I thought it was about time I put up this short story I wrote. It's kinda a what if? story based on Littler Red Riding Hood.
Lemme know what you think. It's pretty much the only thing I've ever finised and felt remotely proud about.
But maybe that's the low self esteem talking.
Thanks chicklets!
Red
A contorted mess of skin and hair, hunched over, limbs wound tightly around themselves. The tangled, bloody fur of a dead wolf, old and rotting, was draped over her back. Bare breasts dangled close to the ground, and her misty eyes peered through a shock of bright red hair upon an unsuspecting rabbit that nibbled on a blade of grass by the waters edge. Her hands sank into the earth and her back arched upward. A deep snarl rumbled from her throat and her left eye twitched with a sudden manic speed. The rabbit had no time to look its fate in the eye, for she jumped quickly and tore at the miserable thing with yellowed nails. Blood flowed through her hands and smeared itself across her bare skin as she bit and tugged through fur and meat with ravenous appetite.
She feasted.
This is what the Woodsman saw one cold evening in late December.
It was nearing dusk and, with a swing of his sinewy arm, the Woodsman’s axe bit into a new tree, deftly slicing through bark as though it was tender flesh. Crystalline droplets of sweat clung to his hairy brow and his heavy grunts of effort echoed loudly about him. His shirt stretched tightly over his heaving chest, and was marked with dark russet stains of his own dried blood. His beard, damp and slick with grease, rubbed against his thick neck.
It had been a good day, he thought, prosperous certainly. He had foraged enough kindling to last a year at least; it was of little concern to him how many trees he felled. Indeed, he almost took pleasure from such brutality, straining his ear with each swing as though he hoped to hear them scream for mercy.
Were it not for this habit, however morbid it was, he might not have heard it. The shrill howl, calling from far off in the woodland. He stayed his hand and blinked his rodent like eyes.
“A wolf?” he said to himself. The gruffness of his voice scratched against his throat.
There was no fear in these words. The Woodsman was no stranger to the beasts. They were common about these lands and quite harmless unless you were fool enough to provoke them, and such fools were long dead.
But then it occurred to him, no wolf should make a sound quite as unnatural as that. It was a twisted strangled shrieking, raw and frightful.
When the call came again, closer this time, the Woodsman found himself curious. Lowering his axe, he stepped towards the resonating noise that intrigued him so.
It took little time. The Woodsman soon found himself approaching a clearing, opening up to a small and stagnant pond. He sought cover behind the trees, but the pungent vapours carried on the breeze, stinging his eyes and blurring his vision with tears. As he squinted furiously, a silhouette appeared before him, moving towards the stinking pond with a strange and stilted quickness like a dog with a missing leg. The Woodsman wiped away the moisture clinging to his lids and looked to the figure, which was now still.
As he watched her ready herself for the kill, he believed his eyes to be lying. What he saw was a thing that defied all of God’s laws, and affected him so that for a moment he thought he might be mad.
Feelings coursed through him; revulsion, fear, and a disturbing fascination that he could not understand.
This…thing, he thought, No not a thing, a girl. How long has she been lost to these wolf like ways?
He looked at her as with pointed teeth she ripped the flesh apart.
I must help her. She cannot live this way. She should know what it is to be human.
This thought in his mind, he clutched his axe tightly and stepped towards her.
Darkness had enveloped the forest in a short time. Only the moon, huge and round, gave any light to him as he approached. He walked silently, and so crazed was she with hunger that her ears and eyes were closed to everything around her.
The Woodsman raised his axe, and swiftly brought the handle down on her skull.
He picked up her now limp unconscious body and slung it over his broad shoulder as if she were a cloth sack. Slipping his axe through his belt loop, he turned on his heavy booted heel and staggered off back to his kindling.
Never once did it cross The Woodsman’s mind how strange it was that she was alone in her hunt. When a wolf is seen, many others stand with it. Travelling and hunting together, and watching over one another as a family might. The Woodsman then, did not see the eyes that gazed at him from the darkness; the all seeing and all knowing eyes of her wolf brethren.
Soon, The Woodsman came to the village, a quiet place where few lived. Coming to his cottage, The Woodsman was greeted by The Grandmother. The Son remained inside. There was no Wife, for he was a widower. The Grandmother was a small woman, wrinkled and stern faced with a rod straight posture and thin white hair. She looked at the slumped body The Woodsman carried, brow furrowing.
“What’s that you got?” she barked, forgoing a greeting.
The Woodsman recounted his strange tale, and The Grandmother looked at the Wolf skin with disgust in her eyes.
“That’s the first to go,” she said. “I’ll not have that stinking up my clean house.”
Taking advantage of her sleeping state, The Grandmother peeled it off of the girl’s shoulders and took it outside to be burnt.
The Woodsman set her down in the kitchen and tied a strap of leather about her neck. He then took a chain and they attached it to her, wrapping it around the leg of the table tightly. The Son lurked in the doorway, gazing lustfully at the girl and her now blatant nakedness.
“What do we call her?” he asked.
They looked at her and thought. None of the names that sprang to mind seemed to fit her. It seemed that she was too wild even for a name.
The Grandmother returned from outside, bringing a smell of burning flesh with her.
