Chapter the Tenth, or “In Which We Fight an Army of Darkness”
The hag and I stand stock still, both surprised at the turn of events. The hag soon snaps out of it and gives an evil hiss before lunging towards Applejack.
Applejack responds quickly by shooting off her arms and legs, sending a spray of blood everywhere. She hisses in frustration as she attempts to get up, but her attempts to attack the blonde are futile. Seeing this, Applejack grins and points the shotgun to her head. “Hasta la Vista, bitch,” she says softly before blowing the zombie’s head off.
I stare at these events all wide-eyed. “I am simultaneously terrified and aroused and I am completely ok with this.”
Applejack chuckles and gives me a hand. “Well aren’t you sweet?” She coos, kissing me on the cheek. “That makes it a lot harder to do what I’m about to do next.”
I look at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
The blonde responds by bitch-slapping me across the room. “That’s fer picking Twilight over me,” she smirks.
I groan and pick myself off the ground. “What happened to ‘no strings attached’?” I ask incredulously while rubbing my cheek.
“Ah lied,” she shrugs before cocking her gun. “Now c’mon, we’ve got us some nasties to kill! Oh, and you might need this,” she adds, tossing me a small bag she had on her back.
I catch the bag with my good arm and open it to find my chainsaw attachment and a large revolver in a holster. Grinning, I attach the chainsaw to my bad arm and slip the holster around my waist. “Let’s go, baby!” I crow, and we begin to run through the rapidly filling hallway.
After searching for Clancy for about ten minutes, we find him singlehandedly taking on five zombies. “Oh, hello there,” he says wryly, stabbing his bowie knife through one zombie’s head. “A little help here?”
Applejack and I grin as I switch on my chainsaw. I ram the deadly garden tool into one zombie’s head, splitting the monster right down the middle. Seeing another one run up to me, I spin around and slice its head off, kicking it into the hallway after it fell off the zombie’s shoulders. Applejack, in the meantime, had blasted the other two’s heads off, and was speckled with bits of blood. “We get ‘em all?” she asks.
“I think so,” Clancy says cautiously, picking up his own gun from the floor. “Lucky for me that you guys managed to get here on time! I ran clean out of ammo when I was ambushed by these freaks!”
Applejack hands him a round of ammunition. “Ah reckon you weren’t exactly helpless, were ya?” She says, eyeing the pile of dead bodies around him.
He grins modestly. “Well, maybe not,” he admits, loading some bullets into his shotgun. *“But it sure cost me a lot of bullets. How the hell did these fuckers get in here anyways?”
“Remember that doctor guy, Cula or something? He rammed his sixteen-wheeler into the fence and let all the zombies in,” I explain. “It was some creepy shit too, almost like he was telling them to attack us!”
“Bullshit, no one can control zombies,” Clancy snorted in derision as he pulled his knife out of a zombie’s head. “They’re just mindless animals, so it don’t matter if anyone offers ‘em anything! They’ll do what they want, where they want, and whoever they’re unlucky enough to want. The only thing that could POSSIBLY control a zombie is a-“ He suddenly stops dead in his tracks, his face shocked. “OF COURSE!” He bellowed, slamming his fist against a concrete wall. “That Doctor is a vampire! Goddamn it, I should have seen it sooner! I mean for fuck’s sake, his name says it all!”
“Andrew Cula?” Applejack asks quizzically.
“Dr. A. Cula,” I say slowly to myself. “D-R-A-C-U-L- GODDAMN IT!! That’s the oldest trick in the fucking book! HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT?!”
“Wait, Ah thought you said that vampires only come out at night? How the hell did he come to us in broad daylight?” Applejack continued.
“The fucker must be a real powerful blood-sucker!” Clancy growls. “Only the most powerful vamps can withstand sunlight without burning like toast in a crematory!”
“And what about those hicks traveling with him, the McClads or whatever?” I ask. “Do we have to worry about them too?”
