> Three Rednecks Enter Discord's Maze
>  by Emerald Harp
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Engvall yawned and stretched out in his lawn chair.  After taking a few puffs from his Yakyakistan cigar, he commented, “Another job well done, boys.  I wish we could do this every day.”

Jeff Foxworthy belched as he crushed a beer can under foot.  “Yep, working for the City of Ponyville is pretty good.  I can’t think of any other outfit that pays in gold coins for hanging Halloween decorations back in the states.”

Larry the Cable Guy nodded as he held a bratwurst-impaled stick over a small crackling fire.  “Well, I’d just as soon be paid in candy.  It’s Hallo--- I mean Nightmare Night after all.”

Jeff eyed the fat redneck.  “Your fat ass wouldn’t fit in your trailer.  It barely fits now.”

“I’d just make the door wider.”

“I’m with Larry on this one.  If the food is good enough, you make the room,” chuckled Engvall.  

The three friends talked, ate, drank, and smoked for several more minutes before a shy, yellow pegasus slowly made her way towards the camp.  

“Um, excuse me?”

The question drew the attention of all three of the humans.

Jeff was so surprised that he nearly choked on his beer.  “Fluttershy?  Is that you?  I mean for real?  You’re not a changeling or anything like that, are you?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” replied the pegaus.

“Well, of course she’s not a changeling,” answered Bill as he extinguished his cigar nub.  “She’s too damn nice to say, ‘That’s the dumbest question I’ve heard all night, Foxworthy.  If I wanted to be a changeling, I’d paint myself black, and there’d be a toilet paper roll glued to my head.’”

Jeff closed his eyes and took a calming breath.  “I know she’s not dressed as a changeling.  What I’m really asking is why the sweetest, most-caring pony in all of Equestria is out and about on the scariest night of the year?”

Fluttershy blushed a little.

“Does she need a reason?” asked Bill.

“Well . . . no, but I still think ---,“ the two rednecks went on like this for a while.

“Would you like a brat, sweetheart, while these two sort out if you’re here to kill us?” offered Larry.

The pegasus took one look at what the Cable Guy was eating and threw up a little in her mouth.  “Oh, uh, no thank you, Larry.  But I appreciate the offer.  I’m actually here to ask a favor.  If that’s okay?”


Five Minutes Later


“So you want us to do a dry run through a ‘haunted’ corn maze before Twilight and her crew gets there?” asked Jeff.

The pegasus nodded.  “I want Twilight and the others to be . . . startled.  Not scared, being scared is no fun at all.  But they’ve been going to the Nightmare Night celebrations for years.  So I know I’m going to have to try really, really hard to startle them.  So I’ve brought in an expert to make the maze extra startley.”

“Who’d you get?” asked Bill.

“Why me, of course,” said a disturbingly familiar voice from below the ground.

A taloned fist burst from the earth eliciting a terrified shriek from the rednecks.  

“Discord, was that really necessary?” asked Fluttershy.

The chimera arose from the ground like a zombie.  “My apologies, my dear, but tis the season.”

Larry would never admit it, but he almost peed himself, and judging from the bug-eyed looks from his fellow humans, they nearly had the same experience.  “Really? You asked him?”

“Yes.  He was delighted to help,” said Fluttershy happily.  “I can’t think of anypony better to help me startle my friends on Nightmare Night.”

“Was Granny Smith okay with him playing with her maze?  You know, possessing scarecrows, installing doors to hell, reversing gravity, stuff like that,” continued the large redneck.  

Discord rolled his eyes.  “Unfortunately no, Granny put her hoof down on me, modifying her boring old corn maze.  So I just grew my own right behind Fluttershy’s house.”

The pegasus smiled.  “The birdies love the magic corn cobs.”

The chimera stepped forward and looked at the rednecks.  “So you three are my first vict--- I mean maze testers.  What do say, guys?  Wanna have some ‘fun’ tonight?”

The rednecks looked at each other.

“You guys do what you want, but I’m in,” declared Jeff.  His words slurred by all the alcohol he ingested.

Bill looked at Jeff like he had sprouted another head.  “Are you insane?  You’re not a kid anymore, Jeff.  Your ticker can only take so much abuse before it turns around and bites ya.  And the way you’ve been packing away those Miller High Lifes, you don’t have as long as you think you do.”

“You’re one to talk.  Ever since we got done with the city job, you’ve smoked more than a burning Marlboro factory,” Foxworthy shot back.  “What the heck else are we going to do tonight?  Sit around and watch ‘Filthy Frolicking Fillies’ on Blu Ray all night?”

The rednecks tried to give Jeff the ‘shut the hell up’ sign, but it was too late.  Even Discord’s cheeks had turned red with embarrassment.

Fluttershy frowned.  “Why would . . . ?”

“I’m wondering, how big is this maze?” asked Larry trying desperately to change the subject.  “Should I bring a lightsaber to slice open tauntauns to make a shelter, or is it more like a Mickey D ball pit?”

Bill glared at the Cable Guy.  “Oh God, not you too.”

The big redneck shrugged.  “Blessed are those who go in circles.  And besides, what’s the point of having life insurance if you don’t do crap like this once in a while?”

“You two are nuts, you know that?  The Planters Nuts mascot would claim you as kin.  That’s how nuts you guys are,” declared Bill.  

At this point Discord spoke up.  “Mr. Engvall, I understand your reservations, but you’re doing this for Fluttershy, not to prove to anyone what we already know--that you’re a brave, strong, specimen of the United States of America.”

Jeff leaned over and whispered to Larry, “Hook, line, and sinker.”

Bill listened to Discord’s flawless logic for another minute before nodding.  “Okay fine.  But I’m only doing this for Fluttershy.”

Discord grinned.  “As am I.  Meet me behind Fluttershy’s cottage in an hour, and wear a costume.  We wouldn’t want Nightmare Moon to gobble you three up before the festivities begin.”  The chimera laughed evilly as he slithered back into the earth.

As soon as he was gone, Fluttershy enveloped the three humans in a group hug.  “Oh, thank you so much.  Thanks to you three, I’ll be able to prove to my pony friends that I’m not a big scaredy-cat.  You three are the best humans a pegasus could ask for.”

With one hug and a few words, the shy pony made the human’s doubts and worries disappear.

The rednecks blushed like school girls.  “Um, ahem, you’re welcome,” said Foxworthy, trying to look tough in front of Larry and Bill. 

“Yeah, anything for you, Fluttershy,” Larry replied shyly.  

“We got this.  You go have fun with Twilight and the other ponies.  Tell them we said ‘hi,’” Engvall said, smiling the whole time.  



One Hour Later


Bill was the first to arrive at Fluttershy’s home.  The redneck was garbed in an old western outfit any John Wayne aficionado would have been happy to wear.  With two exceptions, every part of the costume was authentic, from the wide-brim cowboy hat to the metal spurs on his boots.  The lever-action rifle he was carrying and the revolver on his belt, however, were cheap stage props.  As the sun began to set, Engvall began to wonder where his friends were.  The Nightmare Night carnival was about to begin, and if they were going to test this corn maze, they’d better get on with it.  

“Hey, you’re here.  I was wondering if you were going to pussy out or not.”

Engvall turned to see Jeff crossing the little bridge infront of the cottage.  The younger redneck was clad in a wool, grey Confederate General’s uniform, complete with a plastic officer’s sword and six-shooter.  Bill frowned when he saw that his friend’s left arm ended just above the elbow.  Little pieces of straw stuck out from the sewn shut sleeve.  “Let me guess, Stonewall Jackson?” asked Bill.

Jeff nodded.  “Yep, I wanted to be authentic, so I had Larry cut off my arm after he shot it a couple of times.”

“I wouldn’t put it past the two of you.  And what the hell are you doing with that fanny pack, you Farb?”

The Confederate tried to open the fanny pack around his waist with one hand.  Unable to do this because of a stuck zipper, Jeff’s other hand wiggled in-between the buttons of his closed grey coat so he could open his lemon carrier.  “Want one?”

“No thanks,” Bill sighed as he looked at the pegasus’s house.  “Are you sure you want to do this?  There’s no law that says we have to go back behind that house to get the shit scared out of us in Discord’s corn fungeon.”  


Jeff took one taste of the lemon and nearly gagged.  “Jeez, that’s nasty.  How could Jackson stand these damn things?”  After throwing the lemon away as far as he could, he replied, “I will admit now that the beer buzz has worn off, this sounds a lot less fun then it did an hour ago.  But I told Fluttershy I’d help her out, and by God, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Engvall nodded.  “Well, let’s go take a look at this thing.”

But before the cowboy or Confederate could take a step, a voice called to them, “Hey guys, wait for us!”

Not quite believing their eyes, the rednecks watched a bright blue minotaur give Larry a piggy-back ride up to Fluttershy’s front yard.  The minotaur’s face reddened with exertion with each step he had to carry the human’s heavy bulk.  

Grinning from ear to ear, Larry asked, “Guess who I am?”  The Cable Guy was dressed in a lumberjack’s outfit, complete with a wooden axe.  

“I know who you are,” answered Jeff.  “What I don’t know is how you got this poor bastard to play along.”

“Hey Babe, put me down,” commanded the fat human.  

Iron Will collapsed on all fours as Larry happily hopped off the minotaur’s back.

“A week ago I beat him at Texas Hold Em.  The stakes were we had to dress up as whatever the other guy wanted on Nightmare Night.  Thank God I won.  I would of have to kill myself otherwise, ‘cause I wasn’t gonna dress up as a female plug socket.”

Climbing to his feet, the minotaur wheezed, “Okay.  You’ve had your fun.  I’ve dyed myself neon blue, carried you through the center of Ponyville while everypony pointed and laughed at me, and I even let you call me Babe.  Can I go home now?”

Larry thought for a moment before answering.  “You can go home after we go through this corn maze behind Fluttershy’s house.”

Iron Will sighed in relief.  “When something is promised to be done, who knows, it could be fun.”

Without further adieu, the group made their way over the hill on which Fluttershy’s cottage was built.  To everyone’s surprise, there was no maze--just a large open field where Fluttershy hosted tea parties and group therapy.  However, in that wide-open space was Discord, dressed as a carnival official.  

The chimera looked up at the three humans and minotaur.  “Step right up, gentlemen.  You’re right on time, and the show is about to start.”

“What show?  There’s nothing heeerraaaahhhhh, sweet suffering Christ!” exclaimed Bill.  As soon as the human started talking, Engvall heard the snapping of talons, and before him materialized a coal-black forest of corn.  Each stalk was as tall as a California redwood tree.  The maze blotted out the setting sunlight, and strange noises could be heard from inside. 

Iron Will cleared his throat.  “You didn’t say this was Discord’s corn maze we were going to.  When someone fails to talk, it’s time for me to walk.”

“Hey, you can’t bail on me now,” said Larry.  “We had a deal, and you Pinkie promised, you son of a bitch.”

Reaching into an unseen pocket, the minotaur procured a pen and a notarized card.  When he was done writing, he handed the card to Larry and walked back up the hill.

The redneck dressed as Paul Bunyan read over the card and waved after Iron Will.  “Okay, buddy.  I’ll see you later.  Have a good night.”

Jeff couldn’t believe his eyes.  “You’re letting him go?  Why?  You had him by the balls!”

Larry shrugged.  “Every man has his price.  And he now owes me two favors and a life time membership to the ‘Iron Will Assertiveness Training Coalition for Wimps, Gimps, and the Socially Challenged,’ valid starting tomorrow.”   

“Hey, I have one of those cards as well,” the maze master chimed in.  “Except on mine, he promised me his first born.  I’m beginning to think I got the short end of that deal.  Anyway, there’s the maze, have fun, and let me know what you think if you get out.”

“Don’t you mean when we get out?” asked Bill.

Discord thumped himself in the head.  “Yes, yes, of course.  My apologies.  Run along now.  Your guide is waiting for you.”

Before any of the rednecks could ask any more questions, Discord created a magic door, opened it, and disappeared.

The three humans exchanged a shared nervous glance before heading for the maze entrance.  To their surprise, the black corncobs closest to them lit up like flashlights as soon as they crossed the threshold.  As they made their way into the maze, a flute started to play “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

“Hey, this is kind of neat,” said Foxworthy as he hummed along.  A thought occurred to him.  “Larry, I’ll give you 20 bits if you eat a corny nightlight.”

“Oh, ha, ha, ha, I’d eat you before I’d eat one of them.  And that’s no lie.”

“Shut up you guys,” hissed Engvall.  Not realizing he was doing it, he began aiming his rubber rifle down the length of the maze.  “Which way should we go?  We got a lot of choices here.”     

The music stopped.  “Hello?  Is somepony there?” shouted a strange-sounding voice.

The group froze.  The voice came from the path to their right.  Jeff unholstered his plastic revolver and pointed it where the voice came from.  “If I don’t come back, you buckers better come and get me.”  Corncobs lighting the way, the pretend Confederate rounded the bend into the unknown, dropping lemons as he moved.


