Nic…

As Fang walked among the hundreds of animals flocking toward the door, he thought of his sister's little episode back at the fence. Was she really that intent on trying to save him? He didn't know, but it puzzled him as to why she felt so sorry for him…

Jane leaned against the door impatiently, one hand on her hip. "C'mon, c'mon already! I haven't got all day!" She tried to rush the herd into the building all at once, causing some of the larger animals to get stuck in the doorway. With one quick boot in the leg, they would manage to squeeze out and limp into the hall.

"GI Jane; the American Pain!" Fang muttered just loud enough for the woman to hear once he passed her. Lucky for him, the sentence did just what he wanted. Jane flared an angry red, and clenched her teeth. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!"

"You heard me loud and clear." Fang smirked at Jane, and continued on down the hallway with the other fauna, not willing to look back.

Jane's curses followed them.

Without a single argument, the animals found their cages and started to nudge the doors open. Nobody dared to try and escape, for Jane was behind the crowd with her pistol drawn.

What a retard. She's holding it the wrong way! Fang tried not to burst out in laughter when he saw Jane threatening a group of possums into their cage with her gun. So much for being a 'sharpshooter'.

"Now to look for Asher…" Fang quietly mumbled to himself as he perused the rows of cages. "Kinda wish they were numbered." He remembered that Jane had said he was in 27, but there had to be at least fifty down the hall!

A sharp bark informed him that the wolf had seen him. "Asher? Where are you?" Fang glanced around nervously, seeing he was the last one out in the hall. All of the other animals had been locked up already.

"Right here!" Asher chuckled as Fang whirled around, and looked behind him.

"Yeaaaahh. I could have sworn you were there!" Fang's embarrassment leaked out of his voice quite noticeably.

"Sure, sure. Well, come on. It's unlocked, and you had better get in before Jane finds that you are still out there." Asher's tone immediately went serious. "You really don't want to know what she can do…"

Without further comment, Fang pushed open the door, and walked inside. "Sigh…more time in here? I haven't even been out an hour!" He sat down on the ground beside Asher, and started toying around with a stray dog food kibble.

"They don't give us much time outside. There weren't enough people working here to watch everyone at once, so they built an electric fence to keep us from escaping. Problem is, if an animal runs into it by accident, that might be the last day they will see." Asher replied, and watched Fang roll the kibble around on the floor.

"Oh, I could have figured that out! I thought I could climb over it, but I ended up getting zapped." The weasel shrugged. "Oh well. I was too intent on keeping my eyes on the prize."

Asher just smiled, and put his head down on his paws.

"Hmmm. A game of marbles sounds good right now." Fang took the tiny piece of food, and aimed it at the cage across the hall. He flicked it through one of the gaps in the bars, and the kibble skittered over into the other cage. The second it stopped rolling, a little squirrel popped out from the farther recesses of the cage, and clambered over to investigate what had just landed in its territory. Its whiskers wiggled as it sniffed the kibble, and in seconds, popped it into its mouth greedily.

When the squirrel finished, it stared at Fang and Asher with its beady black eyes, and walked over to the front of its cage.

"Ey you! With tha hat!" He yelled in a high-pitched Aussie accent that made him sound as if he was sucking on a helium balloon.

"Huh? Me?" Fang cocked his head at the strange little squirrel. Wasn't that the one that Jane had so brutally thrown against the wall earlier?

"Yeh. Yeh you and the wolfie." He stuck his head out from the bars.

"Uh, Asher? Who is the midget?" Fang turned to the wolf, who was now sitting regally on his hind legs like a noble dog.

"Oh, Pat? He's the squirrel who came all the way from Australia on an airplane. Says he's the last of his kind. I'm not sure, but I think he's gone insane." Asher watched as Pat frantically waved his arms in the air. "He tries to formulate all of these 'complex' escape plans, but he's failed at every one. Quite a quirky little fellow."
"EY I'M TALKIN TO YA!" Pat shouted, interrupting Asher's conversation.

"What do you want, squirrel?" Fang asked, irritated that Pat would bother to cut Asher off.

"I want another kibble! See, I'm gonna try and pick that lock up there, ey mate?" Pat pointed at the large padlock on the door. "I tells ya, it's genius!"

Asher rolled his eyes. "Sounds like he's having another one of his 'breakthroughs'. Just go along with it, and roll him another one."

Not wanting to deal with that midget shout again, Fang got down on his belly, and flicked another kibble toward Pat, who was waiting with his arms outstretched.

Pat grabbed the kibble in his hands, and skillfully climbed the bars to the door, where he shoved the kibble into the lock, and turned it. The kibble crumbled to the ground in a cloud of dust and crumbs.

"Oh crap, it didn't work!" Pat sighed, and climbed back down to the floor. "Can I have another, mate?"

With a groan, Fang took a kibble from his bowl, and flicked it over toward Pat again.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a boot came down on the kibble in the middle of the hallway with a loud crunch.

Pat gasped, and slowly looked up.

The Hunter's evil glare met his gaze, and the man grinned a Cheshire grin at the squirrel.

"EEEP!" Pat started for the back of his cage, but The Hunter had already seen his next move. With a quick swing of his muscular arm, he grabbed Pat's bushy tail and pulled him out through a gap.

"Heheh. Playing games, are we squirrel?"

Fang and Asher turned away to face the back wall. This did not look good at all for poor Pat, and they refused to watch.

Pat vibrated with fear, and stared back at The Hunter with his bulbous squirrel eyes. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, but he braced himself for the worst.

"You know, I hear you are the last Australian Black Bush Squirrel around. Poor you, I loved how your species' coats were dappled…" The Hunter showed his false sympathy with a slight smile. "Oh well. I'll be happy to sell off your coat to those high bidders! Smithsonian would pay bundles just to get their hands on one!"

The Hunter moseyed back down the hallway, carrying Pat by his tail. Pat struggled to get free of The Hunter's grip, but it was no use. His weak squeaks echoed through the hallway until they vanished altogether.

"Oh God no! This is my fault! I knew I shouldn't have passed him another one!" Fang watched in horror as the Hunter turned to the right at the end of the hall. "He's going to kill Pat!"

"There's nothing we can do, Fang. Pat is a goner, and we can't just bust out. This happens all the time here, and you had better get used to it. That's why it's called a slaughterhouse!" Asher replied, sorrowfully.

A single gunshot rang out in the air, and all was silent.

Pat was gone.