Chapters The murky puddle splattered beneath a green-gray hoof. The limb lingered in the cool mud too long before staggering forward again. The meadow, its weeds arching with the weight of passed rain, was eerily vacant, eerily motionless, aside from the lurching creature. Night was coming, cloaking some of the animal’s progress, but the sporadic thumps and swaying of grass reminded those gathered on the edge of the field that they were not alone.
“There!” one of the witnesses yelped, flinching at another splash, too near for comfort. Her companions hushed her and she scuttled backwards in embarrassment and fear. A sickening silence fell over them all as their eyes focused, unblinking, at the patch of tremulous cattails from which the sound had issued.
Nothing. Not a whisper of weeds or a plop of water. The darkness intensified around the group of ponies guarding the field, threatening to destroy their advantage of sight. Though it was becoming difficult to see, their enemy’s presence was undeniable. The bitter, rotting stench filled the air around them, causing the nervous pony who had exclaimed before to gag and cover her muzzle with the crook of her foreleg. A lavender Pegasus with a braided turquoise mane turned briefly to eye the retching creamy-yellow pony. You didn’t have to come, she mouthed with an out-of-place smirk. The anxious pony stared back at her pathetically through her tangle of wavy magenta hair but made no reply. Suddenly, her green eyes widened and she jolted into a rigid pose. The turquoise-maned pony followed her alarmed gaze and couldn’t help but gasp as she saw another member of their party, a gray-blue pony with ratty black dreadlocks, creeping toward the meadow.
“Splicer!” the braided Pegasus hissed.
Splicer paused to look over her shoulder at the others. In her mouth, she carried a battered club. Her carmine eyes revealed her disturbing enthusiasm. Splicer lived for this job. The other ponies were equipped with well-kept blades, but she forewent the sharp swords for the bloodied bludgeon she always carried, even in the middle of the day. It wasn’t more efficient to club to second death the unnatural visitors the town of Woostirrup had been plagued with recently, but the rough wooden weapon she carried had become her trademark, and she clearly delighted in the brutal beatings she delivered. She grinned around her club before turning her attention back to the vegetation.
“Pele, stop her,” the jumpy yellow pony whimpered, nudging the Pegasus and staring after Splicer in a barely suppressed panic. Pele didn’t move. She gritted her teeth quietly, her golden eyes locked onto Splicer as the daring pony took another few steps forward. None of the ponies dared to breathe as the terrible silence resumed. Splicer inched closer and closer to the patch of weeds, her muscles clearly tense in the bluish bloom of moonlight spreading across the field. Yards away, feet away, almost beneath the water-bowed grass…
“Cheer Chime! Pele! Great Celestia, I totally forgot we were guarding tonight!”
Everypony let out a startled cry and whirled to face the newcomer.
“Hemp, shh!” Pele whispered in a strained tone once she’d regained herself. The periwinkle pony that had just arrived stopped in his tracks, his pink eyes darting in confusion from Cheer Chime, the yellow and magenta pony, to Pele and back from behind his shaggy, polychrome mane. The situation dawned on him.
“Oh, shit!” he said in a lowered voice, dipping his head as he hurried to join Cheer and Pele. His eyes landed on Splicer and he gasped again. “Splice! What the f-”
A rustling in the vegetation instantly hushed the group. All eyes flashed toward the field. A moment of quiet, and then a small splash. It was all the invitation Splicer needed to launch her attack.
The gray-blue pony charged into the weeds, swinging her solid weapon in a wide, powerful arc. Miraculously, the meaty thunk of club meeting flesh confirmed a hit. A spray of blood painted Splicer’s flank, partially covering her rusted-gears cutie mark just before she vanished completely from the sight of the other ponies.
Wordlessly synchronized, Hempy, Cheer, and Pele galloped after their battle-hungry friend, blades drawn and clamped tightly in their jaws. A chilly shower of rain water from the tall grasses drenched them as they followed the splashing and clomping of hooves deeper into meadow. Cheer whinnied shrilly, signaling Hempy and Pele over to the trampled, blood-spattered trail Splicer and her target had left. A shudder ran down Cheer’s spine as she raced along the path. There was something wrong about this fight. It was lasting too long for Splicer. The wide trail also concerned her. Those affected by the virus weren’t known to retreat.
She was abruptly shaken from her rapid-fire frets as she slid to a halt through the slick mud of a small clearing free of vegetation. Pele appeared at her side in an instant, levitating above the soggy ground with swift flutters of her lavender wings, resembling the hummingbird on her haunches. Hempy tumbled into Cheer a moment later, his eyes wider than they’d ever been seen by the others. He stared, horrified, at the bloody jumble that surrounded them. A mass of undead ponies lilted through the muck toward them, stumbling over the still corpses that had clearly been exposed to Splicer’s club. Mutilated limbs, dangling eyes, blood-crusted manes, the overpowering, putrid odor... Cheer clenched her curved sword tighter in her jaws to prevent adding her vomit to the messy battlefield. She breathed heavily through her mouth, her eyes scanning the area for a sign of her friend.
“I’m finding Splicer!” she called before leaping over a slain zombie. Adrenaline washed over her in a fiery rush and her fear transformed into ferocity just as her blade bit into the rotting flesh of a dingy orange unicorn. Once she was fighting, she could tolerate the atrocities well. It was the suspense before the brawl that drove her to her wit’s end.
Pele didn’t reply. A lumbering red zombie was barreling toward her. With a mighty thrust of her wings, she rocketed skyward. Twisting backward in midair, she angled herself toward the ground again, her double-bladed sword securely between her teeth. She beat one wing to whirl herself into a plummeting spiral, headfirst, the double-blade turning like a silver propeller with the rotation of her body. The deadly cyclone of feathers and steel sliced through the moaning crowd of four undead ponies below, neatly cleaving heads from necks. Pele pulled up and out of reach, steadying herself safely above the gory scene. She took the opportunity to survey the area as well. A few yards away, Cheer was lithely bounding around her adversaries, swiftly decapitating each one before they could snap at her. Hempy haphazardly hacked his way through a small cluster of zombies with his broad ax. His flailing technique was remarkably effective. Most of the undead below were no longer moving, but Splicer was still nowhere to be seen. An active clump of the affected caught Pele’s attention and she headed toward them, intending to finish them off. She hesitated, however, as one was suddenly launched out of the group and into the mud several feet away. A familiar bluish hoof retracted back into the repulsive tangle.
“Splicer!” Pele called, drawing the attention of Hempy and Cheer, who were nearly finished disposing of their opponents. In her shock, she’d dropped her sword and had to dive down to carefully catch it. Just as her teeth connected with the grip, a hefty hoof pounded into her ribs and sent her crashing into the sludge.
As she hurtled another fallen zombie, Cheer’s eyes narrowed on the writhing pile Pele had indicated. Seven undead attackers were converged around something, and the idea of what that something was sent a wave of cold nausea through her. She spurred herself into a faster gallop, aiming straight for the clot of zombies. Once she was close enough, she kicked into the air and soared above the cluster. The edge of her sword was tilted down just enough to sever the heads of a pair of zombies below her. The separated heads landed in the mud with a wet thunk just before Cheer’s hooves returned to the earth again. She slid in a dark spray of mud for a few feet and turned back around in time to see Hempy plowing toward the rest of the undead attackers. He held the flat of his ax blade parallel to the ground, inspired with the same idea Cheer had had. Cheer leaped back into the fray, staying clear of Hempy’s ax.
In mere moments, only two figures remained standing under the cold light of the distant moon. Hempy and Cheer panted, their breath hissing around the hilts of their weapons, as they nervously glanced around at the scattered, unmoving ponies sinking in the muck. The sound of their rapid breathing almost drowned out a faint moan which rose from one of the prone forms. Both ponies started at the sound and turned to face it. Adrenaline still pulsed through them and their muscles tightened in preparation from another enemy. From the shadowed sludge, a light purple wing lifted for a few seconds before folding back down and out of sight.
“Pele? Pele!” Hempy dropped his ax and trotted toward where the wing had vanished. Cheer slid her hook-tipped blade into its band on her belt before following. Her vigilant green eyes continued to dart from zombie to zombie. It wasn’t unreasonable for one to still be “alive” (as alive as an undead monster could be), and she wasn’t taking any chances.
“You okay?” asked Hempy once he found Pele sprawled in the mud. She stretched out her legs and began to gingerly push herself up. Hempy acted as a brace for her to lift up against. Once she was back to her feet, she looked around the clearing in confusion.
“Did you find Splicer?” she asked, her golden eyes turning back to Hempy and Cheer. Cheer’s hair lifted. She shook her head violently. “No, she must be back where…” She trailed off as terrible thoughts swamped her mind. “I’ll find her,” she announced as she turned to hurry toward the clump of the most freshly dispatched undead.
“Are you hurt?” Hempy questioned Pele as Cheer left.
“I’m fine. Just got a little winded,” Pele answered in a distracted tone. Her attention was on the yellow and purple pony searching through the corpses. Hempy looked toward Cheer as well, a cold swell of fear rising in his chest. He didn’t dare consider that something bad had happened to Splicer. She was always so adept with her weapon. Sure, she occasionally was tossed around, but nothing truly awful had happened to any of them before. Granted, the invasion had begun a mere four months ago. How had it only been four months?
Cheer pushed the bodies out of the way as best she could. They’d fallen in a grotesque pile on the spot she’d seen Splicer’s hoof earlier. “Splice?” she murmured. The stress and terror of the situation caused her voice to squeak. There was too much mud. She kept sliding in it as she tried to shove the dead ponies out of the way. It painted the colorful bodies a deep brown, making them blend in with each other. A jittery panic started to overtake her. Splicer could be buried in there, beneath the rotting carcasses, and Cheer might not be able to distinguish her from the zombies. Her search became frantic. She dug and heaved and wriggled her way through the mass, her repulsion barely contained. She tried not to consider the ripe, torn flesh and the contaminated, viscous blood covering her fur. Splicer was her first priority. There was no time for disgust.
And then she found the familiar hoof. The grayish blue foreleg, somehow clean enough to identify, extended from beneath a husky unicorn. Cheer about-faced and bucked the body off of her friend. It squelched into the muck, leaving behind the broken form of Splicer. Scratches lined her limbs and gashes slowly oozed blood. Her eyes were closed but her brows were drawn up in pain. Cheer staggered back with her mouth agape, too stunned to exclaim.
Pele limped slowly over. She could tell by Cheer Chime’s reaction that it was too late. Not saying a word, she stood by Cheer and analyzed Splicer. Several distinct bite marks bled from Splicer’s neck, legs, back. Nothing could be done. Pele was about to call a retreat and leave the clean up to the burn crew when she noticed movement. Splicer’s ribs rose and fell with shallow breaths. Blood bubbled on her slack lips.
“Shit,” Pele muttered. A knot formed in her throat and her eyes burned with imminent tears, but she didn’t let them fall. “We have to decapitate her.”
Cheer broke her silence and stared, horrified, at Pele. “What? How can you say something so logical at a time like this?” she cried out, tears suddenly streaking her cheeks. “This is no time for reason! This is the time for emotional devastation!”
Pele often found it difficult to find the line between Cheer’s quirky jokes and reality. She ignored the statement and continued to assess the situation aloud. “The virus may have time to take hold before she dies. We don’t know how long it takes for it to become effective after she’s gone. We can’t have her wandering before the burn crew arrives.” She considered asking for Cheer’s sword so she wouldn’t have to go searching for hers, but she realized that would seem callous. She looked into Cheer’s watery eyes with sympathy. She was not as removed from the emotional poignancy of the moment as her words made her sound. However, she knew if she broke down, things could get much, much worse. A nudge on her shoulder awoke her from her contemplation.