A Minute Later


“You think he’s dead?  I don’t hear any voices, or music,” said Larry. 

“It’s a corn maze, dummy, not a slaughter pen,” answered Bill.  “He’s fine.”  The cowboy didn’t sound so sure though.  

Mere seconds after Engvall said those words, Foxworthy reappeared, and he wasn’t alone.  “Guys, you’re not going to believe it, but this thing is our guide.  It also plays the flute.”  Tucked under his arm was a potted dandelion.   

Bill and Larry exchanged a concerned glance.  “Jeff, how many beers did you sneak into the maze?” asked the Cable Guy.

“I’m not drunk.”

“Did the lemons go bad?  You shouldn’t suck on rotten fruit, Jeff.  That’s probably why Stonewall Jackson was so freakin crazy,” continued Larry.

“Listen, dang it.  This thing talks.  I saw it.  I don’t know why it’s being quiet now.”

Bill scratched his beard.  “Was that thing pretty close to a corn cob when you found it?”

“Yeah, but what does that h---.” Then it dawned on Foxworthy.  He sighed and said, “I hate it when you’re smarter than me.”  Muttering under his breath, Jeff took the plant over to a luminescent corn cob that glowed brighter the closer the human got to it.  The yellow flower came alive and stretched itself out.  In the center of the flower a mouth and a pair of eyes appeared.  

Surprised, Bill reflexively tried to work the action on his plastic lever-action rifle.  As a result, he broke the lever with a loud “snap.”  Engvall’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment as Jeff giggled at him.

“Well, hi fellas.  My name’s Danny.  Welcome to the easiest place to get out of ever.  This is the kid-friendliest, leasurliest, funniest maze to get lost in.  I’ve been guiding ponies out of the maze for years.  So let’s get started.”

Larry stared at the talking dandelion in disbelief.  He blinked and shook his head.  “Uh, okay.  How do we get out of here?”

“If I were you, I’d go back the way I came.”

Larry stared dumbfounded at the flower.  “You just blew my mind.”

At that moment, the group heard a hissing sound from behind them.  Turning as one, the group saw half-dozen cockatrices slithering their way.  The humans screamed and took off deeper into the maze.  “Danny, why are there chicken mutants in the maze?!” yelled Larry. 

“I’m sorry guys.  I honestly didn’t know those cockatrices were waiting by the entrance.  But don’t worry.  The way to deal with them is to look them straight in the eye and show them whose boss.”

“Bull shit!” yelled Bill breathlessly.  “That’s how you turn into a bird bath.”

“Ah, come-on, you guys gotta trust me if you want to make it out of here.  Take a left, buddy.  There’s a pretty good hiding place coming up.”

A cold, corkscrew sensation went down Foxworthy’s spine.  All of his instincts were screaming at him not to turn left, but he ignored them and went down the winding hall as directed.  Looking behind him, Jeff saw the half-dozen mutants break off their pursuit.  

The humans stopped running as soon as the hall opened up into an enormous graveyard. 

Danny wiped her brow.  “Whew, good work guys.  You’re safe here.”

As soon as the flower said that, gigantic, ebony corn stalks erupted from the ground cutting off the human’s retreat.  

Jeff swallowed nervously as he watched the light the corn cobs were producing slowly fade and die, plunging everything into total darkness.  

“Well guys.  I think my work here is done.  When you see Tirek, tell him Danny sent ya.”

“F*#$ you, plant!”  Jeff yelled, trying to grab the evil guide.  But he was too late; all he was holding was an empty pot.  The demonic dandelion was already long gone, laughing hysterically as she got further and further away.

Using his wooden axe, the Cable Guy swung blindly at the black cornstalks.  The axe head broke off the moment it connected.  Larry swore and dropped the shaft.  “Boys, if I don’t make it out of here, I got a list of stuff I want y’all to burn back at my place.”

As if on cue, blue lights came to life illuminating stone statues of unicorns scattered throughout the graveyard.  At the far end of the arena, the word “EXIT” appeared in bright, glowing green letters.  The party could see the way out, thanks to the green word, but it looked very far away.

Something moved in front of one of the nearby statues, but the humans were too late to catch a glimpse of what it was.  

With as much calm as he could muster, Jeff asked, “Hey Larry, Bill, just wondering but did Discord say anything about a safe word?  You know, like something you say when you’re having sex and things are getting a little too crazy.  Because if he did, I really wanna say that word right now, and I can’t seem to remember it.”

“Hubcaps!” yelled Larry.  Nothing happened.  The big redneck shrugged.  “It was worth a shot.”

“Hey, let’s see if we can take some of them lights with us.” suggested Bill.  The group moved slowly to their objective, carefully navigating between the headstones and obelisks.

“Marco!” yelled Bill.  

“Polo!” replied Larry.  

“Po-- , Ow!”

“You okay, Jeff?” asked Bill.

“Yeah, just found a headstone with my big toe’s name on it.”

Upon reaching a trio of unicorn statues, they saw the faces of the ponies contorted in mind-numbing panic.  Bill swallowed and carefully wiggled the glowing horn of one of the stone unicorns.  To his surprise, the loose horn came out rather easily.  Encouraged, Larry and Jeff lifted the horns out of their respective statues.  Thus armed with a light source, Bill ordered, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

The three friends turned around and screamed in absolute terror.  An enormous stone, undead pegasus was face-to-face with the maze testers.  The skin around its mouth and nose was peeled back as it silently stared back at the humans with dead eyes that bore into the human’s souls.

The Paul Bunyan pretender was the first to recover as he peered at the grotesque object from in-between his fingers.    He breathed a sigh of relief and prayed that no one would notice the growing wetness around his crotch.  “It’s just a statue, guys.  It can’t hurt us.  See?”  The woodsman wrapped his knuckles on the rock muzzle of the pony.  

Jeff gaped at the Cable Guy and what he was doing.  “Larry, I’d rather boop a crocodile with my hand covered in barbeque sauce than touch that thing.”

“It’s a statue, for God’s sake.  It can’t hurt us.  This thing had to already been here.  It’s not alive or anything . . . right?”  Larry asked slowly, becoming less sure the more he talked.

The hair on the back of Engvall’s neck started to rise.  His heart thudded like a jackhammer as he heard the sound of heavy hoof falls right behind him.  Slowly, Bill turned and shone his light around.  He and his friends were looking for the unknown being lurking in the dark.  Seeing nothing, Bill about-faced and to his horror, the disgusting statue had disappeared without a trace.

Larry’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.  “Hubcaps!  Hubcaps!  Discord, it is too damn scary in here!”

The John Wayne pretender grabbed Larry by the shoulders and shook him.  “Hey!  Get a grip!  When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it . . . .  At least that’s what the Duke would say.”

“Oh My God!  Guys, guys, we got undead lawn ornaments coming up out of the bucking ground when I don’t look at em,” said Jeff.

“What the hell?” asked Bill mournfully.

Coming to Foxworthy’s side, both Engvall and Larry stared at what Jeff was looking at.  A squad of statues were rising up out of their graves.  Their horrifying, disfigured faces turned to the lights.  

“They move when you don’t look at em.  They’re just like my kids,” said Jeff, trying not to blink.     

Bill swallowed, fighting down the waves of panic washing over him.  He racked his brain on how to get out of here in one piece, but he was coming up short.

“We need to dance our way out of here,” said Larry 

At this, the Confederate glanced sideways at his friend.  “Bill, we lost Larry, and he’s turned pillow biter.”

“Shut up and follow my lead,” commanded the large redneck.  “We need to make a moving, rotating wedge.  That way we’ll have eyes to cover all the sides.”

Picking up on Paul Bunions line of thinking, Jeff nodded. “If it’s stupid but works, it’s not stupid.  Let’s do it.”

Slowly, awkwardly the three rednecks made their way to the exit.

“Guys, I’m getting dizzy.” complained Engvall.  The cowboy counted at least fifty rock zombies surrounding the rotating triangle of rednecks.  “This is like being on a tilt-a-whirl.  I think ya have about the same chance of dying.”

“Hang in there, Bill.” said Larry.  “We got like another hundred feet to go.”

Eyes constantly watching the monsters, Jeff asked, “How in the heck did you think this up, Larry?”

“I think of triangles a lot,” answered the redneck.  “They turn me on.”

“Hey guys, I just thought of something,” declared Bill.

“Ah crap, now what?” asked Larry.

“That one statue had wings, right?  Do you think that thing can fly?”

Jeff could feel his nuts shrivel as he calmly said, “Okay boys, I’m going to look upstairs for a moment. You two keep doing what you’re doing.”

As quickly as he could, Foxworthy shone his wand/horn skywards.  Merely ten feet above him were six dive-bombing, undead pegasi. “Oh, Fu—“ ! Jeff covered his mouth to muffle his scream.  His lapse of concentration nearly caused him to trip over his fellow humans. 

“Watch it!” yelled Larry.  

Recovering, Jeff shone his light upwards.  The pegasi were noticeably closer.  “Yep, they’re up here as thick as tar and hungry as termites.”

“Change formation!” hollered Bill.  “Jeff, you’re in the middle.  Keep an eye on the sky.  Larry, you and I will revolve around Foxworthy.”

This formation was even more awkward and slow.  The statues were closing in now that there were fewer eyes to watch them on the ground.

Bill risked a glance at the exit and sighed.  “Boys, we ain’t gonna make it.  Not unless one of us grows a horn and teleports us over there.”

“So what do we do?” asked Larry.  

Jeff pulled out a lemon and began to suck on it.  Moments later, he spat the juice at the nearest statue.  It had no effect.  He then swung his stolen unicorn light at the rock-zombie only to have it bounce off harmlessly and break in his hands.  “Well I’m out of ideas.  I bet you guys two bits that Discord kills us because we hang decorations better than he does.”

Larry shook his head.  “Naw, I’m good.  I wanna die with some gold in my pockets, my friends by my side, and my hands around that fu*$ing plant.” 

Bill grinned.  “Well buddy, two out of three ain’t bad.”

And with that, the rednecks lowered their wands and waited for the end.

The humans waited for a good twenty seconds before a voice from above said, “Oh for Celestia’s sake, you three aren’t dead.  Lighten up.”

Larry looked up to see Discord smiling down on them. 

Foxworthy waited until the chimera was on the ground before hurling the remainder of his lemons at the mazemaker.  “Die.  Die, Discord.  Die, dominator of demented dandelions.  Die, cultivator of cursed chickens.  Die . . .”

“Jeff!  Jeff!  Hold your fire.  You’re just wasting ammo,” said Bill, grabbing his friend’s arm.

The chimera grinned.  “First of all, I applaud you three for making it as far as you did.”  A dozen Discords manifested and began to applaud loudly.  “This graveyard obstacle should have been hard for six ponies.  And yet you three mundane monkeys almost made it.  I’m going to have to up my game.”

“Hey!”  Larry said indignantly.  “Don’t be dissin our heritage.  We are proud of our primate ancestors that rode on the Ark during the flood.”         

“So are we done now?” asked Bill.  

Discord shook his head.  “Heaven’s no.  You’ve only gone through the servant’s hall of this mansion of terror, so to speak.  You got loads of other rooms to explore.  I only put that EXIT sign up there to give you some encouragement.”  With a wave, the “EXIT” sign became “Welcome to Tartarus.” 

After seeing that, Foxworthy declared, “Screw that, I’m out.  We said we’d test your maze, and we tested it.  Now take us out.”    

The chimera nodded.  “Indeed you have, my Confederate friend.  But what if I told you there was a little prize waiting for you at the other end of the maze?”

Jeff rubbed his chin.  “What kind of prize?”

Discord shrugged.  “I don’t know.  What do you want?  Stonewall Jackson’s arm in a pickle jar?”

The Confederate’s eyes widened.  “You can do that?  Hell ye--, Uh, one sec.”

Jeff huddled with his fellow rednecks.  “I say we continue the struggle, guys.”

“Oh Christ, not this again,” muttered Engvall.  “Literally thirty seconds ago, you were trying to kill Discord with lemons.  Now just because he dangles some imaginary cheese in front of your nose, you wanna dive balls first back into his maze?”

Breaking the huddle, Larry stood up and asked, “Hey Discord, can you resurrect a couple of dead horses for me and Bill to ride around on?  That’d be awesome on Nightmare Night.” 

The chimera looked at the human strangely.  “And they say I’m the one with a problem.  Yes, I suppose I can do that.”

Engvall slapped Larry on the shoulder.  “I don’t want a God Damn undead horse.  I’m not sick like you and Jeff are.  I don’t even freaking want to do this.  I want to go home.”

Discord sighed.  “Okay, human, you win.  I’ll just have to tell Fluttershy that I couldn’t test my maze properly because one of my guinea pigs quit.”

The John Wayne impersonator shook his head.  “No, don’t do this to me.”

Jeff ran a hand through his hair and said to Larry, “I bet the Duke is spinning in his grave right now.  How can a man that wears the Duke’s clothes pussy out like this?” 

