//------------------------------// // Hello, Friends // Story: When he Comes Knocking // by Waxworks //------------------------------// Pinkie Pie’s dreams were filled with cotton candy, swirled sugar, and lemon icing. Lollipops and cupcakes danced next to each other as she watched, laughing from the side. They got into a line and pranced around her, singing happy songs about how they were going to get eaten and it would be the best thing ever in their lives if they could be. They laughed and cheered when Pinkie picked one up and stuffed it in her mouth, then began to chew. Chewing took a really long time. The cupcake tasted like nothing and refused to break into pieces. It stayed as one chunk, tough and resilient, until she heard a knocking sound and woke up to find herself gnawing on her pillow. She spat it out. “Pah! Ain’t that always the way.” The wet spot on her pillow was stained, indicating this was not the first time she had done this, and probably would not be the last. She flopped onto her back, giggling about the fact that she did this regularly. “I’m gonna end up eating a chunk out of it someday.” A knock came again. It started once on the door to her room, then knocked on the closet, then sounded from under her bed. She lifted her head, looking around the room in the darkness. “Hello? Pumpkin Cake? Did you get out again? You know auntie Pinkie can’t play with you in the middle of the night every night.” The knocking came again, rhythmic this time. It tapped once on her door, thrice on her closet, then paused a second before knocking twice on her bed. After a moment’s silence it did it again. “Pumpkin Cake, we can’t do this. You gotta get back to bed.” Pinkie tilted her head and flared her ears, trying to decide where the foal had hidden herself. If she was knocking at the different furniture she was using her magic, which meant she probably wasn’t in any of the places she’d knocked on. Pinkie was just about to jump off the bed and start searching when she heard a deep, gravelly voice. “The most scared that you’ve ever been, you’ll know the name of Mr. Mean,” the voice croaked out. It laughed afterward, echoing in her tiny room. “Uh… hello?” she asked. “Hello, Pinkie Pie,” came the grating response. A quiet rasping sound came from the closet, like somepony was dragging something metal across wood. The door, she noticed, was cracked slightly open. She couldn’t see anything within, but there was sound. “Who are you and what are you doing in my closet?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I already told you.” A clinking noise, like metal hitting metal, came from the closet. Pinkie thought she could see something, but it disappeared, traveling under the floorboards to her bed, where it slid underneath. “Mr. Mean?” “Of course.” The sound of metal scraping against metal came from under the bed, like somepony was sharpening something. “And… what are you doing in my room?” Pinkie was standing on her bed now, swinging around to check both sides, waiting for the pony under her bed to come out. “I came to check, I came to see, just who these friends are going to be. And when I’m done, when I’m set free, I’ll do just what is best for me.” “What… does that mean? Friends of whom, and what is best for you? You’re a strange, scary pony.” “Have you come down? Have you seen me? Been summoned by your friend, have we. Now in this town I’ve come to be, but at the end we’ll see… we’ll see…” “Summoned? A friend? Which friend?” Pinkie was getting worried now. This creature was living under her bed, and from the sound of all that metal he wasn’t a very nice pony. Ponies didn’t usually hide under other ponies’ beds and make scary poems and other noises. “That’s my secret. Will you come down, or will you stay up there?’ “I’ll stay up here, I think.” “Very well.” Pinkie’s bed rattled and shook. She splayed out her hooves to keep her balance, but she yelped in surprise. “Stop that!” she shouted. “What do you want?” Mr. Mean didn’t respond. The bed juddered to the side, bouncing along the floor. It banged into the wall and knocked down several pictures. Their glass shattered as they hit, and Pinkie screamed. “Stop it! Help! Somepony!” Mocking, gravelly laughter came from under the bed. A hoof crept out from underneath the bed and reached up the side. Pinkie could see it had a wicked-looking horseshoe on it, with sharpened ends that jutted off the back and ended in points. It hooked into the bedding and pulled. Pinkie’s blankets slid slowly off the bed, taking her with it. She tried to adjust, but the shaking of the bed and the moving bedding made it hard to stay upright. She fell onto her side, screaming. “Help! Mr. Cake! Mrs. Cake! Help!” The shaking got worse, and with a sudden yank, her blankets and sheets all came off the bed. Pinkie slid with them falling off the side of the bed with a scream. As she fell, the door opened and light spilled in. There was a hiss, and