Hempy Hooves now stood beside Pele, his ax in his jaws. He was looking away, not wanting to see Splicer or look Pele in the eye. He wanted to be as distant from the horrible, necessary act as possible. He offered the weapon to Pele, who, after a few seconds of hesitation, took it in her own teeth. Hempy backed away and clenched his eyes.
“No, you’re not doing this!” Cheer said as she stepped between Pele and Splicer. “She’s alive, at least for now! You can’t murder her. Besides… I mean, there’s always…” She trailed off and fidgeted with a severed ear on the ground before realizing that she was fidgeting with a severed ear on the ground. She hunched over and retched.
Pele gave Cheer a quizzical look. She set down the ax and leaned the hilt on her shoulder. “Always…? Oh… oh no no no…” Once it dawned on her, her expression became serious and commanding. “That hasn’t worked before and it’s not going to work now. We don’t need to get anyone else involved. It’s too late, Cheer. You should look away.”
“It would just be Bluegrass and Charleston. She’s still alive! Maybe it’ll work on a living pony before the change,” Cheer reasoned desperately. She crouched low and looked up at Pele, like a filly pleading for something from her mother.
“It’s not going to work. It’s just going to upset everypony even more. Magic has never been-”
“Please don’t kill me…”
The small voice which interrupted Pele caused the three standing ponies to gasp in surprise. Hempy was the first to speak. He let out a quiet stream of curses as Cheer and Pele exchanged sickened glances.
“Please. You can’t kill me,” Splicer continued with a barely audible voice. “I wanna be a zombie…”
Three pairs of eyes instantly turned to the wounded pony. Cheer’s mouth worked around words which wouldn’t come out. Pele stared in bemused horror. Hempy was absolutely baffled. With her one open eye, Splicer watched them back. She paused on Pele.
“When will you have a chance like this again? I’ll be your own personal test subject,” Splicer reasoned, knowing the opportunity would be appetizing to Pele.
“We could capture another one. Somepony we don’t know,” Pele replied, but the hesitation in her voice exposed her interest. “We don’t need to make an awful situation even more traumatic. It would be too much to see you like that.”
“But… have you ever actually seen a pony change?”
Pele’s ear twitched at Splicer’s suggestion. She was clearly enticed by the idea. She quickly checked herself, her expression turning cold again. “That would put us at risk, even if we contained you. And, as I said, to see you like-”
“Wouldn’t it be unethical? To capture some other undead pony… I mean, it’s kind of like abducting somepony. Or stealing. Stealing somepony’s cousin or daughter or father or something, and then locking them up and starving them in our yard or basement,” Cheer interrupted in her desultory way. She began to dig at the mud with her hoof again, avoiding body parts this time. “We could build something to contain her. We would just need to keep it guarded. And secret. It would be our private project, our own little zombie. We could time how fast she takes to change, which seems like important information. We don’t know whether anyone else has tried to test the infected yet, at least not around here.”
“They’ve probably already worked on it in Canterlot,” Pele said, turning to Cheer.
“But we haven’t heard anything from them since the beginning of all this stuff,” Hempy added as he walked to Cheer’s side. “What if they have no research? What if they all got wiped out? It’s, like, our scientific duty to find out what we can.”
“This isn’t going to be easier than killing her now, Hempy,” Pele whispered. “Think about it. Splicer won’t be herself anymore. You won’t be able to think of her as your friend, because your friend will want to eat your brain.”
Hempy straightened up, looking remarkably serious as he met Pele’s gaze through his parted rainbow locks. “It’s for science.”
“For science!” Cheer agreed with a strange half smile. After the subsequent moment of uncomfortable silence, she added a weak, wavering “yay” for good measure.
Pele tensely rolled her head back to crack her neck. Her golden eyes lifted to the uncaring moon. “Let’s not make this a mistake,” she sighed as she lowered her head again. She blew a stray tuft of turquoise hair off of her face before turning toward Splicer. The injured pony was now shivering, her teeth gritted and sides lifting in shallow breaths. A steely pang of sorrow stung Pele’s chest and her own breath caught. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cheer trying to dry her cheeks with her foreleg as Hempy allowed his multicolored clumps of mane to hide his face. She feared they were only supporting this choice because it meant Splicer would still be around, at least physically. How would they deal with the heart-wrenching matter of witnessing the tattered remains of their friend become a cannibalistic monster?
“This is… so awesome,” Splicer murmured. Pele couldn’t tell whether Splicer was truly eager (an idea which astounded and intrigued her) or already addled by blood loss and fever.
“What do we do now?” Hempy asked. “Where do we put her? We don’t have a safe place to hide her…”
“What about your basement?”
Hempy looked at Cheer with a mix of confusion and alarm. “What? What about my basement? What are you saying?”
“I wasn’t accusing you of the obvious contents of your basement. I was just suggesting it because of what it used to be, you know?” Cheer paused as Hempy calmed down and considered. His blank expression prompted her to continue. “You know… a morgue?”
“Right, we can slip her in a slot until we find something more suitable and farther from town,” Pele said. She glanced at Splicer, who either hadn’t heard or didn’t care. It was strange to have such a conversation, to stand in a corpse-ridden field and talk about a dying friend like an object. A soft breeze rustled the grass and lifted Pele’s braided mane and tail. It carried the reek of the dead and she wrinkled her nose reflexively. “The burn crew needs to be brought out. Let’s find something to take Splicer to Hempy’s house,” she announced, quickly closing the discussion.
“I have a cart,” Cheer said. Her eyes burned an eerie, tell-tale green from her tears, but she was keeping it together better than Pele would have expected. The lavender Pegasus nodded and Cheer immediately galloped away to retrieve her cart.
“Pyroclastic Pele…”
Pele’s ears swiveled at the sound of her full name in Hempy’s contemplative voice.
“I just don’t get you sometimes. You’re talking about Splicer like she’s not here… I can’t deal with this, this is just…”
“She’s not here.”
Hempy stopped his distressed complaints and followed Pele’s gaze. Splicer lay completely still in amidst the uprooted grass and dispatched zombies. Her sides no longer rose and fell, her eyes were gently closed. The only movement was the slow progress of blood down her ribs and legs, though most of it had dried into her bluish pelt. Hempy couldn’t breathe. The situation was unreal. He wanted to run away, to escape this impossible ending to a long friendship.
“Go home, Hemp,” Pele whispered, her face turned away from him. “I’ll wait here. We’ll meet you at your house.”
Hempy began to breathe again, slowly. “Oh… okay,” he replied. He looked Pele over, noticing the faint shaking of her breathing. Of course she was heartbroken, even if she disguised it in logic and practicality. Hempy retrieved his ax from the ground, where it had fallen from Pele’s shoulder. He sighed and walked away, leaving her to wait and mourn alone.
So began the summer of the living dead.
Hempy Hooves lay on his back in his antique oak bed and stared at the ceiling, as he had done through the entire night. His wide, pink eyes didn’t blink away the sun as it moved across his face at dawn. A magnolia blossom, carried by a mischievous wind through Hempy’s open window, fluttered and twirled across the room, brushing over his nose. Yet he didn’t so much as sneeze. Instead, his full attention was on the lack of noise downstairs. Bluegrass and Turtle Sundae, his housemates, would be up soon. While he knew Splicer had been secured in the basement, locked in a drawer and further enclosed by the heavy freezer doors, he also knew he had absolutely no poker face. He knew too well that he couldn’t be his usual, mellow self so long as his newly undead friend was trapped in his basement. Pele had warned him of the danger of Splicer’s exposure and the panic such an event would induce. What if Turtle Sundae caught him off guard and he accidentally exclaimed something idiotic, like, “ZOMBIE IN BASEMENT DON’T LET HER BITE WHY DID I SAY THAT!?” Sundae could easily set him off like that. She had that effect on ponies.
The creaking of old floorboards caused Hempy to flinch. Somepony was in the kitchen below. In an instant, he was out of bed and headed for the iron spiral staircase that lead to their small, neat kitchen. He intentionally clopped his clumsy way downstairs in an attempt to sound relaxed and at ease. When he reached the kitchen, he found it empty. He peeked around the rectangular island counter in the center of the room in case somepony was out of view behind it. Nothing. No kettle of water was heating on the stovetop; no evidence of fresh fruit graced the table. Maybe his imagination had got the better of him.
With a relieved sigh, Hempy opened the refrigerator. His night of battling zombies and panicking at the thought of one in his house had left him famished. A bowl of sliced strawberries, like little red and white hearts, caught his attention. For a few moments, he considered the possibility that they were reserved for strawberry shortcake or some other creation by Sundae and that by eating even a few of them he was risking a severe reprimand from his strict housemate. However, upon sampling one lightly sugared slice, he concluded that risk was worth taking.
As he placed the bowl on the counter, a soft twang sounded from the living room. Hempy tensed, nearly toppling the fruit. He waited for another noise. Eventually, another small note reached his attentive ears. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. It was only Bluegrass, tuning one of her instruments. She often used the living room as a workshop for her fine creations. It was littered in partially finished fiddles and banjoes in need of strings. The diligent artist must have been the one making noise earlier. Hempy smirked and hopped onto a stool to enjoy his breakfast. Bluegrass would surely be surprised to see him up so early. He’d have to invent some reason for his peculiar behavior.
A sudden crash sent Hempy flailing from his seat to the hardwood floor. He clumsily got back to his hooves and stumbled toward the living room.
“Blue! You okay?” he called as he rounded the doorframe separating the rooms. “Did something OH MY SHIIIIIIT!!!”
The pony standing in the center of the tastefully decorated room turned toward Hempy’s horrified shout. She stopped gnawing on the incomplete neck of a banjo to stare at him with her haunting red eyes.
“Sp…Sp…Sp-Splicer!” Hempy gasped weakly. He was frozen to the spot, unable to look away from Splicer’s focused yet strangely vacant gaze. She began to shamble toward him, stumbling over an upturned coffee table without so much as a blink. Hempy’s knees quaked and threatened to give out completely. “Whoa, Splice… it’s me, Hempy, your b-buddy. Remember? R-remember?” he stuttered. His vision was growing dark in the edges, with the occasional burst of little silver sparks. Now was not the time to pass out. Splicer appeared unaffected by his reminders.
“It is six in the fucking morning. What the hell could possibly be going on so loudly at six in the motherfucking morning?”
Turtle Sundae’s powerful voice snapped Hempy from his panicked trance. He slammed the door, trapping Splicer in the living room, and hurriedly nosed its bolt to lock it as Sundae’s heavy steps grew louder on the wooden main staircase near the front door. He threw himself against the door, reared on his hind legs, as Sundae marched into the room through the doorway across from him. She was a sturdy, formidable pony, yet beautiful, an asset she was known to use to instill an admiring terror in both friends and enemies. Her cream pelt was marked by a swirling depiction of a fudge and caramel sundae in an elegant glass on her rump. Even so early in the morning, her thick, spiraling mane looked quaffed and precise with its layers of rich brown, white, and caramel coloration. Her dark, keen eyes nearly terrified Hempy as much as the zombie which was now nudging the door behind him, slowly, methodically.
“Good morning, Sundae,” Hempy shakily replied through a tight grin. “I was just… making… breakfast for everybody. Because I never do that, and I felt bad, you know? You guys do so much around the house, so I thought I could do something for you.” The door he was pressed against jolted again and he raised his voice to cover it. “I’m so BLESSED TO KNOW YOU GUYS.”
