Girls That Growl

by Mari Mancusi

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Just a tiny cut. Not a big deal.”

  I scan the locker room, taking in the carnage. “Not a big deal? Look around, Cait. You’re going to tell me nothing happened here?”

  Cait’s face crumbles and she bursts into tears. “No.” She sobs. “Something did happen. Something really … crazy. I can’t explain it. It’s too … too weird. You’re going to think I’m insane.”

  “I promise you, Cait. Absolutely nothing you say will make me think you’re insane.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Seriously.” If only she knew about me, she’d think I was the one who needed the men in white coats to take me away.

  “I saw … with my own eyes …” She shakes her head and leans against the locker-room wall, staring up at the ceiling. I can’t help but notice the blood from her cut is now soaking through her sleeve. I force my eyes away. “Oh God, you’re going to think I’m nuts. But the cheerleaders. They … they … all of a sudden they—”

  “Morphed into werewolves, trashed the place, and ran howling away into the night?” Jareth asks in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.

  Cait’s eyes grow wide as saucers as she stares at Jareth. “How did you know?” she demands, her voice trembling. “And who are you, anyway? And how did you get in the girls’ locker room?”

  “Don’t worry, Cait. That’s Jareth. My boyfriend. He’s one of the good guys,” I assure her. Then the enormity of what Jareth said hits me. I turn to him, my own eyes probably as wide as Cait’s. “What did you just say?”

  He shrugs, looking around the room. “From the evidence we see here, it seems quite possible that the entire squad has somehow been infected by the lycanthropy virus.”

  “Lycan—?”

  “In layman’s terms, they’ve been turned into werewolves.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha!” I fake laugh as hard and loud as I can, trying to pretend his statement is ridiculous and nothing we should seriously consider a problem. After all, I don’t want Cait to think we’re a couple of freaks who believe in things like that. The girl’s been through enough already tonight. Last thing she needs is to be told that creatures of the night aren’t just made up monsters in horror movies, but live and walk among us. “Jareth, darling, you’re such a kidder! So silly. Werewolves. Ha, ha, ha!” My mind races for a more believable, less monster-driven theory as to why the cheerleaders trashed the gym and took off. Maybe it was their time of the month and they were really, really grumpy …

  “Well, Rayne, actually it makes sense,” Cait says slowly. “I mean, in an impossible way, but still. When I went into the bathroom to change, Mandy, Nancy, and the rest of the gang were their normal, beautiful selves. Blonde, blue-eyed, and certainly lacking any body hair whatsoever. Then when I came out, the locker room was filled with furry wolf women, running around like nutcases, howling up a storm, and destroying everything in their paths.”

  “Um. Yeah, but maybe someone …” I’m so reaching here. “Er, let a pack of… wild dogs in the locker room by mistake. You know, through a back door or something?”

  Jareth shoots me a pointed look.

  “What?” I ask. “It could happen! In fact, that’s probably exactly what did happen. Pack of wild dogs. Maybe even coyotes. They left the door open and they just came in and—”

  “The wolves were wearing bras and panties, Rayne.”

  “Oh.”

  Sigh. So much for convincing Cait the world is a normal, monster-free place. She’s scarred for life. One of us now. I wonder if she’d like to apply to become a vampire. And if so, is there a signing bonus for bringing in new recruits?

  Cait bursts into a fresh set of tears. “You guys think I’m crazy, don’t you? Like one of those people always getting abducted by aliens. No one believes them either.” She sniffles. “I know what I saw. They were werewolves. They were really werewolves.”

  “Rayne believes you,” Jareth comforts, putting an arm around her shoulders. “She’s just trying to protect you.”

  Cait buries her head in Jareth’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably. He stiffens, probably at the proximity of the open wound beneath her sweater.

  “What I want to know is how you got that cut on your arm. Did they … scratch you?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want to freak the girl out even more than she is already, but we’ve got to be practical here. What if a simple scratch is all it takes to become infected by the werewolf bug? It’s bad enough three quarters of the squad is currently out howling at the full moon and chomping on football players. I don’t need Cait to start shapeshifting, too.

