by Brian Keene
He punched his leg in frustration as a new thought occurred to him.
“The cell phone! Why didn’t I think of that before?”
Because you just woke up, moron.
Dan ran back into the house, through the kitchen and living room, and took the stairs three at a time. Yes, the kitchen phone hadn’t worked, but it relied on the phone lines. That didn’t necessarily mean the cellular network was down. Rushing into the bedroom, he grabbed the cell phone from its charger on the nightstand and pressed the power button, turning it on. Even with the power outage, the battery should have still had plenty of life.
Except that it didn’t. The cell phone sat silently in his hands. He waited for it to power up, but it didn’t. The screen stayed blank and dim.
“Come on!”
Dan thumbed the power button again, and then, without waiting for the screen to light up, he dialed 911. Again there was nothing. The cell phone, like everything else in the house, was dead.
“I don’t believe this ...”
Standing there in his bathrobe, Dan suddenly felt weak. He thought he might pass out. His head swooned and his vision darkened. His loved ones were missing, and something strange was going on. His stomach felt sick. Dan dropped the cell phone and sank onto the bed, clutching the sheets with his fists, and trying to keep his growing fear from overwhelming him.
He didn’t even notice that the mattress springs did not squeak.
TWO
He sat there a few moments, trembling, his head throbbing, not from pain, but from terror. The fear and nausea grew stronger, and his stomach cramped. Dan slapped a hand over his mouth and ran to the bathroom. He knelt and gagged, but nothing came out. Desperate for relief, he stuck his middle finger down his throat and tried forcing himself to vomit. It didn’t help. Nothing came out but air.
Standing back up, Dan cinched his robe around him and tried to think. Something was terribly wrong, that much was obvious. He needed to call the police. If something sinister really had happened to Jerry and Danielle, then every second mattered. But he couldn’t report it as long as the power was out and his cell phone wasn’t working. He decided to try the Lopez’s next door. Maybe their power was on. If not, then maybe their cell phones were working.
He walked back outside again. His apprehension grew as he passed by Jerry’s car. Much like his home, the rest of the neighborhood was silent. The typical summer morning sounds were missing. There were no birds chirping from the trees and power lines. The leaves on the trees weren’t rustling in the breeze, and no squirrels scampered across them. There were no lawnmowers roaring to life. No children playing and shouting in their yards. No traffic in the street. No booming car stereos as the teenagers cruised by—no cruising teenagers either.
Dan stared upward into the gray sky. No planes passed overhead, even though they lived just a few miles from the airport. There weren’t even any contrails from airplanes that had already passed by. It was possible that the murky, overcast haze obscured them, but at the very least, he would have still been able to hear the planes overhead. They were a regular occurrence. But not this morning, and that meant trouble. The last time the planes were absent from the sky was the day after September 11th, when the President had shut down all air traffic in the country.
Dan’s dread grew. He stepped onto his neighbor’s lawn. The grass should have been wet with morning dew, but it was curiously dry and brittle. The leaves drooped on the trees.
You really need to water your yard, Hector, he thought.
The Lopez family had moved onto the block the same year as Dan and Jerry, and they’d grown close over time. Hector Lopez, his wife Estelle, and his teenage daughter Maria, were good people, and had no problem with a gay couple living next door—let alone a gay couple raising an adoptive daughter. Hector had mentioned once that Maria suffered from depression. She had apparently gone through a self-mutilation phase, cutting herself with knives, but all that had changed now that they’d moved here. Dan liked the family very much.
Hector commuted into the city every morning, and Estelle worked part-time at the mall. When Dan peeked through their garage door window, he saw that both Hector and Estelle’s cars were still inside. Maria’s sporty little Volkswagen, purchased for her several months ago as a sweet-sixteen present, sat in the driveway. Dan felt a rush of relief. All three of them were obviously home. Sitting next to the vehicles was the new bass boat Hector had purchased only a few weeks before.
