The Creeping (35 page)

“Where's Michaela?” I ask. The forest floor vibrates with bass.

“She went home already. Zo was playing beer pong with some guy and she called for a ride. So I show up and she loses it. Screaming and crying. Bitch-fest. And I try to talk to her, answer her questions from last night, like I told you.” He throws his arms in the air. “I've never seen her so out of control.” Caleb's blond hair is dark with sweat, and his cheeks are bright red. He must have chased after her.

“Which way did she go?”

Caleb shines the beam of a flashlight he's holding to the right, in the direction of the swamps and Blackdog Lake.

“C'mon,” he says, taking me by the elbow.

People say there's a little tickle of intuition right before something bad happens. You know, like an imp whispering, “Lock the door!” or “Don't let that person in!” or “Run!” Victims regret not listening to it. I always thought that was bullshit, victims blaming themselves for not being clairvoyant. But in that instant, when Caleb touches me, I
feel a tiny trill of panic at the base of my skull. I shake my head and it's gone. Only goose bumps from loud music and cold air.

We jog deep into the woods. Poplars, birch, and hemlock knit together, framing token-size bits of sky illuminated by moonlight; the northern air thick with summer mosquitoes. I leap over knotted black roots bursting through the soil. Caleb works the flashlight right to left, scanning every clearing. The beam leaves long shadows from trees crisscrossing everywhere.

I shout, “Zoey, it's me! Come out!” again and again.

After ten minutes I hunch over to catch my breath. “Do you really think she went this far? We're halfway to Blackdog, and she'd never go through the swamp alone,” I pant.

Caleb stops at my side. “She didn't go back to the house. We would've seen her.” His eyes dart right to left with the beam of the flashlight; his pupils swallow up the pale blue of his eyes, and his lips are so distorted by a grimace they're near cracking.

“Hey,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder. His sweatshirt is damp under my palm, and he's shivering. “Caleb, look at me. We'll find her.”

He takes a hasty step back. “I'm fine,” he says, a tattered edge to it. He nods to himself, mutters under his breath, and then adds louder, “We can't stop hunting for her.”

The distant caw of a night bird makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I squint through the beam of the light he's aiming at me. “I can't see with that in my eyes,” I say.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. The beam drops away, and silver spiders
blossom in front of me as I blink to adjust to the dark. “You didn't see how out of control she was, Stella. I bet she's too wasted to find her way back—or—or even know how far she's gone,” he adds. We're only a foot or two apart, and his eyes don't rest on anything for long. He's frightened for Zoey.

I rub at my arms. “We'll find her, okay? You don't need to worry. If anyone can take care of herself, it's Zo.” I want to believe it, but I don't think anyone walks away from what might be poaching in these woods—other than me. I got away from the Creeping, or else it didn't want me.

Caleb scratches the back of his head, continuing to scan the space around us. “Yeah, I guess. Let me try to call her,” he says.

I nod, reassured by the idea. I should have thought of that. I assumed that because Zoey ran off during a fight, she left her cell and purse at Cole's. The phone could be tucked into her pocket, though.

Caleb transfers the flashlight to his left hand. In the instant his right hand passes under the shaft of light toward the pocket where his cell must be stowed, shadows like black sores are cast on his skin.

“What's on your hand?” I ask, alarmed. I reach as if to brush away the dirt or insects that have landed on him, but as he retrieves the cell and holds the top of his hand up for me to see, there's nothing there. It was only the angle of the light exaggerating every little pit and imperfection of his skin. “It looked like something was on you,” I murmur, frowning.

“They're scars,” he says with a shrug. “From the chicken pox. I scratched too much.” He shines the light on the faint blemished tissue
for me to see. When shining straight on, the beam illuminates them as the pale, pinkish scars I've seen a million times and hardly noticed. When the light comes from the side, his skin has the look of a potholed membrane, a leper's hand,
a gnarled hand
.

He holds the cell at his ear. He shifts the flashlight, and I squint into it again. My throat is siphoning off my air supply. My body's reacting to what my brain is limping to grasp. “I have this memory”—I only know I'm talking after I hear myself—“of someone's gnarled hands in Jeanie's hair.”

