One Up The B-Side
Twilight woke up to the sound of birds chirping happily outside her bedroom window she smiled as she sat up and stretched her hooves enjoying the warmth of the golden morning sunlight that washed her room. She almost regretted slipping out of her cozy bed but the smell of coffee and wheat pancakes spike was cooking made her tummy rumble. After combing her hair she trotted downstairs and walked into the kitchen. A plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee already set out for her. “Good morning Spike, this smells delicious” she said with a smile. “Morning Twilight.” He said back, “You look happy today. “Why shouldn’t I be? It’s a beautiful day and my number one assistant made me a great breakfast as always.” She said as she started to much on her pancakes. “So what are we gonna do today” spike inquired, Twilight took a few seconds to finish chewing and swallow before she replied. “I think I’m going to take the day off and maybe spend some time with Pinkey Pie”. She had worked late last night sorting a new shipment of books for the library, and it was Saturday. She thought about last weekend when she spent the day with her friend Pinkey Pie, they spent a few minutes talking about various things before Pinkey surprised her with “Tag! You’re it!” and began bouncing around. Twilight smiled to herself as she thought of how they played tag for almost an hour. She didn’t know she could so much fun playing something so childish, but Pinkey's spontaneous personality made everything fun.
“Why don’t you take the day off too Spike, you’ve worked hard all week”. Spike smiled at this. “Alright, I’ve been wanting to go check out that new comic book shop on the edge of town”. After finishing the dishes spike headed out the door. “Have a nice day Twilight”. He gave her a wave and walked out the door. The lavender unicorn waited a few minutes letting her breakfast digest a little. As she got up she heard a knock at the door. “I wonder who would come by so early?” she thought. As she opened up the door with her magic she saw a large red pony standing at her threshold. It was Big Macintosh Applejacks older brother. This struck twilight as odd; he had never come to the Library before and hardly ever talked to her. Nonetheless she gave him a friendly smile and greeted him. “Can I help you with something?” “Eeeyup” he replied in his signature drawl. “ A’m makin’ some repairs on the barns roof and ah was wonderin’ if you could use some of yer unicorn magic to lift some lumber into th’ hayloft for me.” “I’d love to help out,” said Twilight.
She was always ready to help a pony in need and maybe she could see Applejack while she was over there. “Ah appreciate that, it won't take but a minute”. Twilight trotted next to Big Mac down the dusty road towards the Apple family farm. Neither of them talked on the way over, Big Mac just stared straight ahead. As she neared the barn she noticed that there was no damage to it, the roof looked fine. She walked inside the barn, it was a little dark and there was nopony else around. "I don’t see any lumber" she said to Big Mac who was standing behind her. He said nothing as he closed the barn door behind him. “That’s because there isn’t any,” he said bluntly. He looked at her for a few seconds, his face showed no emotion. Twilight started to feel nervous at this behavior and took a few steps back. As soon as she did this Big Mac closed the gap between them and without warning bucked her hard with his front hooves. The blow stole the wind from her lungs as she was knocked to the ground. She looked up with tears in her eyes. Big Mac was standing over her. “HELP M-“ she started to yell before Big Macintosh hit her again in the mouth, She was terrified now. She started to use her magic to lift her attacker off of her but he held steady and smacked her again making her drop her magical hold. He held up a hand scythe to her neck.
“If you scream, all kill you. If you try to use magic, all kill you. If you tell anypony what happens in here, all kill you.” He said in a monotone voice. Her eyes were wide with fear, she couldn’t believe that this was happening; She prayed that somepony would walk in and save her from this madness. Applejack. Rainbow Dash. Anypony. Celestia help! she prayed. She closed her eyes tight as Big Mac started to straddle her and—“What the hell am I reading!” Lauren Faust said staring blankly at her computer screen. With a rush of anger she shoved the monitor off her desk, it shattered on the floor and sprayed sparks. She stood up knocking back her chair and kicked her computer tower as hard as she could and screamed to vent her frustration. It had been years since she had an outburst like that she was doing a better job at keeping her anger under control but over the past year it had been slowly building up inside her. She hated people for what they did to her creations, All she wanted to do was make a cute cartoon about ponies for little girls but these, these…people, they ruin everything. It’s all over the internet, pornographic pictures and filthy fan fictions. These were her cartoons, her ponies.
