Chapter 1: Meadow Frolic
The murky puddle splattered beneath a green-gray hoof. The limb lingered in the cool mud too long before staggering forward again. The meadow, its weeds arching with the weight of passed rain, was eerily vacant, eerily motionless, aside from the lurching creature. Night was coming, cloaking some of the animal's progress, but the sporadic thumps and swaying of grass reminded those gathered on the edge of the field that they were not alone.
"There!" one of the witnesses yelped, flinching at another splash, too near for comfort. Her companions hushed her and she scuttled backwards in embarrassment and fear. A sickening silence fell over them all as their eyes focused, unblinking, at the patch of tremulous cattails from which the sound had issued.
Nothing. Not a whisper of weeds or a plop of water. The darkness intensified around the group of ponies guarding the field, threatening to destroy their advantage of sight. Though it was becoming difficult to see, their enemy's presence was undeniable. The bitter, rotting stench filled the air around them, causing the nervous pony who had exclaimed before to gag and cover her muzzle with the crook of her foreleg. A lavender Pegasus with a braided turquoise mane turned briefly to eye the retching creamy-yellow pony. You didn't have to come, she mouthed with an out-of-place smirk. The anxious pony stared back at her pathetically through her tangle of wavy magenta hair but made no reply. Suddenly, her green eyes widened and she jolted into a rigid pose. The turquoise-maned pony followed her alarmed gaze and couldn't help but gasp as she saw another member of their party, a gray-blue pony with ratty black dreadlocks, creeping toward the meadow.
"Splicer!" the braided Pegasus hissed.
Splicer paused to look over her shoulder at the others. In her mouth, she carried a battered club. Her carmine eyes revealed her disturbing enthusiasm. Splicer lived for this job. The other ponies were equipped with well-kept blades, but she forewent the sharp swords for the bloodied bludgeon she always carried, even in the middle of the day. It wasn't more efficient to club to second death the unnatural visitors the town of Woostirrup had been plagued with recently, but the rough wooden weapon she carried had become her trademark, and she clearly delighted in the brutal beatings she delivered. She grinned around her club before turning her attention back to the vegetation.
"Pele, stop her," the jumpy yellow pony whimpered, nudging the Pegasus and staring after Splicer in a barely suppressed panic. Pele didn't move. She gritted her teeth quietly, her golden eyes locked onto Splicer as the daring pony took another few steps forward. None of the ponies dared to breathe as the terrible silence resumed. Splicer inched closer and closer to the patch of weeds, her muscles clearly tense in the bluish bloom of moonlight spreading across the field. Yards away, feet away, almost beneath the water-bowed grass…
"Cheer Chime! Pele! Great Celestia, I totally forgot we were guarding tonight!"
Everypony let out a startled cry and whirled to face the newcomer.
"Hemp, shh!" Pele whispered in a strained tone once she'd regained herself. The periwinkle pony that had just arrived stopped in his tracks, his pink eyes darting in confusion from Cheer Chime, the yellow and magenta pony, to Pele and back from behind his shaggy, polychrome mane. The situation dawned on him.
"Oh, shit!" he said in a lowered voice, dipping his head as he hurried to join Cheer and Pele. His eyes landed on Splicer and he gasped again. "Splice! What the f-"
A rustling in the vegetation instantly hushed the group. All eyes flashed toward the field. A moment of quiet, and then a small splash. It was all the invitation Splicer needed to launch her attack.
The gray-blue pony charged into the weeds, swinging her solid weapon in a wide, powerful arc. Miraculously, the meaty thunk of club meeting flesh confirmed a hit. A spray of blood painted Splicer's flank, partially covering her rusted-gears cutie mark just before she vanished completely from the sight of the other ponies.
Wordlessly synchronized, Hempy, Cheer, and Pele galloped after their battle-hungry friend, blades drawn and clamped tightly in their jaws. A chilly shower of rain water from the tall grasses drenched them as they followed the splashing and clomping of hooves deeper into meadow. Cheer whinnied shrilly, signaling Hempy and Pele over to the trampled, blood-spattered trail Splicer and her target had left. A shudder ran down Cheer's spine as she raced along the path. There was something wrong about this fight. It was lasting too long for Splicer. The wide trail also concerned her. Those affected by the virus weren't known to retreat.
