(A reimagining of a classic fairy tale)
Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Red.
Red lived in a small flat with her mother and father and her three siblings.
One day, Red’s mother, Joy, an auxiliary nurse who worked a permanent night shift at Lincoln Medical Centre, said to her daughter, “Red, I managed to steal these medicines from the hospital pharmacy this morning,” she paused, handing Red a paper bag. “Take them over to your grandma. I know Wednesday ain’t your normal visiting day, but a neighbour called me last night at work and told me grandma is feeling even more weak than usual, and these meds will help. I just don’t have the time to go. You’d better leave right now.”
Red’s grandmother, Martha, lived about ten blocks away in a small apartment in a rundown neighbourhood on East 163rd Street. Joy would have liked her mother-in-law to move in with them, but their cramped apartment was already too small for them all. In fact, Red’s parents had discussed the possibility of their daughter moving out as soon as she was eighteen in order to free up some room for the other younger kids.
Within a couple of blocks of her grandmother’s, a stranger fell in beside her as Red was passing through a dismal area of boarded-up windows and abandoned vehicles.
“Hey there!” he said brightly, with a disarming smile.
“Hi,” Red replied, quickly sizing him up. She reckoned he was about forty or fifty years old, but it was hard to gauge by his eyes as he wore dark sunglasses. He had a longish face, and his beard and moustache were bristly. Despite his unusual features, he had a pleasant manner.
“I’ve not seen you in this ‘hood before,” the man said.
“No, I don’t actually live ‘round here,” she said.
“Where are you off to, then?” the man enquired casually.
“To my grandmother’s,” Red answered, “she ain’t well. I’m gonna take her some meds.” She nodded down to the bag at her side.
“I’m Sorry to hear that,” he said in a caring tone. “Where does your grandma live?”
Red glanced at him warily before answering, but she was met with only an innocent, enquiring look. “About two blocks down, in the projects. I visit her every Sunday without fail,” she said, “but today my mum asked me to bring the medicines.”
“Okay. By the way, my name is Jacob. What’s yours?”
“My name’s Alice, but everyone calls me Red coz of the colour of my hair,” she replied.
“Well, this is me,” he said, pausing at a corner and nodding down the side street. “I hope your grandma gets well soon. ‘Bye, Red,” he smiled at her.
Red grinned back at him. “Thanks, Jacob… ‘bye,” she replied
***
Jacob followed Red, some distance behind her, occasionally crossing the road, always keeping her in sight.
She arrived at a scruffy tenement and stepped inside the graffiti-strewn portico. When she was out of sight, Jacob hurried across the street towards the building.
Jacob paused inside the doorway, wrinkling his nose at the stale smells of urine and vomit, and listened to the girl’s footsteps ascending the stairs.
Silently, he followed. On one landing, he paused, craning his neck around the corner, and on the floor above, he saw Red letting herself into a doorway. As the door closed, Jacob noted the number 3B and, with a wicked grin, quietly retraced his steps down the stairs and left the building.
***
The following Sunday, at around eight in the morning, Jacob knocked on the door of apartment 3B.
“Who is there?” spoke a frail voice from within.
“I am a friend of Red’s,” he called in a friendly tone. She asked me to pop by to check on you because you haven’t been so well lately.”
Jacob rested his ear against the door and could hear someone shuffling towards him. The peephole darkened from within, and Jacob gave his friendliest smile. The lock turned, and the door opened a crack.
The old woman peered at him through squinted eyes. “Who did you say you were?” she asked.
Without answering, Jacob pushed his way in, brusquely shoved the old woman to one side, and then slammed the door behind him.
“What do you want… who are you?” the old woman’s voice was quivering.
“I want your granddaughter,” Jacob hissed vehemently through bared teeth, “I want Red!”
Jacob grabbed the old woman, and although he doubted her vocal abilities, he clamped a hand over her mouth in case she screamed. He pulled a roll of duct tape from his pocket and quickly taped up the woman’s mouth. Jacob threw the old woman onto the bed and bound her wrists and ankles. Once she was secure, he bundled her into the small closet, pushing her into a sitting position on the floor. Jacob selected a frayed, diaphanous nightgown from the limited array of old clothes hanging over the woman’s head and shoulders. Before closing the closet door, he whipped the habitual hair net off the old woman’s head.
