It Won't Last Long
a flash fiction story about a supernatural fog
This was written for the 30 Days of Fright Writing Challenge, prompt 6: atmospheric.
It Won’t Last Long
“Come home. It’s… Lottie. She’s back.” He paused. “Same as she ever was. A miracle.”
A few minutes later, Drive safe, her dad texted. The fog.
Now, in her old Subaru, the fog white and thick and heavy over the one road into town. Around here, the fog crept over the fields and road in the early morning—nights sometimes, too—unnatural and ethereal.
She turned on the radio, driving as fast as she dared in the field of glowing white.
“.... worst bout of fog we’ve had in five years, folks. Stay at home. Here’s hopin’ it won’t last long.” Five years. Her ten-year-old sister had disappeared on her way home from a school dance. In the fog. “And now, an oldie, but goodie…” It was her mother’s favorite song.
Liv switched off the radio.
God, it was impossible to see in this stuff, like traveling in your own private tunnel.
The edges of the road and the fields beyond were hidden in a cottony shroud. She didn’t see it until it was too late, a flash of huge brown body and branching antlers stepping into the road before the impact.
“Oh God. Oh God.” She leapt out, engine still running. She hadn’t been going that fast, but it was dead. The biggest stag she’d ever seen, lying flat across the right lane in the lurid glow of her headlights, blood trickling from its mouth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered and turned to check the damage to her car.
A slight dent. Nothing major.
She turned back to a pile of bones.
No, a skeleton. Of a stag. Where one of flesh and blood had been a moment before. As if it had just decayed while her back was turned. Picked clean by the fog.
Liv staggered back. Looked around, as if this could be some sort of practical joke. The fog plays tricks, they say.
She scrambled back into the driver’s seat and edged the car carefully around the skeletal deer, taking deep breaths, concentrating on the triangle of road before her. Keep moving. Keep moving forward.
Ten minutes later, she saw the faint blue lights of TJ’s Roadside Fill-Up. She pulled into the empty lot, the old school gas pumps shining out of the fog like robots.
This was the outskirts of town. Not much further now. Driving in the fog was making her jittery. The thought of seeing Lottie again was making her…. she couldn’t define a feeling. How are you supposed to feel when you finally return to your hometown, to see your sister who’s been missing for five years? Is there a feeling word for that?
She nodded at the clerk and made a beeline for the restroom. The radio guy was saying “... a bad one out there, folks. Maybe rivaling the Great Fog of 1996, for those of you old enough to…”
When she came out, her mother’s favorite song was playing, again. She remembered how they’d dance in the kitchen, making eggs on the griddle in the early morning before Dad and Lottie woke up—when her mom was home from the hospital. Remission. But it didn’t last long.
“I just heard this,” she said as she paid for a pack of gum.
“They been playing the same four songs on repeat all night,” the clerk said. “Think their machine’s broke or something.”
“Be careful out there!” he called after her, as the door swung shut.
Sitting in the car with the door open, the fog misty-wet on her face, she texted her dad: Almost there. “Excuse me?” A small voice out of the whiteness.
A girl stepped in view. Maybe sixteen. Ragged jeans. A band t-shirt from the ‘90s. Dyed black hair.
“Can I get a lift into town? I gotta get home before it gets too late and this fog is… well… a bitch.”
She was going to get lost or hit trying to walk. “Hop in.”
“Thanks.” The girl slipped into her seat belt. The car was already moving.
The fog seemed thicker now, as they neared town, like it was settling, stagnant. But Liv could see comforting distant lights here and there, too, hazy in the gloom.
“What were you doing out here anyway?”
“Coming home from a party. Stopped to get some smokes.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have gone out in the fog—they said so on the radio—’the fog of a lifetime.’ Totally my bad. Lost my bike even. My parents are gonna freak.”
Liv kept her eyes on the patch of road in her view. Soon she’d need the turn off for Maple Street, which would slither around the swamp and onto Main. She didn’t want to miss it.
But something the girl said struck her. The fog of a lifetime… “You lost your bike?”
“Yeah, but no biggie. I’ll find it later.” There was a girl who disappeared in the ‘98 fog. They found her bike on the side of the road. A sixteen year-old-girl. Everyone had heard the stories, growing up.
Liv held her breath for a long moment. “So, I’m Liv,” she said as lightly as she could. “What’s your name?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl shrug, “Jessica,” she said, “but I like Jess bett—”
A sudden odd clatter that caught Liv’s breath in her throat. Jessica Wilkens—the lost girl. She swerved to the shoulder, stopping the car sideways in the grass, her headlights illuminating five feet of a field and the sign for turn-off at Main Street.
In the seat next to her was a pile of bones. Human bones. A skull sideways against the door handle. Like all that was flesh and alive had just vaporized into the air. Back into the fog.
She flung open the door. “Shit. Shit.” Scrambled for her phone. Hit a button, hands shaking. “Hey honey, you about here? We’re just about to have dinner.”
“Dad! I have to tell you something about Lottie…”
If you’re interested in doing this 30-day horror-writing challenge, or reading other stories by other writers in the challenge, it’s hosted by
.You should check it out!Here are a few of my other stories for these prompts so far:
This is the Shrouded Grouse, and here you’ll find free supernatural short stories and novellas, essays and musings, zines, and illustrations that explore the liminal spaces and moody places.
Thanks for taking the time to view my work. It is truly appreciated. If you decide to subscribe below, make sure you check your promotions tab or spam for my Welcome Email.
Cool story, would love to learn more about Lottie and that fog!
Great story! Fog stories are so creepy, enjoyed this!