Rising Fears

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Many of the people of Rising were holding notes in their hands: notes that they had inexplicably found themselves writing during dinner, or instead of helping the baby down for bed, or even in the middle of sex. Notes that they had no control over, but had felt constrained to write, as though for a time they were mere marionettes on a joint string.

  Some of the notes were direct, and simple, and Jason would have shivered to see them: "iT'S sTarTED" in black crayon.

  Other notes bore a single word, a word that the people could all agree they felt, but none had any idea how to avoid or change: "FeAR."

  Then a wind whipped up, blowing tattered bits of the fog at people's faces as though the mist were reaching out tentacles to grab them and make them its own.

  Shapes could be glimpsed in the mist: ghostlike wraiths that flitted quickly in and out of view, moving too fast to be seen directly. Dark, forbidding.

  Traces of hornlike shadow could be seen on the heads of some of the apparitions, and more than one of Rising's residents crossed themselves and knew that the Devil had at last come to claim them.

  Then, almost as one, though unseen one by another, the townsfolk moved back to their houses. They closed their doors and hid inside their homes like frightened rats in the middle of a maze of horror and despair.

  What else could they do?

  ***

  FIFTEEN

  ***

  Sarah West was damned if she was going to let a little bit of fog get to her. She was on the main street, she was only a few feet from any of a number places where she could get help in a pinch, and, most important, she was Sarah West.

  And Sarah West was not someone who got screwed with. Sarah West was the one who did the screwing. She was one of those rare people who understood the truth: that being called "bitch" was what happened when people were jealous of you, and that people like her always won in the end.

  The wind whipped up, flapping her small skirt against her thighs, and she shivered. She wasn't afraid, girls like her didn't get afraid for any reason. But even so...she picked up her pace as much as she could in the thick fog, trying to keep the bright - but rapidly failing - lights of the football field at her back. Finally, though, she had to resort to walking with one foot in the street just to make sure she was walking in a straight line.

  She thought of Albert as she walked. Pervy little snot. How many times had she caught him filming her ass over the years? Too many to count. Not that she could blame him for trying. Asses like hers were one in a million, and definitely part of the whole package that was going to be her ticket out of this one-horse hellhole in the middle of Nowhere, Washington. She'd finish high school, then it would be off to Los Angeles for a career as a movie or TV star, or maybe she'd be a pop recording star. She hadn't decided which one she would yet, but knew that whatever one she decided on, it would happen. She was, frankly, perfect for stardom. She had long legs, muscled without losing their femininity; a nice butt; and a rack that was the closest thing to perfect that God had ever created.

  And Albert thought he even had a chance at speaking to her! She couldn't help but laugh at that.

  The laugh drew her up short, but as soon as the thought had fled she realized something that...disquieted her: she, Sarah West, was completely lost. She couldn't make out anything in the heavy fog, not even the powerful lights over the football field. Not that it was dark, exactly: the fog itself seemed almost to glow with a pale light. But even so, there was no visibility, and she had lost herself in her daydreams to the point that she had no way of making it home.

  She sighed and dug out her cell phone. She hated calling her parents for rides: it reminded her that she should have had a car by now. God knew her parents could afford one. But every time she broached the subject they started babbling about "responsibility" and "earning privileges" and even saying such ridiculous twaddle as "you'd have to pay for your own gas." As if. Sarah West had things paid for her. She did not pay for them herself.

  The cell phone was a perfect example. It was her fifth one in seven months. None of the others had broken or lost, they had simply gotten old. So when a new one came out a month or two after hers, and when the new one (inevitably) had some feature that hers lacked, or was faster, or even just cuter, she could always convince her parents to fork over the cash to get it.

  She dialed home. But instead of hearing the dial tone followed by ringing, she heard...nothing. Well, that wasn't strictly true. She did hear a kind of high-pitched sound, like someone was playing a CD about a billion times too fast, reducing it to a nasty whine.

  But no parents.

  She clicked the disconnect button and tried again. Same result. Only this time the whine was louder, and then even louder as she listened. Then it slashed out at her like a sonic razor, making her cry out.

  And at the same time, a shadow passed by in the mist. Inches away.

  Sarah's breath caught in her throat. What had that been? The shadow had been huge, at least the size of a grown man, but it had definitely not been a man passing nearby in the heavy fog.

  "Who is it?" she said, and her voice cracked. She coughed, then in a stronger voice said again, "Who is that? Who's out there?" After a second she added, "Tiffini, if that's you I swear to God I'm going to kill you."

  If it had been Tiffini, the other cheerleader would have broken up laughing at this point. But there was no sound to be heard at all. Nothing except the high-pitched whine from her cell phone.

  She turned the phone off and shivered.

  Another shadow passed by. Again, it was man-sized, but Sarah could see even more clearly that whatever it was, it wasn't a man. Two arms, two legs...but its head looked as though it had horns on it.

