Bunny Call

by Scott Cawthon

  And before that nineteen minutes, it had been twenty-three minutes. Before that, it had been thirty-three minutes. Before that, it was thirty-seven minutes. Before that, it was forty-nine minutes. If he kept up this pattern, he’d be waking up every couple minutes within the next half hour.

  Approximately two hours and forty minutes of thrashing in the bed and opening his eyes to check his watch—what a great night Bob was having. Apparently he didn’t believe all his rational arguments in favor of the Bunny Call.

  Bob closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

  Sure enough. The next time he looked at his watch, thirteen minutes had passed. Then seven. And now three.

  It was getting close to 3:00 a.m. Two more hours.

  One and a half hours.

  One hour.

  A half hour.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Five minutes.

  His eyes felt like something had been trying to scrape its way out through his irises all night long. Bob looked around the cabin, but he only saw a whole lot of blackness.

  At home, the house was never this dark. Their home had exterior lights, and the subdivision had streetlights.

  Camp Etenia’s cabins didn’t have exterior lights because, according to the camp’s brochure, that would “ruin the nature experience.” Wanda had brought a night-light from home, but the boys refused to let her plug it in. “It will ruin the nature experience, Mom,” they’d said in unison before laughing uproariously.

  And so Cabin Nuttah was nothing but a featureless void. If it wasn’t for the sounds of his family’s snores, Bob could have convinced himself he was alone in a vacuum.

  Bob held very still and listened. Was Ralpho on the move? Was he out there someplace? Was he right outside the cabin?

  Bob felt his arm hairs stand up and quiver in the dark. “Wuss,” he whispered.

  He wished he could hear something other than snoring. Ralpho could be right outside the door, and Bob wouldn’t know it until the door started to open.

  Bob fumbled for his penlight and aimed it at the cabin door. He let out his breath. Okay. Good. He could see what was coming now.

  So now what? Should he just wait here for Ralpho to burst in and scare his family half to death?

  What kind of dad did that?

  Bob threw back the covers and got up.

  Wanda snorted and turned over. Cindy made a noise that sounded like a chortle.

  Bob shone his light on the door again. Should he check outside?

  Yes, you idiot, he told himself. Standing here in the dark wasn’t accomplishing anything.

  Bob crossed to the chest of drawers between the bed and the window on the right side of the cabin. He felt around in the top drawer for a pair of sweats. Finding them, he pulled them on. Then he went to the cabin door and slipped on the sandals that were neatly lined up with a row of smaller sandals against the wall. He opened the door, tensing because he half expected to be smacked upside the head with a cymbal.

  But the cabin’s small porch was empty.

  Bob looked out at the blackness that surrounded Cabin Nuttah. He glanced up at the sky. No moon. No stars. Apparently, the clouds had come back. But what good were they at night? And where was that rain?

  It didn’t matter. He was distracting himself from the matter at hand.

  Resisting the urge to turn on his penlight, Bob let his eyes adapt to the dark. It didn’t take long for him to be able to pick out shapes. He could see the vague outlines of the nearest three cabins, and he also could see the vertical pattern of the woods at the edge of the camp. Between two of the cabins, a handful of distorted shapes baffled Bob until he remembered a rustic playground was situated there.

  Bob saw a small spark of light in the playground area. He froze. Was that Ralpho? What if that was Ralpho using a penlight like Bob’s?

  Bob strained to see in the dark. Then he realized he was looking at the glowing end of a cigarette. Good. Rabbits didn’t smoke.

  Bob contained a burst of laughter. Rabbits didn’t smoke? Was Cabin Nuttah really making him nuts? Ralpho wasn’t a real rabbit.

  Bob watched the minuscule circle of light. It rose and lowered a couple times. Then Bob realized he could just make out the outline of a man. A man. Not a rabbit.

  Closing the cabin door behind him, Bob stepped off the cabin’s porch. He headed across the hundred feet or so from his cabin to the lit cigarette.

