Werewolves vs Cheerleaders Read online

  Werewolves vs Cheerleaders

  Mia Archer

  Andrew Beymer

  Contents

  1. Kirsten

  2. Kirsten

  3. Kirsten

  4. Cara

  5. Cara

  6. Cara

  7. Kirsten

  8. Kirsten

  9. Kirsten

  10. Cara

  11. Cara

  12. Kirsten

  13. Cara

  14. Kirsten

  15. Cara

  16. Kirsten

  17. Kirsten

  18. Cara

  19. Kirsten

  20. Cara

  21. Cara

  22. Kirsten

  23. Kirsten

  24. Kirsten

  25. Kirsten

  26. Cara

  27. Cara

  28. Kirsten

  29. Cara

  30. Kirsten

  31. Cara

  32. Kirsten

  33. Cara

  34. Kirsten

  35. Cara

  36. Kirsten

  37. Kirsten

  38. Cara

  39. Kirsten

  40. Kirsten

  41. Kirsten

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  Also by Mia Archer

  Werewolves vs Cheerleaders

  By Mia Archer

  and

  Andrew Beymer

  Copyright 2020 Andrew Beymer

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.

  First digital edition electronically published May 2020

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  Created with Vellum

  1

  Kirsten

  “But seriously. Anyone who thinks Kane Hodder isn’t the greatest person to ever put on the hockey mask is full of it,” Katie said.

  I grinned. “I think this is going to be the beginning of something beautiful.”

  Katie grinned right back at me. That sent a warm fuzzy shiver running through me. It’d been way too long since I’d enjoyed a warm fuzzy shiver.

  “What’ll it be,” the bored girl behind the counter asked.

  I blinked. I’d been so preoccupied with my date that I hadn’t realized we reached the front of the concession line. The girl behind the counter wore an off model Freddy shirt.

  Everyone behind the counter wore a costume for theme nights at this theater. Some obviously liked it, but this girl had all the enthusiasm of someone being forced to put pieces of flare on her vest.

  “I don’t suppose you have a student discount?” I asked hopefully, looking at prices that wouldn’t be out of place at the massive multiplex across town, for all that this was a small theater that catered to the college crowd.

  The girl hit me with a look that could kill faster than any child killing nutjob with knives for hands. “Everyone here is a student.”

  “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” I said. “In that case I’ll have…”

  I was cut off as a scream rang out from the theater.

  “What the hell was that?” Katie asked.

  “Probably somebody getting scared by one of the big scary monsters. That showed up in a horror movie. That they’re watching on a horror movie revival night. What a shocker,” the Fredette behind the counter said.

  "Yeah, probably,” I said, though something felt wrong about that scream. “Right. Well in that case I’ll have…”

  Only order was interrupted by another earsplitting shriek that said somebody was in serious mortal danger.

  “That sounded real,” Katie said, staring at the theater doors like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

  I tried to grin. “You’re the one who wanted to go to a horror movie night. There’s going to be terrified people who can’t handle it. It’s part of the charm.”

  “I’ve been to plenty of these,” Katie said. “I’ve seen all the classics, and I’ve never heard someone react like that. Like we’re talking Scream and all the Paranormal Activity movies.”

  I kept my thoughts to myself about what constituted a horror classic. Scream was almost old enough, but the less said about a horror franchise that’d be solved in five minutes if Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd showed up the better.

  Right now the theater was showing the lesser known ‘80s werewolf classic Silver Bullet in there. One of the heights of Gary Busey’s career, in my opinion, even if he did make an unlikely scream queen.

  Someone screamed again, and it was accompanied by growling that could’ve been the movie. Only….

  “She’s right,” I said, taking a step towards the theater. “Something…”

  A tingling ran through my body. My hairs stood on end. It was something I hadn’t felt since…

  Well let’s just say it was a reminder of the bad old days with dear old dad. Something I’d tried to forget when I went to college to have a normal life.

  A mournful howl pierced the theater and echoed through the lobby.

  A room full of college students and interested townies who obviously loved the horror genre reacted like a prey animal that’d realized there was an apex predator nearby, and they were maybe on the menu.

  It would’ve been funny seeing that from a bunch of people who were there to get scared if it wasn’t so serious.

  Then people were laughing it off. I heard a couple of people talking about how this theater always pulled stunts to make their theme nights extra authentic.

  Only I knew better. That sense of something terribly wrong was only getting stronger. And from the way other people were glancing around, more people thought that was real than not.

  The biggest tell was the people behind the counter. They were scared, and if they were scared I figured that meant the theater wasn’t trying to make theme night more realistic.

