For Love of Mister Cotton Tail: An Apocalyptic Fairytale (Single) (7 page)

“No, everyone has diff
erent powers. That is the result of my mother’s main power,” Big Bunny answered. “That is why we bought all the bars. She can duplicate each to their full extent.”

Along the wall
there were already hundreds more baskets. “How many children are in the city?”

“We don’t do just
the city.” Big Bunny winked at her as he touched her floppy ear. “We do the world.”

The world? The world?! “How?” She gestured toward the twenty rabbits around them. “You need a much bigger workforce.”

“That isn’t all the bunnies here,” Big Bunny said. “Not even one percent. Rabbits multiply like . . .well, rabbits. You haven’t even touched a full one percent of our little society here.”

Wow. Candy looked behind
him as his mother came back around. He talked with her a little, and then his mother wrapped her arms around Candy.

“
Carrot grass good, Candy of legend!”

Of course, he must have mentioned the carrot and cucumber sliced spaghetti.
Carrot grass, good name for it. Candy felt her head being patted by his mother before she finally let go.

All night long, Candy helped boil eggs
, and brushes were actually found for her size (okay, a little larger) to decorate them. Lying them in along with the baskets, others picked up on what she had done too. The cucumber and carrot shredding was easy to mimic with their old conveyor belts.

“Great
job.” Big Bunny hopped over by her. “I’m proud of you, Candy.”

Candy tried to hide the strange blush. Her fur was white
but she was afraid she might be turning red. For some reason, Big Bunny made her feel funnier the longer she was around him in that form. Rabbit to rabbit, it must have been something to do with that. Surely she didn’t really see him as anything more than her sweet pet.

Surely. “I would have been a hen.” She looked toward Big Bunny. “If I had been a creature, right?”

“Maybe. Maybe a duck. Who knows?” Big Bunny moved closer to her. She felt his warm, soft furry lip tickle against her floppy ear. “Although, I think you make a fine rabbit.”

A fine rabbit. She doubted rabbits should be getting that warm beneath their fur or it’d catch on fire.

“Are you okay, Candy?”

“Fine.” How warped was she? Cotton was right. She was obsessed with her rabbit. She might
even be . . . “I-I really need to get out of here soon.”

“Sure, we can go home if you are ready.”

We. Yes. When she was human and he was just the cute little rabbit, she was much better off.

* * *

“Good morning, Cotton.” Candy welcomed him into Sweet Meats to his usual table. They’d been seeing each other for more than two weeks now, every night and every day at Sweet Meats. Cotton didn’t say whether marriage was on the table, but boy did Momma Sweet disagree with the thought.

“Back again?” Poured came over to the table too with a snicker. “Can’t you just go on a date instead of stalk my sister at work?”

Honestly. Cotton was a thousand times better than Darren. They even did the traditional dinner and a movie. He was always a gentleman. Although, he was often too much of a gentleman, almost afraid to show her who he really had been. She’d seen it a couple of times though, and the more they saw each other, the more his true self came out. “The usual?”

“It’s about all I can afford,” Cotton teased. “Yep, five, twenty nine.”

“The most expensive way to get laid I’d ever seen,” Poured said as she left the table. Cotton and Candy both ignored h
er. Neither Momma Sweet, Darren or Poured were going to stop him being a customer.

“Do you think your sister will ever like me?” Cotton
asked before Candy left with the order. Candy simply shrugged. She knew if she picked Cotton, Poured and Momma would be looking at tougher times.

Candy headed toward the back to get the water. Tonight she’d make up for it when he came over for a date. Although it was understandable that Momma and Poured were angry over Cotton choosing
to try to marry her, she tried to understand Big Bunny.

From day one
he hid from Cotton. He never stayed in the same room. For six months, Candy had raised Big Bunny alone, and she thought maybe he was scared Cotton would ruin everything. Maybe he was jealous Candy wouldn’t be able to show him the same amount of attention?

Or, maybe, Big Bunny being next to her as a real bunny was confusing him too. As much as she liked Cotton, she couldn’t stop thinking about Big Bunny’s idea too. There should be no way that she’d rather sit in a hole, work on a conveyor belt and make baskets every day.
Yet, every time Big Bunny took her down that rabbit hole, he showed her more. He showed her deeper parts. He even showed her one of the ‘city’ dwellings where rabbits just like him had socialized and lived at.

Candy would bet about everything she owned that she’d already seen more than there was room on Big Bunny hill. The holes kept extending downward and upward into
different hills.

She also learned how they protected themselves. When everyone knew Big Bunny was coming, it was easy to come through the holes. There were actual rabbit guards and hen guards though with massive steel (yes, steel) doors. Each hole inside the dwelling was guarded heavily so no chance hunter might try to stick poison or smoke down there to make anyone come out.

Although he shared so much though, he still held secrets. So many secrets. He refused to tell her his real name. He refused to tell her if he transformed to a human or what he looked like in his other form. Not even his hair color. He vowed it was to keep their relationship simple because knowing anything else would make it to awkward to keep him as a pet.

Somehow, she was beginning to doubt that same old excuse.

Realizing she was thinking about her bunny instead of serving Cotton again, she shook her head. She had to stop being ridiculous. Before she reached his table though, Cotton was standing next to it, side by side with Darren.

“This whole charade is getting annoying,” Darren said as he poked Cotton in the chest. “Just do Candy so I can marry her already. She is going to die soon if you don’t move it.”

Candy came out and broke the two of them up. “Cotton, your drink.” She sat it down but looked over at Darren. “You have no business here.”

“I do. You risk death if this dumb yahoo doesn’t either marry you or do you. So ask him!” Darren gestured to Cotton. “Are you going to marry her or not? She doesn’t have a
whole month.”