Larry nodded his head and rubbed his chin.  “What did the Duke say once?  Oh yeah, he said, ‘I'm not the sort to back away from a fight. I don't believe in shrinking from anything. It's not my speed; I'm a guy who meets adversities head on.’  Ain’t that right, Bill?  You should know, because you’re a bigger fan then all of us.”

Bill glared at his friends.  “Damn you.  Damn you all.”

The Cable Guy grinned.  “We’re still in.”

“Excellent,” replied Discord.  “I can’t wait to see what you six do next.  But I’m going to have to ask you to move along.  Fluttershy and the others will be here soon, and we don’t have all night.” 

“Wait?” said Bill.  “What do you mean by ‘you six?’

Discord looked over to the exit.  “Why don’t you go and find out?  I’ll see you on the other side.”  And with a snap of his talons, he was gone.

> Chapter Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as Discord disappeared, the corncobs came back to life.  They began to strobe and point the way farther into the maze.

“That’s kind of pretty.  It’s like a string of Christmas lights pointing the way to the electronics section of a K-Mart on Black Friday,” commented Larry.  Setting his “Git-R-Done” stocking hat up-right, Larry motioned to his friends.  “Come on, boys.  The deals are this way.”

As the three rednecks made their way in-between the stone ponies and graves, Bill snarled to Larry and Jeff.  “I hope you two are happy!  We could have gotten out, but nooooo.  You two jackasses basically said, ‘Discord, there aren’t nearly enough skid marks in our drawers.  Can we stay in here a while longer until you find a way to scare us so badly we die of methane poising?’”

“You want some cheese to go with that bitching?” asked Foxworthy.  “Think about what’s waiting for us at the end of this thing.”

“And just what is waiting for us, Jeff?”  Before the Confederate could reply, Engvall interrupted.  “Jack shit, that’s what we’re getting.  And that’s assuming that tea-drinking Son of a Bitch decides to let us out.  He’s probably taping everything we do and is gonna put it up on whatever passes for YouTube around here.”

Larry paused.  “I hope he cuts out the part where I had to talk to a guy about a dog.”

“A dog?” asked Foxworthy.  “A freakin’ Clydesdale more like it.” 

As they argued, the three humans reached the other end of the graveyard.  There was only one room beyond the pair of braziers.  The maze testers slowly entered the terminus and looked around.  In the center of the room were three bar stools.  Sitting on top of one of the wooden chairs was a pair of shifting eyes with yellow irises.  On another was a large, bloated, pulsing liver.  And on the last were two twitching, blood-covered, white-furred pony ears.  

Foxworthy looked at each of the bar stools.  Eyes wide with terror, Jeff said in a high-pitched voice, “Boys, I think someone didn’t get the memo that magical, four-legged critter hunting is frowned on in these parts.”

Engvall gulped.  “Now I’m pretty sure those things aren’t what they look like, but I say we better find another room, fast.”

Before any of the maze goers could leave, the way out was walled off by extremely fast-growing cornstalks.  

Looking up at the moon, Bill shouted, “F&%#ing hell, not again!  This is bull-crap, Discord.  What the hell are we supposed to do in here?”

The lumberjack looked at the gyrating items that had been placed upon each of the wooden chairs.  “Do we eat ‘em?”

As soon as Larry suggested this, the Confederate turned three shades greener.  “You won’t eat a light-bright corncob, but you’ll eat a spassing dismembered pony part?  Are you Paul Bunyan or his reanimated corpse?”

Larry shrugged.  “Just throwing that out there.  Besides this is Discord’s maze.  All three of these things could taste like a Butterfinger dipped in whipped cream with a cherry on top.”  The fat human started to salivate at the thought.  “Ya never know.  Also, I don’t like corn on the cob; it gets stuck in my teeth.”

Jeff stared at his friend.  “50 bits.  I swear to God I will give you 50 bits right now if you eat those twitching googely eyes over there on that bench.”

Ignoring his fellow maze runners, Bill grasped his broken rifle and circled the three barstools, giving them a wide birth.  He stopped in front of the stool that freaked him out the least.  Hesitantly the redneck leaned over and gingerly probed one of the twitching ears with his rifle barrel.       

“Why do you get to choose which one I  . . .” there was a whooshing sound that caught the Cable Guy’s attention.  “Hey, where’d Bill go?”

“Don’t know.  It’s the damndest thing.  One second Engvall was poking the ears with his cheap-ass gun, and the next he and the barstool were gone.”

Larry chewed on this information for a few moments. “So, what do we do now?”

Foxworthy stroked his mustache.  “Okay, we’re freaking trapped in here.  Bill touched something gross and disappeared.  There are two gross things left which means there’s one for each of us.  So we got four choices.”

The lumber jack frowned.  “How do ya figure?”

“We either dig, climb, wait, or finger something really nasty.”

Larry looked up at the cornstalks that were as high as skyscrapers and then down at the hard Equestrian earth.  “All of them choices suck gopher balls.”

The Confederate nodded.  “I know.  There ain’t any shovels, I’m scared of heights, and I get bored pretty dang quick.  So here’s what I’m thinking.  We touch the diseased liver at the same time.  That way we can get out of here together.”

The Cable Guy scratched his beard.  “I suppose I’ve fingered worse things in my time.  Alright let’s do this.”

The remaining rednecks positioned themselves on either side of the pulsing organ.  Hands sweating in anticipation, Jeff licked his lips and said, “Okay, on three.  One, two, three.” 

Both of the maze goers lunged forward.  To the Confederate’s surprise, it was he who went sprawling through Larry’s afterimage and onto the ground.  After dusting himself off he looked at the last stool with the unblinking yellow eyes.  “Well shit,” he muttered as he took out his plastic revolver.  Like a man condemned to the gallows, he walked over to the stool and poked one of the eyes with his toy guns.

“Ow!”

“Jesus!” Foxworthy recoiled in surprise.  Before him stood not the barstool but the pony that possessed the same yellow eyes that had been staring at him moments before.  The grey furred equine was garbed in a shabby Wonderbolt costume.  

“Naw, my name’s Derpy.  It’s nice to meet ya, whoman.”  The pegasus looked around at her surroundings.  “It looks like you’re my partner.”

After taking a deep breath to steady himself Jeff held out his hand.  “Jeff Foxworthy.”  After the introductions were made, the human glanced around too.  They were no longer in the man-trap but in a different part of the maze, a part with several routes to choose from.  “What are you doing here?  I thought this was a two-legged redneck sausage fest.  How did Discord rope you into this?”

“Uhhh . . . the last thing I remember me, Vinyl Scratch, and Berry Punch were all getting trophies for being this year’s apple-bobbing champions.”  Derpy smiled proudly.  “I got first . . . or was it last.  I forget.  Anyway, Discord showed up and said since we were so good at finding things, would we be interested in finding three lost whomans and guiding them through his maze?  Whoever leads their whoman out first gets one wish.  It sounded like fun, so I said yes.  Berry hiccupped and collapsed and Vinyl just nodded her head, but she always does that when she has her headphones on.  Then Discord snapped his talons and here we are.”  The pony frowned.  “Hey, why were you poking me in the eye a second ago?”

Jeff blinked at the pony.  “I take it you don’t remember being turned into a chair?”

The pegasus thought for a few seconds before saying, “Nope.  But one time I hit my head so hard I lost my sight and thought I was an ironing board for a whole week.  Does that count?”

“No, but it does explain a few things,” the Confederate replied while looking at Derpy’s off-kilter eyes.  “Hey, you got wings.  Why don’t you fly up there and reconnoiter the area.”

Derpy gave the human a strange look.  “Reco what?”

Foxworthy sighed.  “It means look around up there.”     

The pegasus hesitated.

“What’s wrong?  You’re in a Wonder Bolt costume.  That means you like to fly, right?”

“Discord told me not to fly, Vinyl not to use her magic, and Berry not to get too hammered.  He said he wanted this to be a fair race.”

“Ah,” Jeff replied in understanding.  He looked up and imagined Derpy flying up in the air lifting him over the cornstalks.  He then imagined Discord with an enormous 12 gauge shooting down Derpy like a clay pigeon.  The redneck shuttered.  “We’d better do what the bast---, I mean what Discord says.”  

“I got a map though,” said the cheerful pretend Wonderbolt.     

Foxworthy’s eyebrows rose.  “You do?”

“Yeah . . . at least that’s what it says it is.”  From an unseen pocket, Derpy pulled out a small, folded up piece of paper that had “Map” scrawled in ink on the top fold.  The pony began to unfold it.

To the Confederate’s surprise, the pony kept unfolding it, and unfolding it, and unfolding it until the small parchment had grown to be twice the size of a full-grown man and still she wasn’t done.  “Holy cow, how big is this thing?”  

“I don’t know.  I’ve never seen this much paper before, and I work in a post-office.”



Meanwhile:



Larry looked down at the sprawling map and scratched the back of his neck.  “Berry, this map makes as much sense as an ejector seat on a helicopter.  I mean we’re here . . . maybe, and we need to get . . . damned if I know.  What do you think?”

The inebriated pony looked down at the map and vomited the contents of her stomach onto the parchment.  

The redneck rubbed his eyes in disgust.  “Well, that just happened.”  He then began to wipe his shoes off in the grass.

“Sorry, uh . . . sorry Bernie.  I’ll clean that up.”

“What the hell did you do all day, suck dry a fire hydrant full of booze?  This map is bigger than I am, and you’ve covered it in chum.”  

The earth pony smiled lazily at the fat human.  “Don’t act you’re not impressed.”

“Honey, I’m a redneck.  Of course I’m impressed.  But since that thing wasn’t laminated, we’re kind of screwed.”

“I know which way is up, uh, I mean out,” replied the tipsy equine.  

Larry eyed the pony for a moment, not believing a word of what she just said.  He then shrugged and said, “Ah, what the heck?  We can’t get any more lost, right?”

The Cable Guy followed the inebriated earth pony down the winding halls of the maze.  On more than one occasion the intoxicated mare doubled back and chose a different direction.  Eventually they found themselves walking down a path where twenty men could march shoulder to shoulder.  Larry took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair.  “Well, I’ll give ya this much, Berry.  If someone was following us, we’ve confused the hell out of ‘em.”

“Hic, thanks Terry.”

Larry rolled his eyes.  Ever since they’d met, the mare had never gotten his name right.  “So how were things in town?  Had Princess Luna shown up yet?”

“Naw, she comes in the middle of the party and puts everypony else to shame at the party games.  I’ve seen her before, but I’ve never talked to her.”

“Why not?  She’s pretty cool.  I mean when me, Jeff, and Bill had that Tantibus thing in our skulls, she was the first to jump inside our heads to get that thing out.  You should meet her.  I’ll introduce you and say how great you are at barfing on maps.”  

Berry Punch laughed until she started to cough.  “Thanks, but no thanks.  She wouldn’t want to talk to a drunk like me.  I mean all I do is stomp on grapes for a living to make wine which I then proceed to drink.”

The redneck scoffed.  “Sweetheart, that job is nothing to be ashamed of.  You could be a Chinese munitions tester sitting on a chair while a conveyor brings ya artillery shells you gotta smack with a hammer to make sure they don’t explode when someone sneezes on them.”  Larry smiled.  “Whenever I’m down or depressed, I think of that, and I cheer right up.  Works every time, swear to God.”

The pony looked at the human strangely.  “Sweet Celestia.  Is that a real job?”

The pretend lumberjack was about to reply when he heard the familiar sound of their way of retreat being cut off.  Sure enough, when the pair looked over their shoulders, it was nothing but cornstalks and glowing corncobs.  Moments later the ground began to tremble as something enormous was slowly making its way towards the two maze-runners.

Larry’s mouth went dry as the terrible quaking got worse.  Feeling a tapping on his arm, the human looked down to see Berry offering him a flask.  With sweaty hands Larry took the metal container, unscrewed the top, and took a deep pull.  The drink was sweeter than grape juice but burned worse than whiskey.  The human coughed and wiped his eyes.  “Much obliged.  Whew, that’s the bottom of the barrel stuff right there, ain’t it?”  

Wordlessly, the pony took a swig.  She didn’t even blink.  Dryly she replied, “Hic, now all we need is a blindfold and a cigarette, and we’re ready to go.”

The pair waited until a gargantuan creature came into view.  It towered over the human and pony, standing half as tall as the cornstalks.  It had the body of a lion, the wings of a pegasus, and the face of a man.  Strangely, the beast had a friendly voice.  “Hi there,” it said.

Weakly, Larry croaked out a strained, “Howdy.  H-how ya d-doin big fella?”

Berry looked up at the sphinx and belched.  

The sphinx smiled.  “I am doing quite well, thank you very much.  I’d introduce myself properly, but if I were to say my true name, your brains would liquefy and run out your ear canals.  So for our purposes you can refer to me as Samuel.”

The human nodded.  “Can I call ya Sam?”

“You may not,” Samuel replied politely.  “My name is Samuel, and you have trespassed into my dominion.”

“Your domain is a section of cornmaze?” asked Berry.

“Yes.  Does this trouble you, little one?” the beast asked in an annoyed tone.

