//------------------------------//
// The Skittering Things 
// Story: The Face Takers 
// by shortskirtsandexplosions 
//------------------------------//

        "That's enough gabbin' for tonight, girls. You've got a busy day ahead of y'all. Everypony will wanna get a good night's rest if yer fixin' to sell ice cold pitchers of lemonade at the Ponyville market tomorrow."

        Applejack stood up, smiling towards the center of the small, wooden clubhouse. Her voice echoed tightly against the rickety walls of the place, fighting the ambient noises of night settling all around the building.

        "If y'all need anything, just wake up Apple Bloom. She knows how to get to the house from here. Still, before I skedaddle on home and leave you three to slumber the night away, I reckon y'all deserve a bang-up tale. Hmmm?"

        Applejack slid a glass window shut to the starry night outside. The sound of crickets gave cadence to her hooves as she trotted over the elevated shack's groaning floorboards.

        "I'm no Rainbow Dash, but I reckon I know somethin' that'll give ya goosebumps mighty fierce. Heheheh..."

        She winked as her blonde head drifted past a lone, dangling lamp. The tiny torch stretched her shadows into thin stalks as she approached the window towards the far end.

        "Let's see. How did it begin? Hmmm... Oh yes! On a cold, autumn night—just like this one—a group of little ponies went hikin' into the woods. There was a full moon out that evenin', just like the one hangin' over our heads this very moment, and the kids thought they was gonna find their way to the campsite just fine and dandy. Only, they didn't take into account just how thick the tree branches got the further they trotted into the woods.  And sooner than they realized it, they couldn't see their own hooves in front of their faces!"

        Applejack lowered the second window, however just a crack. This caused the autumnal winds to blow in tightly, producing a shrill whistle as it kicked at Applejack's blonde bangs.

        "But they didn't get scared. Oh no, they should've, but they didn't. The darkness was just a setback, they thought. They could just bed down right where they were and wait until the light of mornin'. So, layin' out their pillows and sleeping bags, they decided to do just that. Little did the silly ponies know what they were in store for."

        Applejack slithered forward, her golden grin turning crispy brown from the amber haze of the one dangling lamp.

        "Sometime in the middle of the night, a pony screamed. The youngest hiker of the group woke up, and for some reason he couldn't explain, he was frozen stiff with fright. A pale glow had fallen over the ground, but it didn't make no sense! Shouldn't the trees have blocked out the moonlight? It was then that he realized that somethin' unnatural was goin' on. He tried to warn his buddies, but he couldn't move. He cried out their names, but all he heard in response was little yelps, spreadin’ in different directions, growin' more and more distant towards the gnarled heart of the woods."

        Dark lines formed along the mare's face as she glared left and right before the lantern, putting on the campiest scowl she could muster.

        "At last, he could move. He wasn't sure if it was his heart leapin' through to his throat, or pure adrenaline, but the lil' colt jumped up onto his hooves. Right then, the light all around him disappeared, and he could have sworn he heard... things. Quiet, silent, hungry, skittering things... all rustlin' through the earth like a sea of snakes beneath the forest leaves. There was still no sign of his hikin' buddies, and so he decided to run back into town and ask for help. It was dreadful cold that night, so he fumbled through his friends' sleeping bags until he found a long, wooly cloak. He put the jacket on and galloped as fast as his hooves could carry him to civilization."

        A shrill wind blew into the clubhouse, carrying cricketsong into the hollow of the shack as Applejack's tongue clicked and clicked.

        "He came upon a log cabin. Breathless, he knocked and knocked on the door, beggin'... screamin' for somepony, anypony to wake up and help him. Not long after, the front door opened, and the ponies who lived there came out with a lantern. At first sight of him, they gasped, their faces pale with fright. He wasted no time tellin’ them about his friends... about the skitterin' things in the dark that took them far, far away. The ponies barely listened to the fella, for they were too gripped with shock to even breathe. At last, the stallion of the household seated the pony down and ran to town. The colt waited, shivering in the corner of the log cabin's living room, clutching his jacket to himself. When the stallion came back, he had three police officers with him, and they all forced the colt to crouch low to the ground. The child was scared, confused, and he begged to know what he did wrong."