He takes a step forward. The light shines brighter in my face, and I can't see his expression. I try to visor my eyes from the light. “But it wasn't you. You were home sick,” I say, breathless. I shake my head to clear it.

A sharp crack of a stick behind me—or maybe I hear the electronic chiming from a few feet away first? It's a phone, but it isn't Zoey's ring. I spin around just in time to see Daniel closing in, his face flash-illuminated by the shaft of light. He wields a thick branch above his head and before I can duck, he brings it down on me.

T
he knotted branch smashes into my arm and sends me crashing to the ground. It has something barbed at its tip; its spiked cluster burrows deep into my shoulder. My nerves take a few seconds to catch up, and at first I scream because I anticipate the pain. Once I feel it, there's no more screaming, or air in my lungs, or noise over the buzzing in my ears. Fire spreads from the gash to my chest and down my arm.

Daniel twists the stick free; it doesn't come out easily. I hear the jagged splitting of my skin and muscle tissue like the parting of a zipper.

“What the hell was that?” Caleb yells.

Daniel laughs—actually laughs, like Caleb's told a joke—and says, “The little bitch deserves it. This was all her fault. Jeanie was
her
fault.”

I lie writhing on the ground, reduced to one sensation: pain. Hot, goring pain ripping my arm apart. Pain so bad it has its own pulse.
Even maimed, my broken body the proof of the danger I'm in, the threat doesn't feel real. What does is the pain and confusion. I don't understand how we got here—not
here
in the woods but entrenched in this awful fantasy where Daniel and Caleb are arguing in whispery voices and I'm collapsed on the ground.

My vision tunnels, and I battle to stay focused. Instinct tells me that staying awake means staying alive. Then I have laughter bubbling up from nowhere, because how absurd that I'm worried about staying alive with Caleb—even Daniel. I bite my tongue, shocking myself alert. I focus on my shoulder; my sweatshirt is already black with blood. I'm bleeding. My insides are emptying on the outside. The manic laughter dries up in my throat. My hands search the ground around me, fingers splaying in the dirt, desperate for anything to be used as a weapon. Then I remember. My cell is in my pocket, and the last number I dialed was Sam's.

I slip the phone from my hoodie, hit send, and bring it to my ear. Sam calls my name on the other end. I want to cry out for him. I choke down a sob and replace the phone quickly without them noticing.

“Caleb! Daniel!” I shout, and the pain magnifies. “My dad knows I'm at Cole's. He knows Cole's house backs up against Blackdog Lake.” There. That has to be enough for Sam.

Daniel's head snaps my way. He's glaring. “Shut up,” he orders. “We're wasting time. Let's get her moving.” They lumber toward me. I shrink back, hands tearing at the slippery topsoil behind me, but I know there's no escaping two full-grown guys, especially with a wounded arm.

They drag me to my feet and wrap both my arms around their necks. My shoulder kills as I'm jostled forward. They stride hurriedly through the woods; my feet don't touch the ground, and I'm yanked back and forth. They struggle to keep in step with each other, and it feels as if I'm being torn in two. As we careen down a steep grade in the forest floor, my phone bounces from my sweatshirt pocket and clips my knee, tumbling to the ground. The boys barrel forward without noticing. There goes my only chance of keeping Sam on the line, of calling for help once we arrive wherever we're headed.

They avoid the bogs, moving toward the lakeshore in a deflected path. Our trajectory keeps us on solid but uneven earth. The thumping bass is long gone. How I wish I could trade places with anyone in that party, even loose-lipped Janey Bear.

We were closer to the water than I thought, because within ten minutes the moon's reflection winks up at us. It's full and white and obscured only by the tattered strips of clouds. Our pace slows on the shore; the boys pick their steps carefully over the rocks.

“Why are you doing this, Daniel?” I whimper. “I was helping you. I haven't given up looking for Jeanie's killer. I won't, I swear.”

“God, you're a stupid bitch,” he snarls right in my ear. “Don't you get it? That's the problem. One of these days you're going to remember that it was
me
who killed Jeanie.”

