The Creeping

He holds the cell at his ear. He shifts the flashlight, and I squint into it again. My throat is siphoning off my air supply. My body’s reacting to what my brain is limping to grasp. “I have this memory”—I only know I’m talking after I hear myself—“of someone’s gnarled hands in Jeanie’s hair.”


He takes a step forward. The light shines brighter in my face, and I can’t see his expression. I try to visor my eyes from the light. “But it wasn’t you. You were home sick,” I say, breathless. I shake my head to clear it.

A sharp crack of a stick behind me—or maybe I hear the electronic chiming from a few feet away first? It’s a phone, but it isn’t Zoey’s ring. I spin around just in time to see Daniel closing in, his face flash-illuminated by the shaft of light. He wields a thick branch above his head and before I can duck, he brings it down on me.





Chapter Twenty-Seven


The knotted branch smashes into my arm and sends me crashing to the ground. It has something barbed at its tip; its spiked cluster burrows deep into my shoulder. My nerves take a few seconds to catch up, and at first I scream because I anticipate the pain. Once I feel it, there’s no more screaming, or air in my lungs, or noise over the buzzing in my ears. Fire spreads from the gash to my chest and down my arm.

Daniel twists the stick free; it doesn’t come out easily. I hear the jagged splitting of my skin and muscle tissue like the parting of a zipper.

“What the hell was that?” Caleb yells.

Daniel laughs—actually laughs, like Caleb’s told a joke—and says, “The little bitch deserves it. This was all her fault. Jeanie was her fault.”

I lie writhing on the ground, reduced to one sensation: pain. Hot, goring pain ripping my arm apart. Pain so bad it has its own pulse. Even maimed, my broken body the proof of the danger I’m in, the threat doesn’t feel real. What does is the pain and confusion. I don’t understand how we got here—not here in the woods but entrenched in this awful fantasy where Daniel and Caleb are arguing in whispery voices and I’m collapsed on the ground.

My vision tunnels, and I battle to stay focused. Instinct tells me that staying awake means staying alive. Then I have laughter bubbling up from nowhere, because how absurd that I’m worried about staying alive with Caleb—even Daniel. I bite my tongue, shocking myself alert. I focus on my shoulder; my sweatshirt is already black with blood. I’m bleeding. My insides are emptying on the outside. The manic laughter dries up in my throat. My hands search the ground around me, fingers splaying in the dirt, desperate for anything to be used as a weapon. Then I remember. My cell is in my pocket, and the last number I dialed was Sam’s.

I slip the phone from my hoodie, hit send, and bring it to my ear. Sam calls my name on the other end. I want to cry out for him. I choke down a sob and replace the phone quickly without them noticing.

“Caleb! Daniel!” I shout, and the pain magnifies. “My dad knows I’m at Cole’s. He knows Cole’s house backs up against Blackdog Lake.” There. That has to be enough for Sam.

Daniel’s head snaps my way. He’s glaring. “Shut up,” he orders. “We’re wasting time. Let’s get her moving.” They lumber toward me. I shrink back, hands tearing at the slippery topsoil behind me, but I know there’s no escaping two full-grown guys, especially with a wounded arm.

They drag me to my feet and wrap both my arms around their necks. My shoulder kills as I’m jostled forward. They stride hurriedly through the woods; my feet don’t touch the ground, and I’m yanked back and forth. They struggle to keep in step with each other, and it feels as if I’m being torn in two. As we careen down a steep grade in the forest floor, my phone bounces from my sweatshirt pocket and clips my knee, tumbling to the ground. The boys barrel forward without noticing. There goes my only chance of keeping Sam on the line, of calling for help once we arrive wherever we’re headed.

They avoid the bogs, moving toward the lakeshore in a deflected path. Our trajectory keeps us on solid but uneven earth. The thumping bass is long gone. How I wish I could trade places with anyone in that party, even loose-lipped Janey Bear.

We were closer to the water than I thought, because within ten minutes the moon’s reflection winks up at us. It’s full and white and obscured only by the tattered strips of clouds. Our pace slows on the shore; the boys pick their steps carefully over the rocks.

“Why are you doing this, Daniel?” I whimper. “I was helping you. I haven’t given up looking for Jeanie’s killer. I won’t, I swear.”

“God, you’re a stupid bitch,” he snarls right in my ear. “Don’t you get it? That’s the problem. One of these days you’re going to remember that it was me who killed Jeanie.”

His confession slaps me in the face. I trusted him. I protected him. For years I defended him. For years I defended myself to him. I hate this boy. I hate this boy. I try to squirm away from Daniel, but he holds my arm, digging his fingers through the tears in my sweatshirt and into my gash. I scream until my voice is a bloody wail.