Sunnydale farms’ break-room was filled with dozens of day shift workers on their lunch break. While there was some mixing, personnel from different sections tended to congregate in set groups. At the tables claimed by the C-grade barn staff, Riley sat next to a newer hire called Gerald. While they ate, the pair watched videos of professional fluffy hunters on Gerald’s phone.
They, Gerald especially, wanted a little catharsis for the bullshit the C-grade mares and stallions gave them. The young workers were warned by the older staff to be careful what they watched, though. ‘If any supervisors catch you watching abuse on your phones,’ one of them said, ‘you’ll be working the shit farm or be out on your ass.’
They’d taken it to heart but Gerald figured fluffy hunting, especially professionals, wasn’t technically abuse. So, that’s what he picked. Gerald’s current favourite was a professional shooter in Australia. On-screen, he and some other hunters inspected the aftermath of an ambush they’d sprung on a feral herd. The cameraman looked around at the carnage; fluffies of all ages lay dead and dying, blood from the bullet wounds matting their fluff.
‘Good shooting boys’ someone off-screen said. ‘After smoko, we’ll grab the shoties and try and find the ones that ran into that Lantana.’
‘Think I got this one here,’ the cameraman pointed at a mare with a pulverised head. ‘This one too. The Ruger likes the new ammo I’m running.’
‘Oi, come look at this,’ another off-screen voice said. The cameraman and two others walked over to the shooter who’d called for their attention.
‘What is it?’
‘What’d you find Stu?’
The middle age, crouched on one knee, pointed at a dead fluffy on the ground. ‘It’s one of those MLP buggers.’
‘ML what?’
‘What are you one about Stu?’
‘I’ve heard of those,’ the cameraman said. ‘They’ve got the same colours as the main characters in that old Hasbro show.’
‘Yeah, that show is why these things exist.’ the man they called Stu said. ‘Anyway, these buggers are worth a lot in the states, especially this one.’ He gripped the multicolour tail with a gloved hand and held it out. ‘It’s called, uh, Rainbow, Flash, I think. Let me just,’ Stu flipped the corpse over, revealing a pair of udders, ‘yep, you’d five thousand for this in the states, easy.’
‘Five grand?!’ The cameraman said. ‘Why are doing shooting these things? We should trap and sell them!’
‘Cops will get you for it,’ another of the shooters said.
‘Yeah it’s not worth it, mate; buggers have gone to jail for that.’
‘Oi Stu, how do you know all this shit?’ Someone asked.
‘It’s called reading, Darren,’ Stu stood up. ‘It’s something you do with your eyes when you’re not trying to figure out why your groups are so shit-house.’
Right then, Riley was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He spun around and saw Bobby. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’
‘Have you got your gas ticket yet?’
‘Yeah, last week.’
‘Fantastic.’ Bobby said. ‘There’s a problem with the foal room, and we’re short one guy for gassing. You’ll have to take his place.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Riley said.
‘Relax, it’s not that hard.’ Bobby assured him. ‘Come meet me after lunch and I’ll take you down.’
‘Okay, got it.’ Riley said.
‘Cool.’ Bobby left the table, and the two young workers turned back to the video.
‘Here, look at this one,’ Gerald tapped on a new video. ‘This guy shot a whole family of fluffies from almost 1000 yards!’
After lunch, Riley met up with Bobby; together, they walked to a squad, nondescript building forty meters from the main complex. ‘Gassing is pretty simple, but you need to do exactly what you’re told.’
‘Okay, sure.’
‘I’m serious,’ Bobby said. ‘If you don’t pay attention, getting fired is the better thing that could happen.’
‘Okay I got it,’ Riley said. ‘I’ll pay attention.’
‘Yeah I know, management just wants us to be strict with newbies.’
The pair arrived at the outbuilding, and Bobby swiped his card and keyed in a pin. The lock opened with an audible clunk, and Bobby pushed open the door. The interior of the building was spartan, with only some equipment lockers, wall-mounted boxes and a door on the opposite wall. The door was, however, something to behold. To Riley, it looked like it weighed maybe twice what the first one did. It had a thick rubber seal around the edge, and was surrounded by a plethora of warning signs.
‘Okay,’ Bobby walked to the equipment lockers. ‘First thing you do when you come here is grab one of these,’ Bobby opened a cabinet and pulled out what looked like a small backpack, connected to a half face gas mask. ‘This little guy,’ Bobby said, ‘will save your ass if there’s a major gas leak.’ He slung the backpack on and grabbed hold of the mask.
‘What is it?’ Riley asked.
‘Emergency oxygen generator,’ Bobby said, ‘like the ones they have in air-planes. The backpack has a sensor that monitors CO levels. If the sensor trips, the pack starts generating pure oxygen.’
‘How much?’ Riley asked, grabbing a pack for himself.
‘Enough to create positive pressure and keep the monoxide out.’
