The Creeping Read online

  He knew. Twelve-year-old Sam knew that given the choice, I didn’t choose him. I swallow a big gulp of air. It slides down my throat, choking me. If not for it, I’d cry; the sky already is. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew? That I was horrible for picking Zoey?” I ask, barely louder than the drops pelting the windshield. The car veers off the highway and on to Main Street, cutting through downtown Savage.

  “Because you chose Zoey. What was I supposed to say? Should I have begged you not to?” We pull to a stop at a red light. He runs his hands through his hair, heaving a huge sigh, and holds them up, defeated. “You chose Zoey. And she was the one who made you choose. I would never have asked you to give up a friend. Especially right after—”

  “Right after my mom left,” I supply. I have to admit that even at twelve the timing of Zoey giving me the ultimatum seemed really cruel, really messed up.

  I glare at our reflections in the window. I see a half-naked drenched girl who’s a miserable shadow of who she used to be. I see a boy who’s been burned by her over and over again. But for some bizarro reason he doesn’t leave like everyone else.

  “I understand what you meant about there being so little of me left,” I whisper. The light turns green and he accelerates. I wonder when whatever magic elixir that made me me started to dry up. I have an inkling it began with Jeanie. The droplets of water ping against the glass, and I see they’ve morphed into hail. Hail in June. I remember learning that hail forms in clouds, where the air is much cooler, making it possible during summer months. Still. The universe seems off-kilter, addled. The windshield wipers don’t even come close to defeating the ice that rockets down on us. I fantasize that a comet-size chunk will burst through the glass and pummel me out of existence.

  We turn down my street. I reach for my shoes in the backseat and struggle to get the wet canvas onto my feet. Sam stares straight ahead; he can’t stomach looking at me. The instant the wagon pulls into my driveway—before we’re even parked—I leap from the car.

  “Stella, wait!” Sam shouts. I don’t stop. All I want to do is hide from him. He’s the only evidence of the hurtful choice I made. But he follows. I struggle with the key in the lock and explode through the front door. Moscow’s lounging on the back of the sofa. He raises his head, lackadaisically regards me, and then settles back in for a nap. I kick off my soaked shoes. Their moisture leeches into the carpet as a swelling shadow.

  Finally, I turn to Sam, who sloshed through the front yard and stands dripping and muddy in the doorway. His hair is plastered to his head, and his eyelashes are clumping. He slams the door, making the whole house and my insides rattle.

  “If there wasn’t any of you left, why would I be here? Why would I be helping you? Why would that ten percent of my brain always be hoping that you’re at the party I am? That we’ll see each other and we’ll talk and you’ll smile because I made you laugh.” He steps closer, and I mirror it with a step back. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “I’ve had it bad for you most of my life. You. The fearless you who stepped in front of Daniel when Griever aimed a shotgun at him. The you who used to do backflips off my diving board. The you who I knew would realize sooner or later that you chose wrong.”

  I tug my hair furiously into a knot at the base of my neck. “Zoey’s my best friend. Don’t you get that?” Even now the urge to defend Zoey stomps out everything else. “I didn’t choose wrong.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for his response. He leans forward rather than away. “Stella, don’t you get it? I’m not saying you should have chosen me. There was no right choice. You shouldn’t have chosen at all,” he says softly. There are no words. It’s the simplest, most obvious thing, and it never occurred to me. “You did, though, and I don’t care that you did.”

  His eyes are so intent I imagine them crackling like embers in a fire. He’s waiting for a response. There’s this humming between us, making the hair on my arms stand on end. I take another hasty step back and try to look unaffected as I gather up stray hairs and tuck them into my knot. “What did you want to show me?” I breeze over everything.

  Sam hesitates for a second, holding my gaze. My hands fall to my sides; they feel awkward there, purposeless. He reaches into his hoodie and pulls out a white envelope. “I couldn’t get the part about monsters out of my head. I even dreamed about it. And then it hit me this morning. The spring before Jeanie was taken, we played at Jeanie and Daniel’s a lot.” Sam levels his gaze with mine. “We were always playing in the woods.” I go absolutely still.

