The Fog Part 1

this is a work in progress - any comments would be greatly appreciated




Chapter 1




"Wow, this place is every kid’s worst nightmare."

The leaves made soft, rustling sounds as they turned into the driveway, heading up the hill to the house.

"Yeah, it certainly has that creepy thing going on." David couldn’t help but agree with his sister as he came to a stop in front of the house. Looking toward the 2-storey building David was reminded of every horror movie he had ever seen.

Cass tried to ignore her feelings of unease as she made her way out of the car and over to the front of the house.

“You know, this whole place feels… I dunno… wrong, somehow,” Cass said, as her brother joined her on the front steps of the house. “I’m not sure what it is, but I noticed it as we were driving down the Main Street.”

“I think it’s because we haven’t seen anyone, the whole place seems deserted.”

“Yeah,” Cass agreed, “you would think that there would be some sign of life.”

“Well let’s get inside, I want a quick look around before it gets too dark. Then tonight we can sit down and plan just what needs to be done for the renovations and landscaping.”

“I want to thank you again Dave for putting my name forward for this job. I’m really looking forward to getting to work on these gardens.”

“If this job goes well hopefully the two of us will get more places to work on together.”

“Yeah, I can see it now Wilkins ‘N’ Wilkins – let us revamp your house from the outside in. We really should have thought about joining forces earlier.”


~~~~~~~~~

Placing the last of their bags on the floor, Cass decided to take a look at the backyard, to get some idea of the work involved. Leaving David to wander around the inside of the house, she opened the large glass sliding door and stepped out into the chilly evening air. As she looked around the backyard she silently gave her thanks again to her brother. This job was perfect. The owners had told David that other than a new kitchen, and fixing up the odd crack in the wall, the rest of the house he could paint or fix as needed, and to Cass’ delight, as long as both the front and backyards were easy to maintain she could landscape to her heart’s content. Ahh the joy of wealthy clients. Cass just had to grin at the thought.


After Cass had drawn a quick layout of the backyard on her notepad she took one more look around before opening the wrought iron gate that led from the back of the house to the front. Hearing the squeak of the gate opening, Cass made a note to remind herself to get it fixed. Closing the gate, and again hearing the squeak, Cass suddenly realised that there were no other sounds at all; no dogs barking, no cars and no other noises usually associated with early evening in a small town. Moving down the driveway Cass took note of the surrounding houses, while some of them had their lights on to ward off the coming night, most remained unlit. As she shivered in the cool air she looked further down the hill and noted that with the coming chill, of those houses that appeared occupied only a few had smoke coming from their chimneys. Turning back toward the house she was reminded of her first impression earlier in the afternoon, while it still looked like every child’s version of a haunted house, it was actually the eerie silence outside that was starting to give her the willies. Taking one more look at the town behind her in the hopes of seeing some sign of normalcy, Cass began to feel even colder as she watched a fog roll slowly over the hills. Straining both her eyes and ears, Cass searched for any sign that she wasn’t out there alone. As she watched, the fog seemed to completely surround one of the lit houses, to the point that only a hazy glimmer of light could be seen. Deciding it was just too damn cold and creepy to be standing outside on her own Cass turned and headed inside.

~~~~~~~~~

“Hey,” Cass yelled as she closed the front door, “where are you?”

“Second floor, third door on the left,” David yelled back.

“Okay, be up there in a second, just need to get my jumper out of my bag.” Cass continued yelling even as she was searching through the bags trying to find the one she had packed her clothes in. The one disadvantage of this job was that because the owners weren’t moving in until the work was completed they needed to bring all their own supplies, which meant bags of not just clothes but also sleeping and cooking supplies.

“We need to get some wood for the fire, it’s starting to get really cold,” Cass called out as she was pulling her jumper over her head. As she made her way upstairs she continued shouting out to her brother.

“It was really creepy outside Dave, and there was this really weird fog rolling in.”

“Why was it creepy?”

Trying to follow the sound of his voice, Cass headed down the second floor passageway.

“There was no noise at all, and most of the houses seem empty.”

“Don’t yell inside,” David whispered in her ear.

“Shit,” Cass yelled again, placing her hand over her heart to make sure it didn’t jump out of her skin. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, I thought you were in the other room. And anyway, you were yelling too.”