  But Cait shakes her head, her cheeks blushing a tomato red. “No,” she says. “I … that was just an old scratch that broke open when I ran to hide in the bathroom. It has nothing to do with the werewolves.”

  I narrow my eyes. She’s lying. I know she is. But why? “Let me see it,” I demand.

  “No.” She shakes her head vehemently.

  “Come on, Cait. This is important.” I try to grab her arm.

  “I said, ‘No!’ ” she cries, wrenching her arm free of my grasp and running toward the locker-room door. “I’ve got to go home! My mother’s expecting me!”

  “Wait—!”

  The door slams behind her, echoing with a loud bang.

  I start to run after her, but Jareth grabs my sweatshirt hood and reins me in. “Let her go,” he says.

  “But she’s cut. What if she turns into a werewolf, too?” I protest. “And what if she goes around school telling everyone she’s just witnessed Oakridge High’s varsity cheerleaders morph into a pack of dogs? That would be really bad.”

  “First off, no one would believe her if she did,” Jareth says calmly. “And second, I doubt she’d risk being the laughingstock of school by spouting what they’d think of as nonsense. More likely she’s just going home.”

  “And the cut? Her mother will kill her if she turns into a werewolf next full moon.”

  “I’m not an expert, but I believe the lycanthropy virus is transmitted through saliva,” Jareth explains. “So unless she was bitten or kissed by one of them, she’s likely safe.”

  I think for a moment. “It definitely looked like a scratch more than a bite,” I conclude. “So do you think that means she’s going to be okay?”

  “I think you’d be better off concerning yourself with the other girls,” Jareth says, pacing the locker-room floor with long steps. “How did they catch the virus to begin with? As far as I know, there are no Lycan packs in the New England area. Slayer Inc., to their credit, has done a good job keeping the dogs out.”

  “You keep saying that. Lycan. What’s ‘lycan’ mean?”

  “Lycans are what humans refer to as werewolves. A human and wolf hybrid, which is usually a side effect of the lycanthropy virus. Similar to vampires, except that Lycans can live and walk as humans for much of the time. They only turn feral—into wolf form—when there’s a full moon.” Jareth glances out the broken locker-room window. “Like tonight.”

  “Gotcha,” I say. “But why the hell would someone turn Oakridge High’s cheerleading squad into a pack of wolves?”

  “I have no idea,” Jareth says, shrugging his shoulders. “But I would suggest you interview them tomorrow. Find out what they know.”

  “What should I say?” I ask. “I mean, I can’t exactly be all, ‘Hey girl, what big teeth you have!’ ” I giggle at the idea of using that line on Mandy. She’d be so pissed. “Or, like, ‘So … you ever consider laser hair removal for all that fur?’ Or I know! I could say, ‘Wow, that nose job really gave you a snout and a half, huh? Are you suing your plastic surgeon?’ And that’s not even mentioning what I could say about tail.”

  Jareth smiles. “But seriously, Rayne. Be wary about confronting them straight out. They likely aren’t aware of their actions when they morph into their feral state. In fact, they may assume they just blacked out from drinking too much and thus they don’t remember what they did the night before.”

  “Makes s
ense,” I say. “Though that makes it harder to get the real dirt on them.”

  “I’m sure you will manage.”

  “So then, when/if we find out what really happened to make them this way, how do we go about making it…unhappen?” I ask. “I mean, is this forever, like a vampire? Or is the process somehow reversible?”

  Jareth runs a hand through his hair. “I am not sure. I will have to do some research. I very much hope that we can find a cure. A pack of Lycans can cause tremendous problems when let loose in the suburbs.”

  “Problems?” I ask.

  “They like to … snack,” Jareth says wryly, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean on Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

  “Oh my God! Do you think they ate Mike Stevens?” I ask, not sure whether to be horrified or secretly delighted. Then I scold myself. No one deserves to be eaten alive by a pack of Prada-clad puppies. Not even him. “Maybe that’s why he’s missing!”

  “It’s possible.”

  Bleh. Poor Mike Stevens. That’s gotta be a terrible way to die. I think hard. “Okay, fine. I’ll report this to Mr. Teifert in the morning and then go talk to the cheerleaders at lunchtime. Want to meet up after school to go over what I find out?”

