• "And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up. " -Charles Perrault's beloved story, Little Red Riding Hood, penned in 1697.

    tab You all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, in which a helpless little girl ventures out to her grandmother's cottage to bestow upon her various baked goods from Little Red's mother. She strays off the path into the forest and meets a wolf. Then he gobbles up her granny and also, as you can see from the above quote, eats our beloved heroine.
    tab But you should also know that that isn't true.
    tab No, I was not 8 years old (at least not when I found her grandma's mutilated corpse sitting on the floor of her spacious living room as if it was perfectly normal). I was 16 years old at that point.
    tab And no, I wasn't helpless. I was (and am) badass, if I do say so myself.
    tab And finally, I'm not named Little Red Riding Hood. My name is Scarlet Coghlan (I'm of Irish descent, and proud of it!)
    tab The words to follow will tell my true story, and will hopefully clear up any misconceptions you have about me.

    tab The first time I encountered the wolf, I was 8 years old. Young and naive, I actually allowed my mother to send me to granny's house alone. And it wasn't over the river and through the woods, mind you, but onto a bus, 2 miles on foot through a concrete jungle, and into a taxi driven by a smelly fat man with a personality reminiscient of Archie Bunker all the way up the hour-long dirt road through the mountains. It's a lot more complicated than they made it sound in that song.
    tab But I digress.
    tab As I was walking the last stretch to g-ma's, there he was, hiding in the bushes lining the path.
    tab I, naturally, was scared as hell.
    tab "WOLF!!!" I shrieked so loud that any living creature in the vicinity was probably temporarily deaf. It should be quite obvious that neither my mother, my father, my granny, nor did any other trusted adult teach me wilderness safety.
    tab My scream clearly disturbed the wolf, because he poked his head out of the bush. He didn't look scared or angry, but like he'd just seen something he wanted to have. And suddenly, I didn't feel like going to grandma's at all.

    tab On a warm summer day, my lazy-a** mother sent me to my grandma's house to give her a basket of baked goods. Like mom couldn't do it herself. What kind of crap was she trying to pull?
    tab Despite my "meh", "why?", and "aargh"-ings, I was still forced to go. Now that I was old enough to drive, I didn't have to take the long, tedious route I did in my childhood. So I took the freeway, then turned on the long dirt road leading to gran's cheerful little cottage.
    tab Everything was going great until I ran out of gas. I know you're probably saying to yourself, "Hey, couldn't she just walk to a gas station or something?" Nopers. I was on a one-way unpaved road to nowhere. (Except for my grandmother's house.)
    tab Because of my shituation, it was either hoof it to her house or sit on the side of the road waiting for a car to come by. I, being the lazy bum that I was, chose the latter.
    tab After two hours of utter boredom, plenty of thumb twiddling, and counting all of the freckles on my pinkish skin, my teenage knight in shining armor arrived. But instead of a noble steed, his preferred method of transportation was a black 'Stang covered in witty bumper stickers. He must've noticed my spastic arm-waving, because he pulled over and came out to meet me.
    tab As soon as he got out of the car, I noticed his peculiar appearance. He had snow-white hair, ivory skin and violet eyes that seemed to be able to delve into your subconcious mind and uncover your fears, secrets, and thoughts. But within those eyes were also a haunting sense of lonliness.
    tab All this made him pretty damn hot.
    tab He probably also noticed me and my red-headdedness, as he was staring me up and down. We both stared at each other for a few seconds before breaking the awkward silence.
    tab "Car trouble?" he asked in a voice that could launch a thousand catfights.
    tab "Yeah," I answered timidly.
    tab "Do you need a ride? Where are you headed?"
    tab "Oh, erm..." I spaced out for a moment, realizing that getting into his car would break my mom's overprotective getting in cars with cars with boys rule, "I'm going to my gran's house just up the road."
    tab "You mean old Mrs. Coghlan?"
    tab "You know her?"
    tab "Yeah, everybody does! If you want, you can drive up to her house in my car."
    tab "Oh, you don't have to do that-"
    tab He tossed me his keys.
    tab "Nah, I'm fine. I'll call a tow truck for your car. Have fun."
    tab Before I could respond, he smiled and walked away.

