It started out like any other Easter Sunday—waking up late, drinking stale coffee because she was too cheap to throw yesterday's pot away, lounging on the couch as she surfed Facebook for a couple hours, wishing everyone happy Easter, making a small lunch for herself and her six cats, then heading outside to take a stroll in the bright spring sun.
She stopped at a park to watch children play and that's when she noticed something in the bushes. It made quite a racket and she started to get nervous. All of a sudden, it burst through the branches, snarling and spitting, its amber eyes piercing through her, marking her as food.
Polly ran, angling away from the park, hoping to save the children on the swings. She dashed through an alley, trying to outrun her attacker. Swerving around some trash cans, she slipped on some moldy, slimy, green garbage and landed hard on her backside.
Polly scrambled to right herself, but as she turned around, the zombie bunny was bearing down on her. She screamed and threw herself backward as the bunny launched itself toward her face. She felt something thin and scratchy brush across her cheek and the bunny stopped midair, growling and slobbering through the fine mesh of a net.
"You blithering idiot. I can't believe you let this thing out."
Two men were standing on the side of the alley, dressed in lab coats. One had his head down, hands shoved into his pockets, cheeks as red as a miniature apples. The other held a high-grade fishing net, in which the fluffy zombie now squirmed and howled. He dropped the rabbit into a cat carrier and latched the door.
"Miss, please come with us. We'll get you cleaned up and, uh, explain things."
Polly, completely perplexed, stood up, overcoming the weakness in her legs to right herself. She followed the two men to a van. The one carrying the bunny opened the door and beckoned for her to enter. She hesitated, unsure if she should trust people who create zombies out of pets.
"We're not going to hurt you. I promise. But we do need to talk with you, so you understand what's going on and know that you can't share this information with anyone else."
Polly hopped in the van and went with them back to their lab, located in a warehouse on the far side of town. When they got out, one of the men led her to a small sitting room while the other took the bunny through a separate door.
"Please, have a seat. I'll get you some tea."
Polly sat and waited. The man, the smarter one it seemed, brought her a cup of tea and seated himself opposite her. He sipped from his own cup as she sipped from hers.
"So, Polly, you know you can't tell anyone about this, right?"
"Yes... wait. How did you know my name?"
He just smiled at her. Her head started to feel fuzzy and her skin started to tingle. The world around her seemed to grow larger. Polly's hands fumbled with the cup, dropping it to the carpet. She had trouble breathing and her nose twitched uncontrollably. The man advanced on her and she tried to get away, but she backed up against the couch and couldn't get around his enormous legs.
He leaned over, grabbing her neck, and hefted her into the air. Her eyes were wide and she was terrified. He carried her, not all that gently, over to a mirror. She looked and in his hand, where she was, squirmed a brown, lop-eared bunny that he held by the scruff.
"At last, success." The smile on his face was pure joy and pride. “I just love bunnies.”
Polly kicked and scratched and tried her best to get out of his grip, but he had bested her. He dropped her into a crate and called for his partner. Polly watched the man drink his tea as she was carried through a set of double doors, defeated and fluffified.
**This was for the April theme challenge of a writing group I'm in. Keywords were *Bunny, Amber, Play, Blithering, Garbage, and Overcoming***
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