When he wrestled the rabbit away from the dog, he hadn’t expected the damned rabbit to bite him, but it had, and it was far deeper than he’d thought could be possible from a vegetable eating species. 

It was the third animal who’d bitten or stung him since they’d arrived in Wales only a couple of days previously. Now a little over forty-eight hours and already he’d been stung by wasps, scratched by a stray cat, bit by a mouse, and now the damned dog had gotten him bit by a rabbit. Maybe he wasn’t as cut out to be the ‘nature person’ Sam wanted him to be.

Mark eyed Maria. “Maybe should ‘a let the damned dog worry you to death,” he muttered to the rabbit though the small beast was long gone back into the picturesque English countryside it’d sprung from. 

Just then Samantha came out of the cottage into the yard with lemonade, oblivious of the drama occurring.

“Um, Sam? Can you grab me a towel?” he managed to ask, his left hand wrapped around his right, arms held at a distance, scarlet spattered across his wrist and hand. He’d never much liked blood and he could feel his overactive vagus nerve reflex already starting, his head swimming, knees getting weak. 

“Oh my God!” she shouted upon seeing him. 

“I’m ok, I’m ok, just get me a towel!” 

She nodded and ran back into the vacation cottage. A few moments later she came out again clutching a white kitchen towel; breathless and white faced she then carefully wrapped his bloody hand.

“You got bit?” she asked in a rush, a bit surprised her partner had come afoul of yet another wild animal.  

“Yes. Another bite?”

She looked confused. “Another?” she repeated in amazement. As unlikely as it sounded, poor Mark seemed to be having the worst of luck out here. 

Samantha was beginning to feel a bit guilty for bringing him to the cabin. 

“Wow … I didn’t know. I didn’t know rabbits could bite so deep. I am so sorry,” she said as the towel slowly turned pink and then crimson as it soaked up Mark’s still spilling blood.

His face was pale and slightly sweaty. She knew he couldn’t handle the sight of blood. Normally upon sighting it, he’d simply pass out. But this time he seemed to have managed to stay conscious. 

“Are you sure you are ok?” she asked again, her eyes wide.

 He turned and glared at their terrier, Maria, hiding under the backyard table and looking very guilty. 

“Maybe we should have left her London,” Samantha said, knowing Mark would never have agreed to that. They both loved the dog, and this was part of having one. 

“It really is ok, look, the blood is stopping.” He carefully peeled the towel back to show two perfect holes. 

“It looks like a damned vampire bit you, Mark! Damn it Maria, why did you mess with the rabbit!” Samantha glared at the dog in anger though most of it was mock and began to say that they shouldn’t be too mad as the dog couldn’t really help when, as if psychic, Mark added —

“No, no. It’s ok. It is just her nature; we need to watch her better out here. I should have thought of that when we let her run out into that field behind us.” 

“Thanks, Mark. I’m so sorry though…,” Sam said.

Mark interrupted before she finished noting, “I am serious. I’m ok, just don’t let Maria out without a leash or at least one of us watching her.”

His wound had completely quit bleeding.

“Come on. I’m going to clean this up. I recall reading somewhere that rabbits have all kinds of diseases.” Mark turned and vanished inside the cottage. She could see his dark shape through the screen door as he made his way to the bathroom. It was so bright out in the yard that it was like the doorway was a black and white spot in a hyper colored photo that had been photoshopped.

“You coming in?”

Samantha looked over the woods that the rental backed up on. “Yeah.” She walked over and got Maria to come out from under the table.

The dog knew it had messed up and held its tail between its legs. 

“Its ok girl.” Immediately the dog brightened up and her tail began wagging. Jesus, she wished she was like the dog. Movement caught her eye in the field. She looked and realized more rabbits were out there. Being a lifelong resident of London, she had no idea if rabbits were normally so, well, numerous. 

“Definitely not letting you out of my sight,” she said as she ruffled the dog’s head. 

The forest past the green field was somehow dark and forbidding, but more than anything wild and natural, it’d been the real reason the couple had wanted to rent this cabin in particular. Both of them were city people, but desperate to get out of the urban nightmare London had become in the last decade and this cabin seemed to offer a sense of remoteness no other rentals had that they’d looked into. It was a chance to see if they really could live out in the countryside and Samantha was thinking if Mark’s continual run in with wild animals was anything to show, it was that they might not be as prepared as they’d imagined.  

