The Odd Bunnies

by Sam Cullan

  Chapter Two

  What the hell? This was Will's first thought on waking up, quickly followed by ow and then what the hell? He felt the lump on the back of his head. Ouch. Will didn't like waking up at the best of times; having been beaten over the head, and feeling sore and confused, this was an especially unwanted waking-up.

  With blurred vision (which wasn’t so unusual on waking-up) he groped in the fuzziness of his bedside shelf and found his glasses. Putting them on brought the room into focus, but his focus was still cockeyed. Hmm. This was his bedroom, unless he had been transported to a parallel universe. His eyes focused on the face to his right. Staring down at him, Sarah Michelle Gellar wore her slightly coy, closed-lip smile; the smile of a powerful yet playful woman, as if to say 'you can play, but I make the rules.' To her right, Sarah Michelle Gellar looked rather more serious, with a stern frown on her face and a hint of blood-lust in her eyes, clearly saying ‘go on punk, make my day’. He ignored Christina Aguilera, who was merely covering a patch of flaky paint.

  “I'm tired and I just don't wanna go out,” chirped the girl, “Woo-hoo.” Will knew how she felt. He didn't want to get out of bed, but he needed answers. He wasn't sure what the questions were, but he wanted them answered. “Just one more thing I can do without, Woo-hoo, I'm tired and I just don't wanna go out.”

  “And that was Nerina Pallot with ...” Will jabbed a finger at the radio 'off' button. Bob Barker would be too much for his fuzzy brain right now. He rarely woke early enough to listen to The Breakfast Show anyway, and this morning he needed answers, not jabbering tittle-tattle. He groaned in disbelief at a familiar, if muffled, babbling. Now he'd have to get up - to turn the downstairs radio off.

  Groaning as he manoeuvred aching muscles and tired bones, he tossed the duvet in the general direction of Christina Aguilera and swung his legs over the side of the bed. At least I don't have to get dressed. He stood and ambled slowly toward the window. A twist of a bar with his thumb and forefinger, and the blinds reluctantly flicked open, dribbling weak sunlight into the room. Weak sunlight dribbling was the best he could hope for, as his bedroom window faced due north. Peering downwards through the slits, the familiar shape of a bright red Rover saloon stood out against the uniformly bleak expanse of grey tarmac and brown fencing.

  Strange. Strange the car was here, as he really couldn't remember driving it home. Strange. It was parked with the front end facing the fence, and Will always reversed the car in - mainly because that meant the driver's door was very close to the front door of his house. It was also a lot easier to drive out in a forwards manner than mess around with reversing, but mainly he parked that way so he would be very close to the front door. If it was raining, as it probably would be, that extra 12-foot walk could be significant, or so he'd convinced himself.

  Will was feeling happier. Happy that his car hadn't been stolen, or trashed. Not that anybody would choose to steal a twelve-year-old diesel Rover, even if it was a comfortable and reliable car. Happy that he wasn't dead – or worse, in intensive care, a vegetable. Happy that there was no discernible brain damage, but aware that his semi-conscious state might be masking it. Happy that the sun was shining, even if he couldn't actually see it.

  Not so happy. His thoughts returned to the previous night, and the lump on his head. He hadn't had that  much to drink and he hadn't got into a fight – at least, not a mutually-agreed fight. Confused. Need answers. Need to turn that babbling DJ off. Need coffee. Need sugary snack. Need a fag.

  Will's brain was only beginning to come round - some twenty minutes after his body, as usual. With some trepidation he turned away from the window and reached for the door handle. He had felt safe, if confused, whilst the door was shut and he was cocooned in his cosy bedroom with Sarah, Christina and the blonde girl riding a scooter. He stopped to admire the scooter rider’s poise, and mused that she must have been riding it in a very hot country, for she had neglected leathers in favour of shorts and a t-shirt, which presumably she'd borrowed from her much younger and smaller sister.

