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 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.
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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!

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.
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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:
Amazon - Books2Read

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.”

A group of fire-breathing rabbits gathers in a science expo, their glowing eyes and fiery breath setting booths ablaze. People flee in panic while a young boy and his father stand in stunned amazement.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 5

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 rabbits were on the move. They snuck between the buildings. They romped through the bushes, and they stayed out of sight for the most part, but when they were obvious, they were really obvious, and people were reporting sightings all over the place.

“911 emergency… Rabbits Miss?” they would say.

“Really, red rabbits hopping down the street? A whole pack of them? Yes, I’ve got that noted here. Can jump ten feet, can they? I’ll mark that down as well. Where are they? I see.”

They’d type into their computers and ask “Were they dark red or just sort of pink?” and that would get a laugh sometimes if a nervous one.

In the control van, Mrs. Orange was cranking up the engine, and Prof. Blue was feeding all that data into his computer.

“Where are they headed?” said Mr. Green.

“It looks like there is a kid’s science expo down at the Free Town Convention Center. It looks like they are headed that way.”

The buses idled by the street in front of the Kid’s Science Expo, all thirty-seven or more of them. Behind them in the parking lot, there was a sea of yellow buses. Kids were everywhere. Some students stood in lines, getting directions from their teachers while others were in circles talking.

Mr. Phillips and Mike stepped off their bus. They only had a few other students with them. The rabbit rode in, tucked into Mike’s backpack.

Mike’s backpack started to twitch. Mike checked on him. The rabbit was no longer sleeping, but standing at attention, and looking around, like it was listening to the air, or smelling the hot dog carts that were way down the street. Its ears were like little radars, working independent of each other, and taking in as much as possible around them.

They walked through the crowd.

“How are we going to find your Dad?” said Mr. Phillips.

“Don’t worry. He’s got a big crowd.”

“Keep an eye out anyway.”

They made their way to the front entrance. Inside there were lines of tables, rows, and rows where all kinds of experiments both for and my kids were on display. Lots of kits. Everything from hydroponic gardening to raising tadpoles was here. Over in the corner, someone was beating on the bottom of a trashcan that was fitted with a plastic sheet on one end with a hole cut in the bottom, sending large smoke rings across the room.

At the center of the expo was a carrot. It was massive, some fifteen feet tall, and standing on end, the larger end floating above them, supported by cables. It was surrounded by kids, all reaching out to touch it. In front of it, were the kids who grew it, and a lady handing out baby carrot snack bags.

There were twisty drinking birds, potato clocks, robots made out of tin cans, sparklers, and piles and piles of books and workbooks. In the middle of the trading floor was a giant jungle gym where teenagers were clipping into a rope and following it through an obstacle course, that went up into the air above the rest of the exhibits. There were a bunch of kids up in it at the top looking down at everyone coming through the door and waving at them. Near the back, someone was high-dive jumping, next to two or three jumping houses, one of which was shaped like a gigantic whale and one of them was shaped like a giant clown’s head. You could see kids inside bouncing up and down by looking through the large clear eyes.

Mike couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but he thought that maybe it was places like this that helped his Dad keep the attention of his students so well.

They walked the isles, looking at plant systems and fish tanks, through stacks and stacks of books and in and out of one exhibit after another. Mr. Phillips was on high alert, missing the fun for looking for Destin, and Destin was doing the same as he led his troop through the other end of the gallery.

No one was showing rabbits doing anything out of the ordinary.

Destin allowed his students, who were younger and all planned to meet their parents here at the end of the day instead of returning on the bus, to split up and look at whatever it was they wanted to. Many stayed with him on the off chance they might see the rabbit fire it up again, but just as many were ready and willing to escape from their teacher for the afternoon with the expectation that they would tell the class the following Monday what they had seen.

They were wandering the aisles, and looking here and there when Mike thought to text his father.

Destin’s phone buzzed in his pocket, he looked at it.

“Meet us by the Mr. Science booth,” it said.

Behind him was a huge display of giant, oversized carrots, each as large as a child. They were stood up on end and had little lights shining down on them.

Destin looked around, then he texted back a quick “OK.” He turned the corner, his students still with him, and saw the Mr. Science booth. It was tall and black, covered with green lettering, and complex-looking equations. In front of it was Mr. Science himself, who was in life an actor who hosted children’s television shows. He had a bunch of kids gathered in front of him while he showed off a pair of large plasma balls.

The lighting inside of them was bright purple and zapping from the center to the glass spheres as he ran his hands over them. The kids were in awe, but happy to start pawing the plasma balls on their own while he explained the principals going on inside.

Mike and Mr. Phillips were standing to the left of the crowd as Destin came up.

“Hello there,” said Destin. He ruffled Mike’s hair.

“Hi Dad.”

“Hello Mr. Kelly,” said Mr. Phillips.

“Hello Mac,” said Destin.

Mr. Phillips laughed. “Destin,” he said.

“Got your rabbit?”

“I feel like I’m doing something illegal or something.”

“I know. Doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“Not a lot. Fire breathing rabbits.”

“I love science.”

Mike felt it in his backpack, the rabbit was twitching.

“Hey,” said Mike. It’s moving.

“Mine is too,” said Destin. “I can feel him in there,”

Destin’s box shook and fell to the floor. Destin grabbed for it and pulled it back up. Mr. Phillips helped him hold it up.

“This one looks just like Mike’s,” said Mr. Phillips.

“I thought he might.”

In the corners of the expo, the rabbits were finding their way in. One of them slipped in through the back door while a trucker was offloading something for a big banquet that was going to happen later that night. Another one made his way in through one of the back doors of the expo, next to the concession stand as someone was coming from taking a quick break. Several more came in through the front door. Whenever anyone saw them, they would stand as still as possible until the person’s eyes just passed over them, then they would move on. In this way, they crept through the expo, hiding behind displays, near stacks of books, and in plain sight until they were all congregated around the Mr. Science booth.

Their fur was deep, dark and red with the occasional darker patch. They hopped together in an open space on the trading floor. Destin’s box shook again, and the rabbit freed itself scurrying out to the gathering of rabbits as Mike’s did the same, tearing itself out of the bag, and out into the floor with the rest of them.

“Woah!” said Mike. “Come back here!”

Mike went to grab for his rabbit, but Destin held him back.

“Dad!”

“Hang on, son.”

“But…”

“This might be interesting, watch.”

The rabbits gathered into a circle and began to stamp their feet in unison. Everyone around them stopped talking. Mr. Science stopped talking. People started to back up, but they also started to crowd around which created this concentrated circle of people about twenty feet away from the rabbits.

