Red

“Your mother wants you to stay for supper,” Woody said.

I gave him a noncommittal nod while keeping a clear line of sight to the front door.

No one knew his real name, but everyone in our village called him Woody, not in the least for his wooden manner or his infamous axe; he often stashed a wooden penis down his pants to appear well-endowed. To my dismay, Mother had been at his beck and call ever since he had saved Grandmother and me.

“Did you catch her?” I asked. I meant the last surviving wolf, and he knew it.

Woody grinned, and his eyes disappeared into wrinkled flesh. “She’s still alive and kicking. I’ll show you in a minute.”

My pulse quickened, but I fought hard to keep my face impassive.

“Remember him?” Woody pointed his chin at a wolf’s head mounted on the wall. Pity stung me as I peered into his dead eyes. Yes, the beast was guilty. He had indeed swallowed us. Even so, a single wolf’s transgressions didn’t justify hunting them to the last.

“Come here, Red. Let me take a good look at you.” As I hesitated, Woody stepped closer. When he hugged me, his face so close to mine, his rancid breath filled my nostrils. He let his embrace linger longer than it should have, his gray beard scraping my face like a rough muzzle. He pressed his wooden manhood against me like he had many times before.

“Excuse me!” I stepped on his toes and lurched away from him. “Clumsy me!”

Woody mumbled profanities under his breath.

“I must go now,” I said, clearing my throat, careful not to let him back me into a corner. He stared at me in a famished, lupine way until I looked away. I tried to ignore the awkward air hanging between us.

“But your mother invited you for supper.” Woody cocked his head, clasping his calloused hands. “She will be very upset if she doesn’t see you.”

Woody yanked a small knife from the sheath on his belt and used the wicked point to clean under his fingernails.

“All right,” I muttered, not sure if he was correct. Mother and I had grown apart since she became Woody’s lover, but she was the only family I had left.

“I miss Grandmother.” I sighed, tears welling behind my eyes. “Today would have been her eightieth birthday.” I took the wildflowers I had picked earlier that afternoon and arranged them in a vase on the table.

“Let me show you the wolf.” Woody pointed to the stairs leading to the cellar.

An instinctive fear gripped me, and I didn’t move. Woody prodded me forward.

“Come now, sweetheart. Don’t be frustrating.”

I wanted to run, but he was right behind me. He would catch me. Tackle me. His body would press against mine…

I swallowed the rush of bile in my throat and did what Woody wanted.

Part way down the narrow staircase, he shoved me. Screaming, I tumbled down and hit the bottom step. I heard the door lock. Everything went dark as I lost consciousness.

I woke, blinking several times while my eyes adjusted to the faint light. Breathing in the musty air of the cellar, I wondered if Mother had returned. I held my breath to listen, but I heard no footsteps, not even Woody’s.

I stood, shifted my weight, and grimaced as sharp pain shot through my right ankle.

In the corner locked in a cage, a wolf licked her wounded right forepaw. I limped closer. She growled.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Aren’t you afraid of me?” the wolf replied.

“Yes.” I nodded and squinted in the low light of the cellar, peering around in the hopes of locating a tool or weapon that could help us. But the dark was too oppressive. Swallowing my fear, I turned to her.

“We’re both in trouble. We need to get out of here.”

Instinctively, my hand grazed the outside of my leg and fell upon something hard. Memory seized me. The dagger. Even on short errands through the woods, I never ventured out without stashing it in my stocking. Had it cut me when I fell? Was that the source of the pain in my ankle? No time to think about that now. Carefully sliding the weapon free, I gripped its hilt. Light, easy to handle.

I lowered to my hands and knees, patting the floor in front of me. I felt straw, but no loose boards. Not even a single splinter. As I groped my way over the straw-covered wood, the wolf spoke.

“Years ago,” she said, “my father ate an old woman and a child. Since then, we’ve been hunted. I’m the last wolf left.”

“I was that child.” I grimaced at the painful memory. “My grandmother never fully recovered and passed shortly after.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through such an ordeal, but there’s one thing I want you to know.” She sighed. “We’re starving. Excessive hunting by humans in our territory has decimated our prey. Even now, the scent of the blood from your wounded ankle is maddening, but you needn’t fear me.”

I sat back on my heels and wiped my free hand across my sweaty brow. “In other words,” I said, “wolves attack humans only as a last resort.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s let bygones be bygones.” I eased the tip of the dagger into the lock and twisted the blade left and right several times until I heard a snick. The wolf raised her head and lifted her snout in anticipation.

I clicked my tongue, feeling my mouth curl up into a satisfying smirk. “Woody will come when he wants me. He’ll lower his guard. Like all men.”

The wolf snarled in agreement.

Shuffling and muffled grunts seeped through the ceiling. However, concern for Mother’s safety kept me from crying out.

I sat next to the cage and rested against it, returning the dagger to my stocking. Hungry and thirsty, I felt the strength drain from my body. Before long, I drifted into a shallow slumber.

I awoke to the squeak of the cellar door, followed by descending footsteps. Woody emerged out of the semidarkness, dressed in my mother’s clothes. A lamp in his hand made his shadow dance across the wall.

I couldn’t force my mind to comprehend what I was seeing. Fear, as dexterous as a spider, slipped down my spine.

“Woody? I don’t understand. Where’s my mother?” But even as I asked, I already knew I wouldn’t see her alive again.

“What do you mean?” Woody stepped closer. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m your mother. And mothers punish naughty girls.” He wore a lascivious leer as he groped his genitals under my mother’s skirt.

I wanted to curse him. The words were coiled on my tongue, but I managed to swallow the invective.

“Darling,” I said in the sweetest voice I could muster, hoping he couldn’t hear the tremor. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Heart pounding, I stood firm and fought hard not to back away.

He stepped closer and grasped my neck.

“I’ll kill you first and then fuck you,” he grunted.

I gasped, my arms pinwheeling violently.

“Fucking monster!”

He lifted me into the air, crushing my throat. I kicked wildly until my boot connected with his groin, dislodging his wooden penis. He groaned and dropped me. As I struggled to catch my breath, he charged.

The wolf dashed out of the cage and lunged at Woody. Taken aback, he staggered and dropped the lamp. The straw on the floor caught fire, and flames threatened to envelop everything in sight. Smoke stung my eyes.

Woody stomped and whirled like a dancing bear on the burning straw —a vain attempt to put the fire out.

“Damn it!” His curses reverberated off the walls as he frantically brushed smoldering embers from my mother’s skirt.

Coughing, I wrenched the dagger from my stocking and plunged the tip into Woody’s throat. Again and again, I stabbed him. With every thrust of my blade, more blood gushed from the ruin of his neck. Red seared my hands and wrists, and though his stinking blood coated my skin to the elbows, I didn’t blink.

When he stopped moving, I stopped stabbing.

The wolf offered her body for support, and I leaned against her as we hurried upstairs through the smoke. I found Mother at the table. Stripped to her undergarments, she bore a deep slash across her throat —he had almost decapitated her, and she had bled out like a deer. A bloody axe lay on the floor. I closed Mother’s eyelids and made the sign of the cross over her forehead. Tears rolled down my face as I spread my threadbare cape over her body.

I followed the wolf outside as the cabin erupted into a funeral pyre behind us. A night breeze caressed my wet cheeks, and the silver moon hung nearly full overhead.

“Take me with you,” I said. I was all alone out here now, no family to rely on. So was she. I bit my lower lip and waited for her reply. The wolf shook her body and relaxed.

“Hop on.” Her answer came as a growl. I swung onto the beast’s back and held her tight as she ran like the wind through the dark heart of the woods.