Chapter Four:
Red On You
Disclaimer: I don't own My Little Pony. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Hasbro. However, all writing contents and semi-plots and original characters here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.
Summary: It began with two bodies, and then suddenly many more came to follow. I was there to witness the beginning of the end, where the dead won't rest, driven by the urge to devour the living. But we can't give up because the truth is all that matters. I am begging you…rise up before it's too late.
Notes: Don't mind me, I'm just vibing with this story at this point. I hope that the right audience is enjoying this! I've been working on some art pieces, so I'll be sharing those soon!
"You've got red on you."
-Various characters, "Shaun of the Dead"
Ponies were still evacuating. They churned out of the main entrance: carried on stretchers supported by levitation spells; hospital beds or wheelchairs being hurriedly pushed along; limping ponies scuttling as quickly as their injured selves could allow. They couldn't go through any of the back door exits. I had sealed them up with my magic. I didn't want the dead to chase them where I couldn't see. I needed a chokepoint, a controlled exit and entrance.
None of the ponies exiting the hospital was the Sheriff.
Nurse Redheart was rapidly rushing out the door with an elderly patient in a wheelchair when she noticed me standing at the front of the hospital.
"Red Rush? We thought you were dead!"
"Sadly, today's not my day to leave this plane of existence. Sorry to disappoint."
"Well, where's the Sheriff? He was with you, him and his deputy, wasn't he?"
"…he's still inside. He went to look for Deputies Far Fetch and Frizzy Pop." I ignored her puzzled look. She didn't need to know all the details. "If he isn't out here in five minutes, I'm sealing the hospital. We can't let the infected out."
Nurse Redheart looked alarmed. "But there's still patients we haven't evacuated yet! The third floor—"
"I think we both know that the third floor is a lost cause, Nurse Redheart." I replied sharply. She looked away, face undoubtedly burning in shame and regret. She had managed to flee, but many others hadn't had that luxury.
"It…it all just…happened so fast. One minute, everypony was fine—relatively speaking, I mean—and then others were coding, and…they came back. They started biting everypony they could get to." Her patient sneezed and the nurse busied herself with tucking them in more tightly with the blanket across their lap. "We ran. What else could we do? They just started…eating other ponies."
"Were you bitten?"
"I…no, I-I don't think I was. Is-is that how it spreads? The bites?"
"I suspect their blood, saliva, or other bodily discharge would be infectious enough, especially if ingested, exchanged, or introduced into an open wound. But bites will probably be more the more common transmission of infection we should be more wary of."
Nurse Redheart's brows furrowed and pinched, and she turned to watch as the rest of the physicians and nurses and patients seemed to finally come to an end. I studied her, taking note of the blood on her once-pristine white uniform, but she didn't seem to have any bites, open wounds, nothing. She was simply stained. And perhaps a mite traumatized.
The doors stood solemnly for nearly a solid minute. Nurse Redheart stayed by my side, worry eating away at her, while her patient seemed to sense this was a good time to catch up on some rest. I took note of the others that had retreated a fair distance from the hospital, and attempting to treat their patients with what they could pick up and run away with.
I pulled a pocket watch from my saddlebag and checked the time. I snapped it shut moments later.
Twenty minutes were up. The Sheriff was nowhere to be seen. I shook my head in regret, my hopes of seeing him alive again diminishing.
"Sorry, Sheriff."
I moved closer toward the doors, sparking up my horn to prepare my spell. I had to dig deep for this one. Every iota of my attention had to remain on something this complex. Sealing up a few doors was one thing. An entire building was something else completely.
Just as I was finishing up, ready to unleash my magic, Nurse Redheart cried out behind me. My eyes snapped open, and my concentration snapped. I whipped around, glowering at the other pony, but her eyes weren't on me. Not at first.
When she caught me staring, she motioned to the doors. "Here comes the Sheriff! Don't seal it up yet!"
I turned back to face the hospital and realized that she was right. I could just make out the Sheriff through the glass windows, weaving between the upended waiting lounge's chairs. He had two other ponies with him, hurrying towards the front doors. They burst through first, and the Sheriff was just a few steps behind, limping along doggedly. He had the fire axe clutched tightly in his teeth, and he quickly slammed the doors shut behind him and held the line. He dropped the fire axe as the two ponies he had been escorting galloped onward, terror written so plainly on their faces.