  The early morning air was cool and heavy with the thickly sweet scent of the woods and the fresh scent of recently cut grass. Dew moistened Bob’s toes as he walked. Away from his snore-ridden cabin, Bob could hear night sounds more clearly; crickets were industriously chirruping. He also heard the rustle and crack of tree branches bending to the will of the wind that had apparently started blowing during the night. As Bob neared the tiny flicker of light, he heard a man’s feet shuffle against rocky ground, and then a loud sigh.

  “Hello there,” Bob called out softly.

  The tiny light jerked.

  “Sorry to startle you. I—I couldn’t sleep.”

  Bob listened to a man suck in smoke and then expel it. The smell of menthol made Bob’s nostrils twitch.

  “Me either,” the smoker said unnecessarily.

  A flashlight clicked on, and the smoker shined a beam of light on his own face. It made the smoker look sinister, especially with smoke pouring out of his nose, but Bob could tell the guy was probably pretty normal looking in the daytime. He had a thick head of light-colored hair, and he had what might be blue eyes. The eyes, though, looked sad.

  Bob flicked on his penlight and shined it on his own face. He chuckled. “Not our best sides, huh?”

  The smoker appeared to smile. It was hard to tell. The macabre effects of his flashlight turned the smile into a sneer.

  “I’m Bob.” Bob offered his hand.

  “Phillip.” Phillip took the last drag of his cigarette and pinched it out between two fingers before taking Bob’s hand and shaking it.

  Bob felt a little intimidated by the pinching-a-lit-cigarette move, but he told himself to grow up. Aiming his light around, he saw that Phillip was leaning against the end of the swing set. Bob was tempted to take a seat in one of the swings, but then he’d feel even more like a little boy than he already did.

  “You sign up for the Bunny Call, too?” Phillip asked.

  Bob’s breathing sputtered like a guttering candle. He had to run his tongue around inside his mouth before he answered. “Yeah.”

  Phillip flicked his lighter on and off, then stuffed it in his pocket. “Probably not my best decision.”

  His expression seemed a little severe for the situation. Didn’t it?

  “I’ve been awake most of the night thinking about it,” Bob admitted. He looked at his watch.

  “What’s the time?” Phillip asked.

  “It’s 5:08,” Bob said.

  “Why doesn’t time crawl when things are going right?” Phillip asked.

  Bob didn’t answer. What was the point?

  So he stood in the dark with Phillip and listened to the wind. He also listened to the ticking of an imaginary clock. It ticked louder than any real clock Bob had ever heard.

  Ralpho could show up at any minute.

  The men listened and waited. Bob’s intestines felt like battling serpents flailing around inside his belly. Bob was seconds from throwing up, but he managed to get himself under control. The serpent slid back down into his gut, but it didn’t stop writhing.

  “My mom collected stuff,” Bob said.

  Phillip shifted at the unexpected words. His back chuffed against the swing set.

  Bob was surprised, too. He didn’t know he was going to say out loud what he was thinking about. Since he started, though, he figured he’d finish. It was better than hanging out here waiting for an orange rabbit while his anxiety ate him alive from the inside.

  “Her favorite collectibles were baskets and china teacups.” An image of Bob’s mother filled his mind. H
is mom had been old-school and very feminine. She always wore pastel slacks and floral silk blouses, even on housecleaning day. She always tried to be the perfect wife. She’d kind of spoiled Bob, if he was being honest. He’d thought he’d have a life like his dad’s. He’d come home from work, put his feet up, and read the paper …

  Talk about culture shock. Not that Wanda wasn’t a great wife.

  Bob remembered he was telling a story. “She kept her most prized baskets on top of the hutch in the dining room, and the teacups were on top of the sideboard that was next to the hutch.” Bob paused and listened to the wind. That was the wind, wasn’t it?

  When nothing appeared out of the night, he continued. “One day, I thought it would be fun to try to see if I could throw my basketball up into one of her baskets. I have no idea why that seemed like a good idea. I was nine.”

  Phillip didn’t say anything.

