You settle in, making sure your ghillie sniper veil covers your head, shoulders, and back properly; the rest of you is hidden with more conventional camouflage. Your position is perfect, so you gaze through the scope with one eye while the other remains open and unfocused.
A sinking feeling begins in the pit of your stomach. You were right; this is a big herd. Much bigger than you had anticipated. The bowl of spaghetti you placed in the open field is surrounded by brightly colored balls of fluff; the spaghetti, of course, is poisoned, but there isn’t enough spaghetti or poison to go around. The poison you used is lethal to fluffies, but harmless to humans and most other animals unless they consume very large quantities of it. As such, it’s marketed as being environmentally friendly, both in terms of not poisoning random wildlife or the scavengers that eat fluffies that have been poisoned, and because it cleanses the environment of the unnatural invaders known as fluffy ponies. It’s extremely popular with pest control experts like yourself.
There is, of course, a downside. Being in high demand means the price goes up; simple law of supply and demand. And since the manufacturers basically produce the only flufficide product that won’t kill the rest of the local ecosystem, they essentially get to charge whatever they want for their product.
As a result, the poison is very EXPENSIVE poison. You haven’t gotten much of a paycheck lately, so you couldn’t afford much of the stuff. Just enough for one bowl of spaghetti, sufficient for poisoning up to a dozen fluffies, depending on how many feel like sharing or feel like being greedy little shits.
Surprisingly, they’re in a sharing mood. Even more surprisingly, the herd’s smarty hasn’t touched the spaghetti. Upon discovering your bait, the smarty, a monochrome red unicorn with a mane like a mohawk, declared that the bestest nummies would go to the dams, so they would have healthy babbehs and make bestest miwkies. The herd stallions and mares rolled the bloated, immobile, pregnant mares to the bowl of spaghetti, and a couple of the mares helped distribute the spaghetti to the dams; it was eagerly gobbled up. The smarty and two toughies butted a stallion that tried to help himself to the spaghetti, insisting that it was for the “new mummahs”. This herd’s leadership seems far less selfish than the smarties you typically deal with; he honestly is looking out for his herd’s best interests.
A lump of lead settles into your stomach, and you survey the field. Eight pregnant dams, and three mares picking up spaghetti in their mouths and feeding it to them. After the dams have gotten equal portions, the smarty decrees that the newest mummahs with the most babbehs will feed from the skettis next. Four more mares eat the remainder of the spaghetti. At most, you’ve gotten fifteen fluffies.
This herd has at least fifty members, not counting foals. You’re going to have to do this the hard way.
You watch through the scope as the smarty assures the other, disappointed, fluffies that even though the skettis are gone, there are still plenty of nummies to be had. He then rolls out the handful of old, slightly mushy, apples you tossed into the field near the spaghetti as additional bait; these aren’t poisoned, but were intended simply to entice the fluffies further. As you observe, the smarty and his toughies distribute the apples to the remaining mummahs who hadn’t gotten any spaghetti.
Then a large, nearly full-grown, foal discovers something nearby in the field.
“Bawl!”
This announcement immediately attracts other fluffies to investigate, and upon confirming that there is indeed a ball, they all begin giggling and playing; it vaguely resembles a soccer match, except no one remembers whose team they’re on, the goals were stolen while nobody was looking, and all of the players are clad in garish fur more eye-searingly bright than Liberace’s most flamboyant outfits.
Good. That means they’re distracted. You check back near the bowl and discover that all the fluffies who ate spaghetti are getting “sweepies” and lying down for a nap. The three mares who picked up spaghetti in their mouths, but didn’t actually consume any, are the last to succumb. Soon they’re all laying in a big fluff pile in the middle of the field, breathing shallowly.
You scan the field and locate a lone fluffy, hidden from the others’ view by a large clump of tall gruss. It’s grunting and quivering with effort and… ok, seems it’s constipated. It finally shits a brick (almost literally) and moans in relief. You center the crosshairs on its head, just in front of the ear, and gently squeeze the trigger; you know how to shoot a rifle at long range, and don’t anticipate the shot. You don’t force the gun to fire by jerking the trigger like an amateur. Instead, you slowly, gently, squeeze, increasing the pressure on the trigger; you want it to surprise you when it fires. You inhale, exhale halfway, hold it, and continue squeezing… you don’t feel any recoil, but there’s a faint cough from the muzzle end of the rifle and a snapping sound as the bolt reciprocates and a shiny, brass casing lands in the grass beside you.
The fluffy, relieved at having finally passed the massive turd that had been stuck inside it, is suddenly struck in the head so hard that it sees a bright flash of light and flops onto its side. It doesn’t even have time to register the crushing headache before everything goes dark forever.
