Our second night together couldn’t be more different from our first. I help Sam into a pair of Dad’s sweats, bring him four Tylenol to ease the pain, and help him into my bed. He tells me three times that it’s not too bad before I stop asking if we should go to the emergency room. Before I can say I want to compare my time line from last night with what Griever told us, his breathing has evened out.
I pore over it myself. I confirm that the accidental tragedies with corresponding animal disappearances occurred forty or more years ago. Those sacrifices must have been made by the backwoods families Griever said are no longer alive or living in Savage. Griever said she and her family only sacrificed animals when it seemed like the Creeping had taken victims. In the last few decades, the animal disappearances correspond with hikers and campers vanishing, what was assumed to be a bear attack, and Jeanie Talcott’s kidnapping. Those recent sacrifices must have been the work of Griever and any relative of hers alive at the time.
Satisfied that I’ve gotten to the bottom of the animal disappearances, I change into a tattered T-shirt and slip into bed. I stare at the thin lines of light like pale chalk between the slats of my blinds. Somewhere out there a streetlamp is burning white and steady, guiding moths out of the night to its warmth while I’m shaking as the cold in my bones freezes me from the inside out. For the first time it occurs to me that remembering might be too . . . too everything. What if I witnessed more than Jeanie being taken? What if I watched as her insides, neatly tucked and coiled under thin pink skin, were pulled from her body? What if I heard the crackle and snap of her scalp’s tissue parting from her skull? What if once I remember I can’t stop replaying it, and it becomes all I hear? Jeanie’s whimpering. Jeanie’s bones breaking and her cartilage crackling. The hiss of Jeanie’s last breath. What if it’s so much more and I’m not strong, or certain, or able, or enough, and it breaks me?
Ultimately, though, I swallow the fear so it roosts somewhere smaller, darker, deeper in me, because of the whistle of Sam’s breath between his teeth. Sam is here. Sam will help me bear it. I gently brush aside the hair sticking to his forehead. His long lashes are clumped together in little starlike sharp points. He got hurt tonight because of me. I dragged him there like I’ve dragged him everywhere, tethered by some invisible rope he calls love. Sam’s uncovered nearly every piece of evidence that proves there’s a creature lurking in the woods. That there’s something so much more—or less—than human.
My hand hovers just above his forehead, so close my fingertips imagine the flutter of hair on their pads. A flutter of something else in the back of my head. It was Sam’s idea to look for past disappearances in library archives, to search the graveyard, to investigate what we were doing in the woods as kids. Every hunch he’s had yields blizzards of clues, and all that evidence has led me to one impossible conclusion: the Creeping.
My hand retracts carefully as I’m shaking my head into the swell of the pillow. No, no, no, what am I getting at? This is Sam. Too patient, too kind, too forgiving, too-good-to-be-true Sam Worth. I’m clinging to the edge of the bed before I realize I’ve rolled away, put space between us. I must be losing it if I’m even thinking . . . What am I thinking? That six-year-old Sam had something to do with Jeanie’s disappearance? That now he’s steering me away from human suspects by inventing monsters, by fabricating evidence and leads? Sam isn’t just my Sam. He was six. But is there something he’s steering me away from? Sam’s been eyeing the supernatural all along. How could he have known?
I know Zoey and Caleb were home with chicken pox when Jeanie was taken, and Daniel was home with his mom, but I don’t have a clue where Sam was. I’ve never asked. I figured he wasn’t there because it was a girly playdate, but isn’t it weird that it’s never come up? I’ve heard loads of kids who barely knew Jeanie talk about where they were that afternoon. Everyone wants to claim a piece of history for themselves—even the Jeanie-shaped history of Savage. How has Sam never mentioned that he was sipping lemonade poolside, or thumping a ramshackle birdhouse with a hammer at Scouts, or taking a dreamless nap when Jeanie was abducted?
Suspicion sends my thoughts shrieking backward, bashing along memories like speed bumps until I reach the Day of Bones. Me: in the cemetery lying on the stone bench, eyes closed. Sam’s head in place of the moon as my lids snapped open. No crunch of his footsteps, no blurry form coming into focus between the graves. I didn’t see the direction he came from.
