The Fog (21 page)

There must be a full moon, she thought, directly overhead so I can’t see it. I never would have guessed.

Or is it the first light of dawn from behind the hills?

By God, I believe it is. A good omen. It’s going to be a wonderful day for lolling on the beach, getting to know Andy better. He won’t be here that much longer; a few more years, that’s all; how quickly it passes. I wonder if he’ll choose to stay on? Will I, after all? Yes, I think I’d like that. There are real people out there, a whole lot of them, voices in the night whose hands I’d like to shake and whose lives I’d like to be a part of, if they’ll let me in. And Andy? Wherever he goes and whatever he does, that will be my center, knowing that he’s alive and healthy. That will be more than enough to keep me going.

She thumbed a toggle switch and spoke out again through the wires and into the streets and homes and cars of her many unseen neighbors.

Where to begin? We’ve come full circle; it doesn’t matter.

“You know what?” she said. “I don’t think any of us understands what happened to our town tonight. We may never know. But you know something else? In a very real sense it doesn’t matter. No, it really doesn’t. All we need to remember is that something that didn’t belong here, that never belonged in a place like this, came out of the fog and tried to destroy us where we live. The important thing and the only thing we need to carry with us from the experience is that it failed. In one moment, in less than the time it takes me to hunt down one of your requests and put it on the air, it was gone like a cheap wine dream . . .”

She revolved in her chair, flexing her leg muscles.

There on the floor was the studio door where it had fallen seconds before it—whatever it was—turned tail and left. Whatever it thought it wanted, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t even here in Antonio Bay, after all. And even if it was, it was something we’ll be none the poorer without.

She saw a twisted skein of seaweed lopped over the top step. The puddle around it was evaporating away into nothingness, as if it had never been there. Now it was only a dead and discarded piece of kelp waiting to be mopped down the stairs and out the door to feed the sands and the turning of the earth. The memory of it would pass out of her as naturally as a breath is taken and released. Soon it would be gone completely, gone away never to come back, lost on the wind between the stars.

“But you know,” she said, listening to what it was she was going to say, “if this has been anything but a nightmare—if all of us don’t wake up to find ourselves safely tucked into our beds, then . . .”

She forced herself to go on. She didn’t like this part, didn’t want to hear it herself, but it needed to be said. Otherwise the lives that had been lost had been for nothing.

“. . . Then, you know, it’s possible it could happen again. That’s a bummer, I know, but it could. And so, to all you good buddies and ships at sea, to every one of you good people within the sound of my voice, this is Stevie Wayne, the voice of KAB, with one more public service announcement for the night. Watch the waters. If what’s happened tonight means anything to you and your loved ones, look into the darkness across the water. Look right at it and see it for what it is, so that it will never creep up on you again.

“Watch the fog.”

She stood and stretched through a simple yoga exercise. Her back ached. She had to go to the bathroom. She had to go home. But not to sleep. She didn’t feel like she’d be ready to go to sleep for another hundred years. Or thereabouts. In that general vicinity. On a scale of one to ten—

I feel like a definite nine-and-a-half.

“And now here’s the first installment of that bonus I told you about. Til six o’clock tonight, when I’ll be yours all over again, keep this one running through your head, why don’t you? It’s going out to you with love, from all of me to all of you. This is your new best friend and mine, Stevie Wayne. Better get used to the idea, because you’ll never be able to get rid of me now!”

She deactivated the microphone, electrified the turntable, and rummaged through her collection of old 78s. She found the one she was looking for, slipped it lovingly out of its jacket, blew the dust off, centered it, and flipped the playback cartridge to the larger 78 stylus. Then she set the repeat so that it would play again when it was through, and again and again, on and on until it was worn out and she returned tonight to go back on the air.

She double-checked her output level, set the controls and started for the stairs.

She paused. She looked back one last time for anything she might have overlooked.

She recrossed the studio in two steps, shut off the heater, and wound down the rheostat on the hotplate.