Candy wanted to slug him right then and there. She had time left. She hadn’t felt weak at all. There was
time before that stupid question had to be answered.

“Candy, is it me you want?” Cotton met her eye to eye. “I don’t want you to settle. Tell me there is no one else you’d want.”

Candy turned from his eye as she saw the vision of her bunny again. Gaw, what was wrong with her?! Cotton was the greatest. She did like him, it was just . . .
something
. Something was wrong about him.

“Candy doesn’t completely.” Poured saw the opportunity. “She can’t look you in the eye. She must like Darren more than she
lets on.”

Oh
no way, that wasn’t even funny. Candy glared at Poured. She would ruin everything.

“Candy?” Cotton questioned her again. “Look me in the eyes, and tell me you’d be happy with me.”

“I would.” She said it, but not to his eyes. She tried again, but her voice faltered. “I-I would.”

“No, Candy.” Cotton stood up. “You’re a nice girl. Sweetest one ever, but your heart has to be completely mine.”

No. No, no, no! “It is though, I do care.”

Cotton looked toward Poured and then at Candy. “Five days from now, I’ll come by your apartment, Candy. I may not have your heart, but I won’t leave you to Darren alone.” He gestured to Darren. “Her first time is mine, and most of her heart. You marry her and play straight, or she’ll take the entire
company away.”

Cotton. Candy wanted to go after him, but she didn’t know what to say. Her voice failed her. Her eyes failed her. She liked Cotton, and she would have chosen him any day for marriage over Darren.

In five days, Cotton would take her and leave her to Darren. The thought pushed too hard now. Not this, not after all that time of getting to know him. She thought they had a great chance together. Why couldn’t she say she’d be happy with him?
Why?
She ran out the door with only one goal in mind.

* * *

Candy sniffled as she rushed into her home. She closed the door, seeking the furry companion she always had before. “Big Bunny.” Her body slid down the door, unable to even want to get up to look for him. He had always come to her front door.

She wasn’t mistaken as he hopped over to her. He moved into her lap and she touched his big floppy ears. They always made her feel a little better, but even that wouldn’t work
today.

“Candy, what is it?” he asked as he stood on his haunches and twitched his nose at her.

“Cotton. I let him go.” Candy could barely open her eyes. “He was there for me. He was risking marriage. He was polite, funny . . .but something happened. I couldn’t say he was the one who made me happy.”

“Oh no.” Big Bunny hugge
d her tighter. “Now what?”

“Five days.
He’ll give me back my dwindling power, and then it’s off to marry Darren.” Candy gulped. “I guess Sweet Meats is just an undeniable road I have to follow.”

“No, you don’t have too.” Big Bunny thumped his foot on her lightly. “Stay with me at Bunny Hill.”

It may have seemed at first that such a request was laughable. Being with Darren and ruling the company, or living underground with rabbits and chickens? More than once she had considered it, but every time something inside said it wouldn’t be right. She wasn’t a real bunny, she was a fake bunny. The white fur with blonde streaks, the floppy ears, the light hopping around the ground. She wished with all her heart that it felt right, but it didn’t.

Big Bunny was still just Big Bunny. He wasn’t a human. Maybe he turned
human, but he never once confirmed it, and her relationship was becoming unhealthy with the rabbit. Her human self was getting further away each day.

She closed her eyes,
sitting up and feeling Big Bunny slide off her lap. That was it. That was the biggest problem. It was why she couldn’t give her heart to anyone else. It was a fact that she didn’t want to face. No one did such a thing. It was wrong, flat out wrong. Talking rabbit or not, she was sick in the head. Absolutely sick, but she knew the undeniable truth.

She couldn’t completely love Cotton because somehow she had also loved
her bunny.

“Candy?”

“Sweet Meats is my future.” Candy sniffled again and got up off the floor. “Sweet Meats is my future.” She heard him hopping along beside her to her bedroom but she closed the door on him. He rubbed his paw against it, but she couldn’t let him in. He couldn’t be at the foot of her bed anymore. He couldn’t be curled up near her anymore.

“Come to Bunny Hill with me.”

“I am not a rabbit!” She yelled at him as she grabbed a pillow and threw it at the closed door. She didn’t hear his voice again after that. She stayed in her room for some time, trying to figure out when it happened. Why it happened.

When
she changed into a rabbit? Sooner? Later? She had been obsessed with that rabbit ever since she saved him. Was it an unhealthy obsession that turned into love, or did it happen when he started changing her into his form?

When it got later, she opened the door. Unable to resolve her feelings, she could not let him starve. “Big Bunny, I’m sorry.” She called for him as she started to cut up some fresh carrots, but he never answered.

When she went looking for him, all she found was an open window.

* * *

“Cotton?” Lop-eared Matt said as he hopped over to him. “The product is almost in place. We’ll need to start getting magic distribution users on our first shipment. I just need your permission, Cotton.”

Cotton stared at the basket in front of him. It was a random basket out of thousands around them. A simple brown basket made a little extra
special with a bow set in the middle. On the top were a few pieces of candy and four decorated boiled eggs. Below that was more candy that fell into the carrot spaghetti grass cushioning it. On the side, the large chocolate bunny had been duplicated as well as several smaller versions of chicks.

It wasn’t a fruit basket
, it was a Candy basket. He took his paw and wiped at his face. “Ever love a rabbit that wasn’t really a rabbit, Matt?”

“Just that crush at Sweet Meats. Although, I don’t get it. I’m not thick, Cotton, she had flirted with me.” Matt hopped away missing the entire real point of the conversation.

“Yeah. I mean, these descendants, they are just too far removed.” He touched the bow at the top of the basket. A shiny orange and pink that changed according to the direction of the light.