  His brow creases, and he rubs his chin with the effort of remembering. “We were pretending to slay dragons and play-fight as cowboys and Indians.” He frowns. “We weren’t the only kids playing in the forest—the woods are everywhere in Savage.” He’s right. The woods and their shadows are all around us. “There were always urban legends going around school. Bloody Mary stories. Goblins and ghosts in the woods.” I incline my head. I remember a lot of those from slumber parties. “But in the months before Jeanie went missing—I can’t remember exactly when—a group of older boys swore they saw something in the forest—I want to say cannibals. Then the rumors spread, and more kids said they’d seen stuff in the woods; all different creatures that couldn’t exist. You know how kids are with rumors and made-up stuff. I remember us at Jeanie’s, and we were going to drive something out of hiding. I wasn’t sure any of that mattered, though. Then I found this.” Sam slides a single photo from the envelope. I take it and slump down to the couch.

  It’s a Polaroid snapshot of five kids. Weird that I recognize myself only after I spot Sam, Caleb, Daniel, and Jeanie in the photo. We’re lined up like little soldiers, and everyone but Jeanie is grinning fiercely at the camera. I’m more growling than smiling, with one arm slung over Sam’s shoulders.

  “Remember that Zoey ran around with a Polaroid camera all of first and second grade?” Sam asks. I nod. “Well, she had it in kindergarten, too. She must be the one taking the picture. The four of us would have been six, and Caleb and Daniel would have been finishing third grade. This is the spring before Jeanie was taken.”

  I bob my head dumbly again, running my finger over the objects we’re gripping in our chubby-knuckled hands. “Sam, are those what I think they are?” I ask quietly.

  He sinks down next to me. “Yeah,” he says, his breath tickling my ear. “Those are spears that Daniel and Caleb made from sticks and arrowheads they found in the woods.”

  Our savage expressions, the crude weapons, the smears of dirt on our cheeks, those strange words I chose when Jeanie was taken, all add up. I take a shaky breath and whisper, “We were hunting monsters.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My hands tremble as I bring the picture closer to my face. I tilt it from side to side. I even examine its back. I don’t know what I’m looking for—maybe some clue to appear like the images in those Magic Eye books—but there’s nothing find.

  “Do you remember this day?” I ask, pivoting on the couch to face him.

  “Not really. But I remembered hiding a few pictures away. Feeling like they were my secret treasure. I stuck this one in the pages of a ratty copy of Where the Wild Things Are hidden under my box spring. It was still there when I looked.” His brow pleats as he prepares to explain more. “After Jeanie was taken, my parents talked to me about strangers who kidnap children, and that whole conversation is scar tissue on my memory.” He taps his head as if to indicate exactly what part of his brain he’s talking about. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew. “It was traumatic and made everything surrounding Jeanie’s disappearance vague. I remember the bit about the rumors, and I sort of remember being afraid, but there’s nothing clear or specific about it. I’m sorry,” Sam says. He leans back into the couch cushions. I angle forward slightly as though there’s a string attaching us.

  “You were only six. And you found this.” I pat his knee. “Wait a sec.” I point to the older boys in the photo. “We were only six, but Caleb and Daniel were nin
e. I have loads of memories from being nine.”

  “You’re right. Daniel and Caleb should be able to remember this.” Sam tugs his cell from his pocket and begins dialing as I’m going for mine. “They should be able to remember the rumors, too,” he adds. He’s right. When I asked Caleb to help me remember that summer, he should have mentioned it, right? But why would I expect Caleb—Caleb who up until two years ago hung out with stoners—to remember every game of make-believe and goofy adventure we had? And to be fair, he wouldn’t understand the significance of it, because he doesn’t know what six-year-old me muttered 255 times.

