The Fog

by James Herbert

  Holman knew he had to reach her or she would soon slide down the incline into the deep chasm. He called out to her, but she didn’t seem to hear. He looked around, wondering how he would cross the gorge to get to her. She was about ten feet above him and thirty feet below ground level. Climbing to her shouldn’t be too difficult providing he took great care; the sides were full of protuberances and old roots. The problem was to get across – and quickly.

  Another thought struck him; what if the gap should close? The thought of being crushed to death as though in a giant nutcracker spurred him into action.

  The car would have to act as a bridge. Two steps and he would be on the other side. It was dangerous but the only course of action he could take. Tentatively he placed a foot on the roof of the car. It held. He put his weight on it, still holding on to the wall on his side. The roof slanted downward and the thought of slipping on its smooth surface terrified him. Before he could allow himself to think further he took two bounds across the gap, almost willing himself to fly.

  But the second step caused the car to lose its grip on the sides of the walls and it slipped forward and down, taking Holman with it. Desperately he grabbed at the side he had been making for and, with more luck than judgement, managed to grasp a dead tree root. It cracked and broke, but thin tendons held it together and swung him inwards.

  The child looked up at the sound of the crashing car and screamed when she saw the man hanging there. Rivers of earth, disturbed by her feet, ran over the ledge and showered into the gaping hole. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed, calling for her lost brother.

  Holman hung there, thin strands of rotted wood between him and death. His feet sought support from the crumbling earth and one hand grabbed at solid rock. He managed to find a handhold and eased his weight from the broken root. He raised his feet until they found a more solid rest. Gulping in lungfuls of dusty air he looked towards the little girl.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he shouted across. ‘Stay perfectly still and you’ll be all right. I’m coming to get you!’

  He didn’t know if she heard him or not, but he knew she would not last long on the precarious ledge. Again the thought of the ground closing up drove him on. He inched forward, testing every handhold, every foothold, and gradually came within eight feet of her and found himself on a fairly solid outcrop of rock. He didn’t know how much time had elapsed; it could have been hours, but more likely it was no longer than minutes. Surely help would come soon, someone would try to see if anyone was trapped in the hole. He looked for a way to reach the girl.

  There was a narrow crack running along the wall almost from where he stood to four feet below the ledge the girl was on. If he used it for footholds and used his hands to cling to the rock above his head, he should be able to reach the ledge, lean over it from the side and grab her. Her little body shook from the sobs but she didn’t look up.

  Carefully, he began to feel his way along, keeping his eyes on the girl, ready to warn her not to move. As he drew nearer, her sobbing stopped and she looked up at him, her tiny face a mask of sheer horror. God, what must he look like coming towards her like this? With all the terror she’d been through, now to see this shape, filthy with dust, eyes wide and staring, clambering towards her.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said, softly but urgently. ‘I’m coming to help you. Don’t move.’

  She began to back away.

  ‘No, no, don’t move!’ he couldn’t help but shout.

  She began to slide down and, realizing her predicament, dug her hands into the soft earth, crying out in fright.

  Holman took a chance and lurched forward, hoping the side of the ledge would hold his weight. One foot stayed in the crack, the other dangled in space, one hand shot towards the girl, the other grabbed at the rock face. He managed to grab her outstretched hand and prevent her from sliding further. Her legs were over the edge now, her feet kicking at the empty air. His left hand found a crevice in the wall and he clung to it grimly, knowing if he lost his grip, both he and the girl would plunge to their deaths. She was screaming now, but her hand grabbed his as she realized the danger behind her.

  For a few moments, all he could do was cling there, looking into her frightened face, clutching her struggling limbs. He whispered to her to be still, kindly, trying to keep panic from his voice. Slowly, her struggles died down and her body went limp, as though she knew nothing more could happen to her, her young mind going blank to protect her. He began to pull her up, her slight body no weight, but difficult because of his awkward position. Finally, she was completely back on the ledge but still he dragged her towards his chest.

  ‘Hold on to me, sweetheart,’ he told her gently. ‘Put your arms around my neck and hold tight.’

  He pulled her down between the ledge and his body, telling her to put her legs around his waist. Numbly she complied, her short legs resting on his hips.

  ‘Now don’t let go and everything will be fine,’ he whispered, easing himself back along the crack, the shape of the girl pushing him outwards. His arm and leg muscles were rigid with the strain but endurance was one of his assets.

  Finally, exhausted, he reached the more solid outcrop of rock. He sank to his knees, still holding the child close, his shoulders heaving with the exertion. Turning slowly, still clutching the girl, he leaned back against the cliff wall and rested his aching limbs.

  For a few minutes his brain registered no more than the blessed relief from exertion but, as his strength returned and his breathing grew more even, he began to wonder at what had happened.

  He remembered entering the village and then – and then the ground, the very earth opening up. First the crack snaking its jagged way along the concrete, then the noise, the deep rumble, the build-up to the cracking stone, and then the incredible sight of the ground opening up, the enormous split in the earth. The two sides moving apart, their edges crashing inwards, down, down into God knows where. The sight of the two children, the man and his bike – had he seen a woman too? – disappearing into the hole. The shops collapsing – he remembered seeing the shops on one side collapsing – and then the ragged mouth reaching towards him. The tilt of the car, the lurch as it slid forward.

