A-hunting we will go in today’s story by Mark Wheaton. Only this time instead of bunnies, it’s humans in the crosshairs! Don’t go hoppin’ down this bunny trail, kiddies. This rabbit’s got TEETH.
Rabbit Season by Mark Wheaton Oh. Oh, thank God. There they are. Phew. I creep to the construction shed’s second window to be certain. Sure enough, they’re nestled below a rack of hard hats and rubber-banded blueprints. The eggs. The moonlight streaming through my ears radiates off the delicately embossed bands of gold and silver that encircle them. The pale pinks, yellows, and blues of their shells glow in the faint light. I am so relieved. I have but one job on this, our plane of existence. Hide the Sacred Horde. Keep it safe until the Day of Rebirth. It is a noble, solemn task and one bequeathed to my proud line alone. To have them stolen by the invaders, right out from under my whiskers, no less, would have made me unworthy of this inheritance. With a hind foot, I ease open the shed’s front door. My hocks are still tender from stomping flat so many construction workers, urban planners, and teenage Easter egg hunt organizers over the last twenty-four hours. Those teenagers are, of course, responsible for this massacre. If they hadn’t been so lazy, so high, or so dedicated to fornication to keep them from decorating eggs of their own, they might not have gone to the woods and stolen mine. Then, they might still be alive. I lower myself onto all-fours, slip into the shed, and sniff for danger. The small, ventilation-free building smells mostly of human sweat, that of the construction workers who’d come to clear cut my woods, pave over my meadow, and build their subdivision full of ultra-modern, identical-looking, environmentally disastrous McMansions. Like all colonizers before them, these humans aren’t content to steal what’s ours and go back to where they belong. No, they steal, then salt the earth behind them, grinding the ecosystem into dust to announce to all future comers that they alone were allowed to possess what they deemed valuable. For this, they must die. Near the eggs, I detect a secondary odor. It’s one I can’t quite identify. I imagine it comes from one of the now-abandoned lunchboxes or coolers stacked near the front window, their owners likely among the dead I stomp-drowned into the muddy ruins of a half-dug pool earlier. How many did I kill there? Five? Six? I suppose the out-of-control backhoe technically killed two of them but no matter. When I hop closer to the Horde, the second smell vanishes, replaced by the welcome scents of sweetgrass, morning dew and dandelions. Underneath it, though, rises another smell. Dry leaves. Ash. Hemp. There is no hemp grown here. I gingerly touch the nearest egg. My paw comes back wet and sticky. My snow-white fur is now dyed pink. They’re fakes! Trickery! I whirl around to see the two teenagers, the last surviving organizers of the neighborhood Easter egg hunt, emerge from the shadows of the shed. They had cloaked themselves in the reflector vests and overalls of the workers to hide their scent. The female of the pair is called Tracy. She tried to kill me with fire a couple of hours ago but only singed my tail black. I avenged it by decapitating her best friend, Lisa, with my giant incisors. The male is Rutger. He is from my native Germany and came here with his wealthy mother, a real estate investor who built this neighborhood, the capstone project following a lifetime spent profiting off of some of the most noxiously polluting factories the world over. A lifetime I ended by stabbing a carrot I’d gnawed to a sharp point directly through her heart that morning. Rutger whispers something in my native tongue. He refers to me by the name of my ancestors, Osterhase, as he utters a long incantation. I realize suddenly he means to vanquish me with the Spell of Hölle. I roll my eyes. The Spell of Hölle, which they probably found after a hasty visit to the library or internet search, is useless unless you’re also holding the Axe of Westfalen. Which I now see resting in Tracy’s hands. My God. The Axe. I shake my head. Impossible. But there it is, the long-missing, iron-topped war axe my own people once used to punish the most wicked among our number. A sacred, magical weapon not merely stolen from us by the humans but about to be used against us by one! The foulest blasphemy. I swiftly roll to the left, but it’s too late. With Rutger chanting at her side, Tracy brings the war axe down onto my neck with all her strength. I’m driven to the floor with such force the boards crack beneath my weight. She brings the axe down a second time, the blade striking the base of my skull. My hind legs kick back with such violence they shatter the decoy eggs. A reminder of how easily I fell for their ploy. I try to lift myself up, but Tracy has found a rhythm now. She hits me a third time, now in the back of my head. My face splinters the floor. Blood oozes from everywhere. My head is almost severed from my body. My mind clouds with pain. But I know something they don’t. “Is it dead?” Rutger asks, squatting down. “Don’t touch it!” Tracy says sharply, readying the axe. He does anyway, stroking my furry backside as he gets between her and the last few bits of bloody sinew connecting my head to the rest of my body. “It’s so soft,” he says, like the idiot he is. An idiot who recited the first seven lines of the Spell of Hölle only to leave off the eighth and most binding verse. That is the trouble with those who steal our rites without acquiring any sense of their meaning. They never get it quite right. I summon all my remaining strength and silently extend the claws on my hind foot. I quiet my breath, still my body, then whip my leg around to slice off Rutger‘s head in a single stroke. “Rutger!” Tracy screams as she’s doused with arterial spray. She swings the war axe at me. I manage a weak deflection. In her angst, it’s all that’s necessary. My wound is already closing. My head