The door of the truck slammed open. “Got dayum! what happened in here?” An unloading workers shouted. “Smells like a bad fluffies in here!” another taunted. The sound of humans was enough to shut up the fluffies, the new humans would protect them from the monsters they imagined up. A few meekly cheeped back “Nawt twuu! Am guwd fwuffy!”
The employees with thick gloves and overalls began to grab the boxes from the back and open them. The colt heard a ripping noise from a box cutter and then gracelessly tumbled two feet from his box onto the pavement. It stung terribly as he tried to right himself and stand. Eventually he oriented himself and took in his surroundings.
He was standing in the middle of a concrete parking lot that doubled as the loading entrance to an old sheet metal warehouse with a rusting roof. Near where they stood was a dumpster full of carboard boxes, adjacent to that was a bright yellow sealing dumpster with a biohazard symbol on it There were several delivery trucks. Against the fence were a line of trucks and cars belonging to the workers. All around him was a sea of brown fluffies, around two hundred in all.
A chain link fence surrounded the entire property and the gate where the trucks had entered was thoroughly shut. Anywhere there wasn’t something manmade, it was overgrown with white wildflowers. He had never seen any of this before and could not make sense of any of what he took in. The giant yellow box smelled yucky, though he didn’t know why. Except for the flowers, he knew those were yummy nummies that his mummah had told him about while explaining the pictures on the walls of their nestbox.
A human kept saying something about skettiland to keep the attention of the sea of brown and to keep any from running off into the sea of flowers. When the workers finished with the boxes, one with a megaphone called out “Who is ready for skettis?” he was immediately drowned out by a cacophony of “Fwuffy am weady!”
“Then, make good poopies and peepees in the grass and come inside this door.” On cue, two workers pulled open the ground level door to the structure’s interior. The foals all ran in separate directions to find a patch of grass to poop in. The colt was no different, his legs were stiff from the hours cramped in that box and he had the biggest pee hurties from holding his bladder.
He found a patch to relieve himself in while taking in the smell of the flowers. He smelled like yucky pee, and he hated it. He was also hungry from the hour-long car ride; it was getting dark out and well past his normal dinner time. He looked at the delicious smelling flowers, they were going to get sgettis soon but just a bite to hold him over shouldn’t spoil his dinner.
He took a bite of a flower but immediately spit it out. It was bitter, not nummy. Why were the flowers at sgettiland not nummy? At least they still smelled good and so he rolled around for a few seconds to get their smell into his fluff.
Then he turned and started to trot towards the door. As he got inside the workers told them to get in a single file line and he obediently did so. All the Fluffies had gathered in the room and the big vroom vroom munstas started to drive back out the front gate which was closed behind them. He had ended up pretty far ahead in the line somehow and considered himself lucky. The rumbling of stomachs behind him confirmed they were all hungry for sgettis.
Ahead of him, he saw the fluffies were being led through a narrow door. Too short for a human to walk through but taller than a fluffy. As he gets up to the doorway he can see it leading down a metal trench just wide enough for one fluffy at a time, he starts to hear a scary noise. *Ktcha-chaa* “Scawy noiwse!” the fluffy in front of him whimpers.
The worker at the threshold reassured the fluffy, “Don’t worry, that’s just the sketti dispenser.” *Ktcha-chaa* He sees a look of sadness on the worker’s face. “Wut wong? Why Sgettiland mistuh sad?” He asked. *Ktcha-chaa* The worker wiped the frown from his face forcing a smile. “It’s just that, ummmm, I don’t to get any skettis. They’re all for you guys!” *Ktcha-chaa* A strange thought occurred and the excitement in the air made him blurt it out. “Dat nuu make sense! Sgettiland am habe tuu manneh sgettis as yuu cowd ebbah nummie!” *Ktcha-chaa*
“Smart boy!” the worker said, “Now I need you all to be good fluffies and close your eyes and don’t open them until we say so.” He was a good fluffy and he would wait for them to tell him to open his eyes again. *Ktcha-chaa* he feels the fluffy line move forward and steps forward again.
