> Berry Punch and Lyra Heartstrings' Zombie-Filled, Blood-Splattered, Gore-Pasted Adventure (With Zombies)
>  by PaddedCell
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One: Of Hangovers and Hilarities
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Berry Punch awoke with a splitting headache. She irritably shoved a few empty cider bottles to the side. The containers toppled off the end of the bed, clinking and smashing respectively as they hit the wooden floorboards. The night before had been a haze of laughter, heavy drinking, screaming and a blur of other things which Berry couldn't remember at all. The possibility had approached her mind that she might have slept with somepony, but to be perfectly honest, she didn't care at the moment. The only thing on her mind right now was swallowing a few painkillers and surviving this hangover. Making her way down to the kitchen, she swung open a cabinet above the sink. She had reached inside this very cabinet many hundreds of times to grab the same packets of painkiller tablets. The closest packet teetered on the edge of the cupboard, and then dropped down, unceremoniously smacking into Berry's face. The individual tablets rained down on the floor like fresh medicinal snowfall. "Oh, Celestia be damned.." She snarled, picking up the packet and popping a few pills into her mouth. She washed them down with a glass of water, and then trotted slowly out of the door and into the bustling streets of Ponyville. 

"Hey Berry! Wild party last night, huh?!" Lyra called to the slowly-shuffling Berry Punch a few steps away from her. Berry turned around, her eyes blearily focussing on the cheery mint-coloured mare trotting in her direction. Her bloodshot eyes finally cleared up enough to identify Lyra Heartstrings' bright smile. She offered a lopsided, half-hearted attempt at one in return as she replied.
"Oh, uh.. Yeah, Lyra. Nice party, from what I can remember of it." Lyra smirked at this.
"And what can you remember?" She asked, a little slyly. Berry gave her a septic look.
"You're getting a hoof in the face if you carry on like that." She uttered. The two continued down the road toward the market stalls in the town centre, chattering to one another about the previous night's escapades. From what Berry could gather, a few friends had gotten together at Twilight's library under the pretence of starting up a reading club on that night, to be held once a week. However, the moment that Twilight had left the audible range of activity inside the treehouse, the friends had tossed aside the books and partied harder than the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. Punch and cider had been drunk, songs had been kareoke'd so badly that it was an affront to modern Equestrian music, and Berry herself had apparently climbed onto a table to dance - only to lose her balance and fall into a set of bookshelves, spreading their contents across the floor. All in all, the night had apparently been quite amusing up to the point where Twilight returned to check up on them all. Lyra decided that she had conveniently forgotten the steady stream of rage-filled, drunkenly-delivered expletives she herself had fired at the unicorn to prompt her banishment from the library. Obviously, calling Twilight a "fucking dick-faced shit eating book fucker" had earned her accusatory glares from the purple mare ever since.

After a short while shopping for snacks and other little bits and pieces, the pair made their way back to Lyra and Bon-Bon's house. Bon-Bon was apparently still sleeping off the hangover from the party upstairs, and so the two quietly snuck through the front door and settled down on the sofa, trying to make a minimum of noise.

Berry sat on the TV remote, switching it on. The TV had been set to full volume.

After the theme song to 'My Little Human' (One of Lyra's DVDs had been left in the player, and the content on the DVD further fuelled Berry's notions of Lyra's obsessions) had blasted out, and an irate Bon-Bon had clattered down the stairs, screeching out obscenities before leaving the building, the two sat in an awkward silence as MLH continued on the TV.. Now at an acceptable volume level. As Lyra watched the television in worshipful silence, Berry Punch began to wonder about her friend's sanity. The fact that she watched a show about something as silly as humans was a little odd, to say the least. The clock on the mantlepiece soon struck the hour, dinging a little bell. Sighing, Berry hopped off the couch.
"Right, I'm off." She muttered, glancing at Lyra. The mint-hued mare was watching the cartoon with rapt attention. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." She spoke, a little louder. There was a tone of annoyance in her voice.
"Oh, uh.. Yeah, see you.." Lyra drawled slowly, her eyes still quite glued to the screen. Berry left with a huff, heading back to her own home. After an evening of heavy cider consumption, she shambled back upstairs (tripping over at one point, to her drunken dismay) and collapsed onto the bed, drifting into a deep sleep. Her dreams were filled with odd shapes and colours.In the hazy background, she could hear a loud commotion, an awful yelling and crying, and the screams of hundreds of ponies. Suffice to say, it was more than a little unnerving.

Berry Punch awoke with a splitting headache. As she shakily pulled herself out of bed, the only thing on her mind was swallowing a few painkillers and surviving this hangover. Making her way down to the kitchen, she swung open a cabinet above the sink. She had reached inside this very cabinet many hundreds of times to grab the same packets of painkiller tablets. The closest packet teetered on the edge of the cupboard again, and then dropped down again, unceremoniously smacking into Berry's face.. Again. "Fuck me sideways." She snarled, picking up the packet and popping a few pills into her mouth. She washed them down with a glass of water, and then trotted slowly out of the door and into the quiet, relatively empty streets of Ponyville.
> Chapter Two: That Feeling when Something Isn't Quite Right, but you Brush it Off as Being just your Imagination
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The town of Ponyville was never usually this empty, was it? There were just a few near-silent residents hanging around the streets now, shuffling aimlessly with stiff, jerky movements. Berry's mind tried to take in all of this information. However, due to her horrendous hangover, the main thought that floated into her head at that moment happened to be, 'I'm hungry.'

She trotted slowly down Mane Street, oblivious to the shambling, grimy-looking ponies clustered around. Their breathless groaning and gurgling went unnoticed. Heading toward the Sugarcube Corner, Berry tried to shake her head clear. The attempt just happened to make her headache worse, and so she stopped. Stepping through the door of the bakery and hearing the familiar tinkling of the bell, she slumped down into the nearest chair and sighed, staring at the ceiling. She picked out the mass of moving shadows being cast onto the ceiling and wall below it from outside, the figures of many ponies moving in a slow and uneasy gait. Something was realised in her mind, but when she tried to discern what it was, she was met with the hazy pain of the hangover.
"Service, please!" Berry barked out irately. A wheezing gasp came from behind the counter. "Hello?" She called, stepping toward the counter. She quickly peered over the top, but couldn't see a thing in the shadows behind the counter-top. Giving a snort of annoyance, she trotted out of the bakery again. As she left, the half-mauled, broken and blood-stained figure of Pinkie Pie slowly dragged herself up over the counter, watching the mare leave. She tried to climb over the counter, but fell back down again, one of her legs snapping backward as she hit the bakery floor.

Berry had made it about halfway to Lyra and Bon Bon's house before her head began to clear. And with that clearance came abject horror. By the time she had briskly cantered up the house's front path, she had noticed the apparent lack of normality in her surroundings. Ignoring the few shambling ponies which slowly approached up the path behind her, she slammed the door shut and trotted inside. Lyra was watching My Little Human again.. As usual. She seemed oblivious to the change around them.
"Bon Bon hasn't come back yet. You seen her around?" Lyra inquired, eyes glued to the screen. "It's been a while."
"It's been a fucking day." Berry muttered, sitting down beside her friend on the sofa. The ponies outside began to bang weakly against the door, hooves sliding down the wooden surface with a squeaking.
"I think there's someone at the door, you know." Lyra spoke softly. Berry glanced worriedly over to the hallway, taking note of the three silhouettes through the door's small window. All three looked a little worse for wear.
"Lyra, I think there's something wrong with everypony. They're acting weird."
"Maybe you have something on your face, and that's why they're acting weird around you." Lyra offered.
"Do I have anything on my face though?" Berry asked, a little annoyed. Lyra's golden eyes roamed from the TV screen to Berry's face.
"Um.. No." She mumbled, returning her gaze to the TV.
"There you go then. Besides, it's not like they're just laughing at me, or something. They all look wrong, they smell bad, they move slowly and they're not talking at all." Berry stared back to the three ponies at the door. They continued to bang on it slowly, and it appeared two more had joined their ranks.. Along with a few tapping on the house's living room window. There were dark red stains of something on the windowpanes where their hooves met the glass. Berry's mind began searching frantically for the least worrying explanation. The best she could come up with was an out-of-season Nightmare Night party.

"Oh, fuck's sake, they're messing up the windows.. Hey!" Lyra's voice broke the tense silence. The mint-coloured mare haughtily stomped up to the window, glaring at the ponies outside. "Stop making a mess on our windows! Look, go and paint your own windows red if you want, but leave ours alone! Me and Bon Bon worked hard to-" Berry stepped up behind her.
"Lyra, I don't think that's paint."
Lyra didn't listen. In her blind rage, she set off to the front door - only to find the same mess-making going on. There were bloody hoof marks smeared on the front door's window, and she was not going to stand for this. She flung open the door.
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to stand for this, things have got to.. Oh.. Oh shit." Lyra noticed the large group of lopsided, battered-looking ponies. Blood encrusted around open wounds on their bodies, and slimy, dark gore dribbled from their open mouths as they stared at her with lifeless, dull eyes. They moved forward, shambling and moaning weakly, into the hallway. Lyra dashed back into the living room, slamming the door shut. Berry watched as she slid as many articles of furniture in front of the door as possible. It would be comical if it weren't so terrifying. "Shit, shit, shit.." Lyra repeated, eyes darting around at the uncovered windows. The undead ponies outside began to batter on them.

After a few minutes of boarding up the doors and windows, Berry and Lyra sat down on the sofa again. Lyra resumed watching MLH. Berry trotted out to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of strong cider. She downed half of it in one gulp.
"So.. What now?" She asked, watching Lyra as she stared blankly at the TV.
"I dunno." She mumbled, eyes not leaving the screen. Berry felt herself losing her temper. She considered tossing the bottle at the wall, and then remembered that the contents of the bottle tasted good. So she downed the rest of it, and then made good on her initial plan. The glass container exploded into shards against the wall with an echoing smash. "Look, you can't just sit here and watch TV while that happens out there.. That's just stupid."
"Why not?" Lyra retorted, tearing herself away from the screen. She looked dumbfounded. "As long as we stay here and pretend nothing is happening out there, we won't have to deal with it." Berry facehooved.
"That is not the way to go about dealing with problems at all, you dolt." She grumbled.
"Well I don't want to deal with the problem, I want to watch My Little Human." It soon became apparent to Berry that her friend was not going to cooperate, and so she made a decision. A decision to do the unthinkable.