Larry immediately shook his head.  Berry, however, replied, “Yeah.  What the hay are you doing here?  You’re setting your sights a little low, aren’t ya?”  The pony took another pull from her flask.  “What happened?  Did Discord say your sphinx name backwards and now you’re his bitch?”

Samuel’s eyes narrowed.

Sensing the tension in the air, Larry smiled nervously and whispered through clenched teeth.  “Berry, I don’t know what the booze is telling ya, but I’d shut the f*#k up about now if I was you.”

The sphinx glared down at the duo and said in a menacing tone, “What is greater than life but more terrifying then death?  The poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it you die?”

The human cowered as the sphinx spoke.  When the creature was done Larry opened his eyes and realized he was still alive.  Trying to look as composed as possible, the redneck cleared his throat and asked, “Uh, Mr. Samuel, sir.  What was all that about just now?”

“That was your riddle, mortal.  If you answer it correctly, I’ll let you leave.  If you don’t . . .” The sphinx’s laugh rumbled through the maze.  “Well, I’ll just let you use your imagination.”

Larry fought down the powerful urge to cry in front of the behemoth.  “H-how m-many guesses do we get?”

“You have one minute to give me your answer, and you only get one attempt.”  Samuel glared at the earth pony.  “And I hope you fail.”

Berry grinned up at the Sphinx.  “Hey, Sammy.  I got your answer right here.”  

Before the pony could do anything she would regret, Larry grabbed the pony and pulled her to the side.  “Damn it, Berry!” the lumberjack hissed at his partner. “He’s probably not supposed to eat us, but he sure as hell will if you piss him off enough.”    

“The clock is ticking,” declared the sphinx.

Larry fought down the panic that gripped him.  He turned the riddle over and over in his head, but each potential answer he came up with was worse than the last.  “Berry, unless you have something better, I’m going to say ‘rat poison’ is the answer.”

The pony shrugged, and with words slurred by alcohol, she replied, “Sounds good, Fairy.  I got nothing.”  

The redneck froze.  It was like someone switched on a million watt light bulb over his head.  “That’s it!  Oh, sweet Jesus.  That’s the answer.  Berry, I freakin love you.  You’re a mother bucking genius!” 

Berry hiccupped.  “I know it.  But it’s nice to be told.”

Turning to Samuel, Larry shouted the answer.  “Nothing.  Nothing is the answer.”

The sphinx’s face contorted in anger.  “That is correct.”  Samuel practically spat the words.  “Get out of my sight.”  

Berry laughed drunkenly as she danced down the broad maze path.  

The human quietly followed after his companion when the Sphinx said, “Human.”

Larry froze in mid-step and turned to face the sphinx.  

“I envy you not, for the place you are going is the labyrinth of lies. It is the place where all roads in the maze eventually lead.  For the respect you have shown me, I will give you three pieces of advice.  Don’t drink the milk, don’t fall asleep, and most important of all, don’t pet the flaming canine.”

The pretend lumberjack blinked.  “Is that last one a metaphor or a real thing?”

“Yes.”  And with that the sphinx closed his eyes and blew away like dust in the wind.  



Meanwhile:



Bill Engvall closed his eyes and muttered, “Okay, its east, east, north, north, east, south, west, west, west, north.  Is that right, Vinyl?”

Hearing no reply, the John Wayne impersonator looked over to the blue mane unicorn wearing sunglasses.  The pony had her headphones on and was nodding along to her terrible music. 

Engvall bit back a swear word.  He walked over and tapped the pony on the shoulder.  

The D.J. looked up at the redneck and asked, “What’s sup dude?”  

“Did ya hear what I just asked?”

“Negatory, dude.  I was listing to my jams.  Did ya want to try these babies on?”  The unicorn offered the human her headphones.    

Bill cringed.  He could hear the dubstep from those headphones a mile away.  “No, thanks.  I’m allergic.  It’ll make me break out.  I’m trying to remember the way out of the maze without looking at that stupid freakin map.  Now if I remember, it’s east, east, north, north, east, south,. . .”

“Dude, dude, dude,” Vinyl said gently interrupting the human.  “You need to seriously chilllax, man.  I mean it’s Nightmare Night, and we’re in Discord’s, The Discord’s cornmaze.  How cool is that?”

“It’d be a lot more cool if I knew for certain that I’ll come out of here not in a pine box.  I mean, I’m not exactly a spring chicken here.  When you get to be my age, your priorities change a little, like finding out how many pills you need to eat to keep your vitals happy, and knowing where the nearest porta potty is.”

The D.J. levitated her sunglasses off her face and took a good look at the human for the first time.  “Jeez, you are old, aren’t ya?”  She grinned and asked, “What the hay are you doing here then?  This maze isn’t exactly for foals or geezers.”

“Believe me, I’m wondering that myself.  Does the Ponyville hospital do cat-scans?”

Vinyl Scratch laughed.  “Just stick with me, dude.  We’ll be out of this maze quicker than an eighth note through a sound bar.  But until then just sit back and enjoy the ride and think about that sweet prize waitin for ya at the finish line.  By the way, what did you ask Discord for?  I told him I wanted a . . .”

At this point, one of the D.J’s hooves sank deep into the ground.    Before Bill could ask if she was alright, the pair heard a metallic clicking noise below the Equestrian earth.  

“What’s that noise?” the pony asked.

Engvall gulped nervously.  He could feel and hear whatever Vinyl had stepped on activate a system of pulleys, levers, and wheels underground.  Before he could answer, a wooden unicorn that looked like a nightmarish version of Twilight Sparkle slowly wheeled out from the cornstalks.

As the construct advanced, Bill said slowly, “Now would be a good time to shoot that thing.”

“Hate to break this to ya, dude, but I can’t do that kind of magic.  Besides, Discord told us not to.”          

“To Hell with Discord!” shouted Bill.  “What do ya think th--"

Before he could finish his sentence, the twisted mockery of Twilight shot a beam of magic at the D.J. with its wooden horn.  

The cowboy was the first to act.  As fast as he could, Bill shoved Vinyl off of the pressure plate, sending her tumbling into the cornstalks.

Engvall braced himself, but the pain never came.  The beam’s impact was so mild, it was like someone bounced a beach ball off his gut.  The redneck opened his eyes and sighed in relief after seeing that he was still whole.  When he inhaled, he noticed he was covered in a light-purple dust that tasted strange and made his eyes water.  Shaking his head, Bill called “Vinyl, hey Vinyl.  You okay?”  

The pony emerged from the corn-wall.  Her mane was messed up and her sun-glasses were askew, but other than that, she looked no worse for wear.  “Yeah, Dude.  I’m fine.  Thanks for the save.  For a fat, old guy you sure move fast.”

“Gee thanks,” Bill replied dryly.  As he wiped the dust off of his costume, he glared at his wooden attacker.  The splintery pony just stood there on its wheels looking devilishly at the pair.  Slowly, the two made their way to the booby trapped scarecrow.  Bill could now see the barely visible rope that had wheeled the enchanted doll out from the corn forest.  

Vinyl poked it with her hoof and the construct promptly tipped over.  “What the hay was this thing supposed to do?  Shoot glitter at us?”

Engvall would have replied, but his eyes were irritating him badly.  He looked down at the wooden pony through his watery eyes.  The nightmarish equine seemed to be smiling back up at him.  Bill blinked, and to his horror the oaken pony’s face was full of teeth and looked as if it was trying to bite him.  Recoiling in surprise, the human brought down his boot on the pony’s wooden head. To the pretend cowboy, it did not feel like he was stomping on a hollow oaken doll but a real pony skull. 

“Hey, hey, dude.  Are you okay?  You don’t look so good.”  

Bill dropped his rifle and wiped his burning eyes on his sleeve.  “Did you see that?  That damn thing tried to bite my foot off.”

Vinyl paused for a moment.  She had not expected him to say that.  “Uh, no, that thing looks pretty still to me.”

“What?!” Bill shouted taking his sleeve away from his face.  “How could you n--” The human’s words died in his throat.  Bill was so shocked by what he was seeing, he had to do a double take.

“Dude, what’s wrong?  You’re acting weird.”

For a response, Bill screamed in the pony’s face and took off through the maze, running as fast as he could.

“Dude!  Dude, come back!” Vinyl shouted after her fleeing partner as she took off after him.

Engvall looked at his purser and shrieked.  Gone was Vinyl Scratch and in her place was this grotesque white and blue furred monster.  Bill was used to seeing strange things in Equstria, but never before had he seen anything this horrifying.  Adrenaline pouring through his veins, Bill ran like he’d never run before.  

> Chapter Three
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, Mr. Confederate Man.”

“For the millionth time, the name’s Jeff.”

“Oh, right.  I forgot.”

“It’s okay.  I don’t want people to remember me until pay day.  What’s up?”

“How come you only got one arm?”

Jeff Foxworthy looked at the sewn-shut sleeve of his wool-grey coat.  “Oh, no, I got both my arms.  See?”  Jeff’s other arm wiggled between the buttons of his jacket.

Derpy jumped back in surprise.  “Is your arm supposed to come out of your tummy?”

The human sighed.  He took off his jacket and waved both arms around in the air.  “See, I’m normal . . . kind of.  I’m only pretending to have one arm; it’s part of my costume.”

The pegasus frowned at the human.  “That is so weird.  Why would you do that?  Why would you dress up as a one-armed guy?”

“Cause this one-armed guy I’m pretending to be was awesome, until he was shot by his own guys by accident.”

Derpy blinked her disfigured eyes.  “If he was shot by his own guys, he doesn’t sound that great.”

“Hey, don’t be disrespecting Stonewall Jackson.  I’m not asking you why you chose a Wonderbolt costume when you have the hoof-eye coordination of a toaster.”

At this the pegasus lowered her head and slumped her shoulders.  She looked at the earthen floor and didn’t say a thing as they continued down the winding path of the maze.

Jeff silently swore at himself.  “Hey, Derp, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to say something that stupid.  You’d make a great Wonderbolt.”

Derpy lifted her head up to regard the redneck.  “Really?”

“Absolutely.  Flying fast and hard and doing all that acrobatic crap is overrated.  You don’t need it.  I mean back there, you took one look at that map and took charge.  Because of you, we haven’t run into anything bad yet.  You should be a Wonderbolt scout.”

Derpy’s cheeks reddened.  “Thanks.  I read a lot of maps with my job.”

Jeff nodded.  “You’re a better mail man then my guy.  I think he ran out of Kleenex a week ago because my newspaper was pretty freaking slimy.”

The pony laughed.  “I’ve done that before.  A muffin usually calms them down.”

“Those better be some dang good muff--, whoa!”

Jeff and Derpy had just turned a corner in the corncob-lit maze.  In the center of their path was an enormous picnic table.  There was so much food that the table groaned under the weight.  Above them towered a flag pole, and written on the white banner flapping in the gentle breeze was the word “checkpoint.”

The redneck started salivating when he sniffed the aroma of the smorgasbord.  “Holy crap!  There’s more grub here than a Sunday Golden Corral Buffet.”  Jeff nearly ran to an open chair, took his hat off, and closed his eyes.  “Thank you, Lord, for this bounty you have put before me and my friend.  I pray that none of it is poisoned, and if it is, I pray that it at least tastes good.  We also ask You for safe and swift passage out of this maze for us and our buddies.  And dear Lord, if you could find it in your heart to drop a fifty-gallon drum of ‘Weed B Gone’ on Danny, I would be very grateful.  In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.”

“Who’s Danny?”

“I’ll tell ya later.  Dig in.  We need to keep our strength up, if we’re going to finish this maze.”

Derpy looked at the picnic table skeptically.  “I don’t know, Mr. Confederate Man.  This looks kind of fishy to me.  We should probably keep . . . ”

Jeff pointed down towards the other end of the table.  “Hey, Derp, they got muffins.”

Faster than a bolt of lightning, the pretend Wonderbolt darted past Jeff and wolfed down the tasty morsels quicker than a lamb dropped in a tiger pit.

The human dove in with equal gusto, devouring plates of grits, water melon, tater tots, and fried salmon.  Jeff frowned, in-between mouthfuls.  The only thing to drink was milk.  He shrugged and knocked backed several glasses of cow-juice.

Minutes later, Jeff let out an enormous yawn.  He patted his stomach and looked over at his pegaus companion.  The pretend Wonderbolt had fallen asleep on top of the table, surrounded by small mountains of desserts.  The human was about to stand up and wake the pegasus but found that he could barely keep his eyes open.  “I suppose a quick cat-nap wouldn’t hurt.”


Later


“Mr. Confederate Man, Mr. Confederate Man, wake up.  I think we got a problem.”

Jeff groaned.  He replied groggily, “Spray it with WD-40 and slap on some ductape.  You should be good for another fifty miles.”

“Uh, if you say so.  But I think you’d better take a look at this as soon as you get up,” Derpy replied nervously.

