Well, the price definitely sounds good to you! It even pays better than what you usually charge to exterminate an entire herd. The only issue is capturing them all.
“Mr. Freeman, I really don’t think I have the means of capturing and transporting more than a few fluffies at a time.”
“That’s fine! So long as you can locate them and gain their trust, just give me a call and I’ll send someone over to pick them up. I’ve got a couple of big trucks I used to transport the materials to build this place, after all.”
Man. This job almost sounds too good to be true.
“Ok, so you’ll take just about any fluffy you can get, so long as they aren’t crippled, total basketcases, or smarties?”
He nods, replying, “Right. And no diseased fluffies. If it’s just the sniffles, that’s fine, we can deal with that. If it’s something that could kill a number of the herd, then the infected animal needs to be culled so the others don’t get sick.”
He sighs before continuing, “And definitely no smarties. When we only had one, we figured it’d be fine letting him be ‘in charge’ of the herd. But the little egomaniac was too stupid to realize he wasn’t actually the one running the show and kept causing trouble for us. We named him Napoleon. Then when we got several smarties mixed in with the ferals and shelter fluffies, the whole thing turned into a children’s cartoon version of Lord of the Flies. It got ugly. Several fluffies died, and we had to put down all the smarties because they were irredeemable, the damage irreversable. I’d rather not have a repeat of that, so no smarties. If you get one and think you can drop it off at a shelter, fine. Otherwise, do your normal exterminator work. But do it quickly and cleanly, please.”
“Yeah, I can deal with it, no problem.”
He walks you back to your Bronco.
“Oh, and before you leave, I’d like to give you this.”
He holds out a sheet of paper he pulled from his pocket and hands it to you. You unfold it to see it’s a poster for a missing fluffy. The photo is of a dark green fluffy with a tail and mane that are even darker green, hugging a stuffed Oscar the Grouch toy from Sesame Street.
“Missing Fluffy, answers to Oscar, $5,000 reward offered. If seen, contact-”
“What’s all this?”
“Friend of mine is a professional breeder, breeds show fluffies. That there is his prize stud.”
“I’ve never seen a reward for a lost fluffy this high before. Hell, I’ve never seen a fluffy worth that much!”
“Well, that one’s special. He doesn’t look like much, but he’s got good genes and consistently produces rare white fluffies and other color combinations. His owner says he gets studded out almost daily, and he’s been missing for over a week, so he’s probably suffering a bad case of fluffy blueballs.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Anyway, if he’s still alive, he’s probably chasing after the nearest mare and he’s pretty tame, so he should be easy to catch. If you spot a fluffy matching his description, try to snag it.”
“Got it. I’ll see what I can do.”
You start your Bronco up, smack the dashboard to make the CHECK ENGINE light go out again, put it in gear, and drive off.
You stand to make some decent money doing this, at least until the guy’s fluffy farm is full, and the best part is that you don’t have to massacre the poor, colorful bastards.
You’ve finally gotten a call about a big fluffy herd you need to remove. They’re devastating a rancher’s alfalfa field, and enough of them keep drowning in his stock ponds that the water is making his horses sick. You call Freeman to let him know to have a truck on standby, and go down to check it out.
There’s about thirty of them, not counting foals. Most are just lazing about in the alfalfa field, idly munching on the nearest plants, but five or six of them have wiggled under the fence and are staring at a horse in rapt fascination. You notice two dead fluffies, several days old by the smell and condition, in the field that were clearly trampled to death by large livestock. The horse is slowly walking along and grazing, deliberately ignoring the fluffies following behind it and flicking its tail.
“Whu dis lawge ting?”
“It weawwy big fwuffy?”
“Dat nu fwuffy! It tu big and nu fwuffy enuff! Dat munsta!”
“Nu is munsta, is wike big fwuffy!”
They follow the horse as it walks along the fence, debating the nature of the beast. Suddenly the horse stops and the fluffies all stop, one running into the fluffy in front of it.
