In the Fog

by Andrew J Brandt

  After a few seconds, the young man sauntered into the living room in a pair of black joggers and a t-shirt, his hair still wet from a shower, the dark brown locks hanging nearly over his eyes.

  “Why the hell weren’t you downtown? Don’t you understand what’s going on?” the older man demanded.

  Chris’s blank stare almost sent the chief into a rage, though Howard quickly calmed himself, remembering Penny’s last bit of advice, to have patience with the boy.

  “I’ve got another headache,” Chris finally said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Howard said. “I told you to get downtown. There’s an emergency, and I need you to get down to the station.”

  “What kind of emergency?” Chris asked. “What’s going on?”

  Howard paused for a moment, trying to find the words to explain the unexplainable. “The women,” he started. “They’re all gone.”

  Chris’s eyes went wide. “Wh—,” he stammered. “What?”

  “I can’t explain it, son. But all the women in town have...vanished.”

  “I don’t understand, dad,” Chris said. “What do you mean, vanished?”

  “I mean, they’re just gone. Women in their beds, gone. Their clothes and gowns left in the sheets. Cars, wrecked, clothes in the drivers’ seat,” Howard said. “It’s like a goddamn horror movie out there. I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you to put on some clothes and come down to the station with me.”

  “Why do I need to go to the station?” Chris whined. “I told you, my head hurts.”

  Howard couldn’t handle the twenty-year-old doing that whining thing and without thinking, reared his hand back and swiped the kid across the face. Chris stumbled back and fell against the wall. One of the picture frames that was mounted fell from its hook, glass shattering on the floor at their feet. “Because I said, you little shit. Listen when I tell you to do something, boy. Get your ass dressed.”

  “Dad,” Chris started, his voice shaking and fearful of getting hit again. “What do you need me for?”

  Howard took in a deep breath to calm himself. That’s how his anger worked, these quick, violent spurts followed by clarity. “This town needs us. And I need more deputies.”

  “You’re going to—” Chris started. “You’re going to deputize me?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I need officers out there. Shit’s about hit the fan, son,” Howard said. “Now go put on some man clothes. You’re not a boy anymore.”

  Chris looked down at the broken picture frame, the smiles of his father and mother looking back at him. A scratch in the photograph from a shard of glass etched across his mother’s face. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m not a boy anymore.”

  The radio on Howard’s belt crackled to life. “Chief,” the voice that came over the speaker on the device was quick and panicked. “Gordon here. We’ve got a problem. There’s a riot at the grocery store. Holcomb barred the doors and someone pulled a gun. We’ve got the scene situated, but you need to get over here. It’s bad, Chief.”

  The chief snapped his fingers at his son and Chris walked down the hallway to go change clothes. He held the radio to his mouth and barked, “On my way.”

  CHAPTER 13

  CHIEF | 1:12PM

  THE PARKING LOT of Central Market, Decker’s main grocery store that sat a few blocks south of the downtown square where the chief had gathered the remaining men of the town, was a scene of complete chaos. By the time Chief McMillan arrived, the crowd that tried to storm the locked doors had largely dispersed, save for a few witnesses of the shooting. Pulling into the parking lot close to the front doors next to the two patrol cars already on scene, McMillan got out of his Tahoe seemingly before it had even rolled to a stop. A man sat in the backseat of one of those cars, his hands bound behind his back and head hanging low.

  “Stay in the car,” he said to Chris as he pulled the Decker Police Tahoe up to the front of the store.

  Chris nodded without a word.

  Howard walked over to the front entrance. A white sheet covered what could only be a body on the ground close to the front doors of the grocery.

