Sunrise In The East, Sunset In The West (Or: Suck In Those Guts, Girls, We're The Ghostbitchers)
I couldn’t help but chew my lip in nervous anticipation of the coming night. As we drove, and as the sun crawled across the sky with the inexorable surety that only came with a non-magically-controlled cosmological event, I couldn’t help but feel like I was descending into the jaws of a trap.
It was silly, of course. I wasn’t on my way to anything sinister. It was just a Halloween party thrown by one of my best friends. Though, that friend was Pinkie Pie, so there was no telling what sort of surprises she might have in store for her guests. Still, Pinkie parties were always fun, often in spite of the sometimes questionable social experiments that she called party games. Even if things got weird, they wouldn’t get too weird… hopefully.
So why was there this prickly sensation in the pit of my gut that told me this was a bad idea? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were in the woods – deep in the woods – way up North of Canterlot, far removed from emergency services.
Or maybe it had to do with the girl who was currently at the wheel, tapping happily at the steering wheel and humming along with the cheesy and nigh-atonal toothpaste jingle on the radio like it was a Top-40’s Hit.
She caught me staring and flashed a cheery grin, and with a shimmy of her shoulders she started belting out her own lyrics to go along with the ad-tune. Her voice was light and chipper, just a bit high-pitched, and from anyone else it would have been obnoxiously sweet, but she wore sickeningly sweet so well that just a few bars were enough to make me tingle all over. Some people might say that her voice made everything she said sound condescending, but maybe that’s what I was into.
She was just so perky. And the only thing perkier than her voice was her… well, she was perky, and let’s leave it at that.
I smiled back. The ball of broken glass in my gut un-prickled just a little at the sight of her perpetually self-satisfied face, but my hands were slow to get the message. They just kept wringing the brim of the cowboy hat in my lap like it was the neck of someone who had said something bad about my mother.
The toothpaste ad ended and the DJ on the radio announced the start of a commercial-free block of music starting off with the new Coloratura single.
“Oh, boo,” Strawberry Sunrise said, blowing a disappointed raspberry at the radio as she shut it off. “Coloratura is such a sellout now. Suddenly she wants everyone to think she’s a real artist just because she put away the pointy bras and glitter-thongs? Please.”
She suddenly jerked the wheel, tossing the both of us, and everything else in the car, violently to the side. The wheel jerked again just as we were about to drive into a ditch, whipping us back into our lane so violently that my neck cricked. It certainly didn’t help that the car predated seatbelt laws and so lacked those particular accoutrements.
“Whoopsie-doodles!” she declared, throwing in a customary giggle. “Almost hit a badger.”
“I just saw my life flash before my eyes!” I said, holding a trembling hand to my chest.
“Don’t be dramatic, honey,” Strawberry said playfully. Another giggle. “I am perfectly in control of this vehicle. I am one with the road.”
“Being one with the road is exactly what I’m worried about,” I grumbled under my breath.
I pulled down the sun visor and checked myself in the tiny credit card-sized vanity. Strawberry Sunrise had borrowed her dad’s car, and the Packard was what one might call a classic if it was in better condition. As it was, the old beater barely had a working radio, let alone proper vanity mirrors. The one on the passenger side was held in place with gray electrical tape and no matter how much I wiped at the cloudy reflection, the smudges on the mirror wouldn’t come off.
“That’s not the only thing you seem worried about,” Strawberry said. “You want to tell me what’s got you so skittish or are we going to wait until we get to the party to have our fight?”
I winced at the sudden and blunt prediction. Strawberry Sunrise was the most insightful girl I’d ever met, and while I loved that dearly about her, sometimes that fudged my brownies to no end.
The only thing sharper than that woman’s insight was her tongue.
I flipped up the visor, sighing. “It’s just…” I turned my head to look directly at Strawberry, and the explanation for my sour mood caught in my throat at the sight of her.
Strawberry’s kimono was hiked up to her thighs, giving her the mobility she needed to steer with her knees while her hands were busy messing with her makeup. She pouted into her own vanity mirror, a big white pancake applicator in one hand while the other hand prodded daintily at her lips with a stick of liner, drawing an outline of black around her full, plump, strawberry-red lips.
“Road!” I shouted as I grabbed onto the dash with a fortifying grip. “Road-road-road-road-road!”
“Oh, chill,” Strawberry retorted, letting out an impatient huff like she was blowing off a comment from her mom – in fact, having seen it leveled at her mother before, I knew it to be exactly that same kind of huff. “It’s a straight shot for at least a mile ahead.”
The car jumped as we ran over something at speed. Whatever it was, it thumped against the undercarriage hard enough that I could feel it through the dashboard.
Strawberry Sunrise threw the makeup over her shoulder and into the back seat, immediately flipping up the visor and placing both hands on the wheel. I could make out the faint tint of a blush on her cheeks, even through two layers of the clown makeup that we were trying to pass off as geisha-authentic.
“That was probably a rock,” she muttered. She didn’t sound very convincing, especially since she reached up and pretended to be adjusting the rearview mirror to cover up what was almost assuredly a quick scan for any human-sized lumps in the road behind us. She let out a sigh of relief and shot me a challenging look. “Well? Going to tell me what’s wrong or do I have to tickle it out of you?”
I stifled a groan, pinching the bridge of my nose to try and soothe the throbbing knot of the anxiety headache building behind my eyes. “Look, I’m just really nervous, okay? This is our first… thing as a couple and I just want everything to go okay.”
“I guess I could see that,” Strawberry Sunshine said, flashing an adorable grin. “I mean, this’ll be a literal coming out party for us, but it’ll be fine, I’m sure of it. And hey, if worse comes to worse, we can just hang out with your friends.”
My friends...
I sighed. “I really want them to like you,” I quietly admitted.
To be perfectly honest, the majority of my worries boiled down to whether or not all the girls in my life, new and old, would get along with one another. Strawberry Sunrise was a sweet girl, but it was a bracing sweetness that bordered on tart. A little bit of her went a long way, and a little more went almost too far. The fact that she and I got along so well had confounded me to no end before I finally had to decide to write it off as one of those mysteries of friendship that Twilight – the Princess one – liked to drone on about.
Though, there were a few things Strawberry did unequivocally well, and there was no mystery why I liked them, but they wouldn’t apply to tonight’s worries. Those particular charms weren’t really on the table quite yet… yet.
I did really want them to like her, after all.
“Of course they’ll like me!” Strawberry said with her usual good cheer. “Why wouldn't they? I’m fantastic.”
I sunk into the seat, again with hat-in-hand and wringing the brim for all it was worth. I knew I was being silly, but I couldn’t help it, and the fact that my neurosis was being laid bare in front of my newly-minted girlfriend only made it worse. The sense of shame I was feeling was so acute that it almost burned, tingling over my arms and almost assuredly flushed cheeks like I’d spent too long out in the sun.
“I dunno, relationships are complicated. Why does anyone like anyone? Why does anyone dislike anyone? I couldn’t tell you. This is your first time meeting most of them, though, and I do know that first impressions count for a lot. What if you say something, or what if they say something, and then poof? My best friends and my girlfriend hate each other. And then what? Then I need to keep the two most important parts of my life segregated from one another?”
