Chapter the Ninth
Chapter the Ninth, or “In Which We Meet Darkness”
After a quick discussion with the group, we all decide that the best thing to do would be to follow Clancy to his safe place. “Clancy? You can come in now, darling,” Rarity called when the meeting was resolved.
Clancy walks in, obviously feeling a bit awkward about being the odd one out. “Did you guys make a decision?” he asked.
Twilight nods. “We’ve decided that our best bet would be to see if this place of yours is worth it,” she says. “After all, survivors have to stick together, right?”
The large man grins. “That’s good to hear. Now, if you ladies and gent would follow me, you can ride in the Tombstone!” With that, he struts out of the room, leaving us with puzzled expressions on our faces.
“What do you reckon he meant when he said ‘riding the Tombstone’?” Applejack whispered in my ear.
“It’s probably his truck,” I reply. “Twi and I heard it right before he came in.” I attempt to get out of bed, struggling to balance myself with only one hand.
“Oh dear, let me help!” Fluttershy says kindly, supporting my bad arm as I get out of bed.
I give her a grateful smile when my feet touch the ground. “Alright, what we should do is packing up anything that could be useful. Guns, ammunition, weapons, canned food, whatever you think that we need to survive. If it turns out that we can’t fit it in, we’ll decide what not to bring.”
After gathering everything that we could, we walk out into the blinding desert sunlight light to find a beat up black truck with Clancy standing beside it. “This is the Tombstone, my own personal pride and joy!” he says proudly. “The old gal has some problems sometimes, but she’s never failed me yet! Now, I can fit about four other people in the car, so two of you will have to ride on the flatbed. As for all of your gear, I think we can fit nearly all of it! Any questions?”
“Just how far is this place of yours?” Rarity asked.
“Nothing more than sixty or seventy miles,” Clancy assures her. “If all goes well, we can get there in ten minutes.”
Fluttershy timidly raises her hand as well. “Are there going to be any of those… Things?”
Clancy chuckles. “If there are, we’ll be going too fast for them to catch up, so there’s nothing to worry about. Anything else?”
“Where’d you get that big scar on your face?” Pinkie blurts out.
Rarity rolls her eyes in annoyance. “Honestly, you can’t just ask people where they get their scars from, darling!” she admonishes. “It isn’t polite!”
The man grins and runs his thumb over the scar, which stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear. “It’s alright, I don’t mind explaining,” he chuckled. “Well, what happened was that as I was escaping from some zombies in the city, I threw a grenade behind me and blew up a building. The windowed shattered, killing a bunch of those suckers and cut me up pretty badly. Not much to tell, obviously,” he admitted sheepishly, “but I digress. Just load up all your stuff into the back and let’s get moving!”
We all pile into the van and begin the drive, with Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and I in the main car with Clancy, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash sit in the back of the truck. Seeing as it was going to be something of an hour drive, I decide find out a little more about our destination. “So Clancy… What exactly is this place?” I ask curiously.
“Well, when we found it, it was an abandoned prison. All the inmates that were there were either zombies or dead,” Clancy explained. “After cleaning the place out, we decided it’d be the perfect place to hide till this whole thing blows over. I mean, you’ve got your concrete walls, your barbed wire fences, and more canned food than either of us can live through. Besides, there happened to be a sporting goods store a few miles away, so we’ve got ourselves a nice pile of shotguns in case anything happens!”
“So we’ll be completely safe from the zombies?” Fluttershy says hopefully.
Clancy’s face suddenly becomes awkward. “Well, we WOULD be… If it weren’t for the fact that they aren’t the only things that we’re fighting…”
“Are there more hostile species out there?” Twilight asks.
“Two more, to be exact. You’ve got your vampires, who only come at night, and your werewolves, that only show up once a month during the full moon. Now, these aren’t the vampires and werewolves from legend or anything, but they sure as hell act like them. Vampires are basically like zombies, but they’re about as smart as a human and die a little easier. Werewolves, on the other hand, just look like someone glued hair on a guy and pissed him off badly. They’re nearly impossible to kill, but only for as long as the moon’s out. After that, they’re as harmless as you and me… Which isn’t all that harmless if you ask me.”
Rarity looks at our driver in conclusion. “What do you mean?”
