The Big Bad Wolf
Dylan's obsession began in childhood. As a pup, his mother fixed him bacon every morning. To Dylan, Bacon became synonymous with love. His father had disappeared when he was a baby, so his mother was all he had. One day his mother had gone off into the woods to buy more bacon. They were down to their last package, and she wanted to make sure they had enough to last the week. But she had never returned. There were rumors throughout the wolf community of a psychotic killer on the loose who wore a red, hooded cape. Everyone suspected that this assassin had been responsible for the deaths of both his parents, but no one knew for sure. Regardless of how it happened, Dylan was left alone. He left the house in search of his mother, but he was mistaken for a stray puppy and was sent to the pound. There he spent the rest of his puppyhood becoming bitter, angry, and slightly insane.
One day when he was around three, a teenager in wolf years, a little girl named Samantha came to the pound. Her father told her she could get a pet. He thought she'd get a kitten, but she had other plans. "Daddy! I want that wolf!"
"That's not a wolf, sweetie. Wolves are wild. People don't put wolves in the pound."
"Daddy," Samantha said, rolling her eyes, "That is a wolf. Look at the size of its paws, look at the length of its coat. There is no way that that is a regular dog."
"Oh, little girl," said the poundkeeper condescendingly, patting her on the head. "Don't you think a big, smart grown-up like me knows a wolf when he sees one? That is obviously some kind of a beagle, mixed with a sheepdog or something."
Samantha stared at the guy like he was the biggest idiot she'd ever seen in her life. (Because he was) She turned back to her dad. "Dad, can I have the "Beagle" please? I promise I'll love it and feed it, and care for it, and clean up after it!"
"Really?" her father asked. "Even all of his doggy boom-booms?"
Samantha rolled her eyes again. "Please don't ever say those words again. Yes."
"Even all of his tinkles?"
"Daddy!"
"Ok, ok," he said laughing. "You are getting to be more responsible now. I think you could probably handle a dog."
"Yes!" Samantha cheered. "I'm gonna name you Steppen!" As the poundkeeper clipped a leash to his collar, Dylan began plotting his escape.
Escape not meant to happen right away though. The family lived in the middle of a city, and their were strict leash laws. Dylan found himself chained in the backyard with no way out. Every day Samantha would come home from school and come to visit Dylan, or Lil' Stepp, as she had begun calling him. She would always bring home new books from school and read them aloud to him.
One day she brought home a book called "The Journey of Food." Dylan was fascinated. He listened, enraptured, as she explained where meat came from. When she got to a chapter entitle "Bacon: The Physical Incarnation of God's Perfect Love" Dylan sat bolt upright. This was what his mother used to fix for him! As he listened intently, Samantha read all the beautiful details of how exactly pigs are made into bacon. It was the most glorious story she had ever read to him. He wished he knew how to find a pig. Last week, Samantha had read all about farms. It had talked about pigs in that book, but he had never seen a farm before. He decided that the first thing he would do after escaping, would be to find a farm and get himself a pig.
Weeks passed and there was still no escape. Dylan was getting anxious. He wanted out of this miserable place. Samantha was nice and all, but he was sick of being chained up. He had to get out. That afternoon Samantha came home, bursting with excitement. "It's science fair time, Stepp!" she called. "Wow. Sounds fun." Dylan thought sarcastically. He lay down as Samantha began to dump out her backpack in front of him. Soon he was surrounded by all sorts of containers, wires, pipes, and other small items. Then she sat down next to Dylan and pulled out a book that would change his life forever. "The Anarchist's Cookbook."
Dylan listened intently as Samantha began reading all the wonderful details of how to create explosive devices of her very own. As evening began to fall, Samantha's mother called her in for supper. By this time Dylan was ecstatic. He finally had his way of escape.
All night he worked using all of Samantha's science fair materials. The next morning, just before sunup, he finally had what he needed, the perfect pipe bomb. He set the fuze and put the bomb in the dog house as close to the end of the chain as possible, then he ran around to the other side of the house as far as the chain would let him. With a glorious KHWHAFHOOM! The doghouse was incinerated and the chain shattered. Dylan was free!
He ran as far as he could before first light. When the world started to wake up he hid in an alleyway behind a dumpster. He slept there all day, and when evening fell he left once more and ran for the woods. He found a large thicket and decided to make a temporary shelter there.
The next day he was starving and his collar was bothering him terribly. It was time to find a farm. He started at the edge of the forest. Staying just inside the treeline he walked along the edge. Miles and miles he walked. He was about to collapse from hunger when he saw it. A huge red building. It looked just like the pictures from Samantha's book. A barn! Time to find a pig and some pruning shears!
