Time to go

In the morning the towns people awoke around the burning embers, gazebo still standing but the food and desserts put away.  The aches in their heads from a night that they hadn’t planned for full of candy and alcohol was a pleasant way to wake up.  Growing stronger the group started to head home and smiled at each other, remembering the events of the night, and how much apple wine was drunk.

Pinkamena was awake early and had cleaned up almost all the mess.  Her hair was ragged and her tail was knotted with dirt across her body.  Pinkamena was happy and energetic, grabbing balloons and sucking out the air and speaking in silly voices directed at the waking locals; smiles were given to her as she was passed.  She began packing up the tables and packing them around the snoring mare in the wagon bed that had almost blown their cover.

She was her sister, in every way as far as she was concerned, and as a good sister she wasn’t going to let her drink anymore.  Letting her sleep she reset the wagon and left a note saying she was going to the inn to get some real sleep.  

Upon arriving she went to open the door forgetting she locked it, reaching under her cloak she grasped for the key, it wasn’t there.  Rolling her eyes she didn’t want to go back to the wagon almost a mile away.  Walking to the owner’s room she opened the door without knocking and saw the old stallion holding a photo he took of her last night next to a wanted poster.

With a mere thought she ran into him, head butting him and knocking him into the wall, knocking some photos off their hooks and causing him to lose consciousness.  “Darn it, he was really nice too; Time to go I guess.”  She thought of the bed and had that she would have to explain it all to her broken hearted partner.

She tightly tied rope around his legs to bind him and another around his mid body and left a few feet of length which she used to tie his mouth shut, so tightly she thought he might wake him with pain.   She calmly closed the door, locked it with his master key, and left the inn locking it as she left, nonchalantly smiling at the neighbors that she passed.  Arriving at the cart faster than it took her to leave she hopped in and started shaking Applebloom, “Wake up, wake up.” She urged.

Slowly Appleblooms eyes opened to see her sisters worried expression, “What’s up darling? Did ya do something?”  “Time to go; the innkeeper.”  Nothing more needed to be said, they had happened across this before.  Hopping out of the back the world shook and turned slightly to Applebloom, who was still recovering from her consumption of cheap apple wine.

“That’s the last time ah drink, and ah mean it this time.”

“Hitch up sis, we’ve gotta go.”

“Okay, fine, fine. Time to go, ah get it.  We gonna leave or get him?  Do we have time to sleep in a real bed for a lick or two?”

“He’s tied up and ready to go.  We have all afternoon so let’s have some fun.  Its been a while since we had fun with our ingredients.  Then we have to go.  I’m sorry, but its gotta be this way.”

Smiling crooked they looked at each other, and focused the fun to come.  Hooking up to the yoke they pulled the cart behind them.

Returning to the inn, they parked with the back near the door.  They took a toolbox in with them, and went for his room. Opening the door she peeked in and saw the stallion sitting and trying to chew his binds, meeting eyes with Applebloom he had a moment of relief until he saw the pink mare come in behind too.  Shoving a dollop of frosting in his mouth Applejack smiled as the drug began making him immediately drowsy, they watch as he slumped over.

Jogging over to the bed Applebloom flipped the bed and moved the mattress against the window and the bed frame upright.  Pinkamena was locking the front door as Applebloom started rearranging the room.  She remembered they had nowhere to clean up so she went to the wagon quickly and removed a large trunk.  

The streets were lonely as nearly every adult was asleep or recovering and most kids were at parks or at each other’s houses.  It was a perfect day.  Returning inside she locked the door and dragged the trunk to the room, opening it and producing a blood stained tarp made of the hides of several ponies sewn together.  She laid it on the floor and set it up as they had a dozen times this year already; to catch anything that falls for collection later.

Both of them moved the bed frame to the back of the tarp and lifted the aging stallion and tied him to the improvised rack and began setting up for their day in.  They spend the next twenty minutes setting up for the harvest.

He awoke to the darkened room, wondering why the light was so low and why it was a shade or red.  He tried to move but his arms and legs were strapped with heavy leather bindings, he pulled lightly and felt stabbing pain in his wrists.  He looked closely, his eyes adjusting to the odd color dim light, he saw the bands were held closed by several inch long rusted nails, they pressed against his skin, lightly stabbing as he resisted.