  What the hell? she thought, and began to back away from the shadow. Before she could take a single step, though, the dark patch in the fog had disappeared. She turned around in time to see another one of the shadows pass nearby before it, too, melted into the fog.

  A new and unwelcome sensation touched her then: panic. She felt herself start to lose control of everything from her thoughts to her bowels as she realized that whatever was happening, it was no joke sprung on her by the more jealous of the other cheerleaders.

  "Leave me alone, you freaks!" she shouted.

  As if in response, another one of the strange, horned shadows appeared directly in front of her before melting into the mist as all the others had done. Sarah started to spin around, seeing shadows at every turn, but she could never focus on one for more than a second or even catch the exact moment when a shadow became one with the fog and disappeared from her view.

  She became even more disoriented than she had been, a kind of vertigo seizing her, dizzying her, making her reel in place. She caught herself, taking a deep breath, and then took a large step.

  Move, she thought. Don't stop. Stopping is what it wants you to do. Gotta move.

  She didn't have the courage to examine - even within herself - what "it" might be.

  She walked.

  Then walked faster.

  Then ran. The one consolation was that she seemed to be running in a straight line: her feet were coming down each time on the sidewalk she had been trudging down before this all started.

  Slap, slap went her sneakers, her breath coming in short pants as she fought to outrun the shadows that even now surrounded her.

  Slap, slap, slap, slap...splash.

  Sarah stopped short. She felt her sneaker get wet and instantly looked down.

  Only sidewalk at her feet. Not so much as a puddle. But for all that fact, her shoe was undeniably soaked, as though she had just walked into a small stream up to her calves.

  She looked around, but could not see anything but fog and the ubiquitous shadows, drawing ever closer, silent and menacing.

  She took two more steps.

  Slap, slap...splash.

  This time the other foot became wet, and suddenly Sarah was transported back in time, feeling as she had on that beautiful summer day
when her parents had taken her out on a lake for some waterskiing and her line had somehow gotten fouled in the outboard motor, drawing her under the water and tangling her in a spiderweb of rope that held her down, down, down, and she felt herself drowning again, clawing for air, the only thing that saved her was her mother, who quickly jumped in with a knife and hacked at the waterskiing lines until Sarah was free.

  But there was no water here. No more than three houses in all of Rising even had pools.

  So how could her feet be wet?

  No longer trusting her vision - what if the shadows weren't really there, either? - Sarah knelt down and felt all around her. In every direction she carefully pressed on the ground wherever she could reach it. It was dry concrete no matter where she pressed.

  She stood.

  Another shadow came by her, and this time it was close enough that she could almost see eyes: grossly distorted, gigantic eyes that stared not at her, but through her. As though she were an insect, or less than an insect: something to be ignored or destroyed, not cared for or pampered as Sarah deserved.

  The sight of those awful eyes in the mist was too much. Sarah screamed in terror, and wheeled to run, secure in the fact that she was on solid ground, that she could run like a goddam gazelle, that nothing could happen to her because she was Sarah West, dammit, and bad things didn't happen to Sarah West.

  She turned.

  She put down a foot.

  And fell headfirst into water.

  She could see the sidewalk rushing up at her, but instead of hitting herself on the cold concrete, she felt herself fall through it, its surface suddenly as permeable as that of any pool or stream or...

  Or lake.

  She fell into liquid, her hands paddling with manic ferocity as she tried to claw her way up. She was disoriented, the mist didn't give her enough light to know whether she was swimming up or down. The breath burned in her lungs, she wanted to breathe, she wanted to live, to breathe, to live, she wanted so many things as she clawed there in the dark of the water that could not be there but was.

  She broke the surface, gasped a thick draught of clean, misty air, then fell down again, plunging back below the impossible surface of the water that was there though it could not be. The breath was hotter in her lungs now, more insistent and urgent. Again she was clawing for life, trying to find her way to the surface of the - what? What had she fallen into?

  She pulled for all she was worth. Pulled and pulled at the water that surrounded her, holding her breath as long as she could, knowing that to gasp, to try to breathe would be the end of her. But with each pull of her arms, the need to breathe grew more critical; with each kick of her feet her lungs demanded air more stridently.

  She resisted, still trying to find her way up. Even the mist, the shadows, the fear that waited for her above was better than this.

  She prayed, asking God to save her, a part of her marveling that God could have been asleep at the wheel long enough to allow this to happen to her in the first place.

  She wanted to breathe, she wanted to breathe, she wanted to breathe.

  She clawed, she fought, she struggled.

  Where was the air?

  She kicked her feet, the muscles in her perfectly proportioned legs pushing her strongly around as she fought for her life.

  She wanted...she wanted...

  She wanted to breathe.

  She fought it. She denied herself. She refused, as long as she could, and then kept insistently refusing to open her mouth, to take that gasp that a part of her was convinced would be so good.