Climbing off the sofa, Berry stepped over to the TV. Before Lyra could react, she yanked the electrical plug out of the socket. The TV cut out and died. Lyra gasped, horrified.
"What have you done?!" She cried.
"I'm sorry, Lyra.. But it's the only way." She stood on her hind legs, and picked up the TV in her hooves. She started towards the window.
"Wait, what are you.. What the freaking hell are you doing?!" Lyra yelped, hopping off the sofa and edging closer. Berry rammed the TV against the barricaded window, smashing the wooden planks across it. The groaning commotion of the ponies outside became clearly audible again.
"I'm sorry, Lyra." She sighed, taking a moment to contemplate before tossing the TV out into the crowd. The heavy piece of equipment hit one of the shambling undead, smashing his skull to pieces. His brain splattered across Lyra and Bon Bon's lawn.
"NO!" Lyra wailed, dropping to the floor and weeping openly. Berry hastily re-boarded the window before stomping over to her sobbing friend. She smacked Lyra's head lightly with a hoof, glaring at her.
"Get a hold of yourself, and help me check on these boards." She ordered, pointing to the boards nailed over the windows.
> Chapter Three: Lyra's Cupboard-Shrine and Granny Smith's Introduction to a Baseball Bat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Berry and Lyra slowly peeled one of the boards off the front window, peeking outside. Nope, she was still there. The peeling, green, mouldy face of Granny Smith was staring intently in at them, her mouth awash with blackened blood. She had been doing this for at least the last hour or so. Every once in a while, the pair had taken a peep outside, and that one rotting mare remained outside, just staring at them. By now, the undead ponies which had swarmed the house before had apparently left to hunt somepony else. After all, there had been a loud screaming from somewhere outside a short while ago. The board was replaced over the window.
"How long has she been standing there?" Lyra moaned, slumping back down on the sofa. Her eyes were still a little pink from weeping over the loss of her beloved TV. Berry sighed, stepping toward the living room door.
"Look, we're going to have to go out there. We need to see if anyone else needs help, and besides.." She began shoving the pile of furniture out of the way of the door. "There's no more alcohol in your kitchen."
"But there could still be more of them in the house.. And Granny Smith is right outside.." Lyra said, a hint of apprehension in her voice. Berry finally got the door open, peeking out into the hallway.
"Just.. Follow me." She muttered, quietly edging out into the hallway. Lyra followed, and immediately dashed to the cupboard under the stairs. "What are you doing?.." Berry hissed. She craned her head inside the spacious cupboard, and stared. She was a little dumbfounded.

Lyra was sorting through a box of human memorabilia, pulling out a baseball bat and a golf club. There were photographs and posters pasted across the walls of the little cupboard, all dedicated to humans. A small table held a group of lit candles, an athame and a large book, which turned out to be a part of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Lyra stepped back from the shrine, handing Berry the baseball bat. She solemnly shut over the door.
"Tell no-one." She breathed, holding the golf club in her hooves. "No-one." She glared at Berry, more seriousness in her eyes than she had ever shown in her life. Berry nodded vigorously, quite afraid at this point. After an awkward moment's silence, the two made their way back down the hall to the front door. The door hung open, stained with dark blood and battered with hoof-marks, dents and minor scratches. The pair peered around the doorway.

Granny Smith was still standing in front of the window, her body stiff and unmoving. Her mouth still dribbled a little.
"Wait.. What if she's dead?" Berry offered, raising her eyebrows.
"Haven't you ever seen a zombie film?!" Lyra hissed in return, wielding the golf club and glaring. "She's already dead. She can't be more dead, or she'd be double-dead. And that doesn't make any sense, does it?" Berry considered this for a moment, and then stepped forward. she held the baseball bad in her hooves, standing up on her hind legs. With the very tip of the bat, she nudged the rotten old applecore. Granny Smith remained quite unresponsive and still, not moving a muscle. Lyra looked a little confused.
"Well whaddaya know.." Berry smirked, dropping the bat. She leaned forward and tapped Granny Smith on the nose with a hoof. Again, no response. "I fucking told you so." She called in a smarmy voice, turning her head back to face Lyra. "She's dead and completely harmless. I don't know what you're so worried about."

Granny Smith bit down on Berry's hoof.

Berry began to scream, flailing around as she felt the pain course through her foreleg. The damage would be terrible, she told herself, as she chanced another look back at the old, wizened ghoul biting down on her arm. Granny Smith was trying to maul her hoof with a toothless, gummy mouth, slobbering dark gore and Celestia-knows-what all over her foreleg. Berry shook the little old mare off, picking up the baseball bat down on her head a few times. Eventually, she stopped moving. Lyra was watching the entire event, a little horrified. Her eyes were wide, and her legs shaking.
"That was Granny Smith.. You just.. How could you?" Berry glared at her.
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're going to go soft on me now.. She was already dead. They're all dead."
There was a moment of silent consideration.
"Oh yeah. Forgot that bit."

Ten minutes later, Berry and Lyra were trotting down the darkening road into the middle of town. The sun was setting, and the groans of the undead drifted on the air, mixed with the cries of their victims. It was all rather unnerving.
"Right.. First, we go and check up on Mayor Mare, and then we can-" Berry stopped abruptly. Turning the corner, the two mares took in the sight before them. The middle of town was a bloodbath. Zombie ponies littered the place, and the ground was pasted with dry blood which had pooled around a handful of torn-up corpses and body parts dotted about the place. At a glance, five ponies had been mauled to death overall - although their bodies now lay in pieces across the floor. The closest undead pony noticed Berry and Lyra, her face rising from a ripped-open torso. A gory strand of intestinal tract dropped from her mouth as she let out a breathless moan. It was Bon Bon, her neck chewed to a bloody pulp and her eyes as dull and lifeless as all the others.
"Oh.. At least we know where Bon Bon is now." Lyra mumbled. The rest of the undead noticed, and began to move, slowly but surely, toward them.
"Oh for fuck's sake.. RUN!" Berry yelled. Lyra didn't need to be told twice. The pair dashed through the streets, clutching the makeshift weapons in their teeth as the horde followed behind, slowly shuffling forth in a groaning, gurgling mass.
"Where are we going?!" Lyra yelled over the commotion behind them as they sped onward. In the distance, Berry spied the looming structure of the Sweet Apple Acres barn on the hill.
"Follow me!" She called, sprinting at full gallop toward the apple farm. Lyra followed on, glancing back at the undead. They had fallen behind, and they were now a good distance away.

Berry and Lyra burst through the door of the farmhouse, and screeched to a halt just in time to avoid being skewered on the pitchforks being held at the ready by Applejack, Big Macintosh, and even little Applebloom. The Apples quickly lowered their weapons, ushering the two startled mares inside and slamming the doors of the farmhouse - then sliding a heavy bar over the door to seal it shut. After a few minutes of calming down, putting away their weapons and catching their breath, Berry and Lyra were ready to talk. They and the Apples sat in the living room. As though the night couldn't get worse, the darkening sky was lit with a flash, followed by a loud booming of thunder.
"All right.. So y'all are tellin' me that you were too hung over to notice those flesh-eatin' varmints?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. Berry nodded, and Lyra confirmed the fact.
"So.. Could we stay here for a while?" Berry asked, her voice trailing off a little. "We won't be any trouble, we promise." Lyra cast an amused glance at Berry, considering to herself just how much trouble her friend's alcohol addiction could cause in the space of a mere few days. Applejack sighed, and gently nodded.
"Ah can't have y'all staying out there with them brain-feastin' monsters.. You can stay in the barn, it's plenty warm in there, and there's enough hay to make a comfy enough bed for sleepin' on." The two thanked them, heading through the back door and down a newly built fenced-in path to the barn's back door. Applejack called to them over the sound of the crashing rain and rumbling thunder. "Don't open the front doors of the barn, if y'all were stupid enough to consider it.. And dinner's served in an hour, so you're welcome to wander back in for somethin' to eat!" Berry and Lyra shut over the door to the barn. A few lamps set up in the structure illuminated it with a dim golden glow. The two mares collapsed onto a pile of hay, and let out huge sighs at the very same moment.
"Are we getting something to eat, like Applejack said?" Lyra asked. Berry turned to her with a glare.
"Take a friggin' guess." She answered grimly, before cracking a little smile and getting comfortable. Lyra nodded, smiling to herself and staring into the hazy glow of the lamp on the far wall.
> Chapter Four: Sweet Apple Acres; The Applecide
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Berry, Lyra and the three Apples sat at the dinner table in the farmhouse. Thunder roared in the sky outside, and flashes of lightning cracked across the sky at various points. Rain hammered against the old glass of the windows.
"So.. What's for dinner?" Lyra asked, a smile spreading on her face. Applejack rose from her seat as the bell on the oven gave a light beep. She began plating up the food as she spoke.
"I'm afraid there ain't much of a choice at the moment.. We got some baked apple slices, some apple pie, apple fritters, toffee apples, oatmeal with apple sauce, applesauce on its own, and.. Um.."
"Let me guess.. Apples?" Berry asked, her expression a little put-off, but mainly just disappointed.
"No, we got this." Applejack held up a single, small box of cornflakes. Lyra reacted immediately.
"I want that one." She yelped, pointing excitedly at the cereal which should not have even existed in Equestria, never mind the Apple Family's kitchen. Applejack shrugged and tossed over the box.
"I'll have some of the apple slices, please." Berry said, staring at the infatuated Lyra, who was inspecting the cornflakes box from every angle, scrutinising it meticulously.

