Fog

“You’re pulling my leg,” Jaime laughed with a snort. “And you’re doing a really bad job of it.” Jaime had stopped believing in ghosts almost two years ago; he was a man now. He pulled his jacket closer as he shivered in the chill. The sun was on its way down.

“Fine,” Chester shrugged his shoulders. Mary snickered behind his back, hiding her mouth with a hand. “You don’t have to believe me. I guess you wouldn’t be scared to go out there after dark? Alone?” Jaime’s heart skipped a beat. He glanced at Mary.

“Nooo,” he said slowly. “I just don’t have any reason to either.” He crossed his arms smugly. “Since I’m not scared I don’t feel I have anything to prove neither.” Chester narrowed his eyes at him, obviously defeated. Jaime walked off past him, hoping to get away before someone saw how uncomfortable he was. Really, he wasn’t scared! He just… he didn’t like the idea of staying out all night in the cold. That was all. Mary’s voice called after him.

“What about a bet?” Jaime felt his feet slowing down beneath him and his hands found the inside of his pockets. Unhappily he turned around and faced the girl now coming after him.

“What kind of bet?” Jaime found himself asking.

“Yeah, what would we be betting?” Chester asked, standing on the other side of Mary. She stopped five feet away and smiled slyly at Jaime.

“If you can stay out all night, I’ll… have sex with you!” The boy’s jaws dropped. Jaime looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else was out. No one was.

“Well, you know,” Chester interjected, rushing in between Mary and Jaime. “I should have a chance to take part in the bet too, I mean it was my story. Shouldn’t I get to prove I’m not scared?”

“It was your story, Chester.” Mary responded without taking her eyes off Jaime. “Obviously you wouldn’t be scared of your own story, would you?”

“Well, no--” Chester started saying.

“So-- we’d--” Jaime tried to say.

“We’d have sex, Jaime.” Mary stepped past Chester and got close to Jaime. Her breath turned into mist in his face. “Would you want that?”

“Uh, yeah.” He said dumbly, his eyes focusing on Mary’s lips. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Don’t sound too enthusiastic.” She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “If you can stay out all night, I’ll have sex with you.”

“Okay.” Jaime said as she walked past him, heading back to the village.

“C’mon Chester.” She called after him. Chester paused to fix Jaime with a hateful glare but honestly Jaime barely noticed it; his hand touched where Mary had kissed him. He could still feel her warmth. He turned to watch the others walk away, his eyes following Mary’s frame. He took a deep breath and turned back to the open fields and darkening sky. What was one October night?

The night got dark way too quickly, and Jaime found the night was really really cold. He shivered and wished he’d brought his winter coat, and a hat or something. He really was more cold than scared. It seemed Chester’s story hadn’t done anything to him after all. He turned quickly over his shoulder at a noise. A feeling rose in the pit of his stomach, but there was nothing there. There was nothing he could see. You know what would really help with the cold? Moving. Jaime broke into a brisk walk, trying not to think about Chester’s story. He didn’t know exactly where he was in the field, only that the pond was close. His breath caught in his throat at the thought of it. Why did he have to think about the stupid pond? He glanced back and forth, arms crossed and held close to his chest, shivering uncontrollably. Why did Chester have to tell that story in the first place? Why were his friends so mean, making him come out here like this? Jaime heard something breathing, behind his back and he didn’t stop to look. Jaime took off at a run, blindly racing through the dark and the tall grass. He threw a look over his shoulder and obviously didn’t see anything. He collided with a tree, and fell backwards onto the dirt and the long grass. He lay still, his face and his body aching, and he began to cry. He covered his mouth and tried to keep from making any noise. As he lay crying there was nothing more he could do to keep from remembering every chilling, gruesome detail of the story of Mitchell Pond:

The Mitchells had lived in Pinecrest at least fifty years ago, longer than Jaime’s parents had been alive, so obviously Chester couldn’t know first hand. The story had been passed around, from person to person, and maybe some of the details had been exaggerated over time, but Jaime wasn’t thinking about that right now. He was thinking about the grizzled, muddy corpse of Helen Mitchell, stalking the fields around the pond, looking for her daughter Darby.

