The Fog

The girl walked through the chamber, her bare feet chilled by the coldness of the roughly hewn flagstone floor. She looked about her to take in her surroundings, which were both alien, yet strangely familiar to her, the walls of pale grey stone, rounded columns thrusting phallic like to the roof, creating alcoves, each of which contained silken wall hangings. The flickering shadows of touches illuminating them, showing each one to be scenes of the rebellion and fall of the Devil and his minions from heaven.

She looked back to where she was heading, seeing that ahead of her there was a pair of thrones sitting on a stone dais. She looked down, surprised and embarrassed to see that all she was wearing was a sheer silk nightgown which did very little to hide her naked body. It was then that she became aware of eyes watching her from the shadows. Whether this eyes belonged to male or female viewers she could not see, neither could she tell whether they were close enough to be able to see through her gown but the mere thought alone was enough to accentuate her embarrassment, causing her face to redden.

Suddenly she sensed someone approaching her from behind, turning her head to look over her shoulder she spotted her fiance walking towards her, dressed in robes of deepest blue, a black cloak over his shoulders, its collar lined with grey fur.

Turning back to the front to hide her shame and embarrassment at his seeing her near nakedness she realised that the dais had enlarged in size and the two thrones had been replaced by a large four poster bed, a bed which she was being compelled by her fiance to approach by virtue of him placing his hands on her shoulders and propelling her reluctantly forward.

As she got closer she started to take note of the beds covering, the subtle sheen of the light blue silken sheets contrasting with a dark grey fur bedspread. She tried to slow down as she got nearer, but she felt herself being compelled towards the bed. She tried to turn to look back at her fiance, to plead, to ask him to stop when her vision blurred and her head swam.

When her vision cleared she found herself lying on the bed, how she got there she could not recall, her long fair hair spread out like a fan. She could feel a soft breeze on her skin, looking down she was shocked and embarrassed to see that she was naked. She looked up to see her fiance gazing down upon her body, only for a second the face was not her fiancés gentle countenance, but a stranger, less human, more feral one. She closed her eyes in fear. She only opened them when she felt his weight on the bed, as she looked he climbed up on top of her, his face back to that of her fiance, only he was naked, somehow while her eyes were closed he had shed his robes.

“No John” she said, her voice quivering with fear “we shouldn’t being doing this. I am a virgin and we should wait until our marriage night.” Her protests were met with silence. She tried a different tack “it is not right that a decent man sees a decent woman disrobed before they are married. Let alone all the people who are watching.” She tried to gesture around the room, but her fiance just grabbed her wrists in his hand and pushed them above her head.

He smiled kindly “do not fret little one. We can have you father perform the wedding service now if you like.”

“NOOOOOOOOO. He must not see us like this”

Suddenly he felt his manhood brush against her opening. “What do you intend to do. You can’t mean…you are not. We are not married yet.”

“Hush, do not worry, we will soon be married and you will enjoy it. Don’t worry. And do not concern yourself with my minions, there are here for a purpose” And with that she felt him entering her. Gently he started to move his body. “Give yourself to me fully and I will show you the heights of pleasure. I will give you everything you want and more. Jewells, furs and riches beyond imagining. All I ask is that you are mine completely.”

She blanched at this, is that what he thought of her, that she was a common harlot. “Minions purpose what do you…” but he shushed her before she could finish the question and anyway, having him coupling with her was a more pressing concern.

At first it was uncomfortable, but as he moved inside her more and more, it started to feel better and better. Her body, despite her feelings of shame, responded to him, she started to feel a strange wetness down around her sex organs. Then a pleasure started to rise upwards from there, rising up her body, up until it reached her brain, triggering something and she found herself start to respond to his movements, a low, growling moan escaping her lips.

Suddenly she could hear the sound of drums being hit, the hollow booming rising, getting louder and louder and then suddenly stopping for a few heartbeats, she could have sworn she heard her name being called, faintly, sounding like it was coming from a distant place before she heard the drums start up again.

She briefly closed her eyes in a vain attempt to shut everything out and to concentrate on stopping her body’s traitorous surrender to her fiance. She opened them again fully intending to explain why he should stop, only to find that she was alone, back in her darkened bedroom at the boarding house. Suddenly, the door shook as her as her father knocked and called her name.

Looked at her bedside clock, 5.30pm, she must have slept for hours. She had come up around noon for a nap to clear a headache. She remembered laying her head back on the pillow but nothing after that.

“It is okay father” she replied, her voice only slightly raised “I am awake I will be down shortly.”

