The Fog
Page 16
“Watch the fog.”
She stood and stretched through a simple yoga exercise. Her back ached. She had to go to the bathroom. She had to go home. But not to sleep. She didn’t feel like she’d be ready to go to sleep for another hundred years. Or thereabouts. In that general vicinity. On a scale of one to ten—
I feel like a definite nine-and-a-half.
“And now here’s the first installment of that bonus I told you about. Til six o’clock tonight, when I’ll be yours all over again, keep this one running through your head, why don’t you? It’s going out to you with love, from all of me to all of you. This is your new best friend and mine, Stevie Wayne. Better get used to the idea, because you’ll never be able to get rid of me now!”
She deactivated the microphone, electrified the turntable, and rummaged through her collection of old 78s. She found the one she was looking for, slipped it lovingly out of its jacket, blew the dust off, centered it, and flipped the playback cartridge to the larger 78 stylus. Then she set the repeat so that it would play again when it was through, and again and again, on and on until it was worn out and she returned tonight to go back on the air.
She double-checked her output level, set the controls and started for the stairs.
She paused. She looked back one last time for anything she might have overlooked.
She recrossed the studio in two steps, shut off the heater, and wound down the rheostat on the hotplate.
She mounted the walkway as if it were downhill and settled into her VW. As she backed out and headed up the road, the first glimmerings of morning light were rising and quivering in the tall grasses ahead, as if this landscape had been waiting to be unveiled exclusively for her. Stevie had never before experienced any part of the township at this very special hour, and its intensity was a revelation to her, like a picture from a book she had had once as a girl but thought she had lost long ago.
She clicked on the radio.
KAB was the only station on the air, of course. Glenn Miller was reprising “Sunrise Serenade” as masterfully as ever. Its lovely, corny old melody would continue to play for her and for anyone else who might be lucky enough to be listening, all the way into the heart of Antonio Bay and back. The FCC be damned. She grinned secretly and blinked in the wind from the onion fields nearby and stepped on the gas.
There was someone very special she had to see.
Andy gave a great yawn as he left the church. The morning would be silvery soon. Already the morning star was in its place, twinkling at him for good luck in the milky ink of the sky.
He stuck his hands into his back pockets and yawned again. He was so sleepy.
There was something in his jeans.
It was a Polaroid picture he had taken under the house. He held it under the headlights and examined it. It had come out pretty well. There were the starfish hung up on the posts. They didn’t look like they were dead. They looked like they had been caught in the act of climbing. He could not see nails in their bodies. Could be they were never really there; could be my imagination. Maybe they hadn’t been taken out of the water and strung up there at all. They might have been climbing up on their own to try to escape what was in the ocean that night, like it was poisoned or something, like they knew it wasn’t a safe place to be. An evil place. Could be my imagination, he thought. A lot of things could be. He hoped so. But he did wonder if the starfish would still be there when he got home, or whether they didn’t need to be in a safer place anymore after tonight.
Kathy Williams sat on the edge of her car seat and tried the radio. A filtered, low-fidelity record was playing over KAB, the Voice of Antonio Bay.
“What in the world is that?” she said, her face caught somewhere between laughing and crying. “I haven’t heard that since college! And even then it was old. Nick, come here!”
“I never heard it,” said Sandy. “Thank God.”
Nick leaned into the car and hooked his arm around Kathy.
“Kath,” he began.
“Nick, can you believe it? It’s like we’re in a time warp these last twenty-four hours. When does it stop? Nick, I don’t know if—I don’t—”
“Call me,” said Nick. “Or I’ll call you. I’ll take care of everything. Let me. Meanwhile, if there’s anything. Anything at all.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Williams,” said Andy. “Don’t be sad.”
She angled her knees out of the car and placed her hands around his ribs, under his arms.
“You’re quite a brave little boy, do you know that?” He flinched but she drew him closer. “Don’t you get into any more trouble now, promise?”
“I promise.”
“Take good care of yourself. Will your mother ever be glad to see you!”
“Are you going there?”
“Why, I don’t see why not. Do you, Sandy?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Is it all right, Nick?”
“It’s up to you, partner,” said Nick, squeezing his shoulders.
