Nightmare Night. No longer a night about Luna's decent into madness and the rise of Nightmare Moon, it had become a celebration of the dark and macabre side of things. The transformation of the holiday was something Twilight was studying on a sociological level, in hopes of graphing the changes in culture around such an event.
Or she would be, if she didn't have to watch over four very energetic troublemakers.
She sighed and looked at the crusaders in their mismatched costumes. Twist was dressed as a minotaur, Scootaloo as a gryphon, Apple Bloom as a zebra and Sweetie Belle as a....a.....
"Sweetie, why are you covered in black paper mache?" Twilight asked.
"I'm a changeling!" Sweetie replied, grinning.
Twilight shuddered. She still couldn't get the image of that terrible queen out of her head some nights. It was one of the few times she and her friends had failed Equestria. If it hadn't been for her brother and Cadence.... she didn't want to think about that.
"Ya alright Twi?" Applejack asked. The farm pony shifted her scarecrow costume a bit as she turned to her friend. They followed the crusaders to the next house, standing back while the younger fillies surged to the door to demand treats.
Twilight looked around at all the young ponies dressed in a surprising variety of ghoul and monster costumes. "Just wishing there were more pirates, astronauts and fire fighters instead of zombies, vampires and ... changelings." She suppressed the urge to shudder again.
"Well, at least Pinkie dressed as a chicken again this year." Applejack said in a reassuring voice.
"I am?"
Twilight and Applejack spun around to find the feather festooned pink pony trying to look at her backside. "Darn it! I'm supposed to be a cockatrice. The tail fell off again. I'll have to go to the store."
"What store?" Applejack asked.
"The re-tail store!" Pinkie said with a grin. Twilight groaned, pulling the hood of her Clover the Clever costume down in an attempt to hide from the awful joke.
"Twiligh can we gow to tha nex howse now?" Scootaloo asked, a lollipop in her mouth slurring her words.
Twilight did a quick count of the crusaders before nodding. Applejack and Rarity had found out the little ones were playing in the Everfree, and had grounded them until tonight. The only reason they were even able to go out and about tonight was that she and Applejack were watching their every move. Twilight glanced around at the crowd and suppressed a groan.
Nearby were a pair of adults in costume with no child nearby, obviously Lunar Guard by their bat wings and dark armor. They were trying, and failing badly, to blend in on Nightmare Night. One wore a lame sheet with holes cut in it and the other had skeleton paint over his face and armor. They had been there every time she turned around, ensuring that Twilight wasn't going to get anywhere near the Everfree even on Nightmare Night.
"OOOOOOH!" came a chorus of young voices, drawing Twilight out of her inner thoughts. They all stared up at a brightly colored poster stapled to a light post.
COME ONE COME ALL!
Scare yourself silly at Jump and Spook's Haunted House and Cart Ride!
Three separate rides for thrill seekers:
Dark Circus - where mad clowns drag the audience into the deadly act
The Factory - See ponies broken down by machines to their basic bloody parts
Nightmare Science - A New Experiment in Fear! Each Ride Unique!
Your Nightmare Awaits At 1313 Everfree Way
"Wow, that's out near Fluttershy's cottage." Applejack said. "It's got to be practically on the edge of the Everfree."
"Can we go? Can we?" Scotaloo asked, bouncing in excitement.
"We'll be real good!" Sweetie Belle chimed in.
"Well, alright I guess. We can go see the Dark Circus one if you-"
"Um, Twi, if its all the same to you, Ah'll pass on that one." Applejack said, looking a bit uncomfortable.
"What? But I thought-"
"Psst." Pinkie hissed in Twilight's ear. "She's scared of clowns."
"You're coulrophobic?" Twilight asked in a startled voice.
"What?" Applejack asked stunned. "Nah, Ah just can't stand clowns. Ah ain't afraid of colors."
"Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns." Sweetie Belle said. Twilight smiled down at her, pleased at her knowledge.
"OK," Twilight said, "what about the factory?"
"NO!" Scootaloo piped up quickly. "Please please PLEASE no!"
"What?!" Twilight asked.
"Scootaloo had a nightmare the other night." Apple Bloom said, putting a comforting hoof on her friend. "I don't think she'd like to see the factory." Scootaloo shuddered and muttered something about rainbows.
