The Rabbit Factor

ISBN-13: 9781913193850

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Orenda Books

Publication Date: 11-15-2022

Pages: 300

Product Dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

Series: Rabbit Factor Trilogy #1

With a piercing and evocative style, Antti Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime genre formula, and his poignant, dark, and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach Finland was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe,’ and Little Siberia was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award, and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. David Hackston is a British translator of Finnish and Swedish literature and drama. Notable publications include The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy, Maria Peura’s coming-of-age novel At the Edge of Light, Johanna Sinisalo’s eco-thriller Birdbrain, two crime novels by Matti Joensuu, and Kati Hiekkapelto’s Anna Fekete series (which currently includes The Hummingbird, The Defenceless, and The Exiled, all published by Orenda Books). He also translates Antti Tuomainen’s stories.

Read an Excerpt

NOW
I’m looking the rabbit in the eye when the lights suddenly go out.
With my left hand I squeeze the tube of industrial-strength glue, with my right I hold the screwdriver, and I listen.
In the half-dark, the rabbit seems to grow. Its head swells, its eyes bulge, the tips of its ears stretch upwards and seem to disappear into the dimness, its front teeth curve like an elephant’s tusks. In an instant, the three-metre figure looks twice as tall, twice as wide and considerably more threatening, as though it were guarding the darkness within it. Now it seems to be watching me as if I’m an enticing carrot.
Of course, none of this is the case. The huge, German rabbit is made of hard plastic and metallic reinforcements.
The hall is a large space, tall and empty. YouMeFun. It still smells of children’s horseplay and fast food; the saccharine sweetness of the bakery products seems to cling to your clothes.
I’m standing between the Big Dipper and the Komodo Locomotive, and I wait. The ladder beside me casts a long shadow across the floor. Light seeps in from the lamp glowing above the main door and from the various lights, large and small, on the machinery and rides dotted throughout the hall. The result is a misty, soupy light tinged with hues of EXIT-sign green, stand-by orange and power-button red.
Only a short while ago, in a situation like this, I would have assumed the reason for the sudden disappearance of the lights was surely a power cut or a technical problem with the lights themselves. But recent events have taught me that what once seemed likely, as per the laws of probability, is more often than not in the realm of the impossible. And vice versa: what once I would have been able to discount through a simple calculation of probability ratios and risk analysis is now in fact the entirety of my life.
Footsteps. I don’t know why I didn’t hear them sooner.
The final customers left the hall an hour ago. The last member of staff went home thirty minutes ago.
Since then I have been working by myself, checking the rides and machines, and I’ve even crawled through the Strawberry Fields Labyrinth with rubber gloves on my hands; children leave all sorts of things in the labyrinth, everything from food and clothes to the contents of their nappies. I have climbed up umpteen platforms, terraces and doorways, cleaned the Ghost Tunnel and more than a few of the Turtle Trucks, checked that the vines in Caper Castle aren’t twisted round one another but are fully operational, attached to the poles and ready for tomorrow’s sticky-fingered little Tarzans. Then I began attending to the broken rabbit. I can’t understand how anyone managed to make its right ear fall off. The ear starts growing at a height of two and a half metres. The average height of our clients is around one metre, twenty centimetres, and the median is lower still.
With some degree of exactitude, I identify the footsteps as coming from near the Curly Cake Café. They belong to someone trying to move as quietly as possible but whose sheer bulk makes this impossible.
I move a few metres to the side, then take a number of quick steps back towards Caper Castle. Just then I catch my first glimpse of the new arrival. The stocky man, dressed in dark attire, is walking as cautiously as he can. He seems to be looking for me at the foot of the rabbit, but I’ve already made it to the protective shadows of the garage housing the Turtle Trucks. I continue moving backwards and head for the gates of Caper Castle. From there, a pathway runs behind the Secret Waterfall. This isn’t a real waterfall, of course; it’s a climbing wall made of blue ropes. Once inside, getting myself out of Caper Castle will be another matter altogether. That being said, I’m not planning on trying to escape in one of the Turtle Trucks, whose top speed is ten kilometres an hour.
The man has come to a stop in front of the rabbit. I see him in profile, the emergency light above the front door illuminates him from behind, forming a toxic-green halo around his shaven head. He is carrying something in his right hand. Both man and rabbit are standing about twenty metres away, at a diagonal to me. The entrance to Caper Castle is about seven metres to my ten o’clock. I take a few silent steps. I’m halfway there when the man suddenly turns. He sees me and his hand rises into the air.
A knife.
A knife is better than a pistol. Quite simply. But I don’t hang around to calculate their respective probability ratios.
I dive inside Caper Castle. I overcome the first section – the wobbly stairs – and hear the man behind me. He isn’t shouting for me to stop, isn’t bellowing. He’s come here to kill me. The room with the slanted floors is equipped with banisters that help guide me through the space. Escaping is harder and much slower than I’d expected. Light drips in through two plastic windows. The man appears at the entrance to the room. He stops, perhaps to gauge the situation. Then he sets off after me. With his free hand, he grabs the banister to give himself momentum, gripping it like he would a barbell. It works, and I’m beginning to doubt my plan.