Strawberry Sunrise pursed her lips and let out a slow stream of breath that was probably supposed to be a whistle. She couldn’t whistle, but that never stopped her from trying. It was one of those cute things about her that I liked.
“That’s an awful lot of thinking for such a tiny head,” she said in that sweet voice of hers.
“You’re tinier than I am, you tiny jerk,” I grumbled back, turning away so she wouldn’t see the grin on my face. Sweet molasses, did I love it when she insulted me.
Sweet molasses? I’ve been hanging out with Applejack too much.
“They do know I’m coming, right?” Strawberry asked. For once, I could hear some small measure of uncertainty in her voice.
“They know someone’s coming with me,” I explained. “I haven’t told them about you quite yet, I wanted to do a big reveal thing once I knew that we were, y’know, gonna make it—”
“You think we’re ‘gonna make it’?” she asked, her cute little mouth curving into the biggest smile I’d seen her wear all week.
“Don’t be lame,” I said, tittering – yes, actual tittering – behind my hand. A lot of my nervous energy was evaporating like a bottle of acetone in the lab with an improperly placed cap.
Okay, now I think I might be spending too much time with Twilight. That simile kind of got away from me there.
“Anyway, they kind of guessed that I was maybe probably seeing someone, so I had to tell them a little,” I continued. “Rarity’s got a nose for that kind of thing, and you can’t slip anything past Pinkie where good moods are concerned. Between the two of them, I’m surprised it took them as long as it did to notice I’ve been walking on air the last two months.”
“How long ago did they figure it out?”
“About a week and a half ago.” I shrugged and kept my hands busy trying to worry the deformed brim of my cowboy hat back into shape. “They know you’re a girl, they know you’re very pretty – don’t say a word, yes I said pretty, get over it – and they know how long we’ve been dating, but that’s it. Honestly, it’s all they’ve been talking about since they found out. However this all shakes out, at the very least I won’t have to put up with anymore of their guesses at who you might be based on their knowledge of my preferences.”
Strawberry laughed with a sort of subdued, nasally little twitter of a giggle. “Do they really know that much about you?”
“Yeah... yeah, they kinda do,” I said, sighing. “Twilight even put together a bunch of charts and some simulations on her computer. The stupid program she wrote even did a three-dimensional wire-frame model of your body-type based on comments I’ve made during slumber parties.”
“Did they get close?” she asked with almost too much enthusiasm.
I held my hands over my chest and jiggled my boobs. “These were way bigger,” I said, smirking as my girlfriend’s excitement immediately curdled into a sour frown.
“Well, I'm just so sorry I don’t have big bazoombas like you,” she grumbled as she reached over and gave one of my boobs a playful grope.
I slapped her hand away with a theatrical gasp. “Hey, respect me!”
“You want respect, then be respectable,” she teased. “It’s your fault for dressing like that.”
Her mood was already brightening again. If you could say any two things about Strawberry Sunrise, it was that she was never down in the dumps for very long, and that she couldn’t go ten minutes without pawing at my chest.
And yes, those two qualities were very related.
I smoothed out the wrinkles in my costume, which wasn’t really much of a costume. Just a button-up shirt with Western-style embroidery, a denim skirt that came up to my knees, and a pair of cowboy boots that matched my hat. It really wasn’t all that different from what Applejack wore on a daily basis.
And speaking of Applejack...
“You’re going to make an effort to get along with Applejack, right?” There was a moment of pointed silence, so I asked again. “Right?”
“Applejack?” she repeated, tilting her head in wonderment. “Oh, right, Applejack, that crazy friend of yours.”
“She’s not crazy just because she likes apples,” I said with a frown. I was kind of tempted to just call the whole thing off now if this was going to be her attitude. “Please don’t be an ass. I’m not asking you to censor yourself, just don’t go out of your way to pick a fight, okay?”
Strawberry Sunrise grumbled to herself, likely silently weighing the amount of satisfaction she’d get from stirring up her feud with AJ against how much she wanted me to be happy with how tonight went. We’d been together long enough for her to know that if she made me happy, then I would return the favor once the night was over.
“Fine, I will try to be civil with the apple-jerk,” she conceded, but not without adding, “as long as she doesn’t try to feed me apples. If she makes it an issue, then I have to defend the honor of strawberries as the superior fruit. The truth is the truth, even if it stings.”
“I accept your terms and will ask her to try and return your begrudgingly basic level of civility,” I said in a deadpan, hoping it conveyed how little patience I would have if they let their past acrimony ruin this night for me. “What is with this feud you two have, anyway? How did you even meet?”
“We met in 4-H Club,” she said, simply and without further explanation.
I blinked at that. “You’re not in 4-H Club.”
“Not anymore,” she explained. “There was… unpleasantness. I can never return.”
“Well that’s not mysterious,” I said, crossing my arms in a huff.
“It’s not mysterious,” she said, “it’s exactly whatever you just imagined happened.”
“Oh…”
I decided to let the issue drop. There was no point in putting her in a contentious mood before we even got to the party.
I was feeling better, at least. Cosmopolitan Magazine was right, talking about my feelings actually did help strengthen my relationship. Maybe that weird oral sex advice would work too… Nah, too weird.
Strawberry got out her phone and thumbed it on, humming to herself as she fiddled with the screen.
“Eyes on the road,” I warned.
If I’d known she was such a terrible driver I would’ve just had her ride on the back of my motorcycle. Not exactly kimono-friendly, but at least we would get there alive.
“No, no, it’s fine, just checking how far away we are,” she said. “Map says we’re about a half-hour away now, and the party isn’t supposed to start for another hour. That’s perfect.”
“Perfect for what?” I asked, though I had a feeling I knew what she was about to suggest.
She didn’t answer, she merely slowed the car and pulled over. There was a gap in the forest next to the road that was wide enough for us to pull into. We drove into the woods, just far enough to be hidden from the road by the treeline. Strawberry Sunrise parked us and killed the engine.
“I think we’re both nervous about tonight,” she said, leaning back and working her finger suggestively into the knot of the sash holding her kimono closed. “I think we need to work off some stress.”
“Oh dear,” I said, feeling the heat in my cheeks as my mouth split into a smile. I undid the top three buttons on my cowgirl shirt and leaned forward, giving my thirsty girlfriend something to make her mouth water. “What do you think we should do?”
Strawberry Sunrise finally managed to diddle the knot in her sash loose. Now unsecured, the kimono unfolded around her with a simple tug, like a flower opening up to reveal that it wasn’t wearing any underwear.
She shrugged, letting the cloth slip off her delicate shoulders and down to her waist. “Badminton?” she suggested.
* * *
Camp Crystal Prep wasn’t as well-known as Camp Everfree. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, the abandoned campgrounds had more or less faded into quiet obscurity – lost to the annals of recent history. No one our age had heard of the place before, and even the parents of Canterlot High students were hardpressed to so much as recall the name.
What history could be found, however, was surprisingly grisly.
Supposedly the camp had opened in direct competition to Camp Everfree, marketing itself as an ultra-luxury deal, totally exclusive and only available to students of the notoriously snobbish Crystal Preparatory Academy. You know, like the rich kid camps in teen boob comedies where the poor kids have to defeat the bullies and win the canoe race to keep their Summer camp from getting bulldozed. Like that, but for reals.