  “Um, so granted I’m not all that up on my werewolf cinema,” Katie said. “But I’m guessing Silver Bullet is a werewolf movie?”

  “An underrated classic,” I said, still staring at the theater.

  “Oh,” Katie said, obviously relieved. “In that case…”

  Any relief she might’ve been feeling was cut off as a gunshot rang out from the theater, followed by lots of people screaming.

  I jumped. I knew for a fact Silver Bullet didn’t feature multiple gun shots. Only the one at the very end.

  Again the reaction in the lobby was almost comical. People were looking around wondering if this was part of the show. Some were rolling their eyes. Most wore looks of disbelief. Like they knew in some dark corner of their mind that there was always the chance someone could shoot up a public place.

  God bless America and all that.

  Training from the moment I’d been old enough to stand on my own two feet kicked in. I hated that the training was kicking in, and I also hated that I was saying a silent prayer of thanks to my dad for giving me that training.

  Maybe everybody else was having trouble accepting that they’d stepped into a horror movie, but I knew there were horrors lurking out there. I’d always hoped they wouldn’t find me, but now that they had I wasn’t going to take this lying down.

  “You need to get the hell out of here Katie,” I said. “There’s something…”

  The doors to that theater flew open, and people rushed out screaming in terror as they tried to get away from whatever was in there.

  The smell of popcorn and
candy and decades of spilled soda wafted out along with the unmistakable scent of sweat and fear, but there was something else. Something deeply unpleasant. Like wet dog that’d been left to mildew.

  A dark shape moved in the darkness. I didn’t feel any fear. No, I was furious.

  That shadow was the living embodiment of everything that’d ever gone wrong in my life. It was the reason my dad had gone so off the rails batshit insane. That thing was the reason I hadn’t had a childhood.

  Other people reacted more appropriately to a shadowy hulking monstrosity from out of their nightmares appearing live and in the flesh. Sure there were still a few who obviously thought it was all part of the show, but the concessions people screaming and running in terror seemed to go a long way towards disabusing them of that notion.

  “I think you’re right Kirsten,” Katie said. “There’s something in there and I don’t want to be sticking around when it comes out!”

  Getting away from whatever the hell was in there would’ve been the smart thing to do. I should’ve been taking care of Katie and making sure she got out of here okay.

  Only I walked towards the source of all that screaming and terror. I’d like to say it was training taking over. That it was all those years I’d spent with my dad training for what had seemed like a fanciful fantasy, but it was more than that.

  That anger was still there, and so I was pissed off rather than scared when the werewolf stepped out of the theater, casually swiping at a pretty girl wearing a blonde ponytail that proved to be her undoing. It grabbed hold of that ponytail and yanked back hard enough that her neck snapped. I could hear the crack over the screams as people scrambled to get away.

  This definitely wasn’t the theater taking horror night too far. No, this was a nightmare made flesh, and it’d come to make an unwanted appearance at a werewolf movie showing.

  “Kirsten?” Katie shrieked. “Why are you walking towards the scary monster?”

  Why was I walking towards the big scary monster when everybody else was running in terror? It was a good question, and there were a lot of answers. Ultimately, though, it came down to something very simple: I was the only one in this theater who could do something about this motherfucker.

  No matter how things looked, pretty girl vs hulking monster, I wasn’t the prey. I was the hunter, and I needed to do something. It’s not like the campus cops would do fuck all against a werewolf.

  No, if they were like any other police department they’d have an initial callout where cops died because dispatch didn’t believe those calls, and only then would they break out the emergency supply most smaller police departments thought was a joke, for all that supernatural management was always a secret line item in their budgets.

  The creature raised its head and let out another mournful howl. The bastard lashed out at people trying to run past. It ripped the spine out of one unfortunate dude.

  The thing raised the entrails and spine to its mouth and sniffed once, then smiled. Somehow it managed to pull off that all too human expression even with the face of a wolf.

  This thing was definitely like something out of The Howling, or maybe Dog Soldiers, wolflike but on two legs unlike An American Werewolf in London where it was a wolf on all fours or The Wolfman where there was no snout even though Lon Cheney walked around on two legs.

  It also looked way more powerful than anything from the movies. The thing was a dusky gray color, and when its eyes came to rest on me they were a deep and baleful yellow that said it hated every living thing in this theater.

  Maybe it hated everyone in the theater, but it was clearly confused by me. It cocked its head to the side as I approached.

  I was an oddity. Calm in a sea of terror. Again it seemed to smile, its eyes narrowing as it recognized a challenge. It let out a low growl and took a step towards me.

  I kept right on walking towards it. Slow and deliberate, because in a horror movie slow and deliberate is what the monster did.

