Chapter 42

The Shroud

There was fog everywhere. Thick, heavy fog; you could cut it with a knife. It clung tightly to the ground, and ascended in a seamless, continuous blanket upwards out of sight. The sky was turned an odd color, obscured by the white of the mist, to something which was often chosen as the ideal palette for an infant boy's room. The sun's burning rays had been reduced from an omnipresent fireball to a diminished comparative pinprick.

Guiterrez stumbled on a root sticking out of the ground as he walked along beside Anderson, with Edgar walking parallel to them, a little off to one side. He kept his concentration on trying to pick out shapes and oncoming objects in front of him, which was proving extremely difficult, and his eyes were beginning to water from the strain. His visibility had now been cut down to less than three feet; it was like walking through a cloud.

Condensation clung to his clothing and the tips of his hair follicles. The fog had just appeared out of nowhere ten minutes before; it had looked like a wall of ethereal pure material, like a giant marshmallow had fallen onto the island. He really didn't like the idea of walking through it; there could be anything in here, and they'd never see it until they were right on top of it. Even their footsteps seemed slightly deadened by the moisture in the air and ground, which meant that they wouldn't hear anything coming either.

Great, he thought.

After the Baryonyx had attacked them they hadn't stopped once, not even to collect more water. They had marched themselves north, and they hadn't missed a crack of a twig or the twitter of a bird. Everything now seemed like a threat.

But here it was weird. They hadn't even seen the seemingly ever-present Microceratops for hours; they hadn't seen anything at all since they had arrived in their current vicinity.

This wouldn't have bothered Guiterrez, because this had happened quite a lot before. It was quite a large island, and there were a lot of places to hide.

But what got to him was the quiet. It was silent here, piercingly so. There was no sound, at all. He could barely hear his own breathing; the air itself seemed to be heavier, like time had been slowed to a standstill. He didn't like it at all, because in this environment the slightest sound – the rustle of a leaf, a single distant birdsong – would send shivers up his spine.

Anderson hadn't lowered his weapon since they had entered the dense carpet of fog; he kept it moving in a continuous sweeping motion from left to right, in military precision.

The jungle had been left behind over twenty minutes before, and this area of the island seemed to have been extensively deforested at some point in the past. They now walked along through what seemed like an endless field of patchy grassland, with the jungle periphery around a hundred meters away on either side.

Edgar hadn't spoken a word to either of them since the attack, and neither of them felt much like striking up a conversation with him. He was just baggage as far as Guiterrez was concerned, if it wasn't for Anderson's moral compass, Martin would have left him behind.

As far as they could tell, they were moving north-west, along this 'highway field', which seemed to have been cleared for access to the visitor area. A few minutes earlier they had glimpsed the remains of the tattered perimeter fence, which had loomed out of the milky film like a ghost figure. According to Anderson they should now have entered the main configuration of where the buildings were positioned. They had arrived. The only problem was finding them in this fog.

"How do you think Sarah's doing?" Guiterrez said after a few more minutes of walking.

"I'm sure she's fine. We left her in the safest place we've come across. I'd be more concerned about Malcolm," said Anderson, stopped in his tracks and turning around to face the way they had come.

"What? Did you see something?" said Guiterrez, whipping his head around.

"No, but I think we've come too far north. You can see the tree line ahead of us. We must have already passed the buildings by without realizing it."

They all turned face and headed back the way they had come, now turning their heads from side to side to try and pick out the dark shape of a possible building against the whiteness.

"So why Malcolm?" said Guiterrez, resuming the conversation.

"Because he's sick, obviously," Anderson uttered, giving Martin an odd sideways glance.

"Yeah, but he's been given antivenin and antibiotics. And now probably morphine, so he should be getting better, right?"

"Maybe—"

Edgar's form had flown clear across Anderson and Guiterrez before they had even registered that he had moved, and he impacted the ground performing a scrabbling movement, like a crab which had been stabbed with a spear.

"What's wrong with you?" said Guiterrez, grudgingly extending his arm to haul Edgar to his feet.

"I thought there was a person in the mist for a second, maybe one of the guys in the car which you were talking about. But it disappeared. It ran off."

"So some small furry thing was walking around," started Guiterrez.

"How fast?" interjected Anderson, looking the way Edgar was indicating.

"Very…and it was pretty big. About as tall as you," said Edgar, pointing to Anderson's six foot tall frame.

Guiterrez peered inquisitively towards the direction from which Edgar had flown, but to no surprise he saw nothing but plain, endless fog.

They both looked at Edgar for a moment, who looked flustered and defensive. "Don't stare at me like that! It was there!" he shouted.

Guiterrez felt a shiver run all the way up his body, from his toes to the top of his head, as Edgar's voice radiated outwards into the nothingness which surrounded them, echoing back from all directions as it bounced off the jungle and the thickness of the fog. After a few seconds the echoes stopped, and were replaced by deathly silence, and all Guiterrez could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.

Anderson slapped Edgar around the head in irritation and bent lower for a moment, swerving in a full circle, his weapon trained all around them.

There was nothing there.

"What did I do?" growled Edgar, "there's fuck all out here—"

A single, reptilian snarl rose from the silence, and Edgar's voice petered out into a high pitched strangling sound as his throat constricted. The sound was gone again within a moment, by which time every hair on Guiterrez's body had stood on end.

A swishing sound from the opposite direction made them all wheel around in unison, and then the sound of light, pattering footsteps faded in from nothingness, and traced from behind them to their right side before dissipating.

There was something here.

Two minutes later Anderson had marched them another hundred meters south, back the way they had come in search of the buildings. They wasted no time now; it was becoming a twisted game; find the buildings before whatever was out there found them.

