The Odd Bunnies

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was very dark in his wet hole, and Will was getting cold - despite Alice's enthusiastic hugging. He politely asked her to get off, and staggered to his feet. Marvin was lying face-down and quite motionless. Will kicked him - nothing. He felt for a pulse in his neck - nothing. He felt inside Marvin's jacket, pulling the source of this devastation into view. He shone a torch on it, but still could not make out the symbols.

  “Here.” He handed it to Alice.

  “What's this?”

  Will shone a torch on the round metal object.

  “Is this … is this … my amulet?!”

  “Err, well we don't know whose it is, but it looks amulet-shaped.”

  “Will! You did it! For me! I love you!” Alice was jumping, almost hopping, somewhat like a rabbit. Her nose wiggled, too.

  “Well, I did something, not sure what.” Will decided not to tell her what Marvin had said, about the amulet being useless unless he slit his throat and hung upside down. He picked up his towel and wiped some of the mud from his body. I knew a towel would come in handy. Dressed again, feeling a little warmer but now aching all over, he picked up his tools.

  “Alice, you bent my shovel!”

  “Sorry, he must have a hard head.”

  “Hmm, I think he had a hard head.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don't think he is any more - he was.”

  “You mean …?”

  “He's a goner.”

  Alice stopped hopping and looked at the body lying in the cold mud. Suddenly she felt guilty and very vulnerable.

  “W … wh … what are we going to do?”

  Will wasn't really sure, but had he been alone he would have left the body where it was and scarpered. He'd had enough excitement for this lifetime, and it was getting very dark. Suddenly Alice squealed, but not through fear.

  “Oh look, a white rabbit! Two! Three …. four … five … err, lots of white rabbits.” She looked up at Will, who was brandishing a bent shovel.

  “What's going on, Will?”

  Will had no answer, and was a little concerned by the pack of toothy rabbits that seemed very interested in Alice. Then she squealed again, and this time it wasn't with pleasure.

  “It bit me!”

  “What did?”

  “Take a guess, dork.”

  Will looked at the rabbits, sure they were discussing the flavour of Alice's blood, and equally sure they'd be discussing his very soon. He raised the shovel, ready to decapitate the first bunny that wanted to eat him, and watched as the ravenous beasts advanced.

  “Will, don't hurt them.”

  “HUH?”

  “Look, they're biting Marvin.”

  Will supposed rabbits liked their meat old and tough, or despised Marvin as much as he did, but as he watched them he realized they weren't biting - they were tugging at his clothes. A hundred or more tiny bunnies were pulling, pushing, hopping and squeaking, and Marvin's body was being slowly edged towards the hole. Some of them occasionally stopped and looked up at the couple, flashing warning, red eyes. Will looked at Alice, who looked at Will, and together they made a decision.

  “Time to go.”

  Their words were perfectly synchronized, as were their steps as they backed away slowly from the surreal scene before them. Alice shone a torch on Marvin's body as it disappeared over the edge of the pit, making a small plop as it hit the water. As they were backing away, more white rabbits were arriving from all directions, and all were headed for the pit. Some were tugging at Marvin, some were digging, shovelling dirt back into the hole. Alice and Will had no idea what was happening, except that a greater force than they could comprehend was at work and they should probably just mind their own business. Will was a little peeved to see the results of his toils being destroyed, but figured that reasoning with the sabre-toothed bunnies would be a futile exercise seeing as they were so obviously determined to fill the hole in.

  Reaching the edge of the wood, they started to run, carrying all the tools because Will said they couldn't leave any evidence behind. When they reached the car, they stopped and looked back down the field. Faint, white shapes were hopping towards the wood - hundreds and hundreds of rabbit shapes, hopping and wiggling.

  “That Dick's been busy.”

  “Uh-huh. Now let's make like a banana.”

  “Huh?” said Will, who considered telling her bananas grew on trees, and they probably didn’t have the raw materials to make one from scratch.

  “Split!”

  “Ah, OK.”

  Tools flung in boot, amulet safely wrapped in towel, the pair made like a banana - and split. The Rover was not hurtling at speed towards Saltymouth like last time, but back across the moors. Will was not going to risk being seen tonight. He needed to take the quietest roads possible, and he knew them well enough to ensure he could get within a mile or so of his home without running into traffic, police or cameras.

