• Published 24th May 2014
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Fallout is Dragons - Stories from the Maw - Newbiespud



An anthology of short scenes related to the Fallout is Dragons podcast campaign.

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Hush Now

Author's Note:

Written by AKCodeman (Firelight's player)

The campfire sparks and snaps as all gather around it. “So. It’s as nice a night as any… Perhaps a story? Not a ghost story of course, the wasteland is truer and scarier than any ghost story I’ve ever heard.” The storyteller takes a seat as everyone settles in around the growing fire, as if it becomes eager for a story as well. “It starts long ago, in a different life, a different place, and with a different family.”


“Hey Gr-” Bang! “Grin I-” Bang! “Grin!” Bang!

“What is it you little twat?!?” Bang! Goes the gun as the older colt dispatches the last giant ant.

“I’m bored… I mean we’re already done with this batch and it’s not even dark yet.” Says the younger blue colt lying across a boulder as he watches an ant’s corpse burn.

The older red colt holsters his gun, “And what do you want me to do about it? This was your idea.” he says walking over to one of their beer bottles.

“Well I was hoping you’d take your time with it this time. You didn’t even try to have some fun with it.” The young blue colt rolls over on the rock now looking at the older colt upside down.

“That’s because I take this more seriously than you, just like everything else.” Grin explains as he drains their last bottle of beer and tosses it aside toward their small pile.

The younger colt levitates a knife to cut a hunk of burned meat out of the dead ant. “You always are, and you’re only a couple years older, so why don’t you pull that stick out of your ass and have a little fun for once?” He replies as he takes a bite out of the ant meat.

“Hey! I can have fun!” The older colt exclaims as he pulls his knife and begins to gather the ant meat. “And maybe I like the stick up my ass.”

Burner tries holds back a laugh. “Pffft! Yeah that I’m sure of!” He yells as he laughs and rolls off of the rock.

Grin rolls his eyes. “You know what I fucking mean, Burner.” He adds with a bit of anger.

“Don’t get your tail in a twist.” Burner stands and goes over to their scattered beer bottles. “Now we got no fire water, no ants, and no fun.” He says with disappointment as he looks around the horizon, spotting a familiar building near by. “Hey I’ve got an idea… See that building over there?”

Grin looks up from the dead ants. “Yeah? What about it?” He says as he walks over to Burner.

“You hear about it from the rest of the gang? They say it’s haunted. OOoooooh.” Burner says tauntingly.

Grin laughs. “HAH! Yeah right. They’re just trying to pull your leg, you idiot.”

“Good! Then you wouldn’t mind checking it out with me then right? Or are you scaaared.” Burner taunts as he begins to circle around Grin.

“What? I-I’m not scared, it’s just that it’s getting late.” Grin glances around nervously careful to make sure Burner didn’t see his worried face.

“We’ll be back before it gets too dark. Come on, I’ll lead the way.” Burner then walks off in the direction of the building.

“...I have a bad feeling about this.” Grin trails after him reluctantly.


“So… Umm. Why do they say this place is haunted?” Grin glances around the entrance a little nervously.

Burner steps inside and shines the light from his horn around the room. “Not much. Just that it used to be a hospital.” And he moves the light to cast a menacing shadow over his face, “and that ponies go in, but they don’t come out.” The young colt mocks.

Grin walks with his head high over the younger colts trying not to show his fear. They walk around the building entrance, checking out the cabinets behind the old secretary desk and the shelves around the empty room. Continuing on they explore more rooms, taking anything they find, all in silence as the light from the outside fades slowly.

“By Luna this place is quiet…” Grin says as they leave another room and carry on down the hall and pass two big swinging doors. “It doesn’t even look like people have been in here since the war.”

“Yeah. We haven’t even found much, just a bunch of junk.” They open the door into one of the rooms in the hall. “I know we haven’t been here long, but I was hoping for more than this. Maybe a radroach or two.” Burner says looking around the room.

The room is nothing but a small patients room with one bed in the corner, curtains drawn around it. Burner looks to Grin then looks back to the bed. “Go on. Check it out.” Grin looks at him with a face that screams ‘you’re kidding right?’. “What? Scared?” Burner says taunting him.

