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