A Werewolf in Riverdale

by Caleb Roehrig

  “That’s not the point!”

  “It is the point. It’s the only point.” Bingo stepped closer, until Jughead could smell his expensive cologne. “Humans might make art and do math and walk around on two feet, but they’re still animals, and this is how the animal kingdom works: The weak die so the strong can survive. That’s just a fact.” Reaching over, he plucked a piece of lint off his cousin’s jacket, and Jughead lurched back reflexively. “People love to act all sad when they see lions take down a gazelle on one of those nature shows, but guess what? If the gazelles all get away, then the lion cubs starve to death. Which one’s better? Which one doesn’t deserve to die?”

  “You’re twisting this all around!” Jughead jabbed an accusing finger at him. “You’re making it sound like it was them or us, like we didn’t have a choice, and that’s not …” His windpipe closed, choking off the rest of a statement he wasn’t even sure how to finish anyway—because if he’d had a choice, none of this would have happened. Unable to muster his full voice, he whispered, “I don’t want to kill anyone else, Bingo. I don’t want to be a monster.”

  “You keep saying that word, but we’re not ‘monsters,’ man. We’re titans.” Bingo’s eyes lit up—literally—a bright, golden glow dancing in his pupils. “We’re the top of the food chain! How many times have you told me how much you hate this chemical toilet of a town, anyway? All these pathetic, stuck-up Riverdale sheep with their boring lives, always following each other around, trying to be the first one to do what everybody else is doing. Don’t act like you don’t think you’re better than them—like you don’t know it.”

  “I … I don’t,” he insisted weakly, but he didn’t even sound convincing to his own ears. He’d spent his whole life being teased and excluded by most of the kids he went to school with, and he’d figured out early on that he just didn’t care—that it actually spoke highly of his character that he didn’t fit in with the popular crowd. Everything about them was generic and cruel and fake, and he absolutely considered himself better than that.

  The only people he knew who had offered him nothing but genuine friendship, had been nice to him without expecting anything in return, were Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper. The fact was, if a disaster-movie-type scenario happened in Riverdale, Jughead had decided long ago that they were the only ones in town he’d bother to save. But now his life was a disaster, and he wasn’t sure if he could save anyone—least of all himself.

  “This is who you are, Jughead.” Bingo’s tone was measured and calm. “You can love it or you can hate it, but you can’t change it. This world is all about survival of the fittest, man or beast—and you and me? We’re the fittest to survive.” The light in his eyes grew brighter, and his eyeteeth sharpened as he grinned. “These people are our food and our entertainment, and the sooner you accept that the happier you’ll be.”

  “Get away from me.” Jughead stepped back, bumping into his bicycle and nearly toppling it over. The wind shifted, scattering crisp brown leaves across the small lot of the hardware store, and the bag of chains hung like an albatross from his straining grip. “Go back to Midville and stay there—or, better yet? Go to hell.”

  Jughead was on his bike, pedaling away, when Bingo called after him, “Don’t worry about that, cousin. We’re both going to hell.”

  The wind picked up, tossing the branches of the trees overhead, and the chattering of dried leaves sounded like a chorus of hideous, mocking laughter.

  WITH THIRTY MINUTES TO GO until sunset, Archie was lying on his bed with his headphones on, staring at the ceiling. He had the volume as loud as he could stand it, because otherwise he was afraid he’d hear his phone and then he’d have to pick it up. Then he’d have to face what he had promised to be part of tonight.

  He was being childish and he knew it, but he just didn’t want to admit that Jughead could be the Riverdale Ripper. Okay, so the guy had been acting a little strange over the past month—but so what? This was Jughead they were talking about. He always acted strange. He took pride in it. On the other hand, of course, was the fact that Archie had known very well there was a possibility he’d be hunting his best friend when he asked Elena to train him in the first place.

  Now the full moon was on its way to claiming the sky, to working its influence over the werewolf that had been terrorizing the city, and Archie had to decide if he was going to do something about it or not.

