A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first ever fanfic. Hope you like it! Feel free to point out any spelling or grammar mistakes you find. Credit for the inspiration for the story goes to the amazing Cecilia Green! Go read her stuff if you haven't already. Ok, the deal is, if five people comment and say they like it, and I get one favorite, I will continue this story. Enjoy!
I just wanted them to leave me alone.
The kids in my class, always making fun of me, always laughing at me. Just because I was a little different, wasn't really a teenager like they were. I thought, if I proved that I was just as grown up and crazy as they pretended to be, maybe they would leave me alone.
Of course, I decided this the day one of the stupid boys in my class dared me to go to Sheppard Metalworks, the old metal factory, and record myself there. I would've said no, I should've said no, but I was so desperate, I agreed.
So that night, I grabbed a flashlight and my dad's old video camera and rode my bike through town to Sheppard Metalworks. The building was huge, made of bricks and covered in old graffiti. I stashed my bike behind some old barrels, grabbed my camera, and turned on my flashlight. The narrow beam flickered over the ground. I looked around until I saw a giant double door. I opened it, to find another door at the end of a long hall. I stepped inside, not bothering to close the door behind me.
As I started walking to the door, I noticed a stack of boxes heaped in a corner. I swung my flashlight over to them. They were plain enough, maybe the size of a microwave, but each one had a symbol stamped on the side: a stick figure strapped to...a Catherine wheel? I shifted my feet nervously. I remembered a book I read once about medieval times, and how people were strapped to these wheels so the executioner could smash their bones with a hammer. Even if you lived, you were crooked for the rest of your life. Why would this be stamped to the boxes?
I shook myself. "You make mistakes all the time," I said out loud. "maybe it means something else in a different country, or something." Still, what were those boxes doing here? They didn't seem too old, they weren't too dusty, and some of them looked freshly opened.
Deciding to forget about it, I finished my walk to the door. I couldn't help but notice that the light above was on. Grabbing the handle, I leaned, ready to struggle to open it. Instead, the door to slid open like it had been freshly oiled with just a quiet squeak. I flailed around, having lost my balance, but regained it in a few seconds. I frowned, staring at the door. Wasn't this building condemned a long time ago? Shouldn't it be rusted shut, or at least shriek like an old cat? "Well," I said (out loud again, I really have to stop doing that), "maybe construction workers keep the door clean, so they can get in when they do start renovating." With this nervous guess, I stepped inside.
The factory was in surprisingly good condition. I was on a metal catwalk suspended over the concrete floor below. Lots of metal tubes and tanks snaked all over the room, like some insane water slide. Molds on the floor glowed, full of liquid metal. Overhead, some giant smelting pots were hooked to metal grids. In fact, one the pots was moving, trailing back and forth, with more hot metal inside. There wasn't any rust, cobwebs, or any of the things you see in run-down buildings.
I was really starting to get nervous. Clearly, someone still came here, still worked here. I just wanted to get my video and get out. I started walking down the catwalk, looking for a good place to set up. Up ahead, there was a light on. I weaved around some ladders and barrels and stood underneath the glowing lamp. Across from some empty chairs was a billboard with some pictures attached to it. I leaned in to look at them.
Each picture was taken from a distance, each showing several people. In one, I saw a man with wild chestnut hair, 5 o'clock shadow, and feral brown eyes talking to a women with ebony-black hair, rose-red lips, and snow-white skin. In another, I saw the same man as before taking a drag of a cigarette outside of store. Another one had a girl covered in bruises but still very pretty, with short black hair and almost neon green eyes. Around her neck was a purple ribbon. She was talking to the same guy from the other photos. Who were these people? Who was that man?
Shaking, I kept walking, past some more barrels, and over to... a giant Catherine Wheel, stained with...blood? I stopped cold. "Okay," I said, trying to calm down, "There is a bloodstained medieval torture device in front of me. I saw some photos that were apparently taken by stalkers. And all of this is in an abandoned metal factory that is apparently still used. What is going on?"
Maybe I was just nervous, but right then I could have swore I heard footsteps outside the door at the end of the catwalk. Panicking, I jumped inside one of the barrels nearby, not even bothering to check what was in it. Fortunately, it wasn't anything sharp. Unfortunately, the barrel was rusty and smeared with oil inside. I grimaced, thinking of how I was going to explain this to my mom when I got home. Little did I know, that was the least of my worries.
The door at the end of the catwalk opened. I peeked through one of the holes in the barrel and almost gasped. It was the guy from the pictures!
