* * *
"Well, go on then…" Pete said hurriedly, waving his hand at the rotting gate. "It’s not like I’ve got all day."
Russell had a quip ready to fire but pulled his finger away from the trigger at the last second. Starting an argument with Pete here would be pointless. Truth was, he was too anxious to do anything but focus on what lay beyond the gate. Contrary to what he’d said earlier, he knew there were rabbits in the backyard; he knew Mike had told them the truth. He just knew.
The dread he felt didn’t reside in seeing the dead bunnies (that, he could handle) but instead resided in the meaning behind what they were about to discover. It will change everything, of course, because from there on out our world will be different, fundamentally warped in some twisted, hideous way. And do you know what the craziest part will be? Russell bit his lip as the admission came. Mike will be proven right—vindicated from all of his previous indiscretions and wandering, nonsensical babbles. Russell clenched his teeth and pushed through the gate, into the backyard.
The thing that struck them all first—all except O’Brien, that is—was the height of the grass. It was regular Saint Augustine, common enough for these parts, but it came up to their thighs, the long blades uncommonly green and hearty for the dry spell they were experiencing. The next element they noticed was the air. It seemed moister, heavier—more tropical than arid.
This was what they took in about the backyard first, because the gate that Russell had opened led them into a fifteen foot alley between the decrepit house and the equally decrepit property fence. The wire fence at the far side of the yard was visible but too far away to matter. Beyond it lay a dense pine and oak forest clicking and snapping with distant animal movement. Thankfully the house obscured the majority of the lot. Had the rabbits been the first thing they saw, one of them, most likely Russell, would have screamed. Clearly he was the most jittery of the group—even Mike seemed calm. But then again, Russell was the one who had the knowing (Does Michelle have it, too?) that all hell was about to break loose and normalcy would soon be a thing of the past.
Russell led the way through the jungle, using the hoe to hack a path for the others. Behind him, Mike giggled distractedly, slapping mosquitos off his legs and arms. Russell turned and O’Brien quickly covered his mouth with a bloody palm. Through his fingers, Mike whispered an "I’m sorry" so softly that only Russell heard it.
But Russell pretended he hadn’t heard as he eased up to the corner of the house, one hand working the outthrust hoe, the other running along the rotting wall At the lightest touch of his fingertips, chunks broke away from the façade, revealing the crumbling pulp beneath. Scores of tiny bugs, no larger than poppy seeds, poured out from the craters. As the dots fanned over the wall, Russell gazed sadly at Mike, who looked back at him with a wry, sideways smirk. For a moment, Russell completely lost track of where he was.
The cicadas brought him back. First the rattle in the oak tree, then the answer call (or was it a competitive call?) from the woods. They always get louder You can count on that like you can count on the tides.
"If you don’t got the balls to look," Michelle said abruptly, grabbing the hoe. When she pulled, Russell pulled back harder. Russell’s other hand shot to the shaft, and with both hands he yanked the tool away from her. Letting go, Michelle fell backwards into the long, soft grass, landing on her butt with an audible grunt.
"Shit, Michelle. I’m sorry—"
"Ohhhhh…fuck."
She looked over her shoulder, to her left, the color draining from her face.
"What?" Pete said, rushing to her side. When he saw what she saw, his mouth dropped open.
O’Brien ran over to them next. Huey waddled behind him, his big tongue hanging from his small mouth. Mike knelt next to Michelle, who still sat where she had fallen, and tugged at Pete’s khaki shorts. "I toldja!" he said excitedly. "I told you there was dead rabbits everywhere!"
Huey barked in agreement
Russell, who had yet to see what lay beyond the corner, stood rigidly with his back against the house. The ants, or whatever they were, had dispersed, leaving him with a relatively safe place to lean. He didn’t want to see the massacre around the bend. Somehow he reasoned that if he didn’t look, then it wouldn’t really exist. He knew it was a kindergartner’s kind of logic, which is why he took a deep breath and told himself to buck up and be a—
Turning the corner, his breath disappeared inside him, gagging him with the vacuum its absence left in his lungs. The scene was exactly how Mike had so succinctly described it: dead rabbits everywhere. Not only rabbits, but birds, squirrels, and possums. Russell even saw a flayed raccoon sprawled out in the matted grass near a metal fence post. Is that the raccoon? The one that started it all. Of the corpses he could see, one common feature—besides being dead—prevailed: their ripped-open bellies. Even the birds—the sparrows—were inside-out. The buzzing of flies and odor of decomposing flesh enveloped the yard, and Russell wondered how they hadn’t heard or smelled any of this from the front or side of the house.
