Author’s note: all future instalments of Kerry’s story, are coming. They’ll just be spread out as hell. I’m just too damn busy these days.
To bridge the gap, I’m going to start re-uploading some of my old stuff here. The media fire archives aren’t going anywhere, but media-fire could nuke it all at any time and not everyone wants all my stuff.
So then, I give you, Contamination.
Tainted by my sin I’m spilling blood and I can hardly contain it
6:30am, Baltimore Maryland
A young man climbed out of a battered Honda Civic and walked across the half empty lot to old brick industrial building. Over its long life, the building had been home many different industries before it was mothballed as domestic manufacturing slumped. In the past few years though, it had returned to life thanks to a new industry, hinted at by the sign on front;
The Montalvo Bio-toy Company
Neither the name nor the font would hide the reality from anyone in the know; this was a fluffy mill, one of many across the continental US. Inside, a few hundred unfortunate fluffy mares spent their lives pumping out foals, and then feeding said foal as milk-bags, or ground up into all purpose feed once their yields went to shit.
Given the choice the young man, a graduate of chemical engineering, wouldn’t be working here. But like millions of graduates before him, he took what job he could get and held on for dear life. He swiped his card at the front door and walked in, waving at the receptionist.
‘Morning Gabrile.’
‘Hi Joseph’ she said without looking up.
The young man, Joseph, walked through reception to the employee change room, found his locker and got ready for work. He slipped off his street clothes and dressed in a grey boiler suite with black safety boots. Stowing his stuff in his locker, he went to wash his hands and get gloved and hair netted. Another group of workers entered the room as he finished.
‘-I couldn’t last 2 minutes man. Her dancing is fucking witchcraft!’
Joseph groaned; his up-bringing hadn’t prepared him for socialising with the other employees
‘Morning Joe!’ One of the men called.
‘Morning’ Joseph replied.
‘Hey how come you always turn up early?’ Another workers asked. ‘I never met anyone more eager to work with shit rats!’ A laugh went up in the room.
Joseph left the wash station and sat on the bench near his locker, twiddling his thumbs until it was time to work. Around him the other workers on the day shift took their time, swapping stories about how they’d blown their last pay checks. Fortunately, it wasn’t long until the shift supervisor put an end to it.
‘You jokers have 5 minutes to garb up and get to your stations, or go find another job!’ Joseph took the opportunity to leave the room and go to the ready room. There he had a few moments of peace before the other workers and the supervisor joined him.
‘Alright gentlemen let’s save the chatter’ he said to the assembled men. ‘You know the drill; grab and sort the foals, check for stillbirths, and try not to hurt the breeders. Damage is out of your pay.’ The crowd murmured as the supervisor continued. ‘Be on the lookout for any breeders with dead or dog shit litters; we had three milk-bags croak over the weekend. Alright boys, get to your rows.’
The workers paired up into three man teams; one leader, one to push the sorter cart, the last to carry the baskets. Today Joseph was with his usual team, a dropout called Eddie and another man called Baker who was at the mill to fund trade school. The pair talked about their weekend as they checked the first stack in the row.
‘Man I’m telling you she’s the hottest dancer I’ve ever seen’ Baker said as he checked the cages from top to bottom. ‘Perfect fucking hourglass, red hair-’
‘Dude shut up, you know those curves are fake right?’
‘Bullshit, Eddie’ Baker checked on a dark grey unicorn who cowered at the far end of the cage, ‘I know fakes when I see them; this bitch is all real!’
Joseph did his best to block them out; how he wished the mill permitted listening to music on the job.
‘Alright first fresh batch of the day.’ Baker opened a cage and reach in.
‘Huuu pwease nu take babbehs gain!’ The mare whined as Baker extracted her litter and deposited them on the sorting cart; the foals peeped in fear and squirmed about.
‘Let’s see’ Eddie picked up the first one. ‘Royal blue, pass. Violet, pass. Red, pass.’ The first three foals went into the green rimmed basket on the right. ‘Dark orange, pass. Hmm, what do you think of this one?’ Eddie showed the last foal to Baker. ‘Good enough shade of green?’
‘Give it here’ Baker took the foal from Eddie.
‘Peep peep peep!’ The filly cried as Baker looked it over.
‘Pwease nu huwt gween babbeh, nice Mistah!’ The mare begged, face pressed against the cage. ‘She am gud babbeh!! Nu giv babbeh huwties!!’
Baker pulled a colour chart out of his pocket. ‘Ehh looks like she’s on the boarder.’
‘Worth keeping?’
Baker thought for a second. ‘Nah, not with her sibblings.’
‘Peep pe-Pop’ Baker snapped the foal’s neck with his thumb and threw the body in the red basket.
‘Nuuuhuhuhu baaabbeh!!’ the mare wailed. ‘Wai meanie Mistah make babbeh gu fowewa sweepies!?!’ The trio walked past the cage on their way to the next stack. ‘Waaaahuhuhuhu mummah’s wittwe babbehs huhuhu!!’ Joseph felt a knot in his gut.
‘Right, what we got here?’ Baker stared at the top of the stack. ‘Nothing, nothing, ah bingo!’ Baker opened the cage; inside a light blue pegasus with a lavender mane slept, curled around her brood. She woke up when baker reached into the nook behind her tail and pulled out two of the foals.
