The Bunny Man is Dead

I was watching the rabbits outside, through the glass patio doors that opened onto the backyard. If I stood still for long enough, the rabbits wouldn’t notice me watching them through the glass. I would leave food out for them, if I could find a way to sneak it out without my parents finding out. Sometimes, I tried to get close enough to the rabbits to pet them, but they were always too fast. Our house was located at the end of a dead end street, so there was a wooded area beyond the end of the street. At the bottom of the hill in the backyard, there was an old Weeping Willow. Past the weeping willow, there were fields of corn where I would sometimes hear the coyotes howling. There were many places for the rabbits to hide, just beyond the reach of our backyard, where I wasn’t allowed to go. It was a quiet, desperate, little stretch of road populated by cookie cutter homes, built with stick frames, and chip board.

            I jumped when I heard Sam, my father, barking behind me, “Damn it Elliot! I told you not to pay attention to those rabbits! What kind of a boy are you? I’d like it better if you would throw rocks at those things.”

            Sam picked up one of my plastic action figures, the Beast Man from the He Man cartoons, and barreled towards the doors. I stumbled back as he swept me clumsily aside. Sam flung the door open and hurled the figure at the rabbits that were already beginning to run off at the sound of the doors being slid open.

            Sam laughed. “How do you like that Elliot?”

            Sam was waiting for me to show him any sign that I might be upset, but I carefully remained still, and silent, waiting to see what he would do.

            “You dummy. Go get your toy and come back into the living room. Make sure the coyotes don’t get you! Shut the doors behind you when you come back in!” Sam picked his beer up and turned back towards the living room.

            I wandered into the backyard to retrieve my toy. Early dusk was turning the blue sky a golden sort of color. The cornfields and the low hanging disk of sun all possessed a transitory, luminescent sort of quality. Beyond the weeping willow, I watched a coyote stop and look up the hill towards me. It eyes glittered momentarily in the dusk light. A rabbit ran away from it, into the fields and the coyote bolted after it. Both animals disappeared into the dusk.

            “Elliot!” I heard my father screaming from inside. I picked up my toy and ran back into the house, remembering to close the doors behind me.

            I slowly walked down the dark hallway towards the living room, where the television was playing one of the Freddy Krueger films for Halloween.

            My father and mother, and their friend Mooney, were all sitting in the living room, with a small pile of white powder on the table. Also on the table was a rubber Freddy Krueger mask, limp and misshapen and eyelessly staring into me. I froze when I saw the mask.

            “Come here Elliot! Don’t be afraid of the mask. I told you that Freddy isn’t the one you should be scared of, it’s the Bunny Man who’ll get you Elliot.”

            I crept a little further into the room, and partially hid myself behind the musty, broken recliner which Mooney was sitting in.

            Sam continued to explain about the Bunny Man. “You see Mooney, maybe I didn’t tell you about the Bunny Man.”

            “I don’t think you have,” responded Mooney, somewhat absently.

            “Well,” Sam went on, “the Bunny Man is a crazy, bad man, that likes to hurt little boys. The Bunny Man escaped from the insane asylum, and he sneaks around at night, dressed in a Bunny costume. You always know the Bunny Man is close, because there will always be lots of rabbits around when the Bunny Man is hiding nearby.”

            I clutched Beast Man in my small hands as Sam went on telling Mooney, who would occasionally laugh as Sam talked.

            “And the Bunny Man likes to use the rabbits to lure little boys out into the yard so he can snatch them up and eat them!”

            As Sam finished his last sentence he lunged at me and grabbed me as I turned to try and run away from him. He picked me up and made the sound of a monster chewing.

            “Sam!” my Mom, Joan, interjected weakly, “Don’t tease him too much. You know he has nightmares, and you’ll make him wet the bed.”

            Sam dropped me carelessly, and said, “Well hell, he needs to grow up sometime. Maybe we should give him some of this stuff,” Sam pointed to the pile of powder on the table, “then he can fight off the Bunny Man himself!” Sam laughed; a short, mean grunting.

            “Sam, you’re such a clown.” Joan interjected.

            “Jesus Sam, the kid might get hurt, and then they’d trace that stuff back to me. They would find all of the stuff I use to make it, and I’d go to jail forever!” Mooney said, trying to calm Sam down, who was getting a little wild eyed, and erratic. Sam had been pacing, and gesturing as he talked, spilling some of his beer on the carpet, and on me.

            “God damn Mooney, where’s your sense of humor! I’m just trying to put some hair on his chest.” Sam said, trying to justify himself.

            Sam sat back down, and the three of them seemed occupied with the powder on the table. Freddy Krueger was dangling someone by their tendons from a building on the television.

            I wandered back into the kitchen, and started looking in the cupboards for some Halloween candy.

            After a few minutes, I heard someone walking down the hallway. I heard a voice calling my name in a throaty, muffled way, “Elliot, Elliot, Elliot…”

            I looked towards the hallway, into the now dim light.

            Sam jumped out, wearing the Freddy Krueger mask as well as a pair of white rabbit ears. Sam made a sudden, roaring, growling noise. “I’m the Bunny Man, and I’m here to eat you!” He roared again.

            For a moment, I stood, terrified, unable to move. When Sam, the Bunny Man, began moving towards me, I threw the Beast Man at his face, and then I turned and ran through the patio doors into the backyard. I ran straight for the corn fields. I heard Sam, the Bunny Man, growling and running after me.

            It was difficult to see amongst the stalks of corn, which scratched my face and hands as I ran. I could hear Sam, the Bunny Man running after me. Suddenly, I stumbled into a clearing and I ran in front of a huge machine which was tearing down the stalks of corn. I ran in front of and past the machine. I turned to look behind me, and I watched Sam, still in his Freddy mask and rabbit ears, get torn apart by the blades of the machine.

            The machine rolled over him, and on the other side of its path, a pile of blood and flesh was left in the broken stalks of corn. The mask and rabbit ears lay amongst the remains.

            I tentatively approached the bloodied mask and rabbit ears. I picked them up and walked back out towards the house.

            Joan was standing near the Willow tree and she called my name as I approached.

            I held up the bloody mask and rabbit ears towards her, “Mommy, the Bunny Man is Dead.”

            Joan held the mask and ears in her hands and stared into the blood on her hands as the tendrils of the Weeping Willow brushed against her in the cool, October wind.

            Beyond the tree, in the glowering twilight, I watched a coyote tearing one of the rabbits to pieces. Motes of soft fur floated in the fading light as the coyote ripped out the rabbit’s tender heart.