The Wheel Of Worlds

11:55 am - The Bunny Plague. Copyright D. A. Pennington 2006

Harold Leporidsan looked outside the window of his bedroom and saw the giant six foot bunnies just milling about.  Harold had seen giant rabbits all his life since he was a small boy.  His mother had taken him to a psychiatrist to figure out why her son had lost his mind, but after years of therapy the psychiatrist just threw up his hands and made the diagnosis that Harold suffered some sort of trauma as a child, and as a defense mechanism, to mask the horror or horrors he was exposed to, imagined he was seeing a giant six foot snow white bunny.  It was only after a prescription of closzipan that the hallucinations all but disappeared.   Recently however, Harold forgot to take his mediation and the bunnies returned in a deadly force.  

It was only a week before that Harold missed his dosage of his medication.  Sitting in the office of his psychiatrist, Dr Veckman,  he noticed that Veckman’s nurse came into the therapy session not as Nurse Ratchman, but as a giant fluffy white rabbit.   And before Dr. Veckman could utter another chastisement to Harold for missing his meds, the rabbit fell upon Dr. Veckman.   Sharp rabbit-like teeth tore at Veckman’s throat and a spray of blood baptized Harold into a horror he could never imagine.  White fur now stained pink.  Menacing razor sharp buck teeth faced Harold and the bunny started to lumber towards him.  Harold leaped out of his seat and ran out of the office as quick as a bunny.  Shocked he had no recollection on how he got home, but from that day forward, as he saw were millions upon millions of bunnies staggering about the streets and outside his home.

Clarissa Raphidae looked outside the window of her house and saw the undead just milling about.  It was only a week before when the first report hit the news.  An unusual number of murders had swept the city.  There were grotesque stories of packs of demented people falling upon unfortunate victims on the streets, parks, and hospitals. They performed horrific acts of cannibalism.   Hours after the first report, mobs of these crazies were hunting down any person they saw.  The governor called in the National Guard, but at that point reports of other violent activities, similar to what struck Clarissa’s city, where taking place.   News flashes mentioned something about the perpetrators of these crimes as being already dead, but to Clarissa, it just didn’t register.

It was only until she saw one of these “crazies” in person that she became a believer. 

Clarissa was purchasing some can goods at the local A&P; Stocking up as she feared the situation was growing beyond the government’s control.  As she was stacking beans and soup onto the checkout she heard a crash and a commotion.  Ten of the crazies came barging into the grocery store and tore into anyone within striking distance.  Crazy wasn’t the word that came to Clarissa’s mind when she saw one of them up close.   A man must have been in his 40’s when he died, had six gunshot wounds to his chest.  Pasty grey skin blotched with bruises and a blood caked sneer greeted Clarissa as he lunged at her.  Clarissa threw a can of Dinty Moore beef stew at the man, clobbering him in the head.  He went down on the grocery strewn floor and twitched in convulsions.   Other store patrons didn’t get off as lucky as one man was torn into by three of the undead.  Cold dead hands and razor sharp teeth bit into the man as he screamed and shrieked to God.   Clarissa tore out of the store, looking back and seeing ropes of the man’s intestine being pulled through his stomach.  The man was still shrieking and thrashing as more of the undead fell upon him.  Clarissa ran.  She ran like she had never run before in her life.  She ran through the streets and through the terror that was erupting and found her way home.  And after all that running, after locking all the doors and window in her house, even after sitting on the couch in the dark of her home, her heart never stopped pounding in her chest like that of a scared rabbit.

It was during the second week, of what the news stations called, “The zombie plague”, that signs of civilization where starting to crumble.   Clarissa noticed little things like intermittent power outages, and the steady tone of the emergency broadcast system playing on most of the cable channels.  Having not daring to venture out since the incident at the grocery store, Clarissa stayed barricaded in her house.  Keeping the shades drawn and living on what meager food stores she kept in her pantry, she slept most of the time locked inside her bedroom closet.  The night time was punctuated with the screams of the living, sirens of the waning law and the loud moaning and wailing of the increasingly number of dead that started appearing on her street.  Clarissa woke up one morning to the sound of loud banging at her front door.  Her heart leaped to her throat as she climbed out of her bedroom closet.  With a crowbar in hand she sneaked downstairs to the living room.  The banging was coming from the picture window.  The shades were still drawn, but the banging was getting louder.  Clarissa’s heart climbed up to her throat as she gingerly stepped up to the side of the window.  She peaked a little behind the shade to see her next door neighbor, his wife, and their teenage son, all quite dead, pounding on her window with bloodied fists.   Leaping back, with a gasp, Clarissa took two steps back and fellow over a hassock.  While laying on her back, wearing pajamas she’d been wearing for the past five days straight, she heard a sound she hadn’t heard in over a week; her cell phone started to ring.  Letting go of the crowbar and scrabbling to get to her cell that she left in the foyer, she managed to answer the phone just on the last ring before voicemail.

“Hello!” she practically screamed.

