Tracy is Best Mom: Part 3 (Continuation by Gestapo)

This next segment was written by Gestapo as a sort of horror continuation to Part 2 of the Tracy is Best Mom story.

All credit goes to him for putting this lovely bit together.

 

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>It’s been a few years since Miss Cheerilee took you in.

>For the most part, life has been pretty good to you.

>Despite having to see a psychiatrist (dubious as a pony Doctor may be), you managed to recover from your terrifying ordeals with Mo...Tracy.

>The rest of the colts and fillies in school took an extra special interest in making sure you were okay. Everyone in this town is so altruistic and down-right nice.

>But they welcomed you back, and didn’t bother you about your ordeal too much. Even some of the ponies who used to call you nerd started to buddy up with you.

>You graduated last year, and help out around the school from time to time, being the dutiful son. You do a little work about town, as well. Turns out having thumbs made you extremely ‘handy’ pun completely intended.

>Today is your 18th birthday.

>You wake up, in the tiny loft of Miss Cheerilee’s house, what used to be an attic, with the smell of flapjacks bringing you out of your groggy dreams.

>”Anon! Breakfast is ready!” You hear the familiar, soothing voice of the mare who’s treats you like her own colt.

>”I’m coming, Mom!” You shout back, crawling out of your bed with the thick blanket and sheets. Had to have those specially made, considering ponies slept all weird and had fur and shit.

>Throwing on a pair of pants, some sandals, and a shirt, you climb down the ladder in the corner, careful not to bump your head on the narrow overhang above it.

 

>As you reach the kitchen, the purple-mare gives you a none-too-pleased look.

>”If you’d taken much longer, I’d have thought you were going to sleep all day, Anon.” She says around a mouthful of pancake. Her mane is all brushed out, and she looks like she’s about to head to work herself.

>”Did I have something planned for today?” You asked, stuffing your face. By god these were good pancakes, although you still occasionally missed having meat in your diet. You ate a lot to compensate.

>She taps her hoof on the table impatiently. “Anon, you have a serious penchant for forgetting things. Today’s your birthday! Now get the heck outta here so I can decorate!” She says with a warm, motherly smile. “Eighteen. All grown up and nowhere to go.”

>Now That hits you like a ton of bricks. The big one-eight. It’s not old at all for ponies, but you vaguely remember that it means something very important for humans. You’re all grown up now. You could continue to live here with Cheerilee for a while, until you could get the bits worked up to get your own place. Or you could see if there’s anywhere in town that’s looking for a caring owner to fix it up and make it nice.

>Hell, you’re almost as good at repairs as Big Mac.

>Thanking Cheerilee with a warm hug and a brief, chaste kiss to the side of her head, you decide to go enjoy your birthday.

 

>The first place you end up is the park. Walking through it, nowadays, is relaxing.

>Over there behind that shed is where you used to get your ass beat on a pretty much daily basis. The thought riddles you with a brief sadness, and an echo of something deeper, before you push it away, take a deep breath, and let it go. “ Doc says to forgive and forget. It happened, but it’s over.” You say, like you’ve said a million times before. A mantra to keep you calm.

>Young fillies and colts are playing all over the park, frolicking this way and that.

>You think you see Sweetie Belle and the Cutie Mark-Crusaders over yonder, and throw up a brief wave, which they return.

>For a time, they found out you didn’t have a cutie-mark, and tried to get you in on their little club. It took some serious convincing, but you finally managed to explain to them that humans don’t -get- Cutie Marks, which puzzled them to no end. ‘But how are you supposed to know what you’re good at?’ Scootaloo had asked. And you’d given them a non-committal response, because hell, how were you supposed to know ANYTHING about growing up as the only human in a world full of ponies?

>You continue your revelry for a while, walking with your head in the clouds, daydreaming about the party you’re going to have later, and then how to deal with your grown-up problems. Before you notice it, you find yourself strolling down a little patch of dirt leading outside town.