From behind the frame Pinkamena emerged, her eyes shadowed by the light from above that was covered with a red cloth.  Bouncing in front of him she smiled as happily as she was the previous evening, she was back to her fun self, the Pinkie that had to hide was free:  Her fur was bright pink, and her mane was soft and curly, and she was wearing a dress made of cutie marks, hand sewn, with blue Pegasus wings on the back.  

He realized she wasn’t a Pegasus but had the wings of one.  Her cutie mark was covered by the dress but he didn’t care about that.  Opening his mouth he started to ask who she was, but suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his left flank, roaring his loudest as someone cut around his cutie mark with a blade.  

Walking around from behind his other cutie mark was cut, this time he bore the pain, watching the smile of the pink pony in front of him, clapping her hooves together she happily said, “Ooo, you’re strong.  I hope you’re as sweet as your are strong, or I’ll have to make muffins or bread.  

His eyes widened behind the pain as he realized what she said.  His hunch was right and he was going to be killed if he didn’t get away.  He didn’t want to be made into food.  These were some of the Bloody Mares, he had to get free and get help.  They had to be stopped.

He started thrashing and pulling against his bonds, nails cutting into his skin and forcing him to stop.  The pink pony nodded to the pony behind him, he believed to be Applebloom but couldn’t see her, so he was worried there were more in the plot.  He felt a stinging sensation as a filet knife worked its way under his flesh and removed almost all of his cutie marks, leaving them attached by a slight bit on top.  

“Think fast!” Pinkamena shouted as she grabbed and ripped them both loose from the meat in his legs.  He shouted in pain so loud the mares thought he might be heard.  Continuing, “Got your cutie marks!  My gosh, you’re old, this skin is all wrinkled and loose already and it just came off.” She began stretching one of them and put it to her mouth and acted like she was blowing a bubble.  “Pop!” She laughed.  A giggle came from behind him, and a yellow mare walked into the poor light.  

“What should we do today, Pinkie?” Applebloom asked.

“The same thing we do every day, have FUN!”  Joyfully replied Pinkie.

“I see he’s sad, lets give him some cutie marks, that made us happy when we were sad.”

Taking a scalpel from the tabletop to her side he hadn’t noticed before, that had several medical tools on it, and a hacksaw, made him nervous.  Pinkie approached him and slowly slid the blade under his flesh on his side.  He shouted again, this time he got an apple shoved in his mouth, “Shush, we can’t rush, or we’ll have to find another friend in town here that’ll be quieter:  Maybe that little colt that we got a taste of yesterday.”  

His eyes trembled, as he recalled hearing about the mare that licked the colt’s bloodied leg.  He thought it was just paranoia.  Resigning himself he stopped shouting and began whimpering, he chomped down on the apple, the juice raining down on his chin, he spat the apple out and swallowed what he could, the sweet taste filling his senses he focused on that.

Carving a balloon into his left side she passed the scalpel to Applebloom who drew an apple on his other side, she then connected the apple and balloons across his front with expert cuts just deep enough to not draw blood.  “Look sis! I done made our cutie marks come together!  Isn’t it great?” “Yes! Heheheeeeeee. I love it, our cutie marks were meant to be together!  Lets draw them together!”  

Pinkie grabbed a small but sharp knife and started to carefully carve her initials in his abdomen, Applebloom following suit.  Wincing and pulling away he choked back tears.  Stepping back they admired their work and looked at each other.  “Y’all wanna see our work?” Jabbing him with the scalpel she began carving under their artwork, rounding his sides and ending expertly where she started: Pinkie taking a filet knife started to remove the skin from muscle carefully.

The pain was excruciating: White hot pain filled his abdomen and he vomited slightly, mostly wine from the night before.  The pain pushed his mind to its limits, but he wouldn’t lose consciousness to these kinds of mares.  His body was burning with more stinging direct pain as the vomited wine trickled down his body.

Finally they finished, peeling the last of his flesh free and taking a step back, they turned it around to show him.  It was actually kind of impressive he thought; they had carved cutie marks into his hide, removed it and were showing it to him.  He weakly smiled and nodded his approval.  

Giggling they hopped up and down and locked arms and danced around humming, then they stopped and started singing ‘The fun never ends” looking into his eyes.  When the song was over they saw his listless expression and conluded he loved the song.  Gleefully Applebloom hopped over and pulled the red cloth off the light, exposing to him the true horror that he had been through.

