by Lois Murphy
There is a long-drawn breath, a harried voice. ‘Pete,’ says the voice. ‘I know you’re there. Please, Pete, please. Listen to me. Stay.’
It’s Alex. Ringing me on a number I’ve never given her. It’s the first time I feel close to losing control. She stays on the line, saying nothing for a long time. I stand by the phone, still and silent as if somehow any movement would reveal my presence. We stay suspended like that, both of us hoping that the other will reach out, until finally she gives a deep sigh and says, simply, ‘Don’t.’ At the click of the call’s disconnection I feel grief overwhelm me like a fierce wind. She’s told me nothing I don’t already know.
Once, very early in my career, I had to attend the suicide of a young girl. She was fourteen years old and sixteen weeks pregnant, at the stage where it could no longer be hidden. Charges were subsequently laid against her father, but that was little help to her. The time for helping her, her eyes conveyed, was long over. I remember her eyes more than the terrible damage she’d so inexpertly done to her body. They were clear and focused, and beyond. They told you that no one had come when she’d needed them, and anyone who was here now to do the right thing was administering empty justice. Her eyes were blue, the colour of the sky.
With my foot down, I make Nebulah in just over two hours. I drive like I have demons after me – ironic under the circumstances. The risks I take are frightening, but somehow the die-trying mentality kicked in the instant my decision was made. From that moment, everything is risk. Every screech round every tight bend is a thread of that decision; the barrier to caution has been removed and now all is instinct. With any luck a patrol will see me, pursue me into Nebulah. I wonder if they’d follow the pursuit through once they realised where I was heading, or if they’d back away and just wait to pick me up the next morning. Assuming a next morning.
But despite a small handful of shocked or outraged faces on the rural highway, nothing steers me from my course, and it is still light when I pass the denuded pole that used to signpost our town. It is pre-dusk, just. The time of evening I’d be having my last smoke. I have, at the very most, about half an hour.
There’s a stillness in the town that is alive with menace. It’s like that frozen gasp that precedes a scream, the catch of breath. The setting sun is like a gaping, shimmering mouth; the open, leering clown mouth of my dreams, announcing, ‘Solstice!’ Wisps of cloud spread from it like threads of laughter.
At Li’s they’ve hidden the car, but the curtains are open. The flickering light of a gas lantern is visible, even though they’ve gone to the trouble of placing it out of sight behind the couch. All our house keys are still intact on my ring, and I let myself straight in the locked front door.
Alice has come out into the hall and is waiting for me. When she sees the gun she looks suddenly old, shrunken. ‘I …’ she starts. I walk straight past her into the lounge. Rob stands by the door, and Alan and Xandrea are still in position in dim corners to the side of the front window.
Xandrea’s lip curls when she sees the rifle. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘If need be.’
‘You’re too late. It’s already practically dark. We can’t risk leaving now, so it looks like we’re stuck here.’ She gives an elaborate smirk and twines her hands, swinging her arms back and forth like a celebrating child.
I turn to the others. Alice has followed me into the room and grips her arms tightly round her chest.
‘There may just be time to get out, but we need to go now. Leave your stuff.’ They stare at me, bewildered. ‘It’s the only chance.’
‘Excuse me,’ snorts Xandrea, swinging to the centre of the room. ‘Our best chance, if the mist is as fearful as you insist, is to stay right where we are, don’t you think? Surely that’s the obvious course?’
‘You can stay, but I want the others out. Now.’
They are still hesitating, confused, but now that the sky is dimming the menace in the air is palpable, and the potential reality of their situation is unnerving them.
‘Surely we’d be mad to leave now?’ Rob hazards.
‘If you stay here you’ll die. I promise you.’
‘You watch too much telly,’ laughs Xandrea. ‘We’re quite safe here, even without you and your arsenal.’
‘We don’t have time. We need to go now,’ I say to Rob and Alice.
Rob’s getting scared. He squints towards the window at the darkening sky. ‘But is that wise?’
‘No, but it’s all very heroic,’ Xandrea begins, but I cut across her.
