The Creeping (19 page)

“Since Mrs. Griever said she was sixteen when the Balco girl was taken,” Sam continues, “we looked up her birth records online to approximate the year of the girl's disappearance.”

I grin at him. “That was really smart.”

“You have no idea what a huge nerd I am,” he says, laughing. Then more seriously, “So it was 1938 that she would have gone missing. There were only a few newspaper clippings that had been scanned into the library's electronic system from that year, although the archivist is checking their boxed archives for me. I guess there are still records dated 1972 or before that haven't been entered yet. There are also way more entered from the 1950s, sixties, and early seventies than the decades earlier, since the longer a newspaper hangs around
in an attic, the likelier it is to get trashed. The archivist said to come back tomorrow morning.”

“I'll go with you,” I offer. “Shane said they can't identify Jane Doe.” My fingers twist the hem of my shorts. “How is that possible? How can someone lose a little girl and no one know about it?” I feel the tension in my solar plexus. It's not too different a thing from losing a little girl and not knowing how or why. “The finger bone doesn't belong to Jeanie either. Not her DNA,” I say haltingly. It's the first I've let myself think about it since last night. It isn't that I wanted Jeanie to have suffered being cut up, only that it would have meant that there wasn't another victim. It made sense. Two eyes and ears, one nose, one mouth, and teeth sense. Shane dashed that orderly explanation into a million pieces, rearranging the face into an unrecognizable ghoul.

Sam looks at me sideways and then back at the road. “Jane Doe could be from another state or she could be a foster kid or an orphan. The finger bone could be the Balco girl's. If Jane Doe had it, their deaths must be connected.”

My thoughts hum. First Griever connected Jeanie's disappearance with another that happened decades ago, and now the bone connects Jane Doe's. Suddenly, there's a ribbon of clues, trailing through generations, leading us deeper into the forest rather than out of it.

“How is it possible?” I whisper.

“It might not be,” Sam says softly. “We haven't found proof that there were any past disappearances yet.” I try to smile at the reassurance but fail. I'm about to share the gnarled hand—at least gnarled
in my memory—twisted in Jeanie's hair when Sam adds, “There's something else.”

“What?” I ask, guilty with the relief of not having to regurgitate the memory that found me under the water. If I don't say it out loud, it doesn't have to be real. Those twisted fingers don't have to be real. They don't have to be wound in Jeanie's hair, pulling clumps by the root from her bloody scalp as she struggled.

“It's more something that I have to
show
you.” He cracks a smile that is more hopeful than suggestive. “Can we go to your house?”

“Sure, as long as you don't mind that I'm a little tipsy.” I lean my temple against the cool window and close my eyes, letting the car's easy rhythm on the highway rock me. “When do you have to work?”

“Tomorrow. I have shifts Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from three to nine. I've been trying to pick up more, but everyone else needs extra hours too,” he says. I place my hand on his knee and shift my weight to lean against him rather than the window. I don't know why . . . I just want to show him that I understand it's hard.

He chuckles softly. “What?” I ask, glancing up at his profile.

“You're sweet when you're drunk.”

I straighten up, my hand to my chest, mouth open wide in mock outrage. “Why, Sam Worth, are you saying you like me better under the influence of alcohol?”

He leans over the steering wheel and stares at the graying tufts of clouds. They've accumulated in the sky since I stampeded through the woods. They explain the smell of rain in the air. “No, just that you're
the only person I know who doesn't transform into a much uglier person when they're drunk.”

My face falls and I chew my lip. “Does your dad change when he drinks?”

Sam tips his head. “He fights with my mom. Says things he shouldn't. He never drank at home when he worked. He tried to hide it from my mom before. As a kid I knew what it smelled like when he came home and hugged me. I guess now he needs a way to cope all the time, but . . .”