        Applejack raised her hoof to the twist knob of the dangling lantern.

        "What he saw drove the poor little scamp mad, for it was then that they shone their light on his figure, and he realized he wasn't wearin' a jacket at all... but he was wearin' his buddies' skins. They were all patched together like a quilt, with each panel colored like a different foal's coat, all except for his own color. They took the colt to an asylum the very next day, for he had been reduced to a blabberin' fool. Rumor is, he's still wastin’ away there to this day. Nopony ever found what happened to the bodies of his best friends, but some ponies say—even after all these years—that when they trot along the edges to those woods, and the moon is shinin' bright on the dark, dark leaves, they hear screams, like distant whispers from the deepest roots of the trees. And the words they shout are the same words that the poor fella whispers and murmurs each day in his lone little padded cell."

        Applejack turned the lamp off, casting the clubhouse into shadow. Pale beams danced through the window panes as she murmured against the nothingness.

        "'They came and took their faces, and then they took their insides. And one day, when the moon itself is fuller than it's ever been before, they'll crawl into our homes... and give them all back...'"







        Apple Bloom was being serenaded by an endless chorus of crickets by the time her consciousness return. She wasn't entirely sure how many hours had passed, or if any hours had dripped by at all. All she knew was that her eyes had slowly reopened over an indeterminate amount of time, like twin yellow tulips blooming against the cold kiss of midnight.

        The memories of that evening oozed through her mind like a trickle of molasses between her ears. She recalled getting together with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo right after school. She remembered the plans they had made to make lemonade and earn their juice salespony cutie marks the following day. She recalled the trip to the fresh market where they bought the bag of lemons and stored it in the back of Scootaloo's wagon. They remembered the long trip to the farm and how tired they were and how ecstatically her heart had jumped when not only did she think up a sleepover on the spot, but Applejack green lighted it.

        Then, just as swiftly, Apple Bloom's heart took a massive dip. She scowled into the dull haze of the shadowed clubhouse, bitterly remembering the grim story Applejack had told just seconds before leaving the three fillies to sleep alone in that shack. It wasn't that Apple Bloom had been remotely scared by the tale, she was simply dumbstruck by the audacity of her older sister's timing.  If Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie had spun the yarn, she wouldn’t have batted an eye, but her older sister? Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo continued to be dead silent; neither of them had said a single thing since Applejack put the lamp out and departed. Apple Bloom was too busy fighting embarrassment to properly contemplate just how frightened her friends may or may not have been by such an inside out attempt at bedtime story.

        Groaning, Apple Bloom turned over... or at least she tried to turn over. Her legs lay limp beneath the plush folds of her sleeping bag. Her whole body felt like a slab of meat, and the only place she sensed her own pulse was in the inner edges of her elbows, as if everything else between there and her brain had been reduced to dense wood. It was just her luck, she imagined, to have been asleep for less than a few hours and already be suffering from legs that had fallen asleep.

        So, with a stifled grunt, Apple Bloom flung her weight to her far side, hoping that the blood would return to her extremities. A whole lot of nothing happened, and this made her heart skip another beat. She blinked, and in that blink she got the distinct feeling that the only thing following her antsy commands were her eyelids.

        It was then that she realized that she was squinting. It was bright outside the window—abnormally bright, as if the moon had drifted a million miles closer and was nuzzling the surface of the world with its hungry, pale cheeks. She could see every bend and every fold and every flutter of the leaves directly outside the window. The crack in the pane whistled fiercely, as if it was a direct funnel to the sea of crickets huddled up and hidden beyond.

        But then, they weren't alone. Something was singing along with them, something frail and emaciated and ghostly, rising and falling in whimpering pitch.

