“Oh, there you are, Grandma. Do you not know that your power’s out?”

  Grandma doesn’t respond.

  The girl steps through the door but stops to look down at her feet. She notices the floor is tacky and alternates lifting each of her tight-laced boots. “Grandma, you really need to do some cleaning in here. The floor’s a mess, and it smells like death.” She crosses the room to pull the curtains.

  “Ugh,” Grandma starts. “Leave them closed, dear. Your grandmother isn’t feeling too well.”

  “Oh. Well, you do sound terrible. Should I grab you something other than this bread and wine?”

  “No, no. That won’t be necessary,” Grandma rasps. “Come closer, dear. I can’t see you clearly.”

  Red steps closer, the sparse light from the window showing her hood is up and her red cloak hangs over her shoulders. A wicker basket hangs to one side as her arm threads through its carriage handle. Her hands are clasped in front of her and black wrapping covers her hands and wrists.  “My, my, Grandma. You look just awful. Your hands look bigger too. Are they swollen?”

  “Oh no, my dear, that just makes them all the better to hug you with.”

  “And your ears… your ears, Grandma, have they grown since last I saw you?”

  “All the better to—” Grandma’s ear twitches as footsteps thunder across the next room. The bedroom door bursts open. Grandma yelps and pulls the covers over her snout.

  The red-hooded girl orients on the door, a stun gun at the ready. A tall man stands in the doorway, his face full of beard and his flannel shirt full of muscle. “Jack?” she asks. “What are you doing? I’ve got this.”

  “We’ve got company Sarah. Training is going to be of the life and death variety.”

  Grandma’s eyes suddenly fall on the stun-gun in Red’s hand and her wolfish eyes narrow. “What’s going on here?” Grandma asks, pulling the covers from over her snout. “What do you mean, training?”

  “Sorry, pup,” Red says with a mock apology. “You’re just helping me get more agile.”

  Jack approaches a window and pulls back the curtain. “Did you bring anything lethal?”

  “Well, of course not. I keep my grenades in my other picnic basket. Why would I need lethal?”

  Wolf pulls the cap from his head, curls his claws over his snout, and closes his eyes. “All this time? You’ve just been using me for—for training? Those times I almost had you… was any of that even real?”

  “Sarah, Wolf, we don’t have time for any of that right now.” A thump collides with the window causing Jack to back pedals away, axe at the ready.

  “Spill it, Jack,” Red says. “What did the hag send this time?”

  Jack meets her gaze and says what she’s already expecting. “Zombies again.”

  “Well, at least she’s predictable.”

  “So what’s the plan? Should we just portal out?

  Wolf growls and stands abruptly, sliding out of the bed opposite of Red, then throwing the cap on the floor. “You two have been playing me all this—wait, did someone say zombies?”

  “Here,” Red says, tossing the stun-gun to Wolf. He fumbles it before securing it. “You know how to use that thing?” She doesn’t wait for a response as she sets the basket on the messy bed and begins removing items like a magician that continues to pull more and more handkerchief out of a pocket. Various bread components come out of the basket in carelessly high arches before rolling wine bottles over onto the quilts.

  Wolf becomes intrigued after avoiding several of these airborne bread assailants. He stretches to become taller in order to look over the basket’s lip as Red pulls a wooden panel from the bottom of the basket. A pair of silver pistols come out after and she pulls back each slide in turn to chamber a round, before double checking the ammo capacities and resetting the magazines. She lifts the side of her red skirt to access a cloth band running around her thigh and held in place by a garter belt, confirming the two extra magazines she has there.

  Wolf looks over at Jack, who just shrugs in response.

  “I thought you didn’t bring anything lethal?” Jack asks.

  “Are you kidding me? Where do you think the boy scouts got it from? I’m always prepared. We might as well trim some of their numbers on our way out. Oh, and Wolf—” Wolf jumps and fumbles the stun-gun again but recovers his grasp. “Don’t eat them. We don’t know what ingesting them will do to you, and I’m not keen on battling an undead Wolf—not yet at least.”

  She walks past Jack, leaving the room and Wolf’s shoulders slump as he looks to see Jack beckoning for him to follow.