I cracked open a fresh beer as I walked out on the front porch of the log cabin. The North Georgia mountain air, reminding me how chilly it had gotten since we’d gone inside. It was a nice seventy degrees only a few hours ago on the golf course, but the temperature had followed the sun on its descent.
“You cold man? You can bring a blankie out here if you want?” Kris asked with a smug grin as he pulled out a cigar and cutter.
“No thanks asshole, It just caught me off guard. It dropped a good bit since we been in.” I replied trying my best to hide my annoyance at him calling me out. He didn’t know, it wasn’t his fault.
“Man sure is a shame,” Scott said with a faux forlorn expression on his face. “I remember a time when you swam bare ass naked over our lake in the middle of winter. Look at you now, needing a blankie and some hot cocoa just to sit outside.”
We all laughed at the memory, I didn’t even register the insult he threw at me. “Why did I do that again? For a twelve pack?”
“I think it was a six pack actually, Natty Lights to boot, possibly the worst deal ever struck!” Kris’ laughter turned into coughs as he choked on his lit cigar’s smoke. God the smoke smelled good.
“I never claimed to be a great negotiator, if I’d had better friends I could’ve avoided that. You assholes could’ve just let me drink your beer!”
“Now what kind of legal twenty one year-old adults would we have been if we’d let a minor drink on our watch?” Scott asked sincerely.
“Not a very good one that’s for sure!” Added Kris. “We were just doing our civil duties… but seeing you swimming across that lake was worth letting that slide for a night!”
We all burst out into laughter again, it had been way too long since we’d gotten together like this.
“You want one?” Scotty asked looking at me, an unlit cigar sitting in between his fingers begging to be smoked. Begging me to smoke it.
It took every ounce of my being to not snatch it out of his hand and light it up. “I’m good, thanks man,” they didn’t know about my diagnosis; I had only started treatments a week ago, so I still had my hair at least. I didn’t want to ruin what was supposed to be a happy bachelor trip. No need to lay the news on em now, just wait till the end of the weekend.
“Whoa what’s going on with you?” Kris asked, I was always the smoker in the group, didn’t matter if it was cigarettes, black and milds, or pot I would smoke it. I knew this was going to raise some alarms with the guys.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never seen you not smoke when given the opportunity man? Like we’ve left you alone in a bar for five minutes and you end up bumming cigarettes off some dude outside. And now you don’t want to smoke with me on my bachelor trip?” Kris said with a sense of interrogation in his voice.
“He nursed that beer we gave him on the course too. He just kept swapping them out for new ones.” Scott added leaning in for the interrogation.
Shit, how did he notice that!
“Well I have always been a light weight, that’s why you guys would only bet me a six pack.” I said trying to keep my voice level.
“Doesn’t explain the smoking,” Kris said looking off in the trees at something.
“Okay guys I have something to tell you, I was trying to wait until after the weekend, but you fuckers seem insistent on getting it out.” I tried to keep my voice from breaking and not show how scared I was. “You see guys—“
“Hold up I gotta take a piss first,” Scott said jumping up cigar in his teeth and beer in hand.
“Dude, seriously?” I looked at him as he stepped off the porch.
“What? It sounds serious, I can’t give you my full attention if I’m trying not to piss myself can I?” He yelled back as he walked off into the surrounding woods.
I sat back in my chair trying to choke the lump in my throat back down. Kris nudged me, “Don’t let him get to you, he’s always liked picking on you the most.”
“Yeah I know I can handle him. I just didn’t…” I let the sentence trail off, I didn’t know what I was trying to say. It wasn’t Scott or his asshole attitude, it was the whole situation. Having to tell my best friends when we are supposed to be celebrating kris! The attention wasn’t supposed to be on poor ole me.
“Didn’t what?”
“It can wait till he’s done pissing I don’t want to have to say it twice.”
“Okay man,” I could tell Kris wasn’t sure what to say, I had never been one to open up or talk about my feelings. Hell, I was going through a divorce and the guys didn’t even know that till I had a new girlfriend. But some of that was due to us never seeing each other anymore.
“What do you think about my place?” Kris asked motioning to the surrounding wilderness. It was nice and quiet, no one for miles around or it seemed like that anyway. I couldn’t deny that it creeped me out a little though, the quiet was too, well, quiet.
“It’s nice, not sure if I could do it all the time though, a little too Cabin in the Woods,” I said looking around and taking in the smell of the pine with the smoke of Kris’s cigar. God, it smelled good.
“Why not? You always liked to be left alone.”
“I still do but I also like to know people are near, and if I want something I can order it.” I looked at him with a smile.
“Yeah but you can’t really put a price on the beauty of it, look at this place man. Untouched, just nature, look at that fog rolling over the drive there. You don’t get that when you have too many people around,” Kris said pointing out towards the trees.
