When the cold mist comes with its needle-fine teeth, you must lie very, very still. You must close your eyes and silence your breath. Empty your mind of everything, save images of darkness. Think of night and rain and worms crawling through earth. The coldness of marble tombs. The breath of ancient sepulchers. Imagine yourself dead. Pretend to be dead. This is the only way to survive.
My wife knew this, just as all in town know. But something happened; she slipped up, the mist got her.
So now I lie in bed alone, pretending to be dead as the bedside candle dies and smokes its last acrid breath. As my dead wife moves restlessly in the kitchen downstairs: opening and shutting drawers, rattling pots and pans, and humming old children’s songs out of tune.
Like all the dead, Elsie is cold to the touch. Her skin is blue-gray. Her eyes are unfocused; they have the look of the blind.
In our shared house, she glides past me as though I’m not even here. She empties the dresser drawers, then puts everything back; empties them again and puts everything back. She cuts the newspaper into ragged snowflake shapes. She takes rotting vegetables from the fridge and heats them all in a soup that no one drinks. She lies on the living room floor for hours at a time, her eyes open and empty, a lifeless mannequin-doll replica of my wife.
When she speaks, it’s in the speech of the dead: senseless, random words strung together. Star, she says, her eyes turned to me but not seeing. Wax, pond, rock. Flutter.
I know what I must do.
The town council sends me notices, reminding me of my duty. Messages arrive from family and friends, doing the same. All of them urging me toward the deed. Encouragement, advice, and growing concern.
Don’t wait, they say. Get it over with. Only then can you truly grieve.
Do it now, they say. Before it’s too late.
You’re only making it harder, my brother texts. More dangerous. You’re only hurting yourself.
No one will visit while Elsie’s corpse still walks. But among the warning notices and bills, there are condolence cards and gifts. Casseroles on the doorstep, along with soup and bread. And flowers. Peonies, hydrangea, bouquets of bright lilies. Elsie’s favorite flowers. She was loved.
Dead-Elsie hums tunelessly as I move about the house. As I heat gifts of food and eat them alone. As I read my instruction guide and repeat its underlined mantra: It’s not her. It’s not her.
Not-Elsie has fished dead flowers from the trash. She wears blue hydrangea petals in her hair. Rotting and bruised. Her blue eyes shine. They were not blue in life.
Silence, she sings in a sweet, familiar voice. Grass, breath, darkness. Wait for me a while, beloved? Roses are red and violets are blue. We all fall down.
It’s not her. The Dead are changed, and they don’t come back.
It’s not her. Not Elsie, my brown-eyed girl. My sweetheart, a perpetual whirl of motion, busy organizing dinners, parties, food drop-offs for a sick friend. Cooking, gardening, crafting, chatting. Bursting with projects and energy and life.
Not her, not my wife, not the woman who dissolves into giggles like a little girl, reaching to steady herself on my arm. Who puts her cold feet on my legs at night. Who cries over the same movie three times in a row. Who used to sneak out of her house as a kid to meet me under the stars. Elsie, my love. My best friend.
No, she’s not this thing in my house now, who wears my wife’s face. Silent, save for the songs and cryptic speech of the Dead.
I hold the knife the town council gave me. I watch the light flash off its keen edge.
She’s lying on the floor, in one of her motionless spells. It’s been minutes since I last saw her move. Her chest neither rises nor falls.
I approach. Her eyes stare blankly upward, like twin blue stars. I’ve practiced this so many times in my head, just as the instruction guide says. I’ve watched the videos. I’ve even practiced on the dummy they sent me—the overhead swing of the arm, the arc of the blade. The point entering precisely where her dead heart beats.
And I can’t. My legs are already faltering.
I can’t. My arm’s trembling. My entire body shakes.
I can’t. I back away, and my knees buckle. The knife slips from my hand. Elsie. Acid burns in my throat; I can’t breathe. Elsie, Elsie. Forgive me. I’m on the floor, heaving. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
It’s not Elsie, but her voice is the same. When she stops the tuneless humming, when she lifts her voice in song—it’s her. Even as her words are pure nonsense. Her voice is sweet and clear and achingly pure. It sounds like home.
Waters flow west, she sings. Row, row the boat, my love. Gently, the stream.
The cold mist comes, for the first time since it took my Elsie away. I lock my bedroom door.
This is one of the ways in which keeping the Dead around is dangerous: they might distract you, interrupt you while you’re trying to play dead yourself.
The candle on the bedside table flickers. The first warning.
I turn off the overhead light. I lie on the bed like a corpse laid out for a viewing.
Once-Elsie clatters about downstairs; I close my eyes and try to quiet my breathing. To slow my heart. Darkness, darkness. The cold mist is gathering. The temperature plunges. I lie limp, trying to calm my screaming nerves. And now it’s here, in my room; it’s nibbling at my feet. Its sharp, fine-pointed teeth. The mist creeps slowly up my body, seeking warmth. Needle-brush of teeth against my skin. And now it’s unfurling tendrils and wisps of cold, and it’s searching, searching. . .
And will he not come again? Dead-Elsie sings downstairs. Will he not come?
Her voice is a sweeter strain of darkness in the night. An invitation, an escape. I take it—I follow her voice down and downward, onto a path that winds among ancient sepulchers and gravestones. Under yew trees dripping with rain. The cold earth speaks. I enter the earth, I follow the worms. I flee the creeping mist—I flee Death—into the arms of the Dead.
Moth, she sings. Tremble, flight. Dead, dead, dead.
The weather report calls for fog again tonight. But I haven’t locked her out this time. I’m sitting with her on our bed. She’s still Elsie. Changed, yes, and strange—all laughter gone. But she’s looking at me again. Speaking directly to me. I see my reflection in her eyes.
Don’t listen to the songs of the Dead, they all warned.
The candle-flame gutters. I leave the lights on. The cold mist is coming.
I meet it upright, my eyes open. My hand in Elsie’s cold hand. Here, she tells me. Stone, pupae, breaking. Come. She smiles. Her blue eyes shine. And I follow her, my guide and my bride, into the gathering mist.
Vanessa Fogg dreams of selkies, dragons, and gritty cyberpunk futures from her home in western Michigan. Her writing has appeared in Lightspeed, Podcastle, GigaNotoSaurus, Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year Vol 4, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology, Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror. Her debut collection, The House of Illusionists and Other Stories, is forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press. For a complete bibliography and more, visit her website at www.vanessafogg.com.