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  Bashar shook his head silently.

  A loud bang outside made them jump and Bashar stepped away from the door. It sounded like something had exploded, and every glass in the shop rattled.

  “What’s going on?” One of the girls stood up and touched Bashar’s arm.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Bashar. The girl with the blue hair was the one who had asked him. Her eyes were concerned and she looked more like a little girl, more like someone’s daughter who should be home instead of out shopping.

  “Bloody fog just came out of nowhere.” The workman sat back down and picked up his mug of coffee. “Look, it’ll be gone in a minute. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here, right? Let’s give it a minute and I’m sure it’ll pass.”

  Bashar sensed the man was trying to do his best to reassure the girls, but something in his tone suggested he didn’t believe it would be gone in a minute. Bashar heard another bang followed by a short scream. He shuddered. Where was everyone? What was going on out there?

  “Do you want to sit down, sir?”

  The blonde girl with the mole was at Bashar’s side.

  “If there is any trouble you might want to get away from the door.”

  Bashar nodded and smiled. The coffee shop was warm and inviting, and it seemed to make sense. Perhaps it would dissipate quickly. Perhaps the fog was localised to their area and there was nothing to worry about. The shop was dark though without the natural light from outside and he watched the attendant turn on the lights. An older woman came into the shop from a door at the back marked ‘Staff Only.’ She marched over to the counter and began talking to the blonde girl in whispers. Bashar was about to go and sit down when the elderly couple stopped him.

  “Excuse me, do you think we should go now? We have a train to catch. Do you think it will still be running in this weather?”

  Bashar looked at the man who had spoken to him. There was none of the usual suspicion in his voice. When people had to talk to him he often found they were guarded, wary because of how he looked. The short black beard, brown eyes and dark skin were akin to walking around with a neon sign above his head that read ‘Beware, terrorist on the loose.’ The old man who spoke to him now though was relaxed and there was none of that usual hesitation in his voice.

  “You might want to wait a few minutes. Just let the fog clear. I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s not safe to try and cross the road right now,” replied Bashar. He smiled. “Best to have another cup of tea.”

  “See, Bob, I told you to stop fretting.” The old woman reached across the table and took the man’s hand. “Let’s just wait. It’s nice and warm in here, and my feet are aching. Can’t we just get the next train?”

  “We can’t miss the train, Mary. I think we should go. The station’s right across the road. How hard can it be to get to? It’s just a bit of fog.” Bob snatched his hand away to the obvious disappointment of his wife and pushed his chair back. “Come on, Mary, let’s get moving.”

  As Bob stood up and reached for the coat nestling on the back of his chair Bashar looked at him. “You know, I really do think you should wait. Your wife is right. Why don’t you get the next train?” Bashar glanced at the fog. “You can have another drink and—”

  A thudding noise interrupted Bashar. It was repetitive and growing louder every second. The ground began to shake too, growing in intensity along with the thudding sound. The noise sounded much like a marching army and Bashar shrank back. He retreated slowly to his table, away from the coffee shop’s windows as the noise grew louder.

  “What the bloody hell is that?” The workman had given up on reading his newspaper and was pointing at the window.

  “What is it?” asked Bashar. He strained to see through the murky air, but saw nothing.

  “I can’t see anything,” said the girl with blue hair. She looked nervously at her friend. “Lulu, you see anything?”

  Bashar looked at Lulu, the girl with the brown hair, for an indication that she could also see what was making the thudding noises. She simply shook her head though and began picking up her shopping bags.

  “There,” said the workman. He stepped back from the window and lowered his arm. “Fuck me, what is it?”

  Bashar noticed the fog began to shift. It moved slowly, as if someone was stirring it with a spoon, making it ebb and flow like the ocean. The fog began to change colour. From an eggshell white it slowly turned darker, until it was like night outside. The thudding noise continued and the shop continued shaking, and Bashar began to wonder just what the workman had seen. Was there something impossibly huge outside causing the fog to move like that? Was there something so tall that it could block out all the sunlight? The fog shifted again and something outside moved past the windows.

