Creep

by Eireann Corrigan

  “Is there a name inside?”

  Janie shook her head. “Just initials: TM. And look—” She showed me the places where pages had been torn out. Between the few pages left, someone had neatly folded old Hershey wrappers. “Hey—T for Thatcher, maybe? What’s his middle name? Are the Langsom brothers Boy Scouts?”

  “I think we need to ask if their grandfather was a Boy Scout. This stuff looks vintage.”

  “Yeah. Maybe if you were old enough to keep watch over a house for decades and develop an unhealthy attachment to it, you might have collected similar camping equipment.” Janie bit her lip. “Hold on a second—close me in.”

  “What?” I watched her back into the little room. “No way. Come back out.”

  “Just do it. You know how to open the door if you need to.” I still hesitated. “Come on, Liv. It’s not like we found an actual dead body.”

  “Yet.”

  “Do it.”

  So I shut the door. “Are you happy now?” I called to her.

  “I wouldn’t say happy. I’d say super freaked out. I can’t believe this.”

  “You can’t believe what?” I asked, desperate to know. And of course right then, Mr. Donahue came back into the room.

  “Just me,” he said, looking around for Janie.

  “Oh, Mr. Donahue.” I turned to face him and pinned my back against the bookcase. “You’re right here in the room—hi.” I bit my lip, seeing him slip his phone into his back pocket. Unfortunately, I had his undivided attention. “Janie took some books up to her room. We need them for school, for English class.” I was a terrible liar. Nothing I said made any sense. “Every year, this teacher gives us the same project. It’s a magazine. About books. So I told Janie and now we’re starting early. To get on the right foot. With this teacher.”

  “Janie’s really lucky you’ve been here to show her around.”

  “Yeah, you said that at dinner the other day,” I said. I didn’t add before you were inexplicably mean to me. “It’s no problem.”

  “I need to apologize for lashing out at you, Olivia.”

  The laugh that emerged from me could only be described as maniacal. “Oh, it’s fine. We shouldn’t have been in the living room, touching books.”

  “Of course you should. I was being ridiculous. You should feel welcome anywhere in the house.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Donahue,” I said, feeling buried in the rubble of a thousand worries.

  He nodded, but didn’t walk away like I hoped. He just kept gazing at me, as if he could pass secret messages with his eyes. He reminded me of Ben right at that moment.

  “I’m sure Janie will be right down.”

  “Absolutely.” He stared at me for another moment. “Again, my apologies.” And then, finally, Janie’s dad left the room.

  “Is he gone?” Janie’s voice rang out clearly as if she stood right next to me, unobstructed.

  “Wait a sec.” I moved toward the window, trying to get a better look outside. No sign of Mr. Donahue. “Yeah. He’s gone.” I heard a soft click, and then the bookshelf pivoted out and Janie emerged, a dusty ghost. “Could you hear everything clearly?”

  “Completely,” Janie said excitedly. “It’s even crazier, though. Come see.” She tugged at my hand.

  “No way.” I could barely take one step forward into the little room, let alone close myself up in it.

  “You have to,” Janie ordered. “You have to check this out.” She put one arm around my shoulders and we stepped back in together. There was a metal handle inside, like you might find on an old chest of drawers. That’s what Janie tugged on to close us in. I shut my eyes instinctively, as if I were diving underwater without goggles. It smelled musty.

  “Do you see it? It’s insane, right?” Janie asked. Her breath tickled my ear.

  I blinked open my eyes. It took a second to get used to the almost pitch-black. Janie was a darker shadow beside me in the darkness. She pointed to a single sliver of light that glowed in the door. Cut into the wooden panels of the door and then presumably into the cover of a book was a tiny slit that lined up at just about eye level. Shadow Janie nodded at it and I stepped forward to look.

