The Mist

the window beside the front door.
She recoiled so fast she almost fell over backwards.
It was him, that bastard; it was him.
But of course it was him; she already knew that. Who else could it be? And yet she had been hoping, against her better judgement, that it was Einar. That Leó had gone away.
There was no mistaking it, even though the coloured glass blurred his outline; she was certain it was Leó.
‘I know you’re in there, Erla, I know you are.’ At last he spoke – or perhaps she just hadn’t been able to hear him until now.
‘The door was unlocked before and now you’ve locked it, so I know you’re there!’ he shouted. ‘Let me in – we need to talk. There’s … something’s happened…’ He broke off, then resumed: ‘I need to know…’
No, she thought, I need to know – I need to know where Einar is.
But she didn’t want to answer. If she did, it would only confirm that she was there, in the house. And for all she knew, he was perfectly capable of breaking the glass panel and reaching in to unlock the door.
He started banging thunderously again, first on the door, then on the window.
Steeling herself, she took a step into the hall, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. She was in uncharted territory. She had to answer. It felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience, as if someone else had taken the decision for her.
‘What do you want from me?’ she called in a high, thin voice. ‘What is it you want? This is my house. I don’t have to let you in.’
‘Are you going to leave me to die of cold out here?’
‘It … that … that has nothing to do with me,’ she quavered, feeling her courage ebbing away.
He banged on the door so violently that Erla quailed.
‘You have to let me in, Erla.’
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do.’
There was silence.
‘Where’s Einar?’ she called.
No reply.
‘I’ll open the door if you tell me where Einar is,’ she said at last, though she had no intention of keeping her side of the bargain. For all she cared, the bastard could freeze to death on the doorstep. She wasn’t letting him anywhere near her.
The answer was so long in coming that she started to wonder if he was still out there. She felt a crazy hope that he’d gone, she didn’t care where. Gone, never to return. Or that he had been nothing but a figment of her imagination all along …
As if the situation wasn’t bad enough already, the darkness had really got her spooked. Normally, power cuts didn’t have this effect on her, but now she couldn’t bear it; she would have to find a candle. Yes, that was it … There were candles on the dining table. But even as she turned, she heard his voice again.
‘I’ll tell you where he is if you open the door.’
A prickle of fear ran down her spine.
She tried to work out what this meant. Did he know where Einar was? Or was he lying? Had he done something to him – locked him in somewhere, perhaps? Or was Einar still outside looking for her, in the cold and snow?
Facts and conjecture spun in her head until she felt dizzy, no longer sure what was true, disorientated in the gloom, terrified of the man standing outside the door, of the sudden lull, the calm before the storm …
Then her head cleared a little. She began inching her way towards the sitting room, acting as if Leó wasn’t there. She had to get a grip on the situation. Of course he wasn’t going anywhere. Sooner or later, he would break into the house. There was no one to help her; she would have to fend for herself.
Feeling the edge of the dining table, she fumbled over the surface until she found a candle. Matches. Where were the matches? Generally, Einar kept some in his pocket, a habit from back when he used to smoke. But he wasn’t here. And, anyway, he’d given the box to Leó, hadn’t he? She remembered now.
She had to think fast. There was no sound from Leó at the moment and again this fact sent a stab of cold fear through her. Think, she told herself. Both the doors were definitely locked, which meant he couldn’t get in without making a noise.
Wait a minute – hadn’t she seen a box of matches in the kitchen? Above the fridge? She made her way in there, reached up to the shelf and groped along it. For a moment she was afraid she’d been wrong. But no, there was the box. Hurriedly, she pulled out a match and tried to strike it, but her hands were shaking so badly that it wouldn’t light.
Erla tried again, the match rasped and flared, and she raised the small, bright flame carefully, trying to steady her hand, to the candle. Light, at last.
The sight stirred up a fleeting memory of the old days, when Anna was small and the electricity supply had been even more capricious. Family evenings by candlelight had seemed delightful then. More often than not, the three of them had sat down to play cards together – whist had been a favourite – but Einar hadn’t always been in the mood, so mother and daughter used to play together by the soft radiance. That’s what Anna’s childhood had been like, a perpetual struggle with the elements, but then she had gone away to school and Erla had clung to the hope that Anna would break free from the fetters of the past. The relentless hard graft had to end with her and Einar. Erla was determined that their daughter should settle in a town, where life would be that bit easier. But then Anna had announced, out of the blue, that she was moving home to the countryside, still single, still far too young, to take over the neighbouring tenant farm, which also belonged to them.