Morning was in the air, the waiting flavor of daylight, when the fog rolled in from the sea. It climbed up the beach with the deft silence of a burglar, and in the dim light of that early hour, few eyes were open. Yet even among our small cadre aware of its coming, there was no suspicion. Who could have known of the death in that cloud but those already touched? There was no warning.
I did sound the foghorn. I suppose that was a sort of warning, though anyone out upon that sea, anyone for whom it was meant, had nothing more to fear of sea or land.
Green, a sickly green, and pale, almost white. Just a tint, a trace, of that poisoned color revealed as the sun rose. I watched them fall. That was the terrible thing. I stood in my tower, watching the fog roll up over the dock. Then, almost simultaneously—as I look back, they happen all at once—the light of the sun reveals that sickly color, and the dark spots of men, of good men, bad men, hard men who’d led hard lives, started to fall. I was safe up above, safe as the green terror marched further inland. Safe and voiceless. No one answered the radio, the phone was dead, and I, I was spared my life while all around me died.
Tale Told 