After the food had been made and served up, Applejack sat with the rest of the group and tucked in, burying her muzzle into a steaming-hot apple pie. Lyra began munching down cornflakes right out of the box, ravenously gobbling down the cereal with a loud crunching and gnashing of her teeth. As for Berry, she simply picked up a slice of apple in her hoof, wondered how she and the others were able to hold things without fingers, and then decided she didn't care, taking a bite of the apple slice.It tasted rather good, she thought. The dinner continued on in silence, which was only broken by the pattering of rain and the tremendous rumbling of the thunder outside. Soon enough, the silence was too great to bear for a certain somepony. Unable to take it anymore, Berry snapped. She couldn't hold back.
"So, me and Lyra saw Granny Smith this afternoon." She blurted out, needing to kill the silence.
"You.. You did?" Applejack stuttered, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, thank Celestia.. We were all gettin' darn worried about the old gal, she's been gone for hours.. Where is she?" Lyra stared at Berry, horrified. Berry suddenly recalled exactly where Granny Smith was at that very moment, and turned a queasy shade of green.
"Um.. Well..." Berry began, her voice weak and shaking. She began to regret ever opening her mouth. How could she have been so stupid as to bring that incident up?
"I do hope she's feelin' okay.. Was she hurt?" Applejack asked, her smile a little faded. Berry gulped.
"Well, she.. She isn't exactly.. Uh.." She muttered, tripping over her words.
"She's dead." Lyra spoke up, ending the uncomfortable few minutes abruptly and unsympathetically. Berry flinched.
"Dead?!" Applejack gasped, tears welling up in her eyes. Applebloom, who had been listening intently, buried her face into Big Macintosh's side, the tears flowing freely. Even Big Mac looked pained at the news. "How? Please don't tell me that those freaks outside ate her up.." The orange-coated mare uttered breathlessly between sobs.
"Not exactly.. Well, sort of.." Berry explained. Or rather, made a poor attempt at explanation. Lyra cut in.
"Granny Smith was a zombie." Applejack began to openly weep.
"Well, she sort of-" Berry began.
"Berry smashed her head in with a baseball bat." Lyra mumbled. Berry's eyes shot wide open, and she began to panic.
"It's not like that, I swear!" She yelped. The Apples all stared at the two. Lyra turned and tried staring at Berry, then realised that she was also under accusation. She instead chose to stare intently down, avoiding the hateful glares.
"Y'all killed Granny? In cold blood, no less?!" Applejack spoke, her voice raising in volume. "And then ya come in here, expectin' sanctuary from the outside world?" Berry stared down as Lyra looked up. The mint-coloured mare gave a nod.
"Why not? I mean, you guys have a really big farm and plently of food and-" Applejack cut Lyra off by leaping over the dining table and swinging a hoof at her. It connected, sending Lyra flying across the room and smacking into the wall. The window-frame set into the wall above her rattled, a few nails coming loose. The window crumpled, glass cracking, as it exploded outward under the weight of the collapsing frame. There was a loud, gurgling moan, and a green, wrinkled mare stumbled through the window, dragging herself with her hooves. The mare's head was caved in and bloodied, only one eye visible on her head, the other crushed under a collapsed section of skull. Her toothless mouth moved uselessly, tounge lolling about as dark slime dribbled from her open maw.

Granny Smith was, in fact, not quite dead.

Applebloom screamed, darting into the living room and slamming the door as her Granny stumbled into the room.
"Oh.. She survived." Lyra muttered, edging toward the table on which the golf club and baseball bat both rested. Applejack stepped toward Granny Smith, her eyes blurred with tears.
"Granny Smith.. What did they do to you?!" She cried, pulling the walking cadaver close. Something fell off. A foreleg clattered to the ground, blackened blood spraying across the floor. Berry dashed over to Lyra's side. Her friend lay crumpled against the wall, blood trickling from a bruised gash on her head from the punch.
"Hey.." Berry hissed, nudging Lyra and whispering into her ear. "She can't bite, can she?"
"She couldn't bite you, so no.. She hasn't got teeth, remember?" Lyra replied blearily, watching the grisly spectacle.
"Sis.. I don't think that's the best idea.." Big Mac uttered quietly, watching Granny Smith's fruitless attempts to maul Applejack with a toothless, gummy mouth. Applejack stared at him.
"How can y'all say that?! This is Granny! She ain't dead, she's.. She's sick! She needs help, and we-" Applejack's pleading reply was cut short as something sharp cut into her neck. Apparently, the baseball bat's impact had shattered Granny's skull so severely that shards of broken bone had protruded out of the roof of her mouth. One of the sharper pieces of skull cut into Applejack's neck, ripping the flesh wide open. Blood began to ooze from the cut, as the slimy gore from Granny Smith's open mouth sloshed against the open wound, infecting it.
"What just happened?.." Lyra asked quietly, watching Applejack stumble back, her neck spurting dark red liquid all over the dining table as she fell back onto it. The farmer pony tried to cry out, but her throat was torn too badly, and she was choking. After a few moments, she stopped moving. Granny Smith stumbled over to the other end of the room, falling into a set of drawers and smearing blood across the clean wooden surfaces as she toppled aimlessly to the floor.
"Sis.. Applejack, are you all right?" Big Macintosh asked, shaking his sister's limp, lifeless body. There was a gurgle from her throat as she dribbled out a mouthful of dark blood, staining Big Mac's hooves. Her shook her again, panicked by now. "Applejack, don't leave me.. I can't run the farm without you.. With you and Granny gone, apple sales will go into freefall, the family will go bankrupt!"

Applejack's head raised back up with a slow, unsteady movement. Her neck cracked a little, blood flowing freely from her mouth and her open throat as she stared at her brother with empty, glazed-over eyes. "Aw, shit." Was all that Big Mac could utter before Applejack bit into his face, tearing away a huge chunk of bloody meat. He bellowed with pain, falling to the floor as his sister mauled him to death. The floor was pasted with chunks of flesh and pools of blood.
"Do you think we should.. Ya know.." Lyra spoke as the zombies all turned toward the two mares. Lyra motioned toward the weapons lying on the kitchen table. Berry shook her head.
"They'd reach us before we got the stuff.." She replied, helping Lyra back up onto her hooves. The two backed into a corner, both trying to come up with a good plan which didn't involve them ending up lying on the floor in pieces.
"You know what? Fuck this." Berry yelled, stomping forwards. She grabbed a dining chair, smashing it over Applejack's head. The undead mare stumbled back, shards of broken wood tearing into her. Berry continued to beat the slowly-moving zombie with the remains of the chair until she was nothing short of completely broken. Dropping the bloodied wooden wreck she had been using, she turned back to Lyra. "Well don't just stand there!"
"Um.. Berry?" Lyra uttered quietly, pointing behind her.
"Oh.. Oh fucking shit." Berry mumbled, turning slowly. Granny Smith was hobbling slowly forward, but that was not the main problem. The hulking, torn-up reanimated corpse of Big Macintosh was also lumbering toward her. He was partially ripped to shreds, strips of flesh hanging off his body and skin ripped to pieces in gruesome wounds. Berry backed away, tripping over Granny Smith's severed foreleg and falling to the floor with a painful thump. She looked up to see Big Mac looming over her, staring with cold eyes.

A wall clock smacked into the huge stallion's face, shattering against his skull and leaving his face pierced with pieces of broken glass. The minute hand of the clock lodged itself through his eyeball. Berry took a quick glance back to see Lyra picking up another object, which happened to be an ornamental statuette of Celestia. She chucked it at Granny Smith, and it knocked a good chunk of her head off with a meaty 'splat'. Berry crawled back rapidly toward Lyra, who had now picked up a broom and gotten ready to swing it.
"We can't stay here.. Come on!" Berry yelled, backing out of the house and running toward the barn. Lyra followed suit, dropping the broom and running as Granny and Big Mac continued to shuffle slowly after them.

Inside the barn, Lyra and Berry collected together the closest weapons to hand and stood their ground. Both mares were each holding a barrel of apples in front of them. As Big Mac and Granny stepped through the doors, they began throwing. The apples smacked into the two undead ponies, covering them in juices and debris as the fruit hit them and shattered. Granny Smith was pushed back, falling to the ground in a flurry of flying fruit projectiles. However, Big Mac seemed not to be having quite as much trouble. He continued lumbering forward as the apples smacked into him, smashing against his face and his body and doing little damage.
"It's no good.. The fruit's no good!" Lyra yelled, continuing to throw apples at the oncoming zombie. Berry disappeared to the side of the barn for a moment, returning with a large pitchfork.
"Use this instead." She said, chucking the farming tool to her friend.
"Where did you even get this? And why didn't we use it before?" Lyra replied, holding the pitchfork steady.
"I thought the apples would be a better weapon. There are more apples here than pitchforks."
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Lyra huffed, charging forward and ramming the pitchfork's metal prongs into Big Mac's face. The iron spikes went straight through his eyes and punched into his brain, damaging it quite badly. Big Mac collapsed, shuddering, as his brain overloaded and refused to work. Lyra tried to yank the pitchfork out, but it wouldn't budge.

As Big Mac was now brain-dead and Applejack was a smashed-up pulp in the dining room, only the fruit-covered Granny Smith was left of the undead Apple Family members. She currently shuffled about on the floor, covered with fruit juice and bits of smashed apple. Berry and Lyra sighed in unison, watching the hapless little failure of a zombie.
"What are we gonna do with her? The baseball bat didn't work.." Berry murmured.
"Wait there." Lyra said, trotting to the back of the barn. She returned with a large scythe, strolling nonchalantly over to the writhing little ghoul on the floor. Angling the curved blade downward and raising the tool upward, she took careful aim. In a split second, Lyra brought the scythe down on Granny Smith's skull, splitting her head open like a rotten apple and destroying her brain, stopping her weak shuffling. "There. Done." She sighed, trying to wipe some of the blood off her coat as she threw the saw to the ground and stood up. Berry just gaped. "Okay, so.. Let's go and get Applebloom." Lyra said, trotting back toward the farmhouse through the rain. Berry followed, a little concerned as to her friend's casual handling of the situation.
> Chapter Five: Skipping Town
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yanking the living-room door open, Lyra recieved her own golf club to the face. Her skull rattled as she tumbled backward to the floor. Berry decided not to follow suit, instead pulling her semi-concious friend out of the room and back into the blood-splattered dining room.
"Applebloom!" Berry called into the room. "It's us, Berry and Ly-"
"I know who it is! Leave me alone, both of ya!" Applebloom's voice came from the open doorway. She thought for a moment, and then attempted to reason with the armed filly.
"Applebloom, Granny and the others were gonna eat us! We had to kill them, don't you get it?!"
"I don't care! They were my family, and now they're gone, darn it!" Her reply came from the room. Lyra sat up, nursing a new bruise on her forehead with a hoof. She groaned.
"That's the second fucking time tonight I've been hit in the face." She spat, her speech slurred.
"Look.." Berry called to Applebloom, "What would it take for us to get in there and rescue you without getting brain damage?" There was a long pause.
"Alcohol.. An' lots of it." Berry gritted her teeth. This was going to be a problem.
"Fine.. Fine, just come out here, and I'll give you a bottle." Berry stomped to the blood-flecked fridge, pulling out a cold bottle of cider. "Bitch." She muttered under her breath as the smirking scarlet-haired filly emerged from the living room.

