Left 4 Friendship

   The roof would have seemed outlandish to anyone not yet affiliated with the apocalyptic nightmare that now stands before our four femme fatales. To the right was a small shed-looking structure where the stairs were. On the left were two tables side to side against the west side of the building. On the first table were two pump shotguns, a bucket full of an array of ammo types that ranged from as big as 12-gauge shotgun shells and 5.56 rifle ammo to small 9mm bullets and .45 caliber pistol rounds, and two Uzi submachine guns. On the other, four small, bright red backpacks with red crosses on them. Magical bandages were a rare find in the zombie apocalypse, yet extremely useful.

   "That was some crazy stuff back there." exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

   "Just another day in the apocalypse." giggled Pinkie. Her laughter once again being interrupted, this time by the sound of helicopter blades.

   A filtered, muffled voice came from the helicopter.

   "To anyone who can hear this: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation. Repeat: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation."

   The four exchanged looks of what appeared to be a mixture of exhaustion and excitement. Their ears perked up and yet they showed almost no emotion (except for Pinkie, who was already bouncing prior to the pilot's message).

   "Evacuation?" said Applejack.

   "Yeah, it means "to get out"." jeered Rainbow.

   "Ah' know whut it means! B'sides, when did you become such an 'egghead'?" she said mockingly.

   "Girls, if we want to be evacuated we should stop talking and suit up." said Twilight sternly, motioning towards the tables, "It would appear someone was kind enough to leave behind some of their gear, let's not make them waste it. What do you say?"

   Rainbow Dash walked over to the table and picked up a shotgun.

   "I say, 'let's go on a killing spree'!" she exclaimed, cocking the shotgun dramatically.

   They all grabbed their weapons of choice. Rainbow Dash and Applejack grabbed shotguns, while Twilight and Pinkie went with the Uzis.

   Rainbow positioned herself at the door, waiting to kick it in. Pinkie gave the signal, and Rainbow--

   "WAIT!" yelled Twilight. "We don't know what's in there!"

   "Uh, yeah, that's why I'm kicking it in. Y'know to surprise attack? Didn't you read Sun Tzu?" she asked jokingly.

   "Funny. But I still don't think this is a good idea."

   "What would you rather us do, Twi? Sit here and tell stories until those flesh-eating freaks figure out we're up here and break down the door? Your call, 'boss'." she said, this time in an intentionally hurtful tone of voice.

   "Rainbow!" yelled Applejack sternly. "She may not make decisions that go along with yer logic, but she's still yer friend. And, Twilight has been a good leader all through this fer us, she stayed behind fer you, after all! Now, unless y'all wanna die with no friends, Ah' suggest you say yer sorry."

   Rainbow Dash looked solemnly at the ground. Her fist clenched up, as if she was struggling not to cry.

   "S-s-sorry." she blurted quietly. "What was your plan going to be?"

   "Apology accepted. You may kick the door, but be careful."

   A look of pure, blood-lusted joy swooped over Rainbow's face as she gleefully (but carefully) kicked the door in. Guns drawn, the four proceeded down the stairs cautiously with Applejack taking point and Rainbow bringing up the rear. At the bottom of the stairs was a large pile of dead bodies. To the left was a door that led into a small kitchen/dining area, which Applejack promptly stopped at. She held up a hand to tell the others to halt as well as she slowly peeked her head around the corner. Three infected in the kitchen, five in the dining room. They weren't sneaking past this, it was going to be loud. Applejack once again held up her hand, this time for a countdown.

   Three... two... one...

   "Now!" shouted AJ, rushing in and taking out the first two in the kitchen with two well-placed headshots and finishing the other with a knife to the snout.

   While this happened, Pinkie and Twilight sprayed the room with lead, bringing down the rest in the dining room. Rainbow Dash nonchalantly walked into the room to the fridge in the kitchen and looked inside.

   "Damn. Some ponies just don't wanna share food." she said, dissapointed as there wasn't a single morsel to be found.

   "We have bigger problems than your stomach, Rainbow. You take point." said Twilight, pointing to a hallway.

   "Hmph." grunted Rainbow stubbornly, but did as she was told.

   She mumbled to herself as she walked cooly to the hallway, looked inside, and shot two shells into something the rest couldn't see from where they were standing.

   "There y'go! All clear! Can we go now?" she said with mock enthusiasm.