The pretend Confederate sighed.  He blinked open his eyes and looked straight up into the mail mare’s face.  Slowly the human sat up and looked around.  “What in the hell---o, there.”  At that moment, Jeff noticed two things in quick succession.  First, the picnic area had been burnt to a crisp.  Everything had turned to ash; the tables, the chairs, the flagpole, even the food had been cremated.  The second thing he saw was the enormous hole seared into the cornstalk wall of the maze.

Jeff slowly got up from the ground and dusted the ashes off his grey costume.  He made his way over to the new exit and gingerly stepped through the gap onto a new pathway.  “Derpy, are there any napalm infused muffins you want to tell me about, or was this mess here when you woke up?”

Derpy shook her head.  “I didn’t do this.  Mayor Mare won’t let me make those kinds of muffins anymore, court order.  Somepony burnt everything and made that hole in the maze when we were sleeping.”

The human took a closer look at the burn marks and saw that they were still warm and simmering.  Jeff shuddered.  “Let’s get the heck out of here before whatever did this comes back.”

The pegasus nodded enthusiastically and followed Jeff.  “I think this new gap actually helps us.  Eventually we would have ended up here, but it would have taken longer.”

“I’ll take it,” declared the Confederate.

The pair began walking down the new path.

“Something’s bothering me,” said Jeff.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we slept through a pyromaniac burning down everything around us?  I mean this bucker even incinerated the food we were eating and then left!  Who the heck does that?”

“Somepony who’s not very hungry,” answered Derpy.

“True, but still . . .” Jeff paused.  “Do you hear that?”

The noise got closer, and soon the redneck could make out that it was sound of absolute terror coming their way. “AHHHHH!  Get away from me!  I taste awful!  Go find Larry and chomp on him!”

“What the f---?”  Jeff started to ask.

Rounding one of the corners of the maze was Bill Engvall.  The cowboy was covered in a film of purplish dust and was being chased by a pony Jeff recognized.  The Confederate was impressed.  He had never seen Bill run that fast before.  DJ Pon-3 could barely keep up.

Bill tried to change course when he saw Jeff and Derpy standing in his way, but instead, he lost his footing and tumbled head over heels into the dirt of the maze.  Rushing forward, Jeff pinned his still screaming friend to the ground.  “Bill!  Calm down!  What’s gotten into you?  Who glitter bombed ya?”

For a reply, Bill walloped Jeff across the jaw with a left hook, sending the Confederate sprawling into the cornstalks.  Before Engvall could stand and flee, Derpy flew, into the human’s stomach, knocking the wind out of the cowboy.  Seeing an opening, Vinyl galloped forward and planted her hooves on the screaming redneck’s back.

“Jeff!  Larry!  Help!  Its got me!  The bucking monster’s got me!  Get your asses over here!”  yelled Bill.

The human was thrashing and struggling so much that the ponies could barely keep him grounded.  Looking over to the other human, Vinyl said through gritted teeth, “We gotta get that sparkly stuff off of him.  It’s worse than acid.”

Jeff sat up and blinked. He shook his head to stop his skull from ringing, but he obeyed.  Taking his canteen in hand, he ran over to the cowboy and anointed him with an amber liquid.  Bill fought for a few more moments while the magic dust was washed from his person.  Eventually, the redneck stopped struggling and looked up at the Confederate.  “Jeff?  What the buck is goin on?  What happened to all the monsters?  Where’s Vinyl?”

Seeing that her human partner was back to his old self, the white unicorn released him.  “Right here.  Sorry about putting you in a bind like that, but you were tripping some major balls there.”

Engvall frowned at the DJ.  A second later it dawned on him.  “Are you saying that pixie dust was causing me to cheese my brains out?”

“Oh, wow!  You must be very allergic to dairy products.  I’ve never heard of a whoman being that allergic to cheese,” declared Derpy.

Bill stared dumbly at Derpy while both Jeff and DJ Pon-3 face palmed at the same time.

“No, sweetheart, that’s no- . . . .”  Slowly Bill took a sniff at his soaked wool jacket.  “Did you dump Crown Royal whiskey on me?” asked Engvall.

“Yeah, damn it.  What?  You thought I was going to pack water to Discord’s maze?  I was going to crack this open for when the crap really breaks the fan, so I wouldn’t give the slightest of bucks.”

Jeff felt a tug on his arm.  He looked down to see Derpy motioning him to come closer.  The redneck knelt down so the pony could whisper to him.

“Uh, Mr. Confederate Man, I hate to interrupt, but I’m in a race to see which pony can make it out of the maze with their whoman first.  Remember?”

Jeff took off his grey kepi and ran his fingers through his hair.  He glanced over at Bill and Vinyl.  They looked like they were having a conversation very similar to what he and Derpy were discussing.  “Yeah, but Derp, I think maybe we should stick together with D-J Pon 3 and Bill on this one.  I’ve seen some pretty scary stuff tonight that you haven’t.  I know it’s just a corn maze, but I’d feel a lot better if we had some help.  I’m just not as brave as you are.”

The Wonderbolt looked very disappointed as she muttered, “Okay, you’re probably right.”

Feeling a twinge of guilt, Jeff said quickly, “Hey, how about this?  If you don’t win you can have my prize for tonight.  How does that sound?”

“That sounds wonderful,” declared the happy pegasus.  “But are you sure?  I mean, that doesn’t sound very fair to you.”

The Confederate waved his hand dismissively.  “Naw, it’s okay.  I’m mainly here to help Fluttershy.  The prize is just icing on the cake.  My wife probably wouldn’t let me keep it anyway.  Do you want me to tell you what it is?  You might not like it.  It’s kind of . . . weird.”

Derpy shook her head and began walking.  “No, thanks.  I want it to be a surprise.  After all, it’s Nightmare Night.  Things are supposed to be weird. ”

Jeff grinned back nervously and gulped. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” he said mostly to himself.  The redneck felt a hand on his shoulder and a whisper close to his ear.

“Did you just promise that pony the pickled arm of Stonewall Jackson?” asked Bill with a hint of disgust in his voice.

“Maybe . . . I had to give her something.  She wanted to split from you two.”

Bill sighed.  “Yeah, Vinyl wanted to do the same thing.”

“What did she guilt trip you into giving up?”

“I have to ask Discord for a mobile wub house.”

“What the hell is a wub house?”

“I don’t know.  I’m afraid to ask.  Come on.  Let’s find Larry and get out of here.”


**********************************************************************


“Hey, Berry, where’s your costume?” asked Larry.  He giggled, “Aren’t you afraid Nightmare Moon will eat your drunk ass?”

“Heh, that’s kids stuff . . . Hic.  If Nightmare Moon wanted to gobble me up, she’d die of alcohol poisoning.”

The Cable Guy nodded.  “Can’t argue with that.  I bet even a skeeter would get pulled over for Flying Under the Influence if he sucked on you.”

“Oh, Hardee, Har, Har.  I’ll have you know, sir, that we earth ponies can hold our alcohol better than any pegasus or . . . that other kind of pony that uses sorcery. Hic.”

“You mean magic?”

“Yeah, whatever.  The point is I am capable of having another drink or fifty, if I wanted it.”

Larry snorted and rolled his eyes as they rounded a bend in the maze.  He was about to reply when something out of the ordinary caught his attention.  All of the corn stalks were burnt at shoulder-level.  A lot of the corncob lights had even been turned to glowing popcorn that lit up the ground.  Berry Punch shrugged and popped one of the morsels into her mouth.

“You’ve got more balls than I do, Berry.  How’s it taste?”

“Like crap.  But it’s pretty warm, and I’m hungry.”

At that moment Larry heard the distinct crunching sound of something stepping on some popcorn.  He whirled around to see a friendly-looking Golden Retriever panting in anticipation.  Larry clutched at his heart and sighed in relief.  “Where the hell did you come from, little guy?  You’re quieter than a shark in a snuggie, cause I sure didn’t hear ya come up behind us.”

The Redneck reached out to scratch the canine behind the ear but hesitated.  “Hey, didn’t the sphinx say something about a burning dog?”

Berry Punch looked the dog over and patted it on the head.  “He probably just wandered in the maze.  See?  No flammable pooch here.”

The moment Berry started patting the dog, the canine’s fur ignited in a spectacular ball of fire.  Berry recoiled in surprise, jerking her hoof back before it could be burned.  The dog began to grow and became more wolf-like with each passing second.  Gone was the yellow hair of the Golden Retriever, burnt away by the devouring inferno.  Before Larry and Berry’s eyes stood a massive hell-hound, the size of a small truck.

Larry shook his head in disbelief and disgust.  “Oh, come on, that’s not fair.  That mutt wasn’t on fire a minute ago.  How in God’s name were we supposed to know not to pet it?  If I ever see another rat with wings asking me riddles, I’m gonna put a 45 slug through its head.”

Thinking through her alcohol-fogged mind, Berry Punch picked up a burnt corncob and whistled.  “Come on, boy.  Get the stick.”

The flaming pooch let out a low, threatening growl.

Larry slowly backed away.  “Golden Retrievers might be dumb, Berry, but that thing can eat a physics teacher and shit out Einstein, I’ll bet.”

“So what do we do?” the pony asked mirroring the Redneck’s retreat.

Before Larry could reply, the huge hound let out an ear-splitting roar.

“Bucking run!”

And with that, the two mazerunners bolted deeper into the maze, the hell-hound right behind them, setting the maze afire with every step.
> Chapter Four
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pair of humans and ponies stared down at the enormous map of the maze, the glow of a nearby corn cob providing a soft golden light.  Derpy pointed to a spot near the northern most part of the vegetable labyrinth.  “We’re here by this swiggle, and we need to get over there to that door thingy.” 

Jeff’s eyes widened.  He gripped Bill’s shoulder to steady himself. “Oh my God, we’re almost out.”

Engvall looked at Derpy dubiously.  “Are you sure?”

“Hey, dude, if she says we’re there, then we’re there,” Vinyl stated emphatically.

Bill took off his cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his glittery hair.  “Okay, but how does she know that?  That map looks like a plate of spaghetti dumped on a dead octopus.  It hurts me just to look at it.”     

Foxworthy thought for a moment.  “Derpy sense . . . maybe?”  The pretend Confederate looked at the pegasus.

Derpy shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never been here before.  But I got a good feeling that that’s where we are.  Now I did get trapped in a cookie jar once.  I needed a map to get out of that one and . . .”

As the flyer regaled them about her confectionary odyssey, Bill rubbed his eyes and stifled a sob.  “We’re so bucked.”

“Hey, dudes?  Are you guys seeing this?”

The humans looked to where the unicorn was pointing.  

“Is the sun coming up?” asked Derpy.  

“Naw, we couldn’t have been in here that long,” answered Jeff.  

In the distance an orange radiance was gaining brilliance, piercing the blackness that permeated between the mammoth corn stalks.  

“What in the hell?” asked the pretend cowboy.

Jeff was the first to sniff the air and taste the pungent odor of burnt corn.  He quickly put two and two together.  “I think the maze is on fire.”

Bill’s nose twitched as he took in the new scent.  He sighed, “Damn it, Larry.  This has to be his fault.  He pulled the same stunt when he got lost in that fun house back in 2010.”

Jeff shook his head.  “No, I don’t think this one’s on him.  Me and Derpy had a picnic area burn down around our ears a few minutes ago.”

“We gotta find Larry and Berry,” Derpy said nervously, “before somepony gets hurt.”  

“Way ahead of you,” replied the unicorn.  The D.J. took off her headphones next to one of the walls of the maze.  She then produced a tiny remote control and pointed it at her gear.  “You guys might want to back off and cover your ears.”

The two rednecks looked at each other skeptically, but the pegasus complied without hesitation.

A moment later the rave master pushed a button and deafening music blared forth.  The corn stalks that had been standing moments ago bowed and broke before the intense dubstep beats.

The humans were driven to their knees at the intensity of the sound. But as soon as it began, the noise attack was over.  

Bill slowly got to his feet and shook his head.  “Holy moly, anyone get the number on that bus?”

Foxworthy coughed and wheezed before finding his bearings. “I’ve stood behind jet engines gentler than those things.  Is that what you listen to all the time Vinyl?   

D-J Pon 3 smiled at the maze runner.  “Naw, that was quiet mode.”  



**************************



“Run, Fairy!  Pump those legs!  Come on!” yelled Berry Punch.

“God damn it!” wheezed the redneck.  “I’ve put more shit in this maze than a John Deere manure spreader.”

Larry the Cable Guy ran with all the majesty and grace one would expect of an obese human in a Paul Bunyan costume.  The lumberjack risked a quick glance behind him.  The nightmare was still there in all its fire and fury.  The beast scorched both sides of the great labyrinth as it chased the maze runners.  The howl the fire-wolf gave loosed the rednecks bowels again.  

“That’s so gross,” murmured the pony.

“Why the buck won’t that bastard just pounce and eat us already?  I know it can.”

The earth pony shrugged while galloping.  “Dun no.  Maybe it’s your scent.  I’m about as hammered as I can get, and I still smell what you’re leaving behind.”

