Bogleech.com's 2018 Horror Write-off:

Red Killer Hood

Submitted by aceotaku (email)



Ladies, Gentlemen, children, animals, others.



Welcome.



This is a tale that you will find familiar. Characters in this story may be familiar to you, places may also be familiar, even several events you may believe you have heard of.



But know this: while familiar, this is not the stories you know. These characters are not the same as you know them.



This is a tale of a prince; a monster; a villain; and, of course, a damsel.



But before we can begin that tale, first we must focus on one character in particular who plays the key role.



This is the story of a girl, a MONSTER, known only as ‘Red Hood’.



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The tavern was small but full of patrons chatting, drinking and eating, music filling the air as performers provided entertainment. The Tavern keeper washed fresh mugs for potential customers and in the back a figure sat on a chair, quietly knitting as she surveyed the scene.



The door slammed open, eyes drawn to the figure that stepped inside, all noise silenced as the newcomer stepped over and tossed a furry carcass on the tavern counter in front of the owner.



The visitor wore an unamused scowl, teeth as sharp as a shark’s, dark shadows under their black eyes, wearin a hooded cloak as red as crimson over their body and covering their short, black messy hair, black leather pants hugging tightly to their legs and reaching down to their ankles, feet clad in simple, buckled shoes, whatever else she wore was covered by her cloak.



“That was fast.” The tavern owner remarked stoically, barely paying a glance to the animal carcass pooling blood onto his counter. “You realise some of your reward is gonna be docked for the mess.”



“Like I care.” The girl in the red hood replied. “Looks like I have another job waiting for me anyway.” She trudged off with that, walking towards the back of the tavern and planting herself on a seat directly behind the figure knitting in the back, the two sitting back to back as activity slowly, cautiously, returned to the tavern.



“What’s her deal...?” One patron wondered aloud.



Another man pulled him close, whispering to him. “Watch your tongue! She’s Red Hood!”



The man’s eyes widened. “You mean...the one who slew the Wolf...that young thing?”



“Don’t underestimate her!” His friend warned. “She’ll kill you so much as look at you! Despite her looks, she’s a killer!”



As the patrons gossiped Red Hood turned her head over her head, giving a glance to the figure behind her. “So, I’m betting you got a job for me.”



The figure behind her chuckled, leaning back as she started to talk to Red, the light revealing her to be a giant anthropomorphic goose, wearing a red cardigan and a bright green sunhat, steadily continuing her knitting as she spoke. “Of course, Red. Far from here is a place called Candyland. A lot of people, particularly children, visit it, but none have yet to return.”



“Of course they don’t.” Red muttered snidely. “A lot of places you send me have that problem.”



“Even so, people are still drawn to it for some reason, and people do seem to live there.” Mother Goose chuckled humourlessly. “You know what I want you to do, naturally. Candyland is north of the Black Forest, you remember that place, yes?”



Red nodded and stood, holding a large wicker picnic basket as large as her head under her arm. “The hunt goes on.”



“Does it ever.” Mother Goose smirked, revealing a row of white teeth as Red walked out of the tavern wordlessly.



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Red Hood made her way through the forest, having reached it within several days, and spent several more walking through the most inhospitable area around. She finally made it through the other side unscathed, glaring and frowning as she saw a large, brightly coloured structure before her. She could see a giant pink smoke stake rising high to the sky, surrounded by a bright blue wall that encircled around it completely, a large gate standing wide open with a sign that read ‘Candyland’. At the gates were two figures, and as Red Hood approached she found they were human sized gingerbread men sporting smiling faces seemingly made from white icing, large candy cane spears fused within their ‘arms’.



As Red walked the guards made no move to stop her, attack or anything really and stood still as statues. She idly wondered if they were just decoration before tossing the idea aside, her hand flying to her basket as she stepped into Candyland.



Red groaned in distaste as she found that ‘Candyland’ was a city full of brightly coloured buildings where everything, from the buildings to the animals to the ground itself was made of candy. She even saw more gingerbread men standing around. AT the farthest end of the city was a giant pink smokestacke coming out of the top of a large pink building.



However, she saw no sign of people.



As Red decided to look around for any signs of people, she heard a loud ringing sound. She growled angrily as the incessant sound got on her nerves, then she realised that the gingerbread men had converged around her while she was distracted. She reached into the basket at her side, grabbing the right tool for the job.



The gingerbread men marched over, brandishing sharpened candy cane spears, their front portions crumbling away to reveal human skeletons buried in the remaining cake making up their bodies, their movements stumbling yet precise enough. With a sudden sound of ‘snicker-snack’, several of the gingerbread men were cut to pieces, tumbling to the ground as they shattered. Red looked around, grinning sadistically at her attacks as she held up her chainsaw.



“Sorry,” She mockingly apologised, “I’m not some helpless child lured in by free candy, or some unprepared villager searching for their child. I am here to kill the one controlling you disgusting things!”



Snicker-snack. More of the gingerbread creatures were torn apart easily, Red moving far too fast for them to get an attack in. Red charged past them, heading towards the giant pink building, laughing cruelly as she tore past.



Snicker-snack. Snicker-snack. Snicker-snack.



Red was starting to get a little tired of these things. They were far too weak compared to her level of skill, easily falling at her blade. Soon she reached her target and sliced the door open, leaping in...and falling down into a dark abyss



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After a while, Red had landed at the bottom of the structure, rising to her feet, frowning. She was in a large round room, surrounded by furnaces, into which were being funnelled...copious human corpses, either well preserved or freshly killed, either thought was disturbing enough, but she saw that the corpses were being funnled into large machines powered by the furnaces, mixing in with sugar and other ingrediants...to create candy, though the bones seemed to be separated from the flesh at some juncture to be funnelled into another machine to create the gingerbread soldiers above.



