The Devil Crept In Read online

  She snatched the waterlogged sneaker off the ground and scanned the area, frantic to find the body she knew had to be there somewhere. But there was nothing—at least not that she could see. The ground was a chaotic pastiche of ferns and downed trees, a coat of moss shining through in shades of neon chartreuse. Brambles of wild blackberries and snarls of ivy obstructed her view. She turned in a circle once, twice, three times, her gaze scanning the woods that suddenly appeared the same no matter which direction she looked. For half a second, she couldn’t remember which way she had come. But, eventually regaining her bearings, she fell into a run.

  Because Otto always brought the bodies home.

  · · ·

  When she reached the house, the little sneaker was still clasped in her hand. It was evidence. Damning. It couldn’t be found. But it was also proof of her worst suspicion. Deer Valley was too far for kids to wander near her home, but it wasn’t distant enough for Otto not to visit in the night. The older Otto grew, the bolder he became. The owner of that shoe had been lured. Or dragged. A shudder quaked her from the inside out as she pictured the attack, pictured Otto, pictured the child . . .

  No. Don’t.

  She pushed those images out of her mind, searched the front yard, but there was nothing for her to find. Because she was wrong. Otto had nothing to do with this. She was wrong. A family had gone hiking along the trail, regardless of its overgrown state. She was wrong. The owner of the red sneaker had been small, unable to push through the undergrowth. He’d lost it while riding on Ansel’s shoulders, Rosie bringing up the rear with a picnic basket, the three of them singing a round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” A kick of the foot, or the snag of a branch. Lots of things could loosen an untied shoe. Yes, she told herself as she trudged through the yard and around the back of the house, those rain boots clomping with every step. Otto would never. He wouldn’t. He knows it’s wrong.

  Yes. He knew it was wrong. Which was why he hadn’t left the body in the front yard, but had dragged it to the back.

  Rosie screamed when she saw it; the sound involuntary, clawing its way up and out of her throat. The body was nearly impossible to identify. But the sneaker’s twin left no doubt. There had been no picnic. No singing. No hike. Stuck onto the end of a disembodied leg, the shoe winked in the sun like a red flag. Red for the unforgivable thing Otto had done; for the terrible acts Rosie had allowed him to commit; for the horrible, pulsating love she had for a child that was more monster than man.

  If there was ever a time when thoughts of abandonment should have overtaken her devotion, it was now. Her mind yelled RUN. It screamed DRIVE. Drive as far away as she could before pulling over to sob. Drive to Big Sur. Find Ras. Ask for help. But even as she stood there—her mouth hanging open, her pulse hammering hard enough to ignite sparks behind her eyes—the urge was sequestered by a single, throbbing thought:

  Protect him.

  She wept as she picked body parts off the grass, her yellow gloves—retrieved from beneath the kitchen sink—shining crimson as she dropped that sneakered leg into an open grave. She stopped to vomit, her body expunging every bit of breakfast and bile until there was nothing left to purge. And still she continued to heave, as though God himself was trying to cleanse her of the responsibility she’d taken on as her own.

  When she was too tired to cry, she found herself staring into the hole at her feet. This body, this boy, was not like the others. She couldn’t bury him, not here. Dead dogs and cats could be whittled down to her being crazy; just a batty outlier with a soft spot for interring strays. But a child? If anyone found the bones . . .

  Not here. Not here.

  Her gaze shifted to the home Ansel had built, a home that had once been bright and sunny and perfect with its picket fence and big, clean windows. The place was starting to go green with mold and neglect. The wooden roof shingles were turning up at the edges, and the bottom porch steps had taken on a distinctive slump. And there, in the shade of a porch that needed a new coat of paint, was the nightmare that had become her life.

  Otto sat crouched in the shadow of the awning, watching his mother stand among the dead. He lifted an arm—not his own, but a disembodied limb belonging to the dead boy at Rosie’s feet—and brought it to his blood-smeared mouth, as if to remind her . . .

  This is your life. Because I say so. Because you are mine.

  PART THREE

  18

  * * *

  JUDE STOOD IN his sunny backyard, the lawn nothing but a dry husk. His mom didn’t run the sprinklers anymore, and the grass had turned yellow despite occasional rain. Standing in the far corner of the property and staring at the back fence, it was as if he was studying a particularly interesting knot in the weathered pine. At least that’s the way it looked as Stevie approached.

