The Creeping (40 page)

Zoey was right about more than Caleb: I did need her protecting me, dragging me forward, dragging me farther from the day Jeanie disappeared. And now I'll do it for her. Now I'll protect her from what people might say about Caleb; from what Caleb might say about her; now I'll protect her from sideways glances and sharp-tongued whispers. I lean forward and brush her shaggy bangs from her eyes. “You are going to have the best year ever. I
swear. And besides”—I wink at her—“Sam can set you up with someone for prom.”

Zoey's mouth winds up like she's struggling not to smirk. “I am not going to prom with Dirty Harry.”

By the time Sam and his mom arrive, Zoey's polished off five truffles. Her lips are stained dark with chocolate and lip balm as she takes a second portion of Dad's macaroni and cheese. I watch her closely through dinner anyway. I watch Zoey, and Sam watches me. Every gesture, every word I measure out perfectly, like it's one of my nana's recipes. If I'm too chatty or too quiet, Sam will worry; he'll suspect I'm still thinking about the others. I want Sam to be unburdened from wondering.

When he kisses me good-bye on the front lawn, his mom in the car trying to give us privacy by studying the contents of her glove box, I lose it and whisper, “Sneak back once your parents are asleep.” Screw it, maybe he'll hear me crying out in my sleep, shouting back at the nightmares, but tonight I cave to wanting Sam. He stays with the tip of his nose touching mine for a moment, grinning.

“Give me an hour,” he whispers before pulling away and heading to the car.

Zoey leaves soon after, the box of truffles tucked under her arm. An hour later, when the glow of Dad's reading lamp from under his bedroom door goes dark, I tiptoe down the stairs and twist the lock open. Sam's sitting on the porch with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“I'll have to leave before your dad gets up for work,” he murmurs into my ear as we move soundlessly up the stairs.

I lead Sam into my bedroom, the door clicking softly behind us. My childhood night-light casts rainbows on the ceiling. I chart the fractured bands of light, waiting for his lips to meet mine, and then smile into their warmth.

He pulls back a fraction of an inch. “Am I hurting you?”

I shake my head and wrap my arms around his neck. My shoulder stings in protest, but I don't care. I want tonight. I want to know what it's like to hold Sam so close there aren't even atoms between us. For as much as tomorrow's uncertainty scares me, there is nothing uncertain about the way I feel for Sam.

I untwine my arms and drop down to the bed. I'm so glad Zoey doesn't believe in buying dumpy bras and that I'm wearing something black and lacy—it even matches my stitches. I pause for only a moment. He thrusts his hands into his pockets, watching me pull my tank top over my head. I crawl backward so my elbows rest on my pillow. I try to give him a sexy come-and-get-me look, but I chew my lip, fighting back how vulnerable I feel. Other guys have seen me in my bra, so it's not the nakedness factor. It's that I love him. That I know exactly what I want from him: everything. He moves slowly to the bed, crawling over me on his hands and knees. An arm slips tentatively under me, supporting my head.

“Is this okay?” he asks, sliding his hand down my back, leaving a trail of sublime heat on my skin.

“Yes,” I whisper in his ear. His eyes are wide and questioning as he moves his hand to the back of my bra.

“This?” he asks, unfastening the hooks.

“Yes. Do you have a . . . ?” I'm too embarrassed to say “condom” out loud. He jerks away, so startled he almost falls off the bed. He grabs hold of the headboard just in time.

“Overboard,” I say with a giggle.

His cheeks are glowing red apples. “Stella, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I'm happy waiting for you. I don't expect that,” he says.

I reach for his hand and place it on my waist. My pulse quickens. A thin strip of his skin shows between his jeans and his undershirt. “I've never had sex before. You were my first kiss, and I want you to be my first at this too,” I whisper. “I want it to be special.”

A grin spreads over his face as he pulls his wallet from his jeans pocket and slips out a packet.

“Do you always come prepared?” I tease.

“I've been carrying this around since I was thirteen,” he jabbers. “Not this exact one—not that I've been using them, just because they expire, you know.” A beat later. “I've never had sex either.” My grin is even wider than his.

