by Ira Robinson
The wind picked up, moving the fog even more, and a dense part of it moved along the pavement of the street. As it did, the figure washed away, disappearing within it.
Sam gripped tighter, the courage she felt only seconds ago going with it.
Chapter 7
Samantha stood on the porch, watching the fog spin and coalesce around her, keeping her eyes locked on the spot below the light.
Whoever it was, whatever it was, could no longer be seen in any way, and for a long span of moments, panic ran its course through her. Small tremors fluttered across her muscles and she could not move her legs. It played havoc on her stomach; she had to bite back against bile.
She might be a cop, and she was able to defend herself, but Sam was still a single woman on an otherwise empty street, and whoever it was looked big. Exhaustion and nerves had their way with her, even if it was only for a brief time.
When Sam finally got herself under control, she moved slowly across her porch and onto the damp grass. A squeaking came from her sneakers as the blades beneath them were pressed down. There was no flow of insects or other life around her. Everything was still and silent in the fog.
She passed beyond the edge of her lawn, her eyes wide and aware of any movement, but the only other motion than she made was the mist itself, which seemed to be diminishing, at least a little.
By the time the pavement of the road was beneath her feet, the surety she had imagined the whole thing began to take hold. There was no trace anyone had been there at all, especially someone as large as she saw.
Sam was still wary when she reached the spot she was sure she had seen the figure, but there was no movement or noise beyond her own. In the dim light from above, the grass showed no signs of disturbance.
The tension in her body released, with her legs wobbling a bit as she let them relax. She sucked in a deep breath, bracing herself against the chills, but they lightened immediately.
Maybe it was the overwhelming tiredness she was forcing herself to function through, or a product of the bump she took to the back of her head. Perhaps the weird foreboding she felt when she spent time staring at the paintings she created gave its contribution.
Whatever it was, it made her mind play tricks, and she turned away from the spot and walked back to her house, relieved.
The night life was still silent, but Samantha thought it could be due to the fog, suppressing their need to screech their calls to one another. No skittering was in the darkness and no sound could be heard beyond the breeze in the leaves and her own soft footfalls plodding against the ground.
She reached her porch and stepped inside, looking behind before closing the door. There was no sign of anything around; nothing but the fog moved past her portal to the outside world.
She closed it and leaned against it, resting her back against the hard wood. Her head touched it and a flaring ache forced its way through her skin where it was still cracked open, but she let it happen. In a weird way, it made her feel better, a sign she was not totally losing her mind.
Was Bart right in thinking she had problems she needed to deal with? Was her need to see things as she did somehow causing her to disconnect from reality?
She closed her eyes, sending out a hopeful prayer to anyone who might be listening that she was not. There was, as always, no response. But she wondered if just asking the questions and acknowledging the possibility was enough to show she was not going down that particular path.
Three booming slams against the door at her back froze her body and thoughts.
For an instant, she could not move, as her reverie turned to terror and the hot fluid in her veins became ice. A scream blasted from her throat; it was short but echoed loudly.
Sam sprang forward, crossing the room. Blood rushed to her head, obscuring things for only a moment as her heartbeat raced in her ears. In the next, all cleared as the adrenaline surged through, slowing everything down to a crawl.
She ripped open the closet door and reached inside, her hand moving automatically to the belt she always hung on the peg there. Sam pulled it out and undid the button that kept the revolver secure in the leather holster.
She pried it loose and dropped the belt to the floor; something small rattled away from it as it bounced against the hardwood. She did not glance at it, though. Her eyes were pegged on the front door and whatever might be on the other side.
Her mind raced, trying to find an explanation for what she heard. It was only a matter of a moment she stood with her back against the door before the slams came, and whoever did it used a lot of force. Enough to rattle, even moving her slightly.
She spared a split second to look through the window across the room, but there was nothing she could see through the sheer curtain; only the darkness beyond the pane was obvious, while the light in the living room, though dim, itself, obscured anything else.
She gulped, the small bounce of her breath catching tightly. Sam closed her mouth and inhaled through her nose, remembering her training and the ways to stay calm, even when a situation grew terrible.
It helped, but only enough to keep her on her feet. If she did not slow herself down, she would hyperventilate, and she could not afford that.
But a ball of fear ground against her chest and she had to grip the stock of the gun tighter to stop it from jiggling out of her hand. As it was, cold sweat across her palm made it squiggle, threatening to lose hold.
