//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Welcome to the jungle. // Story: Left 4 Derpy // by Edmar Fecler //------------------------------// Left 4 Derpy Chapter 1: Welcome to the Jungle It had been a particularly long day of traveling around Ponyville. After she tucked her young filly to sleep, Ditzy Doo was ready for a good night’s sleep. The bed greeted her as she entered her bedroom. The sheets were fresh, the mattress was soft, and her pillow felt like a fluffy little cloud. It was love at first sight. Ditzy made her way over to the bed’s side. Too exhausted to even pull the sheets down, she lifted herself above the bed with a flap from her wings. She fell onto the cushiony mattress with a soft poomf, and fell asleep before you could say “muffins”. * * * Francis listened attentively for any possible sound in the night. The alley was totally devoid of any sound except him and his companion’s quiet footsteps. It was too quiet. For over a week now, Francis, Bill, Louis, and Zoey had been stranded in a city that was overrun with insane, flesh eating zombies that were spreading all over the nation. The four had been trying to find a military evac station and get the hell out of their current situation. Every time they had fought their way through zombie masses thicker than pea soup, and every time it was the same sight. The evac station had been swarmed by the hordes and had been abandoned. After the four’s disappointment of finding the last station demolished they had decided to just try and escape the city on foot. So far, the plan was working. But fighting through every horde of zombies between them and the city limits was beginning to take its toll on the group. They were exhausted and running low on ammo. Soon they would be fighting the zombie mass with tooth and nail. With this in mind, Francis was becoming steadily uneasy from the current silence. The chances that he and the others had successfully killed all the zombies in the city were very, very slim. Still, there had not been a zombie to see for the last five blocks of alley they had traveled through. Francis hiked his favorite shotgun on his shoulder. “Ya’ think we killed them all?” Bill turned his head to him with an irritated look on his face. Francis replied with a shrug. “What? I’m just saying.” “Damn-it Francis, keep your voice down.” Bill whispered. “Do you want them to start attacking us again?” “Sure beats being bored off my ass.” Francis remarked as he kicked an empty soda can. No sooner had the can finished rattling than the sound of a woman’s moaning could be heard. Zoey perked up at the soft sounding cries. “Someone’s still alive!” The moaning seemed to be coming from a door underneath a fire escape just ahead of them. Louis and Francis looked down the alley as Zoey and Bill approached it. Zoey clicked her pistol’s light on and opened the door. “Hello… ” she panned the light across the floor as she followed Bill inside. They could hear crying as they ventured farther into the room. Zoey slowly began to raise the light. “It’s ok, you’re safe now.” A scrawny figure began to come into view as the light continued upward. It sat on its knees, hunched over and swayed back and forth. It was wearing nothing but white panties and the bloodstained remains of a sleeveless shirt. Its skin was a sickly pale, and was even peeling in a place or two. Bill pushed Zoey’s pistol down, shrouding the sobbing figure in darkness once again. “Lights off!” Bill whispered. The two began to back steadily out of the room. Outside, the sound of running footsteps and the collective wail of several infected began to fill the alley. A horde of zombies emerged from the darkness. Francis immediately slung his shotgun down and began unloading shell after shell into the mass. Louis began to panic. “Oh shit. Shit! SHIT! They’re coming!” He ran to the open door and flooded the room with the light attached to his Uzi. The scrawny figure that was a witch turned to the brightness and let out a shrill scream. Zoey jumped up ran past Louis as fast as she could. “Run like hell!” Bill managed to get a few shots from his rifle away before he closed the door and began spraying the oncoming horde. Louis slammed himself against the door as the witch began beating it furiously. Almost immediately it burst a hole in the door. Louis jumped back and held his Uzi’s trigger down as a scraggly arm reached out and began flailing around wildly in hopes of injuring something. After Louis emptied an entire clip into the door, the arm went limp as its owner finally died. With the witch dead, he joined the others as they slaughtered the attacking zombies. “Stick together.” Francis’s gun clicked empty, and began to reload. Suddenly Bill was jerked back by a long slimy tongue wrapped around his torso. The smoker had dropped down on the fire escape behind them while they were otherwise occupied with the Horde. Francis turned around and slid the final shell into the gun. “Hang on!” The smoker exploded into a cloud of green toxic gas as Francis killed it. Bill fell to the ground and grabbed his rifle back, using it as a support to