Author Archives: John Saye

About John Saye

Servicing you with novels and garbled discourse based on my impressions of shows, movies, books, story structure, and whatever else I can get into.

A family stands in front of their rebuilt home with fire-breathing rabbits. Two children saddle up giant rabbits for a new adventure while a government agent inspects mysterious glowing feathers near a black van.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 10

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

Four rabbits were eventually delivered to the Kelly home, but not until after the crews had spent a good bit of time rebuilding it. The agents had seen the insurance and made sure everything was built to their specifications.

Mike had a new treehouse. The garage was expanded to hold three cars, along with lots of shop room for Destin to work on his next degree. He was doing something dangerous with poisonous snakes. They didn’t scare him anything like facing up to the giant rabbit, and the other little monsters they’d handled.

While Mike called his Fireball, and it went almost everywhere with him, fierce and loyal to the boy, Destin called his Jeremy and tried to get Maria to call hers Nippy, but she’d have none of it. She returned hers, citing that the Kelly family was more than she could handle at the moment. She wanted a cat and was going to stick to that. Mr. Red said he had the perfect cat in mind for her, but she refused that as well, knowing that anything coming from the agents was likely to try and tear her head off, and she was right about that.

Destin took Jeremy to the school and kept him in his classroom most of the time. Every once in a while, when his class was being particularly good, he’d take Jeremy out, and put him on the counter, and tickle him until he turned red, and blew fire into the room. The first couple of times, he set off the sprinklers, but he learned the trick over time and could get a blast of flame small enough not to set them off.

He’d say “You wanna see him?” and that’s all it took. He could get an entire class’s attention when he wanted to. As a student, you paid attention when Destin was teaching. The man had a fire breathing atomic bunny. You paid attention and you aced your quizzes.

Annie kept one of the bunnies. She wanted the runt and looked for the smallest one she could find. She called him Big Al and kept him in her backpack all the time. She wasn’t allowed to take him to school, but she was able to take him everywhere else.

The family went everywhere with their new pets. Fireball, Jeremy and Big Al went with them to the beach, to the mountains, and to the city.

They took an entire suitcase of carrots with them when they went out. No sense fooling around there.

Mr. Red and Mr. Green visited from time to time. It was useful to have the agents around, even if they felt like they were being watched all the time.

They fell into a routine. Destin would tease his students with his rabbit, Annie would use hers to terrorize any boy who was bullying her, and Mike would occasionally set his loose, just to give the local cops a workout. Mike also learned how to grow his own prize carrots. Monster carrots. At record his largest carrot was over three hundred-fifty pounds, and capable of taking his rabbit from a full-grown monster down to its regular bunny size in five minutes.

The trick to getting the rabbits to grow to enormous size wasn’t to get them mad or to starve them but to tickle their bellies. Mike had mastered the ability to grow his to just the perfect size for riding through the woods. He and Annie would ride them back and forth from their house to their father’s school, then with a carrot or two, hidden in the back shed or in the lawnmower shed at the school, they would shrink the rabbits back down to size and hide them in their backpacks.

One day after school, Mr. Green showed up at Destin’s classroom.

“Hello there Mr. Green,” said Destin.

“Destin, hello. I’ve got something I want you to look at.”

“Sure, I’ll take a look. What is it?”

Mr. Green had a handful of feathers. “We found these in the middle of a crop circle south of town.”

“Do those happen outside of England?”

“Oh, they happen. Atypical. Can you identify them?”

“Let’s look at them under the microscope.”

He took the feathers and put one under the microscope. He focused, and then looked up.

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

“What?”

“It seems like you have yourself some chickens.”

“Chickens.”

Mr. Red came through the door.

“It’s worse than we thought,” said Mr. Green.

“Worse what?”

“Chickens. We have chickens.”

“What’s wrong with that?” said Destin.

“Chickens are the worst kind of news.”

Annie and Mike were listening at the window.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the third sighting of chicken feathers we’ve seen near UFOs in the last ten days.”

“Well we’ve got to get right on that, then don’t we?” said Mike.

He and Annie put their rabbits down and tickled them. They grew to the size of small dinosaurs. Then the kids pulled saddles and utility vests from their backpacks. They put on the vests. The pockets had different kinds of tools, and flashlights in them. They tossed the saddles on the rabbits, which fastened under each of the rabbit’s front legs, and pulled themselves up.

“Let’s ride!” said Annie, “Where’s that crop circle?”

“Right this way,” said Mr. Green.

The kids galloped off towards the end of the street. In the distance, they could see the agent’s van parked on the other side of the hill.

The rabbits jumped over it and vanished into the field beyond.

A bustling amusement park with a pirate stage show in progress. A towering crab-like humanoid and a woman stand atop the mast, silhouetted against the sky. Below, cheering park guests and startled actors watch as they prepare to swing away. Authorities push through the crowd, desperate to capture them.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 7

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

They ran from the log flume, Janet riding the creature’s thigh while holding onto his waist. In the sun he looked a little bluer than red, and for the first time in good light you could see a raggedy loincloth over his midsection, his legs were more human than anything else, though still covered in patches of hard armor, and his face, out in the sunlight was larger than a man’s but had armor plates across his cheeks and forehead. His mouth appeared human, wide in a roar as they bounded through the park, people jumping left and right as they ran.

Around his mouth, what looked like a shaggy beard coming through the cracks in the armor was closer to feelers. They twitched as they ran, smelling the air. Nearby there was popcorn warming up, cotton candy being freshly spun, and the smells of fresh caramel and salt were everywhere.

A mane of shag behind him flapped in the breeze. You could call it hair when it wasn’t a wet mess, but it was closer to blue than any recognizable color.

They bounded through the kid’s section of the park where there was a large picnic field surrounded by rides, dairy food stands, and a grandstand where they were playing something relatively patriotic. 

On one side of the field was a spinning hat ride, three or four people per spinning top hat. As they bounded past, then through, people tried in vain to get a look at this monstrosity running through the ride. The ground already had a swirly pattern on it, and that mixed with the whirling heat made it impossible to focus on them. They were a blur of bluish-red, leaping through the psychedelic color palette. One child screamed while her mother sat next to her.

Another hat full of kids tried to get a look at him, leaned just the wrong way, lost their equilibrium in the worst fashion and all of them threw up at once in a spiral pattern. The ride operators all called it the open blender. Imagine a blender full of milk and your favorite fruit, maybe some pomegranate juice for good measure, and it’s time for a smoothie. You hit the button, but where is the top? Soon the smoothie is all over the counter, the blender, you, anything you own, and these kids looked like that, but it was total vomit lunch, the amalgamation of all things cotton candy, corn dogs, and a healthy amount of chips, and queso dip, with jalapeños, in all directions like a spinning top.

Janet and the creature were bounding through and could not see the carnage clearly, but she turned and saw some of it as it exploded out. The trouble was, as fast as the hats go, a kid can cover a lot of ground with a single or double hurl, and this would certainly mean they’d have to shut the ride down. Already the second hat exploded with vomit, and then a third, spinning and flinging vomitus muck in every direction.

Janet could hear them screaming, and varying how just over the sides of their hats as she and the creature bounded out into the field.

They ran through people hanging out, through packs of teenagers trying to be cool, and families attempting to give picnics that they had dragged coolers full of stuff into this park to eat. The father was already thinking of just tossing the coolers here because he was tired of carrying them.

They ran through the grass, his clawed feet digging into the dirt, and he felt free for the first time since he’d met Janet. His face was full of cheer. His smile was wide. He ran through a patch of butterflies, headed for the pond in the center of the park.

“No, not the pond!”

“It’s fine,” he said, and jumped into the pond, touching a series of rocks that either jutted above the water or he could see we were just under. He bounded left and right, then onto a statue fountain of a horse spewing water back into the pond, climbed it for a look, and found patches of people all around him, staring at the two of them, Janet riding his thigh as they bounded off into the Park.

People scattered like ants in little, almost telepathic groups to avoid them.

Janet was too busy holding on for dear life, but she wondered, was this what it would be like, to love a monster? “I need a name for you,” she said.

“Wen.”

“When?”

“Just Wen.”

“Well Wen, when will we get there?”

“I’m too busy being free!”

They bounded to the end of the park, jumped the fence, and crossed into an avenue where people were watching a bunch of pirates play a sing-a-long with the crowd. They were clapping and singing with vague accents. One of them holding a fake metal hook over one hand dropped it. It thunked to the floor as he flubbed his line. Another balancing on a peg leg just fell over. All the rest of them reached up and lifted their eye patches, complete with little ruby-eyed skulls on them, so they could see properly. About this time, Wen and Janet bounded through.

The kids screamed, and one pirate said, “bloody hell!”

“Just as folk, Janet, and the sea monster here,” she said.

“Wen.”

“Right, Wen, the mega crab!”

They bounded through.

“I’ve seen nothing like that,” said one pirate.

“I once saw a mermaid,” said another. “She guards me treasure, flowing hair and fins you couldn’t…”

“Darby, that’s just Esmeralda from the mermaid show you dolt.”

“What?”

“I think the thing was real.”

Janet and Wen ran back in, jumped clear over the pirates, still struggling to keep their audience, and grabbed the thick roles that were part of their stage, which was already designed to look like a ship, climbed the mast, and together they swung behind the building and vanished from sight.

“Look, it’s the best of the seven seas, Darby,”

“Oy, I See it, Ned. We have been too many days out there on this ocean to see something like that.”

“Did you see what e fad round his waist?”

“It looked like our fair maiden Janet it does!”

The crowd cheered.

“Three cheers for Janet and the monster!

“Hip hip!”

“Hooray!” went the crowd.

“Where’ve they gone?”

“He’s climbing the mast, I thought.”

Janet and Wen swung back into view at the top of the mast. Everyone cheered for them again.

“There they are! No doubt looking across the See for our next port.”

“You see any of them?” she said.

“Not yet,” said Wen.

“They’ve gotta be close. Can we keep running?”

“I don’t know.”

Wen held his great claw up to block the sun and could see them. “There they are.” Cops and a handful of other people were swarming in their direction.

“I don’t know how long we’ve got,” he said.

She kissed him, climbing up to his face. He cradled her body with his over-sized crab claw hands.

“I love you.”

He smiled, smirked, smiled, and waved his feelers around.

The crowd sheered. The outages cheered,

“I don’t show what’s going on, do you, Darby?”

“Not I. Maybe the park’s introducing a new character?”

“I never heard of him.”

