Chapter One
The rain that came through that afternoon knocked the power out for a few minutes in which Sarah had time to reflect on how boring her daily life currently was. Her computer screen blank, the office thrown into momentary darkness, the sky outside bleak, she drummed her fingers against her desk and listened to her co-workers quietly chatter about the storm.
“But we haven’t had that horrendous fog in two weeks.” Elizabeth said quietly.
“No one has vanished either. But storms like this still make me jittery.” Tom whispered back.
Sarah thought about the fog that ripped through St. Neuri, unsettling everyone, causing changes in schedules she never saw before. Businesses changing their hours, people hurrying home with their heads down, sealing up their homes when the fog rolled in. It had been a strange few months. The summer, losing everything that people enjoyed about it, felt oppressive. Fall, having now settled in, was already gloomy with the worry of the fog returning on everyone’s minds.
But even with the fog and the murders, nothing affected Sarah’s life too much. She went to work every morning, in her dead-end real estate job she grew tired with ages ago. Then, she would go home and curl up with a book or watch TV before falling asleep too late and not getting enough sleep. The same schedule, day in and day out, only to be interrupted by the few times she managed to get a date from an online app. Those always ended rather quickly, however, because men never liked her size, somehow felt embarrassed to be seen with a larger woman like herself.
The fog, the disappearances, the seasons changing – nothing felt like it ever really mattered. Her job as a real estate assistant to her boss, Mary Ann, had been her primary source of income for over five years now. There were no more surprises to be discovered, nothing new to be ventured. Sarah, not even thirty, somehow felt ancient.
“What do you think, Sarah?” Elizabeth’s voice chimed out across the small office, startling her out of her thoughts.
“About what?” She asked, slightly dazed, not having followed their conversation at all.
Elizabeth sounded a little impatient when she replied, “Do you think this storm means the fog is going to come back?”
Sarah hadn’t given the fog too much thought. Hadn’t the weather on Earth in general been all sorts of funny lately? An onslaught of hurricanes down south, heat waves in the summer, freezing cold winters. Last year, the storms of St. Neuri went well into winter instead of stopping at the tail end of summer. She didn’t believe the fog and the people missing or turning up dead were linked.
But Elizabeth was always a bit of a mystic. Younger than Sarah, she was Mary Ann’s niece, a bit of an aimless woman who was sticking around until something better came along. Sarah had never told her that in St. Neuri, there was no promise of something better coming along.
“No, I think it’s gone.” Sarah replied.
“I hope you’re right. If the fog comes back, I’m getting out of here. My friend said I could come visit her in the city. I’m going to go there until it is okay to come back. That fog messed with me seriously,” She fell silent for a moment, “Uh, don’t tell Mary Ann I said that, okay?”
“I won’t.” Sarah said in unison with Tom, although she knew Tom loved to gossip and that Mary Ann would know by the end of the day.
Office politics. Yet another tiring aspect of her job. There was a loud clap of thunder and suddenly the power surged back on. The fluorescent lights flickered on, casting an odd icky yellow hue on everything. Outside, the storm still raged, the wind throwing the rain against the windows. Another boom of thunder, so loud that it felt as if the foundations of the building were shaking.
Sarah’s phone rang then, interrupting Elizabeth’s chatter about the fog returning. It was Mary Ann. Recently, Sarah couldn’t help but feel as if she was on thin ice with her boss for reasons out of her control.
Her friend Millie returned to St. Neuri after her father died. Looking to put up the family house for sale, Sarah jumped at the chance to land another deal for Mary Ann, who struggled recently due to the murders and fog, seeing the housing market hit a rut. But the deal fell through when Millie decided to uproot her entire life to return to St. Neuri for a guy, who looked like he could snap anyone who glanced at him the wrong way, in half.
Sarah didn’t get it but she wasn’t about to question her friend. It was nice having Millie back. They had been so close as kids and in high school, falling out once college swept in and altered everything. If Millie lost her head over a guy, she wouldn’t judge her for it. Millie had spent the last two weeks trying to move her fashion line, Artemis Blossom, to St. Neuri while still finding a way to get to the city for important meetings. It seemed like a giant pain in the ass but Sarah had never been in love – what did she know about it?
In any case, losing out on the house left Mary Ann miffed, deciding to take it out on her, as though it was her fault that Millie decided to be with a man she loved. She took the cold shoulder without complaint, letting it deaden her boring existence even further.
