Children of the Fog (25 page)

"I promise I'll be gentle."

The girl trudged into the bathroom behind her, and when Sadie reached for her, she half expected her hand to move through insubstantial waves, but her hand touched wet hair.

How could these children be real?

I'm drunk, that's how.

She carefully separated strands of Ashley's neglected hair, while Adam perched on the toilet seat, watching them.

"Can I have hot chocolate?" he asked.

"Sure. With extra marshmallows."

He made a face. "Yuck! I hate marshmallows."

"Well, you ate them last time," Sadie said, surprised.

"No, I didn't."

"Adam doesn't know what he likes," Ashley interjected. She smiled at the mirror. "Hey, my hair looks…pretty."

And it did. The soft glow of the lamp brought out golden lights in the girl's naturally blond hair, and because it was so short, it was almost dry.

"You should let it grow a bit," Sadie suggested.

Ashley's smile disappeared. "I can't. Father—"

"Won't let us," Adam finished.

There was an awkward silence.

"Go sit by the fire," Sadie said. "I'll make the hot chocolate."

She went out to the veranda to get the milk jug from the cooler. An arctic wind whipped at her hair, but the overhang protected her from the drizzly rain. In the kitchen, illuminated by the lamp, she unsteadily scooped hot chocolate powder into a pot, filled it with milk and set it on the Coleman stove. It took her three tries to light the damned thing, but she finally got it working.

Her gaze drifted toward the children. Big sister Ashley had grabbed Sadie's blanket, the one she'd left on the chair. They sat side-by-side, covered with it, anxiously waiting for her return. Occasionally, their heads would move close and they'd whisper to each other, their expressions serious.

Sadie rubbed her eyes.

The children were still there when she opened them.

When the hot chocolate was ready, she handed them each a mug and offered Ashley a bowl of marshmallows. The girl picked out two and dropped them in her mug. When she took the first sip, the smile with which Sadie was rewarded was one of complete bliss.

"This
is
the best hot chocolate," Ashley said in awe. "Adam was right."

"Yeah, Adam was right," her brother mumbled between sips.

Sadie frowned. Not many kids referred to themselves in third person. It was more than a little weird.

Ashley and Adam.

Why would they lie about their names?

The wine she had polished off earlier still made her brain fuzzy and she took a deep breath. "Listen, this prank has gone on far enough. I know your names aren't really Ashley and Adam."

Ashley jumped to her feet, a terrified look on her face.

"That's a lie! My name is
Ashley
."

"Ashley and Adam are dead," Sadie said gently. "Who are you really?"

Adam, his mouth trembling, tugged on Ashley's arm. "We gotta go." He pulled her toward the back door, yanked it open and stepped outside.

In the doorway, Ashley whipped around. "He told us you'd come for him. For us. We thought you were the one. I don't know how we could've been so wrong."

Sadie lurched toward them. "Wait! Who—"

But she was too late.

The children darted across the grass. At the edge of the woods, Adam skidded to a stop and spun around.
"Saa-deeeee!"
His voice sounded desperate and clear—no lisp.

In fact, now that she thought about it, he hadn't lisped during the entire visit. Not once.

"What the hell is going on?" she murmured.

She moved down the steps, thinking to call them back, but then the strangest thing happened. Before her eyes, Adam and Ashley multiplied into four small shapes. Then six. Like human cells duplicating and separating.

Sadie blinked, but they remained, cloaked in shadows, indistinguishable. Six ghost children.

"Jesus…"

Voices began to chant. "One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight…"

"Stop it!" she screamed.

The chanting died instantly.

In the distance, they studied her, and it made her skin crawl.

"Leave me alone!" she yelled.

At first, none of them moved. Then, one by one, the children withdrew, merging into the colorless void of night.

Sadie stepped back into the cabin, slammed the door and leaned against the wall. Her breath came in quick pants and she dug her fingernails into her palms.

What did these illusions, these children, want from her? 

