Chapter 6
AFTER
2005
Something was wrong.
And no, it wasn’t the news that his wife had just broken to him- now ex-wife, or whatever he was now forced to call her- he could just feel the looming presence of something dangerous. It stemmed from the core of his very being and spread throughout his body. The hair on his nape rose, goosebumps sprang to life from the surface of his frozen skin, his legs began to wobble in fear as his eyes continued to dart around the bedroom.
Jenarius cautiously stepped out, not catching onto the useless sentences that were leaving Leane’s mouth, and his eyes narrowed as he adjusted to the dim light. He flipped on a switch in the hallway and faced the sitting room which was a few feet away. It was empty. Nobody was there. Not Phoebe and not the stupid Mist dude.
Jenarius released a heavy breath he didn’t know he had been holding and was then, only then, aware of how fast his heart was beating in his chest. He felt his pulse everywhere in his body, in his neck and his forehead and his fingers. He shook himself, something he had seen in a film, and wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work.
“What’s wrong with you?” Leane was staring up at him, drunken eyes narrowed.
He shrugged.
“I need water.”
Yes. That’s all he needed. Water, music to drown out her talking, a cigarette to defuse all his stress and a good night’s sleep.
Poor Jenarius had nothing to fear, he reminded himself of that as he dragged his feet along the carpet towards his kitchen. He moved through the gaping doorway and headed straight to the faucet. He grabbed a whiskey glass from the dish rack, a gift from those rich Malone folks down the street, and poured himself a glass. He tipped his head back and drank. Cold and crisp. Everything he needed. And for a second, his worries seemed impotent.
The lights flickered.
His heart plummeted to his throat.
Jenarius choked on his water and it dribbled down the corners of his mouth, down until it dropped onto his shirt, and then it touched the tips of his toes through his maroon socks. He blinked up at the lights and willed his heart to calm down.
It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just-
The light bulb above his head burst.
Jenarius stifled his shriek. He put the glass he was sure he would drop in the sink and turned around.
Phoebe was standing in the doorway.
She was there. Real. Alive. After two long years of searching under bridges, watching the houses of suspected pedophiles, walking dog’s day and night with her scent in their nostrils, as the hundreds of people who got involved searched for her; all along, they had been chasing the wind.
“Phoebe.”
He was shocked when the words came out of his mouth. He thought he was speechless two seconds ago and he truly was.
Jenarius didn’t know if this was real, he didn’t know if he had gone mad like some might have said if they were in his shoes right then, he didn’t know if this was his twisted imagination or if Phoebe was standing in the room, right there in front of him.
He started to cry.
He couldn’t help himself.
The pain and loss over the years flashed before his eyes. Those sleepless nights were gone, those blank and dull moments he would sometimes wonder why he was even alive we’re about to be thrown into the past. Today was a new day, and to make everything better, Leane was leaving him.
Jenarius continued to cry.
He believed and continued to be hopeful.
Until she spoke.
“You forgot about me, Jen,” she said.
Her voice was an echo of sorts. It bounced across the walls and shot back into his ear a thousand times. It was louder than it should have been and she sounded darker than ever possible.
It was too dark for him to catch her expression but he didn’t have to know something was off.
Then smoke, or fog, something like mist began to seep into the room from every corner of the house. The roof was covered in it, it ran down the walls like liquid, the ground at their feet were soon consumed by it.
Jenarius twirled around in shock, in fear. He sucked in a breath, wondering if it was poisonous. He wanted to reach for Phoebe, to protect her somehow, but she wasn’t worried.
The Mist seemed to cling onto her in a way that reminded him of the times when she would cling to him.
He didn’t know what was going on.
“Phoebe, are you okay?”
Her red hair bounced as she tilted her head to the side.
“Why, daddy?” that echo again, that sarcastic tone, he didn’t like it one bit. “You forgot about me.”
He released an unamused laugh, one that he regretted the minute it left his mouth. It was not appropriate for the moment. Not even slightly.
“Apple,” his nickname to her, red apple- because that’s what she had been to him, was to him, “we spent two years looking for you.”
“You stopped looking, daddy. You gave up.”
He swiped roughly at his tears and tried his best to ignore the mist around them. It was hard to focus on talking sensibly when he didn’t know what was in the air around him.
“No, apple,” he said calmly, “I would never forget about you.”
Phoebe, besides his pleading, began to shake her head in a mocking way.
When a lightbulb burst behind her back, he jumped uncontrollably. His heartbeat was alarmingly fast now, so fast he had to suck in air to remind himself to breathe. Jenarius started to approach Phoebe, slipping his legs through the mist one step at a time, and she stood eerily still in the doorway.
“You had a grave dug up,” she echoed in a sing song voice now. “But no body.”
He shivered.
“Phoebe-,”
“You had roses for me,” she said, “not my favorite flower.”
He couldn’t afford to buy them, he had received the roses from a workmate.
Jenarius was sure of something then, it was her, it truly was Phoebe. But also, he was sure that she had changed. She wasn’t the same. She was, if anything, something else.
“Talk to me.”
“No.”
Her echoing voice got deeper, harsher and Jenarius cringed.
“You’re home now,” his voice broke as the words escaped, “you can come home and be happy with me now.”
She shook her head again. Hair bouncing, nonchalant movement. He was glad he couldn’t see her face, he was sure he wouldn’t like her expression.
“Why not?”
“I have a new daddy now,” she said, impassively.
Jenarius blanched.
“Who, Phoebe, who is your daddy?” he hadn’t realized his voice had risen.
He thought of the man who had sent to letter, the devil who had ruined his life. He didn’t know why he was suddenly angry enough to murder him, angry enough to lock Phoebe up for life if he had to.
When he saw that devil, he was going to kill the fucker.
“He isn’t a devil daddy,” Phoebe echoed.
Jenarius’ blood ran cold. He frowned at his daughter, what he hoped was his daughter, and didn’t make another move.
“What is he?”
Head tilt. Background fog. Jenarius felt like he was living a horror story.
“He’s The Mist and we’ve come to take your family away.”
We?
Jenarius opened his mouth to beg for answers, scream for any information.
It was ironic, that’s what the kids were supposed to do. They were supposed to be kept in the dark and stay confused until they were old enough to understand.
He hated it now that the tables had been turned.
He reached out for her and he watched as the space she had filled began to swirl in the mist. In a flash, just like before, Phoebe was gone.
BEFORE
2003
“Azban, you have done well.”
“I try.”
He was dying, fading, only because the body he was in was turning into mush. Soon, he would be a walking talking body of soap and he couldn’t let himself die in this body or else he’d be stuck in the Underworld, in the dark, alone.
Without his master.
And yes, his master was here, was present. After he had consumed the soul of the red headed girl, after he had fed, he was no longer a swirl of grey smoke. He could bend himself into a body, turn into the man he usually appeared as, he could use his powers fully.
Azban sat in the Wishing Well with his hands brushing over the selection of coins that had been tossed into it.
Those useless humans had made a thousand wishes but none of them had been to The Mist, only now had it worked. He had been set free. Azban was grinning, his usual look, and he couldn’t help but feel like he had accomplished the impossible.
Today was a good day, a good day indeed.