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There�s nothing more comforting than a joyride down an empty highway surrounded by grasslands in late twilight.
But this was not a joyride. Dressed in a black suit, the white rabbit drove down the interstate with a beer in one hand, an antique Nagant revolver in the other. It was a straightaway, so he didn�t need to keep his paws on the steering wheel. His eyes, despite being on the sides of his head, were trained forward in determination; the gold and crimson of the sunset reflected in those dark glassy beads.
He set down the bottle in a cupholder as he pushed the car into fourth gear. The engine roared and the world lurched. �Easy there, baby, easy.� he coaxed, tapping the gear shift. His knees came up and adjusted his position on the road. �Don�t go squirrelly on me now.� Almost in response to his pleas, the car choked out a black cloud from the exhaust.
�Well, shit.� His eyes trained on the road. He snatched up his bottle and drained the last bit of it before throwing it in the back seat, where it chinked and rattled with the other half dozen bottles dripping liquid gold from their necks. The car hit a pothole and the glass danced in the air, cascading the vision of twilight throughout the darkened car.
Down the road, the white rabbit saw trees fast approaching: an impenetrable wall of leaves and needles. An unwitting fortress for an unwitting victim. The sun crested beyond the canopy, throwing shade in long, raking claws that consumed the rabbit�s car.
With the paw freed of the bottle, the rabbit decided to juggle the revolver into his free hand. With that one paw he fingered the safety, spun open the cylinder, and dropped seven bullets, still in their shells, onto the seat beside him, where they fell softly, among ashes. With a quick glance into the pile of glittering brass and muted lead he counted out the amount he needed, and pushed the rest, with assorted debris, onto the floor of the front seat.
�I�m almost there, beautiful. Almost there,� he muttered, shifting his eyes to the rear view mirror and the photo dangling just below it. He reached up and unhooked it from the mirror, only to put it in his jacket pocket, which he patted gently with his free paw. �See the trees? We�re almost there.�
The raking shadows were replaced with ever present darkness as the white rabbit sped into the shelter of the forest. The car danced between the centre of the road, straddling the dividing line, and the shoulder, where branches scraped and scratched the car, and screeched against the windows. Through all this, the rabbits eyes remained trained on the road.
In time he approached a fork, both roads unmarked, but his intention clear. In the moment of pause at the crossroad, the rabbit stole a cigarette out of his glove compartment. His paws began to tremble, as he tried to light the cigarette. His jitters, despite his resolve, made the flame flicker and fade before the smoke caught flame. �The hell is this.� With the cigarette lit, he pulled hard to the right with certainty.
Driving down the road now, with one hand on the wheel, the other grasping firmly onto the revolver, the rabbit clenched both objects tighter and tighter the further time wore on. The gold and crimson light of twilight still spiralled and wove in his eyes, though now a faint glimmer from the heater growing on his cigarette.
In the back seat, a phone rang once. Twice. Thrice. The rabbit stole a furtive glance at the screen, with the word �Work� blazoned in white on a black background. He shook his head, and let the answering machine take the call. He didn�t need distractions. Not now.
Paved road turned to gravel. The less than smooth drive turned into a choking, sputtering, crackling roller-coaster as the wheels caught and threw small stones and pebbles into the air. The rabbit coaxed his beat up car with a change in gear, dropping from fourth to third, and then again into second. The thunderous throng of the car�s abused screams and dying gravel muted into the soft, comforting sound of crunched stones shifting.
A slight turn to the right. Park on the grass. The white rabbit put out his cigarette in the pile of ashes beside him, and gripped his pistol harder. Here he was. Fishing the photograph out of his jacket pocket, he took a long look at in the dim interior car lights. Family photo. Blood splattered. Another tall white rabbit in a flower patterned sundress and a number of smaller rabbits in a myriad of white, brown, and black dressed in jeans, skirts, and t-shirts. �I miss you. I�ll see you all soon.�
The remaining bullets scattered on the seat were promptly returned to the Nagant�s cylinder. Each one placed one after another, no chamber left blank between the barrel and the bullets. The rabbit, paws shaking more now than earlier, dropped the silencer he bought for his pistol: more than once. But as he fixed the tube to the barrel of the Nagant, his paws were steady, and the glow in his eye returned, burning from the inside out.
With his resolve checked the rabbit, with revolver in hand, stepped out of the car. The woods echoed with the sounds of a slamming car door. The gravel road gave way to a sandy pathway down to a small cottage; the lights were out, save the light on the front doorstep. The air smelled of dead grass, freshly cut.
The lawn�s state wasn�t what concerned the rabbit tonight.
Down the sandy pathway, a sign in the windshield of a decrepit truck from the 50s: Coyo�s Family Getaway. The truck had been repurposed as a planter: white and red roses together, growing as one bush, sprouted from its hood. �We�re almost there,� the rabbit patted the photo in his pocket.
The sand gave way under the rabbits shoes; unlike gravel or concrete, the sand made very little noise as it was disturbed. The lights of the cottage remained unlit, even as the rabbit stepped up onto a small wooden porch that creaked, groaned, and buckled in near critical death throes. �Hush!�
Some fool had left the door unlocked; the white rabbit took it as an invitation. Inside, the floors possessed a much heartier constitution than the porch; hardwood, the rabbit guessed, as musk filled his nostrils and made his ears flag. The draw of breath was a delightful, but frustrating sound; the squeak of a bed as the occupants stirred gave cause for alarm, and a sudden pause. Three heartbeats, not counting his own. Blood, not fresh, gave the pungent odour of wood a moments reprieve. How recently? The rabbit couldn�t tell. Did he want to know? No.