“You remember Blueberry Falls?”

“The creature?”

In ran the police. They were in blue and were already drawing a crowd. One of them looked a little more official than the others.

“It’s the Authorities!” Both of the pirates went face down on the deck.

“Are they gone yet?”

“No.”

One of them peaked. “No?”

They stayed down.

The lead offers came forward. He had a grizzled grilled face with too many lines on it and a big, bushy mustache. He called up to them with a megaphone as the cops spread out. Some of them herded people away, and others pulled their guns but kept them down. They were ready, just not threatening.

“They haven’t gone around the back,” said Wen.

“What about the…”

“Let’s find out what he has to say.”

The creature sat down on one timber and clamped on with his legs. Janet stood up beside him. We crossed his claws and watched the men on the ground; he pointed down. “Look, the pirates are playing dead.”

“There are people on the way,” said the officer into his megaphone. “It’s best if you just come down.”

“What people?” said Janet.

“People,” said the officer. She looked at her man, her crab god, in this world, this day, this age. Certainly, she couldn’t keep him to herself. Could there be peace? She’d sure try for a couple of hours of it until humanity came for her. For them. She’d be studied as well. Where would they take her?

She imagined being taken to a white basement room with bright lights tied to a heavy table in the middle while government types across the room behind darkened glass asked her questions, to which she didn’t know the answers.

“Where’s your boyfriend from?”

“How’d he get here?”

“What were you going to do for money?”

“Do you have a little island paradise set aside?”

The lights snapped off, and she was in the dark. She opened her eyes and was in the same place, looking at the police below.

“It’ll be better if you just come on down.”

“Why?”

His voice was low. You could hardly tell where it was coming from.

“Because It’s best for her. Turn yourselves in, and we’ll make sure she doesn’t come to harm.”

“So, what you mean, is that someone is out to take us both in,” said Janet.

“Who?”

The officer opened his arms wide, then brought the megaphone back to his mouth. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is it is over the top. The security we don’t even know about.”

“Then how come a bunch of rent-a-cops is the fest thing cornering us now?”

“We’re here just to observe, contain, and follow you, as best we can.”

“Then you have no proper authority,” said Wen. “That’s What I wanted to know. You have nothing.”

He stood up, gathered Janet in his arms, then chose a rope that the performers often used to get down to the stage. They swung down, flying, and he landed carefully on the stage, next to the cowering pirates.

“Get up, my friends,” he said, gathering them up around them. The pirates got to their feet to rousing applause, while two-hundred nearby people were all streaming them live on YouTube, Facebook, or somewhere else on their phones, if they weren’t tweeting about him or screaming so loud. #crabman! The authorities stepped forward, and Wen jumped over them, kicking the leader in the chest. He went down.

“Come with the pirates!”

The crowd cheered. They laughed and rallied around him, blocking the authorities and hindering them as Wen and Janet bounded. Down the way and over to the front of a giant mermaid cave.

“See, there are mermaids!” said one pirate. A mermaid was sitting on each side of the entrance on a rock, with a couple of people standing by if they need to move or anything.

He stopped, and Janet stood by his side.

“Hi Janet,” said one mermaid.

“May we pass?” said Wen.

“Of course!” said the other mermaid.

They entered the cave as the crowd behind them closed off their camera phones.

Wen and Janet ran into the cave of wonders.

The officers burst through, but they lost Janet and the rest in the dark.

A giant fire-breathing rabbit stands on a football field, facing a massive carrot dangling from a futuristic aircraft. A father and son watch as the rabbit shrinks back to normal size, while government agents approach.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 9

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

Mrs. Orange pulled the van into a large black hanger hidden off the road. Maria watched as they went through sign after sign that said no trespassing and ‘Use of deadly force is authorized,’ and ‘do not enter on pain of death,’ and ‘private property.’ There were a couple of signs that this was government property, but they were closer to the street.

They pulled into the hanger, and inside was a small industrial complex. There was a line of vans, other agents here and there, a helicopter, and something else that looked a little different, and maybe had a camouflage covering on it. It was hard to tell.

As soon as they arrived, people started to unload the rabbits from the van. Maria was pretty sure that there wasn’t enough room to keep them all in the van. She watched as more and more of them were unloaded.

Mr. Red looked down at his watch. “Mike’s already chiming in. They’ve spotted the rabbit.”

“Let’s get rolling then,” said Mr. Green They pulled back the camouflage cover off the larger vehicle. It looked like a long rectangular craft. No wings, and no wheels. It was standing on little stubby legs. It looked like it had a large cargo area towards the back and good seating towards the front inside of a large chamber that could see everywhere through a wrap-around windshield. Mr. Red got on board, followed by Mr. Green. Mr. Green was about to sit down when Mrs. Orange pushed him out of the pilot seat and sat down. “We’ll have none of that!” she said. “I’m flying this round!” Maria and Annie got on board and strapped themselves in.

Mrs. Orange hit a button, and the whole place lit up. It took off from the ground, and soared out of the hanger, and up into the sky.

“Woah!” said Annie. She pressed her face against the window.

“Can anyone see us?” asked Maria.

“Not anymore,” said Mrs. Orange. She hit a switch, and everything rippled around them for a second. “Now we’re completely invisible.”

She turned the ship and headed back towards town.

“Where are they?” said Mrs. Orange. “It’s not like we’re going to miss a giant rampaging rabbit anyway.”

“Southwest,” said Mr. Red. “I’m linking the navigation system up to Mike’s transmitter. Each time he gives an update, you’ll get a course correction.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Orange. “I’ve got him on the monitor now.”

Maria looked over her shoulder. There was a monitor there, with Destin and Mike on it, standing before the giant rabbit.

“How can you get that shot?” asked Maria.

“Satellites,” was all Mrs. Orange would tell her.

They flew across the land.

A readout next to the satellite camera feed showed their progress towards Mike’s beacon, which lit out again, and changed position.

The rabbit leaned in and sniffed at Destin’s face.

Destin froze.

It turned and sniffed at Mike.

Mike froze.

It licked Mike from head to foot.

Mike reached out and scratched the bunny under the chin. It closed its eyes and leaned into the scratch.

“That’s it,” said Destin.

The rabbit turned back to Destin and leaped over them.

Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were starting to arrive. Their sirens blared in the distance but were getting closer. 

“Dad, we’ve got to get him away from the road. We can’t let the cops get him, or the firemen.”

“Why?”

“He’s already this tall, how big do you want him to grow if they start shooting fire hoses at him?”

Destin considered this for a moment. “Okay, which way?”

“Back to school.”

Destin got back in his car and cranked it. Mike jumped in beside him, and he took off, first toward the rabbit, running into his toes. He peeled around and headed for the school. The giant rabbit was close behind him. It crushed trees, and parked cars all along the way, giving the police and fire departments plenty to do.

“There’s the school!” said Mike. They pulled around behind it. The bunny jumped, clearing the school building and landed on the football field. It seemed to have grown again.

Destin pulled the car up onto the running track and started to circle the football field. The rabbit chased them for a moment, and then jumped into the middle, watching them circle around and around.

Destin pulled to a stop just as Mrs. Orange flew over the school, and dropped their invisibility field. It shimmered in the sky and appeared there.

Mike’s phone rang. He answered it “Mom?”

“It’s us up here,” she said.

“Okay.” He hung up on her.

The rabbit roared.

Fire licked the sky.

Mrs. Orange pulled to the left to avoid the flame.

Mr. Red hit a button, and a panel on the bottom of the craft opened.

“What was that?” asked Maria.

“What’s that?” said Mike, his finger pointing into the air.

From the bottom of the craft, the bay opened. There was too much light to see. It blinded the rabbit, and Mike and Destin had to look away. Lowering from it on a massive cable was the giant carrot from the science expo they’d seen earlier in the day. It looked like it weighed, at least, two hundred pounds.

The rabbit saw it and jumped on it.

It missed but knocked the giant carrot loose from the cable. It shot towards the earth and landed point-down on the football field.

Mike ran towards the giant carrot.

The rabbit ran for it as well.

Mike leaped up and grabbed for it, but it was way too heavy for him. He yanked it, and it pulled a little, but not much. He and Destin struggled with it, but it was firmly in the ground.

“Here it is!” he yelled.

The rabbit ran to him. It sniffed Mike. It sniffed the carrot, then grabbing the carrot in its mouth, it pulled it free and started to crunch on it.

Its color faded quickly to white.

Its eyes stopped glowing.

It shrank to the size of a normal rabbit and jumped into Mike’s arms.

Mrs. Orange landed the craft, which was hardly a helicopter if you could call it that, on the football field.

Maria ran out to Mike, as did Destin and Annie. They were all on the field, with the rabbit when Mr. Red and Mr. Green walked up.

“We owe the two of you a debt of thanks,” said Mr. Green.

“Without your help, there’s no telling how much more damage these rabbits would have done today,” said Mr. Red.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” asked Mr. Green.

Destin was about to say something when Mike stepped forward.

“Can we keep one?”

“Of the rabbits?” said Mr. Green.

“No one else has a fire-breathing rabbit.  I’d take care of it.”

“Yeah, we want a pet. We were trying to come up with what we wanted,” said Annie.

“Annie, really?” said Maria.

“We’ll consider it,” said Mr. Green.

“I’d love to have one for the school,”  said Destin.

“The school that was burned to the ground?” asked Mr. Red.

“Yes. They’ll have me teaching somewhere.”

“That they will. We’ll make sure of that,” said Mr. Green.

“We’ll see what we can do. The least we can do is offer you some compensation for all your troubles and reassurance that we’ll take care of you,” said Mr. Red. “We’re going to make sure this school is rebuilt.”

Mr. Green sat down with Mike. “What are you going to call him?”

“Fireball,” said Mike.

Mr. Green ruffled Mike’s hair. “It’s Fireball then.

A thrilling amusement park log flume ride plunges down a steep drop. In the back row, a woman passionately kisses a towering crab-like humanoid with massive claws, as water splashes around them. Other passengers look on in shock, while the ride’s dim lighting casts eerie reflections off the water.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 6

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

They were face-to-face. The crackling and sparking of the dying computers in the elephant died down. They stood a few feet apart. Her hat was gone, and her hair fell, mussed at her shoulders. She breathed heavily, doing her best to stay calm and catch her breath.

There was a failing light. He drew closer to her and relaxed his arms. He’d been at the ready, struggling for so long. Nothing came out when he tried to speak.

