The Fog (17 page)

One minute there was the drone of the television set on the other side of the door, and closer, in his own room, his mother’s voice saying something about everybody being extra careful on the Interstate Highway. The next minute, the next second the television sound went off, his high-intensity lamp burned out, and Mrs. Kobritz was rousing from her chair in the living room, clomping on the rug and then making a hard, sharp sound on the wooden boards. He clicked off his portable radio and straddled his chair, listening for what was going to happen now.

He could not see his Matchbook cars. He parted his curtains. There was not even the light of the sodium vapor lamps up on the highway outside his window. The fog had encased this side of the house in an impermeable sac. He watched with interest as the convolutions flattened against his window like the folds of a brain under glass in the butcher shop. Now that he was safe inside again, it was fascinating.

He shuffled across the bedroom to the door. There was a fragile light coming through the crack underneath. He opened the door.

A single candle burned on the dining-room table. It reminded him of his last birthday party. Mrs. Kobritz was busy inserting several other small party candles into their plastic holders and trying to get them to stand up in the dirt of a flower pot.

“Why did the lights go out?”

“There’s no need to worry, Andy,” said Mrs. Kobritz kindly. “They’ll be back on in no time.”

“I know. I hope they don’t. I think it’s kind of fun.”

Mrs. Kobritz made a sound of disapproval. “Where is the fuse box, Andy? Do you know?”

“In the service porch. The fuses are in the junk drawer. Is that all it is?”

“I’ll check in a moment. I wonder if it’s only here? I can’t see the other houses from here.”

“The lights are off up on the road.”

“Are they, now?” She lit the last one and adjusted it in the potting soil. “I’ll see to the fuses to be sure.”

“Want my flashlight?”

“Yes, Andrew, that would help.”

“I’ll get it.”

He ran back to his room. The handle was still covered with sand. When he got back to the living room, Mrs. Kobritz was gone.

“Mrs.—?”

“It’s all right, Andy. I can see well enough.”

He saw a tiny candle flame disappearing around the kitchen door frame.

He watched the windows for a while. The fog captured some of the yellow light from the candles on the table, so that there seemed to be a glowing outside. To better enjoy the adventure, he wet his finger and snuffed out all the flames but one.

He heard her puttering in the enclosed back porch. She’ll be mad, he thought, when she sees what I’ve done. I’ll say a draft blew them out. She won’t believe me, though. She’ll relight them first thing when she comes back. But wait. I know. I’ll go get the big candles from the cupboard. One in the candle holder on top of the TV won’t be so bad, and besides, she’ll be proud of me that I knew where they were and got them down myself. I didn’t know where to tell her they were. I just remembered, I’ll say.

He went to the kitchen.

The chair was tall enough. He toed up and rummaged in the back of the shelf. He could not hear Mrs. Kobritz. She must be checking the fuses one by one. She’s so patient. His fingers closed on a long, smooth shape. He took it down, scraping crescents of wax under his nails, and carried it back to the living room.

He straightened the wick and tipped it into the birthday candle, which was by now a half-melted clot. The wick took the flame, then failed. He tipped it again. A glob of hot wax dripped down onto this last birthday candle before the flame could be transferred and put it out.

The room went dark. Only a thin, gossamer tracer of smoke rose from the holder, highlighted by the glow of fog outside the window. Glow? Yes, it was glowing. How funny, he thought.

He stayed by the table, waiting for his eyes to adapt.

There was a crash in the kitchen.

“Mrs. Kobritz? Come here, look at this.”

No answer.

“Mrs. Kobritz? It’s glowing. Come see!”

Footsteps on the linoleum.

“Andy, did you leave that chair in the middle of the floor? I could have broken my neck. What are you doing? What happened to the candles?”

“Mrs. Kobritz, look.”

He saw her shape pass him, silhouetted against the curtains.

“Why, what is this?” she said.

“What is it really, do you think?”

“My, my. It would appear that a great deal more fog has moved right past Mrs. Oliver’s house and is coming this way.”

“It’s already here. At least, by my room.”

“Is it? It was blowing across the back porch. There seems to be even more now, closing in on this side. I think perhaps we’d better close all the windows, Andy. Is your bedroom window closed?”