I looked out and saw the fog he was referring to. It was entrancing, a thick grey cloud was moving towards the house slowly. The cloudiest fog is ever seen, a wall of gray moving through the trees, eating them as it went.
“Christ is that normal man? It’s just so thick, I can’t see anything past it.” I asked Kris still staring at the encroaching cloud.
“I wouldn’t say normal but it happens occasionally. It’s a sight isn’t it?”
It sure was and it was moving fast too. Scotty, where was Scotty? He had been gone longer than he should’ve been right? “Where is Scotty?” I asked looking around the trees that weren’t covered by fog.
“I’m not sure he couldn’t gotten lost out there,” Kris said as he took another drag from his cigar and released it into the air. “But he has been gone a minute. Hey asshole? Are you okay?” He hollered out.
“Yeah I’m here, I was just looking at this fog, I can’t believe how thick this stuff is.” Scotty said as he appeared from the trees walking back towards the house.
“That’s what we were saying. Thought you might’ve gotten lost in it out there.” I said feeling a little more relaxed now. Not only had the serious conversation had been avoided but also we had a brand new topic to focus on.
“It stopped right before it got to me or else I might’ve gotten lost. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face in there.” Scotty said as he walked in the house still smoking his cigar and grabbed him another beer.
Kris looked at me rolling his eyes and said, “Hey asshole, keep the smoke out of my house please.”
“Sorry I like to have a good time! Sue me!” Scotty sneered.
Soon after we found ourselves going down memory lane, the hotel we got kicked out of because Scott set off the fire alarm with a joint, the golf course that banned us for playing thirty-six when we only payed for eighteen, and random college parties where Scott ended up so trashed that it became a task to get him home in one piece.
“Man we’ve changed,” Kris said as he got up and started down the steps.
“Where you going,” I asked.
“Gotta piss, you want to hold it?” Kris asked as he walked off into the trees, as I shot him a bird in response.
“Why do you think we don’t see each other anymore?” Scotty asked turning the conversation serious.
“I don’t know times have changed I guess, we all have jobs and wives that keep us busy. It’s not as easy as just hopping on our bikes anymore,” It was only an hour drive for all of us to meet up but it seemed impossible the few times we tried to plan it.
“Yeah, maybe, but we should do this more often. Not even the whole weekend thing just going and playing golf and shooting the shit like old times!” Scotty said sounding nostalgic. He was reaching the sad stage of drunk now.
“We definitely should try to make it a monthly thing!” I lied. Knowing in a month or two I would be a full blown cancer patient, chemo treatment having ripped threw me to the point the last thing I was thinking about was playing golf. Probably wouldn’t even be able to ride a fucking cart without feeling like my bones were made of glass, let alone swing a club. He didn’t have to know that tonight, I’d give him one more weekend of happy plans for the future before I told him that the time had ran out on “the old times” of us three.
Scotty didn’t believe me anyway, the look he gave me told me that, he just nodded and turned his head back to the trees getting darker now. “The fogs moving in again.” Is all he said, and it was.
It was twenty feet away now, looking closer slowly like a snake slowly tightening around its prey. That’s when we heard it, it was Kris, and he was screaming.
Not much of a scream more of a yelp. Like the I just stepped on a branch weird or twisted my ankle yelp where it comes out involuntarily but is cut off immediately. We remained seated but yelled for him to see if he was okay.
“I bet his drunk ass ran into a tree in that damn fog,” Scotty stated, trying to sound sure of his words, but failing. His eyes remained looking out in the direct Kris went but nothing could be seen but fog. It was almost at the house, not a rock throw away when it stopped. “You okay there boss?” Scotty yelled out into the grey shroud.
“Yeah, I’m great,” Kris’s voice came back from the trees. Relief washed through my body, I felt silly for getting so concerned over nothing. Scotty let out a laugh and looked over at me saying he was worried too but trying not to show. We could hear Kris coming back now, branches snapping under his shoes, then it stopped.
Right on the edge of the fog his steps stopped. We could see his boots with his legs sprouting from them but that was it, from the knees up his body blended into the fog covering his thick frame. Scotty and I both stared at the feet waited for him to step out and walk back up the steps, but that moment never came.
“You just gonna stand there or come back up on the porch?” I asked, trying not to let my nerves show.
“No, I don’t think I will. I like it right here.” Kris’s voice floated out of the fog. It was definitely his voice, but something wasn’t right. It was like his voice if you took out everything that made it a persons voice. It was like someone is sarcastic and says “no I believe you,” but they don’t have enough care to make it sound convincing. His voice was hollow.
Scotty looked to me with a look of confusion and fear that I’m sure was returned. “What are you looking at?” the disembodied voice asked.