“Nah, the moon’s not full yet,” Clancy explains, running his hand through his dark hair. “The McCradys only transform then, otherwise they’re just dumb hicks with a shit-ton of guns. Not that that’ll make ‘em less dangerous…”
“Well, why the hell are we waitin’ here then?” Applejack exclaims. “Let’s go warn the others before someone gets chomped on!”
We nod and run out into the hall, where bullets sing through the air and blood falls to the floor like rain. I narrowly dodge a large zombie as it attempts to tackle me to the ground. With a huff of disgust, I slice through it with my chainsaw, leaving its head snarling on the floor. “Head’s up!” I yell before kicking it against the wall, smashing it to bits.
Clancy chuckles at my one-liner, shooting a nearby zombie in the process. “Good God, that was horrible,” he grins.
I cock my eyebrow as I blast a smaller corpse right through the face. “Alright, you try to come up with something better!” I challenge.
Clancy smirks and shoves his knife up an old granny zombie’s nostril. “Got your nose!” he bellows before pulling the stabbing it in deeper, sending her brains splattering across the room.
“Are you fellers actually havin’ fun?!” Applejack yells incredulously as she blasts through a group of zombies.
“Hey, you’ve gotta do something to lighten the mood!” Clancy says defensively as he stabs a younger zombie through the eye. “C’mon, you try it, blondie!”
The cowgirl rolls her eyes and sighs. “Fine, Ah’ll give it a go…” Reluctantly, she shoves the end of her shotgun into the mouth of an unlucky zombie. “Eat this!” she growls before pulling the trigger, blowing her head clean off.
Clancy grins at Applejack, narrowly dodging a swipe of another female zombie’s nails. “See, that wasn’t so hard!” he laughed. “Now, watch how the master does it!” He rips his knife from the other corpse’s eye, rams it through the female zombie’s forehead, and quickly pulls it back out before she could react. “See, this broad’s got the point!” he crowed.
“Eh… Four out of ten,” I say cautiously before slicing through the last zombie’s head. “Though I’ve got to say, this guy really lost his head in the end!”
Clancy slaps me on the back. “Alright, THAT was pretty awesome,” he admits. “Now c’mon, let’s find the rest of your friends!”
Before we could, however, a bone-chilling groan comes from the back of the hall, prompting Applejack and I to look behind us. There stood the largest ghoul I’d ever seen, about seven feet of rotten flesh and gore. “MRAAAAAAAWR!!” he bellows before charging at us.
Clancy, without even looking back, props his sawed-off shotgun on his shoulder and fires, taking the beast out with one shot. After the monster fell down, he shudders a bit before looking at us. “Well, they aren’t gonna find themselves!” he says cheerfully, as if nothing ever happened. “Let’s go!”
I glance at Applejack, who simply shrugs and runs off behind him. I sigh and try to catch up to the pair. Let’s see just how boned we are right now…
---------
As we make it into the mess hall, we find that the chaos had escalated even further. It seems that the McCrady’s had been thrown into the mix, shooting at anything that moved, including their own kind. The leader, the redneck that we had seen earlier, locks eyes with Clancy and snarls. “YOU FUCKER!” he howls, beating his chest savagely. “I’MMA RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!”
Clancy gives him an insane grin. “COME GET SOME!” he bellows back before pouncing towards the fat bastard, leaving me and Applejack to figure out what to do in this warzone.
“Hey, Ah think Ah saw Rainbow flyin’ up in the rafters!” Applejack yells over all the noise. “You try to find the other girls and make sure that nothing bad happens!”
I nod and run towards the kitchen area of the cafeteria. Surprisingly, the place is eerily quiet, seemingly devoid of people. I’m about to turn back to the battle when I hear a small whimper, causing me to go in a little deeper to investigate. As I hide behind a large dish-rack, I see a terrible sight: Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight cornered by five large men, doubtlessly McCradys. “So who do ya reckons gets the pretty one?” one of the shorter ones asks.
The leader chuckles. “Hell, all of ‘em are pretty, I just wanna get this thing goin’ already. You pick whichever one you want, Clem.”
“Hmm… I figure I’ll take the pale one with purple hair,” Clem grins, looking lustily at Rarity. “I’ve always liked them big city types.”