‘Sounds serious,’
‘It is,’ Bobby fastened the mask over his face. ‘Carbon Monoxide it serious shit; the second you don’t respect it, it’ll kill you.’
‘They didn’t put it like that at the training course,’ Riley swung the pack over his back and secured the mask over his mouth and nose.
‘They’re too clinical if you ask me,’ Bobby said, voice muffled slightly by the mask. ‘Alright, ready to head in?’
‘Yep,’
‘Let’s do this then.’ Bobby led the way to the second door, unlocked it with his keycard and pushed the heavy door open. The room he revealed was even more spartan than the first, the only feature of note being a massive steel box near the middle. Pipes ran in and out of the dark metal rectangle, and it looked imposing as all hell.
‘That’s it,’ Bobby said, ‘the gaser. Some of us call it “the murder cube.” And yes, I know it’s not a cube. Alright,’ he walked to a console on the wall. ‘This is the most important thing I’m going to teach you in here. It could save your life, so listen.’ Bobby unlocked the console and tapped through menus.
“Monoxide alarm active” an English accented synthetic female voice said over an unseen speaker. “Test in 3, 2, 1…”
WOOOOOOOOP!!! WOOOOOOOOP!!! WOOOOOOOOP!!!
Despite the warning, Riley flinched at the sound of the klaxon, which stopped as suddenly as it started. ‘From here on, if you hear that while we’re in here,’ Bobby said, ‘get out. Drop what you’re doing and get outside, then the fuck away from the building.’
‘Got it,’ Riley gave Bobby a thumbs up.
‘Sweet Come on, let’s get them.’ Bobby led Riley to yet another door, this one was far less sturdy than the others. Upon opening it, Bobby revealed a couple dozen cages full of panicked fluffies.
‘Nu wike woud noises!!’
‘Mummah!! Sabe bestest babbeh!!!’
‘Nu wike!! Nu wike!!!’
‘Start grabbing cages kid,’ Bobby grabbed two cages and carried them out to the main room. Riley did the same, picking a cage full of reject foals and another with two mares.
‘Peep peep!!’
‘Wet Bestest babbeh oud nao dummeh!! Wan be wif mummah!!’
‘Pwease Mistah, take Fwuffy tu find babbehs!! Wan weave!!’
After six months working at Sunnydale, Riley had gotten good at blocking out the fluffies. He carried the cages back to the chamber room and joined Bobby. ‘We stack the chamber like this,’ he lifted in one of his cages and put it in lengthways. 'This baby fits 4 across, 4 deep and 8 longways,’ Bobby put the second cage in. ‘We won’t be doing that many today, though. Alright sport, put yours in.’
Riley stacked the cages as he was instructed, and went back for another pair. He grabbed another cage of foals who’d flunked out and one with a lone mare. Unlike most of the others, the pink and white fluffy didn’t speak and hardly moved, as she had for the past four days. Riley stacked the cages in the chamber and went for more. The two workers repeated the process, until all the cages were in the chamber.
‘Right, now we close it up.’ Bobby hit the button on the side console, and the heavy steel lid came back down. It sealed the chamber with a soft thud, and Bobby checked the rubber seal. ‘Looks good.’
‘I can barely hear anything,’ Riley said.
‘Yep, she’s engineered to keep the gas in,’ Bobby led Riley away from the chamber. ‘Works with sound too.’ Bobby approached another control panel mounted on the wall, and punched in commands.
“Chamber sealed successfully” The calm robot voice said. Bobby entered a few more commands, and the voice said “Monoxide gas ready for deployment. Do you wish to continue?” Bobby pushed the final command. “Release command confirmed,” then, “Releasing gas. Please maintain safe distance from the chamber.” Riley expected to hear a soft hiss, or some other sign the chamber was working. Instead, there was a deathly silence.
‘You won’t hear anything,’ Bobby said. ‘This is about the quietest job we have.’
‘How long does this take?’
‘Well, they’ll be passed out by now.’ Bobby said. ‘It’s running a standard program runs, so 3 minutes of exposure. It runs 5 minutes for a heavy load…’
Riley nodded. Not long after Bobby finished, the computer voice announced “Exposure complete. Beginning chamber purge.” Some where above, a fan started.
‘That’s sucks the gas from the chamber,’ Bobby said, ‘it gets mixed with a bit of propane, then burned.’
‘Why?’
‘Releasing monoxide into open air is a bad idea,’ Bobby said. ‘A very bad idea.’
“Purge complete. Chamber lock released.”
‘Right,’ Bobby led Riley over to the chamber and hit the button. Slowly the heavy lid lifted and revealed cages now full of dead fluffies. Fortunately, there was little waste some they’d been kept unfed for a day prior. ‘Now we take them back into the room we got them from,’ Bobby grabbed a couple of cages. ‘They’re the disposal boys’ problem then.’ Riley nodded and grabbed a pair of cages as well. The sight of the dead fluffies didn’t bother him as much, though the open glassy eyes were slightly off-putting.