"RED! NOW'S A GOOD TIME TO SEAL THIS PLACE UP GOOD!"
"Don't need to tell me twice, Sheriff!" I called back and once more gathered myself, preparing my spell. Something twinged and twisted inside me as I did this, pulling taut at all my muscles and refusing to let go. Needle-thin pain began to prickle along my skull, and only dug deeper the longer I took.
"ANYTIME NOW, RED!"
I ignored his jeering. Something else inside me prickled, this time in my chest, drawing even tighter as the spell neared its crescendo. I heard my name being called out once more, but it cut short when I released my hold on my spell. It flooded over the hospital's exterior. Red light draped over the building like a fitted sheet and snapped tightly to its contours and edges.
The Sheriff kept his bulky shoulders rammed against the front hospital doors, trying to keep the dead that had followed him and those other two ponies from bursting out into the night air. I could see the infected beginning to crowd along the windows and at the door, jaws snapping, bearing bloodied wounds on various parts of their bodies. Blood smeared across the windows and a collective gasp and hush fell across everyone gathered outside. Sheriff Dust Cloud stepped away when the pounding seemed to have come to an end and he wiped his brow with a forelimb, heaving a sigh of relief. We could just barely make out the writhing shapes behind the veil of magic that held them at bay as silhouettes.
"'Bout damned time!"
"You're the one who was late," I answered. The Sheriff hobbled over to me, and he gave a passing nod toward Nurse Redheart.
"Y'all doing okay out here, ma'am?"
"We're making do, thank you, Sheriff."
He gave her another nod and took note of my sudden attentiveness to his hind leg. I furrowed my brow and looked to his face. Nurse Redheart quietly excused herself and I could hear the faint squeaking of wheelchair wheels trundling away.
"I tripped and twisted something, it ain't no bite wound. You can relax, Red Rush."
"I can splint it for you," I offered, glancing back at the gathered enclave of ponies outside. They had been desperate and panicked in their rush to evacuate. I doubted they had all the tools or medicines they'd need for an extended stay elsewhere. Just one more thing to worry about.
"I'm fine. We got more work to do, like getting these folks somewhere safe enough to get treated." The Sheriff scowled and glanced over his shoulder back at the hospital. His tail flicked impatiently. I noticed that his sandy-coloured fur was splashed with a lot more streaks of red now. "We cut it too damn close. None of them bastards got out, did they?"
"Not as far as I can tell, no. We should look over the patients out here, though. Just in case." I paused, then motioned to his fur. "You've got red on you, Sheriff."
He let out a sigh of frustration, shaking his head. He didn't even bother to look.
"I'm well aware. Right now, it's the bottom of my list of concerns. We still have that town meeting to get to."
Of course. I'd nearly forgotten in the chaos.
"Excuse me? Sheriff Dust Cloud?"
We both turned toward the voice and found a young Earth filly standing before us. She had a bandage over one of her eyes, and she kept gnawing at her bottom lip. Her mane and tail were a little worse for wear, but otherwise, she appeared just fine. The Sheriff and I exchanged a look with one another, but he stepped closer to her while I hung back.
"Yes, little lady? How can I help you?"
His voice grew soft and gentle. I'd never heard him do so before in all my time of knowing him. It was…endearing. The little filly looked upwards at him in hope and shuffled closer.
"Are we staying outside, or will we be able to go back inside? It's getting cold out here."
"Well, there's a lot of sick ponies that are trying to hurt everypony in that there hospital. We're just keeping them inside until we can make them better. In the meantime, we'll find someplace safe for y'all to put up your hooves. You have my word."
"We don't actually know if we can fix them." Given the advanced necrotized state that their bodies go through, I highly doubted that the tissue death could ever be reversible. I was also unsure if we could even develop a cure or a vaccine—if that was even possible. It'd be a folly to try and cure death. Once something was dead, it was gone.
