//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Signs of Life // Story: Everfree // by Dusk Quill //------------------------------// “What is this place?”         Midnight Dasher listened to her voice echo around the dark expanse of the foyer. The room was massive, towering up to a lofty second story with a high vaulted ceiling. The structure, in contrast to the rest of the town it resided near, looked like it was in fairly good upkeep. Despite the thick layer of dust and cobwebs, the woodwork wasn’t rotted away like the walls of the houses back in Sunny Town. It almost looked like it had never been lived in at all, and was just left empty for all time.         Fleethoof came away from the windows when he was sure those undead ponies weren’t following them any more. “Not your ordinary house, that’s for sure…”         “Yeah, no kidding.” Midnight scoffed under her breath, still taking in the sight of the winding grand staircase running up along the far wall to the balconies above their heads. “How could such a place exist without being discovered?”         “Maybe it was, and was forgotten for a reason,” said Fleethoof.         “Why would anypony forget about a place like this? It’s like a fantasy house.”         “Oh I don’t know, maybe they didn’t like the neighbors.” Fleethoof chuckled as the sarcastic words left his mouth. “Can’t say I blame them. Whatever those things are, they don’t like visitors.”         Midnight had moved away from him, looking up the large staircase. The red carpet that ran up each step still felt plush and cushy beneath her hooves. This mansion gave off an air of elegance and superiority. It was like it had been built for a king.         “Where do you think the others are?” she asked after a moment, letting the worry on her mind voice itself.         Fleethoof shrugged and sat down, leaning back against the banister of the stairs. “The hell if I know. If they’re lucky, they’re far, far away from this place, just waiting for the chopper to come back around or for the sun to rise.”         Midnight turned back to her companion. “So what’s our plan then?”         “I say we barricade the doors, hunker down here, and wait for the sun to come up. The pilots will worry when they don’t see our flares and start sweeps over this part of the forest more frequently. Then we get their attention and get the hell out of here. If we’re lucky, maybe the sunlight will even make those zombies melt or something.”         It was a sound plan. She couldn’t find any flaws with it. But despite the logic he made, Midnight felt compelled to disagree with him. Fleethoof was just looking out for their survival, and she had to help her teammates if they were still out there. But going back outside would be a death sentence, and she knew it.         “I say we check the rest of this place out,” she said in rebuttal, doing her best to ignore the look Fleethoof gave her. “If we’re gonna be here for a while, we’re gonna need some supplies. Maybe some of the others have found their way here too, and we can regroup with them.”         Fleethoof stared at the bat pony like she was mentally ill for a while. Did she really want to keep investigating the creepy, potentially haunted mansion in the middle of a killer forest with cursed ponies out for their blood? He scoffed, waiting for her to bring out a punch line or something. When she didn’t, he just shook his head vigorously.         “No way, Midnight. That’s insane, even for you. We don’t know if there’s anything else in here—or if there’s anything we actually want to run into! We should stay here and secure this room.”         Midnight’s eyes narrowed, her stubborn nature kicking in full throttle. “We’re going to check out the rest of the house.”         “No, we’re not.”         “Yes, we are.” Midnight’s head dropped as she glowered at the pegasus. “You were assigned to follow me and assist me wherever I go and whatever I do. And I’m going to go look around.”         For a moment, Fleethoof was stunned silent. “Are you really gonna pull that on me, Midnight? It’s not safe out there!”         “I don’t care. My friends might be out there, and if they are, we’re gonna save them,” Midnight said staunchly, already headed down the stairs to a door on the west wall. She gave a passing glance at Fleethoof over her shoulder. “Now are you coming or not?”         Fleethoof was trapped. Gaping at Midnight as if she had just damned his entire family to the depths of Tartarus, the stallion reluctantly got back to his hooves and followed sluggishly behind as she pushed the door open to the next room. Was he really taking orders from her now? He had to admit, she had him on that loophole. As long as they were together, she was in charge. Grumbling to himself, Fleethoof pushed through the partially open door.         I’m gonna fucking die out here… he thought grimly as he stared around the adjacent room. A long dining hall lay before them, adjacent to the foyer. A long rectangular table stretched from one end to the other, taking up most of the center of the room. Against the wall, a tall grandfather clock ticked noisily away in the darkness. Looming windows spanned all the way to the ceiling, letting the pallid moonlight stream into the hall.         