The Creeping

There’s an idea germinating in my head; it hasn’t taken shape enough for me to explain it to Sam except to say, “Daniel sees Jeanie everywhere. He said crowds wear her face. He thinks Jeanie was there waiting for me to remember, waiting for him to get his. He hates her. He has Caleb believing it was the Creeping who took Jane Doe.”


Sam bites his lip, appraising my expression. “You don’t think so,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, Sam. The timing is too much of a coincidence. Daniel hasn’t been here in years, and when he finally comes back there’s another body found? And it isn’t just that. Daniel said something. He said that Caleb thought the monster had taken a bite out of Jane Doe’s scalp and put the rest back. We didn’t tell him about the missing piece, did we?”

The corners of Sam’s mouth tug downward. “No, but someone in the police department could have when he was questioned. Or Zoey might have told Caleb, and Caleb could have told Daniel.”

“I guess.” I shake my head. “But it was more the way Daniel said it. He was bragging and gloating over how gullible Caleb was. He even winked at me. He said, ‘I’m the monster.’?”

“But what about Betty Balco and the others?” Sam asks. He isn’t skeptical, just thoughtful.

I struggle to lift my head from the pillow, and he moves his arm to prop it up. He flanks me on the gurney. “They were taken almost ninety years ago. The police know, Sam. Shane knows. There’s no appetite or force or monster. Whoever did it is human and dead,” I say. I guide his face closer to mine. “Promise me. Swear to me that you won’t go looking. That you’ll stop believing in the Creeping or monsters or devils.” Yes, it feels dangerous to tempt fate by staring into the dark for too long. But also, I don’t need another mystery eating away at my edges, making me more like Caleb and Griever.

“What about the Norse folklore?” Sam asks. His eyes glow; he’s determined to solve the puzzle. “What if there was something other than a man nibbling on those kids? What if it’s still here? Two of the girls who were taken decades ago visited Norse Rock. What if that’s where it lives? Norse Rock could be named because that’s where the original settlers camped. That can’t be a coincidence, can it?” There are no coincidences. “Is it a coincidence that all the victims are redheads—that even Jeanie was a redhead? That those early Norse settlers who were maimed were probably blond or redheaded?”

My heart hiccups at his determination. I can’t bear watching him eroded by believing. “There’s no way for us to know if there’s any truth to the Norse lore,” I say, pressing closer to him. “We’re not stalking through the woods in pursuit of a mythical monster. We’re not six anymore with bows and arrows. We know better.” Better isn’t really how I feel about knowing that people do monstrous things; that even those you love are capable of them; that monsters aren’t half as scary as human evil. “It doesn’t exist, Sam. It’s only a story. When Griever was young, more people told it. Someone, a bad man or a few of them, knew the story—or a version of it—and he thought he could use the superstition and fear to take little girls and get away with it. He’s dead. The victims’ families are dead.”

The arm I’m on bows around me, and Sam shifts me closer to him. “You’re saying the story was just a legend and someone used it as inspiration for their crimes?”

“Yes.” I nod into his chest. “Stories have their own kind of power.”

“Small towns are prone to panic,” Sam admits reluctantly. His free hand absentmindedly smooths my hair. “There weren’t actually any witches in Salem, but it didn’t stop them from burning women. Savage in the 1930s wasn’t exactly seventeenth-century Salem, but Savage was more isolated than it is now, and people would have been more superstitious.”

“Exactly.” I pull a little away to meet his eyes. For Sam’s sake, I need to sound full of the conviction I want to feel more than I do. “Griever is what you become when you believe in what can’t exist. This is over for us. Please. Promise that you’ll stop looking too.”

Sam tilts his head, doubt skittering across his eyes, but he says, “I promise,” anyway.