The April Featured Writer is Lee Rotem
Please feel free to email Lee at: leerotem@gmail.com
SOME FRIES WITH THAT
by Lee Rotem
At first, no one really gave a shit why the heat broke.
“It finally broke,” people said to each other with a smile. Finally being the operative word. They didn’t care how it broke as long as they were sweating a little less. People always think that sweating less is better.
The fog was heavy for days. Relentless, white and dense, like a fantastic cloud you could touch. As refreshing as a faint mist of water coming from a sprinkler on a hot steamy day. It was like fizzy candy. Dancing on your face, making you giggle.
As with any cloud, people assumed that it was now going to rain. The low fog rolled in slowly, white and hopeful, carrying a promise of life and hydration. It settled softly over Chicago, hiding parts of the skyline, allowing for an antenna or two to peek through its cotton candy roof.
Yet this cloud was different.
It didn’t bring on the rain, it took away the air. It squeezed into every crevice of the city, every nook between buildings and every little bumpy hole in the pavement. It just sat there, inhaling all the Oxygen left out for grabs.
A few TV crews went out to interview the local folk for their take on the fog. Ellie was watching them on TV. The fog was everywhere, taking over, for days now, and she felt rather secluded in her apartment. Very few of the people she knew went out any more these days and she was not one of them.
“Now that the heat is finally dissipating,” the overly pancaked reporter said as she held a microphone near a dark man’s face, “what do you think of this monster fog?”
The dark man’s eyes were fixed on the fog. He looked hypnotized, as did his two children and a strange teenager who did not seem related to him, standing by with a dog on a leash. The man did not answer, though Ellie noticed that the reporter kept asking the question again and again. They all stood close together, gazing at the dense cloud that seemed to be rolling towards them sluggishly, seemingly unable to take their eyes off it. Ellie couldn’t take her eyes off of them.
Something was off. The people’s gaze was off, the cloud was off. The woman in the pancake makeup was off.
Ellie sunk her fingernails into the skin around her bony knees. The teenager was yelling something inaudible at the fog in the background. Ellie could see the dog barking and squirming at the fog while his owner was dragging the poor animal towards it. And then the teen girl ran into the dense fog, her face completely mad. They were gone.
The dark man yelled something to the children and they followed the girl into the fog as with a short run. One of the camera men tried to be a hero and ran after them. By now Ellie was completely unaware that her fingernails were breaking her skin. She waited to see the girl and the man and the children and the camera man come out of the fog. At least the dog, she thought. At least let the dog come back out. But it didn’t. And Ellie had a feeling it wouldn’t...ever.
“Monster fog,” Ellie said aloud, but no one heard because she was alone in her apartment. A weird statement made by the reporter, who no doubt referred to the size of the fog. But Ellie had a feeling that it didn’t only refer to the size of the fog, and while she didn’t know why, Ellie thought that it was exactly that. A monster fog.
“Monster.” The word echoed in her apartment. It had to be said out loud. Being alone for too long can mess with your sanity. She knew this, so she made a point of speaking out loud at least once a day, just so the crazies would keep away.
No one dared to enter the fog after that night. Not on purpose, at least. There were a few people lost at night, and then a really sad story about a baby boy who ran from his mom into the cloud. There were a handful of suicides involving the fog. But mostly people just stayed away.
If they were lucky enough to live outside of the cloud, that is. Some weren’t so lucky, and were completely imprisoned in their homes by the cloud. Ellie was one of the unlucky ones. Some of her friends, as well as her boyfriend, Tom, were also cloud captives. That’s what they were called, those who no longer could leave their homes. CC’s.
No one knew exactly why they couldn’t leave their homes, because no one knew really what happens inside the fog, and no one returned to tell, so people just assumed the worst. Ellie had no proof of the cloud being bad or anything but sometimes at night she dreamt of that first live TV broadcast, when the teenager and the man and the kids and the dog ran in. She tried to imagine they all came out on the other side but as far as she knew, there was no other side.