While Fleethoof stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of the dining hall, Midnight had already begun making her way across the floor. She ran a hoof along the surface of the table, grimacing at the amount of dust and grime that had accumulated on it. She proceeded carelessly across the room, studying two places that had been set at the far end of the table. It looked like somepony had been ready to sit down to a meal, though the film of dust marring the shiny surface of the silverware and plates insisted that the meal had been long, long past due.         “Midnight, you should really think about this again,” Fleethoof said, hoping to urge her back. When she didn’t respond, he cautiously made his way around the table towards her. “Midnight, please, this is very dangerous.”         With a huff, Midnight Dasher turned to Fleethoof, glaring daggers at the nagging pony. “Okay, Fleet! Why? Tell me why we should go back instead of searching an abandoned house for my friends?”         Fleethoof’s own eyes narrowed in response to Midnight’s outburst. “For starters, this house is clearly not abandoned.”         A laugh rose from the mare. “Oh yeah? How do you figure? Did the two dirty dinner plates give it away? Because they look pretty unused to me!”         “No, you dense filly!” Fleethoof snapped, pointing at the clock behind him. “Because if it was abandoned, then who’s been winding the clock up?”         Midnight opened her mouth to response, and found she couldn’t. Her golden eyes turned away from Fleethoof, looking past his shoulder at the ominously ticking clock. In the oppressive silence, each tick sounded like a clap of thunder. He was right. Those clocks had to be wound at least every week to keep them running. There was no way this place had fallen into such a state of dishevelment in only a week. Despite its structural integrity, it looked like this place had been left to decay for years, at least.         So why was the clock ticking?         “Run! Keep going!” Starlight shouted as the bat ponies sprinted through the forest.         A wailing cry behind them alerted them of the proximity of their pursuers. They were close—much too close. They had already lost track of Midnight, Fleethoof, Blackjack, and Eclipse. Eclipse had fallen down another slope a short while after Midnight had taken off with Fleethoof, and Blackjack shot off into the night to help her. He didn’t know where those four had gone to now.         But he couldn’t spare a moment to worry about them. He still had to worry about the ponies with him, and himself.         Hooves thundered across the grass and dirt. The aimless ponies were running out of ideas. All around them, the forest just seemed to go on and on to the ends of the earth. There was nowhere for them to go.         Echo took a glance back—and yelped as she suddenly sank into the ground. Her hoof had penetrated a patch of soft, muddy dirt and had found a small sinkhole. Despite her struggling, she couldn’t free herself, and her teammates were unaware of her predicament. She watched helplessly as they continued to run ahead, ignorant that she was no longer with them.         “Wait! Starlight! Daybreak! Please, help!” she cried out into the darkness, but they were already gone.         An ear-splitting shriek of feral rage pierced the night. Those monsters were closing in behind her. A thrill of real fear kicked her heart into overdrive as Echo fought and struggled to pull her hoof out of the dirt. The harder she tugged, the more she felt the earth beneath her shift and shake.         Another cry sent a fresh wave of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She couldn’t even fight if she couldn’t get herself out. With no way to move or reload, she would be a sitting duck, left with however many bullets she had left in her weapon. Echo couldn’t even recall how many that was. Terror had completely blanked her mind.         Feeling on the verge of tears, Echo gave a strained cry as she pulled with all her might—and felt her hoof pop free of the ground. Her joy was short-lived as, when she freed herself, she also dislodged a chunk of earth, and the ground around her crumbled into nothing, sending her tumbling down into darkness. Echo cried out as she fell down the tunnel, barely able to see where she was going.         With no way to stop herself, Echo closed her eyes and prayed for the best.         Blackjack and Eclipse stood in awe of the desolate town nestled perfectly in the middle of the Everfree Forest. They had emerged somewhere to the far west end of the town, squeezing down a narrow alley between two buildings. As far as they could see, the entire place was empty. The fog that had begun to blanket the forest when those monsters had shown up had quickly turned into a dense veil, cloaking almost everything in sight.         “Where are we?” asked Eclipse, checking inside a house through a broken window.         Blackjack just shook his head. He had no words to answer with. He stepped out into the middle of the dusty street, looking left and right down its length. The fog had consumed most of the road, and what little he could see to all looked the same. Even still, with one road, the town couldn’t have been very big.         “Do you think the others are here?”         “I don’t know,” Blackjack muttered, keeping his hearing strained for even the slightest sound. “But I don’t trust this place. It doesn’t feel right…”         “Well, do you wanna get out of here then?”         “No, I want to look around.” He slowly trotted up the dirt road, trying to discern anything through the fog. It was an impossible feat. “I can’t see a damn thing in this fog though.”         Eclipse blew her mane out of her eyes, following shortly behind her partner. “We’re not gonna get out of here, are we…?”         In an instant, Blackjack had frozen where he stood. He turned quickly to look very seriously at Eclipse. But despite his professional demeanor, a gentler look softened his gaze.         “Hey, don’t say that. We’re all getting out of this, you hear?” he said, giving her a small smile. “Come on, we’re the Nightwatch. There’s nothing we can’t get out of. We’ve just gotta be brilliant and hang in there, okay?”         His speech actually did make Eclipse feel a little better. With the faintest trace of a smile, she nodded and replied, “Okay.”         Blackjack’s smile grew in sincerity—until he looked up past her. Eclipse watched as his grin faltered and fell from his mouth. Dark horror clouded his purple eyes. That was when she heard the rasping hiss behind her.         “Come… Let us cure you of your disease…”         It was the same guttural voice of those creatures. Eclipse turned around. A zombie pony stood no more than a meter away from them, its skeletal silhouette shrouded by wisps of fog. Eclipse felt like they were trapped in a scene from a foal’s nightmare. Things like this just weren’t real.         “Eclipse, get behind me…” Blackjack growled under his breath.         The mare obeyed as he requested, dashing behind her teammate as he faced off with the monster. The pony hissed again, a deep, rasping exhale that sent chills down her spine. Blackjack’s wings flared as he glared back at the pony, refusing to back down.         “Stay with us… Be one of us…”         “If you take one step over here, I’ll snap every bone in your body,” said Blackjack in dark threat.         Eclipse took a couple slow steps backwards, putting some space between the standoff and herself. Her hooves clutched at her gun, ready to protect Blackjack if things turned sour. She took another step back, and felt a pair of cold, clammy hooves wrap around her neck from behind. Eclipse screamed as she struggled against the second zombie, fighting to keep its snapping jaws away from her neck.         Blackjack heard her cry and immediately spun around. “Eclipse! Don’t move!”         Before another moment could pass, Blackjack brought his gun up and put a round into the creature’s face. The pony yelped and flew backwards off of Eclipse. But the move had left him vulnerable, and no sooner had he taken the shot, Blackjack felt two hooves around him. The next thing the bat pony felt were dozens of razor sharp teeth sinking through the tender skin where his neck and shoulder met.         Blackjack cried out in pain, feeling his own warm blood beginning to flow down his leg as the creature thrashed at his shoulder. His leg seized up, and he was unable to fight back. Eclipse reacted next, taking exceptionally careful aim and putting a bullet in the zombie’s eye. Blackjack felt the pony’s jaws go slack, and the figure crumpled to the ground. He was breathing hard, burning pain searing through his flesh.         “Go, Eclipse! Go!” he shouted and took to the air. Walking on his leg was much too painful to bear right now.         The ponies took off down the road into the fog, completely unsure of where they were going. They followed the trail at their hooves as fast as they could. Any second now, those unnatural beasts would be getting up again and coming after them. As if on cue, a gut-wrenching howl tore through the air. In the fog, the sound seemed to come from every direction, not just behind them anymore.         “Blackjack! Look!”         Up ahead, the ponies could see dim, orange lights shining through the dense fog. A sign of life right now seemed like a danger and a relief, but at the very least, it meant shelter from the demons in the night.         “Head for the light!” Blackjack took a glance back, and saw two silhouettes chasing swiftly after them. “Hurry!”         Eclipse pushed her legs as hard as she could. Blackjack silently cursed his ill luck as another stab of pain shot through his shoulder. Bat ponies were notoriously faster on their hooves than with their wings. Even though he was still mobile, he felt crippled.         The closer they came to the specks of light, the larger they became, until the dark, shadowy form of a large house loomed out of the haze and trees. Warm light spilled out from a couple windows, though most of the building was dark as far as they could tell. Eclipse bolted up the porch and threw her body against the door. She hit the solid wood with a grunt, and collapsed where she stood. The doors held firm, gently trembling on their hinges, but otherwise remaining sturdy.         Eclipse jerked on the handles a few times. “It’s locked!”         “Eclipse, look out!”         