   Pinkie chuckled and wasted no time to go down the next set of stairs in the hallway. The rest followed loosely behind, looking as though these zombies presented a slim to none chance of harming them. Twilight, being last in line, began going down the stairs but something in the bathroom to her right caught her eye. She did a double-take and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. A white pill bottle sat untouched on the sink. She went to retrieve it, but instead found herself face to face with a grotesquely bloated zombiepony with bubbles of what looked like bodily fluids protruding from his lower left jaw. She recoiled at the unnerving sight as the horrid thing belched and vomited a gooey green filth all over her body.

    "AAAH!!" she yelled in a tone so high-pitched, every dog in a mile radius started barking. "BLECH!! IT'S ALL OVER ME!!" she screeched as her friends came up the stairs just as the Boomer began brutally beating her snout with a terribly bloated fist.

    "What in Equestria--" yelled Rainbow. She barely got to finish her statement as Applejack shot the creature at point blank range. The Boomer exploded, spraying the disgusting bile all over the room and onto everypony in it.

    "SON OF A--" cried Rainbow Dash as she went to vomit in the corner. "OH GODDESS!! IT'S IN MY MOUTH!!" she said, tearfully.

    "AH! I CAN'T SEE!! IT'S IN MY EYES!!!" moaned Applejack rubbing her eyes.

    "FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE, APPLEJACK! WHY THE HELL DID YOU SHOOT IT!?" asked Rainbow, seething with rage (and vomit)

    "I-I didn't know--" she replied. Her sentence was cut short as the infected began breaking down the door below them.

    "Ready up, everypony." said Twilight, blood gushing from the wound on her face.

    "I would if I could see!" said Rainbow, glaring coldly at Applejack.

    At that moment, the infected broke down the door downstairs and began running up the stairs at them. They were met with an array of death. Knives, bullets, falling down the stairs. They began being picked off up to three at a time.

    By the time it was over, blood splattered the walls and, miraculously, no one living was injured.

    "So, this shit ATTRACTS those things?" asked Rainbow to Twilight.

    "It must be some sort of pheromone, like bees." she replied.

    "Note to self: don't shoot the big guys!" said Pinkie, still shaking.

    "You mean note to APPLEJACK! You frickin' IDIOT!" said Rainbow coldly.

    "Ah' said Ah' was sorry! Fer crying out loud, Rainbow, y'all sure do whine a lot." she rebuttled.

    "I whine a lot!? ME!? Why, you little.." she went to take a swing at Applejack, but was stopped by a suckerpunch to the stomach from Twilight. She fell over on the floor, writhing in pain and clutching her stomach.

    "I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash, but you need to learn how to treat your friends." said Twilight.

    "Twilight... you didn't need to do that. This whole mess has taken a toll on all of us, and we all cope in different ways." said AJ solemnly.

    "No, Applejack. I wasn't going to let her beat you up. I'm fully aware we all have ways of coping, but if her way to cope is beating her best friends half to death, then she needs to be left for dead." replied Twilight angrily.

    Rainbow Dash still writhed on the floor, now groaning and foaming at the mouth.

    "No!" she cried. "Don't leave me! Please! I'll behave! I'll be good, just please don't leave me!"

    Seeing her misunderstood friend sobbing was too much for Pinkie. She ran out of the room and down the stairs.

    "NO!" yelled Twilight, running after her.

    Applejack was about to run to her as well, but remembered her "friend" that sat on the ground with a hand up to Applejack.

    "I'm sorry. Really. I know you've heard my talk about how we've all been through a lot, but I don't think that does this situation any good. I'll just be procrastinating." said Rainbow sorrowful."Will ya forgive me?"

    Applejack thought it over for a few seconds, then picked up her friend.

    "Y'all remember this, y'hear? I could'a left ya here, like some monster, but I didn't!" whispered Applejack angrily in her friend's face, turning her soft grip on Rainbow's hand into a crushing vice.

    "AH! OW! OKAY, OKAY! I'll remember this! I will!" Rainbow yelped. Applejack released her hand.

    "Good." she said, still in Rainbow's face. She then turned and began down the stairs. Rainbow Dash solemnly, yet enthusiastically followed closely behind.

    Downstairs, Pinkie had somehow made it all the way into the alley, dodging through every zombie she came across. She made it into the street and took a left turn straight into a fence -- with fifty infected behind it, growling and grabbing at her through the obstacle.

    "AAAAAH!!! NOOOO!!!" she cried as they began climbing over the fence. A greenish stallion with a DJ Pon-3 tee made it over first, but couldn't get to Pinkie before Twilight pulled her to her feet and blew his head to bits with her Colt .45.

    "Gee, thanks Twi!" Pinkie said, gasping for breath.

