A Werewolf in Riverdale

by Caleb Roehrig

  A cloud slid across the moon, its shadow slithering over the classroom floor, and for just a moment Miss Grundy sensed how alone she was at Riverdale High. When all the students left that morning, followed by the teachers and then the grief counselors, she alone had stayed behind. She’d said it was to catch up on grading papers—and she’d done a little of that, to be fair—but mostly it was because this classroom is where she felt closest to her students, and it seemed the best way to remember Dilton.

  It was getting terribly late, though, and she was starting to nod off in her chair. It would be most embarrassing to get caught sleeping at her desk again, so Miss Grundy reluctantly pushed to her feet. She’d use the restroom one last time, collect her things, and head home. Dilton’s memory would still be waiting here for her in the morning.

  The cleaning staff was long gone, and the hallway was almost completely dark, shards of moonlight glancing in through high, narrow windows to create disorienting shapes on the opposite wall. Without people in it, Miss Grundy reflected, the school was tomb-like—hollow and foreboding, the shadows sinister in their stillness, the corridors ringing with a silence so thick it hurt the ears.

  Unaccountably skittish, she used the facilities hastily, washed her hands, and started back up the twisting corridors to her classroom. When she got home, she’d find some mindless television show and probably fall asleep on the sofa with the cat curled up in her lap—the perfect end to a miserable day. She was already fantasizing about her thick slippers and flannel robe … when a faint sound brushed against her ear, and her footsteps faltered. Turning around, Miss Grundy peered into the darkness with a frown, more clouds disturbing the moon’s faint, abstract illumination.

  Just past the restroom, the hallway angled sharply to the left, concealing whatever lay beyond the bend. For a long moment, she stood rooted to the floor, listening. She was the only one left in the school … wasn’t she? The sound, if she’d really heard anything at all, had been so indistinct she couldn’t even describe it, and now that ringing silence was back in her ears again, her own breathing unnervingly loud. Miss Grundy licked her lips. “Hello?”

  Her voice bounced down the darkened corridor and made the turn, fading into that eerie quiet, but the hair on the back of her neck rose anyway, her skin growing tight. Despite the silence, despite the vacant shadows and unsettling stillness, Geraldine Grundy suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not alone—but someone wanted her to think she was. One more second passed as adrenaline prickled through her veins, and then she turned sharply on her heel and ran toward her classroom.

  In her mind, she told herself that this was simple paranoia, a fearful hallucination brought on by a long, hard day of learning about the gruesome details of Dilton’s death. But as she dashed up the corridor, her shoes slipping on the polished floor, she absolutely did not imagine the sound that came to life behind her. Feet pattered rhythmically, the click and skitter of nails against the tile amplified by metal lockers, the noise suggesting speed and weight.

  Something was chasing her.

  Fear sent another bolt of adrenaline screaming through her limbs, and Miss Grundy ran faster, too scared to look over her shoulder—even as she heard her pursuer skid around the bend in the corridor, even though she could already sense that the space between them was closing. Up ahead, the hallway made a sharp dogleg to the right, and her classroom was only another fifteen feet past the corner. If she could just make it inside, she could slam the door, lock it, and call the police. She just had to make it.

  The noise behind her was getting louder, closer, feet slapping the ground with that terrifying click-click, click-click; it was an animal at full gallop, moving faster than Miss Grundy ever could—and just as she reached the dogleg in the hallway, she sensed the beast leaping into the air at her back.

  Her heart in her throat, she ducked, gripping the brick wall and flinging herself around the corner a split second before the creature hurtled past her—close enough for the breeze to tickle her ear. There was a guttural yelp and a deafening crash of metal as the animal slammed full force into a row of lockers; but Miss Grundy was already racing for her open classroom, gasping for breath.

  Heaving the door shut behind her, her chest on fire and her legs rubbery with fright, she just barely managed to twist the lock into place with quaking fingers before the beast caught up with her. It slammed into the frame from the other side with so much force the wood splintered, and Miss Grundy leaped back, a scream erupting from her throat. Two massive paws then appeared, pressed against the glass of the small window that looked out into the hallway … and then the creature’s head rose into view.