  Then, at last, she wondered in the small part of her mind that was still capable of rational thought, What if this is a dream?

  What if this isn't real?

  Then how do I break out of it? was the next thought.

  And the answer was obvious.

  So though a small part of her cried out in horror, shrieked "NO!" and tried to stop her, the rest of her - the animal that she had largely become - said "yes" and smiled triumphantly.

  And with that smile, Sarah West, beautiful of limb and body, intelligent of mind, perfect in nearly every possible way, opened her mouth and inhaled.

  ***

  SIXTEEN

  ***

  Ox Mackey stood behind the closed door of his store and looked out into the otherworldly mist that had somehow surrounded the town. A dark shape whipped by, too fast to see much, but what Ox could see immediately convinced him that he wanted no part of what was going on outside.

  He just stood there, watching, waiting for the inevitable moment when one of the...things...in the mist tried to come in.

  But none did.

  That was good. Ox knew he could hold his own in a fight, but he had no wish to find out if his skills were up to a brawl with him on one side and some nightmarish creature on the other.

  Another one of the shadows appeared out of the fog, and Ox held his breath as it stood for a long moment beside his store.

  The door rattled. It was locked. Ox knew it was because he had locked it himself. And now he was especially grateful that he had done so.

  The door rattled again, and Ox felt himself tense.

  Then the shadow melted away as if by magic, and the door stopped shaking.

  There was a popping noise, and suddenly half the store was plunged into darkness as a fuse popped.

  Ox looked at the fuse panel. It was behind the counter, high enough on the wall that he would have to stand on the small stepladder he kept around for such emergencies. Normally he waited until a customer came along and asked whomever it was to help out.

  Ox didn't like heights.

  Actually, it was worse than that: heights absolutely paralyzed him. His own seven foot two inch frame had him high enough that he felt like he was going to break out into a nosebleed sometimes, and anything higher than that...forget about it. Even standing on the small stepladder made him feel nauseated, and he couldn't remember the last time he had set foot on the second floor of a house.

  At the same time, however, Ox somehow didn't think that anyone was going to be braving the mist to come get milk or sugar anytime soon. So he had two alternatives: either wait in the dark, or reset the fuse himself.

  At first he felt sure that he could wait in the semidarkness of the store. But the shadows kept marching past the plate glass storefront in the fog, and each time one did so he felt a little more exposed; a little less safe.

  Finally he could bear the darkness no longer. He would brave the stepladder.

  He pushed the ladder to where he needed it, then inhaled deeply and took the first step. Immediately he felt dizzy as all the blood rushed away from his head, as though not even that small part of him wanted to be so high up. He waited a long moment like that, steadying himself, before trying to move again.

  Before he could, though, the door rattled once more. It was another one of the shadows, standing at the door. This time the rattling was more insistent than it had been; harder and faster. Ox held his breath, standing halfway up the ladder, his head at the rarefied height of eight feet or so, and waited for the door to be broken down.

  But just as it had each time, the door stopped shaking and the shadow moved away, becoming one with the fog that surrounded the store.

  Ox took another breath...and took another step.

  This time he did not feel faint. The exact opposite occurred, in fact. He grew hyper-aware of everything around him. The hum of the bulbs that were still lit, the feel of the air across his face, the base taste of the salt on his lip. It was almost overpowering, and he stood on that second step for a good five minutes, gulping air in huge draughts until he felt like he could move again.

  He reached up a shaky hand and opened the panel that held the circuit breakers. Sure enough, several of them had flipped into the off position. Ox reset them, and the lights powered up to full.

  A moment later he looked behind him...and immediately wished he hadn't. The light had apparently acted like a beacon to
the otherworldly beasts outside, because it looked like there were more than a dozen of them, huge eyes weird within the mist, the vaguely horn-shaped points on their heads floating back and forth as their heads ululated like seaweed in a gentle current.

  The door started to rattle again. Harder this time.

  Ox knew he couldn't stay like this; knew he should get down and load one of the shotguns he had in the store. But he couldn't move. The height he stood at had done its work, paralyzing him as completely as though he had sustained a spinal cord injury.

  The door rattled harder. Now it was booming as several of the things started hammering on it at once.

  Ox had to get down.

  Had to get down.

  Get down, Ox, get down.

  He finally took a step. His foot dropped the six inches to the rung below the one he was standing on. It felt like a tremendous drop, like a fall from heights untold, the six inches stretching into a gap that spanned eternity.

  But at last his foot touched down.

  One step to go. One step, and then he would be on solid ground and all he would have to worry about was the alien invasion or whatever it was that had gripped Rising in its cool, misty clutches.

  Ox inhaled, almost hyperventilating as he tried to psych himself up for that last step.

  The door was shaking harder now, rattling so hard he felt sure that the hinges must be about to disintegrate into a million pieces.

  One more step.

  One more.