We couldn't save the dead, but maybe we could save the infected before they died. That was a train of thought that was much too complex to worry about at the moment.
"Red, now ain't the time." The Sheriff said through gritted teeth, and he shot me a glower.
"Don't lie to her. You'll make it worse when it doesn't happen." I simply stated. A flash of panic and concern washed over the little filly's face. Her lower lip quivered as she looked past us toward the hospital's front doors, her emerald eye misting over with tears.
"…my parents are still in there."
I flinched at her words, and I avoided her gaze when she looked at me, my ears flaring back.
"I'm rightly sorry to hear that, little lady. Why don't you go by Nurse Redheart and see if she can't find you a blanket? Go along now."
The soft clack of her hooves against the ground faded as she left us. The Sheriff blustered and I could feel him staring at me.
"What in tarnation is wrong with you, Red Rush? Trying to ruin that little filly's world by spouting off that depressing talk!"
"Lying to her isn't going to make anything better or bring her parents back. The truth is more important and the sooner she's able to accept it, the better." I said with a soft huff. The Sheriff gusted back, shaking his head.
"A white lie for a little while is a whole lot better'n the miserable truth. It'll get her through this night a whole lot easier than thinking anymore about the mess that's going on right now." Said the Sheriff, and I sighed, turning away to scan the scattered groups of patients and physicians and nurses and visiting family or friends. I estimated the numbers to be less than half the whole hospital's occupancy. More than half were still inside Ponyville's hospital, presumably now part of the dead's numbers. It would be a miracle if anyone was still alive.
"You should get to the town hall meeting with the mayor, Sheriff. I'll stay here and help out in any way I can."
"And how's that? Tell everyone their loved ones are either dead or missing?"
"We don't know if any of these ponies have been bitten. We need to quarantine them somewhere."
"Like that'll go over smoothly the second go-around." The Sheriff muttered brusquely.
I grimaced and shot the law pony a scowl. "We have to try something. It's better than doing absolutely nothing at all."
He grunted back and I took that as a sign of grudging agreement. I followed after where Nurse Redheart had left us to attend to her patients. She seemed to be scanning their limbs and flanks with a scrutinizing eye while reassuring them with smiles and nods. I could see the strain in her face as she tried to keep herself and the other ponies calm. The little filly that had approached us was hovering beside the white pony, draped in a blanket and looking more comfortable.
I could hear the uneven tread of Sheriff Dust Cloud shuffling after me from behind. I winced at every awkward clack of his injured leg.
Nurse Redheart seemed to notice my approach and she quietly excused herself and met us halfway.
"You're still here." She paused, taking note of the Sheriff's limp with a frown. "Did you…?"
"Just a twist of the leg, no bites. You can take a look if you'd like to confirm there ain't none."
To her credit, she kept a cool expression as she obliged by his offer and carefully examined the law pony's leg. The little filly that had been hovering beside her came to my side. I noticed her staring at me as Nurse Redheart worked, her visible eye wide and brimming with worry that bordered on despair.
"Is there really no cure for those ponies inside?"
I hesitated, biting my lip. From the corner of my eye, I could see the Sheriff staring at me hard, unblinking and waiting. I turned to give the young pony my full attention and laid down so that was closer to her level. She seemed to appreciate it and shuffled closer.
"I'm not sure. Those ponies are very, very ill. This…this sickness is something we haven't ever seen before. But we'll just have to see what we can do for them in the meantime. Right now, they're dangerous and will hurt others if we let them out. They don't know what they're doing, so they'll be safer in there than out here. It'll also make sure we don't get sick ourselves."
It was the closest I could get to both the honest truth and a comforting lie all at once. There was no way of knowing if we could reverse this disease, if there even was a cure. Those who died from it couldn't be saved…but if we could save those who were still alive, those that still had a pulse…maybe there was room for the hope we could salvage things.
I paused for a few seconds before an idea struck me. Using my magic, I opened my saddlebags and pulled out the box of pastries still within. I had completely forgotten about them. When I opened the lid, I saw that while the baked goods were slightly squished, they appeared to still be edible. I presented the box to the little Earth pony.
"Here. You must be very hungry. I bought these earlier today, so they're still fresh."
