TALES FOR NIGHTMARE NIGHT! A collection to read AFTER the lights are out!

by De Writer

INVITATION TO A FEAST

The cloud white mare with a black mane and a stunted horn peered silently over the wall where she was hidden by the foliage of the tree. She watched the omnibus pull up and let off a passenger. While the omnibus pulled away, the sienna furred and teal maned and tailed mare strolled over and put a thick envelope into the cemetery mailbox and then sat to wait in the shelter of the omnibus stop, her breath making clouds of steam in the chill late October air.

The cloud white mare nodded quietly to herself and retreated behind the high wall. Shortly she emerged from the brush at the far end of the cemetery wall, as if she had come around the graveyard’s wall from the Everfree forest behind it.

Trotting confidently up to the mailbox, she removed one letter and the package. Turning to unlock the gate, she pretended surprise as she saw the mare in the shelter.

“Melissa! I have your package here. What are you here for? Are you waiting for the next omnibus? It is too late, I am afraid. The last one has gone by.”

“I know, Bonnie. I was on it. I promised to let you see my Morgripe story before I gave it to Ponyville’s Dark Secrets magazine. I know that you are a very private pony so I did not want to write anything that you would not want me to. I thought that we could go over the story together, if you have the time and do not mind.”

As she unlocked the cemetery gate, Bonnie replied, “Thank you, that is very considerate of you. I do have the time. We can use the cemetery office to read it. It has candle lanterns and is out of the chill as well as away from any sort of breezes.”

The gate locked behind them and the office door being keyed open, Melissa asked, “Bonnie, are you some sort of ghost or vampony? I am afraid that I did a bit of snooping. You have left tracks from that smaller side gate out to the street so that it sort of looks like you came out of the Everfree. Thing is, you did not disturb any of the leaves or grass back from the gate. Besides, before you came to meet me tonight, I saw you looking over the wall, up high, where the leafy branch gave you some cover. When we came in, I looked. That branch is far too small to have supported you.”

Bonnie looked back through the cemetery office door. “No, Melissa, I am not a ghost or any other supernatural being. As you did notice, I am a very private pony. I was abandoned as a small foal, I guess because of my stunted horn, which you have noticed.

“This is for you alone. You may not write it up for or in a story. I was cast off not far from here, in the Everfree. Whoever my blood parents were, they meant for me to die there. I was lucky.

“You do not have to believe this part. I was tiny and you can put it down to that, if you wish. I was found by a deer.”

Melissa chuckled, “A deer? Really? Branching horns and all that?”

Bonnie nodded seriously, “Exactly. He put me with a loving couple who never had a chance to have the foal that they wanted. They raised me under the Nightmare. They knew other friends who also live under the Nightmare and those friends taught me some of their arts. That is all that I will say of it.”

To Bonnie’s surprise, Melissa nodded slowly and agreed, “I will not say or write about it. Protecting your privacy is why I am here now. You prefer to work at night because you were raised under the Nightmare, right?”

Bonnie nodded. She shut the door, chuckling at the memory of how the CMC had taught her what hinges and locks were for. She blew dust off of an old but still sturdy desk and set the envelope with Melissa’s story on it. She casually floated up to the candle lanterns hanging overhead and lit them each by a tiny spark of blue from her small horn. As she drifted down, Bonnie noticed Melissa’s drop jawed expression.

As she pulled up a padded seating bench, Bonnie pointed out, “That is something else that you do not mention, OK?”

Melissa nodded, ruminating, “So that is how you looked over the wall. You can fly.”

Laying out Melissa’s manuscript, Bonnie replied, “Not precisely. I float. There is a difference.”

Bonnie cut off further conversation by immersing herself in Melissa’s story of Morgripe’s disappearance. She turned the pages eagerly, chuckling frequently!

Eyes alight, Bonnie exclaimed, “You went into the Morgripe gang’s earlier attacks on the graveyard! Those were so funny! They really set the stage for your Everfree Forest theory of his disappearance! You handled my involvement beautifully. Thank you.”

Melissa cocked her head and stared at Bonnie as she replaced the manuscript in its envelope. “There was more to your involvement with the vandals than you’ve let on, wasn’t there, Bonnie?”

“Yes, but I would prefer that you say no more of it.”

“Why are you so concerned about your privacy, Bonnie?”

“Specifically, Melissa, I am concerned about the living knowing more about me. The living threw me away to die. Those of the Nightmare took me in to live. Besides, it is always the living who come here to vandalize tombs and markers. If they know too much about me, they might succeed. I do not want that.”