A muffled grunt came through the door and then “well hurry up. Dinner is on the table and we do not waste food now, especially now the ration has been cut again.” The last part was an unnecessary reprimand to her. She was the one who collected the rations so she knew how meagre they were.

Guiltily while freshening up she thought of the dream, which was still vivid in her mind, the feel and smell of her fiance, the strange feeling of wetness between her legs, her enjoyment at his taking of her. Is that what she was deep down, a wanton woman? She shook her head in confusion, trying to shake a feeling of dread. That was the fifth time this month she had had that dream. Dreaming the same thing over and over must mean something.

Shaking off the thought she opened up the bedroom door and headed downstairs to join everyone for dinner.

About seventy miles away, over near the North Sea coast of Essex a woman, walking in the dark, paused and looked away to the west, a thin, enigmatic smile on her face, before continuing her journey towards an old building. Entering the doorway she looked about her, satisfaction evident before setting to her preparations.

Finishing her preparations she stood in the middle of the room of the bombed out farmhouse, the floor surrounding her covered in symbols, the only illumination coming from candles, whose flames cast small flickering, dancing shadows around the walls, her upturned face sightlessly looking at the stars through the missing ceiling.

All was hushed and silent; the only sound a short three word litany emanating from her lips, spoken in barely a whisper.

“Muramber Sulana Carlera” repeated over and over again, until suddenly a wind that came from nowhere swirled around; billowing her diaphanous gown around her slim body, before one by one the candles flickered out. As suddenly as it appeared the wind dropped, and then, slowly a fog rolled in across the Essex coast, rolling across the fields and towns, blocking the light from the stars above.

The first tendrils reached the old farmhouse, covering the woman, whose voice started to rise to shout in ecstasy, an ecstasy that became almost sexual in intensity, entering he open mouth, the heavy sound of thunder could be heard around the farmhouse, and a bolt of lightning hit squarely where she stood. She glowed for awhile before dissolving, becoming one with the fog.

At the Army shooting range at Shoeburyness the four Centurion tanks of C troop of the 2nd battalion Prince of Wales Tank Regiment meet up with two older Churchill Crocodile flame thrower tanks, taken out of storage and repaired in case they were needed in Korea, of a newly formed F troop, and started making their way towards the range for a night firing exercise when they ran into the fog. The tanks stopped, changed direction and headed to the little village of Chelmer, destruction in the minds of their crews.

The four Centurions’ went cross country, over the rough ground, pot marked with the results of over a century’s worth of shell damage. The two crocodiles with their trailers of volatile petrol and nitrogen took a longer, though smoother route, skirting around the range and field, but still heading in the same direction as their comrades.

Joe Smith was sitting dozing, his chair close to the brazier for warmth when a sound jerked him awake. He looked around the half darkened room, light only coming from the flickering flames of the brazier and a dusty paraffin lamp.

“Funny” he said out loud as the sound of hammers and the squeal of torches cutting metal and looking at a little clock on the table next to him, 7.30pm, “the yard’s closed, should be no one cutting the locos up now.”

He looked through the window, trying to see what was happening but the view, which normally should show the old steam locos waiting to be scrapped. However this time, everything was covered in a thick fog, so thick that even the large locos parked less than twenty feet away were just vague shapes.

Joe got up and opened the door, bracing himself against the icy blast that was bound to come through. Straining, he could just make out the sound again, given an eerie quality by the fog. Leaving the hut he walked in the general direction that the sound was coming from, though the blanketing effect of the surrounding fog confused him a little.

Then he recognized it, laughing and swearing to himself, it was tanks coming from the range further along. “Bloody queer weather to go shooting” he said to himself and turned to head back in doors when out of the fog, like some, armoured beast, one of the crocodile tanks appeared, its flame thrower spouting its deadly fire.

Joe automatically ran towards the loco, just in time as the super heated combination of petrol and nitrogen propellant hit the nightwatchman’s hut. The burst lasted one second, but that second was all that was needed as the wooden building caught alight with a roar and started to burn furiously.

Joe veered off and managed to make it to the safety of a trench, dug during the war for air raid protection and listened as a second tank appeared. Cringing as both tanks went about their business of destruction, flames shooting out towards anything that could possibly burn.

Buildings, old wooden Victorian railway carriages and old piles of wood all became victims of the destruction, adding oily black smoke into the fog. Even a large pile of coal, cleared out from the engines came under attack, the bursts of flame warming the outer part of the pile, igniting the already volatile coal dust and starting a fire which would take days, maybe even weeks to extinguish, if it was at all possible to do so.

The destruction over, the two tanks turned and raced to catch up with their Centurion comrades, a scene of utter devastation left in their wake.