"Are…are those from Sugarcube Corner?" She asked softly, the worry melting from her expression and turning to cautious delight.
I nodded, lips quirking into a smile. The little filly smiled back, and I could see a large gap between her teeth, and just a glint of white peeking through the gumline; a new tooth coming in to replace her baby teeth. She took two muffins from my box and thanked me heartily before scampering off. I watched her sidle up to Nurse Redheart and showed off her newly acquired sweets proudly. The white pony shot me a thankful look over her shoulder, before addressing the little filly and returned to her task of wrapping up Sheriff Dust Cloud's rear hoof with an ace bandage.
The Sheriff had been watching the whole time and he gave me an approving nod and smile of his own. I pulled myself up to my hooves and approached cautiously. Nurse Redheart gave me a once-over, before snapping the last roll of bandage onto the Sheriff's leg and secured it.
"There. You should be fine, so long as you don't overdo anything."
"Thank you kindly, Miss Redheart," said the Sheriff and he turned to me. I cleared my throat as the nurse pony cantered off to focus on her other patients. The little filly shot me one last parting glance before trundling off after her, munching away on her prize of pastries.
"That was almost nice of you, Red. I didn't ever think of you as sentimental before."
My ears twitched and I averted my gaze.
"…I don't like working on children in my morgue," I simply stated. A flash of understanding went across the Sheriff's face, and he said no more on the subject. I took the initiative to change it. "Did you…did you find your deputies?"
A somber look stole across his countenance, and he nodded.
"And you gave them mercy?"
"Funny way of putting it." A beat passed. "…yes."
Before either of us could continue, a sudden calamity of noise arose. At first, I was alarmed, believing it to be screams. But the panic subsided within me, and realized it was cheering. I was more than surprised to see that both Starlight Glimmer and Trixie had returned, and they weren't alone.
Beside me, the Sheriff heaved a sigh of relief.
"'Bout damn time the cavalry showed up," he said. He started to lurch forward, but hesitated and stopped, putting his uplifted hoof back down. The Sheriff parted me with a look I couldn't quite interpret. "You go on to that town hall meeting my place, Red. I'll stay and help out with getting these fine pony-folk someplace safe. Most likely the school, so meet us back there, if you can. If not…stay at your place. Barricade it up."
"I know. I will. And Sheriff…stay safe. Please."
He gave a curt nod and limped off toward the newly arrived group of ponies that made up the faculty and students of the School of Friendship.
The turnout for Mayor Mare's emergency town meeting was astoundingly low. Even when accounting for half a hospital being barricaded inside, and the other half being evacuated to a makeshift field hospital—the numbers were much too low for my liking.
I pushed through the crowd, offering a few half-hearted apologies to those who squawked at me. When the mayor, standing at her podium, flanked by both of her assistants, motioned for me to come forward, I did as I was bid.
Ponies who saw the gesture and followed her gaze to land on me, parting to allow for easier traversal. I nodded my thanks, even as I heard the whispers behind my back. I already knew that I was the odd pony out in Ponyville. I didn't attend parties, and rarely ever attended public gatherings. I didn't mind the social snubbing. I didn't mind being glossed over. In fact, I preferred it. I valued my work and my privacy. I was two steps away from being a worse pariah like that odd zebra who lived in the Everfree Forest.
That is, until my expertise and services were in dire need to execute last rights for deceased friends, family, loved ones. I'm only ever wanted around when I was useful. I was the shoulder they leaned on only when we coordinated their loved ones last rites. After that, they wash their hooves of me. And I certainly had no qualms about this unspoken arrangement between myself and the rest of pony-kind—with few exceptions, of course.
I climbed the slight rising platform to reach the podium that Mayor Mare stood before. She politely and calmly excused herself from the gathered congregation and turned to me. With her facing away from the crowd, her cheerful politician mask briefly fell. I could see the stress and anxiety marring her face, and perhaps even panic bubbling just beneath the surface.
"I need a debrief right now before we address anypony else. Wind Wake, please keep the citizens occupied."
