In the corner was a small desk, bags of rabbit food and litter piled below. Feedings were logged on a clipboard, marked with five rotating names.Peter Mappeared a month back. Another of his group projects.
A textbook sat on the desk:Arachnid Ecology.
Spiders. The rubber seal beneath the door, to prevent escape.
My skin itched a little.
I set my phone on the desk, light pointed toward the ceiling, and faced the cages. That smell of childhood, one summer day in Aunt Beatrice’s hutch, choosing the rabbit I would feed, sleep beside, and take with me everywhere for a year, until I killed her with the flick of a straight razor.
I opened one of the cages, reaching in to stroke the soft, warm head.At eight years old, I’d desperately wanted a pair of gloves made from Rabbit. There were no glovers in my family, so I’d tried myself. They’d fallen apart the first winter.
Why were these rabbits wearing jackets?
I pulled at the Velcro seal at the neck. The fabric slipped open, revealing the rabbit’s shaved back. The rippled pink skin was luridly naked, vaguely alien, like a hairless cat. The ribs were obvious beneath the skin, the shape familiar to me from playing with Peter’s bone collection.
Attached to the bare flesh were squares of foam, little picture frames, each covered with a fine, translucent mesh. Beneath the mesh were bulbous, shiny black buttons, nestled in the pink skin. They twitched with life.
I pulled one of the covers aside.
Ticks. Drinking.
I’d never taken any biology, outside of Grandpa Dwight’s lessons on poisons and venom. Spiders were arachnids, as were scorpions. No doubt ticks, their eight tiny legs clutching a host’s flesh, were too.
Replacing the mesh cover, I pressed it tight. The rabbit squeaked.
I stroked its head. There were four meshed frames glued to the rabbit’s shaved back, a half dozen ticks in each. Fourteen rabbits.
This was a tick farm.
The forests upstate were full of Lyme disease. Young Mortons were taught to check each other’s skin after a day in the brush. Helshire was in the perfect spot to study ticks.
I pulled out the small key, looked around the room again.
Explore the world. Save the animals. Escape his family.
There it was, in the corner—an air vent in the wall. Nothing out of the ordinary, except someone had added a hasp and padlock to the cover. Almost in plain sight.
The key fit.
Inside was a bag of dried apple slices.
I sat there, reading the instructions.Fruits are high in natural sugars andshould be fed sparingly to your rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, and other small friends.
This was Peter’s secret? His revenge? His Hefnd?
Treats?
I poured a few dried slices out into my hand. The apple smell filled the room, and the rabbits trilled an excited chorus.
Counting out fourteen pieces, I stood up again and slipped them through the bars of the cages, one by one. The cages were labeled with numbers. I wondered if Peter had named the rabbits. I wondered if one was called Mister Fluffernutter.
Still no noise from the hallway outside. If they were cleaning the upper floors first, I should leave now. But when I knelt to place the dried apples back in the air vent, I saw something deeper in the darkness—a tangle of wires.
I reached inside, pulled the object out slowly, carefully.
It was the size of a shoebox, all the parts visible. The detonator, a power source, a burner phone. A booster and a main charge, a few cardboard tubes strapped to the outside. A gentle scent of garlic and matches—the smell of white phosphorous.
Not just a bomb, an incendiary. Peter was an arsonist to the end.