        "Mmmmf..." When Apple Bloom tried speaking, it was like vomiting marbles out of her mouth. Her tongue was suddenly a fat, foreign worm, and she wrestled with it to produce the next grunting breath. "Sweetie... Sweetie Belle...?"

        Two spaces away from her, the shadow of a filly stirred. More and more whimpers lifted towards the ceiling, choking on moonlit sobs against the dust.

        "Sweetie Belle... wake up..." Apple Bloom spoke to the pale wall. Before her slanted eyes, it grew paler, and her vision fogged as she realized that she couldn't move anymore than she could speak. "Sweetie Belle." She blinked, and the foal-shaped slump shuffled across from her and Scootaloo even more. "Sweetie Belle. Can't... can't move..." She would have been hyperventilating, if only the weight of the universe wasn't pressing into her numb ribcage. "So... so cold..."

        A vaporous chill fell through the shack, stiffening the air like frozen ice at the end of Apple Bloom's nostrils. In spite of her paralysis, she felt the tiniest of twitches to her ear, for there was a shift in pitch, something beyond Sweetie Belle, but very much in that very room, shifting closer, clicking and clicking. It took two more beats of the heart, and Apple Bloom's ears quivered, but she soon realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that something monumental had changed.

        The cricket sounds were no longer outside.

        The window rattled, shifting down an inch within the space of a blink. The movement was so sharp, so sudden, that Apple Bloom didn't see the body rising until two seconds into it. Her eyes darted, pulsing with each heartbeat. "Sweetie Belle?"

        The unicorn's horn glistened in the moonlight. She was sobbing, she was moving, she was awake.

        "Sweetie Belle. Please." Apple Bloom gulped. "Don't cry. I need help. Something isn't... something isn't right. I..." Her breath left her.

        Sweetie Belle's cries didn't stop, and neither did her horn. It tilted about, and her shadowed face along with it. Then there came a point where the unicorn's neck stopped, but her face didn't. At last, she tilted towards her friend, and Apple Bloom could see straight through her mouth and twin nostrils to the bone pale moonlight behind. The lips became a black sliver—opening and closing like a black heart valve—and when the moonlight reappeared behind her muzzle, the sobs continued, calling for "Rarity," calling for "Mommy," drooling out indecipherable songs in between, like the wails of a drowning foal deep underwater.

        Apple Bloom gazed as the living mask floated upwards, then twirled sharply like a windsock tangled with the ether. The moonlight swam suddenly across several needle-thin lines. Apple Bloom could see that Sweetie's face was suspended on gossamer strands, and before she could make out where they were suspended from, several spindly things crawled down, rattling against each other like living brambles. There were clicks and more clicks, and something eggshell sharp swung through the shadow, slicing the air beneath the sobbing muzzle. The mask swung free, the voice warbling along with it, and Sweetie Belle's body slumped to the ground far below.

        The floorboard shook, rocking upward towards Apple Bloom's end of the shack. The resulting jolt was intense enough to punch her shoulders through the sleeping bag, and the filly's numb body rolled until she was facing the blacker-than-black ceiling above. Here, with her lungs fully stretched, Apple Bloom welcomed hyperventilation like a long lost friend. Flowing tears glistened in her peripheral vision, magnifying the moon's glow on either side of her like kaleidoscopic bonelight.

        Sweetie Belle's sobs had become muffled mewls. Something clicked in the corners of the shack; something scurried. The soft cries loomed beyond measure, as if the ceiling had grown a hundred feet in two breaths, carrying Sweetie's mask into the onyx field beyond. Soon, the foreground was consumed by Apple Bloom's panting, wheezing breaths. She knew that she stood out like a cacophonous siren; she simply didn't know what was listening.

