Here's the deal: I haven't had internet access for a few days. I also want to have the next chapter or two of Trot Hard done before posting the one that is already finished. So, to tide you over until then, here's a one-shot story that I've been toying with for a while now. No promises of another being made, but after Trot Hard…well, I'll think about it. For now, enjoy this single-chapter story that makes utterly no sense.

You might think that Ash would freak out when he realized he's not in Kansas anymore…but ask yourself, why? He was in a farmhouse from hell, and suddenly he's on Sweet Apple Acres and surrounded by friendly folks that totally don't want to rip him apart or anything. Sounds like a good trade to me. He'll go more into detail in the journal near the end. I wanted him to have a journal because, if you think about it, during the three movies Ash never really had a chance to sit down and think about everything that had happened. It was literally less than three days from the time he first encountered the undead to getting sucked into the past. Maybe he acted like such a jerk in the beginning of Army of Darkness because he was busily trying not to go even crazier than he'd already become!

Speaking of the end, I tried to end this in true Evil Dead style. Sure, Army of Darkness ended with a cheesy quip and kissing the girl. That was great, and it was my favorite movie out of the three, but I wanted this one to end like most other Evil Dead stories. Remember how Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness ended? Yeah. Ash gets screwed over all the time, and it's always funny when he yells "NOOOOOO!" at the end.

So uh, enjoy. Ash is busy going insane and attaching chainsaws to his hands. What are you still reading the description for? Can YOU find the reference to Dr. Reanimator?

Groovy!

Ash Wednesday was having a problem, and that problem was something he was not familiar with: insanity. He'd never been crazy before –at least, he didn't think he had –and yet he was fairly certain that he was going insane now.

The room was laughing at him. Ash had never liked being laughed at; He'd failed his examinations for the Devine Church of the Alicorn so miserably that his instructors had laughed at him, and that had hurt. He'd never really wanted to be a priest but he'd put a lot of effort into it.

The room didn't care. It was a child's room, filled with stuffed animals that were belting out the worst bleating, long-winded laughs that he'd ever heard. Ash was backed into a corner, hooves pressed over his ears. His shotgun was on the floor in front of him, but he was afraid to touch it because it might bite him.

That didn't make sense at all! Ash reached out tentatively and poked it. It didn't move. He grabbed it and pulled it closer, then went back to shutting out the laughter of the room. The lamp and ceiling fan had started as well, and he wished they would stop.

An awful pressure was building in his chest. Ash tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. The pressure built until he felt like he would explode, until it was actually causing him physical pain. He opened his mouth and laughed, eyes wide and pupils constricted, pitting his own laughter against the demonic noise assailing him.

He got shakily up from the floor, bumbling around and forgetting all about his shotgun. He weaved drunkenly around the room, laughing in the faces of everything he could. He stood in the center of the floor and danced a crude jig, giggling like a maniac. The lamp dipped along with him, looking very happy at having a dance partner.

Ash laughed until his throat hurt and his voice was hoarse. He suddenly noticed that the entire house had gone quiet. "Wh-what's that?" he croaked, coughing a little. "Go on, laugh!" The room remained silent, mocking him by ignoring him. Ash gritted his teeth and grabbed his shotgun in his mouth. "I said laugh!" He screamed, and blasted one of the stuffed animals to smithereens. He laughed again, crawling to the ruined toy and holding his face inches from it. "Ha!" He yelled, "Ha ha ha! Take that you fluffy bastard!"

The floor behind him creaked and Ash spun around, but nothing was there. "Hello?" he whimpered, the madness of a few moments ago forgotten. "W-Who's there? What's there? Answer me!"

Silence. Ash had never heard silence so complete. He checked the pocket of his jacket ('Orange', he thought. 'Sherbet said orange looks good with a blue coat') and found three shotgun shells. He then checked the shotgun itself and, oddly, found it fully loaded. He didn't remember putting another shell in. "I-I'm ready for ya!" he warned. "Me and…and ol' double-barrel here!" His dark mane fell into his eyes and he had to brush it away. "Come out! Where are you?"

The farmhouse remained quiet. Ash had come here for a nice vacation with his fillyfriend, a camping trip minus the actual camping. She'd said it would cheer him up after flunking his exams. For a while she'd been right; he'd been enjoying himself until the sun set. Then all hell had broken loose, Sherbet, Greg, and his sister had been possessed by Celestia only knew what and he'd killed them. He'd grabbed the shotgun above the fireplace, loaded it, and blasted the three of them until they'd stopped twitching. He hadn't had a choice.

