The Fog

by Dennis Etchison

  Dream on, kid.

  “Well, here’s the next chapter. I heard from the FCC yesterday. They still haven’t decided whether or not to extend your broadcast hours. All I can tell you is this: we’re up against an established format here. You’ll just have to be patient until I can complete my discussions with their lawyers. They’re hesitant, but they’re willing to listen to reason . . .”

  She cradled the recorder in her arms and climbed the stairs.

  “So, now that it’s finally your station and everything seems to be going on its own steam, I can convince them that it isn’t as crazy as it first sounded. The response has been unbelievable when you consider the market . . .”

  She left the recorder running and set it on the desk, unloaded some things from her bag and checked the clock. It was ten minutes to six.

  “Of course you have to realize that the FCC isn’t all that interested in the numbers . . .”

  Neither am I, she thought, if you want to know the truth.

  As she dumped her bag on the shelf, it flopped open and it startled her to see that she had brought Andy’s piece of driftwood with her. Well, there’s no candy on my desk, but I’ve got something better. An honest-to-God present from my very own son, bless his pack-rat heart. These are my new call letters. Dane. Who knows? Maybe I even had some Danish blood in my veins somewhere along the line.

  She went to the window as the lawyer droned on, fighting, she could hear, to remain as casual as possible. Maybe he does. Maybe I’m just projecting.

  “The broadcast standards business is something we have to fight them on . . .”

  Ah, he’s warming to that. Business plus a fight. Now you’re talking, right?

  “I think if it keeps on like this, we’ll have to expand. It will become a necessity.

  “You’re going to have to turn the tape over now, so we can go through this incorporation business. It’ll take some time.”

  She stayed by the window, feeling the sun through the double glass, the red staring eye of a man ready to die. And it came to her then that there was something inexplicably sad even about it all; his voice running out against the end of the reel, the endless ebb of the surf below, the gulls flocking past her solitary crow’s nest, the first blue bands of evening coming out on the sand, bleeding with the scarlet of the sky into the base of the lonely lighthouse. She folded her arms and hugged her sides. Even now she was getting a chill. She saw the clock on the wall.

  Yes, yes, I know.

  Nine minutes to six.

  Almost time to go on.

  “Ready?” continued the voice after she had flipped the tape. “I know you can do at least ten things at once, so it shouldn’t be any problem . . .”

  Stevie Wayne, trained juggler, at your service.

  “All right, first the accounting. Try to maintain rights as Station Manager, Business Affairs Manager, and just basically Owner and Operator. Edwards would completely fund you, but would want some sort of accounting privileges. Now, the corporation . . .”

  Her eye was attracted back to the driftwood on the shelf. It really was beautiful in its way, a classic, a survivor of rough weather and stormy seas. Maybe it was an appropriate gift, after all. Thank you, Andy. I’ll have it mounted. If you let me keep it.

  From somewhere behind her a shadow fell over the wood, flickering like a dark flame.

  She jerked around to the window.

  Outside, a blanket spread over the guardrail snapped in the breeze. It was the blanket she kept around her on cold nights in the studio, when the electric heater was not enough.

  Only a blanket, she thought. What did you think it was? Why was she so edgy?

  Eight minutes to six.

  “Pay yourself a salary, use the funds for improvements, bills and operating costs—anything you need for the station. You should also hire someone to help sell air time . . .”

  She sorted her papers and lined up the first hour’s requests.

  “Stevie, I know you’ll object to this idea, but remember, we’re a small station and we need the accounts as well as the support of the local merchants. Edwards Corporation insists that you sell ten minutes of air time per day to help offset your operating costs. I know you really want a commercial-free station, and the move to Antonio Bay was to get away from silly jingles and the narrow-minded formats here . . .”

  Stevie became aware of a new sound behind her as she worked, a regular sound that could have been a dripping. It caught her attention for a moment, but not being able to locate its source, she decided to ignore it. It was probably a mechanical flaw in the tape, one of those cheap Mexican cassettes that were good for about one play. Besides, it wasn’t even raining.