‘Huh? NUU! NU TAKE BABBEHS!’ The mare curled tighter around the remaining foals.
‘Sigh stupid fucking bitch.’ Baker reached in and twisted the mare’s ear.
‘SCREEEEEE!’ The mare uncoiled herself and Baker snatched up the last of her litter. ‘NUUU BABBEHS!’ The mare charged, slamming into the cage door. ‘GIV BABBEHS TU MUMMAH! DAY TUU WITTWE!’ The workers ignored her as they checked the foals.
‘Pass, pass, pass, pass, and pass. Straight flush!’ Eddie put the litter in the green bucket.
‘Nice work 243’ Baker said to the distraught mare, ‘Keep it up.’ The mare screamed for her foals and tried to push down the door as Baker checked the next cage. ‘Well look at you’ he said to a swollen mint green earthie. ‘Still holding out on us huh?’ The dam whimpered and tried her best to shuffle into the back corner of the cage. ‘Why don’t you pop now and save us both the trouble?’ The dam covered her eyes.
‘Check her tomorrow’ Eddie said, ‘she’ll pop by then.’
‘Yeah you’re right.’ Baker stood and the men shuffled to the next stack. ‘So how’d your weekend treat you Joe?’ Before Joseph could answer Eddie interrupted.
‘Come one man you know the answer; he just sits at home.’
Like saving the money I make is a bad thing. Joseph thought.
‘Man you have got to get out more’ Baker harvested another litter. ‘Why don’t you come with me and Eddie to the club tonight?’
‘Not interested.’ Joseph said flatly.
‘Come on man, you’ve got to see Venus dance at least one.’
‘You should pay for him to get a lap-dance!’ Eddie added.
‘We’ve been over this!’ Joseph said. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘Not interested in a fine piece of ass like her? You gay or something?’
‘Cut the chatter!’ One of the floor supervisors yelled. ‘Unless you want to scrub foal pens!’
The men shut up and continued down the line. ‘Nothing, nothing, oh damn what a mess.’ Inside the cage four stillborn foals lay in a shallow puddle of amniotic fluid. Nearby a cream colour mare with a vibrant indigo mane sobbed uncontrollably.
‘Did 102 have another dead litter?’
‘Yup’ Baker said. ‘All good colours too. Look, the only survivor is dog shit yellow.’ Nestled in the crook of the mare’s leg, the sole survivor of her litter suckled happily.
‘How many is does that make?’
‘Five.’
‘Five? Jesus fuck!’ Eddie exclaimed. ‘What the hell did they expect from a shit rat they found digging in the trash?’
‘Hey, her colours are good; it was worth a try.’ Baker opened the cage and snatched the foal.
‘Speee! Peep peep peep peep!’ The foal called for his mother, but she hardly reacted to his cries. Baker snapped the colt’s neck and tossed it in the red basket.
‘Looks like we’ve got our first milk-bag candidate’ Baker drew a large M on the cage’s white board. The next few stacks had their fair share of good litters, and a few that were all bad colours or stillbirths. Baker marked the breeders as milk-bag candidates and disposed of the litters. ‘Finally, last stack.’ Baker checked the cages top to bottom and found one mare with a litter.
‘Dats it babbehs, mummah hav wots of miwkies fow yu!’ The mare cooed at her litter. There was one problem; the foals were all dead. ‘Miwkies gun make yu aww big an stwong an pwetty!’ The mare pushed an unresponsive foal against her teat. ‘Cum on siwwy babbeh, miwkies am gud fow babbehs!’
‘Wow, she has lost it’ Baker said.
‘You’re telling me; guess it finally got to her. Another milk-bag?’
‘Nah, we’ve already marked four’ Baker opened the cage. ‘This girl’s got a date with the mincer.’
‘Mummah wub babbehs babbehs wub mu-EEEEEE MUNSTAH!’ The mare screamed. ‘NUUU! BABBEHS NEE DAWE MUMMAH! BABBEHS NEEEEE!’ Baker dropped her in the red basket on top of the layer of dead foals. The mare jumped up and down, crushing a few bodies to paste.
‘Alright here you go!’ Baker dumped the dead litter into the basket and the mare calmed down.
‘Dewe dewe babbehs, mummah am back nao!’ She cooed. ‘Stiww hav wots of miwkies fow yu!’ She picked up another of her dead foals and tried to feed it.
‘Now that is something else’ Baker said. ‘Let’s get the good ones to the milk-bags and the trash to the grind-house. The team stopped at the foals nursing room where dozens of small pens lined each wall. Each pen had four milk-bags strapped to the wall, with a few empty spots where they had died. Joseph kept his head down, not wanting to look at the poor creatures struggle against their bonds. Baker and Eddie distributed the foals in the pens, then dropped the red basket off at the mincer room along with the other rejects found on the first patrol.
Job done, the men took a break and waited for their next duty.
7:00pm
In the grind-house the night shift was hard at work. The first to go into the mincer were the piles of dead foals followed by the dead milk-bags. Then came the stallions and broodmares at the end of their useful lives,. The majority of the adults didn’t even cry or beg as their death approached; they were resigned to their fate, and some welcomed death no matter what form it took. There was however, a little more torment to go.