  The sense of urgency Bob had felt since he’d gotten out of bed suddenly multiplied tenfold. He rushed on with his story. “So I toss up the ball in a perfect arc. I’d been practicing, and it lands in the biggest basket. I’m jumping around like I’ve won a tournament, making all the crowd noises, whooping and cheering. But then the ball starts to tip the basket, and the basket starts to go over. It happens in super slow motion, like a millionth of an inch per few seconds. Or at least that’s how it seems. And then the basket is on its side, and the ball is on its way past the other baskets and on down the side of the hutch. I can see what’s going to happen, and I’m in motion immediately. But there’s no way. No way I can stop it. The ball comes down and lands on the sideboard, scattering Mom’s teacups all over the place. All but one of them broke. Mom was devastated.”

  Bob stopped and cleared his throat. “Once I made the decision, the rest of it was out of my control.” He shook his head. “I think I made a decision like that today with that Bunny Call.”

  A loud half-baying, half-yelping cry sounded in the distance.

  Bob and Phillip both whirled around.

  Was it the wind?

  Or something else?

  Phillip coughed, cleared his throat, and said in a smoke-abraded voice, “My mom died when I was five. I hardly remember her. But I remember how my dad was before she died. He was a great dad. Taught me how to throw a ball, always showed me what he was working on when he fixed stuff, read me stories at night. But then after Mom died, my dad …” Phillip paused when a keening sound sliced through the camp and speared both men.

  Bob’s muscles were taut with fear and dread.

  Bob didn’t think Phillip was going to finish his story, but suddenly Phillip said, “My dad got lost. He just got lost. He couldn’t do anything for me anymore. He was all about himself. He turned into a horrid dad.” Phillip pushed off the swing set. He powered on his flashlight.

  Phillip turned and looked Bob in the eye. “I’ve become just like him.”

  Before Bob could respond, Phillip turned off his flashlight and walked away. The night plucked him from Bob’s reality and deposited him someplace beyond his senses. Bob was left standing alone with more self-knowledge than anyone would ever want to have.

  “That’s enough,” Bob said.

  He was going to stop the Bunny Call.

  Bob headed off into the woods, going in the general direction, he thought, of where the last two sounds originated. That same direction as the lodge. Maybe someone would be there, someone who could find Ralpho and cancel the Mackenzie Bunny Call.

  It was a hundred yards or so to the lodge, but it felt much farther as Bob attempted to follow, using only his small penlight, the gravel-covered path through heavy forest and past darkened cabins. He started at a walk, but he quickly shifted to a jog, hoping he wouldn’t trip on a root or an errant ball or an oar. He couldn’t afford to waste time. Ralpho could show up to Cabin Nuttah at any minute. For all Bob knew, Ralpho could be there now!

  When Bob broke through the last stand of trees at the edge of the open area in front of the lodge, his shoulders sagged. The lodge was completely dark. It was so dark it looked abandoned. That was crazy, of course. Someone had to be in there.

  Bob hesitated in the middle of the dew-drenched sloping lawn. Should he pound on the lodge doors and wake someone up?

  A squall echoed through the trees. Bob whipped around to look back at the path he’d come down. He stopped thinking and simply went into action. Jogging again, he retraced his steps until he was about halfway to his cabin. His family. Then he heard a scuttling sound that froze his intestinal serpents and turned his spine to ice.

  Was that Ralpho?

  Bob aimed the narrow beam of his penlight into the underbrush on either side of the path. The pale white light landed on drooping leaves of a wild rhododendron. The plant seemed to be trembling.

  Surely Bob was imagining that.

  Of course he was. The wind was just stirring the slick green leaves.

  Or was it the wind? The leaves weren’t moving in a direction that made any sense.

  An abrupt explosion of snaps and crackles stirred up a rustling that seemed to move away at a right angle to the path. Without thinking about the consequences, Bob veered off the path and dove into the thick vegetation. He followed the sounds.

  Pop. Crinkle.

  Ting.

  What was that sound?

  Bob stopped abruptly, losing his balance. He threw a hand out to catch himself, and he scraped his palm on rough bark. He turned off his penlight. He listened.