  Geraldine Grundy screamed again—and then a third time for good measure, tottering back, colliding with a student’s chair and nearly losing her balance. The thing in the hallway … it couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible. Snarling and drooling on the other side of the glass was a wolf unlike any she’d ever seen before, standing at least six foot five on its hind legs, with fangs as long as fingers and impossibly glowing golden eyes. Its pink tongue slashed at the air, great globs of spittle raining down, and its throat worked as it produced a thick, rumbling growl. “Grundyyyy …”

  She froze, the sound of her own name coming from the creature’s jaws almost too shocking to process. A violent shudder raced along Miss Grundy’s spine, and she gulped down a sob, telling herself all of this was a dream—it had to be. How could an animal like this exist, let alone find its way into the school? She’d fallen asleep at her desk again, and she would wake up, soon, any minute now. Wake the hell up, Geraldine! But as she watched, her eyes bulging with panic, the wolf threw its head back and howled.

  High and hollow, the unearthly call filled the school’s deserted hallways, echoing and building until it was as if a symphony of hellhounds were baying for her blood. Miss Grundy backed farther away from the door, clapping her hands over her ears, tears streaming down her face.

  But then a second howl rose to join the first, louder and clearer—because it was coming from the corner of the room at her back.

  It was as she turned around, her joints stiff with fright, that Geraldine Grundy finally remembered something very important: Wolves hunt in packs. And she’d just let the one in the hallway drive her straight into a trap.

  From behind her large wooden desk in the corner of the room, a second creature rose up from the floor, a wolf just as big as the one outside. Beneath its charcoal-and-silver pelt, thick muscle rippled across its massive shoulders, and with an effortless leap it sprang onto the desktop. It howled again, its cry echoed first by the wolf in the hallway and then at last by Miss Grundy’s high-pitched, bloodcurdling wail of sheer terror.

  And then the creature pounced.

  THE CLOUDS HAD DISSIPATED, leaving a clear, dark sky, and Archie shivered all the way to his bones. The sight of a full moon had never been so disconcerting. His nostrils were still clogged with the putrid stench of werewolf breath, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the way the creature in the cage had hurled itself against the bars, swiping at them with paws like dinner plates.

  “Are you going to be okay to drive home?” Betty asked solicitously as she walked with him across the warehouse lot, Elena’s music pumping again inside the building.

  He decided to give her an honest answer. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again.”

  “It’s overwhelming at first, I know.” They stopped at the front gate, and she pulled out the key to the padlock, while Archie glanced across the street. He regretted parking in a shadow now. Before she undid the chain, Betty put a gentle hand on his arm. “You probably have a million questions.”

  He did, but only one came immediately to mind. “Werewolves are real?”

  “Yup. Humans by day, monsters by the light of the full moon.” Betty gave a shrug, as if it were all just that simple. “Some of them aren’t even aware they’re cursed—they just wake up the next morning thinking they had a bad dream
and go on with their lives. The ones who know what they are, what they’re doing … eventually, they can learn to control the shift.”

  That, at least, sounded hopeful. “So they can stay human?”

  “So they can become wolves whenever they want to,” Betty corrected grimly. “All lycanthropes change under the full moon, no matter what, because the nature of what they are is inescapable. But some of them enjoy it—they get off on the power and the viciousness.” She glanced back at the warehouse, stark against the speckled night sky. “Shifting doesn’t just affect them on a physical level. The more times they do it, the further they get from their humanity and the closer they come to the beast within. They stop caring about the carnage, and they don’t want to feel guilty for it.”

  “Oh.” Archie couldn’t stop thinking about where his car was parked. It seemed a lot farther away than he remembered. “So who was … who’s that in your aunt’s cage?”