  “H-hey, Jude.” Yeah, Stevie got the reference. Once upon a time, Uncle Scott followed up every greeting Stevie offered his best friend by singsonging lines from that famous tune. Don’t bring him down. Don’t make things bad.

  Don’t be afraid.

  At first, Jude didn’t move, as if he hadn’t heard Stevie speak. It was only when Stevie closed the distance that Jude turned to face him, but he didn’t smile, and he didn’t give his cousin a Hey in return. He only scratched at the inside of his arm; the skin red and irritated, a rash on the cusp of needing medical attention.

  “What’s up?” Stevie asked, trying to play it cool. Maybe things would be okay if, like the adults, he pretended everything was fine. Jude shrugged at the question and chewed on his bottom lip, gnawing at a bit of chapped skin. Nothing was up.

  Stevie frowned as his friend turned away, casting a glance at the fence that held Jude’s rapt attention. He didn’t see anything particularly interesting in that corner, just old and splintery planks of wood that needed paint. There was a hole in one of the boards where a knot had once been, one that had either been punched out or had shriveled up and fallen away on its own. But there wasn’t much to see through that peephole other than a bunch of trees; nothing out there but forest and leaves.

  “Hey,” Stevie said. “Guess what. Guess what. Guess.”

  Jude narrowed his eyes at the fence, continuing to scratch just above the crook of his left elbow. That slow-growing blotch was making Stevie uncomfortable. It looked gross, nearing infection. Jude eventually gave Stevie a sidelong look—What?—but he didn’t speak.

  “I s-saw you on TV.” Stevie hoped the possibility of fifteen minutes of fame would perk Jude up. “On TV,” he repeated. “You were on the news last night, on TV when the news came on, and there you were, on the news like Wolf Blitzer.” He cracked a grin. Wolf Blitzer. Neither of them knew who that guy was, but the name? Epic. “Wolf Blitzer.” Stevie echoed the moniker once more. How cool would it be to go to school with a name like that? He bet Wolf never got a tray of mac and cheese smashed into his shirt during lunch.

  Jude didn’t smile. He said nothing.

  “You looked like a real dumb dummy,” Stevie said. “Like, a huge dumb dimwit smelly armpit idiot. I bet you’re gonna be famous now. They’re gonna put your name in lights, blink blink, casino flamingo pink with the neon like the Monopoly guy.” He lifted his hands up, imagining the marquee above the ValleyPlex on Main. “Jude: biggest armpit in town.”

  “Oh yeah?” It was the first thing Jude had said to him—possibly said at all, other than the three words he’d muttered to the newslady the day before. And while Stevie knew he was running the risk of making Jude mad, it seemed to be paying off. There was a glimmer of a smirk at the corner of his cousin’s mouth.

  “Yeah,” Stevie challenged, pushing just a little harder.

  “And how’s that gonna work, jerk?” Jude asked. “You’re just gonna let me take that title from you? After you’ve been holding on to it since the day you were born . . . Sack?”

  Stevie grinned at the smart-ass comment—work, jerk—suddenly overwhelmed with relief. Heck, that blank stare he had seen on TV was probably just Jude bein
g camera shy or embarrassed or something.

  Stevie closed the distance between them a little more. He wanted to stand close—arm to arm, if he was allowed; replace the fear that had settled into the corners of his heart with the comfort of proximity. He would have reached out and given Jude a hug if he wasn’t so sure he’d get socked for it, but standing close was enough. It felt real, like something he hadn’t been sure he’d ever get to experience again.

  They stood in silence for a few seconds, both of them watching the planks of the fence like a pair of lunatics. But before Stevie could settle into things being good, being right, something in the air shifted and that comfort was replaced by a strange sort of weight. Jude was scratching again, and it was giving Stevie the creeps.

  “Wanna go to the fort?” Stevie asked. Getting away from the house would do Jude some good. They still had work to do out there. Before Jude had vanished, he had been adamant—That thing isn’t gonna build itself, dude. But now, with the question floating in the space between them, Jude didn’t seem compelled by the idea.

  “Not really,” he murmured.