  There it was again. Barely there. A slightly metallic rattle.

  Was it a cymbal?

  Trying to make as little noise as possible, Bob started moving again, following the sounds. They moved steadily away from him, heading toward the edge of the camp … heading in the direction of Cabin Nuttah.

  But not necessarily to Cabin Nuttah. There were at least five other cabins around Cabin Nuttah.

  Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Bob thought as he tracked the sounds through the forest. He was moving by feel now, afraid to turn on his penlight again. He had this insane idea that Ralpho was messing with him, playing a scary game of hide-and-seek.

  What was Bob dealing with? Was it a camp counselor with a sense of humor or an animatronic with its circuits crossed … or something more treacherous than either of those?

  Bob forced his brain to power down its thinking centers and focus only on keeping his body in motion. He concentrated on where he was putting his feet. He plowed through the forest the way Wanda mowed through shoppers in an after-Christmas sale. He had one goal: stop the orange rabbit. He would not be deterred from that goal.

  But wait …

  Bob halted next to a massive cedar.

  He listened …

  and listened.

  He heard … nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Had he imagined all the sounds he thought he heard?

  Or was Ralpho done playing with Bob?

  What if Ralpho was getting close to Cabin Nuttah?

  What if he was already there?!

  Bob thrashed back to the path, and when he reached it, he turned on his penlight to illuminate his way. Then he ran flat-out.

  Bob hadn’t run since he was on the football team in high school. He’d jogged some, but he never stuck with it. So when he reached the cabin, he could barely breathe. All he could do was open the door and fall inside.

  Once there, he firmly shut the door and slid to the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him. He heaved to get air into his oxygen-depleted lungs. He was making so much sucking, gasping noise that he was nearly drowning out his family’s snores. Nearly, but not quite.

  The import of that hit him. They were still sleeping. All was well.

  Bob looked at his watch.

  It was only 5:25 a.m.

  Bob frowned. How was that possible? It felt like he’d been running around the forest for an hour at least.

  Bob shrugged. It didn’t matter. What mattered was he was here, and Ralpho wasn’t.r />
  The door behind Bob’s back vibrated when a knock sounded. Bob whimpered.

  He stayed very still. Maybe if no one answered the door, Ralpho would go away.

  Another knock. This one louder.

  Bob got to his knees. He waited.

  Another knock. More insistent.

  Okay, playing possum wasn’t going to work. Pretty soon, Ralpho would be pounding on the door, and he’d wake up Bob’s whole family. Wasn’t that what he was trying to stop?

  Bob turned, grasped the knob, and opened the door a few inches. He looked out.

  It was all he could do not to scream.

  Ralpho had been startling to behold from across the huge lobby in the lodge. Close up, Ralpho was just plain alarming. Taking a half step back, Bob braced one foot behind the door, held the doorknob firmly, and blocked the opening with his body. Bob looked up at Ralpho’s face. Yes, up. Too far up. Ralpho was over six-and-a-half feet tall, just to the top of his head! His ears went up another foot or so. And speaking of his head … it was a disturbingly big head, almost the size of one of those exercise balls Wanda liked to sit on.

  Bob forced himself not to look away from Ralpho’s eyes, even though they were an unsettling bright pink. Ralpho gazed down at Bob and waited.

  “Er, Ralpho.” Bob’s voice cracked like he was barely older than Tyler.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ralpho, ah, I’d like to respectfully request that we, ah, cancel our Bunny Call.”

  Ralpho didn’t move.

  “I’m sorry you came all the way out here,” Bob continued, “and I, ah, appreciate your time, but I’ve decided a Bunny Call isn’t the best thing for my family.”

  Ralpho was immutable.

  “So, like I said,” Bob plowed ahead, “with due respect, we won’t be needing your services.”

  Bob held his breath.

  One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four seconds.

  Ralpho slowly nodded, turned, and headed down the steps of Cabin Nuttah.

  Bob shut the door, locked it, and leaned against it, sighing deeply. Tears filled his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so relieved.