Where ponies fear to trot... (part 2)
"Faster, girls, faster!" Gusty screamed, galloping as swiftly as her hooves would carry her. "They're gaining on us!"
The three of them were tearing along through the forest, the three specters in hot pursuit. They had been running for nearly ten minutes, when some lights began to appear in the distance.
"Look, Gusty!" Fizzy called out, gasping for air. "I think I see a town up ahead!"
"There it is!" Shady agreed, looking ahead. "Ohhh, I don't think I can make it!"
"Just a little farther, Shady!" Gusty called out. "I head ghosts can't follow you into a living town! You can do it!"
The three ran ahead with all of their might, making it just inside the town limits, before collapsing in a heap, exhausted. The three figures they had been running from, when they finally had the strength to look back, were nowhere to be seen.
"We did it girls!" Fizzy gasped. "We got away from the spooks!"
"Yeah, but where ae we?" Shady asked, looking around. "There aren't any pony towns in Ponyland, except for Bright Valley!"
It was at that point, that a red stallion trotted over to the three mares, and looked down at them. Their vision still blurry from their exhaustion, the three mares could barely make him out.
"You ladies look exhausted." A deep voice told them, in a southern accent similar to Truly's. "Are you all raight?"
"We're fine, thanks for askin, mister!" Gusty gasped out, trying to catch her breath. "But I gotta ask, where the heck are we?"
"Yer in a place called Hollow Shades!" the stallion whinnied, stamping his hoof. "Finest little burg in all o' Equestria!"
The three mare's vision started to clear, as they could see stallions, colts, and fillies trotting around the town.
"H-hollow Shades? But that's a ghost town!" Shady added, as she pulled herself up again.
"If we were in Hollow Shades, that' meant all of you would be..." Gusty's voice trailed off, her eyes going wide at the sight of the translucent stallion they had been talking to. "...ghosts...."
"Eyyyyyyyyyup!" The earth pony spirit replied simply.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
...
"Just a minute!" She called out, as the banging on her door got louder. "I'll be right there!"
Cheerilee let out an exhausted sigh, having spent the entire night giving out candy to hundreds upon hundreds of colts and fillies. The pink earth pony trotted slowly towards the door, and opened it to find Applejack and Gypsy, along with three anxious stallions, standing there.
"Yes?" She asked, puzzled. "How may I help you?"
"Zorry to bother you, Darlink " Gypsy asked "But we were vondering if you could lend a hoof in a little problem ve are having!"
"Why, is something the matter?" The teacher's ears perked up. "Did something happen?"
"My wife, Fizzy, went to Gypsy's performance earlier this evening!" Salty, a turquoise pony with a purple mane, spoke up. "But she never came back into port, after her voyage was over!"
"Same with my Shady!" Quarterback, a pony with a blue coat and mane, agreed. "She never made touchdown back at our apartment after the show, and that's not like her at all!"
"And my Gusty never crossed the finsh line!" The entirely blue pony named 4-speed, finished. "We're all really worried!"
"Are you boys talking about you wives not coming home with those euphemisms..." She looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "-or are you referring to something else?"
"This is no time for joking, Cheerilee!" Applejack snorted. "Those three goofballs have gone missing, and we're worried something bad might've happened to them!"
"Zheze three ztallions came to me, after zhier mates did not come home." Gypsy added. "Und I had a vision zhat you und Applejack vould be needed in zhier rescue!"
"Do you have any idea where they may have gone?" Cheerilee asked, starting to worry about the missing ponies.
"We think they went to Hollow Shades!" AJ replied. "That was what Gypsy's performance was about, and we think Gusty goaded the other two into going with her!"
"Hollow Shades? The ghost town?" The teacher remembered the book she had read to her class for Halloween. "Oh dear, it's dangerous out there after dark! We'd better go after them!"
"We're coming with you!" Salty snorted, stamping in unison.
"Nothin doin!" Applejack snorted. "If ghosts are involved in this, the less ponies out there the better!"
"Okay..." Fourspeed nodded in agreement. "But please, bring our mares back safe, all right?"
...
"Ohdearohdearohdear!" Shady cried out in terror. "W-what are they gonna do to us!?!"
The three mares were back to back, sitting in the very middle of the gathering of pony spirits gliding and floting about. None of the three dared to move, as specters of deceased equines floated in and out of the worn down and drab buildings- talking, gossiping, and going about their ghostly business.
After the red stallion had moved on, the other ghosts had paid the three no notice, but the mares simply continued to sit there, paralyzed with fear. It was only after several minutes, that Fizzy got up, and trotted over to try and talk to one of the spirits.
"Hello, there!" She smiled nervously, totting up to two of the spectral mares. "My names Fizzy! What's yours?"
"FIZZY!" Shady called out in terror. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?"
"We can't just sit there and do nothin forever!" The air headed unicorn replied. "We might as well try to talk to them!"
"My name's Roseluck, and this is my friend, Lily!" The ghosts’ echoing voice drifted on the wind. "We were just heading over to the spa, you and your friends want to join us?"
"Sure! Sounds like fun!" Fizzy motioned for the other two to follow. "We'd love to join you Two!"
"Fizzy! Are you insane?!?" Gusty whispered to her. "I do not what ghosts running thier cold and clammy ectoplasm over my coat and mane!"
But not wanting to upset thier supernatural hosts, the three mares followed Fizzy and the two spirits inside. Invisible hooves massaged the three mare's backs, and unseen ponies painted polish on thier hooves. Gusty was mostly able to keep her composure, as she soaked in hot water fed my a fire that wasn't there. But poor Shady had to keep herself from hyperventilating, as a floating comb brushed through her mane.
"There, Wasn't that wonderful?" Lily asked, smiling at the three. "Lotus and Aloe always do a wonderful job!"
"That was great!" Fizzy giggled. "What do ya want to do next?
"The dance!" Roseluck whispered. "Vynal Scratch is DJ'ing a dance!"
The two ghosts floated out to the center of town, where several pony specters were twirling and gliding around to a errie, yet very moving, beat. The two spectral mares moved off to dance with two other specters, while the three girls quickly found themselves with dance partners.
"This... this isn't so bad!" Gusty called to the others, as a brown stallion ghost with an hourglass cutie mark twirled her.
"I still don't like these creepy creeps touching me!" Shady whined, as she and a stallion spook named Braeburn did a dip.
"Better not say that when they're in earshot!" Fizzy giggled, as the read stallion they originally met twirled her about.
At the end of the third song, a grey hared mare (who was dressed like a mayor), had two other ponies bring out a punch bowl filled with a red liquid.
"All right everypony!" The older spirit called out. "Drink up, and enjoy!"
All of the spirits swarmed over the liquid, taking glasses and dipping into the large punch bowl. The three living mares trotted over to the bowl and sniffed at it, and their eyes went wide in horror.
"Girls... I don't think this is punch..." Shady whimpered, stepping back from the liquid nervously.
"I'll say it isn't!" Gusty blurted out. "That's pony blood!"
"How could you not enjoy the fluids of life?" A ghostly mare named Junebug asked curiously. "All ghosts crave the liquid of the living!"
"Unless you're not ghosts..." Lily's eyes narrowed, as if she was looking at the three for the first time. Her eyes began to glow red, and fangs suddenly appeared in her mouth.
"MOOORRRRTTTALLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" She hissed, glaring at them angrily. "MORTALSSSSSSSSS HEEERRREEEEE!"
The eyes of the assembled ghosts all turned red, as they surrounded the three mares on all sides.
"Girls..." Gusty called out nervously, eyeing the spectral ghouls surrounding them. "... I think we're in trouble!"