  Alice was cradling the towel containing the amulet, and grinning. She was as surprised as Will to actually find it existed, but nevertheless assumed it was rightfully hers. She had no idea why, but she'd imagined this moment often and believed it was her destiny. She felt little emotion for Marvin, although the full realization of what she'd done was yet to hit her. She'd saved Will's life, gotten her amulet, and that was all that mattered for now.

  Forty minutes later, having been on a tour of the darkest, narrowest roads Alice had ever seen, the Rover entered the outskirts of Newington. Will had to follow the main road into town for about half a mile, and then he took a detour around the outskirts. Arriving at a large roundabout, he was relieved to see all the lights were green, and he flowed round it and shot into the estate where he lived. He immediately took a right, which Alice knew was not the right way, and followed the outskirts of the estate as far as possible. He didn't pass another car and arrived safely home, driving forwards into the parking space.

  Alice was quietly grinning as Will led her by the hand into the sanctuary of home. He thought she was in shock, and was still unsure what effect this object might have on their lives. Marvin had been prepared to kill for it, and he was sure this adventure was not yet over. Alice was probably still drunk and he didn't see any point in trying to rationalize the situation with her. He left her cradling her prize and retired to the bathroom. He was muddy, smelly, and stiff. The shower felt good, cleansing him of his muddled fears and reviving his senses. By the time he'd scrubbed himself clean, Alice had washed her amulet and was glued to the computer screen.

  “Will, look. I think I've found it.”

  Will's enthusiasm for the treasure that had almost cost him his life and his sanity was rather less marked. He worried for her - this young girl who'd led a privileged life, insulated from the dirtier aspects of humanity. When she realized she'd taken a life, she could well tip over the edge, into his world - a world of murky secrets and guilt, a world where she'd feel isolated from her family and friends - and she had a lot of friends to lose. However, now was not the time to tell her.

  “What you found then?” Will sat and put an arm round her.

  “Look. I cleaned it. It's a star”

  “A star? Doesn't sound very exciting.” Will prised the disc from her hands. It was warm and shiny, but very worn and slightly dented. The amulet was about two inches in diameter and contained a star in relief, set inside a circle. In between the points of the star, and in the centre, were random carvings that reminded Will of Celtic knots, but they were so badly eroded that they could have been rabbits, or flowers, or the wheel trims off his Rover. It didn't look very significant to Will, not at all. He began to wonder if he'd dug up a free gift from a cornflakes packet.

  “It has eight points. I counted them.”

  “Well done, Alice. Have a gold star.”

  Alice glared. “Don't patronize me. I may not have your planet-sized brain, but I can count.” Then she wrinked and blew him a kiss.

  Will thought, all the same, he
'd count the points himself.

  “So, is eight a significant number?” Will supposed a star could have any number of points, and eight was probably just the number that the star's creator found easy to carve, or maybe the craftsman had eight children, or eight rabbits. He felt Alice would scour the web until she found an explanation she liked, and would use her youthful and slightly biased imagination to make it fit the amulet's symbols, and her dreams.

  “It's Sumerian, a sign of the Goddess Inanna.”

  “Whoa, that's a big leap to make. We don't know how old it is, what it's made of, or who made it. It might have come out of a cornflakes packet.”

  Alice was beginning to think Will was deliberately trying to undermine her.

  “Party pooper. Why are you trying to diss me now? You were keen enough to get it for me.”

  “Sorry, I'm tired. And I don't want you raising your hopes. You've been through a lot today, and I think we just need to sit back and look at this objectively.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I'm being a silly little girl.” She stuck her tongue out, to prove her point.

  “You're not a silly little girl. One of us has to be enthusiastic and one of us has to be a cynical, miserable old git. That's the way these adventures work. Think Mulder and Scully.”

  “Huh?”

  “X-Files.”

  “Oh. Which am I?”

  “Err, you're Mulder, the believer - David Duchovny. I'm Scully, the sceptic - Gillian Anderson.”

  “Hmm, you look like a Gillian.” Alice grinned.

  “Yeah, well, we ought to change places, but anyway ...”