There were about ten of them there, including Mike and Destin’s rabbits. All around them, people started to hoot and grunt, as more rabbits were jumping into the crowd, hitting people in the legs, jumping up on their shoulders, and then out into the circle with the rest of the rabbits, then the pattern changed. Instead of a steady beat, the rhythm changed up, and the rabbits began to thump out a soft pattering song.

“What are they doing?” said Mr. Phillips.

“That!” said Mike, as the first one belched a stream of fire into the air, and the rest of them began to follow suit.

The crowd parted as the rabbits began to breathe fire and reign down terror in the middle of the expo. Rabbits jumped and blew scorching tongues of flame across the exhibits. They tickled each other and punched and seemed to giggle. They jumped up and down and punched their little fists in the air, and gave each other hugs, and then ran around in circles jumping over each other and running this way and that, blowing fire on a plant here, setting fire to a stack of books there, and having a great time with it all before concentrating together to take the Mr. Science booth down together in a towering inferno of flame.

Mr. Science jumped out of the way, doing a kind of a crazy cartwheel off his own stage. Mike could hear him saying “Is anybody getting this on film?”

About five hands shot up around them, each a person experiencing their life through applications on their cell phone rather than with their own eyes. Some of them were dangerously closer to the rabbits than they realized. Some sensible folks were actually screaming and running for their lives.

Mr. Science cartwheeled away from another onslaught of bunny firepower saying “Send me your video links later through your favorite social media sites!”

“Bunnies!” he yelled as they finished torching his booth to the ground. The plasma balls tipped over and exploded when they hit the concrete floor. Then the rabbits split up.

There was a gasp from the crowd.

People split apart from each other as the rabbits started bounding in all directions. One jumped upon a man’s head, then catapulted itself onto another woman, jumping from head to head. Others scurried underfoot, knocking people over and tripping them up.

“Red bunnies!” said one lady.

“Fire breathing rabbits!” said another.

“Of doom!” said someone else.

The rabbits ran through the other exhibits, setting everything on fire left and right. People not so much, but things in general, lots of paper and posters and signs went down, and not for lack of trying, it didn’t spread that far. Most displays landed on concrete floors and went out. That’s not to say that the initial blaze itself wasn’t spectacular, which it was. Destin and Mike watched as they fanned out across the expo floor from one booth to another, jumping up to stand on people’s heads, chasing each other, and setting things ablaze.

“Where are they going?” said Mike.

“I don’t know,” said Destin, “but we’ve got to catch them!”

“Which way?”

“Anyway! Do you know which way yours went?”

“I don’t know, this way?”

Mike pointed over towards where the jumping houses were.

“Let’s go then! Lead on!”

A high-speed roller coaster twists through a dark indoor amusement park ride, illuminated by eerie black lights. On an overhead maintenance bridge, a shadowy figure watches unnoticed. Below, riders scream, oblivious to the lurking presence. Sparks from the tracks light up the darkness, adding to the unsettling atmosphere.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 2

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?

“How’s the Falls?” asked Mike. He and Janet entered a queue line. The sign above them said the Blue Tornado. The air was full of the smell of caramel popcorn and cotton candy stands where the machines had been running too long.

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“That bad?”

“It’s just… the caves are fine. The falls are pumping as they should. It looks beautiful, like always.”

“Your cave features are better than Ruby Falls.”

“At least those are real.”

“Yours isn’t?”

“You’re kidding. You know the elevator is fake, right? Tell me you aren’t that dense, Mike.”

“Okay. You know, though, I always feel like the presentation at Blueberry Falls was much better than anyone else’s, especially yours.”

“Stop it.”

They turned a corner in the queue, which was lined on the left and the right with metal bars that were painted red.

“I always thought they ought to paint these blue, maybe yellow or something, but never red,” said Mike.

“I mean, it’s the Blue Tornado, right?”

“I know. There was trouble with it earlier in the week.”

“I never heard that. What happened?”

“Well, I heard it was having a hard time launching twice, and then I heard one group got stuck half upside down in the corkscrew. Can you believe that?”

“I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it, that’s all. The Blue Thunder…”

“Tornado.”

“It’s practically built on top of Blueberry Falls.”

“Yeah.”

“Stuck in the corkscrew, though. That’s got to be tough.”

“They were there for forty-five minutes, hanging there by their shoulder straps, looking at the concrete floor. They had to turn on the lights.”

“Oh, that breaks the whole look.”

“I know.”

They found the rest of the line. Stepping behind a few folks, still a couple of bends away from the loading zone. There was a little trash here and there. Someone in line ahead of them was dropping candy wrappers. The two ahead of them were soaked, probably off of one of the water rides, but mainly they smelled like sweat and too much sunscreen.

“How’d they get them down?” said Janet.

“They got in there behind it with a car that was working, took the breaks off the first one, and nudged it in.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Mike, you’re full of it.”

“I know, but you still love me.”

“Mike.”

“What? You’ve got another guy you aren’t telling me about?”

He was smiling, but Janet could tell.

“Not seeing anyone right now. Not like that.”

“I keep telling you that you could do better than me, anyway. Tour guide and a burger flipper. You’re going to get out of this theme park one day.”

“What, and you’re not?” She punched him on the shoulder. “Just because your dad runs the front office doesn’t mean…”

“That I will? It does.”

“You were always better than me in school.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“I thought…”

“High school was a joke. Besides, you don’t see me in college, do you? I’m still here running the food stand, and I do most of the cooking on the busy nights, too.”

“Yeah, your Fridays and Saturdays are toast, aren’t they?”

“Pretty much.”

They stepped up again. The two sweaty folks tried to whip each other with little rags they were using to mop up their sweat.

The lights flickered,

“What was that?”

“Geez, Janet. The lights.”

“No, stupid, why?”

“Ah, that is a better question.”

It did it again.

People were sitting on the hand bars ahead of them, goofing off, and jumping down. It looked to Janet like a whole train-full gap ahead of them in life had just moved. They followed as the others brought up the slack.

“Seriously Janet. What do you want to do after wonderland here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you run off to college?”

“Money. It’s all money.”

“Not going to get it here.”

“You know it.”

She turned the corner. They were in the home stretch now, and she and Mike could see the loading platform. A bunch of people got off. They pushed at shoulder harnesses made of steel and rubber that cone down over your neck, shoulders, and chest, and clambered out, headed for the exit towards the gift shop.

“You always exit at the gift shop,” said Mike.

“Always.”

“I think it’s the only way any of these things make a dime, do they?”

“Heck, I never figured out how anybody can afford to build a coaster like this.”

“You ought to design coasters.”

“You know I’ve thought about that.”

They got to the end where the line roped back.

 “Next train, Janet,” said the operator.

“Thanks, Jeff,” she said.

“Jeff?”

“So I ride it during every lunch break, okay?”

“Right.”

