*****5*****
Soon the fluffies came awake as well. Once again, they rose late and ambled out of the fluffpile to empty their bladders and bowels, frolic in the weak fall sunlight and play their foolish games. Their leader was still a bundle of nerves despite the successful raid of the previous evening.
“Wusty nu wowwy,” said Wendy, “Wook, babbeh is gwow big an swtong!” she cooed, reaching out with one porky hoof to roll her giggling stallion child over. “Dummeh hoomans nu fin’ fwuffies.”
“Otay, Wendy. Wusty wiww nu make wowwies. Speshul fwiend am gud fwuffy.” he said kindly, but inside he still felt tense. He did not like the thought of making his foals or mare sad with his concern.
Immediately on rising, Bridget waddled over to the nummies-pile and fished out the best leftovers for her breakfast. She gobbled, swallowed and belched contentedly.
“Bwiget wiww haf pwettiest babbehs. Bwiget wiww be bestest Mummah evew!” she announced loud enough to wake up the dozing Elsie and Cricket. Outside, a thin breeze paused and shifted in a dance, ruffling the manes of Waggy and Shell as they ambled up the sandy hill overlooking the alley. Shell was chattering to her offspring as they nestled in her dense back fluff.
“Babbehs nu faww! babbehs nu faww!” she chortled, turning her stumpy neck about. Her four foals chirped and squeaked, with the biggest and most developed managing an occasional word. She bumped into her mate, who had abruptly stopped walking and was sniffing the air with a strange intensity.
“Waggy smeww… Waggy smeww gud nummies. Waggy nu know…” he trailed off, his brain working hard. “Sketti? Waggy am smeww skettis!” Sketti!” He gasped, too excited to even pause as the intoxicating scent of tomato sauce and pasta blew around on the breeze. Shell stopped and sniffed too, and immediately gulped.
Like a graceless beige hound, the stallion followed his nose over the hill. He saw the iron ring, with its snares winking at him in the sunlight, and knew that this new strange thing was the source of the scent. Bleating semi-coherently to his mate, he clumped towards it.
“Babbehs! Daddeh fin’ sketti!” announced Shell to her foals. “Sketti am bes’ nummies evew! Mummah wiww num num skettis an’ make bestest miwkies fo’ babbehs! Mummah wuv sketti! Mummah wan’ num sketti!” She was chugging after Waggy, but the going was slow for the fully-laden creature. She was five yards behind when her mate reached the iron ring. He was standing on tippy-toe, straining his stubby neck to sniff the pasta.
It wasn’t a heartbeat before the clumsy creature stepped directly into a snare. With a sharp “plink!” sound, the wire tightened around the unicorn’s left front leg, biting down hard enough to fashion a neat groove in fur and flesh. The unfortunate unicorn shrieked and tried to jerk back, but this just made another ringing noise as the short slack ran out. Wagg’s leg and hoof ignited in pain and began to throb with trapped blood.
“YEEEP! YEEEP!” he squealed, “OWWIES! OWWIES! FWUFFY HAF OWWIES! NU WIKE!” The normally level-headed stallion panicked and thrashed for a few seconds, and then swung his head around to look for his rapidly-approaching mate. As soon as he saw the terror on her face, he helplessly hunched up his shaking body and spewed spurts of diarrhea onto the alley surface. Tears rose in his eyes.
“SHEWW HEWP SPESHUL FWIEND!” bleated the blue earth pony as she waddled up.
Shell bobbled left and right, trying to figure out what was wrong without spilling the foals or stepping in shit. Waggy calmed down one tick and figured out that pulling on the snare only caused more pain and constriction. He eased forward until his nose was almost pressed against the central ring.
“Muh-muh-muh- Waggy haf owwies! Waggy haf owwies in hu-hu-hoofie! Weggie nu wowk! Buu huuu huuu!” he squalled, squeezing tears from his eyes and mucus from his nose.