Once the cages were back in the room ready for disposal, the pair cleaned up the gas chamber, closed it, then left the room and replaced their gear.
‘How’d you find that?’ Bobby asked him as they walked back to the C barn.
‘Not so bad.’
‘Yeah, it sure the beats the old days,’ Bobby said. ‘Back then it was zip ties and… Ah, you probably don’t want to hear that.’
‘Not really…’
‘Sorry. Right, well once we’re back, I’ll have you and Gerald do a toy check.’
‘What was gassing like?’
‘Safety’s really strict,’ Riley told Gerald as they walked the C grade living quarters, replacing wrecked and unsanitary toys. ‘Pretty easy otherwise.’
‘Yeah yeah. How’d the fluffies react?’ Gerald pressed. ‘They scream or cry or what?’
‘They always do that,’ Riley sighed, fishing a deflated ball out of one pen. ‘I didn’t hear anything when the lid closed anyway.’
‘Damn, that’s no fun.’
‘Dude, what the fuck?’ Everyone in the C barn, most of the complex actually, were at best ambivalent towards fluffies. Riley wasn’t much of a fan himself, though he didn’t mind his girlfriend’s fluffy. Gerald though, well, Riley knew better than to ask, but he was pretty sure the kid was some kind of abuser.
‘Oh Come on man, you know the shit these things put us through,’ Gerald said gestured at the pens. ‘Especially that bitch Lovely. Hey, didn’t she shit all over-’
‘Screeee!!!’
Riley and Gerald looked to the source of the commotion, a pen that was all too familiar.
‘Speak of the Devil,’
‘Screeeeee!! Hewp Fwuffeeeee!!!’
Two workers rushed over, one armed with a catchers pole; he shoved the pole forward and pulled the loop light. Lovely, the queen bitch of the barn, struggled like a frenzied cat as the worker hauled her out of the pen. The mare continued to thrash about and snarl as she was carried away to the discipline room.
Meanwhile, the second worker pulled a gauze patch from his utility belt and reached into the pen. Seconds later, he lifted out the unlucky mare who’d been in the way when Lovely’s outburst started. The worker carried the crying mare away, pressing a gauze patch against her neck.
With the coast clear, Riley and Gerald went over to look. Inside the pen there was a crimson stain on the floor. The other mares were huddled in the far corners, shielding their eyes and shaking like plates of jelly.
‘What the fuck was that about?’
‘Who knows?’ Riley grabbed a worn-out ball from the pen. ‘When something sets Lovely off, she tries to kill whatever’s closest.’
‘What’s her problem?’ Gerald asked as the two got back on task.
‘No one knows that either,’ Riley told him. ‘She’s not a smarty, wasn’t abused as far as anyone knows.’ he shook his head. ‘She’s just evil; pure, chaotic evil.’
‘So why do they keep her around instead of killing her?’
That Riley could answer. ‘She’s a fucking money printer; MLPs, alicorns, tri-colours, hell,’ Riley topped off his trash bucket and made for the bins, ‘a couple of litters ago she squeezed out two princesses. The management here would clone her if they could.’
‘Yeah, wouldn’t that be a great idea…’
‘Hey boys, got a moment?’
Gerald and Riley turned to face Richie. ‘Yeah boss?’
‘You fellas want some OT?’
‘What for?’
‘You know that little problem in the foal room?’
‘I knows there’s a problem,’ Riley said. ‘Not what’s happening.’
‘Well, what’s happening is a big fucking ass-ache.’ Richie said. ‘Looks like a batch of formula… Ah, don’t worry about that. Point is, the boys over there need some extra help. Gotta warn you though,’ Richie grimaced, ‘it won’t be pretty.’
The pair thought about it; the phrase “won’t be pretty” was something you never wanted to hear in the context of fluffies. Plus, it was only an hour until clock-out. On the other hand Riley default was to offer help, and Katie’s birthday was coming up soon. ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’
‘Good man,’ Richie turned to Gerald. ‘How about you.’
‘Ah, sorry. I’ve got some stuff on this afternoon.’
‘Fair enough, go take care of that then. I’ll come get you when the shift ends,’ Richie told Riley.
‘Got it.’ Riley said and returned to his duties in the barn. All the while, he wondered exactly what he’d gotten himself into.
The first sign that Riley would regret his decision was when he and Richie arrived at the C grade nursery room. Riley went to open the door, only for Richie to put a hand on his arm. ‘Just wait one second.’ The C barn supervisor went to a nearby equipment locker and pulled out a disposable dust mask, and a small spray bottle. After liberally spraying the inside and outside of the mask, he handed it to Riley.
The young worker took the mask and brought it to his face, only for a wall of peppermint vapour to smack him. ‘Dude,’ he turned away from the eye-watering scent. ‘What the hell?’