  Could he live with himself if it turned out the creature he was supposed to hunt was his best friend?

  Could he live with himself if it turned out his best friend was killing people and he did nothing to stop it?

  Another minute ticked off the clock, and with an agonized growl, Archie ripped the headphones away from his ears. His phone was vibrating madly, like he’d known it would be, and as he snatched it off his nightstand he jerked open the blinds. Betty was watching him from her bedroom window, her own phone pressed to her ear, her expression grim.

  “I’m here,” Archie snapped into his cell, scowling across the distance between them.

  “I can see that.” She didn’t sound angry, but she didn’t exactly sound warm, either. For a moment, he wasn’t sure which way this conversation was about to go. But then she added, “Listen … I am sorry I didn’t tell you earlier about what I’d learned at Reggie’s party. Honestly, I just didn’t know how. I don’t want it to be Juggie, either.”

  Even as far apart as they were, he could tell when her expression softened, when her posture drooped with regret. Letting out a sigh, Archie glanced down at his feet. “It’s bad no matter who it is. And I’m sorry that I freaked out on you like that. This is … it’s just hard, you know? All I wanted was for your aunt to teach me how to face this so I wouldn’t feel so helpless anymore, but now that it’s actually go time, now that it’s actually here—”

  “You feel helpless anyway?”

  “Yeah. A little.” He looked up again. “Even if it’s Bingo, it’s still someone we know. We still have to go hunting for someone we’ve hung out with.”

  Betty sighed before speaking again. “Look, Archie. I really could use your help—and, honestly, I was kind of relieved thinking I wouldn’t have to do this alone … but if the whole thing is too hard for you …”

  “What about wolfsbane?” he asked suddenly, recalling the night he’d learned about werewolves for the first time—the conversation they’d had in the parking lot of Elena’s secret gym. He watched Betty from across the way, trying to study her expression in the glow from her bedside lamp, the clouds behind the Cooper house so thick that the sky was already dark.

  Betty’s shoulders sagged. “Archie—”

  “No, hear me out, okay?” He put up a hand. “I read all those books in your aunt’s library, and a bunch of them included rumors about wol—”

  “Wolfsbane serving as a cure for lycanthropy?” Betty concluded the statement for him, her tone weary. “I’ve read all those same books, too, Archie, and there’s a reason we still call them ‘rumors.’ I mean, if a cure actually worked, don’t you think we’d have used it by now?” She sighed. “My cousin Jacob hasn’t shown up at Elena’s gym yet, and he’s not answering his phone, either. She might have to drive out to his place in Greendale and start tracking him—she might have to kill him, if things go south. If we could have cured him …”

  “I’m sorry,” Archie answered quietly.

  “It sucks,” she acknowledged. Then: “It’s also part of the job.”

  She was watching him carefully from her window, and he knew what point she was trying to make—but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Why would those rumors still be going around if there’s nothing to them, though? I mean, can you prove there’s no way it could work?”

  “No one’s ever proven that it can,” Betty countered. “Look, the rumors persist because, since the dawn of time, werewolves who didn’t want to be killed by angry villagers had to convince them that a cure existed. The rumors persist because people want to believe them.�
� She switched her phone from one hand to the other. “All we know about wolfsbane for a fact is that it’s poisonous—to humans and lycanthropes—and that some werewolves have had limited success using it in small doses to help inhibit the change. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Wait, so it can help?” Archie perked up excitedly, even as he watched Betty slap an aggravated hand over her eyes.

  “Listen to me, okay? Some werewolves have had limited success, but it’s like homeopathic medicine—we don’t know how it works, or even if it works. People say it does, but we can’t be sure it isn’t just a placebo effect.”

  Archie tried not to look as confused as he felt. “A … a what?”

  “A placebo is a treatment that doesn’t actually do anything, but the patient gets better anyway, because they believe in it. Professionals have documented the effect lots of times—it shows that attitude and psychology are linked to the healing process.”