Sundae quirked a brow and stared at him with half-lidded, judging eyes. She glanced at the single bowl on the counter, seemed to consider it, and then returned her suspicious gaze to Hempy. “Were you planning on making breakfast with my strawberries?” she inquired in a flat, chilling tone. Hempy began to consider joining his undead friend in the living room. It seemed like a safer plan than answering Sundae’s question.
“What? Uh, no, absolutely not. I just pulled the bowl out so I could, uh, get some other ingredients out that were behind it. But I got distracted. But now I’m totally on task. Totally on task. So, why don’t you trot back on up to bed? You’re not usually up at this hour, right? Sorry I woke you up-”
“What was all that crashing and yelling before?” interrupted Sundae sternly.
“Well, I wouldn’t phrase it like that. It was more like a crash and a yell.”
“What the hell was it?”
Hempy was nearly thrown away from the door as Splicer rammed it. Sundae’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head.
“What’s going on in the living room, Hempy Hooves?” Her cold voice nearly stopped his racing heart.
Light steps on the metallic stairs distracted both ponies. Bluegrass, her straight, blue mane loosely tied up and a silky robe draped over her shoulders and back, drowsily descended the spiral staircase. The instrument-making unicorn yawned as she stepped between Sundae and Hempy, her mouth opening wide enough to close her sleepy, honey-colored eyes. The dawn’s golden light illuminated her dark brown body and brought out her sweet cream freckles. Hempy whimpered a little as her cutie mark, a four-string banjo, reminded him of her destroyed work in the room behind him.
“Everything okay down here?” she asked with a tired half-smile. “Sounded like there was some sort of ruckus. Ooo, strawberries…” Blue casually took a seat on the stool Hempy had been using before and used her magic to encase a strawberry slice in shimmering green, blue, and yellow energy. She lifted it to her mouth and chewed the soft, sugary piece, apparently oblivious to the tension between Hempy and Sundae.
“Everything’s right as rain, Blue,” Hempy chimed, his smile broadening absurdly as he pushed harder against the door. The pressure behind it was becoming constant, with the occasional extra bump he had to subdue with his awkwardly upright pose.
“Don’t know what kind of rain you’re talking about,” Sundae snorted. She pointed an accusing hoof at Hempy. “I honestly don’t know why I’m letting him stay in this house. He never does housework, he barely contributes to the bills, and Celestia knows what’s going on in that damn basement garden. Now he’s got his rowdy friends in my living room, very possibly trashing it. I sincerely hope none of your fiddles and whatnot are in there, Blue.”
“Oh, yeah, my friends… I’m so sorry about this, Sundae. Splicer’s been having a really…” Hempy paused to search for the right words. “Death-defying week. It’s really getting to her. In fact, I should really make sure she’s alright. I mean, you should have seen Merrybrook Meadow last night. Swamped with the affected. Not to scare you guys or anything, but definitely more than we’ve seen since the whole mess began. I think it spooked poor Splice a little.”
“Splicer?” Sundae echoed incredulously. “Your buddy with the club?”
“Well, yeah, just because she’s, you know, rugged, doesn’t mean she doesn’t get a little scared by them sometimes,” Hempy awkwardly sputtered.
“Maybe I could cheer her up. Looks like you’ve been up all night. You should really wash off,” Bluegrass suggested. As always, her voice was low and warm. She slanted her sage, hooded eyes at Hempy, who in turn looked himself over. To his embarrassment and disgust, he found she was right. Mud and an uncomfortable amount of blood caked his purple pelt, partially obscuring his familiar five-fingered leaf cutie mark.
“Shit… I’m sorry, I’d get this taken care of right away, but I can’t leave Splicer in the state she’s in. I wouldn’t subject you to her, Blue, but that’s really kind of you and all,” Hempy said. “I’ll just go back in and settle her down. Give us a few minutes to clear out.”
“No, I think we should go in and see the poor dear ourselves,” Sundae sarcastically offered. “If she’s so upset she’s upsetting my furniture, that is.”
“You know what? I’ll ask her,” Hempy replied meekly, edging a hoof to the door’s handle. His pink eyes snapped toward the window. “Oh wow, a thing!”
In days as tense as these, Sundae could not be blamed for glancing at the window as well, and even as she did so, she winced at the idiotic technique which had distracted her. As she furiously turned back toward Hempy, the living room door was banging shut behind him. Sundae hissed an oath and stomped her cream-hued hoof. Blue paid no attention to the decoy or Sundae’s reaction. She calmly continued to munch strawberries as Sundae indignantly tossed her curly mane and stormed out of the kitchen. “If they aren’t out of my house in ten minutes, I’ll see them out myself,” she announced from the main stairs as she returned to her room.
“I’m sorry,” Hempy squeaked to Splicer, who was sprawled several feet from the door thanks to a hefty kick from him once he entered the room. He couldn’t have her tearing into the kitchen (or into his flesh). She got back to her feet in her unnatural, ungainly way and turned her vague, hungry gaze to Hempy. “Now, just stay there for a moment. I’m going to find a way to get you back in the basement until Pele and Cheer get here, okay? Don’t you like it down there? With all the pretty plants and a cozy little locker to sleep in?”
Splicer tilted her head, almost as though she were considering it. She took several lilting steps toward Hempy, her mouth opening and closing slowly, like a fish’s. Hempy tried to separate her former identity from her current monstrosity, as Pele had suggested before departing to gather all the research she could through the night. This was not Splicer. This was a mysteriously reanimated dead creature with an appetite for flesh and nothing else. Of course, as vegetarian creatures, no one in town had spare meat lying around with which Hempy might appease her. And where were Cheer and Pele? Had it really taken all night for Pele to find the few newspaper articles in the library which contained information about the nature of the affected? And Cheer had been tasked with assisting the burn crew, but such a job was long done by now. She was supposed to have come by much earlier.
Hempy was yanked from his thoughts by a guttural grumble from Splicer. She seemed to have remembered her purpose and was staggering toward Hempy too quickly for comfort. He bounded to the side and she stumbled into the wall, smearing blood and grime on the light, Victorian wallpaper. Hempy scuttled behind the overturned coffee table as Splicer corrected herself and targeted him again. She charged ferociously, if clumsily, toward him. He hoisted the table at an angle by the legs, using it as an oversized shield which the zombie bashed against with unexpected force. Hempy tripped backwards from the power of the collision and his hind hoof smashed into the banjo Splicer had been gnawing before. He tried to shake his leg free of it, and the distraction gave Splicer the chance to strain her neck across the barrier and snap her teeth inches from his turned face. Hempy released a startled cry and clattered farther back. Splicer’s forelegs were braced against the tabletop and she pushed it and Hempy against the wall. He was now trapped behind the table, whose legs prevented him from being completely crushed as Splicer struggled against it.
A single knock came from the door to the kitchen. “DON’T COME IN!” Hempy howled, his voice cracking.
“Cheer Chime’s asking for you out front. Kind of early for guests, don’t you think?” Bluegrass asked calmly through the door.
“Thank Celestia!” wailed Hempy just before Splicer tried another snap at his nose. “Uh, yeah, she probably came to check on Splicer. Could you –OH SHIT- Sorry, could you have her enter the living room alone without you looking? And tell her Splicer’s not feeling so good?”
There was a pause before Blue responded. “Sure thing. Just tell me if you need help with anything in there.”
“Uh, absolutely! Thanks!” Hempy called back. “Oh! Does she have her sword on her, by any chance?”
After another pause, Blue replied, “Yep, looks like she does.”
“Good, good,” Hempy sighed just before Splicer began to heave herself against the table. One of the curved wooden legs cracked under the pressure. Hempy whimpered and shifted a hoof to brace the weakening side.
The door in the opposite wall opened a few inches. “I can come in, right?”
“Cheer! Yes! Now! Pleeeaaase!”
Cheer slipped into the room and closed the door behind her with a hind leg. Her green eyes widened as she took in the scene. Rather than grabbing her sword from her belt to assist, she simply stared at the fight.
“DO SOMETHING!” Hempy yelled.
“Do what?” Cheer squealed back. “I’m not going to attack my best friend!”
“She’s not your friend! She’s dead!”
Cheer’s deep magenta bangs fell across her face and Hempy noticed, even with Splicer drooling over his table barrier, that she looked terrible. Her eyes were bloodshot and her wild hair looked even more manic than usual. She was known for her apparently boundless energy, and yet she seemed pulled down by an invisible weight. Her butter-yellow pelt was just as filthy as his. The table creaked again.
“Just do something, Cheer! Get her off me!”
Cheer hurriedly surveyed the room and noticed the empty fireplace a few feet away from Hempy. “Push her to your right!” she instructed as she leaped toward him. Splicer, distracted by Hempy so close to her face, missed Cheer dart by and lithely crawl beneath the table to join her living friend. He gave her a baffled look.
“We’re both doomed, thanks,” he sneered as tears formed in his eyes. Death was never an appealing thing, but Hempy never thought he’d meet his in Sundae’s pretentiously decorated living room.
Instead of replying, Cheer launched herself into the table, forcing the left side out. Hempy glanced from her to the fireplace, putting it together. He immediately joined her, balancing the right side of the table and pushing against the left side. Their combined strength began to shove Splicer backwards and rotate her, slowly, until her back was to the fireplace and their barricade had her trapped. In a synchronized thrust, they jammed her into the opening and sat against their side of the table, panting. For about two minutes, they did nothing but catch their breath as Splicer knocked uselessly against the wood behind them. Then, as though in slow motion, they turned to look at each other.
“So, now what?” Hempy asked in a broken whisper.
Cheer shrugged.
“What? What do you mean with the shrugging and the not saying anything? Didn’t you plan this out?”
“No… I pretty much saw the fireplace, and that was the extent of the plan,” Cheer answered. She gave an exhausted, goofy grin.
“Oh Celestia… there’s a zombie in my fireplace, a banjo on my foot, and my housemates are going to kill me. No matter what happens, someone’s going to eat me alive,” moaned Hempy as he slumped against the table.
“I know you aren’t still in my living room.”
Cheer and Hempy flinched at Sundae’s words. Cheer glanced toward the couch and then toward Hempy, silently asking if he could manage the barricade alone. The rainbow-maned pony nodded and Cheer left him for the couch.
“We’re just on our way out. Splicer’s afraid to go outside just yet… is it okay if we use the basement?” Hempy called to Sundae.
“My basement? Is it okay if you use my basement? Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that. After all, you’ve already turned my basement into your own private pharmacy.”
“I grow you all sorts of spices!” Hempy cried in defense. Cheer pulled off a decorative throw blanket from the back of the maroon couch and returned to Hempy’s side.
“We are going to have a serious discussion about your disrespect for myself and my house, just so you know.”
“So I can take Splicer to the basement?”
“Do what you want.” The sharp clops of her retreating steps and the slam of the far kitchen door announced Sundae’s departure.
“Okay, slide the table over a little,” Cheer said as she prepped the blanket. Hempy cautiously shifted the table and Splicer’s muzzle immediately wedged into the opening. Cheer tilted her head, encouraging Hempy to scoot the table even more, which he begrudgingly did. Splicer’s entire head squeezed into view and Cheer quickly covered it with the blanket. The freshly undead pony twisted ineffectively, chewing at the fabric and trying to free herself. Hempy slid the barrier enough for the rest of Splicer to come out, which Cheer promptly veiled. Splicer did not much care for being covered, and she showed her disapproval by frantically bucking and lurching across the room as Cheer haplessly tried to cling to her. Hempy threw himself across Splicer’s back, curtailing some of her flailing. Little by little, the darkness of the blanket seemed to soothe the zombie, and she grew almost completely still. Hempy freed his foot from the instrument and he and Cheer began to herd her toward the door with slow, gentle steps. As Hempy reached his hoof for the oval knob, he saw it turn without his influence. He and Cheer froze, their hearts in their throats.
