by Mia Archer
I was immediately on guard. She was still staring up at the ceiling and trying to look all sweet and innocent, but there was something about what she’d just said…
It made me wonder if the only reason she was up here was to pump me for information. I suddenly wondered how much she knew, or if some news outlet would be stupid enough to send someone to bed me in the name of getting information about what happened in that theater.
Or maybe she wasn’t from a news outlet. I knew they could do some pretty crazy things in the name of getting a story, but I also knew from my time growing up that there were other crazies out there.
Mostly conspiracy theorists. People who had an idea of the way the world really worked, and they were crazy enough that they were willing to do just about anything to prove they were right.
Having to constantly be on the lookout for crazy assholes who only wanted to get to know me because of who my dad was had been one of the things that really fucked with me growing up. I was always looking at people and wondering if I could trust them.
It was something I’d had a hell of a time getting over after I’d moved in with my grandma, and suddenly all those hard lessons were coming back as I stared at her.
I also thought about the stranger I’d seen in the woods. The girl who was clearly a werewolf in disguise. I suppose it was always possible they’d sent someone to this party. Though it was dark out and Cara hadn’t transformed even though we were in the second night of a full moon.
I also didn’t know if these were werewolves who needed the full moon, or if they were the kind who could transform at will. I seemed to recall my dad saying there were both kinds out there, but he’d never mentioned anything about how to tell them apart.
“Who sent you?” I asked.
Cara looked confused. Though she could just be a really good actor. Anyone sent to try and get information out of me would have to be a good actor, after all.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Bullshit,” I said. “I’ve heard some of the rumors going around campus. I know people want to know what happened, so who sent you?”
“Nobody sent me,” she said, sounding genuinely hurt.
“Again, bullshit,” I said. “I can’t believe this bullshit. I thought I was free of that life, and now here it is coming back.”
“What are you talking about?” Cara asked.
She was looking at me like I’d lost it. And it was enough to make me think maybe I was losing it. Maybe the paranoia was finally catching up to me.
“Listen,” Cara said. “I know what really happened in that movie theater. I know you’re trying to hide it, but you don’t have to.”
“What do you know about what happened last night?” I asked, heat coming to my voice. “Do you really think you know what’s going on? You read a couple of rumors online and suddenly you’re an expert? You’re no different from all the other conspiracy theory bullshit artists out there!”
She was looking more and more confused. It was enough to have the more rational parts of my mind screaming there was something wrong. That she might actually be genuine.
Only there was also that anger. I was pissed off that a werewolf had attacked that theater. I was angry that I was stuck in this supernatural world all over again. I hated that I had to be suspicious of a girl I’d just had an amazing time with!
Cara took a deep breath. And when she started talking again it was enough to make ice run through my veins.
“I know you killed a werewolf,” she said. “The cops are trying to say it was a shooting, but we both know that’s not what happened.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” I said, though my voice felt empty. Week.
“I also understand why you’re acting like this,” Cara continued. “You’re worried people will think you’re crazy. That you’ve lost it. The cops have decided they’re going to cover things up for some reason, and now you’re pissed off because you’re the character in a horror movie that saw something terrible, and no one believes you.”
Tears were coming to my eyes now. She was right on the money. Right down to the horror movie comparison. I felt like I was living in a shitty horror movie.
For all that I’d actually killed the monster at the beginning, which usually wasn’t how horror movies worked.
She gave my hand a squeeze.
“You don’t have to suffer alone,” she said. “I believe you.”
I stared into her eyes. God I wanted to believe her. I wanted her to be a miracle girl I could share this with.
Only…
Old lessons were coming back. Things that’d been drilled into me by my father growing up. Things that were as much a part of me as how much I loved cheerleading, or scarfing down a chocolate bar every once in a while because I figured it wasn’t going to kill my figure with the amount of calories I was burning at practice every day.
And that whispering voice from the past was taking over. It was telling me I had to be careful. That I shouldn’t believe what she was saying.
“You almost convinced me,” I said.
“What?”
“Is this your idea of a sick joke?” I asked.
Again there was that voice screaming at me that I was being an idiot and this girl was genuine. That I was listening to a ghost from the past rather than the evidence of my own eyes.
“I’m not interested in anything else you have to say,” I said. “Go and tell whoever you’re working for that I don’t have any quotes for them. That was a shooter at that theater last night, and I plugged the asshole right between the eyes like he deserved. That’s all you’re getting out of me.”
“Listen,” Cara said. “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I’m not…”
I slammed my hand down on the nightstand. I must’ve hit it with more force than I intended, because the whole thing splintered and cracked.
“Please,” I said, begging her and terrified that the next thing I broke might not be a cheap particle board nightstand. “I need you to get out of here. I’m not ready to talk about last night. Not to you, and not to anyone else.”