  The girl with the blue hair screamed and Bob stumbled back, tripping over his chair. The workman scooped up his bag of tools and ran away from the window. Whatever passed them by was quick. It was there and gone in a second, yet Bashar was sure it was a leg. It was black and scaly, at least fifteen feet across, and it moved graciously, with a suddenness and urgency that suggested it was going somewhere particular. The fog swallowed it up as soon as it had passed, and the thudding noises and vibrations stopped as it left them.

  Bashar stared at the window to the outside world and knew then for sure that this fog was not a natural occurrence. Even if the black thing that had swept past them wasn’t a leg, it also wasn’t a bus or anything else that could easily be explained. Something very unnatural was going on.

  “Mary, get your coat on, we’re going to the station, now,” said Bob as he picked himself up off the floor. “We should get home. I don’t know why we come to London. I never did like it.”

  “Bob, I’m not sure.” His wife put an old, blue duffle coat on and picked up her handbag. “I think we should stay here. Didn’t you see that? What if…?”

  “What if what, Mary?” Bob raised his voice and drew Bashar’s attention away from the window. “For Christ’s sake just do what I tell you for once and move. It’s clearly not safe here so we’re going home. We can still make the train if we hurry. You’re always slowing me down, Mary. After all these years I would’ve thought you’d have learned by now to do what I say.”

  As Mary stood trembling and looking at her husband Bashar wondered if he should intervene. It was clearly crazy to go outside yet what answers could he give them? What options did they have? They couldn’t stay inside the coffee shop all day waiting for the fog to clear. Something told Bashar that the fog might be hanging around for quite a while. If the old man wanted to throw a tantrum and shout at his wife then there was little Bashar could do about it.

  Bob and Mary made their way to the front door.

  “Lulu, let’s get out of here. I don’t care where we go, but I don’t want to hang around here.”

  The girl with the blue hair picked up a bag full of cheap clothes and opened the door ahead of the elderly couple. The moment that she swung the door open the fog began to creep in. It moved silently and slowly, as if it didn’t have the energy to move itself but was being propelled along, pushed by something or someone behind it. The first tendrils of grey fog curled around the blue-haired girl’s feet, obscuring her white sneakers, before gradually clouding her legs.

  “Excuse me, but I need you to close that door. Either leave, or stay, but I want that door closed. Right now.”

  Bashar watched as an ample woman wearing an apron came from behind the counter where she had been watching events with the young attendant. Bashar saw the young girl smile coyly at him and then shrug, as if to say it wasn’t her fault; her boss was a bitch, what could she do? The ample woman marched through her shop commanding everyone’s attention. Her bosom was bursting out the sides of the apron and her demeanour was at odds with the laid-back atmosphere of the coffee shop, at least before the weird fog and giant scaly leg had appeared.

  “I’m not going to ask you again. Close it.”

  Bashar saw the f
og had reached the blue-haired girl’s waist and was wrapping itself around Bob and Mary. In a few minutes it would take over the shop completely. Right now it felt like the shop was a refuge from the strange events outside and Bashar didn’t relish the idea of the shop becoming one with the fog. The blue-haired girl showed no sign that she wanted to close the door though and he sensed an argument brewing. The girl was looking at her friend, Lulu, as she gathered up their bags.

  “You can’t tell me what to do. I’m just waiting for my friend. Then we’ll be out of your stupid shop, you fat old bitch.”

  The large woman stopped in her tracks, in the middle of the shop next to a table. Bashar noticed a dirty plate and empty mug on it, and then looked up. His eyes met the workman’s, who rolled his eyes knowing where the conversation was headed. Bashar shook his head slowly to tell the workman not to interfere. The tense atmosphere was getting frostier by the second, and it wasn’t just the creeping fog.

  “Oh, that’s charming. You come in here and think you can do what you want, and talk to me like that?” The large woman put her hands on her hips and stuck her heard forward as she spoke to the girl. “Get out right now, and don’t come back. You’re banned.”

  The blue-haired girl laughed. “Banned? I wouldn’t come back here in a million years. This place is for boring old people like you. Your coffee tasted like shit, too.”