  “But I think ten minutes is a fair compromise. And it most likely will ensure your FCC license. I think it looks like a good idea, if we can retain control. I bumped into Yaeger yesterday and he told me it was all but a certainty . . .”

  She continued checking to be sure all was in order for the show.

  Seven minutes to six.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  “. . . A certainty, I told him, a constant, like a stone in the wind . . .”

  She heard a sputtering on the tape. Static.

  Then, along with the dripping—

  She would have sworn it was the sound of ship’s bells.

  “. . . Something that one lives with, like an albatross around the neck . . . No, more like a millstone, a plumb stone, by God . . .”

  For an instant she froze.

  The voice on the tape.

  It was not any voice she knew.

  She whirled around.

  And saw the driftwood bleeding.

  “Damn them all!” roared the voice. “They plunder us for our Godless state!” Stevie could feel her clammy skin tingle against the unnatural air.

  She watched a stream of brackish water ooze out of the pores of the wood, darkening the aged grain, welling in the branded letters that had once been part of a proud christening, flowing in rivulets from the shelf, and puddling around the tape recorder.

  “Curse you, Norrys! Can you not hold her steady? See there . . . !”

  The brine puckered the leather cassette case, seeping into the batteries, slowing the drive mechanism to a crawl, a basso slur that was almost unintelligible. But it did not stop. She felt her face and neck grow cold.

  “. . . There, through the whiteness! It’s a trick! I tell you it is the fire!”

  In an instant Stevie knew herself to be trapped. The lighthouse began to quake. She was conscious of the glass windows bending dangerously under pressure. Her feet would not move. Crazily, the voice became a rumbling in the foundations, in the rocks, as a sound of thunder grew to a bellow within the closed studio.

  A blinding flash of lightning materialized out of the charged air and scalded the wood, setting it ablaze.

  And the voice went on.

  “. . . What say? I can’t hear! God, the thundering! The rocks, Norrys! The rocks! To port! To port . . . !”

  She was jolted to one side and jerked the extinguisher from the wall and aimed it at the conflagration. She jammed the handle and CO2 howled out of the nozzle, smothering the flames in a blur of whiteness. She held on until she was sure it was empty.

  The fire was gone.

  The wood remained, soaking in boiling salt water. But the wood . . . the flames had changed it, altering the letters so that a new legend was now charred in the wood. She gaped at it, fighting to understand.

  6 MUST DIE

  And then, as she watched the still-smoking wood, the last of the water steamed away and disappeared, leaving the original lettering as it had been, black and undamaged, part of the name of a long-lost clipper ship:

  DANE

  “. . . So here’s hoping all goes well,” droned the voice of the lawyer, as the tape recorder ceased sputtering and returned to normal playing speed. “If you have a chance to call me before the first, do it. Otherwise, I should have more for you next week.
/>
  “Take care, Stevie . . .”

  In Stevie Wayne’s lighthouse, high atop Spivey Point in Antonio Bay, it was exactly six minutes before the hour of six, on the twenty-first day of April.

  Someone was calling Andy, but he was miles away, floating on a cloud over the blue Pacific, and could not answer.

  The cloud fluffed around him, soft as the angel hair his mother put on the Christmas tree every year. He could not feel it under him, but he believed in it, and so it supported his weight easily, buoying him far from shore until he could no longer see the fox fires of the coastline or any other familiar landmarks. A high wind blew him into the jetstream. He flew over green islands and whales who were standing on their tails and spouting alongside coral reefs, just as in the pictures he had seen . . .

  He heard the calling again.

  It was a husky voice, booming at him from the other side of the Channel Islands. He leaned over the edge and saw a brown man blowing on a conch shell. The sound of the shell was like the sound of the voice, or maybe it was the voice. He couldn’t tell. He leaned farther, trying to identify it.

  The cloud shifted under him.