The man was tall, muscular, and rugged, with flyaway brown hair and sideburns of the same color. His strong jaw was dotted with stubble. My eyes traveled up his face, over a slightly crooked nose and up to a pair of deep brown eyes. Those eyes clearly said, Don't mess with me. He was dressed in a wrinkled white shirt and grey pants, with a loose tie around his neck.
The man looked over the edge of the catwalk. Just then, there was a sickly sweet voice, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It almost gave me a heart attack.
"Bigby Wolf."
The man seemed to recognize the voice, and started to walk down the catwalk. Was he Bigby Wolf? I couldn't help but smirk at the name. With that face, that hair, and that name, you might think he was-
"The Big Bad Wolf."
I froze. Could this voice read my mind somehow? Or was he-No! I scolded myself. That's just a fairy tale. There's no such thing as the Big Bad Wolf.
Bigby, if that was his name, was getting closer now. He passed by a ladder and started walking towards the billboard.
"You used to be something."
What was that voice talking about?
Bigby looked at the billboard, frowning. I could tell he didn't think much of being stalked. His eyes seemed to soften as he looked at one picture: three women, standing together and talking. One was petite, with messy red hair very similar to Bigby's. The second had coarse black hair and an almost sad looking face, even though she was smiling. The third was the woman from one of the pictures, only she wasn't bruised. They were chatting and smiling like old friends, and they all had purple ribbons around their necks. Were they in some sort of club?
Bigby started walking again, and passed the barrels I was hiding in. I held my breath and tried to be quiet.
"They used to fear you."
I wasn't even surprised at the voice anymore, and I certainly wasn't surprised that people feared this man. He was intimidating enough.
Bigby kept walking, heading toward the Catherine Wheel.
"They'd hide anywhere their small shivering bodies would fit."
What?! Was this guy a serial killer or something? How could people be that afraid of him?
Bigby stared at the Catherine wheel for a minute, then headed through a doorway, out of my line of sight. As soon as I was sure he was gone, I jumped out of the barrel and bolted for the door. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but I knew one thing: I didn't want any part of it. I didn't care what other kids said. This wasn't worth it.
Just as I was about to grab the door handle, I heard more footsteps coming towards me. Without thinking, I jumped over the railing to the ground a few feet below and crouched behind a barrel. I cursed my luck. Why can't things go right for once?
I looked over the barrel to see who it was. In the door frame that Bigby entered was a tall man in a pinstripe suit. He almost looked like an rich grandfather, except he was, for lack of a better word, crooked. His legs were bent backwards above the knee, his face was disfigured and twisted, and one of his lower eyelids was stretched down to his cheekbone. I wondered how he ended up looking like that. My eyes wandered over to the Catherine Wheel in the corner. No way. Was that used on him?!
The crooked man, as I called him, strode over to a set of stairs that led to an observatory overhead. I would have watched him go, except right then, I heard a weird noise, like a snarl, only drawn out and vibrating, like it was coming through plastic wrap. At the same time, I saw something fly by on the catwalk, a slouched figure, glowing red, moving way too fast to be human.
I pressed backwards into the wall, terrified, trying not to move. If all this terror wasn't already enough, Bigby came back out, only he wasn't, couldn't be human. His tie was crooked, his hair was messier, and even from where I was I could see his arms and chest had sprouted more hair. And his eyes...they glowed yellow. Like a wolf's.
I remembered the voice mocking him, calling him 'The Big Bad Wolf'. Was that true? Was he some kind of werewolf?
I was so busy thinking, I didn't notice Bigby start running until I saw him climbing a ladder. Once he reached the top, I could see he was standing on one of the pipes used to transport molten metal throughout the factory. He was moving forward, balancing carefully, looking around. What was he looking for?
I got the answer sooner than I expected. The glowing red creature from before flew out of nowhere with a hiss, still too fast for me to see what it was, and shot past Bigby. He snarled in pain as blood sprayed from the arms he had raised protectively. Did that thing cut him or something?
Bigby shook it off and kept moving, but soon, the thing flew by again. Three times, Bigby raised his arms to protect himself. Three times, blood flew as the creature, whatever it was, cut into him.
Bigby jumped onto the tank connected to the pipe and twisted, looking in vain for his attacker. "Where are you?" he yelled in a low, raspy growl. "Come out and face me!" As he said that, I heard the hiss from before, but also a new sound: the steady crunch of breaking glass. From behind a pipe behind him came something straight out of a nightmare.
The only way I could describe it was as a dead body that had been dragged through a mirror factory. It was the figure of a woman, dressed in rags, and pale as death. Broken glass jutted from her body all over, and the blood... she was covered in it. It dripped from every piece of glass, from the corner of her mouth, and from beneath her black and red demon eyes. Her hands were dark red, and even from where I was I could see the wicked claws at the end. The creature hissed again, and I noticed she was covered in tattoos that glowed neon red. She walked up to Bigby, and he crouched, snarling at her. Then, the fight began.
