The Devil Crept In Read online

  “Thank you.” Rosie gave Sanderson a faint smile. Myers, who looked as though he’d been considering taking her up on the invitation of a tour, appeared satisfied with the exchange.

  “No need to go inside,” he said. “But we’d appreciate you keeping an eye out.” He popped open his aluminum clipboard, fished out a business card, and handed it over. “If you see anything, give us a call.”

  Rosie took the card. “I don’t have a working phone at the moment, but I’ll certainly drive in.”

  “There’ll be a search party,” Sanderson said. “If you hear dogs barking or people yelling out here, that’s what it is. No need to be alarmed.”

  “I see.” She looked down at the card. A search party would be problematic. “Just during the day?”

  “Not much to see at night,” Myers chimed in.

  “And . . . for how long?” she asked. “Not that I mind, it’s just . . . I have a cat. Sasha.” Poor, dead Sasha. “He doesn’t much care for dogs.” Rosie gave them a conciliatory smile. “I’d rather keep him indoors if they’re going to be close by. He spooks easily.” Surely, they could understand her concern.

  “Just one cat?” Meyers asked. “There are a couple under your porch.”

  “Oh.” Rosie waved a hand, as if to shoo the idea away. “Strays. I don’t know how they find me.” A couple. If it hadn’t been raining and they hadn’t gone to hide, there would be half a dozen at least.

  “The search should last a week,” Sanderson said. “More than likely two, though there’s no telling exactly where they’ll be looking. They’ll start at sunup and be done around six or seven in the evening, if that helps.”

  “It does,” Rosie said. “May I join the search?” She had no intention of looking for the child she knew would never be found, but it seemed like something a guilty party would never suggest. Just as a killer wouldn’t invite a police officer inside the house, especially with the body hidden only a handful of steps left of the door.

  “Absolutely,” Sanderson said. “They’re meeting at five thirty tomorrow morning, Trinity Church parking lot. From what I gather, that’ll be their regular spot. Everyone willing and able is encouraged to come. They’ll have doughnuts, I think.” He flashed her a smile that made him look half his age.

  “Doughnuts?” She feigned interest. “Well, in that case I’ll certainly try to make it.” Then gave him a wink. “Thank you, officers.”

  “Thank you.” Sanderson seemed nice; a good man just doing his job, an overgrown kid in uniform. Rosamund almost felt bad lying to him. “And if you’re having trouble with those strays, don’t hesitate to call the nonemergency line. We’ll dispatch a unit.”

  “Good luck with your search,” she told them. “May God help that little boy return home safely.” Oh, you’re a piece of work, she thought to herself. A real actress. Next up, the Academy Awards.

  “Have a good night, ma’am,” Myers said.

  “Night, Mrs. Aleksander,” Sanderson bid farewell. “Hope to see you there.”

  Rosie watched them descend the stairs, step into the rain, climb into their cruiser, and slowly roll away. She stared out at the logging road—once busy, now hardly ever used—and waited for the car to disappear, imagining those officers mulling over their visit. Sanderson was probably reminiscing about Ansel and how much his little sister seemed to have liked him; fantasizing about free jelly-filled pastries, the kind that Ansel loved best. Myers had seemed more suspicious. Rosie glanced over her shoulder, curious as to what it was that he had found so interesting inside her house. It was only then, as if seeing the place for the first time, that she realized just how much of a wreck it was.

  What had once been a bright and happy home was now a tangle of furniture and misplaced objects. The couches, which had once sat next to each other at a perfect right angle, were strewn about, as though she had started rearranging them only to grow bored with the task. The same went for the side tables and lamps. Her beloved Persian rug—once the jewel of the living room with its vibrant orange color and intricate design—was now nothing but a faded, tattered tapestry pushed halfway across the room, so far from the randomly placed couches that it appeared as if Rosie had simply unrolled it and let it lie, skewed angle and all. There were no sharp corners to anything, no interior design. It was hard to keep a house looking like something out of a magazine when the child who lived in it belonged in a zoo.

  But an unkempt house was none of Officer Myers’s business. She had made a point to bring up Ansel’s death, which, in her opinion, permanently excused her from worrying about feng shui for the rest of her natural life. If Officer Myers wanted a case against her, he’d have to report her to Better Homes and Gardens for judgment; the honorable Martha Stewart presiding.

