Officer Valor suddenly snapped back into reality. He was sweating and breathing rapidly. The wound in his chest began to hurt again.

“Nurse!” He screamed out once more, this time a bit stronger. While waiting for her to come, he decided to remove the bandage wrapped around him. Valor cringed as he pulled off the gauze from his wound. There was no more hole, just a large scar and some residue. Probably just dried blood.

“Celestia dammit! NURSE!” The stallion belted out with all his strength. After a few minutes of waiting on his bed, Officer Valor got up again and walked to the door. Outside he heard hooves walk by his room. Angrily, he tried to open the door but to no avail. He pushed against it with his whole body, forcing the door to open slowly. He didn’t know what, but something was blocking him in.

Valor turned and bucked at the door, finally pushing it open enough for him to squeeze out.

“Is anypony out… here…” He began to call into the hallway, his voice quickly fading in confusion. All the lights in the hallway were out, blood splattered on the floor and walls. A single pony stood at the end of the corridor. Valor looked at the scene in utter disbelief and began to slowly walk to the mare.

“Excuse me, Miss?” He called out softly. There was no reply. Well, no words anyway. He noticed that she grunted lowly. “Miss? I was wondering if you could help me…” He continued walking with caution. From a quick glance in the dark hall he could see that the mare was cut up a bit. Valor reached out a hoof gently to her.

A low gurgle emitted from the pony’s mouth as she turned around to face Valor. He felt a sudden urge to throw up as he saw the mare. Half of her face was missing, blood still oozing slowly from the wound. One eye hung by a strand from the tattered pony’s socket, the other was a milky white that seemed to stare deeply through Valor. A low, but unmistakably excited growl formed in the pony’s mouth as it clumsily lunged forward on top of the already weakened stallion.

“Ahhh! Somepony help!” Valor cried out to anypony in earshot. The disfigured mare began wriggling on top of him,
attempting to bite him. Valor held her off with his hoof and tried calling out again, but when no one showed up managed to push her off. Within a few seconds he was on all four legs again staring down at the mare. She was still biting at his hooves, but was struggling to move forward. He could see that one of her hind legs was broken with the bone jutting out from the skin at a sickening angle.

Officer Valor galloped away while the mare attempted to get up, breaking the leg to a point where it snapped in half. She collapsed to the ground moaning loudly at the escaping stallion.

When he was at a safe distance, he slowed down to rest. His chest was still hurting and the pain intensified with each breath. Behind him at one end of the hall he could faintly hear the mare continue her moans. The other end had a door barricaded with a plank of wood through the handles. A sign hung above the door reading “Cafeteria.”

“What happened here?” He asked aloud to nopony in particular. After fumbling with the wood, Officer Valor gently opened the door. His mouth dropped open in shock at the sight before him. Directly in front of him stood twenty or so ponies, all with gaping wounds around their bodies. Several corpses littered the floor, each one missing most of their flesh. Several ponies were gathered around them, biting into the bodies and scrounging for whatever meat remained on the bleached bones. At the sound of the door they looked up.

A scream escaped Valor’s mouth, but the shock made him completely unaware. His eyes watched the ponies awkwardly hobble over toward the door, all moaning. He felt something touch his hoof and looked down quickly. A filly with her hind legs and flank completely missing was dragging herself toward him, attempting to wrap her tiny hooves around his larger one. Blood trailed behind her as she traveled along the linoleum floor, her intestines hanging and dragging freely with each movement.

Valor kicked the filly off in horror and looked back up to find a stallion about his size right in front of him. It made a guttural noise, exposing hair and flesh stuck in its remaining teeth. The stench of blood reached Valor now and he reeled backwards. The opposing stallion had begun to pursue Valor, as had several other disfigured ponies.

Officer Valor began to back away but fell down when he tried to speed up. “Stop!” he yelled at the pursuing ponies. “Get away from me!”

He was pushing himself backwards on the floor, staring up at the ponies shambling toward him. “Can’t you understand me?!” He cried out while finally scrambling up onto his hooves. He found an emergency exit door and was thrust through it by the large stallion.

The two tumbled down the stairs with Officer Valor on the bottom. The monstrous stallion hit its head on the steps, cracking open its skull. When the two landed Valor jumped up, ignoring the heavy pain in his chest and head. As the other ponies began to hobble and fall down the stairs, he ran off looking back at the stallion; blood and chunks of skull were spewing from the deep wound, yet it looked as if it felt nothing.

When he made it outside, Valor saw an abandoned carriage. He quickly pulled it over, blocking the door he had just walked out of. “What the Hell just happened?” He asked aloud to himself, rubbing his mane. The pain in his head had dulled, as had the stabbing feeling in his chest. He stood in the open and looked out into the landscape, but there was nopony to be seen. Valor rested a few minutes and then began walking toward Ponyville, leaving the hospital behind. The sounds of the disfigured ponies at the door were drowned out by the emptiness and the wind Officer Valor faced as he walked toward his hometown.

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Hope you enjoyed the first actual chapter of "The Trotting Dead." I apologize for the blatant rip-off's of the "The Walking Dead," but I promise that the next chapter and the others afterward are going to more original. I have a story planned out with the Mane 6 that just may blow your faces clean off. Zomponies (oh God, I hate that term) will be plentiful and the methods to combat them will be great. Sorry. No guns.
Let me know what you thought of the first appearance of the zomponies and give me some feedback. More gore? Less gore? I do like leaving a lot to imagination but maybe I should be more detailed? Tell me. I won't bite. The ponies might though.

The next one's gonna be good, just you wait. I won't give much away but Twilight's gonna be in it. Hint, hint.