Giving into temptation, she grabbed the second to last bottle of Cabernet and staggered back to bed. By the time she had nearly finished the wine, she had convinced herself that Ashley and Adam's visit had been nothing more than another alcohol-induced hallucination. That's why she'd seen six of them. She had conjured them up because of her own loss and culpability.

"You saw them because you want to, because you're nothing but an alcoholic, Sadie. And a useless drunk. There's no other explanation."

But there was.

27

Six objects on the kitchen counter were the first things she saw when she managed to make it past the bathroom the next morning. She stood motionless, two feet from the sink, and eyed the wrinkled chocolate bar wrapper, envelope, licorice, pen, onion and a new addition—a handful of Smarties. Something about their careful alignment bothered her.

Were they mere apparitions?

She reached out hesitantly and swept the Smarties in her hot hand. They began to melt.

"Well, you're real at least."

She ate them, happy to camouflage the sour taste of vomit.

Before her trip to the bathroom where she had thrown up until she was left with dry heaves, she had woken to thoughts of the strange children. There was only one explanation that made any sense. Since Irma swore that there were no children around and that Ashley and Adam were dead, Sadie—in a perpetual drunken stupor—had conjured up the entire thing.

She scowled.

That meant
she
was responsible for the items on the counter.

She swept them into the garbage can, then proceeded to make a pot of coffee. Recalling Ed's advice, she added an extra half scoop of dark roast coffee. Not wanting to fight with the temperamental stove, she slid the grate over the fire and plopped the percolator down on it.

Then she set up her art supplies.

As the sun departed to make room for the moon, Sadie drained the rum, drinking from the bottle, welcoming the giddiness it brought. She had been gripped by a blur of activity and intoxication the entire day. Illuminated by two oil lamps and a blazing fire, she had worked in frenzy, painting the final illustrations for Sam's book and fighting the panicky feeling that rumbled in the pit of her stomach.

Now, she tried to ignore the desperate voices in her head.

But she couldn't.

'We needed you.'

"The one person who ever needed me is dead," she wept.

She caught sight of the calendar near the sink.

It was already two weeks into May.

She squinted at the clock.
9:50.

"A few hours and it'll be Mother's Day," she slurred. "Well, if ever there was a sign, this is it." She circled the date with a black marker. "D-Day. Dying Day."

She let out a drunken laugh, then lurched into the bedroom, careful not to look at Sam's photograph. She set a flashlight on the nightstand and directed the beam at the bottom of the bed.

"Oh, it's dying time again, I'm gonna leave you," she sang off-key as she sank to her knees. "I can see that faraway look…in your eyes."

She floundered under the bed and pulled the gun box closer. Once it was clear of the bed, she picked it up and tucked it under her arm. Then she stood up. Too quickly. The sudden shift in equilibrium made her head spin and she fell against the nightstand. The box tumbled to the floor, the lid toppled off and the gun slid under the bed.

"Shit!"

On her knees again, she lifted the edge of the bedspread and peered into the shadows underneath the bed. The gun was lodged against one of the headboard legs. She inched her head sideways and stretched out her arm, but still couldn't reach it. She wriggled closer, her body blocking all the light. The floor was cool and rough, and she found a handful of dust bunnies. But no gun.

An unexpected light beamed from the opposite side of the bed, as though someone had entered the room behind her and shifted the flashlight. Then, bit by bit, the bedspread began to lift.

What Sadie saw next practically stopped her heart.

A familiar face and two solemn sapphire eyes.

Sam's eyes!

"Sam?"

The bedspread dropped back into place.

Scrabbling from under the bed, she lurched to her feet and threw a scared glance at the flashlight. It was right where she had left it, pointing exactly where she had aimed it.

"What's going on here?" she whispered.

She steadied herself with one hand against the dresser, her eyes drawn to the far end of the bed.

"Sam, come on out."

Nothing moved.

She forced herself to walk around the bed. The space on the other side was empty—no sign that anyone had been there, except for a faint layer of dust that had been disturbed. A trail of clean floor disappeared under the bed.

