The Rite of Spring

It's almost spring. It's still cold out, but spring is close enough to tantalize us with the faintest hints of pleasant weather, evoking the memories of warm rain, road trips, lake outings, Frisbee tossing, and blockbuster movie releases. If you can just hold out for a little longer, that is...

It's been almost a year since I pulled out of Kansas City. In all that time, my life has been on hold. Too long, too long, too long to wait for a reboot. I find myself grimacing a lot these days, when the light catches just right and I am reminded of better days, or days that Should Have Been. I brush aside the stack of empty promises to myself and focus on the Here and Now, but I can't help but look to the coming spring with guarded optimism.

Rather than be haunted by the past year's bleakness, I prefer to view the current phase as a sort of pre-edit "training montage." In a couple months, I hope to come out of this a total badass. Of course, I always set such lofty goals for myself, so lofty as to invariably fall short of expectations, even with something as minor and trivial as my to-do list for the day. But I'm working on that.

I was walking along the dam to the lake on the other side of our backyard, like I did so many times in high school, itching to get out and "see the world." I love hiking, and I have been taking full advantage of the old stomping grounds, but how many times did I trek along the lake, through the woods, and back again over the same grass?

Something was bugging me. On this little sojourn, I was being nagged by something I had forgotten, unlocked only by virtue of the nostalgia triggered by a change of seasons. What was it? What was I forgetting?

I stopped to chuck a few rocks into the water. The inner rim of the dam was lined with jagged chunks of concrete, giving me plenty of unique perches as well as an endless supply of ammunition to throw. My navel-gazing was interrupted when I heard a rustling from behind the dam. I whirled around, expecting that one of the dogs down the road had ventured out here for a good ol' romp through the woods, but nothing was there. I thought idly of the test footage we shot for The Hollow a few years ago, the furry black hump in the grass. But nothing was there.

I resumed my walk, heading out to the empty field. Hands in my pockets, face to the ground, I tabulated all the loose ends in my mind, trying to recall what was bugging me. Before long, I was in the middle of the open field, far from the house, and I stopped. I heard a sort of... chattering sound. I turned, slowly, and saw a figure standing about twenty yards away, atop a slope in the earth. Standing about five feet tall, it was a sight I had forgotten... it was the answer to my riddling, the thing that had been nagging me all day...

It was... a Creepy Bunny. Suddenly, I noticed that I was being tracked--no, surrounded by--five such aberrations. They were all fairly far from me, but they began to close in around me. And I was in the open field. As they drew nearer, I could make out their mutterings: "No... escape..."

I staggered around, heart racing, looking for a weakness in their ranks, a direction to run. I found none. My foot caught a stump of a cornstalk and I fell on my back, straight through a patch of weeds covering a hole in the ground. But then I kept falling... through what was a surprisingly large hole...

I fell through a man-sized rabbit hole...

I groaned as I sat up, rubbing a bruised shoulder and looking up to the entrance, where the faces of the Creepy Bunnies were peering down at me, peering with those disturbingly expressionless, yellow eyes... and they chanted, "Join us... no escape..."

I sprang to my feet and regarded my surroundings. The rabbit hole was dark, but I could tell that I had fallen at least twenty feet and that it was a fairly open space. Indeed, I couldn't see any walls. But I could see... a pair of glinting yellow eyes in the darkness... then another pair... and another... all getting closer...

Bunnies aren't supposed to be human height. They aren't supposed to walk around on their hind legs. They aren't supposed to be wearing early 19th-century garb. They aren't supposed to be carrying gold watches on chains. They aren't supposed to have creepy round yellow eyes. They aren't supposed to chant things at you! Those Creepy Bunnies from the Country Club Plaza are still freaking me out! This started as just another walk in the country... and now I was trapped by the most sinister, unnatural Easter decorations in all of Kansas City. But why?

I didn't have enough time to sort out the possibilities. The Creepy Bunnies were upon me, grabbing me and escorting me into a dark tunnel. I swallowed.

The tunnel led on and on, winding deeper and deeper. Minutes passed, and I guessed that I was probably now somewhere deep beneath one of the barns back at the house. But I couldn't tell for sure, because all the gradual turns left me feeling disoriented. Wherever we were, it was someplace deep, someplace unknown to the world of men. I was in the realm of the Creepy Bunnies. I was alone. I was at their mercy. Whenever I tried to ask them where they were taking me or why, all they would say, in unison, was, "No escape..."

They sat me on a giant, protruding root in the center of a large, cavernous room. Though the place was well lit with strange, metallic orbs that resembled the yellow eyes of the Creepy Bunnies, the various tunnels leading in and out of this arena were all pitch black. More Creepy Bunnies came shuffling from each of the tunnels, forming a circle around me. It was apparently some sort of assembly, a brethren court of Creepy Bunnies. This made me even more apprehensive.

The muttering and shambling ceased, and I knew that they were waiting for all to be present. There must have been at least fifty of them. In the back of my mind, I took a grim satisfaction in knowing that I was right about these Creepy Bunnies, two years ago, when everyone else thought I was just paranoid. For how could Plaza statues be sentient?

Thought they could mutter creepy phrases like "no escape" and "join us," their discomfiting, almost fell voices were only used sparingly. They were either unable or unwilling to engage in linguistic communication, even now. Perhaps it was because they had a hive mind, but I could not discern any hierarchy or single leader. Instead, they handed down a piece of paper along the line, finally handing it to me to read:

No escape. You must return. You cannot escape what is inevitable.

I looked quizzically around at the many expressionless rabbit faces. "What do you mean? What is inevitable?"

They handed me another piece of paper. It was a map... a map of Kansas City... with rabbit holes and tunnels drawn in red. The caption was written in painstakingly ornate calligraphy: A War is Coming.

My God, I thought. I have to return to Kansas City.

The Creepy Bunnies all began to chant, softly at first, then becoming more agitated with every reiteration: "Shrine of Vogler! Shrine of Vogler! Shrine of Vogler!"

"What?!" I was bewildered. "The Shrine was never finished. What about the Shrine? Tell me about the Shrine of Vogler!"

They handed me another piece of paper: my own blueprints to the Shrine of Vogler, along with a proposed time table for completion. It became terrifyingly clear to me...

The Creepy Bunnies were telling me that I was never meant to leave Kansas City. They mean for me to return and finish the Shrine of Vogler. It is the only way to avert a war between humans and the Creepy Bunnies.

Once I understood, the Creepy Bunnies escorted me back to the surface, where I was once again alone in a barren field. When they disappeared down the rabbit hole, I immediately dove for the entrance, digging with my hands to find it so I could mark its entrance. But the entrance was not there. It was like the rabbit hole never existed.

I'd better get to work...