Joe looked up with a sense of relief, his limbs shaking with fright, as he stood up he could feel the heat on his body, searing his flesh. With a cry he turned and ran into the direction of the nearest cottage, a mile or two down the road.

Before the two troops could catch up with one another, C troop reached the northern outskirts of the village and stopped. There was a pause while the crews readied themselves and then all four guns fired simultaneously, pouring shells into the unsuspecting, unprotected village.

The first shells exploded in between one of the houses and the village pub, the Shire and Plough. Shell after shell pounded into the villages 13th century Church, its bell tower collapsing into the street, crushing people running to hide from the bombardment. The thatch in the cottage roofs caught alight, adding choking smoke to the fog. People would run out to escape the flames, where they would be caught and killed by the blasts and shrapnel from the shellfire.

As the first shell exploded a group of labourers from a nearby farm, enjoying a quiet post work pint in the pub, ran out to see what had happened. Before they had a chance to shout back into the bar a shell landed amongst them, obliterating them all, leaving just some bloody pieces of flesh, some torn limbs and as a decapitated head as proof they had either existed.

And still more shells poured in.

Shells rained down onto the pub, caving in the roof, burying alive anyone still in the bar.

The shells hit houses, shops and the village pub, causing more damage in a couple of hours then Luftwaffe had done in the six years of the war, until with a final salvo the four tanks suddenly reversed away, aimed their main guns at each over, and then simultaneously, fired an armour piecing shell, within seconds all the tanks were destroyed, their crews perishing in the flames.

A heavy silence hung over the village, broken only by the crackling of the flames, the moaning of the injured and the sounds of grief. Suddenly, from the south, a new sound filled the air. As heads turned the two tanks of B troop started to roll through the village, flames leaping out of there fronts

People ran to escape this new threat, dragging the injured with them, but it was no good. Those that could not move fast enough were either turned into human torches, or crushed into a bloody pulp beneath the tracks of the two armoured vehicles, which drove through the village before disappearing into the foggy night, only to be sighted the next morning driving into the sea at Southend, presumably to be swept away into the North Sea.

The stench of the burnt bodies would hang in the air for days, even weeks later the smell of roasted flesh would be discernable.

And the fog rolled on, across the hills, villages and towns of Essex, leaving chaos and destruction, death and rape in its wake, rolling on inexorably towards London, unstoppable, uncaring. Rolling its way along the banks of the river Thames that made its way through the countryside, past Southend, Westcliff, Leigh and Tilbury.

The Liberty ship MV Empire Sun was sailing up the Thames on the final part of its journey, bringing goods from Britain’s colonies to the wharves’ in London, when the fog caught up with it as in came to the town of Grays.

Albert Springham, the old pilot onboard the ship had never seen anything like it in his four decades at sea, the fog did not just chill his body, not just his blood or go through to his bones, it chilled his very soul. Like all old sailors he was superstitious, and this fog did not feel right to him, there was malevolence to it, a brooding feeling of evil, as if it was something alive.

He was about to call out to the crew to slow the ship down when he felt himself being grabbed and wrestled to the captain’s cabin. The last thing he saw as he was being dragged off the bridge was the ship turning towards the shoreline, towards the lights of an old Trinity Lightship, the ‘Gull’ being used as a clubhouse, before feeling the ship shudder as they collided and the mass of the Empire Sun caused to rise over the smaller, lighter boat, forcing her down into the river bed.

As the two ships collided, the Sun turned back towards London, only slowing down slightly, coming to shuddering halt when she collided with a ship, the half converted merchantman Anita I, formerly the World War One seaplane tender HMS Ark Royal, being scrapped at one of the myriad ship breakers along the Grays riverfront, riding up above her, angling towards the quayside.

The collision caused Albert and the two sailors dragging him to fall to the floor. He managed to recover more rapidly, running down the ship towards the starboard side and jumping over the side onto the quay.

He gave a little short of pain as he landed and swore in the way only an old sailor could swear when he tried to stand, his leg collapsing under him. Grabbing a piece of the ships wreckage and using it as a crutch he made his way back towards the wreck of the Gull, each step sending a bolt of pain through his leg.

The fog swirled around him, cutting his vision down to a matter of yards, he felt like he was being swallowed up whole by the fog. He only managed to find his way by keeping the wharves to his right.

Eventually he reached the area where the Gull used to be moored, following the sounds of people screaming and shouting. Reaching the beach he started to pull people out of the water, as quickly as his age and injury allowed.

And still the fog rolled on, through towns and villages still showing the signs of war, bomb damage still unrepaired even five years since the end of the war.

