WolfCop: Fleshmob

By Brad Munson

A brand new WolfCop adventure, cram-full of weird action, booze and babes, just like the cult grunge-horror movie hit!

There’s been a massacre at Woodhaven Mall–but it looks like the shoppers themselves did the killing. What drove them mad? And how can WolfCop make sure it won’t happen again?

Lou (WolfCop) Garou is sent to investigate. Along the way he hooks up with a sexy Extreme Wiccan by the unlikely name of Isadora Tree. Soon they are under attack by a seemingly endless stream of redneck thugs and musically enchanted zombies–and as the moon waxes, Lou grows more wolfish every day.

Then things gets really weird.

Ride along with Lou and Izzy on a bizarre cross-country road trip to uncover the secret of the massacre– and the musical mind control that’s behind it. It’s an arcane adventure filled with gun battles, car chases, beautiful girls, evil mullets, and all kinds of big, bad WolfCop!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618685100

Book preview

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE:

BLOOD BATH & BEYOND

Woodhaven, in all its beautiful green serenity, slipped past the locked windows of the black van, silent and unknowable. Inside the tinted windows, the three beautiful girls struggled against their restraints.

No!

Oh, my God, I can’t stand it! Stop!

STOP!

Polished nails clawed at the empty air. Shoulders heaved, arms flailed. High heels kicked at seat backs as the girls screamed and screamed and screamed….

Oh, for God’s sake, Mrs. Middleton said. "Will you stop it? We’ll be there in five minutes. Could you please just calm down?"

Joanna Middleton was over it—over it, goddamn it. Her daughter and her daughter’s friends had been screeching like banshees since they got into the damn Caravan, and it had taken only minutes of that artificial hysteria to push this particular soccer mom to the edge of real madness. At this moment, mere seconds from escape, she was deeply, deeply sorry she’d ever agreed to drive Marlena and her friends to the goddamn mall in the first place.

"But Ma-aam," her daughter said, slipping her shiny-shiny hair out of her face for the thousandth time that day, "you drive so slow. Grandma drives faster than you."

Yeah, well, Mrs. Middleton muttered. Grandma’s a bitter old drunk who should be put in a home.

What?

Nothing, she said a little louder. Forget it. Oh, look! We’re here!

She took the turn into Woodhaven Omni-Retail Emporium just a little faster than she should have—desperation was getting the better of her—and screeched to a stop near the double-wide doors of the front entrance. The glass glittered, opening wide like a two-story maw.

Go! Mrs. Middleton said, trying not to sound relieved at being away from her fifteen-year-old daughter, if only for a few hours. "Go go go! I’ll see you at four. And you better be waiting right here, damn you, or there will be hell to pay!"

Yah, right, said Marlena. Gah, her mother was such a bore. Why did she always have to talk like that? Like they were totally irresponsible airheads who couldn’t even tell time? Besides, she knew exactly what her mother was really saying. ‘Hell to pay’ was code for an evening of dirty looks followed by a soft apology the next morning, because Momma Jo didn’t want to be one of those moms. She wanted to be one of the cool ones. And Marlena could deal with that just fine, thank you very much.

An instant later the Caravan’s sliding side door was grinding open and she was free, free, with her two best friends in the whole world, Opal and Jet. Marlena didn’t even look back as the girls bunched up together close behind her and they did their spooky-fun chant in chirpy unison:

Open up, WHORE!

She could hear her mother groan behind her. "Mar-leen-ah, seriously."

Marlena sniffed. Not my fault they named it that, she said, and together they laughed like loons and rushed through the automatic doors that opened way too slowly to suit them. She never looked back.

Too bad Marlena would never see her mom again.

* * *

The wonder of the WHORE’s Centrally Unified Nutrition Terminal spread its wings before them.

Gah, Opal said, open mouthed as usual, "I just love this place."

Marlena had to admit it: this mall was her favorite place in the entire world. Everything was clean. Everything glittered. The music was obviously programmed by a friggin’ genius because it had the hottest songs from WRFT-AM all the time. There were cool things to buy behind every polished window, wonderful things to eat at every food kiosk and counter, and the toilets in the restrooms flushed without her having to touch them. That didn’t happen even at home. Marlena though it even smelled perfect—a loving mixture of floor wax, CinnaBon, and fried...well, fried things, with a faint twist of fading farts to give it a little zing. Okay, maybe not a perfect smell, she admitted to herself, but it was a familiar one—a comfortable one—and these girls never did or said or felt anything that wasn’t 100 percent comfortable.