Jacob glanced out the window and drew closed the heavy curtains, plunging the room into virtual darkness. He opened the metal fuse box on the wall and flicked off the contact breakers, cutting power to all the lights.
After removing his clothes and stuffing them under the bed, he dressed in the nightgown, scrunched the hairnet onto his head, and climbed into the creaking bed, where he drew the bedcovers up to his neck. In a last-minute precaution, Jacob clicked the switch on the big, old-fashioned, brass bedside lamp to check. It did not light, and with a satisfied sigh, Jacob let his body relax, and there he rested in the faint twilight…waiting for Red to come and visit.
***
“Hi, Joy, where’s Red?” the girl’s father, Jack, asked as he plonked himself wearily onto a kitchen chair. Jack was a stevedore on the docks at Newark Bay and had just finished a long night shift.
“It’s Sunday, Jack. Have you forgotten? She’s gone to visit your mother, as usual,” Joy replied, turning from the sink with a tea towel in her hands.
“Oh yeah. Man, I am tired!” He yawned, then said, “I don’t like her going over there to Morrisania. It can be pretty risky in that ‘hood.”
“Well, why don’t you go with her, Jack?” the woman asked. “Martha is your mother, after all.”
“I know, but I never know what to say to the old girl these days,” the big man shook his head, “she just moans about her aches and pains and everything.”
“You could go occasionally… even just to accompany Red,” Joy remarked.
“Yeah, you’re right… but I am just so tired after working a twelve-hour night shift.” Jack rubbed a calloused hand over his face.
“How d’you think I feel, Jack… I do the same if you remember?” Joy flicked the towel at him. “Go on, it’s weeks since you visited your mother. You could catch up with Red.”
“Okay, well, I’ll go now before I fall asleep.”
Jack heaved his muscular frame out of the chair, retrieved his car keys and left the apartment.
***
Red slid the key into the lock of apartment 3B, turned it, and opened the door.
“Hi, Grandma. It’s me, Red!” she called as she removed the key. Finding the room in relative darkness, a frown spread quickly across her brow. Red flicked the light switch, but nothing happened.
“Grandma, are you okay?”
Her question was answered with a croaky murmur, “Come closer, Red, so I can hear you better.”
Red closed the door and stepped slowly towards the bed.
“What is wrong?” She asked, with a nervous quiver in her voice.
A low voice, faint and pained, answered her, “I need you, Red, come closer.”
“Your voice sounds strange, Grandma; what happened to you?” Red asked.
“Come closer, dear, so I can see you better,” came a hoarse whisper.
She approached the bed and could make out the vague form of her grandmother under the covers.
A hand slipped out from under the bedcover. The girl patted the hand gently. “Oh, Grandma. Your skin is so tight and rough; whatever is the matter?”
Before Red could react, the hand clamped around her wrist, the covers were thrown back, and Red fell back onto the floor under the weight of the figure that had leapt out of her grandmother’s bed.
Jacob released her wrist and clamped his hand over Red’s mouth. His other hand held a knife against her throat.
“If you scream, I will kill you and your precious grandma,” Jacob said menacingly, “do you understand?”
Red nodded as best she could, and the man removed his hand from her mouth, but the knife blade remained pressed against her throat. Her eyes had now become accustomed to the gloom, and even though he was bizarrely dressed in a voluminous nightdress and flowery hairnet, Red recognised the man as Jacob, who she had met a few days before. Red was about to speak, but Jacob pressed the knife harder against her skin.
“Don’t struggle or speak, or I will kill you. Now, stand up and remove your clothes.”
He took the knife away from her throat, and Red stood up, whimpering and shaking.
“I am serious, girl,” he snarled, “I will kill you if you don’t do as I say.”
Red began to undress, her wet eyes fixed on the knife blade held inches from her face, and soon, she was standing there in just her bra and panties.
