Stan Morris - Surviving the Fog

Jacob hesitated. It was a little late for company, especially when that company was in the form of a stranger. Making up his mind, he strode towards the house until he was a ways from it, and then he shouted, “Hello! Hello!” Then he waited.

Presently the door opened slightly, and a young woman peered out. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hello. I’m Jacob. I’m exploring,” the boy responded.

The door opened wider, and the young woman stepped out. She had a slight build and her shoulder length hair was black. She was carrying a shotgun.

“Well, hello yourself, Jacob,” she said. “Where have you come exploring from?”

Pointing back towards the main road, he said, “Back down that road, then down the other road, then up to a summer camp.”

“You’re a long way from home,” the young woman offered.

Jacob thought for a moment, and then he asked, “Do you know about the Fog?”

“What fog?” she replied. At that moment, a small head peeked around her skirts.

Jacob found that he didn’t want to distress her, but he said, “We’re surrounded by a fog down about the six thousand seven hundred foot level. It’s all around us. We can’t get through it. There are some bad things in it. I think…something bad happens to anything that goes into it.”

The young woman paled.

“When is Daddy coming home?” a small voice asked.

The young woman bent down to the child. “Go back inside, Star,” she said. “I’ll be right outside. I need to speak to this boy for a minute.” Gently, she pushed the girl inside and closed the door.

“All right, what’s going on?” she asked the boy sternly. “Who sent you here? Is this some kind of practical joke?”

Jacob shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave now,” he said. He turned around.

“Wait!” the young woman called. There was a sense of desperation and urgency about her, Jacob sensed. “Who are you?”

“My name is Jacob,” the boy said again.

“And how do you know about this so-called fog?” she asked.

“The adults at our camp left to find out what was happening. They didn’t come back. I got worried, so I tried to walk out of the mountains. That’s when I found the fog. I saw a deer get taken into it. So I went back to the camp.”

“When was this?”

“The end of May,” Jacob replied.

The young woman’s face turned ashen. She groaned softly, and then she sat down on the wood floor of the covered porch. She dropped her head into her hands. Jacob thought that she might be crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She raised her head and stared at him. Her eyes were misty. “Are you all alone?” she asked.

Jacob shook his head. “There are more kids. About fifty I guess. And we just met a man named Hector. He’s from a logging camp. It’s back down this road and then up the mountain.”

“Yes, I know about the logging camp. Did you say that there aren’t any adults at your camp?”

“I think Hector might stay with us. There was a woman named Jackie, but she was killed by some bad men.”

Mary was experiencing shock after shock. She stared at the boy. She tried to collect herself, tried to tell herself that this story was too fantastic, tried to tell herself that her long overdue husband would be driving down the road any time now. But there was a young boy here with a strange tale that she needed to hear, and the sky was beginning to darken.

“Come in,” she said. “Let’s talk. My name is Mary Brown.” Jacob went up on the porch and entered the house behind Mary. Inside, he saw two small children staring anxiously at him.

“Mama, who’s him?” the little boy demanded.

“He’s a visitor, Comet,” Mary answered. “Now you and Star get your teeth brushed, and then you can play with your toys.”

“When are we gonna get the TV fixed?” the little girl grumbled, as she and her brother exited the living room through a hallway.

The house seemed very cozy. It had the ordinary clutter of small kids without being messy. Mary led Jacob through the living room and into the kitchen. She motioned towards the yellow Formica covered table, so he sat down. She opened a cupboard, and she took out a bag of corn chips which she put on the table in front of Jacob. Then she opened the refrigerator, and she took out a can of juice. She put the can by the chips and said, “Help yourself.”

Jacob stared greedily at the bag of chips. He wondered for a moment whether it was the last bag of chips in the world. He looked over at the two children peeking around the corner. A feeling of guilt came over him.

“I’m not hungry,” he lied.

Mary gave him a disbelieving glance. “If you’re not, then you must be the only teen aged boy in the world who isn’t. Eat.”

“Uh, maybe just a few,” he mumbled as he dug into the bag.

Mary sat down across from him. “All right, tell me what you know. And you two get into the bathroom and brush your teeth.” The two young children scampered away.

Jacob began talking. He spoke about the kids’ camp. He related the incident with the motorcyclists. He talked about Hector. He repeated what he had seen when he encountered the Fog.

Mary had many questions, and it took a long time for the story to be told. At times, they were interrupted by the two children who seemed to realize that something was wrong. Jacob had to stop while Mary attended to her kids. At last, Jacob finished his tale. Mary sat silent. Jacob realized that he had eaten half of the corn chips in the bag.

Finally, Mary spoke. “I knew something was wrong that day. First the television picture went dark. None of the channels worked. At first, I thought it was the TV. We have satellite TV and internet, and the internet went dead at the same time. So I thought, maybe it’s the satellite. Then the man from the gas station didn’t come by to deliver the mail and messages from my husband, Davis. Davis went to Bakersfield in early May to visit his parents and to buy supplies. After the winter we stock up again.

“No one ever came from the gas station. And there were so many deer around. Herds of them started moving past the house in early May. It’s like they had been spooked. They should still be grazing lower down the mountains at this time of the year. I’ve been getting more and more worried. I’ll have to hitch the horses to the buckboard and go see for myself, of course.”

“Are you an Indian?” asked Jacob abruptly.

Mary smiled. “I prefer to be known as Native American, Jacob,” she responded. “But yes, I am.”

“Were you born here? Is there a reservation nearby?” the boy asked.

Mary laughed. “No, I’m a valley girl,” she said. “I was born in Los Angeles. I met Davis at college. We were at USC. He’s a geologist who fell in love with the mountains and the land. He always wanted to live in the Sierra’s. We moved here about six years ago. At first, people thought that we were survivalists, but we just wanted a farm in the high country.”

The woman and the boy talked for some time, and then the woman said, “It’s getting late. You better stay here tonight. Do you mind sleeping in the barn? No offense intended, but I just met you, and I have small children to look after.”

Jacob took no offense, and he spent the night in the loft of the barn. He found it to be quite comfortable, except for the smell of the two cows down below.

The next morning, Jacob was awakened by the sound of Mary calling him. It was still dark when she hitched the horses to the wagon. The two children were asleep in the back of the wagon. Mary had wrapped them in blankets, and she had laid them on old soft hay. Jacob rubbed the sleep from his eyes, as he climbed up to sit alongside Mary.