Ash leaned against the wall and tried to catch his breath, then started to feel punishingly thirsty. His throat was dry and painful from his mad laughter and he slouched into the kitchen for some water.

The sink didn't work. He remembered Dr. Herbs saying that some of the "utilities" were in need of repair. "But the tape recorder worked well, didn't it?" Ash asked, expecting no answer and receiving none. "Yeah, it worked perfectly! That's a mighty fine recorder!" He felt the laughter returning and held it in. "Nice job, Western. You left us all here to die, didn't you? Hope this is what you wanted."

The floor behind him creaked again. Ash turned around and was struck by a rotting fist. He wasn't sure what a fist was doing there, or why it had decided to attack him, but by the time he'd crashed through the kitchen table he was ready to do something about it. "G-Greg?" he stammered, backing up until he bumped into the wall.

Greg was a good friend and had come along to help cheer him up. Less than an hour ago Ash had buried what remained of him in the cellar. "Hey there, buddy!" the griffon giggled. "How've you been?"

Ash screamed and fired his shotgun, emptying both barrels into Greg's head. The griffon fell to the floor in even worse shape than he'd been before. The silence that followed was, again, utterly suffocating. "That'll teach ya," Ash breathed, reloading quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll teach ya!"

A bucket by the fireplace caught his attention. Sherbet had wanted to make a fire later that night, but Greg had insisted they have water ready in case it got out of control. Ash rushed over to it and dunked his head in, guzzling water so quickly that he half drowned himself. He used what remained to slick back his black-and-blue mane and get it out of his eyes. "Much better," he sighed happily.

After several more minutes of quiet Ash decided that he didn't want to wait around for something awful to happen (again). He had to go looking for another weapon; the shotgun was wonderful, but he had only a few shells remaining. He didn't want to be caught defenseless later.

Ash remembered seeing plenty of sharp objects in the basement, so he decided to start there. The steps creaked as he descended, each step advertizing his location to anything that happened to be listening. It didn't bother him that much; so far there wasn't a single creature that had been unable to find him, and he doubted being quiet would make a significant difference.

There was a workbench set against the wall with something bulky lying on it. Ash trotted over and squealed with glee. It was a chainsaw, oiled up and ready for action! His horn glowed and the implement of death floated alongside him as he wandered about to look for anything else of use. In a corner he found what looked like a collection of leather belts. They might have been some sort of harness, but the individual pieces had fallen apart and were impossible to identify.

There was also a collection of tools in one corner. Ash wasn't sure what to take with him, so he just took the chainsaw and left before anything could jump out of the dark at him. As he was walking up the stairs a decaying hoof reached out from beneath the staircase and tried to trip him, but he ran out and locked the door before whatever it was could follow.

"Now I'm ready for you," he said quietly. Ash sat down next to the fireplace and examined the chainsaw. He was happy to find that, not only was the gas tank full, but the chain looked almost brand new. He set it aside, well within reach of his magic.

For a while he wasn't sure what to do next, so he just leaned against the wall and tried to relax. Ash nearly drifted off to sleep, but he forced himself to sit up and stay awake. "Don't worry," he whispered. "Everything's gonna be fine. Just relax."

"Fine?" Someone asked. "Don't be an idiot!"

Ash leapt to his hooves, horn glowing as his shotgun lifted into the air as well. "Who said that?" he shouted. "Get out here and take your lead like a man!"

The voice laughed at him and, for a second, Ash nearly recognized it as his own. He scanned the room and saw a rocking chair slowly lean back as though someone was sitting in it. "What do you want?" he asked. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because we are hungry." The voice didn't come from the rocking chair, which had started to move back and forth at a relaxed pace. "We've been alone for so long. Your friend Western Herbs was fun for a while, but we want new blood! You are next."

Ash still had his shotgun aimed at the chair, but he didn't think it represented any real threat. In fact it was probably meant to distract him from the real danger, whatever that was. "What are you?"

The laughter that sounded wasn't the insane, maniacal laughter that he had taken part in earlier. It was calm, cold, and utterly devoid of mirth. "We are the things that were and will be again. We are the dead, bound in flesh but cast into a book by the two beings that knew us."

"C-Celestia and Luna?"

An angry growl made the entire farmhouse vibrate. "We hate those names!" the voice snarled. "We will overcome the pathetic limits they have imposed. The world will be ours, starting with you!" It laughed again, this time angry and spiteful. Other voices began to join in. "You will be dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!"

Ash dropped to the ground and covered his ears, screaming to drown out the awful noise. The laughter returned with a vengeance and he emptied his lungs over and over.