  There were two officers on scene. One was getting a statement from their local celebrity, Jem Taylor. McMillan couldn’t stand the guy. He and his wife were big city folk who drove big city vehicles and built a new big city home on a razed plot of land over on the west side of town. Aside from that, last year when McMillan was voted—almost unanimously, mind you—for another term as police chief, Taylor had written a disparaging opinion piece for the Decker Gazette, accusing the chief of forcing early retirement on a number of older officers and replacing them with hand-picked cadets that were nothing more than yes men. As far as Chief McMillan was concerned, Jem Taylor and his big-city politics could take a hike.

  “What the hell happened here, Gordon?” McMillan asked his patrol officer questioning Taylor.

  “Rodney Holcomb shut the Central Market doors and there was a frenzy, sir. A riot,” the young man responded, his voice still shaking. “Mr. Taylor here was a witness to the shooting.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Jem said, “I’d like to get home and get cleaned up. This whole ordeal makes me just want to stay inside for a while.”

  The young officer looked at the chief as if it was up to him. “I’ve got his statement,” the young officer said.

  McMillan waved Jem off. “If we have any other questions, we’ll come see you,” the chief said.

  Jem nodded and left, back toward his vehicle.

  “Who’s the man in the back of the car?” the chief asked, turning back to Gordon.

  “Tommy Lancaster,” the officer replied.

  The chief groaned. Lancaster was a frequent flyer of Decker PD Express and spent more than one night in the drunk tank. “Who’d he shoot?”

  The young officer led Chief McMillan to the body and pulled back the sheet so he could see. The body of Steve Jones laid on the ground, the color already running from his skin, causing him to go nearly as pale as the concrete sidewalk. A large hole in a destroyed eye socket exposed the flesh and bone underneath.

  “Goddamnit,” McMillan said. “That dumb shit has really done it now.” He looked back to the man in the back of the cruiser, hoping he’d get to lock eyes with the son of a bitch. “Take him downtown and book him.”

  At the front doors of the store, Rodney Holcomb sat on the ground, his belly protruding in front of him, popping out of the plaid button-up shirt he wore to work and his hands bound behind his back. Howard sauntered over and crouched in front of him. He could smell the sweat and odor emanating from the fat man’s body. “Did you not listen to a damn word I said? I said, doors have to remain open. The town needs to continue like normal while we figure out what’s going on. I’ve got a lot of respect for you, Holcomb. Hell, your son is one of my finest men. Luckily he listens a lot better than your dumb ass.”

  “Chief, you don’t understand. You weren’t here. All these men came up demanding that I let them in. I can’t let my store get picked apart by a bunch of crazies,” he said, each word truncated by a near-sob. “I mean, look at my front doors. They were literally pulling the glass apart with their hands, Chief.”

  “That’s not your call to make,” Howard said. “So, now, my men will be running your store. I’ll put two officers in place here.”

  “You can’t—” Holcomb started, sitting up a bit.

  “I can,” Howard interrupted him. “I can do whatever I want. Whatever this town needs. And this town needs men who can handle the pressure. For now, you’re going downtown. I can’t have trigger-happy men controlling the supplies. You get to spend some time in a cell while we figure out what to do from here.”

  The grocery store manager began to sob now, his jowls shaking as tears fell down his red cheeks.

  Another police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and its brakes screamed as it came to a halt. McMillan got up from his crouch, his knees cracking as he did.

  “Chief!
” the officer shouted, barely letting his patrol car come to a stop before he was out the door and running up to McMillan. He was one of the new recruits, a Hispanic kid named Jose Chavez.

  “Calm down, son,” the chief said to the young man. “You’re on a crime scene. Have some civility.”

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” Chavez said, out of breath. “Duncan sent me. Said he didn’t want it going over the radio.”

  “What’s going on?” Howard asked.

  “We found a woman, sir. Over on Lynn Drive,” Chavez said. “Doing the neighborhood sweep. She’s dead, Chief.”

  CHAPTER 14

  JEM | 1:28PM

  JEM RETURNED HOME—empty handed and without groceries—and, still covered in Steve’s blood, he sat in the idling Grand Cherokee in his driveway. Out of habit, the radio was on and the sound of static flowed from the speakers. The silence expounded on the loneliness he felt. He knew he needed to go inside, to wash himself of the dirt and gravel and caked blood, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  He knew nothing awaited him in there either.

