Inquisitive
Matthew Zeimer
“So this kid, Martin, you know him right? He comes out of the God-damn woods at the crack of
dawn covered in mud with half a pine tree stuck to him, walks up the roat right to his front step, and
goes in like nothin’ happened.”
“Get the hell outta here, he did not. Where was he? What’d his mother say?”
“No shit, she tucked him in and everything, little bastard doesn’t even have a window in his
room I hear, just vanished, and the weirdest part? Hasn’t said a damn word since.”
“Who’d you hear this from anyway?”
“Kraft, her neighbor.”
“Mister or Misses?”
“Look she’s a gossip, but still, why—”
“Alright, alright, I’ve heard enough, I’m talkin’ to Ms. Shiltz and when she tells me you’re full of
it, you owe me a drink.” I pull myself off the bench, leaving Chris behind, and take a quick stroll down
the lane, passing through the thick fog with my eyes fixed on the damp earth.
*****************
A light knock, and quickly she peers through the crack in the door.
“Hello Ms. Shiltz, how are you today?”
“I’m alright Mr. Mathis. And you?” She’s still behind the door.
“Fine, thanks. Listen, I heard a nasty little rumor about little Martin and I just wanted to swing by
and make sure it was wrong so I could start shutting people up about it.”
“Martin’s not been feeling well, headaches or some such, won’t take his hands off his ears. I
think you should go, Mr. Mathis.”
I press my heel in to the top of my left foot and bite my lip, pressing my eyes shut.
“Shoot, I’m sorry Mary. I’ll go, you have a good day.”
I turn to go down the steps and the fog is even thicker than before. It’s been foggy too damn
long.
*****************
“What’d I tell you?” Chris is so smug when he’s not wrong.
“Look she’s clearly upset, but I didn’t hear anything about Martin going missing. Settle down.”
“I’ll take that drink now?”
“Yeah, whatever, let’s go… Hey, you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Forget it.”
*****************
I shift from one sore shoulder to the other, throwing off the damp cover. I toss on some damp
slacks and a damp shirt, some damp socks and a damp cap. The room is so hazy; I didn’t know fog could
even come in through a window. My ears are ringing, have been ringing…Ear. Left ear. Right ear. Coming
from somewhere? I turn my head and hear it get louder in one ear and softer in the other. I cover them
up, but the sound persists. I make it to the far wall of the house, and still the sound persists, this low
hum. Must be coming from outside then.
*****************
The moonlight just accentuates the white fog, like headlights. Can’t see three feet in front of
me. But the sound is dead ahead. The mud sucks at my boots, but its dead quiet. No, I can hear them
faintly, that loud sloshing. The volume of the hum is starting to make my heart race, how loud is it to
drown out something like that? I have to step around the great pines blocking my path, but otherwise
the gentle slope does not impede me.
*****************
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking, maybe five minutes, maybe a few hours. I can’t
remember what it felt like before the humming started, what it was like to hear my own thoughts.
*****************
I move forward relentlessly, stepping over the panting body of a sleeping wolf without slowing,
a dark form now ahead of me, moving as I do, though unperceivable through the dense fog. The
humming has become deafening in its volume and persistence. Ahead, it clears away to a lower layer
hugging the earth, a circle without vegetation emerging from an earthy cave mouth. The fog here is
closer to dense spider webs or melted wax. As I step out in to the clearing, I see a man, crouched and
facing the cave, and the humming is ripped from my mind, creating a dreadful vacuum of silence in an
instant. I fall to my knees, syrupy mud covering my arms and legs, and I wretch against the foul silence.
The man is inching closer to the cave, and I make out his red jacket.
“Chris, what the hell is going on?”
He continues forward. My voice sounds alien, hoarse and shrill, but I scream:
“Chris get away from that damn cave, we don’t know what the hell is in there!”
He vanishes in to the dark. I should his name, and hear nothing, not even an echo. My teeth
clack against each other and I feel chilled with sweat, but I rise from the sickly mud and entangling mist
and move forward. The air is hot and moist, and seems to be blowing forth steadily from the depths of
the cavern. I look back, down the hill through fog much thinner than I recall, and I can just make out the
town in the foothills. I could just go back to sleep. The humming is gone. But just there, was that a gust
through the branches, or a scream from the depths? Damn. I step further through the mud, approaching
the shadowed mouth.
“Chris?”