‘How did you get in?’ I ask. Rob’s shamefaced look is the only answer I need. ‘We’ll fix it,’ he mutters.
‘You won’t fix anything. You’ll be dead. Don’t you understand that with a broken window it’ll be able to get in?’
‘We’ve blocked it, of course.’ Xandrea’s voice has lost a shade of its arrogance.
‘It. Can. Get. In.’ They stand, frozen as if stunned. ‘It’s probably too late already. But here, with a broken window, we’re just sitting ducks.’
The dynamics change as the impact of my words finally sparks. Alan grabs his pack from the floor and Rob wraps his arm around Alice and starts to push her towards the door. She looks over her shoulder. ‘Xandrea?’ It’s almost a wail.
‘You go if you’re scared. The window’s been blocked.’ With a grand gesture she sits back on the couch, tucking her legs under her and reaching for her cigarettes as if she’s settling in for a night of TV. I push the others out in front of me. I don’t look back.
When we get outside the air is charged, it seems to bristle. The light is almost gone. Gina barks at us from the Land Cruiser, as if telling us to hurry. As they cram clumsily into the back seat, I glance at the sky and acknowledge the shortest day. It’s already too late.
I don’t bother to reverse, just drive straight over the kerb and the garden, swerving through the gate at full pelt, barely in control. The others fumble at seatbelts. My panic is infectious.
‘How long do we have?’ shouts Rob.
‘We don’t. I’ll try for Milly’s, it’s closest.’ I can’t stop checking the mirror.
In the last of the light Alice’s eyes are huge pools of fear and confusion. ‘She’ll be okay, won’t she?’ she says, peering back. Snail tracks glisten on her cheeks.
‘It’s not up to you whether she’s all right. Her choice.’
I mount the kerb turning into Main Street. Ahead of us the night is deepening. I floor the gas for one more block, but it’s useless, it’s already coming, seething towards us along the street. I skid to a stop in front of the pub. The huge cloud is a cacophony of shrieks and moans. Alice is staring at it in horror. An Asian man shifts from the side of the mass, his face impassive, his arms outstretched. In his hands he clutches his flyblown insides. There will be no poetry tonight.
The pub door is locked. I have keys – Earl gave me a set when he left, so I could keep an eye on the place. There’s a deadlock and a security latch and the mist is bearing down on us. My fingers are like sausages as I fumble with the key ring, getting tangled. Behind me Gina is at attention, facing towards the mist, barking ferociously. I raise the gun.
The wood shatters and Rob and I shoulder the splintered doors open and herd everyone into the building. The shrieks behind us are bloodcurdling.
‘The cellar!’ I don’t stop running. The trapdoor entrance to the cellar is in the taproom behind the bar. As we stumble around the counter, tentacles of mist are snaking around the remains of the outer door of the building. Alice slips and goes down the cellar stairs on her knees, Rob on his arse. Alan takes the first steps three at a time, then falls the remaining distance. I bolt the door behind me and snap the huge padlock in place, not bothering to check whether I have a key for it.
And then I think of Gina.
The cellar is a large and well-insulated space. The lights are out, but small windows spaced at intervals along the top of the outer wall look out onto the footpath, letting in small
postcards of light. Two old straight-backed chairs near a dusty desk are the only furniture beyond the empty shelving lining the walls. Pipes protrude from the brickwork, lifeless without kegs to milk.
Alan sits bent over on one of the chairs, his arms tightly wrapped around his torso as if holding himself together against a great force. His eyes are screwed shut. Alice and Rob kneel on the floor near him, unmoving. I’m sprawled across the small landing at the top of the stairs, winded and trying unsuccessfully to steady myself. Branded into the forefront of my mind is the stance of a German shepherd, positioned between us and the approaching mist. The rifle clatters down the steps to land on the concrete, pointing at Alan. The safety catch is off. The irony of accidentally shooting him now almost makes me laugh.
Milky fingers of cloud swirl over the row of windows, dimming the moonlit view of the night outside. A low moaning drones on, with an occasional screech, like the piercing cry of a hunting owl. Alan puts his hands over his ears and begins to rock.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna smoke.’ I start to roll, hoping the smooth action will steady my hands.
