Darkness chased the last light of day into the west as they came out of the cinema, laughing and smiling. The street outside was a murmur of happy people, couples walking hand in hand as Nigel and Carmen mixed into the crowd. The sound of people and the music in the air carried them along like a living whisper. It was the first time in a long time they’d been to the pictures, but Carmen had reasoned that it might let them relax and unwind for a couple of hours.

And it did. Nigel noticed that he’d lost himself in the film for a bit, and it had been relaxing. It had been good to sit and think about something else, to be in a crowd, laughing, transported. When the film ended, there was a pleasant murmur of conversation among the moviegoers, and Nigel realized he was, in fact, relaxed.

Across the street from the cinema there was a line of restaurants and bistros and bars, all open to the warm, early summer night. Their patios, forests of tall chairs grouped around circular tables, were full of people and bustling. The happy sounds of the patrons echoed into the street, different musics playing underneath the mirth and the burble of conversations. From the same places, the warm smell of various foods drifted out, carried on the lovely breeze.

 Carmen held his hand as they walked along. He looked over at her, smiling. “This was a good idea,” he said. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

“Did you like the movie?”

“Sure, but who cares?” he asked with a soft laugh. “It was just nice to get out. I really do feel a bit better.”

“Good,” she said, squeezing his hand and kissing him on the cheek. “You haven’t had the best month, so I’m glad we got your mind off things for a while.”

“Me too.”

She was right. It hadn’t been a good little while. A month, or so, where just nothing seemed to go right, according to plan. Stress building on stress, at work, at home, and then finally, he just had enough. He came home at noon one day, not due until close to five, and immediately called the doctor and made an appointment. Dr. Hernandez saw him the next day and recommended some time off and gave him a prescription. Walking with Carmen, he could feel the small, transparent orange bottle of pills in his overcoat pocket. Touching the plastic container made Nigel feel a little better.

They walked along the promenade and he could feel the breeze gently rolling off the lake. It was chilly, a soft reminder that spring was not completely gone. Summer loomed around the corner, but spring kept a tenuous grip. Carmen tugged her scarf, looped loosely around her neck, a little tighter.

“Do you want to go down by the water?” he asked.

“Sure. We’re not in any rush to go home, right?”

“Nope. The fresh air is helping, I think.”

Carmen tucked herself in closer to him. “If it’s helping, then we’ll walk as much as you want.”

It had started a while ago, really. The sickness. His office job was mundane, nothing to brag about, but it paid well enough and he was decently happy at work. Then there was a big corporate merger, way above Nigel’s pay grade, and all of a sudden, the office became hectic. People rushing around waving papers, frantically typing. All the water cooler chat, gone. Everyone buried in their work.

Just little things, at first. Nigel could have sworn, on multiple occasions, that he saw a cat in the office. A cat or something like it, anyway. Just out of the corner of his eye, always disappearing. Under a desk, into a side room. Whenever he would actually look to see it, it was gone. He chalked it up to stress and tried to relax a bit more on the weekends.

Then it started growing, spreading to other things. People who weren’t there calling his name. Mumbled words that weren’t actually being spoken, only heard. More stress. Then a colleague from a few desks over came to Nigel asking about a document. As he spoke, holding out the paper to Nigel, his shirt began to move. It was as if a snake was coiling its oily way around the man, constricting him. Nigel didn’t hear much of what he’d said, fixated on the squirming motions.

The elevator lights glowing red instead of white, and Nigel feeling an insane temperature change as if descending into a Dante-style interpretation of hell. The door opening into the lobby completely normal, and the others in the elevator car unnoticing.

He hadn’t told Carmen. He didn’t want to worry her. All he said was he was really feeling the stress ever since the merger.

It was worst at work, but it happened at home too, and outside in the world. The last straw, the one that sent him to Dr. Hernandez, was working steadily away and casually glancing downward to see his tie writhing and slashing around as if it were alive. His eyes opened wide at the sight, and even knowing that it wasn’t really there, he was terrified. He pushed himself back from the desk and turned off his computer. He undid the tie quickly and stuffed it into his briefcase. It had felt normal, thin silk, but even after it was in the case, he could hear faint thumps as if it were still moving and trying to get out.