A perfect headshot. Bang-flop. Quick, quiet, and without suffering. You feel a little better, but not much. You still have an entire herd to slaughter, after all. You quickly scan for the next target of opportunity.
There; a blur of motion catches your eye. It’s a garish orange and green stallion mounting a grey mare with brown splotches. You can hear its “enf enf enf” from here. Both fluffies are behind a bush, out of sight of the rest of the herd. You line up the shot and put a .22-caliber sub-sonic hollowpoint bullet through the thinnest part of the skull, just forward of the ear; the bullet enters the skull, but lacks the energy to penetrate the other side and ricochets around inside the brain cavity, liquifying the brain itself. The stallion spasms and flops onto its side, tongue lolling. The mare turns her head to look at him, a concerned expression just beginning to form when the next bullet punches a hole through her skull and she silently crumples to the grass beside her special friend.
That’s three down, so far. A lot more to go.
There, a lone mare lying on its back, gazing at the clouds. A shot through the bottom of the chin into the skull cavity kills it instantly, and with none of the other fluffies any the wiser.
Another fluffy, conveniently hidden from view of the herd by a dip in the ground, taking an enormous, liquidy shit that fills an impressive portion of the low spot in the ground. You take the shot, but the gentle breeze deflects the bullet’s course, striking the fluffy in the spine. It gasps in shock and flops face first into the puddle of its own smelly diarrhea. Paralyzed, it quickly drowns in its own shit. You feel a twinge at that one, but scan for your next shot.
Another pair of humping fluffies; they’ve climbed up on top of a large rock (too small to be a proper boulder, but practically a hill by fluffy standards) to do their nasty business, in full view of the rest of the herd, but none of them are looking their direction. You change tack from earlier and shoot the mare, another headshot. Her head flops, but the stallion keeps thrusting and enfing, oblivious. A second later, another sub-sonic projectiles whistles almost silently through the air, hits him in the head with a barely audible smack, and he collapses on top of the mare, motionless.
A third fluffy pops its head up over the edge of the rock, squeaking some sort of greeting to the raunchy pair, then pauses, a disturbed expression on its face. You put a round through the base of its skull and it drops lifelessly to the ground at the base of the rock, lifeless and out of sight. You scan the field, see the smarty surveying the herd, its gaze passing over the motionless pair up on the rock and not noticing anything out of the ordinary. Even the smartest fluffy is pretty frickin’ dumb.
That’s eight you’ve shot so far, and fifteen poisoned and settling into the longest and lastest nap of their lives. Twenty-seven fluffies, and about that same number left to go.
You focus on a large mare stumbling around after the others playing with the ball you tossed into the field, notice it’s lame; seems that one of its hind legs was broken at some point and badly healed. You’re surprised it’s with the herd; since this herd arrived in the area relatively recently, that means it was mobile until a few days ago, and the mare would have had trouble keeping up with the herd. Most feral herds, unless they’d found a more or less permanent sanctuary to live in, would abandon the injured mare so she couldn’t slow down the rest of the herd and impair its chances of survival. The fact that the lame mare was still with the herd, despite it having been migratory, gave testament to the kindheartedness of this herd and its leader; no fluffy got left behind. The large size of the herd and its general good health was solid testimony to the smarty and his compassion and good judgement. The way he’d handled the spaghetti discovery was proof of that.
The lame mare is quickly left behind by the giggling, babbling horde chasing the colorful ball, and sits down to rest for a moment, stretching its badly deformed leg. A moment later, you put it out of its misery; it will never suffer again. Twenty-eight.
You scan the field for more targets of opportunity, then pause; a cold chill trickles down your spine.
The smarty and two toughies are approaching the pile of poisoned mares; you can’t make out the words, but the smarty seems slightly concerned about how still they’re being. Shit. You center the crosshairs on his forehead; the smarty nudges a dam with his foreleg, his worried expression growing into one of panic as he realizes she isn’t breathing, none of them are breathing. A wet, red dot appears in his forehead with a THOCK, his eyes cross as if he were trying to look at the new hole that magically sprouted in his head, and he collapses like a marionette with its strings cut. The two toughies look down in confusion, and you take the one on the right. The other barely has time for its jaw to drop in fright and confusion before it flops to the ground, twitches its hind legs once, and then lays still forever.
Thirty-one. Your crosshairs linger over the smarty’s corpse for a few seconds, the leaden weight in your stomach growing heavier. He’d truly cared for his herd.
