Andrew Klavan - Nightmare City

“Marie!” he cried out now.

Wild-eyed, he hurried down the hall to her, the images of the shambling monsters out in the fog still filling his brain.

As he stepped into the kitchen, Marie leapt up from her chair at the round table in the breakfast nook. She rushed into his arms and he held her, his cheek against her golden hair.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” she whispered into his chest.

Tom let his fear and panic melt into the warm press of her and the sweetness of her perfume. He closed his eyes for a moment, in relief and pleasure. When he opened them, he looked over Marie’s head. Behind the table in the nook, the windows showed the backyard. Everything looked strangely normal out there. The mist was not as thick as it was out front. It obscured the sun, but Tom could still see the backyard grass and the hedges that bordered the Laughlins’ property behind them. Most important, there were no semihuman shapes visible, no threatening figures shuffling and limping toward the house.

He held Marie away from him so he could look down into her face. “What about you?” he said. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her crystal eyes glistening. “I’ve been so scared, though. So scared.”

“Then you saw them? Those—those things in the fog. I’m not imagining them. You saw them, too.”

Marie turned away from him. She put her hand to her face, rubbed her eyes wearily. “I don’t know what I saw. I was so terrified. I just ran. I just ran to get here, to find you.”

Even in his fear and confusion, the words filled Tom’s heart. Now, at least, he had a job to do: protect Marie. Keep her safe. Even if nothing else made sense, there was a mission that could guide his actions.

“I think we should get in my car,” he said. “Get out of here. They could attack the house any minute.”

Marie turned back to him and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think they can leave the fog. I think we’re safe in here for now. Safer than we’d be outside, anyway.”

Tom thought about it. “Do you know what’s happening?” he asked her. “Is it happening all over? I haven’t seen anyone else. No one human, anyway.”

Marie turned back to him and shook her head. The tears still shone in her eyes. “I’m not sure…”

“I called my mom. I reached her, but she couldn’t hear me.”

“I know. I talked to my father,” said Marie. “We didn’t have a good connection, but I could make out some of what he was saying. He was the one who sent me here. He said you were the only person who could help us.”

“Me? I don’t even know what’s going on. Those monsters out there—it’s like—it’s like we’re in a zombie apocalypse.”

Marie gave a weak laugh. “I don’t think that’s what it is.”

Tom himself managed a small laugh at the idea. “Right. Probably not.”

He suddenly felt exhausted. He moved to one of the chairs by the round table and sank down into it. He stared out the window without really seeing anything. He was thinking about that thing—that thing with the hideous face—its claws snatching at him from the fog, nearly grabbing him before he even saw it.

What was it?

He shook his head. “You know what it is like, though?” he said softly, almost as if he were speaking to himself, working it out in his mind. “It’s like one of those movies or TV shows where strange things keep happening and after a while, you start to realize that none of it is real. You know? It’s too weird. It can’t be real. It has to be a dream or something. Or maybe the lead character is really dead or he’s gone crazy or somebody slipped him some kind of drug and he’s having a hallucination. You know what I mean? You think that’s what this is: a dream or a hallucination? Or do you think we’re actually dead?”

He glanced over at her. He took comfort from the warmth and sympathy in her gaze. She stepped forward and put her hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we’re not dead,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.”

He nodded slowly. “But then what?” he said. “What’s happening, Marie? There has to be a reasonable explanation. Doesn’t there?”

Marie now sat down in the chair in front of him. She took his two hands in her hands. He found her cool touch soothing. They sat facing each other. He looked deep into her eyes. Even now—still haunted by the memory of those creatures ranging through the fog—by that clawed hand reaching for him—by that deformed and hideous face looming in front of him—even now, the sight of Marie, the sweet beauty of her, made his heart swell. He could not remember a time when he hadn’t longed to be with her.

“Do you remember the monastery in the woods?” she asked him.

The question was so unexpected, so odd, that it was a moment before he could take it in, a moment before he could answer. “Sure,” he said uncertainly. “The Catholic one. The retreat. The one that burned down. St. Mary or something…”

“Santa Maria,” said Marie.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

The Santa Maria Monastery Retreat had been a compound of Spanish-style buildings set around a pretty chapel deep in the forest up on Cold Water Mountain. It was gone now. The so-called Independence Fire that had scorched the hills last July—that had consumed acres and acres of woods up there and destroyed more than a hundred houses—had reduced Santa Maria’s stately buildings, valuable antiques, and tranquil gardens to charred ruins.

“What about it?” said Tom. “What’s the monastery got to do with anything?”

“My father says you have to go up there. He says that’s where the answers are and where you’re supposed to be right now. He says if you can get to Santa Maria, you can bring all this craziness to an end.”

Tom stared at her. “But why?” he said. It made no sense. Tom would do just about anything to get answers, to find out the truth about all this, but… go back outside? Out into the fog where those—those things were? And up into the woods on Cold Water Mountain? To the ruins of the monastery? “How can that possibly help?”

Holding his hands firmly in hers, Marie shook her head. “I’m not sure. Like I said, our connection wasn’t that good. But Daddy said it was important. Urgent, even. He said once you get to the monastery, you’ll know what you have to do to bring this to an end.”

As Tom went on staring at her, thoughts raced through his mind. Why the monastery? Why the mountain? He was trying to make sense of it. Was it possible that what was happening here was some sort of supernatural, spiritual event? Were those creatures in the fog some kind of demons? Did he have to get up to Santa Maria to call on the power of God to fight them or to call on the angels or something? But why the monastery? And why him? His family had always gone to Hope Church around the corner. It was nondenominational. They weren’t even Catholic!

“I don’t get it,” he was about to say—but before he could, his phone rang in his pocket. The guitar riff: “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”

Tom tried to reach for the phone, but Marie gripped his hands even tighter. He saw her eyes flash to his pocket, to the place where the phone was singing.

“Don’t answer that!” she said, her voice a frightened whisper.

Confused, he worked one hand free. “What do you mean? I have to answer it. It might be my mom.”

He reached into his pocket. He felt the phone vibrating there.

Marie looked at him urgently. “It’s not,” she said. “It’s not your mom. I know it! Don’t answer, Tom. I mean it. Just do what Daddy said. Just get to the woods, get to the monastery. That’s where the answers are! That’s what you want, isn’t it? Answers. That’s what you’re always…”