A Werewolf in Riverdale

by Caleb Roehrig

  A cocky smirk pulled at Bingo’s mouth. “Maybe a little. But ‘great’ isn’t good enough, man—it has to be better than that. It has to be perfect!” He rubbed his eyes in frustration. “We’ve been pitching a couple of record labels, and one of them asked to hear more. This needs to clinch the deal.”

  “Maybe you should replace the lead singer,” Jughead suggested.

  “I am the lead singer, you dill weed.”

  “That’s fine, we all make mistakes.” Jughead tried to dodge the friendly blow Bingo aimed at his shoulder, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. “Now that we have that out of the way, is there any more pizza?”

  Bingo arched a brow, his expression shifting a little. He looked almost … sly. “We finished it all, man. Are you really still hungry? That was a lot of food.”

  “Uh … yeah, I guess I am.” Jughead looked over at the pizza boxes scattered on the floor of the basement—three of them, the cardboard stained with grease. Had they really eaten that much? Because he sure didn’t feel like it. In fact, his stomach even growled a little. “I must be feeling better. Can we order some more?”

  “You know what?” Bingo got to his feet, stretching out his arms. He had broader shoulders than Jughead, but the same long, wiry limbs. “I could probably keep eating, too, but I wanna go out. I’m feeling, like … restless, you know?”

  Jughead started nodding even before Bingo was finished speaking. He hadn’t been sure how to pinpoint the agitated buzz that had been growing inside of him all evening long until Bingo said the word out loud—restless captured it. He’d thought he was just anxious, still bothered by the day’s events, but it was almost like he was itching under his skin. He stood up, following his cousin to the stairs. “Yeah, okay. Going out sounds good. Where to?”

  Bingo glanced over his shoulder, his lips pulling into that wide, toothy grin of his. “Actually, I’d like it to be a surprise.”

  It seemed like a weird thing to say, but as long as they got food, it didn’t really matter to Jughead where they went, so he just followed his cousin up the stairs and into the Wilkins’ kitchen. Once there, Bingo headed straight to the back door, tossing it open and starting outside. Pausing next to the vintage gas stove—all porcelain, chrome, and white enamel—Jughead cleared his throat.

  “Uh … aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Like what?” Bingo stopped in the doorway, the full moon creating a soft, silvery halo in his auburn hair.

  “Like, I don’t know, pants?” Jughead made an up-and-down gesture at the guy’s body, clad in just shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t even have shoes on. “It’s, like, forty-five degrees out.”

  Bingo looked into the night, a damp, chill wind shaking tree branches that scrabbled against the glass of the kitchen window, and laughed. “So what? It was even colder in the cemetery last night, and you didn’t complain then.”

  The room tilted suddenly, Jughead’s chest going tight as his heart squeezed upward. His tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, he forced out, “W-what did you say?”

  “Why?” Bingo stepped back into the kitchen, still smiling, eyes fixed on his cousin’s. “What do you think I said?”

  An awful, tingling silence stretched out between them as Jughead struggled to figure out an answer to the question. He couldn’t have heard what he thought he heard, and he couldn’t bring himself to repeat it even if he was right … but everything about this moment suddenly felt off and frightening. He unstuck his tongue a second time. “I think … I think I better go home—”

  “Don’t wuss out on me now, cousin.” Bingo’s hand shot out so fast Jughead didn’t even see it move, the boy’s fingers closing tight around his wrist in an iron grip. “I’m starting to get pretty hungry myself, and I don’t feel like eating alone.”

  His other hand shot out next, his fingernails ripping the flesh of Jughead’s exposed forearm—and as blood rose to the surface, a pain shot through him unlike anything he’d felt before. It stung and then sizzled, burrowing into him like a parasite and hurtling up his veins; the air squeezed from Jughead’s lungs, the muscles in his arms and legs locking up, and a cramp speared his jaw. How could a simple scratch cause this much agony? What was wrong with him? Eyes bulging, he tugged at his cousin’s grip, wheezing for air. “Help … can’t … breathe …”

  “Don’t fight it, Jug,” Bingo said soothingly, his voice muffled and distant. The light in the small kitchen began to throb, and Jughead was certain he was starting to hallucinate, because he could swear his cousin’s eyes were glowing a bright yellow. “It hurts worse if you resist, so just relax and let it happen …”

  “Let … w-what … happ—” He couldn’t finish. The pain exploded inside of him, the muscles in his back cramping so hard he heard his spine crack. His legs twisted violently—the knee joints snapping the wrong way, bone bulging against skin—and horror swept through him. A guttural, inhuman roar escaped the back of Jughead’s throat … and everything went black.

