Well, it had taken longer than I expected for another opportunity to present itself. Halfway up the trail that led from the mailbox to the house, I heard something odd coming from a knot of Lantana, a woody vine-like plant that choked everything around it and made only poison. Sometimes, animals could get into the tangle and not get back out. Usually, though, birds and feral cats didn’t cry. It sounded like crying foals. Like mine. I’d lost a handful of them recently; I’m still not a hundred percent sure how. Either way, the pathetic “Huu huu.” of distressed foals was unmistakable. I went in, fully expecting to find a dejected pile of dehydrated and dying toys. What I got instead was one of the better surprises I could have asked for.
There were no living foals. Lantana had enveloped an old fence post, and on the remaining strands of barbed wire I found what was left of my foals. Impaled and left to die while their killer hopped about the post, occasionally pausing to go “Huu, huu. Babby 'nee mama. 'nee hwggies an luv.” It was a butcherbird, a carnivorous hunter that mimicked sound. I’ve got no idea how it coaxed the foals in. If any others got out, the bird would kill them before anything else. On the other hand, the loss of four almost newborn foals was a problem. The herd would start asking questions; the rest of the youngest would quickly become distraught, and their negativity would cause problems. I wasn’t thrilled, but the simplest answer was to just cull the remaining three foals and tell the herd they’d gone with my old mare.
I made my mind up after a minute or two longer. Losing almost ten foals overnight sucked, even if I’d get to see one of nature’s crueler predators in action for my trouble. After walking home, I made my way back to the saferoom. A chorus of babbling nonsense rose to greet me. “Daddah! Daddah hewe!” Like stunted idiot dogs, my herd toddled toward me, nothing but sincere, chemically enforced love in their big wet eyes. This part was always nice; I let the creatures hug at my legs and even bent to give the oldest stallion and herd leader a small scratch under his graying chin. I savored the look of bliss that creased its faux equine features. Fluffies really worked as companion creatures, if you had the proper mindset. “Ok fluffies. Daddy has something to tell you, and it’s going to be sad. I need you to be brave for me, alright?” Several fluffy voices instantly became piteous “Huu’s.” Boof meanwhile, my old yellow and black stallion swallowed thickly and held my gaze. “O-otay Daddah. Fuwwys be bwave.”
I didn’t bother with an elaborate lie. I told them that Bluebell had become a “meanie munstah mamma” and demanded to have all her foals when she left. I told them I’d tried to protect the last three, but she had forced my hand. Bluebell had displayed the occasional bout of anger as she’d gotten older, and the herd accepted my lies easily. In a few days all they’d remember was the legend of wicked Bluebell the baby thief. Without realizing it, I’d given myself the perfect excuse.
Extracting my foals was a little harder. Fluffies cried, several shit themselves, and one dull green mare, distraught and screeching, threw herself at the nearest foal before I could get it out of reach. Teeth latched onto a trailing hoof, and like clockwork, I heard the “crack!” of tiny bones splintering. That could have gone better.
Making a mental note to punish the green mare later, I left the herd to its grief and began my trek back outside. The foals formed a basic pile in my palm, a brother and sister pair, Crimson and Lavender curling protectively around the now chirping black baby with his ruined leg. None of them had names yet, and once I got back under the sun, all three curled just a little tighter into themselves.
Once I had my victims where I wanted them, I knelled and gently placed each trembling little shitrat in the dirt. The black one collapsed at once with a shrill “SCREEEE! WORSTEST WEG HURTES!” This prompted his siblings to pivot and again try to hug his shattered leg better. I’ll admit, watching fluffy sympathy backfire never gets old. I had to stifle laughter as I stepped back and waited for nature to do its thing. While Black screamed and chirped, the bird hopped, twisted toward the sound, and did what it does best.
“Babbeh 'nee mummah! Nee hwugges an wuv!” It chirped. The sound was almost perfect, more than enough to pull my trio out of their misery. "Otha babbeh hewe?" my Crimson male inquired into the vines. “Nee wuv! Babbeh 'fo hwugges” the bird answered. Either its last meal had been talkative, or the wicked thing was smarter than it looked. Slowly, limited by the limping, chirping black foal, all three began to creep their way into the tangle. Lavender shook and left a steady stream of piss in her wake. Crimson simply asked, “Hewwo? Oddah babbeh? Am hewe 'fo hwugges!”
It took Black first, swooping from its post in a blur that had the injured foal back at its perch before the others could understand. With all the mercy nature could provide, the bird deftly flicked its head and skewered the wounded foal through his stomach on a spar of pointed wire. There was silence for a heartbeat as the toy processed its new agony, then it began to scream.
