Wolf fights with the bathroom’s cabinet, but the femurs won’t allow him to close it completely. They’re too long to be concealed with the rest of the body. He glances around in search of another hiding spot, to no avail. Why is this a problem? he thinks. I’ve never had to deal with this before... Was I just swallowing everything whole?

  Blood smears the floor where he drug her body, while handprints mar the surrounding surfaces. Most are his but not the ones gripping the door frame---an attempt to grab a lifeline.

  Wolf plops down on his haunches, then leans back to hook his arm into the tub and stretch out his legs. He scrutinizes his hands and wrists, occasionally cleaning blood from his gray and brown fur. His stomach suddenly lurches, causing his eyes to widen and his ears to lie flat.

  “Old people do not agree with me,” he says, rubbing his stomach. “I’m not sure I could even eat the little brat right now.”

  Wolf rubs the bridge of his nose with the top of his hand while thinking about the red hooded girl. Little Red Riding Hood. You sure are a prickly little shit. He thinks back to their first encounter along the road, outside of town.

  The girl and her red cloak were leaving the village. Her hood was up, which concealed her eyes, but a black braid was pulled forward and dangled from the front of her hood.

  “Good-day, Little Red Riding Hood,” Wolf said.

  “Shove off,” came the reply.

  Wolf canted his head. “Ugh... Where are you off to so early?” She didn’t respond and walked past, which alarmed Wolf. He turned to trot alongside her. “Are you in a bad mood or something? Having a bad day?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Little Red said, having stopped and turned to him. “If you can catch me, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Hell, I’ll even give you anything you ask for.”

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed and his ears laid flat. Why do I suddenly feel I’m not the one to mistrust here? he thought.

  “What’s wrong?” she taunted. “Afraid you can’t catch little ole me?”

  “What happens if I don’t catch you?”

  Little Red shrugged. “I guess you can just try again tomorrow.”

  A series of wide-mouthed lunges followed, but the form inside the cape always remained out of reach. He chased her, but she was fast---too fast---unrealistically fast. The chase led them into the forest---a game of cat and mouse where Wolf felt increasingly less like the cat. The girl rounded a tree, then she was gone. And Wolf was lost.

  Nothing looked the same. Nothing smelled the same. Everything was different... until the days she showed up again to spurn him anew. Her antagonizing became his only norm when everything else seemed foreign. She would appear, swat him on the nose, then flee as he chased.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Something’s off, Wolf thinks, looking around the bathroom, then standing. She’s never given up information and suddenly she mentions a frail grandmother she plans to visit? He thinks back to approaching the cabin, knocking, then pretending to be Little Red Riding Hood when the homeowner asked who was there. The woman seemed amused at my answer. If she knew I wasn’t her, why did she unlock the door?

  Wolf gets frustrated by the unanswered questions and stomps into the adjoining room. A quilt laden bed sits in the center of the room, and he snatches clothes from atop it. I’ll show the little brat.

  He sets into the motion of donning the clothes but pauses as one leg goes into the pants. There is a spattering of blood on the ceiling, which he fixates on. That was some crazy high blood pressure, he thinks. She probably should have been on medication for that.

  Wolf purges the errant thoughts, but the thought of the meal has him running his tongue around his gums as he dresses. The pants immediately come back off when he discovers them pinning his tail, then he settles for the gown and sleeping cap. He discovers his tail is causing the back to ride up. Eh, close enough.

  As he pulls the hat on, pinning both of his ears down, he notices something foreign near the room’s entrance. He toggles it and the overhead light comes on, revealing gouts of blood along the wooden floorboards, wood paneling walls, and the side of the bed. The bathroom door frame also contains smears where the woman had grasped for hand holds around her.

  Wolf’s fixates on the light, then looks at the evidence of his attack. Holy shit, I can’t hide all of this before she gets here, he thinks, then pokes his forehead. Think, think, think. He looks into the hall outside the bedroom and then to the living room beyond to find more light switches. All the curtains are drawn back, allowing in the natural daylight, so all the switches are off.

  “Ok, there’s gotta be a way to keep these off.”

  A search begins, and morning gives way to afternoon. Wolf finally discovers a gray door and cuts power to the cabin. What the hell will they think of next? he wonders as he toggles all breakers.

  Wolf’s ear twitches, and he turns to look over his shoulder. He hears footsteps, but more than that, he can hear the aglets of her laces striking the tops of boots with each step, a sloshing fluid within closed containers, and a friction of something fitted beneath her clothes. His hearing is sharp and seems to grow more so.

  “Shit, it’s too soon,” he says, looking back across the living room. He jerks the curtain closed over the main window and runs back to the bathroom. Indecision claws at him as he looks around the red room, which was originally white. He leaves and pulls the door closed, his grip so frantic that the doorknob comes off in his hand.

  Wolf suddenly looks around with the knob in hand, unsure of what to do with it. He confirms the door latched, then tosses the knob behind the headboard before hurrying to draw the curtains closed.

  The sound of crunching gravel commandeers his attention, and he looks from the bedroom to see that the front door was left open. It can’t be helped, he thinks, spinning to rush to the bed.

  His foot catches on a bit of shredded clothing. He stumbles, reaches for the bathroom door frame, and tears the molding free before continuing forward to kick the nightstand.

  He howls, but his hand quickly covers his mouth as he turns back to the bedroom’s partially closed door. The cabin’s front door squeaks as it swings to full open, and a toggling can be heard piercing the quiet cabin.

  “Oh, Grandma?” permeates Wolf’s back room, and he begins to grumble and grit his teeth as he makes his way under the quilts. He pulls the hat up from pinning his ears and settles into the bed with covers pulled up to his face.