Grin looks into the room cautiously, then straightens out his neck and holds his head up as he walks in. He stops halfway through the room and looks back at Burner, standing only a few feet into the room. Burner just nods forward encouraging him on shining light into the room. As the older colt goes on he stops right in front of the curtain, and gulps nervously. Glancing back one more time reassuringly at Burner, he raises a hoof to pull back the curtain slowly. Closing his eyes a little afraid of what he’ll see, he continues to open the curtain further. Peeking through his eyes they fly open and he steps back in shock, as he sees a long dead skeleton of a pony lying in the bed. He takes a sigh of relief for a moment as he looks at the lifeless remains, before the light in the room goes out. “BURNER!? Burner… This isn’t funny. T-Turn the light back on... Burner?” He turns around stumbling in the dark, trying to find the younger colt. “Burner!” His voice cracks as he yells with desperation and fear as a cold hoof touches his shoulder.

Jumping and screaming he dives for the door as light slowly returns to the room and he hears laughter. “Haha. You fuckin’ pansy!” Burner continues laughing as he points and mocks the older colt, levitating the skeleton’s hoof. “Scared of a dead pony, Bloody Grin?” He says with a bit of sarcasm dripping from the name.

“You fucking prick!” Grin’s voice cracks again, as he tackles Burner. They roll around on the ground for a while, bumping into the bed and cabinets. Hooves fly as the two colts punch and wrestle across the room, slamming each other into walls and the floor. Bones fall from the bed as they continue to fight and yell at each other. After a while it ends with Grin sitting on top of Burner’s chest and popping him in the face with his hoof. “You do that again I’ll fuckin’ stab you with celestia’s horn! You- You crazy fuckin’ raider!” Grin screams at Burner as he breaths heavily staring down at him with a look of anger in his eyes.

Burner looks up at Grin in shock as his nose starts bleeds. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Grin’s face goes from anger to surprise as he continues to sit on Burner’s chest. “Yeah. Well… Just don’t do it again.” Grin says as he gets off of Burner. Burner stands staring over at the older colt, with a disappointed look. Grin sighs with frustration and a bit of disappointment as well. “Look. I’m sorry for calling you a crazy raider ok?”

Burner shakes his head. “You know, you’re a raider too now. You might as well get fuckin’ used to it.” He looks around the room, at the cabinets that were shaken loose and starts to rummage through them like nothing happened.

“Right…” Bloody Grin sighs and helps Burner look through the rest of the room, looking at all the bones on the floor.


***

Time goes by, Grin and Burner continue checking rooms as they explore the hospital some more. Finding more bones, more junk, and even more silence in the dark rooms than before with the absence of their voices. Eventually they come to the door of another patient room and Burner’s ears perk up. “Hey. Hey did you hear that?”

Grin shakes his head in annoyance. “Not now Burner I’m not in the mood.”

“I wasn- fine whatever.” Burner says frustrated, he opens the door and shines a light into the room, finding another bed and another curtain drawn.

Grin sniffs the air. “Wait… Do you smell that?” Outstretching his hoof in front of Burner to stop him.

Burner lowers Grin’s hoof. “Now you’re doing it too?” And walks into the room up to the curtain ignoring the warning, Grin sighs and follows beside him.

“What you a little jumpy about another pile of bones?” Burner says as he pulls back the curtain with Grin beside him. The room turns cold and their skins pale as they look at the body in front of them, rotting, no older than a year, with it’s eyes wide and empty. Flies and other bugs eating at the dead body.

They both stand there staring at the body in surprise at the fresh body lying before them looking back with lifeless eyes. The room sits in total silence for a few heart beats before a rattling comes from one of the cabinets and both colts scream as Burner throws fire across the room and Grin draws his gun and starts firing. One bullet after another as they continue screaming until Grin’s gun goes click click click. They both hazard look at each other cautiously as the destroyed cabinet door falls off, showing a radroach within, looking a lot like burned swiss cheese.

The dead radroach slowly falls out onto the floor and they stare at each other. “Heh. Hah. Haha. Hahaha!” Both of them start laughing in relief, hanging onto each other before falling to the floor. Laughing until they have tears in their eyes, almost hyperventilating as they lie on the ground.

“Oh goddess, I thought I was gonna die.” Burner says as he wipes the tears from his eyes.

Wiping his eyes as well Grin stands up holstering his gun. “By Luna I thought I was a goner to. And now I’ve wasted all my bullets.”
Burner just looks up at Grin quietly from the floor as the older colt walks over to the radroach. “Hey, I’m sorry again, about scaring you like that back there. It’s just,,, you know you gotta relax more. The rest of the gang worries about you sometimes, you always seem to be on edge looking over your shoulder.”

“They worry about me?” Grin asks skeptical as he starts to check the cabinets.

Yeah. I mean it’s been years and you still don’t really relax around anyone. Except me really and only when we aren’t with the others.” Burner says looking up at him genuinely worried.

