Derpy finds herself in the zombie apocalypse with four humans.
After a long day of work, Ditzy (Derpy) Doo wakes in the night to find that she is in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Worst of all, the zombies arent even ponies! Instead, they are some strange type of two-legged creatures with hands. fortunately for her, she is found by four of these creatures that dont seem infected. But can they help her escape this nightmare? For that matter, can any of them escape the hell-hole of a city they find themselves in?
update: the sequel is out! check it out, if you'd like: Left 4 Derpy 2
(proofread by Flutterguy_6996. Title image photoshopped by myself) (Dramatic reading by Applesaws. links to the readings can be found in the respective chapter's author's notes.)
It had been a particularly long day of traveling around Ponyville. After she tucked her young filly to sleep, Ditzy Doo was ready for a good night’s sleep. The bed greeted her as she entered her bedroom. The sheets were fresh, the mattress was soft, and her pillow felt like a fluffy little cloud. It was love at first sight.
Ditzy made her way over to the bed’s side. Too exhausted to even pull the sheets down, she lifted herself above the bed with a flap from her wings. She fell onto the cushiony mattress with a soft poomf, and fell asleep before you could say “muffins”.
* * *
Francis listened attentively for any possible sound in the night. The alley was totally devoid of any sound except him and his companion’s quiet footsteps. It was too quiet.
For over a week now, Francis, Bill, Louis, and Zoey had been stranded in a city that was overrun with insane, flesh eating zombies that were spreading all over the nation. The four had been trying to find a military evac station and get the hell out of their current situation. Every time they had fought their way through zombie masses thicker than pea soup, and every time it was the same sight. The evac station had been swarmed by the hordes and had been abandoned.
After the four’s disappointment of finding the last station demolished they had decided to just try and escape the city on foot. So far, the plan was working. But fighting through every horde of zombies between them and the city limits was beginning to take its toll on the group. They were exhausted and running low on ammo. Soon they would be fighting the zombie mass with tooth and nail.
With this in mind, Francis was becoming steadily uneasy from the current silence. The chances that he and the others had successfully killed all the zombies in the city were very, very slim. Still, there had not been a zombie to see for the last five blocks of alley they had traveled through.
Francis hiked his favorite shotgun on his shoulder. “Ya’ think we killed them all?” Bill turned his head to him with an irritated look on his face. Francis replied with a shrug. “What? I’m just saying.”
“Damn-it Francis, keep your voice down.” Bill whispered. “Do you want them to start attacking us again?”
“Sure beats being bored off my ass.” Francis remarked as he kicked an empty soda can. No sooner had the can finished rattling than the sound of a woman’s moaning could be heard.
Zoey perked up at the soft sounding cries. “Someone’s still alive!”
The moaning seemed to be coming from a door underneath a fire escape just ahead of them. Louis and Francis looked down the alley as Zoey and Bill approached it.
Zoey clicked her pistol’s light on and opened the door. “Hello… ” she panned the light across the floor as she followed Bill inside. They could hear crying as they ventured farther into the room.
Zoey slowly began to raise the light. “It’s ok, you’re safe now.” A scrawny figure began to come into view as the light continued upward. It sat on its knees, hunched over and swayed back and forth. It was wearing nothing but white panties and the bloodstained remains of a sleeveless shirt. Its skin was a sickly pale, and was even peeling in a place or two. Bill pushed Zoey’s pistol down, shrouding the sobbing figure in darkness once again.
“Lights off!” Bill whispered. The two began to back steadily out of the room.
Outside, the sound of running footsteps and the collective wail of several infected began to fill the alley. A horde of zombies emerged from the darkness. Francis immediately slung his shotgun down and began unloading shell after shell into the mass.
Louis began to panic. “Oh shit. Shit! SHIT! They’re coming!” He ran to the open door and flooded the room with the light attached to his Uzi. The scrawny figure that was a witch turned to the brightness and let out a shrill scream.
Zoey jumped up ran past Louis as fast as she could. “Run like hell!”
Bill managed to get a few shots from his rifle away before he closed the door and began spraying the oncoming horde. Louis slammed himself against the door as the witch began beating it furiously. Almost immediately it burst a hole in the door.
Louis jumped back and held his Uzi’s trigger down as a scraggly arm reached out and began flailing around wildly in hopes of injuring something. After Louis emptied an entire clip into the door, the arm went limp as its owner finally died. With the witch dead, he joined the others as they slaughtered the attacking zombies.
“Stick together.” Francis’s gun clicked empty, and began to reload. Suddenly Bill was jerked back by a long slimy tongue wrapped around his torso. The smoker had dropped down on the fire escape behind them while they were otherwise occupied with the Horde. Francis turned around and slid the final shell into the gun. “Hang on!”
The smoker exploded into a cloud of green toxic gas as Francis killed it. Bill fell to the ground and grabbed his rifle back, using it as a support to stand back up. Francis lifted his shotgun up with one hand to a nearing zombie and blew its head clean off with a single shot. “Merry Christmas, Bill.”
Bill finished standing up and stretched his back. “Yea, yea.”
As Bill was recovering, Zoey pulled out a pipe bomb and activated the beeping timer attached to it. “Fire in the hole!” Using what strength she still had, she tossed the bomb down the alley into the horde.
Beep
The sound sent a sharp pain through the zombies’ heads.
Beep
The zombies began swarming towards the high pitched sound.
Beep
They began stomping and beating at the sound in hopes of making it stop.
Boom
The bomb explodes, killing the remaining zombies in the alley. Blood and guts flew hither and yonder as a hand harmlessly bounced off Francis’s chest.
All was quiet once again as the four survivors looked down the alley at their gory handiwork. Zoey holstered her pistol and turned to Francis. “Still think that’s better than being bored off your ass?”
Francis huffed. “You’re damn straight it is. By the way, have I ever told you that you throw like a girl?”
Louis gave a quick chuckle from beside Bill. Zoey crossed her arms and sneered at the gruff biker. “Well in case you haven’t noticed, Francis, I am a girl.”
“So you admit it.”
Zoey just rolled her eyes. She had grown used to his constant sarcasm. It was then that Louis noticed the depiction of a white house with a plus sign inside it that was painted beneath the fire escape. “Hey, there must be a safe house up there.”
Francis pretended to curtsy to Zoey “By all means, ladies first.”
“You’re too kind.” She replied flatly as she began to climb up the ladder. The fire escape’s metal frame creaked under the new weight, but it was sturdy. It only took Zoey a moment to reach the first landing.
“Hey Bill,” she called down, “I found your friend.” With a thrust from her leg, the deceased smoker rolled off the platform and landed in front of Bill with an earthy thud. “Just thought you would wanna’ pay your respects.”
Francis chuckled silently to himself as he began up the ladder. “Yea, he really seemed to like you Bill.”
“Put a sock in it Francis.”
“Whatever you say old man.”
Zoey continued climbing up the escape as Louis began climbing up the ladder after Francis. By the time Bill began to make his way up the ladder Zoey had already reached the top. It wasn’t long before all four of them were on top of the roof of the three story apartment building. There was a table pushed up against the side of the adjacent building with a light shining down on it. There were some med-kits, ammunition, and even a bottle of pain pills.
“Pills here!” Louis stated as he strode over to the table and stuffed the bottle into his pocket. “Better grab everything I can.”
The others walked over to the table beside Louis and began strapping on the first aid kits and reloading their weapons.
-
Ditzy Doo rolled over onto her back and stretched her legs up into the air. Was it morning already? She still felt too tired to open her eyes, but she managed to sit up. No, it couldn’t be morning. Maybe it was her bed? She bounced up and down a couple of times. She could feel lumps of stuffing tumbling in the mattress beneath her. Yep, definitely the bed.
“Strange,” Ditzy thought to herself, “I could have sworn that I bought fresh cloud stuffing just last week…” She stretched her forelegs again and rubbed the last traces of sleep from her eyes. Yea, it wasn’t anywhere near morning yet. Her room was far too dark for her to make anything out, but she still knew where everything was supposed to be. “May as well get a drink of water while I’m up.”
With another flap from her exhausted wings, she managed to push herself forward off the bed and planted all four hooves on the floor. A slight wave of dizziness rushed through her head as she adjusted to the sudden change. As her eyes began to synchronize with the dark she noticed a light beaming in through her bedroom door, which was cracked inwards just a bit. She seemed to remember putting out the lamp in the hallway before she went to bed, and closing the door for that matter.
She heard a sudden and somewhat sickening crack from the other side of a door as a shadow began to block the beams of light creeping around the door. “I know for a fact that I put Dinky to bed, why would she still be up?” She groggily began walking towards the door. She could hear what seemed so be a wet squishing sound as she came nearer, and she slowed down to listen to the noise. Another crack, louder than before, made Ditzy jump a bit, but she continued moving forward. She could hear sort of a crunching noise now as she pressed her ear to the door. It sounded like something hard and crunchy was being chewed. “Now why would she be eating at this time of night, and in the hallway of all places?”
At that moment she felt something begin to puddle around one of her hooves as it crept underneath the door. In the light from the cracks, she could just barely make out that it was red. “Tomato sauce? just what is Dinky eating?” She placed a hoof on the side of the door and slowly pulled it open. She was met with a horribly grizzly sight as the door opened farther. The light in hallway lit two figures that she had never seen before. One seemed to be squatting on two legs over the other figure, which was slouched against the wall. The one in the squat was wearing a deep blue hoodie, and appeared to be digging its arms into the other figure’s chest. Ditzy froze in utter shock at the sight she was witnessing. She looked to floor to see a large puddle of the red liquid surrounding the two on the ground, and even smeared across the walls. That liquid was not tomato sauce, and that figure was most definitely NOT Dinky!
As if the squatting creature knew it was being watched, it pulled its clawed hands from the other figure’s chest and turned to the little pony. A slab of raw meat dangled from its mouth, and its red eyes glowed with rage at the living being in front of it. The two stared at each other for a quick second before the hunter swallowed the chunk of meat with a gulp.
The hunter's goals burned a hole in its head, as it began to growl menacingly and readied itself to pounce. The victim still stood there, staring at it with its loopy eyes and horrified expression. An easy kill. It leapt forward, letting forth an incredibly loud shout. The victim shrieked even louder than the creature did, and slammed the door in its face. The hunter, unable to stop mid-leap, slammed headlong into the door with a loud thwack that left it stunned for a second. A second shriek from behind the door only fueled its now boiling rage as it began to slam itself into the door.
-
Louis looked up from the table that the others were standing around. “Hey, I think I heard a hunter.”
The others looked up as well. Zoey pulled out her pistol and cocked it back with a click. “Yea, and was that someone screaming as well?”
The four listened intently for a moment before another shriek of terror echoed up from the building. Francis grabbed an adrenaline shot from the table and jabbed it into his arm, sending a surge of energy through his body. Now fueled by his new-found energy, Francis whipped out his shotgun and bolted for the stairs that led down into the apartments. He kicked the door in with a single slam and it fell down the stairs into a common infected, crushing the zombie.
“Well what are you pansies waiting for? Let’s kill these bastards!” He rushed down the stairs out of sight, and immediately several blasts from his shotgun sounded off. Not knowing exactly how to react to their comrade’s sudden energy rush, the other three followed Francis down the stairs into the building in an attempt to keep up.
Francis ran through room after room blasting holes in every zombie if front of him until his gun clicked empty. He was about to reload when another scream, reached his ears, followed by the menacing howl of a hunter. No time for reloading. Not seeing any more zombies, he slung his shotgun back across his shoulder and pulled out his bloody, and slightly battered, wooden baseball bat. He ran around a corner and saw the hunter trying to bash a door in.
The hunter was barely able to look around before a hard and very painful object smacked into his cranium, sending him flying down the hall. He could hear his attacker shout a triumphant “Home Run!” The rage in his mind exploded, and he leapt at the survivor in a flash. WHACK! His victim dodged to the right and planted an even harder blow than before into the back of the hunter’s head. With the added momentum, he got a mouthful of plaster as his head bashed a hole in the wall.
“Is that all you got? Come on, come at me!” the survivor taunted him. Pulling his head from the wall and spitting out the plaster, he turned back to his attacker. The hunter was furious but not stupid, surprisingly. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the human at the moment. Instead of looking at the survivor, the hunter looked past him to a window at the end of the hall. He had one chance.
Francis was enjoying the beat down he was bringing upon the hunter. His adrenaline was surging and he had not even gotten scratched yet. The special infected crouched down, preparing to jump for a third time. Francis raised his bat behind him like an actual player would, and stared at the hunter. “Batter up.”
The hunter sprang forward into the air with its traditional attack-shout and flew straight at Francis. He swung his bat, but the hunter wasn’t where he had been last two times. The infected flew cleanly over his bat and smashed through the window behind him. Without dispersing its momentum on the intended target, the bat continued forward into the wall and bashed in another hole. Francis pulled his bat from the plaster and looked out the window. “Chicken-shit, coward!”
The hunter, now safe from the survivor, leaped from wall to wall until he landed in the alley with a thud. He looked around to see if there were any other humans, but all he saw were the remains of his zombie brethren. Even the witch, who was the second toughest special infected, had been killed. No doubt these zombies were killed by the same survivors that had nearly killed him. The hunter growled angrily to himself. “This is not over…”
Bill stumbled around the corner, panting for air. Trying to keep up with Francis as he blasted his way through an entire floor of zombies had proven quite strenuous for the old Vietnam veteran. “Francis… ugh, what the hell were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking that I wanted kill those damn vampires. You guys can get friendly with the survivors all you want; I’ll stay out here and watch for something else to kill.” He said matter-of-factly before shattering the bedroom’s weakened door with another one of his kicks. Louis and Zoey finally caught up and leaned against the wall to catch their breaths.
Bill walked inside the bedroom and flipped the light switch on. He found that it was a lot more clean and colorful than the rest of the building, aside from the bits and pieces of door that were scattered across the floor. The bed was in the back corner, and its sheets were hanging off in the floor and underneath it. He could hear someone whimpering softly underneath the bed, and figured it was most likely the person that they had heard scream. Having caught their breaths, Louis and Zoey joined bill in the room.
“So where’s the survivor?” Louis asked as he gave the room a quick once-over.
Bill pointed towards the crying. “Hiding under the bed. By the sound of it, he’s probably just a kid.”
“Damn. So what do you propose we do now? We can’t exactly bring a little kid along with us into the biggest shit-hole this side of hell.”
“Well it’s not like we can leave him here either Louis. I know it’s not safe out there, but I’ll be damned if I leave a kid behind to be eaten alive by one of those bastards!”
Zoey stepped in front of Bill after the outburst. “Take it easy! You’re probably scaring him even worse. Besides, we have to get him out from under there before anything else.”
There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out for some time. Bill looked to the bed, then to Louis. Louis looked him back in the eye before turning to Zoey. Zoey just rolled her eyes and got down on all fours to try and see under the bed. The sobbing lessened and turned into a fast, panicked breathing “Hey, take it easy,” Zoey began as she spotted something curled back up into the corner of the wall. It was too dark to see what exactly it was. “It’s alright now. We won’t hurt you.”
Zoey thought she could see it raise its head a bit, and it spoke in a frightened female voice. “I-it looked… like y-you. It… It was… e-eating him…”
Zoey outstretched a hand and held it out under the bed. “We won’t hurt you, I promise.”
Its breathing went down a bit, and it seemed like it raised its head a bit more. Zoey slowly tried reaching under the bed further towards it, but it suddenly kicked at her hand and pushed itself further into the corner.
“N-no! You won’t eat me! NO!!”
Francis, who had actually been watching the entire time, groaned. “We don’t have time for this.” he stated gruffly as he stormed over to the bed. He grabbed Zoey’s leg and pulled her back from the bed. “You’re taking too long, now it’s my turn to negotiate.”
He got down on his belly and reached underneath the bed like Zoey had done, but he didn’t take the time to be gentle. He dodged the kicks directed at his hands and grabbed what he thought was a ponytail. “Gotchya’.” He said triumphantly as be began dragging the figure out from its hiding spot. With all of the writhing and squirming to try and escape its captor, it accidentally kicked a cloud of dust into Francis’s eyes.
“Gah, damnit you little-” he began as he used his free hand to rub his eyes to try and regain some sight. His grip tightened in contempt as he dragged the figure the rest of the rest of the way out from under the bed. There was a sudden poomf and what sounded like flapping. Francis still couldn’t see, but he held his grip steady and flailed his open arm around looking for the figure’s torso. Once he found it, he wrapped his arm around the flailing body and held it in a death lock. He didn’t know what it was, but something soft began flapping against his face while he held it in his arm. This only made his eyes hurt worse.
“Take it easy kid! Damn, we’re only trying to hel- OW!!” Francis shouted as he felt it bite into his arm. “You little prick!” he continued as he shook the pair of jaws off. His eyes began to water, which helped ease the pain considerably.
“Come on guys, gimme a hand!” he shouted out to the other three, but there was no response. At last the thing in his arms began to stop fighting his hold and eventually passed out from exhaustion. He let go of its torso and finished wiping the crud from his eyes. “Yea, thanks for the help there you guys.”
“…Guys?” Still nothing. All three of them just stared beside him at what he had just let go. Then he too looked over at what he was still hanging on to by the ponytail. To Francis’s surprise, it wasn’t a ponytail at all. Instead, it was the actual tail to a small, grey pony with a stream of bubbles on its flank. What surprised him the most was the set of wings attached to its back. He could see its chest moving as it breathed deeply in unconsciousness.
Ditzy rolled over on her side and pulled the blankets back over her shoulder. Not comfortable enough. She rolled over on her other side. She relaxed again and settled back down into her pillow. She was beginning to doze back to sleep when she felt the bed shift as someone sat down on the bed beside her, followed by someone patting her gently through the covers.
Ditzy stirred, implying that she didn’t want to be bothered. “Mmmmm, five more minutes…”
Whoever was sitting next to her nudged her shoulder lightly and whispered to her in a soft, motherly tone. “Come on, it’s time to get up.”
Ditzy turned her head over, but kept her drowsy eyes shut. “Mom?” There wasn’t a response. “Ugh, I had this horrible nightmare mom. I remember waking up in this strange place filled with these weird, two-legged monsters. I think they were… eating each other. I tried hiding under my bed, but they found me. One of them acted nice, like it wanted to help me. …but then one of them grabbed me, and began strangling me…” She let out a heavy sigh of relief. “But it was only a dream.”
…Mom?”
There was a short moment of silence as Ditzy waited for a response. Finally the soft voice, only not as soft this time, spoke to her again. “Um… That wasn’t, exactly a dream.”
“Wha-” Ditzy began as her sleepy brain wrapped itself around the words. Her eyes shot open as she finally comprehended what they meant. She sat up in a flash and looked around the room quickly. There, sitting beside her, was the creature that tried being nice to her. The others were standing around the room looking at her with puzzled expressions, even the gruff-looking one that had dragged her out from under the bed. She was surrounded by two-legged creatures that were all covered in blood.
She looked back to the creature sitting beside her as it continued speaking. “…And we aren’t one of those monsters. We’re immune.”
Ditzy was at a total loss for words. She looked back to the gruff one, who gave her a snarl, and then back to the one sitting next to her. Without another word from any of them, Ditzy flopped back against her pillow as she passed out again.
Francis snorted. “Yea, nice job Zoey.”
Zoey turned to Francis. “Like you did any better when you nearly scared the poor thing to death.” She said with a smirk.
Francis just rolled his eyes. He could care less how this strange thing felt. He was more concerned with what it was, and what it was doing here. Francis kept running possible explanations through his head until he turned to Bill. “I say we kill it.”
Bill was taken aback by Francis’s blunt statement. He shook his head a bit in confusion before turning back to the biker. “Why on earth would you want to do that?!”
Francis shrugged a bit. “Well let’s see. We’re stuck in the middle of the apocalypse, there’s a disease that’s mutating people into… who knows what, and from my experience we can’t trust anybody or anything, even other survivors! What if this thing is the effect of some new virus that we don’t know about? I mean, I got bitten by it!” he paused as he showed the scabbed over teeth marks in his arm. “What happens if I’m not immune to this new disease?”
The other three survivors just stared at Francis in confusion and disbelief before Bill spoke up. “…WHAT?! Francis, that has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard!”
Francis ignored Bill’s comment and continued his rant. “Think about it; this thing sounds and acts like a person would, but it doesn’t look like a person. What if it’s a mutated like those other special infected? If one disease can turn a guy into something like the tank, then who’s to say another disease can turn people into that!” he continued as he pointed his shotgun at the unconscious pony.
Bill let his rifle dangle in his hand as he face-palmed with the other. “Damnit Francis… That’s even dumber than you thinking that the zombies are vampires! I don’t know what this thing is, or even where it came from, but I’m pretty damn sure that there isn’t anything in the world that could turn a person into something like that.”
“Sure makes a hell of a lot better excuse than a talking horse with wings being natural.”
“Francis, it isn’t an infectious disease, you’re not going to kill it, and it IS coming with us! So you can just shut up and deal with it!”
There was a brief moment of complete silence before Francis crossed his arms and scowled. “…I hate horses.”
Zoey stood up from her place beside Ditzy. “Actually, I think it’s more of a pony.”
“Well then I hate ponies! Whatever!”
Louis took a step towards Francis. “Um, you guys mind keeping it down some? The last thing we need right now is for another horde to attac-”
“BWUUUURRGGG”
Everyone stopped and listened. Francis grabbed his shotgun from where it had been leaning against the wall and made sure it was fully loaded. Louis quietly walked to the door and looked down the hall. It was still empty aside from a dead body slumped against the wall. The four heard the deep gurgling sound again, closer this time. They began to hear what seemed to be scratching and thudding coming from the adjacent room.
Zoey pulled out her pistol and cocked it back. “I hear a boomer…”
Bill and Francis aimed their weapons towards the section of wall that the scratching was coming from before Bill whispered to the others. “There’s gonna’ be hell to pay if that boomer gets in here. We need to get back to the roof if we’re going to fight off another horde. Zoey, you get the, uh… pony, and take it to the roof. Louis, you cover her.”
Louis slid another clip into his Uzi with a click. “Yea, ok.”
Zoey gently lifted Ditzy up in her arms and headed out the door with Louis right behind her. However, they didn’t make it far before Francis shouted out “Boomer,” followed immediately by a shotgun blast and an explosion. A very pungent smell flowed down the hall and hit Louis and Zoey like a ton of bricks. They could hear Bill and Francis arguing between each other as they ran down the hall towards the stairs that led back up to the roof.
As they reached the roof they began to hear a multitude of zombies swarming through the apartment building below them. Bill and Francis got to the roof soon afterwards, and they both reeked with the pungent smell that had filled up the hall. “…damnit Francis, how many times do I have to tell you? If the boomers are too close when you shoot them they will splatter you!” Bill continued as he reached the top of the stairs.
“Yea yea, I know.”
“So then why the hell did you run up to it and shoot it in the face?!”
“Because I wanted to?”
“But why would you ever want to… You know what? Forget it! Let’s just kill these damned zombies and forget this happened!” Bill concluded as the first zombies began to charge up the stairs. Bill and Francis both opened fire and began mowing the zombies down mercilessly. No matter how many zombies the managed to kill, more kept coming. Soon they would begin to overwhelm the two survivors holding the top of the stairs. Bill’s gun clicked empty and he began to reload. “We could use some help over here!”
Zoey carefully laid Ditzy onto the table and turned to Louis. “You go help them. I’ll take care of this.” She stated as she turned back to the unconscious pony. Louis nodded and quickly strode over to the doorway and began unloading into the zombies with Bill and Francis.
The hunter crouched at the corner of a tall building across the street. Rage and the compulsion to avenge his fallen brethren had filled his mind ever since he had been disgraced by the gruff-looking survivor with a bat. His first impulse was to attack the survivors the next time he saw them, but he stopped himself. Revenge wasn’t going to come easy for him. Oh no, not by a long shot. He knew that if he was to succeed, he would have to study the survivors and formulate a strategy for their demise.
And so he sat atop the building and watched as the group slaughtered countless of his brothers. He watched their every move, taking note of how they functioned as a team. As he watched, an idea came to him. If they worked so well as a team, maybe he and the other special infected could work as a team as well. He pondered this idea as the survivors finished killing the horde of zombies brought on by the disgruntled boomer. Yes, in order to bring the survivors to their demise he would have to use teamwork.
An evil grin spread across the hunter’s face as he began formulating a plan.
Francis finished reloading his shotgun and pointed it back down the stairs. “You think that’s the last of them?”
Louis kept looking through the sights of his Uzi. “Sure sounds like that was the last of them.” He began as he took a deep breath, but he stopped himself as the pungent smell of vomit reached his nose. “ACK! Damn Francis! What did you do, roll around in the boomer’s guts?! Jeez, take a shower or something because I can’t stand this smell!”
“Aw boo hoo.”
Bill lowered his rifle. “He’s right Francis. You need to clean that shit off or you’ll be attracting hordes for the rest of the trip.”
“Ok, so how do you propose I do that?”
“Well these are apartments, there’s gotta’ be a working shower down there somewhere. I suggest you find one.” Bill continued. “I’ll come with you and watch your back.”
Louis stifled a laugh as Francis turned to Bill with a slightly disgusted look on his face. “Bill, there’s no way in hell that you’re gonna ‘watch my back’ while I shower!”
Bill slapped his hand to his face and shook his head. “Francis… You know damn well I don’t mean it like that. Besides, you don’t want a zombie to catch you bare-ass and unarmed, do you?”
Francis paused a moment as he contemplated his options. “I guess not. But if you peek I’ll rip you face off! And I mean it!”
“Yea yea, now let’s go before another horde catches your scent.” Bill concluded as he began heading back down the stairs with Francis close behind. Louis walked back to where Zoey was looking after Ditzy as she lay on the table.
Ditzy tried opening her eyes as she began to come around for the second time. After a moment, she regained her senses and opened her eyes. She stared up at the starlit sky as she lay there on her back. Where was she now? She slowly sat up on her haunches and looked around. She figured that she was on the roof of some sort of building as she panned her vision. Then she saw the creatures again. This time there were only two, the kind one and the one with the dark skin. Like last time, they were looking at her with puzzled expressions on their faces. Only this time, she wasn’t as shocked to see them. She figured that if they had wanted to eat her, then they would have killed her by now.
Ditzy decided she may as well try to figure out what was going on. She cleared her parched throat and looked the kind creature in the eyes. “Where am I?”
The creature just stared at her for a second before it replied. “Fairfield, Pennsylvania. You’re not going to pass out again, are you?”
Ditzy but a hoof to the side of her head. “No, I don’t think so. How did I get here, and what are you… things?”
“Well I could ask you the same thing. It’s not every day that we see talking ponies with wings around here. But after everything else that’s been going on, I suppose anything is possible. I’m Zoey, by the way. And that’s Louis” she continued as she motioned in his direction. “We’re humans, in case you didn’t already know.”
“Humans? I’ve never heard of those before. Hey wait…” Ditzy noted when she didn’t see either the gruff looking ‘human’ or the other one on the roof with them. “Weren’t there two more of you?”
Zoey nodded. “Yea, but they aren’t here right now. The one who, um, ‘got you out from under the bed’ is named Francis. The other one is Bill.”
“So where are they?”
“They went to make sure that the zombies wouldn’t be following us around everywhere.”
Ditzy’s off-kilter eyes widened a bit. “Zombies?!” She remembered reading some sci fi books about zombies in her youth, but she never imagined that they could ever be real. However, that would explain the creature that she remembered seeing eat a human when she woke up. Her stomach knotted up at the recollection of the memory.
“Yea, zombies.” Zoey continued. “A few weeks ago this disease got out of control and began turning people into flesh eating freaks.”
“So earlier, when you said that you were immune…”
“Yep. The four of us aren’t going to turn into zombies any time soon.”
