by Joe Hart
After a few miles I began to notice a change in the landscape ahead. The forest became composed of smaller trees, then brush, and then ended completely. At its border the field opened up, but a white wall of fog concealed what lay ahead. I’d never seen fog so thick. The old comparison to pea soup came to mind, and for the first time it seemed applicable, though the whiteness of the fog deserved a more appropriate description. It was more like clam chowder, blank and so thick I imagined I could scoop some away and hold it in my hand. Fellow stopped a few feet from the haze and waited for us to catch up. I gazed around at the group, measuring their reactions to this new development. Kotis remained stoic, while Fellow began to rock on his wooden feet. When Ellius spoke, the muffled sound of his voice startled me.
“I’m afraid this is where I must leave you.”
I turned to him, incredulous. “What? You’re leaving, now?”
“I cannot stray beyond the boundaries of the forest, but I will meet you again soon. Wherever there are trees I may travel.” His brown eyes held mine and told me that there would be no negotiation, that this was the way it must be. I nodded, not knowing what other choice I had. I faced Kotis and Fellow.
Kotis turned his head to the bird on his shoulder. “Right, shit-feathers. Get airborne and earn your keep.” At his words the owl raised its head, blinked its round eyes several times, and leapt clear of its perch. Its long wings caught air, and in two flaps it vanished into the white murk. I looked after it for some time, trying to see if I could spot its shape in the fog, but I saw nothing. I glanced at Ellius to ask what was happening and found only empty air. He had gone.
“He will join us soon,” Fellow said. “He has not forsaken you.”
“Oh, just like the old tree lover, get gone when things get shaky,” Kotis said, lowering himself to the ground.
Fellow frowned. “Kotis, you shouldn’t speak of him like that.”
“Ah, complete fuckery this is my little friend. A wasted cause trampling into who knows where for some trespassers,” Kotis said, jerking thumb in my direction.
Anger boiled in me, and even Kotis’s intimidating, muscled frame couldn’t cool it. “Listen, my family was taken by something from your world. I didn’t ask to come here and my family didn’t either, so don’t put this shit on me,” I said, taking a step forward.
Kotis turned his flattened head in my direction, studying me with the glinting points that were his eyes. “You wanna be careful, mate, who you talk to like that. Might just end up in a bad spot.”
I was about to fire something back when a form materialized out of the fog and landed on Kotis’s shoulder. The bird ruffled its wings and pulled them tight to its body. Its beak opened and a soft clicking punctuated with a few high squeaks issued from its bobbing throat. It sounded like a telegraph in fast forward. Kotis nodded and brought something out of the pocket of his vest and fed it to the bird. Its long beak scissored a few times and then it was still.
“He says it’s clear ahead for almost a mile, ground and sky,” Kotis said.
“Clear of what?” I asked, fury still heavy in my voice.
Kotis rose from the ground and dusted the seat of his pants off. “It’s clear of the nasties we don’t want to meet in there, that’s what,” he said.
I was about to ask exactly what he meant when Fellow approached and drew close to me. “Michael, stay within a few feet of us. Do not speak, and tread softly. Do not stray like you did in the carnival on the border of your world, we won’t be able to protect you, and you won’t survive.”
“Fellow, what’s in there?” I asked, staring into his orange eyes.
“Do not stray,” he said, and without hesitation stepped into the folds of the fog. The area where he vanished swirled and spun. Kotis raised his dark eyebrows and followed Fellow.
For a heartbeat I was alone, standing in the silent field. I looked over my shoulder once, hoping I would see Ellius striding from the trees to join us after all, but instead I saw only the shadowed forest and the dead plains we’d crossed. Taking a deep breath, I took two strides and stepped into the clinging mist.
It was like being thrust into a padded room. All sound became null as the fog closed around me—even my footfalls were distant and muffled. The outlines of Kotis and Fellow waited ahead. When they saw me following, they turned and moved away, their departure so quiet and featureless it was unnerving. I turned my head from side to side, trying to distinguish something, anything that would ease my sensory discomfort. I looked for a rock and listened for the wind; I breathed deeply, trying to pick out an odor of some sort. There was nothing except our footfalls on the dead stalks as we moved.