  Not really? What the hell? Stevie looked away from the spot Jude was scratching and squinted at the ground. “Is it because of what happened? What happened? Where did you go, Jude? How come you didn’t run away if you knew the way, because you did know the way, didn’t you? You know because I know you know. I know you know.” This was loaded, dangerous talk—his mom would ground him for the rest of his life if she only knew what he was saying. But nobody else was throwing down this type of inquest, at least not that Stevie could tell. Perhaps the cops had, but how was he supposed to know what Jude had told them? It wasn’t as though Aunt Mandy was going to be like, Oh, hey, Stevie, here’s a transcript of Jude’s interview with the police, since you’re really into all that investigation stuff.

  Jude didn’t reply, though Stevie could hear the soft rustle of his cousin’s T-shirt: a disinterested rise and fall of his shoulders. I’m not telling you anything.

  “If we go to the fort, it’ll be okay if we both go,” Stevie assured him. “Nothing’s gonna get us out there, not if we stick together it won’t. You don’t have to be scared.”

  “Scared?” Jude snorted. He turned to face Stevie without warning, and for a second he looked rabid with offense. He pulled his right arm back, his hand coiled into a fist. “Why don’t you get the fuck out of here?” he hissed. “Go. Leave me alone.”

  “But . . .” Stevie backed away as Jude stepped toward him. Was Jude abandoning their project, after all the work they’d put into it? After all the plans they had made to construct the coolest fort in all the Pacific Northwest? And was he really going to pummel him, right here in the backyard with both their moms home? Stevie’s gaze shifted from his cousin to a stray in the corner of Aunt Mandy’s yard—possibly the same one he’d seen a few nights back, hanging out in rectangles of window light. Jude noticed it, too. He leaned down, swept a rock up off the ground, launched it at the feline, and missed it by a good two feet. But the cat spooked anyway. It veered around the side of the house, out of sight.

  “I—I—I don’t want to go, Jude,” Stevie said. “I can’t do it by myself. It’s our fort, remember? . . . Remember?”

  That last part was a slipup, and he knew it as soon as the question crossed his lips. It was born of that blank stare, a result of that gentle, alarming sway. That terrifying look, nothing but emptiness behind Jude’s eyes. Because Stevie had been right the first time. It hadn’t been shyness or embarrassment or sleepiness, like Aunt Mandy had tried to suggest. There had been something wrong with Jude.

  “Yeah, well, then don’t do it by yourself.” Jude’s tone was sharp. “Hell, I don’t give a shit.”

  “B-but Jude . . . dude . . . Jude . . . dude . . .” Stevie swallowed, then whispered, “Fortress of Solitude.” I’m screwed.

  “But nothing,” Jude said, cutting him off. “I’m not building some stupid baby fort with some crazy Dr. Seuss, so forget about it, okay? Do it yourself, or get some of your dumb-ass friends to help.” He turned away, back to the punched-out knot in the fence. There would be no ass-beating, at least not right now; not if Stevie watched his mouth from here on out.

  The Dr. Seuss thing, though? That was low. Jude had made fun of Stevie’s speech stuff before, but he’d never stooped to calling him names. And dumb-ass friends? Stevie didn’t get it. He didn’t have any friends. The Dr. Seuss thing was exactly why kids didn’t want to hang out with him. That, and his missing fingers. Because you never knew if and when crazy could be contagious.

  “I only have one dumb-ass friend,” Stevie said under his breath, “a-and that’s you, Jew.” Ass-kicking be damned, mean deserved mean back.

  Jude scowled. “You call me a Jew one more time and I’m gonna mash your teeth straight into your brain, you get it?”

  Stevie swallowed the spit that had gone sour in his mouth. He waited for Jude to recant his warning the way he always did. Sometimes, Jude’s anger got the best of him, but after a few seconds he always remembered who Stevie was. Never in the history of their friendship had he left a browbeating hanging between them like a guillotine blade. But Jude continued to scowl, still scratching, his posture reminiscent of a bully ready to give a scrawny kid the whupping of his life.

  And now that Stevie was looking at him, really looking, Jude appeared to be getting quite the sunburn, as though he’d been out in the yard for hours rather than minutes. His skin was starting to peel above the apples of his cheeks, which were chapped like his lips.