“True,” David agreed, “but it’s one of the things I remember mum telling us off for.”

“Yeah, one of the many things we used to get told off for. If only she could see us now, all grown up and still yelling at each other.”

“Ahh Kiddo you always were her little blonde haired, green eyed angel, I’m sure if she were alive you’d still get away with just about anything.”

“Yeah right, this coming from the guy that had mum wrapped around his little finger. All you had to do was smile at her and she always gave in. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you using that same smile on all those women you seem to have chasing after you.”

“Hey, you use what you can,” Dave said as he flashed his sister a smile, “now let’s get off the subject of my love life. What where you saying before about feeling creepy?”

“Hmph. Least you have a love life,” Cass mumbled before answering the question. “When I was outside before, I noticed that there was no sound, almost as if I was the only person here, everything was just so still. Usually when you’re outside you’ll hear a dog bark or something, but there was nothing. It’s hard to explain… but you know when people talk about the silence being deafening, it was like that. The fact that there was no noise at all was really noticeable.” Cass could think of no other way to describe the feeling of utter stillness that had pervaded her senses as she stood outside. “Then, when I looked around at the other houses, it looked like less than half of them were being lived in.”

“What about the fog? Not that fog is unusual, ‘specially up here on a hill when it’s getting cold.”

Cass studied her brother’s face to make sure he wasn’t asking just to humour her. In the past he had been known to tease her about letting her imagination run wild.

“I dunno. It just seemed weird. Come and have a look, we should be able to see nearly the whole town from up on this floor.”

Cass grabbed David’s hand and led him towards the closest room.

“Wow, what a cool room,” Cass said as she looked around; while the room wasn’t overly large the wall directly opposite the doorway seemed to be all glass. “This would be a great view during the day, I could imagine sitting up here and watching the goings on of the whole town.”

“Yeah, see that glass door there? That leads onto a balcony that covers a part of this side of the house then goes around to the back. You wouldn’t have seen it earlier because it was getting dark, but over on that side of the land there is a stream that comes down the hill and empties into a small pond. The owners mentioned it to me because they were hoping you may be able to add a gazebo or something like it to your design.”

“Sure, I can’t see that being a problem. I’ll take a look in the morning. But for now come and check out this fog I was talking about, though now that it is almost completely dark you probably won’t be able to see it.”

David tried to open the door but it was deadlocked.

“The keys must be on the keyring I left downstairs, hang on and I’ll go and get them.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, it’s too cold to go outside now anyway, this window should give us a good enough view.”

David turned out the light before they moved to the window hoping it might help them to see further into the night. As their breath condensed on the window in front of them they continued to peer into the darkness. All that could be seen as they looked out over the town was the odd dot of light sprinkled across the valley and a slightly higher concentration of orange and white glows closer to the Main Street; even the moon seemed to have chosen this night to hide behind cover. Looking around at the hills that enclosed the valley they noticed the main road leading in to the town was now hidden under a layer of fog. As they watched, one of the more distant lights appeared to slowly fade out of sight, almost as if someone had hit the dimmer switch before turning the light off. They continued to watch that one spot, both seeming to hold their breath, hoping that soon the light would re-appear. Countless minutes later they turned to each other and in perfect mimicry shrugged their shoulders and smirked. Realising that they could stand there all night, waiting and searching; much like looking for a shooting star, blink and you miss it, or move your eyes away for a second and you can’t quite find the exact spot again.

Cass took another look out the window, she didn’t want to mention that something still didn’t feel quite right, knowing that if she said anything more her brother would give in to his need to tease her. As she watched, the fog seem to become thicker, taking on what looked liked an almost solid shape as it moved over another house. Aware that if she continued to stare out at the darkness her imagination really would get the better of her and she would start seeing things that weren’t there, she turned away from the window. She looked over to her brother as he started speaking.

