Chapter Eight:
Don't Go Out Alone
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: Somehow, I managed to dictate this chapter almost in one entire go with nothing but a quill and inkwell and pad of paper. My hands are stained with India ink, and I find it hilarious. Is it cheesy to admit I like writing with a quill?
Find the key that knows the lock,
Find the root that knows the rock,
Find the things you're seeking in the place you fear to look.
Promise me that you'll take care,
You'll show caution, you'll beware.
There are many dangers in the pages of this book.
The broken doors are waiting. You are stronger than you've known.
My darling girl, be careful now, and don't go out alone.
"Don't Go Out Alone" by Simone Kimberley, excerpt of "Parasite" by Mira Grant
I don't know what I had expected once I stepped into the classroom. Perhaps broken or abused furniture, shattered glass, ripped pages out of books and lesson plans scattered about. Maybe even the devastated remains and arched black stains of inkwells and their contents.
I certainly wasn't prepared to see an intact room, largely untouched. The desks were still in place. Any books in the room remained on shelves or desktops. Chairs were neatly pushed into place. The chalkboard at the front of the classroom still had a lesson plan drawn upon it, waiting for students to return for their hours of learning.
It took me a moment to find the pony in question that had segregated himself in self-inflicted seclusion.
The stallion in question had pulled two school desks into a corner of the room—the only sign of a disturbance. He slowly peeked over the upturned furniture, one visible bright blue eye round and fearful as he gazed at me.
"G-go away! I'm not coming out, not with those—those things out there!"
I remained where I stood, even when he ducked back down behind his makeshift shelter with a whimper. I dithered for a moment, weighing my options.
I have to approach this clinically, I decided. He was a patient; I was the doctor. Or the closest thing to one that was willing to interact with him.
I moved to the teacher's desk, situated snugly against the front corner of the room. I lifted my saddlebags and the fire axe off my backside and set them carefully atop the desk. A few scorch marks had burned holes in the blanket that I typically wore as a protective layer against my saddlebags. I silently mourned its tarnished state. It had been a Hearth's Warming gift from Doctor Stone Feather's husband, back when I was earning both my doctorates.
Dejectedly, I put it out of my mind. My belongings at this moment weren't important. They were things, they could be replaced. Lives, in contrast, couldn't.
I turned my focus towards retrieving a few items from my saddlebags. I pivoted on my heels to face the upturned desks and the pony hiding behind them.
"My name is Doctor Red Rush. I'm here to assess your health. Could you please come out where I can see you?"
"Yo-you're no doctor! Y-you run that gross death-trap shop with all the dead bodies! How do we know this didn't happen all because of you?!"
I couldn't fault him for his conclusion, however implausible it was. Granted, both of the bodies that had come into my morgue were infected, but neither of them had left the premises. I was just a convenient scapegoat to lay blame on, and I couldn't find it in me to correct him. If this made him feel better…I'd let him get away with it for the time being.
I sighed softly and glanced at the items I had procured and laid out on the desk: a water canteen; the pastries from Sugarcube Corner; a few tools from my morgue. A scalpel hadn't been the only thing that I'd brought with me a few nights ago to the hospital. None of them, sadly, could be of any use as a weapon.
There were also a few things that I had accidentally nicked from the hospital during my time assisting in the quarantine wing. I'd forgotten about them until now.
"Technically speaking, Sheriff Dust Cloud brought in two bodies that were infected. They were like that before they came to me."
That didn't seem to matter to my stubborn patient. He continued to glower at me from behind his shelter, his island of safety and isolation.
"You play with corpses! It's morbid, it-it-it's not right! What kind of freak are you?!"
I craned my head to view a head poking up from behind the desk. Scorched cherry red mane, cool grey fur, and a horn atop his head. Unicorn, roughly in his thirties. One of his eyes was buried beneath a mass of burns that covered most of the right side of his face. I wondered if he hadn't outright lost the eye completely, given the extent of the damage I could see just at a glance. The other eye looked as though several blood vessels had burst inside it, tainting the white sclera with red.
He was in agony. That much I could tell from a glance as well.
"I run a funeral home and mortuary," I said in a patient tone. "And I also lend my expertise to aid in criminal investigations, such as when the Sheriff comes by with a pony whose death may have occurred due to foul play."