Reports of what happened during that inaugural Summer varied, but what was known was that a number of students – possibly even all of them – had died. The causes of these deaths were never reported, and the wealthy board of trustees at the private academy used their influence to pressure the city council into sweeping the entire debacle under the rug.
The internet reveals all shames, though, and in the process of writing an article highlighting local legends and spooky urban myths, one of the kids on the school newspaper had uncovered the first loose thread about the story. He’d done some legitimate reporting, and after tracking down what he could, he published the story. From there, the mystery of the failed camp spread through the school like wildfire.
With Halloween quickly approaching, a lot of kids started talking about having the holiday’s festivities at the spookiest place in the tri-state area. Dozens of parties were planned simultaneously, and Pinkie Pie, seeing opportunity for partying-down, brought the many small parties under the umbrella of her oversight. And just like that, every other plan fell apart in favor of letting Pinkie do all the work. No one was stupid enough to try and muscle in on Pinkie’s party racket, especially when she was promising to throw, as she put it, “A spooky shindig to end and lay waste to all previous and future shindigs.”
I think she was calling it a ‘Boo-tenanny’, or a ‘Horror Hoe-Down’, maybe? There were a lot of names getting thrown around. It’s sometimes hard to keep up with Pinkie. No brag, but I’m a bit of a genius, and while I might sometimes think in strides, Pinkie was the kind of girl that thought in leaps, or maybe sprints, or, like... cannon-volleys.
Was this whole thing in poor taste? Probably.
Was it disrespectful of the memories of those dead kids? Definitely.
But we’re high school kids. Doing dumb, tasteless, and disrespectful things in the name of having a good time is basically the thing that gets us out of bed in the morning.
Strawberry and I pulled into the parking lot at the edge of the campgrounds almost an hour after the party had already started. Our quickie in the woods had become a little more involved than we’d anticipated, and considering Strawberry’s geisha costume required significant amounts of makeup, the majority of our time was spent reapplying it to her face and deapplying it from mine.
“I can’t believe we’re this late,” I said, getting out of the car and stooping to give myself one last examination in the side mirror. I’d found some of her face paint in the small crevice of my ear, and now was nervous of where else a splotch of white might be hiding on my face.
“I think we’re very fashionably late,” Strawberry Sunrise said. She was doing her own last-second primping with a compact, which she closed with a snap and tossed onto the car seat.
“Fashionable my butt, let’s get moving,” I grumbled.
My girlfriend gave me a mutinous frown, but conceded to my criticism, no matter how unreasonable it was. I certainly hadn’t resisted her pre-party overtures, but I knew I had to give at least a token show of disagreement after-the-fact. Strawberry Sunrise was the kind of woman that would run all over you if you gave her half a chance. She just plain didn’t respect you if you didn’t at least try to pick a fight over something petty every now and again.
Still, I certainly didn’t want to be a shrewish girlfriend, so I met her at the front of the car and held out my hand. She accepted it, again in high spirits at my offer, and she played the role of the demure geisha to a tee as she sidled up against me and threaded her arm through mine.
I actually liked this. I’m pretty average sized for a high school senior, while Strawberry was about a head shorter than I was, yet she always seemed to end up as the ‘big spoon’ in our cuddling. Two months of dates, mostly of the Netflix’n’chill variety, had already firmly established that as our dynamic, and while I was honestly very comfortable with it, getting to be the lead as we walked hand-in-hand was pretty nice.
As we walked through the parking lot, we passed by Applejack’s pickup truck, which was parked in the spot closest to the trail leading up to the camp. From what I remember, she was supposed to ride up with Pinkie early in the morning, with all the supplies for the party loaded up in the back. The rest of the girls were supposed to follow in Twilight’s big brother’s car, which Rarity would drive, since she had a license but no car, and Twilight had access to the car but no license.
Gosh, it’s hard being a human teenager sometimes.
I’d asked if they wanted me to come with them to help set up the party, but they’d all insisted that I spend the time primping for my date. Their enthusiasm for my new relationship was both incredibly touching and intensely worrying.
There were a few kids loitering around the path leading up to the camp proper, where the thrum of music thumping out of the main cabin was low enough to have a reasonably quiet conversation. It was mostly the musician boys with their acoustic guitars, hoping to snag impressionable girls with their mediocre skills. They all wisely kept their fingers off the strings as I passed. They knew I could out-shred every single one of them. I’d proven that after the Battle of the Bands.
Besides, they all saw the pretty geisha with the pink hair next to me. I was obviously already taken. A few of the guys even gave me a covert thumbs-up as I passed – silent bro-signals of congratulations on snagging a fly honey. I returned their gesture with an in-character tip of my Stetson.
The camp itself wasn’t much different from Camp Everfree, which I’d visited over the Summer. There was a main lodge, several smaller barracks-like cabins surrounding it, a long-house style canteen for meals, and the customary fire pit and needlessly-tall totem pole in the middle of it all.
As for what was different, for one, the place was in absolute disrepair. The totem pole was so weather-worn and sun-bleached that you could barely tell what animals were carved into it. The cabins were all similarly beaten down by time and the elements. The only thing keeping the place vertical was that no expense had been spared in the construction. It was a beautiful place, diminished only by neglect and whatever tragedy had taken place here.
Most impressive of all, though, was the main lodge. It was a massive four stories tall, and easily half the size of our high school. I could tell just by comparing it to the rest of the camp that the girls must have broken their backs cleaning the place, but even their hard work couldn’t completely wash away the gloom of decades of abandonment.
It was for the best, though, that they couldn’t completely scrub away the cobwebs. There was a vague Fall of the House of Usher vibe to the whole deal, and it certainly felt spooky. Even the throng of partying students, the thump of music, and the angry rumble of the huge generator outside the building couldn’t diminish the air of foreboding.
“Wow… What a mansion!” Strawberry Sunrise exclaimed.
“Is that a reference to something?” I asked.
She shrugged and offered no further explanation, so I put it aside and led us into the building. Snips and Snails, my former cronies from my ‘Bitchy' period, were standing at the entrance, pretending to be security guards and trying to extort a cover charge for the party. I was about to tell them off, but Strawberry Sunrise ended the matter by kicking over their little coffee can, spilling the few dollar bills they’d managed to bilk out of the younger students. The wind rolling off the lake swept away their measly take, and the two would-be con-men ran off to give chase.
The party was in full swing, in the way that only a Pinkie Pie party could be. The DJ booth had been set up in front of a wall adorned with mounted deer trophies, their creepy dead eyes watching with glassy-stares as the assembled teens danced. At the other end of the lodge, far away from the DJ’s precious vinyl collection, was a huge fireplace. It was big enough for me, all six of my friends, our pets, and my girlfriend to stand in, and the fire burning inside was enough to heat the entire lodge.
I glanced around trying to find my friends. I was still anxious, but our little pit stop in the woods had done wonders for my confidence, and I wanted to ride that hormonal euphoria long enough to get through introductions.
A few kids had cups that clearly had beer in them. Someone had decided to take advantage of the fact that we were far out of the city limits to set up a pony keg. I didn’t bother scanning that corner of the room, since I knew none of my friends drank.
Well, none of them aside from Rarity, but she only ever drank wine, and only when her mom told her it was okay. She’d somehow convinced her parents that it was sophisticated and European to let children have a glass with meals from time to time. While her dad wasn’t very keen on it, her mom had insisted that it was better than having her drink outside the house.