*Ktcha-chaa* every so often he would hear a worker keep saying “if you open your eyes, you won’t get any skettis!” They all obeyed. *Ktcha-chaa* shuffle forward *Ktcha-chaa* shuffle forward *Ktcha-chaa* shuffle forward. The process was almost hypnotic. Another dozen or so times this happened before a rhythm set in. The only thing they sensed was the noise, the voices, the cold metal under their hooves, the occasional blind bumping of fluffies into each other, and a smell.
It was a familiar smell, *Ktcha-chaa* it was almost like sgetti sauce, it had the same sort of strength like the acidity of tomatoes, *Ktcha-chaa* but it was different, somehow. *Ktcha-chaa* It reminded him of trying to num the bolts that held the nests together at the fluffmart. *Ktcha-chaa* Soon the noise was nearly right in front of him.
Then nothing. He heard a human behind him yell “What’s the holdup?” “Something’s wrong with the compressor!” He stood there waiting, he was ecstatically bouncing on the tips of his hooves. Soon he would be in skettiland and get a new mummah and see his sister. He didn’t mind the pee smell and the bad fluffies around him, and the weird metal box smell, or that there wasn’t enough sgettis for humans, or the smell of…of boo boo juice?
Nothing made sense. Only good fluffies went to sgettiland, some of the other colts from his fluffmart were mean fluffies that gave each other sorry hooves, why were there bad smells, why weren’t there enough sgettis, why did he smell booboo juice, why was the sgettiland human sad? What about his sister, she already had a new mummah. How would she be in sgettiland?
He wanted to open his eyes now, but he didn’t want to be a bad fluffy. He wasn’t a bad fluffy. He wasn’t a bad fluffy. He always behaved like he was told, he always behaved like a fluffy that got new mummahs and daddehs, he always behaved like a good fluffy. He wasn’t a bad fluffy.
He wasn’t a bad fluffy, but in that monent he decided to peek just a little bit. “There we got it! Ready to go to skettiland?” “Yus nice Mistah!” *Ktcha-chaa* The colt watched as the head of the fluffy in front of him, eyes closed tightly but smiling in the direction of the voice, exploded in a cloud of gore and mist.
One moment he was there, the next, a steel bolt from a pneumatic gun blew his brains out. Blood and pink mush sprayed down into a large pit in front of them. At the sound the fluffy behind him shuffled forward into him as the line had subconsciously conditioned them.
He could barely process what was occurring. “SCREEEEEE!!! NUUU WAN FOWEBA SWEEPIES!!!” He tried to back up driving his butt into the face of the foal behind him who now opened his eyes as well. He saw the human worker in front of him holding a lifeless fluffy by its neck as its smashed skull dangled limply and joined in the screaming “HUMAN MUNSTAH! GIBE FWUFFY FOWEBA SWEEPIES! NUU WAN!”
The panic swept down the line “SABE FWUFFY!” “NUU WAN!” “HUMAN MUNSTAH!” They had no where to go until the alarm made it to the processing room. Admittedly a five second game of telephone. There, panic spread among the hundred and fifty or so fluffies who began to sprint for the ajar doors that were letting fresh air circulate out the smell of piss. Most of them made it before a worker managed to shut the door trapping what was left in the line.
Chaos completely froze the work line as every worker’s attention was drawn to some disruption just outside of his sight and/or reach. Fluffies voiding their bowels, fluffies trying to climb over each other to get over the chute wall, the cacophony of screams that made it to hard to hear each other as workers themselves yelled back and forth trying to restore order.
The colt took this opportunity. The human in front of him was a munstah but there was no way behind him that wasn’t blocked by fluffies. He was a brave fluffy. He ran forward under the mustah as he began to reach down for him and jumped off the short ledge landing on a small hill of about thirty fluffy corpses and viscera. It smelled disgusting up close, and the blood soaked into his fur and filled his mouth.