"Alright, Nightmare Science it is then." Twilight paused for a moment and then smiled when nopony spoke up in oposition, glad things had finally been worked out. "Lets drop your candy haul off with Fluttershy before we hit the haunted house. You wouldn't want to lose those sweet treasures from fright would you?"
Twilight looked over the four wooden carts on rails sitting outside the haunted house. Each cart had two bench like seats, one behind the other. Muffled roars and screams drifted out of the house, along with a recording of a haunting violin melody. She turned to the costumed unicorn next to her.
"So, how does this work?"
"Well, Twilight Sparkle, the Nightmare Science ride comes in two stages." Lyra waved a hoof at the carts. "First we run you though the Test of Fear, where our assistants will gauge your response to a number of scare scenarios. There is a brief break in the back where we let everyone recover and set up stage two." She put on a wicked grin. "That's where the scares really begins."
"Are you all going to ride?" An orange earth mare asked Twilight. "They said they needed a few more ponies before they started."
"Yeah," Lyra said. "We have a minimum four per cart, and right now we only have nine ponies waiting. You all would fill our quota."
"Look who it is, Silver Spoon." A snooty voice behind Twilight rang out.
Apple Bloom hung her head and grimaced. "Oh no."
Twilight turned to see a pair of young fillies, one with a tiara, pointing at the crusaders and giggling. "It's a bunch of blank-flank babies!"
"We are not babies!" Sweetie Belle snipped.
"Oh?" Diamond Tiara asked in a leading tone. "I don't know of any other fillies who need three chaperones for Nightmare Night! Are you sure you want to get on this ride? You might wet your diapers!" The two began to laugh so hard they almost collapsed.
"We won't chicken out." Scootaloo cried, shouting to be heard over the laughter.
"You want to bet?" Silver spoon asked in a wicked tone.
"Yeah!" Twist said.
"Fine, you ride this ride. If you chicken out before it's through, Twist owes us free desserts for a week." Diamond said with a grin, confident in their win.
"And if we make it through, you pay for our desserts for a week." Apple Bloom countered. "Deal?"
"Deal!" The bullies chorused, grinning wickedly.
"Ahem." Lyra called the attention of everypony gathered. "I'll need you all to sign these release forms before you are allowed to ride. Anypony without a cutie mark needs an adult to sign for them." The crusaders cringed at this news, but Twilight stepped forward to handle the paperwork.
Twilight climbed into the rear seat of the last car, anxious to observe as much of this so called experiment as possible, next to Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo and Twist sat in front of her. In the next car held Applejack and her sister, just behind Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Next up was Pinkie Pie, who sat next to the orange mare with a cutie mark like an exclamation point in a word balloon. In front of them sat Clockwork, the towns watch repair pony, wrapped in a ludicrously long stripped scarf. Ditzy was next to him in an eye searing coat of pinks, greens, reds, and plaids with a strange little cat pin on the lapel. The front cart held the candy maker Bon Bon, who was chatting with Lyra about the ride, and a pony in a blue jumpsuit with yellow striping and some metal thing on her foreleg. The very front of the cart had young Pipsqueek, dressed as a zombie pirate, and Button Mash, whose parents were both signing off on their papers.
"Alright, that's everypony!" Lyra called, checking that they were all seated. "Please keep your head and hooves inside the cart at all times, and no magic. Enjoy the ride." She pulled a leaver, and the carts rolled forward through a pair of swinging doors and into the dark.
The young ones giggled in the dark, but the giggles seemed to echo back in a creepy fashion that set Twilight's teeth on edge. She resisted the urge to light up her horn to see what was around her, but she swore she could hear motion outside the cart. The doors to the next room had opened before the lights came on, and Twilight jumped slightly.
This room looked to be nothing but storage. Roughly a dozen ponyform mannequins stood around the cart, standing randomly, leaning against the walls or lying down. They all seemed dirty or worn in places, but still looked serviceable.
"Um," Sweetie Belle drew Twilight's attention, pointing to one of the mannequins. "Did it just-?"
As Twilight watched, all the mannequins' heads turned slowly to look at the carts. Everypony froze and seemed to hold their breaths. The lights went out with a loud bang and several screams filled the room, not all coming from the cart. As the lights flickered back on, several of the mannequins were now missing their heads, and there was a distinctive red stain around the raw fabric of the neck.
"B-baby blank flanks want to get out now?" Diamond Tiara teased, trying to keep the fear out of her own voice.
"N-n-not a chance!" Apple Bloom responded, trying to keep from looking at the decapitated mannequins.