Bigby swung a punch at the woman, but she ducked and slashed at him. He grabbed his side and grunted in pain. The fighters circled each other, both tensed for the next move. Bigby made a mad grab, but the woman jumped with alarming speed to a higher part of the tank and kicked out, hitting him in the jaw. I winced in sympathy.
Somehow, the woman was able to wrench a bar off the tank and swing at Bigby, but he ducked. The woman promptly jumped on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck in a choke hold. Bigby yelled and struggled until he ended up walking out onto a moving rail that held up a smelting pot. For a second I was worried he would fall in, but after banging himself into the raised connector, both Bigby and the woman on his back fell the twenty feet to the concrete floor below.
I gasped. They must both be dead! But when I looked, I saw something moving on the floor. It was a huge, hulking figure, covered in grey fur. It looked like an honest-to-goodness werewolf. Was it Bigby?!
The werewolf stood up shakily and turned, claws bared, ready to fight. I saw the demonic woman walking towards him from the left. But wait...she was already hopping over a banister behind Bigby. I looked around and realized there were dozens of them, all coated in broken glass, all snarling at Bigby. His head whipped back and forth, trying to decide which one to attack first.
I could barely breathe. There were too many of them, even for him. He was going to die.
Bigby put up a good fight, but not only was he outnumbered, he was outgunned. It was clearly painful for him to even touch one of these creatures, and more often than not he cut himself. Soon, he was pinned down, and the women started cutting into him like butchers. Glass flashed, a chorus of demonic voices hissed, and Bigby was flailing on the floor...
But then, he wasn't. Bigby was gone. I saw some of the women fly backwards, but it took me a minute to process what I was seeing. There was a huge wolf standing where Bigby had been just minutes before.
The wolf was easily twice as tall as the women, and ten times as strong. It was chocolatey brown, and its eyes were solid yellow. I watched, awestruck, as it picked up one of the women in its jaws and squeezed until she shattered into shards of glass. It immediately picked up another one and shook her like a rag doll until it tossed her aside. She hit a wall and broke, just like the first.
The women were losing, that was for sure. When one jumped on the wolf's back, it snarled and simply rolled over, crushing three of them. I watched as it climbed up a tank to catch one of the women who had jumped up there.
Somehow, more of the women ran from the sidelines to join the fight. Where were they coming from?
The wolf looked from side to side as the women backed it into a corner. Then, it braced its legs on the floor and slowly drew itself up, almost as if-
Suddenly, I remembered a line from a story I read when I was little. The Big Bad Wolf huffed, and he puffed-
I realized what was going to happen just before it did.
The wolf unleashed a huge gust of wind, which knocked over the women and shattered them on the walls. For a while, there was just the sound of rushing wind and breaking glass, until finally, there was only one woman left.
She looked from side to side, seemed to realize that her doppelgänger were gone, and glared at the wolf in front of her. She jumped up, swinging like a trapeze artist, until she stood on a pipe overhead. She raced along it with the wolf watching her like a cat watches a mouse. Once she stopped, she firmly grasped a piece of glass sticking out of her forehead and slowly dragged it out. Once she held it in her hand, she leaped off the pipe towards the wolf. In response, the wolf coiled back its legs and sprang up to meet her.
They met in the middle. The wolf grabbed the woman in its huge jaws, and just as she moved to stab its eye, she exploded in a shower of glass and a spray of blood.
The wolf hit the ground as glass rained down around it. It lifted its bloody muzzle into the air and roared. I could feel the entire factory shaking with the force of the sound. Then, the wolf hunched over, and slowly began to grow smaller. Fur receded into its skin. Its fangs shrank. In less than a minute, all that was left was the hunched, naked form of Bigby Wolf, gasping on the floor.
He slowly stood up and walked over to a pile on the floor. His clothes, somehow totally fine. The, he turned and glared upwards. I followed his gaze and realized that the crooked man from before had been watching everything from the safety of the foreman's box.
Bigby pulled on his clothes and headed towards the stairs. I didn't stay to see what happened after that. I grabbed my camera and flashlight, and ran.
I'm not sure how I made it home that night. When I went to school the next day, the boy who dared me to go asked to see the video. I had completely forgotten about the dare. When I said I didn't have it, he sneered and called be a baby, but I didn't care. The kids still teased me, but it didn't bother me anymore, because I had seen something none of them would ever see.
I had learned two things that night. One, something weird, something I didn't understand, was happening in New York City. And two, whoever said, "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" never saw him in action.