She reached up and shushed his lips with her finger.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She grabbed his body in a great hug, drawing his powerful body to her. He was about eight feet tall next to her, five feet nine inches.

He reached his great arms around her, his claws pressing into the small of her back. He kissed her. It took her by surprise, and she let him draw all the breath out of her before they disengaged. She hugged him back, grabbing at his waist.

“Janet,” he said in the near dark. “I… I… Janet.”

“I know. It won’t be long. We’ve got to get out of here. We can’t let them find us.”

They could hear the muffled screams from the distance, people breaking through the back door, headed here to see if maybe the monster had killed the girl.

“We’ve got to hide.”

He turned his head and sighed, then turned from her.

“We’ve got to go now. I’d rather be with you and never see them again. They can’t find you, they’d just kill you.”

He turned his head again, this time in the sense of letting them try to kill him. In the meantime, however, he took her by the waist, incredibly delicate for the honking claw he had there, and reached up, and tore out the ceiling tiles with his other clawed hand.

He didn’t have claws like hey I’ve got claws over my fingers. He wasn’t a werewolf. There was a crab in this picture. His claws were long, red, hard chitinous shelled single clasping claws. Little teeth-like ridges lined the claws on the inside. Imagine grand clipper limb cutters for hands covered by thick muscle and armor, yet with a delicate touch.

He tore the ceiling out just as they heard the cries for “Janet! Janet! Has it hurt you? Janet!” They broke into the room just as the monster lifted Janet lightly onto his left hip and jumped into the ceiling, using his other claw to pull himself up into the structure of tubes, rafters, and the backside of all that interior fake cave facade.

“It’s got her!” yelled one of them.

They looked like a combination of cops and park security. Some held guns, some were holding baseball bats, and one had a rake. Janet wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to do with all that.

They vanished into the ceiling. The men below argued about shooting or not shooting, using ‘he’s got her’ as a reason either way. Janet watched them below with a smile on her face, holding onto her man, her monster. She pressed her nose into his armored chest and smelled a faint salt and sweaty smell. He was working hard, but lifting her with him wasn’t hindering him that much. On his own, he’d been hiding in here for some time.

He looked back at the men arguing about how to continue and laughed as he jumped to the next platform and ran through the caves. The spotlights never went to the caves where he was up high. He ran across the catwalk with purpose, but in near silence. Only the occasional padded footfall made a noise, and his breathing was up.

Janet hung on his hip, but eventually climbed to his shoulder as he traversed the caves. They watched below them as men, still. A compilation of regular police and park security ran across the cave floor, totally missing them because they were riding the line of shadow so well.

The creature jumped from one catwalk fifteen feet to another one, with Janet clinging to his face. Her shoes were gone. She grabbed on for life, but felt secure with him.

Below them, Janet saw Jeff was now leading the pack. “Janet! There she is!”

They pointed flashlights up and saw Janet and the creature bounding from platform to platform up in the ceiling. They stomped past flood lights, fog machines, and speakers that were bolted to the walkways. She wrapped her legs around his waist to hold on.

 The people climbed and climbed.

“You can make it,” she said. “You can do it. Nothing is impossible.” They leaped to another ledge, and the creature punched a hole into a floor above the caves. It was a secret floor where people gathered who were member card holders were.

There were about twenty-five of them in the lounge, looking out at the park through tinted windows disguised as a rock on the outside, drinking champagne from little flutes. They wore suits and dresses, hardly park material, and were more interested in impressing each other than anything else.

Below them, the floor in the lounge, which had plush leather couches scattered around and art on the walls they only bought because someone convinced them it was cool, cracked open and the creature tore it open, shining a bright shaft of light down into the caves. He pulled his way up, jet hanging from his shoulders, occasionally caressing his face. He pulled himself up and jumped into the lounge.

A gentleman wearing a polo and a sweater tied over his shoulders fell through like a rag doll toward the men searching below. He hit the walkway like a ton of bricks, and rolled, crushing one man’s left arm, and snapping, breaking his ankle. He didn’t fall with a scream, but more of a ‘huh?’ He lost his sweater on the way down, and with the pile of men under him, he said, “What about my sweater?”

One cop elbowed him in the jaw and decided he’d deny that later when they were in court. It felt good.

Everyone else in the lounge screamed, except one woman, who had had one too many already and might mix her drugs and alcohol. She said, “oh, neat, is this what we’re doing now?” She jumped, or rather simply fell, through the hole into the caves, drink in hand, and with a scream of delight, fell to the cave floor to land in a great pool of water. Three men jumped in after she splashed down to save her. They pulled her up to the surface. Dragging her, she now sees through a white dress out of the water. “That was great!” She kissed the guy on the right and started telling anyone who would listen to her what her phone number was.

In the lounge. The creature stood, full red crab man, in full light. Janet clung to him up the wall but jumped to the floor to run with him.

“This way.” She ran towards the door, a black electric thing, and he ran after her, lumbering under the roof that was now too low for him as business people, a couple of yuppies, and their second wives ducked for cover left and right, jumping over couches or diving under glass coffee tables.

They bounded through the room and the creature exploded through the electric sliding glass door. It shattered everywhere as he tucked Janet up onto a hip again. She kissed him and held onto his neck as they ran out into the sun.

Inside the cave foyer, Jen was trying to help the lady. One of them gave Terri’s jacket to her and was trying to lead her out, but she kept talking to another guy, who didn’t want to leave her alone.

They brought up the house lights, so you could see everything, and the cop with a baseball bat in his hands said, “Now, why didn’t we do that, to begin with?”

They scattered, after hearing Jeff say “the private lounge.”

As they led the young lady to the exit, her eyes bugged out when she saw one of the chiming clocks in the gift shop.

“Oh, I want one of these!”

Janet and the creature ran together through the open, no longer disguised as a big credit card door.

Was he real? Was he a monster, a character, someone in a costume, or someone they should fear? Pepe dodged them. They got out of the way more because they were running through the middle of everyone than anything else.

He waved his big crab arms, jumped over carriages with various people in them, and bounded by elderly and otherwise disabled people, one of which was wearing a fedora and dark glasses, and careened through and ran behind another ride building.

“In there,” said Janet. “Back door.”

They knocked open an emergency exit, which briefly blinded everyone on the dark ride. There was a series of boats headed around the bend, and in a nearly empty boat, they jumped into the back. The boat splashed, jolting everyone.

A lady dropped her camera into the water where she was videotaping a bunch of singing animatronic animals. Another man nearly fell out trying to stand up to the creature, but when Janet smiled at him and gave him the shh with her fingers on her lips, with a great smile, he turned around and just sat there wondering how it was going to go when they got out of here, would they all just get shot?

The boat stuttered. It stopped. Over the public address someone, a young girl, said “Janet, is that you?” Janet waved, looking around for a camera. It was hard on the monitors not to miss an eight-foot-tall thing in the seat by her.

The boat started back up again. “Were started up again folks, sorry about that.” before she could drop the phone and turn off the thing. “This might not be the best place to hide.”

“I’m tired of hiding.”

“I know. I don’t know what else to do with you. Out there, they’d kill you,”

“You know that’s right,” said the other guy in the boat. The lady, almost noticing for the first time they were sitting in the back row, turned her hand to get them in camera, realizing she had no camera anymore for the first time.

“What?” she said.

“Camera trouble?” said the creature.

“Um, I think so.”

“Come on, we’ll take a selfie. I’m Janet.” She pulled her camera out and helped the other lady, then got the other guy in the picture and took it. The flash rebounded through the ride, disturbing some of the light-sensitive machinery.

“Please refrain from the use of flash photography while enjoying this attraction,” said a youthful voice.

They looked at Janet. “Ah, I figure I’m in enough trouble as it is, right?”

“Right,” said the guy. They turned a corner and went down the region’s longest indoor log flume drop. It blew Janet’s hair back. The picture the automatic cameras took is of everyone, including two incredibly frightened middle-aged people covering their eyes and Janet kissing a giant crab mobster with her leg up over his lap while her hair blew back, eyes closed.

A towering fire-breathing rabbit rampages through a city, crushing cars and shooting flames. A speeding car with a father and son tries to lure it away while helicopters and agents mobilize in the background.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 8

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
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Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

The next morning two trucks arrived in a large church parking lot in town, accompanied by a police escort.

Destin and Maria had gotten the kids up early, and everyone had piled into the van.

Prof. Blue was driving. He’d gotten a little more sleep than Mrs. Orange had.

Destin, Mike, Mr. Green, and Mr. Red went out to meet the truck drivers. They opened up the back of the tracter-trailers. Inside were stacks and stacks of boxes containing carrots of all varieties.

“This what you’re after?” said one of them.

“That’s what we need,” said Destin. “Mike?”

“What?”

“How are we going to get these out there to the rabbits?”

“Leave that to me.”

Mike pulled his phone out and started the ball rolling, a message to some key friends, that lead to messages to more friends.  Shared and shared again and forwarded along until people Mike didn’t even know were starting to respond.

“They are on their way.”

“There’s the first rabbit!” yelled Annie. It was on top of the trailer, its fur bright red, and blazing tongue of fire spouting from its mouth.

She grabbed a bunch of carrots from one of the boxes and jumped up into the back of the truck.

Maria made a grab for her but missed it.

The truckers bargained with Mr. Red and Mr. Green to unhitch the trailers and be gone with their rigs. Annie raised the carrot up to the flaming bunny and waved it.

The rabbit jumped down, and crept towards her, wary and nervous, it shook as it approached her.

She knelt down.

The rabbit walked up to her and sniffed at the carrot.

It stepped forward, and reached out with its mouth, twitching its nose. It opened its jaws and closed them on the carrot, taking the bulk in its paws. It crunched, then it munched. Then it was gobbling down the carrot.

Its fur changed color to a paler red, and soon it was sitting on its haunches, nibbling away.

Annie offered it another one.

The rabbit took it and sat down, looking around, and ate the next one with a big crunch. Its fur lightened some more until it was pale and white, and there was no trace of fire in its eyes. Annie picked up the bunny and held in her arms. It felt warm as it snuggled into her arm. She held it there.

“Daddy, can I have this one?”

“I don’t know dear,” said Destin. “You want a rabbit?”

“Yeah.”

The looked, and around them, bunnies were starting to gather. They had two tractor-trailers full of carrots, and the word had gotten out. Or at least, the message had spread.

