''Rainbow, help me!'' I yelled as I struggled to keep the door shut against the barrage of zombies eager to get in. Within seconds, Rainbow and the others were beside me, pushing against the door of the building to try keep it closed.
It took all of our weight combined to force the door shut, allowing me to put the lock into place before I pushed a few heavy crates in front of it, hoping it would hold them off. We have made it into town but ended up in this office building when we were chased by an enormous riot of zombies.
I barely had enough bullets to keep myself and the others alive, let alone kill off a few dozen zombies. I counted a half clip left for my pistol. Looks like it was time to find a new weapon.
The ponies were panting heavily as they allowed themselves a moment to regain their strength. The insides of the building were small and the walls were painted white. The floor was just simple wooden planks and thankfully with no body parts or corpses on the floor or any trace of blood. I walked along the not so long corridor, gun in hand and checked a few of the rooms, being glad to find they were empty with only a few destroyed or abandoned computers sat on the desks. The first floor only consisted of around six or so rooms, including a break room. Finding nothing of any use, we made our way upstairs and from my guess, there wasn't many flights of stairs. When we were being chased, I barely had much time to see how many stories high the building was, but an office building of this size would usually be about four or five stories high.
The second floor was just the same as the first floor, if only a little longer and bigger. A few doors to offices were open and the lights were on, illuminating the darkness with their dim light. For some reason I felt like something bad was going to happen. Something really didn't feel right.
''Matt?'' Rarity asked from behind me, worry evident in her voice. ''Something the matter, darling?'' I just shrugged lightly, turning to face them.
''Stay as close as you can. Something doesn't feel right.'' They huddled together as close as they could and we continued. I had to stop them so I could check the rooms every now and again, but found nothing, and even though I know it should relieve me, it only made me feel even more weary.
Knowing my gun was low on ammo, I looked for a new weapon. I could of used the guitar that was strapped to my back, but it did't feel right to use such an instrument on a walking corpse. After all, when and where would I ever find another one in as good a condition as the one I'm carrying?
Lucky enough for me, when we continued down the corridor, I saw a case with a fire axe in it. It was covered by glass, but after hitting it with my elbow a couple times, it was free to take. I just hoped that the sound of shattering glass didn't attract anything nearby. With the axe in hand, I suddenly felt safer. I had to remember to get the ponies some weapons at some point.
I looked back to them again, seeing if anything was coming from behind. And then I heard a groan from behind me, the groan of a flesh-craving zombie. The others gasped in fright and surprise as they looked at it. I span around on the spot as fast as I could and sliced the end of the fire axe's blade into it's neck, sending blood squirting on the wall and floor as well as my face and silencing the abomination in an instant before his corpse fell to the ground with a dull, meaty thud.
I wiped the blood from my cheek and quickly checked both left and right and behind. I guess that glass shattering did attract something. Maybe more of them. I've got to remember to be more quiet in future. It was just us and the silence again. Even though I should of welcomed the silence, it just made me feel as if something bad was going to happen. I haven't been in a building that was as quiet as this one before, and it was really starting to make my nerves twitch.
Thankfully, the while we spent scavenging was uninterrupted by anything and for that I was greatful. However, when we got to the fourth floor after scavenging the third, I noticed that the lights were brighter than before on the previous floors and it seemed cleaner and tidyer. Some doors were barricaded, too, almost as if to keep the zombies from getting in (out?) and that did kinda puzzle me a bit.
The ponies looked at them too, all with puzzled or wonderous expressions. Especially Twilight. She seemed to be observing other than being cautious. Fluttershy, though, seemed to keep close to Rainbow Dash. I don't know why, linked to her name or not, why she is so shy. I haven't had much chance to get to know them, but at some point I really wanted to talk to them all.
And then I heard shouting and grunting.
We all faced the direction of the source of the noise in an instant. It was coming from directly in front of us, at the end of the corridor and from what I could tell, from the left. As we got closer, I could hear it getting louder and louder. When we turned left, my nose was instantly filled with the smell of iron, blood clearly splattered on the wall. It was still fresh, and I could see one or two corpses of zombies on the floor, fresh wounds both from bullets and blunt objects on their bodies. The door at the end of the corridor was open, a dead zombie leaning against it in a pool of blood, as well as all over the brown, wooden door. When we got to the door, I cautiously peeked around the corner, just in time to see yet another zombie fall down just a few inches from my face, causing me to jump back a bit. Looking back around, I could see a young women, not far from being my age or a little older.
