Prologue:

The night was cold, the moon was pale, and the air held the stench of death as a crowd of frightened ponies gathered around City Hall.

"What's going on?" called a Pegasus, "My wife just tried to eat me!"

"My son ate his sister!" said a Unicorn, whimpering and crying, "He kept moaning, and he was drooling blood and…it was awful!" She started sobbing uncontrollably, but no pony came to comfort her.

The crowd kept shouting questions and frightened statements about the horrors they had just experienced in the "safety" of their own homes. Out of all the questions asked, none were answered, for there was no pony at City Hall who could answer them. In fact, there wasn't anypony at all in City Hall. Mayor Mare wasn't there, and neither were any of her fellow politicians.

Ponies were beginning to panic. The words "infection" and "zombie" were tossed around quite a bit, and pretty soon the whole crowd was in an uproar, trying to decide what they should do. Should they run? Should they lock themselves in their homes?

"What in Celestia's name do we do! Speaking of Celestia, where is she?"

"She's abandoned us! The Princess has abandoned us!"

In the far distance, dull moans and decaying ponies dragging their hooves in the dirt reached their ears, and a sharp howl pierced through the disconcerting sound of groaning ponies. Sharpened claws began padding the ground, and a strange looking creature leaped into view, landed squarely on the top of the stairs of City Hall. It was a scary looking creature, but it didn't appear to be hostile— it looked like a wolf, but antlers protruded from its head; instead of a fuzzy wolf tail, it was a thick, scaly serpent's tail at least two pony-lengths long. When the creature spoke, it was clear that she was both female and scared out of her wits.

"Everypony! I need you to listen to me," said the creature, casting her paw up for everypony to see, "As you can plainly see, Ponyville has been infested with zombies. I'm not sure what's caused it, but something must be done before we all get infected."

"What the hell are you?" called an Earth Pony, in the far back.

"I'm a Chimera, now listen—!"

"How can you help us?" shouted another pony.

"I'm getting to that. Please, let me—"

"Chimeras are nothing but pure evil! She's just going to cause us more trouble,"

And just like that, more panic set in and ponies began shouting all at once, asking questions and shouting accusations. The Chimera groaned audibly and shook her head, "Goddammit, listen! I can help you if you just let me speak." Few ponies quieted down and turned their heads to her, but she continued anyway, "I'm a witch doctor, and I was raised by the zebra who lived out in the Everfree Forest. I can help you if you just calm the hell down!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, and her voice echoed in the cold night air. The crowd of ponies fell silent immediately and turned to stare at her.

The moaning was getting louder. The Chimera breathed in deep, "All right, we need to act fast. My name is Silver Strike, and as I've said before, I'm here to help all you ponies. We need to fortify some defense and create a wall between us and those zombies. If we can do that now, then maybe there's hope for us. Maybe."

"Why should we trust a Chimera?" challenged a Unicorn, as he started to climb the stairs to get at the Chimera.

"Because, I was raised by ponies, I'm a witch doctor who could possibly reverse the effects of zombification, and I am perhaps the only hope for survival that you guys have got." She whipped her tail at the Unicorn, and he backed away. No pony else came up to challenge her. "Ok, now who's with me?"

These first 3 chapters were written by MyInnerWeirdo. She couldn't continue writing this and gave me full permission to continue with it.