This is a continuation of these two stories:
As always thank you for reading and I hope you’ve been enjoying the series
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“Nu daddeh, nuuu! Dun do it! Am tu scawies!” Bossy shrieked from her poolside position, watching as her owner got into a precarious position. This was so scary she had to close one eye because it was hard to watch. Well, she tried to close one eye. Both snapped closed each time she attempted it so finally she relented to watch in horror.
Willie was on top of the big slide. Now, of course, she liked slides. This one was so tall that she was pretty sure he was in the clouds. Stamping her hooves and straining her eyes, Bossy worriedly called out: “Daddeh! Wook ou’ foh da sun! It am buwnies!” You see, from her perspective he was basically in the sky right now. In fact it looked like he was right next to the sun. Didn’t he know better? Wasn’t he the least bit concerned?
Looking down to the fluffy from his vantage point on the tippity-top of the slide platform, Willie just shook his head. Dramatic much? Getting down on his ass, he went down the piece of equipment. Was it fun? Not nearly as much as he’d thought it be. Also the sun had baked the plastic or whatever the Hell the material was made out of and it kinda scorched his skin as he zipped down and torpedoed into the pool below.
“EEEEEEEE!” Stamping around and running side to side along the pool edge, Bossy was PRETTY SURE her owner was now gone. The water had EATEN him. There was only a frothy foam where he’d entered but no Willie. Of course, he’d soon reemerge with a giant gasp.
“Yon don’t need to be so dang dramatic, Bossy.” Were his gruff words to her, drying off with a slightly itchy beach towel he’d found abandoned in the lost & found box at the front desk.
Pinning her ears down, the mare gave a small ‘hmph’ of noise. Ditching the towel once he was largely dried off, he decided it was time for them to have lunch. Despite the front gate having been unlocked when entering, there were some rooms in the pool buildings which were locked. A nurse’s station, equipment room, and of course the concession shack. It took a bit of hunting though he’d finally found a keyring under a stack of papers at the front desk, which got him into the concession area.
This little snack shack was filled with stuff you’d expect from a swimming pool: A grill with a gas burner to cook hot dogs, racks of neatly arranged candy, bags of chips and a cooler of (given their circumstances) warm drinks.
Twisting the nozzle for one of the gas burners and lighting the pilot light with a nearby book of matches, he watched the flame burst up with a ‘fwoomp’. Well, there weren’t any hotdogs to be grilling though he’d find a few big soft pretzels wrapped in cellophane. Getting two out, he’d plop them on top of the grill and peek out the shack after rolling the metal shutter up.
Bossy was, of course, up to no good. There was a bottle of sunscreen he’d slopped himself up with earlier and she’d jumped right on top of it, squirting it out all over the cement walkway. Stamping her hooves in it, she walked around triumphantly.
“Bozzy am su gweat!”
She rang out in a sing-song voice.
“Bozzy su smawt!” Running back, she slapped her hooves back in the sunscreen and made white droplets spray out all over the place. Rolling his eyes, Willie called out:
“Yon best behave! I don’t have to give you candy with lunch!”
This earned a giggle from the fluffy, and he’d turn back to the grill. Flip the pretzels over. Selecting two cups of shelf-stable nacho cheese and a few packages of Twizzlers from the candy rack, he only needed to wait a few more moments for the main course to be properly warmed. Grabbing them up, he’d join Bossy out on the grass. Slung himself out with his back resting up against the wire fence which corralled this place in.
“Dank yew ‘fo nummies.” His companion mumbled gratefully before stuffing a bit of the pillowy pretzel into her mouth.
Peeling open the nacho cheese, Willie tore a piece of her pretzel off and showed her to dip it in. Bossy did it once, gave a twitch of her ears, began eagerly lapping the cheese directly from the cup.
Eyes glancing up to the sky, Willie chewed on a knob of pretzel and let things turn around in his brain. Twisting in place, he reached for his own nacho cheese cup and found that Bossy had pilfered it.