He tugs the undershirt up and over his head. I reach for him. He kisses my neck, brushing his lips over my collarbone. I arch my back. I quiver. But mostly I smile. Through every single second, through every kiss, through every half moan, even when it's uncomfortable at first, I smile because despite everything—monsters and men—I love Sam.

It's still dark when Sam lifts his weight from the mattress.

“Hella Stella,” he murmurs, sending warm currents through me. “I have to go. Call me when you wake up in the morning.” Eyes half-lidded, I nod into my pillow, still smiling dreamily, completely unafraid of what tomorrow will bring.

F
our weeks later Sam parks the wagon at the foot of Jeanie's old drive. We keep low to the ground, moving along the edge of the wood. Zoey's a shadow at my heels, and Sam's close behind her. Outstretched branches catch and pluck at my hoodie. It's a half hour before the sun breaks over the horizon. You'd think sneaking around in the small hours of the morning would have me clutching Sam. It doesn't. Thanks to Shane, I don't wonder anymore.

Three weeks and six days ago Shane found six case files for missing girls in the warehouse where old police records are stored. One of them was Betty Balco's; all were from the 1930s. All girls were taken from the Old Norse Trail or in the woods near their homes. Shane was right: There were suspects never made public. One was a history teacher. The other was a naturalist working for the forestry division in Blackdog State Park. Both could have known the Norse story, and both hiked Old Norse Trail frequently. The investigating detective
was so certain of their guilt that he spent weeks trailing them, waiting to catch them in the act. He never did.

The files were thick with notes and interviews. A few were given by the missing girls' friends and relatives. Although none witnessed the abductions, they were with them in the minutes before. The interviewees spoke of a quiet falling over the woods, except for rushes of movement in the undergrowth. They said their friends felt they were being watched for days leading up to their vanishing. The detective concluded that the men stalked their victims before taking them. Several more interviewees, neighbors and adults, mentioned a legend they grew up hearing. It told of a predator living in the woods, craving a certain kind of little girl. Another recounted almost verbatim the Norse story Shane's grandma told him. Dottie Griever, Old Lady Griever's mother, told the detective that Betty wasn't the first to go missing. She said another was taken when she'd been a girl; the detective could never substantiate the claim.

As Shane and I pored over those yellowed case files, I kept thinking about him telling me that the monster's only real if I let it be. That's true, you know. Caleb gave it life. Griever gave it life. Even Daniel allowed it to breathe a little. Shane did more digging on the suspects. The same warehouse had a file on the schoolteacher. On his deathbed he confessed to all six kidnappings and killings. I decided not to give the monster life even before Shane told me.

Zoey and I are wearing black, because you obviously wear black while sneaking around town like phantom menaces charged with restoring modern-day sensibility. Sure the hatchet I took from Dad's
toolshed looks medieval, Sam's toting what amounts to an iron sickle, and Zoey has a shovel, but we're here in the name of reason. Caleb's arrest and Daniel's death caused a unique sort of aftermath; a distinctly different shape from the lost years.

Someone has to stop the monster hunters and tourists from flooding our small streets with busloads of “believers” fresh from whatever haunted amusement park or Sasquatch safari they've come from; the hour-long news specials airing about Savage; the tabloids printing salacious front-page stories about “Monster-Gate” and “the Savage Killers.”

Dad and Shane say people aren't always rational, and the sensationalist news coverage is whipping up fervor for horror stories. Sam got all historical: “Think about McCarthyism or the Satanic Panic of the eighties and nineties. If you can make people think their neighbors are communist super spies and their teachers devil worshippers, it's also possible to make them believe there's an ancient monster in Savage, feeding on redheads.” He has a point.

