16

  Cody

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Susie said, clinging to the small dagger that Christian had made for her. We thought it only right she had a weapon for herself, especially after that business with the Piper. It’s like Christian said, we live in Nebraska, everyone in Nebraska has a gun, and that explains our low crime rate.

  “It’s Somewhere Else,” I said, “If Christian is right, any direction we go in is going to be the right way,” I looked around, the forest we had entered was getting thicker and darker, but the path stayed true leading us to our destination.

  “How do you know the wolf isn’t going to jump out and kill us, eat us,” Susie said.

  “Because we’re heroes, we’re not innocent little girls in need of rescue, we’re the ones who do the rescuing,” Christian said, “From what I’ve seen, read, about how this world works. That’s enough to tell me we’re going to be fine, this wolf doesn’t have a chance, not against us,” Christian drew his sword.

  We continued through the woods, I could hear rustling in the brush outside the path, I looked to Brad, and he heard it too. Our eyes kept darting to find each other’s like it was a third and goal play on the field. Such a short amount of time, but so many opportunities for us to check up on each other and size up the situation, whether I was about to throw him a bomb, or if we should draw our weapons. After a particular heavy and close rustle, we both drew our weapons, his mace, and my axe respectively.

  “Run!” Susie called out, jumping behind us as the mighty wolf leapt from the brush of the woods. The beast had to have stood eight feet tall on its hind legs. It’s fur a dark a malevolent shade of Grey, not Grey really, more like a mix of black and white hair that blended together in a way that tricked your mind into thinking it was grey. It had muscles so defined and tight on its body it looked like it had the physique of a star bodybuilder from our world. It had these long yellow claws on its feet and hands, curved and ready to slash and tear, no doubt sharp enough to rip our skin from our muscles if it was able to get a hit in on us.

  Christian dove forward and slashed his sword, gripping his hilt with both hands, and put a mighty slash in the wolf’s chest. The beast howled and it jumped to a tree, bouncing off it and leaping towards Susie, looking for another piece of easy redheaded prey. I leaped forward pushing her back with one hand as I swung my axe up with the other, giving it another gash and slash across its chest. I think I kicked its neck, it fell down and gasped out in a howl that was markedly more raspy then his last cry.

  I looked to Brad, and just like in that PLAY, he saw his opening, he was just as close as he needed to be to swing his mace and bash the thick kneecap of the creature, knocking it clean out of its socket. It took a stumble towards Susie, gasping again.

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  Susie just closed her eyes and holding her dagger tight in her hand just lashed out with it, stabbing the monster as many times as she could, she even caught him in the eye as he fell over. Collapsing as Christian approached it, writhing for its life, and keeping its paws to its face trying to protect itself.

  Christian, with careful precision to avoid the gut of the great wolf, and ran his sword right through his heart. Even through the garbling mess of the cut I put in his throat, the wolf roared out that one last time before falling.

  Christian was proven right again. We defeated the wolf, and not with that much effort. We really were heroes over here, and the heroes always win.

  Well, almost.

  Christian turned the wolf over, “Susie, give me your knife, there’s time, I know there’s time,” he said.

  “What?” Susie said.

  “Just give me your knife!” he said as he ran his hand over the big, thick gut of the creature. “Somethings moving, give it to me now,” he said again. Susie handed her blade to Christian, and he brought it down to the wolf’s sternum and carefully slit up the monster’s pelt and split its stomach open. He pulled the great slit open and inside, sure enough. Was a scared, wet, and bloodied little girl. A little girl with a red cape and hood, a little girl the wolf had eaten whole. Christian reached inside of the wolf’s belly, not caring about staining his wear or the ugliness of digging through a monster’s entrails, and he pulled Little Red Riding Hood out of the beast.

  It was, pretty graphic, pulling a little girl from the body of a monster. Definitely a sight bloodier then the average childbirth we watched in health class during Sex-Ed. The girl looked to be eight, maybe nine years old at most. And she was tiny at that. Christian helped her out of her little red hood and took his shirt and wiped some of the blood and mess from her face.

  “It’s okay, you’re rescued,” Susie said, approaching her “Do you know where you live?” she asked.

  Christian picked up the little girl and cradled her in his arms. She was breathing so fast, so hard, she just looked up and pointed, “That way,” she said, her lips quivering and her hand moving to rub her eyes as they readjusted to the light.

  “Okay, we’ll take you that way,” Susie said as she took the little girl from Christian.

  Christian went back to the wolf’s carcass, taking Susie’s knife and skinning the wolf, collecting its pelt.

  “What are you doing,” Susie asked, holding the little girl in her arms.

  “Pelt for proof, so people can rest easy knowing the beast is gone,” Christian said as he cut the last bit of tendon from the grey pelt, folding it over and tying it to his belt.

  We returned her to the village, we found her mother by the church, praying for her daughter’s safe return. Susie put the girl down and with all the strength she had left in her little legs she rushed to hug her mom.

  All of the town had seen us return with the little red hooded girl, saw us return as heroes.

  A man approached us, the woodsman from earlier, “You found the girl, but what of the beast?” he asked.

  “The beast is dead, by my blade,” Christian said, puffing his chest out and keeping his shoulder’s straight, he took the pelt and threw it to the man, “you need not worry about the evils of the woods anymore, the beast is dead,” he said.

  “Very well,” the woodsman put a thankful hand on Christian’s shoulder, “I’ll inform the Lord of this, he’ll want to know, I ask you, great traveler from that far off land of Nebraska, stay for tonight, we’ll hold a great feast in your honor, at the castle itself, mighty hero you must be if you can kill a beast so great.

  Christian smiled, turned to us, “Hope you guys are ready for a party, let’s get hammered, just have a good time, a good time as reward for doing good, nothing can beat that,” he smiled.