She wondered if the fog might actually be a living thing, feeding on people and other living whatevers, but there was no proof of that. If that was true, she thought sometimes, then the fog was in real bad shape, probably quite starved with no one to entertain its hunger.
She knew how it felt. Her belly rumbled practically all the time these days and sometimes it sounded like little people screaming inside her. Just like they said that you could hear screams inside the fog when someone walked in. But to Ellie that sounded like an urban legend.
Or was it?
Her boyfriend (was he now her ex-boyfriend?) lived in a super high-rise right on the river, usually overlooking the Wrigley buildings and the architectural tour boats, right in the heart of the fog. She hardly remembered how he once used to hold her. She would sit inside her ivory tower looking out the window with no way to climb down, thinking of how he probably once used to hold her. Once upon a time, this princess in an ivory tower wasn’t so alone.
The cell phones still worked so Tom often called her. He told her that some people felt so alone that they tried climbing out. Though climbing wasn’t really the right word for what they were doing—it was more like falling.
Tom said that he used to cry every time he saw a body flying outside his window, but now he just found it funny. Now, he and his buddy Jasmine, maybe a few other tenants of the tower, would try to identify the jumper. If they managed to see a face, they could just go and raid that person’s apartment for food.
Everyone needed to eat.
*****
Ellie didn’t have friends in her building. She wasn’t a recluse as much as she just appreciated her space, but this was before. Now it was too late. Now people were suspicious if you tried to be friends with them, and Ellie wasn’t big on trying anyway.
She did make one friend, though. Accidentally. Until this accident (the best accident ever! she joked later on) happened she didn’t know how hungry she was. Hungry for food, yes, but also hungry for human touch. But something kept eating at her, gnawing at her sanity. Something was stinky, rotten, dark. Something was off.
“You’re thin.”
She was stuck in the stairway of the building, with what seemed to be everyone else who lived there all the other tenants. For a second she didn’t remember what she was doing there at all but she raised her head to see who was talking.
She saw a bunch of faces around her. “You’re crazy thin. And pale, too,” came the voice again.
Ellie stood straight. She was looking at a pretty red-haired young woman with freckles and pigtails.
“Are you okay?” the red-head asked.
Ellie still didn’t answer, she just stared. It took her a moment to realize this person was talking to her.
“Do you speak?”
Ellie stayed silent for a moment. She didn’t want friends. She just wanted out of the building. Sometimes she wanted out of life altogether.
“So why are you so pale, huh?” the red-head continued.
Ellie shrugged. “I guess I’m hungry.”
The peppy girl with pig-tails dismissed it with a smile. “Ugh, hunger is for the weak.” Ellie didn’t know how to answer that. She was rattled. But for the first time in a while, she didn’t feel OFF.
“Aren’t you ever hungry?” Ellie found this girl to be fascinating.
The pigtails shook joyously. “Sometimes. But I feed on meeting new friends. I’m Bekah.”
And so she was. And they became fast friends.
*****
They hung out together every single day. Sometimes all day. Sometimes all night, too. Bekah brought light into her house, where once there was a dark cloud. Ellie was no longer lonely, not thinking about Tom as much, not longing for the days before the fog. But the hunger was still there, growing fatter and more aggressive. So when Bekah started bringing her sustenance, incredible things she couldn’t have possibly obtained, she just accepted them for what they were.
“You’re my favorite, favorite,” Bekah would say, handing her another juicy chicken wing, smiling, making all the doubts and dark clouds and bad dreams flit away. The smell was intoxicating, the belly would dance. Ellie never doubted.
She also never saw Bekah eat.
Bekah brought peaches, she brought a chocolate bar and Pringles. She brought them and placed them on the counter, humming softly. Ellie never saw her do it; it was as though the food magically appeared.
Ellie forgot about Tom. Instead, she spent most of her time with Bekah. They spent long hours lying in bed, staring at the fog. Bekah would sometimes stroke her back using long fingernails. It was hypnotizing, watching the fog, and it was terrifying, too.