They had heard nothing else since Edgar had stopped talking, but now the damage was done, and Guiterrez's mind was preying on him. Everything now seemed like an unknown aggressor, coming to get them.

He couldn't help but run over the sounds they had heard over and over again in his mind, trying to figure out what kind of thing it had been. The pace of the footsteps had been fast, almost too fast. It couldn't have been anything very large, and it must have been very powerful to move at such a speed. And Edgar had said it had been about six feet tall. In his mind Guiterrez formed a myriad of terrifying images; memories of the monsters from his nightmares were burned onto his mind's eye.

Before, his face had been relatively cool in comparison to the rest of his time on the island, as the fog blocked out the sun's rays and the evaporating condensation was refreshing. Now he was covered in a layer of sweat, and his breathing was shallow.

Anderson tapped his shoulder silently, and pointed off to their right. His heart skipped a beat as he thought their potential assailant had been spotted, but as his eyes focused the corner of a single story concrete structure loomed out of the mist.

It was barely ten feet away, but Guiterrez could only just make it out. A small light was fixed to the side of the building near the roof, which was the only reason they could see it.

"What's that?" whispered Edgar.

"Looks like a shed…a ridiculously overbuilt shed," said Guiterrez.

"It's probably the maintenance shed," murmured Anderson, walking forwards. Guiterrez followed him, but a second later Anderson had stopped.

"What is it?"

"There's a chain link fence here, it's hard to see, but it's here."

Anderson cocked his head, and Guiterrez guessed he was trying to see the building better. He then turned around and took his pack from his shoulder and passed it to Guiterrez.

"Get out the radio. And make sure the volume is turned down."

Guiterrez took the pack and set it down, unzipping it as quietly as possible. He rooted around for a second, and then brought out the radio. Adjusting the volume panel slightly, he then flicked the power button, and a seemingly distant hiss of static was emitted from the speakers.

He pressed the transmit button, and spoke into it just loud enough to be sure that his voice would be heard over static. "Wu, are you there? Tim?"

A crackling sound broke through the silence around them, and Guiterrez winced, peering around himself fretfully. And then Tim's voice broke through the static.

"-What is it?" he said.

"Shh," whispered Guiterrez into the mouthpiece, "it's not safe around here at the moment. We're at the maintenance shed, but the entire area is covered in fog, and we can't see more than a few feet in front of us."

For a few seconds there was nothing but silence, and then Tim's voice spoke again, now quieter and softer.

"If you're at the shed, then you should be at the periphery of the jungle on the eastern side."

Guiterrez saw Anderson and Edgar nod behind him, and he turned, his eyes coming to rest on a cluster of ferns running in a near straight line, and a few twigs and leaves poking out of the mist almost twenty feet up, indicating that the owner trees were just out of sight.

"That's right," Guiterrez said into the radio.

"Good. Turn one-eighty to the shed; you'll be facing the area where the visitor centre should be."

"Alright, thanks. What's your progress?"

"Solar panels are almost charged, we'll be ready to go in minutes. It shouldn't take us more than quarter of an hour to get over to you if we take the northern road out of here."

"See you soon then," said Guiterrez, looking into the fog opposite the shed.

"Right."

The radio clicked, and went silent. Guiterrez flicked the power off, and stowed the radio in the bag. Anderson had moved off in the direction of the visitor centre, and Guiterrez stumbled as he hurried to get to his feet. Edgar was close behind, looking around them warily.

In the distance a bird shrieked, and there was a clattering sound of snapping branches, following swiftly by the sound of rapid fluttering. They all froze for an instant, crouching lower instinctively, their eyes swiveling in their sockets looking for the source of the disturbance.

"What was-?" began Edgar.

"Quiet," hissed Anderson.

The silence resumed, but they didn't move an inch for over a minute. Guiterrez's muscles ached from the tension and from remaining in the same position for such an extended period of time. His knees here jerking in odd shakes, caused by his inadequately balanced stance.

Anderson reached up to his rifle with his free hand, and as quietly as possible took the safety switch off, and then nodded to them, moving off slowly.

Guiterrez tried to control his breathing, and followed at the same pace, flexing his legs as he went to relieve the tension.

They were close to their objective now, very close. The fact that the fog was here alone was simply unfair, but this new threat waiting for them out there was just taking the piss. It was like running the hundred meter sprint and then having the finish line moved during the last ten meters. Just when things seemed to be looking up, another thing comes in and it all goes pear shaped. It just never stopped in this place.

He felt his eyes widen as he realized that up ahead the fog was thinning out, the endless milky substance becoming more akin to wispy smoke. It wasn't much of an improvement, but their visual range was cut from almost zero to twenty feet or more. They had exited the marshmallow, as it seemed. Above them the sun filtered down just a little stronger, allowing them enough light to keep them from squinting.

On the other hand it made everything all the spookier. Everything around them seemed to have a thin layer of mist clinging to it, the wispy substance arcing and swirling in the air currents.

Out of the thick nothingness emerged a scene which would have been at home in a ghost town. Two meters before them was a peaceful looking pond, the surface undisturbed except for the ripples created by the feet of dragonflies. A few lily pads floated lazily across the surface of the green water.

On the other side of the pond was a large road which had an odd metallic bar running along the middle, which lay horizontal to where they stood, disappearing into the fog on both sides. Behind the road however was what drew their attention. An impressively designed two story building towered over them, cloaked in fog. The concrete walls still appeared solid after a decade, and it was still clear that the entrance had once been ornately carved.

They had arrived at the visitor centre.