The Creeping

Numbness. I move toward the boys, unaware that I’m propelling myself forward. Rubbery knees bending and straightening on their own. Daniel is pale and still as a statue. Sam’s mouth twists in a corkscrew. “Go,” I order, waving for them to start down the path. I want to get away from here. Away from the woman with her tales and her shotgun. Away from the sensation creeping up on me. I’m no longer sneaking up on what’s hiding. I feel pursued by an invisible force—hunted even. But I don’t dare run. Everyone knows that running from monsters makes them chase you more.

Halfway back to the Talcotts’ abandoned house, Daniel begins muttering under his breath. First cursing and then repeating “impossible” over and over again. “You can’t stay here,” I tell him. “You have to go to your dad’s.” The trees lining the path nod in the wind, agreeing with me, feeding my panic. “It doesn’t feel right here. It can’t be safe.” He doesn’t respond. I whirl around. “Do you hear me? You can’t stay anywhere near here!” I’m losing it. Suddenly this dirt lane is the most dangerous place in the world to me.

My mind races. Monsters. Other little girls have been taken. Other little girls who look like Jeanie. Redheads. My stomach churns. “?The body from the cemetery was a redhead. I puked when I saw her picture, she looked so much like Jeanie.” I try to connect the dots. My horror multiplies. “Do you know they found a finger bone in her hand?” If anyone deserves to know, it’s Daniel; after all, it might be Jeanie’s. “The news said something about a sacrificial killing. I thought they were crazy, but maybe it is a cult? That could explain the disappearances spanning generations. You know, because there would have to be multiple people taking the girls? Maybe it’s a religious cult?” My pitch climbs, my words spewing out fast and messy. “Although I don’t know what religion sacrifices little redheaded girls. Jane Doe was one, and her scalp was torn clean off. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t taken? I don’t have red hair.” I tug hard on a clump of my honey-brown locks. “Neither did your mother. She must have been on to them.”

The path widens as we pass the large Victorian. I clench my mouth shut. Daniel doesn’t need to hear the harpy song of my innermost fear screaming that the finger bone found is going to be—has to be—Jeanie’s. That Jeanie and the tiny redhead in the graveyard will be linked for certain. My thoughts are a hysterical snarl, yes, but they are also perfectly reasonable.

After a minute of quiet, Sam says, “What was with all the little heaps of dirt in her yard? Do you think something was buried? Animals? They’re too small for children.” He averts his eyes quickly when I give him a horrified look.

“She didn’t say anything about the others before,” Daniel says. He buffets his arms against his sides as he walks, like he’s punishing them for something. “I went to her a few years ago, asking if she’d found any sign of what happened to Jeanie. She was in the woods a lot, and I thought . . . I thought . . . maybe she saw more than she was letting on. Maybe she found signs of a body? But that crazy old hag never said there were more. Why now?”

Sam answers more to himself than to us. “Why any of this now? Why did Jane Doe turn up dead? Why was your mom murdered? Why after eleven years of nothing has so much happened in only twenty-four hours?” He flicks hair from his wide eyes. “And Mrs. Griever didn’t tell you. She told Stella,” Sam adds pointedly. “It sounded like a warning meant only for Stella. She’s probably just an old lady with dementia who’s been alone too long. The police were right not to take her seriously, and if they suspected her of anything more than being senile, they would have investigated her.”

I stop, rooted to the spot. “Do you know what I told the cops when they questioned me after Jeanie disappeared?” Both boys swivel to face me. I look from Sam to Daniel; one gnawing on his lip as if faced with a confounding puzzle he’ll think through, the other pulsing his hands into fists like he’ll beat the answer free.

Sam backtracks to stand near me; he rests his hands on my shoulders and squeezes softly. “It doesn’t matter, Stella. You were only six.”

I shake him off. “That’s where you’re wrong, Sam. I was saying, ‘If you hunt for monsters, you’ll find them.’ I said it two hundred and fifty-five times.” Daniel sucks in a breath hard.