The Moore's VI (23)

The Moore's VI (23)

    Stephen Moore scrubbed hard. Extra hard. But he couldn't get the creeping feeling to get away from his body. The rest of the family had enjoyed frolicking in 100 Oak Valley Crick, but Stephen had been unwillingly disgusted and horrified the entire time. A part of his mind had wondered how they could have been enjoying themselves so much, but, of course, they didn't know that a dead body had been found in the lake only a week ago. 

    Stephen washed the soap and shampoo from his body and hair and turned off the shower. In the second, smaller bedroom of Cabin 4, where Tyler and Vivi were staying, he could hear Henrietta telling Vivi a story. He dried himself off with one of the towels the family had brought with them, dressed in his pajamas and went down to the second bedroom. 

    At the open door, he saw his wife sitting at the edge of their daughter's bed, where Vivi was tucked in, wearing her Pretty Princess nightgown and listening as Henrietta was telling her her favorite bedtime story: Little Red Riding Hood.

    "...'And what big teeth you have, granny!'" Henrietta was saying in a high-pitched, mock-little-girl's voice that turned to a low growl as she imitated the wolf. "'The better to eat you with!' And the the wolf sprang from granny's bed and lunged at Little Red Riding Hood..."

    Stephen closed the door and walked through the living room, where Tyler was reading his Watchguard comic book, into the larger bedroom where he and his wife were staying. He took off his shirt and laid down in bed, waiting for Henrietta.

    His wife came into the room a couple of minutes later and laid down in the bed next to him.

    "Are the kids in bed?" Stephen asked.

    "Vivi's fast asleep and Tyler's in bed reading that comic book of his."

    "That's good," Stephen smiled.

    "Stephen," Henrietta said. "While we were driving through town, I saw that there was a church."

    "Yeah?" 

Henrietta nodded and continued, "I think we should get up early and go to the sermon. It's at seven."

    "That sounds like a good idea," Stephen agreed. "Kids'll give us some s**t about having to get up so early, but I do think it's a great idea."

    "Excellent!" Henrietta grinned and kissed her husband before lying down and going to sleep.

Stephen turned off the light and closed his eyes, thinking about the story Henrietta had been telling Vivi. It was the version of Little Red Riding Hood where everything turns out for the better. At the last second, the hunter crashes through the door, shoots the wolf, cuts the still alive granny from the beasts stomach, and the three of them walk off into the sunset and everyone lived happily ever after. It was a bedtime story that put little kids to sleep knowing that the monsters, in the end, would be defeated. It was completely different from the version Stephen Moore was told as a child.

   In the version Stephen had heard, the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood and, when her family came looking for her, dressed up in the little girl's skin and slaughtered them as well. At the end of the story, when the wolf walked off into the sunset to cause even more terror and havoc, Stephen's mother would finish with: 'And that goes to show you, you can never trust someone by what they look like on the outside.' And then she would kiss him goodnight and leave him to his horrible dreams of creatures walking around in people's skin, waiting for the right moment to slaughter.