Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies (6 page)

As the carnage continued, some big, dumb jerk with a box of M-80s started lobbing the quarter-sticks of dynamite from an oak tree blind into the middle of the field. Between the bullets and the explosions and the blood and entrails and the screams of the maimed and dying
BunRabs—yes, BunRabs scream a high-pitched scream like a little girl who has found a spider crawling into her blouse—the battlefield just east of County Road 14 ri valed Borodino, Gettysburg, and Omaha Beach.

Even after the initial barrage guaranteed that no easter BunRab would emerge from the cornfield of death to terrorize chicken or egg, whichever came first, again, the gunfire continued, first in a steady stream, then intermittently, as if those firing were unsure whether the BunRabs might be firing back or somehow dangerous to the conglomeration of good ol’ boys armed with guns and fortified by copious amounts of corn liquor.

Finally, there was silence, both in the field across the road and in the henhouse behind. No BunRab had encroached one lucky foot or twitchy little nose into the farmyard. And as the second dawn of the morning came, Doris didn’t wait for the Clementine’s stud to crow the morning’s welcome. She crowed herself, a crow of victory and joy and survival.

The final count: 862 BunRabs perished that night on what is now known as Easter Cornfield. Doris knew the deadly sum ’cause the good ol’ boys, they collected up all the rabbit’s feet, counted ’em up, and divided by four. Three squirrels, seventeen field mice, one thrush, and a fox were also caught in the crossfire and tallied as collateral damage, although Doris knew that the fox was already dead long before its pelt was aerated on that fateful field. Four hunters also managed to get themselves shot or wounded by flying debris during the skirmish, though none seriously. The night would have been a complete success from Doris’ perspective if not for the fact that the good ol’ boys decided to go chow down on bacon and eggs at the Sit-A-Spell Diner, down where there is an exit from the interstate onto County Road 14.

There was one additional death that evening, but Doris refused to give any credence to the notion that the frightful noise of the barrage is what caused old Aunt Clementine to die of heart failure back in the coop. Clementine was simply an old hen, though not as addle-minded as Doris had once thought, whose time had come.

The important thing was that not one chicken, peep, or egg was taken by the BunRabs that night. The chicks, they grew up without the fear of the easter BunRabs coming for them in the night. And that’s real chicken goodness (unless you, gentle reader, are one of those barbarians who likes your chickens extra-crispy fried).

And, oh, by the way, in case anyone ever asks you: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” you can tell them it was so she could get to the other side, fly into the window of the farmer’s daughter’s bedroom, ignore the traveling salesman, flutter to the glowing screen of the laptop, access the World Wide Web, and post the following advertisement in the
Lincoln County Herald Tribune
:

Even if you can only peck at the keyboard, the Internet is a powerful tool for good . . . or evil.

Heaven help us if the BunRabs learn to use it.

FOR LIZZIE

G
odfrey heard the sound of a voice calling his name before noticing someone standing next to his giant oaken desk, but as usual his brain didn’t register it or the fact that it was female until the sound of it became the fact that it was female until the sound of it became more stern.

“Godfrey!”

Before looking up, the senior most archivist finished scribbling down the last of his thoughts into the moleskine notebook in front of him. One of the newer assistants in The Gauntlet stood there. She was an Asian girl with dark brown almond-shaped eyes and long black hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Probably to keep it out of her face or to keep it from falling against the pages on some of the older books,
Godfrey thought. He was pleased to see that she had taken the precaution, given the stack of books she was carrying. It didn’t take much to set off rapid deterioration down in these caverns beneath the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, and the oil in hair could be just as destructive as fire.

The girl was definitely attractive, maybe only a few years younger than him, but right now, she looked a bit perturbed.

“Yes . . . ?” he started, fishing around for a name in his head. Godfrey thought it might be Clarice.

“Chloe,” she offered.

So close,
he thought. “Of course,” he nodded, causing his straight black hair to fall across the top of his black horn-rims. He pushed the hair away from his face. “Can I help you?”

She hoisted up the stack of books in her hands. Against her tiny frame, they looked as if she had stolen them from a giant’s library. “These are for you. From those two guys up in Other Division. You know . . . the one with the stripe in his hair and that other guy who’s
always in the leather jacket? He looks like one of the Village People.”

Godfrey smiled. “That would be Connor and Simon.”

Chloe stared at him blankly.

“They’re two of the few people around here who treat us as something more than glorified librarians,” he said. “They’re okay. They were my personal saviors during that whole zombie debacle during Fashion Week, one of the few times I ever saw any action around here.” He stood up and took the books from her. “Thank you.”

Pushing piles of notebooks, file folders, and other tomes out of the way, Godfrey placed the new pile on top of his desk. He arranged them carefully, making sure his view of the small glass terrarium wasn’t obstructed. Once Godfrey had sat back down, Chloe pulled the top book off the pile.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, holding it up. “Fairy tales? Since when does the Department of Extraordinary Affairs keep fiction on hand? Especially down here with all the serious research?”