Larry glanced behind them.  The monster had not closed the distance since the chase began, but the inferno that advanced in the beast’s wake felt all too real.  “I think he’s playing with us.”  

“Why?”

The redneck struggled to speak as he rounded another corner.  “I don’t freaking know.”  He would have said more, but a loose root seemed to reach out and grab him by the ankles.  Down went the pretend axe man like a collapsing pine tree.  Larry balled his fists in rage and tore the flannel shirt off his shoulders.  “That’s it!”  The mad Cable Guy took off his shoes followed quickly by his pants.  

“Harry, what in Celestia’s name are you doing? We . . .”

“No!  No more! I’m done.  I’m stuffing one of these corn cobs in my mouth and jumping down balls first into that thing’s gullet.  I’m tired of this.  Save yourself Berry.”

The beast eyed the human when it came closer to the redneck and pony. Curiously the flames did not advance before the enormous wolf monster.  Instead the inferno held back behind its creator as if waiting for orders.  For several seconds the nearly naked Cable Guy and flame wolf stared at each other.  Berry shook her head and sighed, “Men and dogs.”  She produced her flask and knocked back another hit of her alcoholic beverage.  As soon as she had finished her drink, the pony’s world erupted in deafening sound. 

The ebony corn stalks just behind the earth pony were reduced to mulch. The violet pony screamed and covered her head until the noise subsided.  The next thing she knew a pair of hands and a pair of hooves were dragging her away from a stunned looking fire canine.  

“Berry, Berry Punch can you hear me?”

The pony blinked and stared up into the face of D-J Pon 3.  “Vinyl? What the hay was that?”  She could barely hear herself speak.  

The pony blushed underneath her purple tinted glasses.  “Yeah, sorry about that.  I meant to launch those wubs a little further away from where you two were. It’s hard to see through these black corn stalks.”   

Berry waved off the apology.  “Where’s Marry?”

“Who?” asked the D.J.

“Jesus, Larry, cover yourself, there are ladies present.”

Looking over to where the human voice had come from, Berry Punch saw a cowboy standing over a still irate Cable Guy.  Larry still in his underwear slowly stood up and glowered at his friends.  “Screw you, Bill.  Have you ever been chased by a mangy coyote that’s fifty feet wide and on fire?  You’d be taking your clothes off too.  I’m sweating like a whore in a cactus garden.  Why that thing is probably going to eat all of us in the next second.”

Bill looked over at the fire wolf.  The large creature was fleeing back the way it came, taking the fires it had created with it.  The cowboy smirked, “He seems like a big softy to me.”  

Before Larry could do something he’d regret, Jeff cried, “Hey!  Let’s get this show on the road.”  He turned to look at Derpy. The pony was staring intently down several twists and turns in the maze.  He stood beside the pegasus and declared, “Derp, this is all you. Which way should we go?”  

The pretend Wonderbolt didn’t reply for a moment.  She glanced at all the options one last time before pointing down a very narrow path.  “There, that’s the way.”    

The near naked redneck came up to the fake Wonderbolt and Confederate.  He squinted where the pony was gesturing.  “Wow, you got good eyes.  I didn’t even notice that little road.  I might be able to slip down there if I really suck it in.”  

“That’s what she said,” whispered Jeff.   

“What?!” roared the cable guy.  

“I said I’m ready for bed.  Come on, let’s do this.”




**************************




“So what you’re sayin, Kerry, is I get your prize for making it out of the corn maze since we’re all working together now?”

“Yeah.  I’ll be bucked if I let these two lunkheads out generosity me.”

Berry Punch shrugged, “You don’t have to do that, but Celestia knows I could use a break.”  She paused for a moment and asked, “What were you going to ask for when you got out?”

“You don’t want to know.”  The answer came from all three of the humans.  

“Okay, now I really want to know,” declared the earth pony.

“Hey guys, we’re here,” Derpy said slowly.  

The pony walked into an area of the maze wide enough in which to fit an entire city block.  

Larry couldn’t believe his eyes.  There on the other side of the vast open space were four huge letters hovering in mid air.  They spelled the sweetest word the redneck had ever seen.  EXIT.  The human pulled at his beard skeptically.  “Y’all think it’s real this time?”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” replied Bill. 

Slowly, the group made their way forward to the opening in the maze. Before the men and mares could get to the center of the space, a high-pitched sinister laugh echoed from the walls of the labyrinth.  “Did you really believe you’d get out that easy?  You idiots.”

Jeff’s mouth went dry as he spoke the name that caused his heart to race in fear.  “Danny.”

“The flower?” asked the D.J.

“Yeah, that’s him,” replied Larry.  

“Where is he?” asked Derpy as she looked in every direction. 

The laughter echoed and bounced off the luminescent corn cobs that made up the arena.  Slowly, a green stem emerged from the dark soil.  The end of the shoot morphed into a white circle soon followed by a dark face. A collar of dirty yellow petals framed the leering features of the sunflower.  “Howdy, boys.  Did you miss me?

“His green ass is mine!”  Jeff shouted, charging the plant.  He stomped up to the small flower and aimed to crush it with one well-placed foot. As the boot fell, Danny moved through the dirt like a fish through water.  

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the dandelion said mockingly.  

The two other rednecks joined in, trying to grab and uproot the evil vine or stamp it into the ground.  Not one of them got close.  

“Humans,” Danny shook his head and let the word hang in the air. He would have said more but, he had to dodge out of the way of a pony flying through the air.  He did so with the grace of a matador sidestepping a bull. Berry Punch’s hooves planted themselves in the ground right in the place Danny was standing moments ago.  

“Hey!” snarled Danny.  “Someone’s going to get hurt here.  I’ve done nothing to hurt you ponies, so far.”

“Don’t listen to that lying sack of shit!” Bill hollered.  “He trapped us in a graveyard full of zombie pony statues.”

“Ah, is that what you’re sore about? Those things were harmless,” Danny said casually.  He then paused and added, “Well, compared to what I’m about to do to you fellas, they’re harmless.  We gotta keep things in perspective.”  

D-J Pon 3 aimed her speakers at the flower.  “Keep talking little guy.  Any last words before I blast you to pieces?”

Danny smiled at the pony.  “Do you like T.V.?”  

The unicorn frowned.  Before she could utter a syllable, a large television fell out of the sky and smashed down right in front of her on top of the talking dandelion. 

Everyone on the ground recoiled in surprise as the television shattered all over the maze floor.

Jeff raised his eyes and hands to the sky.  “My prayers have been answered.  Thank you, Jesus.”  He then caught sight of his pony ally hovering a good thirty feet off the ground. “And Derpy . . . did you drop that on him?”

The pegasus returned to the ground with a smile on her face.  “Yes.  I found it over there, behind us when we first came in.”  The flyer gestured to one of the corners of the maze.  

Larry bent down to get a better look at the T.V.  Attached to one of the several dozen shards of glass was a post-it note.  The Paul Bunyan look-alike’s balls shriveled in dread as he looked at the piece of paper.  A grinning monster stared back at the redneck, seemingly ready to jump off the parchment and eviscerate him with its razor appendages.  A single word was penned below in a scrawl that belonged in a slasher flick.  The letters were all bent at wrong angles but still formed the desired word.  “Run.”  

The large axeman swallowed.  “Uh, guys.  Does this look kosher to any of you?”

Ponies and humans alike gaped down at the post-it.  

Jeff shook his finger at the artwork.  “I think I saw that thing in a nightmare once.  Way back when we were dream hopping with Luna.” 

Larry nodded.  “Oh yeah, the Tantibus thing.”

“Right, me and her were in a Walmart about to checkout when the Tantibus made a computer want to kill us.”  Jeff stared at the drawing and shivered. 

“How’d you beat it?” asked Derpy.

“Oh, she blasted the thing to pieces and left.”  The Confederate paused, “But she ain’t here, is she?” 

“Why are we talking about this?” asked Bill.  “There’s the exit, we made it, let’s get the heck out of here.  Buck this maze and everything in it.” 

Berry nodded enthusiastically.  She had become nearly sober after taking a look at the post-it.  “I vote we leave.”

Vinyl raised her hoof like a nervous school filly. “Seconded.” 

The mazerunners were almost to the exit when they slowly realized something was wrong.  The wind that had been brushing the tops of the massive forest of corn cobs stopped. Besides their own footfalls there was dead silence.  Bill noted the deafening quiet but kept silent.  Soon after, the corn cobs closest to the troop dimmed.  

Jeff sighed.  “That weed ain’t gonna let us out, is he?”

“Nope,” answered Larry nervously.  “Ya remember in one of those “Shriek” movies where Shriek is having a nightmare and he keeps running towards a door to avoid getting crushed by an avalanche of babies?  He’s running his ass off, but he’s not getting any closer to the door. This is kind of feelin like one of them nightmares.”   

“Shhh,” the mailpony put a hoof to her lips. “What’s that noise?” 

Bill paused.  “I hear it too.  It sounds like static.  Like what ya hear when you’re trying to find Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and he never quite comes in clearly.”

“It’s getting closer. *Hic* or maybe I’m still concussed from earlier,” murmured Berry Punch.  

“I said I was sorry.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter.  We made it to the finish l--"  The D.J. pony was cut off when the familiar sight of towering corn stalks erupting from the ground cut off their route. 

“Noooo!”  screamed Jeff.  The Confederate raced forward, his empty sleeve slapping his side as he bolted for the exit.  But he was too late.  The human tried to wiggle his arms through the dense black foliage, but the only thing he got for his trouble were cuts on his hands.  Jeff felt the arms and hooves of his friends pull him back from his fruitless escape attempts.  “Mother #*$#*%, we were so close!”  

The static grew louder and louder as the seconds ticked by. Bill closed his eyes and tried to will the sound away but to no avail.  “What would the Duke do?  What would the Duke do?”  he asked himself over and over to calm his icy nerves.  And then . . . the noise was gone.  All sound was gone, save for the heavy breathing of his comrades.  And that’s when he noticed the lights.  

Derpy’s mismatched eyes darted all over the maze.  The corn lights were slowly dying.  Her hooves closed around Jeff’s arm for comfort. The fake Confederate pulled the pretend Wonderbolt close.  His fear-fueled eyes stared into those of Bill and Larry, conveying a message of growing panic.  Moments later, all was dark save for the soft emerald lights of the floating exit sign.

Finally, Vinyl’s shaky words broke through the absolute quiet. “What do we do?”  she whispered.  

“Hold on.  Let me find my flashlight,” Bill whispered back.

“You, Farb,” Jeff said mockingly, trying not to betray his unease.

“Kiss my ass,” hissed Engval.

Larry could hear his friend rifle through his pockets in the pitch black.  He felt a flask being pressed into his sweaty hands.  “Thanks, Berry.”  The fruity wine scorched his throat.  It was a welcome distraction from his current predicament.  

At last the human had found his torch.  The D.J. pony listened to Bill’s quiet swearing about batteries and cheap Chinese flashlights.  He slapped his plastic device once, twice, thrice. 

Time froze.  The beam of light punched up through the darkness, and as if on command, the corn lights came back on to illuminate what was before them.  Engvall dropped the flashlight, his limp fingers no longer working. He tried to look away but couldn’t. Not even the part of his brain that begged him to flee and hide could make him break eye contact.  He heard dismal shouting and felt a growing wetness around his groin.  Finally, the full horror of what he beheld utterly gripped his mind.  

The laugh, the laugh came not from a legion of unseen throats, but from a single television screen in the heavens.  Bill craned his neck skyward for the monster was tall, very tall.

The T.V. leered down from a monstrous hill of living jungle.  “Going somewhere?” the multitude of voices asked. Vines spread forth from its rippling chest like tentacles.  Bill stared at the fiend.  It was like looking into a forest of madness made manifest and yet it looked nearly human. Two arms of oak and two legs of ash held together by hate and horror.  “You’ll never leave.  Here you six will remain to become one with me.”  Its midriff blossomed outwards like a blooming flower to reveal a center of animated sludge.  Bill held onto what was left of his sanity with both hands.  Staring back at him from the monster’s center were the ghastly faces of ponies in absolute terror.  Desperate hooves reached out to him and echoed Danny’s terrible voice from their lifeless throats.  

“No!  No! This ain’t real!  I’m not here!  SAVE ME, JOHN WAYNE!”  Engvall sank to his knees and clamped his hands over his cowboy hat, yanking it down over his eyes.    

Noise.  Loud noise caused Bill to pray louder to his chosen cowboy saint.  It was not the satanic army of voices laughing at him, but the overpowering clash of rhythm, rock, and techno.  Dubstep.  

“Dude, get a hold of yourself.  We need you up here.”

Engvall felt hooves shaking him out of his panic attack.  He looked up to see Vinyl staring at him over her purple shades.  He looked past the pony to see that the monster had been blasted back several dozen feet by the D.J.’s headphones. 

A pair of strong fleshy hands grabbed him by his collar and spun him around to face upwards.  Larry the Cable Guy pointed up at the EXIT sign.  “You see that?” 

Bill nodded.

“Derpy thinks there’s something up there behind the EXIT.”    