“But that doesn’t make the situation any easier for us.” Bill stated as he and Francis walked over to the table. He slung his assault rifle on his back and walked up next to Zoey. “If nothing else we got the worst of it all. Fighting off every last infected piece of shit that we happen across isn’t exactly the better end of the deal. Anyways, I see you finally decided to wake back up. The names Bill.” He concluded as he extended an open hand towards the pony.
Ditzy cautiously moved her hoof towards the strange appendage that had five digits protruding from it. When she reached close enough it reached the rest of the way and gripped her hoof in a firm grasp and shook her foreleg. “My name’s Ditzy Doo.” She began as she shook hand with Bill “I’m the mailmare for Ponyville. Its, um, nice to meet you all.” She said as Bill continued to shake her foreleg.
Francis huffed and crossed his arms as he watched Ditzy. “Pfft, Ponyville, what a cheesy name. I still don’t think we should trust this thing guys. Don’t you remember what it did to me?”
Louis looked over to Francis with a rather irritated look on his face. “Francis, she was just trying to defend herself. Hell, I would have done the same thing if I was in a strange new place and someone treated me the way you did when you pulled her out from under that bed.”
Francis rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
Ditzy stopped shaking hands with Bill and stood up on all fours. “Francis, is it?” Francis glared back at her. “About what happened by the bed, I’m sorry for kicking you… and hitting you with my wings… and biting you… I was just scared, that’s all. I really am sorry; it wasn’t a very good first impression of me was it?” Francis continued to glare at her.
Zoey laid a hand on Ditzy’s shoulder. “Ditzy, you don’t have to apologize. If anything, Francis should be the one apologizing for acting the way he did. …Isn’t that right Francis?” Francis huffed and turned away before muttering something under his breath. Zoey shook her head a bit and turned back to Ditzy. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll grow on you after a while.”
“Really?”
Zoey paused and thought for a second. “Actually… no. Not really. In fact it would probably be better if you tried to avoid him for a while.”
“I heard that.” Francis stated gruffly with his back still turned. The others ignored him.
Ditzy sat atop the table on her haunches and watched as Bill and Francis discussed how they planned to escape the city. Louis and Zoey had volunteered to guard the steps leading into the apartment in case any other zombies found their way up.
For the past hour and a half, Bill had briefed Ditzy of what was going on in the apocalypse and how to cope with most situations. Now he was arguing with Francis, who thought that bringing the pony would somehow end up getting them all killed.
“…Francis, I don’t care about your gut or what it’s telling you.” Bill continued. “Ditzy is a survivor just like you and me. I’m not leaving her here to die, and that’s final.”
“I’m telling you, it isn’t a good idea to bring it with us! Besides, how would it even defend itself? In case you haven’t noticed, it doesn’t even have hands. It’s not like it can use a gun.” Francis replied sarcastically as he pulled out a pistol and tossed it on the table beside Ditzy.
Bill paused and thought about Francis’s rebuttal. That hadn’t crossed his mind yet. Just how was Ditzy going to defend herself if she couldn’t use a gun? Neither of them noticed Ditzy as she picked up the pistol and began fiddling with it. If a gun was out of ammo or unavailable, Bill knew to use… “A melee weapon! Ditzy could use my Katana?”
Francis looked at Bill with a very flat look on his face. “Bill, it still doesn’t have hands. How is it supposed to hold your sword, huh? With its teeth?”
“That’s how I usually hold things back home.” Ditzy spoke up as she stopped fiddling with the pistol for a moment. “Pegasi and earth ponies don’t have magic, so we usually hold things with our mouths. But, how did you know that Francis?”
Francis glared at her in irritation for a moment as he tried to think of a clever come-back. “…Pfft, magic is for little kids. Everybody knows it doesn’t exist.”
“It does in Equestria. Does it not exist here?”
“Uh, duh. Isn’t that what I just said, or were you too slow to catch that?”
Ditzy was taken aback by the very rude comment and lowered her head down. Bill gave Francis a hard push in the shoulder as Ditzy began fiddling with the pistol again.
“What the hell was that for?!” Francis grunted as he shot Bill a scowl. “It probably is slow! Just look at those freaky eyes!”
“It’s a medical condition” Ditzy whispered quietly as a tiny tear crested her eyelid. She sniffed and rubbed it away before anyone could see it. It wasn’t her fault that her eyes were permanently loopy; she was just born that way.
“Damnit Francis, don’t be an ass!” Bill said angrily as he interrupted her thoughts.
Francis huffed as he picked up his shotgun. “Screw you.” He concluded as he strode over to the door with Zoey and Louis. “Zoey, go tend to the little shit. I don’t know how much longer I can stand being around that thing.”
Zoey eyed him sternly before heading over to the table and sitting next to Ditzy. Francis was always in a bad mood, but ever since Ditzy had shown up he was becoming more and more hostile. Zoey wrapped an arm around Ditzy and tried to comfort her as best she could. Bill grumbled to himself a bit as he kicked the ground from frustration. “Damnit… Francis is going too far with this. He’s overreacting, and it’s really beginning to piss me off!”
“Calm down Bill.” Zoey began as she rubbed Ditzy’s shoulder. “The last thing we need right now is you getting angry.”
Bill sighed. “Yea, you’re right. It’s just that he can just be so infuriating sometimes.”
“I know.”
“So, are you feeling any better Ditzy?”
Ditzy sniffed and looked up to the old veteran. “Yea, I guess I’m ok. I guess I’m used to being called names after all this time. So, what were you talking about before? Something about me being able to defend myself?”
“Oh yea.” Bill continued as he pulled out his Katana. “Do you think you can hold this in your mouth and use it as a weapon?”
Ditzy placed the pistol down beside her and hopped off the table. “I can try.” she replied as she walked towards Bill, who was holding the handle out for her. She gripped the padded handle in her jaws and lifted it into the air. She had to bite it from the side, so the blade stuck far out to her right. Normally this would cause her to lose balance and stumble over, but the sword was surprisingly light weight. Bill took a step back to allow her some room to swing the blade. She swiped it back and forth a few times until she found a few different moves that didn’t hurt her neck. After a few more swings, she placed the sword on the table. “Yea, I think I can handle it.”
Bill gave her a nod. “Good. You’re going to need all the help you can get when we come across another horde.”
“Besides,” Zoey began, “If you don’t feel good about killing them, you can always imagine that they are Francis. It’s what I do sometimes.”
“Damnit Zoey!” Francis cried out from the door.
“What can I say? At least you’re helping in a sense.”
Francis grumbled under his breath. Zoey ignored him as she turned back to Bill. “Well that takes care of that. So now what’s the plan on escaping the city?”
“Nothing has come to mind. I don’t think we’ll survive much longer if we continue towards the city limits, but all the military evac stations have been destroyed.” Bill thought to himself about how to escape the dead city as Ditzy picked the sword back up and continued practicing.
* * *
Another half-hour passed as the group continued thinking of a way to escape the doomed city. In this time, Ditzy continued honing her skills with the katana. She had found that the sword did not affect her flying, and begun practicing some moves while in mid-air. She was in the middle of a complex loop-de-loop when she heard a strange noise approaching. It wasn’t long before the other survivors heard it as well. The four humans stopped what they were doing and began looking up into the sky as if they were searching for something.
The sound was growing louder as Ditzy placed her sword back on the table and walked over to Bill. “What is it?” The veteran waved a hand to hush her as he continued scanning the skies for the sound’s source. Ditzy furrowed her brow a bit and walked over to Zoey, who answered her without delay.
“It’s a helicopter, which means there’s a chance that we’re going to get rescued.”
Bill looked over to Zoey. “Shhh! I think someone is talking over its intercom!”
Sure enough, as the sound grew louder a voice could be heard shouting out to the city. Then the dark outline of something flying came around the side of a building off in the distance. The second it came around the building, the four humans began jumping and shouting at it with enthusiasm. Francis even let off a few rounds into the sky in hopes of grabbing the helicopter’s attention. Ditzy, however, still was not sure what exactly this helicopter was, but she took Zoey’s word for it and began hollering at the thing off in the distance.
What they were doing must have gotten the helicopter’s attention, because it began flying in their direction almost immediately. The voice coming from it paused for a moment before shouting out twice as loud as before. “To anyone who can hear this; proceed to Mercy Hospital immediately. I repeat, proceed to Mercy Hospital immediately. There is a helipad on the roof that I can land on and a CB radio for survivors who make it to contact me with. I say again; proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation!”
The message repeated itself as the helicopter flew by the survivors at rooftop. Ditzy got a glimpse of the flying metal machine and its pilot as it passed by. Francis dropped his shotgun and ran to the edge of the roof and waved his hands wildly as the helicopter passed by. “Come back here and pick us up damnit!” The helicopter continued flying away. “Shit! Why the hell didn’t he stop and rescue us?!”
Bill stopped waving his arms and walked over to the table. “I don’t know, but at least we have a plan now.”
“Oh yea? And what’s that?”
Bill paused. “Are you deaf Francis? He clearly said he was rescuing survivors at Mercy Hospital,” he continued as he pointed towards a skyscraper in the distance that had a giant greenish-blue neon light at the top that read ‘MERCY’. “All we have to do is make it to the helipad at the top of the hospital and call for him to pick us up!”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Louis chimed in as he walked up to the table next to Bill.
Zoey walked up to the table next. “Same here. So how are we going to do it?”
Bill pushed Ditzy’s sword to the side and unrolled a map across the table. Ditzy stood on her hind legs and looked across the map as she propped her forelegs on the edge of the table. “Ooohh, what are all those little red squares?” she asked in a very curious tone.
Bill smiled at her. “These are safe houses that we know about, he began as he pointed to one in particular. “This one right here is the one that we’re at right now.” Francis walked up to the table across from Ditzy and crossed his arms as Bill continued. “Safe houses are buildings or areas where the zombies can’t get to us. There are usually some leftover supplies like ammo or weapons that other survivors have left behind.”
Ditzy looked up from the map with a touch of concern in her eyes. “What about food?” Someone’s stomach gurgled almost as loud as a boomer’s, but she couldn’t tell who it was.
“There’s… not usually any food left behind,” Bill continued solemnly. “And whatever food is left behind has usually gone bad by the time we get to it.”
“Haven’t you tried looking for any?”
“We have,” Zoey spoke up, “But we’re never able to find any before we have to hide in another safe house. Even if we did find any, we’re burdened down enough as it is. We can’t afford to haul around all these weapons and a few dozen pounds of groceries as well. We just wouldn’t survive.”
Louis set his Uzi down on the table. “Basically, we haven’t gotten a decent bite to eat for almost a week now, and it doesn’t look like we’re gonna’ get one anytime soon. Sorry.”
Francis huffed a bit. “I hate shopping. I can tough it out longer than any of you sissies anyways.”
“Francis, you’re just as hungry as we are and you know it,” Bill said flatly as the conversation finally got back to him. “All we can hope for is to get rescued as soon as possible. The military is sure to have something to eat, but we need to get to them first. Now like I said before, we are here,” he continued as he pointed to the same red square as he had before. He slowly dragged his finger over to an outline of a large building which also had a little red square in it.
“And Mercy Hospital is here. It would be best to stay off the streets as much as possible. We don’t need any more attention than we already have, so I think we should work our way through the subways to the safe house here. From there we should find a way into the sewers, which will take us the rest of the way to the hospital. Then it’s only a matter of getting to the roof and calling the pilot to pick us up. Everyone understand the plan?”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Francis, however, uncrossed his arms and turned to Bill. “The sewers, Bill? Are you serious?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yea, I do. Why don’t we just take the subway all the way to the hospital?”
“Because the Red Line North doesn’t go anyplace near the hospital Francis. If you had actually used the subways instead of that busted up motorcycle, you would know that.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know that motorcycle saved my life!”
Louis chuckled silently under his breath. “Yea, by blowing up and catching that tank on fire. Good thing the tank smashed it and not you, huh?”
“Hey you shut up Louis! That bike was closer than family, and it sacrificed itself to save me!”
“Right. Whatever you say, man.”
“So we’re all in agreement then?” Bill interjected. Everyone, including Francis, nodded as Bill rolled the map back up and tucked it back inside his army-green jacket. “In that case everybody suit up. There’s a subway station just down the street. We can get fresh supplies there before we start towards the Hospital, so let’s grab whatever is left here and get ready to go.”
Ditzy slung the sheathed sword across her back as she wrapped the strap under her left foreleg and across her chest. The sheath laid on her back at an angle, with its middle resting in-between her wings. The sword’s handle stuck out past her left shoulder so she could crane her neck and grip it with her jaw, whereas the opposite end rested to the right side of her tail. The pointed end of the sheath flailed loosely, seeing that the second strap had not been secured.
Ditzy looked up to Zoey, who nodded as she understood where the pony needed help. She kneeled down beside Ditzy and pulled the strap under her belly, tightening it enough to where the sheath wouldn't swing around, but not so tight that it would cause a rash. Zoey stood back up and took a step back as Ditzy moved around a bit to see if the sheath fit comfortably. Satisfied with the strap, she looked up and gave Zoey a big, cheerful grin.
“Are you sissies coming or not?” Francis asked bluntly as he sat cross-legged on the edge of the apartment building with his trusty shotgun lying in his lap. He was seated in front of the fire escape, which the group had unanimously decided to take instead of braving the apartments again. Francis stood up and slung the shotgun over his shoulder with an irritable scowl. “I’m tired of waiting around here. Let’s go!”
Louis slid a fresh magazine into his Uzi and clicked the safety off. “Come of Francis, lighten up. Besides, it’s not like the zombies are going any place soon.”
“Well they might be going to their graves if you freaking pony-loving pansies would move your asses!”
“Jeeze Francis, calm down. Besides, what’s wrong with Ditzy? She’s like an adorable little cartoon character! And even YOU had to have watched cartoons when you were little.”
“Of course I did. I used to love Tom and Jerry.”
“There, you se-”
“Where else do you thing I learned how to be so violent? Hell, I learned hundreds of ways to kill someone just from watching one episode. Heh, I always liked the ironing board the best. So subtle, yet so unexpected.” Francis looked up into the cloudy night sky as he reminisced about his youth. “Gotta’ love those classic cartoons. Only they had the BALLS to be so violent.”
Bill chuckled quietly as he lit a cigarette. “Yea, your parents must be so proud. Now if you’re done day-dreaming, we’ve got some zombies to maim.”
“Hey! I’ve been waiting on you for who knows how long!”
A grin spread across Bill's face as he ignored any of the biker’s further comments. He looked over to the table where Ditzy and Zoey were watching the conversation at hand. “Hey kid, you bout’ ready to head on out?”
Though she was dreadfully nervous, Ditzy was trying not to show it as she replied in a chipper tone. “I sure am! …I think. Um, h-how many zombies did you say there would be?”
“Around a hundred I’d say. That is, assuming nobody shoots any more boomers at point-blank range.” Bill shot Francis a smirk. “So there won’t be that many for now, though we are heading deeper into the city. I think it’s safe to assume that the number of zombies will increase as we make our way to the hospital.”
The nervousness was beginning to make Ditzy a bit uneasy, despite her attempts to look alright. Almost a hundred zombies?! That’s more people than there are ponies in all of Ponyville! Her stomach knotted up at the mere thought of ending a single life, not to mention hundreds of lives. And yet she would have to wade her way through all of these carnivorous monsters, killing as many as she could as she went? She said she was ready, but in truth she wasn’t anyplace near being ready.
Ditzy looked to each of the four humans standing around her, each of them giving her a reassuring smile. All except Francis, of course, who sneered at her again and hopped onto the fire escape. Trying to escape the thought of killing, she tried thinking of a way to help ease the gruff biker, and maybe even get him to like her. And idea hit her. She would make him her special muffins! All she had to do was find a bakery…
Even thinking of the mare’s favorite treat seemed to perk her up and make the whole situation a bit less dreary. She trotted over to the edge of the building and looked down into the alley below as Francis made it to the second level of the fire escape. He caught her eye as he looked up to her.
“Hey, you got wings, right? Why don’t you do something other than look stupid, and scout out the alley to make sure there aren’t any zombies, eh?”
Ditzy was glazed by the insult, but she was getting used to them now. She was about to open her wings and dive off the roof to oblige the less-than-subtle biker, but Zoey stepped up beside her and looked down at Francis. “Would you shut up already? She isn’t going to put her own life at risk for such a trivial thing! Besides, I thought you liked killing zombies.”
“Hey, I ask her to scout the alley for zombies, not kill them. And she can fly for shit’s sake! If she does find any she could just flap those miscalculations of nature and get out of there if she doesn’t have the guts to do anything else. Ain’t that right?”
Ditzy looked over to Zoey, and nodded. Francis did have a point. Besides, she really wanted to try to get on Francis’s good side, assuming there was one. “He’s right Zoey.”
Both Zoey and Francis shared a rather surprised “Huh?” as the grey pony hopped off the roof. She free-fell for a moment before steadying herself with a few well-timed flaps from her wings, resulting in a perfect landing. Not many ponies would believe it, but she actually was a rather good flyer. She glanced back up at the two slightly slack-jawed humans and gave another big grin. “I’ll be right back.”
Zoey watched as Ditzy trotted merrily down the alley. “She really can fly.”
Francis shook the surprised look off his face and replaced it with his traditional smirk. “That wasn’t flying. That was just… falling with style.”
“Must you always be so trifling?”
“Aside from killing zombies, it’s what I do best,” Francis responded as he began down the fire escape’s next flight of stairs.
The hunter sat atop the building adjacent to the apartment building, which stood a few stories higher than the apartments. From where he sat he could see the entire alley; from the mangled pile of his fallen brethren, to the ninety degree turn below him, to the long stretch that led back out to the streets.
He watched as the four legged creature made its way past the alley’s sharp turn and down the stretch towards the streets. The hunter knew that while it was in this part of the alley, the rest of the survivors would not be able to help it until they had finished descending the metal structure attached to the apartment building. It was the opportune time to set his plan into action.
The hunter turned to another special infected that was about his size, but was hunched over. He described his plan to the hunch-back zombie through a series of growls and gurgles that only other zombies could decipher. Once finished describing his plan, the hunter waved at the hunched infected to do its part. It attempted a nod and hopped off across the roof to inform its counterpart of the plan.
The hunter turned his attention back to the four legged creature as it neared the alley’s end. He growled quietly to himself as he awaited his trap to be sprung upon the unsuspecting prey.
Ditzy continued down the alley, looking around at her surroundings. What she had seen thus far reminded her of the city Fillydelphia. The alley had been littered with various scraps of this and that, mostly empty bottles and torn papers. Now Ditzy found herself in the light of an overhanging lamp post as she stood on the edge of what appeared to be some kind of street. She noticed that there were several abandoned vehicles spread around the street. Most of them reminded her of the horse-drawn carriages in Equestria.
As Ditzy continued admiring the large city around her, a thought suddenly jerked at the back of her mind. Wasn’t this supposed to be a zombie apocalypse? Where were all the zombies? She couldn’t remember seeing any since she came face to face with the one Bill called the hunter, but after that she hadn’t seen any. Yet here she was standing out in the open, and not a single zombie was in sight.
Though it made her scouting mission easier than expected, the dead silence was becoming very unsettling. Just as she turned back down the alley to rejoin the group, a loud squeal cut through the silence as something landed on her back. The creature immediately locked its legs around her mid-section, pinning down her wings, and began scratching and clawing at her head.
Her instincts kicked in as she began jumping around and bucking the air wildly in an attempt to get the unwelcome visitor off her. The creature, however, grabbed a handful of her bright-yellow hair and held on tightly to avoid being thrown off. Suddenly Ditzy felt what it was like to be on the receiving side of the last rodeo’s champion, a position that her friend Applejack had come close to winning, but was bested by competition.
About the time she expected the bell to ring, an ear-shattering blast sounded off. The creature on her back suddenly jerked to the side in an explosion of gore, pulling her with it as its legs seemed to tighten around her. After the two collapsed, Ditzy squirmed free of the creature’s legs as quickly as possible. She turned to the origins of the blast, which she discovered was the smoking barrel of Francis’s trusty shotgun.
She trotted up to the biker, relieved to see her fellow survivor. “Thanks a million Francis; that was some impressive shooting! Good thing you hit that thing and not me, eh?”
“Actually, I missed what I was aiming for,” Francis began as he inspected his weapon’s sights. “You really need to hold still next time. This thing’s sights aren’t what they used to be, you know.”
“But you killed the zombie. What else could you have been aiming for?” A very unsettling thought hit her as she reviewed the biker’s words. No, he wouldn’t do such a horrible thing. …right?
“In any case, I guess I missed my chance. Oh well, I suppose they’ll be plenty of other opportunities,” Francis concluded as a twisted grin spread across his face. Ditzy stared at Francis in shock at his less-than-subtle hint as he turned to head back down the alley.
Suddenly a zombie with a massive right arm jumped off the roof above Francis and landed in the alley a few dozen feet from him. The beast locked eyes with the biker. The two had a brief stare-off before the thing roared and charged at Francis with incredible speed. He was barely able to get a shell fired before the thing grasped the biker in its massive hand.
The beast continued its charge as it ran past ditzy and out into the street, coming to a stop when it slammed against a car. With Francis tight in the thing’s grasp, it began pounding the survivor into the ground. Francis gritted his teeth as pain surged through his very being by the massive arm. He tried desperately not to show signs of any pain, as do all badasses, but he was quickly overwhelmed and hollered in agony.
As the beast raised its inhuman arm into the air again, a grey blur sliced cleanly through it. The arm, with Francis in tow, fell limply to the ground as the monster stumbled back. The beast looked to the survivor as he writhed around in an attempt to escape the severed limb’s grip. The grey blur whooshed past it again; this time cutting through the beast’s left ribs.
The blur circled around and landed on the car behind Francis and the arm. Ditzy glared at the beast with a vengeful anger in her eyes as she gritted her teeth into the katana’s padded handle. The two looked into each other’s eye for a split second before Francis broke the silence. “What the hell are you waiting for?! KILL IT!”
The biker’s abrupt outburst distracted Ditzy, giving the beast an opportune time to escape. It turned and charged down the sidewalk away from the two survivors. With a vigorous pumping of her wings, Ditzy dashed off after it. The chase was short lived as she quickly caught up with the beast and sliced its head clean off. The body tumbled and rolled down the sidewalk as its momentum died down.
Ditzy slid the sword into the sheath and looked down at the body as she hovered in the air. Suddenly she remembered that Francis was still trapped, and she sped back to the car as fast as she could. She pulled the sword back out and concentrated on the trapped biker as her speed increased.
Francis barely had a chance to look up before he saw the grey blur speeding towards him wielding the katana. He frantically writhed around trying to escape, but to no avail. He wished he hadn’t threatened Ditzy as he closed his eyes and became still, awaiting the katana’s slice.
Francis felt a sudden gust of wind and heard the blade slice through flesh. He remained still as he felt a sudden release of pressure from around his body. Was he dead? He opened his eyes uneasily, but his vision was obscured by a massive pair of eyes. Yellow eyes, to be exact. “What the…”
“Don’t worry Francis, I cut you free! …I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Francis blinked. He shoved Ditzy away from him as he stood up and looked himself over. “I’ve been worse, but I guess I’m fine.” He looked down at his leather vest to find it completely intact.
“Hey Francis,” Ditzy began, getting the biker’s attention.
“Yea, what is it?”
“You owe me one.”
“HA! And just how do you figure that?”
“Simple. I saved you from that zombie.”
“…After I saved you. The way I see it, we’re even.”
“Nuh uh. You said you were trying to kill me. That doesn’t count as a save.” Ditzy’s expression suddenly became a lot more concentrated and stern. “Besides, I could have easily killed you just now, but I didn’t. So the way I see it, you owe me.” As soon as she finished, her face snapped back to a wide, perky grin. Francis blinked at the pony’s brief and rather creepy change of heart. Maybe this pony really was crazy.
He huffed and mumbled under his breath as he picked his shotgun up off the ground. “Gah, whatever. It’s not like it matters,” he continued, trying to avoid another emotional shift from Ditzy. “Just don’t tell anyone what happened here, got it?”
“Why not Francis,” Bill began as he and the others stepped out of the alley into the light of the lap post. “You’re not hiding something from us, are you?”
“Err…”
Before Francis could make up an excuse, Zoey rushed over and knelt beside the blood-splattered pony. “Ditzy! Are you alright,” she began as she scanned Ditzy for any signs of injury. She stopped at the multiple scratches across Ditzy’s head and face, examining them more closely to determine how serious they were. “Some of these cuts might be serious. What happened?”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Francis stated sarcastically as he crossed his arms.
Ditzy looked up to the biker and gave him a grin. “I was scouting out the alley like Francis asked, when that hunched over gremlin over there jumped me.” She pointed over to the pile of gore that had taken a ride on her back. “Luckily Francis showed up and blew it to bits before it could do any real damage. Then a big zombie with a massive arm dropped into the alley. It grabbed Francis and slammed him into the ground. Then I rescued Francis and killed the monster.”
“I thought I said don’t tell anyone! Besides, I could have saved myself if you had given me the chance,” Francis retorted as he kicked the severed arm that had gripped him.
Louis burst into laughter at the biker’s come back. “HA! Are you serious?! Dude, we could hear you screaming all the way back at the apartments!”
“Yea, we thought Ditzy might need our help.” Bill turned to Francis, who had a very un-amused look on his face. “Oh right, and you might have possibly needed help too.”
“Yea well, try to get here faster next time, alright? I don’t exactly like getting the shit beat out of me.”
“Stick with the group then. That goes for you too, Ditzy,” Bill concluded with a nod towards the pony. He knelt down over the remains of the hunch-backed zombie as he examined it. “They’re changing again. You said this thing jumped you?”
“Yea, but it didn’t pounce me like you said hunters do. It hopped on my back and tried to ride me around, almost like in a rodeo.”
Louis snapped his fingers as a though hit him. “Or one of those guys who rides race horses. What are they called again?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re called jockeys,” Francis replied. Everyone looked at him in surprise. “What? I used to know a guy who rigged races in a get-rich-quick scheme; although he got busted after a while.”
“Sounds like a good enough nick-name for this thing,” Bill continued, getting back to the subject. “But what about that other one?”
Ditzy put a hoof to her chin as she thought. “Hmm… I remember it charging forward when it attacked and when it tried to get away.”
“’Charger’ sounds like a good name then. Short, sweet, and to the point,” Louis stated.
Bill stood back up and looked down the street. “Alright then, now that that’s covered we should really get moving. Who knows how long our luck will last with these empty streets.”
The others agreed and quickly looked over their weapons one last time. When everyone was ready, Bill took point as the group made their way down the street. Everyone was keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of zombie activity except Ditzy, who was content with observing the city and all its technologically advanced glory. Technologically advanced compared to anything she had ever seen in Equestria, that is.
The city still reminded her of places like Fillydelphia and New Mare City, but the buildings and vehicles were still noticeably different from those in the cities back home. A larger vehicle that seemed to be attached to a massive tank of some kind caught her eye. The tank must have contained something extremely flammable, because it seemed to have exploded. The massive fire from the tank’s contents engulfed the vehicle and half the street, and Ditzy could even feel its heat long after they had passed.
Nobody had noticed it, but Francis had gradually fallen behind the rest of the group. He found himself alone when the others turned at a traffic light, and sprinted to catch up with the others. But before he reached the traffic light, he suddenly felt like he was being watched. Forgetting the group, he stopped where he was and turned slowly around. There was a hunter sitting atop a white SUV staring at him coldly with undead eyes.
It uttered a deep growl as its eyes met with the biker’s. As Francis looked closer, he noticed something disturbingly familiar about the special infected. There was a large spot on its forehead that was black and slightly scabbed over, as if it had been hit by a blunt object. All of a sudden Francis recollected the hunter he had encountered in the apartments, and how it had escaped his royal ass-kicking. While he remembered the beat-down fondly, he also realized that this hunter must have been the same one.
