This one was from 2017, and it’s actually the sequel to Driving Into Forever (the one I posted last week), called Lost and Found. This time, however, I reached the 50,000 word goal (actually, the final word count was 53,000+ words).
In this story, Sara (the best friend of main character Hannah from DIF) is worried when she can’t get a hold of her friend, and decides to drive out to her place to make sure she’s all right. She also ends up driving through the same interdimensional fog, and ends up crashing into a person.
The fog began to thicken as Sara turned off the highway onto the road that wound through the woods to the causeway. Unlike Hannah, she’d never liked being out in the fog, it creeped her out. But it was definitely at times like this she appreciated her Cadillac El Dorado. It may be a gas guzzler but it would stand up to anything the fog could throw at her.
She could barely see the road but she kept to a steady pace, you never knew what might be lurking if you stopped in the fog. Every horror movie Sara had ever seen flashed through her mind. The road was usually in good repair but it had been a hard winter and it felt like the pavement was being held together with potholes.
There was no worry that she strayed off the road, she’d been down it often enough she could probably navigate it blind-folded, which is what it felt like now. But it led pretty much straight to the causeway, which lead straight to the island Hannah lived on, and there were trees bordering the sides, not that she could see much of them either.
It was probably just an illusion because of the fog, but the road seemed to go on forever. Shouldn’t she be on the causeway by now? A dark shape loomed up suddenly in front of her.
“Holy crap!” Sara slammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The big car jerked to a halt and she sat there, clutching the steering wheel and gasping.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”
Did she hit whatever, or whoever that was? She should go check. Really she should. Just as soon as she could make herself let go of the steering wheel. They might be hurt. It might even have been Hannah. That ratty old Jeep she drove might have broken down and she could have been walking along the road, on her way home.
That thought was enough to make her release her death grip on the steering wheel and scramble out of the car. The fog swirled and eddied around her. It was so thick she could barely see and she kept one hand on the car until she reached the front bumper. It was disconcerting not to be able to see the road under her feet. She shuffled forward slowly, hands out in front of her to ward off anything she might run into.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
She’d always thought fog was supposed to amplify sound, this fog was so thick it seemed to muffle it.
“Are you alright? Hannah, is that you?”
Was that the sound of someone in pain she heard over there? Sara followed the sound, not sure if she was on the road or not. Her foot struck something soft; this time there was definitely a groan.
“Oh jeez!”
She hunkered down and found the form on the ground more by touch than by sight. “Oh my God, are you okay?” Frantically she ran her hands over the body, trying to determine if there were any serious injuries.
“I am so sorry! You just appeared out of nowhere. I know I was probably going a little too fast, you know, considering the fog and all, but oh my God what are you doing out here in the middle of the road anyway? Didn’t you have enough sense to move out of the way when you heard my car coming?” She was babbling and she knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
The body started to rise under her questing hands.
“Are you sure you ought to do that? Maybe you should just stay put until we’re sure you’re alright. Is there someone I could call for you?” She patted her pockets. “Oh, damn! I must have left my cell phone at home. Do you have one with you?”
She was on the verge of checking his pockets for a phone when a thought struck her. “I don’t know if the 911 service would risk sending an ambulance out here or not. It’s probably not such a good idea to have someone else risk coming out in this fog, unless you feel you need one?”
This last was phrased more like a question and she paused for a breath, waiting for a reply. When there was none, she shrugged.
“Oh well, it shouldn’t be too far to my friend Hannah’s house. We can use her phone.” She helped him as he started to rise. “Wow, you are a tall one, aren’t you? Let me help you to my car.”
So far her victim hadn’t said a word. Sara couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. All she could tell was that he was a man, a tall man, and he felt pretty solidly built under her helping hands. He moved slowly, carefully, with her towards the car. Or least towards where she thought the car should be.
After a few minutes she halted them. Sara bit her lower lip and glanced around. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think we missed the car in this fog.”
The man mumbled something.
“What did you say?”
“Not fog, Myste.” His voice was strained.
“Well, whatever you want to call it, it’s as thick as pea soup. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a fog this thick in all my life.”
“Got to keep moving,” the nameless man told her. She had to strain to hear him. “Not safe.”
“Not safe? Well, yeah, obviously since you got hit and all, but it can’t be far to my friend Hannah’s house.” She carefully turned them around.
“Not there.”
“What’s not there?” Sara asked absently. She tried to concentrate on where they were going. They couldn’t have strayed off the road, could they?
“Hannah,” he said with a great deal of effort. “Not there, she’s with Kelvin.”
“Kelvin?” Sara stopped and turned to him. “Who’s Kelvin? You’re a friend of Hannah’s?” She peered closer at him but his features were still indistinct. “Who are you?”
“Nathan,” he answered.
She sighed in frustration. “Okay Nathan. Save your strength. We can talk once we’re out of this damned fog.”
He didn’t answer and she got the feeling it was taking all of his concentration just to stay upright. The bad feeling she’d been having was starting to grow in proportion to the thickness of the fog. There was something unnatural about this fog, it was giving her a real bad case of the heebie-jeebies. Worse than fog usually did.
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