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.