We didn’t hear the flies because we weren’t expecting them. We didn’t smell this…smell…because no human soul would ever want to smell this smell. The only experiences in life we accept as real are the ones we experience directly, face-to-face.
The grass was tramped down in several places as if something very large, or a bunch of somethings very small, had partied there before leaving their presents. As the humans and dog wandered independently through the yard, each noted the difficulty in finding a place to step that didn’t fall directly on an animal or its guts. They moved about as if in a trance, their heads slumped over like zombies. Pete never strayed more than ten feet from Russell.
Though almost every small, furry creature native to Alabama was represented, the rabbits dominated the scene. Pete counted seventeen before realizing the futility of his actions. Because what was the point? Really, what was the goddamn point? They were all dead. Torn to shreds. Counting didn’t add any sense to this, because this defied sense. Okay, so there’s a rabid dog out there, Pete admitted to himself. Wait a minute—this isn’t the work of one dog. This is several dogs working together. And speaking of dogs: look at that dog house over there. Shaped like an igloo. Why is there a rabbit on top of it? What kind of animal is tall and dexterous enough to place a slippery, bloody rabbit on top of a dome and get it to stay? While we’re at it, look at the stoop. There must be twenty of them piled up there like…like…
Russell noticed the rabbit on the dog house and the pile on the stoop before Pete did. His mind raced for a connection between what he saw and what he felt. After disgust, his next strongest emotion was misery—pure misery for the animals that had been killed and for the ones that had done the killing, because this was the work of a disease, not an animal. He flipped over a possum with the flat edge of the hoe blade and ants streamed out of its mouth. He whispered, "Poor guy," before turning it back onto its belly. Yet beyond misery, something else lurked: an odd, sinking feeling. What is it? As soon as he asked, he knew. He had come here sick to his stomach and deathly afraid of…what? Bloody rabbits? No. A rabid dog? No. What he was afraid of was more abstract, and more simple, than that. Change. He was afraid of change. Because that was what their discovery brought. Change for the worse.
Russell approached the carcasses on the stoop as one would an unexploded grenade. That his heart pounded against his rib cage—almost painfully so—came as no surprise. Neither did the salty sweat that trickled down his nose, over his lips, and into his parched mouth, kicking his salivary glands to life. His stomach rumbled inappropriately at the false excitement. Pete heard the noise and looked at him quizzically. Russell read his mind: You’re hungry at a time like this?
Of course he was hungry; he was starving. Mike had eaten his spaghetti—the son of a bitch. He’d just eaten it like it was his…Okay, Rusty, focus now. Forget about the goddamn spaghetti. He tried quashing the memory of his stolen lunch, but hi
s gurgling stomach wouldn’t allow him. He had never been so hungry yet so repulsed by the thought of food in his life. What he saw and perceived before him clashed so harshly with his physical needs that he didn’t know whether to puke or to pick up a rabbit and dig his face into it like a grizzly bear.
NO! Oh, God, no!! Don’t think like that. Don’t ever think like that.
But he did—only briefly—while standing in front of the small concrete stoop. Then, magically, his hunger dissipated, just evaporated into the thick, August air. Revulsion shot through Russell as he looked down at the massive tangle of fur and entrails. All were rabbits, their once-soft, brown fur caked with dried blood. The sight of their padded feet frozen in mid-kick touched a chord in Russell’s heart. And in Pete’s heart as well. Neither knew what the other was feeling as they listened to the innumerable flies humming deep within the pile, but both knew what the other was thinking.
And neither spoke as they crouched before the make-shift sacrificial altar. Pete didn’t need to inform Russell of the puncture marks on the bellies, because he knew that his friend already saw them. When Russell poked at the rabbits with the hoe, a few of the bodies limply gave way, barrel-rolled over their brothers, and fell over the side. The odor beneath was worse—damper and earthier, like the inside of a cave. A cloud of black flies rose, hovered for a moment, dispersed.
"What do you suppose—" Pete said, trailing off, answering his own question. It wasn’t as much a matter of what? as it was of how many? "What I mean is, how could this have happened?"
Russell looked at him and shook his head. "I don’t know."