reattaches to my neck. She stares in horror at what, admittedly, is a strange sight. My body becoming whole again even as Rutger’s head rolls out the work shed door, bounces down the steps, and comes to a rest on the grass. Tracy gasps for breath, presumably unable to scream. Her face is almost entirely covered in blood making the whiteness of her eyes that much more pronounced. She looks as if all she’s witnessed has finally driven her mad. I raise the claw I mean to stab through her heart and she snaps out of it. She slams the war axe into my head again, but her strength is gone. When she sees me unfazed, she drops the axe and runs out of the shed. I pause before pursuing her to admire the sacred axe and ponder how it must’ve arrived here. Then I remember the contents of Rutger’s house, filled to the brim as it was with the cultural objects his family had likely accumulated from the world over. They probably did not understand its power or sacred task when they bought it, thinking it only a new decorative bauble to serve as a conversation piece to impress guests. I suppose if they could steal the Sacred Horde, hallowed and divine, from my burrow to entertain little children, it should come as no surprise they would steal an axe of vital importance to the history of my people. Did they really think there would be no consequences to their actions? That those they steal from would never one day retaliate? My head throbs as I hop out of the construction shed. I find rainwater pooling in an upturned trash can lid and drink heartily. The reflection of the night sky plays on the water’s surface. I let it still a moment, my eyes locating the three stars of Orion’s belt—Atnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. I then look directly south of Orion as my grandmother once instructed me, to where the constellation of the hare, Lepus, races past the hunter, forever a step ahead. Its brightest star, Alpha Leporis, seems to stare back down at me, waiting for me to fulfill some destiny only it knows about. I take one long last look, vowing not to let my ancestors down. When I turn away, it’s with renewed strength of purpose. It’s time for me to retrieve the Horde, slaughter the remaining thieves, and burn their planned community to the ground. *** I hop toward the neighborhood, seeing no sign of Tracy, merely the dozens of identical houses and their impossibly similar yards, denuded of trees thanks to their bulldozers. To add insult to injury, single, anemic-looking saplings have been planted in the new front yards of each house, a poor replacement for what was there before that almost seems like a strange memorial. These saplings will grow up knowing nothing of community. They will long for life as part of a forest they will never know which will leave them to grow up stunted and alone, unable to communicate with their brethren. This is a corruption that humans don’t even understand yet. To them, a tree is a tree is a tree. An object to provide shade. To comprehend it as a social being, part of a complex natural system, is beyond them. Tracy’s scent, flecked with fear, finally arrives to my nostrils. I follow its trail through the maze of houses to the end of a nearby cul-de-sac, one ringed with a quartet of identical houses. The lights are off in all four. There’s no visible movement behind the windows. But the air current carrying the scent leads directly to the last one on the left. In case anyone is watching, I turn and hop away as if distracted. There’s an alley behind the house and I circle around to it, silent as a swooping owl. Tracy’s scent fades, but I have the house in my sights. A new odor, harsh and acrid, fills my nose as I reach the house’s back wall. It comes from the waters of a swimming pool. The humans, for some unknown reason, add purifying chemicals to something that is already the purest thing on Earth. If that isn’t a sign for their necessary eradication, I don’t know what is. I flinch back as it singes my nostrils. To my surprise, floating in the pool is a lagomorphic effigy—an inflatable rabbit. This one seems to be made of rubber with a blowup carrot in its mouth. Clinging to it is the faint scent of the three juveniles, two girls and one boy, Tracy was escorting at the Easter egg hunt earlier today. Of course! That’s why she came here. To protect them. I angle my nose up and around. Their combined scents emanate from behind a window overlooking the backyard on the second floor of the house. I inhale deeply. They are not just beyond the glass or the room itself, but behind a wooden barrier. A closet or wardrobe, I presume. Most importantly, my eggs—the Sacred Horde—are with them. The Horde’s scent is one of rich, ancient earth blended with the fresh hollyhocks and daisies I wrap them in. The aroma reaches out to me like a siren’s call. Faint as it is, it is nonetheless intoxicating. It demands an audience. Seeks my protection. I can resist no longer. I test the pool’s diving board with my leg. It is pliable. I take a deep breath and climb onto the board, edging out to the end until my toes overhang the water. I bounce twice then thrust all my weight downward at once. The board responds vigorously, launching me into the air aimed directly at the second-floor window. My ears flatten against my head as the short flight takes my breath away. I cover my eyes with my furry paws a second before smashing through the dual-pane window which explodes upon impact. Three children scream in unison as I land on the now glass-covered, four poster bed, its legs giving way beneath me and collapsing onto the beige, high traffic shag carpeting below. I glance to the closet where the kids are hidden only to detect another’s presence behind me. It’s Tracy. The children were decoys. She’d ducked below the window, knowing it was where I’d enter. She holds a 20-gauge scattergun in her hand. Ironically, there’s a pair of prancing rabbits carved into its wooden stock. “Time to die, Rabbit!” she