Kendall Evans was confused. He was sure he had heard a child’s voice coming from somewhere in his house, which was ridiculous, as the only people who lived there were Kendall, his wife Temperance, and their grandson Shane.
“Temmy? I could have sworn I just heard a kid in the house somewhere, did you hear anything?” He shouted at the wall that separated their bedrooms. He had gotten up to investigate why she hadn’t responded when the intro song for Hogan’s Heroes started playing, and he sat back down, deciding that he’d check on Temmy when his show was over.
Dave slammed the phone down, in as much as you can slam a cell phone onto a hospital gown; the police had closed their investigation concluding that Dave had simply been the victim of a random act of violence committed by a maniac. While Dave knew that, from a practical perspective, there wasn’t much the police could do with no leads and even less evidence, but that knowledge certainly didn’t make him feel any better. The phone was back in Dave’s hand an instant later as he started calling every one of the private investigators he had hired, asking for updates. Someone had to have found something.
Shane was on his way to his car when he tripped over a very pregnant fluffy dam. On seeing that it was a fluffy, he gave it a hearty kick, sending the mummah flying, only to die on impacting a wrought iron spike atop the run-down fence around Shane’s home. Shane took a few more steps before turning a corner and seeing a small herd of fluffies, complete with a smarty.
“Dis smawty’s wand nao, gib smawty bestest sketties ow tuffies gib yu fowebah sweepies!” The smarty demanded, puffing his cheeks up and stomping his little hoofsies in a manner guaranteed to intimidate, at best, the grass on Shane’s lawn.
“Well, that was easy” Shane thought, amazed at his luck. He was all ready to spend the day driving around until he found a smarty and one had just waltzed right up to him apropos of nothing. Reaching down, Shane grabbed the smarty by the leg and tossed it into the cat carrier he had planned on bringing with him to transport a smarty by car. The smarty was too dazed to say or do anything, seeing as how Shane grabbing it had broken, and partially severed the smarty’s front left leg. Shane, on the other hand, still had Ken’s Nambu in his pocket, and proceeded to have some fun target practice with the rest of the herd until the gun was empty. Leaving the rest of the herd, mostly just foals, to their fate, Shane brought the smarty around to the backyard.
Shane slammed the rundown shed’s door behind him before dropping Pistol to the floor. Inside the slowly collapsing shed was most of a smarty that Shane had ‘acquired’ earlier that day from the herd that had approached his home.
“Owwie!” Pistol declared at his rough handling, “Why yu du dat to Pistow?” The alicorn straightened himself up before surveying his surroundings.
“That” Shane said to Pistol, pointing at the smarty, “is a smarty. Fix him.”
Pistol was genuinely flummoxed. “Pistow nu no how tu fix fwuffy weggie, dat fwuffy nee doktah.”
“No, not that.” Shane responded with irritation. He hated fluffies, and especially hated talking to them. He’d have never have bothered Pistol’s family if not for the fact that he was sure that Pistol was worth millions, assuming that he could actually cure smarty syndrome. “No, make him not a smarty anymore!”
“Pistow nu undastan, bu Pistow nu tink can make dat fwuffy du anytink at aww.” Pistol said after a moment of consideration.
“And why not!” Shane demanded, stomping a foot angrily as he glared at Pistol.
Pistol glanced at the smarty before looking back at Shane and saying, “Dat fwuffy am taken fowebah sweepies, an’ nebah du anytink 'gain.”
Shane, who had just been looking at Pistol since entering the shed, looked over at what was, indeed, a freshly dead smarty. Shane had not bothered treating the smarty’s severed leg in any way, and the little shit must have bled to death in the time it took Shane to go and get Pistol.
“Damn it!” Shane shouted, kicking the corpse hard enough to split it in two, spraying the shed and everything inside it with fluffy viscera. “FUCK” Shane shouted. As much as he despised fluffies, he was sure he needed Pistol alive, and couldn’t have his golden ticket die from being covered in rotting fluffy entrails. Also, even Shane didn’t hate Shane enough to force Shane to interact with a fluffy covered in rot. And so Shane found himself spraying Pistol down with a hose, figuring he might as well wash out the inside of the shed while he was at it. With fluffy and shed clean-ish, Shane returned Pistol to Sally and the others and headed back out to search for another smarty.
“Wha da angwy daddeh wan Pistow?” Sally asked after Shane dropped Pistol and slammed the saferoom door. The foals all rushed over to Pistol, most offering him huggies, with only two of them getting lost on the way and instead starting a two-fluffy game of huggies-tag.
Pistol hugged his children back as he looked to Sally. “Pistow nu no, angwy daddeh jus bwing Pistow tu see fowebah sweepies fwuffy, den gib fowebah sweepies fwuffy sowwy kickie, an den gib Pistow bad wawas an’ den bwing Pistow ba hewe.” Pistol pondered for a moment before adding, “Pistow tink dat angwy daddeh may nu be aww wite in da tinky pwace.”
Meanwhile, outside of Shane’s home, a tear-soaked foal tried to awaken the front half of her mother.
The next day, the ninth day since Sally’s foals had been born, arrived far more somber than any of Sally had known. While she lacked the words to succinctly describe her present location, it didn’t stop her from trying.
“Sawwy nu wike dis pwace,” She told the purple and white alicorn foals while Pistol played with the rest of the foals. “Dis pwace feew wike owd kibbwe taste. Wike da housie wan gu fowebah sweepies an’ nu be housie nu mowe.”
Both foals nodded in agreement, although the purple one was mostly at a loss as to what Sally meant, but her tone of voice matched the room they were in perfectly. His sister, on the other hand, did understand and, pointing to a floorboard that had cracked under Pistol’s hoof, added “Nu onwy dat, bu da housie seem su tiowed, wike fwuffy babbehs am tuu muchies fow it.” The three of them watched as Pistol turned around, foals hot on his heels, and when he stepped on that spot again, part of the floorboard collapsed under his weight, leaving him suddenly upside down on the floor.
Pistol was back on his feet in a flash, for a fluffy at least, and promptly examined the new hole in the floor. Sticking his face right up to the hole, Pistol saw dirt after a gap of around one foot. Lifting his head back up, he looked closely at the break in the floor proper- it was too small for even the foals to fit through, but as he tested the nearby wood with his hoof, Pistol started to hatch a plan.
The plan was a complete success, as the good-poopies were now in the litterbox. Pistol then set his mind back to the hole in the floor.