  “Wow. That’s … kind of cool, I guess?”

  “I learned that from Dilton,” Betty said, leaning against the window frame with a sad look. “Look, Jacob tried wolfsbane the first few months, and all it did was make him sick. And even in the cases where it seems to help, it’s only temporary, because eventually the beast wants out. That’s its nature, Archie, and they can’t fight it.”

  Turning her gaze out at the night, at the lampposts along the street and the heavy shadows gathering beyond them, she added, “The only guaranteed ways to stop a werewolf are a silver bullet or a blade to the neck. We can’t take chances with this. It’s always better safe than sorry—especially when lives are at stake.”

  Archie shuddered all over. He’d spent the last month thinking of the Riverdale Ripper as a creature, like the thing Elena kept caged up at the back of the warehouse—some ravening, dangerous monster. It was one thing to know that the animal hurling itself at those silver-coated bars in a murderous frenzy was a normal human being for twenty-eight days out of every thirty-one, but it was another to have met that person face-to-face. It was another to have grown up with him, learned to read with him, gone to his birthday parties, and listened to him cry over skinned knees and bad dreams. “Betts …”

  “I’m sorry, Archie, I really am.” Her face was tipped down, her expression unreadable, but her voice had pain in it. “I’d change this if I could, but I can’t. And if we don’t do something to stop the wolf, whoever it is, more people are going to die. We’ve already lost a friend, a teacher, and Pop Tate … who’s next? Veronica? Your parents?”

  “Okay,” Archie said in a hoarse voice—because, rather foolishly, it was the first time he’d even considered that his parents might be at risk. They didn’t even know werewolves were real, and they’d probably have him committed if he tried to warn them. But the Ripper was definitely focused on people in Jughead’s life, and that included Mr. and Mrs. Andrews … who wouldn’t think twice about opening the door for Jug or Bingo. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. We have to stop this thing, no … no matter what.”

  “Then you’re in?”

  “On one condition.” He licked his lips, looking over at his bed, where he’d tossed the target that Elena had made him take home from the gym the night before. The kindly old woman smiled back at him through the kill-shot splatter of black paint. “I get Jughead.”

  On the other side of the gulf between their houses, Betty’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  “There’s two of us and two of them, and the easiest way to do this is if we split up,” Archie stated. “So you go after Bingo, and I get Jughead.”

  “No offense,” Betty returned lightly, “but are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean … come on, Archie, you can’t tell me you’re not emotionally involved here. This isn’t the kind of situation where you can afford to hesitate, and if it’s Jughead …”

  “No offense? But he’s my best friend, and I’m not gonna let you or anybody else blow his brains out if he sneezes under the full moon, because it’s ‘better safe than sorry.’ ”

  She drew a breath, and he could tell she was stifling her annoyance. “Okay, but—”

  “No buts. That’s my condition.” He was brusque. “I either get Jughead, or I sit this out altogether, and you can go after them alone.”

  There was a long silence as they watched each other from their bedrooms, a standoff as the sun sank lower and lower behind the clouds, and the moon began its arc into the evening sky. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what Betty would say. She couldn’t watch both targets at once, and she knew it; but Archie wasn’t exactly an indispensable assistant, and they both knew that, too. Finally, however, she let out a heavy breath.

  “All right, you win. I’ll take Bingo; you take Jughead.” Her bedroom light went out, plunging her window into darkness, but before she hung up, she added, “But, Archie? If you hesitate and people get killed? It’s on you.”

  THE CRIME SCENE TAPE HAD been removed from the old cemetery’s gates, but it was still a place only ghouls would enter—especially after a teenager was killed and eaten there. It didn’t stop Archie from glancing up the hillside as he drove past, however, his eyes checking among the headstones for ghostly lights or the shape of an inhuman creature searching for its next meal. He tried not to think about what it meant that Dilton’s fatal attack had happened only minutes from Jughead’s front door. He tried not to think about much of anything.