She was abruptly shaken from her rapid-fire frets as she slid to a halt through the slick mud of a small clearing free of vegetation. Pele appeared at her side in an instant, levitating above the soggy ground with swift flutters of her lavender wings, resembling the hummingbird on her haunches. Hempy tumbled into Cheer a moment later, his eyes wider than they'd ever been seen by the others. He stared, horrified, at the bloody jumble that surrounded them. A mass of undead ponies lilted through the muck toward them, stumbling over the still corpses that had clearly been exposed to Splicer's club. Mutilated limbs, dangling eyes, blood-crusted manes, the overpowering, putrid odor... Cheer clenched her curved sword tighter in her jaws to prevent adding her vomit to the messy battlefield. She breathed heavily through her mouth, her eyes scanning the area for a sign of her friend.
"I'm finding Splicer!" she called before leaping over a slain zombie. Adrenaline washed over her in a fiery rush and her fear transformed into ferocity just as her blade bit into the rotting flesh of a dingy orange unicorn. Once she was fighting, she could tolerate the atrocities well. It was the suspense before the brawl that drove her to her wit's end.
Pele didn't reply. A lumbering red zombie was barreling toward her. With a mighty thrust of her wings, she rocketed skyward. Twisting backward in midair, she angled herself toward the ground again, her double-bladed sword securely between her teeth. She beat one wing to whirl herself into a plummeting spiral, headfirst, the double-blade turning like a silver propeller with the rotation of her body. The deadly cyclone of feathers and steel sliced through the moaning crowd of four undead ponies below, neatly cleaving heads from necks. Pele pulled up and out of reach, steadying herself safely above the gory scene. She took the opportunity to survey the area as well. A few yards away, Cheer was lithely bounding around her adversaries, swiftly decapitating each one before they could snap at her. Hempy haphazardly hacked his way through a small cluster of zombies with his broad ax. His flailing technique was remarkably effective. Most of the undead below were no longer moving, but Splicer was still nowhere to be seen. An active clump of the affected caught Pele's attention and she headed toward them, intending to finish them off. She hesitated, however, as one was suddenly launched out of the group and into the mud several feet away. A familiar bluish hoof retracted back into the repulsive tangle.
"Splicer!" Pele called, drawing the attention of Hempy and Cheer, who were nearly finished disposing of their opponents. In her shock, she'd dropped her sword and had to dive down to carefully catch it. Just as her teeth connected with the grip, a hefty hoof pounded into her ribs and sent her crashing into the sludge.
As she hurtled another fallen zombie, Cheer's eyes narrowed on the writhing pile Pele had indicated. Seven undead attackers were converged around something, and the idea of what that something was sent a wave of cold nausea through her. She spurred herself into a faster gallop, aiming straight for the clot of zombies. Once she was close enough, she kicked into the air and soared above the cluster. The edge of her sword was tilted down just enough to sever the heads of a pair of zombies below her. The separated heads landed in the mud with a wet thunk just before Cheer's hooves returned to the earth again. She slid in a dark spray of mud for a few feet and turned back around in time to see Hempy plowing toward the rest of the undead attackers. He held the flat of his ax blade parallel to the ground, inspired with the same idea Cheer had had. Cheer leaped back into the fray, staying clear of Hempy's ax.
In mere moments, only two figures remained standing under the cold light of the distant moon. Hempy and Cheer panted, their breath hissing around the hilts of their weapons, as they nervously glanced around at the scattered, unmoving ponies sinking in the muck. The sound of their rapid breathing almost drowned out a faint moan which rose from one of the prone forms. Both ponies started at the sound and turned to face it. Adrenaline still pulsed through them and their muscles tightened in preparation from another enemy. From the shadowed sludge, a light purple wing lifted for a few seconds before folding back down and out of sight.
"Pele? Pele!" Hempy dropped his ax and trotted toward where the wing had vanished. Cheer slid her hook-tipped blade into its band on her belt before following. Her vigilant green eyes continued to dart from zombie to zombie. It wasn't unreasonable for one to still be "alive" (as alive as an undead monster could be), and she wasn't taking any chances.
"You okay?" asked Hempy once he found Pele sprawled in the mud. She stretched out her legs and began to gingerly push herself up. Hempy acted as a brace for her to lift up against. Once she was back to her feet, she looked around the clearing in confusion.
"Did you find Splicer?" she asked, her golden eyes turning back to Hempy and Cheer. Cheer's hair lifted. She shook her head violently. "No, she must be back where…" She trailed off as terrible thoughts swamped her mind. "I'll find her," she announced as she turned to hurry toward the clump of the most freshly dispatched undead.
"Are you hurt?" Hempy questioned Pele as Cheer left.
"I'm fine. Just got a little winded," Pele answered in a distracted tone. Her attention was on the yellow and purple pony searching through the corpses. Hempy looked toward Cheer as well, a cold swell of fear rising in his chest. He didn't dare consider that something bad had happened to Splicer. She was always so adept with her weapon. Sure, she occasionally was tossed around, but nothing truly awful had happened to any of them before. Granted, the invasion had begun a mere four months ago. How had it only been four months?