  The peephole in front of us provided a clear line of vision to the Donahues’ living room: the huge tufted sofa and the trunk they used as a coffee table. In the corner, I spied a slice of the front door. Then Janie spun me around and pointed me toward a second opening. This one afforded a perfect view of the dining room table. I could see the cornflower blue of Mrs. Donahue’s tablecloth and the silver candlesticks positioned right in the center. I could see the crystal chandelier twinkling overhead. At first I thought it was swaying, but then I realized I was swaying. I felt sick and faint and threw myself against the door, trying to break free.

  “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” Janie asked. She pulled me back to the door and reached in the corner to flip some kind of switch. “You have to be careful.” The narrow opening widened and I shouldered my way out.

  “Yeah, Janie. We do have to be careful.” My knees were still shaking. I clutched at the back of one of the living room chairs and propped myself up. “That’s really messed up. Someone’s been sitting in there, watching you guys.”

  “No! I don’t think so. Calm down, Liv. No one ever really sits in here since Mom set up the TV in the family room. And we eat in the kitchen or on the deck; we haven’t used the dining room once since we moved here.” She pointed through the arched doorway at the chandelier. “We positioned the table beneath the light because that’s what you do. I’m sure as long as that thing’s been hanging, whoever’s lived here put their dining room table there.”

  “It’s still really scary. Oh”—I’d thought of something else—“the chocolate wrappers. Whoever hid in there probably got hungry, watching someone else’s family dinner. So they ate the chocolate.” For some reason, that was the worst part for me, imagining someone hiding and eating candy like they were sitting in a movie theater.

  But Janie just kind of shrugged. “At least we know the Sentry isn’t a cannibal.”

  How can she make jokes? I thought.

  “We have to tell your parents about the second letter.”

  “Well, we can’t now. The mail hasn’t come yet. And you just lied to my dad.”

  “So what do you want to do?” I asked, half-fearful of what she might say.

  Janie smiled at me like this was the greatest adventure she’d ever embarked on. She walked to the window and pointed across the street, at the yellow house on the corner. Miss Abbot’s house.

  “I think it’s time you introduced me to some neighbors,” she said.

  “The box needs to look official.” Janie stood at the doors of her pantry, perusing its contents. “We can’t use just any old cardboard box.”

  “I still don’t understand the plan here, Janie,” I said. But she didn’t answer me. She only dug more frantically through the kitchenware and emerged triumphantly with a black milk crate.

  “This is perfect.” I waited for an explanation that Janie didn’t offer. Instead, she moved a step stool over to the refrigerator and climbed up, reaching into the top cupboard above the freezer. Just as she brought out an enormous, warehouse package of chocolate candy, Ben breezed in through the back door.

  “Put back the chocolate.”

  “I need it.”

  “I’m telling Mom.”

  Janie sighed dramatically and stared balefully down at him. “Please. It’s for investigative purposes.”

  Ben rolled his eyes at me. “How much are my parents paying you to mind my sister? Aren’t you supposed to help steer her toward normal?”

  “I thought they were paying me to talk to you.” As soon as I spoke, I wanted to clap my hand over my own mouth. Why did every word I uttered to Ben sound like a dare?

  Ben looked startled for a second and then he grinned. I went warm everywhere, thinking to myself, I surprised him. But then he glanced up at Janie and seemed momentarily abashed, as if he we
re the one caught raiding the sweets. He reached his hand up. At first, I thought he was raising his hand to speak, but then, wordlessly, Janie placed a pack of peanut butter cups in his hand. At least he was forgiven.

  “Speaking of investigations,” he said, “consider me officially cozied to our boy Thatcher Langsom.”

  “Seriously?” Janie asked.

  “You move fast,” I muttered.

  Ben raised one eyebrow at me and I felt it as a zap in my throat. He leaned against the counter. “Oh yeah. We’re basically bros now.”

  “Does he know where you live?” Janie asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, don’t you think that’s going to work against us? I mean, the whole point was to trick him into confiding in you.”

  “Only if there was something to confess. He’s a pretty chill dude—not someone who’s going to get worked up enough to write a letter in his own blood.”

  “It was ink.”

  “You know what I mean. Besides I don’t get the feeling there’s a deluge of new families moving into Glennon Heights in any given year. We’re sort of conspicuous.”

