Creep

by R. M. Greenaway

  Unlikely, knowing the size of the forest, Dion thought. He and Randall left the parking area and headed up toward the Mesachee. Once on the narrow, brushy lower path, they walked single file, keeping their eyes to left and right for evidence of recent passage. They called out Troy’s name as they went, or used sticks to bat aside foliage, sending flocks of sparrows into the sky. The underbrush was thick and wet, so if the boy lay hidden too far off the path, dead or alive, he would be hard to spot — maybe impossible.

  Whenever a side path accessed the rushing waters of Lynn Creek, they climbed down to explore its rocky beach. Randall’s stick upturned a dead cat, eye sockets writhing with bugs. “Look at this,” she said. “All that life, all that fierce beauty, reduced to this. You, me, all of us. It’s going to come. Do you ever get scared when you look down the tunnel of time?”

  “Never,” Dion said, and looked away from the maggots.

  “Me neither,” Randall said.

  The path ascended, and they stood to rest on crude wooden steps built by bicycle outlaws, looking down on the far side of the river, a reservoir of fog. “You were going to tell me you found out something interesting,” Dion said. “You said very.”

  “Curious, are you? What happened to your hear no evil, see no evil policy?”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Linnae Avenue,” she said.

  “What about it?”

  “Know where it is?”

  He didn’t, and was losing patience. He was opening his mouth to say, What about it? when Randall pointed along the river and up the bank. “What’s that there? There, see? The black thing.”

  Dion saw what appeared to be the mouth of a small cave, some three feet in diameter and shrouded by bushes.

  Randall cleaned her glasses and had another look. “An intergalactic wormhole?”

  “Or a culvert.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  They descended the stairs, made their way to the river, bushwhacked and splashed their way along the rocky shore to the area of the cave-like opening, and found themselves looking up at an old metal culvert leading under one of the Mesachee paths. It sat on a natural shelf above, and water dribbled from its lip into the scrub below.

  Randall had been faster than Dion, scrambling up the rocks, stretching to get a look inside. She called into the tunnel, “Troy? Are you in there?”

  Nothing but her question bouncing around with a metallic ring.

  “Can you see to the other end?” Dion asked.

  She was too short. She lifted her light and peeked. “There’s some branches or something in the middle. Oh, wait. Something moved. Hell, it’s dark. I can’t —”

  They both heard something within the tunnel shifting. Rats?

  Dion climbed up past Randall and used his own flashlight to pick through the flotsam. “Troy? It’s Constable Dion. Remember, we talked the other day? Are you in there? It’s safe to come out now.”

  From the pile of debris a pale little face popped into the flashlight beam and stared back at him.

  Twenty-Eight

  SPIRAL

  A muddy and bedraggled Troy Hamilton crawled on hands and knees to the culvert’s opening, and with a bit of prompting, dropped into Dion’s arms.

  He responded only with head shakes and nods to Dion’s questions, “How are you? Are you hurt?” He seemed to have no broken bones, no deep wounds, but there were at least a few scratches. Some on his hands and legs, maybe from climbing and scrambling, and some purple markings about the face and throat. He had only socks on his feet, and his glasses were missing. His clothes were soaked and smelled of urine. He was shivering violently, and wouldn’t or couldn’t speak.

  Randall was on her radio, notifying Montgomery. Dion gathered Troy close in his arms. Fighting not to land in the sludge himself, he made his way down to the river with the kid clinging to his neck like a scared chimp. The climb was long and awkward, the kid heavier than he looked, and Dion not as fit as he had once been. But he made it to the river, then up one trail, and down another, and finally to the parking lot, with Randall following close behind.

  Montgomery and many of the crew were by the cars to meet them. An ambulance had been called, Montgomery said. And grateful parents were on their way. The team had been advised to stop searching for the kid, to muster at the culvert and start searching for evidence. “Fabulous job,” he said to Randall, as Dion tried to unlatch the boy’s arms from around his neck. “Great work, you two.”