Again the silence returned and he failed to notice. Eventually Ash sat up and looked around, shotgun held close by just in case this was a trick. "Take it easy," he told himself. "Just…just relax. You're dreaming or hallucinating or something. You'll be fine."

"Fine?" the voice asked again. Ash howled in a blind rage and blew the rocking chair to bits, though it had long-since stopped moving. He whirled around and tried to find who was speaking, but there was no one that he could see.

He caught his reflection in a mirror and nearly shot it. Ash sighed and walked over to look at himself. He was a mess, covered in blood that was from numerous sources both alive and dead. His mane, though slicked back and out of the way, was a tangled mess. His eyes were wild and frightened. "You need to calm down," he ordered himself. "Seriously. One way or another, panic doesn't help."

He nodded as if to affirm what he'd said. "Good. Just try to remain calm. You're alright now."

The Ash in the mirror leapt out at him and wrapped its hooves around his neck. "I told you not to say that!" it growled. "We just killed our fillyfriend, our best friend, and our sister. Does that seem alright to you?"

Ash screamed and tried to pull away, but the specter in the mirror had him in a death grip "Murderer!" it shrieked, now the multitude of voices again. "Killer! Butcher! Monster!" It howled with laughter as its teeth grew into fangs, then grabbed Ash's right hoof and bit so hard that he could hear bone crunch. He blasted the mirror with his shotgun in a desperate attempt to get away and the monster shattered along with the glass.

Ash crawled away, leaving a thin trail of blood on the hardwood floor. Tears streamed down his face from the pain. He remembered the leather straps in the basement and thought about making himself a tourniquet.

The pain in his hand suddenly disappeared, replaced by a tingling numbness. Ash saw fractures slowly creeping across his hoof and up into his flesh. He cried out and held the extremity close, trying to pinch off whatever it was that was invading his leg. His hoof began convulsing, putting his entire leg through spasms that he couldn't control.

Just when he thought things couldn't get worse Ash became aware that something was…wrong. His hoof wasn't just twitching randomly. Out of nowhere it rocketed up into his jaw, sending him sprawling back onto the floor. "What the-oof!" His own leg drove itself into his belly, then chopped him across the neck. Ash forced it to the ground and sat on it, watching as it squirmed around trying to get free.

"You bastards!" he yelled. "Give it back! Give me back my hoof, you dirty sons of…of…uh-oh." His hoof finally managed to get free and tugged him toward the kitchen. Ash was pulled along with far more force than his hoof should have been able to manage. He grabbed hold of the doorframe and watched in horror as the aging wood fell apart under the sudden pressure.

The possessed hoof moved behind Ash's head and rammed it onto the countertop. "Traitor!" Ash shouted as his face smashed into the stove. "Stop it!" He tried to get up, but his hoof held him firmly in place. It slid him painfully over into the stove again, then began fumbling with the controls. "No you don't!" he shouted, and wrenched himself away. He got hit in the stomach again for his trouble, but eventually he managed to kneel on his own leg and stop the infernal thing from jerking him around anymore.

Ash noticed that his chainsaw was still sitting next to the fireplace. "Oh, now you're in for it!" he yelled, floating it over with his magic. "That's right, you bastard! It's three hooves against one." He yanked the starter rope. "Consider yourself cut from the team!"

A bloodied Ash tumbled down the basement stairs, clumsy on only three legs. And yet, he told himself, they were his three legs. He immediately found the pile of leather straps and, after selecting the shortest one, bound the bloodied stump at the end of his leg. He had lost just enough to make him lopsided.

The chainsaw and shotgun floated down after him. "Now I'm angry!" Ash laughed. "Oh, you're gonna hate me after this!" He yanked a pair of ankle shackles off the wall, trying not to think about what they were originally intended for. The cabin had been passed from owner to morally dubious owner over the years and he was glad he didn't know all the details of what had gone on before his "friend" Western Herbs had acquired it. "You're…you're…going to hate me!"

It was surprisingly easy to create the harness, but Ash still needed to bind his leg in something. He ripped off most of his undershirt and wrapped it around what remained of his leg, using the leather strap to hold it in place. "Let's do this!" he laughed, and jabbed the stump into the leg manacle he'd attached to the chainsaw. He tightened the straps with his magic and held up the "modified" limb for inspection.

It was an impressive piece of work, though he admitted some personal bias. A steel leg picked up where his natural one left off. He'd found an antique bathtub in the basement and had scavenged the "legs" from it. They looked exactly like those of a griffon, complete with claws that he'd sharpened to wicked points. The chainsaw itself stuck out from the leg at a right angle.