  I remembered Thatcher at the coffee shop. “Does he seem sad? About having to move?”

  “Kind of lost, I guess. Mostly stressed out about college—he talked about needing a scholarship and how he would have planned differently. You know—had he known that life would go to pieces. He did tell me that there were all these secret hiding places built into the house.” Janie and I exchanged a look. “But when I asked him to come over and show me, he said it’d be too bizarre to come over so soon.”

  “Well, of course, Ben.” I heard the groan in Janie’s voice. “Way to work that empathy muscle.”

  “That’s not the muscle I’m famous for.” Ben knocked against the granite top, as if he’d just remembered something. “Speaking of muscles, I saw you running this morning, Livvie.” All of a sudden, my chest felt like I’d just started my tenth mile. “You have really good form.”

  My chest might have broken open and maybe a cartoon bird flew out, singing a cheesy musical theater tune. Or I just nodded dumbly and remembered to say, “Thank you.”

  Ben pointed up at Janie. “Put that candy back.” He ambled out of the room and I stood there, trying to stop myself from staring at his retreating back, trying to avoid looking up to Janie’s disappointed face.

  But she wouldn’t have it. She snorted derisively. “You must be joking.”

  “What do we need chocolate for?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Are we enticing Miss Abbot to speak with our stash of Snickers bars?”

  “Listen, Olivia: You don’t need my brother and my brother definitely doesn’t need you.”

  “Are you going to fill me in on the candy plan or not?” I managed to make eye contact with Janie’s knees.

  “I’m asking you; I am pretty much begging you—”

  “We were just talking about running.”

  “He doesn’t care about running. I’m asking you this one thing.” She sighed and passed the box of candy bars down to me. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

  “Of course.” And then I said, because I never wanted to revisit the conversation again, “Besides, he’s your brother. That would be too weird.”

  “Right. Way too weird. Thank you.” I held the step stool as Janie climbed down. Then she unboxed the packs of chocolate and lined them precisely into the milk crate like they were gold bars and she was executing a proper heist. She nodded and smiled in a small way, the kind of smile that forgave me, but only grudgingly.

  “Let’s go chase a different kind of weirdness,” she said.

  Minutes later, we stood on Miss Abbot’s well-tended front porch. Before my finger could connect with the doorbell, the front door swung open, and Miss Abbot stood there, studying us.

  “Yes?” It sounded like she was scolding us, as if we’d interrupted some quiet reverie.

  That’s when the Janie Donahue charm factory sprang into action. “Good morning, ma’am! How are you today? Would you like to support the Glennon Heights diving team by purchasing some delicious chocolate?” Janie gestured to the assortment of candy with a flourish.

  But Miss Abbot pretty much ignored Janie and inspected me carefully. “Olivia Danvers, is that you? Since when are you diving?”

  “Well …” I completely blanked. I made a terrible spy.

  “Every morning, I see you charging around the neighborhood like you’re auditioning for a remake of Chariots of Fire.” She lowered her eyeglasses and peered at me even more closely. Miss Abbot’s eyes were chlorinated pools, sparkling in the sunlight. “Tell me, are you under the mistaken assumption that you are swimming laps instead?”

  Janie laughed gamely. “Of course not! Olivia just volunteered to accompany me around the neighborhood. I’m still just getting acclimated on account of our just moving here, right across the street. We’re neighbors.” Janie made a big show of balancing the milk crate on one knee and reaching out to shake Miss Abbot’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Jane Louise Donahue.”

  “Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Jane Louise.” Somewhat suddenly, Janie practically threw herself down on the bricks, fumbling her crate of chocolate as she tumbled.

  “Oh dear.” Miss Abbot shook her head in dismay and her silver hair swayed at the temples. “Why don’t you girls come in and cool off with a glass of iced tea?”

  “Thank you!” Janie exclaimed and mouthed See? to me once Miss Abbot turned her back. “It’s so kind of you. This August heat takes some getting used to.”

  “They don’t have August where you’re from?”

  Janie laughed nervously. “It’s just really humid here.”