yells. A mistake. If she had something to say, she really should’ve said it half a second earlier. By the time her finger finally goes to pull the trigger, I’ve fired my right hind leg at her chest. The scattergun roars. The heat of the blast breezes past my face but the buckshot tears harmlessly into the ceiling overhead. Tracy, meanwhile, flies out the window into space. She meets my gaze as she hovers in midair for a moment then drops like a stone. A splash and a thud echo back up to me at the same time. I hop to the window and see why. Tracy has landed both in and out of the pool, bottom half in the water, top half on the concrete. As blood and brains drool away from her cracked skull, the weight of her legs and lower torso pulls her over the lip of the pool’s edge. She sinks into her liquid grave, clouding the water with billowing gore. The juveniles in the closet howl in terror as I hop over. When I throw open the door, one menaces me with a plastic sword. Another, a broomstick. I ignore them and grab the three flower-bedecked baskets beside them filled with the eggs of the Sacred Horde. I am dizzy with relief. My ancestors celebrate my victory from the stars overhead. The children pound on me with their weapons, but I ignore them as I hop into the hallway, down the stairs, and out the back door. They give up, content to sob their eyes out in the ruins of the meadow as I hop into the woods. It's a short journey back to my burrow. It was once secreted in the deep forest but is now at its edge due to the humans’ bulldozers. No matter. I will move it in the morning. I carry the Horde deep below ground, hide them in damp earth, then return to the surface. The teens had started a fire earlier in one of the pits on the picnic grounds. The embers still glow hot. I carry a few into the neighborhood, break the gas mains off behind stoves in a number of kitchens, then hop away as the houses ignite. I am safely back in my burrow when a distant wail of sirens reaches my ears. Then, I slumber. *** I awake a full solar cycle later, a year in human terms. My muscles are tight and my joints weary, but I am happy. I stretch and check the Sacred Horde. It is secure. I clean my whiskers and inspect my claws before heading to the surface. It’s a beautiful spring day. I look to the east. To my delight, Nature has been hard at work. There is little left of the burned-out subdivision beyond a few crumbling and scorched stone walls and cracking asphalt. Some of the remains of the houses have been demolished and carted away. Others still stand but barely. There has been no attempt to rebuild. Someone has used red paint to scrawl “Gates of Hell” on a small billboard that once promised the neighborhood of the future. I hop over to get a better look at my handiwork. Tall grasses and scrub have replaced lawns. Adolescent pines, a few already a foot or two high, rise in place of street signs. Vines of a variety I don’t recognize swarm over stone walls like constrictors, slowly tightening their grip on the bricks until they’ll eventually shatter and fall. My eyes and ears point out the honeybees, beetles, and ants. My nose, the shrews, voles, and field mice but also that of a small group of white-tailed deer which passed maybe an hour before I emerged. A coyote a while before that. There’s another scent, too. I whirl around to see several mourning doves take flight from the meadow closest to the woods. Then a voice. “There he is!” a young woman screams. She’s the spitting image of Tracy, if not a year or two younger. A sister? Her scent is too similar to be anything but. She has four other teenagers with her. I’m relieved to see they don’t have the Axe of Westfalen in their possession. Instead, they carry … water balloons? I scoff inwardly until my nose informs me that they are filled not with water, but with the Elixir of Trier brought all the way from Saarburg. A potion so powerful a single drop will reduce my flesh to ashes. My God. I wish I could reason with them. Explain that if they simply left me alone, left the Sacred Horde and my meadow alone, we’d have no quarrel! But I doubt they’d listen, so great is the fury on their faces and the hunger in their hearts. The girl I take to be Tracy’s sister, especially. Her desire for revenge will make her reckless, though. Right now, she is too dangerous to confront on open ground. I hop quickly to the nearest thicket, inhaling the scents of her entire pack. A young man with glasses perspires the most. He cheats back half a step, allowing the others to outpace him, revealing his cowardice. He will be the first to die. Poor Tracy! She fought the good fight. A back-breaking effort, really … Till next time, fright fans! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Wheaton (he/him) grew up all over Texas spending as much time outdoors as humanly possible. His interest in horror was sparked by comics like TOMB OF DRACULA and EERIE and movies like THE SHINING and THE WOLF MAN. It was upon discovering the BOOKS OF BLOOD by Clive Barker, however, that his love of horror prose took off, soon to include authors like Shirley Jackson, Susan Hill, and Richard Matheson. His first foray into making horror himself came when he directed the Texas premiere of Clive Barker’s play, THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL, at the University of Texas at Austin. In his twenties, Wheaton became a horror screenwriter on movies like the FRIDAY THE 13TH reboot, the Sam Raimi-produced THE MESSENGERS, and the Emilia Clarke-starring VOICE FROM THE STONE. As a novelist, his 2019 science fiction debut, EMILY ETERNAL, was named one of “Five Best Sci-Fi Books of the Year” by the Financial Times and translated into five languages. His first horror short story, IN THE WATER, appeared in the 2021 Stoker Award-nominated anthology, WORST LAID PLANS, from Grindhouse Press. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Wheaton
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