Stories (2011) (125 page)

The humming faded off into the night. Pulling his revolver,
Carpenter strolled briskly into the shadows, determined to find out why there
was a rabbit-suited joker hopping about in the City of the Dead humming
"Garry Owen."

He could hear the humming again. It seemed to come from far
away. Carpenter continued forward and the velvet night closed tight around him.
He came to an obstruction and, lighting a match, he saw that it was an adobe
wall. Just to his left was a large, round opening. It appeared to have been
knocked into the clay. Beyond the wall, he could hear the faint humming of
"Garry Owen."

Stooping, match in one hand, revolver in the other,
Carpenter stepped through the opening.

Once on the other side he stopped and looked about. No
rabbit.

The match went out. But there was no need for it now. It was
suddenly very bright, much brighter than before. Above him the moon shone like
an aluminum skillet and the stars looked down like millions of bright, animal
eyes peering out of the darkness of a wood.

"Odd, quite odd," Carpenter said aloud. He thought
I must be sitting at home in my chair fast asleep, having fallen off reading
Alice in Wonderland, and now I'm dreaming all this. "Curiouser and
curiouser!" he said in self-mockery.

"Oh my, my," the rabbit's voice came again, and
the big bunny seemed to come out of nowhere and hop by. The rabbit's white,
fluffy tail bobbed before Carpenter like a bounding ball.

"Hey you, wait a minute!" Carpenter yelled.

The rabbit stopped, turned to look over its shoulder.
"Goodness, goodness, what is it? Make it quick. I'm so late, so very
late."

Carpenter, feeling a bit stupid about the revolver, returned
it to his coat pocket. It hardly seemed sporting to shoot a giant bunny. He
walked quickly over to the rabbit, shook his head and said, "It's not a
suit."

"What?" the rabbit said.

"I am dreaming, must be. Giant rabbits, indeed."
The rabbit turned completely about and faced Carpenter, wriggled its ample pink
nose, flashed its pink eyes. "Let's not dismiss rabbits, shall we?"
The rabbit produced a small fan and patted it into the palm of his other paw
(hand?).

"This is ridiculous," Carpenter said. "I
can't wake up."

"Is it now? Can't you now?" the rabbit said sharply.

"A crazy dream. I feel as if I've fallen down a rabbit
hole."

"Quite possible, quite possible," the rabbit said.
"There are holes all over the universe, you know. Whitechapel, England;
Fail River, Massachusetts. All over. They pop up all manner of places, yes they
do."

"This is all rather inconceivable," Carpenter
said.

"Is it now?" the rabbit said as if truly
surprised. "'What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when
he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all
conjecture.'" The rabbit bowed. "Sir Thomas Browne."

"Yes... Very nice. Where am I? Can this be the City of
the Dead? A dream?"

"'There are countless roads on all sides of the
grave,'" the rabbit said. "Cicero."

"Now what kind of answer is that?" Carpenter said.
The rabbit produced the pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket again. "Oh
filly fuddles, I am wasting time. Come, come if you must, but hurry."

For a moment Carpenter stood dumbfounded, then finally
followed the rabbit, who was making rather remarkable time with his hops. It
was quite a merry chase, and presently Carpenter came upon the rabbit again.
The big bunny was sitting on a stone bench next to a metal light pole reading a
newspaper. A piece of paper taped to the light pole fluttered in the wind, and
a handful of large bugs swarmed in the overhead glow. At the rabbit's feet a
horde of passionflowers grew, along with purple-flowered belladonna plants.

"I thought you were late," Carpenter said.

"Late?" the rabbit asked.

"I thought... Oh, never mind. I can't believe I'm
talking to a rabbit."

"And why not?" the rabbit said, dropping the paper
to his lap. His nose wriggled in an impatient sort of way.

"Well, you couldn't be real."

The rabbit crossed his left leg over his right knee and
swung his foot nervously. The newspaper fluttered to the ground. "My
goodness, but you are silly. So hard to convince, so hard." The rabbit
raised his voice, pointed at Carpenter. "Believe it hard enough and it is
true."