The stallion shuddered, but he hadn't disappeared back down behind his makeshift fortress. I returned my attention to everything I'd laid out, and with a small twinge of magic, the top of the pastry box popped up and I gazed at the contents. The pastries within were in mixed stages of…well, they were all smooshed together. Flaky crumbs that weren't loose were sticking together in odd little shapes thanks to jelly or cream or frosting.
They still looked edible, at the very least. And they didn't appear too stale. I chose one that was mostly intact and lifted it up with my magic.
"You must be hungry after hiding in here for…what, the last forty-eight hours?"
He continued to stare at me with open and hostile distrust. "How do I know you didn't poison that so you can just play around with my dead body?"
I could feel the itch of irritation beginning to rise inside of me again. I inhaled slowly, swallowing my frustration back down as best I could and ignore his barbed words. Setting the pastry back into the box, I replaced it with a stethoscope. It felt alien to have it around my neck now as I had three days ago in the hospital. While I did technically hold the title of doctor, in this moment, I still felt like the farthest thing from it. Not unlike a pauper masquerading as something she was not.
"What's your name?"
"Nuh-uh! Nope! You can't trick me! Now go away, get out!"
I pivoted in the Unicorn's direction, glowering at him. "Either you cooperate with me, or I'll get the Sheriff in here, and I can guarantee that he won't be as gentle or understanding toward your injuries as I will be."
I let the threat sink in for a few seconds before I sighed. I was already feeling exhausted. My social batteries weren't equipped for all this…interaction. Not with the living, in such an unprofessional setting.
"I—I don't—" he hiccupped. I could detect the wobble in his voice, but I couldn't discern if it was because of tears that he was holding back, or from the pain of his injuries. Slowly, he stood up, and limped out from the desks, his whole body shaking as he did. To say he looked a mess was an understatement.
His cherry-red mane wasn't as long as I had originally thought, as most of it had been scorched off. A good swathe of his neck, withers, and flank were covered in massive burns of varying degrees of severity. In some areas, it was superficial at best—the first layers of the epidermis having been burned away, along with the fur on top of that. In other areas, the range of damage was deeper, all the way down to and even past the basal layers of the epidermis.
Then there were several spots of third-degree burns that I could spot on a visual inspection alone. I already had a feeling that eschar formation wasn't far into his future, and that would either shed on its own, or a debridement would become necessary to help with the healing process. That's not even bringing to mind that skin grafts would need to be layered down for those deeper wounds. But I had a suspicion that infection was already forming beneath the surface. An ugly set of wounds such as those, sitting about in a non-sterile environment for two days with no treatment, no pain medication, no intravenous fluids, nothing…
It was a recipe for disaster, one that could lead to necrosis, malformed scarring, death. I wanted to move closer, but I was concerned that I'd spook him if I tried.
The Unicorn winced with every limping step he took, and his head hung from sheer exhaustion, face locked in a pained grimace. The skin beneath his uninjured eye looked bruised and heavy from lack of sleep. A few tears leaked from the eye, staining his fur and carving a trail down his cheek. I could sympathize and only imagine just how much pain he must be in. I would ask how he was still alive, but I already know the answer to that. A pony's body was surprisingly durable and could take quite the punishment, even at the detriment of the pony themselves.
"I-I'm scared. I don't understand what's all going on—I-I was in bed, sleeping and…and then next thing I know, I'm h-hearing screaming, and I smelled the smoke and…" He hiccupped a few more times, breathing heavy to try and hold the sobs back. "M-my house—it's just gone, up in flames and-and then I s-saw ponies ea-eating each other! Tearing each other apart with their mouths, and I just…ran. I ran and I ran and ran and—"
He stumbled and cried out when his legs gave out beneath him. He went crashing to the ground and let out a gut-wrenching scream. I quickly scooped him up him in a thread of magic, and rushed forward to his side. His face curled into a contortion of agony; visible eye tightly squeezed shut. The Unicorn took in sharp gulps of air, which shortly devolved into a fit of tears.
"It hurts! It hurts so much! M-make it stop, please!" He cried in between heaving sobs, his voice cracking every other word. As much as I didn't like socializing, and especially outside my area of expertise, I wasn't the kind of mare who couldn't stand to see others in pain. I carefully, gently, set him down on the ground.