“Haf! haf! haf! S-SCREEEECH! TUMMEH HAB WORSTEST HUWTIES! WEGGIE HUWTIES! BABBAH NEE HUWWGES AN WUV!” Pain made him thrash, grating rusted iron against organs no firmer than soaking tissue paper. Something tore, and all at once Black convulsed. Drawing his functioning legs tight against his wounded stomach before, with a bubbling “Pffffrt!” his asshole heaved, spewing a gout of bright pink liquid shit flecked with chunks of mangled organs. Quietly, the ruined foal mumbled, “Mammah? Babbeh nu fweel pewty…” before vomiting what looked like blood. He didn’t say anything after that and seemed to stop moving. I doubt he died; fluffies are remarkably resistant to shock after all.
While this went on, Crimson and Lavender, horrified by the sound of their siblings suffering, backed themselves up against the far side of the small space they’d die in.
Lavender broke first. Closing her eyes and screeching, “Nuuu! Babbeh nu wan foweva sweepie! Nu wan hwerties!” She stumbled blindly for the exit. Crimson simply collapsed, folding his stumpy legs over his eyes, and cried. “Munsta nu see babbeh. Munstah nu hwert babbeh. Mummah sabe bestest babbeh… Mummah sab babbeh.”
With her eyes closed, Lavender never saw me or the boot I touched into her flank as she stumbled past. I pulled all the force I could, and still the impact flung her in a sideways roll into another of the continent’s passive nightmares. Bull heads.
Australian prickles on steroids. Stepping on them in anything less than new shoes was asking for lingering pain and a shockingly deep wound, and my Lavender foal was nowhere near that tough. Wheezing, she opened her eyes, belched a splatter of shit across her backside, and made the worst mistake of her short life. Taking a single step. Almost at once the tender pad of one hoof met a barb that tore effortlessly through the bottom of her hoof and speared so deep into her leg that the point emerged somewhere near her ankle joint. “h-HUUUUUAGH! MUMMAH! DADDAH! H-CHHHIRP! HEWP WITTLE BABBAH! WEGGIE WORSTEST HWRTES!” She continued to chirp, folding her damaged leg and stumbling unevenly in whatever direction first occurred to her. She made it exactly three steps before finding another. When she speared herself again, Lavender chirped, folding in on herself and managing to piss, shit, and vomit in a single awful instant before swaying off-balance and rolling into yet more of the wretched things. Amusing at it was. Lavender would survive for a while yet, and I had better things to watch.
The butcherbird had hopped down to Crimson’s level. “CHHHHIRP! Munstah nu see Babbeh. Mummah?” It warbled; I was fascinated. Could it learn? “Mummah?” Emboldened by the foal’s trembling, the bird hopped a little closer “Am hewe 'fo hwugges!” bobbing it stabbed into Crimson’s leg, peeling a long strip of fluff and bloody skin away. This broke the foal’s paralysis and he lurched up screaming, flailing useless hooves toward his tormentor. The bird hopped backward, wings flapping briefly before attacking in earnest. Each successful blow peeling another strip of meat from Crimson’s hide. He lost an entire hoof capsule, the leg peeled almost to the bone and suffered several blows to the head and face that fractured his skull and left brain fluid pooling behind his eyes. Once the fight-or-flight was beaten out of him, all Crimson could do chip. Just like the others.
Victorious the butcherbird bobbed it’s head. “Munsta gib foweva sweepie” It warbled, and tore Crimson’s stomach open. My foal continued to convulse and shriek until the bird had eaten his liver, most of his intestines and torn a lung in half. His swollen face, fixed in a mask of singular agony stared slackly at me once the bird hung it beside Black.
I was bummed to see that Lavender hadn’t lasted when I turned to leave. During her rolling she must have stuck something vital, half a dozen bullheads were embedded in her chest and throat. I left her corpse for the bird to find.
All in all I’d lost way too many foals and gotten a solid bit of entertainment. Not the best trade, but I’d be remembering the eerie way the butcherbird had seemed to torment Crimson for a long time.
(It’s been a long time coming. I’ve had some misadventures between the first post and this. If you’re confused. I’m not sure if I can underline text and make three distinct looks for human/fluffy/bird. Grammar is also a bit scuffed, my tool has been painfully unclear and this is a skill I never developed. English is my native language and I love reading and writing, so that’s a whole ass mystery. Anyway, enjoy.)
This is some truly unique abuse, and I love it. Now I need to see a herd chow down on gympie-gympie!