“C’mon let’s move downstairs and get the fire going, then we can start on the plans for the work that needs to be done around here, though I think you got the harder job sis. The house is structurally sound and other than the odd job and of course the new kitchen it won’t take much for me to get a couple of contractors in and get this place sorted out. You, on the other hand…”

“Yeah, but it’s like a clean slate, there really isn’t much in the way of any sort of garden out there so I can start from scratch, should be fun. The first thing will be ripping out those dead and dying trees that line the driveway. You can tell it’s been awhile since anyone took any care of the grounds.”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs Cass moved straight to their bags. “Tell ya what, there’s some wood just out the back door, if you get the fire started I’ll see what I can find to eat amongst all this stuff. Before we get too carried away in the morning we better make a trip to the local supermarket and stock up on food and stuff.”

“Sure I had planned that anyway, not knowing how long we were going to be here for I figured it would be just as easy to shop regularly than to try and haul up enough stuff for an extended stay.”

“Makes sense, ooooh we can have canned soup and toast, now there’s a hearty meal for ya.” Cass went to fill the pot with water so they could have their coffee by the fire while they were working on the plans.

Thank God Cass thought at least the owners had the presence of mind to come up before us and make sure the power and water was on, hate to think what type of grump I would be if I didn’t get my shower to wake myself up in the morning.

~~~~~~~~~

After finishing their meal, Cass and David sat on the floor in front of the fire going over what would be needed in the coming weeks. David was once again amazed at his sister’s design skills, knowing that what he was looking at was a very rough draft she had quickly drawn based on the brief look she had taken earlier. He could easily imagine the delight on the owner’s faces once they saw just what she wanted to do.

After yet another yawn Cass decided that it was time to call it a night.
“I think I might sleep down here tonight. The heat from the fire probably hasn’t warmed the rest of the house up yet. I hate to think how cold it would still be upstairs.”

“Sounds like a good idea, I might just throw my mattress and sleeping bag on the floor over there.” David watched his sister wiggle around in her sleeping bag until all he could see was the very top of a blonde head. “I’ll give you a kick in the morning to help wake you up.”

A muffled “Kay.” was his only response. David once again envied his sister’s ability to go to sleep anywhere as soon as her head touched the pillow. Kicking his feet and trying to stretch out he decided that if he was going to be jealous of her he would also add the fact that she seemed to have plenty of foot room at the end of her sleeping bag. As he finally drifted toward sleep he wasn’t sure if the sound he heard really was a cry for help, or if it was his subconscious telling him that he was spending the night in a place that reminded him of every haunted house movie he had ever seen.


Chapter 2



Jo Phillips was worried. She had come to the small town of Happy Valley at the request of her mother. Her brother, Mike, had moved down here three months ago to expand his real estate business. For the first couple of months he had contacted his parents at least twice a week, each time telling them how well things were going, and what a great town it was to live in. It had now been three weeks since anyone had heard from him. After a frantic phone call from his girlfriend, who had been planning on moving down here to be with him, and a plea from her mother, Jo had taken her holidays early and travelled to the town to find out what was going on.

As she was driving through the town toward her brother’s house, she noted that it bore no resemblance at all to the thriving place her brother had described. Most of the houses appeared deserted, and even those that looked lived in all had the curtains drawn and appeared to be locked up tight.

As she drove to her brother’s house she looked up at the 2-storey house nestled into the side of a hill. That house was Mike’s first major sale in the area, she remembered his excited phone call telling her that he had sold the house that had sat vacant for years. She could still hear the excitement in his voice as he told her how the new owners were extremely rich and had plans to renovate the house and surrounds, as well as investing money in the township and hopefully purchasing some other homes that they had wanted to rent out. It was because of that one major sale the Mike had decided to move to Happy Valley. Jo had only spoken to her brother a few times since then, though after his move they had corresponded occasionally via e-mail.

As she continued down the road, Jo removed her sunglasses, the sun no longer in her direct line of sight, her blue eyes scanning her surroundings as she made her way to the outskirts of the town. Jo took one last look at the directions, hastily scrawled on a piece of scrap paper, to remind herself that she was looking for the fourth mail box on the right. Seeing the mail box in the distance, Jo switched on her indicator and prepared to turn into the driveway.