  One of the lampposts was out on Jughead’s street, leaving a darkened stretch of curb where Archie parked his car, only a block and a half away from the Joneses’ house. It still felt too close. It’s not like he had an unmarked vehicle to perform this amateur surveillance in, and every member of his best friend’s family would recognize his dented-up four-door if they saw it. Saying a prayer that this night would be the most boring he’d ever spent, Archie reached into his glove compartment for the item Betty had given him only fifteen minutes earlier.

  The brushed steel handgun had already been intimidatingly heavy before she’d loaded it with a magazine containing eight silver bullets. Double-checking the safety, she’d presented it grip-first, and all she’d said was, “You know how it works. The bullets aren’t easy to come by, so make every shot count.”

  A block and a half up, just visible beyond the overhang of a neighbor’s porch, Jughead’s bedroom window was a square of bright light in the gathering gloom. Behind the curtains, a shape moved back and forth—while inside the car, Archie checked and rechecked the gun, his stomach aching with nerves and regret. He’d won his argument with Betty, but now that he’d gotten what he wanted, he wasn’t so sure he wanted it anymore. What if he really had to use this thing tonight? What if he had no other choice?

  “Please stay home, Jug,” he whispered into the quiet privacy of his car, his eyes sliding shut. “Please just … stay home.”

  Clouds still hid the sky, but Betty knew the sun was down and the moon was up by the time she reached the outskirts of Midville, steering off the main road and into the dirt parking lot of a long, low building surrounded by skeletal trees. Music blared from inside, and bleary-eyed men stood outside the front entrance, puffing cigarette smoke into the chilly night air. A neon sign along the roofline spelled out CONEY’S BOWL-O-RAMA.

  Lifting her purse from the passenger-side footwell, Betty double-checked the loaded revolver inside before tossing the bag over her shoulder and getting out of the car.

  Guilt sat on her chest like something physical, pressing the air from her lungs. She still hadn’t told Archie the whole truth. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find the words she needed to confess that the night Juggie had taken her home, she’d loaded the very gun she had in her purse now, with plans to go out and track him down again. The part she hadn’t told anyone, not even Elena, was that the reality of hunting one of her oldest friends had been so overwhelming that it immobilized her completely. She’d stood there in the street for nearly ten minutes before admitting she couldn’t do it and going back inside again.

 
The next morning, she’d woken up to the news of Pop Tate’s death. Another killing on her conscience. Another victim she might have saved if she’d actually confronted the beast when she had the chance. Archie thought he’d pressured her into letting him be the one to go after Jughead tonight, but in truth, Betty was relieved to escape that responsibility.

  Inside the bowling alley, the air smelled of stale beer, fresh wax, and musty fabric; pins clattered loudly behind the still-louder music. Past the snack bar and video arcade, a performance space had been set up in a corner near the bar, and there—cast into high relief by hot white lights, and surrounded by a respectably sized crowd—a live band was just finishing a song.

  “Hey, everybody,” the lead singer murmured into the microphone a moment later. “Thanks for coming out tonight. I’m Bingo, and with me are Samantha on backing vocals and Buddy on drums—and this guy over here, with the bass guitar and the great fashion sense, is Tough Teddy. Together, we’re The Bingoes, and this next number goes out to a very special lady—you know who you are.”

  He could have been talking to anybody, but it felt like he was talking right to her—he was that smooth. Betty drifted closer through the crowd as the number started, the bass laying a low, pulsing beat, joined first by the drums, then lead guitar, and finally the vocals. The layering of sound sent a shiver up her spine, the melody slow and haunting, Bingo’s voice like honey poured over the chords.

  Betty had heard them before but never like this, not so close and personal. They were good—and Bingo was an obvious star, his magnetism so strong it pulled attention even from bowlers who were trying to ignore the noise. His eyes closed, the lights picking out the arch of his cheekbones, the pout of his bottom lip—he was almost ethereal—and she shivered again, thinking about the monster that might be lurking behind that angelic face.