Sudden noise. A fluffy is standing over the lame mare’s body, loudly demanding that it wake up and shoving it with its snout. The fluffy is obviously emotional. Shit. Other fluffies start to direct their attention to the loud one. You need a distraction.
You spot a half-grown foal near the ball, its attention on the panicking fluffy. A bullet reaches out and shatters its hip; the foal’s hindquarters flop to the ground and it immediately begins shrieking for mummah and yelling owies. A mare that had been tentatively approaching the shouting fluffy turns and runs to the foal’s aid, and all the other fluffies that had been playing ball soon forget the inconveniently loud mare and rush to give the wounded foal hugsies and wuv. You silence the panicking fluffy forever as it shakes the unresponsive lame mare. Thirty-two.
All but a couple of the remaining fluffies have gathered around the wounded foal, which is loudly shouting its pain and displeasure to the world. You feel that twinge again. You hate seeing them suffer, hate MAKING them suffer, but it’s necessary.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
The rifle coughs again and brass tumbles lazily through the air, bounces off a tuft of grass, and tinkles into a pile with the rest of your spent brass. A mare at the back of the crowd drops instantly, dead. Thirty-three. You shift your sights, the rifle coughs again. The gentle breeze has once again deflected your bullet, and it smacks into the nose of the fluffy you were aiming for. The fluffy sprays blood everywhere, shrieking in agony. Shit! You can hear cries of, “it huwts, it huwts” from here.
The fluffies inspecting the wounded foal turn to investigate this new distress call, and you quickly pop two at the back of the ground while the others are all looking away. Then you finish off the bleating foal and end its misery. Thirty-six. A mare turns to nervously look behind it, sees the wounded foal and two others lying lifelessly, and begins shrieking in terror.
“Munsta! Munsta!”
The rest of the herd mills around in panic, unsure of what to do. Where’s the smarty? He’ll know what to do! Where are the toughies? They should be protecting the herd!
You pop another mare’s head and it flops to the ground. Panic in the disco. The fluffies start to run in every direction, terrified of the invisible monster. Not happening!
You shift your aim upward, shoot a foal in the back of the head, causing its head to burst like a water balloon. The fluffies that had been running the same direction now turn back to run the other way. Shifting left, you shoot the stallion at the head of the panicking group and it tumbles onto its back, gurgling and gasping, writhing in agony as blood fills its punctured lungs. “Munsta!” The ones that had been running right behind it turn and run back the way they came.
You follow up by doing the same to the fluffies running in the other cardinal directions, and all the fluffies end up meeting in the center in a single, large clump of terrified fluff, rather than scattering in every direction. You notice the bolt is locked back on the rifle, drop the spent magazine with the press of a button, insert a fresh one, and pull back on the bolt handle, chambering a round. The majority of the fluffies are huddled in a shivering, panic-stricken fluff pile, cries of “huu huu”, “munsta”, and “fwuffy nu wan die” emerging from within. Unable to pick out individual targets or make discriminating shots, you grimace and settle for emptying the entire magazine into the pile of fluff.
Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough.
Brass clicks and clinks in a neat pile beside you, the pile growing larger by the second.
Finally, you’re empty. You change magazines again. A wounded fluffy, bleeding from the flank, breaks from the fluff pile and runs for the imagined safety of the large rock. You drop it with a shot to the neck; it thrashes for several seconds, screaming soundlessly, its breath stolen forever by your bullet. Then it grows still.
You scan the field for survivors. There, a mummah with several foals on its back! It’s staring in shock at the dozens of corpses all around it, only just now realizing what’s happening, legs quivering in fright. It loses control of its bowels and bladder just before you kill it with another headshot. You leave the cheeping foals alone; there’s no need to waste bullets on them. You continue scanning for survivors and see three running for the safety of a clump of bushes; well, slowly waddling in absolute terror, but the closest to running that’s possible for the little technicolor bastards.
You drop one, a white and brown mare with a single foal on its back, and it hits the ground face first and does a somersault before coming to a rest in the grass. You shift your aim, lead the target slightly, and squeeze the trigger… nothing happens. You look away from the scope and notice the bolt is partly open; shit, a double-feed! Instead of feeding a fresh round into the chamber and closing the bolt, the rifle fed a fresh round and then the bolt jammed open on the next round in the magazine; it must be the new magazine you bought, the spring is still too stiff and it’s feeding the rounds with too much force… You shake the thought aside, rip the magazine out of the rifle, work the bolt to eject the round in the chamber and the one the bolt got stuck on, insert the magazine again, work the bolt a second time to chamber a round, reacquire the two fleeing fluffies, and fire… shit, you missed! They reach the bushes and dive in, heedless of any injury that may result from recklessly charging into the foliage, and disappear from sight. You’re tempted to just loose several rounds into the bushes in hopes of hitting them at random, but you ignore the temptation; you’re more responsible than that. You might only wound them and let them suffer, or you could hit some other creature entirely that you never intended to harm. No, you’ll just have to let those two go.