“C’mon, Bossy.” He groaned, though didn’t feel much one way or about it. Smiling with the goopy cheese all over her face, the mare just answered: ‘Sowwy! It am assident!’
Honestly, the bread tasted just fine without it. More than fine. It was one of the best things he’d eaten in recent memory.
Maybe, though, it was because he was sure that it was going to be his last meal. By now his muscles had begun to ache. Lungs felt heavy. A rasp was at the back of his throat and he knew if he took a breath too fast or deep, it’d send him into a burst of coughs.
+++++
Willie had hoped that he would have had the strength to make it back to their ‘base camp’. The park with their tent set-up had become a place of comfort for both of them. Of course, that wouldn’t be happening now.
He knew the Fluffy Flu was fast. Once you felt the first effects, it wouldn’t be long before it clapped down on you like a clamp. Lethargy swept through him, and it took a great deal of effort to snag his fingers up against the fence behind himself and finally drag up to a standing position.
Tilting her head and looking to him curiously, Bossy nudged his leg. “Daddeh? Yew otay?”
Breathing puffing out, he shook his head. No. He wasn’t. It hadn’t been his intention to lie to her about it. All he’d wanted was for her to have a good day instead of worrying about him. “No. I’m sick.”
It felt like he was moving through molasses. By now the world felt syrupy. Stomach flip-flopping, he lurched slowly along the poolside to the main building. Hooves tip-tapping behind him, Bossy tried to get his attention.
“Nu! Nu am sickies! Daddeh wie tu Bozzy? Pwease nu sickies?” The ‘lie’ part made him hurt inside. Not only was she trying to convince him that he wasn’t sick, but was (rightfully) accusing him with fibbing about being sick.
Fingers looping against the keyring still stuck in concession stand’s door lock, he felt like a ghost already. As if his feet weren’t even properly attached to his body. This place had been the exact same when he was a kid. When he’d scraped his knee, he’d…
That’s right. The nurse’s station. Stepping through the small complex which made up the pool facility, he went down a hall which still smelled faintly of disinfectant. Fumbled the keys, found the one with the proper tag and let himself into the nurse’s station. There was a cot which lay low to the floor, a small medicine cabinet, posters describing the symptoms of sunstroke or how to give CPR.
Sliding drawers of the medicine cabinet open, he looked blearily over pill bottles, tablet sheets, rolls of bandages and creams. When the flu had hit, just about every common medicine for colds and flu had been bought up and never restocked. Not that it seemed to do much any good though. Desperate people hadn’t though to look here though, and why would they? His fingers snagged up a half-full bottle of aspirin, screwed it open, tossed the cotton wadding away. A few got knocked back into his mouth, bitterness spreading through his mouth as he sank down to the cot.
Staring at him, Bossy whimpered. Fluffed her tail worriedly from side to side. “Daddeh…” She began, but he wouldn’t even look back at him. Instead he gave a wheezing cough, body fully slumping down against the lumpy mattress.
Fear. Hurt. Extreme sorry. What could she do? This was just like…just like…
Giving an anguished cry, she charged out of the nurse’s station.
++++++
Hooves scrabbling down the steps leading up to the pool, her weggies carried her as far as she could go without stopping. Running and running, pudgy body jiggling side to side with each step. Don’t think about any of it. If she did, it’d hurt and scare her.
Finding herself in the middle of a familiar location she’d been many times with Willie, details started to pop out at her. When her owner brought her out into town, he was there to distract her. Talking with her, wheeling her along in the wagon as she played with a toy or carrying her up in one arm.
