The Creeping

He grins wider. “That too, obviously. It would really cramp my style with the ladies.”


My hand brushes his, completely independent from my brain. “Really, though. I didn’t know.”

“How would you? I never told you.” The laughter is gone from his voice, and the tips of his ears deepen to cherry. He breaks eye contact. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” He steps away and opens the passenger-side door.

The car’s leather sticks to my butt as I slide in. I awkwardly tug on my shorts and will away the lingering sensation of touching Sam’s hand.

“Where’s Daniel?” I ask as he steers us on to the two-lane highway.

“He had to meet up with his dad. He was all cloak-and-dagger about saying any more than that.” Sam flips the sun visor down and settles back into his seat. “We went to the library this morning to use their online newspaper archives. My laptop broke during finals, and I haven’t had a chance to get it fixed.” By the way he emphasizes “chance” I know he means he doesn’t have the money to fix it.

“Did anyone recognize Daniel?” I say.

“No. He wore a hat, and it’s been a few years since anyone saw him.” I nod. If I didn’t identify him immediately, I doubt a random librarian would.

“There wasn’t a lot online from before 1972 because of a fire at the Savage Bee’s headquarters that year. Everything they have before then came in as donations from Savage’s residents. It’s mostly yellowed newspapers people saved in attics. So even though there isn’t a complete record, there are random records dating back to 1910 that the librarians have scanned into their online system.”

I bob my head. Although I usually write articles with a slightly more global perspective—and I have access to everything I’d ever need on my laptop and cell—I ventured into the town library once. Honestly, up until now, Savage was this Jeanie-shaped town on the map I didn’t need to know more about. I’m not saying I planned to leave and never come back after graduation. Everyone I love is here. I just mean I wasn’t eager to learn about Savage’s history, because in my mind, Jeanie is its history. The one and only time I visited the library was to ask about records they keep on Blackdog Lake for a climate-change article I wanted to write. No dice. They gave me the same line about a fire, and I never went back.

“Since Mrs. Griever said she was sixteen when the Balco girl was taken,” Sam continues, “we looked up her birth records online to approximate the year of the girl’s disappearance.”

I grin at him. “That was really smart.”

“You have no idea what a huge nerd I am,” he says, laughing. Then more seriously, “So it was 1938 that she would have gone missing. There were only a few newspaper clippings that had been scanned into the library’s electronic system from that year, although the archivist is checking their boxed archives for me. I guess there are still records dated 1972 or before that haven’t been entered yet. There are also way more entered from the 1950s, sixties, and early seventies than the decades earlier, since the longer a newspaper hangs around in an attic, the likelier it is to get trashed. The archivist said to come back tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll go with you,” I offer. “Shane said they can’t identify Jane Doe.” My fingers twist the hem of my shorts. “How is that possible? How can someone lose a little girl and no one know about it?” I feel the tension in my solar plexus. It’s not too different a thing from losing a little girl and not knowing how or why. “The finger bone doesn’t belong to Jeanie either. Not her DNA,” I say haltingly. It’s the first I’ve let myself think about it since last night. It isn’t that I wanted Jeanie to have suffered being cut up, only that it would have meant that there wasn’t another victim. It made sense. Two eyes and ears, one nose, one mouth, and teeth sense. Shane dashed that orderly explanation into a million pieces, rearranging the face into an unrecognizable ghoul.

Sam looks at me sideways and then back at the road. “Jane Doe could be from another state or she could be a foster kid or an orphan. The finger bone could be the Balco girl’s. If Jane Doe had it, their deaths must be connected.”

My thoughts hum. First Griever connected Jeanie’s disappearance with another that happened decades ago, and now the bone connects Jane Doe’s. Suddenly, there’s a ribbon of clues, trailing through generations, leading us deeper into the forest rather than out of it.

“How is it possible?” I whisper.