Mrs. Orange pulled in with the van as they began to feed other rabbits. They hopped or stormed in their fur bright red, and fire and smoke spilling from their nostrils and mouths and after a baby carrot or two started settling down. Although Annie did not let her go, one by one the other rabbits fed on carrots, and when they had calmed down and were normal again, they were individually caged and stored away in Mrs, Orange’s van with water and a small supply of munchies.

The crowd was getting pretty large, and the parking lot was filling up. Destin and Mike took the lead on one of the trailers full of carrots. Mike pulled down boxes and brought them forward with Mr. Red for Destin to hand out, and in the other trailer, Annie helped Mr. Green and Mr. Blue with boxes of carrots for Maria to hand out. The rabbits were close to a feeding frenzy, bouncy, and appearing snappy and ravenous, but never nipping or biting. They were in more of a soft and fuzzy feeding frenzy, crunching on carrots and getting ever lighter or browner until they were each stored away, safe from the others.

Destin sent Mike to help Mr. Blue with the little cages. He had no idea how they were getting them all in there, or where they were getting all the cages from. There must be room, but it did seem to be an awful lot of rabbits.

They were starting to get to the back of the trailers now, and Destin and Mike’s was already empty. Destin moved over to help Maria with the last of the carrots in theirs. There did seem to be a lot of rabbits left.

When they got to the last box of carrots, they looked out. There were only a few rabbits left. They should have enough. They handed them out, and one by one the rabbits calmed down, until the last carrot.

One rabbit remained.

It was still fiery red, and smoke curled from its nostrils.

“What do we do?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know,” said Destin, and Mr. Green.

Mr. Red reached out and inched forward. He grabbed for the rabbit, which went a brighter, hotter red than any of them had seen yet and blew fire in his face.

Mr. Red ducked down and rolled on the ground to put the fire out on his suit. He stumbled up, still smoking a little, his face a bright red blister of sunburn. He yelled and dropped the rabbit.

The rabbit hit the ground and turned so dark red that it was almost as dark as ash. Its eyes boiled red and exploded with fire from their sockets. Then it began to grow.

It expanded and grew until it was six feet at the shoulders while sitting on its haunches.

“Whoa,” said Mr. Red.

Then it burped, and expanded again, this time clearing ten feet, and put its paws up on the edge of the trailer, sniffing for carrots. Maria fell back into the trailer with Annie, who was still carrying her little bunny.

Annie screamed as the giant rabbit sniffed around, and crawled further and further into the trailer.

“We could catch him in the trailer if we let him get all the way in there,” said Mr. Green.

“Are you kidding, Maria and Annie are in there!” said Destin. “Mike, come on!”

Mike and Destin, pounded the rabbit, on the butt, and legs. It sniffed at Maria and Annie, then pulled itself out to see Mike and Destin behind it.

It breathed fire, a huge plume of flame that licked the pavement and destroyed a nearby car, flipping it over. Mike and Destin leaped to the side and rolled, avoiding the flame. Destin scratched his arm up, but Mike did a good forward roll and landed on his rear.

They got up, brushing themselves off.

“Here it comes!” said Mike.

 The giant, red rabbit leaped over them and stopped them in their tracks.

It thumped one of its hind feet on the ground and the shockwave knocked everyone over and toppled the trailers.

It jumped, and landed on one trailer, smashing it to the ground, then everyone watched as it flipped and smashed the other trailer flat.

It roared and ran into town, leaping over cars and scrambling on top of shorter buildings.

It looked into a three-story office building and growled at a group that was having an early lunch. Someone was cutting a cake for the monthly birthday celebrations, and a moment later, after a frantic sweep of the knife, the cake was all over everyone.

It bounded down the road, smashing cars, and causing accidents. People fled from their cars, and the rabbit ran through traffic lights and pulled them down like they were weeds or tall grass.

Kelly’s and the agents gathered together.

“We’re heading back for backup, and to drop these rabbits off,” said Mr. Blue. Mrs. Orange nodded and got the van revved up.

“We’re coming back with something bigger to chase it with,” said Mr. Red. Mr. Green reached into his pocket and pulled out a small communicator. It looked like a small cell phone with an LCD screen on it, and red light.

“Use this,” said Mr. Green as he handed it to Mike. “We need you to keep up with the rabbit for a moment and help us locate you again when we’re on our way back. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“Okay.”

“That okay with you Dad?” said Mr. Green.

“What about Maria and Annie?”

“We’re going with them.”

Mr. Green and Mr. Red turned around. “Ma’am?”

“If my son and husband are going to chase that monster rabbit and lead you to it, we’re going with you.”

“But—“

“No buts. Nothing. Annie, let’s go.”

They boarded the van, and with a wave, they were gone.

“Dad?”

“She’ll be fine. They have no idea who they are dealing with. Let’s go find that rabbit.”

They got into Destin’s car and headed out. First, they were watching for signs of destruction, then they started to chase the sound of cars honking, and the occasional scream, then they saw it. It was standing at a major highway intersection, caught up in the traffic lights, and stomping cars as they tried to move through it to escape the colossal bunny.

It roared and reached down to pick up a car. The people in it opened the doors and fled just as it was lifted into the air, and thrown into the parking lot of a drugstore on the corner. The car landed and flipped, and ended up on its side. The bunny looked around again.

“We’ve got to find something else to feed it,” said Destin. “There’s got to be something around here. I think cars are just confusing it.”

“It doesn’t look, confused Dad, it looks mad!” said Mike.

“It’s still just a bunny.”

“Thirty foot bunny with burning breath and the ability to throw cars off the street?”

“Yeah, I know. I want one too.”

“Dad!”

“Come on, let’s get it.”

They pulled up and honked. The rabbit looked around, trained its ears on Destin’s car, and jumped for it. Destin was ready and hit the gas, and the rabbit landed nose down in the street. Then he hit the gas, and the rabbit was flying after them, chasing them down the road, and away from the other cars.

“You know that little gizmo they left you, Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Hit the button on it!”

Mike pulled it from his pocket and hit the button. It beeped.

“Good. Do that every once in a while okay?”

“Okay.”

“It’s a tracking device of some kind. It’ll let them know where we are.”

“Okay, here we go.”

The rabbit tromped after them. It was playing. It would jump here and there, cut the car off, and let it go again. It would leave them enough time to get ahead, slow down, and then speed up again to make sure that it kept up with Kelly’s car. One time it jumped on the roof and, feeling it buckle underneath a little bit, it jumped off, almost careful not to hurt the car.

It took one soaring leap, landed in front of them again, then bellowed and blew fire toward the sky, and toward Kelly’s car.

Destin hit the breaks and skidded to a halt just before any of the paint peeled.

“I just want to say that I want one of these for my lab,” said Destin.

“Dad, are you crazy?”

“What? I want one.”

Mike hit the button again, another signal back to the agents.

A massive underground cave with eerie green lighting. A monstrous, crab-like humanoid with sharp claws and a partially human face smashes through a fiberglass rock formation. In the foreground, a soaked woman stares in horror, trapped against a stone wall as the beast looms over her. Water drips from above.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 5

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

The creature dropped into the middle. The lights above it crashed, and a fog was still going off somewhere with a soft pink glow of lights. The rock on which the creature landed cracked, then it slid down the middle, and everyone could see re-bar and Fiberglas under it. The rock was hollow.

It stood on two sturdy legs. They ended in great huge clawed feet that grabbed onto the destroyed fiberglass like it was nothing. It cracked under its feet as it clawed and jumped to the floor. Most of its torso was still in deep shadow or leftover artificial fog, but its chest was enormous. It had a great hard shell and covered its arms in the same shell, ending not in hands, but in great huge crab or lobster-like claws.

It snapped them, and he roared, not the sound of an animal, but of a man. His face had bits of the hard shell here and there, as did its legs, but it was a human-shaped head, with long unkempt hair and a very human voice.

He snapped at the adults.

He screamed at the kids, and everyone scattered.

“This way,” yelled Janet. “Through this crack!”

She waved them her way. A tunnel was there they could all fit through. It was knee-high, but no one cared. Only cable noticed there was still a working handicapped door to the side.

They crawled through, but the creature cut them off. He slammed into their exit, sending kids scattering. Left and right.

Janet ducked and rolled out of the way as he swiped at her. He took the bait, running to chase her. He was jumping, loping, and running, his clawed feet still kind of skittering on the floor where they weren’t destroying it.

“No!” she said to the creature. Who seemed to listen, then to her group, “Through the hole! I’ll meet you on the other side!”

She ducked another swipe, and smiling up at the creature, swept her legs under him, and he tumbled gracefully to the ground. He landed, rolled away, and then scrambled to the hole to follow her group through it, the last of them making it through the hole.

She avoided one snap from his claws as he tried getting up and getting her footing. She scampered and led through the hole. The others, who were now backstage, couldn’t believe what they were seeing. She scrambled through and the creature, still snapping, got a hand through, and snapped, but he couldn’t, for his big shelled torso got through. He growled and snarled, and yelled, then after exhausting himself from all the scrambling, slowly withdrew,

“Janet,” they could hear him say, briefly, among the snarls and whimpers.

“Does it know your name?”

Tears were streaming down Janet’s face. She was on the floor crying. “I guess it’s not too late to tell you. The falls are fake.” She sniffled.

Everyone stood up, the shadow of the creature still pacing around on the other side of the hole. They were on the back side of the caverns, the reverse of the rock wall, hollow and unpainted. It was all fiberglass and re-bar, two-by-fours, and catwalks. They could see the backside of a tall wall and a hole in the cavern where a green floodlight was. There were catwalks up to it so you could change it out.

“The caves are fake. I’m sorry, but the monster, as you can tell, is real. It’ll figure out how to get to us soon. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

The creature snapped its claws, then it started beating on the handicapped escape door.

“It only has to pull, but I don’t think it knows how.”

It beat on the door again. Everyone jumped.

It banged a third time. Janet thought for sure she heard a crab shell cracking, and the door came down. Fog filled the busted doorway, fog, and pinkish light.

“This way everybody.” She jumped up. “No more time for laying down.”

She grabbed several shaking kids by the Gabe’s and ran.

They turned a corner, leaving the doorway behind them, and started running down the halls. “I think I think I think…” she was saying, while in her mind, Janet was trying to figure out where to hide everybody.

“The elephant rock,” she said, “down to the fang rock,” she gathered the group. There was plenty more backstage to run through, nice wide open spaces, but she wanted them back in the caves. Janet could hear an alarm going off somewhere in the distance.

“Janet? Are you okay, dear?” Came a little old lady voice over the public address system.

