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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 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!”