Jacob loosened the ties on the nightgown and let it fall to the floor. Red noticed with growing terror that he was now completely naked, and his large penis was erect and threatening, growing out of a bush of hair as thick and bristly as that on his face.
Holding the knife at arm’s length towards her, he stepped out of the crumpled nightdress and moved to the window, where he pulled the curtains apart a fraction… just enough to let in some more light.
Still waving the knife at Red, Jacob opened the door to the closet. Red turned her head slightly. She uttered a stifled cry when she caught a glimpse of her bound and gagged grandmother, squashed down on the floor of the cramped space.
“One single word out of you, and she gets this,” Jacob snarled, tapping the blade on the grandmother’s sparse grey hair. The old woman flinched and whimpered behind her gag.
He closed the closet door again and stepped back towards the girl.
Red could smell him now, his sweat, a feral odour—like the smell of a deep forest on a damp morning.
He hooked the sharp knife under her bra strap and sliced through the material. The bra slipped down on that side, exposing Red’s small, teenage breast.
“What nice little titties you have,” Jacob drooled as he peered closely at a rosy nipple with mean, slitted eyes.
The girl bit her lip, stopping herself from crying or screaming. Jacob moved the blade down and hooked the tip into the elastic of the girl’s knickers, just below her belly button. He stretched it away from her pale skin and tilted his head to stare into the gap. “What a nice little pussy you have,” he said.
The girl was shaking in terror and on the verge of collapse.
But at that very moment, just as the elasticity was about to surrender to the edge of the sharp blade, there was a banging on the front door, and a loud voice, very familiar to her, called out, “Hey Martha… it’s me, Jack! Red! Its dad. Are you in there?”
Red, unable to contain herself any longer, screamed loudly, “Daddy, help!” She pushed against Jacob’s chest with both hands, launching herself backwards across the bed. She bounced once on the mattress, back-flipped and landed with a bone-jarring thump on the floor on the far side.
“He’s got a knife!” she screamed, “help daddy!”
Even before Red had finished yelling those last words, the front door crashed open; the lock ripped out of the wooden frame. Light flooded in from the hallway, and Jack stumbled into the room, immediately taking in the figure of the naked man with the knife and the startling red hair of his daughter, just visible over the top of the mattress on the other side of the bed. Without pausing in his forward motion, Jack ploughed into the naked man, heedless of the slashing knife. Even as the blade cut his upper arm, Jack wrestled the assailant to the floor, punching him hard several times in the face, splitting his lips and breaking his nose. Jack wrested the knife out of the man’s grasp.
Jacob, naked as he was, squirmed under Jack’s weight and managed to slip out from under, but before he could get up, Jack plunged the knife deep into the man’s rib cage. Blood spurted out of the wound, and Jacob howled in pain and fear, writhing on the floor.
Jack clambered to his feet and leaned over the bed. “You okay, Red?” he asked quickly, looking down at his cowering daughter. The girl looked up into her father’s face and nodded.
“Where’s Martha?” Jack asked.
She nodded towards the closet, “Grandma’s in there, but she’s okay, I think.”
Jack stepped towards the closet, but the wounded Jacob reached out, grabbed Jack’s ankle and tripped him over. Jack fell forward with a crash, and the knife skidded away. Jacob sprang and snatched it up, his left hand still clutching his side, blood flowing from between his fingers.
Jack rolled over in time to see Jacob lurching above him with the blade raised high… and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the heavy brass bedside lamp come crashing down onto the back of Jacob’s head.
Jacob dropped to the floor.
Now standing on the bed, Red let the badly dented remains of the lamp fall from her hands. She sank into a sitting position on the bed, her eyes staring in horror at the bloody mess that she had made of Jacob’s scalp. Jack got up, kicked the knife out of Jacob’s hand, and put a comforting arm around Red’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, honey,” he purred gruffly, stroking her hair, “he’s out like a light.”
Jack grinned briefly at his own pun, but before Red could get the humour, there came an awful groaning from Jacob. Blood was flowing from both the knife wound in his side and the jagged hole in the back of his head. He had regained consciousness.