She had beautiful, shiny red hair and hazel eyes. Her clothes consisted of a black leather biking jacket and slate-grey jeans. She also didn't hesitate to fire a bullet in my direction, hitting the wall before it could hit me in the face.
''You! Show yourself!'' She shouted over, her voice sounding just like an angel, yet I could tell she was scared. I looked over to the ponies whom shared the same semi-frightened expression as mine. I gently put down the axe and slowly walked into the open, not knowing weather she was going to shoot me or not. She seemed to relax as she saw I wasn't a zombie, but what made me feel slightly uneasy and cautious was the blood covering her clothes and face. I couldn't tell if she got bitten or not, and I was really hoping to get a positive answer.
''Are you unarmed?'' She asked me, to which I slowly nodded. ''Are there any more of you? Are you on your own?'' I shook my head, nervously looking over to the scared faces of the ponies before looking back over to the women. It's not everyday that you meet a talking, multi-coloured pony and the way other people would react to it is untold. There are many things that they might do to them, and I don't really think that saying I have six pony companions is going to set the right impression. Maybe she would shoot them? My thoughts were cut short as I heard them scream. I instantly reacted by running in their direction, quickly seeing the reason behind the sudden outburst of fright. More zombies were coming, including a couple undead dogs. I cringed internally at the glare in their milk-white eyes. Slowly, everypony apart from Fluttershy moved back. She was frozen with fear, just staring into the undead eyes of the dogs.
''Fluttershy, move! Quick!'' I whispered to her, not wanting to make the dogs jump at her. I could just grab her and get her out the way, but I couldn't possibly be fast enough. It would be game over if anyone makes any sudden movements. As if reading my mind, a blur of rainbow blasted from behind me and snatched Fluttershy off of her hooves and into the room, the dogs moving almost as quickly at the sudden movement. As fast as I could, I ran back into the room and slammed the door shut, the sound of loud growling and scratching and barking being heard on the other side as the animals fought for entry. Fluttershy was visibly shaking when Rainbow placed her on the ground. She sat on her haunches as Rainbow held her shoulders, looking into her terrified eyes.
''What were you thinking, Fluttershy?! You're gonna get yourself killed!'' Rainbow yelled, tightly gripping Fluttershy's shoulders as she herself was shaking. Fluttershy could only whimper in fright as she tried to find her voice.
SNAP!
The door was torn clean off of its hinges, a swarm of zombies coming through followed by the dogs, showing their decayed, bloody teeth that had flesh dangling from inbetween a few of them. We moved as fast as we could, running to the back of the room. The women didn't try to run but instead tried to fight them off. Bullet by bullet, she took them down. It amazed me at how accurate she was with a side arm. I saw one of the dogs jump her by time I managed to smash a window, letting the ponies get out first. She managed to keep the dog from biting her, but only until the second dog came up and threw itself on top of her with the other undead hound. I reacted by grabbing a metal pipe from the floor and running up to the dog, swinging the piping with all my strength and striking it directly in the head, sounding a loud crack. The other dog focused it's attention on me and jumped at me, me missing it with the pipe. He clung onto my jacket with his paws and tried to bite me repeatedly, making me stumble on my legs
and eventually making me lose balance. Within seconds, I ended up being thrown out of the window, falling with the hound on my chest, the pipe being the only thing from keeping it's jaws off of my flesh. I hit my back hard on a metal balcony before I hit the ground, thankfully with the dog going first. Luckily, the fall seemed to of broke it's back, making it unable to move. I ended it's misery by delivering a final strike to it's head, silencing it for good. The ponies hurried towards me when they got to the ground, concerned looks upon their faces. I felt Twilight and Applejack help me to my feet.
