The Creeping

I can’t run without losing my shoes and pant, “Wait up!” I’m so busy watching where I step that I emerge from the trees without really noticing. There’s compact dirt under my feet and the warmth of the sun on my head. I turn slowly in a circle. It didn’t occur to me that bursting upon Jeanie’s house after so many years would unsettle me, but seeing it makes my throat close. I have the sense that the house and the drive snuck up on me, rather than the other way around.

If it’s possible for a place to look sinister, it does. The house’s facade is warped and decaying as though turned rotten by Jeanie’s disappearance. Maybe it saw what happened to her? It has its own dark memories. The paint is discolored and chipped, flaking onto the dirt lot. Shutters hang by single nails. The front windows are shattered, with the look of gaping eye sockets. A small aged vigil of candles and rank stuffed toys lines the porch steps. I can practically smell the mold poisoning the air inside its walls.

Sam appears at my side. “Hard to imagine why her parents stayed here after she was gone. I’d want to get as far away as possible. They only moved away three years ago.”

“I haven’t been here since it happened,” I say, standing in the shadow the roof casts. “It looks like it’s been abandoned forever.”

Sam leaps over a puddle of sludge and onto a crumbling footpath leading to the house’s ramshackle side gate. “I heard it got bad the last year they were here. Mr. Talcott’s drinking was worse; he’d go into town drunk, get kicked out of bars. The state park fired him. They couldn’t pay for the house. It’s why they ended up in a trailer across town.”

My bottom lip quivers, listening to what became of Jeanie’s family. I can’t reconcile the memory of Sunday-dress-wearing ladies fresh from church waddling from door to door taking up collections for the Talcotts in the few years after Jeanie disappeared with what Sam is saying. I guess people got sick of their tragedy. “I was happy when I stopped seeing Mr. and Mrs. Talcott,” I admit, face heating up. “I didn’t think about why they stopped coming out.”

Sam pauses just before the rusty hinged gate. “I saw Mrs. Talcott a couple of times. She always looked like she’d been crying.”

The gate swings open with a loud creak, narrowly missing Sam. “That’s because she was always crying,” Daniel growls, shouldering through the gate into the front yard. Before I can scream for him to stop, he swings his broad fist through the air and sinks his knuckles into Sam’s face.





Chapter Eight


The force of the punch knocks Sam back a step.

“Daniel! Stop!” I shoot toward them, my shoes lost along the way. I make a mad grab for Daniel’s arm as it swoops through the air for a second strike. “We want to help you,” I shout. I throw all my weight into hanging on his arm. I foul him up long enough for Sam to regain his balance.

“I never pegged you for rabid,” Sam says, rubbing his beet-red cheek. Daniel shakes me off, staggers back, stares at us a bit dazed. He looks as stunned by his reaction as Sam. Daniel’s surprise doesn’t last.

I stand between them, aware of a stinging sensation in my heel from where something sharp punctured the skin. I’ll probably die of encephalitis or scabies or whatever it is you catch from rusty metal.

“Have you been staying here?” I ask Daniel, waving toward the house.

Daniel sets his jaw belligerently and crosses his arms. When he scowls, his bushy brows dip so low they almost cover his green eyes. “Yeah, so what? You going to call the cops and have me sent away again? Maybe if you’re lucky they’ll lock me up just like my dad.”

Sam works his bruised jaw from side to side. “We didn’t even know you were here,” he says. Daniel snorts scornfully.

Even in grief he wants to pick a fight. But I won’t let him, and I won’t run scared. I sigh, shake my head, and hobble to where my shoes lay discarded. The violet suede is totally ruined. I free them from the mud and give them a futile shake. Zoey has matching ones, and we try to wear them on the same days. I brush my feet off as much as possible and jam them into the ruined flats.

“Whether you believe me or not, I’m so sorry about your mom.” I approach him like you would a feral animal. “I didn’t tell the cops you’re in Savage, and for what it’s worth, I know that your dad didn’t do any of this. That’s why we’re here. I want to remember so that they can arrest who’s really responsible.”

Daniel tilts his head skeptically. It takes him a minute to respond, as if he’s been caught off guard. “What the fuck is he doing here then?” He jerks his thumb at Sam. “I remember what a snitch you were, running off to Stella’s dad every time I was in town.” He takes another threatening step toward Sam.

“Enough, Daniel. Sam’s helping me.” I try to look too severe to cross. “He’s the only one willing to.”

Sam pushes his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “C’mon, man, it wasn’t as if I ever meant you harm, but you were really intense with Stella.”