the sound of tinkling metal sped away to the closet, then faded into the distance. “The most scared that you’ve ever been, you’ll know the name of Mr. Mean!” Fluttershy was sleeping soundly. Angel lay next to her in the bed, halfway covered by the blankets and snoring, though not quite loud enough to wake Fluttershy. It was he who woke up to the knocking at the door instead of Fluttershy, who slept through it heavily. He blinked a moment, but when the sound didn’t come again immediately he lay back down. His eyelids fluttered, but just as he was about to fall asleep, the knocking came again, louder, this time from the closet across from the bed. Fluttershy flung himself upright and his ears shot up straight. He stared at the closet. It was partially open. He was instantly on high alert. He knew that was wrong. He was very particular about a lot of things, and closing the closet door was one of them. It was always closed at night, because he hated it being open for this exact reason; somepony was here. Fluttershy slowly sat up, woken by the feeling of Angel hopping about on the bed. She pulled her mane out of her eyes and threw it over her withers. “Angel? What’s wrong?” Angel pointed to the closet. Fluttershy blinked to clear the sleep from her eyes and saw the same thing he did. She was instantly awake, pulling the covers up to her chin. “O-oh. Um… h-hello?” “The most scared that you’ve ever been, you’ll know the name of Mr. Mean,” said a deep, gravelly voice. It came from the closet, and Fluttershy could swear she saw something moving inside it. “O-oh, well, uh… p-please go a-away? I’m t-trying to sl-sl-sleeeeep?” Angel jumped in front of her and punched the air. “I’ve been let loose, I’m been set free, don’t you want to play with me?” “Oh, uh, no, thank you. Not right now. Maybe in daylight? When you’re not… hidinginmycloset?” She pulled the blankets up over her nose. The sound of scraping metal came from the closet, and something appeared inside. It sparkled in the dim light coming from the open window beside her. The thing, whatever it was, shifted and warped. It rose from the bottom of the cracked closet door to the top, spinning and curling as it went. The sparkling objects spun in a clockwise direction, and as Fluttershy watched, in the brief moments when it stopped moving, she could see they were small, stubby nails, sharpened and polished. Fluttershy pulled the blanket up over her eyes, but she felt Angel go closer to the end of the bed. He slapped one paw into the other. The nails disappeared from the closet and a single, glittering eye appeared. It was black, only seen by the unnatural darkness inside it compared to the natural closet darkness. It blinked at Angel, then there was a knock at the closet door. It knocked twice, and the knocking then shifted to under Fluttershy’s bed. “Oh! Help!” Fluttershy cried out. She pulled the blankets all the way up and over her head. Angel jumped off the bed, then, intent on protecting Fluttershy. When she felt his weight leave the bed, she yanked the covers off with a cry. “Angel, no!” The bed shook and bounced, and Fluttershy splayed out her legs to catch herself while she screamed. Angel dove underneath, and the movement stopped. “Angel?” There was silence for a moment, then a horrible shrieking sound, like nails on a chalkboard came from under the bed. Angel was ejected at full force across the room. He slammed into the wall and fell to the ground. “You’re not my target, you’ve no soul! It’s ponies I wish to devour whole!” Angel pulled himself back to his paws and grabbed a brush from the nightstand, then dove right back underneath the bed. The shrieking nails sound was louder this time, and Fluttershy’s bed shook. It shuddered once, twice, three times. Then rattled ominously. A black cloud began seeping from underneath the bed, and Fluttershy screamed. She looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon or some sort of defense, and she saw the lamp on her bedside table. She reached out for the lamp, but the juddering bed kept knocking her over. Some of the black cloud touched her and she recoiled in pain. “Ow!” She took a look at her hoof and saw a scratch across her skin, like she had been scraped with a nail. Still, she reached out and grabbed the lamp, then flicked it on. The dark clouds disappeared all at once. Angel came flying out from under the bed and slammed into the wall again. The ominous knocking sound came from underneath the bed again, then the sound of screeching metal went from under the bed, to the closet, and slowly faded away. “You’ll know my name, it’s clear and clean! You’ll know the name of Mr. Mean!” When Fluttershy felt it was safe, she hovered off the bed and over to the Angel. She picked him up and looked him over for injuries. Surprisingly, he was fine. He looked bruised, but that seemed to have come from being tossed into the wall. The hairbrush he had grabbed, however, was