  He looked around, surprised, and saw it pulsating magically. Like smoke from a burning house, he thought. The cloud became a swirl of flashes, then began to vibrate. It cracked and rumbled, a sound he could feel but not hear. Then the sky was streaked with lightning as a long finger torched the sea.

  Too late, he recognized the calling. It was shriller, higher-pitched than he had thought at first. It was actually the fire alarm bell from school, and it was warning him to get out before it was too late, because the sky was burning.

  He leaned farther, too far this time, and plummeted out of the firecloud.

  He splashed down near a herd of leaping dolphins. He flailed his arms and tried to grab one of their dorsal fins for a free ride, but could not. He sank deep, deeper into the inky waters, and finally touched bottom somewhere out in the middle of the ocean.

  He saw a blurry picture through the silt he had stirred up: oily riggings and splintered masts and an overturned treasure chest spilling its dark jewels at his sinking feet. Excitedly he reached down and scooped his pockets full until there were no more to be found.

  Luckily he had remembered to bring along his swim fins, which was good thinking. He put his arms down straight at his sides and paddled upward with a butterfly kick.

  But now he was too heavy to move. Panicked, he fumbled to unload the treasure.

  A giant manta ray glided batlike over his head. Its heavy wings beat a current, raising bones and tatters, which he now saw were the remains of the great pirate Davy Jones himself. An electric eel was slithering alive inside the empty skull, lighting the eyesockets with a blinding fluorescence. A host of plankton jetted by, tinging the water around Andy with a glow like Greek fire. The dead pirate advanced on him in worm-eaten seven league boots. A bejeweled captain’s hat glittered atop his white skull.

  You must give it back, said Davy Jones, all of it. Now.

  I can’t! stammered Andy. I don’t have it, honest! It turned into a piece of wood and then—

  You have taken what is mine, boy. I have waited one hundred years. Your time is up.

  The walking skeleton was almost upon him, when suddenly it was obscured by a burst of bubbles in front of Andy’s face. Andy covered his mouth desperately, struggling to hold his air. Then a sound returned to him, a keening more piercing than ever, and finally he realized what it was. It was the sound of his own muffled screaming. He . . .

  “Andy,” called a woman’s voice, too insistent to ignore this time. “Andy, the telephone! My hands are full . . .”

  Andy rolled over in a cold sweat, fell off the pillows and out of bed.

  “I—I got it, Mrs. Kobritz. Just a minute.”

  He stumbled out of his bedroom, his dream fading rapidly.

  He closed his hands over the telephone in the living room, cutting off its banshee wail.

  “Hello? Mother?”

  “Andy. How did you know?”

  “I always know when it’s you, Mom. Hey, what time is it?”

  “Andy, I have a very important question to ask you, and this time I’m not joking. This is very, very serious. Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Andy. Exactly where did you get that piece of driftwood you brought me this morning?”

  “Aw, I told you. It was on the beach. Mom, when you were little did you ever have a dream about—”

  “Where?”

  “By the rocks. You know the ones. Mom—”

  “What was it doing there?”

  “I already told you, Mom.”

  “I know you already told me. Tell me again.”

  He sighed. “Well, first it was a gold coin and then it turned into the wood. Did you take it to work? I can’t find it. I think it disappeared.”

  “Andy, listen to me. I can’t explain now, but listen very closely. I want you to stay away from the rocks. Don’t pick up anything else on the beach. No more! Do you understand?”

  “It didn’t belong to anybody.”

  “I know it didn’t. That’s not the point.” Her voice eased down an octave. “I’m not angry with you, Andy. It’s going to be all right. But you must not pick up anything else, not unless you come and get me first. Okay?”

  “Okay. But why?”

  “I’ll explain later. Is Mrs. Kobritz there yet?”

  “Yeah. Mom, what time is it?”

  “Almost six. I’ve got to start the broadcast now.”

  “Oh good. I’ll—”

  “Promise me you won’t leave the house.”

  “Aw, Mom.”

  “Not tonight, Andy. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Andy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “Me too, Mom. ’Bye.”