“Daddy, look at all the blood. He’s gonna die,” Red whimpered.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jack said, frowning, “and good riddance… but I’ll phone the police from the call box in the hallway… if it is working,” he added.
But before Jack could move, Jacob suddenly jerked and shuddered, and before their eyes, he began to change. His body twisted and writhed, his knuckles flexed and cracked, the metacarpals elongated, and his hands became like claws. Jacob craned his neck, groaning between clenched jaws; veins and sinews stood out like thin ropes, and knobs of vertebrae began to protrude as the skin of his spine stretched over them. Jacob’s split lips, now stretching around a bloody, slowly extending muzzle, drew back in a terrible grimace, contorting and snarling, to reveal long white canine teeth. Brindle hair sprouted from his calves and forearms.
Jack tightened his grip around Red’s shoulders, pulled her off the bed, grabbed her dress and withdrew to the other side of the room, keeping a wary eye on the thing that had been Jacob.
The girl was shaking with shock, and Jack was stunned into silence, but neither could tear their gaze away from the horrible transformation that was taking place before their very eyes.
Jacob’s ears, hairy now, stretched into points; the bones of his legs took on an awkward distorted aspect; his metatarsals grew in length; bones and sinew audibly creaked as he stood up on all fours. As he transmogrified, coarse grey hair rapidly sprouted all over his body until he was covered in thick fur.
And yet, all the time, dark blood flowed freely and incessantly from his wounds, spreading out over the bedroom floor and soaking into the threadbare carpet.
Just at the very moment the huge wolf became complete in all its feral magnificence, lifted its head, and gave a fearful, haunting howl, it collapsed back onto the floor, exhausted from the metamorphic exertions and weak from the profuse and continuing loss of blood.
And there, lying on its side on a bloody rug in apartment 3B, in a tatty building on East 163rd Street, Jacob died.
Jack leaned against the bedroom wall in stunned silence as Red dressed herself. Seconds later, a muffled knocking from the closet caught Jack’s attention, and giving the dead wolf a wide berth, he went to release his mother from captivity.
Once the tape was removed from her mouth and the old woman sat in her overstuffed armchair, she recovered quickly. Glancing down at the dead and bloody beast, to the utter surprise of Jack and Red, the old woman remarked stoically, “So, a wolfman, eh? I always knew they existed, even in the city’s dark places, but never thought I would actually see one in my apartment.”
Jack just stared at his mother in amazement.
“What are we going to do, Daddy?” Red asked, with her arm around her grandma’s bony shoulders. “Will you still call the police?”
“No, honey. I’ll dump this dead canine in the alley, out back, and make an anonymous call to the city sanitation department.” He shook his head. “And that will have to be the end of it… and the end of this story. Are we clear?”
Red nodded, gazing at the wolf with a mixture of revulsion and sadness.
Jack turned to his mother, “And you, Martha… my dear old mother, you are going to come and live with us!” he said pointedly.
And she did.
And they all lived happily ever after.
[Image Credit : Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash]
As a freelance writer, Steve Foreman has been published since 1994 in several UK and African print magazines, including BBC Wildlife magazine, Soldier magazine, Combat & Survival magazine, SCUBA magazine, Church of England Newspaper, African Travel Review magazine, Land Rover World magazine, Your Dog magazine, Travel News and Lifestyle magazine (Kenya), What’s Happening in Dar (Tanzania), Tantravel (Tanzania); The Dar Guide (Tanzania), Daily Mail newspaper (UK), and others.
Several of his horror/paranormal/bizarre tales have been published in print and e-zines, including; Blood Moon Rising (issue 56 – 2014); Hellfire Crossroads (Vol 2 – 2014); Aphelion (2014/02); Twisted Dreams (2015); The Were Traveller (2015)
Steve Foreman has also had short stories published in the following print anthologies:
“Bones III” (James Ward Kirk Publishing – 2014); “Amok!” (April Moon Books – 2014); “Ill Considered Expeditions” (April Moon Books – 2015); “Between the Cracks” (Siren’s Call Publications – 2015)’ “The Grays” (James Ward Kirk Publishing – 2015);
