My Undead Pony

There was no sweeter sight than the citrusy colors of sunrise above the port town of Bridle Bay for the haggard gaggle of ponies. Pyroclastic Pele, Hempy Hooves, Cheer Chime, Bluegrass, and Charleston stood at the edge of Wanderbranch Woods with their colorful wagon containing their zombified friend. The ponies in the town below were probably just waking up to a fresh day. The scent of baking bread carried to the group of travelers on a wind off the small sea. Hempy wiped a bit of drool from his muzzle with his hoof.

“Are we going to stand here all day, or are we going to get something to eat?” he asked with a tired smirk. “I’ve been hauling this wagon almost all night.”

“Don’t even start, Hemp,” Bluegrass said, nudging him playfully. “I’ve been lugging this thing ever since we began.”

“Once we get you a weapon, you won’t end up on wagon duty so often,” Pele promised. “I’ve heard Bridle Bay ponies are a force to be reckoned with. I’m sure we can stock up on defenses before we ship out.”

“Speaking of which, with whom are we shipping out?” inquired Charleston. Though he’d managed to rinse the blood from his silver face with a little of the barreled drinking water, he still looked considerably more disheveled than the rest of the ponies.

“Grammar during a damn zompocalypse,” Blue chuckled.

“Don’t know yet. We’ll have to ask around for willing skippers,” replied Pele as she proceeded down the road toward town.

“Right away?”  Cheer Chime yawned and shook her magenta mane as though she could physically loosen fatigue’s hold on her. “Our camping didn’t actually end up being real camping, after all. Real camping tends to involve more sleep, from what I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, could’ve done without the zombies. What were they even doing out there?” Hempy wondered as he and Blue followed Pele down the gentle slope.

“We’ll catch up on sleep at an inn,” Pele said, ignoring the question. She had been thinking over the same thing. Though they’d walked through the rest of the night, they hadn’t seen any other undead ponies. It had just been those two which had somehow found their small camp. They had to have been starving, if the infected could starve. Few ponies took that road since the outbreak, if they could help it.

“I smell something baked!” Cheer announced. “And it’s not Splicer or Hempy!” She capered along in front of the group, entirely too merry for having recently survived several close encounters with reanimated corpses.

“All I smell is fish,” said Hempy, crinkling his nose at the increasingly potent scent of the seaside town. “Wait, who’s baked?”

“Keep your eyes peeled for someplace to rest, everypony,” Blue said. “Someplace good. I’ll foot the bill tonight.”

“‘Someplace good,’ and this is the consensus?”

The ponies stood before an ancient, shingle-style building which appeared to be leaning into its equally ramshackle neighbor. Many a storm had left its mark on the inn. The dark wood was scarred and the windows were barely clean enough to serve their function. The weathered sign extending over the door dangled from rusty, uneven chains. It read, “Seapony Tavern” in faded blue and gold lettering. Fittingly, a carving of a seapony poised on a rock completed the inn’s crest.

“Just look how much character this place has, Charleston,” Bluegrass reasoned. She gazed at the Seapony Tavern with clear satisfaction. “Think of how long it’s been around.”

“Think how long its guests have been around. I bet we’ll get to hear some fascinating stories later tonight,” added Pele, her yellow eyes glowing with similar enthusiasm.

“And you can smell the food from out here,” Cheer sighed wistfully. She licked her lips and stared at the door like a dog waiting to be fed.

“I still only smell low tide, but I have faith in your nose, Cheer,” Hempy said.

“Hey! You’re blocking the road!” called a husky voice from behind them. The group hastily pulled the wagon aside and apologized to the disgruntled merchant who passed by with an overfull cart. Soft thumps began to sound from inside their theatrically ornate wagon. The merchant gave them a brief look of exasperation and moved on, muttering something negative about traveling performers.

“Some other carts and carriages are lined up by that alley,” Pele said, pointing a hoof. “Find somewhere away from where ponies would be walking, but not far enough away that some cocky colt will chance breaking in.”

Hempy and Blue nodded and towed the wagon away to park. Pele drew in the salty air and smiled. As she headed for the Seapony Tavern’s door, Charleston cut her off. She barely stopped herself from bumping into his top hat and cane cutie mark.

