Нил Шустерман: Red Rider's Hood

"Grandma, are you in there?"

I heard breathing. Faint, raspy breathing.

"Grandma?"

I stepped in, propping the door open behind me. Grandma kept her house dark. It was to keep the sun from aging the car­peting and furniture, she always said. Old Venetian blinds cov­ered every window. That and the trees outside made it always seem like night in her house. I tried a light switch, and it didn't work.

"Grandma, did you forget to pay your electric bill again?"

"Red," I heard. "Red, is that you?" Her voice sounded funny, like she had a cold. I followed her voice to the bedroom, and there she sat, in the darkness, under her covers.

"Did you bring me my bread?" she whispered.

I held up the bag.

"Good, good." She cleared her throat. "Come a little closer, my child. Let me see you."

Grandma was the only person I allowed to call me child. As I stepped closer and my eyes began to adjust to the light, I could see that her Afro, all curly and gray, was even bigger than I had last seen it.

"Man, Grandma, what big hair you have."

"The better to style with, my dear."

Her finger reached out and beckoned to me. I took another step closer. Outside the trees hissed their eerie warning, and now there was a smell in the room. It wasn't the smell of moth­balls and air freshener that usually filled her house. This smell was alive and dark. It was gamy, like the breath of a tiger after eating its kill. I took a step closer. There was a glass beside the bed filled with water and Grandma's false teeth. They were magnified by the curved glass.

"Wow, Grandma," I said. "What gnarly teeth you have."

"Better to smile at you with, my dear."

She put out her hand and patted the bed for me to sit down, but even in this dim light, I could see there was something very odd about those hands.

"My, Grandma," I said. "What hairy knuckles―"

But I didn't get the chance to finish. Suddenly Grandma leaped off the bed, and I was pushed back against the wall. Both of her hands were around my throat. I reached up, pulled at her hair, and it came off. It was only a wig.

"Guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way!" she said, in a voice that didn't sound like my grandma at all. "Give me the money!"

I kept trying to suck air through my throat, but those strong hands had closed off my windpipe. I knew from that voice exactly who it was. Although I couldn't see his face all that well in the dim light, I knew.

Cedric Soames.

I reached out behind me, grabbed the cord to the blinds, and tugged as hard as I could. Light flooded the room. I could see his eyes now, wild and furious. I had never been this close to him, but now I could see there was definitely something inhuman about his eyes.

Other figures stepped out from behind the curtains, from the closet, and from the other rooms. There were more than I could count, because my vision was getting dim from the lack of oxygen.

I knew right away that they were the Wolves, Cedric's gang. Their trademark was an open shirt that showed off their chest hair―although most of them had to use mascara to make it look like anything. Cedric was the only really hairy one.

"Just take it," I tried to say "Just take it."

Cedric twisted his lip into a snarling smile.

"I don't take things," he said. "But I do accept gifts. Are you giving me that money?"

Although there wasn't an ounce of me that wanted to do it, I also didn't want to die. I let the bag slip from my hands. One of the others picked it up, and when he stood up and looked at me, I could see who it was. Marvin Flowers, gold tooth and all.

Now that I had dropped the bag, Cedric loosened his grip enough to let me gasp some air.

"Where's my grandma?" I asked.

"We ate her," said one of the other Wolves.

"Yeah," said Cedric. "I think I still have a piece of her between my teeth. Marvin, go see if there's any dental floss."

I pushed Cedric for that one. I knew he might hit me hard, but no one makes fun of my grandma like that. Especially after stealing from her.

"What did you do with her?" I demanded.

"Same thing we're gonna do with you."

Cedric looked at me angrily, but he didn't hit me. He stared at me with his nasty eyes. They were an amber brown, so light they could almost be yellow―an ugly yellow, like the stuff you cough up when you've got the flu. And smack in the middle of those ugly eyes were dark pupils that seemed to go all the way to the back of his head―and then some.

"You don't get what's happening here, do you?" Cedric growled as he held me back against the wall. He was older than me, bigger than me, and his biceps were as thick as my legs, but I didn't care.

"Yeah, I know exactly what's happening here," I growled right back at him. "You're ripping off money from a poor defenseless old lady. That's low even for a scuzzball like you."

I thought I'd get a five-knuckle brunch for that, but instead he laughed. The rest of the Wolves laughed as well, copying whatever Cedric did―as if they'd be in trouble if they didn't.

"You don't know a stinkin' thing." Then he leaned closer, whispering into my ear. "There are worse things than being robbed ..." I could smell the sick old-meat stench on his breath, like he really had eaten my grandmother. ". . . worse things than dyin' even. You be a good boy, Little Red, and maybe you'll get to live awhile. Maybe you'll get to die in your own natural time."

"I'd rather die than have to stand here looking at your ugly face. Your mama should've got a refund for it when you were born."

He squeezed my throat again. "You watch yourself, Little Red Rider. You don't want to get me angry. Not today. Defi­nitely not today."

"Why?" I dared to ask. "What makes today so special?"

"Because," said Cedric, "tonight there's a full moon."

My dad always said that belonging to a gang was a way for small-minded people to feel big. He says it works like this: You take a whole bunch of people with more attitude than brain, and maybe if you're lucky all those small brains will add up to one full brain. But I have a different theory. I think it's like multiplication, not addition. Half-a-brain times half-a-brain equals a quarter-brain. You get enough half-brains together, and you end up with cockroach intelligence. That's what I figured I had here in dealing with the Wolves.

"Take him down," Cedric shouted, now that he had the money sack in his clutches. Taking someone down usually meant killing them. Is that what they had done to Grandma? I didn't want to think about it. On Cedric's orders, Marvin Flowers grabbed me by my shirt, lifted me off the ground, and hauled me out of Grandma's room.

"What's the matter, Marvin?" I said, almost choking on my fear. "The fifty I gave you before wasn't enough? You had to take the rest? That's worse than begging for change on street corners."

"I ain't no beggar," he said, annoyed at the suggestion. "Cedric assigned me to case out cars and people at that corner. Easier to do it while I'm washing windows."

"Case them out for what?"

"For anything we decide we need."

"Like my grandmother's money?"

He snarled at that, baring that gold canine tooth of his, holding me even higher off the ground as he moved me through the house. "It's that money that saved you," he said. "Getting that blood money put Cedric in a good mood."

Saved me? I thought. But didn't Cedric tell him to "take me down"?

"So, you're not gonna kill me?"

"Not right now, but don't ask me about later."

I thought of saying something about his sister―about how we were supposed to go out tonight. But then I thought, what if that whole thing was a scam? What if she had been just a decoy so that the Wolves could get to Grandma's house? I'm sure that's what Marvin had intended, but was Marissa in on it, too? I silently cursed myself for allowing the Flowerses to lead me astray long enough for the Wolves to get here first.