The Creeping

I swallow hard.

“The settlement descends into chaos. The Norse think the children have been bewitched by natives living in the hills and that they’re hurting themselves. You see, for generations before the Norse landed here, the Chippewa tribe made this land their home. But when the Norse showed up, they ran the Chippewa out of their village. It made sense to the Norse that the natives would seek revenge. They believed the tribe to have supernatural powers. To stop the magic, they round up the entire tribe and burn them alive. Toss them into a mass grave.”

“Your grandma told you bedtime stories about this?” I press my back against the chair.

“Imagine her stories when she really wanted to frighten us,” he says, the corner of his mouth curving into a smirk that fades as he gets back to the story. “But then a child wakes up screaming from an attack with his nose bitten from his face, and the settlers realize that it wasn’t the natives or their magic. There’s a creature from the hills that’s feasting on the children. A beast. A monster.”

Rubbing his thumbs along his jawline, he continues, hushed, “Panic spreads. More and more children wake up noseless, fingerless, toeless. They try to escape the creature and give up on the new land. The Norse return to their longships and set sail for home.”

His stare drops to the floor. “But only a night into their journey, while they’re still navigating the rivers that lead to the sea, they’re awakened by whimpering. There, strung up from the mast, is a boy of ten, his hands and feet bloody stumps where all the fingers and toes have been removed, and a Norse man, someone who everyone knew and trusted, is crouched under him, eating the boy’s appendages.”

For a second I think I see my breath fog the space in front of me, until I remember that it’s June and we’re inside. “You see, the Norse were certain that something unnatural was preying on their children. First a magic that didn’t exist, and next a beast that wasn’t real. They slaughtered an entire tribe. They fled the New World. But all along, it was one man.” He rolls his neck, making it crackle. “When Berry and I arrived at the Talcotts’ that day, you were sitting apart from everyone, staring into the trees. You were so little, and we put you in the back of our car to wait for your parents to arrive. We weren’t supposed to ask you anything until they got there, but you looked up at me and started in on chanting that one sentence over and over again.”

There’s a bloodlessness to his pale skin. “Stella, I didn’t sleep for a week. I know what it is to be terrified by the unknown. You were so little and what you were saying . . .” He hooks his finger in his collar and tugs. “It was my first year here and as a cop. If I hadn’t remembered this story, I doubt I’d have stayed on the force . . . or in Savage. It helped me remember that all evil is human evil.” He raises an index finger. “There were no monsters or magic, only one psychopath, in the story. And there are no monsters, only one bad man who hurt Jeanie.” He straightens up, a steely cop look hardening his features, shadows pooling under his brow.

I cross my arms, my spine stiff. Yeah, it was a grisly story. Yes, I see the parallels he’s drawing. But I still want to slap the expression of resolve from his face. “So what?” I ask dubiously. “You thought you’d tell me one story about a sicko who tortured kids and it would change my mind about Jeanie’s dad?” A messy half laugh, half sob squeezes out. “Spare me, Shane. You know me better than that.”

He inclines his head slowly, methodically withdrawing the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, whacking its bottom on his palm, and sliding one slender smoke out to tuck behind his ear. All the while he keeps his narrow-set gray eyes locked on mine. I don’t blink.

Finally, he says, quietly but firmly, “I’m going to investigate what you told me. But the rest of it is resolved. I know that it’s hard to accept after years of not knowing, but you don’t get to ignore the truth because you don’t like it.” He gives me a look to communicate that he thinks I’m being a willful child. “Mr. Talcott is a bad man, and he hurt his family. You were lucky that he didn’t hurt you. What happened to Jeanie doesn’t have anything to do with kids who went missing almost a hundred years ago. The bone found was a relic from the park, probably of Chippewa origin. And the rash of animal disappearances is unrelated. Those are separate, and I’ll get to the bottom of them.”