destroyed torn apart and scratched to pieces by whatever Angel had been fighting. Fluttershy picked him up and went around the house, turning on all the lights. Rarity had her sleeping mask on and was snugly tucked into her bed when she heard a knocking at her door. Knock. Knock. Rarity sighed from her bed. She waved a hoof. “Sweetie, dear, what is it?” When no response came, she repeated herself. “Sweetie, dear, please. It’s late. What is it?” The knock came again, then moved closer somehow. Knock. Knock. Rarity sighed, louder this time. “Sweetie, darling. Come now, it’s late and I need my beauty sleep. What do you need?” The knocking went from her closet, to under her bed. Knock. Knock. THUMP. THUMP. Rarity’s bed shook with each knock. Rarity shot up in bed and tore off her mask. “Good heavens, what on Equestria is happening?” A deep, gravelly voice came from under her bed. “The most scared that you’ve ever been, you’ll know the name of Mr. Mean!” At that point, Rarity remembered Sweetie was over at Applebloom’s house at a sleepover. “Mr. What? Who? Who are you and what are you doing under my bed?” “Just come to look, my dear mare. To look.” The sound of scraping metal came from under her bed. Rarity stood up and lit her horn. Light bathed the room. An angry hiss came from under the bed. “The light, yes, the light is fine. I’ll see you better, and make you mine.” “Yours, hmmm? Nothing about me belongs to anypony but myself. Who are you to come in here, sneak under my bed, and try to scare me? Out with you!” Rarity poured more magic into the light from her horn. The hissing from under her bed got louder. She leaned over the edge of her bed to focus the light underneath. “Sounds like you don’t like this all that much, do you?” “For… Mr. Mean… the light’s enough… but… Mr. Mean has… become more tough!” A hoof with a wickedly-sharp shoe on it flung out from underneath the bed. Rarity yelped and stumbled backward. The pointed ends of the shoe caught on her bedding and yanked, causing her to fall on her side. “What in Celestia’s name is going on? What are you?” Rarity blasted the hoof with magic. It recoiled, tearing a hole in her sheets and disappearing under the bed. Rarity flicked on the lights, and there was a long, low hiss from under the bed. Knock. Knock! It came from under the bed, then it moved from under the bed to her closet. Knock. Knock! The closet shifted open a crack and an eye appeared in it. It glared out at her, staring her down on the bed. The black orb stared at her, pupil slowly narrowing as the angry hissing sound issued forth. It stared, shaking in place while Rarity held her light steady. She slowly pulled herself back up, looking back at it. Rarity’s eyes narrowed at the closet. “Who are you? What are you?” “You know my name. It’s clear and clean. You know the name of Mr. Mean.” “Mr. Mean, is it? Well you obviously know me or you wouldn’t have come, but I’ll have you know, I won’t let you invade my house!” Rarity fired a beam at the closet, and the eye disappeared. The sound of scraping metal came from inside the closet as something moved around. The closet door shuddered as a body banged against it, and then; silence. Rarity listened as carefully as she could. Her ears rotated around, but there was no knocking. As she waited, she could hear a clicking sound. Click. Click. Click. “The light is burning, burning bright, but Mr. Mean has got all night. Although it hurts, although it might. Mr. Mean will watch that light.” Something glittered in the closet doorway. Glistening lips appeared in the crack, turned sideways. The lips split into a terrible grin, filled with shiny, shimmering teeth. Something was strange about them, and as Rarity looked, she saw they were nails. Short, stubby nails filed into dangerous points. Rarity looked at the door to her room, right next to the closet. She’s have to pass within reach of the door to leave the room. She looked at the window, just next to her. It was closed, and on the second floor of the boutique, but if she jumped, the thing couldn’t reach her. “You’re not a pony at all, are you, Mr. Mean?” “Where once was pony, now is not. Mr. Mean is all you’ve got.” His eye appeared in the door of the closet. He gnashed his nail-teeth, scraping them against each other, making that horrid screech of metal on metal. “So… you were once a pony?” “I talk of such things with you not, Miss Rarity. Your friends drove me out, but you shan’t do the same. I’ll get used to the light.” He stuck a hoof out of the closet. The fur was black as night, with strange, smoky fetlocks spilling out of a star-speckled inky fabric. The shoes at the bottom was silvery, sharpened, with hooks at the end. The same hooks that had caught on her bedding and torn it. Rarity gasped at the sight. She turned to the window and slid it open. When he saw what she was doing, the closet doors banged open and darkness surged out with a roar! Rarity jumped.