him again. He slammed the barrel into the vampony’s mouth and used it as leverage to push himself up to his hooves. BANG! He ran out of the alley. Ponies, griffons, changelings, even a few minotaurs and Diamond Dogs ran to safety. Either in their homes or to the police station. Speaking of police, two cops were shooting a few unaware vamponies who were eating another cop. He pushed through a group of bodies to get to the cops. He observed the beaten bloodied corpse. He could see the blood and saliva mixed at his neck and stomach where the vamponies had bitten him. The two cops, an orange stallion, and purple mare looked up at him. The orange one spoke, “proceed to your home, peg. We have this under control.” He looked at the pair and chuckled, “under control you say? I’m glad I’m safe knowing Equestria’s finest are here to help,” his eyes rolled. The orange pony sighed, opening his mouth to speak. The pegasus shoved him out of the way hollering, “look out!” and aimed his gun. He bullseye-d a vampony griffon in the head–a vamgriffon? Yeah, a ‘vamgriffon.’ The mare helped the officer up, “thanks.” “So, what’re you cops doing in District Thirteen?” he inquired, “last time I checked, we were forgotten by you blues.” “I signed up to help clear the scum from the streets,” the orange pony informed, “so did, Alyssa, here.” He pointed to the mare behind him. She backed up in between them, “I don’t mean to alarm you two, but we got a big group of infected coming this way!” The orange pony spun around, “how? It’s only been ten minutes!” “Exactly! Call the boss over the radio!” The trio peered down the street. A large group of vamponies was headed their way. All of the bodies caught still outside their homes barreled down the street toward them, a mix of hungry ponies and vibrant, fearful ponies. Alyssa yelled, “we can’t shoot into the crowd, there still are ponies in it!” The orange cop clicked off his radio before agreeing, “then we’ll have to run.” “What? We’re supposed to protect and serve, Clark! We can’t run!” “Alright, then stay and try to shoot the infected point-blank while simultaneously trying to not hit any alive ponies in the crossfire!” He argued, shutting her up immediately. The pegasus didn’t know a cop could be so heartless, he loved it. “Come on!” The cop hollered, turning tail and running down the street. He and Alyssa followed behind him, with a horde of intermixed vamponies, vamgriffons, and vamchangelings behind them. The panicked screamed of alive ponies slowly dwindled into distant echoes from different blocks. The trio bolted into an alleyway. Four civilians chased after them, hoping to be saved by the ponies with guns, a few vamponies and a vamgriffon chasing their tails a few yards behind them. The pegasus foolishly stopped, letting the four civilians run past him. He fired blindly into the group of seven. Two fell down causing the vamgriffon to trip over them. The ponies were only two yards away before he turned around and ran. He saw a green pegasus waving for him to hurry up, they were on a three-step entrance to a big red door with the sign ”Exit” above it. He bolted up the steps, the green pony practically shoving him inside before slamming the door closed. The lights flicked on, revealing the others. He saw Alyssa and Clark, panting out of breath. The green pegasus aforementioned barred the door closed with a stool. The outside getting barraged with banging. Sitting in a swivel chair was an old burly unicorn, he adorned a white bushy beared and was holding a shovel held firmly in his hooves. The next was a cyan earth pony, he couldn’t be over twenty, he held nothing and sat with his back propped against a white desk. Speaking of desks, the room was covered in them. Windows on the left side gave them a clear view of the outside world. He heard a helicopter flying overhead, what sounded like machine-gun fire hitting flesh and tearing bones. The entire place was littered with thrown and ripped office papers, many ponies left in a panic. A blood trail followed down the stairs and ended in a pool of blood in the middle of the room. No corpse, though. A cough came from the corner of the room, a yellow unicorn, more than likely middle-aged, covered her mouth. She held onto a pocket knife and was squeezing herself as far as she possibly could into the corner of that wall. Clark was the first to catch his breath, “anypony here get bit?” A collected group of no’s echoed through the room as he sighed in disbelief. He checked Alyssa and ordered her to check him, he looked to everpony else in the room and commanded, “we’re going to be thoroughly checking for bites, from what we know, the infection spreads by blood contact. I can’t see any marks on your fur, but I’m not risking dying because of laziness.” The group nodded begrudgingly. They sat and waited for their turn to be checked. The green pegasus, cleared. The bearded unicorn, cleared. The cyan earth pony, cleared. The list went on with no injuries found, then they got to the coughing yellow unicorn in the corner. She was clean. Clark smiled, “let’s keep it that way, come on ponies, catch your breathes and let’s get to the roof. It isn’t safe with all these windows.” “Agreed,” Alyssa nodded. “I’m with ya,” the old pony sat up. “Gods be with us,” the cyan pony pulled a necklace with a golden crescent moon at the end of it. The gray pegasus begrudgingly agreed. He wanted to kill some vamponies, but there would be another time, hopefully. The yellow pony nodded and moved to the circle of ponies. The green pegasus looked at the group and mumbled to himself. He sat there, unable to make a decision. All eyes were on him before he caved in. “Fine.” “We’ll go through names when we get to the roof for the rest of you, but this gray pegasus here saved my life,” Clark pointed to the gray pegasus, “I want to know the name of my savior.” “Francis,” the gray pegasus answered. Author's Note I wrote without a proofreader, so please tear me apart in the comments. I can’t get better at this if I’m not told what could’ve been better to write or visualize, what should have been scrapped, etc... Sorry for making it one chapter if I managed to pique your interests. Chapter Two: Zombies!Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♥ ♥ ♥ ...BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BE–click. He groaned, sliding the alarm clock away and turning to the window. Golden rays of light seeped in through the blinds, aligned perfectly to his eyes. Shielding his eyes with the covers, he drops back into the dent in the bed his body had created. The warmth his body had left there soothed him back into a deep sleep. “Shit!” He shot up, throwing the covers off him. They drooped off the side as he jumped to his hooves and into the bathroom. No time for a shower, he was going to be late! He wetted his black comb with the faucet from the water and pulled it through each knot he found in his blue fur. He simultaneously doused his toothbrush with the still running faucet water and squirted toothpaste onto it. He dropped his comb to balance himself on the bathroom counter as he brushed his teeth hastily. He bolted out the bathroom, only stopping after remembering he left the faucet on. He slid to the front door and grabbed his white coat, this is why he irons the night before. He sloppily through his coat on while making his way into the kitchen, tripping on his ironed coat twice and wrinkling it. He opened the fridge, an assortment of foods littered each shelf, some leftovers, and others being planned suppers. He grabbed a pre-made lunch bag he had organized the night before. He slammed the fridge shut, hearing liquor bottles and jars rattling against the shelves they resided on. He paused, looking at his kitchen table. The reason he had stayed up all night laying calmly on its side: a contraption he’d been working all weekend on, a gray slim design with a fuze sticking out the top. He started working on it once he heard of the “Green Flu” outbreak last Friday. It didn’t take much to sneak into a CEDA tent and snag pictures of documents, and if his gaming days taught him well, then he knows he’ll need explosives. He grabbed a red tie off the desk, the color never matched well with his dark blue coat, but it was the only one not in the washer. He straightened his tie, grabbed his keys and locked the door behind him. Louis bolted down the road, not many ponies were out and about. Thankfully, District Eighteen was a suburban area, with a tree neatly placed on each side of the road, always the same length from the next. It was a nice and quiet spot on the outskirts of Fillydelphia, and it was also the southern-most district. He smiled at his neighbor, an old, friendly stallion by the name of “Boris.” The old stallion rocked in his chair and coughed, grabbing a tissue from the tissue box lying beside him on a coffee table. He ran through the crowds of bodies, even ducking under a few Diamond Dogs and minotaurs. He bolted up the two flights of steps and trotting through the glass doors of his job. He worked as an IT specialist for the company “Phone-a-Geek.” The large thirty-storied building sat at the corner of the block as the tallest building on the street. Many isolated work desks littered even the first floor, not many ponies paid attention to his entrance—save for his boss. “This is the second time this month, Louis.” A white-furred mare scolded him. She pointed to the elevator with her wing, “third strike and you’re out.” He nodded, quickly hollering for the ponies to hold the door. “Late again, Louis?” A black male unicorn chuckled, the ponies around him smiled. “Maybe he was out at that gun range again!” The pony beside him burst into laughter. The doors opened, Louis trotted out the doors and away from the chuckling stallions. He rounded a corner to the first office on the left, its front was completely glass, allowing anybody to see if you were doing your job or slacking off. On the plus side, the room was soundproof, so he doesn’t have to listen to his co-worker's bickering. He double-checked the sign at the top of the door for his name and entered. “No, customer, that won’t work. Have you tried unplugging and replugging?” Louis rolled his eyes. Almost every old pony he had ever spoken with never bothered with that simple fix. “Nuh-uh, guess ah never thought o’ that,” the pony on the other end of the line murmured. “Try that real quick and see if it works,” Louis asked. “Aight.” Louis could hear something being clicked through the phone, following by a loud beeping noise. A few seconds of silence passed. “H-holy shit!” The stallion stammered. “Lemmie guess, it surprisingly worked?” Louis snarled. “N-no! They’re beating him to death!” The stallion’s voice notably became more muffled, Louis could hear the phone being lowered down and then dropped onto something, more than likely a table. “Beckie! Get the shotgun!” CLICK! “What in Tartarus was tha—” A pony crashed through the window, their body riddled with glass shards as they fell onto their stomachs. They shrieked and stood up, immediately running full gallop toward Louis. Their white shirt was stained by a mixture of blood and vomit. He panicked, with the shock causing him to push his swivel chair away from his desk and into the wall. The pony reared up and closed the last few steps on two hooves, with it tripping over and landing onto Louis in the chair. It used its hooves as a blunted weapon and landed two swipes against his stomach and cheek. He got a good look at the pony—no, the zombie. Their pupils were a shade of what could very well be called “bleach white,” and their usually vibrant orange fur he’d seen around the office was dimmed down in saturation, creating a seemingly gray-orange tint. Louis let out an “oomph” when the zombie connected with his stomach. He let out a battle-cry and grabbed a mug from beside him that read “World’s Best Employee” in black font and clubbed the pony across the temple. The mug caved into their temple and the zombie fell off of him, somehow dazed by the effects. Zombies never got dazed effects when he hit them with bats in video games. He brought the mug several times down upon the zombie’s head, making sure to destroy the brain. The mug shattered after the seventh hit, he could see the brain now, but he never got to smashing it. It seems all he managed to do was get blood all over his fur and hooves. “My coat!” He exasperated, looking down at the crimson red that covered his entire chest area and front-hoof sleeves. Screams of other ponies echoed in the hallways and down below from the streets, and a helicopter flew over the building. The helicopter pilot’s voice boomed through the city, ”to anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” ‘So,’ he began to reason with himself, ‘the zombie apocalypse has begun. I need to get hope and grab a weapon. There, I will revise my plan based on what I see on the way there. I can not help anypony, or anybody, I see.’ A pony just outside his broken-glass office was tackled by a zombie pegasus. The pony attempted to push the zombie off of him, but its wings grabbed his front hooves and held him in place; the zombie beginning to batter him with strikes. The pony never went to bite them, Louis made note of that. ‘I guess step one would be getting out of this deathtrap.’ Louis armed himself with a broken shard of glass. He wobbly galloped on three hooves as he held onto the shard with his hoof. Without a moment to spare, he began his escape. Ponies in offices were fending off the increasing numbers of zombies with whatever they could get their hooves and-or claws on. He got to the elevator, the ponies who teased him from before sat in the elevator, the doors closing. He called to them to catch it, but they only looked at him in terror. “I’m not a zombie!” It was too late, the door had closed. He resorted to the stairs, where everypony else was going. He pushed through the door, glass shard in hoof, and began skipping two steps at a time from the fifth level down to the first. He passed by a pony holding onto a railing. They began projectile vomiting, bits hitting a mare’s fur as she galloped by. The pony immediately chased after her, hissing at every leap he made in an attempt to catch her. Many ponies shared the same fate on the first floor as all those above, ponies were running everywhere, zombies were always right there behind them and ponies were vomiting. He looked out the window, the same thing was happening out there, only on a larger scale. A zombie jumped at him, he ducked under and they landed onto another pony behind him. He ran past the elevator. It opened, zombified versions of the assholes from before barreled out and attacked a pony. ‘Either the “Green Flu” has an instant zombification once bitten, or I am missing something ver—’ his boss, her white fur grayed and coat stained red, slammed into his side, tackling him to the floor. He tussled with her, swiped at his chest, bruising it, but he managed to kick her off of him. He dove his glass shard deep into her head, the body going limp. He left the shard. More zombies began appearing, tackling any unlucky ponies they could get their hooves on. Too many ponies were trying to use the glass doors, they were clogging it up and attempting to push each other out of the way; how is he supposed to get out? ‘Glass!’ He remembered. He grabbed hold of a swivel chair from the nearest work station and chucked it through the glass. Bits and pieces shattered everywhere. Glass was still falling when he pushed through the improvised exit. He ran through the streets, ducking over one griffon zombie as he went. The city streets were packed with ponies running to and fro, trying to get away from the ever-increasing zombie threat. Many griffons, changelings, and pegasi had the brains to stay in the air, although many of them started dropping from the sky and into the hard concrete below as they coughed and threw up. ‘Zombified flying species lose the ability to use their wings or at least lack the knowledge of how to fly with them. Good. I can safely assume zombies don’t know how to use magic then. Thank the gods for that.’ He was out of breath by the time his house came into view. Never had he been happier to see his two-story brick house. The nicely kept hedges in the front were sadly going to have to be left behind. The streets had a few zombies, most of them trying to break into a door. They were having a lot of success, scarily enough. A pair of zombies unhinged a door with just rearing up and coming down on. He hastily opened his door, high pitched shrieks behind him. A zombie ran into his door and slammed it shut. He fell back, huffing and trying to catch his breath. BAM! BAM! Louis sat up and ran into the kitchen. He grabbed his pipebomb and slid it into a pocket on his stained coat. Running into his room and opening the closest, he slid his clothes that were coordinated by color off to the side to reveal a small hiding hole too small to fit a pony. Opening the compartment revealed his prized possession, a Benelli M4 Super 90 semi-automatic shotgun. He had used shotguns before, even fired semi ones in rapid succession, but he never got to fire this one due to legality issues Louis grabbed as many shells as he could and stuffed them into his other pockets. He didn’t bother counting them. He threw the sling over his neck and started sliding shells still remaining in the hidey-hole into his shotgun. The sounds of him reloading fought against the sounds of zombies breaking down his door: ssshCK. BAM! ssshCK. BAM! ssshCK. BA–SNAP! The door flew wide open, he saw through his bedroom three zombies pile in on top of one another. Louis pointed his barrel into the doorframe and waited. The zombies spotted him and pushed off each other, immediately charging full sprint into his doorway. POW! POW! Gibs flew everywhere as the zombified ponies got shredded open. His room now coated in blood and gore, he ran outside and onto the streets. Dozens of zombie ponies, and even a changeling one, rushed down the street. Straight toward him. ‘They’re attracted to noise—I’ll have to mark getting a silencer on my zombie survival to-do list.’ Louis flicked his shotgun to safety and took off down the street. First thing’s first, he needed to get out of this overpopulated city. The shotgun hurt every time it slammed into his side, minotaurs and dragons had it easy with their thumbs; being bipedal allowed them to swing their gun over their shoulder, a lot better than leaving it on their side as a pony would. Pegasus could probably hold it still with their feathers, griffons too. They can fly! He hasn’t seen a zombie pegasus or griffon fly, damn his earth pony anatomy. He was dripping like a water fountain, sweat made his fur damp and sleek—he couldn’t stop. No, those zombies have been chasing him since he left his house! Do they ever grow tired? ‘Dumb question.’ Distant gunfire erupted from the city, bursts of noise from the guns were soon interrupted by the ear-shattering, echoing shrieks. Just how quickly had the infection spread? He could hear himself panting now. Louis had made it to the end of the block, where two roads intersected, forming a plus. The zombies were about to be on top of him. ’To Tarturus with it.’ He spun around, balancing himself on his two back hooves as he flicked the safety from his shotgun off. There were five zombies chasing him, and he was about to make it zero. POW! click. Out of ammo, he was tackled onto his back by the remaining three. His gun slid to the side, just out of hooves reach. He stretched to grab it, to maybe use it as a club, but quickly retracted his hoof when the zombies began beating him. His stomach, head, whatever was found first were assaulted by the strikes coming from their hooves. One of the zombies had fallen down when they tackled him and proceeded to bite into his neck. He screamed in pain as the beating continued. The last of his conscious dwelled on one thought: these zombies do not want flesh, they want blood, and they will do anything in their power to kill what isn’t them. TCK! TCK! TCK! Blood splattered over his bruised stomach and neck; Louis tried to push the zombie corpse off of him, but he quickly squinched back into lying down, with his two front hooves at his sides. He couldn’t see anything, all he could do was think. Louis could hear muffled voices and a dragging sound. He felt his back being pulled across the concrete, they were dragging him! Was he saved? Surely ponykind hasn’t erupted into anarchy now and he was being foalnapped. His conscience slipping in and out as he tried to listen to the ponies. “...can’t afford to have another...” “...and food will be low!” “...are we going to drag him all the way to...” “Heeeere they come!” TCK! TCKTCKTCKTCK! PI-PI-PING! PI-PI-PING! Everything around him faded into black, and he drifted off into a deep, zombiless sleep. Author's Note Tear me up with things I did wrong and any inconsistencies you find! I’m trying to implement onomatopeia into my story, and I’m trying a lot of short, concise sentences, so let me know if I need to work on it! I don’t want to make those mistakes again. I hope you enjoyed it, but if you didn’t, thank you for considering and reading my story! <3 Chapter Three: Infected?Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♦ ♦ ♦ “..and here I thought I was being nice! I let her live with you, Wade, for a semester!” Her yellow-furred mom jabbed a fork at the stallion across the table, “a semester and she’s dropping out." “I have to be hard at work sustaining you and Zoey!” His wing pointed a white feather at the pink teenage mare sitting between them. “And not to mention that cracked-out griffon sleeping on my couch!” Zoey hated it when her parents argued, but that’s all she’s known. Ever since they got divorced when she was three, her life has been a constant back and forth between their two homes. Mom getting fired from her job, along with that damn-near useless griffon named “Kyle” she calls a boyfriend, has caused the pair to move back in with Dad. Kyle had money it is probably the only reason her mom stays with him, but he’s always out drinking with some buddies. Don’t get her wrong, she loved finally seeing her parents together. It’s just not the way she had expected. The last time she saw these two share a house was in her earliest memory. The night they decided on a divorce. Mom had already planned where she was staying, it was only time that kept her there. Time until she and Dad snapped. Push came to shove and one pony ended up receiving a nasty punch. “...regardless, Zoey, do you think this is funny? Tuition is costly, Dear, and you just threw your one shot at making films away! All this ‘Green Flu’ business has gotten you paranoid.” “I already had a scholarship, Mom. The flu is the reason I dropped out, yes, but it’s for a good reason. CEDA is terrified of the recently discovered disease, and me being in a college dorm does not bode well for my wellbeing.” Zoey took a final bite of her cereal, before taking it and dumping it into the dirty, filled sink. She sat down, reclining back in her wooden chair as she heard her mother sigh. “Carolyn, let bygones be bygones. We both knew the film industry was a gamble, and we now pay the price. Besides!” He squished Zoey with his wing, “she can finally go into the army, like her old stallion!” “Never in a thousand years!” Her mom exclaimed. “Go watch her on the gun range, she could end the war against the deers the second she joined the army!” “She’s also seventeen, Wade.” “She looks twenty!” Her mom groaned, “Wade, please, you need to apply yourself–” A large, pale unicorn stumbled into the room. Groaning, they looked at the three ponies sitting at the table in front of them. “Wade! Wade, there’s a—” The pale unicorn erupted into full spring, leaping across the table and slamming into Zoey’s mom. Her mom’s scream was quickly silenced when the pony bit onto her muzzle. The gory seen left both the unicorn and her mother’s faces unrecognizable. Wade yelled in horror, grabbing his M1911 from a kitchen drawer and frantically loading it. BLAM! BLAM! The unicorn fell limp on top of her mom. Zoey stared, completely still, with wide eyes and open mouth. Her dad slid to Carolyn’s side, “Zoey! Call the police!” Zoey didn’t move, “Mom.” “Zoey!” He cried, “call the police!” Zoey blinked, running into the hallway and grabbing the phone. She dialed nine-one-one and pressed the phone against her ear. ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ An automated voice came through the phone. She dialed again, her dad frantically chanting in the background: ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be ok.” She pressed the phone against her ear again. ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be ok.” Again, she dialed: ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be o–” her dad screamed. She dropped the phone, the wire narrowly keeping it from hitting the floor. She ran back into the kitchen, her dad and mom were reared up, fighting for superiority. Her mom won, pinning Dad to the ground and ripping his neck open with her herbivore teeth. She punched him in the eye, blackening the white fur around it. ”DAD!” She screamed. Her mom sat up from her victim, snapping around to look at the noise. ”M-mom?” Zoey whispered before Mom came tumbling toward her. The final few feet closed by a plunge from her Mom. She tackled Zoey, now pinning her to the ground and attempted to deliver a decisive bite to the— BLAM! Zoey’s mother fell limp on top of her, her once unmistakable face now gone, without a trace. Blood and gore littered Zoey as she gently pushed her mother’s corpse off of her. She galloped to her dad. His right eye was black, with him just barely squinting it open. His neck was worse, it was comparable to a water fountain. “D-dad? Hold on, I’ll get the first aid!” “N-no.” He coughed, his left eye pupil still showing its vibrant green color. “Remember how I use to sneak you into all those zombie movies when you were growing up?” He whispered. “Yeah,” she sniffed. “Remember how there was always that one overused scene where the group had to shoot one of their guys before they turned?” “Y-yes,” she spoke, the lines were beginning to connect. “I love you, Zoey.” “I love you too, Dad.” BLAM! Forty-eight hours and five minutes since the first infection. “To anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” A helicopter flew by, the words echoing over the terrified and monstrous shrieks from below. It was not safe here. She was not safe. "One, two, three, four." shhhhhCLICK! She loaded her magazine back into the chamber. Slowly, she sat up, wiping her tears from her eyes. A few gunshots went off in the city below. Her nose scrunched at the smell of spent gunpowder merging with the polluted city air she was accustomed to. The stench of rotting flesh began to mingle with the smells, too. How many bodies were down there? Most of them were griffon and changelings corpses littered about, but there was the occasional pony in the destruction. Most of the ponies, it would seem, turned into zombies. But not even the zombies in movies correctly captured what the things truly were. No, these were horrors. Monsters. Spawns of Discord himself. Placing a hoof for balance, she leaned over the balcony and surveyed her options: a city-wide panic could lead to her getting bitten. The roofs seemed plausible for that there were no ponies, but she could fail a jump from one rooftop to another and fall to her death. If only she had been born a pegasus like her father. "I miss you already," she choked. She looked up, one of those monsters had succumbed to the outbreak midair and latched onto a still living pegasus as they plummeted to the concrete below. 'If I couldn't save my dad, then I will save somepony else's.' She balanced on her back hooves just like her father had told her and aimed at the pair. The living pegasus's desperate attempt to keep the dead one from biting and punching him sent them into an out-of-control drop. It wasn't a reasonable shot she could hit, but she must do it. BLAM! She missed, the pair flew straight into the concrete, monster-zombie on top. The zombie indulged in their immobile feast, the pegasus couldn't even move, they had sustained a few broken limbs at least. Their life slowly faded as the chaos from other creatures hid them from Zoey's view. She looked at her gun. That wasn't an unlucky shot; that was a failure. The second stallion she failed to protect within ten minutes of each other. THU-CRACKKK! A malformed griffon with blood and vomit staining their neck and chest crashed into a crate near the rooftop door. It spotted her and shrieked in rage. She didn't have time to waste, nor did she have the bullets. She took a few steps back and hurled over the alleyway below her. She landed fine, but her right back-hoof had missed, tripping her to the floor. She groaned, pushing herself up. "RAAAA!" She spun around, falling back onto the ground trying to dodge the claw in front of her muzzle. The griffon's head slammed into the bricked railing, sending it plummeting to the alleyway floor. Zoey sat herself up. What should she do now? A helicopter could be heard in the distance, actually multiple. Not just any helicopters, Black Hawks! The military is here! One of the many helicopters flew overhead, relaying a hopeful message: "Evacuation will begin at Mercy Hospital. Avoid contact with any infected individuals. Nobody with cuts or bites will be permitted to leave the hospital until proven they are not infected." "Well no shit we need to avoid contact with infected individuals!" she paused, "infected?" She sat up, "If that term is to not cause panic, then it failed miserably." The chaos below had disappeared. Panicked screams only merely echoed down a few blocks. The brute force of the zombie-monsters was gone. Now only the stragglers remained. In just under ten minutes, District Seven was overrun. She stepped back, and galloped forward, jumping over the gap and onto the next apartment. This one had fire escape stairs running down the side of it, leading into a dark alley below. Each careful step she took creaked under the metal flooring. Some of those 'infected individuals' jutted their heads up. Groaning and yelling in frustration as she made her way to the final steps. They noticed the stairs connecting to the alley floor and charged up it. She panicked, putting her forehooves onto the railing. She lept over it, dropping her gun to catch herself. BLAM! "Shit!" she grabbed her gun, the pair of infected hot on her tail. She ran into the streets, nearly running straight into an infected who was already charging at her. She jumped over a corpse, why the pony hadn't turned she didn't know. The rest of the bodies, on the other hoof, sprang to their hooves and attempted to grapple her. A changeling infected lunged at her and grabbed her back hoof, tripping her to the ground. "Get off!" she kicked the changeling square in the muzzle, the force completely decapitating its lower jaw. Blood splattered over her backside, but she was free. An accumulated seven infected ponies and one changeling were after her. The changeling she had kicked leading the charge. With two bullets and no stamina left, she hurled herself through a broken window, a glass shard drawing blood from slicing her stomach. She heard the zombies jump through the window and into a shelf full of candy bars. Two of the infected struggle to push the thing off of them, while the rest continued their chase for her. She locked herself into the back room behind the cashier register. A lone piece of wood kept the door from being opened. Not that the infected would open it, they settled on attempting to break the door down with their hooves. The door wouldn't hold, and she had no escape. The room used to be used as a storage area, with plenty of shelves of canned goods and water. She slid her back down the door, laying herself in a fetal position. THUD! Her ears flattened to her skull. She closed her eyes and wept. THUD! Her closed eyes pushed together harder. Her weeps turned into a stream of tears flowing down her face. "It seemed a lot easier in 'The Trotting Dead.'" She sheepishly chuckled. Author's Note SPOILER AHEAD: I had some issues deciding what I wanted Zoey's motivation and story to be. If you have read the Left 4 Dead comic, "The Sacrifice," then you know I nearly ripped it out word for word. Talk about being unoriginal. But Zoey's canon backstory is perfect for the story she will experience and shape based on her actions. Reading this makes it obvious she won't die, a bit of a spoiler, in fact. Well, you read the disclaimer—sorry about that. One more thing, these stories are getting shorter and shorter. If this keeps up, I'm going to start attempting to do multiple chapters at once. I accept criticism. Tear me up, please! Chapter Four: Enemy.Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♠ ♠ ♠ "Do you take any medication?" "No." Replied the moss-colored unicorn. "How about smoking—do you smoke?" He glared at the doctor, his grin nearly concealed by his gruff white beard. "Just protocol, Mister Overbeck, you and I know good and well you can't go a day without smoking a twelve-pack," the doctor chuckled. His floating pen checked a box as he exited the room. A nurse entered the room the very next second, her green left wing had a blood pressure cuff coiled tightly around it, and her scrubs wreaked of that terrible stench he could only describe as "hospital." He would have preferred going to Mercy Hospital, but given the circumstances with the flu outbreak, he'd rather not risk entering what could very well be ground zero. At least this hospital was the closest to his small home in District Eighteen. She smiled at him, her rounded glasses nearly falling off the edge of her muzzle. "I'm just going to take your blood pressure, sir. The doctor will be back with you shortly." He grunted. He was here to check on his hip, not his blood. Her mouth slightly opened and her brow raised. She was slow to unwrap the wire; she very nearly let the blood pressure cuff slip off the tip of her wing and onto the floor. She nervously chuckled to herself, cautiously stepping toward the old stallion. She made the mistake of trying to converse with him. "So," she read the nameplate on his green army jacket, "Bill? What happened to your horn?" His glare intensified on the young mare. "S-sorry, it's just that–" "Grenade." "R-right. My apologies Mister Overbeck, I-I shouldn't have asked!" "Just take my damn blood pressure before it gets too high." The mare hesitantly strapped the blood pressure cuff to the base of his tail. To him, this was the embarrassing part of coming to the doctor for a checkup, and it didn't help that she had already begun to annoy him within twenty-three seconds of knowing her. Cksss. The compressed gas was released from its constricting grip. He breathed a sigh of relief as the mare hurried out the room. Overbeck's right hoof raised to touch the empty air where his horn would've been; all that remained was the base, which only came up to the first ring. Through the cracked door, he saw a blue pony wearing a blue patient gown keel over and projectile vomit across the floor. Nurses were quick to pick him up with their magic. He saw two cops run down the hallway to assess the situation. Was that also a CEDA agent? One of the officers grabbed his stomach and fell to the floor in a vomiting fit. He found himself no longer alone, as some nurses, doctors and patients alike began hurling over. His eyes widened, he went to the medical cabinet just above the sink and opened it. Bill grabbed a surgical mask from the cabinet and threw it on. THUD! A nurse burst into the room, her mouth and scrubs covered in red vomit. Bill ducked under her initial swing, or better to say, jump. The mare crashed into the cabinet sink and groaned in frustration. If he was young, he could have capitalized on the mare's drop in guard, but the sudden jerk of his hip to slide under the mare's lunge sent a familiar feeling of pins and needles down his right flank. The mare lunged once more. Already preoccupied with his hip, he couldn't even begin to make his escape. The two crashed against the hospital bed; mare on top. They traded blows with each other. To Bill's annoyance, the mare was shrieking and spraying blood into his eyes. She was making him deaf and blind. Wasn't it enough he was a unicorn without the horn? His hip back in place and his anger refueled, he brought his back hooves up and pressed them against her stomach. With all the force he could muster, he bucked her as far back as he could. Bill heard the crack of bones before he saw it. She was dead, the back of her neck had slammed against the corner of the cabinets. He calmly trotted out into and down the chaotic hallways. His trot turning into a painful gallop as more stallions and mares looked toward him with white luminescent eyes. Their pale fur was an interesting sight, what type of flu was this? Bill burst out the door and into the streets. He carved a path through ponies both content on surviving and killing. It had been a while since he'd seen devastation like this before. It was only one time when he had served in the Griffon-Pony War. When Twilight Sparkle, "The Last Princess," had ordered a napalm strike on a village supposedly housing hundreds of Vietclaw griffons. That was neither here nor there, all that mattered to him was action. It had been so long and civilian life had grown tiring nearly half the time ago. He was well into his house when he saw through the window a blue-furred pony, shotgun flinging at their side, being chased down the streets by more of those greyed psychopathic ponies. He let them past. He had to focus on fitting as many M16 magazines as he could into every individual pocket on his jacket. He pulled a green beret hat over his head. The fun was about to begin. He brought with him, in his pocket, a speaker. New technology he'd thought he would never use. Turns it, it'll make for some good music to listen to. He turned on his favorite song: Fortunate Son. One of the greatest hits of his favorite minotaur band. 'Let's go see how the neighbors are doing. 'Bout time I tell them to trim their hedges correctly.' SLAM! He kicked the door open with his back hooves., quickly swinging around to meet the nasty snarls of the ponies in his yard with his own. TACKTACK! TACK! Two bodies fell at the foot of his steps. He calmly trotted over them to plant himself in the dead center of the road. "Heh, 'dead center.' It kinda sounds like a trip to the mall I'd actually enjoy." The howling, unpony-like screams echoed around him. Greyed ponies began pouring out of buildings through windows and doorways, where doors once stood. He was surrounded by them. Gone were the screams of the innocent; entered was the shrieks of the enemy. And Bill rejoiced to those battle-cries with one of his own. TACK! TACKTACKTACK! TACKTACK! TACK! His muzzle lit up at different angles. The brief tick of emptied cartridges filled any gap he had between firing. TACKTACKTACKTACKTACK! TACKTACK! He whirled around to butt the jaw of the reared unicorn behind him. The sickening crack made any pain in his twisted hip nullified as the satisfying spoils of war washed over him. TACK! Forty-eight hours and seven minutes since the first infection. He sat alone atop an abandoned cart that used to be full of fruits and vegetables. The contents now chaotically littered across the blood-soaked streets. He was used to the blood being soaked up; not it endlessly flowing down the sides of the streets and into gutters. The haunting distant screams of still-living creatures haunt the urban wasteland. No inch of concrete is left without a story of a struggle between desperate prey and ruthless hunter. A griffon perched itself against the cart and attempted to reach Bill. He laughed, pulling out his trusty old KA-BAR and plunging it deep into the griffon's skull; simultaneously dropping down onto the blood-soaked concrete below him. He grabbed a red carrot off the ground and bit into it. Hopefully, it was rich in iron, and not blood. "Get away!" a distinct mare voice cried. Bill whirled around to spot the source of such a loud, and potentially hazardous, squeal. Already, he saw enraged ponies scrambling out of broken-windowed shops and houses. One pony spotted him and shrieked. "Whoever you are, you've just made my day." TACK! TACKTACK TACK! The ungodly growls chased behind him as he galloped full pace down the crimson street. Not missing a beat, he slid to a stop and gripped his rifle. Whirling around, he butts the closest pony with his stock and pins them down with his back hoof. He aims at the charging foe barreling down the street. TACK! "Boom! Headshot!" TACK! TACKTACK! Ponies from stores further down the road leap through windows and cut themselves on the loose glass. Bill mentally swears to himself and slams his stock into the brains of the pony beneath him. He lets his weapon fall to his side and he makes for the nearest shop to him. Two ponies lie pinned under a large shelf. A few others hurl themselves over the counter to get to him. He needs a holdout. That door behind the counter will do. He aims up to clear the two ponies blocking his entry. Click. "SHIT!" he dropped his weapon to his side, pulling out his knife to defend himself. BLAM! BLAM! The two ponies collapsed mere inches from his hooves. A pink earth pony was revealed behind the counter. "Get in!" was her greeting; almost a dozen greyed ponies were to thank for that. With haste, he pushed him and the mare through the doorway. He slammed the door closed onto a changeling's already caved in muzzle. He panted as she wiped her eyes and made herself look somewhat presentable. Her mangled fur did not help achieve that goal. The two spend their next few minutes in silence waiting on Bill to catch his breath and let his hip cramp go away. Well, to say it was completely silent