  Miss Abbot led us through her front parlor and into her sitting room. I suppose it was technically a living room, but fancier, with its velvet furniture and embroidered pillows. It seemed like a room that would insist on a more formal name. “Please have a seat, girls.”

  I moved to sit down, but Janie took a detour to an oak desk in the corner as soon as Miss Abbot was out of the room. She kept one eye on the kitchen while thumbing through the small piles of papers. I realized she was checking for white stationery.

  “What a lovely home, Miss Abbot,” I croaked out while Janie opened drawers and shook her head at me: Nothing. We heard soft footsteps approach from the kitchen and rushed to take our places on the velvet sofa.

  It was impossible to slouch in Miss Abbot’s home. I looked across at Janie and she looked as stiff and on display as I felt. When Miss Abbot returned with a tray of glasses and graham crackers, we sat up even straighter. The ice clinked as she set down the tray. An orange cat, one I’d thought might be stuffed, leapt off the far end of the sofa in response.

  “Poor Horatio,” Miss Abbot murmured. “We’ve disturbed your beauty sleep.”

  “He’s a handsome cat,” Janie offered. “Is he your only one?”

  Miss Abbot sipped her iced tea. “Well, I keep the other forty in the freezer.”

  My eyes snapped open and met Janie’s widened gaze. “Miss Abbot?”

  “Oh, I’m teasing, dear. Horatio’s my one familiar. But that’s what society has come to expect from a woman my age, isn’t it? Too many cats. Maybe not enough sense.”

  “Oh no, you probably know every little thing that goes on in this neighborhood.” I knew where Janie was headed, but she spoke to Miss Abbot like she was a child we might babysit. When she patted her hand and said, “I bet you don’t miss a beat,” I cringed despite every effort to keep my face still.

  “Of course I don’t, dear,” Miss Abbot answered. The iced tea sweat in its glass but suddenly the room felt chilly. “So you two are fund-raising this morning?”

  “Yes. We’re selling chocolate door-to-door.”

  “You should be careful. I question the wisdom of sending young girls to doorsteps asking for money. After all, not everyone is harmless.” There
was the slightest edge running under Miss Abbot’s words. I swallowed and told myself that I was officially paranoid. This was sweet Miss Abbot, after all—not some neighborhood menace making sly threats.

  Janie sat back in her seat then and gazed directly at her. My heart sank. Even after only a week, I knew that look. It was the staring-down-the-high-dive look. We wouldn’t be collecting a few dollars and making a quick exit anytime soon. Miss Abbot reached over and broke off a piece of graham cracker into her hand. She chewed slowly, savoring the moment with a tiny smile on her lips. She seemed pleased to have scored a formidable opponent.

  Janie went on. “Glennon Heights seems so picturesque, though. It’s hard to imagine anything happening here.”

  “Well, you should be careful about painting us with such broad strokes, Jane Louise. After all, one man killed his entire family not too far from where we sit.”

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this out loud. Miss Abbot was speaking about the Unspeakable. Hardly anyone in Glennon Heights ever mentioned the VonHolt murders. On significant anniversary years, news magazines made the rounds. Occasionally, some tabloid took a picture that we’d later see splashed across Dateline or 48 Hours. I’d first learned about the case from one of those programs.

  Janie listened closely as Miss Abbot described the initial discovery of the bodies and the manhunt that followed. I’d forgotten that she’d taught at the high school back then. Two of the VonHolt children had been in her classes, she told us. “The oldest, the daughter, had a real vibrancy to her. A bit too clever for her own good. She was a B-minus student who considered herself a solid A student.” Miss Abbot crossed her feet at the ankles and bit down on another cracker. “Not that she deserved to be shot.”

  “Of course not,” Janie said. “Ma’am, this might sound crazy, but is there any link between my house and the VonHolts? Did the families know each other?”

  “The Langsom house? Oh, I don’t think so. Not intimately. It’s a small town, after all. We all feel like we know each other, but that’s what the VonHolt case taught us. That maybe we don’t really know our neighbors at all.”