"What's your name?"
"It…it's Magnet Bolt."
"Magnet Bolt. Okay. Let me get see if I can get you some medicine for the pain and a salve for those burns. Is that alright?"
"Please, please! Please, just make it stop!"
I turned on my heel and made for the door and cracked it open just enough to stick my head out. Behind me, his sobs lowered to soft whimpers.
The ponies on the other side stirred at my presence.
"I need anything you have for burns, pain medication, and broad-spectrum antibiotics for infection. He was caught up in the fires from a few days ago, and some of his injuries are deep."
Doctor Greymare's expression darkened, and he exchanged a look with Starlight before returning his attention to me.
"How bad is it?"
I explained the extent of his wounds, including my tentative diagnosis based on my initial impressions. He needed treatment and the sooner he got it, the better.
"We need confirmation he wasn't bit first. I don't want to waste what little supplies we have." Doctor Greymare said once I finished, his tone brooking no room for argument.
"He's locked himself away out of sheer terror and has been suffering this entire time. The only infection he's guilty of having is one from the untreated open burn wounds he's sustained and has been stewing in for the last two days!" I replied defensively. "There's no way I can, in good conscious, allow him to continue suffering like this. I won't be a part of this anymore if I can damn well help it because you chose to let him die!"
The air was heavy with silence as my words sunk into the space between us all. The steely expression Doctor Greymare held faltered as he continued to stare at me. I don't much care for shouting, but if the time called for it to get my point across, I'd gladly do so under the right conditions. I was mildly pleased to see the others appeared shocked or alarmed at my raised voice and barbed words.
Especially Sheriff Dust Cloud. It was a rare sight to see the law pony completely and utterly flabbergasted. I know he's only ever heard me shout at least once, and that had been while I was on the phone, chewing out an inept forensic analyst who had nearly compromised months of hard work I had committed to for a case out in Fillydelphia. He'd nearly cost us the entire case by cluelessly tampering with the evidence, but I had managed to bring us back from the brink, thankfully. My hard work did not end up being dismissed in court, and the right pony had been put away.
The heavy-hanging silence continued to stretch onwards while I kept on glaring.
"Please. He needs something. I'm not saying I won't conduct a thorough inspection, but I can't do that if he's flinching and squirming out of reach from me because he's in agony."
This prompted the gathered ponies to mutter amongst themselves. The only one who remained silently stalwart in her posturing was Defense Bit. She offered no words for or against the burned pony in the room behind me. I took a moment to glance back. Magnet Bolt looked my way in such a pitiful display of imploring grimaces. I tried to smile for his reassurance, but I'm not sure if it was successful or if it had morphed into an awkward expression before I turned my attention back to the gathered ensemble.
Doctor Greymare huffed and advanced half a step closer, clearing his throat as he did.
"We can spare just a little bit of pain meds, and some salves for the more severe burns. But we need a thorough examination before we provide him with any further medication or treatment."
He didn't look entirely happy with the consensus, but at least he was willing to uphold the verdict. I bit my tongue to keep from arguing. Medical doctors swore an oath to do no harm to other ponies, but I can see the logic in his reasons. If this isolated individual was indeed infected, and he has yet to show symptoms—or was asymptomatic altogether until death and reanimation—then wasting the allocated supplies we had would be less for those who actually needed them and had a higher survival rate.
"Fair enough." I simply replied, nodding. Before I could say anything else, Doctor Greymare began speaking again, lifting a hoof to push his glasses further back up his muzzle. I glanced back into the room and offered the Unicorn a hopeful smile.
"It's high time we attended to the other potentially infected individuals we have in quarantine elsewhere."
I was livid.
No, wait. Scratch that.
I was infuriated.
What should have been standard protocol was now being usurped by blind fear and paranoia. I could understand the inert psychology behind it all, despite my displeasure: the most abhorrent thing has come to life, quite literally, and it came back wrong. The dead were not meant to walk this earth, and yet they do now. The dead should not eat the living, and yet they have and are continuing to do so.
