The Red Hood

3 - Proceed with Caution

Red froze to the spot. A lightning bolt could've been about to strike her down or a tornado about to whisk her away, but it didn't matter. She had distance between herself and this creature who used to be her granny, but no idea if a sudden movement would make the situation better or worse. 

She was too afraid to find out.

Her grandmother barely moved, merely shifted slightly in her spot, half panting, half wheezing as everything in her sight blurred into the background. Everything but Red, who was thrown into an aggressive, threatening light, protruding from the otherwise stale scene as an incoming hostile intruder. This registered in Granny's mind like a security alarm blaring relentlessly, and she could no longer stand still.

For a second, as Red stood her ground, muscles tensed, a mild wind made its way through the yard. The relaxing sound of thousands of leaves rustling against one another reached Red's ears, coming from the enormous oak tree standing a few feet away. From an onlooker's perspective, it might have almost seemed like a serene and peaceful scene. Red wished this could be true, although this was not simply a storybook with a snapshot of a single pleasant moment. A photo may capture the before or the after, but often not both. This scenario certainly wasn't any different.

Suddenly, without warning, Granny squealed with rage and plunged through the window, producing a waterfall of glass in her wake. 

The young girl exhaled audibly in fear and spun around almost uncontrollably, her legs pinwheeling beneath her. She kept her eyes pinned forward, her cape flapping like a flexible fabric wing behind her head as she bolted away from the cottage. She knit her brow and scrunched her eyes shut once again as a manic growl hurtled toward her. The clomping feet of the creature behind her heavily padded the grass, the stones, and then the dirt path Red followed. She knew she could hide in the woods, but whether or not she would make it there was the question.

A fountain of saliva plastered the lower half of Granny's face and her eyelids slammed open like her eyeballs wanted to jump out of their sockets. Her withered, gnarly hands hovered in front of her, zombie-like. 

Red took a quick peek over her shoulder, then shouted, "Granny! Why are you doing this!"

Her grandmother kept coming, unfazed and appearing to not have registered her granddaughter's concerned words. 

Granny clenched her teeth and exhaled forcefully, a trail of mucus and blood escaping from her nostrils as she put on a burst of speed. Red stifled a shudder, turned back around, and pressed onward. 

The woods were coming into view now, but Granny was also closing in. The patch of woods they were approaching in particular was especially shady due to the thick growth and accumulated layers of tree branches and leaves overhead. For some people, this section was almost as dark as night. With Red's young eyes, she could read a book curled up in a cave or huddled under a blanket. 

Before long, the girl finally pressed beyond the great trunks, brush, and pricker bushes bordering the edge of the woods. Her granny careened from side to side attempting to go around all of it, but the woods stretched too wide in either direction. With a howl she halted before breaching the treeline, standing menacingly with her back arched, teeth bared, and clothing in a state like she'd come out of a horror movie. 

Granny then stood grumbling for a few moments. As Red remained hidden behind the base of an uprooted tree, the elder shook her head, slouched in defeat, and slumped away.

When her grandmother was out of range, Little Red let out a sigh of relief and slapped her palm on her forehead, not sure how to differentiate the possible from the impossible anymore. She could never have predicted this turn of events. 

"What do I do?" she groaned, her head now in her hands. "What do  I do!" Red yelled to no one, a small flock of sparrows flurrying out from behind a patch of ferns. She let her hands flop to her sides and paced back and forth, trying to figure out how to proceed. This was not something she ever thought she would encounter, something nobody would think they'd ever encounter. And why to her? What did she do to deserve this? And why her precious, harmless granny? Maybe this was fate, but Red refused to believe it.

As the girl continued fumbling over her thoughts, she caught a glance of the sky and noticed the sun was starting to dip below the horizon and the light was growing dimmer just outside the dense woods. If she was going to think this over and figure out a plan, it had to be from somewhere safe, like home.

As a cool breeze brushed across Red's smooth skin, a shiver crawled down her spine, and so she started following the winding path back to her house an hour's journey away. Her mom was probably worried sick about her, but Red failing to be punctual wasn't even close to the worst part about her trip. There was too much to try and understand, and Red had no idea if that time was limited and where her granny might strike next.