In his small kitchen, Elijah finished drying the last dish. The hiss of the static from the dead television seemed to have left a ringing in his ears, a high-pitched tone that underscored the profound silence from outside. He placed the plate in the cupboard, aligning it perfectly with the others. Order. Control.
He walked to the living room, his footsteps loud on the bare floorboards. He didn't turn on the main light. He stood in the darkness, peering through a slat in the blinds. The world was gone. There was only the fog, a blank, featureless white that began at the glass. It had an almost solid quality, like freshly fallen snow, but it moved with a slow, ceaseless undulation that was deeply unnatural. No fog he'd ever seen behaved like that.
A shape moved.
It was just a darker grey shifting in the relentless white, a fleeting distortion. It was there for a second, then gone. His breath hitched. A trick of the light. A cat, maybe. But it had seemed… tall. And the movement was wrong. Not a walk. A lurch.
He let the blind snap shut. His heart was beating a little faster now, the old, familiar adrenaline beginning to seep into his system, the kind that had kept him alive in a dusty hellhole on the other side of the world. It's just the fog. You're tired. Your head is messing with you. He repeated the words in his mind, a mantra against the rising unease. He decided on a shower. The hot water would steam away the strange thoughts. It always did.
In the rectory, Father Patrick paced the length of his study. The bible lay open on his desk, but the words were a blur. The clicking sound at the door had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. It had felt… intelligent. Purposeful.
He jumped as his landline phone rang, the shrill sound shattering the silence. He snatched it up, grateful for the distraction. "Hello? St. Jude's rectory."
"Patrick? It's Helen Sharpe." The Mayor's voice was crisp, efficient, but there was an unfamiliar tension underlying it. "Are you seeing this weather?"
"Mayor. Yes, it's… quite something." He walked to the window, holding the cordless phone to his ear. The fog was a solid wall against the glass. "I've never seen it so thick."
"Neither have I. I've just had the police department on the line. They're getting calls. People are spooked. A few car accidents on the outskirts, nothing major, just fender benders from people driving blind." She paused. "I'm considering making a statement. A calming one. I thought perhaps… if you were to echo it from the pulpit, so to speak. A message of community and level-headedness."
Patrick felt a wave of relief. This was something concrete to do. A pastoral duty. A way to be the man he was supposed to be. "Of course. Whatever you need. We must urge people to stay safe and look out for one another."
"Precisely. I'll have Ben email you the draft. Good man." The line clicked dead.
The call had grounded him. The Mayor needed him. The town needed him. He was Father Mallory again. He sat at his desk, refreshed the email page on his laptop, waiting for the draft from Ben. The other temptations, the darker pulls of the machine, seemed quieter now, drowned out by a sense of purpose.
In the Mayor's office, Helen Sharpe hung up the phone. A statement. It was the right move. Project control. Project competence. She looked at the secure laptop in her locked drawer. The message from "Sentinel" glowed on the screen: ...The fog here is particularly thick tonight. A good night for focused work.
She hadn't told Patrick about the other calls the sheriff had mentioned. The ones not about car accidents. The ones about noises. Strange shapes. A man who swore something large and fast had slammed into the side of his parked car, denting the door, before vanishing back into the white. Hysterical nonsense, probably. The fog was playing tricks on everyone. Let them be spooked. A frightened populace was often a more compliant one.
She began to type her statement, her words chosen to project authority and quell panic. Outside her window, the fog had climbed past the first floor of City Hall. It was halfway up her window now, a silent, rising tide.
In their spotless living room, the Pugh sisters finished their tea. The fog was so dense it made the room feel smaller, cozier, like they were wrapped in a thick, white blanket.
"Shall we listen to the wireless?" Agnes asked.
Mabel nodded. "The concert should be on."
Agnes turned on the old walnut-encased radio. Instead of the gentle strains of a classical orchestra, a frantic, buzzing static poured from the speaker. She turned the dial. More static. Every station was the same—a harsh, sizzling white noise that was somehow worse than the silence.
"Must be the weather," Mabel said, her voice small.
Agnes turned the radio off. The quiet returned, but it was different now. It was a waiting quiet. The two elderly women sat in their armchairs, listening to the nothingness, their secrets feeling heavier than ever in the unnatural hush. The only thing that existed was their house, and the immense, silent whiteness pressing in on all sides.
In his room above the pawn shop, Leo finished lacing his boots. It was nearly time for his shift. He looked at the photo of Clara and Maisie. "Another night," he whispered to them.
He picked up his backpack, checking its contents for the tenth time: flashlight, crowbar, water, a spare jacket. He walked to the window and looked out.
The street was gone. The world was a uniform, blinding white. It was like looking into a void.
For the first time since the accident, a feeling cut through the constant grief that was his companion. It was a colder, sharper feeling.
Dread.
He took a deep breath, shouldered his pack, and headed for the door. The depot awaited. The night shift didn't care about the weather.