  I dial Caleb and an instant later hang up. He told me he’d rat me out to keep me safe. I’m pretty certain sharing that we uncovered a forgotten photo from that summer and letting him know that I enlisted Sam’s help would send him snitching. A second later Sam says, “Hey, Daniel, it’s Sam. I know you might be spending the night with your dad, but give me a call. It’s important. I think we’re on to something, man.” He returns the cell to his jeans.

  “I can’t ask Caleb,” I explain. “He was with us earlier, and I tried to get him talking about Jeanie. He said it was too dangerous for me to be involved.”

  “It’s okay. Daniel will call back,” Sam says.

  My eyes linger on the five faces in the photo. All of us look feral, glowing from the thrill of whatever hunt we were on—that is, everyone but Jeanie. Her eyes are angled downward at this rust-eaten coffee tin tied with string around her neck. The tin cylinder hangs just above her waist. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line. “What is that around her neck?” I ask, tilting the photo for Sam.

  His jaw works back and forth as he thinks. “It looks like a homemade drum, like we were soldiers and she was the drummer of war,” he says. “I remember making one out of a milk carton.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say. I have trouble looking away from its shape, how she’s wearing it as a necklace, and her downcast eyes. I know I’ve seen it before, more than once, more than just that afternoon. The coffee tin’s lid is snapped on, and I can imagine her tiny hands beating it as a percussion instrument. There’s a quality to her expression, though—bleakness and dread—that makes me doubt it’s a toy. It makes me think that Jeanie was the only one who understood that whatever game we were playing at wasn’t a game at all. She was smarter than the rest of us.

  “What do you think we were looking for?” I ask, moving on to my likeness. I don’t know what it is. I look different from all the other pictures I’ve seen of myself as a kid. I look wild. And happy. Maybe that’s what I looked like before Jeanie was taken?

  “I don’t know. There might not have been anything. I remember seeing a couple of homeless men walking in the woods near the train tracks.”

  “The police searched the woods for drifters who might have taken Jeanie. Hundreds of volunteers walked the woods for weeks afterward looking for any sign,” I say. “But they never found anything.”

  “The woods run into Blackdog State Park. It would be easy for someone to stay hidden up there for a long time. Hundreds of square miles of nothingness and only a couple of rangers who patrol,” Sam says thoughtfully. He focuses on my frown and adds quickly, “I’m sure that’s not what happened, though. Why do you think you said that stuff to the police?”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “At first I was sure I didn’t mean it. There obviously weren’t really monsters in the woods. I just figured that I was confused or that I was talking figuratively. Like I meant that the person who took Jeanie was a monster. I guess that’s dumb. Six-year-olds don’t think that way.” I wrap my arms around myself, the house suddenly cold. “Kids see monsters everywhere.” I echo Shane’s words.

  “Maybe,” Sam says. “But maybe there was actually something there to see.” My eyebrows pinch together. He holds his palms up. “Remember that I’m a science nerd, and so far the evidence suggests that the perpetrator doesn’t have a normal human lifespan.”

  I shiver, fidgeting in my now stiff and filthy jean shorts. “I think you’re confusing science with science fiction,” I murmur. “And all signs point to this being more than one person.” I emphasize the word, but I can’t shake a gnawing inside me. Sort of like a homework assignment you forget to complete before you go to bed at night, and you get that maggot of suspicion squirming inside your head that your work isn’t totally done.

  Sam slides the photo back into the envelope. I’m about to tell him that something isn’t stacking up when the doorbell rings.

  I hop up and cross my fingers that it’s Caleb back from the cove. He’s had a couple of hours to think about it, and he’s realized we have a responsibility to help Mr. Talcott and Daniel, even if it puts us in danger. He’s realized that I’m already in danger. Two steps through the foyer and I twist the bolt and yank it open.

  No one’s there. “Hello?” I call. There’s only the pouring rain and the bruised sky of pre-dusk. I take a step onto the porch, and my toe nudges something. It’s a wicker basket full of anemic-looking strawberries the color of dead flesh; it’s as though the life’s been sucked out of them. I stoop for a closer look. It has. White maggots writhe from holes in the berries.