Cara stared at me for a heartbreakingly long moment. It was a moment where I wanted to reach out to her and make everything okay, but of course everything wasn’t going to be okay.
I’d just made a first rate ass of myself. Yet the voice of my father whispering that this could be a trap was stronger than my desire to make things better.
“Fine,” she finally said. “But I want you to know that I came out here tonight specifically to find you. I wasn’t expecting any of this…”
She made a gesture that took in the bed. Then she sighed.
“It was nice that it happened, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not why I was here.”
“So you were trying to get something from me,” I said, even more disappointed that I was absolutely on the money.
“You’re right,” she said, scoffing as she said it. “I did come out here to get something from you. You killed a werewolf in that movie theater last night. I don’t know how you did it, but you killed a fucking werewolf.”
She paused. She seemed to be having a difficult time saying this next bit. She looked truly haunted. Actually she looked a lot like how I’d felt the night before after everything was done with Wolfie.
“I saw a werewolf last night too,” she said.
That hit me like a bolt of lightning coming down from the heavens. She saw one too?
“Were you in the…”
Cara held a hand up to stop me, and now it was her turn to look furious.
“I saw a werewolf out in the nature preserve. I got dragged out there by a couple of idiots trying to make a documentary about cryptids, and they found a hell of a lot more than they were bargaining for.”
Well then. The bolts kept coming. I could hardly believe it, and yet there was something about the way she was looking at me that told me she wasn’t ma
king this up.
“What… What are you…”
“I came to find you because I thought you might be able to help me,” she said. “So fucking much for that. I’m done. I almost hope the thing does track me down and kill me tonight, because it’d be better than dealing with you!”
And with that she turned and stomped out. She slammed the door behind her, and it reverberated through the house. I heard shouts from down below, probably one of the basketball players who rented this place, and I was left alone with my thoughts.
I put my head in my hands. She came to the party specifically looking for me because she thought I could help her. I’d killed one werewolf, and she wanted me to kill another.
I thought of that girl I’d seen earlier in that cliché red hood. I thought about more werewolves lurking out there. If what dad had told me about the sons of bitches was anything to go on, they were going to be pissed off and looking for revenge because I’d killed one of their pack.
One of their pack. She’d said she hoped one of the werewolves killed her. Which probably meant there’d been one chasing her last night, and that was why she’d been so terrified that she came looking for me.
Son of a bitch. She was in serious danger, and she didn’t even realize it. Or more like she did realize it, and she didn’t care because the one person who might’ve been able to help her had blown her off and treated her like total shit.
I had to go after her and save her before she got her lungs ripped out!
15
Cara
I wiped a tear from my eyes as I made my way down the stairs. I tried not to think about how things had gone from amazing to the shitter.
It was hard, though. I’d thought I’d maybe found something good. It’d been nice considering all the shit I’d had to endure lately.
And then she’d ripped out my heart. She’d done as much damage as that fucking werewolf. Maybe more, because that werewolf chasing me last night hadn’t actually gotten me, but she’d been right on target with her bullshit.
So I headed for the door.
Sure I knew going for the door was a terrible idea. In a horror setting the girl who just got in a fight with a pretty girl after having sex going out into the dark was setting herself up to get ripped apart by the scary monster out there. Assuming the world was working on horror movie logic.
But there was a part of me that wanted to get ripped apart if it meant getting the fuck away from this party.
“Cara?”
I wheeled around and found myself facing Carrie. She looked concerned.
“Where’s Kirsten?” she asked.
“Upstairs,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look like… What did she do to you?”
I almost laughed. Carrie sounded like she was about to go up there and give Kirsten a piece of her mind. It was nice to know my roommate had my back, even if I didn’t want her to have my back right now. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I just wanted to get the hell out of here.
“It was nothing,” I said.
“Bullshit it was nothing,” she said. “What happened? Did she do a love’em and leave’em deal? Is that even something that lesbians do?”
I laughed again. Sometimes her complete and utter lack of knowledge as to how the world worked surprised me. No matter how many times I tried to explain to her that my relationships were pretty much the same as hers, only I went for women rather than men, she had trouble believing me or conceiving of a world where gay people were normal like everyone else.
“Coming here was a bad idea,” I said.
“But what about Kirsten and…”
“She isn’t interested in talking with me,” I growled.
And it was the truth. She’d made it clear she wasn’t interested. Which was a damn shame, but it’s not like there was anything I could do about it. If she didn’t want to talk, especially after what we’d just done, then nothing was going to get her to come out of her shell.
“Are you sure?” Carrie asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“You were freaking out about even leaving the dorm earlier,” she said. “I had to drag you out here, and now you’re going for a walk in the dark?”
