Well as it is Easter, we had planned to bring you a story about sweet chocolate eggs and cute little bunnies but then we thought​: no... this story about wolves is far more fun as it retells a traditional fairy-tale but with a modern spin. We always thought the woodcutter was a little too macho-man to be plausible as well!

Our author is S.L. Saboviec and her debut novel received an honorable mention in the genre fiction category for the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. Her newest book – Guarding Angel, Book 1 of the Fallen Redemption series – is out now. More details at http://www.saboviec.com/ and you can follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Saboviec/


I Am NOT Little Red Riding Hood
by S. L. Saboviec


That woodcutter is such a damn liar.

The way he told it, he busted into the house, found us gobbled up by a wolf, split the creature open, and out popped Granny and me.

No.

No.
Have you ever heard of such a thing? Wolves can get big, but they don’t unhinge their jaws and swallow people whole.
I’ll tell you what really happened. And by the way, my name is Camilla, after Granny’s granny. Call me that, please.

About six months ago, the woodcutter sauntered into the village acting like he was the Goddess’ gift to humanity, with his rippling biceps and a tree log on his shoulder. He tossed it onto the ground and announced that he was – direct quote here –“Open for business.”

Lovely.

The second he stepped into the tavern, the other girls were all over him, but I was busy doing real work. My parents died a couple years back, so at sixteen, I was running my mom’s tailoring business. That day, I had a bunch of orders, and I was off to...

You know what? It doesn’t matter.

The point is, I was wearing my red dress, the one that some of my neighbors think is too risque. Apparently it caught the woodcutter’s eyes because he followed me into the general store. Even if the neckline is too low – and that’s a big if: you should see some of the styles in the city – that didn’t give him the right to grope me.

So yes, I broke his nose.

After that, he started with the name. I still can’t figure out exactly what “Little Red Riding Hood” is supposed to mean, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lewd innuendo about my lady parts. You figure it out.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from this whole thing. Breaking someone’s nose is a sure-fire way to guarantee their obsession with you. Every time he came through the village selling firewood, he tried to entice me into bed. The more he pressed, the less I was interested in him.

So on the day in question, Granny was sick. I spent the morning boiling down a chicken for broth and hand shaping her favorite flat noodles. When I trotted off down the path with my basket over an arm and my crossbow and arrows slung across my back, the woodcutter was meandering across my field, picking flowers. As I understand it, he was going to stop by my house to proposition me once more. He thought I would be more “malleable” if he caught me at home alone.

I didn’t see him, so I headed off to Granny’s. When I got there, I settled in, propped her up on the bed, and fluffed some pillows under her back. The soup was still warm, and I was feeding it to her when I heard the scream from outside.

I leapt up, grabbed my crossbow, and loaded it while running out the door.

The wolf had the woodcutter cornered against the shed. It was advancing, teeth bared and growling.

The woodcutter had wet himself.

As the wolf sprung, I fired. Bam, right into the back of its head. It yipped, fell to the ground, and was still.

Maybe I should have “missed.” My arrow would have gone right into the woodcutter’s heart, and…

Never mind.

He wept and sobbed and cried, thanking me for saving his life. I got him inside, cleaned him up, and even loaned him a clean pair of Granny’s pantaloons, since his were soaked with urine.

And now he’s telling this story about saving Granny and me from the wolf? Trying to make everyone think I’d lived up to my name of “Little Red Riding Hood” because I was so grateful?

Absolutely not.

Granny slipped into senility a few years back—tragedy, that. And now she’s confused the whole thing by babbling on about the woodcutter filling the wolf up with rocks and sewing it back up.

That doesn’t even make sense.

So tell me. Who are you going to believe?

Bitter-sweet is an over-used phrase but it does sum-up our latest story. Technically it is microfiction although it has a poetic quality that allows you to read it as prose poetry as well. Our writer is Holly Walrath, who attended the University of Texas at Austin for her BA in English and the University of Denver for her MLA in Creative Writing. She is a freelance editor and the Associate Director of Writespace, a nonprofit literary center in Houston, Texas. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pulp Literature, The Vestal Review, and 365 Tomorrows, among others. You can find her on Twitter at @hollylynwalrath and on the web at www.hlwalrath.com


​
The Last Man on Earth
by Holly Walrath

​
This is me – as I stand on the last bridge, watching the Earth burn. The tides overtake, crumbling cliff and mountain into the Atlantic.