 

“Huh?” You ask, coming out of your idle revels, staring up at a dingy, grey house. For a moment you think you’re still day-dreaming. It might have looked nice once, but without a resident, and with the windows boarded, it just looks abandoned. The land around it for a couple of acres is open, and the edge of the Everfree forest is pretty close. This isn’t a bad place, you say to yourself, wandering around to the front of the house.

>You stop.

>You stare.

>For the briefest of moments, it’s all you can do not to scream and run and break-down. But for now your body settles for shivering and breaking out in a cold-sweat, as all the blood drains from your face. You realize where you are now.

>You’re Home.

>Not Cheerilee’s. Mom’s. The place you stopped being an orphan, where you finally thought you learned what love was. Oh god. Oh good god no.

>The house is a shambles, and it only serves to exacerbate everything the Psychiatrist told you. Explained how Tracy was messed up, and how none of it was real love. About how you had been abused, hurt, and Celestia knew what else. They’d crammed you into counseling for years until you no longer had panic attacks in the middle of the night.

>You grit your teeth.

>The rest of ponyville thinks this place is haunted. That it’s got some kind of curse. But it’s just a house. Just a house, right? And soon you’ll need a place to live.

>The idea to put your skills to work repairing this house sets off a fire in your heart. It might have not been a real home, but with effort, and time, you can MAKE it one. You can redeem your busted childhood. Right? Faintly, in the back of your mind, you hear an echo.

“Finally standing up for yourself, shithead?” recounts a long-dead voice that you’d almost forgotten.

>That does it. You’re going to fix the house and clean it up, and make it respectable again. This is your HOME. And you’re going to turn it into one.

>You find your way back to town as evening begins to settle in, and see a large number of ponies gathered around your house, and can’t help but stifle a smile. As you get closer, you hear a bunch of hushed whispers, and the rattling of the back-door as a few last guests scramble in, before the sound of shuffling and shushing comes through the door.

>With your fingers on the handle, you push the latch, and swing the door open. It’s pitch dark inside.

“Hello?” You call, a bright grin on your face as you already know what’s going to happen.

>The lights flick on almost instantly, and Miss Cheerilee, Pinkie Pie, the Cutie Mark-crusaders, and even a few ponies who you don’t know pop out from behind the furniture, the rafters, the ceiling, and even one pops in through an open window. You stumble backwards, almost hitting the wall before you trip over Applebloom and land flat on your ass in the doorway. Everypony gasps, a couple muttering ‘Is he alright?’ Before you stare up at everybody and just laugh.

>Thecrowdgoeswild.jpg

>A couple ponies help you up, and Cheerilee comes up to give you a peck on the cheek.

“Happy Birthday, Anon!” She cries, hooking her forelegs on your shoulders and giving you a hugely crushing maternal hug. “My little colt is all grown up!” She says, with some mare behind her cat-calling “Yeah, into a darn handsome Stallion!” which is followed by wolf-howls and whistles from some of the mares in attendance, causing you to turn beet-red.

>Somebody puts a bottle of punch in your hand, and a piece of cake in the other. Somehow you’ve got a party hat and everybody’s going wild. Even Vinyl Scratch is here, DJ'ing a set. They really went all out for their favorite human.

>You partied. By Starswirl’s curly lower-beard did you party. By the end of the night, Ponies are passed-out, leaving, or had gone home hours ago. Cheerilee challenged you to a punch drinking contest, which you lost, spending at least an hour completely wired on lightly fermented sugary-ass party punch. All-in-all, the night is a blur of cake, Dubstep, punch, and ponies.

>The next morning, you awake blearily, clapping your hand over your eyes to drive Princess Celestia’s radiant Wake-up call out of your sizzling eye-sockets. Somehow you made it to your bed. Pretty good for a guy who’d never drunk before.