~~~~~~~~~

Coming to a stop in front of the house, Jo noticed that like many other houses she had passed on her way out of town, the curtains were drawn and it appeared as if the house was tightly guarded against an unknown attack. Jo couldn’t pinpoint just what it was that made the houses seem so shielded; other than an odd feeling. The feeling grew stronger as she thought back on the fact that she had only seen a few other people and one other car that was speeding in the opposite direction. After climbing out of the car Jo took a moment to stretch her weary muscles, tight from too many hours sitting in the cramped driver’s seat. Taking only a cursory glance at her surroundings Jo made her way to the door.

After repeated knocking on the front door, Jo moved to the rear of the house, glancing in the carport window she saw her brother’s car and assumed that maybe he was outside. Finding no one in the backyard, Jo banged on the windows and doors at the rear of the house. Deciding that Mike must be out with someone, Jo tried to find a way into the house. It was starting to get chilly and she didn’t relish the thought of having to wait in her car until he came home.

Coming to the far side of the house she found the bathroom window slightly ajar, with a little manoeuvring, and mild cursing, she was able to remove the screen from the window and then climb inside. Replacing the toothbrush back in its holder, after knocking it to the floor when she landed on the vanity cupboard below the window, she quickly moved to the front of the house. As she went through the kitchen she spied what looked like the makings of a sandwich on the sink, shaking her head at her brothers lack of housekeeping skills she continued to the front door, not noticing the overturned chair or broken lamp in the lounge room. Racing outside into the cool evening air, she grabbed her bags out of her car. It wasn’t until she heard the click of the car lock that she noticed the total silence. Raising her head to listen for any sounds she rubbed her arms for warmth as she watched a thick fog roll over the hills surrounding the valley. Looking back toward the Town Centre she wondered why it was so quiet. If she had turned and looked toward the house on the hill she may have seen the one other person that was outside at the time, wondering the exact same thing.


Chapter 3


Harriett Smith was scared. It had been two days since she had seen anyone else; even the stray cats no longer came around looking for a meal. Harriett had moved to Happy Valley after her husband’s death four years ago. The town had captured her heart when her husband had taken her on vacation. At the time she had loved the fact that the road along the coastline was the entryway to a beautiful town surrounded by hills and green trees.

Now, as she watched the fog move down over the hills she wasn’t so sure it was a good place. Each evening it moved closer to her house, appearing to grow thicker with every night that passed. As it moved closer it also seemed to stay longer, not dissipating early with the rising sun, but staying later each day as it began to move closer to the more populated areas. It also appeared to be surrounding the town, each evening the fog drew closer to forming a circle around the hills and enclosing the town.

Harriett watched as the night closed in, noticing that there were fewer lights on in the outlying houses each night. As she sat in front of the window, her blanket tight on her lap, tucked between her legs and the chair, she clenched her fists feeling the first spasms of arthritis settling in her knuckles and watched the fog covering the houses in the distance. She knew if she sat here in front of the window, as she had done every night for the last week, that as the fog moved closer, she would see it covering the houses in the distance and she would know that tomorrow night there would be no lights in those houses.

~~~~~~~~~

Frank Barrett whistled for his dog, Red. Frank had shut his shop early, he hadn’t had a customer all day, deciding to come home and spend the night with his two best friends, Jack Daniels and Red. The only problem was that Red wasn’t coming. He whistled again, starting to get annoyed with his black Labrador. Usually Red came at the first call. Watching the fog come closer and knowing it was going to be another cold night, at least until he was too drunk to notice it, he wanted to get inside as soon as possible.

“Red, get your arse here now, or I’m gonna leave you out all night.”
Trying to hear if his dog was coming, Frank wasn’t at all surprised that he heard no sound at all.

“Whole damn town is falling apart. No one goes out anymore, can’t make a decent living ‘cause no one comes into the shop. Old Hank don’t even open the hotel lately, good thing I got a good stock of liquor,” Frank grumbled to himself. With one last whistle for his dog he turned and went inside, not seeing the strange, almost solid, form moving through the fog.

~~~~~~~~~

Adam and James carried the last of their camping supplies to the spot they had picked to spend the night.
“We could have picked a warmer time to do this,” Adam said.

“Hey! I don’t care how cold it gets, I’m just glad to finally be here. We’ve planned this trip away together for months. Besides it won’t be so bad once we get the fire going.” James turned and smiled at Adam before he began the tedious task of erecting the tent.