''Oh, my...you're bleeding!'' Twilight said, pointing to a gash on my arm. I looked over to my arm, seeing the wound. I felt my brain go into panic mode as I checked it over, hoping it wasn't a scratch or bite I somehow didn't feel. It was a clean slash, but it didn't look like it came from the dog. It wasn't as deep as a dog bite, either. I relaxed upon knowing my days weren't rounded down to minutes.
''Don't worry. I didn't get bitten, I'll be fine.'' I reassured her, but she didn't look too convinced. For such a small cut, it did make quite a large amount of blood flow down my arm than I expected. I felt my arm be engulfed with a purple aura, making it unable to move. That's when I noticed Twilight's horn glowing with purple.
''What are you doing?'' I asked her, cautious of what was about to happen.
''Just hold still.'' Is all she said. In seconds, my arm began to burn with heat, like I've been touching a boiling radiator, and then I saw the wound begin to close. The amazing thing was that after she released my arm, there wasn't even a scar visible where the wound once was!
I turned to her, smiling at her.
''T-Thank you, Twilight. Just...how? How did you do that?''
''Healing magic,'' she sighed, a couple droplets of sweat falling from her brow. ''kinda takes it out of me. You're welcome, by the way.'' I leaned down and hugged her. Just around the same time, the women from the room upstairs jumped from the balcony, and upon hitting the ground fell to her knees. She looked even more hurt than me. I saw a few scratch marks on her jacket, but none looked as if they went into her flesh. That didn't explain the amount of blood on her face, though. There was more on her than before, and it looked fresher.
''Hey, you alright? Get bitten or anything?'' I asked her, about to pick her up by the shoulder when she knocked my hand away with her shoulder, taking me slightly aback.
''D-Don't. Just don't.'' She seethed. Quite clearly, she was hurt. At the moment, I suspected that she actually was bitten by either the dog or a zombie. ''Ugh...just...go. Leave me.'' She grunted as she leaned back into a sitting position on the curb of the street. I knelt in front of her, looking into her eyes that she didn't bother focusing on mine. She kept her's on the ground, looking colder than stone.
''Are you alright, though? We're not gonna leave you behind on your own. I wanna know if you got bitten by one of those dogs.'' I noticed her cringe. ''Please? I'm not going anywhere unless I know you're alright.''
She looked up at me this time. Her face was emotionless as a statue. She tried to stand up, but fell back down in an instant, grunting loudly in pain. I caught her just before she could hit the ground. She was breathing slightly faster now.
''I twisted my ankle, okay? One of those things threw me off of the balcony just after I got through the window. For god's sake, just go. You're wasting your time by trying to help me.'' I frowned as I turned to Twilight, seeing a some-what unsure expression on her face. Something tells me she knew what I was going to ask.
Twilight came forward, taking a look at her ankle, seeing the condition it was in. It was pretty swollen and could of been broken in more than one place.
''I'm not sure if this will work, but I'll give it a go. Hold on. You may want something to bite on if this gets too painful.''
''I'll be alright. Just..try to make it fast, okay? Damn thing hurts enough.'' Twilight nodded as she used her magic to heal the women's foot. The purple glow around her ankle grew brighter and brighter as the process progressed, and from the women's expression, it was getting more painful.
She gritted her teeth as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the pain but failing miserably. Twilight was visibly sweating as she focused harder on the injured limb. The women let out a small scream as something clicked in her foot, followed by a few other clicks, and in a matter of seconds it all ended.
Twilight's magic died down and she fell to the floor, bullets of sweat falling from her head as she panted heavily for breath. Pinkie helped her up from the floor and allowed her to lean on her shoulder as she regained her composure.
I helped her back to her feet, sending relief and shock through her mind as she found that her twisted ankle was repaired. She sighed softly through her nostrils as she gave it a test by moving her foot in a small circle, amazed to feel no pain. Looking back to Twilight, she smiled.
''Oh, wow...you fixed it! Thank you. Who are you anyway? I've never seen anything quite like you.''
Twilight breathed a short breath before she looked the women in the eyes. ''I'm Twilight Sparkle,'' she motioned to herself with a hoof. ''And these are my friends, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. And that's Matt.'' She pointed a hoof to me, smiling, and then she pointed a hoof to the women. ''And you are?''
The women smiled softly. ''I'm Scarlet.''