The Odd Bunnies

by Sam Cullan

  Chapter Nine

  The Rover's return was leisurely and had allowed Alice to relax. The sun had long since absconded and the darkened skies were melting into the gloom of Blackwater Forest, so her eyes had little to entertain them. She dutifully allowed the car's headlights to lead her mind along the narrow, winding track as it plunged from the moorland heights, seemingly forever downwards. A stone barrier on either side prohibited all but an occasional glimpse of the world beyond, where rocks had crumbled and fallen from the top. The path followed by the ancient stones rarely aligned itself with the modern asphalt, so that Will was constantly swerving to avoid the jagged edges that would rip through unwary metal and rubber. Occasionally the trajectory of the lights brought into relief the advancing line of briery trunks, flashing before Alice's eyes like horrific sea monsters caught in the beam of an underwater vehicle plummeting to unexplored, inky depths.

  “Spooky forest,” she observed.

  “Yeah, wouldn't wanna break down here.”

  “Why, are there ghosts, and monsters?”

  “Probably … and no phone signal.”

  Will knew that they would be entering the outskirts of Blackwater in minutes, but decided to allow Alice's imagination to flourish.

  “Will you protect me, Will?

  “Will I? Now that is the question.” Will smirked, but Alice didn't spot it. She thumped him nevertheless. He squealed and giggled before adding “What we doing for dinner?”

  “Is that all you think about – food?”

  He thought about other things; dark, erotic, fantastic things. “Yes.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Blackwater,” Will forgot he was protecting her, so quickly added “Errr … I mean, we will be in Blackwater when I've brought you safely through this perilous forest.”

  “I can see street lights.”

  Will's cover was blown. “Oh yeah … could be a trick.”

  “Looks like a town.”

  The forest gave way to orange hedges as they entered the town, then the hedges gave way to orange walls. The light whitened, and shiny cars and looming buildings eclipsed the night.

  “We could, but I'd rather not.” Will had no desire to enter any of the eateries in his home town, because he knew that would involve seeing someone he really didn't want to see ever again. He'd never been truly happy there, though he didn't realise it until he wasn't there. He found the town, and the people, suffocating. When he got a part-time job at the age of sixteen, he met people who had never travelled further than Kingston, which was barely five miles away. He suspected that 90% of the population were descended from just a handful of families. His own had arrived there in 1959, but were still seen as outsiders.

  Will was a man of the world, even if he'd not seen much of it. His mind was expansive, and he could not understand people whose limited imaginations coloured everything either black or white. He despised their ignorance, and he despised the systems that he had been unable to break free of for so many years. If he'd grown up in London, or America like Alice, he was sure he'd be a famous writer, actor, photographer, artist, director, singer, comedian, footballer, athlete or president. He considered himself an artistic, creative person. The system moulded him into a dull, robotic clone of its mediocre leaders. In the land of the imbecile, the moron is king.

  Will reflected on Buffy Saved My Life, a book which had sold 273 copies. It wasn't a bad book, reasonably well-written, but he'd penned stories and poems in junior school which demonstrated a far richer imagination. He desperately wanted to re-ignite that imagination, and sought out people either whom he considered creative, intelligent and liberal, or people who were different, unique and beautiful in his eyes – for he despised popular beauty. He had several muses, although he'd not met and didn't know intimately, most of them. Alice was his finest catch, but he despised himself for seeing it like that. He wanted to be her friend, on an equal footing, both parties profiting from mutual appreciation and understanding. This relationship was formed partially on a lie, and he wanted it to be pleasurable – for himself of course, but mostly for Alice. He knew he had much to offer her, if only he could make her see that. He remembered being 22 and he knew she wouldn't value his friendship as highly as he valued hers, because friendships came easy to 22-year-olds who generally led much richer social lives. Plus, he vaguely recalled, they were usually too busy discovering themselves.

  “I really value your friendship.” Alice broke his concentration.

  “You do?” Had his momentary lapse into depression been in vain? Why did she choose that particular moment to shatter his pessimism? Nothing was ever easy.

  “Yes I do,” Alice emphasized.

  “Then I must be the luckiest guy in the world.” Will wondered, again, if Alice was a witch. She seemed to know what to say and when to say it.

  “Really, I'm a witch.”

  “I knew it!”

  “How far to Broadford?”

  “About thirteen miles.”

  “And Newington?”

  “About nine miles.”

  “Newington it is, then.”

  “Errr, no, then I have to drive you twenty-two miles to your hotel.” Broadford wasn't that far from Newington via the straight-ish dual-carriageway that crossed over the hills, but Will had done enough driving for this day. Plus he wasn't keen on hotels, no matter how luxurious.