Now the full realization of what the town was like crushed down on her, as if gravity had increased all around. Hooves nervously scraping along the sidewalk, she tried to force herself to look away from a foal-in-a-can machine which had been set up outside the town’s hobbyshop. Bright rainbow decorations were marred by rusty swaths of dried blood. Someone had beat the machine with a sledgehammer with such force that it’d cracked open and spilled it’s contents along the ground. Whoever it’d been hadn’t stopped there: They’d taken the time to grab up foals in their glass canisters and dash them across the sidewalk. Withered scraps of corpses still lay there, tiny stubby legs twisted in unnatural angles with shards of glass punctured through their fur. Even more horribly, some hadn’t been smashed against the ground. They lay in canisters where waste had exploded inward, coating the foals in poopies. Others, still, had laid there for who knew how long to roast in the direct sunlight.
“Babbehs…nuuhuu…BABBEHS!” Eyes squeezing shut in abject terror, she tried to push that sight from her mind. Though her weggies stung from already having run so quickly and far, she went bounding away. Not even looking to make sure where she was going. It took her by surprise when an aluminum trashcan stopped the fluffy in her tracks. It hurt, but not as much as it could have. Watching the can topple with a clang, once colorful bodies spilled out.
More fluffies. Fowebbah sweepies. This entire can had seemingly been filled with nothing but her dead kin. Some bore obvious bullet wounds, others still had ligature bindings wound tightly around their throats. More, still, possessed the telltale signs of sketti bait poisonings. What had once been something just like her was now nothing but a giant heap of meat. something which seemed to fuse together, no individuality, a great incomprehensive ball of moldering fluff and swarming insects.
Panic ripped through her. She needed help. Running to a barbershop with a shuttered door, she looked through it to find what had once been the owner with a gleaming silver pair of clippers sticking out his apron pocket. He dangled from a ceiling fan which seemed ready to snap away at any moment from the weight of his body.
“Hewp! Pwease hewp fwuffy! PWEASE SU SCAWDIES! Hewp fwuffy! HEWP DADDEH!” She called out to an empty street. That’s right, it’d just suddenly occurred to her. That silence which was so scary was beginning to close in on her like a tight blanket. Legs shaking nervously, she looked to a townhouse.
There was someone out on the porch! It was hard to see them but it was definitely someone sitting on one of those fun chairs that moved! Quickly making her way up the sidewalk to plead her case to the person, she scrabbled her hooves against their pantsleg.
“Hewwo! Pwease nice pewson! Hewp! Daddeh am sickies!” Grabbing ahold of the figure’s pants, she tugged and pulled back. Growled deep in her throat because she wasn’t getting a response.
What had once been a man toppled forward. In her panic and because of the gloom here in the porch, Bossy hadn’t seen that he was dead. More than that, this fella had decided to out with a bang. Shotgun clattering from it’s resting position between his unmoving legs, the corpse spilled out onto the wooden floorboards of the porch. Half of his head had been erased in a spray of buckshot, rotting flesh sloshing out at the fluffy’s hooves as she dragged him down. All her eyes could see was a gaping cavern where someone’s think-pwace should be, and then a seething carpet of maggots as gravity released it’s payload.
“MUNNNSTAAAHHHH!” She cried out to the air, taking off from the porch and once more skittering down the street.
This time she had a destination. This time, she would be freed of all this. A safe place.
+++++
Back in the park, rolled up in a ball inside the tent she and Willie shared. Rolling back and fourth across the sleek material of their home, she screeched and cried.
It was horrible. All awful. Wowstest, baddest, nu pwetty…
“DADDEH!” She cried out hoarsely, slapping her hooves around. Felt a sudden surge of anger, grabbed up one of their sleeping bags with her mouth and shook it around fiercely.
This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t at all. Everyone was gone, everything was scary.
And…and it…
“Mummah. Nuuhuu…mummah pwease…” Willie was usually around to comfort her when the bad things came back in her head. Big daddeh and big mummah had locked little mummah in her bedroom and then left. They said they’d be back, but they’d never come back. Each of them had sickies. It was all Bossy’s fault, they said, and that big daddeh would ‘put her down’ when he came back.
Little mummah was named Kaylee. She liked playing house with Bossy, and splashing in mud, once they’d gotten in big trouble for colorin’ on the walls and.
