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From: kralk@dead.meat.com
Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies
Subject: Re: [STORY] Calliope Music
Followup-To: alt.devilbunnies
Date: 9 Mar 1995 08:13:12 -0700
Organization: DevilBunnies News<->Mail Gateway
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On 8 Mar 1995 kralk@in.way.big.trouble.com wrote:

>         "Shaddup and get 'im to the hole.  His car'll bring a few hundred,
> and that stuff you spotted in the rear we can unload for scrap."  Beryl
> pulled out a spade from under the sink.  Clarence shouldered the puppet's
> unconscious form in a fireman's carry.  They disappeared into the night.
> Behind them, Kralk raged.  He was miles from UCirc, with no way of
> contacting Teral.  If those two sodding grifters caught sight of him, he'd
> face little better fate than to become an ingredient in the belle Beryl's
> roadside cuisine.  He was as good as--
> 
>          Wait.  Hole?
> 
>          From outside came a sharp, meaty *thwack*.  The sound, say of a
> shovel crushing a human skull.
> 
>          Kralk screamed as the fires of hell ripped through his brain.
> 
> 

     Robin lay very, very quietly in her bed.   She had outgrown it long
ago; the blankets Beryl gave her were too thin.  But, if she put her
head just so between the pillow and the wall--  Yes.  She couldn't hear
what they were doing to the man outside.  The first time, oh so long ago,
she'd asked what they did to that nice man who'd come over for dinner.
After Clarence had finished strapping her they'd pulled her over to the
hole.  Made her look in.  Said she'd been a bad girl, this was what
happened to evil people.

      Robin learned not to ask so many questions.

      Her hand strayed to her secret place.  Robin's bed was in a small
niche, tucked up by the roof of the trailer.  The board supporting her
mattress and the lower part of the niche formed a small hollow.  She'd
spent many days with an exacto knife cutting away a piece of plywood from
the board.  It had been done on the sly, 'cause if either of them had
caught her they might have even put her in the hole with the bad men.
They never did catch her.  So she had a cherished place to hide her
private things.

        Her hand wandered over the meager possessions she had gathered
over thirteen years.  The thin kid books she couldn't read, yet loved for
the pictures.  A few marbles she had won from a boy in Nebraska.
Postcards filched from truck stops in nearly every state; like the
pictures in her books, she would climb into them through her mind to take
her far, far away...

        "Ooooh."

        Robin gasped.  The man.  That sounded like the man.  The bad man
who was being put into the ground.  Beryl and Clarence must know she was
being contrary, they'd told the man to come back and drag her into the
hole and cover her up oh god oh god oh god

        "Help."  Robin could hear the agony in the man's voice.  He moaned
more and more, his breath sounding slushy and *wrong*.

        Please stop.  Tears trickled down her cheeks.  Shut up and stop.
If I come down, they'll find out.  They always do.  Clarence gets out the
strap, and then I have to stay in the trailer 'til the bruises go down.
They just said I could play in the snow if I finished the chores in time.
I won't get even that if--

       "Please, anyone!"

       The linoleum was freezing.  Robin's breath puffed out in a white
cloud as she followed the voice.  The man seemed to be in the dark hallway
leading to the trailer door.  That can't be right.  None of the shadows
are big enough to hide an adult, even curled up.  Her hand swept about,
grasping for cloth or human skin.

       She happened upon something much softer.  Which was how Robin found
the talking rabbit.

*******

       Kralk awoke to darkness, and pain.  Appropriate, really.  With the
death of his puppet, he was now truly born into his new state.  His mind
shied away from the recent memories of its death; the carrot in his
stomach nearly resurfaced as a flashback of the sensation of the puppet's
brains being pulped washed over him.

       The air was stagnant; he could smell just the slightest hint of
mildew.  What felt like glass ball bearings scattered beneath his paws.
Forcing himself forward, he traced out the limits of his prison.  The
knowledge of just how confined he was made his heart beat a frightened
tattoo.  Just like being buried in the cave-in at UCirc, the difference
being this time no-one would dig him out.

      Eh?  His pawpads examined the thin plastic object lying across his
path.  A rough extrusion on its side wiggled just so...  Kralk flicked the
penlight on.  Wincing at the brightness, he scanned his formerly invisible
surroundings.  The thin beam of light revealed a gimcrack treasure horde
Kralk had not seen since his childhood toybox had been locked away.  His
terror faded into simple puzzlement.  In the name of all saints, where had
he landed up *this* time?

       He froze as a section of the "roof" was lifted away.  Blinded by
sunlight streaming in from above, he resisted little as a pair of human
hands swept him up; he only reopened his eyes when he realized they were
child's hands.  He looked up; that girl--Robby?--was sitting on the floor,
with him in her lap.

       "Can you really talk?"  Sod!  I must talked as I was laid out.  He
briefly considered bluffing the matter out...

       "Ooo, you aren't supposed to know, little girl."  He almost retched
from the extra sugar he heaped into his voice.  Keep on thinking
"Sugarplum fairies" me boy, and you'll do alright.  I hope.

       "Wow."  The girl's thin face took on a hint of prettiness from the
expression of wonder which passed over it.  "I never heard of a bunny that
can talk."

        "That's because I'm--".  Pause.  How do I explain this?  Oh,
right--"...a Deebie Bunny."

        "You mean the ones that were being sold last fall in
Massachusetts?  We were in Boston last November, and I heard an ad on the
radio... She wouldn't let me get one, though."

         That "she" was Beryl needed no explanation.  Kralk could hear the
loathing put into that one pronoun.

         "My owner bought me then."  He faked a sniffle.  "I really liked
him.  He fed me lettuce, and carried me around in his coat.  Now he's
gone, and I'm all alone--"

         "Oh, poor bunny!"  The girl crushed him in a hug.  Kralk was
shocked at how easily he was able to feel her ribs.  Bloody hell, they
must feed her with a teaspoon.

         "Robin won't let you get hurt," she continued.  Her chilled hands
stroked his soft fur.  It sent an odd thrill of pleasure through Kralk.
"I'll hide you at night, and let you run around when they go into town--"

         "Being a bad girl again, Robin?"

         Kralk shot out of her arms.  A workboot kicked out at his fleeing
form.  Clarence, a thick leather belt hanging from one hand, towered over
devilbunny and girl alike.

TBC