would be incorrect, as there were plenty of unpleasant noises coming from the other side of the door. But the mare made him uncomfortable, her silent sobbing just faintly adding to the noise of hooves slamming against door. At long last, she broke from her fit and hiccuped an attempt of politeness to him. "Bill, huh? T-that's a nice name." "Thanks. I got it for my birthday." Bill replied, thinking cheering her up would be the best way to approach her. She chuckled a bit herself. "Mine's Zoey. Welcome to my humble abode." She smiled, her hoof scanning the room. Bill smiled and sat the heel of his M16 on the ground. Using the gun as a balancing tool, he reached his forehoof down and pushed the charging handle as far as he could get it. He peered into the side chamber, groaning at the fact he had forgotten to count his remaining bullets before the fight. He slowly released the charging handle, ensuring he wouldn't let it slam against and potentially damage his gun. He flicked the rifle to safety and ejected the empty magazine onto the floor. Bill grabbed a fresh magazine from his pocket and slowly slid it into the well of his gun. shhh-click. Bill looked up to the mare, who was pawing the ground. "Wanna come with?" he suggested. It was a stupid idea and could very well become the death of the mare—she doesn't look like the fighting type. Then again, locking herself in a storage room wouldn't do her any favors either. Zoey's pupils dilated as her head shot up, she exclaimed, "Will you let me? I have no place—" she looked back down "—and no pony to go to." "Woah, woah, if you're coming with me, you can't do any of that crying you're doing now." He let his M16 drape to his side as he stood up and trotted to the mare's side. He placed a hoof on her shoulder and assured, "I don't know what happened to you, and I never will want to know. That's not me being rude; it's me being resourceful. Save your breath for running—forget those you've lost." He paused before adding, "It helped me, that's for sure." Zoey wiped the forming tear from her dampened eyes. "R-right. It won't happen again, Bill, I swear." "Good." She sheepishly looked away and whispered, "Oh, and Bill?" "Yea?" "Those were my last two rounds." Bill closed his eyes, drawing in a long, deep breath. He exhaled just as slow. "Not a great start." Zoey stared aimlessly at the door. The banging had halted, but the loud and obnoxious sound was replaced by the equally terrifying moans of the infected. She peered at Bill, his pure-white beard slightly elevated. He's smiling? she thought. It was great having a companion and all, but he doesn't seem very mentally stable. She erased the thought. "Ahem," she called, "how are we gonna get through that?" Bill looked over, his smile stretching well over four miles. "Stay behind me and you'll see," he grabbed his empty magazine from the floor and tucked it into one of his cramped pockets. "Getting you some ammunition is my top priority, right now that pistol is just a glorified club." "What about escaping?" she asked. Bill froze. He had come into the city to fight the enemy. Zoey isn't the mare he'd expect to hold her own, so he can't do the one thing he'd actually enjoy. Then again, what's stopping him from leaving her? They had only just met, after all. Bill tucked the thought into the deep archives of his mind. This young mare needs his help and, since she can't fight, he'll get her to a safe place. The question is: where? "I know the military is evacuating ponies over at Mercy Hospital, perhaps we can go there once we load up?" "I like your thinking, Zoey." he agreed. "Now, get ready to kick open the door and immediately run behind me." She obliged, turning her flank to the door and nodding to him. "Ready when you are." "Ready." WHAM! Zoey bucked the door open. The dozen infected snapped to the noise and erupted into frenzied shrieking. Zoey hid behind Bill as the room became a show of blinding flashes and gore. Many of the infected ponies rolled onto the floor as they tossed themselves over the counter, giving Bill plenty of breathing room to aim. He picked off the ones who were on top, their weight pinning the ponies at the bottom of the pile. Two infected slid into view, they had opted to go around the counter rather than over. The smaller mare slammed into the stallion, who then, in turn, slammed into the side of the doorway. The crossfire they had only taken out the mare's right foreleg. The stallion charged into Bill, collapsing them both onto the hard marble floor, with Bill's gun wedged uncomfortably under his back and out of reach. Zoey had her hooves tied up as well. The mare in front of her, even though she was limping, was on her in a second. The infected mare reared up to try and swing down on Zoey, but Zoey took the initiative and headbutted into the mare's exposed stomach. The mare fell onto her back. Zoey grabbed a pickle jar off the shelf and slammed it into the mare's head. Her head and the jar along with it shattered into pieces. "Get it off—get it off!" Bill screamed, the stallion's forehooves were pinning Bill's hooves down to his side. The stallion bit into Bill's exposed neck. Zoey galloped and reared herself up, her two forehooves catching the stallon's side and tumbling them to the ground. Bill slung his rifle around and took aim at the two ponies. TACK! The stallion collapsed onto Zoey. She grunted in frustration as she attempted to push the stallion off of her. Bill limped over, placing a hoof on the side of the corpse and rolling it off the mare. "Thanks," she half-heartedly chuckled. Bill extended his hoof and helped the mare up. "Let's get out of this cesspit." "What about your bite?" "If I start turnin' then shoot me." "Then we might only have a few minutes left." "I doubt it. You can't kill Bill," He laughed. Chapter Five: So That Others May LiveForty-eight hours and ten minutes since the first infection. ♣ ♣ ♣ "Run the plan by me one more time—I'm trying to grasp the absurdity behind it," griped the green pegasus in a properly-tailored suit. "We should have stayed up on the roof. A helicopter was bound to find us eventually." "Nicholas," began Clark, "how many times do I have to tell you? Nobody is responding to my distress calls; we're on our own." "I can't believe you right now, Clark. What happened to 'for the good of the ponies?'" Alyssa asked. She hadn't been too keen on the plan. Clark had proposed they go to District Two and find a train. A train for gods' sake! It was crazy, and Francis loved it. "The 'ponies' are trying to kill us, Alyssa!" Clark shouted, swinging around to face the purple earth pony. "I say we give it a chance!" stated the old red unicorn in a rough, fierce voice. "The once congested roads out there are now scattered with those 'infected—'" "Vamponies." Francis corrected. The yellow unicorn murmured behind him, "I-I assure you, Francis, they are infected—have you not been listening?" "No, I have. My brain takes what I hear and summarizes it into actual words. 'Hungry, blood-crazed monsters looking to convert healthy ponies into their ranks: vamponies." The yellow unicorn sighed and settled her back against the wall again, pushing down to a seated position. The cyan pony finished his mumbling prayer. "We must decide quickly, or else these demons will figure out our hiding position. The banging may have seized, but the bloodshed has not." His R's were heavily rolled, and his deep voice did not fit his scrawny looks. "Either you come with us, Nicholas, or you stay here. Alone." Officer Clark discarded his empty magazine into his pocket and reloaded a full one into the M1911. Everypony slowly shifted toward and behind Clark. Everypony besides Alyssa, that is. "Our job is to protect and serve," she mentioned, her hoof pointed accusingly toward Clark. "I will not abandon my ponies." "Our job was to protect and serve. Can't you see, Alyssa? Look outside for Luna's sake! It's a bloodbath, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. If we go out there and save one, maybe two ponies, then we'll die. But if we find a train, and escape, we could very well begin to warn and save other ponies closer to the west—perhaps saving hundreds of more." Alyssa opened her mouth, but then she closed it and glanced outside. The infected ponies aimlessly wandered through the streets, with no sense of purpose or direction. Two thoroughly alive ponies were cornered in an alleyway, using their guns as glorified clubs as they tried to fend off the onslaught of infected. They were quickly overwhelmed, their bright colors becoming masked under the bloodied rainbow above them. She grew fond of the floor, staring at it for the following minute of silence. Nicholas, the green pegasus, stood there with widened eyes and an opened jaw. He shook his head and trotted over to Clark's side. Alyssa soon followed in silent steps, not daring to look anypony in the eye. "Let's go," she mumbled. Francis cleared his throat, "What happens now?" Officer Clark trotted to the windowed doors and peered out. "Now, ponies." chhCK! "Let's get to that train." He shoved the door open and ran out. The five ponies followed after him and down the road. Abandoned carts were scattered around the streets as the blazing sun overhead illumined all surfaces below with a golden radiance. Infected ponies were beginning to notice the survivors, and they were beginning to gallop towards them. The red stallion's horn glowed and grabbed the shovel off his back. The yellow mare noticed and did the same with her pocket knife. They set up a border on both the left and right sides of the additional four ponies. Nicholas flew high into the sky, shouting out any infected who were getting too close to the group. Francis, Alyssa, and Clark kept their guns holstered as they sprinted. They had barely made it to the end of the intersection, but a pocket knife and shovel can only shred through so many bones. The young mare's pocket knife zipped through two infected ponies. It had just pierced the third before a scream interrupted her focus. An infected pony had caught up to the group from behind them and tackled Francis. He cried out as the pony mauled his back with a volley of strikes. A shovel flew by, beheading the pony and the next following directly behind it. Nicholas descended down and shoved the carcass off Francis. He stretched his hoof and eased the pony up. "No time to rest now!" hollered Clark. He was raised on his two back hooves, struggling with another reared pony for his neck. He struck the pony in the left cheek and flung it down to its side against concrete. The group resumed their pace down the next intersection and pivoted left. The unholy screeches of those pursuing them were growing louder and louder with each passing block. Every intersection they advanced through steadily attached at least a dozen extra infected ponies to pursue them. Nicholas yelled down to the ponies with guns, "Start shooting damn it!" Clark yelled up identically as loud, "Shooting requires us to stop and turn—I am not stopping!" They were nearing the third block now. With the abundance of ponies chasing them still rising, they detour into the plentiful alleys amongst buildings. The various alleys had one green dumpster in the heart of it all, stuffed to the rim and encircled by black trash bags. There was a modest grey barrel in the alley one over. It had been set on fire, shining anypony's features and the surfaces nearby it. The kindled barrel alley divided into two more distinct alleys, one had an enormous wooded wagon blocking it, the other dead-ended into a broken-down doorway. With ponies pursuing them, they all dashed right and bolted into the open doorway. Dozens of crates distributed upon racks tall as the room itself served as a maze for the panicked group. The infected ponies had begun flooding into the crate maze mere moments later. They had just begun to circle the exterior of the maze, when the cyan preachy pony hollered, "There's the exit!" He rushed ahead of the group and toward the door. He reared up to finish the last few steps on his back hooves and break down the door with force, but then disaster struck. An infected griffon burst through the crates from the opposite side of the racks and grabbed the cyan pony, pushing him against the wall. It beat him as every other infected pony had before, but its claws made the work a great deal more lethal. The group was several moments away, they couldn't stop to shoot—too many ponies behind them wanted to kill them as well. A pocket knife flung forward to stop the griffon. But the deed had been done. He was breathing, but his mangled coat and figure transformed his color from a brilliant blue into a damp crimson. His crescent moon necklace sprawled against the ground beside his head. The gods did not protect him. He could not speak, his wide-eyed expression and gurgling sounds did enough signs for the group: he was a goner. They left him. Clark shouldered the door ajar and hurried everypony inside. When the old stallion finally made it inside, the door was slammed shut. The frenzied banging was the only sound as the group caught their breath. They were in a dim corridor, with numerous darker rooms that contained a singular office. At the end of the corridor, it veered left. Blinding sunlight seeped into the hall from that secondary hallway. A helicopter darted by overhead, its thunderous engine attracting any infected ponies or non-ponies in a five-block radius to it. The banging ceased. The sounds of various claws and hooves racing away gradually evaporated into the distance. "W-we've already lost one," the yellow mare stammered. "That's why I didn't want to ask any of you for names," coldly responded Clark. "Not until we get on that train." "If." Nicholas added. Clark ignored Nicholas's remark. "We're still in the slums. District Two is only the next one over—maybe one or two blocks to go. Then, we get to the train station. Sadly it's on the far right of the district, and we'll be entering on the very left." "Then we better get going," Alyssa stated softly. Clark winced at her beaten posture. She was hunched down, never daring to meet the eyes of anypony around her; nevertheless, he acknowledged, "C'mon ponies, all we need to do is stick together." The group accompanied him down the corridor. They shifted left to the next hall. It wasn't another corridor, it was a reception room. The shattered windowpanes left hazardous glass throughout the room. The front entrance had also been torn off. Tracks of blood concentrated into one closed room. A room they nonverbally agreed to never enter. Their trot to the next intersection was skeptically peaceful. Not a single infected wandered in the street. "Maybe they're on break," the old stallion joked as he and Francis laughed. "Nah, old stallion, they're probably more scared of us than we are of them!" bellowed Francis. "Will you two quiet down—you'll get us all killed," hushed Clark. The old stallion rubbed his eyes, "The name's Jack, what's yours?" "Francis," he cheerfully answered. "Well, Francis, glad to know somepony here has a sense of humor." The group neared the edge of the following block and cut the corner to the right. They thought they had made it out of District Twelve, but it wouldn't be so easy. An enormous black fence obstructed the entrance to District Two. A few cops were dispersed on the other side. One of them laid lifeless upon the ground, while the other trotted around and banged their hooves against concrete walls. Clark returned to the group. "We gotta go around." Alyssa's eyes darted around. "Let's take the shortest route—the building attached to the fence on the left there is secured shut, but we can force our way in through the windows." "It's too much noise," Clark noted, "I don't want to lose another group member so abruptly." Alyssa sighed, "There are a plethora of buildings, Clark, take your pick." Clark nodded, "This way, I saw an unhinged door not too far down here." The group slowly backtracked down the block. The eerie presence of distant gunshots and enraged howls picking up again. Another helicopter flew by, a military Black Hawk, it was heading toward Mercy Hospital. "Maybe they're evacuating," claimed the yellow mare. "Either that or they're just tryna shoot everypony they see to contain this mess," suggested Jack. The group's trot ended in front of an open entrance to an IT building. Clark faced Jack, "You go first." "Do what now?" he questioned. "My apologies," he quickly stated, "You have magic, so you can simply generate a forcefield to shield yourself as you clear any rooms we may encounter." He blinked, his eyebrows raising ever slightly. "Why can't she do it?" he suggested as he pointed to the yellow unicorn behind him. She shook her head. "Surely you don't want to endanger a mare," he pressed. Jack glanced at the mare. Then peered into the blue sky above. He muttered a curse before locking eyes with Clark again. "Fine." Jack pushed Clark out of his way and entered the building. His horn sparked as a red magical wall tall as the room appeared into view. He squinted at Clark, then trotted down the hallway with the group approaching after. The rooms around them were all locked, and they were also clean. Not a single blood droplet could be witnessed. "Will ya look at that, all these precautions you took amounted to nothing," snarled Jack. Their trot had ended to a back door, with an exit sign above the door. "We need to practice being cautious so we don't lose another member. The cyan stallion died because he galloped ahead," reminded Clark. "But if we take too long, we risk ending up in a worse situation—a situation that could very well be our last," countered Jack. "Calm down you two, let's not butt heads until we're out of this forsaken city," Francis demanded, stepping between the two. They shifted aside and grumbled their curses for the opposite. Francis nodded to the other ponies, "Are you ponies ready?" "Read for round two!" Jack declared cheerfully. Francis kicked the door open, profuse amounts of golden rays darted into the room. He shielded his eyes as the group galloped through the door one at a time. He blinked several times and galloped through the doorway. Jack and the yellow mare were hard at work with their magic, decapitating anything that dared charge toward the group. They hastily made their way down the street, leaving the ineffective gate and cops behind them. The next block reminded them they were still in the apocalypse. Infected ponies crashed through windows and doors, appeared from alleys and behind abandoned carts, and one even fell off a roof to catch them. It didn't survive. With the growing horde behind them, their pace quickened. Jack and the mare holstered their melee weapons, with the mare opting to close the pocket knife and gallop with it under her hoof, and Jack levitating it closer to his side, to focus their minds on going as fast as they could. More gunshots, this time an unending sound of firing, erupted off in the distance. The horde behind them numbered well over five dozen now. The street they veered on was the last road. All they had to do was follow it to the train station, only half a mile down the road. The only problem being the new horde in front of them. The group halted to survey the chaos. A helicopter had crashed in the middle of the road, dragging any concrete it had crashed against along with it. Small pockets of fire and debris were littered across the street. A second horde, perhaps another six dozen infected, had surrounded the crashed helicopter—and now they could hear the frustrated shrieks of the first horde behind them. The two hordes had them surrounded. Two rectangular carts that had somehow crashed into one another and had numerous planks shattered and pointed upward became their defensive hill. A hill the infected would gladly charge right into gunfire to take. Gunfire, this time, was a key factor in this battle. All three ponies unholstered their pistols and hastily discharged into the crowds of grey-tinted ponies and griffons. Jack and the yellow mare ready their weapons once more and propelled them through the necks of anything it came in contact with. The uninterrupted gunfire in the background did not let up, and neither did the gunfire on this blooded road. Francis had climbed atop one of the wooden carts, placing his left forehoof on the side of the cart while he shot with his right. The yellow mare had pulled herself up and onto the other cart for a better view of the situation. She had placed her efforts on the left side to help Alyssa, who had been alone. The rest of the ponies, besides Nicholas, had created a circle around the cart. Flying high above the group showing no emotions and offering no assistance was Nicholas. Clark had started to notice, but he was preoccupied with a more significant task: survival. He had not been paying attention when an infected griffon quickened through the line and engaged him. The group was crumbling as Jack was engaged in severing the