Ash yanked the starter rope and listened to the chainsaw's engine rev up. He then took the whirling chain to the barrel of his shotgun, cutting it down to a more maneuverable size. He inspected his work and, with a smile that could have frightened the undead back into whatever hole they had crawled from all on its own, slid the shotgun into the sheathe he'd strapped to his back. "Groovy."

Morning was moments away now and the sun was just starting to rise. Ash prodded the still-cold body of Fizz, a pony he'd known from work that had shown up in the middle of the night. He had no idea what Fizz was doing here, but he'd shown up dead and was now even deader.

As sat down on the bed and looked around at the toys crowding the room. "Nobody laughing now," he said quietly. "Nope. Nobody but me."

"Not true!" A familiar voice called. Ash readied his weaponry, but since nothing threatening had appeared yet he didn't know which way to look. "Don't think that we'll be gone just because the sun rises. You're ours, Ash! Ours forever!"

Something in the basement howled, like a hurricane trapped belowground. The air in the farmhouse was quickly whipped up into a powerful whirlwind that threatened to blow Ash right off his remaining hooves. He braced against the door and tried to ride out the storm, but the winds became too strong. He couldn't even think straight in the noise and chaos of a tornado indoors, let alone do anything to fight against it. He was pulled out of the bedroom and down the hall, towards the cellar he had so recently used. He caught hold of a table as he passed by and held on for dear life.

The desk in the corner of the living room was slowly inching along, marring the wood beneath it as it scraped by. "No!" he shouted against the howl of the wind, "For Goddess's sake, leave me alone!"

The desk tumbled forward and crashed through the table he was clinging to. Wood splintered and, with his anchor destroyed, Ash flew backwards and into the cellar. His head caught the cellar door as he passed and the world went dark.

Applejack eased open the cellar door and peeked into the darkness. "What the hay was that?" she whispered. She'd heard thunder only moments ago, like a storm had somehow been trapped in her apple cellar. "You heard that too, right?"

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh stood beside her. "Sounded bad, whatever it was. Somepony might be hurt."

"Yeah, I know." Applejack sighed and firmly straightened her hat. "You comin'?" They walked carefully down the steps, each wondering what they would find at the bottom. Applejack found the lantern hanging from the rafters and, after several attempts, managed to light it.

A frightened shout startled both of them and something like a small explosion ripped through the cellar. Big Mac felt something tug at his harness and almost lost his balance. He grabbed Applejack and yanked her back behind a crate of apples. "Come and get it!" Somepony shouted. "Come on, let's do this!" When nothing happened for a while the angry voice seemed a little confused. "H-Hello?" it called.

"Y'all got ten seconds to explain!" Applejack warned. "Then I buck you into next week!"

"You're alive?" Somepony asked. "Oh…oh, that's great! Listen, I…uh, what time is it? I think I hit my head on the way down here."

"Around noon." Applejack gave her brother a questioning glance, but he only shrugged. She noticed that there were deep grooves in his harness, like someone had raked splinters out of the wood. "Listen Mr. Whoever-you-are, you're in our cellar, so we'll just ask the questions if you don't mind."

Something stumbled out of the darkness. Applejack could make out a haggard, pony-shaped mass slowly making its way toward the cellar doors. "I'm sorry about that," the stranger said. "Dr. Herbs told my friends and I we could stay here. We didn't know it was private property. I'll just, uh, be on my way then."

Applejack and Big Macintosh followed the pony up the cellar stairs, wondering if they had anything to fear from him. He'd already attacked them with something. Neither of them had ever seen anything like the explosion of fire and noise he had created. Maybe it was some sort of unicorn magic.

"Wait a minute!" the stranger said, "Where the…where the hell am I?"

Big Macintosh got to the top of the stairs first. "Sweet Apple Acres," he said calmly. "Mind tellin' us what you were doing down there?" He looked the strange pony over and was shocked to see that he was missing one of his hooves.

That wasn't all that was wrong with him. The denim-blue unicorn that had stumbled out of the apple cellar was an absolute mess. He was covered from horn to hooves in blood, his jacked had been torn to shreds, and his eyes had a wildness to them that was downright unsettling. Big Macintosh, who towered over the stranger like one of the apple trees he cultivated, took a step back.

"This isn't Sweet Apple Acres!" the unicorn argued. "I've been there! I was there last night! The whole place is falling apart!"

"Whoa Nelly, just simmer down for a spell!" Applejack cautioned. "Why don't we just start from the beginning? I'm Applejack. This is my brother, Big Macintosh."