My search was ended as someone on the other side of the room screamed bloody murder. I recognized that shriek and immediately braced myself and my date for the incoming tackle.
Pinkie Pie wound her way through the crowds like a hot-pink phantasm. Within seconds of her outcry she had her arms around me and Strawberry, squeezing for all she was worth. She was still shrieking, albeit at a more tolerable level, and she was practically vibrating with excitement. She let go and took a step back, looking us up and down with a grin so wide that it hurt my face just to see it.
“You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!” she exclaimed, bouncing up and down with enough force that her bosoms were threatening to pop out of the bandages of her mummy costume. She turned and focused her attention on Strawberry, who – I noted with more than a small twinge of jealousy – had her eyes glued to Pinkie’s jiggling endowments. “I know you! You’re Strawberry Sunrise!”
The rest of my friends quickly assembled, no doubt following the Pinkie Signal. They all wore similar looks of excitement and curiosity – except for Applejack, who was understandably frowning, but thankfully silent.
Pinkie must have sensed the approach of the other girls, because she spun on the spot and pointed at me and my girlfriend like we were some incredible sideshow novelty.
“It’s Strawberry Sunrise!” Pinkie shouted at them. “Sunset and Sunrise! Sunset-Sunrise! Sunset-Sunrise! Oh my gosh, it’s so perfect I could die!”
“Did anybody have Strawberry Sunrise in the pool?” Rainbow Dash asked, elbowing Twilight so hard that she knocked her glasses askew.
“No one did,” Twilight replied, frowning as she rubbed at her arm. “The bets are all voided unless someone wants to put forth an alternate bet.”
I winced in sympathy for Twilight’s wounded arm. The scrawny girl’s bumblebee costume didn’t offer nearly as much protection as the padding on Rainbow’s football player getup.
“Really, Rainbow Dash, don’t be crass,” Rarity said, chastening our friend with a quiet huff. “They’re standing right here, it’s hardly the time to be discussing these matters.”
“Thank you, Rarity,” I said. “I like your costume a lot, I might add. Did you come as a pair with Pinkie?”
Rarity flushed, accepting the compliment with a grateful smile. Like Pinkie, she’d gone with an Egyptian motif, though more Cleopatra than cadaver. Her costume was essentially a gold bikini and layers of sheer lace hanging off her hips, with a liberal application of makeup and costume jewelry to complete the effect. She’d even taken care to straighten the natural curl in her long silky hair.
“How could I possibly?” Rarity asked rhetorically. “She’s changed costumes four times since we got here this morning.”
“They kept getting dirty!” Pinkie explained.
I felt Strawberry Sunrise tense up, and I turned my head to find that Fluttershy, ever the quiet one, had sidled up to my girlfriend.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Fluttershy said in apology as she took a step back out of Strawberry’s personal space. “I just wanted to look at the pattern on your obi. I like Japanese things and I have a little half-kimono that I use for a bathrobe that has the same floral print. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I guess,” Strawberry said, shrugging. “It’s very nice to finally meet you, too. Sunset talks about you guys all the time, so I'm sure we'll be great friends... And… uh… I like your werewolf costume.”
I could tell from the tone in her voice that Strawberry thought it was an ugly costume, but I was happy she made an effort.
“I’m a teddy bear,” Fluttershy said, tugging shyly at her hair. “I didn’t have a lot of time so it didn’t come out very good.”
“You should have let me make it for you, dear,” Rarity said, putting a comforting arm around our friend. “I would have made you a spectacular teddy bear costume.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother,” Fluttershy said. “Maybe next year?”
Applejack had been awfully quiet, so I turned to her next. Seeing the rest of my girls greeting Strawberry so enthusiastically had taken a lot off my chest, but if anybody was going to spoil the whole deal, it was Applejack. Out of all my friends, she was definitely the most stubborn, and while I knew she’d be civil for as long as Strawberry was, I wanted something more than cold-shouldered civility.
“So… AJ..." I gave Strawberry Sunrise’s hand a little squeeze that was part encouragement and part warning – mostly warning. “What’s your costume?”
“Obvious, ain’t it?” Applejack asked, sweeping a hand over her figure. She was dressed in a pair of chaps and a bikini top, both with a white and black cow spot motif, and a pair of bright white horns were poking up from her straw-blonde hair.
“A… a minotaur?” I guessed.
“I’m a cowgirl,” she clarified, pouting.
“That must be why you’re showing off your oversized udders,” Strawberry said.
“Least I got some to show off,” Applejack shot back.
Our little corner of the party seemed to darken, the air thick with tension. I should've known this was a bad idea. There was no way Strawberry was going to be able to keep her trap shut.
The rest of the girls finally took note of the situation. Guess I was the only one with foreknowledge about this whole apples-v-strawberries contention.
Maybe it was a mistake to have put this off for so long. Maybe I should have at least pulled AJ aside and talked to her first, just so she wouldn’t be blindsided by the news. Whatever the case, it was too late to do anything about it now.
I finally couldn’t take it. I let go of Strawberry’s hand and took a step towards Applejack, putting myself uncomfortably in the crossfire of their angry glares.
“Applejack, let’s talk about this for a second,” I said, trying to sound as firm as I could without being confrontational.
“Ain’t nothin' to discuss,” Applejack said. Her frown tightened and the furrow of her brow made her look like a bull on the verge of charging.
Applejack tried to step around me, advancing on Strawberry. I wasn’t about to let anybody hit my girlfriend, even one of my best friends, so I angled myself to stay interposed between them.
“AJ...” I warned.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back to see which of the girls dared to throw themselves into the middle of this, and to my surprise, it was Strawberry Sunrise.
“It’s fine,” she said as she gently pushed me aside. “Let her say what she’s going to say.”
Against my better judgement, I decided to let Strawberry do this the way she wanted. I knew this was a powderkeg, but I also knew that, over the course of the last two months, I was starting to fall in love with this muckraker of a woman. I hadn’t said it yet, and neither had she, but I could tell that the day wasn’t far off when we'd finally say the words that I knew we were both already feeling in our hearts. I wanted to answer that love by trusting her, even if that trust went against my every instinct.
I stepped aside and the rest of the girls closed ranks around me, huddling together in support. I could tell they were worried for me, and I was happy to have them here for the inevitable. At the very least, having Dash and Pinkie on hand was a relief. Dash was an athlete, and Pinkie, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her, was from a mining family. The bubbly pink girl had fallen out of the womb with a pickaxe in her hands and a knot in her shoulders from breaking rocks all day. The two of them were strong enough to hold AJ back if this all boiled down to a catfight.
My girlfriend and best friend squared off, looking one another up and down like they were eyeing a dress for the fit. Applejack wasn’t much taller than I was, but she looked like a giant looming over my tiny girlfriend. Strawberry wasn’t a girl who shrank away from conflict, though. She stood her ground, and though it was stupid, I couldn’t help but feel a note of pride in my heart for her bravery – her stupid, pointless, pigheaded, dumb-bitch bravery.
“I don’t like you,” Applejack said, wasting no time getting things rolling. “You’re a mean-spirited jerk and I’d just as soon put you in a barrel and roll it down a hill as let you have one of my best friends.”
