Red Riding Hood and the Green-Eyed Werewolf

Once upon a time there lived a young lady, beautiful and charismatic, well liked by all, known as Little Red Riding Hood, after the red cloak she always wore. She, like most thirteen-year-olds, lived with her father. He was a doting father, and showered his daughter with all the care and attention she could ever want, but he wasn’t well liked by anyone else, largely due to his profession as a knee-breaker for a local crime boss. Of course, that didn’t get him nearly as much dislike as his second job of tax collector for the local lord. This led him to be particularly crass and brash and short with everyone, except his daughter, the only person he really liked since the death of his wife. Seeing as this is a fairy tale, some may call it the inevitable death of his wife.

These two lived on the edge of a forest, with the father’s mother living on the other side of the forest. You could go around the forest, but that obviously took significantly longer than cutting through the forest. Of course, cutting through the forest was frightening, as there were several dangerous things in the forest. Every night there were terrifying shrieks and howls that would come from the forest. When Little Red would ask for a story, or want to go into the forest unsupervised, her father would tell her outlandish tales of the different creatures that lived in the forest, such as ghosts, and carnivorous lizards, and bloodthirsty goblins. But her favorite story was about a green-eyed werewolf with thirteen tails, one for every little girl that it ate. The number of tails kept increasing as Little Red got older. This story was largely to convince her to follow the rule of never going into the forest alone. Of course, anyone who has read a book knows what happens next.

Little Red had baked a pie one day, and wanted to take it to her grandma. Unfortunately, her father had to work. He promised that they could take it to grandma together after he got back, or she could go the long way around the forest. Of course, being all-knowing like most teenagers, she decided that it would be fine for her to duck through the forest quickly once her father was at work. She could stay at grandma’s afterwards, and her father would be none the wiser. So she packed up the pie in a picnic basket and headed off to grandma’s house.

I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that Little Red was the opposite of her father in more ways than just being kind and fair and even-tempered. You see, while he was calculating and dangerously intelligent, she was trusting, and naive, and not the sharpest knife in the crayon box. This fact will come into play shortly.

You see, as she was going through the forest, she ran into a large werewolf with green eyes. He didn’t immediately eat her, or have thirteen tails, so she trusted him. You see, some lycanthropes can retain their humanity and intelligence after transforming, although there are some theories that the animalistic tendencies will mix with their human personality, as an open door allows things to pass through either way. But anyhow, as I was saying, Little Red ran into a green-eyed werewolf.

“Hello, little girl, what brings you into these woods today?” asked the werewolf.

“I’m going to my grandma’s house to bring her a pie!” said Little Red.

“Well, if she lives on the other side of these woods, you’re taking the long way. You can use this trail, or I can show you a game trail that goes straight through these woods without taking a long, meandering path” offered the werewolf.

“Gee, that sounds really helpful, thank you mister!” replied Little Red.

So he showed her the path and bid her good luck, before taking off to try and beat her to grandma’s house. You see, he was clever and understood that by working with this child, he could get two meals for the price of one. So he took off through the forest. He was actually helping her and giving her a quicker route, but a lycanthrope will always be faster than a human, even when the human is following a path and the lycanthrope isn’t.

The werewolf obviously arrived at grandma’s first, but found the house empty, with a note on the door explaining that she was out shopping and would be back “soon-ish”. So he went to work, transforming back into a human, taking down the note, then entering the, surprisingly, unlocked door. He then quickly disguised himself with a hat, wig, and nightgown, before jumping into the bed just as Little Red knocked on the door.

“Come in” said the werewolf in a falsetto.

Little Red let herself in. “Grandma? Is that you? You sound different”

“I’m just getting over a cold, dear” responded the werewolf.

“Well I brought a pie, hopefully that makes you feel better.”

“Aren’t you sweet, I could just eat you up!”

As Little Red walked to her grandma’s bedroom, grandma entered through the front door.

“Red?” called grandma. “Is that you that I saw?”

“Grandma? How are you in two places at once?” asked Little Red.

“What do you mean?” asked grandma.

Both of them screamed as the werewolf strode into the kitchen where they were, transforming back into its wolflike form. A lumberjack, on his way to pick up his paycheck from work, was walking by and heard the screaming and leapt to their aid. He entered the house, brandishing his axe, and was promptly dismembered and eaten by the werewolf.

This werewolf had eaten several people in its time and was not small, either height wise, or in the gut. This is part of why it was so open to the idea of getting two meals for the price of one, and three meals was the best thing he could think of. As he turned his attention to Little Red, she instinctively raised her picnic basket in front of her. The werewolf lunged at her and got a mouthful of basket, eating the wicker and the pie inside in one fell swoop. This was a mistake on his part.

You see, this particular pie was an incredibly rich pie, with a thick sauce inside. In addition, the pie contained Little Red’s secret ingredient of Wolfbane, a mildly sweet herb used to halt the regenerative property of lycanthropes, not to be confused with Wolf’s Bane, which is poisonous and should not be baked into a pie. But, as the werewolf had made a habit of overeating all his life, eating such an incredibly rich dessert without the aid of his regenerative abilities was bad for his health.

As the werewolf licked the last of the delicious pie from his lips, he felt a twinge of pain, a feeling with which he was unaccustomed. He let out a loud moan and clutched at his chest, collapsing to the ground and letting out a final twitch. But at least he had enjoyed his final meal. We should all be so lucky.