stand back up. Francis lifted his shotgun up with one hand to a nearing zombie and blew its head clean off with a single shot. “Merry Christmas, Bill.” Bill finished standing up and stretched his back. “Yea, yea.” As Bill was recovering, Zoey pulled out a pipe bomb and activated the beeping timer attached to it. “Fire in the hole!” Using what strength she still had, she tossed the bomb down the alley into the horde. Beep The sound sent a sharp pain through the zombies’ heads. Beep The zombies began swarming towards the high pitched sound. Beep They began stomping and beating at the sound in hopes of making it stop. Boom The bomb explodes, killing the remaining zombies in the alley. Blood and guts flew hither and yonder as a hand harmlessly bounced off Francis’s chest. All was quiet once again as the four survivors looked down the alley at their gory handiwork. Zoey holstered her pistol and turned to Francis. “Still think that’s better than being bored off your ass?” Francis huffed. “You’re damn straight it is. By the way, have I ever told you that you throw like a girl?” Louis gave a quick chuckle from beside Bill. Zoey crossed her arms and sneered at the gruff biker. “Well in case you haven’t noticed, Francis, I am a girl.” “So you admit it.” Zoey just rolled her eyes. She had grown used to his constant sarcasm. It was then that Louis noticed the depiction of a white house with a plus sign inside it that was painted beneath the fire escape. “Hey, there must be a safe house up there.” Francis pretended to curtsy to Zoey “By all means, ladies first.” “You’re too kind.” She replied flatly as she began to climb up the ladder. The fire escape’s metal frame creaked under the new weight, but it was sturdy. It only took Zoey a moment to reach the first landing. “Hey Bill,” she called down, “I found your friend.” With a thrust from her leg, the deceased smoker rolled off the platform and landed in front of Bill with an earthy thud. “Just thought you would wanna’ pay your respects.” Francis chuckled silently to himself as he began up the ladder. “Yea, he really seemed to like you Bill.” “Put a sock in it Francis.” “Whatever you say old man.” Zoey continued climbing up the escape as Louis began climbing up the ladder after Francis. By the time Bill began to make his way up the ladder Zoey had already reached the top. It wasn’t long before all four of them were on top of the roof of the three story apartment building. There was a table pushed up against the side of the adjacent building with a light shining down on it. There were some med-kits, ammunition, and even a bottle of pain pills. “Pills here!” Louis stated as he strode over to the table and stuffed the bottle into his pocket. “Better grab everything I can.” The others walked over to the table beside Louis and began strapping on the first aid kits and reloading their weapons. - Ditzy Doo rolled over onto her back and stretched her legs up into the air. Was it morning already? She still felt too tired to open her eyes, but she managed to sit up. No, it couldn’t be morning. Maybe it was her bed? She bounced up and down a couple of times. She could feel lumps of stuffing tumbling in the mattress beneath her. Yep, definitely the bed. “Strange,” Ditzy thought to herself, “I could have sworn that I bought fresh cloud stuffing just last week…” She stretched her forelegs again and rubbed the last traces of sleep from her eyes. Yea, it wasn’t anywhere near morning yet. Her room was far too dark for her to make anything out, but she still knew where everything was supposed to be. “May as well get a drink of water while I’m up.” With another flap from her exhausted wings, she managed to push herself forward off the bed and planted all four hooves on the floor. A slight wave of dizziness rushed through her head as she adjusted to the sudden change. As her eyes began to synchronize with the dark she noticed a light beaming in through her bedroom door, which was cracked inwards just a bit. She seemed to remember putting out the lamp in the hallway before she went to bed, and closing the door for that matter. She heard a sudden and somewhat sickening crack from the other side of a door as a shadow began to block the beams of light creeping around the door. “I know for a fact that I put Dinky to bed, why would she still be up?” She groggily began walking towards the door. She could hear what seemed so be a wet squishing sound as she came nearer, and she slowed down to listen to the noise. Another crack, louder than before, made Ditzy jump a bit, but she continued moving forward. She could hear sort of a crunching noise now as she pressed her ear to the door. It sounded like something hard and crunchy was being chewed. “Now why would she be eating at this time of night, and in the hallway of all places?” At that moment she felt something begin to puddle around one of her hooves as it crept underneath the door. In the light from the cracks, she could just barely make out that it was red. “Tomato sauce? just what is Dinky eating?” She placed a hoof on the side of the door and slowly pulled it open. She was met with a horribly