by J. Thorn
They turned the corner. "NO!" screamed Jason, a shout that came from deep in his gut and took every ounce of his strength and converted it to sound. "NO!" But neither of his loved ones heard. He ran after them.
And as it always did, time...
...slowed...
...down.
He couldn't get there fast enough.
A black crayon rolled out of a blacker alley. Black from black, evil from evil.
Two shots rang out...
And Jason jerked awake with a scream!
He looked around.
He was back in his house. Still in his recliner chair, files still spread out over his lap.
The TV was on, but there was no reception; only snow played on the tube. Jason rubbed at his eyes. He must have fallen asleep for a moment.
He had fallen asleep - had had The Dream - while working on the files that pertained to Sean's disappearance, so small wonder he had jumped right into a dream like the one he had had.
Then he froze as he realized something. His hands. They were not the clean hands of a fastidious county Sheriff.
They were dirty. Grubby. Mud under the nails. As though he had fallen down.
He looked at his pants. The knees were stained with mud as well.
Then the case files on his lap drew his attention. On top of them was a now familiar piece of white paper. Black crayon writing in thick letters. This time, however, there was no cryptic message about a crack in a dam or about being next. The message was short, and to the point.
iT'S sTarTED
***
FOURTEEN
***
Jason looked out a nearby window, casting about for anything that would take his mind off the horrifying appearance of this newest - message? threat? - whatever it was from beyond.
Outside, the mist was so thick that he could barely see anything. Just a few shadows. Maybe they were houses in the distance, maybe they were just nearby trees.
And maybe they were other, less harmless things.
That last thought came unbidden into his mind, and he tried to laugh it off and cast it out without another thought. But he couldn't. It was a real concern. And a moment later he could see why he had such a concern in the first place.
Because some of the shadows seemed to be moving.
He went slowly to his front door and opened it.
The mist was a blanket. Thick, impenetrable, unworldly. He couldn't see ten feet away, so thick was the sudden fog that had descended like a veil meant to cut him off from the town and from memory itself.
The fog was so thick that it was itself frightening.
But as dark and thick as it was, Jason could still see them. Could still see the...things that were moving about in its depths.
Whatever they were, he got the distinct impression that they were not friendly.
***
Throughout Rising the mist penetrated each yard, each house. People's televisions blinked on and off and then dissolved into snow as the fog came, as though it were an electrical storm that had somehow compromised the integrity of the electronics. People tried to call one another, but the phones were not working and the isolation they felt was only amplified by their failed attempts to reach others.
On the football field, the cheerleaders broke up their practice early, rushing for their cars at a hurried pace, looking back into the fog that seemed to leer at them like a living beast.
Sarah, the head cheerleader and nemesis of the unfortunate Albert, looked into the mist herself and shivered. She had no ride, her home was close enough to the city center that her family expected her to walk to and from school. Because after all, what could go wrong in Rising?
Throughout the town, the mist invaded. Televisions turned off, radios lost their reception. People came out of their houses, looking into the mist. In some cases they were as little as five or six feet from one another, but could not tell, so thick was the preternatural mist that surrounded and isolated them one from another. They couldn't see each other; couldn't see much of anything.
Many of the people of Rising were holding notes in their hands: notes that they had inexplicably found themselves writing during dinner, or instead of helping the baby down for bed, or even in the middle of sex. Notes that they had no control over, but had felt constrained to write, as though for a time they were mere marionettes on a joint string.
Some of the notes were direct, and simple, and Jason would have shivered to see them: "iT'S sTarTED" in black crayon.
Other notes bore a single word, a word that the people could all agree they felt, but none had any idea how to avoid or change: "FeAR."
Then a wind whipped up, blowing tattered bits of the fog at people's faces as though the mist were reaching out tentacles to grab them and make them its own.
Shapes could be glimpsed in the mist: ghostlike wraiths that flitted quickly in and out of view, moving too fast to be seen directly. Dark, forbidding.
Traces of hornlike shadow could be seen on the heads of some of the apparitions, and more than one of Rising's residents crossed themselves and knew that the Devil had at last come to claim them.
Then, almost as one, though unseen one by another, the townsfolk moved back to their houses. They closed their doors and hid inside their homes like frightened rats in the middle of a maze of horror and despair.
What else could they do?
***
FIFTEEN
***
Sarah West was damned if she was going to let a little bit of fog get to her. She was on the main street, she was only a few feet from any of a number places where she could get help in a pinch, and, most important, she was Sarah West.
And Sarah West was not someone who got screwed with. Sarah West was the one who did the screwing. She was one of those rare people who understood the truth: that being called "bitch" was what happened when people were jealous of you, and that people like her always won in the end.
The wind whipped up, flapping her small skirt against her thighs, and she shivered. She wasn't afraid, girls like her didn't get afraid for any reason. But even so...she picked up her pace as much as she could in the thick fog, trying to keep the bright - but rapidly failing - lights of the football field at her back. Finally, though, she had to resort to walking with one foot in the street just to make sure she was walking in a straight line.