Still, even if it was the same hunter he didn’t have to worry much. It’s not like zombies think, right? Francis smirked as he slowly began to reach back for his bloody bat. The hunter’s growl grew louder however, freezing the biker’s arm in mid-air. Ok, maybe it did remember their little skirmish. Francis remembered the group, and decided to just end the standoff the best way he knew how to; with a well-placed blast from his shotgun.
Moving swiftly, he returned his hand to the shotgun and fired. The hunter moved a lot quicker, and leapt away just before the spread reached him. He grabbed onto the side of a nearby building as the shotgun’s blast sprayed the van, shattering its side windows. A shrill siren blared from the vehicle as the built-in burglary system activated the alarm. The siren echoed loudly through the city’s dead silence, reaching every crevice within the surrounding area.
Francis ignored the alarm as he watched the hunter scale the wall. It gave a quick look back at him before it climbed onto the roof and out of sight. Francis could have sworn he saw it grin at him, but he couldn’t tell from his distance. Now he turned his attention to the car as its alarm continued wailing. “I fucking HATE vans.”
The group was within sight of the entrance into the subways when Bill stopped to take a head count. “-Three, four, and… Wait, where the hell did Francis go?” Suddenly they heard a car alarm go off down the road from where they had just come from.
Zoey cocked back her pistols in preparation for the imminent horde. “Take a wild guess.”
“I’ll be DAMNED if that asshole will be able to keep us out of trouble! Is he intentionally trying to get us killed?!”
“Dunno’, but as much as I hate saying it we gotta’ go back and get him.”
“You sure we can’t just make a break for the subways and leave him?”
“Come on Bill, we don’t leave anyone behind. No matter how much of a pain in the ass they are, right?”
Bill checked his rifle as he began to hear the multitude of infected swarm towards them. “Fine, but if we survive this and he gets us into trouble AGAIN, I’m putting a bullet through his head.”
“No objection here, but we gotta’ save him first,” Zoey concluded as the group burst into a run; except for Ditzy, who opted to fly. As they neared the intersection from before Francis rounded the corner, running with all his might. The group slowed as the biker sped towards them.
The four of them stopped as Bill stepped forward. “What the hell did you do this time Francis?!”
“Can’t stop to chat at the moment,” Francis replied as he ran past the others without even slowing down. “And I would really consider running if I were you guys!”
“We should stand and fight as a group damnit!”
“Why don’t you take a gander behind you and THEN say that!”
“Francis, what are you…” As Bill turned back to where Francis had just come from, a tsunami of infected rounded the intersection. Half the city must have been on the biker’s tail! “…This is bad.”
“YA THINK?! Now where did you say that subway was, because it is sounding REALLY welcoming about now!”
Bill and the others sprinted after the biker with the massive horde hot on their heels. “It’s just up ahead, the stairs with the big red sign above them that says ‘Red Line North’!”
The horde began gaining on the survivors, despite how fast they were running. Thinking quick, Ditzy whipped out her katana and began making passes at the closer zombies. Still a good ways in front of the others, Francis ran down the stairs and out of sight. Less than a second passed before he came back up to the street where the others were still running. “The damn thing is caved in!”
“What do you mean it’s caved in?!”
“I mean there’s no way I hell we can get down there with a ton of cement blocking the stairs!”
Bill and the others made it to where Francis was as Ditzy continued slowing the horde down. The four walked down the stars to where the roof had collapsed. Bill knew that they didn’t have much time before the horde got to them, even if Ditzy was doing a damn fine job at keeping them at bay. “We need to find a way down there, and fast.”
Francis leaned against the wall and hunched over to catch his breath. Without warning, the biker fell through the wall as it collapsed into a storage room. Louis let out a laugh, despite being out of breath, as Bill looked down to the pile of rubble. Francis had been completely buried except for one of his hands, which twitched from the pain of a wall falling on him.
Bill stepped forward and firmly grasp the biker’s hand and pulled him out from under the pile. “Karma’s a bitch, aint it?”
“Not, exactly…” Zoey trailed off as she looked across the room. There, in the adjacent wall, was an open safe-house door. “I think our luck just took a turn for the better. You all get in, I’ll go get Ditzy!” She ran back up the stairs as Bill and Louis helped Francis limp over to the safe house.
When she got back to the streets, she was confronted with a much unexpected sight. Ditzy, speeding to and fro, was slicing mercilessly away at the horde. A pile of bodies had begun to form where the Pegasus had halted the zombie’s attack as she killed any and every one of them that got any closer. Zoey had to admit one thing about the little pony; she certainly did NOT expect it to be able to handle itself so well under these conditions!
The though passed as she shouted out to the pony. “Come on, we found a safe house!”
Ditzy spoke through the sword’s handle as best she could without slowing down. “Bu if ah stoph, theh zombehs whill geh yu!”
“I’ve got it covered,” Zoey replied as she lit a Molotov that had been strapped to her belt. “Just get in here!”
Ditzy obeyed and sped down the stairs as Zoey slammed the cocktail of death into the street at the subway’s entrance. Flames engulfed the top of the stairs as the two survivors dashed down to the safe-house. Several zombies attempted to give chase, but were ignited by the spreading flames and tumbled down the stairs as they burnt to death.
Zoey and Ditzy made it to the safe house, and Bill slammed the door shut behind them, giving them a ‘nice job’ as they passed. Ditzy looked around the small room and breathed a sigh of relief as she slid her katana into its sheath. Bill gave her a firm pat on the back as he stepped beside her. “You did pretty damn good for your first time, kid. Keep that up and you might just outlive us.”
“T-thanks Bill, though I wouldn’t have been able to do it without your encouragement.”
“My pleasure.”
Zoey noticed a small room to the side all of a sudden, and interrupted the conversation. “Wait, is that a bathroom?!”
“I think so, yea.”
“Oh thank HEAVENS,” she responded as she rushed in and slammed the door behind her.
Bill looked back down to Ditzy, and then to the table where Louis was patching up Francis. “Good work everyone. We’ll wait here a bit before continuing into the subway,” he spoke as he noted a second armored door across the small room. “But until then, get some rest. The worst should be behind us.” …assuming the subways aren’t crawling with more infected.
The hunter watched the fire burn where the survivors had escaped. The place they had escaped to seemed slightly familiar, but memories of himself before he was infected were blurred and barely recognizable. However, he did manage to remember that the place that they ran was called a subway. In any case, his plan to eradicate the group had failed this time, and he would have to find a way underground and follow them if he was ever going to have another chance at revenge.
After thinking so hard his head hurt, the hunter recalled another entrance into the ‘subways’ that wasn’t too far from his location. He eagerly began leaping from rooftop to rooftop as he made his way to the new destination, formulating a new plan as he went.
Bill had found a dark corner and pulled a chair up, kicking it back before dozing off. Meanwhile Louis was waiting for his turn in the bathroom, but Zoey was resilient on coming out. Francis rummaged through the boxes he had found on the Safe house’s shelves while Ditzy watched from across the table. “Come on, come on! There’s gotta be some here!”
“Whatchya’ lookin’ for, Francis?”
“Hush! I’m trying to concentrate.”
Louis rolled his eyes and turned to Ditzy. “He’s looking for the one scrap of food that lasts the longest. Pen-”
“PEANUT BUTTER,” Francis shouted as he pulled out a jar of JIFF’s. “Oh man, it’s about time I get a break!”
He hurriedly unscrewed the lid and tossed it aside before he looked inside. The excited look on his face twisted into one of confusion and rage as he vigorously shook the jar upside down. He looked inside the jar again to make sure what he saw was true. “The damn thing is empty!” the biker paused when a thought crossed his mind. “Fucking karma!”
In a feat of rage, he threw the empty peanut butter jar as hard as he could. Ditzy managed to duck before the jar could hit her in-between the eyes. The jar bounced off the adjacent wall before flying across the room and smacking into one of Bill’s closed eyes. The veteran jumped out of his nap at the sudden pain and fell out of the chair. “SON-OF-A BITCH!”
Francis pushed the box he had been rummaging through in front of Ditzy. “She did it!”
Louis face-palmed as Bill staggered to his feet. The old veteran opened his good eye and looked around to gain his bearings before spotting Francis. “I’m gonna’ KILL you!” he shouted as he lunged for the biker.
Louis rushed over and stepped in front Bill to try and stop him from slugging Francis in the jaw. “Woa woa, take it easy!”
Francis stood up suddenly to face his attacker when Ditzy flew behind him and pulled back at his shoulders. The biker tried to shrug her off, but she remained steadfast. “Come on guys, it was just an accident! I know tensions are high, but that’s no reason to kill one another!”
“Get off me you damn talking horse!”
Louis turned his head around as he continued holding back Bill. “Ditzy is right, you two. Bill, I know he hit you in the eye with a peanut butter jar, but it was an accident.”
“What about shooting that boomer, or the car? Tell me Francis, were THOSE just ‘accidents’ as well?!”
“Hey! That damn hunter from the apartments was on the van! I was trying to shoot him.”
“Then I suggest you WORK ON YOUR AIM!”
“Ok then, in that case I suggest you work on NOT BEING SO DAMN OLD!”
“Would both of you just SHUT THE HELL UP?!” Ditzy screamed at the top of her lungs, letting go of Francis in the process. Everyone immediately stopped and turned to the Pegasus in surprise at her sudden outburst. “If we all don’t work together, none of us are going to survive out there! I don’t know why either of you are making this into such a big deal! Look, we can’t function as a group if trivial things like this send you guys into a HISSY FIT! So just drop the antics, get your shit together, and let’s get to the evacuation center!”
Ditzy took several deep breaths as the three stared at her in shock. The natural adrenaline began to fade away, and the realization of what she had said kicked in. She landed on the ground before taking a few steps back. The shocked expression on her face almost matched those of the other survivors. A tear trickled down her cheek as she backed into a corner. She turned away from the three humans, and began to sob quietly to herself. What was happening to her?
The silence was broken as Zoey exited the bathroom. “Ah, much better.” Bill, Louis, and Francis turned to her with looks of shock still plastered on their faces. “…Um, did I miss something?”
Francis was the first to shake the expression from his face. “Um… yea. Your friend over there just had a mental breakdown about peanut butter, or something like that. I totally had nothing to do with it,” he said before Louis punched him in the arm.
Zoey looked to where Ditzy was curled up in the corner. “Oh no…” She walked over and knelt down beside the grey pony. “Ditzy… What’s wrong? What happened?”
Ditzy turned her head and sniffled. “I-I don’t know… I just l-lost control. I don’t know what came over me.” She turned back to the corner and shut her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright Ditzy, really. People just lose control from time to time. It happens to everyone.”
“N-not in Equestria it doesn’t. Everypony is nice, kind, and supportive of each other… We almost never get truly angry.”
Francis motioned like he was about to vomit, but nobody was paying attention. Zoey laid a hand on the pony, and gently began petting her. “It’s ok Ditzy; we’ll find a way to get you home.”
Ditzy sniffed as she turned back to Zoey. “Y-you promise?”
A comforting, and almost motherly smile spread across Zoey’s face. “I promise.”
Ditzy smiled and wiped a tear from her eye before she stood up. The two embraced each other in a warm hug. “…Thank you.”
The hunter leapt from rooftop to rooftop as he made his way across the vast city. He blended perfectly with his surroundings, appearing only as a deep-grey blur as he whooshed by. The only light in the skies above the city came from either the moon, or the mayhem from the streets below. He was the perfect predator.
The hunter came to a halt at the corner of a tall building that overlooked a large section of road. If his memories, which were painful to retrieve, were correct, then there was an entrance into the subway right about… there. He eyed a set of stairs leading below the city’s surface with a large red sign above it.
During his journey from the last encounter with the survivors, he had come to a discomforting conclusion. Considerably narrow tunnels were not the best place for his long-range attacks, and he knew full well that he was not going to be able to get close enough to them. But in any case, he needed to know what he had to work with before he could formulate a plan.
It didn’t take long for the Hunter to make his way down the stairs and through the station. Soon he found himself on the station’s abandoned platform, which was very dimly lit. The poor lighting did not bother the hunter, however. The infection had intensified his sight, hearing, and especially his smelling. It took him a moment to judge the direction in which the survivors were, and began moving down the tracks into the pitch-black tunnels.
The hunter stopped when he heard a familiar sobbing, and looked around him. Thanks in part to his heightened senses; he spotted the witch curled up in the middle of the tracks. An evil grin spread across his face as he thought about what the scrawny she-devil could do. After a moment of thought, he decided to wait here, near the witch, and see how well the survivors fared against her. He couldn’t make a plan, on account of there not being any zombies in the tunnels anyway.
The hunter leapt to the roof and dug his claws into the concrete. He looked down and watched the black tunnel before the witch, waiting for the survivors to fall into her trap.
It took more reassuring and some apologies from the others, except for Francis (of course), before Ditzy got over her panic-attack. After some final rummaging, they were able to find three flashlights, a fresh med-kit, and some M-60 ammunition. They decided not to bother with the ammunition, considering they didn’t even have the massive weapon it belonged to.
Once everyone was ready to go, they made their way for the door opposite from the one they had come in from. Francis gave the steel door a hard kick in an attempt to look cool, but he failed miserably as he stumbled backwards and onto the floor. “Shit!”
Zoey walked up to the door and stood above the biker as he picked himself up. “You know, it helps if you remove the brace first,” she said sarcastically as she removed a thick metal pipe that held the door shut.
“I didn’t see it there.”
“Right…”
Francis rolled his eyes as he kicked the door again out of spite from his injured pride. The door led into another empty storage room. The five of them exited the safe-house cautiously, keeping alert for any signs of zombies. Francis let out a moan as he hiked his shotgun on his shoulder. “So where the hell is the station?”
Bill continued peering into the dark room around them, not letting his guard down for an instant. “The subways should be below us. We just need to find a way down to them.”
The group was dead silent for a split second before a common infected charged out of the darkness behind them. Francis was quickest to react as he slung his shotty from his shoulder and blew the zombie in half with a well placed spread. However the shotgun’s recoil was more powerful than usual. Francis stumbled backwards for a second before he tripped over something in the dark, resulting in a loud thud as he landed on his back.
Before he could try and regain himself, the floor began cracking around him. Bill and the others watched as Francis and the section of floor he landed on collapsed into a room below them. Neon light and dust rose from the hole while Francis groaned loudly. Bill kept a steady footing as he walked over and peered down at the biker. “You ok?”
“Fucking karma,” Francis mumbled as he recovered from the wind getting knocked from him. “Does it look like I’m ok?”
“Well you’re not dead, so I’d say yes.”
“…I don’t think I can move.”
Bill rolled his eyes as the others gathered around the hole. “That’s just the shock, Francis. Walk it off.”
“I just fell through a floor! How am I supposed to walk that off?!”
“Well, first you stand up…”
“You know what? Just shut up, Bill.”
The old veteran chuckled to himself. “Well you asked.”
Ditzy leapt down the hole, flapping her wings a few times to hover in the air above the sprawled out biker. “Here, let me help you,” she said as she held out a hoof.
Francis sneered at first, but the look lightened a bit as he reluctantly grabbed the hoof. With a quick flap of wings and a gust of air, he found himself standing upright again. “I could have done it myself.”
“But you wouldn’t have to work so hard if you let someone else help out every once in a while,” Ditzy retorted with a kind tone of voice.
Francis opened his mouth as if to make a snappy comeback, but he suddenly couldn’t think of one. To his surprise, she was completely right. Why didn’t he let anyone help? But his gruff thinking kicked back in before he could question himself anymore. He didn’t let anyone help because he didn’t need help. Not getting help only made him more of a badass. He shut his mouth without a word, and glared at the grinning pony.
The silence was interrupted as Louis dropped down in-between the two. “Great goin’ Francis, you found the subway!”
“Huh?”
“Look,” Louis continued as he pointed down the hallway to a flight of stairs. “The platform is just down there! Come on you guys, let’s go!”
“Um, yea… I meant to do that.” Francis did his best to put on a triumphant face, despite his pain.
The others hopped through the hole one by one, making sure not to accidentally land on each other. Once everyone was ready, or recovered, in Francis’s case, they made their way cautiously towards the flight of stairs. Bill found the quiet very discomforting. He had been expecting many more zombies being down here…
The stairs turned to the left half way down, and the group stopped to look over the room before them. There were two rows of turnstiles that ran from where the stairs stopped, all the way to the adjacent wall. On the opposite sides of the turnstiles were stairs leading up to station platforms on both sides of the train tracks. The station to the right had collapsed into the lobby, leaving only a massive pile of rubble on the other side of its turntables. Luckily for the group the opposite station, the one they needed to take, had not collapsed.
…Oh and there were dozens of common infected wandering about the lobby and the stairs. The five companions gave one another a quick glance and nodded before readying each of their secondary weapons. Francis got his bat, Ditzy unsheathed her sword, Bill borrowed one of Zoey’s pistols, and Louis brought out a crowbar. Louis loved crowbars on account of all the Half Life he played.
With another silent nod to each other, the group rushed down the stairs into the unsuspecting mass of zombies. Francis was the first to strike, sending a zombie head flying across the room. Their attention drawn, several of the zombies turned to the attackers. Their slow wits took a bit to comprehend the enemy, and by that time several had been bashed, sliced, or shot.
Once the concept finally snapped into their brains, the remaining zombies began rushing towards the survivors. They did not think tactics, nor did they even think about their own harm as they ran mindlessly to their own demise.
After no more than five minutes of blood-splattering combat, the survivors had cleared the room of every single zombie. Just another easy killing spree, and one that didn’t leave them any worse for wear aside from a few fresh bloodstains either. With that obstacle out of the way, the group crossed the turnstiles and began making their way up to the station.
Ditzy sheathed her sword and looked back at the mess they had made. “You know… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m getting the hang of this.”
Bill handed Zoey her pistol back. “That’s good, I suppose.” He mentally grimaced at what all this might be doing to the alleged innocence of the pony. “…At least your chances of surviving are increasing. Practice makes perfect, huh?”
“Yea, I suppose,” she continued. A worried expression began to spread on her face. “I hope my little muffin is alright…” She trailed off as the thought of her loving filly. Although she missed being with her daughter, she was glad Dinky wasn’t here. Celestia knows how something like this could affect the poor thing’s life.
“…your little muffin?” Bill looked down to her with a quizzical look on his face.
“Oh,” Ditzy began as her thoughts returned to the present. “She is my daughter. Her name is Dinky, but we like to have fun and play around with nicknames sometimes. …Someplace along the way I guess I got used to calling her ‘my little muffin’”
“Is that so…”
“What’s she like,” Zoey asked.
“Oh, she’s a sweet girl. Her magic lessons in school are going very well, and…” She paused, aware of the bewildered looks she was receiving. “…Oh right, I forgot to tell you she was a unicorn.”
Even Francis’s jaw dropped as the statement, though he regained his composure when his human version of logic kicked in. “Pfft, that’s ridiculous. Magic doesn’t exist, and unicorns are even less real. Besides, wouldn’t she be a pega-whatever like you? Unless…” he paused, thinking up a scenario. “Aw damn. I can’t even begin to imagine the party that happened at! Oh hey, does she have screwy eyes like you do?” He chuckled to himself.
The group stopped and looked back at him with very unamused expressions. Francis just began laughing. All of a sudden a breeze came out of nowhere, causing him to lose his balance and tumble down the stairs. He landed face-first on the floor at the bottom as everyone else burst into laughter.
“Fuck you karma,” he muttered to himself as he tried to pick himself up. No sooner had he finished standing up, a ceiling tile came loose and shattered across his head. It did no real damage, but it did fuel the bikers growing hatred of this invisible force working against him.
Francis pointed up to the group and gritted his teeth, trying his best not to lose his cool. “Not a fucking word.”
The others shrugged simultaneously before turning back around with grins on their faces. Francis began trudging back up the stairs to catch up. Maybe he really should just keep his mouth shut?
Once they all reached the top of the stairs, they beheld a very grim sight. A subway train had somehow lost control and derailed. They could see crashed train cars for a long distance down the tunnel; some overturned, and others still upright, but not on their designated tracks. Aside from the light of burning sections of train, the tunnel was completely pitch black.
“Let me guess,” Louis began, “That’s the way we need to go.”
“You got it,” Bill responded as he clicked on the light attached to his rifle.
“Who knows how many of em’ might be down there!”
“True… but it’s not like we have much of a choice, is it?”
“…I suppose not. But still, we can’t know what to expect in there.”
“Then be on your upmost guard and stay alert.”
Everyone else nodded and clicked on their lights, except for Ditzy. She searched herself for any kind of light, but to no avail. She wouldn’t have this kind of problem if she had been a unicorn. “Um… Can anyone spare a light?”
The others thought for a second before Zoey pulled out one of the flashlights from the safe-house. She tried turning it on, but nothing happened. It didn’t take her long to change out the batteries though, and it lit up the second time she turned it on.
Zoey was about to hand it to Ditzy, but paused when a thought hit her. The pony couldn’t hold a flashlight AND a sword in her mouth at the same time, should they run into trouble. Zoey thought for a second before getting an idea. “I have an idea. I could strap it to your side, so you wouldn’t have to worry about holding it. All you would have to do is turn it on.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ditzy replied with a grin. Zoey knelt down beside the pony, and taped the flashlight to the outside of the sword’s strap. Once finished, Ditzy rotated her shoulder to make sure it wasn’t irritating. She gave Zoey another big grin in acknowledgment of her helpful act.
“You ready,” Bill asked.
“Eeyup,” Ditzy replied, trying her best to mimic Applejack’s big brother.
Bill gave her a nod. “Everyone else ready?”
“Um…” Francis rubbed the back of his neck. “…You sure it’s a good idea to go in there?”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark!”
“Well no, it’s just… I don’t feel comfortable not being able to see when there is an invisible force trying to kill you.”
“Well if it’s already invisible, then it doesn’t matter whether or not its light or dark, does it?”
“…Good point.”
“So I’ll say again, are we all ready?”
Everyone nodded and readied their weapons in case any unseen enemies pop out from the wreckage. The group hopped down onto the destroyed track, following the first car that was lying on its side across the opposite set of tracks. They continued making their way around the wreckage as they progressed down the wide tunnel. The last car was still on the tracks, resting inside the next section of tunnel which was considerably narrower. The sudden shrink in width made it impossible to squeeze around the train car. As they approached, they noticed an armor plated door that had been attached to the car’s frame.
“Strange,” Bill began, “Never would have expected a subway car to be a safe-house. Well, we don’t exactly need to stop, so let’s grab what we can and keep moving.”
What the group found inside the train car was a surprise to say the least. There was enough weapons and ammunition lying on the car’s seats to supply an army squad. In fact, most of the weaponry was military-grade equipment.
Francis picked up an M-60 and eyed the huge gun. “Damn, impressive! Shame you decided not to bring that ammunition along from the last safe-house, eh Bill?”
“Well we can’t go back now. How much ammo does it have?”
“An entire clip; 160 shots.”
“That’ll sure come in handy, should the need arise.”
“You’re tellin’ me…” Francis strapped the massive weapon to his back as the others gathered what ammo fit their weapons.
While everyone else was busy with their weapons, Ditzy was left to sit and watch. She sat in front of a broken window at the back of the car, looking out into the blackness they were going to venture into. As she stared into the darkness, she suddenly heard a soft moaning coming from down the tunnel. Her ears perked up to try and hear the sound better. It sounded like… crying? In the middle of a dark subway tunnel with nobody else around?
…Although, when she thought about it, the idea was quite scary. She could easily understand why someone would be scared and crying if they found themselves in these tunnels, especially if they were alone. After all, she knew what that felt like at times. A knot formed in her stomach as she grew worried about the crying person. Ditzy hopped into the dark tunnel, feelings of concern and worry filling her mind. Not only did she forget the group, but Bill’s advice on special infected as well…
Surprisingly, Francis was the first one to notice Ditzy’s absence from the train car. He noticed the broken window at the back of the train and stuck his head out, listening for any signs of the pony. He did not hear Ditzy. Instead, he heard the cries of a witch off in the distance. His eyes widened at his discovery of one of the most dangerous special infected. Then a thought crossed his mind. Ditzy wouldn’t have gone off to see if it was a survivor, right? Didn’t Bill explain the witch to her in that hour long pep-talk back at the apartments?
Francis looked back out into the blackness, trying desperately to see any signs of Ditzy. Suddenly, very far down the tunnel, a flashlight clicked on and began bobbing up and down. This was his chance… Knowing the door’s noise would alert the others, Francis climbed silently out the window after Ditzy.
Ditzy had almost forgotten her flashlight too, but the pitch-blackness had reminded her. It bobbed up and down slightly as she walked, it being attached to her shoulder, but it still did its job just as well. She had been walking for what felt like an hour now, though it was most likely mere minutes. The crying was growing louder as she approached a turn in the tunnel. Whoever was crying should be just around the corner…
As she rounded the turn, Ditzy saw a scrawny figure sitting in the middle of the tracks. It was hunched over and leaned back and forth as it cried out into the empty tunnel. Ditzy gulped before taking another cautious step towards the figure. “H-hello? A-… Are you alright?”
The witch stopped swaying instantly and let out a surprised gasp. Ditzy froze at the figure’s sudden movement, pausing before she tried speaking again. “I… I’m here to help…”
The figure turned its head to the pony, revealing a set of demonic red eyes and a bony face. Ditzy’s blood ran cold as her gaze met its. Suddenly, Bill’s ‘friendly advice’ from earlier popped back into her head. This thing was a witch, and it would attack if you shined a light on it. …And Ditzy’s flashlight was shining right in its eyes.
The witch outstretched an arm to the ground, propping the infected as it stood up slowly. Ditzy looked away from the demon’s eyes and to its long, sharp claws. She gulped again as she looked back to the rest of its body, which was not in a pre-sprint stance. The two found themselves at a standoff.
Ditzy didn’t want to turn tail and dash, fearing it was too fast and would catch her. Then again, there was no way she could possibly fight it. Maybe if she- Without warning, it lashed forward at the pony. Ditzy didn’t have enough time to react, barely managing to turn away before it could slice her face open. She sharpened claws did not slice her face, but they did not miss her entirely.
The claws cut through the duck taped flashlight before slicing into her flesh. They cut deep into her side, just below her wings. The claws went so deep they scraped against her ribcage, however they did not damage the bones or the precious organs concealed inside them. Pain unlike anything Ditzy had ever felt, or even imagined possible, cut into her sharper than the claws themselves.
She collapsed, crippled from incomprehensible pain. Her mind panicked, overloading itself beyond comprehension. She was barely able to look up to the witch as it raised its second claw. This time, it was aiming directly for her jugular. Ditzy couldn’t run away, she couldn’t defend herself, she couldn’t do anything.
Suddenly, a light flashed on, making the witch recoil. It let out a shrill shriek as it turned its gaze to whoever was behind Ditzy before what sounded like a chain of explosions echoed from behind her. The loud noises pounded her eardrums, adding onto the already intense pain of her bleeding out.
She watched as the witch was cut apart by dozens of invisible bullets, spraying blood everywhere. The witch’s head exploded as a bullet cut through it. The explosive gunfire ceased as the witch’s remains fell backwards to the ground. Ditzy craned her head back as best she could to see who had rescued her. She saw a blurred outline of a person standing above her as her vision began to fade into blackness. The last thing she heard before the blackness enclosed around her was “We’re even.”
Ditzy was surrounded by black nothingness. She tried looking around, but there was nothing to see. She couldn’t even feel her own body. Suddenly, a light appeared with a flash. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it certainly was pretty. As she began moving closer, she began to hear muffled voices coming from it. As she approached the light, she was able to decipher one of the voices as it shouted “CLEAR!”
There was another, brighter flash that shattered the blackness, surrounding her with blinding light.
