Chapter One:
Spill the Tea

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. This rot is spreading faster than we could have anticipated. But we can't give up because the truth of our new world is all that matters. I am begging you…rise up and survive before it's too late.

Notes: I have to disclose that I love the Newsflesh series by Mira Grant (what if zombies, but we can still function day-to-day like Covid but...it's still bad). I also love the creativity of the MLP!Infection AU community. It's just so damn creative and wild! I'm torn between "cool factor" and "pseudo-realism factor". I hope that I can tiptoe along the lines of both in this story.

"You tell the truth as you see it, and you let the people decide whether to believe you. That's responsible reporting. That's playing fair. Didn't your parents teach you anything?"
-Stacy Mason, "Feed" by Mira Grant

"What in the names of the Princesses happened in here?"

I had a fairly good idea what my humble morgue must look like to the Sheriff and his deputies. Blood smeared everywhere; trails of gore and gristle wherever the eye could see on the floors, the sides of cabinets. I was busy toweling down the mess. It was rather reminiscent of a crime scene instead of my clean, clinical and tidy workspace. I kept this place as clean as possible.

When you know what I do about dead bodies, you'd be turned into a clean freak too.

I spared Sheriff Dust Cloud a glance over my shoulder.

I didn't know where to start. How to start. How could I choose? I finally decided the blunt way was…not necessarily the best route, but it was the better place to start. Lying seemed ineffectual at this stage.

"Mare Doe woke up." A beat passed. "After I had opened her up and took out most of her organs."

The silence behind me was damning.

"What in the hell are you talking about, Red Rush?"

Red Rush. My name was an oxymoron. While I was red in coat, mane, and tail I was hardly ever in any type of rush. I liked to take my time, to see every side of a problem before seeing or giving a feasible solution. I wasn't exactly slow, but I also wasn't sprinting off everywhere. There were enough show ponies that could vie for the title of "Fastest and Most Obnoxious".

I dropped the towel I'd been wiping the floors with into a hazard bag and sealed it. I motioned toward my video camera with my head. Sheriff Dust Cloud wordlessly went to it, and so did his deputy—the roan Unicorn, Frizzy Pop. He was on the new side of things. I didn't catch any glimpses of Far Fetch, as I had turned away to continue my cleaning efforts.

A moment later, the sound of my recorded voice filled the empty spaces of the room. I continued cleaning. I had my own series of questions but first, the law ponies needed to see what had happened to Mare Doe. I needed them to see the truth that I had come across.

It didn't take them long to see her reanimate on the screen, to flop off my necropsy table, rasping hungrily after me as I narrated what was happening. I winced as I heard myself repeating the same phrase in various ways, but it all came back to the one thing: Mare Doe was both alive and dead all at once.

The law ponies turned to me once the video ended minutes later, barely a moment after I had stabbed Mare Doe with my scalpel and had recovered my composure. I tossed another soiled towel into a hazard bag and sealed that up. The plastic melted cleanly together, and it had nothing to do with my magic. It was triple sealed, and it would have taken a massive physical effort to break apart by force, never mind magically. It was then that I did notice that Far Fetch wasn't with the Sheriff. It hadn't just been my overlooking her. My brow wrinkled in puzzlement, but before I could ask, Sheriff Dust Cloud interjected, as though reading the question on my face.

"Her leg wouldn't stop bleeding. She went through three sets of bandages before I sent her off to the hospital to get it looked at, more proper-like." He tried to maintain steady eye contact with me but faltered instead and turned away from me.

Instead, he settled his attention on the two bodies still out on display on my tables: Buck Doe, still completely and utterly dead. And Mare Doe, recently dead, for a second time in the same day.

"What in the name of Celestia is this?"

I swallowed against the hard and heavy lump in my throat.

"I…I don't know." I hated not knowing. I wanted to know more, I needed to. How else were ponies and other creatures supposed to protect themselves if they remained ignorant to this…whatever this was?

I circled back around the two tables, around the two bodies, still trying to puzzle out more clues, more answers.

"Have you figured out the identities of Buck or Mare Doe?"