  Troy had stopped shivering, but was refusing to let go, be set down, stand on his own two feet. Montgomery smiled at the clinging boy. “Mom and Dad are on their way over, Troy, my man. How are ya feeling? Little cold, huh?”

  Dion dearly wished Troy would loosen his stranglehold, which was doing just that, strangling him.

  Montgomery had answered a radio call and was now back with news. “Gotta go. They’ve found something upslope in the Mesachee, just up from the famous Rock. Ident’s heading up there.” He tried to catch Troy’s eyes one last time. “You’ll be fine, kiddo. Everything’s okay now. Good man.”

  Troy turned away from the grin and buried his face harder in Dion’s shoulder.

  Montgomery left to escort newly arrived Ident members to the find, showering compliments as he went. “Good work, guys. Proud of you all.”

  The ambulance arrived. A sedan pulled in sharply, and Troy’s parents arrived to pitch in and save Dion from strangulation. Reasoning didn’t work, and neither did bribery. Finally they resorted to physical force, and with a cry of protest, Troy came unglued. He was removed to the rear of the ambulance to be checked for visible damage, taking the crowd with him, and Dion was free to walk about the parking lot, shaking his limbs and catching his breath.

  Boy, ambulance attendant, one parent, and a team member disappeared into the ambulance. The doors swung shut, and off they went. The sedan driven by Troy’s other parent scudded out after it, the team dispersed to their duties, and the parking lot was left all but empty under cloudy afternoon skies.

  “What do we do now?” Randall asked.

  “I guess we wait.”

  “Heroes of the day, and this is the gratitude we get.”

  They leaned against the SUV and looked at the wet wilderness. Randall tried to strike up her interrupted conversation about the Tori intrigue, but Dion told her he was too tired to talk about it. Hold the thought. All he wanted right now was silence.

  Randall was more or less silent for fifteen minutes, until Montgomery returned from the Mesachee Woods, snapping his fingers, time to go. They all climbed into the Suburban. Montgomery drove, Dion by the passenger window, stinking like culvert sludge and piss, and Randall sat in the middle.

  “What did the team find up there?” she asked Montgomery, as he steered out of the park.

  If Montgomery knew Randall was hot on his tail, Dion observed, he was doing a good job of not letting on. Maybe Tori had meant it when she told Randall she wasn’t going to bother her fiancé with all this bullshit.

  “So far, a pair of child-sized spectacles, child-sized running shoes, and blood,” Montgomery told her. “Not a lot of blood, but some.”

  Randall showed Dion a snapshot she had taken on her phone, a muddy and exasperated hero with a muddy and frightened rescuee wrapped around his neck. “Hard to say who’s the more traumatized, hey?”

  Dion took the phone from her, as if for a closer look, and touched the little garbage-can icon. The image was gone, and he handed the phone back.

  “Hey!” she cried, hitting him. “That was going on my Twitter feed.”

  “No, it sure as hell wasn’t.”

  Of course it wasn’t, and Randall knew it, but she punched him again, anyway. Then she suggested they all go for drinks to celebrate today’s win.

  Dion smiled. Even caked in sludge, he felt, if not great, then better. He ha
dn’t raised the alarm as fast as he would have liked, but he had raised it in time. Troy was alive and seemed not badly damaged, at least physically. Yet whatever had happened to him up there in the Mesachee Woods, the effects would run deep. It was a tempered triumph, at best. “All I want to do right now,” he said, “is get into a hot shower.”

  He got his wish at the detachment, standing under the streaming water. The heat eased the knots in his shoulders, but not in his gut. He couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt, which was not good. In his job, shaking guilt was a survival skill.

  Before the crash he had been good at letting it all slide off. He’d been resilient. Whatever the fuck-ups of the day, he would party hearty at night and get on with life.

  Must get back into the routine. Do his best, and stop worrying about every damn thing.

  While he stood towel-drying his hair before the change room mirrors, Montgomery showed up and leaned against the wall. In the mirror he looked like a schoolyard bully about to pick a fight.

  Dion watched him, wondering if this was the coming fallout from Randall’s bullheaded inquiries.