Diamond spun around in her chair. "Yeah right! I heard you scream and this is only...the....first...." Her eyes grew wide with fear as she stared at Twilight.
No, wait, she's not looking at me. Twilight turned to look at Sweetie Belle but she seemed fine. What is she... Twilight looked back to her right, and found herself staring into the bloody stump of one of the ponyforms. A half dozen had come forward and were shambling after the cart in jerky unantuarl motions.
"AAAAIIIEEEEEE!" Twilight screamed as the carts carried her out of the monsters reach and through another set of doors.
The next room had machines dismembering still moving pony bodies. Scotaloo crouched down in the cart and covered her eyes. "nononononono-" she cried as steel arms with wicked drills and saws swept close to the cart, eliciting screams from others.
"Look at the little crybaby!" Diamond called, leaning over the back of her cart. "Baby blank flank is shaking like a-"
SSSSZZZINKT!
There was a soft tink as the top of Diamond's tiara bounced off the cart floor. Silver Spoon pulled her friend down into the seat, her eyes wide with panic. "THAT NEARLY TOOK YOUR HEAD OFF!"
Each new room brought on a different horror. Zombie clowns, their faces pale with blood smeared lips for smiles, nearly scared the daylights out of Applejack. Hissing green blocks had Button Mash screaming something about creepers. Even Clockwork was jumping at the scares, though Twilight couldn't see what it was about the strange robot with the synthesized voice that had him jumping in fright. The thing wasn't even a proper robot, it had a plunger for an arm for crying out loud!
When finally rolled to a stop in a well lit room with a kind of train roundhouse built into the floor, everypony was shaking with fright. Lyra was standing nearby in a bloody lab coat with a discolored clipboard, smiling as she waiting while they all regained their composure.
"Ah don't ever want ta see another clown as long as Ah live." Applejack said.
"Spiders." Twilight shuddered, remembering one room where you couldn't see the walls for the spiders. Not webs. Spiders. Thousands and thousands of spiders."Why did it have to be spiders."
Pinkie was laughing. "OH my gosh Sparkling Thought, did you see the vampony in that last room?! I thought it was really going to get us." Her orange seat mate was giggling slightly as the adrenaline from the last jump scare started to fade away.
"Well, I have to say we got some really amazing data we got out of all that." She grinned at the ponies who were half shaking, half giggling as they started to relax. "We've compiled what got the most reactions and I believe we are ready for the final leg of the ride. Before we go forward, does anypony want to get off?"
Shaking badly, Diamond and Silver turned around to grin the crusaders, who were all having an internal struggle to stay.
"Iths just a ride! Even if iths the scariest ride ever, iths still just a ride." Twist whispered to her friends, desperate to believe it herself.
"W-we can t-t-take it!" Scootaloo said through chattering teeth, trying to use bravado in place of bravery. "G-g-give us your worst."
"I hope they have some industrial strength cleaners." Diamond teased. "Because I know four blank flanked babies who are going to wet themselves in fright."
"If it's much worse than the room with the pony being pumped up till it exploded, they are going to need to clean this seat too." Silver Spoon hissed at her friend.
Applejack glared at her. "When we are done with this, ah think ah might have a word with your pa."
"Really? Nopony is leaving?" Lyra asked surprised. Pipsqueak and Button Mash glanced nervously at each other for a moment, then shook their heads. Everypony else gave words of affirmation, though some were less enthusiastic than others.
"Wow, I don't think we've had more than two or three full carts all night! That means we can run... the ultimate track!" She put deep emphasis on the last words, then turned and knocked on the wall. "Track four!" The tracks beneath the carts began to turn to the right until they were lined up with a pair of wooden doors with the number 4 painted on it in deep red. "I haven't even seen this one!" Lyra confided in Twilight as she did one last check over the cart. "In fact, scoot over." Button Mash and Pipsqueek shifted against the sides of the cart, allowing Lyra to climb into the middle of the front seat. "All right! Lets go!" She said, and the carts started to roll forward with a click. Through the doors and into complete darkness.
The first surprise came when the ponies in the front cart let out a cry and the whole train picked up speed.Twilight felt the track drop out from under her as the train plunged down into the darkness. Down they went, banking hard around corners and jostling each other with each shift and turn. Unable to see, each turn or dip was a surprise.