Ditzy’s eyes shot open. She was lying on her back, looking up at neon light attached to a metal ceiling. The muffled voices became clearer as her vision came into focus. She saw her four human companions standing on either side of her. Louis was standing closest to her, holding two smoking rectangles in his hands. “Ditzy?! Can you hear me? Come on man, answer me!”
“Y-yea Louis, I can hear you.”
“YES! You’re alive! You really scared the shit out of us there.”
“…What do you mean ‘I’m alive’? Why wouldn’t I be?”
Louis set the rectangles down. “Well, that witch really did a number on you.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “You, um… You weren’t breathing when Francis came back here with you draped over his shoulder.”
Ditzy’s eyes widened. “You mean…”
“You died, kid,” Bill said flatly. “But Zoey patched you up as quickly as she could to avoid more blood loss. Lucky for you Louis found a defibrillator in amongst all the ammo.”
“W-wait, if I died, how could I possibly be alive now?!”
Louis picked up one of the rectangles. “A defibrillator is used to bring people, or in your case ponies, back to life. It sends an electrical pulse through your body to try and jumpstart the subject's system.”
“So I guess you could say that your coming back to life,” Francis began as he put on a pair of sunglasses that he had found, “…Was rather shocking.” He crossed his arms and grinned. He held the pose for just a moment as everyone glared at him. “Aw come on, It was a joke!”
Bill slapped a hand to his face. “Francis, that has to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
The grin fell from Francis’s face. “Well excuse me for trying to lighten the mood.”
“Since when were you one to try to lighten anything up?”
“Um… Just trying it out, I guess.” Francis’s notion passed. “What, would you prefer me being an ass? Fine. I can do that.” He turned and kicked a box of ammunition before walking to the other end of the car.
Louis looked over to Bill. “Is it just me, or is Francis acting a bit differently?”
“How should I know? I don’t pay that close attention to him.”
Ditzy sat up on her haunches and looked down at the bandages wrapped around her body. “So... just how bad were my wounds?”
“That bitch cut you pretty deep, actually,” Zoey began. “The cuts go down to the bone. But don’t worry too much, none of your organs were damaged as far as I can tell.” she paused for a moment as she inspected a bloody section of the bandages. “Does it hurt? Do you think you can walk?”
Ditzy stood up slowly, being careful not to risk any pain. “Actually, no. I can’t really feel a thing.” She started to outstretch her wings, but quickly retracted them. “GAH! Ok, THAT hurt a bit.”
“I take it that flight is out of the question then?” Bill asked.
“Yea, I guess. I wouldn’t want to risk any long term damage.”
“Can’t blame you there. So, how long do you think you’ll need before you’re ready to get goin'?”
Ditzy paused as she thought about her situation. “…I’m fine to head on out right now if you all are.”
Louis set his Uzi down. “Hey now, we just had to bring you back to life! I may not be a medical expert, but I’m pretty sure you’re not ready to dive back into the fray this soon.”
“Yea,” Bill continued with a concerned look on his face. “We’d hate lose you out there.”
Ditzy held up her forelegs in a defensive manner. “It’s alright, I can handle it. Who knows how long that rescue will wait for us, right? The sooner we get there the better.” She winced at a sudden sting of pain. “I… I’m fine. Really, I am.”
Bill thought to himself for a bit. “Well… Before you go anywhere, you’re going to need something to help relieve you. Here,” he pulled a small white bottle out of one of his pockets. “Take some of these, they’ll help ease the pain.” With a forceful twist, Bill popped the lid off before holding the open bottle out to the pony.
Ditzy took the bottle in-between her hooves and examined its contents. “Pills?”
“Painkillers, to be exact.”
“Not only do they make you feel good, but they taste amazing!” Louis interjected. Bill shot him a suspecting glance.
“Right… Just don’t take too many, alright?”
Ditzy nodded before shaking a few of the white pills into her mouth. Swallowing them was uncomfortable without anything to drink with them, but the effects were almost instant. The pain simply faded away. “I think its working! …Wait a second…” As the pain faded, her body began to feel tingly. She felt refreshed, but very energetic as well. Soon everything began to spin around. “Woa…”
Bill watched as her eyes started spinning around in their sockets. “…Um, you ok there?”
“Dude, this is trippin’!”
Louis burst out laughing. “I know, right?!”
After a few more seconds of the world spinning out of control, Ditzy’s eyes began slowing down. When her eyes stopped they weren’t derped like before. She blinked a few times before looking up at Bill.
The veteran couldn’t help but stare back into the giant yellow orbs. For the first time since Vietnam, he felt incredibly nervous. It was like they were staring straight into his soul. After what felt like hours, Ditzy blinked again. Bill was snapped back to reality. “What the hell…”
Ditzy looked around to Zoey and Louis. Everything seemed… different. Her head felt a lot clearer as well. “Wow, that’s some powerful stuff.”
Louis chuckled nervously. “I’d say. They even straightened out your eyes. …however that works…”
Ditzy turned to him. “Really?”
A chill ran down Louis’s back. Why was it so creepy to see her eyes like that?! “…Yea, it sure did.”
Bill rubbed the back of his neck and looked around for something to focus on instead of those creepy eyes. He noticed Francis standing above a pile of ammo that had been spread out across one of the seats. But instead of sorting through the munitions, Francis was scratching his arm furiously. “Francis, you alright?”
Francis jumped a bit. “Oh uh, yea. It’s just that there’s this damn itchy rash where that pony bit me earlier.”
“Well it can’t be that bad,” Bill continued as he stepped over to the biker. “Let me take a look at it.” Francis held out his arm, revealing a massive, red whelp almost 4 inches in diameter around where Ditzy had bitten him. “Oh… Zoey, you might want to take a look at this.”
“Take a look at what,” she responded as she walked over to them, leaving Ditzy and Louis to stare at each other. Bill motioned to Francis’s swollen arm. “…Yikes. Looks like it got infected.”
Francis jerked his arm back suddenly. “What?! I thought we were immune!” Zoey sighed.
“The green flu isn’t the only disease out there, remember? It could be any number of other things that could have gotten into the wound.”
“…So I’m not turning into a zombie, right?”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “No Francis, you’re not turning into a zombie. …Not as far as I can tell, at least.”
“How reassuring,” Francis grumbled. Zoey pulled out another first aid kit.
“Here, the best I can do here is wrap it up to prevent any further infection. If it’s still this bad when we reach the hospital, then I may be able to help it more if we are able to find some proper equipment.”
Francis stuck out his arm and mumbled to himself. “…Stupid flying horse. I hate horses.”
“Pony, Francis; She’s a pony,” Zoey corrected as she began to wrap the gauze around the biker’s swollen arm. “Besides, it’s not her fault. You didn’t have to be so rough when you got her out from under that bed.” Francis winced as a sharp sting cut into his rash.
“GAH! Be careful!”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“Making it hurt.”
“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of tough guy, who ‘didn’t give a rat’s ass about pain,’” she retorted, quoting him from an earlier argument. Francis just scowled and looked away while she finished bandaging the rash. “Strange, I figured Francis would have made some kind of attempt at a comeback at that last comment. …Maybe he’s finally coming around?” Zoey pondered the thought for a brief second. “…Naw, that’s impossible. There must be something wrong with him,” she concluded half jokingly.
The group had waited a short time to finish recuperating. Eventually Ditzy’s wound stopped bleeding altogether and Zoey was able to replace the bloodied bandages with fresh ones. However, Ditzy’s eyes had not yet returned to their normal, cockeyed position. Meanwhile, Louis had found half a roll of duct tape and decided to repair the sliced strap of the Katana sheath.
Francis, however, was fighting the increasing urge to scratch his swollen arm. He scowled as another wave of itchiness washed over the wound. ‘Stupid pony, biting my arm. I probably got some kind of disease from the damn thing! Would be just my luck if I really did turn into a damn pony.’ He thought to himself angrily. ‘I fucking HATE ponies…’
“Francis…” He looked up to see who was addressing him as Bill continued. “You about ready to go?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting here for you sissies to quit your bawlin’.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Good to see you’re feeling better,” he replied sarcastically.
“Yea, all I really needed was a few cc’s of ‘shut the hell up.’”
“Come on guys, can we just go already?” Louis interjected.
Francis slung the M60 on his back and pulled out his shotgun. “Alright then, let’s do it,” he said as he cocked his weapon and began towards the door.
Zoey finished strapping the freshly repaired sheath on Ditzy’s back, taking care not to agitate her wound. “There you go; good as new.” Ditzy looked up to her with a smile, but Zoey had a hard time getting past those unnerving eyes to notice it.
Francis kicked the metal door open before hopping out of the subway car. The others followed him into the tunnel, with Bill taking the lead. “Turn your flashlights on,” he whispered as he clicked the light attached to his rifle on. Everyone followed suite and began following the veteran down the pitch black tunnel.
It wasn’t long before they came across the remains of the Witch that Francis had mutilated with the M60. A sharp pain shot through Ditzy’s wound as she passed the deceased zombie. Her stomach knotted up as she remembered the feeling of its claws slicing through her. Realizing that she was beginning to fall behind, she overcame the feeling and hurried to catch back up with Zoey.
-
The Hunter watched as the group passed beneath him. He snarled angrily as he eyes the massive gun strapped to the gruff survivor’s back. That weapon had dispatched the Witch like she was nothing.
Still…
At least she had managed to deal some damage before she was massacred.
All in all, the hunter’s plan with the witch was less than what he had hoped it would be. This of course left him stuck in the tunnel, alone, with five armed survivors. There was no point in making any plans, considering there were no other zombies in the subways. That and he was still not aware of their destination. His only logical option was to follow the group until they reached a location where he could form another one of his devious schemes.
Being as quiet as possible, the Hunter began skulking along the ceiling of the subway behind the survivors. Hopefully none of them would get any sudden inclination to look up and spot him…
-
The group cautiously made their way through the tunnel. Aside from the sound of each and every footstep on the gravel surrounding the tracks, everything was dead silent. If there were any zombies down here, they would hear them coming from blocks away. Everybody knows zombies don’t have any sense of stealth.
As they continued, a neon light steadily began to grow brighter from behind where the tunnel made a sharp turn in the distance. When they rounded the bend, they spotted the subway station producing the light. As they approached, they could hear several moans and gurgles from the platform’s inhabitants.
Bill shot a hand up, signaling the group to stop. “Hold up, let me check the map. Could someone hold a light,” he asked as he pulled the map out of his jacket pocket. Zoey clicked on one of the spare flashlights and held it over his shoulder, illuminating the map so everyone could see. Ditzy, however, was able to read the map from where she stood. The light caused the depictions to bleed through the paper.
After finding their location on the map, Bill pointed to the icon representing the station before them. “Alright, it says the ‘generator maintenance station’ is about a block or two past the station.” Everyone looked up from the map as a random infected lost its balance and fell off the platform. A loud crunch echoed through the tunnel as its cranium was split open on one of the train rails.
Everyone looked back to the map as Bill continued. “From there, it’s only a quick walk to the safe house. Everyone clear?” Ditzy and the other nodded in agreement. “Right then, let’s get a move on,” Bill concluded as he placed the map back in his jacket pocket.
As they got closer to the station, they found it to be rather crowded with infected. Bill silently ordered the others to turn their lights off as they snuck past. They didn’t need to startle a horde down at the moment. Still, everyone made sure to keep their guns shouldered and ready to open fire at the first sign of attack. …Except for Ditzy, because she obviously didn’t have a gun.
As the group reached the end of the station they had begun to walk in reverse, still focusing on the platform zombies. Finally they reached the darkness of the next segment of tunnels. Before any of them could turn their flashlights back on, Francis bumped into somebody. He stopped as he recovered his balance from nearly being knocked over.
“Hey, watch it!”
“Huh? What are you talking about?” Zoey whispered to him.
“One of you bozos stopped in front of me and nearly knocked me over!”
“Um, Francis… How could you have bumped into one of us if we stopped? You’re in front, remember?”
“Oh…” he paused as the concept sunk in. “Well if I didn’t bump into one of you, then who did I-”
“wuuerg”
Francis turned around slowly, facing the pitch black tunnel. “Francis…” Bill whispered.
He ignored the veteran as he began to raise his shotgun. “Don’t do it Francis…” Bill continued.
He cocked his shotgun. “Francis, don’t you-” Bill began, but Francis cut him off by clicking on the light attached to his gun. The sudden beam of light lit up the swollen, bulbous, and quite ugly face of a Boomer. The horrifyingly disgusting sight of the special infected suddenly popping out of nowhere when Francis clicked the light on made him jump. …And accidentally pull the trigger of the shotgun, thereby sending a cluster of buckshot ripping through the hideous zombie’s face.
Almost immediately after the Boomer’s massive, bloated gut exploded like an overfilled water balloon. The zombie’s rancid stomach acids, bile, and bloody guts splattered over the five survivors. Ditzy’s stomach heaved as the juices sloshed over her, soaking into her fur and bandages. The liquids alone she might have been able to handle; but when combined with the pain of them seeping into her open wound, she couldn’t hold back. She rushed over to the side of the tunnel as her stomach heaved again. Zoey grimaced as Ditzy hurled her stomach’s contents.
Bill held his arms out to his sides as the various liquids dripped from his drenched jacket. “FOR FUCK’S SAKE FRANCIS! I’ve told you time and time again not to shoot the damn boomers when they’re too close!”
“Son-of-a-bitch made me jump! My finger slipped,” Francis responded as he tried to wipe the burning slime out of his eyes. Ditzy vomited again by the wall. Louis slung a stretch of lower intestine off his shoulder and turned to look back down the tunnel. Zombies were beginning to jump and fall off the platform as they began rushing into the tunnel behind them.
“Um, Zoey? Please tell me you still have a Molotov, or at least a pipe bomb.”
Zoey coughed up some more bile that had found its way down her throat. “Blarg! Ugh, I don’t think so,” she said as she gave herself a quick once-over.
“It’s a good thing I always keep a spare,” Francis chimed in as he pulled a whiskey bottle and a rag of his vest’s inner pocket. He quickly wrapped the rag around the bottle’s top and whipped out his lighter. In a flash of fire, the rag caught fire. Francis pushed past the others to get a clear shot at the mass of zombies. “FIRE IN THE HOLE,” he shouted as he threw the bottle, “LITERALLY!”
The flaming bottle smashed into the ground just a few feet short of the horde. A wave of flames splashed across the ground, catching every zombie that neared it on fire. But there were too many zombies for the Molotov to burn to a crisp. The survivors knew they only had a moment before the flames would be trampled out.
Louis rushed over to where Ditzy was. She had her fore-hooves against the wall and her head lowered. “Come on kid, we gotta’ go!”
“I… I don’t think I-urg-I can,” she said weakly.
“Dang-it, we’re running out of time! We gotta move, now!” Ditzy threw up again, though it was a lot less than before. “Damn...” Louis thought for a split second as he tried to figure out what to do. Before he had a chance to think of anything, Francis pushed past him.
“Move! We don’t have time for this sentimental shit.” Francis picked up Ditzy quickly, and turned her around. She wrapped her forelegs around him and hung her head over his shoulder. Francis wrapped his right arm under her flanks to help support her weight while he wrapped his other arm around her back, making sure to avoid her wound. Francis could feel her shaking uncontrollably. “If you even THINK about puking on my vest, I’m droppin’ your ass A.S.A.P,” he whispered gruffly in her hear.
“Right,” Ditzy whispered back weakly.
“Alright, let’s get to those generators,” Bill shouted to the others as they began hurrying down the tunnel. “Move like there’s a pissed of tank on your asses!”
As if on cue, a thunderous roar shook the tunnel. Ditzy steadied her head due to the bouncy ride and opened her eyes to see what the noise was. The glow from the dying Molotov fire lit a massive figure pushing its way through the common infected. Any zombies in its way were crushed or swatted out of the way by the huge zombie.
Ditzy would have gulped in fright had her system not been trying to do the opposite of swallowing. “B-Bill…”
The veteran stopped and looked back at the outlined monstrosity. “Shit… People we need to MOVE,” Bill shouted as he took off faster than before. Ditzy continued to watch the Tank from over Francis’s shoulder as it slammed its huge fists into the fire, snuffing it out entirely. The group, except for Francis, clicked their lights on immediately after the tunnel was plunged into darkness again.
Bill was shining his light frantically from one side of the tunnel to the other as he desperately looked for the generator maintenance station. Soon his light passed over a dark, abandoned platform a short ways in the distance. He focused the beam of light and held it as steady as he could while running. “There’s the station! Come on, move like you’ve got a purpose!”
“I’m moving as fast as I can damnit! This pony isn’t exactly light as a feather, even after lightening her load, you know.” Ditzy held a hoof over her mouth to hold back the wave of nausea brought on by his reminder. “Hey,” Francis warned, “What did I tell you?!”
Bill scrambled up onto the platform as fast as possible, followed by Zoey and Louis. Francis handed Ditzy up to Zoey before he too climbed up. Bill kicked the door open and ushered everyone through before going through it himself. Inside, there was a short, narrow hallway with a flight of stairs at the other end.
Louis stopped at the bottom of the stairs, allowing Zoey and Francis to pass him as Bill stopped in front of him. “What are you doing?! We gotta go!”
“You all go on ahead, I’ll catch up!”
“You got a plan or a suicide run?!”
“See-four yourself,” Louis replied as he pulled a pair of plastic explosives and a trigger out. “I found them back in the safehouse. I figure if I cave this hallway in, they won’t be able to follow. Now go! I’ll catch up!”
Bill shot him a concerned glance before rushing up the stairs after the others. Louis ran back down the hallway and planted each explosive on adjacent walls of the hallway before running back to the stairs. It wasn’t until he heard the horde slamming on the door before he began running up the stairs. He was half way up the second flight when he heard the door break off its hinges and fall to the ground. Louis paused as he clicked the trigger.
Zoey had let Ditzy sit down by the wall as she and Francis waited for Bill and Louis to catch up. They were standing in another short hallway with a door at the opposite end from the stairs. Bill came panting up the steps. He stopped and bent over to catch his breath when he reached the top. “Took you long enough,” Francis stated sarcastically.
“Where’s Louis,” Zoey asked with a concerned look on her face. Before Bill could answer, the group felt the ground shake beneath them as a loud explosion sounded out from down the stairs. “And what the hell was that?!”
“Louis found some C-4 in the safe house… -wheeze- …and he blew the entrance so they couldn’t follow us,” Bill replied, still having some trouble catching his breath. Zoey looked past him to a cloud of dust rising up from the stairs.
“Louis…”
“Ugh…” Louis groaned as he emerged from the cloud of dust. Zoey beamed at the sight of the survivor. She rushed to him and gave him a firm hug. “Ow! Careful please, I’m hurting pretty bad.”
Zoey quickly retracted. “Oh, um… sorry.” She rubbed her arm. “You uh… You want me to look at that?”
“Yea, thanks.”
“Glad to see you’re alright, kid. Thought you had a death wish there for a minute,” Bill said after he was able to breathe again.
“Naw man. Ah!” He winced as Zoey lifted up his shirt to examine the injuries. “The last thing I want is to die, trust me. Hey, how’s Ditzy doin’?” He looked over to the grey Pegasus curled up against the wall.
“Not as bad as before,” Zoey replied. “She stopped throwing up. I also need to change her bandages again. She got absolutely drenched by that boomer.” Francis chuckled a bit, but Zoey shot him a menacing glance. He stopped.
“Well,” Zoey continued as she stood back up, “You got one or two cracked ribs and some pretty bad bruising. Looks like you got it easy, all things considered.”
“Heh, I guess you could say that.”
Zoey walked over and knelt down beside Ditzy. “Ok then, let’s see what we got.” Ditzy looked up at her. Her eyes were beginning to return to their ‘normal,’ cockeyed positions. The pills must have been wearing off.
Zoey gave her a comforting smile before gently unwrapping the bandages. When she had removed them all, she paused. “…What the hell?”
“What is it,” Ditzy asked, a touch of concern and worry in her voice.
Zoey remained silent for a second before she snapped out of it. “Your wound, it’s… it’s healed.”
Louis walked up beside Zoey to look at the wound. It was healed, just like she had said. All that remained were three pink lines of fresh scar tissue in its place. “How is that even possible?”
“Still makes for one hell of a scar,” Francis stated matter-of-factly. He had walked up while they were ogling over Ditzy’s miraculous recovery. Zoey looked up to him, her surprised expression unwavering. Francis suddenly began looking around nervously. “Err… That is, if it wasn’t on a stupid pony. Heh…” He rubbed the back of his neck before walking back to where he had been leaning against the wall.
Zoey looked back to Ditzy. “Um, how does it feel?”
Ditzy rolled her shoulders a bit and spread her wing cautiously. She didn’t wince and pull it back in this time. “Its… actually feeling ok.” She flapped her wing a few times as a grin began to spread across her face. “Yea! It doesn’t hurt at all! Dang Bill, you didn’t say pills had super healing powers!”
“That’s because they don’t.”
“Well what else could it have been?”
Bill shrugged. “The hell if I know. Though I highly doubt that Boomer bile had anything to do with it.”
“I don’t know…” Zoey rubbed her chin as she thought. Her thoughts were interrupted as Louis let out a quick laugh.
“Who cares how it happened. She’s healed! That’s all that really matters, right?”
“I suppose,” Zoey replied reluctantly. She stood up and turned to Francis. “I don’t suppose your wound has magically healed either, huh?”
Francis rolled his eyes and smirked. “Just toss me a damn roll of gauze. I can wrap it just as good as you can.” Zoey obliged.
He took a few steps towards the other end of the hallway, away from the group. He steadily unwrapped his ‘rash’ as the others continued talking amongst themselves about Ditzy. As he finished unwrapping the ruined gauze, he froze up. He was so taken aback that even dropped the roll of fresh gauze. Not only had the swelling spread, but there were several small patches of grey fur beginning to sprout up around Ditzy’s bite.
Francis’s eye twitched. That damn pony had infected him with… something. It wasn’t the green flu. It couldn’t be; he was immune. But then what the fuck was this happening to his arm?! Was he turning into a zombie?
He looked over to the others. What if they found out? Would they try and kill him before he turned entirely? If that’s what it came to, he was confident that he could take them on. An old man, a scrawny black guy, and a chick? Not exactly much of a threat for him.
He grinned at this thought of arrogance.
But that still didn’t answer the question nagging at his mind. What was he going to do? He picked up the fresh roll of gauze as nonchalantly as possible and began wrapping up his ‘rash.’ All the while he was contemplating what he would do about his predicament.
There was no way in HELL he would amputate. He wasn’t about to cut off an entire arm of tattoos. They cost way too much to just disregard. That and the process would hurt like a bitch.
As he finished wrapping the fresh gauze, he came to a conclusion. He just wouldn’t tell them about it. Hell, it might actually be interesting to see what happened before he mutated into… well, whatever he was mutating into. “Fucking ponies,” he thought to himself with a snarl.
Francis grabbed his shotgun from where it was leaning against the wall and turned to the rest of the group. “If you’re all done with your stupid little conversation, I’d like to get to the next safe house.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Fine, if it’ll keep you from whining.”
“How’s the arm,” Zoey asked casually. Francis scowled and turned towards the door.
“It’s fine.”
“Alright, if you say so.”
Francis opened the door, which led directly into the generator room. There was a path between two of the large generators leading to another stairway. At the top of the stairs, there was a balcony with a door that read “Control Room.”
“There.” Bill pointed to the door. “We can access the offices through there and make our way to the street.”
“Seems simple enough,” Louis said confidently.
While the others made their way to the exit, Ditzy decided to try flying some in the large open room. She launched herself into the air effortlessly, and without even the slightest hint of pain. If it had not been for the scar, she never would have been able to tell that she had been injured. It felt good to be flying again, despite the rather stuffy air. Pegasi were not meant to be underground.
Ditzy did a few loopdy-loops before landing on the balcony. The others were almost up the stairs now, so she decided to step inside and wait for them there. Inside the room there were several panels and big metal boxes, all with dozens of little lights and monitors and buttons. …She loved buttons, especially when she got to push them. And this was button heaven!
She walked up to one large machine in particular, and looked eagerly at the colorful buttons lining its right side. After staring at them in awe for a second, she began mashing the machine’s buttons frantically.
Ditzy stepped back from the machine and watched intently to see what would happen. Suddenly it sounded like there was something tumbling inside the large box-machine. The tumbling stopped almost immediately after it began as whatever was making the noise fell into an open compartment near the bottom. She tried to reach into the compartment, but her hoof wouldn’t fit.
“Whatchya’ doing Ditzy,” Zoey asked as she entered the room, followed by the others. Ditzy pulled her hoof back quickly, as if she was caught stealing a cookie.
“Um, nothing.”
“Oh really?” Zoey walked up to the machine and easily reached into the compartment, before pulling out a silver cylinder. “This doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
Ditzy blushed and looked to the floor. Pushing those buttons must have been a bad thing. “I’m sorry; I just can’t help pushing buttons.”
Zoey laughed and ruffled her mane. “Sorry? Why are you sorry? You got this soda machine to spit out a free one!”
Ditzy looked back up, a confused expression on her face. “Soda machine?”
“Yea. It’s a machine that you pay to give you a drink. I’m surprised they kept one in the control room. Don’t know how you got one without paying though.” Zoey cracked open the can with a pop. “Here, you want it?”
Ditzy took the can between her forehooves and eyed the title. “Diet Coke,” it read. “Is it any good,” she asked curiously.
“See for yourself.”
If humans drank these so often they had to make machines for them, surely it couldn’t be bad, right? Ditzy put the can’s opening to her mouth and tilted it up. The cold liquid tickled her tongue and throat as she drank, filling her mouth with a sweet sensation; the likes of which she had never tasted. True, the drinks from Sugarcube Corner were a lot sweeter in taste, but the fizz added a much more interesting texture to the drink. It was amazing.
Ditzy kept tilting the can higher and higher, chugging its contents. The next thing she knew, the can was empty. She shook the can in hopes of getting any remaining drops, but there were none left to be had. “Aw, it’s empty.”
Zoey shrugged. “That’s why you gotta make them last.”
“Can I have another?”
“Well…” Zoey rubbed the back of her neck. “What with the zombies and all, there’s not really much point in carrying around money anymore. So I can’t really pay for one, unless of course you can get another one for free.”
Ditzy beamed as she turned around and began mashing the buttons faster than before. Unfortunately, there were no tumbling sounds this time. She waited a moment before turning and bucking the machine as hard as she could. Suddenly there was a multitude of tumbling as several cans fell into the compartment.
Zoey crossed her arms. “Wow, nice job!”
“Now we can all have one,” Ditzy said happily.
“Oh man,” Louis said as he grabbed a regular coke from the overflowing compartment. “They’re ice cold too!” He cracked his cola open and chugged almost the entire can.
Zoey gave Louis a light slap on the back, causing him to choke a bit as some soda went up into his nostrils. “Easy there killer, if we drink them all up now we won’t have any for later.” Louis nodded as he wiped some remaining soda from around his lips.
While Louis and Zoey were discussing the looted sodas Bill had begun to look for a bag of some sorts to carry them in. After a quick moment of searching, he managed to find a satchel big enough to carry about five extra sodas in. It would be just enough for each of them to have one later.
When he had filled the satchel with the extras, Bill handed a Mountain Dew to Francis before grabbing one for himself. “It’s about damn time we get something to drink,” the veteran said to himself.
Francis eyed his unopened can for a second before looking up to Ditzy. She smiled back to him innocently. He scowled a bit before cracking open the drink and taking a swig.
After the group had finished their sodas, except for the extras, they had made their way back to the street. It was a rather trifling time finding their way through the offices, but they emerged unto the streets after some trial and error with several lawyer-zombies. Francis found a particular enjoyment in blowing massive holes through them.
Now, back outside, Bill pulled the map out of his jacket pocket once again.
“It should be just inside that pawn shop,” he said as he pointed down the street to their right. The building indicated by Bill was facing them from about a block down the road, where the street made a ninety degree turn to the left.
“It’s about damn time,” Francis said gruffly.
