//------------------------------//
// Chapter Thirty Two: Thing 
// Story: Equestria; UNDEAD 
// by runningtoastgirl77 
//------------------------------//

	"Are you okay back there?" Grella called to me from her back. I had to admit, given that I had changed drastically the past few days, flying still horrified me. I was trying my best not to let my stomach have it's way. 

"Actually..." I could barely keep it down. "C-can we... can we s-stop?"

"Oh, um, sure. Hang on." She swooped down to the road. I wasn't sure exactly where we were, but I could tell we were at least almost out of the Everfree. The wind had tossed us, or at least more me, through thick and thin since morning, which had dissolved into a foggy afternoon. Needless do say, the moment my hoofs touched the ground I vomited with abandon. Grella stretched out and took out her water bottle. "Come on, it wasn't THAT bumpy."

"That was madness!" I said through dry heaves, washing my mouth out. "Well, there goes my lunch, eh?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah just... ugh I hate flying."

She frowned. "Sorry, but this was the only way we could make it back to Ponyville in a day." She did have a point, though, much to my dismay. "I guess we could walk the rest of the way." 

I frowned. "Actually..."

Grella rolled her eyes. "Just go in the woods."

I blushed. "F-Fine, just don't be too far."

"Okay..." Grella rolled her eyes. 

After trotting out into the woods and relieving my nervous bladder, I carefully scanned the woods when a glint of something reflective caught my eyes. At first, I thought it might have been some pony ready to shoot me if I looked at them funny, but then I recognized them as re-enforced roof shingles. "Hey Grella, you see that?"

"Do I even want to know?" Grella Called out.

"Looks like a house."

Grella flew over carefully. "A house? Out here?"

I stared at the house in silence, feeling a strange almost magnetic pull to it. "We should check it out."

"What? Why?"

"Well... what if there are ponies in there, lost? We could help put them in the right direction to Ponyville!" I smiled softly. "Or... what if somepony is in there hurt? We could help them!"

"Or it could be full of Murderers or Zomb-ponies who will try to shoot or bite out faces off."	

"There might be useful supplies, looks like it's pretty fortified."

"Fortified? A fortified abandoned Shack in the middle of the most dangerous forest in Equestria?" Grella looked like she was considering it for whatever reason. I wasn't even sure while I was so persistent. She sighed and got her gun ready. "I'll give you ten minutes."

I smiled. To be honest, I was hoping to maybe get some more books, or maybe even something I could use as a weapon, better than my nailed branch. I did know why Grella would be interested in the small, seemingly random shelter in the forest, or at least I had a feeling she did know. 

We walked to the shack with hesitation. It was small, but surprisingly not surrounded by dead bodies, not that I would prefer the alternative. The shack, despite it's size, seemed well built, almost as if it were reinforced with cement, only one window next to a metal door, but it seemed to be one way. There was also what seemed to be a generator outside. And it was running.

"Do you think somepony is inside?" I said softly.

"Only one way to find out." Grella walked up to the door with more bravery, or maybe just more curiosity, than I could muster. She knocked confidently on the door. "Hey, anyone in the-" As she knocked on the door, the door slipped open. Grella opened it and looked around quickly. "- no one's there." 

"The door was just open?" I looked surprised, walking by her to peak inside. "They must have left recently."

"But... why?"

"How would I know?" I responded. I trotted inside and looked around. "Hey Grella could you... could you keep guard outside? I wanna see if I can find anything I can use."

"Alright." She gave me a stern look. "Ten. Minutes."

I walked inside and closed the door. I had to admit, it was bigger than it looked, for a one room shelter. There was a small bed against the wall, along with a dresser packed with clothes. there was a small kitchen, and on the far corner... an alchemy lab. I could tell it was for potion brewing, recognizing some of the herbs from my magic 101 book. Well, the corner was more like a mini office, complete with a bookshelf and stocked shelves of office supplies and other things. As I was taking in the amazingly stocked shelter, a thought crossed my mind, why would anypony leave this place, completely stocked, and leave the door open?

While looking around, I noticed a key high in a cabinet that I couldn't quite reach. I mean, I could always come back here, might as well make sure it's locked so no one would take this treasure trove while we were gone. I looked around and found a step ladder folded against a closet, and I took it, turning back to the cabinet. As I opened the step ladder and grabbed the key on the top shelf, sneaking it into my pocket, I heard a loud bang. I turned around quickly, and fell off of the step ladder. Something broke the closet door, and it was fast.

Before I could know it, what seemed like a bag of flesh crawled over me before I could get up. I was horrified, and I was disgusted. but above all, I felt... filthy. I tried to squirm out of the thing's grasp, and at that moment I was wondering WHY it wasn't trying to bite me, assuming it was just a deformed zombie. Somehow, I managed to crawl out of it's grasp and kicked it into the shelf of potions, breaking a bottle of some kind of acid, spilling it onto the monster's body, melting through it's skin. With in moments, I realized it was dead, the acid eating through the rotting creature's brain... brains? I screamed in horror, my body itching from the slime from the monster's under belly. I fell onto the floor, feeling like the slime was burning through me. 

And just then the door opened. "Autumn, times up-"


I awoke lying on a bed. I didn't recognize where I was. I rolled over and saw Grella cleaning the floor, no doubt just the broken glass from the vial. So I was still in that bunker, huh? "What are you doing?!" I said, nervous that Grella might have gotten the chemicals on her claws.

"Hey, hey... relax. What fell on that thing was just a bottle of vinegar." She said, noticing my concern.

"What are we still doing here?!" 

"You had an allergic reaction to the thing's slime. I'll assume your allergic to frogs? It's rare, but you might just be lucky." She glanced around. "Either that or that thing's slime just causes irritation for ponies. I wasn't effected when I dragged it out. "

"Why did you bother to clean this place?"

Grella blushed. "Well... I was maybe thinking of coming back here."

"Coming back? Why?"

"Oh... no reason." She smiled. "So, how are you feeling?"

I sighed. "Better, I suppose." I felt a pain in my chest. "What WAS that thing?"

"Your wildest assumption would probably be right. according to the notes I found, whoever was staying in this shelter was experimenting on those undead, or at least they directed their research that far."

"But... but how the hell did it end up like that?"

She sighed and sat in the desk chair. "They were trying to cure them. They tested a mix of magic and alchemy multiple times, keeping the undead captured yet secure in the back room. If her experiment failed, she would clean out the bodies and try again. not exactly like there is a shortage of them right now. Apparently the magic that brought them back to life reacted badly with a few of the tests she was running, and their bodies fell apart. Before she could clean up the bodies however, the loose body parts were sticking to different corpses. Creatures with three arms, two heads, half a torso. apparently a couple broke loose but she managed to trap the last one in the backroom." She handed me the notebook, almost as if to solidify the proof. "She ran away, and left this note here in a hurry as a warning about the creature, and possible ways to kill them. But it seems like you found a way she didn't list, using an everyday bottle of vinegar. The slime, I'm assuming was just produced from the creatures skin to keep the body from drying out, that and it apparently is constantly fusing together and unfusing, and it might just be a byproduct."

That was further feeding the questions as to why Grella wanted to stay here. "Okay... so then why do you want to stay here again? Seriously. This place doesn't exactly scream secure, considering there were several experiments and mutated fricking zombie experiments probably crawling all over the place?" 

"Don't worry, I cleaned it up. That, and I'll be safe as long as I have a water gun of vinigar, and my rifle packed with bullets."

"That doesn't really answer my question, Grella."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll explain later, okay? In the meantime, I think That Cherry and Buttercrisp might be worried as hell about you."

I didn't break my gaze. "You better have a good explanation."