An hour or so later, Applebloom was passed out on the living room floor, drunk. The fire crackled in the grate, mixing with the sound of the rain hammering on the window as the storm continued to rage through the night. Berry and Lyra sat together on the sofa, watching a horror film on TV. On the screen, a pair of mares sat on a sofa talking to one another, as a filly slept on the carpet in front of the fireplace.
"What are we going to do with her?" Lyra asked, turning to Berry and motioning to Applebloom. Berry sighed.
"I think the best option would be to send her off to Appleoosa. She has family there, they can look after her." Lyra thought for a moment, scratching her head with a hoof. She stopped as her bruised head prickled with pain. This led her to wonder momentarily why she had been so stupid as to scratch it in the first place.
"But.. What if the train isn't running?" She asked, her eyes widening.
"Then we go on foot." Berry replied, her expression solemn. "It's a long way away, but I'm sure we can make it."
"Right." Lyra agreed, a tinge of uncertainty in her voice. "I guess we can't just leave a filly out here to fend for herself."
"Exactly." Berry said, nodding. On the TV, the two mares turned to each other, staring into eachother's eyes for a long time before moving closer. They pressed themselves close to one another, moving in for a kiss. Thunder clattered outside and the rain continued to fall as Lyra moved her eyes to the side slowly. She took a quick glance at Berry, her eyes then darting back as Berry turned sharply, noticing her gaze. There was an awkward moment of silence before the film ended, the two sitting perfectly still. Lyra blushed hotly, quietly letting out a held-in breath as Berry moved over to the window to close the curtains. She moved back across the room toward the door. "Time for bed, I think."
"Uh.. Right now?" Lyra asked, her face still deep red. "I mean.. That's kind of sudden.. We didn't even.."
"Yeah, I'm going to bed." Lyra replied, too tired to notice Lyra's perceptions of the situation. "I'm fuckin' tired."
"Oh.. Oh, right." Lyra uttered, her heartbeat slowing from its rapid-fire rate of rhythm as she returned to normality.

The morning came after a few hours of sleep, and after packing up some supplies from the kitchen and grabbing a weapon each, the three set out and headed back through Ponyville toward the train station. Re-entering was a different experience than it had been before, and much worse. The corpses which had been too badly damaged to reanimate had piled up on the roadsides, bloodied and mangled beyond recognition. Blackened, dried blood was splattered about the dry floor in the early morning sun, and the foul stench of pure rot and death wafted about on the breeze.
"The station is down the next road, I think." Berry murmured, not wanting to alert the undead as the three quietly trotted through the empty street. Somewhere in the distance, somepony screamed. Their cry was cut short by a chorus of moaning, guttural voices descended on them, and then all was relatively silent once again.
"Okay.. Let's just try not to wind up like that guy." Lyra said to Applebloom. The little filly nodded slowly, though she was still suffering from a hangover. Her hazy, pained look was decidedly quite amusing by Lyra's standards, as she couldn't help but smirk as she turned back to carry onward. The train station was now in full view.. But so was a lone, unmoving figure. The pink pony stood incredibly still on the railway platform, her greasy, stringy mane drooped straight down over her head. Her stiff posture and odd look of disjointedness (One of her legs was bent the wrong way, and her head was permanently tilted to the side) gave the group all the evidence they needed to draw up their conclusions.
"She's one of them.." Applebloom hissed. Lyra rolled her eyes, and Berry replied in a monotone voice,
"No.. Really?" She turned to glare at Applebloom. When her eyes returned to the pink mare, she was standing a little closer. Berry sighed, a bored expression on her face. "This is getting to be a really bad horror cliche." She commented matter-of-factly, turning away again. Turning back, the pink mare was mere inches from her, now recognisable as a rather deflated-looking, grim version of Pinkie Pie. She raised her head, and the straight pink mane parted to show her face. Her dead eyes stared into Berry's, yellowing and streaked with veins. Her lower jaw had fallen away, leaving a torn, open void leading straight down her throat, from which dark blood and slimy black ichor drooled. Sounds of bubbling and wheezing mixed with the gargled, throaty moans from her vocal cords. In a split second, Berry stepped back away from the smelly, rotting party-mare and swung her baseball bat into her skull. There was a loud cracking of broken bone, and a splattering gurgle as a jet of black blood sprayed from the gaping mouth. The grimy liquid covered Applebloom, missing Berry by a centimetre or two. Lyra burst out laughing despite the situation, unable to hold back her mirth as Applebloom squealed and tried to wipe away the gory mess. Unfortunately, Lyra's laughter echoed quite well across the town, the sound bouncing perfectly over the curved rooftops and reverberating off the old glass windows. All of a sudden, the sounds of hundreds of groans and shuffling hooves began to appear on the edge of hearing. Lyra stopped laughing, her eyes widening with fear. 
"Oh dear.." She uttered, seeing the first of the shambling ponies turn a corner and shuffle towards them.
"You idiot!" Berry roared, swinging the bat down on Pinkie's head so hard that it literally exploded into a shower of wet, dark meat, skull fragments, a few litres of blood and an anomalous cloud of confetti with an almighty smashing noise. "You led them right to us!" Applebloom's reaction to the situation was rather blunt in comparison. Upon seeing the crowd of undead advancing towards the group from the nearby streets and alleys, she uttered one thing.
"Fuck that." The little filly spoke before dashing off at full speed toward the train platform. The two mares shrugged and followed, sprinting to catch up.

As luck would have it, a train was pulled into the station. Applebloom was already up in the engine compartment, hurriedly trying to start the thing as the mindless horde of horrifying zombie-horses advanced at their slow but steady pace. Lyra hopped on next, followed by Berry. Shoving Applebloom out of the way and standing up on her hind legs, Lyra began to fiddle with the controls. Pulling open the engine-grate, she began shovelling coal inside. She continued, sparking up the engine and stoking the fire as she called to Berry.
"Buy me some time here, I need to get this thing started!" She yelled over the racket of the burning, crackling engine.
"Fuck's sake.." Berry muttered, leaping down off the train and hitting the ground with a thud. The dead were advancing slowly but surely, and their numbers had almost doubled since the last time. It seemed that almost all of Ponyville had either died outright or returned as a member of this rotten army. Berry panicked, looking around for something more useful than the baseball bat she held in her hooves. And then.. It hit her. The thing she needed. And the very idea brought a tear to her eye.

Swinging the saddlebags of supplies off her back, she flipped them open hurriedly. Inside, four bottles of the best Apple Family Cider lay unopened and delicious. Berry dropped down, staring at the bottles one after the other, wishing that there was some other way. With rage and pain boiling up inside her, she pulled the caps off the bottles. Hopping back onto the train, she poured some of the alcohol over the baseball bat, shoving it into the furnace to light it up. She then used the burning bat to light the four bottles up like little firebombs.
"I love you all.." She whispered to the burning bottles of drink as she hopped back out onto the platform. The zombies were almost upon them, the first few of them climbing shakily onto the wooden platform, groaning out for fresh meat. Berry Punch said her final goodbye to her alcoholic friends as she tossed the first of the bottles. It smashed against the edge of the platform, spraying the first wave of zombies with burning liquid and making it doubly hard to climb up onto the platform. Seeing this as an opportunity, Berry hurled the other bottles at the edges of the platform, turning them into death traps for the advancing zombies. Her eyes widened as she noticed her mistake. Carried by the wind, the flames which now licked at the edges of the platform were beginning to move unnervingly quickly across the entire wooden structure, burning it away into a flaming, charred mass. She frantically dived back onto the engine compartment as the flames drew closer.
"Are we ready to go? I mean.. We really need to get going.." Berry yelled in a panic, looking back. Although most of the undead were falling down dead within a few moments of making it onto the burning wreck of the platform, the stronger ones continued forward. The flames danced across their brittle, ailing frames, the fat and flesh on their skeletons boiling away into a stinking mess. The melted meat ran down their forms, their faces peeling and dribbling away like nightmarish wax models left in an oven, and yet they shambled forward, undeterred.
"I'm trying, but the thing won't move!" Lyra screamed. "The engine is running, but the wheels won't-"
"Y'all didn't take the brake off." Applebloom mumbled. After a moment of intense embarassment, Lyra slammed a hoof into the brake lever. The iron wheels of the train began to turn, screeching as they rolled the heavy train forward in a noisy, billowing cloud of smoke. As it sped up and onward toward the town of Appleoosa, the burning wreck of the train platform collapsed into a smouldering, ashen fireball, taking a large number of zombies with it.
> Chapter Six: Dried-Out and Deadly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with.. S!" Lyra's voice called out over the loud racket of the train engine. Applebloom, looking quite bemused and literally hanging off the side of the train in a slumped position, gave a quick response. In fact, she almost got her answer out before the question was given.
"Is it sand?" She asked in a bored drawl. Lyra nodded vigorously, a big smile on her face.
"How did you guess?" She asked. The train continued to chug along through the barren desert wasteland as the sun slowly set beyond the horizon, casting an orange glow over the sandy terrain. The night slowly began to creep across the land. The train had been on the path to Appleoosa for a day, only able to go at half its normal speed due to low coal supplies on-board.
"I spy, with my little-" Lyra began again, but she was cut off as Berry yelled over her.
"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with F." She spoke out. Lyra sat back on her haunches, tapping her head with a hoof as she reasoned through the possibilities.
"Flatland?"
"Nope."
"Formations of desert rocks?"
"Nope."
"Free parking spaces?" Lyra gave the final answer before Berry roared at her.
"I spy FUCKING NOTHING!" Her voice echoed across the sand dunes. "We've been going for a whole freakin' day, and I haven't seen a thing since we hit this Celestia-forsaken desert!" Applebloom sighed, swinging back onto the train and trotting back through to the caboose for some peace and quiet. "How long until we get to Appleoosa, Lyra?! One more day? Two? I can't make it that long!" Berry lunged at her friend, pressing her face close to Lyra's. "I'm out of alcohol.. I can't function without drink, don't you understand?!" She began to shake Lyra, who simply looked at her with a distasteful expression. Rolling her eyes, Lyra pushed Berry back gently.
"We'll be there before you can say convenient plot device."