“Take a gander at her hair,” she said, pointing towards the girl. “Bright as blood, it is. Why not call her Red?”
And Red she became.
A second after, Red began to stir; as soon as her eyes were open she flew into a wild rage. She scrambled up, barking and shrieking with such ferocity that even The Woodsman stepped backward, pulling The Grandmother with him. The Son continued to watch from the doorway.
Her anger was short lived, however. Left eye twitching through the curtain of her hair, Red lunged, and the leather strap tightened, choking her roughly and painfully.
Her barks subsided into strangulated whimpers, and she pulled back, shaking and not a little fearful. With precaution, The Woodsman approached her. She did not snarl or bark or bite, only shook harder.
“This is how we control her,” said The Woodsman, turning to look at his family.” We must begin immediately.”
The first thing, they all decided, was to teach Red to stand. She was strongly opposed to this, and fought with her teeth, snapping roughly. The Son came away with a bloody hand when venturing too close, hoping to lay his hands on her. The Grandmother resolved to cure this through the whip. If Red dared to bite or fall forward an inch too far a sharp snap to the flanks was the reward. She learned quickly to hold herself back.
Standing was painful. Red’s spine, curved from so many years of walking on all fours, refused to unfurl into a straight line. She was left bent over and in constant agony. Her long hair fell into her eyes and trailed on the ground, so The Grandmother took a kitchen knife and hacked at it, leaving it uneven and ragged. Now her face could be seen, but her mouth was twisted into a grimace which stayed throughout the following days.
As these days turned to weeks, Red found herself changing. She could feel that her Wolfishness disappearing and was being replaced by something new and strange. Something she did not know.
She felt it when they made her walk.
The Son would hold her wrist tightly and pull her through the village to the jeers and sobs of horrified passers by, who would stop to stare at this hunched and naked form staggering on the balls of her feet.
“It’s a monstrosity!” one woman accused bitterly.
Red’s ears were closed. Instead she gazed at the Woodland, memories of her past life fading with every step she took.
Suddenly, she thought that she saw two eyes looking at her through the trees. She craned her neck forward and whimpered gently, a spark of recognition burning in her stomach.
The Son saw and pulled her away hastily.
Spring came and The Grandmother made a dress for Red.
It looked ridiculous, hanging off her bony frame like a tent, but Red accepted it with blank silence. Long gone were the days of her shrieking and she had become a quiet observer, listening to the family with disturbing focus. Soon their words began to make sense to her, and she would copy them to herself late at night, but never speaking them in the day. The family thought little of it, simply believing her to be dumb.
Despite this, the Son became more and more obsessed with Red. He stood behind her and pawed at her with his hairy hands, taking her silence and blank expression as pleasure. It was not long before The Woodsman put her in The Son’s bed, where he could indulge his lust as much as he pleased. Throughout the long hours of the night as The Son lay atop of her, sweating and grunting like a stuck pig, Red dwelt upon a soft aching in her chest, dreaming of those golden eyes that had stared at her from the forest.
She had never forgotten them. Not once.
One night after The Son had rolled off her and fallen asleep, Red lay awake, staring at the slanted ceiling and remembering.
She remembered the shadow of The Woodsman before he had brought the handle of the axe down on her head.
She remembered the leather strap around her neck and how it choked her.
She remembered the Grandmother and how much it hurt when she snapped the whip against her legs.
She remembered the savage look in The Son’s eyes as he held her down and pushed himself into her.
In the dead quiet she felt everything that there was to be felt. The Son’s hot breath against her neck, the hairs of his legs that brushed against her, making her itch. Even the cotton sheets scratched. Red realised that she could not stand this nakedness. She longed for her furs but even they were lost to her. They had been burnt. She would never have them again.
Bitterness filled her heart, and her eyes began to prick. She blinked with confusion, touched her face and felt the dampness that trickled down her cheeks. Her chest hurt.
Slowly, Red lifted the covers off of her and crept out of the bed, still hunched and lurching. The Son did not stir, simply turned over and snorted into his pillow. She looked at him from the door and felt her limbs tighten with revulsion. For the first time in her life, she knew what it was she felt.
Silently, she slipped from the cottage, leaving the family to snore and drool in their sleep. The moon was full, lighting a soft silver path towards the woodland. Red followed it, staggering upon the now calloused and cracked balls of her feet as though she had always done so.
Yet, as she grew closer, she began to sway and trip. Soon she found herself on all fours, prowling with caution through the shadows of the night.
Coming to the forest border, she stopped. She could feel the golden and unblinking eyes through the blackness, waiting.
Turning and looking at the cottage, her prison, Red knew what lurked within. It was a place of monsters and dark things that caused pain and suffering. Things she never wished to see again.
She opened her mouth and bared her yellowed fangs
“Red…hates,” she whispered. Her voice sounded like a page being ripped in two.
She turned, craned her neck towards the moon, dug her hands into the earth and howled. A strange and wonderful feeling flooded through her, warming her naked, furless body as the sharp hollers flew from her lungs and into the night.
Soon they called back to her, howling and barking from the woods.
“Home,” she said.
Her Wolf brethren were coming. They were hungry.
She waited. Her left eye began to twitch.
My, what big teeth she has.
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