For Inktober, Friday,
October 30, 2020. Prompt word: "ominous." Tuckerization: Gregory
Salter
A reminder that volunteering for tuckerization only
means a character in the story shares the participant's name. Other than that, no
similar characteristics are implied.
This story is a continuation of the city stories
that began with Sarkomand in Some Would Call it Worthless and continued in The
Library.
Fogbound
by Alan
Loewen
Gregory Salter continued his trek toward the west,
following the road until the city-sized library was merely a speck in the
distance. Having escaped the ennui of Sarkomand, he left the Library behind
to see what might lay ahead of him.
The plethora of books he read was fascinating, and
he was enchanted with the hundreds of lives he had lived, but after a while, he
noticed, to his growing horror, that his real life began to disappear in countless
incarnations. When Gregory discovered the basement filled with living skeletons, impulsively grabbing and reading one book after another, he filled an improvised backpack with food and
water and fled.
With the weather warm and comfortable, Gregory
passed the next two nights comfortably on the eastbound road, using only the canopy of
trees as his only shelter.
It disturbed him that he had met no other people on
the road, and the woods bordering it were eerily silent, devoid of the usual sounds of animals and birds. However,
he continued his journey, and on the third day, he found himself walking into a
mist that soon turned into a thick fog. Still able to see the road under his
feet, he wondered if he should turn back but decided to soldier on. To bolster
his courage, he found a thick branch in the woods that doubled as a walking
stick and an improvised cudgel.
To his relief, he came to a set of city gates set
in a stone wall. The fog was so thick that it was impossible to guess their
height. Cautiously, he stepped past the entrance, surprised to see no people on the
cobblestone street before him.
It was only until he walked a reasonable distance that he saw people furtively moving through the mist. They occasionally
glanced at him but continued on whatever personal missions they had. None of
them seemed willing to stop and talk to him, even though he tried to stop a few to ask questions.
He decided to avoid the dark stores with large empty windows, and though he was tempted to knock on the doors of the brownstone houses, he continued his trek through the fog.
A sign above a door gave him hope of finding
answers to this weird city that had entered. The Cobblestone Pub beckoned him,
and when he walked through the door, the patrons, sitting at the scattered round,
wooden tables or leaning against the bar, turned as one to stare at him. Within
seconds, they lost interest in him and either returned to their whispered conversations
or turned to stare sullenly into their mugs.
Wishing to stay invisible, Gregory
made his way to the bar. He beckoned to the barkeep, who came and silently stood
before him with raised eyebrows.
“Excuse me, sir, but …” Gregory began, but the man
interrupted him.
“You came from the Library,” the barkeep whispered. “You should have stayed there
or returned to Sarkomand.” Stunned into silence, Gregory stood there as the
barkeep turned and filled a mug with a dark liquid.
“On the house,” the barkeep said. “You’ll have to
find a job to pay for your livelihood. There’s a guesthouse just down the
street. They’ll take you in until you settle. Just don’t be out in the fog when
night truly comes.”
“But,” Gregory stuttered. “I’m just moving on.”
A grim smile came to barkeep’s face. “Bad news, newcomer.
Those who enter this city can never leave. Surely, they told you at the Library
that no one ever returns from following the eastern road.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Gregory snarled. “The
gate I entered is just down the street from where I entered. I can leave
anytime I want.”
The barkeep shook his head slowly. “When you walked
through the gate, it changed into a solid, unclimbable wall. It was the same for all of us. There is no escape. Now, drink your beer and get to the guesthouse. We’re
an hour away from nightfall. I have no rooms to let, and I don’t want you
sleeping on a table.”
“What …” Gregory said. “What happens at night?”
The barkeep shrugged. “People just disappear. Sometimes, we hear screams when
some idiot loses track of time and doesn’t find shelter. Now, let me be. I have
work to do.”
The barkeeper turned away to check on other patrons,
leaving Gregory staring at his own beer mug. Tentatively, he took a sip, and hunger
and thirst made him drain the mug dry.
Uncomfortable with the silence, Gregory shouldered
his knapsack and made his way to the guesthouse.
True to the barkeep's word, he was taken in and
given a week to find a job and a place to live.
Also, the barkeep spoke truth about the gate. Gregory
never found the entrance where he had entered or any way to leave. The stone walls surrounding the city were smooth as
glass, and when he tried to talk to people about building a ladder to find the top
of the fog-shrouded walls, they stared at him and passed on.
He found work with a mushroom farmer, as the
various types of fungus were the only edibles that would grow in a city
perpetually covered in fog. A two-room flat became his new home, and he quickly
learned to avoid being out at night in the ominous fog. Occasionally, Gregory would
be awakened by a distant scream of some victim of the night, and he would tremble
in his bed until the morning, unable to return to sleep.
Countless years later, Gregory shuffled his way
through the streets like the other citizens of the city. He never learned the
name of the fogbound city. It was a mystery, a town without a name.
One evening, Gregory sat at his small dinner table
and quietly spooned tasteless soup into his mouth. He blinked his eyes and
shook his head. A sudden realization came to him. He hated this city more than
anything. He hated his life, day by day, digging mushrooms out of offal and trudging home
before the dreaded night claimed him.
He quietly put his spoon down and shuddered. Better
an end to this nameless purgatory than another day of soul-crushing ennui.
Gregory got up, tucked his chair into its place by
the table, and walked outside into the fog.
As night quickly descended. Gregory swallowed his
terror and waited quietly.
He gritted his teeth until he feared they would
crack under the pressure of his jaws, but he clenched his fists and refused to
move, ignoring the other people fleeing to shelter.
Complete darkness crept upon him, and Gregory felt a
cosmic cold envelope his body. He could not help it when a nameless dread
made him turn toward his door for shelter, but it was too late.
He felt gravity reverse, and Gregory
fell into the sky with a shriek.
He plunged heavenward, tumbling through the fog until he was above the clouds in a maddening fall upwards. He suddenly saw the stars. As he was swallowed up in their glory, Gregory, in his terror, abruptly realized he had discovered a way to leave the city after all.