“Well, recently we’ve been having something of a crossroads going on,” Clancy sighs. “You’ve got decent, normal people who just want to survive, and then you’ve got those folks who just want to raise hell. We had to kick a guy out because he had gone completely crazy… Tried to kill his little daughter to ‘save’ her from all of this. Poor guy…”
We all stay quiet for a second before Clancy speaks again. “We do have some good news though! We found out easier ways to ward off vampires and werewolves, believe it or not!”
“Garlic?” Pinkie asks eagerly. “Ooh, I know tons of garlic recipes! Garlic bagels and garlic pretzels and garlic juice and-“
“I’m pretty sure it isn’t garlic, Pinkie,” I say before turning back to Clancy. “Is it?”
Just as Clancy’s about respond, a sudden bang rings throughout the air. “What was that?!” Fluttershy asks, obviously alarmed.
“Someone’s shooting at us!” Clancy growls, maneuvering the car away from the gun shots. “Tell your friends out there to duck and cover!”
I nod and open the window connecting to the flatbed. “Applejack, Rainbow!” I call. “Duck and cover! Someone’s shooting at us!”
“Are y’all kiddin’?” Applejack laughs. “Ah’ve got a clear shot at the suckers! Ah’ll take ‘em out from here!” She reaches into the pile of weapons and pulls out a large sniper rifle, aiming it at a large red cliff in front of us. “Fire in the hole!” she bellowed, sending a bullet ringing through the air. “Did Ah get ‘em, Dash?”
Rainbow, who was holding some binoculars, nodded happily. “Right in the leg, Applejack!”
Suddenly, more shots start singing through the air, one of them shooting off a side mirror. “What the hell?! I thought you got him?!” I cried.
“There’s a ton of more guys!” the rainbow-haired girl yells back. “At least sixteen or seventeen of them, all lined up along the cliffs!”
“That’s it! Duck and cover, NOW!” I order.
Not surprisingly, the two of them oblige, hiding behind the walls of the flatbed. I go back to my original seat to join the others. “Rainbow says that there are at least sixteen or seventeen goons shooting at us from those cliffs beside us!”
“Then hold on!” Clancy growls, practically slamming down onto the gas pedal. The car gives a sickening lurch, clocking nearly a hundred and twenty miles an hour.
“Is that the place?” Twilight asks urgently as a stone grey building comes into view.
Clancy grins. “There it is! Welcome to the Felix County Penitentiary!”
“That’s great and all, but could you please slow down now?” Fluttershy whimpers as she clutches her seat.
The black-haired zombie hunter’s face suddenly falls. “The brakes aren’t working!” He gasps, stomping on the pedal over and over. “I can’t do anything to stop the car!”
As the building comes closer and closer, an idea pops into my head. “Twi, use your telekinesis to stop the car,” I whisper urgently into the purple-haired woman’s ear.
She bites down on her lip nervously. “But what if he sees? He might think we’re freaks or something!”
“So being smashed to a pancake’s better?” I retort.
Twilight sighs and begins to focus. Just as the car’s about to slam into the building, it stops with a terrible lurch, its hood just inches from the walls. “Whew,” Clancy sighs in relief. “That was a close one. I guess the brakes need a tune up, huh?”
At this point, Fluttershy’s nails had dug three inches into the car seat. “I suppose so,” she whimpers, shivering in fear.
Rarity, who managed to hold her composure a little better than Fluttershy, staggers out of the truck, clutching her stomach. “I think I might be sick,” she moaned.
Even Rainbow Dash and Applejack stumble out of the truck bed, looking as if they had been dragged through hell and back. “Never again,” Rainbow moaned as she fell to the floor.
“Hey, that was kinda fun!” Pinkie grins as she flounces out of the car. “Let’s do it again!”
“Sorry about that kiddo,” says Clancy, who was checking his car’s engine. “Looks like the Tombstone won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
The group gives a tired cheer as Clancy walks up to the prison door and pulls out a card key. “Well, ladies first!” he grins as he opens the door.
The girls practically stampede into the prison, as if they had to get away from the car as soon as possible. Clancy turns to me and smirks. “Women, right?”
I chuckle as the both of us walk in behind the girls. “Oh, they aren’t normally that bad. To be fair, though, you WERE clocking at least one hundred miles an hour, man.”
Clancy’s smile fades quickly and is replaced with a scowl. “You don’t know those men up there. They’re the McCrady’s, and those bastards have been giving us trouble ever since they got some millionaire sponsor or some shit like that. The idiot provided those inbred hicks with more guns and ammo than humanly countable. It doesn’t help that they’re all werewolves, so they’re at least nine times more dangerous at the moon and ten times as dumb.”