“We are wondering why you’re just standing there man? Why not come on back up here and get another beer?” Scotty asked, I noticed his cigar had went out, and the hand holding it was shaking.
“Oh I like it down here.” The voice returned.
“You don’t want to come back up here with us?”
“Oh I might in a bit,” the mechanical voice of Kris let this statement linger in the air. I noticed as he spoke his left foot would lift off the ground and shake. Like he had ants on his foot that were biting him, as soon as he stopped speaking his foot returned to its normal place on the ground.
“Why don’t you come and join me? We could play tag, just like the old days.” The voice asked with a shaking leg.
“Why would we do that? We can’t even see each other in that fog,” I asked knowing there was no way we were getting off this porch.
The leg shook once again, “I can see you two just fine. You can’t see me?”
Scotty spoke up before I could, “No man, we can’t so why don’t you stop acting all weird and shit. Just come up and have another beer with us.”
The legs turned ever so slightly to face Scotty’s direction.
“Why? Tomorrow we are just going to go our separate ways again aren’t we? We will be back to our normal lives of working and placating our bitches or soon to be bitches. Never seeing each other maybe once a year. No more golf, no more drinking with the boys, and no freedom.”
Scott’s leg started to shake ever so gently, “Come on man that’s not true, We will make a point to see each other more, me and Trip already talked about it.” His voice cracking as he said it.
“Come on Scotty, you know that’s never gonna happen. You know how this goes, you’re married. How many times a year does your wife let you go to a bar or play golf. You had to beg her to come on this trip for your best friend’s bachelor trip.” Scott’s leg shook more rapidly as the voice mocked. Calling him Scotty just like his wife did usually followed by a demand.
“Fuck you man, I do what I want too. It’s y’all’s women with the rope around your balls!” He screamed at the legs in the fog. I had met his wife a few times, but even then I knew she didn’t like us. My theory was proven true as it was obvious Scott’s nerve, had been hit.
“No, no, no, the truth of it is, that your miserable wife, the wife that you wish you’d never married will continue tightening the collar she has around your throat, until you use that pistol. The one you keep in your car to end your miserable life. That is why you bought it, is it not? Why you didn’t tell your lovely wife about it? You know you want to come down here and be with your friend, just like the old times.” The voice relayed this information in a slow even tone that made it sound as if this made no difference to him. This time as he spoke his feet did not move, but Scott’s did.
“Why do I want to go down there man?” Scott looked at me with a contorted visage of struggle and terror. I realized he had his hands white knuckled on his knees trying to hold them down, but they continued to jump up and down despite the pressure. “I think I am gonna go down there but I don’t think I want too. I think it’s making me.”
He started to raise up out of his seat, I was quickly out of mine as well reaching towards him. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit me as I rose. Fighting back the urge to throw up, I said, “Scotty, something isn’t right here man, I don’t think you will be back if you go down there.” I put my hand on his shoulder trying to push him back in his seat.
He pushed me off with force throwing me to floor of the porch. As he walked off the last step of the porch the fog began to move towards him the legs stepping with it in sync with each other. The legs took its last step as it was almost toe to toe with Scott and he looked back at me. “I’m sorry man,” is all he got out when hands reached out of the fog so quickly and pulled him into the grey abyss. Scott and the legs of Kris were gone into the fog.
I yelled into the grey beyond with nothing but silence to answer. The nausea returned and bile poured out of my mouth over the porch rail. When I had finished I collapsed back down into the floor of my friends porch.
My dead friend… not dead, he’s in the fog.
I knew what I saw, I saw my friend go into the fog and not come back, something was using his voice but it wasn’t him. Something had taken them, but all I could think about was if it was coming back to take me. After a minute I pulled myself together up to my chair and sat thinking what I should do. I need to call someone, but who? The police can’t help with this, what would I even say if they could? How would they even get to me to help, the fog blocked the only way to the house and I had to believe it would take the police the same way it took Scott and Kris!
As I sat thinking to myself I saw it and my blood froze, in the fog Kris’s boots were back staring at me, with two bare feet standing beside him. Scott was back.
As I type this up on my phone they are talking to me, they tell me I can join them or go home and face bankruptcy over my hospital bills. That I will use every cent of my family’s money to try and save myself, maybe fighting it off for six months at the most.
Six months alive, but not being able to walk without a walker or go to the bathroom without help. They tell me when it gets really bad and I need help the most, my… my wife will leave one day and not come back. Who can blame her really, watching the one you love die in excruciating agony while leaving them in a hole of shit so big they know they won’t be able to climb out.
They say if I love her I’ll stay with them, “Make it easier on everyone, it’ll be just like the old times,” they say.
I am typing this so someone will know what happened to me, as I type I am smoking a cigar and drinking beer. My legs are not shaking like Scott’s did. Scotty didn’t want to go, but I do.