Nighty-Nightmare (8 page)

“But how?” Howie asked. “What do you mean?”

“And what does this have to do with the rabbit?” said Dawg. “What'd ya say his name was? Binoculars?”

“Bunnicula,” Chester said. “Oh, I'm coming to that, don't worry. Diabolicus had succeeded in
turning Fritz and Hans, and then Erda too, into vampires like himself. He now had a wife, of sorts. And sons. And pets. His happiness, like his family, was complete.

“Fritz and Hans thought of Diabolicus and Erda as their father and mother. Their real parents were soon forgotten.

“Bella and Boris, being rabbits, increased their master's happiness by adding to the family. For some reason, they had an unusually small litter—a litter, in fact, of one. Noboby knew what to call this new member of the family. Bella and Boris seemed almost embarrassed to have produced such a runty thing as their sole offspring. And Diabolicus wondered just what sort of race he had created if this was the best they could manage. He did not know that Bella and Boris had already bred others of their kind throughout Europe; nor, that no sooner had they added to their numbers, than those very numbers had been cut down.

“You see, when Fritz and Hans disappeared from Kasha-Varnishkes, it was believed that they had perished in the fire that had destroyed The
House of Dr.E.A.D. But the boys' parents would not give up hope that they had survived. 1 will live to see my sons again,' their mother had proclaimed. And so her husband, together with several other men from the village, set out on the trail of Diabolicus and the black carriage.

“They followed them across Hungary and Austria, through Switzerland and France, and wherever they encountered the race of rabbits Bella and Boris had left behind, they destroyed them. By the time the men arrived on England's shores, there were no vampire rabbits left... none, that is, but Bella, Boris and the little one without a name.

“One night, shortly before dawn, Diabolicus was reading a bedtime story to Hans and Fritz. Hans held the tiny rabbit in his lap, stroking its head as he listened to his new father's voice. Suddenly, they heard Erda's footsteps racing madly up the stairs. ‘Hurry,' she cried out breathlessly. ‘Hurry, master! They're coming!'

“ ‘Get hold of yourself, woman,' said Diabolicus. ‘Who's coming?'

“The peasants from Kasha-Varnishkes. They're carrying torches. They're crying, “The monster must be destroyed!” Oh, master, we must leave at once.'

“With a sense of
déjà vu
, Diabolicus ran to get Bella and Boris, while hurrying the boys and Erda to the carriage behind the house. ‘Once it is daylight and we are asleep in our boxes of dirt,' he said, ‘the horses will know where to carry us.'

“Their escape plan seemed perfect. But just as they were about to depart, Boris leaped from his master's arms and scampered back to the house. Diabolicus ran after him.

“ ‘Where are you going, Papa?' cried Fritz. ‘We can't leave without you.'”

“Still a wimp,” Dawg commented.

“ ‘I shall return,' Diabolicus called out. He chased Boris through an open door and was gone from sight.

“Now, whether Diabolicus ever reached Boris we will never know, for no sooner had he set foot in the house than it erupted in flames.

“The innkeeper from Kasha-Varnishkes wiped
a tear from his eye, convinced that his sons were now lost to him forever. And, of course, they were . . . just not in the way he thought. Had he turned away from the blazing carnage, he would have seen a black carriage disappearing into the forest. Two boys, one clutching a tiny rabbit, were taking a last look at their home, their England. They were headed for a new life, a new land. They were headed for America.”

“America?” I said. “How'd they get to America?

“Well, it just so happened,' said Chester, “that Diabolicus had prepared for an emergency such as this one. He had booked passage under an assumed name on the
Q.E. II
, thus enabling Erda, Fritz, and Hans to board the ship one November night and never look back.

“They settled in their new country, keeping to themselves, always apart from the others. They saved wisely, invested in the stock market, and, in time, their cash flow was sufficient to allow them to construct a duplicate of their original home, an
American House of Dr.E.A.D. They lived a quiet life. And then one day their quiet life was destroyed.

“Bella and her baby rabbit escaped through an open window. We don't know what happened to Bella, but we know of course what became of the little one without a name.”

“He came to live with a family called the Monroes,” I said. “And they named him Bunnicula.”

“Right.”

“And The House of Dr.E.A.D.?” I asked.

Chester turned his head toward the house in the clearing. Three sets of eyes followed his. “You're looking at it,” he said. “Fritz and Hans live there still, under other names, no doubt. Erda, though she is no longer called that, is their housekeeper. And somewhere, high in a tower room, there is a laboratory, the mirror image of one in Kasha-Varnishkes. The Transylvania twins will one day continue the experiments begun by their adopted father. They are waiting, waiting for Bunnicula.”

The night was still. No one spoke for the longest
time. Then, Howie said, “A hare-raising tale, Pop.”

Dawg started to chuckle, but his chuckle turned quickly to a snort, and the snort into a snore. He was sound asleep. Moments later, Howie was sleeping too.