“Damn you’re tall…”

“Pele, of all the places to choose, why this? I’m pretty sure I’m getting fleas from all the way over here,” Charleston said. He pouted childishly and Pele quirked a brow in disbelief.

“You’d be getting maggots right now if it weren’t for us. What’s your problem?” said Cheer. She’d relocated to right outside the door and was now leaning on it pitifully rather than opening it. “Seriously. It’s a cool-looking inn. With food.”

“This is probably the safest place for us, to start with,” Pele explained as she spread her lavender wings and fluttered over the gangly unicorn. “On the edge of town, bound to be full of all kinds of gnarly sailors willing to take on questionable cargo for cheap. Get it now?” She’d never had a sterling relationship with Charleston. His artsy, hoity-toity interests clashed with her scientific curiosity and rugged lifestyle. She wasn’t up for hearing him bemoan the conditions of some seaside inn, especially when they’d just survived an undead assault. Pele nudged Cheer Chime out of the way and opened the door.

“Hello?” Pele called into the dark room. She squinted to make out the outlines of chairs and tables in the dirty windows’ hazy light.

“Should we have knocked?” Cheer whispered. Her green eyes darted and her ears fell back. In these mad times, she couldn’t be reprimanded for showing worry in the face of a shadowy, abandoned-looking room.

“Hello? Oh! Hello! Just a moment, just a moment…”

The voice seemed to originate behind the long bar counter. A strangely-shaped head lifted and caused the ponies to start a little. With a brief hiss of gas, the tavern’s lanterns flickered to life and cast a comforting honey-toned light across the remarkably tidy room. To everypony’s surprise, a gray griffon smiled at them over the countertop, his long, feathery eyebrows giving him an especially endearing air.

“I’m terribly sorry. Did I sleep the whole day away?” he asked as he rubbed one amber eye with the back of his claw. He hesitated, twisted his head to a disconcerting angle, and stared at the three. “Why, that’s strange. I don’t recognize you ponies. I know all my customers, love ‘em dearly, you know. Don’t get many out of town folks, if that’s what you are. That’s what you must be, I suppose. Pretty rare these days, what with the… well, I’m sure you know. And yet you were foolish enough to travel.” He tsked a few times and then chuckled, making his neck feathers lift in an owlish way. “What brings you ponies to the Seapony, eh?”

It was obvious by Pele’s wide smile and pricked ears that the presence of a griffon, so rare in the far west of Equestria, was more intriguing to her than the words he’d spoken. She seemed on the verge of speech when Charleston stepped forward to answer instead.

“We’re traveling performers,” he abruptly informed the griffon, whose absurd brows bounced up in surprise.

“Performers, you don’t say! Traveling performers, what with the monsters and the panic and all that? Ah, you must not be from too far away then. Haven’t had a lick of trouble on our shores. Just reports from across the sea and beyond the Wanderbranch Woods, you know. Nasty, nasty things going on around this place anymore.” The griffon clacked his beak in dismay at the reports he’d mentioned. He stepped out from behind the counter and gestured for the ponies to come all the way inside, which they did. “Take a seat, take a seat. You ponies look to be a real mess, if you don’t mind me saying so. I’ve got some bread in the kitchen; let me get you some of that. Just sit down, go on.”

“Traveling performers?” murmured Pyroclastic Pele to Charleston as the griffon went to retrieve the bread. Pele’s cold, unblinking gaze caused Charleston to shift uncomfortably and pretend to admire the nautical wall decorations.

“It seemed like a reasonable cover to me,” Charleston said defensively. “Would you rather have me tell him we’re smuggling a zombie through his idyllic, oblivious little town in some farfetched attempt to save Equestria? I’m sure that would go over well.”

“What is with you today?” hissed Pele, legitimately beginning to lose her temper.

“I don’t know, perhaps I’m finally getting a bit pissed over you ponies dumping out my wagon and stashing your infected friend, whom you for some inexplicable reason allowed to transform into an undead cannibal, in the back of it. That and the near death experience I had last night haven’t exactly left me feeling peachy.”

“You loaned us your wagon willingly. You didn’t even have to come.”

“Excuse me for being such a nice, generous gentlecolt!”

