After a period of convalescence in which he slept the same daytime hours as everyone else, Angus had gone back to sleeping alone at night. It had felt perfectly natural to slip back into the old routine. His son Travis had tried to adapt to his hours so that he could be with his father, but just couldn't get to sleep during the cool, noisy night underground. On one day earlier that week he had stayed awake the whole time, from dusk through dawn, but by mid-afternoon his healing body demanded rest and Angus insisted he return to the family burrow. These past few days they had only seen each other in those few hours that book-ended each other's naptime.

Angus sat on his rock, but the sun wasn't shining. It was cloudy, and the clouds were thick, heavy and a funny colour. But he never got the impression it was going to rain, so he stayed up above ground. There were a few other rabbits dotted around the corner of the field, too, but they left him alone.

Rabbits heal much faster than humans do. As with most animals that live a fraction of our life-spans, nature does not allow them to spend months recovering from their injuries, however severe. If a rabbit isn't killed outright, their wounds will likely heal within weeks. Angus could already breathe normally again. His cracked ribs had healed over nicely. It no longer felt like his lungs were shrinking when he breathed. Travis, with his broken limbs, was taking longer to heal, but he had, in the space of the last three days, already started to limp around the place.

Angus spotted Nicholas emerge from one of the new exits near the ambulance, which had of course remained a permanent part of the colony. Angus had to give the patriarch credit where it was due; Nicholas had galvanised the entire warren behind rebuilding their homes. In the space of a week there was already a place to sleep underground for all the rabbits, and the new tunnels were being built as big and strong as those between the four points. Rebuilding had led to some unpleasant incidents, most notably when the body of the old patriarch, Alexander had been found buried in the earth. He looked peaceful. Everyone had turned up for his burial.

Nicholas acknowledged Angus, then went through the hedgerow to the other side of the road. Angus was in no mood to speak to him either. He'd had to lie to the patriarch and tell him that Peter Rabbit and his other two sons had attacked him, just so that the patriarch wouldn't suspect him of colluding with them. If nothing else, it meant he'd never be able to see Peter, Mark or Tom again without leaving the warren himself, and he was too old for that. He hoped they were okay.

He hoped they'd found Mopsy. He also hoped Benjamin Bunny had been of some use to them. He wasn't missed around here; that was for sure. People had noticed he wasn't around anymore, but they just assumed he'd wandered too far and got snatched by an eagle or some other bird of prey. For some reason, there was an ever increasing number of those around recently, and they looked even more famished than usual. Angus had to be careful, especially out here on his rock.

In the time that had passed since Peter left, no more humans had been seen or heard of, so the rabbits had started to accept the silence that had settled over the fields and the empty A12 as the new norm. It was almost a shock, then, when, as he lay upon his rock, Angus heard the rumbling of a lorry in the distance.

He immediately stood and pricked up his ears. Within a few moments he had fixed a direction, a distance and a speed. And from that he worked out how long he had to get down to the roadside if he wanted to see the return of man.

Nicholas heard the heavy goods vehicle coming down the road as well and by the time Angus emerged from the roadside exit, the patriarch was already waiting quietly on the curb. Angus was just in time. The lorry was approaching fast and they could already see it down the road. Without any other vehicles on the A12, the lorry was able to go far faster than they usually did. This had the effect of making it even louder than normal, as it thundered toward them; a rising crescendo trapped within a shuddering metal box, fire swelling in its belly, smoke streaming from its twin orifices, a fierce explosion of light and noise just waiting to happen.

Some other rabbits were drawn to the surface by the cacophony. Most of them had flashbacks to the vibrations that caused the warren to collapse in the first place. A lot of them woke up thinking it was the end of the world again.

"They're coming to get us!" somebody hissed behind Angus. A whisper to the same quickly dispersed amongst the growing crowd.

By the time the lorry actually reached them, the rabbits had already decided that the humans had sent the worst of all their mechanical slaves to punish them for what Peter Rabbit had done to the ambulance and paramedic. So it came as quite a surprise when it didn't stop, but kept going, and disappeared over the horizon as they all watched. Perhaps the metallic giant hadn't spotted them...

"What does this mean?" people kept asking Nicholas.

Of course, Nicholas didn't have a clue what it meant.

"It's a warning," Nicholas began, then he began to make up some nonsense about the humans warning them off killing any more ambulance drivers.

Angus knew it was all rubbish, but the problem is, when a liar doesn't think he is a liar, and believes everything he says, he can seem mighty convincing. The rabbits all around were quietly lamenting that they ever embraced Peter's plan. It had been a clever move by Nicholas. He'd stifled dissent with some scary rhetoric. And, Angus reckoned, probably without even realising he was doing it.

When the lorry had vanished over the horizon and they couldn't hear it anymore, the rabbits returned to their beds. Nicholas went off with Genevieve and the other four elders. Following Hazel's death, a new elder had had to be found. The next oldest rabbit in line was Horace, who had quickly filled Hazel's position and become Nicholas' closest confidant. Angus felt somewhat ostracised.