"Yes, ma'am," a golden-coated Pegasus said with a fierce, dedicated nod. She took to the podium in a flash as the mayor led me to a side room adjacent to the main auditorium. Once the door closed behind us both, the mayor turned to me and the rest of her mask finally fell away completely. She appeared haggard, now more than ever and it's only been a few hours since I last saw her.
"This is much bigger than we may have initially believed," I began, but the mayor shook her head. I stopped, slowly closing my mouth and quirked a brow at her.
"I heard about the debacle at the train station this afternoon." Mayor Mare hesitated, brows crinkling in worry. "Is everypony…?"
The rest of her words fell away to settle between us, but I gathered enough of it to understand. I took in a measured breath, bracing myself. I hesitated only for a moment, weighing the risk-reward dichotomy of giving all the information I had.
Then I decided, fuck it. If things were going sideways, might as well lean into things.
I started from after our last meeting, what I had learned from Doctor Stone and how this wasn't just a Ponyville problem, but an Equestria problem. Next, I popped open my video camera to once again show her what I had. I scanned through the tiny screen, rewinding to the start of my encounter with Far Fetch. I began it again, as the mayor sidled up beside me to watch. I began the video.
My voice began eking out of the video camera's tiny speaker, narrating the horrible truth in front of me. What was a bad miracle supposed to look like? I suppose whatever Far Fetch and the other infected had become was a good starting point.
"What…is that black stuff on her leg?"
"It's the rot. What's left of the blood, I believe. It's the same as what happened with Buck Doe."
"Black blood and rot…" said the mayor absently, her voice trembling. The recording stopped shortly after. The mayor stepped away from me, from my video camera. I returned it to my saddlebag after snapping the screen back into place. She worked her jaw, as though trying to form words, but no sound came from her.
"I sealed up the hospital, and the quarantine ward. I've trapped all the dead that I could inside. But we still don't know if anyone else got out before it was evacuated. Both the Sheriff's deputies…didn't make it."
"And the evacuated?" She swallowed hard after she asked, finally finding her voice in full.
"The Headmistress and her student therapist from the school took them in. They—," I hesitated, sighing and shaking my head. "One of their students…was on the train. She was close to the quarantine ward during treatment when the dead began to eat their way through the halls. The little filly…didn't make it. They evacuated along with the rest of the hospital…and they came back with the teachers, to bring them to the school. They're setting up a field hospital inside it."
"That's…admirable and proficient of them. And Trixie isn't a therapist for the students."
I blinked, momentarily confused. "I beg your pardon?"
"She's the school counselor, not a therapist."
"Semantics," I simply replied, rolling my eyes. "The Headmistress assured me and Sheriff Dust Cloud that she'll quarantine anypony who may have been bitten. But now we need to get everypony else on board. We can't waste any more time. If this much chaos has happened here in Ponyville, and if more and more cases are starting to bleed through the cracks elsewhere…how long do you think it'll take for the rest of Equestria to fall apart?"
This seemed to jumpstart Mayor Mare, and she gasped, as if struck by an arctic wave. The terror cascaded over her face as the full realization hit her seconds later. A vigorous renewal of energy, of purpose, lit up within the mayor and she hurried to the door, kicking it open.
"Come, we have a lot of work to do and not enough time to get it all done, but we must do what we can!"
We returned to the auditorium, and the fever pitch of hushed voices rose to a crescendo as the gathered throng noticed we were back. I could see more than enough wary faces locked onto me and the mayor.
Wind Wake quietly relinquished the podium, allowing for the mayor to take point. I stepped in beside her and she gave a nod of approval before turning to address the crowd. I admired her ability to keep her voice level and calm, despite having been on the verge of terror minutes ago.
I suppose that's why she was the politician, and I was merely the weird and creepy pony who played with dead things. I stood silently beside her like a sentinel as she spoke, scanning the meager gathered assembly of ponies. I noticed the Cake family among the numbers. They had their children with them, and the more the mayor spoke, their faces slowly but surely morphed into horror, confusion, doubt. The parents clutched at one another; their two foals caught between the two of them.