The first step in prepping an adult for mincing was to flush out any remaining shit by jamming a hose up their asses.
‘Screeee! Nu huwt poopie pwace!!’
‘Nu bad wawa!!!’
It was unpleasant for fluffy and worker alike, but nothing compared to the next step; hung up by their rear legs and having their fluff burnt off with a propane touch.
‘SCREEEEEEE!’
‘BUWNIE HUWTIES! SCREEEEE!’
Despite the efforts of the powerful ventilation fans, the stench of burnt fluff filled the room. The extreme pain of the procedure snapped the adults out of their despondency; the burned creatures thrashed about to free themselves from the clamps that bit into their legs. Finally, they went into the grinder; the harsh whine of the motors and the gnashing steel teeth drowned out most of the screams and squeals of pain. Among the last to meet their end was the delusional mare found by Baker, Eddie and Joseph that morning. She screamed for her babies the whole time
During the time spent prepping the crazed mare, something slipped the notice of the workers. If they’d looked at her eyes, seen the red splotches in her Sclara and knew what that meant, she would have been thrown in an incinerator. But the workers took no notice, they were concerned about getting the job done as quick as possible.
When the grinder’s work was done, the workers had to move the bins full of lumpy, red, foul remains to a large cooker. There, it was combined with four parts oat flour and two parts basic multivitamin. Over night, the vessel would cook and combine the ingredients into the all purpose feed the mill fed to their fluffies.
1pm, the next day
‘Mmmphff! Nnnnhmhm!’
The milk-bag struggled and shifted against her bonds. The wounds from her conversion (amputation, eye removal, deafening) still caused her great pain, as did the bulky feeding tube forced down her gullet.
‘MMMMMMMMMPH!!’ She let out a muffled cry of pain as her hourly dose of all purpose feed was pumped into her gut which swelled near to bursting point. ‘Nnnnnhmhmhm!’ Her previous life of constant pregnancy and forced separation from her foals seemed like heaven compared to this.
‘Cheep cheep cheep’
‘Chirp chirp!’
In the pen bellow, dozens of foals squirmed about in the soft mulch, wriggling towards the teats of the milk-bags or one of the half dozen fluff piles. Aside from the more uncaring studs, these foals were by far the happiest fluffies in the mill; their lives were nothing but warmth, company, and all the milk they could drink. It lasted as long as it took for them to open their eyes and start walking. Then it was off to training.
‘Time to go little guy!’ A worker on the afternoon shift lifted a colt out of a pen.
‘Nu! Peep! Wan mummah! Wan mummah!’
‘God these things are retarded’ his co-worked said. ‘How the fuck could you mistake that for your Mom?’ He pointed at the milk-bags strapped to the wall.
‘Who cares; not our problem.’ The workers carried their basket of foals to the training room.
‘Feeding time!’ The colts and fillies who called the training pens home rushed towards the food bins; it wasn’t that they liked the soft meaty food the workers dolled out three times a day, but nothing tasted as bad as being hungry felt. ‘Enjoy!’ A worker poured a scoop full of the chunky food into the bin and the weanlings dug in, most of them at least.
Some of the new arrivals weren’t sold on the new food; they missed the milk they enjoyed on a near-constant basis back in the pen. One of them, a cannery yellow filly stared at the brownish food in front of her. She’d been there a day, and hated it already. She hated the older foals, the mean big fluffy they lived with, and the human workers. But most of all, she hated the food.
‘Nu wan!’ she swatted the food with her hoof and sat on her rump. ‘Nu wan huhuhu! Wan miwkies! Wan mummah huhuhuhu!!!’ Nearby, a dull blue gelding got up from his spot on the floor and stalked over to the filly. ‘UUUHUUHUHU! MIWWWKIEEES!’ Deep in her tantrum, the filly didn’t notice her trainer approach; the foals on either side of her did, and scurried out of the way. The gelding lifted his hoof and pushed the filly flat on the ground.
‘PEEEP! EEEE!’ The filly squirmed, but the gelding had her pined. He leaned down.
‘Dummeh babbeh eat dah nummies, ow,’ the gelding pushed down with his hoof, ‘dummeh babbeh gu squish!’
‘Peep peep peep! Nu huwites! Peep!’ The filly soiled herself. ‘Babbeh eat nummies! Babbeh eat nummies!!’
‘Dummeh babbeh gun wickie cweanie dose poopies fiwst, ow squish!!’ The gelding released the filly, who proceeded to lick her shit off the floor; her trainer watched the filly like a hawk until area was spotless.
‘So what’s the big deal with you and strip clubs?’ Eddie asked Joseph as they walked down the same row of cage stacks as the previous day feeding the mares and dams.
‘I don’t like crowded places.’ Joseph poured a double helping into a dam’s food dish. The fluffy cowered at the far end of the cage, not even looking at the workers.
‘You more into the free stuff huh?’
‘Sigh Yeah sure.’
‘Ease up man’ Eddie said, ‘I’m just-’
‘Nu babbehs, pwease!’
‘Hmm, what could that be?’ Eddie walked up a few stacks. Inside one of the cages he found the mint green dam shifting about, with a puddle of fluid behind her.