  The morning had been so eventful, he’d yet to actually process what had happened. Not only with his wife, but every woman in town. It seemed impossible, like a bad dream from which he’d awake at any moment.

  Finally, he turned the vehicle off and went inside. The house felt large and intimidating. Standing in the kitchen, he wondered why they’d built such a large home when it was just the two of them. Perhaps in the back of his mind he hoped that they’d have a baby together eventually, but as they got older, that looked less like a possibility. In the house, what once felt like luxury now felt flagrantly excessive.

  With no ambient noise—no ESPN on the television, no music blaring from the speaker system in Susan’s office—even his breath echoed in the silence and he felt utterly alone.

  Jem knew he needed to get out of his head. Looking at the Kobold watch on his wrist, the time on the blue watch face read just before two. He went to his office. In the writing desk’s main drawer, Jem shuffled some of the loose papers and journals in there until he found it.

  Crumbled in the back of the drawer was an old pack of Camel Reds, the cardboard packing slightly bent, but the cigarettes inside remained intact. Who knew how long those damn things had been in there? He couldn’t recall the last time he’d smoked, and couldn’t believe that he’d even remembered this old trophy of his early days was still in here.

  Ruffling around again, he found an old plastic lighter, still with a bit of fluid in the bottom. He pulled a cigarette, half-bent from the pack and stuck the butt in his mouth. Flicking at the lighter a couple of times before it lit, he held the flame to the end and inhaled a long, cathartic cloud of smoke. The initial hit to his lungs stung, and the cigarette tasted a bit stale, but he exhaled and leaned back in his brown leather writing chair.

  Susan would kill him if she caught him smoking again—smoking in the house, no less! He took another drag, the red tip glowing as he did so. A part of him wished she would come in and scold him. He hoped this little act of rebellion would conjure her up somehow and she’d storm into his office and say disbelievingly, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  However, as Jem finished off the cigarette, putting the butt out against the metal handle of the desk drawer, he knew she wasn’t coming in. After a few minutes alone in the silence, the nicotine cloud dispersing in the air, he got up and went to the bathroom. He stripped down, the clothes a compact pile on the ground by the sink, and turned on the shower until it was steaming.

  Was it hot water or cold water that washed out blood? he wondered to himself. Susan would know the answer. Hell, Alexa would know the answer as well, but without internet, he couldn’t even talk to her.

  In the shower, the water falling all over him from the oversized showerhead, he watched as the blood on his hands and knees flowed off and down the drain.

  He’d watched Steve die, right there on the pavement outside the grocery store, and now the man’s blood washed away. How would he be able to explain to Georgia what happened to her husband? That he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? That, without the women, without their better halves, this town had dovetailed into complete chaos in a matter of hours?

  He caught himself in the middle of a question—how will I be able to explain this to Georgia? Georgia wasn’t coming back.

  Susan wasn’t coming back.

  With no access to the internet, no news of what was going on in the outside world, he wondered if this situation—this vanishing—was happening all over the state. All over the country. All over the world?

  His writer brain was going haywire, helped of course with the influence of nicotine. If this event affected more than just their little Texas hill country town, there was only one way to find out. He’d have to leave Decker. He still had friends in San Antonio, and he could make the drive in less than an hour. A bigger city would have more emergency response personnel as well.

  Of course, they could also turn him away. He could drive all the way to San Antonio, only to be stopped at the city limits or the Bexar county line by police. Or worse, he could find himself in the middle of nowhere with no protection. If things were already degrading in Decker, if men were already resorting to violence in the presence of a police force, what protection would be available in between the cities? But, there was no way to know unless he went.

