Greendale, 1933
It had been four years since America changed, four years since the legendary stock market crash. In times of turmoil and struggle, people often look for scapegoats, especially to redirect their pain and aggression, and that's exactly what a band of rioters from Riverdale did on a summer night.
They marched with baseball bats, and the little canisters of gasoline and boxes of matches they could spare all the way to the overlapping outskirts of Riverdale and Greendale to pay someone a visit: Edward Spellman. The man worshiped the devil, they said, therefore everything was his fault. The reason why the graduating class of '33 couldn't find a job months after graduation, why some families had one quaint meal a day, why the Blossom patriarch had committed suicide after the crash, leaving the town without their main money maker. Perhaps this tribute of piety would make things turn around.
The mob mostly consisted of angry breadwinners around the age of thirty and up, along with their wives, but there was also a group of young high school graduates, including: Fred Andrews, Hiram Lodge, Hal Cooper, Hermione Gomez, FP Jones, and Alice Smith.
When they made it to their destination, emerging out of the woods and onto a clear field, the mob beheld the Victorian home that belonged to the alleged warlock. Edward came out from the front door, fear and courage both behind his eyes.
"What have you come for?" He asked, holding his head up high.
"We've come to set things right!" Shouted a man in the crowd.
"Oh, how so?" Edward asked, putting his hands in his pockets to hide his shaking hands.
"By sending you to hell, where you belong!" The man shouted back, with the crowd murmuring in agreement. "You brought the devil into New York, you let him crash the market!"
"Now that's far-reaching," Edward chuckled briefly.
"No, it's the truth! If we didn't let people like you in these neighborhoods bad things wouldn't happen!" Shouted someone else.
"We can't feed our families!" Shouted another.
"We won't be able to continue paying our mortgage!"
"I can't clothe my children!"
"I haven't found a job for 2 years! I only have a few dollars left!"
"This isn't because of me," Edward explained. "… Or my family. The fault lies with the economy and the government. It wasn't because of any deity or by spiritual actions. Sometimes those responsible for you let you down. Sometimes the systems we put in place do not work a hundred percent of the time. And nothing stays in working condition forever…"
"Stop trying to make it seem like you aren't at fault! We know this is all your fault." Resumed the cries of the crowd. And before Edward could open his mouth to reply again, someone had tossed a canister of gasoline, with a rag down it's spout, into one of the windows.
"Diana!" The warlock shouted, turning on his heels to get into the home. The mob rushed the second he moved, and they tackled him, slamming the man into the patio. Men held him down while the women counted their verbal assault, and the young, caught up in the hype, began to throw their canisters into the home as well. "Zelda!" Edward groaned, trying to shake off the rioters holding him down. "Hilda! Take- take everyone and go! Go!"
The house began to flicker with flames in the windows, smoke curling up the blazing curtains. The sound of fire crackling as it broke down furniture filling the air.
"Don't let anyone escape!" A rioter commanded and many got up to surround the house.
The sky was dark being night, but the smoke from the burning home only added to the darkness, covering the stars and the glaring presence of the moon. There were the shouts of women in the distance, getting farther and farther away into the tree line behind the house, and when their voices seemed far enough, Edward loosened his resistance against his captors. Perhaps he was content with dying here tonight if he knew that someone he cared about got away.
But his hope was short lived, because there was someone inside the house.
"Edward!" Called a female voice.
Edward's eyes widened.
"Edward, I'm coming back for you!"
"Diana! Diana, no!" Edward tried to shake the mob off of him once more, but they were too strong. He began to be bludgeoned by the crowd's weapons, smashing into his legs, batting at his ankles and his head. He grunted from the pain, but would not surrender.
"Edward, I'm-"
"Quick!" Shouted a rioter. He and a few of his comrades threw the last of their canisters into the house, fame already at the tip of the rags. They crashed into the home together, and exploded, rupturing as one massive unit, blowing everything out of the windows. Many rioters were hit from the debris, but their injuries were minimal in comparison to the greatest casualty. The heart a woman shriek in terrifying pain, and only a few eyewitnesses could confirm years later that they saw a woman completely ablaze, falling apart in one last confused bought of survival instinct.
The sheer cry from Edward Spellman shook everyone's soul. "Diana! My Diana! Riverdale!" The crowd pulled him from the smoking wreckage, not caring that he hit every wooden step of the patio on the way down. "Riverdale!" His hair was disheveled, his once clean white shirt and pressed trousers were dirtied and ripped, and his face streamed with blood. "Riverdale, I curse you. With my last dying breath. I curse you. May the first born of the next generation be cursed to live their lives in shadows or on all fours! On the first night that they enter the world, may they be forced into lives of the beast!"
