The stench is shit and piss and rotting bodies. Corpses litter the small harbor town, that itself is covered in a thick shawl of fog. Some of the residents' bodies are half-way between their homes and their cars, others have fallen alone in the street or while crossing the roads Wherever they have collapsed, their bodies begin to violently tremble; all control of their limbs and their bowels, gone.

All they can do now is scream.

Above the mist, the clouds are thick and roiling, and the rain that falls stings their skin like insects biting.

There is a body covering me protectively. My mother's? I'm not sure, even watching from here, from the god-like perspective that the dream gives me. The skin on her face is turning green, peeling away from her skull like damp wall-paper. I want to look away, God I want to... But something won't let me.

I'm crying. Hungry, cold, and terrified. Swaddled in a damp cloth, held by stiff hands.

The fog thickens, is whipped in waves by the ocean squall.

How long am I there for, I don't know. The sun might have risen and set as I watch, but behind the clouds and behind the fog, the sky is a secret.

I see the orange leather beak first, bobbing through the fog. Its tip is red, as if dipped in blood. Then, the goggles, and the cloak, and the boots that stomp stomp stomp towards me.

The thing, person, unfolds my mother's protective arm and picks me up, pulling me close to his chest. Then, the creature carries me away through the mist.

***

Jesus Christ.

I've not had that dream in years. Perhaps... Perhaps I've finally drunk too much. Whatever the fuck that stuff was, it wasn't beer.

I sit upright in bed, sweat-damp and cold, and stare at my watch. Four-thirty in the morning.

Too early.

That dream. It's not real, it never was. It's not something a baby could possibly remember.

Funny how the brain can do that, can make its own memories and turn them so real that you'd swear on them. But that wasn't how it had happened. Wasn't how I was found.

It's too early to get up and too late to get back to sleep, at least it is the way I'm feeling. I've got enough darkness in my mind that shutting my eyes is a bridge too far right now.

For a while, I just wait sat upright in the damp sheets, and force my mind to find better thoughts. But I don't have many of them stored up. Instead, I look around the bedroom and try to hold onto something real.

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The room I've been given is small and I doubt it could be very warm in the winter. I can almost see straight out of the crooked cracks beneath windows. But on a muggy night, like yesterday, the fresh air that wriggles through the gaps was welcome.

I click my neck and decide to get dressed. The door whispers a squeak as I step out into the upstairs hallway. There are no lights. Carl and the agent lady, Elena, must still be asleep. Along with any other guests -- and the landlord himself.

Three hours sleep, at most. It's not going to be a good day.

Not that it was going to be a good day, anyway.

My eyes adjust to the darkness and I take the stairs slowly, stepping on the sides of the steps, where they're least worn and least squeaking.

Maybe I'll get a morning drink. Might settle a few nerves.

The dream steers its way back into my mind, along with the sludge they call beer here, and I think, maybe I'll skip it after all.

I make it to the bottom of the stairwell, and to my surprise, there's a light on at the end of the corridor -- in the main hall where we'd been drinking. Shit. The landlord had been up when I'd crawled up to bed, and he was still up now. There must be some truth in that idiom about old people not needing sleep.

I decide I'll put up with his company, rather than going back to my room and putting up with my own company for the next few hours.

I push open the door. This one doesn't creak.

The two figures don't see or hear me.

"Once we get there, then we can decide," says the first. Elena.

"I don't like any of this, Elle. One fucking b--"

Elena's eyes find me, lurking in the doorway; she jolts back, as if the devil had walked in.

"Oh. You're up already," says the second figure. Carl, getting up from his seat on the other side of the room.

"You fuckers know each other," I reply, as gears, rusty from beer and lack of sleep, begin to click. I've been set up. Carl's bar, my ass. Carl, who was only too happy to leave it closed and come to the middle of nowhere with me, for a pittance of a possible pay day. How the fuck did I fall for that.

They'd found me. They'd hunted me down after all these years, because they'd needed me.

How long had they been following me, studying my habits, waiting until the day they had to drag me back in to the flock?

"You fuck stain," I say. "The pair of you."

"Ah, shit," Carl -- if that's even his name -- says. "I'm sorry, friend. But we didn't have a choice. If we'd asked nice, you might have come, but you might not have. I was sent to bring you here, willing or not."

"Willing or not?" Anger spikes my stomach. "Willing or not? You think you could have brought me here if I hadn't wanted to come?"

"I'd have had to try." He shrugs, almost sympathetic.

"Calm down, Sammy," Elena says.

"You can shut your trap too," I tell her. Then, back to Carl. "Did you tell me even one fucking truth?"

"Yeah, sure I did, friend!" He pauses and considers. "I really do cook a mean spag bol."

"Fuck you." I turn and make to leave the bar, done with the pair of them. Let the Storms die. Each and every one of them. I grab the door handle and it's burning my skin?

I let it go and shake my hand. No, it didn't burn, not exactly. The door handle had been freezing cold. Like ice. I turn and look from one to the other. It takes me a moment. "Which of you did that?"

Carl raises his hand. "That'd be me."

"Right, well here's a little something from me to you, to thank you for all your help." I open my mouth and am about to send them both to sleep -- or somewhere beyond -- but nothing comes out. My mouth won't open. I bring my hand to it, trying to pry it apart, and I find the thick ice that has knitted my lips together.

"Mmm!" I mumble, furious.

"Sorry, friend," says Carl. "But we can't have you doing that. Now, either you get in the car with us by your own volition, or I freeze your legs into a block of ice and we carry you. But honestly, it'll be more comfortable, and warmer, if you just do as you're told."