“If you're going to come on to me you should at least wait until my girlfriend is out of earshot,” Strawberry quipped, crossing her arms under her modest breasts. I could tell she was trying to push them up a little.
“The point I am making,” Applejack ground out through clenched teeth, “is that I may not like you, but I seen the way Sunset’s been acting lately. Girl’s got a sourness in her some days – melancholy something fierce. It’s not all the time, but often enough to make a gal worry…” Applejack’s frown loosened, and her hand found its way up to scratch at the back of her head sheepishly. “I ain’t seen much of that lately, and I may not be as smart as her and Twi, but I can put two and two together and I reckon you’d be the reason why. I dunno what she sees in you, but I know whatever she sees makes her happy.”
“Oh…” Strawberry dropped her arms, a look of surprise coming over her. “That’s… thank you for saying that… I really like her. I'm glad to hear other people think I’m making her happy.”
“Yeah and I s’pose that means more to me than anything else about this,” Applejack said. She heaved a sigh and thrust out her hand. “Long as you keep making her happy, I guess I can look past the bad blood. Maybe sometime down the line we can even be friends.”
Strawberry blinked, staring at Applejack’s hand like she was sizing up a rattlesnake. For a very brief moment, I was afraid she wouldn’t accept.
“I’d like that,” Strawberry said, accepting AJ’s offer with a stiff handshake. “I still think apples are disgusting.”
Applejack shook her head and laughed. “You just wouldn’t be you if you weren’t being the dog's ass, now would you? That’s fine. Rainbow Dash ain’t much better company and we’re still friends.”
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted, blushing at the unexpected jab.
I ran up to Applejack the second she let go of Strawberry’s hand and threw my arms around her. I knew it couldn’t have been easy for Applejack to bury the hatchet like that. She was as stubborn as any woman I’d ever met, and more than once I’d heard her muttering under her breath about feuds stretching all the way back to kindergarten. I had no words for the sense of gratitude I was feeling, so all I could do was hug her and hope that was enough.
“Shoot, if I’d have known I’d get a hug like this I woulda ended this feud a long time ago,” Applejack quipped as she returned the hug.
Before I knew it, Applejack and I were at the center of a big group hug. I was no stranger to this. I loved my friends and they loved me, and sometimes, when the mood struck us, we’d all end up hugging.
“It’s so weird to see that up close,” Strawberry Sunrise said, throwing spoiled milk in the face of our touching moment, as was her style. “Like, the whole school has seen you lot hug each other in the cafeteria or hallways or whatever, but wow. It just… it just happens at the drop of a hat, doesn’t it?”
“Is your heart just a lump of coal pumping soot?” I asked, still buried in the warmth of our group hug.
Strawberry looked away, retreating into the guise of her costume as she dug the tip of her sandal into the hardwood flooring. I knew she was faking it, but it was still cute.
“Well… it’s not all soot and coal,” she said with exaggerated coyness. “You’re in there, too.”
“Awwwwwww~” my friends cooed.
I suddenly found myself forcefully ejected from the group hug by six pairs of hands shoving me towards Strawberry Sunrise. I stumbled, unaccustomed to my cowboy boots, and just before I tripped, Strawberry caught me.
“I’m still mad at you for going back on your promise the first chance you got,” I said, trying to be angry as I looked into her big beautiful green eyes.
“It worked out, didn’t it?” she replied, wagging her eyebrows like she’d done something slick.
I wrapped her in a hug that was only slightly more intimate than what I’d just shared with my friends, gently cupping the curve of her butt through the kimono and giving it a very public goose. She wiggled, not away, but into the grope.
“At least the worst part of the night is over,” I said.
* * *
Another hour or so into the party had found Strawberry and I cuddling on a dusty old couch near the massive fireplace. It smelled like mold and felt like we were sitting on rocks, but it was more comfortable than standing. We’d tried a bit of dancing, but that hadn’t gone well at all. I wasn’t much used to cowboy boots and Strawberry’s sandals didn’t offer much in the way of arch support, so our sore feet had driven us to the stinky embrace of the couch which no one else was brave – or desperate – enough to suffer.
I was the little spoon, as usual, as I curled up on the couch, leaning against my girlfriend to watch the party unfold. It was pretty tame for a party with underaged drinking. The students at Canterlot High were very laidback, and the only real moment of drama had ended up being when Rainbow Dash had led the girls’ soccer team in a cup stacking contest against the boys on the baseball team.
Things didn’t really start getting interesting until the lights went out.
Some of the more skittish girls – and a few of the boys – had shrieked in terror as the place was suddenly plunged into the dual terrors of darkness and silence. The only available light came from the full moon outside spilling in through the windows, and from the fireplace, which was still roaring away.
People naturally gravitate towards light, and soon enough the entire party had huddled around the fire. Mutters and whispers swept through the crowd, blending into an unintelligible growl. According to what I could make out from the buzz, some people suspected that the generator might have run out of gas, and were calling out students from the automotive club to go outside to check.
The mystery was solved, however, as Pinkie Pie descended from the ceiling on a rope, alighting upon the massive mantle above the fireplace like a narrow stage. She’d changed her costume again, transforming from busty mummy into some sort of busty butterfly covered in gore. Strangely, there was a pillowcase tied to her waist with a rope, and it seemed to be dripping blood – not real blood, of course.
“Welcome to my nightmare, boils and ghouls!” Pinkie declared, her wings flapping dramatically. “It’s Halloween Night, and what Halloween party would be—”
“What are you supposed to be!?” someone asked from the crowd.
“I’m Itzpapalotl, the Clawed Butterfly!” Pinkie said, frowning as she squinted indignantly into the darkness. “No further interruptions, and please keep your hands and feet inside the cabin at all times.”
Pinkie placed a hand delicately on her chest and cleared her throat theatrically.
“I was saying, it’s Halloween, and what Halloween party would be complete without creepy tales to spook up the frightens?”
Pinkie reached into the faux-bloodied the sack at her waist, digging around until she found what appeared to be a small sandwich baggie filled with some sort of powder. She leaned precariously over the edge of the mantle and tossed the whole thing into the fire below.
There was a flash of light, and with an audible fwooosh of heated air, the fire leapt out of the hearth. Pinkie chirped in fright as she pressed against the wall, hands squishing her breasts so they wouldn't stick out.
“Pinkie, I said not to use the whole bag!” Twilight’s voice shouted from somewhere in the crowd.
If Pinkie was daunted at all by nearly roasting her chestnuts off, she didn’t show it. She recovered quickly, completely ignoring Twilight’s censure.
“Now, you’ve all read the story of this place in the school newspaper,” she began, doing an admirable job of a stage whisper. “Well I’ve done a bit of digging of my own, and I found out the real story behind what happened all those years ago.”
The assembled crowd gasped.
“That’s right! You see, years ago, Crystal Prep had a headmistress even more of a meenie than old Principal Cinch… She worked her students to the bones, and when she realized they were spending their Summers wasting their academic gifts, having fun, she blew her top.
“She hatched a plan, you see, to make her own Summer camp, unlike any other Summer camp anyone had ever seen. It was more like a prison, and she forced them to do homework, and tests, and to play the violin, even if they didn’t want to play the violin and only picked it up because their moms said they needed an instrument for college applications but they said that they already played the drums and their mom said that the drums weren’t a real instrument so—”
A wadded up napkin flew out of the darkness and hit Pinkie right between the eyes.