  SOMETIMES, BETTY LIKED TO imagine that she lived in a parallel universe, where the Coopers were just another ordinary, small-town family leading normal lives with normal problems. In her fantasies, she grumbled about homework, maybe had a little dating drama, and she had never had to learn how to bring metal to its boiling point so she could cast her own bullets in her parents’ basement.

  In this parallel universe, of course, the Coopers didn’t live in Riverdale. After all, the reason Betty’s life was so complicated was because her great-great-great-grandfather—Elijah Henry Cooper—moved to the area back in the late 1800s. A mill worker by trade, his desire was also to lead a normal life; but all of that changed one fateful night in 1893 when, during an evening stroll outside town, Elijah had a terrifying encounter that would alter the course of his life … and set a course for generations of Coopers to come.

  Almost as soon as Cooper children could walk, they were learning how to roll with a punch, how to assess a dangerous situation, how to expect the unexpected. By the time she was eight years old, Betty had memorized her great-great-great-grandfather’s many journals; by the time she was ten, she was studying judo, jujitsu, and krav maga; and by the time she was twelve, she was a crack shot. The Coopers also learned a lot of handy tips for washing blood out of their clothes.

  The whole point of the pop-up cardboard targets in the obstacle course, with their exasperatingly similar coloring, was to condition her to be prepared—to react without having to think first. That’s why, when a redheaded figure came flying out of the shadows, crash-landing on the cement floor and slewing to a stop at her feet, she had her pistol out and pointed right at his forehead before she remembered it was only loaded with paint capsules.

  And before she recognized who she was aiming at.

  The boy coughed and groaned, clutching his chest, and her eyes bulged. “Archie?”

  “Uh …” He blinked up at her, trying on something that looked like a smile. “H-hey, Betts.”

  “Let me guess.” A woman’s voice boomed from the shadows, almost as loud as it had been over the speaker system just moments earlier. “A friend of yours?”

  Stepping out of the gloom, the floodlights gleaming on a cascade of shiny black hair and even shinier leather pants, a woman with dark brown skin and formidable muscles in her shoulders and upper arms stopped right in front of Archie. Glaring down at him like she’d just found an insect crawling along her arm, she spun a nickel-plated handgun—a real one—around her finger and then racked the slide.

  “He used to be,” Betty answered, her eyes narrowing into slits as she watched Archie’s face turn paper white. The warehouse and everything inside it was part of an enormous secret that she had once sworn her life to protect. Only a handful of people in Riverdale had any business knowing about it, and her next-door neighbor was not one of them; the only way he could have ended up there was by spying on her. “If you want to kick him some more, be my guest.”

  “Wait!” Archie shouted, throwing his ha
nds up just as the barrel of the gun leveled with his freckled nose. “I didn’t see anything, I swear it, and if you let me go, I … I promise I won’t tell anyone what’s going on!”

  The woman cocked her head to the side. “And just what is it that you think is going on?”

  “Um.” Archie looked from her to Betty and back again, and then twisted his neck to take in the obstacle course. “Is this some kind of fight club?”

  “Betty …” the woman growled through her teeth.

  “Archie, just what the hell are you doing here?” Betty grabbed him by the shirtfront, hauling him into a sitting position so she could stare daggers into his eyes. The sweat on her body was cooling fast, but she was angry enough to heat the whole building. “Did you follow me? Did you break in?”

  “I heard you on the phone today, after you left the Chock’Lit Shoppe,” he answered in a nervous undertone, glancing at the deadly gun barrel, “and I thought … I don’t know, I thought you were in some kind of trouble. You said Dilton’s death was your fault!”