  “All right,” said Bob, “there’s no need for that. Look, just let us pass please.” He drew his coat up to his chin and looked out into the thick fog. “We’re going to miss our—”

  “Train, yeah, I know, you keep banging on about it.” The girl looked at Lulu who had finished getting ready and was inching her way around the back of the table toward the doorway. “Don’t worry, we’re leaving. You can…”

  Suddenly the blue-haired girl was thrust forward and thrown to the floor. Something in the fog grabbed her ankles and she screamed as she plummeted down, trying to grab hold of something to stop her fall. Unable to grasp anything quickly enough, her forehead smashed against a table leg and she dropped her bag. The girl yelped in pain and cast vacant eyes upward. A thin trickle of blood ran down her nose from a deep gash across her head.

  “Angie!” Lulu called for her friend and dropped the shopping to run to her friend’s aid.

  “My head… please, help me.” Angie looked up at the old man who was backing away from the doorway, ignoring the girl’s pleas for help. His wife was clutching her handbag to her chest, her blue eyes wide, disbelieving and full of fear.

  “Grab hold of something,” shouted Bashar. He watched as the blue-haired girl, Angie, looked up at him. The trickle of blood on her face was now a full blown torrent, pooling on the floor beneath her chin. The lower half of her body was hidden beneath a blanket of fog and her arms were reaching up for help.

  “Don’t let…”

  Angie’s body was suddenly lifted up into the air and then slammed back down on the ground with enough force that the cracking sound of her skull striking the floor echoed around the room. Her blue hair whipped up and then her body was dragged back into the fog quickly. The fog gathered around where she had been and the only trace of Angie’s presence in the shop was her discarded shopping bag and a pool of fresh blood on the floor. A low moan from outside greeted the girl’s disappearance.

  “Shut that door!” Bashar charged forward noticing that the manager had frozen in her tracks, probably too shocked to do anything. The woman was standing as still as a statue, her mouth flapping open but no sounds coming out. Bashar glimpsed the blonde girl behind the counter duck down out of sight whilst the workman to the right of the door began to rummage through his bag.

  As Bashar tried to get to the door to close it he saw a figure appear from outside and step into the shop. He hoped it was someone who could help, perhaps a policeman, or maybe even the blue-haired girl who would announce she had fooled them all and was coming back in to argue more with the manager. As the figure came forward from the gloom Bashar recognized the shapely figure of the woman from the car he had passed earlier. She still wore the gold jewellery and the white dress with red dots, but her bold attitude was gone. Her face, previously full of anger and rage, was now drawn and blank.

  “What did you do to Angie?” asked Lulu. Her question was timid, her tone insipid; the girl was retreating to the corner of the room as Bashar tried to find a way through the maze of tables and chairs to the front of the shop.

  “I don’t think it was her,” said Mary. “Poor thing, look at her.”

  “Quiet, Mary,” ordered her husband. “Get away from there. You saw what she did to that girl. She’s probably a drug addict. Don’t touch her or you’ll catch something.”

  Mary glared at her husband. “Oh, Bob, just stop being an idiot for one minute of your life and help me.”

  “Bloody hell,” said the workman quietly. He was holding a large silver wrench in his hands and moving softly across the room to the newcomer. “Listen, love, we can figure this out, right? Just don’t do anything stupid.”

  “What did you do to Angie?” Lulu spat out her question with her fear and anger all too clear now. “Where is she?”

  Bashar recalled how the woman had acted when he had seen her previously during the traffic jam, how bitter and frustrated she had sounded. This wasn’t the same person. Sure, she still wore the same clothes, but it was as if the soul had been sucked out of her body. As Bashar got closer he saw the red polka dots on her dress were accompanied by red spots of blood. Then he saw blood around the corners of her lips and cuts on her ears.

  “Lady, what’s going on out there?” He thought it was probably futile asking her anything. She was acting like a drug addict, as if she was spaced out on meth, and the way she was just standing in the doorway like that wasn’t normal. The fog was creeping further into the shop and Bashar looked at the woman’s face. She stared at him and then moved her head slowly around the room. As she looked at the old couple Bashar felt deflated. The woman from the car wasn’t here to help. She wouldn’t be able to tell them what was happening outside. As she opened her mouth blood dribbled over her lips and she raised her hands.