She wiped her free hand against her jeans, then grabbed the gun with it and brushed her right. She transferred it back and felt control over it return.
She checked the cylinder holding the bullets to make sure it was loaded. The lamplight reflected the brass backs of each of them.
Closing the cylinder again, Sam lowered her arms and used both hands to hold the gun tight.
Her eyes roved between the door and the window, ears perked for any traces of movement. Panic twisted in her veins, threatening to take control, but Sam breathed against it, keeping the kinetic energy it wanted to unleash in check.
Barely.
Muted creaking in the walls around her as the furnace at the back of the house kicked itself on made Sam jump. Though it was as familiar as her own footsteps on the floor, she whirled about, looking for any movement.
Sam held the gun close to her head, both hands still on the grip. The hallway was empty, and nothing beyond herself moved in the living room.
How much time passed? Sam couldn't track. It could have been mere seconds or an hour as she stood in place, staring down the wood grains of the door leading outside.
No one came through and there were no further knocks. Nothing happened to show there had been anything there at all, other than the sensations she still felt across her back that things were awfully wrong.
But she could not stand there forever, and the reassuring presence of the gun braced her courage enough to step forward, closer to the portal.
She inhaled deep and held it as her ear pressed against the door, listening.
There was no sound beyond the blood rushing through her head.
She exhaled, letting the breath release as hushed as she could. It dizzied her for a second, but it was clear by the time she put her hand to the knob and turned it.
She flung it wide, bringing both hands back to the gun and holding it in front of her, pointing toward the empty space it revealed. She backed away two steps before it could come fully open.
Nothing was there, beyond the dark night and the mist that came with it.
Whoever they were, they could have maneuvered themselves away from the door but still be on the porch. Sam crept forward the two steps she took, holding the gun before her with her finger across the trigger, ready to fire in an instant.
She kept the sill at her back as she rounded the corner, ducking a little so they would not have an easy target.
Only the empty porch was there for her to see, the light from her window pouring through.
She spun to check the other direction b
ut it, too, revealed nothing.
Still wary, she let her eyes rove, checking everywhere possible to hide for any signs of someone being there. There were an unfortunate number of places.
Sam stepped off her porch, keeping the gun in both hands. Her body trembled, forcing her take her finger away from the trigger. She had to get control. Get control and keep it. Just breathe and be ready for what could come.
Sam rounded the house entirely before making her way back to her porch again. There was no sign that anything at all had been there, but she was still conscious of all the places around someone could hide if they really wanted to. By the time she closed the door and set the deadbolt in place, she relaxed her arms and the gun dropped to the side of her hip.
Aching in her hands betrayed the strength with which she held the thing for so long, but Sam was loathe to let it go.
Chapter 8
The first signs of morning light were finally beginning to filter through the front windows of the police department building, but it could not compete with the illumination from the fixtures above.
It took Samantha only a few minutes to drive from her house to the place she had come to know as a second home. The vendor displays and rides for the festival were still there, with this being the final day, but there was no traffic to block her getting where she wanted to go.
Tanglewood was, for the most part, asleep, unlike Sam, herself, who had ended up with absolutely none.
She rubbed her eyes as she sat in her chair at the desk she occupied most days she worked. They were raw and swollen, but the pressure from her fingers gave them an odd satisfaction, even if only for a moment.
Her arms fell back to her lap again and stared out the front window, the pane going nearly the whole front of the building. There was no movement outside and the thick fog that had been over the town was finally beginning to clear, pushed aside by the blooming of the sunlight across the horizon.
It would probably dissolve by mid-morning, wiping away all traces that anything weird occurred during the night.
Before leaving the house, Sam changed into her uniform and put the gun in the holster at her hip, where it yet remained. The soreness in her hands was gone, but the deep sense of wrongness still held her in its sway. She could not be there at home, at least not for those moments.
She needed a safe place to think, to work out in her mind whatever happened to her. Not just during the night, but what was going on with her over the past few weeks.
Was she really losing it? Did she have some kind of mental schism and was only watching herself fall apart, piece by piece? That was, perhaps, her greatest fear. She knew people, completely normal folks without any issues to speak of, could suddenly separate from reality. They could go through their whole lives with no problems, happy and secure that they were fine, to then wake up one day and not have any recognition of what was real or imaginary.
The rest of their days they would be oblivious to anything outside of what their mind decided to create.