“Clarissa?  Clarissa, is that you?  Are you okay?” The voice responded. “It’s me, your brother.”

Clarissa’s eyes welled up, “Tony! Oh my god, where are you, I’m –. “

Tony cut in, “Listen Clarissa, I don’t have much time.  Me and my friends, we’ve commandeered a sail boat.   We’re planning on departing sometime tonight around midnight and sail down south.  Someone mentioned the outbreak hasn’t struck down there and it’s much safer down there.  Damn, my cell is dying Clarissa. Can you meet us near the marina?”

“Y-Yes, I think so.  Tony I’m so scared.  I thought you were dead.” Clarissa stammered. 

“Clarissa, listen my phone is –. “ And then Clarissa heard the click on the line as they were disconnected.   Clarissa heard silence not only on the other end, but in her home.  The pounding on the picture window, thankfully, had stopped.

Getting up and peeking around the shade, the neighbors had moved on.  Quickly she picked up her crowbar and went upstairs to her bedroom and opened the bedroom shade.

The scene looked grim.  At least a hundred or so of the dead where shambling about the neighborhood and fires were burning uncontrollably the next block over.  Across the street she noticed her neighbor Harold waving at her through his bedroom window.

“Harold!” she gasped.

Harold was waving and smiling at Clarissa.  She was the first human being he had seen since he saw Dr. Veckman attacked by that crazed rabbit. For the past two weeks Harold had holed up in his bedroom and only coming out to go to the bathroom and perhaps go to the kitchen for some Cheerios or a can of Spagehti-o’s.  Every once in a while he’d peek his head out the window and see one or two human beings running down the street, being chased by a pack of rabid six foot tall rabbits hopping after them.  Harold would turn away as they’d pounce on their victims.  He knew the story.  They pounce and rip the poor person to shreds.  It would be only after a half hour that the person would miraculously stand up and turn into a bunny themselves.

Harold smiled at Clarissa across the street and Clarissa smiled back.  She held a finger up and mouthed, “Hold on one minute.”

Harold smiled and nodded.

Clarissa held a poster board up to the window with a message written in black magic marker.

CALL ME: 555-4966

CLARISSA

Harold went to his night stand, and push aside empty cans of soup and cracker wrappers.  Picking up the phone he dialed.

On the second ring, Clarissa picked up.

“Hello? Harold?” Clarissa spoke.

“Hi, Clarissa is it?  We never actually met. Hi.” Harold replied awkwardly.

“Yeah, I know.  How long have we been neighbors?” Clarissa said with an awkward pause.

“Not sure, a few years I guess.  Are you okay?”

Clarissa choked, “Yes, but I’m so afraid. Listen, we don’t have much time; I need your help Harold.  Can I count on you?”

Harold blinked.  Count on me? Harold thought.   No woman ever asked Harold for help.  Every girl Harold went out with eventually found out about his hallucinations and then the hallucinations would get the best of Harold.  Every woman would turn into a bunny eventually, and Harold would creep out and run away.  Would Clarissa be the same?

“I can try.” Harold said. “What do you need me to do?”

Clarissa gave Harold the low down on her brother and the sailboat.

“Do you have a car, to drive to the marina Harold?”

“Yeah. What about them outside?” Harold pointed out the window.

Clarissa bit her lip and looked at Harold pointing out his window.

“Yeah, it doesn’t look good, but we’re going to have to chance it.”

Juggling the phone, Harold grabbed a pair of jeans and started putting them on, “I never knew they’d start attacking people. I swear to you Clarissa I never knew.”

“Harold, its’ okay.  They were our neighbors.  It’s a weird situation now.  Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.” Clarissa said with encouragement.

Harold was astounded, “Really?”

Clarissa smiled at Harold through her window, “Yeah, really.”

No girl ever said something as nice as what Clarissa said to Harold just then.   Harold beamed and felt a little better about himself, he looked down at the bunnies lumbering about his front lawn and felt a little less afraid of them.  The fear was still there, but he felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time well up.   Harold couldn’t put a finger on it, but he thought it might have been courage.

Harold hatched a plan with Clarissa.  Harold would have to sneak out of his house early that evening, and under the cover of darkness, to get to his car sitting in the driveway.  From there he’d drive over to Clarissa’s and pull up by her front door.  She’d hop in and they’d both drive to the marina.  Hopefully make it there by midnight.  The plan sounded good to Harold for the exception of getting past the five bunnies that were standing by his car.  Also the ten rabbits, that where shambling on his lawn, didn’t look good either.

Harold’s hands shook.  It was his nerves.  Dr. Veckman had always said that the bunnies weren’t there.  They were a soft cuddly mask that Harold had put in place of some horror or difficult situation.  Be it an abusive father, or a shallow blind date, the bunnies would appear.  Veckman had instructed that it was only when Harold finally accepted the horror or negative situation for what it really was that the bunnies would go away and then Harold could deal with the root of his problem.  The clozipan prescription helped, but not much.   Harold grabbed a knapsack from his bedroom closet and proceeded to raid the kitchen pantry.  He filled the sack with a number of items from canned soup, to crackers, to a six-pack of Coke.  He grabbed the keys off his kitchen table and took two steps before remembering it might be a good idea to grab a knife for protection.  He never knew the bunnies to be violent toward him before, but now, after what he had seen, Harold didn’t want to take any chances.

