Carter

 Old stuff. Based on facts, full of truthiness. Email me if you don't believe. I'll hook you up with some history. Enjoy!

James broke into a jog as the pond came into sight. He would reach the small dock moments later. This weekend’s fishing trip had been the light Virgil had been carrying in front of him since that horrid Monday. Now it was within reach and patience abandoned him.

            The warm, humid Georgian afternoon felt real, in a sticky sort of way. After being cooped up in a dry, frigid office all week, surrounded by the counterfeit reality of his coworkers, the authenticity of nature was like the light breeze he knew awaited him on the water: refreshing and sweet.

            Reaching the dock, James slowed and then stopped. He bent over the lockbox at the land end of the dock. 4…2…0…1…9…7…9 the combination lock fell open. James pulled his pole and tackle box out and kicked the lid shut.

            Four steps down the dock, James reached his canoe. He stowed his gear and hopped in. As he untied the bowline he noted with disgust his pale fingers next to the eternally tan rope that tethered his canoe. In a brief flash he imagined how weathered and rough his hands would be if were out on a boat every day rather than the odd weekend here and there. He conjured up images of wizened old fishermen and then wily, dirty pirates. With a sigh he resolved to enjoy his time on the lake and to completely ignore the dismal facts of his true life.

            With this resolution, James pushed away from the dock and picked up his paddle. With several short, powerful strokes James put himself out a good distance into the pond. Knowing how good he was with a paddle, despite the limited time he managed to get on the pond, lifted James’s spirits immensely.

            With his boat gently drifting, James dug into his box for the bait. He decided to go with the plastic centipedes figuring the bass would like something natural (in appearance, anyway). Holding the rod between his legs, James popped two centipedes onto his hook. Thus prepared, he sat back for a moment to take in the moment.

            As his canoe floated in a lazy circle he smelled the slight breeze. The faint scent of dogwood and sassafras mixed with a dank smell that James associated with toads. He loosened his belt and rolled up the sleeves of his blue button-down shirt.

            James checked the bobber on his line and looked out at the brownish-green water. He decided that the water was calm enough and cast his line. The bait disappeared into the water and the bobber floated happily on the surface some fifteen yards away.

            Satisfied with his cast and his present state, James adjusted his cap and leaned back to relax. He quite enjoyed these times on the pond when he could unwind, letting go completely of his day-to-day worries. The only interruptions were the occasional bites that resulted a few brief moments of excitement, ending with a fish in the bottom of the canoe.

            Just as he was reveling in the thought of reeling in his first fish of the day James heard a rather loud splash. He scanned the pond but saw only circular ripples under a tree that leaned out a bit over the water about forty yards away. Although it could have been something falling into the water from the tree, James assumed it had been a fish coming to the surface to eat some unsuspecting insect. But it was pretty far away and James did not want to disturb the water close to him by pulling in his line and paddling closer. Let the fish come to you, his father had always said. He sat back again.

            Perspiration broke out on his brow under the bill of his cap. He felt as though he was absorbing the energy of the sun. He closed his eyes and felt wholly settled in.

            As his boat drifted on the water he drifted at the edge of consciousness. Behind his eyelids he was awake, but not thinking, merely absorbing the environment passively. The breeze cooling his moist skin, he could sense the shadows of the small clouds it was pushing across the sky above. He could hear the buzz of insects in the trees, the water lapping against the side of the canoe, and distant splashes of fish and what were probably small toads.

            A small tug on his line brought him abruptly back into a sleepy state of alertness. He sat up and saw something brown floating near his bobber. Some strange log had bumped it. James immediately slouched back into his dozing position.

            His mind free as his eyes rested, James considered the log. It was not uncommon to see sticks floating in the pond, and he had heard something fall into the water earlier. Strange that he hadn’t seen it floating on the surface right after it had fallen. But then, it had been rather oddly shaped, which probably caused it to sink a bit first. There had been a piece that had stuck up, quite ear-like. His fuzzy brain summoned up images of a crocodile stalking the surface of the water, then the wiggling ears of hippopotamus about to defend its territory. His mind, startled at the idea of such a large animal encountering his ten-pound test line, jolted his body up to check the log again.

            But it was not a log. Nor was it a crocodile or a hippopotamus. The sun was silent as the wind pushed a much larger cloud over the pond. James was gazing at a rabbit. At first he wasn’t sure; perhaps it was something else. But as his brain slowly revved back up to normal RPM he recalled the existence of swamp rabbits that could indeed swim. It was still a strange sight.

