Red Wolf Solutions
The Chronicles of the Man Named Destruction
By E. J. Josephson
Early 2025… (you are not crazy, this is a change that has been made to add more time for my editor)
In this story, you’ll find a unique blend of horror, humor, and profound moments of loss. It follows generations of a family as they grapple with a creature that is beyond their understanding. The family must keep the story of their struggle within their own circle. The family’s beliefs were so outlandish that if anyone heard them, they would assume they were all insane.
Sample from the story:
The autobiography written in fourth grade was stuck to the refrigerator in the kitchen. Over the years, the vast life experiences of a nine-year-old became splattered with dots of drinks and food that had sprayed or dripped on the yellowing piece of paper. Gus had a memory of a spot, a little off center, that he knew resulted from him triumphantly squashing a house fly one summer. The paper read:
April 4th 1991
“My name is Laoch Kier Ferguson the Fifth, but my friends call me Gus. My enemy’s call me Laoch Kier Ferguson the Fifth.
I was born in the highlands of Scotland and I am not immortal. I moved to the US when I was a small child. I do not remember living in Scotland. Not long after moving here, my mom who was from the US was badly injured and my Dad who was from Scotland, died when a tornado hit our house in Raleigh. My mom got better, but it took a long time. I think she is still sad and misses my dad. I never knew him, but I wish I did because the stories my mom tells about him are funny and he liked to laugh. My mom says I have his same blue eyes and laugh and she can see a light shade of red in my brown hair, just like him. All I got from the storm was a scratch that went down the side of my arm and left me with a scar. I was very lucky. This summer I am playing baseball and want to play football next fall. I am 51 inches tall and I weigh 64 pounds. I am very fast, but not as fast as Brian or Bennett”
Scrawled at the top was the teacher’s comment, “Very nice to meet you Gus! Ms. Sigmund“
Though it may not have been earth-shattering literature, that paper has remained on Gus’s fridge since the day he brought it home from school. It didn’t hold any value to him, except for the fact that it had always been there, a constant presence, stuck to the side of the fridge. That single fact alone made it important. Regardless of the refrigerator being replaced twice, the old red letter “S” magnet, the lone survivor from his childhood alphabet magnets, remained firmly attaching the autobiography to the refrigerator.
A cold and blustery Tuesday, in his freshman year of college at Western Carolina University, he got a call at Harrell Dorm, Gus’s home in college that year. As if November didn’t suck enough, the RA came to his room and said, “You have a call in the main office downstairs”. Even though finding it strange that he didn’t get called in his room, he went downstairs to answer the call. Despite knowing his mother had his room’s phone number, he expected to hear her voice. Instead, Peter’s dad was on the line.
Later in life, he could recall almost every single moment from that day, as if it had just happened. After hitting pause on the Nintendo, he walked out of his dorm room and made his way towards the stairwell. Not wanting to waste any time, he skipped the sketchy dorm elevator and made his way down the stairs from the fourth floor. Gus remembered the worn off paint spots missing on the hand-rail in the staircase, causing the railing to have a pattern similar to a calico cat. Each color a different colored layer of paint used over the years. Then there was Peter’s dad on the phone as he said in a serious tone, “Hey son, I have a car coming to pick you up. I don’t want you to panic, but your mom is in the hospital. You need to pack a bag and they will be there in thirty minutes. That is all we know right now…”
That is the only place where his memory failed him. His mind went blank. He remembered hearing Mack say other words, but they didn’t register. Hanging up the phone and moving like an automaton, he went up the stairs, grabbed a bag, quickly packed it with clothes and toiletries, and descended. The next thing he recalled was riding in a very nice black car to the tiny local airport on the hill above Cullowhee, N.C. and getting on a small jet that was waiting just for him.
Peter’s parents were loaded, and to a degree, thanks to their company’s success, so was his mother. As he sat in the car for the five-minute ride to the airport, he remembered thinking, “this can’t be good” then immediately tried to dismiss the thought. That thought however, stuck with him for years as he blamed himself for having it, and it, for her dying. That thought had nothing to do with the brain tumor that killed her, but in his mind, his thinking, “this can’t be good,” had somehow inexplicably manifested the illness.
There were no last words in the hospital. His mom never got to say a final tearful goodbye like in the movies, “You go make the world wonderful” or “I love you and will miss you”. There were just wires, tubes, hospital smells and beeps. The constant rhythm of the ventilator that assisted her breathing was his companion much of the time as he held vigil beside her bed. His mother’s doctor had clarified that she had GBM, or Glioblastoma Multiform, and her condition was terminal. Her doctor didn’t expect her ever regain consciousness, but he was determined to ensure she felt no pain. Jen had been suffering from migraines for years, but it wasn’t until she arrived at the hospital in an ambulance that the doctors made this discovery on an MRI.
Her migraines had been persistent since the storm that took Gus’s father’s life, and everyone always assumed the injuries she had sustained caused them. After they removed the ventilator, his mother’s breaths became labored and sometimes punctuated by faint chirping sounds that escaped her lips, like fragments of words trying to escape a dream. The next morning, she started moving her feet and arms almost like she was swimming; the nurses rushed in to clear the room, alarmed by her sudden actions. From the hall, Gus watched as they administered a sedative, then secured her arms and legs for her safety. Then suddenly, she was gone. When Gus got home from the hospital, the first thing he saw when he walked in the door was the autobiography stuck to the refrigerator by the red ‘S’ magnet.
So the old childhood assignment stays there… with him. It defines home to Gus. The paper’s importance, cemented simply by its longevity, where it lives on his refrigerator… It stays right F%@#ing there.