“Do you think the fog is hungry now that no one will go out anymore?” she’d ask Bekah.
Bekah would just hum. The humming relaxed Ellie.
“I bet at some point it will have to think of new ways to attract prey,” Ellie would whisper, staring at the white outside the window.
Bekah would shush her, like you do a baby. Then she’d hum some more.
*****
Ellie was starting to see things. Things in the cloud. Things that no one should see.
At first she saw food. She saw pieces of chicken, pancakes and fruit. She saw a chocolate cake and fried fish, a corn on the cob. She saw food all the time, when she looked out the window and into the fog.
Then she started seeing hands. Soon she caught a glimpse of a wristwatch and nail polish and the rest fell into place. One of the hands she saw floated into her window and clicked on the glass. The fingers on the hand—moved. The ring touched the glass.
Clink.
It startled her.
“What was that?” she asked aloud, waking from her haze.
“What was what?” Bekah was dozing beside her.
Ellie looked outside. The hand was clicking on the window, like a bird unaware of the glass. But she heard the intentional clicking of the ring on the window. It was like someone rapping on a door.
Calling her out to play.
Ellie told Bekah about it, but she just dismissed it with a hum.
*****
Tom called less. Ellie didn’t even notice anymore. She had become a ball of hunger and engulfed in the white of the fog, awaiting only Bekah’s hum and a daily feeding, with whatever Bekah would come up with. She never asked where it came from. She didn’t care. And she didn’t care when Tom finally called from a million fogs away, for the last time.
“Hey Tom,” she asked, her voice sleepy, just before he hung up on this very final call they would ever have. “Did you ever see anything outside your window?”
“You mean the fog?”
“No. Other things.”
“I hear that people see things out there. Creepy stories.”
“Creepy? In what way?” Ellie turned her back to the window, all the while hearing the faint knocking of the bodiless hand on the big bay window
“Well,” Tom said, “the people who see things usually die within weeks.”
Ellie gasped.
“You’d think they’re all loonies,” Tom continued, unaware of her distress. “I saw a show on TV a few days ago, when the reception was good. They said there were a few sightings leading to suicides.”
“Sightings?”
“Yeah. People have been seeing other people in the windows or something. Like dead people. Oh, and body parts. Some said that they saw their favorite foods and some…” Tom kept on talking and Ellie drifted away.
“I tell you, they’re all loonies.”
“Yeah.” Ellie turned to face the window. The hand was still there. Obviously loonies.
“Why?” Tom remembered to ask. “Are you seeing things?”
Ellie hung up. And that was the last of Tom.
*****
The finger, however, went away. For a long time after the conversation, days upon days, Ellie would stare out the window, hoping she won’t see anything else appear, fearing that she will. But no more hands came to call. No visions of potatoes or chicken wings. No angel wings. No wings of any kind way up on the 30th floor. Whew, she thought. I’m not a loony.
But one day they were sitting at the kitchen counter, nibbling on an empty can of beans. Ellie was scraping the inside of her can with a spoon. Bekah was making fart jokes.
“You know, this dinner might kill us both tomorrow,” Bekah said.
“If we even live to see tonight,” Ellie added, licking a finger.
“Hey, that’s an idea. We should just open all the windows and fart into the fog. That’ll kill it.”
Ellie laughed hoarsely. “That might do the trick.”
She looked out the window like she did anytime the fog was mentioned.
She saw a face. A scream came out involuntarily.
Bekah jumped out of her chair and reached for Ellie. “What? What’s the matter?”
Ellie pointed at the face that was staring at the both of them, floating outside her closed window on the 30th floor.
Bekah stared at her, her eyes narrow. “Why did you scream like that?”
Ellie was stunned. “What do you mean?”
The face was still there, splayed against the glass. Ellie pointed at it. Again, Bekah looked at the window before shrugging.
Ellie was lost. “You don’t see the face?” She pointed at it, but the face was no longer there. “Where the hell did it go?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bekah said in her relaxing, all-accepting tone. “I mean, would it be so wrong to let it in?”