“Yeah well… They’re your family, not mine.” Grin says hiding his sour expression.

Burner gets up off of the floor and puts a hoof on Grin’s shoulder. “They’re your family too now. Whether you like it or not. And you are actually kinda fun to hang out with when you stop acting all twitchy.” The younger colt says, then goes over to the rotting body on the bed. “So… What do you think did him in?”

Grin finishes checking the cabinets and walks over. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure how he got into the bed.”

“What do you mean?” Burner lifts one of the corpses hooves.

“I mean. It’s not that old… So did he really just crawl into the bed to die here? Or did someone move him here trying to heal him up?” Grin looks to Burner nervously.

Looking back at the older colt, Burner tries to look tough fails. “Don’t… Now you’re just getting yourself all worked up again. He probably was just left here after someone couldn’t fix him up.” He starts to rummage through the corpse's pockets, finding only a few caps. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m tired of this smell.” Burner turns to leave the room.

Grin turns to follow Burner, taking one last glance at the corpse staring back at him with wide eyes before shutting the door behind him.


Once again with the same routine, moving through the rooms of the hospital, climbing floor after floor, with the outside now in almost total darkness. Finding more useful junk and the occasional medicine as they climb to higher and higher floors. “Don’t you think we should be heading back now? It is getting pretty dark out.” Grin says as they walk down the hallway.

“We’re on the last floor, might as well check it out before going. Won’t take long right?” Burner asks looking into another room. Nearly empty save for another rotting corpse in the bed, both of the young colts share a look of concern. “Shit… How many does that make it now?”

“Three... Maybe we should think about heading back.” Grin suggests nervously.

Burner looks to the dead body. “I don’t know. We’ve started to find some decent stuff now… And I mean it isn’t anything but a few dead bodies. It’s up to you I guess.”

Grin stares at it as well. “There aren’t many wounds on them either, just some cuts. We’ve both had worse than that…”

“So… We keep going then?” Burner says trying to sound a little reassuring.

“Yeah. Yeah we keep going.” Grin replies sounding a bit more confident.

They both leave the room continuing on as they check rooms. Some time passes by, a few more rooms checked and more quiet hallways filled with debris. “Hey.” Grin says cutting through the quiet hall. “Wanna break the silence a bit?” Grin says with a smile trying to put on a strong face as he bumps himself into Burner.

“Yeah sure. What you have in mind?” Burner says starting to loosen up from all the stress of the dark quiet halls and silent bodies.

“What’s one of those songs you know from the radio?” Grin’s smile grows.

Burner chuckles and gets a big grin on his face. “Hmm… Let me think.” He begins to hum a little as he walks down the hallway and they pass through the a door marked patriatrics. Burner begins to sing, a little off key, but trying to make a good try of it.

“Oh I don’t want to set the woooorld on firrreeee.
I just want to start a flame in your heart.”

Burner begins to step in beat as he sings and sway back and forth.

“No no, not that one. One that’s a little more upbeat maybe.” Grin says his face growing a bit brighter. Burner smiles back as he starts to take quicker steps across the hallway.

“Oh have you heard about the man named butcher pete!
He’s goin’ round hackin’ up the ladies meat!
He’s hackin’ he’s wackin’ he’s hackin’
He’s wackin’ he’s hackin’ he’s wackin’”

He starts singing wholeheartedly as he begins dancing down the hallway, kicking up sparks with each step as he moves further and further down the hallway.

“Haha. Much better!” Grin starts dancing down the hallway along with Burner. They both just dance down the hallway in Burner’s light as both of the young colts dance and kick over trash cans and baskets making even more of a mess. Shoving into each other as they begin to laugh and sing together.

Burner takes a break in the song to catch his breath and sees Grin stopping in his tracks, a pale and fearful stare. “What is it?” He turns to look down the hallway with Grin all look of joy in his face gone. The younger colt begin to see it, a green light from far down the hallway growing brighter and brighter, and they start to hear a mare, with a voice that is soothing but has a rasp in it that sounds like they have been smoking cigarettes for a century, singing a very different song.

“Hush now quiet now.
It’s time to lay your sleepy heads,
Hush now quiet now.
It’s time to go to bed.”

As the sickly light grows Burner stands there in shock staring down the hallway, before Grin grabs him and they duck through a door. “Turn the light off. Turn it off!” Grin whispers in a panicked cracking voice. Burner does so just after they get a quick look around the room, beds line the long room on each side, all with foal sized skeletons lying in them. Grin drags Burner under a bed as they scramble to hide.