‘Son, trust me; you’ll want it.’ Richie warned. Riley wanted to argue further, but then the memory of his day in the room with Bobby came to mind.
‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Riley said, pulling the mask on and powering through the fumes.
Richie nodded sadly. ‘For what it’s worth, I’ll make sure you get the full OT even if you tap out early. God knows you boys are gonna earn it.’ He shrugged ‘Can’t do anything else I’m afraid, other than wish you good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ Riley said. He put his hand on the door handle and Richie made a quick exit then, which made Riley pause. Briefly he wondered if he could change his mind about overtime and go home. But, the extra money it meant for his paycheck won out. Taking a breath, cut short by the sharp peppermint smell, Riley opened the door and stepped inside.
As he feared, a wave of regret washed over Riley when he entered the room, followed soon by the hot, humid stench. The nursery never smelled nice, but the miasma that hit Riley pushed through the peppermint barrier like it was nothing. Riley coughed and gagged, fighting desperately not to thrown up in his mask. ‘You okay man?’ Riley looked up and saw Bobby walk over.
‘Cough Yeah,’ Riley managed.
‘Hope so, cause it only gets worse,’ Bobby said grimly. Looking closer, Riley noticed brown stains all over the other man’s coveralls. ‘Well, follow me.’ Riley did as he was told and followed Bobby down the aisle between the pens. Looking around, Riley finally noticed just how bad the situation was. All over the room, there were shit stains on the floor, on pen walls and on the workers.
As for the foals, they were all crying and peeping madly. Riley looked into a pen as he went by, and noticed the foals inside were either curled in balls or rolling on their backs, trying to hug their stomachs. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘Our fucking supplier, that’s what’ Bobby said, voice full of anger. ‘The fuckers sent us a bad batch of formula. Seriously, look at this,’ he panned his arm around the room. There’s not a foal in here that hasn’t been shitting its guts out since lunchtime.’ Bobby shook his head, as he reached the set of pens he was working at. ‘Alright buddy, grab cloths and start wiping.’
‘Oh god…’ Riley said, seeing the state of the pen. There were puddles of rancid shit everywhere, and a dozen shit-stained crying foals. He grabbed some disposable cloths from a bucket and grimly set to the task of cleaning. ‘How long have you been doing this for?’
Bobby groaned. ‘Since we finished gassing. We thought it was just a couple of pens, more and more started shitting themselves worse than usual.’ He wiped up a puddle of liquid shit and dumped the filthy cloth in a waste bucket. ‘The whole damn system needs to be flushed. Last I heard they don’t think it’ll back running until fucking 9:30.’
‘Jesus,’ Riley cleaned a spot on the pen floor and dumped the rags.
‘Yeah. All we do is clean everything up and hope like hell all the tainted shit gets flushed out.’ The pair continued the grim task of wiping up the puddles of shit and dabbling clean the foals. As Riley was cleaning a yellow filly, the foal suddenly yelped and a fresh spurt of shit splattered his gloved hand.
‘Oh for fuck sake!’ Riley just managed not to drop the filthy squirming foal.
‘I feel you man,’ Bobby said. ‘It’s happened to me four times.’
Swearing under his breath and trying to ignore the warm spot on his hand, Riley grabbed more rags. He cleaned the foal and himself, then put the crying filly in the cleanest area of the pen he could find. As he went for another damp cloth, Riley noticed a light purple unicorn. ‘Peeep! Peep peeeeep!’ He’d never heard that pattern before, and looking closer he noticed the foal was straining like it-
‘Ah fuck,’ Bobby reached over and grabbed the foal. Holding it over the waste bucket, he firmly rubbed his thumb along the foals belly.
‘Peep peep!! Speee!!’ The foal struggled in his grip, pathetically batting the Bobby’s hand with its stubbly legs.
‘What are you doing? Are thought we’re not meant to-’
Splurt
Chunky liquid shit squirted out of the foal’s asshole into the bucket, splattering the inside. Riley shielded his face, wanting to avoid getting foal shit on it more than anyting. Bobby cleaned the squealing foal and dumped in back in the pen. ‘Constipation, can you fucking believe that?’ Bobby shook his head. ‘Bad enough this tainted formula gives them bad shits, apparently it’s turning back to powder in some of them. See that bucket by the wall?’ Bobby jerked his head in the direction. ‘There are about three dozen foals that died trying to take a shit in there.’
As he spoke, another grim-faced worker approached the bucket and tossed in another very bloated, very dead foals. ‘Son of a… Riley I tell you, management better be ass fucking these bastards over the phone.’
‘No kidding, Cough Oh, fucking hell.’
‘If you need some fresh air go get it’, Bobby said. ‘Don’t try to be a hero; no one’s gonna clean up your puke.’
Riley nodded, doing his best to fight back the waves of nausea. But after another ten minutes or so, it got too much. ‘I gotta go,’ he stood and made for the door.