“No, it’s after us!” she yelled to the ceiling as she brought everyone through a doorway, usually used as an emergency exit out of the so-called caves, and was waving everyone back in. They were running the wrong way on the trek, headed down the corridors of a cave, the wrong way.

You could see it all, where the lights were, where the fog machines were, where speakers and spy security cameras were.

“Oh my,” said the old lady over the PA.

Supplies for haunted attractions lined the room.

“How many people ever just look back and see all this stuff?” said Cable.

“No one.”

“Never?”

“Never.” They were moving fast, so she could only get little phrases out.

They turned another corner. “People just don’t look. “

They came around to Elephant Rock, and it was a sight, especially from this angle. To be of hand-holds, tons of ways up. The shape looked like a colossal statue of a hairspray elephant with human eyes, and as they climbed up the feature, they could all feel him despite its dressing. It was not a slick, stiff piece of rock, but a fiberglass shell.

“Head for the eyes, everyone up there now, tell find us any minute!”

“Will we fit in there?”

“There’s room inside. We sometimes use it as a spot to trigger Halloween effects, up up!”

They climbed. The kids made the trip easier. They just followed the pattern, and as she said, get up there, but the adults were slower. They were still fighting two major thoughts in their minds, which were I don’t want to be the jerk that breaks it, and I don’t want to slip.

They heeding have worried, but that’s fine. One by one, they dived through the eyes and slid into the room inside, behind the elephant. Janet sludged in behind the last kid, feet first.

“Everybody quiet, right?”

“He’s getting closer.”

In the room, which was pretty big for being up here, was a desk table, a sort of temp table set up with a computer and a couple of monitors.

“Alice, turn on that computer?”

Alice got under the desk and found the switch, which was an older tower model. It woke up. The screens came on. There was a mouse. Keyboard and a little plastic microphone hooked up to it.

The room itself was lit with a bare bulb, and the floods were old scruffy tile.

Janet yanked the chain to turn out the light. There were also a couple of metal cabinets back there filled with plastic Halloween decorations from three or four years ago, and a door,

“Where’s this lead?” said one adult.

“Bathrooms, and another corridor we can get out through. I just got to call the office quick.”

“You can from the…”

“Computer.”

It flipped up, ready, a series of icons. One kid, still watching through an eye, saw him. “There he is. He’s down there!”

“Shhhh.”

She pulled them down, so they weren’t right in the eye, then clicked an icon for the microphone. It opened up.

“Can you hear me in the office? Janet here.”

“Hello Janet, where are you?” said the old lady behind the register.

“Looks like our creeper is real. Boy, is he real.”

“Ooh, yes! I always wanted a real…”

“Hit the alarm. You can’t let anyone else down here.”

“You want me to call the park?”

“Yes, everybody should know.”

“Where are you?”

“In the elephant’s head. Can you see him in the monitors, this old computer?”

“Oh yes, I see him. He’s so cool. Isn’t this Frankie? God makeup.”

“Fran, Frankie is off today. This is not him.”

“Oh, well, whoever it is… he’s clumping the elephant. Look at those claws!”

Everyone could feel the wall shake as the creature jumped from the floor twenty feet over to land halfway up the elephant. It crushed the fiberglass with each major punch and grabbed underneath at the rebar and iron framing and climbed up the side; it scrambled and grabbed, pulling and yanking at the fiberglass until its face was up in the eyehole’s cavity, it stuck its head in.

“Everybody out, I think!” They scrambled out the back door.

Over the speaker, the old lady said “oh dear, ugh, here he comes!” As he flung his clawed arm in through the eye, knocked the monitors out, and tore one of them away. He couldn’t fit through. But this was no challenge. He reached in and tore the eye open, and landed on the floor of the room as the last kid scrambled out, with Janet shutting the door behind them.

They cluttered the corridor with boxes, mostly seasonal supplies, “help me, shove this stuff in front of the door,”

They toppled a great pile of boxes. At the least, they could slow him down.

The pack was breaking up, with some kids and adults way ahead, but lucky enough she knew where this hallway went. There was just one way out at this point.

The pretty straight hall came to a junction filled with boxes and junk, and they opened through an exit door under the Great Blueberry Falls themselves. They came out one by one, through an exit door on one side. There was a grand circular room with great falls. It looked magnificent, cascading down from a big hole that appeared to be a great indoor cavernous waterfall, heading into a large pool at the bottom.

A pump brought the water up out of the pool. The water came up to an enormous fountain at the top again.

“This way, the other exit on the other side of the falls!” yelled Janet. They ran around the walls, each one of the, looking up. And wishing this is what they saw in the first place before the moment was over, they ran around the falls, some under it, to the other exit on the other side, they passed through those doors, then after about half of them were careening down a brightly lit hallway, piled with boxes and junk, the monster exploded from the falls itself and forcing a huge spray of water all over everyone down there, it jumped, arms out, then pulled them in and dived into the pool below splashing everyone again. Janet, who had Cable by the hand, took most of it in the face.

She ducked and continued pushing people out of the way and through the exit door until she was the last one there.

A claw reached out and stopped the exit door, holding it closed.

She was last and trapped, face to face with the beast.

Everyone else flopped through a nondescript door in the gift shop. Half of them were wet. Half of them had a crazed look in their eyes, and all of them were out of breath,

They flopped on the floor and sat on display tables to gather their breath and recover just a little. Outside, police gathered, and a fire rescue crew stood by. They came in and started helping properly, taking their blood pressure, and looking into their eyes.

Behind the counter, the old lady hit a switch, and metal doorways closed over the nondescript door and the entrance.

Then she quietly hit another switch and started a spark, a fire inside the elephant’s face where the little office was. She flipped off her monitor before a cop could see.

“Janet!” said Cable, “She’s still in there!”

A town in flames as fire-breathing rabbits wreak havoc. Inside a dark laboratory, a family and government agents watch the destruction on TV. A single rabbit, flickering between white and red fur, sleeps peacefully as helicopters circle outside.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 7

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

Maria had the radio on as they drove.

“The attack of the atomic bunny rabbits, that’s what we’re calling it on channel fifteen. Rabbits of all kinds, sizes, and description are appearing all over town. Some are brown, but most are white and have a tendency to morph into a red furry bunny, with glowing eyes, that can spit fire a hundred feet. I am not joking folks, these things are all over town. We’ve been tracking them all day. There is a suspicion that they are lab bunnies from a nearby facility, a facility I might add that we have not been able to get a van near all day. We have three news vans lined up for the second we get clearance to do a story up there on the hill outside of town. For now, they are all sitting there waiting for further notice and doing stories about how they can’t get in. But that’s not all folks!”

The sound of one of the bunnies screaming and blowing its flaming breath came over the air.

“If you see one of them, do not go near it. They have a cunning curious personality, but they are also mischievous and once they get excited and start torching things around you, you had better just get out of the way. They’ve taken out, at least, three schools that we know of, and the science expo in town. We’re tracking them through restaurants and public parks.”

Maria took a corner and bumped over the curb.

“Did they get your school?”

“Yep,” said Mike. “It’s completely torched.”

“Both of them?”

Destin nodded.

“When did you first see one?”

“I found one on the way to school,” said Mike.

“One got in my box this morning,” said Destin.

“Then they are in the house!” said Maria.

“They could be, but they are all over.”

The newscaster was droning on. Maria turned off the radio.

She drove by a strip mall, where the rabbits were taking down a chicken sandwich shop. She pulled around another corner and stopped at a stop sign to watch ten or eleven of them cross the street in front of her.  They crossed and then went down a hill into the neighborhood.

Maria peeled out, and turned again, ignoring a stop sign this time, and heading for the house.

“You don’t think—“

“I don’t know,” said Maria.

“How you doin’ Annie?” said Mike.

Annie hugged him back.

They pulled up to the house. It was dark. The sun was going down, and they could tell there was no electricity on their street.

An upstairs window broke. Glass tumbled from it.

“Was that?”

Destin nodded. “That sounds like the back of the house too.”

Another window crashed. This time, it was the dining room at the front of the house. The glass shattered and fell into the azalea bushes in front.

Three rabbits fell out of the front window and doused the azaleas in flames. They toppled out, shook their ears and heads to clear them, and then hopped off.

There was another crash inside the house.

“How many of them are there?” said Destin.

“More than enough,” said Maria.

“Our house,” said Mike.

“Mommy!” said Annie.

They just watched as the building buckled, and half of the roof on the left side slid off and crashed to the ground.

The dust settled, and then the rabbits began to pour out of the top of the house. Three or four at a time, they leaped out and landed on the front lawn. Like a spewing water hose of fiery rabbits. They bounced in the yard and skittered in all directions.

“What are these things?” said Destin.

“I don’t know,” said Mike.

“We’ll take them up to the lab on the hill. What can we catch them in?”

“Trash cans,” said Mike.

“That’s not a bad idea.”

They peeled out, this time with the back of the van open. They slid by the hardware store, which was also overrun with rabbits, and picked up six metal garbage cans. Mike and Destin slid them into the back of the van.

“How do we catch them?” said Mike.

“That’s the easy part,” said Destin. “You and I have both held them today, and they are just lab bunnies having fun.”

“You think we can just pick them up?”

“I’ll bet we can.”

Destin knelt down and reached out. One of the bunnies stopped, and turned, then came to his hand, sniffing. He scratched it on the head and then picked it up to look at it.

“Here you go fella,” said Destin, and he lowered the rabbit into the trash can. It jumped a little, then got distracted by the sound of its little paws on the bottom of the can. Destin lidded the can, and he and Mike went on a hunt.

Mike grabbed two of them, maybe overdoing it for a moment, and brought them back. Maria opened the lids and allowed him to put them down in there and then closed them back up.

Annie wanted to help. “Soft,” she said. Mike helped her lift one more into another can as Destin came back with two more. They tied the cans shut with bungee cords, and then headed up the hill.

When they got to the laboratory, it was deadly silent. The fences, which operated with an electric fenced doorway on wheels was all mangled and torn to shreds. They drove through it to find cars overturned and the front doors to the lab hanging open. There were bunny prints in the pollen all around. There were no news crews, only empty news vans, left running.

Everyone got out, and Destin checked the rabbits. Some of the cans were warm, where one of them had been breathing a little fire. Most were still cool. He opened one up to find a little red-furred rabbit curled up asleep on the bottom of the can. He lifted it out, and it snuggled into his arms.

“Destin!” said Maria.

“It’s okay. I think this is the same little one I had with me this morning.”