The blue unicorn looked them over warily, then extended his good hoof and shook. "Ash," he said. "Ash Wednesday. Some friends and I were staying at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for the weekend. It was sort of a mini-vacation."

Applejack smiled warmly, trying her best not to alarm Ash in any way. As crazy as he looked, the poor unicorn had obviously been through a lot. "So far so good," she said. "What happened then?"

Ash turned to look at the rows of apple trees that extended far off into the hills. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something until his shoulders slumped tiredly. "Nothing," he said, sounding thoroughly defeated. "Never mind."

Big Macintosh pointed a hoof at the contraption on Ashe's leg. "What's that, if you don't mind my askin'?"

Ash lifted his hoof and examined the harness, then smiled. "It's for cutting firewood. Don't worry about it."

From the journal of Ash Wednesday:

I've got no idea where I am anymore. I think this is still Equestria, but I don't recognize it. The technology here is primitive and the people are almost annoyingly friendly. I've got the terrible suspicion that I've been sent back in time, or to some other world where Equestria didn't develop the same. It wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen to me.

I've taken up living with the Apple family. They don't recognize my shotgun for what it is, and I haven't seen fit to tell them. I also lied about the chainsaw. Hopefully they don't ask why it was strapped to my leg.

I found some of the things my friends brought with them in the cellar. A lot of Greg's college books made the trip, but so far nopony has pressed me too much for information. Mostly I just say that I don't remember what happened and leave it at that.

Celestia and Luna still exist here, but I'm afraid to talk to them. If they try to send me back they would either fail –which wouldn't be so bad –or succeed, in which case I'd have to explain what happened in that cabin. How could I explain killing my friends? I can't just say that the devil made me do it.

There's another possibility if I go back: What if the book is still there? What if I went back and it was just like being in the cabin, only the entire world was the same way? There might not be anything left. We woke something up, and that something might have spread.

My cutie mark appeared. I didn't realize it until I tried to take a bath because my clothes covered it. It's a crossed chainsaw and shotgun. What in Equestria is that supposed to mean? I don't think about it if I can help it. It's best to leave what happened behind me.

I think I'll stay here. As I've just explained, there's nothing waiting for me back in Trottingham. I'd be locked away as some kind of homicidal maniac that butchered his friends, provided I didn't get eaten instead. And I'd rather avoid being eaten.

So, for the foreseeable future, I'll be here at Sweet Apple Acres. I haven't seen one dead thing that didn't stay dead –in fact, I haven't seen many dead things at all –and that puts this place a notch up from where I came from. If my options are staying here and being happy or going back and being locked up (or, again, eaten) then I'll just settle my flank right here on this farm if it's all the same to the rest of the world.

Hopefully I can forget about what happened. I dream about it sometimes, and it doesn't scare me. It also doesn't scare me that it doesn't scare me. Does that make sense? It does to me. I came out alive because I was lucky, yes, but I was also tough enough to fight off that evil for a while. I wanted to live so badly that I wasn't afraid to kill (or re-kill) for it. I'd do it again, too.

Actually, if I could do it all again, I'd just stay the hell away from scary farmhouses in the woods. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. At least I've got a nice life here to look forward to. Not only that, but Applejack has a unicorn friend that's studied magic. Maybe I can talk to her about what happened. Not, you know, to go back or anything because Celestia knows I don't want that. It would just be nice to know where I am now.

There's another friend of hers, grey with a purple mane. What a knockout! Living here might be even better than it looks if I just use a little of the old Wednesday Charm.

Ash smiled and put away his journal, locking it in a trunk at the end of his bed. The other possessions from his old life were there too. He hadn't taken them out since putting them away almost a month ago.

"As if they would help you anyway!" Ash gasped and looked around. He was alone, or so he thought. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on his wall and sighed in relief; the reflection wasn't moving on its own. He moved closer to it and poked the glass with a hoof.

When nothing jumped out at him Ash chuckled and tried to write it off as his imagination playing tricks on him. That was when his reflection gave an obvious, cartoonish wink and laughed. "No," Ash breathed. "Not again! No! NOOOOOOOO!"

Here's something I bet you weren't expecting: I actually designed the Ash pony! Just pretend those straps are on his other hoof. Go here: .com/art/Pony-Creator-Full-Version-254295904

That's a pony builder I found. Then, put in this for the pony code:

And this for the accessories:

For extra fun, this is the pose:

There you go. Just pretend the leather straps are on only his right hoof or something; a chainsaw wasn't included in the builder. Look, he's covering his adorable widdle ears from the horror of the laughing room!