“Then it’s settled. First we’ll go to the station and find Stevie. She’s still on the air, can you believe that woman? And then perhaps you and your mother would like to come with me for a nice, big ranch breakfast. You, too, Nick. And your friend. Yes, I think that would be nice. I have a house in the hills with plenty of space for a boy your age to have a good time. I have the most wonderful dog, too. You’ll have to meet him. Would you like that, Andy?”
“Sure. What kind of dog is it? Only I’d sort of like to see my mom first.”
“Well, it so happens that’s right where we’re going. Isn’t it, Sandy?”
“If you say so, Mrs. Williams.”
“Come on, then, and get in the back seat. I must look a fright. Sandy, do you have any more Valium?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Elizabeth came up beside Nick.
“You don’t look so good yourself,” she said, wiping his face with a tissue. “Know that, mister? Is anything broken? I can drive. If you want me to.”
She was standing very close. The dirt was smeared on her face like clown makeup.
“Feel up to it?” he asked.
He saw the downy wisps of hair hanging loose from her temples, the pores of her skin, the hidden shells of her ears now partially exposed. He touched her arm.
“Just a minute,” she said.
She went around to the other side of the car and closed the passenger door for Sandy. She leaned in and said something to her, then hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. As the Seville moved out on the spare tire Nick had changed, Elizabeth waved to them. Then she and Nick walked slowly over to O’Bannon’s car. She kicked a piece of gravel ahead of her.
“I can drive,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Anywhere you want to go. The bus stop, even, if that’s what you want. But only if that’s what you want. After breakfast, though. How did that sound to you, by the way?”
She wasn’t looking at him because there were tears in her eyes. “It’s nice around here, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, most of the time?”
“Sure, I guess so. Never thought about it much. If you like small towns. And the smell of fish.”
“I do,” she said. “They’re very nice. The people. Like you. I never felt that way before, like people I don’t even know are inviting me over for tea and all that. You know?”
“I know. I guess maybe that’s why I’ve stayed on so long.”
“Have you always lived here?”
“I was in New York City once.”
“For very long?”
“Visiting. I paid to go up to the top of the tallest building in the world. When I got there I looked down at all the people jammed into those streets. They looked like ants. When I got down to ground level, I still couldn’t tell them apart.”
“Is the rent pretty cheap around here?”
He sawed his hand in the air. “So-so. It’s going up.”
“Oh.”
They came to t
he car.
“Maybe you could show me around,” she said. “On your day off.”
“Maybe I could.”
He looked at the graveyard in the dawn. It was a pile of rocks. Then he looked up at the church. At the broken windows and the trampled, muddy flowerbeds below them.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
“I’m tired.”
“Me too.”
“We’re forgetting something,” he said.
“What?”
“Be right back.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
His back hurt as he trudged up the stone steps. He pushed his way inside.
Six must die, six must die, he thought. That was what he had been trying to remember. It didn’t mean anything now. His head hurt from thinking.
The gray morning lent a pale rear lighting to the remaining stained glass window. It showed the suffering of some forgotten saint. The figure was stripped discreetly naked in an isolated and rocky setting. His face was cowled by a disk of golden light that was painted behind his head. It reminded Nick of Elizabeth’s drawing of Morro Rock, that big head from prehistory coming out of the bay. No, he thought, more like a humpback whale taking the sun and about to spout. That was more like it. He decided he liked her picture, after all. A lot. He would hang it on his wall. A frame around it. Why not? And maybe a few more to go with it. He could start collecting them.
Reverend Malone was seated stiffly on a pew. He looked uncomfortable. The poor man was a mess. His robe was torn and he hadn’t shaved in days. Neither have I, thought Nick. He came up behind him and said gently, “Mike?”
The pastor raised his head.
His eyes were dark sockets in an ash-gray face. His skin looked like you could reach out your hand and roll up a little ball of it like clay between your fingers.
“What is it, Nick?”
“You okay?”
Reverend Malone only stared through him.
“Anything else I can do? Look, why don’t you come with me,” Nick said impulsively. “Leave this place. We’ll get you cleaned up and rested. I’m going to stop by Doc Thayden’s myself as soon as he’s up.”
“Why?”
“Why not? There’s no reason for you to be here right now.”
“It’s Sunday morning,” said Reverend Malone.