‘Help yourself to the peppermint spray’ Bobby called after him. Opening the door and bursting through, Riley pulls off his mask and ran for a nearby trash can. He spent the next few minutes dry heaving and breathing heavily. Somehow though, his lunch stayed down. With his stomach back under control for now, he considered his options. He was tempted to just clock out and take his chances, but something held him back.
‘Goddammit…’
Grimly, he trudged back to the door, then remembered what Bobby said about the spray. Riley opened the equipment locker, tearing off his gloves before he did, and pulled out a spray bottle. He resprayed the inside and outside of his mask, so much the fumes stung his eyes and burned his mouth. Still, it was far preferable; to foal shit. After grabbing fresh gloves, Riley opened the door and stepped back into the fray.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Riley said flatly. ‘Couldn’t even look at Katie’s fluffy when I got home.’
‘Damn, sounds a you had a really-’
‘Finish that sentence, and I’ll sic Lovely on you.’
Gerald held up his hands; ‘Okay, okay, didn’t mean anything by it.’
Riley shook his head and grabbed a mare out of the pen. ‘Nu, pwease!!’ The mare cried as Riley shoved her in a pet carrier. ‘Nu wan hav babbehs gain!! Tuu many heawt huwties huuhuhu! Pwease!!’
‘Shut up shit rat!’ Gerald said.
‘Watch the language.’ A supervisor said.
‘Sorry,’ Gerald said, grabbing a mare himself. He was tempted to twist the damn thing’s ear or pinch it, but intentionally hurting the broodmares was a no no. Bad enough I’m working with shitrats, but I can’t even treat em like they deserve. Well, there were always ferals; no one ever complained about them dying, so long as they didn’t see it of course.
‘GO WAY DUMMEH!!’ Riley and Gerald turned to watch another worker again lower the snare pole into Lovely’s pen. ‘NU WAN HAVE MOWE DUMMEH BABBEHS!! GU WAY AN HWURK…’ The worker pulled tight on the snare and lifted the enraged burgundy mare out of her pen. Lovely as always fought like a demon, eyes full of pure hatred for everything. The worker who snared her carried her out to the mating room, where the restrains and “love gun” waited.
‘They need to dump that bitch in the stallion pen for a few days,’ Gerald said. ‘That’ll teach her.’ There was a sudden burst of laughter, and the pair turned to the worker
‘Son, you really haven’t been here long have you?’ The older worker said, still chuckling. ‘You put that thing in with the stallions, you’ll end up with a whole bunch of geldings.’
‘The hell are you talking about?’
‘Lovely’s castrated at least three studs since I’ve been here.’ The worker shoved a mare in one of his pet carriers. ‘Now, even the biggest shit-head smarties won’t go near the bitch.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Gerald wondered what some of his favourite abusers would do with Lovely; it would be well worth the effort to break the bitch. Then again, they’d probably use her to abuse other fluffies instead. I can dream.
‘Let’s hurry it up!’ Richie yelled. ‘We’ve got a hell of a loss to make up for! Riley, Gerald, stop talking and get those girls to the mating room.’
‘Sorry Richie.’ Riley filled the second pet carrier and carried them to the making room. He set up each mare with a stallion then went for more. Standard procedure was to wait by the pen, but they’d lost far more foals than they’d hoped the previous day, and management ordered an extra-large batch to make up the difference.
Grey walked down the access corridor between the training pens, scanning the ones to his right for trouble. It was close to midday, a little before lunchtime and most of the trainers were giving their charges a break. There were one or two who kept drilling lessons into the foals under their care, but for the most part, the foals were running and playing freely. Some played with blocks and balls, others joined in group games of huggie tag.
Even though Grey was on the job, he liked watching the young foals while they played. It reminded him of when he used to live in the shelter. Those were fun days, even if most of them were spent keeping his friend the light blue pegasus safe. Grey blinked a few times; thinking about his friend always made him sad. He often wondered where his friend had gone, and hoped the nice lady who took him away was nice.
Grey shook his head; there’d be time to wonder about that later. For now, there was still a job to do. The guard fluffy passed by three pens; there was nothing of note in any of them, save a couple of foals crying for their mummahs. That wasn’t unusual, most needed a few days to get used to living in the training pens. As he walked by a pen a few spaces from the end, one of the trainers came up to the wall. ‘Hewwo Gwey,’
‘Hewwo. Am dah babbehs hewe otay?’
The trainer nodded. ‘Yes, babbehs am gud. Day aww am gun get gud mummahs an daddehs,’ she said with a proud smile. Grey smiled back; he liked this trainer, she reminded him of the nice fluffies at the shelter. The red one with the funny name he couldn’t quite remember, the smaller one who took over from her occasionally, and the others. ‘Am dah oda babbehs bein gud tuu?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Grey nodded. ‘Gwey nu find bad babbehs dis bwighttime. ow was bwighttime.’ They’d had a good run the past few days; hardly any foal had put a hoof out of line, and Grey hadn’t had to put any to the black bucket.