I've lost track of the many, many times a pony has become spooked at the mere idea of being alone in the same room as a dead body. Here in the sleepy hamlet that was Ponyville, I could count only less than a dozen times in which a family requested an open casket to be included in their deceased loved one's funerary rites and services.
Ensuring the deceased looked presentable often went to waste once the casket lid was closed for a final time, never to be opened again and viewed by loved ones before the body's internment to the earth. But I still put all my effort into my work, regardless of whether it could be admired or not.
The fear of the dead and of the dying was a driving force of nature, whether it was acknowledged or not.
But this same fear has trampled over common decency, as well as standard quarantine and interactive protocols. That was what incensed me the most. We had little to no PPE, limited medical and even magical equipment, skittish medical personnel that mingled with untrained students—literal children—and this did not make for a conducive working environment.
Magnet Bolt's examination—which had taken an agonizing hour-and-a-half—came back clean. No bites, no signs of the viscous rotten black blood, no loss of what fur he had left due to the putrefaction of the disease. But he did come back as being severely dehydrated, riddled with a different kind of infection brought on by his untreated burn wounds, possible nerve and ligament damage. Of course, there was also the psychological trauma he was bound to have for the rest of his life, even after all the physical wounds have healed. He reluctantly agreed to move back into general population, as it would be easier for him to receive treatment, including pain management. Once he was given more pain medication, and shortly after a salve for all of his burns, his condition seemed to improve, but only time would tell if it would take hold.
The source of my ire came shortly after ensuring my first patient was left in the right hooves, and it was in the form of the prospective infected ponies that had been sequestered into a classroom I hadn't passed by before. It was a lot closer to the general population of ponies already receiving treatment, ponies that had been checked and dubbed safe.
I didn't like how close the potentially infected were to these ponies and would have preferred them to be in the classroom my first patient had been in.
I'm not sure how it happened, but it did. Once I had been debriefed on the ponies in quarantine, I was given the lead. I was, admittedly, dumbfounded by the sudden leadership thrust upon my withers.
This was a secondary crux of my ire. I am not a medical pony in the traditional sense. If I had been dealing with actual dead bodies, I wouldn't take as much issue with the designated position. But these patients were still alive, and I felt woefully unearned in my title bump. I had tried to argue that I was better off consulting rather than leading, and that one of the few doctors we had, including Doctor Greymare, should be leading the charge.
"Why am I the one doing this?"
"You're the one who sussed this disease out. You're the one who figured out the vector of transmission. If anything, you're the resident expert."
I shook my head, and the clear faceguard snapped down over my snout and made me wince. I raised a hoof and pushed it back up.
"I've spoken to at least a few other colleagues who have been aware of this for much longer than I have, experts in their own fields who've been tracking this down and trying to figure out more—"
"I don't see them in the room with us right now. Do you?" Doctor Greymare snapped. He winced as soon as the words left his mouth, and a look of guilt stole across his countenance. He composed himself before he continued. "As far as I'm concerned…and I'm sorry I hadn't acknowledged this sooner…but you are our current expert. You have a degree in pathology. You have more training, more experience in this particular field. You hit the ground running in trying to get ahead of this, and if you hadn't, well…"
My words fell on deaf ears, and I was thrust to the head of the herd, so to speak.
The medical pony sighed, shaking his head. "I fear more lives would have been lost at the hospital. More ponies would have been bitten or devoured or ended up infected in some other way by this rot. And until the cavalry arrives, we need all hooves on deck to hold down the fort."
I frowned at him, studying the stallion before me. He had a rather earnest look of contriteness plastered on his face, one that spoke volumes of his humbling words. He was being honest and straightforward with me, which I appreciated all the more.
It did cool my temper a bit, and I felt less inclined in being snappish at him or anypony else for that matter.
I was given the only full set of PPE gear available, despite the shortage. Doctor Greymare rallied what few hooves that could be spared to follow my direction. The students and teachers alike with the school were to remain outside of the classroom at all times, and to attend to the uninfected patients that were stabilized and assist the remaining medical ponies that weren't available for my endeavor.
I glanced Starlight's way, not surprised at all when I saw Trixie at her side. The pair were waiting, watching. There was an anxious energy that seemed to have entangled them both. Trixie's usual bravado has been uncharacteristically silenced in the gloom of this situation. I was only marginally grateful she has held her tongue with her bragging and boasting.
