Run, Rabbit, Run: Dark Drabbles, #14

By Black Hare Press

Bunny butchers, lunatic lagomorphs, cut-throat cottontails, evil Easter bunnies, poisonous pikas, and all manner of arduous alliterative animal anecdotes compiled by the Hell Hare Submission Reader:

 

They queue. With gaunt faces and bloodshot eyes, weary feet trudge slowly. The line snakes down the hill, back and forth between the Hell Fires, all eyes on the stooped shoulders in front. Silence, but for quiet groans. He watches. Three crimson eyes glow eerily in the dark; all that can be seen of the black Hell Hare waiting in the shadows. Trembling hands lift their offering to the altar, reverently placing it upon the last. Some even shed a single tear. His soul aches. For he knows he is the maker of dreams, but also the breaker of hearts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Hare Press
• Release date: May 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223712589

Book preview

Run, Rabbit, Run

Various Authors

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Black Hare Press

RUN, RABBIT, RUN A Dark Drabbles Anthology title is

Copyright © 2023 Black Hare Press

First published in Australia in April 2023 by Black Hare Press

The authors of the individual stories retain the copyright of the works featured in this anthology.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

Cover Design by Dawn Burdett

Book Formatting by Ben Thomas

Editing by D. Kershaw

Contents

Epigraph

1. Anthology Submissions

2. Don’t Mention the Rabbits

3. Jeaneane

4. Catalogue Raisonné of Le Lapin

5. Sacred Burrows

6. Kissing Cousins

7. Karma

8. Hunger

9. Results Unverified

10. Curse of the Black Hare

11. A Hug for Bonnie

12. R.A.B.B.I.T.

13. When in Rome

14. Dust Bunny Version 5.0

15. Trade

16. Peak Time in the Pit

17. Gearing Up

18. Presto, Change-O

19. The Lord God Made Them All

20. Demon Vibe

21. Lagomorph Winter

22. Hare’s Harvest

23. March of Time

24. Never Get a Rabbit

25. It’s Just a Rabbit

26. I Lived Beneath

27. What Came Before

28. Hare Planet 9.6

29. The Cornfield

30. Ted, the Old-Timer, Explains Things to Warren, the New Kid

31. Not Gin

32. One Lucky Rabbit

33. No Snacks for Lucie

34. The Haunted Burrow

35. A Rabbit’s Crown

36. Dust Bunnies

37. Hopping Mad

38. Stupid Bunny Suit

39. Let’s Kill the Bitch

40. For Luck

41. Werehare

42. Seven Rabbits

43. Last Wish

44. Robbie the Rabid Rabbit

45. Good Deal

46. Just Outside the Door

47. On the Night of the Fifth Moon

48. A Macabre Easter Tradition

49. Transgenic Experimentation

50. The Four Bunnies of the Apocalypse

51. The Cottontail Revolution

52. Fuzzy Potato

53. Gone to the Dogs

54. Ghostly Hunger

55. Biodiversity

56. Just Rewards

57. The New Pet

58. White Rabbit

59. Fields of Hunger

60. Bite the Hand That Feeds

61. Bogus Bunny

62. Replication

63. A Run of Bad Luck

64. Lost Pet

65. It’s About How You Look

66. A Doe by Any Other Name

67. Here Comes the Easter Bunny

68. Hugs Bunny

69. Blame the Rabbits

70. Down the Rabbit Hole

71. Green-Eyed Toy

72. Goodnight Rabbit

73. The World Will End in Fire

74. Finger Food

75. Ruling the Rabbits

76. They Must Catch You

77. The Legend of Lepus the Hare

78. A St. Patrick’s Day Ramble in the Cooley Mountains, Ireland

79. Game Time

80. A Life for a Life

81. The Pits

82. Strawberry Teeth

83. The Wild Rabbits of Lapen Swamp

84. Carrot Sticks

85. Fur Coat

86. Ominous Nomenclature

87. The Magic Trick

88. Bloody Hare

89. Who Hired the Costume

90. Hare-y Roadside Assistance

91. Restless Night

92. Grandma’s Rabbit Farm

93. Illuminating Rabbits in the Fourteenth Century

94. The Night Visitor

95. Plague Hares

96. Listen to Your Mother

97. Painted Egg

98. Test Subject 119

99. Down the Rabbit Hole

100. Melanistic Hearts

101. Stew

102. Survival of the Species

103. Revenge of the Rabbits

104. Spring Cleaning

105. Across the Universe

106. What the Hares Demand

107. Milk Hare

108. The Magician’s Hat

109. The Meadow

110. A Grave Error

111. For My Next Trick…

112. Hare Invaders

113. The Hare and the Hedgehog

114. Car Wash

115. Off the Wall

116. Ostara’s Hare

117. An End to the Season

118. Kill, Franken-Hare, Kill

119. Ain’t No Wabbit

120. Gasoline for the Fires of Science

121. Easter Errands

122. Big Ears

123. Whispered Secrets

124. Black Rabbit

125. Gold Rabbit

126. Red Rabbit

127. White Rabbit

128. The Feast of Willowtown

129. Go Back to Bed

130. Rabbit Luck

131. Hop to It

132. Backyard Cookout

133. And Rabbits Shall Inherit the Earth

134. Swiftness Kills

135. The Little Rabbit

136. The Rabbit Hole

137. Carrots

138. Rusty

139. Battle of the Constellations

140. Tunnel Vision

141. Roadkill

142. Familiar

143. Burrows

144. Night of the Bunny

145. Buyer’s Remorse

146. Deep Down

147. Lunch for the Rabbit

148. Bad Hare Day

149. Unlucky Rabbit’s Foot

150. Go Look

151. Feastby Shelby Suderman

152. An Eye for an Eye

153. Veterinary Assistant

154. Hunting Party

155. Hunting Season

156. Rampant

157. Acknowledgements

158. About the Publisher

THIS is a fierce bad Rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.

The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit —Beatrix Potter, 1906

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Anthology Submissions

by The Black Hare

They queue.

With gaunt faces and bloodshot eyes, weary feet trudge slowly. The line snakes down the hill, back and forth between the Hell Fires, all eyes on the stooped shoulders in front.

Silence, but for quiet groans.

He watches. Three crimson eyes glow eerily in the dark; all that can be seen of the black Hell Hare waiting in the shadows.

Trembling hands lift their offering to the altar, reverently placing it upon the last. Some even shed a single tear.

His soul aches. For he knows he is the maker of dreams, but also the breaker of hearts.

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Love & kisses

The Black Hare

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Don’t Mention the Rabbits

by Wondra Vanian

There was a rabbit on the porch.

Weird.

They passed another four on the way to school.

Weirder.

The dozen rabbits chilling on the school’s front lawn?

Freaky as hell.

Then there was the one on the empty desk next to Valerie…

Psst. Hey, Riya. What’s with the rabbits?

Riya answered without taking her eyes off the whiteboard. Don’t. Mention. The. Rabbits.

Valerie laughed. Don’t mention them? It was, like, the freakiest thing she’d ever seen!

Seriously, Riya warned. That’s how they got Leon.

Valeria looked at the empty desk. Leon’s desk.

The rabbit turned to look back.

Uh oh…

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Wondra Vanian lives in the UK with her partner and their mischief of sausage dogs.

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Jeaneane

by Bernardo Villela

Derek knew why his father gave him a rabbit. He tried to tell his father indirectly by naming the rabbit Jeaneane. His father did nothing.