“But it's not what you and your mom deserve.” I lean into him again. It occurs to me that I'm not usually this affectionate when I drink, and dimly I contemplate that it is Sam bringing it out in me and not the cloying vodka. I try to bat that train of thought away. So what if the concept of personal space loses its meaning around Sam? We basically grew up together; of course being near him is a little like digging up our fifth-grade time capsule. I may crave the simplicity of being ten—I may even feel the familiar ping for unicorn stickers—but I'd lose interest after five minutes. I'd get bored with all the artifacts of my childhood.

I stare at the darkening clouds, smothering the sun completely, washing everything in plum and gray. Hopefully, Michaela's noticed them and hustled everyone back to the cars.

I fiddle with the radio, trying to find something upbeat that comes in clear this far out in the sticks. There's nothing but some religious talk-radio show, rattling off forty ways to survive the rapture. I
flip it off. I can't shake the sense that Sam isn't like the sticker books I grew out of. It doesn't feel as if I left him with two feet firmly in the past. I wonder why that is, and it becomes sharp and clear. “Sam? Do you remember what you said a few days ago about you having friends who don't care who you're friends with?”

His lips part, and his eyes cut from the road to me. “Yeah, but I shouldn't have said that. I was upset.”

I consider this for a second. “It was true, though. How did you know that Zoey didn't want me hanging out with you anymore?” See, I didn't outgrow Sam or give him up willingly. I lost him to keep someone I loved more.

His jaw clenches and then unclenches. With that little tick of his muscle, the sky cracks open and dumps rain. “She told me,” he says.

I was lounging back, feeling kind of soupy. Now I sit straight up. “What?”

He takes a drawn-out breath. “Right before she told you to choose, she told me you only had room for one best friend and that she was going to make you decide who you wanted to keep. Zoey never liked me, and when you weren't around she was a real . . . well, she was mean-spirited, even as a kid. When you didn't show up to swim that Sunday afternoon, I knew.” His big, sensitive eyes flit to me like he's checking that he isn't hurting
my
feelings.

He knew. Twelve-year-old Sam knew that given the choice, I didn't choose him. I swallow a big gulp of air. It slides down my throat, choking me. If not for it, I'd cry; the sky already is. “Why didn't
you tell me that you knew? That I was horrible for picking Zoey?” I ask, barely louder than the drops pelting the windshield. The car veers off the highway and on to Main Street, cutting through downtown Savage.

“Because you chose Zoey. What was I supposed to say? Should I have begged you not to?” We pull to a stop at a red light. He runs his hands through his hair, heaving a huge sigh, and holds them up, defeated. “
You chose Zoey
. And she was the one who made you choose. I would never have asked you to give up a friend. Especially right after—”

“Right after my mom left,” I supply. I have to admit that even at twelve the timing of Zoey giving me the ultimatum seemed really cruel, really messed up.

I glare at our reflections in the window. I see a half-naked drenched girl who's a miserable shadow of who she used to be. I see a boy who's been burned by her over and over again. But for some bizarro reason he doesn't leave like everyone else.

“I understand what you meant about there being so little of me left,” I whisper. The light turns green and he accelerates. I wonder when whatever magic elixir that made me
me
started to dry up. I have an inkling it began with Jeanie. The droplets of water ping against the glass, and I see they've morphed into hail.
Hail in June.
I remember learning that hail forms in clouds, where the air is much cooler, making it possible during summer months. Still. The universe seems off-kilter, addled. The windshield wipers don't even come close to
defeating the ice that rockets down on us. I fantasize that a comet-size chunk will burst through the glass and pummel me out of existence.

We turn down my street. I reach for my shoes in the backseat and struggle to get the wet canvas onto my feet. Sam stares straight ahead; he can't stomach looking at me. The instant the wagon pulls into my driveway—before we're even parked—I leap from the car.

“Stella, wait!” Sam shouts. I don't stop. All I want to do is hide from him. He's the only evidence of the hurtful choice I made. But he follows. I struggle with the key in the lock and explode through the front door. Moscow's lounging on the back of the sofa. He raises his head, lackadaisically regards me, and then settles back in for a nap. I kick off my soaked shoes. Their moisture leeches into the carpet as a swelling shadow.