  Stevie took a couple of steps away from his cousin. “Hey, I’m sorry, sorry, so—” he stammered, then cut himself off. “I didn’t mean it.” Jude ignored him as if to say, Yeah, whatever, while Stevie stood there, chewing his bottom lip, staring at clumps of dried-up grass, trying to keep his tongue from knotting itself around his brain. The stray was back, slowly high-stepping through the weeds, trying to be quiet as it kept to the side of the fence, as if not wanting to be spotted again.

  “You’re toast,” Stevie said, turning his attention back to his cousin.

  “What?” Jude barked out the word. Did Stevie just threaten him?

  “N-no, I mean toaster strudel, Judel.” Uncontrollable. “Burnt like toast, Jude. You should put on some block.” Rock in a sock. Coldcock. Ticktock.

  He hoped a change of subject would get them back on track, realign his thoughts, help him stop thinking about Jude busting him in his mouth. This was all part of the process, right? Jude had that post-dramatic soldier thing. Sometimes vets could hear gunfire in their bedrooms, so why couldn’t Jude think he was still in the woods? That must have been why he was being so weird.

  “I went to look for you,” Stevie said. “I saw something swing like a spring, ding-a-ling. On the porch . . .” He paused, squeezed his eyes and fists tight. “Of that, of that house.”

  “What house?”

  What house? Jude had only been obsessed with the place, and now he didn’t remember it, either? “Along the road . . .” The cat crept closer.

  “Oh.” Jude glowered back at him, like Yeah, of course I remember. “So?” He was still scratching at that one spot on his arm, and while Stevie couldn’t be sure, he swore his cousin looked even more sunburned than he had a few minutes before. The chapped bits on his cheeks were drying out and curling in on themselves the way scorched paper does. “So what did you see, genius?”

  Stevie hesitated. Now may not be the best time to bring it up.

  “H-hey, maybe we should go inside and hide inside?”

  “Are you gonna tell me what you saw or what?” Impatience peppered Jude’s tone.

  “A shadow,” Stevie said, except as soon as the word left him he was distressed by how benign the whole thing sounded. “I mean, I mean, no, I mean . . . It wasn’t just a shadow, it was a thing. A creature . . .”

  “A creature,” Jude repeated.

  Stevie’s gaze darted to the opposite corner of the yard. Another cat? He squinte
d, wondering if there really was a pair of strays, or if he was just seeing double.

  “Or maybe it was a person . . .” Stevie lifted a hand, pointed to cat number two, but Jude didn’t seem to notice. “A missing person.” The figure could have been human. A really weird, mangled one, but a human nonetheless.

  “So you went into the woods and you saw a person,” Jude summarized. “Big whoop.” He crouched, grabbed another stone, let it fly. Cat number two scrambled. Cat number one froze, still undetected by the boy with the rocks.

  Stevie couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the spot on Jude’s arm, wondering how much more scratching it would take before it started to tear open and bleed. Or how much longer Jude had to stay outside before his skin began to blister beneath the sun and he caught fire like a firework fuse on the Fourth of July.

  “Didn’t I tell you to get lost?” Jude asked. He kicked at a rock with the tip of his sneaker, as if to suggest that it had Stevie’s name written all over it. The cats had gotten theirs; Stevie was next.

  “Okay,” Stevie said, reluctant but conceding. “Okay, okay.” He had pushed too hard. He had to back off. “B-but can you come over later, maybe if you feel like?” he offered, still hopeful. “We’ve got Rocky Road, à la mode.”

  Again, Jude didn’t bother with a reply, and while Stevie still had a million things he wanted to discuss, it was time to pack it in. He’d try again later. Or Jude could actually take him up on his offer and show up on his doorstep for ice cream and video games. Rather than Stevie pushing, Jude would hopefully come to terms with what had happened on his own.

  Except, that didn’t solve Stevie’s problem: that thing was still out there. What if it came back? What if it really was human? The idea of it made his skin crawl. Like something out of an old-timey freak show. Except, no. Impossible. He just imagined that stuff, just like the snakes and spiders and worms. Because monsters weren’t real . . . right? “Right,” he whispered beneath his breath, then turned on the balls of his feet to go. With his head down, he shuffled toward Aunt Mandy’s weedy side yard, kicking up dirt as he went. A third cat awaited him, blinking up at Stevie with its almond-shaped eyes.