“The story goes that Darby Mitchell had been a flirt, running around with different guys from the time she was fifteen. She told a lot of guys a lot of things, but no one believed she actually meant any of them. That was just how Darby Mitchell was. Eventually she went away to college in a big city, far away from Pinecrest. Darby came back on breaks with a different guy every time, sometimes she wasn’t even dating them. One October Darby came home from school early. Everyone knew she wasn’t on break, and the neighbors would hear shouting from the Mitchell household every night. Darby Mitchell was pregnant from a boy at school, and she wouldn’t tell her parents who it was.

Whoever that boy was he came to Pinecrest one night late in November, where no one saw him. He snuck into the Mitchell home and convinced Darby to come out and talk with him about the pregnancy. He told her he wanted to help, however he could, with the baby, with their child, but he would’ve told her anything. It wouldn’t matter in the morning. The two lovers took a walk in the fields around Pinecrest and Darby felt better. She thought she had a chance. For the first time in her life she was in love. The boy passed through Pinecrest on his way back to school the next day, alone. Helen Mitchell woke and found Darby’s room empty, and her coat, hat, and gloves missing, as though she’d gone out in the middle of the night. At first Helen thought Darby was up to no good, cavorting around with some boy, even while she was having a baby. But house after house gave the same news. No one had seen her. Helen Mitchell made it back to her own house by nine o’clock, and the mist was still resting over the fields. There came a knock at the door, and Helen opened to find Mrs. Brown from next door. She had no sons so Helen hadn’t bothered to ask her about Darby. She said she knew Helen was looking for Darby, that Darby wasn’t home. Well, Mrs. Brown had heard voices, late last night, going past her upstairs bedroom window when she couldn’t sleep. She said she remembered checking the time and it was after midnight, and she was worried someone was up to no good. She looked out her window and recognized the top of Darby’s hat, heading out of the light of town and towards the fields around, but she didn’t recognize the boy she was with; he was a stranger.

Helen Mitchell sank to the floor, her hand on her chest. Darby had gone out last night, with a strange boy? Where was she? Helen went to the police, and a search party was put together, but two weeks yielded nothing more than the same hat Mrs. Brown had seen heading towards the fields, now crumpled and muddy. Darby Mitchell was nowhere to be found. Helen Mitchell called Darby’s school roommate and even drove all the way to the university herself but no one had seen her daughter. She went home. The search had to be given up. The officers were sorry for her loss; they didn’t know what she was having to go through. Helen Mitchell wouldn’t give up. She devoted all of her time, scouring the fields again and again, searching for Darby. The story goes her search led her to the pond, late one night in winter. Helen Mitchell had a lantern and a warm wool jacket, so she wasn’t worried about the dark or the cold. She’d had enough. Helen Mitchell collapsed on the muddy shore of the pond, watching the mist play over it in the light from the lantern. She cried, and screamed, and bore her soul to the mists and the meadow and the water. She sobbed into the dirt. Finally, she looked up.

Out, over the frosty waters, she could see Darby. The girl was dark, and yet glowed with a kind of moonlight on a moonless night. Darby’s eyes met her mother and called to her without words, drawing her mother out on the ice over Mitchell Pond. Although, it wasn’t called that yet. Helen Mitchell left her lantern on the shore and walked out. Darby remained fixed where Helen had seen her, almost floating above the ice, and she raised one hand to her mother. Helen could hear the ice creaking under her feet, and her eyes picked out a second shape beside Darby. There was a child, standing holding her hand. Helen Mitchell’s voice caught in her throat as she tried to call out to her daughter. She walked faster. She took Darby’s hand and cried again, more deeply than before. Darby’s face shimmered and broke into a smile, the light around her growing brighter. Helen looked down at the child beside her, but the child didn’t glow. What’s more, Helen didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. She looked back to Darby to ask her, if it was a grandson or a granddaughter, but Darby was gone. Helen felt her daughter’s hand fade and in a panic she reached down to take hold of her grandchild, before they faded too, and the ice broke. Helen Mitchell plunged beneath the surface of Mitchell Pond, although it wouldn’t be called that for a few more years, and the world grew dark around her.