About half way to the pawn shop, Ditzy stopped dead in her tracks. Unfortunately, since she was at the back of the group, nobody noticed when she did so.
A large, neon muffin glowed from behind a window of the bakery across the street. Ditzy couldn’t help but smack her lips at the tantalizing promise written on a sign below the decorative light. “Muffins! All kinds! All you can eat!”
Before Ditzy knew it, she had her face plastered against the glass, reading the sign over and over to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She looked past the sign into the shop. It was pitch black, except for a small glint of light creeping around a door behind the abandoned showcases.
The storage room’s light was on? Maybe some of the muffins had survived the apocalypse! The mere possibility was more than enough to entice Ditzy. With a sudden flash of grey and yellow, she zipped into the bakery to “rescue” as many muffins as she could.
Zoey slammed the safe house door behind her after the others rushed inside. “Wow, that was surprisingly easy.”
Louis set the satchel of sodas on a desk beside some boxes of ammo. “I know! I was worried there would be ALOT more zombies in the subways then there actually were.” He paused. “Well… until Francis shot that Boomer. Then all hell broke loose.”
“Yea, but you stopped them by caving in the hallway. Then not only was Ditzy healed, somehow, but she also got us a dozen free sodas!”
“Hey yea! Thanks again for that, Ditzy!” Louis waited for a response. “…Ditzy?”
Zoey looked around the small room as she took a head count. “Oh no… Where is she?!”
“I don’t know!”
“Francis, where is she?!”
Francis blinked at his sudden involvement. “W-what? How the hell would I know?”
“She was behind you when we left the offices! I thought you were keeping track of her!”
“Well that was stupid of you to assume.”
“…Obviously. So am I to understand that she is still out there?”
“Oh shit,” Louis chimed in, returning to the conversation. “We gotta go help her!”
“Damn right we do.”
“WAIT.” Zoey and Louis looked to Bill. “Here,” he said as he tossed them fresh ammo clips from the desk. “You’re gonna’ need these. And backup.”
“Alright.” Louis stepped to the door. “Francis, you coming?”
“You guys want to go back the way we came for that stupid animal, be my guest. I’m staying here.”
Louis shook his head and sighed. He was about to kick the door open, but stopped when something began banging on it. “Wait, maybe that’s her!”
“Or it could be one of those damn zombies. It could even that fucking hunter that’s been stalking us,” Francis pointed out dryly. Louis ignored him.
“Zoey, you cover the door while I open it.” She nodded. “Alright, be ready…” Louis slowly unlatched the door and pushed it open. Suddenly it jerked open the rest of the way. Zoey and Bill aimed their weapons at the sudden movement, but were quick to lower them.
Ditzy stood in the doorway beaming one of the biggest smiles they had seen. Several lumpy plastic bags hung from around her neck and shoulders. “You all will NOT believe what I found!”
“First aid?”
“Guns?”
“Pills?”
“Vests?” Everyone turned to Francis. “…What?”
“Even better,” Ditzy continued, getting their attention again. “MUFFINS!”
There was a brief pause.
“…And they’re still good! Here, I brought everyone a bag! I don’t really know what kinds you prefer, so I tried to get some of each.” Bill, Zoey, and Louis each grabbed a muffin bag. There was a wide variety of muffins inside each one. Some were big, some were small, and some even had colorful wrappers.
“Damn, where did you even find these,” Louis ask anxiously before taking a big bite out of what could only be described as a ‘jumbo muffin.’ Ditzy chuckled.
“There’s a bakery back down the street. It had a sign advertising ‘all you can eat muffins,’ and I couldn’t help but check it out. I absolutely LOVE muffins,” she said giddily. “Lucky there weren’t and zombies around!”
“Yea…” Francis muttered from the corner he was leaning in. Ditzy walked up to the biker and held a bag up. He eyed the bag for a moment before looking up to the others.
“What if they’re bad, huh? How can any of us trust these muffins!?”
Zoey’s expression deadpanned. “Fwansis, why the hewl wud Ditze do somethun to thes muwfins,” she asked through the muffin bulging in her cheeks.
“I didn’t say she did anything. These things have been sitting out for over a week! They probably have a better chance at killing us than the fucking zombies do!” The others stopped chewing suddenly. Ditzy set the muffin bag on the desk and looked up to Francis.
“Hey,” she said in a surprisingly stern tone of voice. “I know for a fact that these muffins are just as good now as they were when they first came out of the oven.”
“Oh really? And just how is that?”
“It’s supposed to be a secret, but…” Ditzy paused. She couldn’t just go and spill the beans about this, but the situation called for it. “…They were locked safely in an airtight safe.”
Francis stared at her blankly. “…A locked safe.”
“Yes. A safe that has the same password as the ones in Equestria, luckily.” Francis continued to glare at her with a confused expression. She sighed. “Alright, in Equestria there is a secret society known as ‘the Mares of the Muffin.’ They strive at making, protecting, and selling muffins of all kinds. There is a hidden vault in every bakery in case something bad should happen.”
“Like what,” Louis asked.
“I don’t know… anything. Maybe even the apocalypse. Point is, there would always be an extra supply of muffins available to the society’s members.”
“Hold on,” Bill asked after swallowing another bite. “How exactly does this have to do with the bakery down the street? In case you couldn’t tell, we’re not exactly in Equestria.”
“Well yea… but I figured it was worth a shot. And wouldn’t you know it, I was right! I’m sure it’s not the same society as the one in Equestria, but their safes have the same password.”
“How do you know all of this,” Zoey asked suddenly.
“Oh, I’m actually a highly ranked member.” She said proudly.
“But I thought that you said you were a mailman. Err… mailmare. Wouldn’t you be working in a bakery if you were a high ranked member? …Assuming that’s how your society works.”
“Right…” Ditzy chuckled nervously. “I actually did work at a bakery at one point. However, they reassigned me after I accidentally ate half the muffins in stock.” Her cheeks began to blush. “I just… really love muffins.”
The room grew quiet as the four humans contemplated the new discovery about Ditzy. Eventually Francis took his bag of muffins from the desk and began munching on them. They were actually very good, much to his surprise. Soon he was so caught up in how delicious they were, he stopped scowling. He was still cranky, mind you, but the muffins were just too delicious to hate.
“Hey Zoey, mind handing me one of those sodas,” Louis asked, breaking the silence.
“Sure.” She handed him a Mountain Dew from the soda satchel. “Anybody else want one?” The others agreed and took their pick of the remaining sodas. Zoey cracked open another Diet Coke and handed it to Ditzy.
“You know, now may not be the best time,” Bill began as he rubbed the back of his neck, “And I’m not really good at this sort of thing, but I’d like to make a toast.” He held his soda up. “To Ditzy. Not only for getting us some decent grub, but also for being one tough bastard.”
Ditzy blushed again. She knew Bill meant it as a compliment, truly, but she still didn’t really like being called that.
“To Ditzy,” Louis and Zoey said simultaneously. Francis silently took a swig from his cola.
Ditzy raised her soda as high as she could with it between her front hooves. “To rescue.”
The room feel silent for a moment as the humans thought of what ‘rescue’ meant to each of them. One at a time, the survivors put their soda up to Ditzy’s and repeated “To rescue.” Even Francis toasted his soda.
With one last “To rescue” from the five survivors, the group chugged down their remaining soda confidently.
The Group savored their unhealthy meal provided by Ditzy as long as they could. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end; as did the survivor’s momentary pause from the apocalypse. Although they would have been content with finishing off the remaining muffins, Ditzy convinced them to save some for a later time. After all, nobody knew when, or even if, they would next find any edible food.
Francis, making sure to remove the brace this time, kicked the safehouse’s reinforced metal door open before blasting holes through the zombies that stood outside it. Once clear of obvious threats, Francis looked down the alley that the door opened into. He noted the open door at the opposite end of the alley with a grin.
“Come on, hurry up. There’s no way a few muffins made all of you fat and slow.” He grinned at Bill, who had just stepped out of the safehouse. “Well… Slow-er.”
“Ah shut up.”
“Right then. Everyone follow me, and try to keep up.”
Louis walked up beside Bill. “You know the way Francis?”
“Uh… yea, of course I do. I know the rest of the rout like the inside of my vest.”
“Or the inside of a one-way alley,” Bill said flatly as he pointed to the open door a short walk before them. “But knowing you Francis, I’m sure you’ll find a way to get us into trouble or lost.”
“On second thought… Bill, why don’t you lead? That way, we can get a clear shot at the zombies while you distract them by being eaten.” Bill’s only response was a scowl and a cold shoulder as he took point of the group.
Zoey accompanied Ditzy out of the safe house, making sure the bag of leftover muffins was safe around the grey pegasus’s neck. “So it’s no trouble for you to carry, right? It isn’t in the way of your sword, is it?”
Ditzy shook her head and looked up to the kind human. “Heh, you sound like my mom. I’m fine, really.” She pulled her katana out and swished it around a few times to demonstrate. “Shee?” she mumbled through the sword’s hilt.
“Alright, if you’re sure, though I still wouldn’t not mind carrying it for you.”
“And risk you swiping a few muffins behind our backs,” Ditzy asked jokingly.
“Ha, and we aren’t taking the same risk with entrusting them with you?” Zoey retorted. The two shared a good laugh before catching up to the others, who had moved on down the alley. Ditzy, however, opted to remain on the ground, galloping beside Zoey. The combined weight of both the sword and the muffins would burn too much energy if she flew, and she knew she needed to save her energy to help fend off the zombies they would inevitably encounter.
Once everyone was present, Bill turned to face the group. “Alright people, this is going to be a long run. First we need to make it inside the storage warehouse across the parking lot from this doughnut shop.” He pointed at the open door behind him. “From there, we can gain access to the sewage treatment facility next door and make our way through the sewers until we’re right beneath the hospital. Then all we have to do is make it inside to the next safehouse. Any questions?”
“Yea, I got one,” Francis stated gruffly. “Why do we have to go through the sewers? As if these damn vampires are exploding and puking all over us wasn’t bad enough. Now we have to wade through a river of shit as well? No thanks.”
“Well Francis, which would you prefer? The empty sewers, or the endless hordes of monsters trying to kill us?”
“The monsters. Every time. Now I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we seem to be doing a pretty damn good job at kicking their asses.”
“…He does have a point,” Louis said.
Bill looked between the two of them. “Are you kidding me? We’re running low on ammo as it is! We can’t just go gallivanting down main street shouting ‘Come at me bro!’ We have to strategize! And if that means wading through someone’s feces then so be it. Now come on!”
Bill took a few more steps towards the door before realizing nobody was following him. He turned back to the others. “Well?”
“Well…” Zoey rubbed the back of her neck. “As much as I hate to say it, I actually have to agree with Francis on this one. The sewers sound, and smell like a bad idea.”
“And It would ruin the muffins for sure,” Ditzy cut in.
Bill looked to each of them with a scowl as he thought. “…Fine. But if we all die, it’s your own damn fault!” He turned back to the door and stormed into the doughnut shop. The rest of the group followed him this time, though they were still a little hesitant.
After a quick search for any food, in which they found nothing, as usual, the group gathered in the parking lot outside. Once again, they were met with a surprising lack of zombies. …not that they were complaining.
“So, since nobody wants to take the safe rout, what’s the plan on getting to the hospital through the city,” Bill asked grumpily.
“Well…” Francis looked around the parking lot for a moment before something caught his attention. “We could drive there,” he continued, pointing at a car in front of the warehouse across the parking lot.
“It has no gas, you moron!” Bill was beginning to sound agitated.
“Yea, but there’s a gas station right there for just such an occasion,” Francis replied, pointing to a gas station at the end of the parking lot.
“Huh, well this should be ea-” Bill was cut short by a Tank smashing through one of the warehouse’s loading doors like it was foil. It stopped only a fraction of a second before it spotted them and let forth a tremendous, throaty roar. “-easy,” Bill concluded.
The enraged tank smashed its fist into the side of the car, sending it flying towards the group. Everyone was able to dodge the projectile before it impacted where they had been, and flipped once or twice before crashing into the shop that they had just come from. Seizing its opportunity, the Tank charged at the survivors as they recovered from their latest near-death experience.
Thinking fast, Francis slung the M-60 from his back and began to unload into the charging monstrosity. The other humans joined in the spray of fire as soon as they were back on their feet. Derpy, however, had her sword drawn, but soon found herself backing away in fear. It was frightening enough to hear Bill describe the Tank, but to actually see one charging straight for her was almost too much to handle.
It was like the thing didn’t even notice it was being peppered with bullets. It just kept on coming for them! The entire group had begun to walk backwards as the Tank neared. And just when Derpy thought things couldn’t get worse, Francis’s M-60 clicked empty.
“Shit!!!” Francis tossed the useless weapon aside and pulled out his shotgun. But before he could open fire, the Tank rushed forward and punched him square in the chest, sending him flying back into the shop like the car had. Luckily, Francis’s fall was broken by a table. He picked himself up shakily, watching as the rest of the group played a particularly dangerous game of ‘keep away’ with the Tank.
Derpy and Zoey headed towards a truck that was backed up to the warehouse, Bill was leading the tank towards the gas station, and Louis was coming to see if Francis was doing ok. At least, as ‘ok’ as one can be when they get hit in the chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
“Shit Francis! You ok?!” Louis asked as he stepped through the massive hole where a wall had been.
Francis clutched his chest. He probably… no, he definitely had a broken rib or two. Possibly some internal bleeding as well. “…Just peachy.”
It was obvious Francis was in pain. Louis took out his bottle of pills and looked at it for a moment before holding it out towards the biker. “Here, take these.” Francis pushed the pills away.
“I don’t want any damn pills.” He looked up to the gas station, then the tank. “…But I do want your Molotov.”
“Huh?”
“I said I want your Molotov. Having trouble hearing?”
Louis’s concerned expression faded. “I heard you just fine. I just wasn’t expecting a Molotov to be the first thing you asked for.”
“Yea, well, I have a plan. Now would you mind handing it over?”
“Ok, fine.” He took the whiskey bottle off his belt and handed it to Francis. The biker snatched it from Louis’s hand and staggered over to the overturned car. After attaching the Molotov to his belt, Francis pried a car door open and began kicking it.
“Come here and gimme’ a hand,” he said between kicks.
“What are you even trying to do?”
“What does it look like? I’m trying to kick this door of its hinges.”
“Ok, so why are you doing that?”
Francis stopped kicking the door and gave an agitated sigh. “What is this, 20 questions? Look, if you have anything else to use as a shield then be my guest. But I don’t plan on facing that damn thing again without something between us. Now help me with this! We don’t have much time!”
Louis shrugged and began kicking the door with Francis. The door didn’t last long under their combined kicks, and quickly fell off the car. Francis picked it up with a grunt and walked back out to the parking lot. By now, the Tank was still chasing after Bill, who was doing a remarkable job of running backwards while spraying the beast relentlessly.
With the Tank still preoccupied, Francis began making his way towards the gas station while Louis chased after the Tank to help Bill. Once Francis reached one of the pumps, he sat the car door down and removed the pump’s nozzle. Fortunately the pump did not require a pre-use payment. Francis smirked as he began spraying the pump and surrounding pavement with gasoline.
Once he felt like he had drenched the pump in enough gas, Francis whipped his shotgun back out and began waving it in the air. “Hey you big, ugly Tank! Over here!” He shot the gun in the air twice for added effect. “Come here you shit-for-brains freak!”
The tank stopped dead in its tracks before spinning around to the biker. Francis could almost see flames in its eyes. …just as planned.
Francis put the gun away as the Tank began charging him from across the parking lot. He pulled out the Molotov and lit it before picking up the car door with the other hand. “That’s right, come here you dumb bastard!”
“What the hell are you doing Francis,” Bill shouted angrily.
“Don’t get your beard in a knot old man! I’ve got a plan!”
Before Bill could inquire what Francis’s plan was, the Tank charged at the biker like it had before. But this time Francis rolled to the side as the Tank swung its colossal fist, causing the monster to slam into the gas station’s glass wall instead. After a split-second recovery, the two of them exchanged a brief, angry glance.
“I hate gas stations,” Francis said with a smirk as he tossed the Molotov onto the pump behind him, igniting the gas he had sprayed into a ball of fire. The sudden action snapped the Tank out of the intense stare. It raised its fist for another killer punch, watching the biker stand before it unwavering.
Francis pulled the car door in front of his chest a split second before the massive fist made contact, and was sent flying through the wall of fire just as the gas pump exploded. The Tank stumbled back from the explosion before the fire reached the reserve tanks beneath the pump. The second explosion was so powerful that it blew the over-hanging cover into the air, which crushed the tank as it came crashing back down.
Francis, however, flew away from the explosion and into the truck that Zoey and Ditzy were by. After leaving a noticeable dent in the side of the truck, he fell to the ground face-first. Zoey and Ditzy rushed over and rolled him over on his back.
“Holy fuck Francis! What kind of plan was that,” Zoey shouted. She noticed a bit of blood beginning to run from the side of his mouth.
“I think I broke a rib.” He turned and coughed, spitting some blood on the pavement beside him. “…or all of them.”
Ditzy could feel a tear coming on as she looked over the gravely injured biker. “Francis…”
Francis didn’t pay her any attention. “Hey Louis,” he shouted as he turned back over. “I wouldn’t mind having a few of those pills now…”
- Roughly an hour before the survivor’s encounter with the tank, back in the subways -
After the gruff human had foolishly shot the boomer in such close quarters, a horde of common infected and a tank gave chase to the survivors. The Hunter watched from the tunnel’s ceiling as the group retreated into a side passage and slammed the door shut behind them. The hunter’s plan had been to wait for the common infected to bust down the door, since it was obvious that the survivors would open fire as soon as it was open, then swoop in behind the tank and make his move.
Unfortunately, the hunter’s plan was blown out of the water when an ear-splitting explosion sounded out from the passage, followed by it and a section of the tunnel caving in. The force of the explosion was so powerful in fact, that the hunter was shaken loose from its perch and fell to the ground.
After recovering from the shock of the explosion, the hunter took a moment to assess the situation. The majority of the horde had been buried in the tunnel’s collapse, but the tank was uninjured (as far as being a giant mutant zombie goes) and smashing away at the pile of rubble to try and get at the survivors. It seemed even more angry than usual that the survivors had escaped.
Watching the behemoth smashing through the rubble gave the hunter an idea. If the hunter could get the tank to do what he told it, then he could use it to clear the collapsed tunnel. However, even with the tank’s strength, clearing the tunnel would take far too long. The hunter thought to himself for a moment.
If he couldn’t go through the obstacle, then perhaps he could go around it! He remembered that there were several other tunnels running all beneath the city known as sewers. All he had to do was get the tank to smash its way through the wall between the subway tunnel and the sewer, and then find a way back up to the surface. From there, finding the survivors would be no trouble. He just had to find and follow their trail of death and destruction until he caught back up.
Now came the hard part. Convincing the tank to do what the hunter wanted him to.
It took about thirty minutes, but eventually the hunter was able to find a way to get the tank to do his bidding. Now that the tank was at his disposal, the hunter searched the tunnel for the most likely section of wall that the sewers were behind. After a few failed attempts, the hunter finally found a place where the tank could bring down the entire wall and allow them passage.
The horrendous smell burned the hunter’s nose terribly, causing his head to spin. The one time he regretted having an advanced sense of smell. There was no way he would be able to navigate his way to the surface; any possible scents were overpowered by the already present stench. The tank, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be affected by the smell whatsoever.
To the hunter’s surprise, it took off charging down the tunnel. He didn’t know if it knew where it was going, but he didn’t have any better ideas other than to follow it. In fact, his head was swimming so badly from the overpowering stench that he could barely even focus on keeping up with the behemoth.
After what felt like an eternity of winding through the sewer tunnels, the tank smashed its way through a wall into a room with several large tanks (the metal containers, not the zombies) lining the walls. The tank (this time the zombie) couldn’t care less about the room or what was in it, and continued to a stair case at the opposite end of the room.
The hunter, whose nerve were still recovering from being burned with the utterly foul smell of shit, continued following the tank as it smashed its way up the stairs and through several more walls. It wasn’t until the tank smashed its way into a large room with several, tall shelves that the hunter’s senses truly began to regain some sensation.
The hunter stopped and took a deep breath of the (moderately) fresh air to try and determine his location, when something caught his attention. He smelled… the survivors?
His concentration was shattered as the tank smashed through a metal door in the side of the room, followed by an even louder crash and the sound of gunfire. The hunter hurried to the hole in the wall just in time to see the tank punch the gruff survivor through the air and into a building across the open area.
The hunter was surprised to say the least. He was not remotely aware that the tank had a sense of smell so powerful that it could smell the humans not only over the stench of the sewers, but over the distance they had traveled. The hunter thought about this for a moment before leaping up to the building’s roof for a better view of the battle.
* * *
Francis’s eyes shot open as he sat up suddenly, only to fall back from an intensely sharp pain in his chest. “SHIT!”
“Well what did you expect from doing that,” Zoey asked. She was sitting beside him and wrapping up his chest when he had tried to sit up. “Don’t move, it’ll only make things worse.”
“Damn! It feels like somebody is stabbing me!”
“Well actually…” she began as she started wrapping more bandages around him. “A broken rib from one of the times that tank punched you is pressing into your right lung. It hasn’t punctured, from what I can tell, but I can almost guarantee that it will if you make any more sudden movements like that.” Francis grumbled something beneath his breath. “Also, you passed out after taking a few of Louis’s pills.”
“Stupendous.”
The roll of bandages ran out and Zoey tossed the empty roll away. “When we get to the hospital, I might be able to do something about that with the proper tools.” She noticed Francis eyeing her with a concerned look.
“I know you’re good with a med-kit, but that doesn’t mean I want you cutting me open and messing with my guts!”
“Well I’m the most qualified one for the task. …Unless you’d rather have Bill do it.”
“NO!”
Zoey smirked. “I thought not.”
Francis sighed. “So…” he turned his head to look at the pile of smoking rubble where the gas station had been. “I got em,’ right?”
“Heh, big-time. I’ll have to admit, that plan of yours was pretty stupid; though I’m not complaining about the results.”
“HA! Francis, one; tank, hamburger!”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a flawless victory,” Zoey retorted, poking the bandages lightly. Francis winced, despite trying to ignore the pain.
“Well… I still won.” Zoey shrugged. “By the way, where the hell is everyone else? They pussy out and run away or something?”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “No Francis. They’re looking through the warehouse for any supplies we can use.” She paused for a second. “…By the way, your arm is looking pretty bad as well. That infection is nothing like I’ve ever seen, and it’s getting worse by the hour.”
“Shit... You sayin’ you can’t do anything about it?”
“Again, I can’t do much more than wrap you up without the proper tools. I’ll see what I can do once I’ve finished with your ribs.” She paused. “…how does it feel now?”
“It feels like there’s something crawling under my skin, itchy as hell, and burns worse than fire. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone rubbed poison ivy all over it and then poured a glass of acid on it.”
“I guess; but the thing that concerns me the most is the hair. It’s spread all the way to your shoulder now. If amputation was ever an option, it certainly isn’t anymore.”
“Fuck.”
Bill, Louis and Ditzy exited the warehouse through the hole in the wall before the conversation could continue. “So, find anything helpful?” Zoey asked, noticing the bags slung across Bill’s back.
“Nothing that we can use,” Bill replied glumly. “All the food’s gone bad and there’s no weapons to be had. Other than that, just more useless shit.”
Francis noticed Ditzy had her head hung low. There were a few streaks running down through the fur beneath her eyes. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Thought I was dead or something?”
Ditzy looked up suddenly. “Francis! You’re ok!”
“What do you think I am, some kind of weakling like Louis? It takes more than a few broken ribs to take me down.”
“Though the slightest nudge could fill your lung with blood and kill you,” Zoey cut in sarcastically.
“Whoa, what now?!” Louis seemed the most surprised by the news, despite just being insulted by the biker.
“One of Francis’s broken ribs is pressing into his right lung,” Zoey explained. “It hasn’t punctured yet, but it could at any time. We need to get to the hospital soon so I can try and remove it.” Ditzy put a hoof to her mouth in shock. The others stood there silently and considered the situation.
Francis rolled his eyes and groaned. “Would you guys stop acting like I’m already dead? It’s getting a bit uncomfortable…”
“Right,” Zoey continued as she stood up. “So what’s the plan?”
Bill cleared his throat. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, Francis was right. The sewers are out of the question. That tank led a pretty obvious trail behind it, which led us straight to the sewage treatment facility next door.”
“I told you so,” Francis cut in with a smirk.
“But Francis’s plan was totaled along with that car.” Bill pointed to the overturned vehicle lying inside the collapsed shop.
“We could find another one! We’re in a city after all; it’s not like that was the only car.”
“Oh! Oh!” Ditzy hopped up and down a few times. “I could fly around and see if I find one!”
“You know,” Bill stoked his beard in thought. “That’s actually not a bad idea. You sure you’re up to it? We wouldn’t want you getting into trouble like last time.”
Ditzy beamed. “No no! I can do it!”
“Alright then. Just be careful.” Bill watched as she launched herself into the air. “See if you can find a pickup if at all possible,” He shouted after her.
“How am I supposed to pick up a car if I find it?”
“No. Pickup as in the type of truck; not pick-up as in picking something up.”
“Oh, ok! …What’s a pickup truck?”
“You know what? Forget it.”
Ditzy shrugged. “Okay.” She turned and flew off above the city to begin her search for a vehicle.
* * *
The hunter watched as the four-legged survivor took to the skies. After glancing back down to the four humans he determined that they would not be going anywhere soon, and decided to follow the flying creature. He was already somewhat knowledgeable about the capacity of the humans, since he had once been one himself; but he was growing more concerned about what this other thing was capable of.
It could obviously fly, but what else could it do? How good was its flying? Was it more vulnerable in the skies, or on the ground? If the hunter was ever going to face the creature, or any of the other survivors for that matter, he had to know what he was up against.
And so the hunter began leaping from roof to roof after the grey Pegasus; making sure not to be seen, yet never letting his target out of sight. All the while he formed plans about how to best take on the creature and the others when the time came.
It didn’t take too long for Ditzy to find a vehicle that looked decent enough. On her return flight, she got a funny feeling she was being watched. When she turned to see if anything was following her, she caught a glimpse of something darting behind an air conditioning unit a few roofs back.
She began flying towards the AC unit to investigate, but stopped herself. The recollection of what happened last time she went to investigate something alone hit her like a ton of bricks, as if to say “What, you didn’t learn your lesson after that run-in with the witch?” She ran a hoof down the scar the witch’s claws left behind. And given the condition of Francis, he was in no condition for another well-timed rescue if things went south.
Ditzy looked back at the AC unit for a moment before turning and continuing her flight back to the group. Little did she know; once she had turned around, the hunter crept out from behind the air conditioner and continued his pursuit.
It wasn’t long before Ditzy landed beside the freight truck where the other humans were positioned. Bill lowered his rifle and took a step towards her. “Hey kid. Any luck on finding a usable car?”
Ditzy nodded happily. “Yep! At least, I think I did. I don’t know that much about your vehicles, but I think the one I found will do.”
Bill grinned. “Alright, what’s it look like?”
“Well,” Ditzy cocked her head as she thought. “It was a bit bigger than the car Francis pointed out earlier. It had an open place in the back, like the wagons back home, and a small cab that looked like it could hold two of you. The back was loaded up with a bunch of boxes and other square-ish things, but if we cleared those out it would be a good place to lay Francis down.”
“Heh, sounds like you managed to find a pickup after all,” Bill said with a chuckle.
“So that’s what you were talking about!”
“Yep. Say, it didn’t look too damaged or anything, did it?”
“Nope; it looked fine to me. Though I didn’t really find the color to be appealing.”
Bill shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Ditzy nodded in agreement as Bill turned to the other three survivors. “Alright, Ditzy and I are going to go get the truck. Louis, Zoey, you stay here and Keep Francis from getting himself killed.”