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Betty let out a troubled sigh. “My cousin Jacob. About five months ago, he got bitten while out on patrol, and now …” She gestures to the warehouse again. “Well, you saw him. He’s his usual old self for all but three days a month, and then he turns into a nightmare that tries to eat people. His parents, my aunt and uncle, asked Elena to lock him up for safety, but … keeping werewolves in captivity isn’t really a solution, either. They’re incredibly strong, and they’re as clever as they are deadly.” Betty shook her head. “They also have unbelievable healing capabilities—some have been known to regenerate entire limbs. Put them in a cell and they’ll slam themselves against the bars until either the metal gives or enough of their own bones shatter so they can squeeze through.”

  “But your cousin was—”

  “The bars of that cage are coated with a paint containing silver dust, one of the werewolf’s few fatal weaknesses; but tonight is the fourteenth time Jacob has shifted, and you saw how feral he’s become. Sooner or later, his instincts will overtake him, and he’ll do something drastic—like chewing off one of his own arms and using his blood to cover the paint.”

  At this, Archie made an expression of equal parts horror and disbelief, and Betty nodded.

  “It’s happened before. And that’s the best-case scenario! The worst case is that he just stops coming, that he decides he doesn’t want to be locked up on the full moon anymore, and his own family has to hunt him down.”

  Archie frowned. “Would you guys really do that?”

  “We wouldn’t have a choice,” Betty answered promptly. “The only reason he’s getting a shot at the cage in the first place is because his dad is in charge of our family’s operations.”

  “But he’s a normal guy, like, three-hundred-and-whatever days out of the year, though, right?” Archie protested. “Not to mention being, you know, part of the family operations.”

  He didn’t mean it to come across in a scolding way, but Betty’s face hardened just the same. “He’s part of my family, yeah. But thirty-six days out of the year, he’s the kind of guy who eats a campsite full of innocent college kids—or rips Dilton Doiley’s head clean off his body. Look, Archie, the Coopers don’t do this because it’s fun; we do it because otherwise innocent people get slaughtered, or turned into monsters themselves! If a dog bites a child, it gets put down,” she continued harshly. “It’s an animal obeying its instincts, and if its instincts guide it to hurt people, then it’s a danger to society. Period.”

  Archie shivered a little, discomfited by Betty’s cold-blooded rhetoric. He understood what she was saying, and if he ever encountered a creature like the one he saw in Elena Cooper’s cage, he knew he wouldn’t be too particular about how it got stopped. But he couldn’t help thinking about how, for three and a half weeks out of the month, that thing was the kind of guy who would volunteer to be caged so that he wouldn’t hurt anyone. “But it’s not like it’s his fault this happened to him, right? I mean, obviously he doesn’t want to be this way!”

  “It’s not about fault, or what anyone wants.” Betty softened her tone. “None of us want this—but it’s the way it is. Monsters come, and the Coopers stop them; because if we don’t, there’s no telling how many people could die. Whole towns could be destroyed. That’s why we’re out there, all over the country, continuing Elijah Cooper’s mission—because someone needs to fight back.”

  The picture she painted was alarming, and Archie squeezed his hands together, thinking again about Jacob Cooper’s sharp teeth and massive claws—about the way the werewolf slammed himself against the cage over and over. Even the deadly paint on the bars hadn’t so much as slowed him down in his urge to attack and kill.

  “So how do you stop them?” Archie finally asked, his voice making an embarrassing squeak. “You said silver is one of their vulnerabilities … What are the others?”

  “They don’t have many,” Betty answered darkly. “Aside from silver, the only thing that seems to affect them is wolfsbane.”

  “Oh, of course, wolfsbane.” Archie nodded thoughtfully. Then: “Uh … what’s wolfsbane?”

  “An extremely poisonous plant, lethal enough to kill a werewolf,” she explained. “Historically, its toxin has been used for hunting and warfare purposes by different cultures, and we use it, too. It also acts as a natural repellent, in the same way that garlic is supposed to repel vampires—”

  “Wait, vampires are real, too?”