    tab It felt so weird driving in a stranger's car. As the area around the dirt road started getting foresty, a troublesome thought popped into my head. I didn't know his name! I pulled over to the side of the road to search for some kind of identification. I continued until sunset, at which point I gave up.
    tab But before I started driving again, I got out and lay on my back to look at the sky. Although many philosophical thoughts crossed my mind, a most eerie thought occured. The clouds circling the full moon created a creepy glow. For some reason this unsettled me, and I got back into the car, buckled my seatbelt, and put the pedal to the metal.
    tab After half an hour of driving, I finally reached her teeny tiny shack. But I immediately knew something was wrong. Instead of having her curtains open, they were shut and the lights were out. Grandma knew I was coming, so she wouldn't be in bed this early.
    tab Imagine one of those really crappy scary movies where the teenage girl goes into a house and you're screaming, "No! Don't go in there!!!" That, at the moment, was me. I opened the door a crack and cautiously called for my grandmother. But all I recieved back was silence, so I spoke again, except louder.
    tab "Grandma...? I brought you a basket of.... stuff... like cookies... cupcakes... cinnamon rolls.... All of that crap..."
    tab She still didn't answer, so I let myself in. The metallic odor of dried blood pervaded the air, but I tried not to ralph. After all, I didn't think grandma would like her antique vase filled with stomach acid and chunks of the various components of my "nutricious" meals.
    tab By then, I was pretty worried that there was a psycho killer in the house, so I went into her shed and grabbed a scythe. I felt like a kickass grim reaper. Back into the house I went, poised to fight. Well, more like pass out. But I was being courageous enough, right?
    tab I crept around the house looking for my grandma. When I opened the door to her en suite bathroom, I found her. Too bad she was dead. Her facial features were barely recognizable at this point, because they'd been eaten off. With surgical precision, her stomach had been slit open, and her guts were spilling out. Her skull had been hit against the bathtub and broken into pointy shards, and part of her brain had been eaten. Now was the time to throw up and pass out.
    tab I don't know how long I was unconcious, but when I woke up, a huge, hulking white wolf with purple eyes pounced on me. He was snarling and ripping at my supple skin with his bloody fangs for about 5 minutes. I was prepared to die, but eventually he stopped. After staring at me for a few minutes
    tab I barricaded granny's bedroom door with a dresser and put the sickle through the handle, because I needed to sleep. I figured that I'd go home at the break of dawn. I climbed onto the bed and cried myself to sleep.

    tab When I awoke the next morning, I scanned the house for the wolf. Much to my surprise, instead of my little furry friend, I found the guy that let me borrow his car. And he was nude. He woke up to me staring at him with a confused/amused/horrified/horny/suprised look on my face.
    tab "What the HELL are you doing here?" I asked, bewildered.
    tab "I don't-" he must've realized he was unclothed because he turned scarlet and slunk under a blanket.
    tab "Y'know what? I'm gonna leave the room and you're going to get dressed. And then I have some serious questions for you." I calmly stated.
    tab "Okay..."
    tab So he showered, got dressed, and met me in the den.
    tab "So, what's your name?" I asked.
    tab "Finnian Wolfe."
    tab Quelle suprise.
    tab "Okay, Finnian. Are you an albino?"
    tab "....Seriously?"
    tab "Yes."
    tab "I am an albino."
    tab "All right. Now let's get to the serious stuff. Did you kill my granny?"
    tab "....Yeah. I couldn't help it. I'm a werewolf, and occasionally, I turn wolfy. I'm sorry."
    tab "Okay."
    tab "OKAY? I murdered your GRANDMA, and all you say is OKAY?"
    tab "Yeah. She was suicidal. She kept telling me that she'd off herself tomorrow, her 80th birthday. And that would've caused a lot of stress for my family. More than neccessary. Being murdered is a lot better than a committal of hari-kiri."
    tab "Wow. Heavy stuff, man. Heavy stuff. So you really forgive me?"
    tab I punched him in the jaw as hard as I possibly could.
    tab "Not completely. But you have to help me report her death."
    tab "Like we just walked in here and found her like that? That's just wrong. We can't do that."
    tab "It's my grandmother."
    tab "Okay. Whatever you want."
    tab So we ended up framing the woodcutter for her murder. Her body was buried in the local cemetary. Every year I go to the cemetary to lay a new silk bouquet at her headstone.
    tab As for Finnian and I? We've been dating for the 5 years since her death, and we're getting married this spring.
    END