As Lyra spoke those words, there was a loud crunch, and the train ground to a halt sharply, the wheels turning fruitlessly as the engine belched out steam. Berry and Lyra picked themselves up off the floor of the train car.
"What the shit was that?" Berry yelped over the hissing steam of the struggling train.
"I think we hit something.. Hold on, I'll go take a look. Hit the brakes!" Lyra replied. She hopped down to the sandy ground to check the front of the engine and survey the damage. The wheels ground to a full stop and the steam cleared from the front of the train. By the light of the train's headlamp, Lyra was able to make out a gory mess. The train had slammed into somepony while they were arguing, and the unfortunate pony in question had been pulled under the wheels. By the looks of it, the spinning iron disks had continued to tear and grind into them until the brakes had been applied. "We hit somepony!" Lyra called to Berry.
"Living or undead?" She replied, leaning out of the train car. Lyra leaned down to the torn-up body, poking it with a hoof. It didn't move. She shuddered, eyeing the blood-splattered remains.
"Alive, I think. He isn't moving." She called back, trotting around to the carriages to grab a shovel which had been on-board with other tools, presumably for any emergencies - though probably not like this. She slid the shovel under the first pile of gut-pasted mess, lifting it out of the way of the train. "Fuck me, this is disgusting." She muttered under her breath as she continued to shovel mounds of flesh and cracked bones to the side of the track. The sky darkened as clouds covered the moon, and now only the train's lamp illuminated the scene for Lyra to continue shifting the distinctly divided corpse out of the way.

It was only when the lamp died that Lyra felt uneasy about the situation.

"Berry? Berry, I can't see a thing!" She called, digging the shovel into the ground and leaning against it in the pitch-darkness. Somewhere distant, the sound of shuffling made Lyra's heart speed to a worried, unnatural beat.
"I know, I'm trying to get it back on.. Hold on a second." Berry replied. A few moments later, the scene was lit once more. Lyra really began to panic when she turned to pick up the shovel again, only to see the desert sands shifting gently, a single hoof poking up through the dusty ground like a dead plant. The withered thing shuddered as it felt around, trying to pull the rest of its body out of the sand. However, what the hoof managed to pull out of the sand was not a full body.. But a torn, dry torso missing any other extremities beyond a battered, skinless, eyeless head. It gasped breathlessly and reached out its one hoof, dragging itself toward Lyra.
"Berry.. A little help here?!" She yelped, grabbing the blood-soaked tool and continuing to hurriedly shovel the last remainders of corpse out of the way. "Get the train started, I'm almost done!" She called. In the engine compartment, Berry stuffed as much coal as she could into the engine. The wheels began to turn again, as more of the dry, withered undead rose from the desert sands. A moment or two later, Lyra leapt back into the engine compartment.
"All right.. No more pit stops, got it?" Berry huffed, yanking the brake lever as the dried-out zombies drew closer. The train slowly began to belch out clouds of steam as it rattled forward on the tracks. Turning to one another, Berry and Lyra hoof-bumped. However, a scream from the back of the train cut their celebrations short. Rushing forward through the train cars, Applebloom finally made it to the engine. She was obviously panicked.
"There's.. They.." She tried to get her words out, though her breath was short. The reason for her terror became clear as the first of the zombies stumbled through the front-most train car. It was dusty and brown, eyeless and bony, and its skin had rotted completely away in some places, leaving a gaping, open abdomen and displaying a rotted ribcage.
"We've got ourselves some freeloaders." Lyra said, smirking, as she held up her bloodied shovel.
"Are you even taking this seriously?" Berry asked coldly.
"Nope." Her friend replied, the smirk on her face evolving into a wide grin. After a moment of silence, Berry shrugged and raised the dust-stained coal shovel likewise, and they rushed forward. The two brought their shovels down again and again on the zombie, cracking its empty skull open and smashing some of the ribs into jagged chunks of dry, marrowless bone. Then, in one swing, Applebloom shoved past them and smacked the shambling thing with Lyra's golf club. It staggered back to the edge of the engine compartment, and fell out of the fast-moving vehicle without a noise.
"Nice one." Berry uttered, nodding slowly at Applebloom's handiwork before turning to the other zombies which slowly approached the front of the train through the passanger cars. Suddenly, an idea sparked up in her mind. "Got it." She mutteres, diving forward and fiddling with the couplings which held the passanger cars to the engine car. There was a loud metallic clacking, and the passanger cars disconnected. They slowly rolled to a halt, the zombies aboard them staring around aimlessly, unable to see or smell their prey as it escaped them. As Berry and Applebloom let out a long sigh of relief, Lyra stayed silent for a moment. She then expressed her contentment.
"Fuck yeah!" The mint-coloured Unicorn called out, a huge grin on her face.

Despite the joyous celebration and reverie that was had by the three after their victory over the zombies in the desert, another few sleepless hours took their toll. Applebloom had curled up in the corner of the engine car, Lyra stared ahead at the dim tracks as the train rode atop them, and Berry had taken to sampling an old can of machine oil which she had found nestled to the side of the boiler as an alternative to cider. After a sip or two she had stopped and sat alone with a sour look of defeat on her face. On the horizon, the orange, hazy face of the sun rose up slowly.
"I spy, with my little eye.." Came Lyra's dry, cracked voice, "Something beginning with A." Berry stood up, stepping to the side of the engine car and peering out. In the growing light from the sun, the path ahead was revealed. They had reached Appleoosa at last. From this distance, the place looked like a ghost town, much to their dismay. Empty streets, nopony to greet them, and not a sound in the air.
"Is it just me, or is this place way too quiet?" Berry asked, eyeing the town as they pulled into the station. The train engine ground to a halt, wheels screeching as they spat hot sparks and finally ceased spinning. The two mares woke Applebloom and all alighted onto the platform, proceeding onward until their hooves were planted in the silky-soft dust floor of the sand-beaten township. They took a few tentative steps forward, gazing around fearfully at the dead street.
"Where is everyone?" Lyra whispered.
"What happened t' the place?" Applebloom hissed.
"I need a fuckin' drink." Berry spoke out loud, wandering off down the street. The others followed. Somewhere behind them, something wheezed a breathless moan from between its dry, broken teeth.
> Chapter Seven: Happy Hour! Cheap Booze, Plentiful Gore and Exploding Buildings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The doors to the Appleoosa Saloon swung open at a heavy buck, and the trio strode in confidently - until they took a good look inside, and hastily retreated back outside in a quiet panic.
"Did I just see what I thought I did, or am I going crazy? Someone tell me I'm going crazy, for the love of Celestia." Berry hissed, her eyes as wide as saucers. The others shrugged. Lyra stealthily poked her head in through the doors. The view inside, however disgusting and completely absurd, was unchanged. Zombies sat on the barstools, some keeled over onto the floor with disjointed and useless limbs. A barkeep with no eyes and a mouth slobbering dark liquid stood at attention, ready to take orders. And an undead pony who looked somewhat inexplicably like a rotting equine version of Elton John sat banging on the old piano, and the racket was quite atrocious. Lyra pulled her head back outside, now shaking with uncertainty about her own sanity.
"Yep, they're drinking." She uttered breathlessly. Berry was suddenly thrown into a rage, her voice dropping to a low and serious tone as she stepped forward and into the zombie-filled saloon.
"I came here for a drink. Just a drink. And I'm going to have one, if I have to kill every stinking one of you." The undead turned, staring blankly at her. All apart from the pianist, who continued to play. Berry stared them all down, filled with an undeniable courage at the prospect of plentiful cider and other alcoholic beveradges. The barkeep shuffled around the side of the bar, advancing slowly. Berry dashed over to the side of the room, grabbing a broom from its place as the other two companions watched in shock through the windows from outside.
"She's insane.." Lyra whispered, staring in amazement.
"She's an alcoholic." Applebloom sighed, adding under her breath, "An' a desperate fuckin' one, at that." Berry rushed the barkeep, slamming him to the ground and bringing the broom down on his head a few times. It cracked, and the blood flowed freely across the floor. Soon, the rest of the drinkers had comprehended what was going on, and joined the fray. Berry found herself outnumbered, but still fought with a vicious fervor, smashing heads to pieces and knocking limbs off in a most comical fashion. The general hue of the saloon turned quickly from a warm wooden brown to a dark, grimy, and unevenly-spread crimson as Berry's onslaught of violence continued to escalate hilariously.
"D'you think we should help?" Applebloom asked Lyra outside, casually watching the battle as if it were a blockbuster action film of some kind. The latter agreed, and both of them burst in through the doors, grabbing the closest makeshift weapons. Applebloom grabbed a bottle, smashing it against the wall to make a vicious killing instrument. Lyra grabbed a severed leg, holding it up as a club. She instantly felt quite silly, but advanced anyway. 
"It's about fucking time!" Berry yelled, grabbing the pianist zombie and slamming his face into the keys repeatedly, pasting the ivory-white oblongs with bright red. The idiotic thing continued to try and play the instrument as its skull repeatedly impacted against the keys. Berry yanked him off his stool and, letting out a string of expletives peppered with maternal insults, yanked the piano down on top of him with a sickening crunch and a loud banging of keys.

After about an hour of fighting a saloon full of reanimating enemies, plus reinforcements which streamed in through all enterances, the trio were worn out. They collapsed, now hidden behind a barricade of stools and furniture and bodies, catching their breath. Berry reached out, grabbing an unopened bottle of cider from somewhere in the pile, wiping the blood from the top, and popping it open to take a swig. The undead continued to claw at the barricade.
"So what do we do now?" Lyra asked, watching the dusty multitude of gore-splattered hooves poking over the top of the barricades. Berry, shrugged, holding up the bottle.
"Get pissed and die, I s'pose." She uttered, taking another huge drink. Applebloom facehooved, grabbing the bottle and taking a gulp herself. Berry watched with a cold and unrelenting rage. Suddenly, the hooves retreated, and the moans died down. The three survivors looked around, confused, and Applebloom poked her head over the top of the barricade. The undead, or whatever was left of them, had gone back to drinking. 
"They're.. They're drinkin' again, girls." She muttered. The others joined her, watching the beaten zombies sip at tankards and bottles. Berry identified the reason for this anomaly immediately, being a regular to almost every bar, pub and club across Equestria.
"It's Happy Hour." She uttered, motioning to a board on the wall. The others looked incredulous. "Trust me. Happy Hour means cheap booze, and cheap booze means that nothing else matters for a while." Lyra and Applebloom just stared.