Quietly, he removed his jacket and placed in on a coat rack near the front door. Now, dressed in only his black pants and ivory white shirt, he made his way into the cottage.
He pulled a flashlight out of his pants pocket. He pointed it at the ceiling and flicked it on, providing some limited illumination for his deed. The faint light exposed a fireplace, still warm with golden embers.
Photo frames, inhabited by families, dotted the mantle between unlit candles and statuettes. The rabbit glared, sweeping the beam from the flashlight across the glassy photographs, at the families inside them; the same family stood or sat in each picture, but in varying states of age and dress. The Coyo family, a family of lanky brown canines with devilish grins and innocent beaming smiles that hid their monstrosity.
The rabbit�s ears flagged and swivelled with the stirring of floorboards. They were faint, but still there. He clicked off the flashlight, and stood standing in the darkness. The footsteps came next, and they were close; the sound of a child in a late night stupor fumbling about for a glass of water echoed in the shadows.
With a light step, the white rabbit followed the noise, stabilizing himself on walls with one paw and the Nagant, safety off, in the other. Heart pounding, thudding loudly against his ribcage, he knew what he came here for; he knew what he had to do.
A bulb flickered to life in the kitchen. Dull, yellow light cast about the cottage: not light enough to illuminate the dark recesses, but enough to expose the rabbit in his whiteness. Standing there, in the middle of the kitchen, reaching into a fridge for some sweet drink or another, was the young Coyo. This wasn�t the best opportunity, but it would soon prove to be. Drunk on sleep, he would never know what came next.
The fridge closed, and with a loud, high-pitched sharp whine, a can of soda pop fell with a ringing thud on the ground, soaked, not with its contents, but with crimson. �I�ll be with you soon.�
No sounds of stirring from the other room. Gentle, deep breaths of uninterrupted sleep broke the ensuing silence. Time was on the rabbit�s side, as was silence and sound. Having one obstacle out of the way, the rabbit moved on to the next; the kitchen light illuminating his once hidden pathway to redemption.
Turning his ear to a door, the white rabbit heard the beating hearts of two more. The adults of the Coyo family were fast asleep on the other side. Two more, the rabbit reminded himself. Two more. His paws were gripping the Nagant�s handle hard, suppressing the coming anxiety.  The door creaked open, screaming intruder, but the Coyo�s didn�t hear: too deep in sleep to mind.
Here came the easy part.
The white rabbit dashed across the room, careful not to make sound. His heart pounded: a jackhammer struggling against his concrete ribs. His bright, ghost-like arms grabbed the male Coyo�s arm, and yanked him out of bed. The initial instinct of the canine was to fight back, but the rabbit deftly put the Nagant to his temple, and shushed him.
�Here we are, Johnson.� The rabbit said, biting into the Coyo�s ear. �After years, here we are.
�No, don�t say a word. It�s time you listened.�
The rabbit grabbed at Johnson�s limbs, and clamped down on them hard with his own. There was a point to be made here.
�See your darling wife?� the rabbit snarled, gesturing to her laying restfully, peacefully on the bed without concern or awareness of her situation. �Would be a shame, if, perhaps, I did the same thing to her as you did to mine.� the white rabbit took aim, and two piercing sounds split the air: the loud whine of a silenced bullet, and the screams of a woman in agony.
�Please, stop this!� Johnson barked out, trying to free himself from the white rabbit�s iron grasp. �I don�t know who you are, but stop this, please!�
The bitch had bolted up in bed, and held her leg tenderly, screaming as crimson flowed from above and below.
�Don�t know who I am? Then do you remember the family you slaughtered, years ago. Ransacked their home, ate the woman and children? My wife and my children� The rabbit bit into the Coyo�s neck, sure to break through the fur and flesh. Still three heartbeats. �Hearing your wife scream is music to my ears, music I haven�t heard since before you killed my wife in front of me. Too bad I must cut it short.�
Another whine, then silence.
The Coyo�s sobs were tinged with rage. His paws were balled up into fists, his teeth bared into a snarling grimace. �You�re a monster.�
�A monster? I�m not the one who ate an innocent family. Your son is dead, just like my little sweethearts, your wife-� the rabbit gestured with the barrel of the pistol, �-dead, just like my dear, loving Petunia.� He struck Johnson�s head with the handle of the pistol, which sent him reeling. The white rabbit let the canine go, taking the Nagant in both hands, training the sights on his target. �And soon, you will be too.�
�I don�t have a so-� The Coyo�s sentence was cut short by a final, sharp, silence bearing whine.
The white rabbit felt warmth under his paws. Paws, which had begun to pick up a hue of red, dark and rich. �Then...� he paused, taking a moment to examine the corpse in front of him. �You�re not-!� He dropped the gun and fell to his knees, staining his pants. �What have I done?�
He knelt forward, picking up the revolver again. With absolutely still hands, he rolled out the chamber, carefully counting how many bullets he had put in, and how many he had used up. Five bullets in. Four fired. One. Backup. Re-purposed.
A click as the chamber locked into place. A whine. Dyed red fur.