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

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits, Chapter 8

Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits
Flames in crimson fur,
rabbits leap through fire and ash,
chaos hops away.
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 next morning two trucks arrived in a large church parking lot in town, accompanied by a police escort.

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

“Leave that to me.”

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

“They are on their way.”

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

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

Maria made a grab for her but missed it.

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

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

She knelt down.

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

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

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

Annie offered it another one.

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

“Daddy, can I have this one?”

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

“Yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

One rabbit remained.

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

“What do we do?” asked Mike.

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

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

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

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

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

“Whoa,” said Mr. Red.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They got up, brushing themselves off.

“Here it comes!” said Mike.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kelly’s and the agents gathered together.

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

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

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

“Okay.”

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

“What about Maria and Annie?”

“We’re going with them.”

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

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

“But—“

“No buts. Nothing. Annie, let’s go.”

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

“Dad?”

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s still just a bunny.”

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

“Yeah, I know. I want one too.”

“Dad!”

“Come on, let’s get it.”

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

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

“Yeah?”

“Hit the button on it!”

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

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

“Okay.”

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

“Okay, here we go.”

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

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

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

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

“Dad, are you crazy?”

“What? I want one.”

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

A 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.
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 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!”