Sick as a Rabbit

TW: mild description of gore, blood

Sunday afternoon had rolled around and Barbra had grown tired of demanding her son in law finally clean his room. There was a foul odor that had been seeping out to the rest of the house for well over a week, and she has just about had enough. It was a horrid stench of decay and rot that no amount of stale leftovers and dirty laundry could create. This had begun to worry her and her husband after days of pestering the boy to do something about it. So Barbra decided to take matters into her own hands, with two large garbage bags and a pair of gloves, she entered the bedroom.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight she walked in on as it made her blood run cold. The first thing to catch her eye was the desk in the far corner of the room. There was no mistaking that this was the cause of the odor. On the center of the desk, littered with various tools and jars and towels, the good ones that have been going missing as of late, was a dead rabbit. The creature was relatively small, a young thing with soft brown fur. The neck was crooked and twisted at an odd, nauseating angle while its stomach had been cut open and nailed back to the board it was resting on.

Barbra stood at the doorway frozen in shock as she surveyed the rest of her surroundings. The single window to her left had been covered with overlapping layers of foil, as if the boy had taken great care to keep every ounce of daylight and fresh air out. She was not entirely sure the floor was still there beneath the mass piles of dirty laundry and garbage. To her right was the bed. It had various stains of different colors, the most alarming looking to be dried blood. She was not going to think about what the rest could be from, that was the least of her concerns. What she was interested in was the thin journal resting on top of the sheets.

There was a moment of hesitation where she weighed her options. She wanted to look inside that journal. She wanted to call the police. She wanted to close the door and pretend none of this existed. Instead, Barbra did none of those things as her eyes trailed back to the animal on the desk. She took a step forward and nearly tripped over an object in her path. It was a bone, picked clean to near perfection. It almost had a fake look to it from how pristine it was. This was the moment shock wore off and fear began to settle in its place.

Why would you do this? Barbra did not wonder when the boy could have done such a thing, knowing already he would sneak out late at night and return early in the morning just before school. Ever since Barbra met him she knew the boy had an obsession with the woods behind the house. Always climbing the trees to dangerous heights and attempting to catch the spiders he found nesting in the crooks of branches and hollows. Always watching the deer in the early mornings or the racoons late at night. Always trying to lure them inside her home. She never liked that part.

It wasn’t safe, she would tell him. They have rabies, she would add. That was never enough to deter him from trying anyway. Those types of antics and curiosities could not have stemmed into this. There had to be something she was missing. The boy was not the angry type, never lashing out and always quiet. A good boy. How could she have possibly seen this coming? Barbra had known that she was never going to replace his biological mother, but she tried to be the best maternal figure in his life. He deserved that much. But this? Animal carcass and bones and blood and death? She did not know how to handle such a situation in her home.

Barbara's entire world was shattering. The child she cared for so deeply had been killing innocent animals and dissecting them in her home, and she felt fear. Would he do this to the family dog next? To a person? To her? It was as if the rabbit was taunting her, laughing at her life now in shambles. She never had such joy and beauty growing up as she did now. Her husband was not a perfect man, but he was handsome and well mannered enough. A gentleman and a flirt all in one. Her house was not the midcentury modern, end of the cul-de-sac dream home she always wanted, but this one was nice with a wonderful backyard view of the forest. And the life she lived was not one of luxury, but she was content with her social circle and her decent paying job. One small rabbit was going to take all of this away.

That thought was what drove her to finally take another step forward into the room, stepping over the bone discarded on the floor, and slowly make her way to the desk. As carefully as Barbra could manage with shaky gloved hands, she picked up the cutting board, her most expensive one that disappeared after dinner last week, and placed it gently in the garbage bag that she was clinging onto like a lifeline. Next, she picked up each of the filled jars, some with dirt and ants, others with what looked to be different kinds of solutions and bones sunk to the bottom, then placed them in the bag as well. The tools could still be salvaged, as they were her husbands and needed to be cleaned and put back in the garage before he realized they were missing. The towels, her good ones, needed to be washed. Those could be replaced if the stains did not come out, however she still wanted to make an attempt to clean them.

After disposing of the worst of the mess, she moved to the window to begin the task of peeling away the foil. The duct tape lining the frame was going to take quite a bit of work to remove without leaving any damage behind, but she could always do a bit of maintenance over the chips in the old paint. The house could use a few touch ups anyway. Every piece that peeled off was like one step closer to escaping the horror of what she was experiencing as it let in more and more golden light from the sun. She could see the road leading to the front of the driveway, noticing she was still home alone because her husband’s car was not parked down below. This was good. This meant she still had time left before they returned.

Making quick work of the remaining foil and opening the window to let out the stagnant air, she fastened off the first bag before reaching for the second. The garbage collecting in the clothes on the floor was her next task. Food wrappers and soda cans and old homework assignments, perfectly scored, all trash. Barbra was not ready to touch any more animal remains after the rabbit, but the boy did not give her much of a choice with how many she kept finding in between shirts and papers strewn everywhere. She could only make assumptions as to why he would do something like this, but to be so haphazard with the pieces was lost on her. It was as though he was making a nest of sorts, like he himself was becoming an animal in a winter's hibernation.

As Barbra began sorting through the clothes, like colors with like colors, jeans and jackets in another pile, her mind kept drifting back to the journal on the bed. Has he been documenting his experiments? Is the reason behind his actions explained inside or is it even relevant to any of this at all? She needed to make a decision, look through it or throw it away too. Would understanding even help her at all? Help him? It felt as though she was lost in thought for an eternity, sorting clothes and overanalyzing the situation to the point of insanity.

Now she needed to strip the bedding and throw it in the wash, which meant touching the journal. Perhaps she could just walk away. All the animal remains that she believed to have found were in two very full garbage bags, so she could just toss them away in the bin out front and be done with this nightmare. However the room was still dirty, and this was her home, and Barbra would be damned if she left her home mess. She made her decision, placing the book on the small bedside table, she then finished stripping the sheets to take them to the laundry room. The notebook had answers and she needed to know how sick her son in law was.

Fixing the bedroom had begun to feel mundane after a while, the cleaning and organizing. Wash the laundry, wipe the surfaces, put objects back in their intended places. This was normal. This was good. This was her home, and it needed to be perfect. Her life needed to be perfect, as much as it could be, and a perfect life did not involve dead rabbits inside her home. There will be no death in her world. No murder. No mess.

Washing the tools proved harder than she anticipated, but eventually they were neatly stored in their respective drawers in the garage. Her towels were soon to come out of the dryer, but she will be sure to run them through the wash with extra bleach again, just to be sure every stain is gone. The spare sheets have been tucked into place on the bed and his clothes were lined in piles in the hallway waiting for their turn to be cleaned.

Vacuuming was the most satisfying chore as of yet, because it meant she was almost done. After this, then yes, she was done. She can light candles and order dinner to the house and wait for her family to return home. Everything will be normal. Then, when the family goes to sleep at night, in clean sheets and a good smelling home, she will lay awake, waiting for the right time to creep to the backyard and read under the porchlight. Read and understand. Then tomorrow will come, and she will make another decision.

For now, she will wait for her family to come back. It may take hours, but she will wait. Barbra felt sick as a dog as she stared out the window to the front yard, wanting to throw up, as if that too would cleanse her of what she had done. Sick as a dog? Where did that saying even come from? No, she felt sick as a rabbit.