Story - Little Red

Synopsis: A horror retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

A/n: I wrote this short story on a whim. ^_^

In her dreams, she is always running.

She knows not what from – only that she must not ever, ever get caught.

Every time unconsciousness beckons, she fades, and she appears at the well-trodden path of the forest. It always starts with the same prickling feeling at the back of her neck, the rustle of bushes, the peculiar light-headed sensation that accompanies people in dreams…

And then it snarls and she starts running.

Every night for the last fifteen years.

She’s eighteen when her parents move to the little village to look after her dying grandmother. Every Sunday her Mama and Papa send her off into the forest with a basket of already-cooked vegetables, bread, soup and medicine to tend to the elderly woman. They insist that she never eats any of the food, that it’s only for grandma, or she’ll get very angry.

“Oh, Little Red, what have you brought for this old lady today?”

Her grandma looks frail as porcelain, with nearly transparent skin and hair and very little fat on her bones. Yet she’s surprisingly robust for her shape.

Then, it’s her grandma’s one hundredth birthday. Her parents tell her to go, not giving her a basket, saying that her grandma will already have food at the cabin when she arrives.

When she steps into the forest, the back of her neck prickles, the bushes rustle, and she feels a little light-headed. So she runs.

She doesn’t even notice when her hood falls to her shoulders. She just runs to the cabin on the other side of the woods and barges inside, slamming the door behind her. For she must never, ever stop running.

A knock sounds hollowly behind her.

“Oh, Little Red, open up for this old lady, today.”

So she’s stopped running.

A snarl, a scream, and then silence.