The door swung back to reveal Bluegrass watching them with sleepy yet curious eyes. “Everything okay?” she asked calmly, though the hesitation between her words betrayed her confusion. Splicer began to rear at the sound of a potential meal, but Hempy suppressed her.
“Yup, everything’s good. Splice just needs some quiet time in the basement,” Hempy reassured his housemate. He flashed an awkwardly wide smile, which Cheer mimicked, as though two uncomfortable grins could combine to make a sincere one.
“…Alright,” Blue said after a moment. The uncertainty in her voice was uncharacteristic of the easy-going pony. She corrected for her questioning tone with a warm, sideways smile as she backed out of the way, allowing Cheer and Hempy to shuffle Splicer into the kitchen. “I’ll get that for you,” Blue offered as the trio made their sluggish way toward the basement door. Her glittering magic curled around the handle and pulled the door open.
“Thank you,” Cheer whispered as they maneuvered Splicer into the narrow stone stairway.
“No problem. But can I ask why…?” Blue pointed a hoof at Splicer’s covering rather than finishing her question.
“Calms her down, that’s all,” Hempy answered over his shoulder as Splicer faltered on a step. As he caught her, her makeshift cloak shifted, drawing up her hind leg and threatening to expose her wounds. Cheer lunged for the slipping blanket and tugged it back into place. The three ponies bumbled down the stairs, thumping into the foundation walls and tripping over their own hooves as Blue observed from the kitchen. The mellow unicorn flicked the basement lights on with a hoof as they began to dissolve into darkness. The peculiar lemony light flushed back the shadows as Cheer, Hempy, and their undead charge reached the final step.
Turtle Sundae’s basement was like any 100-year-old basement: dank, cobwebbed, and spooky. The floor was formed of rough, worn cement and the walls were unevenly constructed of ancient, chalky bricks. The bared plumbing resembled cave formations, stretching from floor to ceiling against the walls, bending around the water heater. The room smelled like wet coins and earth. Even with the pair of dangling light bulbs, it was difficult to see into the corners, and thanks to extending walls, there were many corners. As Cheer stepped over a circular drain, she recalled the building’s purpose. Such a large, plain basement would have been perfect for caring for the deceased. The small sections created by the extended walls offered some degree of privacy for the bodies, however strange it was to think of privacy when it came to the dead. Now, those spaces were occupied by storage boxes, full of holiday decorations, familial treasures, and sentimental pieces of junk.
Hempy blinked, unsure of his own eyes. Before him, the steel door which divided this portion of the basement from his garden room was dented, as though a great force had rammed it from the inside. Though the door was old, it was still sturdy, with a bar-lock system which normally took two hooves to undo. That bar was now bent, and the heavy door had been left ajar.
“Splicer did this?” Cheer murmured in awe. Hempy mutely nodded, his pink eyes scrutinizing the bar, trying to reason that the door was older and more fragile than he’d assumed the night before. How else could Splicer have burst through it and yet been subdued by the table upstairs?
Splicer scraped her hoof on the floor in impatience or anxiety or whatever emotion an undead creature might feel while cloaked by a blanket. With tentative steps, Cheer left Splicer to Hempy and crept toward the damaged door. She reached her leg around its edge and pulled it further open. It ground against the dirty concrete, producing a dry, broken squeal which made the two sentient ponies clench their teeth and draw back their ears. Splicer stomped and swayed, excited by the sudden sound.
Half of the garden room remained as it had been last night. The high, ground-level windows allowed a slant of morning light into the gray gloom. The light fell across tall, leafy stalks on a long, low table jutting from the middle of one wall, leaving three sides accessible. The broad leaves seemed to glow green. The floor was patterned with patches of shadow and the golden green of light filtered through foliage. Other pots, some empty, some sprouting white tendrils, some containing bound shoots of a heavy-blossomed mystery flower, were clustered on smaller tables and across the floor in rows.
Cheer flicked the switch for the long overhead light which hung from the ceiling. The remaining half of the room looked like the scene of a vicious brawl. The shards of a large clay pot were splayed across the ground, mixed with a shredded bag of potting soil and scattered seed packets. Several splashes of browning blood stained the concrete. Three metal drawers were aligned in the wall opposite most of the garden. They appeared newer than the steel door and two of them looked untouched, their clean, reflective faces hard to look at in the light. The third drawer, perfectly sized for a reclining pony, was pulled completely out and tilted to the floor like a slide. The morbid images associated with the drawers made Cheer’s mouth dry, as it had the night before while they’d loaded Splicer into it.
Clearly, Splicer hadn’t enjoyed her stay in the mortician’s drawer. It was as though she’d exploded from her confines and released her resentment on Hempy’s supplies, but only the supplies on that side of the room. Cheer cautiously stepped around the debris and scanned the area, intrigued by the limited destruction. Hempy guided Splicer in behind the yellow pony. Cheer glanced over her shoulder at the pair, her tangled berry-purple mane failing to conceal her exhausted, frightened expression. It was obvious now that she hadn’t slept either, so Hempy couldn’t help but wonder why she’d been so late. But it wasn’t the time to worry over details. She was here now, and they had a zombie to deal with.
“Oh, your plant,” Cheer murmured in a strangely mournful tone, considering the circumstance. She’d noticed a crushed grouping of leaves amidst the mess. It matched Hempy’s cutie mark. Luckily, it was the only plant to have been trampled. For a while, the room was completely silent as the living ponies stared at the limp leaves and Splicer stood bizarrely still, resembling the cloth-shrouded furniture of an empty house.
Hempy’s eyes moved slowly from the dead plant to the many healthy ones on the untouched side of the room. His brows pulled together and he bit his lower lip in thought before speaking. “Do you think she was high?”
Cheer blinked like a dazed owl in sunlight. Hempy quickly continued.
“I mean, the rest of the room is fine… I dunno, maybe she was flailing around over here and then smashed the one plant and chilled for a while.” His ears flicked nervously as he suddenly doubted his hypothesis. “It’s just weird that she only destroyed half of the room, and then busted down the door.”
“But she couldn’t break through our table,” Cheer added. She didn’t like the strangeness of it all. On top of every other recent trauma, why was Splicer not behaving in a more predictable manner? Coincidentally keeping her violence to one part of a room was one thing, but picking and choosing when to use her strength was another. If she could dent a steel door, she could very easily have overpowered the both of them in the living room.
Hempy joined Cheer in the minefield of scattered tools and supplies. He flipped over a pair of shears he used in exterior gardens. The wooden handles were gnawed to splinters, and the blades were bent and riddled with little nicks, teeth marks. “What was she doing?”
“Craving iron, I’d wager.”
It took several seconds for the sleep-deprived Cheer and Hempy to realize that neither of them had made that reply. When they did, their simultaneous reaction was loud and clumsy. The pair bumbled into each other and slipped on the loose items around them as the struggled to turn toward the newcomer. Bluegrass stood in the doorway, looking almost as calm as ever. There was an unfamiliar tightness about her, however, making her casual pose seem unnatural, forced.
“You really shouldn’t leave your zombie unattended. Looks hungry to me,” Blue added, nodding toward Splicer, who had dislodged the blanket from her head and was dragging the rest of it behind her as she stumbled toward Hempy and Cheer. This time, Cheer did draw her hooked sword, nearly clipping Hempy’s cheek in the process. He made no complaint, distracted as he was by Splicer’s approach. Cheer lunged forward and began to slash the concrete inches from Splicer’s hooves. Sparks jumped from her blade with each clang. Splicer didn’t so much as glance down at the swipes. She lurched along, oblivious to the intimidating display, forcing Cheer to back up but not cease her swinging. The predatory tango pushed Cheer back to Hempy’s side.
“Just cut her! Just cut her!” wailed Hempy, feeling just a twinge of guilt at encouraging a real attack on Splicer. He picked up an orange pot shard from the mess at his feet to wield as a makeshift dagger. Before he could make the choice to slice Splicer’s nose, a burst of blue, yellow, and green encased her. Bluegrass braced herself, her horn and the magic reaching from it pointing at Splicer. Her lifted lips revealed gritted teeth. The effort required to contain the struggling zombie seemed more than it should have been, and it surprised Blue. She took firm steps backward, hauling Splicer with her.
“The weed!” Hempy abruptly exclaimed as he dropped the shard. Blue managed to send him a confused look from her mask of exertion. “Move her toward the plants!” he said, waving a hoof at the table covered in vegetation. Blue hesitated for a moment before obliging. She strained to drag Splicer across the floor. Cheer slid her sword back into her belt and, staying in Splicer’s eyesight, trotted across the room and behind the table. Suddenly, Blue had to restrain Splicer rather than tug her as her potential breakfast drew the zombie toward the plants. One of Splicer’s wild kicks knocked the table’s edge, jolting the row of potted pot. The beam of light from outside revealed a fine cloud of particles lifting from the mass of leaves. Splicer thrashed in her magical confines a few more times before her motions became slow and weak, as though she were underwater.
“I can’t keep her surrounded,” Blue warned through locked teeth.
“I… don’t think you need to,” Cheer murmured, her eyes round with curiosity.
Blue gave her a quizzical look, obviously doubtful of the frequently manic earth pony. Cheer was rarely a trustworthy source between her pranks and sudden acts of madness in which she seemed to engage solely for the entertainment it brought her. However, on this occasion, Blue had to agree. She gently lowered the wavering orb of magic and let it dissipate as Splicer’s hooves touched the ground. As gravity once again came into play on her body, Splicer swayed and took one clunky step, causing the other ponies to flinch. But she didn’t resume her hunt. She merely bobbed her head like a tired young filly and stayed put. Blue narrowed her eyes and took a few cautious steps closer.
“What’s up with her eyes?” Hempy whispered.
“I was just looking at that,” said Blue. She closed her eyes and shook her head. When her eyes opened again, they were on Hempy with the cool intensity only Bluegrass was capable of. “Wait, wait. I feel like we passed over several remarkable things that I think we should revisit.”
“They’re kinda blue-ish now. Purpley? Maybe indigo,” Cheer mused as she got dangerously close to Splicer’s face.
“Remarkable things like: why is Splicer undead and when did she die in the first place? Then there’s the obvious: why is she placated by the contents of your garden, Hempy?” Blue continued, ignoring Cheer’s interruption. “I mean, I know what your garden is, but I wouldn’t expect such a reaction out of the living dead.”
“Big fight, she got bit, some sort of spookily cold-blooded ‘let’s study our buddy’ idea, and I’ve been pushing the benefits of this stuff for years,” Hempy replied. “Doesn’t surprise me a bit that even zombies like it.”
“Red to blue is a pretty big jump,” Cheer said. She was still enthralled by the physical change. “That doesn’t make any sense. Freaky. Check this out.”
Bluegrass, Hempy Hooves, and Cheer Chime all leaned toward the dazed zombie to inspect the transformed irises. No trace of their previous carmine coloration remained. Surely there was some sort of logic behind it. It wasn’t as though the lighting had changed, or that Splicer’s eyes were prone to appearing different. There was no reason for this. All the living ponies seemed to be considering the same mystery as they stared into Splicer’s vacant eyes, completely speechless, drawing closer and closer for a clearer view, barely breathing in fear of breaking the strange spell.
