Chapter 2.
The Doctor stood to watch the wall of mist as it rose up into the sky. It formed a solid wall all the way around the town. While the two of them turned to watch its progress, they bumped into each other, and shared a look that told him they both understood the sudden gravity of the situation.
"Come on." The Doctor took Grace's hand. They walked back up the street, where people were emerging from their homes and stores, and followed them into the town center. Up above, the mist rolled and coiled like a living creature, never getting closer, but never showing the sky beyond. It was a perfect dome, like a force-field. But what in the world was causing it?
Ideas were verbalized as the town gathered. Over sixty people muttered and cursed, trembled and whispered. Some huddled together, some stood alone, and some pointed knives at the mist.
He could sense the building tension. These people were on the verge of panicking.
"Listen! Everyone!" The Doctor put his hands up, trying to gather the attention of the crowd. He made his way to the center, with Grace following, and caught as many eyes as he could. "Everyone needs to remain calm! Just stay calm and listen for a moment!"
Slowly, gradually, the murmur died down, and the Doctor had the floor.
He surveyed the gathered faces – simple farmers, merchants, and homesteaders from a very simple age in American history, and decided that none of them were outward criminal masterminds. If there was a plot afoot, they all looked sufficiently terrified to have no part in it.
"Does anyone know what might be happening?" He waited, finding dozens of blank stares coming his way. "Did anyone see where that sound came from?"
Shaking heads.
He was going to ask if there was anything new about the town, or anyone who didn't belong, but that would get a lot of fingers pointed in his direction. He decided against it.
Suddenly one of the men jumped backward, igniting the crowd to move away from him. Someone bumped a horse and stirred its panic. It gave its owner a fierce bucking and broke away.
It ran straight for the mist.
Its handler gave chase.
The Doctor went after him. "Stop!"
In a line of three, they advanced on the gray wall of smoke, and just as the horse shot through it, the Doctor got his arms around the man who was chasing it. He stopped him just short of the barrier, and before their feet had come to a full stop on the pavement, they heard the crying.
It was the horrible sound of a dying animal.
The Doctor released the man, staggering back a little. His curiosity about what the mist was capable of was immediately satisfied. It was a devourer. It was some kind of plague.
He stood in stunned silence.
"W-What happened to her?" The man, tall, bulky, and dark-skinned, and wearing what amounted to old rags, seemed to want to go after the animal, even after hearing its cries.
The Doctor got a hand on his shoulder and urged him away from the edge. "Get away from it."
"B-B-But-"
"I'm terribly sorry about your horse." The Doctor took his shoulders under both hands, whispering urgently. "But we have to get away from it. Just walk slowly away with me. Don't run."
The man nodded, and they began side-stepping away.
"Easy now. Just like that."
Gradually they put distance between themselves and the mist, until they were close enough to the crowd to let the Doctor breathe again.
He patted the man on the shoulder. "Good. Excellent."
"What happened to her?" the man repeated.
Another bystander caught onto the same question. "Where the hell is the horse?"
Other voices chimed in.
"What does it want?"
"God is punishing us!"
It became a torrent of words and statements, some as loud as they could manage, some desperate whispers. People were searching for their loved ones. People were telling others who was missing. They worried about the wrath of God. They feared the work of demons.
"Doctor?"
His attention was captured by his companion, who emerged from the crowd. She finally looked like she belonged there, in her dusty period dress, with her pale face and worried eyes. She fit right in with the terrified crowd. It was her first official journey with him, and it was going sideways.
"What's happening?" she asked, huddling up close to him. She looked all over, her eyes flickering between townspeople. "Was this supposed to happen? What happened to the horse, Doctor?"
He saw something strange in her. The flood of voices was bothering her a lot more than it should have. Her terror grew with every second. If she was an alien, as he believed, her species might have been more accustomed to silence. It might have a hard time focusing on multiple individual sounds and prioritizing them. He knew of a few species that operated that way.
The Doctor put his hands firmly over her ears, and as his palms cut off the air to her eardrums, her eyes shot to his face. Tears dripped down them.
"Listen." He released his palms a little. "Listen to me. Only to me."
She nodded.
He wrapped her in a hug and held her there, giving her a safe place to look out from. He looked around, too, and tried to glean knowledge from the panicked conversations. No one seemed to have the faintest idea what was happening.
Finally, someone took charge. Judging by his tailored, plaid suit, it was the mayor. He stood on the lip of the fountain and yelled for silence, looking wearily at the mist.
"Everyone gather in the town hall! Peter, David, and Eugene, meet on the steps!"
The crowd was mobilized. The Doctor released Grace and took her hand, and they joined the back of the procession to the town hall.
She was gathering her composure.
"Have you seen something like that before?" she wondered.
"No. Common topic in scary stories, though."
"Did it…? The horse…?"
"I think the horse is gone. I have a few theories. Working theories."
Everyone assembled in the town hall. Grace's eyes lingered on the line of black slaves waiting at the steps to come in last. She looked at him, but said nothing. The man he had stopped from entering the mist nodded at him as he passed, and the Doctor nodded back.
It was honestly more like a church than a town hall, with comfy pews and velvety carpets, and a giant statue at the front. He sat with Grace against the wall, in the back, one arm around her shoulders, and watched the people get settled. How they arranged themselves said a lot about who they were in this little community. He could already see who was the wealthiest, who was revered, and who was disliked. The slaves sat at the back near Grace and the Doctor, keeping their eyes carefully away from anyone who wasn't one of them.
Grace stayed very close to him, looking around them with wide eyes. This was not the first experience he had wanted her to have in another time. He wondered if she would ever come out with him again, after getting trapped like this.
Getting trapped seemed to be an intense fear of hers.
"So much difference."
The Doctor frowned. "What?"
She motioned to the front. "Look at them. Look at what they're wearing. Layers and layers, probably sweating to death, and then you got these guys back here."
"Social stratification. It's common all over the world, and on other planets."
"I know what it is, it's just… not usually so visible."
"I suppose not. These people must live less than a mile apart, but they won't ever share the same sidewalk."
"Did your people have that?"
"Stratification? Of course. But not like this."
"How was it, then?"
"Complicated."
She watched him, losing her fear for curiosity, but didn't push for answers. She settled in and went on watching the locals. "What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know yet. I'm thinking."
"You should take charge. You're a natural leader."
"Well they've already got a mayor, and foreigners aren't exactly trusted here. I think I would just get myself thrown outside."
"So your plan is to just… sit here?"
"For now. It could be any number of things at the moment – a big old dome made of mist, a carnivorous plague of microorganisms, a new kind of chemical warfare, an alien invasion, etcetera. Sometimes it's best to just observe, and see what happens."
She nodded, wiping her sleeve over her eyes.
"But I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
Grace laughed, wiping her eyes once more. "I believe you."
The mayor went around lighting candles, illuminated the place as the light faded outside. Over an hour passed, filled with the murmurs of the townspeople, and one by one they succumbed to sleep. Grace slumped on his shoulder, one hand gripping the front of his overcoat.
He set his mind loose, going over the possibilities, from the very unlikely to the very likely.
As he mulled over the possibilities, and just as the town hall seemed to find some kind of collective peace despite all of their fears, it came again.
A sound like thunder vibrated the floor beneath them.
Children cried.
The flames dimmed and the room darkened.
It made the Doctor wonder if the dome was closing in on them.