"H-his name is—w-was—River Reed. He went missing about three weeks ago on a camping trip with two friends. We found him, o-obviously—but the other two, Rain Dance and Golden Wheat, they're still officially missing. A family member of River Reed was the one who reported their being missing. They all came from a small village about fifty miles north from here, give or take."

The Sheriff nodded along as his deputy spoke, faces set in that mixture of grim acceptance. I could practically hear him grinding his back teeth. Back and forth, back and forth. Grind, grind, grind.

"And Mare Doe?" I pressed, sparing the mutilated body a glance. She sported a new wound, which I had diligently notated in my report. Trauma to the occipital cavity with a No. 24 scalpel blade. An excellent dissection blade that could fulfill both fine work due to its pointed tip, while also sporting a broad blade for the larger and more difficult tasks. I made sure to annotate in the margins that it had been necessary, as Mare Doe had decided to get up off my table and saw that I apparently looked like a lovely snack to chew on.

"She was visiting a friend here in Ponyville, also from another town—a little smaller than Ponyville—and this one's about thirty or so miles northwest of here. Can't recall her name right now—"

The Sheriff interjected quickly with a grunt. "Ice Prancer. That's who our Mare Doe is. So far, no reports of illness like this showing up in either village…"

I waited as politely as I could before clearing my throat.

"I feel a 'but' coming along," I finally drawled out with a frown. The tension lingered before Sheriff Dust Cloud sighed heavily.

"But…there's been…rumours."

I raised a brow, momentarily abandoning my cleaning duties to give the law ponies my full attention.

"Go on then. Don't leave me in suspense. Spill the tea."

The two law ponies exchanged hesitant looks with one another. Sheriff Dust Cloud licked his lips, as though he was trying to get some particularly bad taste out of his mouth.

"There's…there have been similar cases popping up in other parts of Equestria. Similar encounters, eyewitness accounts, patterns of attacks. When we went back to the station, we interviewed today's eyewitnesses further and they…they've recounted their own instances that they've either seen themselves or…others have told them about."

Sheriff Dust Cloud shuffled nervously on the spot, face still set in that grimace of his.

"…does the Mayor know about any of this yet?"

The words came out before I even registered them. The pair across from me exchanged looks with one another.

"We haven't briefed her yet, no."

"You might want to consider doing so, and the sooner you do, the better." I paused, glancing toward the cabinet where my fresh, clean towels were. With a small burst of magic, I pulled one out, and once more set to cleaning up. I'd have to dump a ton of cleaning chemicals to finish off this job and then wipe all that up too.

"You said two other ponies have gone missing along with Buck Doe—and that similar cases under near identical circumstances have occurred across Equestria. I need those case files. This is…this isn't normal, it's something pathological that needs support, study, isolation from the general populace."

"Now hold on, I can't just—"

I turned toward the Sheriff, my voice and words turning sharp as steel.

"If this—whatever "this" is—turns out to a plague or an illness, if this is spreading—I need more data. I need to find the link between every case. The more I…the more we have, the better we can prepare ourselves and combat whatever this is. And we need to inform the Mayor. We cannot afford to keep her in the dark. We'll need her support in all of this as well."

"What about every other pony—er, creature? We can't just…not tell them, right? They might get caught in the crossfire! We've got a whole school of kids here in Ponyville!"

Sheriff Dust Cloud shook his head at Frizzy Pop. "And we can't afford a panic. If that happens, it would make things even worse. We'd never get control of that buckin' bronco once we set it loose."

"But Sheriff, I—" Frizzy Pop began to protest, but was silenced by the smack of the Sheriff's hoof and the glower painted on his face. The Sheriff's nostrils flared, and Frizzy Pop promptly curled away from him, ears pinned to his head and resignation simmering off of him. I could barely hear him say the words, "Yes, sir."

Sheriff Dust Cloud held fast for a few lingering moments longer, then turned his attention back to me. I had made considerable progress in my efforts to clean my place of work. I was especially careful to not have direct contact with what could possibly be biological contaminants. The blood, the gristle, the gore—there was something here, something that I was missing in between it all.