For the next few weeks, Dylan lived in a cave and went to the nearby farms for a small pig every time he ran out of meat. Soon, however, the farmers began to tire of losing their livestock, and formed an angry mob. After appointing an angry mob leader and picking their angry mob marching song, they lit torches, grabbed various pointy farm implements and marched into the forest. Dylan heard their rousing song from far off and knew he was in trouble. He ran for his life, as fast as he could. He ran until he could no longer hear the mob's terrible, off-key singing. He didn't really have too much to worry about though, because after marching for about a half an hour, the mob got tired, decided to call it quits, and headed to Dairy Queen for Blizzards.
Dylan ran deep into the forest until he found himself in a place that was very familiar. It was the edge of Fairyland forest where he was born and raised. For the next week he searched the area until he found his childhood home. Inside he found everything as it was the day that his mother disappeared. The last package of bacon was still sitting in the fridge, now quite moldy.
That night Dylan climbed to the top of the highest hill and howled mournfully to the moon over the loss of his mother, the loss of his childhood, and the loss of that package of bacon that went moldy. After completely exhausting himself he fell asleep right there on the hill.
Late that night he awoke with a start to find himself surrounded by wolves. They called themselves "The Pack." A band of wolves who lived in the forest hunting other creatures for food. They were perfectly capable of joining society, and becoming respectable citizens of the Fairyland community, but they liked the thrill of the hunt. They liked to kill. They liked being Big Bad Wolves. After listening to Dylan's story, Lupé, the leader of The Pack, asked him what he could offer their group. Dylan thought for a moment, and then he had an idea. He told them that he was able to escape the city because he had learned how to create a bomb. If given the chance to learn, he knew he would be able to do so much more for them. When the other wolves heard this, they were ecstatic, and unanimously granted him membership.
Over the next few months Dylan studied all kinds of pyrotechnics. He was appointed their explosives expert, and was put in charge of coming up with creative ways to use his skills. For the next year they were the terror of the Fairyland forest. Everyone feared the unknown arsonists. The Fairyland Detective Agency investigated every case but always came up short. There were never any bodies found, and any evidence was always destroyed in the explosion. The Pack felt invincible.
One day they came to a part of the forest that they had never been to before. There was a whole community of animals living in one small village. Including pigs. When Dylan heard the other wolves discussing which animals to target he spoke up immediately. When he told the other members of the Pack all about the wonders of bacon, they immediately agreed. They needed to try it for themselves.
They sent out a surveillance team to secretly watch the entire town to find out where the pigs lived. When the team returned, they reported that there were two families of pigs living there. There would be enough meat to last for months. The first night they focused on the house with a huge litter of piglets. There must have been 20 at least! Dylan was almost unable to contain himself. They looked so delicious that he wanted nothing more than to go grab a couple of the smallest ones right then, but that would have ruined the mission. The key to success was to blow the house first. The feast would come later.
That night, after the house had gone dark, The Pack set charges all around the house and blew it sky high. Their mission was a success! They gathered their spoils and ran deep into the forest. They knew that the area would soon be swarming with cops and they would need to lie low for at awhile before going back for the other house.
A couple months later the wolves learned that the investigation had been closed. The cops had no new leads and had given up. The wolves prepared to go back. This time they were after five pigs. Two huge adults, and three almost fully grown young pigs. They'd have enough food for weeks!
That night they crept through the forest till they came upon the house. It was already dark so they got right to work setting charges all around the outside. Once they were finished they got well out of range and blew the straw house to kingdom come. Nothing was left but a smoldering crater.
"WHAT?!?!" Screamed Lupé, "WHERE ARE THEY?!?! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU BLEW UP THE HOUSE WITHOUT MAKING SURE THEY WERE IN IT?!?!"
"Well you didn't make sure either," said Clyde, a really stupid wolf that the others suspected was retarded.
Lupé leaped through the air and pinned him to the ground. "You're lucky I promised Meemaw that I would look out for you, or I'd end you right now." He raised his paw to slap him upside the face when they heard sirens approaching fast. "How did they get here so fast?!" He exclaimed, jumping off of Clyde. "EVERYONE! BACK TO THE CAVE! DON'T LET THEM TAKE YOU ALIVE!!!"
The wolves scattered immediately and disappeared into the woods. The pigs would have to wait.
For the next few months the wolves lived on wild game in the forest. They were to afraid to return right away. It was obvious that the police in that village were more alert than they had expected. They would need a much more foolproof plan before going back.