Jeff waved, then winked to Janet after securing folks into seats and starting the coaster rolling. It tumbled around a corner, got lined up, and pointed towards a bog circular hole that took it into the building properly. Here they were undercover, just as the queue was, but this coaster was all indoors. After a brief countdown and lots of screaming, the coaster screamed into the building at incredible speed and, once inside and into its first loop.

Once the noise died down, she looked at Mike. “Animals.”

“What?”

“I want to help animals. I was thinking about transferring to the zoo side and getting in with the vets.”

“You want that?”

“I don’t know. You think your sad friend could help us get in over there?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

The next train pulled in, and a separate group of people disembarked.

“I guess they are doing two trains today.”

“I want you to ask him for me. For me.”

She kissed him on the cheek, lightly enough, then took his hand and dragged him to the first car, and shoved him in.

She jumped in next to him, pulled the seatbelt tight, and then pulled the shoulder harness down about hers.

Jeff came by a moment later. “Hi Janet,” he said and checked their restraints. “Mike.”

“Dude,” said Mike.

“Be over for some sliders and fries later.”

Jeff went back to his station and started going through his countdown.

“I think he likes you,” she said.

“Get out.”

They rolled around the corner and in front of the launch zone. It was a circular cut into the building where the dark coaster was. The surrounding circle appeared in concentric orange, blue and yellow paint and a digital sign across the top said three… two… one… then the coaster launched on a magnetic track that took them from zero to forty-five miles an hour in four seconds.

They screamed as it dragged the train, rocketing, into the building and then right into a loop.

Everything was lit with black lights, glowing greens, pale blues, and unearthly oranges streaked all around them. Up a hill, and over it, Janet found a little airtime. They took a corner and into the second loop.

The second loop took them low, then up to the tallest hill in the place. They crested the hill and faced what everyone called the beast, but wasn’t really, it was just what the fluorescent paint looked like. Janet talked about it with friends all the time.

By her side, mine was talking, but she couldn’t hear him. All she could hear was the rock music being piped into the speakers by her ears. Then the wind started up.

Flashing lights crackled. Lightning images flashed on the walls. Wind machines picked up, to make this part in the dark feel faster than it was. Then they were rolling through a series of bunny hops that led into the corkscrew.

“Here it comes,” said Mike, but she didn’t hear him. She was looking too hard at a metal bridge. She only knew where it was because she’d seen this coaster with the lights on several times. Something was on the bridge. A shadow, a person, a something.

They went through the corkscrew, and while you’re going through the corkscrew, there’s no time for thinking. They rolled and rolled and rolled and then they were back out, blinded by the daylight.

The shoulder bars released, Janet popped their seat belt, and they pushed their way out. Jeff was there. He extended a hand and helped Janet and Mike.

“Pleasant ride?”

“The best,” said Mike.

“Janet?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“You okay?” said Jeff.

“You know it.”

She turned to Mike. “Burger?”

“No way!”

“Jeff?”

“Hey, still working!”

“Hey!”

“I’m teasing you, Shut up, Captain Tacos?”

She gave mike a high-five.

“Captain Tacos, yeah.”

“See y’all later,”

They waved and went down the ramp out of the ride, passing right by the burger station. It was a mini diner in chrome, with mostly indoor seating and some benches in front.

They headed up the hill to Captain Tacos. It was little more than a walk-up window, with some seating nearby in the sun, but it had the world-famous fried fish tacos, and Janet could eat there every day of her life and never tire of it.

They climbed the hill and came around where Smitty was sitting there cleaning something. He had a long red beard, and an eye patch, a black bandanna on his head.

Janet came up with Mike.

“Mike, what are you doing up here?” said Smitty.

“I gotta eat something else once in a while,”

“Okay, oh, it’s you, Janet. Need both eyes for a woman like you.”

He lifted his eye patch. Both his eyes were fine, crystal blue.

“I want…”

“Fish tacos?”

“You know it.”

“I got your fish tacos.”

“Order up,” said someone from the back, setting them on the counter.

“Here you go.”

She made a move to pay, but Smitty waved them off. “I got this one.”

“Thanks, Smitty.”

She picked hers up. Mike got his.

He lifted a finger, “just remember, world-famous.”

“Always.”

“See you later.” He waved them off.

They took their plates to a nearby bench that was shaped like a giant octopus. They took their seats in giant fiberglass tentacles.

“I hate this bench.”

“Shut up. I like it.”

“Animals, eh? That’s what you want?”

In the distance, an elephant trumpeted.

“I think so. I love taking care of them. Do you have any pets?”

“I got a dog, you?”

“What kind?”

“Sort of brown and black.”

“No, I mean breed.”

“Oh what? I think he’s a dachshund, maybe a mutt.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“You have pets?”

“Three tabby cats, two gray and one red, a corn snake, and a big Rottweiler. “

“Geez, a snake?”

“It’s the dog that’ll bite you. The corn snake is nothing. Easy care.”

“And you think you can keep up with an elephant? You know the first task, right? I knew Ryan before, he quit.”

“Went to college.”

“Whatever. It’s poop patrol.”

“I know.”

“Can you deal with that?”

“Are you afraid it won’t wash off?”

She laughed at him before he could say anything else.

“Yes.”

She laughed at him again, then started working on her tacos. They were fresh, never greasy, crisp yet tender. Every bite was good.

“I’m sorry,” he said as they were finishing up and throwing their trash away. “College isn’t stupid. Neither is following what you want to do. Just because I can’t…”

“Don’t worry about it, and if you want to, you can, no matter what your dad says about it or the burger place.”

“Not me, I…”

“Nothing. If you want it, you can do it.”

“Janet, did you see anything weird on the roller coaster?”

“No?”

“Never mind.”

A group of fiery rabbits leaps alongside a school bus as a teacher holds a glowing red rabbit on his shoulder. Inside the bus, students watch in amazement as the creatures keep pace with the vehicle.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 4

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!

As soon as it started, the spout of flame was over. The mirrors melted, but otherwise, nothing else was harmed, and Mr. Phillips pushed to stand up and brush himself off.

“What was that?” said Mr. Phillips, “Are you all right Mike?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Mike came out of the stall, with his backpack over one shoulder, and the bunny now calms again with white fur. Come to think of it, the red never seemed to show a feeling from the rabbit, though Mike felt it was safe to assume it wouldn’t breathe fire again anytime soon.

“What is that, and where did you get it?”

“I don’t know, I think they are all over the place.”

“Fire breathing rabbits?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s odd enough that it changes color, but the fact that it changes to white instead of brown or gray…”

“What?”

“I wonder if they were lab rabbits somewhere.”

“I don’t know.”

“So, I can’t take it away from you.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t know where to put it, besides no one else at the school is going to believe we have a fire-breathing rabbit.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I think we’re going to call your father over at the High School.”

Mike swallowed.

