The Creeping

“Caleb, please,” I rasp. “Help me, Caleb.”


They drop me where the water laps rhythmically against the pebbled shore. My knees hit first, the rocks gouging through my leggings. “Oh, sweetheart,” Daniel says bitingly. “Caleb isn’t going to help you. Caleb killed Jeanie too.”

“No, you’re wrong,” I say. I try to get to my feet but stumble backward. The icy water sinks like fangs into my skin. The cold helps me focus. I splash some on my shoulder to extinguish the fire burning there. “We were just little kids, Caleb.” I can’t drag my eyes from his hands. They would have been blistered by chicken pox the day Jeanie was taken. “Caleb.” My voice becomes more desperate. “Even if you were there somehow . . . none of it was your fault. It couldn’t be.” How could it? “I was there too. We were little kids.”

Caleb stands a foot up the shore. His silhouette reminds me of the flickering flame of a candle—one that’s about to be blown out. “It’s more than feeling guilty over playing in the woods. I lied to you earlier,” he mutters, resigned.

I reach out to him, hoping he’ll help me up, walk us away from Daniel. “The police will understand. You were only nine. Whatever you did, it must have been an accident. It’ll be okay,” I insist.

He keeps the divide between us. “It’s too late for that.” His voice cracks. “It’s not just Jeanie. If they find out what we did, they’ll blame us for the girl in the cemetery, too.” Caleb sinks to his knees. The flashlight clatters from his hand onto the rocks. Its thin beam juts into the sky. “I didn’t touch her. I swear it, Stella. I wasn’t even back in Savage. I didn’t come until I saw on the news that you found the body. That thing got her. I had nothing to do with it. She just . . . showed up dead and brought this whole thing back to life. The way she looked . . .” His eyes stretch wide and his mouth contorts as he pounds his fists into the rocky shore—once, twice, three times. Dark liquid oozes from his knuckles, but if they hurt, he doesn’t show it.

Caleb rocks back on his heels. “Whatever killed her ruined our lives. No one was looking for us. Not until that body showed up. Maybe it’s the goddamned devil making us pay?” He covers his mouth with his mangled hand for a beat. When it drops away, there’s a smear of blood on his lips as red as cherry lip gloss. “You don’t think whatever it is was pissed that we’d gotten in on its game, do you? Like we took something it wanted? Like it killed that little girl to rip this whole Jeanie thing open again so we’d be caught?” Caleb’s voice becomes less human with each word. He’s gulping, choking on tears or air. This is what becomes of those who believe, of those who see monsters in the shadows.

He sways, rocking himself from hysteria to calm like you’d rock a baby. “No, it’s just a coincidence,” he mutters to himself. “But who will believe that? They’ll want us to pay for what was done to her.” He bows his head, lips moving. He looks up abruptly and whispers, “That’s it. It’s just a coincidence.” Caleb’s rant sends a current charging up my spine. By the time it reaches my brain, it’s screaming, There are no coincidences.

I search for anything that won’t make it so. “Daniel, your dad confessed—to—to everything.” Daniel paces, kicking his boots with every step and scattering the pebbles that cover the banks of the lake. Caleb’s a lump on the shore, but Daniel’s a mounting storm. I point at him and cry, “You told the cops you thought he did it,” shaking because I’d rather it be Mr. Talcott than Caleb and Daniel.

Daniel recklessly swings the branch he bloodied me with back and forth like a pendulum. “He’s the reason we were out in those woods hunting a monster in the first place.” He stills abruptly. “And he knows it. He knows he put it in our heads.” He stabs the stick in the air between us. “Don’t you get it? It was hunting the monster that got Jeanie killed. It was his fault.” His volume climbs. “He knew he was the reason I did it—all of it. That’s why he confessed. And I let him, because if it wasn’t for him, it wouldn’t have happened.” His jaw clenches and he shakes his head. “It wasn’t the plan. Griever was. It was her fault too. If we hadn’t seen her put a dog down, we wouldn’t have thought to try it.”