  It all seemed to have happened in slow motion. And yet it had all happened so fast. He stroked the girl’s head, trying to still her sobs, reassuring her that they’d be all right, but the cries for her brother stung his heart.

  He looked up towards the daylight, hoping he would see someone up there, someone looking for survivors. Survivors? Survivors of what? The question exploded in his brain. An earthquake? It was incredible. Earthquakes had occurred in England before, and minor tremors were frequent. But an eruption of this size? The incredible, the unbelievable, had happened. In a crazy world, the most crazy thing had happened. Wiltshire had suffered an earthquake! He laughed aloud at the thought, startling the child. He pulled her raised head back to his chest, gently, and rocked her comfortingly.

  What had caused it? It certainly wasn’t any gas-mains explosion; not with this devastation. The hole was too deep, too long. No, it had certainly been an earth tremor, not as serious as those suffered in other countries of course, but of just as great a magnitude because it had happened in England! Why? Had the nearby military installation been testing some underground explosives? He had evidence of some pretty strange goings-on from his discreet weekend visit, but doubted they had anything to do with this. A chain reaction, perhaps, from one of their experiments. But probably nothing to do with them for, after all, they had vast areas of British-occupied wasteland in far off countries to carry out their tests in. England was no place for experiments of this kind. It was more likely a freak of nature, a disturbance below that had been building up for centuries, probably thousands of years. And today had been the day for it to erupt.

  But still the doubt lingered.

  Just then Holman noticed movement at his feet. At first he thought it was dust caused by the disturbance, but then s
aw it was billowing up from below. It was like a mist, slowly rising in a sluggish swirling motion, slightly yellowish although he couldn’t be sure in the gloom. It seemed to spread along the length of the split, moving up towards his chest, covering the girl’s head. She started to cough, then looked up and her whimpers became stronger when she saw the mist. He lifted her higher so that her head was level with his shoulder. Then the mist reached his nostrils. It had a slightly acidy smell to it, unpleasant but not choking. He got to his knees, wondering what it could be. Gas? A ruptured main? He doubted it – gas was generally colourless, this had some substance to it. It was more like – well, a fog. It had body, the yellowish tinge, a slight but distinct odour. A vapour probably released by the eruption from deep underground, trapped for centuries, finally finding its way to the surface.

  It was above his head now and he found it difficult to see through. He got to his feet, lifting the child with him. Once above the rising cloud, an immense fear overcame him, For some reason his horror of the swirling mist was more intense than the horror he’d just been through. Perhaps it was because this was happening slowly, whereas everything else had been so fast, leaving so little time for thought. This somehow seemed more evil, more sinister; he didn’t know why, but it filled him with a great sense of foreboding.

  ‘Help! Is there anybody up there? Can anyone hear me?’ He called out urgently, no panic in his voice yet, but he could feel hysteria rising. There was no answer. Maybe it was too dangerous to approach the edge of the hole. Perhaps there were too many injured up there anyway.

  ‘I want you to get on my back, darling, and put your arms around my neck,’ he told the girl, lifting her chin so he could look at her face. ‘We’re going to climb up now.’

  ‘I – I want my brother,’ she whimpered, no longer afraid of him, but still not trusting.

  ‘I know, darling, I know. But your Mummy and Daddy will be waiting for you up there.’

  She burst into tears again, burying her head into his shoulder. The thick blanket of fog was now up to his chin. Moving her around to his back, he took off his belt and tied her wrists together just below his neck, tucking her legs around his waist. He began to climb.

  The people above heard the cry for help coming from the huge hole that had wrecked the village. They’d assumed that anyone who had plunged into it must surely be dead, but now gained new heart at the sound of a voice, a chance to react against the tragedy. The policeman whose children were thought to have been lost in the eruption, was lowered over the edge of the crack. He would not give up. He had searched the rubble and still half-collapsed, potentially dangerous buildings, but hadn’t found his youngsters yet. When they heard the cry for help, he was already tying a stout rope to his waist to be lowered into the hole to search for survivors.

  When he emerged five minutes later, he held a small unconscious girl in his arms. He laid her on the ground to be taken care of by the elderly but competent doctor, he kissed her once, tears from his eyes falling on her face, then dashed back to the hole and was lowered again. This time, he brought up a man. A man covered from head to foot with dust and dirt. A man who gibbered and screamed, a man who had to be restrained by four others from running back and throwing himself into the black depths. A man who was insane.

  The villagers watched the mist rise from the hole, not billowing over the edges, but rising in a densely-packed steady column, the centre of which seemed to glow faintly – or was it merely the strong sun shining through it? – rising high into the air to form a heavy, yellowish cloud. It looked like the aftermath of a hydrogen bomb, only a much smaller mushroom shape, the lower column finally ending and joining the cloud in the sky. It was soon forgotten when the winds blew it away; not dispersing it, but moving it in a huge, almost solid-looking mass, across the sky, away from the ruined village.