The pills helped. They had a long name, a generic brand of something. These will help, Dr. Hernandez had told him. They’re good for hallucinations and paranoia. He also printed Nigel a referral for a therapist. He hadn’t done therapy, but the pills seemed to be working. After about a week, he noticed that the strange things he’d been seeing and hearing were still there, but easier to ignore. They had gradually faded, but he was much better at handling them. He’d been taking the unpronounceable pills for a month and things were finally starting to calm down.

They walked down to the boardwalk. More restaurants open to the night, more people. To the left, Dauphin Lake. Lac Dauphin, Carmen always corrected him. It was named by the French settlers here. In the dark it was a field of black with peaking and diving reflections of the lights on the water. At the water side of the boardwalk, cement posts supported rounded steel rails, and a ribbon of old-style streetlamps ran along the edge of the grassy strip, into the distance.

There was a green flash out over the lake. Nigel saw it, mostly in his peripheral vision, and turned to look. “Did you see that?” he asked Carmen.

“A flash,” she said. “Maybe some sheet lightning.”

Good, he thought. She saw it too. A moment later, another flash. Green again.

“Another one,” he said. He reached his hand farther into his pocket, picking up the pill bottle and rolling it in his fingers. They’re good for hallucinations and paranoia, he heard the memory of Dr. Hernandez say.

“That was a little weird,” Carmen said. They stopped, looking out over the lake.

“Did that look… green to you?”

“Green?” she asked hesitantly. “I don’t know. Maybe a little?”

“No, that was definitely green. Strange.”

They stood together looking out over Lac Dauphin. Nigel noticed it had gotten quieter in the general sounds of the restaurants and the other people in the area. A lot of them were looking out over the water as well.

“I’m sure it’s just lightning. Maybe a storm coming in.” Carmen said. Her hand loosened in his.

“Could be lots of things. Could be some reflection, maybe, or something environmental—”

Another flash. Brighter still, that same glowing emerald green. Nigel raised his arm against the brightness of it.

He looked to his side.

Carmen was gone.

Nigel felt a rush of panic. She was just right there.

He looked behind at the row of restaurants. The people, all gone. The smell of food and the music playing through the open doors and windows, still there. Everyone, gone in a blink.

“Carmen?” he called. “Car? Where are you?” No reply.

His hand, still in his pocket, tightened around his bottle of pills. They’re good for hallucinations and paranoia. He whipped around, looking for anyone, any sign of life. Nothing.

“This isn’t happening,” he said into the night air. “This isn’t real. A hallucination.”

How long since he’d taken a pill? It had been light out, well before the movie. He tried to work his way backwards in time, counting the hours since he’d had a pill. He pulled the bottle out of his pocket. Take one tablet every four to six hours, it read. “Close enough,” Nigel said. He popped the bottle open and shook one small yellow pill into his palm. He threw it quickly into his mouth and swallowed it dry.

He took a deep breath and looked around. Everything seemed to be the same, but he was alone. He walked over to the restaurant, looking at the tables outside on the little patios. There were place settings, plates of food half eaten. On the ground near the tables, dropped silverware. He reached down and picked up a piece of steak on an abandoned plate. He sniffed it closely, and it seemed to be real meat. Cloth napkins sat on chairs or had floated to the ground when everyone disappeared. Nigel bent and picked one up, wiping his hands on it.

“Not happening,” Nigel reminded himself. “The pill will kick in soon and everything will be back to normal.”

He turned from the restaurant and the abandoned tables and walked out close to the water. Lac Dauphin still sloshed up rhythmically against the boardwalk, the lights flickering across its moving face. He stared out into the deep darkness over the water. Nothingness. He knew it wasn’t actually nothingness – or is it? – but it was just a field of black.

“The green flashes,” he mused aloud. “What were those? Does this have anything to do with them?”

He looked down the boardwalk, remembering the little telescopes. You could look out at the lake and there were usually a handful of tourists looking through them at any given moment. Nigel jogged down to the nearest telescope.

Still, no one in sight as he arrived at the telescope. What the hell was going on? He’d never had a hallucination like this before. The pills had seemed to be working well, but now? This was so real, so vivid. But it’s not real, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. It is not real.

He stooped and peered through the little telescope. Others like it dotted the edge of the boardwalk every hundred yards or so, these little moveable binocular things – peepers, Carmen had always called them – where you could see the boats or the waves or whatever it was people were looking at. Nigel looked through, tilting the thing around, side to side, up and down. The lake was almost all entirely black.