“You’re rambling!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
Pinkie rubbed at the spot where she’d been hit, frowning in the direction the attack had come from, but pressing on with the tale.
“So the students, who were already high-strung and super-duper stressed out, came here and worked even harder than they did back home. For a lot of them, Summer was the only relief they had for the whole year. But in this evil camp, far away from the protection of their parents, they weren’t even allowed to sleep, just so they would have more time to study. They were only allowed to eat gruel, and they were whipped while they did math problems!
“But what nobody knew was that the lake next to this camp wasn’t just any ordinary lake. You see, the Native Americans used to bury their dead here, because they said that the lake was special. They called it ‘The Sky of the Underworld’, and according to legend, if you leapt into the water and swam to the bottom, you would fall through to the Other Side.”
Pinkie, ever the show woman, paused, waiting for the facts to sink in. I had to admit, she definitely had them eating out of her hands.
“Maybe the accursed wailing of the dead buried here, combined with the harsh conditions, was the reason that, in the end, the entire camp had a psychotic break. The students turned on their teachers… and then they turned on each other. Thirty students and six faculty died that terrible night. Weeks later, when the principal and the bus driver came up to collect the students, they found only corpses.
“The principal knew she’d never get away with what she’d done, so she climbed to the top of this very building and committed suicide. But according to the bus driver, who told me this story himself, that wasn’t all she did. As she stood at the edge of the roof, she stripped naked and cursed this land, revealing herself as a witch and stating that for a thousand years no living thing could come here unpunished. She then declared her love for the Devil and leapt to her death.”
“Hold on a minute!” Strawberry Sunrise shouted. “The Indian burial ground was a nice touch, but now Satan’s in the mix? That seems like a little much.”
“Yeah!” came a voice of agreement from the crowd. The owner of the voice pushed her way forward, revealing herself as Scootaloo, the girl who was friends with Rarity’s and Applejack’s sisters. “It's really abrupt to just drop that into the story. Why would she even do that?”
“I dunno!” Pinkie said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Don’t ask me, I’m just telling the story the way the bus driver man told it to me! Maybe the principal had just loved the Devil her whole life and never had the courage to admit it!”
“So you’re saying she used her last breath to confess her secret, forbidden love to the Devil?” Rarity asked. She and Fluttershy were standing together over near the snack table, each holding a red plastic cup. “That's actually sort of romantic in a… deeply sacrilegious way.”
“It’s very romantic!” Pinkie said, nodding happily as she found a straw to grasp at. “Anyway, that’s the story!”
Pinkie pulled something small out of her bag that looked like a remote control, and with a beep, the power came back on. She leapt off the mantle and took a bow to mild polite applause, and the party slowly resumed.
“Well, that was mildly interesting,” Strawberry commented. “Dunno about that ending, though.”
“Yeah, Pinkie’s good for a yarn or two,” I said, threading my fingers through hers and nuzzling into her chest.
We sat for a while longer. Long enough to be sick of the stink of the old sofa, but laziness and the comfort of our first public display of affection kept us where we were.
“Hey,” Strawberry said suddenly, her fingertips dancing up and down my side in a familiar way. We were far enough into our relationship that I knew all her little tells, and when she started getting all tender like this, I knew she was about to suggest we head somewhere private. “You wanna go fool around in one of the broom closets?”
“They’re probably all already occupied,” I countered, rolling my eyes.
“Hm… There’s those classrooms upstairs,” she said, trying from another angle. “I heard some kids talking about them. Or we could check out those cabins. Bet nobody’s in those.”
“Nobody’s in them because they’re probably full of spiders and rattlesnakes. I am not going to roll around on a bed covered in spiders like they're rose petals.”
“Come on,” she begged pitifully. “Someone’s going to have sex at this party, and I’m going to be disappointed if it’s not us.”
“We can do it when we get home,” I conceded. She wouldn't drop the subject if I didn't give her that much.
“It's a two hour drive,” she whispered excitedly as she leaned down to lightly chew my earlobe. “We could be naked by midnight if we go now.”
It was tempting. Real tempting… but we did come all the way out here for this party, and it was scheduled to go until daybreak. It’d be a shame to duck out early, especially since I’d hardly spent any time with my friends, who had insisted I devote the majority of my attention to Strawberry Sunrise.
Thinking back on it, they might have been doing a little vicarious living through my love life. I wasn’t sure if that was flattering, or if it was just a lot of pressure.
I shoved Strawberry off me and glanced around, deciding I needed to spend a little more time with the rest of my girls. But to my surprise, the throng of partygoers seemed… oddly thin.
“Hey,” I said, tapping my girlfriend on the arm to get her attention. “Does this party seem a little… empty? Kind of early for everyone to be going home.”
“Like you said, they probably all snuck off to do it,” Strawberry suggested.
That girl had a one-track mind.
“You thought I was serious?” I asked. “You really think that like thirty people just disappeared into the broom closets?”
“Into the same broom closet, in a big sweaty pile!” she exclaimed, a dreamy quality to her voice.
“You’re disgusting.”
Further musings were interrupted by the sound of screaming.
I could tell right away that it wasn’t the normal sort of screaming you heard at a party. There’s a very big difference between ‘Oh my gosh, that dress is adorbs’ screaming and ‘Oh my gosh, you’re stabbing me forty-seven times’ screaming. It was something almost psychic that prodded directly at the social part of the mammalian brain and indicated that danger was afoot.
“What was that?” Rainbow asked as she hurried over.
The rest of our friends weren’t far behind her. Maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was just that we’d been through alot together, but whenever things went bad we always came together.
“I think it came from upstairs,” I said.
Sure enough, the sound of stomping feet and the long, piercing howl of a screaming woman heralded the approach of a hysterical, blubbering Lily Valley. Two girls that I recognized as her sisters rushed over to meet her at the bottom of the stairs, and the entire party watched as they tried to coax an explanation out of the panic-stricken girl.
“Lyra and BonBon are dead!” she explained. “They went upstairs to one of the empty classrooms to do it on top of the desks, and I went to peep on them and they were deeeeeeead~!”
“You went to peep on them?” her sister Roseluck asked.
“I said they’re dead!” Lily screamed, stomping her foot angrily.
Silence. A terrible, thunderous silence, that swallowed up everything but the rhythmic thump of house music. The uptempo beat, electronic steam whistles, and obnoxious police sirens played an aweless dirge for the news that two of our classmates were dead.
But silence is fragile and broken easily.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
I don’t know who shouted it, but the call to run immediately triggered the flight part of everyone’s flight-or-fight response. The entire party funneled towards the exit, moving in a tsunami of panicked, sweaty flesh. The great big speakers pumping music were knocked over in the surge, filling the air with a long static whine of feedback that ended with a fizzle of burned out wiring and the death of the music.
“Shouldn’t we run, too?” Fluttershy asked.
“No way, Jose!” Pinkie said, hitching up the pants of her latest costume – some sort of busty female matador. “This is our party. We’ve got a responsibility as the hosts to figure this out.”
“I dunno, Pinkie,” I said, not liking the determined look in her eyes. “This sounds like police business. We’ve seen some stuff, but we’re Scooby Gang-tier at best, and Twilight didn’t even bring her talking dog.”
