The Big Bad Wolf

CHAPTER 90

IF IT WASN_T so incredibly terrifying, it would be mind-boggling. Lizzie Connolly was still

among the living. She was keeping herself positive by being somewhere else anywhere but

here in the horrid closet. With this complete madman bursting in two, three, sometimes five

times a day.

Mostly she got lost in her memories. Once upon a time, and it seemed so long ago, she had

called her girls Merry Berry, Bobbie Doll, names like that. They used to sing “High Hopes” all

the time, and songs from Mary Poppins.

They had endless positive-energy thoughts which Lizzie called “happy thoughts” and

always shared them with one another, and with Brendan, of course.

What else could she remember? What? Anything?

They had so many animals over the years that eventually they gave each one a number.

Chester, a black Lab with a curly tail like a chow, was number 16. The Lab would bark

constantly, all day and all night, until Lizzie merely showed him a bottle of Tabasco sauce

his kryptonite. Then he would finally shut up.

Dukie, number 15, was a short-haired orange calico who Lizzie believed had probably been

an old Jewish lady in another life and who was always complaining, “Oh no, no, no, no.”



Maximus Kiltimus was number 11; Stubbles was number 31; Kitten Little was number 35.

Memories were all that Lizzie Connolly had because there could be no present for her.

None.

She couldn’t be here in this horror house.

She had to be somewhere else, anywhere else.

Had to be!

Had to be!

Had to be!

Because he was inside her now.

The Wolf was inside her, in the real world, grunting and thrusting like an animal, violating,

raping for minutes that seemed like hours.

But Lizzie had the last laugh, didn’t she?

She wasn’t there.

She was somewhere in her memories.