We might have walked for hours, or days, or minutes. The passage of time was inscrutable and lost all meaning. I recited my children’s names along with Jane’s and their birth dates over and over in my head. I pictured their faces smiling, laughing, sleeping, all the expressions that made them who they were.
I wanted a drink. Oh, how I wanted a drink. A Jack and Coke? No, too plain. A vodka cranberry? No, too bitter. Beer? A cold glass of beer, I would’ve killed for one right then. To feel it sliding down my throat and warming me. It would have been beyond grand. I could taste it and was about to begin contemplating my favorite brand when I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
It was a quick movement, and when I snapped my eyes to where I thought it was, it was gone. I paused mid-step and turned in a full circle, looking for what I’d seen. It was a small shadow, not much more than three feet off the ground. Nothing moved around me except the forms of Kotis and Fellow, which became increasingly hard to see as they walked away. I hurried to catch up, remembering Fellow’s warning.
“Michael.”
I stopped and spun around, looking for the voice that had spoken my name, whispered it no more than a few inches behind my back. The fog was unyielding and thick. My heart pumped harder as adrenaline flooded my system. I hadn’t imagined it, the voice had been real, as tangible as a touch in the dense mist.
“They’re dead, Michael.”
I jerked around, my eyes bulging and my fists clenched. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands, but the pain did nothing to loosen them. This time the voice had been beside me, right in my ear, the passage of breath on my skin like a lover’s caress. Goose bumps spread over my body in a rolling wave. I backed up and, stumbling, turned and fled, my feet much too heavy and my legs weak, as if I’d been doing squats for an hour. After only a few steps I realized that I could no longer see Kotis and Fellow. Was this the way we’d been going? I couldn’t remember and there were no landmarks to go by. I slowed some but kept a brisk pace, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds. A shape emerged from the gloom, and I nearly sobbed with relief as Kotis’s silhouette appeared.
“Kotis, Fellow!” I called, my voice dying in the fog after traveling only a few feet. I remembered Fellow saying not to speak, but I needed to tell them what I’d heard and seen. I took two more steps and then stopped, my stomach shriveling in on itself like a balloon losing air.
The thing I’d thought was Kotis rippled in the dim light of the mist. It looked like a black sheet tacked over a doorway in the middle of the field, with a breeze blowing through it. The form undulated and bulged as though something desperately wanted to escape from beneath it. I began to back away, slowly at first and then with more haste. I was about to turn and run when the form exploded into dozens of small, fleeting shapes that ran, laughing, into the coiling fog. My bowels threatened to release and my eyes bulged at the spot, where there was only blank mist.
A hand grasped my shoulder.
I tried to scream but another hand clamped down over my mouth, stifling my yell. Kotis pulled me close to him and brought his face within inches of mine.
“What in the blue shits do you think you’re doing?” he said. His black eyes spoke of murder and I thought he might kill me on the spot, when Fellow appeared at his side and pulled his giant hand from my mouth.
&nbs
p; “Michael, what is it? Did you see anything?” Fellow asked, his eyes wide.
I nodded dumbly. “Over there, something big. It broke apart and the pieces ran away.”
Kotis glanced at Fellow before hauling me closer to him again. I could smell his breath and it was fairly rank. “You move right behind Fellow, don’t stop and don’t look around.” He squeezed my shoulder to emphasize his point and I winced in pain. With a murmured word to the owl on his shoulder, the bird took flight and was gone into the fog. “Let’s go,” he said and began to run.
Fellow sprinted ahead of us, and I followed with Kotis at my heels. The air whistled around my ears and my breathing became ragged as I tried to keep pace with Fellow. He ran with fluid ease, his ropy legs pumping and his oblong head pushed forward. More than once I felt Kotis jab me in the back with a finger, urging me faster.