You scan the field for more survivors and find none, though the fluff pile is twitching intermittently and you can hear pained moans and the chirps of foals wanting their mummahs. You click your .22 rifle from FIRE to SAFE and sling it over your shoulder, careful not to touch the suppressor on the end of the barrel; it’s only a .22, so it shouldn’t be hot even after firing all those shots, but you avoid contact anyway. You learned that lesson painfully many years ago and still have a small scar on your elbow from the burn you gave yourself. Gathering the empty magazines and sticking them into your pocket, you draw the Ruger Mk.II .22 pistol from its holster and walk down to the killing field.
Four adult fluffies survived within the fluff pile; three were badly wounded and quickly dispatched with a shot to the head each. The fourth was unharmed, but too afraid to move, so it just sat there shivering in a growing puddle of its own shit and piss, surrounded by a mound of corpses it had been laughing and playing with just minutes earlier. It begs you not to hurt it and you kill it with a shot to the left eye in mid-sentence. You feel that twinge again.
You check over all the bodies, ensuring none are merely wounded, and count eight stallions, including the red, mohawked smarty, eight pregnant dams, and thirty-two mares. You also count six dead, nearly mature, foals of both genders. Eighteen peeping, chirping foals, all but helpless, remain, crying for their mummahs and miwkies. You gather them in a chirping pile next to the mound of corpses, then hike back to your aging, battered Ford Bronco. They’re not going anywhere.
Driving the battered old truck into the field, you open the tailgate and pull out a large bucket, setting it heavily on the ground and removing its lid. You pause, the lead weight in your stomach making your bile rise. This is the worst part.
Tiny foals aren’t worth wasting a bullet on. You’ve tried just snapping their necks and it made you vomit. Crushing them under your foot is out of the question. So you came up with the next best thing, the most humane way to dispatch them without making yourself sick.
One at a time, you drop all eighteen tiny, chirping balls of fuzz into the bucket of water and let them all drown. Once they’re all floating lifelessly in the bucket, you kick the bucket over, dumping its contents into the field, and retrieved the drowned foals, piling them onto a tarp in the back of your Bronco. Then you toss the adults in two at a time, until the back of your truck is packed almost to overflowing with the dead creatures, shut the tailgate, and lean against the back of the Bronco, breathing heavily. Knees shaking, you walk to the front of the truck and get in, hand tingling and quivering on the door handle.
At $10 per stallion, $5 per mare, $1 per foal, and $20 per pregnant dam, you’ve made a decent amount of money for a day’s work. And because you didn’t spend much money on the expensive flufficide, that means you’ve got more profit than most of your competitors, even assuming they managed to poison a herd the same size, and herds that large are fairly rare.
Your tingling, buzzing fingers clumsily dial the number on your cell phone.
“Hello, Dr. Horton? It’s Bill. Yes, I’ve taken care of your fluffy infestation. Yes, sir. Well, I haven’t added it all up exactly just yet, but it’s going to be expensive; this was a pretty big herd. Still cheaper than all the damage they’ve been doing to your wheat fields. No, sir, two of them got away. But I know how fluffies respond to these sorts of thing, and they’ll be doing their best to get as far from here as possible; they won’t be bothering your crops again. Yes, sir, absolutely sure. Red unicorn and a white and blue earth fluffy; if you see them again any time in the next three days, I’ll dispose of them for free. Yes, sir, absolutely. Did you want to see the bodies, just to be sure I’m charging you correctly? Ok, I’ll dispose of them immediately then. Yes, sir, I’ll bring you the bill this afternoon. Yes, sir, a pleasure doing business with you too. Thank you, you have a wonderful day too, sir.”
You hang up, then text your girlfriend.
“ALL DONE FOR THE DAY, DOC HORTON GONNA PAY BY CASH. BE HOME BY DINNER, GOTTA CLEAN UP. LOVE YOU.”
Then you paused, a hollow feeling in your chest. You send another text.
“PICK UP SOME SPAGHETTI FOR SUNSHINE WHEN YOU GET DINNER.”
You set the phone down and lean your head against the steering wheel. You feel sick. The smell of dead, feral fluffies is beginning to fill the Bronco. You roll the window down and drive toward town, headed for the incenerator backing onto the city dump to dispose of your grisly cargo.
You decide you are in serious need of a vacation.