‘Can you do me one too?’ croaks Rob.
I drape the paper from my lip; it hangs forlornly like a sail without a steering wind. Fingernails scratch at the small windows. There are no curtains to shield us from what’s outside.
‘It’ll be a bad night,’ I say, lighting up and passing Rob the lit smoke. ‘Solstice. We’ll just have to pray they won’t be able to get in.’
‘Oh Jesus, Xandrea!’ sobs Alice, and she curls into a foetal position, burying her head in her arms. Above us there is a shriek from the mist, and then it suddenly peels from the windows as if it’s being sucked away. The view to the bright moonlit night is unimpeded. The silence grows until it almost throbs.
‘It’s gone?’ asks Rob. I shake my head at him quickly, emphatically, before the others look up. He knits his brow, failing to understand what I mean: that if the mist isn’t with us, it’s because it’s found other quarry. It’s gone somewhere else to play. This is something they really don’t need to know.
They find out soon enough. It stays away for a few blessed hours, allowing us to start to unwind a bit, to get drowsy. It’s close to midnight when the light from the windows is suddenly shadowed. The face of Xandrea, wide-eyed and terrified, peers down at us. ‘Are you there?’ she calls, squinting into the darkened space. ‘Alice? Alan? Anyone?’ The last is a sob and Xandrea starts to cry quietly and hastily, peering impotently into the stillness. Alice stands. The face at the window gives a gasp. ‘Oh, thank God. Thank God, thank God. Alice! Oh, thank God, Alice, let me in.’
Alice spins to me, her face expectant. She stalls at my stillness, my expression.
‘Pete?’ I do not move. Alice is quickly at my side. ‘Pete, you can’t.’ Her eyes are ancient, appalled. ‘You have to.’ She spins to Rob, who is looking at me, lost. She turns back to me. ‘You can’t leave her out there. It’s murder. You couldn’t.’
Xandrea starts to thump her open palm on the window’s smeared glass. ‘Please!’ she sobs. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘Pete!’ Alice screams.
‘She’s already dead. That’s not her.’
Alice spins to the window, to the terrified face crying messily on the other side. ‘Xandrea!’ she calls, ‘it’s okay, come round to the door.’
Xandrea registers, giving a quick nod, and disappears from view. Alice positions herself in front of me. ‘Open the door.’
I’m quiet. ‘No.’
‘You have to!’ Alice is wailing now, tears flowing unchecked down her face.
‘Alice, Xandrea is dead.’
‘She’s here!’
‘She’s not. That’s the mist.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘Sure enough to know not to open the door.’
Alice’s scream is that of someone losing control. Rob moves over to her and tries to hold her, but she pushes him away and launches herself at me. ‘You can’t do this!’ she shrieks.
A weak knocking starts at the cellar door. A muffled voice can be heard, calling to Alice. I walk away from the others, sit myself in a far corner. Alice looks after me in horror, then runs clumsily up the steps to the locked door, starts pulling at the bolt.
‘Just hang on, hang on, Xandrea.’
‘Hurry!’ the voice calls. Alice tears and slaps at the door, then spins around to face the room. ‘Pete!’ she wails. Rob and Alan stare at me. ‘Could it ….?’ begins Rob.
‘No. She’s long gone.’
‘Can you be sure?’ says Alan quietly. Behind him Alice clambers down the steps towards us.
‘No.’ I say.
‘God, if there’s any chance, shouldn’t we …’
‘No.’
Alice’s face is twisted. ‘Just because someone makes a mistake, you can’t let them die. It’s … inhuman.’
‘Alice, we used to go through this every night. Milly’s husband, Gavin, outside, begging us to let him in, to save him. It nearly killed Milly. He’d been dead for nearly ten years.’ I stand rigid just to the side of a patch of light. ‘I’m not risking us all. The chance of her being real is minuscule. Where do you think the mist has been all this time? I’m not opening that door till morning. It’s the only chance we’ll stay alive.’
‘Oh God.’ Alice dashes back up the stairs to whisper furiously at the door. On the other side the sobs grow in volume, increasingly panicked. Alice wrestles with the padlock in desperate fury. ‘Rob, for God’s sake!’
