To Rarity—
Saying goodbye is hard through a mouthful of tears, not all of them mine.
The gloomy mists continued to pervade Ponyville, shrouding the entire place in an eternal dusk. Many of the buildings were still intact, but some had fallen to decay and ruin. This was due to most ponies being too busy getting chased by zombies for them to bother with refurbishing the houses and shops that comprised of Ponyville.
In the husk of what was once a sofa and quill store, three ponies sat around a fire. A black, agile looking pegasus; a brown, twitchy earth pony; and a blue unicorn. The first two were male, and the remaining one was a female. They were all unwashed, battered, and tired from the day.
“Didn’t this used to be your place, Davenport?” asked the pegasus.
The brown stallion dropped a plank on the fire. “Yeah, it was. Figured I might as well set up camp here with you two since it was a place I knew.”
“Well, thanks for letting us camp with you here,” the unicorn told Davenport, thankful. “So you and Thunderlane were trying to reach Canterlot before you found me?”
“Yeah,” Thunderlane said, with a tone of resentment. “But they blocked off the train tracks up the mountain, and I think they’ve got some sort of force field anyway. Plus, even if I just flew up there, I would have had to leave Davenport behind.”
Davenport smiled. “Hey, I wouldn’t leave you behind anywhere either.”
The unicorn smiled. “You seem like you two would do a lot for each other.”
“Yeah,” Thunderlane said, looking at his friend. “We weren’t really friends before this whole thing, but since then we’ve really looked out for each other.”
Davenport laughed. “Yeah, we’ve become fast friends. Say, didn’t think I caught your name,” he said, turning to the unicorn.
“Oh, it’s Colgate. I was the dentist,” she told them. “I used to live with Time Turner, did you know him?”
Thunderlane shook his head, but Davenport said “Yeah, I think I did know him. He came into my shop quite a bit. He was a good stallion.”
Colgate looked somewhat sorrowful. “Yeah... yeah, he was.”
“Did the sickness get him?” Davenport asked sympathetically.
“No, somepony set fire to our house right after everything started falling apart,” Colgate said. “Right after that other shop was lit on fire. And, well, he didn’t... he didn’t make it out.”
Thunderlane and Davenport exchanged glances, then scooted closer to Colgate. The stallions beckoned for a hug, and the unicorn gave them a suspicious look. “Come on, it’ll make you feel better,” Thunderlane said, smiling. Colgate shrugged, and was pulled into a hug by the two stallions. They were right, it did make her feel better, and warmer than the fire ever could make her feel.
“So, where did you guys go once everything started falling apart?” Colgate asked as Thunderlane snuggled his head into the crook of her neck.
Davenport cleared his throat and answered. “Well, we met at the train station after the last train left, and together we left for Canterlot. As we said before, it was already blocked off from anypony entering, so we headed back down here and hid out in a deserted house until we found you while out gathering food. Time we got back... well, you saw how it collapsed in on itself. So, we came here.”
Colgate giggled a sort of half. “Glad you did, I was still glad I hadn’t been attacked...”
The two stallions looked at each other, still embracing Colgate. “Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time,” Thunderlane said with a sigh.
Davenport nodded. “Yup, figured it would take just as long. Now that she’s onto us...”
Colgate had an expression of utter confusion on her features. “Figured you out? What are you two talking about?”
Thunderlane chortled horsely. “Oh, come on. No use in lying to us now, we know that you know.”
“Know wh—MMMF!” Colgate started to say, but was soon cut off by Thunderlane pulling her into a kiss. He forced his tongue into her mouth roughly, running his hooves across her back while Davenport nipped at her neck.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked, pulling away from Thunderlane for a moment before Davenport jumped in for a kiss.
“Well, we knew you figured about about our little operation, so we’ve got to take care of you now,” Thunderlane explained, rubbing his hooves down further.
“What operation?” Colgate stammered as the vile stallions continued to work her over. Davenport took a lick across the side of her cheek, and she blushed. This was not something she felt comfortable with happening...
Thunderlane smiled. “Why, we take mares into our... ‘custody’ and, how shall we say, we ‘deal’ with them.”