        It was then that Apple Bloom saw the silver streaks. They roped down from the everblack, dancing and glistening in the moonlight until they straightened like tungsteel puppet strings. As soon as they appeared, something blotted them out, something small with jagged limbs and more limbs. The first thing she saw in the windowlight were its hooks, all curled inward from the bending comb of a leg. It stopped, swinging above her, hovering like a winged grasshopper. Her nostrils flared a few inches beneath it, and all she smelled was rust.

        The clicks intensified.

        It lowered, shimmying down the silver string towards her. Her mouth hung open in a numb lurch, and as her eyes focused on its bobbing body, she realized that she could easily swallow the thing with a single gasp, and that's what caused her to whimper all the more.

        It heard her; it had always heard her. From the darkness, from the endless corners of dust, from every grimy place that she had ever passed by in her blissful, foalish bounce, it had studied her. And now, it made contact, one grasshopper leg after another, landing like a soft dove against the rim of her mouth. There was a tonality to its clicks, but Apple Bloom didn't realize this until it bent forward, staring directly between her eyes with its alabaster skull face. Deep within the slitted black hollow of its breathing cavity, a pair of red dots flickered, narrowed, and flickered again. It bent down further to study her, two cloven claws clinging to the strings above while four more shuffled across her chin and lips.

        A tear rolled down her cheek, and it bulbously reflected the bristled, undulating belly of the dangling thing. As the creature clicked again, Apple Bloom's left ear flicked. Fluid pumped hotly through her face muscles, so that each square inch of her muzzle twitched beneath the thing's scurrying pinchers. Blood was returning to her upper body. She knew this; it must have known this too.

        With the savage cackle of cricket song, the thing leaned up, gripping tighter to the gossamer strings as it stood on the tips of two claws across the bridge of Apple Bloom's nose. The foal's twitching eyes watched helplessly as it reached across its hairy thorax, digging a grasshopper leg through a brown pouch hanging off a leathery belt filled to the brim with microscopic tools. After rummaging through the tiny satchel, it pulled a round, curved object out into the moonlight. Apple Bloom exhaled at the sight of a severed scorpion's tale, with a long metal needle affixed savagely to the pointed end.

        The creature clicked, and several snapping sounds answered it from the abysmal edges of the clubhouse. It twirled like a circus performer, dangled on the end of the strings, and lowered its upper body until it hung bare centimeters above Apple Bloom's brow. She could count the barbs of its combed legs as it descended to within a hair's distance. Dragging a pair of cloven claws across her coat, the thing tickled the flesh of her eyelids, then gripped onto a cluster of eyelashes. It tugged hard—sending knifing pain into Apple Bloom's skull as it pulled her eyelid back... back... back, exposing the pink muscle between her cornea and her socket.

        Then, with a prolonged purring noise from deep within its nasal hollow, the red-eyed cretin pivoted the scorpion sting, and lowered the needle towards the soft mucousy membrane at the very edge of Apple Bloom's vision. The last thing she could make out was the glinting tip of the metal prong as it inched towards her sight. Her eyes rolled back on instinct. She screamed, but all that came out of her numbed throat was a deep, hollow exhale.

        "Nnnngh-Aaaaugh!"

        The creature froze.

        Apple Bloom gasped. She lay there, mute, unmoving.

        "Nnnnn—Ughh! Huhhh-Aaaa-haaugh!"

        The creature hoisted itself up and pivoted to look towards the far end of the shack. Apple Bloom's eyes jerked in the same direction.

        Scootaloo's shadow was shaking, shifting, writhing. The cries had been coming from her tiny throat. The petite pegasus shot up in her sleeping bag, clawing at her face and muzzle, desperately pulling at a living web of hair and grasshopper legs all clambering over her in the moonlight.

        With the sound of rattling pebbles, the thing dangling above Apple Bloom shrieked, and it sounded demonically linguistic. With a hissing snarl, it shimmied its way up the string, rocked back and forth, then propelled itself like a bristled tree frog through the pale shine. It landed on Scootaloo's chin, upon which it savagely thrust the scorpion needle smack dab in the nape of her neck. Scootaloo's cries pittered down to loathsome squeaks, and her body deflated to the dusty floorboards. She twitched a few times, producing glistening tears.