Shell gave up on trying to hug her agitated special friend with foals still aboard, and instead waddled around and forward to peer at Waggy’s front left leg. Her limpid eyes were starting to tear up from stress, but she could see a bit of bright silver wrapped around Waggy’s hoof, so tight it seemed painted on.
“Sheww see widdle metaw fingy! Widdle metaw fingy gif Waggy owwies!” she blared. She scowled down at the wire, puffing her cheeks out and delicately stamping one of her porcine hooves on the gravel. “Nu huwt speshul fwiend, metaw fingy! Nu gif owwies! Nu be meanie to Waggy! Sheww wuv Waggy!”
She shoved forward suddenly and tapped the wire as fiercely as she could without spilling her crying, peeping foals. No result. Unnerved by Waggy’s continued wailing, Shell backed away a few paces, sticking her own rear left hoof directly into the next snare over. Once again, a tiny bell rang out as it snagged her leg just above the leathery sidewall of her hoof.
Shell screeched even louder than her mate had, and hopped and jerked against the sudden agony of the binding wire. Her foals were tossed clear off her back like so much confetti. Waggy watched horrified as his tiny kelly green pegasus foal was bucked eight inches up off his mate’s ass and landed in an unnatural looking faceplant. Its three siblings were flung off laterally, bouncing on the gravel or skidding to a halt against the side of the rusty hub.
Shell hollered, shrieked and cried until her throat went raw. “YEEEEEEP! YEEEEEP! NU! NU! SHEWW HAF OWWIES! OWWIES! NU WIKE OWWIES! NU WAN’ HUWTIES! YEEEP!” As soon as she calmed down enough to stop wildly thrashing and kicking at the gravel, she gasped and violently hunched over, sobbing as her guts thrashed in fear. “SHEWW MAKE SCAWEDY POOPIES!” She bleated.
The torrent from her hindquarters splattered in the gravel and inadvertently half-coated the unfortunate green foal, still lying awkwardly in the gravel, chirping in pain, with its head bent back nearly against its tail.
Waggy chirped in fear as his mind came to understand that his mate had been caught just like he had. He pulled the slack on his snared hoof again and twisted in an attempt to get closer to Shell, but it was not to be. Instead, he tried to help her in the only way he knew.
“SHEWW NU HAF OWWIES! NU HAF WEGGIE HUWTIES! SHEWW HEWP babbeh! NU WIKE!” he yelled, panting and sobbing.
Both adult fluffies were stuck fast. Their screams and cries finally caught the attention of Rusty, who had just become distracted with the usual antics of his tribe back at the old chicken coop. He ambled around in a circle until his ears were pointing the right way, and when he heard the next distressed squeal, he started pelting as fast as he could up the berm.
“Wha yu do, speshul fwiend?” asked Wendy as she sat hugging Elsie and her two foals. Rusty didn’t answer. Wendy grew anxious - she could see something was upsetting him. After that, Shell’s louder cries echoed over the hill and caught the attention of all the nearby fluffies.
Nibbles immediately started crying. “Scawy! Nu wike scawy noisies! Nu make cwy!” he blubbered, planting his hind end down in the dirt and hanging his head. Jumper, on the other hand, nosed up and trotted after Rusty, calling after him, followed by Cricket and Cupid with her trio of foals, until there was a train of colorful little fuzzy shapes jogging up the hill.
Rusty reached the crest and looked down into the chilly afternoon sunlight and saw Waggy and Shell thrashing and crying next to the dark iron hubcap. He hesitated as the weight of fear settled on his shoulders - somehow he knew that this was the doom that had been stalking him for two days. The humans had made their overture.
Waggy and Shell were rapidly becoming exhausted trying to cope with their predicament. Waggy had bit and bit at the metal wire holding him to the iron ring, but had only succeeded in chipping a tooth. Giving up on that, he awkwardly turned his tear-streaked face around, pulling his snagged left foot across his body, and was calling to his mate in between shaking fits.
“SHEWW! Pwease nu be huwties! Pwease wun fwom meany huwtie metaw fingy!”