“Shoot, Clem, I wanted that one!” An even larger McCrady complains.
“You can have the shy one with the pink hair,” the leader chuckles, propping up Fluttershy’s chin with his filthy finger. “She’s plenty cute, ain’t she?”
Fluttershy squeaks and pulls away, huddling herself in a ball. “Please don’t,” she whimpers, tears streaming down her face. “Please, I can’t, I just can’t…”
“See! I can’t fuck that!” The big one whines. “It’ll break my heart if I see her cry the whole time!”
“I don’t mind the cryin’ none,” a slim McCrady snickers, drawing Fluttershy roughly up to his eye level. “Truth be told, I kind of like it…”
“You filthy cretins!” Rarity snarls, disgust dripping down every word. “You think you can split us up like cattle when it’s obvious that you don’t even split a gene pool! It’s dreadfully apparent that you men are nothing but worthless slimes if you don’t have the decency to leave us alone!”
The leader looks at Rarity before turning to Clem. “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’d like to take this one here,” he grins. “The little bitch has spunk!”
Clem chuckles. “I’m fine with the dark-skinned one too. She ain’t said a word, so maybe she’ll be easier to handle.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Twilight says softly before teleporting behind the rednecks. Quick as a wink, she telekinetically shoots a variety of kitchen knives at their captor’s legs, hitting Clem’s and the large hick’s calves and sending them to the ground. “Rarity, now!” she cries.
Rarity kicks the leader in the knee and wraps the other two in her telekinetic aura, flinging them across the kitchen. “Are you alright, Darling?” she asks Fluttershy softly as she helps her up.
Fluttershy nods. “I… I think so…”
Before anyone could react, the leader pops back up from the ground and grabs Rarity by the hair. “You pull any of that voodoo shit and I’ll blow her head clean off, you hear me!” he hisses, jabbing a gun to the lady’s head. “C’mon, I fucking DARE YOU!”
Rarity winces in pain but tries to keep Fluttershy calm. “Now, don’t you worry Darling,” she smiles, her own voice breaking. “Everything is going to turn out fine, don’t you worry.
It soon becomes apparent that Fluttershy is trembling not from fear, but from rage. “How… Dare you?” she says softly, clenching her fists. “HOW DARE YOU?!” Before the hick can react, Fluttershy slams him to the ground and forces him to release Rarity’s violet locks. “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BULLY ME AND MY FRIENDS FOR SEX?! I’LL RIP YOUR FUCKING COCK OFF, YOU LITTLE SHIT!!” She screeches as she beats the man over and over.
The hick, completely shocked by the turn of events, can only stare into Fluttershy’s ice-cold eyes as she mercilessly pounds his face in. “What in the hell?” He croaks pathetically.
Hearing this, Fluttershy gets up and puts her foot to his neck. “THAT’S EXACTLY WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” She laugh’s cruelly before pushing down viciously on the hick’s throat.
T he man sputters and squirms, choking slowly under Fluttershy’s foot. For a minute, his eyes roll back into his head while Fluttershy cackles cruely-
“STOP!” I yell out, interrupting the ongoing murder.
The three women turn to me, looking ready to kill anyone that stood in their way. “Sebastian?!” Twilight asks incredulously. “How long have you been there?!”
“Long enough,” I say tersely. “I saw what those fuckers tried to do to you, and they deserve to pay. But not like that.”
Fluttershy’s eyes light up in rage. "YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO?! AFTER WHAT HE DID TO US, HE DESERVES TO DIE!!"
"I didn't say that you couldn't kill him," I say calmly. "Just not like this." I lift up the kickstand holding the dish tray in place and send it rolling onto the filthy redneck's arms and legs, causing him to scream like hell. "Let him suffer," I whisper savagely.
------
After we finished our task, we all step out of the kitchen. "Alright, now you three have got to go now," I insist. "You nearly got killed back there, and we aren't letting it happen again."
"Please, darling," you saw us back there!" Rarity laughed. "We didn't need your help at all! We were just fine by ourselves!"