>Washing up and heading down-stairs, Cheerilee is already awake, and though looking a little disheveled, is already making breakfast. Looks like some kind of oat-meal. A hankering for eggs and bacon enters your mind before you cast it away. At least oatmeal is filling.

“ The conquering hero returns!” cheers the purple mare, pausing long enough to give you a beatific smile, and remind you why you love her so much. “ Ha-ha, Mom.” You call, still rubbing your eyes. You’re entirely sure you look like a bag of ass, despite cleaning up. you certainly feel partied out.

>Breakfast goes on as normal, like it has every day for years. When you’ve both finished, you take the plates to the sink and start doing the washing, as you’ve always done. The Dutiful Son.

>Cheerilee clears her throat. “ So, Anon. Now that you’re grown-up, we have some things we need to talk about.”

>Ho-boy here we go. She put on the serious voice.

“What is it, Mom?” You ask curiously, as you take a scrubby-pad to the bowls and pans, not looking at her.

>You hear her hooves tap uncomfortably on the table behind you, and a huff of deep breath. “ Anon, you know you’re welcome to stay here, right? This is just as much your house as it is my own. You might not be my own colt, but you’re still just as much a son to me as any I could ever have. I don’t want you to feel pressured to be on your way just because you’re all grown now..”

>There’s a hint of apprehension in her voice, as if she doesn’t want to offend you somehow.

>You can’t help but suppress a smile.

“Well I didn’t really intend to move out right away. But there’s a place that needs a little fixing up that I might take a look at.” You say cheerily, putting the dishes on a drying rack as you towel off your hands.

>She looks alarmed, surprised, and relieved, all at once.

“You did? I...I mean of course you did. You’ve always been a forward thinking colt.” She says with a cheerful smile. “Just make sure it’s close-by, so I can visit.” She says as she canters out of the dining-room.

>You finish getting the things you need ready for the day, grabbing your tool-box, and packing yourself a lunch, you decide to take today to go look at the house, and see what needs to be done.

>Filled with apprehension from the moment you step out the door, it doesn’t take you long to navigate the old road out to your new...old...well, your house. You stop a couple times to have pleasant conversations with ponies asking you to stop by when you’re not busy to fix this or that, but in all but an hour, you find yourself standing at the front of the house once more.

>Setting your tools down beside the steps, you look up at the front door, boarded shut. A cold chill hammers itself down the length of your spine, as if someone had driven an icicle into your neck.

>You calm your frayed nerves, working through some mnemonic exercises the psychiatrist had helped you develop. It helps, but you’re still jittery as you heft a crow-bar from your toolbox.

“Well. Let’s see what we’re working with..” you say aloud, before jamming the crowbar in behind the boards, and heaving with all your might.

>CRACK

>The boards fly off, and you toss them off to one-side, trying to ensure they land nail-side down. You’re careless sometimes, but not stupid.

>Trying the door, you find it’s unlocked. Your knuckles are white, and you close your eyes to steady your nerves before you finally throw the door open, unknowingly brandishing the crow-bar behind you, as if to brain anything that moves.

>For a long moment, there’s silence. You can see the dust settling in the sunbeams floating in through the grungy windows. The smell of mildew and dust fills your nostrils, and it’s altogether not unlike the first time you walked in. The musty smell that used to plague the house is gone, replaced by the earthy scent of an unkempt home.

>There are a few pieces of furniture left, as you step into the living room. Anything of value is gone. The television is broken. It looks like some punk-colts threw a rock into it. That damned couch is still there, and looking at it, you feel something between disgust and appreciation.

>Without realizing it, you realize you’ve been holding your breath. With a whoosh, you sigh, and try to calm your nerves.

“Got a lot of work to do, Anon.” You say, talking to yourself a bit, trying to chase away the empty silence of the house.

>Moving from the living room to the Kitchen, the table, and the two chairs are still there. That awkwardly made high-chair. Everything else is missing. Some of the cupboard doors are missing or lying about on the floor, and a thick layer of dust and cockroach droppings is ground into the linoleum.

