Author’s notes: I initially started with this to see if I could do a bit of a twist on the “fluffy exterminator” concept.
This is the result.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!
Slate, by Solidus.
—Rural Ohio—
“What a pain in the fucking ass.” The man said, scowling angrily.
The woman behind the desk sighed. “I KNOW, alright Alex. I know it’s a fucking nightmare, but there’s nothing for it right now, is there?”
Alex looked at her over his glasses. “What I wanna know, Lauren, is how in the hell an entire herd of ferals got fuckin’ rabies? Aren’t fluffies immune to this kinda shit?”
She sighed. “Most diseases. They’re immune to MOST diseases. I guess Rabies doesn’t play well with others. As to how they contracted it, fucked if I know, but it’s spread to a number of pets, and people have had to get rabies shots. 8 house cats, 14 domestic fluffs, and 2 pet dogs have had to be put down because they got bitten or worse……”
His eyes widened a bit at the numbers. “Jesus wept……alright, fine, fuck it, I’ll deal with this. But we’re doing it my way, you understand? I’m not taking chances on this, we need to get the lot of them, and we need to do it quick and clean.”
Lauren nodded. “Alright, we’ll do it your way, what do you need?”
“Curare.”
— — — —
Alex sat in his tree stand and looked down. The trap was set, he was ready. It was time to exterminate these diseased fluffies. He hated to do it, frankly, he liked fluffies, even ferals were, if messy and destructive, kindhearted creatures undeserving of a fate as unpleasant as death of rabies.
“Just remember, you’re doing the right thing….” he muttered to himself.
The pickup truck’s worth of spaghetti he’d dumped was going to be enough to lure in the herd, he was sure of that.
He heard high pitched squeaking and groaning, and the herd began to file in.
The shape they were in frankly turned Alex’s stomach. Many missed patches of fur, they were emaciated, and covered in their own filth. The skin around their mouths was wet with foam, tongues lolled out of mouths, eyes were wide and glassy. None of them could speak, many could barely walk, their heads canting to one side, their bodies twitching hideously. Some had eyes dried and withered in the sockets.
Staggering, shambling, the mass of fluffies went after the pile of pasta, trying to eat it. Many of them couldn’t swallow and spit it back up, only to again try to scarf it down over and over. Others bit and chewed their own tongues as they ate the food.
Alex raised the metal tube before him, and inserted a dart. He raised it to his lips, taking a deep breath through his nose. He looked straight on, targeting the poor animal that used to be the herd’s smarty-friend, and exhaled forcefully.
A steel dart, 10 inches long, with a razor sharp, arrow-like head, soaked in liquid curare, plunged into the smarty-friend’s chest.
The fluffy shit himself, and began letting out angry grunts and stomping his hooves. IHecrushed a few foals underfoot, and then began to look around, it’s half-blind eyes looking about for the source of the stinging he felt in his side.
Nothing. It couldn’t see Alex in his camouflaged clothing, much less did it think to look up into a tree for him.
Suddenly, the pain stopped. The smarty friend felt his legs go out from him, and he toppled to one side. Blood pooled beneath it, and it closed it’s eyes.
Alex loaded another dart into his blowgun, and took aim at a soon-mummah.
By the time he was done, the forest floor littered with the bodies of fluffies. Every dart had found home, every one had killed it’s target quickly and with minimal pain. The razor sharp edges of the blade caused rapid blood loss, and the curare numbed the pain, stilled the muscles, and caused quick unconsciousness. Together with Alex’s practiced aim, the fluffies felt no more than a sharp sting, like the bite of a horsefly, before a sort of cold and a weakness overtook them.
Then they closed their eyes, and never woke up.
“Sorry.” He said, looking at a foal he’d impaled on a dart. Poor thing was nothing but a chirpy, but the foam around it’s mouth, and it’s emaciated body confirmed it was rabid as well, likely infected in the womb.
Alex pulled out his phone.
“Yeah. All done here.”
“No. They didn’t hear me.”
“Make sure they have cut-resistant gloves, the darts are razor sharp, most of the tips are inside the fluffies, but the foals……well…… Yeah. See you later, Lauren.”
He hung up the phone, and looked over the scene one last time.
“Peep!”
“Fuck….” he muttered, loading a dart, he followed the source of the sound.
“Chirp, cheep!”
It was a tiny, grey bowl chirpy. The little thing was peeping and squeaking, having been knocked from it’s mother’s back when she had fallen dead.
Alex looked at it, and stopped.
It was perfectly healthy. No missing fur, not a drop of blood had touched it. It wasn’t foaming like the other chirpies he’d put down.
Kneeling, Alex offered it his water bottle, and the foal latched on, drinking eagerly.
Not hydrophobic.
It was clean.
Alex picked up the tiny, squirming ball of fluff, and looked up at the sky.
“I don’t know why, or how, you kept this one safe…….but thank you……I’ll take him from here.”
— — 1 year later — —
Pitter patter……pitter patter….pitter patter…
“CANNONBAWW!”
SPALSH!!!
“DAMMIT SLATE!”
“Tee hee, Swate wub bubbew baffies!”
“I know you do, but not while I’m in the tub, you little menace!”
“Swate wub daddeh!”
Alex sighed.
“Love you too, buddy…… Fine, you can stay in, but if you try to eat the bar of soap again, I swear to god no spahgetti this week!”
Swate wiww no nummies bubbew nummie!”
“That’s a good boy….” He said, scratching the fluffy on his head as he floated about in the bathtub.
In retrospect, he was glad he’d taken that job.
All’s well that ends well.