  Sam charges out the front door, over the soggy lawn and down the sidewalk. I brace myself in the doorway. My hands shake. I kick my bare foot into the basket, sending the berries and maggots scattering down the porch steps and into the rain.

  After five minutes of scouring the block, Sam jogs back. “I didn’t see anyone anywhere,” he pants. He hops over the mess. “Let’s get inside and call the police.”

  I nod but can’t will my legs to move. Sam gingerly maneuvers me back into the house and walks me to the love seat. I sink down into the cushions. “Are we overreacting? Maybe a neighbor just left a gift? They’re just strawberries. Maybe they didn’t know the fruit was rotting?” I whisper, desperate for it to be true.

  Sam finds my cell on the coffee table and hands it to me. “Everyone in Savage knows that you and Jeanie were picking strawberries when she disappeared. Everyone knows that Mr. Talcott mowed those vines down every year. People used to talk about him breaking down in tears in the hardware store while he was buying a machete to use on them.”

  My mouth goes dry as I scroll through my contacts.

  “Stella?” Shane answers after the first ring.

  “Shane. Hi. Can you come over? Something’s happened,” I say, a little quaver in my voice.

  There’s the rustle of papers on the other end and a muffled apology made to someone, Shane’s hand probably covering the receiver. “Sorry, Stella, I’m back. Are you hurt?”

  “No . . . I just . . . Someone left a basket of strawberries on my front porch. They rang the bell, and when I answered no one was there . . . . They’re covered in maggots.”

  Shane is quiet for a long time and then, “I’ll be over in five.” The line goes dead.

  Four minutes later, Shane knocks. I stay planted on the love seat as Sam, who’s wearing a beach towel from the linen closet over his sopping-wet clothing, jumps to let him in.

  “Glad you’re not alone,” Shane says, wrinkling his forehead at Sam and stomping his feet on the mat. He’s trailed by two uniformed police. I recognize the acne-faced cop and his lady partner. I curl my legs under myself and nod hello.

  The two uniforms are quietly arguing under their breaths. Their faces are animated and flushed. Shane explains that they’ve been watching my house from an unmarked car parked down the street. “You gave me no choice yesterday,” he adds defensively. “What were we supposed to do?”

  The idea of strangers watching me makes me feel ill, even if they are police. “Did they follow me to the cove today too?” I ask. I peek at them sidelong. Did they see me and Taylor swimming? Did they hear what he said to me? The lady cop elbows her partner in the ribs. Both shift their weight uneasily.

  Shane clears his throat, wipes a handkerchief he pulls from his pocket over his lips, and turns toward them. It’s clear by
their reluctance to meet his eyes that they missed me leaving this morning.

  Sam plops down next to me and wraps his arm and the towel around my shoulders. Our sides press together.

  Shane has some harsh words for the uniforms after they admit to showing up late and assuming I was inside until they saw otherwise when Sam and I arrived home. I learn their names are Reedy and Matthews, and they took the most horrifically timed coffee break known to man, fifteen minutes ago. They were ordering caramel macchiatos—I know because Shane demands to hear what was so important that they risked my life, and Matthews answered—as the basket of strawberries was being delivered. Shane dismisses them once it’s obvious he’s going to burst a blood vessel if they continue pissing him off with excuses. He drops down onto the sofa with an exhausted groan once they’ve left the house.

  “They’ll be more careful about watching you from now on,” Shane assures me. Sam snorts. “They’re going to bag the berries, worms, and basket as evidence. It’s doubtful, but we may be able to get a partial fingerprint off the basket,” Shane adds.

  He rubs the scruff shadowing his chin. “We’re dealing with a real sicko. Please don’t go anywhere secluded. No more cove and no more woods. I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this, but I think the time’s come.” He pinches the bridge of his nose as if the thought is giving him a headache. Sam’s arm tightens around me. “Not only was Jane Doe’s scalp severed from her head, but not all of it was recovered with her body.”

  I try to ask, “What do you mean?” but it’s more of a jumble, my brain outdistancing my mouth, my mouth sounding out words too late or not at all.