Mr. Phillips pulled out his smartphone and slid his finger across it to wake it up. He scrolled through his contacts to find Mike’s dad and hit the call button. A few moments later there was an answer.

“Yes, Mr. Phillips? I assume you have my boy there?”

“Yes, I’ve got him. We are having an interesting morning here.”

“Does it involve a fire-breathing rabbit?”

“How did you know that?”

“Helps that I happen to have one here in my classroom at the moment.”

“There’s more than one of these things?”

“Sure, are you also taking your kids to the science fair this afternoon?” said Destin.

“Yes, I was. I mean with this rabbit, and if there are more…”

“I’ll have my kids there this afternoon as well. Why don’t you make sure Mike is with you, and bring his rabbit with you? I’ll bring mine, and we can compare.”

There was a swooshing sound from Destin’s end of the line.

“Mr. Kelly?”

“No problem, he just did it again. It seems to be a bit of a cycle, right?”

“Right.”

“Put my son on will you?”

“Sure.”

Mr. Phillips handed his phone over to Mike.

“Dad?”

“Mike, you keep that rabbit, right?”

“Yeah!”

“I mean it, keep it safe. Don’t let anyone take it from you. I’ll be at the science thing later this afternoon when you are on your field trip with Mr. Phillips. I want to compare our rabbits and see if we can tell anything then, okay?”

“You got it.”

“Keep him in your backpack. If anyone gives you grief about it, tell them that it’s part of an experiment and that Mr. Phillips has said to keep it upper wraps.”

“Okay.”

“I think if you keep him in the dark, he won’t change. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You hear that Phillips?”

Mr. Phillips took the phone back from Mike. “Yeah, I got it. I’ll give him a pass.”

“That’s a start.”

“I want in on this,” said Phillips.

“Don’t you worry, I think there’s going to be enough of this to go around for all.”

“Sounds good.”

They hung up.

“All right Mike, let’s set you up with a pass.”

They went into the teacher’s lounge, and he wrote Mike out a pass. It instructed any teacher who wanted to see what was in his backpack, that Mr. Phillips was conducting an experiment with the boy, and that they’d better inform him before looking into it, also that he was to carry it with him wherever he went today, and that it’s to go with him to the science exhibit later that afternoon.

“Make sure you keep it in your backpack. If what your father thinks is true, that’ll keep him from breathing fire on us all over the place before we can get him out of the school.”

“I will.”

Mike took the note and was about to leave.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Let me give you another one for your first period. You’ll be late.”

“Thanks. What about your first period?”

“Those kids? They are too busy texting in there to notice that I haven’t made it in yet.”

Mike took the other note and took off for English.

Destin laughed with delight at his second-period class. The frogs lay on the table, forgotten while they played with the fire-breathing rabbit.

“Look here,” said Destin. He raised up a ball of paper, that he’d taken from one of the student’s notebooks and he held it up for the rabbit.

The rabbit trained its eye on the paper. Destin tossed it into the air, and at that moment, the rabbit spat a stream of fire that torched it. It disintegrated into a mass of light and flame that did not touch the ground.

For the first time in his career, Destin had the full attention of every student in his class.

“Mr. Kelly what is that!” they said.

“What indeed,” he said, as he came around the table to the other side.

“Quite an interesting specimen,” said Destin. “It’s a rabbit, but not. It looks like one, but it’s not. It has the ability to turn red.”

The rabbit flared its fur red, then back to white.

“It has the ability to stay rock-solid in the face of danger, or in front of us for that matter.”

The rabbit just stood there. It kept its eyes on Destin, but otherwise, it stood still.

“We ought to be chasing this rabbit all around the room, instead, it’s calm.”

Someone raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“Then why aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, but I imagine it has to be because it’s a lot surer of itself than we are right now.”

“Maybe it’s scared?”

“Does it look scared?”

Destin picked up the rabbit by the scruff of its neck and held it aloft. The rabbit just looked at him. No turning red, no breathing fire, just a white rabbit, maybe looking a little annoyed. He put the rabbit down, and it stood at the edge of his desk but did not jump off.

“It’s watching us,” said one of the kids.

“Interesting note, you just heard my call, so you know that my son Mike, a middle schooler also found one this morning. I suspect there may be others.”

“What do they want?” said one of the kids.

“Also a good question. I don’t know that either, but I can only suspect.”

“Suspect what?”

“I want to see what happens when I get two or more of them together. Anybody else?”

Everyone’s hand went up.

“Are you all going with me to the science exhibit this afternoon?”

All their hands went up again.

“Good. In that case, all I ask from you is that you don’t tell anyone else about him. No one says I have this rabbit in here, right?” They all agreed.

“No texts, no images posted to your favorite online sites, a blackout right? I’m not supposed to have him, so the fewer people know, the easier it will be for me to get him out of the school, right?”

Everyone just stared.

“Right?”

“Right!” they all said together.

“All right then.”

The bell rang, and everyone filed out. Destin prepared for his next group of kids. Fresh frogs went out to each station. If he had to, he would burn the frog and note that everyone had finished the assignment just fine. He needed to get out of the school with the rabbit intact.

He tucked the rabbit back into the box. It was still tranquil and compliant with everything he wanted to do. He waited for the next class to file in, and let them discover the rabbit again.

Similar results. Before the hour was over, he had another class of students swearing to help him get the rabbit out of the school to safety.

There were the regular guards near the front door, and the off-duty cop wandering the halls. That was all normal, but when you are heading out on a field trip people get a little antsy. The lives of the students are involved, but this was different. This time, Destin had contraband. How do you explain something like this? He tucked the fire-breathing rabbit under his arm, in its cardboard box. He chuckled at that. Cardboard. He did a facepalm and just shook it off with a smile, and had his kids line up. Not everyone was going to the science exhibit, but most of them were. He had two more classes from that afternoon that would be going as well, and they hadn’t seen the rabbit yet. Once he had all the students from his earlier classes lined up, and the rest of them sent off to other classes for the afternoon, he shut the door. It was quite a full house as he pulled out the rabbit to show the rest of them.

Everyone was now in on the big secret.

The rabbit, under careful petting of its soft white fur, turned deep red, with darker red patches again, the eyes lit up, and then fire! It erupted from the rabbit’s mouth like a sneeze went wrong. All they could do was applaud.

Back in the box, the rabbit calmed back down and turned white again, and they were out the door. The kids lined up, but there was no chance they were going to get left behind, every eye was on Mr. Kelly and the box. They turned the corners and came to the front of the school, and it was more like a dance.

Destin walked up to the officer, as they were about to check out of the school, and turned before getting to him. He swapped the box for a stack of papers from one of his students. It was a sign-up sheet for the field trip. He went over it with the officer, noting names, yes I have him, no, he’s sick today, yes I have him while another boy carried the box and the rabbit through the doors and onto the bus. The rabbit made its way back and forth through the kids until everyone was on board. Destin was the last to climb on.