"This is fucking stupid." Lyra said, as the three climbed casually over the barricade and made their way out of the Saloon, barring the front door by rolling some barrels in front of it. They galloped around to the back of the building, finding the generator which powered the electric lighting in the saloon. Lyra used her horn, ripping the machine from its mounting and floating it to one side, then ramming it through one of the windows so it landed in the middle of the saloon. The others simply watched as she conjoured up a small fireball and held it in the air above her head, wrapped in a magical cocoon.
"Fucking run!" She yelped as she fired it in through the window. The three managed to dive around into an alley behind the next building and hit the deck before the fiery projectile hit the still-working generator inside the saloon, and it exploded into a burning eruption of death. The Appleoosa Saloon shattered outward, the structure collapsing in on itself as shards of smouldering wood, boiling nails and melting glass flew in all directions, smashing into the other buildings. After a few moments the dust cleared, and the three mares stepped out into the open to watch the last few undead try to escape the burning wreck. The singed, shuddering and skeletal mockeries of life stopped moving within a few seconds.
"Well, that's my alcohol supply gone for now." Berry muttered darkly.
"What in Celestia's bright sun is goin' on out there?!" A voice called from one of the other buildings. A two-storey house, wooden and covered in peeling old paint. The voice was given a face as the grim figure of Braeburn, plastered with blood and clothed in a garb which hadn't been washed in days, stepped out onto the rickety balcony. Looking down at Applebloom, Berry smirked.
"Well, we're finally rid of you then.. Little twerp." Applebloom shot her a septic look, but her expression softened as the purple mare held out a hoof. The little filly grinned as they hoof-bumped and she turned to join Braeburn, the two mares following on.
> Chapter Eight: Emotions'n'Stuff
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A number of hours later, the group of survivors sat at an old table within the building. Minus Lyra, who had opted to sit on the balcony and keep watch. Well, she had said she would, but Berry was quite sure that she would be out there daydreaming or napping. Regardless, she and the two Apples sat at the table in silence, Berry sipping at a bottle of cool cider. The sun had begun to set outside, dropping below the horizon to signify the end of another hellish day in the undead deathtrap that Equestria had become.
"So, I have a question." Berry spoke up, breaking the awkward silence. Braeburn raised an eyebrow.
"What is it, ma'am? Don't even think of asking where we keep the cider, by the way."
"It's the fourth cupboard from the right in the kitchen. I checked before." She smirked, and he glowered in return.
"So what's this question then, huh?" Braeburn leaned forward, planting his hooves on the tabletop.
"Do we know where this zombie outbreak even came from? I mean, looking back on it.. This whole situation is almost like a Fanfiction which hasn't been giving the readers all the answers they needed." Berry asked, teetering dangerously on the edge of the fourth wall without realising it.
"Not a damned clue, I'm afraid. Those rottin' ghouls been poppin' out of the dirt for a while now, and it all happened so suddenly that we didn't get a chance to be reckonin' any cause. Could be some natural cause for it all, I s'pose." He replied honestly, giving a shrug.
"What happened to Appleoosa? I've only seen you here.. Not another living soul." Berry asked, giving a shiver.
"Well, that was a night to remember." Braeburn murmured, his voice low. " It was midnight, by my reckonin'. Rainy out here in the desert, and the wind was howlin' something fierce. I was lyin' in bed, and just driftin' off to sleep.. When I hear a tappin' on the window outside. Silence otherwise, though. No voice, just a hoof tappin' on that there glass." Berry took a sip of her bottle, but her eyes never left Braeburn's. "I figured it was just a kid out there messin' with me, so I ignored it. But that pony just kept on a-tappin'. So I trot over to the window, and I was about to throw open the curtains an' give 'em a piece of my mind when I hear a screamin' next door. So I run to the front door, and out onto the main street. Out there.. Well, it were a whole heap o' trouble."

Out on the balcony, Lyra sat in the cool evening air. The sun had dipped below the mountains and hills now, and the silvery moon shone out on its ascent. She stared up at the moon, and it stared back silently. Yawning, she curled up and looked in to see Braeburn, Applebloom and Berry through the gap in between the balcony doors. Her eyes stopped on Berry, and she sighed. Memories of that hilariously uncomfortable few moments they spent together on the sofa at Sweet Apple Acres resurfaced, and her mint-coloured cheeks blushed a bright pink. She had felt an illogical attraction to her alcoholic, rude friend for a while, and now the illogical attraction had become illogical affection. Lyra had often ignored her feelings, but sitting alone in the light of the moon and watching Berry now forced her sickeningly sentimental side to rear its head. Lyra settled down and began to think over her closeness to Berry, while Braeburn's story continued inside.

"The street was full o' shamblin' undead. They were the dry, rotten ones y'all have probably seen around these parts, an' so they didn't make much of a noise at all. But their victims made a whole load o' noise. Hollerin' really started a few minutes later when everypony worked out what was happenin'. Ponies tried reasonin' with them, thinkin' they were peaceful. Then the fightin' began, and then.. It was all over. Half the town ran for greener pastures, an' half were eaten up or turned feral. The town emptied in one day, and now I'm the only one left in this shithole." He covered his mouth with a hoof. "Sorry, Applebloom. This, uh.. Mudhole."
"It's a shithole all right." Applebloom muttered, in a bored drawl.

"So, Berry.. I've been getting close to you these last few.. No, that won't work." Lyra cursed herself, facehoofing and trying to think up another way to tell Berry. "Berry, I just wanted you to know that I feel like.. Oh, fuck that." She paced around on the balcony, trying to think up another one. As she turned back to pace the other way, Berry stepped onto the balcony. Lyra continued. "Oh, how the shit am I gonna use some big fancy words to just say, 'Berry Punch, I fucking love y-" She turned back, freezing up completely as her eyes locked onto Berry's. They stood there, motionless for approximately sixty seconds overall, before a slowly-growing noise became apparent in the distance. The sound of some kind of machine, and a large one at that. A rumbling engine emerged from the quiet, coupled with a whooshing of steam and the piping of little whistles. As the awkward staring stopped, the two turned to see a huge vehicle turning the corner into Appleoosa, slowing as it entered the town.
"Well lookee what we got here, brother of mine, it's the same in every.. Wait, where are the little sods?" Came a familiar voice, and the pair of sales-ponies hopped off the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. The Flim Flam Brothers had made an enterance. The large vehicle continued to chug quietly as the ponies looked around.
"Beats me.. This place looks like a deserted shithole. No bits here to plunder, and no fine flank to gander at.. What a shame." Flim spoke out into the night as Berry and Lyra watched from the balcony, shocked at the triviality of the situation.
"This is all your fault, you stupid shit! I told you we shouldn't have visited the simple folk! The ponies that live out here aren't like the ones in the rural towns. This lot are savage freaks, not worth the dust on my hooves."
"You're calling me stupid? It was your idea to roll in here at night! All the gullible pricks are probably asleep.. We can't sell low-quality tripe to unconscious ponies, can we? We may be good at winning ponies over, but I'm sure even we aren't that good." Flam argued back. Neither brothers noticed a group of shuffling, silent figures approaching from the shadows.
"Oh, will you shut your half-wit piehole before I shove a fresh bottle of low-quality tripe right up your-" This was all that Flim managed to say before one of the dusty, near-fleshless undead bit into his flank. He squealed, trying to shake it off as its cohorts joined in, digging their dry teeth into his flesh. Crimson spurts of fresh blood sprayed across the dusty ground as Flam watched in horror. Some of the liquid was splattered on his hooves and clothes, much to his dismay.
"Flim! Flim, I need to ask you something!" He yelped, as his brother was slowly eaten alive.
"What the fuck is it?! What could possibly be more important than saving me at a time like this?" Flim wheezed, the zombies tearing off one of his legs and digging into his liver.
"Can I have this year's profits if you die?" Flam asked, as Flim's tail was spat out by one of the undead, clearly not tasting very good. His brother stared blankly.
"What?!" Then he gasped in pain and continued. One of the zombies had begun to bite into his stomach. "Fine, yes, whatever! Just help me, dammit! Get them off me, for Celestia's sake!" Flam shuffled backward.
"How about if I just leave and have those profits? I mean, you'll be dead, so you won't mind.. Doesn't that sound like a mutually profitable agreement to you?" He gave his best, brightest smile.
"You mother fu-" Flim was cut short as his throat was ripped out by a zombie.
"I'll take that as a yes.. Now, I'm out of here.. Rich and gone!" Flam called joyously, climbing onto the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy. He didn't happen to have noticed the undead mare who had clambered onto the seat next to him. He took one good look at the blood-encrusted, blue-coated ghoul before she lunged at him and bit into his face. Falling off the vehicle with his eyes and teeth practically falling out of his half-eaten face, Flam toppled to the dusty floor. He met his end within a few moments, screaming for his mother as a slowly- shambling pack of undead descended onto him and did a splendid job of keeping him alive while disassembling him in a most gruesome and painful way.
"Well, that was.. Uh.." Berry muttered.
"Surreal." Lyra finished her sentence, staring down at the scene as the undead continued to feast on the dead Flim and the agonised, near-dead Flam. The pair watched for a few moments as the rotten zombies feasted on their prey. Lyra moved her hoof closer to Berry's and took it in hers, but Berry pulled away.
"Hey.. We'll have time for sentimental shit later.. This isn't the best time." She smirked, and Lyra returned it, blushing. "Now.. I've just had an amazing idea."

Leaping down off the balcony moments later and brandishing a rake and a pair of hammers respectively, Berry and Lyra landed a few yards away from the blood-pasted scene.
"Right.. I'll take those ones, and you take.. Those." Berry pointed out certain groups of undead, and Lyra agreed. Yelling and whooping like maniacs, the two dashed forward, swinging their weapons. Berry smacked the rake into the back of one zombie's head, the metal spikes punching holes in the flesh. After a few whacks, the ugly thing toppled to the ground in a shuddering mess. Lyra had more luck, standing on her hind legs and swinging the heavy hammers at her opponents. The blunt end of one cracked the skull of one zombie, while the hooked end of another managed to rip the throat out of another. Within ten minutes, the group of shuffling dead was officially defeated; bodies were strewn and broken on the floor, blackened blood was sprayed everywhere, and limbs were scattered at various intervals along the road.
"Well, I'd say we're good to go." Lyra smirked, and the pair hopped onto the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy, driving it into the yard behind Braeburn's safehouse and setting to work.
> Chapter Nine: Charge of the Zombie Fucker-Upper Brigade
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the dawn of the following morning, a loud and horrendous racket commenced. The rattling of an overdriven engine, the whooshing of steam and a terrible grinding noise sounded all at once.
"Are y'all sure this is a good idea? I mean, it looks a lil'.. Unstable." Braeburn stuttered. He, Applebloom, Lyra and Berry stood around the back of the house, watching the mechanical beast before them rumbling to life.
"A good idea?! It's a fucking amazing idea, that's what it is." Berry yelled, a grin split across her face.
"It's the sexiest machine I think I ever laid eyes on.." Lyra mumbled, blushing. All through the night, Berry and Lyra had repurposed the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy for more brutal work. metal plates and wooden planks had been nailed and bolted onto the exterior. Vicious-looking metallic spikes (taken from the many huge nails left over from track-laying in the yard near the station) had been welded into place. Barbed wire, provided by Lyra from somewhere unknown, had been coiled around the lower body of the vehicle. But the most prominent feature was a huge, spinning drill fitted onto the front of the machine. The enormous, barbed, conical drill bit spun slowly at present, but was gathering speed. The group watched for a moment more before Berry and Lyra climbed on-board with bottles of cider in hoof. Taking a swig of the drink, they slammed off the brake and set the steel beast in motion. As it rolled out onto the street, Applebloom read aloud the rechristened machine's name which had been spray-painted onto the back bumper.
"Zombie Fucker-Upper 6000.. Nice.." She smirked as it rolled off.

