ANGRILY THE RABBIT LOOKED DOWN

chapter 1

when i got to the office that morning the rabbit had been there, and probably for a few hours. i was greeted off the elevator by the smell of fresh cut timothy grass. this light green summer smell once so comforting, harking back to days past working on the farm, now filled me with sour terror. i walked to my desk dizzy, trying not to succumb to the sense of peace the heady aroma was filling me with. by the time i got to my cube my feet felt like they were covered in heavy mud and my eyelids sat at half mast. where was that infernal beast. gabe from the cube next door was already gone, but had left a homemade rabbit bed for the long eared visitor. the box was carefully crafted of white oak and polished brass tacks, with a crimson velvet pillow nestled inside. it looked pretty comfortable and the rabbit had probably spent the night there, evidenced by a green lego and a quarter of a powdered donut no doubt left after a hurried breakfast. i stomped on the box, splintering it only after twisting my ankle on the strong corner of the lovingly built rack. the following was growing, and i felt like vomiting when i thought of what must have become of gabe, the man who had built this little offering. i walked through the entire office and saw not a soul. debbie had left a drawing in crayon. it showed a huge grey bunny with some sort of necklace on. the bunny stood protectively over a figure that even renderd in crayon was obviously debbie. dammit, so many had fallen. i rounded the last corner in my trip around the office and almost ran into steve tran. the poor bastard was trying to change the three gallon jug in the water cooler, and it took less than two seconds for me to see he'd gone violently mad. he struggled upward with the half full jug, working gingerly as if his hands hurt him. just as the jug started to make noises like it was going to be released, steve released it like it was hot.

"sorry!" he said, apparently to the cooler itself. "sorry! i'm trying to be careful. just open your mouth. open. come on." he tried again, and repeated the strange spectacle. i had absolutely no idea what to do, so i offered all i could think of.

"need a hand, steve?" i asked with fear wavering in my voice.

"noigoddit." he said quickly,and was just about to try again when he seemed to reconsider. he didn't seem the least bit surprised to see me. "well, maybe if you got that side while i got this one." it suddenly occured to me that steve was naked to the waist. he wore only brown dockers and conservative dress shoes, no socks. the word "absopure" was written sloppily across his chest with blue sharpie marker. it took a minute for me to recall where i'd seen that word, then i looked past steves emaciated little frame and saw it. "absopure" embossed on a cheap plastic tab stuck to the side of the machine. it didn't explain steve's makeshift tattoo, but it was somehow comforting to put together why the word was familiar to me.

i moved to the opposite side of the jug as steve, trying to ignore the strong sweet fruity smell coming off of him, it was somehow nauseating. i put my hands at ten and two and started to lift.

"carful! gentlyyy!" steve screamed. i yelled out from shock and lurched backward, slamming into the wall. "it will cut her lips if you lift too fast! you have to be careful." i had absolutely no idea who "she" was, but steve was in no shape to be answering questions as of right now. we lifted the jug from the cooler frame like taking an injured baby from a cradle. steve had a look on his face like it was cutting his lips, and sweat ran down his face, shoulders, and bird chest in shiny little rivers.

chapter 2

"now, don't touch the tip," steve said, inclining his head toward the lower bottom edge of the bottle that was inserted into the frame a moment ago. "that's where her lips touch." i couldn't take it any more. i needed information.

"whose lips, steve?"

"absopure's. of course." he replied. he said it like i was an imbecilic child who should have studied and didn't know the first president of the u.s. i helped him settle the jug into place and got away from him. i rounded the corner to return to my office, get my computer and run for my life, and i heard noises in the utility closet to my left that housed, as far as i knew, dusty fluorescent light tubes and miles of coiled cable connecting the company's phones to the main switchboard. i whipped open the door as if expecting the phone cables to come whickering out and grab me. what i saw was bad enough. debbie, gabe, and jon from it sat in a circle. they had draped themselves in coils of cat 5 phone cord. they all had magic marker x's over their eyes.

"we want to speak to the rabbit." said gabe in a tuneless robot voice.

"we come bearing gifts" added debbie. she laid the cracked body of her cell phone on a pile of detritus in the center of the group, including a granola bar, another green lego, a paper sack with unknown contents, a small green army man, a letter tray, and a small pc speaker, as well as the broken cell phone.

"we give our lives for the rabbit. the rabbit," chimed jon. all three bowed their heads together like muslims facing east. none of them looked toward the open door, i closed it quietly and moved toward my office faster than before. i walked throught the door, grabbed my pc tower and unplugged the wires from the back of it, monitor, speakers, network, power, i jerked the cords out faster and faster. i grabbed the case of cd's out of my drawer and put it in a backpack. as i was putting my arms through the straps of the pack, i heard a rustling noise behind me, and suddenly the scent of cut hay, farmland in midsummer, was alround me, making me dizzy, sending my vision out of focus. i turned in a daze, and there was the rabbit. the maniacal rabbit was about a foot long, fat from lots of donuts and pastries. he was a smooth gunmetal grey, slightly luminous. his eyes were two huge black liquid orbs, and it took a great effort not to stare into them, get stuck in the tar pits like gabe did and never leave. the rabbit seemed only mildly interested in me, though, gave a short kind of nod then hopped over to investigate the wreckage of his bed. i followed out of sick fascination or the beginning of adoration, noticing as an afterthought the length of green yarn around the rabbit's neck, from which a legless barbie doll corpse hung, another gift from another loyal subject. i never heard the footsteps behind me, didn't even feel the blow, but next thing i knew i was thrown against the wall, down to the floor, and a dull burning pain exploded across the back of my head. my sight went sharp jagged black for a moment, then came back.