  “I get your drift. I know you'll keep my feet on the ground.”

  “So, let's just suppose, hypothetically, that it's what you say it is. Does it have any relevance to the mad monk, vampires, or rabbits?”

  “Well … the Goddess Inanna descended to the underworld and was resurrected, on condition she find someone to take her place.”

  “So who took her place?”

  “Err ... hang on. Tammuz, her consort.”

  Will mused. It could see how easy it would be, making a link between resurrection and vampires, and the hole in the ground where he'd found the cursed charm. The well could signify holy water, life-giving, and rabbits seemed to symbolize all sorts of things, including fertility. He wrapped an arm round Alice, who stroked his hand but didn't take her eyes off the screen. Will moved closer, hoping to distract her with a little bodily contact.

  “You smell nice.”

  “Yeah, I needed that shower. I think you could use one, too.”

  “You saying I stink?”

  “Yes.” She didn't, although her breath was a little on the ripe side, but Will thought she'd benefit emotionally from the soothing, warm water. It would also give him time to check out the web pages she'd found. She was too blinkered, too wrapped-up in the supposed benefits of the battered artefact to be open to the possibility it might be dangerous, or more likely just plain useless.

  “Umm, OK, I guess I can do this later. Don't want to offend your big nose.” She wrinked.

  “OK, shout if you need me.”

  “I will, Will.” She smiled and left Will with her treasure. “Look after it!”

  Will waited for the sounds of gushing water and slightly out-of-tune singing, then began a digging of the virtual type. Alice had opened a dozen web pages and sure enough, there were pictures of eight-pointed stars and references to the underworld, water, sacrifice and fertility. There were also links to a thousand other interpretations of stars, Inanna, and rabbits. There was clearly a link somewhere and there were more than a few references to a powerful woman who attracted a lot of male admirers. Inanna, it seemed, was a bit of a hottie, very young, and used her sexuality to live a life more akin to the men of the time. She was at once pure, nubile, virginal, and warrior queen – the more Will thought about it, the more she seemed like Alice. An actor - a young girl - could be many things to many people. He still didn't quite see where rabbits came in, unless Alice had somehow been impregnated during her time here.

  Alice returned, wrapped in a towel which barely covered her modesty. She was every inch the nubile, virginal, little sister or pert daughter he'd just been reading about. He didn't think it necessary or wise to present her with that particular analogy.

  “Alright?”

  “Yep, no more stinky Alice. Found anything?”

  “Inanna: Goddess of Infinite Variety."

  “Cool, sounds like me.” Alice went through a series of well-practised modelling poses, did a little dance, and sang purposely out of tune.

  “Exactly what I thought. Maybe you are meant to have this.” He offered her the amulet.

  “You hang on to it for me.”

  Alice sat and closed the netbook, snuggling up to Will.

  “All those rabbits have made me horny.”

  “Ummm … OK.” Will didn't quite see the connection, or why she felt he needed to know. He felt anything but horny.

  “Do you want to go to bed?”

  “It's kinda early.” It was six in the evening.

  “Not to sleep.”

  “Err, what then?”

  “Well, I thought we could play Scrabble.”

  “OK. You know I'll win. And we use the British dictionary.”

  Alice glared. “You're such a dork. Do you want me to spell it out for you?”

  “Yes, that's certainly an element of Scrabble.”

  “Fine.”

  Will thought he'd won, and was eager to try anything to take her mind off horniness and amulets. He rummaged through his bottom drawer and pulled out a battered, old green box. Alice had cleared the coffee table.

  “Give me the pieces, I want to check them.”

  Will obliged, anything to keep her happy, and opened the board. Alice was shuffling tiles around, and started to place them on the board.

  “Err, have you played this before?”

  Alice held up a hand, signalling he should be quiet and let her play. She placed fourteen tiles across the board, and turned to Will.

  “You wanted me to spell it out, so here ya go.”

  She turned the board to face him, and Will read the words out loud, “I want to fuck you.”

  Alice smiled, “Good, about time you actually said it. Come on.” She took his hand, and Will thought for a moment before rising, well, if it'll make her happy.

  Alice led him up the stairs, thinking, I hope this makes him happy.