The cowboy blinked and looked up at the floating letters. “What?  How?  That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jeff was by his side shouting hysterically.  “Does anything in this bucking maze make any sense, Bill? I’d stick my sausage in a light socket if it’d get us out of this maze any sooner.”  

Berry Punch raised an eyebrow.  “I’d pay to see that later.  So what’s the plan?”

The fusion of demonic technology and corrupted nature bellowed in fury.   With a role of its shoulders, Danny shook off the sonic attack and advanced towards the maze runners, one earthshaking step at a time.

Derpy flew up in the air and shouted, “You ponies and whomans distract the bad thingy while I check out the EXIT.”  Without waiting for a reply, the pegasus flew straight up towards the glowing emerald letters.

Danny paused and watched the pony take to the sky.  The T.V.’s smug, dandelion face twisted into shocked disbelief.  “No!” cried the multitude of voices emanating from Danny and his inanimate choir. “Stay away from that!”  The creature picked up speed, his lumbering form charging forward like a boulder down a mountain.  Danny raised his arm.  Yellow and black spines poked out from the bark of the tree and aimed at Derpy.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Larry roared.  Wrenching a small hand axe from his belt holster, the fat redneck ran forward and launched the improvised missile at the monster.  

The weapon flew end over end and struck the creature’s head, burying itself in one of the corners of the television set.  Danny’s black and white image flickered and staggered, completely throwing off his aim.  The bumblebee colored needles housed in his arms launched into the dirt of the arena. 

Larry’s triumphant whoop of glee was cut short as he and his friends dove out of the way of the unguided projectiles.  The wayward attack stitched the earth right where they had been standing.   

Spitting out a mouthful dust, Foxworthy quickly got to his feet and yelled over at Berry Punch.  “How much booze do you have left?”

The earth pony smirked.  “How much do you need?”

“Enough to barbecue a roided sunflower and a cheap-ass Toshiba.” 

Danny roared in pain.  The ponies and humans turned to see the monster yank out the axe. Snaking vines coursed along the monster’s arms, forming green fingers.  Danny turned toward the mazerunners with undisguised malice. With no effort at all, the monster ground the axe to dust between its digits.

Berry winced at the effortless display of power.  “I’m not sure I have that much.  I was planning to be at home getting glazed by now.”

The fake Confederate brought up his canteen full of whiskey. “No worries.  Between the two of us, we should be able to fry this thing.” Foxworthy paused.  “Does anyone have a lighter?”

The three rednecks patted themselves down.  

“I got something,” declared the John Wayne impersonator. The redneck tossed a book of matches to Jeff.  The cowboy turned his attention to the D.J.  “Vinyl, why ain’t ya blasting that thing with your deaf jams . . . or whatever ya call them?” 

The earth shook as the monster moved its massive form towards the mazerunners.  The Television’s snowy visage finally coalesced into a haggard vision of a demonic sunflower.  “You’ll pay for that, Larry.  All of you will pay.  Tonight I will mulch your carcasses and use your corpses as my flowerbed.”

The white unicorn ignored the threat and focused on her headphones.  She wiped away the nervous sweat falling off her brow.  “Sorry, dude.  I think I jinxed something loose in the phones when we hit the deck.  Give me a sec.”    

Bill sucked on his teeth, his mind racing with possibilities. He looked up at Derpy and the EXIT sign. It might have been Engval’s imagination, but it looked like the letters were changing.  The letters were more luminescent and were slowly floating towards one another.  The pegasus for her part was staring at a particular part of the shifting emerald word. He wanted to call up to the mail mare, but Danny had other plans. 

The flower monster let out a ferocious cry and planted both of his arms deep into the ground.  

To Foxworthy it looked like two very large grabloids from the movie “Tremors” were plowing the ground straight towards him and his friends. The realization of what was about to happen added volume to his cry.  “Shoot that bucker, now!”

As soon as the words left his lips, he felt cold tentacles latch onto his legs and drag him underground.  The ride was over almost as soon as it began.  Jeff wiped the dirt caking his eyes to find that he was hanging upside-down in front of the shattered TV screen.  The redneck, to his surprise, found that he still had a death-grip on his canteen of whiskey.  Hearing a whinny, he looked to his side and saw that Berry Punch was in the thrall of the other set of vines.  In spite of the situation they were in, Foxworthy smiled a little.  The pony was still as cool and calm as when they were on solid earth.  If they somehow both managed to walk out of this maze, he would have to try what she was drinking.

Danny looked from the Confederate to the drunk.  “Any last words?”

Foxworthy glanced at the earthpony.  He looked her in the eye and then gave a tiny head-wiggle towards her flask.  It was hard to do hanging upside down.  Berry stared back for a moment before nodding.  The pony unscrewed the stopper on her flask.

Jeff mirrored the motion with his canteen.  He cleared his throat and asked, “Thirsty?”

The image of Danny on the Toshiba frowned.  “What?”

Sloshing liquor answered the monster.  The human and pony dumped alcohol on the monster until they were empty.  

Danny smirked.  “Thanks for watering me.  You do know soda and fruit juice isn’t gonna hurt me.”

Dropping his canteen, Jeff fished out the book of matches Bill had given him.  After striking one to life Foxworthy grinned menacingly at the Dandelion creature. “Cheers, Danny.  I hope your time in Tartarus is as fun as your trip there.” Jeff tossed the match down at the monster’s feet, and to the Confederate’s shock, it was like setting a blowtorch to gasoline.

The creature’s scream reverberated throughout the maze’s walls. Jeff and Berry covered their ears just before Danny threw the two away in his maddened death throws.  Like a kid skipping stones over a pond, the redneck and pony sailed through the air.  The human pin-wheeled and flailed his arms uselessly, trying to slow his speed and decent but to no avail.  He put his hands over his head, preparing for the painful roadrash and broken bones. Jeff felt something press on his ribs and hug his back.  Curiosity overcoming him, he turned his head.  “Derpy?”  

The pretend Wonderbolt was clenching her teeth trying to keep them both airborne.  But it was a losing battle.  “Brace yourself,” she groaned.  With great effort, the pegasus steered the two of them away from the fast-approaching wall of corn stalks and back towards the center of the arena.  “Let me go, Derpy!”  Jeff shouted.  “I got this.”

The muscles in the mailmare’s hooves and wings screamed in agony. She knew she couldn’t keep them both aloft for much longer, but still she hung on to the human.  “On the count of three I’ll let go; one, two, three!”  

True to her word, the flyer let go of the fake Confederate. Jeff tucked and rolled as best he could.  He felt himself tumble end over end like a bowling ball until coming to a complete stop in front of a smoldering pile of electronics and flora.  Wild-eyed and running an adrenaline high like no other, Jeff sprang to his feet.  Just as quickly, he knelt down on his knees when the pain in his ankles made itself felt. Seeing his friends running up to him, he waved and slowly stood back up again.  A rebel-yell clawed its way from his throat as he howled into the night sky. “We did it!” screamed the redneck.

Answering hoots and hollers joined Jeff’s when the team of mazerunners was reunited.  Foxworthy grabbed Bill’s outstretched hands and shoulder to steady himself.  He looked at Berry Punch.  The pony was being carried piggy-back style by Larry the Cable Guy.  “You okay, Berry?” asked Jeff.  

The pony answered him with a loud snore and the words, “Waiter, make that a double.”  

Larry smiled in sympathy for the exhausted equine.  “Ah, she’ll be alright.  We found her like this when she hit the ground.  Other than a few scratches and bruises, she’s just fine. Let me tell ya what, earth ponies are tough.”  The redneck shifted the weight on his back.  “She ain’t light though.”

“Speak for yourself, fatty,” Berry muttered.

Jeff laughed and turned his attention to the only pony in a costume. “And you, you dropped me.”

Derpy’s happy demeanor melted in an instant.  “I, I’m sorry Mr. Con--, Confederate man.  Y-You were too heavy for me.  I’m sorry about your ankle and . . .”

Foxworthy didn’t let her finish as he slowly knelt down and wrapped her in a warm hug.  “Sweetheart, you did great.  I told you to let me go and you held on way longer than I would have.  If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be standing at all.  When we get out of here, I’m writing a letter to Princess Celestia recommending you for the God Da--, uh, the gosh darned Wonderbolts.”

Derpy’s cheeks reddened as she beamed up proudly at the human. “Thank you.  That means a lot.” 

Using his hat to dust himself off, Bill asked, “What’d ya see up there, Derpy?”

The pegasus pointed up to the heavens.  To Engval’s surprise, the “EXIT” letters had formed a circle in midair.  In the center of the loop was a doorknob, the same color as the letters.  “What in the heck?  How’d you get em’ to do that?”

The mail mare shrugged.  “I don’t know.  When I flew up there, I saw a blinking spot on each one of the letters, and I just touched the flashing bit and that door thingy was there.”

Larry was the one who asked the obvious question.  “Is it locked?”

Derpy nodded.

“Did ya jiggle the handle?” 

The pony nodded again.

“Did ya use your shoulder?” 

“Uh huh,” answered the pegasus.

“Did ya . . .”

“Larry!”  yelled Bill. “It’s a freaking locked magical door floating in space.  Ya can’t man-handle it open.” 

The large Paul Bunyan look-alike frowned.  “I bet I could if I could fly up there.  Sometimes ya gotta finesse the handle open.”

Jeff laughed and slowly sat back down.  “Oh, right.  You’re all about finesse.  Why don’t you tell these fine mares about the time you finessed those stain-glassed Nightmare Night windows down a flight of stairs at Caracole Boutique.  

“Now . . . that was, uh, give me a sec.  I got a good excuse for doing that.”

Engval was only half listening to the conversation.  He was looking down at the white unicorn.  She was still working on her gear with very little success.  “Any luck with that?”  

Vinyl sighed.  “If I had my phones at 100%, I bet I could blow that thing into the stratosphere.” The pony pointed at the new door.

Bill knelt down and looked at the unicorn’s headset.  “Can I take a look?”

D-J Pon 3 gave the human a strange look but shrugged. “Sure.  Just be careful with them.  I paid a mint for those puppies and enchanted them to blast epic wubs. Anyway, I opened her up and cleaned out all the crud, but there’s still something . . . what are you doing?”

The pretend cowboy took out his fake but sturdy six-shooter from his holster and set it on the ground.  “I got an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”

“Lay it on me.  Whatcha got?”

“Okay, well first of all, you gotta tell me what that is over there.”  The redneck pointed off into the forest of corn stalks.  

The unicorn looked and scanned the area where the human had gestured. “I don’t see anything.”

“Keep looking,” answered Engval.  Without another word he took up his pistol and delivered two impactful blows to the pony’s device with the butt of his fake weapon. 

Vinyl turned around with a horrified look on her face.  “Did you just . . .”

“Try it now.  It should work.  I hope,” Bill said, quickly handing back the headphones.   

“I can’t believe you just did that.  This thing is my baby.”  The D.J. snatched her prized item from the clutches of Bill.  The pony examined the headset and to her surprise, he hadn’t cracked the plastic case.  She placed the device on her head.  “Do you have any idea how much I paid for these?  I can’t just pick up a new one at Ponyville.  This thing came from bucking Trottingham.  And . . . you fixed it.”  As soon as the unicorn powered on her headset, a smile crept over her face and her head started to bob to the music.   

Engval let out the breath he’d been holding.  “Thank you, God,” He whispered.

“Bill, you got more balls than I do,” declared Jeff.  

Derpy frowned at the pretend cowboy.  “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Mr. Cowboy.”

Bill cringed under the accusing gaze of the pony’s mismatched eyes. “I know.  But it was the only thing I could think of that could help.” 

“Don’t sweat it, dude,” the happy unicorn said as she set up the headphones to point up at the suspended door.  “Just don’t ever, and I mean ever do that again.”

The fake cowboy gulped.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Hey, Berry.  Wake up.” Larry the Cable Guy set the earth pony down and gently shook her shoulder.

“*Hic,* five more minutes.”

“Okay, but the D.J. pony has her headphones out and is about to blast down a floating door.  It might be pretty sweet to watch.”  

The drunk pony’s eyes slid open after hearing that.  “Oh no, not that again,” she groaned.  “We’re not even at a rave.”

Ignoring her complaining friend, Vinyl Scratch made the final preparations for another wub volley.  “You guys ready?”  She aimed her remote control at her headphones with a hoof poised over the “on” button.  

The group nodded, hunkered down, and as one, covered their collective ears.  Moments later a loud blaring tune exploded forth from the headset.  D-J Pon 3 laughed in ecstasy as the wubs blasted the emerald door into the black ether.  

“Ahhhh, make it stop!  It’s too awesome!” yelled a familiar voice.  

Grudgingly, the white unicorn deactivated her sound weapon and looked up at the hole in reality that she had laid bare.  The D.J. took off her tinted sunglasses.  It looked like some sort of control room suspended in the night sky.  And in the central chair in the midst of all the levers, buttons, and gauges was Discord, clutching his ears and a magazine at the same time.