Sam hoped she was not going down that path, but the events of the night chilled her into a panic that was exactly what was occurring.
Maybe they who had those quick breaks were the lucky ones. They could lose their minds and not have to worry about anything any longer.
Sam leaned forward and put her head on her desk, letting it rest on her arms. She did not close her eyes, however. She stared at the faux wood grain on the desk, her vision drifting from one line to the next, focusing on the minutia.
She breathed slowly, trying to let herself relax away from the thoughts her mind wanted to take. If she was going insane, so be it. There was nothing she could do about it.
But was that really what was happening? Though that fear egged on a paranoia over it, she did not think so.
Why now? That was the real question. Why would it be occurring at this moment, instead of some time in the past? Was it simply because of the feeling of inadequacy she had over failing to find the little girl lost in the woods? Why that, in particular, as opposed to the dozens of other situations she went through as a police officer? Even in a small town like this, there were things she had to deal with that most people would not be able to handle.
The paintings, the guy in the mist, the knock on her door, all of these started when Sam got lost in the woods. The trail of breadcrumbs in her mind led to that moment. Nothing so strange as what she had been experiencing was in her life before that day.
The chime on the door interrupted her thoughts.
She jerked herself up, leaning back in the chair and putting her hand across the grip of the gun at her hip.
Her fingers were already automatically undoing the button preventing the revolver from falling out when she saw the familiar face of Noah Peters walking in.
She splayed her hands away from the gun and blew out a breath, relaxing at his entry.
She put her hand to her hair, unconsciously wiping it behind her ear, to cover her nervous reaction.
"Morning, Sam," he said, smiling. He had a newspaper in one hand and a large cup of coffee in the other. The fresh brew perked her nose and cleared her head slightly as he passed by her.
"Morning, Noah. How you doing?"
She watched as he freed his hands and shuffled around the room.
"Not bad. Where's Tony?"
She had not seen Tony Franks or any of the other night guys since she came in.
"Probably tired of the overtime they've been getting," she added, smiling, though her mind was still distracted.
A thought struck her and frustration at herself weaved through her. She picked up the phone on her desk, tapping the line to dial out. A few moments later, she reset the call forwarding to come back through to the police department.
She had not even bothered to check it when she got there, her thoughts so wrapped up in her own self and the confusion she was going through. It should have been the first thing she did walking in.
She chided herself and rolled her eyes. Nothing she could do to change it now. What else to do but go on?
She watched a few cars pass by on the street beyond the parking lot, likely heading to work or to the festival area to set up.
Sam was glad this was the last day for it. While she did not mind working it most years, even enjoying it, it had been so hard this year. She wanted things to get back to the flow, the pace she was accustomed to. Maybe then life could become normal for her.
A girl could hope.
"You been here long?" she heard Noah ask behind her.
She turned around and saw him lifting the empty coffee urn from the maker. She had not bothered putting any on.
"Just an hour or so," she lied. "Should I get that?" She did not really want to, but felt a little guilty for not doing her normal routine.
"Nah, it's alright." He disappeared into the bathroom with the pot in his hand, and she turned back to face the window once more.
Sam listened as he puttered around and within a few minutes she smelled the fresh stuff starting to boil through. The familiarity of it was comforting.
For a little while longer, they sat in silence. She bit her tongue as the temptation to let out to Noah what happened to her during the night came and went.
She did not know why she felt the need to tell him. Perhaps revealing it to someone would give her the chance to process it better, and her subconscious mind was trying to do just that. Maybe sharing it in the open would help it feel more resolved or solidified, instead of the fear being balled up for her alone.
Either way, Noah would probably be the last person she should tell. The next thing she knew, it would be all over town and the stares would begin.
Things were already bad enough, let alone something like that.
No, better to hold to herself, at least for now. Whatever she was going through, she should keep it private.
Even so, what happened to her was real. She was positive of it. Regardless of the lack of prints below the street light, and any evidence
to the contrary, she was sure someone was there with her during the night.
Whoever it was, whatever their intent, they were there. The door striking against her back in the way it did was absolutely real, and even now, as the light of morning pushed the mist aside and brought its glow to the world, she could feel each of the smacks against her.
It was not in her imagination. It couldn't be.
But who was it? Sam tried to think back, to pick out any detail she could from her memory, but it had all occurred fast and things had been so dark she could be sure of nothing. Only the impression of a large coat of some kind and a hat on the head was distinct.
Even those details were sketchy.
