Chapter 4

AFTER

2005

“Where were you!”

That was Jen, always with the yelling and the caring when it didn’t matter anymore, but Leane still paused at the door to frown at the sight before her drunken eyes.

Jen was surrounded with guns.

She took a fearful step back and instinctively pressed her baby to her chest. Her eyes widened in shock as Jenarius rose from the chair he had been abusing and approached her.

“Take one step near me and I’ll scream.”

Jenarius widened his eyes and blinked at Leane in confusion.

Why was she being so strange?

Was she drunk?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, dumbly.

Leane couldn’t believe her ears.

Had he been drinking?

Her eyes darted around the room, answering for her, even though the light shining from the corridor was dim she could still make out the empty cigarette pack on the floor and the butts that had been strew over her carpet. There was no alcohol in sight but she still seethed.

If she wasn’t currently scared of him, she would have shot him in the face for the pollution.

“I should be asking you that.”

Jenarius came back into himself, came back to the present, and released a stiff breath of air. He ran a hand over his brown hair and placed his guns on the ground. The shotgun and the hand gun lay in wait on the carpet.

He faced her.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I forgot. But I have something to tell you. You just have to walk in first.”

That didn’t sound creepy at all.

Leane shook her head, “No ways.”

“Le,” he begged.

God, he was desperate. When was the last time he had called her that?

She turned around and gave in, glancing around the empty driveway of their ground floor house. She took a step into the threshold and shut the door with her right foot.

Jenarius walked forward and peeped through the window beside the door. Leane watched him lock it without much hesitation. When he was done, he nodded towards the corridor leading to their bedroom and she obeyed.

Leane held Christopher tightly, hoping against hope that he didn’t wake up in case she had to run for her fucking life. It was, after all, October 10th and even though Jen had seemed to have moved on- he could have been acting.

She casually sat down on their master bed, a King sized she thought they had had for too long. Her eyes scanned the room for something, a weapon, to use on him. There was the lamp, there was a high heel on the floor, there was a cable for a phone. She nodded slightly, agreeing with what she had spoken to herself.

I’ll use the cable.

Jen sat down on the floor. He had a shotgun in his hand. He wasn’t one for missing sleep yet he looked like he had been awake for years. He rocked back and forth, like those crazies Leane sometimes watched on the television, and his desperate eyes narrowed at her.

She gulped down a bowl of saliva that had piled up in her mouth and raised a brow at him.

“Honey-,” now who was desperate? “What’s the matter?”

Jenarius glanced back and forth between their bedroom window and the bedroom door.

There was a look in his eyes that she recognized, even though she had not seen it in a long time.

It was the same look that he had when they were told Phoebe ran away, when they knew Phoebe went missing.

“The man who took Phoebe,” he started, mouth dry, “he sent us a letter, Le. A letter.”

He shoved his free hand into his left jean pocket and the sudden movement made her flinch. She knew now that he wasn’t the threat but she was more afraid.

What did people say? Better the devil you know…

Jenarius fished out a red card, one he had visibly been scrunching up and opening several times, and handed it to her. When they connected hands, his fingers lingered over hers in a way that reminded her of the old days.

Before…. everything.

“What’s this?” Leane asked, but she was opening the card before Jenarius could answer.

She slowly read the hand-written note but she was left confused. Scared but confused.

Her brown eyes scanned his fear-stricken face. “Jen, what’s this?”

“He sent a picture, babe,” he rocked. Back- forth. Back- forth. “H-h-he sent a photo of her, Phoebe. She’s grown up, Le. She’s older and she’s alive. She’s alive.”

Leane felt a wave of relief crash over her.

Not that she cared that Phoebe was alive, she had forgotten about the pest anyways, but she was glad that the dark presence, dark mood, lurking around them would finally disappear.

Leane reached out with a grin on her face. She held Christopher with one and hugged her husband with the other.

When they pulled apart, she waited for him to fish out the photo.

“Jen?”

He continued to rock.

“Hm?”

“Jen, where’s photo?”

Jen looked into her eyes, those eyes that she had loved once, but the green in them were dull.

There was no happiness and no love. Even the idea of Phoebe being alive hadn’t helped him, hadn’t changed anything.

She caught herself wishing Phoebe had just stayed dead.

“It burnt.”

Leane frowned.

“What? How?”

Jen shrugged and continued to rock. His eyes began, once again, to dart between the window and the door.

“Jen, what’s wrong?”

He burst into a stream of yelling.

“It’s fucking gone, alright? It fucking burnt. It just…it just…it started burning and I couldn’t stop it. I was in shock. One minute she was there, in a, in a- fuck me, I can’t even remember what she was wearing, but gosh- Le- she was there. It became ash. A pile of bloody ash. I picked it up and I tossed it away. I thought it would burn the house down and-,”

Leane watched in shock.

At first the feeling was shock, utterly shocked was she, and then it turned to confusion and then the feeling slowly began to feel like hate. She hated Jen. She actually, truly, hated Jen.

This was the most desperate thing he had ever done in his life.

Was he actually crazy? Like seriously?

She listened to his blabbering, to his going on about this strange magic trick he apparently witnessed, but she couldn’t stop feeling the hate.

It grew with each word that escaped his mouth, latching onto her brain cells and spreading like a virus. She gritted her teeth and put her baby down. She crossed her numb arms and glared at the man as he rocked back and forth on the ground like a lunatic.

She didn’t want to do it. She really didn’t want to do it. Especially on October 10th, but she knew she had to.

Phoebe was consuming him, consuming her, even from the grave.

“Jen,” she had cut off whatever dumb shit he was about to say- something about The Mist- and he looked up at her with a tear streaked face.

“Yes, Le?”

She shook her head, at what, she didn’t know. Leane sucked in a deep breath and shrugged, nonchalantly.

“I think I want a divorce.”

Jenarius’ eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that. He didn’t know what to say, or what to feel, he only thought of one sentence.

“Phoebe is alive.”

Leane rolled her eyes, “I’m taking Christopher tonight and I’m leaving.”

Jenarius really didn’t know what to say. All he could think to say was that one sentence, that one hope.

“But…” he glanced between the window and the door, “Phoebe is alive.”

Leane ran a hand over her bad haircut and cringed at the reminder.

She just wanted her youth back. She wanted love back, respect, and maybe- okay not maybe- some beauty.

“Jen,” she said, exasperated, “I don’t care about Phoebe. I never have. I’m leaving because I can’t do this anymore. Will you respect that?”

Jenarius blinked rapidly at her, a tear escaped his eye but it hadn’t fallen for her.

He stood up and stared at her in shock, confusion, a mixture of both emotions. She left her baby- hers because he had never felt like it was his- on the bed and she moved to grab a suitcase.

Where would she go, why tonight?

The questions danced on his brain, waltzed over his mind, past the thoughts of his daughter and even around the thoughts of The Mist.

He had forgotten, thinking of Leane, watching her as she packed and complained about their life- their excuse for a marriage- to look towards the window, towards their bedroom door.

If he had, he would have seen it.

He would have seen the mist.