“What the fuck!” Burner exclaims.

“Shut up you fucking idiot.” Grin whispers hastily.

“What was it? What is it?!” Burner says in a quieter but still panicked voice.

“I don’t know... Just-” Before Grin finishes they see the green light glow through the windows of the room, hearing the dreadful and beautiful song.

“Drifting off to sleep,
Exciting day behind you.
Drifting off to sleep.
Let the joy of dreamland find you.”

“Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.” Burner whispers in panic.

“Quiet!” Grin yells in a hushed cracking voice.

The door to their room opens and both of the colts hold their breath as they see the legs of the creature walk into the room, filling it with a green light. “How are you all my little ponies? I hope you are all good and ready for bed?” It speaks quietly in kind and soothing voice that rasps from centuries of age. They see the things body rotted like a ghoul's, but glowing as if it was a firefly. The creature walks from bed to bed, checking all of the skeletons as it hums it’s little song. Grin and Burner both start to feel ill as they lay beneath the bed, sweat dripping from their brows.

“Oh don’t worry my sweet little pony, you’ll get better soon.” The creature says softly as she walks closer and closer to the bed the two colts are hiding under. Burner whimpers a little as Grin holds him tightly, gesturing him to stay quiet. Finally the creature reaches their bed, stopping for a moment next to it, before continuing on. Burner takes a quiet sigh of relief as the creature’s head peaks under the bed right in front of them. The rotted gaunt face sits inches from their own, it’s glowing eyes looking at them as if scorching their souls. The mare’s hair hang in strands with the sickly green light emanating from cracks in its skin all across it’s body and scalp. It opens it’s mouth and the same light glows from deep in its throat, silhouetting the mare’s rotted teeth. She begins to speak, and green wisps of smoke slowly pour out of her mouth. “What are you doing my little ponies?” The nurse says in a voice that was probably much more lovely and sweet years ago.

Burner starts to scream before Grin smothers his mouth with a hoof, they both stare at the thing and begin to feel as though they may vomit. “We-we’re sorry miss. We were just playing a- a game of h-hide and seek… Right buddy?” Grin voice still cracking he looks to Burner pleading him to play along.

Burner nods hurriedly, tears almost welling up in his eyes.

“Well the both of you have had your fun. Now come on it’s getting to be past your bedtimes.” She says standing up.

Burner and Grin hurriedly scramble out from under the bed and each move to one of the empty ones. They pull the tattered covers over themselves, as the glowing ghoul in it’s torn and ruined nurse uniform stands in the room, staring at them. “Here now little one, let me help you.” The creature says in a rasping, but calm voice as she walks over to Burner, beginning to tuck him in. “There. You nice and comfy now?” Burner nods as he tries not to look like he’s fighting the urge to throw up. “That’s good. Now you get some good sleep alright little one?” She leans over to kiss Burner on the cheek and he resists the urge to puke in her face or scream or both, then she walks into the middle of the room. “Alright my little ponies, you sleep well alright? And you two stay out of trouble.” The she says gesturing at Burner and Grin and walks out of the room slowly and sings one last time as she leaves.

“Hush now quiet now.
It’s time to lay your sleepy heads,
Hush now quiet now.
It’s time to go to bed.”

As the creature leaves the room, Burner and Grin look at each other nervously. The door shuts behind it and they can still hear the song as the emerald light fades from the room. As soon as the room grows completely dark, the both of them jump from their beds, scrambling across the floor and burst through the door, running as fast as they can in the opposite direction of the singing. They fly down the hallways as Burner creates his light, jumping at every shadow it casts, running faster and faster as they go down stairs and crash through doors. The entrance door comes into view and they slam into it, throwing it open. They continue to gallop, further and further away from the hospital and the glowing ghoul that they had seen, not stopping until they start to slow to a trot, and then just a slow walk as their legs begin drag across the ground until they finally to give out.

Burner stops first as he drops to lay on the ground and pukes all over the dry barren dirt, hacking and wheezing as he continues to throw up, then begin to dry heave. Grin stops with him and looks back at the hospital far in the distance now, as he stands next to Burner a hoof on the colts shoulder. He breaths in and out carefully trying to stay composed, but drops to the ground throwing up along side Burner. Both roll over away from the vomit on the ground and look up to the stars breathing heavily. The young colts look at each other for a moment and smile, laugh a little even, happy to still be alive. Not wanting to move another step, they fall asleep there for the night lying next to each other under the grey overcast of the night sky.

Comments ( 1 )

Well, that was intense. Good work, codeman! Always cool to see stuff from the Maw.

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