  And while seeing the house with a fresh pair of eyes was disconcerting—because really, how did it get so out of sorts without her noticing?—she had bigger problems. Satisfied that the police weren’t going to return—at least not that evening—she made sure the front curtains were securely drawn, double-checked the front-door lock, and moved toward the staircase. She pulled the door built beneath it open, pushed a few old coats aside, and accessed the second, nearly invisible entryway along the back wall. When she opened it, Otto rushed past her and into the house like a dog in urgent need of being let out.

  She gaped at the small room she’d left him in. The trash bags and their unspeakable contents were torn open. Shredded black plastic decorated the room like morbid party streamers at a murder scene. Rosie winced away from the horror of it. She’d be scrubbing up Otto’s ungodliness first thing in the morning—and possibly cleaning it over and over for weeks if she couldn’t get rid of the body, at least until Max Larsen’s search party threw in the towel. But there wasn’t time to dawdle. Spinning around to look behind her, Otto was out of sight, but his bloody prints trailed from beneath the stairs and into the kitchen. She found him struggling with the back-porch door, his gnarled hands smearing blood up and down the white wood trim as he pawed at the lock.

  A black thought slithered across the wrinkles of her brain.

  A terrible, awful, seductively tempting thought.

  If she kept Otto locked up for long enough, there would be no body to bury.

  If she let her son do what came naturally, there would be nothing but bones picked clean.

  21

  * * *

  THE BOYS ARRIVED at the fort empty-handed—something Jude would have found exasperatingly unproductive only a week before. But as they both stood there, staring up at their nearly completed structure, Jude seemed just fine with it now. And for the first time that summer, their once-masterful hideout struck Stevie as cheap and crummy, a sorry attempt at a tree house if there ever was one. The whole thing looked more cockeyed than before, not a single straight board to the place. And despite the hundreds of salvaged nails they’d used to secure it to the tree, he was positive that even the most sapless summer storm would knock it off its perch. Strange, seeing as how he’d considered it man’s greatest achievement just days ago. But now, an undeniable pang of disappointment began to unspool inside his chest.

  Jude was still scratching, and Stevie was compelled to grab his hands and hold them still, but he was sure he’d get popped in the mouth if he tried. That, and Jude’s arms were peeling—something Stevie hadn’t noticed until just then, or perhaps he hadn’t noticed because it was new.

  Jude made a move for the fort, caught one of the ladder boards they had nailed to the trunk, and began to climb. Halfway up, he shot Stevie an expectant look, but Stevie didn’t move. There was a good twenty feet between them now, and unlike yesterday, when Stevie had craved closeness, today he wasn’t the least bit interested in closing the gap.

  “Are you coming or what?” Jude asked.

  No, Stevie didn’t think he was. He wanted to be out here with Jude, hoped it would help his cousin come around. But Jude had threatened to push Stevie out of that citadel before, and that was when he had been norm
al. Who knew what he’d end up doing if Stevie followed him up now?

  “Um, I don’t think so, no.”

  “What the hell do you mean you don’t think so?” Jude glowered from his perch. “What was the point of us coming out here, then?”

  The point had been to rekindle the thing that they had lost; to right the wrongs that had displaced the past.

  “I thought you just wanted to see it again.” Maybe, just maybe, despite its dilapidated construction and splintery boards, the fort would remind Jude of how things between them had once been. There had been magic in that tree house. Each crooked nail told the story of their unshakable bond.

  But if that fort ever had magic, it appeared to be gone. Roosted a good six feet overhead, Jude pushed away from the ladder nailed to that tree and took a flying leap down to the forest floor. He looked frustrated, angry, but Stevie was too mesmerized by the grace of his cousin’s vault to pay Jude’s annoyance much mind. Had Stevie tried that same jump, he would have twisted an ankle, possibly even broken his leg. But Jude? He’d sprung to the ground with the confidence of one of those loitering strays, and he’d landed just as elegantly, too.

  “Why would I just want to see it again?” Jude glared up at the tree house with a clear sense of disdain. “It’s a piece of shit. I bet this tree is so embarrassed to have that thing in its branches, it’ll be dead by next summer.”