Then, he noticed a difference. The water was reflecting back tiny little sparkles of light, from the electric lights on the boardwalk, the moon, tiny twinkling stars. Then it suddenly stopped. Just a dead zone. He stood up straight and looked with just his eyes, hardly believing what he was seeing.

Out over the water there was an enormous fog bank rolling in.

There had been no fog in the forecast, he remembered. It was supposed to be a clear night with a nice waxing moon. But now this huge bank was coming, as if the lake itself was pulling this enormous wall of fog over it like a blanket. It was hard to see in the darkness, but Nigel noticed that the stars were disappearing behind the behemoth cloud.

“Jesus,” he said, nearly breathless. He’d seen fog over the lake, usually really early, a thin mist that would burn off by mid-morning. This fog towered into the sky itself, huge and thick. From what little he could see it looked like a hundred million tons of cotton batting rolling in. He looked around, wondering what to do. He went back to the eyepieces of the little telescope, trying to pick up more detail.

It was so hard to tell in the darkness, but Nigel could swear that he saw shapes in the oncoming rush of fog. Vaguely, but not quite, human silhouettes, just barely picked up from the light along the shoreline boardwalk.

His mind raced. What to do, where to go? If there were things in that godawful fog heading his way…

Help! Help! The word flashed repeatedly in his mind.

I’ve got to get out of here, he thought, and began to run. Away from the water, the rolling bank of fog, the strange shadows. He pounded past the row of restaurants and behind, cutting into a side street. Another. Blindly, panicking, he ran.

He ran until he was out of breath. His legs felt like warm rubber and a burning stitch throbbed in his side. He leaned against a building, unsure of what it was or where he was. He could no longer feel the breeze from the lake, having run a few blocks away. He tried to calm his breathing, swallowing hard around it, to listen.

Glancing upwards, tendrils of fog were rolling over the street. It was thickening as he watched, like something alive, something that stalked.

He could hear a rumble of wet, slapping footsteps. An army of them. He ran again, taking any way he thought got him away from Lac Dauphin.

He stopped, seeing a narrow street with cobblestones snaking away from one of the main streets he ran on. He recognized the pub, Smalley’s, where he and Carmen came regularly for their anniversaries. Their place, their favorite spot. But somehow he’d never noticed the little street, lane, alley, beside it. There was a small sign bolted to the side of the pub that read Lillywhite End, and faint light down the small space.

Another glance over his shoulder and the huge, all-encompassing fog was still rolling after him. Stars continued disappearing behind it, and those strange footsteps were gaining on him. What the hell was coming for him? He thought he heard voices from behind, from the… things attached to the feet making those horrible, wet sounds.

Still winded and with the stitch continuing to burn his side, he ran down Lillywhite End. His legs throbbed and his lungs burned with every breath, and shortly the street widened, with a streetlamp in the center of a small court. Nigel slowed from a jog and leaned against the lamp, ragged breaths searing him. He felt like he was being burned alive from the waist up, but the feeling ebbed as he stood, slumped against the lamp, his weak legs gaining back some of their strength.

Moments passed. He looked up at the sky and nothing seemed out of place. No fog, thank God, and the stars were out and shining. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, and he tried to focus his hearing. There were murmuring voices somewhere… where? He could hear them if he really concentrated but not enough to make out what they were saying. He closed his eyes trying to block out any distractions, but the sounds would not coalesce into words.

Looking around the court, Nigel realized he was in a small circle of shops. Another street wound off, continuing the way he’d come, and he looked at the small place he was in now. There were a series of small shops, by the look, with apartments upstairs. Signs hung from a couple of the businesses, and Nigel tried to read them but found he couldn’t. The lettering on the signs was unrecognizable. It was close to normal English writing, but it wasn’t at the same time. They looked like they were written by someone who’s never seen English letters before.

Leaving the support of the lamp post, Nigel went to the nearest shop. There was a candle flickering somewhere inside, with shadows dancing behind the glass. He put his hand on it, trying to lean in and see the interior. Nothing inside moved other than the jittery shadows, Nigel noticed, and his heart sank.

The shopfront was false.