“They’re not serial killers, they’re not rapists, they’re PONIES!” “Nobody has the right to disgrace my creations like this,” she thought. She looked down at the mess she made and frowned. Sighing she walked over to the window and looked out at the street, It was a nice day, a little overcast but not bad. She looked at the people walking around, a lady in a blue and gray jogging suit walking her dog, a man in a white shirt and red tie and a younger man with a denim jacket with a goatee and backpack. The woman was across the street jogging in the opposite direction of the two men who were on the sidewalk by her house. How she hated them, all of them. “People are so disgusting and perverted,” she thought to herself. “So…so…sick”. Then a smile dawned on her face. “Yes, they are sick, they’re all sick and they need their medicine.” She said to no one. She walked over to her closet and started to rummage around it until she found what she was looking for, a long brown cardboard box. Stepping over her busted computer monitor she laid it on her now bare desktop and opened it revealing another box made of Styrofoam and in side that was the answer to all her problems. The Styrofoam cutout held a Browning Auto-5 12 gauge shotgun, it belonged to her father who was keeping at her house while he was moving, he didn’t want to carry it around since he let his license expire and hadn’t renewed it yet. She brushed her fingers over the barrel and felt the cool metal and smelled the oil that had been polished on it, another look in the closet revealed a leather bandoleer and a box of #2 shot. “Yes, this will do just fine” she muttered to herself as she loaded the bandoleer and strapped it across her shoulder. She picked up the gun out of the box, it was a little heavier then she last remembered when her father showed her how to use it when she was curious about it. She jammed 4 shells into the tube and began to walk to the door. She opened it and stepped outside and took a deep breath and sighed with a small smile on her face. The man in the white shirt had stopped in front of her house to use his cell phone; he saw her out of the corner of his eye and looked at her. A woman holding a shotgun was the last thing he expected to see but he had no time to react as Lauren walked towards him.
In an instant she shouldered her weapon and pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and belched fire as a full load of #2 hit the man square in the chest. He spun around splashing blood all over the sidewalk his clean white shirt now bright red. He was dead before he hit the ground. The younger man with the backpack was walking away when he heard the noise and spun around with wide eyes. Lauren saw him and fired the gun from her hip, as the weapon gave it’s terrifying report he hit the ground instantly blood spraying out of his right arm and shoulder, Not dead he started screaming in pain and fear as Lauren walked calmly toward him. Without flinching she lowered the gun in one hand and plugged him in the chest point blank, small splatters of blood hit her face, but she didn’t look at him while she finished the job, her eyes were on the jogging women who was now, having dropped the dog leash, sprinting away from the horrible seen, Lauren sprinted too so she could eliminate some distance the woman was trying to put between the two. After a few seconds she stopped in the middle of the street and raised the gun, took aim and fired, the shot hit the women in the center of her shoulder blades as she face planted in a bloody mess. Dead. Smiling Lauren loaded more shells in her horrific new toy and began to calmly walk down the center of the street firing at cars and anything that moved.
Officer Grady was on his way home after a long shift on patrols in some of the areas more troublesome parts fortunately nothing of interest happened, no arrests no violence. That was a good day for Grady, he had been a state trooper for almost ten years now and had seen plenty of things he wished he hadn’t and he wasn’t a big fan of the paper work that came with putting bad guys in the slammer anyway. He was humming along with his favorite Roy Orbison album in his squad car, he had his iPod plugged in to the radio. The music player was a gift from his wife he got on his last birthday; She knew how much he loved music. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket he pulled it out and looked at it, it was his wife. He pulled over the big Crown Victoria on a neighborhood street and flipped open his cell phone and turned his music down. “Hey Babe what’s up?” “Hey hun, did you want mashed potato’s with the meatloaf tonight or did you want me to make that backed macaroni and cheese you like so much?” “Hmmm” officer Grady thought, “I think I want potatoes tonight" he said with a smile as he thought of his wife’s excellent homemade cooking, nothing was better then his favorite meal after a long day. “Okay” she replied. Just then Officer Grady heard a sound off in the distance. “Did a car just back fire? Was that a…gunshot?” he thought to himself. “Hey babe I gotta go something just came up” “Is everything okay?” she sounded worried. “Its probably nothing, just gonna check it out” he said. “Okay, but be careful” “Yes ma’am, see you in a few” they said their goodbyes and he hung up and turned his music back up as his favorite song came on.