‘Nu cum oud yet babbehs! Pwease nu cum oud!!’
‘Come on honey, let it happen’ Eddie said. ‘Maybe you’ll get a night birth nex-’
‘SCREEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES!’
‘Hey Joe, keep an eye on her while I get a basket’ Eddie said over the noise. Joseph took his place by the cage, and got a front row seat for the birth.
‘SCREEEEE!’
Splort
‘Cheep cheep!’
‘UUUHHUHU SCREEEE!’
Splort
Joseph grimaced and turned away, but forced himself to look back when it was over. Behind the mare her litter squirmed in the puddle of amniotic fluid and other muck; they cried out to be cleaned and fed, but their mother cried her eyes out.
Waaaaahuhuhuhuhu! Uuuuuhuhuhu!’
Joseph remembered the others workers telling him the dams hoped against hope they’d give birth at night, which meant at least a few hours to nurse and hug their foals before they were taken.
‘Any stillbirths?’ Joseph snapped back to reality.
‘No. No, I didn’t see any.’
‘Well let’s take a better look. Hey mummah, you gonna clean those babies?’ The mare curled into a tight ball. ‘Fine,’ Eddie picked up one of the foals and dabbed it clean. ‘Make me do the fucking work. This one’s a pass.’ Joseph took the foal and carefully put it in the green try. ‘Pass, pass, pass, pass, hey didn’t you say there were no stillbirths?’
Joseph looked up; the teal foal in Eddie’s hand didn’t move. ‘I, I ah-’
‘Relax man’ Eddie tossed the dead foal in the red bucket. ‘I don’t like watching that shit either; fucking disgusting. You keep feeding the ladies and I’ll take care of these little guys.’ Eddie left Joseph to feed the mares while he dealt with the foals.
4:30am, 1 week later
Yawwwhh
Terry the night manager blinked the tears away and shook his head. One more hour, that’s all I have to do. He got up from his desk and went on his final patrol, torch and clipboard in hand. Terry walked down the rows of birthing cages, inspecting the dams and mares inside. The torch glowed a dull red so as not to stress the fluffies more than was necessary; Terry had never been sure if that was some kind of joke.
Most of the occupants were fast sleep but the mares who had given birth that night doted over their foals, making every second count. ‘Enjoy them while you can’ he muttered. On his patrol he found a few of the night births were full still births; most of the mares were in the far corner crying, but Terry found one trying to feed her dead foals like they were still alive.
‘Must have snapped’ he said, jotting down a quick note. ‘Well, at least the grind-house gets paid.’
After the birthing room Terry moved on to the milk-bags. Under the heat lamps a lot of the foals were asleep, while others took the chance to drink as much milk as they could, like they knew it wasn’t going to last.
‘Cheep cheep cheep!’ Terry looked at the small commotion; about a dozen foals were clustered around their milk-bags, kneading and pawing the mutilated creatures’ teats. He took a closer look and found the milk-bags were all dead. Odd, but far from noteworthy; the life span of a milk-bag was a month on average. When Terry scanned the tags of each, he found one of the bags, a cream mare with indigo mane, had been up for a week.
That didn’t strike him as odd either; the mare had given them nothing but stillbirths, with the occasional turd. ‘That’s what you get with alley-rats.’ Terry pulled a small spray can off his belt and marked each milk bag with a red cross on their bellies.
Last on the patrol was the training room. Terry saw a few small eyes watch him in the glow of the night lights, but none of the colts or fillies dared raise their voice. Depending on the trainer, breaking curfew could get them binned, or worse. At the back of one pen in particular, Terry noticed two foals lying flat, with blood and guts around their mouths and hind quarters.
‘You should’ve listened.’ The pen’s trainer, a dull blue gelding they called Stamper, crushed foals to death if they didn’t cooperate or were slow learners. He did it slowly, and made the rest of the pen watch. No one cared though; if anything it bumped the quality of the others up a notch.
Nothing else was out of order, so Terry finished up and went back to his office. He filled out his report for the day manager and reclined on his office chair. Soon he ‘d back in his own bed, away from these fucking bio-toy monstrosities.
Fluff-World Baltimore, 2pm
Zoe scrolled through a list fabrics on her smart-phone and day dreamed about what she could make, if she could afford them. Zoe was a keen amateur garment maker, but the salary Fuff-world paid didn’t leave her much to indulge it. She started to browse the off-cuts and budget options when her manager Kate poked her head through the door.
‘Hey, need you to cut your break short; new shipment came in.’
Zoe put her phone back in her bag and followed Kate to the loading dock. ‘Thanks’ Kate said, ‘I was going to get Ronnie to help but he’s been stuck with that old couple out front for an hour.’
‘Don’t worry about it’ Zoe said. In the loading dock Alex was finishing up with the delivery driver.
‘Where are these guys from?’ Kate looked at the sturdy cardboard boxes on the floor.
‘Montalvo.’ Alex said.
‘Why do we always have to get foals from a fucking mill?’ Kate lifted one of the boxes off the floor.
‘Shipping’s too expensive, distance is too far, supply isn’t consistent, take your pick.’
Zoe shook her head, not wanted to think about where the foals came from. She picked up the second box; from inside came the panicked cries of the foals.