  “You let him hear that?” The woman gaped at Betty, her eyes wide. “What kind of amateur-hour nonsense—”

  Betty sucked air in sharply through her nose. “You eavesdropped on my phone call, Archie? Really?”

  “You were all upset! I just wanted to comfort you, and then—”

  “That’s it.” The woman straightened back up again, aiming the gun at Archie’s chest this time. “We’re killing him.”

  “Stop that, nobody’s killing anybody!” Betty fumed, shoving the woman’s gun aside. “Look, I’m not any happier about this than you are, but we’re here to stop the killing, remember?”

  The woman still glared at Archie like she wanted to stomp him out with one of her heavy-duty boots, but she grudgingly holstered her weapon, and the boy breathed out a whimper of relief. “Betty, what’s all this about? And who is this?”

  Letting out a weary sigh, the blond girl said, “Archie, this is my aunt Elena Cooper. Aunt Elena, this is my neighbor Archie Andrews.”

  “This is your aunt?” Archie blinked.

  At the exact same moment, Aunt Elena made a face. “This is the boy you said was cute?”

  Suddenly, Betty’s face alone was warm enough to heat the entire neighborhood, and she chose to ignore both questions. “This is a … it’s kind of a private gym. My aunt owns it and runs it, and it’s just for my family, so that we can train to fight—”

  “Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Betty Cooper,” Aunt Elena snapped, holding up one long finger in warning. “I don’t care how long you’ve known this kid, or how adorable you think his freckles are; your first duty is to this family, and you took an oath to protect our mission! What we do is classified.”

  “I took an oath to protect innocent people.” Betty thrust a hand out at Archie, still huddled on the floor. “He already knows things he’s not supposed to, and if I lie to him, how is he supposed to stay safe? Dilton was his friend, too, Aunt Elena, and the person behind this?” She bit her lip. “It’s someone we both know. At this point, there’s no good reason not to tell him the whole truth.”

  “Betty?” Archie stared up at her like he’d never seen her before. “What’s going on? What do you mean, ‘someone we both know’?”

  “Archie.” Betty took a breath and squared her shoulders. “This is going to be a lot for you to take in, so I need you to listen. The reason I’m here, the reason all of this is here, is because I’m training”—she hesitated, taking a deep breath—“to kill werewolves.”

  For a long moment, Archie didn’t react at all. And then he scratched his head. “Werewolves.”

  “Yes.” Betty shifted her weight awkwardly. She’d been expecting a somewhat more explosive response from him. “Werewolves. Like, from all the terrible movies? Only actually scary. What I’m saying is … they’re real.”

  Archie’s expression was still a total blank, and her frustration ratcheted up a notch.

  “You do know what werewolves are, right? Humans shape-shifting under the full moon, growing lots of body hair, vulnerable to silver, all that stuff—”

  “You think werewolves are real,” Archie summarized carefully, his tone delicate and just vaguely condescending, as if he were speaking to someone in a straitjacket.

  “I don’t think they’re real; I know they’re real.” Betty spoke through her teeth. “The Cooper family has hunted them for generations—it’s what we do. It’s been our mission since one of our ancestors encountered the first lycanthrope in these hills when he moved to the Riverdale area to work the lumber mills.”

  Archie scrunched up his brow. “Lichen throw-up?”

  “Lycanthrope,” Elena Cooper enunciated, rolling her eyes. “It’s another word for werewolf, okay? Try to keep up.”

  In an undertone again, Archie asked, “Betty, is this some kind of cult? Do you … need help escaping?”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, breaking in here and demanding answers that you refuse to believe.” Elena thrust her chin at him. “This whole town would just be a forgotten tragedy in some local history book if it weren’t for Elijah Cooper!”

  Archie’s brow scrunched a little more. “Uh … who?”

  “My great-great-great-grandfather,” Betty explained. “In the late nineteenth century, there were less than two thousand people living here, and a lot of them started dying in what looked like freak animal attacks. The whole town was in crisis, and the residents were talking about abandoning the area all together.” With more than a trace of pride, she said, “Elijah was the one who finally managed to track the beast responsible—to learn what it really was—and he was the one who figured out how to kill it. Since then, the Cooper family has protected Riverdale from werewolves.”

