The Creeping

I release Sam and crouch down with my palms pressed to the earth streaked with red clay. It’s cool and soothing against my skin. The clearing extends ten or twelve feet wide and long, with a fallen tree dividing it. From where I squat, I see shiny black beetles scurrying over the trunk, plump brown mushrooms with caps like umbrellas, nodding white flowers like a picnic blanket of snow tinged with lavender, and a luminous blue-winged moth fluttering by. I don’t know how, but I know I’ve been here before.

“Yeah, this is where it happened,” I murmur. For some reason I expected death to be thinly veiled here: trees shriveling, decomposing animal carcasses, crimped spider legs, a sulfur stench, and a bank of moss growing over her skeleton. I thought I had to face this place for Jeanie. Stare it down to tame it. Put her to rest. Find her bones to bury. It’s where it all happened. But it’s already peaceful.

“Her body isn’t here,” Zoey says, out of breath.

Sam frowns, scanning the clearing. “Animals likely dragged her away. It’s been years,” he says. “I’ll dig.” He reaches for the shovel and Zoey hands it over, her forehead shining with sweat. She stands behind me, hand resting lightly on the crown of my head, playing in my hair as I let the peace of the place sink into me, loosen the knot in my chest. When the hole is wide enough for the photograph and about three feet deep, I lean into the earth and place the picture at the bottom of the grave.

In the instant it leaves my fingers, I see. I see petunias nodding in the breeze, their fuchsia and gold funnels big as teacups. A pile of lizard tails scattered around a crumbling pinecone castle. The cicada chirp of the TV through the open windows of Jeanie’s house, where her mom is snoring on the couch. Jeanie and I go tearing through the jumble of strawberries. The ruffled hem of my skirt rips as I climb over a fallen trunk, but I don’t care.

We run full speed toward the witch’s lair. Jeanie wants to see her cast a spell, but I told her good witches don’t cast spells. Halfway there I squat down to watch a glistening black centipede roll an acorn between my sneakers. One of my laces is untied, and it takes the crawly thing forever to roll the acorn over the obstacle of the lace. I look up to see if Jeanie’s watching, but she’s bending over a fallen sparrow’s nest, a cascade of multicolored candy beans exploding from the depths of her pocket. I pop up to see if there are eggs in the nest.

I hear a laugh, and then an object buzzes through the air, stinging my arm as it whooshes past. I spin around as Jeanie staggers back, mouth pursed like she’s sucking a lemon drop, hands red with finger paint. She lands on the ground like a pinned butterfly, wings spread and quivering, an arrow sticking from her tummy.

Caleb and Daniel charge through the trees. I don’t know where from. Daniel spits and shouts. Caleb cries. The ferns are tall, their fiddleheads swimming at my waist. Jeanie disappears under them, her cry sharp, loud, whiny as a fire engine. Daniel tugs on the arrow as Caleb holds her head still, winding his fingers in her hair. Jeanie cries louder, so I clamp my hands over my ears. “Take it out,” I shout. “Take it out. Take it out.” Once I start, I can’t stop. Jeanie’s got a splinter. Jeanie’s hurt bad. Worse than skinned knees. Her mom will be mad. Daniel and Caleb jostle and shove.

“We gotta leave a little blood for the monster so it doesn’t come outta the woods,” Caleb bays, still gripping Jeanie’s head. “We gotta feed it.”

Daniel shoves him off her and lunges at me; he grabs my shoulders and squeezes until his dirty fingernails make me whimper. “Stay with Jeanie or I’ll make you eat worms.” His fingernails dig into my skin and I nod. He drags Caleb away by the shirtsleeve and hollers for his mom as they run toward home.

I tiptoe closer to Jeanie. I want to see if she’s sleeping. She isn’t. She stares back at me, glassy eyes blinking as she spits up. Red liquid curls down her forehead from her scalp, and she smells like pee. A triangle of geese fly over us, and my head snaps up at their honking. I look back to Jeanie—Jeanie has a parakeet, she likes birds—but she’s crying. I crouch and let the ferns tickle my face. I close my eyes and listen for the boys. The forest is humming with life. We left a pile of berries for the monster last week, but it must not have worked. Daniel says it’s getting hungrier. Caleb says it’ll come out of the woods.

Then there’s a sharp pop from behind, like one of Daniel’s cherry bombs. I hop up, craning my neck to stare at the dense thicket across the clearing. I take two steps and stop. Everything’s gone quiet—the birds, the wind, the brush, even Jeanie’s gulping. The thicket’s fronds knit together in a wall, and there’s the hazy outline of a form crouched behind it. I whimper—can’t keep it in. Daniel says the monster smells us when we’re out here; it smells Jeanie’s blood. There’s an abrupt rush of movement behind the fronds, and the shadow flits a few feet to the right.

“It’s hungry,” I whisper to Jeanie. My chin quivers. I turn to see that Jeanie’s whole front is soaked red; the paint’s dripping onto the dirt. She makes dying animal sounds, turning screechy.