Bob Mansfield was a naturally nasty, judgemental man. Ill-tempered and bullying towards those he considered beneath him.

The main target of his rages was Margaret, his long suffering wife, a role she played placidly. Most of his rages ended up with the same two ways. Either he would yell baseless accusations of infidelity, or he would hurl insults about her not doing her womanly duty and providing him with a child. Something which she had tried, she had been pregnant several times, but only one went to term and this child, a little girl called Alice, died young. The net result of all this, the miscarriages, the Alice’s death and the bullying by Bob was to turn her careworn and prematurely age her beyond her fifty years.

On the night of Halloween, as she walked home from church through the heavy fog something inside her snapped. She entered her house to see Bob drunkenly slumped in an armchair, snoring loudly. She went into the kitchen, looking around she saw what she entered for and returned to the front room, standing in front of him. Reaching down she tried to wake him, shaking and calling his name, but the whiskey he had acquired, from where she didn’t know, had him in too deep a grip.

Giving up, she looked down at him in disgust, rage boiling inside her, and then it exploded, years of bottled up rage giving her the strength to plunge a kitchen knife downwards, straight into his chest, plunging deep into his heart. Even though he died instantly, she kept plunging the knife, time and time again she stabbed until, just as quickly as it started, she stopped, just stopped.

She looked at her husband, her now late husband, threw the knife onto his blooded lap and went and cleaned herself up, changing her clothes and packing a bag, looking around one last time and then left the house, accidentally knocking over an oil lamp, leaving flames spreading across the room as she walked out into the foggy night.

There was no discernable pattern to whether or not you would be effected that day, its evil could turn one man wild, while leaving others largely untouched, yet in another town it would affect the majority of the population. Maybe its evil intelligence had a plan, maybe it worked to no plan, just randomness, or maybe it was just some great demonic joke, picking people to amuse itself as it rolled up towards the capital over the war ravaged land.

Reverend Mayhew was in his pulpit, delivering another of his Halloween fire and brimstone sermons, shouting his message as if the sheer volume of his voice would drive evil from his congregations, his eyes blazing with Gods wraith, the skin of his face reddening with his fury.

“Tonight is evils night” he roared at his congregation of east London dockers and factory workers, all huddled in his Plaistow church “a night when witches and demons are abroad in our world. And anyone who is caught by these creatures and who is not pure of heart” his voice rising even louder to make his point “will be lost and forced to suffer the torments of hell for all ETERNITY. So make sure you are pure of heart and ask forgiveness for your sins, that is right I know that you are all sinners, and are all heading for the fiery torments of Beelzebub and his minions. So pray to God for your sins to be forgiven.”

His daughter, Mary, looked up at her father from her place in the pews. Sometimes she thought he was too hard on his parishioners, but it was not her place to say anything, as he said, how could she, a mere woman understand the complexities and temptations used by the devil in tempting people to sin, she knew instinctively what he would say, he would tell her that her words come from the devil, and then use his belt to beat it out of her, even though she was 21 and legally an adult. Yet part of her wondered if he was right, and as she got older these doubts grew stronger and stronger until she even began to question whether or not there was a God and if there was, what was his plan. She shuddered with the thought, mentally steeling herself to carry on listening to her father’s sermon. She wished she had someone to turn to, someone who would listen to her and advise her.

“Fornicators, liars and thieves” he carried on “yes I know what you are. Adulterers and sinners, greedy in your glutinous pursuit of pleasure, repent now before this service is over, or ye shall face the fiery pits of hell itself.”

At the word fornicators Mary looked over at her fiance, the Reverend John Askwith, her face colouring as she remembered a dream she had that afternoon, one of her and John coupling, and how she had found a strange wetness between her legs when she woke up. She was glad for the darkness of the church hiding her face, as she prayed extra hard for forgiveness. John just looked up at her father, his face wearing the same expression a faithful dog does when it looks at its master.

She looked closely at him, she didn’t love him, but she knew he was a good match, loyal and pious, a good man of god, her father said. So when her father had suggested the match, she agreed, anything to get out of the oppressive atmosphere of her father’s house. It’s was only later that she realised her mistake, that John was a younger version of her father, and by that time, it was too late, the match was made, the wedding was announced, and her father would have been too humiliated to let her break the engagement. All she could do was pray that it would be better after the marriage.

She wished her mother was around to give her advice, but she had died when she was a baby, so there had only been her and her father, and while her father was pious and passionate about god, he could not translate that into warmth and love for his only daughter, in fact sometimes she caught him looking at her with blame in his eyes, as if he blamed her for her mother’s death.