Godfrey pulled it away from her and placed it back on top of the pile. “Who says it’s fiction?”

Chloe smiled at him.

“Great,” she said. “When I get back to the coffee shop, I can’t wait to see what fairy tale creatures start chatting me up.”

Godfrey laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. The actual creatures from those books don’t
really
exist . . . that I know of, anyway. But the object lessons inside those stories . . . well, that’s a different matter. Some of our field agents could learn a thing or two about leaving a trail of breadcrumbs . . .”

“With my luck, I’d end up getting the Three Little
Pigs instead of Prince Charming,” Chloe said, giving Godfrey a look of bemused frustration. An awkward energy passed between them, one that Godfrey couldn’t quite put his finger on. All he noticed was how long and painful the sudden lull in the conversation was becoming and also how red Chloe’s face had become.

Thankfully, Chloe’s eyes shifted to the terrarium as if noticing it for the first time, and Godfrey felt the sensation ease. She knelt down in front of it, searching for whatever was inside. Godfrey felt a swell of pride when she finally spied the tiny golden creature curled up in one corner.

“Is that . . . a snake?”

“Yes and no. More of a serpent, actually. If it can even truly be called that . . .”

Chloe raised her hand to the glass and put it against the part where the creature was sleeping.

“Do you remember that Glo-Worm toy from when you were a kid?” she asked.

Godfrey had to stop and think a moment before a faint memory came to him.

“Vaguely,” Godfrey said. “I had more books than toys as a child. Big surprise, I know.”

“It looks like one of those, only tinier,” she said, her eyes wide with excitement and, if Godfrey was reading her right, nostalgia. “Not to mention the fact that it’s also not wearing one of those little sleeping bag outfits they used to come in.”

The creature’s eyes fluttered open and it gave a sleepy look around. Chloe smiled and started making cooing noises at it. She turned her knuckles towards the terrarium and rapped at the glass.

“Don’t tap on the glass, please,” Godfrey said. “Lizzie hates it.”

Chloe paused, her fingers inches from the terrarium. “Sorry. Just what is it? What is she, I mean?”

Godfrey perked up.

“No one’s really sure,” he said with excitement in his voice. How could it not be? Here he was talking shop with one of the cutest archivists to come along in the past few years. “The earliest evidence of their kind that I could find in the archives was from 1756. An agent named Thaniel Graydon documented a sighting of one of them.”

Chloe whistled. “The Department of Extraordinary Affairs is that old?”

Godfrey shook his head.“Oh, no. The Fraternal Order of Goodness predates the underfunded bureaucracy of the Department by several hundred years, but Graydon spent years trying to track these little paper lovers hiding in the archives . . . with little success.”

“Paper lovers?”

Godfrey pulled a blank sheet from the moleskin notebook, crumpled it up, and dropped it into the terrarium. Immediately the creature slithered over to it, opened its tiny jaws, and happily began munching on it.

“The perfect recycling program,” Godfrey said.“Works in nicely with the mandate from upstairs to ‘go green,’ but you can see why they would want to catch them before they could consume the whole archives. Graydon called them book wyrms in his notes, and so do I. Who knows what records have been lost to them?”

Chloe stood back up, stretching. “Why not just get rid of them then?”

Godfrey looked appalled at the idea. “For doing what they were made to do? Never. And what would we do with them? Release them into the city? Destroy them? They’re perfectly controllable and harmless when you
know how to handle them.” He reached into the terrarium and extended one finger, and the tiny gold serpent wrapped its tail around it all the while continuing to munch on the paper. “Besides, Lizzie is a good companion.”

Chloe put a hand on his shoulder and patted him. “Not much of a people person, huh?”

Godfrey smiled up at her. “I’m somewhat particular about who I like to spend time with, I suppose.”

Chloe blushed, her hand lingering on his shoulder, and even being as thick as he was, Godfrey put two and two together. Unsure of how to handle the situation, he twisted away from her hand back toward his open notebook. “A creature like this is better than people in some respects. She’s unconditional love. All she expects is to be fed, and with the amount of paper I go through in a day around here, food is in no short supply. And for that, she gives back so much more.”

“That’s great, Godfrey, but isn’t there something more you want than that?” Chloe asked, a distinct tone of frustration in her voice. “I mean, look at this book of fairy tales. Do you see the prince hanging out all the time with the dragon, even if it’s just a miniature one? Don’t you think he should get out and check out some princesses?”

“Married to the manuscripts,” he said, thumping his hand down on top of the newest pile of books. He paused, and his face grew somber. “You know, Emerson once wrote, ‘Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider.’ I suppose that applies to archivists as well.”

Chloe’s frustration seemed to grow. “What we do is most certainly an art,” Chloe said, “extrapolating data, reworking it so it makes narrative sense for future generations
of The Gauntlet. Okay, well, it sounds more technical than artistic when I put it that way, but you get what I mean . . .”