KILL THE WABBIT

What happens when a Valkyrie battles a misogynistic, power-mad U.S. President on once-sacred Norse ground? Read this 4K-word short fiction to find out!

Content Warnings: Political satire, references to abuse, some graphic violence.

President Turnbull gazes across the majestic Scandinavian peaks and smiles, certain he belongs in this land of the gods. He is godlike himself, come to think of it: worshipped by the masses, untouchable by mortal hands. They’d tried him in court and found him guilty of multiple counts of abusing women, yet he was reelected the President of the great and glorious United States of America. Nothing can bring him down, not now, with his full might and majesty as the leader of the free world.

I should be standing on that mountaintop, he thinks as his chest swells with the brisk Nordic air. And my face should be carved into the top of the mountain right where I stand.

A melody runs through his head—has been running all night and all morning, in fact, since he sat through that interminably boring opera the night before. The only part he’d liked came very late in the evening, after what seemed like hours of people in horned hats singing in some language he didn’t understand. He recognized a piece of soul-stirring music and began to hum along with it. But he could only mutter nonsensical syllables when the lyrics refused to form in his memory.

“What is that song?” he says.

His Chief of Staff, Leo Walters, appears at his side, as he’s trained to do the instant that Turnbull says anything. “What song do you mean, sir?”

“The one that’s been in my head all night. Where do I know it from?” President Turnbull stares at Walters until he understands this is not a rhetorical question. “Well?”

“Is it ‘Ride of the Valkyries’? You were humming that in the limo.”

“No, it’s like that, but with words. Why can’t I remember the words?” Turnbull puffs his chest in frustration, his mood souring as he surveys the staged area where the summit will be performed. “I hate Scandinavia. So cold, so nasty. We could be golfing in Scotland.”

“Sir, I keep trying to tell you,” Walters says, lowering his voice, “there’s no single country called Scandinavia. It’s the name of an area that designates three different countries, and right now we’re in—”

“Why are you bothering me with details? You know I don’t like details.”

“But you always call it ‘the nation of Scandinavia,’ sir, and the press is having a field day—”

“More details! I have no use for them. If it isn’t already a country, then it should be. And if they won’t give that to us, then we’ll annex them and make them into Scandinavia! You tell them I said so.”

“I’ll pass that along, sir.”

As the Chief of Staff scuttles away, Turnbull is left to eyeball the other world leaders, gathering in whispery little groups, casting sidelong glances at him but never inviting him over. Why doesn’t anyone invite him to join their laughter and gossip? Why must he command them to invite him? If his staff wouldn’t beg him not to do it, he’d kill all the—

Wabbits.

That’s it! At last, the lyrics spring into his head: Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit...

The song was from a classic cartoon that was well-known to everyone in his generation, although Turnbull differed from his peers in a few key matters. Even as a young boy, his sympathies lay with Elmer Fudd, a virtuous American who only wanted to exercise his God-given Second Amendment right to put food on his table. Meanwhile, Bugs Bunny was a dangerous radical who humiliated him and denied Elmer’s birthright at every turn, mocking him with that infernal taunt: “Ain’t I a stinker?” God, how Turnbull yearned to see Elmer empty both barrels of his shotgun into that rabbit’s freedom-hating skull.

He felt similarly about his fellow world leaders, all of them gathering for a summit on world peace in this remote field with the ridiculous name Logafjöll—which he refused to pronounce with a silent J, calling it “Log-uh-fah-jolly.” Turnbull couldn’t have cared less about world peace, but his staff had pestered him about this being the perfect time to announce the United States’ withdrawal from NATO while forming a new alliance with such devoutly Christian nations as Russia, North Korea, and Hungary. The Global Peacemakers of the World, as he’d dubbed the organization, would crush rebels and fanatics (Like that nasty evil bunny) while promoting true and fearless leadership in the developed world.

Trundling toward the tent, he notices a dark cloud encircling the highest peak. As he gazes at it, the cloud parts and a large shape emerges, looking somehow like a person riding atop a flying horse. This impossible vision appears to be flying in his general direction. As a matter of fact, the figure—which increasingly resembles a woman wearing golden armor—seems to be aiming straight at President Turnbull while bearing a long spear.