>For a moment you feel your nerves fray away into sadness. There had been some good memories in this house. Despite the abuse, and the crazy. Sometimes Mo...Tracy had been genuinely affectionate. But your psychiatrist’s droning tone rebukes those thoughts. She’d been crazy. Abusive. Psychotic.

>Chasing the thoughts away, you step across the kitchen and throw open a window, trying to let some fresh air in. Although it sticks, you manage to pry the window open, and release some of the moldy mist, and seemingly, some tension from the room. You prop open the back door as well, just to get the airflow going.

>Remembering your way around the house, you step back into the main hallway, and realize there’s only one more room on this floor, and a couple of closets. One stairway leads away and up, and another shadowed, unlit hallway leads to the bathroom at the end of the hall. But you know, midway down the corridor, is the door.

>The moment you think of the door, your heart freezes up like a steel block. You can literally feel your pulse stop for a solid second. Inadvertently, you start shaking. You can feel sweat prickle on your neck, and you’re sure, that somewhere, you’re being watched.

>The house shifts, and you jump nearly a foot in the air, and lift the crowbar above your head, casting about this way and that, trying to find the source of the noise.

>Looking behind you, the front door had slammed shut, and you rebuke yourself. “ Stupid fucking idiot.” you say, to no-one in particular, and the venom in your voice surprises you. Either way, you need to get through this house and conquer your fears.

>Retrieving a flash-light and using a wrench to prop the front-door open, you flick it on, the bright beam illuminating the hallway. You can feel the presence of the door. It, just like everything else in this old house is covered in dust, but it’s still so menacing. Like a gate to hell.

>A brief image in your mind of a pair of frightened young eyes, terrified and full of pain come floating to the surface, and a mixture of emotions well up. Anger. Fear. Guilt. You’d always been terrified someone would find out. But no, they’d blamed Tracy. You held up in questioning.

>You’d felt guilty about it, but you’d always tried to make up for it. Be better, right? You were a kid, inside a pressure cooker of a life. No-one would ever blame you. Except you.

>You realize once more that you’re standing still, talking to yourself and shaking, and head down the hallway, cursing aloud.

>As you make it about halfway down, a brown stain in the carpet makes itself known. It’s large, and occlusive. Your inner repairman instincts file it away that you’ll need to remove that whole carpet. Hell, you’d intended to anyways. As you turn around to examine it from another angle, you look up at the ceiling, thinking it might be a rusty pipe leaking water or something.

>And then that view makes the connection. It all comes rushing down at you. This is where you almost died. This is where Mom almost killed you. You shake so hard that your knees buckle, and you find that you feel very, very small.

>It hurts. Not the physical pain. You remember that well. It’d taken you a lot of stitches, and a good bit of physical therapy after you woke up. But just replaying that buried memory in your mind, as you sit, nigh-catatonic on the floor, tears well up in your eyes.

“Fuck you, Mom.” you say to no-one in particular.

>You remember the moonlight on her pale blue features, those cold eyes burning down into you as she made a threat you knew she would keep. There was no mercy. No love in those eyes. But somewhere inside, that face conflicts with all the times she would protect you. Keep you safe. The concern and care she had for your well-being. You can feel it, somewhere inside.

>It’s like a poison, circulating through your head, as you watch the clear details that only memory can provide. The look of surprise in her eyes as the knife had slid through her belly, spilling her blood all over you. You remember the crisp, metallic smell of blood.

>You remember her grip slipping from your neck, as the life drained from her face. As in those last moments, looking into your memory, you can’t tell if the sentiment in her eyes was hatred, or love.

>The poison works it’s magic, like a lingering curse lying dormant in your mind. The droning psychiatrist’s voice is drowned out by the stark clarity of memory, as you remember an uncaring, unthinking pair of eyes perched directly behind Mom’s.