Just a panel, perfectly flat and painted to look like a shop. Completely smooth as he ran his hand over it. What the hell is this? he thought, standing back. And how is that candle flame moving?

He looked around. The shops all looked so lifelike. His heart began to beat faster again, fear rising. He went to the next shop – another flat surface! He ran his hands over it and there was absolutely no depth to it, to anything, just flatness. The doorknob, so realistic, was just painted on. No way in. Another unintelligible sign over the false door.

“Oh, come on!” Nigel screamed into the night. He looked up again, and the stars and moon were gone. The fog from Lac Dauphin had caught up to him! His back, chest and hands felt quivery and unstable. He reached down into his overcoat pocket again, feeling that onset of a panic attack, and pulled out the bottle of pills.

They’re good for hallucinations and paranoia.

Surely that’s what this was, some sort of intense hallucination unlike anything he’d ever had before. Dissociating, he thought. Maybe something happened and I passed out. Dreaming.

He shook a yellow pill out of the bottle and downed it. Think, man, think! Try and focus!

He went back to the lamp post, the only thing in this bizarre court that seemed real. “I came that way,” he said, pointing to the outlet of Lillywhite End. “So I have to go that way.” He turned and made for the other street leaving the court.

“NO!!!” he yelled, realizing that the street leaving the court was also just a false front. Trap, it’s a trap. However, the image was put there it was incredibly realistic, but his hand upon it, was just another perfectly flat surface. No way out, his mind flashed at him, red creeping into the edges of his vision. Go back. Gotta go back.

He turned again and ran back to Lillywhite End, the small street he’d come in from. He stopped short and reached his hand out, and it was indeed a real street. Not just a painted fakery. He felt the quivery tingle start to slip off his head, relieved to be out of that strange court. He stepped into Lillywhite End and headed back towards Smalley’s and the places he knew.

Ahead of him, around the bend of the street, he heard more of those awful wet footsteps. He stopped cold in his tracks. No escape, no escape! His shadow darkened most of the light from the streetlamp in the sealed court at the end of Lillywhite End. In his shadows, something began to move. The wet steps were louder, innumerable, and from around the bend came those strange indecipherable voices. Low, guttural. Inhuman.

Then, they emerged from the darkness.

Nigel felt his heart seize at the sight of them. Something hideously alien. They came from the Lac, was all he had time to think before they were on him.

#

“So, he just ran away?” the police officer asked Carmen. Her cheeks were damp and eyes ringed with tear-streaked mascara.

“He was with me,” she said. “We were standing right here. One second he was fine, the next he was running around, up in the restaurant, down there, calling my name. I couldn’t grab him, but I was screaming at him that I was here. Nothing would stop him.”

“Any idea what might have caused it?” The policeman was professional and calm. He’d gotten a description of him, and had also spoken to some of the restaurant diners who had him practically in their laps, including the one whose steak he had picked up and sniffed.

“There were a couple lightning flashes,” she said, considering. “That seemed to spook him for some reason. He’s… been a bit delicate.” The officer raised an eyebrow. “He’s started taking medication recently,” Carmen admitted. “Things have been rough for him. Stress, you know?”

“What kind of medication? What is he being treated for?”

“Hallucinations and paranoia,” she said, almost an admission of guilt. “But it’s nothing like this. I’ve never seen him like that. Ever. You have to find him.”

“Okay, is there anywhere he might go? You said he ran off that way?”

“I wonder about Smalley’s,” she said. “It’s kind of our spot. He might have gone there.”

“That’s not far. Come on, let’s go over and see if he’s about.” They began to walk together. Carmen was glad to be getting away from the people who had witnessed Nigel’s… moment. “I bet you a dollar, he’s sitting there at the bar.”

“I hope you’re right. Although I don’t have a dollar on me.”

“You can owe me.”

Smalley’s was exactly the same as she’d always remembered, she realized as she and the policeman walked up the main street towards it. Directly behind it, as it had always been, there was no indication of any side street. Smalley’s backed directly onto a squat warehouse. Without so much as a glance, they went straight past the brick wall in the same spot that Nigel had earlier turned and run down. They went into the pub, sure that they would find him inside.

They couldn’t hear Nigel’s screams of terror from Lillywhite End.

Editor’s Note

Some Lovecraftian / Cosmic vibes from this one. I loved the way it all came together and the sheer dread by the end of the tale.