She crouched low and peeked underneath.

There was only one thing there.

The gun.

It glinted in the dim light, menacing in its deadly promise.

She waited, expecting Sam's eyes to peek at her from the other side. When nothing happened, she warily reached for the gun and withdrew it, its cool metal reassuring. She was about to stand when a disturbance in the air made her chest tighten. Holding her breath, she straightened slowly, the gun in hand.

Someone or something had moved the flashlight. It was now pointing to the open bedroom door.

She frowned and shuffled toward it, but saw nothing out of place. Then, as a last thought, she pushed the door closed.

"Oh, Jesus!"

Behind the door, someone had carved an infinity symbol.

She slumped against the dresser. "Stop it!"

A sob ripped from her throat, followed by another. She wanted to pound her head against the wall.

She glared at Sam's photo and fury rose from the very depths of her soul. "Why are you haunting me?" She rubbed her face, smearing hot tears over her cheeks. "Why, Sam?"

There was no answer. But then, she didn't really expect one.

Staggering into the living room, she shone the flashlight on every surface. As the beam grazed the kitchen counter, her hand trembled. Everything she had tossed in the garbage was once again arranged in a line on the counter.

In an uncomprehending daze, she stepped closer.

On the envelope someone had drawn an infinity symbol. The licorice was twisted in the same shape.

That's when her mind shattered, completely.

In the small room, her pained howl echoed, raw and savage.

"No more! I can't do this anymore. God!" She shook her head, weeping and laughing hysterically. "Wait, what am I saying? There is no God. Because if there is, he's taken everyone I've ever loved away from me." Sobs wracked her body and she caved in to her misery. "No…
I
let a monster take my baby. I let him torture Sam—
kill
Sam. It's
my
fault. I admit it. But I'm done with this! Do you hear me? It's over!"

She had no idea if she was talking to Sam, the ghost children or God. It didn't matter anyway. No one heard her. No one cared. She was alone, dead inside.

"Just do it!" she screamed, gritting her teeth. "Kill me now or let me die. I…don't…care!"

An hour later, Sadie sat at the kitchen table.

She was ready. Ready to die.

She had downed two handfuls of assorted pills and most of the Screaming Eagle Cabernet. Her mind swirled with random thoughts, while the gun with its single bullet waited on the table.

On the mantle above the fireplace, an envelope addressed to Leah mocked her, an account of the madness that had gripped her like a noose crushing the air from her lungs. Next to the portfolio with Sam's completed book was a letter for Philip. It was a will of sorts, although she wasn't sure a judge wouldn't contest her sanity. She had left Going Batty to Philip, to do with whatever he pleased—get it published or burn it. It was out of her hands.

"I loved you, Philip," she said numbly. "But you're right. I loved Sam more. He was a part of me that you never understood. The
best
part of me. He kept me whole. Sober. Sane."

The grandfather clock emitted another garbled gong.

Almost time.

She turned half-glazed eyes toward the newspaper on the table. She cringed at the sight of the man on the front page. His face had haunted her nightmares and ravaged her sanity. This fiend had crept into her house, abducted her son, then viciously butchered him and burned him alive.

"Monster!"

She ripped off the front page and shredded The Fog's face, tearing at the newspaper until her hands were black. In a fury her arm swept across the table, sending the paper bits into the air. As the freak snowstorm of dead gray flakes floated to the floor, she gave voice to her rage.

"I hope you rot in hell!"

Tears slid down her cheeks as she gazed at the sparsely furnished cabin. What she saw instead was Sam's empty bed, the gaping window in his room and the police officer holding the clown's shoe. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she saw Sam in the car, bound and gagged. The entire explosion played itself out like a horror film that had been incorrectly fed into the projector, jerking and skipping until it froze on a shot of the scorched baseball cap.

Sadie picked up the gun. It was as if a stranger held it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Sam," she wept.

Through the kitchen window, she saw them. Six small bodies.

"One fine day, in the middle of the night…"

Outside, a pale hand reached for the window.