  “You don't have to.”

  “You've got a broomstick?”

  “To beat you over the head, yes. I mean I can stay at your home.”

  “You've seen my home – shoe box. And the neighbours are noisy.”

  “I spent half my life in hotels, I think I can handle it. Anyway I'd feel safer. Marvin got into your car, so he could get into my hotel room.”

  “Err … about that.” Will felt a pang of guilt. “I think I left the car unlocked last night.”

  Alice was surprisingly sympathetic to Will's incompetence. “So you owe me a book, and twelve months of research.”

  “Sorry. I'll make it up to you.”

  “Well, you can start by letting me stay the night.”

  Will didn't think it was a bad trade. “Fair enough. Eat in or out? Or takeaway?”

  “Chinese?”

  Will made a feeble attempt to repeat the question with a Chinese accent. Alice groaned. They were approaching Blackwater town centre, and Will was on the look-out for people he didn't want to see.

  “Is this the town with the ducks?”

  “Indeed it is. More famous for swans, though.”

  “OK. And all the lights … so pretty. Is the river called Black Water?”

  “Not originally, they had to change it.”

  “How come?”

  Will wished he'd said yes to Black Water, as he was sure Alice's imagination was about to go into overload.

  “Well the stream was originally called Devil Water.”

  “No shit!”

  “Yes, shit.”

  “This is an omen.”

  Will feared it was indeed an omen, and the more he thought about the mad monk, and other stories he hadn't told Alice, the more he wondered if there was something in the name. Then he thought about the people he grew up with, and decided there most definitely was. No point in holding back anything now.

  “You might be interested in some other stories.”

  Alice most certainly was. “There's more? Like, evil?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Cool.”

  “Ever heard of Spring-heeled Jack?”

  “No.”

  “The Devil's footprints?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the Devil's footprints is a story unique to this area, but similar to another involving a character called Spring-heeled Jack.”

  “Go on.”

  Will told how, one winter's night in the 1850s, there was a heavy snowfall across the south coast. The next morning, people across a number of villages woke to find strange footprints in the snow around their houses.
The footprints were very small and resembled a cloven hoof. As people followed the trail of prints, it became apparent that they not only appeared on the ground, but up the sides of buildings, across walls, rooftops and in all sorts of inaccessible places. The footprints were seemingly everywhere, and covered many, many miles – reports at the time claimed the mysterious acrobat had covered over 100 miles in the course of one night.

  “Wowww.” Alice was very, very interested.

  “Scary huh? The footprints went up to the doors and windows of houses, like the creature was looking for people, or watching them.”

  “No wonder you left here.”

  “Yeah,” Will watched the herds of people on their way out for the evening's drinking, fighting and copulating rituals, “spawn of Satan.”

  Alice failed to make the association. “Huh?”

  “Wouldn't surprise me if the Devil visited that night and impregnated all the local women, and half the people in this town today are descended from him.”

  “Gee, you really don't like it here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the chapel?”

  “Dunno, maybe this is England's version of Sunnydale.”

  “Where's that?”

  “California.”

  “Where?”

  “Where Buffy lives.”

  Alice laughed. “Ohhhh – the Hellmouth.”

  “You got it.”

  “Did Buffy live in the Hellmouth?”

  Will forgave her ignorance, as she was too young to have seen the TV show when it aired. He, however, was an authority.

  “Buffy lived at 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale. Sunnydale High School was built on top of the Hellmouth. Hence, the kids there were a little odd. Of course in real life, that's Torrance”

  “You're a little odd, so maybe this is the Hellmouth.” Alice was pleased with her deduction and pushed her wide grin as close as possible to Will, while playfully poking his side.

  “And maybe that's why you're attracted to me.”

  “I never said I was attracted to you.”

  Will blushed and stammered, “Ummm, n..n..no, sorry, didn't mean it like that.”

  Alice laughed and poked him again. “You're too easy.” She leant across and linked her arm through his. “You're a very attractive man.”

  “And you're a very talented actress.” Will didn't really care if she was attracted to him or not, if she could make it sound so genuine and lovely.

  “Is that the only reason you like me?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, shame, thought we could have some fun tonight.”

  Will wasn't about to fall for it again, and carefully considered his retort. Alice had already spotted his jaw drop and his eyes watering.

  “Just kidding.” She allowed Will to loop an arm around her neck and squeeze her shoulder. He was on a road he'd driven thousands of times - hundreds of them blindfolded – and he felt comfortable driving with one hand. The Rover purred up the long hill, leaving the good spawn of Blackwater to their debauchery. As they broke over the brow, Will pointed with his head.