Dan crept up the sidewalk, suddenly aware that he was parading around in his bathrobe. But so what? Why should he care what anyone thought right now? This was no time to feel self-conscious. Jerry and Danielle were gone, and they were all that mattered. He rang the doorbell. The chime didn’t sound and the button didn’t light up. He rang it again, hopeful, but nothing happened.
“The power must be out here, too.”
He knocked, instead, and waited. When there was no answer, Dan knocked again, listening carefully for sounds from inside the house. He was greeted by silence. Cursing, he rapped again, harder this time. Nothing. He beat the door with both fists, hammering on it, hollering for Hector and Estelle and Maria—shouting for somebody, anybody, to help him. Even in his panic, Dan was aware once again of the curious, muted sound effect. The door shook in its frame, yet his blows were muffled. Even his cries sounded small in the silence. He didn’t have time to ponder it now. He reached down and tried the doorknob. It was locked. He rattled it, then slammed the door with his shoulder. His efforts produced nothing.
Moaning, he ran back to his yard and cut across it to the Kresby’s house. Their grass also felt dry and withered.
Jesus, doesn’t anybody take care of their lawn anymore?
His robe had come unfastened and it flapped behind him, fluttering like a cape. If any of the neighbors were watching him right now, he realized, they were getting quite the show.
I probably look like a middle-aged Captain Marvel, he thought. Fuck them. If they don’t like it, they can close the shades.
It occurred to him that other than the Kresby’s and the Lopez’s, nobody could see him anyway. The gray fog obliterated everything else. He could see the road and a few of the homes across the street, and the cars in their driveways, but beyond that was emptiness. Indeed, the neighborhood just sort of faded away, vanishing into the murk. Chances were he could run around naked out here and no one would know. He almost wished somebody could see him. If ripping off his robe and boxers and letting his dick flap in the breeze would make someone call the police, he’d be all for it.
Focus, he thought. You’re freaking out, and that’s not going to help Jerry or Danielle. Get a grip on yourself. The Kresby’s will be home. They’re retired. They never go anywhere, except to the grocery store on Friday. Phil’s prostate wakes him up early every morning. He’ll answer. He’ll help.
Except that Phil Kresby didn’t answer the door. Neither did his wife, Susan. Dan’s urgent knocks and cries for help went unanswered, just as they had at the Lopez home. Frantic, he pressed his face against the Kresby’s large bay window at the front of the house. The curtains were slightly parted. Dan cupped his hands beside his eyes and peered through the glass. It was hard to see more than a few feet inside. The Kresby’s living room was filled with the same gray fog that obscured the rest of the neighborhood.
“What the hell is going on? What is this?”
Dan realized that his voice sounded very strange out here in the silence. He had trouble believing it was he who had spoken aloud. He scowled, wondering how the fog had gotten inside the Kresby’s home. Had they left a window open or something? Were they okay? Could something have happened to them, too?
“Phil,” he shouted, banging on the window and noticing the strange muffling effect again. “Phil? Susan? Are you home? It’s Dan Miller! Please, if you’re in there, answer me. I need help. Something has happened.”
Dan glanced around the yard, spotted a ceramic lawn gnome squatting between two of the Kres
by’s bushes, and picked it up. He noticed that the shrubs had the same withered look and texture as the grass and trees, but then he turned his attention to the gnome. It was solid, but surprisingly light. Dan smashed the lawn ornament’s pointed green hat against the window. The glass shattered on the third blow. For a brief second, Dan thought he heard a woman scream, as if from a far off distance, but then the sound faded. Shards of glass fell quietly at his feet. Again, he wondered what was going on with his hearing. The sound of breaking glass should have been much louder. And who had he heard screaming? Had it been Susan? If so, she must be upstairs, given how far away she’d sounded.
“Susan? Are you in there? I’m sorry about the window, but I need help.”