His jaw drops as the lyrics boom louder in his head: Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit...

The President turns on his heel and runs.

*

Herja rides far and fast with ease, for she knows the route well; ages ago, she and her sister Valkyries had descended on Logafjöll when it was a battlefield strewn with the valorous dead they carried to Valhalla.

She also hastens to act before Odin realizes her intent and dispatches the Valkyries to stop her.

From Fòlkvangr, Freya’s hall in the heart of Asgard, the gods had watched the preparations for this summit. A desecration, Odin bemoaned—to pledge peace in a land of glorious war, soaked in the blood of the noblest warriors. But Herja and her sisters decried the arrangement for a very different reason: enraged that a mortal who’d proudly and flagrantly committed so many atrocities against women would be elevated by his people to the ruler of such a powerful nation.

In times past, of course, chieftains and kings ascended to power while committing every offense a man could visit upon a woman—and were commemorated with wealth, statues, and land adorned with their name. But that was a different time, with different laws, when power was taken, always by force, and terror was utilized to subdue the rabble lest they revolt against their betters. But, to Herja’s bafflement, the rabble of the United States knew full well what crimes this man had committed and somehow, a plurality elected Turnbull to lead them.

It was an abomination against all humankind that deserved to be answered by the full force of the Valkyries. And Sigrún, Queen of the Valkyries, entreated Odin to unleash them.

“He has committed no offenses that I myself have not,” Odin said with a shrug. “No mortal is worthy of my admiration, but this one has a bearing and swagger that amuses me.”

“Of course Odin likes him!” Herja had raged on receiving Sigrún’s report. “He’s every bit the monster that the War-father has been lo’ these ages!”

“How dare you speak against Odin—you who wear the sacred Valknut,” Sigrún said, pointing at the intertwined triangles etched into Herja’s shoulder, as it is emblazoned on the arm of every Valkyrie. “The All-father is wise and just and merciful—”

“You might ask Rindr if she agrees. Ask how she feels about Odin impregnating her without consent—assuming you can find her in Hel.”

The other Valkyries looked away from Herja, watching the doors of Fòlkvangr even though Odin would never dare set foot in the hall of Freya. Sigrún herself—so fearless in combat—said in a hushed tone, “The War-father has spoken, and we must obey. The offending mortal may leave the Nordic lands unharmed.”

Herja gaped in disbelief. “Brynhildr didn’t blindly obey. When she knew Odin’s demand was unjust, she acted against him—”

“And she resides still in Hel,” Sigrún snapped. “The sole Valkyrie ever to be cast into the underworld among mortals. Consider that before you lash your tongue at me again.”

Even like the likes of Gunnr—the war-loving Valkyrie—tried to placate Herja. “Ours is not to judge and execute, but to retrieve the slain.”

Herja knew that wasn’t true. There were numerous times when the Valkyries determined that a lopsided battle was being fought unfairly, and their judgement—followed by their intercession—turned the tide toward righteousness.

“We protect and inspire,” Herja said, “not just watch and gather. We grant glory to the deserving and punishment to the unjust.”

But she was outnumbered, so she acceded to the wishes of the Valkyries and silenced her dissent.

When President Turnbull trod upon the Scandinavian countries—where the gods continue to watch the affairs of humans, even if they meddle rarely (and only covertly)—Herja bit her tongue and tried to look away. Until the maid visited his hotel room and he treated her like a cat pawing at a mouse. Herja alone knew the thoughts he had about her that he’d have no compunction to act upon if his staff hadn’t been so near—and her yearning for vengeance blazed until it nearly burned through her chest.

You can do anything, she heard Turnbull thinking—her eternal curse of being able to know and hear and even feel the contempt men have for women, just by looking at them. When you’re powerful enough, they let you do it. They won’t admit it, but they want you to do it.

Almost before Herja knew what was happening, she had leaped atop her horse and launched herself across Bifrost. With thunder rumbling beneath the galloping hooves, she raced to Midgard, streaking across black-bellied clouds, and glided between the highest peaks until her target was in sight. Now she rides for him, spear at the ready, braced to destroy anything in her way to reach her target.