‘Nu wan sowwie box move nu mowe!’
‘Mummah! Mummah sabe babbeh!’
‘Huuhuhu wan owd housie!’
Zoe ignored the foals and followed Kate to the back room where the foals would stay over night to unwind from the stress. Zoe carried the box to one large pen and set it down. She opened one end with the inbuilt tear strip and three dozen technicolor foals rushed out. They scampered around the pen, some scrabbling at the walls. A few looked up at Zoe.
‘Gasp nice wady! Wady su pwetty! Be nyu mummah?!’
‘Sorry, I’m not anyone’s new mummah.’ Zoe removed the box from the pen.
‘Pwease nice wady!’ the foal begged. ‘Babbeh nee nyu mummah fow huggies an wub!!’ The filly sat up. ‘Babbeh am dancie babbeh! Du pwetty dancies fow nyu mummah!’
‘Sorry. Maybe you’ll find a new mummah tomorrow.’ The filly’s cries followed Zoe out of the room.
‘Nuuhuhu! Pwease cum back nyu mummah!! Babbeh nee huggies huhuhu!’
Zoe made a note to search for a new fucking job when she got home.
8:30 am, the next day
Fluff-world had half an hour before it opened. In the time left, the Zoe and the other staff put the finishing touches on the shop floor. Taking pride of place In the centre of the live fluffy section was the large new foal pen. The previous residents who hadn’t been sold were shifted to surrounding pens, replaced by the new shipment.
The new foals ran and stumbled about their new home, playing with each other and the toys as the workers told them to. A few of the foals however seemed to have trouble with the instructions; they bumbled about in a world of their own. They were cheerful though, which was all the mattered.
‘I like this one!’ The little girl pointed to a canary yellow filly playing with a yellow ball.
‘Hehe babbeh wub baww sissie!’ the filly cooed. ‘Babbeh giv bestest baww sissie huggies!’
‘It’s soo cute!’
‘Find one you like?’ Zoe asked.
‘Yes’ The girl’s father said, ‘she wants the yellow one there.’
‘Not a problem.’ Zoe opened the pen’s roof and pulled the filly out.
‘Nu! Baww sissie nee babbeh huggies!’ it protested.
‘I’ll go get her ready for you.’ 10 minutes later the girl and her father left Fluff-world with the filly, and a new ‘baww sissie’ to keep her happy.
The Montalvo Bio-toy Company , 7:00am
‘Mummah wub babbehs babbehs wub mummah, mummah giv babbehs huggies an wub!’
‘Damn, that’s the second one so far’ Baker pulled the mare and her dead foals out of the cage. ‘Nothing nothing, ah here we go.’ He extracted the foals from the cage, ignoring the screams of their mother, and handed the foals Eddie.
‘I don’t like it, man’ Eddie said, sorting the foals. ‘Something ain’t right in here.’
‘Quit acting like an old woman, Ed.’
‘I’m serious; look at the fucking mince basket.’ Eddie pointed to the red rimmed basket. ‘It never fills up this fast. Something’s up.’
‘Yeah yeah. Fuck, another dead litter.’
‘See?’ Eddie said as Baker dumped the foals in the reject pile. ‘This ain’t normal. Ain’t that right Joe?’ He turned to Joseph. ‘We never see this many rejects in one day.’
‘He’s got a point, Baker’ Joseph said. ‘Not to mention, we have been going through more, milk-bags than usual.’
‘Joe get real; milk-bags last a month in this place. Now come on, let’s get this shit done.’ Baker lead them to the next stack.
1:30am, a week later
BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT
Benjamin Montalvo rolled to one side, looking at his smart phone like it took a post budget-menu Mexican shit on his carpet. Slowly he picked it up and swiped to answer.
‘If your name is not Carlotta Ch-’
‘They’re dying!’ The voice on the other end screamed.
‘What?’ Ben said, recognising the voice of Terry, his night manager. ‘What the fuck are you-’
‘The milk-bags are dying!!!’ The manager screamed. ‘I saw two go down in front of me!!’
‘What the fuck?’ Ben sat up in bed. ‘How many? Why?!’
‘5 died since my last check an hour ago and, oh fuck fuck another one’s going!!!’
‘Don’t do anything!’ Ben jumped out of bed. ‘I’m on my way!’
Less than 15 minutes later Ben jumped out of his jaguar and ran into the mill, meeting Terry in the foyer. The two men rushed to the milk-bag room where they found large numbers of foals gathered around their milk-bags, chirping and peeping.
‘These ones were fine an hour ago!’ Terry pointed at three milk-bags; the mutilated fluffies were still. Normally the milk-bags were constantly fidgeting and moaning in pain, even in the short periods of tortured sleep they manged. ‘These ones croaked 2 hours ago, this one fucking died while you were-’
‘Alright shut the fuck up and follow me!’ Ben yelled, causing the foals to peep in alarm. ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU SHIT BAGS!’ Back in the foyer Ben rubbed his face, trying to think. ‘Ok ok ok’ he said, ‘we figure out why they’re dying later. What’s important is the foals; if they starve we’re fucked!’ Ben paced. Foals were hungry little bastards and had to feed every few hours. If even 10% of what they had died from hunger it would mean thousands down the shitter.
