Chapter 14: Keep Calm and Canter On

When Pele opened her eyes, the sky seemed to blossom into vivid blue existence, brighter than she'd ever seen it. She squinted against the sudden light and noticed the enormous buildings which curved, rib-like, above her. So huge, so festive with fantastic advertisements and unlit decorations. Certainly not Woostirrup. Pele strained to remember how it was she was seeing this view of the sky. Something blurry and much closer than the skyscrapers interrupted her pondering. It was difficult to focus her golden eyes on the object, but it appeared to be another pony. Before she could investigate further, a set of orange hooves nailed the mysterious pony in the head, producing a horrifying cracking noise. Pele's ears suddenly rang with an onslaught of new sounds. The heavy steps of dozens of hooves, the swish of a blade, a wet thump as something large collapsed nearby, somepony screaming her name.

"Pele!"

Cheer Chime's worried face suddenly appeared above her, her disheveled mane looking all the more manic with the addition of blood.

"Hi, Cheer," Pele replied somewhat sluggishly.

"Get up! We've got a way out!"

Pele thought it was a bit rude how Cheer was shouting right in her face like that. She was impressed by how much the mare could project and enunciate, given the sword in her mouth. Pele felt like she was missing some important piece of context, but her dazed mind couldn't puzzle it out. As Cheer nosed her onto her side, pain burst along Pele's ribs and she gasped.

"Come on! They're going to leave us behind!"

"Who? What?" Pele asked through a tight jaw as she steadied her hooves beneath her. As she stood, realization began to chip its way through the thick wall of her confusion. Manehattan, Times Square, the undead horde which had surrounded them by the ticket center. She remembered snagging her blade on a zombie and crashing onto the pavement. Pele wanted to assess her injuries, but there wasn't time for it. She barely managed to snatch up her weapon and strike before an earless unicorn could take a bite out of her flank.

"The Oranges," Cheer answered, gesturing toward a pair of curiously clean-cut ponies who were clearing a path through the roiling sea of living corpses.

"Where's Hempy?" said Pele as she followed Cheer toward the Orange duo.

"Stranded on the wagon."

Above the bobbing zombie heads, Pele could make out Hempy's form atop the carriage, brandishing his ax. The flesh-hungry monsters clambered on top of each other to reach his perch and he seemed close to being overwhelmed.

"I'll go grab him," Pele volunteered and spread her wings, an action she immediately regretted. Sharp fragments of pain exploded from her left wing, causing her to cry out. Cheer spun around, half expecting Pele had been bitten. She winced when she noticed the appalling angle of Pele's damaged limb.

"We'll find another way," Cheer said, but she didn't sound optimistic about it.

A solid metallic clang sounded from ahead of Pele and Cheer. The green-maned stallion, who'd briefly introduced himself as Moseley Orange, had apparently kicked down a sturdy stanchion of sorts. The stout silver column now lay on the sidewalk, hinging from a hole in the cement just large enough for most ponies to fit through, and Pele surmised that was the point of it.

"Into the tunnel, quickly," Moseley directed.

"Not without Hempy!" Cheer replied.

"More of the afflicted are pouring in by the second," said Mrs. Orange. She paused to send two attackers sprawling with her well-aimed kicks. "We can't fend them all off."

"Hempy, over here!" Pele called across the plaza. "There's a tunnel! Climb down!"

"Climb down?!" Hempy cried in return. "Fuck that noise! I'll never make it over there!"

"You have an ax, Hemp! You'll be fine!"

"Yeah, an ax and a gimpy leg!"

"Oh right," Pele muttered.

"I'll help you!" Cheer turned to Pele. "Just go down the tunnel. I'll get Hempy. The zombies are stumbling over themselves to reach us, so we still have time..."

Even as she was trying to rationalize her plan, Cheer had to keep her blade in near constant motion. The zombies were pressing closer and closer, and even if Cheer could carve a path to the wagon, she doubted the return trip would be manageable with Hempy in tow. Cold waves of fear rolled over her as she realized the choice she now faced. Pele, though still a bit disoriented, felt the weight of the decision too and she tried to coax her frazzled mind into puzzling out an alternative in which everypony could survive.

In a burst of bravery, Cheer Chime began to hack her way toward the wagon. Her blade sped from one target to the next, decapitating and disabling members of the swarm around her. At first, her pace was promising, and Cheer began to believe there was hope for this venture after all. But as the zombies packed in tighter and her progress dragged until she was hardly moving at all, Cheer saw that her hope had been foolish. She hated herself for the cowardly desire to retreat to the tunnel, even though that option was likely unfeasible now. The hiss of steel through air alerted her to Pele's approach behind her. So much for their escape plan.

"Pele, go back!" Cheer shouted. She had to raise her voice higher than before to reach her. The wind was picking up, carrying with it the growing reek of the corpses.