  “I used to live up there.”

  Alice looked, but it was too late. Will was accelerating away from the town. He drove the few miles to Saltymouth and asked Alice for his arm, as he needed it to negotiate the town. Alice protested, as she was getting quite comfortable and felt quite safe when she was this close to him. She settled back into the seat and pushed her hands between her legs, palms turned against the inside of her thighs. She flexed her shoulders and leant back, eyes closed.

  “Wake me up when we get to the Chinese.”

  “Twenty minutes, tops.”

  “Twenty minutes is good.” Alice would use the time to reflect on her whirlwind friendship, going over minute details just in case she had missed something telling. By the time they reached Newington, she hadn't been able to think of any good reason not to trust Will. She hoped he'd not read her signals incorrectly; she thought he hadn't, and she knew she could read him well enough to know if he had. She enjoyed playful but harmless flirting and guessed he did too, and that he probably had few opportunities. Satisfied with her handling of the situation, she allowed herself to imagine the night ahead, and smiled.

  “Wake up. What you dreaming about?

  “Oh … nothing.” Alice's smile broadened. She opened her eyes just as the car entered Takeaway Ave., which was full of people queuing inside and outside lots of brilliantly lit and colourful premises, representing cuisine from every corner of the world, and a few that represented neither the world nor cuisine in the contemporary sense. “Wow, this town has a lot of junk-food addicts.”

  Will pulled into a dark side-street away from the hubbub, mindful of his passenger's status. He would've parked there anyway, because he didn't want to risk having the Rover's paintwork scratched. It was pretty well-scratched already, but he didn't want any more.

  “Will you be OK here?”

  “Why, don't you want to be seen with me?”

  “It's more a case of you not wanting to be seen with me!” Will was genuine. “Anyway, there are a lot of idiots out there, and if somebody recognizes you then all hell could break loose.”

  “I can handle hell. Been there already, got the t-shirt.”

  “You're more than welcome to come, but ...”

  Will couldn't finish his sentence before Alice had jumped out of the car. She shut the door and stood with her hands behind her back, tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She leant forward and her long hair fell across her face. She parted it and studied her reflection in the door glass: no make-up and shaggy hair. She was wearing a beige leather jacket with lapels, and she flicked them and the collar up. This, and the mass of straggly hair, she figured covered enough of her face to allow her to blend in. People would be too busy eating or waiting to eat, and wouldn't give her a second glance.

  “Let's go, pops. What you gonna buy me?”

  Will remembered she had no cash. He couldn't afford it, but there was no way he'd back out. He thought of asking her to pay with plastic, but not only would it be extremely bad form, it might also alert people to her identity.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Can you afford me?”

  “No. But I can sell something later … an arm, a leg, a kidney.”

  “I'll buy a leg off you.”

  “Deal. One Chinese meal for one leg.”

  Alice linked arms with Will again. “We'll pretend I'm your daughter and you're taking me out for a treat.”

  She liked being close to him, especially in crowds. Will thought she was getting very friendly, and he wasn't sure daughters usually walked with their hand in their father's back pocket, but he decided he'd pretend it was an American thing - should anybody question it.

  “Shall I do my English accent?”

  There went his excuse. “OK, let's hear it.”

  “Cor blimey guvnor; apples and pears; oi, oo yu lookin' at, matey?”

  “I'd probably stick to American, if I was you.”

  “Don't they talk like that here?”

  “Only when they want to take the piss out of Americans who do appalling English accents.”

  Arriving at one of the quieter Chinese restaurants, they peered through the window at an exotic-looking menu.

  “Looks quiet, maybe we should just eat here. Then I can use my credit card.”

  Will was impressed by the offer and potential sacrifice. “We can eat here, but I pay. Up to you, I don't mind.”

  “We'll get a take-out. It'll be fun. We can watch movies and plait each other's hair.”

  “If you can plait my hair, you're a bloody magician.”

  Alice studied Will's cropped hair and tried to imagine it in plaits.

  “OK, you plait mine.”

  Will really didn't want to plait her hair. “I'll cut it for you.”

  “Ohhhhhh no. It stays long. Don't you like it long?”

  “Hmmm. Long is OK,
I just think you look better with it shorter and curlier, or tied up. Remember the end of Blaggers, when you're in that shop?”

  “Oh yeah, welllll ... it was shop hair.” She laughed.

  “Well I thought it looked really nice. You have such a beautiful face, it's a shame to cover it up. Except for going incognito, of course.”

  “Let's order, I'm salivating.” Alice was secretly impressed that he'd taken an interest in her hair.

  Will held open the door, and they entered the restaurant arm-in-arm.