‘I’ll call the choppers in; we’ll pull a bunch of mares out of the cages and turn them into bags. Then we figure out what the fuck is happening!’ Ben pulled out his phone and dialled the choppers, workers who converted stale breeders into milk-bags. After a few threats, he had them on their way in. While he waited, Ben sat in his office, debating whether or not to pull out the bottle of rum he kept in the-
‘Boss! Boss you need to see this!!’
Ben ran out of the office and followed Terry’s voice to the Stud pens. There he saw some of the stallions huddled in the far corner; the normally aggressive and bold (by fluffy standards) studs cried in fear and held on to one another. In the other corner a couple of stallions lay on their sides, thick blood leaking from their eyes nose and ears.
8:00am
Alan Pierce browsed the news on his tablet, waiting for the coffee machine to do it’s thing. He was reading about yet another public outcry regarding something even the most bleeding heart liberals of his youth wouldn’t think twice abou-
‘Morning dad!’
Alan felt his daughter Carly wrap her arms around him. ‘Hey Kid’ he tussled her hair. ‘You still up for the park today?’
‘Sure am!’ Carly said. ‘Jessica said she was going to bring her both her fluffies with her; Tweety’s going to have so much fun with them!’
‘I’m sure she will.’ Alan hadn’t been sure about giving his daughter a fluffy; all he knew about fluffies was what they tried to do to his yard each spring. But, Carly kept up her end of the bargain they’d made, so who was he to say no? Besides, the little yellow filly Carly chose turned out to be quite well behaved, if a bit of a space cadet. She hadn’t shit on his floor, which was really all he cared about.
‘Can I bring her down for breakfast dad, please?’
‘Sigh alright.’ Alan wished Carly hadn’t intuited he was in no position to argue before coffee.
‘Thanks dad!’ Carly hugged him again and ran off to get her fluffy from it’s safe room, a small closet they didn’t have a use for. At last the coffee machine finished; Alan lifted the mug to his lips, eager to get the dose of caffeine into-’
‘DAAAD!’ Somehow Alan managed to stop himself from dropping the mug. He rushed to the safe room where he found Carly with a look of sheer panic. ‘Dad something’s wrong with Tweety!’
Alan gently moved his daughter out of the way. ‘Holy fu-’ he bit his tongue at the last moment. His daughter’s fluffy lay with her head in a pool of thick sticky blood. Alan looked closer and noticed the filly was still breathing, but in long laboured breaths.
‘What’s wrong with her?!’ Carly was on the edge of tears. ‘Dad what’s wrong with-’
‘I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t know.’ Alan did his best to comfort his daughter. ‘We’ll take her to vet ok? Just, don’t touch her.’
‘But dad-’
‘Carly, go wait in the living room. Daddy will take care of this okay?’
Carly nodded, trusting her father despite her fear. With that fire at least under control, Alan went about dealing with the fluffy. He grabbed a spare shoe box, some towels and cheap gloves he used when cooking meat. Carefully, he lifted Tweety off her bed and placed the unresponsive filly in the box.
‘So much for the park’ Alan muttered.
Fluff-world Baltimore, 8:30am
‘Munstahs! Peep! Munstahs!!’
‘Nu wan nu wan! Stay way!’
‘Mummah! Mummah sabe babbeh fwom munstah babbehs!!!’
‘What the fuck man?!’ Alex yelled. ‘What the fuck, what the fuck!!’
‘Would you stop it?!’ Kate yelled. ‘You’re making the other fluffies freak out!’
‘How the hell can I freak them out worse than that?!’ Alex pointed at the foals in the new foal pen, lying in various potions with viscous blood leaking from their eyes, ears and noses. One or two stumbled about aimlessly, drops of the same thick blood leaving a trail behind them. One of the stumblers drew close to a pair of unaffected foals who promptly shat themselves.
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Alex said.
‘For a start, you are going to get those sick ones out of the pen!’
‘Why the hell do I have to touch them?!’ Alex protested.
‘Because we can’t open the store with foals like that in the pen, and also because I am your fucking boss, Alex!!’
‘Alright fine!’ Alex stormed off to get supplies from the cleaning room. On the way he passed the breakroom where Zoe took shelter from the pandemonium in the display room. She wished she’d stayed in bed and risked getting fired. But that was just the start.
As the day wore on, Zoe and the other staff had to deal with phone calls and walk ins from enraged customers, one of whom dumped the two foals he purchased on the shop floor; both were dead. Zoe wanted the day to end, but around 2pm Kate pulled her to one side.
‘Go find Alex and close the store, then go to the break room and wait there.’
Zoe was about to ask why, but the look of abject fear on Kates’s face killed the words in her mouth. She rushed off to find her coworker and together they closed the store, not a hard task since a lot of people had been driven off by the drama of the day. In the break room Zoe, Alex and the other employees waited for their manager to explain what the hell was happening and when they could go home. At last Kate walked in, pale as a ghost.
‘I got a call from the CDC’ she said flatly. ‘There, there’s something at the mill our latest foals came from that’s killing fluffies and, and we need to stay here.’
The room was silent. ‘The CDC?’ Alex said. ‘The fucking space suits and Ebola CDC?!!’. Kate nodded and Alex sat back down, head resting in his hands. ‘Holy shit’ he breathed.