"But six-foot rabbits! Rabbits are small, insignificant
creatures."

The rabbit stood to its full height. "I'll have you
know we are quite revered, quite. Why, the very god of Egypt's antiquity was
rabbit-headed. Yes he was, he was."

Carpenter considered. Yes, in fact, Osiris, God of the Dead,
was often depicted as a rabbit-headed god. In that guise he was usually known
as Wenenu.

"But where am I?" Carpenter asked the rabbit.

"You are here, that is where you are," the rabbit
said. "My goodness, such silly questions."

Carpenter scratched his head. "You said there were
holes all over the universe. Could I have fallen into one of those?"

"Oh, quite possible, quite. There are holes all over
the place. Whitechapel, for instance." And with that, the rabbit went into
a little dance, chanted a rhyme.

"Jack the Ripper's dead.

And lying on his bed.

He cut his throat

With sunlight soap.

Jack the Ripper's dead."

The rabbit paused and said, "Fall River also." The dance began again,
a sort of highlander jig.

"Lizzie Borden took an ax

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one!"

The rabbit stopped dancing, leaned forward, showed Carpenter its two front
teeth, both as bright and thick as huge sugar cubes. "Or did she?"
the rabbit whispered.

"Very nice," Carpenter said, getting into the spirit of things.
"A very fine dance."

"Oh," the rabbit said with obvious pleasure,
"you really think so?"

"I do."

The rabbit made an effort to appear modest. "Well, I do
have a certain knack for it, you know?"

"I can see that."

"Can you now? Good, good." Then, almost
confessionally, "There are a lot of rabbits, you know. Pop up anywhere and
everywhere." The rabbit gave Carpenter a sly wink. "Take a look at
that paper on the light pole there, sir. Very enlightening, very."

Carpenter turned to the light pole, to the paper fluttering
there. The wind had picked up and was making quite a production of it. It
nearly managed to rip the taped paper from the pole. Carpenter reached his
glasses from his pocket, put them on for a look-see.

The wind died as suddenly as it had come up, and Carpenter
bent forward to read the little paper. It appeared to be a page precisely torn
from a medical journal. A stamp at the top of it alerted him that the page had
once been included in a book contained in the United States Army Medical
Library in Washington.

Reading, Carpenter found the page concerned the matter of
one Mary Toft, a woman who, in 1726, claimed to have given birth to twelve baby
rabbits. Although this incident was never proven to be true, neither was it
disproved.

"Astounding," Carpenter said, putting his glasses
away, turning toward the rabbit. But the rabbit was gone. Carpenter could see
him hopping in the distance, disappearing once again into the darkness.

The wind came again, and it stirred the paper that had
fallen from the rabbit's lap, wrapped it around Carpenter's ankles. He
dislodged it, and was about to toss it aside when an article outlined in red
caught his eye. He did not bother with his glasses this time, but instead
pushed it close to his face.

It was a short little article dealing with the brutal deaths
of several black New York cabbies. They had been killed in their cabs and their
hearts cut out. The article said there were no clues.

Carpenter shivered, tossed the paper away, looked about.
Things had changed. He had not been aware of the moment of change, but this no
longer appeared to be the City of the Dead. In the distance, silhouetted by the
moon, were shapes that reminded him of the place, but here, close up, all was
very different. The bench and light post, for instance. Where in the world had
they come from?

There was something else. The feel. Not something you could
put your finger on, but something you could sense in much the same way you
could sense the changing of climate. Yes, something was very different.

For lack of better things to do, Carpenter strolled toward
where he had last seen the rabbit. As he walked, he noticed on his left a great
vista of bombed-out houses and buildings. It looked much as he thought London
must have looked after the Germans tried to abolish the city with their
blitzkrieg.

To his right there was a huge cart piled high with something
encased in shadows. A horse was hitched to the cart and it held its head dipped
toward the stones. Smoke rose in the distance beyond the cart, and somewhere,
faintly, came a voice calling, "Bring out your dead."

Carpenter walked briskly, the visions on either side of him
melting away like fading motion picture images.

"Do you think perhaps it's done with mirrors?" the
rabbit asked, stepping from the darkness.

