The silence was the first thing Leo noticed. It was a physical weight, a suffocating blanket that had fallen over Anchorhead. As he stepped out of the relative safety of his building's stairwell and into the street, the absence of sound hit him like a blow. The ever-present hum of the city—the distant groan of machinery from the port, the murmur of traffic, the far-off wail of a train horn—was gone. So were the smaller sounds: the scuff of shoes on pavement, the rustle of a newspaper, the murmur of conversation from a nearby pub. It was a vacuum.
The world had been reduced to a radius of ten feet, defined by the weak, jaundiced glow of a streetlight that was already being swallowed by the advancing white. Beyond that, nothing. A wall of pure, undifferentiated whiteness.
His breath plumed in the air, a stark, quick cloud that was devoured by the fog. The air had a taste—a cold, metallic tang that coated the tongue and stuck in the back of the throat. It was the taste of old pennies, of blood.
He pulled the collar of his father's jacket tighter and started walking. His footsteps were obscenely loud, each one a solitary crack in the immense quiet. The familiar route to the Coastal Logistics depot was now a journey through a ghost world. Landmarks he'd known his whole life were erased. The newsagent was gone. Elijah's barbershop was gone. The only thing that existed was the patch of wet asphalt under his feet and the swirling, silent wall that moved with him, allowing him a few feet of forward progress before closing in behind.
A shape loomed out of the white to his left. He flinched, his hand tightening on the strap of his backpack. It was just a parked car, beads of moisture standing on its windshield, the hood already dusted with a fine, grey dew. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
Get a grip, Leo. It's fog. You've seen fog before.
But he hadn't. This was different. This felt… alive. It pressed against him with a slight, constant pressure, a chill that seeped through his layers of clothing and found the bone beneath. It pulsed with a low, sub-auditory hum that vibrated in his fillings.
Another sound cut through the silence. Not a hum. A scream.
It was high and sharp, a needle of pure terror stitching through the muffled world. It came from ahead of him, somewhere deep in the impenetrable whiteness. It was cut off with a wet, final abruptness.
Leo froze, his blood turning to ice. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. That wasn't the sound of a car accident. That was the sound of an animal caught in a trap.
A moment of utter silence followed, somehow worse than the scream.
Then, a new sound. A soft, wet scraping. Like something heavy being dragged across asphalt. It was accompanied by a low, guttural clicking, the same sound Father Patrick had heard at the church door. It was closer now. Much closer.
It was coming from just ahead, around the corner where the street should lead to the main road.
Leo didn't think. Instinct, older than grief, older than reason, took over. He ducked into the narrow alley between two buildings, pressing his back against the cold, damp brick. He held his breath, listening.
The scraping and clicking grew louder. He could hear a labored, rasping breath that was not human. It sounded like air being forced through a wet sack.
A shadow moved in the fog at the mouth of the alley. A wrong shadow. It was too tall, too thin, its limbs jointed at impossible angles. It paused, and Leo saw the faintest suggestion of a silhouette against the white—a hunched back, a head that tilted with a sharp, avian twitch.
The clicking intensified, becoming a rapid, chittering conversation. It was answered by another series of clicks from further down the street. There was more than one.
The thing in the fog moved on, the scraping sound fading as it was swallowed by the mist. Leo stayed pressed against the wall for a full minute, maybe two, his entire body trembling. The adrenaline crash left him feeling weak and nauseous.
He had to get to the depot. It was a fortress. It had a strong door, a phone, lights. It was familiar. It was the only plan he had.
He edged out of the alley. The street was empty again. The scraping was gone. He began to run, his boots slapping against the wet pavement, the sound terrifyingly loud. He didn't care. He just had to get off the street.
He ran by memory, counting his steps, visualizing the turns. Left here. Straight for two blocks. Right. The fog clung to him, cold and wet against his face.
He almost missed the depot's side gate. It materialized out of the white like a mirage. His hands shook as he fumbled with his key ring, the jangling of the metal seeming to scream into the silence. He found the right key, shoved it into the lock, and burst through, slamming the heavy chain-link gate shut behind him and engaging the heavy bolt lock.
He was inside the fence. The depot yard was just as shrouded in fog as the streets, the shipping containers appearing as vague, dark monoliths in the white. But he was inside. He leaned against the cold metal of the gate, his chest heaving, and risked a look back the way he had come.
The fog stared back. Impenetrable. Silent.
And then, something moved within it. A swift, darting shadow, gone before his eyes could fully register it. Followed by another. They were in the streets. They were hunting.
He turned and ran for the office, the key already in his hand. The promise of four walls and a locked door was the only thing that mattered now.