She thought of Albert as she walked. Pervy little snot. How many times had she caught him filming her ass over the years? Too many to count. Not that she could blame him for trying. Asses like hers were one in a million, and definitely part of the whole package that was going to be her ticket out of this one-horse hellhole in the middle of Nowhere, Washington. She'd finish high school, then it would be off to Los Angeles for a career as a movie or TV star, or maybe she'd be a pop recording star. She hadn't decided which one she would yet, but knew that whatever one she decided on, it would happen. She was, frankly, perfect for stardom. She had long legs, muscled without losing their femininity; a nice butt; and a rack that was the closest thing to perfect that God had ever created.
And Albert thought he even had a chance at speaking to her! She couldn't help but laugh at that.
The laugh drew her up short, but as soon as the thought had fled she realized something that...disquieted her: she, Sarah West, was completely lost. She couldn't make out anything in the heavy fog, not even the powerful lights over the football field. Not that it was dark, exactly: the fog itself seemed almost to glow with a pale light. But even so, there was no visibility, and she had lost herself in her daydreams to the point that she had no way of making it home.
She sighed and dug out her cell phone. She hated calling her parents for rides: it reminded her that she should have had a car by now. God knew her parents could afford one. But every time she broached the subject they started babbling about "responsibility" and "earning privileges" and even saying such ridiculous twaddle as "you'd have to pay for your own gas." As if. Sarah West had things paid for her. She d
id not pay for them herself.
The cell phone was a perfect example. It was her fifth one in seven months. None of the others had broken or lost, they had simply gotten old. So when a new one came out a month or two after hers, and when the new one (inevitably) had some feature that hers lacked, or was faster, or even just cuter, she could always convince her parents to fork over the cash to get it.
She dialed home. But instead of hearing the dial tone followed by ringing, she heard...nothing. Well, that wasn't strictly true. She did hear a kind of high-pitched sound, like someone was playing a CD about a billion times too fast, reducing it to a nasty whine.
But no parents.
She clicked the disconnect button and tried again. Same result. Only this time the whine was louder, and then even louder as she listened. Then it slashed out at her like a sonic razor, making her cry out.
And at the same time, a shadow passed by in the mist. Inches away.
Sarah's breath caught in her throat. What had that been? The shadow had been huge, at least the size of a grown man, but it had definitely not been a man passing nearby in the heavy fog.
"Who is it?" she said, and her voice cracked. She coughed, then in a stronger voice said again, "Who is that? Who's out there?" After a second she added, "Tiffini, if that's you I swear to God I'm going to kill you."
If it had been Tiffini, the other cheerleader would have broken up laughing at this point. But there was no sound to be heard at all. Nothing except the high-pitched whine from her cell phone.
She turned the phone off and shivered.
Another shadow passed by. Again, it was man-sized, but Sarah could see even more clearly that whatever it was, it wasn't a man. Two arms, two legs...but its head looked as though it had horns on it.
What the hell? she thought, and began to back away from the shadow. Before she could take a single step, though, the dark patch in the fog had disappeared. She turned around in time to see another one of the shadows pass nearby before it, too, melted into the fog.
A new and unwelcome sensation touched her then: panic. She felt herself start to lose control of everything from her thoughts to her bowels as she realized that whatever was happening, it was no joke sprung on her by the more jealous of the other cheerleaders.
"Leave me alone, you freaks!" she shouted.
As if in response, another one of the strange, horned shadows appeared directly in front of her before melting into the mist as all the others had done. Sarah started to spin around, seeing shadows at every turn, but she could never focus on one for more than a second or even catch the exact moment when a shadow became one with the fog and disappeared from her view.
She became even more disoriented than she had been, a kind of vertigo seizing her, dizzying her, making her reel in place. She caught herself, taking a deep breath, and then took a large step.
Move, she thought. Don't stop. Stopping is what it wants you to do. Gotta move.
She didn't have the courage to examine - even within herself - what "it" might be.
She walked.
Then walked faster.
Then ran. The one consolation was that she seemed to be running in a straight line: her feet were coming down each time on the sidewalk she had been trudging down before this all started.
Slap, slap went her sneakers, her breath coming in short pants as she fought to outrun the shadows that even now surrounded her.
Slap, slap, slap, slap...splash.
Sarah stopped short. She felt her sneaker get wet and instantly looked down.
Only sidewalk at her feet. Not so much as a puddle. But for all that fact, her shoe was undeniably soaked, as though she had just walked into a small stream up to her calves.
She looked around, but could not see anything but fog and the ubiquitous shadows, drawing ever closer, silent and menacing.
She took two more steps.
Slap, slap...splash.