“Probably just some kids playing with firecrackers” he muttered as Roy Orbison serenaded him with smooth rock and roll. “Bluelight, Big crowed, jukebox, plays loud” Grady tapped the steering wheel with the beat as he drove to where he thought he heard the sound. “No tear, no care, everybody’s rocking everywhere, rockhouse” just as Grady was approaching an intersection in the neighborhood where he was going to turn right a man on a bicycle shot across the intersection and turned towards him. The man was peddling as fast as he could with a look of horror on his face. Grady slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting him. “Rockhouse, Rockhouse, we’re going to the rockhouse, rock-a rockhouse.” He was not prepared for what he was about to witness. His jaw dropped as he watched a women sprint down the road covered in blood yielding a shotgun with a bandoleer around her chest “we’ll rock it in the morning, rock it in daylight”. The woman screamed like she was possessed as she raised the weapon at the man on the bicycle and fired blasting him clean off the bike as he fell dead some blood splattered on Grady’s side window. “Rocking through the evening, and I won’t be home at night” He didn’t need to see anymore as the gravity of the situation hit him, he stomped on the gas and pulled the cruiser sideways across the street putting it in-between him and the crazed woman.
Without hesitating the woman started blasting the squad car while the shocked officer held his head down while glass shattered all around him. ”Rockhouse, we’re going to the rockhouse, rock-a rockhouse”. The shooting stopped for a short moment while the shooter pulled more shells from the leather bandoleer. Reacting immediately Grady grabbed the AR-15 from the rack next to his seat and rolled out the door, he had just enough time to take cover behind the fender, the woman started peppering the car with shot as she began to advance toward him “Pinkie Pie is not a cannibal! God Dammit!” she screamed at the top her lungs. “What is she screaming about?" He thought as he kept his head down clutching his rifle tightly against his chest, he pulled the charging hammer back and flipped the selector switch from “Safe” to “Semi”. “Heartache, you lose, no trouble, no blues”. Another shot hit the hood of his ruined squad car and some pellets passed through the fender narrowly missing him, but tonight was meatloaf night and Grady wasn’t about to take no shit. The woman pulled her trigger again “click” no ammo. “Come one, come all, we’ll rock it up and have a ball”. The radio still played as he popped up in the blink of an eye and took a well-aimed shot, The rifle popped with authority. The shotgun wielding murderer caught a .223 in the dome and dropped instantly as the back of her skull blew open. “We’ll rock it in the morning, rock it in daylight, rocking though the evening and I won’t be home at night” Grady held his rifle up a few more seconds before slowly lowering it. A scared crowd of people started to gather now that the danger was over. Grady put the rifle on the hood of the car and pulled out his cell phone. He called his wife while looking at the body of the dead bicyclist. “Hello?” she answered. “Hey babe, can you put one of my beers in the fridge for me?”,” Sure thing hun” “Thanks”. He hung up.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Walter Cronkite’s alarm woke him with it’s annoying raspy sounding beeping. He reached over and tapped it and it shut off, he sighed as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What an odd dream” he said out loud. He sat in bed for a few minute thinking about the strange dream he just had. It was about colorful looking dogs, or was it horses? And then some woman started murdering people. She was angry about something, what was it? “Good thing it was just a dream” but frowned thinking back to the JFK assassination, “I guess anything is possible in this world” he thought sadly to himself, but still it was a strange dream. he was getting on in years and wondered if that had anything to do with it. “I guess I’m just getting old”. He shrugged off the dream as he slowly got out of bed.
Walter was actually feeling pretty good today; his hips weren’t bothering him as much as usual. He walked into his bathroom and started to wash up. He opened a new box of toothpaste it wasn’t his usual toothpaste but a friend recommended it to him, he had been using it for about a week. It was supposed to make your teeth whiter some how and was apparently better at cleaning plaque. He squeezed a little on his toothbrush and looked at it. It was pink, his usual toothpaste was white and mint flavored but this one tasted like oranges, or maybe it was grapefruit. He finished brushing his teeth and smiled in the mirror. His teeth did look a little whiter. “I’m going to have a fine day today” he thought to himself.
