VI - Paige
Paige
couldn’t believe it was all happening again so soon. She watched as Charlie slipped ahead of them into the fog, heard
herself crying out those words, “Charlie, no!” and then, as if her body was
just programmed to respond that way, she started running too.
The fog
was thick, but it was moving too. She
remembered the noise of the creature from the factory, the not-noise of it, all
around her now. It felt like the
fog was closing in on her, like it was something solid she was just managing to
scrape past. Something touched her arm,
something else caressed her leg. It was
icy cold, damp, but so much more solid than mere fog. And it really was all around her. She could just make out the shapes on all
sides: thick, trunk-like legs, heavy body, tendril limbs.
“There
are dozens of them,” she screamed, all she had breath for.
Charlie
was ahead of her somewhere, but she couldn’t see him. It was as if the fog was all there was left of the world. If Henry hadn’t called out, “What the hell,”
behind her, she could have easily believed that she was all that was left in
the whole Earth. But she knew Charlie
was in front of her and she had to reach him.
VII - Josh
Clara had
warned him that there might be more, but she had told him not to worry about
them. They were just birth pains, she
had said, but Josh wasn’t sure he could see them that way. One of them had nearly killed him. If Clara hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t
intervened…
As soon
as he had heard them he had broken out into a cold sweat, the hairs on his arms
and his neck stood on end out of reflex, his skin dimpled into gooseflesh. He could feel his testicles pulling in. His whole body braced for horror and his
bloodstream filled with adrenaline once more.
That bit
he was thankful for. It allowed him to
run.
He tried
not to feel them as he passed. He tried
not to hear them or see them. His
attempts were only partially successful.
Each touch was a chill moment of terror, each sound, filling the air
around him, was a memory of a nightmare.
He found that, through the horrific rush of it all, he wanted to
cry. The thought made him feel ashamed,
but that only seemed to make it worse.
He wondered if that meant he was on the edge of hysterics.
And then
the fog seemed to thin and he could see some distance ahead of himself once
more. Charlie and Paige were running
before him, approaching what he thought was the end of the street and Charlie
was veering towards the old department store.
Henry was nowhere to be seen.
He shot a
quick glance over his shoulder. Behind
him there was nothing but a mass of roiling, angry fog. He could just make out the shapes of the fog
creatures within and still the horrible no-noise of their movements sucked at
his ears, but there was no sign of Henry.
Worse, the wall of thicker fog seemed to be following him, advancing.
He fixed
his eyes on the other two and the department store and just kept on running.
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