        The tiny light was soon blocked out by combed legs scuffling all over her, covering Scootaloo's body like ants over a mound of jelly. The writhing things clicked to one another, sounding more and more like infant laughter in fast forward. Apple Bloom watched as several hooked claws motioned towards the ceiling, and several more bristled bodies slithered down, carrying pale shards. The tools resembled the dismembered talons of slain falcons, and each creature took their positions on all sides of Scootaloo's skull, their red eyes flickering in sequence with one another.

        By this time, Apple Bloom could hear her own sobs, and that's how she realized that a modicum of strength had returned to her throat. She could feel blood rushing through her arteries: clean blood, warm blood, blood that was currently untainted by otherworldly venom. As the skin and flesh along her extremities tingled, she woke up to a deep, frigid terror washing over her every organ. She had to get out of the clubhouse. She had to get out of there before what was happening to Scootaloo happened to her next.

        And it took place swifter than lightning, a hellish operation under brambles and shadow. The moonlight outside the window glowed brighter, as if consuming the ritual of the moment, pulsating with each tearing sound that the talons made under the administration of the clicks and claws and cackles.

        Apple Bloom rediscovered her legs, and they went into action, squirming and shuffling and pulling her out of the sleeping bag, across the floorboards, and towards the door to the clubhouse that she knew stood behind her. She crawled backwards, shuffling and sobbing, her eyes locked upon Scootaloo as the pegasus' body rose, rose, and fell back.

        But the face did not fall. It lifted up, being pulled like a puppet mask towards the ceiling. And as it rose like a meaty orange lid into the moonlight, the mouth that once belonged to Scootaloo opened wide, howling into the copious juice of the moment, "Nnnnnn... nnnhhhh... no... no please, Luna... wake me up, Luna! I want to wake up! I want to waaaake up, Lunaaaa!"

        The skittering things jumped and danced from one string to another, clicking victoriously as they kicked the filly's face and made it dance like a bloody pendulum in the moonlight.

        "Guhhhh-Haaaaaugh! Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dasssssssh!"

        Below, a carpet of bristled shapes on grasshoper legs climbed over Scootaloo's slumped body. A pair of creatures clasped the ends of her leftover-face meat with sharp claws. Then, one after another, following each other like a train of divers with scalpels, a dozen shadows dove into her throat and burrowed their way into her thrashing torso.

        It was right at this time that Apple Bloom finally shuffled past the doorframe. She fell back, tumbled, and plummeted clear off the edge of the clubhouse's balcony. There was a flash of moonlight, accompanied by the muffled salvo of a dozen sobbing voices in the distance, and then the woods imploded with silence all around her, following the filly into the blissful black of unconsciousness.







        "Aaaaah!"

        Apple Bloom woke up with a shriek.

        "Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle!"

        Her voice echoed over swaying grass in the evening wind. The moon was a dim blue speck high above the clubhouse roof. All the crickets were silent.

        Sweating, Apple Bloom stood up. An untold amount of time had passed, and all the feeling had returned to her limbs. She felt her shaking hooves, sensed every stagnant goosebump. A column of bile shot up her throat, accompanying a tight bubble of stark, horrifying memories that expanded exponentially inside her throbbing head.

        She flashed one look at the clubhouse. In a blink, she reimagined the glowing silhouettes of Sweetie Belle's mouth and nostrils in some alien moonlight. She heard the muffled cries of Scootaloo as hundreds of grasshopper legs clawed and sliced and carved at her face.

        Stifling a sob, Apple Bloom shivered, spun about, and galloped straight through the orchards. She bolted through trees, bounding over mounds of dirt and soil, sprinting swiftly as if to outrun even the sounds of her own panting breaths. She murmured one name and one name alone.