After a few minutes of running, I became aware of a rushing sound all around us. It was like a breeze growing before a storm. Just as I began to look over my shoulder I was flung to the ground, the air knocked loose of my lungs as I landed on my chest. When I managed to raise my head, I saw that Fellow was also prone. A shadow passed over us and I blinked, trying to follow it. It was massive and triangle shaped, but that was all I could gather because in another second it was gone.
“Up,” Kotis whispered and hauled me to my feet. We ran. I felt hunted. I knew then what the first mammal must have felt like hurrying across a primordial plain with something monstrous only a few steps behind.
“They’re dead, Michael. Just lie down.” The voice echoed now, and I nearly stopped to figure out where it had come from, but Kotis pushed me onward.
“I hear it too, just keep moving and we’ll be out soon,” Kotis breathed through clenched teeth.
“Can’t you feel that they’re gone? Lie down to sleep and we’ll show you.”
I’d been wrong. There wasn’t an echo; it was a chorus. The voices spoke almost in unison, but several were delayed, causing an eerie reverberation. Jesus, how many were there? I glanced to my left and saw a shape zip away into the fog and nearly screamed. I only caught a momentary impression, but it looked like the shape was serpentine with a distinctly human-like head.
I forced myself to look forward and focus on keeping pace with Fellow. He never wavered in direction, and we seemed to be traveling in a straight line. I prayed that he knew where he was going.
“Daddy?”
My daughter’s voice stopped me. Kotis grabbed for my neck, but I shrugged his hand off like it was a gnat. In the fog I saw a small outline I would have known anywhere. Sara was there in the mist. She was only steps away, her arms hanging limply at her sides, her face turned toward me.
“Sara!” I called, and felt Kotis’s hand encircle my arm just below the shoulder. I swung a left hook as I turned and must have caught him off-guard, because it connected and his hand loosened just enough for me to pull away. I ran to Sara, but when I looked again she was farther away, but still there.
My little girl. As I ran I remembered the time she’d ridden on her bike out to the road by our house without me knowing it. I recalled stepping onto the deck and seeing her hair flying out from beneath her helmet as she pedaled into the street, right in front of a car rounding a nearby corner. The next instant I was bleeding from both knees, having dived into the road and tackled her off her bike before it was mowed beneath the front of the speeding Ford Taurus. But in that interim of lost time I felt fear unlike anything else I’d experienced before, an emotion so pure and powerful it drowned out all else except the need for it to go away.
I felt that same fear now as I ran toward her small shape. The ground pounded beneath my feet and I leaned forward. I’d gather her up in my arms just like before and tell her it was okay, that Daddy was there, that everything would be all right.
The laughter was what stopped me, because it was not hers. My daughter’s outline came closer, became clearer, and dread filtered down through my stomach.
Her face was gone.
Only flat, leathery skin coated the area where a nose and mouth should be, and the hair that should have been smooth and honey blond was tangled and black. An amorphous face shifted on either side of the head, a nose pressing out and then receding, eyes surfacing and then descending again. A slit opened on both cheeks and an obscenely long tongue lolled out, licking the air as the thing spoke.
“I’m dead, Daddy. You should die too.”
I backpedaled too late, and the thing that was not my daughter lunged forward with a swiftness of a striking snake. I smelled rot and burning hair before two wings beat past me and landed with clawed feet on the shifting, faceless creature. Shrieking filled the air, making my hands shoot up to cover my ears. The owl hovered over the thing from the fog, its long beak darting forward to strike at where eyes should have been in the creature’s face.
A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me away. I was thrown forward and somehow kept my feet underneath me as I began to run. Kotis ran at my side while Fellow sprinted ahead, the sounds of the fight fading in the mist as we left it behind. Two hissing shadows appeared to our left, and Kotis cursed as I saw him reach into the pocket he’d fed the owl from earlier. He drew out the same substance and tossed it at the approaching forms with a bellow and hurried on, his large hand shoving me faster.