Me, too, said Jet, whose real name was Janine, except nobody called her that loser name but her loser mom, and she hated her because she was such a loser. So where do we go first? Shooz Xpress, Rockin Jox N Sox Etc., or Kissin’ Make-Up?

Kissin’, Marlena said firmly. There was a frosted cherry lip-gloss in there that she just had…

A man got in their way. A big man, like six and a half feet tall or something, who loomed up from behind a mirrored pillar right beside Little Pizza Heaven. He blocked their way completely, and all three of them had to pull to a stop in unison, as if they’d hit a slightly smelly force field.

Hey, little ladies, he said, in an oily voice that managed to be gravelly and nasal at the same time. How are y’all this mornin’?

Ay, said Marlena, suddenly full of Instant Cream of Bitch, "it’s not morning. Bee, what do you care? And see, gah, you smell like cigarettes. You don’t actually smoke, do you?"

Gross, said Opal, who sneaked an occasional Patriot Elite under the stands at Woodhaven High, especially if Jason Erdlander was watching, because she had heard he thought girls who smoked were hot.

Exceptionally, Jet agreed. It was her favorite word since 7:00 a.m. that morning when she saw it on her Word-A-Day Calendar.

The big guy blocking their way just shrugged off her snark. He was wearing scuffed motorcycle boots and a beat-up leather jacket over a none-too-clean t-shirt that said GoLoCo!—whatever that meant. Marlena especially hated his haircut. The dude actually had a mullet, though the business in the front was hidden under a beat-up CAT cap. At least she thought it was a mullet. She’d seen pictures of them in a magazine once, but....

Got a little something for you, he said, and started digging into a shopping bag they hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying.

Marlena did not want to see what he had in that bag. It could not be good. Ew, she said. "Don’t be that guy. It’s totally unattractive."

The man gave them a gravelly little chuckle. Come on now, he said. "It’s nothin’ dirty or nothin’. It’s like a promotion, you know? He pulled out three neatly folded, paper-banded tee-shirts and held them out to Marlena. Absolutely free of charge. One hundred percent organic cotton. In your size."

Opal sighed bitterly. How do you know they’re in our size? Sizes? It was actually size, since all three of them had exactly the same measurements. They’d made sure of that before they’d become best friends forever. For obvious reasons.

Oh, the mullet-man said casually. I got an eye for that kind’a thing.

I’m sure you do, Marlena said, and reached out to take the stack of shirts from him with two fingers. Free? For real?

Absolutely, he assured her. But as she tried to take the shirts from him, he held on, stopped her. One thing, though, he said slyly.

Oh, God, Opal sighed. Here it comes.

His evil smile didn’t waver. You just gotta promise me somethin’.

No, Marlena said.

He kept going, just as if she hadn’t spoken. You gotta promise me that when you wear ‘em, you won’t just have fun. You’ll GoLoCo.

Jet frowned. It made the cutest little crease between her perfect eyebrows. What? she said.

"You’ll go loco," he said and released his grip.

All three girls giggled just a little. They weren’t really sure what the hell he was talking about, and truthfully they couldn’t care less.

In an instant, Marlena had trapped two shirts under one arm and ripped open the paper loop on the top one. She unfurled it with a snap, popping it flat like a bed sheet, and held it up so all three of them could see.

There was a curved logo that covered most of the front—two words, a singer’s name, done in neon green and pink, with cartoon light bulbs around the edges to make it look like the sign in front of a Fifties diner.

Huh, Marlena said. Richie McMucker. Yeah, he’s cool. She was actually kind of relieved that the shirt just had the logo and not McMucker’s picture. He looked kind of weird in real life. And old, too. Like in his thirties.

She noticed the line of black type under the logo, too: "...and his new hit, Double Double!"

Cool! Jet blurted out—a pretty bold move, since she wasn’t absolutely sure what the other two girls already thought. I love that song!

Marlena let her get away with it, because she kind of liked the song too. Still, she gave a detached shrug as she stuffed the shirts into her shopping bag—the one she brought from home, for just such emergencies. Maybe we can sell them on eBay, she said with a long-suffering sigh.

