The Fog

The fog made everything worse. The boy could barely see through it as he trudged along, its dampness clinging to him like the fingers of a drowned man. Trees loomed over him in the mist, the grasping claws of their branches reaching down. The fog leant them malevolence, as though they were ready to rend and tear if he looked away. What grass he could see was withered, as if the life had been sucked out.

He stopped and looked around, straining his ears to catch the slightest sound. He could hear nothing clearly. The fog muffled sound, making the commonplace alien. The birds in the trees seemed muted, as though afraid to draw attention to themselves, for fear of what the fog concealed. Even the smells were different. There was the usual smell of grass, but he could catch other smells as well, the fetid smells of decay and rot. Foul things festering just under the surface of the earth, things that should be long dead, but possibly weren’t. In the fog it was impossible to see what might be right next to him, or worse, right behind him.

Then he heard it. It was a low grumbling sound at first, but it grew steadily louder. It went from a grumble to a roar as it got closer. Then he saw it, looming out of the fog, huge and yellow, its glowing eyes piercing the mist. He was rooted to the spot as the creature roared and squealed up to him, gigantic and threatening, brushing the lower branches of the trees. It loomed above him, its huge jaws gaping wide.

The boy got onto the bus, ready for another boring day at school.