"what have you done?! why did you destroy his home?! he'll smite you now, you're in such deep shit!" I barely recognized gabe's voice, it was a crazed girlish scream. i rolled over on my side and looked up at him, and he didn't look like gabe either, his face was a deep purplish red, wet with tears and spittle, and seemed distorted, squashed somehow by his rage. "he'll smite you now, he'll rid the world of you for sure. the rabbit isn't slighted by unbelievers like you, just wait." gabe did just that, his wild jabbering stopped for a moment as he looked expectantly at the rabbit. the rabbit stared back, bored, then started pushing the pieces of it's bed back together. it found a stomped piece of powdered donut and took a bite. i ran at gabe, staying low like in football practice in high school, and drove him back into the wall. he'd been watching his barnyard god so intently that he never saw me coming, and he hit the wall like a scarecrow, limp and without bones. i heard his breath leave him like a fierce wind."whooooooooop!" he exclaimed, then tried to get air back in, huuuh, huuh, he said. i was filled with a sudden rage as i watched him there, unable to breathe and looking with rapt attention at the rabbit, full of blind faith that it would heal him, and reduce me to a pile of aromatic ashes. i kicked him in the abdomen without thinking, he curled up fetal and the rabbit went right on munching donut pieces and trying to rebuild his little home. i grabbed my computer, tucked it under my arm, and ran from the room to the score of gabe's high-pitched "huff" sounds and wet noisy munching from the bunny.

chapter 3

i walked back towards the elevators quickly, willing myself not to run. the fluorescent lights on the ceiling were doing a gentle slow strobe. brighter, darker, brighter, darker, the smell of the rabbit still in my nostrils, the vision of gabe doubled around my foot, his purple face clenched together like crumpled paper, i stumbled on. when i finally reached the elevators the lights stopped their sick oscillations, went full strength for a moment, then out. the blood red glow cast by the exit sign over the stairs matched my mind state perfectly. i knew the elevators would be out with the loss of power. a backup generator whirred somewhere, lit emergency lights dimly down the hall, but i knew from a power outtage during a severe storm last spring that the generator did nothing for the elevators. i pushed the button anyway, any alternative to the dark stairway that waited under the satanic exit light, but of course that was where i would have to go.

all the strange angles, wierd echoing noises, feelings that someone may be descending on you at any moment that are usually a part of a staircase were magnified a hundredfold in the dark. as i started down, hugging my pc's body to me like a savior, the lightly pebbled taupe colored case bit into my hip and helped stave of my fear. i was immediately certain i could hear breathing just behind me, and on three occasions whirled around, shifting my dell to the front to ward of blows or knife slashes, and each time, nothing happened. by the time i got to the fourth floor, there was no way of telling if the low chanting sound wafting up the stairwell was real or my jangled imagination. it was real. on the broad landing between floors two and three, four or five figures were revealed by three votive candles. the candles were in a triangle around a small ficus plant. the people were chanting in a low voice, i couldn't quite make it out, something along the lines of, "power tree work through me, power tree one of three." over and over again, slow and monotone. the chanting stopped by ones and twos.

"interloper! protect the tree!" a voice cried. i could swear it was snack food stan, the guy on our floor that almost got canned earlier this month for his huge collection of chips and dips and cheeses and salted meats he stashed in his desk drawer, bringing on an onslaught of vermin, insects, flies, and the like. stan grabbed a candle and some sort of metal tool from the floor by the power plant and turned to face me. i had seen enough to know i'd better run for it, and grabbed the rail with a free hand and prepared to vault over the rail and try to get below snackfood stan and whoever else might be in his little congregation down there.

"oh no you don't!" it was sports fan frank, from i.t. division. the guy that would come up to fix your computer and try to talk college sports with you for hours instead, the guy constantly sending e-mails to try to get you to join his fantasy football league. frank was starting up from the first-second floor landing, and i had the strange feeling he was going to yell at me for thinking of jumping with the computer under my arm. he surprised me by shouting, "the unworthy can't touch the tree! "get him!" he lunged from approximately the step i had been planning to land on and drove his fist sideways into my calf. it exploded with hot red pain. my foot slid from the railing and the momentum of my backpedalling away from frank threw me up the stairs, i instinctively twisted to let me body break the fall and save the computer, and my injured calf grazed a step and brought the pain back twice as bad. i looked down and in the candlelight of the advancing snack man saw the grip end of a uni-ball ball point sticking from my calf. thankfully this was the one time i didn't feel like fainting in the last half-hour or so, suddenly the world was in sharp detail, and when stan on the landing pulled the trigger and started the circular saw he was carrying in his hand, the metal object i couldn't make out earlier, the sound was an amazing stereo screech in my ears. i forgot about the pen protruding from my calf and the precious cargo in my arms. i pushed myself up a step, closer to a standing position, and felt the effects of the pen and a newly wrenched back all at once. i grunted dumbly with the pain. strange how in this time of peril i wondered where stan had plugged the saw in at in a stairwell. stan was almost upon me with the saw, and frank was coming behind him around the railing from below. the other congregants, i saw there were three but couldn't make out faces, had formed a wedge around the power tree.