"I... I thought you were ahead of me. How did you do
that?"

"I put this foot in front of this one," the rabbit
said. "Quite simple, really."

"I mean how... never mind."

The rabbit produced the pocket watch again. "Oh, I must
hurry."

"I thought you weren't late."

"You did? Why would you get such an idea? I am late,
you know. Murdering time, murdering time."

"Late for the tea party?"

"Tea party? I don't drink tea. What tea party is
that?"

"Never mind."

The rabbit looked at his watch again. "Goodness yes. I
must hop." And away went the rabbit, singing the Jack the Ripper chant
again, only this time substituting other words.

"Jack the Rabbit's dead

And living in your head

Cut his throat on moonlight rope,

Jack the Rabbit's dead."

Carpenter found himself practically running to keep up with the rabbit. Soon he
came to a long, seven-foot-high rock wall. Like the first wall, there was a
large hole in it. The hole led into total blackness. Carpenter's last sight of
the rabbit had been as the creature, ducking somewhat to fit, hopped through
the hole and disappeared.

"When in Rome or whatever," Carpenter said,
"do as the Romans or the whatevers." With that he stepped through the
hole into the dark... felt as if he were drifting. There was a loud ticking
sound, tick, tick, tick, like some sort of giant clock. Then came a swooshing,
like sand drifting down into the bottom of an hourglass, followed by complete
and total silence.

I must be at home asleep in my chair, he thought. This is so
real, but it must be a dream. It must be.

Reaching the matches from his pocket, he struck one. It did
very little to illumine the darkness. God, but it's dark," he said.

"A fact so dread," the rabbit said,
"extinguishes all hope."

"Wha... ?" Carpenter dropped the match and it went
out. "You startled me," he said, striking another match, holding it
in the direction of the voice. The rabbit's face looked oddly menacing there in
the wavery light of the match. The ears looked almost hornlike, the eyes and
nose appeared blood-colored instead of pink. The rabbit's teeth were almost in
Carpenter's face. They looked as large and firm as tombstones.

"Now listen, you," Carpenter found himself saying,
but his voice cracked and he never completed the sentence. Strong hands grasped
him. Two on his left arm, two on his right.

It was impossible for him to draw the revolver, and of
course he dropped the match.

The rabbit said from the darkness, "Bring him."

The hands gripped Carpenter tighter, carried him forward.
Eventually they pulled him out of the gloom and into silvery moonlight. Great
stones stood before him, formed a ring. In the center of the massive circle was
a long table with chairs - lots of chairs. The table was set with cups, dishes
and pouring vessels.

"Stonehenge," Carpenter said. "And the tea
party."

"Tea?" came a voice to his left.

Carpenter turned to look at his captors. The one on his left
was wearing an outrageously tall top hat. It was the Mad Hatter. On his right,
clenching his arm with viselike paws, was the Dormouse.

"You're characters in Alice in Wonderland. I don't
understand," Carpenter said.

"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter.

"This can't be real," Carpenter said. "It has
to be a dream."

"The two are much of a muchness," the Hatter
explained.

With the rabbit hopping before them, they led Carpenter to
one of the upright stones. The Hatter produced from his hat an impossible
length of rope, and he and the Dormouse bound Carpenter mummy-wrap tight to the
stone. Carpenter could not free himself no matter how hard be struggled, let
alone reach the revolver in his coat pocket.

"Why?" Carpenter asked. "Why?"

"Why?" said the rabbit, checking his watch.
"Why because it is almost time, and you, my friend, are the much-honored
guest." The rabbit lifted his head to the stars, as did the Hatter and the
Dormouse, and scrutinized the heavens.

Out beyond the ring of stones there was an uncanny darkness.
Carpenter thought he could see eyes there, growing more numerous by the moment,
collecting in droves. In one spot, like a moon that had come off its hinge,
hung a huge, white Cheshire Cat smile.

The rabbit lowered his head, put his watch back in place. He
smiled at Carpenter. Those teeth seemed suddenly very ugly. They reminded
Carpenter of nothing less than two huge grinding stones.