“Sarah, you’re leaving soon, right?” Mary Ann said without preamble.
“Yes.” She replied, relieved, knowing it was almost five.
“Can you do me a favor? I was running late and this weather is awful. I wanted to put up a for sale sign on the property at Brook Street but won’t make it. Can you stop there on your way home and just make sure the place is locked up and put a sign in?”
The new property that Mary Ann snagged due to it being a foreclosure was nowhere near Sarah’s ride home but she didn’t want to anger her boss anymore than she accidentally had already.
“Sure.” She replied, forcing cheer into her voice.
“Great, thanks. Drive carefully.” The call ended.
She eyed the storm, thinking about driving in it and how soaked she would get even walking to the front door of the Brook Street property. For a spilt second, anger surged through her: for being punished that Millie’s house didn’t go up for sale, for being treated as if it was her fault, for the fact she allowed herself to toil in this dead-end job for so long because she couldn’t figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
But she shoved it down, standing up from her desk. Tom left already, sometime in the short phone call with Mary Ann. Tom was taking night classes at a real estate school and used it as an excuse to leave early most days. In reality, Sarah knew it was because he wanted to beat traffic.
Elizabeth was looking at her with pity, “She is still upset?”
“Why would she be upset?”
“I know she had her heart set on selling your friend’s house. In the historic district, in good condition – she really needs listings like that right now. The market went to shit because of the fog and all those murders.”
Sarah grumbled a non-response, not in the mood to discuss this any more with Elizabeth. Whatever she said would be repeated to Mary Ann and all she wanted to do was give her boss time to get over losing the sale.
“Well, I have to go to Brook Street for this new listing.” Sarah said, swiftly cutting off her co-worker’s next sentence.
“Be careful in this weather. I think I’m going to wait it out and then call my dad to come get me if I see that fog.”
Sarah bit her tongue from making a joke about putting others in danger, grabbed a sign from the back closet, said her good-byes and walked out of the office. The building hallway was silent; everyone else had gone home once the storm rolled in. St. Neuri was still jittery, unbelieving that the death fog could be finally behind them.
To her chagrin, she had forgotten her umbrella that morning, running late from sleeping in, and choosing to waste precious time making coffee. Faced with the storm now, Sarah groaned inwardly, making sure her electronics were safely put away.
Taking off across the parking lot, instantly soaked, she hurried towards her car, fumbling with her keys. Unlocking the door, she slipped inside, shutting it and letting out a loud sigh. Even though she couldn’t have been outside for more than ten seconds, her clothes stuck to her uncomfortably. Was her makeup running? Did it even matter? She still had to go into the house on Brook Street.
The drive took ages. The force of the rain made it impossible to see ahead of her. Sarah couldn’t read the signs, could hardly see the street lights. She thought of Mary Ann, cozy in her large house. Her husband died five years ago, the kids spread across the world, leaving Mary Ann to her own devices. She was probably dry, curled up in a robe, sipping a glass of wine. A spark of jealousy shot through Sarah which she tried to stamp down. It was cold in her car, her skin prickled with goosebumps, and as she turned down what she hoped was Brook Street, she daydreamed about curling up on the couch and reading.
Out of nowhere, something dark darted across the road. Sarah gasped, slamming on the breaks. The car felt as if it wobbled, making a small screeching noise as it slipped across the wet road, coming to a stop as the hulking shape was swallowed up by the storm the next second. She gasped, her heart racing, fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel.
In a stroke of good luck, no one else was on the street. Her car had skirted across one lane and she quickly backed up, straightening the car out into the proper lane, afraid of another vehicle coming out of nowhere and striking her.
She rolled up to a stop sign and tried to catch her breath. The rain pounded against the roof of the car. What in the world was that thing? Some sort of animal running across the road. Even so, it was huge, unlike anything else she saw around here.
Shivering, Sarah gripped the wheel harder and continued her way down the neighborhood street. She missed the house the first time, having to circle back around, before parking in the driveway. The rain didn’t show any sign of stopping. Pulling out the keys to the property, she left her purse behind, grabbed the FOR SALE sign and hopped out.
Clothes soaked instantly to her skin, her hair sticking to her forehead, her feet sinking into the soggy lawn. She stuck the sign into the yard and then quickly hurried towards the empty house. She fumbled with the keys before it slipped into the lock, quickly opening the door, Sarah stepped inside.