“Owies! Why huwt nosie?”
The horse grunts, raises its tail, and takes a giant shit, the massive turds hitting the ground with a solid PLOP! Had the fluffies been any closer to the horse’s rear, one of them probably would died on impact. As if on cue, all the fluffies simultaneously raise their tails and spew shit onto the ground. Finished, the horse trots off and the fluffies scramble to follow, their stubby little legs completely inadequate for carrying them fast enough to keep up with the horse.
You need to get them all before they start a religion. You tear the lids off the cheap canned spaghetti and pour it all out on the ground. Then you stand up and shouts, “SKETTIS! SKETTIS! COME GET SKETTIS!”
Fluffy heads turn on swivels and stare in your direction, and you heard the word “skettis” repeated countless times. Then there’s a general stampede as they all run… well, waddle, really, in your direction. The ones on the other side of the fence protest that it’s not fair, and they all try to wiggle under the fence and catch up with the rest of the herd.
Finally, you’re surrounded by just about the entire herd.
“Skettis?”
“Skettis!”
“Fwuffy wan skettis!”
“Skettis?”
“Munsta nu huwt fwuffy, gif skettis?”
“Nice hoomin, gif skettis tu fwuffy!”
“Skettis?”
You stand over the bowls of cheap spaghetti and raise your voice.
“All right, fluffies, listen up! See these skettis? You can have aaaaall this skettis if you follow me! But any fluffy who doesn’t come with me doesn’t get ANY SKETTIS!” You say the last dramatically, appealing to the emotions of these simple creatures who are woefully and horrifically ill-equipped for rational or abstract thought.
“Dummeh hoomin, gif skettis to smawty! Dis smawty’s skettis now!”
An eye-searing magenta and fuschia unicorn stallion stomps his little hooves and puffs his cheeks up in what he thinks is an intimidating manner. Great, this herd has a smarty. Fortunately, you know how to deal with smarties.
“Ha! You want THIS skettis? I thought you were a smarty! Smarties only get SPECIAL skettis, 'cause they’re soooo smarty! But I guess if you want regular skettis like a dummy…”
“Dummeh hoomin! Smawty wan PECHUL skettis! Wan pechul skettis naow!”
You grin. Too easy.
“Ok, then smarty needs to sit here. I’ll bring smarty his special skettis. But all the other fluffies need to follow me for their regular skettis.”
The smarty sits down, a smug and condescending look on his face as he watches you lead his herd away, bowls of cheap spaghetti held high. The whole herd follows you, dancing, singing, and bouncing, only pausing occasionally to retrieve chirpy babies that fell off their momma’s backs, and you lead them, still dancing and singing, straight up the ramp into the back of the truck and set the bowls of spaghetti down. You climb back out of the truck, careful not to step on any of the fluffies crowding their way into it, and make polite noises to a mare whose face is covered in marinara sauce as she holds up a foal and shouts at you that she has named it Skettis in honor of the wonderful hoomin who gave her skettis for the first time ever.
Climbing down, you shut the tailgate, trapping all the fluffies inside the truck, and wave to the driver.
“That should be all of them!”
He gives you the thumbs up and drives off to the farm, unable to hear the protesting, crying, and confused fluffies over the engine noise. You walk back to where you left the smarty.
He’s still sitting there, waiting impatiently, and beginning to suspect he has been tricked somehow, though he can’t figure out how. He spots you coming and immediately jumps to his feet, stomping his hooves and puffing his cheeks.
“Dummeh hoomin! Wheaw smawty’s nummy pechul skettis? Smawty wan skettis! Wan skettis NAOW!”
“Just be patient, little guy. I’ve got plenty of skettis for you.” You really do, there’s a can in your coat pocket.
“Dummeh gif skettis NAOW!”
“Hold on, dude! I gotta see if I can find a place for you.”