“Yes, and it’s over. Whatever it was, it’s over. There’ll be plenty of time to sort it out later. It’s like a bad dream.” He clasped the pastor’s back. It was thin and bony and ready to collapse under the remains of the robe. He withdrew his hand.
“Is it?” said Malone from very far away. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he added with great difficulty. “You go along home now, Nick. I’ll see you. Sometime.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“This is my station,” he said. “I’ve lived here for a great many years. More than I can remember. I’m sure it will stand me in good stead these next few hours.”
“I’ll stop by this afternoon.”
“I’m grateful for your kindness.”
“Don’t talk like that. You did all you could. You did the thing that counted most in the end. Don’t think about it. You paid your debt.”
Reverend Malone’s mouth pulled back over his teeth in a semblance of a smile, but his eyes were somewhere else.
“If there’s anything—”
Reverend Malone put him off with a movement of his hand.
“I’ll be seeing you, then,” said Nick. He backed down the aisle.
“Be seeing you,” said Reverend Malone. “Oh, and Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you again for your kindness.”
“Don’t thank me,” said Nick.
Reverend Malone was alone.
His breath came through some obstruction. The effort seemed to sap his last reserve of strength.
He opened his eyes at the sudden pungence of the air.
No one was there. Only the desecrated altar and the sound of the first birds stirring outside the broken windows. A car started up. The exhaust wafted in.
He placed his hands on his knees and rose. His loose footsteps sounded unnaturally loud as he scraped his way over the hand-laid stones. He mounted the steps before the blank space on the wall. The peeling paint held a smudged marking where the cross had been for so many years. The cross, he thought. It was a travesty.
He held out his arms weakly before its memory and shut his eyes. A cold breeze from the windows stung his hands.
His throat moved. “Father,” he said. “Give me a sign. I need to hear you now, but cannot.”
The breeze uncoiled down the aisles and encircled his ankles. His legs began to shake violently.
No, he thought, refusing to sit down, I will not have it.
“I implore you,” he said. “Give me to know of your wisdom. I must understand. Why? Why only five?”
His eyes rolled heavenward.
Had he looked down instead, he would have seen the tendrils of mist wrapping his ankles, binding his feet to the burned spot where he stood.
“Why?” he asked again. “Why not six?”
He lifted his arms in a gesture of supplication.
And saw that they were steaming.
He started to turn.
“Blake?”
Fog hissed into the aisles, filling the church with a ghostly congregation. He felt their eyes boring at his back.
“It is you, Blake, I know it. You are with me now, aren’t you? You’ve come back.”
A heavy sucking sound at his back, sliding to rest at the altar.
“Why not me, Blake? There were six conspirators, not five. My grandfather was one of them. He was the first.”
No answer. Only a moist rustling and a dripping on the stones. A sudden odor of corruption filled his nostrils.
“Blake,” he said, “I call you in the name of my father who art in Hell! I beg you, have mercy on my soul. Set me free!”
A rusty, coral-encrusted cutlass was unsheathed from its scabbard. It clanked and swished in the air.
“Blake!” said Reverend Malone. “Here! Take me! For the love of—”
Before he could finish the sentence or complete the turn to face his confessor, the blade of Captain Blake’s tempered sword whistled through the thick air toward Reverend Michael Malone, first-born son of the Reverend Tom Malone and only grandson of Patrick Malone, founder and first pastor of Antonio Bay Township, severing his head roughly from his shoulders with a single powerful blow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DENNIS ETCHISON’S fiction has appeared in a wide variety of publications here and abroad since 1961, including magazines such as Fantasy and Science Fiction and Fantastic Stories, as well as in such anthologies as Orbit, New Writings in Science Fiction, Prize Stories from Seventeen, Rod Serling’s Other Worlds and Whispers. His work remains in print throughout the world in a number of foreign languages, and most recently may be found in many of the best collections of contemporary horror fiction: Night Chills, Nightmares and the award winning Shadows and Frights among others. He has been both a nominee (1977) and a judge (1979) for the World Fantasy Awards and has also written articles, poetry, film and television scripts. He has a novel, The Shudder scheduled for publication in the fall of 1980. Mr. Etchison is a native Californian.
Table of Contents
THE FOG
PROLOGUE
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FOG
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
THE DAY OF THE FOG
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NIGHT OF THE FOG
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
sp; Dennis Etchison, The Fog