What really gets me is that the hysteria came
after
we proved that Daniel and Caleb were responsible for the recent deaths. Newspapers picked up the story of the manhunt while I was in the hospital. Headlines read
SAVAGE TWO RESPONSIBLE FOR MURDERS OF THREE
. At first most of the coverage was about Daniel. Then Caleb was found, and as he stood before a judge who would gauge his competency to stand trial, he muttered about the monster. The judge declared him unfit and committed him to a mental health hospital in Minneapolis. A reporter bribed someone there and interviewed Caleb. The next
day all hell broke loose. In the article Caleb swore the monster exists; he claimed to have seen it; he said Jeanie's body was taken by it; he ranted about it killing Jane Doe and Daniel. I think Caleb held fast to his conviction because without the monster, without the need for a sacrifice, the boys were just unjustifiably and unforgivably guilty.

We crouch halfway up the drive and listen. There's only the repeated lilt of birds and deserted front lawns. There's no one to see us commit murder. “Let's go,” I whisper. We start forward, slower this time and doubled over to make ourselves smaller.

It wasn't long after Caleb's interview that tabloids joined the ranks of the reporters in Savage. At some point the officially unsolved disappearances from the 1930s were uncovered. The archivist who pulled the articles at the library for Sam gave copies to reporters. Front-page stories were printed about the multigenerational murders of redheaded girls. Newscasters called it proof of an inhuman force ravaging Savage's youth. The police were backed into a corner. They couldn't make the case files available without making the interviews available. A judge forbade them from coming out with the deathbed confession on the grounds that it was hearsay, since no charges were ever filed against the teacher and you can't try a dead person for a crime. All the police could to do was attempt to control the panic and go on record that there was no willful cover-up.

Newspapers and tabloids reported more on the origins of the “imagined” monster than on the real crimes committed by Caleb and Daniel. Even though Caleb never denied that Jeanie and Mrs. Talcott died at the hands of Daniel, there are still those who insist that the
Savage PD is trying to keep the existence of the monster quiet by forcing Caleb and Daniel to take the heat for the murders. Daniel must have told Caleb what I said 255 times the day Jeanie was taken, because he shared it in his interview. Zoey said she didn't, because it wasn't her secret to tell. Predictably, tabloids used it in the headlines of articles “proving” the monster's existence. Reporters also learned about Mrs. Griever. She disappeared before they descended on her cottage and the miniature graves of the sacrificed animals. Wherever she is, I hope she doesn't find peace.

Mr. Talcott, on the other hand, deserves a new start; I hope he gets it in Portland, where he's living with his sister. When Kent Talcott was released, he told Shane that Daniel had admitted to killing his mother and Jane Doe the day before he walked into the station and confessed. He saw how broken his son was and felt that he'd failed him. He took the blame after making Daniel promise that he'd leave Savage and never hurt anyone else. Savage's district attorney decided not to prosecute Mr. Talcott for the false confession. I bet we'll never see Jeanie's dad again.

The mob of a town is just as hungry for the monster as they were for Mr. Talcott. Sightings of beasts in all shapes and sizes are reported regularly. The rosaries and talismans against evil have popped back up on front lawns. People want to believe in hazily imagined beasts rather than accept that someone who looks like you and me could be capable of monstrous things. They'd rather believe in what goes bump in the night.

Yes, there are loads of serious newspapers that dismiss Caleb's
stories as the rants of a sick boy. But here's the thing about whack-jobs who believe in monsters: They don't read serious newspapers. They read the stuff that claims to be uncovering the truth others are hiding from you; they search for yeti footprints.

The strawberry vines and bramble take shape a few yards away. Somehow they stand out in the weak light. They're all sharp angles, wild loops, and jagged fringes, like the outline of a dragon or the Creeping itself. I sniff. The Creeping is the name Griever gave the creature, but I can't think of it by any other. I pull my hoodie tighter around my neck as the wind picks up. It's only July, but the suggestion of fall is in the air.

“How do you want to do this?” Sam asks, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Zoey lifts her shovel above her head in a stretch. “I'm going to harpoon this beast.”

“Make sure we get the roots,” I say. The silhouette before us shudders like an animal preening its fur. A squirrel squirming in its nest or the wind, I'm sure. Instinctually, I move to a crouch. Something primal runs from the cold, wet soil into my hot fingertips, like I'm hunting prey, like I can feel the earth's memories of people in this exact spot and position creeping up on a predator eons ago. I can practically hear the wind singing in a silken whisper,
Do it. Do it
.