When I was young, I would have this recurring nightmare, one which would leave me in a panic, even after waking up. It started when I was somewhere around seven years old. I had been walking around the neighborhood with my family after dinner, my mother and father, my older sister who was ten, and my younger brother who was three in a stroller. We were strolling along when my sister, Abby, found a frog on the grass next to the sidewalk. Her and I were playing with the frog, picking it up and watching it jump from our hands. The rest of our family had continued along, so we ran to catch up to them. Abby showed the frog to our father, who told her to put it back down so it could find its way back to its family. Abby was old enough to understand, but I wanted to keep playing with the frog. So, she placed the little green frog down in the grass and we all kept walking, but I slowed my pace, ending up far behind within minutes. I turned back and found the frog again, playing with it and wishing I could take it home with me. Somehow, nobody had noticed my absence and they just kept going, ending up around a corner and down a way, past multiple houses. I looked up after playing with the frog for a few minutes and started panicking because I couldn’t see my family at all. I wasn’t sure which way they went, and we had walked around enough that I wasn’t even sure which direction our house was. I froze in that spot and felt tears start to roll down my face. I didn’t know what to do, but I worried that I wouldn’t find my way back home and would end up snatched up by one of those guys I had been warned about so many times. As I stood there crying, my father turned the corner. Relief.
That night, while sleeping in my bed across the room from Jack’s little bed, I had the nightmare for the first time. Let me set the scene: I’m with my family on that same sidewalk from the walk earlier that night, but it’s dark out, only the streetlights shining small circles of white over the street, every hundred feet. There’s a fog over the street, making the light disperse and appear to be hovering over the ground, rather than meeting the asphalt like it should. As I stood, my family slowly disappeared into the fog until I could no longer see them. I know the way to my house, but even when I do manage to get back to it, there’s nothing there other than an empty lot filled with yet more fog. My family is gone, and so is my house. I try to yell out for my family, but my mouth just opens and there’s no sound. I try and try, finally squeaking out some noise, which then wakes me from my slumber, in a panic. My heart was racing, sweat beaded up on my forehead, and I realized that I had actually made that noise in real life. Jack rolled over and said, in his little voice, “You scawed me bruffer.” It took me a couple minutes to slow my breathing before I could say anything, “Sorry, I just had a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” I watched Jack roll back over, hug his little teddy bear, and within minutes, his breathing went heavy. I sat there, the glow of the nightlight casting over the floor, afraid to fall asleep again for fear of ending up back in that nightmare. At some point, I must have involuntarily slid down and fallen asleep again from being all too tired, especially after the adrenaline rush and proceeding energy drain.
That nightmare followed me, on occasion, well into my adulthood. It wasn’t terribly often that I would have it, but maybe once or twice a year was more than enough for me. The older I got, the more sinister the feeling of the fog felt, like it was sentient and was doing all it could to hide things from me. Now that I’m in my early thirties with life being what it is, I rarely sleep well enough to have dreams, let alone remember them, so the nightmare hasn’t come to me in a while. I think it had been more than a couple years since I’d been lured into that foggy scene when the following events occurred.
I was in my apartment, lying on the couch watching one of the many shows about paranormal stuff when my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I reached out and grabbed the glowing device, seeing that I had a notification for a text message. I opened the message, and it was from Jack. He had been living with our parents after losing his job, staying in our old room, albeit in a much larger bed than when he was three. The message read, “Hey, you guys doing anything tomorrow? I’m going crazy in this house without anyone else around besides mom and dad.” My phone buzzed again, that time coming from Abby, “I should be free. I can see if Brian wants to come with and hang out.” I responded, “I can come by, but not until a little later, like maybe after 7:30 or 8:00.” I lived a good forty minutes away and would have to shower after work, in addition to feeding my dog and taking him for a walk. Jack replied, “Sounds good. I’m sure mom and dad will talk your guys ears off, but if we can get down to the basement at some point, we can play games or whatever. Something fun that doesn’t involve mom and dad for once.” I actually laughed, responding to Jack with a laughing emoji. Abby then sent, “Brian is out…some thing after work with his coworkers. Probably drinks and a cover for getting away from their wives. Lol”
I got home from work that next evening, threw together a quick dinner, showered, fed Goose, then took him for a walk around the block. As we were walking, it started getting a little foggy, not dense, but a light haze hanging in the air. The sun was getting closer to the horizon as we rounded the last corner heading home, colorful beams shooting through the haze making it look like somebody painted the sky. It was absolutely beautiful. I brought Goose back into the apartment and said goodbye before heading out for the night. As I drove the forty minutes to my old house I grew up in, the sun set and the fog began to get heavier. I was maybe ten minutes away from the house when it got difficult to see the road at all. The fog was so thick that it masked everything in white, headlights completely useless as the photons bounced around in the water droplets, never reaching anything solid. I slowed to a crawl, but it got so bad that I decided to stop the car. I was maybe five minutes out from the house at that point, but it would take me more like fifteen minutes to walk that distance, guided by an orange glow. I saw a driveway just up ahead, so I pulled up to that and turned in to get the car off the main road. I parked and sent a text to my siblings, “Hey, I’m just up the road, but this fog is so intense. I’m going to have to either wait it out or walk and hope my car doesn’t get towed.” It took my phone at least thirty seconds to send the text, which seemed weird, since I had a full signal. I waited a few minutes before I got a response from Abby, “We are just talking with mom and dad, so whenever you get here…I don’t see any fog though.” I started typing but decided to just get out and walk to the house from where I was.
There I stood, the empty lot in front of me, a memory of the street light beam hovering over the ground, dispersed in the droplets as it was in the nightmare. The house was gone. Not like it had been destroyed, but like it never existed to begin with. There was no foundation, no basement, no evidence that the ground had been disturbed by humans in the slightest. It was just a lot, covered by fog. I couldn’t see much further than that lot, but I was sure there were no other houses there either. I pulled out my phone and when I unlocked it, the screen flickered in a weird way I had never seen before. I opened the messaging app and texted my siblings, “I’m…here…but there is nothing here. Where are you?” Again, it took longer for the message to send than it should have. I stood there, alone in the fog, waiting for a response. Five or so minutes went by before I got a response from Abby, “Brian just got here. He felt bad for ditching me and decided to show up. We’re here. I don’t know where you are, but Jack is getting impatient. You know how he is.” The fact that Brian got there, was able to get through the fog and find the house…I felt the panic coming back to me. I opened my mouth and tried to yell, but nothing was coming out. Then it hit me. I was in the nightmare. It had been long enough that it took me some time to realize, but I was back in it. All I had to do was wake up, but I couldn’t.
When I got home, I went to my closet and pulled out the shoebox. I dug through it, pulling out the picture of my family, the article stuck to the back of the picture: Entire Town Consumed by Raging Fire, Hundreds of Families Trapped and Burned Alive. Arson Suspected. My nightmare wasn’t just a dream. I lost them all, including Brian, that one fateful night, and I will never forgive myself for not being there with them. It still haunts me to this day, obviously. Every year, being forced out there to the aftermath, unable to remember what happened until leaving the scene, leaving me to believe I was talking to my siblings. Speaking of which, I decided I had better respond back to Abby, or she would get worried. “Sorry. I can’t make it tonight. The fog is too thick.” It sucks going through this every year, but I worry what would happen if I stopped playing along. I put the article and picture back, next to the Zippo and the recipe for homemade napalm. “Until next year…”