The Fog Follows
Heavy fog rolls through the town of Kenwood, consuming everything in its path. Cadence lies asleep against a large rock on a dirt road beside a giant Oak tree. Blood trickles from a gash on his forehead. As the fog reaches Cadence, his eyes pop open, and he sucks in a deep breath. He looks around, isolated by the mist creeping up behind him and the moonless night presented ahead. Suddenly, he hears Jee’s voice. “You’ve been out for hours.”
“I don’t like this,” Cadence says. He stands quickly, feeling adrenaline still rushing through his body. After gaining his balance, he grabs his black bowler hat from the dirt. He brushes it off, then places it atop his head.
Cadence looks around at the darkness, unable to see past the dense haze closing in on him. Fog rolls in on the sides of the road and covers the local farms for as far as the eye can see. The large Oak tree hovering over him reminded him of the one that sits in front of his house. Is his home behind the fog? Should he venture into it?
“Better?” Jee asks him.
Cadence wipes the blood from his forehead, stopping it before it reaches his eye. “I got hurt,” he says. “What happened?”
Cadence’s last memory is of him sitting next to his mom at the fire. She told him about an old family that had been banished to the Hills. The long speech came after his cat scratched him, and he tried throwing it into the fire. He remembered being so angry that he could burst.
“It’ll come to you,” Jee says. “But you should go.”
Cadence looks at his hands. They are pale and covered in the dried blood he’d wiped from his face. He walks down the road with the fog following closely behind, forcing him down the dark path.
“I’ve done this walk before,” Jee says. “It won’t touch you.”
“It’s lonely,” Cadence says. He’s trying to recall what happened, but can only see his mother yelling at him about the Hills.
“You’re remembering,” Jee says. “Let’s go.” His voice is demanding, but Cadence finds it comforting.
As Cadence walks, the fog consumes both the Oak tree and the rock. He looks ahead, into a sea of darkness. A porch light comes on, accompanied by a man standing on the veranda screaming and pointing at Cadence. His anger is palpable, but Cadence doesn’t recognize his words. He asks Jee if he understands him.
“It isn’t important. My mom used to get angry often, and the people in our old town got rid of her.”
Cadence stares at the screaming man and turns his head to the side. His skin is cold, but inside he burns with rage. He clenches his hands into fists and sticks them deep into his pockets. The fog rolls in, getting closer but not touching him. It envelops the man and his entire house. Silence follows.
“They took your mom?” Cadence asks. The cool breeze wraps around his body, and he shivers as the fog rolls in behind him, thick as mud. He continues walking.
Jee said, “No. They chased our family out to the Hills.”
He’d heard of the Hills but has never seen them for himself. His mom is adamant that it is for people who can’t properly fit into society. And when she’s angry with him, she threatens to send him there. He turns the corner to a street he is very familiar with.
“You know where you’re headed?” Jee asks.
Cadence looks down at his feet. He has on dress shoes that he’d worn to Sunday school. When he looks up, he’s standing in front of the church, illuminated by a large streetlamp. His stomach growls as he walks toward the entrance. Maybe they can give him food.
A nun appears in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” she asks, with pursed lips and drawn brows.
“Hi, sister. Do you have any food to spare? I’ve lost my wits, I think.”
She points at him, shaking with anger. “No! Get out of here, demon. We don’t want your kind.”
Her hostility stuns Cadence. He doesn’t understand why she’s being mean. “But miss, I can’t find my family or my home. I need help.”
“The only help you’ll get is from the devil.” She ran inside the church and closed the door behind her.
Jee says, “She’s right, you know.”
“She’s not. I just need some food.” His stomach lurches again, and he fills with rage. He balls his fists and fits them into his pockets. A calmness rushes over him, filling him with a warmth that dissipates his anger. He walks past the church as the fog envelops it, and it disappears from his view. He continues walking until he gets to a hill and climbs it. He looks over the town that’s covered in a dark gray fog. He can’t see anything past the thick, smoke-like haze.
“Nothing can survive that fog. It eats everything in its sight,” Jee says.
Cadence notices that the dark fog hasn’t followed him up the hill. Instead, it’s pooling around the bottom, like water being trapped by a dam.
“I don’t know what happened to my family or why the fog follows me.”
“You still don’t remember?” Jee asks.
Suddenly, Cadence envisions being at home and sitting beside his mother in front of the fireplace. She’d been yelling at him about the cat, and Cadence yearned for quiet. He sees himself raise his hand to summon the fog.
It traveled into her mouth and down her throat until she choked. She coughed but couldn’t catch her breath again. It streamed into her eyes, making them bleed thick, red blood. It flowed almost like water through her nostrils until it enveloped her completely. The fog filled their home, and Cadence couldn’t find his way through it. He wandered outside and tripped over brush. When he fell, his head hit the rock, and everything went black.
“Your family is gone, taken by the fog. You called it in on them,” Jee says.
“I would never do such a thing. Shut up!” Tears streak down his face, mixing with the dirt and dried blood.
“Not without my help,” Jee says.
“The fog killed them. That fog.” He points and watches as it splits into two, revealing the town’s destruction. Trees lost their leaves and were now dried-up fossils. The homes are shells of their former selves, abandoned as if no one has lived in them for decades. The man lay on the porch pale and skeletal, as if all the blood had been drained from his body.
“You killed them by allowing the fog in,” Jee says. “They deserved it.”
Tears flow freely from Cadence’s eyes. He loves his family, and the thought of never seeing them again causes him physical pain.
“Our moms were neighbors,” Jee says nonchalantly. “Your mom spread lies about her and had her banished.”
“I thought you were my friend.” He wipes his tears, but they continue falling.
“It’s only right that your family pays for what she did, like mine had to pay for who my mom was. It’s over,” Jee says. A gray figure appears with red eyes.
“Jee?” Cadence says, watching Jee ascend into the sky as his red eyes disappear in the darkness.
Cadence sits on the hill. He looks down expecting to see his feet, but only sees the ground. He attempts to put his hands in front of his face, but they’re not there. He’s like Jee now. Dark, thick, and one with the fog that followed him. He gets a vision of Jee as a little boy, walking with his family to the Hills. Sadness and despair moved through their sluggish walk to banishment. Cadence realizes that he’s taken Jee’s place. He is stuck there until he finds someone so angry that they’ll allow the fog to consume them as well.
He’s ripped from the hill and pulled into a home. A little boy colors in his book. He is a few years younger than Cadence.
“What's your name?” Cadence asks.
“Jeffrey,” the boy answers as he draws a picture of a woman, then he uses a red marker to make streaks across her body. A bad feeling swirls through Cadence like smoke from a fire filling a room. “Who’s that?” Cadence asks.
“That’s my mom. I hate her.” He scribbles across his mom’s face frantically. The paper, soaked in wet marker, begins to tear apart.
Cadence realizes this boy is just like him, and he knows that it’s his job to lead Jeffrey to the Hills one day.