Live and Let Drood

Walking quickly and then hurrying, and finally breaking into an undignified run as the fog struck a chill into their hearts. Young lovers held on to each other tightly, running hardand not looking back, while parents dragged screaming and protesting children along with them by brute force. The retired senior citizens abandoned their deck chairs, and hurried after the departing crowds as best they could. White-faced staff abandoned the stalls and shops and the games arcade, and ran for their lives. Even the fake ghosts came running out of the fake haunted house, throwing aside their sheets and costumes so they could run faster.
    None of them wanted any part of the advancing fog and what was moving inside it.
    I looked round just in time to see Madame Osiris’s tent disappear abruptly, just before the fog reached it. She may not have seen the fog coming, but she knew enough to get the hell out of Dodge. Molly and I looked at each other and smiled briefly. It would take a lot more than some sudden bad-tempered weather to scare us. We stood our ground, facing the fog as it crept towards us. I peered into the thick fog as it ate up foot after foot of the Pier, but though I could sense something moving along with it, I still couldn’t see a damned thing. And suddenly I had a very bad feeling about this fog.
    “We could…depart,” I said carefully to Molly. “If you like. To a better position…I’m just mentioning the possibility.”
    “No,” said Molly, just as carefully. “We don’t back down, ever. Might give other people ideas…Besides, aren’t you curious to see what’s inside it?”
    “Well, yes and no,” I said. “There’s curious, and then there’s…curious.”
    The temperature plummeted. My breath was suddenly steaming on the air before me, along with Molly’s. All the hairs were standing up on my arms and the back of my neck. I shuddered briefly despite myself, and it wasn’t because of the cold. I had a sudden sharp feeling of my own mortality. The fog advanced deliberately towards us, thick and swirling and pearly grey, with strange lights coming and going deep within it…and something that might have been shadowy shapes deep in the heart of it. The air was damp, beading on my face, and I could taste sea salt on my lips.
    “What is this cold I’m feeling?” I said to Molly. “The cold of the grave?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Molly. She wouldn’t take her gaze off the fog for a moment, even to glance at me. “More like the cold of the sea. The kind of cold you only feel in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. At the very bottom of the sea, where everything falls when it’s dead. There’s something in the fog and it’s coming for us, Eddie. I can feel it.”
    I nodded quickly. I could feel it, too. A growing sense of presence, of something else here on the Pier with us. Even though the crowds and the tourists were long gone. Something new, or perhaps something very old, had come to Brighton Pier, in the fog, out of the sea. Looking for me and Molly.
    “My fingers are tingling,” I said. “And not in a good way.”
    “That’s nothing,” said Molly. “My nipples are hard as rocks.”
    “Oh, great,” I said. “Distract me. That’s all I need.”
    Molly laughed. “Not everything is about you, Eddie.”
    “This time, I think it is,” I said. “I think this is all about me. About getting rid of the Last Drood.”
    “I can see things moving in the fog,” said Molly. “Human shapes heading straight for us.”
    “You’ve got better eyes than me,” I said, glaring helplessly into the grey fog churning before me. Close, now. Just a few more feet and I’d be able to reach out and touch it.
    “Madame O sold us out,” Molly said flatly. “She told someone we were here. I shall have words with her later.”
    “Not necessarily,” I said. “I told you we were being watched. Crow Lee is a power in his own right, as well as being the Most Evil, et cetera, and this is well within his capabilities. He wants to stop me from rescuing my family. He wants to take me down while I’m vulnerable.” I smiled, and somehow I just knew it wasn’t a very nice smile. “Poor old Crow Lee. He thinks I’m naked. He doesn’t know about my new armour.”
    “Right,” said Molly. “We’ll show him.”
    “We could still run,” I said.
    “Too late,” said Molly.
    The fog swelled towards us like the waves of a silent pearl grey sea. The whole end of the Pier was gone now,