  After scrubbing himself, he turned off the water and dried off with a towel hanging from the rack on the wall. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The eyes staring back at him felt foreign and distant. He didn’t recognize this man in the mirror, the one who’d let fear and rage take over, smashing his foot—which throbbed in pain now that the adrenaline had run its course through his veins—into the gunman’s face in the Central Market parking lot.

  Jem knew, for all intents and purposes, it was time to get out of Decker. He dried off completely and got dressed quickly in the large walk-in closet attached to the bathroom, pulling on a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt off the hangers.

  At the back of the closet, bolted to the floor, Jem opened up the safe and pulled out all the cash, totaling around ten thousand dollars, and stuffed it all in his old backpack that he used to carry when he taught at Decker High School. The black canvas had held up strong over the years, though a few threads showed, fraying around the straps.

  He also pulled out his matte black Glock nine-millimeter. He hadn’t touched the thing in years, and he checked the chamber for rounds. It was loaded, something that Susan would be appalled at. He’d give anything to hear her voice now, even if she was berating him for keeping a loaded weapon in the house.

  Content with the money and weapon, he grabbed his few other belongings, anything of value. As he crossed the house into the kitchen, he placed Susan’s ring on the marble countertop. If some providence were to bring her back, he’d want her to be able to find it.

  Jem edged his Grand Cherokee out of the driveway and started toward Main Street. He’d be able to take the interstate access road that intersected Main on the north side of town. As he started down Main Street, he couldn’t believe the scene in town.

  There was a line of vehicles wrapped around the block at Main and 15th Street. On the corner of the intersection, the FasTrip convenience store and gas station was overrun with men trying to fill their cars, trucks and fuel containers with gasoline. Three police cars were in the street, their lights rotating that blue color, the light bouncing off the buildings.

  As Jem drove by, he suppressed the part of him that wanted to try to help direct traffic, though when he got closer, he realized the police on scene weren’t directing traffic.

  One man was on his stomach, his hands bound behind him. One of the police officers had a baton in his hand, beating another man who was sprawled in the street on the curb. Jem hit the accelerator and blew through the red light at the intersection. The devolution of society and civility came quick in Decker. Although
, even if this strange event occurred everywhere else, he knew that any town ran by an unchecked Howard McMillan was unsafe.

  Jem sped down the street, slowing only slightly at the traffic light intersections that signaled the more pronounced intersections. There were only four of those, however, before the turn off to the highway that led to San Antonio.

  His engine revving, the needle on the dash pushing close to four thousand, Jem took the turn onto the access road with nearly no thought of consequence and took the short ramp onto the highway, pushing his Jeep to eighty miles-per-hour before the transmission caught up and settled down to his cruising speed.

  The highway, unlike Main Street, was completely empty and barren. He’d wait til he was far out of Decker before he went over the speed limit. Once he crossed the city-limit sign, the police chief could kiss his ass.

  Jem did worry and wondered, however, what would be waiting for him in San Antonio. If the vanishing affected the larger city as well, it could also be in chaos. But at least he had family there. He also figured the city would have more infrastructure and a disaster plan in place that didn’t include a power-hungry chief of police.

  As he crested the hill that came just before the green Decker city limits sign (Pop. 5860, it read) Jem threw his foot down on the brake pedal, his vehicle’s tires squealing as the brakes locked. The Jeep sort of fish-tailed as it came to a stop and Jem peered out the windshield in wide-eyed wonder and horror.

  He’d never seen anything like it. Of course he’d seen fog roll into town from the hill country, low clouds hugging the rolling hills as it nestled into the valley Decker inhabited, but this rolling cloud in front of him boiled and spun with an energy that seemed more menacing than a regular mid-autumn fog. Most of the time, fog rolled in during the early morning hours, dissipating as the sun trekked across the sky. Or, it would come at night after the sun had gone down, roll into the valley the town resided in, hugging the neighborhoods in a haze. The cloud that hung over the highway and stretched across the horizon as far as he could see almost glowed in the afternoon light.