  “Sounds good. You’ll find me at Hampton Beach. I’ve got a surf lesson at two.” Jareth grins. “Hang tight, dude!”

  Oh. My. God. He didn’t just say, “Hang tight!” did he? Forget the lycanthropy virus. My boyfriend has been bitten by the Keanu Reeves bug.

  “Urn, sure. Hampton Beach. Whatever.”

  But as I leave the gym I realize I have more important problems than my boyfriend turning into a beach bum. The Oakridge High cheerleaders are werewolves. They may have killed the quarterback and infected my new friend.

  And I, Rayne McDonald, am the only one who can stop them.

  As usual. Sigh.

  9

  It’s after ten when I finally get back to my house that night. Long past Mom’s normal bedtime. But when I push open the front door I immediately notice three things at once:

  - a light on in the kitchen;

  - a delicious smell of food wafting through the air;

  - the sound of my mom giggling.

  I release a sigh. Great. David must have arrived. For some reason I’d been holding out hope that his move-in date was further into the school year and Mom was just giving us major advanced warning. But not so much, it seems.

  I contemplate going in and saying good-night to the two of them, do the dutiful daughter thing and all. But then I reconsider. Seeing them together will only serve to make me sick. Mom turns into a total Stepford wife when she’s around the guy and I can’t stomach seeing her batting her eyelashes and saying things like, “Oh, you’re so funny, David!” when he’s clearly not even the least bit amusing. And then there’s the authority figure act she tries to put on in front of him. She used to be Friend Mom—the one we could tell anything to and not worry about being judged. Now that she has David around to impress she’s turned into Gestapo Mom—always ready to yell at me about one random thing or another. Stop smoking. Start eating. Why don’t you ever come home on time? I can’t remember the last time we had a long talk about life and stuff. Oh, and when I try to say anything about David she immediately gets totally defensive. I guess she never completely got over the time I told her he was an evil vampire. But that was an honest mistake and based on some pretty hard evidence. So not something she should hold against me.

  I trudge up the steps and down the hall to my bedroom. I push open the door and switch on the light, glad to be back in my sanctuary. After the night I had I just want to decompress. Maybe play a few hours of World of Warcraft. It’s Spider and my favorite online video game and we play every chance we get. In fact, maybe she’s online right—

  Oh. My. God.

  At first I think I’ve stepped into the wrong room. This can’t be my bedroom—my sacred escape from the brutal reality of the world we live in each day. My room has beautiful, dark, haunting photos on the wall. My room has a black comforter and is lit only by a single black-light bulb. My room has glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls and fake cobwebs strung from bedposts to ceiling.

  The room I just entered is completely generic. The walls are bare, with only pinholes to show there’d ever been anything hanging on them. There are several new lamps, each with a gazillion-watt bulb, practically blinding me with brilliance. The bedding has been changed to a neutral navy blue spread and starched white sheets. There’s even a few Glade Pluglns stuck surreptitiously into the plugs meant to charge my cell phone and iPod.

  And there’s a suitcase sitting on the end of the bed. With men’s clothing spilling out of it.

  “No, no, no, no!” I cry, horrified beyond belief. “This can’t be happening!”

  “I tried to stop her, Rayne, but she was a madwoman.”

  I turn around. Sunny’s in the doorway, hair mussed and dressed for bed in flannel pajamas.

  “Mom did this?” I cry. “She pulled a Mom Eye for the Live-In Boyfriend Guy on my room?”

  Sunny puts a finger to her lips and motions for me to follow her into her room. I do, taking one last shuddering glance at the place formerly known as my bedroom. This time Mom has gone too far. Kicking me out of my own room! That’s got to be breaking some kind of child protection law we have in this state, right? I wonder if DSS could step in here and stage an intervention if I tipped them off to her abusive parenting …

  I should have never decided to keep living at home after I became a vampire. I should have moved out, gone to live in the coven with Jareth and the rest of my kind. That would have taught her to appreciate me. And I’m sure no one overdoses on Febreze in an underground crypt.