  That was it, then. The only question left now was whether it had been Stevie’s fear or Jude’s disappearance that had opened their eyes to the harshness of their crooked, weatherworn reality. Or had it been both, and now neither Jude nor Stevie could see the good around them?

  “I told my mom I’d be home soon. Balloon. Name that tune.” He needed to back out of this whole thing, to turn tail and book it back into town. But Jude wasn’t buying it.

  “Uh-huh,” Jude said, his face sour with aggravation, his fingernails clawing at his skin. “I can name that tune in one note. That tune is ‘Bullshit,’ performed by Stevie Chickenshit Clark.”

  “Serious,” Stevie insisted. “She didn’t even want me”—a pause, a correction—“us, us to c-come out here. She’s scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “I guess of just, like, just, like, just, like, someone taking us again.”

  Jude shifted his weight, crossed his arms over his chest. “You mean someone taking me again,” he said. “You can’t be taken again if you haven’t been taken before, dumbass.”

  “Dumbass,” Stevie echoed quietly. “Dumbass, dumbshit.”

  “Who’re you calling a dumbshit, Shitsack?”

  “N-no-nobody . . .” Stevie held up his hands. It was as if Jude wanted to fight, something inside scratch-scratch-scratching at the part of him that yearned for violence.

  “Whatever,” Jude said flatly. “Seems pretty weird for your mom to worry about what happens to you out here when she doesn’t give a shit about what happens to you at home.”

  Stevie’s mouth went dry. His chest clenched. Now he was going after Stevie’s mom? But Jude looked beyond giving a damn. If Stevie’s feelings were hurt, it’s because he was a pansy. Not Jude’s problem. Maybe Terry could fix Stevie’s gutless condition with a few hefty swings of his belt.

  “You know what I think?” Jude asked. “I think you can’t even stand up to your own old man, step- or not. You don’t have the guts to tell The Tyrant to fuck off. So, whatever you think you saw at that house? There isn’t a chance in hell you’ve got the balls to go after it. Not that it was even real . . .”

  Stevie stared at the person he felt he knew best in life, and hardly recognized him. He looked down at his feet a moment later, unable to meet Jude’s gaze. Sure, there were shades of Jude there—the cant of his head, certain turns of phrase—but otherwise it was some other boy. Some kid Stevie would have never been close with because he was cutthroat and mean.

  “Well, what do you say? Let’s go check it out. Do you got a pair, or what?” Jude asked.

  Stevie didn’t know what it was about the situation that made him pivot from near-tears to anger so fast. But now, rather than crying, he imagined himself charging forward, knocking Jude over and pummeling him with his fists. He pictured spit and blood flying from Jude’s mouth, his own hands aching each time his knuckles gnashed against Jude’s teeth. That’s what Jude needed—not patience and understanding, but a severe ass-kicking. It could have been just the ticket to helping the real Jude resurface. Or that could have been Terry talking and, like Dunk, Stevie was slowly turning into a carbon copy of their bastard stepdad. There isn’t much a good beating can’t fix.

  “Yeah.” Stevie nearly spit out the word. “I’ve got a pair to spare.”

  “Then I guess we’re taking a hike,” Jude said. “Right?” He waited for Stevie to respond—probably expecting him to back down, but Stevie wasn’t going to do that. Not this time.

  “S-sure,” he said. “Whatever.”

  Jude snorted, amused by Stevie’s gumption. He rolled his eyes, then glared—not at Stevie, but at the spot on his arm that appeared to be bothering him more and more.

  “What’s wrong with your arm?” Stevie asked, trying to change the subject, hoping like hell that Jude didn’t actually go through with dragging him out to that old house.

  “Nothing,” Jude said in a Mind your own business sort of way. Except, if that was a bug bite he was scratching, Stevie could only envision the insect. Pinchers like needle-nose pliers. One of those Ancient Egyptian scarab beetles, as big as your hand and mean as hell. Except this one would be man-sized, hunched and naked beneath its hard and glossy exoskeleton. Stevie’s eyes flicked away from Jude and to cats hiding in the ferns. He could only see one of them, but it looked heinous. He could swear it was grinning, like a nasty Cheshire cat. And the trees: the branches were teeming with those scarabs, hissing and snapping their pincher mouths, ready to strike. Stevie’s fingers drifted to the inside of his arm, mimicking Jude’s actions, scratching at a phantom itch.

