The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Dead, Red, and More to Dread

By Sheila Hite



Once upon a recent time, in a land as far away as your mind wanders during math class, there was a lycan Wolf named Seth. Seth was mad at himself for his monestrous capabilities as a Werewolf, and decided the world was better off without someone like him. Seth was contemplating the oh-so-rosy prospects of suicide, when he spied a little girl walking alone through the woods...



Meanwhile, Grandma Rorecros was missing the company of her dead boyfriend Navi Esproc.

Why did she move out here into this accursed shack in the woods? There were no night clubs to party down in for miles– not even a Freak Mart!



She was just thinking of digging up Navi’s body when a handsome stranger with the most beautiful white teeth greeted her at the door. Grandma was on that dashing lycan like grease on a Big Mac. Seth tried to remain polite and casual while tying up this grandma, yet he couldn’t help but feel agitated as her wrinkly wet lips pressed against his fuzzy cheek.



Grandma, now convinced that Seth was indeed the type to play hard-to-get, started billowing from the top of her lungs. Obviously to us, there is nothing more annoying than a delusional old woman belting her rendition of some Elvis hit. The Wolf found out firsthand just how painful this is, and proceeded to bite her head off. Looking back I think she didn’t mind that much.



Unfortunately in this case, grandmas are not very tasty. Seth stuffed the rest of her headless body in the shower–mostly because she needed the bath anyway. He then proceeded to her bed, in which he found an alarmingly copious supply of morphine. A chill went down his hardy spine as he heard a soft ‘rap-a-tap-tap-tap’ on the windowpane next to him. He turned his head slowly to look through the window... there was no one. Only the rustle of trees.



About an hour later, when the sun was dipping low, he heard another low ‘rap-a-tap’–this time on the front door. He eased himself out of bed and forced open the heavy wooden door. Nothing. No one. He returned to the comfort of the window side bed, looking outside as the brilliant autumn colors slowly faded into the darkness of a forest after sunset. This was a tranquil location, in a way–not for party grandma, but Seth felt sort of ... cozy? For the first time in a long time he was not afraid that he might be a threat to the world.



And then it came. A crack like thunder against the back of his head. Someone WAS knocking on that wall... and they wanted inside. The Wolf rushed outside in a flurry of blankets, determined to apprehend the one who knocked. Looking outside he saw the bright moon glaring down at him- yellow and full. He could feel a rush of new blood through his body as he stretched his emerging claws in a skyward salute.







There came a laugh. A resounding chortle of malicious energy flowing into the very air of the night, emanating from a delicate red-cloaked child. A girl not yet twelve years of age, standing there clutching a cookie round and pale like a star. A basket was slung across her shoulder, and an expression of dark intelligence was written across her snow white face. “Grandma” She whispered in a waspish tone, “I need your head to feed you cookies...”



The Wolf was caught off his guard. This scarlet fiend was advancing faster, and faster still.

“You poisoned those cookies!” He screamed at her, not knowing what he was facing off with. “What kind of a monster are you- you would have killed your own Grandmother!”



“I should have killed her if you wouldn’t have butchered her!” She retorted quietly to the shaking grey Wolf. “Killed her so she could be free forever–with her true love Navi, my darling mother... and me. The Blood Convinere of the Riding Hoods would have gladly welcomed her- but now you, you stupid lycan, have condemned her to a headless eternity!”



It slowly sank in. Seth was right all along- he was a menace to everything and anyone he encountered. His birth, his life, his plans... even his suicide attempt with the drugged cookies- ending in nothing but misery. There was a visible body in the trees: white, and red, and headless, and dead. It made a soft crunch-crackle-crunch sound as it crawled like a worm through the decaying leaves.



There was a loud crash, the glimmer of a silver axe, and Seth was the world’s curse no more.

The Woodman of Riding Hills Forest left none alive after his enchanted nightly escapade, and his axe dripped black blood in the silent darkness of a cottage deep in the woods. The body is no more, but the curses remain... and if you see four hills in a deserted wood, one beyond the other three, do remember to hold your head on tight.