“Everything’s gone!”
Everypony but Splicer leaped a few inches into the air with a gasp. In the doorway stood Pyroclastic Pele. Her breathing was slightly heavier than it should have been and her braids were coming loose. Yet by far the most unsettling aspect about Pele was the fear behind her serious eyes.
“Burned up. Gone. Everything,” she panted.
“What is? What are you talking about?” Blue asked as she trotted toward the Pegasus.
“Manesfield. The entire city has been burned to the ground.”
A Lovely Night for Bonfires
With Splicer safely secured in the garden room by the bent door and several reinforcing boxes of junk, Hempy, Blue, Cheer, and Pele convened in an unnecessary huddle. Pele had collected herself enough to convey her story in her usual calm manner. Her audience was captivated by her narrative, which she delivered as cleanly as any rehearsed report.
“It was no surprise that our library didn’t have much in the way of articles relating to studies on the afflicted, so I traveled to some of the neighboring towns last night in search of recent research. I flew to Manesfield, thinking it was sure to have something. There’s a good laboratory there, and I wondered if they’d been conducting their own studies. I knew something was wrong when I saw the peach glow on the horizon. It was more than city lamps, I was sure of that much right away. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around such an extensive catastrophe. The whole city was on fire. The smoke nearly choked me out from a mile away. I helped control the flames with the other Pegasus ponies, draining every cloud we could get our hooves on over the city. The situation seemed to be under control when I left, but there was a lot of damage. When the papers get here, I’m sure we’ll learn the full extent of things. Both the laboratory and the library were reduced to little more than ashes and charred bricks. I had even been hoping we could deliver Splicer to that lab so more precise research could be done with her. Maybe a cure. No chance of that now. We’d have to go all the way to Canterlot. I’m starting to think that’s our best option, since keeping her here doesn’t make much sense. There’s nothing we can do with her since we’ve missed the transformation process.”
“I’d think a place like Canterlot wouldn’t have much trouble acquiring the infected. And that’s assuming Canterlot hasn’t fallen. Four months without word from them. Not even papers,” Blue reminded Pele in her warmly accented tones.
“Some of the ponies in Manesfield heard that the dragons had abandoned the city in favor of the mountains when the disease broke out,” Pele answered. It was up to the city’s dragons to deliver Equestria’s newspapers via their magic flames. “With the dragons gone, the papers would have to be manually delivered. Maybe Canterlot’s on lock-down and won’t risk ponies going in or out while the plague’s so hot.”
“We can only know for sure if we go there,” Cheer suggested.
“Trek across Equestria, dragging along a zombie, on the off-chance Canterlot will let us in if it hasn’t become overrun by the undead? Pass,” said Hempy. He squared up his shoulders stubbornly.
“If your herbs are as effective as you say against Splicer, we also have to consider how important that could be to the rest of Equestria. That’s the sort of discovery everypony’s desperate for,” Pele said.
“Sure was a big night for fires,” Cheer commented absently.
“That’s assuming the plants will keep affecting Splicer. We don’t know if this is something that she’ll get used to,” Blue said as she chewed her lip in thought.
“Then we should take both the plants and her to Canterlot. Fast,” Pele announced.
“What was that about fires?” Hempy asked Cheer, who stared off into a corner of the room. Pele and Bluegrass turned their attentions to the yellow and magenta pony. After a few moments, Cheer noticed their collective gazes and self-consciously scraped her hoof across the floor, cutting through a layer of dust.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t mention that before,” she said with a sheepish grin. “I went to supervise the burn crew last night. The meadow’s taken care of, no worries there. Thing is, I found something weird on the far side of the field. I thought maybe some of the crew had found something interesting and trampled a path into the woods, but when I looked closer, I saw the hoofprints were going the wrong way. It was a path into the meadow. I thought that was odd and I really wanted to know where the prints had come from, so I followed them into the woods for, I don’t know, two miles. I was going to turn back earlier, but I kept smelling ashes, which was also funny, since the wind was coming from ahead of me. I found this big clearing that was blackened by old fire. I thought maybe I’d managed to circle around to our meadow again, but this place looked like it had been burned down a while before. The ashes were cool, but there were a few embers left. And there were all these pieces of bamboo sticking up everywhere.”
“Bamboo? I think you saw some saplings or something. It was dark,” Pele said.
“No, it was bamboo,” Cheer retorted with a mildly peeved expression. “I know bamboo when I see it. It hadn’t been growing there. It was just pieces of bamboo sticking up in little clumps. Most of it had been burned, but a few pieces were still there. Tied together.”
“What do you mean?” questioned Blue when Cheer seemed to get distracted by a spider crawling down the basement’s drain.
“I mean, I thought maybe there had been huts out there. Like the bamboo were the skeletons of little houses or tents. It was hard to tell, considering how burnt they were.”
“You’re only just now telling us about this whole incinerated village?” Hempy said incredulously.
“I don’t know if it was a village. I don’t know what it was. But I think that’s where the zombies came from last night. Maybe it was a village that no one had seen before. Maybe they all got hit and transformed and came toward where they smelled meat. I thought maybe they accidentally burned down their homes at first, but as I think about it, the fire looked like it had been pretty controlled. There was enough breeze to carry flames into the trees, so why wasn’t there an all-out forest fire?” said Cheer.
The boxes against the door to the garden jolted. Splicer had snapped out of her weed-induced trance and resumed her hunger-induced one.
“There’s definitely something fishy going on here, but now’s not the time to work everything out. If we’re going to go, we’ve got to do it soon,” Blue whispered. The others nodded in agreement.
“Right. Let’s gather what we need for a trip to Canterlot. I think I know somepony who can help,” said Pele, and everypony took note.
The Merry Caravan Departs
Charleston was a friendly, generous, likeable sort of unicorn. Usually, these traits served him well. The performances his dance studio put on were consistently well-attended, ponies were always willing to help him out when the situation called for it, and he’d been able to make a very comfortable life for himself in Woostirrup. However, there were times when he regretted his propensity to aide his fellow ponies. One such time was this.
Hempy Hooves and Cheer Chime lead the way to Cheer’s house on the edge of town. Charleston, a lanky-legged silver unicorn with a curly red and gold mane, followed obediently. He towed an elegant dark red wagon with gold-painted trim and pretty doors on its aft-end. It was meant for transporting props and costumes in a stylish way, not for trekking across Equestria during a zombie infestation. And for what reason? Cheer had given some bizarre story about Splicer being undead and needing to be taken to Canterlot, but Cheer was always like that. She could spout any tall tale with a straight face and then dissolve into manic giggles when somepony believed her. She’d acted so serious this time, which was unusual for her. Perhaps something was up. Then again, since the outbreak, Cheer hadn’t exactly been her playful, plucky self. Charleston’s thoughts were disrupted by a voice ahead of him.
“Doesn’t seem like Pele and Blue are here yet,” Hempy observed. He stood before Cheer’s house, a rich green and gold windmill with crimson accents matching the one on her flank. The sails bore stylistic paintings of Celestia, Luna, the sun, and the moon. They turned languidly in the gentle breeze as Hempy searched for signs of the others. “They were supposed to get here before us!” he said, stomping his hoof impatiently. The anxiety was obvious in his darting pink eyes.
“They’ll get here,” Cheer said with a broad smile.
“Why are you smiling? What is there to smile about?” Hempy demanded. He winced as the angry words hung in the air. “I’m sorry… it’s just that all this is so… I don’t even know what to call this mess. What if somepony stopped them in town? What if Splicer got loose?”
Cheer merely shrugged and skipped to the little shed by her windmill. She’d painted it long ago with characters from Splicer’s stories. It was in sore need of a touch-up. The bold characters and oversized depictions of gears and brassy machinery were peeling. She nosed open the door, which groaned as it swung out to reveal the stacks of boxes and bags the group had prepared earlier.
“May as well take the time to load up, right?” said Cheer as she headed for a large canvas sack of provisions.
“Just so we’re clear on this, I’m still not sure what’s going on,” Charleston reminded the ponies in an attempt to probe for more information. He undid his harness with a cloud of gold and silver magic and went to the back of the wagon. He opened the doors for Cheer, barely getting out of her way as she heaved the sack in. “And why my wagon, for that matter?”
“To lock up Splicer. Of course,” Cheer answered frankly.
“Of course,” Charleston echoed skeptically, but didn’t push the issue. He glanced into the back of his wagon, which had been rather rudely cleared of its contents by Hempy and Cheer. Without the colorful props, it seemed barren and foreboding, especially considering the thick bars which divided a portion of it at the front. Those bars usually defended a desk full of important papers and pricey costume jewelry, but that had had to go as well. Charleston sighed.
Hempy hefted a box on his back and joined Cheer in packing the wagon, making sure to leave a path open for the barred-off section. Hempy couldn’t help but notice how cheerful the yellow and berry-purple pony was, recent events considered. Before he could bring it up, the clopping of hooves distracted him.
Bluegrass and Pyroclastic Pele hurried up the dirt road, a cloud of dust rising behind them. Blue towed a rickety cart which contained some wriggling thing under a heavy blanket. Straps had been tied across the cargo, but Charleston could hear the strain on the ropes far too distinctly for comfort. He resisted the urge to demand an explanation. He wasn’t sure he wanted one. Bile was rising in his throat. Surely, this was some kind of prank.
“We’ve got to make tracks,” Blue said as she pulled the cart behind the wagon. Pele floated above the group, her serious golden eyes scanning the town behind them. “Turtle Sundae’s got a hunch that we’re up to something, and the last thing we need is for her to find out she’s right. Somepony help me out here.”
Cheer lifted a hoof, paused, and then pressed through the impulse to retreat. She warily walked up to the cart and tugged at the restraints with her teeth as Blue handled the other side.
“She’s sedated with some leaves from Hempy’s plants,” Blue assured Cheer as the blanketed zombie writhed. “Doesn’t stop her from wiggling, though. Here, take this rope and I’ll help her into the back.”
Cheer did as she was told and climbed into the back of the wagon with the line leading to Splicer in her mouth. As she pulled, Blue pushed on Splicer, who was still partially swathed in the blanket. Eventually, the undead pony was coaxed into the wagon and guided to the caged-in front. Everypony held their breath as they closed and locked the barred door and backed away. Charleston couldn’t move. His long legs were locked in position and his jaw was slack. He knew that blue-gray pallor and hints of black mane beneath the cloth. The torn flesh made him queasy. His eyelids began to flutter.
“Hey, Charleston, come on,” Pele said as she swooped into view. “I know this seems crazy, but we really appreciate your help. You’re a brave unicorn. Now, go help Hempy Hooves switch the harness so two ponies can tow at a time.”
“Okay, kinda mechanical there, Pe-”
“We don’t have time, Hempy,” Pele interrupted, giving the purple and polychrome pony a sharp look. Hempy grinned meekly and began taking down the two-pony harness from the side of the wagon. Charleston, in an obedient daze, went to assist him. Pele flipped her braided turquoise bangs out of her face and fluttered up to observe the town again. She wondered when she’d see idyllic, oblivious Woostirrup again, and then turned her attention to closing up the wagon for departure.
On the gentle green hilltop to the east of town, five living ponies and one zombie in an ornate wagon lingered. The earth pony with the five-fingered leaf mark chewed his lip but rolled back his shoulders with determination. The lanky unicorn with the top hat and cane mark stared ahead, flabbergasted by the new turn of events in his life. The lavender Pegasus with the vibrant hummingbird mark perched on the wagon, a map laid flat beneath her hooves. The serene instrument-maker with the banjo mark adjusted the strap of her harness, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. The pony in the harness next to her, with the windmill mark, hummed something smooth and strange as she bid her house goodbye. And the pony in the wagon, the one with the double gears mark, chewed the bars of her cage and silently craved the flesh of her companions.
