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Little Dead Red Chapter One
CHAPTER ONEGrim Marie’s mother was dying. She had been dying for several years now, off and on, but this time seemed like it might actually be THE TIME.“I’m not ready for you to go, Mama,” Marie whispered to nobody in particular. She was putting together a basket for her mother, full of treats and homemade breads and jams. Grim Marie liked to cook. It set things right in her mind. She spent the morning pressing flour, salt, eggs, and water together to form noodles. She rolled them into dough. Cut them into strings. Let them dry around the tiny apartment like Christmas tinsel made of carbohydrates. Spider webs of love.“Talking to yourself again?” Aleta appeared in the doorway. Her dark eyes were lined in black. She’d pierced her nose and lip and dimple. She had tried her tongue but regretted it almost immediately.Marie tried to smile at her, but her lips didn’t quite work right. She felt them twist and shape themselves into something almost eerie. She let the attempted smile f
Little Dead Red Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWOMarie did, indeed, take a bath. Such a luxury, time spent on herself when she should have been cleaning, or catching up on that night’s batch of work, or taking the soup to her mother with Aleta. But she didn’t. She did neither of those things. She pinned her dark hair up. It was thick and streaked with gray, but sometimes it still managed beauty. She liked to think so, anyway, when she caught unexpected glimpses of herself in mirrors and store windows.“I don’t look half bad,” she sometimes mused, and very nearly tossed her head. If she did so, perhaps her hair would fall over one eye. Perhaps it would hide the heavy circles under it, the weariness that peered out of her irises. Perhaps somebody’s eyes would be drawn to that rather foppish section of hair instead of the worry lines around her mouth.Worry lines. Not laugh lines. Grim Marie knew this, knew there was a difference. She knew she wore her station and her sorrows on her face like other ladies wore fine hats
Little Dead Red Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREEMarie arrived at her mother’s hospital room with her hair slightly damp from the rejuvenating-bath-that-wasn’t.“Hi, Mom.”Her mother’s gentle face lit up. It was like opening the window and leaning outside into the morning air. Marie fairly breathed her in.“Darling! What a nice surprise!”“Surprise? Didn’t Aleta tell you I was right behind her?”“Who?”Marie sighed.“They’re giving you too many medications, Mom. Where is Aleta? Did she run to the restroom?” The old woman reached out and grasped Marie’s fingers.“I love when you come to visit, darling. Brightens up my day.”“I love coming, too. So tell me how you’re feeling.”Marie leaned back in her too-stiff hospital chair and listened to her mother chatter on about things like the life cycle of Painted Lady butterflies and who was doing who wrong on her latest soap opera. It killed her to hear this . . . this prattle, because this wasn’t who her mother was. Talk on international travel politics, sure. Dis
Little Dead Red Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOURThat night seemed unusually cold. If Grim Marie had friends, they could have come to stay with her while she worried and fretted over Aleta’s disappearance. They would have discussed how the thermos came out of her pack. Was it torn open? Did she open it herself? Was she perhaps willing to share the soup, which meant that perhaps the person was kindly? Was this just a misunderstanding? Perhaps she took the wrong bus. Or got off and wandered away to something a little more exciting than a sick grandmother. Maybe there was a boy.Marie desperately, desperately hoped there was a boy.The friends she didn’t have would have surrounded her and offered their assurances. “It’ll be fine,” they would have said. “She’ll come home. Oh, how you’ll tan her hide when she does!”But there were no friends. Nobody to help and comfort, guide and muse. Nobody to tuck Marie in when it became too much. Nobody to brush her hair and make sure she took something to calm her nerves. Nobody to
Little Dead Red Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVEThe second she saw the policeman, the look in his dark eyes, her hand flew to her mouth.“Ma’am, we believe we found your daughter.”Two months had passed. Two months of looking out the window and doors and standing on the front porch in the wind and rain and sunshine, just in case Aleta forgot what home looked like. If her little girl happened to wander by, confused, looking at houses and front porches and trying to remember which apartment had been hers, why, there would be her mother! To love and hold and greet her. To smooth her hair back from her eyes and promise she’d love her always, no matter what had happened, no matter what she had been forced to do. There was Grim Marie, who would become Benevolent and Joyful Marie, and her little Aleta would be safe.But the eyes of this man, of the way he held her gaze far too carefully while his partner couldn’t manage to hold her gaze at all, told her she had no need to stand in that doorway ever again.“Oh,” she said.
