The Fog

by Dennis Etchison

  “She’s a brave woman,” said Sandy, sipping a B&B brandy.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, “I believe she is, in a very important way. She’s all alone now.”

  “She doesn’t think so. She thinks they love her.”

  “Do they?”

  Sandy shrugged and cupped her hands around the brandy. “What do I know? I didn’t grow up here. But I figure she’s a symbol, sort of like the figurehead on a ship. She’s all they’ve got. I mean, what have they got out here? A bunch of fishermen? She’s the only one who tells them about their wonderful, all-American past, their roots. Where else are they going to get it? Where are they going to read about it? The New York Times? Fat chance. Who else cares? It’s got to mean something, you know what I mean? I mean, who wants to be a fisherman’s wife? Would you?”

  “She does,” said Elizabeth. “I think she wants very much to be one right now.”

  She heard Nick’s even footsteps behind her.

  “I’m making a run out to the lighthouse on Spivey Point,” he said matter-of-factly. “You want to come?”

  She didn’t ask why, but she had a pretty good idea.

  She set down her beer glass. He was already out the door, but not like he didn’t care. It wasn’t even that he took her for granted. If he did, he would have said Come on, the way Michael always said it, and that would be that. It was, she understood with perfect logic, that he had something very important on his mind, a purpose that had to do with something bigger than himself. And that was a quality she had not run into very often.

  She lingered as long as she could in front of the tavern, taking it all in one last time.

  Now the air had become moist, and though the candles still burning were few, the mantle of light from the park was rapidly swelling, hanging over the trees and the heads of the townspeople like an incandescent umbrella. The effect was staggering.

  “See you,” she said to Sandy.

  “I hope so,” said Sandy. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

  “Thanks. I’ll try. You, too.”

  Nick started the truck. She crossed in his headlights and swung the door open.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Sure.” She picked a piece of glass off the seat and got in. “Did you see that?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what you call it,” she said. “Have you ever seen a night like this?”

  He circled the park and picked up Main again on the far side. She leaned out her window. Now Kathy Williams’s speech came through loud and clear.

  “. . . And all of us living here in Antonio Bay today owe a great debt of gratitude to those men and women of a hundred years ago who struggled and fought and sacrificed to make this town grow and prosper into what it is today . . .”

  “If you mean that,” said Nick, pointing to the mist collecting on the slope that formed a kind of natural amphitheater at the rear of the speaker’s stand, “the answer is no, I sure haven’t. Not as long as I’ve lived here. That’s what’s got me worried.”

  As they drove out of the town, they did not see the rising wall of whiteness that had been steadily accumulating behind the hill, cresting in the high foliage and finally dropping in thick, bleached ropes over the bunting, condensing above the passive audience and ringing halos around the extinguishing filaments of their candles, dripping onto the apron of the fragile stage and extending across the boards, toward the speaker’s vanishing outline and the sweating bronze of the unveiled statue on the pedestal, the centerpiece of the evening, a sculpted scale model of a ship called the Elizabeth Dane.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “. . . I’ve got a few more surprises,” Stevie Wayne was saying, “and some more birthday music, especially for you.”

  She sat back and cued in a Stan Getz-Eddie Sauter album. I hope this record doesn’t lose them, she thought. Too progressive? It was fifteen years old, at least. It’s good for them—puts muscles in their ears. Nobody’s listening tonight, anyway; they’re too busy celebrating themselves. I need it, though; play this one for you, Stevie. Trust your instincts, that’s the only way to fly. It’s worked so far. Hasn’t it?

  The phone lines started blinking.

  So soon? Don’t worry, you’ll get your commercial fix in a few minutes. I’ll throw in a replay of the ThriftiWay Cleaners jingle for good measure, right after the next segue.

  Bitter, bitter, she chided herself.

  Nerves. It’ll pass. Is it true that talking to yourself is the first sign of incipient insanity?

  “Hello, KAB.”

  No answer.

  “Thank you for calling our request line, but if you can’t speak up, I’ll have to move on.”

  A sound like cellophane being crumpled miles away.

  Static in the wires, she thought. She pushed another button.

  “Hello, KAB.”

  This time there was a thumping at the other end.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Next.

  “Hello, KAB.”

  She was about to give up on this one, too, and reached for a cigarette, when she heard something. She sealed her other ear with her finger and shut her eyes. It was a sound like—

  It was the sound of the sea.

  “Very funny,” she said, and hung up.

  Some joker sticks his phone out the window to give me something to listen to. Or to spook me. What a sick sense of humor some people have.

  Except that the three lines had lit up simultaneously.

  So that means there are three jokers out there somewhere, the kind who send me mash notes in crayon with bits of their body hair stuck in the envelope. Who needs it? I don’t have to come here every night for this kind of bad craziness. I can get all that at home on TV.

  The lights in the studio flickered.

  She keyed up the monitor to check the signal. Stan Getz was still wailing on a tune called “Night Rider.” There was something noticeably wrong with the sound, however. He was trilling some low notes she didn’t remember at all. And the orchestra was fading in and out with wah-wah trumpets. But there were no wah-wah trumpets on this album. She knew it well enough, had grown up listening to it in bed nights with the headphones on.