Both ponies went silent for a moment, acknowledging the irony of the argument. Pele sighed heavily.

“Okay, we’re all just low on blood sugar and sleep-deprived. It’s been a rough few days. It’s been a rough few months, for that matter. So, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry we got you into this, Charleston. You’re just trying to help, after all. You had just better hope we don’t wind up having to prove our excellence as ‘traveling performers.’”

“You know what I just thought of? You brave ponies can stay here for free if you put on a show for us tonight!” the griffon chirped as he carried in a plate of thick, sliced bread on his back.

“Really? Sweet!” said Cheer, giddily drumming on the tabletop and apparently oblivious to the nature of Charleston and Pele’s interrupted conversation.

The front door swung open again to frame Hempy Hooves and Bluegrass.

“A show, huh? Sounds like a load of fun,” Blue said in her calm, sweet tones. She winked an already half-hooded eye at Pele. “You have yourself a deal, Mr…”

“Oh! I hadn’t even introduced myself. I’m so scatter-brained these days, sleeping away entire days and not even properly meeting my guests. Just call me Gale.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gale,” Pele said politely. She dipped her head respectfully. The ponies introduced themselves and Gale repeated the names in a murmur, clearly working hard to keep track. “You didn’t sleep all day, by the way. It’s still morning. We’ve been traveling all night.”

“All night? I’m starting to think you ponies are too reckless for your own good,” Gale observed. He set down the plate of bread, barely getting out of Cheer’s way as the yellow and magenta pony dove for the food. “Seems at least one of you is famished. Go ahead and eat. Sorry I don’t have much more than bread for you folks, but come dinner, we’ll have hot, celebratory stew ready.”

“Celebratory?”  Pele tilted her head curiously. “What’s the occasion?”

“That’s right, you’re from out of town,” Gale said. His tail flicked in excitement and he lowered his voice, as if imparting a secret to the travelers. “The notorious pirate captain Rum Runner will be dining here tonight!”

Pele and Cheer dropped their morsels of bread and stared at Gale with eyes as round as a filly’s in a candy shop.

“You know of him?” Gale asked the two glee-faced mares.

“No, it’s just, I mean-”

“A real pirate!” Cheer burst in, not as worried about sounding like a wet-behind-the-ears foal as Pele. But even mature, logical Pele couldn’t hide her eager grin once Cheer shouted what they’d both been thinking.

“I’m as excited as the next pony about this pirate business, but I hear bed calling my name,” said Hempy. The mere suggestion of sleep had a powerful effect on the group of voyagers. Eyes dimmed around the table and exhaustion began to replace the energy of meeting a griffon, lying about being performers, and hearing of an infamous pirate.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Gale. His plumage bounced as he nodded. “When you’re done eating, there are rooms for you above the tavern. Fresh linens and everything, though we don’t have many inn customers these days. Two rooms will have to do. Only a few are in proper condition, I must admit. We prepared them in case Rum Runner’s crew decides to stay here tonight. Alright, here are your keys – if you look there it’s got a number, see? Good – and feel free to come down whenever. Rest up! You wouldn’t want to miss tonight!”

“Thank you, Gale,” Charleston said. He was surprised by how much he looked forward to sleeping, considering the state of the inn. No, now was not the time for that. He was truly grateful for food and a bed… and friends willing to deal with his low-blood-sugar-induced attitude, even if they had pressured him into a quixotic quest across Equestria. He smiled to himself and quietly finished his bread, enjoying the crispy crust and porous interior and trying not to think about whether zombies actually enjoyed eating living ponies.

The coastline was finally in sight. The captain, from his position on the prow, wondered whether signs of the outbreak could be seen from this distance. He doubted it. All would seem normal until they docked. No matter. He adjusted the battle-scarred scimitar hooked to his belt and pondered how difficult it would be to take out a zombie horde with the ship’s canons. The thought amused him. If his crew were to go down, they sure as hell were going to make a lot of noise before they did. He only hoped they’d be able to reach the tavern before it came to that. He didn’t have a two-toned, XXX jug on his flank for nothing. He revised his previous thought:

If Rum Runner’s crew were to go down, they sure as hell would be as loud and as drunk as possible before they did.