“WHAT? Are you insane?!” Hempy yelped at Pele’s suggestion of stopping for the night.
“Well, we can’t exactly check into a hotel in some town or other. Not that we’re close enough to one,” Bluegrass said
“But in zombie-infested woods? Nonono, no way,” Hempy protested.
The sun was going down over the broad expanse of forest between Woostirrup and Bridle Bay. The trees, which had seemed so lush and unthreatening during the day, were turned ominous by the creeping shadows of dusk. The caravan had come to a stop on the overgrown dirt road which ran through the Wanderbranch Woods. Hempy and Cheer Chime eyed the twisty trees suspiciously.
“No pony’s reported a sighting out here,” said Pele. She unfurled her map on the road in hopes of estimating their position. Hempy stomped his hoof next to the fragile scroll.
“That’s because no pony has survived an encounter!” he retorted. “Oh Celestia, we’re gonna die out here on our first day…”
“We won’t die,” Cheer said sweetly. Hempy looked to her with cautiously hopeful eyes. “At least, we won’t die permanently.” The moment was ruined. Cheer smiled.
“Why do you keep smiling?” Hempy asked.
“I’m smiling? I guess I’m just happy to be on an adventure. Look at us, all traveling together, having a good time…”
“Yeah, all of us dodging flesh-starved monsters and trying to take our very own flesh-starved monster to a city potentially overrun by flesh-starved monsters. Good times,” Hempy grumbled. He sounded more frightened than irritated.
“Come on, we’re wasting the last of the light. We need to set up camp,” Pele insisted. She rolled up the map, tucked it beneath a wing, and went to open the back of the wagon.
“I agree with Pele. Seems like we’re all chewing on our tired wheels,” Blue commented as she unharnessed Cheer and herself from the wagon.
“Tired wheels?” Charleston repeated. He hadn’t quite come out of his state of ambulatory shock since their departure that morning.
“You know, that old idiom,” Blue said.
“I don’t think that’s an idiom though,” said Charleston.
“We’re tired and cranky,” Blue rephrased curtly. She seemed to notice her own grumpiness and cleared her throat. “I’ll help get the gear out.”
Once the large canvas sheet which served as a shelter was draped over the side of the wagon and staked into the soil to the side of the road, Pele brought out the provisions. The ponies gathered in front of the tent, passing around hunks of bread and cans of peaches and green beans. The last rays of the sun cast a dismal gray vagueness over the group. Cheer began to shiver as the chill of night fell upon them.
“Are zombies afraid of fire?” Charleston wondered aloud. He drew his legs more tightly under him where he lay. “I only ask since it’s getting so dark and cold.”
“I’m not sure,” Pele said between bites of syrupy peach. “I know a fire would be really nice right now, but if there is anything in these woods, I’m not sure they wouldn’t be drawn to the light. Then again, the smoke could cover up our smell, and wild animals are supposed to keep away from flames.”
“So, can we build a fire? Please say we can build a fire,” Hempy pleaded.
“And then we can tell ghost stories!” Everypony looked at Cheer with a mix of exhaustion and confusion. Cheer suddenly looked sheepish. “I mean, since it would be a campfire and all…”
“Let’s just build a little fire and see what happens. We’ll keep somepony on watch for a couple hours and then switch. Keeps back animals and the cold, after all. And we haven’t seen a single sign of the infected all day,” Blue suggested.
The others agreed and soon, thanks to Blue’s skill with flint, a small fire burned in a ring of stones a few feet from the tent. Charleston, his generosity intact regardless of context, volunteered for the first watch. The other ponies curled up beneath the canvas shelter with their blankets, keeping close for warmth and that rare sensation of security which comes with physical contact. Charleston took his post between the tent and the fire. Though his heart pounded, he tried to control his breathing. He imagined his breath was fueling and calming the small clump of flames near his hooves. When would he know to switch the guard? Time felt meaningless in the darkness around him. He concentrated on the sounds of insects in the trees and the crackle of the fire. The noises made an organic rhythm, up and down, popping embers, buzzing cicadas. How long had he been out there? Minutes? Maybe it had already been an hour, but he hadn’t noticed. The flames had died down even further. When had that happened? Had he drifted off? Whatever the case, the fire needed more fuel. Charleston stood and stretched his cramped legs. With quiet steps, he went to gather dry sticks from the roadside.
A muted knock behind him caused Charleston to flinch, nearly dropping the sticks he held with his magic before him. He looked over his shoulder at the vague outline of the wagon and wished the fire hadn’t gotten so low. As he stood there, frozen, he realized the nocturnal creatures of the forest had gone silent. His fur lifted. The knock came again, and he could tell it was from inside the wagon. Leaving the sticks behind, he made his way at a painstakingly slow pace toward the back of the wagon and wondered how he’d come to be part of this and why he wasn’t waking up the others. He reassured himself that Splicer was safely locked up. If something were wrong, he’d wake up the others.
One door cracked open and Charleston tentatively peeked inside. The thick darkness made him want to rub his eyes, but he knew it wouldn’t help. The soft thumps had turned to dull clanks. Charleston stepped up into the wagon, hating himself for doing so. The closer he got, the better he could see and the more frequent the clanks became. He could make out Splicer’s silhouette through the bars. She was facing him, clearly staring right at him. She drew back and fell forward over and over, knocking her head and teeth into the metal. Her efforts seemed drunken and weak, but her goal was clear. She knew Charleston was there, and she was determined to get at him.
Pele had briefed him on zombie care, so the unicorn lifted the lid from a box near the cage to access some of Hempy’s dried, crushed plants, luckily prepared weeks previously for the alleviation of non-zombie ills. His magic illuminated Splicer’s bloody, hungry face and he winced. He lifted some of the crushed plants and moved them over the zombie. He let them drift over her pale blue-gray face and catch in her tangled black mane. She snorted and stumbled back a few feet. Within a few minutes, the plants had clearly begun to sedate her and she slumped against the wooden wall.
Charleston realized he’d been holding his breath. He closed his eyes and caught his breath, trying not to think about the zombie in the cage mere feet from him. His heart rate slowed. All seemed well.
Until a stick snapped outside.
Charleston went rigid. He gasped at air for a moment before whispering, hoarsely, “hello?” Haltingly, he moved toward the back of the wagon to peer outside. Everything was still and silent in the shadow-wrapped woods. He couldn’t believe he wanted to stay in the wagon with his zombie friend. He couldn’t stay there, though. He had to get back to the fire. Perhaps one of the others hadn’t gotten up to take care of business or something. Charleston took a deep breath and stepped outside.
Nothing. No movement or noise. Charleston sighed and carefully returned to the sticks he’d left near the front of the wagon. Though his heart was still pounding, he finished his chore. It was strangely relaxing to collect the dry twigs and stack them in the air. Once he’d gathered enough and calmed his breathing, he turned around the take them to the embers.
He tried to scream, but only a dry squeak came out. He forgot to maintain his magic and the sticks dropped with a clatter on the dirt and leaves at his feet. The filthy orange and green pony not ten yards away growled and took a clumsy step toward him. The zombie’s eyes were nothing but festering, oozing pits in his face. The thing was blind, but obviously not deaf. He lurched toward Charleston, who couldn’t command his hooves to move. When the reeking creature was mere steps from him, the unicorn finally jumped away and raced to the other side of the fire. He searched frantically for some kind of weapon.
The zombie had stopped and cocked his head to the side, listening. He slowly moved in a circle, having heard the retreating hoofsteps. By now, Charleston was hyperventilating. Even his magic seemed to tremble as he levitated a glowing hunk of wood from the dying fire. The other sticks collapsed inward with a hiss and a small spurt of sparks. The zombie moaned and twisted his crooked head toward Charleston. He hesitated, and then charged directly for the horrified unicorn. Charleston whinnied in alarm and reared up to launch himself in another direction only to discover his trajectory was blocked by another infected pony. In a lucky impulse, he dashed the burning wood in her rotting face.
“Help! Pele, somepony, help!!!” he screeched before tripping backwards and crashing to the ground. The blind zombie was over him in an instant, roaring and spewing bloody spittle in his face. The undead predator lunged for Charleston’s throat, his teeth nearly reaching the tender flesh. Charleston closed his eyes, turned his head, and waited for the pain.
The pain never came. Just a whisper of steel and a wet thump. Charleston opened his eyes and yelped to see the disembodied head of his attacker lying inches from his nose. He panicked. “HELP!” he cried again, flailing his legs. The jaws of the head snapped, causing Charleston’s screams to escalate. A blade plunged through the holes where the eyes should have been, and the zombie head stopped moving.
“Shhh-shh-shh,” hushed Bluegrass. The brown and blue pony stood over him with a hoof on his shoulder, trying to keep him still. Charleston writhed and gagged and finally gained a little more control over himself.
“Please get it out of my face, oh Celestia, please,” he croaked. Pele removed her blade and Blue kicked the head into the embers. Somewhere in the distance, a growl was cut short by another whish of metal. Blue pushed the orange and green body away from Charleston and helped him up.
“I think it’s time to go.” Pele nodded at her own understatement before picking up her double-sword to wipe it clean.
“Agreed,” Hempy said. He went about wiping his ax down as well, hooves shaking all the while. “I think I’m going to need some of what she’s been having,” he added, gesturing toward the wagon.
Cheer trotted up to the rest of the group, panting around the hilt of her hooked sword. To everypony’s surprise, she was smiling.
“It’s like you’re Splicer or something, sheesh,” Hempy commented. “Before all the, you know…”
“I always kinda wanted to go on a camping trip like this,” Cheer said, joining the others in rubbing leaves on their blades. “Beats standing around in Woostirrup, waiting for zombies to attack our whole town. Finally, a real adventure, not just fear!”
Pele shook her head and laughed once. “At least you’re acting a little more like yourself. Somber you was getting creepy.”
“Not that current you isn’t creepy,” Blue said. “Let’s pack up and get out of here. Can’t know how many monsters are in these woods, but those screams are probably drawing them in as we speak. Let’s go.”
The embers were extinguished, the canvas was rolled up, and Bluegrass and Hempy Hooves took up the harnesses. The ponies hurried on through the Wanderbranch Woods, fueled by adrenaline and a distant hope of better times.
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.
Blues, Booze, and Ballads
The tavern shook with the thunder of hooves and reverberated with the hearty cheers of the customers. The place was swamped with raucous ponies, all hoisting pints or applauding Bluegrass, who posed casually on a table with her trusty banjo levitating in front of her. Charleston caught his breath and sipped water nearby, having just finished an energetic dance to Blue’s skillful music. Cheer Chime seemed to laugh with her whole body from her position on the bar’s countertop, where she’d been contributing vocals and makeshift percussion. The night was young, the travelers were well-rested, and Scale Tail Ale was on the house.
“Yeah, I know, but what you’re not getting, dude, is my product should not only be legal but… I dunno, not required but… aw shit, what’s the word, I can’t even think of the word right now,” Hempy Hooves giggled. Pele hoisted him upright on his chair before he could slide all the way to the floor. “You know? Do you get it though?”
