The Blood of the Rabbit

Chapter 2

Martin turned the corner. He didn't care where he was going or what he was going to do, but he had to find Jason and Abigale. He didn't care if that person...

No, Martin thought. That was no person. I don't think it was even human the way it leaped towards me. No one could cover that distances in a single bound. Besides, whatever it is, it must be injured, or better yet, dead. A cut like that must have hurt it.

After running through the house for what seemed like forever in Martin's panicked state, he decided to take a rest. The building was quite expansive, and the only reason it was still standing was the fact it was a heritage building. Of course, once he warned someone, anyone of this creature, the town would have to either tear it down or figure out how to deal with the monster.

Sitting on some steps that lead upstairs, Martin began to ponder on how he was going to escape the mansion. The door was jammed, but the place seemed rotten enough that he could probably just break the door down, or go through the back. This place had to have a back door. On the other hand, if this house was as rotten as he thought, breaking anything could bring the entire place crashing onto him.

To make this experience worth his while, Martin decided to explore while he look for Jason and Abigale. The next room he walked into seemed to be a kitchen. The room was large, similar to that of a kitchen in the back of a restaurant, and it had a large table in the center with cupboards all along the walls. There was an old stove, as well as many rusted and hanging pots, pans, and other tools for cooking. He didn't spy a fridge, but instead an old cooler box. There were cutting knives strewn across the table, and the knives were just as rusted as the rest of the metal in the room.

When he walked in, he smelled something rotting. He couldn't place the smell, as he didn't enjoy smelling rotting things in his free time, but with an expansive room such as this, and it being a kitchen and all, he couldn't figure out where the smell could possibly be coming from. He figured he would have to look around to find it.

Martin first looked at the table, but anything that could have possibly been the host of the smell on the slab of wood was simply a cutting board, a knife, or the crumbs covering the table. Taking a closer look at the knives, he noticed that it wasn't only rust on them. Taking one into his hand, a closer inspection showed that there was blood on the knife. Funny thing was, the colour of the blood varied, some being a dark brown like the knife, some more red and fresher looking. Looking at the knife next to the one he picked up, Martin felt himself go a little cold. The knife had blood on it, but it was red. Like, really red. It couldn't have been older than a few days.

Martin decide not to think about it, or the possible person that knife was sheathed in. Instead, he would try to find what that noxious smell belonged to.

He walked over to one the cupboards and opened it to find, to his disgust, a filthy rat nibbling on something that must have been food. The rat leaped out, and scurried away as Martin attempted to avoid the rodent. He began to have the sick feeling that there had to be more than just rats in these cupboards, and decided to look elsewhere.

Next, he looked in the oven. It was cold inside, and there was nothing inside except a couple of empty trays. On top of the oven was a pot with what might have once been mashed potato, but now with pupae crawling around as well.

Martin decided that he should start to move on, but it wasn't the potatoes that smelled.

After looking around, Martin tried the ice box, which he had to admit, had little ice left. He opened it and resisted the urge to throw up. If the smell was awful before, it was unbearable now. Inside was some rotten fruit, cheese, and...and... a decomposing human hand. There was even broken bone sticking out of the base of it.

He couldn't take it anymore. He jumped back and turned to leave. He first put the lid of the box back on the box then decided to looking around once more. He spotted what must be a dumbwaiter, most likely used by the staff of the mansion. In the corner was a staircase leading upstairs.

Martin then heard something. He paused in his tracks and fell silent, only hearing the sound of his breath and the scritch-scratching sound echoing through the halls.

"Something else has to be in here, because it can't possibly the rat, nor the thing I stabbed," Martin breathed.

He walked out of the kitchen back into the hall and wandered around a bit more. After smelling the stench the hand and food in the ice box excreted, Martin began realizing the house had a similar smell, but fainter. He also noticed that there were many brown stains, but couldn't differentiate whether they were blood or simply part of the wood. All the while, the scratching grew and weakened in volume.

The rat finally stopped. It felt that it was safe. It was in the same state until its blanket of darkness became that of light, and another, larger animal screamed at it. Crawling around, it looked for food, perhaps next to this vase. The poor rodent could never guess what happened next.

A clawed hand with faster reflexes than its own squeezed around the rat. A white shrouded mouth opened, slightly tearing the cloth and causing blood to roll from the eyes to the cheeks. The rat soon remembered that the animal in the food room was not the only large predator in this wooden box. The rat's blood covered the teared mouth and its leftover strewn across the floor. The rat was alone again.