  The wolf didn’t take another step. This time the growl was less menacing and more confused. Someone calmly walking towards it when it had just issued a challenge wasn’t part of the program.

  I ignored the chaos around me. It was on. This wolf was going to regret fucking up my movie date!

  2

  Kirsten

  I was almost on the thing when shots rang out again. I ducked, and that saved me as bullets whizzed through the air overhead.

  The werewolf grunted. One of the bullets had hit, but there was more screaming that said bullets had hit people too.

  I turned to see a guy with a pistol leveled at the werewolf, his hands shaking.

  “Stop it!” I said.

  The guy glanced at me and grinned. Maybe he was scared, but he was also living the fantasy scenario of being the good guy with a gun.

  Only he wasn’t doing jack shit without silver bullets. The asshole had just come out of a fucking movie where the whole point was the only thing that could kill a werewolf was silver.

  He fired again. More screams rang out. The guy was a terrible shot, or maybe the nerves of finding himself face-to-face with a monster was affecting his concentration.

  Whatever the reason, he was doing more damage than good. I scrambled up and ran for the guy as the werewolf let out another howl. Like it knew bullets couldn’t hurt it.

  “What the hell are you…”

  The guy turned the gun on me like I was a threat, and I grabbed his wrist and twisted. There was a sickening crunch as bones snapped.

  I stared in astonishment. I hadn’t expected that. I didn’t like that I suddenly didn’t know my own strength.

  “What the hell, you bitch?” he shrieked.

  I looked down at the gun. It definitely didn’t have the stopping power to take out a werewolf.

  Something grabbed me, and for a terrified moment I worried that maybe there was another werewolf I hadn’t seen. Only when I turned it was that asshole trying to get his gun back.

  “You crazy bitch!” he growled. “This is the only way we’re taking that thing out!”

  I slammed my palm into his nose. There was an even louder crunch, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he crumpled to the ground.

  I turned back to the werewolf, gun in my hands. Its eyes tracked on the weapon, and it did that unnatural smiling thing.

  I emptied the gun into the werewolf. It might not kill the motherfucker, but it would hurt. The werewolf yelped and took a couple of steps back, then looked up at me and let out a growling laugh.

  I needed my gun. It had stopping power, but I didn’t have time to switch out the bullets. I didn’t keep the silver bullets in the thing because they were damn expensive and I wasn’t wasting them on a mugger.

  I tossed the useless gun aside and stalked towards the werewolf. The growling laugh stopped. The crowd went quiet behind me. The werewolf grunted and raised a clawed hand to swipe at me.

  The crowd gasped. The claw hovered, poised on the edge of killing me. I had no intention of letting that happen. No, before the werewolf could bring his claws down I landed a shot right between the werewolf’s legs.

  It quickly became apparent this werewolf wasn’t fixed, because his swipe changed direction and went down between his legs to clutch at that most precious piece of anatomy. The thing groaned, then fell to its knees.

  I figured it was safe enough to turn my back on the thing while it was momentarily incapacitated. So I turned on the crowd of hushed onlookers. I pumped both of my fists in the air, and when I shouted it was primal. Something that reached back to the ancient days when a bunch of hairless apes came down from the trees and realized they could turn things around on all the big scary fanged and clawed creatures hunting them by using their opposable thumbs to create useful things like spears and knives.

  “Wolfman’s got nards, motherfuckers!”

  That line wouldn’t have worked with most, but this was a horror crowd who knew their classics. They erupted in cheers as they went from te
rror to disbelief to euphoria as they realized that maybe they weren’t going to die tonight after all.

  Another one of those mournful howls pierced the air behind me. I turned and locked eyes with the werewolf. My all too human blues flashed as they met those malevolent yellow eyes, and the werewolf was the one that turned away from my gaze.

  This hairy motherfucker turning away from my gaze was exactly the opportunity I’d been waiting for. I pulled my fist back and hit the werewolf with one hell of an uppercut.

  The thing let out a yelp. My fist connected with enough power that the werewolf got some airtime. It landed among the bodies and slid for several feet as I looked down at my fist in disbelief.

  This was like something straight out of a superhero movie. We’re talking the moment where the hero wonders if they actually did what they just did.

  I didn’t even have to shake my fist out. I’d always had to do that when practicing punches with dear old dad.

  The wolf whimpered and clawed at the ground, obviously trying to get the hell away from me as fast as it could drag itself.

  I grinned. I had no intention of letting the thing get away. No, it’d killed enough people tonight, and it was going to face the consequences. The ultimate price my dad had warned me I might have to exact someday.