The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures by Sebastian Gregory

first taken deep into the asylum. Past locked cell doors they went until they had almost made it back to Dr Grimm’s office. Thumbeana held the tiny bear tight as they hid in a shadow.
    In the corridor a scrawny man was being held by two of the lumbering guards. His feet had left the ground and he was tiny in comparison to the guards, yet he struggled with a strength that made the guards shake. He wore nothing but rags and his features were obscured by the dim gas-light shadow. Dr Grimm stood in front of the three, attempting to fill a large syringe with a green liquid. The man kicked it from Grimm’s frail skeletal hand. The bottle shattered with a hiss.
    The man pleaded, “Lock me up—you need to lock me up.”
    “Calm down,” Grimm replied. “You need to take your medicine. This tantrum will not do.”
    “It’s too late, too late, lock me up, sir, I beg you.”
    “After medicine,” Grimm insisted.
    Too late indeed, for the man threw back his head and with a sickening creak his jaw opened wide and split. From his mouth, slowly at first, came a muzzle and thick black fur, then fangs all the better to eat you with and eyes all the better to hunt you with, ears all the better to catch your screams. The scrawny man’s skin flopped to the floor as the guards and Dr Grimm were dwarfed by the huge frame of the wolf. In one swift movement almost too fast for the eye to catch, a claw shredded the guards. The wolf stood on gigantic hind legs as wolf and man merged into something other. It picked up the doctor and held him in a grip so tight, Thumbeana heard his bones snap. The good doctor did not seem to notice, distracted by the wolf’s huge dripping maw.
    It spoke with a deep rumbling growl.
    “The girl from the forest—where is she?”
    The doctor did not or could not reply.
    “I followed her scent. Tell me.”
    It was at this moment, Thumbeana noted, that all sanity had left Doctor Grimm. Maybe the wolf sensed it too, for it howled a screaming howl of frustration and, in one clean snap, removed the doctor’s head.

And There Was Insanity Forever Ever After
    “Then,” continued Thumbeana to Red Riding Hood, “a lot of guards came, lumbering and grunting, tried to fight the wolf, but it did not like that at all.”
    “It got angry and smashed the magic mirror in Grimm’s office. It must have been important because it made an awful mess. Nearly everyone escaped. They are harming each other. We searched lots of days and nights to find you,” Thread Bear added helpfully.
    “We found keys from a dead-like-a-dodo guard.”
    Tears welled up in Red’s eyes; they spilled, rolling down her cheeks, wetting them with bitter stings.
    “Then I am not insane? All this happened?”
    Thumbeana and the bear shook their heads slowly.
    “We brought you something,” the bear said.
    “We took it from Dr Grimm’s cabinet,” added Thumbeana.
    She placed the folded gift in front of Red. The girl took it and smiled. It was her blood-red hood.
    “Thank you,” she said, wrapping it around herself, but now wearing the strait-jacket like a dress.
    “The wolf is looking for you—it followed you all the way here. What should we do?” Thumbeana wanted to know.
    “We stick together and we should leave,” Red decided and the others nodded in agreement.
    The three crept from the cell. First Red Riding hood, followed by Thumbeana with the Thread Bear on her shoulders carrying the metal hoop and asylum keys. They found the asylum even more horrid than when they first arrived. There was darkness now to the place that oozed from the very walls. In the air was the smell of burning and fresh blood. A silence had descended yet in the background a constant chatter of giggles and screams filled the air. Slowly, ever so slowly and following the wall, they descended deeper into the asylum. They stepped past the bodies of Mother May Is and lumbering guards. An inmate or two lay dead or hanging from the ceiling by thick, thick rope, dying.