“Whatever,” I say in frustration. “If you don’t have any fear of getting ripped to shreds, then you can come out and get filthy with us.”
A strange smile grows on Rarity’s face. “Gladly,” she grins.
“I-I’d like to go out too,” Fluttershy says confidently. “I want to help.”
I turn to Twilight in exasperation. “I don’t suppose you’ll be coming too?”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Were you planning to stop me?” she asks coolly.
For some reason, I feel a strange grin growing on my own face. “In that case, we’ve got to have a plan. Seeing as Rainbow Dash is probably with AJ, and Pinkie’s God-knows-where, I suggest we join the fray going on in the mass hall. You girls have your weapons?”
Twilight and Rarity hold a small arsenal of kitchen knives with their respective auras, while Fluttershy holds a meat cleaver and a positively murderous stare. I grin at my little army. “Alright then ladies, let’s move!”
We burst out of the kitchen to find that the anarchy had not begun to die down; on the contrary, it seemed to only escalate since I last saw it. With a grin, I shoot a nearby McCrady in the leg, sending him sliding down to the floor. Rarity and Twilight shoot a couple of knives towards the crowd, sending several zombies’ heads flying, and Fluttershy manages to slice her meat cleaver straight through a corpse herself. Despite all of this, we barely make a dent in the crowd, and we’re soon cornered in by the zombies.
Suddenly, a blue blur slices through the crowd, leaving several of the undead completely mulched. “Rainbow!” We cry out happily.
Rainbow Dash stops and grins at us. “Heya, guys!” She says cheerfully as she slices through another legion of the undead with a large katana. “Have you seen Applejack around here?”
“I thought she was with you!” I reply, jabbing my chainsaw through a nearby ghoul.
“She was, but I lost her in all these fuckers!” She sighs while loping off a zombie’s arm. “Ah well, she’s probably fine.”
“Glad to know you guys care!” Applejack’s voice comes from the crowd. A large section of the undead forces fall like dominos, revealing a bruised blonde sporting a sawed off shotgun. “Make room, you stinkin’ piece of trash!” She snarls as she blasts her way through the group.
“You see? We had nothing to worry about!” Rarity says, grunting slightly as she sends another cutlery set through the air.
Our answer comes bursting through the door as we see Pinkie Pie standing there, holding what appeared to be a lawnmower with the blade facing towards the crowd. “Party’s over!” She cackles as she gets the blade spinning, mowing through hundreds of the filthy creatures at once.
“Pinkie!” We call to the juggernaut as she makes her way through the crowd.
“Hey you guys!” She says cheerfully, mulching down a couple more dozen monsters as she turns to us. “You ok?”
“Not for long!” I say cautiously as my chainsaw finally runs out of gas. “I’m out of both fuel and ammo!”
“Shit! So am I!” Applejack growls, throwing her rifle away and pulling out a baseball bat.
“Same here,” Twilight said in defeat as she and Rarity both threw their last knives.
Pinkie tosses her lawnmower onto the nearest zombie. “I’m spent!” She cries.
I feel tears welling up in my eyes. “Well, it was a hell of a ride while it lasted,” I grin, trying to mask my true emotions.
Everyone nods and huddles together, trying to stay close. The zombies start to close in on us, and we hold each other tighter and tighter until-
“ENOUGH!” A booming voice comes from above. Everyone, zombies and humans alike, look up to see Dr. Cula floating above all of us, grinning triumphantly. “TO MY ENEMIES, YOU HAVE A CHOICE: EITHER SURRENDER NOW AND SUBMIT TO MY RULE, OR PREPARE YOURSELVES TO BE A MEAL OF A LIFETIME!”
“AND WHO SAYS WE’VE LOST?!” The familiar voice of Gus yells out. I turn to find that he was also cornered against the wall with a weed whacker in his hands. “AS LONG AS WE GOT CLANCY, YOU PUNKS DON’T STAND A CHANCE!”
The vampire sneers at this, his once handsome face transforming into one of pure evil. “YOU THINK CLANCY CAN SAVE YOU NOW? FINE THEN! BEHOLD YOUR SAVIOR!” He holds something that looks horribly like a human head, with dark greasy hair and a scar running down the side.