“Hey-” Francis tried to protest, only to be cut off by Zoey.
“Will do. And try to hurry, I honestly don’t know how long he can stay like this.”
“-I’m fine!”
“No, Francis, you’re not. Now stay still.” Zoey knelt down beside him. Louis simply nodded to Bill in agreement.
Bill nodded back to Louis before looking back down to Ditzy. “Alright kid, lead the way.”
Ditzy smiled back up at him before lifting herself back into the air with a few flaps of her wings. “Come on, this way!”
-
It took longer to get to the truck than it had before, but the trip was still relatively short. The two turned a corner and found the truck parked half in the street and half on the sidewalk. There were several cardboard boxes and old TVs in the truck bed, just like Ditzy had described. Bill noted that the dark store it was parked outside had its display window smashed in, and several of the displays were missing.
“Damn looters,” he muttered with a scowl. “Ditzy, you check the cab for the keys and see if the thing will start. Can you do that?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I’ll make sure nobody is going to jump out and try and shoot us.” Bill watched as Ditzy opened the driver’s door with a wing and climbed onto the seat. He chuckled at how clever she really was. Despite the apocalyptic circumstances, he was glad she was with them.
After a quick moment the thought passed, and Bill’s concentration was brought back to the situation at hand. Looters didn’t just leave their loot lying out in the open, so they had to be nearby. Whether they were dead or alive, he knew he had to find them.
Bill walked up to the shop’s entrance and opened the door slowly, making sure to keep his rifle raised and ready in case anything jumped out at him. “Hello; anybody in here?” He caught a glimpse of a common infected. He around and splattered the zombie’s brains against the wall with a well placed shot to the forehead. “…Anybody that isn’t infected, that is?”
After a moment of searching the dark, Bill found a light switch and flicked it on. The newfound light revealed the shop to be a jewelry store. Now that he could see, Bill immediately saw a masked body lying in the glass near the showcase. One hand was stretched towards the window, while the other clutched a mangled mass of necklaces and jewels. A blood trail from his missing leg led across the floor to a door behind a set of shattered display cases.
“Damn…” Bill muttered to himself as he looked over the scene. “Must have found more than he bargained for.” He followed the blood trail back to the door and aimed his rifle, ready for anything. He opened the door slowly, and took a cautious step into the pitch black room. He could see more blood on the floor from the light coming in around him, and the smell…
The sound of someone sobbing within the room reached his ears, sending a chill down his spine. That was more than enough to tell him what had conspired. He backed out of the room slowly before closing the door behind him.
Bill walked over and looked down at the looter that had tried to escape. “Poor bastard…”
“Hey Bill!” Ditzy shouted out from the truck, breaking his concentration. “I think I figured out how to start the engine! You just put the key in here… and turn!” The truck’s motor started up with a rumble.
“Great job kid,” he replied, trying to sound happy for her. “But I’m still drivi-” suddenly the radio came on and started blaring “Highway to Hell” at full blast. “Shit; turn it off! Turn it off!”
“Aaaaah!” Ditzy began running her hooves across the complex set of buttons imbedded in the dash. “I don’t know how!”
Bill could hear the cry of zombies in the distance as the music echoed through the streets. “Shit!” He scrambled out the display window and rushed to the van, but he found the passenger door to be locked. “Unlock it, hurry!”
“I’m trying! Er…” she continued pushing all the buttons she could see. “Come on!”
“Damnit; cover your eyes!” Bill said as he pulled out his pistol. Ditzy did as she was told and covered her face as Bill smashed in the window with his elbow. He aimed the pistol and fired three quick shots into the radio. The song warped a bit before dying out as the radio sputtered and sparked.
Bill could hear the zombies getting closer every moment. “Move over, we’ve got to get out of here!”
“Right!” Ditzy brushed the broken glass out of the passenger seat and slid in it as Bill ran around the car and opened the driver’s door.
Bill jumped in the driver’s seat and adjusted himself to the controls before slamming the gearshift into drive. He could see a multitude of zombies beginning to swarm the street in front of them. “Hold on kid, this is going to get bumpy.”
“Hold onto what?! I don’t have hands!”
“Right, just… brace yourself.” The back tires screeched in an attempt to gain traction as Bill floored the gas pedal. Once the wheels found the traction they wanted, the truck shot forwards. Bill turned the steering wheel sharply, causing the truck to skid into a 180 degree turn, pointing them back the way they came. Several of the boxes and TVs in the back flew over the side, crushing a few zombies that had gotten close. Bill floored the gas again and sped off towards the warehouse.
-
The truck sped into the parking lot and came to a screeching halt in front of the freight truck where the others were. Bill rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Come on, hurry up and get Francis in the back! We don’t have much time before the horde catches up to us!”
Louis jumped in the back and began chucking the remaining boxes and TVs out the side as Zoey walked up to the cab. “What the hell happened out there?” she asked, noticing the bullet-riddled radio. “We could hear that music all the way back here!”
“Nice choice of song, by the way!” Francis shouted from where he was slouched against one of the freight truck’s tires. “I love that one!”
“It came on when we started it up and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off fast enough, so I shot it.”
“And the window?” Zoey continued.
“I needed a clear shot.”
“Back’s clear!” Louis shouted as he jumped across the side. “Come on Zoey, help me lift Francis up.”
“I can help too,” Ditzy said as she got out of the passenger’s seat. She flew over to Francis and put her forelegs underneath each arm before flapping her wings hard to pull him to his feet. Once he was upright, Zoey and Louis each took one of his arms over their shoulders to support his weight.
“Ack! Not that this hurts or anything, but you mind taking it a bit easier?” Francis said as his feet tried to keep up with the pace of his carriers. He heard a sort of howl echo from the approaching horde. “Uh… On second thought, forget taking it easy. Just get me to the damn truck so we can get the hell outta’ here!”
Zoey rolled her eyes. When they reached the truck, she stepped away from Francis and pulled the tailgate down with a thud. Ditzy pulled Francis into the truck bed as Louis lifted up his legs and pushed. After a few agitated grunts and groans from the biker, he was lying to the side of the bed with his arms lying across his chest.
Bill noticed the first of the zombie horde begin running into the parking lot. “Zoey, Pipe bombs. Now!”
“Got it.” She activated the homemade bomb and threw it as hard as she could into the approaching horde. The zombies took immediate interest in the high-pitched beeping and began swarming around the bomb.
“Louis, you got shotgun! Zoey, keep an eye on Francis! And Ditzy,” the pony looked back to him from where she was floating in the air. “Keep those bastards out of the back, got it?” A confident grin spread across her face and saluted the veteran before pulling out her sword.
The pipe bomb’s beeps increased in speed before it exploded, sending blood, guts, and body parts flying in every direction. Zoey hopped in the bed beside Francis as Louis got in the passenger’s seat with a quick yelp. After pulling a piece of glass out of his pants, he sat back down and held his Uzi out the window.
Ditzy on the other hand landed in the truck bed around Francis’s legs and growled at the nearing horde. Not a single zombie was going to harm her friends. Not if she had anything to say about it.
“Here we go!” Bill shouted from the cab before the tires screeched into motion again. The truck slung skidded into another 180 degree turn and began plowing through the mass of common infected, crushing any and all in its path. Meanwhile Louis and Zoey were unloading their guns into the masses as they sped past. Ditzy, however, flew above the truck, swooping down and slicing through zombies with her sword like a hot knife through butter.
All Francis could do was cover his face and vest as best as possible to prevent getting too much blood on him. It was going to be a long drive to the hospital.
It had taken almost an hour of non-stop zombie slaughter for the survivors and their truck to wade through the mass of zombies between them and the hospital, but they finally made it. The banged-up truck, which looked like it had gotten a red paint-job, pulled into the hospital’s turnabout and stopped by the main entrance. With a final, pitiful sputter, the engine died.
“Alright gang,” Bill said as he got out of the driver’s seat, “We’re here. Everyone pile out.” The old veteran walked in front of the truck as everyone else got out to help Francis. The grill looked like it had been chewed up and spit back out after all the zombies it had run over. Bill gave a solemn sigh and patted the hood. “Trucks taken one hell of a beating. I doubt it’ll ever run again.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Zoey said as she helped Louis walk Francis to the hospital’s doors. “The thing probably has more zombie guts in it than it does gas after what we just put it through.”
Bill grimaced as he removed his hand from the slimy hood. “…Right,” he said, shaking his hand to get the zombie gunk off it. With a final glance at the spent vehicle, Bill turned and followed the others inside.
The thick metal door of the safe house stood open behind the lobby’s front desk, and Ditzy flew inside to make sure it was clear of any wandering common infected. “All clear!” She shouted when she found the room clear of zombies.
Once the room was deemed safe, Zoey and Louis walked Francis inside and lay him down on a table. Bill was the last one in the room, making sure that no zombies had followed them before slamming the thick metal door shut behind him.
“I can’t believe we finally made it,” Louis said excitedly. “We’re almost outta’ here!”
“Something bad is gonna happen soon enough, I can assure you,” Francis said grimly. “Always does.”
“Heh, well if you ask me I’d say something bad has already happened. …to you, Francis.” Louis smirked. “Maybe if you weren’t so negative you wouldn’t have it so bad all the time.”
“Hey, that tank didn’t give a shit about ‘feelings’ Louis. And even if it did, what would you have done? Given it a hug and ask it to ‘pwetty pweese stop kicking our widdle asses?’”
Louis’s expression deadpanned. “Francis, I-”
“You mind having this conversation later?” Bill said gruffly, cutting Louis off. “We still have a ways to go before escaping. So here’s the plan.” He spread the map out across Francis’s chest since he was lying on the only table in the room. However, Zoey put her hand in the middle of the map to stop Bill before he could continue.
“No offense Bill, but the escape plan will have to wait. Right now we need to get Francis to an operation room as soon as possible so I can deal with his injuries.”
Bill looked down at the map, then to Zoey. “…Alright. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I know this hospital well enough to know that the operation rooms are on the second floor, so first we would need to get Francis settled in there. Then we would need the proper tools and sedatives for the operation.”
“Wait, what?!” Francis cut in, but was ignored.
“Then all I would need is for Bill and Louis to guard the door so I don’t get interrupted. I’m going to need a ton of concentration for this procedure if it’s going to work, which means no zombies barging in unannounced. Other than that, the rest is up to me. Everyone understand?” Everyone nodded except Francis, who shook his head vigorously. “Alright then, let’s move.”
“Alright, I’ll take the lead,” Ditzy and Bill said in unison. “No, I’ll lead!”
“Ditzy, do you even know your way around a hospital?” Louis asked as he helped Zoey lift Francis to his feet.
“Well, yea…” the pegasus trailed off and looked around nervously. “I visit patients more often than I’d like…”
Everyone had their own guesses as to what she meant by that, but Francis was the only one to voice his. “Shit, just how many people have you put in the hospital?!”
Ditzy looked away. “It’s not my fault! I… I don’t know what went wrong, really!”
“Someone please tell me she won’t be anywhere near me when Dr. Zoey cuts me open-”
“The point is!” Bill shouted above the biker. “I should lead because I know my way around here.”
“Yea, I can imagine,” Francis continued undeterred. “You gotta have annual check-ups on your crotchety hips and other old-man bullshit. Speaking of which, when was the last time you took your medications?”
Francis blurted out laughing before a rifle butt was slammed into his forehead and he blacked out. The others looked to Bill in surprise as he gave a huff. “There, now we don’t have to waste time looking for anesthesia.”
“…Assuming he stays under that long,” Zoey said as she regained her composure. “In any case, can we go now?”
“Sure thing,” Bill concluded as he kicked open the safe house’s exit.
-
After discovering that the controls that called the elevator to their floor had been smashed, they had no choice but to drag Francis’s unconscious body up the stairs. More bad news had come their way when they found the second floor to be crawling with common infected. After they had laid Francis on a rolling hospital bed, the four of them were able to fight off the small horde of infected doctors, nurses, and patients.
After they cleared the floor, as far as they could tell, Bill was able to find an operating room. It took all four of them to lift Francis carefully from the hospital bed to the operating table, but they succeeded without incident. With Francis taken care of, Zoey went around the room gathering what she needed to operate.
“Ok, we got the tools, plenty anesthesia, and all the gauze I could ever need. Bill, Louis, you guys watch the hallway. Don’t let anyone or anything in. Ditzy, you stay in here in case of any unwanted surprises. Everyone clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Affirmative.”
“Yeperdoodle!”
Bill and Louis closed the door behind them as they left the room. Zoey sighed and looked to Ditzy, who was flying in place on the other side of Francis. “Ditzy, I think you need to see something.”
Ditzy gave her a quizzical look as she began cutting the wrapping that encased Francis’s entire right arm. Once it had been cut down the length of his arm, Zoey pulled the wrapping off. Ditzy gasped at the sight of Francis’s arm, which now had an almost solid layer of grey fur covering it.
“Ditzy, I need to know. From what I can gather and from what Francis has told me, this… whatever it is, originated from where you bit him.” Ditzy gasped again.
“I… but…”
“Ditzy,” Zoey asked in a serious tone.” I need to know. Are you sick? Do you have some kind of disease from where you came from, one that might not exist here? One that has unexpected results to humans,” she continued, motioning to Francis’s arm.
She could see shock in Ditzy’s eyes. “I… N-no, I’m not sick! I had a checkup two days ago and Dr. Doctor cleared me as fit as a fiddle!” Tears began to gather in her big yellow eyes. “He… he isn’t going to die, is he?”
“When it comes to whatever this is with the fur, I honestly have no idea. But the broken rib, I can handle. …hopefully. The point is, we need to figure out what this is and what we can do about it, before it’s too late.” Zoey’s expression softened when she noticed Ditzy rubbing tears from her eyes. “…But that can wait. At least for a while. Right now, we have something more important to deal with. I just thought you should know about this.”
Ditzy sniffed. “R-right,” she said as she looked up into Zoey’s eyes.
“Look, don’t tell the others. At least not yet, ok? The last thing we need right now is for anybody to panic.” Ditzy finished wiping away her tears and nodded. Zoey tried to give a comforting smile. “Alright, so would you mind helping me take off this vest? Francis would kill us if we got blood on it,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“S-sure.”
The two of them pulled off the leather vest, then the thin, white undershirt beneath it and set the clothes on an unoccupied chair by the wall. Zoey froze when she saw Francis’s chest, and not because she was seeing his pecks for the first time. Aside from the multiple dark blue bruises, several red splotches of various sizes were scattered across his entire upper body. The ones closer to his right shoulder had grey fur beginning to grow from them.
“…Damn,” Zoey said, half unbelieving what she was seeing. Ditzy felt tears begin to well on her eyes again and hovered away. Zoey saw how the splotches grew bigger and hairier the closer they were to Francis’s right arm. “It’s spreading. …and fast, too.” She heard Ditzy sniff from where she sat by the wall.
“I-it’s my fault…”
“Don’t worry Ditzy,” Zoey said reassuringly. “We’ve gone over this. It’s not your fault you bit Francis. It was in self defense at the time.” Ditzy sniffed again, trying desperately not to crying.
“…Don’t worry about the rash right now. If anything, you should be worried about how I have to surgically remove a broken rib.” Zoey said, trying to get Ditzy’s mind off of the rashes. She couldn’t stand to see the pony cry.
“…R-right, ok,” Ditzy said quietly.
Feeling she had done all she could do for the pony, given the circumstances, Zoey began to concentrate at the task at hand. She filled a syringe with a small amount of anesthesia before injecting it into Francis’s bloodstream. Assured that he wouldn’t be waking up any time soon, Zoey cleaned the area she would be cutting and picked up a scalpel. “Well, here goes nothing…”
-
As Zoey began the operation, time seemed to slow with concentration and suspense as the heart monitor beeped rhythmically. Making the proper surgical incisions had been the easier part, but now she had to remove the rib without damaging the lung or surrounding tissue.
Upon closer examination she discovered that the bone, while obviously broken, was still attached, making it impossible to simply remove it. “Shit…” She was going to have to cut through the entire bone to be able to remove it.
After looking through her tray of tools, Zoey found what looked like a tiny saw blade. A high-pitched buzz radiated through the room as she clicked the tiny saw on to see if it still worked. After confirming that the device was functional, she turned the blade off and set it down before spreading the opening in Francis’s chest. There needed to be enough room for the cutting tool so that it would not cut into any vital areas.
Zoey wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and picked the blade back up before flicking it on. The heart monitor’s volume seemed to increase in intensity as she slowly brought the blade to the bone. Suspense and anxiety blurred her mind. What if she slipped up? What if the saw jolted the bone, making it puncture Francis’s lung? What if-
The heart monitor flat-lined. Zoey shut the blade off and spun around. “Ditzy, would you please stop playing with that heart monitor? It’s making me paranoid!”
The pegasus’s expression drooped a bit as she flicked the machine off. “…Sorry.”
Zoey sighed. “Sorry for snapping. It’s just that I can’t afford to be distracted right now, ok?”
“Yea, ok.”
“Thank you.” Zoey finished, kindly. She turned back around and turned the cutter back on, turning her focus back to cutting the bone.
-
The rest of the surgery went undaunted after the brief interruption of Ditzy and the heart monitor. Zoey was able to remove the broken rib and buff out any sharp edges on the remaining segment of bone to avoid any internal cuts. She concluded by double checking the opening in Francis’s chest to make sure no bits of bone were left before sewing the hole up.
After washing the blood off her hands in the sink built into the wall (she had not been able to find any surgical gloves), she picked up a syringe and injected it into Francis’s good arm. Ditzy tilted her head in curiosity as she watched.
“What’s that gonna do?”
Zoey smiled at Ditzy as she removed the needle. “It’s what’s used to wake you up from anesthesia.” She paused. “…In fact you might want to take a step back. He’s going to feel all of what I’ve done in a moment.”
“Huh? I thought anniestega was supposed to get rid of the pain.”
“Anes-thes-ia,” Zoey corrected, “And no, it doesn’t. It only puts them to sleep so they don’t cause any trouble during the operation.” Ditzy looked to Zoey, then to Francis. She took a cautionary step back from the unconscious biker.
After a few minutes Francis began to shift and turn, followed by some mumbling. “Mmm… Mmmuh… urrrg. uuuaaaaaaaAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” His eyes shot open and shot up, clutching his chest as a wave of pain washed over his mind. “WHAT THE FUCK CHARLES?!”
“Sorry, but the anesthesia only works when you’re under,” Zoey said calmly. “And it’s not like you could take any painkillers when you were unconscious. But now that you’re awake…” She tossed him a bottle of pills.
He caught the bottle in mid air and nearly ripped the lid off before shaking a whole handful of the white pills down his gullet. After swallowing the bottle’s contents, which wasn’t even very full to begin with, Francis tossed the bottle over his shoulder. Ditzy let out a sharp yelp as the empty bottle nailed her in-between her eyes.
Francis, ignoring the fact that he had just dinged Ditzy in the forehead, slung his legs off the operating table and breathed heavily. Francis looked up as Zoey placed the empty syringe on the tray she was using
“Hey, take it easy with the breathing. Wouldn’t want you to make things worse, would you?” Zoey asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
After some of the pain had gone away, courtesy of the pills, Francis was able to speak in a calmer fashion. “…Damn… You got it, right?”
“Yep. It was a bit more difficult than I imagined, but I was able to cut around the bush, so to speak,” She said as she picked up the tiny blade and flicked it on for a split second. Francis audibly gulped.
“So uh… e-everything is alright?”
“Yep. Oh, I have the rib right here if you want to have a keepsake.” She set the blade back down before picking up a jar and handing it to Francis. Inside it was the rinsed, broken segment of rib that showed that the operation had been a success.
A shiver ran down Francis’s spine, causing his face to scrunch and twist for an instant. “…No thanks. I think the scar will be enough of a reminder.” He handed the jar back to Zoey, who set it back on the tray.
“Suit yourself. Oh, speaking of your scar…” Zoey handed a mirror to Francis. “What do you think?”
Francis analyzed his stitch’s reflection silently. It looked like a big H, but with the middle part stretched out across the right side of his chest. “It’s ok…” He paused when he noticed the multiple splotches of red skin and fur spreading from his shoulder. “…But I’m more concerned about that damn rash. You figure anything out while I was under?”
Neither of them noticed Ditzy as she nervously began making her way to the exit after the biker’s inquiry.
“No, sorry,” Zoey answered. “I still haven’t the slightest clue. But whatever it is, it’s getting worse. For now, we need to wrap it and your stitches up. Who knows how much longer the chopper will stick around to pick up survivors.”
Francis snarled at the reflection before dropping the mirror on the operation table beside him. “Fine.” He tried to relax as Zoey began wrapping his torso with fresh gauze. It only took a few minutes to wrap him up where he needed to be, after which he gladly put his undershirt and vest back on.
“Wait, where’s my shotgun?” Francis asked as he started making his way to the exit.
“Bill’s holding onto it. He and the others are outside the door there,” Zoey replied, keeping close behind him.
Francis scowled. “…Right. I’ll go see about that,” he muttered angrily under his breath. After kicking the door down he found Louis and Bill chatting with Ditzy. However, the three of them turned to him after his over-the-top entrance.
“Jeez Francis, do you really have to kick down every door you come across? They gave them knobs for a reason you know,” Louis asked, half jokingly.
“It’s a matter of principle. Now…” he turned to Bill and held out his bandaged right arm. “Shotgun. Hand. Now.”
Bill slung the gun off his back and put the pump in Francis’s hand. However, when Francis tried to pull it away, Bill did not release the stock. There was a brief silence as tensions between the two began to grow.
“Hands off, old man.”
“Francis, are you sure you’re ok?” Bill said, turning his gaze to the Francis’s bandaged arm.
“’Course I’m ok. Feel just fine, thanks for asking. Not that I had someone cut my chest open a few minutes ago and saw a rib out with a tiny saw blade, only to wake up and have all that pain rape my brain. So yea, I’m just peachy. Now give me my shotgun.” Bill looked him in the eye for another second before releasing his grip. “Now, give me one good reason not to punch your face for knocking me out earlier.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Well for one, it makes us even for throwing that peanut butter jar at me.”
“You’re still on about that?!”
“It left a hell-of-a painful lump!” He continued, pointing to a blackish-blue rise on his forehead. “Besides, after being such an asshole all the time, you were asking for it. So there, that’s two reasons. Now drop it so we can get the hell out of here before anything else tries to screw us over.”
Francis grumbled to himself as he slung his shotgun on his back.
Ditzy, who had opted to stay out of the argument, thought she would try to lighten things up. “Hey, maybe we can access the elevators from this level!” She lifted herself into the air as a hopeful smile spread across her face.
“Hey, yea! Just because the controls are busted on the first floor doesn’t mean they will be on the second,” Louis perked up. “Good idea Ditzy.”
Bill silently agreed and took point as the group started for the elevator. After a quick trek through the body-filled hallways they had cleared out earlier, they reached the elevator. Ditzy beamed when they found the controls to be intact.
“See? Now we can ride up to the roof with ease!” She flew by the door and hit the up arrow, which flickered green. She hovered back to the others as something from behind the metal doors creaked. The sound of machinery coming to life made the pony smile even more.
Suddenly the machinery began to grind and wine. Metal wires began to twang and echo as they shook violently before there was a sharp snap, followed by the sound of metal scraping. The group stepped back nervously as the scraping sound grew nearer. They could hear the sound pass them before crashing into the bottom of the shaft with a tremendous crash that shook the ground beneath them.
Smoke began to seep through the openings in the elevator door as they continued to stare, dumbfounded at what had happened. Ditzy’s smile dropped (along with her jaw) as she plopped to the ground.
“Well…” Bill said with a sigh, “Guess we’re taking the stairs.”
The hunter watched as the five survivors carried their injured comrade into the high-rise hospital after their escape from the massive horde. After witnessing their display of destruction, the hunter knew he would have to formulate a plan on a much more grand scale than he had originally intended. A few special infected, even with his strategic advice, would still be no match for the group.
Judging from how badly the gruff survivor appeared to be after his encounter with the tank, there was a high possibility that the group would be stopping momentarily in order to aid his injuries in some way. The hunter saw this as an opportune time to hunt for more infected to use against the survivors.
As he was about to leap from his perch to begin his search, a loud noise reached his ears. It sounded like something mechanical was flying through the air towards him. When he turned to investigate, a massive metal machine with rotating blades on top of it zoomed past him. It left the scent of burning gasses and a faint whiff of humans in its wake.
The hunter watched as the machine continued flying above the rooftops, and a thought crossed his mind. If that had survivors on it, then one way or another it would lead him to more.
He glanced back to the hospital for a moment before turning and giving pursuit to the flying machine. He was sure that his survivors would not be going anywhere any time soon.
-
“This is news chopper 5, Come in. Are you still there, over?” The radio buzzed for a moment before the mic on the other side of the frequency clicked on.
“Yes! Yes, news chopper 5, I read you loud and clear. You can’t imagine how good it is to hear your voice!”
“…Remember, you have to finish by saying ‘over,’ otherwise the receiver won’t know when you’re done talking. Besides, you might want to save the celebration until we get to the hospital, over.”
“R-right, of course. Over.”
“Right. So, where exactly did you say your position was again, over?”
“We are holed up at the intersection crossing Sunny Boulevard and South Street, requesting pickup a-s-a-p. We’ve cleared the intersection of vehicles, so you should have a clear landing zone, over.”
“Roger that, see you there. News chopper 5 over and out.” The radio clicked off as the pilot altered the helicopter’s trajectory to coincide with the location of the survivors.
Hours ago, after he passed the four-man group (which had some sort of animal with them), the pilot had fruitlessly flown over the city for some time before returning to the news station where he refueled and took a moment to rest. After the helicopter was fully fueled he had planned on flying to the hospital where he would wait for the survivors that he passed earlier.
However, on the flight over he had received a distress call from a group who were held up and awaiting rescue. After they assured nobody was infected, the pilot had agreed to pick them up. Now he was on-route to their location for immediate pickup, after which he planned on taking them to the hospital with him to wait for any other survivors. If nothing else, more people meant more protection if the situation went south.
After a few more minutes of flying over the city, he was beginning to near the intersection where the man had told him they were. Sure enough, the vehicles in the intersection had been moved to block all four sides of the intersection. As he brought the helicopter down carefully amongst the light posts, one of the surrounding building’s doors that was inside the car barricade opened up. A man stepped out and began waving at the chopper as it touched down.
After the helicopter was firmly planted on the ground, the man in the doorway ran over to the pilot’s door and knocked on it a few times. The pilot, knowing something could go wrong at any time, pulled out his pistol and opened his window.
“Alright, you and your group get on so we get the hell out of here. I’d say we have five minutes before this noise attracts a whole ton of those bastards!”
“Look, I need your help with my wife. She has a broken leg and I can’t get her on my own.”
“What do you mean ‘on your own’? I thought there was a whole group of you!”
“Well there was! But we got attacked as we were clearing the intersection,” the man shouted as he pointed to several relatively fresh bodies around an SUV. “Now come on! Like you said, we haven’t much time!”
The pilot went over the situation in his mind for a second before nodding and opening up his door. “Alright, but let’s make this snappy,” he said, hopping out of the helicopter.
The man turned back to the open door he had come from and made a break for it with the pilot close behind him. However, when they were both out from under the helicopter’s blades, the man heard a scream from someplace above them. “Wait, did you hear that,” he asked the pilot as he slowed his pace.
Without warning, the man was tackled to the ground by a grey blur. Before he could even begin to try and figure out what had hit him, he felt a set of claws begin ripping his stomach open and pulling his guts out onto the street.
The pilot, however, was left in utter shock as the man in front of him was gutted in the blink of an eye. Barely even aware of what he was doing, he aimed his pistol at the hooded creature and fired a shot off. The bullet missed its target entirely, shattering a window in the building behind it.