This time the other foot became wet, and suddenly Sarah was transported back in time, feeling as she had on that beautiful summer day when her parents had taken her out on a lake for some waterskiing and her line had somehow gotten fouled in the outboard motor, drawing her under the water and tangling her in a spiderweb of rope that held her down, down, down, and she felt herself drowning again, clawing for air, the only thing that saved her was her mother, who quickly jumped in with a knife and hacked at the waterskiing lines until Sarah was free.
But there was no water here. No more than three houses in all of Rising even had pools.
So how could her feet be wet?
No longer trusting her vision - what if the shadows weren't really there, either? - Sarah knelt down and felt all around her. In every direction she carefully pressed on the ground wherever she could reach it. It was dry concrete no matter where she pressed.
She stood.
Another shadow came by her, and this time it was close enough that she could almost see eyes: grossly distorted, gigantic eyes that stared not at her, but through her. As though she were an insect, or less than an insect: something to be ignored or destroyed, not cared for or pampered as Sarah deserved.
The sight of those awful eyes in the mist was too much. Sarah screamed in terror, and wheeled to run, secure in the fact that she was on solid ground, that she could run like a goddam gazelle, that nothing could happen to her because she was Sarah West, dammit, and bad things didn't happen to Sarah West.
She turned.
She put down a foot.
And fell headfirst into water.
She could see the sidewalk rushing up at her, but instead of hitting herself on the cold concrete, she felt herself fall through it, its surface suddenly as permeable as that of any pool or stream or...
Or lake.
She fell into liquid, her hands paddling with manic ferocity as she tried to claw her way up. She was disoriented, the mist didn't give her enough light to know whether she was swimming up or down. The breath burned in her lungs, she wanted to breathe, she wanted to live, to breathe, to live, she wanted so many things as she clawed there in the dark of the water that could not be there but was.
She broke the surface, gasped a thick draught of clean, misty air, then fell down again, plunging back below the impossible surface of the water that was there though it could not be. The breath was hotter in her lungs now, more insistent and urgent. Again she was clawing for life, trying to find her way to the surface of the - what? What had she fallen into?
She pulled for all she was worth. Pulled and pulled at the water that surrounded her, holding her breath as long as she could, knowing that to gasp, to try to breathe would be the end of her. But with each pull of her arms, the need to breathe grew more critical; with each kick of her feet her lungs demanded air more stridently.
She resisted, still trying to find her way up. Even the mist, the shadows, the fear that waited for her above was better than this.
She prayed, asking God to save her, a part of her marveling that God could have been asleep at the wheel long enough to allow this to happen to her in the first place.
She wanted to breathe, she wanted to breathe, she wanted to breathe.
She clawed, she fought, she struggled.
Where was the air?
She kicked her feet, the muscles in her perfectly proportioned legs pushing her strongly around as she fought for her life.
She wanted...she wanted...
She wanted to breathe.
She fought it. She denied herself. She refused, as long as she could, and then kept insistently refusing to open her mouth, to take that gasp that a part of her was convinced would be so good.
Then, at last, she wondered in the small part of her mind that was still capable of rational thought, What if this is a dream?
What if this isn't real?
Then how do I break out of it? was the next thought.
And the answer was obvious.
So though a small part of her cried out in horror, shrieked "NO!" and tried to stop her, the rest of
her - the animal that she had largely become - said "yes" and smiled triumphantly.
And with that smile, Sarah West, beautiful of limb and body, intelligent of mind, perfect in nearly every possible way, opened her mouth and inhaled.
***
SIXTEEN
***
Ox Mackey stood behind the closed door of his store and looked out into the otherworldly mist that had somehow surrounded the town. A dark shape whipped by, too fast to see much, but what Ox could see immediately convinced him that he wanted no part of what was going on outside.
He just stood there, watching, waiting for the inevitable moment when one of the...things...in the mist tried to come in.
But none did.
That was good. Ox knew he could hold his own in a fight, but he had no wish to find out if his skills were up to a brawl with him on one side and some nightmarish creature on the other.
Another one of the shadows appeared out of the fog, and Ox held his breath as it stood for a long moment beside his store.
The door rattled. It was locked. Ox knew it was because he had locked it himself. And now he was especially grateful that he had done so.
The door rattled again, and Ox felt himself tense.
Then the shadow melted away as if by magic, and the door stopped shaking.
There was a popping noise, and suddenly half the store was plunged into darkness as a fuse popped.
Ox looked at the fuse panel. It was behind the counter, high enough on the wall that he would have to stand on the small stepladder he kept around for such emergencies. Normally he waited until a customer came along and asked whomever it was to help out.
Ox didn't like heights.
Actually, it was worse than that: heights absolutely paralyzed him. His own seven foot two inch frame had him high enough that he felt like he was going to break out into a nosebleed sometimes, and anything higher than that...forget about it. Even standing on the small stepladder made him feel nauseated, and he couldn't remember the last time he had set foot on the second floor of a house.
