Go to Sleep: A Halloween Story

Canterlot City - Modern Day

The morning was gray and cold with nothing but gray clouds covering the sky. The Rainbooms were driving like madwomen to get to Sweet Apple Acres. They had recently received a call from the police informing them that Applejack was dead and that Apple Bloom was missing. Their van pulled up to the house among a collection of police cars. They could see Big Mac, Sugar Belle, and Granny Smith being questioned by the police. The horrid looks on their faces said it all.

The girls all walked up to the lines of police tape. They could see a lot of officers gathered around something in front of the house. When there was break in the group, the girls saw what it was the officers were looking at.

It was Applejack's head. Her head sat upright impaled on a wooden pike, facing towards the house. From what the Rainbooms could see, her eyeballs were missing and her mouth was wide open. Bits of wrapped candy could be seen jutting out from her mouth.

The Rainbooms all screamed at seeing the state of their friend. Rarity seemed especially upset at seeing Applejack's head. A lot of the police officers turned to see the girls screaming and crying to see the horrible display. One officer, Sheriff Silverstar, walked over to the girls.

"Girls, I'm sorry, but you please stay around here until we're finished speaking to the family?" Sheriff Silverstar asked in a gentle tone.

"Sure, Sheriff. We'll stay, but can you please do something about Applejack's head?" Sunset replied.

"Of course. Deputy! Put a tarp over the victim's head, will ya?!" Silverstar shouted to one of his officers.

The officer thankfully put a tarp over Applejack's head. Sheriff Silverstar lifted the tape and allowed for them to enter the crime scene. They were led to some of the cars by some of the other officers so that they can wait until they were finished speaking to the family. Once that was done, the officers escorted the members of the Apple Family to one of the cars. Sheriff Silverstar then walked over to the Rainbooms, who were now drying their tears.

"I'm so sorry you had to see what you saw, ladies," Silverstar said. "If you can, can you please tell me if you noticed anything out of the ordinary surrounding Applejack?"

"No, there was nothing strange going on," Rarity said with puffy eyes. "Things were normal for us. She never gave any indication that something was off."

"Did she have any enemies or someone who may have hated her?" Silverstar asked.

"No, no one," Twilight said. "Well, the Dazzlings hate us, but last I heard, they were in Manehattan."

"What happened to Applejack?!" Pinkie demanded, still crying.

Sheriff Silverstar flipped through his notes. He seemed to want to start at the beginning.

"Well, according to the family, Applejack volunteered to finish bringing in the last of the crop," Silverstar relayed. "She and her younger sister Apple Bloom were both not in their beds. When they began to search outside, that's when they found... Applejack. Apple Bloom is now considered missing."

"Have you been able to find any evidence so far?" Sunset asked.

Sheriff Silverstar looked hesitant to reply to that. It could be that he shouldn't divulge too much information to regular civilians, or he didn't want to give them a dark image of their friend's final moments. Still, Silverstar replied to the question.

"Well, we found that Applejack was attacked in the barn while dropping off her crops. After that, the perp took her head and displayed it as a way of mocking her family," Silverstar said. "Her body was missing by the time we got here. And we're investigating Apple Bloom's disappearance."

These words seem to act like hammer strikes to the Rainbooms' hearts. It was horrible to think that someone would do something so terrible to Applejack and kidnap Apple Bloom. And what's worse, there would likely be more until the perp was caught.

"Any ideas about who could've done this?" Rainbow asked.

"It seems to be someone pretending to be the Sleeper, given the nature of the attacks," Sheriff Silverstar replied. "The weird part is the candy. It's not store-bought candy."

"It's not?" Pinkie asked.

"Nope. This candy is hand-made, and wrapped in cloth or simple plastic, like candy from the old days," Silverstar said.

"So this copycat Sleeper makes their own candy?" Rarity asked.

"It would seem so. We're looking into candy makers throughout the city, but nothing suspicious has turned up with their supply inventories or employee histories," Sheriff Silverstar replied. "Rest assured, we'll find whoever did this and bring them to justice."

"Would it be alright if we helped you?" Pinkie asked. Sunset put a hand on her shoulder.

"Pinkie, what are you doing?" she asked.

"It seems to me that there's something extremely fishy going on here, and we know a great deal about magic. We could be a great help to you if we're dealing with the Sleeper," Pinkie said.

To their surprise, Sheriff Silverstar actually seemed to be considering this. He knew that the Rainbooms had dealt with magic-based threats before, and thought that they might be a good help. Finally, he gave them an answer.