Was this airborne? Or was it spores or pollen from an unknown plant that these ponies have come across somehow? Was it an infectious disease or virus? Or was it a bloodborne pathogen of some kind? Were mucus membranes a source of infection that we'd have to worry about? Was there a viral amplification that triggered some biological switch from dormant to active within us? Was it a prion disease, or something akin to rabies? Rabies couldn't affect ponies…not yet. What if it was some mutated iteration of Chronic Wasting Disease that had somehow managed to figure out our biology? The leap from deer to pony seemed…negligible at best. Or was it a parasite that I had somehow missed, something that was too small to see by the naked eye and needed further investigation? What was the duration of incubation?

So many questions. Not enough answers. I wished I had caved and sprung for the advanced lab equipment I could have had in my own establishment—but that required a series of permits, and much jumping-through-hoops-on-fire kinds of red tape to upgrade Death Dealer's biosafety levels. Despite my accreditations I don't think I could have cleared the first levels needed to meet the security clearances when it came biosafety. Biocontainment precautions had evolved in the past decade or two. And the truth of the matter was that much larger facilities were more capable and cleared to isolate dangerous biological agents in their laboratories than I could ever hope to achieve. It didn't help that I was the lone proprietor and worker involved. No assistants, no other staff to be had.

And isolation was the most restrictive level of biocontainment procedures. Ponyville was anything but isolated these days. Too many factors could lead to disaster and violate the procedures to ensure biosafety. And it wasn't just naturally occurring diseases that we had to account for. There were magical diseases out there as well.

Death Dealer's was not equipped for such a biological event. I couldn't guarantee a full seal of safety. I operated primarily as a funeral home and mortician's parlour. The rest of my services were additional benefits for the local community and law enforcement, more than anything.

That didn't mean I was ready to roll over and give up.

I once more found myself at a yawning chasm of mysteries and something was tugging me ever closer to the answer, beyond the edge. Like it was just out of sight, out of reach and all I had to do to get to the truth, the heart of the matter, was to fall in. But at what cost, what sacrifice, would I have to make to find those answers?

I should have known better then. But clarity is all too damning when it's in hindsight, isn't it?

Mayor Mare…smiled.

I wasn't encouraged by the bold move. Beside me stood Sheriff Dust Cloud and Deputy Frizzy Pop. She looked over the reports written by both the Sheriff and myself. She shuffled through them with careful deliberation. I almost felt myself begin twitching in impatience.

Perhaps I really did fit my name, in some small way.

Right now, there was some prudence to rush. If this was an epidemic ready to spring loose, we had to act fast and get ahead of it. We couldn't dither. The itch of urgency kept scratching beneath my fur, digging under my flesh. I—we—needed to make swift and decisive actions. I hated bureaucracy at times, and this moment counted under that tally list too.

Judging by the impatient flicks of Sheriff Dust Cloud's ears and tail, and the tension in his jaw muscles, he too was feeling the tick of impatience riling him up. At least I wasn't alone, which assured me. We were thankfully on the same page.

Mayor Mare placed the stack of paperwork onto her desk and then tapped her hoof on its surface, drawing our attention back to her. Her eyes were closed behind her bifocals and she took in a deep breath.

"What your reports here are saying…we're dealing with a potential…disease or virus of some kind? But you can't definitively say what it is?"

Sheriff Dust Cloud cast a sidelong glance at me. It was a prompt and I stepped forward. From my saddlebag, I pulled my video camera with my magic and brought it forward. Mayor Mare reached for it with her hooves and once I was sure she had hold of it, I released the hold on my spell.

"There's more," I told her, and the mayor carefully popped the screen open. The sound of my voice on the device sounded so tinny and small in her office, not at all repeating the same effect within my morgue. I glanced at the Sheriff and frowned. I leaned closer to him and he dipped his head toward me.

"Do you think she'll listen?"

"Hard to say."

That was all he left me with. It was frustrating, to say the least. Frizzy Pop was jittering beside the Sheriff, back hoof tapping rapidly on the decorative rug that covered a large swathe of the mayor's office flooring.

