Mmm, procrastination. Stan and Kyle actually got to do something this chapter, yay! In other news, I still really, really can't write Cartman for the life of me.

It was Wednesday morning, and already the class was beginning to understand Wendy's once illogical view of the weekend's events. Then again, South Park was well-known for its plethora of illogical situations, from zombie outbreaks, to gargantuan singers intent on the destruction of the world, to a little boy whose death and resurrection were as commonplace as going to school, or eating lunch. Still, the children of South Park Elementary had all believed that Wendy's claims of the occult were just a little bit too unlikely for them.

Now, however, with Powder, Annie, Francis, Jason, and Leroy, in addition to Token, Bebe, and Butters inexplicably absent from the class, it was beginning to occur to the students that the liberal-minded little girl in the pink beret might have been right. Mrs. Garrison, as initially adamant about the idea as she had been, had taken quite the opposite stance now that a large portion of her class attributed the disappearances to horror movies. After all, there were a few things Janet loved more than proving to the little ingrates just how intellectually stunted they were. With such a disturbingly large percentage of the classroom gone, the teacher would have to come up with a new explanation as to the missing children.

"Now class," she began in a relatively polite manner, "as I am sure you've noticed, we're missing quite a few more students today than we were yesterday. Despite what some of the more uneducated among you may claim," she gave a brief nod in an indignant Wendy's direction, "this is most obviously the work of drugs," the teacher finished with an accomplished nod. "Now personally, I don't give a shit if you're on drugs or not, but skipping my class in order to do them is something I simply will not tolerate!

"In a few minutes we'll have a special guest come in and give you a lecture while I catch up on my sleep, but in the meantime, is there anything any of you have to say for yourselves? Aside from Wendy that is, 'cause we really don't need to listen to anymore of her horror-movie bull shit," she added as an afterthought. She glanced around the classroom, looking for her first victim. "Tweek," she indicated a spastically twitching blond boy in the front row. "Are you on drugs?"

"Gah!" he replied, jittery as always, "You can't ask me that! It's too much pressure!" His eyes sporadically shifted from the teacher, to each student in the classroom, and then back to the teacher. They were out to get him–all of them were. He was certain of it. Especially that Kenny McCormick. Tweek knew the orange-parka wearing nine-year old had it in for him for taking his spot among his friends. The coffee-addict was certain that it was the reason why Kenny had returned from his untimely death yesterday, and was now sitting in between Cartman and Stan as if nothing was wrong. Unfortunately, every other soul that Tweek had tried to tell this to brushed off his concerns.

Garrison had been eyeing her jittery student sadistically as he twitched, lost in silent thought and glancing at Kenny more often than the other students. Still, when another child raised his hand, it was Janet Garrison's duty as a teacher to call on him.

"What do you want uh–"she hesitated, looking for a name. When none came, she continued on, "whatever your name was?" she asked, slightly annoyed at having to switch targets.

"Actually, I do have something to say Mrs. Garrison,"came the voice of Dog Poo, upset that his teacher of two years had forgotten his name.

"I could tell that, genius of the year, why else would you have your hand up?" The teacher ridiculed.

The filth-covered brunette ignored the criticism, and continued in a concerned voice. "I actually borrowed the movie Butters was talking about from him on Monday, and the same thing happened to me with the telephone and everything. Am I gonna die tonight Mrs. Garrison? I'm scared!"

The transsexual teacher shook her head in annoyance. "No Bobby," she ventured a guess.

"Dog Poo," he corrected.

"Dog Poo, whatever. You're not going to die tonight, because Butters didn't die the other night. You see, Billy,"

"Dog Poo."

"One of your fellow students," he laid his eyes on Wendy Testaburger, and there they stayed, "has been filling your heads with some nonsense of ghosts, and zombies, and demons and all kinds of bull shit–"

"But Mrs. Garrison," Kyle Broflovski interrupted, "weren't you the one pointing out all of the horror genre warning signs on Monday?"

"Kyle, I did no such thing!"

Mr. Mackey conveniently chose that moment to walk into the classroom. "Hello students," he said deliberately. "It has come to my attention that some of you are on drugs." The last word he spoke with particular venom, which didn't sound particularly venomous coming from the elementary school councillor. "Now, there's something I want you to know about drugs class, m'kay?"

"Drugs are bad, m'kay," the students all chimed in nonchalantly in an impersonation of their councillor's voice. After spending years with the eccentric man and his mundane claims, it was easy to see where this conversation was going.