With his head down, Rob makes his way slowly across the room and shuffles up the stairs. He lifts the padlock briefly, then lets it fall. ‘There’s no way without a key.’ He is barely audible.
Alice howls. ‘Then help me!’
Rob plonks down on the stairs and buries his head in his hands.
‘Please!’ calls the disembodied voice. ‘Rob, please!’
‘I don’t know,’ mutters Rob to his feet, from under the shield of his arms. Below, Alan is still sitting perfectly rigid, with his hands clasping his knees and his eyes closed. He looks as though he’s made of stone.
In the pause that follows we become aware of distant noise. The echo of shrieks. The mist is on its way.
Alice clatters down the stairs again and stands in front of me. ‘I’ll break a window.’
‘Then we all die, not just Xandrea.’
‘I can’t just leave her out there!’
‘You already have. Alice, she’s already gone.’
Outside, the distant shrieks are getting slowly closer. Alice sobs and tries to grab at my pocket for the keys. I hardly have the strength to hold her off. ‘You have to!’ she keeps howling.
‘Alice!’ the voice at the door screams. ‘Alice, hurry!’ Alice scratches at my face and our fight begins in earnest. In his chair, Alan flinches but otherwise remains immobile. Rob moves in, horrified, but stops just out of reach. At first I simply try to ward off Alice’s blows, but then she makes a sudden grab for the gun, and I shove her savagely backwards. She lands heavily on the concrete floor but is immediately up again, tearing at my jacket, her hands everywhere, a dervish. We wrestle, grunting like Neanderthals. ‘Shoot me!’ she starts to bellow. ‘You’ll have to shoot me, I won’t let you do this!’
Outside, voices are all around the building. At the door Xandrea starts to shriek.
‘Alice!’ she cries, over and over, and the voices of the mist pick up and echo her scream, until an army of voices begging for Alice is a crescendo around us, and in the midst of all this Xandrea’s screams skyrocket, cries of pure torment. Alice wails and collapses; frozen on his chair, Alan starts to move his lips in silent prayer and suddenly pulls his shirt over his head as if to shield himself, his arms pressed against his ears. Rob crawls over to Alice and wraps himself around her. They huddle together, Alice’s body convulsing in violent shudders, almost in fits.
I move to the other chair. I’m familiar with the noises outside
. Acclimatised, you could say. Xandrea’s cries slowly fade, then die off completely. At the bottom of my soul I pray with everything I have that she was already dead.
Solstice was one of the areas Milly researched when the mist first appeared. She came home well versed in the various cultural interpretations and rituals associated with it, but with nothing remotely of any use. Except as allegory – the arrival of the longest night, the winter months, signalling the beginning of an extended period of famine. The slaughter of livestock and the fermenting of alcohol sound dionysian, celebratory or debauched, but it was largely self-protection: nothing would survive the season ahead.
Except, of course, those who were already accustomed to starvation, already conditioned to survive on little. Constitutionally suited to it.
Acclimatised.
I keep my back to the flitting horrors at the windows and try not to smoke too much. The straight chair makes my back ache, but I don’t want to disturb the others by walking around. They’re quiet now, huddled together in the darkness on the other side of the room, as far from the windows as possible, curled like kittens.
We’ve pulled the desk over to a dark corner and turned it over to form a partition of sorts, as a pathetic excuse for a toilet, and we’ve all taken advantage of it. The smell adds to the overwhelming sense of degradation, as opaque and suffocating as the darkness.
It has already been one of the longest nights of my life.
‘Alice!’ Xandrea calls playfully, peering through the windows. ‘Al-ice.’ As if calling her out to play. ‘I wasn’t dead, Alice. Before. It’s all your fault, you know – you told me it was beautiful, then left me out here for it.’ She begins to giggle, and the mist surrounding her chuckles in chorus. ‘Do you know what it did to me, Alice? What you let it do? Come out, Alice, come out and talk to me. You owe me that much. You owe me.’
On the floor, Alice curls up tighter, her arms wrapped around her head, her face completely hidden.