The Creeping

“Where’s Michaela?” I ask. The forest floor vibrates with bass.

“She went home already. Zo was playing beer pong with some guy and she called for a ride. So I show up and she loses it. Screaming and crying. Bitch-fest. And I try to talk to her, answer her questions from last night, like I told you.” He throws his arms in the air. “I’ve never seen her so out of control.” Caleb’s blond hair is dark with sweat, and his cheeks are bright red. He must have chased after her.

“Which way did she go?”

Caleb shines the beam of a flashlight he’s holding to the right, in the direction of the swamps and Blackdog Lake.

“C’mon,” he says, taking me by the elbow.

People say there’s a little tickle of intuition right before something bad happens. You know, like an imp whispering, “Lock the door!” or “Don’t let that person in!” or “Run!” Victims regret not listening to it. I always thought that was bullshit, victims blaming themselves for not being clairvoyant. But in that instant, when Caleb touches me, I feel a tiny trill of panic at the base of my skull. I shake my head and it’s gone. Only goose bumps from loud music and cold air.

We jog deep into the woods. Poplars, birch, and hemlock knit together, framing token-size bits of sky illuminated by moonlight; the northern air thick with summer mosquitoes. I leap over knotted black roots bursting through the soil. Caleb works the flashlight right to left, scanning every clearing. The beam leaves long shadows from trees crisscrossing everywhere.

I shout, “Zoey, it’s me! Come out!” again and again.

After ten minutes I hunch over to catch my breath. “Do you really think she went this far? We’re halfway to Blackdog, and she’d never go through the swamp alone,” I pant.

Caleb stops at my side. “She didn’t go back to the house. We would’ve seen her.” His eyes dart right to left with the beam of the flashlight; his pupils swallow up the pale blue of his eyes, and his lips are so distorted by a grimace they’re near cracking.

“Hey,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder. His sweatshirt is damp under my palm, and he’s shivering. “Caleb, look at me. We’ll find her.”

He takes a hasty step back. “I’m fine,” he says, a tattered edge to it. He nods to himself, mutters under his breath, and then adds louder, “We can’t stop hunting for her.”

The distant caw of a night bird makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I squint through the beam of the light he’s aiming at me. “I can’t see with that in my eyes,” I say.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. The beam drops away, and silver spiders blossom in front of me as I blink to adjust to the dark. “You didn’t see how out of control she was, Stella. I bet she’s too wasted to find her way back—or—or even know how far she’s gone,” he adds. We’re only a foot or two apart, and his eyes don’t rest on anything for long. He’s frightened for Zoey.

I rub at my arms. “We’ll find her, okay? You don’t need to worry. If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Zo.” I want to believe it, but I don’t think anyone walks away from what might be poaching in these woods—other than me. I got away from the Creeping, or else it didn’t want me.

Caleb scratches the back of his head, continuing to scan the space around us. “Yeah, I guess. Let me try to call her,” he says.

I nod, reassured by the idea. I should have thought of that. I assumed that because Zoey ran off during a fight, she left her cell and purse at Cole’s. The phone could be tucked into her pocket, though.

Caleb transfers the flashlight to his left hand. In the instant his right hand passes under the shaft of light toward the pocket where his cell must be stowed, shadows like black sores are cast on his skin.

“What’s on your hand?” I ask, alarmed. I reach as if to brush away the dirt or insects that have landed on him, but as he retrieves the cell and holds the top of his hand up for me to see, there’s nothing there. It was only the angle of the light exaggerating every little pit and imperfection of his skin. “It looked like something was on you,” I murmur, frowning.

“They’re scars,” he says with a shrug. “From the chicken pox. I scratched too much.” He shines the light on the faint blemished tissue for me to see. When shining straight on, the beam illuminates them as the pale, pinkish scars I’ve seen a million times and hardly noticed. When the light comes from the side, his skin has the look of a potholed membrane, a leper’s hand, a gnarled hand.