‘Dat am gud,’ the trainer smiled again. ‘Fwuffy get happies when dah oda babbehs am gud.’
Grey smiled back and was about to say something more when a foal waddled over. ‘Big Fwuffy!’
Grey looked over. ‘Hewwo wittwe babbeh. Am babbeh bein gud?’
'Yes, big Fwuffy!’ The little pegasus’s wings fluttered happily. ‘Babbeh am gud babbeh!’
Grey smiled at the small pegasus. The filly reminded him of his old friend but also Kerry, the nice fluffy who took care of them. A sudden flash of anger churned in his gut, which he had to beat down before it showed. That was inevitable, Grey couldn’t think about Kerry without thinking about the mean green fluffy too. Grey hated him, hated him for what he tried to do to other foals at the shelter, what he did do to angle at the park, and how sad it made Kerry. Still, the nice humans from the shelter made him go away, and Grey knew the green baby would never hurt-
‘Screee!’ Grey’s ears pricked up and he turned to the source of the scream, a pen four spaces down. He galloped down the laneway, nudged the red push button next to the gate and went inside. The inside of the pen was in disarray. Foals ran in every direction or cowered in small groups, and the trainers desperately tried to corral and calm their charges. Grey looked around, searching for the source of the scream. He found it near a pile of toys; a yellow, almost golden earthie colt had another foal on the floor and was savagely beating him.
‘Dummeh poopie dummeh! Nu touch baww!!’
‘Screee!!! Hewp! Hewwp!!!’
Grey rushed over and flicked the yellow earthie away from his victim. The other foal scrambled to his hooves and scampered away. ‘Huuhuhu! Mummah! Mummah!!’ A trainer dashed over and ushered the crying foal to safety while Grey dealt with the earthie.
‘Bad babbeh! Wai yu giv dat oda babbeh huwties?’
Most of the time the foals were cowed by Grey and the other guards, but not this one. The foal got to his hooves and stood fast before Grey. ‘Dat dummeh touch Babbeh’s baww! Was Babbeh’s baww!!’
‘Toysies am fow aww Babbeh’s,’ Grey said. ‘Dat baww nu am-’
‘Nu! Baww am Babbeh’s!! Aww bawws am Babbeh’s!!’ The earthie shrieked, stamping his hooves and puffing out his cheeks.
‘Yu am bein bad babbeh,’ Grey warned. ‘Yu say sowwies nao, ow yu go tu sowwie pwace!!’
‘Babbeh nu go tu dummeh sowwie pwace! Babbeh onwy gun go back tu Mummah!’ He declared. ‘Bestest babbeh gun go back tu Mummah an hav bestest miwkies gain!! Nao go way big dummeh!!’
Grey narrowed his eyes, quickly running out of patience for the foal. ‘Otay, yu gun go to sowwie pwace nao.’ He stepped forward.
‘Nu touch babbeh, ow dummeh get sowwies!!’
‘Nu du dat,’ Grey warned, firmly. ‘If yu twy giv Gwey huwties, den yu go tu-’ He didn’t get the chance to finish his warning.
‘WAHHH!!’ The yellow colt charged, aiming for Grey’s legs. Swiftly, the guard bent his head down and grabbed the foal in his mouth. ‘WET BABBEH GO!! WET GO!! REEEE!!’ The colt screamed and writhed with seething rage as Grey carried him out of the pen, down the laneway and dumped him in the black bucket.
‘WET BABBEH OUD DUMMEH!! REEE!!’ The colt screamed and raged, battering the sides of the bucket until he was exhausted.
Grey, his mood soured by the colt’s outburst, went back to his pen. After some food and water, he lay down on the bed and tried to take his mind off the colt. Grey went back to what he was thinking about before the episode, Kerry. He often thought about what happened to her, almost as much as his friend. Grey remembered her leaving one day, but she didn’t come back. The other humans said she’d gone home, but they sounded strange when they said that. Whatever happened, Grey hopped she and her babbies were happy.
The door to the training room clicked and swung open. As usual, Grey got up and went to greet the arrivals. ‘Hewwo Mistah Bobbeh.’
‘Grey,’ Bobby nodded at the guard. ‘All good here?’
‘Id was gud,’ Grey pointed at the black bucket. ‘Dat babbeh was bad.’
‘What did he do?’ Bobby looked in the bucket
‘He giv oda babbeh huwties, den twy giv Gwey huwties.’
‘Fair enough,’ Bobby turned to the other worker with him. ‘Find out which mare he came from and take her down to C.’
‘Sure thing.’ The worker jotted down a few notes on the trapped foal and left the room, leaving Bobby with the basket. Grey followed the worker as he went down the laneway, distributing foals among the pens. Grey was used to new babies arriving, but there was something a little off about these ones. One, after looking around his new home and sniffing a few times, flopped on his belly and covered his eyes.