Looking around, Adam cleared an area to use as a fire pit, close enough to the tent to provide some added warmth, but far enough away to avoid any fire hazard with the trees that were spread out along the stream.

Seeing the frown beginning to form on James’ face, Adam recognised the face of a person losing the battle with a tent, and thought it would be in his best interests to keep out of the line of fire. Placing the last of the rocks around the pit, Adam turned to start looking for some kindling to get the fire going.


Returning to the campsite, arms laden with wood, Adam was pleased to find the tent was up and their sleeping gear had been put away.

“Hey James, you should see how quickly the fog is coming in. While I was getting some wood in places it was so thick I could only see a few feet in front of me.”

“Well, let’s get this fire revved up then, before it gets any colder.”

As they sat and watched the fire blazing the only sound that could be heard was the odd crackle of the wood burning.

“Did you see that?” Adam asked as he turned to try and get a closer look into the night.

“See what?” James asked as he wiped his face of the fine spray of mist that had settled over them.

“It looked like something was moving out there.”

“No, didn’t see a thing. Come on let’s just go to bed, I’m starting to get really cold and wet from this damn fog, and the fire isn’t doing much about keeping me warm.”

“Okay, let me wash up and I’ll be right with ya.”

~~~~~~~~~


Rebecca slammed the phone down in disgust. Nothing seemed to be going right. She had wanted to go over to a friend’s house tonight, but this was the fifth unanswered call she had made.

“Where the hell is everyone?” She wondered as she stared at the traitorous phone.

“Well this is just great, I’ve had a shitty day and now I’m talking to myself.” Flinging herself onto the couch she stared at the ceiling as she thought about what had put her into such a bad mood.

The day had started off bad when Frank had told her off for being late to work “Not like he’s had any customers for the last few days. Miserable old bastard,” she grumbled. Even after pointing out the fog was so thick she could hardly see the front of her car to drive, he continued to rant about young kids having no work ethics. Explaining that she would rather be late than hit something or someone didn’t help her case at all.

The day had gone down hill from there. After the fog had finally cleared, Frank sent her out to get his lunch, of course it was her fault that Betty hadn’t opened the snack shop.

Finally Frank had decided that if no one else was going to bother opening up, he may as well close too. “Yeah right, he just wanted to go home and get drunk.” Which, truth be known, was in her plans as well; it wasn’t often that she got out of work and she wanted to celebrate the occasion with her friends.

“Be just my luck they planned a party and forgot to tell me.” Getting up from the couch Rebecca went over to the window. “And I’m sick of this goddamn fog.”

~~~~~~~~~


Chapter 4

Heading back inside, Jo proceeded straight to what she assumed was the guest bedroom, situated down the passage between the kitchen and the bathroom where she had broken into the house. Throwing her bags on the bed she moved to the bathroom deciding a hot shower would probably be the quickest way to warm herself up after standing outside in the cold.

After finishing in the bathroom Jo stood in the middle of the bedroom not sure what to do. Not having any idea where her brother might be, or even who he might be out with, she knew it would be a waste of time to try and find him now. Deciding to wait until he came home, knowing he would recognise her car in the driveway, Jo went to the very comfortable looking bed and settled herself under the covers. She knew that if her brother woke her up on his return during the night that they would spend many hours catching up so she thought it best to get what sleep she could now.

~~~~~~~~~

James was cold. Looking above him at the roof of the tent he watched the droplets of water form as their warm breaths condensed in the cold night air. Turning to face Adam he noticed that the side of his friend’s head was quite damp where he had brushed against the side of the tent. Briskly rubbing his feet together hoping to create some warmth in the sleeping bag he peered out the door of the tent, shocked to find that all he could see of the fire was a faint reddish glow.

Knowing he would never be able to get back to sleep until he answered the call of nature he slowly untangled himself from the sleeping bag and began to crawl out of the tent. Careful not to wake Adam he unzipped the tent then stopped in surprise, the fog was so thick all he could make out of his surroundings was the hazy glow of the fire. He couldn’t see their car or the tree closest to the tent they had rested their fishing poles on.

With cautious steps he made his way over to the fire, hoping he didn’t trip and break his neck on anything on the way. As he drew closer to the fire he was amazed to find that it was like stepping through a doorway. Forming a perfect circle around the fire was a wall of fog. Once on the inside of the wall James was no longer able to see the tent he had just exited. Standing between the fire and the fog, James watched as occasional tendrils of dense fog reached out to him, then quickly moved back into the embrace of the wall as the fire flickered. Hearing the hiss of damp wood burning James was reminded of his urgent need. He added a few more logs of wood to the fire, watching as the sparks made holes through the fog, before making his way toward the designated bush. Stepping out of the fire’s protective circle and back into the thick fog he was disappointed to find that in the gloom of the fog once again all he could see of the now blazing fire was a reddish glow.