  Archie looked from one of them to the other, and then he started to laugh. “Oh, I get it! You guys are mad because I snuck in, so now you’re trying to prank me.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Betty set her jaw, coming to a decision. “Come on, Archie. There’s something you need to see.”

  Grabbing him by the arm, she helped Archie to his feet and started walking him into the darkness beyond the obstacle course—toward another narrow hallway leading off from the makeshift gym. From behind them, Aunt Elena called out, her voice edged sharply with disapproval. “Elizabeth …”

  “He can deny what he hears but not what he sees with his own two eyes,” Betty called back over her shoulder—hoping it was true. Hoping she wasn’t really making the huge mistake her aunt clearly believed she was.

  The floodlights were so dazzling that leaving their reach was like venturing into deep space, the narrow hallway a black hole that closed around them with ominous totality. Betty knew the twists and turns of the corridor so well by now that she didn’t even need to wait for her eyes to adjust, but she felt Archie’s muscles tense up through the sleeve of his jacket. Good. At least he was taking this seriously.

  The air at the head of the hallway smelled of dust, glue, and fresh paint; but the farther down it they walked, the thicker and muskier the odors became—rancid sweat, spoiling meat … and damp fur. There was a sound, too, a heavy, congested breathing that ruffled against the walls. When they were right up beside it, Betty finally stopped walking. “Okay, Archie. I’m going to turn on the light, and I need you to be ready, okay?”

  He didn’t say anything, so she flipped the switch, the sudden glare of overhead fluorescents making them both flinch. Before them stood a cage about the size of a stable, with thick metal bars that were bolted to the concrete floor, but what had Archie’s undivided attention—his eyes huge—was the animal trapped inside. Massive and covered in patchy fur, with long limbs and paws the size of human hands, it was a wolf.

  The beast snarled at the light, its narrowed eyes flashing a bright gold, its lips curled back to bare thick, monstrous teeth. Then, without warning, it lunged. One push from its muscular hindquarters launched it through the air, its massive body slamming against the bars rig
ht in front of Archie. The boy let out a strangled yelp of fright, jerking backward and stumbling into the wall behind him. But the bars held, the animal falling back, shaking itself off and growling deep in its throat.

  “Bet-Betty,” Archie gasped out, his face the color of oatmeal. “What … what the hell—”

  “This is the real world, Archie.” Betty spoke as calmly as she could while the beast paced inside its enclosure, showing off its dense muscle, its inhuman proportions. “This is what goes bump in the night. Werewolves are smart, deadly, and very, very real. A monster just like this one is what killed Dilton,” she added darkly. “And it’s still out there.”

  THERE WAS NO COUNTING THE number of students Geraldine Grundy had taught in the decades she’d worked at Riverdale High, and over the years, their names and faces had a habit of eroding from her memory. Some stood out, of course—for good reasons and for bad ones—but the pupils she would never, ever forget were those who had been lost too soon. That night, as she sat in her empty classroom, gazing out the broad windows at a lovely full moon, she knew Dilton Doiley would be forever etched into her memory.

  Frankly, he was the kind of student she might have remembered anyway. His test scores had consistently been off the charts, his essays filled with information even she hadn’t known, and he’d already taken enough college-level courses to skip his freshman year when he graduated. Maybe even to skip his sophomore year, as well. He had been a bright, perceptive boy with a promising future ahead of him, and it was everyone’s loss that he would never fulfill his humbling potential. With his brain, who knew what discoveries he might have made?

  Miss Grundy let out a heavy sigh and rubbed her eyes. It was honestly too sad to contemplate. Not that his intellect made his death more of a tragedy than if he’d been a less gifted student, like, say, Moose Mason, just for example. But the world always seemed to have plenty of boys like Moose to spare—those with more brawn than brains, preferring to solve their problems with childish violence rather than emotional maturity. It could have used another Dilton Doiley or two.