THE RABBIT
After an hour or so of much easier riding, he finally reached the gate to the farmhouse, which, from here, was still out of sight behind the small crop of gum trees. Either side of the driveway, two massive date palms cast tiny midday shadows over the gate, upon which a corrugated sign was hanging lopsided by long pieces of twisting wire: PRIVATE! DO NOT ENTER!
Ignoring the warning, he lifted the small lasso of fraying rope that was looped over the adjacent post. The rusty hinges squealed in protest as the gate swung open. Before he hastened into the derelict property, he scanned the entire horizon behind him, checking for the telltale plumage of rising dust. Satisfied there were no oncoming vehicles, he entered, shut the gate, and looped the rope back over the post. The driveway (no more than two ruts and a central hump) was overgrown with weeds and grass that, like everything else in this shithole, had turned brittle brown in the summer heat.
Cycling as fast as he could, the dragster followed the inner rut like a tram on its track. Magically, his thirst began abating with each eager rotation of his pedals, and within minutes he had rounded the small crop of gums. Then there it stood, burnt out and alone in the distance, a gutted skeleton in the middle of an overgrown field. Farmhouse no more, it was a dead turtle on its back with its legs pointing to the blazing sun, its head retracted into its shell (or cut off). Had been derelict since the murder of farmer Johnson and his wife in ’58, or so the old man had told him. Believed him too; had been one of the few days the drunken fool was sober. Apparently the flames were seen all the way from town. Someone had also said they’d heard an explosion, which only fuelled the rumour that the twin boys did it for the inheritance, though no-one knew for sure because nobody had seen noth’n of them since the cops pulled their parents’ charred skeletons from the smouldering coals the next day.
“Pure fuck’n mystery,” the old drunk put it. And he was right, for once.
Michael Joseph, one of the kids in his class at Serena Primary School, put it another way. “The Johnson farm is haunted. Everyone knows that. Even my dad says so.”
Dr. Joseph was one of the only two remaining doctors in town, and everything he said was the truth. You could trust him more than the priest, or so lipstick lips reckoned, and she’d know. Maybe for that reason, the sight of the burnt out shell always made his stomach feel like someone had taken it with both ends and wrung it like a wet sheet. Approaching it, he sensed something unnatural, something that lingered, and he knew that if he stayed a little too long he was likely to end up lingering too. For fuck’n ever.
He gulped with difficulty. Salty saliva scalded his hoarse throat like he’d eaten gravel. Then he cycled past the burnt farmhouse, careful not to linger, on to the next crop of gumtrees behind. The absence of cattle and sheep since the farmers’ death had allowed the grass to grow tall and high, brown tangles that grabbed at the bike’s spokes and chain and prevented him from riding all the way to his secret hideaway. He dumped the dragster as far from the rear of the farmhouse as he could and walked the remaining distance, finally stepping through the ring of eucalypts and wattles into the clearing. It was probably five degrees cooler in the shade, but he barely noticed, too eager to examine the traps he had set the previous week.
He had earned a tidy sum tossing newspapers onto the neglected lawns and weedy driveways of Serena to pay for his hobby. At one cent a paper he made thirty cents a day or thereabouts, depending on how many paid their monthly bill to Stelios Polites, the Greek dickhead who owned the deli on the corner of Bay Road and The Esplanade. With the money he saved (more to the point, with the money he had hidden from his father; the thieving bastard had once discovered his stash under the mattress and spent it on two bottles of scotch and an overnight room at The Griffin’s Head with one of his lady friends), he bought two rabbit traps at the army surplus store on Bay Road, along with the switchblade he carried in his pocket. Guys who made a living from army surplus never asked too many questions, even to ten-year old kids. Besides, it was obvious what he was up to and there was nothing illegal about it. Trapping rabbits was a rite of passage for any country lad and no army surplus manager was going to refuse a kid his rite of passage, especially if he had the nine dollars and sixty cents to pay for two rusty, well-used rabbit traps that would’ve remained on the shelves until the next fucking century.
At the entrance to the first warren were the remains of a pregnant doe. Her rear foot was caught between the teeth of the trap and there she had died, painfully and slowly. Judging the extent of the flyblown corpse and its stench, it must have happened soon after he laid the trap last Saturday. It was bloated and its eyes had been removed, either by the ants that were swarming over its face or by the crows that flew overhead. He cursed, but what could he do? He would have to figure out a way to come here more often than once a week, otherwise this kind of shit was going to happen all the time. Arming the sweat off his brow and shooing away the flies from the corpse, he removed the doe from the trap and threw it into the wattle bushes, which gobbled it up like a pack of hungry mutts that hadn’t seen food for days. He reset the trap, careful not to get his fingers jammed in its rusty teeth, and then went searching for the other trap he’d set on the other side of the clearing.
Nearing the second trap, he thought he could hear the whimpers of a struggling animal. His heart lurched quicker and, for the first time in his life, he felt the stirring of life in his underpants. Just a faint tingle, but it could well have been a kick to the balls. It stopped him in his tracks. Then, after a few seconds, it went away. Confused, he continued on, but nearing the warren he felt it again.
Then he heard the whimpering sound again and bent down to investigate. The trap was pulled into the mouth of the warren, held firm by the peg he had hammered into the ground through its chain, which he now pulled, dragging the trap and its wriggling prey out of the hole. The tingling in his pants grew stronger when he saw what was there. The metal teeth had seized one of the rabbit’s hind legs, ripping into its flesh and chomping almost all the way through the bone. The rabbit wriggled with blind panic when he tried to pick it up, and he giggled. Grabbing the rabbit by the neck, he then tried to prise open the teeth of the trap. They were clenched tight, stuck by the rust.
He tried again without luck. A drop of sweat dripped from his forehead onto the rabbit’s writhing belly. His hands were shaking, and the tingling thing in his pants grew bigger. God, it was downright uncomfortable. It now felt harder than the switchblade in his pocket.
That was it! Reaching into his shorts, he removed the switchblade, and in one swift motion the rabbit was free, its hind leg twitching in the metal jaws like a lizard in the mouth of a ravenous dingo.
Arming the sweat off his brow again, he looked around, wanting to be quick. In the middle of the clearing stood a granite rock the size of a toppled refrigerator, perfect for what was on his mind. How he hadn’t noticed the rock before he didn’t know. He stared at it, mesmerised, and wandered over to it in a trance. On the ground at the base of the rock he saw an empty Mars Bar wrapper. A thought whispered through his mind, a thought that made his heart skip a beat. Did someone else know about this place? At this point in time did he really care if they did, did he really give a blue razoo if they were hiding in the wattle bushes and watching his every move? With his mouth as dry and dusty as the A131, he reached out and stroked the hot, smooth surface of the rock. The thing in his pants was now even harder (how was that possible?), now as hard as the granite altar on which he flung the rabbit down. It squirmed and tried to kick him with its one remaining hind leg, and as it twisted its head he caught its fear-struck, accusing gaze, but nothing was going to save it now.
He did what he had to do.