Shell, two feet away, was hysterically trying to reassemble her litter. After being tossed off their dam’s back, her brood was crawling back as best they could manage. Three were on course, but the fourth had taken the bad spill and been doused with diarrhea, and was lying too far away for Shell to reach, even if she stretched her snared leg out until the wire bit a bloody ring into her calf. She tried twice and gave up, collapsing into a sobbing, shaking heap as her broken foal lay just out of reach.
A desperate idea occurred to her. “Babbehs…” she moaned, “Pwease… bwing sissy to mummah.” She pleaded with them a few times but they just held on and cried. She turned around again, her mind sizzling as she tried the only other gambit that occurred to her. She reached out timidly with a front hoof and stroked the metal ring, flinching at first when she felt how hard and cold it was. “Pwease, metaw fingy… pwease wet fwuffies go an’ nu gif moar huwties…” she begged. The snare hub sat impassively. “Pwease,” she sobbed, “babbeh haf huwties an’ need huggies…”
Rusty had got about halfway down the hill when he understood that his friends were caught somehow by the human’s strange toy. They couldn’t get away. His eyes flicked back and forth from Waggy to Shell as he tried to understand, but he was so confounded it took the sight of Jumper barreling past him to focus his thoughts. Gasping, he lunged after his dependable friend.
“Jumpa hewp fwiends!”
“NU!” huffed Rusty, scrabbling to keep up. “NU GO! NU! STAHP!” he wheezed, until finally he just sideswiped Jumper’s hindquarters like a colt playing with a littermate. The earthie tumbled in the dust and the pegasus took the opportunity to lunge ahead and stand in his path, panting.
“Why Wusty huwt Jumpa?”
“Nu go! Fwuffies huwt! Hoomans do sumfing bad fo’ fwuffies! Nu wan’ Jumpa go tu hooman fingy! Scawy!”
The earthie looked down at the trapped family and made tiny muttering sounds in consternation.
“Nu go!” Rusty reiterated. “Wusty hewp fwuffies! Yu keep otha fwuffies away! Nu wan’ aww fwuffies haf huwties!”
As always, Rusty’s force of will prevailed, and Jumper got to his feet and rounded on the approaching train of herdmates.
“WUN!” shouted Rusty, “WUN TO SAFE PWACE! HOOMINS COME! TAKE babbehs AN’ WUN!” The Rules prevailed again, and the fluffies wheeled around and bobbled off towards the chicken coop. They were wheezing and panting with excitement and fear, but they managed the about face with only a minimum of falling down and defecating. Once they were under way, he turned back to the stricken pair in the alley.
“Pwease! Pwease hewp!” cried Waggy as Rusty approached. “Haf huwties! Haf huwties an’ scawedies! Weggie nu wowk! Metaw fingy gif huwties!”
Shell joined in. “Wusty gif babbeh to Sheww! Babbeh faww! Babbeh faww an’ haf huwties! Nu can gif huggies to babbeh!” she sobbed, pulling miserably at her hind leg and pawing at the gravel in the direction of the broken-backed little foal.
Rusty’s heart lurched to see his friends in such distress, but everything about this situation screamed of danger. He timidly approached the tiny shit-covered foal laying in the gravel, observing that it was clear of the bizzare metal object. He nosed the baby’s flopping head over, wincing as it jerked spasmodically and inched forward to deposit it in front of its frantic, crying mother.
She swept the baby up into her front hooves as she lay sprawled in the gravel and squeezed it, but the sudden motion made the foal’s head flop over the other direction. It stopped chirping and made a few croaking noises and squirted the meager remnants of its bowels out onto its mother’s fluff.
“Bekk.. bekk… akkkk..” said the foal.
“Widdle babbeh - widdle babbeh - widdle babbeh” chattered Shell between frantic licks as she tried to clean her own feces off her mortally injured foal, “Mumah sowwy… mumah sowwy fow make babbeh faww… mumah so sowwy… sowwy for poopies and owwies! Mumah make babbeh aww cwean again and gif huggies untiw aww ouchies aww gone!”
