by James Howe
He walked up to Chester and started to grab him. “Come on, kitty,” he said, “you’re coming with me now.”
He didn’t know who he was messing with. Chester swiped him with his claws.
“Yeeouch!” the man said. “Hey, what gives?”
Chester turned to me. “Help me, Harold,” he said. “You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
“I never stopped being your friend,” I said.
“Then help me save Bunnicula.”
“Save Bunnicula?” I repeated.
“You heard me,” Chester said.
And then I understood. Bunnicula was somewhere in the pile of rubble Chester was sitting on. And Chester wasn’t moving until Bunnicula had been found.
“Come on, Howie,” I said, “we have one more job to do. A dog’s job.”
We moved toward the pile of rubble and sniffed. It didn’t take long to catch Bunnicula’s scent. Once we had it, we began to bark.
“The dogs are trying to tell us something,” a woman said. “There’s something else in there.” Turning to the Monroes, she asked, “Do you have any other pets?”
“A rabbit,” said Mr. Monroe, “but why would he be here?”
“There’s something strange going on, Robert,” Mrs. Monroe said to her husband, and then she said to the others, “Our vet called us this morning to tell us Bunnicula—that’s our rabbit—wasn’t in his cage when he arrived this morning. And soon after that Chester escaped.”
“Well,” said the big man Chester had lashed out at a few minutes earlier, “it looks to me like there may just be a rabbit in that rubble.”
All at once, everyone began to dig.
“I see eyes!” someone called out. “Red eyes!”
“Bunnicula!” Pete shouted when the bunny came into view at last. “This is so crazy! What are the animals doing here?”
I don’t know if the Monroes ever got that question answered to their satisfaction. I don’t know if they really cared. All that mattered was that we were all safe and sound—even Bunnicula, who had miraculously survived because of a large beam that had fallen in such a way as to create a little cave in the debris where he had hidden. He didn’t appear to have even a scratch. But you could see that his little heart was beating rapidly—and those red eyes had never looked more terrified.
The only thing predictable about Chester is his unpredictability, and in the next moment he did the most unpredictable thing I’d ever seen. He jumped down—and began to lick Bunnicula!
“What are you doing?” I cried.
“For heaven’s sake, Harold,” he said. “Use your brain, such as it is. I’m letting him know it’s all right. Can’t you see how scared he is?”
There was a flash of light as a camera recorded the moment. And that was the image that made the evening news and the next day’s front page in the Courier:
CAT SAVES RABBIT—THE LAST SHOW
AT THE CENTERVILLE CINEMA
For the record, Howie and I were given some credit, too, but it was the picture of Chester wrapped around the terrified Bunnicula, licking him, that got the most attention. I had to chuckle to think that Chester had earned his brief moment of fame because of his kindness to a rabbit. And not just any rabbit—his archenemy, the vampire rabbit Bunnicula!
* * *
It was some time before things returned to what passes for normal at the Monroe house. Our odd behavior, strange disappearances, and reappearances in unexpected places took some sorting out, and to this day I don’t think the Monroes have all the answers. Truth be told, I’m not sure we do, either. I think we were right about Bunnicula’s missing his mother, although of course he never said a thing. That was why he had run to the theater when he saw the ad in the newspaper. But was she really “out there” somewhere as Chester suggested? I doubt it. I suspect once she had left her baby bunny at that theater years earlier, she had gone on her way, trusting in the kindness of strangers and hoping for the best.
Now the theater itself no longer exists, and so for Bunnicula there truly is no going home again. But then, that movie theater was no more his home than Chateau Bow-Wow was Howie’s or the animal shelter where the Monroes had found me as a puppy was mine. Chester, who as a kitten was given to Mr. Monroe as a birthday present, has no memory of where he came from. But it doesn’t really matter. When you’re a pet, your home is with your people and your people are your family.
The reason Bunnicula missed his mother, I think, was that he never felt entirely at home here—not as long as Chester was threatening his very existence. But that’s all changed.
“So you’re no longer worried that Bunnicula is a vampire, eh, Chester?” I said one evening after dinner. Howie, Chester, and I were sprawled out on the front porch enjoying the warm spring breezes.
“Nonsense, Harold,” Chester replied snappishly. “Of course he’s a vampire.”
“Then why are you no longer trying to do him in?”
Chester yawned elaborately, letting me know that the topic of conversation was barely worth the bother. “Really, Harold,” he said, “it’s so obvious. Vampires are indestructible. Don’t you see? When Bunnicula wasn’t killed in that pile of rubble at the movie theater, I suddenly came to understand that he had powers beyond defeat. How would I ever overcome such powers and save an unsuspecting world?”
“How, indeed?” I asked, bemused.
“No, no, I figured it was best to return Bunnicula to where he rightfully belongs. Who knows him like I do, Harold? Who better to use that knowledge in a different way than I have used it in the past to keep a close eye on him and make sure he does no harm?”
“So you’ve become his guardian, is that it, Chester? His protector?”
“In a way. Though I think of myself more as protecting him from himself.”
I smiled and said nothing. I think I understood then that Chester had never really meant to destroy Bunnicula. He may have wanted to destroy the evil he thought Bunnicula represented, but Bunnicula himself? He was just a bunny. More than that, he was one of the family.
Now Chester has taken to napping next to Bunnicula’s cage. The two of them sometimes sleep so that their backs touch and, although I would never embarrass him by pointing it out, I’ve noticed that Chester purrs loudest at those times. And Bunnicula? The sparkle is back in his eyes and the bounce is back in his step.
If there was any doubt that a new relationship had been forged between Chester and his Moriarty, however, it was answered one morning when I crept downstairs to sing Bunnicula to sleep. Imagine my surprise when I heard a familiar voice singing those familiar words in my stead. I stopped and listened. It was surprising enough that Chester knew the lullaby, but my astonishment was even greater when at the song’s end, I heard hard-hearted old Chester utter the words: “Sweet dreams, Bunnicula, old pal.”
As for Chester and me, we’re back to being the best of friends. Chester understood that I was only trying to do what I thought was best for Bunnicula. And I understood that Chester was just being himself.
Howie, having lived through his own scary adventure, no longer reads FleshCrawlers. He says they’re not realistic enough for him. But they did inspire him to begin writing stories of his own. He asked me to look at them, which I did, and I’ve told him he’s pretty good—for a puppy. He still has a lot to learn, of course.
“Will you teach me, Uncle Harold?” he asked me the last time I read one of his stories. I told him I would. Who knows? Maybe he’ll write books one day just as I have. Anything is possible.
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