Weekly Short Story

"Red Riding Hood: A Parody of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown"
by E.S. Hudler - www.loftlore.com (continued from the newsletter)

"The sun is all but gone, Red Riding Hood, and pray tell what is in the basket?"

"Tis only food for my sainted Grandmother, who has been kind to me all my life, and to whom I'm tasked to fetch a meal."

"No, say you! And doubtless only good things would you so convey, for do you not worship her as an old friend?"

"Leave me your questions, you devilish cur, and I will not travel with the likes of your evil self! Begone before I call my Cutter with his gleaming ax!"

So he, knowing a thing, ran ahead to that place wherein Grandmother lived, He knocked on the old, withered door and paused. "Who might it be?" spoke a voice faint and frail.

"Only me, Red Riding Hood," he cried out in a mournful yet high voice. "I have toiled through the wicked forest to bring you a pleasant repast. Pray let me in so that I may with a clear conscience see you well fed."

Though curious at Red Ridings Hood's strange tone, Grandmother slowly opened the door, unknowing that a beastly shadow crouched without.

In the fiend leapt, all in a rage, laughing more frightfully than would a howling demon! "Now you are lost, pious Grandmother, and I shall eat you down to your very bones! Ha!"

Grandmother set forth shouting, a frightful, desperate noise, but soon the room echoed with the hideous sounds of demoniac feeding.

And now the forest at night gave forth Red Riding Hood at the door of the now truly sainted Grandmother. Her soft, loving knocking mingled poorly with the dreadful sounds of the denizens of the night.

The abomination within, now bound in the garb of the heaven sent Grandmother, leapt into the bosom of the bed. "Come in, my child," said he, an evil apparition in the guise of a righteous woman.

Was this her loved Grandmother, this misshapen hag she strained to behold? "If thou be my virtuous Grandmother, why doest thou have such big ears?"

"Tis for the better to hear you with, my child," lied the deceiving, miserable figure.

"Can this be so?" said Red Riding Hood with doubtful expression. "And howbeit that thine eyes seem so big?"

"Tis for the better to see you with, my child," canted the hypocritical serpent.

"So sayest you!" returned the now frightened Red Riding Hood. With fear frozen steps, she moved forward and whispered with quivering voice, "And howbeit that thou have such big teeth?"

"Tis for the better to eat you with!" vented the evil beast, bursting forth from the bed in a hail of froth and yellowed fangs! Red Riding cried in deepest despair, "Cutter, my husband with the gleaming ax, save my virtuous life!"

At that moment Cutter did appear, and there he stood in the door and shouted, "Down boy! Bad dog! Didest I not tell thee to but guard my holy wife, and to keep her safe?"

"Dearest Red Riding Hood," offered the woodsman, gazing at his goodwife while holding his gleaming ax, "Doest thou not like my new pet?"

Alas she did not, and her days thereafter became misery, Often at night she did shrink away from her husband, Cutter, and from his gleaming ax. Her song of life became an anthem of misery and she died in bitter gloom.

 

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