Cheer pushed the bodies out of the way as best she could. They'd fallen in a grotesque pile on the spot she'd seen Splicer's hoof earlier. "Splice?" she murmured. The stress and terror of the situation caused her voice to squeak. There was too much mud. She kept sliding in it as she tried to shove the dead ponies out of the way. It painted the colorful bodies a deep brown, making them blend in with each other. A jittery panic started to overtake her. Splicer could be buried in there, beneath the rotting carcasses, and Cheer might not be able to distinguish her from the zombies. Her search became frantic. She dug and heaved and wriggled her way through the mass, her repulsion barely contained. She tried not to consider the ripe, torn flesh and the contaminated, viscous blood covering her fur. Splicer was her first priority. There was no time for disgust.
And then she found the familiar hoof. The grayish blue foreleg, somehow clean enough to identify, extended from beneath a husky unicorn. Cheer about-faced and bucked the body off of her friend. It squelched into the muck, leaving behind the broken form of Splicer. Scratches lined her limbs and gashes slowly oozed blood. Her eyes were closed but her brows were drawn up in pain. Cheer staggered back with her mouth agape, too stunned to exclaim.
Pele limped slowly over. She could tell by Cheer Chime's reaction that it was too late. Not saying a word, she stood by Cheer and analyzed Splicer. Several distinct bite marks bled from Splicer's neck, legs, back. Nothing could be done. Pele was about to call a retreat and leave the clean up to the burn crew when she noticed movement. Splicer's ribs rose and fell with shallow breaths. Blood bubbled on her slack lips.
"Shit," Pele muttered. A knot formed in her throat and her eyes burned with imminent tears, but she didn't let them fall. "We have to decapitate her."
Cheer broke her silence and stared, horrified, at Pele. "What? How can you say something so logical at a time like this?" she cried out, tears suddenly streaking her cheeks. "This is no time for reason! This is the time for emotional devastation!"
Pele often found it difficult to find the line between Cheer's quirky jokes and reality. She ignored the statement and continued to assess the situation aloud. "The virus may have time to take hold before she dies. We don't know how long it takes for it to become effective after she's gone. We can't have her wandering before the burn crew arrives." She considered asking for Cheer's sword so she wouldn't have to go searching for hers, but she realized that would seem callous. She looked into Cheer's watery eyes with sympathy. She was not as removed from the emotional poignancy of the moment as her words made her sound. However, she knew if she broke down, things could get much, much worse. A nudge on her shoulder awoke her from her contemplation.
Hempy Hooves now stood beside Pele, his ax in his jaws. He was looking away, not wanting to see Splicer or look Pele in the eye. He wanted to be as distant from the horrible, necessary act as possible. He offered the weapon to Pele, who, after a few seconds of hesitation, took it in her own teeth. Hempy backed away and clenched his eyes.
"No, you're not doing this!" Cheer said as she stepped between Pele and Splicer. "She's alive, at least for now! You can't murder her. Besides… I mean, there's always…" She trailed off and fidgeted with a severed ear on the ground before realizing that she was fidgeting with a severed ear on the ground. She hunched over and retched.
Pele gave Cheer a quizzical look. She set down the ax and leaned the hilt on her shoulder. "Always…? Oh… oh no no no…" Once it dawned on her, her expression became serious and commanding. "That hasn't worked before and it's not going to work now. We don't need to get anyone else involved. It's too late, Cheer. You should look away."
"It would just be Bluegrass and Charleston. She's still alive! Maybe it'll work on a living pony before the change," Cheer reasoned desperately. She crouched low and looked up at Pele, like a filly pleading for something from her mother.
"It's not going to work. It's just going to upset everypony even more. Magic has never been-"
"Please don't kill me…"
The small voice which interrupted Pele caused the three standing ponies to gasp in surprise. Hempy was the first to speak. He let out a quiet stream of curses as Cheer and Pele exchanged sickened glances.
"Please. You can't kill me," Splicer continued with a barely audible voice. "I wanna be a zombie…"
Three pairs of eyes instantly turned to the wounded pony. Cheer's mouth worked around words which wouldn't come out. Pele stared in bemused horror. Hempy was absolutely baffled. With her one open eye, Splicer watched them back. She paused on Pele.
"When will you have a chance like this again? I'll be your own personal test subject," Splicer reasoned, knowing the opportunity would be appetizing to Pele.
"We could capture another one. Somepony we don't know," Pele replied, but the hesitation in her voice exposed her interest. "We don't need to make an awful situation even more traumatic. It would be too much to see you like that."