“Hempy, I was trying to talk to you about the outbreak. Not really sure how you got on your ‘product.’ Anyway, this is serious,” Pele insisted. The hint of blush beneath her lavender fur betrayed her own indulgence in the tavern’s special brew. She sloppily clocked her hoof on the table for emphasis. “Gale said they haven’t even seen zombies in this area. Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”
“I guess,” Hempy reflected. His heart wasn’t in the conversation. Bluegrass began clearing her throat for another song. Hempy’s pink eyes lit up and he elbowed Pele a little more violently than necessary. “Look! Look! She’s gonna do another!”
“Alright everypony, I’ve got one more song in me tonight,” Blue announced to her new horde of fans. “Wrote it for a friend of mine. It’s the story of her daddy, and the ancient way of the buffalo. Here goes.
“Way out in the land of the endless sky
Where the cactus grows and coyotes cry
There lived a legend, I’ll tell you no lie,
Named Thunderhooves, prince of the mighty herd.
Only one warrior was stronger than he
And claimed he could beat the son of the chief.
Now, Thunderhooves couldn’t let that boast be,
So he challenged his foe to prove his word.”
Cheer, after emptying another pony’s drink on the countertop, harmonized with Blue on the chorus.
“His father before him
And father before him
And father before him
And all the way back
Were with the young Thunderhooves on that day.
Yes, his father before him
And father before him
And father before him
And all the way back
All knew that Thunderhooves would get his way!”
Bluegrass hooted and her magic undulated across the strings of her banjo, precisely plucking perfect chords. The bar patrons whooped stomped their hooves in time to her solo. Sweat shone on her brown brow and her eyes were closed in concentration and passion. The solo revved into the second verse.
“His enemy’s name was Great Eagleflight
And Thunderhooves spurred him to start the fight.
They charged toward each other across the night
Beneath the cold stars and the moon so full.
Eagleflight hid his form under a sash
As Thunderhooves noticed before the crash.
It floated away in the final clash
And Thunderhooves found his foe was no bull.”
The rest of the customers picked up on the chorus this time. The undeniably terrible vocals made Charleston cringe, but he couldn’t suppress a laugh at the swaying forms of the singers. He relaxed and raised his voice as well.
“Young Thunderhooves couldn’t believe his eyes;
He almost met an untimely demise.
If Eagleflight hadn’t shouted her vict’ry cries,
He may have met the Great Spirit above.
He came to his senses and called out to wait;
Eagleflight laughed at his surprise so late.
Soon after they agreed it must be fate,
For the bull and the cow had fallen in love.
His father before him
And father before him
And father before him
And all the way back
Were with the young Thunderhooves on that day.
Yes, his father before him
And father before him
And father before him
And all the way back
All saw how Eagleflight got her way!”
The eruption of cheers was almost deafening, but most of the ponies were in no condition to care about their hearing. Bluegrass bowed and blew her fine blue bangs out of her face before Charleston helped her down from the table. Gale stood on his hind legs behind the bar and clapped his claws together. He tried to yell out his gratitude for the performance, but his words were lost in the cacophony.
“For a while, I was really thinking we weren’t going to get away with the ‘traveling performers’ cover,” Pele confessed to Hempy as the roar died down to more normal tavern levels.
“It’s working out pretty good, I’d say,” Hempy agreed. He bit the edge of his glass and tilted his head way back, draining it. He almost missed the table when he set it back down. “As far as apocalypses go, dude, this is an awesome way to spend the end times.” He wiped stray dribbles of ale from his purple chin.
Pele nodded and took a draught of her drink. “Too bad these walls wouldn’t hold back more than a few dozen of them,” the turquoise and lavender pegasus observed. “I mean, look at how warped and rotten they are. Zombies would bust in here completely unfazed. We’d have to Molotov cocktail the fuckers. Which, admittedly, would be pretty cool. Picture the fiery mess of limbs that would be left.”
Hempy squinted his pink eyes at Pele for a moment. “Why? Why did you have to say that?”
“When’s that Rum Runner pony getting here? If he doesn’t get here in the next hour, I’m not sure I’ll remember meeting him,” said Pele. She scanned the room for the umpteenth time. There was no shortage of seaworthy colts, but the celebrity pirate guest the tavern-keeper had mentioned was not amongst them. Pele worked her jaw impatiently and took another swig.
“What happened to Cheer Chime?” Hempy asked. “Did she fall off?”
Pele followed his gaze to the bar, where Cheer had been swiping drinks from other customers and harmonizing between gulps. “Not sure. She’s weirdly good at staying balanced… but I don’t know how much she’s had.” Pele contemplated the situation and shrugged. “She’s probably fine. I’m going to ask Gale when Rum Runner is supposed to be here.”
“I guess I’ll look for Cheer then,” Hempy said as Pele headed for the griffin tavern-keeper. He attempted to make a graceful transition from chair to ground, but the floor seemed to bend away from his hooves. He stretched his hind legs and slid down the back of the chair, reaching for the evasive ground. Finally, he made contact. He hefted himself forward, flailed for what seem like an eternity, and caught himself with his front hooves. He allowed himself a few seconds to acclimate before weaving toward the other end of the bar counter. The bang which resounded from the front of the tavern stopped him mid-step.
“Fillies! Gentlecolts! I apologize for being tardy.”
Every patron turned toward the door in unison, ears pricked and eyes wide. The most visible aspect of the newcomer was the impressive, though somewhat ragged, tricorne on his head. The violet shadows of night obscured his other features. Everypony tensed up as he lingered in the doorway. The stranger chuckled softly and stepped into the glow of the gas lamps. His pelt was the rich brown of old ship hulls and his choppy mane was as black as bilge water. A worn scimitar hung from a strap around his waist. He lifted his head, revealing his calm caramel eyes.
“Captain Rum Runner!”
Rum Runner and his crew strolled up to the counter amidst whinnies of welcome as everypony realized there was no threat. Several ponies inelegantly vacated their stools for him, which he and his group took with appreciative nods. Pele instantly took to the air as the famed pirate became engulfed in the crowd of fans. Other pegasi had similar ideas, to her dismay. Her curiosity wouldn’t permit backing off. She wanted to know what the hype was about, and whether such a celebrated pony would be willing to take on passengers for his next voyage.
Though Hempy Hooves was interested in the pirate ponies too, he reminded himself that his friend could be unconscious behind the bar. “Cheer?” he called as he clambered onto a stool at the freshly abandoned end of the counter. He unsteadily leaned over the smooth wood of the countertop and searched for evidence of the yellow and magenta pony.
“That’s quite a cutie mark,” said a voice nearby. “And I like the flank it’s on, too.”
Hempy slipped on a ring of condensation and nearly toppled behind the counter himself. He righted himself in the stool and turned toward the pony who’d addressed him. The pegasus smirking back from a couple stools down didn’t look like he belonged there. His pelt was a dark, cool gray which offset his styled spikes of orange mane. His warm brown eyes sparkled in the lanterns’ light. Hempy swallowed.
“I, uh, I like yours too,” Hempy replied with an awkward grin. He tried to pose with one elbow on the counter but nearly lost his balance. “But I think I’m a little too drunk to actually know what it is.”
“No worries. It’s a weird one,” the stranger said. He closed the distance between them and sat next to Hempy. His mark consisted of colorful concentric circles. “It’s supposed to be sound waves. My name’s Amplitude, but call me Amp. I’m a cabincolt on a transporter.”
“I’m Hempy Hooves,” the purple and rainbow pony said, wondering if Amp could see his blush.
“Don’t see many others of, you know, our kind in places like this,” Amp said with a gesture toward the rowdy group down the bar. Hempy noticed how Amp’s eyes kept flickering around. Perhaps he was just as nervous. “Please don’t take this in a creepy way, but do you wanna get some fresh air? It’s a little crowded in here.”
“Absolutely,” Hempy said. He hoped he hadn’t agreed to the invitation too quickly. By the look of the wide smile on Amp’s face, Hempy had nothing to worry about. He forgot his quest for Cheer and followed Amp out the front door. He tried to signal to Pele as he passed the mass of sailors around Rum Runner, but she’d managed to take the stool next to him and the two were distracted by what appeared to be an intense conversation. Across the tavern, Bluegrass and Charleston were absorbed in their own discussions. Hempy figured he wouldn’t be missed.
“Splicer?” Despite the context, Cheer Chime still felt it more polite to call to her friend before entering the wagon. She looked around the alley, making sure she wasn’t being watched. She unlocked the back doors with Charleston’s keys, opened them, and carried her tray of two drinks into Splicer’s domain.
Cheer’s noise had alerted the zombie, who had eerily moved to face her before she’d even stepped inside. Splicer quietly stared at Cheer, unblinking and vacuous. As Cheer moved closer, Splicer made a hungry grumbling sound and worked her jaw in anticipation of a meal. Cheer tried to disregard the implications. She hadn’t realized how much she was shaking until she set down her tray. The mugs of ale quaked violently and nearly spilled as she used her mouth to move them from the tray to the floor.
“I thought we’d have a drink together, like we used to,” Cheer whispered. Splicer groaned again and pressed against the bars of her cage. “I don’t know if zombies drink much, though.” Cheer scooped some of Hempy’s special dry, crushed leaves into one mug and pushed it through a gap between the bars. Splicer lowered her head toward it and began to mouth the lip of the glass. She tried to devour the mug from other angles but only managed to slosh booze over her face and onto the wood beneath her. It was only a matter of seconds before the zombie realized the ale wasn’t pony flesh. The bluish pony rumbled as if in irritation. Even in the dim light, Cheer could see her eyes fading from their normal carmine to the drug-induced purple hue. At least the leaves were still highly effective. Cheer sighed and sipped some of her ale.
“I guess you really aren’t in there anymore, or you’d be all over that, huh?” she said with a halfhearted laugh. “I wish you were still there, Splice. You know how much I hate zombies. I lived every day in such terror when all this started, but you really seemed to thrive. It was like the stories you wrote jumped from the page and into reality, and that was your dream come true. I only ever agreed to be in the zombie squad in Woostirrup because you were in it. I wanted to keep you safe. I fucked up.” Cheer hurriedly rubbed away a forming tear, as if Splicer would care whether or not she was crying. “You’re my best friend. That’s why I’m stepping up. I’m going to keep everypony safe. I’m going to cure you, okay? And then we can go back to writing comics and reading adventure stories and making costumes and doing all the geeky stuff that’s special to just me and you. So, if there’s any piece of my friend left in there, please hold on. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to make everything okay.”
Cheer lifted her hoof and rested it against the metal of the enclosure. Splicer stared at it. Then, to Cheer’s astonishment, she lifted a bloody hoof and pressed it to the other side of the bar. Cheer’s heart raced in hope and horror. “Sp-Splicer? Can you hear me?”
The moment was shattered as the red returned to Splicer’s eyes and the undead pony’s jaws parted hungrily. She lunged toward Cheer’s face, smashing her head into the iron separating the ponies. She snapped her teeth mechanically. Cheer tried to calm her frantic breathing and stumbled backwards until she collapsed against the doors. She tightly closed her eyes and waited until the banging of skull against metal subsided. When she looked back, Splicer was still watching her and pushing against her confines.
“Goodnight, Splicer,” Cheer murmured. She opened the doors and jumped into the alley. With a final bitter sigh, she relocked the wagon and left the remains of her friend behind, unaware of the three figures watching from the darkness.
It took several minutes of groggily staring at the underside of the table for Pyroclastic Pele to remember where she was and some of how she’d gotten there. With a deep moan, the pegasus rolled over and got her hooves beneath her. She stood up slowly, fearing the world would swirl away from her if she wasn’t careful. She hauled herself onto a chair and discovered she was sitting opposite the unconscious form of Rum Runner. She tried to remember how their negotiations had worked out.