  He wondered if his attacker was downstairs. He wondered if his attacker was merely taking a break from attacking him, maybe getting a coffee and a cigarette. He wondered why his attacker had put him to bed, switched the radio on (and how his attacker knew he always went to sleep with the radio on) why he'd parked the car, and why he’d not finished him off last night. Maybe his attacker was a masochistic psychopath, deriving pleasure from extended torture sessions interposed with tauntingly optimistic periods of non-torture.

  Well, he needed a pee, so he'd have to find out sooner rather than later because the bathroom was downstairs. In fact, everything was downstairs except his bedroom, in his peculiar little house. He swung the door open and peered downwards to the left, over the bannister. The curtains were still drawn and the only noise was that familiar babbling. “Now this has been bothering me for some time, but why is a carrot more orange than an orange? If there's anything bothering you, let us know!”

  Will gripped the hand rail and descended the wooden stairs. Craaaack. Squeakkkk. No point trying to hide his advancement from the torturers, as every step was accompanied by the sounds of cheap wood complaining angrily at every footstep. At the bottom he turned left and stepped onto the soft, quiet Berber. Grasping the blue curtain, he flicked an arm and the room was flooded with bright, clear light. Nobody was there. He swept the second curtain aside and reached for the radio's remote control.

  “Here's Kate Nash with I Hate Seagulls.”

  “I hate seagulls and I hate being sick. I hate burning my finger on the toaster and I hate nits.”

  Clunk went the radio amp. Will liked Kate Nash, but he also liked seagulls. He was apathetic about nits, and frankly couldn't understand how anyone could burn their finger on a toaster - unless the toaster was an open fire, but he doubted Kate browned her thick-sliced that way. Click went the TV 'on' button.

  “Later we'll be talking to Dr Ruth Popalottalouse about nits, but now here is the news in your area.”

  “Hello, welcome to BBC Spotlight, I'm Ellie Broadbottom. Police in Tottyford are advising drivers to avoid the main street today, as the town's annual crab festival gets under way.”

  Will aimed the remote control at the set and Ellie obligingly lowered her voice. He stepped into his comfortable slippers and walked eight paces to the kettle. Hmm, here could be answers. He stared at the bright green square of paper stuck to the kettle. There were no windows in the kitchen, so he carefully grasped a corner between his index finger and thumb, mindful that there might be finger prints on this vital piece of evidence, and headed back to the lounge window.

  “Dear Will, hope your head is OK. I'll check in later - Alice.” A heart shape was scrawled just above the A in Alice. Will knew of three Alices and as far as he was aware, none of them was living with him at this time. Indeed, when he thought about it, two of them didn't know where he lived and the third was very unlikely to move in with him. This was not helping provide answers, merely creating new questions. He didn't need any more questions, however he was mildly pleased that Alice had gone to the trouble of drawing a little heart and he decided that whoever she was, she probably wasn't a masochistic psychopath. Then again, he'd made similarly erroneous judgements about women in the past.

  He carefully stuck the note on the glass covering a signed photo of an actress that adorned the wall next to the window. He'd come back to this conundrum later, after some caffeine, sugar and nicotine. Returning to the kettle, he picked it up and noted that it was half full. Odd. Will only ever filled the kettle to the minimum level, and any surplus hot water was poured over the pile of used dishes that invariably resided in the sink. Filling a kettle for a cup of coffee was just wasteful – wasteful of water and, more importantly, wasteful of the electricity needed to boil it. He would be having a stern word with Alice, or asking for a contribution to his utility bills..

  He put the kettle back on its base and flicked the switch. Mug, spoon, coffee, w
hitener, water, stir. Bowl, cornflakes, semi-skimmed milk, spoon, slurp, crunch, gone. More needed. He retired to the big, blue velour sofa that took up a quarter of the lounge and sat, feet on the coffee table, before devouring a second large bowl of sweet, nutty flakes. Baccy tin, filter, liquorice paper. Deftly-rolled mini brown cigarette in mouth, he reached down the side of the cushion and found a lighter. Click, whirr, burn, puff. He sat back contented, coffee in one hand and fag in the other, and listened to Dr Popalottalouse's advice on how to exterminate the plague that was nits.