"So where are we going?!" Lyra yelled over the abominable noise of the engine. Berry replied in kind.
"Canterlot! If there's anyone who can fix this, it's Celestia!" Lyra looked puzzled.
"If she's so powerful, why hasn't she stopped this alrea- Oh, shit. Here comes the first one!" The machine rumbled steadily onward, directly into the path of an oncoming zombie. Berry had about 2.6 seconds to register that this member of the undead happened to be Moon-Dancer, though she wondered how her friend had gotten halfway to Appleoosa. However, all internal questions became irrelevant a mere second later, as the shambling once-pony made contact with the drill bit. It smashed into her abdomen, instantly ripping off three limbs and leaving only a bloodied, pulpy body with one functional leg. The zombie continued to writhe in confusion and agony as her head was jammed between two moving parts of the drill bit, crunching loudly and shattering bone shards and pasted brain matter all over the spinning metal instrument. Beneath the drill, the input tube to the cider-squeezing mechanism sucked the remaining mess inside the machine, effectively keeping the drill working. Somewhere inside the killer mechanism, there was a grinding, tearing, squelching noise as the carcass was quickly and efficiently ground into a liquefied mess. A barrel of Moon-Dancer cider dropped out of the machine's rear, smacking into the dusty ground and spraying a grisly crimson puddle across the floor as the machine continued to roll forward. "Fuck yeah.." Lyra uttered in awe.

Within the hour, the Zombie Fucker-Upper 6000 roved into Ponyville. It steam-rolled over the burnt, ashen train platform and outright smashed straight through the station building, tearing three zombies to bloody pieces and spraying blood all over the remains of the building. Finally, the huge Goliath of a machine rolled down Mane Street. The place was teeming with the undead - hordes upon hordes of shuffling, moaning cadavers seeking blood. Berry hoof-bumped Lyra, kicking the gear lever for the ZFU6000 up to a setting marked, 'TURBO'. The drill span faster as the veritable tank rolled steadily into the crowd of zombies. 
"Let's hope this big bastard can take the strain.." Berry muttered as the first trio of undead were smashed to bloody debris by the drill. Within a few minutes, the ZFU6000 had managed to carve its way through almost half of the zombies, and the huge spiralling spike of pointy, dangerous metal at the forefront of the machine was thick with dark, slowly drying blood and pasted organs. Lyra sat back, watching the unrelenting massacre as she sighed and took another drink of cider from her bottle. There was a lound clank and a bang from the engine, and the machine died.
"Oh.. Well, this is awkward." Lyra uttered. The ZFU6000 was broken down halfway through the crowd of zombies, who happened to still be advancing on the now-unmoving death machine. "What the fuck do we do now, then?"
"Well.. Um.." Berry sat back too, thinking. Around the vehicle, the undead closed in and began to shakily attempt to climb up the armour plating bolted to it. The first, a now-decomposing Rarity, shuffled carelessly and managed to drop down again, her skull impaled through the eye socket on one of the ZFU's exterior spikes. The pair of survivors could swear that Rarity uttered something along the lines of, "Oh dear." in some garbled, gore-choked voice at this point.
"I got it. Hold on." Lyra spoke, a twinkle in her eye. She dove off her seat, climbing over the top of the machine and toward the back. Uttering a prayer to Celestia, she stage-dived off the vehicle and into the path of a few oncoming zombies.
"Lyra, what the fuck are you-"
"I know what I'm doing!" Lyra called out, hopping to her feet and using all her strength to rip off the foreleg of a particularly rotten zombie. It pulled away from its socket with a sickening squelch, blackened blood pouring all over the floor as Lyra held it up and wielded it like a baseball bat. "Quick, Berry! Get down here and see what you can do with the engine! I'll distract 'em!" And with that, Lyra marched into the colossal crowd of shuffling, moaning cadavers, swinging the severed leg with the rage of a thousand taunted blank-flanks. True to the plan, the horde began to follow this murderous Pied Piper Pony, converging hungrily on her position. Berry threw herself down to the viscera-stained floor, dashing around to the engine and beginning to tinker with the mechanisms inside.

Halfway down the road, Lyra was fighting for her life. Standing on her hind legs like her beloved humans, the valiant dimwit was swinging the bloody leg as hard and fast as she could.
"You fucker.. Take that! Hey, bitch.. Wham! And she's down, ladies and gentlecolts!" She continued to ramble as she knocked off rotting heads and caved in abdomens, killing as many of the barely-living ghouls as possible. It was quite the miracle that she continued unabated for as long as she did. After a good ten minutes of smashing the dead to a pulp though, she grew tired. Her swings became uncoordinated, and she finally smashed the leg itself over the head of an empty-eyed and stinking - though still swanky - Fancy Pants. "Oh, sod you all, you miserable pricks.." She muttered, falling to her haunches and breathing deeply. The dead circled her, and were now ready to strike. The first one lurched forward, intent on taking a bite out of her face. But in a split second, there was an almighty screeching and wailing. The zombie which had been so close to eating the tired mare now fell back, impaled through the skull by..

A hummingbird.

A live hummingbird, as a matter of fact. A live hummingbird which quickly flapped its tiny wings and managed to dislodge itself from the now properly-dead cadaver. Looking up, Lyra stared into the face of her unexpected saviour. Fluttershy hovered above, eyes ablaze with rage as she stared at the undead with utter contempt. About her, the birds, flies, bees, wasps, and all manner of flying beast circled, now diving into the thinning crowd and picking off the zombies with terrifying efficiency. From somewhere in the distance, thunderous foot and pawsteps warned of the approach of the land troops; bears, otters, bunny rabbits and even squirrels. "Well, I'll be damned." Lyra smirked, watching a bear rip one zombie to pieces while a fox bit into another's abdomen.
"Um.. Hello." Fluttershy spoke to Lyra in a hushed tone, floating gracefully down to the  ground beside her. "I heard that big machine and all the noise.. And I thought, maybe.. You needed some help." A moment later, the familiar rumble of the Zombie Fucker-Upper started up again, and Lyra couldn't help but grin. Turning to Fluttershy, she winked.
"Now, 'Shy.. We're in business."
> Chapter Ten: The Battle for Canterlot Castle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun began to set as the Zombie Fucker-Upper powered slowly but surely along the empty railroad up to Canterlot, bumping loudly up and down as it rolled over the wooden boards along the metal track. The mechanical monstrosity was only about halfway up the hill when the complaining began.
"Are we there yet?" Lyra whined.
"Um.. The animals are getting bored, Miss Punch.." Fluttershy whispered, gently flapping her wings to keep aloft as she floated beside the moving vehicle. Behind the machine, the legions of fluffy, scaly, feathered soldiers were all worn-out and disgruntled, voicing their discomfort endlessly.
"Look, it's just a little longer 'till we get up this thing, and then we'll get to do something interesting.. Right?!" Berry called. Lyra shrugged and slumped back in her chair, while Fluttershy sighed softly.
"I suppose we can hold on just a little longer.." She murmured, turning to try and lift the animal army's spirits - with little success. Some even turned and ran back downhill toward Ponyville.
"Deserters! Cowards! Useless little pricks!" Lyra bellowed at the retreating animals. However, upon turning back to face the direction of the ZFU3000, she understood why some animals had run for the cleared-out town. Coming up ahead of them was the summit of the hill, and the Royal City of Canterlot. And scattered all about the city before them were hundreds upon hundreds of the undead. All seemed to have converged here for a chance at getting a bite of Princess Celestia's brain, among other reasons. It was all quite overwhelming. Lyra mused that, had this situation been a movie scene, it would have befitted one of those epic musical scores by someone like John Williams or Alan Silvestri. Eventually, the Zombie Fucker-Upper began rolling across the drawbridge into the Royal Castle itself, grinding up zombies as it went and leaving the beautifully clear water of the river running a murky red.
"Um.. Can we just turn around.. Please?" Fluttershy whispered, shaking as she dropped down onto the top of the machine and refused to even flap her wings. Berry glared at her, then turned to Lyra.
"We're going in.. Okay?" She said, reaching out and ramping up the machine to 'TURBO' again.
"One thing." Lyra murmured. "If we don't make it through this.. I fucking love you." Berry smirked.
"If we DO make it through this, I owe you one movie night and a hundred more dates after that." She replied. Lyra blushed and smiled, though her expression faded as the drill smacked into the first seven zombies within the city walls, mashing blood and gore everywhere. The Siege of Canterlot had begun.

The hordes of undead marched forward, unafraid, as the whirling metal bore of the drill smashed into them one after the other. Stormclouds brewed overhead as blood coated the quaint house-fronts and shop windows of the city. Guts piled in the gutters, brains unflatteringly adorned flower-baskets, and crimson-stained bones rattled across the pavements as the rain began to pour down from the sky and onto the bloody ground.
"This is so messy. I mean, honestly.." Lyra complained as the machine continued on its unrelenting trail toward the castle.
"Whatever." Berry grinned, sitting back and watching the mutilation and carnage unfold before her. Fluttershy remained quiet, covering her eyes and curling into a little ball in an attempt to blot out the horrific events of the outside world. The machine rumbled onward, entering the castle courtyard and slowing as the huge crowd of zombies loitering within began to turn and roam toward it. By now, the entireity of Canterlot was comically bloody, crimson splatters pasted over every whitewashed wall and clean window. Berry tensely watched as the zombies kept on coming. She suddenly realised that the killing machine had veered off to the side and was roving toward the castle's exterior walls themselves, and grabbed onto the brake lever.

It wouldn't budge. She tried harder, yanking the metal bar back as hard as she could.

It snapped off.