The fog paused when it reached the church doors, as if it was listening for something. A thin tendril detached itself, and found its way into the church, through a thin gap where the doors met. It hung there, its head moving about as if it was looking around, searching, and then, just as quickly, it withdrew back into the main body, where it then carried on its path of destruction.

As it started to roll on, an even larger tendril broke off, floating down an alley, where it commenced to change density and shape, eventually evolving into a resemblance of a man, malformed certainly, as if a child had tried to make a doll from wet clay but the basic resemblance was there.

The ‘thing’, for there was no other way of describing the creature that stood there, had no real features on its face, just two eyes, maliciously glowing red with slits for its ears and nose. All that existed of its mouth was a gapping slash, which was open in a snarl, as it sensed more than heard the sounds coming from within the church, whose service was drawing to a close. Its skin was grey, a dingy, mottled grey, pulsing with the malevolence contained within its shell.

Mary smoothed her skirt down as she stood up to sing the last hymn, watching as her father walked down the aisle to the door, taking up position so he could show his parishioners out, shaking hands with some, adding a further admonishment to others when they eventually left, all the while she would be standing dutifully to one side.

It was when the church warden, Peter Groves, opened up both sets of doors that everyone noticed the fog that had appeared during the service. From her position Mary could here snatches of murmured conversation “oh Lord” “where did this come from” and the like.

And then silence, blessed silence as the door closed on the last person. All that could be heard was the sound of her of fiance and the warden moving around, putting away books of prayer, hymnbooks and blowing out the candles, while from the vestry came the sound of her father changing out of his cassock.

“Mary you going to help or just stand there in a dream” she looked up sharply at the sound of John’s voice calling her, soft in his home counties accent. She looked across at him in his black suit, his brown hair tousled by his exertions, straight into his hazel eyes.

“Yes, sorry” she replied, blushing slightly, colour serving to highlight her English rose complexion, shaking her head, causing her auburn hair, tied up in a lose bun, to shake from side to side “what do you want me to do?”, the lilt of her accent filing the room.

John looked around “Take over from Peter will you? He’s got to rush off to look after his sick wife.”

Peter walked over to the girl, explained to her what needed finishing and then with a “your wife is in our prayers” from both people, left to go out into the fog.

John watched his fiance or a while, thinking deeply that he would need to change her only slightly to turn her into the perfect vicar’s wife, before picking up some rubbish and exiting through the vestry out into the side alley.

The cold hit John as soon as he opened the door, pulling his suit jacket close around him, he walked out into the foggy alleyway, groping along the wall until he found the metal dustbin, easing of the lid so as not to make a noise and disturb the people in the flats surrounding the church and put the rubbish inside.

As he closed the lid he became aware of a presence behind him, turning around, he expected to see a tramp and at first that is what his mind told him he saw, the fog made the figure standing there silently too indistinct to make out properly, a problem not helped by the lack of lighting in the alley as the illumination came from the Church windows and that was woeful at the best of times. “Hello” he called out “cold night” and then remembering his Christian teachings “would you like a hot drink” only to met with silence each time.

With not a little trepidation he noticed that the figure was between him and the door. As John slowly approached he started to realise that something was wrong, the closer he got the more the fog dissipated, leaving the figure more and more distinct, but still the figure looked misshapen, like it was out of focus.

If he hadn’t been so intent on the figure standing in front of him he may have noticed that while the fog was thickening up again, the area around the two of them was miraculously clear. Even weirder, was that even though there was little or no lighting, there was a strange luminescence in the air. Suddenly it hit him what was the matter with the figure, it was not out of focus just hideously malformed but by this time it was too late, he was within touching distance of it and that is what happened.

The creature reached out one of its strange misshaped hands and touched John on the chest. John gasped as it made contact and then, emanating from this spot, a hot, searing pain spread its way through his body, as if he had been branded. He looked down, expecting to see his chest in flames but just saw that the hand looked like it had attached itself to his body, almost as if it had grown from him and was reaching outwards.

As he stared into the creatures malevolent eyes, he felt as if the two of them were coming together, despite the pain, his brain was still functioning perfectly, he knew that he was now face to face, as he stared he could see features start to develop, a nose, some lips, even hair had started to sprout from the top of its head.

As the searing pain spread, a soothing numbing cold followed behind it, and then could feel everything reach his head. As this spread, he could feel his brain start to shut down, his vision grew more and more cloudy and it became harder and harder to think, until he sensed more than heard a voice echoing “Reverend John Askwith, your soul is mine now” and that was last thing he even heard on this earth as his body disintegrated, his knowledge and thoughts being absorbed into the creatures mind, leaving just his clothes in the creatures hand.