If Mayor Mare wouldn't take us seriously, then how could we expect anypony else to do so? A figure of authority in the community was our best bet to take charge of the threat looming over us. If she didn't, then we would be dooming all ponies and other creatures in our own town to death.

The minutes passed in agonizing sluggishness. The sound of Mare Doe—Ice Prancer—snarling after me while I spoke on the video camera made my ears flare back against my head. I actually glanced behind me, to make sure we weren't vulnerable and were still blissfully alone in the room and that the door was closed tight.

Mayor Mare's assistant was drawn to the hubbub and placed herself over the mayor's shoulder to watch as well. She gasped at some point—I'm not sure which—and whimpered. Mayor Mare's amused expression dropped considerably as the video played out.

I couldn't help but cycle through even more inquiries on the matter at hand. How could we effectively quarantine Ponyville, and in turn, the rest of Equestria to ensure the transmission of disease was lessened and more controlled? Was this disease—virus, pathogen, parasite, whatever it was—transmissible to other creatures, such as the dragons, changelings, or yaks? Could other animals be carriers, like those in the care of…what was that nervous Pegasus's name? Butterfly? She was one of Princess Twilight's friends, and she dealt with animals. That's all I recalled at the moment.

Would we have to close off borders, put a chokehold on supply logistics and travel, put in place quarantine efforts for the town, other cities, on the ponies themselves? What were our most viable options to combat this unknown disease?

If this had been a missive of some kind of flu spreading like wildfire throughout our territories, I could say I would have felt more than confident I could draw up a feasible plan in response, if there's not one in place already (and I know there was one). If this were Pony Pox, perhaps it'd be a little more complex, but I still had high hopes in us coming out on top. But this—whatever it was—I was in the dark. As much as I had been putting off admitting it, I was afraid that this job was much too much for any one pony or any other creature. It needed more than one set of eyes on the matter, more than one set of hooves to sift through all the data.

I just hoped in other parts of Equestria, our brightest minds weren't overlooking this bad miracle as something else that was more manageable. That they wouldn't mistake it for something else, or worse, resort to hiding it. If they were, then I feared for this kingdom, more than anything. And I feared that Princess Twilight Sparkle may not have the time, resources, and information to assist in combatting whatever this disease may herald.

If the dead can now walk and we continued to do nothing, we might as well lay down and wait for the dead to bring us into their violent horde—either to be consumed or to become them, either fate seemed cruel.

I parted ways with Sheriff Dust Cloud and Deputy Frizzy Pop once our meeting with Mayor Mare was over. Her first plan that we all seemed to agree with was to call a mandatory emergency town meeting later tonight. The law ponies were heading back to the hospital to check on Far Fetch. I needed to get back to my morgue. Back to the bodies.

But I also needed…advice. There was one pony with whom I could trust this information with and confide in outside of Ponyville.

I stopped to grab a few pastries and coffee from Sugarcube Corner, as I hadn't eaten in the last day and a half, and I was running on fumes. The moment I stepped inside, I had to dodge the Cake twins as one went running underfoot and the other began making loops in the air above. Mr. Cake apologized profusely as he tried rushing to catch them both. Mrs. Cake rung me out and she smiled ruefully at me in embarrassment.

"I am so sorry about this, dear. They're usually…well, better behaved than this."

I nodded and gave a polite smile., feigning understanding for the sake of social niceties. I wasn't exactly the life of a party in social standings, but I could pass through smoothly enough. I liked the Cakes. They were more or less reasonable ponies, and I enjoyed their baked goods.

"It's fine. Children have more energy, especially after being cooped up for so many days."

Mrs. Cake seemed to deflate in relief as I handed her my bits and I took my purchased goods.

I was frankly glad that I was dealing with the Cakes instead of that other pony that worked there. What was her name, again? Pinkie something. I didn't keep track of names if I had to. All I remembered was her damnable cycle of never-ending energy and just being around her exhausted me.

When I stepped outside sipping my coffee, it was still bright, chipper, sunny.

All I could feel was dark clouds crowding in on my peripheral, foreboding and flashing with lightning, booming with thunder. A storm was coming, and I could only hope that we could survive it.

