The dead whispered in the fog, and Chris Fisk listened.
The fog rolled in off the Cross Marina less than a week after I had sent Professor Helfe into Boston for a set of dentures.
This was not a natural event as the temperature was not right, nor was the water. As I stood down by the Marina, watching the fog come in, I could see the fish dive deeper. From Cross Point, I heard the lighthouse sound its long, wailing alarm as evening was plunged into darkness.
Despite a westerly wind, the fog pushed against it, climbing up toward the center of town. What was stranger still was the way the fog parted around me, refusing to touch any part of my person, a sure sign that what was occurring was in no way natural.
I turned and watched the fog surge around me, trying to fathom where it might be headed, and what its purpose was when I heard the first scream.
In the fog, the cries were muffled, distorted, and it took me a painfully long time to reach the source.
It was at Chris Fisk’s service station.
The young man stood outside his business, a breaker-bar in his hand, the end of it dripping with blood and brains. Across the street from him was a car half up on the sidewalk, its engine running, and the family of five that had been inside it were on the street.
Chris had brained them all.
A pair of older men were off to one side. One man’s arm was bent and broken, the sleeve glistening with the fluids of the victims.
When Chris caught sight of me, he turned and came swinging.
He was young and fast and strong.
But I am old, and my anger runs deep.
There was madness in the young man’s eyes, and he snarled as I caught hold of his wrist. I broke it and snatched the bar from him. Despite his lack of a weapon, he attacked me again, and it was then that I heard the voices in the fog. They were chanting in Latin, urging him to kill, and Chris listened.
I broke his back with the breaker-bar, and as the fog pulsed around us, I pinched his nose closed and covered his mouth.
The fog died when he did.