    "No time for thanks! Here they come!" she replied, pointing to the fence that was now overflowing with the living dead. "RUN!"

    Her and Pinkie ran down the street and took a right.

    "There!" said Twilight, directing a shaking finger towards the entrance to the subway tunnel. "Go, go! Keep running!"

    They finally made it to the tunnel, the bottom of the tunnel looked like a car had run through it and it had caved in, but there was a large hole in the right-hand side wall that led into what appeared to be a storage room. The two ran inside.

    "Look!" said Pinkie. "A safe room!" The two fillies ran to the safe room and locked the door behind them. Twilight slid down the wall in exhaustion.

    "Wait! Where's Applejack and Rainbow!?" cried Twi. "Oh, no! We left them out there, Pinkie! What do we do!?"

    When AJ and RD got to the alley everything was eerily quiet.

    "You sure they went this way?" asked Rainbow Dash.

    "If not, which other way would they have gone? Both alleys thataway are blocked!" replied Applejack. "B'sides, the footprints lead this way."

    "How can you even see those?"

    "How can you not?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "Ah'm jus' sayin' Ah' can see 'em fine. Looks like somepony needs sum' spectacles!"

    "What?"

    "Y'know, eyeglasses?"

    "No way! I'm not THAT much of an egghead!"

    "Meh, just makin' an observation. It would seem you can't." Applejack said with the smuggest face she could conjure

    "Hey! That's not funny!"

    Applejack let out a small chuckle. A quiet, deep groaning noise rang through the alley

    "Wait! Did you hear that?" asked Rainbow Dash quietly, eyes shifting left to right.

    "Hear whut'?

    "That noise! You didn't hear it? I may need glasses, but you definitely need a hearing aid!" she said, suddenly looking scared.

    "Aw, c'mon now. There ain't nuthin' out here. Pretty sure Twi and Pinkie cleaned up the area."

    "Then why didn't they come back?" Rainbow Dash's voice was now reduced to a shivering whisper. "I bet they're dead!"

    "Hey!" said Applejack soothingly, holding Dashie to her bosom much like a mother would to a child who was scared of something under his bed. "There, there. Don't think like that. Ah'm sure they're just sitting over there waiting for us in the street. Do you hear any biters out there now? 'Cuz Ah' sure don't."

    At that moment, a nearby AC unit fell from the second story of the apartment building onto a car, making the two young mares jump and scream. Rainbow Dash shot at it, thinking it was something trying to kill them. When they finally found out what it was, the stagnant and smelly air was filled with sighs of relief and nervous chuckles. Rainbow Dash blushed and clutched her chest.

    "Holy CRAP! That almost gave me a heart attack!" she said

    "Yea, gave me quite a start, too!"

    "What the hell would cause that?"

    "Ah'm sure it was jus' dangling on the wall and we didn't notice. The wind must've knocked it down."

    "I hate nature so much. That's probably what I heard before."

    "T's a possibility."

    "Well, hell. Let's get going, yea?"

    "Ah'm with ya there!"

    Back in the safe room, Twilight was having a nervous breakdown (again).

    "What do we DO!? Look at all those things out there!" she said.

    Bloody, multcolored arms clawed at them through the bars in the safe room door.

    "What if AJ and Rainbow get here and get mauled or killed by them?"

    "Why don't we just murder all of them?" Pinkie said, oddly amused at the whole situation.

    "You know.... that just might work!"

    And so, the two in the safe room spent about three minutes and nearly 150 rounds of ammunition to clear out fifty zombies. When they were done, Twilight, once again, slid down the wall in exhaustion.

    "There! Done!" she exclaimed, out of breath and panting. "Whoo!" she fell onto the ground and closed her eyes as if she were about to fall asleep. "They should be clear now, wake me up when they're here."

    It didn't take long for Pinkie to start yelling "THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE HERE!" Twi shot awake (although she wasn't fully asleep in the first place). By the time AJ and Rainbow Dash got down the stairs, Pinkie was holding the door open and smiling, bodies strewn around her.

    "Whoa, whut' happened here?" asked AJ.

    "Oh, me and Twily just redecorated the place for you guys!" she giggled.

    "Uhhh, yea, looks.... great." said Rainbow Dash, nervously rubbing the back of her neck.

    "Awww thanks! Well, don't just stand there! C'mon in, silly fillies!" she said, holding the door wider.

    The two anxiously, but happily, walked inside the gloomy safe room. Pinkie smiled at them, looking straight into their eyes as they walked in. Even when they were inside, she held her stare and the door until a Smoker scream snapped her out of her trance and she hastily shut the door.