"Doctor Stone, it's so good to hear your voice again," I said warmly into my phone receiver, and I actually meant it. Doctor Feather Stone had been my mentor and one of my favourite professors while I was pursuing my doctorate. He had been one of my forensics instructors and was quite possibly the reason I even found a career that I felt fit me best.

"My, my, my! If it isn't Doctor Red Rush, my favourite student!" He replied, sounding amused. He was rather good at that, sounding professionally amused. His warm and genial tone and good humour coupled with his hours-long lectures was perhaps one of the very things that kept his class attendance numbers consistently high every semester. He could make the processes of prion diseases and their relation in epidemiology sound as exciting and electrifying as a Wonder Bolts show. It certainly didn't hurt he was a rather handsome stallion either, which did attract the mares.

It was almost a shame that he was married to another handsome stallion. Almost.

His husband, Toffee Cream, made the most delightful almond torte and I'd be remiss if I didn't say I was almost jealous. Again, almost.

"To what do I owe the pleasure? It's rare enough that I get a letter from you, never mind an actual phone call!"

I wish that I could find it in me to delve into idle chitchat, but this wasn't the time to waste, well…time.

"It's mainly business, I'm afraid."

"Is yours…struggling?" Concern was bleeding into his voice now, his previous jovial inflection drying up instantly.

"Far from it, actually. I've done surprisingly well out here in Ponyville, but it's something…" I didn't know how to continue. Not without presenting the facts, the truth. "I…need advice. And information—and I need you to bear with me, because what I'm about to tell you, it's…not exactly classified. Not yet—and I know it will sound illogical and frankly insane at first. But please…try to keep an open mind and wait until I'm done."

He hummed for a moment, and I heard a shuffle on the other end before he huffed quietly and asked for me to continue.

So, I told him what had happened. I told him about Buck and Mare Doe, about the circumstances that led up to them both ending in my morgue. About how after I had completed most of my necropsy on Mare Doe, she reanimated. How she crawled after me with half her organs missing, and the rest trailing along the floor from the slit I'd made in her belly. I told him how I'd figured out that a direct strike to the skull, into the brain, was the way to end them. Or at least that was my hypothesis.

Buck Doe only went down when the Sheriff and his deputies had done it, and I had tested that very method on Mare Doe. It was not enough data to say conclusively that this was the right and more permanent method, but it's a good starting point.

It had worked, so I felt confident that it was a feasible method.

When I fell silent, I waited for Doctor Stone to say something, anything. I could hear something else in the background—sheafs of paper rustling, most likely. He was probably grading papers for his students. Then there came a soft huff of breath.

"How…how many, again? How many…infected?"

Infected. That was a viable word for…whatever this was.

"Just the two here in Ponyville. The ones that I worked on today, they had been delivered to my morgue. Sheriff and his deputies said two others were missing. Buck Doe had been with them for a camping trip a few weeks back, but they haven't found the other two, as far as I know. Mare Doe came from a different village entirely. She had been in town, visiting her friends. When I spoke to the Sheriff not too long ago after, he alluded to rumours of similar cases. They're collecting what files they can and will drop off any other cases later today or early tomorrow. Right now, they're checking up on another deputy. She was bitten—"

Doctor Stone interrupted me, all traces of humour gone, and only urgency remained. "She was bit?!"

I hesitated, taken aback. I'd never heard him speak like this. Desperate, strained. Scared.

"…yes. By Buck Doe, when they tried restraining him at first—"

Once more, Doctor Stone interjected, and I felt my throat tighten in response, my stomach dropping away, like it had been yanked out of me.

"How long ago?"

"I…it was between 0700 and 0800 this morning." I responded. I pulled my coffee cup closer and took a long gulp, but it didn't feel like it was enough. My throat was still dry as a desert, and just as scratchy and uncomfortable. I felt like a student again, fumbling for the right way to ask questions so I could seek the right answers. "What is this, Doctor Stone? I don't have a full lab to analyze everything and I—"

"Stop."

I did just that. I stopped, waited, collecting my thoughts.

