"I still don't get why this is necessary," Babs Seed was saying. She was having Deja Vu and it was not a pleasant feeling.
Potato sack over her head, she was being led to the location of the campfire that had been used the night before when Scootaloo told her story of a wish gone terribly wrong. Sweetie Belle was already sitting there, stoking the fire so it wasn't left unattended.
"Because you're not a full member yet," Apple Bloom said, and led her to the fire. "Our meeting location is secret."
"It's not very secret, cuz," Babs said dryly. "We're less than five minutes from your house. Probably the big haystack and the old barn."
"Nuh uh!" Apple Bloom protested, making a rapid slashing motion across her throat as she did so. Scootaloo quickly dashed across and placed branches across the path, blocking the view of the haystack that could be seen from the trail.
They sat down, four in a circle, and Apple Bloom removed the sack from Babs' head. The filly's mane fell down into her eyes, and she blew it away with an annoyed puff.
"You know the rules," Scootaloo said. "You tell a story, and if we all like it, you're in. But we ALL have to like it."
"Yeah, whatever," Babs grinned. "I got a good one, though."
Apple Bloom nodded at Sweetie Belle, who reached into the pouch they carried and threw a cluster of powder into the fire. Babs continued. "Submitted fer the approval of the Night Mare Society... I call this story...the Tale of the Last Guardian. Whoooooooooo!" She made spooky ghost noises.
---
Applejack slowly drew her cart up the long, dirt pathway that reached away from town and over the hill. She normally preferred not being out his late, especially out in the suburbs like this, or was this technically the boondocks now? Either way, she had a delivery to make, and darn it all, she was going to make it. The cart behind her that she was attached to was filled with ripe red apples that clattered and bounced as she pulled the cart over the hill, and the mare gasped as she crested the curve.
Down below at the bottom of the hill, a huge, sprawling mansion lay forgotten and neglected, overgrown by weeds and corrupted to falling shutters and peeling paint. An even bigger lawn surrounded it, one which most certainly would have been glorious had it been cared for properly.
Applejack frowned. "Well that ain't right..." She said slowly, and checked the address on the delivery. She was about twenty miles from Ponyville, and it'd taken her all afternoon to get here. The sun was going down, and she really didn't want to be here, of all places, after dark. But this certainly didn't look like the residence of someone who'd purchased thirty bits worth of apples.
She pulled the cart forward for another few feet, before it got stuck. She pulled again, harder this time, straining against the harness, and there was an unfortunate CRACK as something snapped. She unhooked herself and turned to look, only to find an axle snapped off from the wheel. The cart wouldn't be going anywhere tonight.
"Well that just makes me madder'n a rattler in a pickle barrel," she complained, and unhitched herself from the cart.
She approached the mansion, staring at the closed door and rusted knocker for a long moment. "Well this can't possibly end well," she said slowly. Still, thirty bits. It'd be enough to get the roof of the equipment shed fixed... she raised a hoof and pounded the knocker on the door.
The door, instead of standing firm, swung open.
"...Well that ain't good," she said slowly, but entered into the main lobby.
"Hello?" She called, her voice echoing. "Ah've got a delivery!"
No answer.
Applejack stepped further into the front hallway, and the door swung shut behind her. She narrowed her eyes. "It's gonna be locked now, ain't it," she said, before trying the handle. The door didn't move.
"Of course."
Moving further into the house, the country pony shivered despite herself. The fading light caused long shadows from pretty much everything, and what little furniture was left was draped in ghastly white sheets. She turned and moved slowly down the side hallway towards the kitchen, glancing at several faded pictures on the walls. They depicted black and white photos of ponies she'd never seen before, and didn't expect to. One of them fell off the wall and shattered on the floor as she passed it, and Applejack cried out despite herself, staggering backwards with such force that she slammed into the wall and broke bits of plaster from the peeling paint.
Heart racing, she entered the kitchen. "Just a house... just a stupid hou-" she began, and her words were cut off as she stuffed a hoof in her mouth to stifle a gag. A pie had been left on the dark counter, vegetables and fruits on the table. How long they been here? Weeks, months? Impossible to say, for they were rotted to sludge, and filled with squirming white bugs that she didn't want to look at for even a second.
"Perfectly good food coulda fed somepony fer a week," she mumbled disapprovingly, and entered into a large room that appeared to be a living area of some kind. Through the back windows, it was fading to twilight now but she could see the overgrown lawn, hanging pots filled with dead flowers, and a garden surrounded by a staked off fence. The garden had a long pole sticking out of the ground in the center of it, which had presumably held a scarecrow at one point, but there was no evidence of one now.
There was a back door that led outside, and she tried it, hoping she could just circle around to the front of the house. But when she swung it open, the doorway had been filled and cemented by a solid wall of bricks. Almost like somepony WANTED to keep her in here. "Or somethin' else out..." she muttered to herself. "Naw, girl, stop it. Yer workin' yerself up over nothin'." She shook her head and turned the corner towards the front of the house, and gave a terrified shriek.