  3

  The Reverend Martin Hurdle trudged across the fields with a heavy heart. His thoughts were on the nearby village that had suffered the great disaster, the peaceful little village that had virtually been demolished by the freak earthquake. It had been the main story in the newspapers all that week. The great shock was that it had happened in England, not some far off, remote country that people had scarcely heard of. This was on their own doorstep, the British people could relate to it, not viewing it distantly through the news media and the press, thereby finding true sympathy hard to arouse. This had happened to their own kind. For the people of his village, they were neighbours, relatives; for the people in the rest of Britain, they were countrymen. This would be the basis of his sermon today: that through this tragic event they could now perhaps truly understand and feel compassion for the plight of other nations all over the world who suffered misfortune as a normal part of their lives. People were concerned too much with their own mundane, day-to-day problems: money worries, job worries, affair-of-the-heart worries, disputes with family, with neighbours, with life itself – all petty, insulated, but only shown to be so when some major disaster happened.

  This tragic event would force people to look outward, to see what was happening in the world around them, to realize just how insignificant their selfish, introverted problems were. If only he could use this distressing event to show his congregation just how big life was, that the world did not revolve around individuals but around the great mass of humanity itself. This was the very reason that one had to help everybody, help them to exist, to survive. That the catastrophe had happened to their village proved it could strike anywhere at any time; no one, no community, no nation was immune.

  The words ran vigorously through his mind. He knew just how he would tell his congregation that Sunday morning, just when his voice would soften almost to a whisper, to allow him to build up to a loud, heart-stirring climax. After thirty years as a clergyman he now knew the subtle inflections his voice could use, and the times he had to boom out to reach his parishioners. At fifty-two he had not yet quite despaired of human nature. There was good in the worst people, just as there was hypocrisy in the most devout, but sometimes –

  He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. He usually enjoyed his early Sunday morning walk across the fields, his pace brisk, his mind running through the sermon he would deliver that day, but he supposed the tragedy of the eruption still bore heavily on him. Having heard the news, he’d driven to the village to try to help, to administer the Last Rites to the dying, to comfort the injured. The last war had been the only experience he’d had of death and injury in these proportions and he had believed he’d got over the horror of it, but old memories had been resurrected, scars he’d thought healed were opened freshly.

  He looked up from the ground abruptly, realizing he’d walked into a mist. Early morning mists were familiar to him but this seemed different. It had a yellowish tinge to it and was thick, suddenly very thick as it swept over him. Strange smell, too. Goodness, he thought, better retrace my steps and get clear of this. Wouldn’t want to get lost and be late for service.

  He walked back in the direction he’d come, for some reason becoming nervous as his steps didn’t bring him clear of the dense mist. No, this wasn’t a mist, he thought. It was fog. How strange to run into fog on a summer morning as brilliant as it had been when he’d set out. This was as bad as some of the old London ‘pea-soupers’. He looked skyward and could just make out the faint haze of the sun. He wondered now if he were walking in the right direction.

  ‘Goodness,’ he muttered aloud, ‘I’m lost!’ What was that? His heart pounded as a dark, nebulous shape approached him.

  It was large, not as tall as him, but bulky. And silent.

  It seemed to drift towards him suspended in mid-air, its size increasing as it drew nearer. Then, oh God! – another. Another joined it, seeming to dissolve into it, becoming one huge shape, still approaching, almost on top of him. It, whatever it was, knew he was there! He backed away steadily, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He began to move faster, not turning but walking backwards, afraid to take his
eyes off the shapes that loomed larger before him.

  Suddenly, he bumped into something solid. He whirled, falling to his knees in his fright. Another black shape hovered over him, menacingly silent.

  And then, he laughed. Tears of relief ran down his face and he pounded the earth in near-hysterical amusement.

  He had walked into a herd of cows. He laughed louder, occasionally choking as he breathed deep mouthfuls of the murky air, the cows observing him in dumb vacuity, an occasional restless ululation their only comment.

  It took him a full five minutes to recover his wits and admonish himself for his foolishness. Frightened by a herd of cows! Old George Ross, who owned them, would roar with laughter when he told him the story. No wonder he thought the shapes had been floating above the ground. The fog was so thick one could hardly see the cows’ legs!

  Yes, he’d learned a lesson himself today. The unknown was always more fearful than the reality.

  It took him another twenty minutes to find his way clear of the fog.

  The man crouched low in the bushes when he heard a rustle of leaves to his left. Human or animal? Tom Abbot had to be careful. If he was caught poaching on the Colonel’s land again he’d be in serious trouble. Colonel Meredith had caught him red-handed last time and given him a ‘sound thrashing’ as the Colonel liked to boast in the village pub, then warned him if it ever happened again he’d ‘march him off to the police station, toute suite’. Toute suite! Him and his fancy language. Well, he’d never catch Tom again. Last time it had only been because he’d lingered too long into the morning on account of his poor catch in the early hours. The Colonel had spotted him hiding in the bushes and crept up on him, then used his thick walking stick to beat him about the head and shoulders. Too surprised and hurt to offer resistance, he’d been dragged along by his collar as though he were riff-raff and booted off the estate with the threat of police action and ‘another bloody good hiding’ if he set foot on that land again.