Throwing the knapsack over his shoulder and hold the knife ready, Harold patted his front pocket for the car keys.   There, good.

He walked to the front door and felt the butterflies in his stomach start to flutter like leaves blowing in a hurricane.  Harold took two deep breaths and then opened the door.

Running out to his car, the bunnies on his front lawn spotted him.  They let out a piercing wail and barred sharp teeth covered with the ichors of blood and offal.  The bunnies started to run after Harold and with the start of that commotion, it attracted the bunnies that were standing near the car. Harold screamed and held the knife akimbo, ready to strike.  The first bunny reached for Harold and he slashed upward, cutting a crimson line from groin to chest.  The bunny fell back causing the other two bunnies behind to trip over their wounded comrade.  Harold reached into his pocket for the keys.  Nerves took hold and with shaky hand he jingled the keys around until he found the one that would unlock the door, all the while keeping the quickly closing bunny mob in view.  It was just as two of the bunnies from the front lawn reached out to grab Harold that he unlocked the passenger side door and jumped in.  Tearing and clawing at Harold, he threw his knapsack into their face and kicked furiously enough to push them enough away to close the door.  Harold popped the lock and exhaled away some tension.   He was safe for a few moments at least.   More and more bunnies, with looks of rage on their furry faces pounded on the car door, window and hood with paws scrunched into rabbit-like fists.

Harold turned the ignition on the car and threw it in reverse.  The old Impala thumped over rabbit bodies as Harold spun the wheel and threw the Impala into a 180 degree spin facing Clarissa’s house. Tossing the car into drive, Harold drove up to Clarissa’s house and honked the horn.   Clarissa charged out the front door just as Harold popped the lock on the Impala.

“Thank God you made it!” Clarissa squealed and gave Harold a hug.

Harold blushed and locked the doors.  He threw the Impala in reverse and for just a second, in his rear view mirror, the rabbit he watched get run over wasn’t a rabbit at all.  Harold did a double take, but still saw the rabbit, unmoving, dead on the pavement.

“You okay?” Harold stammered as he drove out of the neighborhood, weaving around bunnies lumbering through the street.

“Yeah,” Clarissa checked her watch. “We need to hurry if we’re going to make my brother’s boat.”

Harold put the pedal to the metal as he nudged rabbits out of his way with the bumper of his car.   He wasn’t afraid of the bunnies as much as he was before he left his house.   Harold reached out and touched Clarissa’s hand.   She smiled back

Harold smiled and said, “Yeah, in fact we have to be ‘quick as a bunny’ if we’re going to make it.”

Clarissa squeezed Harold’s hand as Harold chuckled at his own private joke.

11:46 am - Rain. Copyright D. A. Pennington 2007

Rain.
Rain on my head.
Pouring down my face like warm rivers of acid, etching indifference onto my face.
Nobody knew where the storms came from, or who made them.
All I know is whenever it rained,
I chose not to care.
When the Leader declared war on that country,
We were against his decision with ire.
The next day a squall blew in,
And my thoughts of peace were to expire.
They raised our taxes to fund the war machine.
Enacted the draft and pulled in our innocent, covering them in the blood of our abhorrence.
When I rose up to rebuke those that manufactured the hostilities,
I was splattered with a tempest of inequity that landed with fat drops
On my head and shoulders, like an anointing of apathy from a minister
of callousness.
Ennui grabbed at me as I watched the war escalate and grow like a snowball rolling down a hoary hill.
A nagging sense of worriment grew within my gut as other countries admonished us and our dear Leader for all the ills we have unleashed.
Threats of a nuclear response rattled like sabers in their scabbards, eager
to be unleashed and swung about like a fiery sword of righteousness.

Worries grew rampant like weeds in a garden of fretfulness.
We wanted to sue for peace.
Our dear Leader appeared on television, to appease the masses in their demand for harmony with the world.
The planet was watching too, eager to feed off of any words that would defuse the tense situation that had developed into an out of control ogre.
The Leader stood before the podium, poised to speak as a water droplet landed on his hand.
He pulled his hand back, like he burned his hand on a hot stove.
A Marine covered him with an umbrella, trying, but failing in protecting him from the downpour that matted his coifed hair stained his suit with a wash of unresponsiveness.
Yet, when the storm abated, he turned to the cameras and yelled, “Full steam ahead!”

Flash of lightening.
Roar of thunder.

Rain.
Black soot-filled radioactive rain on my head.
Pouring down my face and etching red welts on my face.
I take shelter under an awning of a ruined candy store I used to visit when I was a child.
Looking out at the park I used play in.  I see the yellowing dead grass and the skeletons of trees all beckoning me to remember better times.
I shed tears like the gale that is bucketing above me, yearning for those rains that made me not care.