Little Dead Red Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIXThey held a funeral for the bits and pieces of Aleta they could find. It wasn’t much. Marie chose to have her cremated and then there was even less.She kept her in a jar in the living room. She had always believed in burial, but had dreams of wolves digging Aleta’s bones up at night, gnawing on them and taking them away off to some dark magical forest. Night after night. So in the jar she went, and the jar was placed high, and when her mother died she cremated her as well and set them side-by-side.“Hello, family,” she greeted them once, and then she was unable to get out of bed for three days straight.“I’m so sorry, baby,” she said again, once she was standing in front of the jars again. “You died because I wanted the selfish luxury of a bath.”She was in bed for six days after that, unable to move or speak or sit, and when the young second officer couldn’t get a hold of her, he managed to break down her door.“We don’t need all of you lined up in a neat little row
Little Dead Red Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVENPart of Aleta’s favorite red hoodie turned up in some bramble outside of the city. It was cut, shredded, and stained. Animals had been gnawing and tearing at it, pulling it apart thread by thread by thread with their canines and incisors and grinding molars.From what they recovered of Aleta’s body, she had also been gnawed and ripped, but the animals pulling her apart had been a different sort.Angry Marie made a decision, then, and the impact of that decision would way heavy in her soul for the rest of her life. But seeing as her soul was pretty much tattered beyond recognition anyway, it didn’t seem like that much of a leap.She combed her hair that day, but that was because Marie was a neat and cleanly sort of woman. This was for herself, not for anybody else. She didn’t blacken her lashes. She didn’t outline her mouth. She hoped her frown lines were frownier than ever. And Marie hopped on the bus.The ride went on for hours, but it still wasn’t long enough. On t
Little Dead Red Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHTTo find The Wolf, one must think like a Wolf. Wolflet Marie looked in her mirror one dark night for the last time. She was saying goodbye.Goodbye, dark hair. Goodbye, soft eyes. Goodbye, lips that quivered and trembled and did everything but speak and eat. Goodbye gentle, hard-working hands.Her smoothly curled ears grew sharp and hard, pointed at the ends. Her nose elongated into a snout. Her teeth sharpened, her eyes darted and watched and threw back light in the darkest of the night. Fur ran across her mother’s skin, tufted at her collar. Her hands grew, stretched, and were tipped with claws. Wolflet Marie howled and shattered the mirror. She didn’t want to chance seeing weak Human Marie in there ever again.She stayed up late doing batches of work. She smiled at the cashier when she picked up her few groceries. She donned her sunglasses and looked like any other woman when she traveled to and fro on the bus line. Deceptions. A wolf in human skin. She was on the p
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Little Dead Red Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEENOfficer Will took the call with sorrow. Grim Marie had taken her own life. She was found in the bath with expensive-smelling bubbles and a candle. She had used a razor.He wished this hadn’t surprised him.His heart felt heavy, but he tried to convince himself that at least she was at peace now, enfolded in the arms of her mother and her daughter. A third little urn lined up on the shelf, perhaps. At least the pain and misery of her hunt for The Wolf was over.He sighed.“I’m responsible,” he said aloud, and the words pierced. They twisted up inside of him like a jangle of knives and sharpened bones and Dead Marie’s razor blades.He had sent her after the man she believed to be her daughter’s killer. Told her to keep an eye out for any DNA he might drop. He hadn’t believed this man was The Wolf, but it didn’t matter. It gave her something to do. Gave her something to throw her heart and soul into, since she had little heart and no soul left. Picking up a littered
Little Dead Red Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEENThe test results came back. This wasn’t The Wolf. Neither the DNA nor the bite marks were a match.She had done it, but it wasn’t worth it. Not at all.
