It was two weeks before Papa said I had to go to town. He was busy around the house and mama had been down with sickness for the last two days. It was hard going outside, and I dreaded the long walk into town, but at least it was a bright day and my route took me away from the swamp. The trip was uneventful, and I was actually feeling better by the time I made it back.

It was as I was about to climb the front steps that I heard a voice coming from under the house.

“Libby?”

I stopped mid-step, my pulse pounding. The voice was coarse and strange, but I still recognized it as Jesse’s. Feeling a thrill of happy relief, I sat down the bag I had and kneeled down to see better. “Jesse? Is that you?”

“Libby…? I’m so hot, Libby. So hot and so hungry…”

I could see dim outlines of a shadow shifting in the darkness under the house. I didn’t understand why she was under there, but maybe she had a fever and was out of her head. My first thought was to go get help, but when I went to stand, she called out to me again.

“Please…please don’t go. Help me. I hurt. My mouth hurts. I hurt all over and I’ve been alone so long.”

Crouching back down, I felt a warning buzz in the back of my head, but I told it to be quiet. This was my friend Jesse, who was likely terrified and half-starved to death. So I’d help her out from under the house and then get her someone once she saw I wasn’t leaving her.

Reaching my arms forward, I motioned for her to come closer. I didn’t like going under the house, and that dim bell of alarm kept sounding louder whenever I thought about moving forward. Still, she seemed to be coming closer. I could hear shuffling sounds in the dirt and the shadow seemed to be growing larger.

I couldn’t scream when she suddenly grabbed my ankles and started pulling me into the dark under the house. Landing on my back had knocked the air out of me. I had a moment where I felt like I was drowning, getting pulled down into some dark pit of quicksand, and then I managed to kick her off one of my feet as I finally let out a thin, gasping yell.

I retreated half a foot, but then she was pulling me back in, her hands like iron on my lower legs, and then my thighs as she drug me deeper into the shadowy belly of the house. I let out a more full-throated scream, but it turned into a shriek as I felt my right leg explode in pain. There was a moment where I felt like everything was kind of…collapsing in on itself…and then I was free.