He paused, listening, but there was no response. Yet he couldn’t have imagined the scream, could he? There had to be someone here.
“Susan! Answer me, god damn it! Something very strange is going on. I’m coming in. I don’t mean any harm. If you’re in there, let me know.”
When he still didn’t receive a response, Dan carefully picked the shards of glass out of the frame and then climbed through the broken window. He watched where he stepped on the other side, mindful of his bare feet. Once inside the Kresby’s home, he was immediately overcome by a vague sense of unease. At first, he chalked it up to the situation—his family was missing and he had just broken into his neighbor’s house. But as he crept forward into the living room, that feeling of dread increased. Something was wrong in here. He didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t name it or define it or explain the cause. He just felt it on some instinctive level.
The gloom deepened as he went further, obscuring his vision. Hesitating, Dan reached out and tried to touch the gray haze, but his hand simply passed through it as if it weren’t there. He thought back to an experience he’d had when he and Jerry first started dating. They’d gone mountain climbing together for a weekend, and at the top of a peak, he’d touched the low-hanging mist. At the time, Jerry had made a joke of it, saying that his love for Dan made him feel like he was walking amidst the clouds. Dan remembered the sensation as he’d waved his hand through the fog in the Kresby’s home. This wasn’t the same as on the mountain. There was no sense of dampness or cold. Indeed, the grayness felt like nothing at all. It had no temperature or texture or smell. He stepped into it, and that sense of foreboding increased.
“Phil?” he called again, but now his voice had grown timid. “Susan? Please answer me. Please...?”
His feet faltered in time with his voice. The unreasonable fear deepened, threatening to overwhelm him. The deeper he went into the fog, the worse the feeling became. Dan still had no idea just what he was afraid of. He only knew that he had to get out of the house. Turning, he fled across the room, heedless of the broken glass, and hurried back out the window. His unease subsided as he left the gray haze behind, and his worries for Jerry and Danielle returned to the forefront again.
Seized with panic for his family, Dan charged across his neighbor’s yard, dodged around a tree, and ran out into the street. He shouted as loudly as he could, but his cries sounded hollow and meek. He half wondered if the strange atmosphere was having some kind of dampening effect on sound. He plunged through more of the gloom as he ran across the street. The pavement beneath his feet vanished. He glanced around, looking for the houses and trees that he knew were there, but saw only a wall of gray. Even the curb was gone.
Plow through, he thought. It’s just fog. A weird fucking fog, but fog all the same. You can do this. You need to find out what’s happened.
Trying hard to ignore his fears, he forced himself to continue ahead. As he did, the nameless dread returned again, growing stronger with each subsequent step. He kept going, realizing that he was well past where the curb should have been. Despite this, there was no grass beneath his feet. No yard. No houses or trees or trash cans or mailboxes. It was as if everything on the block, other than his home and the Lopez and Kresby homes had vanished. He turned to look behind him and saw his own house. It seemed to be shimmering. The image made Dan think of the way heat waves were sometimes visible rising off a hot road surface. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head and make sense of things, and that was when he felt it.
Someone—or some thing—was here with him, inside the fog. He couldn’t see them or hear them, but he definitely felt a presence.
“H-hello?”
He saw no movement, but he sensed it all the same. Something was coming toward him, pushing its way through the haze. His dread increased. The disembodied presence drew closer. He still couldn’t see it, but the grayness seemed to press around him.
“Who’s there?”
For a second, the gloom parted, and Dan caught a glimpse of a looming, shadowy figure. It wasn’t human. That much he was sure of. He saw no distinguishing features or traits. No face or clothing. The entity seemed to be nothing more than a black, man-shaped hole, but much larger than a human. It towered over him, dwarfing him with its presence. The grayness seemed to congeal in the figure’s wake. Dan felt the creatures eyes upon him, even though he couldn’t see any. Then, the shadow reached for him.
