Soft Cheeks and Sharp Teeth

    “Better get a move on…” Buck sighed, heaving her cart back into motion. 

    The breeze whipped through the orchard once more, tugging at the small pony’s golden curls, loose strands clinging to her damp brow. Buck snarled again and blew irritably at the stuck hair near her eye, unable to free it. She bucked in frustration, her strong kick connecting with the wooden cart behind her. The sound of the kick bounced off of the looming tree trunks; her cart groaning lightly as its wooden walls splintered. 

    Buck Wild whinnied in annoyance and jumped up in a childish fit of anger, her cart jolted forward  with her momentum. Buck jumped once more, willing her cart to move at more than a snail’s pace behind her. She wanted so badly to just be finished with the day’s labor and be home with her family for dinner.

    The apple cart jolted to a halt. Not moving any further. Buck Wild whipped her head around and glared at her cart. Her eyes danced angrily, darting to and for as she examined her wagon. A strange vine had tangled itself around the spoke of her wheel, holding them firmly in place.

    The weird vine somehow snaked itself in and around the spokes of her wagon wheel. It was thick and braided, almost wooden in appearance. The vine looked as if the root of a tree came to life and reached out to grab her.

    Was the dimming light playing tricks on her? It almost appeared as if the vine were… moving? Pulsating and tugging at her cart. 

    “Oh horseshoes!” Buck cried out, her eyebrows furrowing in shock and anger. She glared at the vine holding her in place. She snorted once and dug her front hoof into the dirt, ripping up a clump of grass. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” the flustered pony shouted, bucking the walls of her wagon with each raging outburst. 

    With a sickening crack, and what felt like a tug, the axle of Buck Wild’s cart exploded under the weight of her haul, her flurry of kicks, and maybe a pull from the vine. Buck’s wagon fell to the ground behind her in a lopsided heap, apples spilling out onto the forest floor. The yolk around Buck’s shoulders pulled on her sharply as the wagon collapsed, yanking her out of tantrum.

    Buck Wild’s chest heaved under the weight of her harness as she panted lightly from her outburst. She dropped to her haunches in defeat and sat in the dry grass surrounded by apples and pieces of her broken wagon wheel.

    The winded pony released a calming sigh as she turned her head to look at the damage done. Beside the crippled apple cart laid her wheel, no longer tangled up with the vine. It simply laid within the grass, broken and useless, as if it had never come into contact with an obstacle at all. 

    Startled, Buck Wild leapt up to her hooves and twisted her body as much as her harness would allow so she could better see the wheel in the dying light. Where is it? Where is the vine? She asked herself, blinking frantically in an attempt to remove from her sight what may be hiding the missing vine.

    The vine was longer there.

    A harsher wind blew through the orchard and sent chilling pins and needles throughout the young pony’s body. Her eyes wide in confusion and disbelief as she stared at the destroyed wagon wheel. She took slow, deep breaths as she stood rigid in the now dusky, silent forest. Buck slowly swiveled her ears, desperate to hear anything but her growing panic. 

    The cicadas were no longer humming. The only sound was that of the tree’s reaching branches scraping together in the wind, rattling like dry bones. Sunlight was dying out by the second as haunting shadows began to cover Buck in their chilling embrace. 

    Keekee! Kekee! Keek... kee!

    Buck Wild quickly turned around to rake her gaze over the fading tree line, adrenaline beginning to race through her veins at the strange cackling sound. She swallowed the icy lump of fear in her throat and strained her quivering ears forward. “C-Casey…?” she whinnied bleakly.

    Her heartbeat swelled in her eardrums as she desperately waited for her brother to return her call. 

    Silence.

    Stinging, fearful tears burned her wide eyes as she strained to listen. Buck felt her jaw clench as the haunting rattle returned her call.

    Keekee! Kekee! Keek!

    It sounded like dry sticks scratching together alongside the cackle of a hyena. She’d never heard anything like this before in her life. The noise was coming from all around her, crying out to each other. Communicating. 

    “Mom!?” Buck Wild cried out, her voice cracking, the cords in her throat taught as she stood shivering in fear. Her harness rattled between the strange cries of the forest. 

    As the sky burned through its final rays of light, a final burst of air gushed through the woods. It rattled the tree branches, amplified the haunting cries, and brought a bitter stench to Buck’s flared nostrils: rotten wood and wet pine needles.

    A burning, sharp pain struck her on her foreleg, leaving the feeling of warm blood to gush down to her feathered hooves. The pony shrieked in pain and fear.

    Alongside her screams was the loud, bone-chilling sound of howls and savage snarls. She was hit by a massive being, flesh and blood, knocking her over and crushing what was left of her wagon and snapping the reins of her harness. Buck’s senses were overwhelmed as horrid snorts and growls filled her ears and damp stink drenched her nose.