The creature looked down at his new, human form, standing there naked, he quickly dressed and then started to move towards the door, stopping when he realised that Mary, his target for tonight, was standing at the door, next to her father.

It was her father who now spoke “Uh John, can you walk Mary home for me; that was the warden, his wife has taken a turn for the worse I’m afraid and I have to go and see him”

‘John’ just smiled and nodded “of course sir” he replied, walking up and taking the overcoat and scarf from her hand. “It’s late, better get who before the ghosts are abound” and with a wave goodbye, they walked off towards the boarding house being used as a temporary vicarage

As they reached the corner of the alleyway John stopped dead, muttered a quick “oh no” as he patted his pockets “I’ve left my keys in the vestry, just wait here” and before she could say anything, turned and went back to the vestry door, quickly opening it and entering the building.

The Reverend Mayhew turned in surprise at the sound of the door opening, “who is that…oh it’s you John, what’s the matter?” “Nothing, I just have a message from Tara” “Tara, Tara who?”

John just laughed evilly “typical, only you could forget the mother of your child”. As Mayhew stood there shocked, speechless for the first times since he was ordained, Johns face changed shape, and for a moment it was replaced by the face of Tara Mayhew and the voice he heard changed to his wives “Mary’s mine now”.

He recovered his wits, “be gone witch, leave her” and he reached for a bible and crucifix, but before he could, John/ Tara picked up a knife and with a deft flick, sent it flying towards him, embedding it forcibly in his heart, killing him instantly.

Tara’s face dissolved leaving John’s in its place and he left the church. Walking back down the alley, he took Mary by the arm and started to walk her home, leading her past the ruins of the original vicarage, still unrepaired since it was hit by Luftwaffe bombs during the height of the Blitz.

Ten minutes later, after a walk in silence, they reached the gate.

Mary turned, looked at the darkened house, leading them to the door, just as they got there and he started to take his key from his pocket, Mrs Muggeridge, the widow who run the house opened the door.

“Sorry we’re late” John said to her, “oh, by the way, the Reverend Mayhew may be sometime, I’m afraid Mrs Groves has taken a bad turn, so he has gone there”

Mrs Muggeridge just smiled wanly “that’s ok ducks, she never was the same since their Chris was killed at Normandy” she said, leading them into her comfortable living room, the photo of her husband, killed when the Hood was sunk, still taking pride of place on the mantelpiece, wishing them a goodnight when they refused her offer of a drink and went to bed, looking over her shoulder to see both of them following her up the stairs to their respective rooms.

As she went to close her bedroom door, she felt a hand covering her mouth, another on the back of her neck and then the last thing she either heard was a crack, as her neck was broken and she was pulled into the bedroom and the door closed on her body.

He walked back down the stairs to the door to Mary’s room, listening intently at the sounds of her moving around.

Mary quickly undressed, shivering intently at the cold hit her naked skin, even thought Mrs Muggeridge had thoughtfully lit a fire in the grate, the room still felt just above freezing. Carefully she unzipped her grey skirt, hanging it up next to its matching jacket in the wardrobe; her virginal white blouse followed it, leaving her standing there in just her slip and lingerie, when she thought she heard a sound at the door.

Snatching her dressing gown from the back of a chair and quickly putting it on, holding it closed with her right hand, she walked the couple of feet to the door, and went to pull it open, but before she could the door was thrown open, leaving her shocked to see John standing there.

“What..what…you shouldn’t be..if father came…” her words falling over herself in shock, confusion and anger. “Get out” but John just stood there, unmoving.

The entity that was posing as John just moved forward, forcing her to back into the room if she was to maintain the same distance, as he did so something started to strengthen inside her allowing her to find her voice.

“You should not be in here John darling, what would Mrs Muggeridge say, you a vicar and myself the daughter of one? And if father came home, you know what he would say and think. He would think I was no better than those fallen women who wait in the public houses down near the docks, waiting to sell themselves to the….”

John stopped her by reaching his hands up and pulling her arms apart, causing her dressing gown to fall open, revealing her in her bra and slip.

“JOHN STOP THAT NOW”

Her only reply was the feel of the back of his hand as it fell across her face in a slap, causing tears to fall from her eyes and then his hands moved to the top of her shoulders and started to push the gown off of her.

“Don’t do that John please, I beg you, I am a respectable girl, you know that, we shouldn’t be doing that, and what if Mrs Muggeridge sees you?”