Waggy felt a little relieved that his injured foal was in the embrace of its mother and his leg had now gone from throbbing to numb, but as the adrenaline wore off he began to sob and shudder.
“Wusty, huuuu, hewp fwuffy…” he implored, “Waggy haf weggie owwies an nu can move weggie an haf scawedies, pwease hewp an’ gif huggies.”
Rusty circled doubtfully around where Waggy was snared. He saw the wires wrapped around his friends’ legs, and matched them to the others winking in the sunlight. He could smell the cup of cheap pasta, and although part of him wanted to lunge forward and devour it, it also smelled like fear and death. With great caution, he crept forward until he could see the bloody bite of the wire in Waggy’s leg. The trapped stallion sobbed and hiccuped as the senior stallion sniffed the wire and experimentally tapped it with his nose. The wire clanked against the iron hoop. Rusty lifted his eyes and looked into his terrified friend’s dopey, big-eyed face.
“Wusty nu can hewp yu, fwuffy fwiend. Wusty so sowwy. Meany hooman fingy haf got yu. Nu can hewp.”
“Nu! Nu say! Yu hewp fwuffies! Fwuffies haf owwies an’ need huggies!” Waggy scolded, standing up as best he could. He could see the defeat in the pegasus’s eyes, and it terrified him to the core. He would be stuck here with the wire gnawing on his flesh until… until what?
“Su sowwy, Waggy. Nu can hewp.” Rusty’s eyes filled with tears. He nuzzled the poor stallion tenderly and turned away. Waggy let out a heart-wrenching wail and buried his face in his free leg. Shell turned away from both of them, focusing her whole attention on her little broken-necked foal as its life slipped away. She had frantically licked the shit off it and was cradling it in her front hooves, rocking back and forth and singing.
“Babbeh wiww be aww bettew, babbeh wiww wun and pway wif Mummah an’ daddeh.”
Her three other foals crawled into her fluff to sob and chirp, and to nurse. The wind blew cold as the sun dipped towards the horizon and the little fluffy family wept, shook, and tried over and over again to exchange even a moment of comfort. It was not to be.
*****6*****
A thudding noise from the end of the alley brought Shell out of her waking nightmare, followed by the terrifying spectacle of Waggy twisting around as far as he could to hiss “Hoomans! Hoomans come!” in a voice strangled in fear.
Shell tugged at the wire holding her numb hoof one last time. Its cold grip was nothing compared to the feeling that squeezed her heart when she remembered her foals. Her three precious living babies had just started learning to walk - they had never crossed the alley or ran for shelter on their own, and after crying and cowering in the lee of the iron ring for some time they were in no state. Shell shook them out of her fluff onto the scratchy gravel. The dead one fell out of the crook of her front leg.
“Babbehs wun! Wun to safe pwace! Hoomans come!” She batted gently at their hind ends, trying to get them to move, but it was no use. Stressed, scared, and now plopped rudely back down for reasons beyond their understanding, the smaller two simply sat down and cried. The biggest and brightest one, the lime-green unicorn, was looking up at Shell uncomprehendingly as tears flowed from her eyes.
“Go safe pwace!” begged Shell, waving at the sandy berm with her front leg. The light green baby appeared to understand on some level and scuttled a few steps towards the den, never taking her crying eyes off Shell. However, when the tall shadows of the humans fell across the little family, the tiny emerald foal was struck with terror and ran chirping back, marking the alley with a small trail of wet dung.
That settled, Shell turned around and peered over the metal ring. The great sky-ball was setting and the breeze was becoming uncomfortably cold. Two towering humans stood in the alley, radiating an implacable, massive terror. They were as close now as Shell had ever seen a human, and her mind was struck dumb by how huge they were. They were dressed alike in blue jumpsuits. The bigger one had dark, dark skin and was wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The smaller one was pale, its eyes were covered by shiny black shells. Waggy twisted this way and that, frantically trying to interpose his body between the humans and his family even though he was whimpering and shaking with fear and pain. The humans kept their distance and talked to each other in deep, gravelly voices.