Pele's mouth moved in response, but Cheer couldn't make out the words. She let her guard down as she strained to hear Pele's voice above the din. It took a mere second of hesitation for the zombies to surge in on Cheer, their gnashing teeth flashing in her face and their heavy hooves knocking her off balance. She flailed haphazardly with her sword as she caught herself and managed to stave off a few of the nearest threats, but the close calls were building in frequency. Whatever Pele was trying to communicate, Cheer couldn't risk attending to it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wounded lavender pegasus gesturing to the sky with a hoof.

"Back off of my friends, you undead metropolitan motherfuckers!"

Several powerful rifle blasts immediately followed Bluegrass's bold announcement. Cheer flinched as she was splattered with goopy zombie brains, but even the gory shower couldn't crush her delight at hearing Blue's smoothly accented voice. Zombies crumpled under a rain of bullets and Cheer took the opportunity to look up. Charleston, Bluegrass, and an unknown third unicorn clung to an enormously long rope ladder which dangled from a passenger zeppelin overhead. Blue and Charleston suspended firearms in their magic clouds while the third, the highest pony on the ladder, was firing small whitish shapes from a carton. One such object sliced directly through the skull of a purple mare a few feet from Cheer. To her astonishment, the yellow earth pony discovered the projectile to be a playing card, the eight of diamonds.

"Go!" Pele screamed, shaking Cheer from her observations.

Cheer rushed for the wagon, weaving between maimed and fallen carcasses. Hempy scrambled from the roof to the seats, careful to avoid zombies while keeping his weight off his twisted foreleg. He fidgeted there, judging the distance to the crowded concrete and whether he could hope to make the landing. Cheer kicked and slashed to create an opportunity for him. When Hempy failed to take advantage of the opportunity, she paused to look back at him and found that he was trapped by a pair of the undead. His ax was too large to wield effectively in such close combat and Cheer couldn't assist him while maintaining her little clearing.

"Heads up!"

The unfamiliar, black-pelted unicorn had given the alert just before loosing a spray of playing cards. The cards struck their marks with stunning accuracy and the zombies tumbled from the wagon, taking down others of the horde as they fell. Hempy leaped and landed awkwardly on his three good legs next to Cheer.

Cheer started to call a thanks to the card-thrower but stopped short when she saw a figure at the base of the zeppelin working at the rope ladder. The implications dawned on her in an instant, but it was too late. Even as she shrieked a warning, the ladder came free, its three passengers dropping with it.

"Let's go!" Cheer yelled in Hemp's ear. The purple pony winced but followed Cheer's lead through the increasingly agitated mass of zombies. Both swung madly with their weapons to meet with the unicorns who had plunged into the melee from above. The sound of gunfire communicated that at least somepony had landed safely.

"Backs together!" Bluegrass ordered as Hempy and Cheer arrived.

All three unicorns seemed more or less all right, though Charleston looked especially dizzied. He tottered on his too-long legs and his levitating rifle wobbled listlessly in the air above him. The other ponies assembled around him to form a wheel bristling with gun barrels and steel to mow down the rabid ranks of the reanimated. They were guided to the stanchion by Pele's urgent voice. She waited for them, guarding the hole with an expression of mixed pain and determination. One by one, the ponies dove into the opening, none of them sure of where it lead or how far the drop would be or if there was really any safety to be had in what must be Manehattan's sewer system. Teeth snapped behind them as they leaped down.

Eventually, only Moseley and Charleston remained on the surface. The snarls, the stench, the overwhelming input staggered Charleston. He bludgeoned attackers with his gun. There was no time to reload. He vaguely registered Moseley demanding that he go down first, but was distracted by a pinching sensation on his hind leg. He reflexively shook free and sprang into the hole, followed instantly by Moseley, who hooked his hoof through the bottom of the stanchion and yanked it into place, sealing the group in darkness.

It wasn't quite silent. Sandpapery panting, wet coughs, and the occasional whimper echoed around Charleston. Muted moans and hoofsteps drifted down as well, though the cement blocked a remarkably large proportion of the noise.

The whine of a lantern door. Match strikes. A yellow glow, such a small effort against the oppressive dim. The lantern hung from the jaw of Moseley's companion, and as Charleston stared, he could just make out the gleam of his friends' eyes.

"Where...?" Pele asked weakly. She slumped against a damp brick wall.

"We'll explain when we're someplace safer," Moseley said. He and the other orange-themed pony began walking, forcing the others to move along as well despite how collectively winded they were.

The glow of the unicorns' horns assisted the lantern as they picked up their guns again. Charleston took up the rear, watching the bedraggled ponies in front of him. Something on his leg itched. He distractedly scratched at it with the opposite hoof. It stung more than he expected and he twisted his head around to see what the matter was. A small semi-circle of red marks had appeared above his hock. Teeth, presumably. It took a few seconds for his mind to compute that, and even when it did, he couldn't quite believe it.

Charleston had been bitten.