Another vaguely familiar set of faces stuck out to me. Two of the three Apple siblings. I knew two of them was a mentor or a teacher at the school, but I couldn't recall which was which at the moment. This young mare had mellow yellow fur and a bright red mane and tail. The other was the robust Big Mac. His name wasn't as difficult to remember. His fur was a bright red, but it was almost cheerful, like the skin of a fresh and sweet apple. My red coat was more like blood, like that of the poor ponies who had been torn open and eaten alive back at the hospital. My mane and tail and the feathers along my fetlocks and haunches were a deeper, darker red—nearly black.
Big Mac pulled his little sister into him, and the young mare buried her face against his broad shoulder, hiding it away as though it could help hide her from the monsters lurking in the unknown and the dark.
It was an expected response from all the surrounding ponies, to hold tight to their loved ones. They needed the comfort to ease the horrifying news they were listening to.
I twitched at a nudge at my flank and I turned toward the source to find Mayor Mare staring at me, her front hoof held out toward me.
"Red Rush. You're our resident expert."
I looked between her and the sea of faces, then back to her. I stepped away with a soft shake of the head. "I-I'm not…not really—"
"Please. You figured this out faster than others did."
"That's not true. Doctor Stone—"
"—is not here. And neither are those other ponies you mentioned. It has to be you."
I floundered, brows beetling together in worry as I slowly felt myself walking, as if against my own volition, toward the podium. I mounted the steps behind it so that I could peer over the podium, eyes darting back and forth over the masses. I was distracted by a rustling behind me, and I glanced back to see the mayor's assistants pulling a screen over to face the crowd. From one of the balconies, Wind Wake was setting up a projector. I connected the two and pulled my video camera out again. The gold-coated Pegasus glided back down to us and took my video camera, returning to the projector to plug it in.
The voices rose to a new crescendo—both hushed and secretive, and yet stunningly loud and piercing. I cleared my throat, waiting for a nod from the Pegasus on high. When I got that, I started to speak. Slowly, at first. I stumbled only once, but it was enough for me to not do it again. Once was one too many times.
Speaking to a crowd of ponies who were not there to honour and mourn their lost loved ones wasn't something I enjoyed. I was more familiar in presenting articles and papers I'd written and had published for the sake of academics. I was used to a solemn atmosphere, and this was a similar moment in time. But there was an undertone of horror that gripped everypony, even myself. I tried to focus on my findings, pretending that the crowd wasn't filled with terrified townsfolk. Instead, I opted to view them as my peers, listening intently to another paper I had written and was now presenting.
At least then, I could make it through this. I paused to give warning, telling the crowd that the videos I was about to release was disturbing and graphic before nodding to Wind Wake again.
She hit the play button, allowing my video evidence to play out. The speakers emanated with my steady and calm voice, and the gasps grew in volume as Mare Doe was first shown. The way her slitted belly sagged and hung as she twitched and rolled off my table, how her entrails dragged or dangled out of the empty cavity that had once been her whole and hale body. Her dead eyes were intent on me and me alone, and all I could do was to keep speaking calmly and backing up, not allowing her to get too close.
That segment ended when I used my scalpel to put her down with one quick and decisive strike to her cranium. Traumatic brain damage would take out just about anything, the dead included.
And then there was Far Fetch, someone they must have known more personally, having seen her for the last year or so. The crowd was strangely silent and abuzz all at once as they watched the way she staggered out of her pony neighbor's room on the third floor, her movements jerkish and unnatural. How her bloodied lips peeled back, still dripping with fresh blood and bits of flesh stuck between her teeth. How she sank her teeth into a protesting Deputy Frizzy Pop's neck and tore it out before felling and devouring him. I hadn't noticed until now just how swollen her belly looked and how much it bulged as she gorged on her new prey.
When both incidents had played out, I took to the podium again, content to know that they understood the extent of this situation. I knew they trusted what I had to say, and that they believed it as well. I didn't mince words. I didn't beat around the bush. I didn't spare their feelings. I told them the cold, hard facts. I told them the truth.
The truth of what was happening was all that mattered, and getting them prepared to fight for their lives, if it came to that. If we didn't accept it, then what chance did we have to rise up ourselves and strike down the dead that now walked among us?
We just didn't have that kind of time or luxury to find that out.