Little Dead Red Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEENOfficer Will’s wife met her at the hospital.“Thank you for coming,” Marie sobbed. “Thank you so much.”“Of course I’d come,” Winnie said. She sat in the corner of the room while the nurses scrubbed and swabbed and collected everything they could. It was like being violated all over again, except with soft voices and lighter touches.The worst, Marie thought, was when she exposed her breasts. Bite marks everywhere. On her nipple and ribs and on her stomach.“I hope it helps,” she whispered to nobody in particular. “I hope it helps my baby.”They didn’t understand and she didn’t bother to explain, but pictures were taken. Bites were measured. Details were taken and carefully written down.It seemed to last for hours. At last they said she could go home.“I’ll drive you,” Winnie offered, and Marie nodded wearily.The car ride was silent for a long time. Marie leaned her head back against the seat and stared at the dark sky.“Thank you for coming today,” she sa
Little Dead Red Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEENShe walked into the police station. Officer Will took one look at her and leapt up from his desk.“Marie!”“Don’t touch me. I have DNA. Lot of it.”“Marie, what did you do?”He reached out to touch her but she pulled back.“Please. Could you take me to the hospital? Is that what I need to do?”The officer’s face changed. Anger and concern, yes. A little bit of hope. Something that looked like sorrow, but she couldn’t be certain. But underneath, something primordial and snake-like roiled to the surface. Hatred and revenge.“He assaulted you?” he asked. “I can’t believe he would be so stupid. Where is he?”“It wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t do anything that I didn’t ask him to do.”Marie didn’t realize another person could look so stricken. His concern was making her lose her nerve.“Please,” she said. “The hospital. Because after this is done, I really want to take a shower more than anything else on earth.”“Marie.”He reached into his desk for his ke
Little Dead Red Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEENShe left him while he was sleeping, sprawled naked and stinking on top of the hotel sheets.She vomited quietly into the toilet. Once. Twice. Then she slipped her clothes on and crept out of the door.Marie held her body far too carefully. She was tired, and sore, and disgusted, and so, so jubilant. When she stepped into the lobby that she had only been in a few hours before, the man behind the desk raised one eye at her.GLENN, his nametag read.“Hello, Glenn. Would you call a cab for me? Please?”“Certainly.”Glenn the Polite spoke quickly and quietly on the phone. Marie leaned against the desk, aware that her eyes were starting to blacken and her face was swollen. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss?” Glenn asked her. His words were professional, but his tone said so much more. Sweet, kind Glenn. A lamb working at the desk, unknowingly serving a wolf.She looked him deeper in the eyes, then, and realized that he knew. That there was a weariness
Little Dead Red Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEENShe wondered where he lived. She bet it was a disgusting hole underneath a rock. A dirt cave he decorated in children’s bones and chicken legs, like Baba Yaga.He led her to a motel. Not cheap. Not nice. Just a thing. A place. An anonymous hidey hole squirreled away in an odd corner of the city.“This is where you live?” she asked, trying to keep her nose from crinkling.“No,” he said simply.And her heart dropped. How was she to lead police triumphantly to his home if they weren’t going there? She had worked hard on memorizing the way, the street numbers, but they were just In The Middle Of Nowhere, USA.“Do you . . . stay here often?”He stopped and dropped her wrist abruptly. The look in his eyes made her swallow. Hard.“I don’t bring people to my home and I don’t answer questions. Do you understand?”She nodded. He was suspicious. She was losing him. She knit her fingers together and bit her lower lip.“I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m nervous. This isn’t . .
Little Dead Red Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVEShe used a soft lipstick that added bare color and shine. It didn’t add authority or boldness or blatant sexuality. It didn’t turn her into any sort of femme fatale. She didn’t need that.The Wolf wouldn’t want that.Her stomach ached in ways that reminded her of Aleta in her womb, of the hollowness after she was birthed, of the barrenness of her soul now that she was dead.She felt something strange in her eyes. Not tears. No, a glitter. Something feral and dangerous. Her teeth pulled back from her lips in a snarl until she caught herself and coughed demurely. She pulled her sunglasses over her eyes to hide the predator’s shine.She sat on the bench, trying to look fresh and plump and swollen with youth and soft, sensual things. Something to be crushed. Scented with blood and bone meal.“You’re back,” he said as he took his seat beside her. That voice. She’d never forget it. It spoke to her at night. It called her darling and lover and Aleta and whore. It whispe
Little Dead Red Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVENDetermined Marie had a plan. It can never be said that she didn’t love her little Aleta. She would do anything to put her rapist and murderer and monster away.Anything.It took a few weeks to get her courage up. She spent nights curled up in the corner of her room, shuddering and weeping. It didn’t seem right that she should seek comfort in her warm bed with her clean sheets. She needed to suffer as Aleta had suffered. Atone for what she did by sending her daughter out alone. She needed to descend beneath it all.She visited her ex-husband one more time, to tell him of her plan.“Will it work?” she asked him. She stared at her hands, tiny brown things with neat cuticles. She had just cleaned and trimmed them, buffed and shined them, just in case. As pristine as pristine could be, just in case her plan worked.“Marie, don’t,” Lyle said. He sounded worried. Genuine worry and concern. Marie nearly laughed. He hadn’t been concerned about her before, had he? Why di
Little Dead Red Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TENShe followed him. She paced. She watched. She waited.He didn’t smoke a cigarette or take a drink of anything. He didn’t spit on the ground or put his hands on anything she could take in to the police. He just watched. Prowled. Sniffed the air and smelled, perhaps, the scent of a hunter.Crazy Marie couldn’t take it anymore. She was ready to scream. Ready to rush him and take his fingerprints forcibly. His DNA. Force him to bite down on something hard enough to get an imprint. Match it to the wound that he had left on her daughter.On her breast, as it turned out. Officer Will hadn’t wanted to tell her. But after she finally forced him, saying that her imagination was coming up with horrors that dwarfed anything in reality, he relented.She wished he hadn’t.I will kill you. I will kill you, she sing-songed in her head. Her dark glasses protected her from looking directly at him. He was an eclipse and would burn her eyes out of her head if she made contact. But her gl