  Andy held the phone for an extra moment, puzzling over the sound of her voice. Sort of like she was about to cry. Not exactly; that wasn’t it, not quite. More like she was afraid. Could that be? It was impossible. She had never sounded that way before.

  He heard Mrs. Kobritz rattling the refrigerator shelves, putting the groceries away.

  He let go of the telephone and skidded across the rug to the stereo. As he passed the kitchen door, he saw Mrs. Kobritz stooping over the open freezer.

  He pressed the power button. The speakers thumped as the automatic timing took over, and then the sound of his mother’s voice filled the room. It was deep and throaty again, not like it had been on the phone. For a moment, for the first time since he had been a little boy, he wondered if it was really just a recording on the other end.

  “Ahoy, maties! This is your nightlight, Stevie Wayne herself, and that means KAB, Antonio Bay, California, is on the air . . . !”

  He went to the window to watch for the revolving beacon from the Point. The curtains were still drawn. No, they weren’t. There was white outside, like curtains, covering the sky.

  He pressed his fingertips to the window. He stood steaming the glass with his breath. There was the beach outside the house, his skim-board and bucket and orange life raft. But a little ways out from shore, nothing. It really was thick, like clouds. It had to be clouds. Nothing else could be so white, for sure not fog like they had last winter. But he had never seen clouds so low. He waited, hoping against hope for the lighthouse beam to swing around, but it never did, or if it did, he could not see it. His mother might not have turned it on yet. The glass was cold as ice. He snatched his hands away, leaving five tiny round circles on the brittle pane.

  “What did your mother want, Andy?” asked Mrs. Kobritz from the kitchen.

  “Nothing.”

  “It must have been something, child.”

  “Nothing. Hey, Mrs. Kobritz? Can you come here a minute?”

  He heard her setting down the frying pan and then the heavy footfalls of her old-fashioned shoes. He smelled the Avon perfume on her flower
ed dress and wrinkled his nose.

  “What is it now? Your dinner will be ready in no time.”

  “Mrs. Kobritz? Are those clouds out there on the water? See ’em? Did you ever see clouds like that before, so low, right on top of the water?”

  “Oh, Andrew,” said Mrs. Kobritz, making a clucking sound in her throat. “You know better than that. Those aren’t clouds. Heavens, no.

  “That’s nothing in this world to worry about,” she said. “It’s only the fog rolling in.”

  THE NIGHT

  OF

  THE FOG

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nick was in a foul mood.

  “Hey, Ni-i-ick,” she said next to him, her voice full of dread, “what is that?”

  He hoped she had seen something that would justify the hair-raising tone, the delicate, insidious edge that scraped his nerves in exactly the wrong way, like an emery board covered with iron filings.

  Grow up, he thought wearily. There are a hell of a lot more strange things out there in this world than you know, things you haven’t seen or dreamed of yet, some of them so terrifying, if you let them get to you that way, you’d never make it even partway through the fire on your own. You’d have to be strapped to somebody’s big, strong back like a papoose the whole time in order to get anywhere at all that’s worth getting to—like home through the Gulf Stream in hurricane season, or the rest of the way into your thirties, say. Well, I’m not Daddy. I know that. I sure as hell didn’t feel like Daddy when I saw you waiting back at the house an hour ago, and you must have known it. You certainly knew it last night. You weren’t exactly passed out. So do us both a big favor. Don’t go laying that kind of hysterical, helpless trip on me now, because I can hear it coming and I don’t think I could take it.

  “That,” said Nick, gesturing toward the activity on the street, “is supposed to be what this whole business has been building up to. Antonio Bay’s candlelight procession.” He glanced over at her sitting there so primly in the passenger seat. She still had her sketchbook with her, but it was unopened, and her eyes were fixed straight ahead, unblinking. Take it easy on her, Nick, he told himself. She may turn out to be tougher than you give her credit for. And she sure didn’t do anything to deserve any of this. You didn’t ask her to stay. If you had, she probably wouldn’t have. They never do when things get choppy. “What did you think it was?”