She had other hoods. Every full moon she slipped off the raven black one and danced naked in the woods. The yellow hood's brightness turned the slow-moving stream near her mother's cottage into frothing, scalding water, boiling the fish alive, and releasing in steaming rainbow vapors pathogens from a rotted fawn's head stuck in streambed manure.
The red hood had its purpose. She wore it when angry.
While holding a skinned rabbit in one hand and a bloody butcher's knife in the other, her mother again told her not to take a shortcut through the woods.
"You know it's dangerous."
Little Red put on her red hood, then slammed the cottage door behind her. Stomping through the dark forest of hanging spiders, gleefully squashing large slugs with her bare feet, she suddenly stopped.
"What's in the basket, little girl?" the Wolf asked in a soft purring voice.
"Rolls. Freshly baked. Don't they smell good? You can have one."
"No wine or cake, too bad," the Wolf sighed, adjusted his pink bowtie, and smiled, all fangs.
"I'm going to my grandmother's house," Little Red said. "She never gets out of bed, just sleeps and eats. Pieces of her would go down easy, you'd hardly have to chew, she's as soft as butter. We'll make a game of it. Gobble her up, put on her nightgown, and when I get there, I'll pretend I don't know it's you. I'll say, Grandmother, what big eyes you have. Won't that be fun? You won't eat me because you'll be full from eating her. She must weigh 200 pounds. You'll have lots of leftover meat!"
"I like to snack," the Wolf answered. With one large bite, he swallowed Little Red whole.
A Woodsman saw what had happened and sliced the Wolf down the middle. When Little Red stepped out, he dropped his ax and ran.
Deformed by the Wolf's stomach acid, her melted flesh dangling from bones nattily dressed in shreds of her red hood, Little Red waited in the forest for people to eat.
Her mother, out hunting rabbits, the first.
The Woodsman found in Little Red something transcending physical appearance. He saw beauty in her hunger. In love with her, he brought her dinner by guiding mushroom hunters to where she waited.
Grandmother sewed the Wolf back up. They married, drank wine, and ate cake together in bed. On Sundays they played euchre with the Woodsman and Little Red.
Everyone, except those eaten, lived happily ever after.
Courtesy: Flash Fiction Magazine 