>Cheerilee.

>Even though your thoughts, your memories are a maelstrom of emotion and sound and sight and smell and fear, you can’t help but shake a single frame, stuck in your mind like a Polaroid.

>A pair of teal green eyes, so awash with compassion, and worry, and love, boring into your own, as the face they were set in mouthed something. Your jumbled memories piece together this lip-synch as “I’m Sorry, Anon.”

>And a pair of Emerald green orbs staring down from behind her shoulder, full of hatred, and disgust, and murder.

>Cheerilee

>The name fills you with a sudden, animalistic rage.

>So far beyond any sort of irritation or fear you’ve ever felt in your entire life. The word repeats over and over inside your mind, an echo that stokes your fury like a furnace.

>Cheerilee killed your Mom.

>Cheerilee killed the only woman who had ever loved you.

>She took her place, not to take care of you, but to keep an eye on you.

>You were damaged goods. Dangerous, but young. They could reprogram you. Change you. Make you Docile.

>Mom would never have let that happen.

“Prissy little faggot boy. That’s what they made you.”

>You hear that voice, her voice inside your skull, reverberating like a gong.

“But you can stand up for yourself, right? I at least taught you that much.”

>Yes. Of course she did. Mom taught us to be strong. That’s all she wanted. She wanted us to be strong and furious and un-fucking-touchable.

“They weren’t your friends, Anon, sweet boy. They only needed to keep you controlled.”

>They chained you. Like an animal. They domesticated you, like a pet.

“Mommy loves you, Anon. Now go be a Dutiful Son.”

> You grit your teeth, the strength of your anger pulling you back to your feet like a puppet on strings. You heft your crowbar, lip curling in a snarl.

“ Good boy. your mother loves you.” Says the long-dead voice, dripping with that sick excitement you always heard when she was about to do something untoward.

“I love you too, Mom.” You say quietly, as you step back out of the house..

A few days later..

>Several police Ponies are poring over every inch of Miss Cheerilee’s house. She went missing and hasn’t shown up to school in several days.

>No-one’s seen anon, either.

>Several people say they saw him walking off into the woods, towards an old house on the outskirts.

>Police ponies arrive at the old Cage house, where Anon is outside sanding off the old paint, and working on restoring the outside.

>They question Anon, but he’s got no idea. He’s genuinely concerned with what happened to his mother. But he’s been out here at the house for at least the last three days. No-one in town’s seen him, and his story matches up.

>the Police ponies leave, and say they’ll be back later if they have any more questions, leaving anon at the door.

> He sets the dented crowbar he’d been holding behind the door-frame down, satisfied that two more ponies wouldn’t have to disappear. yet.

>Anon goes inside, and pours himself a glass of lemonade, reaching onto a nearby shelf, newly sanded and mounted, thank you, for a set of keys.

>walking to the end of the hallway, he unlocks the door. His own personal workshop.

>Clicking the light switch, illuminates a single gurney, upon which a purple Mare is strapped, at the bottom of the stairs, with a ball-gag stuffed in her mouth. She has a very obvious brutal wound to the skull that’s been roughly stitched and treated, and the gurney has been roughly modified into something from a Gynecologist’s practice.

>superficial lacerations, significant contusions and related bruising all go to show that the purple Mare has not been nicely treated. A slurry of blood, phlegm, and...other fluids gum up the floor underneath the gurney. She's openly weeping, whimpering around the ball-gag

>glass of lemonade in one hand, Anon removes the ball-gag from Cheerilee’s face, looking concerned.

“W...Why, anon?” she asked, her voice hoarse and barely more than a dry whisper.

>Anon smiles warmly, and takes a sip of his lemonade.

“Because I love my Mom.” You say sweetly, before admiring her a while longer. You turn and walk to the top of the stairs. “Sweet dreams.” You say, before turning out the lights.

 

End.