"But… have you ever actually seen a pony change?"
Pele's ear twitched at Splicer's suggestion. She was clearly enticed by the idea. She quickly checked herself, her expression turning cold again. "That would put us at risk, even if we contained you. And, as I said, to see you like-"
"Wouldn't it be unethical? To capture some other undead pony… I mean, it's kind of like abducting somepony. Or stealing. Stealing somepony's cousin or daughter or father or something, and then locking them up and starving them in our yard or basement," Cheer interrupted in her desultory way. She began to dig at the mud with her hoof again, avoiding body parts this time. "We could build something to contain her. We would just need to keep it guarded. And secret. It would be our private project, our own little zombie. We could time how fast she takes to change, which seems like important information. We don't know whether anyone else has tried to test the infected yet, at least not around here."
"They've probably already worked on it in Canterlot," Pele said, turning to Cheer.
"But we haven't heard anything from them since the beginning of all this stuff," Hempy added as he walked to Cheer's side. "What if they have no research? What if they all got wiped out? It's, like, our scientific duty to find out what we can."
"This isn't going to be easier than killing her now, Hempy," Pele whispered. "Think about it. Splicer won't be herself anymore. You won't be able to think of her as your friend, because your friend will want to eat your brain."
Hempy straightened up, looking remarkably serious as he met Pele's gaze through his parted rainbow locks. "It's for science."
"For science!" Cheer agreed with a strange half smile. After the subsequent moment of uncomfortable silence, she added a weak, wavering "yay" for good measure.
Pele tensely rolled her head back to crack her neck. Her golden eyes lifted to the uncaring moon. "Let's not make this a mistake," she sighed as she lowered her head again. She blew a stray tuft of turquoise hair off of her face before turning toward Splicer. The injured pony was now shivering, her teeth gritted and sides lifting in shallow breaths. A steely pang of sorrow stung Pele's chest and her own breath caught. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cheer trying to dry her cheeks with her foreleg as Hempy allowed his multicolored clumps of mane to hide his face. She feared they were only supporting this choice because it meant Splicer would still be around, at least physically. How would they deal with the heart-wrenching matter of witnessing the tattered remains of their friend become a cannibalistic monster?
"This is… so awesome," Splicer murmured. Pele couldn't tell whether Splicer was truly eager (an idea which astounded and intrigued her) or already addled by blood loss and fever.
"What do we do now?" Hempy asked. "Where do we put her? We don't have a safe place to hide her…"
"What about your basement?"
Hempy looked at Cheer with a mix of confusion and alarm. "What? What about my basement? What are you saying?"
"I wasn't accusing you of the obvious contents of your basement. I was just suggesting it because of what it used to be, you know?" Cheer paused as Hempy calmed down and considered. His blank expression prompted her to continue. "You know… a morgue?"
"Right, we can slip her in a slot until we find something more suitable and farther from town," Pele said. She glanced at Splicer, who either hadn't heard or didn't care. It was strange to have such a conversation, to stand in a corpse-ridden field and talk about a dying friend like an object. A soft breeze rustled the grass and lifted Pele's braided mane and tail. It carried the reek of the dead and she wrinkled her nose reflexively. "The burn crew needs to be brought out. Let's find something to take Splicer to Hempy's house," she announced, quickly closing the discussion.
"I have a cart," Cheer said. Her eyes burned an eerie, tell-tale green from her tears, but she was keeping it together better than Pele would have expected. The lavender Pegasus nodded and Cheer immediately galloped away to retrieve her cart.
"Pyroclastic Pele…"
Pele's ears swiveled at the sound of her full name in Hempy's contemplative voice.
"I just don't get you sometimes. You're talking about Splicer like she's not here… I can't deal with this, this is just…"
"She's not here."
Hempy stopped his distressed complaints and followed Pele's gaze. Splicer lay completely still in amidst the uprooted grass and dispatched zombies. Her sides no longer rose and fell, her eyes were gently closed. The only movement was the slow progress of blood down her ribs and legs, though most of it had dried into her bluish pelt. Hempy couldn't breathe. The situation was unreal. He wanted to run away, to escape this impossible ending to a long friendship.
"Go home, Hemp," Pele whispered, her face turned away from him. "I'll wait here. We'll meet you at your house."
Hempy began to breathe again, slowly. "Oh… okay," he replied. He looked Pele over, noticing the faint shaking of her breathing. Of course she was heartbroken, even if she disguised it in logic and practicality. Hempy retrieved his ax from the ground, where it had fallen from Pele's shoulder. He sighed and walked away, leaving her to wait and mourn alone.
So began the summer of the living dead.