“I asked him if he wanted to come,” Twilight interjected. “He said he wanted to stay home and bark at the kids in their costumes through the living room window… Sometimes I can’t tell if he’s smart or not.”
“We don’t even know what the heck killed them,” Rainbow said, “or if they're even really dead. For all we know they might just be mauled. I say we go up and investigate.”
“Sounds like a bad idea to me,” Strawberry said. “Considering we’re in the woods, on Halloween night, at a spooky abandoned camp, and we’re all extremely sexy teens." She ticked off each item in her list on her fingers, holding them out for us to see her calculations. "Add that all up and I'd say we're dealing with a supernatural killer.”
Fluttershy let out a long, keening groan. “Ooooooh, do you think it’s the spirits of those dead students, or those poor Native Americans?”
“Possible, but my guess is a slasher, if anything,” Strawberry Sunrise said, rubbing her chin in thought.
Fluttershy made a sound like a mouse being stepped on. She teetered on unsteady legs until Applejack put an arm around her in support.
“Do you really think it’s a slasher?” Fluttershy asked meekly.
“Hopefully,” Strawberry said, shrugging. “If it is, it's our best chance of survival. A slasher will leave us alone as long as we’re all virgins and none of us has any sex while we’re here.”
A flutter of panic went through me at that suggestion. I leaned close and cupped my hand over my girlfriend’s ear to whisper so my friends wouldn’t hear.
“We’re not virgins,” I said in a hiss.
“Relax,” she said, patting my head like she was talking to a child. “None of the stuff we’ve done counts.”
“We had sex in the car on the way here!” I shouted, disbelief in her assertions overriding the embarrassment I felt over airing out my sexual laundry in front of my closest friends.
“Didn’t count,” Strawberry insisted. “Trust me, when I do something to you that counts, you’ll know that it counted.”
Another scream rent the air, shrill and feminine, and accompanied by thunderous steps like a rhino was charging through the lodge. Bulk Biceps, Fluttershy’s hugely muscular friend, ran down the stairs, five steps at a time, screeching like a banshee.
“Flash Sentry is dead!” he shrieked as he ran out the door and into the night.
“Uh-oh…” Strawberry muttered. “I guess the virgins are getting it, too.”
“This is no time for jokes!” I said, slapping her on the arm.
“Ow! Don’t hit! You’re the one that told me he never scored on you!” Strawberry shot me an annoyed look as she rubbed the spot where I’d domestically abused her.
“Regardless of Strawberry’s lack of tact,” I said, “I think she’s probably right about this being some sort of supernatural event.”
“Considering that it’s us in the middle of all this, I’d say it’s high chances,” Applejack added. “Anybody else tried to Pony Up yet? I been trying since I heard the scream.”
The other girls all confirmed that they were likewise magically impaired. Apparently they’d all immediately tried to take charge of what Equestrian magic they had in them, and failed to do so.
And now that she mentioned it, I actually was feeling kind of odd. The little ball of warmth in my chest I got when I was with my friends seemed fuzzy, almost muted. I knew that warmth to be the love I felt for them, and without it, Ponying Up wasn’t really much on the table.
The girls all turned to me, waiting for me to explain. They all knew where I was from, and whenever supernatural stuff was afoot, they looked to me as the group’s magic expert.
“I think we can assume that our magic isn’t going to work,” I suggested.
“Not even yours?” Strawberry asked. “You’re a unicorn, aren’t you?”
“Not right now I’m not,” I said, frowning. “In this world I’m as human as anyone else. I may be the arcane vector that lets the rest of the girls access Equestrian magic, but that doesn’t mean I get any more than they do.”
Our discussion was interrupted by yet another sudden intrusion. The group that had run out earlier were back, but numbering even fewer than when they’d left. The last of the kids through the door slammed it closed, bracing his shoulder against it while another pair of boys started gathering furniture to barricade the exit.
The group laid sprawled on the ground, gasping for air, shivering and clinging to one another in fright. All at once they seemed to notice that my friends and I were still in the room, standing around and chatting like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
“So, uh…” I began.
“There are things in the woods!” one of the girls – Octavia I think, but it was hard to tell with her costume – explained. “Terrible things, like ghosts and bloodied walking corpses. And those talentless idiots with the guitars were with them, attacking us with chainsaws, and with the cold light of a dark and unbeating heart glimmering in their eyes!"
“You’re very poetic when you’re scared,” Strawberry quipped.
“What are you trying to say?” Pinkie Pie asked, arching her eyebrow suspiciously at Octavia.
“She’s saying they’re all dead!” Applejack’s little sister shouted. She and her usual two friends were huddled together in their own little group. “Everybody that ain’t here is D-E-A-D, dead! Dagnabbed-consarnitin’ piss-bitchin’ murdered!”
“Apple Bloom!” AJ shouted, gasping in shock. “Language, young lady!”
“Golly-willikers and fiddlesticks, sis,” Apple Bloom shot back, “I’m mighty apologetic for my bad-bad doodoo-mouth, but I just saw goddamn sonuvabitchin’ ghosts kill a bunch of our friends!”
Applejack frowned, clearly at odds with what to do, big sisterly-speaking.
“Well…” AJ said after a long moment of thought. “I reckon I still gotta tell Granny when we get home. You’re gonna have to eat some soap later, but I s’pose I’ll let it slide for now if it helps you deal with all this.”
“Oh, thank you very fucking much!”
“Sweetie Belle~” Rarity said musically, waving her hand daintily to get her sister’s attention. She took a sip of the red plastic cup she’d been holding for most of the night. “If it helps, you may also say ‘fuck’.”
“How are you all so calm right now!?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I’m not sure,” Rarity said, taking another sip. “Perhaps we’re all in shock.”
“Or,” I countered, “much more likely, whatever dark magic is keeping us from Ponying Up is also having a weird dissociative effect on the emotion-driven Equestrian magic in our bodies. Some kind of… psycho-magical field. It’s probably messing with our empathy for other people and our sensitivity to violence, at the very least. If I'm right, our magic is just accelerating the effect, but long term exposure to this field on psychically fragile teens is probably what caused the massacre from Pinkie's story. Luckily, we're all basically good people, otherwise we’d probably be out there chopping people up, too.”
“So we’re temporarily sociopaths,” Twilight summarized.
“Well, good-natured sociopaths,” I answered, shrugging.
"What about the guys outside?" Rainbow asked. "Those guys don't have any magic, why are they going all murder-happy?"
I rubbed my chin, humming thoughtfully. "They're probably possessed by ghosts."
"Ghosts?" Fluttershy repeated. "Will we get possessed, too?"
"Probably not," I answered. "It's just a guess, but our magic should protect us, even if it's acting screwy."
“Oh, cheers for us, then,” Rarity said, nodding as she tilted the cup to her lips again.
“Are you drinking beer?” Pinkie asked.
“Assuredly not,” Rarity said firmly, scoffing at the suggestion. “It’s a wine cooler.”
“I thought you said wine coolers were ‘fruit punch for trailer trash’,” Twilight said.
“Well, I did.” Another sip. “But they’re actually quite lovely. Fluttershy had one, too.”
“I had one,” Fluttershy explained, her cheeks coloring as attention shifted to her. “You’ve had five.”
“You make it sound as if I’m some sort of wino,” Rarity replied with a scoff and a flip of her hair. “A little ladylike tipsiness is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a sign of a life well-lived.”
