FOURTEEN
***
Jason looked out a nearby window, casting about for anything that would take his mind off the horrifying appearance of this newest - message? threat? - whatever it was from beyond.
Outside, the mist was so thick that he could barely see anything. Just a few shadows. Maybe they were houses in the distance, maybe they were just nearby trees.
And maybe they were other, less harmless things.
That last thought came unbidden into his mind, and he tried to laugh it off and cast it out without another thought. But he couldn't. It was a real concern. And a moment later he could see why he had such a concern in the first place.
Because some of the shadows seemed to be moving.
He went slowly to his front door and opened it.
The mist was a blanket. Thick, impenetrable, unworldly. He couldn't see ten feet away, so thick was the sudden fog that had descended like a veil meant to cut him off from the town and from memory itself.
The fog was so thick that it was itself frightening.
But as dark and thick as it was, Jason could still see them. Could still see the...things that were moving about in its depths.
Whatever they were, he got the distinct impression that they were not friendly.
***
Throughout Rising the mist penetrated each yard, each house. People's televisions blinked on and off and then dissolved into snow as the fog came, as though it were an electrical storm that had somehow compromised the integrity of the electronics. People tried to call one another, but the phones were not working and the isolation they felt was only amplified by their failed attempts to reach others.
On the football field, the cheerleaders broke up their practice early, rushing for their cars at a hurried pace, looking back into the fog that seemed to leer at them like a living beast.
Sarah, the head cheerleader and nemesis of the unfortunate Albert, looked into the mist herself and shivered. She had no ride, her home was close enough to the city center that her family expected her to walk to and from school. Because after all, what could go wrong in Rising?
Throughout the town, the mist invaded. Televisions turned off, radios lost their reception. People came out of their houses, looking into the mist. In some cases they were as little as five or six feet from one another, but could not tell, so thick was the preternatural mist that surrounded and isolated them one from another. They couldn't see each other; couldn't see much of anything.
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?
***