Beginning to hyperventilate, Bossy shuddered and wailed. Little mummah had sickies and needed huggies but Bossy couldn’t get through the door. Had tried so hard. Running into the door. Trying to eat it. Attempting to squeeze her body through the tiny crack at the bottom.
The fluffy had bled. Bruised her body. Scraped some of her fur off. Broke a tooth. Nothing helped. Kaylee had coughed and cried for her or for anyone and she couldn’t do anything to help.
Because she was a dumb fluffy and it was her fault.
“Bozzy sowwy…Bozzy nu am bad…wan be gud! Pwease?” She asked an empty world. Then it came to her. There was no locked door keeping her away from daddeh. Just being scawdies. Sniffling pathetically, it occurred to her that it didn’t matter. Fluffies weren’t big and couldn’t do much. All her efforts trying to find help had been fruitless.
Looking outside the tent, the mare found that darkness had fallen. It scared her. Everything scared her. But what about daddeh?
Was he wondering where she was? Did he have wowstest huwties? Was he crying just like she was?
Whimpering, Bossy fumbled her mouth against the knob of one of the battery powered lanterns which was propped up in the tent. Too-bright white flooded the enclosed space, and she’d cinch the wired handle up against her mouth and drag it out.
This world which had been so terrifying day was sure to be even more so at night. Gilding herself with determination and giving a huff, she skipped out of the tent and went waddling out into the night.
+++++++
Having made her way through the town, her lantern making every shadow twist and seem like a distorted munstah, Bossy climbed up the steps to the pool complex. By now her body felt so tired. All she wanted right now was sleepies but something in her think-pwace kept her moving despite all of the exhaustion of the day.
Hooves clipping along the concrete hall leading to the nurse’s office, she feared the worst. That the door she had exited from would be shut. Locked. Forever barring her from daddeh. It would be an impenetrable obstacle once again for a fluffy like her.
Instead it still remained open, the light of her lantern causing Willie’s face to appear through the gloom like a Halloween mask. Sweat dripped down from him like a cold soda on a hot day, and his hands were gripped around the blanket he’d dragged up against himself. Breath rattled out of him like the clinking sound you’d hear in an empty can of spray paint.
“Daddeh?” Bossy asked, setting down the lantern. Moved up close to the cot, nuzzled up against his cheek. Fluffies ran hot-blooded but even she knew he was heated. Could actually feel it coming off of him in waves.
Her owner didn’t do much in response. Curled slightly in, mumbled, shuddered intensely. Why did he have coldies? He was so HOT! This room was too.
Nudging up under one of his arms, she nuzzled into position against his side. Rubbed her face against his sweat-drenched abdomen.
“Dun wowwy. Bozzy am hewe. Am hewp daddeh?” Of course she received no response. Daddeh was sleepin’, or at least something like it. It looked like it hurt.
Thinking for a moment, she spoke again. Even if he didn’t say anything, it didn’t matter. Fluffies were well-versed in babbling to themselves at length. “If daddeh get beddah, Bozzy nu be bwat. An’, an’ shawe bestest toysies.”
Folding her ears in a bit, she remembered what she’d done right before he got sick. “Bozzy sowwy ‘fo takesies daddeh’s cheesies.” Sniffling, she licked his cheek. It was a physical way to say how sorry she was.
Though he didn’t say anything, the arm she’d crawled under stiffened slightly. Pulled her in closer. Maybe even if he was dreaming, or whatever it was, he knew she was there with him.
“Pwease dun weab Bozzy. Yew am bestest fwend.” She whimpered pathetically to him, tucking her head against his side.
Tomorrow, he’d be better. That’s what she kept thinking to herself. If she thought hard enough and wanted it mostest, it’d happen.
Eventually, she went to sleep. The arm kept cinched around her and every time she awoke, she still heard Willie giving his rattling breaths. Each time she heard it, it made it easier to go back to sleep.