            The rabbit was headed towards his canoe. James sensed something was wrong. The creature was making a hissing noise and James saw in its open mouth nasty, pointy teeth. James began reeling in his line, thinking that maybe he should move to another part of the pond. With nostrils flared, the rabbit swam with alarming swiftness. It made a beeline for James. His line in and the rod firmly in his left hand, James snatched the paddle with his right and began splashing water at the little critter.

            What started as small, flimsy splashes quickly became frantic slaps at the water as the rabbit, eyes wide with either panic or rage, came steadily closer. WHUNK! The paddle struck the rabbit’s head. As the water calmed from this last flailing, James did not see the rabbit. It must have gone down. Satisfying though it was, James felt a bit guilty. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the poor rodent. Chances were the rabbit was escaping a predator. He had merely wanted to keep it away from himself.

            When the rabbit’s beady red eyes did not reappear above the water James began to feel truly remorseful. He was a catch and release fisherman. His heart rate began to slow back down and he realized that he had been a bit worried. It wasn’t every day that one had to fend off an amphibious rabbit assault. He dropped the paddle into the bottom of the boat, let out a big breath, and leaned back to gather his thoughts.

            James decided that he should paddle another area of the pond; all of the excitement was bound to have scared off any fish in the immediate area. Just as he was reaching down for the paddle, he heard a sound similar to that of a whale exhaling through its blowhole. He froze. The fishing rod fell from between his knees to the floor.

            The next sound his ears picked up was a scrabbling that reminded him of a puppy running full speed across a hardwood floor while trying to turn a sharp corner. Just as the puppy usually winds up smacking into a cupboard James heard a thud. He lifted his eyes from the paddle on the floor to the bow of the boat.

            Those same fiery red eyes that he had been relieved to see disappear after he had accidentally stricken the rabbit were now a mere four feet away. There was a glint in those eyes that suggested what was going to happen next would not be an accident. There was a split second that felt like an eternity for James. He thought how ridiculous it was that he was having a Western high-noon showdown with a wet, limp rabbit. He wished he had a gun in his holster rather than a paddle on the floor.

            The rabbit stared with such intensity that James wondered if it meant to destroy him with its gaze alone. James resolved to make the first move. That was how showdowns were won.

            His hand snaked down to the floor. In the same instant the rabbit sprang forward. Suddenly those four feet seemed more like twenty centimeters. It seemed as though the rabbit flew through the air, going directly for James as if its path had been drawn with a ruler. He grasped the round handle on the floor and snapped it up.

            James had the misfortune of watching the wispy end of his fishing rod whisk upwards. His aim was true, but the blow was in vain. If the rod had been more substantial it would have merely sped the rabbit along its trajectory toward James. As it was the pole snapped in two as it came in contact with the rabbit.

            If either James or the rabbit had blinked they would have missed this incident, brief as it was. But James’s eyes never left the rabbit’s. In James’s mind he knew the sequence couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds, but he picked up enough details that it could’ve been minutes long.

            As the rabbit crept through the air toward James, he noticed that its eyes were locked onto his, but focused lower, on his neck. The moment he realized this fact everything snapped out of slow motion, skipped real-time and proceeded directly to warp speed.

            The rabbit sunk its big teeth into James’s jugular vein. Even as James instinctually tried desperately to dislodge the rabbit from his neck, there was a portion of his brain that was trying to convince the rest of his mind that there was no such thing as vampire bunny rabbits. Meanwhile, his eyes were watching a fountain of his own blood spray in all directions.

            The rabbit clearly had a vicious streak miles wide because it continued to chew away at James’s neck. James felt his strength sap away with disheartening speed. He felt another flash of agony, the equivalent of a shot in comparison to a shattered bone compared to the initial bite. But it registered in his head nonetheless. His fingers had gone through the razors in the rabbit’s mouth.

James felt as though he had lost his last weapon against the ferocious rabbit. He slumped to the floor of his canoe, hitting with a sticky splash. The bottom of the small vessel was quickly filling with the crimson blood that was exiting his increasingly limp body.

            James’s last thought was a consoling one. It was an ongoing joke in the office that they would all die at their desks thanks to the economic crisis. At least he had escaped that cruel fate…