chapter 4

again my brain was working when it shouldn’t be. i chose the side of the computer case that housed heat sinks, fans, wire harnesses, and the like, as opposed to the side with the motherboard and hard drive, to try to ward of stan’s power saw. with one hand grasping the bottom stand of the case, the other holding the upper left corner, i thrust the case forward, my technology-age shield, and the power saw with the blade safety shield removed sunk cleanly into the plastic case of the computer. the blade’s shriek went higher-pitched and struck sparks from the metal framework within. with the unexpected shield throwing the attacking stan off balance, i moved quickly and kicked out as hard as i could, my foot settling squarely just below his right knee and sending stan careening down. the leg i was balancing on was the one with the pen in it. it gave way under the strain and i sat down lightly on the steps, watching stan as he rocketed into one of the tree protectors, a slightly heavyset woman looking vaguely like the third floor receptionist. she stumbled backward under stan’s weight and sat squarely on the power tree.

a clean sharp snap was heard as the plant’s main artery was severed. the petite woman to the right of the receptionist also had an artery severed as stan dropped the saw straight into her ankle. snack man had apparently fingered the trigger lock on, and the saw bit deep into the woman’s ankle, i believe her name was jan. when the saw fell sideways and hit the ground, the small motor stopped, but too late for jan. a stream of blood spurted out and onto the pot of the ficus plant, and for a sick moment it looked like jan was trying to water the thing. for some reason, she tried to run upstairs, a band-aid, perhaps? and her wasted foot flopped outward and threw her facedown into the rail and down on the steps next to me. she didn’t move, and i set the computer next to her. meanwhile frank and the yet unindentified man on the other side of the tree had picked the receptionist whose name escapes me up from the plant pot and were yelling at her. frank screamed something about martyring the power tree too early and throws her down the stairs, where she flipped over loosely like a doll and also lay lifeless. the two men turned toward me.

i bent to pick up the saw and was sickened by the way it looked with fresh blood on it. i pulled the trigger, and it still worked, screaming with a new maniacal tone. i brandished it at the attackers and the pen in my calf flexed and popped in tendon and muscle, sending a new wave of blood-red pain over me and making my eyes tear up, my brain speed into a panic. i fell to one knee and the man on frank’s right took the opportunity to kick out at my face. i ducked to the left, keeping my hand on the saw’s handle, and the foot narrowly misses. with the kicker off balance i couldn’t waste any time, i swung the saw around and brought it crashing into the exposed inner thigh of the mystery attacker. he howled in pain and suddenly i recognized the voice as the talkative man who delivered the water jugs to feed absopure. he fell sideways and luckily knocked frank off balance. the punch frank was sending my way flew wrong and glanced off of my jaw. i counter-punched and caught frank slightly better. the water man was curled up at his feet, holding his thigh and rocking back and forth. frank stepped on him as he tried to catch his balance and return a blow, and i hit him again. he fell down the stairs after the receptionist but missed her to cushion his fall. he landed sideways on an elbow and i heard his arm break, reminding me of the sound of the power tree breaking. frank screamed and started to cry. the sound must have reminded the water delivery man of the plant, too, because he seemed to forget his injured leg for a moment and crawled over to the broken remains of the ficus. he took the puny-looking main stalk in his hands like a baby that had been killed and wept over it bitterly. i took off my shirt and t-shirt, rolled it up and bit it as i pulled the pen from my calf. the blood washed over my hand as dizziness, nausea, and pain washed over me. i tied the t-shirt tightly around the wound and cinched it on with my belt, and the bleeding seemed to slow or stop. i looked dumbly at the pen. i was always losing these upstairs in the office. i put it in my pocket.

waterman was still sobbing when i limped by him with my computer. he didn’t look up as i passed. frank had rolled over on his side, cradling his twisted arm, his head rested on the still motionless receptionist.

"power tree work through me, power tree work through me,” he chanted. he ignored me as well.

it took a good five minutes for my eyes to adjust to the relatively bright light outdoors and find my bike near the sidewalk. i took my backpack off the seat and stretched it to accommodate the computer case. i got the shoulder straps around my shoulders with some trouble, my wrenched spine feeling like razor wire was sliding around back there. i started the bike and drove slowly from the parking lot, barely noticing that someone had scrawled “the rabbit lives” on the side of the lot attendant’s booth, along with a childish smiley face with X’s for eyes.

space beams, or poisonous chemicals, maybe subliminal messages on the tv. something was making people worship strange things. i didn't know the cause, but i had spit on their gods, been a pagan to their cause without meaning it, become their crusade. for that they would find me.