Awwww shit. Here we go again.
By: Turboencabulator
Tobacco smoke wafts through sparse, rain-tempered light as it streams in through a boarded-up
window. The room is a kitchen, long abandoned until a few minutes ago. A long poncho drips as it
hangs from a hook by the back door. Outside a storm is building, the wind picking up and making the old farmhouse creak.
A man with a hand-rolled cigarette is surprised when he opens a tap, watching as the brown water
slowly turns clear and clean. He fills a kettle and checks a gas stove, listening to the gas hiss
for a brief moment before he flicks a lighter and ignites the gas, putting the kettle on the hob to
heat.
“Everything but the juice then.” He says, sighing out a cloud of smoke. “Works by me.”
He busies himself with unpacking a large rucksack, setting out its contents and picking through
foraged food in a smaller bag, preparing a meal. The kettle starts to sing, and its contents are
poured into a french press, the smell of coffee rapidly pushing aside the stale, slightly dusty
smell of the old house.
After a moment to settle down and eat a fast fry-up, the man takes out a battery bank, a small
portable camera and tripod, and sets it up on the table.
“Hey everyone.” The man says, waving at the camera and rolling another cigarette. “It’s Turbo. Been a while. And yeah I think I’m going to be coming back.”
A spark of light and the cigarette is lit. Turboencabulator doesn’t look into the camera much,
focusing on cleaning a pistol laid out in front of him on the table.
“Pardon me, maintenance is not optional these days. This far out into the midwest the only places
that aren’t dead from the fluffy shit rotting the foundations are the major cities and I really
can’t afford to need new parts until I get to Kansas City.”
He pushes down the plunger and pours a cup of coffee, smelling it first before taking a sip. He
grimaces.
“Fuck I miss free trade beans.”
A door slowly opens in the background, silently. Turbo does not notice.
“But yeah I probably owe you guys an apology for just vanishing. The short version is I got hit with
burnout right when I was forced to make a major career change. Fluffy lit just fell off my radar.”
“Nyu daddeh!?” A high pitched voice shouts.
Turbo jumps and looks around at the floor, before laughing once. “Oh. Hello there.”
He picks up the camera and points it down at a not-entirely-shit-covered fluffy. The diminutive
creature is sitting to look up at a steeper angle, clear, vacant eyes shining with idiot happiness.
“I’m afraid not, ya lil squirt.” Turbo says, making the fluffy’s expression dim. “But I can at least
be a friend for a night.”
The fluffy’s expression restores itself to full glee, being unable to hear the trace of insincerity
in Turbo’s voice.
“You here alone?” Turbo asks, lighting a lantern as the twilight outside sets in.
“Nu, hab mawe an tuu an tuu an wun babbies.” The fluffy says, a note of pride entering the squeaky not-horse’s voice.
“Well why don’t you get them and I’ll fix up some food.” Turbo says, setting down the camera again
on the table. “I have a few stories you all might like.”
He is grinning.
“Otay! NUMMIES!”
The mare took a while to arrive. The five infant fluffies weren’t even mobile yet, still clinging to
her or suckling her disturbingly humanoid teats. Turbo shuddered at the sight.
“Yu hab nummies?” The mare asked, markedly cleaner and somewhat groomed compared to the other.
“Yeah, but your… uh… stallion is going to get slightly different food. I have mummah-food that will sit with you better.” Turbo says, fishing around in a bag marked with a red cross. “You’re a runaway, aren’t you. Last family didn’t want you to have babies?”
She nods, growing wide-eyed. “Das wite, meanie mummie nu wet Sywvia hab babbies. Hao u kno?”
Turbo grins, powdering a few scraggly, dried mushrooms in a small mortar and pestle. “I’m pretty
familiar with fluffies. So you’re Sylvia, what’s his name?” He nods at the stallion, sniffing at the
poncho hanging by the door.
“Dat Powdew.” The mare says, shifting one peeping foal onto her side and moving another onto the teat it vacated. “Bestedestest Powdew am bestedest speciaw fwien.”
“Sylvia and Powder.” Turbo nods, then looks into the camera and winks, pouring half the mushroom powder into a dented can of own-brand spaghetti rings. “Well Powder, it’s your lucky day.”
He dumps the remainder into a generic can of tomato-flavoured fluffy chow into a dish and plonks it down in front of Sylvia, the dosed spaghetti in front of Powder. They both stare for a moment, and
begin noisily devouring the contents.
Turbo grins and shows the label on the bag to the camera. P. Cubensis (accelerated)
“You two must have been starving.” Turbo says, clicking a stopwatch. “Excuse me but I’m going to keep talking to the camera while you two uh. Gorge.”
He turns back, loading a magazine. “So, yeah. I’m back. Sorry about vanishing again, but being a
massive data hoarder means I still have everything I’ve written, including the things that were in
progress when I poofed out of the intertubes.”
“I’m going to need to take steps this time to not burn out again.” Turbo says, sipping coffee and
checking the stopwatch. “So I’m going to say at this point I’m aiming for a monthly release
schedule. If I have something particularly fun or different, I’ll do more, but the first of the
month is what I am planning.”
He pauses. “Shit that’s only a few days from now. Uh. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Ooh.” Powder says, looking around, sitting heaviliy on his rump. “Wut am woom doin?”
Turbo checks his watch, grinning. “Hey Powder, what’s with those bugs covering Sylvia?”
Sylvia is screaming. Powder is screaming. Sometimes at each other, sometimes at the walls melting
around them, but mostly at the five bloody pancakes that used to be their children.
Turbo waits until the panic shits are done with, then pulling on a pair of gloves he scoops up
Powder, holding him upside-down by his hind legs, and expertly swings him around, until the fluffy
passes out.
Powder gets dumped in one side of the sink. Turbo scoops up Sylvia and holds her up to eye level.
“Sylvia. Sylvia!” He says, shaking her a little until she calms down and looks around, whimpering.
“That’s better. Do you like music, Sylvia?” He asks, dropping her in the other side of the sink.
“Wyuhhhh spinny. Music guuuuud.” She says, looking around as things morph and coalesce.
Turbo takes a moment with a roll of duct-tape to hogtie her, before strapping a cheap pair of
headphones on her and stuffing a rag in her mouth, also held in with tape.
“Me too.” Turbo says, plugging the headphones into a media player. “Tonight I’m thinking Cannibal
Corpse.”
He starts a playlist and cranks the volume. Sylvia screams and writhes, somehow generating more
feces from an empty digestive tract.
Turbo picks up Powder and sets him on the table, replacing the camera as well, and sipping
coffee. “Man these days you really need to make your own entertainment.”
He takes out a suppressor and screws it onto his pistol. “Well, I’m going to go do an homage to the
Postal franchise. You all hang tight, I’ve got writing coming your way soon.”
Picking up Powder, he walks out of shot, before the video ends.