I looked out the window on the front door. The sun was down. I didn’t know if the moon was up.
I also didn’t know if the phases of the moon affected a werewolf. Did they even follow the rules established in the movies?
It was ridiculous that I was even thinking about the scary werewolf in terms of what happened in the movies. It’s not like the movies bore any resemblance to reality for heists and cop procedurals and romance, so why would I expect the reality of werewolves to be similar to the Hollywood idea of how they worked?
“I’m leaving,” I said.
I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. There were a couple of people out there smoking. If this was a horror movie they would’ve just seen something lurking in the darkness. Something that had them terrified beyond the capacity for normal speech.
They just looked at me like they were taking in the night, though. Not like they’d just seen something horrifying that was about to bite me that had robbed them of the ability to talk.
That was something else from the horror movies that nobody ever thought about. If someone tried to talk to you but couldn’t get the words out then it was a good idea to duck and get back to whatever safe place you’d come from. Before the machete or the claws managed to kill you while the person was still stuttering that there was something dangerous lurking in the darkness.
There was none of that here, though. Basically it looked like a typical evening on campus. People were out looking to get drunk and get laid.
I sighed and shook my head. I was being ridiculous. It was time to get home. It was time to…
I looked at a couple of girls stumbling along in the middle of the street. One of them turned to look at me. It was an intense look, even from a distance. She had dark hair streaming down past her shoulders, and a pretty enough face. A body that looked pretty nice in a form fitting red hoodie that was out of place considering it wasn’t that cold out, and glowing yellow eyes that seemed to stare into my soul.
I looked to the people smoking on the porch. A couple of guys and one girl. They were so preoccupied with smoking that they didn’t seem to notice those girls. Even the one with the…
What I’d just seen hit me. A couple of girls walking along. One of them pretty enough with long dark hair and a red hoodie. Staring at me with glowing yellow eyes.
Girls weren’t supposed to have glowing yellow eyes. Which could only mean…
I looked up quickly. Stared at the spot where those women had been. Only they were gone. Suddenly the street was eerily empty. As though something had cleared everyone out.
An odd tingling ran down the length of my spine. It was a tingling I recognized all too well from last night. It was a tingling that said there was something off here. Something very wrong.
I hadn’t listened to that feeling last night. I’d allowed those idiots to drag me off to their death.
I wasn’t making that same mistake twice, so I turned back to the door. The handle clicked a couple of times and refused to turn.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled. “Who the fuck locks the door to a fucking house party?”
“The better to hunt you with, my dear,” one of the smokers said.
I turned to look at him. He stared back at me with glowing yellow eyes and took a drag from his cigarette.
Ice ran through my veins as I got a good look at him, and he smiled. As he smiled his teeth got longer and sharper. The girl was starting to grow hair in places she shouldn’t be growing hair. The other guy, meanwhile, stared between the two of them like he had no idea what the fuck was going on.
After all, he was watching something straight out of a horror movie come to life, and that wasn’t the kind of thing you saw every day. It was also going to be the la
st thing he ever saw if he stayed there.
“What the fuck?” he said. “I know this isn’t that kind of cigarette and…”
He cut off with a strangled gurgle as the girl’s clawed hand shot into his neck. She never dropped her gaze as she stared at me, cocking her head to the side.
“We’re going to have fun playing with you tonight,” she said, her voice sounding off. Like it was human and growling animal at the same time.
“Son of a…”
Something kicked into gear deep in me. It was a survival instinct that’d been honed over a decade of being forced to watch stupid horror movies with my brothers. It was a survival instinct that was screaming that I needed to fucking do something to get away from these things as quickly as possible.
Running wouldn’t help. That girl in red with the glowing eyes had disappeared, but I knew there were more werewolves out there lurking. I’d been a fool to delude myself into thinking they weren’t after me.
Or maybe they were after Kirsten considering what she’d done to one of their own last night. Maybe I was icing on the cake for them.
The point was I was in deep shit. I started pounding on the door. Not only were there werewolves out here transforming and getting ready to rip me to shreds, but there was also probably someone in there working for them as well. How else to explain the locked door?
“Let me in!” I screamed, pounding on the door with everything I had. “Please! Fucking let me in!”
The door finally opened, revealing Carrie standing there looking worried. I glanced to the side, but the werewolves were gone. The body was still there, though. I sobbed and pushed Carrie back, closing and locking the door behind me.
“What the fuck is going on, Cara?” Carrie asked.
“Werewolves,” I said.
Carrie looked like she was trying to decide if I’d lost it and coming down on “yes.”
We’d reached the part of the horror movie where I told everybody about the danger, and none of them would believe me until it was too late because isn’t that how it always worked?