I twist farther from Sam as I wag my head no, no, no. He doesn’t have anything to do with Jeanie or Jane Doe. But I didn’t see where he came from. What if he was traveling from deeper in the cemetery? What if he stumbled across me after offing another little redheaded victim, and he’s smart as hell, so he pretended to have followed me?
My hands drop limp at my sides. This is insane, crazeballs, nutso, borderline betrayal that as Sam sleeps vulnerable and unguarded a foot away I’m trying him of murder and finding him guilty. I need a straitjacket if I’m actually thinking that six-year-old Sam had anything to do with Jeanie and that now he’s hungry for more. I push my palms against my eyes until fireworks take the place of the mangy scrap of skin that was Jane Doe’s scalp.
A moment later I feel for the furry lump on the carpet, the stale polyester smell of my bunny’s fur in my face and lungs as I squeeze him tighter, my whole rib cage cradling him. My eyelids are fat and heavy. I went grave digging tonight. An old woman warned us about an ancient monster that kills little girls. She accused Savage of trying to keep it a secret years ago; she warned that it might be happening again. I rock Bunny. That’s all it is: exhaustion, ragged nerves, imagination drunk from the blurred line between reality and nightmare. Sam would never hurt anyone.
Before I let myself fall asleep, I list every time I hurt Sam in the last five years. Times I rolled my eyes when he wished me happy birthday or asked how my day was going in fourth-period biology. Times when I ignored him for other guys. Times when he was about to ask me out and I made an excuse—which we both knew was bogus—to dodge him. The list goes on and on. It could fill a book. And yet Sam has never injured me back.
Right then and there I swear that I won’t doubt Sam. I’ll accept that he really is as good as he seems, and I’ll spend however long it takes, forever even, making all the times I hurt him right. After that sleep comes easier.
In the morning Sam’s muddy-brown eyes, fringed with hazel lashes, are watching me from their place on the pillow we’re sharing. Blinking carefully, purposefully, so they don’t miss a thing.
I hide my intake of breath with a yawn. “Hey. How’s the leg?”
He mimes rapping on his knee protruding from under the covers. “Still there.” He smiles lopsidedly. “Stiff, but not so bad. You okay?”
“Fine,” I say in a tense voice. “Have you been awake for long?”
“Twenty minutes or so. I’ve been thinking about the cat in the cemetery.” He frowns. “Griever admitted to sacrificing all those animals, but she also made a point to say she buried them so people didn’t come across their corpses. She’s managed to fly under the radar for decades.”
I shrug against the pillow.
Sam’s brow knits as he focuses on me. “The cat in the cemetery was just left there. We found it.” He waits for me to comment. I should. Sam is observant and smart, but I can’t stop watching his hands like they’re going to thrust out and strangle me. “That seems pretty sloppy for someone who’s been at it for decades.”
I blink once and focus on his face. “She must leave the animals out as an offering to . . . it. She collects their bodies later.”
“But the cat was beheaded.”
“She’s deranged.”
“The pelts on the walls had their heads . . . or at least the fur that would have been on their heads and ears.”
“I don’t know, Sam.” I sigh, shaking my head. “Maybe she’s going crazier?”
Sam pushes up on his elbow, eyes crinkling, studying me. “What’s wrong?” His hair is
plastered to his head, and his cheeks are lip-gloss pink. The covers, twisted around us, seem to tighten around my legs, binding them up.
He reaches to touch my shoulder and stops. I’m staring wide-eyed at the approaching hand like I’m looking for traces of blood. “Stella, talk to me,” he whispers.
Heat creeps into my face. What am I doing? What am I thinking? This is Sam. I laid all this suspicion to rest. It was only a symptom of the horror of the night. But from the instant I opened my eyes and saw him watching, all I could think was, You don’t miss anything. How did you miss Jeanie being taken?
“Look, I want to forget about all of this. Jeanie. Jane Doe. All of it,” I say, fast and messy. If I spew enough words, tell Sam whatever lies I must to make him leave, the horrible things I want to accuse him of won’t come out. “Even if I do remember, I don’t know that a recovered memory eleven years too late is going to make a difference. I destroyed my believability once I lied in front of the whole world yesterday.”