She mounted the walkway as if it were downhill and settled into her VW. As she backed out and headed up the road, the first glimmerings of morning light were rising and quivering in the tall grasses ahead, as if this landscape had been waiting to be unveiled exclusively for her. Stevie had never before experienced any part of the township at this very special hour, and its intensity was a revelation to her, like a picture from a book she had had once as a girl but thought she had lost long ago.

She clicked on the radio.

KAB was the only station on the air, of course. Glenn Miller was reprising “Sunrise Serenade” as masterfully as ever. Its lovely, corny old melody would continue to play for her and for anyone else who might be lucky enough to be listening, all the way into the heart of Antonio Bay and back. The FCC be damned. She grinned secretly and blinked in the wind from the onion fields nearby and stepped on the gas.

There was someone very special she had to see.

Andy gave a great yawn as he left the church. The morning would be silvery soon. Already the morning star was in its place, twinkling at him for good luck in the milky ink of the sky.

He stuck his hands into his back pockets and yawned again. He was so sleepy.

There was something in his jeans.

It was a Polaroid picture he had taken under the house. He held it under the headlights and examined it. It had come out pretty well. There were the starfish hung up on the posts. They didn’t look like they were dead. They looked like they had been caught in the act of climbing. He could not see nails in their bodies. Could be they were never really there; could be my imagination. Maybe they hadn’t been taken out of the water and strung up there at all. They might have been climbing up on their own to try to escape what was in the ocean that night, like it was poisoned or something, like they knew it wasn’t a safe place to be. An evil place. Could be my imagination, he thought. A lot of things could be. He hoped so. But he did wonder if the starfish would still be there when he got home, or whether they didn’t need to be in a safer place anymore after tonight.

Kathy Williams sat on the edge of her car seat and tried the radio. A filtered, low-fidelity record was playing over KAB, the Voice of Antonio Bay.

“What in the world is that?” she said, her face caught somewhere between laughing and crying. “I haven’t heard that since college! And even then it was old. Nick, come here!”

“I never heard it,” said Sandy. “Thank God.”

Nick leaned into the car and hooked his arm around Kathy.

“Kath,” he began.

“Nick, can you believe it? It’s like we’re in a time warp these last twenty-four hours. When does it stop? Nick, I don’t know if—I don’t—”

“Call me,” said Nick. “Or I’ll call you. I’ll take care of everything. Let me. Meanwhile, if there’s anything. Anything at all.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Williams,” said Andy. “Don’t be sad.”

She angled her knees out of the car and placed her hands around his ribs, under his arms.

“You’re quite a brave little boy, do you know that?” He flinched but she drew him closer. “Don’t you get into any more trouble now, promise?”

“I promise.”

“Take good care of yourself. Will your mother ever be glad to see you!”

“Are you going there?”

“Why, I don’t see why not. Do you, Sandy?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Is it all right, Nick?”

“It’s up to you, partner,” said Nick, squeezing his shoulders.

“Then it’s settled. First we’ll go to the station and find Stevie. She’s still on the air, can you believe that woman? And then perhaps you and your mother would like to come with me for a nice, big ranch breakfast. You, too, Nick. And your friend. Yes, I think that would be nice. I have a house in the hills with plenty of space for a boy your age to have a good time. I have the most wonderful dog, too. You’ll have to meet him. Would you like that, Andy?”

“Sure. What kind of dog is it? Only I’d sort of like to see my mom first.”

“Well, it so happens that’s right where we’re going. Isn’t it, Sandy?”

“If you say so, Mrs. Williams.”

“Come on, then, and get in the back seat. I must look a fright. Sandy, do you have any more Valium?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Elizabeth came up beside Nick.

“You don’t look so good yourself,” she said, wiping his face with a tissue. “Know that, mister? Is anything broken? I can drive. If you want me to.”

She was standing very close. The dirt was smeared on her face like clown makeup.

“Feel up to it?” he asked.

He saw the downy wisps of hair hanging loose from her temples, the pores of her skin, the hidden shells of her ears now partially exposed. He touched her arm.

“Just a minute,” she said.