9am
Joseph milled about his small apartment, thinking about how he’d fill the day. Late last night he got a call from someone at the mill who told him he wouldn’t he needed for work the next day, but hung up before Joseph could ask why. Joseph wondered briefly if he’d been fired; that would be a kick in the teeth, but they probably would have said so when they called.
After he did the small number of chores he found around the apartment, Joseph settled down with a book thick enough to beat a goat to death with. An hour or so in he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Joseph got up and looked through the peep hole; he saw two people standing in the hallway and, wait, why did they have surgical masks on?
‘Mr Lewis?’ One of the pair knocked on the door again. ‘Mr Lewis are you home?’
Joseph felt a shiver go up his spine, but his curiosity won out. He opened the door a bit and poked his head out. ‘Hello?’
‘Are you Joseph Lewis? The man asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘You work at the Montalvo Bio-toy Company correct?’
‘Yeah’ Joesph said slowly. ‘What’s this-’
‘Mr Lewis, we have reason to believe you’ve been exposed to an unidentified pathogen.’
Once he processed what the man meant, a sliver of ice worked it’s way up Joseph’s spine. He tried to think of something to say, even a simple question. But his mouth seized.
‘I understand this is a lot to take in’ the man said, ‘but we need you to come with us.’
Joseph wanted to slam the door and lock it tight, but something forced him to nod his head.
‘Please put this on.’ The man handed Joseph a mask like the one he had one. Joseph put it on robotically, stepped outside his apartment, locked his door and followed the man down the hall way. He led Joseph to an ambulance and told him to get in the back. There he saw a half dozen men; all were workers from the mill. Including-
‘Hey Joe.’ Baker said.
Joseph found a small spot and sat next to his co-worker. ‘What’s going on?’ He tried to mask the panic in his voice.
‘There’s something making the fluffies at the mill sick’ Baker said. ‘A shit load died the past few nights, and the foals have croaking in pet stores and people’s homes.’
‘What do they want with us?’
‘They’re taking us to a hospital or somewhere to get tested. They want to know if people can catch whatever the shitrats have, and if any of us have it. Apparently it makes their brains melt and leak everywhere or some shit.’
Joseph’s guts turned to ice; a million images of all the disease outbreaks he’d seen on the news. He saw people dying in hospital beds, covered in plastic body bags and buried in the mass graves. Baker put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I know man. I know.’
The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories’ BSL-4 lab worked around the clock. 100s of blood and tissue samples from the infected fluffies and those who had been in direction contact with them were tested. The team assigned to the outbreak had two aims; figure out what the disease was and if it could jump the species gap and infect humans.
Such a task was hard enough with ‘real’ animals; with the genetic chimera’s that were fluffies, there was no road map. However, the researchers were up to the task; exotic pathogens that crawled in from the wild was their specialty. After two weeks of non-stop work, the team had the answers they were looking for.
‘It’s a prion disease’ Doctor Martin Diaz, lead researcher of the task force said to the assembled crowd. They consisted of various government and private representatives; state and federal senators, public health officials, and the bio-toy manufacturers association of America. ‘The closest analogue we’ve found in nature is Bovine spongiform encephalopathy-’
‘That’s mad cow disease right?’ One of the congressional delegation asked.
‘Correct’ Martin said. ‘In a way, this is good news; we know from the BSE outbreak in the UK that transmission was primarily through eating beef from infected cows. This means all those who have been in contact with the infected fluffies should be safe.’
‘How sure can you be of that doctor?’ Another of the delegation asked.
‘Unfortunately we can’t be completely certain, but all the human samples we’ve tested so far have come up negative for the disease.’
‘So we’re not looking at a “mad fluffy disease” outbreak then?’
‘The bulk of our work suggests the chances of that are remote. However,’ Martin cautioned, ‘I believe we should keep all those who have had direct contact in quarantine until we have cleared all the samples.’
‘Thank you for the presentation, Doctor’ a sharp faced woman from the bio-toy association’s delegation said. ‘It’s clear your people have done a fine job, but our members are very concerned. Now you’re report states ’ the woman flipped through her copy, ‘the index case was likely a recycled production unit. Do you have any solutions?’
‘Well, your best bet would be stop recycling-’
‘I’m afraid that isn’t an option for the majority of our members’ the woman interrupted. ‘The bio-toy market is very competitive, and we can’t all afford to charge the same for our product as specialty makers or Sunny-Dale. Recycling decommissioned units is critical to many of our member’s operations.’
Martin’s jaw clenched at the phrase, a colourful jargon for grinding live fluffies into paste.
‘So again, is there any way our members prevent this happening in their own operations?’ The woman pressed. ‘The bio-toy industry provides jobs for thousands of Americans, and generous tax revenue,’ she shot a glance at the state and federal representatives. ‘I don’t think I need to point out the economic impacts.’
‘Miss Davis is right, Doctor’ one of the senators said. ‘There must be some way to keep this from happening.’
Martin took a breath. ‘Well, our investigations of the infected animals from-’
‘Bio-toys, Doctor’ the senator corrected.