Melissa nodded, “I can certainly understand that. After Morgripe vanished, you were attacked by two of his buddies in broad daylight. If ponies around here knew that you were raised under the Nightmare, they might try other, more serious ways to harm you.”

Bonnie swept a hoof to indicate the whole graveyard, “Not just me, Melissa. There are all of those graves out there. Some of their ponies have gone to the Nightmare and others to different rewards, according to their lives and beliefs. Regardless of where they are, their places of rest should, NEED, to be respected.

“Why any of those who live, whether under Celestia’s Day, Luna’s Night, or under the Nightmare, would even want to harm graves is something that I simply do not understand. I know that it happens, but why is beyond me.”

Melissa shook her head, “I really don’t know either, Bonnie. The only thing that I can think of is trying to get some sort of thrill from breaking something that they are not supposed to and getting away with it. So that they know but think that nobody else does.”

Bonnie sat, brow wrinkled, before agreeing, “I guess that could be it. I don’t like it, but it does make a sort of twisted sense.”

Bonnie opened a cabinet and took out a ledger. She carefully put aside Melissa’s story in its envelope and wrote neatly in the ledger. Melissa’s keen eyes caught the date as yesterday’s. Bonnie entered pathways cleaned, number and location of graves trimmed and a few miscellaneous chores.

Seeing Melissa’s interest, Bonnie explained, “This shows Heather Bloom, Duchess of Red Hoof, what I have done. From this, she figures out how much she wants to pay me. Really, I would do it for free. Did it for a number of years, in fact. When she found out, she insisted that I should be paid for it.”

Bonnie chuckled, “I really don’t have a lot of use for money. Because of that, it has grown to a tidy sum. I keep most of it in the Trust and Loan.”

Melissa giggled at the thought. She asked impulsively, “Tomorrow night is Nightmare Night! What are you doing for it, Bonnie? Would you like to go to a party?”

Bonnie was returning, “Would you like to come to a True Nightmare’s Night party? If you could cast it as fiction, so that no pony believes its real, it would make a good story.”

Melissa was just beginning to agree, “I even see an angle to make it …” when she saw Bonnie’s expression go utterly feral.

She floated up and snuffed the candles. As she was drifting out through the roof, she admonished, “Watch if you like, but if you hear me, cover your ears!”

Melissa cautiously opened the door of the cemetery office. She saw two disreputable looking ponies poking about the tombs.

One muttered, “I figure that pony that watch this place likely stay hid in one of these here tombs. She paid to do chores but never hardly spend any money. Got to be a goodly pile of cash where she stay.”

The other nodded stealthily, “Right. All we got to do is find the one with her hoof prints coming in and out and we got our own Nightmare Night party! 'Specially if she’s home!”

Melissa saw the almost unbelievable sight of the pale white pony floating above the miscreants! Suddenly Bonnie began a low moan! Melissa covered her ears! The moan rose to a scream!

Even with her ears covered, that shriek nearly paralyzed her! The two tomb robbers froze in place!

Melissa was sure that her eyes were failing her. The stout back wall of the cemetery was now a tumble down, moss grown ruin. Beyond it, a grove of some huge dark trees that she could not make out blocked out the lower sky and the sight of the Everfree beyond! The head of a lovely mare reared up over the time ruined wall and slithered across. Her body from the end of her ribs back was that of a monstrous serpent!

Silently, the giant lamia cast coils about both of the robbers! As they woke from the effect of that unearthly scream, they tried to struggle! The coils tightened some and their efforts to escape ended!

Bonnie trotted down the slope of empty air to land at Melissa’s side. “Are you alright? I did see that you covered your ears before I got to the full Banshee scream. That’s why it didn’t paralyze you. Still, the first time that you hear one it can be pretty scary!”

Melissa shivered and it was not from the chill. Clutching her Morgripe story to her, she quavered, “What was that? What’s happened to the wall? Where did that forest come from?”

Bonnie sort of shrugged, “I told you that I was raised in the Nightmare, didn’t I? That is simply the Borderland of Nightmare showing so that Flowering Ash could come here to take the bad ponies away.”

“What will happen to those bad ponies?”

Bonnie smiled calmly, “They will be part of the feast. Oh, not for us. Just for the vamponies, ghouls and a few others. We of the mortal sort and some others, just don’t do blood or meat. We will have a really good feast of our own. We will have games and other fun things to do as well. Trust me on that.”

Melissa thought deeply for a few moments and replied, “I will probably need to get used to some of it, but it does sound like an interesting Nightmare Night feast. I will be delighted to come.”

~THE END~

Comments

[De Writer]

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Thank you for your comment. I do hope to write many more. I really like playing with Bonnie and the rest of the Borderlands of Nightmare crew. They are a fun bunch.