"That's right, drugs are bad, m'kay," he stated again with more confidence.

Wendy's hand shot up into the air. "Mr. Mackey?"

"Oh no, here we go again," Garrison muttered, popping some Aspirin.

"Yes Wendy?"

"I don't think half of the class is on drugs."

"Wendy, I'm the councillor, I think I know when kids are on drugs, m'kay," the large-headed man asserted impatiently.

"No Mr. Mackey, I think there's something bigger than a drug ring going on in South Park right now." The dark-haired girl was equally assertive.

"Bigger than drugs, m'kay?" the councillor asked, shaken enough to nearly forget the trademarked "mmkay" at the end of his sentence.

"Yes Mr. Mackey, bigger than drugs . . . m'kay," she added as an afterthought. If she was going to reach him, Wendy decided it would be best to speak on his level. "I believe that the deaths of Bebe, Token, Butters, and all of the others were caused by several events at the supernatural level. For example, a monster capable of ripping the hoods off of cars, or a vampire capable of draining all of the blood in a human's body." Dracula, from his seat beside Pip, stiffened at her claim. "The initial deaths all fell into the cliches of the horror genre, but you can be sure that there will be more deaths, and these ones may be more difficult to predict."

"You know," Stan began thoughtfully, "Wendy's got some good points, I think." Stan typically considered himself above watching horror movies. He had watched one once, with his family, but while his father was clinging to his mother, and his mother was clutching him, he and Shelley had both thought that the movie had been predictable and stupid–one of the few times the siblings agreed. As such, he wasn't particularly aware of trends in such movies, but he was certain that if Wendy was so adamant about it, then perhaps there was some truth to what she was saying.

"Yeah," Kyle said, nodding in agreement.

"Mrr, broff brimey mrrfity murfy murph," Kenny proclaimed, muffled by his parka as usual. However, he might have said something along the lines of "Yeah, those movies usually don't end until there are only a few characters left. I don't wanna die again."

Cartman stared at his friends, wide-eyed. He was having trouble believing that the friends he considered so intelligent–well more intelligent than Craig and Those Guys anyway–were actually gullible enough to believe the words coming out of Wendy's mouth. He had no idea what the hippie was planning, but it was up to him to protect his friends from it. "Aw, come on guys, you can't listen to that bitch." Wendy shot him a dirty look. "She's a hippie, which makes her stoned, since all hippies are stoned. And you know that stoned people, and Jews for that matter,"

"Don't start Fatass," Kyle interrupted. The interruption, however, was ignored.

"Don't possess the superior brains of people like me. Therefore, through strict scientific observation, we can determine that Wendy–and Kyle–do not know what they're talking about. Thank you." He took a bow in the manner of one who had just made an observation that would change the future of mankind.

Kyle glared at him disgustedly. "Wow, that's pure genius right there. Did it take you all night to think that up?" he jeered.

Mr. Mackey replied before the ill-mannered, overweight bigot could. "Wendy, is that right? Are you stoned, m'kay?"

"What, no!" She looked utterly dumbfounded.

"Wendy, it's not nice to lie, m'kay." He pulled out a pamphlet and began taking notes. "I'm going to recommend that you come in for some counseling. Don't worry Wendy, we'll have your problem fixed in a jif, m'kay?" With that, he marched to the back of the classroom, grabbed a protesting Wendy by the hand, and dragged her off to his office.

ooo

Stan and Kyle ditched Cartman at lunch that day. They, like many of the other students had begun taking the claims Wendy had been making all week into serious consideration. Unlike the majority of the other students, however, when it came to things they cared about, these boys were quite proactive. With their lives potentially on the line, this was definitely one of those times.

Kenny had, of course wanted to come too, but as Kyle had put it, "We need someone to keep the Fatass from interfering. It's one of the few things he's actually good at." Thus, he and Stan had gone off for an afternoon of potential adventure, and Kenny had been left to listen to Cartman complain about how much he hated those guys, and how he and Kenny were gonna have fun without them. The parka-clad boy was less than thrilled.

Meanwhile, Stan and Kyle, though eager to save their necks from whatever was threatening to break them this time, had no idea where to begin. They gazed around the playground in a desperate search for ideas, but inspiration was proving elusive today.

"Maybe we could try Wendy?" Stan suggested half-heartedly.

"The problem is, she's still 'getting help' from Mr. Mackey. Who knows when we'll get the chance to talk to her," his red-haired friend replied.