Sam rubs the parenthesis between his brows. “What about what Griever told us?”
“What about it? I didn’t need her to tell me there’s something unnatural in the woods. Decades of missing girls. Centuries more of everyone who ever settled here dying and fighting and struggling. It’s always been here. The bone in Jane Doe’s hand proves that it’s been killing for a thousand years. Maybe more. Maybe it causes the darkness in Savage, or maybe all the darkness clotting here made it. Like a scab on the earth in this one place.” My tone has the hush of sharing an awful secret.
“I don’t need to know. Jeanie’s gone. There’s no bringing her back. Or any of them. And this is nothing but crazy, us hiking through the woods, talking about monsters and things that totally can’t exist.” I’m going on blindly, groping for words. “I mean, if whoever or whatever offed Jeanie has it out for me, they’ve had eleven years to get me. And guess what? They haven’t.” A shudder of awareness runs up my spine. If Sam is hiding something, he’s had years to hurt me, and all he’s done is proven that he won’t.
“I have to ask, though.” I rub my palm back and forth across my face. No, no, no, what am I thinking? This is Sam. I can’t stop it, though. Here it comes. “Where were you, Sam?”
He half smiles, like he’s not certain if I’m telling a joke and he doesn’t want me to feel like I’m not funny. “Where was I when?”
“When Jeanie was taken.” I exhale the words with a breath I’ve been holding. “Why weren’t you there, at Jeanie’s, with us in the woods? Why haven’t you ever mentioned where you were before?”
Sam bolts upright, kicking the blankets away, swinging his feet to the floor. “That sounds like more of an accusation than a question,” he says softly. His back to me, he bends to slip the sweats off and his pants and shoes on. I hear a soft grunt like he’s in pain, but he doesn’t stop until he’s on his feet.
I will my body to free itself, untangle my ankles, but I can’t make my legs cooperate through the trembling, and I only manage to sit. “Why aren’t you answering me?” I plead.
Blood tie-dyes the white gauze around his revealed leg. “Because I shouldn’t have to defend myself, Stella. Not to you. Not after . . . after everything.” I know he means every time I threw him away; every time he gave me another chance. Sam strides unevenly to the door and pauses at the threshold. He stares at his sneakers. “I was an idiot to think you’re still that little girl who loved more and climbed higher and swam faster and laughed harder.” I slump back onto my pillow. “I kept looking. Trying to find bits of who you used to be, but she doesn’t exist anymore. You’re not her.” He moves soundlessly from the room, down the stairs, and out of the house with barely a rumble as his station wagon accelerates from my driveway. Sam leaving me is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. You’re not her.
During the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, every time I think of Jeanie or Sam or Zoey or Daniel, my ears ring with Sam’s words. I’m letting them all down because Sam is right; I’m not as fearless as that little girl growling in the Polaroid, gripping a spear on the hunt for monsters. I’m surprised she couldn’t keep Jeanie safe. I’m not as brave as the ten-year-old who pulled Sam in for a kiss. And I’m definitely not as honest. I should have admitted to myself sooner what last night and this morning were actually about. Sam got hurt because of me, and I was scared to death that I’d lose him like I lose everyone else, like I lost my mother, who is the one person in this world you’re not supposed to lose. I guess making him leave by accusing him of something unforgivable was easier than waiting around for it to happen naturally. How could I doubt Sam for even a second? I take refuge in the shower, hoping the water will pound away the aching in my chest.
I can’t stop thinking about how everyone else changed because of Jeanie, her absence, and the mystery around it. Is Jeanie why Zoey is the high school equivalent of a Viking raider when she covets something? Did Zoey learn early on that you lose what you don’t fight to keep? Is Jeanie why Mom left? Did Mom wonder if there was a reason I came back and Jeanie didn’t? Did Mom wonder what it said about me that I survived a monster? I dunk my head under the pounding water.
I won’t stop looking for who or what took Jeanie. I can’t. Everyone else stopped, and she deserves better.
I check my cell after drying off. A text from Zoey:
Come 2 Cole’s bash tonight. We’ve got 2 talk.
That’s it. No Sorry for flaking on watching your back last night. No Did you survive? I throw the cell at my bed; it skids to a stop at my stuffed bunny’s feet.