“Where is he, kids?”

They pointed to a chair three rows back, where the rest of the boxed up experiments were piled up.

“There you are.”

Destin opened the box, and the rabbit’s ears popped out.

“Hello there.”

It jumped from the box, flat-footed, and landed on Destin’s shoulder.

“What’s that?” said the bus driver, who was getting the bus in gear.

“Just our mascot,” said Destin. “He’s part of one of the experiments.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have animals.”

“I’m a rule breaker. That’s true. Thought the kids would like to see something that was alive rather than another preserved frog.”

“Long as you know what you’re doing.”

The rabbit was alert, focused and laser-like as the bus pulled out, looking in all directions.

About halfway there, he turned bright red and became excited, jumping from kid to kid. Across the street, almost riding next to them, was a pack of four or five other rabbits, who sensing the other’s presence in the box, also turned red and started to leap in ten-foot bounds, keeping right up with them.

A dimly lit underground cave system, illuminated by eerie blue and orange lights. A group of tourists walks along a narrow path beside glowing pools, unaware of a towering shadowy figure lurking just beyond the light, its long claws scraping against the stone. Water drips as unseen eyes watch.

The Monster of Blueberry Falls, Chapter 1

Longevity and Other Stories
A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.
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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?

“My name is Janet,” she said, opening her arms wide to the twelve people gathered for her tour. They dressed in the standard tourist getup, sneakers, shorts, and probably too much hauled in various backpacks. A couple was old, some young, but they were all there for the same thing.

Janet wore black shorts and a safari shirt with a ranger hat. Thick chestnut hair fell around her shoulders. She wore boots up to her knees. She strapped one of them with a long knife.

“Thank you all for visiting blueberry falls. We’ll be descending in just when the elevator arrives to take us down.”

They stood in the space in the middle of the gift shop. Their elbows brushed the merchandise racks on the floor. Janet smiled, but kept her eyes on the elevator door, trying to will it to pick her up.

“I know it’s a little cramped up here. I’m sorry about that. It’s kind of like the coffee cups, magnets, and buttons that want you to buy them. After we get to the bottom and see the falls, you might just want one of those on the way out.”

A man with a fishing hat on humphed.

Her eyes flicked back to the elevator, but it still wasn’t budging.

She let out a sigh that she hoped no one saw. Let’s see, she thought.

In the front were five children.

“What are your names?”

“Ryan.” He had a bowl haircut or was that a ‘little boy haircut?’ and a striped shirt on.

“Colin.” He was a little blond boy, probably the shortest one there. Blue shirt with angry birds on it.

“Rachael.” She was wearing corduroy pants and a yellow shirt. She had two braided pigtails.

“Ted.” He said it so quickly. He wore black and red sneakers, but he held his elbows, trying to act like he didn’t want to be there.

“Missy.” She was thin, tall, and platinum blond. She wore thin sleek glasses that had a slight cat’s eye corner on them.

Behind them were seven adults, and Janet had zero idea about who belonged to who was there. She reached out with an open, non-threatening hand and swept through each of them.

“Harold,” was the older guy with the hat. He was looking at a birdhouse he didn’t want to put together later.

“Martin,” waved to her. His mustache hung down in huge furry bars on each side of his face. He tugged at his jeans jacket. It looked like he was looking for another patch to add to the back of it. He was fingering through several options.

“Sheila,” she waved, then quickly put her hands down, keeping them tightly together.

“Don,” said another. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.” He brushed his hair back. His eyes sparkled with darkness. What was up with this guy?

“Annie.” She looked at a cuckoo clock on the wall. It was about to strike ten o’clock. Janet wanted that elevator to arrive with the previous group soon, all this game stuff.. she blinked at the clocks herself.

“Robbie,” he was taller than anyone else. Janet wondered how he would do in the short spot. There were a couple of tight spaces. He waved. He was confident.

“Samantha,” she was wearing red overalls and a long sleeve black t-shirt, long bright, obnoxious pink hair down to her waist.

“Hi, Samantha. I think our elevator is almost here.”

“Why can’t we just go down on our own?” asked Martin.

“Well, it’s a guided tour. It is possible to get lost and on the wrong path down there. Besides, it’s down so far in the ground before it becomes walkable. Where all the cool stuff to look at is where stuff is lit up.”

Ding.

The doors from the elevator opened with a stutter. Sometimes they didn’t want to go all the way.

“Okay, Great, come on, folks. This way to the Blueberry Falls.”

Could we feel there first? She opened her arms and carefully guided her people toward the doors as the previous troop came back up. They passed right through Janet’s group, and right as the previous guide passed Janet, bumping her shoulder back while looking her in the eye, chaos ensued as every crazy clock on the wall started chiming. Three cell phones and the noise from ten cuckoo clocks, five Beatles commemorative clocks singing Hey Jude, and thirteen alarm clocks that lit up and appeared to spill water in an illusion from a pipe at the top designed to look like the falls all went off at once.

Janet couldn’t hear herself think.

Someone asked her a question, she thought, but she couldn’t hear it. What she said was “I’m sorry,” even if all the kids saw was lips moving. What she thought was a lot different.

The elevator was now clear and most of the last crew was out. She looked back at the other guide. He wasn’t looking at her. She called him names in her mind, closed her eyes, and waited for the noise to die down as the doors closed.

“Okay folks, here we go.”

Lights slid back and forth as they descended. It wasn’t like any actual lights or anything was sliding by, but we built them into the door, and Janet had long forgotten they were even there.

“Is it true there’s a monster?” said one kid.

“That’s bullshit,” said one adult.

“Excuse me,” said Janet. “There’s no truth to those rumors. There might be a raccoon or possibly a bear on certain levels, but not anywhere near where we are going.”

“No monster then?”

“Not unless you consider bats monsters, I guess.”

“Not really,” said one.

“Bats are boring,” said another.

“We’re getting close. Almost there. In the caves, you’ll see stalactites, stalagmites, and everything in between. We’ll pass several lit structures and lots of natural limestones, and if you’re smart, you might even notice where the old stairs are. We don’t use them anymore, except in times of emergency, but trust me, they are there.”

“Did you ever have to climb them?” said the guy with the mustache from heck.

“Yes sir, everyone on the team has to climb them once a year, and when they first start and lead groups up, when the elevator is out. You can purchase a ticket to climb down into the caverns on them if you’re interested. It’s an interesting tour, and you can see some things you don’t normally see.”

“Anyone ever take that?” said the guy in the angler’s hat.

“Rarely.”

The doors opened, and she took them out. “This is what we call the grand foyer.”

“It’s dark. Why do you call it that?”

