Part 2 (The title had nothing to do with the story, except that it explained why I am writing)

I opened my eyes, and saw the world was white. While I had slept, fog had crept in and covered the trees. It was like waking from one dream into another - for a moment I laid there, listening to the hushed damp sound of fog. But something was not right...I recalled the quiet of the previous night, and sat up, looking for Chuck. I felt heavy.

He had not moved. He was watching me with sunken eyes, still clutching his rifle. The skin of his face sagged as though it might slough off, too tired to hang on any longer. But, he was leaned forward - tense, and intense. His eyes stared into nothingness, looking for answers, watching.

"Hey, Chuck, man, why didn't you sleep?"

His voice geared up from a crackly, growling whisper: "somethin' ain't right. Didn't you feel it? There's eyes on us."

There was something strange going on. There still wasn't any noise. There still weren't any animals. And I had felt - no, heard - something when I woke up. Something quiet and whispery. And, worse yet, I think I must've come down with something: I felt a little wobbly, and more than a little weak.

But, that was no reason to stay up all night, or for his expression. "Chuck," I said, "there's fog all around. How can you even tell if something's watching us? You need some rest, and the sun's not up quite yet - how bout you get some rest?"

"No." He stared at me. At times I thought his stubbornness was entertaining: he was just another grumpy old man. But now, it was disquieting. What was wrong with him?
I felt a bead of sweat run down my forehead. I was suddenly shivering. And then I noticed my heart was pumping faster. I chalked it up to my sudden illness.

"Be reasonable. You aren't going to make your shots if you don't have any rest. The deer won't be coming out quite yet. Just sleep for a little bit, I'll wake you up. Don't worry." My eyes hurt now, too.

He looked at me. His expression was unreadable. "We have to leave. Now. Look at yourself. You're shaking." I noticed he was, too. "If you're sick, we -"

And then I heard it. A fern swished. The air seemed close. Then my heart jerked and skipped, and everything went black.


I woke again, this time in significantly more pain. I was heaped in my truck, and Chuck was trying to start the engine. He was panicking, and fumbling with the keys. He kept muttering "just a kid just a kid just a kid just a kid" over and over. I tried speaking, but my mouth was dry. Words wouldn't come. I was shaking pretty bad, and I noticed my legs were caked with dirt and leaves, as though I'd been dragged here. I didn't see Chuck's rifle.

The key fit suddenly, and the engine roared to life. He slammed the thing into gear, our tires spun - and I caught a glimpse of a young man, or a boy - something tall and thin, anyway, with long arms, and pale skin. Its face was stretched tight, bony, deathly looking. In the mirror it looked very much like a ghost - some apparition leaning out of the fog, leering at us. He stood in the mirror and shrunk as we tore over the ground, smiling obscenely, calmly, at our getaway.

The fog was billowing around the truck, and I watched the trees fade away behind us. A few minutes went by, and I was just starting to feel better - when the inevitable happened. Chuck swerved to avoid a stump. We hit a small boulder. The fog was only barely lighter colored, and had hidden the boulder well. There was a horrible crunching sound, I was tossed from my seat, and then my truck shut off. The pit of my stomach sank. This was going to be expensive.

Chuck hopped out, looked around, and then popped his head back in. He declared "It'll run. Just tripped the fuel shutoff thing." I knew it wasn't just that - I'd felt something scrape, hard, against the bottom. But I could hardly move to see for myself.

He flitted around for a few minutes, and then climbed in the cab. "Here we go," he said, and pushed in the key. And, it did start, just as he said.

We drove more slowly after that. Chuck had to pull the wheel hard to one side.
"I suppose we'd best go to town, and have this looked at," he said.
I nodded my assent. I didn't think we'd get all the way home like this.


I had just drifted back to sleep when Chuck spoke again. "That kid, back there. I wasn't scared for no reason. I saw something like that once. During the war."

Inexplicably, I was feeling much better now, and I asked, "what? What was that?"

"Well, let me tell it like this: We were pinned down. My squad, and one from another company. We'd been there a while. Things had gotten almost peaceful, when for some damn reason the fighting got hot again. I think the other guys got reinforcements. Anyway, we were shooting again, and after a minute the other squad was kind of quiet, so I looked, and here was this kid standing up. I was gonna yell at him, but then I saw he'd already been shot - He was leaking pretty bad - but he had this expression. I'll never forget it. I mean, I remember the faces of the guys I killed, and I see them in my dreams, sometimes, but this was different. His face was all contorted, all crazy looking. He was smiling this empty smile, like a demon. It scared the crap out of me. Just standing there, smiling, looking down with those wide-open eyes at his CO. He turned his rifle around, completely natural, and unloaded the whole magazine in the poor bastard's face. Before anyone could move, he dropped a grenade, then chucked another at us. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I blacked out then. I think it was fear." His knuckles were white, and I worried that he might pull the steering wheel off with that grip.

"So, what -"

"I ain't done. Now, clearly, I didn't die. Got lucky, I guess. But I can't say the same for most anyone else. When I woke up, there were only two other guys left, and we were honestly scared shitless that we were gonna get wiped out. They'd blacked out, too, so we were all looking around trying to figure things out. We didn't see that crazy bastard anywhere, even though he should've collapsed from his wounds, or got shot again, or something. But things were real quiet. Real quiet. I could see a couple guys sticking out of their hiding places, not moving, on the other side; these guys hadn't been dead a few minutes before. The other two guys were messed up a lot more than I was, so I crawled around to see what'd happened. It was like a morgue - those guys were all just laying there. None of 'em were moving. All of 'em dead, and I think it was all knife wounds. One had his head bashed in. It didn't look like they'd run away, or even fought back - it was like they'd just collapsed where they were, and been killed. I finally found that kid. He'd ripped the eyes out of this other guy, then collapsed on him. He was dead as shit, you know - all hard and pale, except for his new coating of blood. Blood loss caught up to him. But there wasn't anyone alive over there."

"So, what's this got to do..."

"I tell you what. What we saw back there, it reminded me of that time. That kid, he murdered probably 30 guys, by himself. It wasn't fighting: it was murder, and it was crazy as Hell. I still don't understand it. Now, it's not the same guy, 'cause I know he's dead. I made sure of that. But the way it felt - it felt the same. It's this tingly feeling, and your heart races, you know? And the way you blacked out - I think a couple guys did that, too, when that kid was standing there. I don't know what it is, but I'm old, and I don't really want to find out now. I'll just ask God what in all of Hell that thing was, whenever I do meet up with the big guy."

I wanted to ask something, to try to make sense of this, but what was there to say? Sure, the kid was creepy looking, and there's no denying that I blacked out - but...it couldn't have been anything like that. I decided the old guy's past must finally be catching up with him.

He didn't say anything more. We drove the rest of the way in silence.