The Creeping

“I told ya to never set foot on my property again. I told ya I didn’t know anythin’ about your missin’ sister.” The last piece to emerge from the darkness is her other hand, gripping a shotgun. Daniel puts his hands up slowly as though involved in an old-fashioned stickup. Sam steps in front of me so quickly I barely know he’s moving. She jabs the barrel of the gun toward Daniel. “Yous have till the count of three to get outta my sight. I don’t want no trouble. Stop bringin’ it round.”


Daniel holds perfectly still. “You’re the only one who lives out here, and it’s been years since I asked you. I thought you might have found something . . . evidence or a sign of what happened to her.”

“One,” she bleats.

Daniel clasps his hands like he’s praying or begging. “Have you found a toy or a shoe or footprints or any . . . any bones?” he squeezes out.

“Two!” Griever shouts as a bitter lump rises in my throat. Daniel’s looking for what’s left of Jeanie, and he believes her body never left these woods. With his whole family falling apart, Daniel only wants to put Jeanie to rest.

Sam turns and tries to push me down the trail.

“Please,” Daniel cries.

“Boy, I don’t have no business with monsters. Three!” Her voice echoes in the clearing. Her words sear hot in my eardrums. Monsters. I fake left and then slip right around Sam to make a wild dash in front of Daniel.

“I’m Stella Cambren,” I scream, like it might save me from the gun pointed at my head. I’m breathing hard. Chest heaving. Hands tingling.

The old woman inches farther from the door, still training the shotgun on us. “You’re the one who wasn’t taken?” she rasps. I nod desperately. She considers this for a long minute, nose twitching, until she shifts the gun so it’s on Sam. “I won’t talk to your boys, but you come on up here, girl.”

“Stella, no,” Sam bursts out. Daniel stays quiet, but I can feel his eyes, like iron pokers left in a fire, jabbing me ahead.

My gaze flits to the mounds of dirt, and then unsteady legs carry me forward. “Don’t you move, boys,” she orders. I make it to the busted steps. “Up here.” She indicates the porch by tapping her knotted foot. I kick my leg over the two ruptured boards and lunge up to her. The cut on my heel stings. My God, we were stupid, stupid, stupid to lose the police tail.

This close I see that one of her eyes is milky, the iris clouded over, its pupil gray rather than black. But the other is clear and alert, watching me. “What you said about monsters,” I whisper, because I don’t trust my voice to keep steady any louder. “Why did you say that?”

“You’re helpin’ this hooligan find who stole his sister, are ya? Better you run from this town. Don’t ever look back.” Saliva gathers in the corners of her mouth, and her unseeing eye twitches. “There ain’t no getting’ any of ?’em back. Best you give thanks it wasn’t you.”

Every atom of me wants to recoil as I inch closer. “Please. Daniel’s mother was killed, and his father is being blamed for what happened to her and Jeanie. He didn’t do it.” My eyes cut to Daniel for a moment. “I know he didn’t. Is there anything you can remember from that day? If the police spoke to you, why didn’t they include your statement in their report?” My hands shake violently; the porch wails under my weight.

She grunts, letting spit bubble on her lips. “The police? I told ’em I was here that day and for the one before.”

“I’m sorry, the one before? You mean the day before Jeanie was taken?”

“I didn’t see her, but I was out here when his li’l redheaded sister was taken.” She jabs the gun at Daniel. “And I was here when the li’l redhead before her was snatched up too.”

Confusion snarls in my head. This woman is old and obviously crazy, with her shotgun and cottage in the woods. She must be senile, and Daniel is so desperate for information he doesn’t see that she couldn’t possibly know anything. She can hardly walk to her porch; she definitely isn’t hiking through the forest and coming across Jeanie’s body. Her mention of monsters is coincidence. I only interpret it as meaningful because I’m desperate for clues.

She leans forward and clucks her tongue. “I see ya think I’ve got a head full o’ worms. But Jeanie ain’t the first or last. This town has a short memory for what happens to its children. I was sixteen when the Balco girl was taken. Hair so red it was like drunken molasses cookies. She lived a little ways down the lane. Grabbed right from under the clothesline in her front yard.” She drags her trigger hand across her frothing mouth.

Something cold washes over me as I listen to her. It’s that looking at this woman, I know I shouldn’t believe a word she’s saying, but I do. My mouth is flooded with acrid saliva, hearing her. It tastes like the truth. “How is that possible? Anyone who took a little girl that long ago would be dead now or too old.”

Her lips pull back in an almost snarl, so the remains of her decaying teeth are visible. Yellow and black nubs like tiny gravestones. “Well, aren’t you a bright one,” she sneers. “Now get off my land before I fire a round of iron into one of your boys’ guts.” I take a clumsy stride forward and then jump down from the porch. Just before the front door clatters closed, she says, “You keep squintin’ in Savage’s dark corners, you gonna wish yourself blind.”





Chapter Nine