The filly turned in the nick of time to see those things lunging up the stairs at her. With a cry, she took to the air, barely diving out of the way as the zombie collided with the doors.         “Scatter! Find a way in!” said Blackjack, fluttering around the second level windows. He had already lost Eclipse in the fog, and hoped she had heard him.         Blackjack flew backwards, keeping his eyes on the snarling ponies on the ground beneath him. With each flap of his wings, he felt the muscles around his shoulder and upper back tense with pain. He wouldn’t be able to stay airborne very long. The ponies circled like ravenous wolves, waiting for the stallion to drop out of the sky to them.         Muttering a silent curse under his breath, he felt a twinge run through his wings, and he lost a couple feet of altitude. The ponies made a strange sound of glee down below. His eyes darted around, looking for a balcony, or open window, or anything! His wings tensed up again, and he struggled to stay upright.         Fuck this! he thought and, with the last of his strength, hurled himself at the nearest window. The glass gave way with a cracking smash, and then he felt wood smacking into his face. Blackjack tumbled across the hardwood floor, coming to rest up against the opposite wall of the hallway he had landed in. His body was sore and aching, and small cuts lined his face and chest. But he was safe for now.         Fleethoof quickly glanced up above his head as the muted sound of breaking glass came through from the floor above. Midnight had apparently heard it too, and had her gun raised to the ceiling. What was that? he thought with trepidation. The two ponies had been searching a small bar and lounge when the noise had startled them. So far, their search had turned up nothing but empty rooms and corridors. But now, they knew someone—or something—was inside the mansion with them.         “Fleet—”         “I don’t know,” he answered quickly, anticipating Midnight’s question.         Midnight swallowed back her fear and dropped her guard again. “I think I’m ready to go back and wait in the foyer now.”         “Too late now,” Fleethoof said with a dark chuckle. “We’re this far into the house, and now something else is here with us. We’ve got to keep moving so we aren’t found.”         His peace said, Fleethoof made his way back towards the only door in the room. He stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. Since they had left the dining hall, he and Midnight had stumbled across a couple more disturbing signs of recent life in the otherwise empty house. One included the lit candles in the corridors that he was now eyeing cautiously. When they had first seen them, he had nearly gotten sick with fright. Now the dim, warm light that cast long shadows down the hall just seemed like another threat in this endless nightmare of a night.         Midnight followed him out into the hallway, and the two ponies proceeded back the way they came. Neither of them spoke, too busy keeping an ear and eye out for anything suspicious. Fleethoof stepped through an open doorway into a dark sitting room. The two long windows against the far wall showed the timberline of the Everfree now almost fully engulfed in white fog.         Creepy house, or invisible forest… He shook his head at the impossibility of the situation. It’s like fate is conspiring to try to kill me.         They crossed the sitting room and pushed through another door. A short hall led over to a winding staircase. It looked like this was the end of the west wing for the first floor. More candles burned in their holders on the walls, making Midnight creep low and slow across the ground, trying to make herself as small of a target as possible. Fleethoof rolled his eyes at the mare’s display, and proceeded brashly forward into the light.         Their hooves made soft clops across the wood as they walked. The silence that claimed the mansion as its home just further amplified the unsettling atmosphere, and Midnight found herself wondering if she was more afraid of the killer ponies, or the environment. She settled on the thing that could actually kill her.         “Are we going upstairs?” she asked. Fleethoof nodded his head once. “But that’s where we heard the noise come from.”         “Exactly. That’s why we’re going to investigate.”         “Are you sure?” Midnight stepped up beside the pegasus. “You are pretty scared of this place. You’re the one who wanted to hide.”         Fleethoof shot a glare at his companion. “I’m not scared. I would just really like to live past tonight.”         “Well, like you said, the only way to stay alive is to keep moving forward,” said Midnight, flashing a wry smile to mask her apprehension. “So let’s go then.”         Midnight bravely took the first step up the stairs. The wood groaned beneath her weight as she trotted almost merrily up to the next level, with Fleethoof following behind at his own leisure. The only thing at the top of the stairs was another door, which Midnight Dasher slowly cracked open and peeked inside.         Surprise, surprise… Another hallway… she thought as she opened the door entirely. But unlike the other one, this corridor was brightly illuminated with many torches running along the walls.         “Just how big is this place?” Fleethoof muttered, walking warily ahead of Midnight.         A door came up a short distance ahead on their side. Fleethoof stepped up to it and turned the handle. The handle jiggled tightly in place, and refused to open. He pursed his lips in thought as he pushed against the locked door.         “Looks like we’ll need to find a set of keys. If there are more locked doors, we won’t be getting very far.”         Fleethoof gave a short, hard laugh at Midnight. She looked at the smirking stallion, confusion painting her features.         “We won’t be needing any keys,” he said, taking a step back from the door. “No locked doors are going to get in my way.”         With a grunt, Fleethoof delivered a powerful kick to the center of the door. His hoof made contact with the surface, and didn’t even budge. The sturdy wood door remained intact while the pony cried out and collapsed to the floor, doubled over and clutching at his leg while making soft noises to himself. Midnight raised a brow and snickered.         “So… about those keys…” Fleethoof said from the floor, a pained tone in his voice.         “Come on, you silly stallion. Let’s go find ‘em.” Midnight stepped coolly over the collapsed pony, sauntering down the hall as he slowly got back up and hobbled after her.         Midnight glanced back at the limping Fleethoof, giggling as she watched him shake his hind leg like it had fallen asleep. He was ridiculous, but she was glad it was him she had gotten lost with. Anypony else, and she might’ve already lost her mind. Midnight turned back forward as she opened another door—and shrieked as one of the undead ponies sprung out at her. She fell to her back, her hooves pressing up against the weight of the zombie as it snapped its jaws at her.         “Midnight!”         Two shots broke the silence, smacking wetly into the creature’s skull. As had become routine, the thing’s eyes faded to black and its body went limp. Midnight tossed the corpse to the side and scurried away from it across the floor until she came to a stop wrapped around Fleethoof’s legs.         “H-How did that thing get in here?!” she cried out in terror.         “There must be more than one way into the mansion—and they clearly know it,” said Fleethoof, hurriedly stepping past it into the room it had come from. “Come on, Midnight. Let’s go before it gets back up!”         Midnight Dasher did not need to be told twice. Scrambling to her hooves, she galloped around the dead pony and into the room as Fleethoof shut the door securely. A moment later, the zombie’s leg twitched, and the red glow of its eyes sparked back to life.         Starlight tilted his head and perked up his ears. Had he just heard gunshots? Ever since they had lost Echo in the woods, he felt like he was slowly losing his mind—and this spooky house in the middle of nowhere did little to calm his fears. Daybreak seemed ignorant of everything as he skulked down the corridor, his eyes darting left and right for any danger.         “Did you hear that?”         Daybreak looked back at him with a puzzled expression. “Hear what?”         “…Never mind.”         The stallions trotted down the dark hallway, checking a door as they came across it. A warmly lit lounge invited them in. Starlight quickly shut the door. He wasn’t about to be tempted by false safety. They were all in danger, and needed to find a way out. The next door opened up to a small bathroom, and the next led outside to a fenced in courtyard.         Daybreak lingered back behind Starlight, practically trembling in his horseshoes. Every shadow looked like one of those things, just waiting to slaughter him—especially that shadow of a pony… wait. Daybreak stared at the pony-shaped shadow in the pane of silvered light spilling in from the window, and turned towards it. The glass shook as one of the skeletal ponies rapped against it with a hoof.         Daybreak screamed and jumped backwards. Starlight spun around in time to see the pony smash the glass inwards and crawl over the windowsill. He grit his teeth and shot the creature, watching it drop to the floor. A window a little further down burst inward as well, and another zombie leapt into the house. It was quickly dispatched as well.         “Daybreak, come on, let’s—” He turned, and Daybreak was nowhere in sight. “Daybreak?”         The door behind him was flung wide open. Light from the adjacent corridor spilled into the dark hall he stood in. Daybreak had taken off in fright and left him alone. Starlight growled under his breath. Coward… I’ll make sure he regrets leaving me behind when we get out of this… he thought.         A low growling behind him cut off all thought in an instant. One of the ponies had gotten back up, and spat out a bullet that had gotten lodged in its jaw. Starlight calmly pointed his gun at the pony as it righted itself, and put it down again with another shot. That was when the second pony began to stir again.         Fuck this reviving shit, he thought angrily and walked into the next hall, making sure to actually close the door behind him. He scowled at the thought of Daybreak leaving him behind to die again. Setting off into the mansion, Starlight began his search for his missing teammate.