And those were his last words, and his last sight was not the ruins of his home, or the barely visible figure of women running into the woods, but the wooden surface of a bat swinging forward to crush his face.
RIVERDALE, 20 YEARS LATER, 1953
Betty flipped through her portfolio, the one she kept hidden from her parents. It was a folder full of news clippings and hand-written copies of cop dossiers, all about the disappearance of her older sister, Polly Cooper. It had happened a year ago today, on the night of Polly's high school graduation, and now, on the night of her very own, Betty felt a peculiar attraction to revisit her personal investigation. No one knew what happened to her sister, the case went cold quick, and it was just eventually accepted as an unsolved kidnapping case.
Betty wished she had been home when it happened, but Polly, feeling ill, had encouraged her family to go out and watch the premiere of a new movie at the cinema. It was supposed to be a treat for the whole family to celebrate Polly's graduation, but she said it was okay to leave since she knew how excited they were to see the film. But when they had returned, they found Polly's room trashed, the bed linens thrown about, the contents of her vanity destroyed, shards of glass and small pools of perfume on the surface, and the window, shattered out of its frame, with blood dripping off the fragments.
Weeks after, Betty would walk down the streets of Riverdale, quickly glancing a look into the eyes of those who passed her by, wondering if they were the ones who took her sister. If those eyes were the last ones to look into Polly's. The killer was still out there, and Betty knew it was no place for a lady, but she wanted to be the one to catch the villain, and maybe, just maybe, by the graces of the universe, find her sister alive and bring her home.
Tonight, after a charming graduation party at Thornhill, Betty had returned home with her best friend Veronica as company. Veronica had joked that since they were both going to end up in different colleges, she wanted to spend as much time together as possible before the inevitable separation happened.
"Are you researching again?" Veronica asked, coming to stand behind Betty, who was seated at her vanity. She placed her hands on Betty's shoulders for comfort.
"Oh…" Betty sighed, placing a document down, "I just feel like I should be looking at it tonight, I don't know… just a feeling. You ever get struck by… a calling?"
Veronica frowned and shook her head. "Not yet, I wish I did, though. With that strong initiative of yours, you could probably get any career field you want."
"Oh, please," Betty chuckled, "Initiative isn't enough for them to let women into just any field."
"You never know," Veronica smiled. "You might be the one to start the movement."
Betty took one last look at her documents and then got up from her chair. With a sigh, Betty smiled at looked down at Veronica. "Ready for bed?"
Veronica woke up at 12:34 AM. The house was eerily silent. As her senses began to return to her, she realized she was very warm all over. Betty's comforter was always good at insolating heat, but this was more than usual. It didn't help that Betty was hugging her, deep in sleep, with Veronica's back pressed into Betty's front. Veronica loved waking up in Betty's embrace, and this was the only kind of moment she let herself selfishly indulge upon. She would never say it, no, not in this world, that she was helplessly in love with her best friend. She pledged to herself to never let Betty find out. She would rather have Betty forever as a cherished friend than lose her forever for confessing her secret.
Veronica softly kissed the one of Betty's hands before slowly moving the slumbering girl's arm off her and slipping out of the blankets. She quietly made her way out of the room, her bare feet padding down the carpeted steps of the home and into the kitchen. Veronica felt a sheer layer of cold sweat begin to form on her skin. She tried to shiver off the peculiarity. Perhaps she was getting sick. She pulled a glass out of the cupboards and went to the sink, pushing the faucet handle to the right, wanting the coldest water available. The water surged out and filled the cup. As if suffering from a drought, Veronica quickly lifted the glass to her lips and chugged. She breathed heavily with she could, taking the entire contents impressively fast. She breathed heavily as she brought the empty cup down, resting it on the counter. And then like a flash of lighting, pain seared through her mouth. She hunched over, gripping the countertop and squeezing her eyes tight. Trying to balance her stomaching for pain, she tried to pinpoint the source, and her brain suggested it was her teeth. The front of her mouth throbbed. She never experienced what a toothache felt like, but figured this dull, yet strong pulsing, was evident of one. She couldn't tell which tooth it came from though, as the whole top front row of her mouth felt tender.
Veronica walked over to the cabinet where she knew the Cooper family kept their medicines. She opened it and looked through, pulling out standard pain killers. She withdrew a standard dosage of pills from the bottle, returned the medicine to the cabinet, and made her way back to her cup, and refilled it once more at the sink. She tossed the pills in her mouth and then immediately chased it with the cold water. She prayed it would take affect soon, this pain felt like it was making its way to her brain. She took a moment to relax and look out the kitchen window. It was a semi cloudy night, and the moon was full and bright. And then her stomach seemed to pinch. Veronica groaned, her mind spinning. What was wrong with her? Something traveled up her throat and she gagged.