“The bridge!” Fellow called over his shoulder, and for a few seconds I didn’t know what he meant. Then a structure took form ahead. I could see a flattened area on the ground and newel posts growing up like leaning headstones, with drooping rope hanging between the supports. As we fled onto the wooden planks, I spotted the river. It wasn’t wide, but I had never seen anything like it before. The water was as black as tar in the deep ravine below us. Every so often a gout of flame would erupt and light the earthen walls with swimming shadows. But the strangest and most disorienting trait the river held wasn’t its color or flammability, but its speed. I gaped at it as I ran, trying to judge how fast the black liquid flowed. But each time I found something to focus on, it washed away out of sight. However, I knew the river could outrun any express train I’d seen on Earth.
The fog at the far end of the bridge thickened, and I resisted the urge to hold my breath as we plunged into it. There was a disorienting moment when everything vanished into the dull gray and sound ceased completely, then we were out of it. The mist fell away, and we were in a field identical to the one we’d left on the other side of the fog. The horizon was unchanged except the sun’s half-lidded eye sat farther to the right than it had that morning.
Fellow slowed his pace, and then stopped and turned to face me. Despite the weakness in my legs, they wanted to continue on, driven by the terror that still vibrated in the back of my skull. Fellow put out a hand and braced me before I could tip forward to the ground. I swallowed a rush of bile that flooded my mouth, and coughed. Flitting black snowflakes danced at the corners of my vision, and I wobbled but remained standing with Fellow’s help. The air tasted almost sweet, and I sucked it in greedily as I turned and gazed back at the bridge.
The fog ended at the first board and shot straight up until it became one with the clouds. Kotis stood only a few feet from the wall of fog, his dark eyes searching the folds of mist. Without warning the owl exploded into view and landed awkwardly on the giant’s shoulder. Its feathers were ruffled, and when I looked closer I saw that many were missing from its wide wings. Kotis murmured to it, and the bird clicked a few times and seemed to shudder.
I turned to Fellow, who still stared at the fog, his eyes watching the curtain intently. “Fellow, what were those things?”
“Untruths embodied. The field we crossed is called the Field of Lies. It exists only to destroy those who try to travel through it.”
I heard Kotis’s heavy footfalls approaching and turned to say a word of thanks to his bird, but all that greeted me was a close-up view of four immense knuckles, followed by darkness.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself facing the sky wh
en I opened my eyes. I’d dreamed of being hit by a truck, and as my memories came flowing back to me, I realized I wasn’t too far off. I sat up and rubbed my jaw, which felt like a rusted hinge. I worked it up and down a few times to make sure it still functioned and my teeth matched up.
“Are you okay, Michael?” Fellow asked. I turned my head and found that he sat only a few feet to my right. His vine-like arms rested on his knees and his fingers held two stalks of chaff.
“Yeah,” I managed, blinking back a bout of double vision that made my stomach flop with nausea. “I think my jaw might be broken.”
“Oh, fuckin’ nonsense! I hit ya half speed, if that, you little bastard,” Kotis called from my left. I looked to where he sat and studied his face, which was drawn down in disgust. The owl sat on his shoulder, its head tucked beneath a tattered wing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have run off, but I heard my daughter in there—Christ, I saw her! I couldn’t help myself.”
“Yeah, well, you almost got us all killed!” Kotis yelled. “Fellow tells you to stay close, you run away! Maybe next time we say get gone and you’ll stick around!”
“Look, I said I’m sorry. If you both knew what was in there, why didn’t you warn me?” I asked. I tried to keep the anger out of my voice, but only partially succeeded.
Kotis stood up and took a few steps forward, pointing at me. “We didn’t have any forsaken clue as to what we’d find in there. Shit, I’ve never stepped foot in that blasted place before today.”
“He’s right, Michael,” Fellow said, kneeling beside me. “The Field of Lies is a cancerous spot even in this world, and it’s destroyed many who’ve tried to traverse it. The creatures that live there are unique to each life that passes through the fog. I could have guessed at what you’d see or hear, but there was no way of telling for sure.”
I mulled this over. Fellow was right, and I begrudgingly admitted to myself that Kotis was too. I’d endangered everyone, including my family. The words that the shadows spoke in the fog floated back to me, and I stood without thinking.