"It appears to be…something infectious. Viral, bacterial, fungal, parasitic, we're not sure of right now. Each are not ideal, given their different methods of infection and different avenues of treatment—if any exists." I started out slowly. Doctor Stone hummed softly, and I took that as encouragement to continue. "There is a common vector of transmission. It seems…linked to when a pony expires, but I—"

"Stop," he said once again. "Think. What did Buck Doe and Mare Doe have in common?"

"I…I don't…"

"You do know. Think."

Think. Think, think, think. It was his way of pushing his students. He didn't want to give them the answers, of course. He wanted them to find them, because those answers were staring them in the face.

I thought over both my necropsy procedures, and I struggled to find the commonality, the correlation between the two cases.

Buck Doe: Starvation, malnutrition, dehydration, severe emaciation as a result of those, heavy loss of muscle mass, various lacerations. Possible case of mange. Infection due to untreated wounds, like the bite on one of his ankles, the blackened blood that was essentially molasses in his veins at this point.

Mare Doe: Healthy and whole, minus the slight coronary build-up, and the bite wounds that had ripped out her throat—

I stopped myself short upon my reviews of both victims to Doctor Stone.

"How many cases in Manehatten?"

"It's hard to say. I'm sure plenty of potential cases have been buried so far, but the ones I've managed to get my hooves on…at least a dozen, two at the very most."

My jaw clenched at that new information. My chest twisted into knots as I continued to connect the dots. What was the connection?

I was struck a second time. Buck Doe and Mare Doe—River Reed and Ice Prancer—both sported bite wounds.

"Bites," I said hoarsely. "It spreads through…bites."

"And learning has occurred." Doctor Stone declared in approval, warmth and pride seeping into his voice. Old habits died hard. "Vector-borne transmission spreads through blood, salivary glands, mucosal discharge. Bites seem to be the more prominent manner in spreading to other potential carriers, due to their highly aggressive nature. That and…their propensity in attempting to devour their victims."

I shuddered, recalling how Mare Doe had done just that with me earlier today. The way her jaws snapped open and close, as if in anticipation to chew and rip and swallow my flesh.

"Doctor Stone…what is this? And—and if Buck Doe was bitten…who bit him?"

That scared me the most as the realization hit me full force like slamming into a brick wall. Buck Doe was not Patient Zero. Someone else must be, but the question still remained: who was it, and where were they now? Put down, like Sheriff Dust Cloud had to do with Buck Doe? Or were they elsewhere in Equestria, spreading this disease to others?

So many questions, it left my head reeling.

My former professor was quiet for a while. I sipped away at my coffee until it was empty. Dejected, I tossed the paper cup away into the garbage. Tea had never really been my thing. I needed something caffeinated and high doses of it.

"We're not sure," he finally answered. "We're still trying to figure out what it is, exactly. Nothing magical about it, thank the Princesses or we'd be in deeper trouble. But it also seems like it can't be treated or cured by magic either."

"And by 'we' do you mean…?"

More shuffling from the other end. More papers, most likely. I dreaded the answer.

"Toffee and I have been diving into this more readily than some of our colleagues here in Manehatten. Got some others down in Fillydelphia, Cloudsdale—hell, we even have at least one or two contacts out in the Crystal Empire and Canterlot looking into this."

I closed my eyes, teeth clenched together. I suddenly felt dizzy, and I needed a moment to steady myself. A breath hissed out of me. I was torn between wanting to warn them to flee for safety and to beg for them to stay and provide more information, disseminate it to every corner of Equestria, and even further than that, as quickly and efficiently as they could. We needed to get the bottom of this, if we were to save our home, and the inhabitants that lived here. We needed to find the truth of it all.

"I…how big is this?"

"Big. Bigger than most are willing to admit. I'm sure there are more than what's being officially documented and reported. Isolated incidents so far, but it's only a matter of time. The infected will slip through the cracks, they're doing it already, clearly. It's going to break out, and when it does—not if—it's going to explode and propagate faster than we can counter it, if it hasn't already."

I only realized just how little I was in all of this. Equestria was sick. It was only going to get sicker, and its immune system wasn't recognizing the threat for what it truly was. If we didn't act now, it would be too late by the time we did do something. I took a deep breath before speaking again.

"What can I do to help?"