The light slowly rose, and everyone could see. “As you can see, it’s four stories tall at this point and is a large area, big enough for tours and a great starting point. We can go in two directions from here, but I’ll be taking you this way today.”

The lights went down one path, slightly pink. “This way everyone.”

One kid, the girl with the pink hair, saw behind them at the side of the elevator a set of stairs, concrete, but stained so they blended in. It was lit up with exit signs here and there.

“If I was a monster. I’d sure hide down here. This would be the perfect place,” said Samantha.

“I assure you, the most interesting thing you’ll see there here might be a rat gone wrong, but since there’s not much food this far down for them, there’s little chance of that.”

They passed under an arch. Janet stepped them through a careful spot where the ceiling was only five feet high. Robbie put his hand up and felt the cave ceiling as they went through, and stooped. They could all tear up and hear the rush of water somewhere in the distance echoing through the caves.

“To your left, you’ll see Frankie’s elephant.”

One kid watched Janet hit a switch on a remote control that softly brought the lights up to the left. There was a bar on each side of the path so you couldn’t, or at least weren’t supposed to climb up there, but on a ledge, fourteen feet up was a formation of cave rock that resembled a large elephant, glowing with soft turquoise light.

Water dripped around.

“I could hide behind that if I was a monster,” said one of them in the darkness.

“I heard that. Yes, the creature hides in this series of caves to the right, behind us all the time,” said Janet.

She brought up big spots, and they all spun around to see a couple of caves about ten feet up with deep shadows.

“Don’t say that.”

“Nope, just people I guess, still no creature. Nothing.” She waved them forward. “Blueberry Falls this way, folks. We’re almost there.”

She led them through, around the corner, towards the falls in the distance. Once they’d all made it out of the room safely, the lights faded on the Great elephant. Then the blue lights faded on in the next chamber.

All was quiet.

The lights dimmed back down to the lights along the sides of the footpath. Soft orange.

Drip.

Drip.

Something landed on the floor in some footlights. It lived in shadow, and breathed like a ninja, barely whispering as it took huge breaths that took three minutes a piece. It was tall, dark, and scraped the floor ever-so-slightly as it clicked down the path and jumped into a side path like a rabbit.

“This way folks,” said Janet. “The tour is headed this way. Yes, right over here.” She mentally counted her twelve people as she brought them into reflecting pool number one. The path wound through the caves left and right. On the left and the right of the path were three feet of pool, lit with various underwater lamps. The bottom of the pool glittered with coins. Some of the twelve tossed in theirs. One of them complained as he did it.

“Tossing coins is, of course, not mandatory, but the luck of the caves will follow you home, or if you do.”

More coins splash into the fountain in the dark.

Somewhere it sounded like a foot

Somewhere it sounded like a foot splashed into the fountain.

“What was that?”

“This way folks, around the corner, we’re almost there,” said Janet.

“I thought I heard something,”

“A splash.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was down the hall, where the big falls are.”

“I thought it was behind us.”

“Daddy?”

A flock of bats came through, covering the noise of what Janet thought were more plunks in the water, to be sure.

Kids were screaming, but a second later it was over.

“This way, folks.”

Ten minutes later, having seen the falls, such as they were, the twelve left through the gift shop, not returning Janet’s smile as they passed the coffee cups, badges, and clocks behind.

She smiled and waved, trying not to be like her counterpart earlier, but they streamed out anyway, clearly all on their way somewhere else. She heard the words fudge shop and lunch before the whole place started chiming eleven o’clock and drove her out into the parking lot as well.

Glenda, behind the register, who hadn’t been able to hear for years anyway, just sat through it.

“Why do I always come up right then?” said Janet.

A white rabbit perches eerily on a playground seesaw as its fur turns deep red and its eyes glow with fire. A young girl watches in awe while other children remain unaware of the transformation.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 3

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!

It had been a while since Maria had been able to get out of the house on her own. Open roads, clear skies, all her people off at various schools. Annie’s child seat was empty.

She rolled down the window and let in what remained of the cool morning air. The radio was buzzing. Pop songs and news bites, and weather every few minutes. Something involving rabbits flitted by one station. No matter where she turned there seemed to be some kind of story involving rabbits.

“I don’t see what the bother is. You can see rabbits in the yard sometimes in the spring.”

She pulled off the road and lined up in the drive-through for the Dino Coffee. She could already smell it in the air. Across the street was a car wash that was usually busy, but today there was only a fire truck and an ambulance there. The lights were on.

“I wonder what happened over there?”

She pulled up a car length and smelled the coffee laden air. It filled her nostrils with the scent of cinnamon, and vanilla, and burning ash. She opened her eyes. Across the street, she could tell that the car wash was on fire. There was now a break in the roof, and smoke was streaming out of the building. Shortly another fire truck arrived.

Standing on its own by the street at the intersection was a single white rabbit.

She turned to look at the Dino Coffee menu, and when she looked back, it was gone.

“How can we help you?” said the voice over the speaker.

“I’m looking for a large mocha stegosaur with cream today,” said Maria.

“I’ll find you one, kill it and have it ready for you at the window, anything else I can get for you?”

“That’ll do it.”

“Thanks very much. See you there.”

Maria drove up to the window. Where did that rabbit go?

“I said that’ll be nine-fifty-three,” said Melissa, who was hanging out the window with her coffee. She was wearing a brown and green apron, a black shirt and a baseball hat with a foam rubber Tyrannosaurus Rex above the bill.

“I’m sorry, here you go, thanks, Melissa.”

“No problem, Mrs. Kelly.”

She took the drink. “Thank you much.”

She pulled away and almost ran over another rabbit who was crossing in front of her, streaking along like a dog.

“What is going on here?”

She pulled around the corner, to get out of the lot and saw three more escaping into the woods by the side of the road.

She sipped her coffee and carried on. Rabbits.

Annie was alone on the playground.

One of the swings was swinging in the breeze. There was a creek in the metal, and she could hear the old playground equipment grinding in the wind. There were other kids around, but no one was there with her. She sat, on a metal duck, with paint that was peeling off its left side, creeping back and forth when she saw the rabbit. It was standing on the edge of the seesaw, up high, with no one on the other side.

Shouldn’t the rabbit push it down?

It sat up there, hovering, and looking all around. No one else noticed it. They were all heading inside. Teachers were calling, but Annie didn’t hear them. Instead, she walked out to the rabbit, in slow steps.

It twitched, and she stopped like a statue.

In a moment, it hunkered down and she resumed, one slow step at a time. She was right upon it. It stood there, rubbing its little eyes and ears, then it looked up at her.

“Hi,” she said. “Can I pet you?”

“Annie,” called a teacher’s assistant. “Come on in, what is that, a rabbit?”