He scrambled to stand up and looked up to make sure the human munstah wasn’t still trying to grab him. He saw another fluffy try to jump like he had but get caught in the munstah’s hand. “Forget the jumper, we’ll deal with him after we get the rest of the line.” *Ktcha-chaa* The fluff corpse was dropped towards him, and he managed to trip out of the way at the last second.
It thudded limply next to him. Despite its now mangled face and vacant eyes, the colt recognized it as the toughie from his fluff mart that gave his brothers meanie hoofies. A lifeless tongue flopped limply from his mouth. He let out a scree of terror and fell backwards as he reared up and away from the corpse.
He frantically crawled away from the center of the pit towards the wall. He could see sunlight shining through the windows along the roof. It was a dull blue like how the sky looked before it became dark time. He finally escaped the fluff pile of gore, drenched in blood.
Then he began frantically running along the perimeter of the room looking for a door to escape through. There was no escape though. The doors just echo metal banging as he kicks against them. He hears similar noises from the first room, as the other trapped fluffies frantically tried to escape.
The foreman looked at the chaos. Fluffmart days were always easy. It was the feral and shelter days that caused problems. He supposed his boss would make them institute the animal cotrol and shelter disposal policies now. These weeks were normally easier, less screaming. It wasn’t even worth lying to the ferals, they didn’t trust humans enough to voluntarily cooperate.
The equipment they used was an old cow stunner. It was too weak to pierce a cow’s skull, designed to keep cattle unconscious but alive while their blood was drained. For a fluffy’s skull it may as well have been a sledgehammer. He could request a quieter weaker stunning gun less likely to spook them, but it was unlikely someone would shell out the money to replace their current equipment. Even after this incident.
They were just about done with the fluffies inside and could start fresh. They managed to trap seventy inside the doors before they could all escape. He went outside with the megaphone and began to yell, “Don’t worry, there are no munstahs! It is going to be dark times soon. Inside is safe with lots of bright light and hugs and spaghetti!” This was enough to convince another fifty fluffies to come back to the door as he repeated it over and over.
He had his workers begin to fix feral blinders over the fluffies’ eyes, as they scattered ‘sketti’ flavored kibble across the floor to distract the hungry mass of brown, and hooked leash harnesses attached to a rusty roof track to each fluffy. The workers made various excuses to the fluffies to keep them calm.
The last eighty or so fluffies outside couldn’t escape. It was all fenced in. He would get his less squeamish workers and go out with tools while they finished the last bit of processing inside. He decided to turn back and find the jumper.
The facility was once a slaughterhouse before hoards of ferals had disrupted the national food chain and caused mass livestock culls due to lack of feed grain. The floor was wide open with nowhere to hide since any of the cattle equipment, excluding the modified guide chute and the pneumatic gun, had long since been removed.
He walked from end to end following the little trail of bloody hoofprints. He briefly wondered if the jumper had decided to play dead in the pile. He knew a few of the rats could be devious like that but few were calm enough to stay still.
He prodded the pile with a shovel a few times and decided against that idea. He went back to the trail of intersecting hoofprints. The fluffy had managed to circle the building a few times, they weren’t that fast, so he was a bit surprised at the ground that it had covered.
Then he spotted it. Along the low wall of the pit was a metal vent cover, designed to circulate cool outside air into the slaughterhouse when it was packed wall to wall with cattle. It was pulled back slightly due to loose and missing screws. After kneeling down to inspect it, he could see streaks of blood running down the duct.
A quick inspection of the outside where the giant seized up and rusty fan blades sat confirmed it. More blood. He had escaped into the yard. No matter that would just mean he got it worse in the end. The fluffy certainly deserved it for causing this commotion.
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Next week: Aftermath
Can you survive?