  “Archie! Focus!” Betty snapped her fingers a few times. “The only other vulnerability these creatures have is the complete destruction of their central nervous system, okay? Kill the brain, and the werewolf dies. Piano to the skull, bazooka to the face, cut their freaking heads off—whatever. It’s primitive, but it works.”

  His stomach flopped over a few times. “H-have you done something like that before?”

  Betty looked down at her feet for a moment before she answered. “I don’t have any kills of my own, no. But the things I’ve seen while on patrol with my parents? I don’t know if you’re ready to hear about those.”

  Archie nodded distantly, and as he looked into her eyes, he realized that he didn’t think he was ready for any of this. All this time, he’d been thinking of her as the girl he did puppet shows for from his bedroom window; meanwhile, she was training to fight monsters. “How do you do it, Betts? How do you face those things? And how do you learn to walk around and act like everything is normal when you know what’s really out there?”

  “Practice?” A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and then vanished when she saw he wasn’t ready to joke yet. Cautiously she stated, “Werewolves aren’t the only danger in the world, you know, Archie. I’m a girl—I spend every day assessing threats against my safety. At least these monsters are only a problem a few days a month.”

  He looked back to his car again, thinking of all the many nights he’d left the house without a second thought to go jogging, camping, hanging out with friends; all the times he’d gone for walks in the moonlight, thinking how peaceful and poetic it was. He had never once considered looking over his shoulder. For the first time, it really occurred to him that the women in his life were not quite as carefree as he was—that there were real dangers out there for them that he’d never have to worry about facing.

  But now … knowing what he knew? He wanted a rearview mirror installed on his forehead so he could never stop looking behind him. The night before, he’d taken the trash cans out to the curb for his dad, watching the fog move against the streetlights—while only a mile or so away, a man-wolf was getting ready to rip the entrails out of a budding valedictorian.

  “Why here?” he asked next, unable to muster up much volume.

  Betty cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “You said your family’s been doing this for generations, but … why Riverdale?” Archie elaborated, tossing his hands out to take in their surroundings. “I mean, it’s not even that big of a town! How can there be enough werewolves around here to keep your family hunting them down fo
r a hundred-and-whatever years?”

  “I guess that’s the other thing you really need to know,” Betty acknowledged with a glum nod. “Lycanthropy … we call it a curse, but only because we don’t really know a better way to describe it. All the old, familiar legends warn about the werewolf’s bite—which is what turned my cousin Jacob—but the most common way for it to be transmitted is actually hereditarily.”

  “Hereditarily?” Archie wrinkled his brows.

  “Through the blood. Through families.” She turned her arm over, running a finger along the veins in her wrist. “It’s a recessive gene, passed down from carriers to their children, and it asserts itself without any real predictability. It can happen to one sibling but not another; it can skip generations; it can go dormant for hundreds of years, finally popping up out of nowhere in a family that didn’t even know they bore the markers for it.” Softly, sadly, she added, “No warning or anything. Just … one day you wake up and find out you’re a monster.”

  “That’s a really disturbing thought.” Archie was chilled all the way to the bone. He tried to imagine what that would be like—to live a normal life until, overnight, you suddenly become a creature driven to commit the ghastly acts Betty was describing. It was petrifying, and he actually had no idea what he’d do if it happened to him. He didn’t have an aunt with a free cage to spare. Would he want to live? Would he want to die?

  “Don’t worry,” Betty said hastily, reading his mind. “Werewolf hunters keep meticulous records about this stuff, and I’ve looked up pretty much everyone in town. There’s never been a known lycanthrope in either of your parents’ family lines, at least as far back as I was able to trace them.” It was exactly what he’d wanted to hear, and he sagged with unmitigated relief until she added, “But. The reason why werewolves are so prevalent in the region? Is because there are at least four established families here in Riverdale that we know carry the trait. And lycanthropy can be transmitted to humans even by the bite of a werewolf who’s still in human form.”