She opened her mouth.

“I know, I know. Not exactly a good idea, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I know. Let’s go in.”

Destin took Annie’s hand with his free one, and Mike and Maria followed him into the laboratory.

It was a little dank, like lots of water had spilled. The electricity was out.

“Anybody has a flashlight?” said Maria.

“There’s one in the car. Mike, go out and grab it. It’s in the glove compartment.”

“Okay.”

Mike left them. Maria scoffed, but she wanted the flashlight. A moment later Mike came back with it. He turned it on and led the way.

“It looks like the bunnies came down this way.”

There were bunny prints everywhere, and lots of splashed water.

“I think you’re right.”

“Did you know anyone up here?” asked Maria.

“A couple of people. None of them ever mentioned anything like this.”

They made their way down the hall, and around into one of the main labs. They passed by the remains of the burned-out kitchen, and into the room where the original rabbit pen had been.

“This is it. It’s where it all started,” said Destin.

On one of the tables was a box of rabbit chow, and a fresh bail of grass, and a computer. On the computer’s case were long scratches.

The pen lay in pieces.

Lights flickered.

There was no one else there.

Then there was a sound.

A man stepped forward from the darkness around them.

“We need your help,” said Mr. Green.

“Green,” said Destin.

“I’m not sure how we can help.”

“The rabbits have infested much of the town. Any hopes of keeping this under wraps are long over. People are out of their homes.”

“We know. Our house too. Coming here seemed like all we had left.”

“Whatever they did here—“ said Mike.

“Is a tragedy,” said Mr. Green.

Mr. Green turned on a small television that was nearby on one of the desks in the room. It was wall to wall coverage of their little town.

Mike could hear helicopters in the distance somewhere.

“And it seems there’s no end in sight,” said one newscaster to another.

“That’s right, the rabbits seem to have taken over this little town. Rabbits, or whatever they are.”

“Did you see the claws?”

“Nothing compared to their teeth.”

“And I’m not talking about the fire. Fire crews are on the scene across town and every truck they have is in service somewhere.”

“As soon as they knock one out, they just move onto the next target of the rabbits.”

“Night is falling. Thousands of people out of power, houses and businesses burned down—“

“And cars.”

“That’s right tons of cars have been gutted and destroyed by the little creatures.”

They brought up an image of one, a rabbit leaping across someone’s back yard while breathing fire.

Mr. Green turned off the television.

“The only thing we have is that they don’t seem ready to leave town. We’ve got them in this general area,” said Mr. Green.

“Why would they stay?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know, and they seem to be getting crazier by the minute, more reckless and mischievous. Nervous maybe.”

“They’re hungry,” said Annie.

“Annie…” said Maria.

“What?” said Mr. Green. “What was that?”

Annie cleared her throat. “They’re hungry. We should get a bunch of carrots, big truck-fulls of carrots, and offer them to the rabbits. They’ve been naughty all day. They’ve got to be hungry.”

Mr. Red stepped in from the shadows. He was holding his earpiece to his ears. “What have we got to lose? Carrots are our best chance.” He listened for a moment, then spoke into his microphone. “Can we get it? A truck or two, yes, at least, that. Carrots yes, anything else that rabbits will eat. Bring it on.”

Mr. Red looked back up at everyone. “They’re on their way.”

They barricaded themselves into the laboratory. No one slept, but they did not cry or allow themselves to look upset. Their home destroyed, the school destroyed, and only the hopes that a shipment of carrots would do the job, they raided what was left of the break room, and cobbled together dinner. The agents ate with them, sharing sandwiches from the truck. Someone had cards. Someone had dice. Before long they had all but forgotten about the rabbits.

Prof. Blue stood guard over the van with Mrs. Orange, ready to go at a moment’s notice. He held a dart rifle, and only had to tranquilize one rabbit who came too close. The rest were too busy with the rest of the town to worry about this place. They took the bunny in, who while sleeping was a calm white lab rabbit, and laid him on the desk in the van and surrounded him with an old black leather jacket. The rabbit snuggled in.

It didn’t understand that by day it was a fire-breathing menace, and a science experiment went wrong. For now, it was just a bunny, sleeping until morning.

A vast underground cavern illuminated by eerie green and magenta lights. A group of children and adults stand frozen in shock as a monstrous shadowy creature, with elongated limbs and glowing eyes, drops from the ceiling. The jagged rocks and misty air create an ominous atmosphere of suspense and terror.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 4

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

There were children everywhere inside the shop area for Blueberry Falls. Janet straightened her hat and walked into the middle of a pack of charging six-year-olds and broke them up.

“I understand someone here has ordered, bought, and paid for the extended tour.”

The kids continued barging around, screaming, and throwing things. One of them, a kid with pale skin and incredibly dark hair was mashing the face of another child while digging his hands elbow-deep in the display of precious stones while another child toppled a display stand full of t-shirts with the Blueberry Falls logo on them.

“Okay,” she yelled. “It’s clear that I’m going to have to find some of you to feed to the monster of Blueberry Falls. You are the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious group so far. Just the way he likes them. Okay, line up now, let’s go. Time to march to your deaths!”

All the kids stopped. They gathered around her, as well as a handful of exhausted-looking adults, glad that for once someone else was doing all the yelling.

“Is there a monster?” said one of them.

“Yes, and he loves eating children, just like you lot.”

“You’re lying. This place is just as fake as everything else here. There are laws. You’ve got to keep us safe all the time.”

“Hands and arms inside the car at all times, kid. I can’t guarantee your safety, especially if you are stupid enough to leave the path, go under a safety railing, or otherwise leave the safety of where I tell you to go and where I tell you it’s safe to go. So, you see if you were to get away from the group and me, or one of the other responsible adults here didn’t notice you were gone. I’m not responsible when the monster eats you while I’m not looking.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s in the contract on your tickets. Your parents and guardians here signed them when you bought the extensive tour, so read ‘em. I’ll get the elevator. The one that goes extra deep.”

At some point, she’d gotten down on their level. She crossed the room, righted the stand of t-shirts, and hit the button on a second elevator. She turned and waited, grabbed a clipboard from the old lady at the front, and started ticking everyone in the tour group off.

Five adults, all tired already, and three of them looked like they might be high, and twelve children, a kindergarten class. Three were teachers, and the other parents were along for the ride. At least one teacher smelled like dope and she was the intelligent one.

The kids were all terrors.

Janet watched them try to line the kids up to head down, and it was fun to watch. Half of them were fine, but the other half, well. She shook her head.

“Jake, where are you?”

They found him sticking his hand up a teenager’s skirt, who was trying to buy a redundant ticket. They dragged him back.

“Maryanne, don’t do that!”

She was trying to pull one of the lower product shelves down by climbing on it. They got her back, batting her left and right to find…

“Cable, get out of that!”

He was climbing into a bin full of videos, kicking DVDs and CDs out onto the floor.

Cable came back, and no sooner, Alice was gone.

“Where’s Alice?”

“I’ve got her,” said one parent. “She was trying to get out of here.”

“Caught her headed out the door.”

“Cute. Alice, stay with us, honey.”

Janet wrote ‘screamer’ down next to Alice’s name, and this proved true the second the doors closed. The elevator opened, Janet called for everyone, led them in, and then turned to face the group. The doors shut behind her, and Alice started up.

She screamed. There is a piercing level of screaming that a girl her age is capable of, and Alice was perfect at it. She squealed a high-pitched wail that was so pure, Janet Thought that’s what her call in life might be if she made it to nineteen. Complete movie scream queen. Who knew?

She smiled. The other five adults were whimpering, and Alice was just getting going. Janet had rubber earplugs in. She leaned down, put a warm soft hand on Alice’s shoulder, thinking she wasn’t supposed to, and she hoped no one heard she did this later and said “Honey, if you keep up that beautiful screaming,” Alice didn’t even seem to need to stop to breathe, “then you’re just going to attract the monster faster.”

Alice dropped silently and grappled with her momma’s hand.

“That’s right. Everyone, adults included, has to behave from this point on, or you will certainly bring the monster down upon us.”

“Isn’t that the point?” said one adult. “You come in here, guided tour through a bunch of fake caves, and get scared by the monster who pops out once in a while?”

“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? I wish this was just a haunted house sometimes. Real caves. Real monster? Truth is, I’ve never seen him.”

“So you’ve heard it?” said a kid.

There was a lurch in all their stomachs.

“We’re here, thousands of feet down, and yeah, I’ve heard some strange things down here.”

The doors opened, but behind all the kids on the other side of the elevator.

“Everybody out, please, and I’ll take you into the natural hall of mirrors.”

The kids shuffled out, and the parents kept them surrounded as best they could. There weren’t enough parental hands to catch everybody, so a couple of kids had to be the second link in the chain, and they didn’t like it,

The mirror chamber was enormous, round, and admittedly largely man-made. Rock walls, a large cave room, well lit, and surrounded with strangely shaped fun house mirrors. It was clear they’d been brought down here for the tour. The top and bottom borders of the mirrors were all different colors.

The kids immediately spread out, looking in all the mirrors, terrorizing the under-prepared adults. One of them handling four kids seemed pretty competent.

“Look I’m tall.”

“I got a goofy head.”

“I look like an elephant.”

Alice wasn’t talking anymore but was standing before a mirror that made her look like a short kid with an enormous head.

“Bunny ears.”

“Welcome to the hall of mirrors. Yes, this is a natural cave, and we brought all these fun-house mirrors down for fun, but they are all real. They are here to highlight the real smooth cave face. This wall itself is a natural fun-house mirror.”

She gathered them together. One parent came in last. The entire class could get in front of it, with parents and teachers behind them. In this single mirror, all the kids were super tall, others super short, and everybody was wavy up and down.

They jumped up and down, waving their arms, watching their reflections bounce and wave all over the place.

“Very nice,” said Janet, “come back everyone, let’s keep it down some. Don’t want to bring him in too quick.”

“Wait, what?” said Jake.

“Yeah, wait a minute. I thought you said…”

“What I’m allowed to say on the ground floor is not all I’m allowed to say while we are down this deep into his territory.”

“So the monster is…”

“Real, oh yeah.” Several of them got out their camera phones. Later they had full hard drives of dark videos inside a cave, maybe some shadows, and a few times, the bounce of someone dropping it. You couldn’t get good videos while trying to keep kids from getting away from you.