The rabbit looked up and sniffed the air. Its nose twitched like lightning. It looked around, saw the teacher’s assistant, and stood up on its hind feet.

Its eyes blazed, then its fur stood up and turned red with dark patches in a flash.

“Woah,” said Annie.

“Annie, come on back from that rabbit,” said the assistant.

Annie didn’t move.

“Annie, come on dear.”

Annie reached out. The rabbit’s fur was deep red, but it looked soft. She touched it and found that it was soft, warm and luxurious, silky. The rabbit turned and showed Annie its back. She scratched it between the ears.

“Annie!”

Annie turned, hearing the teacher.

The rabbit turned as well. Its eyes lit up like fire, and it screeched as its fur erupted in flame.

Annie fell to the ground and began to run for the teacher.

The rabbit jumped to the ground and ran through the playground, looking for a way out. It found a crack in the fence big enough to get through, and bolted for it, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. It pumped through the crack and shook like a dog trying to shake off the water, but instead shook off the flames that were hugging its body. It darted between trees, and into a line of bushes before the red color faded back to white. A few moments later it was calm, and looking for a nice cool place to hang out for a while.

“Are you all right?” said the teacher’s assistant as she pulled Annie up from the ground.

“It wasn’t going to hurt me!”

“Come on inside.”

“I said I was fine! It wasn’t going to hurt me!”

“I know, come on. Let’s get inside.”

They went in, and Annie sat down to play house with some of the other girls. One boy was there, more interested in hanging out with the girls than the guys.

She watched out the window, looking for it, but could only see the trail of burned grass it had left while it was running away.

While she was persuading the boy to do the dishes in the little kitchen, her father was opening the box in his science classroom.

“Let’s find out what’s in here,” said Destin.

He pulled up the flaps and found a round nest of shredded paper inside. He pulled it apart to find the rabbit down there hiding.

“Come on out. I won’t hurt you.”

He reached in and allowed the rabbit to sniff him a little. Then he curled his hand up under the rabbit’s belly and pulled him from the box. He made sure to support the rabbit’s body.

The rabbit allowed itself to be held, and after a moment seemed okay with it.

“Are you one of those rabbits we heard about on the news little guy?”

The kids were still banging at the door.

“Who’d have thought kids would want to get in here so badly today eh?” he said to the rabbit. He stepped over to the door and opened it.  “Come in, come in already,” he said to the kids.

“Mr. Kelly, you have a rabbit!” said one of them as they entered the room.

Destin looked down, jumped like he hadn’t realized he was holding anything at all and smiled at the kids. “So it appears I do. Now that is interesting, isn’t it?”

He tucked the rabbit, who seemed content to be held like this, under his arm and continued to teach that way.

The kids sat at large black tables, with two students to a table. On each Destin placed a preserved frog for dissection for each pair of kids. Most of the kids sat with their hands on the table for the first few minutes. Then they began to shake their fears and start to do the business at hand. Some did well. Others botched their frogs from stem to stern, but most were average, getting the job done, but not to perfection. One slipped and cut his frog’s legs completely off.

Destin didn’t tell them that the exercise was more of a test of nerves to see if the kids would do the project at all. As the hour was winding down, one of them, long finished with his frog went ahead and said it.

“So, what’s with the rabbit Mr. Kelly?”

“That, my young sir, is a good question.”

The rabbit jumped up to sit on the corner of its box, turned red, and then belched fire like a small dragon into the room.

Arriving at his own school, Mike ran to get away from one of the teachers. He already had a rabbit in his backpack and was ducking for cover to avoid his science teacher, who he knew he’d see later in the day. He ducked into the bathroom, passed the stalls to the last one, got in and bolted himself in.

He unzipped the pack, and there it stood. What was amazing to Mike was just how calm and still, it was, even after traveling around in his backpack like that.

“Hey, little buddy. You’re all right.”

He stroked its fur, which was soft and fluffy for such an ordinary white rabbit. He ran his fingers through the fur. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The fluffiest cat or a recently bathed and dried dog couldn’t compare, and then the red fur. It flashed from white to red, with darker patches that could be black, or maybe a dark crimson.

“Is this when you blow it?”

The rabbit sat still and then nuzzled Mike for some more scratches.

“Why do you turn red like that?”

Its eyes blazed.

Mike’s science teacher, Mr. Phillips, came into the bathroom.

“Mike, are you in here? We’re not just talking detention here you know. I just want to see the rabbit.”

Mike said nothing.

He stood frozen on the spot.

The rabbit’s ears perked up and zoned in on the sound of the approaching teacher.

“I know you’re in here. You may as well come out.”

The rabbit turned, now fixated on the approaching person.

Mike watched it seem to blink off all observation of anything else.

“What are you doing?” asked Mike.

“Mike, is that you?” said Mr. Phillips.

“Don’t come any closer,” said Mike. “I don’t think it’s ready yet.”

“It’s just a rabbit Mike, what harm could there be?”

The rabbit’s fur went from soft and deep red to blazing with a fiery light.

“I think you better hang back Mr. Phillips.”

Mr. Phillips reached Mike’s stall.

“Come on Mike, open up. I just want to see the bunny, right?”

“Okay, well you asked for it.”

Mike opened up the stall, releasing the little metal knob, and Mr. Phillips pulled the door open to see them.

The rabbit was blazing with fire. Smoke was starting to go everywhere. Its deep red fur glistened with fiery light, and its eyes blazed with white-hot fire.

“What the…” said Mr. Phillips as the rabbit spat forth a stream of dragon fire from its mouth.

Mr. Phillips hit the floor, and the shower of flame washed over him and melted the mirrors over the line of sinks.

Glowing white rabbits sprint through a suburban neighborhood while children on a passing school bus watch in amazement. The scene captures a mix of wonder and mystery as the rabbits race toward an unknown destination.

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 2

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

Mornings at the Kelly house were hectic, to say the least. To say that they were a whirlwind of disaster would be equally descriptive of them, but hectic is still a nice word that describes it all.

Lunches were packed. Maria, who had been up for an hour already, had seen to that. She always liked to get everything ready and then sit with a cup of coffee while all the chaos orbited around her. Bathrooms and pipes made noise as people started taking showers and getting dressed, and then bounding downstairs.

Dad was the first.

“Morning Destin.”

“Morning Maria.” He gave her a kiss and fixed his tie in the mirror of the powder room that was just off the kitchen. He had buttoned his shirt in the dark, and was one button off, giving him a zombie quality that he liked. He fixed his buttons, now aware of why his tie felt so strange.

“Are you eating this morning?” she asked.

“No, I’ve got to… wait. Yes,” he said.

“Good, then it’s a good thing yours is ready.” She dropped french toast onto the table, that Destin could see no evidence she had cooked. He sat down to eat it, throwing his tie over his left shoulder.