‘Hhuhu nu poopies! Peep! Nu wike!!’
Strange. Now that Grey looked, Bobby seemed a little odd too. The worker was unusually quiet, and seemed unhappy. ‘Am Mistah Bobbeh otay?’
‘Huh? Yeah, yeah I’m fine.’ He didn’t sound convincing, but Grey didn’t press further.
‘Otay Mistah Bobbeh.’ Grey followed silently as Bobby placed the rest of the foals in pens. Even when he wasn’t chatty, Grey liked Bobby; most of the workers didn’t speak to Grey or the other guards more than they had to. The worker called Riley was nice too but Grey hadn’t seen him for a while, which made him a little sad. The worker Grey was happy not to see again, though, was the one called Gerald.
There was something off about Gerald, but Grey couldn’t say what. Maybe it was the way he looked at the foals the few times he’d been in the room. Grey didn’t mention anything, feeling it wasn’t his place to say. Either way, Gerald hadn’t been back in a while, and Grey had a feeling he wouldn’t see him again soon. Placing the last foal in a pen, Bobby walked back down the laneway and collected the bad earthie in his empty basket.
‘Good job handling this one Grey,’ Bobby shook the basket as he spoke. ‘I’ll deal with him now.’
‘WET BESTEST BABBEH GO!!!’
‘Otay. Bai Mistah Bobbeh.’
Bobby nodded and closed the door behind him. With the room free of humans again, Grey set out on another patrol, focusing on the pens with new residents. The training mares were already hard at work getting their new charges settled, showing them around, introducing them to the other foals and telling them the rules. Everything seemed to be going well, though a lot of the new foals seemed hesitant to approach the litter boxes. It was nothing the training mares couldn’t handle though.
‘Huuu nu wike cagie housie huhuuu.’
‘Pwease, pwease wet Fwuffy oud. Nu wan hav babbehs gain.’
Riley and Gerald walked down the rows of restriction cages searching for problems, solving any they could and marking down what they couldn’t. Most issues were simple things, water and food dishes knocked out of alignment, and legs bent into awkward positions. Each mare was heavily swollen in the late stage of pregnancy. Despite what some believed, Sunnydale only put C grade mares in the restriction cages when they were within a fortnight to a month of foaling. It was to protect them, or rather their litters from harm. More than one miscarriage had been caused by a scuffle before the restriction cages had been built.
‘Damn, these things are fucking miserable.’
‘Sigh No shit,’ Riley said. ‘Hasn’t changed since last time.’
‘Yeah, but still,’ Gerald looked around, ‘serves them right for being little shits.’
‘You know most of them just sit in the pens and keep to themselves, right?’
‘Sure, now, but think about what they did to get here.’ Gerald looked at the different mares in their cages. ‘I bet most of them ran away cause their owners wouldn’t let them have “wittwe babbeh,” or they got knocked up by some feral and and tried to hide it, or-’
‘You think about this too much man.’
Gerald snorted and said something under his breath. Riley ignored it and went back to checking the cages. Silence persisted between the two for a while longer, until Gerald spoke up again. ‘Well, look at you,’
Immediately, Riley got a bad feeling. He turned and saw Gerald standing in front of a cage, ‘Gerald,’
‘Not looking so wild now, are you?.’ Gerald smirked at the burgundy mare lying listlessly in the cage.
‘Gerald,’ Riley took a step forward, ‘whatever you’re thinking, don’t.’
Gerald looked at Riley, his finger moving closer to the cage door; ‘What? Haven’t you seen how-’ The very second Gerald’s finger passed through the wire, Lovely shot forward and bit down as hard as she could. ‘AHHH!!’ Gerald pulled his finger out and retreated from the cage. 'Dammit…’ Lovely hadn’t drawn blood, but there was an angry red mark where she’d bitten his finger. Gerald looked up, venom in his eyes. ‘You fucking-’
'Fucking save it, man, What did you think would happen if you put a finger in her cage?’
‘Shut up!’ Gerald yelled back. ‘Stupid fucking shit rat, should have her fucking-’
‘That’s enough, drama queen,’ Richie walked down the aisle and stood in front of Gerald. 'Listen here bud, you just used your last free pass. Next time you put a foot out of line, it’s going up to management. Understand?’
‘Yes…’
‘What was that?’
‘Yes!’
‘Good. Now come on,’ Richie motioned to the door, ‘let’s get that finger checked out. Can you handle the rest of the inspection by yourself?’
‘Yep.’ Riley gave Richie a thumbs up.
‘Good man.’ Richie led Gerald out of the room, leaving Riley alone with the fluffies.
‘Nice one, Lovely. Don’t think he’ll try that again.’ The only response he got was a very loud and angry raspberry. Riley laughed to himself and continued the inspection of the cage room. On returning to the main barn a new job was immediately thrust upon him.