His confession slaps me in the face. I trusted him. I protected him. For years I defended him. For years I defended myself to him.
I hate this boy. I hate this boy.
I try to squirm away from Daniel, but he holds my arm, digging his fingers through the tears in my sweatshirt
and into my gash. I scream until my voice is a bloody wail.

“Caleb, please,” I rasp. “Help me, Caleb.”

They drop me where the water laps rhythmically against the pebbled shore. My knees hit first, the rocks gouging through my leggings. “Oh, sweetheart,” Daniel says bitingly. “Caleb isn't going to help you. Caleb killed Jeanie too.”

“No, you're wrong,” I say. I try to get to my feet but stumble backward. The icy water sinks like fangs into my skin. The cold helps me focus. I splash some on my shoulder to extinguish the fire burning there. “We were just little kids, Caleb.” I can't drag my eyes from his hands. They would have been blistered by chicken pox the day Jeanie was taken. “Caleb.” My voice becomes more desperate. “Even if you were there somehow . . . none of it was your fault. It couldn't be.” How could it? “I was there too. We were little kids.”

Caleb stands a foot up the shore. His silhouette reminds me of the flickering flame of a candle—one that's about to be blown out. “It's more than feeling guilty over playing in the woods. I lied to you earlier,” he mutters, resigned.

I reach out to him, hoping he'll help me up, walk us away from Daniel. “The police will understand. You were only nine. Whatever you did, it must have been an accident. It'll be okay,” I insist.

He keeps the divide between us. “It's too late for that.” His voice cracks. “It's not just Jeanie. If they find out what we did, they'll blame us for the girl in the cemetery, too.” Caleb sinks to his knees. The flashlight clatters from his hand onto the rocks. Its thin beam juts into the sky. “I didn't touch her. I swear it, Stella. I wasn't even back in Savage. I didn't
come until I saw on the news that you found the body. That thing got her. I had nothing to do with it. She just . . . showed up dead and brought this whole thing back to life. The way she looked . . .” His eyes stretch wide and his mouth contorts as he pounds his fists into the rocky shore—once, twice, three times. Dark liquid oozes from his knuckles, but if they hurt, he doesn't show it.

Caleb rocks back on his heels. “
Whatever
killed her ruined our lives. No one was looking for us. Not until that body showed up. Maybe it's the goddamned devil making us pay?” He covers his mouth with his mangled hand for a beat. When it drops away, there's a smear of blood on his lips as red as cherry lip gloss. “You don't think whatever it is was pissed that we'd gotten in on its game, do you? Like we took something it wanted? Like it killed that little girl to rip this whole Jeanie thing open again so we'd be caught?” Caleb's voice becomes less human with each word. He's gulping, choking on tears or air. This is what becomes of those who believe, of those who see monsters in the shadows.

He sways, rocking himself from hysteria to calm like you'd rock a baby. “No, it's just a coincidence,” he mutters to himself. “But who will believe that? They'll want us to pay for what was done to her.” He bows his head, lips moving. He looks up abruptly and whispers, “That's it. It's just a coincidence.” Caleb's rant sends a current charging up my spine. By the time it reaches my brain, it's screaming,
There are no coincidences
.

I search for anything that won't make it so. “Daniel, your dad confessed—to—to everything.” Daniel paces, kicking his boots with
every step and scattering the pebbles that cover the banks of the lake. Caleb's a lump on the shore, but Daniel's a mounting storm. I point at him and cry, “You told the cops you thought he did it,” shaking because I'd rather it be Mr. Talcott than Caleb and Daniel.

Daniel recklessly swings the branch he bloodied me with back and forth like a pendulum. “He's the reason we were out in those woods hunting a monster in the first place.” He stills abruptly. “
And he knows it.
He knows he put it in our heads.” He stabs the stick in the air between us. “Don't you get it? It was hunting the monster that got Jeanie killed.
It was his fault
.” His volume climbs. “He knew he was the reason I did it—
all of it
. That's why he confessed. And I let him, because if it wasn't for him, it wouldn't have happened.” His jaw clenches and he shakes his head. “It wasn't the plan. Griever was. It was her fault too. If we hadn't seen her put a dog down, we wouldn't have thought to try it.”