The scarecrow was leaning against one of the front windows, its plaid shirt torn and fluttering in the wind, its wild eyes staring directly at her. That hadn't been there before, had it? When she first arrived? Maybe she'd missed it...
Heart racing, Applejack slowly approached the window. It was just an ugly scarecrow, nothing else. It didn't blink, didn't breathe, didn't move.
"Odd place fer that," she mused, but gradually began to calm herself down again.
"It's just a stupid old house, nothin' else," she said, and passed by the window. She was back in the front of the mansion again. There were stairs leading to a second floor, and she attempted to climb them, but the roof had caved in and the top landing was completely cluttered with plaster, beams and debris. It was almost a shame, really, this house would have been so nice at one point. "Ain't goin' that way," she said.
She turned around, still on the stairs, and screamed again, this time the loudest of all. The scarecrow was at the bottom of the stairs, straw sticking out of its clothes and neck and legs, wooden arms reaching out towards her. She didn't know how in the world it was possible, she'd only been on the stairs less than two minutes, but there it was. And she was trapped.
"Only one way down," Applejack said, and narrowed her eyes. "Git outta mah way y'lousy vermin!" She charged down the stairs, mane whipping behind her, feeling its branchy hands close over her flank and tail as she passed it. "Well ah never, ain't just a scarecrow, s'a perv one at that!" She huffed. Its dirty fingers dug into her tail, trying to haul her backwards, and she lashed out with her back legs, sending it crashing backwards. She noted the window that it had previously been stationed outside was now wide open, but she would never fit through it.
Applejack turned and watched in growing horror as the scarecrow seemed to animate itself right before her eyes, picking itself up, straw fluttering in the air from the force of her kick... and began to run towards her, arms outstretched.
"...Whoop, time t'go!" She wasted no time, and ran away from the awful, ugly thing, hearing its rustling movements behind her. She charged around the corner to the kitchen, picking up the bowl of rotted fruit in one hoof, and hurling it at the scarecrow. Sludge and maggots coated it now, and the scarecrow screeched with pain and hate.
She made it back to the front door, turning her back towards it and kicking out with her back legs as hard as she could as if it were an apple tree. The wood splintered and broke under her kicks. One kick, two kicks! The scarecrow rounded the corner, hissing with rage, and lunged towards her just as the third and fourth kick broke the front door down and sent it smashing against the ground.
Applejack raced out of the house less than a second before the ugly creature reached at her and swiped for her tail, its dirty fingers coming so close she could feel the rush of air as it swiped. She ran right past the apple cart and away from the awful house, not looking back but hearing her attacker screech with rage.
The next morning, Applejack returned to the house with Blue Blood, the local constable. She had told him her story and could tell he thought she was crazy, and she was determined to prove it. The cart she had left was still here, the apples untouched. The front door she had destroyed was back in its frame in one piece, as neatly as you please, and stood ajar, opening easily when given a nudge.
Inside the house, there were no shattered windows, no bowls of rotted fruit, only an ominous empty pole standing up in the garden. The constable noted the broken picture on the floor and the dent in the wall opposite from where she'd fallen.
"I think it's a very distinct possibility that you fell and hit your head, Miss Jack," he said patiently.
"It's Applejack, and ah did not!" She protested. "It was real, ah tell ya! Ah ain't crazy! Ah ain't!"
The constable slowly led her back out of the house, the mare firmly babbling that she was absolutely certain about what she'd seen, what she'd experienced, and even as he led her out, she had the unmistakable sensation of being watched from somewhere deep in the shadows. She turned around only once, saw a flash of movement near the back windows, and then there was nothing.
She began to think that maybe she was crazy until she stepped through the front door out into the morning light. Something crunched under hoof and she looked down. The front porch was littered with bits of straw.
---
Babs blew her hair out of her face again, and sat on her side of the dying fire, looking smug. Sweetie Belle nodded to Scootaloo, who took the potato sack and placed it over Bab's head again, obscuring her view.
"Aw, man, I hate this thing," Babs complained.
"We vote," Apple Bloom said. "Do we let her in?"
Babs listened intently, but heard nothing. Sweetie Belle nodded, and looked at Scootaloo. Scootaloo nodded, and looked at Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom nodded, and removed the sack from her cousin's head. The whole process had taken less than a minute.
"You're in," Apple Bloom said brightly. "Welcome to the club."
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle cheered, and Apple Bloom handed Babs a bucket of water. "New member does the honors," she said.
Babs looked touched, and took the bucket, pouring it into the fire, extinguishing the flames in a hissing cloud of steam and casting the four into starlit darkness. "Until next time... I declare this meeting of The Night Mare Society closed."