The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

'No thanks, I like it here. It's not much of a job, but it's all I have. I'll make do. Goodbye.'

'We have to get inside,' said Eddie. 'It's very important. It's about this.' Eddie held up his bundle and showed the chocolate bunny to the gatekeeper.

'What is that?' the gatekeeper asked.

'It's a hollow chocolate bunny.'

'Oh,' said the gatekeeper. 'So that's what chocolate looks like. I'd always imagined it to be pink.'

'Pink?' said Jack. 'You've never seen chocolate?'

'I have now,' said the gatekeeper. 'And I'm very disappointed. It's not nice having all your illusions shattered. Please go away, you've quite spoiled my day.'

Eddie made an exasperated face.

'We're getting nowhere,' said Jack. 'Shall we just climb over the gates?'

'You can't do that,' said the gatekeeper. 'It's not allowed.'

'Really? And so what are you going to do about it?'

Til sulk,' said the gatekeeper. 'I sulked the last time and I'll sulk this time too.'

'Last time?' Eddie asked. 'What last time?'

'The last time someone got past the gates. They didn't even speak to me; they just leapt over. I really sulked, I can tell you. I don't know whether it helped or not. But what else could I do?'

Jack shook his head.

'Perhaps you should have raised the alarm,' Eddie suggested.

'I'm not employed to do that,' said the gatekeeper. 'I'm employed to stop people going through the gates without my authorisation.'

'And how do you do that?'

The gatekeeper laughed. 'It's a fine joke, isn't it?' he said. 'I never have to. The gates are always locked.'

Jack scratched at his head. 'Yes, but—

Eddie stopped him. 'So you're only employed to stop people going through the gates? Not over them?' he asked the gatekeeper.

'My contract only says through them.'

Jack shook his head once more.

'This person who leapt over the gates,' Eddie said. 'What did they look like?'

'Looked like a meathead,' said the gatekeeper. 'And all meatheads look the same to me.'

'There's nothing specific that you can recall?' Eddie asked.

'They had a sack,' said the gatekeeper. 'I remember that. It was an empty sack when they jumped over, but it looked weighty and full later, when they jumped back again.'

'Significant,' said Eddie. 'Is there anything else you can remember?'

'I remember a sparrow that once built its nest in that tree over there.'

'About the meathead who climbed in and out?'

'No, she just looked like a meathead.'

'She?' said Eddie.

'It was a female meathead,' said the gatekeeper. 'They have those things that stick out in the front.'

'Tits?’ Jack asked.

'Feathers,' said the gatekeeper.

'We're talking about the meathead, not the sparrow,' said Eddie.

'Me too,' said the gatekeeper. 'She had big feathers, sticking out of the front of her bonnet.'

Back in the car, Eddie said, 'Well, it was a struggle, but we got there eventually.'

'I didn't get any chocolate,' said Jack. 'And I'm still hungry.'

'But we got information. Someone leapt over the gates of the chocolate factory and stole a sack full of somethings.'

'Bunnies, you're thinking?'

'Let us assume so. And it was a woman.'

'It might have been a man in a feathered hat.'

'Does that seem likely to you?'

Jack shrugged. 'The unlikely is commonplace in this city,' he said.

'It's a woman,' said Eddie. 'We're looking for a woman. Perhaps it was a love triangle. She was the scorned lover of both Humpty and Boy Blue. Or something.'

'So what is the significance of the bunnies?'

'Some love thing. I don't know. Men give chocolates to women.'

'You're clutching at straws,' said Jack. 'I don't believe it was a woman. Did a woman climb onto Humpty's roof and put in that lens? Did a woman fire that crook from across the street? Did a woman leap over those gates? Did you see how high those gates were?'

'We're looking for a woman.'

'We're not.'

Jack drove the car back down Knob Hill and, at Eddie's instruction, towards Tinto's bar. He didn't look in the driving mirror as he drove along, but then Jack rarely, if ever, looked into the driving mirror.

Which was a shame as it happened, because if Jack had looked into the driving mirror, he might well have noticed the car that was following him.

It was a long and low expensive-looking car and it was being driven by a woman.

A woman who wore a feathered bonnet.

11

The sun was drifting down towards the horizon as Jack steered Bill's car along one of the more colourful streets of Toy City. Eddie had suggested that they take the pretty way back to Tinto's bar.

This street was a shopping area for toys. There were brightly lit bazaars, shaded by decorative awnings. Produce in baskets, tubs and crates spilled onto the pavements.

Jack slowed the car and kerb-crawled along, peering out and marvelling at the wares and wonders, and at those who shopped and strode and moved: toys, and more toys.

Jack's thoughts were all his own and his thoughts were about thoughts. How could all these creations, these things wrought from tin and wood and padded fabric, think'? How could they move and talk? It was ludicrous, impossible, and yet it was so. Jack thought back to the gatekeeper at the chocolate factory.

'A head,' said Jack, with a shake of his own. 'A talking head in a box. Now I ask you, how does that work?'

'Most inefficiently,' said Eddie. 'The way he just let people leap over the gates. Outrageous. I'd have sacked that head if it had been working for me. I'd have told that head to hop it.' Eddie tittered foolishly.

'You know exactly what I mean.'

'I do,' said the bear. 'But must you keep going on about it? You admit that you don't even know how your own brain works.'

'But at least I have a brain. Your chum Wibbly had nothing at all in what he had left of his head. It can't work, none of it can.'

'But it does. Your own eyes attest to the fact. Don't let it get you down, Jack. If you ever meet up with the toymaker, you can ask him all about it.'

'And do you think he'll tell me?'

Eddie shrugged. 'I doubt it. But at least you will have asked.'

'Mad,' said Jack. 'It's all quite mad.' And he lapsed into a sullen silence.

Eddie leaned back in the passenger seat and tried once more without success to fold his arms. Thoughts moved about amongst the sawdust in his head; how they did and \vhat they were was anybody's guess.

At a length that was shorter rather than long, he had done with thinking, and also with Jack's silence.

‘Jack,' said Eddie, all bright and breezy, ‘ Jack, are you a virgin?'

' What?' went Jack, and the car swerved onto the pavement, scattering shoppers, who shook their fists and shouted words of abuse.

'A virgin?' said Eddie. 'Careful where you're swerving.'

'What kind of question is that?

'An easy one to answer, I would have thought.'

'Well, I'm not answering it.’ Jack regained control of the car.

'So you are,' said Eddie. 'It's nothing to be ashamed of; you're still a young lad.'

'I'm old enough,' said Jack.

'But you haven't done it yet?'

'Eddie, change the subject, please. We're supposed to be on a case. Two murders. Concentrate on the murders.'

'I am,' said Eddie. 'Take a left here.'

Jack took a left there.

'So you've never been in a doll's house,' said Eddie.

'A doll's house?' said Jack.

'A doll's house, a bordello, a knocking shop.'

Jack rammed his foot down hard upon the brake, dislodging Eddie from his seat and causing him to fall in some confusion to the floor.