  “You’re kind of a marvel, you know,” Montgomery said. “You put a name on our werewolf, you pushed the search, and you found the kid. Who needs a full team when you’ve got Cal Dion on the case? I think if you play your cards right, you’ll be back in GIS in no time.” He was smiling. Not a bully, then, but an advocate.

  “Any advice on playing my cards right?”

  Montgomery’s brows went up. “I’m so glad you asked. You want advice, you’ve come to the right guy.” He doled out the advice as Dion pulled on his spare clothes. “It’s not enough to be smart. You’ve got to project your smartness. Be confident, brilliant. Open your mouth more. Make yourself heard. You’re too quiet, and that’s what I keep hearing from your superiors. You’re not a team player. You don’t give anything away, and that makes people nervous.”

  They were kind words, but not the concrete help Dion would have been looking for, if he had been looking for help — which he wasn’t. He had asked to be polite. Or maybe it was to get a better idea of what Montgomery was up to. Whether he liked it or not, Dion was becoming Jackie Randall’s sidekick.

  He nodded agreeably as he combed his damp hair.

  “You also need someone on your side, someone with clout,” Montgomery said. He curled a bicep. “That’s me. Lucky for you, I’m your biggest fan, and I’m friendly with those who can make or break your career. Now, finish your preening and let’s go talk to young Troy Hamilton. It’s more your case than anyone’s, seems to me, so I’m putting you in charge of asking the questions. And besides, the kid is, well, attached to you.”

  Dion recalled his last interview with Troy, the little psychopath’s artful dodging and stonewalling. “I’d rather just listen in, if it’s all right.”

  Montgomery flung out exasperated hands. “Didn’t I just mention playing your cards? And what I mean by that is, play ’em. I don’t want to alarm you, constable, but you’ve got a hell of a lot of people to impress, so you better start bedazzling. I can help you along, but I’m only going to back a winner. Get me?” He shadow boxed, a one-two punch.

  The punch came too close to Dion’s head, and he ducked aside, but laughing. In the spirit of renewal, he grabbed the cologne he packed in his kit but rarely used and misted himself lightly, eying Montgomery in the mirror. “You’re still working on Breanna Ferris? Is that going anywhere?”

  “Yes, to the first question, not far, to the second,” Montgomery said. “What’s that stuff?”

  Dion showed him the bottle of Body Shop cologne.

  “Nice.” Montgomery winked and turned to leave. “A helluva lot better than what you had all over you before. Eau de latrine. Phew.”

  * * *

  In the case room — on a case some called Operation Werewolf — Dion waited with the others for Troy Hamilton to be examined and handed over for questioning. Leith was present, and the head of the unit, Sergeant Mike Bosko, arrived for an update. Bosko the bear, taller than anyone else in the room, and looking younger than ever with the wire-rimmed glasses he usually wore absent for some reason from his heavy, pale face.

  In some ways, Bosko was everything Dion wanted to be. Bosko was smart. He seemed to know something about everything. He retained facts. He had a cool, inquiring mind. He was effortlessly diplomatic. He was perceptive, analytical, unworried, and unhurried. In short, Dion’s diametric opposite.

  In a different world, he mused, he would probably like Bosko.

  He watched Bosko conferring with Leith and Montgomery, and stood back, not yet part of the discussion. He wondered if Montgomery would actually pass on those glowing commendations, as promised. Maybe he was about to do that now.

  As if on cue, Montgomery nodded at him to come over, join the discussion. Dion made himself taller and walked over. He smiled at his superiors. Bosko was smiling, too, as was Montgomery. Even Leith looked pleased. It was a smile-fest, for sure.

  “So, I hear you’re the one who found the boy,” Bosko said.

  “Constable Randall spotted the culvert,” Dion told him. “Troy might have recognized my voice because I talked to him a couple days ago. It’s the familiarity, I think, that got him out of hiding.”

  “Well, we’re all impressed.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  Bosko gave him a playful salute, told Montgomery to keep him posted, then was off, chatting with some of the other members briefly before leaving the room.