It is no accident that Herja’s name means “she who devastates.” Driven by the molten fury inside her, nothing in heaven or on Earth will stop Herja from devastating.

*

Chief of Staff Walters is alarmed, having never seen the president move faster than an amble, let alone run at full speed. The Secret Service are already rushing to surround Turnbull, looking every which way for the perceived threat—but they can’t seem to spot it.

When Turnbull reaches him, Walters runs alongside. “Mr. President, what’s wrong?”

“You have to ask?” Turnbull shouts. “Look behind me!”

But when he looks, all Walters sees is thunderclouds—big, dark ones rolling this way with tremendous speed. Still, it seems odd that a president who has fearlessly slashed disaster-relief programs should be so frightened by a weather event.

“Sir, I don’t think there’s an imminent threat of electrocution. But the summit organizers are setting up tents, so you should stay dry if it rains—”

“Not the lightning and thunder,” Turnbull says. “The flying woman!”

Christ, it’s finally happening. Walters was warned about Turnbull’s cognitive decline from the doctor they paid off and then relocated to the remotest corner of Alaska. But he hoped they could get halfway through his second term before the impairment became impossible to ignore.

Turnbull stampedes past the other world leaders, provoking alarm in their protective entourages, and straight for his limousine. The driver rushes to open the back door in time for the president to fling himself into the backseat.

“Drive fast, now!” he says.

The sky crackles with gunfire. Walters watches the Secret Service detail unload their sidearms at what looks to him like a fast-traveling cloud. Then he sees a pair of golden horns with bright blonde hair billowing behind them. The cloud seems to peel away from the Chief of Staff’s vision and he beholds a woman in armor bearing down on the gathering with a bladed weapon.

When he turns to join the president, Walters finds the limo has taken off on a breakneck course toward Air Force One, abandoning him and most of the President’s staff.

*

What a shame, Herja thinks as she cuts the dark-suited gunmen down, that these noble warriors should perish for an ignoble cause. She makes the blows quick and merciful, so they won’t suffer.

Then she rides onward to a balding man gawping at her. “He left us!” the man howls. “How could he just leave us? I’m his Chief of—”

At the instant she sees the man’s eyes, Herja’s head floods with images of crying women, their tears increasing his arousal. Without slowing, she lashes sideways with her spear, feels it sink into flesh and shear bone, and hears the tumble of the man’s head along the asphalt strip that has blemished this once-verdant field.

She rides after the enclosed black chariot, which achieves impressive speed—far more than an earthbound horse could reach. But her steed glides across wind currents, carrying Herja over the heads of the stunned world leaders, faster than their personal guards can strike with their bullets. She closes the distance swiftly. Although she can’t see President Turnbull through the tinted rear windshield, she senses his terror—smells it, like rancid sweat—and is glad he finally feels what he has inflicted on so many others.

As she pulls even with the chariot, its engine finds a burst of energy that propels it ahead, faster than Herja’s steed can attain.

Seeing a flurry of activity ahead, around the gaping maw of the biggest of the private airplanes parked at the edge of the field, she understands his escape plan. Herja flings her spear through the middle of the black chariot’s roof, toward the front.

The vehicle swerves for a moment, starting to slow. That means her aim was true and she managed to pierce the driver. Remorse is a largely alien emotion to Valkyries anyway, but Herja feels no regret about this sacrifice—particularly when she sees a flash of what the driver does with his fists when he’s been drinking. His wife will mourn but secretly feel grateful.

Herja gains rapidly. The chariot speeds up again in a herky-jerky course that ends in a sideways skid beside the plane’s opening. Her aim wasn’t true enough—she injured the driver, but not enough to prevent him from getting his passenger to the plane before expiring.

Several dark-suited, black-eyed mortals surround Turnbull and hoist him into the belly of the plane. The loading doors don’t even close before the massive machine starts down the runway, building to a speed she’ll never be able to match.

Metal rounds ping off Herja’s armor and shield. She reaches behind her and pulls out a second spear—a bigger one with an enormous, jagged blade forged by Sindri and Brokkr, the dwarves who crafted Thor’s fabled hammer. Herja reserves this one for special adversaries, typically jötnar like Nidhogg when he gnaws relentlessly at the roots of the World Tree.