“Nnnnyeah,” said the bigger human, waving a slim black smartphone meaningfully at the smaller one. “This is what I was talking about. Law says we gotta check the snares so we don’t end up killin’ somebody’s dog. This one triggered a couple hours ago. Don’t leave snares out for twenty-four hours straight and get us fined, understand?”
“Got it.” tolled the younger one as he pulled a pair of heavy gloves on. He accepted the smartphone from the bigger one and held it in his own shadow to peer at the screen while the bigger man pointed at it.
“You see there? Chief did his assessment this morning, said maybe a dozen critters but it doesn’t say where the den is. There’s two of ‘em, right? Let’s have a look.” The big man unsnapped a leather strap and drew a tool from his belt.
“I meant to ask, Walt,” said the young human, “What the hell kind’a hammer is that?”
The big man chuckled ruefully. “‘That’s a rock hammer. D’you believe I have a degree in geology?”
Waggy spoke when the humans got close enough that he could look up at their faces. He had puffed his cheeks out and was trying to stand tall in the face of his fear. He stamped his hoof in the clay and gravel, but it made even less noise than the humans’ footsteps.
“H-h-hoomans nu huwt fwuffies! Hoomans w-w-weave fwuffies awone!” he said, but his voice was wavering and shaky and he had to sniffle after issuing his threat. He recoiled as the huge man strode up to him and crouched down, but the wire holding his hoof clanked one final time against the iron ring and in the end he could only shrink away a few inches.
It wasn’t enough. The man clamped his gloved left hand on the cowering beige fluffy’s face and muzzle, and Waggy let out a sad, muffled cry that was snuffed out when the man brought the hammer down, a blurry arc to the back of the fluffy’s skull accompanied by a wet cracking noise.
Shell echoed her mate’s sad, short wail when she saw his two left legs curl up tightly against his body and his two right ones extend straight out. His left eye immediately turned blood-red and rolled up into its lid, quivering. His ears fluttered as his mouth and anus simultaneously made uncontrolled spitting noises. The dark-skinned man holstered his hammer while uncoupling Waggy’s snare. Just like that, the unicorn was a brain-dead piece of meat, but freed.
“Got that bag? Hey! Kurt! Got that bag?” The younger man seemed only a little less startled than Shell at the swiftness and finality of the fatal coup. He jostled into action, pulling a sturdy black bag from his belt and snapping it open to swallow Waggy’s twitching corpse.
“S-speshaw fwiend! Nu be huwt!” moaned Shell. She was so afraid that her whole body was shaking. Once her mate’s twitching body was out of sight, she felt both the men peering down at her. “Pwease,” she said in a small voice, “pwease nu huwt babbehs. Good babbehs, nu do anyfing bad. Pwease nu huwt.”
“Sorry, bitch, it’s curtains for you and the good little babies.”
“Nnnnyeeeah,” said Coop, “Like I said, I don’t suggest to get to talking to these things or it’ll never end. Just bag the little ones. I’ll show you a trick with this one.”
The skinny man stooped and reached towards Shell. She was more-or-less sitting on her thee terrified, crying foals, trying to cover them in her fluff and tail, but their chirps and squeaks were plainly audible. The snare around her leg clanked against the iron ring and cinched painfully into her skin as she tried to bat the man’s hand away. She missed. Bleating and wheezing in fear, she rallied and landed a bite, but her flat teeth and weak jaw only managed to mark the leather glove. Kurt popped her a stiff backhand to the snout that knocked her vertebrae together like canastas.
Two of her foals, the bright green unicorn and the dead, broken-backed pegasus, were picked up in the same handful and tossed down the bag’s crinkly mouth. She managed to get back on her feet and attempt to hook a hoof around the third foal, but the human jerked it away and the last whiff of sweet foal-scent vanished from her nose. Her offspring tumbled end-over-end, letting out a spiral of milky shit before vanishing after its siblings. She watched horrified as a small figure squirmed in the crinkly plastic, making a reversed silhouette of a foal’s muzzle as it tried to breathe. She could see its legs gradually lose the strength to push the crinkly material away from its tiny face.