Finally, I turn to Sam, who sloshed through the front yard and stands dripping and muddy in the doorway. His hair is plastered to his head, and his eyelashes are clumping. He slams the door, making the whole house and my insides rattle.

“If there wasn't any of
you
left, why would I be here? Why would I be helping you? Why would that ten percent of my brain always be hoping that you're at the party I am? That we'll see each other and we'll talk and you'll smile because I made you laugh.” He steps closer, and I mirror it with a step back. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “I've had it bad for you most of my life.
You
. The fearless you who stepped in front of Daniel when Griever aimed a shotgun at him. The you who used to do backflips off my diving board. The
you who I knew would realize sooner or later that you chose wrong.”

I tug my hair furiously into a knot at the base of my neck. “Zoey's my best friend. Don't you get that?” Even now the urge to defend Zoey stomps out everything else. “I didn't choose wrong.”

I hold my breath, waiting for his response. He leans forward rather than away. “Stella, don't
you
get it? I'm not saying you should have chosen me.
There was no right choice
. You shouldn't have chosen at all,” he says softly. There are no words. It's the simplest, most obvious thing, and it never occurred to me. “You did, though, and I don't care that you did.”

His eyes are so intent I imagine them crackling like embers in a fire. He's waiting for a response. There's this humming between us, making the hair on my arms stand on end. I take another hasty step back and try to look unaffected as I gather up stray hairs and tuck them into my knot. “What did you want to show me?” I breeze over everything.

Sam hesitates for a second, holding my gaze. My hands fall to my sides; they feel awkward there, purposeless. He reaches into his hoodie and pulls out a white envelope. “I couldn't get the part about monsters out of my head. I even dreamed about it. And then it hit me this morning. The spring before Jeanie was taken, we played at Jeanie and Daniel's a lot.” Sam levels his gaze with mine. “We were always playing in the woods.” I go absolutely still.

His brow creases, and he rubs his chin with the effort of remembering. “We were pretending to slay dragons and play-fight as cowboys and Indians.” He frowns. “We weren't the only kids playing in the forest—the
woods are everywhere in Savage.” He's right. The woods and their shadows are all around us. “There were always urban legends going around school. Bloody Mary stories. Goblins and ghosts in the woods.” I incline my head. I remember a lot of those from slumber parties. “But in the months before Jeanie went missing—I can't remember exactly when—a group of older boys swore they saw something in the forest—I want to say cannibals. Then the rumors spread, and more kids said they'd seen stuff in the woods; all different creatures that couldn't exist. You know how kids are with rumors and made-up stuff. I remember us at Jeanie's, and we were going to drive something out of hiding. I wasn't sure any of that mattered, though. Then I found this.” Sam slides a single photo from the envelope. I take it and slump down to the couch.

It's a Polaroid snapshot of five kids. Weird that I recognize myself only after I spot Sam, Caleb, Daniel, and Jeanie in the photo. We're lined up like little soldiers, and everyone but Jeanie is grinning fiercely at the camera. I'm more growling than smiling, with one arm slung over Sam's shoulders.

“Remember that Zoey ran around with a Polaroid camera all of first and second grade?” Sam asks. I nod. “Well, she had it in kindergarten, too. She must be the one taking the picture. The four of us would have been six, and Caleb and Daniel would have been finishing third grade. This is the spring before Jeanie was taken.”

I bob my head dumbly again, running my finger over the objects we're gripping in our chubby-knuckled hands. “Sam, are those what I think they are?” I ask quietly.

He sinks down next to me. “Yeah,” he says, his breath tickling my ear. “Those are spears that Daniel and Caleb made from sticks and arrowheads they found in the woods.”

Our savage expressions, the crude weapons, the smears of dirt on our cheeks, those strange words I chose when Jeanie was taken, all add up. I take a shaky breath and whisper, “We were hunting monsters.”

M
y hands tremble as I bring the picture closer to my face. I tilt it from side to side. I even examine its back. I don't know what I'm looking for—maybe some clue to appear like the images in those Magic Eye books—but there's nothing find.