All righty then, the mullet-man said. He took a step back, letting them pass, but his eyes never left them. Marlena thought they actually glowed a little bit, with the dull light of burning trash. You girls have a good day, now. What’s left of it, anyway.

Come on, Marlena said, maybe a little faster and louder than she needed to. Let’s go.

They turned away from the mullet-man, pivoting in perfect unison. They didn’t see him look up the length of the rumbling escalator to two other men standing at the top of the moving stairs. They were dressed much as he was, with greasy, curling mullets of their own. They were watching him very, very carefully.

He nodded to them. They gave him micro nods in return.

Marlena, Opal, and Jet were halfway across the food court when the voice of the DJ they loved so much purred at them from overhead speakers. It cut through the low murmur of the crowd as they moved towards the Southeast Wing of the WHORE.

Got somethin’ special for you all, the DJ said. "A fresh new mix from GoLoCo Music of this year’s number one dance hit...Richie McMucker’s Double Double."

Oh! Opal said. I get it now! Go Loco! Like GoLoCo Music and Richie McMucker!

Marlena was mildly surprised that Opal had been listening at all, but at that moment they heard the first dinky-dink bars of the song right over their heads. They pulled to a halt almost dead center of the vast and fragrant food court. Each of them tilted an ear towards the distant ceiling.

Gah, said, Jet. "I love this song."

So we heard, Marlena grumbled. Sometimes that girl just talked too much.

But she had to admit it was a good song. Kind of bouncy, kind of pop, a little country. A catchy tune that got into your head and stayed there like one of those commercial jingle mind-worms you just couldn’t get rid of. All three of them found themselves rocking side to side, hips swaying, even before the four-bar intro was finished.

Richie McMucker’s voice was round and mellow and somehow good-humored. There was a little bit of a twang to it—not a full-on cowboy hick town accent, but just a pleasant drawl, like Matthew McConaughey or Mr. Burleson who taught them math in middle school. Marlena couldn’t help smiling as McMucker started to sing. She didn’t notice her best friends forever were wearing exactly the same smile.

Two step, turkey neck, do it double what the heck

Double double double

What’s the trouble trouble trouble

Do it left, do it right

Do it loose until it’s tight

Do the

Two step turkey neck, do it double, what the heck…

Marlena looked down and was surprised to see her feet moving. Back, back, up and right, right and up and back and stomp. She wasn’t doing it on purpose; she was just doing it.

She looked to her left and saw that Jet was doing the same thing at exactly the same time. They were moving in perfect unison, the long black wings of Jet’s hair swinging back and forth, forth and back, the same way Marlena’s blonde hair was moving, in the same rhythm. And their feet kept moving: back, up, right and right, stomp and shuffle, back and back.

The song was so catchy it actually made you dance. Wow.

It took tremendous effort for Marlena to move her head to the right—the music wanted her to look forward, straight forward. She could feel that—so she caught only a glimpse of Opal, her red hair in a puffy cloud around her high freckled cheekbones. She was moving, too. Just like them. Exactly like them. Back, forward, forward back. Slip to the side, and lock and stomp.

Their arms were moving, too. At first, Marlena could only feel it distantly, as if someone else was moving them. Her elbows were poking out at her sides and swinging back and forth, like some lame line-dancing move. Then they were swinging up over her head, all twirly-twirly, while she stepped right, right, forward back, forward forward, shuffle right.

The music just wouldn’t stop.

Do it left, do it right

Do it loose until it’s…

Something poked her in the side—hard. Marlena shifted her eyes as far as she (step, step, front and back) could to catch just a glimpse of Opal, just inches away (back, side, shuffle, kick), as she thrust out her elbows and as she stomped and swayed and (kick, kick, shuffle swing) and churned her arms.

She could barely see, but as her eyes moved relentlessly back to the forward position and locked there, it was clear: all the other shoppers were dancing, too. And just as bad, they were coming closer.

Across the atrium. Behind the counters. On the escalator, on the mezzanine, everyone, all of them, dancing and swaying and kicking and stomping in time to McMucker’s relentless melody—arms shooting out and swinging wide. And with every shuffle-stomp, they edged closer—closer to each other, closer to Marlena and her super besties. Like they were all being drawn together by invisible magne….

Opal’s