"And I guess it doesn't really make sense to sit around wasting time while there are," he paused, looking for a word, "things on the loose. Who knows, we could get eaten while we're waiting." They both paused to think about that, neither liking what their inner eye saw.

"Right," Kyle murmured after a while. Wheels began turning in his nine-year old mind. "Well, Garrison was talking about 'sins of the horror genre' the other day in class."

"What?" Stan asked. He hadn't been particularly attentive to the lecture that day, but then again, it was rare that anyone paid attention to their teacher's more bizzare lessons.

"I dunno, something like surefire ways to get you killed in a horror movie, or something." He was trying hard to recollect fragments from the lesson, but like Stan, he had been ignoring it.

"Oh yeah," the darker haired boy said, realization dawning on him. "You aren't suggesting we talk to her about it?" he ventured skeptically.

"After what she said in class today?" Kyle commented absentmindedly. "Nah, we just need to find someone else who knows a thing or two about horror-genre sins. That way, we can find out what they are, and make sure we don't do anything that will get us killed."

Stan nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Too bad we don't know anyone like that." The two of them sighed and lapsed back into ponderous thought.

ooo

It was Stan that came up with the idea to see the goth kids. His reasoning hadn't been particularly good. "The goths like to talk about their painful lives, and horror movies are about people whose lives become painful." As little sense as it made, Stan's hunch was the only lead the boys had, and both agreed that it was better than waiting for something to kill them.

The goths weren't difficult to find. They were always in the same spot, smoking behind the school. The boys passed Cartman and Kenny on the way, the fat child speaking to the smaller boy in an exaggeratedly loud and excited voice.

"Oh look what I found Kenny! Isn't it sweet?" Kenny mumbled something unintelligible. "Yeah, I thought so too. It's so great that Stan and Kyle don't get to see it, 'cause I hate those guys. Let's make sure they never get to see this super sweet thingy, 'kay Kenny?" Despite his attempts to make his alleged friends jealous, the two walked right on by without giving Cartman a second look. "Fine!" he shouted after them angrily. "Screw you guys! Me and Kenny will just have the most awesome time in the universe without you! No Kenny, this is my super sweet thingy. You can't touch it!"

Stan and Kyle reached their destination without further incident, but were dismayed by the goths' response to their information request.

"What do you mean you won't help us?" the red-haired Jew exclaimed angrily. "Your lives are on the line too, we need that information!"

One of the goths flipped his dyed-red hair out of his eyes. "You are stereotyping us. Stereotypes are what those stupid conformists use to put a label on people that are different from them. They cause pain for the weak, and serve to further increase the strength of the corporate world. I would be loathe to help you achieve those goals, even if I knew anything about the sins of fictional characters," he muttered in an uncaring voice.

"Why would we bother to watch movies anyway?" another goth, Henrietta, commented, unsympathetic to the boys plight. "Movies are what the government uses to subject its people to its totalitarian views, for example, the perfect body type. You wouldn't catch me setting foot in one of those conformist traps if you paid me," she was referring to movie theatres.

A taller goth with curly, black hair spoke up this time. "If you're looking for answers, you'd have better luck asking one of your friends. Or you could find the answers you seek in that accursed pit of supreme conformity known as the internet. I bet you'd find something there." He shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette. The youngest of the goths remained silent.

"Yeah, the internet does sound like a good place to start," Stan commented. "Thanks guys!" he exclaimed before pulling a still mildly frustrated Kyle off in the direction of the library.

No sooner had the "conformist" boys left, than a boy who, in his own opinion better fit in with the goth crowd arrived on the scene. The goths eyes trailed from the retreating forms of Stan and Kyle, to the approaching form of Dracula.

"Excuse me," he began, again in his heavy, Transylvanian accent. "I am new here, from Transylvania, and so far ze only person who vants to be my friend, iz an annoyingly chipper British boy. Pray, may I join you in your more mature crowd?" he grinned toothily, hoping to be rid of Pip for good.

"If you wanna be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do," the tall goth explained in monotone. The vampire glanced at his clothes, which, save for the sunhat, were not too different from the clothes the goth kids wore. He shrugged and sat down with them.

ooo

Stan and Kyle had experienced much more luck in the library. When it came to digging for information online, there were few people better than Kyle. Stan could recall a time when, using his internet prowess, his best friend had almost single-handedly saved his country from a British invasion. The boys had easily found what they were looking for, and then some.