"Fucking useless piece of piss!" She bellowed, tossing the broken brake lever in a random direction. It smacked into a zombified Fleur-De-Lis, and her brain was splattered across the floor as she collapsed. Fluttershy squeaked, and soared off into the sky - she couldn't take the stress of it all, and she returned to her home on the edge of the Everfree Forest. Likewise, the army of cutesy animals gave a unified but ultimately incomprehensible 'Fuck this', and hightailed back through the city and into the wild. Lyra huffed at the deserters, but turned to Berry nonetheless.
"Wait.. How do we stop this thing?" Lyra asked.
"Hell if I know. The brakes aren't an option." Berry replied, as the mechanical monster rammed into the exterior wall and began burrowing through it. Lyra was about to try making an utterly silly and out-of-place joke when the machine suddenly rammed forward, breaking through the wall. She fell back off it, landing on the floor as the zombies continued to close in. Berry, on the other hand, had managed to stay in the machine - which was now rampaging through the castle wall and toppling over the edge of the mountain. In a last-ditch attempt at rescuing herself, Berry dove out of the driver's seat as the mechanical killer dropped down the steep cliffside below. As the metal plates, gears and wheels were all thrown out in a cataclysmic, fiery explosion, Berry seemed to hang in the air. The scene around her slowed down, and she could see each and every little piece of blood-stained technology flying over the wasteland that Equestria had become. It was oddly beautiful. Looking upward, she realised what was happening. A minty-turqouise hoof extended down to her, reaching for hers, and there she was.. Lyra. Covered in flecks of red, and exhausted-looking, but.. Absolutely amazing. This was probably the first moment in the entire of their adventure that she had taken a moment to admire her friend for her looks, rather than being unappreciative of her quirks. In a split-second, Berry reached out and grabbed hold of her hoof - and the world suddenly sped back into panic-stricken reality. Berry shuddered violently as Lyra yanked her back up over the edge, partially using her horn's telekinetic power to assist.
"Berry.. Berry, are you all-" Lyra did not get a chance to finish her concerned questioning when, despite the presence of hundreds upon hundreds of the undead closing in and next-to-no chance of escape, Berry pulled her into a long, drawn-out kiss. Lyra had just begun to relax when Berry broke it off, grabbing a smashed-up rock from the broken castle wall and hurling it at a zombie. The undead pony's head smashed into a fleshy mess.
"I'll finish that later." Berry smirked, giving Lyra a wink before picking up another projectile and lobbing it. Lyra, thinking of what could possibly happen to better a kiss like that, could only blush as she did the same and rejoined the fight.

Within a few minutes, the pair had battled their way up to the enterance of Canterlot Castle. Slamming the heavy doors shut and piling statues (and all manner of ornamental doohickeys) in front of them, they dashed into the castle beyond.
"Princess Celestia! Princess Celestia, are you there?!" Lyra called out, panic rising in her voice. "Princess!" The two galloped up toward the royal quaters through the many long halls of the palace. After much searching, the two Princesses were found in the tower atop the castle. And in those next few minutes, all was revealed - But the truth of the matter was much stranger than anyone could have imagined.
> Chapter Eleven: Living the Game
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You'll never win, sister." Princess Luna stated with a smirk, holding up a controller within her telekinetic field.
"Just you wait." Celestia muttered, her floating controller being bombarded with telekinetic button-pushes. The two sisters sat on comfortable sofas, playing some kind of videogame on a widescreen TV. Lyra and Berry stared at each other, then back at the TV screen. The game appeared to be of the Real-Time Strategy genre, and at this very second, two units on Celestia's team had made their way to the topmost tower of Canterlot Castle. Two instantly-recognisable units.
"I find it cute that the game designers put in a reference to us, dear sister. There we are, playing videogames in the tower. See?" Celestia pointed out that two non-playable units marked 'Celestia' and 'Luna' sat in the tower area playing videogames on a widescreen TV. Meanwhile, Berry and Lyra were still in utter confusion. The two units on-screen behind Celestia and Luna were undeniably familiar. They were identified as 'Berry' and 'Lyra'. Somehow, the pair were, in fact, characters in the videogame.
"If we're in the tower on that game, then.. Wait, is that game.. Holy shit, this is.." Lyra burst out. In that moment, Celestia and Luna turned to see the two visitors. Celestia looked taken aback, Luna less so.
"What are you doing here?" The sun-commanding Princess asked, glaring the pair in the eyes respectively.
"We, uh.. Came to get help?" Berry ventured. Luna smiled.
"Help with what, loyal subjects?" She asked the two. They were a little dumbfounded.
"Umm.. The huge fucki-.. I mean, the incredibly important zombie problem outside, your Highnesses." Berry replied. The two sisters looked at one another silently, and back at the visitors.
"What 'zombie problem'?" Celestia asked, stepping away from the videogame and setting down her controller. Lyra facehooved, and pointed out of the tower window. The two princesses dashed to the window, and stared out across the castle's courtyard, wide-eyed and mouths agape.

Meanwhile, Berry and Lyra were beginning to piece together the harsh but absurd reality of what was, and had been, going on for the past few days. The game was there on the screen, the same as the world outside. The pair of dumbstruck ponies fell back onto their haunches as they realised the oddity of what had somehow occurred here.
"Are we in the game?" Lyra asked, staring at the screen as hundreds of units marked 'Undead' shuffled around idly in the castle's courtyard, and the two 'Princess' units stood at the tower window.
"Or is the game just linked to the real world?" Berry offered, also staring into the screen exactly as Lyra was. "A bigger question is.. If life is the videogame, how do we get rid of the zombies?" The princesses still stood at the window, squabbling over the best way to approach the situation - despite the fact that they had spent the entire duration of the zombie apocalypse eating, drinking, relaxing and playing an RTS game which was inexplicably controlling events in the real world. Lyra stepped forward, grabbing a controller in her telekinetic field and fiddling around with it to work out the controls. The Lyra on-screen did the same, and this confused her even more. Maybe there was some other Lyra in another universe controlling these, and in effect being some kind of..

Naa, fuck that. That would be way too complicated to think about. Lyra wasn't a philosopher.

"Right.. Let me see.." Lyra murmured, hitting the 'MENU' button and scrolling through the options. There were changeable settings all over, most of them pointless. Sound settings, video-altering settings, difficulty settings (currently set to 'HARDCORE'), and.. A single button marked 'WORLD EDITOR'. Lyra stopped dead at the sight of this, and thought hard about the impending decision and it's consequences. She turned to Berry, a terrified look on her face. "Berry, what do I do? I don't know what to.. I can't.." Berry stared back.
"If you know how to fix all this, then do it, for Equestria's sake.. You beautiful fucker." Berry uttered, smirking. At that very moment, the entirety of Canterlot Castle shook. Brickwork dislodged from walls, and tiles fell from rooftops.
"Fuck me, what was that?!" Lyra yelped, torn away from the game for a moment.
"Oh.. Oh, no.." Celestia and Luna uttered. Below, in the courtyard, a certain zombie had run into the castle wall with all her might, like a cutesy but deadly battering ram. A yellow-coated, pink-maned zombie with usually wide and innocent eyes now continuously rammed headfirst into the castle wall with a rage that only few ponies knew she possessed.
"Not Fluttershy.. What kind of sadistic zombie would bite her?" Berry hissed, now standing at the window. The question was soon answered as she ran forward again, thick skull slamming into the castle wall. Attached to her neck by his slimy, blood-encrusted jaws, was Angel the bunny. "That little son of a bitch.." Berry muttered, as the castle shook again, the tower swaying dangerously. Lyra stared back at the screen, and pondered the decision once more. Pressing the 'WORLD EDITOR' button could be a big mistake, or the best decision, given the circumstances. But the decision was practically made for her, as the tower shook again - and teetered too far. The highest spire of the castle crumbled at its base, falling forward onto the courtyard. At the last possible moment, Lyra hit the 'WORLD EDITOR' button, and the world around her froze completely.

"Welcome to Editing Mode, Equestria Edition." A soft female voice echoed inside Lyra's head. She stared around, and soon realised that she could, quite horrifyingly, comprehend every single thing that existed in the entirety of Equestria. She could see the whole world inside her head, and somehow, she had the power to do as she pleased.
"Fucking hell." She uttered into the silent, unmoving world. Moving around the land was no problem, as she now had the power to simply appear in any place she wanted. It occurred to her that this might be considered cheating, but then she remembered that she now had the power to do almost anything, and so this worried thought became obsolete. And so, with that, Lyra set to work on rebuilding the land. In real-time, this feat would have taken at least a few years or so. But with the power to complete almost limitless tasks simultaneously, the clean-up operation took a mere few seconds for her. Once the world had been put right (buildings rebuilt, dead ponies respawned, undead ponies de-zombified and blood cleaned off of countless surfaces), The final tasks to be completed were at hoof. Lyra moved the 'Berry' unit across the land to Ponyville, placing her back in her own bed. She then reset the time settings for the world to morning. Looking out over her rebuilt Equestria, Lyra then pondered what to do with the inexplicable videogame system itself. She took it from the tower at Canterlot Castle, holding it in the air above the land as she scratched her head with a hoof. Finally, she decided what would be done, and placed it carefully down in the cupboard under the stairs in her own house. She would keep it safe, and let no-one get their hooves on it ever again. Appearing in Berry's house, Lyra trotted up to the sleeping mare, and kissed her on the forehead. It was an unusual feeling, after all that had come before this moment. A moment that wasn't full of blood, and guts, and dead friends and action. She climbed into bed alongside Berry, and without a word, saved and restarted the world around her.

Berry Punch awoke with a minor headache. She irritably shoved out a hoof, expecting to knock a few empty cider bottles to the side. The containers would usually topple off the end of the bed, clinking and smashing respectively as they hit the wooden floorboards, though there were none on her bed today. The night before had been a haze of blood, guts, zombies and complete absurdity. She turned to climb out of bed, and there was Lyra, blushing. The memories came flooding back.
"You know when we were fighting the zombies in Canterlot, and you um.. You promised you'd finish what you started?" Lyra murmured, shuffling closer. Outside, the world turned on its axis, and life went on, unhindered by the undead.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merely a few minute's trot away from Berry's house, Lyra's abode was silent. Bon-Bon slept fitfully upstairs, hung-over as ever. The sun filtered through the living room windows, reflecting off the screen of the TV and the plastic DVD cases which bore the name of 'My Little Human: Bureaucracy is Magic'. In the corner of the ceiling, a spider unassumingly span a web, not having any idea of what had occurred only hours before, and been undone by Lyra.

And in the cupboard under the stairs, amid piles of weird human-obsessed crap, lay the cold, dead videogame console. A small plastic box bearing only a tiny inscription across one side, in small, square letters.

'FaustCube'.