“There ya are, ya evil son of a bit-- . . . snake!” cried Larry the Cable Guy.  

The draconequus blinked and stared down at the mazerunners in numb fascination.  “You’re not supposed to be here, at least not yet.  You all should be lost, stumbling about in the maze.  How’d you get here so fast?  Where’s Danny?   And how in Celestia’s name did you find me?”

Bill folded his arms and glared up at his tormentor.  “We don’t have to tell you crap.  Now let us out of this stupid maze.”

Discord stroked his chin beard.  “I’ll tell you what.  If you answer my questions, I’ll let you out, you get your loot, yada yada.”  

“Deal,” Larry started to say, but was interrupted.  

“Woah, woah, woah.  Guys, guys. Huddle up.” said the unicorn.  “We gotta talk about this first.  You don’t just sign a record deal without the entire band weighing in.”  She turned to Discord.  “Excuse us.”

Discord rolled his eyes and sighed, “If you must.”

After some confused glances and shrugging, the humans and ponies formed a circle around their wounded comrades and talked quietly amongst themselves.  After a few moments, the group-think ended and Vinyl Scratch spoke.  “Yo.  First of all, we have our own demands.  Number one, we want you to fix-up Berry and Jeff.” 

“Done,” replied Discord with a snap of his fingers.  A blinding light blossomed forth from the chimera’s fingertips engulfing everything.  The D.J. looked around and saw that both the Confederate and Berry Punch were on their feet. Not only that, but all the humans’ costumes were mended, every pony had a shinier coat, and all the cuts and bruises sustained during their time in the maze were healed.  Even her headphones were made new, not a scratch or dent on them.

“What else?” asked the chimera.

“We want out of this maze.  Now!” growled the D.J. 

“Are you sure about that?  I mean there’s just so much more to explore.  Why you all could be in here for days, maybe even weeks,” Discord said with more than a hint of excitement in his voice.  

“We’re sure,” spoke all the mazerunners.  

Discord sagged in disappointment.  “Party poopers.”  With a clap of his hands, the maze disappeared.  

Jeff blinked and looked around his surroundings.  They were in the middle of the Apple Family farm.

“Oh, thank God!” cried Larry.  He breathed in the apple-earthy scent of the orchard.  

“What in tarnation are y’all doin here?  Did Apple Jack invite ya?” asked a weathered voice.  

The Cable Guy looked behind him and saw the scowling figure of Granny Smith in a scarecrow costume, complete with corn cob pipe.  The redneck burst into tears and pointed at the old pony.  “You.  Are you real? You’re not a figment of my imagination. Sweet heavenly beans, boys, have you ever seen a more beautiful sight?”

The light-green earth pony’s cheeks reddened.  “Uh, . . .”  At a complete loss of words, the elder turned her gaze at the chimera.  “This is your doin, ain’t it?  Did you kidnap these men and ponies?”

“Nope, they’re here on their own accord,” replied Discord.  

“Well, ya ain’t usin my maze.  This is a private party.  I thought you were goin to make your own corn mess in Fluttershy’s backyard .”  

Derpy nodded.  “That’s where we just came from, Granny.  We made it through the maze.”

The old earth pony’s eyes widened.  “Well now. Fluttershy and the gang will want to hear all about that.”  She paused and muttered, “Now where did I see them last.  By the pit of despair?  Naw. It was the tree of woe that Big Mac is campin by.  If that’s right, they should be passin by Apple Bloom’s woodshed of eternal aguish. Which means, they should be commin this way right about now.”

As if on cue, six mares came walking up to the Apple Family farm house.  

Fluttershy was the first to notice the newcomers.  Quicker than anypony had seen her move for a long time, she zipped over to where the humans were waiting.  “Oh my goodness, you’re here.  I’m so happy to see you all.”  She looked over at Derpy, Vinyl, and Berry.  “You brought friends.  Good for you. How was it?  Was it fun?  Was is scary? I hope it wasn’t too scary.  Tell me all about it.  Uh, that is if you don’t mind.”

And so, the three humans and three ponies told their tale about the great romp through the black corn maze.  When it was done, Rainbow Dash was the first to speak.  

“That. Sounds.  Awesome.”  cried the pegasus.  “Can we go next?  Can we? Can we?  Please. Now?  Please.”

Twilight frowned.  “All of that sounded very scary and dangerous.”

Discord waved off the alicorn’s concern.  “Please, would I let anything happen to the guinea pigs?  I mean, my volunteer test subjects?  I had eyes everywhere.”  With a sickening ease, the draconequus slapped the back of his head dislodging both of his eyes into his hand.  He placed one in a bush and the other in an apple tree before regenerating a fresh set of ocular orbs.  

Foxworthy and Berry Punch both glared at the chimera.  “We both nearly broke our legs,” declared Jeff.  

“I pooped myself at least seven times.  I know, I counted,” volunteered Larry.  Everyone looked at him with disgust. 

“He really did,” declared Berry Punch.  “That sobers you up pretty quick, seeing a grown man that large crap himself.”

“And I got glitter-bombed with powdered LSD,” the pretend cowboy muttered.  “And not the fun kind that makes everything taste good.”

“None of that was permanent,” answered Discord.  “Nothing a little healing magic couldn’t fix.”

“What about Danny?” asked Vinyl Scratch.  “He threatened to turn us to compost.”

“Yeah . . . Danny might have been a little overzealous with his role as guide and uh . . . terrorist.  I’m going to have to have a talk with him when he grows back.  I might have intervened there towards the end if I hadn’t gotten bored and lost interest.  I was catching up on my draconequus weekly subscription.  And besides, are we going to overlook the elephant in the room?”

Bill frowned.  “What are you talking about?”

“Derpy Hooves, Vinyl Scratch, and Berry Punch have violated the rules of the corn maze race.”  He pointed an accusing finger at the pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony mazerunners in kind.  “You weren’t supposed to use your wings.  You weren’t supposed to use your magic, and you weren’t supposed to get too drunk. Therefore any prizes you three would have gotten are now void.”  Discord crossed his arms in finality. 

The purple earth pony shrugged.  “Whatever.”

“Hey. I used my wubs the whole time,” protested the D.J.

“Can you honestly tell me there’s no magic in your headphones?” asked Discord. 

“Uh . . .” 

“That’s what I thought,” said the draconequus.  

Foxworthy cleared his throat and got the chimera’s attention.  “What now?” growled Discord.

“If memory serves, you still owe the resident decoration hangers some form of compensation.”

“Well, technically . . .” Discord started to say, until Fluttershy flew up to his face and looked him in the eye.  “Oh all right.  You can turn the stare off now, my dear.”  He turned to the Paul Bunyan look-alike.  “Okay, Larry, if I recall correctly, you want an undead h----.”

“Hey! Hey!  Hey!  I changed my mind,” the fat redneck said frantically.  He paused.  “If I can do that.”

Discord rolled his eyes.  “Fine. Just don’t ask to make you or somepony else fall in love, raise the dead, wish for more wishes, blah, blah, blah.  Don’t go crazy.”

The large human looked down at Berry Punch and gestured to Discord.  

The purple earthpony blinked in surprise.  “You were serious about that, Mary?  You’re giving me your wish?”

“Yes. And for God’s sake, my name is Larry.” 

The drunk pony dropped her flask and hugged the big man.  After wiping away some tears the pony looked at Discord and said, “I want to be sober again.”

Discord snapped his fingers.  “Done. Who’s next?”

Berry Punch smiled and took a deep breath.  “Finally.  I’m me again.”  She took the flask she was about to drink from moments ago and gave it to Larry. “Here, have one on me.”  She paused for a moment and asked, “What were you going to wish for originally?”

The large man hesitated and chewed on his lips.  Finally he leaned over and whispered into the pony’s ear.

Berry Punch was silent at first, but a smile split her face and she laughed for a good long while.  “You’re crazy, Larry.  But you’re my kind of crazy.  I’ll see you around.”

The Cable Guy nodded dumbly and scratched his beard.  “I probably shouldn’t of told her that.”

Bill slapped Larry on the shoulder in a show of support and said, “I want to try that fruity shit when you’re done.”  He then raised his hand and said, “Me next.”

“Let me guess.  You’re going to wish something for your pony partner.  Aren’t you?” asked Discord.  

“You know it.  And she wants a wub house by the way.”

“A mobile wub house,” corrected Vinyl.  “I mean, if that’s cool with you, boss man.”

Engvall looked up at Discord.  “I have no idea what that is, but she wants one.  So do your thing.”

“So be it.”  Discord snapped his fingers.  “The mobile wub house is at your place, D-J Pon 3.  By the way, I can hear Octavia’s displeasure from here.  Something about not being able to afford this monstrosity, stuff like that. ”

“Oh jeez. I better get over there.  Uhhhh . . . these are for you.”  The white unicorn looked at the pretend cowboy and levitated the wide-brimmed hat off his head.  And in its place she levitated her prized headphones onto his head.  “Thanks man.  You’re the best.  I gotta go.”  And with that the D.J. galloped off into Ponyville.

“Hey, wait,” Bill called after her.  “I can’t. These are your h---.”  The human felt a tapping hoof on his hip and looked down. 

“Darling, be a dear and accept what she has given you.  I for one know what a wubhouse is, and believe me when I say that you have given her a far greater gift than what she has given you just now. You are a gentleman to give her your wish,” said Rarity.  

Bill took the fashionista’s words to heart and looked at what he had been given. “These are kind of neat.  A little small though.” 

“Oh, are these the Trottingham ear-bleeder 5000s?  They auto adjust, darling.  Here, I’ll show you.  Princess Luna would kill to have a set of these.  These devices aren’t supposed to come out until this time next year.”

While Rarity and Bill played with the headset, Discord looked at Jeff expectantly.  “One left.”

Jeff swallowed and looked down at the pretend Wonderbolt who in his eyes was the real deal through and through.  “Derpy, I can get you just about anything you want.”

“Uh-huh. But I want what you want so we both can be happy.”

Foxworthy fidgeted and felt very hot under the collar all of a sudden.  “Uh . . . are you sure.”

“Yep. Ask away my friend.”

“God forgive me,” Jeff whispered to himself.  He glanced up at Discord.  “Can I have two of something?”

Discord shrugged.  “That would depend on what it is.  What’d you have in mind?”

Jeff tried to rack his brain for anything else, but he couldn’t, and besides he really wanted it, and it was Nightmare Night.  He realized that his dawdling had gained the attention of everyone.  Even Rarity and Bill had set aside the cool headphones to hear what he might get.  

“I want the arms of Stonewall Jackson, preserved in glass jars,” Jeff said finally. “Derpy gets the right arm, while I’ll take the left.”  

No one spoke.  Dead silence followed for several long seconds while everyone digested the latest wish request.

Discord recovered first and slowly clapped his hands.  “I was wondering if someone would have the man-balloons to actually ask for something . . . exotic.  You, my good sir, get a snap from my tail because I respect you that much.”  A hand grew out of the chimera’s tail and snapped its digits.  

Jeff heard the sound of two large glass jars being placed before him on the ground. He looked down and sure enough there were two human arms preserved in a greenish fluid.  

Rainbow Dash landed next to one of the jars.  “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.  Are those real?”

Discord nodded.  “Yep, fully functional human arms cloned from the flesh of a dead Confederate General.” 

“Wait, they’re copies?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Well, yes.  What? Did you think I’d take the real McCoys.  Even I have my limits, Pinkie Pie.  And look, the fluid is glow-in-the-dark, so they make excellent lamps.” 

Jeff wrung his hands and looked from the intense face of Derpy, to the glass jars containing their grisly appendages, back to Derpy.  “So, uh, what do you think?”  

Apple Jack laughed nervously and tried to break the tension.  “I really like the jars.”  She said slowly.

The grey pegasus continued to stare at the suspended arms intently, examining them from every angle.  

Taking his hat off his head, Jeff mopped the nervous sweat cascading off his brow. At last he gathered the nerve to speak. “Derpy, I’m sorry.  I know this is kind of weird and . . .”

“It’s perfect.”

“What?” asked Jeff, not believing his ears.

“I’ve always wanted a freaky lamp for Nightmare Night, but I’ve never had the bits to spend on one this detailed.  I mean you can see the hair on the arm, the blood, the bone, everything.  And now I got one that’s part of a set with my best whoman friend.  I can’t ask for a better Nightmare Night then this one.”

Foxworthy sagged in relief, like a thousand pound weight had been taken off his heart.  “I am so glad to hear you say that.”

Discord scratched the back of his head and took in the scene before him of the Confederate and Wonderbolt admiring the severed arms of a long dead rebel.  “I have so many questions, but most of them can wait.  However, I must ask, would you three humans recommend my maze to Fluttershy and her friends?”

The rednecks did not reply immediately.  They thought for a moment about how to answer until Larry finally said, “Oh, Hell, it’s Nightmare Night.  Go for it girls, you’ll never forget it.”

Jeff and Bill nodded their agreement.

“And if you see Danny in there, tell him Jeff has more juice and soda for him,” Foxworthy said happily.