"Headmistress," I called, and Starlight perked up. "Has there been any word from Princess Twilight at all?"
I still hadn't gotten an answer about how bad it was in Canterlot, I realized. If it was as bad as Ponyville, or worse, I highly doubted that we'd be seeing the so-called cavalry anytime soon. We wouldn't see any medical relief nor have any supplies shipped in, either. If that was the case, we were all on borrowed time and given what the Sheriff had told me of what had gone down at the train station, I wouldn't want to ride it even if it was still on the rails. It was a hot spot of infectious, biohazardous material, one that needed to be cleansed with either a ton of bleach and antiseptic, or the preferable solution: fire.
Starlight's shoulders seemed to slump in on themselves and she averted her eyes from mine.
"We…haven't had a letter from her since our last correspondence the day you all arrived, when the fires had driven every pony here. But it sounds like things are going just as badly in Canterlot as they are here. I don't want to assume anything without confirmation, but…I think Princess Twilight has sealed the capitol in a shield to keep any infected ponies from slipping through the cracks. I'll send her another letter and see if we can get more from her. I've also got a few contacts around Equestria that I'd like to check in on as well, so I'll keep you updated."
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Sheriff give a nod of approval toward Starlight. Without much else to discuss, I turned my attention to my assembled team: three nurses, two doctors, and two first-year residents. The nurses looked weathered and weary all at once, while in contrast, the first-year residents were unsure of themselves, eyes wide and round like startled deer. The two doctors were the middling ones; not entirely burnt out, but also not entirely keen on this endeavor.
They were wearing what little PPE gear we had left, and I was mildly satisfied that they were all at least wearing faceguards, had long-sleeved scrubs on, and wore gloves snugly over their hooves. If someone coughed or got blood on them, at the very least it wouldn't get in their faces.
It was a strange sensation staring over the medical ponies that had been thrust under my leadership. It's been…quite a few years since I had even one assistant, never mind having seven. It was, I would admit, a bit overwhelming to go from zero support to a sudden network of helping hooves.
OoOoOoOoOoO
According to Doctor Greymare, Sheriff Dust Cloud, and Headmistress Starlight Glimmer, they had all come to agree upon a rotating schedule to have a pony standing guard outside the room that held the quarantined ponies. They were also provided with bare-basic amenities, if they were feasible enough. Food, water, blankets…
Currently, it looked as though another hospital security pony was on the rotation when I and my new entourage pulled up to the door. This pony was a bit pudgier compared to the lean frame that Defense Bit touted, but he was just as bright-eyed and alert as she was. I had no doubt that he could probably take a hit and deal it back out just as hard, if push ever came to shove. Just the kind of muscle we needed in case of any rowdiness.
His hind hooves clicked sharply together as we approached, the fur over his top lip styled into a short yet kempt moustache twitching over his mouth, but I wasn't quite sure if he was frowning or not.
"Simmer down, Rose Shield. Red here is going in there to reassess the ponies in quarantine."
The security pony, Rose Shield, eyed me up and down before he gave me a curt nod in understanding. He flicked his short rose-pink tail as he stepped aside, giving me full access to the doorway.
I spun on my heels first and looked over my gathered helping hooves. I raised my voice to be heard over the background ambience and chatter. I went over the most important points, emphasizing the critical nature and situation we were about to step into. We had no clean room, no isolated suits that cycled clean and filtered air into it, no actual lockdown protocols that we could fall back on.
We were going in with little gear, less protections than usual, and we would need to improvise to the best of our abilities. I then asked the Unicorns of the group (two of the nurses, one of the residents, and one of the doctors) if they knew any shield spells.
One nurse and one doctor nodded. The resident made a face as he lifted a hoof up to wobble it in the air, embarrassment lining his face. I sighed.
"Not exactly encouraging in the least," I muttered under my breath. I then ignited my horn and snapped up a shield around myself and the remaining ponies. The Unicorns were quick to follow my example, their shimmering spell work holding for the time being.
I nodded in approval. It would have to do for now. I swiveled back around, exhaling slowly as I grasped the doorknob in my magic…and pushed the door open.
