The Creeping

My mind plods over her muddy words. “?‘We’ve?’?” I breathe.

“Ahhh, there ya go, girl. That’s right. I’m the last one.” She turns back to the tattered skin on Sam’s leg. “Mind ya, I don’t get round like I used to. I got holes in my bones where the age has eaten through. Long time ago there were other families doin’ it. Backwoods folks mostly. They’ve all died off or moved on. Now it’s jus’ me, sacrificin’ the li’l things, givin’ ’em proper burials, hidin’ their corpses from pryin’ eyes.”

“You’re saying that your family has been killing dozens—hundreds maybe—of animals? You’re confessing to slaughtering house pets?” She doesn’t call me an idiot. I’m right. But her smile is a half sneer, and it’s like she doesn’t understand what a gruesome confession her silence is. “And you’re killing them in sacrifice? You believe you’re appeasing the spirits or gods or whatever?”

She lurches at me, bloody tweezers clutched in her hand, still on her knees, and hisses, “Not whatever. Whatever is the thing that’s sucklin’ on the bones of those li’l lost girls.” She jabs the tweezers in the air to make her point and then turns back to work.

Sam braces himself against the chair arms and straightens out of his slump. He pants under the effort it takes to stack each vertebra in a column. He’s pasty, and his lips are blue by the time he finishes, but the pain’s ironed out from his voice. “The animal disappearances don’t just coincide with kidnappings. They happen after accidents, too. How could you think you could stop car collisions, or illness, or fires? Whatever took those girls isn’t causing accidents.”

She snorts, regarding him. “Who are you to say what evil can and can’t do? And I said there used to be other families workin’ on stavin’ it off. Backwoods folks more superstitious than mine. I know who it’s got an appetite for. But other families blamed it for every loss in Savage.”

A cold current rushes through the room, and I start noticing things. I was so focused on Sam that I didn’t wonder what kind of hide Griever’s tanning to make leather; I didn’t see the animal pelts nailed to the wall. There are seventy or maybe a hundred of them, covering every square inch of space. They give off this hot-animal-fur stench that turns my stomach into a roiling sea. Some are furry pelts and others are just leather hides. Dimly I register her saying, “My family’s been the only one goin’ round and collectin’ their bodies to bury for generations. I don’t take their coats off unless they’re somethin’ special.”

I have to look away. I can’t stand to wonder which are dogs and cats. I don’t need to examine the hides she considers special. How could a woman who used to nurse people back to health be capable of this? How could anyone do this? Unless . . . I sweep my arms, encompassing the room full of animal carnage. “However awful all this is, whatever you’re trying to stop is worse, isn’t it?”

“There ya go, girl,” Griever growls, grinning.

Despite the heat and the animal carcasses—or maybe because of them—I start to shiver. Griever drops shard after shard of salt onto the floor at her feet. Sam’s brow gradually uncreases, his shoulders relax, his breath eases.

“It’s been in the woods since before people settled here. Monster,” I whisper, furious that my mouth forms the syllables but helpless to stop it.

“That’s jus’ a word we use for what we don’t understand.” She slices off a long piece of gauze and wraps it around the mangled flesh on Sam’s leg. “You’ll heal with some scars, but it won’t get infected.” She carries her tools back to the fire to sanitize them. I stumble to Sam’s side, dabbing his forehead on my sleeve and pressing my lips to his temple.

Griever glides easily across the room and dips a glass into a bucket. She offers the cloudy water to Sam, who takes it and gulps gratefully. Then she crouches on the floor by the fire, watching us, her good pupil trained in our direction and the milky one veering sharply away.

“The Creepin’,?” she whispers hoarsely. So quietly I think maybe I misunderstand. “That’s what you’re after.”

I shake my head, not getting it. “The Creeping?”

She raises one arthritic finger to her cracked lips, shushing me. “Be careful who could be listenin’.” I look around to make it obvious that we’re alone. She raises her eyebrow, mocking me. “It’s the name my ma gave it. Other families had their own—those who spoke about it, at least. ’Cause some folks wouldn’t for fear talkin’ about it would draw it in.”

Sure the room’s temperature has dropped a few degrees, I lean closer to Sam, who’s staring intently at Griever. She pulls a pocketknife and a thick stick from the folds of her dress and starts whittling absentmindedly, filaments of white bark scattering in front of her like snowflakes.