The hooded monstrosity ceased in its disembowelment of the man and turned to the pilot, flashing its glowing red eyes ay him. The pilot fired off another shot, but by that time the hunter had already leapt into the air. It tackled the pilot to the ground like it had the other man and slashed through the pilot’s shirt, cutting his stomach. But before it was able to bring down his second blow, an excruciating pain shot through the hunter’s shoulder as a bullet ripped through it, barely missing its heart.
The hunter leapt back before the pilot could land a second, even more deadly shot. The pilot, on the other hand, sat up and aimed right between the hunter’s burning red eyes and fired off another shot. The hunter leapt to avoid the shot, but the bullet passed through its right ankle in mid air before it landed behind the car barrier and out of sight.
The helicopter pilot, having lost sight of the attacker, stood back up despite the pain from his wounds. He looked down at his injured stomach, seeing that his blood was not the only liquid soaking into his shirt. After a despaired sigh, the pilot rushed over to the gutted man and checked for a pulse, but there was none to be found.
He was torn away from the dead man by the sound of a multitude of infected swarming to his location. The inevitable horde was approaching, and he had no time left. He looked up to the open door before him. He could still try and save the man’s injured wife if he hurried… He looked back to the helicopter. …However, he didn’t have enough time to do so. If he did then he would surely be killed, thereby forsaking the other survivors and leaving them for dead.
He looked back down to the dead man as the decision rushed through his mind, the sound of approaching zombies growing by the second. Finally, the pilot stood up and looked again towards the open door. “…Forgive me.” Suddenly he turned and ran back to his helicopter and jumped in the pilot’s seat.
However, before he could close the door he heard a child’s scream. He turned back to the building, where he could see a little girl looking out of a second story window down at the dead man below. A tear ran down the pilot’s cheek as he heard the girl screaming for her father, but to no avail. If he had known that there was anyone else other than the man’s injured wife he would have gone and tried to help.
But that ship had sailed, and there was no more time left. With many more reluctant tears, the helicopter pilot closed the door, fastened his seat belt, and lifted off the ground just as the first zombies began climbing over the car barricades.
He wiped the tears from his eyes. The sooner he got to the hospital, the sooner he could pick up the other survivors and get all of this behind him.
-
The hunter climbed up the side of a building slowly. Pain from his injuries racked his mind, causing his muscles to tense as he applied pressure to them. Under other circumstances he, or another, less ‘aware’ hunter, would have simply continued to kill the man he had pounced. However, the hunter still had his main focus set on the group of survivors in the hospital, and he was not going to risk getting killed on some side-job.
The hunter crested the edge of the roof and perched himself on a corner in his usual squatting position. He watched as the helicopter flew away, back towards the hospital where his survivors were. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. From what the hunter could tell before his intervention, the helicopter had come here so that the survivors here could get on and fly away to who knows where.
The helicopter flew farther away from the hunter and closer to the hospital by the moment. If that was the goal of the helicopter, to rescue survivors, then he might not get the chance to take revenge of his group if they were allowed to live long enough to escape.
The hunter growled at the thought of his prey slipping through his bloody fingers. A sudden, high pitched scream cut the hunter’s attention away from the shrinking helicopter and back to the intersection. He noticed several zombies from the massive horde swarming inside the open door that his first victim had exited. Several gunshots were fired as well as another scream, both of which were cut short an instant after.
He looked from the building to the mass of common and special infected crowding the intersection. He might have been gravely injured by the helicopter pilot, but had still done one good thing for the hunter. His machine had summoned a horde big enough to stand up to the four survivors and their pet.
All the hunter had to do now was sway their frail, corrupt minds into following his commands…
The four humans groggily reached the top of the stairs on the 26th floor of the hospital. Ditzy, on the other hand, was relatively fine after flying the majority of the way. The stairs appeared to be under renovation along with the remaining floors of the hospital, so the group stopped to rest and plan their next moves. After a moment to gather their thoughts, Bill opted to find another way to the roof on the floor they were on.
Francis tried desperately to kick the floor’s door open, but the force of his feeble kicks sent him stumbling backwards and almost toppling back down the stairs. “Damnit…” *pant* “…I hate doors.”
Zoey stepped over and opened the door regularly before shooting Francis a smug grin.
“…Shut it.”
“Shut what, the door? But don’t we want it open?” Zoey replied sarcastically. Francis grumbled under his breath.
Louis chuckled through the heavy breaths he was taking. He and the others exited the stair case before Zoey closed the door behind them. The floor they were on now was relatively bare. Piles of wood and bags of cement could be seen in places, and there were rows two-by-fours indicating where walls had planned to go. On top of that there was no outer wall, opening the entire floor to the outside.
The group walked over to the closest edge, looking over the desolate city. The orange glow of fires could be seen in buildings and streets as smoke rose up from the city. The sky was turning a deep reddish-orange as the sun was getting ready to rise. They stared at the horizon silently before Bill broke the silence.
“A red sky at night is the sailor’s delight.” The others turned to face him. “…A red sky in morning, and the sailor takes warning.” Everyone turned back to the glowing sky, contemplating the old veteran’s words.
“…I hate sunrises,” Francis said bluntly, utterly ruining the moment. “Heh, I wonder how far I could spit from this height.” He harked up a massive lugie and spat it over the ledge, causing the others to roll their eyes or cringe.
“Right, so can we get to the roof now or do you morons want to wait for a double rainbow?”
The others grumbled and walked away from the ledge and wandered through the floor until Louis found a stair case that different stair case that went up to the next floor. Upon climbing the stairs, the group found themselves at the end of a long hallway with a pair of lights mounted on a tripod at the opposite end.
The five of them could hear the gurgles of idle infected from the dark rooms they passed as they crept down the hall quietly. They knew they had nowhere near the energy required to fight all the zombies. When they reached the pair of lights, the hallway opened up a bit before an open set of elevator doors. In front of the open door there were two saw horses blocking it, one of which had a sign leaning against it.
“Warning: elevator closed for maintenance. Do not use,” Ditzy read out loud before huffing. “Oh, now they tell us.”
Louis stepped past the cutting horses and looked down the elevator shaft. “Yikes…” He noticed a platform across the shaft on their level. There was a ladder bolted into the opposite wall that led up to another platform, from which a foldable ladder extended up to an open skylight. “Hey guys! I think I see a way to get to the roof!”
The others crowded around the doorway to see what Louis was referring to. “If we can find a way over to that platform, we could climb up to the roof,” he explained.
Francis rolled his eyes. “Yea, well it’s not like we can fly over there.” Ditzy cleared her throat behind him. “…Most of us,” he corrected with an irritated tone.
“I could try and fly you across one by one,” Ditzy offered.
“While also carrying a weapon and that bag of muffins? Louis and Zoey, maybe, but I don’t think you’d have a chance at carrying me or Francis,” Bill noted. “No offense, of course.”
Francis took a step back from the door and crossed his arms. “Yea, I’d rather not run the risk of getting dropped down a 30 story pit. Let’s try to find another way across.”
The group began looking around the room for a way across the shaft. Ditzy, however, had flown into the shaft, and was trying to find a way into the room from their destination. After a few minutes of searching, Louis remembered something when he spotted a ventilation shaft beside the door.
“Hey Ditzy, is there a ventilation opening on your side?”
The winged pony scanned the walls lining the platform. “Yea, there’s one over here, why?”
“I got an idea.” Using his crowbar, Louis pried the vent off the wall and knelt down before it. The light going around him did a poor job of lighting the shaft.
“Son, what the hell are you doing?” Bill asked as he and the others stepped closer to investigate their companion’s actions.
“Ditzy says there’s a vent over on the platform. Now I’m just guessing here, but I bet that these two connect.”
“How do you figure that?”
Louis paused, not sure if he should answer or not. “…Video games,” he said confidently. “Ventilation shafts are always the way to go in video games.”
Francis huffed. “Look out, we’ve got a badass over here.”
“Hey, you got any better ideas Francis?”
“Yea, but I don’t think you would like them.”
Louis rolled his eyes and crawled into the shaft. Dust and cobwebs stuck to his (once) white shirt as he moved. After a few moments of crawling in the tight air duct, he found that the vent split left and right. The right was pitch black, where as he could see a vent at the end of the left shaft. Another quick moment later and he was at the closed vent.
“Ditzy, you out there?”
“Yea.”
“Ok, step back from the vent, I’m gonna have to kick it open.”
It was difficult to turn around in the vent, but he eventually was able to position his feet in front of the vent. He kicked it several times, each kick echoing down the elevator shaft, before the vent finally gave way and fell off the wall. After shimmying his way out of the musty shaft he brushed himself off and turned to the others at the elevator door.
“Ok guys, I’m through. Just go straight, and when you get to the split go left. Don’t worry, it’s not that far.”
Bill nodded and turned to the others. “Alright, Zoey, you go next. Then you, Francis. I’ll cover you two and follow after you’ve gotten across.”
Zoey nodded in agreement, though Francis just mumbled something under his breath about hating ventilation shafts. Bill waited and watched as they entered the shaft, each taking a few minutes before popping out at the platform. Double taking the area to make sure there were no zombies around to cause trouble, Bill repeated the process.
Once everyone was on the platform, the four humans began climbing to the roof as Ditzy flew ahead with ease to make sure the roof was clear. The opening at the top of the elevator shaft was on top of a higher section of roof. Ditzy looked across the multi-layered hospital roof carefully looking out for any signs of infected, which she saw none.
“It looks all clear guys,” She shouted down the shaft at the others.
“Good. Just wait there for us, ok?” Ditzy could tell from the voice that it was Zoey.
“Okie dokie.”
“Do you see the helicopter?” Louis asked from wherever he was in the shaft.
She looked around again before spotting a giant red circle with an H inside it painted on a large, flat section of roof right beside the high section of roof she was on. She assumed that the H stood for helicopter.
“…No, I don’t think it’s here.”
“Son of a bitch!” Francis swore violently.
“Relax Francis, All we have to do is call him on the radio and he’s sure to pick us up.” Bill stated, sounding rather irritated.
It wasn’t long before the others began exiting the elevator shaft one by one. They all looked over the large roof for a moment. Bill spotted a singular room that stuck out of the roof with glass-less windows and open doors. There was barbed wire lining the edge of the room’s roof, as well as a Gatling gun mounted at the edge that was aimed towards the helipad.
“Come on, there’s probably a radio in there.”
The group climbed down another ladder and onto the empty helipad. Bill noticed that one of the pad’s corners had collapsed in on itself and into the rooms beneath the pad. As Bill walked closer to the collapsed section of building, he noticed something in amongst the rubble in the room below. There was a dead tank lying in the rubble, and it looked relatively recent in death. It was holding a massive chunk of concrete that had crushed a large section of the tank’s upper body, including its head.
From what he could piece together the thing had pulled up the chunk of concrete (something they were infamous for doing, just before throwing it at you), resulting in the whole section of the roof collapse. The rock it was holding must have crushed it in the tumble. Coincidentally, the tank could also be the reason why the helicopter was not there. Taking a final glance down at the bloody tank, Bill stepped away from the edge and made his way to the building where the others were waiting.
The inside of the room was relatively bare aside from a radio and some paperwork that were on a table by the door and two propane tanks in another corner. The rest of the group stood around the table waiting for Bill’s arrival.
“What took you so long? Having trouble with your crotchety ‘old guy’ hips again?” Francis asked sarcastically.
“No. There was a dead tank by the helipad. Caused a section of it to collapse too. All things considered, that’s the most likely chance why our helicopter isn’t here.”
“Seems legit,” Zoey noted. “So you gonna call him up, or should I?”
“I will.” Bill continued, picking up the radio’s receiver and holding it to his mouth. “News Chopper Nine, this is Mercy Hospital. You said that you were picking up survivors here, over.” The radio’s speakers emitted static. “News Chopper Nine do you read me, over?”
The group began to grow uneasy as the static continued. Suddenly, the speakers clicked. “This is News Chopper Nine; I read you loud and clear Mercy Hospital. Sorry I couldn’t be there to meet you personally, but some local infected were giving me a hard time, so I thought it was a good time to go refuel. I am on my way back right now. ETA 3 minutes.” There was a pause. “…What is the status of your group, over?”
“There’s fo- …five of us; three men and two women. We are all immune and ready for pickup, over.”
“Good to hear, Mercy Hospital. There are weapons and ammunition on the roof above you in case any of you are interested. I’ll be there shortly, so just sit tight, over.”
“Roger that, News Chopper Nine. Mercy Hospital out.” Bill set the receiver of the radio and turned to the others.
“Alright, rescue is on its way. But we still have one thing to deal with before it gets here.” He looked down to Ditzy with a concerned look on his face. “…We have to figure out how to convince this guy to let you on his helicopter.”
Ditzy was taken aback by Bill’s words. “W-what? What do you mean?”
Bill sighed. “Look, it’s not that you’re a problem. But other people who know nothing about you might react a bit more… violently than we did.”
Ditzy thought back to how they had met. They had thought she was a human girl, and they had still been violent. Of course, after getting to know them better, she knew that was just Francis being Francis. But Bill did have a point. Who knows how someone might react to meeting a talking, flying pony? (Zoey had explained earlier how truly bizarre such a thing was by Earth standards)
“So… what are we going to do?”
“Assuming he doesn’t try to shoot you right off, I suppose we’ll have to try to convince him to bring you along.” Bill paused. “…Of course, if we can’t convince him, I suppose you could just follow us. You can fly, after all.”
“Oh yea!” Ditzy flapped her wings happily.
“Alright, so until then I suggest we get topside and see what we can use from those weapons an ammo the chopper talked about.” The others agreed and followed Bill as he opened a second pair of doors at the rooms back, which opened up beside a set of stairs that led to the room’s roof.
The group had found the weapons and ammunition that News Chopper Nine had mentioned next to an air conditioning unit on the room’s roof. Razor barbed wire lined the edge of the room’s roof apart from three locations: the stairs, and two pairs of pipes that ran to other elevated sections of roof. There was also a Gatling gun mounted above the room’s front door that was aimed down the body-riddled section of roof between the room and the helipad. Beside the gun was a brutally maimed police officer.
Bill knelt over the dead policeman and sighed. “Poor bastard stayed behind to cover the last evac when this place got overrun.”
“What gives ya’ that dumb idea?” Francis retorted sarcastically.
“Because there’s over a dozen corpses in the gun’s sights. Besides, his hand is still on the trigger.”
He pointed to a severed hand gripping the Gatling gun’s trigger in a death grip. Francis opened his mouth as if to make another comeback, but he closed it again and returned to rummaging through the pile of ammo by the ac unit.
Bill, on the other hand (ha, get it?), pulled the deceased policeman’s hand from the Gatling gun’s trigger before reloading the gun’s ammunition. There were three more boxes of ammunition for the gun, so it was an open option should the time come to use it.
A few moments later the sound of an approaching helicopter echoed across the rooftops. The five survivors’ spirits were raised by the sound of their immediate rescue. Ditzy was so happy in fact, that she even jumped into Zoey’s arms and gave her a big hug. Zoey returned the hug hesitantly. The embrace, while meaningful, was only momentary, ending as Ditzy flew up into the air and did a back flip.
Louis was the first one to see it as it got closer. “Look, there’s the chopper! See Francis, we’re not gonna’ die, we’re gonna get rescued!”
“Just wait; something horrible is gonna happen and we’re all going to die. …Probably starting with you.”
Ditzy flew down beside the biker. “Oh come on Francis, its right there! What could possibly go wrong?”
“Well I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
The helicopter, keeping a good hundred feet from the building, circled the roof before slowing to a hover, maintaining its distance away from the edge of the roof. Suddenly, Bill could hear the radio crackle and say something from inside the room. He walked to the top of the stairs, stopping and turning to the group before he descended.
“You four stay here. I’ll see what he’s doing.”
The others accepted and Bill walked down the steps and turned left into the room. He walked over to the table and picked up the receiver like he had before.
“News Chopper Nine this is Mercy Hospital. Why are you not landing for survivor pickup, over?”
“Mercy hospital I cannot land. Repeat, I cannot land. There’s countless infected swarming up the hospital, both inside and out, and they are moments away from reaching the roof! Among those are the massive, boulder throwing infected. If I get within a stone’s throw away from the roof with any of those giants, they could easily bring this chopper down with a well aimed chunk of rock. This thing doesn’t turn on a dime, you know.” There was a brief pause. “…Clear out as many of those things as possible and I’ll try to get as close as I can. Until then, I’m hanging back, over.”
“Roger that News Chopper Nine. But you better not even think about leaving us here, do you understand?”
“I read you loud and clear Mercy Hospital. Just try and take those things out as quickly as you can though. Remember, the more time you keep me waiting out here the more fuel I’m burning. News Chopper Nine, out.”
Bill tossed the radio’s receiver back on the table, spinning around at the shrill howl of a hunter from somewhere atop the hospital’s large roof. He pulled the assault rifle off his back and ran up the stairs to inform the others of the incoming infected. Francis was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.
“Let me guess, the chopper can’t land until we kill a massive army of infected that includes constant specials and multiple tanks?”
Bill blinked at the biker’s surprising accuracy of the situation. “Yea, that’s the general gist of it. How’d you know?”
Francis pointed past the Gatling gun just as a tank climbed onto the helipad, followed by a wall of infected swarming onto the helipad around it. The tank reared up and let out a tremendous roar as it beat its chest like a gorilla would, the common infected running past it as it pronounced its battle cry.
“Call it a badass’ intuition.” Francis answered Bill with a smug grin.
“Right… Well then, you all know what to do,” Bill said to the group as he cocked his rifle’s pin back. “Let’s get to work.”
“I got the Gatling gun,” Louis said anxiously. He holstered his Uzi and gripped the trigger, pausing a moment for the others to open fire. “Damn, I’ve always wanted to use one of these…”
“Then what are you waiting for, your mom’s permission?” Francis said as he slung the shotgun off his back and walked over to the barbed wired edge of the roof.
“Nope. Just the glow of their eyes.”
Common and special infected alike began swarming over the roof’s edges, running and climbing their way across the multiple levels of the hospital’s roof. The others took up defensive positions behind the barbed wire at each side of the roof as Ditzy pulled out her sword. She lifted herself off the ground with a powerful thrust of her wings and a gust of air, waiting for the word to attack.
“Louis, you take out any tanks you get in your sights first, then the other infected. Everyone else, try to take out any tanks before they get up here. After the tanks, take out the special infected before they cause us any trouble. We can’t afford to not have someone firing on all sides at all times. Other than that, shoot anything that moves. Now give them hell!”
Bill opened fire on the first zombies beginning to climb up the steps and the others opened fire immediately after. As the four humans began spraying the surrounding ocean of zombies, Ditzy launched herself high into the air in order to gain more speed when she swooped down to attack. With nothing but open sky on all sides, she knew she’d be much more combat-able than she had been before. Keeping this in mind, she took it upon herself to go for the special infected first, then the commons. Considering she only had a melee weapon, going up against the tanks would only succeed in her getting in the way.
She eyed a charger cresting the outer walls and sped towards it, spinning around at the last second to plant both her hind hooves square in its chest at full speed. The special infected was sent roaring off the roof, flailing in the air helplessly before ultimately landing in the streets with a gory splat. Ditzy cringed at the idea instinctively, but she knew this was not the time for sentiment. These creatures were already dead in more than enough ways, and they would kill her new friends mercilessly the first chance they got. But despite having to kill, she could not let her friends meet such a grizzly demise. She spotted a boomer crawling over the building’s edge across the roof, and she sped off to dispatch it post haste.
Meanwhile, Louis had begun to unleash the full fury of his Gatling gun into the upper torso of the first tank. The steady, seemingly solid line of bullets being pumped into the behemoth didn’t seem to be slowing the tank down until the eighth bullet to enter the tank’s skull finally killed it. The beast stumbled and fell face first on the ground about a dozen feet from the room. With the tank down, Louis began spraying bullets into the ocean of infected around the room, unleashing a torrent of severed limbs and exploding heads. He wasn’t aware of it at the time, but he had begun to laugh somewhat manically over the sound of the weapons constant gunfire. Despite the circumstances, this had to be one of the best experiences he had felt
Zoey looked over to Louis in concern briefly before she went to reload her Uzi. Unfortunately, she found that all of her spare mags were lying on the ground beside her, every last bullet used. She frantically shuffled through the pile of empty magazines, desperately looking for one that was not completely empty
“Shit! I’m out!”
“Grab a new gun and get back to it before they overwhelm your side!” Bill shouted as he slid a fresh magazine into his M16.
Zoey tossed a Molotov amongst the zombies swarming her side of the defense, igniting them and the surrounding zombies into a blazing inferno. She used the small amount of time that she had given herself to rush over to the ac unit. There were three guns awaiting her: an AK-47, a military sniper rifle, and a combat shotgun. Strategies and statuses flashed through her mind as she depicted which would be the wisest choice for her to use.
The shotgun, while semi-automatic, had much too much kick and was too slow and tedious to reload. The sniper rifle, on the other hand, had tremendous accuracy and was easier to reload, but its rate of fire was much too low for the situation at hand. This left her with the AK-47. It was fully automatic, was easy to reload, and had a good rate of fire. The situation called for a quick output of bullets in a short amount of time, so the kickback and inaccuracy would have to be tolerated for now.
With her mind made up, Zoey grabbed the AK and all the magazines she could find in the unorganized pile of ammunition and rushed back to her station. She brushed the empty Uzi magazines away and knelt down, looking over the mass below her as the final flames of her Molotov died.
With a cock of her new gun’s pin and an eye down its sight, Zoey opened fire once again. She was taken aback by the gun’s power at first, sending slight waves of pain through her shoulder as its bullets ripped the zombies apart even more violently than the Gatling gun was. She paused for a split second to rub her already sore shoulder and take a deep breath.
“Damn, Russians sure do know how to make a kickass gun,” she said to herself before opening fire once again.
-
The hunter was pirched beneath a satellite dish atop the highest point of the roof, watching as the group desperately tried to hold back his army of the undead. To be honest though, he had gotten lucky when it came to gathering such a horde. The initial horde had been summoned when the flying machine had attempted, and failed, to rescue a group of survivors earlier. All the hunter had to do was manipulated the feeble minds of the infected to follow him (and the sound of the helicopter).
He had continued to gather other infected that were following the flying machine’s racket all the way to the hospital. However, when he and his horde reached the building, only to discover that the noise of the flying machine was not present, something happened.
Some kind of sound wave, one that he and many others in the horde had not heard before, resonated from the top of the hospital. The sound was more intense than the hunter had ever heard before, bringing about a sharp pain that cut deep into his mind. He could tell the other infected could sense the same sound as they began climbing up the building’s walls frantically, even without him having to tell them to do so.
As he too began climbing the building, he looked down at the rest of the horde below. To his surprise, he could see countless other infected beginning to feed through the desolate streets and swarm towards the building.
The hunter smiled to himself at the recollection. His plan had unfolded even better than he could have fathomed. In recompense, the survivors had, ironically, gathered far more of the infected than he ever could have alone. All he had to do was point in the right direction, and the survivors did the rest to bring the infected masses upon themselves.
However, the hunter knew that the fight was far from finished. He had witnessed the survivors escape many situations where the odds were against them. The current situation was no different.
He ducked down as the flying animal whooshed past him. It appeared to be excelling at vanquishing the special infected, which told him that it was a good idea to not be seen by it, lest it kill him prematurely. He knew it would be a truly difficult task to kill the creature, even compared to the four humans, but at this point the idea of its death was second only to the idea of the gruff survivor being killed.
If nothing else, the hunter swore that he would see that human dead; by his very hands if the situation reached that. The gruff survivor had made a mockery of the hunter and his brethren, even if said brethren were less notable than himself. But at last, in this place and at this time, the gruff survivor, and hopefully his companions as well, would meet his fate. This, the hunter swore to himself.
-
Another tank roared as it climbed onto the helipad, much like the first, and began rushing through the sea of common infected, smashing and crushing all in its way. Louis lined up the shot and pulled the Gatling gun’s trigger again, unleashing a string of bullets into the behemoth. Suddenly, the gun stopped its fire and clicked emptily as the barrels continued to rotate.
“Reloading!”
Louis fiddled with the empty magazine before finally pulling it off the gun and tossing it aside. He quickly picked up a new magazine and tried desperately to equip it, the tank growing nearer by the millisecond.
“Shit! Bill, how do you reload this damn thing?!”
“You just attach the ammo box to the side and make sure the new string of bullets is aligned.”
Louis looked at the gun blankly for a moment. “What?!”
“Damnit, hold on a second.”
Bill pulled a pipe bomb off of his belt and threw it into the horde on his side of the building before rushing over to Louis and the Gatling gun. He grabbed the magazine out of Louis’ hands and slid it smoothly into its slot on the Gatling gun just before the pipe bomb exploded, ripping apart numerous infected with the ferocity of any homemade explosive. By now they could feel the ground beginning to shake as the tank grew nearer.
“There, now get to it!”
Bill turned and rushed back to his side of the roof as Louis looked down the Gatling gun’s sights in time to see the tank’s unnaturally muscular body climb over the roof’s edge, brushing the barbed wire aside like it was nothing but cobwebs. Louis rolled away from the Gatling gun just in time before the tank swatted it, sending it tumbling across the roof before it smashed into the ac unit.
“We got a problem!”
“No shit Sherlock!” Francis shouted as he turned to face the tank.
Louis wasn’t able to draw his weapon before he had to roll to avoid another one of the tank’s swipes. He heard a blast from Francis’ shotgun and the tank stumbled slightly, giving him just enough time to stand and draw his weapon. However, before he had a chance to fire, a grey blur shot past in front of the tank, leaving a deep slice across the monster’s unnaturally enlarged pecks.
Ditzy circled around sharply for another pass. True, she had determined it was not best for her to engage one of the tanks earlier, but that had been when the four humans had a chance of killing them at a distance. This one, on the other hand, was in the dead center of the group. She felt more than just obligated to assist in its take down before it could harm and of her friends.
The tank saw her coming the second time, however. It swiped at her suddenly, and it was all she could do to avoid the massive fist speeding directly for her. While she was able to dodge the actual blow, the turbulence that it left in its wake were enough to send Ditzy spinning out of control for a moment. She recovered from the tumble in a flash, only to realize that the sack of muffins that she had around her neck had fallen off during the tumble, and landed on the roof near the tank. The beast roared in fury that it had missed its target, and slammed its fists into the ground.
…pulverizing Ditzy’s bag of muffins in the process.
Something in the mare’s mind snapped, causing time to slow as Ditzy reeled back in horror at the brutal destruction of her muffins. She had been saving them, hoping to have another celebratory muffin toast with the others once they were on the helicopter. Those muffins had been celebration muffins. They had been special. …But now they had been ground into an inedible dust by that big. Stupid! Idiotic! Shit-for-brains tank!!!
The mare’s expression shifted from shock to pure, unbridled rage as her eyes straightened, focusing only on the tank.
“You… mother FUCKER!”
The four humans stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the raging pony. As the tank let out another enraged roar, Ditzy seized her moment to strike. She swooped beside the tank with a hard beat of her wings and a flash of grey. Before anyone realized what she had done, the tank’s right arm fell to the ground, streams of dark red liquids squirting from its severed joint.
The tank let out a howl of pain and stumbled at the sudden shift in weight distribution. As it regained its footing it looked to the grey pony hovering in the air above it and swung its (only) arm in an attempt to swat it out of the sky. However, the tank’s colossal hand missed Ditzy, who had swerved past the massive arm. She landed on the tank’s shoulders and looked down at its tiny head for a moment, as if giving it the chance to realize what was going on.
Then, in the blink of an eye, Ditzy stabbed the katana through the side of the tank’s neck before spinning the blade around, launching the behemoth’s head into the air with a string of blood in its wake. Ditzy then stabbed the sword violently into the bloody, open neck, burying the blade into the tank up to its hilt. According to her on-the-spot calculations, the blade had passed through the tank’s heart.
