"I was talking about that first night. Well, it was cold, the rain was pelting the windows, the wind was howling, and it felt pretty good to be indoors. I was lying on the rug with my head on my paws just staring absently at the front door. My friend Chester was curled up on the brown velvet armchair, which years ago he’d staked out as his own."
This quote comprises most of the second paragraph of the story. The opening pages instantly situate that the book is being narrated in the first-person by a family dog named Harold. Harold introduces another important character in this passage. Chester is the family cat. Both Harold and Chester are pets of the Monroe family, and it quickly becomes apparent that they are animal-loving and pet-friendly. Harold will very shortly go on to point out that everyone in the household—humans and animals alike—are respectful of all other occupants. The reason that Harold is staring at the front door is that the human occupants, the parents and children of the Monroe family, have gone out for the evening. When he next sees the family upon their return, they will enter the house with a brand-new addition. That new addition will be a bunny rabbit and things will never be quite the same within the household again. The description of Chester as possessive of a piece of furniture efficiently implicates the position within the family which the cat has come to claim. This positioning within the social dynamic of the family will prove to be quite significant to the development of the plot.
“Now, this is the part you won’t believe, but as I watched, his lips parted in a hideous smile, and where a rabbit’s buck teeth should have been, two little pointed fangs glistened.”
Following a very spirited family discussion about what to name the newest addition to the family, it is decided to call the rabbit Bunnicula. This name is inspired by the circumstances under which the rabbit was discovered and brought home by the Monroe clan. They had left earlier that evening to go see a Dracula movie. Since the rabbit had been found in connection with this outing, it is first suggested that he be named Dracula which is eventually transformed into the more creative Bunnicula. The name is entirely coincidental with the circumstances of the rabbit's discovery, but almost immediately Chester the cat expresses nervous anxiety. Subsequent to the naming conversation, Harold the dog informs the reader that Chester is a rather literary-minded feline. On this very night, Chester is reading a gothic horror story by Edgar Allan Poe in the darkness of a gloomy night when he notices that the markings on the rabbit give him the appearance of wearing a cap. Chester also hears insists that he heard the sounds of a violin playing as it from a traveling Gypsy caravan. At this point, having gotten his imagination worked up to a frenzy, he peers through the window into the home of the neighbor next door, Professor Mickelwhite, whereupon he witnesses the gruesome sight described above. Chester relates all this information to Harold. The dog remains skeptical of the events, but apparently Chester's manner of telling the story chilling enough to raise fur even if it is entirely the work of the cat's imagination. The significance of this quote to the story is that it is Chester the cat who stakes the claim that Bunnicula is an unexpectedly appropriate name for the pet rabbit.
“This book tells us just what we need to know...this book tells you everything you’ve always wanted to know about vampires but were afraid to ask...One, vampires do not sleep at night. They sleep only during the day. The same holds true for this rabbit. Two, vampires can get in and out of locked rooms. Bunnicula gets in and out of his locked cage...Three, vampires have long pointed teeth. They’re called fangs.”
By this point in the story, Chester is all in on his conviction that Bunnicula is a vampire rabbit. Harold, however, by this point is thoroughly unconvinced and entirely skeptical. The key element in this passage is how Chester has come by his suspicions. He has gained his knowledge of vampires through a book titled The Mark of the Vampire. What he has learned about vampire mythology is combined with the utterly irrelevant coincidence that the rabbit was found while the Monroe family had been out to see a vampire movie. The "truth" that Chester has arrived concerning the newest furry addition to the household is a perfect example of how conspiracy theories are born. The story in this book revolves not around the fact that Bunnicula is a vampire rabbit but rather that Chester has fully convinced himself that the rabbit is a vampire. He is the only member of the household to believe this as Harold becomes increasingly convinced that Chester is the only one of the Monroe pets with a problem. At this level, then, the story becomes almost a textbook example of how delusional beliefs are formed and how conspiracy theories are contained when nobody else can be convinced they are true.