Ellie thought she didn’t hear her well. So she just stared, spoon in hand. And then the fingers tickled the glass again.
Click. Click. Click.
Three severed heads were outside the window now. One of the heads was that of a little girl with puckered lips. Another head was that of a black man wearing dreadlocks. The last head was that of a fat woman, who had a tiny bun on top of her head and puffy cheeks.
None of them had eyes. They were staring at her with big, empty bowls where eyes should have been.
“Ellie,” the black man’s head said. It sounded as if he were underwater.
Ellie took a step backward.
“You should join us,” said the little girl’s voice. The mouth lagged behind the words, like a badly dubbed film.
“We are the only ones,” said the fat woman’s head with the dead eyes, “who can make life better.”
Ellie looked around, to see if Bekah was also witnessing this. She wasn’t in the room.
“Bekah?” she called. Then she giggled with no reason. She was terrified. Maybe that was the reason.
“You sound like a crazy women, giggling like that.” It was Bekah’s voice. But it didn’t come from the room. It came from outside.
“How did you get out here?” Ellie asked, eyes wide like baseballs. She was frozen with fear, her heart pounding in her chest, her palms wet with sweat.
“I used my key, silly.” Bekah was floating outside in the fog, humming.
“Please come back in…” Ellie started saying, but felt hypnotized by the soothing hum.
“I see you’ve met the family,” Bekah said in that same soothing hum, soft and comforting. Ellie stiffened.
“You knew all along?”
“You just had to meet them on your own time,” she said, gesturing at the people floating in the fog. “They need to be invited in.”
Outside, food floated.
“Elli, we’re hungry. And so are you. Let the food float in. Open the window.”
“What about the fog? The fog will get us.”
“Let’s just open the window a little bit so that the food can come in but the fog will stay out.”
Bekah was just like always, smiley, trustworthy. Her sister, her lover, her provider. Ellie wanted to trust her, with this just as with everything. Beyond the window she zoomed in on chocolate frosting lying on a donut and she could almost touch the tenderness of the floating chicken thighs.
Bekah soothed, “Trust me. We will both be better off if you open the window and let us in.”
There was a cheeseburger outside. A ruby-red tomato. A silky piece of orange cheese with melted ends.
Ellie reached for the window, paused, and dropped away. “I can’t do it.” She feared the fog too much. “You do it.”
“I can’t do it either,” Bekah said. “The family cannot come in without an invitation.”
Bekah hummed again, and it made Ellie relax. She looked down at her knees. They were shaking, bony, malnourished. She had not eaten in a while, it dawned on her. A long, long while.
She opened the window halfway. The breeze hit her face and brought in the smell of the food. A plate loaded with chilly fries popped up. Real food. She could smell that it was real. She wanted it now. But she had to watch the fog. It might get ideas.
The window was open. Yet, the food and the arms and the faces were still outside.
But something was coming in, that was for sure.
The fog.
It was thick and white, like a cloud in a child’s painting, as it swirled in the house like a snake, slithering slowly under the couch and in the corner between the ceiling and the wall.
Ellie stood there, frozen, waiting for the food to come through the window as well. But it never did. Bekah flew toward the window. Looked at her through the glass, as if it were a marvelous aquarium.
“Come to me,” Bekah said, motioning her to the window.
Ellie approached, her bony knees shaking. Her belly rumbling. Her vision foggy.
“The food’s right here,” Bekah said. “Reach for it.”
So Ellie reached. And for once she was completely full, grabbing on to a never-was Bekah, reaching out for a non-existing chilly fry.
Lee Rotem has been a journalist and an editor for the past sixteen years, and a horror buff her entire life. She has two little daughters who she scares nightly with her bedtime stories, and has always felt that girls were overlooked on the horror/fantasy bookshelf.
Her previous professional sales include various short stories in genre magazines, one of which was also published in the horror anthology Bonded by Blood V: Doomsday Descends. Lee lives in Chicago with her dude, her daughters and her dog.