Hoping this would mark the end of the day's excitement, Angus returned to his rock via the hedgerow. This took him past the ambulance and the paramedic, whose body had begun to bloat and smell foul. Nicholas' latest initiative - though Angus put it down to Horace - was to dig a grave beneath the corpse and then cover it with earth. Some rabbits were working on it as Angus passed.

Angus spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon on his rock, only coming down in between for a few nibbles. Around 2pm, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. It was a pale, wintry sun, and Angus got very little heat from it. Had the air not been so still and breezeless, it would have got chilly. As it was, the old man was still able to drift off into a doze as 3pm came and went.

At around 3.30pm, Angus awoke with a start. There were a couple of rabbits hopping and chirping around the base of the rock. Angus looked down at them irritably, but their little faces appeared drawn and afraid, so he asked them what was wrong. They both spoke at once, and didn't stop, but he picked up something about something happening down by the roadside, so he headed there.

It was the lorry. It had returned.

It was on the other side of the road now, parked opposite them on the farthest carriageway. What was alarming most of the rabbits, however, was the small gang of friends it had brought back with it. They were squat, yellow and scorpion-like, with these great appendages curved over behind them. None of the rabbits had ever seen anything like them before. Naturally, Nicholas was there, making the most of it and prophesising doom. A large number of rabbits were in tears.

"But they're on the other side of the road," Angus pointed out.

Nicholas and his doom merchants lost their audience after that.

"Obviously they've made a mistake," Nicholas squeezed in.

But regardless of this, the rest of the rabbits sighed a collective sigh of relief that the humans weren't picking on them after all. Perhaps, just maybe, they would escape retribution for their responsibility in Peter's crimes.

They watched fascinated, and slightly afraid, as the mechanised scorpions came to life when humans climbed into their clear cabs. Beyond their tails, these scorpions - which had the letters JCB emblazoned across them - differed most notably from other vehicles by the fact that they had treads instead of wheels. To their horror, the rabbits found out just why this was a few moments later.

The six JCBs chugged into life, snorting out the same thick black smoke the supervising lorry did. Then, promptly, they spilled over the curb, off the road, up the bank and straight through the hedgerow. The shrubs and bushes were just torn and shredded in their path, crushed beneath the treads. Then the scorpions set to work attacking those poor rabbits that lived in the warren there.

The rabbits on this side of the road couldn't see clearly what was going on in the rape fields because the lorry reversed across their line of sight. However, they could see those great tails swing to life, rising up, diving down, taking great mouthfuls of earth and spewing it out in another direction. The little yellow rape flowers were thrown into the air, diced, just as those rabbits would be.

"I can't watch," Genevieve announced.

She withdrew from the roadside, and she wasn't alone. Some, like Nicholas and Horace, stayed to watch and muse over what kind of political spin they could put on this catastrophe. Others just seemed rooted to the spot. Angus watched for almost an hour. The scorpions were relentless. He couldn't help but think about Peter. The warren on the eastern side of the road had been his home. Now it was gone. Still, he couldn't help but be glad it was not this warren that'd been hit...

Angus went to bed at dusk a few hours later, just as Travis was getting up, and by the time he woke up again in the early hours of the morning, the lorry and its friends were gone. Apparently, the attack had stopped at nightfall and the humans had started carrying things out of the back of the lorry and leaving them in the field. They had only finished that task, Angus learnt, just before he got up.

He wasn't that interested, anymore, so didn't go and take a look for himself until after lunch. From this curb he couldn't see what the humans had been dumping in the field. Through the gap in the mangled hedgerows, the level of the land looked as flat as it always had. He decided to go for his siesta on the rock.

But as he headed down into the roadside exit, he heard a scrabbling. The noise sent a chill down his spine because of what it immediately reminded him of. It was the sound he'd heard whilst trapped in the collapsing tunnels all that time ago. It was the sound of rabbits, trapped by mud, digging frantically to get out.

"Who's that?" Angus snapped, but what he really meant to ask was, "Where's that?" because he couldn't quite tell where the sound was coming from. He could see down the long tunnel that led to the four points, and he could see up to the surface through the roadside exit. So that left only one tunnel unaccounted for. The one Alexander had started building just before his death.

The one leading to the other side of the road.

It slipped down and curved around beneath the roadside exit, but that path was dark and humid, so Angus approached it with some trepidation. He called out plaintively, afraid of making a fool of himself if it was just kids messing around down there. But no reply came. There was just more scrabbling.

So Angus went down into the tunnel. After Alexander's death and during the events that had followed, work on the new tunnel had been abandoned. It hadn't got any further than a few feet and Angus quickly reached the end of it. But there was nobody there. He stopped and listened. The scrabbling continued.

"Hello?" he whispered hoarsely.

There was no reply. He put his ear to the dirt and listened. The scrabbling was close, but was still muffled by layers of soil. And then he realised. The rabbits from the warren on the eastern side of the road were burrowing through!