“She is dead, so it doesn’t matter” John replied in a voice no longer carry hints of the home counties, but that sounded like came from the earth’s bowels, as he carried on pushing the gown down her arms, releasing it so that it landed at a bunch at her feet.

“Dead” the tears flowed more quickly from her eyes as she took in his words “what do mean dead?”

“I killed her”, if the voice and statement didn’t scare her, the matter of factness with which it was spoken would have “and don’t worry about your father coming home, he is dead too”.

As he spoke his hands went to her large, bra enclosed breasts, squeezing them through the material.

“FATHER’S DEAD” she shouted as she pulled away, turning to try and flee. As she did, she caught her foot on the bunched up dressing gown, almost falling forward, she caught herself, catching hold of the bed, but this allowed John to just grab her and pull her back by her bra strap, which snapped under the force, spinning her around so that she landed on her back on the bed, as she feel her, now loosened bra slipped down slightly, allowing the tops of her large, milky white, breasts to come into view.

“What are you doing, leave me alone, what has come over you” the words tumbled out of her mouth.

He reached down to pull the ripped and damaged bra clean of off her, throwing it into the corner, and in the process being the only man except for her doctor to see her naked breasts. His hands went straight to them, massaging, caressing them at first, but when she only responded to his advances by trying to slap his hands away, he started to maul them ruthlessly, forcibly squeezing them so that she squealed in pain and shock, her squeal alternating with sobs and cries or mercy, his silence and immunity to her cries only heightened her fear.

She managed to pull herself together for one last attempt “Leave me alone John, and I won’t tell people you tried to do this”

“I have a message from your mother”

“My mother is dead, she died in childbirth”

The only response to this was his hands gripping the sides of her head, and then her vision darkened, and when it cleared she could see a woman in a room.

The woman looked down at a baby in its cot, laying there in new born innocence, when the door flew open, hitting the wall with a crash the sent the infant into a spasm of wailing.

“Now look what you…” she started to hiss at the man standing there, a sentence she never got to finish. The man was her husband, though the look on his face was not the usual look a man has for the woman who has given him a healthy daughter, but a look filled with malice and hate.

“Silence witch” he roared, his voice competing with the babies to be heard, “I have seen the truth” and with that he threw an object at her. It was an ancient book of spells, its leather spine cracked with age and use.

“Be gone witch leave this girl, she is not yours to have. Or I will smite you down.” From his pocket he drew a knife. “I thought” she said calmly and evenly “that your god considered it a sin to kill.”

He angrily shook his head “killing a witch is God’s work” and with that he started to move closer to her, as he got closer, she removed a bottle from her pocket, throwing it and smashing it on the ground, with a sharp crack, thunderously loud in the small room, a fog like barrier appeared between them, and then with a further loud crack, she disappeared, leaving the man standing there, alone but for the child.

Mary’s vision darkened again, and when it cleared she realised that the man was her father, and she knew her mother was a witch and there was no hope for her. She knew she should scoff at the idea, but the way she had seen it and the change in John served to undermine any feelings that the vision was not real.

She looked up at the man’s face, she knew now that this was not her fiance, she assumed, wrongly, that he had been possessed by an evil spirit, to see that his eyes had turned from hazel to a flaming red.

Its hands moved back to her body, grabbing hold of the waistband of her slip before starting to pull at it, she took a chance at trying to fight back, and started to attempt to push him off, but he proved too strong for her, all she succeeded in doing was to hurt her hands.

Suddenly her slip was torn open, leaving just her panties to give her some degree of modesty, but there did not last long as they too were ripped away, leaving her lying there in all her nakedness, she looked down her body, and then up at him again, fear started to rise again in her, leaving her there paralysed, unable to move or defend herself.

The creature stood back and seemed to become almost a blur, at first she thought it was just the tears affecting her vision, but she realised that everything else around the creature was still in perfect focus. When the creatures reshaped, it was still in John’s image, but it was naked, giving Mary her first ever view of a man’s penis, which to her eyes looked absolutely massive. She knew the theory of how couples have sex, one of the girls at her grammar school took great pleasure in giving her full, gory details, of how the man’s penis, which she had called a cock, would get hard, and he would then insert it inside her, and keep moving it there until it spit some white stuff inside her. Well, she thought to herself, as the memories of the fear and disgust she had felt when she was told came flooding back to her, if he inserted that inside her, she will be split in two.