heads of anything that came near Alyssa, who had to reload, but the immediate second her firing discontinued the infected overwhelmed her. She desperately struck and bludgeoned any infected charging into her with her hooves and gun. The yellow mare held her pocket knife close to defend herself. Many infected pierced through behind them when Francis reloaded, for he was the only one holding the rear; furthermore, when Jack stopped concentrating on the front with Clark, more infected ponies had burst through there as well. The bloodied griffon had Clark pinned to his back. He instinctively dropped his gun to block the razor-sharp claws attempting to puncture his body. The yellow mare squealed as she got yanked off the wagon, her body sinking into the sea of grey that had flooded over her. Alyssa then fell, a unicorn had reared up and dropped upon her with a vicious jab to the cheekbone. She abruptly collapsed to the concrete, helpless to defend herself from the thrashing she then began suffering. Jack had left her to protect himself. He was on his two back hooves and had his back bound against the side of the wagon as he used the shaft of his shovel to gag a changeling. Francis had his back painfully clasped on the inner side of the cart with his P220 in hoof, but his hoof pinned under an infected pegasus. He and Jack were only a head away from each other; however, they were both concerned with their attackers to notice. BLAM! The griffon's brain exploded across the road and Clark's face. Its corpse slumped over and fell to Clark's right. He only saw a green wing before the pony soared off into the sky. They shot the unicorn who was pummeling Alyssa—in the neck—then the pony pinning Jack in the side of the head. The six infected ponies, who weren't satisfied with just the yellow mare, turned toward the green pegasus and charged full-sprint toward him. The green pegasus redirected his attention to protecting himself. That left Francis on his own as Jack had begun chopping his way to the motionless Alyssa twelve feet away. The pegasus on top of Francis delivered a blow to his shoulder, then lifted up to deliver another, more effective strike to his head. An attack Francis would make sure never landed. CHK BANG! The pegasus made the mistake of loosening its grip on Francis's right hoof, allowing him to close the slide of his P220 and deliver a fatal gunshot to the head. The last few ponies, unfazed by their fallen colleague's corpses, raced toward the group. Jack made sure they preserved any ammunition they had left as his shovel twirled through the remaining stragglers. But one had crept behind him. BLAM! The infected's face smeared against the ground as hit slid to a halt, merely inches away from Jack. Nicholas brought the M1911 barrel against his muzzle and blew into the smoke. He smirked as he tossed the emptied weapon to the ground beside Clark. The group recollected themselves. Jack was to carry Alyssa with his magic until she wakes up, Francis would trot with his gun clutched firmly in his wing at all times, Nicholas would fly above and ahead of the group to spot ahead. The only difference being the yellow mare wasn't there anymore and the gunfire off in the distance had stopped. Nicholas scavenged the mare's pocket knife, stating that she wouldn't need it anymore. Alyssa told him to stab into the mare's skull, suggesting she would've wanted them to do it—he begrudgingly did so but complained about the blood getting on his suit thereafter. As they trotted down the next block in District Two, buildings went from eye-captioning skyscrapers to smaller, more elaborate structures. Barbershops, restaurants, jewelry stores, and even some shops for tourists scattered about. Not even a fool would dare tour Fillydelphia now. "There it is," Clark pointed out. An old, massive brick structure stood out on one side of a small park. Neatly-trimmed grass grown at the front of the building was evenly separated into four even squares, with sidewalks acting as the border in between. The building itself had a domed glass roof and an open entrance, allowing them to see the bloodbath and countless infected inside. Large pillars steadied a railway high above the streets below, making use of the spacious skies above. "Let's get ourselves a train and get out of this place," Clark insisted. "Y'all wanna hear a prediction?" "No, Nicholas." "There's not gonna be a train." Clark led the group into the station. Two enormous chandeliers were hanging down, providing ample light for the brick station. Paired with the dozens of smaller square lights that were built in between any arcing doorways and the enormous glass dome above, you'd have more than three faint shadows at any given position. A crystal water fountain stood out in the middle of the brick interior, with a polished wooden bench neatly placed on each side of the square. One of the benches had a mangled unicorn corpse ripped open and laying on top, revoking any sense of safety in the station. The polished marble floor had the same issue, blood patches, splatters, and trails scattered around. Two enormous staircases led up to a second floor. "That," Francis began, "is a large pack of vamponies." "Not to mention the armored changelings," Jack mentioned. "I'm personally more afraid of those claws," Nicholas stated, pointing a feather to a griffon. "All we need to do is get to that train—it should be on the second floor," Clark reassured. The group lower themselves to the ground and warily stepped forward, not wanting too many ponies. Jack killed two ponies who spotted them before they could scream. They trotted around the water fountain and were on their way up the right giant staircase. A changeling suddenly appeared from the top of the steps. It's lower jaw was ripped off, stopping it from screaming. Nicholas swept into action, stabbing into the belly of the changeling as it jumped up to punch his back. The dead changeling rolled quietly down the steps. Jack was the last to make it up the flight of stairs, he was panting hard before Clark quickly hushed him. They had found their train, proving Nicholas wrong. Sadly, things were never made to be easy. Blood stained every window on the twelve-cart train. Its sleek rectangular design had copious bullet holes puncturing the sides. A grey interior, with red seats hiding any blood spilled upon it. Many of the doors were left open, letting infected aimlessly trot in and out of the cart in search of their next kill. Clark commanded, "We'll clear out the carts near the front of the train. Secure the remainder of those things in the back and leave them to rot." "Sounds like a plan," Nicholas admitted. Clark smirked at his approval, but his smirk became bitter as he drew his M1911 from his holster. "This is the final trek, ponies!" he shouted, bulls-eyeing the two griffons ahead of them. Francis galloped forward, his wing shooting any pony emerging from the train. Jack focused on keeping Alyssa out of swiping range from any infected. Nicholas had borrowed Alyssa's gun and fired upon any ponies he saw getting too close to the group. Clark led the charge, resorting to long leaps on three legs as his right forehoof was used to aim at any dangerously close infected. Nicholas rushed ahead, shooting the captain that emerged out of the opened train window. He flew inside to start the train. Clark placed himself at the front of the train, pushing Jack along with Alyssa inside. Nopony else could fit comfortably inside the driving section of the train, so Francis perched himself on the bottom of the steps below Clark and fired into the dozens of ponies barreling down the station. Nicholas poked his head out the window, "Clark! When were you going to explain how to drive one of these things?" he shouted. Clark looked up, he had forgotten about that. "Uhm," he paused to think. "Is there a gas pedal?" "No!" Clark shot a cop through the eye. He turned back up to Nicholas, "Well, look for something that usually means go! Look for labels!" he reasoned. The infected had forced themselves closer. Francis was down to his last four bullets. The infected were thankfully scattered out, meaning the nearest four infected would be dealt with one at a time, but after that? It would be all down to Nicholas. "Aha! This says 'throttle!'" "Then pull it!" Clark yelled. Francis had missed his first shot, and the following one only slowed the charging changeling closest to them. His third shot hit home and the changeling dropped to the floor. Its corpse quickly got trampled by the next infected. "I pulled it!" Nothing happened. "Pull it harder!" "It's as far as it can go!" Francis waited for the infected pony to resume a steady sprint towards him. The pony was about to make the jump to the train. BANG! "I'm out!" Francis hollered. Clark aimed and shot the next pony to leap over the dead changeling. "Start pressing shit then!" Clark screamed. Francis practically leaped up the steps and dove behind Clark, who then began firing into the group of three ponies now at the base of the steps. One dropped. Two dropped. Then the third, another griffon, dived into Clark, nailing him against the ground and losing his pistol. Jack sprang from the train window. His horn glowed a deep red as a giant red wall prevented any more ponies from piling onto the train. He was just above to send his shovel to help Clark before an ear-piercing scream deafened the group. "RRRGAAAAAAHHHHH!" A griffon pounced onto him from the coal cart behind them, shattering his concentration into an unstallion-like scream. The griffon, pulling Jack along with it, fell onto the tracks under the train and the station floor. "Jaaack!" Francis outcried. He hurriedly forced the griffon on top of Clark down the steps, his wing picking up the dropped gun in the process. BLAM! He couldn't see the griffon or Jack, but he did see the blood fly up and splatter against the side of the train. Two more ponies jumped over the gap and onto the train. "Press faster Nicholas!" Clark demanded. BLAM! "I'm trying!" replied Nicholas's muffled voice. BLAMBLAMBLAM! The infected collapsed dead onto the fourth step. Five more appeared from the rear of the train. "Nicholas!" screamed Clark as he flung himself into the infected, a desperate attempt at keeping them down the steps. Francis aimed at the one biting Clark's neck. click. Francis discarded the pistol and assisted Clark to keep the infected down. BLAM! Nicholas rose from the side of the train. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He paused to thoroughly aim at the pony still fighting with and biting Clark. BLAM! Nicholas tossed the pistol out the window as he re-submerged into the train. Francis reared and snatched the gun mid-air. He aimed at the final pony, who had now tackled and bound Clark on his back against the hard, metal floor. BLAM! chhhhssssss. The train began to move. "I did it!" Nicholas rejoiced. Francis pulled Clark back to tend to his neck wound. Clark's droopy eyes slowly shut as Francis frantically worked to stop the bleeding. "Stay with me!" he blurted. Thunderous howls erupted, deafening the sounds of the running engine on the train. Francis gazed past the side of the train. Two dozen vamponies were charging up the stairs—no, five dozen—six dozen! At least a hundred vamponies storming toward the train. It would be overwhelmed in mere minutes. The bodies of the vamponies were packed together, acting as a tsunami that enveloped any unfortunate thing it passed. "Go faster damn it!" "It has to build up momentum!" "We don't have time!" Francis tossed the gun to Nicholas. He pulled Clark away from the steps and pushed his hooves against the bleeding wound. Nicholas steadied his left forehoof through the roof handle and leaned out the driver-side window. He picked out the earth pony, who was charging ahead of the tsunami towards the train. He aimed. click. The earth pony jumped across the tracks and onto the steps below. Francis braced himself. fwuu-shCK! The pony fell limp over the front of the train. Nicholas had thrown his scavenged pocket knife expertly into the temple of the pony. Francis and Nicholas grinned, but the shrieks of the horde interrupted their happy moment with existential fear. Two more earth ponies slung themselves into view from the rear of the train—one miscalculated the jump and fell onto the tracks below. Francis reared himself up and locked forehooves with the vampony. His wing ripped the pocket knife from the skull of the previous kill and dug it deep into the heart of the vampony. When the blade hilted, Francis dug his wing through the gaping hole to get the pocket knife completely through its heart and back. It didn't disintegrate into ashes. With a gurgly growl, the creature pulled itself closer toward Francis. Bones shattered and stabbed into Francis's ruffled feathers, sending him into unimaginable amounts of pain. Francis dropped, unintentionally pulling the thing down with him. It pounded him thoroughly, directing at whatever happened to be open or convenient for the thing. It landed on a punch to the neck, sending Francis's blood spurting out of his mouth and down his neck and stomach. His vision blurred, he mustered the last of his strength to turn right, where the head of the train was facing. The sounds of whirring wind and images of blurred buildings invading his last senses. Suddenly, the beating stopped. The creature's blood intermixed with his own as is slumped over and off of him. Nicholas stood there, horrified by his condition. He dragged Francis and sat him against the steps of the train, where they watched the tsunami behind them fall forty-feet down to the concrete below in a vain attempt to catch them. Francis used his remaining muscles to muster up a smile, which Nicholas gladly met with his own. "We made it," Nicholas murmured. Though, he couldn't say the same for everypony else. The cyan pony had perished when he rushed ahead of the group, the yellow mare was quickly overwhelmed and ripped to shreds by a sea of grey, Jack was taken out abruptly by a peculiarly sneaky griffon, and Clark, sadly, succumb to blood loss a minute ago as his mortified face and neck dried in the wind. Alyssa—well, at least she survived. Francis's vision gently withered away into black, with the last memory he observed being the edge of the city. They had escaped, at the cost of several others. The only way he could return the favor was to do as Clark said and warn the west. Can they outrun the virus in time to get there, is the new question.
Chapter One: Vamponies!Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♣ ♣ ♣ CHCHCHCHCHCHKKKKK A pegasus’s ears flattened against his skull. A unicorn pony in a navy blue long-sleeve vest jammed the keys into his locks. His hoof locks were already removed, but the dreaded wing restraints remained. Ponies sat in the waiting room, waiting for their conjugal visit. He had never gotten a conjugal visit during his time, he preferred to stick with one-night stands. Not even a family member had visited him, his mom was hospitalized for cardiac arrest not too long ago, and his dad beat him growing up, so why would he care? The keys clicked, the officer beside him sighed and smirked. Magic lifted him into the air and threw him out of the city jail. The guard laughed and slammed the glass door shut when he fell muzzle-first into a puddle of water. He groaned, sitting up from his surprise bath. The rain beat down upon his gray fur. He lifted his wings to try and cover himself, but the embossed feathers from the tightened constraints exploded into a fiery pain. His head swiveled as he observed the city around him, an abundance of ponies, griffons, and changelings raced to their jobs. What time was it? Nine, maybe ten? The skyscrapers over Fillydelhpia hit him, the giant buildings, filled with bodies of all assortments of creatures. Many pegasi and griffons were flying five stories overhead, casting their shadows down upon the city in a seemingly endless light show. He stood up from his puddle, tangling his feathers together and pushing upward. “Urrrrrrrgh.” He sighed in relief and dropped his wings down to his sides again. He set off south down the city, trying to remember his way back to where his apartment was. His apartment was located in District Twelve, widely considered the poorest district out of the Eighteen. The northern districts were where the lucky bodies lived. He went for a little sight-seeing in the rain, District Fourteen was a nice place, a lot of diversity, knowledgable ponies, cops. Cops. The corrupt bastards, Completely left districts Twelve and Thirteen to rot. That’s where the majority of crime goes down, and it’s the place he could rob a store and lay low for three days and get away with it. He turned down the block, dodging a coughing pony nearly a few feet away. A Griffon hot dog vendor was calling for ponies to come and try his hotdogs, but he thinks they forgot ponies were herbivores. He caught some looks when he sold to a griffon couple, though. He was just about to pass into District Twelve before he saw a banner covering almost the entire length of a fourteen-story building. The banner flapped in the wind, with big black words reading: CLEAN HOOVES SAVE LIVES! He scoffed, observing the black water droplet directly below the sentence, then at the bottom, the word “CEDA” stretched to fit the poster near the bottom. A worldwide agency was freaking out over a flu outbreak. An outbreak they deemed to be a “Flu.” He pushed himself into an alley. A nice shortcut to dodge traffic and head directly to his apartment. “Spare bits?” An old, homely earth pony coughed into his hooves, laying on his cardboard bed and makeshift trash covers. He informed the pony, “sorry, if I had any spare bits I wouldn’t be coming from the city jail.” “Oh,” the old stallion erupted into a coughing fit. “That’s alright,” he coughed, “gods be with you!” “I wish you the best of luck.” The pegasus took a step back to look at his apartment: broken shards of glass and boarded windows served as the only viewable scenery. It was a five-story apartment complex decorated by two poorly maintained bushes sitting outside and at the bottom of the steps in pots. Many of the rooms were abandoned. Save for a few poor bodies, himself included. He looked up into the spiraling staircase. Normally he’d fly up them, but now he’d have to trot. Frowning in displeasure, each step he took hurt worse than the last. He got to his floor, the third story, and strode past his floor-mates. He didn’t have much connection with either of them, one was a stallion who lived closest to the steps and the other was a mare who lived across from him. The only thing he knows about the stallion is that he always leaves his apartment door open, although he still hasn’t seen what he looks like. He could only infer it was a stallion because he saw a mare he had never seen enter his apartment four days ago. He has met the mare, on one occasion. She reeked of cat piss during that occasion. When she opened her door, her apartment was even worse. He opened his apartment door, the final door on the left, and trotted inside. He slammed the door shut with his back hoof, dust fell from the crevices and cracks around the door and to the floor. He kicked the dust into his dust pile in the corner and went into the living room. A single, torn gray couch faced a box TV that sat awkwardly on the floor. A round table stood to the left of the couch, with a small buffet lamp placed off-center from the middle. It was hard having to reach the middle, so he pulled the lamp closer to the couch to turn the light off. His bed had caved in three months ago, but he never bothered replacing it—he enjoyed the couch a lot more. He trotted into his kitchen, a single five-foot-tall fridge sat in the corner, a rusted stove to its left. He managed to find an old microwave in some dumpster only mere weeks ago. Everything in-between the stove and microwave was just cabinets. The ones on the floor, almost neck-high in height, morphed into a poorly maintained countertop for all his unenthusiastic meal preparations. The ceiling cabinets, one the other hoof, were prepared to fit any food if he ever were to buy any. Take out was much easier to prepare anyway, just pull it out of the bag and indulge. He opened the bottom compartment of the fridge. A brown bag of a half-eaten hayburger sat on the top shelf, the middle was empty, and laying comfortably on the bottom shelf was a spilled beer. ’Damn it.’ He sighed, placing a hoof on the dirtied marble counter. He pushed himself up and placed his second hoof on the small, rectangular handle. Stupid carpenters, it’s all about being ‘politically correct’ in this world. Everything has to be built to accommodate for minotaurs because “minotaur lives matter!” He pushed the tip of his hoof through the small hole and pulled the cabinet open. It didn’t budge. He brought his second hoof up and stuck it through the other side of the cabinet. His hoof-tips just barely touching. He grunted and pulled with all his might. The cabinet unhinged. He fell flat on his flank with a loud thud. ’I hate minotaurs.’ He dropped the broken cabinet door to the ground and jumped to his hooves. Balancing himself on the countertop again, he peered into the cabinet interior. ’Empty.’ The other cabinets, while they didn’t break when he pried them open, also contained no drinks or food. His stomach growled. ’I guess its hayburger with a side of contaminated city air tonight.’ He tossed the hayburger into the microwave and plugged it into the outlet. Beep! Frantic knocking barraged his worn door. He took one, long breath. “Coming!” Bam. Bam. Bam! “Celestia’s sake, I said I was coming!” He ran up to the door and turned the handle. Bam! Bam! WHAM! The door flew open, denting the wall it smacked into. A grayed-out yellow fur mare, with substantial blood coating her muzzle and hooves, lept onto the pegasus. She went for his neck, but he panicked and threw his hoof up and into her mouth. She bit down. Hard. The pegasus screamed in agony and kicked her off him, she landed back first into the cabinets. Another cabinet partially became unhinged from the force. She tried to move, but her spine had broken. The mare—no, the vampony was paralyzed. The pegasus jumped to his hooves and grabbed the cabinet before that had come unhinged. THWACK! CRACK! The mare wasn’t moving, splinters of the cabinet mangled her face and fur. He scooted himself beside the mare. “Huff. Huff.” He stood up, his legs trembling over the seemingly increased weight he possessed. He tossed himself to the couch and used it as a prop to keep himself up. He sat there for a moment and, with one final inhale, he bolted to his bedroom. He disregarded everything in that filthy room. His eyes were locked on one thing. His drawer. He peered into the dark box and pulled out his trusty survival kit. A P220 semi-automatic pistol, three fifteen-round magazines, a wooden stake, and a frame vest to hold the gun and ammunition. Before he equipped his vest, he hopped over a pile of used sheets to reach his closet where his prized possession hung proudly alone on a hanger. A minotaur-styled vest, shrunk down to fit him three years ago. It didn’t have any sleeves, as minotaurs often preferred to show off their biceps. It helped with mating, or something, although it was probably just a way to boost their egos. He pulled his hooves into the holes of his vest and wrapped his belt around his back and stomach, securing it with two clicks. ChhhhCK! Pulling the slide of his pistol back with his hoof, he flicked the safety on with his wing and slid the barrel into his holster. The pistol faced backward, allowing him to quickly pull it out with his opposite hoof and begin shooting. The vamponies have finally revealed themselves. It was time to fight back and take his place as the almighty vampony-slayer pegasus! He trotted and stopped in his doorway. The trashed apartment he called home, he was finally leaving this place for good. Breathing a sigh of relief, he trotted down the hallway to that stallion’s room. A trail of blood streaked across the floor heading to his room. ’He’ll become a vampony.’ He trotted into the blackened apartment and searched the wall for a switch. He couldn’t see a damn thing! “Aha!” He found and flipped the switch upward. He covered his eyes to let them have a chance to get used to it. Slowly, he let his hoof down. The room was just like his, but more barren. He didn’t think that was possible. A blue couch, covered in blood, faced nothing. No TV, not even a box one. ‘Poor bastard.’ He propped his two hooves on the back of the couch and looked over. A giant, pool of blood outlined a gray pegasus. His body was beaten and his neck was oozing out any blood it had left. His face was left mortified from being attacked. The gray pegasus, the alive one, looked at the trail of blood, similar to the one in the hallway, that ran over the couch. He didn’t want to waste any bullets, but the pony wasn’t turning, yet. He looked around the room, the only notable things were a bookshelf with four books on it, a golf club and bag, and a spilled cup of water. ’Fore!’ He jumped onto his back hooves and came down on the skull of the dead pony, then he did it again and again. He did not stop until the face was unrecognizable to even their mother. He’s not taking any chances, what good is a vampony-slayer if they can’t prevent more from popping up? He slid the golf club handle first into his right sheathe. The building shook as a helicopter flew overhead. A hardened, booming voice echoed throughout the streets below. “To anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” ’Well, that’s no fun.’ He trotted out the door and into the hallway, when did authorities ever stop him? He looked at the stairway. Groaning and turning his head to the other end of the hallway, his face brightened with an idea. He smiled, running full spring toward the window. He jumped through the window, three-stories above the street. His sore wings strained as he attempted to glide to the ground. He was only a story up before his wings gave out, he steered himself into a trash pile in an alley across the street. Slamming muzzle first into the trash pile, he mentally cursed as he rolled over on his already fatigued wings. He took one, long breath and closed his eyes. He smelt smoke, then his ears came back to him. Screaming and gunfire filled the air. ’The vamponies have been preparing for this.’ Griffons and ponies ran by the alleyway, yelling in terror. Shrieks and growls grew louder as the seconds ticked by, before one growl he heard was closer than expected. He looked up, an upside-down homely stallion, with blood covering his neck and muzzle, shrieked at him. His ears flattened and he winced as the stallion charged him. He panicked, pushing his body around one-eighty in the trash pile, the pony dropped onto him, his muzzle opened to bite into his neck. He pulled his back hooves up, catching the leaping pony’s stomach and guiding it over him. It landed back first into a rusted dumpster. The pegasus turned one-eighty again, hugging himself with his left hoof as he pulled his gun loose. He flicked the safety off with his other hoof and aimed. BANG! The bullet shredded a hole through its chest and out the left side of its flank. The vampony fell just shy of him, but quickly got to its hooves and charged him again. He slammed the barrel into the vampony’s mouth and used it as leverage to push himself up to his hooves. BANG! He ran out of the alley. Ponies, griffons, changelings, even a few minotaurs and Diamond Dogs ran to safety. Either in their homes or to the police station. Speaking of police, two cops were shooting a few unaware vamponies who were eating another cop. He pushed through a group of bodies to get to the cops. He observed the beaten bloodied corpse. He could see the blood and saliva mixed at his neck and stomach where the vamponies had bitten him. The two cops, an orange stallion, and purple mare looked up at him. The orange one spoke, “proceed to your home, peg. We have this under control.” He looked at the pair and chuckled, “under control you say? I’m glad I’m safe knowing Equestria’s finest are here to help,” his eyes rolled. The orange pony sighed, opening his mouth to speak. The pegasus shoved him out of the way hollering, “look out!” and aimed his gun. He bullseye-d a vampony griffon in the head–a vamgriffon? Yeah, a ‘vamgriffon.’ The mare helped the officer up, “thanks.” “So, what’re you cops doing in District Thirteen?” he inquired, “last time I checked, we were forgotten by you blues.” “I signed up to help clear the scum from the streets,” the orange pony informed, “so did, Alyssa, here.” He pointed to the mare behind him. She backed up in between them, “I don’t mean to alarm you two, but we got a big group of infected coming this way!” The orange pony spun around, “how? It’s only been ten minutes!” “Exactly! Call the boss over the radio!” The trio peered down the street. A large group of vamponies was headed their way. All of the bodies caught still outside their homes barreled down the street toward them, a mix of hungry ponies and vibrant, fearful ponies. Alyssa yelled, “we can’t shoot into the crowd, there still are ponies in it!” The orange cop clicked off his radio before agreeing, “then we’ll have to run.” “What? We’re supposed to protect and serve, Clark! We can’t run!” “Alright, then stay and try to shoot the infected point-blank while simultaneously trying to not hit any alive ponies in the crossfire!” He argued, shutting her up immediately. The pegasus didn’t know a cop could be so heartless, he loved it. “Come on!” The cop hollered, turning tail and running down the street. He and Alyssa followed behind him, with a horde of intermixed vamponies, vamgriffons, and vamchangelings behind them. The panicked screamed of alive ponies slowly dwindled into distant echoes from different blocks. The trio bolted into an alleyway. Four civilians chased after them, hoping to be saved by the ponies with guns, a few vamponies and a vamgriffon chasing their tails a few yards behind them. The pegasus foolishly stopped, letting the four civilians run past him. He fired blindly into the group of seven. Two fell down causing the vamgriffon to trip over them. The ponies were only two yards away before he turned around and ran. He saw a green pegasus waving for him to hurry up, they were on a three-step entrance to a big red door with the sign ”Exit” above it. He bolted up the steps, the green pony practically shoving him inside before slamming the door closed. The lights flicked on, revealing the others. He saw Alyssa and Clark, panting out of breath. The green pegasus aforementioned barred the door closed with a stool. The outside getting barraged with banging. Sitting in a swivel chair was an old burly unicorn, he adorned a white bushy beared and was holding a shovel held firmly in his hooves. The next was a cyan earth pony, he couldn’t be over twenty, he held nothing and sat with his back propped against a white desk. Speaking of desks, the room was covered in them. Windows on the left side gave them a clear view of the outside world. He heard a helicopter flying overhead, what sounded like machine-gun fire hitting flesh and tearing bones. The entire place was littered with thrown and ripped office papers, many ponies left in a panic. A blood trail followed down the stairs and ended in a pool of blood in the middle of the room. No corpse, though. A cough came from the corner of the room, a yellow unicorn, more than likely middle-aged, covered her mouth. She held onto a pocket knife and was squeezing herself as far as she possibly could into the corner of that wall. Clark was the first to catch his breath, “anypony here get bit?” A collected group of no’s echoed through the room as he sighed in disbelief. He checked Alyssa and ordered her to check him, he looked to everpony else in the room and commanded, “we’re going to be thoroughly checking for bites, from what we know, the infection spreads by blood contact. I can’t see any marks on your fur, but I’m not risking dying because of laziness.” The group nodded begrudgingly. They sat and waited for their turn to be checked. The green pegasus, cleared. The bearded unicorn, cleared. The cyan earth pony, cleared. The list went on with no injuries found, then they got to the coughing yellow unicorn in the corner. She was clean. Clark smiled, “let’s keep it that way, come on ponies, catch your breathes and let’s get to the roof. It isn’t safe with all these windows.” “Agreed,” Alyssa nodded. “I’m with ya,” the old pony sat up. “Gods be with us,” the cyan pony pulled a necklace with a golden crescent moon at the end of it. The gray pegasus begrudgingly agreed. He wanted to kill some vamponies, but there would be another time, hopefully. The yellow pony nodded and moved to the circle of ponies. The green pegasus looked at the group and mumbled to himself. He sat there, unable to make a decision. All eyes were on him before he caved in. “Fine.” “We’ll go through names when we get to the roof for the rest of you, but this gray pegasus here saved my life,” Clark pointed to the gray pegasus, “I want to know the name of my savior.” “Francis,” the gray pegasus answered. Author's Note I wrote without a proofreader, so please tear me apart in the comments. I can’t get better at this if I’m not told what could’ve been better to write or visualize, what should have been scrapped, etc... Sorry for making it one chapter if I managed to pique your interests.
Chapter Two: Zombies!Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♥ ♥ ♥ ...BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BE–click. He groaned, sliding the alarm clock away and turning to the window. Golden rays of light seeped in through the blinds, aligned perfectly to his eyes. Shielding his eyes with the covers, he drops back into the dent in the bed his body had created. The warmth his body had left there soothed him back into a deep sleep. “Shit!” He shot up, throwing the covers off him. They drooped off the side as he jumped to his hooves and into the bathroom. No time for a shower, he was going to be late! He wetted his black comb with the faucet from the water and pulled it through each knot he found in his blue fur. He simultaneously doused his toothbrush with the still running faucet water and squirted toothpaste onto it. He dropped his comb to balance himself on the bathroom counter as he brushed his teeth hastily. He bolted out the bathroom, only stopping after remembering he left the faucet on. He slid to the front door and grabbed his white coat, this is why he irons the night before. He sloppily through his coat on while making his way into the kitchen, tripping on his ironed coat twice and wrinkling it. He opened the fridge, an assortment of foods littered each shelf, some leftovers, and others being planned suppers. He grabbed a pre-made lunch bag he had organized the night before. He slammed the fridge shut, hearing liquor bottles and jars rattling against the shelves they resided on. He paused, looking at his kitchen table. The reason he had stayed up all night laying calmly on its side: a contraption he’d been working all weekend on, a gray slim design with a fuze sticking out the top. He started working on it once he heard of the “Green Flu” outbreak last Friday. It didn’t take much to sneak into a CEDA tent and snag pictures of documents, and if his gaming days taught him well, then he knows he’ll need explosives. He grabbed a red tie off the desk, the color never matched well with his dark blue coat, but it was the only one not in the washer. He straightened his tie, grabbed his keys and locked the door behind him. Louis bolted down the road, not many ponies were out and about. Thankfully, District Eighteen was a suburban area, with a tree neatly placed on each side of the road, always the same length from the next. It was a nice and quiet spot on the outskirts of Fillydelphia, and it was also the southern-most district. He smiled at his neighbor, an old, friendly stallion by the name of “Boris.” The old stallion rocked in his chair and coughed, grabbing a tissue from the tissue box lying beside him on a coffee table. He ran through the crowds of bodies, even ducking under a few Diamond Dogs and minotaurs. He bolted up the two flights of steps and trotting through the glass doors of his job. He worked as an IT specialist for the company “Phone-a-Geek.” The large thirty-storied building sat at the corner of the block as the tallest building on the street. Many isolated work desks littered even the first floor, not many ponies paid attention to his entrance—save for his boss. “This is the second time this month, Louis.” A white-furred mare scolded him. She pointed to the elevator with her wing, “third strike and you’re out.” He nodded, quickly hollering for the ponies to hold the door. “Late again, Louis?” A black male unicorn chuckled, the ponies around him smiled. “Maybe he was out at that gun range again!” The pony beside him burst into laughter. The doors opened, Louis trotted out the doors and away from the chuckling stallions. He rounded a corner to the first office on the left, its front was completely glass, allowing anybody to see if you were doing your job or slacking off. On the plus side, the room was soundproof, so he doesn’t have to listen to his co-worker's bickering. He double-checked the sign at the top of the door for his name and entered. “No, customer, that won’t work. Have you tried unplugging and replugging?” Louis rolled his eyes. Almost every old pony he had ever spoken with never bothered with that simple fix. “Nuh-uh, guess ah never thought o’ that,” the pony on the other end of the line murmured. “Try that real quick and see if it works,” Louis asked. “Aight.” Louis could hear something being clicked through the phone, following by a loud beeping noise. A few seconds of silence passed. “H-holy shit!” The stallion stammered. “Lemmie guess, it surprisingly worked?” Louis snarled. “N-no! They’re beating him to death!” The stallion’s voice notably became more muffled, Louis could hear the phone being lowered down and then dropped onto something, more than likely a table. “Beckie! Get the shotgun!” CLICK! “What in Tartarus was tha—” A pony crashed through the window, their body riddled with glass shards as they fell onto their stomachs. They shrieked and stood up, immediately running full gallop toward Louis. Their white shirt was stained by a mixture of blood and vomit. He panicked, with the shock causing him to push his swivel chair away from his desk and into the wall. The pony reared up and closed the last few steps on two hooves, with it tripping over and landing onto Louis in the chair. It used its hooves as a blunted weapon and landed two swipes against his stomach and cheek. He got a good look at the pony—no, the zombie. Their pupils were a shade of what could very well be called “bleach white,” and their usually vibrant orange fur he’d seen around the office was dimmed down in saturation, creating a seemingly gray-orange tint. Louis let out an “oomph” when the zombie connected with his stomach. He let out a battle-cry and grabbed a mug from beside him that read “World’s Best Employee” in black font and clubbed the pony across the temple. The mug caved into their temple and the zombie fell off of him, somehow dazed by the effects. Zombies never got dazed effects when he hit them with bats in video games. He brought the mug several times down upon the zombie’s head, making sure to destroy the brain. The mug shattered after the seventh hit, he could see the brain now, but he never got to smashing it. It seems all he managed to do was get blood all over his fur and hooves. “My coat!” He exasperated, looking down at the crimson red that covered his entire chest area and front-hoof sleeves. Screams of other ponies echoed in the hallways and down below from the streets, and a helicopter flew over the building. The helicopter pilot’s voice boomed through the city, ”to anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” ‘So,’ he began to reason with himself, ‘the zombie apocalypse has begun. I need to get hope and grab a weapon. There, I will revise my plan based on what I see on the way there. I can not help anypony, or anybody, I see.’ A pony just outside his broken-glass office was tackled by a zombie pegasus. The pony attempted to push the zombie off of him, but its wings grabbed his front hooves and held him in place; the zombie beginning to batter him with strikes. The pony never went to bite them, Louis made note of that. ‘I guess step one would be getting out of this deathtrap.’ Louis armed himself with a broken shard of glass. He wobbly galloped on three hooves as he held onto the shard with his hoof. Without a moment to spare, he began his escape. Ponies in offices were fending off the increasing numbers of zombies with whatever they could get their hooves and-or claws on. He got to the elevator, the ponies who teased him from before sat in the elevator, the doors closing. He called to them to catch it, but they only looked at him in terror. “I’m not a zombie!” It was too late, the door had closed. He resorted to the stairs, where everypony else was going. He pushed through the door, glass shard in hoof, and began skipping two steps at a time from the fifth level down to the first. He passed by a pony holding onto a railing. They began projectile vomiting, bits hitting a mare’s fur as she galloped by. The pony immediately chased after her, hissing at every leap he made in an attempt to catch her. Many ponies shared the same fate on the first floor as all those above, ponies were running everywhere, zombies were always right there behind them and ponies were vomiting. He looked out the window, the same thing was happening out there, only on a larger scale. A zombie jumped at him, he ducked under and they landed onto another pony behind him. He ran past the elevator. It opened, zombified versions of the assholes from before barreled out and attacked a pony. ‘Either the “Green Flu” has an instant zombification once bitten, or I am missing something ver—’ his boss, her white fur grayed and coat stained red, slammed into his side, tackling him to the floor. He tussled with her, swiped at his chest, bruising it, but he managed to kick her off of him. He dove his glass shard deep into her head, the body going limp. He left the shard. More zombies began appearing, tackling any unlucky ponies they could get their hooves on. Too many ponies were trying to use the glass doors, they were clogging it up and attempting to push each other out of the way; how is he supposed to get out? ‘Glass!’ He remembered. He grabbed hold of a swivel chair from the nearest work station and chucked it through the glass. Bits and pieces shattered everywhere. Glass was still falling when he pushed through the improvised exit. He ran through the streets, ducking over one griffon zombie as he went. The city streets were packed with ponies running to and fro, trying to get away from the ever-increasing zombie threat. Many griffons, changelings, and pegasi had the brains to stay in the air, although many of them started dropping from the sky and into the hard concrete below as they coughed and threw up. ‘Zombified flying species lose the ability to use their wings or at least lack the knowledge of how to fly with them. Good. I can safely assume zombies don’t know how to use magic then. Thank the gods for that.’ He was out of breath by the time his house came into view. Never had he been happier to see his two-story brick house. The nicely kept hedges in the front were sadly going to have to be left behind. The streets had a few zombies, most of them trying to break into a door. They were having a lot of success, scarily enough. A pair of zombies unhinged a door with just rearing up and coming down on. He hastily opened his door, high pitched shrieks behind him. A zombie ran into his door and slammed it shut. He fell back, huffing and trying to catch his breath. BAM! BAM! Louis sat up and ran into the kitchen. He grabbed his pipebomb and slid it into a pocket on his stained coat. Running into his room and opening the closest, he slid his clothes that were coordinated by color off to the side to reveal a small hiding hole too small to fit a pony. Opening the compartment revealed his prized possession, a Benelli M4 Super 90 semi-automatic shotgun. He had used shotguns before, even fired semi ones in rapid succession, but he never got to fire this one due to legality issues Louis grabbed as many shells as he could and stuffed them into his other pockets. He didn’t bother counting them. He threw the sling over his neck and started sliding shells still remaining in the hidey-hole into his shotgun. The sounds of him reloading fought against the sounds of zombies breaking down his door: ssshCK. BAM! ssshCK. BAM! ssshCK. BA–SNAP! The door flew wide open, he saw through his bedroom three zombies pile in on top of one another. Louis pointed his barrel into the doorframe and waited. The zombies spotted him and pushed off each other, immediately charging full sprint into his doorway. POW! POW! Gibs flew everywhere as the zombified ponies got shredded open. His room now coated in blood and gore, he ran outside and onto the streets. Dozens of zombie ponies, and even a changeling one, rushed down the street. Straight toward him. ‘They’re attracted to noise—I’ll have to mark getting a silencer on my zombie survival to-do list.’ Louis flicked his shotgun to safety and took off down the street. First thing’s first, he needed to get out of this overpopulated city. The shotgun hurt every time it slammed into his side, minotaurs and dragons had it easy with their thumbs; being bipedal allowed them to swing their gun over their shoulder, a lot better than leaving it on their side as a pony would. Pegasus could probably hold it still with their feathers, griffons too. They can fly! He hasn’t seen a zombie pegasus or griffon fly, damn his earth pony anatomy. He was dripping like a water fountain, sweat made his fur damp and sleek—he couldn’t stop. No, those zombies have been chasing him since he left his house! Do they ever grow tired? ‘Dumb question.’ Distant gunfire erupted from the city, bursts of noise from the guns were soon interrupted by the ear-shattering, echoing shrieks. Just how quickly had the infection spread? He could hear himself panting now. Louis had made it to the end of the block, where two roads intersected, forming a plus. The zombies were about to be on top of him. ’To Tarturus with it.’ He spun around, balancing himself on his two back hooves as he flicked the safety from his shotgun off. There were five zombies chasing him, and he was about to make it zero. POW! click. Out of ammo, he was tackled onto his back by the remaining three. His gun slid to the side, just out of hooves reach. He stretched to grab it, to maybe use it as a club, but quickly retracted his hoof when the zombies began beating him. His stomach, head, whatever was found first were assaulted by the strikes coming from their hooves. One of the zombies had fallen down when they tackled him and proceeded to bite into his neck. He screamed in pain as the beating continued. The last of his conscious dwelled on one thought: these zombies do not want flesh, they want blood, and they will do anything in their power to kill what isn’t them. TCK! TCK! TCK! Blood splattered over his bruised stomach and neck; Louis tried to push the zombie corpse off of him, but he quickly squinched back into lying down, with his two front hooves at his sides. He couldn’t see anything, all he could do was think. Louis could hear muffled voices and a dragging sound. He felt his back being pulled across the concrete, they were dragging him! Was he saved? Surely ponykind hasn’t erupted into anarchy now and he was being foalnapped. His conscience slipping in and out as he tried to listen to the ponies. “...can’t afford to have another...” “...and food will be low!” “...are we going to drag him all the way to...” “Heeeere they come!” TCK! TCKTCKTCKTCK! PI-PI-PING! PI-PI-PING! Everything around him faded into black, and he drifted off into a deep, zombiless sleep. Author's Note Tear me up with things I did wrong and any inconsistencies you find! I’m trying to implement onomatopeia into my story, and I’m trying a lot of short, concise sentences, so let me know if I need to work on it! I don’t want to make those mistakes again. I hope you enjoyed it, but if you didn’t, thank you for considering and reading my story! <3
Chapter Three: Infected?Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♦ ♦ ♦ “..and here I thought I was being nice! I let her live with you, Wade, for a semester!” Her yellow-furred mom jabbed a fork at the stallion across the table, “a semester and she’s dropping out." “I have to be hard at work sustaining you and Zoey!” His wing pointed a white feather at the pink teenage mare sitting between them. “And not to mention that cracked-out griffon sleeping on my couch!” Zoey hated it when her parents argued, but that’s all she’s known. Ever since they got divorced when she was three, her life has been a constant back and forth between their two homes. Mom getting fired from her job, along with that damn-near useless griffon named “Kyle” she calls a boyfriend, has caused the pair to move back in with Dad. Kyle had money it is probably the only reason her mom stays with him, but he’s always out drinking with some buddies. Don’t get her wrong, she loved finally seeing her parents together. It’s just not the way she had expected. The last time she saw these two share a house was in her earliest memory. The night they decided on a divorce. Mom had already planned where she was staying, it was only time that kept her there. Time until she and Dad snapped. Push came to shove and one pony ended up receiving a nasty punch. “...regardless, Zoey, do you think this is funny? Tuition is costly, Dear, and you just threw your one shot at making films away! All this ‘Green Flu’ business has gotten you paranoid.” “I already had a scholarship, Mom. The flu is the reason I dropped out, yes, but it’s for a good reason. CEDA is terrified of the recently discovered disease, and me being in a college dorm does not bode well for my wellbeing.” Zoey took a final bite of her cereal, before taking it and dumping it into the dirty, filled sink. She sat down, reclining back in her wooden chair as she heard her mother sigh. “Carolyn, let bygones be bygones. We both knew the film industry was a gamble, and we now pay the price. Besides!” He squished Zoey with his wing, “she can finally go into the army, like her old stallion!” “Never in a thousand years!” Her mom exclaimed. “Go watch her on the gun range, she could end the war against the deers the second she joined the army!” “She’s also seventeen, Wade.” “She looks twenty!” Her mom groaned, “Wade, please, you need to apply yourself–” A large, pale unicorn stumbled into the room. Groaning, they looked at the three ponies sitting at the table in front of them. “Wade! Wade, there’s a—” The pale unicorn erupted into full spring, leaping across the table and slamming into Zoey’s mom. Her mom’s scream was quickly silenced when the pony bit onto her muzzle. The gory seen left both the unicorn and her mother’s faces unrecognizable. Wade yelled in horror, grabbing his M1911 from a kitchen drawer and frantically loading it. BLAM! BLAM! The unicorn fell limp on top of her mom. Zoey stared, completely still, with wide eyes and open mouth. Her dad slid to Carolyn’s side, “Zoey! Call the police!” Zoey didn’t move, “Mom.” “Zoey!” He cried, “call the police!” Zoey blinked, running into the hallway and grabbing the phone. She dialed nine-one-one and pressed the phone against her ear. ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ An automated voice came through the phone. She dialed again, her dad frantically chanting in the background: ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be ok.” She pressed the phone against her ear again. ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be ok.” Again, she dialed: ’We are deeply sorry, but an operator is currently unavailable.’ ”You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be o–” her dad screamed. She dropped the phone, the wire narrowly keeping it from hitting the floor. She ran back into the kitchen, her dad and mom were reared up, fighting for superiority. Her mom won, pinning Dad to the ground and ripping his neck open with her herbivore teeth. She punched him in the eye, blackening the white fur around it. ”DAD!” She screamed. Her mom sat up from her victim, snapping around to look at the noise. ”M-mom?” Zoey whispered before Mom came tumbling toward her. The final few feet closed by a plunge from her Mom. She tackled Zoey, now pinning her to the ground and attempted to deliver a decisive bite to the— BLAM! Zoey’s mother fell limp on top of her, her once unmistakable face now gone, without a trace. Blood and gore littered Zoey as she gently pushed her mother’s corpse off of her. She galloped to her dad. His right eye was black, with him just barely squinting it open. His neck was worse, it was comparable to a water fountain. “D-dad? Hold on, I’ll get the first aid!” “N-no.” He coughed, his left eye pupil still showing its vibrant green color. “Remember how I use to sneak you into all those zombie movies when you were growing up?” He whispered. “Yeah,” she sniffed. “Remember how there was always that one overused scene where the group had to shoot one of their guys before they turned?” “Y-yes,” she spoke, the lines were beginning to connect. “I love you, Zoey.” “I love you too, Dad.” BLAM! Forty-eight hours and five minutes since the first infection. “To anybody who can hear me, stay in your homes. Martial Law has been authorized. If you are seen on the streets you will be shot on sight!” A helicopter flew by, the words echoing over the terrified and monstrous shrieks from below. It was not safe here. She was not safe. "One, two, three, four." shhhhhCLICK! She loaded her magazine back into the chamber. Slowly, she sat up, wiping her tears from her eyes. A few gunshots went off in the city below. Her nose scrunched at the smell of spent gunpowder merging with the polluted city air she was accustomed to. The stench of rotting flesh began to mingle with the smells, too. How many bodies were down there? Most of them were griffon and changelings corpses littered about, but there was the occasional pony in the destruction. Most of the ponies, it would seem, turned into zombies. But not even the zombies in movies correctly captured what the things truly were. No, these were horrors. Monsters. Spawns of Discord himself. Placing a hoof for balance, she leaned over the balcony and surveyed her options: a city-wide panic could lead to her getting bitten. The roofs seemed plausible for that there were no ponies, but she could fail a jump from one rooftop to another and fall to her death. If only she had been born a pegasus like her father. "I miss you already," she choked. She looked up, one of those monsters had succumbed to the outbreak midair and latched onto a still living pegasus as they plummeted to the concrete below. 'If I couldn't save my dad, then I will save somepony else's.' She balanced on her back hooves just like her father had told her and aimed at the pair. The living pegasus's desperate attempt to keep the dead one from biting and punching him sent them into an out-of-control drop. It wasn't a reasonable shot she could hit, but she must do it. BLAM! She missed, the pair flew straight into the concrete, monster-zombie on top. The zombie indulged in their immobile feast, the pegasus couldn't even move, they had sustained a few broken limbs at least. Their life slowly faded as the chaos from other creatures hid them from Zoey's view. She looked at her gun. That wasn't an unlucky shot; that was a failure. The second stallion she failed to protect within ten minutes of each other. THU-CRACKKK! A malformed griffon with blood and vomit staining their neck and chest crashed into a crate near the rooftop door. It spotted her and shrieked in rage. She didn't have time to waste, nor did she have the bullets. She took a few steps back and hurled over the alleyway below her. She landed fine, but her right back-hoof had missed, tripping her to the floor. She groaned, pushing herself up. "RAAAA!" She spun around, falling back onto the ground trying to dodge the claw in front of her muzzle. The griffon's head slammed into the bricked railing, sending it plummeting to the alleyway floor. Zoey sat herself up. What should she do now? A helicopter could be heard in the distance, actually multiple. Not just any helicopters, Black Hawks! The military is here! One of the many helicopters flew overhead, relaying a hopeful message: "Evacuation will begin at Mercy Hospital. Avoid contact with any infected individuals. Nobody with cuts or bites will be permitted to leave the hospital until proven they are not infected." "Well no shit we need to avoid contact with infected individuals!" she paused, "infected?" She sat up, "If that term is to not cause panic, then it failed miserably." The chaos below had disappeared. Panicked screams only merely echoed down a few blocks. The brute force of the zombie-monsters was gone. Now only the stragglers remained. In just under ten minutes, District Seven was overrun. She stepped back, and galloped forward, jumping over the gap and onto the next apartment. This one had fire escape stairs running down the side of it, leading into a dark alley below. Each careful step she took creaked under the metal flooring. Some of those 'infected individuals' jutted their heads up. Groaning and yelling in frustration as she made her way to the final steps. They noticed the stairs connecting to the alley floor and charged up it. She panicked, putting her forehooves onto the railing. She lept over it, dropping her gun to catch herself. BLAM! "Shit!" she grabbed her gun, the pair of infected hot on her tail. She ran into the streets, nearly running straight into an infected who was already charging at her. She jumped over a corpse, why the pony hadn't turned she didn't know. The rest of the bodies, on the other hoof, sprang to their hooves and attempted to grapple her. A changeling infected lunged at her and grabbed her back hoof, tripping her to the ground. "Get off!" she kicked the changeling square in the muzzle, the force completely decapitating its lower jaw. Blood splattered over her backside, but she was free. An accumulated seven infected ponies and one changeling were after her. The changeling she had kicked leading the charge. With two bullets and no stamina left, she hurled herself through a broken window, a glass shard drawing blood from slicing her stomach. She heard the zombies jump through the window and into a shelf full of candy bars. Two of the infected struggle to push the thing off of them, while the rest continued their chase for her. She locked herself into the back room behind the cashier register. A lone piece of wood kept the door from being opened. Not that the infected would open it, they settled on attempting to break the door down with their hooves. The door wouldn't hold, and she had no escape. The room used to be used as a storage area, with plenty of shelves of canned goods and water. She slid her back down the door, laying herself in a fetal position. THUD! Her ears flattened to her skull. She closed her eyes and wept. THUD! Her closed eyes pushed together harder. Her weeps turned into a stream of tears flowing down her face. "It seemed a lot easier in 'The Trotting Dead.'" She sheepishly chuckled. Author's Note SPOILER AHEAD: I had some issues deciding what I wanted Zoey's motivation and story to be. If you have read the Left 4 Dead comic, "The Sacrifice," then you know I nearly ripped it out word for word. Talk about being unoriginal. But Zoey's canon backstory is perfect for the story she will experience and shape based on her actions. Reading this makes it obvious she won't die, a bit of a spoiler, in fact. Well, you read the disclaimer—sorry about that. One more thing, these stories are getting shorter and shorter. If this keeps up, I'm going to start attempting to do multiple chapters at once. I accept criticism. Tear me up, please!