Lupé put Dylan in charge of planning an attack, but without knowledge of where the pigs were living, he couldn't plan anything. Every couple weeks Lupé sent out the surveillance team to see if the pigs had returned, but the reports were always the same. The blackened crater was still there, the pigs hadn't come back. Finally he called a meeting.
"We've been living here way too long." Lupé announced. "It's obvious that we frightened off those pigs, and they are not coming back. Right now it's too risky to go back to that town just for some puny little animals like chickens and ducks. I'm sick of having to catch wild game, so I think it's time we move on. Pack your belongings, everyone. In two days, we move out."
That night, Dylan started packing all of his bomb making supplies, and while he did so he flipped on the TV for some background noise. As he boxed up his tubes of nitroglycerine he heard something that made him give the TV his full attention.
"Tonight we're going to meet three brave pigs that have faced more hardship in the last week than most will face in a lifetime. These three little pigs just returned after 6 months away from home to find that they had lost everything, their belongings, their home, and most tragically of all, their parents."
Dylan watched as Ty Megaphone, host of the reality show, Extreme Construction: Home Edition, introduced three of the pigs they had intended to carve into a bacon feast. As Ty elaborated on plans to build a brand new home for the pigs Dylan ran to find Lupé.
Lupé called an emergency meeting and turned on a big screen at the back of the largest room of the cave for everyone to watch. The pig's new home was going to be hard to get into. It was extremely secure, with state-of-the-art surveillance technology, and loads of weapons. They even had a panic room. This was discouraging, but the wolves knew that they still had a chance. With the knowledge gained from watching this program it would be much easier to get to the pigs than had they known nothing.
Over the next week they put together a plan. They were confident that it would be foolproof. Beauregard was an electronics expert and he would be able to shut down the motion detectors easily. Dylan would be in charge of explosives as usual, and the quintuplets, Nigel, Willy, Randolph, Betty and Quark, would be in charge of the blowtorches they would need to cut into the panic room after the house was gone. Everyone else would be armed with net guns, and hide in the woods surrounding the house just in case the Three Little Pigs tried to escape.
As the night settled around them they crept around the house setting the charges and cutting off the electricity. Dylan, having become slightly psychotic, decided it would be fun to terrify the pigs before eating them. Knowing that they would have fled to the panic room as soon as they had lost power, he left one security camera going so they would be able to see their impending doom. He climbed up into the tree next to the hidden camera and in his most chilling voice, began to quietly recite a rhyme from a story he had heard as a child.
"Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chinney, chin, chin? Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house... Up."
As he spoke the final word, he detonated his charges, and the house disintegrated in a massive fireball. As they watched the remains of the house rain down, rockets began to fire from around the former perimeter of the house. The wolves ran for cover, but the rockets never came down, they just flew into the air and detonated themselves. The wolves laughed in relief and Nigel, Willy, Randolph, Betty and Quark ran to the now exposed panic room and began to cut through the metal roof.
When they were almost through, Dylan heard screaming and machine-gunfire from the woods. Foolishly he ran toward the sound, and discovered three members of the pack lying dead by a hidden door disguised as a boulder. "They've escaped!" he shouted to the others. "They've got machine guns! Wendy, Tompkins, and Thelma-Louise are dead! Everyone! On your guard!"
More shots rang out, and Dylan picked up Tompkins' net gun and ran toward the sound. He saw a wolf fall out of a tree, and noticed the pigs running into a clearing. He fired the gun, launching a net in their direction, and heard others doing the same. One by one the pigs went down.
The entire pack had left the remains of the house and were now closing in on the three helpless pigs. Dylan was almost beside himself with joy. The bacon would finally be theirs!
Lupé laughed menacingly and stepped toward the three little pigs. "You thought you could get away from us?" he asked. "No one escapes The Pack! No one! Tonight you will all become bacon!"
Suddenly they heard a scream so terrifying they would have sworn it had come from the pits of Hell. The wolves leapt to their guard but it was too late. Out of the woods ran a pack of savage wild hogs. The wolves did not stand a chance. Dylan ran for his life, and barely made it into the woods. As he ran, he heard the savage snarls of the hogs as they made short work of the pack.
Dylan ran deep into the woods, and never looked back. Life as he knew it was over. He didn't know where he would go or what he would do, but one thing was for sure, his obsession with bacon had been completely cured.
So, let this tragic tale be a lesson to you all. As Dylan's entire pack discovered, bacon may be delicious, but it can also be deadly.
The End.
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