I think about that Whitman poem, the one about the spider ever casting forth filaments to catch on some promontory. It’s supposed to be a metaphor for life, for the way our bodies always return to the sea.

Did I know when I left my wife, safe in the basement, that I would never see her again? She placed her two fingers on the slight crack in the door, our secret cypher, her blue eye peeking out above, and since that day I have often placed my own two fingers on my lips, imagining that they still hold a trace of her kiss.

I feel an absurd kind of déjà vu – I remember a day spent on the beach, sand in my toes, and feeding the seagulls. I remember the sunburn I got that day, it was a hot ache in my very brain, my mind roasted clean of any thoughts. I remember we walked by the water, and the seaweed was black and thick on the sand. I remember the brashness of the waves. I remember the way her hand linked in mine, an anchor chain. As if it knew this day was coming. If it knew, why did it not tell me that one day I would be the last man on earth?

The sun is muddy red and flares. Like memory, the skyscrapers devour themselves. They eclipse. They cuckold the sky. 

Our latest story – Charybdis by Wendy Nikel – looks at a concept that has long intrigued me. Namely, what would happen if the mythical worlds of gods and monsters really did exist but had evolved, like human society, so that today they too were riven by corporate rivalries, had PowerPoint, and bedevilled by management jargon and buzzwords. Wendy Nikel is a member of the SWFA and her work has been published by AE, Daily Science Fiction, and, of course, the Grievous Angel.


Charybdis
by Wendy Nikel

“I’m not a monster.”
    
“Right, hon." With a squeak of her office chair, my companion shifted her weight and leaned out her toll window. “Here’s your change. Have a great day.”
    
“I’m not." I tossed today's newspaper on the counter between us. The front page was splattered with the story of Poseidon Inc's latest acquisitions and the resulting investigations that Zeus Corporation launched to determine who had been leaking company secrets. On paper, my demotion to toll-mistress was based on last quarter's reviews, but anyone with more than one eye (no offense to Cyclopes) could see that it was really because my dad worked for the competition. "Nepotism, that's what wrong with this place. Zeus's kids get all the good jobs with the window offices and benefits packages, while we're stuck out here in the middle of nowhere."
    
Scylla ignored me, bending down to ruffle the fur on her yappy Yorkie, which she'd strapped to herself like a slobbering fanny pack. "Who's a good boy? Hmm?"
    
“Scylla, you’re not listening. It’s not fair, that jerk of a CEO sticking us out here to collect tolls like this. Don't you care that everyone thinks we’re monsters?”
    
She raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen yourself lately?”

I scowled. So my hair was kind of a disaster. I couldn't help it; it was the humidity out here. I tried to pull it into a ponytail, but didn't have anything to use to tie it back.
    
“Ugh." Scylla glanced over my shoulder and pinched her lips together in disgust. Her dog, sensing her change in demeanor, snarled. "Here comes that lowlife Odysseus again. Keep an eye on him; he’s always trying to sneak through without paying.”
    
“Hey, babe.” Odysseus pulled his ship up beside my rock and leaned over the railing. He flashed his bright teeth and waggled his eyebrows in a manner which might have driven that seaweed-brained Calypso wild, but had no effect on me. “You don't mind if I pass by, do you gorgeous?”
    
“We've been through this, Odysseus. You have to pay the toll, just like everyone else.”
    
His face turned stony faster than someone who’s laid eyes on Medusa. “You can’t make me.”
    
“Yes, I can.” I turned and muttered to Scylla. “See? Why do they always make us out to be the monsters? Zeus knows we’re just doing our jobs.”
    
“Don’t take it personally, hon.” She pointed over my shoulder. “Look out. He’s making a run for it.”
    