“Well, at least THEY’RE out there and YOU’RE in here, right?” I point out. “You’ve got the upper hand!”
“Yeah, but it makes going to the stores to loot a complete bitch,” he sighs. “Anyways, let me lead you to a couple of the folks living here. I’m almost certain that we’ve got something for that arm of yours.
Curious, I follow him to what looked like the mess hall of the prison, where about ten people were sitting down and having breakfast. “Alrighty, gang, listen up!” Clancy calls. “We’ve got seven new crewmates with us, so we’ve got to be extra accommodating, alright? Sebastian, this is the Doc,” he explained, pointing a tired looking woman with greying brown hair. “She might be able to help with your little… Problem.”
The Doc gets up and shake my good hand. “I see you’ve met up with the zombies,” she observes, glancing at my severed hand. “I hope you disinfected the wound after you cut it off, or there might be some complications.”
I grin. “It burned like a bitch, but some gasoline did the trick.”
She looks at me, obviously impressed. “It’s good to know that someone here has brains,” she smiles wryly. “Maybe our dear leader can take a few lessons from you.”
“Hahaha, very funny,” Clancy says wryly. “Do you think you can manage a replacement?”
The Doc takes my arm into her hand and examines it. “Hmmm… I might be able to fit you with a prosthetic, but it won’t do much good in a pinch… How about something a little more creative?”
I shrug. “Hey, whatever’s the most useful in your eyes, I’m up for.”
“In that case, follow me,” she smiles, and leads me to an exit of the mess hall. We walk to a small fat man who was petting a large Doberman behind the ears. “Hello, Gus,” the Doc says warmly to the fat man. “I’ve got a challenge for you, if you’re interested.”
Gus looks up from his enormous dog and grins. “What’s the problem, Doc?” He looks to me, then to my arm, and his eyes widen in realization. “Ah… So another arm, then?”
“Not exactly,” the Doc smiles. “See, Sebastian here was looking for something more… Practical.”
Gus grins ear to ear. “Oh, I’ve got something practical, alright!” he chuckles, and scampers into a small hut behind him. He waddles back out carrying a small chainsaw with some weird arm attachment connected to the bottom of it. “I call it the Ripper!” he proclaims as he hands it to me. “I came up with the idea after watching one of those Bruce Campbell movies in the Rec Room! Only problem is that I could never get it to fit to someone’s arm without ripping their hand off, but I have a feeling you won’t have much of a problem with that, will you?”
I roll my eyes as I fit in the surprisingly light weapon onto my bad arm. “Yeah, yeah, make hand jokes all you want. How do you turn this thing on?”
He smiles and pushes a small button on the side of it, and the machine awakens with a surprisingly gentle purr. “She handles like a dream, doesn’t she?” he says proudly as he runs his finger on the engine. “Took me months to get the engine to be that quiet and gentle, but trust me, she slices and dices through zombies like they were butter!”
I grin as I observe the quietly humming machine. “Groovy,” I chuckle to myself as I turn it off.
“Thanks for your help, Gus,” the Doc smiles. “As always, you’ve been great.”
“Hey, it’s my job!” he says modestly, fiddling around with his Doberman’s ears. “You make sure to keep an eye on that thing, though,” he adds, looking at me. “I’m afraid it’ll end up slicing though the wrong people, you know?”
I nod and grin, taking the weapon off of my arm. “Will do. See you around, then!”
The Doc and I both walk back to the mess hall, where about a few hundred people were apparently waiting for something. “What’s going on?” I ask the Doc.
The older woman smiles. “It’s the Morning Briefing. Clancy takes time to make sure to let us know what’s going on for the day.”
“Is that really necessary? I mean, wouldn’t you guys rather do your own thing?”
The Doc sighs. “These days, it’s nice to know that you have someone to lead you. It makes you feel like you’re a part of something.”
Not quite understanding her, I simply shrug and walk off to find the girls. “Hey, are you guys feeling better?” I ask, finally locating them near the front.
Fluttershy nods a little unsurely. “I think so… I mean, it isn’t so bad here, after all…”
Twilight nods in agreement. “They certainly have a lot of resources! They have a greenhouse, a shooting range, a storage facility, a library, anything that someone might need in this situation!”