Janet knew it, handing one adult their phone back after dropping it again while trying to catch Alice.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Around this corner, we’re getting out of the hall of mirrors, and deeper into the caves than we go almost any other time. In just a moment, we’re going to see the grand tortoise, a significant feature, before we connect back up to some tunnels from the main, shorter, tour that leads to the falls themselves.”

The grand tortoise looks like a huge turtle, and we’re going to walk right over it.

“We are?”

“You wouldn’t think, but it’s the one place in the caves. We are encouraging you to get off the path and feel the cave floor and features for yourself.”

She led them around, and there was a low ceiling. Everything was lit with green floodlights. The railing came around, and there was a four-foot gap, where there was a gate. The floor across the room thirty feet long across looked like an enormous turtle shell. It connected to another passage out on the other side.

“We can let them go?”

“Sure, just somebody gets on the other side to catch and get everybody together again to go into the falls when we’re ready.”

She smiled and gave them the gift, knowing what was going to happen.

She slid to the other side of the domed shell-like floor and hung out on the other side, looking around. Then the teachers and parents tried it, and they slipped everywhere. Parents went down, and kids slipped and slid left and right.

Jake and Cable were crying and sliding around, holding onto each other. Everyone was sliding down to the outer edges.

They climbed and slid and eventually grabbed onto the handrails around the outside, and started dragging their way to the other side.

Alice fell and, sliding slowly on her shoes. Janet slid out, almost skating across the slippery shell. She nabbed Alice and brought her back, then went to get two more off of the side.

Now that it was over, they laughed and screamed about it.

There was a thump and a crash above them. Something scraped its way through a crack near the ceiling. A shadow obscured one of the green lights.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That shadow!”

“I don’t think he’s found us yet.”

She led them around, and into a section of a tall cave that was about twenty feet tall. Bats crawled on the ceiling, which got the kids yelling. They were echoing all over the place.

Another shadow flew across one of the magenta floodlights. Janet could tell which one. While everyone was looking at the ceiling for something, what was making the shadows was already clacking, and nearby. Behind them. It clawed and rumbled around.

“Where is it?” Everyone looked up.

Steam jetted their feet, and an old fog machine with an air puffer blew into the area. It made them all jump. Kids tried to spill over the sides. The parents grabbed and tugged, trying to keep everyone reined in.

Janet grabbed Cable by the belt. He turned around, and Janet looked him in the face. “Cheap tricks, lights, fog machine. All on timers, kid. He ‘invades’ every time we bring folks on this trek.”

He was out of breath, panicked, and sweating. “For sure?” He managed.

“Every time. I do this tour five, six times a day.”

“Okay.” He started getting himself together.

He straightened his shirt, pulled up his pants, and smacked a couple of his friends, telling them to be cool. They gathered in the middle, hearing their teachers now,

There was a crack. Rocks fell. Kids jumped. They screamed, and then the creature dropped from the ceiling and landed in the middle of them all.

Fire-breathing rabbits leap through a city, setting buildings and cars ablaze. A mother shields her daughter as a rabbit breathes fire from atop a burning vehicle, while government agents observe the destruction.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 6

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
Buy Yours Here:
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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

The kids in the jumping house didn’t know what hit them. They were in there, jumping inside the head of an enormous clown. Mike and Destin could see them through the eyes as the bunnies converged upon it. They bounded up, and up through the nose of the clown, jumped into the giant clown’s face, and were inside it.

The kids were jumping, and then they were surrounded by fluffy red bunny rabbits jumping with them.

Destin and Mike stopped.

Mr. Phillips looked another way. “They’re in the popcorn maker,” he said. Destin and Mr. Phillips looked at each other, nodded and then Mr. Phillips ran toward the popcorn maker.

The bunnies in the jumping clown jumped with the kids. There was a crowd forming around it, and the bunnies copied the kids, jumping into the air, and then landing on their backs with their legs splayed out.

“I’m going in,” said Mike.

“No, Mike,” said Destin, but he was already climbing through the nose.

He pushed himself in, and wiggled his way through one of the inflated nostrils, and popped through into the mass of kids and bunnies all bouncing around. The bunnies started hopping even faster, and soon they began trying all kinds of different tricks, bouncing off the floor, and the walls, this way and that.

Mike grabbed for one, was it his?

It eluded him and slipped free towards another kid. Then he rolled to the left and tried to grab another bunny, but that slipped free of him and started bouncing between the floor and the ceiling of the big domed inflatable. Mike counted there were seven or eight bunnies in the jumping playhouse and six or eight kids. Things were moving around a lot.

“Mike!” said Destin. He pressed his face against the plastic see-through eyes of the inflatable.

Mike was jumping with the rabbits. They surrounded him and we’re jumping in a circle around him. Together, all at the same time, the rabbits began jumping as one. Mike would go up while they were going down. He’d take a big leap, and they would take a bigger leap. He’d go up four feet, and land on his feet, bending his knees to clear a higher jump, and they would do the same, but they’d put the power of their rabbity back legs into it and jump even higher, almost holding hands in a circle around him.

To Destin’s left, the popcorn maker exploded. Fire shot from the rabbits who were climbing in it and the popcorn was popping in the tin before it normally would have been ready.

Popcorn was everywhere.

People started to run, and it was while Destin was looking away from that the rabbits surrounding Mike all turned around and started breathing fire onto the walls of the bouncy clown. The plastic melted, burned, peeled away, and soon they were bouncing in an open area surrounded by melted plastic walls. The side blew out, and the bunnies all left Mike behind and bounced out of the playhouse and over the heads of the people gathered around.

Mike caught up with his dad and they ran for it.

Mr. Phillips brushed the popcorn off his body. He stumbled back into a booth for drinking birds and little water toys.

It was like a wave. Little red rabbits bounding through the expo, leaving a trail of fire and destruction in their wake.

Outside, the van pulled up, and Mr. Red and Mr. Green stepped out of it. They sauntered into the Expo, and took notes, holding their phones to their faces and speaking into them.

“Minor damage, here at the School Science Expo. The bunnies are definitely here, or at least, they were,” said Mr. Green.

“Evidence suggests that their numbers are growing. They’ll double soon,” said Mr. Red.

“They can do that?”

“According to the lab, they can do a lot of things.”

“Sir, were you a witness?” said Mr. Green.

Destin turned, and he and Mike were face to face with Mr. Green.

“I should think so,” said Destin. “They’ve been all over town this morning.”

Mike looked up at his father, who was casually talking about the rabbits now.

“You seem to know a good bit then,” said Mr. Green.

“One snuck into my class materials this morning.”

“And into my backpack on the way to school,” said Mike.

Mr. Green turned and knelt down to talk to Mike. “You say on your way to school then?”

“Yeah, these rabbits were all over our neighborhood.”

Mr. Green looked up, “Your son sir?”

“Yep, he’s mine,” said Destin.

“You’ve got a smart boy there Mr. Kelly.”

“How did you—“

“Know your name? We’ve met before. Probably will again. You get in a lot of trouble scientifically speaking.”

“Do I then?”

“You have no idea.”

“Is my dad a secret agent?” asked Mike.

“Kid, your father has helped us more times than he knows.”

Mr. Green winked, and gave a short salute, and said “Mr. Kelly, we’ll be in touch later,” then he and Mr. Red were sweeping from the room, tracking the rabbits as they went.

“I wonder what all that was about?” said Destin.

“Dad, you’re a superhero!”

“Of course, I am.”

Maria waited in line, the car idling while she was waiting for Annie to come out of her preschool class. The sun was hot, and she was waiting in a spot where the sun was just hitting her in the face between the visor and the rearview mirror where you could only block it by craning your neck around in just the wrong way. She took off her sunglasses and, squinted then put them back on.

The doors opened, and children began to spill out, heading for various cars when one of them was knocked over by a high jumping rabbit and went sprawling to the ground.

One of Annie’s teachers shrieked and watched as another of the rabbits jumped up on Annie’s head and looked left and right, its fur as red as a radish.

Horns honked. Parents screamed. Car doors slammed and flew open, and then parents and kids ran different directions. Teachers closed their eyes and the rabbits ran everywhere. They were all over the place.

Maria jumped across the street and ran for the rabbits.

One jumped over the mailbox and kicked it on the way by.

Maria backhanded one jumping for her. It landed on the ground and rolled away, scampering under another car.

She kicked the one standing on Annie’s head.

It squealed and fell to the ground and then hopped into an open backpack.

Annie ran for her mother.

One of the rabbits cut loose and blew fire that destroyed a compact car. It exploded, the engine blowing the hood off. It landed several feet away.

Another rabbit jumped on the remains of a tree stump and roared like a lion, bearing its razor-sharp fangs before breathing fire.

Maria got Annie in the car while the rabbits were chasing the other children. She slammed Annie’s door, kicked another rabbit on the way to her door. She pulled her close and another rabbit landed on the hood of the car. It twitched its nose, scratched behind its ears, then its fur brightened up, then it roared and blew fire up over the car.

Maria hit the gas and peeled out. The rabbit flew up over the windshield and off the car. It landed on the street, shaking its head and blew another plume of flame as the cars around it screeched around them.

She hit the gas and peeled around the corner.

Another rabbit landed on the windshield and rolled down to the hood of the car. It bellowed and screeched, and blew fire into the air.

Annie screamed in the back seat.

Maria pulled hard right, and the rabbit rolled off the car, landing in a bush by the side of the road.

“Where are these things coming from?”

Annie got quiet.

“Annie?”

“Mom…”

Maria turned around. One of them was in the back seat. Then she saw two. She pulled the car to a stop and flung open the doors.

One rabbit gave her a look and darted out of the car. The other looked up at her, blinking in the sun. She grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and hurled it away from the car. It spun in the air and spewed flame as it went before landing on the ground thirty feet away.

She jumped back in the car and turned on the radio.

“The science expo was the scene of chaos today as what appeared to be fire-breathing rabbits overran it and took down some of the larger booths. The so-named Mr. Science had this to say. ‘Mutated rabbits, I’ve never seen anything like it before. They were everywhere.’ Most of the booths are now lost to the flame. The fire department has been on the scene. Most of the booths are a complete loss.”

“Destin,” she said. She had her phone out and was dialing his number before she knew what she was doing.

He answered.

“Destin!”

“We’re all right,” said Destin.

“And Mike?”

“I’ve got him here with me.”

“Did you see it?”

“Yeah, we saw it. Fire breathing rabbits. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“They’re all over town. I just threw one out of the car.”

“It’s odd,” he said. “I don’t think they are that harmful.”