Thunderlane shoved Colgate to the the floor of the ruined shop, and held her upper left leg down while forcing her head to the ground with his hoof pressed firmly on her horn. Colgate, while a unicorn, wasn’t very good with magic other than to levitate things, but the stallions didn’t know that. They assumed that she could attack back with magic like the other two unicorns they had dealt with.
Davenport held down the thrashing unicorn by sitting on her legs, and essentially lying down over her so he could hold her down completely. Thunderlane leaned down to her ear, and whispered. “We’re going to take turns, raping you, and then we’ll beat your brains out with a plank of wood, just like we did the others.”
Colgate’s heart nearly stopped. She was so terrified, that the stallions needn’t have held her down for her to be immobile. So it was a miracle when the unicorn heard the growling of the monsters that she had come to deal with.
“What the hell is that?” Thunderlane asked. Davenport shook his head, paused in his act of defiling. The growling grew louder, and there was a crash as a group of around six rotting corpses of varying ages stumbled into the remains of the building. The group was lead by a purple maned, surprisingly clean mare zombie. She walked with more grace than expected; where as the other corpses were mostly slow and stumbling, she as somewhat quick, galloping and moving fluidly where the others failed.
“Wait, are those zombies?” Davenport asked, his tone a mixture of horror and amazement.
“Y-you didn’t know that the dead were walking around?” Colgate asked in surprise. Both Thunderlane and Davenport shook their heads. Colgate just stared at the would-be rapists is awe. The zombies, however, had little time for this.
The corpses advanced on the three quickly, showing their bloodstained and rotting teeth. The two stallions tried to roll off of Colgate and scramble away, but the white zombie was far too fast. Her mouth clamped on Thunderlane’s left wing just as fast as the pegasus flared them open in an attempt to fly away. He screamed in agony as the former pony yanked him towards her, the bone snapping. He fell on his back, looking up the white zombie’s frontside. The undead mare lifted a hoof, and before Thunderlane could even scream, was silenced forever with a skull-splitting crack.
Davenport faired no better. He had tried to escape by running towards the lowest part of the crumbled wall, but the other five zombies had cornered him. Screaming one last time before they defended on him, he was made short work of.
Colgate lay trembling on the floor, and found to her dismay that she had wet herself. None of the zombies seemed to be going after her, however. Perhaps they were occupied with the others? Now was her chance to get away while they were distracted.
The purple-maned zombie looked at her bloodstained hoof, and held it out. From the group of zombies chowing down on Davenport came a small little filly zombie with a purple mane and a soft raspberry coat, happily running over to the lead zombie. She began to clean the blood from the hoof of the mare with her little tongue, lapping it like she had once done to a lollipop when she was still alive.
Colgate looked harder at the filly. Was that... what that Berry Punch’s kid? Berry Pinch? Colgate felt herself go ill looking at the zombie of her friend’s child.
The oddest thing about the hoof cleaning was that it didn’t seem to be anything demeaning, such as how a royal would demand a “lesser” pony to lick his shoes. No, it seemed nurturing, almost motherly...
Once the blood was gone from the hoof, the mare took a small piece of wood in her mouth, and opened the skull wide enough for her muzzle to fit in. Slowly, she bent down and daintily took a bit of the mushy brain inside. Colgate watched, transfixed in amazement as the zombie ate away fair more mannerly than she had even seen most ponies eat. When she popped back up, looking far less hungry than she had going into the meal, the little filly cleaned the blood from her mouth eagerly.
The zombie turned to Colgate, and the unicorn heard her heart pound in her ears. There was a cunning, somewhat intelligent look in the empty eye sockets of unliving mare. To her utmost surprise, the zombie opened her mouth, and said in a hoarse, yet distinctly ladylike voice, “You may leave now.”
Colgate got to her hooves, and shakily walked away. None of the zombies tried to go after her. Taking one look back, she could see that the mare was indeed rather nice-looking for something that she assumed had been long dead.
Colgate left the ruins of the building, silently thanking the beautiful corpse.