She went around to the other side of the car and closed the passenger door for Sandy. She leaned in and said something to her, then hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. As the Seville moved out on the spare tire Nick had changed, Elizabeth waved to them. Then she and Nick walked slowly over to O’Bannon’s car. She kicked a piece of gravel ahead of her.

“I can drive,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Anywhere you want to go. The bus stop, even, if that’s what you want. But only if that’s what you want. After breakfast, though. How did that sound to you, by the way?”

She wasn’t looking at him because there were tears in her eyes. “It’s nice around here, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, most of the time?”

“Sure, I guess so. Never thought about it much. If you like small towns. And the smell of fish.”

“I do,” she said. “They’re very nice. The people. Like you. I never felt that way before, like people I don’t even know are inviting me over for tea and all that. You know?”

“I know. I guess maybe that’s why I’ve stayed on so long.”

“Have you always lived here?”

“I was in New York City once.”

“For very long?”

“Visiting. I paid to go up to the top of the tallest building in the world. When I got there I looked down at all the people jammed into those streets. They looked like ants. When I got down to ground level, I still couldn’t tell them apart.”

“Is the rent pretty cheap around here?”

He sawed his hand in the air. “So-so. It’s going up.”

“Oh.”

They came to the car.

“Maybe you could show me around,” she said. “On your day off.”

“Maybe I could.”

He looked at the graveyard in the dawn. It was a pile of rocks. Then he looked up at the church. At the broken windows and the trampled, muddy flowerbeds below them.

“What are you thinking?” she said.

“I’m tired.”

“Me too.”

“We’re forgetting something,” he said.

“What?”

“Be right back.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

His back hurt as he trudged up the stone steps. He pushed his way inside.

Six must die, six must die,
he thought. That was what he had been trying to remember. It didn’t mean anything now. His head hurt from thinking.

The gray morning lent a pale rear lighting to the remaining stained glass window. It showed the suffering of some forgotten saint. The figure was stripped discreetly naked in an isolated and rocky setting. His face was cowled by a disk of golden light that was painted behind his head. It reminded Nick of Elizabeth’s drawing of Morro Rock, that big head from prehistory coming out of the bay. No, he thought, more like a humpback whale taking the sun and about to spout. That was more like it. He decided he liked her picture, after all. A lot. He would hang it on his wall. A frame around it. Why not? And maybe a few more to go with it. He could start collecting them.

Reverend Malone was seated stiffly on a pew. He looked uncomfortable. The poor man was a mess. His robe was torn and he hadn’t shaved in days. Neither have I, thought Nick. He came up behind him and said gently, “Mike?”

The pastor raised his head.

His eyes were dark sockets in an ash-gray face. His skin looked like you could reach out your hand and roll up a little ball of it like clay between your fingers.

“What is it, Nick?”

“You okay?”

Reverend Malone only stared through him.

“Anything else I can do? Look, why don’t you come with me,” Nick said impulsively. “Leave this place. We’ll get you cleaned up and rested. I’m going to stop by Doc Thayden’s myself as soon as he’s up.”

“Why?”

“Why not? There’s no reason for you to be here right now.”

“It’s Sunday morning,” said Reverend Malone.

“Yes, and it’s over. Whatever it was, it’s over. There’ll be plenty of time to sort it out later. It’s like a bad dream.” He clasped the pastor’s back. It was thin and bony and ready to collapse under the remains of the robe. He withdrew his hand.

“Is it?” said Malone from very far away. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he added with great difficulty. “You go along home now, Nick. I’ll see you. Sometime.”

“You sure you’re all right?”

“This is my station,” he said. “I’ve lived here for a great many years. More than I can remember. I’m sure it will stand me in good stead these next few hours.”

“I’ll stop by this afternoon.”

“I’m grateful for your kindness.”

“Don’t talk like that. You did all you could. You did the thing that counted most in the end. Don’t think about it. You paid your debt.”

Reverend Malone’s mouth pulled back over his teeth in a semblance of a smile, but his eyes were somewhere else.