“Pwease,” she said weakly, tears streaming freely from her eyes as chest-cracking sobs pounded her body. All she could think to do was beg. “Pwease! Gif babbehs! Pwease! Nu take babbehs! PWEASE! SHEWW SOWWY! PWEASE NU HUWT! SHEWW WUV BABBEHS!” she cried, her voice climbing up into shrill hysteria. She rounded on her last foal and screeched at it. “WUN, WIDDLE babbeh! WUN TO SAFE PWACE!” She batted at it, sending it rolling a foot or so away. When the little creature regained its feet, it was sobbing and chirping, but sure enough it scuttled up the slope in the general direction of the chicken coop, marking the earth with yet another tiny, pitiful trail of droppings.
“Piece of shit!” growled Kurt. He straightened up and trotted after the fleeing creature like a student chasing a windblown piece of paper and impulsively stomped on it. “Piece of shit!” he snarled again, scraping red gore, maroon globs of guts and bits of bright fluff into the gravel and stooping to toss the soggy, gravel-coated remains into his bag..
Coop stood shaking his head at his younger partner’s distress. He had pulled a spool of kite-string from some pocket and knotted off a loop, and was presently winding out a great deal of slack.
“Interesting way of doing things, Kurt.” he chuckled. “So I guess that thing was headed home, which I now see is in that old bullshit over there. Bet you this’n will show us the rest of the way. You wanna get the hook? And a flashlight?”
Shell lay bonelessly on the ground between the two men, shivering and crying with her face pressed into her free front leg. She couldn’t stop the image of her last foal being stomped into jelly from replaying over and over in her mind. She didn’t notice when the younger man trotted off down the alley, but when the older one looped the cord around her neck and tightened it, she let out a startled chirp and looked up. The dark man was peering at her from under his old hat, and she suddenly realized that her snared rear hoof was free! It burned and tingled as free circulation returned. Mouth agape, she stared uncomprehendingly as the man backed several steps away.
“Ok, critter, you go on home! Go on home!” Coop took off his hat and waved it at her. She rose to her feet, shivering and shaking so badly that she involuntarily kicked little stones free left and right. Panting and wheezing, her fear-addled mind took an agonizingly long time to sort out what was going on. Her numb leg would not bear any weight, but she limped a few experimental steps forward, never taking her cried-out eyes off the human. He had turned his attention back to his smartphone, tapping on it with one finger. Shell hobbled up the sandy berm on a direct course for the chicken coop. She did not notice the cotton cord trailing after her.
Coop was following the terrified little creature at a distance as it chugged towards the den, winding slack back onto his ball of kite string. Kurt arrived, bearing a broomstick with a metal hook on the end, about the size of a man’s hand. They both watched as the fluffy pony’s blue rump and white plumed tail vanished into a small gully. Perhaps it had once held a pipe or trough. Now it was the foyer of the fluffies’ den, and there was a kite-string wiggling and jumping across its threshold.
“Bust it down and net ‘em? Or spray ‘em?” shrugged Kurt.
“Nnnnnyope,” said Coop, “That’s breaking and entering. Boss don’t mind if we have a look as long as it’s just some exterior bullshit, but no breaking and entering, breakin’ shit, no spraying poison without permission, understand? Boss has to contact the owner. But we might be able to bag a few more, now, you watch.”
“Okay. No snares overnight, no breaking into shit, no spraying property.”
“You got it.” Coop finished tapping on the ipad and holstered it.
*****7*****
The herd had been cowering in the den under the timbers of the old chicken coop for a while. Twice, Rusty had gathered his courage and climbed the hill to look down at his captured friends, and the sight of them sobbing and huddling in the lee of the iron ring struck him with fear. He stood there briefly, whining to himself at the crest of the sandy berm, until the thudding noise of a car door somewhere nearby startled him and drove him back to the den.
