–Walking to work there are rabbits in the bushes, Sam Wong said.

Moab yawned and covered his mouth with his hand, politely. A little bit of spit sprayed on the cover of the notebook he was holding and he wiped it off on the bottom of his uniform jacket. Yes, he said.

–I can hear them moving around in there. Sometimes I see one, and and and then it runs into the bushes so I know that’s where they are.

Moab nodded. That’s where they usually stay, yes.

–Shouldn’t you do something? They’re in there, eating up the bushes, and and and they’re more and more of them all the time, they don’t have any natural predators here, I know, they must have been someone’s pets who escaped and and and if you don’t do something they’re going to flood us.

–It’s not a problem, ma’am. Moab was tired. He’d been on call for the last twelve hours and it was bat season. Cats take care of most of them, or ferrets. Dogs eat rabbits, and hawks, and we’ve got plenty of those. Not native to this area, either, any of them. We know they’re there. As long as there aren’t too many of them we just leave them alone. If there are… well. There are plague blankets, even for rabbits. He’d been bitten twice in the last week, luckily enough by ones he’d caught, and even more luckily ones without rabies, but the season went on for another three weeks and he wouldn’t be safe until it was over. He was so tired.

–You you don’t understand, Sam Wong said. You don’t care.

There wasn’t anything to say to that. Moab blew smoke out through his nose and she watched it curl up through his horns, lost against the white and dismal sky.