***

That night the fever started. She’d been dreaming Mark and she were somewhere like a dance. She was drunk in the dream and couldn’t seem to get a bead on anyone’s face. The people smeared together, but soon her vision began to clear and she could see that they were people with rabbit masks on. 

She awoke. Mark lay next to her sleeping soundly.

She touched his arm and gasped at how hot he was. He was burning. 

“Mark?” she shook him a little. Hadn’t he said that rabbits carry disease? 

She shook him again. His eyes flickered open. “What Sam? I’m tired ….” 

“I know, but I think maybe you better go to the doctor.”

Mark turned and looked at her. “Sam, we aren’t near any towns, remember? It’s over two hours back. If it isn’t gone tomorrow, then we can, ok?”

She thought for a moment, “Ok, but you need to take a fever reducer. Where is the kit?”

Mark grunted, “In the rental car.”

She got out of bed and marveled again at the smallness of everything in the house. It truly felt like a fairytale. The painted wood and Celtic looking designs made the place even more cozy. Despite all of that, she hadn’t wanted to stay there. As soon as she saw the house, squatting there like a toad, watching them as they drove up, she’d a feeling like something very wrong was going on here. She’d turned to say she’d changed her mind, but stopped midsentence.  When she saw real happiness in Mark’s face, she’d lied.

“I love it!” Which of course made Mark happy. 

Now, at night, she did not want to go outside. 

The dark woods in the distance made her skin crawl. And despite the brilliant jade of the long grass blowing in the warm wind, all she could think of was what did the grass hide? Something like a big snake could be crawling through there and you’d never know, at least you wouldn’t until it bit you. 

She’d no idea how alive it was out in nature. Real nature that is. Places where humans were the minority. It was like anywhere she stepped was moving. There were insects and frogs and birds and worms and butterflies everywhere. Crawling, eating, fucking, dying.

It was too much for Sam. Give her the sterile cleanliness of a hotel. She’d get Mark back to London, and they’d never come out in the country again.

She walked down the hall after slipping on her shoes and down the small staircase.

Why did the house bug her so much? She felt like she was walking around in the inside of some wet beast’s mouth. 

Once downstairs she saw the calendar. She couldn’t believe it was already June 21^st. She’d had fantasies of them coming here and drinking wine on the solstice, but instead here she was going to get medication for her sick boyfriend who’d probably caught some awful disease. 

She walked out the wooden door and stopped in her tracks. The yard was full of rabbits.

They were everywhere. On the car, in the grass. In the goddamned trees! All colors and shades from white to black, spotted even, which she had thought were domestic, weren’t they?

She didn’t know how to react. The sight was too strange, the full moon hanging fat on the horizon in the distance. The sound of crickets singing, frogs croaking.

Her head began to swim. Slowly she backed up, real fear in her. This couldn’t be normal, this couldn’t be right, she told herself as she carefully opened the door from behind, keeping her eyes on the rabbits at all times as best she could.

There were so many. If they really wanted to, they could definitely get at her … those teeth were so long and sharp .…

“Fuck this.” She pushed through the door and slammed it, gasping in relief.

She heard a thud, a loud one, from upstairs.

“Mark?” She walked over and looked up to the second level. The lights were all off.

Something was wrong. She began to walk up the stairs when Mark pushed out of the darkness.

But it wasn’t Mark, not really.

He now had a rabbit head. 

He ran past her and out the front door. She jumped up and ran to try and stop him. He had to have a mask on. This couldn’t be happening. 

There he was going round the corner to the back. She ran and followed, registering only semiconsciously that the rabbits were all following Mark.

Then she stopped. 

She never told the police what she’d seen then. She only lied and said Mark had had some kind of mental breakdown. They were still looking for him. They’d been so very kind. 

But she couldn’t keep the image from herself. Of Mark illuminated by the yellow moon, his whole upper body covered in silvery gray hair and his human face completely gone, replaced with a great rabbit head that unnervingly retained some of those human features still.

He was close enough that she could see madness behind his eyes. 

And then, he was gone. Off into the distant woods, rabbits in the thousands following. 

She watched until the field was empty again.

[Written and illustrated by Sarah Walker]