  A power shortage, then. The line voltage is fluctuating. Look at those VU meters. My God.

  As the lights steadied and returned to normal, so did the music.

  Great. Rich, you know? Real professional.

  Should I sign off and leave, get the hell out of here? Would anyone notice?

  But then what would I do? Go home early and listen to Andy beg me to go to the celebration? Or worse, find that he sneaked out anyway with that Jeremy boy, so I can sit there sick with worry for him to come home? Or go looking for him, that long drive and then not finding him, and then—

  Take it easy! Andy’s fine. Mrs. Kobritz is a very conscientious woman. I really should pay her. If she’d accept it.

  Hang in there, Stevie. It’s early yet. Besides, that fisherman, Nick what’s-his-name, is on his way, or so he said. I really ought to be here. This is my job, isn’t it? I knew what I was getting into. Whoever said it would be easy?

  She sat poised over the phone. She lifted the receiver. She replaced it. She listened for the track to finish, then cued the jingle, to be followed by two cuts of a classic Woody Herman reissue. It’s a KAB doubleplay, where the hits just keep coming! She lifted the receiver again, hesitated, then dialed her home phone.

  He’s taking a long time to answer, she thought. Playing with the telescope, I’ll bet. I can see the star charts spread out on the rug. Unless it’s not clear enough tonight, unless that screwy fog bank has moved inland, after all. Might as well expect the worst. It’ll be fun driving home. First it was moving against the wind, it says here, and then—I’d better take a look. Out that way, near . . .

  The ringing was interrupted. A clearing of the throat. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Kobritz? It’s me. Just checking in. Uh, how are you guys doing t
onight?”

  A pause. “Hello, Mrs. Wayne. Oh, we’re fine, fine. And you?”

  “I’m fine, too. Annie, I don’t want you to get the idea I’m one of those worrying mothers.”

  “Oh, heavens, no.”

  “I was just wondering, Is everything okay where you are? I mean, I’m sure it is but, well, I was sitting here, you know? It’s a quiet night. Haven’t even had my usual quota of heavy breathers on the phones yet. I guess I’ve got a case of nerves.”

  Another pause. What must that poor woman think of me?

  Then, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Wayne. I understand perfectly.”

  Do you, Mrs. Kobritz? “Would you mind calling Andy to the phone? There’s something I forgot to tell him before I left.”

  “Oh. Oh, surely. But . . .”

  “But what? He’s in the middle of a television program, is that it? Let’s see, what time is it getting to be? It must be time for—”

  “No, nothing like that. You may find this difficult to believe, dear. But I believe he’s asleep.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Watch yourself, now. Hysteria is definitely not called for. Yet. But what is that peculiar reluctance in her voice, as if she’s hiding something? Am I imagining things? Asleep? I know my own son, don’t I?

  “I do believe he’s taking a nap. He seemed especially tired this evening. He told me about the big day he had on the beach.”

  She was measuring her words, Stevie was sure. “Well, could you check for me, please? I’d really like to talk to him, if that’s possible.”

  “One moment. I’ll see.”

  And is it my imagination that she’s still standing there with her hand over the mouthpiece? No clunk of the phone, no footsteps crossing the living room. But no, it’s not possible. There’s no reason for it.

  “Mrs. Wayne?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid he is asleep, poor dear. He’s all played out. I could wake him. Though he does need his rest.”

  “No, don’t do that. Let him sleep through if he’s that tired. He’ll probably wake me at dawn tomorrow.”

  “Would you care to leave a message?”

  “No, Mrs. Kobritz, thank you, but that won’t be necessary. Excuse me. But you did see him there in his room, didn’t you? It’s not just that the light’s out under his door? Because, you know, sometimes he goes outside on his own. I’ve got to get that window fixed.”

  “He’s quite all right, I assure you.” Was that indignation in her voice?

  “Well. Thank you anyway, Mrs. Kobritz. For everything. You don’t know what a help you are.”

  No answer to that.

  “Good night.”

  Mrs. Kobritz hung up without replying.

  I must have offended her good German sense of decorum.

  But whose son is he, for crying out loud?

  She realized that she had been holding the phone so tightly her fingers were white and bloodless. She set it back down. She stared at its solid, implacable shape, the rounded black plastic that had taken so long to warm in her hands.

  She swiveled her chair to the glass and tried to see the house. It was several miles away, but on a clear night—

  There in the window was a mirror image of the studio, the control panel, the furniture, the artifacts she had brought with her from home—from Chicago—to make it as comfortable as possible, a home away from home. There was her tote bag, her keys, her sweater, the portable tape player on the table, the cassette ejected at an odd angle, the blank wall behind the shelf where the driftwood had been.

  Above her studio, the lighthouse beacon swept around again, limning the coast near Spivey Point with a preternatural light.

  As she sat hearing the insect humming of the electric clock on the wall subtracting the seconds and minutes of her life, the beacon fell on a belt of whiteness riding atop the surface of the water, not far from shore. It was too close to judge the distance accurately without some reference point for perspective. It reflected back through the glass into her face, washing away the color of her skin, her head suspended over the water, somewhere near or far from shore, the dark eyes gone white, too, like the marble bust of an ancient icon staring back at her in ghostly transparency.