“Though it is a little drab here…” Rarity adds thoughtfully. Noticing our incredulous expression, she quickly becomes defensive. “What?! Just because we’re in a bleak situation doesn’t mean that we can’t afford to brighten the place up a bit!”
Before Rainbow Dash can say a witty retort, Clancy comes onto the stage and clears his throat. “Good morning, guys,” he says loudly. “We’ve got two main orders of business today! First, we have some newcomers to our little colony. I’d like you to say hello to Sebastian, Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity. C’mon, don’t be shy! Stand up!”
We look at each other before awkwardly standing up and waving to everyone, getting a lukewarm applause as a response. “We’re sure that you guys will help us with our survival,” Clancy continues, “which brings me to my second order of business: Today, we were attacked by the McCrady clan as we crossed the desert. Now, this isn’t the first time those little furries have pissed us off, but it looks like they’re getting bolder and bolder every time. Now, my suggestion is that we-“
Suddenly, a siren begins to wail, interrupting Clancy’s speech. “That doesn’t sound good,” Applejack says warily, and we all run to the front entrance to see what was going on.
Outside of the fence is a massive sixteen wheeler truck, rusting with age. A scraggly looking fat man with a sawed-off shotgun is leaning on the fence, his filthy blonde hair hanging in oily clumps. “So that security system of yours DOES work, eh Clancy?” he grins, showing sharp canines.
Clancy comes to the front of the group, pistol in hand. “What the hell do you want?” he snarls.
The blonde raises his hands up in defeat. “Hey, no harm intended, no need tah get all defensive,” he drawls. “I was just wonderin’ if you all would like a new leader.”
“New leader? What the hell are you talking about?” Clancy growls.
A man walks out of the sixteen wheeler, looking like a mirage in the desert. Whereas we were all dirty to at least some degree, this man was impeccably clean, sporting a pure white suit with a red silk tie and red tinted sunglasses. He would have been an Adonis, had it not been for his almost comical pot belly. “Morning, Mister… Clancy, was it?” The man asked in a thick European accent. “My name is Dr. Andrew Cula. I was wondering if you and your colony were willing to merge with mine in order to strengthen our chances of survival. I’ve already led my people to relative success, and I think I can do the same for yours.”
“Listen here buddy, you aren’t leading but two things: Jack and Shit, and Jack left town,” Clancy retorts. “Anyone running around with those goons can’t be good.”
“What, them?” the doctor asks dismissively. “Oh, they aren’t nothing but my well trained doggies, aren’t you boys?”
The blonde man, who was previously grinning ear to ear, is now looking completely humiliated. “Yes sir,” he mutters, bowing his head.
This apparently astounds Clancy. “I’ve seen the McCrady’s blow a man up for looking at them funny! How’d you do that?!”
Dr. Andrew smirks. “Just some well-placed words is all,” he says a little too smugly. “Now, do we have your trust?”
I could tell that this had infuriated Clancy. “Are you kidding me? If those hicks really are your little lapdogs, then you’ve ordered them to shoot at us for ages! Get the hell out of here, or we might just blow your lily white ass to kingdom come!”
The man simply smiles, a gesture that somehow makes me sick to my stomach. “Oh, you’ll come around soon,” he assures us. “They all do…” With a snap, he and the filthy blonde walk into the sixteen wheeler, and they drive off.
“They’ll be back,” Clancy growls under his breath as the giant truck drives out of sight. “I can feel it already.”
-------------
I stand next to the fence, watching the sun set behind the desert horizon. You know, I don’t think I’m going to make it through these trials alive, I sigh to myself, watching a tumbleweed roll into the distance.
I hear a small cough behind me, causing me to turn around. “Oh, hi Jackie,” I say halfheartedly to the blonde. “What’s up?”
“Nothin’ much,” she sighs, leaning against the fence. “Just tryin’ to figure this all out.”
I chuckle wryly. “Trust me, you aren’t alone. I’m still trying to catch up with everything that’s been happening to us… I mean, first space, then a quest, and now this?”
“That isn’t what Ah was talkin’ about,” she said tersely, glaring at me with those gleaming emerald eyes of hers. “What the hell is goin’ on between you and Twilight?”
I feel myself tighten up. Ok Sebastian, chill out. She’s just asking a question. No need to panic. Just answer her in a calm, deliberate, and calm manner.