“Now's our chance,” Chester said. “If we're not too late, we may still be able to save the Monroes.”

And those were the last words I heard.

[
EIGHT
]

H
OW WE MANAGED to sleep that night I will never know. It may have been from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps it was the terror instilled in us by Chester's words, but no sooner had he finished his story than sleep moved in quickly and efficiently, like a thief in the night, to rob us of our wakefulness. Even Chester slept, although
he confessed to me when he woke that he had not slept easily.

I knew what he meant. I have never had such nightmares.

In one, I was lost in a woods. From all around me, I heard rustling, scampering, someone—or something—moving about. Every time I ran toward the sounds, they would disappear and start
again from another part of the forest. I ran and ran, first toward them, then away, never knowing who or what was making them, always frightened they would find me before I could find them.

It was a different sound that woke me shortly before dawn—the sound of rain. I listened for a time to its patter on the leaves above me, my brain too foggy to make sense of where I was or why I should be afraid. I just knew that I was getting wet, and that I
was
afraid.

“What a night,” I heard Chester say beside me. “They were all around us, Harold.”

“Who?” I said, yawning loudly.

“The spirits. Didn't you hear them?”

I thought for a moment. “I heard sounds,” I said. “Do you mean they could have been—”

“Of course,” said Chester. “‘The fifth of May is Saint George's Day. When midnight tolls, the devil has sway.'”

“And while the cat's asleep, the dog runs away,” I added.

“What do you mean?”

I nodded toward the spot where Howie and
Dawg had fallen asleep the night before. Howie was opening his eyes. He was alone.

“Dawg gone!” he exclaimed.

“Just as I thought,” said Chester. “He merely pretended to sleep. Oh, what fools we've been. Why couldn't we have stayed awake!”

“What is it, Pop?” Howie asked, quickly on his feet and at our side. “Did Dawg do something wrong?”

“Not in your eyes, certainly,” Chester replied. He too was on his feet now, pacing nervously. “It all fits into place, just as I suspected. Harold, get up.”

I stretched lazily. “Do I have to?” I asked.

“Do you ever want to see your family again?” he retorted. “Alive?”

I bounded to my feet. “Is it Bud and Spud?” I asked nervously. “Have they done something to the Monroes?”

Howie started to sniffle. “Maybe they know about Bunnicula,” he said. “Maybe they've kidnapped the Monroes to force them to give back Bunnicula!”

“I think you're confusing things,” I told Howie. “It was Fritz and Hans who wanted Bunnicula, not Bud and Spud. Besides, that story was make-believe.' ‘

“Hah!” “Hah!” Chester snorted. “Woe unto you who believeth not.”

“On the contrary,” I said. “Woe unto me who has believethed you too many times. How could that story be real, Chester? And where did you hear it in the first place?”

Chester paused long enough to bathe a paw. An evasive tactic, if ever I'd seen one. “My sources are confidential,” he said at last. It was my turn to snort. “Besides, that story doesn't matter right now. What matters is the fate of the Monroes. I believe that Bud and Spud and Dawg were the evil spirits in these woods last night. I believe that Dawg purposely got us lost and wore us out so we'd be out of his masters' way all night. I believe that Bud and Spud had harmful intentions regarding the Monroes. I believe we may be too late.”

“And woe until you who believeth not, Uncle Harold,” said Howie, beginning to cry in earnest.

I confess I felt my own eyes dampening. “I hope for all our sakes that you're wrong, Chester,' I said. “Otherwise, we'll. . . we'll be orphans. And I'm too old to be an orphan!”

“We have to get back to camp, Harold,” Chester said. “Now!”

“There's only one problem,” I said.

“What's that?”

“It's pouring.” The drenched leaves above our heads were no longer protecting us. Even though I've never cared for the smell of wet dog hair, it wasn't that that concerned me as much as the difficulty of tracking in the rain. “If Dawg went back to camp,” I told Chester, “I would ordinarily be able to follow his scent. But I'm afraid this fresh rain has wiped out that possibility.”

“Rats,” Chester muttered. “Well, we'll just have to find our way back as best we can.”

We were all set to start out when Howie cried, “Look, Uncle Harold! Look, Pop! He's back!”

There, winding his way through the trees in our direction, was Dawg.

“DID YOU HEAR all the commotion?” he asked when he reached us. “I tried to follow it, but the ground was too wet and I lost the trail. Boy, the rain's been coming down for hours. You guys woulda slept through anything.”

“And probably did,” said Chester, under his breath. “You been up long, Dawg?” he asked.

“A couple hours. Chester, did you know you whistle when you sleep?”

Seeing the look in Chester's eye, I jumped in before he could respond. “Uh, the longer we stand here,” I pointed out, “the wetter we get. How about taking us back to camp, Dawg?”

“That's just what I was going to do,” said Dawg. “I was about to wake you, but then I heard the noise and took off after it. Like I say, I lost it.”