“Please no” she begged “I’m a virgin. Please I was saving myself for my husband.” More tears flowed down her cheeks, for her father, for their landlady and for herself, for the fact that moment she did not know whether she would survive the night, or if she wanted to,

She just closed her eyes as she saw the creature bend forward, suddenly she felt its weight on her, moving up her body, as his head drew level with hers, she could feel his hard penis, suddenly the word cock flashed into her mind and the image of her and John from her dream the night before followed close on its heels, the effect was the same, down in between her legs, she remembered the girl had called it a pussy, she could feel a strange moist sensation, a moistness which made it easier for the creatures cock to slide along her lips.

Suddenly, with a growl, she felt it enter her all the way, pain shooting through her body, such pain that she thought she was being split apart. And then she felt the cock start to thrust back and forth, feeling the cock slide against her muscles inside her, simultaneously his hands went to the side of her head, squeezing tightly. At its touch a sharp, terrible pain shot across her frontal lobes, worse than any headache, then any migraine. Flashing, bright spots of light appeared in front of her eyes, forcing her to shut them tightly to lessen the pain, as she did she found herself back in her dream, her lover moving inside her, gently here, not rough and painfully.

Her dream self looked from side to side, seeing an old woman looking down at her, a look of gentle love in her eyes, her demeanour caring and concerned. Mary stared at her for a moment, opening her mouth to ask who she was, but the woman spoke first, as if sensing her question.

“I’m your mother Mary, the one who gave you life and soul” Mary, didn’t know what to think. She had never seen a picture of her mother only what the creature had shown her, so she had no evidence to go on, but as she looked, she realised, she instinctively knew, it was true, this was an older version of the woman in the vision and was her mother.

The woman, no her mother moved forward, brushing her hand gently through her hair, calming her, soothing her pain, both mental and physical, the pain from inbetween her legs fading away, allowing her to open her eyes, putting her back in her London bedroom.

Looking around, she was not surprised to see her mother still there, standing next to the creature taking her virginity, looking at her. “It’s ok Mary, you and, well let’s still call him John, are going to do the world a great service. You are going to bring on a birth to help cleanse the world’s ills. So enjoy this, enjoy the feelings you are feeling, do not feel guilt for the lust building inside you.” She cooed, her voice soothing, washing over and through Mary’s consciousness like a cool spring, while leaning forward to whisper in ‘John’s’ ear, Mary caught the words “gentle” and “first time” and the John-creatures grunting in agreement, while the touch and movement became gentler, more a lovers caress then a rapists mauling, his hands gently cupping her breasts, his thumbs lightly rolling her nipples and moving all over her body, soothingly, causing her little chills to run like electricity through her body, radiating out from his cock, cock where did that come from she asked herself, as he thrust inside.

Suddenly, as the thrusting continued, she started to move her own hips in concert with it, allowing John’s cock, it was becoming easier to think of him as John again, to enter her deeper and deeper, until she could feel new sensations, an almost electric tingling emanating from her pussy, the forbidden sex words came easier now, moving through her body.

“Oh yes” she said, her voice breathless with desire “that’s it, fuck me, fuck me hard. Give me what I want”

She could feel John’s hands all over her body, squeezing and mauling her breasts, moving down and around to grab her arse, kneading the white cheeks.

And still John continued his thrusting, harder and harder, until, with an animal like growl, it shot its load of semen inside her, load after load filling her up, entering her unprotected womb.

Even after he had finished cumming, he had carried on thrusting mechanically, as slowly he started to dissolve, firstly back into the misshapen lump he had started out as, and then back into a tendril of fog, floating out though the gaps in the doors to rejoin the main body.

Mary looked up, now lying tired on the bed, as her mother run her hand through her hair, soothingly cooing to her, “that’s it my love, just rest. I have to go now, but I saw be looking down on you.” And with that, she walked to the door, leaving the building, and like the creature, dissolved into the fog.

Mary just laid there, and she despite of everything she knew, against all instinct, she knew she could feel a life growing inside her.

Over the next few hours, more and more damage was caused by the effects of the fog, riots led to the looting of the stores around Oxford Street, with the Dickens and Jones department store being completely gutted by fire.

Some soldiers sent into Westminster to quell the riots actually turned their guns on their officers, mutinied and stormed parliament. At least half of the MP’s hiding there were slaughtered before it was brought under control.

Over the next few days the fog continued on its path, rolling across the southern half of England, bring with it its trail of destruction, until it slowly dissipated into the Atlantic Ocean.

Over the course of the next few weeks, as more and more of the damage come to light, the government, or at least what was left of it, sought to cover up the worst of the incidents, and of course the murder of a vicar, his landlady and the rape of his daughter went unreported, and the disappearance of the Rev. John Askwith was nothing out of the ordinary when it was taken into consideration that a quarter of the population in the affected areas were missing, most never to be seen again.

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