I swallow and look her dead in the eye. “I think I have romantic feelings for Twilight,” I blurt out.
Smooth.
I wince in preparation for the oncoming storm, but surprisingly, Applejack lets out a tired laugh. “Ah thought so,” she sighed, moving a wisp of blonde hair from her forehead. “Ah guess Ah just didn’t really wanna believe it…”
Say something to her, you idiot! Goddammit, you can’t just expect for her to be cool with this! “Uh… I’m really sorry?” I say unsurely.
The blonde gives me a shaky laugh. “Don’t apologize if ya don’t mean it,” she smiled sadly before walking back into the prison.
I hear someone slowly clapping behind me as I watch her walk away. “Nice,” Discord laughs smugly. “You get right to the point, don’t you Sebastian?”
I can only feel a sort of halfhearted annoyance for the demigod. “What do you want?” I groan.
“First off, I wanted to congratulate you for ‘Heel of the Year’ position,” he chuckles, handing me what appears to be a stiletto of solid gold. *“Secondly, I’d like to give a warning, duck.”
“Duck?” I ask curiously.
“Goose!” he cackles manically before teleporting away. I turn to see the same sixteen-wheeler from earlier heading straight for me.
“OH SHIT!” I cry out before ducking just in time. The sixteen wheeler blasts through the fence like it were made of cardboard, sending white hot sparks everywhere.
The same man from before, Dr. Cula, comes out from the driver’s seat and stands on top of the truck. “My dear brothers and sisters, the time had come!” he bellowed in his thick accent. “We shall finally have the feast to end all feasts! Prepare yourselves!” he cackled, taking off his eye-glasses to reveal glowing yellow eyes. “For tonight, the dead shall dine!”
A horrible collection of screeches and moans comes from the back of the truck, and a giant shambling mass stumbles out of the back. “Zombies,” I gasp to myself, watching in horror as the rotting corpses drag themselves into the yard. I struggle to get up onto my feet and sprint towards the facility. “GUYS!” I cry out desperately. “WE’VE GOT COMPANY!!!”
An unfamiliar face comes into view through the glass door. Seeing what was behind me, he quickly opened the door and let me in, shutting it just in time to prevent a zombie from sticking her filthy arm into the building. “You run and tell Clancy we’ve got ourselves a level nine emergency,” he says hurriedly. “I’ll try to keep these fuckers out here!” As he says this, he reaches out for a fire alarm and pulls it down with all his might, activating a deafening blare to go throughout the building. “What the hell are you doing here staring at me?! RUN!” he bellows.
I snap out of my stupor and rush throughout the aisles, looking desperately for our leader. A crash of glass ahead informs me of a new threat in the form of a decaying zombie woman, hissing and screeching at me. I manage to slide right past her, but amazingly, she begins to scramble after me at running speed. “CLANCY!!!” I cry out, praying that I’ll reach him before the monster reaches me.
The hag makes one last attempt at catching me, grabbing onto my leg. “GODDMAN IT CLANCY, HELP!!” I cry out desperately, trying to prevent the evil creature from biting me.
A gunshot rings through the air, getting both my and the zombies attention at the person holding the gun. “Yo, she-bitch!” Applejack snarls, cocking her sawed-off shot-gun. “Let’s go!”
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Clancy says his base is sixty miles away but should take ten minutes to reach?
yep you made him ash form evil dead
my love for this story has increased by 999% 
2983561 Um... They're going really fast?
What the hell is a "thick European accent"?
2995295 I guess it's an accent that's very hard to understand, but you can tell that it's European... I suppose you'd have to hear it to understand the concept...
2998078 Why not just pick an accent from Europe? As it stands, he could have a British, Italian, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, or even a Russian accent. It would be nice to have some clarification. Furthermore, if you don't specify, some joker (who may or may not be me) will undoubtedly give him a ridiculously foppish, French accent and probably ruin how the arc is supposed to read.
Dr. Andrew Cula
I'd be surprised if he was one of them werewolves.
3002239 That's actually kind of what I was hoping!
You see, Dr. Cula's character's supposed to be snobbish, smooth, and just all around dick-ish. It'd be funnier if people didn't know the specific accent he speaks in, just that it's "a European accent", stating that he's more TRYING to sound European than the fact that he has a clearly distinguished accent. Besides, odds are that his name gives away what part of Europe he's from 
3006995 3005525 Right, that's it. He's getting a Transylvanian accent, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me.