“Can you effing believe that?” I ask in a tizzy. The bunny doesn’t answer. So this is how it’s going to be. I’ll get whiplash trying to keep up with Zoey’s bipolarness over Sam. I throw myself on my bed. I completely forgot about Cole’s party. Playing host at your first bash is kind of a rite of passage for newbies at school, and now that the whole town thinks the psycho serial killer on the loose has been caught, there’s no reason people wouldn’t show up. Still, I feel burned that Cole didn’t at least try to cancel.
After texting Zoey ten times with no response, I text Cole and Michaela the same message:
Not up for 2night. Soorrryy xoxo
Michaela responds before the screen turns dark from the sent text:
Miss u. Let’s hang 2morrow. Call if u need me.
Cole responds a minute later:
Tried canceling. Z says party must go on.
I blink at the screen as I’m walking to the kitchen to scrounge up a piece of fruit or a yogurt. I’d probably spend most of the afternoon wondering what Zoey’s motivation is for not letting Cole cancel, but a fist pounds on my front door.
I peek through the peephole and see Caleb raking his floppy hair from his eyes.
“Hi, stranger,” I call.
He jumps a little as I swing the door open. “Hey, can I come in?” His voice sounds tight, nervous. He ducks his head and shrugs deeper into his jacket as he slips past me. It occurs to me that he might be upset that I’ve been secretive and absent since we spoke the day at the cove.
“I’m really sorry we haven’t been able to hang out much since you’ve been home,” I say as he hovers in the middle of the living room. He’s shifting by the recliner, as if he can’t make up his mind whether he’s staying long enough to sit. “Are you mad?” I ask.
His eyes meet mine for the first time. They’re caught off guard. “No, sorry. I need a cigarette or something. I’m freaking nervous.” He flashes an apologetic smile and drops into the recliner with a groan.
I settle cross-legged on the end of the couch nearest him. My eyes drift to a muscle pulsing in his jaw. “Why are you nervous?”
“Look, Stella.” He rubs his dry palms together like sandpaper. “I’ve got to be honest with you about something.”
My hands wrap around my ankles and I squeeze, willing away dread. “Okay. You’re kind of scaring me.”
He hazards a quick smile that doesn’t reassure me. “It’s just tha
t Zoey cornered me last night and had a million questions about the summer Jeanie went missing, and I realized I kind of left you guys high and dry without talking to you. Saying I’d tell your dad and all . . . well, it was a dick move. Snitches get stitches and all that.”
I smirk and relax. “Did you learn that from a Jay-Z song?”
“Probably.” He smiles at the joke, but the lightness of his expression fades fast. “I remember hunting monsters.” I’m instantly angled forward. “I told Zo last night I didn’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t give her answers. There’s a reason for that. There was so much in the year leading up to Jeanie that you guys are too young to remember.” His face is thinner and sharper than usual; his cheekbones like blades as he continues. “Boys always talk about supernatural shit. In the second grade we’d yell ‘Bloody Mary’ three times in the mirror. At the beginning of third grade a couple of kids saw two bums beating on a mangy-looking dog in the woods. It inspired all kinds of crazy stories. Kids were going on about camps full of drifters who were cannibals or dog eaters. That same year Jeremy Bellamy—he was that kid who walked with a limp from shattering his right leg when he was a toddler?” He pauses and I nod. Jeremy graduated last year from Wildwood. “Anyway, he pissed his pants in the woods behind the elementary school and came out crying about a ghost with empty wet sockets instead of eyeballs. For weeks we tore through the trees, searching.” He takes a deep breath. “None of it was true. Boys want to hunt shit and we didn’t have anything real, so we hunted make-believe.”
I bob my head encouragingly. None of this is new; it’s more detailed than Sam’s account, but there’s nothing earth-shattering. “The spring before Jeanie started that same bullshit way. We—Daniel and me—overheard his dad talking to a ranger buddy about some town legend no one remembers anymore.” His chin juts out, giving him a slight underbite as he thinks hard. “This ancient animal thing lived in the woods. There was some history to it, I think. I couldn’t remember what, and I went to the library the other day to see if they had any folklore-type books about Savage.”
The Creeping Page 25