“Yes.”

“You’d better check again to be sure it’s down tight.” Her voice was constricted.

“Why?”

“Andrew, do as you’re told.”

“Okay.” He started to leave. “Wow, lookit that!”

“What is it?”

“Look at the way it’s turning to water on the glass!”

“Are you sure your window is closed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Kobritz turned from the window. “I wonder about your mother’s bedroom.”

A tall, black shape walked across the front window.

“Mrs. Kobritz . . .”

“I’m positive I closed them, but I’d better make sure.”

“There’s somebody outside. I just saw him. Maybe he’s coming to help.”

Mrs. Kobritz stopped short. “What did you say?”

“I said—”

Andy’s voice was overpowered by the sound of a knocking at the front door. It repeated until it was a pounding that shook the walls and rattled the pictures on the mantle.

“I can’t believe that’s Stevie,” said Kathy. “I’ve never heard her this way before.”

“She’s scared, Mrs. Williams. That’s what I’d say.”

“I wonder why? It’s only fog. A rather heavy influx, I’ll grant you, but bad weather is no reason to lose control.”

“No, ma’am. Mrs. Williams, look at that.”

At the end of Regent Avenue a white fin of fog encircled the old eucalyptus trees, growing in the headlights until it was a waiting roadblock.

“It’s moving faster now,” said Stevie on the car radio. “Up Smallhouse Road to Regent Avenue . . .”

“What street is this?” Sandy clocked her hands around the steering wheel. “It’s so dark.”

“Try to hurry, won’t you?”

“. . . Now it’s spreading out. Up to the end of Regent . . .”

Sandy made a U-turn.

“. . . Up to Tenth Avenue . . .”

“Mrs. Williams, there’s no place left to go.”

“Are you trying to frighten me, Sandy?”

“No, ma’am. Do you have a map?”

“I don’t need a map. I’ve lived here all my life. Keep going, dear.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What did you say?”

“I’m not going to drive through it. Mrs. Williams, it’s not safe. Can’t you see? Can’t you hear what she’s saying?”

“. . . Moving down Tenth Avenue . . .”

“Make a right, Sandy.”

“Right here? I never saw this street before.”

“Sandy, I want to be home! If you can’t handle it, move over and I’ll take charge.”

They passed a street sign.

“Oh-oh,” said Sandy. “This is Tenth. It says so right there, see?”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

Sandy drove cautiously to the end of the block. The traffic light at the residential intersection was out. The Cadillac listed as they rolled over a mound on the pavement.

“God,” said Sandy, “did you see that?”

“Did I see what?”

“A dead cat. It looked like it had been run over so many times—”

“Sandy, stop that!”

The car screeched to a halt, fishtailing into the curb.

“Not here. I didn’t mean—”

“Mrs. Williams. Look.”

A white talon was hooked over the trees at the end of the block. It was clawing its way over the parked cars. It blew out the windows of each car it touched as if they were bottles lined up in a shooting gallery. It was undeniably coming their way.

Sandy stomped the pedal to the floorboard, raked the wheel, and reversed direction in a tight swerve that pinned them to their seats. She bounded back through the intersection without slowing and sat forward, feeding the gas like a drag racer.

“Where did you learn to drive like this? Are you determined to kill us both?”

Sandy did not answer. She eyed the darkened storefronts of the Bayside Shopping Center as the headlights clipped their façades one by one.

“If you’re on the south side of town,” said Stevie Wayne, “go north! Stay away from it, whatever you do. Stay away from the fog . . . !”

Kathy raised her forearm automatically as another white, swirling roadblock appeared beyond the Savings & Loan building, closing the distance rapidly.

Sandy strong-armed the wheel in reflex. The tires lost traction momentarily as the sidewalls scraped the curb, and then they were rocketing over the sidewalk and into the parking lot. A red sign flicked past the windshield. DANGER, it read. DO NOT ENTER.

There was an explosion, and the car reeled to a stop at the exit lane of the lot.

Something was hissing outside. Sandy flung the door open and surveyed the damage.

“It’s the left front tire,” she said. “The spikes, road hazards, whatever you call them. I’m sorry, Mrs. Williams. They got us.”

