Bay of the Dead - By Mark Morris Page 0,1

natural human reaction – like seeing faces in clouds, or looking for patterns in the chaos of nature.

It wasn't only her sight that was affected, though. She fancied she could smell the fog, like thick, sour soup, and she was equally certain that it was playing havoc with her hearing, filling her ears like cotton wool, blurring the music into a mushy buzz, reducing the throaty growl of the engine to flat, bland static. She opened her mouth wide, trying to yawn, hoping her ears might pop. And then she did yawn, and was dismayed to find that it made no difference. She felt a stab of anxiety. Maybe the fog was toxic; maybe it was affecting them physically, like nerve gas or something. She wondered whether she should say something to Joe, but she was almost afraid to speak, in case she found out that she could no longer string two words together.

And then suddenly, without warning, they were through.

It happened in a blink. One second they were crawling forward through impenetrable greyness, and the next the road ahead was clear, and the moon fat and bright again, spilling its light onto the land.

Joe was so shocked that he stamped on the brake, stalling the car.

'What just happened?'

Jackie jerked forward, her seatbelt clamping across her chest. Then she twisted round, to look out through the back windscreen. Incredibly there was no sign of the fog behind them. Just the evenly spaced lights above the carriageway, dwindling into blackness.

'I dunno,' she said. She was relieved that the fog had gone, but scared too.

'Ten past eleven,' Joe said, glancing at the glowing green digits of the dashboard clock.

'What's that got to do with anything?' Jackie asked.

Joe grinned, but it was sickly, feeble. 'I wondered whether we'd. . . lost a chunk of time. It's what's supposed to happen when people get abducted by aliens.'

'Abducted by aliens?' Jackie scoffed, fear making her angrier than she would ordinarily have been. 'Are you serious?'

'No,' said Joe, 'I suppose not. We haven't lost time, in any case.' He grinned again, trying to make light of it. 'Maybe we should check each other for puncture wounds, though.'

'Let's just get home,' Jackie said.

Joe nodded and started the car up again. Jackie was wide awake now. They set off, and had been travelling for a minute in tense silence when Joe said, 'This can't be right.'

'What is it now?' Jackie asked.

'Is it just me or have we already been on this bit of road? About ten minutes back?'

She shrugged. 'Dunno. It all looks the same to me. Anyway, I was asleep.'

'Yeah, look,' he said, pointing, 'there's the sign for Bonvilston. This is just. . . this doesn't make sense.'

'Maybe there're two signs,' said Jackie.

Joe shook his head. 'No, that's definitely the one we passed ten minutes ago.'

'Well, it can't have been, can it?' The impossibility of the situation was making Jackie snappish again. She swallowed, trying to control her fear. 'You must have just. . . taken a wrong turn or something.'

'I've been driving in a straight line,' Joe said.

'It's the fog,' said Jackie. 'You must have driven up a slip road without realising it. Looped round in a circle. It's easily done.'

'Yeah, you're probably right,' said Joe, but he sounded unconvinced.

He drove on, mouth set in a grim line, hands gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles stood out in sharp white points. For a few minutes neither of them spoke. Both stared at the road ahead.

Then Jackie's eyes widened. 'Oh God,' she breathed.

The fog was back, same as before, a thick, solid wall of it, directly in front of them.

There was something intimidating about it. Something sinister and challenging. But when he spoke, Joe's voice was carefully upbeat, almost jaunty.

'Well, I suppose this supports your theory that we've come in a circle. We'll just have to be more careful this time.'

Jackie nodded, but said nothing. She felt the muscles in her arms and stomach tightening, instinctively pressed herself back into her seat as the fog enshrouded them again. She'd always hated roller-coasters, always hated that moment when the car clanked its way to the top of the incline and was inching forward in readiness for the downward plunge.

She felt like that now. That awful anticipation. That sense of being out of control and unable to do a thing about it.

Stupid, she told herself. What is there to be scared— Without warning, a figure loomed out of the fog.

She only caught a glimpse of it before