Helen Mitchell’s corpse was found within the week, almost half a mile from the pond and less than a mile towards home. Her body was found frozen solid and covered in mud, and from a visit to the pond it was obvious what had happened. Helen had fallen through the ice, and was trying to make it back. There was a funeral, though few people went. Those who did go went more out of pity than sorrow. It was a hard thing for a family to go through. Poor woman, they’d say. Mr. Mitchell left town within the year and the house stood empty for some time. Darby was never found, alive or dead, and no one ever found out who that boy was that night. When the story became talked about Mrs. Brown shared her own role in it, but little more was ever found out. The story was over. Until, ten years later, Johnny May heard a woman crying, and screaming out on the meadows after dark. It was a cold December evening, all the carolers had turned in for the night and Johnny May was sitting by the window in the light of his Christmas tree. He woke up his mother and father, crying, saying there was a woman in trouble in the meadows. The Sheriff was wakened, and with a small group of deputies they searched the meadows with flashlights, but no one saw or heard anything. Everyone went home, and most believed Johnny had imagined it, or else made it up entirely. Everyone except Johnny. He was so sure of what he’d heard he got up alone, a few nights later, and snuck out with a flashlight and his winter coat, his door shutting with a quiet click, and he stole away to the meadows. Now, Johnny was young enough not to remember the Mitchell story. But maybe he’d heard someone whisper about it during the scare the other night. Or else what happened next was the work of something far eviler.

Little Johnny May, alone on the meadows around Mitchell Pond, searched in the dark for the woman. The beam of his flashlight passed over a shape and he turned it back to get a better look. It looked like a woman, on her knees with her back to Johnny, and she was crying. He asked if she was alright, and he walked closer. The woman rose slowly to her feet, and without turning around asked Johnny if he’d seen her daughter. Johny didn’t know what she was talking about, but she kept asking. She turned to face him and Johnny May tried to scream, but the noise wouldn’t come out. His flashlight illuminated every wrinkle and rot of a bloated, muddy corpse, staring at him through hollow eyes. The woman began to step towards him and Johnny May turned and ran towards home. He never looked back, and he never returned to the meadows again. Johnny May had nightmares for the rest of his life, of a rotting, dirty corpse, asking him where her child was.”

It was all Jaime could think about, lying on his back, sobbing in the mud and the long grass. Every whisper of wind sounded like a wayward soul, every crinkle in the grass was someone coming for him. Jaime wanted to go home. He didn’t care about the stupid bet. He didn’t care what Chester or Mary would think or say about him. Jaime wanted to go home.

“Poor dear,” a voice said beside him. Jaime’s sobs caught in his throat and he fell silent. “Have you lost your way? Let me see if I can help you.” A cold hand took hold of Jaime’s and pulled him up, and wouldn’t let go. An unseen figure, a lady from her voice, walked beside the boy and held his hand. His heart was in his throat, but as scared as he was there was something comforting about her, if it was really a ‘her.’ If it wasn’t an ‘it.’ She walked beside Jaime, not saying much, until the area around them began to grow lighter from the lights of Pinecrest. She stopped there.

“Do you know your way home from here, sweetie?” Jaime nodded. “Alright. Make sure you get home safe and warm now, okay?” He felt icy lips on his cheek and then the woman released his hand, and any trace or shape of her disappeared into the darkness and the gloom. Jaime thought about going back out, and finishing the bet, but he was in pain, maybe bleeding from where he hit the tree. He was cold. He wanted to go to bed. With his hands in his pockets Jaime trudged off towards Pinecrest, and he never looked back.