Kathy did not answer. Her elbow had struck the padded dash. When she tried to move her wrist, a bone slipped in and out of place.

She clamped her teeth together and closed her eyes. Then she said, “Can you fix it, Sandy?” She winced at her own voice. It sounded like a child’s.

“You mean can I change the tire? I never have before. Well, I guess I’d better learn how,” she said despairingly. “Now is as good a time as any. Do we have a spare and one of those jacks?”

“I don’t know, Sandy. Al always took care of those things.” She tried to open her door, but her arm was a problem. “In the trunk, I imagine. Here, you’ll need the keys.”

Sandy leaned in.

Behind her, extruding between the chain posts on this side of the lot, not thirty feet away, was a waist-high counter of fog.

“Look out!” said Kathy. “Get in and lock the doors, quickly. It’s already here!”

“. . . Andy,” said Stevie Wayne, “run! Get out of the house! Mrs. Kobritz, get him out of there before it’s too late . . . !”

Stevie tugged on the microphone cord, opened the glass door, and stepped out onto the upper landing. The air was humid and putrefied but still bearable. It was the only way she could manage to see the whole town. She decided to go back on the air and give it one more try.

“It’s over by the armory,” she said with precise, broadcasting school enunciation, hoping that someone would hear and understand. “I can’t recall the street. Highland. No, I think it’s Chestnut. Now it’s turned again. It’s sweeping inland again, almost like a wall across the east side. And it’s slowing, not moving as fast. Settling in for the night.”

She stretched the cord as far as she could. Her car was still up on the road. I could go for it, after all, she thought. I could make a break before it gets any farther.

The fog blew aside for an instant. She saw the frost that now enveloped the convertible top and body, no longer orange but flecked with ice. It was already too late. She knew it even before the first runners of fog appeared on the walkway and began to slough down the one-hundred-and-thirty-nine steps.

“Please,” she said, a strange, tragic calm overtaking her. She slowed her lips, pacing her words so that they would be extremely clear. “I know someone is out there. My son. Listen to me. My son needs help. The address is 887 White Beach Lane. Please help him, someone. Anyone. My son . . . is . . . trapped.”

The bottoms of her feet were chilled numb through her shoes. She glanced down over the railing.

The fog was precipitating around the rocks at the base of the lighthouse, the first tentative antennae of vapor already beginning to scale the whitewashed stones.

She closed the glass door, lowered the microphone, and leaned her back to the glass. She resumed breathing with great effort, striving to separate herself from the failed struggle.

She raised the microphone once more and spoke from within the unexpectedly quiet eye of the storm.

“Andy?” she said. “I don’t even know if you can hear me. I want you to know something while there’s still time. I’m sorry I didn’t come for you, that I wasn’t there when you needed me. But, you see, I thought I had to stay here. I tried to reach someone who could get to you. I don’t know if they heard me.”

She fought down a surging in her chest.

“I’m going to stay here now, Andy. I have to. If you’re safe, then it doesn’t matter. It’s all right. I may be the only one who can see everything now, and I may possibly be able to help someone else. I hope you understand. Please, my darling, try. I’ve got to stay here now. I love you . . .”

“Who’s that at the door?”

“Andy,” said Mrs. Kobritz, “I want you to go to your room.

“I think I should stay.”

Mrs. Kobritz stepped between Andy and the door, beneath which an illuminated worm of fog had slipped past the weather stripping.

“But—”

“Right now,” she said with quiet authority. He could tell there was no use arguing.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He slouched dejectedly from the living room. He paused at his doorway. “Mrs.—”

“Andy, go to your room!”

He navigated between chair and dresser, leaving his bedroom door ajar.

“But I want to see who it is,” he complained hopelessly.

He heard the pounding cease abruptly as she unlocked the front door. He turned back in time to see it opening on a whitefall.

No one there.

But he had seen someone pass the window, he was sure. That couldn’t have been his imagination. Could it?

Mrs. Kobritz went out onto the front porch. The fog flowed around her, so that her dress smoked like hot clothes out of the wash.

“Can’t I just stay for two seconds, Mrs. Kobritz? One second? Please?”

She must have heard him this time because she started back inside. He could not see her features in the backlight, but he knew what her eyes would be like, stern and ready to punish.