        By the time the Apple Family household loomed over the dark hill, that name had turned into a full-fledged scream.

        "Applejack!" The sobbing filly howled. "Applejaaaack!"

        She bolted towards the front door like living lightning. It was locked for some reason. She yanked and yanked on the knob, then resorted to slamming her petite little hooves across the frame in desperation.

        "Open up! Please! Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo! Th-they're in trouble! You gotta help them! You just gotta!"

        This cacophonous pleading continued for a thunderous two minutes, until at last a heavenly series of hoofsteps trotted up from the other side, and opened the door with an unlatching sound.

        Not wasting a single second, Apple Bloom flung open the screen panel and barreled herself into the dark parlor of the house.

        "What...?!" Applejack's beathy voice rattled through the shadows. "Apple Bloom?! What in tarnation has gotten into you?! Are you alright, sugarcube?"

        Apple Bloom paced and paced in tight circles within the center of the room. She paused to hug herself, rocking back and forth as tight, chest-bursting sobs exploded from her throat. "Torn apart... th-they were tearing them apart! They were everywhere! They took their faces, Applejack!" She whimpered and cried, the tears flowing down her face. "They t-took their f-faces!"

        "Now hold on a second, Apple Bloom, just calm down." Applejack's figure trotted over. She rested a warm, loving hoof on the filly's shoulder, calming her nerves instantly. "Just take a few deep breaths, gather yer senses, and try once more to tell me what's goin' on."

        Apple Bloom inhaled, exhaled, and whimpered forth, "I c-couldn't move, Applejack. I woke up, and I couldn't move. I tried to warn them, but it was too late! I was so scared! I-I came directly here! I was hoping you could go and save them! It may not be too late!"

        "Too late?" Applejack leaned forward across the dark room. "Too late for what?"

        "The things!" Apple Bloom hissed. "The creatures! They took their faces! And now th-they might even kill them!"

        "Now now, sugarcube, take it easy." Applejack said, chuckling a little as she waved a soft hoof. "I think yer lettin' some silly ghost stories get to yer head!"

        "No, Applejack! I'm not! This is serious!" Apple Bloom stomped her hooves against the house's floorboards. "Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are back in the clubhouse, and they're in danger!"

        "Heheheh..." Applejack shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous, darlin'! Ain't nopony left behind at the clubhouse. Why, y'all are right here."

        Apple Bloom froze. She felt the blood freeze in her veins. "We're... all...?"

        Applejack trotted towards a nearby table and turned a lamp on. "Just take a gander for yerself."

        The amber light switched on. A body loomed to Apple Bloom's side. As she tilted, the body tilted towards her, until the filly found herself looking directly into the front parlor's standing mirror. Her jaw dropped, both shades of it, for the left side had a yellow coat and the right side had an orange one. A pale horn poked out of a mane of lavender, red, and violet, and two threadbare wings stuck out of a calico flank fitted with two and a half tails.

        "It..." Apple Bloom spoke and Scootaloo finished. "They're all..." A shuddering breath, and Sweetie Belle squeaked, "I'm..."

        "Now look," Applejack's voice clicked and clicked. "Ya got yerself all riled up over nothin', sugarcube."

        The quivering filly blinked. A loose flap of yellow skin peeled off the orange side of her face. A half-second later, a grasshopper leg slid out from underneath, its combed length swishing from side to side. It patched the coat into place and slid back beneath the skin. The little pony gulped, and something crunched deep in her throat, spilling warm mush down her esophagus.

        Applejack trotted into the penumbra of the lamplight, a red fetlock followed by an orange hoof. "Didn't we tell ya that we have a busy day tomorrow?" She smiled, her wrinkled green skin folding under a scarlet brow. "We've got lots and lots of ponies to meet in the mornin'. Now..." She leaned forward, her mouth opening wide and wider as her breath rang with the chorus of endless cricketsong. "Give yer big sister a sweet kiss goodnight."