"Who rased you!?" Mary wasn't happy. Her puffed up cheeks took on the color of a ripe tomato. "You call people for things like this, not go after damned animals or whatever they are in broad daylight. "
"Who could we call? An exterminator? A priest? Maybe a wizard from one of Bryan's games?" Ali found herself yelling back.
"Hey!!" Bryan said walking up to both of them, he was only half listening as he scanned the surrounding suspiciously, as if every other tree or a bush suddenly would again birth more of the rabbit things.
"Shut it, Bryan." One or both of them said to him.
"These things attacked your brother, so like hell if I'll let someone else get hurt by them." Ali said standing her ground.
She tried leaning on the cricket bat she had used to fight the horned rabbit creatures but it was fractured and fell apart almost causing her to fall.
Just as Mary was about to continue her comments.
One of the creatures that all but swarmed earlier jumped out in a mad charge toward Ali who did the only thing she could do in the situation.
Ali kicked the horned rabbit like creature, like a football as hard as she could her foot barely missing the horns on the things head.
Both her and the siblings watched the creature arc over one of the trees before disappearing into the foliage.
Then not even the smallest sound of it hitting the ground aired, just the occasional gust of wind moving through the trees as they stood waiting for something else to happen.
The siblings looked at her in shock Ali just shrugged her shoulders.
"I can handle this myself, I may need a new pair of shoes after but it might be as simple as finding out where they are and running them off." Ali said in the lul of anything else happening.
"Simple? What part of that was simple? Where was I for simple? You just punted a rabbit....a bloody rabbit and now want to go looking for more? Call the bloody vet and let them deal with it." Mary all but yelled with her arms crossing before her chest.
"Will you two calm down. "
"SHUT UP BRYAN!!!"
"YE, SHUT YER FACE!!"
Ali took a breath to calm herself.
"Look, I'll just check around the edges of the property and see if I can spot where they came in from and close it off so we don't have to deal with them again. Mary, call the vet but tell them that the things are a bit dangerous. Both of you get back to your brother." With those words to them Ali turned and began her search.
Hedgerows of beech ran around the outskirts of the orchard, the cold weather was making sure that the beech nuts would have to wait till the latter half of summer.
After a bit of searching Ali found a place where the wildflowers were parted and knew it was where the creatures were making their way into the grove of apple trees, years of growing a natural fence ravaged by the horned rabbits trying to get in.
An oversized print in the dried mud stood out to her as she approached the area but when she checked through the Orchard they randomly attacked from behind trees and bushes, these smaller ones however were all dispatched with a swift kick.
The hedgerows running around the rest of the orchard were intact.
Except for one by the back road dividing the property from one of her neighbors, the owner mainly grew rapeseed to export to food manufacturers as far as she knew but he had not spoken to her after she had turned down his offer to buy her land years ago.
As she moved deeper into the apple trees they once again stood before her blocking her way.
Not attacking but not letting her go any further forward into the trees.
Maybe it was the larger print she had seen earlier in the mud that made her hesitate but as she backed away from the gathering horned rabbit things Ali got the growing feeling.
It wasn't just these pest she had to deal with, there something else was in her orchard.