"Oh no, please," Veronica muttered to no one. She gagged again, and her stomach twisted and wrenched inside of her. And then up came all the water she had drank, vomited into the kitchen sink. With a fourth lurch, the pills came up as well, clinking into the metallic sink. "Ohhhhh," Veronica groaned, her stomach still folding in half, but done with expelling its contents. She weakly flipped the faucet open to wash everything down the drain. Turning it off, her brain told her to eat. She was sick for sure. Her body often made her go down the list of possible remedies. If water didn't work, try medicine, if medicine didn't work, try food, if food didn't work, try a bath, if a bath didn't work, try to sleep. She was halfway through her typical self-treatment already, why not continue down the list?
Hunched over, clutching her stomach, she made her way to the fridge, and pull open the door. The cold air rushed over her sweating skin and it made her feel even more sick. Her eyes scanned the contents. Vegetables, bread, eggs, grapes and apples, and wrapped in parchment paper were a few steaks Mr. Cooper was going to grill tomorrow. They called to her, but Veronica rolled her eyes. She did not have the time to make steak in the middle of the night, particularly steak that wasn't hers. This wasn't her home, and meat was expensive. She would be a terrible guest to take that from the Coopers. Yet her hand still reached for the package. She didn't know what she was doing, but she didn't seem to have the care to stop herself. She pulled the paper a part calmly, the sound of it crackling in the quiet dark home. And Veronica stared at it. She stared at it hard. The muscle in the paper was such a deep red, Veronica thought she just might have fallen in love. Blood slowly seemed out of the meat, and Veronica watched a drop sluggishly roll down the brown paper. Her mouth watered and she was washed with a desire to bite it and drink the juices from it until it was dry. and deep in her instincts, she wished what she held in her hands was warm.
"Veronica?"
Veronica startled. Betty stood in the archway of the kitchen, her eyes barely open.
"What are you doing here?" the blonde asked.
"Nothing!" Veronica quickly wrapped the meat back up and threw it into the fridge, closing the door with a little too much force.
"Are you hungry?" Betty grumbled from exhaustion. "I can make you something to eat." Betty sluggishly made her way to the fridge.
"No, that's okay, I'm just not feeling well, I don't know exactly what I'm doing?" Veronica whispered with a laugh. Betty's eyes were squinting this whole time, not wanting to wake herself further by opening them wider.
"I knew something was off," Betty said quietly. "I woke up with a feeling that something was wrong, and you were gone from bed." Betty placed herself in front of Veronica and put the back of her hand against her friend's forehead. Veronica froze in place as Betty tested her temperature. Usually Veronica relished touches from Betty, but for some reason, all Veronica could focus on was what seemed to be… the fact that she could hear Betty's pulse from her wrist? "Oh wow, you're… cold. Very cold. We need to get something warm into you. I can make you a canned soup. It's not much, but it will warm you up, and you can have some toast with it."
"Betty," Veronica said exasperatedly, closing her eyes. She gripped the hand Betty was using to test her, her thumb resting on the inner wrist. Veronica swallowed, feeling the rhythm of Betty's blood pulsing with beat after beat, measuring the flow with what passed beneath her thumb.
"Yes?" Betty asked, and there was a waver of uneasiness to it. Veronica opened her eyes at the sound of discomfort from the person she loved.
But Veronica didn't get to say anything more. Suddenly, there was a thunderous crashing noise, and it made both girl's jump. It didn't come from inside the house, it had come from outside, and very close. Betty had taken off first, Veronica following, both of them making their way to the front door, not bothering with slippers. Betty rounded the corner of the house, coming to an abrupt stop at the place between the Cooper and the Andrews household.
Betty's heart beat furiously at what she saw, and Veronica herself knew she was in shock herself, as she couldn't even feel her own heart stir at all. She could see in her peripherals lights from the surrounding houses flick on, and heard the shouts of Mr. Andrews from within.
"Veronica," Betty's voice trembled and she reached a hand behind herself, wanting Veronica to take it as she kept her eyes fixed on Archie's bedroom window. Veronica grasped it instantly. She knew Betty needed her right now.
"It's just like…" Veronica started.
"Just like Polly…" Betty finished.
Archie's window as completely destroyed, the curtains ripped and torn, caught on the stalactite shards of remaining glass, blood smearing and dripping from the window and sliding down the side panels of the home. His room, was no doubt a murder scene that Betty was dying to see.