She quickly dodge aside as a massive fork came down upon her from behind, making a tear in her clothes and forming a scratch on the skin of her arm, the wound bleeding as she gazed up at her attacker.



The...THING was MASSIVE, it’s huge girth filling most of the empty space of the large room. It was big, corpulent and covered in red sores, wearing green lederhosen and a white shirt, both items of clothes covered in the filth of dried blood, sugar crystals, chocolate, crumbs and viscera. In its massive, meaty arms were held a massive, sharp knife and an equally huge fork, and atop its shoulders were two heads, grinning wickedly: one had clumps of short blonde hair, the other had long blonde hair tied in twin braids, both sported fat, piggy noses, lipless mouths exposing their gap-tooted grins filled with broken teeth, and their eyes were pure white and devoid of compassion or mercy.



Red grinned up at them. “Ah, so you’re the ones in charge.”



“Hans.” The Male head greeted.



“Greta.” The female head added.



“So I guess you lure in people here, kill them above with your...soldiers, and then...make them into candy to eat them?” Red glared, all humour drained from her expression in place of cold hatred. “Pretty roundabout for a....pair of cannibals.”



“But the taste is to DIE for!” Hans said. “nothing tastes sweeter...or more tender..or more UNIQUE!”



“A long time ago my brother and I were lost in the woods...” Greta began.



Red rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Why do they always tell me their damned backstory...” She muttered, swinging her chainsaw, holding the huge fork at bay as it was lunged at her.



“We got ever soooo hungry...” Greta continued, struggled to push the fork she held further to impale Red’s body. “So count our lucky stars when we found a house made of delicious candy and gingerbread!”



Red swung upwards, pushing the attack back, leaping upwards to dodge the swing of the giant knife held by Hans. “That couldn’t have been sanitary...”



“The house was owned by a witch!” Hans said. “She used her magic to create her house and protect it from animals and nature! She promised we could have as much as we wanted to eat, but really she wanted to eat US!”



Red spun in mid air, slamming her chainsaw downwards to parry an attack from both weapons, holding them back as they met her blade.



“But when she was making her oven, we saw our chance!” Greta continued, drooling like a mad beast. “We pushed her inside and she cooked to perfection! And when we ate we gained some of her magic power, enough to make that little house bigger, and with the right materials we could even make servants!”



Red leapt back to stand in front of the furnaces, glaring. “And I guess you got addicted to the taste of candy and human flesh, and just HAD to set up this...operation of yours to satisfy your sick needs!”



“DON’T YOU JUDGE US!” Hans shouted, stabbing his weapon towards Red, getting it stuck into a few furnaces. He pulled his weapon out and looked around for Red, not noticing that the damage was causing fire to spread onto the candy and slowly engulf the building.



“You are a killer just like us!” Greta added, slicing through several furnaces herself as she attacked Red on her side, causing more fire to spread. “You are famous the world over! Red Hood, the monster who kills monsters, a girl so ugly in soul no prince would want her!”



Red leapt before the pair as fire began to consume the building, casting shadows on the two headed monster before her as Hans and Greta grinned wickedly at her. “I can judge you as much as I want, I’m not a cannibal and I don’t murder innocent people without reason.”



“Who cares!?” Hans called out mockingly. “It’s FUN!”



“Eating people like candy....is fun?” Red asked, glaring.



“yes!” Greta agreed, nodding her head. “Why ELSE would we got to this much trouble!? We do it because we enjoy it, simple as that! Same reason you kill ‘monsters’!”



“Well, ya got me there.” Red shrugged, hefting her weapon up as she leapt upwards.



Greta rammed her weapon from beneath, but Red spun around to slash through her fingers to disarm her, making the cannibalistic woman scream out. Hans roared in a rage, moving to attack but Red parried his weapon aside to run along his arm, dragging her chainsaw along hsi skin before leaping to strike in between the two heads, and with a ‘snicker-snack’ tore downwards, cleaving the two headed giant in two. Fire crackled above as the brother and sister were separated, blood spilling out from them.



“Sister...” Hans grinned. “Looks like...we’re going to die...”



“Yes, Brother...” Greta giggled. “And...since that’s the case...we can FINALLY partake of the most forbidden, final meal!”



“I BET YOU WILL TASTE DELICIOUS, GRETA!”



“OF COURSE! AS WILL YOU, HANS!”



Red grimaced in disgust and horror as she siblings leapt upon each other, quickly turning away from the sight of the pair devouring each other in their final moments before the flames overtook them, Red hurrying out to escape a similar grisly fate.



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Red panted as she limped out of the burning wreck that was once Candyland, her clothes singed as she walked towards the figure of Mother Goose who stood in before her as she just knew she would be.



“So...what’s my next job?” Red asked. “I hope it was as easy as this one was.”



Mother Goose chuckled. “Oh Red, you NEVER cease to impress me. Your next job will be QUITE a ways from here, oh yes...I want you to save a Princess...”



“Again?” Red sighed. “Lemme guess, I gota save her so she can live happily ever after with her Prince.” She rolled her eyes, muttering that last part sarcastically.



“Oh yes.” Mother Goose smiled toothily. “Her name is Snow White, and I need you to save her from her wicked stepmother....”