“I see one of you is awake,” Gale commented. The griffin tavern-keeper was diligently wiping up the counter. Pele noticed most of the rest of the tavern had been tidied up aside from the areas occupied by sleeping ponies. “Don’t get your tail in a twist. You haven’t been out long,” Gale assured Pele when her golden eyes betrayed her alarm. “It’s quite early, actually. You may want to get some actual sleep in your room.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Pele asked. She rubbed her temple with a hoof. A headache was quickly setting in.
“That’s how I know you folks aren’t from around here,” chortled Gale. “Thank you for that sweet offer, but I’m just about set. I’ve seen much worse, believe you me.”
Pele nodded, regretted nodding, and headed for the stairs. She paused to look back at Gale. “Have you seen the rest of my group, by any chance?”
“Your banjo-playing friend and the gangly unicorn went to their rooms some time ago. They’re the only ones I’ve seen for a while,” Gale answered. His long, feathery brows drew together. “I hope the others haven’t wandered off somewhere dangerous. I didn’t think about it until now.”
“Hempy and Cheer are probably around here somewhere. They can take care of themselves. Usually. But maybe I should wait downstairs for a while.”
“Do as you like. I’ll get you some water.”
Pele wandered back to the table she’d slept beneath and remounted her seat. Her hoof traced the whorls of the antique wood as she looked Rum Runner over. He drooled into his tricorne hat and Pele began wondering if she’d made a good choice in skipper.
“Here you go.” Gale placed a glass of water on the table. “He’s quite a character, isn’t he? I’m surprised you got him talking like that. He usually keeps up his façade when he comes into town.”
“I feel like I’m being talked about.”
The griffin and the pegasus both turned toward Rum Runner. The pirate captain lifted his head and rolled it back as though it were too heavy for his neck. He straightened out to look back at Gale and Pele. He narrowed his eyes, smacked his lips, and said, “Hey, it’s the filly with the pet zombie.” He shifted his attention to the griffin and narrowed his eyes even further until they were mere slits. “Morning, Gale.”
“I’ll bring you some water as well,” Gale offered, leaving the ponies to chat in private for a few minutes.
“Kind of a bold thing to say,” Pele said with a slanted smile.
“You said it first. I remember you trying to charter my ship so I could take you and your buddies across the Kelpie Sea. Everything else is a little hazy. I think we hit it off when you managed to one-up all my recollections of daring maritime misadventures.”
“I recall how many of your stories seemed like avoidable accidents turned dramatic.”
“What can I say? I’m always on the lookout for a situation that could entail adventure. Also, speak for yourself.”
“Taking on a zombie passenger sounds like something that could entail adventure.”
“I think I agreed with you on that last night.”
“Not before you told me I had to pass your ‘character analysis’ whatever.”
“Right, right,” Rum Runner said, looking up to the ceiling as he pictured the scene. “I tend to do that. You can learn a lot about a pony from making small talk.”
“You started the small talk with a philosophical debate. What kind of pirate are you?”
“Hey, don’t judge me on that. You were the one who said she’d push the fat pony off the bridge to stop the train from killing the workers.”
“If you think about it numerically, it makes sense.”
“You still pushed a pony in front of a train.”
“In theory.”
“The point is, you lost the philosophy section. Next came… uh…”
“Drugs. As in, we debated drugs.”
Gale unobtrusively passed Rum Runner a glass of water and retreated to the bar.
“So. Agreement there. I think the next involved your lack of appreciation for anti-humor.”
“In other words, I failed that one too.” Pele casually inspected her hoof.
“Only because you don’t understand it.”
“No. I understand it.”
A pause.
“And then we just drank,” Rum Runner said. Both ponies looked around the tavern at the other passed out customers.
“I don’t remember the score on that one,” Pele admitted. “Let’s call it a ‘pass’ though. Did I make it through your analysis?”
Rum Runner lifted his hoof to make a declaration but was stopped from doing so as the dingy tavern windows shattered inward and a large stone clunked and rolled across the floor. Pele and Rum Runner jumped from their seats, threw each other the same wary look, and ran out into the morning light.
“That’s one of them! The one with the braids!” somepony shouted while Pele struggled to adjust to the brightness. Through her hangover haze she could make out a crowd of surly ponies in the cobbled street. Most were large, disgruntled stallions that had likely spent more time on the sea than on the shore. They pawed the ground and flared their nostrils in anger and, perhaps, some amount of fear. Only then did she notice the red and gold wagon parked in the center of the group.
“Cheer Chime!” Pele yelped. She ran a few feet forward before the menacing glare of a deep purple pegasus with a knife in his jaws halted her hasty charge. “What’s going on here? What did you do to my friends?”
Cheer lifted her head and noticed Pele for the first time. She smiled lopsidedly, clearly in a daze worse than Pele’s. “Good morning, Pele! Look! I got a black eye! How adventurey is that?” She tilted her head to show off her shiner, seemingly unaware of the sorry state of the rest of her. Her battered body was harnessed to the wagon, which she’d apparently pulled to the scene. Several ponies guarded her and pushed her back into place when she wobbled.
“We caught this filly leaving this wagon last night. We have reason to believe something fishy is going on here, and are ready to burn your wagon if somepony doesn’t start telling the truth around here!” The pony who’d made the threat approached Pele with heavy, intimidating steps. He was tall and as dark red as dying sunlight on the night before a storm. Pele couldn’t help but think of the “red sky at morning, sailors take warning” rhyme.
“You didn’t answer my questions. What’s going on? What happened to Cheer?”
“She was impeding our investigation of your wagon,” spat the red stallion.
“What are you, the sheriff?”
“That’s exactly who I am,” replied the stallion. His fierce blue eyes locked with Pele’s. “Sheriff Brine’s my name.”
Pele craned her neck around him and called to Cheer. “How did you let these chumps do this to you?” she demanded.
“I was swordless and drunk. Plus more and more kept coming after me after I clocked the first few.” Cheer stated the last bit with obvious pride. Pele gave her an incredulous, yet somehow approving, look.
“There’ve been reports of strange noises coming from your wagon. A lot of us suspect you’ve got something unsavory locked in there, considering the locked windows and moaning.” Brine lowered his voice. “Some ponies think you’ve got an infected pony in there. We can’t risk that. If we have to burn down your property, we will. Please don’t make this more difficult.”
“After you beat up my friend? I will make this as difficult as possible,” Pele hissed.
“She attacked first,” Brine defensively retorted.
“Yeah, after creepy stallions tailed and interrogated her, I bet.”
“This is a very serious matter, and you will treat it as such,” Brine growled, drawing even closer. “This would have been much simpler if your friend hadn’t swallowed the keys.”
Pele blinked in surprise and looked back to Cheer. “But there were so many,” she said in a disbelieving tone.
“I know.” Cheer’s face suddenly took on a very haunted quality.
Pele cringed and glanced at Brine, who was holding back a grimace. “Why don’t you let me take my friend and my wagon and we’ll leave? Our personal property is none of your business.”
“A potential contaminant in our town is absolutely our business. We’ve been clear of that unmentionable plague so far, and we mean to keep it that way. Now, enough stalling. You’ve had plenty of chances to get out of this mess. I can only assume you’ve got an infected pony in there. We can’t take the risk of letting you take that wagon anywhere else.” Brine turned to the rest of the group, which had expanded as curiosity overtook more and more townsponies. “Light it up!”
“No!” Cheer wailed as realization swept through her scattered mind. She struggled and bucked against the strong sailors who pried her from the harness. Several ponies began dousing the beautiful wagon with some sort of nose-stinging alcohol. Others pulled matchbooks from their vests, ready to strike. “Pele, stop them! Come on!”
Pele’s wings burst open and she launched into the sky. Several other pegasi took flight in pursuit. With mighty beats of her wings, she evaded the others and tried to form some sort of plan. There was nowhere they could escape to with the wagon intact, and even if there was, there was no way the two of them could outrun a whole town. All she could see was a street filled with ponies in an uproar, a doomed wagon, and a desperately flailing Cheer Chime. She rarely considered situations to be entirely hopeless. There was always a way to turn things in her favor. But as her sharp eyes noticed the flames sparking into existence below her, Pele began to lose faith in her usually remarkable luck.
KRA-KOOOW!
Everypony froze in place, wide-eyed and baffled at the echoing shot. The angry shouts had turned to frightened murmurs as each pony asked his or her neighbor who’d fired the shot. Brine reared up and plunged into the crowd, searching for the weapon.
“Who?” he demanded in a booming voice. Everypony inched away from him as he stomped by. “Speak up! Who fired that gun?”
Another shot caused the crowd to jump in alarm. They looked around frantically, but no pony seemed to know where the noise had come from.
“Somepony had better speak up before I have to-”
“Sure, I’ll speak up.”
The voice resounded from somewhere above, but like the gunfire, the buildings and cobbled street made it impossible to determine its origin. Pele nearly collided with a lamppost as she searched the windows for the speaker. She recognized the calm, lilting accent and smiled. Her luck seemed to be kicking in. A sharp whistle from the tavern drew her attention back to the scene below. Rum Runner had been joined by several crew members. The captain pointed his hoof toward the road leading to the docks. Pele nodded and the pirates galloped away. Rum Runner, rather than following his crew, darted through the chaotic mass of onlookers and harnessed himself to the wagon while everypony else was distracted by the mystery sniper.
“Cheer, climb on,” he instructed the befuddled pony beside him. Once she processed the directions, she clambered up to the seat in the front of the wagon and braced herself expectantly. A faint hint of an adventurous smile returned to her lips.
“Let’s go!”
Pele swooped down, nimbly threading her body into the harness next to Rum Runner. Her wings, reminiscent the hummingbird’s on her flank, pulsed faster than any pegasus wings Rum Runner had ever seen. He was jerked along and found it nearly impossible to match her speed on hoof, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Several townsponies scrambled out of their path as they rattled violently across the cobblestones. Others struck new matches and raced toward them.
An eruption of gunfire, too close for comfort, sent many attackers skittering away before they could ignite the flammable wagon or swing a weapon at Rum Runner or Pele. Cheer jeered rambunctiously from her perch, taunting the furious crowd. Another bullet clipped by her ear, truncating an insulting shout. Several unicorns had finally pulled their own firearms and had their magically-hefted guns trained on the retreating trio. Cheer’s tone instantly changed.
“Faster! Faster! Let’s go!” she howled at the pirate and the pegasus. Bullets struck up sparks from the road around them until they veered onto the planks of the far-too-long dock system. The rhythmic thunder of wheels on warped wood couldn’t overpower Cheer’s yells. The blinding morning sun was made worse by the expanse of choppy water over which it hovered. Suddenly, Cheer wondered whether Pele or Rum Runner could see well enough to keep them all from plummeting into the water.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a great, black shadow sliced into the glaring sun. A prow, and then a towering mast, all sails raised and full-bellied in the building breeze. Cheer’s breath caught in her throat. There was no way this could work. She couldn’t decide whether to shriek in terror or swashbuckling delight. Like swallows from a chimney, a flock of pegasi poured from the ship. Cheer whirled to look behind her. Enemy ponies were quickly closing in on them now that they were out of range of the mystery shooter. They stampeded across the planks, faces contorted in, Cheer acknowledged, somewhat justifiable rage. More bullets blasted into the prettily painted wagon. Cheer ducked and looked forward again just in time to see the end of the dock disappear, replaced by unfriendly waves dozens of feet below.
She closed her eyes and felt the fall begin.