“Do your students ever see you do that?”

“What, the tie?”

She nodded.

“I suppose so. I’ve never thought of it.”

There was a bang upstairs.

“That’ll be Mike,” said Destin.

To his students, he was Mr. Kelly, but Destin was what he’d rather hear. He looked and noticed a big cardboard box he was planning to take today. A little something extra for the kids. He had no idea of course what he’d be smuggling inside that box today.

Soon kids were coming down the stairs. Mike, who was still in the 7th grade was first. He flew down, and passed his mom and dad, on his way through and out the door. He looked like he was dressing as he went. Shirt half on and shoes untied. He hopped along on one foot tying one shoe, and then on the other to do the same. He grabbed his backpack.

“Woah Tiger,” said his dad.

Mike blinked, almost unaware that his parents were sitting over there. He noticed the french toast and sat down to inhale it in one go. While he was working on that, his sister Annie ran down the stairs. She was still in preschool but was much neater and calmer than her brother. Her hair was braided in long auburn pigtails.

She sat down to breakfast.

“Dad, have you thought about it yet?” asked Mike.

“What?” Destin wiped something from his mouth.

“Getting a dog.”

“Oh, that. I don’t know. A pet is a huge responsibility. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I want a cat,” said Annie. “I thought we were getting a cat.”

“I think we were discussing what kind of pet to get at all,” said Maria. She sipped at her coffee.

“That’s right,” said Mike. “But I want a dog. Dogs are more fun than cats.”

“How do you know?” said Annie. “Cats are nice. They cuddle in your lap.”

“Some dogs will do that,” said Destin.

“It’s not the same,” said Annie.

“I can see we still have some thinking to do,” said Destin. “I’m taking everyone in today. I’ve got some extra things to take into school. I’m starting a new experiment with some of my High School kids.”

“Are you doing frogs today?” asked Maria.

“No, it’s something a little different. More of a demonstration.”

“I’m taking the bus,” said Mike.

“Are you sure? I can still take you,” said Destin.

“No, I’m all right.” Mike stood up.

“You haven’t finished your breakfast,” said Maria.

“I’ve had enough.”

Mike hugged his mom, and then took off out the door. The stop was up at the end of the street.

Destin packed his box up and took Annie by the hand. They stepped down into the garage and were soon backed out of the driveway and on their way.

Maria did the cleaning up. She was with Annie if anyone wanted to know, a cat would be nice. Then she thought about it for a little while longer and realized that what she’d always wanted was a snake. It was the kind of pet that no one in the house was just going to say yes to. She had always dreamed of doing something just a little dangerous. Something that she could show the other moms and scare them with just a little bit.

“Go, team,” she said.

Out the back window, she could see them romping through the yard, three white rabbits, like streaks of light in the early morning light. They bounded through like they were on fire.

“I’ve never seen rabbits like that in the yard. Shouldn’t they be brown? Maybe they are from Eagle Lake Labs, up the hill?” She turned and lost herself in the cleanup they had all left behind for her.

Mike hopped on his bus. He marched to the back of it, found an empty seat, and slung himself into it. He put his backpack up on the seat next to him and dared anyone with his eyes to try to sit next to him. After the bus was out of the neighborhood he opened his pack to look at a dog breeds magazine.  He was looking at the dogs playing frisbee, and some that were training to do long jumps in a pool. He kept going back to those pages. Then he saw them.

Rabbits by the road were running and catching up with the bus. There were three of them.

“Look,” said Mike.

Some of his friends gathered around. They still maintained their distance from him a little bit, but some of the other kids were pointing as well. There were three white rabbits hopping along the side of the bus, and keeping pace with it. They didn’t look real like they were out of some kind of storybook or something, almost a blur.

“Look at them go,” said one kid.

“I’d like a rabbit-like that,” said another.

Mike thought about his dogs and wondered if a rabbit that could keep up with a school bus could catch a frisbee. He craned around in his green seat as they turned a corner and lost the rabbits to a different turn at an intersection.

“They are going through the woods,” said Mike.

“What did you think they’d do?” said Betty Johnson, from the front of the bus.

“I don’t know. It looked like they were following us,” said Mike. “I wonder where they are going.”

Betty rolled her eyes. “The school is on the other side of those woods, Mike. If they are chasing us to school, they just took a shortcut.”

They watched the rabbits disappear into the woods, their big feet bounding over the rocks and the tree stumps that were out there. In a moment, they were gone.

Destin and Annie saw them too. It was coming around the corner near her school. There were half a dozen white rabbits running around a playground. They were scaling the big jungle gym and leaping over it and into the sandbox before skittering through a series of plastic tubes, and under the large metal duck on a spring, then making it through the wooden fence on the other side, and escaping there through a crack.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

“Yeah Annie, look at that.”

He stopped the car and watched as the rabbits ran through the playground.

“I wonder where they are going?”

“Daddy, can I have a rabbit?”

“And I wonder where they came from. What?”

“A rabbit, can I have one of those?”

He smiled.

“We can add that to the list and see what everyone thinks tonight. Okay?”

“Okay.” She pulled her backpack on. Her father kissed her and sent her to the school.

Then he got back in his own car and headed for the high school. It was frogs today, but he hadn’t wanted to tell anyone that, and he’d rather not do it either, but it was what it was.

He pulled around the corner, and down the street to his own school. He parked in his designated spot, the one right under the branch that the robins all liked to congregate on, and pulled his old musty box out of the back seat. Expecting to find his notes and diagrams about the frog’s internal anatomy, he saw instead a small nest, made of the remains of all his notes and materials. It looked more like a jumble of paper, but some kind of little critter must have done it.

What was in there?

He closed the lid of the box, tucked it under his arm, and went into the school through a side door. Inside, he could smell the ammonia of the recently mopped floors. Students were headed everywhere. Some were hanging out on the floors by their lockers, not yet able to get into their classrooms, others wandered the halls heading up and down from the cafeteria to the gym over and over again, but most of them just crowded around and talked.

Somewhere in the distance, a warning bell rang. There were another ten minutes before classes were to begin. Destin could feel something moving in the box, scratching to get out. Was the box feeling warmer? He shifted it to his other arm. Maybe it was like a small raccoon or a squirrel, but jittery. It bounced in there. Was that a bounce?

He slipped into his classroom and put the box on his big science table. It was black and burn proof.

The box moved.

He pushed it back into the middle of the table. Students were knocking at the door. He didn’t want to show them this. What if he’d just managed to bring a stray or something into the school building?

Whatever it was scratched, and a little white paw appeared through flaps where they all came together at the top of the box.

There was chewing.

He held the box feeling for movement.

After a moment, all signs of it stopped.

He reached down with a finger, and pulled gently at the flaps, and opened the box up.