Technically, I should have just reported him and let the authorities deal with him, but this was the third time this week, and a girl can only take so much idiocy.
    
I pressed the red button on my console. 
    
With a noise like the flushing of a toilet and a swirling that mimicked the same, Odysseus and his crew were sucked down into the depths of the sea. I felt a little twinge of guilt as the sailors screamed for their lives, clinging to their ship's mast, but then Odysseus shouted, "You monster!" and any sympathy disappeared faster than wine from Dionysus' glass.
    
Scylla raised her eyebrows at me. "Not a monster, huh?"
    
​I shrugged and turned back to reading the newspaper. "What can I say? He had it coming."

We're all familiar with the "walking dead" aka zombies but what if it the undead were just another minority group within society? This is the angle today's contributor Blake Johnson explores in this story. Blake Johnson is a poet and novelist with a passion for all things speculative. He says "It is my firm belief that through fiction, we can make sense of reality." His poetry has appeared in Ancient Paths Literary Magazine.  

The Walk
by Blake Johnson

I used to be able to only go out once, maybe twice a year – but at the turn of the millennium something changed. It was largely due to the media that society became more accepting of guys like me. The movies, the books, the video games: they were the series of sparks that birthed a fiery, though misinformed, sub-culture who embraced the idea of the undead. It wasn’t long until I had more opportunities to walk the streets in broad daylight without having to hide my gray flesh. 

Today was my favorite day, the day of the Walk. 

I had a quick snack (I’m not very pleasant when I’m hungry) then shambled as fast as my gimpy legs could carry me to the corner of Tabitha Street. When I got there, it felt as if I had reunited with a long lost love. The street was overflowing with them: men and women in tattered clothing, faces colored in elaborate makeup depicting gashes and jutting bones and grim expressions. At the front of the parade a row of people held a banner that read: TENTH ANNUAL ZOMBIE WALK: UNDYING FOR A CAUSE. 

I spent some time mingling. People who were astounded at how authentic I looked wanted pictures with me. A few asked me if a professional did my makeup; usually I’d just smile and say I did it myself, which wasn’t too far from the truth. 

Listening was my favorite part. It didn’t matter if I was part of the conversation or not. There was something about the speech of the living, with all of their exaggerated inflections and giggles and gripes over silly things that sent a palpable joy through my hollow body. I never knew what to say myself, though. The concept of small talk, even after two lifetimes, was lost on me.

The Walk began. 

Shoulder to shoulder we ambled along, feigning groans and occasionally moaning brainzzz. I noticed that a few of the Walkers were like me. We ignored each other. Best not to draw attention. 

I found myself walking next to a girl who may have been twenty. She had red streaks in her hair, and her gray makeup was starting to run under the beating sun. Her icy blue eyes looked like beacons against her drab clothing.  

In her hand she held a book. One that I recognized immediately.  
    
“It’s not accurate, you know,” I said. “Frederick’s Guide to the Undead.”
    
She glanced at me and raised a thin eyebrow. 
    
“Oh?” she finally said, laughing a little. “Care to explain?”
  
 I did. The book was satirical, but its discrepancies still bugged me. I explained that a blow to the brain wouldn’t always do us (er, them) in, and that some undead still possessed intelligence – especially the ones with the will to live. 
    
She giggled during my lecture. A lot. I knew she thought I was joking, but I didn’t care. It was nice to be the one talking for once. Not that I dominated the conversation. She often put in her own two cents about zombies, not realizing she was talking to the unliving article. 
    
Finally, we marched into the center of downtown. The Walk had ended. We prepared to part ways. 
    
“Hey,” she said. “I know this is, uh, ya know…but…can I see you again?”
    
I thought about it, weighing the pros and cons of another rendezvous with the living girl. I had to make the decision quickly, though, so I could get home. It was getting late, and I was getting hungry. 
    
“October,” I eventually said. “Meet me here on October 31st.” 
    
​That wasn’t for another three months. The waiting would be hard, but with it would come anticipation. A hope that, through the passage of time, I would reach a horizon made up of better days. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I was willing to wait that long; after all, isn’t it hope that keeps us alive?