The redhead had somehow stumbled onto the report made for the missing teenagers from Sunday morning, as well as some rumors of a spooky cave, a New York newspaper which claimed that a ship had arrived from Europe with its entire crew drained of blood, and a slew of porn sites. Now, they were trying to make some sense of their facts.

"All right," Kyle began, "somewhere between Saturday night and Sunday morning, we have two teenagers committing horror sin #1 in the forest, when something with very large feet ripped off the hood off of their car and dragged them off into the night."

Stan thought it over for a minute. "Obviously the work of some kind of mutant monster, or maybe even a very large werewolf," he commented. Kyle indicated his agreement with a nod. "Therefore, we'd be safest if we carried around a chainsaw."

"Or a gun with silver bullets," the redhead added helpfully. Stan grunted his agreement. Kyle continued listing their findings. "Next we have Token, who was last seen Sunday afternoon. I think his parents have been missing too."

"That's a bit harder to place," Stan pondered.

"Anyway," Kyle added, "the black guy usually dies first in these movies, so I think we're safe."

"Right, and Butters's death was obviously caused by that movie he saw. All we have to do is not watch any strange videos. Then there was the new kid . . ."

The two continued on like this for awhile. One would mention an odd occurrence or disappearance that had plagued their community since Saturday night, and then the two would try to place the event to a killer, a cause, and a counter. By the end of recess the boys had determined that they should avoid girls like the plague, carry chainsaws, silver bullets, crosses, and garlic on them at all times, never be found anywhere alone, never go out after dark, and to never touch or view any item they were unfamiliar with. They also determined that their classmate Dracula was a vampire.

As the bell rang, Stan turned to his best friend thoughtfully as they walked back to class. He said, "I think I saw Wendy reading a book that had to do with this the other day. It might not be a bad idea to ask if we can check it out."

"But dude!" Kyle exclaimed, his voice cracking in the process, "Wendy's a girl. We already determined that girls were villain magnets. If we talk to her, there's a good chance we could get caught in the crossfire!"

"I know, dude, I know," came the reply. "But think about it. Wendy's the only other person who seems to know what's going on here. I know she's a girl, but it seems like it'd be a good idea to have her on our side anyway. Or we should at least borrow her book. Besides, she knows the rules better than we do. It's not like she'll do anything stupid."

Kyle turned this over in his head for a moment. "I guess." They began to make their way back to Mrs. Garrison's classroom, but their journey was impeded when the boys ran into the notorious "Craig and Those Guys," or some of them at least. Craig, Clyde, Tweek, and Jimmy stood before the best friends and, with the exception of Tweek, they all had angry grimaces on their faces. Tweek appeared paranoid as was usually the case.

Stan was the first to speak. "Craig," he said in greeting. "Clyde, Tweek, Jimmy. Um," he trailed off nervously as his opponents moods didn't change.

"It's people like you that get the rest of us killed," Craig accused.

"Dude, what are you talking about," Kyle retorted, slightly astonished.

"You're friends with Cartman," Clyde explained. "Right now, he's parading around the halls with some freaky glowing rock."

Craig interrupted, his voice slightly angrier than his usual tone. "Token and Jason are dead because of dumb kids like him that go off and commit some stupid sin, and then let someone else take the blame!" Kyle and Stan blinked in confusion.

"Y-yeah!" Jimmy added. "And then the worst pa–"he stopped, stutter kicking in. He tried a second time. "And then the worst p–and then the worst part is, he goes a-around ripping on the other kids for b-being cautious."

"Whoa, hold on a second," Stan held up his hands in surrender. "This is about that whole horror movie thing, right? We don't agree with Cartman. We were just about to ask Wendy if we could borrow her survival guide."

"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "If the Fatass wants to go and get himself killed it's fine with me, but we'd rather play it safe and live."

A look of apology crossed the faces of the four boys standing opposite of Stan and Kyle.

"Err, sorry about that," Clyde muttered. The two outsiders looked less than amused. He approached them slowly, until he was close enough to be within whispering range. "Look guys, Craig's just having a hard time with this. First Token and Jason disappear, and now his dad's gone missing too, so if you could cut him some slack–"

"I don't care about that," the boy in the floppy-eared hat interrupted, charging at Clyde but stopping short of running into him. He had heard Clyde's comment, despite the soft volume at which it had been made at. "Those bastards killed Stripe!" he yelled in agony pointing an accusing middle finger at his friend. Clyde put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

Tweek cut in. "I knew there was trouble when the gnomes stopped coming. There's a murderer out there! First he killed the gnomes, then he killed the others. I don't want to be next! It's too much pressure! Nngh!" The blond grunted, twitching. Jimmy glanced at the boy thoughtfully.

