As they rounded yet another tight curve, the mist thickened and overflowed the sloping banks of both roadside ditches, pouring onto the roadway as if it were a dry riverbed waiting to be filled. As the fog whispered and swirled higher up their legs, the women closed ranks into a tight-knit group, Alice and Dana still in front, Jenny and Marina, Shane and Carmen clustered close behind. Tina had fallen to the rear, slowing to cast nervous glances over her shoulder, not yet willing to admit that it was Helena’s figure she was most anxious to see emerging from the mist.

The knot in her stomach tightened and her throat ached with worry. What if Helena couldn’t find Bette at all? It was all but impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Or maybe Bette would refuse to come with her; she only drank like this when she was angry or fearful, and alcohol had a tendency to amplify the feelings she was trying to anesthetize. Tina began to regret not insisting on going back for Bette herself, and a troublesome thought rose to the surface. At least I’d know Helena was safe.

And there it was, laid out cold and hard. Truth. If only one emerged from the fog, she was hoping it was Helena. Not Bette. Not her wife of eight years. The lump that formed in her throat nearly choked her and tears began to slide hotly down her face. She turned around and peered into the blanket of white now masking the road behind her.

Another hundred yards of slow progress and the rest of the group was completely engulfed in the unseasonably cool and clammy mist. The trees, invisible now, seemed to close in from all sidesthey couldn’t see them, except when a breath of wind thinned the fog, but their palpable closeness was almost claustrophobicand a mournful wind was hooting up the road from behind them, adding to the sense of complete isolation.

If it weren’t for the distant sounds of sirens and gunfire, it would be easy to believe that they were the only people out there. If anyone was home in the houses that surely lay at the end of the occasional long driveway they passed, a brief yawning gap in the curtain of white, there was no signno flicker of lights, no voices. The fog muted everything. Everything but fear and an odd distant hiss and murmur, a sound they couldn’t recognize and weren’t so sure they wanted to identify.

Hair and clothes damp, Alice felt the chill settling into her bones. Her hand began to shake; the wavering light created things in the dark that might or might not have been there. Dana put her hand over her girlfriend’s and took the flashlight from her cool hand, wrapping one strong arm around her and pulling her close.

“It’ll be all right, Alice,” she whispered. “Tina?” She called out. “How much further?”

Dana’s voice sounded distant. Tina snapped her head up and shone her own flashlight forward. She could see nothing but a white wall in front of her. She’d fallen too far behind. “What did you say, Dana?” she called out, hoping to use Dana’s voice as a beacon to follow. She walked faster, but cautiously, not knowing what might lurk beneath the fog on the roada pothole or gaping crack.

“I said, how far is it to Helena’s?” Dana called out louder.

Relief flooded Tina’s senses as she finally could make out the shadowy shapes of her friends, looking like ghosts in the reflected light of her flashlight. She looked around, completely unaware of where she was. Even without the fog, it would have been difficult to tell. She rarely paid attention when she and Helena made the drive to her house; all she could remember were a lot of trees and several twists and bends in the road. “I I don’t know,” she answered hesitantly. “It can’t be too much farther. There’s a small cul-de-sac with a few houses, just before we reach Piru Avenue,” Tina said.

“Great,” Alice sighed, “a landmark to watch for that we won’t be able to see.”

“Maybe the wind will blow the fog away,” Jenny said in a small voice, not sounding as hopeful as she wanted to feel.

Tina caught up with the group and moved to the front, walking beside Dana and Alice. “We’ll know when we get there,” she said with artificial cheeriness. “Maple dead-ends into Piru. Then we take a right. It’s just a few blocks from there.”

*~*~*~*~*

Bette tried her best to walk without assistance from Helena, but with every independent step, the pain in her knee flared, spearing up into her hip, and she had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming. “Fuck!” she muttered under her breath as she let Helena take most of her weight on that side. “How much further?” she panted.

“I don’t know exactly,” Helena admitted, glancing side to side for some landmark she might recognize. She struggled to keep her face neutral as the fogbank rolled toward them. “Shouldn’t be too long now.”

“I suppose everybody else is already there,” Bette said a little wistfully.

“Might be,” Helena murmured. The fog made her nervous. Without visual bearings, she couldn’t be sure to keep them both on the road. The last thing Bette needed was another tumble into the ditch. Helena hadn’t wanted to say anything, but the state of Bette’s knee injury alarmed her. It was swelling much too fast, and it was likely that she’d done more damage to herself than her still inebriated state allowed her to feel. Medical attention was likely out of the question until the morning, which could make it a very long night indeed.

After a long and awkward silence, punctuated only by the click of Helena’s boots and halting scuff of Bette’s sneakers, a question: “Why didn’t Tina come back for me?” Bette asked in a small voice.

“She wanted to,” Helena said without hesitating.

“Then why didn’t she?”

If ever it was time for a little white lie, Helena thought, this is it. “I asked her not to.” Before Bette could sputter, she continued. “I mean, what if something happened to the both of you? We didn’t know where you were, what had happened. Your daughter needs at least one mother, Bette. Allowing Tina to come back to look for you might have put Angelica’s need at risk.”

“Soooooooo, you were thinking of my daughter?” Bette asked sarcastically.

“Not entirely,” Helena sighed. “It was long past time for us to talk. I took advantage of the situation.”

“What a surprise,” Bette muttered.

Helena halted. “Look, Bette, you can hate me as much as you need to, if that’s what you want. But hate isn’t going to get you anywhere. For the time being, you’re just going to have to accept that I’m the one who’s going to make sure you make it back to Tina and the baby safely.” She shouldered Bette’s weight a little brusquely and began to walk again. “So just deal, Porter. Deal with it.”

Bette snorted but she couldn’t think of a counter reply so she just lapsed into another sullen silence.

The fog thickened around them, sounds husked through the trees. “Are you sure we’re not in London?” Bette joked softly, her voice holding an edge of fear.

Helena looked around. “Right now, Porter, I don’t know where the hell we are.”

“Oh, THAT’S comforting.”

*~*~*~*~*

Something was coming. She could feel it in the way the hairs rose up on the back of her neck. Even at this distance, she could feel the fear and rage and uncertainty boiling up over the city, curdling the clouds that began to gather and spread across a night sky already murky and still pungent with gunpowder from all the fireworks displays. They thinned out as they scudded across the face of what she called a Kansas moon, pale as bone and just as pitiless.

She knew that fear had a way of begetting more fear, and the air was thick with its scentand the scent of something else. Because there were other things that answered the call of fear, things unseen, things that could live among us for years without being noticed, moving between the ticks of the clock, unbound by time or space. Some were harmless and some were not. But some things that walked between this world and the next walked with purpose, and there were many ways to cross that boundary and see it done.