"Alright, but you have to do this by yourselves," Sheriff Silverstar said. "If the Mayor found out that I was letting high schoolers help with a murder case, she'll have my head."

"We'll do whatever we can," Twilight said. "Can we look around here to figure things out?"

"Sure, just don't touch anything with your bare hands," Silverstar replied.

The Rainbooms got up and made their way to the barn, seeing as Applejack was attacked there. As they walked, Fluttershy noticed the large amount of ravens in the tress and the roof of the barn. The ravens were all looking at the barn as if entranced. Something was very wrong here.

When they entered the barn, they could smell blood entwined with the smell of hay and animal refuse. There was also a very large blood stain on the ground, with some remains of arterial spray covering the walls. It was the sight of a massacre. Rarity went outside to throw up at seeing it. Twilight and Sunset were looking at the scene closely with discerning eyes. Sunset tapped on Twilight's shoulder and pointed to the walls.

"Hey, are those... claw marks on the walls?" she asked.

Sure enough, there were distinctive markings on the wall that looked like claw marks. Deep scratches along the wall ran as long as six feet. Twilight looked at the marks closely.

"Something was crawling along the wall, stalking Applejack," Twilight said, following the path of the marks. "The killer crawled along the rafters, too."

Twilight then looked down to the floor. There were noticeable marks in the hay on the floor, as if someone stood in a spot in front of the door around twenty feet away from where the blood stain was.

"Someone jumped down from the rafters and surprised Applejack. She was struck down and she tried to crawl away, but the killer caught up to her and... finished it," Twilight said with a downcast gaze. "The killer... removed her head and put it on the pike. Next, the killer came back for her body and left."

"What about Apple Bloom?" Sunset asked. "She's been reported missing."

"The blood looks pretty dry. The killer probably came back later in the night and abducted Apple Bloom," Twilight said. "But we should look at the house just in case."

Twilight and Sunset led the others to the house, giving the tarp covering Applejack's head a wide berth, and stood underneath the window leading into Apple Bloom's room. Twilight looked at the wooden siding more closely to see if there were any claw marks there. There were, but they were on the sill of Apple Bloom's window, which was a good forty feet from the ground.

"You know what this means, Sunset?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, no human could get up to that window," Sunset replied.

"Hey, look at the ground," Fluttershy said, pointing to the ground.

They looked to the ground and saw that there was a barely noticeable track of dead grass leading from the house to the woods. In fact, every one of the plants in the side garden was dead and rotten. Twilight and Sunset looked to each other.

"You getting the same feeling I'm getting?" Sunset asked.

"Yep. The Sleeper may be more fact than fiction," Twilight replied. "Which means we've got work to do."

*****

Canterlot City - Strix

Strix had a wonderful day at school. Her lessons were surprisingly easy, thanks to the teachings of Mister Thornheart, and was now waiting for him to escort her home as he promised. After all the other students had cleared out, the cheery schoolmaster finally came out with his usual smile on his face.

"Hello, Miss Strix, are you ready?" he asked in a pleasant tone.

"I am, Master Thornheart," Strix said. "My mother and father will probably give you some free samples of their new recipes."

"Ah, yes. Your parents are candy-makers, yes?" Thornheart asked.

"The best in the world!" she replies with a look of pride.

"Perhaps I'll try some of your family's candy sometime," Thornheart said with a chuckle. "But right now, we should heading to your home."

The student and teacher walked away from the school and made their way through the town and towards the rural part of town where Strix's family's candy shop was located. They built it in the countryside because her father was worried about thieves stealing their family's candy recipes, so the two had quite a ways to walk.

Once they made it to the wooded path to the countryside, Thornheart spoke in a somewhat lowered tone.

"Miss Strix, can I ask you a peculiar question?" Thornheart asked. "What would you do to stay alive?"

"What would I do? Fight, why?" Strix asked.

Thornheart stopped walking and turned to look at her with an expression so icy that it sent a shiver down her spine. The schoolmaster reached into his pocket and pulled out a rag.

"I was just wondering, because I want to stay alive, too," Thornheart replied.

In an instant, Thornheart lunged and grabbed Strix by the arm and shoved the rag into the poor girl's face. Strix tried to scream, but nothing more than a few squeaks left her lips. The more she struggled, the more she felt her limbs growing weak and her mind became a hazy fog. Strix slumped against Thornheart with everything going black.