Meghan: Little Red Riding Hood

Once upon a midnight dreary

I was feeling rather weary

Maybe life is full of shit

Or maybe I’m just sick of it

Budum, Budum, Budum,

Her heart beats like a little drum.

She never should have gone this way, Mother said, Mother said,

Never walk in the dark.

But she had to go, Little Red. Grandma needs her basket of food and Little Red had to bring it to her. “Grandma lives all by herself,” her mother had told her, “She can’t get up to cook anymore and she needs you to bring her food.” But Little Red had wanted to go play by the pond, and then she had to milk the cows, and she thought maybe maybe she could beat the pink and purple fingers of sunlight being drawn down across the horizon like claws being retracted. It wasn’t dark then, not yet, not really. But now the moon was high in the sky like a shiny silver coin and Little Red had her little red hood pulled up around her face to ward off the night’s bite. If she could get to the house she could spend the night and get back in the early morning, early enough to do her chores.

She listened hard, trying to pick out the bad noises. But all she could hear were her own footsteps, quick and shuffling in the leaves and twigs of the forest floor. But Mother told her about bears and foxes and wolves.

Maybe there were no bad things here.

A light shone in her eyes, blinding her. She threw a hand across her face, clutching her basket to her with her other arm,

“Who’s there?” she called in a high, scared voice.

“Is that Little Red?” A deep, gonglike voice rippled through the trees. The light dimmed a little and Little Red lowered her arm to see a huge man striding towards her.

“The…Woodcutter?” She said hesitantly.

“That’s right.” He grinned broadly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Hunting wolves.” He said, shouldering his axe

“Oh,” she hesitated, “In the dark?”

“The dark is the best time.” He said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking food to my Grandma.”

“That’s wonderful. I’ll walk with you; there might be wolves around here.”

She hesitated again; she had heard the things that were said about the giant in the village. Things about his previous home and the Bad Things. Her Mother had said to stay away from him.

“No.” she said slowly, “I think I’ll be okay.”

He smiled down at her, “But you’re in danger.”

She started to back down the path, “I’ll be fine.”

He followed her, one of his steps equal to two of hers, “No, I really don’t think you will be.”

She started running before she even knew what she was doing, screeching like a bird on fire and tearing through the trees. He crashed after her, abandoning his axe.

He knew that he didn’t have to hurry.

She cried, she screamed, she ran, but he caught her and dragged her to him like a trapped butterfly caught in a net.

“Please, don’t, please,” she begged. But his face was like a stone mask; eyes glittering, he licked his lips and tore open her red coat. It lay on the ground under her like red wings. He pinned her arms with one beefy hand, and sat on her thrashing legs.

“Stop it, please stop!” Little Red cried, he tore open her dress and she screamed for her mother, over and over.

“Shut up.” He said as he slapped her sharply across the face. She stopped screaming with a choked gasp, but her tears kept flowing, washing clean tracks in the earth that had rubbed into her face.

She didn’t remember when he started on her, she just turned her head to the side and tried not to feel, tried not to think, tried not so smell…

She came back from the faraway haze where she tried to be nothing. She was lying on a carpet of churned pine needles, leaves, and rich earth. Her clothes were open, torn and ripped exposing pale flesh that still throbbed. Her beautiful red cape was filthy with earth but she still pulled it closed around her as she curled into a ball.

She smelled like him.

She could still feel him on her skin, in her mouth where he’d pushed his lips to hers, and worst of all inside of her. Where she couldn’t scrub clean, couldn’t get him out, where he had been that no one else had. How would she ever fix this?

A noise from the woods made her raise her head wearily. Because really, what worse thing could happen to her? In the brush in front of her she saw a glittering pair of eyes.

A wolf?

“Kill me!” she sobbed, “I might as well die.” She crawled towards the brush but the eyes had disappeared at her cries.

With hiccupping sobs she used a tree trunk to pull herself to her feet. She walked into the brush after the eyes that had disappeared.

She walked, and walked, and walked.

She wanted to sleep, but she remembered that there was a reason she had started walking. She couldn’t remember what it was, but there was a reason. Red kept her eyes glued to the ground as she plodded forwards, not noticing as night turned to day. Her legs were shaking with exhaustion when she walked into her grandmother’s yard.

Red looked around her in confusion, she’d been lost in the haze again and was surprised to recognize where she was. When she saw the small neat garden and the cottage she sobbed in anger and frustration.

“No!” she cried, “I was supposed to die, it was supposed to end!” She collapsed on her knees, “Please come back Wolf, please kill me!”

“Red?” her grandmother tottered out of the cottage, “Oh Little Red, thank goodness, I’ve been worried sick where have you been? What happened to your clothes?!”

Red turned a tearstained face to her grandmother, seeing her life fly before her eyes. Maybe the bad man would be caught but Red’s life would end. Maybe if she could forget, then it would all go away and she could find a little bit of peace. Peace didn’t seem possible after the hell she had been through, but maybe…maybe she could try.

“There was…” Red hesitated, “A wolf.”

“A wolf!” her grandmother squeaked, “That’s terrible; it’s incredible you escaped alive. Come in; let’s get you fixed up dear.

Yes. Incredible.

-Meghan