Screaming, Dan fled back across the street. He ran across his yard and into his house, slamming the door behind him. His fingers trembled so badly that he had trouble working the deadbolt. When the door was locked, he sank to the floor and bit his fist to keep from shrieking.
Dan had no idea how long he crouched there with his back against the door, shivering, stifling his gasps and moans. Slowly, his fear subsided. He listened carefully, but if the shadow had pursued him, then it made no sound. Eventually, he gathered enough courage to crawl over to the window. Then he peeked outside. The yard and street were empty. If the thing was still out there, then it was hiding in the haze.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Dan went from room to room and repeated the process. He peered out each window, looking for any sign of his pursuer. He made sure all the doors and windows were locked. Satisfied that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he collapsed into a dining room chair, buried his face in his hands. He wanted to weep, but the tears, like his urine earlier that morning, refused to flow.
THREE
Dan gripped the pen so tightly between his thumb and index finger that the plastic casing cracked. Black ink smudged his skin, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he kept singing under his breath.
“I’m making a list, and checking it twice. Gonna find out ...”
His voice faltered as another sob welled up inside of him. He wanted to cry so bad, but for some reason, he couldn’t. Blinking, Dan took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. Then he turned his attention back to the paper lying in front of him on the dining room table. At the top of the paper, in big block capital letters, he’d written THINGS THAT I KNOW. Beneath that was a bullet-point list of all the weird occurrences he’d experienced since waking up this morning.
・Jerry and Danielle are gone.
・Jerry’s car is still in the driveway.
・My watch stopped at 1:46 in the morning. It’s not working.
・All of the utilities are out.
・Cell phone won’t power up. I’m betting even if it did, the coverage isn’t working, either.
・The Lopez and Kresby houses seem to be deserted.
・Something is wrong with the sound of things.
・Everything tastes funny. That could be me, I guess. Maybe my hearing and sense of taste are both off.
・There’s a gray sort of haze everywhere, but it doesn’t feel like fog.
・Everything in the haze seems to have disappeared, including the rest of the neighborhood.
・The plants outside feel weird, like they are dying. Could that be because of the haze?
・The light is different, both indoors and out. It’s gray. That’s probably also because of the haze, since it’s gray, too.
・At one point, my house was shimmering. When I came out of the haze, it stopped.
・The
re is something else out there in the haze. I’m terrified of it.
・Other than the figure in the mist, I am alone.
When he was finished with the list, Dan leaned back in his chair and sighed. Writing everything down had given him a sense of achievement. It had made him feel like he was doing something useful, and had calmed him somewhat, but he was still scared and worried about his family—and everyone else in the neighborhood, for that matter. He and Jerry had an annual New Year’s Eve tradition. Each year, they stayed up late and watched The Twilight Zone marathon on television. Dan’s favorite episode had always been the one with the meek and bookish bank teller who is the only survivor of a nuclear war. After everyone else on the planet is dead, the teller is overjoyed that he’ll finally have time to read his beloved books without interruption. Dan had always found the premise an enjoyable fantasy, but he regretted that now. There was nothing enjoyable about his predicament.
He took another deep breath and pondered what to do next. He decided to begin by searching the home for clues. He’d been half awake and panicked before. Perhaps if he went back through the house now and searched meticulously, he’d find something that might explain what had happened.
Nodding, Dan went upstairs and returned to the bedroom, intent on retracing his steps. He found Jerry’s keys, wallet, and cell phone lying atop the dresser, exactly where Jerry always put them every night. On a whim, he tried Jerry’s cell phone, but it was dead just like his. He flipped open the leather wallet. It had belonged to Jerry’s grandfather, and had sentimental value. Jerry never left home without it, and was very careful about not losing it. If he had left in the night, Dan was certain that Jerry would have taken the wallet with him. Inside the wallet was forty dollars in cash, along with all of Jerry’s credit cards, driver’s license, and social security card. There were no pictures. Jerry kept those on his cell phone.