(A weirdbox story in an urban fantasy world where everything is magical)
Walk up to a vending machine in a dingy alley
A sign hangs up near the foal-in-a-can dispenser, “Help us maintain our product quality. Please do not scare the vending machine”
The vending machine is singing a mummah song to the racks of foals inside
“Mummah wub babbehs, babbehs wuv mummah…”
Step up and insert a silver piece, “Fank ou fo shiny nice wady”
“otay babbeh.” the machine starts to tear up as it addresses the foal being dispensed “You am getting a new mummah now. You be good fow yu new mummah. Dun tawk back, an awways make good poopies in da wittabox. You new mummah gonna take gud cawe of you. You gonna gwow up big and stwong and have wots of babbehs of you own. You gonna wun and pway and…”
The machine keeps babbling on. You wish you could tell it you’re just going to use the foal’s blood to power your car, but the blood is much more potent if the foals are calm and think they’re about to go to a good home. Something to do with innocence or something like that.
“…and wemembew, eben though you gots a new mummah, you owd mummah wiww awways wuv you”
“Otay mummah. Babbeh wuv you too”
The foal finally drops into the bin
“Thank you” you yell to the vending machine with feigned politeness as you run out of the alley with the foal
Turning the corner you walk up to your car, parked far enough away where the mummah machine can’t see or hear
You turn the can upright and press the button on the end of the pod. The springloaded priming spike deploys through the foal’s midsection.
“MUMMAH!” the foal cries out to you, “Mummah! Babbeh hab bad owwies! chirp chirp chirp! Hewp babbeh! Hewp babbeh! huu huu huu! Wowstest huwties!..”
The blood drips onto the magic circle at the end of the pod and it springs to life. The side opposite to the magic circle grows wickedly sharp spikes, and the side with the magic circle begins advancing, pushing the foal toward the spikes.
“Mummah! Hewp!! Babbeh nu wike dis game! huu huu huu!”
You open the car’s fuel cap and slot the nozzle of the bottle into it
“Babbeh am huwt! Babbeh am huwt!” cries the foal as the spikes impale it “hewp! gasp Hewp! Babbeh hab owwies! chirp chirp chirp! wowstest owwies! gasp Mummah! Hewp! huu huu! gasp chirp chirp chirp!..”
The foal trials off into untintelligble chirps and gasps and finally falls silent as all of its lifeblood is squeezed out into the car’s fuel tank.
By now the car is crying too
“Huu huu huu! Nu wanna num wittle babbeh! Nu! wanna! num! babbeh! huu huu huu… nu wanna num babbeh… Why meanie mummah awways make caw num babbehs and not sketti…Caw nu wan num poow wittle babbehs…poow wittle babbeh…caw am su sowwy…huu huu huu…”
When he first came to life you had initially tried not to let him know that the screaming foals were because of something you were doing to refuel him, but eventually you accidentally let him see the one of the cans activate and he caught on.
“huu huu huu huu…”
It’ll be carrying on like this for a while. Apparently when they come to life you really can run them on spaghetti (just make sure to put it in the mouth, not the fuel tank), but fresh foals are so much more economical. Even blood from a utility pipe, which the car doesn’t yet realize is also blood from fluffies, would take a full tank for what you’ll get from this foal. They raise them rough at the power plant, whereas this foal thought it was going to a good home even as it was being slaughtered.
You get in the driver’s seat and turn on the wipers to wipe away the car’s tears as you drive away. It may be time to get a new car soon. Once they come to life they just get unmanagable. They encourage it with the vending machines because the mummah songs keep the products fresh, but you don’t want a car with its own ideas of where it should go.
You muse about this aloud as you drive off with the car still crying.