I glanced at the screen on my phone. The directions had taken a weird turn. I was sure I needed to go south on Berkshire Ave., but the little voice in my phone was saying north. It was entirely possible the whirlwind of a day I’d had was making my internal compass a little screwy.

I wasn’t even completely sure why I’d agreed to meet everyone for dinner. I wasn’t in the mood to socialize. And it wasn’t the new position that had me feeling like I just needed to go curl up on my couch with a book and bag of barbecue potato chips. It was those wacky few moments on my computer that had shifted my mood. Of course, wacky was a light word for it. I had no idea who had been on the other end of the conversation where I’d basically poured out my heart’s desire to a complete stranger, possibly even just a robot. But a well-programmed robot at that. It seemed to know everything about me. And now, thanks to me opening my virtual diary and spilling the contents out onto my keyboard, my deepest fantasy was out floating around in cyberspace.

“Turn left here,” my phone instructed. It seemed my life was now being directed by bossy technological beings.

I turned left onto a small street I’d never seen before. It was really more of an alley than a street, and a questionable one at that. But the sketchy state of the deserted alley was nothing compared to the unexplained layer of fog floating down from an otherwise crystal black night sky.

“I’ve had about enough of you and your nutty directions.” I shut the phone off. Fog or not, I pushed my foot down on the gas pedal. The walls on either side of the alley were closing in on me, and the thick, eerie mist was clouding my windshield. Visibility was down to a few feet past the front of my headlights but I motored on, plowing through the seemingly endless corridor.

The shroud of fog reminded me of a ghost in a long gray gown as it rolled over my hood and across my front windshield. I was at least a forty minute drive from the coast, but a heavy fog wasn’t completely unheard of in the city. Only this one had drifted in alarmingly fast.

I shivered as a cold clammy mist seemed to fill the car. My trembling fingers reached for the window buttons. I pushed them forward to make sure they were sealed shut and then double checked that the doors were locked.

I reached for my phone, deciding to let Pauline know I’d be late and that I’d taken a wrong turn on Berkshire. That way, if I didn’t show up, the police would know where to start the search.

My overactive imagination took me to the notion that Gregory, my coworker who was sure he’d had the vice president position on lock, might have set up this elaborate scheme to get rid of me. I laughed at the rather dark idea, not because Greg wouldn’t sink so low but because he had never shown himself to be a creative thinker. And this elaborate scheme would require a lot of creativity and thinking . . . and some knowledge of weather science.

Sudden unexpected brightness coaxed me to lift my arm and shade my eyes. Headlights or a large flood lamp, I decided. At least I was reaching some kind of life form or glimmer of civilization. The light mellowed, obviously being muted by the pea soup fog.

I put my phone down, deciding I would be at the restaurant in plenty of time. I was sure they all needed a chance to debrief and talk about my promotion and new position before I got there. Then I was heading straight to the bar. The tablespoon of wine with Cara was still a few good apple martinis away from a proper buzz.

I reached the end of the alley. As my car left the shadows of the buildings, a dense fog still danced around it. I put on my windshield wipers in a desperate attempt to see what was in front of me. I no longer had any sense of direction. I had no idea where I was. My only chance was to retrace my steps, or, in this case, my tire marks and head back through the alley. I made a sharp left, hoping that no one was coming at me.

My tires screeched as my foot slammed the brakes. I stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of me. In the midst of the nearly impenetrable cloud of fog was a clearing, a perfectly scooped out hole of clear night air. And, at the center of it all, stood a gothic looking, dilapidated mansion.

I patted the console, the dashboard and the steering wheel of the car to make sure they were real. It was entirely possible that this whole day had just been a dream, and I was still tucked in my cozy bed waiting for the clock radio to wake me. I laughed and relaxed back. That was it. I was still asleep. No wonder I’d gotten the V.P. position. It was all just in my head. I’d just sit still and wait for Hank and Heidi’s morning show to pull me out of the weird dream.

But it wasn’t the morning talk show that zapped me to attention. It was the mouth watering smell of baked goods. Cake, to be exact. Red velvet cake to be even more exact, if there was such a thing as being more than exact.

Unless I was dreaming in sensory Technicolor, my nose and my taste buds were letting me know that I was definitely awake. All of it was impossible, and yet, the house was sitting there on its own luminous hillside.

I glanced around. My car was still being swallowed up by the creepy fog. I pushed down the gas pedal and headed toward the house. It was the only thing visible through my condensation smeared windows.

As if a switch had been shut off on a fog machine, the night air cleared. Two massive, yellow lamps flickered gold at the top of a long, winding driveway beckoning me forward. My only other choice was to navigate my way back through the horror movie style fog I’d left behind. At least this direction promised visibility and the prospect of a fresh baked good. After my terrible lunch, my stomach was protesting loudly with hunger.

As my car rolled up the driveway, I came upon a red wooden sign with black and white block letters. I squinted into the dark to read it. ‘Welcome to the Silk Stocking Inn.’ Again my foot smacked down hard on the brakes. “It can’t be. There’s just no way.” Another sign, a chalkboard style panel with letters scrawled in pink chalk stood two feet ahead. I cautiously moved my foot to the gas and rolled forward. ‘Baker’s special today—red velvet cupcakes’.

I put my foot down harder. “All right, this has gone far enough. It was entertaining on the computer, but now it is just downright creepy. And it has me talking to myself, which is probably getting caught on some secret camera to eventually be posted on YouTube. Then someone will use it to blackmail me, and I’ll lose my job. So stop talking to yourself, Jessi, and get to the bottom of this.”