There was a moment of silence (save for Craig, who was muttering mournfully over his dead guinea pig) before Clyde spoke up. "Listen, in these kinds of situations, it's always best to be in large groups. That way, somebody's bound to live." The other boys nodded. "Maybe we should, I dunno, team up or something like that," he suggested.

Kyle and Stan discussed the proposition for a moment before reaching a consensus. "Considering all of the stuff that's going on," Kyle said, "It seems like a good idea." At that the six boys headed off to the classroom.

ooo

Behind the school, Dracula stared at the goths, or more specifically, their bodies. He had enjoyed their company for all of ten minutes before he became fed up at how repetitive their talk of non-conformity was, and, as was usually the case when he was annoyed, the vampire had killed them. He really hadn't meant to, it just sort of happened. The scene was made worse when a British boy with a sunny disposition came frolicking up immediately afterwards. He stopped at the sight of the dead goths.

"Oh dear, Dracula, how dreadful this is. How tragic that their lives had to end so soon, even if they were lives full of pain." His disposition changed suddenly. "Now tally ho, old chap, we really must be off to class!" The blond bounded off just as cheerfully as he had arrived. The vampire stared after him. Well, if he was doomed to have Pip as his only friend in this God-forsaken mountain town, so be it. Dracula would resign himself to his fate and, from that day forward be the British boy's new best friend.

ooo

Stan hadn't been quite as right about Wendy's intelligence concerning the present situation as he was convinced he had been. In a world where anything could be lurking around the next corner, and it was every man for himself when the beasts struck, the little girl had one fatal shortcoming. Wendy was nice. Wendy liked to help people, which is why, when Dog Poo met her outside of Mr. Mackey's office with a plea for her help, the girl in the pink beret couldn't refuse.

"Please Wendy," he had begged, tears in his eyes. "I'm scared. I don't want to die." The girl had shaken her head regretfully at the filthy child, but he wasn't done yet. "Please, I know you're a good person. You're better than all of the other kids. You have to protect me from whatever it is that's gonna happen tonight." She averted her eyes guiltily. "Please, just come to my house tonight, and stay with me. Please Wendy?"

Wendy knew, that if there was one thing you weren't supposed to do in horror movies (aside from all of the other things you weren't supposed to do), it was play the hero (or heroine in her case). Heroes were the ones that ran back into the haunted house to save their friends that were stuck inside. Incidentally, more often than not, the heroes wound up dead too. Still when she saw the tears in Dog Poo's eyes, she just couldn't help herself.

Now, she was at the boy's house. Dinner had just ended, and his forty-eighth hour was drawing near. Every fibre of Wendy's being was telling her to get out of the house, run away and hide in a well-lit room that lacked closets, mirrors, clowns, or a bed that was raised more than an inch off of the floor. She cursed her niceness. She just knew that it was going to get her killed one of these days.

The clock read 7:32. It was time. Instantaneously, all of the lights in the room flickered off and the television flickered on. Dog Poo screamed and clung to Wendy, who was screaming by this point too. On the screen, Sasa was crawling out of a toilet and towards her viewers. She made her way out of the television set quick enough, and began snailing her way towards the dirt-covered little boy. He fainted. Wendy fainted too.

The demonic little girl made quick work of the boy, then shifted her attention to the girl. She had not seen the movie, so why was she here? A thought crossed Sasa's rotting brain. It was awfully inconvenient being confined to a video cassette. What if she were to possess a human body? Then she could be free to attack whomever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Her beady eyes examined the sleeping girl. Yes. If she wanted a body, now was the time to do it. This child was perfect. She had all of the requirements of an undead, cursed little girl, which amounted to pale skin and long black hair. Sasa's white lips formed into a grin, before she made a clicking sound and hopped into the body of Wendy Testaburger.

Wendy's eyes opened a few moments later. She looked herself over, and moved her limbs, as if she was seeing her body for the first time in years. Using the TV screen to view her reflection, she took off her beret and pulled her hair into her eyes. "Not too bad," she said, rather cheerfully for a cursed child. "In fact, it's quite good."