grizzly sight as the door opened farther. The light in hallway lit two figures that she had never seen before. One seemed to be squatting on two legs over the other figure, which was slouched against the wall. The one in the squat was wearing a deep blue hoodie, and appeared to be digging its arms into the other figure’s chest. Ditzy froze in utter shock at the sight she was witnessing. She looked to floor to see a large puddle of the red liquid surrounding the two on the ground, and even smeared across the walls. That liquid was not tomato sauce, and that figure was most definitely NOT Dinky! As if the squatting creature knew it was being watched, it pulled its clawed hands from the other figure’s chest and turned to the little pony. A slab of raw meat dangled from its mouth, and its red eyes glowed with rage at the living being in front of it. The two stared at each other for a quick second before the hunter swallowed the chunk of meat with a gulp. The hunter's goals burned a hole in its head, as it began to growl menacingly and readied itself to pounce. The victim still stood there, staring at it with its loopy eyes and horrified expression. An easy kill. It leapt forward, letting forth an incredibly loud shout. The victim shrieked even louder than the creature did, and slammed the door in its face. The hunter, unable to stop mid-leap, slammed headlong into the door with a loud thwack that left it stunned for a second. A second shriek from behind the door only fueled its now boiling rage as it began to slam itself into the door. - Louis looked up from the table that the others were standing around. “Hey, I think I heard a hunter.” The others looked up as well. Zoey pulled out her pistol and cocked it back with a click. “Yea, and was that someone screaming as well?” The four listened intently for a moment before another shriek of terror echoed up from the building. Francis grabbed an adrenaline shot from the table and jabbed it into his arm, sending a surge of energy through his body. Now fueled by his new-found energy, Francis whipped out his shotgun and bolted for the stairs that led down into the apartments. He kicked the door in with a single slam and it fell down the stairs into a common infected, crushing the zombie. “Well what are you pansies waiting for? Let’s kill these bastards!” He rushed down the stairs out of sight, and immediately several blasts from his shotgun sounded off. Not knowing exactly how to react to their comrade’s sudden energy rush, the other three followed Francis down the stairs into the building in an attempt to keep up. Francis ran through room after room blasting holes in every zombie if front of him until his gun clicked empty. He was about to reload when another scream, reached his ears, followed by the menacing howl of a hunter. No time for reloading. Not seeing any more zombies, he slung his shotgun back across his shoulder and pulled out his bloody, and slightly battered, wooden baseball bat. He ran around a corner and saw the hunter trying to bash a door in. The hunter was barely able to look around before a hard and very painful object smacked into his cranium, sending him flying down the hall. He could hear his attacker shout a triumphant “Home Run!” The rage in his mind exploded, and he leapt at the survivor in a flash. WHACK! His victim dodged to the right and planted an even harder blow than before into the back of the hunter’s head. With the added momentum, he got a mouthful of plaster as his head bashed a hole in the wall. “Is that all you got? Come on, come at me!” the survivor taunted him. Pulling his head from the wall and spitting out the plaster, he turned back to his attacker. The hunter was furious but not stupid, surprisingly. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the human at the moment. Instead of looking at the survivor, the hunter looked past him to a window at the end of the hall. He had one chance. Francis was enjoying the beat down he was bringing upon the hunter. His adrenaline was surging and he had not even gotten scratched yet. The special infected crouched down, preparing to jump for a third time. Francis raised his bat behind him like an actual player would, and stared at the hunter. “Batter up.” The hunter sprang forward into the air with its traditional attack-shout and flew straight at Francis. He swung his bat, but the hunter wasn’t where he had been last two times. The infected flew cleanly over his bat and smashed through the window behind him. Without dispersing its momentum on the intended target, the bat continued forward into the wall and bashed in another hole. Francis pulled his bat from the plaster and looked out the window. “Chicken-shit, coward!” The hunter, now safe from the survivor, leaped from wall to wall until he landed in the alley with a thud. He looked around to see if there were any other humans, but all he saw were the remains of his zombie brethren. Even the witch, who was the second toughest special infected, had been killed. No doubt these zombies were killed by the same survivors that had nearly killed him. The hunter growled angrily to