At last the little train leveled out and rolled through a pair of doors into a well lit basement. The wooden floor looked rotted and worn, but the stone sides were clean and well washed. The cart rolled to a stop before Twilight noticed something.
There was no exit for this room. There was even a cart stop built into the wall a few feet in front of the train, to keep it from hitting the far wall. There weren't any other doors or anything.
Are we just supposed to get out and walk? She wondered.
Something floated down from the ceiling into the carts. A few screamed, fearing spiders or something like that, but instead they were just crisp envelopes.
Envelopes with their names on them. Twilight held up one that had "Twilight Sparkle" written in flowing dark blue ink on the surface.
"This looks like an invitation!" Pinkie said, tearing hers open with glee. "Ooooh! A party!"
With greater care, Twilight opened hers and looked through it.
You are cordially invited to the multicultural party event of the season.
Come join us in the Kingdom of Dreams for
Nightmare Night,
Bittersweet Harvest,
and
Ghost Flight.An evening of food, music, dancing, and fun.
Sincerely,
Her Majesty Sarah Jordan
Nightmare
Applejack blinked at the letter, looking round to her friend. "Twilight, what-"
There was a groan and a defining crack as the floor in front of the cart sagged and gave way. The whole floor tilted down and forward, revealing a great dark cavern. Everypony screamed as the little train slid down into the cave and was swallowed up in darkness.
Twilight's horn lit up the cave in weak purple light, showing how terrifyingly close the cave walls were as they rushed by. A moment later the light gained a green tint as Lyra lit her horn as well. Sweetie Belle, along with almost every other pony, was cowering down in their carts. The speed was still increasing, and the wind was starting to sting at Twilight's eyes. She had beleived the last decent the carts had done was a roller coaster. She had been wrong, it was a kiddie ride, compared to this. She could swear the drop was nearly vertical.
Lyra's light at the front moving up and left was all the warning Twilight got before the carts quickly changed directions, banking hard and rising. Most of the ponies screamed or groaned at the forces exerted on them.
"We have to find a way to stop the carts!" She called over the wind.
"Are ya kiddin?!" Applejack yelled back. "At this speed anything ya try will just crash us inta the walls!"
"If we can press something against the walls to slow us down." Apple Bloom mused loudly.
The walls around suddenly fell away, and the cart now rocketed through a huge cavern, slowly climbing a thin scaffold of wood and stone. The light of their horns were too dim to see any roof or bottom.
"OK, new plan." Twilight yelled as panic started to grip her. "Who can fly?!" Ditzy raised her hoof, but Clockwork pulled it back down shaking his head.
.
At the top of the hill was a sign mounted on the side of the track that read "Now Leaving Equestria. Come Back Soon!"
"What in tarnation?" Applejack asked.
"PUT YOUR HOOVES UP!" Pinkie Pie screamed as the carts crested the hill and plunged back into a dark narrow cave. Screams echoed off the walls as the cart banked hard left and right several times before begining to climb again. The climb kept going and going and going.
That's not right, Twilight thought, glancing around in confusion. we should have slowed to a stop now, if not started going backwards. She realized that something must be pulling the cart, but for the life of her couldn't figure out what.
A few moments later the cart crested another hill and suddenly the ponies found themselves in a well lit barn. Three other small trains were parked in the stables, and a set of switches directed their cart into the last empty stall.
Everypony was quiet for a little bit. With shaky legs and a bit of trepidation they began to climb out.
"Woo hoo!" Pinkie cried, bouncing up to Applejack. "What a wild ride! I've got to go on that one again."
"I have to admit, I did not expect that." Lyra said, grinning sheepishly and trying to steady herself.
"You blank flanks are a lot braver than I gave you credit for." Diamond admitted grudgingly.
Silver Spoon nodded in agreement. "Can you imagine if this thing had actually taken us to that icky castle in the middle of the Everfree? My dad would ground me for a month!"
"That was pretty scary though." Applejack said conversationally to Sparkling Thought. "Can you imagine if it had actually taken us to Nightmare's castle?" She joked pushing open the barn doors.
Obsidian black tile shined in the starlight. Matte black stone walls rose around them on all sides. Torches burned with a blue-green flame. Two gryphons in armor bowed to the ponies and waved their claws, directing the guests to a pair of huge doors. Overhead a deep blue banner hung with letters that glowed a soft white like stars.
WELCOME TO CASTLE NIGHTMARE
"Oh I am so grounded." Silver Spoon whined.