The fluffies got bored, then noisy. Rusty authorized a few trips to the latrine, but stayed between his herdmates and the hill. Time slid by.
“Bwiget wan’ outies! Wan’ see pwetty sunshine an’ haf wawmies!” scolded the pregnant unicorn.
Rusty puffed his cheeks out at the mare. “Nu! Nu outies tiww Wusty say is safe! Hoomans outside safe pwace! Hoomans get Waggy and Sheww!”
“Nu cawe! Wan’ outies! Wan’ make poopies!”
Rusty squared off with the truculent mare. He was resolved to bat her on the snout if she tried to push her way outside. Before he could speak again, a scrabbling sound at the den entrance made his heart freeze. It was a fluffy coming into the safe place - but the only unaccounted members of his herd were the doomed pair.
Suddenly, Shell burst into the den, hobbling down the chute. The other fluffies in the den were shocked to the core at her appearance, more so because they had never seen one of their kind in the grip of such terror. Her fluff was matted with tears, dirt and shit, and her eyes were wild and rolling, striking fear into her herdmates one by one as they witnessed her pain and fright. As soon as she saw her friends, she lunged at the closest one - Wendy, as it turned out - and unleashed a stream of crazed babble as she desperately held out her front hooves for an embrace.
“P-P-PWEASE! HEWP! PWEASE! Hoomans k-k-kiww! Hoomans kiww babbehs - an’ hoomans kiww s-s-speshul fwiend an’ haf hu-hu-huwties! Babbehs dead! Babbehs aww dead! Aww dead! Pwease hewp! Nu wan’ huwties! Nu wan’! ” sobbed the bereft blue mare.
Wendy could not bear to have the frantic, chattering, mad creature approach her. She backed away until she ran into the wall of the den, hooves up, preparing to shove Shell away. Nibbles started crying and flung himself down with his hooves over his eyes.
“NU! Scawy! Scawwwyyyy!” he bleated as the shell-shocked earth pony continued to gibber and wail, and then he lifted his hind end halfway off the ground and squeezed out two rapid-fire gouts of diarrhea. “Nibbews make scawedy poopies! Stawp make scawies!”
Only kind-hearted Elsie staggered forward to embrace her friend. Shell went completely slack with her front hooves around her friend’s neck and her cheek pressed into her warm peach fluff, but her eyes were wide open and staring sightlessly into the den as she re-lived the horrors she had seen.
“Sheww haf huwties an’ weggie nu wowk, an’ hoomans come and kiww kiww Waggy, an’ gif him biggest owwies an’ - an’ - an’ he make w-w-wongest sweepies! An’ hoomans gif biggest owwies to babbehs! Babbeh nu can move, an’ babbeh is cwush an’ make booboo j-j-j-! Nuuu! Babbehs! BABBEHS!” she raved.
Rusty walked up to the pair of distressed fluffies, trying to get Shell to make eye contact with him, but she wouldn’t focus and wailed, tears streaming freely down her nose as she sobbed and chattered. He nuzzled her, trying to speak soothing words into her ears, but he was startled when the white cord around her neck abruptly snapped up off the floor of the den and went taut, yanking his attention along and out of the Safe Place. As he watched in horror, it quivered and then bit into the fluff around Shell’s neck, much like the shiny wires had to her leg. He stared at it open-mouthed.
Shell’s chattering turned into a wordless, keening wail, “Nuuuuu! Huuuuuuuuu! Huuuu! HEWWWP!” as she was jerked towards the entrance by the cord. Worse, Elsie was dragged with her, as both fluffies instinctively squeezed each other tight at the sudden jerk. The others all jumped and chattered fearfully to one another and Nibbles spurted another jet of shit from his puckered anus.
Outside, Coop was rowing steadily on the kitestring with one gloved hand while the other deftly whipped the slack back onto the little spool. Drag, whip. Drag, whip.
