Rare Lansdale

by Joe R. Lansdale

  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.

  "Help me, White Rabbit," Carpenter said. "I've done you no harm. You wouldn't hurt me, would you? Rabbits are by nature gentle and timid creatures."

  The rabbit held up one finger. (Odd, thought Carpenter, he had not noticed that the fingers were clawed before.) Then the rabbit began a rhyme.

  "How cheerfully he seems to grin,

  How neatly spreads his claws,

  And welcomes little fishes in

  With gently smiling jaws!"

  The rabbit lowered his hand. His pink eyes went deathly dark and cold, like two bright stars that had suddenly gone nova. Slowly, the rabbit walked toward Carpenter.

  Somewhere, from the darkness beyond the stone ring, came the fluting of pipes, the slow cadence of drums.

  Carpenter struggled against the ropes, but to no avail. "God, it's not a dream. It's real!"

  "Is it?" said the rabbit.

  "A dream? Then it's a dream?"

  "It is? My goodness, is it now? Did I say that?"

  "You're out of Lewis Carr
oll's imagination, for Christ's sake!" Carpenter screamed as tears began to run down his cheeks.

  "Carroll was such a romanticist," the rabbit said. "He could take the coldest truth and turn it into something sugar-cone sweet. Just refused to see things as they are, you see. Made them out to be fairy tales. A very reprehensible thing for a journalist to do."

  The rabbit was very close now, and there was nothing cute about the way he looked, about those skull-socket eyes, those ugly teeth. Carpenter could smell the sourness of the rabbit's breath, a smell like decaying meat.

  "Do not the Japanese say," the rabbit said slowly, "that we only live twice. Once in life and once in our dreams?" He smiled broadly. There seemed to be an endless supply of teeth. "Tonight we kill two birds with one stone."

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "Yes, yes indeedy. A very solid fact of Christianity's belief is suffering. Remember Jesus on the cross? Stretched out there for all to see, suffering for redemption. Christianity tells us that if we suffer enough we get a prize, yes indeedy. Are you ready for your prize?"

  "You're mad!"

  The flutes had risen in tempo; the drums beat in a heart-throb sort of way.

  The Hatter said, "It really is time, sir."

  "Is it now?" the rabbit said, taking out his watch and examining the face in the moonlight.

  "Why it is. Quite time, quite."

  Carpenter began to laugh hysterically. Tears glistened on his cheeks. "This is crazy! You can't hurt me. You're a dream. You're the frigging White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. You're a dream. I'll wake up!"

  "Oh," said the rabbit, looking puzzled, and with surprising deftness, produced from his waistcoat pocket a sharp bladed knife. "Will you?"

  And he cut Carpenter's throat.

  Then they all sat down to the feast.

  © 1981 Joe R. Lansdale.

  "The White Rabbit" originally appeared in The Arbor House Necropolis. It later appeared in Bestsellers Guaranteed, a collection published by Ace.