  We step into Sunny’s bedroom and she shuts the door behind us. I look around. Her room is completely untouched except for some kind of cot wedged in the corner. A cot! Mom expects me to toss and turn and likely suffer permanent back injuries in a rickety cot while her boyfriend snuggles down in a Sealy Posturepedic? That phone call to DSS is looking more and more like an option.

  “I leave the house for one football game …” I mutter, not sure where to begin. I sink down onto the cot. It tips and groans under my weight. “I mean, at the very least she could have given my room away without the total makeover. Is David too good to sleep in a room with AFI posters on the wall? Is he allergic to fake spiderwebs and glow-in-the-dark stars?”

  “It’s ‘cause you pissed her off by not cleaning it when she asked you to,” Sunny explains, sitting cross-legged on her bed. Maybe if I’m really nice to her she’ll let me sack out on her queen-sized tonight. After all, we’re twins. We cuddled in the womb. Seems only fair now that one of us has been tossed out into the cold that the other start sharing. “When I came home after school she was up here looking at both of our rooms. Mine was pretty clean, like you see now. So I figured she’d just stick David in here.”

  That had been my thought as well. When Mom had told us we had three days to clean our bedrooms I realized it must be her clever ruse to pick the nicest one to stick her boyfriend in. And since Sunny’s obviously too much of a Goody-Two-Shoes to disobey Mom (not to mention a total neat freak!) I figured I couldn’t lose. Mom would take one look at my disaster of a bedroom and automatically pick my sister’s room as the most David-friendly.

  Guess Mom’s more devious than she looks.

  “This sucks!” I whine, lying back on the cot and staring up at the ceiling. “All my stuff. Where did she put it, anyway?”

  “Basement, I think. She was muttering something about you getting it back when you learned not to be such a slob.”

  “Or when David the Dork decides to move back to Condo Land.”

  “Right. If he decides, that is,” Sunny adds. “From the way those two get along, I’m wondering if he’s here for the long haul. Mom’s completely smitten.”

  I groan. “Sometimes I wish he really did turn out to be an evil vampire. Then we could have justified staking the gu
y.”

  “Oh, come on, Rayne. He’s not that bad!” Sunny laughs. Of course she doesn’t think so. She’s still got her David Gray-postered room intact.

  “I mean, why can’t she just shack up with the guy like a normal Mom? Have him share her bed? They’re obviously sleeping together, right? I mean, they’re adults. They’ve got to be. So why the separate room thing?”

  Sunny shrugs. “Probably wants to set a good example for us.”

  “Bleh. Thanks, Mom.” I sigh, shifting positions on the cot. “You know, Sun, you should totally go hook up with Magnus. Screw his brains out. Just to prove the point that her pathetic attempt at a morality lesson is completely ineffectual.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m not going to lose my virginity just to teach Mom a lesson, Rayne.”

  “Well, it’s not like you wouldn’t get anything out of the deal yourself,” I grumble, annoyed that Sunny can’t see the logic of taking one for the team. I’d do it myself, but I’m pretty sure Mom already knows I’ve been to home plate a few times by now.

  “Anyway,” Sunny says. “You’ll never guess who I bumped into last night.” She looks at me expectantly.

  “Er, if I’ll never guess, then why don’t you just tell me?”

  She pauses for dramatic effect. “Race Jameson.”

  I roll my eyes. Race Jameson is this rock star that everyone and their mother is obsessed with these days. He sings for a band called Triage and has become totally overexposed. I used to think his music was halfway decent until the band started appearing on TRL and stuff. Sellouts. Even the cheerleaders are obsessed with the guy these days. And let’s just say it’s not his music that’s got their attention.

  “Is he as good-looking in person as he is on MTV?”

  Sunny grins. “Better. Much better. And …” Another dramatic pause. “He’s a vampire.”

  I raise an eyebrow. Now she’s surprised me.

  “A vampire? Are you sure about that?”

  “Yup. I met him when I was down at the coven last night, visiting Magnus. He’s in the area for a month while he records his new album. I guess he’d been undead for nearly a thousand years, living on the down low until one day he picked up an Anne Rice book and decided Lestat shouldn’t be the only vampire to rock ‘n’ roll.”