The Creeping

Zoey snaps to attention. “Guys in uniform?” She smacks her lips. “Yum.”


After thirty or forty graves, it takes me longer and longer to calculate ages from years of birth and death. Many of the headstones are weathered, crumbling, turning to dust, like the bodies buried underneath. I kneel down at the base of a tall, pointed column engraved with a faded epitaph. I run my fingers along the grooves, able to make out only half the message before I trace the shape of vanishing letters with my finger. It’s easier to feel them than see them. SWEET GIRL, HERE YOUR SPIRIT SHALL REST UNTIL THE HOLY FATHER DELIVERS THEE HOME.

“Sam. Zoey,” I call. They backtrack quickly. “Look at this one. The date and name are too faint to read, but the epitaph could be about a missing girl. ‘Until the Holy Father delivers thee home.’ They were waiting for her to be found.” I run my finger over the eroded surface. There are striations and grooves made in the stone where the dates and name should be.

Sam crouches next to me and leans forward, examining the headstone. “It’s like they’ve been filed or scratched away. It must have happened decades ago, since even the scratches are smooth and weathered to the touch. Their edges have been rounded by rain and wind like the rest of the grave.”

“But if she went missing and she was never found, at least not when the epitaph was written, why put a year of death?” I say.

“For the same reason her parents made her a headstone at all. They knew she wasn’t coming back, and they wanted to memorialize and mourn her. It’s probably just the year they lost their daughter,” Sam says.

“So why would someone remove the date and name on a headstone?” Zoey whispers. My hand feels extra empty not holding Sam’s, so I take hers.

“They didn’t want her grave to be identified,” I say. I feel Zoey’s shudder travel up my arm.

“But who did it?” she asks.

I shake my head and admit, “I don’t know.”

“Let’s check to see if any others have been removed.” Sam’s already starting forward. After ten minutes we discover four more graves with names and dates that have been filed away. The vandal grew sloppy as his work continued, and on two of the graves it’s possible to discern the dates of birth and death through the scratches. One of them was six and the other seven. The years of death—or disappearance—are in the 1930s.

Zoey’s started to shiver. Her teeth chatter as she says, “Can we get out of here? I’m getting a really bad feeling.”

There’s a distant grumble of thunder. I look up, and my face is splattered with more raindrops.

“Sure. You ready, Stella?” Sam asks.

I nod and then hesitate. “Wait. I want to see something.” I turn on my heels, dragging Zoey along, heading to where the little girl was found. Our shoes slip and slide in the mud. The gold straps of Zoey’s sandals are speckled with dirt. The yowling wind picks up, and the willows rock angrily back and forth. A flash of lightning illuminates the sky and a clap of thunder comes right after. I follow a stone path that twists and turns through the core of the cemetery. We snake around the corner of a large mausoleum. Fluorescent yellow police tape marks a perimeter around the mudslide.

“It’s just upturned earth,” Sam says behind us. “They removed all the bones and fragments from the coffins so they could reconstruct what was destroyed. I heard that the anthropology and forensic science departments at U of M are going to restore the skeletons.”

Sam’s right. It’s nothing but black and wet collapsed earth, edged by the mossy bank of the cemetery. “I guess it was silly that I wanted to see it again. I just thought that maybe it could help,” I say. Zoey drops my hand and wraps her arm around me.

“It’s okay, doll,” she says. I let her lead me a few steps before something bright catches my eye. I pull away.

To the right of the slide, where the wrought-iron fence washed away with the mud, is a cluster of white candles at the base of an old oak. The tree’s roots, with the look of knuckles poking up from the dirt, obscured our view of the wax pillars as we approached the slide. The flames have been extinguished by rain, but the heady char of smoke is still in the air. The candles form a perfect circle, and at their center is the corpse of a tabby cat.





Chapter Eighteen


Tripping forward, I call back to Zoey, “Don’t look.” She’s at my side, squatting by the strange altar, a moment later. The tabby’s rust-colored fur is threadbare, and its tiny rib cage pokes through the mangy coat. The circle of candles allows for a few inches of space around the cat’s prostrate body. There are no other objects within their borders, but there is a smear of red at the base of the oak’s trunk. It’s bright and wet.