Chapter Four: Enemy.Forty-eight hours since the first infection. ♠ ♠ ♠ "Do you take any medication?" "No." Replied the moss-colored unicorn. "How about smoking—do you smoke?" He glared at the doctor, his grin nearly concealed by his gruff white beard. "Just protocol, Mister Overbeck, you and I know good and well you can't go a day without smoking a twelve-pack," the doctor chuckled. His floating pen checked a box as he exited the room. A nurse entered the room the very next second, her green left wing had a blood pressure cuff coiled tightly around it, and her scrubs wreaked of that terrible stench he could only describe as "hospital." He would have preferred going to Mercy Hospital, but given the circumstances with the flu outbreak, he'd rather not risk entering what could very well be ground zero. At least this hospital was the closest to his small home in District Eighteen. She smiled at him, her rounded glasses nearly falling off the edge of her muzzle. "I'm just going to take your blood pressure, sir. The doctor will be back with you shortly." He grunted. He was here to check on his hip, not his blood. Her mouth slightly opened and her brow raised. She was slow to unwrap the wire; she very nearly let the blood pressure cuff slip off the tip of her wing and onto the floor. She nervously chuckled to herself, cautiously stepping toward the old stallion. She made the mistake of trying to converse with him. "So," she read the nameplate on his green army jacket, "Bill? What happened to your horn?" His glare intensified on the young mare. "S-sorry, it's just that–" "Grenade." "R-right. My apologies Mister Overbeck, I-I shouldn't have asked!" "Just take my damn blood pressure before it gets too high." The mare hesitantly strapped the blood pressure cuff to the base of his tail. To him, this was the embarrassing part of coming to the doctor for a checkup, and it didn't help that she had already begun to annoy him within twenty-three seconds of knowing her. Cksss. The compressed gas was released from its constricting grip. He breathed a sigh of relief as the mare hurried out the room. Overbeck's right hoof raised to touch the empty air where his horn would've been; all that remained was the base, which only came up to the first ring. Through the cracked door, he saw a blue pony wearing a blue patient gown keel over and projectile vomit across the floor. Nurses were quick to pick him up with their magic. He saw two cops run down the hallway to assess the situation. Was that also a CEDA agent? One of the officers grabbed his stomach and fell to the floor in a vomiting fit. He found himself no longer alone, as some nurses, doctors and patients alike began hurling over. His eyes widened, he went to the medical cabinet just above the sink and opened it. Bill grabbed a surgical mask from the cabinet and threw it on. THUD! A nurse burst into the room, her mouth and scrubs covered in red vomit. Bill ducked under her initial swing, or better to say, jump. The mare crashed into the cabinet sink and groaned in frustration. If he was young, he could have capitalized on the mare's drop in guard, but the sudden jerk of his hip to slide under the mare's lunge sent a familiar feeling of pins and needles down his right flank. The mare lunged once more. Already preoccupied with his hip, he couldn't even begin to make his escape. The two crashed against the hospital bed; mare on top. They traded blows with each other. To Bill's annoyance, the mare was shrieking and spraying blood into his eyes. She was making him deaf and blind. Wasn't it enough he was a unicorn without the horn? His hip back in place and his anger refueled, he brought his back hooves up and pressed them against her stomach. With all the force he could muster, he bucked her as far back as he could. Bill heard the crack of bones before he saw it. She was dead, the back of her neck had slammed against the corner of the cabinets. He calmly trotted out into and down the chaotic hallways. His trot turning into a painful gallop as more stallions and mares looked toward him with white luminescent eyes. Their pale fur was an interesting sight, what type of flu was this? Bill burst out the door and into the streets. He carved a path through ponies both content on surviving and killing. It had been a while since he'd seen devastation like this before. It was only one time when he had served in the Griffon-Pony War. When Twilight Sparkle, "The Last Princess," had ordered a napalm strike on a village supposedly housing hundreds of Vietclaw griffons. That was neither here nor there, all that mattered to him was action. It had been so long and civilian life had grown tiring nearly half the time ago. He was well into his house when he saw through the window a blue-furred pony, shotgun flinging at their side, being chased down the streets by more of those greyed psychopathic ponies. He let them past. He had to focus on fitting as many M16 magazines as he could into every individual pocket on his jacket. He pulled a green beret hat over his head. The fun was about to begin. He brought with him, in his pocket, a speaker. New technology he'd thought he would never use. Turns it, it'll make for some good music to listen to. He turned on his favorite song: Fortunate Son. One of the greatest hits of his favorite minotaur band. 'Let's go see how the neighbors are doing. 'Bout time I tell them to trim their hedges correctly.' SLAM! He kicked the door open with his back hooves., quickly swinging around to meet the nasty snarls of the ponies in his yard with his own. TACKTACK! TACK! Two bodies fell at the foot of his steps. He calmly trotted over them to plant himself in the dead center of the road. "Heh, 'dead center.' It kinda sounds like a trip to the mall I'd actually enjoy." The howling, unpony-like screams echoed around him. Greyed ponies began pouring out of buildings through windows and doorways, where doors once stood. He was surrounded by them. Gone were the screams of the innocent; entered was the shrieks of the enemy. And Bill rejoiced to those battle-cries with one of his own. TACK! TACKTACKTACK! TACKTACK! TACK! His muzzle lit up at different angles. The brief tick of emptied cartridges filled any gap he had between firing. TACKTACKTACKTACKTACK! TACKTACK! He whirled around to butt the jaw of the reared unicorn behind him. The sickening crack made any pain in his twisted hip nullified as the satisfying spoils of war washed over him. TACK! Forty-eight hours and seven minutes since the first infection. He sat alone atop an abandoned cart that used to be full of fruits and vegetables. The contents now chaotically littered across the blood-soaked streets. He was used to the blood being soaked up; not it endlessly flowing down the sides of the streets and into gutters. The haunting distant screams of still-living creatures haunt the urban wasteland. No inch of concrete is left without a story of a struggle between desperate prey and ruthless hunter. A griffon perched itself against the cart and attempted to reach Bill. He laughed, pulling out his trusty old KA-BAR and plunging it deep into the griffon's skull; simultaneously dropping down onto the blood-soaked concrete below him. He grabbed a red carrot off the ground and bit into it. Hopefully, it was rich in iron, and not blood. "Get away!" a distinct mare voice cried. Bill whirled around to spot the source of such a loud, and potentially hazardous, squeal. Already, he saw enraged ponies scrambling out of broken-windowed shops and houses. One pony spotted him and shrieked. "Whoever you are, you've just made my day." TACK! TACKTACK TACK! The ungodly growls chased behind him as he galloped full pace down the crimson street. Not missing a beat, he slid to a stop and gripped his rifle. Whirling around, he butts the closest pony with his stock and pins them down with his back hoof. He aims at the charging foe barreling down the street. TACK! "Boom! Headshot!" TACK! TACKTACK! Ponies from stores further down the road leap through windows and cut themselves on the loose glass. Bill mentally swears to himself and slams his stock into the brains of the pony beneath him. He lets his weapon fall to his side and he makes for the nearest shop to him. Two ponies lie pinned under a large shelf. A few others hurl themselves over the counter to get to him. He needs a holdout. That door behind the counter will do. He aims up to clear the two ponies blocking his entry. Click. "SHIT!" he dropped his weapon to his side, pulling out his knife to defend himself. BLAM! BLAM! The two ponies collapsed mere inches from his hooves. A pink earth pony was revealed behind the counter. "Get in!" was her greeting; almost a dozen greyed ponies were to thank for that. With haste, he pushed him and the mare through the doorway. He slammed the door closed onto a changeling's already caved in muzzle. He panted as she wiped her eyes and made herself look somewhat presentable. Her mangled fur did not help achieve that goal. The two spend their next few minutes in silence waiting on Bill to catch his breath and let his hip cramp go away. Well, to say it was completely silent would be incorrect, as there were plenty of unpleasant noises coming from the other side of the door. But the mare made him uncomfortable, her silent sobbing just faintly adding to the noise of hooves slamming against door. At long last, she broke from her fit and hiccuped an attempt of politeness to him. "Bill, huh? T-that's a nice name." "Thanks. I got it for my birthday." Bill replied, thinking cheering her up would be the best way to approach her. She chuckled a bit herself. "Mine's Zoey. Welcome to my humble abode." She smiled, her hoof scanning the room. Bill smiled and sat the heel of his M16 on the ground. Using the gun as a balancing tool, he reached his forehoof down and pushed the charging handle as far as he could get it. He peered into the side chamber, groaning at the fact he had forgotten to count his remaining bullets before the fight. He slowly released the charging handle, ensuring he wouldn't let it slam against and potentially damage his gun. He flicked the rifle to safety and ejected the empty magazine onto the floor. Bill grabbed a fresh magazine from his pocket and slowly slid it into the well of his gun. shhh-click. Bill looked up to the mare, who was pawing the ground. "Wanna come with?" he suggested. It was a stupid idea and could very well become the death of the mare—she doesn't look like the fighting type. Then again, locking herself in a storage room wouldn't do her any favors either. Zoey's pupils dilated as her head shot up, she exclaimed, "Will you let me? I have no place—" she looked back down "—and no pony to go to." "Woah, woah, if you're coming with me, you can't do any of that crying you're doing now." He let his M16 drape to his side as he stood up and trotted to the mare's side. He placed a hoof on her shoulder and assured, "I don't know what happened to you, and I never will want to know. That's not me being rude; it's me being resourceful. Save your breath for running—forget those you've lost." He paused before adding, "It helped me, that's for sure." Zoey wiped the forming tear from her dampened eyes. "R-right. It won't happen again, Bill, I swear." "Good." She sheepishly looked away and whispered, "Oh, and Bill?" "Yea?" "Those were my last two rounds." Bill closed his eyes, drawing in a long, deep breath. He exhaled just as slow. "Not a great start." Zoey stared aimlessly at the door. The banging had halted, but the loud and obnoxious sound was replaced by the equally terrifying moans of the infected. She peered at Bill, his pure-white beard slightly elevated. He's smiling? she thought. It was great having a companion and all, but he doesn't seem very mentally stable. She erased the thought. "Ahem," she called, "how are we gonna get through that?" Bill looked over, his smile stretching well over four miles. "Stay behind me and you'll see," he grabbed his empty magazine from the floor and tucked it into one of his cramped pockets. "Getting you some ammunition is my top priority, right now that pistol is just a glorified club." "What about escaping?" she asked. Bill froze. He had come into the city to fight the enemy. Zoey isn't the mare he'd expect to hold her own, so he can't do the one thing he'd actually enjoy. Then again, what's stopping him from leaving her? They had only just met, after all. Bill tucked the thought into the deep archives of his mind. This young mare needs his help and, since she can't fight, he'll get her to a safe place. The question is: where? "I know the military is evacuating ponies over at Mercy Hospital, perhaps we can go there once we load up?" "I like your thinking, Zoey." he agreed. "Now, get ready to kick open the door and immediately run behind me." She obliged, turning her flank to the door and nodding to him. "Ready when you are." "Ready." WHAM! Zoey bucked the door open. The dozen infected snapped to the noise and erupted into frenzied shrieking. Zoey hid behind Bill as the room became a show of blinding flashes and gore. Many of the infected ponies rolled onto the floor as they tossed themselves over the counter, giving Bill plenty of breathing room to aim. He picked off the ones who were on top, their weight pinning the ponies at the bottom of the pile. Two infected slid into view, they had opted to go around the counter rather than over. The smaller mare slammed into the stallion, who then, in turn, slammed into the side of the doorway. The crossfire they had only taken out the mare's right foreleg. The stallion charged into Bill, collapsing them both onto the hard marble floor, with Bill's gun wedged uncomfortably under his back and out of reach. Zoey had her hooves tied up as well. The mare in front of her, even though she was limping, was on her in a second. The infected mare reared up to try and swing down on Zoey, but Zoey took the initiative and headbutted into the mare's exposed stomach. The mare fell onto her back. Zoey grabbed a pickle jar off the shelf and slammed it into the mare's head. Her head and the jar along with it shattered into pieces. "Get it off—get it off!" Bill screamed, the stallion's forehooves were pinning Bill's hooves down to his side. The stallion bit into Bill's exposed neck. Zoey galloped and reared herself up, her two forehooves catching the stallon's side and tumbling them to the ground. Bill slung his rifle around and took aim at the two ponies. TACK! The stallion collapsed onto Zoey. She grunted in frustration as she attempted to push the stallion off of her. Bill limped over, placing a hoof on the side of the corpse and rolling it off the mare. "Thanks," she half-heartedly chuckled. Bill extended his hoof and helped the mare up. "Let's get out of this cesspit." "What about your bite?" "If I start turnin' then shoot me." "Then we might only have a few minutes left." "I doubt it. You can't kill Bill," He laughed.
Chapter Five: So That Others May LiveForty-eight hours and ten minutes since the first infection. ♣ ♣ ♣ "Run the plan by me one more time—I'm trying to grasp the absurdity behind it," griped the green pegasus in a properly-tailored suit. "We should have stayed up on the roof. A helicopter was bound to find us eventually." "Nicholas," began Clark, "how many times do I have to tell you? Nobody is responding to my distress calls; we're on our own." "I can't believe you right now, Clark. What happened to 'for the good of the ponies?'" Alyssa asked. She hadn't been too keen on the plan. Clark had proposed they go to District Two and find a train. A train for gods' sake! It was crazy, and Francis loved it. "The 'ponies' are trying to kill us, Alyssa!" Clark shouted, swinging around to face the purple earth pony. "I say we give it a chance!" stated the old red unicorn in a rough, fierce voice. "The once congested roads out there are now scattered with those 'infected—'" "Vamponies." Francis corrected. The yellow unicorn murmured behind him, "I-I assure you, Francis, they are infected—have you not been listening?" "No, I have. My brain takes what I hear and summarizes it into actual words. 'Hungry, blood-crazed monsters looking to convert healthy ponies into their ranks: vamponies." The yellow unicorn sighed and settled her back against the wall again, pushing down to a seated position. The cyan pony finished his mumbling prayer. "We must decide quickly, or else these demons will figure out our hiding position. The banging may have seized, but the bloodshed has not." His R's were heavily rolled, and his deep voice did not fit his scrawny looks. "Either you come with us, Nicholas, or you stay here. Alone." Officer Clark discarded his empty magazine into his pocket and reloaded a full one into the M1911. Everypony slowly shifted toward and behind Clark. Everypony besides Alyssa, that is. "Our job is to protect and serve," she mentioned, her hoof pointed accusingly toward Clark. "I will not abandon my ponies." "Our job was to protect and serve. Can't you see, Alyssa? Look outside for Luna's sake! It's a bloodbath, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. If we go out there and save one, maybe two ponies, then we'll die. But if we find a train, and escape, we could very well begin to warn and save other ponies closer to the west—perhaps saving hundreds of more." Alyssa opened her mouth, but then she closed it and glanced outside. The infected ponies aimlessly wandered through the streets, with no sense of purpose or direction. Two thoroughly alive ponies were cornered in an alleyway, using their guns as glorified clubs as they tried to fend off the onslaught of infected. They were quickly overwhelmed, their bright colors becoming masked under the bloodied rainbow above them. She grew fond of the floor, staring at it for the following minute of silence. Nicholas, the green pegasus, stood there with widened eyes and an opened jaw. He shook his head and trotted over to Clark's side. Alyssa soon followed in silent steps, not daring to look anypony in the eye. "Let's go," she mumbled. Francis cleared his throat, "What happens now?" Officer Clark trotted to the windowed doors and peered out. "Now, ponies." chhCK! "Let's get to that train." He shoved the door open and ran out. The five ponies followed after him and down the road. Abandoned carts were scattered around the streets as the blazing sun overhead illumined all surfaces below with a golden radiance. Infected ponies were beginning to notice the survivors, and they were beginning to gallop towards them. The red stallion's horn glowed and grabbed the shovel off his back. The yellow mare noticed and did the same with her pocket knife. They set up a border on both the left and right sides of the additional four ponies. Nicholas flew high into the sky, shouting out any infected who were getting too close to the group. Francis, Alyssa, and Clark kept their guns holstered as they sprinted. They had barely made it to the end of the intersection, but a pocket knife and shovel can only shred through so many bones. The young mare's pocket knife zipped through two infected ponies. It had just pierced the third before a scream interrupted her focus. An infected pony had caught up to the group from behind them and tackled Francis. He cried out as the pony mauled his back with a volley of strikes. A shovel flew by, beheading the pony and the next following directly behind it. Nicholas descended down and shoved the carcass off Francis. He stretched his hoof and eased the pony up. "No time to rest now!" hollered Clark. He was raised on his two back hooves, struggling with another reared pony for his neck. He struck the pony in the left cheek and flung it down to its side against concrete. The group resumed their pace down the next intersection and pivoted left. The unholy screeches of those pursuing them were growing louder and louder with each passing block. Every intersection they advanced through steadily attached at least a dozen extra infected ponies to pursue them. Nicholas yelled down to the ponies with guns, "Start shooting damn it!" Clark yelled up identically as loud, "Shooting requires us to stop and turn—I am not stopping!" They were nearing the third block now. With the abundance of ponies chasing them still rising, they detour into the plentiful alleys amongst buildings. The various alleys had one green dumpster in the heart of it all, stuffed to the rim and encircled by black trash bags. There was a modest grey barrel in the alley one over. It had been set on fire, shining anypony's features and the surfaces nearby it. The kindled barrel alley divided into two more distinct alleys, one had an enormous wooded wagon blocking it, the other dead-ended into a broken-down doorway. With ponies pursuing them, they all dashed right and bolted into the open doorway. Dozens of crates distributed upon racks tall as the room itself served as a maze for the panicked group. The infected ponies had begun flooding into the crate maze mere moments later. They had just begun to circle the exterior of the maze, when the cyan preachy pony hollered, "There's the exit!" He rushed ahead of the group and toward the door. He reared up to finish the last few steps on his back hooves and break down the door with force, but then disaster struck. An infected griffon burst through the crates from the opposite side of the racks and grabbed the cyan pony, pushing him against the wall. It beat him as every other infected pony had before, but its claws made the work a great deal more lethal. The group was several moments away, they couldn't stop to shoot—too many ponies behind them wanted to kill them as well. A pocket knife flung forward to stop the griffon. But the deed had been done. He was breathing, but his mangled coat and figure transformed his color from a brilliant blue into a damp crimson. His crescent moon necklace sprawled against the ground beside his head. The gods did not protect him. He could not speak, his wide-eyed expression and gurgling sounds did enough signs for the group: he was a goner. They left him. Clark shouldered the door ajar and hurried everypony inside. When the old stallion finally made it inside, the door was slammed shut. The frenzied banging was the only sound as the group caught their breath. They were in a dim corridor, with numerous darker rooms that contained a singular office. At the end of the corridor, it veered left. Blinding sunlight seeped into the hall from that secondary hallway. A helicopter darted by overhead, its thunderous engine attracting any infected ponies or non-ponies in a five-block radius to it. The banging ceased. The sounds of various claws and hooves racing away gradually evaporated into the distance. "W-we've already lost one," the yellow mare stammered. "That's why I didn't want to ask any of you for names," coldly responded Clark. "Not until we get on that train." "If." Nicholas added. Clark ignored Nicholas's remark. "We're still in the slums. District Two is only the next one over—maybe one or two blocks to go. Then, we get to the train station. Sadly it's on the far right of the district, and we'll be entering on the very left." "Then we better get going," Alyssa stated softly. Clark winced at her beaten posture. She was hunched down, never daring to meet the eyes of anypony around her; nevertheless, he acknowledged, "C'mon ponies, all we need to do is stick together." The group accompanied him down the corridor. They shifted left to the next hall. It wasn't another corridor, it was a reception room. The shattered windowpanes left hazardous glass throughout the room. The front entrance had also been torn off. Tracks