He leapt back. His first instinct was to run and tell someone. But he'd only got to the bend in the short tunnel when he suddenly felt a rush of hot air come up from below and the sound of heavy breathing became clear. He ran back down. The end of the tunnel was no longer there. In its place, the tunnel continued. But he couldn't see for how far. The tunnel was as full as can be with rabbits.

"Help... us..." a female voice gasped.

She was up front, leading the others through. But as she staggered toward Angus, her quavering legs collapsed beneath her and she fell down. Behind her, more rabbits began squeezing through the gap, gasping for air. They all looked the same, thoroughly bedraggled, and their coats were thick with clumps of mud.

Angus hobbled about unhelpfully, not knowing what to do. "What happened over there?" he kept asking. But most of the rabbits were collapsing like Eleanor, bursting into great sobs of joy and relief.

Just then, Nicholas, Horace and some others arrived in the tunnel. The noise the new arrivals were making had drawn much attention. Pretty obviously somebody had run to tell the patriarch. Needless to say, he looked horrified. He was from the traditional school of thought. Outsiders belong outside, and all that.

"What are they doing here?" was the first thing out of his mouth.

"Their home has been destroyed," Angus growled. "And, if what you'd have us believe is true, rabbits here were too blame. They need our help. I think it's the least we can do, Nicholas." Then he grimaced at him.

Nicholas looked at Horace. Horace glowered.

"The humans..." hissed Eleanor, finding the strength to prop herself up to address Angus and Nicholas. "They destroyed our warren. They killed so many. My mate, Damien, dead. Only thirty of us survived. We got into the tunnel in time. We've been digging all night. There's nothing left. Nothing. Nothing!"

"Why did they do it?" Angus asked softly.

"It's obvious why," Nicholas interjected.

"The giant!" Eleanor suddenly said. "It's something about the giant. There was something inside it. Its children. It gave birth. It left its eggs in the earth. Those yellow things came and made it a nest in our home. Why? Why?"

Angus frowned. "Can you still get through?"

"Why would you want to go through?" Eleanor cried. "Soon there will be hundreds of those things spawning there. We saw the humans place them in the pit in great shiny black cocoons. Oh, this is the apocalypse for sure!"

Then she collapsed back to the ground in great, heaving sobs. This appeared to have a knock-on effect on all the others, who similarly broke down, and made it hard to reason with them. Nicholas looked distraught by the dilemma.

"I'm going through to the other side," Angus told him.

"What? Why?" Nicholas said. "You heard what she said."

"I have to see what's really going on over there..."

"Well, what am I supposed to do with all these people?"

"Help them, Nicholas," Angus hissed. "Help them."

He didn't give Nicholas a chance to argue, and pushed this way into the crowd. It meant they had to move out of his way, and the easiest way to do this was to move further up into the warren. Angus was surprised how deeply the crowd of refugees went. They reached almost halfway into the tunnel.

After he left them behind, it quickly got cooler and quieter again. Angus made his way along the tunnel and shortly came out into the open. He was actually inside the pit that Eleanor had spoken of and he had himself watched the scorpions dig. It rose up on all sides, though it looked like the humans had made a half-hearted effort to fill it back in again in places. The earth was soft and bouncy beneath Angus' feet. He had to keep hopping lest he sink into the fresh wet mud.

He quickly located one of Eleanor's so-called eggs. It was made of shiny black plastic, bound at each end. As Angus ran over the top, feeling the contours of what was inside, he realised that what was inside wouldn't be coming out alive. Quite the opposite, in fact. The humans hadn't deposited their young here. They had deposited their dead. This was not a nest. It was a burial pit. As he traversed the many sealed corpses, he found one with a oily white hand flopped out through a tear in the side of the body bag and knew he was right. He decided to head back.

He didn't quite understand why the humans had suddenly started burying their dead out here in the middle of nowhere in such numbers. It was mighty peculiar. For a brief second he entertained the thought that perhaps whatever was going on in the human world had nothing to do with rabbits after all...

But just as he was thinking that, he reached the end of the tunnel on the western side of the road and found not a rabbit in sight. They had all gone. But there was anxious chattering coming from directly above. As he headed up to join them on the surface, he heard that noise again. That distant rumble.

"They're coming back..." Nicholas told him.

Sure enough, there was a lorry on the horizon.

"But this time they're on our side of the road."

NOTES:
This one ended up longer than I'd expected. I wanted another short, punchy chapter to form a sort of interlude between the machinations at Roadkill Turnpike which came before and the encroaching civil war that is to follow shortly. However, I got carried away again writing about my old characters (their first mention in 50 pages), and writing about the old warren seemed fresh after I thought I'd exhausted such words as "roadside exit" and "four points". It was always my intention to bring this story full circle, just not in this way. Originally the body pits were going to be at Roadkill Turnpike itself and Mopsy was going to lead a mission to derail a train depositing corpses there.