I reach the door, step into the freely spinning, metre-long Tumble Tunnel and instantly fall onto my right side. The barrel of the tunnel is turning as though it were a unit of its own, independent from everything else. I trip a few times before I’m able to get up on my hands and knees. I crawl towards the opening at the other end. The large man steps into the Tumble Tunnel, and all my equilibrium is gone. Even on all fours, staying upright is impossible. I hear the man slam against the walls and base of the barrel. He doesn’t shout. The sound he makes is more a loud snort, almost a roar. We roll around inside the barrel like two drunken, legless friends.
He’s gaining on me.
I make it to the other end of the Tumble Tunnel, crawl a metre, another, then clamber to my feet again. The world is spinning and swaying; it’s like walking in a squall. I approach what are called simply The Steps. The tips of these columns, designed for feet much smaller than mine, are part of my plan. This is why I’ve kept hold of the tube of superglue. I open the cap and squeeze glue across the steps behind me. The man’s progress is slowed now as he tries to maintain his balance, making the glue more effective on the soles of his shoes.
I hobble onwards, leaving a trail of glue behind me. The Steps seem suspended in the air, somewhere between the first and second floors of the entrance hall. There’s more light. It’s as though all the individual spotlights in the room have joined together to allow me to walk unhindered. It feels like I’m walking a tightrope through a bright, star-lit night. I take care to stay on The Steps. There’s nothing dangerous beneath us, only a soft, deep sea of sponge. But falling now would fatefully slow my journey. I glance over my shoulder and see…
…the knife.
And right then, from the motion of the man’s arm, I remember a knife isn’t only designed for close combat. You can also…
…throw it.
The knife slices the air. I manage to duck just enough that it doesn’t pierce my heart. It grazes my left arm but doesn’t actually stab me. I drop the tube of glue. From inside his jacket, the man pulls out another knife. I dash towards the Pinball Parlour. Just then, the man speaks for the first time.
‘Stop,’ he shouts. ‘I’m warning you. I want to show you…’
His argumentation doesn’t convince me. I continue on my way into the Pinball Parlour. In the darkness I bump first into one soft rubber pillar, then another. Then my gashed arm hits another of the pillars. Pain erupts through my body, almost knocks me to my knees. I’m a human pinball in a darkened, life-sized pinball machine. The only light in the room comes from the doorways. The middle of the room is pitch-dark. On the plus side, throwing another knife is impossible, as there’s no direct line of sight. I keep my right arm outstretched as the flippers shunt me between the pillars and the rubber walls. I make my way towards the light, all the while hearing the man being buffeted back and forth between the flippers and hoping the glue on his shoes will slow him down.
I arrive at the waterfall, slip between the ropes into a space where there is a door leading to the warehouse. I pull the keys from my trouser pocket. The key turns in the lock, but the door won’t open. I yank the handle until I realise what has happened. The locks have all been reserialised. But why have they been changed today, and why wasn’t I told about it?
I return to the waterfall and walk through it. I see the man on the platform opposite, pulling a piece of carpet from the bottom of his shoe. I do what I can. I run and jump. I’m diving through the air. I crash down onto the tin slide, the pain is so agonising that I let out a yelp. I start sliding. The slide turns and twists. Throughout the slide, the wound on my arm seems only to exaggerate the fluctuations in the force of gravity. The slide and the pain seem such an impossible combination, like a bike without a saddle: you’ll get to the end one way or another, but sitting down is out of the question.
I flop off the slide onto the soft mat at the bottom, stand up, and I’m taken aback. I don’t hear a sound from the slide. The man can’t be inside it. I can’t see the upper platform, but I assume he must be back there.
I walk all the way round Caper Castle one more time, then run to get back to the rabbit and the front door behind it. It takes time, but I don’t have any other options. My keys won’t open the other doors either, only the front door can be opened from the inside without a key. At the final corner I stop, peer round the corner and listen. I can’t see or hear anything.
I dash into a sprint, run straight for the rabbit. I run and run, and I’m about to reach the rabbit, when the big, broad-shouldered man steps out from behind it. It takes a split second to understand what I’m seeing. There’s a good explanation for the man’s quick and silent appearance: either by design or by accident, the soles of his feet are covered in small squares of sponge. He jumped down from the platform, and the padding made his steps silent.
Anger boils inside me.
I play by the rules. Again.
I carry on running. All I can think of is the rabbit. I slam into it and it topples over on top of the man. We all fall down, all end up on the concrete floor. The man sees me beside him, and at the same moment I see him too. He is the first to act. I only manage to free part of myself before he lashes out with the knife. The blade cuts my thigh and strikes the laminate flooring beneath us. In doing so it pins my trousers to the floor. I’m stuck. I shout out, and, with my arms flailing, I grip the first thing I can reach.
The rabbit’s ear.
It’s come loose again.
I grab the giant ear and hit out in the man’s direction. I strike something. I stand up, my trousers rip. The man reaches into his jacket pocket. A third knife, I wonder? No, that would be too much. I act before he has the chance to throw it or stab me. I hit, hit, hit again.
Then I let go of the ear. The entrance hall is empty and silent. All I can hear is my own panting. I peer around.
The hall looks different.
An adventure park for all the family.
Suddenly it’s hard to remember everything that has led to all this being my responsibility. This and much more besides – everything is suddenly uncontrollable, unpredictable.
I am an actuary.
As a rule, I don’t run adventure parks, and I certainly don’t batter people to death with giant, plastic rabbit ears.
But as I said, my life hasn’t been following the probability calculus for some time now.