  She held the phone, waiting for it to come to life and restore her attention. Come on, call, she thought. Someone, anyone. I need to talk and know that I’m getting through. Even you, Dan. Where are you when I need you?

  The record ended. She raised the tone arm and adjusted the microphone.

  “How did you like that, world? Well, never fear. There’s a lot more of the same coming at you tonight . . .”

  Actually, she was dying to get home.

  “. . . Till then,” Stevie Wayne said, “let’s keep our heads together and enjoy the rest of this very special night. It only happens once so be sure not to blow it. This is one you’ll want to tell your children about.”

  The shortcut was treacherous enough in daylight, leading through the woods with deceptive ease, only to pull up short in a hairpin turn inches from the waving branches of trees that had been rooted and immovable there for hundreds of years, then narrowing to a single lane between massive trunks. Even a driver unfamiliar with the terrain would have enough sense of the road at this point not to ignore the 15 MPH speed warning on the curves. By night it was a gauntlet, a torture track for masochists and daredevil teenagers too drunk or too brazen to know or care about the unforgiving nature of spinouts and failed tires on such a course.

  But if you had worked the night shift at the weather station for years, if you lived alone and had no one to nag you into worrying, if you knew the way well enough to handle it in your sleep, especially with half a six pack under your belt, then you would not hesitate to take the shortcut by day or night. If you were already ten minutes late and running low on gas on a Saturday night, you might even thank your lucky stars that the road was there. The way to take it was to wedge the can of beer in your crotch, goose the radio up to distortion level, and maybe time yourself, if you remembered to check your watch at the turn-off—a contest with nothing except you and the road; no trees, no signs, no dropoffs into the gully, no cops, no weather that you wouldn’t know about already, and certainly no fear. You and your car one, your nerve versus the road. It was to laugh about, if it was to think about at all.

  “. . . And before you know it,” said Stevie Wayne, her amplified voice almost keeping pace with the pair of misaligned headlights knifing through the dark, “I’ll be ready to check in with the weatherman . . .”

  “And the weatherman,” said O’Bannon, negotiating a particularly hairy turn, “will be fuckin’ ready to check in with you!”

  His words and the shout that followed trailed after the car, deflecting off the trees and ringing in the hollows of the dank glade before being lost to the landscape, along with the machine-gunning of his tappets and the noxious puttering of a muffler full of holes and hanging now by a bent coat hanger, ready to drop at the next mound of leaves in the road or the first deep chuckhole of the night.

  “Hoo-whee!” he shouted out the window, downshifting and spinning out around an S-curve. He tossed an empty Coors can to the wind and was gone.

  The can bounced on the uneven pavement, skipped like a stone over water and lodged at the base of a sign that read SLIPPERY WHEN WET. Moisture condensed on the aluminum and dripped into it, followed by a steady stream from down the splintered post, sliding in sheets from the rusting steel sign, funneling from the branches that touched it, which were already growing furry sleeves of nearly crystalline fog.

  More fog blew into the trees and transformed them into puffballs at the skyline, hanging in a cloud that stretched and shrank, as if breathing. It slithered in serpentines down the bark, leaving a blue-white sparkle like diamond dust on whatever it touched. It gathered in a cold boiling on the ground and grew amoebalike pseudopodia in glutinous chains across the now shimmering blacktop. It turned and flowed back up the center
line, toward the sea, but too late; the car was already past and heading for the end of the run. The fog contracted, strengthening its substance, and expanded again, solidifying an ectoplasmic net across the lane through the forest, waiting for the next car to pass this way, a mile and a half outside Antonio Bay proper, on the route that led to the sea.

  Andy had to see for himself.

  He helped Mrs. Kobritz with the dishes, dodged her invitation to watch Narky, the new police dog series and retired to his room for the time being “to play with my cars.”

  He did in fact line up his Matchbox miniatures on the quilt, arranging them in a long, convoluted procession, and waited, humming one of the new KAB jingles to himself. After twenty minutes or so Mrs. Kobritz’s calls of “Andy, look at this” and “Andy, you really ought to see it” gave way to her usual disapproving conversation with the TV set, to clucks of criticism and finally to a heavy, regular breathing that told him she was lost again to her after-dinner nap.

  “It’s one hundred years ago today,” he sang to himself.

  He slipped into his fur-lined jacket, pocketed his flashlight and the Pronto camera he had gotten in the mail as a Christmas present from his uncle in Chicago, and pried up the window to the sun deck.

  He had heard no unusual sounds from outside, only the familiar tonguing of the water under the house during high tide. But he knew they would be there. And this time he was determined to catch them in the act, whoever they were.

  He dropped to the sand and listened intently. No footsteps from the living room, no “Andy, what are you doing?” Only the old rush and slap of the sea, and the crackling of the high-voltage power lines up on the road.

  They never made that much noise before, he thought, and peeked over his shoulder. He could not find the telephone poles, however, in the new fog. It was everywhere now.