  Bob and Mary seemed oblivious to the danger.

  “Bob, get away from there. Get Mary—”

  The woman moved fast. Her legs moved awkwardly across the room but she only had to cover a few feet and then her outstretched arms had grabbed Mary. They wrapped around the old woman’s frail body quickly, giving the old woman no time to react.

  “Bob!” Mary shrieked and Bashar just had time to see the fear on her face before her throat was torn out. The woman in the white dress opened her mouth and simply sank her sharp teeth into Mary’s thin skin. A jet of blood burst from Mary’s neck and sprayed Lulu.

  “Bloody hell,” said the workman again, and he ran forward to help. He smashed the wrench on the woman’s head, causing her to stop sucking on Mary’s neck momentarily. Mary fell to her knees as the woman let go of her and turned her attention to the workman.

  “Shit.” The workman raised his wrench again and struck the woman on the side of the head, causing a wound to open up and blood to cascade down her face. Yet the woman continued, ignoring the blows that the workman rained down upon her head.

  Bashar reached Mary at the same time as her husband. Bob was kneeling over his wife who lay on the floor dying. Her pale eyes flickered and her mouth worked silently as Bob held her hand.

  “What can I do? What could I do?” asked Bob as Bashar knelt down beside him.

  Bashar wanted to tell Bob that he could’ve done a lot more to help his wife. He wanted to tell him that it was his fault this had happened, but recriminations wouldn’t help save Mary. Bashar pressed his hand on the wide gash in Mary’s neck. He needed to try and stem the bleeding, he knew that much, though he suspected she didn’t stand much chance. Mary’s blood was warm and thick, and Bashar felt like he had his hands in a bowl of curdling soup. The blood poured from her neck over his fingers and onto the
floor where it began to mingle with the blue-haired girl’s. Bashar gritted his teeth and forced the rising sickness in his stomach down. Mary didn’t have time for him to panic now. He could puke up later, but right now he had to try and save the old woman.

  “Call 999,” Bashar shouted, hoping Lulu, the café manager, or the pretty blonde behind the counter might do something instead of standing and watching in awe. He could hear the workman fighting Mary’s attacker and as Bashar looked at Bob he felt the fog take hold of Mary’s legs. They were pointed toward the door and the creeping thick fog had covered them so Bashar couldn’t even see Mary’s feet. Something pulled her body an inch toward the open doorway.

  “What the hell?” Bob let go of his wife’s hand and looked at the door. “Is that…?”

  Bashar felt Mary pulled away from him once more and saw fingers groping through the fog. It wasn’t the fog pulling her away, it was someone hiding in the thick gloom. Just what the hell was going on? The fingers were pale and thin, and the fingernails were painted a dark navy blue. They clutched Mary’s thin legs and pulled firmly.

  “Bob, I need you. Get hold of your wife’s arms.” Mary was pulled further into the fog so that she was practically invisible from the waist down. Bashar tried to shuffle with her and keep pressure on her neck, but he knew he was losing her. “Quickly!”

  Bob stood up. “I don’t believe it.”

  Bashar glanced up and saw the blue-haired girl standing in the doorway. There was a gaping wound in her forehead and her face was a mangled mess of blood and ripped flesh. Her lower jaw had been ripped from her face and her tongue hung loosely over her neck like a dead fish.

  “Angie?”

  Lulu’s voice was quiet and Bashar could tell the girl was scared. Her question seemed to have an effect though and suddenly Mary was tugged from underneath Bashar. She was yanked into the fog before he had time to grab her, and he saw her eyes imploring him for help as she disappeared into the murky air. His bloody hands reached for her but she was gone before he had time to get hold of her. Mary was whipped away from him by invisible hands, and he found himself kneeling before the blue-haired girl. As he looked up into her eyes he saw nothing but death. It was the same with the woman from the car. Their bodies moved, but there was no life behind the eyes. If he didn’t know better he would have sworn they were dead.