himself. “This is not over…” Bill stumbled around the corner, panting for air. Trying to keep up with Francis as he blasted his way through an entire floor of zombies had proven quite strenuous for the old Vietnam veteran. “Francis… ugh, what the hell were you thinking?!” “I was thinking that I wanted kill those damn vampires. You guys can get friendly with the survivors all you want; I’ll stay out here and watch for something else to kill.” He said matter-of-factly before shattering the bedroom’s weakened door with another one of his kicks. Louis and Zoey finally caught up and leaned against the wall to catch their breaths. Bill walked inside the bedroom and flipped the light switch on. He found that it was a lot more clean and colorful than the rest of the building, aside from the bits and pieces of door that were scattered across the floor. The bed was in the back corner, and its sheets were hanging off in the floor and underneath it. He could hear someone whimpering softly underneath the bed, and figured it was most likely the person that they had heard scream. Having caught their breaths, Louis and Zoey joined bill in the room. “So where’s the survivor?” Louis asked as he gave the room a quick once-over. Bill pointed towards the crying. “Hiding under the bed. By the sound of it, he’s probably just a kid.” “Damn. So what do you propose we do now? We can’t exactly bring a little kid along with us into the biggest shit-hole this side of hell.” “Well it’s not like we can leave him here either Louis. I know it’s not safe out there, but I’ll be damned if I leave a kid behind to be eaten alive by one of those bastards!” Zoey stepped in front of Bill after the outburst. “Take it easy! You’re probably scaring him even worse. Besides, we have to get him out from under there before anything else.” There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out for some time. Bill looked to the bed, then to Louis. Louis looked him back in the eye before turning to Zoey. Zoey just rolled her eyes and got down on all fours to try and see under the bed. The sobbing lessened and turned into a fast, panicked breathing “Hey, take it easy,” Zoey began as she spotted something curled back up into the corner of the wall. It was too dark to see what exactly it was. “It’s alright now. We won’t hurt you.” Zoey thought she could see it raise its head a bit, and it spoke in a frightened female voice. “I-it looked… like y-you. It… It was… e-eating him…” Zoey outstretched a hand and held it out under the bed. “We won’t hurt you, I promise.” Its breathing went down a bit, and it seemed like it raised its head a bit more. Zoey slowly tried reaching under the bed further towards it, but it suddenly kicked at her hand and pushed itself further into the corner. “N-no! You won’t eat me! NO!!” Francis, who had actually been watching the entire time, groaned. “We don’t have time for this.” he stated gruffly as he stormed over to the bed. He grabbed Zoey’s leg and pulled her back from the bed. “You’re taking too long, now it’s my turn to negotiate.” He got down on his belly and reached underneath the bed like Zoey had done, but he didn’t take the time to be gentle. He dodged the kicks directed at his hands and grabbed what he thought was a ponytail. “Gotchya’.” He said triumphantly as be began dragging the figure out from its hiding spot. With all of the writhing and squirming to try and escape its captor, it accidentally kicked a cloud of dust into Francis’s eyes. “Gah, damnit you little-” he began as he used his free hand to rub his eyes to try and regain some sight. His grip tightened in contempt as he dragged the figure the rest of the rest of the way out from under the bed. There was a sudden poomf and what sounded like flapping. Francis still couldn’t see, but he held his grip steady and flailed his open arm around looking for the figure’s torso. Once he found it, he wrapped his arm around the flailing body and held it in a death lock. He didn’t know what it was, but something soft began flapping against his face while he held it in his arm. This only made his eyes hurt worse. “Take it easy kid! Damn, we’re only trying to hel- OW!!” Francis shouted as he felt it bite into his arm. “You little prick!” he continued as he shook the pair of jaws off. His eyes began to water, which helped ease the pain considerably. “Come on guys, gimme a hand!” he shouted out to the other three, but there was no response. At last the thing in his arms began to stop fighting his hold and eventually passed out from exhaustion. He let go of its torso and finished wiping the crud from his eyes. “Yea, thanks for the help there you guys.” “…Guys?” Still nothing. All three of them just stared beside him at what he had just let go. Then he too looked over at what he was still hanging on to by the ponytail. To Francis’s surprise, it wasn’t a ponytail at all. Instead, it was the actual tail to a small, grey pony with a stream of bubbles on its flank. What surprised him the most was the set of wings attached to its back. He could see its chest moving as it breathed deeply in unconsciousness. “…The hell is this?!”