“Wait, if our magic is the reason we’re being affected by this place,” Twilight said as she turned to me, “then why is Strawberry Sunrise so calm?”
I shrugged. “Maybe my magic rubbed off on her.”
Strawberry snickered. I shot her a look, but less than a second later the rest of my friends also started giggling.
“You all know what I meant,” I said, crossing my arms in a huff.
The ceiling above us suddenly exploded with light. It was a pure white light, fuzzy, like glowing fog, and the air seemed to tear around it, roaring like a thousand damned souls screaming in torment. Everyone that wasn’t in my little group also began screaming, pressing against the walls to place as much distance between themselves and the howling light as they could without braving the terrors outside.
The light gathered, congealing like oil floating in water, slick and greasy, but oh so bright. The haze dimmed, and something likes shapes emerged from within the fog, growing in definition until a face, and then a body, emerged from the light.
The being was vaguely human-shaped, but with a horse’s head. It was also nude, save for a loin-cloth and a cape made of what appeared to be feathers. It was gigantic, and even crouched, it was almost too big to fit in a room with a fifteen-foot-tall vaulted ceiling.
“I am the Equinox!” it declared, its voice shaking the air like the rumble of a jet engine. “I am the ancient Native Spirit of this land, the God of Horses! The People, those who buried their dead here, knew this night to be when the realm of the living and the dead were closest. It is on this night and this night alone, at the point at which the seasons change, that I may return to undertake the great offering!
“You all must be sacrificed for the betterment of this land and for the enrichment of the soil, so that the forest might grow fat on your ashes! Surrender your flesh to the Equinox and join the Circle of Life and Death!”
The Equinox lifted one massive hand, and the windows flashed with crashing lightning. The thunder rolled over us, shaking the very timbers of the lodge until it seemed like it would collapse atop our heads. When the rumble stopped, the beast looked down on us, sweeping the room with a gaze like he was surveying an infestation.
“The Native Americans didn’t have a horse god.”
The Equinox’s massive horse head snapped around to glare at Twilight. “What did you say?” it demanded.
“Horses,” Twilight explained, completely unfazed by the creature’s grandeur and display of power. “Indigenous equine populations died out on this continent right around the time the Native Americans were first getting here. Horses as we know them were brought over by European explorers and were later subsumed into Native culture. Prior to that, they had never seen horses before, so they certainly wouldn’t have one as a god.”
“Yeah,” I continued, picking up the criticism where Twilight left off. “And seriously, tonight’s not even an equinox. The Autumnal Equinox happened a few months ago. Halloween is what’s called a cross-quarter day, which is the midpoint between an equinox and a solstice. Cosmologically speaking, today doesn’t really mean much as far as the change of seasons goes.”
“The cross-quarter day doesn’t even fall exactly on Halloween this year,” Twilight added. “It lands a few days into November.”
The Equinox’s big, creepy, side-of-its-face horse eyes – horses are not ponies, and are in fact creepy – blinked slowly at us. “W-wha... what are you saying?”
“We’re saying you don’t make any sense,” Twilight said. She shrugged. “From any angle.”
“Yeah and what’s with the feathers?” Rainbow Dash blurted out. “Is that like, a reference to ‘horse-feathers’ or something?”
The beast looked down at its hands, a complicated look creasing its face. “What even am I…?”
“I’unno,” I said. “Confused?”
It looked at us, its eyes shimmering with more than just light as it seemingly tried to hold back tears. “Do you… think maybe you might be okay with waiting for the actual equinox so that I can sacrifice you to the forest?”
“Sssssss-oooooooh, that’s going to be a no,” I said, wincing and sucking air through my teeth. “That’s in like March.”
“Oh, I see…” the Equinox said, looking quite pathetic as it drew little burning circles in the floorboards with its finger.
“Awwwwww, wook at woo~” Strawberry cooed, openly mocking the gigantic supernatural creature that had commanded a ghostly legion to slaughter the majority of our party guests. “Do you not know what you are? That’s so saaaaaad~ I feel so bad for you! Ooooooooohhhhhhh-poor you! Po’ baby.”
“Hey…” the Equinox said, lifting its head to glare at Strawberry Sunrise. “That’s mean.”
“I’m sooooo sowwy~” Strawberry continued, holding her hands under her chin like a cute little tap-dancing orphan. “Big ol’ mean Stwabewwy is being mean to widdle ol’ Eqwinox, the monster that doesn’t have a weason fo’ existing. Oh, so mean~ So-so mean~”
“I have a reason for existing!” Equinox declared, though his titan-like voice quavered with more than just power. “I just.. don’t… You’re mean!”
With a clap of thunder and a flash of light, the Equinox disappeared. The sound of wailing spirits filled the air, and we could see the lights of their souls ascending into the sky, shouting their thanks for releasing them from their eternal torment.
I couldn’t believe it. My girlfriend just… just taunted that super-ghost or whatever it was until it ran home crying. I was proud, but I was also furious. She could’ve gotten hurt, or worse.
Strawberry Sunrise didn’t stay on her feet long enough for me to decide whether to kiss or kill her. With a long, withering sigh, her legs buckled under her, dropping her gracelessly onto her butt.
“Strawberry!” I shouted, kneeling down to fret over her. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I just touched her all over, looking for anything that might be amiss. Maybe I was panicking a little, but what else was I supposed to do?
“I’m okay,” she said, sighing into her hands. She pulled them away, leaving two big handprints in her makeup. The smile she gave me was like a drink of cold water on a hot day, and the panicked flutter in my chest settled to a steady, worried beat. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.”
“But… but the magic!” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Your magic was being affected by the same weird psycho-magical field ours was, right?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked, laughing tiredly. “I don’t have any magic. I rub up against you pretty hard, but not that hard.” She reached up with a trembling hand to cup my cheek. “You didn’t seem freaked out, so I didn’t want to either. And even if you weren’t keeping a level-head, well… I just wanted to be brave for you.”
Something burst inside my chest, filling me with warmth. I pulled her into a hug, peppering her face with kisses until her face paint was dotted with puckered lips.
“You idiot,” I whispered into her ear. “I love you.”
“I know,” she whispered back. “I love you, too.”
I helped Strawberry to her feet, supporting most of her weight until her shaky legs had enough strength to hold her up. I didn’t let go, though.
I felt like I wouldn’t ever let go.
The night may have had a weird turn, but this was a definite milestone for my relationship. And you know what? I really was starting to think that we might go the distance – past high school, past college, and maybe even further. No matter what adventures lay ahead, I knew things with this straight-talking little ball of sweetness would never be boring.
“So!” Pinkie exclaimed, pulling the whole group into a friendly huddle. “How about that Christmas party? I know this cute little cabin up on Cannibal Mountain. They say there are wendigos, but I know where we can get some flamethrowers.”
“Dagnabbit!” Apple Bloom shouted, jumping up and down, stomping her feet like an angry cartoon prospector. “Everybody’s dead! Can someone just call the fucking cops already!?”
“Right, right, we should do that,” I said as I pulled out my phone.
There would be a lot of questions to answer once the authorities arrived, and it was anybody’s guess how this would all shake out in the end. But for all the uncertainty, I knew one thing for sure.
Next Halloween? Movie night.
* * *