“What? They burned down the science expo!”

“I know, I know, but they were almost playing the whole time.”

“They are little monsters!”

Destin exchanged a glance with Mike.

“I know, I know.”

“What are we going to do about them?”

“We? I don’t know.”

“Think about it. Where are you?”

“We’re a couple of blocks from the expo now. We are on a bus back to Eagle Lake Middle School. I’m taking Mike back there with me instead of sending him back to his school. Worked it out with his teacher Phillips.”

“Good.”

“I think these little guys are fascinating. Had one in class this morning.”

“You what?”

“Had one in class. Found it on the way in. They’re almost docile.”

“Except when they are trying to blow something up.”

“True, and I ran into some of those crazy government guys again.”

“The agent guys?”

“Yeah, Mr. Green, Mr. Red. Funny names, like they are men in black or something. They thought they knew something.”

“Yeah, well I know something.”

“What?”

“I’m headed over to your school now.”

“We’re pulling around the corner now, we’ll beat you by a few minutes.”

“Just be ready to roll when I do get there. We are getting away from here as fast as possible.”

“We will.”

Destin hung up his cell phone. They were pulling around the cornerback to the school. It was already on fire.

A window burst in front of them, and a red, laughing, happy rabbit was there, spouting flame from its nostrils, then it ducked back in the building.

A dimly lit haunted house attraction, with eerie purple and green lighting. A skeletal figure in a top hat looms over a web-covered grand staircase. Nearby, a woman steps on a cracked crab-like shell, her face frozen in discomfort. A shadowy shopkeeper watches her from the darkness, eyes glowing.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 3

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
Buy Yours Here:
Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

“You’d think that all I ever do around here is ride the rides,” said Janet.

“It’s not like you sit on roller coasters all day or anything,” said Jeff.

They were standing in the front lobby of the Morbid Manor, a little haunted house ride, waiting in line. Everything around them was gray, purple, and covered in cobwebs. It was all a combination of cotton and candy floss sprayed with enough preservatives to make it inedible.

Janet kept her distance from Jeff in the dark. She was in control there, not him, and she was ready to let him have it if he made a move on her, which he never did.

They passed a line of electric candles that flickered as though they were real. It made her want one for her bathroom. They had them in the gift shop, but something always distracted her on the way out and she’d forget to pick one up. The light and subtle heat of the lamp underneath moved a flame-shaped mirror on a tiny balancing point, and that heat moving the little mirror, with lights bouncing off of it, looked remarkably realistic.

They passed by an old skull face. At least that’s what they called him after hours. It was a painting rendered in a combination of layers that faded from a human gentleman to skull-faced horror in a top hat. It was a matter of shifting lights, different layers of cloth, and eventually, a plain black light that rendered the effect, but Janet didn’t think about that.

He was warning them not to come into his home, about the curse and how you would find yourselves transformed into mindless zombies before you could escape.

Janet never listened to this speech. She knew the story, but only because she liked to come in here alone, and read all the plaques that were up every fifteen feet. The audio in this part of the ride, the queue line, was horrible enough as it was, and every time someone opened the front door to come into the indoor line, the noise from the outside blew the illusion.

They passed several wriggling tarantulas, each with eight green glowing eyes up on a shelf. They were essentially walking straight through the line. Few were in there at the moment, and they were stopping to look just at what they wanted.

“Old man Archibald’s jumping spiders,” said Jeff.

“I always thought of them as skull faces hunting spiders,” said Janet.

“Sure, makes sense.”

They passed by an enormous fireplace with a rear-projected fire crackling in it. There was a space heater and some sound effects to go with it, but it only meant that they were about to get in.

She thought for just a second; she was sure the video of the fire was something else strange you could get in the gift shop on the way out, but a moment later, when they both stood in front of the fake fireplace, it was all wiped from her mind as the floor turned, with them and the fireplace and they found themselves on the other side of the secret panel.

She let out a brief scream, but it was always the suddenness and not the actual fright that elicited such a reaction as they turned around.

“I always wonder how handicapped folks get in here,” said Janet.

“There’s a bypass around the fireplace a few more feet down.”

“I like this way, though.”

“Me too.”

“Care for a ride through the manor?” said the humpback.

“What?” said Jeff.

They looked up. It was Phil. There’s something wrong with knowing everyone’s name all the time. He was one of three or four others we could see aiding folks in getting on the slowly moving cars, headed into the manor.

“This way, this way,” said Phil, the hunchback. We dressed him in gray, and lighter gray, and had a huge bulbous hump on his left shoulder under his costume. The others all had matching gray outfits and humps, no matter how tall or short they were. Two of them were ladies who were having a blast scaring kids as they helped them on board.

Phil led us to a car, crawling on its track, and took us each by the hand and helped us in. The cars were black but painted with purple fluorescent paint so you could see it in the black lights. Each car was a little different, but there were slight variations on convertibles with the top down.

Jeff slid in first, then Janet. “I want to drive.” He laughed and slid over. She got behind the wheel and acted like she was driving.

“Goodbye then,” said Phil, the hunchback. “Have a nice parish, and welcome to ghoul life,” he said, waving behind them as they turned the corner and into the ride.

Everything went dark. The car’s headlights illuminated all you could see ahead, and they weren’t doing much beyond pointing at the dark, and then slowly details appeared one by one. A corner of a ceiling, a bat, an ornate chair thumping back and forth like someone invisible must sit in it.

The first spider flew over them. This was the master’s training ground. A man stood, with a skull face, in full formal wear with a top hat and whip, and snapped it sharply. It flailed out and spiders jumped over them. Janet hung out, while Jeff ducked.

“Amusing, you still duck.”

“Call me a…”

“You rarely ride this, do you?”

“Can’t say I get in it often.”

A green glowing spider jumped down in front of them, then they spun around a hundred and eighty degrees quickly for another one to fall behind them. They swerved back.

They could hear the tire screech of tires that weren’t there, and it always smelled like burning rubber here to Janet. She wondered if folks burned rubber under the track so we’re somewhere they could smell it,

They turned a tight corner; it looked like the house was in the distance. The skull-faced man stiffly stood on a hill directing his hunting spiders. One of them jumped at the car with a jet from a fog machine and some misdirection, a projection of a werewolf on a hill on the other side of the car.

Jeff screamed and almost stood up.

Janet pulled him down just as the swinging axes slid above them like Great pendulums.

“I hate this ride.”

“It’s okay. Just a ride. Nothing can touch you.”

“I know, it’s stupid. I just get wired up.”

They turned a corner and went back into the house again.

“I once rode this thing trying to read a book instead of paying attention.”

“What book?”

“Why does everyone ask me that? I don’t know. It was some kind of horrible thing. I was trying to see if there were enough black lights on to light up the pages enough to read.”

“Did it work?”

A ghoul popped up behind Jeff for a jump scare. Jeff screamed, and Janet laughed, then quickly composed herself.

“Not really. You’d think there would be, but there’s not. It didn’t stop me from trying half a dozen times or more, though. I have done audiobooks on my phone. That’s fun.”

“I’ll bet this place is good for rock music, too.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

They passed under the great dining hall. There was a clear glass ceiling with the ghostly apparitions of twelve ladies all there to see a single young and wealthy man, old skull-face before he became an undead monster. He had a pet spider he was very proud of. It acted like a loyal puppy, but was still a furry beast the size of his outstretched hand. He’s been hiding it in his jacket.

The ladies there to see him, certainly each hoping for an invitation to court, scattered. They grabbed knives. They grabbed axes. There were guns mounted on his wall. They turned them, first on the spider, which was too fast for them, and a moment later they found out he had more of them at his call. They turned their weapons on him.

Then they set the place on fire and ran.

Each lady ran in a different direction.

Everything was dark.

The spiders swarmed over their master, biting him repeatedly.

The house rose, first in fiery red, then in cool blues and ghostly purples. Then the gentleman, old skull face, rose out of the rubble of the house. He flew up and called the spiders to him with his mind.

Then the car turned a quick corner, and they could hear him laughing. The next hall was a continuous stream of large paintings, each one depicting how he tracked down and killed each woman who did this to him.

In the end, they came to a vast mirror where first they saw themselves, then themselves as ghoulish demons, and then themselves as ghoulish demons covered in attack spiders.

“You’re all right, you’re all right,” said Phil, the hunchback as he helped them from the car.

“See you, Phil,” said Janet.

The hunchback waved back to her, then continued helping more people on board.

They came out to the sunlight streaming into the spooky gift shop. Magic tricks and spooky neck ties covered in a spider motif surrounded them. All the paintings were there, as were the toy cars of the ride vehicles.

Pins, umbrellas with the glowing spider on them, crystal balls, as well as crystal balls with floating spiders in them, ones that were snow globes with black glitter inside over a version of the house, complete with the wacky skull-face riding out with his spiders on one side.

Janet looked and looked, but forgot again what she was looking for, and quickly made her way toward the door where the smells of freshly made cotton candy and popcorn were drawing her back out of the attraction.

On her way out the door, one step down from the floor of the shop, Janet heard a crunch. It was the shell of something. It stopped her.

“Looks like a crab leg,” said Jeff. “Just a shell, but that’s pretty big.”

It was pink food. Someone nearby must sell it. She stepped back out of it though like she’d squished a big bug. She wouldn’t look at it.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, just don’t like shellfish. That’s all.”

“Come on, it’s just a shell.”

“Right. It’s just a shell.”

She tossed it into a trash can, then carefully, without a look back, she dragged Jeff down to a ring-toss game and started asking him for the owl, which was the biggest thing they had. About halfway to the owl, they never got there. She made the mistake of looking back and there was the shopkeeper, still watching her. The man looked like a ghoul. He was in a lot of makeup. His eyes lit up in the dark as he stared at her.

He kept his gaze for a moment and then retreated into the shop to help a young girl and her mother with a creepy dress for Halloween. They had one for each of the twelve.

While he wasn’t looking, she grabbed Jeff’s hand. “I’d like to leave now.”

“Now? I’m halfway there.”

“Please? Take me home.”

“Sure.” He took the smaller prize, which was a glowing hunting spider. He tried to give it to her, but she kept giving it back.

“You want to go back to Blueberry Falls or…”

“On home. No. I guess I’ve got another couple of tours today. “

He led her back around to blueberry falls, which were built up as if they might be deep in the nearby rock where the rest of the park stood.

“Janet, you ready for a tour? I got two backed up here now.”

“I got it, Mr. Smith. Let me get my ranger’s hat.”