~~~~~~~~~

“Fuck it’s cold.” James turned to head back to the tent.

“Shit, I can’t even see the fire anymore.” James headed off in what he hoped was the right direction. It wasn’t long before he realised he had gotten himself turned around. Stopping to try and get his bearings he soon found that he could see no further than an arm’s length in any direction.

As he turned in the hopes of re-tracing his steps back to his starting point he felt something extremely cold brush up against him.

“Christ, what the hell was that?” He asked himself, while trying to see if he could spot anything.

Not seeing anything he again started to move, a little more recklessly now, the only sound his footsteps crunching the undergrowth and his ragged breathing as he tried to slow his momentary panic.

“This is so freaking creepy.” With every step he took the air around him seemed to get colder. The frigid air tightening his lungs with every breath.

“Fuck, there it is again.” This time he actually felt something like a burning sensation on his arm where the coldness had touched him.

Holding his arm, James turned in circles, trying to get a glimpse of what it was that was teasing him with fleeting touches. Through the fog he thought he caught sight of movement, holding his breath in the hopes that it would help him hear better, he searched the mist for any sign of movement. All he could see was white, the only movement the swirls of the fog moving as he slowly exhaled, all he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears.

Again something touched him, falling to his knees in pain he could now see what appeared to be a greyish coloured outline, highlighted against the white of the thick fog, moving closer.

“Adam, gotta get back to Adam.” Crawling on his hands and knees James tried to find his way back.

As he reached the edge of the campsite he felt the air getting even colder. Before he had the chance to yell and try and wake Adam he sensed the intense coldness reaching out to him. This time though, it wasn’t just a fleeting touch, the cold air seemed to take on a solid form as it completely surrounded him. Opening his mouth to scream he was robbed of breath as an extreme pressure and coldness slowly embraced him.

~~~~~~~~~

In the outlying countryside furry creatures, both big and small, scurried through the dense fog trying to outrace the pockets of arctic air. A tiny field mouse was suddenly hefted into the air by an almost invisible hand, what could be seen of its brown fur gradually fading from sight as the unknown entity tightened its grasp, freezing it then crushing it to dust.

~~~~~~~~~

Red stopped to sniff the air, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted. Dropping to the ground he whined as he licked his injured leg hoping to ease the pain.

He had been returning home after hearing his master’s whistle when something had grabbed his hind leg. Twisting and snarling he tried to free himself; not being able to see what was holding him it was only by chance that he was able to loosen the hold his invisible captor had on him. As soon as he had felt the cold grasp start to give he straightened his body and headed in the opposite direction before the thing could get a better grip on him.

Slowly rising, trying not to put any weight on his back leg, Red hobbled to his master’s home.

Entering through the open door, Red stopped to sniff at a pile of dust. His instincts telling him that something was wrong, Red left the house as quickly as possible, his hackles rising as he tried to make sense of the strange feelings.

~~~~~~~~~

In the house on the side of a hill the occupants slept; having no idea that small wisps of fog reached out over the roof. The only thing visible, had anyone been looking, a small area around the chimney.

Cass shivered in her sleep, burrowing further into her sleeping bag. The air inside cooling as the fog passed over the house.

~~~~~~~~~


On the furthermost edge of town the fog finally closed in on itself, forming a complete ring. The joining now enabling the fog to grow even denser as the cold air sucked any warmth from its surrounds. Bordering the entire town it now began to move inwards, darker swells of movement barely visible as it inched its way over the Valley.

~~~~~~~~~









I am still playing around with this but if you're interested
Part 2 "The Fog Part 2"  [18+]