‘You mind taking Ms Important here to the discipline rooms?’ Allen held out a copper-orange mare with a black mane.
‘Wet Fwuffy go!!’ The mare squirmed and kicked in Allen’s grip. ‘Wan Bestest babbeh back nao!!’
‘Honey, from what I hear he’s already gone to the hole,’ Allen said. ‘Hope you’re proud of yourself. Anyway, she’s all yours champ.’
‘Sure thing,’ Riley took the mare from Allen, careful not to let her fall or give the fluffy a chance to kick or bite him. ‘Do you want me to cage or paint her?’
‘Your choice,’ Allen turned. ‘I’ve got other fire to put out. Thanks Riley.’
‘No problem.’
‘Wet go big dummeh!’ The mare went on as was carried to the discipline room. ‘Nu wan wive in dis dummeh pwace! Wan be in owd housie wif Bestest babbeh gain!!’
‘Keep talking like that you’ll be here for good.’ It wasn’t uncommon for temporary stays in the C barn to turn permanent based on their behaviour. Riley turned to the side and pushed open the door. The discipline room had few residents than usual with so many mares in a breeding cycle. Two mares and a stallion stuffed in sorry cages, and a second stallion strapped into a restraint harness. The caged fluffies cried and moaned softly, while the stallion who’d been painted was passed out cold.
‘Eeee! Nu huwties!!’ The mare shrieked, seeing the passed out stallion. Her squirming kicked up a notch. ‘Nu huwties! Nu huwt Fwuffy!! Am gud Fwuffy!!; Riley carried the mare over to an empty restraint and strapped her in. She did not appreciate it. ‘Eeeee!! Wet fwuffy oud nao!! NGHH!’ Now scared, the mare strained hard against the leather straps to little effect. Riley knew for a fact a human couldn’t get them loose, thanks to another of Gerald’s dim moments. He left the mare to struggle and retrieved a brush and pot of sorry paint from the equipment. ‘Wet Fwuffy oud!! OUD NAO!!!’
Riley set the pot on the bench, dipped in the brush and painted a circle the size of plumb on one of the mare’s teats. ‘REEEE!! NU TOUCH MIWKIE PWACES!!’ Riley painted a similar spot on the other teat and put away the pot and brush. By the time Riley put the gear away, the supercharged heat rub was doing its thing. ‘SQUEEEE!! EEEEEE!!!’ The mare thrashed and squirmed like she was in the grip of a wolf. ‘MIWKIES PWACES HAV BUWNIES!!! HEWP FWUFFY!! EEEEEE!!’ Riley shook his head and did a quick check of the other detainees before he returned to the barn.
‘Never a dull moment, huh?’
‘Nope,’ Riley put on his t-shirt, then grabbed his bike jacket from the locker. ‘I could have done without that mess in the nursery.’
‘Couldn’t we all?’ Bobby said, lacing his shoes. ‘Don’t worry, management reamed those guys out and told them we’ll drop them if it happens again.’
‘Thanks Christ for that.’ Riley finished grabbed his helmet, backpack and shut his locker.
‘Yeah, makes a real difference when your bosses give a shit. How long do you think you’ll hang around here?’
‘I don’t know. As long as it takes me to figure out what I’m doing with my life i guess,’ Riley said as the pair left the locker room.
Bobby shrugged; ‘Well, it’s not the worst place for that. You can always stay on if nothing else comes up.’ The two workers headed down the hallway, passing arriving workers on the afternoon and evening shifts. ‘You’re not a bad worker, and they like promoting from within here.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I started in the C barn. A lot of guys do,’ Bobby explained as they went through the car park. ‘We were thinking about giving you a few jobs up in B and other places, but…’ he trailed off.
‘What?’ Riley asked, curiosity tickled.
Bobby looked around before he spoke. ‘You didn’t hear it from me, but Gerald will probably be let go soon.’
‘Shit, really?’ Riley wasn’t that close to the guy, but it was still a surprise.
‘Yeah. Richie’s not happy with him, especially after he put his finger in Lovely’s cage,’ Bobby shook his head. ‘How dense can you be? Plus, he may or may not have shared some videos he really shouldn’t have.’
Riley felt a sudden chill in his gut; ‘They look at our social media?’
‘Oh yeah, that’s why we say be careful.’ Bobby stopped by his car and pulled out his keys. ‘So, until C gets more help I don’t think Richie will let go of you. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. See you tomorrow.’
‘See you Bobby,’ Riley waved and kept walking to his bike. On the way, he thought about what Bobby had said. The job was only meant to be a place holder until Riley figured out what he was doing with his life. But, if he was getting noticed and had a chance to move up…
‘It’s an option,’ he mumbled, shrugging. Riley pulled on his helmet, keyed the bike’s ignition and headed off.
seem it still haunts him. Damn that bestesh baby,so his mom now having her tits on burning sensation.