  Montgomery and Leith spent some time congratulating Dion now, and talking about his future. Leith agreed that Dion should conduct the interview of the Hamilton boy, and yes, should also be back upstairs with the detectives, and Leith would do his bit to try to make it happen. Dion thanked him. Montgomery entertained Leith with a description of Troy throttling Dion, and the full-team effort to pull the kid loose. Dion described his fear of imminent death as Troy’s arms tightened.

  All three men were laughing by the end of the story. The Farah Jordan fiasco seemed to be forgotten and forgiven. A nice little vignette of team spirit, in Dion’s mind. A great act by all.

  * * *

  Across at the hospital, a uniformed member stood posted outside Troy’s ICU room. “Keeping my eye out for stray wolves,” he joked.

  Within the room, Troy’s parents sat in armchairs, reading magazines. Young Troy sat in bed, wearing pajamas and what must be his spare set of eyeglasses. Even cleaned up, he looked wet and ruffled and bewildered, though the doctor had assessed him as “ready to talk.”

  Dion didn’t think the boy looked ready for anything, but Montgomery sat on the edge of the bed and told Troy what a soldier he was, and what a hero he would be if he could say what had happened to him today. Could he do that?

  Troy nodded at Montgomery, but was gazing past him at his rescuer. Montgomery changed places with Dion and let him do the talking.

  Dion didn’t need to break the ice much. After saying, “Hi, Troy, you look great,” Troy launched right into it, in breathless, broken snatches. “Stefano, he — he turned in — into a — a wo — a wo — a wolf, and he, he b-bit me.”

  Evidence backed up the claim. With the mud washed off, the cuts and bruises were standing out startlingly clear on the boy’s pale skin.

  “Where did he bite you?” Dion said.

  Troy showed him the underbelly of his arm, the skin abraded, the soft tissue purple with ruptured vessels. The incision pattern did resemble a human bite mark, open-mouthed and vicious, but it fell short of an actual tear or gouge.

  “He never did anything like that before?”

  Troy shook his head.

  “Tell me what happened, right from the start.”

  At the end of the hour, Dion’s notes, verbatim except for the stuttering, read, in part, “I went in his window, and he said we would go for a walk, and we went in the wood
s. He pushed me down and he kept hitting me on the ground, and I hit my head on the rocks, and it hurt. He kept pushing me on the ground, and he tried to eat me. And I hit him, and he had a nosebleed. And he went away.”

  The lumps and bruises on Troy’s head were not serious looking. Concussion had been ruled out. His coat had been unzipped and his shoes had come off, but the rest of his clothing seemed intact. He made no allusion to sexual interference, nor had any evidence of it been found on physical examination.

  The attack had been brutal, but on Dion’s scale of viciousness, aside from the bite mark, he would call it more in the buffeting range.

  At the end of the interview, he asked Troy how Stefano had turned into a wolf, and Troy told him that Stefano wore a wolf suit, but he really had become a wolf. It wasn’t just a mask.

  Perceptive assessment from a child, Dion thought. He asked Troy where Stefano was now, and Troy said he didn’t know. When he ran out of questions, Dion finished with one last comment, for Troy’s ears only, though everyone in the room would hear it. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  “It’s okay,” Troy said.

  Calmly spoken. Maybe it was just a side effect of shock, but the boy seemed markedly different from how he’d been in that frustrating interview in his home on Dempsey. Elevated, even, as he made the effort to release Dion from guilt with a gesture, a hand lifted like Jesus, and his parting words: “It’s not your fault. Really.”

  * * *

  Leith was telling JD about his amazing luck as they waited by Monty’s desk for him to finish a call. “The house isn’t an estate sale,” he told her. “It belongs to Pat Klugman’s mother, Wilma, who’s not dead like I thought she was.”

  “Good news for Wilma,” JD said.

  “Right. She’s still alive, but had to move into a nursing home, and Pat and her husband were tasked with selling the property. The day we viewed it they had brought their kids along. Alison was out back and found the daughter, she’s about fifteen, sulking on the steps, and got talking with her. That was Wilma’s granddaughter.”