The Creeping

“I love you, too, Queen of Loserdom.” She needles me in the side with her elbow. “So what are we gonna do?”


“I’m not giving up.” I launch into recounting my memories for her and an explanation of my time line and the pattern of animal disappearances. Zoey loves furry little creatures and predictably thinks whoever hurt them should die a fiery death.

“I’m going to dig up those heaps of dirt in Mrs. Griever’s yard tonight. If I can prove they’re buried animals, Shane will have to believe that something bigger is going on.”

Zoey salutes. “Aye, aye, Secret Agent Slut. I’m in, but let’s not tell Michaela or Cole when they get here. I don’t want them to know that we’re both conspiracy junkies.”

“We have to talk to Caleb. He was there that summer and the cops already know about me investigating, and I’m sure my dad is about to find out. I don’t have anything to lose.”

She jabs her spoon in the ice cream and leaves it standing erect. “When your man’s teal abomination dropped me off yesterday, Caleb was showering. Showering.” She says it like it’s the most preposterous thing in the world. “He never showers in the middle of the day. My mom was home from work and said she thought he was getting ready for a date. Call me paranoid, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t with Cole.” Her features pinch together. “He took Mom’s car and I tailed him. I was going to catch them in the act.”

I’m pulling myself upright, feeling revived. “Where’d he go?”

“The butt crack of a library. I waited forty-five minutes in that gross parking lot with the windows up, practically suffocating on fumes just to make sure he wasn’t trying to trick me or that he wasn’t rendezvousing between the shelves with her.”

“What was he doing there?”

“Def not studying, since he screwed up and missed registration for summer classes,” she says, pleased and in an I-told-you-so kind of way.

“Do you think it had something to do with Jeanie? Like, was he researching past disappearances too?”

She flicks her wrist, unimpressed with the coincidence of Caleb at the library mere hours after we left. “Unlikely, ’cause you only knew about other girls since that hag told you, and no one told Caleb.”

“Right,” I say, but somehow I’m not convinced. Caleb was worried about me hunting a killer. Could he also have been worried what would happen if he didn’t do anything? ?“He couldn’t be digging up stuff without us knowing?”

“Like I said: He doesn’t have the balls. Night-light until he was thirteen. It had freaking unicorns on it.” She flourishes her fingers at me. Zoey had the identical night-light.

A moment later there’s a knock on the door. “It’s about effing time,” Zoey warbles, bounding to answer it.

We spend the next few hours watching lousy reality TV on the couch. The four of us smashed side by side, sipping pink wine—the “backup” Michaela brought. Zoey does a masterful job of filling Michaela and Cole in. She tells them about Jane Doe’s scalp and the finger bone found in her hand, about Sam helping me uncover other missing girls from the 1930s, and about Mr. Talcott’s arrest and Daniel going on record against his father. She avoids mentioning Mrs. Griever, the animal sacrifices, and anything monster-tastic that makes us sound insane and would only drag Michaela and Cole down the rabbit hole with us. It isn’t that I don’t trust Michaela; I do. It’s that Michaela wasn’t here for Jeanie; it isn’t her ancient history to survive. By the way Michaela’s brow furrows as she listens, she’s holding back questions. I’m grateful and guilty that she realizes there are details that Zoey doesn’t want to reveal.

Michaela’s chin nuzzles my shoulder when Zoey finishes, and Cole squeezes my hand like it’s a stunned bird she’s pumping life into. I worried I’d feel like a freak show with an audience, but instead it’s as if I have more company onstage.

Finally the conversation moves to safer, mundane topics. I try to soak up the warmth of Cole’s blush as Zoey says that Taylor’s back on the market since I’ve passed; and Michaela’s hiccupy giggle as she dubs pink wine the greatest invention in the universe; and Zoey’s vigor as she stands on the coffee table to reenact the Ds’ fight over her.