of blood concentrated into one closed room. A room they nonverbally agreed to never enter. Their trot to the next intersection was skeptically peaceful. Not a single infected wandered in the street. "Maybe they're on break," the old stallion joked as he and Francis laughed. "Nah, old stallion, they're probably more scared of us than we are of them!" bellowed Francis. "Will you two quiet down—you'll get us all killed," hushed Clark. The old stallion rubbed his eyes, "The name's Jack, what's yours?" "Francis," he cheerfully answered. "Well, Francis, glad to know somepony here has a sense of humor." The group neared the edge of the following block and cut the corner to the right. They thought they had made it out of District Twelve, but it wouldn't be so easy. An enormous black fence obstructed the entrance to District Two. A few cops were dispersed on the other side. One of them laid lifeless upon the ground, while the other trotted around and banged their hooves against concrete walls. Clark returned to the group. "We gotta go around." Alyssa's eyes darted around. "Let's take the shortest route—the building attached to the fence on the left there is secured shut, but we can force our way in through the windows." "It's too much noise," Clark noted, "I don't want to lose another group member so abruptly." Alyssa sighed, "There are a plethora of buildings, Clark, take your pick." Clark nodded, "This way, I saw an unhinged door not too far down here." The group slowly backtracked down the block. The eerie presence of distant gunshots and enraged howls picking up again. Another helicopter flew by, a military Black Hawk, it was heading toward Mercy Hospital. "Maybe they're evacuating," claimed the yellow mare. "Either that or they're just tryna shoot everypony they see to contain this mess," suggested Jack. The group's trot ended in front of an open entrance to an IT building. Clark faced Jack, "You go first." "Do what now?" he questioned. "My apologies," he quickly stated, "You have magic, so you can simply generate a forcefield to shield yourself as you clear any rooms we may encounter." He blinked, his eyebrows raising ever slightly. "Why can't she do it?" he suggested as he pointed to the yellow unicorn behind him. She shook her head. "Surely you don't want to endanger a mare," he pressed. Jack glanced at the mare. Then peered into the blue sky above. He muttered a curse before locking eyes with Clark again. "Fine." Jack pushed Clark out of his way and entered the building. His horn sparked as a red magical wall tall as the room appeared into view. He squinted at Clark, then trotted down the hallway with the group approaching after. The rooms around them were all locked, and they were also clean. Not a single blood droplet could be witnessed. "Will ya look at that, all these precautions you took amounted to nothing," snarled Jack. Their trot had ended to a back door, with an exit sign above the door. "We need to practice being cautious so we don't lose another member. The cyan stallion died because he galloped ahead," reminded Clark. "But if we take too long, we risk ending up in a worse situation—a situation that could very well be our last," countered Jack. "Calm down you two, let's not butt heads until we're out of this forsaken city," Francis demanded, stepping between the two. They shifted aside and grumbled their curses for the opposite. Francis nodded to the other ponies, "Are you ponies ready?" "Read for round two!" Jack declared cheerfully. Francis kicked the door open, profuse amounts of golden rays darted into the room. He shielded his eyes as the group galloped through the door one at a time. He blinked several times and galloped through the doorway. Jack and the yellow mare were hard at work with their magic, decapitating anything that dared charge toward the group. They hastily made their way down the street, leaving the ineffective gate and cops behind them. The next block reminded them they were still in the apocalypse. Infected ponies crashed through windows and doors, appeared from alleys and behind abandoned carts, and one even fell off a roof to catch them. It didn't survive. With the growing horde behind them, their pace quickened. Jack and the mare holstered their melee weapons, with the mare opting to close the pocket knife and gallop with it under her hoof, and Jack levitating it closer to his side, to focus their minds on going as fast as they could. More gunshots, this time an unending sound of firing, erupted off in the distance. The horde behind them numbered well over five dozen now. The street they veered on was the last road. All they had to do was follow it to the train station, only half a mile down the road. The only problem being the new horde in front of them. The group halted to survey the chaos. A helicopter had crashed in the middle of the road, dragging any concrete it had crashed against along with it. Small pockets of fire and debris were littered across the street. A second horde, perhaps another six dozen infected, had surrounded the crashed helicopter—and now they could hear the frustrated shrieks of the first horde behind them. The two hordes had them surrounded. Two rectangular carts that had somehow crashed into one another and had numerous planks shattered and pointed upward became their defensive hill. A hill the infected would gladly charge right into gunfire to take. Gunfire, this time, was a key factor in this battle. All three ponies unholstered their pistols and hastily discharged into the crowds of grey-tinted ponies and griffons. Jack and the yellow mare ready their weapons once more and propelled them through the necks of anything it came in contact with. The uninterrupted gunfire in the background did not let up, and neither did the gunfire on this blooded road. Francis had climbed atop one of the wooden carts, placing his left forehoof on the side of the cart while he shot with his right. The yellow mare had pulled herself up and onto the other cart for a better view of the situation. She had placed her efforts on the left side to help Alyssa, who had been alone. The rest of the ponies, besides Nicholas, had created a circle around the cart. Flying high above the group showing no emotions and offering no assistance was Nicholas. Clark had started to notice, but he was preoccupied with a more significant task: survival. He had not been paying attention when an infected griffon quickened through the line and engaged him. The group was crumbling as Jack was engaged in severing the heads of anything that came near Alyssa, who had to reload, but the immediate second her firing discontinued the infected overwhelmed her. She desperately struck and bludgeoned any infected charging into her with her hooves and gun. The yellow mare held her pocket knife close to defend herself. Many infected pierced through behind them when Francis reloaded, for he was the only one holding the rear; furthermore, when Jack stopped concentrating on the front with Clark, more infected ponies had burst through there as well. The bloodied griffon had Clark pinned to his back. He instinctively dropped his gun to block the razor-sharp claws attempting to puncture his body. The yellow mare squealed as she got yanked off the wagon, her body sinking into the sea of grey that had flooded over her. Alyssa then fell, a unicorn had reared up and dropped upon her with a vicious jab to the cheekbone. She abruptly collapsed to the concrete, helpless to defend herself from the thrashing she then began suffering. Jack had left her to protect himself. He was on his two back hooves and had his back bound against the side of the wagon as he used the shaft of his shovel to gag a changeling. Francis had his back painfully clasped on the inner side of the cart with his P220 in hoof, but his hoof pinned under an infected pegasus. He and Jack were only a head away from each other; however, they were both concerned with their attackers to notice. BLAM! The griffon's brain exploded across the road and Clark's face. Its corpse slumped over and fell to Clark's right. He only saw a green wing before the pony soared off into the sky. They shot the unicorn who was pummeling Alyssa—in the neck—then the pony pinning Jack in the side of the head. The six infected ponies, who weren't satisfied with just the yellow mare, turned toward the green pegasus and charged full-sprint toward him. The green pegasus redirected his attention to protecting himself. That left Francis on his own as Jack had begun chopping his way to the motionless Alyssa twelve feet away. The pegasus on top of Francis delivered a blow to his shoulder, then lifted up to deliver another, more effective strike to his head. An attack Francis would make sure never landed. CHK BANG! The pegasus made the mistake of loosening its grip on Francis's right hoof, allowing him to close the slide of his P220 and deliver a fatal gunshot to the head. The last few ponies, unfazed by their fallen colleague's corpses, raced toward the group. Jack made sure they preserved any ammunition they had left as his shovel twirled through the remaining stragglers. But one had crept behind him. BLAM! The infected's face smeared against the ground as hit slid to a halt, merely inches away from Jack. Nicholas brought the M1911 barrel against his muzzle and blew into the smoke. He smirked as he tossed the emptied weapon to the ground beside Clark. The group recollected themselves. Jack was to carry Alyssa with his magic until she wakes up, Francis would trot with his gun clutched firmly in his wing at all times, Nicholas would fly above and ahead of the group to spot ahead. The only difference being the yellow mare wasn't there anymore and the gunfire off in the distance had stopped. Nicholas scavenged the mare's pocket knife, stating that she wouldn't need it anymore. Alyssa told him to stab into the mare's skull, suggesting she would've wanted them to do it—he begrudgingly did so but complained about the blood getting on his suit thereafter. As they trotted down the next block in District Two, buildings went from eye-captioning skyscrapers to smaller, more elaborate structures. Barbershops, restaurants, jewelry stores, and even some shops for tourists scattered about. Not even a fool would dare tour Fillydelphia now. "There it is," Clark pointed out. An old, massive brick structure stood out on one side of a small park. Neatly-trimmed grass grown at the front of the building was evenly separated into four even squares, with sidewalks acting as the border in between. The building itself had a domed glass roof and an open entrance, allowing them to see the bloodbath and countless infected inside. Large pillars steadied a railway high above the streets below, making use of the spacious skies above. "Let's get ourselves a train and get out of this place," Clark insisted. "Y'all wanna hear a prediction?" "No, Nicholas." "There's not gonna be a train." Clark led the group into the station. Two enormous chandeliers were hanging down, providing ample light for the brick station. Paired with the dozens of smaller square lights that were built in between any arcing doorways and the enormous glass dome above, you'd have more than three faint shadows at any given position. A crystal water fountain stood out in the middle of the brick interior, with a polished wooden bench neatly placed on each side of the square. One of the benches had a mangled unicorn corpse ripped open and laying on top, revoking any sense of safety in the station. The polished marble floor had the same issue, blood patches, splatters, and trails scattered around. Two enormous staircases led up to a second floor. "That," Francis began, "is a large pack of vamponies." "Not to mention the armored changelings," Jack mentioned. "I'm personally more afraid of those claws," Nicholas stated, pointing a feather to a griffon. "All we need to do is get to that train—it should be on the second floor," Clark reassured. The group lower themselves to the ground and warily stepped forward, not wanting too many ponies. Jack killed two ponies who spotted them before they could scream. They trotted around the water fountain and were on their way up the right giant staircase. A changeling suddenly appeared from the top of the steps. It's lower jaw was ripped off, stopping it from screaming. Nicholas swept into action, stabbing into the belly of the changeling as it jumped up to punch his back. The dead changeling rolled quietly down the steps. Jack was the last to make it up the flight of stairs, he was panting hard before Clark quickly hushed him. They had found their train, proving Nicholas wrong. Sadly, things were never made to be easy. Blood stained every window on the twelve-cart train. Its sleek rectangular design had copious bullet holes puncturing the sides. A grey interior, with red seats hiding any blood spilled upon it. Many of the doors were left open, letting infected aimlessly trot in and out of the cart in search of their next kill. Clark commanded, "We'll clear out the carts near the front of the train. Secure the remainder of those things in the back and leave them to rot." "Sounds like a plan," Nicholas admitted. Clark smirked at his approval, but his smirk became bitter as he drew his M1911 from his holster. "This is the final trek, ponies!" he shouted, bulls-eyeing the two griffons ahead of them. Francis galloped forward, his wing shooting any pony emerging from the train. Jack focused on keeping Alyssa out of swiping range from any infected. Nicholas had borrowed Alyssa's gun and fired upon any ponies he saw getting too close to the group. Clark led the charge, resorting to long leaps on three legs as his right forehoof was used to aim at any dangerously close infected. Nicholas rushed ahead, shooting the captain that emerged out of the opened train window. He flew inside to start the train. Clark placed himself at the front of the train, pushing Jack along with Alyssa inside. Nopony else could fit comfortably inside the driving section of the train, so Francis perched himself on the bottom of the steps below Clark and fired into the dozens of ponies barreling down the station. Nicholas poked his head out the window, "Clark! When were you going to explain how to drive one of these things?" he shouted. Clark looked up, he had forgotten about that. "Uhm," he paused to think. "Is there a gas pedal?" "No!" Clark shot a cop through the eye. He turned back up to Nicholas, "Well, look for something that usually means go! Look for labels!" he reasoned. The infected had forced themselves closer. Francis was down to his last four bullets. The infected were thankfully scattered out, meaning the nearest four infected would be dealt with one at a time, but after that? It would be all down to Nicholas. "Aha! This says 'throttle!'" "Then pull it!" Clark yelled. Francis had missed his first shot, and the following one only slowed the charging changeling closest to them. His third shot hit home and the changeling dropped to the floor. Its corpse quickly got trampled by the next infected. "I pulled it!" Nothing happened. "Pull it harder!" "It's as far as it can go!" Francis waited for the infected pony to resume a steady sprint towards him. The pony was about to make the jump to the train. BANG! "I'm out!" Francis hollered. Clark aimed and shot the next pony to leap over the dead changeling. "Start pressing shit then!" Clark screamed. Francis practically leaped up the steps and dove behind Clark, who then began firing into the group of three ponies now at the base of the steps. One dropped. Two dropped. Then the third, another griffon, dived into Clark, nailing him against the ground and losing his pistol. Jack sprang from the train window. His horn glowed a deep red as a giant red wall prevented any more ponies from piling onto the train. He was just above to send his shovel to help Clark before an ear-piercing scream deafened the group. "RRRGAAAAAAHHHHH!" A griffon pounced onto him from the coal cart behind them, shattering his concentration into an unstallion-like scream. The griffon, pulling Jack along with it, fell onto the tracks under the train and the station floor. "Jaaack!" Francis outcried. He hurriedly forced the griffon on top of Clark down the steps, his wing picking up the dropped gun in the process. BLAM! He couldn't see the griffon or Jack, but he did see the blood fly up and splatter against the side of the train. Two more ponies jumped over the gap and onto the train. "Press faster Nicholas!" Clark demanded. BLAM! "I'm trying!" replied Nicholas's muffled voice. BLAMBLAMBLAM! The infected collapsed dead onto the fourth step. Five more appeared from the rear of the train. "Nicholas!" screamed Clark as he flung himself into the infected, a desperate attempt at keeping them down the steps. Francis aimed at the one biting Clark's neck. click. Francis discarded the pistol and assisted Clark to keep the infected down. BLAM! Nicholas rose from the side of the train. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He paused to thoroughly aim at the pony still fighting with and biting Clark. BLAM! Nicholas tossed the pistol out the window as he re-submerged into the train. Francis reared and snatched the gun mid-air. He aimed at the final pony, who had now tackled and bound Clark on his back against the hard, metal floor. BLAM! chhhhssssss. The train began to move. "I did it!" Nicholas rejoiced. Francis pulled Clark back to tend to his neck wound. Clark's droopy eyes slowly shut as Francis frantically worked to stop the bleeding. "Stay with me!" he blurted. Thunderous howls erupted, deafening the sounds of the running engine on the train. Francis gazed past the side of the train. Two dozen vamponies were charging up the stairs—no, five dozen—six dozen! At least a hundred vamponies storming toward the train. It would be overwhelmed in mere minutes. The bodies of the vamponies were packed together, acting as a tsunami that enveloped any unfortunate thing it passed. "Go faster damn it!" "It has to build up momentum!" "We don't have time!" Francis tossed the gun to Nicholas. He pulled Clark away from the steps and pushed his hooves against the bleeding wound. Nicholas steadied his left forehoof through the roof handle and leaned out the driver-side window. He picked out the earth pony, who was charging ahead of the tsunami towards the train. He aimed. click. The earth pony jumped across the tracks and onto the steps below. Francis braced himself. fwuu-shCK! The pony fell limp over the front of the train. Nicholas had thrown his scavenged pocket knife expertly into the temple of the pony. Francis and Nicholas grinned, but the shrieks of the horde interrupted their happy moment with existential fear. Two more earth ponies slung themselves into view from the rear of the train—one miscalculated the jump and fell onto the tracks below. Francis reared himself up and locked forehooves with the vampony. His wing ripped the pocket knife from the skull of the previous kill and dug it deep into the heart of the vampony. When the blade hilted, Francis dug his wing through the gaping hole to get the pocket knife completely through its heart and back. It didn't disintegrate into ashes. With a gurgly growl, the creature pulled itself closer toward Francis. Bones shattered and stabbed into Francis's ruffled feathers, sending him into unimaginable amounts of pain. Francis dropped, unintentionally pulling the thing down with him. It pounded him thoroughly, directing at whatever happened to be open or convenient for the thing. It landed on a punch to the neck, sending Francis's blood spurting out of his mouth and down his neck and stomach. His vision blurred, he mustered the last of his strength to turn right, where the head of the train was facing. The sounds of whirring wind and images of blurred buildings invading his last senses. Suddenly, the beating stopped. The creature's blood intermixed with his own as is slumped over and off of him. Nicholas stood there, horrified by his condition. He dragged Francis and sat him against the steps of the train, where they watched the tsunami behind them fall forty-feet down to the concrete below in a vain attempt to catch them. Francis used his remaining muscles to muster up a smile, which Nicholas gladly met with his own. "We made it," Nicholas murmured. Though, he couldn't say the same for everypony else. The cyan pony had perished when he rushed ahead of the group, the yellow mare was quickly overwhelmed and ripped to shreds by a sea of grey, Jack was taken out abruptly by a peculiarly sneaky griffon, and Clark, sadly, succumb to blood loss a minute ago as his mortified face and neck dried in the wind. Alyssa—well, at least she survived. Francis's vision gently withered away into black, with the last memory he observed being the edge of the city. They had escaped, at the cost of several others. The only way he could return the favor was to do as Clark said and warn the west. Can they outrun the virus in time to get there, is the new question.