Blood was pouring from his wounds, his abdomen on fire, blood clotting and trickling down his legs.  Looking down to the left he could see the instruments they were using on him, to the right were buckets, covered in rust and dried blood.  “Hey darlin’, attention here where its deserved!”  Snapping his head to Applebloom he flinched from the pain.

Looking at him with youthful exuberance Applebloom picked up the hacksaw and bounded for him, he hardly had a chance to think of what was happening before he felt the blade cutting through his right knee.  With almost no effort his leg was removed, blood quickly leaving his body.  “3 minutes.”  Pinkie said.

“Ya know, back in the day we had a medicine that would make this not hurt, but that’s hard to get when you’re running round like we are.  You’re gonna wish you got some before too long, but it’ll be over soon.”

Applebloom went to his left knee and did the same.  The weight on his arms was extreme as the nails dug almost an inch into his skin, stabbing into his bones, the only thing holding him up at this point.  

“Uh, 1 minute 45 seconds.”  Pinkie said.

Pinkie came out of nowhere with a hammer and pounded the nails deeper into his arms, blood gushing from where his lower legs were.  Quickly they laid the frame down and Pinkie hopped on his lower belly, cutting off some of the blood flow, prolonging his passing.  

“1 minute 30 seconds,” Pinkie said.

Applejack moved up his body and sawed off his arms at the elbows and he began thrashing, trying to grab anything with phantom limbs and moaning, too much pain for him to speak or to utter a real word.  

Smiling at Applebloom Pinkie said, “45 seconds, time to hurry!”  At the same time Pinkie began cutting his abdominal wall, “I’ve got my ‘EYE’ on you,” she giggled as she ripped him open and grabbing quickly his organs saying what each would be used for.

“Kidneys are for muffins, lungs are cream puffs, ooo, liver it too.  I’m gonna find a way to just be kidneying around while I make apple wine in this bladder!  No drinks for you!  This spleen says ‘taffy’ all over it, “she said as she put his spleen in his mouth, “Taste the salty sweetness?”  He gagged and his stomach started to spasm, she cut it out before he could make a mess.  “Look, Haggis is where its at!  Look, all this intestine is all messy, I’ll have to clean it out and make sausages!  What have you been eating?”

He died with the taste of his blood in his mouth, Applebloom collecting the pieces that Pinkie was dropping and putting them on her body where they would go if they were hers.  Laying down she placed all his parts across her body and looked at the blood pooling around her, coloring her body an off orange color.  

Looking down, Pinkie admired her sister, never having been able to see herself she imagined that she must have looked that cute a few times.  After a few minutes of rolling in his entrails and guts Applebloom got up and began collecting the parts, putting them into a bucket.  Shaking she felt blood running down her body from her mane, which was soaked.  Smiling at each other they regarded their handy work and started cleaning up.

It took only an hour for the two of them to clean his organs and much of his muscles into various buckets and bags.  Rolling up the hide and pouring the blood into two separate buckets.  They were shocked at how efficient they were now, two hours start to finish.  He had only lasted 20 minutes.   They took a shower separately, the clean one taking out parts and bits and then the other making sure everything was as clean as they could make it, save for the smell of blood that permeated the air.

They gathered his tradable valuables into a small case and put it into their wagon.  Resetting everything to how it was before, except for the now bloody carcass of a stallion that laid haphazardly on the floor, his limbs scattered close to his body.

Packing up the last of their belongings they returned to begin baking in his kitchen.

A large platter of goodies was left on a platter on a table outside the Inn that night and the wagon was gone, a single light burned in a room, and people lined up to eat some muffins, topped with red sprinkles shaped into a heart on each one.  A small letter that said, “Thanks for your hospitality and we can’t wait for the next time!  Enjoy these as a gift and we’ll keep you in our hearts!”  

While the group was eating the muffins they smelled fire.  The inn was burning before anyone could react, an older mare guiding the foals to a safe distance.

Tried as they could they couldn’t stop the fire, taking into account the owner was missing and quickly concluding he was in there, possible having had started the fire after another afternoon drinking something that matched the exquisite flavor of the muffins.  

Even though tragedy had befallen their little town, they all longed for more sweets, anxiously awaiting the bakers return.