if you don’t know the difference between a hare and a rabbit you’ve never gazed into the cold wild eyes of a hare and known that if it could speak it would speak backwards
Jack Rabbits are North American Hares and they’re the WORST to encounter at night becuase:
You all know how big a rabbit is. Jack Rabbits and hares are much bigger. they’re the size of large cats or small dogs or just-walking-age children.
They also like to hang out in gangs of a hlf dozen to over 30.
and in the middle of backcountry dirt roads.
perhaps they’re dustbathing
or blood sacrifce
I don’t know because when you come up the road at night because your dog has a tiny bladder and needs to go out at midnight and you have no yard so you’re walking him on the dirt road around your neighborhod because you might aw well get some stargazing in, and you come just over the ridge to see a coven of twenty jackrabbits in the middle of the road
and
they
all
stand
up
not just onto all fours like a proper prey animal
No they get up on thier hind legs and don’t just sit but STAND like tiny rabbit-skinned toddlers, wobbing slightly as they stare directly at you eyes shining in your flashlight’s glow
…Blood Red.
And a chill goes through you on that warm july night because while they’re a puntable size and allegedly herbivores they’re standing and watching you just like people and you are vastly outnumbered.
everyone freezes
you’re considering your odds aganst roughly 200lbs of Suspiciously Humanoid Hare
and they’re considering their odds against you
the only sound in the never-ending high desert wind
somewhere in your peripheral vision you can see the streetlights but they seem awfully far away
The nearest Jack Rabbit
Blinks
and takes a single shuffling step
forward
You area an overdevloped monkey and your prefrontal cortex is capable of some amazing feats but it runs very slowly compared to the reflexes of a rabbit and you’re frozen as you desperately scramble for the appropriate course of action, hands feeling thick and useless, mouth dry and feet imeasurably heavy there’s no way you’d outrun THESE, god there’s a rabies outbreak going around that shit’s not curable-
The Dog
L U N G E S
It’s only the briefest of movements but the animal you’d picked out for his gangly legs and floppy ears and goofy smile is suddenly a dark shape of muscle and teeth and had flung himself at the horrible goblin rabbits faster than mere physics should dictate, appearing in the circle of the flashlight for only the briefest of moments before the jolt from the leash makes you stumble and the light falters
The Jack Rabbits
Scatter
Vanishing into the faintly starlit sagebrush in as so many faint gray shapes that might be mistaken for the dustclouds they kick up
Later, you sit on the couch disquieted
and you wonder
If the sight of the Jack Rabbits standing and studying you was frightening enough to make you yearn for the safety of the yellowed streetlights