Longer than all eight Valkyries traveling end-to-end, the plane ascends into the sky with a roar that can shout down the thunder. Herja presses her steed to her limits. Legs that can stamp boulders into gravel pound against the powerful currents streaming behind the plane as its nose tilts vertically toward Uranus’s realm.

With an all-out dash, the horse carries her alongside the rear section of the craft. Herja slashes her spear at the tail wings, shearing straight through the metal and the mechanisms within like a hot knife into warm pudding. The plane banks to one side, reminding Herja of the time she and her sisters hobbled Hræsvelgr and stranded the eagle-winged jötunn at the top of the World Tree for all time.

As the plane loses velocity, Herja rides along its length, hacking into its fuselage with two-handed thrusts. Chunks of metal wall rip away, exposing the interior of the cabin and expelling the passengers. Herja eyes the humans who are sucked out of the disemboweled plane in flailing death-spirals, patiently waiting for the one she will snatch from the air and dispatch to Hel.

Herja sees visions as they tumble past—a flurry of violations against women, one after another. So many that she wonders if President Turnbull intentionally surrounded himself only with fellow sadists who crow together about their unspeakable acts. Not one of the mortals shrieking towards a splattered death deserves to be mourned.

As the pressure drops within the main cabin, the front door that marks the president’s entrance bursts open. Turnbull clings to the inside handle with both hands, his rust-colored cockscomb billowing in the torrential wind.

Herja swipes at the fluttering figure, but the plane’s turbulent course bumps him out of range just before she would have sliced off his leg. Instead, her blade hits the top hinge of the door, causing it to tilt and nearly fling Turnbull loose. But he manages to hold on with a tenacity that would be impressive for a deserving warrior.

The plane banks sharply, rolling into Herja’s side and knocking her out of her saddle. She grips her reins as the horse wobbles and loses speed. With horror, Herja watches the damaged plane gain airspeed, holding at its course, while many uniformed mortals attempt to reach through the doorway to rescue Turnbull.

That can’t happen, she rages, her teeth gnashing until they feel ready to shatter. I cannot allow him to escape!

Twisting the knife in her gut, Turnbull turns his head to fix her with a jackal’s grin.

No! In Brynhildr’s name, this living infestation of wretchedness CANNOT live to darken Midgard another day!

Still clutching the reins with one hand, Herja rears back and pitches her spear with full might. It lances through the resisting wind, hurtling on a direct course to Turnbull. But the currents blasting from the plane’s engines jolt the spear off its trajectory. It arcs below the left wing, missing by inches before it plummets toward Midgard.

Thunder booms, echoing the despair in Herja’s gut. Her exhausted steed slows dramatically. The plane accelerates far out of range, even if Herja had another spear to throw.

A fork of lightning ignites the coal-black clouds around her. That must mean Odin has seen her mutinous efforts, perhaps alerted by Heimdall, and is approaching to exact his vengeance. She will be dispatched to the remotest corner of Hel and forced to relive her failure until the dawn of Ragnarok.

With an ache that rips into her soul, she gazes at the president howling with laughter from the side of the plane.

*

“You can’t kill me!” Turnbull screams over the crash of thunder. “I can’t die! I am forever! I immortal! I AM A GOD!!”

The next spear of lightning pierces the last hinge of the door, obliterating it in a shower of sparks. It also shears the entire wing from the fuselage, causing the plane to spiral groundward.

The door flies loose, flinging Turnbull into the blackening sky. His flailing body is hoisted aloft by the sweeping winds. From his height of nearly a thousand feet, he watches the plane nosedive straight to the ground. It impacts in a fireball that ignites the night.

Turnbull spreads his arms wide, thinking he might be able to glide to the ground. But his descent doesn’t slow—in fact, it accelerates, launching him toward the massive bonfire that is all that remains of Air Force One. His jacket whips behind him in a tangle. He fights to take hold of the corners, trying to spread them wide enough to create a makeshift parachute.

Why doesn’t God just stop me? Pluck me from the sky and carry me to the ground? Aren’t I his favorite son among all the people of Earth?

