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.