A sinking sensation settles into my stomach. “You killed him,” I whisper in amazement. “You actually killed him…”
Cula, apparently able to hear me, gives us a leer, revealing bloody canines. “KNOW THAT HIS DEATH WAS DRAWN OUT AND MERCILESS! HE DIED BEGGING FOR HIS LIFE, AND THAT HE WAS WILLING TO SELL YOU OUT JUST TO SAVE HIS OWN SKIN!”
“YOU’RE LYING!” Gus yelled out. “CLANCY WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO US! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OVERGROWN RAT!”
Cula’s eyes locked onto Gus with cruel precision. “Kill him,” he said icily.
Before he could react, the group of zombies next to him lurched at him, ripping at his skin. Gus gave a blood-curdling scream before the zombies had finished, leaving nothing but a mass of bones and flesh. “ARE THERE ANY OTHERS WHO DISPUTE MY INTEGRITY?!” Cula boomed.
“Right here!” Another familiar voice called out. We all turn to see that the Doc was standing at the entrance of the mess hall, a small revolver in her hand. “I saw Clancy when you attacked him,” she said serenely, walking through the legion of the undead like it was nothing. “You waited until he had finished off the McCrady leader and was too tired to fight. He still managed to give you a run for your money, and when you finally pinned him down, he just laughed and spit in your face. You didn’t even have the guts to feed on him till you were sure he was dead,” she added hatefully. “You’re nothing but a cowardly, gluttonous, well-dressed piece of shit.”
Cula stood stock still, shocked at what had been said. I half expected him to fly down onto her and attack her himself. Instead, his face returned to its normal handsome form. “Sweet Eliza,” he crooned. “Why cling on to this filthy sewer rat when you see that he is dead?”
“Because he gave me something to believe in, when all you did was remind me how cruel the world was,” the Doc said spitefully. “He showed me that I didn’t have to scrounge the Earth like an animal to survive. He showed me that there still are good people left and that man is truly decent.”
The vampire’s face hardened. “WHAT IS A MAN?! A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS?! BUT ENOUGH TALK! HAVE AT YOU!!” He bellowed, swooping down on her.
The Doc was prepared for this and braced herself before the mad doctor slammed her into a wall. “You used to love me once,” Cula hissed, his yellow eyes gleaming evilly.
“Honey, you got real ugly,” the Doc smirked before pulling the trigger of her revolver.
The vampire gave a gasp and backed off, revealing a stain of dark red on his white suit. “BUT HOW?!” he screeches, holding his side in pain. “IT ISN’T POSSIBLE!!”
“One last silver bullet,” the Doc says softly. “Good to see that I did the right thing with it after all.”
The vampire gave a bloodcurdling moan before falling to the ground and bursting into flames. Amazingly, the zombies quickly followed suit, making the entire mess hall a giant inferno of burning corpses. “GET OUT NOW!” the Doc hollers across the room. “I’LL BE FINE, JUST GET OUT!”
We nod and rush towards the door, which was only partially blocked by the burning ghouls. We manage to go through unburned, finally making it outside. “Well,” Twilight wheezed, wiping some sweat off of her forehead. “That was… Interesting.”
Suddenly, the massive explosion comes from the mess hall, knocking us all about two feet ahead. “HOW THE FUCK DO PEOPLE IN MOVIES WALK AWAY WITHOUT FLINCHING?!” Rainbow Dash yells, banging her fist against the floor. “I CALL BS ON THAT!”
Fluttershy sighs, wiping some dirt off of her face. “What do we do now?” she asks me.
I try to think of something reasonable to say, but my mind is simply overwhelmed by the events of the day. “Let’s… Let’s just call it a night, shall we?” I plead, lying on the dirt.
There’s a slight pause before everyone obliges, huddling up to each other and looking up at the full moon. “Hey guys?” Pinkie asks.
“Yeah Pinkie?” Applejack answers.
“Didn’t Clancy say that werewolves come out on the full moon?”
“… Shut the fuck up, Pinkie Pie.”