Two phone calls to shelters you know, and they don’t want a smarty. The only three people you know who might be remotely interested in taking him don’t answer their phones. And of course, Freeman’s Fluffy Farm doesn’t want him, and you certainly can’t deal with another fluffy in the house, especially not a bossy troublemaker who’ll push around your traumatized mare (and almost certainly try to give her special hugs if he isn’t fixed) and orphan foal. Well, you sigh sadly, that settles that. You tried.
“Uff! Dummeh! Gif! Skettis! NAOW! Ow smawty gif bigges owies!”
He’s ramming his little horn into you and stomping your combat boots with his hooves; the horn hurts, but it hasn’t broken the skin. The stomping is just sad.
“Dummeh nu gif spechu skettis? Then dummeh get sowwy poopies!”
He turns and raises his tail. You double-tap his head, putting two .22 hollowpoints into his brain cavity. He drops to the ground like a marionnette with its strings cut, and his bowels and bladder empty themselves. Fortunately not all over you.
“Well, thanks for making this easier, asshole.”
You still feel kinda bad about having to put him down, but not too bad. You drive the Bronco closer and toss the smarty’s corpse in the back on top of the usual tarp and start heading for the fence to retrieve the two fluffies that got stomped to death by an irritable horse and fish out any still floating in the stock tank.
“Uff! Uff! Fwuffy wan skettis tu! Fwuffy nevaw get nummies, huu, huu!”
Aw, shit. It’s a mare, and her entire back half looks fucked up. It’s mostly healed, but she’ll definitely never walk again with all the damage to her legs, hips, and spine. She’s trying to drag herself with just her front legs, and you estimate that she managed to make it twenty feet in the entire time you led the herd out of sight into the truck and then killed off the smarty. You know right away that she’ll never survive on her own, would not have survived if the herd hadn’t decided to settle down in one place instead of remaining on the move, and that no shelter or individual you know will take her. You can’t take care of her either. Best of all, she seems to have even less control over her bowels than most fluffies, which is saying something; there’s a small, but constant, stream of shit trailing behind her as her sphincter leaks continuously. You’re gonna have to put her down.
Squatting down to her level, you slide the can out of your pocket and set the .22 pistol in the grass beside you.
“Hey, little fluffy! What happened to you?”
“Huuhuuhuu, bad bawky-munsta huwt fwuffy, gif bigges owies! Fwuffy huwt, awways! Fwuffy nevew get nummies, hewd and smawty awways eat da nummies fuwst, nu weave nun fow fwuffy! Huuuuuu, huuuuuu, huuu!”
Tearing the lid off the can, you pour the cheap spaghetti onto the grass in front of her and watch her eyes light up.
“Skettis!”
She devours the entire mound of spaghetti and any grass that had sauce on it, licking her lips and smacking them contentedly.
“Fank yoo, nice mista! Fwuffy finawwy get nummies like west of hewd! Fwuffy wuv skettis! Wuv nice mista!” You gently stroke her mane as she grins up at you with a face absolutely covered in spaghetti sauce.
“You got nice skettis because you’re a good fluffy. Did you know that? You’re a very good fluffy.”
“Fwuffy… fwuffy am gud fwuffy?”
“The best fluffy!”
“Fwuffy am… BESTEST fwuffy?” You’ve blown her little mind.
“Yup. Time for nappies now.”
“Otay, nice mista! Fwuffy wuv yoo!”
She lays her head down on the grass, awkwardly trying to shift her maimed rear end into a more comfortable position, and closes her eyes. Still smiling contentedly, she closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.
You stop stroking her mane, pick up the pistol, and press the muzzle against the base of her skull. She never hears or feels the gun firing, and the bullet obliterates the contents of her skull’s brain cavity without making a mess.
She still has a smile on her face as you toss her into the back of the truck. You wipe moisture from your eyes. Man, it’s dusty out here. That’s it, dust. You head off to climb the fence and retrieve the trampled fluffies on the other side.
