The 5th Season

a short story on what would be the 5th season

Macabre. The season of the thick fog. It is now June and the thick, everchanging fog begins to enthrall every surface of our ghost town. I look outside my bedroom window, the oddly thick fog rolls in over the mountains, permanently obscuring the sun for the next 2 months. The fog is so thick you cannot see what’s lurking right in front of you. The fog is as thick as snow in winter and the temperatures drop from 11 degrees Celsius to 3. It is somehow always humid or damp but never rains. The fog changes colour from the usual pale white grey to overcast red and will sometimes mysteriously turn white with a tint of blue. But when it very rarely turns a neon green, the brave humans who have ventured past their garden gate know to run for life, quite literally. There’s a strange force that awakens beasts, hungry for blood. This global season resurrects every grave in our town, bringing to life the blood thirsty skeletons that inhabit them. No one knows happens in this fog-filled season, not even the off-wall rogue scientists. Some believe the Devil himself comes to this world and raises his army of the dead, whereas as scientific people believe there is something in the fog that triggers them to come back to life. Nobody knows for sure; this isn’t a season for studying, this is a season for hiding and surviving. Our old television mumbles in the background of my thoughts, it was governor speaking “we advise for you all to take your human hibernation pills and go into your hypersleep incubators as…” I stopped listening; I knew what he was going to say. The skeletons have developed an off aggression towards humans, hence why we have to go into a forced hypersleep in incubators designed to keep us safe if we get attacked. A blood freezing scream pierced through the fog, and simultaneously everyone in our house hold lowers their head and silently says a prayer for the lost soul and for protection of ours. The skeletons grab wondering humans, drag them back to the graveyard and bury them alive with them in the coffin from which they emerged. A nice feast to feed on until they arise again hunting for another meal. The lack of a voice box makes them soundless hunters, predators, sneaking up on humans, daft enough to leave, in the fog without a sound, their prey however, are heard screaming for help that is never given.