  “We should really get some of that itchy cream from my bathroom,” he said, tearing his attention away from the beetles overhead. “And you sh-shouldn’t scratch like that. It’s gonna get infected.”

  “Maybe you’re gonna get infected,” Jude fired back, but he didn’t bother to look Stevie’s way. He was too focused on the crook of his arm. Giving up on mere scratching, he pressed his mouth against the affected area and began to nip at his skin, like a dog biting at fleas. Stevie grimaced. It looked as though Jude was about ready to eat his own flesh. But now Stevie was scratching, too.

  Maybe you’re gonna get infected. Infected by the brain worms that were going to leap from the cats and burrow into his skull through his ear. Infected by all the bugs and biting spiders that were waiting to Geronimo out of the trees and onto his head. His hand flew from his arm to his hair, scratching, then slapped at the back of his neck, sure he’d just felt an arachnid skitter down into his shirt. He spun around, grabbed his T-shirt by its hem, shook it.

  “Spider!” he yelped. “Hider spider!” He started to jerk his shirt up over his head, but stopped short when he noticed how wide Jude’s eyes had become. “W-what?” he asked, distracted by the sudden flash of fear in his cousin’s eyes. “Jude, what?!” He pirouetted, looked behind him, certain he was about to come face-to-face with that creature thing. It had snuck up on them while Stevie had been doing the buggy cha-cha; while the duo had fought rather than paying attention to their surroundings.

  But there was nothing there.

  “Jude?”

  Jude’s eyes remained wide, silver dollars stuck to his half-hidden face. It was only when he jerked his arm away from his mouth that Stevie saw the blood.

  “Holy crap!” Stevie gasped. “What did you do?!”

  It wasn’t a ton of blood, but it was way more than there should have been. And on Jude’s arm, teeth marks. Stevie could see them from ten feet away.

  Jude tried to play it cool, but Stevie could tell he was scared. He kept giv
ing that laceration the side eye, as though waiting for a colony of mites and their unhatched eggs to come pouring out of the wound.

  “Jude, we gotta go home!” Stevie insisted. “You’re bleeding all over the place, all over your face, all over and under and on to the next!” A trail of crimson was making a fast track for Jude’s wrist. Stevie was about to turn in the direction they had come, ready to lead the trek back home, and fast. But Jude breezed past him, walking too quickly to be casual.

  “Jude, wait!” Stevie rushed after him.

  “Shut up!” Jude barked, but he didn’t slow.

  “Does it hurt?” Of course it did. It had to. Jude had gnawed a hole right into his goddamn arm.

  But Jude only repeated “Shut up” and continued to walk. Less than a minute later, he was scratching again . . . this time at a different spot.

  · · ·

  Stevie kept replaying it in his head, but no matter how he tried to explain the incident away, one thing was clear: Jude hadn’t realized what he was doing until he had chewed a tear into his flesh.

  “Oh my God, Jude.” Aunt Mandy looked as beside herself as Stevie felt. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

  “Nothing,” Jude said, full of angst, just a bunch of mumbled syllables, another Duncan in the works. “It’s just a scrape.” But it was a gash, one bad enough to require soap and water, possibly stitches, judging by the way it had bled.

  Stevie and his mom stood just outside the open bathroom door while Aunt Mandy washed Jude’s arm. And Jude? He just stared into the sink as though not remembering doing what he had done.

  “He had a scratch,” Stevie whispered, waiting for Aunt Mandy to recoil at the teeth marks her cleanup job would inevitably reveal. “Maybe it’s bugs. Maggots. Beetles. The Beatles. ‘Hey Jude.’ He kept scratching and scratching and biting and biting.”

  “Biting?” Stevie’s mom raised an eyebrow. Surely he was making it up. She shot a glance at her sister and nephew, as if trying to decide where her loyalty laid, which only made Stevie wonder what the heck was wrong with her. Did she really think he’d make something like this up?