Free Bunnicula Strikes Again! by James Howe Page A

I demanded. “What do you want?”
    â€œOh, I think you know who I am,” a familiar voice said. “And I know you know what I want.”
    â€œChester!” I cried. “But how—”
    â€œHow did I get here?” Chester said, stepping out into a pale pool of light. His eyes looked unnatural, possessed. “Oh, it was easy enough, thanks to last night’s handiwork of a couple of criminal kitties. When Greenbriar opened my cage this morning, I made a dash for it before he spotted the open window. I got here moments before you did, Harold. Oh, and by the way, whatever youhad planned, forget it. Bunnicula is mine!”
    â€œBut what are you going to do?”
    Chester bounded up to the opening in the wall with a single leap. Bunnicula barely budged. I could tell the poor thing was terrified.
    â€œWhat am I going to do? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Chester said.
    But that was all he had time to say, for suddenly there was a thunderous roar, and before we knew what was happening, the wall to our right exploded.
    â€œRun!” I heard Chester cry.
    I looked up at the opening in the wall and to my horror watched as Chester and Bunnicula, locked in a deadly embrace, tumbled from the precipice. The scene from the story Toby had read to me flooded my mind, its words, its images exploding within me even as the room seemed to be exploding around me. I thought of Chester, my dear friend, who had so recently called me traitor, and the words of the story came back to me: “It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.”
    Before the terrible wrecking ball could strike again, I ordered Howie to run for his life. I ran, too. And I didn’t look back.

[ TEN ]

One of the family
    â€œH AROLD! “Toby cried out.
    â€œHowie!” Frantically, I raced toward my young master even as I searched the onrushing crowd for signs of Chester and Bunnicula, hoping against hope that they had miraculously escaped and were somehow already out there in front of the theater. But as Toby threw his arms around me, I knew that the only ones to have escaped were Howie and me.
    â€œAre you okay, boy?” Toby asked. “What are you doing here?”
    Mrs. Monroe had picked Howie up and was trying to comfort him, but Howie was squirming to be free.
    â€œWe’ve got to go back, Uncle Harold!” he yipped. “We’ve got to rescue Pop and Bunnicula!”
    Mrs. Monroe seemed to understand. Perhaps people were more intelligent than Chester and I had been willing to give them credit for.
    â€œStop the demolition!” she cried out. “There may be other animals inside!”
    â€œStop the demolition!” someone echoed.
    The trucks and the noise came to a sudden halt.
    Breaking free of Toby’s embrace, I charged down the alleyway to the back of the theater. Howie, who must have leaped from Mrs. Monroe’s arms at the same time, was fast on my heels. Barking for everything we were worth, we led an impromptu rescue team, complete with flashlights and TV news cameras, into the partially decimated movie house.
    â€œBe careful!” someone warned.
    â€œJust follow the dogs,” another voice called out. “They seem to know what they’re doing.”
    A fine thing, I thought. Does that mean most of the time we
don’t
seem to know what we’re doing? I didn’t dwell on the thought, however. I had more important matters to attend to. Matters of life and death.
    There must have been a second blow of thewrecking ball as Howie and I had been fleeing the building, because the wall that had held the small square hole where we’d first spotted Bunnicula and from which he and Chester had tumbled was gone. In its place was a large pile of rubble.
    I stared at the pile with a sick, sinking feeling in my stomach.
    â€œChester!” I woofed.
    At first there was no response. But then I heard it. The same sort