A New Adventure - Part 4
By The Floofer
A long snout sniffed around the entrance, then along the floor into the hole. It followed a sent of fluffy musk and led the way for a narrow mouth with rows of sharp teeth. Its nimble black and white body was nearly invisible in the dark as it sniffed only inches above sleeping fluffy backs. It stopped above something almost bite-size sleeping on its mother’s back. The creature sniffed once, then twice. The foal exhaled contentedly, but it didn’t have time to take another breath. The creature struck at the foal’s head and ripped it off its mother.
Little Red woke instantly. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He only knew he had the worstest hurties and tried to scream for his moma’s huggies or for his toughie daddah, but his jaw was in a vice and the sharp hurties only got worse. It was dark but he could see his mamma and the fluff pile below him. He reached toward them and cried but then he was swung in a different direction and was being carried out of the den by the backpeddling creature. He made scaredy-poopies and scaredy-peepees until he couldn’t anymore.
The creature carried Little Red around to the side of the tree then dropped him to the ground. Moonlight glinted off the red fluff that his daddah was so proud and off the red blood now dripping from his broken jaw. “Nu… hu hu.” He begged. “Nu!!!”
.
.
.
I was woken by a confusing mess of wiggling fluffies and cheerful chatter about wakies and good sleepies. Most of the fluffs had already woken and were gathering on the other side of the chamber. I can’t believe I fell asleep out here. It wasn’t bad though, I thought to myself. Then the chatter became less cheerful.
“Stap!” The red toughie shouted over the crowd. “Who make bad poopies in safe pwace?” The smarty glanced over at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. I shook by head and mouthed the word no while trying not to laugh because of his obvious suspicion of me. “Bad fwuffies get hurties!” The red toughie stamped his little hoofs.
One of the mares that had foals screamed. “Babbehs gone!” She started to spin around in a panic, then stopped to face me. I patted down my big hoodie pocket to show that nothing was in it but and screamed. “Munstah hoomin num bestest babbeh!”
Did she really interpreted that as me rubbing my belly after a meal? “No, no.” I reassured her. “See, your other baby is ok, and she slept in my pocket, I mean fluff, all night. The panicked purple filly jumped and reiterated to her mother that she was ok.
A scarred voice was heard from near the entrance. “Boo boo juice…” The red toughie was standing over the narrow trail of piss, blood, and shit. He slowly looked up at the entrance and we all watched the life drain out of his face. “Wittle Wed… Wittle Wed!” He leapt forward and started climbing up the slope, slipping a couple times in the feces and blood but making it to the top and bounding out of sight.
The mood in the room turned to panic and hu hus, but then Grey and the smarty looked back at me from the entrance and the smarty shouted “Hurrwy hoomie toughie!”
I crawled out after them on my hands and knees and pushed the smarty out the entrance too. Somehow I managed to avoid getting too much of the filth in the tunnel on me and stood up outside. It was a nice morning and it felt good to stretch my legs. I stretched and yawned as Grey ran to Red’s side. The smarty half limped, half dragged himself behind them as Red was breathing hard and running in panicked circles further and further from the tree.
I looked at my feet and saw the trail leading around the side of the tree. There were footprints too. Skunk? “Hey.” I said to get their attention and I pointed. Red turned and galloped past me and around the corner out of site.
There was a series of blood curdling shrieks. By the time I walked around to the other side of the tree, Red was hysterically crying on the ground. “Nu, nu! Wittle Wed, nu Wittle Wed!” I looked down. It was an admittedly gruesome site to behold. All that remained was half a tiny rib cage, some crushed bones that I couldn’t identify, and some bloody leaves and tufts of red fluff stuck on the sharp edges of rocks and sticks. Knowing what skunks could do to entire chicken coops in a single night, these were some lucky fluffies.
The twenty minutes was a jumbled mess of fluffies crying, yelling, and hugging each other and my legs. Half of the babies and one of the mothers were still too scared to leave the safe place before shitting themselves inside it and the exasperated and flustered smarty had barely managed to get his special friend out of the hole in time to projectile spray just outside the entrance. However, Grey had done 90% of the work as Red and his mare were nowhere to be seen. I just watched because there was no way I was every going in that hole again after what they unleashed in there. The stench was too much.
Finally, I had enough and heard the smarty trying to come up with a plan to clean the safe place and I had no intention of being recruited for that job. So, I knelt over and got his attention.
“Smarty I need to go. I will come back later with some nice food for the herd.”
I thought he might cry for a second because of my announcement. “Herwd needs nummies.” He said and nodded in agreement. “Toughie fwriend can go.” I patted him on the head then turned and began walking away.
“Wait!” A voice shouted. I turned and saw Grey was bounding after me. “Pwease don’t go.” He tried to climb up my leg but couldn’t get past my knee. “Herwd need you.”
I genteelly shook him off and leaned over. “It’s ok Grey, I’ll be back with food.” His wide watery eyes looked up into mine.
“Can Gwrey come helwp?”
“No, you need to stay here.” I ruffled his head fluff then turned and walked away. I wanted a shower and a nice meal. “Man, what a mess. Maybe I should actually bring them back something nicer than grass tonight.” I mumbled as I crossed the final hill on my way home. Shaking my head, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. There was a different herd of fluffies walking through a field about a mile away. I didn’t think much of it and walked all the way home.
To be continued.