“Nnnnyeah, feels like I got somethin’. You get ready with that hook. They’ll hold on tight when they’re scared, but as soon as they see us, they’re as likely to let go.” said Coop.
“Awright,” grunted Kurt, experimentally wiggling his hooked tool. He had slid it under the timbers of the old chicken coop so its wicked point lay near the trench.
“If you can see them, hook one besides the blue one,” grunted the big man. “We already got that one, understand?” Kurt snorted. The sound of chattering and keening voices grew louder.
He gave a final strong haul, and Shell popped out of the hole rump-first, digging futile little furrows with her rear hooves and crying out with each rhythmic drag. Elsie was locked into a tight embrace with her, shrieking in confusion and fear as she was unwillingly dragged into daylight.
“Nuuu! Stawwwwp! Scawwwwwyyyy!” she cried out. “Pwease nu huwt! Wan’ stay in Safe Pwace! Nu wike! Nu wike!”
Kurt was a young man and with coordination and reflexes, and so when he shrugged his shoulders and shifted his arms, the wicked steel hook flashed into position behind Elsie’s haunches and then mercilessly gored her just forward of her right hip, punching into the muscles and tendons there and snagging. She immediately screamed into her friend’s face and began beating her stumpy legs spasmodically into the dust, throwing up little khaki puffs. She had never felt anything like the agony that exploded into her side, and she flopped about trying to find any position that wasn’t hellish pain.
“YEEP! YEEEP! YEEEEEEP!” she shrieked, then “Hennngh! Henngh!” as all the muscles in her torso flexed in pain.
“There you go! You got it!” rumbled Coop cheerfully. He gave another pull on the cotton cord, yanking Shell fully out from under the timbers and onto the flat ground. Kurt grunted and pulled hand-over-hand on the hook, driving Elsie along with the cruel metal barb lodged in her guts as she let out a warbling cry.
“HUUU! HUUUUUUU! HUUU-kkk!” the thrashing fluffy’s head bashed the underside of an old two-by-four crack, folding her nearly double. The little unicorn did the herky-jerky as Kurt levered her up towards Coop, who grabbed a hold of Elsie with his left hand and smacked her on the skull with his rock hammer.
Kurt held on tight while Coop slid the dead creature back off the hook. The head of the tool clanked to the ground right in front of Shell as she lay sprawled on her side between two tufts of dry grass, followed by the twitching body of her friend, its eyes pointing towards each other comically. Shell understood that Elsie’s was just as dead as her mate’s. Then she looked at the stringy, wet gobbet of flesh on the end of the hook. Her mouth kept working and murmuring as if she was nursing an imaginary teat. It wasn’t until the scene grew quiet that Kurt caught a hint of sound and leaned over.
“What’s it saying?”
“Wan’ die… Wan’ die… Wan’ die…” murmured the blue fluffy over and over in a tiny whisper.
“Nnnnyeah. I keep sayin’ not to talk to these things. It’s unholy.” rumbled Coop. Sliding his rock hammer into its sheath, he put a boot on Shell’s mane and pulled sharply up on the kite string. Shell’s head was jerked up against the mammoth pressure of the man’s foot and the loop of cord crimped off her carotid arteries, windpipe and jugular. She stayed limp as she was garroted until the trapped blood pounded in her head and her lungs seized, and her body made helpless, obscene humping motions. Her desperate, sad eyes grew glazed as she gave a final shudder and blew bubble of snot out of her nose with a gargling, sizzling sound. It took her a little over a minute to be strangled, and then she was tossed into the black bag that had already swallowed her mate, her foals, and the peach-colored friend who she had inadvertently dragged out of their home to their mutual doom.
“What now, Coop?” asked Kurt, slouching on his polearm.
Coop peered at the setting sun. “Ehhhhhh. This’ll be good for now. You go find the dumpster. I’ll update the file. If the Chief can’t reach the property owner, we’ll come back and set snares right here, probably.”
Kurt grunted and slouched off, carrying the hook in one hand and the, crinkling bag in the other.