But as he continues to pick up speed, he stops asking those questions. Stops thinking altogether about God and gods and focuses on how to steer past the flaming wreckage of the fuselage and the jet fuel-fed flames that crackle with demonic intensity.

He feels himself slowing down. Feels his body—no, his will, he’s doing it through sheer force of willpower—feels it defying gravity, commanding the very air. Every element is his to wield, and he refuses to submit to anything less than utter and complete control.

Turnbull glides past the wreckage. Watches the ground reaching up for him, the soft earth of the field bending to ease his landing, enfold him in its elemental embrace.

The spear penetrates him from behind. Rips through his body, grinds his innards, and punches through his chest. The blade protrudes inches from his face, and the final image emblazoned on Turnbull’s mind is his own blood dripping from its gleaming tip. Red drops scatter across the whipping air like crimson flower petals.

I cannot die, his mind hisses. I refuse to die. I WILL NOT—

And then, he dies.

*

Herja eases her steed to the ground, grateful that she’d descended to retrieve her spear in mid-air rather than try to chase the plane. She trots over to where the spear landed with Turnbull impaled on it—once all-powerful, now a kebab of rotting meat. She knows she should fear Odin’s wrath, but for now, she feels an electrifying satisfaction.

Thunder booms and she turns to face her judgement. It’s not Odin who descends from the sky, but the Valkyries. The clouds cling to their weapons and armor in wispy black tendrils.

Herja pulls in a deep breath and steadies herself, braces for their punishment.

They skid to a halt around her, kicking up storms of dust. Sigrún sits highest of all on her massive white steed, towering over Herja with a deep scowl.

And then, something occurs to Herja.

“The lightning that sent Turnbull flying,” she says. “My eyes may have tricked me, but as it pierced the sky, it looked very much like... a sword flung from the heavens.”

Sigrún glowers in silence.

“But perhaps I am wrong,” Herja says. “And now, I will accept my banishment.”

Sigrún turns her gaze from Herja to the pathetic thing embedded on her spear. She dismounts and walks over to it. Grasps the hilt, stuffs her boot against the backside where the blade entered, and with a mighty heave, wrenches the spear loose with a wet tearing sound, followed by the dull thud of Turnbull’s corpse slopping to the dirt.

So, this is my fate, Herja thinks. To be rendered mortal, then pierced by my own spear. My blood befouled among the vile one’s pestilential fluids.

Sigrún hands the spear hilt-first to Herja. “You will need this for the battle to come.”

“What do you intend?” Herja takes the spear, struggling to control the stammer in her voice—whether from shock or relief, she isn’t certain. “Will you turn me loose so Odin can send jötunn and einherjar to chase me around the worlds?”

“Nothing chases the Valkyries,” Sigrún says. “We are the chase. Jötunn and einherjar had better flee before our charging shadows, lest they meet their ends upon our blades.”

“We ride together,” Gunnr says. “And hunt and fight together always, Sister.”

“As we pursued you, it occurred to me that you weren’t wrong about this putrid mortal,” Sigrún adds, hurling a glob of phlegm that lands on the side of Turnbull’s face. “And perhaps it’s time the Valkyries decide for themselves who warrants our reckoning.”

Herja opens her mouth to express her gratitude, then feels a sob welling in her throat and closes her lips before it can erupt. The Valkyries stare at her and nod, knowing without needing to be told.

“Come, Herja,” Sigrún says. “All of you. We have a long and difficult ride ahead of us. If Odin is willing to defend a loathsome worm-dropping like this, then he is no longer fit to command us, or any of the gods.” She flicks her reins and her steed bounds skyward, toward the clouds roiling around the mountain peaks. “Let us ride to Asgard—and bring the fight to Odin in Valhalla!”

Herja watches Sigrún ascend, then each of her sisters in turn. She is the last to leave the scorched Earth, as a fleet of rescue vehicles speeds across the rugged terrain toward the flaming wreckage and the battered corpse beside it. Climbing higher into the clouds, toward the worlds-shattering battle that awaits beyond them, Herja hears a sound of relentless crunching in her head, followed by a nasally voice proclaiming, Ain’t I a stinker?

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