This short story is my
own twist on the classic children’s story ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. The
audience is teenagers or adults, but I have kept to the style of a children’s
story to create a contrast. Hope you like it.
As most of you know, there was once a little girl who liked
to wear a red hooded cape which had been knitted by her Grandma. This little
girl was known as Little Red Riding Hood. What you do not know – is the truth…
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, in a small house
just outside of the woods, a frail old lady lived on her own. She relied on
visits from her Granddaughter for company. One night whilst Grandma lay in bed,
she was gazing out of the window…
As the full moon entered the winter’s night sky Grandma began
to change. Her crow footed eyes grew and the humble hazel they once were turned
into a bloodshot black. Her aged ears, decorated by dangling beads, and the
left ear aided by a hearing aid, also grew. They changed and pointed at their
tops, and in doing so the hearing aid fell to the floor. The beads still
dangled from the mutated ears. Her wrinkled nose was next; it mutated the whole
shape of her face. The area from her jaw line to her nose stretched outwards
and it was now a rectangular shape. Her nose became a simple black moulding on
the end of her irregular face, moist and perfectly rounded. Next, Grandma’s
dentures fell out of her mouth and from her gums grew razor sharp teeth, sharp
enough to puncture a tyre with one touch.
Grandma was a werewolf.
With a hunger for meat and a thirst for blood, Grandma was a
vicious mutation of her previous self.
With a simple sniff of her dog-like nose she could sense ‘food’ within a
10 mile radius. And who happened to be on her way to visit her Grandma at this
moment? None other than Little Red Riding Hood, the werewolf’s Grandchild.
However the love Grandma felt for Little Red Riding Hood was hidden by the
sweet scent of the young girl’s flesh, bones and bodily fluids, which were
skipping happily towards Grandma’s cosy cottage. These tantalising smells
excited Grandma’s senses and she prepared herself for the hunt…
The young, innocent, sweet little girl was joyfully singing
as she made her way to visit the Grandma she loved so dearly. In her hands she
carried a basket in which some home-made cakes were waiting to be delivered to
Grandma. As the little girl, proudly wearing the red knitted hood her Grandma
had made for her, travelled onward to the little house she had been to so many
times before – began to get nervous. She had left late on this bitterly cold
November day and the darkness was easing in. The bare trees creaking above her
quickened the little girl’s heartbeat.
As Little Red Riding Hood’s nerves grew she began to panic and sweat.
The scent of this sweat enhanced the longing inside the beast Grandma had
become. Grandma could sense the little girl’s fear, enticing her to the point
where she had utterly no power over the body which was once hers. As the little
girl rushed through the frightening woods, each twig that snapped beneath her
feet and every tree that creaked around her caused her to shudder and gasp, as
the terror began to be too much for the child to handle.
When Grandma did reach her Grandchild a scream so high
pitched that it penetrated the ears of all those nearby and scarred their
memories, came crying out of the little girl. Grandma’s big eyes locked onto
the little girl, studying her every move. Grandma’s big ears heard every last
breath the little girl took. Grandma’s big nose inhaled the sensational scent
of the little girl’s flesh and blood. Grandma’s big teeth punctured the small
child’s skin and tore her apart. She ripped her limb from limb. Grandma ate her
Grandchild and at the time loved every moment in doing it. When Grandma was
done devouring her own Grandchild all that was left of the young, innocent,
sweet little girl was a burgundy blood stain tarnishing the ground, and a tuft
of red thread, the only remains of the red cape Grandma had knitted her, stuck
between Grandma’s murderous teeth.
Grandma ended Little Red Riding Hood.