She twisted the blade suddenly, resulting in a muffled crack as it snapped any ribs it had penetrated. Ditzy pulled her blade from the beast and lifted herself into the air as the tank’s corpse began to fall forward. She looked down at the slain beast as the puddle of blood around it began to grow.
The four humans stared at Ditzy in a mixture of shock, surprise, and even a hint of horror at how easily she had taken down the tank. Even Francis realized his jaw was gaping, however he quickly regained his composure.
“Yea, well… I softened it up for you…”
Ditzy’s expression wavered at Francis’ statement, causing her to snap out of her blood-rage. Her eyes derped again as she looked around to the other survivors, then back down to the bloody tank.
“I… I…”
“…Shit, kid; I didn’t know you had it in you.” Bill said, turning back to his edge of the roof. “But in case you people forgot, we still have a big-ass horde to clear out in order for the chopper to land.”
The others turned back to their respective sides of the roof, realizing that the zombies were on the brink of pushing past the barbed wire. Ditzy continued staring at the dead tank, still trying to think of how she could have possibly committed such a horrid act of brutality, even if it was for the greater good. She felt a hand rest on her shoulder.
“Come on, we need you to help us,” Zoey said comfortingly. “I’m sure what you’re going through is hard, but right now we need you. Alright?”
Ditzy nodded and scrunched her eyes closed, rubbing a tear from them with her hoof. Zoey gave her a reassuring smile and a gentle pat on the back before returning to her side of the roof, beginning to unload into the ocean of infected once again. Ditzy shook her head and looked around at the masses of zombies. There would be a time for her to deal with her thoughts later, but now she had to get back to helping her friends survive.
Bill noticed the helicopter circling the hospital another two times before stopping at where it was before. Suddenly he heard a voice crackle in the radio speakers over the constant sound of gunfire and screams from the zombies. He turned to the others momentarily.
“The choppers trying to say something over the radio.”
“Yea, So? Its not like we can just drop what we’re doing and go say hi!” Francis replied, keeping his focus on shooting the massing zombies.
“Damnit, what if it’s important? You want to risk getting left here?”
Francis looked up from his shotgun’s sights as the thought rattled around in his head.
“…What did you have in mind?”
“I say we move downstairs and defend from there until we know what he wants. Then we can move back up here if we need to.”
“Sounds simple enough.” Zoey said, trying to sound confident.
“Alright then, everyone move on my mark. One… Two… Mark!”
Everyone, including Ditzy, rushed to Bill by and the stairs before running down them and into the empty room. Francis and Louis took up defending the two doors as Zoey began firing from the window beside the tables and radio. Bill picked up the microphone in his left hand as he continued to grip the rifle in his right.
“News Chopper Nine, repeat your last transmission, over.”
“I said it doesn’t look like any of those giant zombies are near the roof yet. If you can clear a way to the helipad, now would be a good opportunity for me to pick you up, over.”
“Roger that. We’ll see what we can do, over.” Bill tossed the receiver back on the table and turned around. “You all catch that?”
“No shit, Bill. But in case you haven’t noticed, the zombies between us and the pad are thicker than shit!”
Bill looked to the propane tanks as an idea struck him. “Louis, do you still have that tape you found on the subway car safehouse?”
“Yea, why?”
“I’ve got an idea on how we can get to the helipad. Toss me the tape.”
Louis tossed the roll of tape across the room. Bill snatched it out of the air and moved to the propane tanks as he pulled a pipe bomb from his belt. He pressed the pipe bomb against the tank as he wrapped the tape around the two objects a few times. He stood up and looked over his work and smiled.
“The plan is we use these two propane tanks to blast a brief path through the horde and get to the helipad. The pipe bombs will attract more of the horde, thus ensuring more are killed. Then, while we have the chance, we make a break for it.”
“Sounds like a plan if I’ve ever heard one.” Zoey said between spurts of gunfire from her AK.
“Louis, you got another pipe bomb?”
“Yea, sure.” Louis tossed the homemade explosive to Bill, who proceeded to tape it to the second propane tank.
“Alright, now we have to figure out how to get them into the horde…”
“I could fly them out,” Ditzy said as she landed beside the veteran.
She was still getting over her spit of rage, but she was feeling more level-headed than before. A touch of concern could be seen in the man’s eyes as he looked from the haphazardly rigged tanks to the mare.
“We’d have to activate them before you flew them out. And are you sure you can even lift them? …I would hate to see you get killed now of all times, especially after all that’s happened tonight.”
“Yea, I can do it.”
Ditzy tried her best to put on a confident smile, but the ever-growing weariness made it difficult. Bill gazed at her for another moment before closing his eyes and rubbing his brow.
“Alright, but only if you don’t get yourself killed.”
“Now hang on just a moment.” Francis stated gruffly from his doorway. “Two propane tanks, even with pipe bombs, won’t be enough to keep these bastards off us long enough to get to the pad, even if we run.”
“You got a better idea then?”
Francis ceased fire for a moment of thought, looking at his bandaged right arm. He could see a tuft of grey hair pushing its way between the bandages. Maybe if he… No. That would be stupid! Why would he risk sacrificing himself for these bunch of pansies and their pet freak?
…Because they were a team. Because they had been through the thickest and the thinnest, all in one night. This was no longer a ‘one man show,’ not since they were the only people left alive that cared enough about him to not let the mutated freaks eat his guts while he watched. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to do something truly helpful in return. Besides, it’s not like he had much of anything to lose; what with the freaky ‘rash’ spreading across his entire body, causing who knows what kind of effects underneath the foreign fur.
“…I’ll man the mini-gun and cover you guys to the pad.”
Zoey and Louis turned, somewhat flabbergasted at the biker’s suggestion, but Bill seemed unaffected.
“In case you weren’t watching, the tank smashed the Gatling gun into the ac unit.”
“It didn’t seem to do that much damage to be honest. Besides, you and Louis had just put in a full magazine. Seems like the best option if you ask me.”
“Well that has yet to be determined. Besides, what’s with the sudden act of kindness? That last tank hit you in the head when I wasn’t looking or something?”
“What, can’t a guy just risk his own life to help a bunch of pansies not get their asses kicked?” Francis asked sarcastically as a smirk spread across his face.
“Not someone like you, no.”
“Yea well, shut up before I change my mind. If the gun still works, I’m doing it.”
Bill stared at him in thought for another moment before grumbling something under his breath. “Fine! Just don’t go all suicidal and stay behind.”
“Aw come on, surely you know me better than that by now you crazy old bastard.”
Francis chuckled as Bill rolled his eyes and walked back to the radio. The veteran picked up the receiver again and put it up to his mouth.
“News Chopper Nine, you still there, over?”
“Roger that, I read you loud and clear. You guys have a plan to get to the pad yet?”
“Roger. We’ll have a brief window of opportunity here, so you’d better get in position really quick.”
“Copy that. …But before I let you people on, I have an important question to ask, over…”
Bill groaned. There always has to be something, doesn’t there? “Yes, what is it?”
“About your group… Just what the hell is that thing I’ve seen flying around? And was I seeing shit, or did it take down one of big zombies down all on its own; cause I don’t want something like that sealed in a helicopter with me!”
Yep, there’s always a problem. “…It’s hard to explain, but it’s with us. And we are not, repeat, are NOT leaving without it.” Bill could practically feel Ditzy smiling behind him.
“…Fuck, just… You’d better not be screwing with me, cause it’s your own damn life on the line if that thing causes a ruckus and makes us crash! Now hurry up with that plan of yours before anymore of those big freaks get to the roof, over!”
“Roger that News Chopper Nine. And rest assured, you’ll get an explanation when we’re airborne. Mercy Hospital, out.” He tossed the receiver on the table and turned to the group, grasping the rifle in his hands tightly. “Alright people, let’s get back to the roof and get the hell outta here!”
Bill and Francis each carried one of the propane tanks as Zoey, Louis, and Ditzy cleared out the zombies on the stairs and the roof. Bill, after setting down his propane tank by the side of the roof facing the helipad, walked over to the Gatling gun and examined it. He clicked a button, causing the barrels so spin with a high pitched hum. The ammunition cartridge was still attached and intact, as were the gun’s other key components. However, the stand it had rested on, while still attached to the roof where it had been before, had been bent in every way but the one it needed to be. Plus, the joint that the gun swiveled on had been ripped out.
“Well, the gun still works, but the damn stand is shot to shit. And unless you’ve gotten stronger in the last ten minutes, I don’t think you’ll be able to hold this thing and fire with an accuracy that doesn’t include shooting us.”
Francis walked by the edge of the roof in front of the stand and kicked the barbed wire that the tank had mutilated, causing it to fall from the roof and into the faces of the zombies beneath it. He then walked to the gun and picked it up with a strained grunt, carrying it to the side of the roof and setting on the ground. Its multiple barrels rotated in the air as Francis rotated the gun on the edge of the roof.
“Problem solved. Now, whenever you’re ready…”
Bill nodded and turned to Ditzy, who nodded back to him. “Alright, I’m going to activate the pipe bomb, and you fly it out over the horde a ways. Get back here as fast as you can and we’ll repeat the process, only you’ll need to carry it a lot further than the first. Understood?”
“Right, got it.” Her smile had begun to show true confidence by now.
Bill turned to Zoey and Louis. “When the first one blows, we jump and make a run for it. Francis will cover our backs, so we’ll only have to deal with any remaining infected in our way after the second one blows. Then we will, in turn, cover Francis as he gets to the helipad. Everyone got it?”
The two nodded and made sure they had full magazines and Bill held up the first tank. Ditzy wrapped her front hooves around it as the veteran activated the pipe bomb, resulting in the usual high pitched beeping.
“Now go! Hurry, before it explodes!” He said as she drifted heavily above the mass of zombies. Once she thought she was far enough away, she dropped the canister and sped back to the roof. Francis, watching the horde while he waited to open fire, saw the tank crush a zombie that it landed on. He chuckled at the instance before returning his focus back on the rest of the horde. Bill held up the second propane tank for Ditzy as she returned.
“Remember, you’ve got a lot less time to fly this thing out there before it blows.”
Ditzy nodded as she wrapped her hooves around the canister like before as Bill activated the pipe bomb. As she flew back over the horde she saw just how many zombies were clustered around the last tank she had dropped. The first pipe bomb’s beeping increased suddenly as she flew above it, and she was able to swerve and avoid the following explosion and shower of gore. She heard Bill shout for the others to go as she continued flying forward.
Unfortunately, her weariness was beginning to creep back at this point. The tank slipped in her hooves and she lost height and speed in order to retain her grip. She could hear the sound of her companion’s gunfire growing closer as they blasted their way through the survivors of the blast. Her grip grew weaker as her energy continued to dwindle; the night’s events suddenly beginning to weigh down on her.
Suddenly the pipe bomb began to beep rapidly. Knowing all too well what followed, she released the bomb and sped away just before it landed amongst the horde and exploded. The blast opened up the rest of the way to the helipad as the three humans continued running to their destination, unwavering from the relatively close blast. Ditzy pulled her sword back out and began helping clear the remaining zombies out of the way, though she was beginning to slow down due to her fleeting strength.
During the rush through the horde, the helicopter had pulled around and was hovering level to, but not directly above, the helipad. As Ditzy and the others climbed up onto the pad the helicopter’s sides slid back as the pilot began shouting for them to hurry up. Ditzy noticed how the pilot was giving her strange looks, but she decided to focus on that when their lives were not in as much peril.
The humans stopped at the edge of the helipad, only a tiny jump’s distance from the open helicopter, before they turned and fired back on the zombies trying to fill the remaining gap in the horde. Bill stopped firing long enough to achieve eye contact with Francis, who was still relentlessly gunning down the zombies with the battered Gatling gun.
“Francis, move your ass! The gap is closing and the chopper isn’t going to wait much longer!”
Francis ceased fire. “No thanks, I think I’ll just chillax here for a while.”
“Damnit Francis, we don’t have tim-”
“What; are you as stupid as you are old? I was only screwing around!”
He released the gun and leapt from the rooftop, giving him a good start as he began to run around the numerous corpses. He picked his shots carefully, only shooting the ones that he couldn’t simply push out of the way. Unfortunately, the gun quickly ran out of shells, and, knowing this was neither the time nor the place to reload, he slung the gun on his back and whipped out his baseball bat.
He was about two-thirds of the way to the pad when a loud scream echoed across the rooftop. Startled, Francis looked up just in timed to see a deep-blue blur tackle him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. Although he was somewhat dizzy from the impact, he was still able to nail the hunter in the side of the head with the butt of his bat. However, the blow did not seem to work as he still felt the zombie’s weight holding him down.
“Someone get this damn thing off me!” he shouted instinctively as a pair of razor-sharp claws sliced across his chest. Luckily, his vest had fallen open when he fell on his back, so it was not damaged.
As his eyes began to gain focus once again he realized the hunter’s glowing red eyes were staring straight into his. An aura of rage, fury, and malice radiated from the pair of orbs as they stared down upon the biker. Francis blinked, breaking the eye contact before he noticed a swollen, blackish-blue oval on the side of the hunter’s head. Francis’ eyes widened in realization as the hunter raised his other claw to further slice the man’s chest open.
“Oh you mother fuc-” A grey blur and a gust of wind cut him off.
The arm that the hunter had raised fell to the ground, its fingers twitching slightly before the limb went limp. The hunter let out a shrill cry of pain at its severed arm, grabbing at the bloody stump with its other hand. Francis, on the other hand, took immediate action at this opportunity and slammed the butt of his bat into the hunter’s face, causing it to fall off him and begin writhing in pain.
The biker rolled over and climbed to his feet, turning to the pegasus beside him. Ditzy was crouched, her wings spread and the bloody katana in her mouth. After double-taking the mare’s angry expression, he realized that her eyes had straightened again.
“You owe me. …Again,” she said through the sword’s hilt.
“Later.”
The hunter began to stop writhing before it got back on its feet and turned to its two opponents. A smirk spread across mouth as he made eye contact with the special infected again.
“Thanks for the save, but I got it from here. Make sure we’re not interrupted.”
Ditzy looked up to the biker, the look of anger wavering. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been too sure in my life,” he replied as his grip on the bat tightened.
The hunter crouched as best it could with a single arm as Francis spread his arms and legs in a defensive fashion, ready to evade any incoming attack. Ditzy launched herself into the air once again and continues slicing the incoming zombies as Bill and the others continued shooting the ones they could from where they were.
A second of tension between the biker and the hunter ensued.
Suddenly, the hunter leapt forward with a loud shout. Francis took a step back before the hunter pounced upon him. The moment that Francis landed on his back, the hunter froze as a wave of pain shot through his chest. Francis had placed the tip of the bat in the middle of the hunter’s chest; so when he fell to the ground, the butt of the bat had landed on the ground, causing the momentum to crush the hunter’s ribs as he landed.
Francis pushed the bat against the stunned hunter, causing it to fall on its back beside him. Francis stood up again and looked over the wheezing hunter with contempt. It looked back at him and tried to growl, resulting in a disgruntled gurgle as blood began running from the sides of its mouth. Francis scowled and removed his bat from the hunter’s chest, replacing it with his boot.
“Hey, there’s something on your face.” The anger on the hunter’s face grew more intense. In the blink of an eye, Francis removed his boot from the hunter’s chest and slammed its heel into its face, crushing its skull with a sickening crunch and a splatter of blood.
“…It’s my boot.”
“Come on, it’s time to leave!” Bill shouted angrily from the helipad. Francis removed his boot from what was left of the hunter’s head and turned to the helipad.
“Yea, yea old man. Don’t get your beard in a knot!”
Francis began running for the helipad once again, smashing any zombie that was in his way in the face with his bat. Ditzy was following close behind, still slicing away at the oncoming zombies. A chill ran down everyone’s spine as a guttural roar echoed across the roof from someplace past the horde. Francis turned to see where the tank was, though he didn’t dare slow down for an instant.
Suddenly, and without warning, the side of the room facing the helipad exploded, sending chunks of plaster and rock raining down across the horde. The tank roared again and beat its chest as it stood in the freshly-smashed hole in the room’s wall. Francis let out a “fuck!” and picked up the pace, not bothering to smash the zombies in his way with the bat.
Ditzy paused at the sight of the tank, her blood running cold as her remaining strength seemed to vanish. She was snapped back to reality as the behemoth began smashing its way through the horde relentlessly as it came to murder them.
With the tank on hot pursuit, Ditzy spun around and sped towards Francis, grabbing his bandaged arm and pulling at him to try and make him go faster. Her pulling did help, but the tank was still rapidly closing in. However, she was not aware of it, but her tugging at his arm had begun to rip some of the bandages.
Bill and the others ceased fire as Francis and Ditzy reached them, and they all jumped into the helicopter before the side slid shut behind them. The tank climbed onto the helipad as the chopper began to pull away and roared with fury. It ripped up a chunk of the helipad and threw it at the air craft, which lurched to the side and dodged the slab of rock. The tank roared again as it saw the helicopter fly away into the sun-rise, but was cut short as the entire helipad collapsed beneath it due to structural integrity.
On the helicopter, Zoey had squeezed into the co-pilot’s seat and began explaining the whole situation with them and the pony as the others tried to relax after their narrow escape. Francis took to reloading his gun, as was Bill There was a few moments of relative silence, aside from the air craft’s engine and blades’ non-stop noise.
“Damn,” Louis began, sounding slightly out of breath. “I can’t believe we finally made it.”
“Thank Celestia that’s finally over.” Ditzy said faintly as the night’s occurrences truly began to sink in. She shut her eyes as tears began to form. “…Now all I need to do is find a way home…”
Louis patted her on the back. “Don’t worry Ditzy, it’s alright now. It’ll all be alright from here on out.”
“Don’t be too sure about that Louis,” Francis said as he slid the last shell into his shotgun before pumping the stock. “Any moment now something bad will happen and we’ll all be killed.”
Louis noticed that a section of bandage on Francis’ arm was dangling loosely, though he couldn’t get a good look at what it had been covering.
“Hey Francis, your bandages…”
“Huh?” he looked down to his arm, seeing the dangling strip. He swore under his breath as he tried wrapping it back around. Eventually, he licked the end and stuck it back where it had been.
“There. Good as new.” As if on cue, all of the bandages on that section of his arm came loose and fell to the floor the instant he said that.
“…Fuck.”
Louis’ eyes widened at the sight of Francis’ exposed arm. Although, exposed might not be the correct term, considering there was a solid layer of grey fur across the bandage-less section of arm. Louis looked between the arm and Francis’ face several times before he was able to speak.
“W-What the hell? What is that?!”
“What, never seen a real man’s arm hair? Surprising, considering how many showers you’ve had with them.”
“Now’s not the time, Francis.” Bill said sternly, having been watching silently up to this point. “Now what the hell is wrong with your arm.”
Francis’ scowl twitched. So much for trying to keep it a secret. “Ask Derpy Dunce over there! She’s the one who bit me, remember? Oh, and Bill? I fucking told you so!”
Bill and Louis turned to Ditzy, who had curled into a corner. “I… I don’t know what it is. Really, I don’t. I didn’t do it on purpose either; Celestia knows I would never do such a thing intentionally! …I’m sorry…”
“Yea, well… It’s a bit late for that now in case you haven’t noticed!”
Bill looked to the arm again. “You think we should, I don’t know… amputate it?”
“A little late for that, I’m sorry to say.”
Francis grumbled as he pulled his bloody under-shirt up slightly, revealing numerous red splotches with fur beginning to grow in them. He lowered the undershirt back down. Bill rubbed his forehead as he leaned back.
“Well… What are we going to do about this?”
“It… It could be nothing.” Louis offered. “Just some kind of… freak allergic reaction?”
“Like everyone else had a ‘freak allergic reaction’ to the green flu? Bull-shit.” Francis picked the bandage off the floor and began wrapping it back around his arm. “Louis, give me some of that tape.”
Louis obliged, and Francis taped the bandages together to make sure they wouldn’t fall off again. The following silence was rather unnerving, especially on Ditzy. Finally, Bill spoke.
“Well… I guess we can deal with this later. You’re not feeling like a zombie, are you?”
“Well considering I’m immune, I wouldn’t know. …But if I had to guess, I’d say no. it’s just itchy as all hell and burns.”
“Mmm… Well, we’ll sort this out when we have the chance. This is neither the time nor the place to do it though. We’re lucky the pilot let us on as it is.”
“Let me guess; he was scared of the infectious flying horse.”
“Not the way I would put it… but true.”
Ditzy curled up tighter in her corner and tried her best not to begin crying again, given the situation. She felt like all of these bad things were her fault, and yet she never wanted any of it. Louis extended his hand, hesitating for a second before rubbing her back reassuringly.
“It’s ok. …It’ll all be ok…”
The silence following Louis’ words was cut short when they heard the pilot groan…
- Ten minutes later -
Ditzy lay curled up under her seat, holding the sheathed katana tightly against her chest as if it would protect her. Tears were streaming out her eyes, despite them being shut. It had all happened so fast. The pilot had said something about a street pickup, he began to groan, then Zoey had shot him…
Now the helicopter was out of control. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel the pressure of the cabin shifting as the air craft spiraled towards the ground. Bill was leaning over the dead pilot trying to grab the cyclical as Zoey was mashing buttons in an attempt to make the alarms to stop beeping. Francis and Louis were arguing about something, but she didn’t care to know what it was about.
Even if the helicopter’s doors were open, she wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t. She couldn’t leave her friends to die while she escaped; not after all the trouble and hurt she felt that she had caused already. She would not add abandonment to that list, even if there was a chance for escape.
All she could do was lay there, clutching the only thing she held dear in this world, and wait for the inevitable contact with the ground…
- - -
The four survivors looked over the flaming wreckage of what had been their salvation mere minutes ago. While they had miraculously survived the crash, none of them felt that their morale had. Even Louis felt down-beat. Zoey looked between the others, but not finding the face she was searching for.
“…Where’s Ditzy…”
The others looked around before turning back to her.
“You don’t think…”
The helicopter’s fuel tanks ignited, resulting in a sizeable explosion from the wreckage. The others looked into the fiery wreckage, the same, grim thought echoing in their minds. This continued until Bill sighed.
“Well… As long as we never forget, she’ll be with us.” He paused. “…But we need to get moving before all this noise attracts too many zombies.”
Bill slung the rifle onto his shoulder as he began to walk away, Zoey and Louis following behind. He stopped when he realized Francis was still by the chopper.
“You coming?”
Francis continued staring into the flames, his face devoid of any expression.
“Francis!”
The biker blinked and turned to his addresser. “Yea… I’m coming.”
He began to follow the others, turning back and looking at the chopper one last time before he continued. An unbearable itch washed over his back, and he reached under his vest to scratch. As he did so, twinges of pain stabbed him when his fingers ran across two hard knobs, one on either side of his spine.
Derpy could feel herself falling, tumbling to the ground. Suddenly, she opened her eyes the instant before hitting the ground. The first thing she realized was that there was a moist, cloth-like material wrapped around her, blocking her view of the world. The new material made her panic, kicking at it and batting her wings to try and escape. But the more she fought, the more the thing seemed to wrap around her.
Ditzy’s struggle for escape continued until one of her kicks landed on something hard, resulting in a creak and a sharp crash as something fell to the floor. She froze instinctively, listening for any other noises. The pause in the battle gave her mind time to focus, realizing that the cloth-like object was, in fact, not moving at all.
After a brief moment of concentrated struggle she pulled the blanket off her head, resulting in a sudden bombardment of light on her corneas. She blinked and raised a hoof in-between the light’s source and her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the sudden change. As her eyes embraced the light, her surroundings began to grow clear. The morning sun’s bright beams shown in through the bedroom window and across the bed, gleaming off Ditzy’s morning-encrusted eyes.
The confused mare blinked, unsure of what she was seeing. She looked down, realizing that her sweat-drenched, sky-blue blanket was wrapped around her upper body. After struggling to get free of the constricting piece of cloth, Ditzy stood and looked around her room. All the pictures of her and Dinky (and/or muffins) hung in their respective places, her clothes hung on the adjacent wall where she had left them, and the cloud-mattress bed’s sheets were twisted and disorganized.
Ditzy turned around to see what she had kicked a moment ago, seeing that her bedside table was leaning against the bed. All of its contents had been dumped on the fluffy bed, save for one. The mare leaned over and picked up a picture frame from where it lay on the floor. Turning the picture over in her front hooves, she was greeted by a picture of her and her filly beaming happily behind what was left of the frame’s shattered glass.
As Ditzy continued looking at the picture, a tear crested her eye and fell onto the blanket. She clutched the picture to her chest happily as more tears fell. She was home. Her moment of solemn rejoice was interrupted, however, when the bedroom door creaked open. A blond manned, purple unicorn filly’s head poked into the room and looked up to Ditzy.
“Mommy, is everything alright? I heard a crash.” Dinky stepped into the room and looked at her mother worriedly. “…Why are you crying, mom?”
Ditzy placed the broken picture on the bed and sniffed, wiping the tears away with her open hoof. She looked down to her child, her derped eyes red from the crying. A gentle, reassured smile spread across her face.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just had a really bad nightmare, and accidentally knocked over the bedside. I broke my most favorite picture of us together. Do you remember? That day at the Summer Sun Celebration two years ago?”
The filly’s smile widened, forcing her eyes shut. “Of course! I think that’s my most favorite day I can remember!”
“Mine too, muffin.” Ditzy looked down to the picture. “…Mine too.”
“Well… don’t worry about the picture. We can always buy a new frame, right mommy?”
“Right, sweetie.” She paused. “…You go on downstairs and have some muffins. I’ll be down to make breakfast after I’ve cleaned all this up.”
Dinky nodded happily and skipped out the door. Ditzy could hear the filly as she made her way down the hall, then down the steps and into the kitchen. Realization dawned on Ditzy as she went out to get the broom and dust pan from the closet across the hall. It had all been a dream. The zombies, the city, the helicopter …even her four friends. It was quite possibly the most realistic, life-like dream she had ever had, but a dream none the less.
She walked back into her bedroom and set the broom and dust pan on the bed’s sheets before looking down at the wrinkled blue mass that was her blanket. The picture frame’s broken glass was between it and the tilted bedside table. Ditzy picked the mass of cloth up and tossed it behind her, so as to give her more space to sweep the glass.
The blanket let out a muffled, yet very audible clatter as it fell to the floor, causing Ditzy stop and turned to the blanket slowly. The last time she checked, blankets did not clatter. Perhaps something else from the bedside table had fallen onto the blanket and gotten wrapped up during her brawl with it.
Shrugging slightly, she turned around and grasped the first corner she saw between her hooves. The blanket un-jumbled as she lifted it as high as she could, followed by the sound of something falling to the floor heavily. Ditzy tossed the blanket onto the bed, looking down at what had fallen out of the bowls of her cover. However, the grin disappeared and her blood ran cold as her eyes came across what had been revealed.
The strength in her legs failed and she fell to the floor, though her eyes never left the item lying before her. Fear suddenly washed over her mind, causing her to shuffle on her back as far away from the item as possible. Pain shot through her side as she realized she was shuffling into the broken glass behind her.
She winced at the sharp pain and leaned the other way, gripping her side with a hoof. A drop of fresh blood ran across her hoof as she brought it in front of her. Another twinge of pain shot through her side, causing her gaze to shift from her hoof and to the wound. Her eyes widened in terror not at the trickle of blood running down her side, but at the three lines of pink scar tissue that ran across her ribs.
Her mind was in a frenzy at all that was conspiring. She continued staring at the scar for what felt like hours before turning her attention back to the item on the floor before her. Shock, terror, and disbelief continued to wreak havoc in her mind as she stared at the half-sheathed katana. The red liquid covering the exposed blade gathered along the sharpened edge before dripping to the floor. Through all the terror and shock reeling in Ditzy’s mind, a single thought continued to echo above the chaos.