‘As I was saying, based on our examination of the infected bio-toys, the prion seems to be found exclusively in the brain tissue. This is very unusual, but-’
‘So hypothetically speaking’ the woman interrupted, ‘if the index case’s head was not recycled, the outbreak could have been prevented?’
Martin wanted more than anything to not answer the question, but funding reviews were before congress. Pissing off the wrong senator, or their friends…
‘In my personal opinion, that is a possibility. We have not yet found the prions in other tissues, but-’
‘Thank you doctor’ the woman scribbled down a note. ‘I don’t have any further questions.’
‘I’m glad you’re satisfied’ Martin’s supervisor glanced at him. ‘If we could get back on track…’
The Montalvo Bio-toy Company
The clean-up crew prepared to enter the building; they donned hazmat suits and loaded carts with sturdy bags, gas cylinders, vacuum pumps and captive bolt guns. When each member of the team gave the go their leader lead them into the building where they split into two man teams.
The first team went to the milk-bag room and were greeted by the chorus of desperately hungry foals. The pair went to work; the first man unfolded one of the sturdy plastic bags while his partner scooped foals into a basket.
‘Chirrrp!’
‘Peep peeep!’
‘Speep! Huhuhu!’
Basket piled high the man walked back and dumped the foals into the sturdy bag, then went back for more. He continued the process until the bag was full. By now the foals at the bottom and center of the bag were already crushed to death or were on their way. If the bag was sealed now it would take less than 10 minutes for the foals to die, but this company had a different way.
The first worker sealed the bag, but not before inserting a tube that ran to a vacuum pump on their work cart. After ensuring the seal was good, he switched on the pump. The bag collapsed as the air was sucked out in a matter of seconds. The surface of the bag rippled with the panicked movements of the suffocating foals, which stopped in a matter of seconds.
Another bag was set up and the process repeated until all the foals were dead. The men moved on to the training room to assist the team working that room. The colts and fillies cried and begged for their lives as the cleanup crew dumped them into bags and sucked the air out. Their trainers lay dead in the pens, killed with the captive bolt guns first up.
While the foals and weanlings were exterminated, the last team worked their way through the birthing room, killing the remaining mares one by one. One worker pulled the mare or dam out of the cage, killed it with his bolt gun then dumped the corpse in the cart pushed by the other worker. As they progressed down the line of cages the mares’ cries and pleas grew ever more desperate.
‘NUUUU!’ A dam screamed as the worker pulled her out. ‘NU GIV SOON-MUMMAH FOWEWA SWEEPIES!! BABBEHS NU CUM OU-’
PSH-TACK
The bolt shot through the skull and killed the dam; she twitched for a few moments in the corpse pile in the front of the cart. The workers were efficient, killing multiple mares and dams every minute.
PSH-TACK
PSH-TACK
PSH-TACK
The team had two rows done in under half and hour, and it took less than 3 to clear the birthing room. Next to face the bolt were the two dozens studs; the more aggressive ones fought like hell for their lives, but the majority faced their death with tears and resignation.
With the fluffies purged the building was scrubbed from roof to floor. Anything with even tangential contact with the recycled food was cleaned within an inch of it’s life or replaced. The disinfection job took a week to finish, by which time the mill was ready to welcome a new crop of mares and stallions, but not under the Montalvo name.
The financial impact of the disease proved too much for the Montalvo Bio-toy Company to endure; the company went under and it’s assets were taken over by one of the other bio-toy makers in the city, Fluff-crafters. Fortunately for the workers, they kept their jobs; it was easier for their new employers it inherit them rather than hire new staff. As the index case was never identified, responsibility could not be attributed; the only thing to do was put in new rules and enforce them.
Fluff-crafters Baltimore, 2 months Later
‘Pwease! Pwease nu take babbehs huhuhuhu.’
‘Yeah yeah’ Baker pulled the Mare’s litter of 6 from the cage and gave them to Eddie.
‘Pass, pass, dead, nugget pop’
‘Nuuhuhu babbeh!’
‘Pass pass.’ Eddie put the four remaining foals in the green basket and the pair moved on down the row. ‘You heard from Joe lately?’
‘Not lately’ Baker checked the next stack. ‘I think he’s working some data entry job. Ah here we go.’
‘Nuu! Babbehs am tuu- Smack SCREEEEE!
‘Fucking shit pig.’
‘Can’t blame him’ Eddie said, ‘being around shit rats with something that’s like Ebola fucked brain cancer. Sweet, all passes.’
‘Yeah I guess.’ Baker pulled another litter from a cage over the pleas of their mother. ‘You want to hit the club tonight?’
7:00pm
The grind house was hard at work, processing the stale breeding stock, dead milk-bags and reject foals into food. The routine hadn’t changed much from before the outbreak; flush, burn, grind, with the addition of a forth step.
‘TUU MANY BUWNIE HUWTIES!!! WAN DIE WAN DI-’
Shunk
The worker decapitated the mare and tossed its headless body into the mincer’s hopper. The head rolled into a bucket where is joined about a dozen others; at the end of the shift the heads would go into the bio-waste bin. After the Montalvo outbreak this was standard procedure across all fluffy mills to keep the disease, officially named Fluffy Cerebral Hemorrhagic Disease, out of the food supply.
Thus, the large scale fluffy manufacturing industry rolled on.
